Monday, October 31, 2005

Early reports on Alito not promising I'm trying to get a little bit of an early handle on our new Supreme Court nominee. What I've seen hasn't been exactly reassuring. First thing I saw was this rather sensational item: Alito agued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home. Turns out after actually reading the entire decision that it was much more complex than indicated in the blurb and involved some technicalities. I wouldn't say that I agree with Alito's reasoning in the case, but it's not as over the top as it seems. However, then there's this report at USA Today. Lawrence Lustberg, a New Jersey criminal defense lawyer who has known Alito since 1981 and tried cases before him on the Third Circuit, describes him as "an activist conservatist judge" who is tough on crime and narrowly construes prisoners' and criminals' rights. "He's very prosecutorial from the bench. He has looked to be creative in his conservatism, which is, I think, as much a Rehnquist as a Scalia trait," Lustberg says. That's very scary. Lustberg, however, loses a point with me in his use of the phrase "prisoners' and criminals' rights." I hope he's not referring to the 4th Amendment there, because the 4th Amendment is not criminals' rights, but rather citizens' rights and the rights of the accused (both guilty and innocent). (In fact, the only part of the bill of rights that is specifically for "criminals' rights" is part of the 8th Amendment.) It really disturbs me to hear basic core American rights and principles referred to as "criminals' rights." TalkLeft has a lot more on Alito's 'prosecutorial' approach. I'm going to keep looking (and please send me anything you find about his drug war views), but I'm not hopeful. All the more reason to concentrate on changing the lawmakers. 5:12:14 PM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []

Liberalism's Brain on Drugs At some point, everyone ought to throw his or her political theory -- whatever it is -- up against the wall of reality to see if it sticks. I ran smack into that wall when the state shackled Mark, one of my best friends, and hauled him off to a dank, violent, maximum-security prison for a 17-year stay. His crime: possession of a spoonful of cocaine, some of which they said he intended to distribute. That's the beginning of a good article by Ryan Grim in today's In These Times. I've always believed that we live in a fundamentally liberal society that can trace its way back to enlightenment thinkers like Jefferson, Madison, Locke, Mill and Rousseau. Sure, the past 24 years of the Reagan, Bush and even Clinton regimes haven't been kind, but one bedrock principle still seemed intact: If not equality and fraternity, we'll always have liberty. And so, as guards frogmarched my friend out of the courtroom shackled hands to feet, I wondered how confining that man for 17 years jives with my understanding of our nation's values. Is imprisoning hundreds of thousands of people an acceptable policy result of a liberal, pluralistic democratic society? Or, is the drug war proving libertarians correct about the potential for abuse of government power? Grim goes on to point out some of the abuses of freedom caused by the war on drugs (the drug war exception to the bill of rights, the huge prison populations, etc.), and liberalism's failure to face or respond to them. Silence from liberals in this debate is, in effect, an endorsement for the status quo. It is time to stand up in defense of liberty -- not just equality and fraternity. 7:56:50 AM | drug policy | Related  | permalink | comment []