Tasing is hot these days; at least, among the US Marshals Service and the agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

An illuminating new assessment by the Justice Department's Office of Inspector General reveals trends in the use of non-lethal weapons by federal agents. Citing an increasing involvement with battling street crime, ATF officials report the use of the Taser has steadily increased in recent years. ATF agents used a Taser only twice in 2005. This increased to nine times in 2006, 14 times in 2007 and 21 times in 2008. Except for something called a "baton launcher," no other non-lethal weapon saw such an increase in ATF use.

The US Marshals Service, likewise, increased use of the Taser, from eight times in 2006 to 138 times in 2008. This reflected a turning away for the old pepper spray standby.

Is it effective? Maybe not. The investigators note:

"The (Marshals Service) had not attempted to quantify the positive impacts (if any) from its increased use of the Taser, specifically, whether subject or officer injuries had decreased because Deputy Marshals deployed the Taser instead of using physical force."

An odd little twist colored the arraignment of Ingmar Guandique on Wednesday. Somehow, it seems in keeping with the bizarre series of events that started with the disappearance of former intern Chandra Levy in May 2001.

Guandique now faces six counts of murder, attempted sexual assault and kidnapping, among other things. The arraignment itself lasted about 15 minutes, and featured a tense-sounding exchange between Guandique's attorney Santha Sonenberg and Superior Court Judge Geoffrey Alprin. Sonenberg seems to be a very diligent and very aggressive  attorney, and Judge Alprin seems to be very stern.

But such clashes happen all the time, right? The odd thing was when Alprin announced he had been given a letter, by the Superior Court's chief judge. The letter, Alprin explained, came from a woman who says she has information -- apparently, important information -- about the case. He handed copies of the letter to defense attorneys and prosecutors, and then said he would have nothing more to do with it.

Suits & Sentences' reporting alter ego has covered the Levy case for the past eight years, and can testify that all kinds of weirdos, strange cats, conspiracy theories and generally bizarre behavior has shadowed the case from the start. Tinfoil hat theories abound. So is this letter just another example of how notorious cases are magnets for the weird? Or, can this be some real breakthrough?

Suits & Sentences will guess it's the former, not the latter.

Scandal-tarred, ex-felon, ex-mayor Marion Barry will remain a free man thanks to a magistrate judge's ruling Friday. Or maybe, make that due to a prosecutor having muffed the case.

In an 18-page opinion that's not particularly surprising, but which nonetheless may infuriate those weary of Barry's shenanigans, U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah A. Robinson turned down the U.S. Attorney's request that Barry be packed off back to prison.

Barry pled guilty to tax charges in 2005. As a condition of his probation, Barry agreed to abide by, among other things, tax laws. Nonetheless, in January, it became known that Barry had failed to file his 2007 and 2008 tax returns. Prosecutors, fed up, asked the court to revoke Barry's probation from his earlier conviction. Barry said health problems were one impediment; prosecutors were not convinced. They stated:

"(Barry's) health concerns did not prevent him from vacationing in Jamaica, running a successful campaign for reelection or working as a member of the Council of the District of Columbia."

Prosecutors later withhdrew the request that Barry be sent to prison for violating his probation requirements. Moreover, the assistant U.S. Attorney assigned to the case seemed to give up on the whole affair; as the judge noted, "without explanation" the prosecutor declined to call two potential witnesses. Indeed, Judge Robinson seemed quite scathing in her dismissal of the case the prosecutors did bring; the upshot, in any event, is that Barry wins.

Gary Berntsen spied for his country, courageously and well. Then the former Central Intelligence Agency case officer wrote a manuscript about his adventures, and like others before him he ran afoul of the CIA's resistance to exposure.

On Friday, a U.S. District court ruled in favor of the CIA's efforts to keep a lid on 18 specific secrets Bernsten sought to write about in his book Jawbreaker. The book recounts, primarily, Berntsen's campaign against Al Qaeda that included his being one of the CIA's first covert operators to enter Afghanistan after 9/11.

As Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly noted:

"Berntsen submitted a draft manuscript of Jawbreaker to the CIA for review prior to its publication. After finding the pace of the CIA’s review to be unacceptably slow, and then finding the amount of information redacted by the CIA as classified to be unsatisfactory, Berntsen filed this lawsuit seeking an order allowing him to publish his unredacted manuscript."

Berntsen and his former employers were subsequently able to negotiate most of their differences, save for 18 items the Agency wanted to keep secret. The Agency asserted that "the remaining 18 items reveal intelligence sources, methods and activities, foreign government information, or information impacting the foreign relations of the United States, and that publication of this information could cause serious damage to national security, endanger the safety and lives of individuals who work for and with the CIA, and undermine the ability of the CIA to collect intelligence information."

Which just about covers it.

The judge examined ex parte the detailed justifications for each of the 18 secrets; moreover, she noted, Berntsen did not file a formal opposition to the CIA's summary judgment motion. The latter deprived Berntsen of his final chance, and on Friday the CIA won.

Military dentists removed all but three of Thomas Nielson's teeth, mostly without anesthesia, while he was serving overseas in the Korean War. When he returned to the United States, they removed the three that remained.

Pause to think about that for one moment. Dentists removed most of his teeth without anesthesia. Now think about this: would that have been traumatic?

Evidently, not traumatic enough. On Thursday, the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans Claims rejected Mr. Nielson's claim that he was entitled to VA outpatient treatment and dental appliances. Represented by Washington, D.C. attorney Kirsten V.K. Robbins, with the firm Goodwin Proctor, Nielson asserted he was eligible for the VA dental services, which cover conditions due to combat injuries or "other service trauma."

The VA said otherwise; as the appeals court noted:

"The VA General Counsel opined that 'merely to have had dental extractions during service is not tantamount to dental trauma.'"

Suits & Sentences repeats: no anesthesia.

Nonetheless, the appeals court concluded that the real issue was Nielson's periodental infection, which required removal of the teeth. Opined the court in an opinion that hurts just read:

"The extraction of Mr. Nielson's teeth as a result of periodontal disease is not 'service trauma' as contemplated by (VA law). The Court cannot expand the plain meaning in a manner that would include extractions necessitated by disease. There has been no finding that Mr. Nielson's dental condition resulted from an injury or wound violently produced in the armed services."

Justice Stephen Breyer may think himself above the law. Or, more likely, ignorance IS a defense, after all.

The Supreme Court associate justice was attending an interesting day-long event Wednesday at Georgetown University Law Center, sponsored by the Sandra Day O'Connor Project on the State of the Judiciary. Between the first and second sessions of the morning, Justice Breyer joined many others in grabbing a cup of coffee; when the lights dimmed, summoning audience members back, he trooped back in to the auditorium clutching his Bon Appetit cup.

Uh oh: You are so busted, Justice Breyer. He walked right past the sign that reads: "Food and Drink are not Permitted in Moot Court Auditorium."

Of course, he wasn't alone. There were more than a few coffee, err, violators at the program, co-sponsored by the Aspen Institute and entitled "Striking the Balance: Fair and Independent Courts in a New Era." Lots of thoughtful people, very nice people-watching. Former acting solicitor general Walter Dellinger pecking former Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the cheek. Former attorney general Richard Thornburgh sitting in the back rows. Judge Diane Wood of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals listening to Solicitor General Elena Kagan talk; neither, of course, saying a word about the possibility of a Supreme Court nomination.

Judge Wood did seem to make a point, though, in saying during a break that she had long planned to attend the program -- in other words, don't read anything into the fact that she's in Washington at this particular time. It's not like she's in town for a job interview, or anything! In fact, Judge Wood said she had to leave for Chicago on Wednesday night because she had a musical performance coming up: Haydn.

Some really excellent talent throughout the room, a definite success for Georgetown Law. Still, Suits & Sentences will go ahead and make the unsolicited recommendation that panel moderators...cough, cough, Yale Law School Professor Stephen Carter, cough, cough ...tighten up their introductions, cut down on their own story telling and move programs along more expeditiously.

Corporations use the Freedom of Information Act as a competitive tool; a weapon, if you will. A judge's ruling Tuesday shows how.

U.S. District Judge Gladys Kessler denied a bid by Boeing to block release of certain contract information by the Air Force. Through a FOIA request filed back in January 2004, a company called Federal Sources sought copies of documents related to a satellite-construction contract. Federal Sources, though, is a cut-out, masking the true requestor. Noted Kessler:

"Federal Sources is a fee-based commercial service that submits FOIA requests on behalf of
companies or individuals. Boeing believes that the requestor is Boeing’s major competitor, Lockheed Martin."

This happens all the time. The Food and Drug Administration, for instance, is constantly receiving FOIA requests filed by several FOIA-service companies employed by drug manufacturers and the like.

In the case of the satellite contracts, Boeing objected to the release of information concerning wages, profits and overhead costs. Following some discussions, the company allowed the release of some older information but "objected to the release of such data for the 2000-2004 period on the ground that it could be used to predict Boeing’s future labor rates."

Judge Kessler, though, wasn't convinced; she concluded:

"Despite Boeing’s allegation that releasing the requested information would place a competitor in a 'good position' to make a 'good judgment,' (about Boeing's costs) it fails to demonstrate, for the overwhelming majority of the requested information, how it would be possible for a competitor to make these 'good judgments.'”