Here are seventeen myths and distortions about the Graham amendment. To add your voice to the outcry against this legislation, click here.

Via Digby:

The Republican senate is using habeas corpus as a political football. South Carolinian Lindsay Graham, the sponsor, is undoubtedly feeling tremendous pressure because of his "soft" stance on torture (I still can't believe we are even talking about it) and this is his way of restoring some manly credentials. But there is no excuse for the Democrats who signed on to this. Nor is there any excuse for the Blue state moderates either.

There was obviously some back room dickering on this bit of legislation and that makes me about as sick as anything about this whole thing. They're playing politics with habeas corpus for Gawd's sake. This isn't some f*cking highway bill or a farm subsidy. It's the very foundation of our system of government and the single most important element of liberty. If the state can just declare someone an "unlawful combatant" and lock them up forever, we have voted ourselves into tyranny.

Rep. John Conyers has established a Patriot Act Center on his website. He says we need to act now, because Republicans are seeking to rush bills renewing and expanding governmental powers in the Patriot Act to an agreement and a final vote later this week.

The bills are now in final legislative consideration by a House-Senate conference committee where conferees will decide whether provisions in the already passed House version or Senate version prevail. The final version they agree on will then go back to the House and Senate for a final vote.

Both versions are pretty bad. The House version is a disaster, and the Senate version only slightly better. But the House version must be defeated.

Rep. Conyers is trying to put the brakes on the Patriot Act renewal. He write:

Although we will find it very difficult to defeat this bill, I will do everything in my power to ensure that this legislation is balanced and limited. I will need your help and your voice to join me in opposition to this bill.

Nine senators were absent from Thursday's vote on Sen. Graham's amendment to an appropriations bill that would strip Guantanamo detainees of the right to challenge the legality of their detentions in federal court using a writ of habeas corpus.

On Monday, Sen. Jeff Bingaman of New Mexico will seek a new vote on Graham's amendment, trying to convince Senators on the Judiciary Committee to gut the part of the Graham amendment that prevents detainees from using the writ.

So it is possible that some lawmakers could have it both ways, backing other provisions in Mr. Graham's measure that try to make the Guantánamo tribunal process more accountable to the Senate, but opposing the more exceptional element of the legislation that limits prerogatives of the judiciary.

Tinkering with habeas corpus is a dangerous thing. Today, Sen. Lindsay Graham and his fellow Senators told you they are only restricting habeas rights of enemy combatants, i.e., foreigners. But on November 16, the Senate Judiciary Committee will hold a second hearing on S. 1088 (pdf), a bill that would gut habeas corpus rights for Americans.

The legislation, known as the Streamlined Procedures Act, would effectively kill the writ of habeas corpus by stripping federal courts of jurisdiction to consider cases in which a prisoner's constitutional rights may have been violated. The legislation would apply to all criminal cases, including capital cases. The legislation is sponsored by Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) in the Senate and Rep. Dan Lungren (R-CA) in the House.

I warned about the bill in July, quoting an LA Times article:

Virginia Rep. Bobby Scott, the ranking Democrat on the subcommittee considering the bill, conceded there was little chance of blocking it in the House. "The House has been very supportive of anything that would strip the innocent of a fair hearing. This bill will ensure that more innocent people will be put to death," he said in a telephone interview."

Beginning Wednesday, Alaskans will be able to carry a firearm in their vehicle and no longer need a permit to carry a concealed weapon.

A new state anti-gun control law that goes into effect will essentially bar municipalities from passing gun laws that are more restrictive than state law. The National Rifle Association, which helped Republican state Rep. Mike Chenault write the legislation, says except for the concealed weapon permit requirements, most Alaska city and state gun laws are the same.

by TChris

Why should there be a deadline to correct an unjust loss of freedom? An editorial in the Palm Beach Post praises the Florida Supreme Court for extending (for the third time) the deadline by which wrongfully convicted inmates must seek DNA testing that might exonerate them. It also argues that the state legislature should eliminate the deadline.

Why? Ask Wilton Dedge, whom DNA evidence freed in August 2004 after the state wrongfully imprisoned him for 22 years. Ask Luis Diaz, whom DNA evidence freed last August after wrongful conviction stole 26 years from his life. In both cases, the crime was rape. Ask the men who have been released from Death Row and exonerated. Ask the family of the man whom DNA evidence cleared after he had died of cancer while on Death Row.

The Tallahassee Democrat agrees that "any deadline runs contrary to the interest of justice."

by Last Night in Little Rock

USA Today reports that Congress is attempting to put a significant number of unconvicted arrestees into CODIS, the National DNA Database. The ACLU is, of course, opposed. This is also discussed on Paper Chase. From USA Today:

Here are some arguments against legislation to increase criminal penalties for hate crimes at the federal level--they come from an article I wrote in 2000, (from the last paragraph, I assume it was sometime after the murder of Matthew Shephard):

• The federal judiciary released a statement recently expressing constitutional and practical concerns about hate crime laws. The underlying criminal activity of a hate crime, such as robbery, assault, or murder, traditionally falls under state jurisdiction. The concern is that by passing federal hate crime laws, there will be a mass federalization of crime which should and could be adequately handled at the state level instead of overburdening our already overwhelmed federal courts.

• There is no evidence to suggest that hate crime laws will have a deterrent effect upon hate crimes.

• In many cases, it is very difficult to prove a hateful motivation for the criminal act. The decision to charge a hate crime as such should not be left to law enforcement. The F.B.I., for example, includes gestures and other body language in its hate crime statistics. Prosecutions to date in some cases have been based upon bigoted statements made several years before the act in question.

Proving again that sex offenders, however minor, are the new pariahs in our society, the House of Representatives today passed a bill that would outlaw misdemeanor sex offenders of minors from possessing, buying or selling firearms.

What is the connection? Violent sex offenders don't get misdemeanor convictions. This is as bad as the law it was patterned after, the Violence Against Women act, which prohibits misdemeanor domestic violence offenders from possessing a weapon. Both laws are attempts by Congress to mass-federalize state and local crime, and another step towards rendering the Second Amendment a nullity.

Update: It gets worse:

In response to the Supreme Court's decision last term in Kelo approving state seizure of property for economic development, the Texas legislature passed a law restricting such seizures. Texas Governor Rick Perry signed the bill into law Wednesday.

Under the Constitution, governments cannot take private property for public use without ''just compensation.'' Local governments have traditionally used their eminent domain authority to build roads, reservoirs and other public projects. But over decades, the high court has expanded the definition of public use, allowing cities to employ eminent domain to eliminate blight.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that New London, Conn., could take homes for a private development project. But the ruling also allowed states to ban the practice.

My thoughts (personal, not legal) on the Kelo decision are here. Last Night in Little Rock's are here.

Tag: Kelo

Maybe I've been in a cave somewhere, but I really didn't know that the feds and states are proposing laws requiring doctors to offer pain medication specifically for the fetus to women getting abortions at 20 weeks or more - and to tell them that the fetuses feel pain.

Anyway, now there's a study to refute the notion.

Taking on one of the most highly charged questions in the abortion debate, a team of doctors has concluded that fetuses probably cannot feel pain in the first six months of gestation and therefore do not need anesthesia during abortions.

Their report, being published today in The Journal of the American Medical Association, is based on a review of several hundred scientific papers, and it says that nerve connections in the brain are unlikely to have developed enough for the fetus to feel pain before 29 weeks.