R.I.P.

R.I.P. Fred Korematsu, a true Civil Rights Icon that very few will ever learn about.

$2.64 million of taxpayer money

... well spent according to some sources.

Prosecutors spent $672,507 to get a death sentence for Scott Peterson, the Stanislaus County district attorney's office reported Friday.

That does not include an estimated $1 million Modesto police spent on the double-murder investigation, nor $742,000 in court costs. Taxpayers footed an additional $229,000 for Peterson's experts when he ran out of money for his defense.

Those combined costs exceed $2.64 million in public funds.

That is an amazing amount of cash to be spent on one trial, but apparently it makes sense rather than saving millions and giving the guy life without parole. It is amazing to think what could have been done with all of that extra money, like counseling for the victim's families, more policemen, better schools, etc. Well, death comes at a price.

Full Article at the Modesto Bee.

Science and the Bush Administration

There is a great opinion piece in the Guardian about the Bush Administration and its denial of science in favor of convservative ideals. Here is an excerpt,

Thanks to the policies and prejudices of the Bush administration, science has become a dirty word. The American century was built on scientific progress. From the automobile to the atom bomb to the man on the moon, science and technology underpinned American military, commercial and cultural might. Crucial to that was the presidency. From FDR and the Los Alamos laboratory to Kennedy and Nasa to Clinton and decoding the genome, the White House was vital to promoting ground-breaking research and luring the world's scientific elite. But Bush's faith-based, petro-chemical administration has reversed that tradition: excepting matters military, this presidency exhibits an abiding aversion to scientific inquiry that is in danger of affecting the entire country.

The article details the attack on science in a number of areas, including climate change, stem cell research, and evolution. Overall, it is only a matter of time before this dismissal of science and fact wil come back and seriously hurt the nation; or maybe that time has already passed.

Full Article at the Guardian.

Government Accountability at its Worst

This stuff is absolutely terrible, but its at least somewhat common,

A domestic-violence nightmare provided the basis for an intense and sober Supreme Court argument on Monday, as the justices considered whether the police may be held liable for damages for failing to enforce a court-issued order of protection.

A federal appeals court has permitted a $30 million lawsuit against the town of Castle Rock, Colo., brought by a woman whose former husband kidnapped their three young daughters and murdered them while she fruitlessly sought the help of the local police. The woman, Jessica Gonzales, had obtained an order of protection limiting her ex-husband's contact with the children to specified times.

I am 99% sure that the Justices will rule in favor of the police, whose reasoning could just be that "we're too busy" and that will be the end of the matter. It is virtually impossible to sue the government for negligence or failure to provide adequate protection because it is so hard to substantiate what effect they would have had. Plus, if a precedent is set in favor of the defendant, than local governments will go completely bankrupt in a few years, as lawsuits will pop up all over the place. We cannot afford to take this risk, yet our inaction will do no good for the public either. Quite a bind we are in...

Full Article at NYTimes.

That Culture of Life Idea

Catholics seem to be making the connections,

Support for capital punishment among Roman Catholics in America has dropped below 50 percent, according to a poll released Monday as part of a new anti-death penalty campaign by Catholic bishops.

The poll, conducted in November by Zogby International for the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, showed that 48 percent of Catholic Americans support the death penalty while 47 percent oppose it.

Past surveys put Catholic support for the death penalty as high as 68 percent.

With the release of the poll at the start of Holy Week, church leaders announced the Catholic Campaign to End the Use of the Death Penalty.

"For us, this is not about ideology but respect for life," said Cardinal Theodore McCarrick of Washington, D.C., where the initiative was announced. "We cannot teach that killing is wrong by killing. We cannot defend life by taking life."

Hey, a life is a life, so it is good to see that Catholics are adopting this as a part of a general Culture of Life argument. I don't necessarily buy all the components that are being advocated by the idea, but the Anti-Death Penalty portion is certainly something that should be emphasized. However, its doubtful that most on the right will make it a priority.

Full Article at the Houston Chronicle.

CA District Trends

This is from the CA Target Book but reproduced by the National Journal's House Race Hotline,

Below are some of the 2004 election results from the California Target Book, Volume One, 2005. The results are from the WH matchup between John Kerry and Pres. Bush, the SEN matchup between Sen. Barbara Boxer (D) and California Secretary of State Bill Jones (R) and the House incumbent's '04 winning percentage.

      H 04   WH 00       WH 04          SEN 04  
                               Bush  Gore   Bush  Kerry   Boxer  Jones
CA:                              42%   54%    44%   54%      58%   38%
CA 11  Rep. Pombo (R):      61   52    44     54    45       50    47
CA 18  Rep. Cardoza (D):    68   44    53     50    49       57    39
CA 20  Rep. Costa (D):      54   43    54     48    51       57    38
CA 26  Rep. Dreier (R):     54   53    43     55    44       48    47
CA 47  Rep. Sanchez (D):    60   41    56     50    49       57    35
CA 50  Rep. Cunningham (R): 59   53    42     55    44       48    48
CA 51  Rep. Filner (D):     62   40    56     46    53       61    34

This is all very interesting, as 18, 20, and 47 are all represented by Latino(a)s, while 51 is right on the border with Mexico. This could mean that Kerry was not a very strong candidate with Latino voters or that Bush was really good. Overall, it doesn't necessarily mean that Latinos are trending to the GOP, but it could be shown that way. Whatever the basis, Dems should take notice.

Darfur Numbers

According to UN spokesman Jan Egeland, 180,000 people have died in Darfur over the last year and a half.

The deaths do not include people killed during ongoing violence in Sudan's arid western region, said spokesman Brian Grogan on Monday.

Last week, Egeland said earlier estimates of 70,000 dead from last March to late summer were too low, telling a news conference: "Is it three times that? Is it five times that? I don't know, but it is several times the number of the 70,000 that have died altogether."

Egeland now estimates that an average of 10,000 people have died each month over the past year and a half from malnutrition and disease, Grogan said.

I just wish that our press would cover this issue a bit more in depth and let the rest of the world know that we do care about what is going on everywhere around the globe. One day that will happen.

Full Article at AlJazeera.

Interesting Interview with Condoleezza Rice

She sat down with some reporters and editors of the Washington Times and said some very intriguing things. Here are some excerpts,

Miss Rice said abortion should be "as rare a circumstance as possible," although without excessive government intervention. "We should not have the federal government in a position where it is forcing its views on one side or the other.

And another,

"And prayer is very important to me and a belief that if you ask for it, you will be guided. Now, that doesn't mean that I think that God will tell me what to do on, you know, the Iran nuclear problem.
"That's not how I see it. But I do believe very strongly that if you are a prayerful and faithful person, that that is a help in guiding us, as imperfect beings, to have to deal with extremely difficult and consequential matters."

And as for the possibility of President Rice in 2008,

"The last thing I can -- I really can't imagine it."

She appears to have the qualities of pandering that any good politician should have, but, she is also ridiculously conservative and would make a poor president. It's good to know that she some sense about the abortion debate and the middle ground that appears to be forming.

Full Article at Washington Times.

More Death Penalty Stuff

Sorry, I just thought that this was rather important,

According to state and federal records obtained by The Times, maintaining the California death penalty system costs taxpayers more than $114 million a year beyond the cost of simply keeping the convicts locked up for life and not counting the millions more in court costs needed to prosecute capital cases and hold post-conviction hearings in state and federal courts.

Okay, this is the first "good" estimate that we have since, I believe, 1988. Back then, the estimate was closer to $90 million, but I think that they included at least some court costs. I use the term "good", because I would consider the LA Times to be at least somewhat respected as a valid source of information. Others may disagree.

Here is a further break down of costs,

According to Corrections Department spokeswoman Margot Bach, it costs $90,000 more a year to house an inmate on death row, where each person has a private cell and extra guards, than in the general prison population. That accounts for $57.5 million annually.

Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, whose deputies represent the counties during appeals, estimates that he devotes about 15% of his criminal division budget to capital cases, or about $11 million annually.

The California Supreme Court, which is required by law to review every death penalty case, spends $11.8 million annually for court-appointed defense counsel.

The Office of the State Public Defender, which represents some death row inmates, has an annual budget of $11.3 million. The San Francisco-based Habeas Corpus Resource Center, another state-funded office, represents inmates and trains death penalty attorneys on a budget of $11 million.

Finally, federal public defenders offices in Los Angeles and Sacramento, and private attorneys appointed by the federal court system for California cases, receive about $12 million annually.

The resulting $114-million annual cost does not include the substantial extra funds needed to try the complicated capital cases in county courts.

Overall, this is just one of many overwhelming negatives of having the Death Penalty in California. Pretty soon, a new study on race and Capital Punishment will be out and undoubtedly it will show another obvious flaw of the system.

Full Article at LA Times.

Only One Killer

I am pretty curious to see how many more cases had similar tactics,

The California Supreme Court, condemning a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney's conduct in a death penalty case, ruled Thursday that prosecutors should not intentionally tell different juries that two defendants committed the same crime when only one could have been responsible.

In 1988, two men, Peter Sakarias and Tauno Waidla, attacked Viivi Piirisild with a hatchet and a knife in her North Hollywood home.

The men had separate trials. In both, the court found, Los Angeles Deputy Dist. Atty. Steven Ipsen, the prosecutor, "inconsistently and falsely" told jurors that it was the defendant before them who had delivered the deathblow. Both men were convicted and sentenced to death.

It is pretty sad that this had to take 17 years to sort out. Nonetheless, the effects of this could be at least somewhat widespread, although I am doubtful that there are too many similar cases. Overall, it is clear that such a prosecutor, who knowingly portrays two people as culprits of one blow, should be severely punished. However, it is difficult to see such a thing happening when our state's top lawyer condoned the process.

A spokesman for state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, who had defended the use of inconsistent arguments, said the ruling would give "clear guidance" that prosecutors "should settle on one theory and argue it consistently."

That's right, he defended this type of court tactic, but now is changing his mind for whatever reason. Shame on you Lockyer.

Full Article at LA Times.

It is Finished

Another groundbreaking victory for humanity,

A closely divided Supreme Court outlawed the death penalty for juvenile criminals on Tuesday, declaring there was a national consensus such executions were unconstitutionally cruel and ending a practice that had brought international condemnation.

This was defintely going to be a close one, and a 5-4 ruling was quite likely, but nobody really knew which way it would go. Nonetheless, common sense ruled the day... Thank you Justice Kennedy.

Full Article at Yahoo.