Bad news for civil liberties:

"The Supreme Court gave the Bush administration a major legal victory in the war on terrorism Tuesday, rejecting a challenge to secret deportation hearings held for hundreds of foreigners detained after the Sept. 11 attacks."

"The court declined to hear an appeal from New Jersey newspapers seeking information about the detainees, but attorneys for the newspapers said they still hoped the administration would change its policy. The Supreme Court has been told the policy is being reviewed and probably will be revised."

"The court's refusal to intervene was the third such victory for the government in Sept. 11 cases. Like the others, Tuesday's action was not a ruling on the merits of the case. "

The media outlets had argued:

...the public deserves to know ``how, and how fairly, its government uses the power of detention and deportation.'' ``That is especially true at this moment, when the government itself has expressly drawn a link between deportation proceedings and the war on terrorism and has frequently cited the number of non-citizens it has detained as evidence of the investigation's progress,'' they told justices.

The case is North Jersey Media Group v. Ashcroft, 02-1289.
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Anthony E. Bragdon served ten years of a 30 year sentence for assault with intent to rape and use of a firearm in a violent crime before beingd. In 2001, prosecutors revealed that FBI Agent Michael Malone gave false testimony at his trial and covered up exculpatory evidence. The Court of Appeals has reversed his conviction.

``I did all that time. That is a major part of my life,'' Bragdon said in a telephone interview Tuesday. ``When I went to prison I was just 19. This was my first adult conviction. I had never been locked up. ... So they never gave me a chance to establish myself in the real world as far as getting a job.''

Bragdon's case is not the only one affected by the FBI lab scandal.

Bragdon's freedom is an outgrowth of a sweeping investigation in the 1990s prompted by FBI whistleblower Frederic Whitehurst's allegations that his FBI lab colleagues had performed shoddy work and shaded the truth to help prosecutors.

The Associated Press reported in March that a review had identified about 3,000 cases that could have been affected by the shoddy work but only 150 defendants had been notified of problems.

Even after discovering Malone's misconduct, the FBI didn't fire him. They transferred him to another division where he remained until his retirement. He now resides in Virginia. In 2001, Malone told the St. Petersurg Times,

``Nobody's convinced anybody in a black robe that I've done anything wrong. I did the best I could. Crime labs aren't perfect. People aren't perfect.''

In setting aside the conviction, the judge wrote that Malone's testimony made a difference.

VoteLaw is the latest to leave Blogger for MT. Ed Still has created a very nice design for the election-law related blog, so be sure to update your bookmarks.

Remember the sad case of Oliver Martinez?

Martinez, a 29 year old farm worker, was riding his bicycle home from his work picking strawberries. Police were looking for a narcotics suspect they wrongly believed was selling drugs in a field. When Martinez passed, they demanded he stop, get off his bicycle and 'assume the position.' One officer located Martinez' strawberry knife. A struggle of some sort ensued, although police have conceded Martinez never struck or kicked them. One of the cops opened fire on Martinez, pumping him with five bullets, leaving him blind in one eye and paralyzed. He is now 34 years old and resides with his father in a one room trailer. He has a wheelchair and wears dark glasses to cover his missing eye. Oxnard has refused to pay for any therapy for him. He has not been charged with a crime.

The Supreme Court decided his case today--ruling against him. The full opinion in Martinez v. Chavez is here.

The Court reversed the ruling of the 9th Circuit appeals court which had held:

...Chavez’s coercive questioning violated Martinez’s Fifth Amendment rights even though his statements were not used against him in a criminal proceeding, and that a police officer violates due process when he obtains a confession by coercive conduct, regardless of whether the confession is subsequently used at trial.

By finding that the cop had not violated Martinez's consitutional right against self-incrimation, the cop retains qualified immunity from being sued for the injuries he caused Martinez. So Martinez stays in his diminshed condition without recourse against the officer who caused it.

The issue posited in the case was whether the Fifth Amendment conveys a "constitutional right to be free of coercive interrogation," or just a right not to have forced confessions against them at trial.

The Supreme Court held, (according to the syllabus):

Canada proposed a new marijuana law Tuesday that decriminalizes up to 15 grams of marijuana. Offenders would receive a citation similar to a traffic ticket and pay a fine. There would be no criminal record attached to paying the citation.

Those under 18 years old could face fines of up to $182 for minor possession while adults could be fined the equivalent of $292. At the same time, the maximum sentence for illegal growers would be increased to 14 years in prison from the current seven, while trafficking would remain punishable by up to life in prison.

Justice Minister Martin Cauchon said the law includes an education, research and treatment program aimed at persuading young people against drug use. The government intends to spend $179 million on the program.

Other issues regarding Canada's pot laws have yet to be resolved.

Canada's Supreme Court is considering a constitutional challenge to
laws that make it illegal to possess pot, and Ontario courts have
declared the federal law against possession to be invalid because of
legal questions.

The U.S., particularly Drug Czar John Walters, is upset with Canada for proposing to liberalize marijuana laws. The U.S. has threatened increased border searches if the bill becomes law. As we reported here last week:

Last week, U.S. drug czar John Walters suggested border traffic would slow to a crawl because the U.S. would increase inspections to stop smugglers from illegally shipping "poison" south.

Will Glaspy, a U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency spokesman, told The Detroit News yesterday that talk of decriminalizing pot in Canada would mean "more customs, more border patrols, more DEA. (source article here)

You can read the text of the Canadian bill here. A background briefing paper on the bill is here.

Ari Fleischer, asked about the bill at today's press briefing, gave his usual non-response:

Here is a report from today's hearing in the Scott Peterson case:

Prosecution Must Turn Over Taped Conversations to the Defense

A judge today ordered prosecutors to turn over to Scott Peterson's attorneys records of wiretapped conversations between the accused wife killer and his previous attorney, as ABCNEWS learned that investigators believe Peterson had more than one affair during his marriage.

The judge also set a preliminary hearing, when the prosecution will have to lay out its case against Peterson, for July 15. Both the prosecution and Peterson's lawyers said they want all the evidence in the case to remain sealed, as both sides are continuing to investigate what happened to Laci Peterson, who was eight months pregnant when she disappeared on Christmas Eve.

Girolami ordered the prosecution to turn over records of 69 telephone conversations police taped between Peterson and his previous attorney.

Didn't these cops ever hear of minimization? Was anybody monitoring these tapes as the conversations were being recorded?

Amber Frey's tapes will also be turned over. She secretly taped Scott after his wife disappeared. A Sacremento news station, KOVR-TV, reports that Scott has continued to write Frey from jail.

No decision was made on change of venue or on the sealing of autopsy reports and search warrants.

Update: corrected to show lack of ruling on document sealing. CNN reports:

Judge Al Girolami did not, however, rule on a request by California newspapers to release autopsy reports, the arrest warrant, a search warrant and the affidavits that accompany them -- and he suggested he might impose a gag order on participants in the case.

A senior scientist with the Center for National Security and Arms Control at Sandia National Laboratories checks out the new National Academy of Sciences (NAS) report on the reliability of polygraph screening in national security cases and finds that polygraphs are worse than worthless.

Late last year the NAS published its findings. It determined that the polygraph was not a worthless tool -- indeed, that it was much worse than worthless. The report said that "available evidence indicates that polygraph testing as currently used has extremely serious limitations . . . if the intent is both to identify security risks and protect valued employees." The NAS panel, made up of internationally respected psychologists and statisticians, further determined that the test was so nonspecific that even if the polygraphers managed to finally uncover their first spy, at least 100 innocent laboratory employees would have their clearances yanked because of the "false positives" inherent in the test. The NAS concluded: "Polygraph testing yields an unacceptable choice . . . between too many loyal employees falsely judged deceptive and too many major security threats left undetected. Its accuracy . . . is insufficient to justify reliance on its use in employee security screening in federal agencies." It doesn't get much clearer than that.

The Washington Post reports that Bush judicial nominee Charles Pickering was so upset that he had to sentence a convicted cross-burner to 7 years that he tried to get the Justice Department to intervene. Reportedly, he threatened to overturn the jury's verdict even though he agreed it was legal. He demanded Janet Reno personally review the case. Of the cross-burner, he said, ""They're wanting seven years for a young man that got drunk."

Pickering is a former Republican Party state chairman, a onetime head of the Mississippi Baptist Convention, a critic of congressional efforts to mandate uniform federal sentences and an opponent of abortion and what he calls "extensions" of federal judicial power. From the bench, he has repeatedly assailed what he calls "frivolous" lawsuits, especially petitions by prisoners alleging unlawful incarceration and workers alleging employment discrimination.

....In the cross-burning case, Pickering's pressure led the Justice Department to take the extraordinary step of withdrawing one of the three criminal charges of which Swan had been convicted, which reduced his sentence from more than seven years to 27 months. Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee cited the judge's handling of the case as their principal reason for rejecting his nomination last year.

....Bush, several months after telling an audience in Jackson, Miss., that "the Senate did wrong by Judge Pickering," renominated him in January.

Sure, we are glad the Judge opposes mandatory minimum sentences. But given his overall record, that's a drop in the bucket and hardly enough. This is a lifetime position we are talking about--a seat on the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals which includes the states of Louisiana, Mississippi and Texas. Like Miguel Estrada and Priscilla Owen, Charles Pickering has no place on the federal appeals court bench.

The Democrats aren't the only ones wanting Bush, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld gone. So do the Greens. The Greens are considering not running a candidate of their own in 2004, but rather, supporting the Demcratic candidate in hopes of unseating Bush:

As the Green Party hashes out its plans for next year's presidential election, some of its activists are urging the party to forgo the race and, instead, throw its support behind one of the Democratic candidates -- all in the hopes of unseating President Bush.

The Greens could be a huge asset in unseating Bush. We hope they keep their eye on the ultimate goal. From our vantage point, Anyone But Bush will do.

Robert Blecker and James Liebman are professors at New York Law School and Columbia Law School, respectively. The two have have frequently taken opposing sides in public debates on the death penalty. But here they agree on reforms that are needed, in Texas and elsewhere:

One of us is morally certain some people deserve to die and that society has an obligation to execute them. The other opposes the death penalty. But when we stopped debating and started discussing, we found real common ground.

Despite our different perspectives, we agree that death as a punishment should be inflicted, if at all, only upon the worst of the worst; that society can incapacitate without killing, so future dangerousness and deterrence alone are never sufficient reasons to punish someone with death; and that a state-ordered execution is a terrible, solemn act that should occur only after the greatest deliberation. We agree that legislators in Texas and elsewhere should adopt the following reforms:

Most importantly, drop the felony-murder category for a death sentence...

Stop creating capital crimes undeserving of death in knee-jerk reaction to public outrage at a particular offense or to score political points....

"It took a House Armed Services subcommittee a shade under 11 minutes on May 7 to approve $1.7 billion more than the Pentagon had requested in its 2004 budget for bombers, missiles, transport planes and a variety of Navy and Marine Corps programs."

When do we get universal health care and improve our public schools and universities? When do we adequately fund research for diseases and conditions like Alzheimers, Parkinson's and Autism? When do we start providing every child with an equal chance to succeed? Enough with the military spending, let's fund those in need here at home.

Instpundit is justifiably angry about the death of the New York woman last week during a mistaken drug raid at her house. Mayor Bloomberg has accepted responsibility, but how does make it up to the woman or her family? No-Knock warrants are inherently dangerous.

Back to Instapundit:

That ought to be a firing offense, the very first time it happens, for the officers involved and their superiors. If people die, the charge should be murder. If you decide to break down somebody's door and enter with guns drawn when no one's life is in danger, then you should be able to offer no defense if anything goes wrong. Because it's indefensible.