(Election News Has Moved to Election 2000 Section Below)

The U.S. Supreme Court blocked Thursday night's execution of a convicted killer said to be so mentally retarded he spends his days coloring with crayons and still believes in Santa Claus.

An admitted Texas killer whose lawyers contend he has the intellectual capacity of a first-grader is scheduled to be executed Thursday night, 11 years after his case led the U.S. Supreme Court to affirm the constitutionality of death sentences imposed on mentally retarded defendants. Advocates for Johnny Paul Penry, 44, who was sentenced to die for a 1979 rape-murder, say that putting Penry to death would be morally equivalent to executing a 6-year-old.

Two city police sergeants and one officer were convicted Wednesday by a jury that found them guilty of conspiring to frame suspects, then falsifying arrest reports or lying in sworn court testimony. A fourth officer facing similar charges was acquitted.

The nation's Roman Catholic bishops adopted a broad but detailed statement on America's criminal justice system today, calling both for a new commitment to rehabilitate criminals and reiterating opposition to the death penalty.

Calling racial profiling repugnant, a federal judge on Tuesday approved in concept an agreement to spend a $600,000 settlement in an Eagle County case on educating police officers and lawyers about the issue. U.S. District Judge John L. Kane Jr. said racial profiling could become the civil rights issue of the new millennium, as important as school desegregation.

A resolution passed unanimously by over 50 officers who lead the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) this week says the government's crusade to punish drug crimes is racist, unjust and unwinnable and therefore should cease.

Calling racial profiling repugnant, a federal judge on Tuesday approved in concept an agreement to spend a $600,000 settlement in an Eagle County case on educating police officers and lawyers about the issue. U.S. District Judge John L. Kane Jr. said racial profiling could become the civil rights issue of the new millennium, as important as school desegregation.

Three Los Angeles police officers were convicted of conspiracy and a fourth was cleared Wednesday in the first trial to come out of the LAPD corruption scandal.

Texas is expected to break its own U.S. record for most executions in a year when it puts three men to death this week, the last of whom is said to be so mentally retarded he still believes in Santa Claus.

The Supreme Court agreed Monday to clarify inmates' one-year deadline to file federal court appeals challenging their convictions. The court said it will hear the New York attorney general's argument that the time clock for filing such appeals continues running while a prior federal appeal by the inmate is pending.

The Supreme Court agreed today to clarify when police officers can be held legally responsible for using excessive force while arresting someone. The court’s decision, expected sometime in 2001, is likely to be of great importance to police forces nationwide.

By a 4 to 3 vote, the Georgia Supreme Court today rejected an appeal seeking to abolish the electric chair as the state's method of execution.

Angered by Arizona's execution of two of its citizens, Germany on Monday accused the United States of breaking international law and claimed its application of capital punishment is biased against the poor.

California, which jails more drug users per capita than any other state, now must quickly change course and implement the most ambitious drug treatment program in U.S. history. Last week's passage of Proposition 36, a sweeping initiative requiring treatment instead of imprisonment for an estimated 36,000 drug users each year, thrusts California into mostly uncharted territory.

Even on death row, Johnny Paul Penry is an outcast, shunned by other inmates because of his mental retardation. Mr. Penry, whose I.Q. has been tested by state authorities at 56, spends his days coloring with crayons and looking at comic books he cannot read, his lawyers say. He says he still believes in Santa Claus. Now, after 20 years on death row, he is scheduled to be executed on Thursday by lethal injection.

The jury weighing corruption evidence against four Los Angeles police officers reached partial verdicts after its first full day of deliberations, The Associated Press learned Friday.

California's enormous prison system, the largest in the Western Hemisphere with more than 162,000 inmates, may be radically altered since voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly approved a measure that will sentence nonviolent drug offenders to treatment instead of prison.

On Wednesday, Gil Garcetti conceded defeat in his race for a third term as Los Angeles County district attorney. The same day, a jury here began deliberating the fate of the first four officers to be tried in Los Angeles's worst police corruption scandal in decades.

Among the winners: drug policy reform, gun control, all-English education. Among the losers: school vouchers, gay rights, sprawl containment.

A federal prosecutor who warned Attorney General Janet Reno last year that Justice Department officials might have withheld evidence in the investigation of the 1993 standoff with the Branch Davidians outside Waco, Tex., was indicted today on charges of obstructing justice and making false statements to investigators.

A federal appeals panel overturned a death sentence Monday, ruling the prosecutor went too far in telling the jury that the death penalty was sanctioned by God.

A Tucson lawyer and the Arizona Attorney General will be on opposite sides when Germany and the United States face off next week in a landmark battle over the death penalty in the International Court of Justice in the Hague, commonly called The World Court.

Attorneys representing capital murder defendant Chauncey Jackson will argue at a Norfolk Circuit Court hearing that imposing a death sentence upon a teen-ager does more than offend the sensibility of other countries promoting human rights. It also, they say, violates international law.

The United States Commission on Civil Rights urged Congress today to make it easier for people to sue abusive police officers and for the government to investigate police misconduct. The recommendations were in a report that found that the overall reduction of crime in the nation had often come at a "significant cost to the vulnerable communities in greatest need of police protection."

In a plea to win back his right to drive in Maine following his 1976 conviction for drunken driving, George W. Bush portrayed himself as a casual drinker, saying he drank ''infrequently'' and had an ''occasional beer,'' according to an official handwritten notation in Maine state records. His comments, made in a 1978 hearing conducted by telephone, clash with the presidential candidate's more recent recountings of his drinking habits at that time in his life.

During the course of a more than two-hour interview with The Washington Post in Peru on Thursday afternoon--her first with a newspaper since her arrest--Berenson was unbowed. She insisted that she is innocent of the charges that brought her a life sentence from hooded military judges presiding over a secret court, but would not repudiate the rebels who in prison are her chief companions.

Seven federal prison guards allegedly belonging to a renegade group called ''The Cowboys'' have been charged with kicking inmates, smashing their heads into walls, and mixing human waste into their food.

Wayne Slater, a Dallas Morning News reporter traveling with the Bush campaign said the governor denied being arrested to him during an impromptu interview in 1998 on the sidelines of a news conference in Austin, Texas. Slater said he asked Bush whether the governor had been arrested after 1968, when Bush had been arrested for being involved in a fraternity prank. Slater said Bush said, "No."

Federal prosecutors agreed Friday to pursue possible criminal charges against two troopers involved in a 1998 shooting on the New Jersey Turnpike that inflamed the state's racial profiling controversy.

Under the principle that those who violate the laws of society ought to surrender some of its privileges, Alabama, like eight other states, does not allow anyone with a felony conviction to vote; only a pardon from state officials restores voting rights. Nationally, about 4.2 million Americans — some still behind bars, others freed long ago — cannot vote because of felony disenfranchisement laws

Support for the death penalty in California has declined sharply in the last decade, according to a Los Angeles Times poll, but Californians still favor capital punishment by a substantial margin. The poll found that 58% of those surveyed supported the death penalty, down from 78% in 1990.

A lawyer for a death row inmate has stepped forward and admitted sabotaging his client's appeals because he didn't like the man and thought he ought to be executed.

The drug court program, used in California and elsewhere, stems from a realization by judges and prosecutors a decade ago that they needed a new tool to battle the crush of drug addicts clogging courts and prisons.

By dismissing criminal charges against the two state troopers in the 1998 shooting of three black and Hispanic men on the New Jersey Turnpike, a State Superior Court judge sent a pointed reprimand to the administration of Gov. Christine Todd Whitman, accusing her attorney general's office of being so zealous in trying to defuse the political uproar over racial profiling that prosecutors trampled on the rights of the two troopers, John Hogan and James Kenna.

A U.S. federal judge in Pennsylvania postponed on Wednesday what would have been the first execution by the federal government in 37 years to give inmate David Hammer time to file an appeal.

Albuquerque attorneys William Parnall, Jacquelyn Robins and Randi McGinn called a news conference Tuesday to "defend criminal defense lawyers" against what they see as a district attorneys' office candidate's criticism of their role in the criminal justice system.

The Supreme Court heard arugments today in a case which pits an individual’s right to come and go from his home against police power to preserve evidence of a crime.

A New Jersey judge dropped all charges today against two state troopers in connection with the 1998 shooting of three unarmed black and Hispanic men during the traffic stop on the New Jersey Turnpike that made racial profiling a national issue. The charges were dropped due to prosecutorial misconduct. Peter Neufeld, an attorney for the men who were shot, complained that the system is "paralyzed" and has been "unable to deal with institutionalized and systemic racism." He vowed that "One way or another, these officers will be held accountable for what they did, either in state courts, or under the auspices of the federal government."

Sunday, November 12, 2000, CNN, Killing Pablo

Eight years ago, at the request of the Colombian government, U.S. military and spy forces helped fund and guide a massive manhunt that ended with the killing of Pablo Escobar, the richest cocaine trafficker in the world. While portraying the pursuit of Escobar as essentially a Colombian operation, the United States secretly spent millions of dollars and committed elite soldiers, law enforcement agents and the military's most sophisticated electronic eavesdropping unit to the chase. Watch the special on CNN, and read the investigative series, written by Mark Bowden, Philadelphia Inquirer.

This week's schedule for the House and Senate, including Committee Meetings

11/18/2000... A Day of Twists and Turns in the Courts...New York Times

The Florida Supreme Court barred Florida's secretary of state from certifying official election results today but allowed the continued processing of overseas ballots and hand ballot recounts.

"On the limited evidence presented it appears that the Secretary has exercised her reasoned judgment to determine what relevant factors and criteria should be considered, applied them to the facts and circumstances pertinent to the individual counties involved and made her decision. My order requires nothing more."

Florida's high court gave the go-ahead to ballot recounts in the state's chaotic presidential election Thursday but left unanswered the question of whether the results will matter. [Ed.: Ruling Friday at 10:00 a.m. in state court on whether votes will count]

The NAACP gave the Justice Department on Thursday a transcript of complaints by black voters about the presidential election voting in south Florida.

Not every vote counts.George W. Bush and Al Gore are just 300 votes apart in Florida's presidential election, but more than 180,000 Floridians who went to the polls on Nov. 7 could have just stayed home. Their ballots were tossed out because they chose more than one presidential candidate, didn't choose one at all or their vote didn't register. According to an Associated Press survey of Florida's 67 county elections supervisors, the vote for a presidential candidate wasn't counted on 180,299 of the ballots.

''This case is simply not appropriate for federal court intervention of any kind at this point in the proceeding,'' Gore's lawyers argued in a brief filed Thursday morning with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta.

Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris announced Wednesday night she would deny attempts by scattered counties to submit hand recounts of ballots to the results of the contested presidential election between George W. Bush and Al Gore.

Florida's highest court rejected the Republican secretary of state's requests Wednesday to delay any hand recounting of ballots in the chaotic tally of presidential ballots and to consolidate all lawsuits in one court in Tallahassee.

A federal appeals court in Atlanta agreed Wednesday to hear arguments on George W. Bush's attempt to shut down Democratic-prompted manual recounts in Florida's contested presidential election.

The Florida secretary of state announced tonight that she would comply with a state judge's order to consider results of further recounts in the disputed presidential election, but she gave the three Democratic counties that are still moving ahead with time-consuming hand recounts a deadline of 2 p.m. Wednesday to explain their reasons in writing.

Text of Nov. 14 ruling by Leon County, Fla., Circuit Judge Terry P. Lewis on request by Volusia and Palm Beach counties to extend the 5 p.m. EST Nov. 14 deadline for reporting recounts of Florida's presidential vote to the secretary of state. Judge declined to extend deadline but directed secretary of state to use discretion and consider late filings.

The campaign of Texas Gov. George W. Bush filed notice Tuesday that it will ask an appeals court in Atlanta to order a stop to hand counting presidential election votes in Florida, a court official said. In a five-page notice, the Bush camp said it would ask the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a decision rendered by a federal court in Miami Monday, according to court clerk Thomas Kahn.

Democrats argue George W. Bush's legal effort to block a manual recount in four Florida counties is not a matter for the federal courts and note that the tradition of counting by hand started with the nation's founding. The motion for an injunction should be denied because the Bush campaign has not been able to ''justify the extraordinary interference with state electoral processes they seek,'' the legal response said.

Read the motion for preliminary injunction filed by George W. Bush to stop the hand re-count in Palm Beach County. Hearing will be held at 9:30 Monday morning.

Fox News Channel is investigating whether an executive related to George W. Bush provided his cousin's campaign with insider exit poll data on Election Night.

Read the two conflicting sections of Florida's election law on deadlines for submitting certification of election results.

A Harvard-educated blueblood from one of Florida's wealthiest families, Secretary of State Katherine Harris is no stranger to controversy. She's been investigated for campaign finance violations and criticized for spending state money jetting around the world, spending up to $500 a night for hotel rooms in Washington. She's also been one of George W. Bush's most prominent political supporters, campaigning for him in Florida and elsewhere.

A federal judge's ruling today allowed hand recounts in several Florida counties to go forward, but it is unlikely that the current hand count under way will be done by an imposed deadline of Tuesday afternoon. Meanwhile, Al Gore's presidential campaign joined in Florida state court actions brought by some counties today, seeking additional time for the hand counting of thousands of ballots beyond the Tuesday deadline imposed by the state's top elections official. [Ed: Ruling expected sometime Tuesday morning]

Text of U.S. District Court Judge Donald M. Middlebrook's opinion denying Gov. George W. Bush's request for an injunction to halt hand counting of ballots. Requires Adobe Acrobat reader.

Democrats argue George W. Bush's legal effort to block a manual recount in four Florida counties is not a matter for the federal courts and note that the tradition of counting by hand started with the nation's founding. The motion for an injunction should be denied because the Bush campaign has not been able to ''justify the extraordinary interference with state electoral processes they seek,'' the legal response said.

Read the motion for preliminary injunction filed by George W. Bush to stop the hand re-count in Palm Beach County. Hearing will be held at 9:30 Monday morning.

Palm Beach County election officials awarded three dozen additional votes to Al Gore following a mechanical recount and then decided that all 425,000 votes cast last week should be counted by hand.

Judge Donald M. Middlebrooks, appointed to the bench four years ago by President Clinton, is a longtime Democrat. Respected for his intellect and compassion, Middlebrooks, 53, led the push for Florida’s Sunshine Laws, designed to make government more accountable and accessible to the public. Middlebrooks’ first controversial battle came more than 20 years ago when he helped free famed Death Row inmates Freddie Pitts and Wilbert Lee. “He’s a very impressive fellow and an excellent judge, but he’s the worst possible judge the Bush campaign could have drawn for this case,” said Nova University Professor Bob Jarvis, who specializes in state constitutional law.

The Republican decision to sue Florida election officials in federal court appears to be a strategic move to avoid state circuit courts and their elected judges, while also dodging the state Supreme Court now dominated by Democratic appointees, legal experts said. But the plan might be doomed from the start. The legal arguments they use to try to stop the manual recount of presidential ballots don’t meet the strict standards for gaining an injunction, the legal experts said.

It was chad vs sunlight Saturday, and the chad won. During the manual count of votes in Palm Beach County, Fla., officials switched tests mid-count to decide the validity of the ballots.

Robert Rackleff, a Leon County commissioner and a member of that county's canvassing board, maintains that punch card systems are eight times more likely to miss a vote than optical scanners used elsewhere. Peter Neumann, principal scientist at SRI International, a nonprofit computer research group, who has testified before Congress on computer issues, says officials in England and Germany consider manual counts to be more accurate than automated ones. "You should do a manual recount of every card in the state," Neumann said.

Americans by a 3-to-1 margin say it's more important to make certain the vote count in Florida has been fair and accurate than to resolve matters quickly, polls show.

George W. Bush's campaign went to federal court in Florida on Saturday, determined to block Democratic requests for hand recounts of votes of portions of the state that holds the key to the 2000 presidential election.

With the race between Gore and George W. Bush hinging on a few hundred Florida votes, advocacy groups contended that the outcome was skewed by the disenfranchisement of more than 500,000 ex-offenders. Human Rights Watch and the Sentencing Project, two of the groups raising the issue, estimated that 31 percent of the black men in Florida -- more than 200,000 potential voters -- were excluded from the polls because they were in prison or had criminal records.

Vice President Al Gore narrowly defeated George W. Bush for Oregon's seven electoral votes in a bittersweet victory three days after the election. The margin is so close that a recount cannot be precluded.

Taking an election to court is easier in Florida than in many other states....Florida law lays out five grounds for challenging elections: an ineligible candidate, fraud, bribery, illegal votes and frustration of the voters' will.

Dec. 18, the day that presidential electors are to meet in 50 state capitals and the District of Columbia, may produce a political crisis if Florida's 25 votes are still in dispute. But the crisis will not be constitutional, scholars say, for the Constitution enables a president to be chosen even if a big state like Florida does not vote.

George W. Bush's lead over Al Gore in crucial Florida shrank to fewer than 400 votes by unofficial count Thursday with allegations of irregularities swirling and ballots from overseas residents still to be counted. Recount results from 65 of the state's 67 counties gave Republican Bush a lead of 225 votes out of nearly 6 million cast, according to an unofficial tally by The Associated Press. The original ''final'' margin had been reported at 1,784.

The 538 members of the electoral college still have to cast their ballots on Dec. 18, and the new Congress, sitting in joint session on Jan. 6, will have to count them. And while it is almost certain that the members of the electoral college will indeed, vote for the candidates to whom they have pledged support, it is not absolutely certain. Only the thinnest legal barriers prevent a "faithless elector" from voting for someone other than the candidate who won the popular vote in his or her state.

Three people filed a lawsuit Wednesday seeking a new election in Palm Beach County, claiming the punch-card ballot was so confusing that they accidentally voted for Reform Party candidate Pat Buchanan instead of Vice President Al Gore.View the actual ballot and decide for yourselves.

Hillary Rodham Clinton stepped from the White House to the United States Senate tonight, becoming the first presidential spouse to be elected to public office. Mrs. Clinton defeated Representative Rick A. Lazio to succeed retiring Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan, a Democrat.

George W. Bush's arrest for drunken driving in 1976 cost him some votes, exit polls suggest. More than a fourth of voters said news of Bush's arrest for driving under the influence was somewhat or very important to their vote. They were about four times more likely to vote for Gore.

The race for the White House is closer than it has been in decades. But the results could give the United States something we don’t expect: a lesson in how our democracy works. Voter.com explains the workings of the Electoral College and what could happen on Nov. 7.

Where Do Bush and Gore Stand on Crime and Justice Issues...Court TV

A special election report outlining Gore and Bush's position on abortion, civil rights, the death penalty, and guns.

On November 7, 2000, Oregon voters approved an amendment to the Oregon Constitution, requiring conviction before forfeiture of assets. Please try to get a legislator in your state to introduce it in the next legislative session.

Text of S. 2463, the National Death Penalty Moratorium Act of 2000

To institute a moratorium on the imposition of the death penalty at the Federal and State level until a National Commission on the Death Penalty studies its use and policies ensuring justice, fairness, and due process are implemented.

Action Alert, Stop the Execution of the Innocent

Text of S. 2073, the Innocence Protection Act

The advent of DNA testing raises serious concerns regarding the prevalence of wrongful convictions. The Innocence Protection Act will ensure that wrongfully convicted persons have an opportunity to establish their innocence through DNA testing.

Barry Scheck's Senate Judiciary Committee Testimony on Post-Conviction DNA Testing

Read the proposed Grand Juror's Bill of Rights--then contact your elected officials and urge passage!

Mr. Penry is judged by experts to have the mental age of a 6 1/2-year-old child. He never finished the first grade. In a recent interview with The New York Times, he said he believed in Santa Claus and that he thought there were six hours in a day. Mr. Penry has been on death row for 20 years. Killing him would be a savage act that shows the injustice of Texas' death penalty system.

Mr. Gore has now responded creatively to the situation while Mr. Bush emerged form the seclusion of his ranch only to turn down a real opportunity to negotiate a procedural agreement that the public would trust.

The situation could hardly be more transparent. The Republican Party is consumed with the fear that somehow a fair count of the votes in Florida will be permitted. It is doing all it can to prevent that from happening.

If Bush has an ounce of the compassion he says he does, he will recite the Voting Rights Act backward as well as forward and let the votes be counted until all the t's are dotted and the i's crossed. If he does not, he will be remembered as the president who won on the underlying principle of eliminating thousands of Americans from the voting booth.

I HATE to interrupt all this fabulous election fun for business, but they're going to execute Johnny Penry on Thursday. I guess you could say that's a small loss to the world. John Paul Penry never did have much luck, and then he committed a horrible crime. The trouble is, Penry has an IQ of 56 as tested by the University of Texas at Austin, which is considered retarded. Somebody should be held responsible for this tragedy, but it's not the man with the IQ of a small child sitting in a cell with his coloring books. The 18 members of the state Board of Pardons and Paroles, and Gov. Bush could spare his life. This is Bush's chance to show that he's made of better stuff and is indeed a ``compassionate'' conservative.

Mr. Bush's move to stop the manual vote counting in four heavily Democratic counties in Florida was wrongly conceived. The argument of James A. Baker III that hand counting is an error- prone attempt to "divine" voter intentions is mistaken....During the campaign, Mr. Bush tirelessly repeated his belief that states should be allowed to determine what is best for them. It is disingenuous for him to challenge the constitutionality of a law similar to one his own state adopted.

The butterfly ballot mess in Palm Beach County has been widely reported. But there are also complaints that thousands of other properly registered Floridians, many of them black, were improperly prevented from voting. This has not gotten a lot of attention. If you have large numbers of voters complaining that they were denied access to the polls, and you combine that with the fact that the Bush campaign is doing all it can to prevent a complete count of those who did vote, it's very difficult to imagine a way in which a full and fair result can be arrived at in a couple of weeks.

The question is which 25 electors the Florida voters chose. We may never know the answer. No judicially ordered rerun of the election could perfectly replicate the conditions of this past Election Day. But it could come close. A corrective election could be limited to people who voted the first time around, and those voting could be required to submit sworn affidavits that they will vote for whichever candidate they had intended to vote for on Election Day.

Bush is the loser; Gore is the winner. Any other outcome will be a violation of the popular will, a disgrace on the United States, and a disaster for the wider cause of liberty. If Dubya steals the White House, American democracy will be a joke.

This week, with the future of the free world up for grabs, it is once again clear that Florida — America's sunny Margaritaville of drifters, grifters and politically active lap-dancers — has something of a credibility problem when it comes to the heavy lifting of democracy. Think about it: hundreds of liberal Jews in Palm Beach, some of them elderly retirees, mistakenly vote for Pat Buchanan, a candidate they revile for both his politics and his comments about Hitler, and this costs Al Gore, a candidate they adore for picking a Jewish running mate, four years in the White House? Not even Carl Hiaasen is this good.

Mandating the use of ineffective software in public schools and libraries is, on its face, absurd. It is also very likely unconstitutional.

There is no reason for Mr. Gore to concede at this point. On the facts, he has a fair claim that he was the actual choice of more voters in Florida than Governor Bush.

Not many elections are conducted on ballots that are not merely confusing but illegal. That is what happened in Palm Beach County, Fla. And that is why the election there, in every precinct that was supplied an illegal ballot, must be rerun. It is not a matter of political will. It is the law.

The truth is that one question and one question only should be dominating our political debate that this crucial moment in American history: Will the nation — and the news media — let the Republicans steal this presidential election?

I so totally hope that Al Gore decides to fight like a junkyard dog for Florida's 25 electoral votes. It is necessary that he fight for Florida as the voice of those who have no voice otherwise -- the millions of voters who chose to believe in the promise of a Gore presidency.

Although 31 states have executed 669 convicts since the U.S. Supreme Court allowed reinstatement of the death penalty in 1976, the federal government has not executed a single prisoner. But few of us get our way forever. The U.S. government is scheduled to be back in the death-penalty business in a matter of weeks. Next up: Juan Raul Garza, 43, a convicted drug trafficker and triple-murderer from Texas. After its 37-year hiatus, though, the federal death penalty has been all but lost in the mists. That will change after election season passes and the national media turns its klieg lights on Terre Haute and the president who will be forced to decide Garza's fate.

The difference is that Bush is running for president and the same rules don't apply to him. Bush's test is whether his campaign is smart enough to dodge the bullets, not the bullets themselves. Bush said at officially homophobic Cornerstone University on Friday that he has made ''mistakes'' and learned from them. He said one job of a true leader to is ''share wisdom and share experiences.'' Thanks for sharing, governor.

It is time for federal prosecutors to step in and take control of the New Jersey case in which two state police officers shot at four unarmed black and Hispanic men on the New Jersey Turnpike. The Justice Department announced yesterday that it is beginning an investigation. It should proceed quickly because the New Jersey attorney general's office is simply too politically tainted to provide justice for either the officers or the victims.

Two weeks ago the House Judiciary Committee approved a bill to require that aliens charged with being national security threats be given fair summaries of secret evidence. But the bill died in the adjournment rush. In the absence of legislative correction, judges have been holding the government to standards of fairness. So there is a lesson in all this beyond the hard-won truth that secret evidence is inherently unreliable. Even as we exercise the citizen's highest duty in our democracy, voting for president, we should remember that we rely on judges to keep us on the path of the Constitution.

A Bush victory would be a calamitous setback for the progressive ideals to which progressives have devoted much of our lives. I believe that would be too high a price to pay, especially for the most vulnerable members of our society and the millions of working Americans who cannot count on a Republican-led Congress to represent their interests.

Edith Jones, who sits on the Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, is now frequently mentioned as a possible Supreme Court nominee if George W. Bush is elected president. She is a right-winger in the mold of Mr. Thomas and Antonin Scalia, the two justices Mr. Bush admires most. Last week, as part of a three-judge panel, she ruled with the majority that it's O.K. to execute a man even though his court-appointed lawyer slept through substantial portions of his trial.

TalkLeft Commentary

It now looks like Nader will cost Gore the presidency. In key swing states -- Washington, Oregon, Minnesota, Maine, New Mexico -- Nader has garnered enough support to throw the electoral votes to Bush. The Nader camp is deeply divided over whether they should endorse Gore -- at least in swing states. Many say they never got into the race to play the spoiler. What was positioned as a safe protest vote has now become a kind of kamikaze vote. The specter of a Bush presidency looms large. Let Ralph Nader know your feelings. Here are some sample letters and his contact information.

ABA President Martha Barnett and Attorney General Janet Reno present opposing views on the McDade Bill which clarifies that federal prosecutors must obey "state bar" ethics rules.

Examine this frame of a videotape of Austin police officer Robert Merrill's custodial interview of a murder suspect (now facing a trial for first degree murder and a possible death sentence,) then take the short multiple choice test.

How would Presidential candidate George Bush, Jr. fare under an experienced criminal defense lawyer's cross-examination about possible past cocaine usage?

It's the most revolutionary document in American history. Therefore a perfect place to begin a revolution in publishing. Ten unique pieces of digital content (eMatter) on the Bill of Rights today. Called American Perspectives, they are yours to instantly download, print and read. Free from MightyWords.com.

Pablo Escobar reputedly was the world's richest Columbian cocaine trafficker. This is the riveting investigative reporting series of what happened when the Colombian government asked the United States to help hunt him down. While portraying the pursuit of Escobar as essentially a Colombian operation, the United States secretly spent millions of dollars and committed elite soldiers, law enforcement agents and the military's most sophisticated electronic eavesdropping unit to the chase. A multi-part series.

Greg D. Adams, Asst. Professor, Dept. of Social & Decision Sciences, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA conducts a statistical analysis of the Palm Beach vote and concludes the mistaken ballots could cost Gore the election.

Thousands of Florida residents were struck from the voter lists because they were mistakenly identified as ex-felons, just months before what has become the closest election in US history. With Bush apparently leading Gore by only hundreds of votes, in a state with hundreds of thousands of disenfranchised voters, could similar errors be tipping the race?

Texas currently incarcerates 220,000 people -- the second-highest number after California. While America puts more and more young blacks and Hispanics in jail, the neighborhoods they leave behind grow even more unstable. Inside the tangled culture of the Prison Generation—and what can be done to try to reclaim lost lives?

Four years later, attorneys on both sides of the drunk driving case in which Bush was a prospective juror now believe he wasn't honest about his reasons for avoiding service.

An examination of the case of Kenneth Cowling which "holds a bare light bulb over interrogation practices at the Oakland Police Department and other law enforcement agencies around the country, tactics that experts say can result in false confessions, guilty people going free and innocent people going to prison.... At least 60 people confessed falsely in the United States between 1973 and 1998, with 29 convicted, 11 sentenced to life imprisonment, three sentenced to death and one executed, according to a 1998 study by UC Professors Richard Ofshe and Richard Leo that was published in the the Journal of Criminal Law & Criminology."

Featuring George W. Bush, Al Gore, and some other guys...Scroll all the way down!

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