Bush and Aschroft's ears should be burning with shame:

Powerful arguments in favour of abolishing the death penalty in China have been voiced at a recent conference which marks a significant step forward in one of the country's most sensitive human rights areas.

This was the first debate of its kind to be reported in the Chinese press and the abolitionist argument was put more strongly than before, reflecting a growing willingness on the part of the authorities to let the issues be aired.

Nearly all the Chinese academics taking part supported abolition, and called for a start to be made by strictly limiting its use.

What's wrong with America that they just don't grasp it?

From today's Page Six:

Front-row seat THE Rev. Al Sharpton got the front row on the shuttle flight back from Washington, D.C. on Sunday, and was pleased to see his rival for the Democratic nomination for president, Sen. Joe Lieberman, two rows back. Sharpton, who had just appeared on "Meet the Press," exclaimed to his entourage: "That's how it's gonna be when the votes are counted."

Also in the humor department, Ted Barlow is writing only "How Many Lightbulbs Does It Take....?" jokes all week.

Congrats to Oliver Willis who has an article up on PBS called "Why I Blog."

And for Priceless link of the day, from Maxpeak: Bush Releases New "1040"

Radley Balko of The Agitator bashes Jonah Goldberg and sticks up for Governor Ryan's decision:

Isn't the whole philosophy behind the power to pardon that the executive ought to be able to grant mercy/clemency/leniency when justice hasn't been served? If the system had failed one obviously innocent man, I'm sure few would argue with Gov. Ryan's decision to pardon him. Same with two, or three. But this is a system that has consistently failed, at least a dozen times, probably many more. Gov. Ryan came to the conclusion that the system was so flawed, in fact, that it couldn't be trusted to administer proper justice to anyone who'd been through it, provided the punishment the faced was death. He pardoned people he felt hadn't had a fair crack at due process. Why is that inconsistent with separation of powers?

In response to today's U.S. Supreme Court decision allowing defendants who have received a life sentence to be re-subjected to the death penalty if the jury vote for life was not unanimous, Chris Adams, Death Penalty Counsel for the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, issued the following statement:

"In an era where everyone acknowledges problems in the death penalty, the Supreme Court today took a step away from equal justice, a step away from fairness, and a swipe at the double jeopardy clause in the Bill of Rights.

"The result is that some wrongly accused people will not find competent lawyers willing to take their cases on appeal. Why? Because if they win they will subject their client to the death penalty after the client had previously been sentenced to life without.

"Now, in states with a sentencing law like Pennsylvania (and the federal death penalty has this scheme), an inmate whose capital jury is 11-1 for life, who appeals and wins his appeal, can be re-sentenced to death by another jury. Yet the inmate whose capital jury is 11-1 for death and does not appeal, or who loses his appeal, can never be re-subjected to a death penalty prosecution. These inmates, wrongly convicted or not, face death only if they win on appeal.
"Certainly the double jeopardy right was designed to protect people from being more severely punished for winning their appeal."

The decision entered by the Supreme Court today is SATTAZAHN V. PENNSYLVANIA, accessible here.

Jay Caruso at the Daily Rant has a problem with Arianna Huffington calling for a boycott on SUV's due to her belief they are funding terrorism.

Her ads have nothing at all to do with her concern over whether not money used to buy gasoline in this country is somehow winding up in the off shore bank accounts of terrorists. Her issue is obviously her born again environmentalism. All of this talk about funding terrorism is a bunch of crap... If she wants to come out and say that the millions of SUV's driving around the United States are killing the environment, then f*cking say it! Don't cloak your agenda in some nonsense about terrorism, and make sure you're driving a Prius and living in a tent before you lecture others."

Our Jeep drives great in the snow and mountains and we feel safe in it--if we were going to give up driving an SUV it would be because of rollover fears--not terrorism or the environment. If any of you out there who are feeling guilty over driving an SUV have a new BMW X5 or Lexus you'd like to unload via donation, we'll be glad to take it off your hands.

The secret life of Clarence Thomas, revealed for a hefty $1.5 million.

"This is the largest advance ever paid a sitting Supreme Court justice and that the agreement with this most conservative justice on the court coincidentally came from News Corp., the leviathan media empire owned by the conservative Rupert Murdoch."

Avedon Carol of Sideshow, who resides in Britain has some thoughts on the Pete Townsend arrest.

Since the Home Office has just announced that they will no longer bother investigating "minor" crimes like burglary and assault because they "don't have enough manpower", I'd like to hear the explanation the Bill has for sending 16 cops to bust a guitar player.

Our prior post on this is here.

"The U.S. government's willingness to compromise on human rights to fight terrorism sets a dangerous precedent and drives away some nations from joining that war, Human Rights Watch said Tuesday. The private group said U.S. support for human rights in countries that are critical to the anti-terrorism campaign was at best inconsistent and at worst completely muted."

A hearing is scheduled to begin today for the two U.S. Pilots who took "go pills" containing amphetamines and mistakenly killed Canadian troops last year in Afganistan.

The hearing is to decide whether the pilots should face a court martial. "At issue is whether Air National Guard pilots Majs. Harry Schmidt and William Umbach are criminals or military men who made a tragic error while on duty in the Afghan war. The two face charges of manslaughter, assault and dereliction of duty -- which could bring up to 64 years prison time -- for dropping a 500-pound bomb on a Canadian military unit."

Lawyers for the pilots have said the mens' judgment may have been impaired by their usage of the amphetamine "go pills" given to them by the Air Force to combat fatigue on their missions. We wrote about this aspect of the case here.

Update: The lawyers rapped the Government hard at the hearing.

Instapundit says no-knock drug raids are dangerous and an example of the Drug War's violation of civil liberties. He's right.

Check out this article in the Baltimore Sun about the decision not to charge Lewis S. Cauthorne, who shot four police officers when they barged into his house, with a crime.

"Investigators concluded detectives did not announce that they were police just before smashing down Cauthorne's door with a battering ram and rushing in to look for drugs."

The authorities believe Cauthorne acted in self-defense. In an interview given the night of the incident, Cauthorne said, "I didn't know you guys were police. I thought I was getting robbed."

The police were required to knock and announce themselves before entering the house. None of the officers suffered serious injuries. "The raid yielded six bags with trace amounts of marijuana, empty vials, a razor with cocaine residue and two scales, documents show."

Nor has Cauthorne been charged with any drug crimes. Nonetheless, he spent six weeks, between the date of the incident on Nov. 19 and January 7 in jail.

Proseuctors in the case of the accused snipers begin their bid for the death penalty against juvenile suspect John Lee Malvo today in a Virginia courtroom.

Today's hearing is signficant for the defense in that it will be their first opportunity to learn some of the evidence the State has against their client--it is expected that about two dozen witnesses will testify for the prosecution, including ballistic experts, and officers and agents who handled various pieces of evidence. It will also give the defense a chance to cross-examine the witnesses, test their memories, and commit them on record to a version of events. Should they testify differently at a later hearing, they could be impeached by the testimony they give today.

From a factual standpoint, "the prosecutors will try to tie Malvo to an Oct. 9 slaying at a Prince William County gas station, as well as the Oct. 14 shooting of FBI analyst Linda Franklin in Seven Corners, to meet the provisions of one element of Virginia's death penalty law."

The hearing itself is fairly routine. The Judge has to decide if there is probable cause to believe Malvo committed the shooting with which he is charged, and if so, he will order Malvo transferred to adult court. Juvenile courts in Virginia cannot hear murder cases involving a defendant older than 14. Probable cause is a very low standard--kind of like, are there reasonable grounds to believe Malvo committed the crimes?

Virginia is carefully laying the groundwork for it's bid for the death penalty against Malvo. They are crafting arguments under two different provisions of the capital murder statute. The first argument is that Malvo engaged in more than one killing in a three year period. For this theory to succeed, prosecutors have to show that Malvo was the triggerman in each of the named killings. Their second argument falls under Virginia's new and untested terrorism law, which requires the prosecution to prove that the killings were intended to terrorize the community at large. To support this theory, prosecutors are expected to introduce the note Malvo allegedly wrote saying "Your children are not safe anywhere at any time," and a tarot card that was left at the scene of another one of the murders.

Malvo is charged with the killing of Linda Franklin in Fairfax County. John Muhammed is charged with the killing of Dean Meyers in Prince William County. They are not being tried together.

Update on the hearing: Police say Malvo contacted them four times to demand $10 million to stop the killings. Fingerprints on weapons in four shootings linked to Malvo.

"Police in Los Angeles have settled on a new way of handling those pesky burglar alarms that take up so much of their time. They will now ignore them -- unless someone can prove that there is a genuine emergency."

"The change was approved by the Los Angeles police commissioners at the request of chief William Bratton, who said that 92 percent of the alarms are false -- wasting time and money in a city struggling with gang violence, a spike in violent crime and a shortage of officers."

Security companies have said they will challenge the move. We support Bratton on this one.