(Source: Adapted from DUI Gulag.com)

Our blogosphere friend Damn Foreigner sent us this article, MADD: Premier Should Resign and it has us seeing red. In our opinion, MADD has moved into dangerous territory and needs to be reigned in. Or, since that's unlikely, ridiculed.

MADD is calling for the resignation of British Columbia Premier Gordon Campbell. Why? Because a few days ago, Campbell, in Hawaii on vacation, was pulled over by police as he was returning from dinner with friends and charged with alcohol impaired driving. Campbell does not intend to contest the charge and issued an apology after his arrest.

Why should MADD call for the resignation of a public official who committed a minor transgression in his personal life, on his own time and in another country? Who made them the arbiter of personal conduct by a public official? Sure, they have a right to call for whatever they want, but in oppposition, we should be making fun of them, not debating them. Arguing won't do any good--they are out of control. We believe their true agenda is prohibition, on moral grounds. They are far outside the field people associate them with--safety on the public highways.

According to DUI Gulag, here is a brief history of MADD and what they've become:

Mothers Against Drunk Driving (MADD) was founded by a group of California women in 1980 after a 13 year old girl was killed by a hit-and-run driver. The driver was a chronic alcoholic who also happened to be a chronic drunk driver. The MADD founders were outraged by what they perceived to be a lenient sentence handed down by the California judge as part of a plea bargain in the criminal case that arose from the fatal accident. Since that time MADD has developed into one of the largest and most powerful political action/advocacy organizations in the U.S.

MADD’s activities were originally geared towards legitimate educational and victim support oriented functions. MADD’s political focus was geared towards removing chronic/alcoholic drunk drivers from the nation’s highways. Responsible social drinkers who drove home after a wedding or after good conversation with friends at the neighborhood pub were not targets of MADD’s efforts. To the extent that MADD has worked to support victims and to educate the public about legitimate chronic alcoholic/drunk driving issues it should be commended. Unfortunately, in recent years the national MADD organization and most of it’s local chapters have been taken over by ultra-conservative, anti-alcohol extremists who have adopted a political agenda that threatens the second coming of Prohibition.

Instead of focusing on ways to remove the chronic/alcoholic drunk driver from our highways, MADD’s primary focus is upon "drivers who have had something to drink.....

MADD’s modus operandi is to use generalizations, misstatements, scapegoating, distortions of the truth and victimization propaganda to force the federal and state governments to pass increasingly irrational and draconian DUI laws. MADD seeks to clone itself onto local governments (in much the same manner as did the National Socialist Party in Germany during the years following World War I ) by entering into government/private sector "partnerships"; by having it’s propaganda displayed in government buildings; by having it’s logo attached to government vehicles and police uniforms; by giving awards and political support to judges and other public officials who are either afraid of, or who support, their agenda; and by working to require citizens who have been criminalized for DUI to attend mandatory MADD propaganda seminars as a condition of probation.

If MADD’s political agenda is ever fulfilled, no person in the U.S. will be able to drive home after drinking a couple of beers at a ball game or after enjoying wine with a meal at a restaurant without violating the law, risking arrest and being subjected to unlimited civil liability. If MADD’s attempts to criminalize low BAC drivers really saved lives it would be one thing. However, all available valid government data indicates that it does not. Even the principal founder of MADD has left the organization, citing a lack of focus on the real public safety issue, that of getting high BAC chronic/alcoholic drunk drivers off the road.

For information about MADD's tax-exempt status, go here.

Update: The ridiculing has begun, in the Comics. [link via the Drezner blog]

Update #2: Nathan Newman disagrees with us. Here's our reply to him--

"Sorry, Nathan but on this one we respectfully disagree--the man was on vacation, in another country, driving home from dinner with friends. No accident, no one hurt. You'd have a point if his drunk driving arrest occurred after a business lunch or on the way to a government meeting. But in vacation on Hawaii?

Don't you think MADD would do much better to go after the FBI agent in Florida who killed two brothers in 1999 driving very drunk and on the wrong side of the road--last week he just got 90 days for the drunk driving arrests, being acquitted of manslaughter. He's even out on appeal bond, after serving one day in jail.

We think that's where MADD belongs and should stay - not calling for the resignation of a vacationing politician.

It is better that 5, 10, 20, or 100 guilty men go free than for one innocent man to be put to death. This prinicple is embodied in the presumption of innocence. In 1895, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a decision in the case Coffin v. United States, 156 U.S. 432; 15 S. Ct. 394, traced the presumption of innocence, past England, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, and, at least according to Greenleaf, to Deuteronomy. [also, Alexander Volokh wrote a law review article on the issue, available free here.]

The Coffin case stands for the proposition that at the request of a defendant, a court must not only instruct on the prosecution's burden of proof--that a defendant cannot be convicted unless the government has proven his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt--but also must instruct on the presumption of innocence--by informing the jury that a defendant is presumed innocent. The Court stated,

The principle that there is a presumption of innocence in favor of the accused is the undoubted law, axiomatic and elementary, and its enforcement lies at the foundation of the administration of our criminal law.

In tracing the presumption of innocence, the Court goes on to state:

It is stated as unquestioned in the text-books, and has been referred to as a matter of course in the decisions of this court and in the courts of the several States. See Taylor on Evidence, vol. 1, c. 5, 126, 127; Wills on Circumstantial Evidence, c. 5, 91; Best on Presumptions, part 2, c. 1, 63, 64; c. 3, 31-58; Greenleaf on Evidence, part 5, § § 29, &c.; 11 Criminal Law Magazine, 3; Wharton on Evidence, § 1244; Phillips on Evidence, Cowen & Hill's Notes, vol. 2, p. 289; Lilienthal v. United States, 97 U.S. 237; Hopt v. Utah, 120 U.S. 430; Commonwealth v. Webster, 5 Cush. 295, 320; State v. Bartlett, 43 N.H. 224; Alexander v. People, 96 Illinois, 96; People v. Fairchild, 48 Michigan, 31; People v. Millard, 53 Michigan, 63; Commonwealth v. Whittaker, 131 Mass. 224; Blake v. State, 3 Tex. App. 581; Wharton v. State, 73 Alabama, 366; State v. Tibbetts, 35 Maine, 81; Moorer v. State, 44 Alabama, 15.

We recommend reading People For the American Way's editiorial memorandum on the case against Judge Charles Pickering's confirmation to the Court of Appeals. [link via Atrios, who as we predicted, would be covering this issue with as much gusto as he did the case against Trent Lott.]

John Carroll has some Tips for Preventing a Dem Wimp-Out in today's Madison Capital Times.

The 108th Congress sworn in this week is the most conservative since the 1929 Congress that helped Herbert Hoover guide the United States into the Great Depression. I hope history will not repeat itself - even if the Bush camp's economic policies appear to have been borrowed from the most discredited of the old Republican playbooks. Opposing this administration's wrong-minded policies would be easy - and effective - if the Democratic Party had anything akin to a coherent set of progressive values. But, as the 107th Congress illustrated, the Democrats have a hard time being coherent or progressive - let alone effective.

Among his tips for Democrats seeking to reverse the Administration's policies is this one:

Challenge more than just judicial appointments: Bush will probably nominate at least one new Supreme Court justice in 2003, and the fight against that nominee is likely to be a defining moment. But congressional Democrats make a mistake when they limit nomination challenges to the judicial sphere.

Bush is packing federal positions with extremists on everything from abortion rights to environmental protection, and well-chosen battles to block nominees offer opportunities not just to block bad picks but to highlight bad policies. Bush's treasury secretary pick, CSX Corp. CEO John Snow, was just guaranteed a pension of $2.4 million a year for life, yet the administration wants to undermine pension regulations so corporations can reduce payments to retirees by as much as 50 percent. Why not oppose Snow unless he pledges to protect pensions for all Americans?

Confirmation hearings for Snow, a supposed critic of corporate wrongdoing, also provide a terrific opportunity to revisit the corporate corruption scandals that Democrats failed to exploit as an issue in 2002.

George W. Bush has governed for two years without opposition. As the 108th Congress convenes, Democrats must either mount an effective challenge to him, or they will find themselves in an even worse position when the 109th convenes.

Don't miss reading the Washington Post's editorial today Just Repeal It . Virginia has the strictest limitation in the nation on inmates' rights to bring innocence claims before the Courts--claims must be brought within 21 days of conviction.

The Virginia Supreme Court proposed a change in the rule to correct this inequity. But the matter got tossed to the legislature, where the Crime Commission, headed by Rep. Kenneth Stolle of Virginia Beach, has proposed a bill to increase the time limit to a measly 90 days while further study is conducted. The Post correctly states:

The 21-day rule is one of the truly irrational aspects of the commonwealth's criminal justice system. Under its terms, even indisputable evidence of innocence is off limits. After a conviction becomes final, Virginia law simply doesn't care whether it was accurate or not. The General Assembly recently created a narrow exception for biological evidence, but that only raises the broader question of why other compelling evidence of innocence should remain beyond review. To its credit, the Virginia Supreme Court has been troubled by the 21-day rule, and it recently proposed an amendment that would allow courts to consider non-biological evidence after conviction in certain cases as well.

Sen. Kenneth W. Stolle (R-Virginia Beach), who heads the [Crime] commission, has introduced "place-holder" legislation that would relax the rule slightly while the legislature studies the issue. But his place-holder legislation is hardly better than no change at all. And there is no guarantee either that the legislature's final product will be as constructive as the court's proposed rule, or even that inertia will not render the temporary measure permanent.

Mr. Stolle's bill would, if enacted, turn the 21-day rule into a 90-day rule. But in major cases in which Virginia convicts have turned out to be innocent, the critical evidence has never surfaced during the 69 extra days this proposal would allow. Rather, evidence of innocence generally comes to light years later. The fundamental problem is in any rule that, after any arbitrary period of time, keeps imprisoned an innocent person who can prove his innocence. Mr. Stolle says he is willing to be flexible about the interim measure. And if the General Assembly wants to tackle this problem, its involvement is certainly welcome. But it would be a great shame if legislators blocked the Supreme Court's proposal and then dithered or produced no meaningful change.

We have written about this before, here. Thanks to PG for bringing it to our attention today in our comments section.

For many of the poor, family life revolves around prison and the street. "In... the poorest communities around the country, prison is now a well-established rite of passage. A 2000 study by the U.S. Department of Justice found that about half of the nation's inmates are parents of children under 18. The study also found that almost 1.5 million children had a parent in prison, an increase of more than 500,000 children since 1991."

The Sunday Magazine of the New York Times has the story of two of these teen parents, Toney and Lolli, written by Adrian LeBlanc, who has "hung out" with them, in the journalistic sense, for the past ten years. A great read.

The Orlando Sentinel is reporting that Gary Hart may jump into the race for the 2004 Democratic presidential nomination.

"Hart, 66, a Denver-based attorney, is arranging a private reception for past campaign supporters at the downtown Des Moines restaurant Jan. 22 before he delivers an evening address at Iowa State University in Ames."

We think he's trying to gauge support for a run and that he has not committed to one. We're leaning towards hoping he runs. The other declared Democratic candidates just aren't knocking us out. Policy-wise, it's still too hard to tell one of the declared candidates from another.

A Florida immigration court has granted political asylum to two Haitian men. That's two of the more than 200 Haitians who have been detained since October when their freighter ran onto some ground off Biscayne Bay.

The Haitians have sought political asylum "because of their allegiance to a coalition group opposing Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide....Most of the initial asylum requests from the group of Haitians who arrived Oct. 29 have been denied. The Haitians have had their asylum hearings fast-tracked and found it difficult to get legal representation to help them steer through the process. "

But last week a group of Catholic Bishops wrote to President Bush decrying the continued detention of the Haitians. The Bishops asked the Presidents to allow the immigrants to remain free while waiting for a decision on their asylum requests. In the letter, the Bishops charged it was "indefensible and inequitable" to detain Haitians automatically and deny them access to legal representation. The Bishops contend the Government has failed to articulate ... a "security-based rationale for the continued detention of those who seek only freedom for themselves and their children from political persecution and human rights violations in Haiti."

Last December, President Bush signed an Executive Order declaring a new policy that all immigrants arriving in the U.S. illegally by ship would be detained pending final decisions on their asylum claims. All except Cubans, who under a law passed in 1966, are allowed to remain in the community, with relatives or sponsors. The Executive Order allows the INS to continue to detain the Haitians even after an immigration judge has ordered them released on bail. The Government says it detains Haitians as a deterrent to others in Haitai trying to make the journey to the U.S. Critics attack the discriminatory treatment, asking why Haitians must remain in jail while Cubans are allowed to remain at liberty.

The Florida Immigrant Advocacy Center has been providing legal services to the Haitians and others for the past six years. The Government gives them four booths at the Miami Krohn Detention Center in which to meet with clients. Recently the Government took the booths away from the Group, leaving the immigrants with no legal counsel.

We agree with the Bishops that the detention of Haitians is "unfair and morally reprehensible." The Bishops charged in a press statement that "the federal government, through the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, has failed to articulate a compelling moral or security-based rationale for the continued detention of those who seek only freedom for themselves and their children from political persecution and human rights violations in Haiti."

The Haitians have a friend in Florida Senator and potential Democratic presidential nomination contender Bob Graham., who is an outspoken critic of the Administration's policy toward them.

We hope the latest two releases of Haitian asylum seekers marks a change of policy that will be extended to the remaining detained Haitians.

(link via Jim Cappozola of Rittenhouse Review.)

[note: we did the research for this on Lexis late last night and apparently didn't save the source news articles - hopefully we didn't copy directly from them, and if we did, we're sorry--if we did and anyone sends us the source article, we'll edit and provide proper attribution.]

[comments now closed]

Here is the text of Gov. George Ryan's clemency speech.

By the way, Ryan is not the first Governor to grant clemency to all on death row. The Governors of New Mexico and Arkansas did it years ago. (However, the number of people freed were very small in those states.)

As of now, and since 1973, 102 death row inmates have been found factually innocent of the crimes of which they were convicted and released from prison.

The Innocence Project has freed 123 inmates from prison by dna testing.

There have been 820 executions since 1976, when the death penalty was restored and 0 in 2003.

Here are some more Facts and Stats.

[Ed: text of speech link corrected]

Politics in the Zeros attended the war protests in LA today and has some great pictures up. We especially like this one.

Update: Skippy has more on the protests.

Mark Fiore on Ashcroft, civil liberties, medical marijuana and more....excellent. (sent in by Progressive Racine).

Then check out Nick and Norm: How the Drug War Commercial Should Read by Sierra Times (sent in by one of our more frequent commentors, Kevin Conners).

Here are the stories of the 13 men who were wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death in Illinois since 1977.

Illinois's exoneration rate of 4.9% is the highest in the nation. But other states have a problem as well. From Senator Patrick Leahy's statement today on the blanket clemency order:

Some opponents of reform will argue that Illinois is a special case. But in fact the only thing special about Illinois is that its governor took a hard look at the system. This is far more than 'an Illinois problem.' The death penalty system is fundamentally flawed nationwide. That is why we need national reforms to prevent the sort of terrible choices that governors now face. The bipartisan Innocence Protection Act is a modest and practical package of reforms. Last year more than half the entire House of Representatives cosponsored it. But the House Republican leadership would not allow even a committee vote on it, let alone a debate. The Illinois cases are a wake-up call, telling Congress and the Administration that reforms are urgently needed."