Update here.

The Bali Corrections Board approved Schapelle Corby for parole Friday. The remaining paperwork could take a few months, and while not a guarantee, it seems she will be released. She has to remain in Indonesia until a year after her sentence expires in 2015, and will live with her sister Mercedes. In March, the Australian Government gave Indonesia a guarantee she would not not violate parole.

Schapelle Corby has been imprisoned since her arrest in October, 2004. She was sentenced to 20 years in 2005, later reduced to 15. She became eligible for parole in 2012. [More...]

It's a jail day for me. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome.

Via Hercules and the Umpire, the blog of Nebraska Senior District Court Judge Richard Kopf, 87 of the nation's 94 Chief U.S. District Court Judges have written a joint letter to Congress warning of the impending disaster to befall our Judiciary as the result of flat funding followed by sequester cuts.

Judge Kopf reprints the letter (you can read the original here), and adds this comment:

As a former Chief District Judge, I know that you can almost never get 87 Chief District Judges to agree about when the sun comes up. The fact that 87 of them wrote the foregoing letter to Congress ought to make clear that the federal district courts are inches away from disaster. Congress is on the brink of intentionally wrecking the federal trial courts. Will sanity prevail?

Thank you Judge Kopf.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome (except Zimmerman.)

Yemen expert Gregory Johnson has a fascinating article in the new Atlantic Magazine about an abandoned 8 year old in Yemen recruited as a spy to plant electronic chips on a U.S. drone target. The child, Barq al-Kulaybi , was recruited by officers of the Republican Guard, who paid his father. The father and son tell their story in a video made by al Qaida after they were caught. The father, Hafizallah al-Kulaybi, was likely killed after the video confession. Rumor has it they let the boy live but no one knows where he is.

The target of the drone strike was Adnan al-Qadhi,a military officer the U.S. believed was helping al Qaida and put on its targeted kill list. He was killed by a drone.

Johnson recounts what is on the video, which was published by al‑Malahim, in April 2013. He doesn't provide the link, but here it is on You Tube, with English subtitles. First the father confesses as Barq fidgets. Then Barq tells his story. [More...]

RIP Gia Allemand, former Bachelor and Bachelor Pad contestant, who ended her life today at age 29. I always liked watching her, she was so photogenic. Condolences to her family, boyfriend and Bachelor Nation.

In other sad news, Bradley Manning addressed the court at his sentencing today. He could get up to 90 years. Jesse Jackson and his wife were sentenced to prison today, 30 months and 12 months respectively, which they will serve sequentially. And hundreds died today in Egypt.

This is an open thread, all topics welcome (except Zimmerman.)

Busy week for me. Here's an open thread, all topics welcome (except Zimmerman.)

Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, the friends of Dzokhar Tsarnaev who took items from his dorm room a few days after the Boston Marathon bombing, appeared in court today and entered pleas of not guilty to charges of conspiracy to obstruct justice. After court, Dias' attorney released a statement, which reads in part:

“Dias comes from a former Soviet-bloc region where police routinely are distrusted. Yet when authorities first approached him, he fully cooperated and for nearly 12 hours over two days Dias answered the FBI’s questions without an attorney or a Kazakh Consular official present,” the statement read.

“Dias also voluntarily turned over the computer from Tsarnaev’s room and told the FBI where they could find the backpack that contained a packet of fireworks. The FBI recovered all of the items because of Dias’ complete cooperation with their investigation.”

At Slate, Azamat's first lawyer, Harlan Protass, has an op-ed arguing against long sentences for the pair. The Government told the court today it expects to call 15 to 20 witnesses at trial.

Graphic from Human Rights Watch report

The Bureau of Prisons has issued new compassionate release guidelines. Dated August 12, 2013, they are available on the BOP website here.

The policy addresses release under both 18 U.S.C. 4205(g) and 18 U.S.C. 3582©(1)(A) (pre and post-1987 sentences).

18 U.S.C. 4205(g) was repealed effective November 1, 1987, but remains the controlling law for inmates whose offenses occurred prior to that date. For inmates whose offenses occurred on or after November 1, 1987, the applicable statute is 18 U.S.C. 3582©(1)(A).

[More...]

NYTimes:

In a repudiation of a major element in the Bloomberg administration’s crime-fighting legacy, a federal judge has found that the stop-and-frisk tactics of the New York Police Department violated the constitutional rights of minorities in New York, and called for a federal monitor to oversee broad reforms.

Here is the opinion.

Attorney General Eric Holder will announce a sea change in policy at the Justice Department this morning in his speech to the American Bar Association in San Francisco. I hope he gets a standing ovation.

“I have mandated a modification of the Justice Department’s charging policies so that certain low-level, nonviolent drug offenders who have no ties to large-scale organizations, gangs, or cartels will no longer be charged with offenses that impose draconian mandatory minimum sentences,”

Since we have had a do-nothing Congress on mandatory minimums since they were enacted in Anti-Drug Abuse Act of 1986 under President Reagan --27 years -- Holder is going to effect change through prosecutorial discretion. Why?

[Mandatory minimum sentences] "breed disrespect for the system. When applied indiscriminately, they do not serve public safety. They have had a disabling effect on communities. And they are ultimately counterproductive."

[More...]

"Breaking Bad" begins tonight.

Here's an open thread, all topics welcome (except Zimmerman.)