GUANTANAMO DIARY
There is a sense here that the U.S. military leaders overseeing these trials are making much up as they go. This confounds the very notion of the "rule of law." Here, the Presiding Officer writes a memoranda and that becomes the law. And yet, the memos and documents to date do not answer really basic practical questions. Someone will ask, "May I have access to this piece of evidence?" and will be told by the Presiding Officer, "Well, I don't know."
(HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST)

SUNSHINE PATRIOTS
"The GOP's champions of this war had a hard time finding their own way to the battlefield"
(VILLAGE VOICE)

PART-TIME CONTSTITUTION
"Four suspected al Qaeda terrorists will face military trials this week at the Navy base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, in historic legal proceedings that have not been conducted by the U.S. government since World War II and are unlike anything most Americans face in the criminal justice system," The Washington Post reports.
The Cato Project's Handbook for Congress warns against the establishment of military tribunals for civilians, noting that the Constitution's jury trial clause is "not a 'peace provision' that can be suspended during wartime."
(CATO PROJECT)

JOINT MOTIONS
"A group of 38 California medical marijuana patients filed legal motions on Tuesday asking the federal government to give them back their pot worth nearly a million dollars. "
(REUTER'S, unearthed by Paul Whitehurst)