Update: We are fully up and restored now as is Daily Kos.

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TalkLeft has been down since Friday, due to problems encountered by our hosting company, which were not its fault. We need to have our database replaced, which should occur sometime Monday.

Thanks for your patience, and we recommend you read the excellent sites on the right until then.

Daily Kos, which is hosted by the same company, also should be back up very soon---there is no conspiracy or hacking involved, just a server glitch.

We are pretty shocked by the announcement this afternoon that the District Attorney in Stanislaus County will seek the death penalty for Scott Peterson.

We heard the D.A. say just a few days ago he would provide Scott's lawyers an opportunity to confer with his death penalty committee before making the decision.

Allowing the defense to confer with the committee is standard practice. It's law in the federal system. Scott's lawyers have been on the case for five days. They haven't seen the evidence against Scott and they certainly haven't had time to gather mitigating evidence.

This is a move to (a) make sure Scott doesn't get bond at his bond hearing May 6, (2) avoid a change of venue to a more liberal California county that doesn't pursue the death penalty and (3) further prejudice the potential jury pool by reinforcing the negative portrayal of Scott.

Yes, the crime was heinous, but justice requires that the history and character of the defendant be part of the decision process. Scott is 30 years old with no prior record. We doubt the prosecution has evidence that this was a planned killing.

In fact, we haven't heard one bit of evidence that directly links Scott to the crime. The D.A. says they don't have a definitive crime scene--they can't say for sure where the killing took place. No cause of death has been determined. No forensic evidence results have been acknowledged.

This decision is premature. They are jumping to a conclusion that Scott deserves death, the same way they jumped to the conclusion that he killed his wife with premeditation.

We'll be debating these issues Sunday on Fox News, at 11:30 a.m., EST.

President Bush today asked a congressional panel to make harming a fetus during an assault on the mother a federal crime.

The assault we see here is the one on state's rights.

Of course, this is coming about now due to the Laci Peterson murder. Scott Peterson is charged with two counts of homicide, one for his wife and one for their unborn child. The latter charge, allowable under California law, makes him eligible for the death penalty.

We should not pass legislation out of grief and passion in response to a singular event, no matter how horrific. Whichever advisor told Bush that now would be a good time to re-introduce this proposal (it was passed by the House in 2001 and died in the Senate) is a crass opportunist.

Most murders are state crimes. Let each state deal with the issue as its citizens see fit. We don't need more meddling by the federal government in our criminal laws--particularly those without an interstate connection.

Anyone but Bush in 2004.

New From Uggabugga: Bush Regime Playing Cards

Categories include:

Looting Social Security trust funds Taking the country to war under false pretenses
Ripping up the safety net
Eviscerating democracy
Strangling civil rights
Assaulting the New Deal
Being a partisan hack
Peddling economic snake oil
Perverting the Fourth Estate

As Kos says, "simply brilliant."

The White House came out today with support for Sen. Rick Santorum .

In a lawsuit filed by the ACLU on behalf of Mississippi death row inmates, conditions are so bad they are driving inmates insane.

A federal lawsuit filed on behalf of six inmates by the American Civil Liberties Union says the stifling heat, filth, insects and other conditions could explain why some of those on death row are suffering from mental illness.

At a hearing on the lawsuit earlier this year, James Balsamo, the director of environmental health and safety at Tulane University, said he took temperature, humidity and air volume readings in about 15 cells at Parchman last August, and found the heat index exceeded 100 degrees

Many inmates keep their windows closed to protect themselves from spiders and insects, he said, which adds to the heat and ventilation problems.

Another witness, Dr. Terry Kupers, a California psychiatrist who has written a book on prison madness, said he found several inmates with mental problems in a tour of death row last August.

''They mess up their cell, they're totally disheveled, they scream day and night, they smear feces, they throw feces and urine down the hall, they flood the tier,'' Kupers testified.

In a recent telephone interview, Kupers said conditions at Parchman were worse than any he's seen at death rows in six states and they directly contribute to severe emotional and mental problems.

More information on the lawsuit is available here.

“When we brought this case in July we knew that prison conditions were terrible,” said Margaret Winter, Associate Director of the ACLU's National Prison Project. “The expert reports we have now received are so disturbing that we are asking the court to move this case up on the docket before prisoners suffer further harm or even death.” In a civilized society, Winter said, “no one should be subjected to treatment like this. The state may be authorized to execute death-sentenced prisoners, but it may not torture prisoners to death while they are pursuing their rights to appeal their sentences.”

Since the death penalty was reinstated in Mississippi, 41% of the death sentences have been overturned.

Today is the deadline for immigrants from five Muslim countries to register with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Immigration advocates charge that the Government program is a catch-22.

Many aliens who registered have overstayed their visas or are otherwise in the country illegally, although many have applications pending to legalize their status. Illegal status brings the risk of detention.

The new rule has put immigration lawyer Kamal Nawash's clients in an awkward position. They are among the 640,000 illegal immigrants who took advantage of a special visa offered before the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that allowed them to stay in the United States and seek permanent residency.

Those immigrants paid a $1,000 fine -- imposed as punishment for their illegal status -- and often thousands of dollars in legal fees to obtain the visas. Then, after the terror attacks, the federal government imposed the special registration requirements.

Nawash advised his clients to register, based on the assumption that immigration officials would allow latitude for people who were in the process of adjusting their immigration status to become legal.

He was mistaken.

The New York Times has more on the program here.

...more than 9,000 illegal immigrants have registered so far, hoping, perhaps, for leniency. They have all been issued notices to appear in court, often the first step toward deportation; about 2,300 have been detained for further questioning, for anywhere from a few hours to three days, lawyers and officials said. Immigration officials emphasized that the detainees represented only a small minority of those questioned.

There has to be a better way. We're reminded of the opening scenes in The Pianist, where day by day the restrictions increased against Jews in Poland--first registration, then armbands, then curfews, then the ghetto.

If you or a client or a family member have been through the process, the American Immigration Lawyers' Organization is seeking your input. Go here and fill out the form. Help them keep track of what is happening--we can't count on the Government to tell us.

Judges are beginning to voice their opinions on a law Congress passed earlier this month that will restrict judicial discretion in sentencing criminals. Most are decrying the move.

For our coverage on the bill, tacked on to the Amber Alert bill without congressional hearings, go here. For full coverage on the bill and what it means, go here.

Thomas Coleman, the Tulia, Texas cop largely responsible for the convictions and accusations against one-tenth of the African-American residents of that town in a drug case has been indicted for perjury.

Jeff Blackburn, a lawyer in Amarillo who has represented several of the defendants, said of Mr. Coleman's indictment: "Swisher County is now busy trying to make it seem like they're fine, upstanding people who respect the law. This still doesn't change the fact that there are people in prison out there chopping cotton in the sun because of Tom Coleman." Thirteen of those arrested are still in prison, and only one of the 38 convictions has previously been thrown out. The 37 others will remain unless the appeals court, known for a conservative voting history, decides to overturn them.

Coleman's indictment is related to his alleged lying about events connected to his having been previously charged with stealing county gasoline in a hearing ordered by the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals concerning the Tulia convictions.

"This is about perjury, not about $70 worth of stolen gasoline or racism," Roderique S. Hobson Jr. of Lubbock, the special prosecutor who obtained the indictment, said in an interview. "This basically undermines the confidence of the convictions in this sweep."

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

t a c i t u s is back--go over and read--for his war blogging posts!

In yet another grab for power and blow to justice, Attorney General John Ashcroft has issued a legal opinion declaring that most illegal immigrants can be jailed indefinitely without bond when national security risks exist.

The opinion means such aliens will not be released on bond while their cases are being decided by immigration judges if the government can show national security issues are involved. "Such national security considerations clearly constitute a reasonable foundation for the exercise of my discretion to deny release on bond," Ashcroft said in the 19-page opinion, which was signed last Friday.

The opinion was written at the request of the Homeland Security Department which now oversees immigration matters. The case involved the continued detention of one of the 216 Haitain immigrants on a boat that ran amuck in Miami last October, who had jumped into the bay and reached U.S. land. 100 of the immigrants had been granted bond, and Ashcroft's decision likely will affect them as well, according to immigration law experts. The National Coalition for Haitian Rights will appeal the decision.

Dina Paul Parks, the New York-based coalition's executive director, said the decision further erodes immigrants' legal rights. "If you were lucky enough to get a sympathetic judge you could potentially get released on bond. Now even that prospect is taken away," she said.

Ashcroft's opinion applies to all immigrants except Cubans, who if they reach shore, are allowed to remain here. [thanks to Linkmeister for emailing the article to us.]

Update: The text of the opinon is here.

The federal judge presiding over the trial of Zacarias Moussaoui ruled in his favor Thursday on the issue of whether he can read the Government's alternative proposal to allowing him to conduct live interviews of captured Al Qaeda members who might provide testimony favorable to his defense.

A federal judge ruled Thursday that terrorism suspect Zacarias Moussaoui is entitled to see a top secret government plan for giving him access to information from a senior al-Qaida captive.

The government attempted to submit the material to the court and keep it from Moussaoui for the time being. Classified as "Top Secret/Codeword," the information was provided as a substitute for allowing Moussaoui to interview the prisoner, Ramzi Binalshibh, via video hookup.

U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema, who ordered the hookup in January, said Moussaoui must see the substitute proposal now.

Either this is a very fair judge, or a slick attempt to create justification for the Government's dismissal of the federal case against Moussaoui in favor of a military tribunal.