There is a lot of news that is worth your attention this week: a significant new report with implications about California’s probationers and parolees...some action on LA County probation’s use of solitary confinement for kids…additional LASD news….and more. But we’ll get to those issues tomorrow, and in coming days.

Today we are pausing to focus on Monday’s inauguration as it relates to a couple of the social justice topics that we discuss here at WitnessLA.

With that in mind, here are some stories, essays, and op eds that attempt to decode the import of the president’s speech, specifically, and the inauguration, in general:

(Here’s the text of Obama’s inaugural address, in case you need it for reference.)

AMERICA’S MOST IMPORTANT GAY RIGHTS SPEECH?

Well, Richard Socarides of the New Yorker thinks so, and makes his case.

Here’s a clip from his essay:

No one anticipated it, but President Barack Obama used the occasion of his second Inaugural Address to give what was perhaps the most important gay-rights speech in American history. Inaugural Addresses are, by their definition, important and defining occasions, when Presidents set the tone and direction for the coming four years. President Obama used the occasion to make the first direct reference to gay-rights in an Inaugural Address, and he did so with a power and forthrightness we have not heard before, even from him.

About two-thirds of the way into the speech, Obama referred to Stonewall, a gay bar where, in 1969, a police raid provoked a riot, in the same sentence as Seneca Falls and Selma—thus comparing the women’s and African-American civil-rights movements to the gay-rights struggle. Had he stopped there, it would have been historic—particularly coming from the first African-American President—but, in keeping with the tradition of politicians who refer to gay-rights obliquely or with code words, stopping short of directness.

But the President continued:

Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law—for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.

Not only was this a call to end discrimination, but an unambiguous argument for the recognition of same-sex marriage across the country. For a President who announced his support for marriage equality less than a year ago, after more reluctance (and suggestions about what could be left to the states) than many would have liked, this was a bold declaration….

THE DIFFERENCE FOUR YEARS MAKES

NY Times columnist, Frank Bruni, comments on the difference between Obama’s first inauguration and Monday’s when it comes to gay rights. Here’s a clip:

Seneca Falls, Selma, Stonewall. The alliteration of that litany made it seem obvious and inevitable, a bit of poetry just there for the taking. Just waiting to happen.

But it has waited a long time. And President Obama’s use of it in his speech on Monday — his grouping of those three places and moments in one grand and musical sentence — was bold and beautiful and something to hear. It spoke volumes about the progress that gay Americans have made over the four years between his first inauguration and this one, his second. It also spoke volumes about the progress that continues to elude us.

“We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths — that all of us are created equal — is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls and Selma and Stonewall,” the president said, taking a rapt country on a riveting trip to key theaters in the struggle for liberty and justice for all.

Seneca Falls is a New York town where, in 1848, the women’s suffrage movement gathered momentum. Selma is an Alabama city where, in 1965, marchers amassed, blood was shed and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. stood his ground against the unconscionable oppression of black Americans.

And Stonewall? This was the surprise inclusion, separating Obama’s oratory and presidency from his predecessors’ diction and deeds. It alludes to a gay bar in Manhattan that, in 1969, was raided by police, who subjected patrons to a bullying they knew too well. After the raid came riots, and after the riots came a more determined quest by L.G.B.T. Americans for the dignity they had long been denied.

The causes of gay Americans and black Americans haven’t always existed in perfect harmony, and that context is critical for appreciating Obama’s reference to Stonewall alongside Selma. Blacks have sometimes questioned gays’ use of “civil rights” to describe their own movement, and have noted that the historical experiences of the two groups aren’t at all identical. Obama moved beyond that, focusing on the shared aspirations of all minorities. It was a big-hearted, deliberate, compelling decision.

He went on, seconds later, to explicitly mention “gay” Americans, saying a word never before uttered in inaugural remarks. What shocked me most about that was how un-shocking it was.

OKAY, THAT’S ALL VERY NICE, BUT DOES IT SIGNAL A CONCRETE POLICY SHIFT THAT WILL RESULT IN ACTION?

In this LA Times Op Ed, Ken Dilanian and David G. Savage of the paper’s Washington Bureau, discuss the possible policy shifts the speech suggests—particularly when it comes to the stand the administration may or may not take with regard to the gay rights matters coming soon before the Supreme Court. Here’s a clip from their story:

“….Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law,” he continued, “for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well.”

The passage “was definitely one of those moments that took your breath away,” said Adam DeRosa, president of the Lesbian and Gay Band Assn., whose 215 members later marched past the president in the inaugural parade. “We understand the historical significance of it. What political significance it has remains to be seen.”

Obama, who only last spring hesitated to declare his public support for gay marriage, soon will have to decide whether his administration will take the potentially huge step of arguing before the Supreme Court that gay marriage is an equal right under the Constitution.

The court will soon review two cases, one of them involving California’s Proposition 8, the ballot measure that limited marriage to unions between a man and a woman. Gay rights lawyers have asked the Supreme Court to declare the ballot measure unconstitutional, potentially striking down the laws of 41 states.

To several legal scholars, Obama’s equating of Selma and Stonewall strongly implied he is prepared to side with gay rights activists. But doing so would mark a sudden departure from the caution with which he has typically approached most issues….

[SNIP]

Theodore Olson, the former George W. Bush administration solicitor general and lawyer for the gay couples challenging Proposition 8, said the president sounded ready to back a constitutional right to gay marriage.

“I was very gratified to hear the president state in clear and unambiguous language that our gay and lesbian citizens must be treated equally under the law,” Olson said, “and that their loving relationships must be treated equally as well. That can only mean one thing: equality under the Constitution.”

Evan Wolfson, president and founder of New York-based Freedom to Marry, noted in an interview that Obama’s speech “was an inaugural address, not a legal brief, and we will see over the next several weeks exactly what positions the Justice Department takes.”

“I am confident the president knows that the Constitution requires equality in the freedom to marry,” he added…

AND, WHILE ON THE SUBJECT OF ACTION, WHAT’S WITH THE PREZ’S INACTION ON CLEMENCY?

“We do not believe that in this country, freedom is reserved for the lucky, or happiness for the few.”

Doug Berman over at Sentencing, Law and Policy wants to know if Obama’s clemency record will match his inaugural rhetoric.

Here’s a clip:

Blogging four years ago during the last day in which a US President took the oath of office, I commented in this post about the tendency of chief executives to invoke great rhetoric and wax poetic about freedom and liberty in America despite our country’s recent record of locking up a record number of persons in jails and prisons. I also asked in this follow-up post on the same day whether it was too early to start demanding President Obama use his clemency power to live up to our country’s traditional commitment to personal freedom and liberty.

Sadly, as P.S. Ruckman effectively documents and highlights in this new post, President Obama’s first-term record on the clemency front is at once disgraceful and disgusting:

Barack Obama’s first term has come to an end and we are now ready to report that his four-years as president represent the least merciful term for any modern president (Democrat or Republican) and, quite possibly, the least merciful in the entire history of the United States (see footnote below).

This is, of course, an incredible distinction for a president who repeatedly notes that America is a place where people get “second chances,” from a president who complained bitterly about overly-harsh sentences given to criminal defendants simply because they were African-American, and from a president who promised us “hope and change.”

AND TWO MORE OPINIONS ON WHETHER OR NOT THE RHETORIC WILL TRANSLATE INTO ACTION

The Atlantic’s James Fallows points out that, in addition to the significance of the paragraphs in the president’s speech on gay rights, gender equality, et al, the other significant section is the one that comes earlier in the speech, and contains this:

“For history tells us that while these truths may be self-evident, they’ve never been self-executing; that while freedom is a gift from God, it must be secured by His people here on Earth. The patriots of 1776 did not fight to replace the tyranny of a king with the privileges of a few or the rule of a mob. They gave to us a republic, a government of, and by, and for the people, entrusting each generation to keep safe our founding creed.”

In other words, for whatever it is worth, POTUS intends the speech as more than rhetorical; it is a specific call to action.

Fallows says he has ” no illusion, delusion, allusion, or even dog-whistle conceptions that this speech will change the partisan power-balance affecting passage of anything Obama mentioned, from climate legislation to reforming immigration law.”

And yet, Fallows’ colleague Ta-Nehisi Coates suggests in his reflections on the speech:

Obama’s speech is different. To some extent it exposes people to new ideas. But to a greater extent, perhaps, it shows how movements which only a few years ago were thought to be on the run have, in at least one major party, carried the day. This is not a small thing.

For details, one presumes we should stay tuned for the State of the Union address in February.

AND NOW….back to our regularly scheduled programming

PS: While Beyonce and the others were wonderful to see and hear at the inauguration, for me it was that lovely, unnamed soprano who—along with the Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir surrounding her—truly blew the doors off the joint.

NOVELIST JERVEY TERVALON TALKS ABOUT WHAT IT’S LIKE TO GROW UP WITH GUNS ALL TOO FREQUENTLY POINTED YOUR DIRECTION

This Op Ed by novelist Jervey Tervalon appeared over the weekend in the LA Times and is assuredly worth your time. Here’s a clip.

…The time after that my high school girlfriend’s drunken stepfather aimed a double-barreled shotgun at me at close range after seeing me hug his stepdaughter while she made French fries for the family. She grabbed the gun from him. Only later did she tell me they had already taken the precaution of hiding the shells.

I accepted these and other encounters with guns as what happened in my neighborhood, even to kids like me who stayed on the right side of the line, the ones who didn’t drink, didn’t get high and were college-bound.

At UC Santa Barbara, where I went to college, the only time I saw a gun was when the Isla Vista police approached me, and that gun was at least holstered. But then I returned to Los Angeles to teach at Locke High, and I was back in the world of guns. I took over a class for a teacher who had threatened his students with a 9mm pistol. During my time at Locke, one student was shot in the face and left to die at a phone booth, and another was shot for a leather jacket she wouldn’t give up….

THE OAKLAND SCHOOL SYSTEM HOPES TO COMBAT RISING SUSPENSIONS WITH A FIVE YEAR RESTORATIVE JUSTICE PLAN

Ana Tintocalis has this excellent story for KQED’s California Report about an Oakland model for cutting down on school suspensions that, if it works, could set the standard for the state.

Here’s a summary:

A number of new education laws in California tackle a particularly alarming issue: the state’s schools now issue more suspensions to students than diplomas, especially to African-American students. Nowhere is that more apparent than in the Oakland Unified School District. But now, district officials are pinning their hopes on a new approach to student discipline, called “Restorative Justice.”

But listen here.

NY TIMES SLAMS OBAMA’S PATHETIC CLEMENCY POLICY

This editorial, which appeared in the New York Times on Sunday, speaks for itself.

Here’s a big clip:

Mr. Obama has pardoned only 22 people, fewer than any president since the modern era of pardons began in 1900. [EDITOR'S NOTE: !!!!!] He has granted a pardon for 1 out of every 50 applicants, compared with 1 out of 33 for George W. Bush, 1 of 8 for Bill Clinton and 1 of 3 for Ronald Reagan.

In part, this has been a reaction to Presidents Clinton and Bush, both of whom compromised the pardon power with cronyism. But the basic problem may be that Mr. Obama allowed himself to be crippled by the pardon process itself. That process is managed by the Justice Department, which receives applications for clemency and makes recommendations to the White House.

Presumably, the president is willing to use acts of clemency to right the wrongs of the sentencing and judicial systems. Yet the same cannot be said of the Justice Department, which has a prosecutorial mind-set. It has undermined the process with huge backlogs and delays, and sometimes views pardons as an affront to federal efforts to fight crime.

Over the years, too, the process appears to have been tainted by racial bias. As ProPublica documented in an analysis of Bush administration pardons, whites benefited from pardons four times as often as members of minority groups, even though blacks alone made up 38 percent of the federal prison population. That report prompted a continuing Justice Department review by its Bureau of Justice Statistics.

In addition, the department’s pardon office is run by a Bush-appointed lawyer, Ronald L. Rodgers, whose professional conduct has been excoriated by the Justice Department’s own inspector general and referred to the deputy attorney general for possible administrative action. In 2008, in transmitting a proposed pardon to the White House, Mr. Rodgers misrepresented the views of both the United States attorney who made the recommendation and the judge who seconded it. The prisoner was denied a pardon.

RESTORATIVE JUSTICE MAY HELP WITH SCHOOL SUSPENSIONS, AND LOWER LEVEL CRIMES, BUT WHAT ABOUT MURDER

Also in the NY Times, this story by Paul Tullis in the Sunday Magazine asks if forgiveness in the form of—restorative justice—-can help parents of a murder victim/

The answer seems to be yes, in this particular case.

But it’s complicated.

Clipping doesn’t really do this story justice. Just read it.

KIDS PARTICULARLY VULNERABLE TO FALSE CONFESSIONS, EXONERATION EVIDENCE FINDS

This story by Joyce Lee for the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange looks at the tendency of underage suspects to make false confessions.

Here’s a clip:

Carl Williams was 17 years old when Cook County police arrested him in January of 1994. Williams was charged with two counts of murder and one count of sexual assault. He confessed to the crime after a police interrogation and along with four co-defendants, Williams was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in 1996.

Now, 18 years later, Williams, who claims he is innocent, has been granted an evidentiary hearing and a re-sentencing by the 1st District Appellate Court of Illinois. “The case of the wrong Carl” is a prime example of change in the way Illinois judges view confessions, said Steven Drizin, director of the Center on Wrongful Convictions – and co-founder of the Center on Wrong Convictions of Youth – at the Northwestern University School of Law.

The Cook County justice system interrogates its juveniles as they do its adults. And the center is quite certain that of the 100-plus juveniles currently serving life without parole sentences in the state, many of their convictions were based on false confessions.

LA TIMES SAYS BACA OWES US A BETTER EXPLANATION ABOUT HIS JAILING OF IMMIGRANTS

Thursday’s LA Times has an unsigned editorial (likely written by the very smart Sandra Hernandez) that holds Sheriff Lee Baca’s feet to the metaphorical fire on the issue of jailing immigrants with ICE holds reportedly longer than the law—or the feds—require.

Here’s a clip (but you really need to read the whole thing):

Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca is once again confronting questions about problems in the nation’s largest jail system. The latest allegations center on whether deputies in his department routinely denied bail to people arrested for minor offenses — even after they were ordered released by a judge — solely because of pending immigration investigations.

The sheriff’s office denies that such a policy exists, although it acknowledges that the department holds immigrants under a federal immigration enforcement program known as Secure Communities. Baca says that program requires him to hold someone suspected of being in the country illegally, if called upon to do so by federal immigration officials, while the arrestee’s immigration status is confirmed.

But Secure Communities only allows the sheriff to hold people for up to 48 hours; it does not provide him with a free pass to ignore individuals’ constitutional right to due process or grant him the authority to deny immigrants bail after the 48-hour clock has run out….

Read on, because there’s lots more—including the $26 mil per anum to do this excessive jailing in our already overcrowded system.

COULD FELONS TIP THE ELECTION? (IT’S NOT IMPOSSIBLE.)

Obama and Romney are reaching out to the many specialized constituencies some of which could, under the right circumstances, push things one way or the other, especially in battle ground states. But, in this close race, there is one constituency that, according to Reuters, may amount to as much as 10 percent of likely voters. And yet its a demographic that both parties have kinda….well…avoided.

Of course, men and women with felony records are defined by many other aspects of their lives and selves than the simple fact of a felony conviction.

Still Thomas Ferraro writing for Reuters has a bunch of interesting points.

Here’s a big clip from the story:

Felons could account for up to 10 percent of the roughly 130 million Americans expected to vote in the November 6 election, more than enough to affect the razor-thin margins that could determine the outcome.

But as in years past, neither Democrats nor Republicans are doing much to reach out to them.

“Criminals are not a popular constituency,” says James Hamm, 64, who spent 17 years in prison in Arizona for a drug-related homicide and now heads an inmate advocacy group with his wife, a retired judge. “Politicians don’t want to say, ‘Hey, I have the backing of people who committed crimes.’”

Still, both presidential campaigns have reason to be attentive to the estimated 13.4 million felons who are eligible to vote.

Felons traditionally vote Democratic, says Christopher Uggen, a University of Minnesota sociologist, who co-authored a 2006 book, “Locked Out: Felony Disenfranchisement and American Democracy.”

Ferraro says that the Obama camp has quietly reached out to felons in that swing state of all swing states, Ohio, where there are an estimated 784,0000 felons, only around 52,000 of them in prison thus prohibited from voting. However, he offers no additional details about this reported outreach so it’s difficult to know what exactly we’re talking about here.

And yet, it bears noting that in 1976, Jimmy Carter took Ohio from Gerald Ford by just 11,116 votes….so….

BAD SCIENCE AND BAD CRIMINAL CASE EVIDENCE

The Crime Report’s Graham Cates interviews David Harris, author of “Failed Evidence: Why Law Enforcement Resists Science

Both book and interview are worth our attention. Here’s a clip:

strong>On March 11, 2004, powerful bombs set by terrorists on four Madrid commuter trains killed 191 people and wounded 1,800. Two months later, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) arrested Brandon Mayfield, an Oregon lawyer, after fingerprints found on a bag near the explosion site allegedly matched his.

Mayfield had not been to Spain. Nor had he been outside the U.S. for over a decade. But the FBI kept insisting the fingerprints were a “100 percent match”—until Spanish police tied another suspect to the fingerprints. And even after Mayfield was released two weeks later, the FBI continued to insist that their fingerprint-matching process was infallible.

It was a costly mistake. Mayfield eventually received a $2 million settlement from the U.S. government. But to David A. Harris, it also was—or should have been—a teachable moment. Harris, a professor of law at the University of Pittsburgh, believes the FBI’s insistence on the accuracy of their analysis, even when the evidence failed to bear it out, reflects a law enforcement culture that relies too much on quasi-scientific forensic evidence—even while it resists the application of genuine advances in science-based investigative techniques…

Read on.

RACE, PARDONS, & THE PRESIDENT: REVIEWING A COMMUTATION REQUEST

Barack Obama has not, thus far, been big on handing out presidential pardons. In fact, since 2008, 7000 requests for presidential commutations of sentences have been denied, a whopping 22 times the refusal rate for Ronald Reagan during his entire eight years in office.

Recently, however, the Obama administration has snapped awake on the matter and ordered the Justice Department to launch its its first ever comprehensive analysis of the way in which recommendations for White House pardons are processed.

In so doing, the administration is also looking into the commutation request by one particular Alabama inmate, Clarence Aaron, a man whose case many believe is a sad illustration of the biased manner in which recipients of POTUS pardons and commutations are selected.

A story by ProPublica’s Dafna Linzer dealing with Aaron’s case and with the the troubling workings of the pardons office, is the latest in an excellent series co-published with the Washington Post, in which Linzer has been investigating the matter of presidential pardons in general, focusing attention on an arena that rarely draws notice, except when some wealthy or well-connected felon gets pardoned (or his sentence commuted) by an exiting president or governor.

Here’s a clip from this week’s story:

The Office of Pardon Attorney has been at the center of growing controversy since December, when stories published by ProPublica and The Washington Post revealed a racial disparity in pardons. White applicants were four times more likely to receive presidential mercy than minorities. African Americans had the least chance of success.

A subsequent story published in May recounted the saga of Clarence Aaron, a first-time offender sentenced in 1993 to three life terms in prison for his role in a drug conspiracy. In 2008, the pardon attorney recommended that President George W. Bush deny Aaron’s request for a commutation even though his application had the support of the prosecutor’s office that tried him and the judge who sentenced him. The pardon attorney, Ronald L. Rodgers, did not fully disclose that information to the White House.

The handling of Aaron’s case prompted widespread criticism that the pardon office– which has rejected applications at an unprecedented pace under Rodgers–is not giving clemency requests proper consideration.

Aaron filed a new commutation request in 2010, which is pending. In the past two months, his cause has been taken up by members of Congress, law professors and prominent civil rights advocates, many of whom have called for a broader investigation of the pardon process.

For more on Aaron’s case, check this story and this interview on PBS’s Frontline.

CA AG KAMALA HARRIS SAYS UNDOCUMENTED LAW STUDENT SHOULD BE ADMITTED TO THE BAR

State Attorney General Kamala Harris has just waded into the undocumented law student legal controversy. Howard Mintz writing for the San Jose Mercury News has the story on this latest chapter in what has been an ongoing and interesting tale that will set precedent if it is decided in 35 year old Sergio Garcia’s favor.

Garcia’s dilemma is yet another example of the problems faced by California residents who were brought to the U.S. as very young children and thus are Americans in all ways—except for the one way that counts, legally speaking.

Here’s a clip from Mintz’ story:

California Attorney General Kamala Harris on Wednesday sided with an undocumented immigrant’s bid to become a lawyer, telling the state Supreme Court that the law school graduate has a legal right to get his license to practice.

In a brief filed in the Supreme Court, Harris backed the cause of Sergio Garcia, a 35-year-old Chico area man whose immigration status has clouded his right to be licensed by the State Bar. The Supreme Court has agreed to hear the case, and it invited Harris’ legal views on whether state or federal laws forbid licensing an undocumented immigrant.

“No law or policy prevents this court from admitting Garcia to the State Bar,” the attorney general’s office wrote. “In fact, admitting Garcia to the Bar would be consistent with state and federal policy that encourages immigrants, both documented and undocumented, to contribute to society.”
The State Bar Board of Examiners also has recommended that the Supreme Court allow Garcia to be licensed.

Garcia originally came to the United States as a toddler and returned to Mexico at around eight-years old, returning here for good when he was 17 to finish high school. He has been waiting 18 years for his visa; his father and most of his siblings are already U.S. citizens.

PRISON FELLOWSHIP MINISTRIES GETS BIG GRANT TO PROVIDE SEMINARY TRAINING TO INMATES

As California’s prison rehabilitation programs continue to vanish due to budget cuts , the late Chuck Colson’s Prison Fellowship Ministries announced that it has made a deal with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to launch faith-based training programs in two California prisons, made possible by a big new grant from a wealthy local rancher.

The Californian has the story. Here’s a clip:

Monterey County’s two state prisons are among those starting a faith-based program aimed at keeping parolees from returning once they are freed.

Prison Fellowship Ministries announced last month that businessman and rancher Wayne Hughes and his wife, Wendy, have donated more than $2 million to its Urban Ministry Institute Christian outreach program.

“Deep budget cuts have pretty much eliminated programs to rehabilitate our state’s prisoners,” Wayne Hughes said. “Wendy and I are stepping up to the plate to expand a program that will make a huge difference in our prisons and, ultimately, in our cities.”

According to Prison Fellowship Ministries, the program — a partnership with World Impact, a Christian missions organization, is in its planning stages at the Correctional Training Facility and Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad. However, the program is set to begin locally this fall.

The program — under agreement with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation — is spread out into 16 nine-week courses run by trained Prison Fellowship volunteers. Upon completion, participants receive a Certificate in Christian Leadership Studies.

Prison Fellowship said its goal is to add 32 more classes across the state prisons. Thus far, 265 inmates have enrolled in the program.

NOTE: Unbiased studies on how effective faith-based programs of this nature are in reducing recidivism have produced mixed outcomes, particularly if dropouts from the programs are counted when figuring success rates. But among self-selecting graduates of the programs they have proved to be valuable and since they are mostly cost-neutral for the prisons, they are, for many, a very welcome addition.

FINDING OUT WHAT HAPPENED

On Thursday at 10 a.m. eastern time, the Supreme Court will announce its ruling on the Obama Administration’s Health Care Initiative, known for better or for worse as Obamacare.

For those of you who don’t want to wait for the news on this ginormously important decision to be masticated and pre-digested by news persons who may or may not be informed enough to do so meaningfully, how can you find out on your own?

Easy. This man will tell you.

This is Lyle Denniston, the lead reporter at the utterly wonderful ScotusBlog. Denniston is 81 years old, and has been covering the Supreme Court for fifty-four years, and he really knows his sh… er…stuff. In those 44 years, Denniston has reported on one-quarter of all of the Justices ever to sit on the court. And, no, he’s not an attorney. But he does understand the law very, very well.

He’ll be inside the court and will get the decision when it comes down, then bounce it via SKYPE out to his colleagues at SCOTUSBLOG who will then LIVE BLOG their minute by minute deconstruction.

It will be tough for anyone else to beat Denniston and SCOTUSBLOG with the news.

SCOTUSBLOG has been live-blogging Supreme Court decision for the past few years, and they’ve got this routine down. However, under normal circumstances, they are just read by lawyers and few other crazy people like me. (I use them as a source all the time, and I see that Taylor has newly and happily discovered them.)

But this time, the mainstream media has discovered and will be watching them. In fact Ezra Klein at the Washington Post even did a little profile on Denniston, which you can find here..

THURSDAY 10 AM UPDATE: The SCOTUSBLOG people’s liveblogging is, I understand, getting 1000 comments per second, as of right now, and has more than a half million readers, as I type. It is also being carried by C-SPAN

OKAY, BUT WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
Immediately pundits everywhere will be opining about what the decision means.

Naturally, there is a lot of handicapping going on already.

Josh Gerstein at Politico has a handy list of win/lose scenarios for various players. Gerstein’s analysis is snappy enough for quick reading, but canny enough to be worth your time. Plus he goes beyond the obvious players to include which media types the various possible outcomes could affect.

Here’s a sample:

The insurance industry

Best case: The mandate is struck along with new requirements for insurers. Insurance companies could end up getting the best of both worlds — at least for a short time. Consumers will still get subsidies to help them buy insurance, which benefits the industry, and the insurers won’t have to live under the new rule that they accept all applicants, even the expensive ones.

Worst case: The mandate is struck by itself. The insurers would be in a tough spot if the mandate — which brings insurance companies loads of new customers — is rejected, but the costly requirement to insure everyone remains. Insurers and policymakers from both parties warn this scenario would create a “death spiral” in which premiums would spike as customers buy insurance only when they really need it.

Justice Antonin Scalia

Best case: The individual mandate falls.

Going into oral arguments, some liberals and administration officials thought they might be able to win Scalia’s vote to uphold the law. After all, in 2005, the justice regarded as the intellectual leader of the court’s conservative wing sided with the federal government and the court’s liberal justices in a dispute over the feds’ authority to ban at-home cultivation of marijuana — even in states that have sought to legalize medicinal use of pot.

But it didn’t take long for Scalia to dash liberals’ hopes. He mounted a withering attack on the health care law, questioning whether the feds could mandate purchase of broccoli and lamenting the length of the 2,700-page bill.

A decision to strike the mandate, even one written by Chief Justice John Roberts, would cement Scalia’s position as the star of the conservative legal firmament.

Worst case: The mandate is upheld.

No doubt Scalia will have a colorful and impassioned dissenting opinion, but on the losing side he’s far easier to dismiss as a crank.

He’s already been on a tear this week, delivering an angry dissent in the Arizona immigration case that led one commentator to say he sounded like “a right-wing talk radio host rather than a justice of the Supreme Court.”

AND SPEAKING OF SPECULATION…..

Slate’s Dahlia Lithwick’s Wednesday column mostly has to do with the fact that she’s reached her wits end and wants everyone to stop pretending that they know what will happen, when, in fact, they don’t.

Here’s a clip:

.…Finally, if I get one more email from someone predicting the outcome of tomorrow’s health care cases based on a judicial speech, the timing of a dissent, or the telling flare of a judicial eyebrow, I am going to set my Out of Office response to the “fleeting expletives” setting. Truly, nobody knows what’s going to happen, and the group hypnosis that convinced everyone that the mandate would be struck down on Monday—and is equally adamant that it will be upheld tomorrow—is starting to make me feel like a member of a very troubled cult. My friend Professor Barry Friedman at NYU* described it to me this way today: “Everyone keeps saying, ‘The longer this goes on, the more I’m thinking X will happen.’ But that’s nuts; the decision was always going to come down on the last day of the term. What we’re really seeing is our own anxiety about the case circling around in our heads.” I agree. The only thing that has changed since March is the calendar. Walter, have you any thoughts or predictions to offer? Tea leaves to read? My Out of Office response is standing by.

Q: AND SO WHAT DO CONSTITUTIONAL SCHOLARS EXPECT SCOTUS TO DO?

A: IT’S COMPLICATED

Last week Bloomberg surveyed 21 Constitutional scholars about the Individual Mandate section of the Affordable Health Care Act. (Well, actually, it seems that Bloomberg tried to survey more, but 21 answered their questions.)

Anyway, out of 21, 19 said that the public option-–the part of the law that would force people to buy health care if they were uninsured—was constitutional. However only 8 of those 19 expected that clause to be upheld by the majority of the Supreme Court Justices.

Here’s a clip of the Bloomberg story by Bob Drummand.

When you take the fact of a high-profile, enormously controversial and politically salient case — to have it decided by the narrowest majority with a party-line split looks very bad, it looks like the court is simply an arm of one political party,” University of Chicago Law Professor Dennis Hutchinson said in an interview.

Nine of the law professors said if the coverage mandate is invalidated the justices are likely or very likely to throw out several related provisions, such as requiring insurance companies to offer policies without regard to pre-existing medical conditions. Five respondents said the justices will leave those provisions in place; seven called it a toss-up.

By a large margin, 15 of the 21 professors predicted the Supreme Court won’t kill the entire law even if justices throw out the insurance mandate and related provisions. Only three said the rest of the statute is likely to be voided and three called it a toss-up.

Although several of the law professors thought it was a toss up whether the court would accept or reject the Individual mandate, only one thought it genuinely likely that the Supremes would uphold the whole thing.

Here is his reasoning:

“I continue to find it extremely unlikely that Justices Roberts and Kennedy will support a 5-4 decision that has such an insubstantial basis in 75 years of Supreme Court case law,” said Yale University Professor Bruce Ackerman, the only respondent who said the court is very likely to uphold the insurance-coverage requireme

KAMALA HARRIS WEIGHS IN

Last week I happened to go to an event that California Attorney General Kamala Harris also attended. I caught Harris as she was leaving the party, and I asked her how she thought the Supremes would rule on the Affordable Health Care Act. Harris surprised me and those listening by saying she had a feeling they would uphold it. After Bush v. Gore and Citizens United, the justices “know that people are losing faith in the court.”

And Roberts doesn’t want that as his legacy? I asked.

, “I don’t believe that he does,” she said.

Harris admitted that, like everyone else, she was reading tea leaves—although she didn’t use those words. “But I’ve got a good feeling,” Harris repeated.

Very shortly we’ll find out whose tea leaf reading was the right one.

MAD AS HELL AND NOT GOING TO FUND IT ANY MORE

For past months, federal law enforcement has aggressively gone after medical marijuana clinics, forcing the close of around 200 clinics in California, including two of the the best known (and reportedly best behaved) clinics in northern cal, Marin Alliance for Medical Marijuana and the Berkeley Patients’ Care Collective.

Since Obama had pledged to lay off the clinics before he was elected, many in California and in other medical marijuana states like Colorado are feeling betrayed and increasingly pissed off.

Some of their representatives are getting the message. This week three Congressmen, Rep. Sam Farr, D-Carmel, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach, and Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-N.Y, have launched a bi-partisan effort to block the feds fiscally from going after medical marijuana in states where it is legal. The Rohrabacher-Hinchey-Farr Amendment it is called.

Even Nancy Pelosi put out a press release last week calling for “state’s rights.”.

Reacting to an ongoing crackdown on medical marijuana facilities in California, Pelosi said in a Wednesday statement, “I have strong concerns about the recent actions by the federal government that threaten the safe access of medicinal marijuana to alleviate the suffering of patients in California.”

The California Democrat said that medical marijuana is “both a medical and a states’ rights issue.”

California legalized the use of medical marijuana in a 1996 initiative vote. It’s comically easy for many residents to acquire the necessary medical diagnosis to legally purchase the drug.

In 2009, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the Obama administration would “effectively end the Bush administration’s frequent raids on distributors of medical marijuana.”

In April, however, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal Revenue Service raided Oaksterdam University — a school that taught marijuana enthusiasts how to successfully cultivate plants.

The Daily Caller has more on Pelosi’s statements, and the issue in general

Jason Hoppin at the San Jose Mercury News has more on the nascent Congressional effort.

YEAH, THERE’S A MED MARIJUANA CLINIC DOWN THE STREET FROM MY KID’S PRE-SCHOOL, WHAT OF IT?

Meanwhile, Tamar Todd, Staff Attorney, Drug Policy Alliance, has a fierce and eloquent essay in the Huffington Post on why the fed-forced closure of the venerable Berkeley Patients Group, was so…well….stupid.

Here are some clips:

Last week, one of California’s oldest and most respected medical marijuana dispensaries, Berkeley Patients Group, closed its doors. It shut down because its landlord, like dozens across the state, received a letter from United States Attorney Melinda Haag threatening to seize the property for renting to a medical marijuana dispensary located within 1,000 feet of a school. My three children attend elementary school and preschool in West Berkeley, just blocks from Berkeley Patients Group. The notion that the closure of Berkeley Patients Group is going to somehow serve to protect my children is patently absurd.

Berkeley Patients Group served thousands of medical marijuana patients in the Berkeley area for 12 years. It was an industry leader and a model of compassion and legal integrity. It was in strict compliance with state and local law, and has long worked with the City of Berkeley and the local community to provide a safe and responsible service to patients in need. As a small business, it employed 75 people and was one of the top sales tax generators in the city.

Ms. Haag has claimed that one of her concerns about dispensaries that are in close proximity to schools and parks and playgrounds is the possibility they could be the target of violence or armed robbery. Banks and pharmacies are also targets of armed robberies and there are a number of them located in West Berkeley. Like Berkeley Patients Group, they have security. There is no evidence to suggest, and I have never felt, that it is dangerous to send my children to a school that happened to be near a bank, or a pharmacy.

West Berkeley is not crime-free. There have been a number of shootings in the blocks surrounding my children’s elementary school in past several years. There is also significant illicit drug traffic in the neighborhood. The two are likely connected. But thus far, Ms. Haag and the federal government have devoted few, if any, resources to protecting children from gun violence or other crime in West Berkeley.

Instead, Ms. Haag has chosen to use her presumably limited resources to deprive the thousands of patients who frequent Berkeley Patients Group a legal, regulated, secure place to purchase desperately needed medicine….

[SNIP]

Most offensive is the notion that legal access to medical marijuana sends the wrong message to kids. I find the existence of legal medical marijuana very easy to explain to my children. This is what I tell them: Research and science matter. The opinions of medical professionals matter. We should have compassion for those who are very sick, and even for those who are just a little sick; for those suffering the effects of chemotherapy or for returning veterans suffering from PTSD; that we should help meet people’s needs and ease pain as best we can (even if it goes against the conventional wisdom or drug war ideology). I tell my children that it is better for people to buy marijuana from a safe, well-regulated source, than on the street.

I tell my children that the lives of children in Mexico matter too, where United States drug policy has led to the narcotics-related murders of nearly 50,000 people over the last five years, including thousands of children. That is the harm to children caused by marijuana prohibition, and a drug market that Ms. Haag’s actions directly fuel. The “threat” posed by Berkeley Patients Group, and other dispensaries like it, pales in comparison.

WHAT’S OBAMA’S DEAL ANYWAY?

The Week has gathered together the three main theories being advanced about why the president and his AG have ramped up their medical marijuana enforcement.

AND IN OTHER NEWS….UPDATES ON THE KELLY THOMAS MURDER CASE

For those of you interested in following the, thus far, very painful Kelly Thomas murder case , the LA Times Richard Winton is covering the Orange County proceedings very well. Here are two of his latest stories having to do with the preliminary hearing here and here.

(Thomas, just to remind you, was the homeless man who was beaten to death, allegedly by a group of Fullerton police officers, while he called out for his father.)

Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty.

GOOD NEWS, OBAMA ISSUES FIRST COMMUTATION OF HIS PRESIDENCY. BAD NEWS: WHAT TOOK HIM SO LONG? AND WHY JUST ONE?

Late Monday, the President pardoned five people and issued one commutation.

This is all very nice, of course. But many of us who follow such things wonder why he has only pardoned a grand total of 22 people (plus that single commutation) while by the same time in his presidency, Jack Kennedy had pardoned or commuted the sentences of 600 Americans. Why, people ask, has Obama has has left such an important presidential power lying nearly fallow?

Julie Stewart, the President, Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) is one of those who thinks Obama could have done a lot more by now. She writes for the Huffington Post. Here’s how her column begins:

This week, President Barack Obama won’t just be pardoning turkeys. He decided to throw some human beings in the mix, too. He pardoned five people, restoring their civil rights, and even issued his first presidential commutation to Eugenia Jennings, reducing her sentence so that she can return home to Missouri to recover from cancer and watch her daughter graduate high school.

Her commutation is long overdue.

In 2001, Jennings was a survivor of domestic abuse and had a long-standing struggle with drug addiction. She began selling small quantities of crack cocaine to support herself and her three children. When she sold a mere 13.9 grams of crack cocaine to a police informant, Jennings received a 22-year sentence. No guns were involved; no one was hurt.

Jennings spent her decade in federal prison conquering her addiction, educating herself, and speaking publicly to students, warning them of the consequences of drug use. Earlier this year, Jennings was diagnosed with cancer. She has received chemotherapy treatments in prison and shows positive signs of an eventual recovery.

Jennings’s commutation is no fluke — her pro bono legal team from the Washington, D.C. firm of Crowell & Moring built a wide network of supporters and advocates, including Senator Richard Durbin (D-Ill.). Sen. Durbin first learned about Eugenia’s outrageous sentence when her brother, Cedric Parker, testified before Congress. Sen. Durbin and Jennings’s lawyers fought tirelessly for her release for three years.

Unfortunately, the use of the pardon power has become seen as such political anathema that this kind of herculean effort — and lengthy wait — is what it takes to get justice. It wasn’t always this way. President Obama has now been in office as long as President John F. Kennedy, but Kennedy granted over 600 pardons and commutations during that time. President Obama has granted 22 pardons and one single commutation…..

9TH CIRCUIT RULES THAT YELLOWSTONE GRIZ MUST STAY ON THREATENED LIST FOR NOW

In 2007, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service lifted Endangered Species Act protections from the grizzlies scattered through Montana, Wyoming and Idaho.—contending that they were a recovery success story. However, US District Judge Donald Malloy granted summary judgment that vacated the feds’ delisting plans at least for the 500 or so bears in the Greater Yellowstone area. A three judge panel ruling for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals agreed, concurring with advocates who said that the Fish and Wildlife folks had not adequately guarded against changes in circumstances that could once again reduce the bears’ numbers.

Reuters has more.

The LA Times also has a good story on the griz issue.

PS: Since I spend some time in West Glacier, MT, every summer, an area that like greater Yellowstone is grizzly central, I’ve observed bear management up close for nearly 30 years. It’s a delicate matter. I’ve also been able to observe my share of grizzlies of various sizes, ages and genders, over those same years. It’s a privilege I treasure. Thus I’m personally deeply grateful to the three judges of the 9th Circuit panel, and also to Judge Malloy before them, for erring on the side of caution when it comes to protecting the great bear.

BILL BRATTON ET AL HIRED TO INVESTIGATE UC DAVIS PEPPER SPRAYING DEBACLE

Does the UC System really need former LAPD Chief Bill Bratton and his New York-based Kroll security consulting firm in order to aggressively investigate the insanely shocking pepper spraying at UC Davis? Uh, no, it’s a bit of overspray.…uh overkill.

On the other hand, one could also argue that it’s a great PR move designed to communicate that UC President Mark G. Yudof is taking this really, really, really seriously.

Which is good.

As long as the price Bill and group charge isn’t too high.

Larry Gordon of the LA Times has more.

NO $1.4 BILLION TO BUILD AND RENOVATE JAILS UNTIL SHERIFF BACA GETS HIS EXISTING HOUSE IN ORDER, SAYS THE LA TIMES

Good call, Times editorial board! (This is, by the way, the second good jails-related editorial from the Times in the last few days. There was also this on Tuesday.)

Here’re a couple of clips from Wednesday’s editorial on the matter:

In the coming weeks, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors is expected to decide whether to approve a $1.4-billion jail construction project that would help ease overcrowding at Men’s Central Jail and prevent the early release of some inmates. The county’s chief executive and Sheriff Lee Baca argue that the plan, which calls for rebuilding one facility and expanding a second, would make the nation’s largest jail system safer and cheaper to operate.

It’s hard to argue with the need or the logic. The Men’s Central building is so dilapidated and so overcrowded that in 2006, U.S. District Judge Dean D. Pregerson described conditions as “not consistent with human values.” Renovations would make it safer for deputies as well as for inmates. What is questionable, however, is whether Baca should be given new or refurbished jails when he’s so clearly struggling to run the ones he has.

[BIG SNIP]

Yes, the county’s jails need help, and Men’s Central needs to be replaced. But the Sheriff’s Department should demonstrate that it can properly operate the jails already under its control before it asks taxpayers to spend another $1.4 billion.

More blogging on local issues later. In the meantime…

Some good SOTU lines, moments, ideas, points—grabbed based on first impressions.

BUT FIRST: SOME MEANINGFUL SOTU TWEETS:

@todgoldberg: The alien living inside John Boehner is signaling his planet that they can begin colonizing Biden’s forehead now.

@joanwalsh: Michele Bachmann is looking at my dog Sadie off to my left. That is SO sweet of her!

@keitholbermann: Boehner tear time exactly 10:09:30 – I won the pool! #sotu #ShootingSalmonInABarrel

NOW BACK TO THE SOTU

This is our generation’s Sputnik moment.

The quality of our math and science education lags behind many other nations. America has fallen to 9th in the proportion of young people with a college degree. And so the question is whether all of us – as citizens, and as parents – are willing to do what’s necessary to give every child a chance to succeed.

When a child walks into a classroom, it should be a place of high expectations and high performance. But too many schools don’t meet this test. That’s why instead of just pouring money into a system that’s not working, we launched a competition called Race to the Top. To all fifty states, we said, “If you show us the most innovative plans to improve teacher quality and student achievement, we’ll show you the money.”

Race to the Top is the most meaningful reform of our public schools in a generation. For less than one percent of what we spend on education each year, it has led over 40 states to raise their standards for teaching and learning. These standards were developed, not by Washington, but by Republican and Democratic governors throughout the country.

In South Korea, teachers are known as “nation builders.” Here in America, it’s time we treated the people who educate our children with the same level of respect. We want to reward good teachers and stop making excuses for bad ones.

Now, I strongly believe that we should take on, once and for all, the issue of illegal immigration. I am prepared to work with Republicans and Democrats to protect our borders, enforce our laws and address the millions of undocumented workers who are now living in the shadows. I know that debate will be difficult and take time. But tonight, let’s agree to make that effort. And let’s stop expelling talented, responsible young people who can staff our research labs, start new businesses, and further enrich this nation.

Over the years, a parade of lobbyists has rigged the tax code to benefit particular companies and industries. Those with accountants or lawyers to work the system can end up paying no taxes at all. But all the rest are hit with one of the highest corporate tax rates in the world. It makes no sense, and it has to change.

Now, I’ve heard rumors that a few of you have some concerns about the new health care law. So let me be the first to say that anything can be improved. ……..

What I’m not willing to do is go back to the days when insurance companies could deny someone coverage because of a pre-existing condition [etc.] So instead of re-fighting the battles of the last two years, let’s fix what needs fixing and move forward.

Every day, families sacrifice to live within their means. They deserve a government that does the same……

I recognize that some in this Chamber have already proposed deeper cuts, and I’m willing to eliminate whatever we can honestly afford to do without. But let’s make sure that we’re not doing it on the backs of our most vulnerable citizens. And let’s make sure what we’re cutting is really excess weight. Cutting the deficit by gutting our investments in innovation and education is like lightening an overloaded airplane by removing its engine. It may feel like you’re flying high at first, but it won’t take long before you’ll feel the impact.

Before we take money away from our schools, or scholarships away from our students, we should ask millionaires to give up their tax break.

It’s not a matter of punishing their success. It’s about promoting America’s success.

….the Interior Department is in charge of salmon while they’re in fresh water, but the Commerce Department handles them in when they’re in saltwater. And I hear it gets even more complicated once they’re smoked.

Read the rest of this entry »

This is why Jon Stewart matters.

The interview with President Obama on Wednesday night’s Daily Show was much better than that which we see…well…pretty much anywhere.

For one thing, it was a more serious and, frankly, smarter exchange—comedic moments included— than we see on, say, Meet the Press, and equivalent shows.

Stewart repeatedly asked critical questions of the president, but he did so, not from an attitude of journalistic remove, but rather from the position of one who voted for the man, but is now genuinely disappointed and perplexed at how it has all played out. He wants to know—as many of us do— why Obama made some of the decisions he has made.

Like why in the %$#&@$ did he hire Larry Summers. (Just for example.)

It helps that when Stewart asks a question he allows himself to become fully engaged with the give and take of the inquiry. It is not just one more check mark on the list. He’s not going for a sound bite. He wants an answer.

“Legislatively, it felt timid at times,” he said at one point of Obama’s way of dealing with Congress.

And then, “You ran on the idea that this system needed basic reform. It feels like some of the reforms that have been passed, like health care, have been done a very political manner that has papered over a foundation that is corrupt.”

Each time, Obama answered. Often he fought back aggressively, and spun things in his favor. He brought it. But he didn’t dodge. It was a genuine exchange.

(Plus at some point Stewart called the President, “dude.”)

Anyway, watch it, if for some reason you haven’t already.

Yes I know those other networks are on onsite too. But Annenberg TV Network is way more fun and more, like, there.

And here’s Neon Tommy’s after rally coverage—the whole package.

An estimated 32,500 people with a 5,000 person overflow attended the rally featuring President Barack Obama at Alumni Park on the USC campus today, according to USC’s Fire Safety and Emergency Planning Specialist Angela DiBenedetto.