Noelle Bush got a favorable ruling from the court today. The court decided that employees of the the drug rehab center where she is receiving treatment do not have to answer police questions about crack cocaine that was allegedly found in her shoe.

"Circuit Judge Belvin Perry ruled that federal law protecting a drug treatment patient's privacy outweighed the interest of police officers in a criminal investigation."

"If the drug treatment counselors were forced to give testimony, then "all patients who suffer relapses could be hauled out of treatment programs and into criminal courts on the whim of a state prosecutor or police officers," the judge wrote."

We agree. There is a far larger issue here than whether Noelle Bush is receiving special treatment. A ruling forcing the employees to provide testimony against her or to disclose what they observed or heard her say during treatment would have a chilling effect on all patients of such programs. If drug treatment is to be effective, it must remain subject to the strictest privileges so that patients can be confident that their words and deeds won't get reported and further incriminate them.

Congress is running out of time. Many key pieces of legislation are falling victim to the calendar.

Among the bills likely to perish due to either a real shortage of days left on the calendar or "the two parties' skillful manipulation of it to advance their own political and policy objectives" are Bush's faith-based charity inititiative, terrorism-releated measures, health reforms, and measures to protect pensions.

"Other initiatives that appear in varying states of peril are protections for managed-care patients, a prescription drug benefit under Medicare, incentives for production of generic drugs, a minimum wage increase, an energy package, tighter bankruptcy rules, updating election machinery and procedures, anti-terrorism insurance, reauthorization of the 1996 welfare overhaul bill (a stop-gap extension is planned), renewal of national service programs, new rules for stem cell research and embryonic cloning and improved insurance coverage for mental health. "

What might survive? Drought relief for farmers and increased subsidies for Medicare providers. Some believe the energy bill has a fighting chance.

The article doesn't mention the one bill we care most about: The Innocence Protection Act. It now has 246 co-sponsors in Congress. For every seven people executed since the death penalty was resinstated in 1977, one person on death row is eventually exonerated by new evidence. 3,700 prisoners are on death row now--undoubtedly, some are innocent. We need to pass this law that will allow inmates with claims of factual innocence access to biological evidence for testing.

Write your representative in Congress today.

With the senate confirmation hearings behind us on Michael McConnell (for the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals) and Miguel Estrada (for the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals), the new battle may well be over Dennis Shedd, a nominee for the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals.

In a passionate op-ed article in today's Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the Rev. Joseph Lowery argues that seating Shedd would be a setback for civil rights.

"The civil rights stakes could not be higher with the Shedd nomination. Home to more African-Americans than any other circuit, the 4th Circuit has led the conservative counterrevolution with its narrow interpretations of civil rights laws and, even worse, its wholesale invalidation of federal legislation in the name of "states' rights."

"For victims of discrimination, for innocent defendants, and for persons wrongly sentenced to death, the prospect of receiving justice before this court has become bleak...."

Despite its large African-American population, until 2 years ago, when President Clinton finally succeeded in desegregating it with a recess appointment, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals was all-white--in fact it was the last all-white appeals court in the country.

Lowery says Bush needs Shedd, who is white and a former aide to Strom Thurmond, to regain "complete ideological control" over Fourth Circuit decisions. Shedd takes a narrow view of civil rights and believes strongly in state's rights over the power of Congress. Lowery says we should all be watching when the Judiciary Committee takes up Mr. Shedd. We agree.

Daniel Benjamin, a former member of the National Security Council and co-author of The Age of Sacred Terror argues in today's New York Times that Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda Are Not Allies.

Benjamin says that "Iraq and Al Qaeda are not obvious allies. In fact, they are natural enemies."

"A central tenet of Al Qaeda's jihadist ideology is that secular Muslim rulers and their regimes have oppressed the believers and plunged Islam into a historic crisis. ...To contemporary jihadists, Saddam Hussein is another in a line of dangerous secularists, an enemy of the faith."

Benjamin says the reverse is also true: "Saddam Hussein has long recognized that Al Qaeda and like-minded Islamists represent a threat to his regime. Consequently, he has shown no interest in working with them against their common enemy, the United States."

"Mr. Hussein has remained true to the unwritten rules of state sponsorship of terror: never get involved with a group that cannot be controlled and never give a weapon of mass destruction to terrorists who might use it against you."

"...while we may have to go to war with Mr. Hussein eventually, he still has a country that he wishes to hold on to, and that fact will govern all his calculations. Mr. bin Laden, by contrast, has said that Muslims have a duty to obtain nuclear weapons. After Sept. 11, no one should doubt that he and his followers would put them to use."

Another reason not to go to war against Iraq now, and instead to keep focusing on Al-Qaeda and the jihadists, is this:

"It is also worth considering how a war in Iraq might further the jihadist cause. With his regime threatened, Mr. Hussein might break the taboo on giving terrorists weapons of mass destruction. Moreover, as images of the United States attacking another Muslim nation are beamed throughout the Middle East and South Asia, many will take it as confirmation of Mr. bin Laden's argument that America is at war with Islam."

In short, according to Benjamin, the President is simply wrong when he says "you can't distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talk about the war on terror." Such talk just reinforces "widely held misunderstandings about the extraordinary danger of the new religious terrorism."

Does ecstasy use render users more susceptible to Parkinsons and brain (neuronal) damage? Or are studies that have drawn such conclusions methodologically flawed and/or biased because they are government funded?

Both sides of the argument are laid out in detail in today's Washington Post. The point of the article seems to be that there is no consensus.

Those who think the drug is dangerous argue "Studies in animals have suggested it may be toxic to brain cells that help regulate mood. It's been linked to memory impairment in some users. And rarely the drug triggers a mysterious reaction in which the body becomes radically overheated, causing sudden death."

Add to that a new study appearing in the Sept. 27 edition of Science that says "in monkeys, at least, even one night's indulgence in the drug may increase the odds of getting Parkinson's disease. "

On the other side, critics charge:

Daily Kos does a great job of calling the Governor races this November--he does it three ways with cool color maps showing the current breakdown, how it would be if the elections were held today, and what the best case scenario would be.

Kevin Drum of Calpundit makes a convincing argument about why photographic lineups as well as police interrogations should be videotaped:

"Eyewitness testimony is notoriously untrustworthy and witnesses in criminal trials routinely convince themselves in retrospect that they were always sure that was the guy. But juries might feel differently if they saw videotape showing exactly what those witnesses really thought the first time around, and how that changed the second and third times around and then again in court. Like the use of DNA evidence, there's simply no reason to object to videotaping. It doesn't coddle criminals, it just forces police to focus on making sure they catch the right person, not just any person."

What Kevin is describing is termed "confidence inflation" or "confidence growth" by the psychological researchers in the field. It describes those cases where the witness becomes more certain of his or her opinion over time. Often this is due to repeated interviews by the police in which the witness' prior identification, even if tentative, is reinforced.

Videotaping is one way to judge how certain the witness was at the time of their original selection. Another is for the person conducting the lineup to ask the person who makes a selection "How certain are you?" right away and write it down.

For more on this, here is an article we wrote on the subject called Could This Happen to Your Spouse or Child? Wrongful Convictions and Eyewitness Testimony

Law enforcement is gradually changing the ways it interviews eyewitnesses to crime to conform to the findings of psychological researchers in the field. For example, the Department of Justice, through its reasearch arm, the National Institute of Justice has released a publication Eyewitness Testimony: A Guide for Law Enforcement.

PBS's Frontline had an excellent show on the topic, What Jennifer Saw. The website is still up and you can read more about the topic there.

For more, check out the websites of Professors Elizabeth Loftus and Gary Wells, two of the nation's leading experts in the field of memory and eyewitness evidence.

No matter what the reinvestigation into the Central Park Jogger case reveals, videotaping police interrogations is a must.

"This controversy points to the need for a fundamental reform of police practices: The NYPD must start videotaping interrogations of suspects in serious crimes. This simple reform will help eliminate coercive interrogation practices and will help police and prosecutors respond to false allegations of coercion."

"There is every reason to believe that unreliable confessions are a substantial problem in law enforcement. In the most thorough investigation so far, the Chicago Tribune last December reported hundreds of cases in Chicago that involved coerced or otherwise improper confessions since 1991. Earlier this year The Washington Post chronicled abusive interrogations practices in Prince Georges County, Md., that produced false confessions. And state supreme courts in Minnesota and Alaska have ordered that interrogations in those states be recorded to assure that defendants are not being coerced into false confessions. Far too often, cops pressure suspects by lying about evidence or about the statements of supposed accomplices; by making false promises of leniency; by denying suspects access to lawyers and parents; and by taking advantage of their age, fatigue or fear."

"....Thirty-five years ago the Supreme Court observed, "We have learned the lesson of history, ancient and modern, that a system of criminal law enforcement which comes to depend upon the 'confession' will, in the long run, be less reliable and more subject to abuses than a system which depends on extrinsic evidence independently secured through skillful investigation."

"As a society, we have an interest in bringing criminals to justice; but we have no legitimate interest in concealing abusive interrogations that lead to false confessions. "

The LA Times has an in-depth article today outlining the tough-on-crime cases that will be at the forefront of the Supreme Court's fall session.

"The Supreme Court, which opens its new term next week, will take up constitutional challenges this fall to two popular tough-on-crime measures of the 1990s: Megan's Laws, which alert the public to sex offenders who were released from prison, and three-strikes laws, which can keep three-time felony offenders in prison for life."

"Judges in California, Connecticut and Alaska have ruled that these laws sometimes go too far. They say Megan's Laws brand as dangerous all former offenders, even if their crimes were long in the past. And in California, shoplifting can be the third strike that sends a two-time offender to prison for life."

There are two sex offender registration cases, one from Alaska and one from Connecticut and two California cases challenging the state's "three-strikes" law.

"In the Connecticut case, the court will decide whether ex-offenders are entitled to a hearing to determine whether they are still dangerous. In the Alaska case, the court will decide whether Megan's Law can be applied to ex-offenders whose crimes occurred before the law was enacted."

The California cases include those of Leandro Andrade, a 37-year-old heroin addict who was sentenced to 50 years in prison for a third strike of shoplifting videotapes from K-Mart, and Gary Ewing who was sentenced to a term of 25 years to life for stealing three golf clubs.

Here are ten reasons to oppose three strikes laws.

Here and here are some reasons to oppose mandatory, life-long sex offender registration laws and in particular, those that broadcast names on the internet.

In a very strong editorial Sunday, Judging Michael McConnell, the New York Times urges the Senate to reject the nomination of Michael McConnell to the 10th Circuit. The concerns of the NY Times are similar to the ones we've been expressing.

The Times acknowedges, as do we, that Mr. O'Connell possesses the personal qualifications to be a federal judge.

But that isn't enough. The Senate must also consider "whether the nominee's views on substantive legal matters are consistent with the nation's needs. There is no single litmus test to apply, but a constellation of positions to consider on key issues: racial and other kinds of equality, a woman's right to a safe and legal abortion, civil liberties, and federalism."

"Mr. McConnell disapproves of the Supreme Court's decision in the 1983 Bob Jones University case in which the justices rightly decided that banning interracial dating among the college's students was racial discrimination. He would require the government to subsidize, through tax deductions, schools like Bob Jones. He has also spoken out against the Supreme Court's one-person, one-vote decisions, which overhauled the nation's discriminatory legislative districting."

"The Senate must also be highly skeptical of nominees who do not acknowledge a woman's right to abortion. Mr. McConnell has not merely expressed abstract reservations about the Roe v. Wade ruling, but has also actively crusaded against it. He signed a statement arguing that fetuses deserved constitutional protection. "

"On the critical issue of federalism, Mr. McConnell wants to cut back the power of Congress to protect people from things like discrimination, pollution and unsafe working conditions and to insulate state government from lawsuits when they engage in wrongs of that kind."

"....Mr. McConnell's musings nearly all point in one direction, and that is the reason the administration nominated him. It is the reason the Senate should reject him."

The Democrats should not confirm a judge if they believe the judge's ideology will prevent him or her from adhering to established precedent on civil rights and individual liberties. They should not vote to confirm a judge solely because the judge is less objectionable than a previously rejected nominee, e.g., they should not vote to confirm McConnell only because he is not as bad as Priscilla Owens and they don't want to appear intransigent on all of the Bush nominees.

We are entitled, as a nation, to judges that will uphold the law. So far, Bush's nominees have had outlandish and extreme right-wing beliefs that have no place on a federal bench. It is Congress' duty to reject every single one of these nominees. The future of the rule of law depends on it. Intimidation and the fear of appearing partisan are cosmetic considerations that pale in comparison with the danger Bush's extremist nominees pose to American jurisprudence.

We don't know how we missed this before, particularly since he so closely follows our thinking, but we did. Check out Alas, a blog for his thoughts on the case, including:

"Guilty or not, it seems likely that - had Reyes' confession and DNA evidence been available at the time - more of the defendants, or perhaps all of them, would have been acquitted."

Isn't that the real issue now? Would the verdict probably have been different had the jury known of Reyes admitted involvement and that DNA tests confirmed it? If so, these defendants are entitled to have their convictions vacated and a new trial.

"Guilty or not, if the defendants - or their parents - had known enough to insist on a lawyer, they wouldn't have been convicted. Because no lawyer would have let them confess, and without the confessions the prosecution had no case."

We agree. And if the jury had been told the truth, that the parents were kept waiting for hours while the police were questioning, threatening and making false statements to the kids to get them to confess--as well as driving the kids to the scene of the crime where the police fed them with enough details to enable them to regurgitate them during the videotaped confessions--and that the parents were only allowed to be present for the final videotaping of the confessions, which occurred after-the-fact of the real interrogations--who can dispute the substantial likelihood that the verdicts would have been different?

The key here is that no physical evidence ties the five youths to the crime of rape. The sole evidence against them consisted of the videotaped confessions. Had the true circumstances surrounding those confessions been brought to the attention of the jury, we think it more than likely that the verdicts would have been not guilty. And that is enough for a new trial, if not an investigation into the conduct of the prosecutors who were present the evening of the interrogations.

Received today from Ampersand by way of Skippy (who has a lot of anti-war news on his site today):

"Hi. I'm emailing to ask you to participate in a "blogburst" to generate letters to Congress and local newspapers opposing a unilateral U.S. invasion of Iraq.

A "blogburst" is when many blogs write about the same subject on the same date, and link to a central index so that readers can easily find other participants. The idea behind this blogburst is for both bloggers and readers to write letters to Congress and newspapers on Monday, October 7th. You can read the details here .

One unique thing about this blogburst is that I'm encouraging blog readers to participate, and providing a space to publish their contributions.

If you would like to participate, please email me back (including the URL of your blog, please) and I'll add you to the Open Letters blogroll. You might also consider posting a link to the Open Letters page on your blog, although that's definitely not required. Thanks! Ampersand "

Come on folks, let's blogburst.