We would have liked to have been a fly on the wall of the green room at Fox News tonight. Barry Scheck, along with Eddie Lloyd, the 110th wrongfully convicted inmate freed by DNA testing, appeared on Hannity and Colmes from the Fox News studio in New York. The guest immediately after Barry was none other than former OJ Simpson cop Mark Fuhrman--the one who lied on the witness stand in the OJ case and said he had never used the "N" word when tapes of his conversations showed him to be a liar, resulting in his prosecution for perjury--and conviction.

It was Barry's contention during OJ that Mark Furhman could have planted some dna evidence which was introduced against OJ.

Furhman was on to talk about his one-sided view of the Skakel hearings today (we muted him)--but we just had to imagine the scene in the green room where guests go before segments and what those two might have said to each other in passing. Or not said, but still...

By the way, Barry Scheck was fabulous on Hannity and Colmes and Sean Hannity went out of his way to be deferential and complimentary to him and his work. Sean, the conservative on the show for those who don't watch cable news at night, usually is antagonistic to criminal defendants. If you are on the west coast, try to catch the re-run later.

ABC's Nightline tonight will feature the Joseph Salvati case which we recently described in detail. From their e-mailed press release:

"In recent years, there have been a spate of stories about people who were wrongfully convicted for a crime they didn't commit. Tonight we'll have one of those stories. The difference? The FBI knew he was innocent, but let him go to prison for 30 years in order to protect their informants...the real murderers.

We'll be watching.

Check out the new online Intervention Magazine covering War, Politics,and Literature. Eric over at Hamster says it's an online gem.

Many thanks to Instapundit, Eric Alterman, Hamster, Atrios/Eschaton , Cursor, Volokh Conspiracy and others for quoting and/or linking to us this past week. Our hit counter soared!

It's hard to keep from nodding in agreement the whole read through Dianne Dees' Welcome to Amurika, the lead article in today's Democratic Underground.

"I never intended to be a citizen of Amurika. I didn't even know where it was the first five or six times I heard the president talk about it. Then I heard Chris Matthews droning about Amurika, soon the other talking heads followed suit, and - finally - I got it. Amurika is where I live. So why does it feels like a foreign land? "

And how do we get out of here? If only clicking our heels twice would get us back home.

Nightline Tonight:

Get caught with five grams of crack cocaine, and the mandatory minimum sentence is five years. Five grams of powder cocaine? Probably not much will happen, especially if you're affluent or famous. It takes five hundred grams of powder cocaine to get the same five years sentence. In other words, it takes one hundred times the amount of powder to get you the same sentence as a crack user would get.

Why the 100 to 1 disparity?

"Most people believe now that a lot of the assumptions that were made back then are wrong. Crack may not be more addictive. It may not cause more violence. The feared epidemic of crack-addicted babies never materialized. So there is a fair amount of support for making the penalties more equal. But it's also an election year. President Bush, just days before his inauguration, said the penalties for crack and powder should be the same. Now the administration says that would signal a retreat in the war on drugs. So the inequality continues. And so do the consequences."

"Tonight Nightline correspondent Don Dahler will have our report, and Ted will anchor. Twenty years after crack was declared a threat to this country and Miami Vice made powder cocaine cool, it's time to look around again."

(Source: E-mail received today from Nightline)

If not for Hamster, we would have missed this:

The New York Times is reporting that Negotiations Are Under Way for Clinton Talk Show on CBS

"Some associates of Bill Clinton and executives from CBS are involved in negotiations to make the former president the host of a daily afternoon talk show."

His asking price last year reportedly was $100 million over 2 years. Talks fell through.

We think Mr. Clinton would be a terrific talk show host. We also think he'd be a great addition to the MSNBC night-time lineup--he might be the one person who could really change the cable station's declining ratings. Somebody tell Eric Sorenson and Phil Griffin to jump on this.

VodkaPundit responds, "For that I could switch back from CNBC to MSNBC." (see comments to this post.)

Thanks to Patrick McCarthy of Astronomical Facts who referred us to Gotcha! in today's Washington Post on the dangers of media coverage of suspects, and opines:

"The media has become the judge, jury and executioner in today's society. From the high profile cases of today the suspects and "persons of interest" are convicted in the media before charges are filed."

We couldn't resist...The Onion | What Do You Think?

Received from Judge Jim Gray....

an ABC News Special on the War on Drugs with John Stossel will be broadcast nationwide on Tuesday, July 30. In most parts of the country, the broadcast time will be 10 pm, and the rest will be 9 pm.

This should be an accurate and hard-hitting show.

In putting together this special, Stossel and his crew have traveled to England, Holland, Detroit, the Bronx and Colombia. They really have a story to tell, and it should be heard.

Please help spread the word to people who would be interested. As most of you know, all that people involved in the drug policy movement feel is necessary to change away from our failed system is to legitimize the discussion and let people know that it is OK to discuss this subject. Exposing people to what is really happening is the way to do it.

Wish we thought that one up. That's how James M. Capozzola, Editor of The Rittenhouse Review , one of our favorite blogs (with an incredible news links bar) describes Scoobie Davis' telephone interview with Ann Coulter. In the interview, set up by Scoobie with Ms. Coulter's publicity person, he pretends to be a radio talk show host and fan until the end when he reveals himself. It's a very, very funny conversation that we hope you take the time to read.

That's how Marc Cooper titles his interview with Gore Vidal in this week's LA Weekly. Vidal, now 76, has spent his career arguing "tempestuously that the U.S. should retreat back to its more Jeffersonian roots, that it should stop meddling in the affairs of other nations and the private affairs of its own citizens. "

Mr. Vidal has a new book out, "Perpetual War for Perpetual Peace: How We Got To Be So Hated." He believes we should all know the answer to why September 11 and the Oklahoma City bombings happened. Our government caused them. "There is no action without a reaction." The action was our hubris abroad and our creation of a police state at home, says Vidal. The reaction was Osama's and Mr. McVeigh's attacks on America, provoked by their rage resulting from America's "reckless assaults on other societies."

According to Vidal, the reason we went to Afganistan after Sept. 11 was not to find Osama, but to make an imperial grab for energy resources. The Persian Gulf was our main source of oil and the Taliban were getting "flaky."

"We had planned to occupy Afghanistan in October, and Osama, or whoever it was who hit us in September, launched a pre-emptory strike. They knew we were coming. And this was a warning to throw us off guard."

There's more...it's an interesting read.

Lawyers have been forced to the front lines since September 11th--we are fighting the government on everything, from use of military tribunals to how we will treat detainees and non-citizens, to the serious threat new anti-terror legislation has posed to everyone's civil liberties.

Now, with the ABA footing the bill, we are going to fight harder. Beginning July 8 in major newspapers, the American Bar Association has commissioned its first paid advertising campaign to promote the Constitution itself.