Charley James: According to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano, news reports that Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab – the man accused to trying to blow up NW253 – concealed explosives in his underpants are accurate “so we want to be sure that, along with making people walk barefoot through check points, and banning shampoo and deodorant, no one is trying to sneak explosives aboard in their knickers.”

If you can judge a society by the way it treats its children, then New York fails in a big way. In fact, the Empire State should be found guilty of child abuse and …

How far would you go for respect? How about a 50-mile march starting Sunday morning, December 13, at Juvenile Hall in Sylmar and ending Wednesday night with a candlelight vigil outside the lockup in Norwalk?

Damaged for life and very hard pressed are the people who have paid their debt to society. They unfortunately get the verdict that keeps on punishing. They are also very unlikely to get married, often living alone in a life of quiet desperation.

The accusations put ACORN in a situation similar to a man who is asked, “when did you stop beating your wife?” Even though the accusations weren’t true, ACORN was put on the defensive, and lacked the resources to respond effectively to the onslaught of negative publicity.

You know how much a visit means to someone who’s locked up. And you know that one of the major factors that prevents recidivism is for a prisoner to retain family and community ties. So you set the alarm and get up early and out of the house by 5:00 a.m. to drive the three hours up the Central Valley so you can be one of the first non-appointment visitors milling around waiting to be called.

When I realized that I was about the victim of some crime, I bolted. I wanted to alert my neighbors, but I couldn’t dial. I want to honk my horn, but I was afraid this guy had a gun. The only thing I could think to do was speed my ass down the driveway and away from him.

Was Beck truly the best man for the job, or a nice parting gift to Bratton and a pacification gift the Police Protection League. We certainly shouldn’t be afraid to ask the question, as suspicious as it sounds.

If they want to address the weed issue, they need to figure out how to tax it and use that money to save the jobs of the employees who are losing theirs because the City is broke.

Thus, the main benefit of Obama’s move is partially restoring a constitutional justice system after years of Bush administration abuse. Yet at least five other Guantanamo prisoners, and likely many more, will be denied a civilian trial.

Perhaps it is the ghost of Dian Fossey that will generate interest in a rigorous search for the truth. Perhaps outrage at the death of one will put the deaths of 3000 at the Twin Towers, 800,000 in Rwanda and six million in Congo into perspective.

New York Times columnist Bob Herbert last April 24th estimated 12,000 Americans are shot dead each year, 2,000 of them children, and 70,000 more are wounded but survive. Read my personal story.

The drug war has also unleashed a torrent of racism in the form of unjust sentencing, which confines crack-cocaine users who are mostly black to prison for longer terms than powder snorters, who are mostly white.

Rick Perry and Sharon Keller now have ethical clouds hanging over their heads. They utilized death as a political tool, but now, ironically, the death machine that helped bolster their careers could be their undoing.

If you thought abolitionism was a relic of the past, the sad truth is slavery is just as prevalent in modern times as it was 150 years ago.

Surely, hundreds of foreign prisoners tortured in an illegal war made by the U.S., or their survivors, are supplicants entitled to a fair hearing, not non-persons to be brushed aside as judges Silberman and Kavanaugh have done this past week.

Troy Anthony Davis continues to fight for justice. Since he has been on death row, he has received three stays of execution.  In August 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Troy Davis the chance to …

As the U.S. has 15 other intelligence agencies, it has no need of one that feeds it false information. Congress could shut the Agency down by turning off its funding and the sun will come up tomorrow just the same.

Thank you John for the difference you made in our world, in my world, and for being a man’s man. A living example that we can be all that we desire to be. We will miss you dearly.

The crimes of our presidents and the CIA today represent everything America’s Founders despised when they looked aghast at the excesses of the French Revolution.

We have seen the reaction to the September 11th attacks, not just in our own souls but also on the part of our “leaders”. “Be afraid, be very afraid”.

The Central Intelligence Agency crucified a prisoner in Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad, according to a report published in The New Yorker magazine.
“A forensic examiner found that he (the prisoner) had essentially been crucified; he …

The Republicans are searching through Judge Sotomayor’s old speeches and party conversations to find trash to dump on her in their talk radio slime sessions. For honest people, it is more important to look …

While the LA Times was writing about gang violence in South LA, more than 700 people gathered on June 5th for the first South Los Angeles Health and Human Rights Conference to consider the institutional …

Efforts by President Obama to put an end to the nation’s failed “War on Drugs” can’t come an hour too soon—if that’s his intent. From his actions, it’s hard to know.
Drug offenses account for about …

More than 100 people of all races and all ages traveled to Watts from several California counties on Saturday May 30, sharing a single desire: Bring our loved ones homes. They weren’t talking about family …

President Barack Obama has made his imprint on the history of the federal judiciary with the nomination of the first Latina to the United States Supreme Court. Federal Appeals Court Justice, Sonia Sotomayor, was at …

America’s liberals stand betrayed. Their new president, the one they sweated to elect — a brilliant, charismatic leader with a professional background in constitutional law — has transmogrified himself from the champion who denounced in …

The right wing was gearing up for this fight even before Justice David Souter thought about retiring. This week, as President Obama was naming – as expected – Appeals Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor to fill …

The voice of the former CIA briefer on the phone is strong and direct, unapologetic in either tone or words.
“Of course we misled Congress on torture. The White House and (George) Tenet demanded it, and …

The president has stated that he will continue to block the release of additional Abu Ghraib photos depicting torture or “troop abuse” as it is now being referred to in some mainstream media outlets. What …

Somehow, the Sydney Morning Herald obtained some of the additional Abu Ghraib photos that the Obama administration is in US court trying to keep hidden as it fights an ACLU Freedom of Information lawsuit. Fifteen …

The mean-spirited attitude of Republican politicians over repatriating Guantanamo’s remaining 241 inmates in the U.S. reflects both their irrational fears and loss of moral compass. House GOP leaders have introduced a “Keep Terrorists Out of …

Both the Washington Post and The New York Times have that the much-anticipated report of the Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR) on how the torture memos came to be national policy will recommend …

I’ve posted several pieces on the tragic case of Troy Anthony Davis. I can’t let this story go. The more I study the law, the more I’m convinced there are times when the …

Jon Stewart really hits the ball out of the park with this one. He asks, “does our country torture people?” Looks like we don’t torture but Jon Stewart provides us with a list of …

The Obama Administration is beginning to remind me of a woman I dated some years ago who developed a drinking problem. Not only did she refuse to admit having trouble, discussing her addiction was taboo, …

Troy Davis faces execution for the murder of Police Officer Mark MacPhail in Georgia, despite a strong claim of innocence. 7 out of 9 witnesses have recanted or contradicted …

A short, disturbing yet funny, anecdote to illustrate the point I’m about to make.
About a year ago, a friend who teaches at the University of Toronto and I met for an after-work drink at the …

After thinking about Attorney General Eric Holder’s unfathomable court filing defending the Bush-wacked “states secret” defence and a claim of “sovereign immunity” in lawsuits involving illegal wiretapping, I sent this e-mail to The White House.
TO: …

Shut your blinds! Close your doors! Look what Google is up to now. It is taking photos of everybody’s home!
Apparently, not everyone is happy about it. According to Agence Presse France, angry residents of a …

The Justice Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility will recommend state bar associations take disciplinary measures against at least five former Bush officials: John Yoo, Jay Bybee, John Ashcroft, Alberto Gonzales, and Monica Goodling, according to …

When Barack Obama meets Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero in London this week at the G20 summit, it will be perversely interesting to see if Zapatero is greeted with the famous Obama smile …

The United States today is housing tens of thousands of inmates in long-term solitary confinement, a form of numbing mental torture that drives about one-third of them psychotic, induces irrational anger in 90%, and ups …

As Tom Paine once opined on this subject: “When it shall be said in any country in the world, ‘My poor are happy; neither ignorance nor distress is to be found among them; my jails are empty of prisoners, my streets of beggars; the aged are not in want, the taxes are not oppressive’— when these things can be said then may that country boast of its constitution and its government.” Folks, we gotta ways to go.

When I entered my friend Jason’s house he was shouting into his telephone, “Where’s my million dollars?” There was a pause, after which Jason insisted, “I want you to pay me the million dollars you …

The passing of Los Angeles Deputy Chief of Police, Kenny Garner, has left a stunned community pondering the question, “Who do we call now, when we want answers from LAPD?” Kenny Garner was a friend …

If President-elect Barack Obama is reassuring the intelligence community “that his complaints are with the Bush administration, not them,” as AP’s Pamela Hess reported January 10th, his campaign slogan “change we can believe in” is …

by Charley James –
Last Saturday, Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus came up with an unusually convoluted bit of punditspeak about forgiving Dick Cheney his self-admitted war crimes and crimes against humanity including lying the country …

Forty years ago, in many states, my marriage to my wife would have been illegal. In fact, we would have been regarded as criminals and locked up for miscegenation, or “race-mixing” as they called it.
In …

by Charley James –
Appearing last night on Rachel Maddow’s show, Senate Armed Services Committee chair Carl Levin called for an investigation and possible indictment of Vice President Dick Cheney for admitting he authorized waterboarding – …

by Charley James –
Overlooked in the frothing about Dick Cheney’s interview with ABC’s Jonathan Karl is a simple truth. Shotgun Dick, Darth Vadar, The Man Who Never Was, Richard Bruce Cheney confessed freely and openly …

by Dr. Alan Bean –
The Troy Davis case indicates just how subjective the legal system really is. The federal 11th Court of Appeals deals with cases in Florida, Alabama and Georgia. A panel …

Federal judges were attending corporation-sponsored conferences at posh watering holes, at times on the very subjects of cases they have pending before them, a prominent law school dean wrote in a 2008 book of essays.
While …

As if we don’t have enough to worry about the shenanigans Bush & Co. might try pulling in their last 60-plus days in office, now comes whispered reports from Washington that Dubya is considering issuing …

So much for the “special relationship” between the United States and Great Britain. If it is not in complete tatters, it is fraying badly this morning.
The British Attorney General says he will investigate allegations that …

The Proposition 9 initiative gives a variety of rights to crime victims — certainly a laudable goal, however most of these provisions merely duplicate guarantees already in force. The new provisions? Those are the troubling …

After the United States Supreme Court refused to hear Davis’ case, the Federal Appeals Court in Atlanta, Ga granted Troy Anthony Davis a temporary stay of execution. This stay was granted just days before …

Most Americans have limited contact with the judicial system. For the most part, our contact with the courts usually amounts to an occasional interaction in traffic court or small claims court. Unless …

Six days ago, I wrote about how a solid contact inside the McCain campaign explained to me what’s left for McCain (in the remaining days of the election battle after his terrible performance in the …