"A former Illinois death-row inmate spoke out against capital punishment in Rome on Friday as part of a campaign to push for a United Nations moratorium against the death penalty.

The Italian anti-death penalty group, Hands Off Cain, invited Leroy Orange and his lawyer to hold a news conference in Italy to draw attention to their cause. The group wants Italy to push for a U.N. resolution against capital punishment when it takes over the European Union rotating presidency this summer."

There is a boycott of Delta Airlines in place for their participation in CAPPS II.

What is CAPPS II? It stands for Computer Assisted Passenger Prescreening System II. As we wrote here earlier this week,

It is a new security program of the U.S. Transportation Security Administration (TSA) that subjects airline passengers to more stringent screening that involves checking personal financial and other information and assigning a color-coded threat level to each passenger. The vast majority of passengers will be rated green and subjected to only the usual checks; those rated yellow will undergo more thorough screening, and those rated red won't be allowed to fly. It went into effect on Feburary 24. It is at place in three airports. Only Delta airlines is cooperating so far but officials are expecting to extend it to Northwest Airlines and other airlines within the next 10 to 16 months.

What does Delta's participation mean? From the boycott site:

WHAT WILL DELTA DO?

Run a credit check on you; Investigate your banking history; Run a criminal background check.

You will then be assigned your own Threat Assessment Color. Greens will pass through security as normal. Yellows would require additional screening. Reds are not allowed to fly.

How will they determine what color you are? No one knows. Does a bad credit rating make you a terrorist? No one knows. Will an unpaid parking ticket flag you ‘red’? No one knows.

WHAT DO WE KNOW?

For starters, this is an incredible invasion of privacy. All the information gathered will be stored for fifty (50!) years on computers that may or may not be safe from malicious hackers out to steal your identity... By their own admission, Delta’s computer servers are attacked over 500 times a day.

DELTA : CREDIT KILLER

Every time a credit report is run on you, it hurts your credit rating. Frequent fliers will not only have a nice thick Delta dossier, but a damaged credit history to boot.

Zero Base Thinking has more.

Update: Lionel Tate's case will be featured on ABC's 20/20 tonight.

14 year old Lionel Tate cries as Judge imposes life sentence

"It was a tragedy that shocked the nation — the 1999 murder of a 6-year-old little girl, Tiffany Eunick, by her 12-year-old family friend, Lionel Tate. Perhaps as shocking as Tiffany's death was Lionel's conviction of first-degree murder and his sentence to life imprisonment."

Lionel Tate is the youngest person to be sentenced to life without. He was 12 at the time of the killing. He was offered a deal, but his mother convinced him to turn it down.

How could a 12 year old possibly understand the nature and consequences of a plea bargain?

Now, two years later, people are questioning whether justice was served, or whether Lionel should be shown some mercy. The prosecutor who won the case, even Tiffany's grieving mother, now feel that the punishment was too harsh for a child.

Tiffany's mom, Deweese Eunick-Paul, remembers meeting Lionel and his mom, Kathleen Grossett-Tate, after she and Tiffany moved to Broward County, Fla., near the resort city of Fort Lauderdale. The mothers, both divorced, became close friends and began helping each other take care of the children.

....In his January 2001 trial, Lionel sat quietly in court, almost as if he didn't know what was happening, watching through the eyes of a young adolescent. He never took the witness stand. Instead, his defense team entered a video reenactment into evidence, saying that Lionel, who loved wrestling, was only imitating wrestling moves he'd seen on television. But the wrestling defense backfired.

... "I offered Lionel Tate, three years in a juvenile facility, followed by one year of house arrest and 10 years of probation with psychological counseling and therapy." [State's attorney] Padowitz said he didn't understand why neither Tate, nor his attorneys, nor his mother accepted the deal.

On Jan. 25, 2001, the jury unanimously convicted Tate of first-degree murder. At Tate's sentencing hearing, just days after his 14th birthday, the judge stunned the court when he ordered Lionel to serve the rest of his life in prison, without chance of. It was a mandatory sentence in the state of Florida. As Lionel was led out of court in shackles, he broke down and cried.

The issue here is competency. These children are not mentally competent to stand trial as adults. Competency is different than mental illness, retardation or sanity. The question to be asked of a juvenile, particularly those 14 and under, are: can he understand the nature of the proceedings? Can he assist in his own defense? Can he understand his legal rights? Can he make critical decisions such as whether to testify or enter or refuse a plea bargain?

A study released earlier this week found that "a third of children aged 11 through 13 and a fifth of those aged 14 or 15 understood legal matters at a similar level as mentally ill adults who have been found incompetent to stand trial. Older adolescents did not perform significantly different from young adults."

The director of the study says that 200,000 children are charged as adults in this country every year. Tens of thousands are under 16.

Twenty-three states and the District of Columbia set no minimum age at which children could be tried as adults, and 27 set a minimum age for at least some crimes of 15 or younger. Professor Steinberg said the study suggested that change was called for.
"We should not set the age of transfer" from juvenile courts to criminal ones "at 12 or 13, as many states do, because we will be jeopardizing children," Professor Steinberg said. At a minimum, extensive competency evaluations should be done before juveniles are transferred, he said.

Petitions have been submitted to Florida Governor Jeb Bush for clemency on behalf of Lionel Tate. Even the prosecutor filed one.

Update: 1/26/04, Lionel Released from Jail. You can find a recap of the case here.

Via Smythe's World, Scott Hatch, who is the son of Senator Orin Hatch, is one of the principal lobbyists for the manufacturers of ephedra, at a time when the Utah Senator is not only the Senate Judiciary Committee chairman but has also played a leading role in sponsoring legislation to make ephedra and other dietary supplements free from regulatory oversight.

Hmm....doesn't sound kosher to us either, comments?

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A Qunnipiac University poll finds voters prefer any Democrat to Bush in 2004.

By a 48 -- 44 percent margin, American voters say they would vote for the as yet unnamed Democratic party candidate for President over Republican incumbent George W. Bush, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released today. Hampered by Americans' dissatisfaction with life in the U.S. and concerns about war and the economy, President Bush has a 53 -- 39 percent approval rating, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.

[link via Cursor]

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Eric Muller of IsThatLegal got a phone call today from Rep. Howard Coble, whom Muller has been pursuing relentlessly for his comments on the WWII Japanese Interment camps. Eric softens somewhat after the call, but not entirely.

Good move on Coble's part--it's always easer to attack someone you've never met. In our experience, while views don't change because of in-face or voice conversations, the tone with with criticism is delivered is likely to become more modulated.

Leaks abound from the grand jury transcripts in the San Francisco Police Indictments. Unfortunately, DA Terence Hallinan can't legally comment on what is being leaked. So he's in for a press beating now, but we won't be surprised if he strikes the last blow. [link via UnlearnedHand]

Update: Pakistan now reports Osama's sons were not arrested. They may have been wounded.

Update: MSNBC has this. And this great "Where's Waldo" type interactive graphic that you can follow the leads on.

CNN: BREAKING NEWS Sons of Osama bin Laden arrested in southeastern Afghanistan, Pakistani official says, according to The Associated Press. Details to come.

Feel free to use the comments for updates--

Lots of people wondered where veteran reporter Helen Thomas was last night during President Bush's press conference. Here's the answer:

A long-running Washington tradition apparently ended last night when, for the first time in memory, the doyenne of the White House press corps was not called on in a presidential press conference.

Syndicated columnist Helen Thomas, who has covered every president since John F. Kennedy, was relegated to the third row in last night's East Room event and — if the memory of press corps veterans is accurate — received her first presidential snub.

One reporter who has covered the past six presidents said: "I don't remember a press conference in which [Mrs. Thomas] didn't get a question."

For many years, it was a tradition for Mrs. Thomas to ask the first question at White House news conferences and end them by saying, on behalf of the press corps, "Thank you, Mr. President." However, in recent years, her influence has waned — although she was still afforded one of the first questions and continues to enjoy a front-row seat at regular White House briefings.

Also snubbed was Mike Allen of the Washington Post.

The New York Times gets it right today in Fairness Strikes Out

That the punishment must fit the crime is an elemental rule of justice and a core principle of the Constitution. With its decision this week, the court turned its back on this principle, and on two men whose sentences are a clear miscarriage of justice.

Here is an article by criminal defense attorney and appellate lawyer Jeffrey Friedman of California with information regarding the inequities and vagaries of the law and the inconsistent and illogical results it can produce. (Scrioll down to page 2 of the pdf. document.) Mr. Friedman also tells us via e-mail that with respect to Mr. Andrade's "9 prior violent felonies,"

"residential burglary is a qualifying "strike. You can pick up more than one "strike" on one occasion. And there is no "wash out" period on strikes. So, if a teenager burgled two of his neighbors' garages and stole bicycles and then gets busted for shoplifting at age 50, he could get 25 to life. More examples like that abound."

Mr. Friedman, who practices in Santa Ana, ends his e-mail with this thought: "Obviously, we all know too well the bottom line - until all Reagan and Bush judges have retired (except their "mistake" - Souter), we're going to see more and more abominations like this one. And the problem is you and I will have retired (hopefully) before the last of them are gone."

As we have said repeatedly, the battle over judicial nominations is one with repurcussions well into our childrens' adulthoods. If you care about freedom, justice and fairness for all, we urge you to get involved in opposing Bush's ultra-conservative judicial picks--and in efforts to vote him and the Conservatives out of office in 2004.

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The offending t-shirt.

Howard Bashman of How Appealing reports that he has reliable information that Bush Judicial Nominee Priscilla Owen will be back in D.C. next week for confirmation hearings. Bush nominated her for the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. Due to strenous objections to her extreme conservatism, and amidst charges of judicial activism, she lost her chance for a full senate hearing by an adverse 10-9 vote of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

We have objected very strongly to Priscilla Owen. Unlike Miguel Estrada, we all know where she stands and how's she's ruled, and in our opinion, she should not be a federal appellate judge. For why, please read our posts here and here, and this PFAW report.

The re-cycling of Committee-rejected judicial nominees is wrong. Our advice: Don't get burnt out over Estrada. There are more and worse on Bush's list. This fight is going to go on until he's out of power. Pace yourselves accordingly.