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A quarter-century after the Supreme Court allowed reinstatement of the death penalty, vast numbers of people, including elected officials, are expressing doubt about how it is administered. Nearly two-thirds of Americans approve of capital punishment, according to polls. But that is the lowest level in 20 years and a significant decline from a high of about 75 percent in 1994. In addition, even the current figure drops further, to about 55 percent, when the polls offer life imprisonment without parole as an alternative.

The lower federal courts disagree sharply over the question that the justices agreed today to decide: whether inmates faced with an administrative process that does not provide the type of relief they are seeking are still required to make a predictably futile effort.

Elisabeth Semel has been a criminal defense lawyer for 25 years. Three years ago, she left the highly successful San Diego law firm she had helped found and, taking a pay cut of more than 50 percent, moved across the country to revive the American Bar Association's Death Penalty Representation Project..."The law is the greatest opportunity if you have a passion for advocacy," Semel says. "The death penalty is my civil rights issue...It's the ultimate expression of the legal system's unequal treatment of people who are poor, and people of color."

Ralph Nader defiantly refused Sunday to quit the presidential race, despite increased calls from leading Democrats and liberal activists for him to step aside. They fear he could cost Vice President Gore the election. Nader's strength is concentrated in pockets across the country. In Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin he draws enough from Gore to possibly cost the Democrat those states and their 70 electoral votes.

A new study conducted by Iceland criminologists shows that those criminals who receive a severe sentence are more likely to re-offend when they are released from prison than those receiving less severe sentences. Two American criminologists, Richard Wright and Eric Baumer, have closely followed the research and say that the results are extremely interesting for the United States where severe punishment is normally applied but the rate of crime is extremely high.

John Sperling, George Koros and Peter Lewis, enormously wealthy businessmen, want to end the failed war on drugs. They are transforming drug policy in America with a steady stream of ballot initiatives about medical marijuana, incarceration and drug-related forfeitures. With contributions of several million dollars, they are winning at the ballot box and in the courts.

Having listened to their debate, we today firmly endorse Al Gore as the man best equipped for the presidency by virtue of his knowledge of government, his experience at the top levels of federal and diplomatic decision-making, and his devotion to the general welfare.

The state Supreme Court has struck down a Pennsylvania law popularly known as the "three strikes'' law, which had mandated long sentences for repeat offenders. The court held that the law was unconstitutional because it places the burden of proof on the defendant, thus depriving the defendant of due process required under the 14th Amendment.

Sixteen men in seven states have been executed despite 'compelling evidence of their innocence,'' a group that opposes the death penalty said in a report released Thursday. The ''Reasonable Doubts'' report by the Quixote Center was based on five months of research into legal and police documents in cases from Alabama, California, Florida, Illinois, Missouri, Texas and Virginia. Four of those executions occurred in Texas under Gov. George W. Bush.

Soyburgers and tofu are going to prison. After being sued by an inmate who wanted a no-meat diet, the federal prison system has started offering meatless alternatives, such as soyburgers and fried egg plant, at every lunch and dinner. The new menu started Oct. 1.

The government is giving $2.3 million to nine state and local law-enforcement agencies and prosecutors' offices to help fight the laundering of proceeds from drug trafficking and other crimes, officials announced Thursday. Teams of federal, state and local law enforcement officers have been formed in Los Angeles, New York City and northern New Jersey, San Juan, Puerto Rico and the Southwest border where police forces and local prosecutors are being trained to detect money laundering, a new field for many of them.

Alarming some sheriffs, the NAACP has signed up more than 11,000 new voters in county jails across the Southeast this year. The nation's largest civil rights group described its campaign Thursday as an historic attempt to preserve the electoral rights of prisoners.

The Building Blocks for Youth initiative is releasing "Youth Crime/Adult Time: Is Justice Served?" today in Houston, Texas at the National Juvenile Defender Leadership Summit. This report follows "And Justice for Some," a comprehensive study that details that youth of color experience more severe treatment than their white peers at every stage of the juvenile justice process. The new report reveals disturbing aspects in the transfer of youth, especially minority youth, to the adult criminal court and raises serious questions about the fairness and appropriateness of prosecuting youth in adult court.

An inmate's death sentence for strangling a Houston jogger was overturned by a Texas appeals court Wednesday because his lawyer failed to object to improper statements made by prosecutors. The Court of Criminal Appeals, in a 7-2 ruling, affirmed the murder conviction of Arthur Lee Burton, 30, but ordered that he be resentenced. Prosecutors could seek the death penalty again.

With the Governor, George W Bush, seeking to avoid all unnecessary embarrassment in the run-up to next month's presidential election, Texas has slammed the brakes on its usually hectic schedule of judicial executions. Having kept up a pace of one execution per week during the summer, the state has put just one man to death since August, with one more scheduled to die by lethal injection on 1 November. Then, however, there will be a flurry of five executions in the week immediately following 7 November, the day the United States elects its next president.

An inmate facing the first federal execution since 1963 has asked President Clinton to spare his life. Lawyers for David Paul Hammer, 42, who had dropped all his court appeals this fall, filed the application Monday with Hammer's approval, Justice Department spokeswoman Gretchen Michael said Tuesday.

Poor teen-agers in Texas routinely get substandard legal defense, often not meeting a lawyer until just before a court appearance, according to a study to be released today. As a result, Texas ranks second to California in incarcerating youths because too much emphasis is placed on extracting guilty pleas, according to the report prepared by Texas Appleseed, an Austin-based nonpartisan group studying the Texas criminal-justice system.

California would send thousands of drug users into treatment instead of prison under a ballot measure that, like several others around the country Nov. 7, would reverse the punitive trend in criminal justice.

President Clinton signed a bill Monday setting a tough national standard for drunken driving, saying the new legal limit of 0.08 percent will save 500 lives a year and force Americans to take more care when they drink.

Twenty years ago, the state and national attitude toward the death penalty was overwhelmingly favorable. Victims' rights groups, prosecutorial associations, peace-officer unions and conservative law professors all held that rehabilitation was a flop and criminals must be punished to the max. That support is falling.What has changed? The poll numbers, for one thing. As of this year, popular support for the penalty has dropped dramatically.

Since 1995, the Los Angeles Police Department has referred hundreds of potential criminal cases against its own officers to the district attorney, but only a fraction of those officers actually have been prosecuted.

Several hundred European politicians, lawmakers and international activists gathered in Paris on Saturday to urge the United States to abolish the death penalty.

In a state that has executed more criminals than any other and earned an international reputation for being relentlessly tough on crime, Ronnie Earle is an anomaly.His decision last week to re-examine 400 convictions after DNA evidence cleared a man erroneously jailed for nearly 16 years has pushed him into the public eye again and into the vanguard of prosecutors in seeking retroactive justice. "The duty of the district attorney is not to convict, but to see that justice is done," he said. "That imposes a burden on the prosecutor to represent the accused as well as the state."

Last week, a state judge ruled that Oscar Lavernia was not guilty of the rape he was convicted of, based on DNA evidence, and the Travis County district attorney has started re-examining more than 400 convictions to see if other miscarriages of justice could be corrected through DNA testing. Similar reviews have been announced in San Diego and Riverside, Calif., and as DNA testing improves and becomes more widespread, other jurisdictions will be reviewing convictions in which the technology could establish guilt or innocence, said Barry C. Scheck, co-director of the Innocence Project at the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law in New York.

It started like a normal night on the "Late Show with David Letterman."But quickly after that Mr. Letterman had a surprise for anyone who was expecting a normal night of comedy — and from the look of it, Mr. Bush was also surprised. The host sharply questioned the Republican presidential candidate on the death penalty, violence in the Mideast and pollution in Texas. And he hardly seemed to be joking, even though he punctured his questions with his trademark laugh.

Heroin addicts would be able to obtain prescriptions for treatment with promising new drugs in the privacy of a doctor's office under a bill signed into law by President Clinton late Tuesday.

The prisoners shuffle through the basement courtroom in striped uniforms, their hands cuffed and legs shackled. They were caught with pot or crack or crystal meth and are guilty of drug possession, yet a law unique to Arizona sends them not to prison, but back into the world. Their mandatory sentence is probation and drug treatment. Even if they violate the rules of their release, the new law prevents them from being put behind bars.

Federal prosecutors investigating how the Police Department handles brutality cases have briefed police union officials on findings that they contend show how serious lapses in department procedures allowed brutal officers to go unpunished, according to several union officials.

After years of solid public support for executions, "I think that people have decided to take a second look, both at their own opinions and at the application of the death penalty," said Bob Carpenter, a Republican pollster in Virginia whose firm has been polling on the issue. Surveys show that the majority supporting capital punishment has shrunk and support for a moratorium has grown. Revelations of wrongful convictions around the country, combined with the advent of DNA technology, a nationwide decline in crime rates and some artful organizing with strong input from the American Bar Assn., religious groups and foundations all appear to have contributed to the change.

The letter began "Re: Murder Confession." It was written by a Texas prison inmate who said "my conscience sickens me" because two men were serving life sentences in prison for a rape and murder that the inmate claimed he had committed. He wanted Mr. Bush to intervene, even saying the governor was "legally and morally obligated" to do so. Nothing, however, was done. The two inmates Mr. Marino mentioned, Christopher Ochoa and Richard Danziger, remain in prison, a decade after their conviction.

Oklahoma County District Attorney Bob Macy's office was disqualified from prosecuting bombing conspirator Terry Nichols on Monday by a state judge who said Macy had violated a gag order as well as the rules of professional conduct in a roadcast interview. The case against Nichols will be assigned to another Oklahoma prosecutor.

In a broad critique of capital punishment in Texas, a new report concludes that the state's death penalty system is in dire need of change because of problems like prosecutorial misconduct, racial bias, phony experts and inadequate lawyers for poor defendants. The full report is available for download and reading at the Texas Defender Services website.

Democrats are likely to pick up at least a seat or two in the Senate in next month's elections and have an outside chance of winning a narrow majority.

Crime across the USA was down for the eighth straight year in 1999, resulting in the lowest rates for murder and violent crime in decades, according to a new FBI report.

The medicinal use of marijuana has scored some smashing victories at the polls in recent years, winning approval by voters in seven states, and it's on the ballot in two this fall. But in Alaska, an important test is at hand for those who use images like "Trojan horse" and "camel's nose under the tent" to argue that medical marijuana's advocates are really out to clear the way for the legal recreational use of the drug.

With the Texas death penalty a hot presidential political topic, the spotlight has hit three races for the state's highest criminal court, which reviews capital cases.Two Democrats and a Libertarian are seeking to break onto the all-Republican Court of Criminal Appeals, arguing that a rash of nationally publicized cases shows a court that appears to tilt unfairly in favor of prosecutors.

Preliminary DNA tests have cleared two Texas men who have spent 11 years in prison for a 1988 rape and murder that another man confessed to several years ago, sources close to the case said Friday.

The first of what could be dozens of trials of police officers stemming from the worst police corruption scandal in this city's history began today, with a blistering attack by defense lawyers of the state's case and its potential star witness, Rafael Perez.

A Democratic candidate for presiding judge of the highest criminal court in the nation's busiest death penalty state says he would vote to suspend executions in cases where DNA evidence could exonerate an inmate or confirm his guilt.

The war on drugs is not helping in the fight against crime, according to a study released today. The number of arrests for drug possession in California has skyrocketed in the past 20 years, but that has not led to significant decreases in other crimes, according to the survey.

Appellate lawyers across the country are questioning the work of defenders and, as a result, convicts are winning new trials. Bad defense lawyers are a leading reason for reversing convictions in capital cases, according to a Columbia University study. "The more serious the case is, the more reason there is to fear that poor lawyering and other problems will contribute to an unreliable conviction," said Joe Liebman, the professor who conducted the study.

Citing new DNA evidence, a Texas judge on Wednesday recommended a man convicted of rape 16 years ago be exonerated and set free. Carlos Lavernia was convicted of the 1983 attack after the victim positively identified his picture as the only one that ''anywhere near resembles'' her attacker. Lavernia was sentenced to 99 years in prison. This summer, prosecutors located the victim's running shorts and hospital swabs. DNA tests, conducted at Lavernia's request, absolved him.

With the intensifying federal crackdown on money laundering, agents have been tracking drug money into the accounts of American corporations and their distributors and dealers. In fact, federal officials say about $5 billion a year in Colombian drug money is used to buy goods and services — from cigarettes to computer chips — from American companies. What makes that possible is a system known as the black-market peso exchange, a complex money trade that law enforcement officials say has become increasingly important to the Colombian narcotics trade.

In a state that many Alaskans like to describe as the most libertarian in the nation, voters are being asked in the Nov. 7 election to say "yes" to marijuana in a single, sweeping measure that would not only legalize consumption of the drug for anyone age 18 and over but also create automatic amnesty for those convicted of marijuana-related charges and even require the state to consider restitution for such people.

About 50 current and former Los Angeles police officers have joined 41 others in a lawsuit alleging they were subjected to harassment and retaliation for reporting police misconduct.

Immigrants who have been convicted of crimes and are being held indefinitely while awaiting deportation have the right to petition a judge for release, a federal appeals court ruled.

A 61-year-old man was shot to death by police while his wife was handcuffed in another room during a drug raid on the wrong house. Police admitted their mistake, saying faulty information from a drug informant contributed to the death of John Adams Wednesday night. They intended to raid the home next door.

A group of wealthy hilanthropists who disagree with the U.S. government's drug policy are mounting a national campaign to change it -- and they are using California to lead the charge.

The federal judge who held President Clinton in contempt of court in the Paula Jones sexual harassment case said Friday she would fight any attempt to make her testify in Arkansas proceedings to disbar Clinton. ''If they summon me as a witness, I will file a motion to quash,'' U.S. District Court Judge Susan Webber Wright said during a question-and-answer period after a lecture at the University of Tulsa College of Law.

Congressional negotiators stripped a measure to expand hate crime protections for gays from a defense bill on Thursday, leaving slim hope it can pass this year despite majority support in both chambers.

A federal investigation of the New York Police Department's Street Crime Unit has determined that its officers engaged in racial profiling in recent years as they conducted their aggressive campaign of street searches across the city, officials said.

The Justice Department is investigating complaints from women held at an immigration detention center near Miami who said they had witnessed or were victims of sexual assaults by Immigration and Naturalization Service guards.

Poor people can get free legal help from a government-funded lawyer on matters such as child custody, unemployment benefits and bankruptcy. But a law Congress passed along with welfare reform in 1996 bars that lawyer from assisting a poor client's challenge to the Clinton administration's welfare reform program. A Supreme Court challenge heard Wednesday calls that restriction an unconstitutional gag order.

A lawyer for 10 women arrested after their urine tested positive for cocaine told the U.S. Supreme Court on Wednesday the South Carolina hospital where the women got prenatal care violated the Fourth Amendment by sharing the test results with the police.

It has been 10 years since the Supreme Court upheld the use of drunken- driving checkpoints on city streets, and nearly twice that long since the court ruled that the airport police could use drug-detecting dogs to sniff passengers' luggage. So it was perhaps inevitable that the justices would be confronted with the question they considered today: Can the police, by adding a trained dog, turn a sobriety checkpoint into a constitutionally permissible way of checking motorists for drugs?

Lawyers for Earl Washington Jr., the former death row inmate who was pardoned in Virginia on Monday after 17 years of imprisonment, say their long struggle to prove his innocence through DNA evidence was necessary because the state has the most severe limits in the nation on submitting new exculpatory evidence.

Switzerland is preparing legislation that effectively would allow the consumption of marijuana, adding to the country's pioneering but controversial record on drugs policy. The government said it would draw up legislation next year after consultation among local authorities and community associations revealed that there was widespread support for decriminalizing marijuana.

The House voted Tuesday to double criminal sentences for those involved in smuggling aliens into the country. The legislation would also double over five years the current force of 260 federal agents working to prevent smuggling along American borders. Those using firearms in alien smuggling operations would receive an additional five years on their sentence. Separately on Tuesday, the House passed by voice a bill making it easier for federal agents to wiretap wire or electronic communications in investigations of child pornography.

Here is the text of the decision of a New York State Division of Parole board to deny parole to John Lennon's killer, Mark David Chapman.

The Supreme Court opened its new term today where it left off in June: directing a potential revolution in federal criminal sentencing. The court vacated sentences for four narcotics defendants because the central fact that determined the sentence — the quantity of drugs involved — had been decided by the judge rather than the jury.

The execution of a Texas death row inmate was postponed today by a state judge who granted the delay because the prisoner's court-appointed lawyer had missed the deadline for filing a clemency petition on his behalf. Judge Kent's ruling defused another potential capital punishment controversy in Texas, which leads the nation in executions, at a time when Mr. Bush is entering the final weeks of the presidential race. The state has come under criticism for its death penalty system, including what critics regard as inadequate representation for many indigent defendants.

Earl Washington, a mentally retarded man who spent a decade on death row for a 1982 rape and murder, received a full pardon Monday from Gov. Jim Gilmore after DNA tests cleared him of the crime.

Bipartisan legislation designed to fight money laundering appears doomed in Congress, while the United States and its economic allies complain that Russia, Israel and 13 other countries are failing to crack down on such illegal commerce.

Rape victims could demand HIV tests of their suspected assailants upon arrest, and adults could be jailed for 10 years for sending pornography to 17-year-olds or younger under a last-minute flurry of bills in the House.

The election for New York City mayor is a full 13 months away, but yesterday, the race claimed its latest casualty: William J. Bratton. Bratton, the former police commissioner and one of Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani's favorite sparring partners these days, said in an interview that he had decided against running next year, as a Republican. After talking to political consultants, fund-raisers and friends — and, not incidentally, after taking a poll — he said he had determined that he was too much of a long shot to make it worth entering the race.

An explosion of agents along the U.S.-Mexico border has sent drug seizures soaring, costing struggling counties millions of dollars and weeks' worth of court time. From now on, some Texas prosecutors vow, the U.S. government is on its own. `As of Monday we won't take any more federal cases,'' said Hidalgo County District Attorney Rene Guerra. ``The cases are a financial drain, and we can't do it anymore. We shouldn't have to.''

The Texas American Civil Liberties Union on Friday filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of Yul Bryant, who was arrested in July 1999 for allegedly selling cocaine. The suit alleges civil rights violations, conspiracy and discrimination "'intended to accomplish the forbidden aim of cleansing Tulia of its black population.''

As the presidential candidates head into the last lap of Campaign 2000, many voters are pondering how George W. Bush and Al Gore would fill any future vacancies on the Supreme Court. Yet even as Democrats and Republicans jockey for control of the court's future, the court itself is poised to consider a series of cases in which the power of Congress and the president to make national policy will be at stake.

Two men cleared of rape convictions by DNA evidence are causing Texas officials to review old cases and question the reliability of eyewitness testimony.

PBS.... Frontline - Drug Wars...Monday and Tuesday, October 9 - 10, 2000.

In 1968, the federal drug enforcement budget was $60 million. By the end of fiscal year 1999, that same budget had exploded to more than $17 billion. Yet despite the United States' vast efforts during the past three decades to stop the flow of illegal drugs, the use of heroin, cocaine, marijuana and other illicit drugs remains essentially unchanged. FRONTLINE presents the first television history of America's war on drugs as told from both sides of the battlefield in a special four-hour report. Part I recounts the origins of the anti-drug campaign, from the Nixon administration's drug control efforts to the rapid rise and fall of the Colombian drug cartels. In Part II of "Drug Wars," FRONTLINE examines the impact of crack cocaine on our city streets and our criminal justice system. The report also investigates Mexico's role in supplying drugs to meet American demand.

The History Channel - Illegal Drugs and How They Got That Way....Monday - Thursday, October 9 - 12, 2000.

In a series tracing the history of drug use, The History Channel begins Monday tracing the rise of marijuana and synthetic amphetamines. Marijuana, from the Indian hemp plant, has been used worldwide as a source of rope, cloth, and paper; its medicinal qualities were first documented 4,000 years ago in China. But it's best-known as the drug of choice of the 1960s. WWII U.S. troops were given an estimated 200 million amphetamines to fight drowsiness and battle fatigue and they're still used to fight depression. Other drugs will be covered later in the week. Check website for airing times.

NPR - All Things Considered - The Drug Wars....Monday - Friday, October 9 - 13, 2000.

On Monday, NPR News will begin a series exploring the war on drugs in collaboration with Frontline, the PBS documentary program. Each night this week, on All Things Considered, reporter Deborah Amos will examine in detail an aspect of a sixty billion dollar industry in this country...illegal drugs. One of the people you'll hear from in the series is John Hensley, who tracked the flow of drug money from the U.S. Custom's Service. Find your local affiliate on their website.

The Center' s 2000 Frederick Douglass Human Rights Award Banquet will be on Tuesday, October 10, 2000, at 530 p.m. at the Marriott Metro Center, Washington, DC. Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont, sponsor of the Innocence Protection Act of 2000, will give the keynote address. The Center will recognize the work Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld and James Dwyer. The Innocence Project started and run by Scheck and Peter Neufeld has freed innocent people through the use of DNA testing, and a book by them and James Dwyer, "Actual Innocence," has prompted nation-wide discussion of wrongful convictions. For more information and to reserve seats

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

October 31, 2000...Where Do the 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.

October 31, 2000...There's More at Stake Than Roe v. Wade...by Carol Joffe, Salon Magazine

From clinic access to anti-abortion terrorism, the next president -- whoever he is -- will have a profound effect on a woman's right to choose. Moderate Republican and independent women desperately want to believe that Bush's successful efforts to defuse the abortion issue mean that he'll soft-pedal his opposition if he takes office. They're all wrong.

10/24/2000..Nader Could Tip Balance Toward Bush...Tom Squitieri, USA Today

Polls of likely voters show Nader could siphon enough votes from Gore in Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Washington and Wisconsin -- all states that President Clinton carried in 1992 and 1996 -- to tilt the election to Bush.

The Top 50 Political Donors of 2000

A preview of the next Mother Jones 400, the biannual list of the top campaign donors in federal elections.

Web, White and Blue's Rolling Cyber Debate

Web, White and Blue's non-partisan rolling election cyber debate has begun and will continue through the elections

The latest: "If I'm the president, we're going to have emergency-room care, we're going to have gag orders."

Up-to-the-minute state by state analysis of electoral votes going to Bush and Gore

This legislative status report was prepared by Kevin Driscoll, American Bar Association Senior Legislative Counsel for the ABA Criminal Justice Section on items pending in Congress. Talkleft believes these bills are of interest to the Criminal Defense Community and is re-posting Mr. Driscoll's report here. These issues may see some action before the end of the Congress.

Position of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers on S. 1644 and H.R. 238, the alien smuggling bills.

Summary of S. 2463, the National Death Penalty Moratorium Act of 2000, introduced in the Senate on April 26, 2000. The bill's stated purpose is 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.

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

Action Alert, Stop the Execution of the Innocent

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

Text of S. 2073, the Innocence Protection Act

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

An editorial page cartoon by Walt Handelsman has George W. Bush coming out of the voting booth, exclaiming, ''A vote for Nader is a vote for Bush ... so I voted for Nader.''... A vote for Bush is a vote against complexity; a vote against multilateral partnerships with other nations; a vote against the independent moral integrity of women; a vote against the idea of social structures evolving toward justice; a vote against the habits of mind that characterize literacy....George W. Bush's most winning characteristic is his anarchic boyishness. That says it all. A vote for Bush is a vote not for his immaturity, but for ours.

A federal appeals court ruling that a criminal defendant is not necessarily entitled to a lawyer who stays awake during his or her trial would be funny if it wasn't so shameful....The defendant's current lawyer is asking for a rehearing by a larger panel of 5th Circuit judges, and, failing that, he will seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court. To let this ruling stand would be an abomination.

I'm getting excited just thinking about it. I'm dreaming of that moment when the thrill returns. All those Texas fat cats landing at Reagan airport, wing to jowl, in their Lear jets. All those monogrammed snakeskin cowboy boots and Neiman Marcus fur coats. In Bush 2, we'll get to see more of that shrinking violet, Clarence Thomas. As one of President W.'s favorite justices, and as someone touted by conservatives as a potential chief justice in a Bush regime, he will come into his own. Perhaps the Anita Hill episode won't be the thing Justice Thomas is remembered for; perhaps overturning Roe v. Wade will.

Bush says he is ''absolutely confident'' that ''we have never put an innocent person to death.'' He says the most ''profound'' decisions he makes are over executions. ''I get the facts, weigh them thoughtfully and carefully, and decide,'' Bush said. But two men convicted of murder in Austin, Texas, may be on their way to freedom in a case that glaringly exposes Bush's inattention to detail. Bush did not pay attention, even when the real murderer confessed to the crime.

Come November, California voters will face Proposition 36, a measure that would dramatically change public policy on how drug offenders are handled in the criminal justice system. According to recent polls, Californians favor this measure, as well they should.

GEORGE W. BUSH'S dogged denial of factory defects in the death machinery of Texas invites memories of Lyndon Johnson telling us how we were defoliating the North Vietnamese into target range. Bush's pathological denials have exploded into a time line that makes it easy to depict him, in the political sense, as a serial killer, indiscriminately dispensing with the despised and chuckling over their bodies. His confidence in the face of the evidence borders on the deranged.

Do Mr. Bush’s exaggerations, excuses and embellishments of his service record matter? They do in light of his own rhetoric about honor and integrity and his emphasis on military readiness.

"I've thought long and hard about the honor of being the president of the United States," Bush said in the first debate. Bully for him. It is almost funny that the Republicans, after all their complaints about Bill Clinton, nominated an even greater boomer solipsist than the man they hope to replace in the White House.

Al Gore also supports the death penalty, unfortunately. So what this is most about is administrative competence. This chamber of horrors operates under Bush's nose and on his authority, and it is a disgrace. Yet Bush can go on national television to proclaim with pride that they're gonna kill three more of 'em in Texas. As his fellow Texan Molly Ivins would say: Oh, please.

There's a new report out today on the death penalty in Texas. It's a chilling report, and as I began reading an advance copy I couldn't help but think of the governor of Texas, a candidate for president of the United States, gloating on national television about executions still to come. Guess what?" said George W. Bush, whose home state is already the champion of the Western world when it comes to executions. "The three men who murdered James Byrd, guess what's going to happen to them? They're going to be put to death." There was a disturbing, upbeat quality to the governor's tone as he said this during last week's debate with Vice President Al Gore. His face brightened in a way that was unsettling to much of the nation. He was so obviously and inappropriately pleased. They're going to be put to death.

10/16/2000... Gore, Bush Ignore Nation's Irrational 'War On Drugs' ...by Joanne Jacobs, San Jose Mercury News

Al Gore and George W. Bush are pushing drugs for the elderly. But neither is pushing for change in our nation's failing war on drugs. The war on drugs rumbles on, destroying lives and neighborhoods, filling prisons with non-violent offenders, consuming billions of dollars. But the major-party candidates barely talk about it. They're too busy quibbling over who'd hand out more goodies -- tax credits, tax cuts or tax-paid benefits.

Entirely lost in America's current rampage to have zero tolerance is a concern for proportionality and basic common sense . The fundamental problem is that the reactions and consequences make no distinction between the real danger or harm associated with the behaviors. Moreover, when no notice is even taken of the age of the individuals involved, it makes a mockery of any sense of fairness and actually undermines the integrity of the policy.

Everyone understands that the condemned prisoners have been convicted of murder. No one wants to free them. But this relentless bombardment of state-sanctioned homicide is another matter entirely. It is almost impossible for staff members and others in the death chamber to ignore the reality of the prisoners as physically healthy human beings — men and (infrequently) women who walk, talk, laugh, cry and sometimes pray. Killing them is not easy.

Fred Allen is one of several ordinary people who are part of an extraordinary and powerful radio documentary, "Witness to an Execution," to be broadcast Thursday on the National Public Radio program "All Things Considered." Since the death penalty was reinstated in the U.S. in 1977, one-third of all executions have taken place in Texas. In "Witness to an Execution," men and women who have participated in — or witnessed — a significant number of those executions tell what it's like. Said Warden Willett: "I'll be retiring next year and to tell you the truth, this is something I won't miss a bit. You know, there are times when I'm standing there, watching those fluids start to flow and wonder whether what we're doing here is right. It's something I'll think about for the rest of my life."

Four years ago, facing the very real prospect that a hostile Republican Congress would put it out of business, the federal Legal Services Corporation agreed to accept a set of harsh restrictions on the sort of work that lawyers supported by the program could perform on behalf of their poor clients. That fateful bargain gave rise to an awkward showdown in the Supreme Court on Wednesday, as lawyers for the corporation and the Clinton administration tried to defend one of the more pernicious elements of the G.O.P.'s assault. That was the restriction limiting the kinds of arguments that Legal Services lawyers can make on behalf of welfare clients....Congress trampled on free speech and the principle of equal justice under law when it sought to muzzle Legal Services lawyers, and the court's ultimate ruling should mince no words in saying so.

YOU COULD hardly imagine a case that more clearly argues for the freeing of one man, and the suspension of all planned executions, than the travesty of justice that has entangled Earl Washington Jr. for 17 years. Mr. Washington was convicted in 1983 of rape and murder in Virginia, a state that claims not to err in capital cases. Now DNA testing has cleared him of the crime. You might think Virginia Gov. James Gilmore would let Mr. Washington go. You would be wrong. By pardoning Mr. Washington without setting him free, Gov. Gilmore becomes just the latest politician to duck the right call in this distressing case.

Just as African-Americans are becoming more adept at wielding that currency, their voting power is being corroded by antiquated state laws that bar former inmates from voting. In the November elections, 13 percent of all adult black men will be ineligible to vote because of such laws. If current trends continue, experts predict that 30 to 40 percent of the next generation of black men can expect to lose their right to vote at some point in their lifetimes. Disenfranchisement laws are so destructive of democratic values they can hardly be justified except as part of an exclusivist tradition. We may celebrate American democracy in our political rhetoric but our policies are stuck in a racist rut.

Under a federal consent decree that stemmed from a lawsuit charging the town's police were guilty of racial profiling, Highland Park will document police actions, train officers and handle citizen complaints under new rules....Racial profiling is a serious matter. Highland Park has taken that matter seriously. The city has provided a great example, and a program, to follow.

By the end of the year Texas will likely have set a record for executing people. The number of inmates marched into the death chamber in Texas this year is expected to reach 40 by New Year's Eve. That would be the highest number of prisoners put to death by one state since officials began compiling death penalty statistics from across the country some 70 years ago.

. 10/2/2000...The New Term´s Docket, New York Times Editorial

Tomorrow, the court begins the term's review of Fourth Amendment principles with an Indianapolis case involving the use of police checkpoints and drug-sniffing dogs to check motorists for illicit drugs. The court should view these law enforcement stops as an overly aggressive leap from the sobriety checkpoints it has previously approved to remove an immediate safety hazard. Then, on Wednesday, the court will consider the outrageous privacy violation committed against pregnant women who were selectively tested for cocaine use while seeking prenatal care at a South Carolina hospital, and subsequently arrested or threatened with arrest. Amicus briefs from leading medical and health groups caution that such punitive policies will drive women away from critically needed prenatal care and treatment programs.

TalkLeft Commentary

Nader Admirer and Oakland criminal defense attorney Dennis Roberts asks Ralph Nader to withdraw from the race and support Gore for the sake of the Supreme Court and to avoid a Bush presidency and more.

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.

What made timid honors student Christopher Ochoa confess to a rape and murder that he almost certainly did not commit? How do we prevent false confessions from tainting future jury verdicts? One way of preventing abuses that lead to wrongful convictions is to provide sufficient money to pay competent defense lawyers from the time of arrest. But the state of Texas has been loath to finance full-time public defenders -- and Bush vetoed legislation that would have required the state to provide a lawyer within 20 days of an arrest to guarantee proper representation.No one in Texas is talking about reinvestigating cases in which defendants were assigned incompetent lawyers or no lawyers, or about convictions that resulted from potential police coercion or testimony by unreliable jailhouse witnesses. Innocent people convicted in those circumstances will probably just have to serve out their time.

When Ralph Nader announced that he would mount a serious campaign for president, there was much hope that he would do everything possible to reach out to black and Latino voters. But other than a brief appearance at the NAACP's annual conference in July, he has been a conspicuous no-show on the campaign stump in black and Latino communities.

Wrongly convicted, they sat on death row for years. Extraordinary legal measures saved their lives. A new play confronts us with their nightmares.

10/21/2000...Inside the Texas Death Machine, by Suzy Hansen, Salon Magazine

Last meals and last words are just part of the daily routine for death-row employees featured in an NPR documentary.

Some four million US citizens, most of them minorities, are denied the right to vote because they were once convicted of felonies. The growing number of disenfranchised Americans may be helping elect Republicans, from state legislatures to the White House.

Lawyers for poor say pay low, stress high. Attorneys assigned cases say Tarrant County's system is fair, but they also relate horror stories .

Two and a half years later, the two men convicted of the crime still sit in prison.

The campaign against marijuana use which makes up a major portion of the War on Drugs -- has now gone beyond the tolerable Magritte phase and into full-blown, hideous, melted-watches Dali.

The presidential candidates have not widely touted their plans to deal with drug abuse. Is it because of their own suspect histories?

His "not me" excuse for the 145 executions in Texas on his watch relies on the kind of legal hairsplitting that would make the president proud.

For the presidential campaign, Lynne Cheney is sticking to the script. It is hard to imagine that a person with her right-wing ideological zeal, passion for combat and hunger for the spotlight will not unsheath her dagger if the Republicans return to the White House in January.

October 21, 2000, Travis County Prosecutor Ronnie Earle: On his decision last week to re-examine 400 convictions after DNA evidence cleared a man erroneously jailed for nearly 16 years . Source New York Times, Public Lives: A Texas Prosecutor Who Seeks Evidence of Innocence

"The duty of the district attorney is not to convict, but to see that justice is done. That imposes a burden on the prosecutor to represent the accused as well as the state."

October 11, 2000, Al Gore on Winning the Drug War: Source Web, White and Blue Non-Partisan Election Website

Although we must maintain strong laws and enforcement, there are things we can do to eliminate drug use...that go beyond simple prohibition and prosecution. We need to send a strong message to every American child: drugs are wrong, and drugs can kill you.

We have seen impressive evidence suggesting that we are making progress in the war on drugs. We have increased drug arrests by 46 percent and seen a nearly 50 percent drop in drug use since 1985. Adult drug use is down 39 percent since 1992, and use among young people has been cut by nearly a quarter over the last few years.

But we must do more. If I'm entrusted with the presidency, I'll lead a national crusade to dry up drug demand, hold up drugs at the border, and break up the drug rings that are spreading poison on our streets.

I will fund more drug courts to speed justice for drug-related crime, and I will double the number of High Intensity Drug Trafficking Areas -- drug hot-spots where we aggressively target our enforcement efforts.

I'll expand drug treatment for at-risk youth, and I believe we have to support the Drug-Free Communities Program, which strengthens community efforts to reduce substance abuse among young people. I'll work to make sure that all of our school zones are drug-free zones by stiffening penalties on those who use children to peddle drugs and those who sell drugs near our schools.

October 11, 2000, George Bush on Winning the Drug War: Source Web, White and Blue Non-Partisan Election Website

We Must Combat Illegal Drug Use

I believe that the President has a responsibility to confront the problem of illegal drug abuse....because drugs are destroying our neighborhoods and ruining lives. We should confront this scourge with a balanced policy of education, treatment, and law enforcement. We must teach children that using drugs is bad and will lead to a life of self-destruction.

I understand that we live in a culture with a lot of temptations and a lot of challenges for kids and parents. Government can't solve the problems of our country, but it can be an ally of parents. It can reflect, not undermine, the ideals of parents. Government can give parents practical tools to raise responsible children.

Actual Innocence: Five Days to Execution and Other Dispatches from the Wrongly Convicted by Barry Scheck, Peter Neufeld, Jim Dwyer. Reads like a novel but much scarier because it's all true. A page-turner!

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