It was a busy weekend in Chicago. We were at the quarterly board meeting and seminar of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers. Illinois Governor George Ryan was our luncheon speaker on Friday at the Drake Hotel. We presented him with a Champion of Justice award. He spoke about the moratorium on the death penalty, the Commission he appointed to study the Illinois death penalty system and the 85 reforms it recommended, none of which have been implemented by the Illinois legislature, and the clemency hearings held the last two weeks on the 147 or so death row prisoners. He expressed empathy for the victims' families, said he would meet with them if asked, and said he cannot send someone who might have been wrongfully convicted to the execution chamber.

Ryan praised and credited NACDL vice-president Barry Scheck several times. He was very non-pretentious. He brought his wife, they both ate lunch with us. He told us he was a pharmacist before going into elected office, and described the small town where he has lived for a very long time.

No, Ryan is not going to grant blanket clemency to all of the inmates. He is going to decide on a case by case basis. And he said he'll take his time in deciding. He has about 75 days left. When he was done, we all gave him a rousing standing ovation.

Friday night, about 15 of us went to see Bob Dylan. We had second row seats in the center, right in front of Dylan. He was great. If you want to see what he's been playing in every city, go to BobDylan.com. The playlist for every concert is up on the site. He opened with Maggie's Farm, did Tombstone Blues, Just Like a Woman, Lay Lady Lay, the Stones' Brown Sugar, Blowing in the Wind and many more. He switched between keyboard, guitars and harmonica. We could understand his words. We got out about 11, and then all went to Gibson's for dinner, great steaks, till about 1:30 am. (Too late to start blogging or updating the news).

Saturday was our board meeting. We served on the board of Directors the past six years and this year we were elected an Officer (Secretary) of NACDL . It's a lot of work since there are 12,000 direct members and 25,000 affiliate members.

This morning we had two interesting and topical speakers:

The first was James Harrington, lawyer for the defendant in the Buffalo Six case who was granted bail (and is still trying to post it). He said that although he could understand the government's concern because Lackawanna is close to a power plant near Niagra Falls, there is not much evidence against the six.

Harrington criticized the magistrate judge's bail ruling, saying it was wrong on the law, took the worst possible view of the facts, and that it was not a courageous opinion but one that was intellectually dishonest.

The next speaker was Donna Newman, co-counsel for suspected "dirty bomb" defendant Jose Padilla. She recounted all of the events from the day of Padilla's arrest and was highly critical of the Government's actions in the case.

She said the affidavit for the Complaint filed in federal court against Padilla is similar to the one filed for his arrest--it says the Government received information from 2 confidential informants. She said one of the informants has provided false information to the authorities in the past, and the second has since recanted his statements. Newman says there is no probable cause to detain Padilla as there is no probable cause he committed any crime. Seven briefs have been filed by each side in the case.

We ended around 1pm, and that's the update for now. We will check the news later and resume regular posting tomorrow. Thanks for your patience.