Researchers at UC Berkeley say that while the percentage of Americans identifying with no particular religious group has doubled, the percentage of people who believe in "God" has held steady. Their conclusion? The drift of the largest "Christian" groups to radical-right positions drives people who believe in God away from churches. I know several people who've been in that exact situation.

Likely right-wing response: "Well, the study is from Berkeley, of course it's going to lie about God..."

The Supreme Court today upheld the death sentence for a Tennessee inmate whose attorney, during his trial, presented no witnesses and made no closing argument. By an 8-1 vote, the justices said this was his attorney's legal strategy, and he doesn't get another trial just because it didn't work. By most accounts, the guy looks guilty as hell, but Justice Stevens says it's really not kosher to sentence a man to death when the defense "entirely failed to subject the prosecution's case to meaningful adversarial testing."

I thought even if everyone "knows" the guy is guilty that the prosecution was still supposed to fight to prove it. The opposite is a guilty plea, no? Maybe I'm a fogey like Justice Stevens.

Only by chance did a St. Petersburg Times reporter come across a juvenile restitution hearing for a 16-year-old boy who had pleaded guilty to stealing a car and burglarizing another. The boy had no lawyer, as his mother could no longer afford the attorney who had represented him through the plea agreement -- and the judge, a George W. Bush appointee just after the November 2000 elections, made the boy represent himself. This despite the boy's repeated protests that he wanted an attorney, that he didn't understand the proceedings, and that he didn't know what to do. His mother tried to help him from the front row, so the judge threw her out of the courtroom.

What was that bit about "equal protection for all who can afford it?" (found via Obscure Store)