I took the weekend off and visited old friends in Lexington, Kentucky. I had intended to write from there so as not to miss two days of  posting to this blog, but the distance between Washington, D.C. and Kentucky consisted of much more than miles alone.

Simply, once there, I had no inspiration.  My hosts did not have home newspaper delivery—and if they had it would have been local papers from Louisville or Lexington, as there is not home delivery of the New York Times on the farm where they lived.  Their Internet connection was via modem dialup—no cable or DSL out there in the hills where the horses and cattle roam on the limestone rich bluegrass range.

It took so long to access the home page of The Washington Post that I had all but lost interest by the time it appeared. And gazing out on the steep hillside covered with wildflowers rendered the headlines of the Post most unappealing.  I clicked off the Internet connection and went to have coffee on the porch and watch the horses graze in the tall grass.

My friends had moved from Washington, DC. three years ago.  Both the typical Washington professional, politically savvy and somewhat sharing my views, I asked them what I write about—civil liberties, war on terror, unjust justice—resonates in Kentucky.  Quite simply, nothing, they said.

Oh, it's not that the people don't care, they said. It is that they live life. They work hard, count every dollar, and care more about family and livestock than politics and policy.  Civil liberties are but an abstraction, they explained, as long as the government is not an obvious presence in their everyday lives.  But try to take away their guns, and they will turn libertarian.  Support for Clinton faded with gun control.   They are not in favor of incarcerating everyone for the slightest offense.  Oh, sure, pedophiles and murderers, maybe they ought to be incarcerated. But drug users and small-time dealers?  Several people I met while there had family members caught in that penal trap, and they considered it a waste of government money and energy.  They don't need a "peace officer" to right every wrong. 

An evening with friends of my friends—a  couple educated not in college but by extremely hard  lives—provided some insights of a personal nature.  The man said that the origin of most problems arose from people "broadcasting when they should be tuning in."  In recounting my recent heartbreak of a romantic nature, his wife, a salt-of-the earth-mother of wisdom, chided me for responding to the hurt with mere words.  "IIf he had done me that way, I would have kicked his ass so hard he would have had to have my foot surgically removed. Where's your head, girl?" 

She had me in stitches as she dramatized a recent encounter with a snake in her perennial garden.   What did you do when you realized you had stepped on a snake, I asked? Reaching into her shorts pocket, she pulled out a six-inch knife and stabbed it into the ground.  "That's what I did," she said, as I looked in amazement at the knife sticking out of  my friend's lawn.  As if to say to me, "What would you have done, talk to it?"  I want to be more like you, I thought!  A kick-ass woman--with a knife and a sharp tongue. 

She talked about how she was the only of her several siblings who made a decent life for herself, in spite of extreme childhood deprivation and abuse. For her, being a mother "is the most important thing I will do in my life."  What makes you different from your brothers and sisters, I wanted to know?  Again, a straight-talking answer, devoid of psychobabble.  "So my girls would not have a no-count mother like I had."

That evening, on a country porch under a starlit sky, I stumbled upon an essential difference in what I do and how they live.  Life for me inside the Washington, D.C. beltway consists of, in the words of my friend who retired from government, "spinning the spin."  But talk is cheap in the hills of Kentucky. Real people live real lives and deal with real problems in concrete ways.  They care about the rain, the hay crop, the horse that went lame, the fence that needs mending, and the cow with the sick calf.   They love their kids--and each other. There, Sunday is still a day for going to church and having dinner with grandparents and aunts and uncles.  Summer is for swimming holes, making hay, breaking yearling horses, growing vegetables, and making preserves. 

Three days in Kentucky—where the skies were bluer, the night sky clearer, and the future brighter than the one I read and write about.  Where ignorance was, for three days, indeed bliss.

Tomorrow, I will be back to writing about civil liberties, refreshed by a much-needed respite from bad news and gloomy prognostications.

In a suprise ruling, the 4th Circuit Court of appeals dismissed the government's appeal of Judge Leonie Brinkema's ruling that it produce a witness that might exculpate alleged 9/11 hijacking conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui.

Moussaoui's court-appointed attorneys (who act in spite of Moussaoui's pro se representation, as Judge Brinkema does her duty to try to see that some semblance of justice is done in this case) argued that the government's appeal of the order to produce the witness (Ramzi Binalshibh, the self-described coordinator of the attacks who is in federal custody) was not "ripe" to be heard at this  time. Rulings having to do with discovery (access to witnesses, depositions, and the like) generally are not appealable until after a final verdict. The reason? Because the action complained of may be mooted by the final outcome.

By refusing the appeal, the very conservative 4th Circuit should not be seen as supportive or Moussaoui or unconvinced of the government's argument that it, and it alone, will tell the judge and the defendant what it needs to know about the case.  National security trumps all law, all rules of procedure and, indeed, the Bill of Rights, according to John Ashcroft.

I imagine the 4th Circuit agrees with that, given their ruling in the matter of denying Yasir Hamdi, an American citizen declared an "enemy combatant," the right to see an attorney.  I think what the 4th Circuit has in mind is this: the government will, of course, refuse to produce the witness; Judge Brinkema may find the government in contempt of court; the government will appeal the contempt finding to the 4th Circuit; the 4th Circuit will do its national security dance--bowing and curtseying to the almighty Ashcroft.

Some say that the government may just snatch Moussaoui from Alexandria, Virginia and send him to Guantanamo and try him there.  With Lord High Executioner Paul Wolfowitz presiding.  I don't think so - but I may be dead wrong. I think the government wants to take this one all the way to the Supreme Court. For whoever ultimately loses at the 4th Circuit will ask the Supremes to have a crack at it.  Not many of them will deny Ashcroft his plan to bury the Constitution in the name of "national security.

As I was reading an article about the Alien and Sedition Act (the law that the Federalists pushed through the Congress on June 25, 1798 in order to quell rebellion against its growing power), and thinking about how its essence resembled the intent and effect of the USA Patriot Act, this news flash came across my email:

"Defense deputy gets authority for military tribunals."

I did not have to open the email to learn who it was. It could only be (and it is)--the one, the only, the unhonorable, the dissembling, and the anti-constitution autocrat, Paul Wolfowitz.  He will run the military tribunals in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, or wherever else outside the US Rumsfeld chooses to try these poor souls.

Seems that Rumsfeld has his hands busy with this "untidy" war (I thought it was over and that we had won?) in Iraq that just won't quit. With those ungrateful Iraqis not happy with American occupation, and the concomitant lack of energy, money, and food.  I digress.

According to CNN News, Wolfowitz will exercise key powers in the commission process. After the chief military prosecutor drafts charges against a prisoner (CNN, of course, referred to this hapless person as a "detainee"--talk about dissembling), Wolfowitz will "approve" the charges and send the detainee to trial.  So he has already served as chief prosecutor, grand jury, and presiding judge.

As appointing authority, he also will select military officers to sit on commissions. If commission members cannot resolve matters related to procedures, motions or facts, Wolfowitz will make the final decision.  There you go, a judge again. The article did not say that Wolfowitz would carry out the executions (and there will be plenty of them, you can be sure, in secret, as will be the trials), but you can bet he will. Or wants to. Or maybe he does not want to get blood on his white shirt or stain his gold cufflinks.  But by now, he has risen to the status of Lord High Executioner in this most bizarre of legal systems.

Whatever, there you have it, justice American style.  A criminal court created by Bush, run by the Pentagon, and with "laws" drafted in consort with Ashcroft, Chertoff, and minions at the Department of Justice. The trials will be in secret.  The chief defense attorney is a reluctant officer who had been praying for the prosecutor's position (won't he give some zealous defense?).  American defense attorneys, if any prisoner can afford one, will have to swear a vow of allegiance to Rumsfeld, of course, agree to a lifetime gag order, and stand by while certain proceedings against his client are held in secret, out of his presence.  (What lawyer worth his license would agree to this? None that I would want, that's for certain.)

Foreign news sources have reported that execution chambers are under construction.  Bush and Rumsfeld are said to be deciding who the lucky ones are to be tried in this mockery of "justice." 

And you should be wondering, as Independence Day nears, how we have come to this under our Emperor George Bush II.

So on the anniversary of the passage of the Alien and Sedition Acts, we witness a sequel of a government so afraid of its "enemies" (or so they say--we will never hear the evidence) that it has to create a caricature of a "legal" system and try them in secret.

Why don't they just drop the charade, line up the prisoners, and shoot them?  Bring on Lord Wolfowitz with his rifle--or maybe he would prefer a sword?

Judge John S. Martin, federal district court judge in New York City, is hanging up his robe and walking away from the bench.  Thirteen years working in an unjust justice system has left the former prosecutor disappointed in how little good he could do for the criminal defendants who came before him for sentencing.

In an opinion piece in the June 24, 2003 New York Times, Martin despairs over mandatory sentencing guidelines, set by people--few of them judges--handpicked by Congress to implement draconian sentencing laws.  Judges are not much more than bean counters at sentencing. Used to be that a defense attorney like myself spent a great deal of time and effort in putting facts before the judge at sentencing--facts that would convince the judge to tailor a sentence that would give the defendant something to live for, something to get out for. 

Not anymore. Judges mostly have it all laid out for them in the guidelines.  And when they deviate from the guidelines, it is usually because the prosecutor can prove that the defendant did something during the course of the prosecution that renders him deserving of an "upward enhancement" of his sentence.  Even if a defendant pleads guilty, he could get time tacked on to his sentence for insisting on his right to counsel, or by refusing to plead at the time the government wanted him to do so. 

Martin is particularly bitter about drug sentencing laws. For drug offenses, according to recent data, account for about 60 % of federal prisoners.  It is the harsh punishment for drug use and addiction that has driven up our incarceration rate to over 2 million men and women. We incarcerate more people for more crimes than any other country in the world.

And the sentencing is in the hands of the U.S. Sentencing Commission, behold to Congress, beholden to the President.  Politics as usual.

The last straw for Martin came earlier this year when tucked into the Amber Alert legislation was a requirement that federal judges who deviate from the sentencing guidelines must report themselves to John Ashcroft. 

And heavens know where that is going; it seems as if the errant judges are to be seen as naughty children who must report to their authoritarian father and await their punishment. You can't obey John and at the same time use common sense or demonstrate compassion and decency. For all John's talk of Christianity, he is one mean man when it comes to the weaknesses and suffering of others.

Last week the Supreme Court upheld a government regulation that allows prison wardens to sharply curtail visitation of inmates and, in some cases, to allow it not at all.  We don't want them to have anything to look forward to; we don't want them to have anyone to love them.  And Judge Martin notes how the harshness of sentencing laws falls heaviest on the families of the defendants

Martin did not have a reputation as an easy judge. In many cases he imposed maximum sentences, wishing he could have given more (in one case, he said he would have favored the death penalty had it been an option). But, he says, he is not in favor of  sentencing without common sense or discretion. "I am not in favor of locking up everybody for life," he says--and that puts him out of step with Congress, the White House, and Ashcroft's Department of Injustice.

Martin says he may organize federal judges to lobby Congress for justice in sentencing. For now, though, he has had it with our "unjust criminal justice system."

Monday, June 23, was a  big day at the Supreme Court.  The Court handed down five opinions. Two of these related to the University of Michigan affirmative action policies. Inasmuch as legal minds far brighter than mine have already weighed in on these cases (and will continue to do so for months to come), and inasmuch as affirmative action is not really my beat, I am not going to comment on those opinions--at least not now.

A case that ruled that libraries must use internet filters that shut down porn sites (and what other sites the filters target) is of critical importance to civil libertarians and will be the subject of a future article.

But for now, I want to comment on, and urge you to read, the sleeper case of the day - the one in which California's law that provides information about insurance companies that might be liable for claims of Holocaust victims was stricken by the Court because it interferes with the President's "foreign policy." The case is American Insurance Association vs. Garamendi.

In 1998 the US entered into an agreement with Germany to set up an organization, the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC), to hear claims of Holocaust survivors and victims and to pay some claims up to a certain limit. This was not a formal treaty and it did not by its terms prohibit alternative remedies for survivors or victims of the Nazi regime who sought compensation for the confiscation of Jewish bank assets, the use of Jewish slave labor, and the failure to pay Jewish insurance claims. California enacted a law that allows residents to ascertain which insurance companies might have been insuring Nazi interests such that they could be looked to for reimbursement.

The Supreme Court ruled that the law must be stricken because it interferes with the Executive's agreement with Germany regarding the settlement of claims through the ICHEIC (it is noteworthy that few claims have been settled by this body).  Affidavits of "sub-cabinet" level officials were filed with the Court assuring the court that the California law impedes the President's ability to speak with "one voice" about foreign policy. 

Justice Ginsberg wrote a strong dissent in which she was joined by--are you ready for this?--Justices Scalia, Thomas, and Stevens (no surprise, as to him).  The dissenters noted that there was no legal precedent for holding that an agreement like this one, made outside the statutory and constitutional framework or foreign treaties, should be preempted in the name of "foreign policy."  The dissent reminds me of the lone voices on federal courts who have recently (and likewise, unsuccessfully) called for judges to conduct judicial review and not merely assent to the President's claim of national security justification for secret detentions, trials, deportations and denial of trials and counsel. 

(Along those lines yesterday the Justice Department named another "enemy combatant, removing him from federal court jurisdiction, where he was facing prosecution for minor fraud charges, to an undisclosed location. Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, 37, has been in federal custody since 2001. He had a lawyer.  Now he has none. He had a trial date. Now he has none.)

If you have been paying attention to the Bush administration's preemption of laws since 9/11 (all in the name of national security and fighting a "war on terror"), you will see the Garamendi decision as an obvious--but nonetheless frightening--extension of its desire to overthrow any law--state, federal, or international--that interferes with its supreme power, with its "national" interest, be it national "security" or national "foreign policy."

It is ironic that it scores a win on a case dealing with victims of the Nazis, for many commentators are noting the uncanny resemblance of the Bush administration to a fascist regime, in which wars are waged in the name of "national" interest (Bush's preemption doctrine). 

And civil liberties, even life itself, are lost in the name of "national" security.

After reading my article, a reader in Houston with a lively radio show created a musical and dramatic riff on my comments about Bush's racial profiling "ban."  Though I did not have the date in mind when I wrote the article, he noted that it was ironically appropriate for publication (and performance) on Juneteeneth.

It is hilarious--and includes John Ashcroft singing. 

It takes a lot to make me laugh--but this did the trick.

Hope you like it!

Someone asked me this week if writing about what I write about is depressing. Yes, as a matter of fact. It gets me down, especially after a week like this one, with the courts once again giving Bush and Ashcroft victory, with the Democrats doing dumb things like asking Bush to let them recommend Supreme Court candidates (the problem with Democrats is that they don't know how to fight dirty like the Republicans), only to be told by Ari to "read the Constitution" to see how justices are appointed.   The Constitution, indeed, that took a beating this week.

To break from the mold of gloom and doom, I pass along a bit of whimsy penned by Doug Goodkin, with a little help from Dr. Seuss (the colors are mine).

May it bring a little cheer to your weekend, and may you be more Who than Grinch.

The Grinch, Revisited, by Doug Goodkin

The Whos down in Whoville liked people a lot,
But the Grinch in the White House most certainly did not.
He didn't arrive there by the will of the Whos,
But stole the election that he really did lose.

 Vowed to "rule from the middle," then installed his regime.
(Did this really happen, or is it just a bad dream?)

He didn't listen to voters, just his friends he was pleasin'
Now, please don't ask why, who knows what's the reason.
It could be his heart wasn't working just right.
It could be, perhaps, that he wasn't too bright.

But I think that the most likely reason of all,
Is that both brain and heart were two sizes too small.
Whatever the reason its very bad news,
To have a someone in power who ignores the Whos' views.
 
But the Whos shrugged their shoulders, went on with their work,
Their duties as citizens casually shirked.
They shopped at the mall and watched their T.V.s
They drove about town in their big S.U.Vs.,

They read the same papers that ran the same leads,
 Reporting what only served corporate needs.
(For the policies affecting the lives of all nations
Were made by the giant U.S. Corporations.)

Big business grew fatter, fed by its own greed,
Paying millions of dollars to those without need.
But amidst all the apathy came signs of unrest,
The Whos began asking 'what's fouling our nest.'

And the people who cared for the ideals of this nation
Began to discuss and exchange information:
They learned the truth missed by the corporate press
By using the internet and alternate press.

They learned about NAFTA and CIA schemes,
About huge expense for changing regimes.
They publish, create Websites, and use their e-mail
(Though Homeland Security might send them to jail!)

What began as a whisper now grews to a roar,
These things going on they could no longer ignore.
In their thousands they gather to voice their dissent
Of the bully-boy tactics of their "President."

The Whos came together, sang "Not in our name!"
Challenging power that causes them shame.
One by one from their sleep and their slumber they woke
The old and the young, all kinds of folk,
 
The black, brown and white, the gay, bi- and straight,
All united to sing, "Feed our hope, not our hate!

Stop enriching the rich and start feeding the poor!
Stop stockpiling weapons and aiming for war!
Stop storming the deserts to fuel SUV's!
Stop telling us lies on the mainstream T.V.'s!
 
Stop treating our children as a market to sack!
Stop feeding them junk food like the Big Mac!
Stop trying to addict them to lifelong consuming,
In a time when we think global warming is looming!

Stop sanctions that are killing the kids in Iraq!
Start dealing with ours that are strung out on crack!"
A mighty sound started to rise and to grow,
"The old way of thinking simply must go!
 
Enough of God versus Allah, Muslim vs. Jew
With what lies ahead, it simply won't do.
The American dream cared for more then wealth
It has always included community health.
 
The rivers and forests are facing decay,
If we're to survive, we must walk a new way.
No more excessive and mindless consumption
Let's sharpen our minds and garner our gumption.

For the ideas are simple, but the practice is hard,
And not to be won by a poem on a card.
It needs the ideas and the acts of each Who,
So let's get together and plan what to do!"

And so they all gathered from all 'round the Earth

And from it all came a virtual birth.

With each passing day the standard of wealth,
Was whatever nurtured Whos' spiritual health.
Although our story has Grinches 'gainst Whos,
The true battle lies in what we daily choose.
 
For inside each Grinch is a tiny small Who,
And inside each Who is a tiny Grinch too.
One thrives on love and one thrives on greed.
Who will win out? Depends which one you feed!

With much fanfare and touting as a fulfillment of a campaign promise, President Bush this week signed an Executive Order "banning" racial profiling.  Racial profiling is defined as using racial or ethnic stereotypes to target people for law enforcement "attention." Leaving aside, for a moment, the absurd exception that the ban creates—for national security—(the exception that moots the rule), let me tell you why I think the order itself is a fraud, and an evil one at that.

It's because of a document known as The Constitution. And a particular part of that document—The Bill of Rights-- the first ten amendments to the Constitution, which was an afterthought to the Constitution that empowered a federal government.  According to The Bill of Rights, racial profiling already is illegal. It is unconstitutional, in many ways, including:

• The First Amendment protects the freedom to associate with people of your choice, the freedom to worship as you choose, the freedom to speak your mind, and to read what you want to read.  It protects you from being suspected, detained, arrested, and imprisoned because of who your friends are, what religion your practice, where you go to church, what you say about anything, and what you read.
• The Fourth Amendment is protects us from unreasonable searches and seizures, and gives us the right to be secure in our homes and persons, unless a search warrant issues to invade our homes and bodies, and the right not to be detained unreasonably. 
• The Fifth Amendment gives us due process of law—the right not to be arrested except upon probable cause, the right against self-incrimination.
• The Sixth Amendment gives us the right to a fair trial with an impartial jury, the right to confront our accusers, and the right to have counsel represent us.

The Fourteenth Amendment applies all of the first 10 Amendments to the states, meaning, in this context, state law enforcement officers.  And nowhere in those amendments will you see a "national security exception." 

All of these guarantees have been violated repeatedly, hundreds of times over, since 9/11 and since Bush's declaration of "war" on terror.   Look no further than the report of the Inspector General of the Justice Department to read graphic detail of the nature and extent of these constitutional violations, all of them conducted in the interest of "national security."  John Ashcroft's response to the report was not only to make no apology (why isn't he impeached?), but also to say that he would do it again! 

The Patriot Act circumvents the Constitution by its breathtaking erosions of the Bill of Rights.  Subsequent Executive Orders issued by Bush and Ashcroft further abrogated portions of the Bill of Rights, including orders relating to conducting surveillance of attorney-client communications, the detention of people without being charged with any crime and without access to counsel, trials held in secret, and detention of foreign citizens in prison camps (Guantanamo), just to name a few.

The Bush Administration has repeatedly acted unconstitutionally and the courts have repeatedly sanctioned such actions, including this week, when the DC Court of Appeals upheld the secret hearings, detention and deportation of hundreds of people of Middle Eastern, Arab, and Muslim descent after 9/11.

So why the ban on racial profiling, since Bush and Ashcroft are engaging in it wholesale and doing so with judicial sanction?  The ban is more than pure politics—pandering to the black and other minority vote, as Bush prepares to fill his "war chest" with hundreds of millions of dollars.   It is, in short, an order purporting to transcend, even abrogate, the Constitution.  It says, law enforcement cannot engage in "racial profiling," except-- -- except—to protect national security.

If you have been paying attention for almost two years, you know that nothing is not national security.  You know that your email, your mail, your books, your conversations, your prayers may be cause to brand you a terrorist.  Because you may be thinking things or reading things that "threaten" national security (as this article, no doubt does, Bush and Ashcroft would argue).

So, in one "order," at once arrogant, bold, and evil, Bush has declared that it is lawful to violate the Constitution when he says it is—if you fit any racial or ethnic stereotype.

And his followers, and most un-thinking Americans, won't know the difference.  They think he did something worth applauding.  

The ACLU knows better.  The order, they say, is "little more than rhetorical smoke and mirrors...that will legitimize and encourage the use of racial profiling at our borders, in our airports and anywhere else federal agent can apply vague and hollow justifications of national security." 

George W. Bush, whose very presence in office is a violation of the Constitution in the grandest way—illegally appointed by the judiciary and not elected by the people—has, with one grand, appalling stroke, remanded the Bill of Rights.   The Patriot Act was a precursor to this atrocious act.  We all should fear what Bush (and Ashcroft) are planning as a curtain call.

For those of you hoping the federal courts will save you from the abuses of freedom foisted upon you by the Congress who brought us the USA Patriot Act and Bush, Rumsfeld, and Ashcroft, who brought us the "war on terror," I have bad news to report. Yet another federal appeals court has slammed the door on public interest groups trying to stem the power of the government to detain, arrest, try, and deport people in secret.

Yes, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia said that all those nameless and faceless detainees who were rounded up by Ashcroft and his henchmen after 9/11, who were abused by the government as reported by the DOJ Inspector General last week, they all have the right to privacy!  Now you and I don't have the right to privacy, common ordinary people charged with anything from jaywalking to murder, no siree, we have no right to privacy. Anyone can walk into any courthouse and get our criminal records.

But so-called "terrorists" (I mean, that is why they were rounded up, wasn't it?) hell, they have privacy!  Apparently, that irony was lost on the two who masqueraded as judges. And, just in case you don't buy the privacy argument, they said they must defer to the President in time of "war."  Yes, that perpetual war that will never end.  That war on evil, that war on terror. Whatever Bush and Ashcroft want from the courts, they will get. 

Judge Tatel wrote a stinging dissent, accusing his colleagues (one appointed by Reagan, on by George the First) of totally abdicating their role as protectors of the law.  What, he said?   You say the Freedom of Information Act falls when the President claims national seucirty?  And you are not even going to look at the claim and see if it is legitimate?

Judge Tatel wrote:

"The court's uncritical deference to the government's vague, poorly explained arguments for withholding broad categories of information about the detainees, as well as its willingness to fill in the factual and logical gaps in the government's case, eviscerates both FOIA itself and the principles of openness in government that FOIA embodies.  For all its concern about the separation-of-powers principles at issue in this case, the court violates those principles by essentially abdicating its responsibility to apply the law as Congress wrote it."

Judge Tatel also attacked the court for refusing to release the name of the attorneys involved in the cases.  The majority reasoned that the attorneys might be embarrased by being associated with representing people who were detained.  That is a not so subtle threat and reminder to attorneys that they will be held to be the terrorist that their clients are charged with being, if they dare take these cases.   The proof of that is in the government's prosecution of Lynne Stewart (see the articles and documents posted on this site).

Since there is now only one branch of government, Congress ought to disband the courts and send the judges packing.  If you think this decision is bad, wait until those new Bush appointees don their robes. Dissents will be even rarer than they are today--all part of the Bush-Rove plan. Yesterday the Congress, today the Courts, tomorrow the Constitution.

Yesterday, the US Supreme Court made a sensible ruling, limiting when a criminal defendant could be forced to take psychotropic medications so that he or she could be tried.  The case involved a nonviolent crime in which the defendant posed no danger to society or himself.  The Court ruled that in such a case, a trial judge must make a finding that the drugs are medically necessary, will render the defendant competent to be tried, and that methods other than drugs are not readily available to achieve the same purpose.

Justice Scalia stuck to his usual style in his dissent--insult his colleagues who ruled in the majority, parody the issue, and engage in what Donald Rumsfeld refers to as "Henny, penny, the sky is falling" rhetoric.  Scalia said, in effect, now look what you've gone and done. Next thing you know a defendant will want to stop the trial and appeal because he can't wear his favorite t-shirt to his trial.  Worse, Scalia said, some courts will take today's ruling seriously, and abide by it.

That sentiment really bothered me, given that we are supposed to do what the Supreme Court says.  I mean, Florida stopped counting the votes, right?  I think that Scalia probably only respects the law that goes his way, suggesting that he is in some early-childhood state of moral development.  That the law should be obeyed because it is the law seems to be lost on him.

Why does this trouble me so? Because it bodes how he, Thomas (who virtually always joins him) and others, like O'Connor (to divine her jurisprudential philosophy would require more than a lifetime of lessons in reading tea leaves), will rule when it comes to upholding the law when they don't like it. You know where I am going with this--what Scalia and his followers will do when the Constitution does not suit their political purposes in trials that test the powers Bush and Ashcroft have given to themselves in the name of fighting "terrorism."

At the heart of Scalia's dissent was the dismay that, damn, these defendants who want to assert their right to not be medicated will disrupt the trial by asking that medication be stopped. Then, if some judge follows the law, who knows when the trial will be concluded and the defendant go to prison or the execution chamber?  Going through the motions, getting someone convicted regardless of how, is Scalia's main concern. 

Last year, in a bizarre article written for a Catholic publication, Scalia referred to himself as something akin to God's executioner, for whom nothing or no one should stand in the way.  Certainly not the law.  Or courts--unless it is "his" court when he is in the majority.

Think about this and remember that Bush said Scalia was his favorite justice (and some say, Bush's choice for Chief Justice).  When a Supreme Court justice belittles the law and the process, what good is he?

Read the majority opinion, and Scalia's dissent.