Los Angeles Police Chief William Bratton has initiated a new disciplinary policy for the city's police force. It has the approval of the Police Commission, the Mayor, city residents and the cops on the force. Bratton said it boils down to this:

"If you are right, we will back you up. If you make a mistake, we will retrain you. If you are corrupt, we will jail you."

Under the new policy, station captains, rather than the Internal Affairs Bureau, will handle "procedural errors or other nondisciplinary complaints." A fact-finding system will be implemented to resolve minor complaints between residents and officers. There will be "alternative conflict resolution groups in which non- and minor-discipline cases can be resolved in sessions with the officer and the complainer, Bratton said."

The cops quoted in the article are clearly relieved. We're glad to see city residents, top brass and street cops LA warming to Bratton and trusting him. We've always said, if anyone could turn that corrupt and demoralized police department around, it would be Bill Bratton. Too bad they can't clone him to do the same for San Francisco.

The Supreme Court has granted a last-minute indefinite stay to Delma Banks, just minutes before his scheduled execution tonight, which would have been Texas' 300th execution since 1976 when the death penalty was reinstated.

Jim Marcus, a lawyer with the Texas Defender Service, a nonprofit law firm that represents indigent defendants, said Banks' case is typical of the problems with death penalty appeals. Finding additional evidence in a case is only part of the challenge; the bulk of an appellate lawyer's time is spent trying to persuade a court to look at it, Marcus said.

"You spend 80 percent of your time asking, `Can we please get to the merits?' " Marcus said.

The Board of Pardons ands did not consider Banks' clemency petition because his attorneys filed it Feb. 24, two weeks before the execution date but a week past the deadline.

The Court's order indicated the justices were undecided about the case and wanted time to consider whether to take it on.

South Knox Bubba got dismissed from jury duty in a crack cocaine case where the defendant, an African-American, allegedly sold to an undercover agent. SK notes the only other African-American in the room was the prosecutor--and that on voir dire he volunteered his criticism of the war on drugs and was promptly booted off.

A note to prospective jurors: If you say you think drugs should be legal or decriminalized or are a victimless crime, you will never get on the jury. Defense lawyers need people like you on juries. You have to tell the truth, but think a few minutes how you phrase it so you can stay on.

SK links to a certain alleged violent offender at the bottom of the post, commenting that it's hard to be against the death penalty sometimes. It shouldn't be--life without the possibility of is a death penalty--and the defendant suffers for many more years.

This is amazing. After nine months. And the death in jail of the handyman who was arrested on a violation because he was a suspect in the case--but obviously not the one who kidnapped her:

SALT LAKE CITY (March 12) - Elizabeth Smart, the 15-year-old girl who vanished from her bedroom nearly eight months ago, was found alive Wednesday during a traffic stop in suburban Salt Lake City, police said.

''Miracles do exist,'' said the girl's uncle, Tom Smart.

The girl was found in the car of a drifter who was pulled over in a traffic stop Wednesday afternoon, Sandy police spokeswoman Michelle Burnette said.

Bump and Update: This from Iranian Radio:

In an interview with the Iranian Tehran radio, the deputy leader of the Islamic Awamy Tahrik Party the Pakistani National Islamic Movement Party , Murtaza Poyia names phonetic , has confirmed the arrest of the leader of the Al-Qa'idah network, Usamah Bin-Ladin. Quoting reliable sources, he added that Usamah Bin-Ladin is being held by the Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence ISI and US troops at present.

Answering a question about why Usamah's arrest has not been announced, Murtaza Poyia said that it had been decided to announce his capture a few hours after America's attack on Iraq.

A high-ranking ISI official said some time ago that the information extracted from Khalid Sheikh Mohammad recently captured alleged Al-Qa'idah operative had brought them ISI and the USA closer to Usamah Bin-Ladin's capture .

Friends, the detailed interview with Murtaza Poyia will be broadcast later in this programme.

Source: Voice of the Islamic Republic of Iran External Service, Tehran, in Pashto 1230 gmt 12 Mar 03; Available on Lexis.Com

Original post, 11:00 am Atrios reports the U.S. and Pakistan are that denying Bin Laden has been captured. He thinks the denial may be a lie.

If he's in custody, great. If they're holding back the announcement as this guy claims - not great. In fact - pathetic, despicable, disgusting, horrendous. Pooya said he heard of bin Laden's arrest from credible sources "who I have reasons to believe have never given me wrong information." He added he believed news of the arrest was being held back to coincide with the start of military action against Iraq . "All I know is that one of the things under consideration is when the announcement should come -- it's supposed to be timed with the apprehended attack between the 17th and the 18th (of March)."

Here is more from Reuters.

ABC News reports on the right and left joining together to fight Ashcroft and Patriot Act II

The opposite ends of the political spectrum are coming together over the war on terror, but not in the way Attorney General John Ashcroft may have wanted.

[comments now closed]

Tim over at The Road To Surfdom refers to this article in which the U.S. denies it has the children of Khalid Mohommad or has interrogated them:

Khalid’s sons ‘not in US custody’ ISLAMABAD: A United States spokesperson on Monday denied media reports that two sons of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad, aged nine and seven, were in United States, in the custody of US officials anywhere else or had been interrogated by US officials. Asked whether the US government was aware where the children were, the spokesperson, declined comment.

But last week, the CIA said differently according to the Telegraph:

Last night CIA interrogators confirmed that the boys were staying at a secret address where they were being encouraged to talk about their father's activities.

"We are handling them with kid gloves. After all, they are only little children," said one official, "but we need to know as much about their father's recent activities as possible.

"His sons are important to him. The promise of their release and their return to Pakistan may be the psychological lever we need to break him."

Our earlier post on this is here. We think its time we got the straight story on this. Anyone from the CIA care to comment on their official web page? Thanks to Tim for the heads up. Update: Union Muse just sent us an email linking to this March 4, 2003 New York Times article stating: Besides eluding authorities in Quetta, Mr. Mohammed narrowly escaped capture last September, when Mr. bin al-Shibh was arrested after a shootout in Karachi. Mr. Mohammed had been in hiding with Mr. bin al-Shibh, and Mr. Mohammed's two young sons were taken into captivity after the shootout. Some officials said the fate of his sons might be used as leverage to try to pry information from him, although a senior American intelligence official said children would not be brought into the interrogation rocess. The New York Times link to the article didn't work for us but we found it on Lexis.Com By the way, if you don't have a Lexis or Nexis account, you can pay by the search with a credit card.

"The Chinese Government has ordered the Rolling Stones to drop four of their best-known songs from their concerts in the country next month, according to a tour organiser.

The band were told they cannot play Brown Sugar, Honky Tonk Woman, Beast of Burden and Let's Spend the Night Together, said Chen Jixin, head of Beijing Time New Century Entertainment.
The Stones are due to play two concerts in the country, in Shanghai on 1 April and in Beijing on 4 April. "

The Guantanamo Bay detainees lost a lawsuit challenging their confinement Tuesday in the D.C. Court of Appeals, which ruled that the U.S. has no legal jurisdiction over the naval base in Cuba.

The three-judge panel said that the 16 detainees at Guantánamo who brought the lawsuit had no recourse to American courts as they had never entered United States territory.

Today's ruling was another in a series from the courts, several of them favorable to the administration, as the government's aggressive techniques in the fight against terrorism are being challenged on a wide front in the federal judiciary.

The 16 plaintiffs, through their lawyers, had argued that because the United States controls the 45-square-mile base on the southeastern tip of Cuba, it had sovereignty over the base.

But the judges disagreed and upheld the decision of a federal trial judge last summer.

While the lawyers argued that Guantánamo "is in essence a territory of the United States," the judges of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said that was not so in strict legal terms. "Cuba — not the United States — has sovereignty over Guantánamo Bay," the panel said, citing the lease agreement between Cuba and United States that explicitly reserves sovereignty to Havana.

For that reason, the judges said, the prisoners "cannot seek release based on violations of the Constitution or treaties or federal law; the courts are not open to them."

Update: Today's New York Times Editorial,

Forsaken at Guantánamo In refusing to let the Guantánamo detainees challenge their confinement, the administration is trampling on their rights. It is also damaging America's reputation for fairness. The administration should rethink its policies, and the Supreme Court should reverse yesterday's unfortunate decision.

Here are some comments from another lawyer who was at the scene of the University of Idaho raids we wrote about here:

The FBI anticipated that the Saudi students would refuse to answer their questions, which they have the right to do. Instead, they invoked a federal statute which allows immediate deportation if you refuse to answer INS questions relating to your immigration status. For each interrogation, the actual questions were asked by an INS officer, with an FBI agent and a member of the local task force on terrorism present. I was one of only two attorneys who got there in time to participate in the interrogation; most of the students were unrepresented.

Many of the questions were clearly not aimed at status but were instead attempts to gain information to use against the one student who was arrested. The indictment alleged visa fraud ... the visa application said that he was here strictly to go to school, and the fraud was the fact that he also set up a website, which they see as outside the scope of the disclosure in the application even though the student is working on his masters in computer science. The website is alleged to contain information designed to promote violence against the U.S. He is also charged with raising funds for the "Help the Needy" charity, which the FBI alleges is a front for terrorist organizations.

The questions they asked these students (who were justifiably terrified)
were unanswerable - things like :

- do you know of anyone capable of or willing to commit acts of violence against the U.S.?
- do you know of anyone advocating acts of violence against the U.S.?
- do you know of anyone who raises money for any purpose, charitable, religious or otherwise?
- have you every donated money to any organization, charitable, religious or otherwise?

It was a scary situation. Many of the students are wanting to leave the U.S. immediately, education be damned. Who could blame them?

Here's more from today's Denver Post.

Gallup has conducted a new poll on Americans' attitudes toward the death penalty. The results are mostly discouraging. 70% of Americans favor the death penalty. However, the number drops to 52% when life imprisonment without is an option.

Gallup Poll Results
May, 2001 numbers (left) compared with May, 2002 numbers (right.)

Mother Jones has picked up on TalkLeft's criticism of the CIA taking custody of Al Qaeda detainee Khalid Shaikh Mohammed's 7 and 9 year old sons, flying them to America to interrogate them about their father and his activities and using them as pawns to get their father to talk:

LAW AND JUSTICE : Halfpint Hostages

The capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed made headlines around the world last week, with the alleged Sept. 11 mastermind being snatched from his bed in Pakistan and shipped off to a US military prison in Afghanistan.

As it turns out, though, while Mohammed was settling into his cell at Bagram Air Force Base, the CIA was taking his sons, aged seven and nine, into custody as well. Held by Pakistani authorities since last fall, the boys have now been transferred to a secret location in America, where the CIA is interrogating them and using them to force their father to talk, Olga Craig of London's Daily Telegraph reports. As one CIA official puts it, Mohammed's children are a valuable tool in the war on terror:

"'His sons are important to him. The promise of their release and their return to Pakistan may be the psychological lever we need to break him.'"

Though the CIA insists the boys are being given "the best of care," the pundits at TalkLeft are horrified that Washington is holding Mohammed's children hostage -- no matter what his crime.

" ... what Mohammed is really being told is that something awful will befall his sons if he doesn't cooperate. Legal? Probably. It's also morally bankrupt. But let's leave the father out of this for the moment. Our concern is the kids.
...

We didn't realize that enemy combatant status was hereditary. A lawyer and a guardian ad litem should be appointed for these kids immediately. The kids should be returned home without delay to whatever family they have left. This is taking 'sins of the father' to an unprecedented and unconscionable level."

Thanks, Mother Jones. We think this issue needs more media coverage and debate.