Maryland has officially ended its moratorium on the death penalty. The new Governor, Republican Robert Ehrlich, has authorized Judges to begin signing death warrants. The first to be signed will be that for inmate Steven Oken.
The Governor's action lifting the moratorium flies in the face of a new study demonstrating that "of the 12 men awaiting execution in Maryland, nine, including Oken, are from Baltimore County. Eight are black, and all were convicted of killing whites."
It's not just a question of factual innocence. Also at issue are fairness in the application of the death penalty, and the arbitrariness with which it is sought.
Maryland was the only other state besides Illinois that had issued a moratorium.
Update: The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers issued the following statement today, following the announcement:"Before his own seat is even warm, Maryland's new Republican governor has announced he will keep his campaign promise to lift his predecessor's moratorium on the imposition of the death penalty with the flippant comment by his spokesperson, 'Consider the moratorium over.' "We perhaps should not be surprised, but in light of the independent study in his own state showing serious racial and geographic disparity in the imposition of the death penalty and the recent exposition in Illinois of all that is wrong with it, we certainly are dismayed."
Diana Alvarez claims one of her superiors at the Immigration and Naturalization Service made disparaging comments about Cuban-Americans and deliberately kept her from receiving a good evaluation after she objected to ``anti-Cuban bigotry and discrimination'' during the seven-month custody battle over Elian. ``There was an atmosphere of outward discrimination against Cuban-Americans at the Miami district INS office, discrimination that was fully condoned and many times initiated by management,'' Alvarez, who is Cuban-American, said Tuesday. ``The retaliation is ongoing to this day and there truly seems to be no end in sight.''Alvarez is seeking damages for "employment discrimination, emotional distress and injury to reputation."
Law Professor Glenn Harlan Reynolds today makes the case that Congress has no power to regulate abortion. The Constitution gives Congress certain enumerated rights--Reynolds goes through them all-- and abortion regulation is not on the list. The only thing that is arguably in the ballpark is the Commerce power, and Reynolds explains why that is too much of a stretch, given Supreme Court opinions limiting the application of that power in recent years.
For more on this view, you can read a law review article the Professor wrote with Dave Koppel here.
The government of Mexico, in a direct challenge to the Bush administration, asked the International Court of Justice today to block the executions of 51 Mexicans on death row in the United States. The court, the highest tribunal of the United Nations, sits in The Hague. It has no enforcement powers. But if it issues an injunction, the United States must choose whether to respect or defy its judgment.From our prior post,
Mexico filed suit against the US in the International Court of Justice in the Hague over the U.S.’s failure to comply with the Vienna Convention’s guarantee of allowing foreign nationals access to consular officials prior to interrogation. Mexico is also seeking provisional measures, essentially a temporary restraining order, against all capital prosecutions in the US against Mexican nationals until the case is resolved.
Here is the text of the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations and Optional Protocols.
Gary Hart delivered a great speech Tuesday at the Council of Foreign Relations in New York--on the military, technology, terrorism and homeland security. We were able to obtain a copy, and have reprinted it in its entirety. We're told it will be available soon on GaryHartNews.com.
Finally, a politician who makes sense. It's long but well worth reading.
Lots of comments are still coming in on one of our prior posts on Hart--most of it is very favorable towards a presidential run. Here's one that came in tonight from a reader named Brendan.I'm too young to remember 88, but reading what has been printed of Hart, by all means, RUN man RUN! We need a Bartlet running for office, and he seems to be the only dem out there with a brain. Gep is a geek, Kerry is too Northern, Edwards too Southern, Lieberman too Republican and Sharpton...yeah, right.We said in our November post that we were impressed with Hart but not quite ready to jump on his bandwagon. We're getting closer to making the leap.
Update: The Washington Post has a profile on Hart and his potential presidential run here.
Update: Gary Hart's national security speech is now up on his website, here.
John Nichols in the Madison Capitol Times makes some good points about Hart. So does Jonathan Cohn in The New Republic, especially about how Hart can effectively neutralize the Donna Rice incident.
According to census statistics, the hispanic population is booming in the U.S.
"In the months following the 2000 census, the number of Latinos who were born in the United States or who immigrated to the country grew at more than twice the rate of African Americans.... In 2001, according to the new figures, that deadlock was even tighter: 37.7 million people identified either as black, or as black and one other race. Thirty-seven million Hispanics were counted."
"It doesn't surprise me," said Hector Flores, president of the League of United Latin American Citizens. "Anybody that travels around . . . can see Latinos everywhere, working everywhere, paying taxes, trying to reach the American dream."
A new ABC News/Washington Post poll shows support for the War in Iraq is at its lowest level since last summer. The poll also shows Bush's approval rating for handling the Iraq situation is now down to 50%. And "71 percent of Americans said if U.N. inspectors cannot find hard evidence of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, the United States should present its own evidence before attacking."
Jane over at Daily Rant Daily Rant just took Wild Monk's "cool test" about her opinions on Iraq and the U.S. Jane, a liberal, came out at 51 which is "center right" and scored a 9 for rationality.
We just went over and took the test. We scored 52, also "center right". We learned that the 0 - 100 scale measures "pro-U.S." attitudes or "anti-U.S. attitudes". So Jane and I are just barely into the "pro-U.S. attitudes" category.
We scored a 10 on rationality, the highest possible score. We haven't figured out what we are rational about. Go take the test, it's short and fun, and maybe one of you can figure out what the "rationality" part means and let us know.
A hunger strike by six detained immigrants in a New Jersey jail is entering its second week. The men want to be able to hug their children during visits. If they were transferred to another jail in New Jersey, that could happen--but authorities refuse to transfer them.
"I'm going to keep going until I'm dead or I see my daughter," vowed Saleh Hamza, a Lebanese man whose daughter was born after he was arrested 13 months ago on immigration charges."
These men are not being held for criminal violations. They are in jail for visa and immigration violations in the wake of Sept. 11.
One of the men, a Palestinian, is raising a different issue. He is objecting to his continued detention. He was arrested for not obeying a deportation order. But he is stateless--there is no place for the Government to send him, so they keep him in jail. Despite the fact that in 2001 the U.S. Supreme Court held in Zadvydas v. Davis that the INS cannot indefinitely detain individuals who have been ordered deported, but cannot be removed in the foreseeable future.
Elian Gonzale's father was elected to the Cuban Parliament. He was one 609 Communist Party candidates who ran unopposed. All were elected--voter turnout was 97%. Critics call the election a farce.
Sometime you might just want to sue a corporation. Your lawsuit (Complaint) has to be served on the corporation's registered agent. These are on file in the Secretary of State's office where they incorporated. It can be a time consuming process sometimes.
To make it easier, we are providing a link we learned about today from LawSites, the blog of legal tech author/lawyer Robert Ambrogi. Go here, and you can find out the name and address of a corporation's registered agent. The list is provided by Maryland attorney Terry Berger.
Most states provide the information for free. Here's Terry's breakdown:
"42 states have free web access to find a corporation's resident agent.
4 states charge to get this information online (IN, MN, NE, and OK). Of those 4 states, 3 offer the info free by phone (IN, MN, and NE). Minnesota is the first state in the country to start charging to get this information online where it was previously free. (To get the information free, you now need to tie up an employee.)
Only 1 state in the entire country, NJ, charges to get this public information, even by phone. (New Jersey advised me that you can avoid their fee if you fly/drive to downtown Trenton, pay for parking, then go to the State Office Building.)
3 states (NH, OK, and SD) and DC have free online searches in the works and anticipate having free online search capability soon.
Only 1 state (DE) has no plans at all to offer online search functions for resident agent information.
Puerto Rico has not responded to numerous requests for information."
We also came across The Shout today, a law blog by cyberlawyer Jennifer Granick, who directs the public interest law and technology clinic at Stanford Law School's Center for Internet and Society. There, her work focuses on the interaction of free speech, privacy, computer security, law and technology. Jennifer is very well known within the hacker community, having represented (among many others) Kevin Poulsen and alleged eBay hacker Jerome Heckencamp, who, notoriously, fired her.
"...my statement was not eloquent. A few columnists and others, though, have suggested that those words were intended to mean that draftees added no value to the military. That is not true. I did not say they added no value while they were serving. They added great value. I was commenting on the loss of that value when they left the service. I certainly had no intention of saying what has been reported, or of leaving that impression. Hundreds of thousands of military draftees served over years with great distinction and valor - many being wounded and still others killed.The last thing I would want to do would be to disparage the service of those draftees. I always have had the highest respect for their service, and I offer my full apology to any veteran who misinterpreted my remarks when I said them, or who may have read any of the articles or columns that have attempted to take my words and suggest they were disparaging.
The intent of my comments was to reflect a view I have held for some time: that we should lengthen tours of duty and careers for our all-volunteer forces, so that these highly trained men and women in uniform can serve in specific assignments longer, and also not be forced to leave the service when they are at the peak of their skills and knowledge.
It is painful for anyone, and certainly a public servant whose words are carried far and wide, to have a comment so unfortunately misinterpreted.
It is particularly troubling for me that there are truly outstanding men and women in uniform or their families -- past and present -- who may believe that the Secretary of Defense would say or mean what some have written. I did not. I would not.
I hope this deeply felt statement reaches those who have served those who are serving, and their families.
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