This (via Brian Rogers, Chron.com) is what I'll be watching when I'm not otherwise occupied in the next couple of weeks: the hearing in the 177th District Court on whether Texas's death penalty procedure violates the Eight Amendment because it creates a significant risk that an innocent person will be executed.Signed by capital defense veteran Dick Burr, the motion filed by the defense provides a thorough and

Dear "Whatever it Takes" folks,I have often said that a word for people like you who expect the government to keep them safe is "victims." Here is a good functional explanation of why:It’s one of Robert’s Rules: When seconds count, the police are just minutes away. (I didn’t make that one up, but it’s one of the Rules nonetheless.)So I’m always stumped by the credulous, even irrational,

Dear submissive "Whatever it Takes" subjects:TSA is grooming your children. (Via Ted Frank's TSA Abuse blog, which I keep handy in case my blood pressure drops precipitously.)Love,Mark.p.s. TSA would never hire a pedophile, would they?

So I’ve written a bit about TSA, about scope-and-grope, about the minute risk of air travel, and about the popular “whatever it takes” response to complaints about the TSA’s invasion of our liberty and our privacy.So what does any of this have to do with the tao of criminal-defense trial lawyering?

A common refrain among those who are happy trading a quick grope or some nude pictures for permission to travel about this once-free land is, “if you don’t like it, don’t fly.” To them, we are “thin-skinned” because we don’t want our children leered at by TSA agents of dubious provenance. Those of us who refuse to allow the government to have its way with us are

Assume that those who would plan terror attacks have at least as much information as we have. They know that "it remains unclear whether the AIT would have detected the weapon used in the December 2009 incident"; that "only 2 percent of all passengers would have been picked at random to go through" these questionably-effectual scanners; and that "random" means people who look like they will readily

A hearty "thank you" to the Defending People reader who nominated this blog to the ABA Journal's Blawg 100 popularity contest. Now go vote for someone in the Criminal Justice category—Gideon, Seddiq, Pryor, Greenfield, Berman, or Sylvester; hell, vote for Scheidegger if you're into that sort of thing. Anyone but me.Oh, yeah, and the IMHO category too. Tannebaum, Randazza, Charon …

Leslie Malkoff was headed to Dallas with her husband Kurt. Malkoff said she thinks people are missing the whole point of the scanners."You know what, everybody is so afraid, more afraid of being felt up than blown up. You know what, whatever it takes, I say, not to have someone take a bomb in their underwear. Whatever. So you're fine with either one? I'm fine with either

The statist media’s spin on National Opt-Out day is that it was a failure:As of 5 p.m. Wednesday, Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson airport said 39 (out of 47,000) fliers opted out of the scanners. All continued to their flights after being screened, while at LAX, there were 113 opt-outs across eight terminals, which was less than 1 percent of the total travelers screened. (ABC.)In the spirit of Defending People

Marc A. Thiessen, writing in National Review Online, is apparently shocked. Shocked: The current uproar could happen only in a country that has begun to forget the horror of 9/11. Indeed, it appears many in the country have forgotten. A new Washington Post–ABC News poll found that 66 percent of Americans say that “the risk of terrorism on airplanes is not that great.” Sixty-six percent. What does