Despite past promises to support such legislation, California Governor Gray Davis has vetoed a bill that would have allowed undocumented immigrants who are long-time residents of the state to obtain driver's licenses.

Critics charged Davis put "politics ahead of public safety." Under the terms of the vetoed bill, illegal immigrants could obtain drivers' licenses if "they passed all driving tests, underwent criminal background checks, were applying for legal residency and could prove they were employed and had lived in California for at least 15 months in the last three years."

"Davis had promised last year to sign such a measure and had worked on a compromise for months, but said in his veto message that "the tragedy of Sept. 11 made it abundantly clear that the driver's license is more than just a license to drive; it is one of the primary documents we use to identify ourselves."

The bill's sponsor, Gil Cedillo, argues that there are nearly one million illegal immigrants in California, and that by denying them drivers' licenses, the state is creating "a class of uninsured and untrained drivers."

In other legislative action, the Governor signed into law a bill authorizing people who have already served their sentences but were convicted on the basis of false evidence to apply to the court to have their convictions overturned. This is meant to apply to the two dozen or so persons who were convicted upon testimony by officers involved in the Ramparts scandal.

The Chicago Tribune is on top of the death penalty and innocence issues this week in a forceful series of editorials. We recommend you read them all.

Today's editorial Disparities on Death Row calls for a centralized, statewide system of approving death penalty prosecutions and reviewing their results.

"According to the research, done for the Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment, the decision to impose the death sentence spins not just on the depravity of the act or the place it occurred, but also on the race of the victim. In Illinois, a murder defendant is four times more likely to be sent to Death Row if his victim is white than if the victim is black."

...."To fully understand how the system is working in Illinois and to make sure death penalty is rooted in law rather than race, geography or any other extra-legal factor, how we deal with those who murder must be monitored through windows rather than keyholes."

Yesterday the Tribune highlighted the problems with eyewitness testimony in When Believing Isn't Seeing.

The editorial calls for police to conduct sequential rather than simultaneous lineups which research has shown dramatically reduces the number of false identfications, blind testing (where the person conducting the procedure does not know which one is the suspect) and videotaping or at least audiotaping an eyewitness's statement of how certain they are at the time they make their selection.

"Since the U.S. Supreme Court restored capital punishment, 86 Death Row inmates across the nation have been exonerated based on claims of innocence. The convictions in more than half of those cases depended at least in part on eyewitnesses, according to a 2001 study by the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law. In 33 of the cases, eyewitness testimony was the only evidence used against the accused."

Coincidentally, we reported on these exact issues Sunday in a post called Faulty Eyewitness Testimony and linked to an article we wrote on the topic, Could This Happen To Your Spouse or Child: Wrongful Convictions and Eyewitness Testimony, available here.

Sunday's editorial in Chicago Tribune was Fixing the Death Penalty in which it calls upon the Illinois Legislature to implement the reforms recommended by the Governor's Commission on Capital Punishment.

"Wrongful convictions, mistaken eyewitness identifications, arbitrarily applied punishment--profound errors at every level of the process--have deeply shaken many people, including some of the most ardent supporters of capital punishment."

"There are 13 people alive today who bear personal witness to that. Those are the people who have been freed from Death Row in recent years because evidence proved they had been wrongfully convicted."

"This is not a system of justice. This is a system of rank injustice. It is deeply fractured, and it must be repaired if Illinois is ever again to carry out a sentence of execution."

"Illinois has issued more than 300 death sentences since the legislature reinstated capital punishment in 1977. We know at least 13 of those sentences were terrible mistakes. We know that in one of those cases, the people of Illinois came within hours of killing an innocent man."

"If the state is to impose irreversible punishment, if the state is to take a life in the pursuit of justice, it must do so with far greater confidence that no innocent man or woman will be executed."

The Supreme Court will review four death penalty cases in its next session.

The juvenile death penalty issue is not one of the cases. All of the cases focus on how the death penalty is carried out rather than on the constitutionality of the death penalty itself.

The Court also agreed to revisit the issue of ineffective assistance of counsel claims which could impact many on death row.

The criminal cases accepted today are Woodford v. Garceau, 01-1862, and Massaro v. United States, 01-1559.

Saturday we posted about the Julius Caesar Anti-War Hoax. It's been getting an unusual amount of hits today, and some comments, including one mentioning that Barbra Streisand quoted it at the Democratic Fundraiser Sunday night.

We checked Ms. Streisand's official website today and her remarks from that night appear verbatim. She said:

"BJS: You know, really good artists have a way of being relevant in their time… but great artists are relevant at anytime. So, in the words William Shakespeare,

"Beware the leader who bangs the drums of war in order to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind…And when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry. Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded with patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar."

BJS (contd.): Imagine that was written over 400 years ago… It's amazing how history without consciousness is destined to repeat itself. So…from the words of William Shakespeare to the words of Irving Berlin…"

Once again, here is the link to the text of Julius Caesar. We didn't find the passage in it, but maybe we overlooked it.

Urban Legends says the quote is false.

"Yet as popular as the quote is, it's not real. These words are not anything Julius Caesar ever wrote or said. No biographies of Caesar or histories of Rome contain these lines, and scholars who have made it their business to know everything about the man draw a blank on this quote. Likewise, Shakespeare did not stuff this soliloquy into the mouth of the title character in his play Julius Caesar, nor did any of the Bard's other characters utter it. No record of this quote has been found prior to its appearance on the Internet in late 2001. "

On the one hand, Ms. Streisand was there to provide entertainment, and if her repeating the quote caused those in the audience to cough up bigger bucks for the Democrats, who cares if the quote is real? On the other hand, if it's false, (and in the comments section to our original post plenty of people thought it obviously a fake) how could someone with her command of the arts not know it?

Update: Someone else who believed the quote is Gossip Columnist Liz Smith who says in today's Newsday: "No matter one's political affiliations, Streisand's commitment and the deft way she handled the complicated new lyrics was breathtaking. Why, she even recited a bit from William Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar," making the point that "400 years later, justice is wearing a shroud."

Update: Drudge reports this as an "exclusive" at 10:04 this morning. We posted it at 10:03 a.m. And "Jack" posted it at 8:15 a.m. in a comment to our original outing of the hoax this past Saturday. We thought we had Drudge beat, until we remembered the two hour time difference. Hope he doesn't get mad at the e-mail we sent him saying we got the Streisand quote first. We didn't. We'll settle for being the first to report the quote itself was a hoax.

Final Update: Barbra Streisand responds upon learning the quote is a hoax

An experimental court for mentally ill defendants opens today in Brooklyn.

Operating as a pilot project since March, the Brooklyn Mental Health Court primarily handles mentally ill non-violent offenders, using treatment instead of jail as sentences. Many of the defendants have "persistent mental diseases like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder. "

The Court's goal is to keep these offenders from "passing through the system repeatedly or from committing a more violent offense."

Judge Jonathan Lippman, the chief administrative judge of New York State courts, has said that up to one-fourth of all defendants in Brooklyn suffer from "a serious psychiatric disorder."

Here's how the Court works:

"The district attorney's office must approve switching a case to the special court, and then the defendant must undergo detailed psychological assessment and agree to plead guilty to the crime that is charged."

"In lieu of incarceration, such a plaintiff would receive time in a mental health center and would have to agree to frequent appearances in front of the judge or court managers. If the offender fails to meet his obligations, the court could sanction and even eventually incarcerate him."

The Court is similar to drug and domestic violence courts, and is supported by both prosecutors and defense counsel. Judge Matthew J. D'Emic is the presiding judge.

This is an excellent program. The criminal justice system is simply not equipped to deal with the vast number of mentally ill defendants. There are not enough treatment options in prison. When all we do is warehouse the mentally ill during incarceration, they leave prison even less capable of functioning on the outside than they were when they went in. Prison becomes a revolving door and violent tendencies emerge and escalate. By connecting the defendants to treatment programs on the outside instead of locking them up, we may be able to break the cycle and restore some semblance of normalcy and productiveness to their lives--which should in turn make our communities safer for everyone.

Ira Einhorn's murder trial began today with opening statements. His lawyers told the jury he will take the stand and tell them as much as he knows.

Ira was charged with murder in 1979. He ran away to France before his trial which was scheduled for January, 1981. There he married and settled in the South of France. During his absence from Philadelphia, he was tried in abstentia. The United States wanted him back, and in 1997 he was located in France.

After four years of fighting extradition, during which time Ira was free again in France, an agreement was worked out. Ira would get a new trial here and the death penalty would not be an option. This is the trial that is beginning this week.

For a chronology and description of what transpired between 1979 and today, read IRA EINHORN: A LOOK BACK.

We'll follow important events in the trial as they occur.

DNA tests have proven Jimmy Ray Bromgard to be innocent of the rape for which he is serving a 40 year sentence. Tuesday he expects to walk out of Montana's Yellowstone County Courthouse a free man. At 33, almost half his life has been spent in prison for a crime he didn't commit. Questions linger, but they are not about Bromgard's innocence.

Bromgard's lawyers, one of whom is Peter Neufeld, co-director along with Barry Scheck of the Cardozo Law School Innocence Project, "have assembled a peer review committee of forensic scientists, which has issued a report asking for an audit of the hundreds of cases in which the manager of the state's crime laboratory at the time testified. The manager, Arnold Melnikoff, played a central role in Mr. Bromgard's case."

The rape victim's father said he always had doubts about the case. The victim, then 8 years old, said she was "not too sure" Bromgard was the man who raped her.

There was no physical evidence except some hairs. Melnikoff testified "that head and pubic hairs found at the scene could not be distinguished from samples provided by Mr. Bromgard. The chances that two hair samples are microscopically indistinguishable, he said, are one in a hundred. Since head and pubic hairs are different, he went on, "it's a multiplying effect, it would be one chance in 10,000."

We know enough about microscopic hair comparision to know that's a crock. Bromgard's lawyers say Melnikof manufactured the statistics and "deliberately ignored the scientifically accepted practices to help secure a conviction."

Now Melnikoff is back-tracking. In an interview he said "there has never been a thorough, proper study where they looked at a large number of samples" that would allow quantification of the kind he used...."I did my job," he said. "I didn't say it was him exclusively. Hair evidence is class evidence. It's not specific. It's possible by coincidence it could be similar to another person."

Microscopic hair comparison does not result in identification. A hair may be similar to another hair, but it cannot be termed a "match." Only mitochondrial DNA testing, which has not been available until recently, can positively identify two hairs as coming from the same person.

Mr. Bromgard had a court-appointed lawyer at trial. "Mr. Adams worked for the county for a monthly fee. According to Mr. Bromgard and his lawyers, Mr. Adams met with him once before trial, hired no investigators or scientific experts, filed no motions to suppress evidence, made no opening statement, failed to prepare Mr. Bromgard for his testimony and, after indicating he would appeal, did not."

"In an interview, Mr. Adams said he did not recall Mr. Bromgard's case and was no longer practicing."

Mr. Bromgard did some very hard time according to prison officials. Inmates don't much like child rapists, and he had his jaw broken a few weeks after his arrival. He was 18 then. He is leaving prison 15 years later with thinning hair but in good spirits. When asked what he planned to do when he got out, he said he'd he like to go swimming.

Update: As expected, Mr. Bromgard was released from jail with an apology from the Judge Tuesday morning. The Innocence Project reports he is the 111th person to be freed from jail after DNA testing proved their innocence.

Last week we wrote about Aileen Wuornos, age 44. She is one of the nation's first known female serial killers. Wuornos was convicted of fatally shooting six middle-aged men along Florida highways in 1989 and 1990. Her story has been portrayed in two movies, three books and an opera. She is now on death row in Florida, and until today was scheduled to be executed on October 9.

Florida Governor Jeb Bush granted Wuormos a stay of execution Monday due to issues surrounding her mental competency.

Wuernos wants to die. In April she received permission from the Court to drop her appeals and fire her lawyers. Bush granted a similar stay for Rigoberto Sanchez-Velasco, who was scheduled to die Wednesday.

Three psychiatrists will examine both inmates. Under Florida law, an inmate cannot be executed unless they understand both that execution results in death and why they have been sentenced to death. If they are judged mentally competent, the executions will be re-scheduled.

Governor Bush has said that he believed Ms. Wuornos was competent when he signed her death warrant less than a month ago. We commend him for taking this action so that experts can make that determination.

Update: Ms. Wuornos has been found competent and her execution is back on.

Zacarias Moussaoui got a trial continuance and a bigger cell today.

Judge Brinkema "called conditions in his small, windowless cell "inhumane and an unreasonable barrier to his ability to work with the materials produced to him."

The trial is now set for June 30, instead of in January. The Government agreed to the continuance. Could it be they are planning on adding a co-defendant and want to be able to try them together? Ramzi Binalshibh, maybe? Here are our prior thoughts on how that could happen.

Binalshibh has been secreted somewhere since his arrest and turnover by Pakistan. Maybe the Government just wants him as a witness against Moussaoui and needs more time to keep interrogating him without a lawyer as they are known to do with "enemy combatants" in military custody because he hasn't "turned" yet.

We think it's unlikely Binalshibh will talk if he knows that after doing so he is going to be tried in a secret military tribunal and likely to be sentenced to death with no judicial review after his conviction and sentence. What would be in it for him?

Or could the Government be planning on making a deal with Moussaoui for a life sentence in exchange for his guilty plea and giving up Binalshibh?

We haven't heard a word about Binalshibh since he was transferred into U.S. Custody. Where is he being held? What does the Government plan to do with him? Will he be treated like Padilla and Hamdi or will he be charged in federal court?

Elton of Busy, Busy Busy takes us to ""Stacy", the ridiculous-in-the-extreme television ad/commerical aimed at discouraging drug use among minors by the Office of National Drug Policy.

Elton adds the tag line:

"And this is John Ashcroft, the Attorney General who supports the criminalization of marijuana despite the fact that it is used routinely by millions of people without harm, and who tries to pretend that any violence resulting from this state of affairs is Stacey's responsibility."

We think "Stacy" should be replaced with this ad about "Jane" that we received today from someone in Buffalo :

"This is Jane with her marijuana . . .

This is Jane's supplier of marijuana . . .

These are the farmers who could be making a living cultivating hemp for thousands of industrial purposes helpful to the environment, and who could also raise marijuana for inexpensive sale to US adults. . .

These are the AIDS and cancer patients who need the clinically proven medical benefits of marijuana . . .

These are the legislators who continue to maintain a black market in marijuana by prohibiting its cultivation and sale, while permitting sale of far more dangerous substances, like tobacco and alchohol which are legally sold to the adult public . . . .

And so on . . ."

Via Instapundit, we find a potential replacement for Torricelli. Vodkapundit speculates on who delivered the news to "The Torch"...DailyKos has an analysis of what it could mean election-wise in New Jersey.

Update: You can read the full text of Torricelli's speech here. (free registration required.)

We have an update today on one of our recent posts Ryan v. Ryan in Illinois. There is a new article Cruz Factor in the Chicago Sun Times about Attorney General and gubernatorial hopeful Jim Ryan's participation in the Rolando Cruz case. ( Here is our earlier post on the Cruz case.)

Ryan was the prosecutor who sent Cruz to death row, where he stayed until he was acquitted at a third trial. It was discovered that the police had manufactured a confession that helped convict him, DNA tests showed he was not the rapist and the real rapist ultimately confessed.

The Chicago Sun Times article informs us that "As DuPage County state's attorney, Jim Ryan oversaw the first two prosecutions of Rolando Cruz for the rape and murder of Jeanine Nicarico. One of his deputies, Joe Birkett, worked on those cases and the final trial in 1995, in which Cruz was found not guilty. Ryan and Birkett are the GOP nominees for governor and attorney general. Their Democratic opponents, Rod Blagojevich and Lisa Madigan, say both men helped put an innocent man on Death Row."

Daily Kos today thoroughly covers and explains the case and the political ramifications here.

An update: Normon Solomon, in Determined Journalism Can Challenge Injustice has high praise for a new radio documentary highlighting the Cruz case.

"In a documentary called " Deadly Decisions," from American RadioWorks, correspondent Alan Berlow found that "jurors may be influenced by their own fears and prejudices when they sentence people to death."

"The documentary, co-produced by Minnesota Public Radio and NPR News, succeeded in ways that public radio shows like "Morning Edition" and "All Things Considered" routinely fail. Meticulously researched, the special report devoted a full hour to scrutinizing what happens under the surface of official accounts, easy narratives and quick soundbites."

"The result was exemplary journalism that explained how people can be put to death by a legal system that's theoretically equitable but functionally skewed against defendants without white skin or financial resources. ..."

"One of the documentary's illustrative stories involved the experiences of a man named Michael Callahan, who was a juror in a murder trial. Callahan described a jury atmosphere reminiscent of "Twelve Angry Men." But instead of sitting in a make-believe cinematic jury room in the 1950s, Callahan was sitting in a real jury room in the 1980s. "

"Most of the jurors seemed inclined to convict even before the trial began. And the prosecutor's case was so weak that Callahan recalled feeling "aghast." Yet, convinced that "sooner or later the truth is going to come out," he went along with voting to convict the defendant, Rolando Cruz, of first-degree murder."

"An entire decade passed before the truth came out. "Cruz had nothing to do with the murder," the documentary reported. "He had lost nearly 12 years of his life, most of it on death row."

You can listen and view the portion of the documentary pertaining to the Cruz case and juror interview here.

One of the most complete articles on the Rolando Cruz case was written by Alan Berlow and published in the November 1999 Atlantic Monthly. You can read it here.