We are pleased to be a recent addition to Stand Down, the NoWar Blog. For those of you who aren't familiar with it, it's a blog with contributions from those on the right as well as the left who oppose an Invasion of Iraq.

As soon as we can catch our breath from the elections, we'll be contributing our two cents on why this war is a bad idea.

Four former members of the Symbionese Liberation Army pleaded guilty to second degree murder today in Sacramento. The four include Sara Jane Olson, William Harris, Emily Harris Montague and Michael Bortin.

The charges were brought against the former SLA members earlier this year alleging their participation in a 1975 bank robbery in which a woman was killed. All four were originally charged with first degree murder which carries a life sentence. Under the plea deal, Emily Harris, who police believe was the "shooter" will get eight years and the others will get six.

Sara Jane Olson, formerly known as Kathleen Soliah, is already serving a 14 year sentence which was imposed after her guilty plea to aiding and abetting the group's plotting to plant bombs under Los Angeles police cars.

Patty Hearst would have been the state's star witness had the case gone to trial. Sentencing is set for Feb. 14.

A Baltimore man who has spent 20 years in prison for a rape that DNA tests show he did not commit is scheduled to walk free today after a hearing in Baltimore County Circuit Court, the first person to be exonerated under Maryland's new DNA law."

"Bernard Webster was 19 when a 47-year-old schoolteacher identified him as the man who broke into her Towson home and raped her. The DNA law, which took effect in 2001, allows judges to order DNA testing for people serving sentences for murder and rape when that testing could prove their innocence."

"Webster will be the third person in Maryland - the 115th nationwide - to have a conviction overturned by DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York City, a nonprofit legal clinic that seeks to identify and free people who have been wrongly convicted."

The victim had picked Webster out of a photo lineup as her attacker. The jury believed her, and disbelieved his alibi witnesses. In October, the results of DNA testing on the hospital slides recently found through diligent work by the Maryland Innocence Project showed the semen could not have come from Webster. Last week, the state's attorney's office got the results of its own testing, which also confirmed Webster's innocence.

The victim said yesterday that she was upset and did not want to talk to a reporter. The prosecutor said she still believes she identified the right man and is not convinced Webster is innocent.

Mistakes in identification are common when the victim is of one race and the suspect of another. According to the Innocence Project, mistaken eyewitness identfication occurs in 70% of their cases.

"Webster's conviction is the second to be overturned in Baltimore County because of DNA evidence. Death row inmate Kirk Bloodsworth was exonerated in 1993 after DNA testing showed he could not have committed the murder and rape he was convicted of in 1985."

Webster is homeless now and has no family. His lawyers are trying to figure out where he is going to sleep tonight. He has a 10th grade education and was taken from his biological mother at age 3. He grew up with a foster mother who died while he was in prison. He was refused because he wouldn't admit his guilt.

Webster began writing the Maryland public defender's office asking for help in 1983. Before the advent of DNA testing there was nothing they could do. He kept writing them, and in 2001, filed his own pro se motion for a DNA test. The judge granted it under the new statute and a public defender began trying to locate DNA in the then 19- year old crime. Her search led her to the pathology department at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center "where she located three slides of potential DNA evidence preserved from the July 6, 1982, sexual assault evaluation of the victim."

Webster is not entitled to any compensation from Maryland for the 20 years he spent in prison.

One minute before being led to the execution chamber, the Supreme Court stayed the execution of mentally ill Texan James Blake Colburn who had been denied relief by the Supreme Court earlier today. Justice Anton Scalia granted the stay and referred it to the full Court. As of this writing, the grounds upon which he granted the stay are not known.

"The Supreme Court granted a last-minute reprieve tonight to a death-row inmate who suffers from severe mental illness, halting his execution as prison officials were preparing to lead him to the gurney to be injected with lethal fluids."

"Lawyers for the inmate, James Blake Colburn, filed an appeal before the Supreme Court at 5:59 p.m., one minute before Mr. Colburn was scheduled to be lead to the death chamber. It asked the court to stay the execution on the grounds that Mr. Colburn was incompetent to be executed and had been denied his constitutional rights during proceedings in state court."

No one disputes Mr. Colburn is mentally ill. But while the Supreme Court has outlawed execution of the retarded, it has not done so for the mentally ill.

"Psychiatric problems were first diagnosed in Mr. Colburn when he was 14. He began suffering hallucinations and hearing voices at 17, not long after he was raped while hitchhiking. He bounced between mental health programs, and his medical records note that he was voted out of one support group after he tried to kill himself. In all, Mr. Colburn has tried to commit suicide at least 15 times. His medical records say his chronic paranoid schizophrenia has often left him hearing voices that command him to harm himself or others."

Mr. Colburn's lawyers have 90 days to file a Petition for Writ of Certiorari to the full Court. If the petition is denied, another execution date will be scheduled within 30 days.

Winona Ryder, found guilty today of two of three counts in her shoplifting trial, will not being going to jail. How do we know? The District Attorney won't be asking for it.

"We never thought about jail time," said the deputy district attorney, Ann Rundle, who prosecuted the case. "We won't be asking for it. We simply want Ms. Ryder to take responsibility for her conduct."

"Since it was not a violent crime, Ms. Rundle said, a more likely and appropriate sentence would be some combination of probation, community service and restitution. "And that's what we're going to ask for," she said."

So why didn't they offer her a deferred judgment on the felonies to begin with? Or a misdemeanor? What were they trying to prove? That celebrities will be treated more harshly than others? They made their point, but we doubt Saks or the public appreciate it.

For more on our view of the charges and trial, go here and here.

"The Justice Department announced Wednesday that it will require thousands of students, workers and other men from five Muslim countries who are temporarily residing in the United States to be fingerprinted and photographed, the latest step in its program to register visitors from countries linked to terrorism."

The program applies to all male citizens of Iran, Iraq, Libya, Sudan and Syria, "and other people suspected of links to terror."

Muslim and Arab-American groups argue the plan amounts to ethnic profiling. They point out that none of the Sept. 11 terrorists came from those countries, and only Sudan has ties to Al Qaeda.

The American Immigration Lawyers Association also criticized the plan, saying "They're telling us this will make us safe from terrorists. But the terrorists aren't the ones who are going to come forward and register."

An unnamed Justice Department official said the list of originating countries whose male citizens would be subject to the program "would probably grow."

"Under the new measure, which takes effect Nov. 15, men ages 16 and older from the five nations must register with a U.S. immigration officer by Dec. 16. They must present travel documents and proof of residence, such as school registrations, and be interviewed, fingerprinted and photographed. They must check in with authorities once a year. The measure applies only to visitors, not political asylum applicants or immigrants who have "green cards" that grant them permanent legal residence."

The Supreme Court heard arguments in a death penalty case yesterday that were highly technical in nature. Charles Lane of the Washington Post does a good job of explaining the issue in Arguing 60(b): a Rule of Life or Death?"

"Abdur'Rahman is a death-row inmate in Tennessee, convicted of murder and sentenced to death in 1987. He says he was the victim of a dishonest prosecutor who hid exculpatory evidence. No Tennessee nor federal court has ruled on the merits of that claim."

"If Abdur'Rahman's filing in federal court was a Rule 60(b) motion, as his lawyers insist, then he could be entitled to such a hearing, which might lead to a reversal of his sentence. But if, as lower federal courts have ruled, it was a second or successive petition for habeas corpus -- that is, one that raises an issue another court has dealt with -- it would be forbidden under a 1996 federal law designed to streamline death-row litigation. The way to execution would be clear."

The arguments started out rough for the defense, but Justice Stevens later "all but took over" the hearing, and some of the other justices seemed to come over to his side.

"He noted that the key point in Abdur'Rahman's argument is that the District Court that rebuffed his request for a new hearing on his claim of prosecutorial misconduct was unaware of an obscure Tennessee law that permitted Abdur'Rahman's request. Abdur'Rahman's attorneys and the state's were also in the dark, he said."

"Since the Tennessee Supreme Court clarified the law in a subsequent regulation, Stevens asked, why shouldn't Rule 60(b), a catchall provision designed to let courts correct serious mistakes, apply? He's not asking for a second consideration of a claim; he's asking for consideration of a claim that's never been litigated," Stevens said.

"Other members of the court picked up on Stevens's theme. "You're saying he's just out of luck," Justice Stephen G. Breyer said to Paul Summers, the Tennessee prosecutor arguing the case. Yes, sir," Summers conceded. "That seems terribly unfair," Breyer observed."

Stevens and Breyer make a good point. If the man asserts he is innocent, or was convicted unfairly due to prosecutorial misconduct, he deserves at least one hearing on the issue. No artificial procedural rule, even if it was enacted by Congress, should be allowed to deny a hearing when death is at issue. If the state courts and the lower federal courts refused to consider his claim, we think the Supreme Court ought to--or at least issue an order remanding the case back to the lower courts to do so.

We told you the bad news with respect to yesterday's failed marijuana ballot initiatives. Here is some good news from other states, provided by the Marijuana Policy Project, who spearheaded the unsuccessful Nevada drive:

THE GOOD NEWS

MASSACHUSETTS: Nineteen local advisory measures urging marijuana decriminalization all appear to have passed, most with overwhelming margins. A local advisory measure supporting medical marijuana and another endorsing hemp cultivation passed easily as well.

MARYLAND: Medical marijuana supporter Bob Ehrlich was elected governor in a hotly-contested race. Ehrlich, a Republican member of Congress, is one of 42 cosponsors of Rep. Barney Frank's States' Rights to Medical Marijuana Act. His opponent, Democrat Kathleen Kennedy Townsend, was approached during the campaign by medical marijuana supporters but refused to take a stand. This bodes well for our effort to get a medical marijuana bill passed in Maryland next year.

SAN FRANCISCO: In what may turn out to be the medical marijuana "shot heard 'round the world," San Francisco voters passed Proposition S by a nearly 2-to-1 margin. Placed on the ballot by four members of the city Board of Supervisors after a wave of federal raids on medical marijuana dispensaries, the measure asked voters if the city should explore growing and distributing marijuana for seriously ill patients. Now that voters have responded with a resounding "YES," it will be up to the Board of Supervisors to implement that mandate. MPP plans to work with our many friends in San Francisco to make sure the voters' wishes are carried out.

In some ways it was a rough night, but we are immensely proud of the hard work of our staff and volunteers -- and grateful for your continuing support. We know we won't win every battle, but we will not give up until marijuana prohibition is just a distant, sad memory."

Our own Government is confirming the arguments of death penalty opponents that the death penalty is not a deterrent to violence. Virginia has scheduled an execution next Thursday for a Pakistani national who was convicted in 1993 of killing two CIA employees. Tonight, the State Department put out a warning:

"The State Department warned Americans Wednesday that the execution next week of a Pakistani convicted of murdering two CIA employees could trigger retaliatory attacks on U.S. interests overseas. The worldwide caution cited the scheduled Nov. 14 execution in Virginia of Mir Ahmad Kasi, convicted five years ago in the 1993 murders of two CIA employees, as cause for extra vigilance."

"The potential exists for retaliatory acts against U.S. or other foreign interests in response to the execution," the State Department said. "These may include facilities where Americans or possibly other foreigners are generally known to congregate or visit, such as residential areas, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, schools, hotels, outdoor recreation events or resorts and beaches."

Violence begets violence. We should stop state-sanctioned killing now.

The list of potential democratic candidates for President in 2004 so far includes: (from Reuters)

"At the core of the Democratic field over the last six months has been Gore, the narrow loser of the 2000 race after a five-week recount in Florida. Gephardt has been mentioned, along with Daschle; Dean, and Democratic Sens. Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, John Kerry of Massachusetts and John Edwards of North Carolina."

"Dean is the only one who has definitely said he is in the race, although Kerry is certain to run as well. Other potential candidates include Gary Hart and Bill Bradley, both former senators and failed presidential candidates, and veteran Sens. Chris Dodd of Connecticut and Joe Biden of Delaware."

"Gore's decision, due by the end of the year, will be the first step toward shaking out the field. If Gore gets in, his name recognition would make him an instant frontrunner and he could knock out his 2000 vice presidential running mate, Lieberman, who has promised not to run against Gore."

We hardly ever agree with Dick Morris, but we liked this quote from his commentary today over at NRO (which we found over at Vodkapundit):

"Bush will likely win the war on terror. But he'll win it in 2003. What will he do for 2004? By then, he'll have run out of countries. Bush has no real domestic agenda beyond his tax cuts which are already part of the law and unlikely — especially now — to be repealed. All the other issues, apart from terror, work in the favor of the Democrats. The Wall Street scandals, global warming, environmental pollution, health care for the elderly, and Social Security are all Democratic issues. Bill Clinton's legacy is that he solved the major Republican concerns — crime and welfare."

"Without issues, Bush may not be able to control the dialogue as 2004 approaches. He will run Washington for the next two years as the Democrats lick their wounds. But he may have a tough road in 2004."

Stephen at Vodkapundit thinks Morris is underestimating Bush. We sure hope not.

Read what Al Gore has to say on Tuesday night's Democratic losses. He sat down with 20/20's Barbara Walters to talk about it. Here is a large segment of the interview which will air on 20/20 Nov. 15.

Also check out Hamster on what to do next after yesterday's defeat at the polls.

Also, Rittenhouse on what went wrong and who's to blame.