Around the Blogs, Memorial Day Edition

• Doug Berman at Sentencing Law and Policy catches my recent post on microchip planting in inmates and, of course, makes it better. Really nice abstract on possible growth of "geoslavery" (c'mon, you've got to go look at a term like that, don't you?). At Talk Left, Jeralyn adds her own piece, claiming that, as a defense attorney, she would take a case to the Supreme Court if her client had to have a chip implanted. She does note that the current judiciary probably wouldn't have the problems with it she does, but, frankly, I'm not sure what difference it makes if the tracking device is worn inside or outside the skin. Inside the body is a temple? Don't see it happening, especially if it will free up prison bedspace so judges can be tougher and get reelected easier. More reasonable, I think, to focus right now on the bugs still in the system, but, with all the money coming available (as Real Cost of Prisons shows in its catch of this article on predicted growth in prison corporations), there will be mucho effort in getting them worked out fast (or at least to be able to make the claims).
• While you're at Real Cost, check out these good posts on how the recent CA deal to finance bonds to build its latest but not last set of new prisons may be unconstitutional there (which sounds about right for the crew that put all that together) and on a MA rep's call for smarter ways to spend taxpayers' money than simply building prisons to start with. He'd clearly never get elected in CA.
• Grits for Breakfast is finishing up the TX legislative session with updates on the (yet another primarily disastrous) results there and his own take on the zoo that is the TX House.
• At Empirical Legal Studies, a very good question: Why Not a Ph.D. in Law?
• Finally, at Think Outside the Cage, Pam Clifton notes the consideration of a drug dealer registry in NY and asks why not have a registry for every type of offender? Indeed. Violent offender registries have been proposed in several places. What exactly is the logic for only some getting the notoriety? Well, maybe Pam hits the nail: At this rate people who have committed a crime will eventually just have their own yellow pages.