South Africa has agreed to extradite former SLA member and long time South Africa resident and teacher James Kilgore to the U.S. to answer to charges of murder and bank robbery pending in California. Kilgore has been a fugitive for some 27 years.

Four of the other charged former SLA (Symbionese Liberation Army) members, including Sara Jane Olson, formerly Kathleen Soliah, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of second-degree murder in the bank-robbery case. The plea bargain avoided possible sentences of life in prison, if they were convicted at trial.They will be sentenced in February and are expected to receive six to eight year prison terms.

"The same deal was offered to Kilgore, 55, who admitted his true identity and did not resist arrest. His lawyer, Michael Evans, said last month Kilgore had agreed to a plea bargain on the murder and robbery charges."

A spokesperson for Justice Minister Penuell Maduna said the deal was a key factor in agreeing to the extradition.

Update on our post about an Oregon judge invalidating a gargage search under the Oregon state constitution: (from the comments section of the post):

"Knowing this particular officer, and as a Medically Retired Officer from the same Bureau, I am very glad that Judge Maurer made the correct decision in this case."

"What wasn't printed in this article, nor in any others was the fact that the police actually "stole" her garbage can from her own property, NOT from the public right of way. The Drugs and Vice Officers that testified during the pre-trial motion hearing not only contradicted each other, but they contradicted themselves!"

"All of the drug tests came back negative. The DNA tests conducted on the "snort" straws proved that Hoesly's DNA was NOT on the straws."

"It's amazing that they can actually obtain a search warrant based on someone's unsubstantiated word, and an illegal garbage pull (of which anyone, including the police, could have planted objects inside)."

The blog is "Statutory Construction Zone" focusing on recent federal statutory-construction cases. Currently, it covers the Supreme Court, D.C. Circuit, Federal Circuit, Second Circuit, and Fourth Circuit. Each installment includes case summaries, quotations from statutory construction treatises, a law review article recommendation, and a pre-1789 English common law trivia question.

Author-Lawyer Gary O'Connor's goal for the blog is to allow people to keep up with current federal statutory-construction case law (what statutes are being construed, which arguments judges are accepting or using, etc.). Gary says that as far as he knows, there are no similar web sites or regular columns in legal publications focusing on current federal statutory-construction cases.

We hope Gary soon adds the circuits where there is a new Bush appointee sitting --like the Tenth Circuit where Michael McConnell is on board--so we can all track their views on statutory construction.

Thanks, Gary for the valuable addition to the legal blogosphere.

Good reading Saturday:

The Selective Conscience by New York Times op-ed columnist Bill Keller.

"Why, aside from their roots in the Vietnam antiwar movement, are human rights activists not more open to the idea that America can use its unmatched muscle for good? In large part because Republican administrations — in truth, Democratic ones as well — have paid human rights little more than lip service, and little even of that."

"The Bush administration's enthusiasm for human rights would be more believable if it were less selectively applied...."

"Finally, promoting freedom abroad will ring a little false as long as the administration is so often, so instinctively, scornful of freedom at home. The automatic recourse to preventive lockup, the lack of confidence in the criminal justice system, the casual regard for privacy and presumption of innocence, the obsessive secrecy — you don't have to be a libertarian to wonder how dearly this administration cherishes the values it promises to export."

The Death of Operation Tips by Nat Hentoff, Village Voice

Reflecting on how little media coverage there was of the provision in the Homeland Security Act that killed Operation Tips.

"Section 880. Prohibition of the Terrorism Information and Prevention System—Any and all activities of the Federal Government to implement the proposed component program of the Citizen Corps known as Operation TIPS (Terrorism Information and Prevention System) are hereby prohibited." (Emphasis added.)

Apparently, Dick Armey was successful in having Tips removed from the House version of the Homeland Security Bill, but Sen. Joseph Leiberman refused Sen. Patrick Leahy's request to remove it from the Senate version. After the bill was passed, Leahy issued this statement, which Hentoff says was ignored by the media:

"I am pleased the bill, in section 880, forbids the creation of Operation TIPS." Leahy noted that originally, the Justice Department had described the operation as "giving millions of American truckers, letter carriers, train conductors, ship captains, utility employees, and others a formal way to report suspicious . . . activity." Or, as the department's Web site put it, "potentially terrorist-related activity."

"If it hadn't been for Dick Armey, Operation TIPS would be well under way. Before the Senate passed the House version of the Homeland Security Bill, I called John Ashcroft's office and asked when the attorney general would honor Armey's principled removal of Operation TIPS from the House bill. I was told cheerily by an Ashcroft spokeswoman that "Operation TIPS is still a law, and we're going right ahead with it."

"Recently, a source inside the Justice Department told me that—contrary to what I originally wrote in this column—Operation TIPS not only wasn't Ashcroft's idea, but he was uncomfortable with the project. Being a team player, he never criticized this national-spying-corps plan publicly."

Hentoff then goes on to praise Ashcroft's prior history as a privacy protector, something we reported on here, although to us, it did not indicate that Ashcroft used to be a civil libertarian so much as he had done a politically expedient flip-flop.

In any event, Hentoff is now justifiably focused on Poindexter and the Total Information Awareness Program.

"Meanwhile, as described by Robert O'Harrow Jr. in the November 12 Washington Post, the emblem in Admiral Poindexter's Total Information Awareness office is a variation on the great seal of the United States: "An eye looms over a pyramid and appears to scan the world. The motto reads: Scientia Est Potentia, or 'knowledge is power.' "

Here are some reactions to Sen. Trent Lott's Apology today.

"In a direct affront to the federal government, the Santa Cruz City Council voted unanimously this week to deputize Mike and Valerie Corral, co-founders of the Wo/Men's Alliance for Medical Marijuana, and authorized them under city law to cultivate, distribute and possess marijuana for medicinal purposes."

"We're just trying to give them a little bit more support and legitimacy," Vice Mayor Scott Kennedy said Thursday. "We don't support drug trafficking. We don't support marijuana. But we do support what they're doing for the terminally ill and terribly suffering."

"Kennedy said the Corrals stand apart from other medical marijuana providers in Santa Cruz because their program has taken greater pains to cater only to the very ill who come bearing recommendations from doctors."

"They're very conscientious, very impressive in terms of their integrity," he said. "They enjoy a high level of confidence, both in the medical and law enforcement community, which can't be said about any of the other medical marijuana distributors."

"But city officials worry most about the patients, Kennedy said, and the possibility that they would be stripped of needed medicinal relief if the dispensary were shut down."

For more about the raid on the Corral's dispensary, go here, here and here.

The Colorado Supreme Court will allow ABC to eavesdrop on Colorado trials.

"The Colorado Supreme Court has granted ABC News unprecedented media access to the workings of Colorado criminal trials, including jury deliberations."

"In the next few months, ABC's "State v." program hopes to begin filming as many as six Colorado criminal cases that will be aired up to a year after juries return their verdicts. "State v." is a television program that offers a behind- the-scenes look at actual criminal cases from trial preparation through the final verdict."

"The state high court has given "State v." permission to go behind the scenes and film testimony, jury reaction, jury deliberations, and discussions of trial strategy by prosecutors and defense attorneys."

All participants appear very excited about this idea--except for Colorado's Public Defender, David Kaplan, who says his office will not participate.

"My bottom line to them was that I did not see the potential benefit to our representation from allowing them to do it. And my gut reaction is if there is a potential to compromise our effective representation, then the rule should be, 'Don't go there,"' Kaplan said.

"He is concerned about the attorney-client privilege that exists between his lawyers and the accused. Lawyers need a relationship with clients and witnesses that maximizes candor and decreases awkwardness, he said."

Admittedly, we haven't seen the predecessor shows, filmed in Arizona, which even Kaplan praises, but we aren't keen on the idea. We laid out our concerns last week on a similar proposal by Frontline to film an entire trial, including jury deliberations, in a capital case in Texas.

The Colorado project will require assent by the defendant as well as his or her lawyer. In addition, prosecutors, victims, jurors and judges will have to agree. We understand why the Court is in favor of it-- for public education purposes--but like Kaplan, we fail to see the benefit to the defense--particularly of allowing camera access to private attorney-client conversations and strategy sessions.

Update: This editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, To Peer Inside the Jury Room, also opposes cameras in the jury room. And don't miss this poignant commentary by a former juror who says cameras in the jury room during the deliberations in his case would have prevented the jury's guilty verdict.

In Why Innocent People Confess , Michael Kinsley explores a connection between plea bargaining and false confessions.

"The emphasis on capital crimes is misleading in a couple of ways, though. Crimes such as murder and rape are amenable to reversal by DNA testing, but there is no reason to assume that wrongful convictions are more common in DNA-friendly crimes than in others. In fact, there is good reason to assume the opposite."

"Murder and rape convictions, especially those with a prospect of capital punishment, generally follow a full-dress trial with all its elaborate rights and protections for the defendant. A false confession under these circumstances is highly unusual and highly suggestive that something improper went on at the police station."

Kinsley says that "for every one criminal conviction that comes after a trial, 19 other cases are settled by plea bargain.... If you're the suspect, sometimes this means agreeing with the prosecutor that you will confess to jaywalking when you're really guilty of armed robbery. Sometimes, though, it means confessing to armed robbery when you're not guilty of anything at all."

Kinsley explains the history of plea bargaining:

"As our official system of justice became larded with more and more protections for the accused, actually going through the process of catching, prosecuting and convicting a criminal the official way became impossibly burdensome. So the government offered the accused a deal: You get a lighter sentence if you save us the trouble of a trial. Or, to put it in a more sinister way: You get a heavier sentence if you insist on asserting your constitutional rights to a trial, to confront your accusers, to privacy from searches without probable cause, to avoid incriminating yourself, etc."

Kinsley compares plea bargaining to an insurance policy: "Plea bargaining is a way of trading the risk of 20 years to life for the certainty of five to seven. But by creating this choice, and ratcheting up the odds to make it nearly irresistible, American justice virtually guarantees that innocent people are being punished."

Kinsley concludes with a look at the Central Park Jogger case and says that unofficial offers of lighter sentences convinced the five youths to confess to the rape which they didn't commit. The catch-22 was that when they went before the board, they got extra time for not confessing to the crime which they didn't commit.

"Constitutional protections like the right against self-incrimination don't apply to hearings, either. You don't have to confess, but extra years of prison are the price if you don't."

Update: The bottom line on plea bargains:

"Everybody knows that the dice are loaded
Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed"

From Leonard Cohen's "Everybody Knows" , also recorded by Don Henley on his Actual Miles album.

Remember Abdallah Higazy? He was the Egyptian student who was falsely accused of possessing an aviation radio in a hotel room overlooking the World Trade Center on Sept. 11. We wrote about Higazy here and here.

Yesterday, Hagazy filed a $20 million lawsuit against an FBI polygraph examiner charging that the FBI agent coerced him into making a false confession by threatening to have the U.S. government contact the Egyptian security services and make his family's life in Egypt a "living hell."

"Higazy, initially detained as a material witness in the terror investigation on Dec. 17, 2001, spent 31 days in solitary confinement. He was freed only after a security guard at the Millennium Hilton Hotel admitted he had lied when he told FBI agents he had found the radio in a locked safe in Higazy's hotel room on the 51st floor. "

"The lie was uncovered when another guest who had been evacuated from the hotel on Sept. 11, an airline pilot, returned to claim his possessions and demanded his radio back. "

Higazy is seeking $10 million in compensatory damages, $10 million in punitive damages, and a public apology.

Canada is moving to decriminalize small amounts of pot. It won't be legal to possess marijuana, but the consequence will be a fine rather than jail. Colorado and many other states have done this for years--e.g., possession of up to an ounce here is a petty offense punishable by a $100 fine.

As Daily Kos points out, the U.S. is miffed.

There is no leniency for hashish or other cannabis-based products in the Canadian proposal. It simply says that for small amounts of pot - including plants cultivated at home - ''fines would be paid without a court appearance and enforcement would not result in a criminal conviction.''

Marijuana is not the gateway drug that anti-drug crusaders have portrayed it to be since the 1930's (Remember the film "Reefer Madness"?) Check out this letter to the editor of the Canadian National Post that states the case for why smoking marijuana should not be a crime. It concludes with:

"Pot decriminalization has long been seen as a liberal cause: Left-wingers have traditionally opposed government efforts to outlaw good times. But conservatives should get on the bandwagon as well. Our marijuana laws represent an entirely unjustified government intrusion into citizens' lives. About 20,000 people are arrested annually on marijuana-related charges. The investigation, arrest, trial and punishment of this small army represents a massive, unjustifiable waste of our tax dollars."

Between the cost of the electronic surveillance the government has foisted upon us with the Patriot Act, the cost of investigating, prosecuting and incarcerating non-violent drug offenders and the expense of initiating an invasion of Iraq, is it any wonder the economy stinks, stocks are down and state and local governments are cutting vital services and programs to balance their budgets?

Let's forego the privacy-instrusions, unhire all those new prosecutors (at $100k plus, per year) who were going to prosecute those caught on tape for routine crimes and all the new FBI agents who were going to spend thousands of hours including overtime listening to our private conversations. Let's stop enforcing our draconian drug laws (we're not naive enough to think changing them is going to happen any time soon, although we'll keep working on it.) Let's skip the preventive assault on the citizens of Iraq. Let's go back to taxing those who can afford to pay. While we're at it, how about the money we're paying to keep detainees who haven't committed a crime in jails under Special Administrative Measures? How much does it cost per prisoner per day for SAM? (It's about $22,000. per year per inmate in jails under normal conditions).

We're no economist, but we are getting alarmed over where the money is going to come from that the Bush Administration is spending on its own agenda in the name of fighting terrorism and homeland security and patriotism. Will we end up like Argentina did last year, broke and defaulting on our obligations? Laugh now, but how can you be sure?

Update: Back to Canada and marijuana, this came in tonight from NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws):

"[Therefore,] the Committee recommends that [Parliament] establish a comprehensive strategy for decriminalizing the possession and cultivation of not more than 30 grams of cannabis for personal use."

"Under the Committee's decriminalization scheme, persons found with small amounts of pot would be issued a ticket, and ordered to pay a small fine. Marijuana offenders would no longer be subject to arrest or a criminal record under the plan, and fines could be paid without appearing in court."

"NORML Executive Director Keith Stroup endorsed the Committee's recommendation, noting that 12 U.S. states have enacted similar policies. Seventy-two percent of Americans say they would support a similar national decriminalization policy in the United States, according to a recent CNN/Time Magazine poll."

"The American public recognizes that adults who smoke marijuana responsibly are not criminals and they do not want to spend our nation's limited police resources arresting and jailing them," Stroup said. "Canada's impending decision to decriminalize pot is one our federal government will not be able to ignore."

"In an unusual move that keeps a capital murder case on hold, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Wednesday announced it will review whether a camera should be allowed to record jury deliberations in a Harris County death penalty case."

"The step means some legal ruling may be warranted in an unprecedented move by state District Judge Ted Poe to allow PBS' Frontline to record all aspects of 17-year-old Cedric Harrison's capital murder trial in Houston, from jury selection to deliberations."

"Usually the state's court of last resort in criminal cases does not intervene in a trial. The court typically reserves its rulings for appeals after a verdict has been rendered. "

The taping would be for a Frontline show. See our prior post with background on this case and our feelings on cameras in the deliberation room.

Ted Barlow traces Pat Buchanan's holocaust denial roots and wonders how he can be a celebrity journalist.

Is it too simplistic to say that if we spread the word, people will change the channel when he appears on their tv screen, his ratings will plummet and the networks will cease to showcase him, based on economics rather than principles? Or will there always be enough viewers cheering him on, in which case we are stuck with him?