PDQ said The majority of inmates in the Federal Prison System committed violent crimes. But it might have been safer to say The majority of inmates in the Federal Prison System have been convicted of violent crimes. America's judicial system is as prone as any other - and probably more so than most - to glaring mistakes. It is also selective, as evidenced by the disproportionate percentage of blacks and mentally ill who are incarcerated.

I'm pressed for time (or I'm being lazy...) but I wonder if Gervase or Richard or someone knows what the circs were when a former UK home secretary (Jack Straw) intervened in the Pinochet extradition case?

If McKinnon is to be tried in the US we must at least hope that he will be represented by a British lawyer of the calibre of, say, Clive Stafford Smith, who will be more than capable of exposing the imbecilic, paranoid and vindictive US stance to worldwide ridicule. That will ensure that, Obama's election notwithstanding, America's reputation stays where it has been ever since it squandered the goodwill that flowed its way from most corners of the earth after 911.