This is in technical terms, and will probably make all non-lawyer readers snore, so we apologize in advance, but we think it's important news for the criminal defense community and journalists who cover this beat, and this is the fastest way we know to get it out.

The following is taken verbatim from our Sentencing Guidelines Guru, Carmen Hernandez, Attorney-Advisor for the Defender Services Division Training Branch of the Federal Defenders Organization:

Fresh off its win in the Hamdi case, the "Bush administration asked a federal judge in New York last night to reverse his decision allowing a Jose Padilla, the man suspected in a plot to detonate a radioactive bomb, access to a lawyer to challenge his detention as an enemy combatant."

"In a new court filing, the government disclosed that Mr. Padilla has been under interrogation by military personnel for several months. The government said letting a lawyer into the process "would threaten permanently to undermine the military's efforts to develop a relationship of trust and dependency that is essential to effective interrogation." That could "set back his interrogations by months, if not derail the process permanently."

This is what we mean when we say, with respect to constitutional rights, give them an inch and they'll take a mile.

Atrios is right, Jesse over at Pandagon is priceless today. Our favorite lines:

"I know next to nothing about law enforcement, but I know enough to not wag my tail when someone's got a gun pointed at me."

"Those without faith in law enforcement, namely liberals, will point to this as an abuse of power, yet I ask - what if that dog had gone on to injure someone? Who knows what information the police had.

"I'm sure we've all watched the hit series "The Shield". The cop on the show is abusive, but he gets the job done.

Great work Jesse!

Our congratulations to Law Professor Glenn Reynolds, best known to blog readers as Instapundit, who just received a Chair at the University of Tennessee law school. He is now the "Brogan Distinguished Professor of Law."

Via Media Whores Online, "Most Americans believe that between 1 and 5 million people live in poverty in the United States when the actual number is nearly 33 million," according to results of the national "Poverty Pulse" survey released this week by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development (CCHD).

Although it's still early, our vote for editorial of the day goes to the Virginia Pilot for Liberty in Limbo in the Norfolk Brig, and its sharp rebuke of the decision of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals in the Yaser Hamdi case:

Americans who fear government abuse of power should be concerned by the constitutional no man's land in which Yaser Esam Hamdi finds himself. A three-judge panel of the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Wednesday that the government can hold indefinitely a U.S. citizen arrested overseas in wartime, without any constitutional protections, if the military merely declares him an ``enemy combatant....''

The Richmond-based panel included possible Supreme Court nominee J. Harvie Wilkinson III. It said that because the Constitution empowers the executive branch to wage war, the judiciary must defer to the military when cases like Hamdi's arise..... (emphasis is our's)

As justification to jail Hamdi indefinitely, the government relied on a meager two-page statement from a mid-level Defense Department appointee not even present at Hamdi's capture. Hamdi has not seen -- and now cannot see -- the evidence against him. Nor will he be allowed a chance to present his version of the facts, or even contest that he was an enemy combatant in the first place....

In this ill-defined, undeclared war, some of our freedoms will likely be sacrificed to ensure our collective security. But Americans have always been able to look to the courts for reason, fairness and defense of liberties. With this decision, the judiciary has abdicated its duty to act as a check on executive branch power in wartime. File this away: The government can now label someone an enemy combatant, imprison him indefinitely and never have to defend or justify the accusation.

Update: Best of the Blogs (The Daily Dish Digest) picks up on this Pilot editorial, and about “possible Supreme Court nominee J. Harvie Wilkinson III, asks, ”Would a sitting judge sell out his country’s hard-earned freedoms and whore himself for a chance to play the Big Room? You bet your ass, Red Ryder."

Deathwork: Defending the Condemned by Michael Mello

Buy the Book Today!

"Legal cases are stories, and some of the most compelling -- and the most disturbing -- are those that take place on death row: the innocent man executed, juveniles and the mentally ill condemned to die, a smoking electric chair, a napping defense attorney, a senile hit man."

"These are the stories in which Michael Mello, as a capital public defender, played a crucial role, and they are the cases that make up Deathwork, a moment-by-moment, behind-the-scenes look at the life and work of a death row lawyer and his clients."

"Part memoir, part legal casebook, Deathwork offers a gritty, often anguishing picture of what Supreme Court Justice Harry Blackmun called the American legal "machinery of death." The stories Mello tells raise questions about legal issues-from prosecutorial misconduct to the racial inequities of sentencing, from the rules of evidence to the rights of the mentally ill -- that here take on a life-and-death urgency. They describe in detail how constitutional issues are raised postconviction, and how those issues are adjudicated by the courts and in accordance with bizarre claims of objectivity."

"And they show, with a painful immediacy and authenticity, what it is like to live and work under an impending death sentence, the adrenaline rush of the stay or unexpected success, the inconsolable sadness upon the execution of the sick, the afflicted, the innocent."

The paperback is $13.97, compared with $54.95 for the hard cover. And Amazon only has five paperbacks left. Need we say more?

Mexico filed suit Thursday 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.

The Court has tentatively scheduled a hearing for January 20th to consider Mexico's request for provisional measures.

Mexico issued a press release about this today, in Spanish, we're looking for an English copy.

Joe Conason gets the goods on Bush Judicial Re-nominee Charles Pickering. Atrios has a lot more--we hope Atrios will lock onto this story the way he did with Trent Lott--we want him to have the same success.

Don't forget that Bush Re-Nominee Priscilla Owens needs to be rejected as well-- here are our reasons why.

Chicago Tribune Columnist Eric Zorn says that Illinois Governor George Ryan's sincerity is hard to doubt if you do the math.

Any political strategist who suggests that Ryan could reverse his fortunes by crusading against the death penalty will be fired for incompetence. Even supposing that Ryan doesn't care one way or the other about the death penalty, it looks like the absolutely wrong issue on which to launch a comeback, persuade the law to go easy on him and get reporters to stop writing so much about his sleazy past.

Zorn notes Ryan's popularity has dwindled, articles about his alleged misdeeds and the indictments of those in his Administration have multiplied, most people support the death penalty making it an unpopular issue to begin with, even support for Ryan's moratorium has declined. So what gives? What's really motivating Ryan?

That Ryan stayed the course anyway suggests three possibilities. One, he is insane. Two, he has a political and legal death wish. Or three, he really is profoundly, morally troubled at the idea of giving the power to kill to an arbitrary, error-prone system presided over by officials who can't admit when they're wrong and are stubbornly resistant to reform.

Never mind what he says or what his supporters and detractors say. Never mind the promise of international plaudits, the slough of troubles he will wade into when he leaves office Monday or the cohort of chortling cronies he will leave behind in their soft new state jobs.

To see George Ryan's heart on the death penalty, look at the numbers.

We're behind door number three.

Via Daily Kos, who found these numbers from Zogby's latest poll so astounding he blogged while on hiatus:

"Slightly more than one in three voters (35%) say they would vote to re-elect President Bush regardless of who he runs against, compared to 56% who would not vote to re-elect Bush regardless of who he runs against."

"Results also show that voters believe Democrats over Republicans are the party better able to handle jobs/economy (Democrats 43%, Republicans 36%), healthcare (Democrats 47%, Republicans 32%), the environment (Democrats 55%, Republicans 28%), and traditional values like tolerance (Democrats 45%, Republicans 30%)."

On Jan. 7, 2003, Rep. John Conyers and 20 co-sponsors introduced the Restoration of Fairness in Immigration Act in the House of Representatives. This "Fix '96" legislation amends the Immigration and Nationality Act with respect to due process in immigration proceedings, including due process in expedited removal proceedings, judicial review in immigration proceedings, and detention proceedings and detention alternatives. The bill is a repeat of H.R. 3894, which Rep. Conyers introduced last year.

We'd like to see it passed this year, so we are spreading the word. We'll have more details soon. Thanks to Kyle O'Dowd, Legislative director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) for passing this info on to us.