The New York Times begins a series on 2004 presidential prospects with a profile on John Kerry of Massachussetts. The Times describes Kerry as "a three-term United States senator with a résumé steeped in foreign affairs. He is a decorated Vietnam War veteran who later became an antiwar leader. He is an articulate, telegenic and wealthy candidate known to savor a fight on the political field."

There is a New Breed of Patriots speaking up against the Patriot Act. Grass-roots efforts to rein in the anti-terrorist USA Patriot Act are gaining support in Eugene, Ore., Ann Arbor, MI, Denver and other cities. We wrote about this back in July when there were seven cities that had passed resolutions opposing aspects of the Act. Now, at least 21 cities have passed such resolutions.

If you don't mind legalese, you can read the full text of the Act here, courtesy of EPIC, the Electronic Privacy Information Center .

If you would like to read a section by section analysis of the Act with some critical commentary, you can pay $19 to Lexis and order the book we co-authored on the Act. It's called "The Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USA PATRIOT ACT) Act of 2001: An Analysis" by Stanley Mailman, Jeralyn E. Merritt, Theresa M. B. Van Vliet, and Stephen Yale-Loehr. Book Description and On-Line Order Form . Unfortunately, we don't get royalties or commissions.

Bottom Line: A better name for the Patriot Act would be the Anti-American Act.

skippy and Lisa of Ruminate this do their usual bang-up job of blogging around this weekend so that those who were off-line the past few days know where to go to catch up. Thanks to both of them.

Very little has been written this week about the death of former West Virginia chemist and expert witness Fred Zain whose perjured testimony was responsible for putting hundreds in jail and even on death row. When Experts Lie tells his story well and links to the official investigative report on his despicable actions.

Finally indicted, his trial was postponed indefinitely due to his having been diagnosed with cancer. He died last week at the age of 52.

He got to spend his final days at liberty. His victims, wrongfully accused defendants, spent years in jail because of his fraud upon the courts.

Goodbye, Mr. Zain.

Update: We found this December 4th obituary in Newsday (Associated Press). We don't have a live link to it, but it is also available on Lexis ($).

"OBITUARIES / Fred Zain, 52, Discredited W.Va. Police Chemist

Charleston, W.Va. - Fred Zain, a former West Virginia State Police chemist whose discredited work resulted in the payment of millions of dollars to wrongfully convicted defendants, has died at age 52.

Zain, head of the state police chemistry lab from 1986-89, died Monday at his home in Ormond Beach, Fla., his lawyer, Tom Smith of Charleston, said yesterday. Zain was suffering from colon cancer.

Prosecutors said Zain lied on the witness stand and faked test results, and thus accepted his fees and salary under false pretenses.

Last year, a West Virginia jury was unable to reach a verdict on four counts of obtaining money under false pretenses. Three of the charges dealt with expert witness payments Zain received after he left the state in 1989. He was to have been retried in July, but the trial was delayed indefinitely because of his cancer.

Besides the expense of investigating and prosecuting Zain, and retrying cases related to him, West Virginia has paid at least $6.5 million to settle lawsuits by wrongfully convicted defendants.

No one knows precisely how many convictions resulted from Zain's testimony, or how many people are still imprisoned in West Virginia, Texas and other states where he served as a consultant.

A West Virginia State Police investigation identified as many as 182 cases that might have been affected by Zain's work.

In a 1997 interview in Texas, Zain said he had been made a "scapegoat" by political forces in West Virginia and Texas.

Zain worked as a state police chemist from 1979 until 1989, when he took a similar job in Bexar County, Texas. His work in West Virginia was discredited in 1993 by the state Supreme Court, which said Zain may have lied or fabricated evidence in dozens of rape and murder cases.

His work in Texas also was under fire and led to the payment of at least $850,000 to two men. In 1997, Zain avoided a perjury trial in Texas because the statute of limitations had expired.

Zain was fired by Bexar County after his work in West Virginia was discredited. He later moved to Florida where he worked for a state-run environmental laboratory."

The West Virginia Supreme Court report on Fred Zain's misconduct is here. We got to know one of Mr. Zain's victims, William Harris, several years ago--he was able to get a fair award (about one million dollars) from the state, but how do you repay someone who is yanked from their promising life at 17 and forced to spend 7 years (on a 20 year sentence) in one of the worst adult prisons in the country after being wrongfully convicted of rape based upon a lying chemist's testimony?

William's story is one of the 28 told in the Government publication, Convicted by Juries, Exonerated by Science, available here.

A detective in William's case was later convicted of perjury. DNA testing proved William was not the donor of the semen involved in the rape. Zain lied and told the jury that the genetic markers in the semen left by the assailant matched those of Harris and only 5.9 percent of the population.

A new report shows that nearly half of the inmates released from the Texas State prison system end up returning to prison..

"The Texas prison system incarcerates 140,000 people, second only to California, and is so big that prisoners are released every weekday. The question no one asks is: Who's coming back? But if someone did, the prisoners would answer: Not me. National studies show otherwise: Roughly half the men will be proved wrong within three years."

Texas does spend a lot of money on rehabilitation. The Bureau of Justice Statistics report that recently released convicts commit 5 percent of serious crimes.

"A system that can keep convicted criminals from re-offending would save money and better protect the public."Efforts to rehabilitate begin as soon as a criminal enters the system. The first stop for everyone is the James Byrd Diagnostic Center in Huntsville.

There, an inmate is tested on intelligence, education, emotional and mental stability and job skills. From the test results, prison officials create an individualized rehabilitation plan.

An inmate who cannot read at a seventh-grade level is enrolled in school. Those already educated can further their studies in college or vocational classes.

Everyone who is able is put to work in cafeterias, on farms and in factories making license plates, clothing, wood furniture. There are 41 prison factories. For many, it is the first steady employment of their lives.

For drug addicts, there are six- to nine-month counseling programs, and the counseling continues after release.

For the most part, inmates adhere to their rehabilitation plans because refusing affects chances. An inmate who gets an education, completes his rehabilitation plan and stays out of trouble stands a pretty good chance of earning. An inmate who does not serves more, if not all, of his sentence.

Texas incarcerates more of its population than any other other state except for Louisiana. It keeps its inmates in jail longer. It says that finding out how to make offenders stay out of prison is the million dollar question.

We don't claim to have the answer, but we agree with Marc Mauer, deputy director of the prison reform group, The Sentencing Project, who says, "The key to reducing recidivism, said is to stop locking up so many people."

"I think a main issue is we've come to rely too heavily on prison. Half the people are there for non-violent offenses, more than four-fifths are there for drug offenses," Mauer said. "There needs to be consequences for violating the law, but we need to distinguish between offenses. Prison should be used as a last resort."

"The best way to ease the transition back into society is to eliminate it altogether, Mauer said. The criminal justice system would be more effective if it allowed non-violent criminals to maintain their connections to the community and their families. Let them keep their jobs and help them overcome the addictions that inspired their crimes, Mauer said. "

"Ultimately, 95 percent of the people are coming back to the community anyway," he said." If roughly half the prisoners who go through the system come back, that also means half will not.

In 1997, then Senator John Ashcroft had a far different view on the expansion of electronic surveillance than he holds now. He wrote the following op-ed piece in the August 12, 1997 Washington Times (available on lexis.com):

"Welcoming Big Brother"

"The Clinton administration would like the capability to read any international computer communications. Government agencies want access to decode, digest and discuss financial transactions, personal e-mail and proprietary information sent abroad - all in the name of national security. To accomplish this, President Clinton would like government agencies to have the keys for decoding all exported U.S. software and Internet communications.

This proposed policy raises obvious concerns about Americans' privacy, in addition to tampering with the competitive advantage that U.S. software companies currently enjoy in the field of encryption technology. Not only would Big Brother be looming over the shoulders of international cybersurfers, but he threatens to render our state-of-the-art computer software engineers obsolete and unemployed. There is a concern that the Internet could be used to commit crimes and that advanced encryption could disguise such activity. However, we do not provide the government with phone jacks outside our homes for unlimited wiretaps. Why, then, should be grant government the Orwellian capability to listen at will and in real time to our communications across the Web?

The protections of the Fourth Amendment are clear. The right to protection from unlawful searches is an indivisible American value. Two hundred years of court decisions have stood in defense of this fundamental right. The state's interest in effective crime-fighting should never violate the people's Bill of Rights. (emphasis supplied)

The president has proposed that American software companies supply the government with decryption keys to high-level encryption programs. Yet European software producers are free to produce computer encryption codes of all levels of security without providing keys to any government authority. Purchasers of encryption software value security about all else. These buyers will ultimately choose airtight encryption programs that will not be American-made programs to which the U.S. government maintains keys.

In spite of this truism, the president is attempting to foist his rigid policy on the exceptionally fluid and fast-paced computer industry. Furthermore, recent developments in decryption technology bring into question the dynamic of government meddling in this industry. Two weeks ago, the 56-bit algorithm government standard encryption code that protects most U.S. electronic financial transactions, from ATM cards to wire transfers, was broken by a low-powered 90 MHz Pentium processor.

In 1977, when this code was first approved by the U.S. government as a standard, it was deemed unbreakable. And for good reason: There are 72 quadrillion different combinations in a 56-bit code. However, with today's technology these 72 quadrillion different combinations can each be tried in a matter of time.

Two days after this encryption code was broken, a majority of the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee voted, in accordance with administration policy, to force American software companies to perpetuate this already compromised 56-bit encryption system - in spite of the fact that 128-bit encryption software from European firms is available on Web sites accessible to every Internet user. Interestingly, European firms can import this super-secure encryption technology (originally developed by Americans) to the United States, but U.S. companies are forbidden by law from exporting these same programs to other countries.

I believe that moving forward with the president's policy or the Commerce Committee's bill would be an act of folly, creating a cadre of government peeping Toms and causing severe damage to our vibrant software industries. Government would be caught in a perpetual game of catch-up with whiz-kid code-breakers and industry advances. Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott has signaled his objection to both proposals" (emphasis supplied)

"....The Clinton administration's paranoid and prurient interest in international e-mail is a wholly unhealthy precedent, especially given this administration's track record on FBI files and IRS snooping. Every medium by which people communicate can be subject to exploitation by those with illegal or immoral intentions. Nevertheless, this is no reason to hand Big Brother the keys to unlock our e-mail diaries, open our ATM records or translate our international communications. (emphasis supplied) "

Thanks to LiquidList for bringing this to our attention.

We have just returned back to Denver from a three day legal seminar in Key West. We spoke on the electronic surveillance changes in the Patriot Act. Others spoke on other aspects of the Act. By the last day, the Patriot Act had been renamed "The Anti-American Act" and Ashcroft was referred to only as "Cardinal Richilieu."

Cardinal Richilieu, for those of you who are not students of history, was prime minister of France under King Louis XIII. The King was considered a weak ruler. "Richelieu filled the void, more or less running the empire via his advice to the king. A clever politician and strategist, Richelieu expanded royal power, punished dissent harshly, and built France into a great European power.....He was made out to be a villain in the Three Musketeers by Alexander Dumas, and since then, his name has "become synonymous with political intrigue and ambitious power "behind the throne."

We think the shoe fits pretty well.

Daily Kos has some extensive, original analysis of the Louisiana Senate race and Mary Landrieu's win, and of the Trent Lott/Strom Thurmond controversy.

The Associated Press reports that Mary Landrieu has won the Louisiana Senate Race:

"Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu beat back a fierce Republican challenge led by President Bush and won a second term Saturday, giving her party a midterm consolation prize that limits the GOP's Senate majority to 51 seats. Landrieu fended off Republican Suzanne Haik Terrell, the state elections commissioner who touted herself as a close friend and ally of the president. With 98 of precincts reporting, Landrieu had 624,214 votes, or 52 percent, and Terrell had 587,423, or 48 percent."

Anyone have an idea of which Republican senators we should be lobbying because they might not always vote their party line....such as on judicial nomination issues? Or is it hopeless, will every critical issue come down to a 51-49 vote with the Republicans and Bush Administration winning?

The Week in Review section of the Sunday New York Times today takes on the issue of Why Confess to What You Didn't Do?. The subject of false confessions and the need to videotape all interrogations has been highlighted the past several months by the reopening of the Central Park Jogger convictions. If you are coming late into the story, here is the Times link to full coverage of the case. Included are the several excellent articles by investigative journalist and author Jim Dwyer.

Via Buzzflash we learn that Fundamentalists are losing favor with the public:

"The American Family Association, a far right lobbying group in Washington, released results from a recent survey that shows mainstream Americans see evangelical Christians as one of the least likeable groups in the country."

"Small wonder Researchers from the Barna survey asked respondents how they felt about evangelicals, born-again Christians, ministers, and other groups of people in society. According to the survey, evangelicals came in tenth out of eleven, narrowly beating out prostitutes. "

We've been on the road today, and won't have a chance to post more thoughts on the five wrongfully convicted youths in the Central Park Jogger case until late tomorrow. In the meantime, we like what Instapundit has to say on the matter.

We have blogged a lot on this case, some of our prior posts on why the convictions should be set aside, and on why the prosecutors should come under scrutiny, are here, here and here.

We also agree with Professor Reynolds that the wrongfully convicted should be compensated. Our last report on that is here.

And from Jim Dwyer's update in the Friday New York Times titled A Test the New York Justice System Failed:"13 years later, the verdict is in: The system failed, and in ways that cannot be made right. The man responsible for the rape of the Central Park jogger eluded police attention and continued a sporadic siege of violence on the Upper East Side for the next four months that included rapes, slashings and one murder. "

"Most basically, the Manhattan district attorney has asked for the dismissal of all charges against the teenagers, and provided a list of compelling reasons to believe that another man, Matias Reyes, was the sole attacker. No longer do the prosecutors endorse a story of gang rape. The sexual assault on the jogger, long viewed as the signature piece of violence in a night of mayhem by teenagers, is recast in the prosecutor's report as another episode in a rampage of crime by Mr. Reyes. "

A recap from today's Washington Post on yesterday's oral arguments on the reach of Miranda rights :

"In 1997, farmworker Oliverio Martinez was shot and seriously wounded in a struggle with Oxnard, Calif., police. As he lay racked with pain on a hospital gurney, police Sgt. Ben Chavez, investigating the police shooting, questioned him for 45 minutes despite Martinez's insistence that he didn't want to talk."

"Martinez later sued, alleging among other things that Chavez's questioning, which did not include reading Martinez his rights, amounted to an attempt at coerced self-incrimination -- even though Martinez was not eventually charged with a crime."

"Lower courts upheld Martinez's claim, but Chavez has appealed to the Supreme Court, arguing, in part, that there was no violation of Martinez's constitutional rights since they apply only if statements are used against a suspect at trial."

"Civil libertarians say a ruling for Chavez could permit police to abuse people they may not want to charge with a crime, but do want to extract information from."

"The Bush administration, however, supports Chavez, suggesting that a ruling against him could tie officers' hands when they may need information quickly."

"Justice Antonin Scalia wondered about the case's implications for fighting terrorism. "Let's assume you think someone is going to blow up the World Trade Center. Could the police beat him with a rubber hose?" Scalia asked."

"I understand the terrorism situation is a difficult one, but that's not our case," Martinez's attorney, R. Samuel Paz, replied."

"Stevens demanded to know from Deputy Solicitor General Paul Clement whether there is "any protection against the police just grabbing someone off the street and beating him up to get information when they have no intention of using it at trial."

Justice reporter Tony Mauro has this account of the oral arguments, including the officers' lawyer's acknowledgement for the first time that there was coercion.

Our thoughts on the case are here. A decision is expected in June.