From Fox News :

Scott Peterson's defense team says they have found the mystery woman who can provide information about the real killers of the California murder suspect's 8-months-pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn child.

Now, the defense team says they are only days – if not hours – from locating the people who they believe are responsible for the killing. "We would not go out on such a limb if we weren't confident we could deliver,” a defense source told Fox News. “We believe in a matter of days, the real killer may be found and police investigators will have egg on their face."

So who did it? A satanic cult, originally questioned by police and let go.

... Peterson's lawyers contend that the real killers are still out there. They say the murderers are linked to a Satanic cult in Central Valley, Calif., and to a suspicious brown van that was spotted near the Petersons’ home on the day Laci disappeared. Sources say one of the people in the van, which was carrying men and women, had a "666" devil-worshipping tattoo.

In addition to the mystery woman, the defense team sources say they have hard evidence to back up her claims. They say that all the information together proves someone other than Scott committed the crime. Police were apparently told about this woman early in the investigation, the sources say, but authorities never interviewed her because they believed the Satanic cult theory was "bogus."

It's not really that far-fetched. Who would have believed a group of young women would follow Charlie Manson like the pied piper and murder 8 month pregnant Sharon Tate over 30 years ago? Also in California.

Mark Geragos is not about to get egg on his face. If he says he's got the goods, we believe him.

Update: We are watching Greta, and laughing out loud at the makeover lawyer Gloria Allred arranged for Amber Frey. We don't agree with Gloria on a lot of issues, but we like her personally and she sure is a pro at making her clients more presentable.

Update: As of now, we will be discussing the case and these new developments with Gloria Allred and Geraldo Sunday night on Fox News.

From NORML:

Republicans Ron Paul (TX) and Dana Rohrabacher (CA), along with Democrats Barney Frank (MA), Janice Schakowsky (IL) and 21 co-sponsors reintroduced legislation today in Congress that permits the use of medicinal marijuana by seriously ill patients.

The "States' Rights to Medical Marijuana: bill reschedules marijuana from Schedule I to Schedule II under federal law so that physicians may legally prescribe it in states that have legalized the medical use of marijuana under state law. It also permits state legislatures that wish to establish medical marijuana distribution systems the legal authority to do so.

This legislation ... effectively gets the federal government out of the way of those states that wish to regulate marijuana as a medicine. Since 1996, eight states Alaska, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon and Washington have enacted laws allowing patients to possess and use marijuana medicinally under a doctor's supervision.

Passage of the bill would halt federal prosecution of medicinal marijuana patients and their providers in states where the use of physician-approved pot is legal. Since the Bush Administration took office, federal drug enforcement officials have taken action against more than 35 medicinal marijuana patients, cooperatives and providers in California alone.

The "States' Rights to Medical Marijuana Act" is the second medical marijuana bill introduced in Congress this year.

In April, Congressmen Sam Farr (D-CA), Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA), and Barney Frank (D-MA) introduced H.R. 1717, the "Truth in Trials Act," which would allow medicinal marijuana patients and providers charged under federal law to introduce evidence at trial that their use of marijuana was for medicinal purposes and/or in accordance with state law. Currently, federal judges will not allow such evidence into testimony because Congress has never determined that marijuana has medical value.

To voice your support for the bill, go here. This action page contains a list of the many co-sponsors of the bill.

If your member of Congress is a co-sponsor, please thank them for their support. If not, please take two minutes to send a pre-written letter to your Congressman, asking them to co-sponsor and support the States’ Rights to Medical Marijuana Act.

We like Maryland Governor Robert Ehrlich for this action today:

Refusing to bend to pressure from the Bush administration, Republican Gov. Robert Ehrlich signed a bill Thursday that reduces criminal penalties for seriously ill people who smoke marijuana.

....Ehrlich is the first GOP governor to sign a bill protecting medical marijuana patients from jail, according to the Marijuana Policy Project. The Bush administration had pressed him to veto the measure. Ehrlich had indicated his support for the bill early on as a way to help people with chronic illnesses ease their pain.

The new law does not legalize marijuana, but reduces the penalty to a maximum $100 fine with no jail time if defendants convince a judge they need marijuana for medical reasons. Previously, possession or use of marijuana brought penalties of up to a year in prison or a $1,000 fine.

We've had a few medical marijuana clients lately. We know it helps them. We think it's ridiculous that they are subjected to DEA raids in their homes with their children present, property foreclosures (including their homes where the pot is found) and jail.

We prefer decriminalization to legalization. Our clients go to jail if they can't get the proper medical marijuana license. Often, physicians don't want to sign onto a medical pot license. They're worried about their reputations and the heat it may bring. Enough with the rules. Let the sick smoke in peace, free from bureaucratic red tape. We have no objection to criminalizing pot sales to minors, but other than that, particularly for those in medical need due to chronic pain or nausea, let's just let them be.

Marijuana Policy Project and NORML have more.

Received via e-mail from an accomplished Miami criminal defense attorney on the nomination of William Pryor to the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals:

My concern is not that General Pryor lacks intellect. He is conservative in his political and personal views, but that alone is not a basis for opposing his nomination. What troubles me profoundly is his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on June 27, 2001, in opposition to the Innocence Protection Act.
In the course of his prepared remarks, General Pryor differentiated between judges and prosecutors on the one hand, and criminal defense attorneys on the other, in the following terms: "Judges are independent. For that matter, so are prosecutors whose ethical duty, in contrast with defense attorneys, is to pursue truth and justice." As a former prosecutor, I recall being taught by my then-boss Janet Reno (at the time, state attorney for Miami-Dade County) that it was a prosecutor's duty to prefer justice to conviction, but a defense attorney's duty to prefer acquittal to justice. It seems to me, however, that Ms. Reno's lesson was offered in a very different spirit than Pryor's testimony. Pryor's remarks impress me as those of someone who is appallingly naive and uninformed about the criminal justice process as it exists, and who proceeds upon his own preconceptions about "good guys and bad guys."

It gets worse. Pryor assured the Senate Judiciary Committee that innocent people simply aren't executed in America. This is such a startling statement, and one so demonstrably false, that it calls into question the judgment and character of the speaker. In support of this baseless allegation, Pryor quotes Prof. Paul Cassell of the University of Utah -- about the only person who would make such a supposititious remark.

The Pentagon today released the names of the chief prosecutor and defense lawyer for the upcoming Military Terrorism Tribunals.

Army Col. Frederic Borch III has been named acting chief prosecutor and Air Force Col. Will Gunn has been designated as acting chief defense counsel, Pentagon officials said. Borch and Gunn were scheduled to brief reporters later on Thursday.

On May 2, the Pentagon published the rules that would apply in military tribunal trials.

These have drawn harsh criticism from some legal experts who argue that the rules were crafted to make winning convictions and getting the death penalty as easy as possible.

They point to a series of restrictions placed on defense lawyers -- including monitoring of all conversations with defendants -- and a lack of guidelines for what charges could bring the death penalty. ``To some extent, these things are not set up to give a fair trial, but set up to compel guilty pleas out of people,'' said Michael Ratner, president of the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights.

We have major problems with the process. The rules provide that those being tried have a right to have a civilian lawyer represent them along with the provided military lawyer. But there are a host of unreasonable conditions attached.

We know we just wrote about this last week, but it's so outrageous, we want to keep it in the forefront. From today's AP wire story:

The only state that dispatches condemned inmates by firing squad is assembling gunmen for back-to-back executions next month.

....Anti-death penalty forces are protesting, arguing that the firing squad amounts to cruel and unusual punishment. And the prison is bracing for large crowds of protesters.

....Utah's use of firing squads predates statehood in 1896 and is a remnant of the early Mormon belief that bloodshed is a required punishment for taking a life, said Richard Dieter, director of the Death Penalty Information Center, which says it is neutral about the death penalty but critical of its application.

....The Utah Corrections Department is recruiting law enforcement officers for two five-person firing squads, asking the police departments in the communities where the crimes were committed to nominate volunteers.

....A hood will be put over the condemned man's head and a target will be pinned over his heart. The executioners will fire simultaneously from gun portals in a separate room at the inmate, seated in a chair about 30 feet away. One of the five rifles will contain a blank so that no one will know who fired the fatal shots.

Jeb Bush and Republican legislators in Florida are closing the state offices that provide legal counsel to those facing the death penalty. We wrote about this at length, here.

The St. Petersburg Times takes Bush and cronies to task today for their misguided action in The Wrong Counsel:

In one of the most short-sighted and callous moves yet in this year's budget process, Gov. Jeb Bush and Republican leaders in the House have begun to dismantle the state offices that provide legal representation to death-row inmates. In his budget proposal, Bush recommended defunding the three Capital Collateral Regional Counsel offices and replacing them with attorneys in private practice willing to take these complicated post-conviction death penalty cases - a move that, in most cases, would guarantee prisoners less qualified, less experienced and less commited counsel.

...This is a done deal, but it is a bad one for Florida. The CCRC is without question the most effective way to provide competent representation to indigent prisoners on death row. Eliminating even part of this program will further weaken Florida's commitment to fairness in its criminal justice system.

....Florida leads the nation in the number of death sentences set aside due to constitutional errors - mistakes that include convicting the innocent. It takes the dogged work of experienced counsel to uncover these errors and set things right. But Bush and House Speaker Johnnie Byrd apparently aren't interested in getting things right. Their interest is in having executions come fast and cheap.

Wired News has the latest on DARPA's proposed spy machine:

It's a memory aid! A robotic assistant! An epidemic detector! An all-seeing, ultra-intrusive spying program! The Pentagon is about to embark on a stunningly ambitious research project designed to gather every conceivable bit of information about a person's life, index all the information and make it searchable.

Wired also reports on the scary phenomenon of Political Control Technology :

The same technological revolution that is now accelerating the development of new medical products is also making it possible for coercive regimes to manipulate human beings by altering their psychological processes, controlling their behavior, interfering with reproduction or tampering with inheritance-- and even to do so without the knowledge of the victims. The International Red Cross, not usually alarmist, has taken the unusual step of issuing an urgent appeal to prevent the use of this technology as a weapon through hostile manipulation of fundamental life processes...."

Mad Kane is celebrating the two Bush appointee resignations with song: Christie Whitman Went To Town (to be sung to Yankee Doodle) and Ari, Ari (to be sung to Monday, Monday). The Christian Science Monitor has this analysis of the Bush team shuffle.

Mary, subbing for Lisa English of Ruminate This has the latest on the FCC media deregulation protests from MoveOn....the grass roots campaign is having an effect. Lisa has an eye problem, we wish for her speedy recovery.

Howard Bashman of How Appealing has a wrap-up of coverage on the Yale Law School bombing and a link to this article on leaks by law enforcement.

To be continued....

Enlightenment in the suburbs of Los Angeles.....the town of Rolling Hills has voted to remove its 45 year old ban on adultery and immoral sex. :

The City Council voted last month to repeal an old ordinance that prohibited immoral conduct, including extramarital sex. The law was passed after the city incorporated in 1957.

"So this is a pro-adultery thing?" joked Councilman James Black in an interview with the Daily Breeze newspaper. "Good for us!"

The ordinance, will be formally repealed at the end of this month, banned immoral conduct defined as "any person exposing his or her person or the private parts thereof; or the doing of any other act with the intent of arousing, appealing to or gratifying the lust or passions or sexual desires of any person to whom he or she is not married."

A thousand miles away, the town of Lakewood, Colorado (suburb of Denver) is moving in the other direction by marshaling all its resources to close down a consenual adult S & M club.

Ridiculous law enforcement operation of the week: Police in Osceola County, Florida are going undercover dressed as homeless persons in order to catch motorists running red lights.

Homeless advocates are outraged by an operation where undercover police officers dressed as vagrants, observed drivers running red lights or committing other traffic violations, then radioed ahead to other officers who stopped those cars and wrote tickets.

....Undercover deputies stood along streets and gave the indication they were vagrants by pushing shopping carts and wearing fake teeth and tattered clothing. They also carried small cardboard signs, which read, "Sheriff's traffic sting in progress. Buckle up."

Speaking of "Buckle Up," Colorado has just started "Click It or Ticket," a zero tolerance policy towards wearing seat belts. Driving to and from court in the mountains Tuesday (125 miles each way) we were bombarded with electronic overhead signs displaying the tag line every few miles. It's annoying and distracting because these signs are usually used to warn of traffic hazards like icy roads and falling rocks, so when we see one up ahead, we look up to read it. We also think it's carrying government regulation too far.

"As the sprawling trial of accused Colombian drug kingpin Fabio Ochoa continues in federal court in Miami, Ochoa's attorneys have asked the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to prohibit prosecutors and judges from hiding information essential both to their client's defense and the public's right to know."...They contend the "secret dual docket" system is illegal."

Roy Black is lead counsel for Fabio Ochoa. He has been tearing the Government's witnesses up on cross examination. See, here and here.

Now Black, along with the American Civil Liberties Union of Florida and the 1,600-member Florida Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, are asking the 11th Circuit to void

what they contend is an illegal system in South Florida of maintaining separate public and nonpublic federal court dockets. In amicus briefs filed Monday, they ask the appeals judges to order the Southern District "to cease maintaining a secret dual docket."

....In their appellate brief on Ochoa's behalf filed last week, Black and Strafer argue their client has been victimized by an improper collaboration between prosecutors and the judiciary. They claim that prosecutors and judges have choked off the flow of government information to which Ochoa is rightfully entitled to defend himself.

Matt Yglesias picks up on our "dumb law of the week" post criticizing Iowa for passing a law to equalize the crack/powder cocaine sentencing ratios by raising the penalties for powder offenses. He mentions there were prior federal attempts to do so which failed to pass Congress. Very true.

Sen. Wayne Allard (R-CO) introduced S.1162, the "Powder-Crack Cocaine Penalty Equalization Act of 1997." Then there was S. 2033, "The Powder Cocaine Mandatory Minimum Sentencing Act of 1998 and S. 260 (which almost made it to a floor vote.) Co-sponsors, and sponsors of similar bills, included: Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-UT) ; Senate Judiciary Committee Members Spencer Abraham (R-MI); Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) ; Charles Grassley (R-IA) (same), Jon Kyl (R-AZ) ; Senator Charles Robb (D-VA) ; Senator John Breaux (D-La) ; and House Rules Committee Chairman Gerald Solomon (R-NY).

While those bills were pending, over two dozen federal appeals and district court judges -- all of whom formerly served as United States Attorney -- submitted a joint letter to the Senate and House Judiciary Committees that flatly and persuasively opposed these proposals.