Iran agrees to limit nuclear program in exchange for relief from sanctions

Jurist

The P5+1 world powers, which include the US, UK, Russia, China, France and Germany, reached an agreement [text, PDF] with Iran on Sunday committing Iran to limiting its developing nuclear program in exchange for relief from international sanctions [JURIST report]. The agreement outlines a six-month program [White House fact sheet], although the US holds that this agreement is only an initial step, and the full force of its sanctions against Iran will not be lifted until Iran has come into full compliance with its obligations under the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons [text] and the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) [official website]. In a speech [text] regarding the agreement, US President Barack Obama [official website] made the following remarks regarding the agreement:

Today, [diplomacy with Iran has] opened up a new path toward a world that is more secure—a future in which we can verify that Iran's nuclear program is peaceful and that it cannot build a nuclear weapon ... this first step will create time and space over the next six months for more negotiations to fully address our comprehensive concerns about the Iranian program. And because of this agreement, Iran cannot use negotiations as cover to advance its program.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu [BBC profile; JURIST news archive] has called the agreement a "historic mistake" [press release], claiming that the rigorous program of sanctions against Iran contained the best opportunity for a peaceful solution.

Over the past several years Iran has been subject to numerous sanctions for its contentious nuclear program, although some commentators doubt the efficacy of such sanctions [JURIST op-ed]. Iranian leaders have repeatedly claimed that the developing nuclear program is for peaceful purposes [JURIST report], but the international community, Israel in particular [JURIST op-ed], worries that Iran's enrichment program was designed for military purposes. In February 2012 the US imposed further sanctions [JURIST report] on Iran due to the misleading practices of Iranian banks. Many, however, viewed this action as an attempt to convince Iran to disassemble its nuclear program by further burdening its already struggling economy. In 2010, the UN Security Council voted to impose a fourth round of sanctions [JURIST report] on Iran for its continued failure to disband its uranium enrichment program. The UN had previously ordered Iran to stop expanding [JURIST report] its nuclear program by August 31, 2006. Iran stated it would completely withdraw [JURIST report] from the International Atomic Energy Agency if its "nuclear rights" were taken away.

Torturing Abu Zubaydah and the art of deception

Aljazeera

Whole Lab is Suspect: Up to 190,000 criminal cases Affected in Massachusetts Crime Lab Scandal

NPR

Former chemist Annie Dookhan began serving a 3-to-5 year sentence in a Massachusetts prison on Friday after pleading guilty to falsifying tests of drug evidence and helping to create one of the nation's largest drug lab scandals.

Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley says the state is taking steps to improve forensic testing:

"It is certainly lessons learned," she says. "We hope that we've made changes in the system that will mean this unique case will not happen again in Massachusetts."

Tens of thousands of criminal cases are potentially compromised and hundreds of people have been released from Massachusetts prisons because of the sloppy drug evidence testing, which went on for years.

Dookhan admitted that she didn't always test the drug evidence she said she did, and that she sometimes forged co-workers signatures. She didn't know how often that happened during her nine years at the lab, but records show she routinely tested thousands more samples than her colleagues. A state review determined that more than 40,000 criminal cases relied on Dookhan's testing. But some say that's just the beginning:

"We expect it could be many thousands more, tens of thousands more," says Anne Goldbach of the state's public defender agency. She says initial reports from an ongoing state inspector general investigation show that oversight at the lab was so lax that every case that used its testing is now in doubt.

"The potential could be 190,000" criminal cases affected, says Goldbach. "Part of that depends on what we learn about the entire lab. Right now the entire lab is still suspect."

So far almost 350 people have been released from prison and hundreds more have had their charges dismissed. State officials estimate it will cost hundreds of millions of dollars over the next several years to handle all the criminal and civil suits stemming from the scandal.

California university suspends fourth white student in racial abuse case

reuters

A fourth student at a California university has been suspended for being involved in alleged racially motivated abuse of a black student, an occurrence that has led to student protests on campus.

The suspension of the fourth student, which followed suspensions and misdemeanor hate crime charges against three other students, was disclosed by San Jose State University President Mohammed Qayoumi in a statement late Friday.

Qayoumi did not identify the fourth student or say whether he might also face charges. The victim in the incident that led to student protests at the campus in Northern California has not been named.

Logan Beaschler and Colin Warren, both 18, and Joseph Bomgardner, 19, have been charged with misdemeanor hate crime and battery against their black roommate, Santa Clara County Deputy District Attorney Erin West said.

The three freshmen students are accused of using racist terms to refer to the young man, displayed Nazi symbols and a Confederate flag in their suite and once tried to put a U-shaped bicycle lock around his neck, causing him minor injuries when he fought back,

Supremes may Clarify Rule on Executing Mentally Retarded (disproportionately non-white) people

NYTimes

The United States Supreme Court’s ruling in a Florida death penalty case, in which an inmate argued that his intellectual disability made him exempt from execution, could help answer a decade-old question in Texas and other states about how to establish whether an inmate is too severely impaired to be subject to the death penalty.

“This is the courts trying to play catch-up with where the mental health community is going,” said Shannon Edmonds, director of governmental affairs at the Texas District and County Attorneys Association.

The Supreme Court last month agreed to hear the case of Freddie L. Hall, who was sentenced to death for the 1978 rape and murder of a pregnant woman and the fatal shooting of a police officer. Oral arguments are expected in the spring.

Mr. Hall’s lawyers assert that his low I.Q., his deficits in adaptive behavior and a history of a lack of intellectual abilityrender him ineligible for execution. The high court is expected to decide whether Florida’s criteria for evaluating intellectual disability in death penalty cases — similar to those Texas uses — are adequate.

Chemist accused of falsifying thousands of drug tests to Plead Guilty in Massachussetts Drug Lab Scandal

NPR

The chemist accused of falsifying thousands of drug tests at a Massachusetts crime lab is expected to plead guilty on Friday. Tens of thousands of criminal cases were compromised in the scandal. A judge is suggesting a three-to-five year prison sentence for Annie Dookhan, who is blamed for causing what some say is the most series forensic lab problem in the nation.

DAVID GREENE, HOST:

In Massachusetts today, a former chemist is expected to be sent to prison over a drug lab scandal that wreaked havoc in the state's criminal justice system. The case involves the falsifying of forensic drug tests over several years, potentially compromising tens of thousands of criminal cases.

Deborah Becker, from member station WBUR, has the story.

DEBORAH BECKER, BYLINE: Thirty-six-year-old former chemist Annie Dookhan is expected to plead guilty and start serving at least a three-year sentence for allegedly causing what may be the nation's largest forensic testing scandal. Massachusetts officials identified more than 40,000 criminal cases affected by testing Dookhan did during the nine years she worked at the now-closed Hinton State Lab.

Michael O'Keefe, president of the Massachusetts District Attorneys Association, says prosecutors have sifted through hundreds of cases, and close to 350 people have been released from prison.

MICHAEL O'KEEFE: Prosecutors have been pretty reasonable about this; dealing with a problem that is not of our making, and that has to be addressed by balancing individual liberty and public safety.

BECKER: But defense attorneys are quick to point to documents from the Dookhan investigation showing that some prosecutors would often contact her directly, and Dookhan would try to get their tests done more quickly. One prosecutor resigned after his emails with Dookhan became public. Anne Goldbach, of the Massachusetts Public Defenders Agency, says forensic scientists are supposed to be impartial.

ANNE GOLDBACH: You can tell that Annie Dookhan felt a sense of allegiance to the prosecution, and that is absolutely unconscionable.

BECKER: The documents in the Dookhan case also show that for years, she tested thousands more drug samples than her colleagues. A WBUR analysis shows that between 2009 and 2010, the time it took Dookhan to conduct a test went down by more than half. Tom Workman is a defense attorney and forensic expert.

TOM WORKMAN: She continued to decrease the turnaround time. You scratch your head and say, how could someone do that? And the obvious answer that comes to mind is, they weren't doing the work. They were dry-labbing.

BECKER: Dry-labbing is when a chemist just looks at a sample, with no actual testing involved. State police say Dookhan admitted to dry-labbing when they questioned her about a year ago. After Dookhan's arrest, five of her co-workers and state Public Health Commissioner John Auerbach resigned. In announcing his resignation, Auerbach admitted that his department - which oversaw the Hinton lab - was at fault. [MORE]

A Year Later, Feds Inch Forward on Fair Housing

Propublica

Tonight’s episode of “This American Life” will feature a story based on ProPublica’s yearlong investigation “Living Apart: How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law.”

Called “House Rules,” the TAL segment will examine the ways zip code determines the destiny of many Americans. The show will feature some of the actors who go undercover to test the market for hidden housing discrimination, a highly effective tool seldom used by the government.

Our reporting chronicled the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s repeated failures in enforcing the 1968 Fair Housing Act. This landmark legislation not only barred discrimination in housing sales and rentals – it also required communities to “affirmatively further” residential integration.

Since we published our first stories late last year, there have been several significant developments on matters we reported. Here’s what’s happened.

HUD Proposes Regulation

In July, HUD issued a proposed regulation that for the first time clearly defined the steps local and state governments that receive HUD funding must take to examine housing segregation based on race and show they are in line with the Fair Housing Act. The effort to define such rules began under the Clinton Administration, but stalled because of objections from cities and counties. President Obama had promised the regulation would be issued by the end of 2010, but conflicts within HUD and pressure from powerful outside groups kept it bottled up for years.

The proposal would create a new planning process under which HUD grantees must use data provided by the federal government on segregation, racially concentrated areas of poverty, access to education, employment, transportation and environmental health to set housing and development priorities.

Advocacy groups such as the National Fair Housing Alliance and the Poverty & Race Research Action Council have praised the regulation. Others, including The Weekly Standard, have accused HUD of social engineering.

The public comment period on the proposal ended Sept. 17. The final regulation has not yet been issued.

Justice at Scottsboro, 82 Years Later

PanAfrican News

The posthumous pardon of three Scottsboro Boys is a symbolic victory in a South still grappling with the legacy of Jim Crow

On March 25, 1931, nine black boys headed west on a Southern Railroad train from Chattanooga, Tennessee. Near the town of Stevenson, Alabama, in the state’s northeastern corner, a fight began with some white youths. A posse – a popular means of dispensing justice in the Jim Crow days – met the train at Paint Rock. The black boys were accused of having raped two women who had been on the train, Victoria Price and Ruby Bates. Because they were indicted in the town of Scottsboro, they would come to be known as the Scottsboro Boys. The youngest of them was thirteen.

At least they were not lynched – that is the best that can be said about what followed. They did not end up like Emmett Till, whose pulped face was to serve, in 1955, as a warning about “what happens to smart niggers.” (His crime was speaking to a white woman, in Money, Mississippi.)

On Thursday the state of Alabama finally pardoned three of the Scottsboro Boys, the last who had any stain of the 1931 trial on their names. The men are long dead. The pardon prods old wounds while trying to heal them.

“This action clears their names for history,” University of Alabama historian Ellen Spears, who sits on an advisory board for the Scottsboro Boys Museum and Cultural Center, tells Newsweek. Justice, like most everything else, moves slowly in the South.

At the trial of one of the Scottsboro Boys, Haywood Patterson, Judge William Callahan instructed the jury, “Where the woman charged to have been raped, as in this case, is a white woman, there is a very strong presumption under the law that she will not and did not yield voluntarily to intercourse with the defendant, a Negro.”

Patterson, who later wrote a memoir called Scottsboro Boy, described an earlier courtroom as “one big smiling white face.”

In fact, it was the Communist Party that wound up sending an attorney, Samuel Leibowitz of its International Labor Defense, to wage the hopeless fight for justice.

Leibowitz capably showed that the two women, Price and Bates, were themselves promiscuous and likely using the gang rape as a way to shield questions about their own sexual behavior.

An opposing lawyer had a rebuttal to that, and to every other sound argument proffered in the Scottsboro Boys’ defense: “[Is] justice in this case…going to be bought and sold with Jew money from New York?”

Noam Chomsky: Media Control and Indoctrination

4th Media

Catherine Komp: It’s been twenty- five years since the publication of your and Edward Herman’s acclaimed book Manufacturing Consent. How much do you think has changed with the propaganda model, and where do you see it playing out most prominently today?

Noam Chomsky: Well, ten years ago we had a re-edition and we talked about some of the changes. One change is that we were too narrow. There are a number of filters that determine the framework of reporting, and one of the filters was too narrow. Instead of “anti-communism,” which was too narrow, it should have been “fear of the concocted enemy.” So yes, it could be anti-communism—most of that is concocted. So take Cuba again. It’s hard to believe, but for the Pentagon, Cuba was listed as one of the military threats to the United States until a couple of years ago. This is so ludicrous; you don’t even know whether to laugh or cry. It’s as if the Soviet Union had listed Luxembourg as a threat to its security. But here it kind of passes.

The United States is a very frightened country. And there are all kinds of things concocted for you to be frightened about. So that should have been the filter, and [there were] a few other things, but I think it’s basically the same.

There is change. Free Speech Radio didn’t exist when we wrote the book, and there are somethings on the Internet which break the bonds, as do independent work and things like the book I was just talking about when we came in, Jeremy Scahill’s Dirty Wars, which is a fantastic piece of investigative reporting on the ground of what actually happens in the countries where we’re carrying out these terror campaigns. And there’s a lot of talk about drones, but not much about the fact that they are terror weapons.

If we were sitting here wondering if, all of a sudden, there’s going to be a bomb in this room, because they maybe want to kill him or kill us or whatever, it’s terrorizing. In fact, we just saw a dramatic example of this which got a couple lines in the paper. A few days after the Boston Marathon bombing, there was a drone attack on a village in Yemen, kind of an isolated village. Obama and his friends decided to murder some guy. So the villagers are sitting there, and suddenly this guy gets blown away and whoever else is around him. I don’t think it was reported except for the fact that there was Senate testimony a week later by a person from the village who’s quite respected by Jeremy and others who know him. The man, Farea al-Muslimi, who studied at a high school in the U.S., testified to the Senate and he described what happened to his village. He said that every- body knew the man that they murdered, and that they could have easily apprehended him, but it waseasier to kill him and terrify the village. He also said something else which is important. He said that his friends and neighbors used to know of the United States primarily through his stories of “the wonderful experiences” he had here.* He said the U.S. bombing has turned them into people who hate America and want revenge—that’s all it takes. And, in fact, this whole terror system is creating enemies and threats faster than it’s killing suspects, apart from how awful that is. These things are going on, and going back to Jeremy, his book exposes a lot of it and also the exploits of the secret executive army, JSOC, Joint Special Operations Command. It’s dangerous, but it’s the kind of thing an investigative reporter could do, and he’s done it. There’s more of it now, fortunately, in some respects, than there was then.

“Can you imagine the outcry if Black players referred to Whites as ‘albino mutants?’

FinalCall

A happy dysfunctional NFL family?

Some say behavior revealed in the Miami locker room—alleged instances of racial abuse, forcing rookie players to pay for trips and dinners and little involvement of the coaching staff—is indicative of a greater culture inside the NFL. Racial prejudice and racial stereotyping remain embedded in the league’s fabric, they say.

“We are at a point in this society in which we have made a certain amount of progress eradicating some barriers in politics, education and sports,” said Dr. Charles Ross chairman of African American Studies and associate professor of history at the University of Mississippi and author of the 1999 book “Outside the Lines: African Americans and the Integration of the NFL.”

The NFL is a “complex” world for Black players, said Dr. Ross. These players still have to make sure they fit in with the expectations of team owners and team culture, which demands a loyalty and often silence on important issues, like race, he explained.

“When I wrote about how the league looked in 1962 and what I see now with 70 percent of the NFL players being Black, it clearly represents a new dynamic for White players who have to change their perceptions of Black players,” said Dr. Ross. So White players exhibit a tacit acceptance of Black subculture through language, end zone celebrations and even use of the n-word, he added.

But, he and other analysts said, true power often still resides with Whites in the locker room and Whites who control football operations.

These analysts note from the early days of the league, Black players struggled with race but kept their mouths shut for fear of being labeled “troublemakers.”

Dr. Frances Cress Welsing, a respected Washington, D.C.-based psychiatrist and author, told The Final Call a willingness among some Black players to give White counterparts a free pass with the n-word was troubling.

“Black players have been taught and conditioned to accept the abuse implied by the use of the word by Whites,” she said. “I believe that the young man, Jonathan Martin, has not been taught by his parents the meaning of ‘White supremacy.’

“Can you imagine the outcry if Black players referred to Whites as ‘albino mutants?’ ” Dr. Welsing asked. “It is the illusion of inclusion, wanting to believe that we are accepted; but the system only means for us to demean and disrespect ourselves, thinking it is entertainment.”

“White people are being prepared to accept the coming genocide of Black people,” she said. 

For a long time the lack of Blacks as quarterbacks, centers, offensive lineman, kickers, punters, long-snappers, and tight ends was seen as an issue. Black quarterbacks have broken through substantial on-field barriers and opportunities for Black coaches have increased as well.

But some have raised questions about disparity in salaries and scrutiny of Black players versus their White counterparts.

The ending to this saga, however, will largely be written by NFL owners, who remain largely White, male and rich. They surely don’t want anything to taint their billion-dollar product.

These owners, who often include billionaires, want to see every seat in cavernous stadiums filled. Forbes magazine in 2011 reported that 15 owners of the 32 NFL franchises had a net worth of $1 billion. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, the owners are also heavy financial supporters of the Republican Party.

“At the end of the day, all of these owners only care about winning,” said Howie Evans, sports editor for the Black weekly Amsterdam News. Winning brings more money and more opportunities to make money so owners are likely to defuse anything that could impact green, which may be the color the NFL covets most. [MORE]

17 year old Latino Boy dies in police custody in Durham, NC

From [HERE] A handcuffed 17-year-old Latino boy died of gunshot wounds in a Durham Police Department patrol car Tuesday morning, according to a 911 recording made public Wednesday.

Jesus Huerta was being transported to police headquarters on a trespassing charge by officer Samuel A.M. Duncan when, in the department’s parking lot, Duncan heard the shot from the backseat and jumped out of the car, leaving it to roll into a van with Huerta still inside, Durham police said. 

In the recording of the 911 call, a police officer radioed emergency dispatchers just before 3 am EST Tuesday morning to report “shots fired” in the parking lot of the station. The dispatcher asked the calling officer if he was hurt, according to the recording. “I don’t believe so,” the officer said in response.

The officer is heard asking for medical assistance for a "gunshot wound. Approximately 18-year-old male, not breathing."

Ahead of the released recording, later on the morning of Huerta’s death, Durham Police Chief Jose Lopez said his department didn’t know how the young man died, but said “based on the preliminary investigation, it does not appear that any Durham police officer fired a weapon during this incident.”

The Durham Police Department would not comment Wednesday on the 911 recording or answer further questions, citing an ongoing investigation.

Huerta’s family was notified of Jesus’ death early Tuesday morning, but they were told they will not yet be able to view his body, taken to the state medical examiner’s office. A spokesperson for the Department of Health and Human Services told WRAL there is no viewing room. [MORE]

US assassination drone kills 6 (more non-whites) in Pakistan

BlackListedNews

Six people have been killed in a US assassination drone attack that targeted Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region. The attack was carried out during the early hours of Thursday, when the unmanned aerial vehicle struck a seminary in Hangu District of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province. The United States carries out drone strikes in several countries including Pakistan, Afghanistan, Yemen, and Somalia.

'No Want More White Supremacy': Laura Ingraham Practices Racism on radio show

MediaMatters

On her radio show, Fox News contributor Laura Ingraham repeatedly mocked then imitated the accent of a woman whose native language appeared not to be English as the woman made comments in protest of the Obama administration's record number of deportations.  

On the November 21 edition of her radio program, Ingraham aired comments from a pro-immigration reform protest in which a woman states: "We are here to say to President Barack Obama, not one more deportations [sic]." The protest was ostensibly part of the national campaign by the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) called NotOneMoreDeportation.com or #Not1More to protest and expose what immigrants' rights activists view as unjust Immigration laws. One of the campaign's aims is to "collectively challeng[e] unfair deportations."

Following the woman's comments, Ingraham said: "Wait, what did she say at the end? I can't -- I need a translator. I speak Spanish too. I'd rather have her just speak Spanish, at least I'd understand that." She then went on to affect the woman's accent:

Ingraham's comment that she would have preferred the woman speak Spanish are at odds with what conservative media figures have been saying for years -- mainly that immigrants who want to settle in this country have to learn to speak English.

Ingraham's mocking of the woman's accent is hardly the first instance in which a conservative media figure has ridiculed an immigrant whose native language is not English. On Fox News, contributor Jesse Watters repeatedly made fun of the accents of foreign-born immigrants in New York City. And Rush Limbaugh repeatedly mocked a speech by Chinese President Hu Jintao on his visit to the United States, speaking in mock Chinese to purportedly mimic how Jintao was speaking.

US government report reveals sexual abuse in immigration detentions

[JURIST] The Government Accountability Office (GAO) [official website] issued [press release] a report [text, PDF] on Wednesday entitled "Additional Actions Could Strengthen DHS Efforts to Address Sexual Abuse." The GAO report was initiated in part by government documents that found there were hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse and assault in immigration detention over several years that were not properly investigated in compliance with the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA) [text, PDF]. US Immigration Customs and Enforcement's (ICE) [official website] data system described 215 allegations of sexual abuse and assault in facilities from October 2010 through March 2013. The study covered 157 of approximately 250 facilities, finding that most facilities were compliant with sexual abuse and assault prevention and intervention (SAAPI) provisions. Recommendations were that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) [official website]: (1) develop additional controls to ensure all allegations are reported to headquarters, (2) coordinate OIG access to hotline connectivity data, (3) document and maintain reliable information on detention standards, and (4) develop a process for performing oversight of SAAPI provisions consistently across facilities. Advocacy groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) [advocacy website] have been calling on the DHS to investigate its treatment of immigrant detainees. In 2012 the ACLU issued a complaint regarding abuse of power, excessive force, coercion, and unlawful confiscation of property by Customs and Border Protection at ports of entry along the US-Mexico border. In 2011 the ACLU uncovered documents that found there were hundreds of allegations of sexual abuse and assault in immigration detention. In 2003 Congress enacted [DOJ backgrounder] PREA to "provide for the analysis of the incidence and effects of prison rape in Federal, State, and local institutions and to provide information, resources, recommendations and funding to protect individuals from prison rape."

A Cleveland Wal-Mart store is holding a food drive — for its own employees

BlaskListedNews

A Cleveland Wal-Mart store is holding a food drive — for its own employees. “Please donate food items so associates in need can enjoy Thanksgiving dinner,” reads a sign accompanied by several plastic bins. That Wal-Mart would have the audacity to ask low-wage workers to donate food to other low-wage workers — to me, it is a moral outrage The Cleveland Plain Dealer first reported on the food drive, which has sparked outrage in the area. “That Wal-Mart would have the audacity to ask low-wage workers to donate food to other low-wage workers — to me, it is a moral outrage,” Norma Mills, a customer at the store, told the Plain Dealer. A company spokesman defended the food drive, telling the Plain Dealer that it is evidence that employees care about each other. “This store has been doing this for several years and is for associates that have faced an extreme hardship recently,” spokesman Kory Lundberg told us.

Sentenced to a Slow Death

NyTimes

If this were happening in any other country, Americans would be aghast. A sentence of life in prison, without the possibility of parole, for trying to sell $10 of marijuana to an undercover officer? For sharing LSD at a Grateful Dead concert? For siphoning gas from a truck? The punishment is so extreme, so irrational, so wildly disproportionate to the crime that it defies explanation.

And yet this is happening every day in federal and state courts across the United States. Judges, bound by mandatory sentencing laws that they openly denounce, are sending people away for the rest of their lives for committing nonviolent drug and property crimes. In nearly 20 percent of cases, it was the person’s first offense.

As of 2012, there were 3,278 prisoners serving sentences of life without parole for such crimes, according to an extensive and astonishing report issued Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union. And that number is conservative. It doesn’t include inmates serving sentences of, say, 350 years for a series of nonviolent drug sales. Nor does it include those in prison for crimes legally classified as “violent” even though they did not involve actual violence, like failing to report to a halfway house or trying to steal an unoccupied car.

The report relies on data from the federal prison system and nine states. Four out of five prisoners were sentenced for drug crimes like possessing a crack pipe or acting as a go-between in a street drug sale. Most of the rest were sentenced for property crimes like trying to cash a stolen check or shoplifting. In more than 83 percent of the cases, the judge had no choice: federal or state law mandated a sentence of life without parole, usually under a mandatory-minimum or habitual offender statute.

Supremes turn down surveillance case

Politico 

The Supreme Court on Monday passed up an opportunity to weigh in on the constitutionality of the National Security Agency's collection of a massive database containing information on virtually every telephone call made to, from or within the United States.

The justices' action makes it unlikely the high court will provide a definitive answer on the question during its current term.

Acting without comment or indication of dissent on Monday, the justices turned down a petition from the Electronic Privacy Information Center seeking to have the Supreme Court perform a direct review of a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court order authorizing the call-tracking program under the PATRIOT Act—a controversial anti-terrorism statute passed a few weeks after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

The EPIC petition sought a form of review called "mandamus," which is granted by the court even more rarely than its typical cases known as "petitions for certiorari." The Obama administration argued in a brief filed last month that the direct review was not legally appropriate.

DC mayor signs bill allowing driver's licenses for undocumented immigrants

Jurist

Washington, DC, Mayor Vincent Gray [official website], signed [press release] into law the DC Drivers Safety Amendment Act of 2013 [text, PDF] on Monday, which will allow the District Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV) [official website] to issue "limited purpose" driver's licenses to undocumented DC residents. Gray introduced [press release] the bill in May, saying, "the legislation is the right thing to do for our undocumented residents and our entire community." If individuals cannot prove citizenship, the identification cards will be stamped [WP report] with, "not valid for official federal purposes." According to Gray, these licenses will enable immigrants to have better access to jobs, schools and houses of worship, but they will not allow individuals to board commercial aircraft or enter government buildings. The new law will take effect in May.

Several US states have enacted similar initiatives. California Governor Jerry Brown [official website] signed [JURIST report] a bill into law allowing undocumented immigrants to obtain driver's licenses in October. In May the Connecticut Senate [JURIST report] approved a similar bill that took effect this month. In January Illinois Governor Pat Quinn [official website] signed [JURIST report] a bill into law that allowed undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver's license if they could prove they had resided in the state for one year prior to the application.

George Zimmerman Charged with Felony Aggravated Assault (maybe he can get another white jury)

BBC

A white man acquitted of murder in the fatal shooting of an unarmed black teenager has been arrested on charges he pointed a shotgun at his girlfriend.

George Zimmerman, 30, has been jailed in Seminole County, Florida.

Mr Zimmerman was charged with felony aggravated assault, battery, domestic violence and criminal mischief, a sheriff's office spokesman said.

In July, a jury composed of 5 whites and one Latino, cleared Mr Zimmerman of the February 2012 killing of Trayvon Martin, 17. [MORE]

Since then, Mr Zimmerman has had other brushes with police, including an incident in October when he was briefly detained following a domestic disturbance at the home of his estranged wife, Shellie.

On Monday, a spokesman for the Seminole County sheriff's department said Mr Zimmerman was arrested on Monday morning and confined to a single-person 64 sq ft (6 sq metre) cell - standard treatment for "high-profile" defendants.

About 12:30 local time (17:30 GMT), sheriff's deputies responded to an emergency call at a house in Apopka, Florida.

Mr Zimmerman's girlfriend said they had argued, and he had broken a glass table in the living room, then retrieved a shotgun and pointed it at her. He then pushed her out the front door and barricaded himself inside, police said.

She was not injured, police said.

The sheriff's office spokesman said investigators believed Mr Zimmerman and his girlfriend had lived together since August and had been arguing about breaking up.

He said Mr Zimmerman was not armed when police arrived and did not resist arrest.

Human Rights Watch says US immigration policies causing extreme hardship for asylum seekers

Jurist

Human Rights Watch (HRW) [advocacy website] and Seton Hall University School of Law [academic website] released a report [text, PDF] on Tuesday examining the hardships created by the US asylum program. According to the Immigration Nationality Act (INA) [text] and Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act [text], asylum seekers are not entitled to employment authorization. In addition, these individuals are also not entitled to any public benefits. The report points out that the US is the only developed nation to deny both of these benefits to asylum seekers. In calling for reforms, the report states that US asylum policy violates international standards for human rights:

The prohibition on work authorization and social benefits for asylum seekers under US law is incompatible with international human rights standards and inconsistent with the treatment of other vulnerable groups under US immigration law and with the treatment of asylum seekers in other countries.... Presently there are sufficient deterrents built into the US asylum system to prevent the abuse of employment authorization by asylum seekers without the need for an outright ban on employment. In light of the vulnerability and needs of asylum seekers, the report proposes amending the Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) to remove the bar to employment for asylum seekers with nonfrivolous claims for asylum.

The report argues that allowing asylum seekers to gain employment would provide clear and simple rules for asylum seekers to seek benefits as well as clear a path so they may provide for themselves.