The D.C. Madam -- the nom de tabloid of the late Deborah Jean Palfrey -- gets some last words in posthumously on the first anniversary of her suicide.

Palfrey's attorney, the since-suspended Montgomery Blair Sibley, has now published a 600-page account of the whole, err affair. The awkwardly titled book, Why Just Her: The Judicial Lynching of the D.C. Madam, is said by its author to describe the last 20 months of Palfrey's life.

This, of course, sets up the classic Washington, D.C. book-handling tradition of racing to the index to see who's name gets mentioned. And in this case, hopefully it's not your own. But not so fast; notes Sibley's press release:

"While Court orders presently prevent Mr. Sibley from releasing the names of heretofore unknown public-figure clients of Jeane's escort service, the Court-ordered suppression of those significant names - which were identified through subpoenas but not publically revealed - is detailed and is indeed the larger and much more important story."

The book seems a bit of a hash, padded with extensive court transcripts and e-mail exchanges and featuring chapter titles like "License to Screw: The James Bond Defense."

Without naming names, can the book possibly be worth the $25.99 asking price? Welllll....an excerpt aired on the book's Web site purports to identify various escort agency clients by positions including several prominent D.C. law firms, several defense and national security related professionals, several other government agencies etc. So for the diligent and the dirty minded, there might be some nuggets to mine here. Sibley states, perhaps a tad melodramatically:

"I have now securely stored these records on off-shore servers to be publicly released in the event of my curious disappearance or demise."

Smart people with something interesting to say gather Friday at the National Press Club, when the American Constitution Society hosts a Law Day panel discussion entitled "Keeping Faith with the Constitution."

And the lunch is free!

The success or failure of events like this, of course, all turn upon the speakers. But it's not simply a matter of bringing in big names; indeed, big names on a panel discussion can be like redwood trees, blocking out the sunlight and forbidding other growth. Diversity of viewpoint is also crucial, to get the sparks flying.

This panel fits the bill. Slate's Dahlia Lithwick, a well-prepared and good-humored soul, will moderate. Stanford Law School's Pamela Karlan and Berkeley Law School's Goodwin Liu -- Suits & Sentences suggest that Professor Liu be asked to explain, again, what happened to the old Boalt Hall name - will be there, along with Pamela Harris of O'Melveny & Myers and Charles Cooper, formerly of the Reagan administration's Justice Department.

Lunch starts at 12, and the panel begins at 12:30 p.m.

The House of Representatives has approved the Local Law Enforcement Hate Crimes Prevention Act of 2009. Or, as some call it, LLEHCA. Or, as still others call it, a big, fat invitation to constitutional challenge.

The question is: can this law survive the inevitable courtroom battle?

The legislation approved by a 249-175 vote, in brief, puts a federal hook into any violent felony that "is motivated by prejudice based on the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, or disability of the victim, or is a violation of the State, local, or Tribal hate crime laws."

Or, as House Republicans bluntly put in their dissenting views at the House Judiciary Committee: "criminals who kill a homosexual, transvestite or transsexual will be punished more harshly than criminals who kill a police officer, a member of the military, a child, a senior citizen, or any other person." Note the GOP's not-so subtle invidious comparison between the new protected class -- homosexual, transvestite or transsexual -- and the implicitly innocent cops, soldiers and little old ladies left out in the cold.

How about the transvestite cop and the homosexual senior citizen, Suits & Sentences wants to know?

Suits & Sentences understands the politics of the legislation. It is a proxy, a signifier of support for certain populations. Democrats: If you vote against hate crimes bill, you are voting to leave the vulnerable population exposed to attack. Republicans: If you vote for hate crimes bill, you love the gays more than you love our kind of people.

Republicans, in their dissenting views, do raise several potential constitutional infirmities. Some, Suits & Sentences isn't so sure about. For instance, the GOP skeptics raise questions about whether First Amendment problems arise from the possibility that "religious leaders or members of religious groups could be prosecuted criminally based on their speech or protected activities." The skeptics suggest that conspiracy or incitement charges might be leveled. This seems a stretch, an effort to rally religious right opposition to the bill.

But how about attacking the law on the grounds that it overreaches the congressional powers permitted under the Interstate Commerce Clause? Republicans note that the Supreme Court, in the 2000 case United States v. Morrison, struck down provisions of the Violence Against Women Act on those very grounds.

"The Constitution requires a distinction between what is truly national and what is truly local," then-Chief Justice William Rehnquist wrote for the 5-4 majority.

Two of the justices in that majority, Rehnquist and Sandra Day O'Connor, have since been replaced by two other conservatives, John Roberts Jr. and Samuel Alito, who are presumably likely to hold similarly restrictive views.

So is this where the next line of attack opens? And how will that happen: do we wait for a prosecution under the new law so it is challenged as applied, or can there be a facial challenge to the language of the law itself? And on whose behalf?

Yale Law School Dean Harold Koh gets his day to shine Tuesday, as the Senate Foreign Relations Committee conducts a confirmation hearing into his nomination to serve as chief legal adviser to the State Department.

In anticipation of the hearing, the American Society of International Law has revived a useful memo on the position. The conservative Heritage Foundation posts some provocative questions for her nominee here. Suits & Sentences plans to live blog the hearing, scheduled to start at 2:15 p.m. EST.

4: 00 p.m.

    It's a wrap. Dean Koh seems to be heading toward confirmation.

3:55 p.m.

    Republican Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi asks whether Koh believes the Bush administration's 2003 invasion of Iraq was illegal under international law. The answer appears to be yes; yes it was. Which would seem to open up a whole line of follow-up, consequential questions, none of which Sen. Wicker really pursues.

    "The U.N. resolutions authorized us to contain Saddam Hussein, and not go in to remove him," Koh says in response to a later question.

3:45 p.m.

    Proving that all politics, even foreign politics, can be excruciatingly local, Republican Sen. John Barrasso of gun-loving Wyoming presses Koh on whether he believes the Second Amendment supports an individual right to bear arms.

    Relationship to the actual job of State Department legal adviser: Unknown.

    Koh essentially answers in the only way possible, noting that the Supreme Court's decision in the Heller case is "the law of the land."

3:26 p.m.

    Republican Sen. Johnny Isakson of Georgia further questions Koh on assertions made in articles that Koh would yield too much to international sentiment or international law. Then, he tries taking Koh into an even trickier area, asking whether legal advisers should be held accountable for their advice by future administrations.

    See, e.g., the Bush administration 'torture memos' now under investigation.

    "If by taking this job I am buying myself lawsuits and prosecutions, that wasn't part of the original plan," Koh said, before adding that "a process is unfolding" now to examine the Bush administration's legal eagles. In other words, he's not being drawn into that ambush.

    But Isakson's questions were all prefaced with words, and expressed in a tone, that made clear this opposition will not be muscularly pursued. The Republicans seem to be going through the motions with this; they know Koh is rolling toward confirmation and will not be busting any lances on this.

3:20 p.m.

    Democratic Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin reports he first got to know Koh three decades ago, when they were both at Oxford. Feingold was a Rhodes Scholar and Koh was a Marshall Scholar. So they know the secret handshake, for sure.

3:13 p.m.

    The first hint of skepticism arises with Republican Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, who first praises Koh's academic and personal background but then cautions he was left a tad disappointed following an earlier private meeting. Corker is a smart conservative, a potentially dangerous opponent if he chooses to be, and he  presses Koh on a past statement that the United States had acted in a "lawless" fashion. Torture, Koh explains.

    "I am an academic," Koh tells the senator. "The job of an academic is to put ideas into the marketplace."

    "Can you separate those personal views you have from giving absolute neutral advice?" Corker asks.

    Koh was ready for it, quoting verbatim from the former legal adviser to Mr. Republican Secretary of State, John Foster Dulles.    

3:00 p.m.

    Sen. Richard Lugar raises but then brushes past the fevered criticisms that TV It-Boy Glenn Beck and his ilk have raised about Koh's supposed excessive reverence for international law. One thing is clear: the ever-cautious Sen. Lugar does not have any interest in associating himself with the Right's louder Beckian factions.

2:48 p.m.

    Dean Koh, after stating that "returning to government service would allow me to repay a debt," strikes right at the differences between the Obama and Bush administrations. He underscores the point that "making and keeping international promises...makes us stronger," and stresses his interest in "respecting constitutional checks and balances."

    Take that, John "Blow Up the UN" Bolton and David "Screw Congress" Addington.

    Responding to a set-up question from Sen. John Kerry, Kohn also confronts the conservative opposition to him, stating that "it's not new and it's not radical" to recognize that "we live in an interdependent world."

2:41 p.m. 

    Sen. Joseph Lieberman, the former Democrat and current Independent senator from Connecticut -- and a Yale Law School alum himself -- introduces Koh as a "brilliant legal scholar, " a man of "integrity, honor and graciousness" and as someone who is "actually qualified for this position. So there's one yes vote...and then Senate Foreign Relations Committee member, Sen. Christopher Dodd, D-Conn., chimes in with further heartfelt support.

    But more useful might be the actions of the committee's ranking Republican, Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana. Sen. Lugar met with Koh last week and submitted a series of 40 questions, including on some of the pressing issues Koh will face; the questions, and answers, are available here.

A potentially blockbuster lawsuit against the firm formerly known as Blackwater continues apace in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C.

The families of Iraqi civilians killed in Baghdad's Al Watahba Square on Sept. 9, 2007 and in Baghdad's Nisour Square a week later are pursuing wrongful death claims. The lawsuit is intriguing both for the underlying claims -- what civil responsibility does the private security firm have for the use of violent tactics in a combat zone?-- and for the potential to shed light on Blackwater's secretive world.

For instance, consider this summary of the complaint quoted Monday by U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton:

“Blackwater allegedly knew at the time of the shooting incidents in question that “25 percent or more of its ‘shooters’ were ingesting steroids or other judgment-altering substances, yet failed to take effective steps to stop drug use."

On Monday, Walton determined that he wasn't yet ready to rule on Blackwater's request to either dismiss the consolidated lawsuits or transfer them out of the District of Columbia. Blackwater's attorneys had sought to move the case to the Eastern District of Virginia; presumably, from the belief that it would offer a more sympathetic venue.

Judge Walton sounded clearly skeptical of the plaintiffs' claims, pressed by the Philadelphia firm Burke O'Neil and the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights, that D.C. is a proper venue because of Blackwater's contractual relationship with the State Department. Walton further added that he was "skeptical of the plaintiffs’ argument that venue is appropriate in the District of Columbia because the defendants may have misled the United States into thinking that the Blackwater companies were reputable businesses." Nonetheless, he is providing more time for arguments before ruling on the venue question.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?

The question arises with more urgency than ever in light of the bizarrely illuminating case Armstrong v. Geithner. Though U.S. District Judge James Robertson on Monday dismissed claims by former special agent William H. Armstrong, Mr. Armstrong's charges still shed light on some real odd doings in the apparent snakepit that is the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration.

Armstrong, briefly, had his bid to become an Agriculture Department special agent undermined after a former Treasury Department co-worker sent anonymous letters attacking him. Judge Robertson ruled against Armstrong's claims that information protected by the Privacy Act had been utilized.

But look what the case unveiled:

In 2003, Armstrong led an investigation of a colleague named Rodney Davis. Davis later became Armstrong's supervisor. Armstrong then complained about Davis's managerial style and his sleeping on the job. Then, incredibly, Treasury assigns Davis to investigate Armstrong for supposedly accessing records. Noted the judge:

"Given this and other history between the two, the decision to assign Davis to investigate the plaintiff was odd."

It was further revealed at trial that a fellow Treasury Department investigator, Karen Thompson, took the time and trouble to write six separate letters critical of Armstrong. She claimed not to have access protected information for the writing of her letters. Retorted the judge:

"I found her testimony to be generally “evasive, dissembling, and not credible.”

Judge Robertson further observed that, while there was no evidence Thompson accessed private information, she did evidently tap the "rumor-mill that apparently goes virtually unchecked" at the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. It may be time to establish the Inspector General for the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration...

The Feathered Warrior isn't everyone's cup of tea. The monthly magazine, as a federal judge has described it, features:

"...ads for the sale of cockfighting supplies, illegal steroids, and animal fighting venues (i.e., cockfighting clubs) in states where cockfighting is illegal; ads for illegal animal fights; and listings of champions in recent cockfights."

Sounds like The New Yorker, but with more blood.

In a new memoranda published this week, U.S. District Judge James Robertson further noted that "publications like The Feathered Warrior are recovered in seventy-five percent or more of law enforcement raids of illegal animal fights and are offered in evidence to prove criminal culpability." Nonetheless, Judge Robertson declined an opportunity to render summary judgment in favor of the Humane Society of the United States, which wants the U.S. Postal Service to prohibit mailing of the magazine.

The magazine, by the way, bills itself as having been "published since 1903 in the interest of game fowl fanciers  all over the world." Game Fowl Fancier. Sounds so much more sophisticated than, say, cockfight gamblers.

Anyway, the Humane Society petitioned the Postal Service in 2006 to stop mailing the magazine. The Postal Service declined. In many respects, Judge Robertson appears to take a respectful view of the Humane Society's legal arguments, and a correspondingly skeptical -- indeed, almost scornful -- view of the Postal Service's claims. Nonetheless, citing some recent congressional revisions to the Animal Welfare Act that may affect the final outcome, the judge is giving the Postal Service another chance to make a final determination before the courts get involved.

UPDATED 9:28 PM 4/23

Attorney Mark Zaid, who is representing Jane Doe in the underyling case Jane Doe v. Doe Agency, writes to advise that the earlier item is incorrect. In fact, Mr. Zaid notes:

"Different cases! The CIA was never a Doe agency in that SDNY lawsuit, although there is a yet still unidentified Doe agency in the case."

What is this referring to? Read on...

ORIGINAL 6 AM 4/23

Mystery solved, maybe. And the inevitable answer is: the Central Intelligence Agency.

Suits & Sentences was trying, with all kinds of huffing and puffing, to find out earlier the identity of a government entity dubbed the Doe Agency. The Justice Department had succeeded in keeping secret the agency's identity, amidst several lawsuits and an appeal. The latest case, Jane Doe v. Doe Agency, was filed by the spouse of a former Doe Agency employee.

Try Googling, alert reader identified as 'reasoncare' suggested. Doh!

The plaintiff's attorney is Mark Zaid, well known for litigation involving the intelligence community. With the search terms Zaid, Doe Agency, wife, a January 2007 article appears in the New York Post that seems to fit the bill. Reporter Katie Cornell wrote:

"The wife of a fired CIA operative is blaming the feds for driving her to the brink of insanity with her hubby's spy activity - and then barring her from therapy because she was unable to complain to her shrink about his secret orders.
    But the woman will never have her day in court. The feds convinced a judge her complaints are classified."

The article is worth a read. And this new-fangled Google thing sounds like it's worth a look...

One can learn the craziest things watching Supreme Court oral argument.

Take Tuesday, for instance. During oral argument in the closely watched case Safford Unified School District v. Redding, spectators learned all about Justice Stephen Breyer's childhood underwear misadventures. Not to mention, all about the latest trick for getting high using schoolhouse implements.

Perhaps one might have expected this, from an oral argument in which the words "underclothes," "undergarments" and "underpants" were a recurring theme. In fact, the innuendo got downright insistent.

Justice Souter: I want to know whether the argument is in the case.
Matthew Wright: It's in the briefs.

And here is Justice Breyer. Note: The transcript does not convey blushing.

Justice Breyer: "In my experience when I was 8 or 10 or 12 years old, we did take our clothes off once a day. We changed for gym, okay? And in my experience, too, people did stick things in my underwear."

Pause to contemplate the meaning of a misspoken phrase. Surely, this wouldn't be a suppressed memory coming out, would it? Just imagine the hypotheticals...

Earlier, Justice Scalia, man of the world that he is, learned something about the Youth of Today. At one point, he seemed skeptical about the school district considering a black marker pen to be contraband.

Mathew Wright: (It's) for sniffing.
Justice Scalia: Oh, is that what they do?
Wright: It's a permanent marker.
Scalia: They sniff them?
Wright: I'm a school lawyer. That's what kids do, your honor, unfortunately.
Scalia: Really?

Proposals to impeach Judge Jay Bybee and remove the former Bush administration lawyer from the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals appear to be a longshot. But that surely isn't stopping some from trying to build momentum for the cause.In truth, the real court that matters here may be the court of public opinion.

On Sunday, the New York Times explicitly called for Judge Bybee's impeachment; although this was, to be sure, buried within a larger editorial about the Bush administration's memos authorizing cruel treatment of certain prisoners. On Monday, a faithful Times reader and member of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Jerry Nadler, D-N.Y., called for impeachment proceedings. This, in turn, led Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, on Monday night to defend Bybee, a product of Utah schools. Hatch's comments, then, led Senate Judiciary Committee chairman, Democratic Sen. Patrick Leahy of Vermont to declare Tuesday that if Bybee "is a decent and honorable person," he will resign.

Note that Sen. Leahy simply smiled and declined to say whether  he thought impeachment was appropriate if the judge didn't step down. It was a case of creative ambiguity; a threat best left unsaid. Suits & Sentences's assessment is that the threat to Judge Bybee's career is not impeachment per se but rather the day-to-day accretion of pressure that finally interferes with his judicial work and convinces him it's time to go. So, from the perspective of the judge's opponents, their tactical approach would be to find a new element every day that keeps the story alive and growing.