The AG

The NY Times's Paul Krugman on John Ashcroft: "Worst Attorney General ever!"

(via Jerry Lawson)

SCOTUS in review pt. I

Most of the attention this Supreme Court term has been focused on the Padilla, Hamdi, and Al Odah cases(and rightly so, I think). But there've been a number of other notable decisions.

Perhaps the biggest sleeper was Blakely. The Court ruled that (practically) any factor which could result in a longer sentence must be proven to a jury, rather than being left for a judge to find whether the factor is present. Although the case was specifically about a Washington state sentencing law, it's widely expected to result in the same requirement about Federal sentencing rules. The NY Times quotes Justice O'Connor as saying in dissent that the "vast majority" of federal criminal cases may be affected. Going forward, it is likely not only to produce a lot of appeals (and some public outcry regarding same: one judge just reduced the sentence of a tobacco farmer who shut down downtown Washington DC by claiming to have bombs on his tractor), but also to change dramatically the way criminal trials and plea bargains are conducted.

I'll discuss more decisions later. I'm particularly interested in Hiibel (upholding a NV law that you have to give your name to a police officer who asks), Ashcroft v. ACLU (suggesting the Child Online Protection Act's criminal penalties for websites that make sexually explicit material available to minors don't pass Constitutional muster), and Newdow (in which the Court shamefully, IMHO, punted on the inclusion of "one Nation under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance, ruling that Mr. Newdow didn't have standing to sue).

Also worth discussing is the 1st Circuit case, US v. Councilman (finding that email is not "in transit" when it's on your email provider's servers, and thus not afforded the strong protections of the wiretap laws).