Had this been like most nominations for federal judgeships, the chief lawyer with Corrections Corporation of America might have been packing up his office and heading for the courthouse by now.

But a determined opponent — a former prisoner at a Corrections Corporation of America facility in Clifton, Tenn. — has worked tirelessly to see that would not happen.

And he may have succeeded.

More than a year after President Bush nominated Gustavus A. Puryear IV to become a U.S. district judge in Nashville, the 40-year-old's appointment appears to be in serious trouble, thanks in no small part to Alex Friedmann, a convicted armed robber turned inmate advocate…

Prisoners are a lot like corn. Like corn, prisoners are a commodity government pays for. That's why Colorado Gov. Bill Ritter wants more prisons, right away. Caught in a public-private entanglement, he serves a ravenous beast that feeds on criminal flesh and gets hungrier by the day. The state needs the beast; the beast needs the state.

When the Bush administration created massive subsidies for private enterprise to make fuel out of crops, the ethanol industry built plants and demanded corn. No corn, no government checks. As a result, we have a nation awash in corn - more corn than anyone ever dreamed we could need. Thousands of farmers, who once produced a variety of foods consumers wanted and needed, now produce only corn. Loads and loads of excess corn that serve no purpose other than satiating an artificial venture which will never stand on its own because it serves no genuine need.

Likewise, when states began paying private enterprise to house prisoners in the 1980s, a new industry built prisons and demanded flesh. No prisoners, no government check. The inmate population grew by leaps and bounds, a surplus generated by the war on drugs and bizarre new sentencing laws that keep non-violent offenders in prison for years. Today, more than one in 100 Americans live behind bars and the United States has more prisoners than any country in the world. Attach government checks to corn, and corn will be grown to fill an artificial demand. Attach government checks to prisoners, and the system will deliver them in droves…

A former Corrections Corporation of America manager is accusing the company's general counsel and federal judicial nominee Gus Puryear IV of overseeing a practice that produced misleading reports about safety incidents at its prisons.

Ronald T. Jones, who until last year worked as a senior manager in quality assurance at the Nashville-based prison operator, said that Puryear directed him and other staff to classify incidents such as escapes, unnatural deaths and disturbances as less serious to make its performance look better in reports to government agency clients. Reports prepared for internal use, meanwhile, included more details about the specific incidents, Jones said.

Time Magazine also reported Jones' allegations on its Web site on Thursday.

The next time a San Diego sheriff's deputy arrests a man who tries to steal a car, hauls him to a county detention center, starts asking questions and discovers he's in the country illegally, here's what will happen:

The tax-supported district attorney's and public defender's offices will handle his case, a tax-supported judge will preside if it goes to trial, he'll spend an average three weeks in the local jail at $100 each day, a state prison could house him for years at $121 a day, and tax-funded probation officers will follow his progress. Only after that will he be deported.

For years, the White House and border communities such as San Diego have argued over who should pay for all this. As a group of border states yesterday unveiled a report on the costs of incarcerating illegal immigrants linked to crimes, President Bush is again trying to eliminate all federal reimbursement for the task.

The accuracy of testimony by Gustavus "Gus" Puryear IV at his confirmation hearing to be a federal judge is being questioned by four Democratic members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Puryear is general counsel of Nashville-based private prison giant Corrections Corporation of America and was nominated by Republican President Bush.

After the February hearing, he provided written answers to additional questions about the company's handling of the death of an inmate at a company-run facility in Nashville, potential conflicts of interest he would face as a judge and his membership in the Belle Meade Country Club.