Over at Hit & Run, I have a roundup of recent headlines from the world of wrongful convictions.

Just a reminder that if you do any shopping at Amazon over the next few weeks, you can support this site at no cost to you. Just click on the “Radley Recommends” box to your left, then proceed into the Amazon store to do your shopping. I’ll get a small return on what you buy. If you actually buy something I specifically recommend, I get a bigger return.

I’ll be updating my recommendations over the next week or so, too with some recent books, CDs, and various other stuff I like.

Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio outrages are a dime a dozen. But if reported accurately, here’s one for his greatest hits file:

The most recent atrocity committed by the self-proclaimed “America’s Toughest Sheriff” involves a woman who was detained while 9-months pregnant. Alma MinervaChacon’s case has been receiving media attention due to the brutality with which she was treated. The very same night of her arrest, Chacon went into labor and found herself afraid and alone, being rushed to a local hospital with her hands and legs chained in shackles.

Once she reached the hospital, nurses repeatedly begged the Sheriff’s staff to allow them to unchain the mother, but they refused and Chacon was forced to give birth while still shackled to the bed. At one point, the nurse asked for them to release her so that she could be escorted to the bathroom for a urinalysis, but even that request was denied. But the worst came once Chacon gave birth to her baby girl.

Still chained to the bed, Arpaio’s police staff refused to allow Chacon to hold her newborn baby and then warned her that if no one came to pick up the child within 72 hours, she would be turned over into state custody.

There’s a video interview with Chacon at the link. She was apparently detained on suspicion of being in the country illegally.

MORE: The Phoenix New Times has more details. Chacon had a warrant for $1,000 in traffic fines and a misdemeanor shoplifting charge pending against her, though neither was the reason she was pulled over.

The Wire and The Sopranos are clearly one and two, so we’ll leave them out to generate some discussion. I’m currently re-watching the entire Six Feet Under series. That show has held up very well. But Deadwood was fantastic, too. Never got into Oz, but I’ve heard good things.

MORE: Should have added that this list is limited to drama. We’ll do comedies in another poll.

Went to the Colts-Ravens game in Baltimore yesterday. Paid a scalper and ended up in the very top row. Seats weren’t bad at all, though. We could see the field fine, and had some terrific views of Baltimore. Wish I had brought my camera.

Lyle Lovett’s “I Will Rise Up.”

Okay, so the word hasn’t been banned. It’s just been rendered useless.

Health and safety inspectors are to be given unprecedented access to family homes to ensure that parents are protecting their children from household accidents.

New guidance drawn up at the request of the Department of Health urges councils and other public sector bodies to “collect data” on properties where children are thought to be at “greatest risk of unintentional injury”.

Council staff will then be tasked with overseeing the installation of safety devices in homes, including smoke alarms, stair gates, hot water temperature restrictors, oven guards and window and door locks…

Nice also recommends the creation of a new government database to allow GPs, midwives and other officials who visit homes to log health and safety concerns they spot.

The guidance aims to “encourage all practitioners who visit families and carers with children and young people aged under 15 to provide home safety advice and, where necessary, conduct a home risk assessment”. It continues: “If possible, they should supply and install home safety equipment.”

The proposals have been put out to consultation and, if approved, will be implemented next year.

So I know I promised a rundown of this week’s ruling. But it’s been a hectic week.

I’ll have a breakdown of the venue issue for my crime column on Monday. I might put up some analysis of the other issues relavant to this week’s news over the weekend, but it’s more likely that it’ll be sometime next week.

There’s a lot to digest.

Denali National Park, Alaska.

(Shot with a Canon Digital Rebel XT 8MP Digital SLR.)

She’s still having a hard time letting go. From the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette website:

Even though former U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan’s official reign ended at midnight Monday, she has been spotted in her office both Tuesday and Wednesday this week.

Sure, you might think she’s busy packing up her belongings, but apparently, that’s not the case. Her shelves are still full, even though empty boxes have been provided.

Her car, complete with vanity plate “MBB” on the front, was in the garage under the U.S. Post Office and Courthouse at 700 Grant St. at 6:45 p.m. yesterday.There haven’t been any sightings yet today, though the day is young. (UPDATE: Sure enough, her car is there as of 4 p.m.)

This is coming dangerously close to being funny.

This one’s for you, Mary Beth:

Freelance journalist Nick Martin has an update on Maricopa County, Arizona Sheriff’s Deputy Adam Stoddard, who last October was caught on video swiping a file in open court from defense attorney defense attorney Joanne Cuccia.

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge Gary Donahoe held a hearing on the matter, and on Tuesday ordered Stoddard to hold a press conference to apologize. It’s a weak and odd way of admonishing Stoddard for such a brazen trespass on attorney-client privilege (not to mention Stoddard’s arguable violation of a number of other laws, rights, and rules of procedure).

But even that was too much for Stoddard’s boss, Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Sheriff Joe Arpaio said Wednesday it will be a cold day in Maricopa County before one of his officers apologizes for taking an attorney’s confidential files…

“Superior Court judges do not order my officers to hold press conferences,” Arpaio said in a news release. “I decide who holds press conferences and when they are held.”

An attorney for the sheriff, Tom Liddy, went even further, saying it’s unlikely Stoddard will go to jail for defying the judge’s order. “Folks should not hold their breaths,” he said.

But the sheriff’s office, which runs the county jails, doesn’t plan to defy the order outright. Liddy said the agency will challenge it in a higher court.

The attorney said the order violates Stoddard’s rights to free speech.

The judge “cannot order somebody to lie,” Liddy said. “Of course he’s not sorry for doing his job…It’s absurd on his face.”

I hate to admit it, but Arpaio might have a point here. Not with respect to Stoddard’s conduct, which was reprehensible, but with Judge Donahoe’s order. You get the impression Donahoe was trying to duck any serious sanction. He knew he had to address the seriousness of Stoddard’s actions, but didn’t want to actually hold him in contempt (at the hearing, Donahoe emphasized the “fine line” he has to walk between honoring the officers who secure his courtroom and holding Stoddard accountable).

But by bizarrely ordering the obstinate Stoddard to hold a press conference, he probably just made the whole situation a lot worse.

Over at Hit & Run, I have a send-off post for now-former U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan.

Seems her one regret was not sending Tommy Chong to prison for longer than nine months.

Pike Place Market, Seattle.

Dana Milbank plays gotcha with GOP senators on the filibuster. Surprise! Their feelings on the parliamentary maneuver are largely dependent on who’s in power. He starts with Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), whose leading the filibuster against U.S. District Judge David Hamilton, Obama’s first appellate court nominee.

For much of this decade, Sen. Jeff Sessions of Alabama, now the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, led the fight against Democratic filibusters of George W. Bush’s judicial nominees. He decried Democrats’ “unprecedented, obstructive tactics.” To have Bush nominees “opposed on a partisan filibuster, it is really wrong,” he added. He demanded they get “an up-and-down vote.” He praised Republican leaders because they “opposed judicial filibusters” and have “been consistent on this issue even when it was not to their political benefit to do so.”

So now a Democratic president is in the White House and he has nominated his first appellate judicial nominee, U.S. District Judge David Hamilton. And what did Sessions do? He went to the floor and led a filibuster.

“I opposed filibusters before,” the Alabaman said with his trademark twang. But in this case, he went on, “I don’t agree with his judicial philosophy. Therefore, I believe this side cannot acquiesce into a philosophy that says that Democratic presidents can get their judges confirmed with 50 votes.”

And the others fall into line…

There was, for example, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (Ky.). Back in 2005, he demanded “a simple up-or-down vote” for nominees and urged the Democrats to “move away from advise and obstruct and get back to advise and consent.” He declared that Democrats wanted to “take away the power to nominate from the president and grant it to a minority of 41 senators.”

On Tuesday, McConnell voted to sustain the filibuster.

There was also Sen. Sam Brownback (Kan.), who in 2005 gave his considered opinion that “neither filibusters nor supermajority requirements have any place in the confirmation process.”

On Tuesday, Brownback voted in favor of filibusters.

And there was Sen. Lindsey Graham (S.C.), who warned four years ago that “if the filibuster becomes an institutional response where 40 senators driven by special interest groups declare war on nominees in the future, the consequence will be that the judiciary will be destroyed over time.”

On Tuesday, Graham voted to institutionalize the filibuster.

Not all Republicans senators were inconsistent. Just the vast majority of them. For not even attempting to explain away their hacktasticness, the GOPers get a 9.5 out of 10 on the completely arbitrary Hackery Index.

Last week, HackWatch took aim at lefty Washington Post columnist Harold Meyerson for his own flip on the use of the filibuster.

Prior editions of HackWatch here.

From the Tennessean:

The phrase “bow wow wow, yippie yo, yippie yea” belongs exclusively to funk legend George Clinton, a panel of federal judges ruled this week.

The Boston teacher’s union is blocking an incentive bonus for exceptional teachers sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates and Exxon Mobil foundations unless the bonuses are distributed equally among all teachers, good, bad, and average.

Last July in Reason, I wrote about Massachusetts’ latest cunning plan to stop failing schools: come up with a new word for failure.

(Thanks to Chris Berez for the link.)

I’m quoted in this Jackson Clarion-Ledger article about yesterday’s Mississippi Court of Appeals decision in the Cory Maye case.

Wine country, Mendoza, Argentina.

I’ll have details in a bit.

But this is wonderful news.

There won’t ever be a better show on television.