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.]

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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."

The granting of clemency to all death row inmates in Illinois today is an issue we feel strongly about. We have been a strong advocate of blanket clemency through our work with the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. We team-teach the Wrongful Convictions class at Denver University's College of Law. And we have been writing about the issue for the past several years.

Tonight , we'll be expressing our support for Governor Ryan's decision in a live debate around 10:15 pm EST on Rita Cosby's Foxwire on the Fox News Channel. Hope you can watch.

Except for lewd comments or nasty personal attacks, feel free to use the comments section to express your opinion about Governor Ryan's decision.

Greenwich Time is running a poll today on whether readers think that Joseph Lieberman should be the Democratic candidate for President. Out of 215 votes cast so far, here are the results:

31.2%
Yes (67 responses)

63.3%
No (136 responses)

5.6%
Undecided (12 responses)

Even putting aside that it's not a scientific poll, and the numbers so far are small, this is not a positive sign from those in the Senator's home state.

JANUARY 11, 2003 -- FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Life without can be worse than painless death
Illinois commutations can benefit even victims,
lead to better U.S. international relations

Washington, D.C.--In response to today's commutation by Illinois Gov. George Ryan (who received NACDL's Champion of Justice award and addressed the luncheon at NACDL's Fall Meeting in Chicago this past November) of the remaining 156 death sentences in that state to life without, Lawrence Goldman, president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, issued the following statement:

"While we understand that this is a time of anguish for many members of the families of victims of these inmates, we hope they will find solace in not being asked to be involved in at attempt to kill again to show that killing is wrong. We also hope they benefit from not having to deal with the ongoing legal battles, and ultimately an execution, which would have forced them to relive painful memories. Perhaps they will also get some satisfaction from knowing that those inmates who are guilty must live, largely alone and under horrible conditions, in contemplation of their own crimes.

"We also hope that as Americans consider this momentous action, we can soon reach the same conclusion that most of the rest of the advanced world has reached: that even if we could be sure that the death penalty deters, even though studies say it does not; that even if the vengeance of the death penalty somehow satisfies many victims and officials alike; and that even if death truly were a more fitting punishment than life in a cage, the cost of the death penalty to our humanity and the risks of error in a system incapable of perfection and fairness are just too great. Such an appreciation of life can only help us if we truly wish to achieve peace in a troubled world.

"Finally, to Gov. Ryan and all the NACDL members and others who worked to make this day a reality, we simply say, 'Thank you.'"

Goldman is a criminal defense lawyer in New York City. He can be reached at (917)816-4635.

The National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) is the preeminent organization in the United States advancing the mission of the nation’s criminal defense lawyers to ensure justice and due process for persons accused of crime or wrongdoing. A professional bar association founded in 1958, NACDL’s more than 10,000 direct members — and 80-plus state and local affiliate organizations with another 28,000 members — include private criminal defense lawyers, public defenders, active-duty militarydefense counsel, law professors and judges committed to preserving fairness within America’s criminal justice system.

For more information:
Daniel Dodson
Director of Public Affairs
National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers
(202)872-8600 ext. 228
cell (202)486-5513
dodson@nacdl.org
###################

The Nobel Peace Prize For Governor George H. Ryan of Illinois

Illinois Governor George Ryan

Thank you.

It's official, from the spokesman of outgoing Illinois Governor Geoge Ryan: In a few minutes, at a press conference at Northwestern University Law School, home to the Center on Wrongful Convictions, Governor Ryan will grant clemency to all 156 death row inmates. This means the death sentences previously imposed on almost all of the inmates will automatically become life sentences, with no possibility of parole.

CNN and probably the other cable news networks will cover the press conference live. Please watch. It's important for the public to understand why this is not only the correct decision, but the only fair and just decision in a state where the death penalty system has broken down and so many innocent people have been wrongfully convicted.

"Ryan, who leaves office Monday, sent overnight letters to the families of murder victims warning them he would announce during a speech Saturday afternoon that he was commuting most of the death sentences to life in prison without the possibility of."

"What does it take? Now that we can say the number of wrongfully convicted men is 17, will that be enough?" Ryan asked.

We just saw a lengthy interview on CNN with pardoned death row inmate Leroy Orange, age 52, who has served 19 years . He was tortured into confessing by the Chicago police, who used tactics which included electric shock treatment. He is a soft-spoken man, and quite articulate. When asked whether there are other innocent men on death row, he replied "yes." When asked if there are guilty men on death row, he said "yes." In reply to the obvious next question, why grant blanket clemency to all, including the guilty, Orange gave the correct answer, essentially, because we don't know who is innocent and who is guilty.

Governor George Ryan is a courageous hero. Saving the life of an innocent man is far more profound an act of justice than any act of bribery or political misconduct in office can be considered an act of injustice. We don't care what happened with taxes and driver's licenses in Illinois. We care about saving the lives of these innocent and wrongfully convicted men.

It is better than 100 guilty men go free than for one innocent man to be put to death. In 1895, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a decision in the case Coffin v. United States, traced this principle past England, Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, to Deuteronomy.

Here, no guilty person is going free. A few sentences will be shortened as is appropriate in those cases. The remaining sentences except for those four pardoned yesterday, are being commuted to life in prison, without. This is fair and this is just.

We purposefully wrote our last post of 2002 on this issue and the 428 legal scholars who wrote Governor Ryan to advise him that granting blanket clemency is legally supportable by precedent and valid.

Rob Warden, director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University, put it this way: "Isn't it better that we let 10 absolutely guilty men who committed horrible crimes spend the rest of their lives in prison, rather than risk one, a single execution of an innocent person?"

We are going to watch the conference live and will report back later. Please make a few minutes to stop by The Innocent Project, The Death Penalty Infomation Center and Stop Capital Punishment.Org and familiarize yourelves with the facts before criticizing Governor Ryan's noble action. To read our past posts on this issue, click on our " Death Penalty", " Innocence Cases" and " Inmates and Prisons" archives.

Here is a timeline of Governor Ryan's efforts to reform the death penalty system in Illinois.

Here are the guidelines for executive clemency in Illinois.

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