If the drug war is of interest to you, do not miss "Bush's Born-Again Drug War" over at Alternet today. It's written by Paul Armentano, the senior policy analyst for The NORML Foundation in Washington, DC..

Listen to George Walker Bush speak about substance abuse and it's apparent that one is listening to a preacher, not a president. "There are faith-based organizations in drug treatment that work so well because they convince a
person to turn their life over to Christ," Bush divulged to the religious journal Christianity Today. "By doing so, they change a person's heart [and] a person with a changed heart is less likely to be addicted to drugs and alcohol."

Despite US Constitutional restrictions requiring a separation of church and
state, Bush's ardent Judeo-Christian faith ­ the President is a practicing Methodist who "accepted Jesus Christ into [his] life" in 1986 ­ remains the staple of his administration's anti-drug platform.

Bush, the Proselytzer. Even Nixon and Reagan kept their wars on drugs secular. Who's paying for Bush's faith-based programs? You, the taxpayer. And, the article informs us, faith-based drug programs are not particularly effective:

Good news for Detroit residents. Marijuana Policy Project reports:

By a 60% to 40% vote, Detroiters passed a ballot initiative yesterday allowing seriously ill patients to use medical marijuana with their doctors' recommendations.

The initiative goes into effect immediately, so Detroit patients -- who yesterday risked arrest and months in jail for medical marijuana possession -- today woke up in a city that no longer subjects them to prosecution.

Detroit is just the first stop. The initiative is being launched in 22 other cities:

by TChris

A judge in Maryland views a sandwich board as the modern equivalent of a scarlet letter: shame as punishment.

A woman who stole $4.52 worth of fuel was ordered to stand outside the gas station Friday wearing a sandwich board sign that declared: "I was caught stealing gas."

One of the bystanders who watched the woman endure catcalls and blaring horns from passing cars asked the right question: "What is this, the Middle Ages?"

According to a new report from the Department of Justice, 3.2% of America's adult population is in jail or on probation or parole. That's 6.9 million people. The number of adults in our correctional population increased by more than 130,000 this year, even though there was no corresponding increase in the crime rate.

Experts say the numbers reflect the "get tough on crime" laws of the 90's. This would be a good time for the Democrats to change course and focus on prevention and treatment as alternatives to prison for non-violent drug offenders. We got our copy of the Democratic Platform today. What does it say about prisons and sentencing laws? Nothing that we could find.

by TChris

Bob Ray Sanders looks at three cases -- Martha Stewart's, a multiple homicide in McKinney, Texas, and the Elashi brothers, accused of supporting terrorism by selling computers to Libya and Syria -- and concludes: "We are living in perilous times where authorities can do just about anything they want without much outcry from frightened citizens."

Lady Justice should be on the lookout every time the law decides to make an example of someone or send a strong message to other criminals or when the law is pressured by political or community forces to make a case. In such instances, a miscarriage of justice becomes much more likely.

by TChris

Tasers are billed as the nonlethal alternative to bullets, but that may not always be the case. Since 2001, fifty people have died after being shocked with Tasers. The manufacturer bases its safety claims on tests conducted on a pig and five dogs.

Company-paid researchers, not independent scientists, conducted the studies, which were never published in a peer-reviewed journal. Taser has no full-time medical director and has never created computer models to simulate the effect of its shocks, which are difficult to test in human clinical trials for ethical reasons.

In any event, testing may not reflect how the weapon is used in the field.

In training, volunteers usually receive a single shock of a half-second or less. In the field, Tasers automatically fire for five seconds. If an officer holds down the trigger, a Taser will discharge longer. And suspects are often hit repeatedly.

Because Tasers are marketed as nonlethal, they may be overused.

by TChris

U.S. Attorney Thomas M. DiBiagio asked his staff to produce "Three 'Front-Page' White Collar/Public Corruption Indictments" by November. Whether there were actually three meritorious cases to prosecute in his Maryland district seemed unimportant; only the headlines mattered.

In an e-mail to prosecutors July 1, DiBiagio described a municipal corruption indictment in Philadelphia. "Why aren't we doing cases like this," he wrote in the e-mail quoted in the [Baltimore] Sun. "Am I the only one embarrassed by the fact that this Office has not convicted an elected official of corruption since 1988?"

When prosecutors are more concerned about headlines than justice, their prosecutions become inherently suspect. That point isn't lost on the chairman of Maryland's Democratic Party, Isiah Leggett, who is also a professor at Howard University School of Law. He says DiBiagio is using his office as "a political weapon."

Leggett said the documents confirmed what he and other critics already believed of DiBiagio: that he wanted headlines and wanted to indict "most notably" Democratic officials.

The Justice Dept. responded to DiBiagio's pronouncements by taking away his ability to pull the trigger on political prosecutions. Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey advised DiBiagio that he can't bring a public corruption case without first submitting the proposed indictment to Comey for approval. A former federal prosecutor calls the Justice Dept. rebuke "a major [butt] kicking" that is "highly unusual but well justified."

by TChris

If you haven't been convicted of a crime, should the government have the right to take your DNA?

Three states -- Virginia, Louisiana and Texas -- already require the collection of DNA samples from arrestees as part of the booking process, even before suspects go on trial. Critics see a worrying erosion of due process and what they call "DNA privacy" -- the right of citizens to keep genetic information private.

California may join that list if Prop. 69 passes in November.

If approved, DNA collection would go into effect immediately for suspects arrested for murder or rape. They would have their DNA sampled by mouth swabs as part of the booking process. Beginning in 2009, samples would be taken from individuals arrested for a felony crime in California.

DNA profiles of convicted felons are entered into an FBI database, but the Bush administration wants to expand the law "so that the DNA of some arrestees, including juveniles, can also be made available through the database." So much for the presumption of innocence and the right to privacy.

One major fear is law enforcement will begin using genetic evidence to create a 21st century version of racial profiling. Already, police in Charlottesville, Va., had to face accusations that they were casting a "DNA dragnet," aggressively collecting saliva samples from African Americans in a serial rape case.

by TChris

Innocent people are convicted of crimes for many reasons. One is the failure of state governments to provide adequate funding for lawyers who defend indigent clients. The newly-formed National Committee on the Right to Counsel hopes to call attention to the problem.

"Even though state and local governments are responsible for ensuring adequate counsel for defendants who cannot afford to hire their own lawyers, many people … are nonetheless still convicted and imprisoned each year without any legal representation" or with an inadequate one, the Washington-based group said.

In some states, an accused with a minimum wage job doesn't qualify for a public defender. Public defenders are often swamped with crushing caseloads, and appointed lawyers are frequently denied the funding they need to hire experts and investigators needed to mount a defense.

"The balance is tipped too heavily in favor of the government when it comes to prosecution of persons without means who can't afford private counsel," said [Timothy] Lewis [who served a decade on the federal appeals court in Philadelphia]. "We really need to take a look at that. Who are we as a people if we not giving adequate and equal representation to those who can't afford a lawyer?"

Our feel-good story of the day, and a great example of why mandatory minimum sentences and mandatory sentencing guidelines should be abolished.

A 100-year-old man who killed his wife by slitting her throat avoided a prison sentence yesterday because a judge said he had acted out of love....Yesterday he broke down and cried in the dock as the judge, Mr Justice Leveson, described how the Heginbothams had enjoyed 67 years of "joyous" marriage before he had been driven to cut her throat. The judge sentenced him to a 12-month community rehabilitation after Heginbotham pleaded guilty to manslaughter.

....Prosecutor Hilary Banks said the couple had had 67 years of happy marriage together and raised six children but Ida had become dependent on her husband after she had been injured in several falls. Her condition deteriorated and she needed specialist care and was moved between a number of care homes. Throughout this time her husband had visited her daily.....Police arrested Heginbotham that day at his home, where he was found to have attempted suicide. When arrested by officers on suspicion of murder, he said: "My poor Ida." He later told interviewing officers he thought he must have gone berserk.

Passing the sentence, Mr Justice Leveson said: "The killing of your wife, to whom you had been married joyously for some 67 years, followed by your attempt to take your own life, was an act of desperation carried out in an effort to end her suffering while you were under intolerable pressure. "It was in truth an act of love and I have no doubt you suffered a medical disorder at the time and the responsibility you bear is substantially reduced." He added: "It was, as you will well know, a terrible thing to do but I accept entirely the circumstances in which you did it and your feelings of guilt and remorse have been truly overwhelming."

Even the detective in the case recognized the wisdom in having all available options open to the sentencing judge:

Go over and view Cocaine Country, a National Geographic 8 miniute flash movie about cocaine and Colombia and what the crop means to the people. Link via Drug War Rant who writes,

And then ask yourself if our policies of spraying crops and providing military hardware and assistance makes any sense at all.

Here's the story behind it, and the text of some of the movie's narrative. The opening lines:

One afternoon, while crossing the soccer field in the village of Monserrate, I saw a man spreading white powder on three plastic tarps. What are you doing? I asked. "Drying cocaine base," he replied. "If it's wet, it'll be too heavy, and the dealer won't buy it." And no one minds? "Of course not," he said. "Everyone does it." Clearly I'd entered a world where "business as usual" had acquired a totally new meaning.

by TChris

If you are a lawyer or judge concerned about the insanity of the drug war, take a moment to visit the Voluntary Committee of Lawyers. Co-founded by former Attorney General Elliott Richardson, "the VCL seeks to promote, within and by the legal profession, informed discussion about the objectives of the drug war and its costs to our cherished institutions of liberty and justice."

Lawyers and judges can electronically sign an open letter calling for a public debate about the best way to implement "better drug laws in which fear, prejudice, and punitive prohibitions yield to common sense, science, public health and human rights."