The United States and India have signed a non-extradition pact, promising not to turn over each others' citizens to a third country or to an international tribunal. UPI reports:

"The two nations have agreed to stand by each other if a third country or an international tribunal seeks the extradition of the other's nationals to be tried in multilateral forums such as the International Criminal Court and International Court of Justice. Neither will surrender people of the other country to any international tribunal without the other country's express consent."

This sounds like a purely manipulative gesture to try and defeat the power of the International Criminal Court--had we signed on to the Rome Statute, we'd be in there with the other 139 countries right now, making up the rules. Instead we're left out. The Court will go on without us or our input. We were ambivalent about the ICC in the beginning, but last year we had a chance to review the draft guidelines under consideration, and heard a panel of military and international law professors and experts dissect and debate it, and we changed our mind. Here is the list of countries that are part of the Court.

From the overview section of the ICC's website:

An international criminal court has been called the missing link in the international legal system. The International Court of Justice at The Hague handles only cases between States, not individuals. Without an international criminal court for dealing with individual responsibility as an enforcement mechanism, acts of genocide and egregious violations of human rights often go unpunished. In the last 50 years, there have been many instances of crimes against humanity and war crimes for which no individuals have been held accountable. In Cambodia in the 1970s, an estimated 2 million people were killed by the Khmer Rouge. In armed conflicts in Mozambique, Liberia, El Salvador and other countries, there has been tremendous loss of civilian life, including horrifying numbers of unarmed women and children. Massacres of civilians continue in Algeria and the Great Lakes region of Africa.

The Judgment of the Nürnberg Tribunal stated that "crimes against international law are committed by men, not by abstract entities, and only by punishing individuals who commit such crimes can the provisions of international law be enforced" -- establishing the principle of individual criminal accountability for all who commit such acts as a cornerstone of international criminal law. According to the Draft Code of Crimes against the Peace and Security of Mankind, completed in 1996 by the International Law Commission at the request of the General Assembly, this principle applies equally and without exception to any individual throughout the governmental hierarchy or military chain of command. And the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the United Nations in 1948 recognizes that the crime of genocide may be committed by constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.

In situations such as those involving ethnic conflict, violence begets further violence; one slaughter is the parent of the next. The guarantee that at least some perpetrators of war crimes or genocide may be brought to justice acts as a deterrent and enhances the possibility of bringing a conflict to an end. Two ad hoc international criminal tribunals, one for the former Yugoslavia and another for Rwanda, were created in this decade with the hope of hastening the end of the violence and preventing its recurrence.

Most perpetrators of war crimes and crimes against humanity throughout history have gone unpunished. In spite of the military tribunals following the Second World War and the two recent ad hoc international criminal tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and for Rwanda, the same holds true for the twentieth century. That being said, it is reasonable to conclude that most perpetrators of such atrocities have believed that their crimes would go unpunished. Effective deterrence is a primary objective of those working to establish the international criminal court. Once it is clear that the international community will no longer tolerate such monstrous acts without assigning responsibility and meting outappropriate punishment -- to heads of State and commanding officers as well as to the lowliest soldiers in the field or militia recruits -- it is hoped that those who would incite a genocide; embark on a campaign of ethnic cleansing; murder, rape and brutalize civilians caught in an armed conflict; or use children for barbarous medical experiments will no longer find willing helpers.

What a chilling thought:Expecting a Vacancy, Bush Aides Weigh Supreme Court Contenders.

Bush aides already are having discussions about replacements for Chief Justice Rehnquist in the event he retires at the end of this term. They are also preparing for the possibility of more than one vacancy: John Paul Stevens is 82, Chief Justice Rehnquist is 78, and Justice O'Connor is 72.

Who's on deck right now?

In almost all of the possibilities, officials said, Alberto R. Gonzales, the White House counsel and a longtime legal adviser to Mr. Bush from Texas, would be a candidate. Mr. Gonzales would be the first Hispanic member of the Supreme Court. Mr. Bush's top aides, notably Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, are described as keenly aware that this would provide a political bonus for both him and the Republican Party, which has been aggressively courting Hispanic voters. "I don't think there's any question the president would turn to him," said a senior administration official who knew details of the informal but high-level discussions.

Also under discussion is Judge J. Harvie Wilkinson III, the chief judge of the very conservative 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, based in Richmond, Va., and Judge Samuel A. Alito Jr., a federal appeals court judge in Newark, who used to clerk for Scalia and is referred to as "Scalito." Here are some of the other possibilities:

Judge J. Michael Luttig who also sits on the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit and Justice Janice Rogers Brown of the California Supreme Court. Justice Brown, a black woman, wrote the majority opinion in 2000 interpreting the state's referendum against affirmative action in a way that delighted conservatives. Another candidate is Judge Edith H. Jones of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans who is noted for sharp conservative opinions. ....Also mentioned has been Larry D. Thompson, the deputy attorney general, who would give the court two black members.

Packing the Supreme Court with conservatives will be one of Bush's longest lasting legacies. The judicial and criminal justice systems will change markedly. Protections we have taken for granted since childhood will disappear.

There will be no reason for every child over the age of 9 to be able to recite Miranda warnings or know a cop has to have a warrant if they want to come in the house or search. They won't know these things because they won't have seen them a hundred times on tv on the cop shows. They won't be referred to on the cop shows since there won't be any more Miranda or 4th Amendment rights to speak of--the exceptions to these principles will become the rule. Exigent circumstances, good-fath exceptions, the inevitable discovery doctrine, just wait till you see what they will think of next.

Since the Justices are appointed for life, we fear we won't see the pendulum swing back again in our lifetimes. What a legacy to leave our children.

If there is one reason not to back a third party candidate who can't possibly win over a Democrat who can, this is surely it.

"After spending four years in prison for allegedly sexually abusing his children, a Leesburg, Va., attorney was acquitted of the charges this month in what may be Virginia's first case in which the susceptibility of children to suggestion played a major role."

Atrios informs us that Susan McDougal has written a book on why she wouldn't talk in the Whitewater case and on her treatment in jail. We've heard her speak on these topics a few times in recent years, and we still keep our "Free Susan McDougal" button on prominent display.

"At 47, her life is now dedicated to raising awareness about the plight of women in prison, an issue that became dear to her after hearing the stories of the women who shared her various cellblocks. She travels around the country giving speeches on the issue, visiting prisons."

Atrios has posted the quotes from the article on the details of her prison life.

The business section of today's New York Times has an article on Ashcroft's directive to the Bureau of Prisons that white collar offenders with short sentences must serve their time in federal prison, not half-way houses. For the past decade, the BOP has been allowing such offenders to go directly to a halfway house.

"In a memorandum last week to Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, the director of the Bureau of Prisons, Mr. Ashcroft said that the practice violated federal sentencing laws that require imprisonment and that it offered favorable treatment to white-collar criminals. The directive from the attorney general was first reported by Newsweek."

Because of Ashcroft's new policy, about 125 white collar offenders now in halfway houses will return to federal prisons.

The New York Times article also addresses in detail the proposed sentencing guideline changes for white collar offenders under the newly enacted Sarbanes-Oxley Act --changes with which the Justice Department is not happy.

When a law is enacted that increases penalties, the U.S. Sentencing Commission is directed to draw up new sentencing guidelines. They send them out for public comment. Then they vote on them. After that, unless Congress affirmatively takes action, the new guidelines automatically become law.

The Commission promulgated new guidelines on the Sarbanes-Oxley Act and sent them out for comment. In two weeks, the Commission will vote on them. The Justice Department strongly objects to the proposed guidelines because they are not tough enough for low level fraud offenders. The two agencies have been feuding for months over this issue.

"Justice Department officials said in recent interviews that they plan to broaden their corporate investigations to focus more intensely on the professional "gatekeepers" - lawyers, accountants and others - who may have facilitated frauds."

Maybe now that Aschroft's actions are going to affect some prospersous people, some of whom undoubtedly must have "connections", we'll hear louder protests of Ashcroft and his brand of non-compassionate conservatism.

The Governor of Michigan is expected to sign legislation next week ending most mandatory minimum penalties for drug offenses. The legislation consists of three bills, which had wide bipartisan support and the support of Michigan prosecutors.

Michigan's laws are among the strictist in the country. "Someone possessing 50 to 224 grams of narcotics or cocaine in Michigan must be sentenced to at least 10 years and up to 20 years in prison. The bills would eliminate the 10-year minimum, allowing the judge to sentence an offender for any time up to 20 years."

Under the new law, drug offenders would become eligible for early. The final decision will be up to the board, but drug offenders have the highest rate of in Michigan--72%. Here is the fact sheet o n the new laws.

Possession of over 650 grams of cocaine in Michigan until a few years ago used to carry a mandatory life sentence. That's a little over a pound. As of July, 1998, 225 inmates were serving life terms under this statute.

For more details on the Michigan changes, and on the evils of mandatory sentencing in general, we recommend you visit -- FAMM--Families Against Mandatory Minimums. They have worked the hardest to overturn these draconian laws. Here is their update on Michigan.

At what point do U.S. officials holding foreign detainees and prisoners cross the line between acceptable interrogation techniques and torture? It seems to us that the U.S. is operating under an "end justifies the means" philosophy--trying to justify tactics that anyone with an ounce of humanity would know amount to torture--under the rubric that the terrorist threat to Americans is so potentially catastrophic that such treatment is necessary.

We're not buying into the argument. We find these tactics to be a gross violation of human rights. They are also dangerous to our own servicemen and women: If we treat the citizens of other countries this way, why won't these other countries retaliate with similar or harsher treatment when they capture members of our military?

Quoting from today's Washington Post article, U.S. Decries Abuse But Defends Interrogations :

"Those who refuse to cooperate inside this secret CIA interrogation center are sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles, according to intelligence specialists familiar with CIA interrogation methods. At times they are held in awkward, painful positions and deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights -- subject to what are known as "stress and duress" techniques. Those who cooperate are rewarded with creature comforts, interrogators whose methods include feigned friendship, respect, cultural sensitivity and, in some cases, money. Some who do not cooperate are turned over -- "rendered," in official parlance -- to foreign intelligence services whose practice of torture has been documented by the U.S. government and human rights organizations."

The Bush Administration has been non-forthcoming about how it interrogates its prisoners. "But interviews with several former intelligence officials and 10 current U.S. national security officials -- including several people who witnessed the handling of prisoners -- provide insight into how the U.S. government is prosecuting this part of the war."

"The picture that emerges is of a brass-knuckled quest for information, often in concert with allies of dubious human rights reputation, in which the traditional lines between right and wrong, legal and inhumane, are evolving and blurred."

"While the U.S. government publicly denounces the use of torture, each of the current national security officials interviewed for this article defended the use of violence against captives as just and necessary. They expressed confidence that the American public would back their view. The CIA, which has primary responsibility for interrogations, declined to comment."

"If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job," said one official who has supervised the capture and transfer of accused terrorists."

We aren't talking about Guantanamo Bay here. "In contrast to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay, where military lawyers, news reporters and the Red Cross received occasional access to monitor prisoner conditions and treatment, the CIA's overseas interrogation facilities are off-limits to outsiders, and often even to other government agencies. In addition to Bagram and Diego Garcia, the CIA has other secret detention centers overseas, and often uses the facilities of foreign intelligence services."

"Free from the scrutiny of military lawyers steeped in the international laws of war, the CIA and its intelligence service allies have the leeway to exert physically and psychologically aggressive techniques, said national security officials and U.S. and European intelligence officers." Like sending prisoners to countries where torture will be inflicted. Like sleep deprivation, which even the U.S. Department has acknowledged is torture.

"The U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, the authoritative interpreter of the international Convention Against Torture, has ruled that lengthy interrogation may incidentally and legitimately cost a prisoner sleep. But when employed for the purpose of breaking a prisoner's will, sleep deprivation "may in some cases constitute torture."

"The State Department's annual human rights report routinely denounces sleep deprivation as an interrogation method. In its 2001 report on Turkey, Israel and Jordan, all U.S. allies, the department listed sleep deprivation among often-used alleged torture techniques."

We really encourage you to read the whole article--we take great issue with national security officials who say the American public would back their techniques. Kharma. What goes around comes around.

"Three Silicon Valley professionals, among hundreds of men arrested statewide last week when they showed up at immigration offices to be fingerprinted and photographed as part of a new homeland security program, were released from a San Diego jail for a Christmas Eve family reunion. "

"They were shackled with 10 other Bay Area men and detained in San Diego in what they described as a packed immigration detention center, about 12 men to a cell. The men said that they had slept little during two days at the center, where they were processed and interviewed, but that conditions had improved when they were transferred to a roomier jail."

"It was horrifying," Ziazadeh said Tuesday after he and the other two men landed at Mineta San Jose International Airport. "

They also said the INS officials and prison guards were both rough and rude. Here are some of the details and our thoughts on the class action lawsuit filed against the INS and Justice by groups reresenting the arrestees.

Tonight or tomorrow morning marks the sixth anniversary of the death of JonBenet Ramsey in Boulder. Her murderer has never been found. Whoever it is, he/she/they are walking the streets somewhere, free to strike again.

The District Attorney in Boulder made the decision to take over the investigaton this week and put it back on active status. This is a political matter, as the DA is essentially cutting the Boulder Police Department out of the loop. This is not to say that there won't be in some communciation between the two, and relations between the two offices are reportedly much better now that DA Alex Hunter is out of office. But the Boulder Police have acknowledged they are no longer running the show.

The Ramseys are thrilled that DA Keenan is in charge of the new investigation and will be using experienced homicide investigators like Lou Smit, who resigned from the earlier investigation because he said the police were ignoring leads that led elsewhere than to the parents.

While the Ramseys have not been excluded as suspects in the new investigation, they also will not be the focus. And that is what is good about Mary Keenan's office taking over: those involved will start on a clean slate, rehash all the evidence and follow up on leads the police neglected. They will let the evidence lead them to suspects rather than the other way around.

Is it too late? We don't think so. There was DNA found in JonBenets underwear that doesn't match the parents. While the police tried to spin this into a "so what" kind of thing by sending the underpants for testing to Southeast Asia where they were manufactured to prove there could be an innocent explanation for the DNA--such as someone who packaged the underpants at the factory--it didn't work. First off, the DNA in the underwear was right next to a spot of blood. Did a factory worker leave that too? Why didn't they send the foreign DNA to the FBI's Databank? We hope that gets done now.

Also, while the DNA under JonBenet's fingernails has long been claimed by the police to be compromised and not valuable, there are reports that genetic markers from that DNA are similar to those in the underpants. Again, the parents have been excluded as being the source of this DNA.

This was the Boulder Police's first serious homicide investigation in years. The Police Chief, Tom Koby, had never worked on a homicide investigation. Commander Eller who was initially in charge of the investigation had no homicide investigation experience. Detective Steve Thomas, who consistently expressed his belief the Ramseys were guilty on television and in a book (and who later settled a libel suit brought by the Ramseys for an undisclosed sum to be paid the Ramseys by his publisher), had been a narcotics cop until the day before Jonbenet's funeral. In other words, the Boulder police department in December of 1996 simply did not have the necessary experience to conduct an intensive homicide investigation. Yet, instead of calling for help or accepting help from nearby Denver or from the FBI, the Boulder Police decided to go it alone.

The Boulder police botched the crime scene, and within days made up their minds that it had to be the parents. Then the law enforcement leaks began--most of them untrue--resulting in a mass barrage of media myths. We cannot recall a similar case in which parents of a murdered child have been so excoriated by the press based on rumor, speculation and innuendo.

We began the Jonbenet Ramsey Media Un-Lynch Mob Page on our sister site CrimeLynx i n 1999. We have more or less kept it updated since then, moving items into archives at the end of each year. We have chronicled the 2002 events in the case on another site of our's, Crimes'R Us - the Legal Side of Crimes in the News, in which we highlight a select group of cases that seem to catch the public's attention.

We have been highly critical of the Boulder police in the past--and generally had praise for the Boulder DA's office. We still feel the same way, and will continue to report on developments as they arise. We share the Ramseys' hope that this will be an open-minded and impartial investigation.

[edited to reflect that it was the Boulder Police Department's first serious homicide investigation in years, not the first homicide, as we initially said and as noted by Walter in the Comments section. Thanks, Walter. Our point is the same: The Boulder police should have allowed more experienced homicide investigators, such as those from Denver or the FBI to work with them from the very beginning.)

A class action has been filed in federal court in Los Angeles by Arab and Muslim groups against Ashcroft and the INS over last week's arrest and detention of over 1,000 Middle-Eastern men who went to register in accordance with a new government regulation.

"Local immigration lawyers estimated last week that 1,000 men and boys were detained in standing-room-only centers and forced to sleep on concrete floors, under a system designed to track potential terrorists but that instead locked up many caught in the lengthy process for obtaining permanent residence.

The lead attorney for the detainees is Peter Schey, president of the Los Angeles-based Center for Human Rights and Constitutional Law. Schey said mass registration was irrational because "no undocumented terrorist will come forward."

Schey said the lawsuit was not about resisting registration but about the way it was being implemented. "The program is being used as a scam to lure people into INS offices supposedly to register, when what they really face is arrest, detention and even deportation despite their pending petitions to legalize their status which the INS refuses to process," he said."

Since the new registration requirement applies to males age 16 and older, several teens were among those locked up on visa issues. We wrote about them here, and our problems with the registration program and the mass arrests here.

What's next? Rounding non-Americans up and putting them into camps? Remember all those new beds the Government is building at Guantamo? Who's going to fill them? The Government's answer is "enemy-combatants." But remember, under Bush, Ashcroft and Rumsfeld's plan, they get to choose who the enemy combatents are, they get to hold them in secret without access to lawyers and they claim their decisions are not reviewable by our courts.

At what point will people join to speak out against this unprecedented executive power grab? The class action suit by Muslim and Arab Americans is a good first step, but we need the American public to join behind them and offer support. Today it's their liberty rights being impinged upon. Next year it could be your's or your child's. Then what?

Update: Matt Yglesias on this topic today:

"Everyone ought to consider the fact that there's a quite real chance that in the not-too-distant future we'll see another terrorist attack with thousands of casualties. Maybe next time around the killers will know not to blow up an office building until late enough in the day that it's full. Or maybe there'll be a WMD attack killing not thousands, but tens or even hundreds of thousands."

"I bring this up both to remind people that the government is getting paranoid about security with good reason, but also to remind you that the level of terrorism-related panic could get much higher in the future and with it could come popular support for really and truly repressive measures. A person's going to have no standing whatsoever to make the case against something like, say, the wholesale internment of America's Arab population if he's been spending the past two years running around screaming "the sky is falling" every time the government says Arab immigrants are worthy of more scrutiny than other immigrants."

The "winners" of the Best of the Notable Quotables of 2002 awards have been announced.

For those unfamiliar with these awards, they are awards by conservative journalists, through the auspices of the Media Research Center, for the worst reporting by liberals during the year. The list of Judges includes the she-pundit-with-blond-hair-who- hails-from-Connecticut-and-writes-books. See if you can make it through the whole list of judges without wincing.

This is the 15th year of the awards. We are proud to say that we won one of these awards in 1999 for comments made during a MSNBC interview with anchor Gregg Jarrett about Hillary Clinton and Rudy Guiliani during their antagonistic Senate campaign. Runners-up in our category included Larry King, Sam Donaldson and Dan Rather. We still haven't figured out what was objectionable about the exchange--so we thought we'd reprint it here. (you can watch the actual ten second video here):

Politics of Meaninglessness Award for the Silliest Analysis

Rudy Giuliani joking on the Late Show about running for the Senate from Arkansas: "I?ve never lived here. I?ve never worked here. I ain?t never been here. But I think it would be cool to be your Senator."

Jeralyn Merritt, MSNBC legal analyst: "That?s just so unfair."

MSNBC anchor Gregg Jarrett: "It?s ugly."

Merritt: "It?s ugly and it?s unfair because she has spent a lot of time in New York and she has the desire to help and she is bright. She?s the best of the group."

-- Exchange on MSNBC?s InterNight, June 25.

We'd say the same thing again, and actually, we hope to in 2008.

A federal judge in Washington has ordered an ethics probe of six Justice Department attorneys in a lawsuit over billions of dollars claimed to be due Native Americans.

"A federal judge this week ordered a court ethics panel to investigate six Justice Department attorneys for their conduct in a landmark class-action suit against the government that seeks billions of dollars and was filed on behalf of more than 300,000 Native Americans."

"In a stinging 20-page opinion, U.S. District Judge Royce C. Lamberth also blocked the Interior and Justice departments from continuing to send mass mailings to the Indian plaintiffs that include a provision that would terminate the Indians' rights to claim damages, even as the lawsuit continues."

"Lamberth has already held three Cabinet officials in contempt of court for their failures in Indian trust fund reform, including Interior Secretary Gale A. Norton."

We read a great article a few months ago about the lawyer for the Native Americans. We'll try to find it and post the link to it.