Not long ago we wrote about the Nevade Cops and Sheriffs Org. who came out supporting the November ballot initiative on decriminalizing marijuana in that state.

It sounded too good to be true and it was. The AP is now reporting that the Nevada police group has changed its stance.

The ballot initiative would allow marijuana to be sold only in state-licensed and taxed smoke shops. it would still be a crime for minors to possess or use the drug and and public use would be banned.

To become law, the measure must pass twice in November and again in 2004. For more on the intitiative, go to Marijuana Policy Project.

For the earlier police stance, check our earlier post.

Kudos to OpinionJournal - Best of the Web Today for their reprinting of Anatomy of an Execution in yesterday's Jerusalem Post.

Best of the Web is a blog by James Taranto, conservative editor for the Wall Street Journal. No way does he oppose capital punishment like we do, and he admits it. Yet he says today after reading the Jerusalem Post piece,

"Now, we don't oppose the death penalty, provided it's administered with due process. But would someone explain to us again why Europeans and the American left are so sympathetic to the Palestinian cause?"

Good point. But for the record, the liberals here are pro-Israel. As to the death penalty, we want a moratorium now. abolition in the future. Right after passage of the Innocence Protection Act.

Alan P. Zelicoff, senior scientist at the Center for National Security and Arms Control in Albuquerque, gives his opinion on the request for and refusal of congressional members to take polygraphs to show they didn't leak information in Polygraph Hypocrisy.

The leak concerned the National Security Agency's inteception of a telephone conversation in Arabic conducted on Sept. 10, 2001, declaring that the following day was to be "zero hour."

The refusal is, as Zelicoff points out, the height of hypocrisy. Sen. Shelby, one of those refusing, was responsible recently for the creation of a "massive program to polygraph some 15,000 scientists at Department of Energy laboratories and to remove their security clearances if they declined."

Hypocrisy aside, the important point of the commentary is the end, which echoes what defense lawyers and researchers have been saying for years: Polygraphs are not scientifically reliable.

"Every first-year medical student knows that the four parameters measured by the polygraph -- blood pressure, pulse, sweat production and breathing rate -- are affected by an uncountable myriad of emotions: joy, hate, elation, sadness, anxiety, depression and so forth. Dozens of studies conducted in psychology departments and medical schools all over the world have shown that the polygraph cannot distinguish between truth-telling and lying. Claims from polygraphers notwithstanding, no evidence exists that they can find spies."

"Double agents Aldrich Ames, Karl Koecher, LarryWu-Tai Chin and Ana Belen Montes all passed their polygraphs before doing tremendous damage that led, among other things, to the deaths of American operatives overseas."

Zelicoff says the polygraph is a "degrading, largely useless test that, on occasion, randomly turns up "positive."

Looking for the silver lining in the hypocrisy of the congressional refusal, he concludes:

"But perhaps some good will come of this episode if at long last, the current display of Congress's hypocrisy accomplishes what the overwhelming weight of scientific evidence has not: the discrediting of the polygraph as a valid counterintelligence tool. "

For more on this junk science, check out Anti-Polygraph.Org.

A federal judge ruled Thursday that Attorney Lynn Stuart, charged with conspiring to provide material support for a terrorist organization, is not entitled to assurances that conversations with her lawyers are not being monitored by the federal government.

The judge rejected attorney Michael Tigar's argument that even the possibility of monitoring implicates her Sixth Amendment right to effective assistance of counsel.

The Judge also accepted the government's argument that "... if any privileged communications were intercepted, screening devices would be used to ensure that the interceptions were not used against the defendants and, thus that their Sixth Amendment rights would not be violated."

And the check is in the mail.

The government's intrusion into the attorney-client privilege is both unacceptable and intolerable, see Sen. Leahy and ABA Protest Ashcroft's Monitoring Order.

The Justice Department's rule permitting monitoring of attorney-client jailhouse conversations went into effect in November upon the approval of Attorney General Ashcroft, supposedly on an emergency basis.

Is anybody listening?

The CIA has been having a tough time recruiting. See, The Slowly Changing Face of the CIA Spy

No longer do they want their typical applicant--the white, middle-class male. After the agency's
post-9/11 travel ban was lifted,

"Recruiters held 200 campus events in six months, and the agency increased its Internet advertising and spent nights and weekends interviewing applicants in its Northern Virginia recruitment headquarters, located in an industrial park with a false business name. It also began holding dozens of orientation sessions across the country..."

What does it take to be an operative these days? The job could be your's if you "pass the polygraph tests and interviews, accept a $45,000 to $60,000 annual salary, and are willing to live a lie."

How big is the demand? After Sept. 11, "the demand for clandestine operators increased 70 percent."

Who made the first cut? "a professional athlete, a former beer company spokesman, an actor, a trial lawyer, a Middle Eastern-born naturalized citizen, a former Navy SEAL, an Army Special Forces member and a Marine....Only 10 percent are second-generation immigrants who could possibly fit in Middle Eastern, East African or Asian societies."

Earlier this week it was the Justice Department's Inspector General's report that caused a stir with its finding that weapons and computers belonging to the FBI and INS were lost or stolen.

Today it's Customs' turn. The Treasury Department's Inspector General's report discloses that thousands of computers and employee credentials have been reported stolen or missing during the last three years.

"Many of the computers could have contained information that was classified or related to law enforcement investigations, while the badges could be used for someone to pose as a customs officer or gain access to prohibited areas, according to the report and security experts."

The father of Yaser Hamdi pleaded with Congress in letters made public today for fair treatment for his son. He said his American-born son went to Afganistan and Pakistan to do humanitarian relief work.

The senior Hamdi wants his son treated as the American citizen he is--not the enemy combatant the Government is claiming him to be--Hamdi has been held in a military jail without counsel since November.

Yesterday the Government defied a prior court order to turn over documents to the Judge so he could rationally decide the controversy. But, turns out the court of appeals mandate from the 4th Circuit hasn't been received yet so the Judge entered another order saying he doesn't have jurisdiction of the case yet.

So Hamdi remains locked up, subject to interrogations without counsel, and who knows what other deprivations.

We hope the Senators give Hamdi Sr.'s pleas full consideration.

Update: Thanks to How Appealing for posting that this afternoon that the Fourth Circuit issued an Order directing that the mandate issue "forthwith" and that the stay is dissolved. Translation: The district court judge that said he does not have jurisdiction now has it and immediately pick up where it left off which is with the Government defying his order to produce records on Hamdi.

Not Every Exonerated Man Gets Repaid after release from prison despite serving lengthy, often decades long, terms of imprisonment for crimes they did not commit. Most states don't allow for it.

"Only 15 states and the District of Columbia do. Of those laws, many are antiquated, difficult to access and offer relatively low monetary awards. "

Every state should have a statute providing reasonable compensation to the ever growing number of innocents released from prison.

This statistic is shameful: "Of the 109 released due to DNA evidence with help from the Innocence Project, only 12 have received reparations. "

Bryan Stevenson, director of the Equal Justice Initiative of Alabama, correctly notes:

The presumption should be, if you were exonerated, the state should compensate you for the time you were in prison and to help make your transition easier into the real world. I think that's something society owes someone it has deprived of the liberties we take for granted."

The Innocence Project will be expanding its focus to include a push for legislation to allow such compensation and for related items: "They need ... other kinds of support, too, ranging from job skills, mental health, family related issues, and depression."

The article notes that the issue is not "terribly controversial. There is no vocal lobby against allocating funds for wrongly convicted prisoners."

Please, help with the efforts in your state. Fair is fair.

Update: Greta is discussing the case of Larry Johnson now. Larry is the man in Missouri released last week after serving 18 years for a rape he didn't commit. He is one of those who hasn't gotten a dime. Larry Johnson's lawyer is confirming to Greta what Barry Scheck said initially, that the prosecutor in this case, Jennifer Joyce, was the stumbling block. See our prior post on this.

Here is the text of yesterday's Indictment charging ImClone's Waksal with Fraud, Perjury and Obstruction of Justice. From Findlaw.

Jason Rylander runs with our "Deadly Politics" post yesterday criticizing Al Gore for his unwavering death penalty support in a 2000 news interview. Jason adds:

"The best he can offer is a milk-toast defense of "procedural safeguards" ignoring the fact that the courts and Congress have bee chipping away at habeas for years.

Hopefully, Gore will find an opportunity to "revise and extend" his remarks. As it stands, this is an unacceptable position for liberals and progressives. "

Instapundit's first blog appeared one year ago today. Amazing, when you think of how many hits the site gets.

His first blog is very good, we agreed with four posts--those on the Amiral witchunt trials in Mass., the FBI overstepping its bounds in using informants to murder, the drug war being a failure and the need for FBI reform (prompted by a judge's decision allowing one of the Ruby Ridge agents to be prosecuted for murder.)

Happy Birthday Instapundit!

Florida's Death Row inmates have filed a class action lawsuit in protest of the excessive temperatures in their cells.

The inmates say "temperatures routinely top 100 degrees in their cells, forcing them to stand in toilets, drape themselves in wet towels and sleep naked on concrete floors." The inmates and their lawyers say the "dungeon like conditions" violate the 8th Amendment ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

The suit was filed in 2000. A federal judge has toured the prison and indicated he will rule "later this year."

The state's response: No hurry, it borders on a frivolous lawsuit, no need to turn the temperature down in there.

But "court documents show 30 prisoners sought medical treatment from June through September 2000 and 18 for the same period in 2001 for symptoms of faintness, nausea, headache, apprehension, dizziness, irritability, weakness, unsteady gait, or excessive thirst and hunger."

"It's just a matter of time before someone dies," said one lawyer.

We agree with the prisoners' contention, "Subjecting inmates, who are confined in their cells nearly all the time, to temperatures almost always in excess of 90 degrees, frequently in excess of 100 degrees, and as high as 110 degrees, can only be called physically barbarous."

How about fans as temporary relief? No, the state says "the electrical system could not support 300 individual fans."