James Trafficant was sentenced to 8 years today. He was denied bail pending appeal and taken off in handcuffs.

The Judge gave him more time than the prosecutor asked for and fined him more than the jury found to be the amount involved in his fraud.

He became the second congressperson to be expelled from the House of Representatives ever. He got one vote: Rep. Gary Condit.

He has promised to run for re-election from prison.

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Larry Johnson, the Missouri man who has served 18 years in prison for a rape he didn't commit was freed from prison today.

Read our prior post on it, and why no thanks goes to the prosecutor.

Gail Davis has a great post today comparing the sentences received by the Tulia defendants with that of John Walker Lindh.

She also opines about CIA agent John Spann's father's request to address the Court at Lindh's sentencing.

Best of all are her remarks about the power of prosecutors in charging and sentencing decisions and the effect it has on our system of justice.

'Homeland Secrecy', today's lead editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle rails at the secrecy involved in the proposed Department of Homeland Security. In particular,

"... its dreams may turn out to be our nightmares. The president, for example, wants to exempt the new agency from the Freedom of Information Act and to eliminate all whistle-blower protections for employees. "

"....Any employee who experiences retaliation must first go through an arduous administration process before seeking a trial in one specific Washington court that has, in 74 out of 75 cases, ruled against federal whistle-blowers. In contrast, Congress just gave corporate whistle-blowers a quick route to a speedy jury trial."

We particularly agree with the Chronicle's conclusion:

"We must preserve public accountability and civil liberties. Anything less will make us less free, but not more secure. "

Tonight (Tuesday, July 30) at 10:00 p.m. EDT, ABC News will air "War on Drugs, A War on Ourselves With John Stossel." The prime-time investigation questions whether the drug war causes more problems than the drugs themselves.

You can also read Stossel's report, Just Say No: Government's War on Drugs Fail.

598 American survivors of brutal World War II Japanese prison camps in the Philippines have filed a federal lawsuit accusing the U.S. government of intentionally sacrificing them in 1941 to give the United States justification to enter the war. They are represented by Northwestern University Law Professor Anthony D'Amato.

Bob Herbert, in Kafka in Tulia, has written a scathing opionion piece for today's New York Times on the unconscionable drug sweeps in Tulia, Texas.

"It is not an overstatement to describe the arrests in Tulia as an atrocity. The entire operation was the work of a single police officer who claimed to have conducted an 18-month undercover operation. The arrests were made solely on the word of this officer, Tom Coleman, a white man with a wretched work history, who routinely referred to black people as "niggers" and who frequently found himself in trouble with the law."

For more on the facts, here's a January 22, 2001 article from the Washington Post, Massive Drug Sweep Divides Texas Town . The Post article quotes the ACLU's description of the undercover operation as "an ethnic cleansing of young male blacks from Tulia."

Although the raids took place in 1999, people are still in jail and needing help. Bob Herbert tells us:

"The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, the William Moses Kunstler Fund for Racial Justice, the Tulia Legal Defense Project and a number of private law firms are trying to mount an effort to free the men and women imprisoned in this fiasco.

The idea that people could be rounded up and sent away for what are effectively lifetime terms solely on the word of a police officer like Tom Coleman is insane. "

The final defendant's case was dismissed on July 24. But 14 more remain in prison and volunteer attorneys are working to get them out.

For even more on this, the ACLU has a list of news articles with links.

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Eric Shellhorn uses humor to go after Operation Tips, aka Operation Snoops, aka Operation SNIFFS in today's San Francisco Chronicle.

Nat Hentoff has a more sobering take in the Washington Times.

Cathy Young in today's Boston Globe discusses the danger of assuming someone is guilty of a heinous crime before they have had their day in court. Even in the case of Alejandro Avila who is accused of the brutal murder of 5 year old Samantha Runion in California.

Michael Isakoff in the August 5 issue of Newsweek, The Case Against Moussaoui: Internal Doubts, says "Moussaoui’s legal incompetence—rather than the evidence—may be the government’s strongest card."

We're still waiting to hear of any specific evidence or witness testimony that directly ties Moussaoui to the Sept. 11 attacks.

Instapundit today calls our attention to a UPI article about the spread of deadly diseases among inmates because of prison rapes.

This is a human rights violation that needs attention. We ask that you stop by the website of Stop Prisoner Rape, an organization that has been dedicated to fighting the problem for over two decades.

Some good news is that bipartisan legislation was introduced in June to reduce the problem by Sen. Ted Kennedy, Sen. Jeff Sessions, Rep. Bobby Scott, and Rep. Frank Wolf.

The bill is the Prison Rape Reduction Act of 2002. This is what it will do:

"The bill creates three programs in the Department of Justice: one dedicated to collecting national statistics about the problem, one to facilitate confidential reports of prisoner rape and provide training about how to address it, and one that will provide grants to combat the problem. The bill also creates an investigative commission which will produce a report and new national standards to address prisoner rape which states may adopt or opt out of. The bill has so far garnered a broad range of bipartisan support."

Of course, the bill addresses only part of the problem. “In addition to effective legislation, we need mental health services for survivors, lawsuits aimed at reform, and greater sympathy on the part of the public.”

Just last week we reported on the case of a 19 year old man who was repeatedly raped at the Jefferson County Jail in Colorado after deputies placed him in a cell with a sex offender who had attacked another inmate hours earlier. It was the 19 year old's first time in jail. He had been arrested for failing to complete his alcohol classes in connection with a D.U.I.

The Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a hearing on the Act next Wednesday. Please support this legislation.

The French are doubtful of the U.S. claim that Moussaoui was supposed to be the 20th hijacker on Sept. 11. They think he was going to be used for a different and later mission.

Like the French, we have also noted the significance of the information that Moussaoui was learning to fly a 747 which is used far more in flying international than domestic flights, and was not one of the planes flown on September 11. And of the information that while the other hijackers all knew each other, Moussaoui did not seem to know the other hijackers or hang out with them. The other hijackers spent the latter half of August in the U.S., associating with each other and prepping for the Sept 11 attacks, during which time Moussaoui was in jail.

Re-read the allegations in the Third Superseding Indictment , or any of the previous Indictments and we think you'll agree with us.

Without proof that Moussaoui committed an act in furtherance of the September 11 conspiracy, we have our doubts the death penalty would be applicable for him. He may have joined the conspiracy but his arrest may have precluded him from committing any act in furtherance of it. His lawyers argue that if this is the case, the death penalty does not apply to him.

This is not like the Terry Nichols case where the government presented evidence (contested by the defense, but still evidence) that Nichols helped build the bomb that blew up the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma--and many other things to further the common objective. Even though Nichols was not in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995, because of these alleged acts by him, the jury was allowed to consider the death penalty for Nichols. Ultimately, the jury rejected the death penalty for him.

Moussaoui's defense lawyers argued in their Response Brief opposing in the Death Penalty, that the Govenrment has no evidence that Moussaoui participated in any way in the Sept. 11 attacks.

In the meantime, the spectacle continues. We say the Government should offer Moussaoui a life sentence in exhchange for guilty pleas to the counts he believes he can admit to, or ask France if they will try him if we send him back there. France doesn't have a death penalty and has objected to our using it against him. Maybe France would also provide Moussaoui with a lawyer he trusts.