Despite statistical evidence demonstrating that the death penalty is more likely to be imposed when a homicide victim is white, the Supreme Court has been unreceptive to the argument that statistics offer sufficient proof that any particular death sentence is racially discriminatory in violation of a defendant's right to equal protection of the law. Statistical evidence that the defendant's race plays a key role in the imposition of the death penalty due to discriminatory attitudes of prosecutors who seek the death penalty or the judges and jurors who impose it is more ambiguous, but even if it were stronger, Supreme Court precedent would seem to foreclose its use to challenge a death sentence.

North Carolina is poised to adopt a law that would allow statistics to play a meaningful role in race-based challenges to death sentences. The Racial Justice Act (pdf) would permit defendants facing death sentences as well as death row inmates to use "statistical evidence or other evidence" to prove "that race was a significant factor in decisions to seek or impose the sentence of death in the county, the prosecutorial district, or the State at large." A defendant who succeeds in making that showing would (if not yet convicted) not be subject to a death sentence, or (if already sentenced to death) have the sentence converted to a life sentence without parole. [more ...]

NPR and other news outlets are reporting that the U.S. believes Osama bin Laden's 20-something year old son, Saad bin Laden, was killed in a U.S. airstrike in Pakistan.

It's believed he was killed by Hellfire missiles fired from a U.S. Predator drone sometime this year. A senior U.S. counterterrorism official tells NPR that without a body to conduct DNA tests on, it's hard to be completely sure. But he characterized U.S. spy agencies as being "80 to 85 percent" certain that Saad bin Laden is dead.

The airstrike was months ago. Why are we just hearing this now? Also,

The U.S. counterterrorism official says Saad bin Laden wasn't important enough to target personally — that he was "in the wrong place at the wrong time."

President Obama said the police acted "stupidly" in arresting his friend, Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates.

As for the rest of the press conference, I was not happy with Obama's answers to the questions. At least two reporters (Chip Reid and someone else) asked questions I very much wanted to hear him answer, and he rambled and deflected. Why couldn't he be as sure-footed and direct about health care as he was Professor Gates? I now have some skepticism about his health care plan I didn't have before.

President Obama will be speaking to the Nation on the issue of health care tonight at 8 pm.

Here is a thread to discuss the President's remarks and reactions to them.

Update (TL): You can watch live at CBS here. The feed is already live. (BTD) - Here are some of the prepared remarks.

(BTD) 50 minutes in - President Obama, politically speaking, has knocked it out of the park. Bully pulpit indeed. A bravura performance by a tremendous politician. For a contrary view, Kevin Drum thought Obama stank.

Great news out of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security today. It unanimously passed the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act of 2009, a bill that eliminates the disparity between federal crack and powder cocaine sentences -- and removes the 5 year mandatory minimum for simple possession.

The bill is H.R. 3245, sponsored by Representative Robert Scott (D-VA). This bill goes about eliminating the disparity the best way. It simply removes references to “cocaine base” from the U.S. federal code and removes the five-year mandatory minimum sentence for simple possession of crack cocaine.

This is way better than some of the other bills which would change the penalty but add new crimes and throw more money into the War on Drugs.

Amazon is acquiring Zappos, the best online shoe retailer ever (in my opinion) for $800 million in stock.

Zappos, a ten-year-old private company that has won fans with perks like free shipping and personalized service, is the largest player in that market....The companies said the Zappos management team would remain intact, and that it would continue to operate as an independent division of Amazon from its offices outside Las Vegas. Zappos, whose backers include Sequoia Capital, also said it planned to maintain its shipping facility in Louisville, Ky.

I hope they run it the same. Amazon is stingy with affiliate commissions while Zappo's pays one of the best rates around. If that changes, I'll be very disappointed.

Consistent with his deferential approach to a President's Supreme Court nominations, Sen Lindsay Graham (R-SC)announced his support of the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court:

Graham, in a floor speech, said he believes Sotomayor is a “mainstream” jurist who “is bound by the law.” He said he was “voting for her because I find her to be well-qualified. Elections matter and those that have served beside her for years find her to be an extraordinary woman.”

Kudos to Graham for his consistency on this issue. I disagree with him with regard to the deference due the President on judicial appointments, but at least he was not a hypocrite, like Jon Kyl.

Speaking for me only

This is really sad. At a factory in Taiwan where iPhones are made(Foxconn Technology Group, a Taiwanese company) a 25 year old worker committed suicide by jumping from his apartment building because he was unable to account for one of the sixteen 4th Generation prototype iPhones entrusted to him. His job was to send the prototypes to Apple.

A newspaper says the worker was responsible for sending iPhone prototypes to Apple, and on July 13 he reported that he was missing one of the 16 fourth-generation units in his possession. The paper quotes his friends as saying security guards searched his apartment, detained him and beat him, and that he later jumped from the 12th floor of his apartment building.

Apple responds: "it's 'saddened by the tragic loss' and that its suppliers are required to treat workers with dignity and respect."

The Senate today rejected Sen. John Thune's amendment to the defense spending bill that would allow people with concealed weapons permits in one state to bring them into another state that allows concealed weapons permits. 48 states (all but Illinois and Wisconsin) provide concealed weapons permits.

The measure failed by 2 votes, 58 to 39. (60 votes were needed.) Score one for the gun control lobby. I think the objections to the bill are specious -- and in the case of NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg, verge on hysteria.

"This is about as anti-police, pro-gun trafficker piece of legislation that has ever come before the United States Senate," said New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg Tuesday.

[More...]

President Obama wanted his press conference on health care tonight at 9pm ET. NBC said no, it's spent weeks getting an interview with singer Susan Boyle which is airing tonight on America's Got Talent. The result: Susan Boyle trumps Obama. Obama moved the time of his conference to 8pm ET.

But, Fox (not the cable news network, the other one) will skip Obama's news conference as the new time conflicts with "So You Think You can Dance."

Here's Susan Boyle on the Today Show this morning. Now let's forget about her and get back to health care.

A report by the Immigration Justice Law Clinic at Benjamin Cardozo law school has found, based on a review of 700 arrest reports, that immigration agents broke the law and the constitution in conducting immigration raids.

Armed federal immigration agents have illegally pushed and shoved their way into homes in New York and New Jersey in hundreds of predawn raids that violated their own agency rules as well as the Constitution, according to a study to be released on Wednesday by the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law.

...The raids were supposed to focus on dangerous criminals, but overwhelmingly netted Latinos with civil immigration violations who happened to be present, the study said. Raiders mistakenly held legal residents and citizens by force in their own homes while agents rummaged through drawers seeking incriminating documents, the report said.

[More...]

Jon Kyl (R-AZ) announced his opposition to the confirmation of Judge Sonia Sotmayor for the Supreme Court. Certainly his right to do so. I have argued that the Senate owes the President no deference on judicial appointees. And this is not the first time Kyl blocked a Latino nominated by a Democratic President. Kyl was a part of the GOP cabal that blocked the confirmation of Clinton nominated appeals court judge Richard Paez (Paez was eventually confirmed.) But it is a reversal from Kyl's stated views on the deference due to a President's choice for the Supreme Court. When it was Judge Alito, Kyl was outraged that Democrats would vote no: