For all his accomplishments, President Clinton's strategy of running to the right on crime issues left a notorious legacy known as the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. It purported to make the death penalty "effective" by placing restrictions on federal judicial review of state criminal convictions. The AEDPA requires prisoners to petition the federal court within one year after their state convictions become final (generally when the direct appeal process has been taken to its end) and bans review of most issues that prisoners attempt to raise in successive petitions. The Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the latter restriction on the theory that it did not suspend habeas corpus but merely required prisoners to make all their claims for relief at one time.

State prisoners who are unaware of the one year limitations period for federal review often lose their right to habeas relief. Because prisoners seeking federal review generally have no right to a lawyer, those who are aware of the time limit often file their own woefully inadequate petitions. If, a couple of years later, the prisoner's family comes up with the money to hire a lawyer, it's often too late, even if the prisoner was unaware that serious constitutional violations deprived him of a fair trial.

The AEDPA was supposed to make the death penalty "effective" by allowing states to kill death row inhabitants more efficiently. It hasn't worked. [more ...]

Josh Marshall writes:

Make Him Work For It

I'm generally of the opinion that it's great to have anyone as a Democrat who will caucus with the party and support its candidates. . . .This has mainly informed my opinion about Arlen Specter . . . I guess my thought on this [is] it'd be nice to see him have to make some case to the Democrats in his state that he's worthy of their nomination . . .

My thought on this is EVERY POL should have to make the case that they should be the Democratic standardbearer for the post they seek - from Obama on down. Pols are not your friend. They are not the star players for your favorite sports team. They do what they do. They use you and we should use them -- to promote the issues you care about. I have always believed this. And I owe this thought to Markos Moulitsas, who first put it in my head. I wish he would return to his roots (Netroots pun intended) on this. To my mind, his work from 2002 on regarding that subject was his most important. I hope he returns to it.

Speaking for me only

I'm not convinced John Edwards is under investigation, as opposed to his campaign PAC.

Edwards confirmed the investigation Sunday but said he has been cooperating with it. His statement:

"I am confident that no funds from my campaign were used improperly," Edwards said in the statement. "However, I know that it is the role of government to ensure that this is true. We have made available to the United States both the people and the information necessary to help them get the issue resolved efficiently and in a timely matter."

I doubt he knew the details. His former campaign finance director, Fred Baron, before he died, said as much. The other bit players, Andrew Young and even new age healer Bob McGovern, if questioned by the feds, will undoubtedly make Baron out to be the decision-maker. [More..]

TalkLeft has frequently called attention to the dangers that inhere in police officers' reliance on Tasers. This policy on the deployment of Tasers in Gwinnett County, Georgia is typical in its authorization of Taser deployment "to control a non-compliant subject." The video of this tasering, intended to induce a non-compliant driver to get off her cellphone and exit her vehicle after a traffic stop, should be all that is needed to convince policy-makers that tasering is, in most situations, a needlessly cruel way to control the non-compliant.

In addition to inflicting unnecessary pain, Tasers can be deadly. The Gwinnett County policy accurately refers to the Taser as a "less-lethal" weapon rather than a nonlethal weapon. Residents of Jerseyville, Illinois learned just how lethal the Taser can be following the death by tasering of Roger Holyfield. The police confronted Holyfield as he was walking down the sidewalk carrying a Bible and shouting "I want Jesus." They may have given him his wish.

[more ...]

Move over, Spiderman. There's a new superhero in the crime-fighting game.

Shadow Hare may not strike fear into the hearts of Cincinnati criminals as effectively as Batman in Gotham City -- at 5'7" and lacking such helpful abilities as flight or web-spinning, Shadow Hare doesn't seem like much of a threat to criminals older than 12 -- but he's armed with a taser, pepper spray, handcuffs and good intentions.

And it turns out he's not alone in the superhero business. Shadow Hare teams with Wall Creeper in Colorado, Master Legend in Florida, and Aclyptico in Pennsylvania to fight crime as the Allegiance of Heroes. (Apparently all the good superhero names have been used up, Green Lantern having taken the last of them.)

Just one question, guys. Where were you during the Bush Administration, when the nation really needed crime-fighting heroes?

BTD has an open thread up here, but I'm starting another for tonight's tv.

I need a break from preparing for my Tuesday suppression hearing, so I'm watching The Ladies #1 Detective Agency, Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters and Celebrity Apprentice.

What are you watching or enjoying?

I imagine I have missed at least 5 important stories over the past few days. Fill me in if you please.

This is an Open Thread.

Maureen Dowd recounts (apparently Cenk reported)

Condi Rice, who plans to go back to being a professor of political science at Stanford, got grilled by a student at a reception at a dorm there on Monday. . . . The student pressed [Rice] about whether waterboarding was torture.

“By definition, if it was authorized by the president, it did not violate our obligations under the Conventions Against Torture,” Ms. Rice said, almost quoting Nixon’s logic: “When the president does it, that means that it is not illegal.”

The entire video, from Reyna Garcia, is worth watching.

I have often written of my profound admiration for Justice David Souter - I call him the finest Justice since Brennan. And I want to defend that argument with a detailed post. But alas, other projects, paying and otherwise, have gotten in the way. But I noticed a comment from txpublicdefender about Dahlia Lithwick's article on Souter, and it seems clear to me that she feels much as I do about Justice Souter. Here is a wonderful passage from Lithwick:

Reuters columnist Bernard Debussman has a good column examining the elephant in the room in the debate on the war on drugs:

In 1980, we had 41,000 drug offenders in prison; today we have more than 500,000, an increase of 1,200 percent.” The elephant has ambled out of the bedroom and has become the object of a lively debate on the pros and cons of legalising drugs.

He examines theories as to why the momentum towards marijuana legalization is picking up steam. He also explains why legalization is making sense to so many people right now: [More...]

Eric Boehlert's book,"bloggers on the bus: How the Internet Changed Politics and the Press", is a tour de force about the rise of activist political blogging that deftly describes the rise of political blogging in the Bush Era. It takes the issue of political blogging and its effect on politics and journalism seriously and provides many first person accounts of how it came about. As part of the story, Boehlert reports on the period of the 2008 Democratic primary. That portion of the book will anger many in the blogosphere. Perhaps it should. But perhaps they should also consider whether the book portrays the episode accurately. I believe it does.

In this post, I will be discussing Chapter 9 of the book - the issue of sexism and how it was covered and REFLECTED in the blogosphere. The most startling quote on the subject in the book comes from Chris Bowers during the 2008 Presidential primary - "[Was sexism] somehow pervasive throughout the entire blogosphere? I certainly have not seen that." (Emphasis supplied.) Chris is a good man. But please. This is like a Right Wing blogger complaining that there is not "pervasive racial coding throughout the entire Republican Party." Define "pervasive" Chris. More . . .

I'm on assignment. Actually, I'm having a lot of fun trying to create a new kind of hearing notebook for a suppression hearing this week.

There are so many cases on traffic stops that end with purported consents to search and the seizure of vast quantities of drugs, that it's hard to keep them all straight. Printing them out and sticking them in a file is not going to help me find the one I need as I'm arguing. [More...]