Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R)

Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli (R), the apparent GOP candidate for Virginia Governor this November, told students at the University of Virginia this week that he had no problem with states experimenting with marijuana legalization.

The campus newspaper, the Cavalier Daily, reported that a student asked Cuccinelli about marijuana legalization as the Attorney General guest lectured in Professor Larry Sabato’s Introduction to Politics Class. “I’m not sure about Virginia’s future,” he responded, “but I and a lot of people are watching Colorado and Washington to see how it plays out.”

Sabato told the the Virginian Pilot that “Cuccinelli stressed he wouldn’t be recommending changes anytime soon. But he praised states such as Colorado for experimenting with marihuana legalization, saying this was federalism in action. He said twice his views were ‘evolving” on the subject.”

But this potentially libertarian approach is hardly indicative of Cuccinelli’s generally authoritarian views. He tried to get a college safe-sex fair cancelled (calling it “soft porn”), wants an abortion ban with no exceptions for rape or incest, and opposed even allowing companies to voluntarily offer same-sex domestic partnership benefits fearing it might “encourage this type of behavior.” And even after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in its 2003 Lawrence v. Texas case that such bans were unconstitutional, he still voted against repealing a state law making consensual sodomy a felony.

The author of the 2002 Bush torture memo that condoned waterboarding, sleep deprivation, and other extreme treatment has now authored a federal appeals court opinion rejecting a torture lawsuit by a California prisoner.

Jay Bybee, who was appointed by Bush to become a federal appeals court judge before the memo became known, voted to overturn a trial court’s ruling that a prisoner alleging cruel and unusual punishment could take his case to trial. Plaintiff Rex Chappell filed suit to challenge his treatment while held in isolation on“contraband watch” for almost seven days with continuous bright lighting, shackled to a concrete bed with no mattress and forced to eat like a dog. Bybee described the conditions this way:

Contraband watch, also known as a “body cavity search,” is a temporary confinement during which a prisoner is closely monitored and his bowel movements searched to determine whether he has ingested or secreted contraband in his digestive tract. Under prison procedures, the prisoner is first searched and then dressed so as to prevent him from excreting any contraband and removing it from his clothing. … The prisoner is then placed in waist chain restraints, which are handcuffs that are separated and chained to the side of the prisoner’s waist. […]

When the prisoner needs to defecate he must notify the prison staff who will bring him a plastic, moveable toilet chair. Once he uses the chair, the staff will search the waste to determine if it contains contraband.

In addition to these procedures, Chappell claims that he was also placed in ankle shackles, and chained to the bed. He complains that the waist restraints were not loosened for meals, forcing him to “eat [his] food like a dog; the temperature in the cell was very high; the cell was unventilated; and the lights were “very bright.” Chappell alleged that the conditions “did in fact torture [him] mentally” and he felt like he “deteriorat[ed] mentally” during contraband watch.

After having three bowel movements that did not reveal contraband, Chappell was released from contraband watch on May 6, 2002.

Bybee held that federal officials were immune from lawsuit because the type of treatment Chappell alleged had never before been deemed unconstitutional. He rejected the district court judge’s conclusion that the conditions were ones that “any reasonable officer would know comprised unconstitutional conditions of confinement.”

In dissent, Clinton appointee Marsha S. Berzon lamented:

If new facts alone triggered qualified immunity, then officials would rarely if ever be held accountable in cases involving ‘fact-driven’ claims, such as the Eighth Amendment claim at issue here … A reasonable officer would have known that, in combination, the twenty-four-hour bright light, the absence of a mattress, and the extensive bodily restraints risked depriving Chappell of sleep, in violation of the Eighth Amendment.

It is, of course, unsurprising that the man who has continued to defend his memo authorizing waterboarding as ”legally correct” would not find these conditions legally objectionable. By finding the officers immune from lawsuit entirely, however, he took the case one step further to prevent Chappell from ever having the opportunity to make his case at trial, unless the decision is reconsidered by a full Ninth Circuit panel or the Supreme Court.

In his appeal, Chappell’s lawyer quoted the prison guard monitoring Chappell as saying, “Man, this is wrong. I have sat on many potty watches and they have never treated nobody like they are treating you.” Even under normal conditions, “contraband watches” are a form of solitary confinement, which has been deemed torture and cruel and unusual punishment by several human rights organizations. Just this week, Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) announced that the federal Bureau of Prisons will take a closer examination of widespread U.S. use of the controversial practice that has been found to have dramatic psychological effects on inmates.

Joining Bybee in upholding the treatment was Reagan-appointed senior District Judge James L. Graham, sitting on the Ninth Circuit on assignment. If this case shows anything, it is that who sits on our courts matters. Thanks to President Bush, a judge who sanctioned torture is now deciding allegations of mistreatment on what is, for most people, the court of last resort.

A Texas civil rights group filed a complaint against Judge Lynn N. Hughes, a Ronald Reagan-appointee to a federal district court in Texas, criticizing his “outlandish racial comments” in a case brought by a South Asian man alleging employment discrimination:

At one point, during a hearing in a racial discrimination case, Hughes reportedly said, “Eleanor Roosevelt said staffs of one color always work better.”

During the same hearing, Hughes also reportedly questioned the role of diversity programs.

“Why don’t they just hire people and let diversity take care of itself?” Hughes asked, according to the group’s complaint. “And what does the diversity director do? Go around and painting (sic) students different colors so that they would think they were mixed?”

Judge Hughes also claimed in the hearing that South Asians are “Causcausian” and that this explains “why Adolph Hitler used the swastika.”

This is the second time in just the past month that Hughes has come under attack for his questionable views on race. Last month, the severely conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit criticized Hughes for concluding that the statement “[i]f President Obama’s elected, they’re going to have to take the Statute of Liberty and put a piece of fried chicken in his [sic] hand” had nothing to do with race. According to Hughes, “no black individually and no blacks collectively owns [sic] the sensitivity rights to fried chicken or anything else.”

Last week, at a hearing on gun safety legislation, a witness from an anti-feminist group was brought forth to argue that the US’s current gun laws are a boon to women’s rights. Women, witness Gayle Trotter said, need AR-15s because, “They have good handling. They’re light. They’re easy for women to hold… And the peace of mind that a woman has as she’s facing three, four, five violent attackers, intruders in her home, with her children screaming in the background, the peace of mind that she has knowing that she has a scary-looking gun gives her more courage when she’s fighting hardened, violent criminals.”

It turns out that Trotter couldn’t be more wrong.

Women don’t have peace of mind when it comes to guns in the home. In fact, a recent poll commissioned by the Women’s Donor Network shows the opposite. Sixty four percent of women think that tighter gun laws will help lower the overall level of violence in the United States.

But perhaps Trotter was only looking at the concerns of Republican women, who have the lowest levels of support for tighter gun restrictions. Only 44 percent of them believe that gun laws would make the US safer. On the other hand, low-income women and women of color are the most likely to support tighter restrictions on firearms. A full 86 percent of African American women think gun laws could reduce violence, and 77 percent of Hispanic women agree.

Women, in actuality, face heightened concerns of domestic violence with a gun in the home, since a woman is 12 times more likely to die in a domestic dispute if a gun is involved. They also tend to be the primary caretakers of children, and fear for their children’s safety.

Whether or not a gun is easy to carry and looks nice might not be the right question for Trotter to think about when she considers a woman’s support of gun laws. Rather, she might want to ask: When there is relatively little regulation of firearms, is there a real, increased threat of violence for women?

Los Angeles police reportedly shot and injured two women delivering newspapers by accident while on a search in Torrance, Calif. for a former fellow officer who is suspected in several shootings. A second shooting was also reported involving Torrance police officers, but there were no known injuries. The Los Angeles Times reports:

The women, shot in the 19500 block of Redbeam Avenue, were taken to area hospitals, Torrance police Lt. Devin Chase said. They were not identified. One was shot in the hand and the other in the back, according to Jesse Escochea, who captured video of the victims being treated.

It was not immediately known what newspapers the women were delivering. Television images showed the blue pickup riddled with bullet holes and what appeared to be newspapers lying in the street alongside.

Local, state and federal authorities are involved in a massive search for Christoper Jordan Dorner, 33, a former Los Angeles Police Department officer who threatened “unconventional and asymmetrical warfare” against police in an online manifesto, and was suspected of shooting three police officers, one of whom died, early Thursday in Riverside County.

Dorner also is suspected of killing a couple in Orange County earlier this week.

The officers involved in the shooting were reportedly on protective detail for an officer named in Dorner’s manifesto. Both shootings occurred while the victims were in their vehicles, which officers said looked like the vehicle Dorner is suspected to be driving.

During a press conference today, a representative from LAPD said Dorner has multiple weapons at his disposal, including assault rifles.

Credit: Charlie Leight, The Arizona Republic

On October 10, a U.S. Border Patrol agent shot and killed 16-year-old Jose Antonio Elena Rodriguez at the border of Mexico and Arizona. According to details in a new autopsy report, Elena Rodgriguez may have been shot as many as 11 times, all but one bullet hitting the teen from behind.

The details are still emerging in an ongoing FBI investigation. Officials say an agent opened fire on the Mexican teen, who was throwing rocks over the border fence. Under the Border Patrol’s current policy, lethal force can be used against someone throwing rocks if agents view a threat. But according to Nogales, Arizona police, it is extremely unlikely those rocks could have hit someone standing next to the fence.

An independent medical examiner who was not involved in the autopsy said the shooting “could be consistent with someone being shot and falling, with subsequent shots hitting the prone body.”

Since 2010, Border Patrol agents have killed at least 19 people. These investigations take years to resolve, and even then it is “extremely rare” for border authorities to face criminal charges. The Department of Homeland Security is reviewing its policy that allows deadly force against rock-throwers, as its current policies face sharp criticism of human rights abuse.

The U.S. federal prison population has increased almost 790 percent since 1980 from about 25,000 inmates to 219,000 in 2012, according to a new Congressional Research Service report. Federal prisons make up the largest component of a U.S. prison system that dwarfs all others in the world. The agency tasked with providing policy analysis to Congress attributes the spike to a host of tough-on-crime reforms that include draconian mandatory minimum sentences, the elimination of parole for any federal crime committed after 1987, and increasing enforcement by federal officials:

Research by the Urban Institute found that increases in expected time served contributed to half of the prison population growth between 1998 and 2010. The increase in amount of time inmates were expected to serve was probably partially the result of inmates receiving longer sentences and partially the result of inmates being required to serve approximately 85% of their sentences after Congress eliminated parole for federal prisoners.

Noting diminishing safety returns in incarcerating nonviolent individuals in prison for short-term stints, CRS urges Congress to consider repealing or reducing the sentences for mandatory minimums, repealing federal criminal statutes wholesale, and expanding early release and probation programs, particularly for nonviolent criminals, which in 2010 made up 93.6 percent of the federal prison population. Those incarcerated for drug and immigration offenses make up well over half of the federal prison population.

Cash-strapped states overwhelmed by the immense costs of their bloated prisons are increasingly turning to criminal justice reform that favors alternatives to incarceration. In South Carolina, a 2010 program to divert more nonviolent prisoners to probation saved the state $3 million in just one year, while providing the tools for nonviolent offenders to successfully rehabilitate.

The federal government has yet to follow suit, although Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy recently called sentencing and drug reform a major priority for the coming congressional session. And just yesterday, two members of Congress introduced a new measure to regulate marijuana like alcohol in those states that have legalized it.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colorado — There may be no issue in American politics that’s more widely supported today than requiring background checks for all gun purchases.

Getting 91 percent of Americans to agree about anything is difficult. Even if football or apple pie were put to a vote, it’s unlikely they’d get anywhere near the unanimity of support Americans have for universal background checks on gun purchases.

There are many good reasons why Americans support background checks for firearms, as attendees at a recent gun show in Colorado Springs explained. Here are five reasons they noted:

1. The seller gets a clear conscience knowing they’re not selling to criminals. One private seller at the show said he enjoys the peace of mind of knowing that he’s not arming criminals. “I don’t want to sell to someone that’s going to use it for something illegal,” he said. “I think you should have a very thorough background check.”

2. Prevents people who are mentally ill from obtaining firearms. Sonny, who attended the show with his young son, said he fully supported background checks in order to keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill. “Do a background check,” he argued, “make sure that they’re well up [in the head] before you start giving them a weapon that can do mass things like that.”

3. Background checks aren’t bad for business. As one dealer who’d been selling firearms for decades noted to ThinkProgress, conducting background checks hasn’t hurt business. “Doesn’t bother me,” he said. “It’s the way I’ve done it.”

4. Background checks don’t infringe on the Second Amendment. Paul, a Colorado Springs resident, argued that background checks don’t infringe on his personal liberties. “I’ll do whatever they want me to do,” Paul said about background checks, “just don’t take my guns away.”

5. “It tends to keep the bad guys away.” An NRA volunteer from Colorado Springs explained that background checks help prevent people who would commit crimes from obtaining a firearm in the first place. Listen to it: