The Idaho Supreme Court today threw out a death sentence citing the recent Supreme Court ruling that juries must make the factual findings necessary to support it. Idaho juries have never had a say in determining the death penalty.

Also, in California Tuesday, a Senate committee approved a bill that would allow inmates to prove they are retarded to avoid the death penalty.

The Tuscon Citizen has some harsh words for Arizona's hastily passed quick-fix bill and calls for a moratorium on the death penalty until it can be figured out correctly.

Yesterday we railed against New York's draconian Rockefeller drug laws. We are delighted to learn that New York gubernatorial candidate Andrew Cuomo yesterday urged their repeal and proposed a new sentencing plan for drug offenders.

Cuomo correctly branded the current laws as "probably the most personal, the most human manifestation" of Albany's failings."

Critics of the current laws charge that "first-time, nonviolent offenders' [are] serving 15 years or more in prison when many would be better served by drug treatment." And as with most mandatory minimum sentencing schemes, judicial discretion is removed and low-level offenders often get more time than kingpins.

Governor Pataki has paid lip service to the problem in his efforts to win the hispanic vote. His proposed plan fell far short of what is needed, and the democrats wisely wouldn't settle for it.

Blacks and Hispanics account for more than 90 percent of the 19,000 people in New York prisons for drug offenses.

We hope this brings it home for Cuomo.

NORML is growing up--and growing in its advocacy role. See, Pot Advocates Take Cause to Congress

"Nine states have approved the legalization of medicinal marijuana and 12 states have passed laws that decriminalize the responsible possession and consumption of pot — turning what was previously an arrestable offense into a ticketable misdemeanor.

States passing medicinal exceptions include California and Arizona in 1996, Alaska, Washington and Oregon in 1998, Maine in 1999, Colorado and Nevada in 2000, and Hawaii in the last legislative year.

The 12 decriminalized states are California, Arizona, Alaska, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Maine, Nevada, Nebraska, Colorado and Mississippi, with bills in the works in Vermont and New Hampshire."

We talked about the Nevada initiative earlier today. The federal bill, sponsored by Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA) is H.R. 2592. It would end the conflict between state medical marijuana laws and federal regulation.

CORPORATE-FRAUD LAW FORCES LAWYERS TO BE WHISTLE-BLOWERS
by Stephanie Francis Cahill in the ABA Journal Report:

"The corporate responsibility law President Bush signed Tuesday requires in-house and outside lawyers to report evidence of corporate wrongdoing to their client companies' boards of directors. "

Experts believe the new statute will have a chilling effect on client communications.

The law is the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002. It "requires attorneys to report evidence of a material violation of securities law or breach of fiduciary duty to the company’s general counsel or chief executive officer.

If the general counsel or CEO does not appropriately respond to the evidence, the lawyer must report the incident to the company’s board of directors or audit board.

The rule will be administered by the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the law mandates that the agency establish new professional standards for lawyers. "

The bill passed in the House on July 26, with a 423-3 vote. A few hours later, the Senate approved it 99-0.

Turkish legislators approved a proposal to abolish the death penalty except during wartime in a preliminary vote on reforms aimed at boosting the country's bid to join the European Union.

Under the proposal, death sentences would be changed to life-time prison terms and would be exempt from any future amnesty regulations.

Keep your eye on international news stories today as this could become final upon a vote for a larger reform package later today.

Turkey has not carried out a judicial executions since 1984 under a de facto moratorium.

The House Judiciary Committee has passed an amended version of the bipartisan Family Reunification Act, H.R. 1452.

According to the American Immigration Lawyers' Association's July 26 Press Release,

"The Act would restore a limited measure of fairness to a harsh 1996 law that was meant to clamp down on illegal immigration and make it easier to deport serious criminals. Instead, the 1996 law has torn apart thousands of American families and stripped long-term legal immigrants of their basic rights. "

"The final measure the Judiciary committee passed reflects a compromise between House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner (R-WI) and the bill's sponsor, Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA). The Sensenbrenner-Frank compromise would provide a limited opportunity for certain long-term legal permanent residents to ask a judge to consider the facts of their case before deciding whether to deport them from the United States. The measure includes an amendment by Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) that requires any new grounds of relief from deportation to be personally approved by the Attorney General or Deputy AG and contains a sunset provision that would terminate the measure in 2005. AILA opposed the Issa amendment but supports the Family Reunification Act as an important first step toward reforming the harsh 1996 laws. The measure would:

Give immigration judges the option to grant relief from deportation in cases involving long-term legal permanent residents who committed relatively minor offenses.

Ban relief for anyone convicted of terrorism-related or other serious offenses, such as rape, murder, and sexual abuse. "

We, like AILA, wanted more, but we also welcome what we got.

The Rave Act was introduced in the Senate on June 18th and has already passed the Senate Judiciary Committee. Simply put, it is lunacy. See our July 10 Action Alert: New Federal Ecstasy Act which we received from the Marijuana Policy Project.

How can we complain so loudly when Democrats as well as Republicans are behind it? Just goes to show being stupid about the drug war can be a bi-partisan affair.

The bill is S. 2633, the Reducing American's Vulnerability to Ecstasy Act.

An outgrowth of the 1980's crack house laws, the law will punish innocent business owners for the acts of its customers. While the bill purports to be aimed at ecstasy and other club drugs, it gives the federal government enormous power to fine and imprison supporters of marijuana legalization, even if they've never smoked marijuana.

The bill will give federal prosecutors new powers to shut down hemp festivals, marijuana rallies and other events and punish business owners and activists for hosting or promoting them.

The bill will effectively make it a federal crime to rent property to medical marijuana patients and their caregivers. It also will potentially subject people to enormous federal sentences if some of their guests smoked marijuana at their party or barbecue.

The bill's sponsors are Sens. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.

Let them know how you feel about this ill-conceived bill. Don't let your elected congressional officials pass this legislation without serious debate.

For some great commentary on the bill, read University of Tenessee Law Professor Glenn H. Reynolds' Straight Talk column today on the FoxNews website.

Professor Reynolds says (and this is just a quote, we recommend you read the whole thing):

"The real story is that federal law enforcement efforts against ecstasy have proved impotent. Frustrated by this failure, they’ve targeted electronic music concerts ("raves") not because they’re especially important targets (they’re not) but because they’re easy, and public, targets.

Unable to endure the continuing evidence of drug-war failure, the drug warriors are lashing out, hoping that the ignorant will be convinced that they’re earning their pay. Congress is playing along because, basically, Congress isn’t up to the job of riding heard on the massive drug-war bureaucracy.

The Drug War has been a massive failure: a waste of money, of lives and of time. It’s also been accompanied by extensive inroads on traditional American freedoms: property forfeitures, "no-knock" searches, expanded wiretap authority and the destruction of financial privacy, to name just a few. "

If you want to learn more about Ecstasy check out these Drug War Facts.

There was a press conference on Capitol Hill today featuring medical patients, care givers, advocates and most importantly, Congresspeople in favor of changing medical marijuana laws.

We hear from NORML that the press conference was well attended by the national media.

NORML's director/founder Keith Stroup will debate the DEA's Asa
Hutchinson on CNN's 'Crossfire' tonight (7/24), 7:40 PM (eastern).

Also, Common Sense Drug Policy's President Kevin Zeese is scheduled to debate the medical marijuana issue tonight (show begins @ 5:00 PM, eastern) on CNN's 'Wolf Blitzer Reports'.

At the annual meeting of La Raza in Florida today, Rep. Richard Gephardt announced a plan to grant permanent residency status to illegal immigrants.

The plan would require five years of actual residency in the U.S., employment history for two years, and a criminal backgrounds check.

Opponents of the plan claim it is a poltical move to curry favor with ethnic voters in the upcoming elections. Gephardt says the intent is to "recognize the hard work of immigrants who have contributed to the economy and have not run afoul of the law."

Whatever the motive (and let's not forget Bush was planning to do the same thing before September 11 came along) it's a sound and just measure and we support it. In fact, it's long overdue.

Mark your calendars for this one....Congressional representatives, health professionals and patients will be holding a Capitol Hill press conference on Wednesday, July 24, urging Congress to debate and approve H.R. 2592, the "States' Rights to Medical Marijuana Act."

House Bill 2592, introduced by Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX), would amend federal law so that states wishing to legalize and distribute medical marijuana could do so without running afoul of federal law. The bill has 36 bi-partisan co-sponsors, but has never received a hearing in Congress. For more info, visit this page on NORML's website.

Word reaches us within the past hour the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 12-7 to approve the Innocence Protection Act substitute amendment. Sens. Specter and Brownback were the 2 Republicans joining all 10 Democrats on the committee. Thanks to Kyle O'Dowd, Legislative Director of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers for the update.

Focus now shifts to the House Judiciary Committee. For more info, check out our action alert from last week, which includes this link to Senator Leahy's statement on the compromise bill.

Bob Herbert again takes on New York's Rockefeller drug laws in today's New York Timees. The Ruinous Drug Laws

"How about a dose of sanity? After 29 futile and tragic years, it is time to bring the curtain down on the institutionalized cruelty of the Rockefeller drug laws. There is no way to justify sentencing nonviolent low-level drug offenders to prison terms that are longer than those served by some killers and rapists."

He's right of course. Can't anyone make the New York Legislature listen?