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Inmates who claim they were wrongfully convicted have a right to go to federal court and request DNA testing that might prove their innocence, a federal judge ruled yesterday.

A lawsuit was filed against two law enforcement agents and a district attorney for their role in an arrest stemming from a much-criticized drug bust that prompted allegations of racial discrimination in 1999.

The California governor's approval of SB 1342, offered by Sen. John Burton, D-San Francisco, makes California the sixth state to provide DNA tests to prisoners meeting certain conditions. Davis on Thursday signed two other DNA-related bills, one which allows police to compare a suspect's DNA profile with evidence from unsolved crimes; and another which creates a new DNA database for missing-persons cases.

A federal appeals court Friday agreed to rehear arguments on whether the FBI sharpshooter who killed Randy Weaver's wife during the 1992 standoff at Ruby Ridge, Idaho, can be prosecuted on manslaughter charges.

Beginning on Sunday, with every new handgun sold in Maryland, the manufacturer will have to give state police a spent shell casing carrying the weapon's ballistic fingerprint. Under the law -- the first of its kind in the nation -- the unique markings on the casing will then be entered into a database. When detectives find a bullet casing at a crime scene, they can go to the computer and instantly identify the gun it came from.

A federal judge overturned a black inmate's death sentence because a psychologist told the jury during the punishment phase that the defendant's race could indicate a propensity for violence. The ruling Thursday made Carl Blue, 35, the fourth death row inmate whose sentence was overturned because of the testimony of Walter Quijano, former chief psychologist for the Texas prison system.

The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments Wednesday on whether testing pregnant women for drugs and reporting the results to police violates the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches.

San Diego police officers are more likely to stop and search blacks and Hispanics than whites and Asians, according to a study for the police department.

Two men who were convicted but later acquitted in the 1983 rape and bludgeoning death of a 10-year-old girl will share in a $3.5 million settlement from the county that prosecuted them. A third defendant, whose trial ended in a hung jury, will also receive part of the settlement.

The Supreme Court was busy today adding a dozen new cases to their docket for the new term that opens on Monday. One new case assured the new session's status as an important term for the Fourth Amendment law of search and seizure, already the subject of three cases the justices had scheduled for argument during the coming weeks. The case considers whether the use by the police of a thermal imaging device to detect heat patterns inside a home is a search that requires a warrant.

The Supreme Court agreed Tuesday to decide whether some prison inmates have a constitutional right to give legal advice to fellow inmates. The justices said they will use a Montana case to decide whether prison officials ever violate inmates' free-speech rights when they censor such communications.

The New York Times, which played a leading role in stories about fired Los Alamos physicist Wen Ho Lee, acknowledged in an extraordinary 1,680-word note from the editors Tuesday that its coverage was flawed. In a three-column note titled ''The Times and Wen Ho Lee,'' the newspaper said an internal review ''found some things we wish we had done differently in the course of the coverage to give Dr. Lee the full benefit of the doubt.'' The note appears on page 2, in the space usually dedicated to the index. Here is the actual statement of the New York Times Editors.

Robert Breest, 62, and a grandfather of five, is the first New Hampshire state inmate to request DNA testing of the evidence used to convict him. New Hampshire's attorney general is fighting that request, saying the state put the right guy behind bars, and that allowing Breest's petition could open the floodgates to frivolous inmate petitions. The historic DNA faceoff is scheduled for this Friday in Concord.

From increasingly smaller fragments of evidence left behind at crime scenes - a speck of dried blood barely visible to the naked eye, or a single strand of hair - scientists are extracting DNA material that is transforming the entire criminal justice system. And igniting a national debate.

A judge has amended bail conditions for a New Vineyard man charged with growing marijuana to allow him to continue to use it for medical reasons. District Judge Robert E. Mullen's decision, likely the first in which a judge has amended bail rules to allow medicinal use of marijuana, stipulates that Leonard Ellis, 62, must comply with Maine's new law.

The way Texas provides legal representation to its poor is "a national embarrassment," according to a new report issued by a committee of the State Bar association. After six years of study, the committee found that while Texas leads the nation in executions of criminal defendants — who almost always are indigent — it trails most of the country in providing services to poor people accused of felony crimes..

In its analysis, The New York Times examined homicide rates in two groups of states: the 12 states without the death penalty and the 36 states that passed laws within 10 years of the Supreme Court's 1972 Furman v. Georgia decision, which overturned all existing death penalty statutes. he analysis found that homicide rates have not declined any more in the states that instituted the death penalty than in states that did not.

The dozen states that have chosen not to enact the death penalty since the Supreme Court ruled in 1976 that it was constitutionally permissible have not had higher homicide rates than states with the death penalty, government statistics and a new survey by The New York Times show.

On Election Day, nearly 1.4 million voting-age black men -- more than one in eight -- will be ineligible to cast ballots because of state laws that strip felons of the right to vote.

Many blacks and Latinos are convinced the mere colour of their skin is enough to get them arrested in many US states. And although top US law enforcement officers bitterly dispute charges of rampant racism among their ranks, that perception, they say, is forcing them to rethink the way they police their roads -- and themselves.

A bill to require the Supreme Court to televise its public sessions was introduced in the Senate on Thursday.The bill was introduced by Sens. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., and Joseph Biden, D-Del.

Bowing to the inevitable, Los Angeles city officials have agreed to accept a federal court agreement that would require a series of long-sought changes in police management and training to head off a threatened civil rights lawsuit over what the Justice Department has called a systemic pattern of abusive conduct by officers here.

The text of the statement of independent counsel Robert W. Ray on his office's six-year investigation of the Arkansas business dealings of President and Mrs. Clinton, including the Whitewater land deal.

Independent Counsel Robert Ray on Wednesday wrapped up the six-year Whitewater investigation without charging President and Mrs. Clinton with any wrongdoing, handing the White House a bittersweet victory seven weeks before Election Day.

Almost three months after Congress set aside $12 million for local district attorneys stuck with hand-me-down federal drug cases, frustrated prosecutors are still waiting for the money.

Trying to pressure New Jersey prison officials to disclose whether they are making promised reforms in caring for mentally ill prisoners, a prominent human rights group today released a long-suppressed 1998 report that said the state's treatment of those prisoners was cruel and neglectful.

A federal judge has reduced prison terms for six Branch Davidians, three months after the Supreme Court said he overstepped his authority by exceeding federal sentencing guidelines.

A legislative committee on Monday recommended changes to the Kansas forfeiture law to address problems in the way the state's law enforcement agencies handle drug money.

In an end-of-session twist, Democrats are holding up President Clinton's federal judicial nominations in the Senate hoping to win additional approvals for other judges.

Nuclear scientist Wen Ho Lee was the victim of the same type of racial profiling that sent Japanese-Americans to internment camps during World War II, Asian-American civic leaders told a presidential commission Monday.

The Clinton administration wants Congress to provide $145 million to community-based programs nationwide that help ex-convicts readjust to life on the outside, Attorney General Janet Reno said Monday.

The National Association of District Attorneys has hired a full-time public relations specialist for the first time in its history to rebut attacks on the integrity of prosecutors.

President Clinton marked the 213th anniversary of the signing of the Constitution by attending the groundbreaking Sunday for a museum that will tell the historical document's story. Clinton also watched as 72 immigrants from 23 countries became U.S. citizens.

The D.C. jail has suffered a severe deterioration in health and environmental conditions, jeopardizing the well-being of inmates and employees and intensifying pressure on the District government to undertake wholesale improvements at the city's main detention facility, according to documents and interviews.

What was billed as a rally to support marijuana legislation Saturday turned into a drug festival on Boston Common with 40,000 people, many of them minors illegally smoking marijuana.Keith Stroup, executive director of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, said he disapproved of young people smoking at the event.

Add one more recording artist to the growing list of popular musicians who have asked the campaign of Texas Gov. George W. Bush to stop using their music on the stump: Tom Petty. By telling Bush to stop using his hit 1989 single "I Won't Back Down," Petty joins a "USA for Africa"-esque coterie that includes Sting and John Mellencamp telling the Texas governor to knock it off.

Campaigning for the first time with first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, vice presidential candidate Joseph Lieberman said Friday that censoring music would not help to deter violence.''I don't believe in censorship,''

Sheriff's agents will criminally investigate the three police officers caught on tape beating and kicking an auto theft suspect after a chase. The Broward County Sheriff's Office findings will be turned over to prosecutors. The Miami-Dade County officers have been reassigned to desk duty while their own department investigates.

Bolstered by findings that even Americans who favor capital punishment worry that innocent people might be put to death, several lawmakers vowed today to renew their push for a law to see that defendants in death- penalty cases have competent lawyers and access to DNA testing.

A Hispanic inmate who could become the first person executed by the federal government since 1963 has urged President Clinton to commute his sentence to life in prison because of the ''long-standing racial bias'' involving capital punishment sentencing.

Last week, Judge Maria Lopez sentenced child molester Charles Horton, a 22-year-old transsexual, to home confinement, despite a prosecutor's request for eight to 10 years in prison. Since then, the spotlight on Lopez has been glaring. Some legislators are demanding her removal from the bench, and columnists and talk show callers have vilified her.

Al Gore has pulled closer to the 270 electoral votes needed to claim the presidency, generating momentum in battleground states from his rival's mistakes and the public's growing preference for issues over personality, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.

The complete transcript of the statement yesterday by Judge James A. Parker of Federal District Court in Albuquerque to Dr. Wen Ho Lee, who pleaded guilty to mishandling nuclear secrets, as recorded by the court reporter

A group representing 4,000 N.C. lawyers called Tuesday for a moratorium on capital punishment, saying a new poll shows most N.C. residents believe questions about its fairness need to be addressed.

Arriving aboard a U.S.-made combat helicopter, the head of Colombia's national police and the top U.S. drug official in the country watched as heavily armed officers torched a drug lab and dumped coca leaves into a river.

After nine months in solitary, Wen Ho Lee pleaded guilty Wednesday to just one count of mishandling nuclear secrets and was set free by an apologetic judge who said the government's actions ''embarrassed our entire nation.''

Saying she was "sorely troubled" by stark racial disparities in the federal death penalty, Attorney General Janet Reno today ordered United States attorneys to help explain why capital punishment is not applied uniformly across ethnic groups.

As the Los Angeles City Council prepares today to consider the police reform package its negotiators have worked out with the U.S. Department of Justice, federal officials informed key lawmakers that Atty. Gen. Janet Reno has resolved to obtain a binding agreement to enforce the reforms--and is willing to sue if one is not agreed upon.

In the first comprehensive review of the federal death penalty since it was reinstated in 1988, the Justice Department has found significant racial and geographical disparities, say officials who have seen the report. In 75 percent of the cases in which a federal prosecutor sought the death penalty in the last five years,

A last-minute dispute between the government and defense lawyers over a plea agreement for Wen Ho Lee, the former Los Alamos scientist accused of mishandling nuclear secrets, delayed for at least two days a guilty plea that would allow him to walk out of court a free man.

A law professor hired by the union representing rank-and-file Los Angeles police officers said in a report Monday that the city"s criminal justice system faced "grave problems" beyond the so-called Rampart corruption scandal.

Law enforcement officials and judges are teaming up in Oakland County in a bipartisan effort to establish a treatment-based drug court to replace hard prison time for drug offenders.

Los Alamos scientist Wen Ho Lee, who was fired and jailed on charges of mishandling nuclear weapons secrets, has reached a plea bargain in which he will plead guilty to one charge and cooperate with federal investigators, Justice Department sources said.

Prisoners in Barbados will soon have access to condom machines to help stop the spread of HIV. Health Minister Philip Goddard told the Nation newspaper: "If we are advocating safe sex and we recognise the reality of men having sex in prison, then it logically follows that they should have the same protection as the rest of the community."

Just a week after President Clinton delivered $1.3 billion in aid to Colombian officials for military equipment, counter-drug training and economic assistance, House leaders are considering whether to approve millions of dollars more for anti-drug assistance to the Colombian national police.

Green Party presidential candidate Ralph Nader on Friday advocated the legalization of marijuana as part of an overhaul of the nation's ''self-defeating and antiquated drug laws.''

The governor on Friday ordered DNA tests be conducted on evidence that death row inmate Derek Barnabei, who is scheduled to be executed next week, claims will set him free.

Florida's Supreme Court took back its authority to oversee the death penalty Thursday, striking down a popular 1998 constitutional amendment passed by voters who wanted to keep the courts from unduly interfering with executions. By a 4-3 vote, the court said Florida voters were misled in 1998 when they overwhelmingly approved an amendment that enshrined the death penalty in the state Constitution. The amendment prevented any state court from declaring the death penalty unconstitutional.

The State of Louisiana agreed in Federal District Court in Baton Rouge yesterday to sweeping changes in the way it runs its juvenile prisons, including steps to protect inmates from abusive guards and promises to provide medical, dental and mental health care.

State police undercover agents posing as demonstrators infiltrated activist groups planning the protests at the Republican National Convention, search-warrant documents made public yesterday showed.

Citing concerns about the rising number of police shootings, the Justice Department is moving toward a sweeping civil rights investigation of a county police department in Maryland.

Lawyers for Earl Washington Jr., a model prisoner with the mental development of a 10-year-old, filed a petition today for a full pardon after 17 years in prison, 6 years after a DNA test raised strong doubts about his conviction in a rape and homicide. Even as the petition was filed, the lawyers were awaiting results of a more definitive DNA test that they said in the petition they were certain would clear Mr. Washington of the crimes.

The FBI said yesterday it strongly opposes developing student profiles to predict future violence, favoring instead a series of steps to assess the seriousness of individual threats and determine how to address them.

All charges against five people connected to a medicinal marijuana clinic shut down by police earlier this year in Hillcrest were dismissed yesterday by a judge who questioned why the case was even prosecuted.

A temporary restraining order directing the state to stop requiring drug testing for welfare recipients from Berrien County and a handful of other communities has been extended, a federaljudge ruled Tuesday.

Six months after voters overwhelmingly approved an overhaul of California's juvenile justice system, the initiative is being challenged in court and its effectiveness is being questioned.

A 7-7 ruling Tuesday from the 6th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifts a temporary stay on the planned execution of Philip Workman, who was convicted and sentenced to death for the 1981 slaying of a Memphis police officer. The appeals court had postponed Workman's scheduled April 6 execution indefinitely to hear the defense's claim that Tennessee authorities defrauded the trial court.

In her only interview from a Peruvian jail, Lori Berenson describes the harsh conditions of her confinement and tells how her captors have mistreated her fellow prisoners.

The Canadian Bar Association says a new law would force lawyers to divulge too much confidential information about their clients to federal authorities.

Almost every day since mid-May, Mr. Clark -- convicted most recently of kidnapping -- and the rest of his 20-man crew have been outside the wire, battling blazes across the West....Federal officials say the inmates have been invaluable, providing a much needed, well-trained and well-supervised reinforcement to resources that have worn thin.

Public defenders in Vermont are considering asking the Supreme Court to overturn a controversial state court decision that permits police to take DNA samples from potential crime suspects without first obtaining a warrant.

The former U.S. Attorney who sparked a probe into whether the federal government was responsible for the deaths of 74 Branch Davidians near Waco, Tex., has been notified he faces criminal charges after acknowledging he withheld notes from special counsel John C. Danforth's investigators and misled a federal grand jury about the papers.

Federal agents posed as members of the news media to take pictures of neo-Nazi skinheads gathered this week to support the Aryan Nations at the trial of a lawsuit against them.

Journey for Justice, a caravan of family members of drug war prisoners, medical marijuana patients and citizens who oppose the drug war, will begin a week-long march from Houston to Austin starting September 22. The tour will include vigils, street theater and rallies to highlight various aspects of America's failed war on drugs. For more information, please contact Kevin Aplin of Journey For Justice at (321) 255-9790 or visit www.journeyforjustice.org.

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

Congress Resumes September 5 - 6, 2000.

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!

We're all responsible for ignoring the inhumane conditions that amount to nothing less than torture in California's prisons. Our group of 4,600 doctors, nurses, teachers, college professors and social workers receives hundreds of pleas weekly from the families of inmates asking for help.Somebody needs to sit down and think this crime thing through because the current system is causing more crime than it is preventing. The right thing to do is to release nonviolent prisoners--70% of California's total prison population; institute alternative sentencing for the mentally ill and drug addicts; and send dying prisoners home on compassionate release.

Apart from whatever Supreme Court vacancies may arise, the next president will have the chance to fill numerous vacancies in the lower federal courts. These appointments, especially to the federal courts of appeals, will also have a profound influence on the course of justice. That is another good reason that both candidates should be asked to explain more fully their thinking about judicial nominations whose impact will far outlast the winner's tenure as president.

Hardly anyone noticed, but the House of Representatives did something rare and admirable the other day. It voted to correct a legislative mistake that has had cruel consequences for thousands of legally admitted aliens: the retroactive deportation feature of the 1996 Immigration Act.

Lori Berenson, the American serving a life sentence in Peru for treason, has always been at the mercy of Peru's stormy politics. President Alberto Fujimori has repeatedly used her case to prove he is tough on terrorism and to paint his opponents as squishy.,,,Ms. Berenson's family says that in her new trial, her lawyers have not seen the file of charges and testimony, and were not present when witnesses were questioned. Rather than extending the charade, Mr. Fujimori should let her go.

The Clinton administration's three-year battle to prevent the use of marijuana as medicine as allowed under California law got a well-deserved rebuke this month. A federal judge wisely ruled that the administration could not punish doctors who recommend the benefits of marijuana to their patients. Such a policy, wrote Judge William Alsup, raises "severe First Amendment doubts."

It was 1971 when advocates first filed a federal lawsuit over inhumane conditions inside the old D.C. Jail. Legal action led to years of court oversight punctuated with grim reports of inmates mistreated or living in filth....A federal judge to agree Monday to return control of part of the operation to the city. But periodic court-ordered inspections of the jail, whose results were reported Sunday by The Post's Serge Kovaleski, continue to turn up deplorable conditions.... As long as inspectors can find the kind of conditions cited in their recent reports, the city hasn't done enough.

There is no way I can vote for the chief executioner of the United States. Since George W. Bush became governor of Texas in 1995, he has executed more people—144 up to now, recently including a mentally retarded prisoner—than any governor in the country. Neither Al Gore, Joseph Lieberman, Bill Clinton, nor Hillary Clinton will criticize Bush for this heap of corpses, because all four are ardent advocates of capital punishment.

The Senate will soon vote on a bill making it a federal crime to prescribe drugs to assist a patient's suicide. Any doctors convicted would serve a mandatory 20 years in prison. The House approved the bill, known as the Pain Relief Promotion Act, last year. The bill is an inappropriate attempt to usurp the power of states to address the profound question of the right to die. President Clinton should veto the bill if the Senate passes it.

Deep in the hearts of Americans there lurks an almost religious belief that drug use is not just illegal, but inherently evil and immoral. If rationality guided our drug policies, most of the illegal substances now generating billions of dollars in underground profits would have been decriminalized and drug treatment centers would be wherever they're needed. But our society's attitude about (certain) psychoactive substances is oblivious to rational critique; our demonization of drugs has fanatical and cultlike dimensions.

Last week's report from the Justice Department confirming stark racial and geographic disparities in the imposition of federal death sentences has underscored the arbitrariness of the nation's death penalty system. The Clinton administration ought to impose a moratorium on the death penalty in federal cases until existing flaws are remedied.

In excoriating officials for their treatment of Wen Ho Lee, Federal District Judge James A. Parker said one question remained unanswered: "What was the government's motive?" There is an answer to that question, a chilling one. It is: politics.

Lori Berenson's parents write that "Lori filed a petition with Peruvian officials on 5 Sept. showing that her trial is not proceeding fairly. Unfortunately, it is absolutely impossible for anyone to have a fair trial in terrorism-related cases in Peru, even those heard in the civilian courts, because due process is secondary to expedience within Peruvian law."

As America's crime rate declined during the past decade, some have been quick to conclude that rising incarceration rates should be credited with the crime drop. But some interesting data have come out over the summer months about the disconnect between incarceration and crime rates that are bad news for prison boosters.

Is this America? To think of Wen Ho Lee in his nine months of solitary confinement is to think not of Horatio Alger, but of Kafka...Whether or not it can be proved he was a victim of racial profiling, Mr. Lee's case dramatizes what many Americans believe to be true: There is opportunity here, but justice? Equality before the law? No, not for the model minority, it appears.

The case of Wen Ho Lee is coming to an end, with the government backing off on virtually all the accusations against him. But the underlying problems of the case are unlikely to disappear once it is resolved, and the government must rethink how it deals with the central conflict between democratic principles and national security....What is needed to regain trust among Asian-Americans are fair, scrupulous and professional investigations; we cannot allow poorly handled cases to alienate a segment of our population.

Hate-crime legislation finally turns out to be an attempt at thought control. It says we'll punish you for what you did, yes, but also for what you were thinking when you did it. It says we'll punish you not merely for your racist or anti-gay behavior but also for your bigoted beliefs. How can so many thoughtful people believe that punishing thought is a good idea?

You can understand the young George W. Bush wanting to dodge Vietnam, as he did by joining the Texas Air National Guard, a k a the Champagne Unit. But what does it say that the middle-aged Mr. Bush was scared to go to Boston?

By a conservative estimate, there are 27 million people working under various forms of slavery in the world today, and the number is growing. In contrast to the slavery America knew, today's slaveholders mainly exploit people of their own race. But as in the American past, they use violence and threats to force people to labor for no pay. Slavery is illegal everywhere, but it thrives because of the corruption of police and government authorities.

Three weeks ago Larry Youngblood's conviction was vacated. While the small amount of semen that was preserved was insufficient for reliable testing at the time of the appeal, new testing procedures that only recently became available were conducted by the Tucson police. They showed conclusively the police really did have the wrong man...Yet at every turn prosecutors are resisting the use of DNA tests whenever it might mean reopening an old case....To prevent it from happening again, courts must be receptive to any credible claim that new tests might prove the actual innocence of one who has already been convicted. Had Larry Youngblood been charged with first degree murder, he'd probably be dead now.

If any messages have been sent to young people, they are that our system of government does not reflect voters' decisions when those decisions are inconsistent with federal dogma. The reality is that medical marijuana, this small step toward rational drug policy, has not resulted in increased teenage use or in fewer arrests in the general population. What surely has increased among young people is cynicism and mistrust of our government's drug policy.

The solid American commitment to capital punishment which subliminally manifests a quasi-religious faith in human sacrifice, is one indicator that something is askew in our moral reasoning about crime and punishment. Another is the burgeoning prison industry: A few days ago the Justice Department reported that last year, 1,284,894 people were incarcerated in this country.

Andre Pastrana, whether by inadvertence, apolitical candor or devious design, blurted out the truth: The only sure way America can solve its drug problem is by reducing demand. How to do that is, of course, the question. The answers are more likely to include some combination of punishment for casual users and treatment for addicts than the things we've been focusing on in recent years: mandatory sentences and pressure on countries where the stuff is produced. The first has filled our prisons to overflowing with nonviolent offenders, and the second has produced more political instability than measurable benefits.

From Colombia, South America to Columbia, South Carolina, the "Drug War" is being exposed by human rights organizations as a failed war on drugs, but a disastrously effective war on poor South Americans and black citizens of the United States. The phony drug war is being escalated by a President who "didn't inhale" when they passed the joints around and it's primary victims are Colombian peasants and racially profiled blacks in the U. S.

TalkLeft Commentary

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.

A veteran detective says Chief Bernard Parks had evidence of the scandal a year before it was revealed, but kept it from the district attorney -- and the public.

MoJo Wire's Seventh Annual Roundup of Student Protest ....including, State University of New York, Albany Student agitation forced SUNY Albany to cancel its dining hall contracts with Sodexho Marriott. Sodexho's parent company is the largest shareholder in Corrections Corporation of America, a leading purveyor of for-profit prisons.

Republican Rep. Tom Campbell takes on Sen. Dianne Feinstein by attacking U.S. drug policy. Sure, it's California -- but does he have a chance?

Despite a partisan tie vote, Tennesee convict Philip Workman faces execution, while the country faces new facts about the death penalty.

Attorney Kerry Lee had no permanent license to practice law and no background in capital murder defense. But he was appointed by a trial judge to handle the appeal of death row inmate Henry Lee Dunn Jr. Mr. Lee had been practicing law for less than two years. And the state's highest criminal appeals court let him stay on the case even after he signaled his inexperience by asking the court to delay the appeal so he could take an introductory course in death-penalty defense.

Joe Lee Guy was sentenced to die for being an accomplice in a store owner's slaying; the triggerman and a second accomplice were sentenced to life . The man appointed to fight for Mr. Guy's life was Richard Lee Wardroup, a Lubbock lawyer with a history of professional misconduct and alcoholism. Though Mr. Wardroup's problems stemmed from other cases, his conduct in Mr. Guy's trial is now under attack by appellate lawyers.

A disabled oilfield roughneck was unknowingly drugged, denied access to evidence and sentenced to die even though the state's case against him lacked physical evidence, eyewitnesses or a motive linking him to the crime.

Capital punishment in the Carolinas is so tainted with mistakes, inequities and incompetence that the system risks executing innocent people, while sparing some of the states' most vicious killers, an Observer investigation has found.

The juvenile justice system, founded on the idea that childhood is a distinct stage of life, is being dismantled, with more and more teenagers imprisoned alongside adults. The tough-on-crime crowd has won, but what kind of society has been left behind?

"Dr. Lee, I tell you with great sadness that I feel I was led astray last December by the executive branch of our government through its Department of Justice, by its Federal Bureau of Investigation and by its United States attorney for the district of New Mexico, who held the office at that time."

Complete Transcript of Judge's Statement

Reads like a novel but much scarier because it's all true. A page-turner! Read a Chapter Excerpt

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