After a string of federal court losses that has whittled away at the U.S. Supreme Court’s guarantee of “meaningful review” for Guantanamo Bay detainees, a D.C. federal district judge has issued a resounding win on access to counsel, rebuffing an attempt by the government to replace court rules with its own significantly more restrictive proposal.

Citing the “litany” of Supreme Court rulings that established detainees’ hard-fought access to the courts, Judge Royce C. Lamberth, the chief judge for the D.C. district court, said the court was “nonplussed as to why the counsel-access issue is being re-litigated at all,” and scolded the administration for confusing “the roles of the jailer and the judiciary in our constitutional separation-of-powers scheme.” Lamberth writes:

It is clear that the Government had no legal authority to unilaterally impose a new counsel-access regime, let alone one that would render detainees’ access to counsel illusory.

Because it is emphatically the duty of the Courts to assure access to habeas relief, and because “petitioners’ access to attorneys is not a matter of Government discretion,” the Government’s MOU is null ab initio. If the Court here were to allow the Executive to substitute its MOU for the Protective Order, regardless of whether it provides “essentially the same” counsel-access provisions or not, the Court would be abdicating its great responsibility to guarantee that its doors remain open to these detainees.

If the separation-of-powers means anything, it is that this country is not one ruled by Executive fiat. Such blanket, unreviewable power over counsel-access by the Executive does not comport with our constitutional system of government. Therefore, it is the opinion of this Court that the Protective Order continues to govern detainee-counsel access for the purpose of bringing habeas petitions so long as detainees can bring habeas petitions before the Court.

Under the government’s scheme, in-person and written communication between detainees and defense attorneys is significantly curtailed when lawyers don’t have a habeas corpus case pending. The government reasoned that, should clients wish to initiate a habeas petition challenging their detention, they could proceed on their own, “send letters to the Court,” or submit “the form that the Government makes available” — an assertion that Lamberth called “preposterous.”

“The Court does not see how these petitioners, who speak no English, have no legal training, and who cannot be expected to remain up to date with new legal and political developments can have the requisite tools to bring habeas petitions without access to counsel,” Lamberth wrote.

Should this ruling be subject to appeal, the odds for detainees are grim – the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit has sided with the government in 11 out of the last 12 cases. The Supreme Court, meanwhile, has stayed entirely out of the fray since the summer of 2010, declining to review a single Guantanamo appeal during its last two terms.

GOP efforts to purge the voter rolls in Florida and Colorado have so far come up with almost no noncitzens, NPR reports. The two states fought to gain access to an immigration database compiled by the Department of Homeland Security to compare against their voter rolls. Armed with this federal database, Florida claims the purge has identified “several” noncitizens out of 2,600 names, while Colorado admits they have “no confirmed noncitizens”:

Colorado, which along with Florida was initially denied access to the database, says that an automated check of more than 1,400 names has flagged 177 people as possible noncitizens. Colorado has asked the Department of Homeland Security, which maintains the database, to assign a person to verify their status.

“For the moment, we have no confirmed noncitizens, but I would expect that most of those people would come back as noncitizens,” says Andrew Cole, a spokesman for Colorado Secretary of State Scott Gessler.

Colorado’s Secretary of State sent letters to 4,000 voters asking them to prove their citizenship. 482 people have provided proof, while 1,000 letters were returned because of wrong addresses.

The database is being used to check for legal residents possessing green cards or work visas, who are prohibited from voting. Nearly 60 percent of Florida’s list of suspected noncitizens are Latinos. The state’s past voter purge lists have been riddled with errors, including hundreds of citizens who were given just 30 days to prove their citizenship or be barred from voting.

Both states are planning new purges before November. Voter purges are currently ongoing dozen states, all of which have Republican election officials.

After previously trying to restrict early voting, Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted (R) today reversed course on his decision to block county boards of elections from setting their own early voting hours in the days leading up to the November election.

Last month, Husted and Ohio Republicans led an effort to limit early voting hours in Democratic counties, including those with major cities like Columbus and Cleveland, while expanding early voting in Republican counties. After the ensuing uproar, Husted moved to restrict voting hours across the state, only to have his cuts to early voting restored by a federal court.

Husted responded to the ruling by refusing to comply with the court order. Expanding voting hours, he claimed in Directive 2012-40, will “only serve to confuse voters.” Therefore, the directive read, he was “prohibit[ing] county boards of elections from determining hours for the Friday, Saturday, Sunday, or Monday before the election.” The move led Judge Peter Economus to set a hearing for September 13: “The Court ORDERS that Defendant Secretary of State Jon Husted personally attend the hearing,” his release read.

Facing a direct court order, Husted has chosen instead to back down. This afternoon, Husted’s office released Directive 2012-42 with a brief message: “Directive 2012-40 is hereby rescinded.” As a result, county boards of elections will now be allowed to set their own hours, pending Husted’s appeal of the Obama for America v. Husted decision.

A Pennsylvania inmate on death row was sexually abused by the men he was convicted of murdering, according to a clemency petition filed yesterday.

The petition, supported by 22 former prosecutors and judges, 34 law professors, 40 mental health professionals and more than 36 religious leaders, makes an impassioned case for sparing from execution a man with an extensive childhood history of abuse that was never revealed to the jury:

Pennsylvania is preparing to execute Terrance “Terry” Williams for the 1986 capital murder of Amos Norwood. At the time of the killing, Terry was only three and a half months past his eighteenth birthday, the minimum age for the imposition of the death penalty. On that tragic day, Terry and another 18-year-old, Marc Draper, beat Mr. Norwood to death in a cemetery in the Mt. Airy neighborhood of Philadelphia.

At trial, the jury was informed that Terry had prior convictions for a 1982 armed robbery and the 1984 killing of Herbert Hamilton, which Terry committed at ages 16 and 17, respectively. The jury never learned, however, that both Herbert Hamilton and Amos Norwood had sexually abused Terry, or that both killings directly related to Terry’s history of sexual abuse by these and older males, which began when Terry was only six years old. In fact, jurors heard very little about Terry’s childhood, which was marked not only by over a decade of sexual abuse, but by years of physical and emotional abuse, neglect and abandonment by those who were supposed to love and care for him. The unrelenting abuse and neglect made Terry an easy target for sexual predators. […]

Five of the jurors from Terry’s capital trial agree that Terry’s life should be spared. In recent sworn statements, they have explained that if they had known the truth about Terry’s childhood, the fact that he was exploited and sexually assaulted by the men he killed, as well as the fact that a life sentence meant life without parole, they never would have sentenced Terry to death.

The allegations of abuse were strongly supported by a letter from 26 child advocates and sexual abuse experts, which stated: “The evidence of abuse in this case is clear.” Even Mr. Norwood’s widow submitted a letter asking that his life be spared.

If the execution takes place, it would be the first in 13 years, and only the fourth since Pennsylvania reenacted the death penalty in 1978.

For Williams to be granted clemency, the petition must be reviewed by the Board of Pardons, which must unanimously recommend that Gov. Tom Corbett grant clemency, though the recommendation is not binding on the governor.

The board has scheduled a public hearing on the petition for Sept. 17, and Change.org is circulating a petition.

59 days out from the presidential election, outside groups have already spent more on political ads than the total amount they spent during the 2008 election cycle. The Center for Responsive Politics reports that super PACs, non-profits and other outside groups have poured about $306.2 million into this election cycle as of September 5, outpacing the 2008 total of $301.6 million. This massive sum does not even take into account “issue ads” by political non-profits who have spent tens of millions of dollars this cycle. Furthermore, the spending is expected to skyrocket, as these groups traditionally unleash most of their funds in the short period between the conventions and Election Day.

The campaign finance landscape, of course, is very different today than it was four years ago; the 2010 Citizens United ruling gave the green light to corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money, while the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals decided Wednesday that disclosure of these unlimited funds could be banned if the corporations find the regulations too onerous.

The consequences are obvious. Wall Street is poised to reach an all-time high of election spending, with 60 percent of financial sector donations going to Republicans. Conservative super PACs have far outstripped their Democratic counterparts.

Michael Keenan, who had spent the past twenty-four years waiting to be executed, was freed Thursday after an Ohio judge dismissed the murder charge against him. Keenan and John D’Ambrosio, who was freed in 2009, were convicted of killing Tony Klann in 1988. The two had long maintained their innocence of the charges against them, but were sentenced to die until a Catholic priest discovered that a prosecutor had withheld critical evidence pointing to Keenan and D’Ambrosio’s innocence:

A Catholic priest who befriended D’Ambrosio in prison and was convinced of his innocence worked with lawyers to uncover evidence favorable to both defendants that had been withheld by county prosecutors at trial.

That evidence included police statements that concluded Klann could not have been killed at Doan Brook, as the prosecutors’ only eyewitness to the killing claimed.

Eddie Espinoza, who pleaded guilty to manslaughter in connection with Klann’s death and was given a reduced sentence, claimed that Keenan slit Klann’s throat and D’Ambrosio stabbed him in the chest.

The withheld evidence also included information that the man who led police to Keenan, D’Ambrosio and Espinoza, had a possible motive for killing Klann.

This case is emblematic of broader problems with the American death penalty — 101 people between 1989 and 2012 were slated to be killed by their government before exonerating evidence came to light well into their prison terms.

There is no evidence the death penalty serves as an effective deterrent. The system is riddled with procedural holes and racial bias, and costs millions of dollars to maintain.

(Hat tip: Ari Kohen.)

Last summer, a drunk Arizona police officer named Robb Gary Evans drove himself to a bar, flashed his badge to avoid paying cover at the door, and then walked up behind a woman, put his hand up her skirt, and ran his fingers over her genitals. A jury convicted him of sexual abuse, a felony with a maximum sentence of 2 and a half years in prison, and Evans was fired from the police force after an internal investigation.

Nevertheless, Arizona trial Judge Jacqueline Hatch, who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Jan Brewer (R-AZ), decided that Evans’ actions did not warrant jail time — sentencing him probation and 100 hours of community service. Evans also will not have to register as a sex offender. Yet, while Judge Hatch apparently did not view the disgraced former cop’s actions as particularly serious, she had some very harsh words for the woman he assaulted:

Bad things can happen in bars, Hatch told the victim, adding that other people might be more intoxicated than she was.

“If you wouldn’t have been there that night, none of this would have happened to you,” Hatch said.

Hatch told the victim and the defendant that no one would be happy with the sentence she gave, but that finding an appropriate sentence was her duty.

“I hope you look at what you’ve been through and try to take something positive out of it,” Hatch said to the victim in court. “You learned a lesson about friendship and you learned a lesson about vulnerability.”

Hatch said that the victim was not to blame in the case, but that all women must be vigilant against becoming victims.

“When you blame others, you give up your power to change,” Hatch said that her mother used to say.

The victim, who has not been identified by the press, called for Judge Hatch to apologize for her offensive comments, adding that if she had not been at the bar to be assaulted by Evans, “it probably would have happened to someone else.”