Senate-designate Roland Burris is turned away from Senate Tuesday.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on “In Session.”

Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

Sticky wicket.”

That was one of my grandmother’s favorite expressions. As in, “That sure us a sticky wicket you’ve gone and gotten yourself into this time”.

And I love the sound of it; but it’s not all that often that I can say “sticky wicket” and really mean it. Now thanks to Governor Rod Blagojevich, however, we have a real sticky wicket up on Capitol Hill. We have a governor who has been charged,with unimaginable corruption but who still has the power to appoint a replacement for an empty senate seat. Not just any senate seat but the seat vacated by Barack Obama. And before that governor can be removed from office he quickly makes his choice, naming Roland Burris, a man with 30 years of public service under his belt and untainted by the stink of the Blagojevich scandal.

And that’s the sticky wicket.

Because whoever takes the seat will have to win it again. And it’s a seat democrats cannot afford to lose. But since they likely can’t challenge Burris on the legal merits, their only choice will be to challenge him as a political matter. Tough to do with no other African Americans in the senate, support for Burris at home and no indication that he’s done anything wrong.

And so as my Granny used to say, it sure is a sticky wicket we’ve gotten ourselves into this time. And it’s anyone’s guess how it will turn out.

Keep reading…

Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

Today we take a moment to remember Odetta. Odetta’s voice was beautiful but she was more than just a singer.  She brought the tradition of American folk music to the Civil Rights Movement.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on “In Session”

The U.S. Navy Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

A federal judge has ordered the immediate release of five Algerian prisoners from the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. The men have been held there for nearly seven years and the ruling is an indictment of Bush administration policies that led it to sweep up innocent men along with hardened terrorists in the so-called war on terror. And this judge, Judge Richard Leon, is no liberal apologist for Al Qaeda. This is a judge appointed by President Bush. And the administration fully expected him to rule otherwise.

But a judge, whatever his political stripes, is still a judge. And this one rightly found that seven years of waiting for our legal system to charge anyone, even GITMO detainees, is enough. The justice department has not said whether it will appeal. But of course, a whole lot is about to change at justice with a new attorney general coming to town, and a president-elect who has vowed to close GITMO once and for all.

When he does, the camp will go down in history as a sad reminder of what happens when mistakes are made at the highest levels of our government, and no one has the courage to acknowledge it.

Editors note: See more of Jami’s posts at the In Session Blog.

Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on “In Session”

Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

The lines are long this election day and it is a glorious thing. Because there is no right more sacred in a democracy than the right to vote.

And for years we have taken that precious right for granted. Too many black folks have taken it for granted despite the heroes who gave their lives to give us the right to be counted as full citizens, empowered with this right to choose. For too long women have stayed home on Election Day despite our brave foremothers who so bravely stood for the right of their daughters and granddaughters to have the same choice as men. For too long the working poor have not appreciated the power we have to change our circumstances by casting a ballot.

But not today. Not anymore. Because after eight long years, set in motion by an election in 2000 that was stolen, not won, after six years of war with the wrong enemy and 4,189 soldiers lost and $700 billion later on the heels of a failed economic policy that led to the biggest bail out in U.S. history, Americans are waking up to a new day today. Election Day.

So make sure you are a part of it. Make sure your voice is heard. Don’t take anything for granted. And get out and vote.

Editors note: See more of Jami’s posts at the In Session Blog

Salim Hamdan

Editor’s Note: You can read more Jami Floyd blogs on “In Session”

Jami Floyd
AC360° Contributor
In Session Anchor

Rarely has the word “guilty” meant as little as it does in the case of Salim Hamdan, the first prisoner to stand trial for war crimes at Gitmo.

Because it’s not a trial really. It’s a Military Commission, which means different rules, a wider scope of evidence, a jury of six military officers and a military judge. The former driver for Osama Bin Laden was accused of swearing his loyalty to Al Qaida and helping Bin Laden to escape after 9/11. Now that he’s been convicted, Hamdan faces life in prison.

The chief military prosecutor in the case calls the trial “an open and fair and thorough process,” one which strikes a balance between security and Hamdan’s right to present his case.  But I respectfully disagree. This proceeding was neither speedy nor public. And in this country, that is not a fair trial at all.

Read more of Jami Floyd’s comments on the In Session blog.

Jami Floyd
360° Contributor, In Session Anchor

Editor’s Note: Watch Jami Floyd tonight at 10pm on Anderson Cooper 360°

There is a reason two appellate courts in Texas — first a three-court panel of the state court of appeals and now the Texas Supreme Court — have ordered the return of children removed from a polygamist ranch to their mothers: It is the right thing to do.

Not as a matter of sympathy, or morality, or decency, but as a matter of constitutional law.
To be sure, the Texas Supreme Court today did not specifically find the absence of wrongdoing at the ranch — where authorities contend sexual abuse of young girls is routine. Indeed, the court acknowledged the state’s interest in protecting children from harm. But state agents cannot simply storm homes, polygamist or otherwise, to remove children without a showing of abuse. Suspicions are not enough.

It is perhaps difficult for anyone who cares about the children or their mothers (who many believe are brainwashed from birth) to understand.

But for those of us who choose to become lawyers, these are the easy cases. These are the very people our constitution is designed to protect — the least popular among us, lest they be subjected to the tyranny of the majority.

Read more of Jami Floyd’s comment on the In Session blog

Polygamist leader Warren Jeffs is behind bars but his Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is going strong, with 10,000 members. This, despite 165 years of intolerance for these people who engage in a very different form of faith.

That’s why the latest raid in Texas raises the question of religious freedom. The FLDS counsels young women to “give themselves to their husbands.” And we all know these folks are far from your run of the mill congregation.

Authorities claim that this latest raid comes on the heels of a 16-year-old girl claiming she’d been married to a 50-year-old man. In Texas, a girl that young can’t marry, even with her parents’ permission. But so far, the girl hasn’t turned up. And hundreds of women and children have been rousted from their homes.

If a crime was committed, by all means prosecute. But to target religious people for practicing the tenets of their faith, well, in this lawyer’s opinion that’s not prosecution, it’s persecution.

- Jami Floyd/”In Session” Anchor and 360° Contributor
Read more Jami Floyd blogs on “In Session”

I don’t know what to say about all these sex scandals.  Spitzer and then Patterson here in New York, McGreevey next door in New Jersey, and now the mayor of Detroit, and of course the granddaddy of them all — my old boss, Bill Clinton.

When that happened, so many of my White House friends were ready to condemn a man to whom they’d professed loyalty only a day before. But not me. Cause I don’t like to judge.  I was raised as a Christian and was always taught to judge not lest we be judged. And now, as a criminal defense attorney I presume folks innocent until proven guilty.

Even as a journalist, my job is to report the facts.  Not to judge them.  So here’s what I think. If public officials break the law for sex or for any other reason, then we should hold them accountable.  But if the mayor, governor, or even the President has some problem in his life that is purely personal, it’s none of our business.

Like the man said; “let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” 

- Jami Floyd, “In Session” Anchor/360° Contributor

Read more Jami Floyd blogs on “In Session”

By now you’ve heard that Eliot Spitzer has stepped down as Governor of New York.  But he still could face serious criminal charges, and that got me thinking about prostitution.

I’ve tried a lot of those cases. And here’s what you learn right away: as much as the sex trade is about sex, it’s also about trade. Business. Supply and demand.

Where I practiced law in California, the criminal code is gender neutral. It targets anyone engaged in the commercial sex trade. The girls, their johns, even the pimps when you can catch them.

Not so here in New York where the women involved in prostitution have long been treated more harshly than the men. But Eliot Spitzer changed all that, with a new law that increases penalties for the men who solicit sex.

The thinking?  Cut off demand and supply will dry up.  And that’s the tragic irony. Now, it seems, Governor Spitzer may be one of the very johns his new law seeks to punish. 

- Jami Floyd, “In Session” Anchor/360° Contributor

Read more Jami Floyd blogs on “In Session”

Yesterday, I mentioned that Charles Manson didn’t get the death penalty. To which, a couple of you pointed out that Manson’s jury did recommend death.

And you’re right. But before Manson could be executed the Supreme Court threw out the death penalty in California and everywhere else, sending the state legislators back to the drawing board to fashion capital punishment laws consistent with the Constitution.

So like I said, Charles Manson did not ultimately get the death penalty. And this semantic distinction misses the point, anyway. The point is that capital punishment is constitutionally problematic. That’s why, this term, the U.S. Supreme Court is yet again considering whether we can kill people, this time by lethal injection.

The three-drug cocktail is preferred in most states and the only option for Bobby Cutts if he’s sentenced to death. We’ve tried hanging, firing squad, and of course, “Old Sparky,” the electric chair. Lethal injection is supposed to be more humane. But maybe, after all this trial and error, we should ask ourselves whether there’s any way to kill a person that is consistent with our values as Americans. That’s the real question.

And the Last Word.

–Jami Floyd, In Session anchor
http://insession.blogs.cnn.com/