Bump from January 23:
We posted this yesterday, and now the mainsteam media has picked up on it:
People for the American Way is announcing a win for civil liberties with respect to the Total Information Awareness Program --via the Wyden Amendment which was successfully included in the Senate spending package. From their press release, received today:
"WASHINGTON - In a bold bipartisan move, the U.S. Senate today adopted an Amendment that could protect Americans from the broad reach of government data-mining efforts associated with the office of Total Information Awareness. The Amendment, proposed by Senator Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), conditions funding of some data-mining programs on actions by the executive branch to protect privacy and monitor the usage of personal information.
"With concerted, bipartisan effort, the Senate today has advanced a common-sense measure to protect the constitutional liberties of all Americans," said Ralph G. Neas, president of People For the American Way. "The House of Representatives should accept the Wyden Amendment in conference, and President Bush should promptly endorse this vital provision."
People For the American Way today joined the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and the Puerto Rican Legal Defense and Education Fund in opposing the confirmation of Miguel A. Estrada to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Senate Judiciary Committee Orrin Hatch has called for a vote on Estrada's nomination on Thursday, January 30.People For the American Way President Ralph G. Neas rejected suggestions
that Estrada's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on September 26, 2002 had
cleared the way for his confirmation."At his confirmation hearing, Mr. Estrada stubbornly refused to answer many
important questions from Senators concerning his jurisprudential views and
legal philosophy," said Neas. "There is too much at stake to give someone a
powerful a lifetime seat on the federal appeals court without understanding
how he will approach fundamental legal and constitutional questions."Neas said it was outrageous that on the same day Sen. Hatch announced that
"Sen. Hatch is intent on pushing through a nominee like Miguel Estrada, who
there would be a Judiciary Committee vote on Estrada's nomination next week,
he also announced that he would hold additional hearings on appellate court
nominees Charles Pickering and Priscilla Owen, who were rejected by the
Committee last year after in-depth public hearings - two of them in
Pickering's case.
revealed as little as possible about his approach to judging," said Neas.
"Yet at the same time, he plans to expend more of the Committee's time and
energy on nominees whose records were examined exhaustively at public
hearings and whose nominations were rejected."
Thanks to new data now available on TRACFED, subscribers can quickly examine the actual performance of individual federal prosecutors from Fiscal Years 1986 to 2002. Also available on TRAC's public site is a summary report that reveals wide variations found among assistant U.S. attorneys (AUSAs) in the percentage of investigative matters they decline to prosecute.
"Until now, because of the complexity of the judicial process, knowledge about the record of each federal prosecutor was largely anecdotal. With the new TRACFED prosecutors tool reporters, lawyers, public interest groups and others can quickly obtain the case-by-case listings of individual AUSAs as well as counts on referrals process and statistical information about the percent of matters declined, kinds of cases handled, etc. Compare the sentences achieved by one prosecutor with the sentences of all prosecutors in the district or the U.S."
The administration is treating the right to counsel in these cases as an inconvenience and possible impediment to investigators. But under our system of law, all defendants, even alleged terrorists, are innocent until proven guilty. Without access to a lawyer, people thrown in prison on terrorism charges cannot protest their innocence, assert their constitutional right to a speedy trial or otherwise challenge their confinement.It is always easier for law enforcement if defendants do not know their rights. But the Sixth Amendment provides that "in all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to have the assistance of counsel for his defense." As the Supreme Court explained in the landmark case of Gideon v. Wainwright in 1963, the "noble ideal" of a fair trial cannot be achieved if a defendant has to face his accusers without access to a lawyer.
The Bush administration should let Mr. Padilla meet with his lawyer, and it should start respecting the right to counsel guaranteed by the Constitution.
Via Lisa English at Ruminate This: Rep.Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) introduced legislation last week that aims to repeal the unprecedented authority Congress gave George Bush last fall...the power to declare war whenever and for whatever reason. Jackson Lee and her co-sponsors in the House, Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Barbara Lee (D-CA) and Diane Watson (D-CA) need your support. Pick up the phone, dial your representatives ( 1-800-839-5276), and let them know you want to repeal the authorization for use of force against Iraq. That's 1-800-839-5276
Regulations.gov is a new U.S. Government web site where you can find, review, and submit comments on Federal documents that are open for comment and published in the Federal Register.
The site also has a variety of links to agencies' regulatory information pages, Executive Orders, OMB policy directives, and rule tracking information, as well as a gateway to Federal Register publications on GPO Access, including the daily Federal Register, the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) and e-CFR, a new online edition of the CFR updated daily.
(thanks to Miami criminal defense lawyer Neal Sonnett for the link)
A Christian activist chosen by the Bush administration for an AIDS advisory panel withdrew his name under pressure Thursday after criticism of his characterization of the disease as the "gay plague."
Good riddance to Jerry Thacker. But what does this say about the Administration that nominated him in the first place? HHS Director Tommy Thompson's excuse is pitiful:Thompson said he had never met Thacker and was not familiar with his views until very recently. "When you have this many appointments to make, some controversial ones are going to get through."
Just think-- this team is in charge of judicial nominations, possibly including the next Supreme Court Justice---it makes us cringe.
If you'll be watching the Superbowl, you may want to keep your channel clicker nearby.
"The Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP) today announced the launch of two new sets of advertisements, premiering during the Super Bowl and pre-game show, designed to further educate Americans about the risks of drug use. Two of the ads aimed at teens are a response to research showing that American youth want to be provided with the facts about marijuana. A second pair of ads will follow up on the groundbreaking spots linking drugs, terror and violence that were released during last year's Super Bowl. The ads are part of the ONDCP's National Youth Anti-Drug Media Campaign, which is designed to help America's youth reject illicit drugs."
In the "We Can't Believe He Said That" department....."This campaign is designed to show teens some of the ways that using marijuana can cripple a young person's future," said John Walters, Director of National Drug Control Policy.And don't forget to bring Kleenex if you'll be watching:
"Pregnancy Test" focuses on teen pregnancy and highlights the fact that marijuana can seriously impair judgment and lead to risk-taking that has serious long-term negative consequences. "Roadside Memorial" highlights the tragic consequences of drug-impaired driving.Another set of ads links drug use to terrorism. "Part of a continuing effort to inspire national dialogue about the connection between drugs, terror and violence, the spot illustrates the sobering point that drug use has social consequences far beyond those that affect the individual user and his or her family. The ads challenge potential drug purchasers to examine the wider implications of their actions." Here's the website for the ad campaign.
We much prefer this marijuana ad campaign.
ArchPundit writes a nice tribute to "Dick Cunningham: Attorney for the Damned." Cunningham was another hero in the fight against the death penalty, who recently met a tragic fate. He was stabbed to death by his mentally ill son.
The Chicago Tribune recently wrote about Cunningham--in eleven installments. The Prologue and first installment are here.
A snippet from the prologue:Cunningham walked through a world of hurt, a world where killers raped and stabbed and set people on fire; where the killers themselves had often suffered, getting beaten or abandoned or shot.He walked some of our criminal justice system's darkest halls -- through police stations where suspects are tortured and courts where judges don't care and prisons where inmates are executed in front of witnesses who sit in a room where the floor slopes from back to front so that any vomit will flow toward a drain and can be easily hosed away.
He offered lessons on living and dying to men on Death Row. Don't leave this world with your middle finger extended, he told one man about to be executed. Don't give them that to remember you by. To others, he said, paint, read, write, learn, hope. Live a life that is worth saving, a life that will be missed.
Earlier this month we wrote about a new U.S. Bureau of Prisons policy implemented at the behest of Attorney General Ashcroft. The effect of the new policy, according to Ashcroftwould be that white collar offenders with short sentences would no longer be able to go directly to a half-way house. They would have to serve their sentence in a federal prison. For the past decade, the BOP has been allowing such offenders to go directly to a halfway house.
"In a December memorandum to Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, the director of the Bureau of Prisons, Mr. Ashcroft said that the practice violated federal sentencing laws that require imprisonment and that it offered favorable treatment to white-collar criminals. Based on his memorandum, a new policy was instituted, which is available <a href="The new policy is available here. It provides, "When an offender has received a sentence of imprisonment, the Bureau of Prisons does not have general authority, either upon the recommendation of the sentencing judge or otherwise, to place such an offender in community confinement at the outset of his sentence or to transfer him from prison to community confinement at any time BOP chooses during the course of his sentence."
Only, it's not the white collar offenders, e.g., low-level Enron types, who are being forced out of the halfway houses and back into prison facilities.
Philadelphia criminal defense lawyer and post-conviction/appeal specialist Peter Goldberger, writes in to say:The new policy is not only a legal sham but more important is a political stunt -- and a cruel one at that. No big shot white collar defendant gets direct Community Corrections (CCC) designation, either because the guidelines come out too high from the dollars of loss or because of "central inmate monitoring" triggered by notoriety of the case. Direct CCC designations are mostly little nobody cases, borderline in terms of being worth prosecuting in the first place, who were then on the tipping point between some prison and straight probation, They go to CCC so they can work and make money for restitution and family support. Many are single parents (mostly mothers) whose ability to work while serving time allows the kids to stay with a family member who otherwise couldn't afford it, rather than go into foster care or adoption. The idea that the present system is not punitive enough on the lowest-level offenders is ridiculous.
What's more, defense lawyers have been filing challenges to the new policy in federal courts around the country --and winning. Several judges around the country have granted defense requests for temporary injunctions preventing the offenders from being moved out of the halfway houses.
The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) is providing assistance to lawyers and updates on the challenges here.
The Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Orrin Hatch of Utah, has scheduled a hearing for Circuit Court of Appeals nominee Jeffrey Sutton for Wednesday, Jan. 29, at 9:30 a.m. Scores of disability rights groups and other organizations are actively opposing the Sutton nomination. The American Association for the Physically Disabled ( AAPD) encourages you to fax letters of opposition to the Senate Judiciary Committee at 202-228-0861. See their website for a sample letter to write.
We wrote about this last week here, when we received a similar action alert from the ADA Watch.
Thomas Breen was a Chicago prosecutor in the 1970's. He prosecuted and won first degree murder convictions of two men who allegedly had killed a nine year old girl.
Breen is now leading the charge to vacate the men's convictions and obtain their release from jail:I would rather [this case] come back 25 years later and find out I'm dead wrong than those guys spend one more day in jail," he said in an interview. "I don't see anything wrong with correcting your errors when the errors are shown. "If these guys didn't do it--and all the evidence seems to indicate we are dead wrong--then it's devastating."Larry Marshall, director of the Center or Wrongful Convictions at Norwestern University, whom Breen turned to when he began having doubts about the men's guilt long after the trial, said of Breen:
"Did Tom make a mistake in this case?" Marshall asked. "It certainly appears so now . . . But one way you measure a person's humanity is by how someone remedies mistakes. And by that measure, Tom's actions in this case are heroic." "It's about as noble a thing," Marshall added, "as I can imagine."We agree. Breen deserves a Champion of Justice award. We hope more prosecutors follow his example. DNA testing, urged by Breen and asked for by Marshall, proved the men were not the culprits.
Now, Breen is struggling to reconcile his actions at the 1977 trial with the results of the DNA tests.In addition to being a hero, we'd call Breen a true mensch."I'm avoiding thinking about this," he said. "When I begin to think that I caused two innocent people--" His voice trailed off as he was unable to finish the sentence. He pressed his hands to his face momentarily, then looked up.
"There are no words to describe what's been done to an innocent person who has been incarcerated," he said. "I want to believe somehow that we were right, but to do that I'd have to be mentally and intellectually dishonest.
"The only thing I can say that I did good was that I brought this up to somebody who could maybe fix it."
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