The promised troop withdrawal and the distraction of a sucky economy should not prevent us from pausing to remember that members of our military continue to die in Iraq.

Two American Marines and a sailor were killed during a military operation in Anbar ... on Thursday “while conducting combat operations against enemy forces,” the [military command] statement said. ... The deaths brought the total for American troops in April to 18, according to the Iraq Coalition Casualty Count, making it the deadliest month for American forces in Iraq since September.

Total U.S. military deaths to date: 4,281 according to the Coalition Casualty Count.

Contra the racially tinged views championed by Andrew "Fifth Column/Bell Curve" Sullivan, Charles Murray and other racialists, David Brooks trots out the old "How do you get to Carnegie Hall joke? Practice, practice, practice." Brooks writes:

What Mozart had, we now believe, was the same thing Tiger Woods had — the ability to focus for long periods of time and a father intent on improving his skills. Mozart played a lot of piano at a very young age, so he got his 10,000 hours of practice in early and then he built from there. The latest research suggests a more prosaic, democratic, even puritanical view of the world. The key factor separating geniuses from the merely accomplished is not a divine spark. It’s not I.Q., a generally bad predictor of success, even in realms like chess. Instead, it’s deliberate practice. Top performers spend more hours (many more hours) rigorously practicing their craft.

[MORE . . .]

It's unfortunate that the Obama administration was unable (and apparently unmotivated) to win Senate approval of a proposal to allow bankruptcy courts to modify the terms of mortgage notes.

In recent weeks, major banks and bank trade associations worked closely with Senate Republicans to stop the measure. Twelve Democrats joined all the Republicans in voting against it.

Relief for troubled financial institutions: no problem. Relief for financially troubled homeowners: can't do it. Way to go, Dems.

Soon we'll learn whether the financial industry has enough Senate clout to kill another bill favored by the Obama administration (and about which the administration has been more vocal). The bill, passed yesterday by the House and popular with just about everyone who carries a credit card, would limit credit card interest rates and fees while "requiring banks to apply consumers’ payments to balances with the highest interest rates first." [more ...]

The New Hampshire Senate passed a medical marijuana bill this week. All but one Democrat voted in favor of compassionate relief for the seriously ill, while all but one Republican voted in favor of continued suffering.

The measure applies only to patients afflicted by certain illnesses, such as cancer, or certain symptoms, such as wasting syndrome. If a doctor prescribes marijuana for such a patient, the individual could obtain a card allowing them to legally possess six plants or 2 ounces.

Law enforcement officials opposed the bill and Gov. John Lynch has concerns about it because patients would have to grow or buy the marijuana, and that would somehow make the enforcement of marijuana laws against non-patients more difficult. The easy solution to that dubious dilemma -- legalizing marijuana -- apparently isn't on the table.

Yesterday's riff on the cruel and misguided policy of prosecuting and punishing children as if they were adults -- inspired by news that 14-year-old Kearie Brown will be tried in adult court -- shares the sentiment expressed today in a Los Angeles Times editorial that calls for a ban on "life without parole" sentences for juveniles:

Children, even really bad ones, are different from adults. That basic truth is the foundation of our juvenile justice system, which seeks to protect society from violent youth while recognizing that they haven't yet developed an adult's brainpower, resistance to peer pressure, judgment and thus moral capacity. ...

[L]ocking up children as young as 14 for life without even the most remote possibility of parole ... [is] costly, cruel and foolish.

Judges who impose harsh sentences often claim that severe punishment deters others who might be tempted to commit a similar crime. That rationale, dubious when applied to adults, is wholly misguided when applied to children who haven't developed the ability to understand or envision the lifelong consequences of impulsive action. As the editorial reminds us: [more ...]

I meant to write about this last week and since I think it deserves wider attention and haven't seen any challenges to it, I'm going to now. Tremble the Devil has done some serious numbers-crunching on the latest Bureau of Justice Statistics claiming that the disparity between the numbers of African-American and caucasian drug offenders in prison has substantially decreased.

A report by The Sentencing Project uses data provided by the Bureau of Justice Statistics [chart here]to come to the cheery conclusion that over the six-year period from 1999-2005 there was a 21.6% drop in African-Americans serving state prison time for drug offenses, while the number of whites increased by 42.6%.

According to Tremble the Devil, the drop is due to a change in the methodology: BJS (The Bureau of Justice Statistics, an arm of DOJ) stopped counting mixed black-white prisoners. They just disappeared from the statistics. In a footnote, BJS acknowledges: [More...]

The AP now has this list of potential replacement candidates for Justice Souter.

President Obama's vetting team has been at this for a while. I doubt he'll feel pressured to nominate someone acceptable to conservatives, particularly with Arlen Specter and (hopefully)Al Franken joining the Dems in the Senate before a vote is scheduled. Whoever he picks is probably a lock.

If he is looking for a "consensus nominee", as I wrote several times in 2005 when Bush was doing the picking, 5th Circuit Judge Ed Prado would be an excellent choice. Initially appointed to the federal bench by Reagan, and to the 5th Circuit by Bush, he's also been a long-time opponent of mandatory minimum sentences, as I wrote here in 2003. Prior to becoming a judge, he was both a district attorney, U.S. Attorney and Public Defender. The "Draft Prado" website is no longer accessible, but who knows, maybe it will be back.

New York's top judge, Jonathan Lippman (chief judge of the NY Court of Appeals) has announced the creation of a permanent task force to study wrongful convictions and how to minimize their occurrence. The plan is receiving wide praise.

Members of the task force, who are being selected by Judge Lippman, will include prosecutors, defense lawyers, scientists and lawmakers. They will have a broad mandate to examine police procedures, court rules and other issues involved in wrongful convictions.

“We’re going to take the raw material from all the cases here in New York and, for that matter, around the country, and see what we need to do to change the criminal justice system so this doesn’t happen,” Judge Lippman said in an interview on Wednesday.

This is something that Innocence Project co-founders Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld called for in their 2002 book, Actual Innocence, and in detail here.[More...]

JUSTICE SOUTER: Good evening Mr. President.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Good evening Justice Souter. You watching this game? Incredible! Ray Allen goes for 51 and hits every big shot. John Salmons goes for 35?? Joakim Noah strips PAUL PIERCE and takes it the distance and dunks in Pierce's face! And then makes the free throw! Can you believe it?!? Triple overtime! Greatest series ever. Can't wait for Game 7.

SOUTER: Um, I do not own a television, Mr. President. I was calling to tell you I am retiring from the Court.

OBAMA: We'll have to talk about this tomorrow Justice Souter. Thanks for calling.

Speaking for me only

CNN and NPR are reporting Supreme Court Justice David Souter is retiring and has informed the White House. NBC's Pete Williams said a few hours ago, maybe, maybe not.

Update: I just got a press release from MSNBC saying Pete Williams broke the story on Rachel Maddow's show tonight.

Washington Post report here, also saying Souter has informed the White House. It gives this list of potential replacement nominees: [More...]

Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, held for years as an enemy combatant and recently transferred to the Southern District of Illinois to face criminal charges, pleaded guilty today to one count of conspiring to provide material support or resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

Attorney General Eric Holder issued this statement on the guilty plea. In his words, among the "milestones we achieve today":

The conviction of an al-Qaeda sleeper agent captured in the United States;

-- The certainty that our criminal justice system can and will hold terrorists accountable for their actions, and;

-- The triumph of the exhaustive efforts of dedicated professionals at the Justice Department and many other agencies involved in this case.

He also engages in some tough talk:[More...]

Bulls-Celtics Game 6 tonight at 7. Must see TV.

One other thing, Matt Yglesias calls Cass Sunstein a "progressive lawyer," proving yet again, that when it comes to the law, Yglesias is utterly clueless.

This is an Open Thread.