Sunday Evening Open Thread
13 Oct 2008 1:04am GMT If you've had your fill of politics this weekend, here's something heartwarming and completely different to read. In the beginning, there was a boy, a girl and an apple. He was a teenager in a concentration camp in Nazi-controlled Germany. She was a bit younger, living free in the village, her family posing as Christians. Their eyes met through a barbed-wire fence and she wondered what she could do for this handsome young man. She was carrying apples, and decided to throw one over the...
Sentencing Commission Considering Prison Alternatives for Drug Offenders
12 Oct 2008 9:48pm GMT Welcome news today in the Washington Post: The U.S. Sentencing Commission is considering alternatives to prison for non-violent, low level drug offenders as well as for some supervised release (parole) violators. The commission's consideration of alternatives to incarceration reflects its determination to persuade Congress to ease federal mandatory minimum sentencing laws that contributed to explosive growth in the prison population. The laws were enacted in the mid-1980s, principally to...
Keeping an Eye On the Real Risk of Election Fraud
12 Oct 2008 8:08pm GMT Is all the right wing angst over some Acorn workers who apparently registered nonexistent people (who are, by definition, incapable of voting) a distraction not only from John McCain's intellectually bankrupt campaign but also from the real election fraud that we've come to expect from Republicans? Now, New York University professor Mark Crispin Miller is warning that elements within the Republican Party may attempt to steal the 2008 presidential election from Barack Obama. UPDATE: ...
Eyewitness ID: A Primary Cause of Wrongful Convictions
12 Oct 2008 7:13pm GMT A Dallas Morning News investigation has produced a series of articles that every judge, lawyer, and citizen who might ever sit on a jury should read. The paper examined 19 wrongful convictions in Dallas County. In every instance but one, a Dallas Morning News investigation found, police and prosecutors built their case on eyewitness accounts, even though they knew such testimony can be fatally flawed. Eyewitness identification procedures often cause victims to believe with certainty that...
PPP CO Poll: Double Digit Lead for Obama as Latinos Tip Scale
12 Oct 2008 6:23pm GMT Update: Mayhill Fowler at HuffPo has much more on Colorado, including the great photo above. Public Policy Polling released a new Colorado poll (pdf) yesterday showing Sen. Barack Obama with a ten point lead over John McCain. Obama leads John McCain 52-42, up from a seven point advantage in a PPP Colorado survey three weeks ago. With only 6% of voters undecided and just 6% of those with a current preference open to changing their minds McCain is basically in a situation right now...