We may be able to learn more about the controversial prosecution of two Border Patrol agents after all.

Thanks again, Mr. FOIA!This week, U.S. District Judge Richard Leon agreed with Judicial Watch that the Department of Homeland Security may be compelled under FOIA to cough up some key investigative records. Quick recap: Border Patrol agents Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean were convicted of wounding a Mexican native and then covering it up. President George Bush commuted their sentences as one of his last acts in office.

Judicial Watch filed a FOIA request two years ago for documents relating to the prosecution of Ramos and Compean. In particular, the FOIA request targeted documents concerning the man they shot, Osbaldo Aldrete-Davila. The Mexican national had testified for the prosecution. The feds said the law enforcement documents were exempt, and declined to do a more thorough search.

Judge Leon says: Think again. Some records, like rap sheets, may properly be held back from FOIA requests because of the clear privacy interests involved. In this case, though, Judicial Watch was asking for documents covering potential grants of immunity to Aldrete-Davila and records about his various entries into the United States. Noted the judge:

"These records could well be suffused, from top to bottom, with information about DOl's performance of its duties. Unlike with rap sheets...the balance between private and public interests in the records requested here is a much closer call. Defendant therefore must conduct an assessment of each responsive document to determine whether it is exempt."

A Suits & Sentences tip of the hat to a really great web project jointly undertaken by law students and journalism students at the University of Montana. Together, they are showing how the immediacy and infinite space of the web can be harnessed toward coverage of a fascinating criminal case.

The Grace Case Project is described as "a collaborative undertaking dedicated to providing accurate, timely coverage of the criminal prosecution of U.S. v W.R. Grace and five of its executives and managers." In the case,  the company and five former Grace executives are charged with criminal endangerment, among other things, for allowing residents of Libby, Mont. to be exposed to asbestos as a result of the company's vermiculite mine.

Some 200 deaths and thousands of illnesses have been linked to the asbestos exposure. The case has received some mainstream coverage.But the University of Montana students are really digging in. Guided by Andrew King-Ries of the law school and Nadia White of the journalism school, the Grace Case Project is offering up minute-by-minute trial Tweets, profiles, analysis and documentation. Of U.S. District Judge Donald Molloy, for instance, student reporter Nate Hegyi writes:"In 2006, Molloy added a public shaming component to the house arrest and probation sentence of a man who lied in his presentencing report. The man said he was a Marine and fought in Panama. When that proved untrue, Molloy ordered him to spend 50 hours in public wearing a sign that said, 'I am a liar. I am not a Marine.'"

Check out the site, and see the future of legal coverage.

Jack Groenendal loved porn, way too much.

The Michigan resident estimates that he "viewed thousands of adult pornography images over many years and belonged to between eighty and one hundred Yahoo pornography groups," according to the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

But in an interesting ruling Thursday, the Sixth Circuit also determined that Groenendal's "undisputed and remarkable repentance" merits attention in lowering his prison sentence.

Groendal, now 49, is currently held at the low-security Elkton Federal Correctional Institution. He was represented on appeal by Jeffrey Crampton of Grand Rapids, Mich.

From Suits & Sentences' reading, the decision is broadly important because the Sixth Circuit is now formally joining eight other circuits in establishing the rule that "penetration of a prepubescent child by an adult male constitutes inherently sadistic conduct." This means: child porn is sadism per se, and hence merits stiffer sentences.

But beyond that, the case is poignant because of Groenendal's own progression. His porn appetite led him to join a Yahoo group called IngasPlace, where members swap sexually explicit pictures. He dutifully uploaded the necessary photos in 2003, but then within a few weeks he dropped his membership and deleted the IngasPlace images. He was struggling to get free. Noted the Sixth Circuit:

"Unlike most pornography addicts, he sought professional help on his own initiative and has reformed his behavior...confessing to his wife, his pastor, and his boss. Groenendal joined a support group for pornography addicts and attended weekly meetings for both individual and group counseling. Groenendal continued his weekly counseling sessions for two years, spending more than seven thousand dollars
on therapy and becoming a mentor for other pornography addicts."

All of which, the circuit panel concluded, was a good argument for why the trial judge should consider shaving some months of the original 42-month sentence.

Slate has this entertaining account of Dawn Johnsen's confirmation hearing Wednesday before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The hearing featured the usual jocularity over who went to what law school. Democratic Sen. Birch Bayh of Indiana talked up his home state law school, where Johnsen now teaches, and Republican Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania brought up, as he often does, dear old Yale Law School, from which both he and Johnsen graduated.

Republican senators made clear their dissatisfaction with Johnsen as the next head of the Office of Legal Counsel; or, at the least, they wanted to rough her up a bit. Sometimes, this was done by remote control. Republican Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, for instance, declared at the hearing's start that he had "some very serious concerns about this nomination," but then he had another meeting to go to. But rest assured, he had good, tough questions to submit in writing.

Republican Sen. Arlen Specter, though he made a point of indicating that he shared Johnsen's emphatically pro-choice views, added that "in your writings, you go pretty far to one end of the political spectrum, the positions you've taken on pro-choice." But when pressed about a line she had once written, seemingly striking an analogy between slavery and government restrictions of abortion, Johnsen was able to plead the "that was a long time ago and besides it was only a passing footnote defense."

Said Johnsen:

"I did write that brief 20 years ago. And footnote 23, I found -- makes a suggestion that there may be an analogy between -- not with this article -- that said pregnancy, which I've been blessed with twice and have two wonderful sons, but forced childbirth? This is a brief that I filed arguing that the right to privacy protects the right of women and their families to make these choices, and that Roe v. Wade should be upheld...And I will say, categorically, I do not believe the Thirteenth Amendment is relevant at all."

In truth, the Republicans didn't lay a glove on her.

McClatchy Newspapers has this report about the ongoing investigation into the 2001 murder of former intern Chandra Levy. Washington, D.C. detectives headed to California on Wednesday; presumably, but not definitively, to follow up on the individual who anonymous sources have told the New York Times, Washington Post and other outlets is the suspect, federal prison inmate Ingmar A. Guandique.

Guandique, after bouncing around a bit through the federal penal system, has been at U.S. Penitentiary Victorville since Aug. 15, 2006. It's a high-security institution, designed for about 900 prisoners but currently holding about 1,600.

The Victorville penitentiary is part of a larger federal penal complex on the edge of the Mojave Desert. It's probably no picnic. Last August, according to this website that tracks such things, the penitentiary was put on lockdown after one inmate died and five staff members were assaulted; gang activity was involved, according to prison officials..

Today's Supreme Court 9-0 opinion in the freedom-of-religion case Pleasant Grove City v. Summum is bracketed by four concurring opinions. Scotusblog offers this assessment to make sense of the decision, which empowers a city to refuse to allow a religious group to erect a monument to the Seven Aphorisms.

The always provocative Ann Althouse calls the decision "quite correct" here, and the Daily Kos has a very lively assesment here.

A quite different take is here.

Federal judges don't like to admit error. They certainly don't like to reinstate a case that they've previously dismissed.

So take note: this week, two FBI alumni with a big beef against the Bureau convinced U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler to reverse course on a two-year-old decision. The procedural development, while technical, means two law enforcement veterans with a powerful story to tell will get more of a chance to tell it.

On Tuesday, acknowledging "extraordinary circumstances," Judge Kessler agreed to reinstate one of the agents' claims against the Bureau. The judge reinstated a claim under the Administrative Procedures Act that she had earlier dismissed nearly two years ago.

Suits & Sentences, frankly, is not deft enough on a moment's notice to fully follow the reasoning. The underlying case, though, has plenty of human drama. This, in part, is a whistleblower deal, pursued over the past seven years with the help of Judicial Watch. Put simply, retired special agent John Vincent and a current special agent named Robert G. Wright, Jr. say the FBI unconstitutionally denied them permission to publish criticisms of the FBI's counter-terrorism efforts.

Wright wanted to publish a 500-page manuscript called "Fatal Betrayals," concerning in large part what he calls the Bureau's mishandling of investigations into pre-9/11 terrorist threats. Both Wright and Vincent also wanted to publish information coming out of interviews conducted by former New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

Oy, it gets complicated. The FBI's pre-publication review -- similar to what the CIA requires of its current and former employees -- identified 18 percent of Wright's manuscript as needing revisions. Wright made the changes. Then, the FBI denied him permission altogether to publish his expose. Then, 15 months later, the FBI changed its position again and said part of the manuscript could be published. Then...

So the case continues.

The Miami Herald's Leslie Clark follows up on the case of The Princess, a former DEA informant who lived a dangerous life and then sued the feds for failing to protect her while undercover in Colombia.

Clark's story is an amazing yarn, filled with drugs and derring-do pulled from thousands of pages of court documents and transcripts. It is a follow-up to an earlier Suits & Sentences posting, and if it's not made for Hollywood, then Suits & Sentences doesn't know what is.

Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg sounds pretty darn sharp for someone who is, you know, dying. Maybe someone should tell  Doctor Republican Sen. Jim Bunning of Kentucky.

The Lousville Courier Journal has the story, of how Bunning over the weekend declared that it was his expectation that Justice Ginsburg would be dead within nine months. Bunning was giving his learned prognosis, apparently, in the context of warning his constituents about the dangers of an Obama appointment to the court.

Clearly, it's time for a debate between Justice Ginsburg and Herr Doktor Sen. Bunning. It could be a chance to see who is more on the ball. Or, put another way, who is compos mentos and who is not. And just to even the playing field, Suits & Sentences will allow Sen. Bunning to use a TelePrompter, just as he is accustomed to using during debates.

In the two cases heard heard Monday morning, three weeks after her pancreatic surgery, Justice Ginsburg was a persistent participant in oral argument. Here, illustratively, is Justice Ginsburg pressing questions concerning peremptory challenges in the case Rivera v. Illinois:

Now answer the question that you didn't answer; that is, what is the consequence under State law of an erroneous denial of a peremptory? You would have no objection to such a remand?"

The oral argument transcripts in Rivera and the other case heard Monday, United States v. Navaho Nation, show Justice Ginsburg definitely on her game.

Word spoken by Justice Ginsburg in the two oral arguments:                       816
Words spoken by Justice Clarence Thomas in the two oral arguments:            0
Words written by Sen. Bunning in his apology to Justice Ginsburg:                42
Number of times Bunning misspelled Ginsburg's name in original apology:          1

The Supreme Court on Monday released the schedule for April oral arguments.

The cases, set for argument starting April 20, include a couple of sexy ones. The highest-profile, most intensely anticipated argument will probably be the hour-long session now set for 1 p.m. on Monday, April 27. In the case now denoted Al-Marri v. Spagone (originally Al-Marri v. Pucciarelli), a war-on-terror detainee challenges his indefinite detention.

Eighteen amicus briefs have been filed in this case; remarkably, every one is on the side of Ali Saleh Kahlah Al-Marri. The most anticipated brief, though, will be filed in or around March 23, when the Obama administration weighs in.

The full oral argument calendar is available at:

Download Scotus April