I'm working today and will return for the results from West Virginia's primary.

Some things to read today:

• The Washington Post's continuing series, Careless Detention by Dana Priest and Amy Goldstein on the merciless and inadequate health care provided to immigrant detainees. Today's segment is on errors in psychiatric diagnoses and the drugs administered, and how gaps in the system resulted in suicides.

• Baze v. Rees, Fearing Too Much Justice, by Elisabeth Semel, director of the Death Penalty Clinic at the University of California, Berkeley School of Law. Lis and I co-chaired the NACDL Legislative Committee together for years in the '90's and she is one of the smartest and most committed people I know.

• The defense continues its closing argument in the Tony Rezko Chicago corruption trial.

More...

Even though we added a second dedicated server to TalkLeft a few months ago, we're still having occasional problems. Part of it may be that the average time a reader spends on TalkLeft has gradually increased to an astonishing 7 minutes. We started closing comments at 200 to reduce the demand on the databases, but that still hasn't fixed our problems. We went down the night of the Indiana and North Carolina primaries and again today.

The next step is to increase the memory on the servers. We'll be upgrading from 2 gigabites to 6 gigabytes around 2:00 am ET. The site will be down while the new memory is being installed. It shouldn't take more than 1/2 hour, but since we have quite a group of late night readers, myself included, I'm just giving everyone a heads up.

Server back up now: 12:33 am MT. 'Night everyone, this is an open thread and there's more there's more below.

It's Mother's Day.

I'm thankful my mother is still alive. Although, after 3 years in a nursing home and 5 years in assisted living before that, it's a greater struggle each year to help her enjoy this special day given her rapidly advancing dementia and the physical toll of Parkinsons's Disease. She still laughs, enjoys corned beef sandwiches and chocolate chip cookies and lights up like she won the lottery when I bring her any kind of chocolate or ice cream. She loves the white orchard plant I bring every Mother's Day and the flowers my sister sends from 2,000 miles away, as well as the nightgowns. Another of her favorites is having me read her mother's day cards aloud over and over.

Then it's time for my mother's day with the TL kid. [More...]

Passions are so high between Hillary and Obama supporters. Let's tone it down a notch -- here's a segment of the April 30 episode of Boston Legal where the firm sued the DNC over pledged delegates. It should bring a little laughter and also have everyone asking themselves, "Am I really that bad?" The answer, of course, is yes. We all are.

And a question: Have any of you stopped talking to certain friends, family members or colleagues because you just cannot discuss the race civilly any more? I suspect it's become a fairly common phenonemon, but let us know.

And yes, this is an open thread.

By special request, here's another open thread.

I'm working on my outline for the NORML Aspen Legal Seminar which is due Tuesday. My topic this year: Crackadoodledoo! A New Dawn in Crack Cocaine Sentencing

I'll be back later to see how you are all doing.

I'm off to work, here's an open thread.

Please remember, be civil, no racism charges or personal character attacks and if you have been commenting here less than 30 days, you are limited to 10 comments a day. We only have room for 200 or so on each thread. And, if you are a chatterer, see the rules, you get no more than 20, no matter how long you've been here.

There are inflamed passions out there and I prefer reasoned discussion. Sniping is not appreciated. Drive-by hits without substance will be deleted.

Lots of rules, but these are unusual times and the internet has no eraser. Think before you post, the preview button is your friend.

Update 4:00 pm MT: Comments now closed.

I'm taking a break for Grey's Anatomy. Here's a place to keep the discussion going or start a new one.

I absolutely have to get back to work. I have jails to visit and briefs to write. Here's what I would be writing about if I had the time:

• Never leave a reporter and two lawyers on a jury. Here's a report of the Uma Thurman jury deliberations from a reporter who served on the jury. On the other hand, perhaps he just helped the defendant in a bid for a new trial.

  Tuesday morning, when we reconvened, a couple of my fellow jurors said they woke up sick to their stomachs. Another burst into the room saying he'd seen the drawings sketched by the court artists, and that they'd done a good job depicting us.

  Aren't the jurors admonished to avoid media reports of the trial? Where would s/he have seen the sketch artist's depictions but in a newspaper?

More...

Your turn. This is an Open Thread.

Comments over 200, thread now closed.

Last one. I'm going to bed.

Commnts now closed.

Update: New Posts are below this one. Just scroll down. We'll be bumping this to the top periodically through lunchtime. Thanks, everyone.

****

We're working really hard. Not just at keeping you up to date with the latest on tomorrow's primaries, but in making sure the site stays civil and weeding out the drive-bys who come here not to have a reasonable debate but to slam and insult our readers or try to hijack or dominate the discussion.

This takes an increasing amount of my time because site traffic and comments are way up.

If you appreciate our coverage, today and tomorrow are the days to let us know. If you're short on funds, don't give it another thought, we'll get by:

More details below:

The Insider Advantage Indiana poll is out. It's Hillary 48, Obama 44, with a 4 point margin of error. Actual results are here (pdf.)

Obama’s problem in Indiana is as clear as black and white, literally. It appears he will pull in his customary 80%-plus of African-Americans, but blacks make up only about 10% of all voters in the Indiana Democratic Primary. Meanwhile, Clinton is leading 54% to 41% among whites.