Post-Conviction DNA Testing Shouldn't Depend on Miracles

By now everyone knows that DNA testing is a powerful scientific tool for proving guilt or innocence in our criminal justice system. Often post-conviction DNA testing provides the only evidence that can correct the injustice of wrongful conviction.

But what if all the biological evidence is destroyed while you're still in prison? What if there is evidence but it's not discovered until after state-imposed deadline for seeking DNA testing? What if the state denies your petition for testing because you accepted a plea bargain to avoid a harsher sentence for a crime you didn't commit? And what if you're indigent and can't afford an attorney to help navigate the complex legal and scientific issues involved in obtaining a DNA test?

The sad truth is that it often takes a series of miracles to gain access to post-conviction DNA testing. That's because our criminal justice system continues to place significant obstacles in the way of post-conviction DNA testing that could determine whether the wrong people have been convicted and punished for crimes they didn't commit.

Today, The Justice Project is releasing Increasing Access to Post-Conviction DNA Testing: A Policy Review. This policy review explains the problems surrounding post-conviction DNA testing policies and procedures and identifies the best practices for states to adopt to ensure that post-conviction DNA testing contributes to a more accurate criminal justice system and restores public confidence in the system's ability to correct its own errors.

To date, more than 200 people -- including 16 who were sentenced to death -- have been proven innocent by DNA testing. In many of those cases, the same DNA test helped bring the real perpetrators to justice. But seven states -- Alabama, Alaska, Massachusetts, Mississippi, South Carolina, South Dakota and Oklahoma -- don't even have laws on the books allowing for post-conviction DNA testing. And those that do have laws fall short of what is needed to ensure that DNA testing can be used effectively to correct the injustice of wrongful conviction.

All but 12 states and the District of Columbia lack statutes requiring the preservation of evidence throughout an inmate's incarceration. An investigative series this year by The Columbus Dispatch found that "evidence had been lost or destroyed nearly two-thirds of the time that prosecutors agreed to search for it because Ohio does not require evidence to be catalogued and saved." States should require the preservation of biological evidence throughout a defendant's sentence and devise standards regarding the custody of evidence.

States should also ensure that all inmates with a DNA-based innocence claim may petition for DNA testing at any time without regard to plea, confession, self-implication, the nature of the crime, or previous unfavorable test results. Nearly a dozen of the more than 200 DNA exonerees initially plead guilty, and 50 purportedly confessed to crimes they did not commit. And because DNA testing technology continues to improve, a defendant's right to request testing must not be subject to time limitations. If new technology develops that might change the outcome of a test, the test should be performed.

The complexity of the petitioning process also creates an unreasonable burden for a wrongfully convicted person who needs DNA testing to prove his or her innocence. The steps involved in obtaining DNA testing are difficult even for experienced advocates. That's why states should provide counsel and cover the cost of post-conviction DNA testing for indigent petitioners.

These are just a few of the steps that need to be taken. As with any good policy, the benefits of post-conviction DNA testing statutes outweigh the costs. While improving access to post-conviction DNA testing will require states to incur some initial costs, those costs are minimal and could end up saving states money in the long run.

The federal government recognized the importance of post-conviction DNA testing with the passage of the Innocence Protection Act (IPA) in 2004. The IPA includes the Kirk Bloodsworth Post-Conviction DNA Testing Program, which authorizes $25 million over five years to help states defray the cost of post-conviction DNA testing. The program is named for Kirk Noble Bloodsworth, the first person sentenced to death to be exonerated by DNA evidence.

In Bloodsworth's case, the DNA test results not only proved that he did not sexually assault and murder nine-year-old Dawn Hamilton, they also identified the real perpetrator who then confessed to the crime. But it took another series of miracles for that to happen. It was only through a chance encounter that Bloodsworth's attorney learned that the trial judge had kept some of the evidence in a cardboard box in his chambers. And the attorney paid for the testing out of his own pocket.

Our criminal justice system is too fraught with error to rely on miracles to find the truth. Post-conviction DNA testing serves the interests of fairness, accuracy and public confidence in the criminal justice system, and states should make every effort to facilitate testing for defendants claiming innocence.

Original report here



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Who needs laws when you just know someone 'crossed a line'?

In Marlboro, Massachusetts, a retired chemist named Victor Deeb had the misfortune to call the fire department when his air conditioner burst into flames. I say "misfortune" because, when the authorities arrived, they discovered that, not surprisingly, a chemist keeps a chemistry laboratory in his home. And they freaked.

Pamela A. Wilderman, Marlboro’s code enforcement officer, said Mr. Deeb was doing scientific research and development in a residential area, which is a violation of zoning laws. “It is a residential home in a residential neighborhood,” she said. “This is Mr. Deeb’s hobby. He’s still got bunches of ideas. I think Mr. Deeb has crossed a line somewhere. This is not what we would consider to be a customary home occupation. … There are regulations about how much you’re supposed to have, how it’s detained, how it’s disposed of.”

There probably are regulations about keeping and disposing of chemicals -- there are rules about almost everything these days. But Ms. Wilderman cites not a single violation other than petty zoning infractions, and Mr. Deeb has been charged with no crime. If Ms. Wilderman is somewhat unfamiliar with the regulations, she might want to consult Mr. Deeb, who has patents pending and is likely more familar with the applicable rules for keeping and disposing of chemicals than are the city's employees.

For now, Mr. Deeb is reportedly happy to be able to return home, after being forced from his dwelling for three days while the authorities trucked off his laboratory equipment and supplies for disposal -- presumably without compensation. Actually, the disposal process might pose a real risk, since Mr. Deeb has proven himself capable of handling the chemicals without mishap while the authorites are an unknown quantity. Fortunately, there was nothing especially hazardous among supplies to excite concern.

None of the materials found at 81 Fremont St. posed a radiological or biological risk, according to the state Department of Environmental Protection. No mercury or poison was found. Some of the compounds are potentially explosive, but no more dangerous than typical household cleaning products.

"No more dangerous than typical household cleaning products"? Uh huh. And no citations for regulatory infractions. So Ms. Wilderman and company are protecting the people from nonexistent risks by enforcing rules that may or may not have been violated, if officials can ever figure them out. Yeah. Somebody "crossed a line somewhere," but it wasn't Mr. Deeb.

Original report here



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Cop forms private posse, attacks wrong man

Obsessed with his own “authority” an off-duty cop in New York decided to take justice into his own hands. Everything started when two girls told him that some man had flashed them. So Detective Arthur Molnar and two buddies formed a posse and went in search of the alleged flasher.

At around the same time 52-year-old David Campeas, an ophthalmologist, was walking to synagogue. Detective Molnar and his buddies set upon Campeas. According to Dr. Campeas the police officer and his friend shouted antigay slurs, even though Campeas is not gay. The doctor said: “You couldn’t reason with them. They were yelling and screaming and whacking me in the head.”

According to Campeas the three men ran at him screaming. Molnar, who was not on duty, screamed that he was a police officer and ordered Campeas to lie on the ground. Campeas, having no reason to believe the man, and having done nothing wrong, told Molnar that he wanted to wait for uniformed police officers to arrive. That is when Molnar and his private posse attacked, they slammed the innocent man to the ground and started frisking him. They repeated made antigay remarks and said he had exposed to two girls. Please note the utter ignorance of equating a flasher with being gay. This is the mentality of a cop -- brain dead.

The men then dragged Campeas to a desolate beach where he began to fear for his life. Lucky for him on-duty police officers, who actually live in the town, arrived. Based on the accusations of their brother officer they took Campeas into custody. They very quickly released him since both of the girls were quite adamant that they had never seen Campeas before. The Molnar posse got it wrong. Campeas was then taken to hospital for treatment of the bruises inflicted by this off-duty cop and his private gang.

Campeas says that as soon as the police realized that they had once again been wrong, and attacked the “wrong” man, that they started putting pressure on him not to file a complaint, urging him to let the matter drop quietly. Cockroaches don’t like the lights on folks. So just shut up, treat your wounds and pretend it was a lark in the park.

Campeas has filed charges against the attackers, including Officer Molnar, who is on duty as normal. Campeas says he believes that if he had actually resisted the attackers “I’d probably be dead or in a coma right now.”

Of course, Officer Molnar, angrily insists that the bruises on Campeas magically happened because “Nobody touched anybody that night.” Yes, apparently Dr. Campeas has a form of stigmata except cop-like bruises just magically appeared on his body, instead of the wounds of Christ. Molnar claims he was only “investigating” a flasher.

Apparently to investigate a flasher an off-duty cops solicits two non-cop buddies to patrol the area and grab the first man they come across. They rough him up, make antigay remarks since in copland all flashers must be gay, slam him to the ground and then drag him to a deserted beach area. This is now called an investigation.

I have honestly reached the point where I wouldn’t believe a cop was telling the truth unless I had independent evidence that he was. And if he was, I’d assume it was accident. This sort of things happens day after day after day. It happens so often that most the time we don’t even hear about it. I doubt the assault on Dr. Campeas made much news outside the immediate area.

The typical story is one of police misconduct against an innocent person, or excessive, unwarranted violence against a suspect -- perhaps to the point of death. The cops they always concoct one story that makes them entirely innocent and lays all the blame on the victim they attacked.

Independent witnesses to the event almost always tell a version of the story very different than that of the police officers. I actually don’t remember one case of such an attack where independent evidence actually supported the claims by the cops. But these independent witnesses, and the testimony of the victim, is usually ignored. And the whole matter is swept under the rug. Sometimes there is physical evidence and that physical evidence almost always shows the cops were lying. In a few cases videos of the incident prove beyond any doubt that the police version of events is usually fictional.

But when such physical evidence is missing, when no tapes exist, the courts very stupidly tend to believe the cops arguing that police officers don’t lie. That in the face of hundreds of violent, serious incidents where the evidence actually proved that the cops do lie and lie frequently.

Let us note a few things about this incident. Officer Molnar was not on duty. He was not in uniform. He did not show identification that he was a cop. He was not in New York City where is a cop. What would you do if a strange, belligerent man, and two of his friends, ordered you to lie on the ground? As I see it they ought to be glad Dr. Compeas wasn't armed ,otherwise he'd have every justification to shoot them, with a reasonable fear of his life. The two accomplices in this attack were not police officers anywhere but private citizens.

Even if Molnar was in the right, and he clearly wasn't, there is no justification in attacking the man and dragging him to a deserted beach area. That implies they intended a far more serious assault. Molnar was not allowing the law to work, he was subverting it. And while flashers might be annoying they are rarely dangerous and assault wasn't needed. Molnar could have waited for uniformed officers as the "suspect" was not trying to escape. He was happy to wait for the police to arrive.

There is much talk about "zero tolerance" from government officials. How about a zero tolerance policy toward police misconduct?

Original report here



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This Week in Innocence

By Radley Balko. See the original for links

Stories pulled from the Innocence blog the last few weeks:

Another exoneration in Dallas (see my interview with Dallas County District Attorney Craig Watkins here).

DNA testing finally exonerates a Texas man for a rape he always said he didn't commit. Unfortunately, Tim Cole died in a Texas prison nine years ago. Another man confessed to the rape in 1995, but authorities ignored him. It's likely that Cole's wrongful conviction came with a death sentence. A lifelong asthmatic, he'd been able to treat the condition by the time he got to college. Not so in prison. He died of an asthmatic attack in 1999.

Meanwhile in Tennessee, a stubborn prosecutor may finally back down after years of pursuing the wrong man for a 1985 murder, despite the fact that DNA evidence has cleared the man of the rape the same prosecutor said was the motive for the murder. The U.S. Supreme Court has actually heard this case, tossing the conviction on the grounds that no reasonable juror could have convicted the man given the new evidence. Money quote: "Why, after all this evidence has poured in that House is innocent of the crime, does the state continue to so zealously defend the situation? The reason is because state prosecutors typically never admit error." That's from the federal district court judge in Nashville. Paul House spent 23 years in prison, most of them on death row.

DNA testing exposes another wrongful murder conviction, this one in New Mexico. It's also another example in how police can extract false confessions, particularly from the mentally disabled.

Reuters looks at how lax evidence preservation laws are hampering efforts to look for other wrongful convictions.

Alabama Gov. Bob Riley (unconvincingly) explains why he's opposed to post-conviction DNA testing in capital cases.

South Carolina is one of just a few states that don't give post-conviction inmates a path to DNA testing in cases where it could prove their innocence. The state legislature passed a bill to correct the problem, and Gov. Mark Sanford was set to sign it. Unfortunately, the legislature then tacked on an 11th-hour poison pill amendment allowing police to take DNA samples from everyone arrested for a serious crime (not just those convicted) for inclusion in a statewide database. To his credit, Sanford had already vetoed a similar bill, and was forced to veto this one. Unfortunately, that means South Carolina still doesn't allow for DNA testing to determine innocence, either.

Original report here



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Wyoming: Hassled for Carrying a Gun by Police

A friend was visiting me from out of town. His concealed weapons permit did not have reciprocity with WYO, so he was open carrying. I was carrying concealed - though on several trips to Powell in the past, I have chosen to open carry.

Anyway, we stopped at a video store, then drove around the block and parked a couple of blocks away. We had a long trailer, so couldn't park in front of the restaurant we planned to eat in. On the way to the restaurant, we decided to walk to the ATM to get some cash. We had commented on the number of police vehicles we had seen. About 30 seconds later, THREE police vehicles came into the parking lot we were crossing, and a sheriff (from behind his open door, in a cover position) shouted to my friend. The other two officers were Powell City Police. One, was a police sergeant that I had met at an auction a couple of weeks earlier.

The initial exchange went like this - Sheriff: "EXCUSE ME... are you wearing a gun sir?"

Friend: "Yes I am."

Sheriff: "I'm gonna need you to come over here please."

My friend complied, but did not give his driver's license. One of the officers warned that he must identify himself with name, address, and DOB. He did. They then began running an outstanding warrant check and verified his address.

At some point the sheriff noticed me leaning on a nearby car with my hands on my hips and shouted that I needed to keep my hands where he could see them. I complied.

Then he asked if I had a gun. I said that I did. He asked if I was open carrying. I said, "no, my firearm is concealed."

He asked if I had a CCW permit and I said that I did. He asked to see it, and I presented my Utah CCW. He then asked if I had a permit to carry concealed in Wyoming. I said, that my Utah permit is accepted in WYO. He said I needed a Wyoming CCW. At this point, I became agitated. I informed him that the UT permit was valid in over 25 states, and WYO was one of them. He said that he wasn't sure, that he'd have to run a check himself, and kept my permit. He then stated that he had a Wyoming permit, but that it was not accepted in MT or CO. (By the way, I have checked this out and it is false... both of those states acknowledge WYO CCW permits)

Then another officer approached and he also didn't know if my CCW was valid in WYO. I stated that I was CERTAIN that it was and if theirs were not reciprocal with contiguous states, they ought to consider getting a UT permit. The sheriff then said, it wouldn't do him any good since he lived in WYO. (Two things struck me. 1. He ought to know that he can get a UT CCW without ever setting foot in UT. 2. As an active sheriff, he can carry a weapon in all 50 states and Puerto Rico. Therefore, I figured that he was either very ill-informed or wanted me to believe that he was.)

The next thing that the sheriff said was that he was going to have to see my driver's license and would have to do a Forensic ID check on my gun. At this point I told him that I would not go along with that.

I told him that he didn't need any other ID. He had my carry permit which was cleared by federal and state background checks and it also served as a picture ID. I asked, very annoyed - "Officer, what exactly is going on here?! Did you receive a report of stolen guns? Have you gotten any complaints? Neither one of us has broken ANY law, and we are being detained! Why is that???"

He said, "look, I don't mean to hassle you, and we'll get you on your way as soon as we can."

To which I replied, "I am am feeling very hassled right now. This is Wyoming. Open carry is permitted. I have a CCW, so what exactly are we being detained for?"

He said, "I know, as far as we know, nobody is breaking any laws here, we just want to see that there is nothing else going on. I'm not sure why you need to carry a gun in town... I don't think you are going to come across any snakes in town." (Implying that the only reason anyone would wear a gun would be to defend themselves against snakes.)

I let that comment go, because it was almost too absurd to warrant an answer. I am quite sure that he knows full well that people don't carry concealed weapons because they are afraid of snakes. At some point he also said that he was concerned about my friend's gun because "sometimes people think that a Glock looks like a .45, and they become alarmed..." (Huh? What on earth could that statement possibly mean? I was beginning to think that I was talking to the real-life Barney Fife.)

He seemed hell-bent on satisfying himself that we were not some new breed of terrorists... or that we weren't trying to start any trouble in town. He said "it might look like Powell is a quiet little town, but you'd be surprised what we deal with here." (At this point I suppose that he was saying that on occasion some really big snakes must slither through town. I mean what else would the police need to protect citizens from?)

I said, "what is it that you think we might DO? We are on YOUR SIDE! You have nothing to worry about with us."

I believe it was at this point that the Sergeant came up and said, "you look familiar..." to me.

I said, I should, we spent about an hour next to each other in line at the auction a couple of weeks ago. He nodded as though he remembered and almost immediately, all curiosity in us ceased. We were on our way as though nothing ever happened, and all their concerns were satisfied.

But unfortunately, something had happened. Our rights were violated. We were questioned and detained without probable cause - despite the fact that we broke no laws, and interfered with no one. We were shouted at, they insisted on running computer checks on both of us, and they asked us personal information that should not be requested of ordinary citizens who are minding their own business. They proved that they has less understanding of the gun laws in Wyoming than we had, and that our rights were subject to violation, if their curiosity deemed so.

One of the reasons I chose for moving to Wyoming was because the people appear to have more freedom and less intrusive government than any other state. In my opinion, anyone who is not comfortable with a healthy gun culture, would not be comfortable in Wyoming - which in itself is a good reason to open carry, so that those folks think twice about moving here. But what is worse, is that a law enforcement officer would show concern - even after knowing that we both pasted state and federal background checks. I was a little embarrassed that my out of town friend had to experience such behavior in Wyoming. I felt that these officers greatly overstepped their official duty. Even if we were suspect - which we were not - the moment they verified our information, we should have been released immediately, as we posed no threat to anyone.

I believe Wyoming experiences more freedom because people have kept a close reign on government. But, when we allow "peace officers" to hassle and detain citizens for exercising their rights, we put the rights of EVERYONE in jeopardy. I find it outrageous that the police would treat us like that, with their only excuse being that "a Glock looks like it could be a .45..."

Perhaps it is time that more citizens begin exercising their rights. Perhaps it is time for "open carry Friday" in Wyoming, so that people don't forget that they have them. It is time to remind ourselves that government stems from the people, and that the law enforcement officers are to serve the public. I firmly believe that just as muscles atrophy with years of laziness, so do our rights. I urge others to exercise their rights before they lose them and Wyoming becomes like so many other states.

Original report here



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British man awarded $1,400,000 compensation over corrupt murder prosecution

Colin Stagg, who was cleared 13 years ago of murdering Rachel Nickell in a frenzied attack on Wimbledon Common, has finally been awarded 706,000 pounds in compensation, his lawyer said today. “Naturally Colin is relieved and it will go some way to compensating him for the vilification that he has received at the hands of the public and media for the least 16 years," said Alex Tribick, Mr Stagg's solicitor.

Miss Nickell, 23, a part-time model, was walking on the common in southwest London with her two-year-old son when she was attacked in July 1992. She was sexually assaulted and stabbed 49 times. Her son was standing by her body, crying “Wake up, Mummy” when she was found. The boy, now aged 17, lives in France with his father, Andre Hanscombe, who was Miss Nickell’s fiance.

Today's Home Office compensation award is final vindication for Mr Stagg, 44, of Roehampton in southwest London, who was the focus of a lengthy police investigation and spent a year in custody before his trial at the Old Bailey in 1994.

He was acquitted when a judge threw out the case and criticised the police for running a “honey trap” operation. A female undercover officer had befriended Mr Stagg and encouraged him to talk about the killing and discuss violent sexual fantasies. Mr Justice Ognall said the use of the tactic was “not merely an excess of zeal, but a blatant attempt to incriminate a suspect by positive and deceptive conduct of the grossest kind”.

Mr Stagg said that being charged with the murder had destroyed his life and, despite his acquittal, many people still believed that he was guilty. He said: “I became a national hate figure. I had to endure every form of vilification. I was insulted, attacked, spat upon. My home was attacked and so was I. My name alone was enough to stop me getting work.”

Last year another man was charged with Ms Nickell's murder. Robert Napper, 42, is due to stand trial in November.

The Home Office announced in January 2007 that Mr Stagg was eligible under a discretionary compensation scheme. The amount was set by an independent assessor, Lord Brennan. Mr Tribick said the offer was made in a letter from the Office of Criminal Justice Reform following an application for compensation. He said Lord Brennan submitted a “carefully considered and reasoned” 70-page document supporting the award.

Mr Tribick said: “This is an offer that has been made and that offer has been accepted. It will allow him to try and rebuild his life and to have some sort of normal existence. “But of course what he really wanted was an apology from the Metropolitan Police and I think he has accepted that is something he will never get. “He is not angry, he is hurt and disappointed. He is gradually getting his life back on track and this will act as a catalyst.” Mr Tribick added: “Colin is realistic enough to realise and accept that his name, no matter what happens, will always be synonymous with the tragic events of Rachel Nickell’s death.

Original report here



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Texas authorities don't want to find the real perp

Why else resist DNA testing? They know they are wrong. That's why

DNA testing for a man convicted of killing his wife in 1987 could prove his innocence, lifting the life sentence he serves. Michael Morton was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife, Christine, in August 1986 in Georgetown. His attorneys are teaming up with the family of a murdered woman, whose case remains unsolved, to file a federal lawsuit seeking DNA testing.

In a strikingly similar crime, Mildred McKinney was murdered less than a mile from the Morton home in November 1980. Both victims were bludgeoned to death after bloody assaults in their bedrooms. Neither crime scene showed any signs of forced entry, yet both cases contained unidentified fingerprints that were found on unlocked, sliding glass doors to the home. Both victims were also found with several household furniture and items stacked on top of their bodies.

Morton was joined by McKinney's daughter in Austin Tuesday afternoon to file the lawsuit in federal court against the Williamson County Sheriff's Department and Williamson County District Attorney. They requested DNA testing and fingerprint analysis in both cases, arguing that the tests could identify one man who committed both crimes.

Papers filed in federal court indicate McKinney's daughter, Patricia Stapleton, argued she is entitled to DNA testing in her mother's case under federal and state law, including the Texas Crime Victims' Bill of Rights.

The Innocence Project said the prosecutor has resisted DNA testing for years and could very well solve both crimes, and Innocence Project staff attorney Nina Morrison said the access to the DNA evidence District Attorney John Bradley denies is imperative to the case. "It's really frustrating," said Morrison. "It's baffling to me. There's no reason why we would not go to court."

Though Morrison said the DNA evidence could conclusively solve two murder cases, Bradley has a different stance. "It's rather silly to turn over physical evidence on an unsolved murder to a person who has no business conducting an investigation," said Bradley. "If there is evidence, you can bet law enforcement is fully pursuing those things, and we'll get them accomplished." Bradley said the investigation into the McKinney murder is ongoing and not closed, and they are working on good leads but do not discuss the details. "We've spent many hours over 3 1/2 years to get the DNA evidence released," said Morrison.

Even though the state would not pay a dime if it took up Morrison's offer to bear the full costs of the DNA testing, anywhere from $5,000 to $10,000 for this case, the district attorney's office does not have to turn over the DNA evidence to a private testing lab. "The DPS crime lab is perfectly capable and well-certified to handle things," said Bradley. If the DNA evidence were released, it would take approximately two to six months for the results to arrive thereafter.

Morrison said the DNA on a bloody bandana found near the Morton home could provide overwhelming evidence regarding the case, and it could be cross-referenced with criminals in the convicted-offender databank, potentially yielding a "hit" to someone who has committed similar crimes.

In addition, fingerprints from key areas of the crime scene that did not come from any member of the Morton family can be entered into state and national fingerprint databases, something that was unavailable at the time of Morton's 1987 trial. The case is believed to be the first in the nation in which a crime victim or a victim's relative has joined a prisoner in a lawsuit seeking DNA testing.

Original report here




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Drug warriors endanger us all

By now we all know the story of Mayor Cheye Calvo from Berwyn Heights, Maryland. He, like so many Americans, was the victim of the war on drugs. Note that he was not a victim of illegal drugs. Illegal drugs can only hurt the people who choose to use them. He was a victim of the war on drugs itself, a war that kills, maims, and harms the lives of multitudes of innocents every year.

Calvo’s home was attacked by the jackbooted thugs who enforce the asinine drug laws. It appears that some drug dealers had a plan to ship drugs using the names and addresses of innocent people. The drugs would be shipped to an unsuspecting individual. A courier working for the dealers would intercept the parcel before it was delivered. Though, in at least one case, they actually came by asking for their parcel after it was delivered.

In this case, the drug warriors were monitoring the parcel and perhaps that was enough to put off the courier from intercepting the parcel. It was delivered to the Calvo home, addressed to the Mayor’s wife. The package company left it on the front stoop. Calvo, on returning home saw the package and picked it up. He brought it inside, put it down, and went upstairs to change clothes.

It was then that he heard thugs smashing down his door followed shortly after by gun shots. The drug warriors rushed into his room and assaulted him. In his underwear he was forced downstairs where he discovered the two family dogs had been executed by the drug warriors. His mother-in-law was handcuffed and pushed to the floor next to the dead animals, as the pool of blood around them spread.

Now, even the drug warriors admit that Calvo and his wife were entirely innocent and completely uninvolved in this scheme. But they are defending their actions -- as always.

The lying drug warriors count on public apathy and misinformation. For instance, in this case they justify the murder of two family dogs claiming that they felt threatened. Fuck! They always feel threatened.

They routinely execute family dogs in their botched raids. This is not something that happens periodically or rarely. If they raid a home, if the family owns a dog, they murder the dog in cold blood. Numerous witnesses, to such drug warrior attacks, have testified that they saw dogs being killed, even as the poor animals were trying to flee the drug warriors.

Yes, if a dog is a threat to someone that person has the right to kill the dog. That is true with any threat. But dare I point out that I feel more threatened by these crazed drug warriors than I do by most dogs. Dogs don’t break down people’s doors in the wee hours of the morning and come crashing in with guns drawn. Dogs that kill people are put down. Drug warriors that kill people are honored by other drug warriors. If feeling threatened were itself justification for killing not a drug warrior would be alive today.

Drug warriors are more dangerous than dogs. Drug warriors are more dangerous than the drugs they seek to confiscate. Drug warriors regularly, consistently botch things up and murder innocent people. Mayor Calvo is lucky he lived. He’s lucky he didn’t find his mother-in-law lying in a pool of blood as well.

Calvo’s wife spoke of a young girl who came to her after this horrific incident. The girl asked her how, if the police had done this to her and her dogs, how could this girl ever trust the police. That is a good question. I fear the honest answer is not one that the girl was given --- you can’t.

When the police of this country went from preserving peace to enforcing laws they went from protecting people from crime to protecting government from the people. The police are not there to help us. They are here to control us. And when stupid politicians pass stupid laws it is the job of these officers to pull their guns and force you into submission.

The typical police officer spends very little time actually protecting people from criminals. Most of his time is spent enforcing regulations on the public. A small percentage of his time is taken up standing between you and criminals. The majority of his time is spent controling you for his political masters. There are more laws that violate rights, these days, then which protect them. And most of the police officer’s time today is spent enforcing those laws. In other words, the typical police officer spends more time attacking your rights than he does protecting them.

When government is limited to the proper functions outlined by the Founders, then one should not have reason to fear the police. When government expands beyond those functions of protecting life, liberty and property, then the police are not your friends, they are the armed agents of organized crime. Their job is not to protect rights but to violate them.

They were doing their job when they executed Mayor’s Calvo’s dogs and pointed loaded weapons at Calvo’s head. They were doing their job when they pushed his mother-in-law down to the ground next to the murdered animals. The job of the police today is to violate rights and force you into obeying laws that violate your rights.

I have never been harmed or threatened by illegal drugs. I choose not to use them. I have never used them. According to my own personal morality, I happen to frown on anything that makes one intoxicated so that they inhibit or lose their ability to reason. So I will never use them.

But the drug laws, and the thuggery of the drug warriors, does threaten me. Mayor Calvo had no reason to think drug warriors threatened him until they smashed into his house. When 92-year-old Kathryn Johnston was mistakenly attacked by drug warriors she was terrified. Once again the lying officers started to break down her door, without announcing who they are, which seems routine these days. All the terrified, elderly woman knew was that some bad men were smashing into her home. She took out a handgun and tried to defend herself. The drug warriors executed the old woman -- the same way they execute dogs.

The drug warriors have intentionally created a violent, dangerous situation. They attack people’s homes, often in the middle of the night. They do NOT announce who they are. They do NOT attempt to serve a search warrant. They smash through doors and windows, with guns pulled, screaming orders at people. They use tactics which intentionally create confusion among their victims. And sometimes victims, fearful that they are being attacked by criminals (they are but the police don’t see it that way), defend themselves. If the victims defend themselves the chances the are good that they will be murdered by the cops.

And what will the cops do? Will they take responsibility? Not at all. They will start lying about what happened, as they did with Kathryn Johnston. They will claim that they announced they were cops before they smashed into the house. Invariably witnesses to these crimes say the police are making up their claims. The police will blame the victim of their attack for the attack. And when they can’t do that they will blame drugs and claim this is another reason that drugs should be outlawed and more homes attacked by drug warriors.

Once again the panic mongers have created a scenario where the solution is far worse than the problem. No one says that illegal drugs are entirely harmless. But the harm done by the drug warriors exceeds the harm done by the drugs.

I should also note, in closing, that while I’m glad that Mayor Calvo’s situation is getting publicity, countless innocent victims of the drug warriors are routinely ignored, or given very little publicity, merely because they are not part of the political class. Calvo is a politician, so he gets noticed. Kathyrn Johnston only got attention because she was an old woman. But numerous other victims of the drug warriors are barely noticed and quickly forgotten when noticed.

It’s time to end the war on drugs. And it’s time to start arresting the drug warriors for the violent crimes that they routinely, and regularly, commit.

Original report here




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New York's Video Vigilante, Scourge of Parking Enforcers

A brave man: 'Jimmy Justice' Posts Images of NYC Officers Breaking the Law

He calls himself "Jimmy Justice," a self-styled "cop-arazzi," armed only with a video camera as he prowls the streets of New York looking for law enforcement officers who are breaking the law. His targets are illegally parked city government vehicles -- particularly cars of traffic cops blocking bus stops, sitting in "no parking" zones or double-parked.

Cop cars blocking fire hydrants make him particularly incensed. "Something like that is just despicable," Jimmy fumed, pointing to a police enforcement vehicle parked next to a fire hydrant on 33rd Street on Manhattan's West Side on a muggy July afternoon. "They're never allowed to block a fire hydrant -- but they do it."

He posts his best videos on YouTube and sends regular e-mail to the union representing the city's traffic enforcement agents, pointing out the most egregious parking offenses. And he has gotten results, he said, with some parking enforcers being fined because of his videos. "I'm using a video camera as a weapon," he said. "I believe a video does not lie."

He is a fairly big, stocky guy, and with his brusque and hectoring manner, he has been described as obnoxious, self-righteous and worse. "He acts like an adolescent," said James Huntley, the president of the traffic enforcers union. "I believe he's a big kid, or he wouldn't go around intimidating people who are just doing their job."

But in the digital age, Jimmy Justice represents a new kind of citizen vigilante at a time, particularly in New York, when amateur videos are increasingly being used to hold law enforcers to account and shine a public spotlight on their excesses.

Within the past week, two videos have surfaced showing what appears to be police misconduct in New York. In one video, viewed more than 1 million times on YouTube, a police officer is seen charging a bicyclist and knocking him to the ground during a July 25 group bicycle ride through Times Square -- despite the officer's sworn complaint that the cyclist tried to run him down.

A few days later, a separate video appeared, showing another police officer apparently swinging a baton and beating a handcuffed suspect lying on the ground during a July 4 arrest.

The police department has been stung by the incidents, and the officers involved have had their badges and guns taken away while the department investigates. Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly said there will soon be a way for people with videos of crimes -- and incidents of police misconduct -- to send them directly to the police through 911.

In the eyes of civil libertarians and others who have long complained about police excesses under New York's "zero tolerance" policy, the increasingly common use of video by ordinary citizens has started to shift the balance away from law enforcement officials in questions of official misconduct.

"I think the proliferation of video technology does, in some sense, level the playing field," said Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union. "When we think about the citizen eyewitnesses that have brought to light some egregious police conduct that no one would have believed, the benefit is unquestionable."

However, the police union cautions that videos do not always give the entire picture, and officers worry about a flood of citizen videos by people who might not understand that police work is sometimes a messy business. "The use of force sometimes looks violent," said Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's Benevolent Association. "Pieces of video don't tell the whole story." With the police commissioner openly asking for citizen videos, Lynch said, "he's going to have to be very careful not to bow to public pressure and not bow to emotion."

Jimmy Justice -- a pseudonym he chose because it echoes "Give me justice" -- believes all residents of New York should be digitally armed and ready for action. "I think everyone should get a video camera," he said. "Or, if you have to get a new cellphone, get one with a video function." And when people get video of cops behaving badly, he said, "send it in to your local authorities. Or post it on YouTube or other video-sharing sites."

He might sound obsessed. But Jimmy insists he is just a normal guy from Brooklyn, with a job, a girlfriend, a social life and hobbies, including playing guitar in a band. Jimmy Justice's crusade, he said, is against what he calls the city's double standard on parking. Uniformed agents relentlessly -- some say ruthlessly -- enforce parking rules in a city where spaces are scarce, but they violate those same rules when on personal business, such as stopping for lunch or running errands. "You can call it a vendetta if you want, because that's what it is," Jimmy said. "It's about the city's predatory policy of ticketing to raise revenue." When traffic enforcers park illegally, he said, "it's an unfair double standard."

Sometimes it gets ugly out there. In the two years since he began making his videos, Jimmy said, he has been threatened, punched and spit on, and has had cameras smashed to the ground. He said he does not disclose his real name because he fears retaliation by someone whom he has made an unwilling YouTube star.

And Jimmy admits that he occasionally crosses the line, sometimes verbally berating traffic enforcers. "You ought to be ashamed of yourself!" he shouts in a video at one enforcer who was in a restaurant buying lunch while her car was parked next to a fire hydrant -- as firetrucks arrived outside for an emergency. "Are you on drugs?" Jimmy shouts at her. "I definitely try to pick it up when the camera is on," he conceded. "I want to make entertaining videos."

And that is precisely what infuriates Huntley, president of Communications Workers of America Local 1182, which represents the city's 2,500 traffic enforcement agents and sanitation workers. "Sometimes we do have to make U-turns. Sometimes we do have to park here and there," Huntley said. "This man wants to glorify himself and get some ratings."

Huntley said he is more concerned about traffic agents facing harassment and assaults in the streets for simply doing their jobs. In April, Gov. David A. Paterson signed a new law that makes an assault on a traffic enforcement agent a felony punishable by up to seven years in prison. "We can have him arrested for menacing or stalking," Huntley said of Jimmy, signaling a possible new confrontation in the streets. "For too long, we've been abused by the public and the media. We're not going to be a punching bag anymore in New York City."

Original report here



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The Rat Trap

Death row exonerations expose failings of the `snitch system'

Levon Jones is supposed to be dead. If the state of North Carolina had its way, Jones, 49, would have been strapped to a gurney years ago, hooked to an IV and pumped full of a lethal, three-drug cocktail until he asphyxiated. Instead, on May 2, he walked out of prison a free man after spending 13 years on death row, and another 24 months locked up awaiting retrial - all for a murder he almost certainly did not commit.

Jones - known to friends and family as "Bo" - was released with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union's (ACLU) Capital Punishment Project after the prosecution's star witness recanted her testimony against him. (Lovely Lorden, a former girlfriend, admitted she'd collected $4,000 in reward money in exchange for testifying against Jones.)

He was an easy target: an African-American ex-con with a history of mental illness and violent behavior. When Lorden came forward with her story - a full three years after the 1987 shooting of a local bootlegger named Leamon Grady - Jones was doing time on an unrelated assault charge. The prosecution felt little obligation to question the veracity of Lorden's claim. And if the witness is to be believed today, investigators actually helped her keep her story straight.

As a result of Lorden's testimony - and despite the lack of physical evidence tying him to the crime - a jury convicted Jones in 1993 and he was sentenced to die for Grady's killing.

What Jones' attorneys didn't know at the time - and, as it turns out, didn't really bother trying to uncover - is that Lovely Lorden had made something of a career out of testifying against people close to her. By her own admission, she has aided law enforcement in dozens of investigations and says she helped police make cases against several other boyfriends, as well as her own brother and sons. What's more, her work as a confidential informant didn't stop after Jones was sent to death row. Jones' attorneys sent In These Times copies of receipts that show Lorden was paid money at least seven times for her work as a confidential informant from December 2003 to April 2004, while Jones sat in jail.

Today, Lorden contends she testified against Jones under pressure from the police, in particular Dalton Jones (no relation), the lead officer in the case. That doesn't surprise Jones' ACLU attorney, Brian Stull, who says it's not uncommon for police to find a suspect first and worry about making a case later. "I think often times they look at the usual suspects," Stull says. "I think Dalton Jones was thinking, `This is a dangerous person, and whether he did it or whether he didn't, I'm going to get him off the street.' "

Jones owes his freedom in part to an astute federal judge who sensed something amiss with Lorden's testimony during a 2006 penalty appeal. In granting Jones a new trial, U.S. District Judge Terrence Boyle, of the Eastern District of North Carolina, noted Lorden's statements to police were "riddled with inconsistencies" and "reflect that Lorden is unable to fairly and reliably describe the circumstances of the offense."

Unfortunately, the case of Levon Jones is not an anomaly. He is the fifth death row prisoner to be exonerated in the past year. Since December, North Carolina alone has released three inmates from death row after it was determined that they did not commit the crimes for which they were convicted. Of these three men, two, including Jones, were convicted on the false testimony of snitches.

The other, Jonathon Hoffman, was released in December 2007 after spending seven years on death row. His freedom came when the prosecution's key witness - Hoffman's cousin - admitted that he had lied to get back at Hoffman for stealing money and had been both paid for his testimony and given a reduced sentence for bank robbery. At the time of Hoffman's trial, prosecutors withheld the deal from defense attorneys, the jury and even the judge.

In a country where more than one out of every 100 citizens is now incarcerated, criminal justice advocates are scrutinizing the way in which police and prosecutors go about getting the information to pursue and prosecute suspects. This inquiry has increasingly focused on the extent to which incentivized informants and jailhouse snitches are contributing to the convictions of innocent people.

Falsified informant testimony accounts for nearly half of all wrongful convictions in capital cases nationwide, according to data from Northwestern University Law School's Center on Wrongful Convictions. Since 1973, 129 innocent people were released from death row - more than 50 of whom were sentenced to death based partly or wholly on false informant testimony, according to the Center.

Alexandra Natapoff, an associate professor of law at Loyola University and one of the country's foremost authorities on the problems with paid informants, thinks that's just the tip of the iceberg. "We have the most data on capital and homicide convictions because they are the most high profile," she says, "so we have no idea how many wrongful convictions there are in larceny cases or assault cases or any other because nobody is paying any attention to those." Natapoff has written extensively on the role of snitch testimony in wrongful convictions and says that informants have become law enforcement's investigative tool of choice. "The government's use of criminal informants is largely secretive, unregulated and unaccountable," she says. "This lack of oversight and quality control leads to wrongful convictions, more crime, disrespect for the law and sometimes even official corruption."

She continues: "If the criminal system can't get homicide cases right, then it's very unlikely that we're getting other things right."

Original report here


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Sorry we shot your dogs ...

Police in Prince George's County, Maryland, are conceding that, just maybe, last week's violent raid on the home of Berwyn Heights Mayor Cheye Calvo, during which officers killed two dogs, was a mistake. Police raided Calvo's home after he took delivery of a package containing 30 pounds of marijuana. The package was addressed to Trinity Tomsic, Calvo's wife. But law enforcement sources said last week that they are now investigating the possibility that the mayor and his wife were unwitting recipients and that a deliveryman might have intended to intercept the package as part of a drug smuggling scheme.

The package landed on Calvo's doorstep after police posing as deliverymen brought it to the door and Calvo's mother-in-law asked that it be left on the porch. Police recovered the unopened package from the home Tuesday night but made no arrests. Calvo has said he was interrogated for hours while handcuffed and surrounded by the bloody bodies of his dogs.

OK, let's back up here. Police burst into Calvo's home with guns blazing because ... he took delivery of an officially disfavored intoxicant. There was no hint of violence, no hostages or threats -- just a lot of wacky weed. So why the "Raid on Entebbe" tactics?

The fact is, the results could have been a lot worse. I'm not trying to minimize the slaughter of the dogs here -- I'm a dog owner myself, and I'd be driven into a murderous rage were anybody to gun the furry beasts down. But if animals died, people could have died too -- they often do in these violent drug raids. Just today, a Lima, Ohio, police sergeant was acquitted of criminal charges stemming from his killing of an unarmed woman and shooting her one-year-old son during a botched drug raid. Cory Maye is currently serving life in prison for killing a housebreaker who turned out to be a raiding police officer acting on bad information.

Violent police raids are dangerous. But marijuana, in and of itself, is not. Even if Calvo was the intended and willing recipient of that package, there's no excuse for enforcing the laws against marijuana by knocking his doors in and shooting his dogs.

As of now, the definitive study of violent, militarized policing in this country is Overkill: The Rise of Paramilitary Police Raids in America (PDF) by Radley Balko, formerly of the Cato Institute, and now of Reason magazine. The study is accompanied by an online map detailing some of the raids researchers have looked into, and their results, including the deaths of innocent people, deaths of police officers, deaths of nonviolent offenders and raids on innocent suspects. (Dogs, sorry to say, are not included). As of 2006, Balko estimated that as many as 40,000 violent raids of the sort suffered by Calvo and his family take place every year in this country, although not all of them end in blood and tragedy.

I wish Cheye Calvo the best. But I also wish as much attention were paid to the regular people -- non-politicians -- who are usually on the receiving end of these raids.

Original report here




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Don't Call the Cops. Ever.

It's clear from reading the daily news that the police in this country have become as big a menace to the average American as any officially designated "criminal" could ever be. Officially designated criminals at least are restrained by fear of discovery and try to make their behavior as inconspicuous as possible whereas the police have no such fear because they are "the law." They feel no compunction against using all manner of force, including sexual assault and murder, at any place and at any time in this supposedly free land of ours. It is high time to reconsider the very necessity of the modern police force, which is actually based on the system of "law enforcement" wielded by the tyrannical Kings of England to enforce their evil decrees on the people, and not on the system that prevailed in early America in which the people of the town themselves hired the Sheriff whose job it was to protect them, and not to enforce governmental decrees upon them.

If you doubt what I have said, maybe we should consult Mace Hutchinson, the 16-year-old boy in Ozark, Missouri, who fell from a bridge, broke his back and then was tasered 19 times by the police. Why was a child with a broken back tortured by electrocution? Well, he REFUSED TO COMPLY WITH THE POLICE OFFICERS' ORDERS! A high offense to be sure, as we all know police officers are second in holiness only to U.S. soldiers. But why did these heroes in blue feel that an unarmed, obviously injured boy was a threat to them? Well you see, he apparently mentioned something about killing police officers according to the spokesman for the Police Department. (Before or after they started electrocuting him? We aren't told).

Or perhaps we could consult Mrs. Hope Steffey of Salem, Ohio, who had the cops called to assist her after being beaten by a cousin and ended up being the victim of a perfectly "legal" sexual assault by Sheriff's deputies at the Stark County jail. They threw her to the ground and forcibly removed all of her clothes while she screamed in blood curdling terror. This gang of thugs with badges included male officers as well. This happened to her after being beaten by the cop called to the scene and then arrested on a bogus "disorderly conduct" charge meant to cover up the arresting officer's crime. Of course the brave, strong Sheriff of Stark County, a piece of worthless garbage named Timothy Swanson, has defended the conduct of his officers. He claims it was done for Steffey's own protection because she was suicidal! Because we all know that suicidal people don't need gooey, "liberal"-sounding things like care and compassion, but ruthless violence. Knowing that a lawsuit would be filed, Swanson invited the politically-embattled now former-Attorney General of Ohio, Mark Dann, to investigate, and, surprise, surprise, no wrongdoing was found! (Who you gonna believe, the Government or your own lyin' eyes?)

Maybe we can sit down with the family of Cheryl Noel, a 44-year-old mother who was executed in her own bedroom by a member of the group of criminals who call themselves the "Baltimore County SWAT Team" who invaded her home with no just cause whatsoever at 4:30 in the morning. The reason for this brutal slaying? They had found "trace amounts" of drugs in her trash can and when they busted into her home she had the audacity to have had a gun in her hand in order to defend herself! Silly woman, that's what the cops are for! (And who defends us from the cops, you ask? Just move along, nothing to see here....) And of course, as usual, the State's Attorney General's Office called the shooting justified. You are not supposed to ask, of course, whether eradicating drugs is so important that we need to let the Government's goon squads break into our homes at will and murder us as they see fit.

I wonder what young Blake Dwyer would have to say about the cops in his home town? The epileptic Dwyer was having a seizure and the cops were trying to help the medics at the scene restrain him, and being the compassionate type of fellows who usually become legalized assassins like police officers and soldiers, they tasered him 12 times! I'm sure that he also committed the high offense of "disobeying an officer," but couldn't even a brain dead Chief Wiggum wannabe know that maybe he really couldn't obey? Oh well, I guess it could have been worse old Blake my friend, because the taser is "non-lethal" as we all know. Right? (Or maybe not.)

Perhaps the grieving family of Ricardo Abrahams in Woodland, California, can tell you about all the care and protection their mentally disturbed, but never violent, son received when the police were called to make a "welfare check" on him. He received so much care and compassion from police that now he'll never suffer from his mental illness again, because he is dead. When the members of the bloody blue line approached Abrahams, he was "aggressive" and brandished a pencil at them (Teacher, help!), so, of course, they murdered him. Through a combination of baton blows, taser blasts and "positional asphyxiation" (meaning they suffocated him) the poor, troubled Mr. Abrahams was given the ultimate punishment. I'm sure this killing will be considered justified by whatever Government liar has the responsibility to determine these types of things, because the officers, I'm sure, "feared for their safety," which makes sense because pencil-related deaths of police officers are on the rise in Woodland, California, I'm sure. About this story you are also not supposed to ask if the cops should have just left Mr. Abrahams alone when he got aggressive, because they were not there to arrest him, but to check on his welfare, and he had no history of violence.

These are just a few of the more outrageous examples of out of control "law enforcement" in this day and age. One could spend countless hours on the Internet reading stories very similar to these I've mentioned above.

Original report here






"Child welfare" bureaucrats still harassing Mormons -- over paperwork


Texas Child Protective Services moved Tuesday to return eight polygamist sect children to foster care, the first such action since the Texas Supreme Court ordered these children and more than 400 others returned to their parents in May. The six girls and two boys, ages 5 to 17, are in four Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints households that either refuse to condemn underage marriages in writing or are actively involved with the practice, according to CPS affidavits filed in San Angelo.

Asked if the eight children are in danger, Charles Childress, a CPS attorney from Austin who filed the agency's motions, would only say: "That's what the judge is being asked to decide." A Sept. 25 hearing before state District Judge Barbara Walther has been scheduled. The four petitions for state conservatorship, or custody, of the six girls and two boys were filed after CPS caseworkers say they could not get the parents of the eight to sign what is known as a safety plan. The plan requires parents' promise to keep the child safe from harm and meet certain CPS requirements such as providing the child's parentage and medical documents.

On its face, Tuesday's filing for custody is no different than hundreds of others filed in Texas courts each year when parents retreat from the CPS bargaining table. But it is the supporting documents, including caseworker affidavits, letters and diaries from FLDS members, including sect president Warren Jeffs, that offer a rare peek inside the state's sexual abuse investigation that started March 28 with a purported phone call from inside the sect's West Texas ranch to a women's shelter in San Angelo.

Original report here



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U.S. Army Private LaVena Lynn Johnson, RIP

According to the U.S. Department of Defense, Private LaVena Lynn Johnson killed herself on July 19, 2005, eight days before her twentieth birthday. Exactly how did she end her life? She punched herself in the face hard enough to blacken her eyes, break her nose, and knock her front teeth loose. She douched with an acid solution after mutilating her genital area. She poured a combustible liquid on herself and set it afire. She then shot herself in the head. Despite this massive self-inflicted trauma, she somehow managed to drag her then fully clothed body into the tent of a KBR contractor, leaving a trail of blood along the way and set the tent ablaze in a failed attempt to cover up her crimes against herself.

If this story sounds plausible to you, you may have missed your calling as an officer in the U.S. Army, because Army officers, speaking with a straight face, would have you believe that such a thing is not only possible, but actually happened.

In reality, LaVena Johnson was raped, beaten, and murdered by someone on a military base in Balad, Iraq, and the Army doesn't want you to know about it. Army officers most especially didn't want her parents to know about it, so they concocted the suicide story, informing them that their daughter had shot herself in the head in her barracks.

When LaVena's body was returned to her parents, however, her father, Dr. John Johnson, immediately noticed that her nose was broken and her lip was torn. He was surprised to discover that her gloves were glued to her hands (as it turns out, to hide burns). As a former military man himself, he also recognized that the exit wound from the bullet could not possibly have come from the weapon the military claimed LaVena used to kill herself. He knew then that the Army was lying to him, that his daughter had been murdered. He made these discoveries three years ago. Today, the Army is still lying to him, and to us.

LaVena Johnson enlisted in the U.S. Army after graduating from a Missouri high school because she believed it was right to serve her country. She loved America, was very patriotic, and she thought joining the military was the best way to express that patriotism. Although her mother had assumed that her daughter, a violinist and honor student, would go straight to college, LaVena had made other plans. After her death, her company commander described her as having been "clearly happy" during her time in the Service. She enjoyed her job, took pride in it, and cared about the U.S. Army.

Unfortunately, the Army did not care about her. In fact, the disdain and contempt in which the Army held - and continues to hold - her seems to have no bounds. Her father stated last year in an interview given for a Missouri television station that the U.S. Army "turned on her" after her murder. I differ with Dr. Johnson on only one point: the U.S. Army never did give a damn about his daughter.

After filing a FOIA request for release of a CD-ROM contained in LaVena's file but withheld from the family for over two years, and under added pressure from a congressman, the Army finally gave the Johnsons the CD. On it they found horrific photographs from the autopsy that clearly showed the extent of their daughter's injuries. It proved that the original black and white photos of LaVena's body originally sent to them had been doctored. Also on the disk were damning sketches of the crime scene that gave her parents further information contradicting the Army's statements.

In a heart-wrenching interview conducted last month with LaVena's parents, her mother, Linda Johnson, describes the members of the military responsible for this cover-up as "lying demons."

One wonders whether LaVena would have enlisted in the Army if she had known that Veterans Administration statistics show that one third of the women who serve in the military are victims of sexual assault by a fellow soldier. Or if she had known about an emerging pattern of "suicides" of women soldiers who were also victims of sexual assault.

According to the Department of Defense FY07 Report on Sexual Assault in the Military: "The Army remains committed to thoroughly investigate and take appropriate action in all unrestricted reports of sexual assault," and the Department of Defense "continues its commitment to eradicate sexual assault in the military services."

Military leaders have no real interest in stopping sexual assaults. If they did, LaVena Johnson's rape and murder would be included in their statistics. But they would rather not admit that these crimes occur if they don't have to. So, if the victim is dead, all the better. Just report that death as a suicide.

LaVena Johnson was awarded a posthumous promotion to Private First Class, a bone thrown to her family, no doubt. But her spirit cries out for justice. Please call your representatives in Congress and demand action on her case. The telephone number for the U.S. Capitol switchboard is 202/224-3121. Please help her parents to obtain a proper investigation of their daughter's death. The major media have ignored LaVena's story, and without a vociferous public demand for action the government will continue to stonewall.

LaVena Johnson was raped and murdered. Do not let the military sweep this under the rug.

Original report here







Justice and Milberg

Poor Bernie Ebbers, the former WorldCom boss now serving a 25-year prison sentence. If he'd been a class-action lawyer, the former CEO might have ended up with a fat payout from his employer despite his felony rap. At least that's one way to look at the Justice Department's recent nonprosecution agreement with the notorious Milberg law firm.

We criticized the deal last month for letting the law firm pay Melvyn Weiss -- its former lead partner and now admitted felon -- a share of the firm's future lawsuit winnings. Milberg also picked up his legal fees and expenses. We've since learned that all of this was fine with prosecutors at Justice. Thom Mrozek, spokesman for the U.S. Attorney's office in the Central District of California, confirmed the contents of last week's letter to us from five Milberg partners saying Justice had given them the green light to keep Weiss in the financial style to which he had become accustomed. "We considered many things during our negotiations with the firm," Mr. Mrozek says, "the culpability of senior partners who have been convicted, the lack of knowledge of others, the fact that the firm appears to be a stable business entity. There were a whole host of factors." He declined to elaborate.

We have no problem with Justice letting innocent partners keep Milberg going as a business -- in fact, we questioned the firm-wide indictment from the start. It is strange, however, that Justice let Weiss off so easy for copping to a 30-year scheme to pay people to masquerade as plaintiffs in ginned-up lawsuits. Weiss is serving a 30-month sentence, paying a $250,000 fine and forfeiting some $9.8 million -- which looks like a sweet deal compared to the $240 million that his lawbreaking netted the firm.

Last Wednesday, Republicans Joe Barton (Texas) and John Shimkus (Illinois) wrote to Attorney General Michael Mukasey asking how Justice arrived at the number as well as why the firm was allowed to continue sending checks to Weiss. By allowing the firm to pay off its $75 million fine over five years, Messrs. Barton and Shimkus also note, the Department allows the firm to "use the proceeds from future class actions to pay the fine," thereby further lightening the burden.

Writing for the Washington Legal Foundation, former Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Sklaire notes that most deferred prosecution agreements in corporate fraud cases produce a stiffer set of conditions and penalties than those for Milberg. Unless Justice has a better explanation for the Congressmen, the Weiss sinecure looks like a case of prosecutors getting taken for a ride.

Original report here




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Australia: Only 18 months jail for torturing a disabled man to death?

The aunt of a disabled man said yesterday the three men who tortured him and helped cover up his death were "not getting their just deserts". Shalendra Singh, 23, Darren Charles Summers, 37, and an 18-year-old who cannot be named were jailed yesterday for a minimum 14 to 18 months after pleading guilty to being an accessory to manslaughter.

The Supreme Court heard Christopher O'Brien, 22, was subjected to extensive "interrogation" over the theft of a bracelet and a missing phone on March 6 last year. Mr O'Brien, who had an intellectual age of 14, was put in a chair, hit on his spine and limbs with a hammer and forced to eat chilli flakes and drink kitchen poisons. When he died in the loungeroom almost two days later Singh, Summers and the youth, then 17, cleaned the house to dispose of forensic evidence. Singh and Summers also made false statements to police.

Mr O'Brien's remains were found in Dandenong Creek wrapped in a sleeping bag last August 14. Justice Lex Lasry said although the trio had not caused the death, their actions resulted in his family not knowing where he was for five months. "The extended viciousness and cruelty of this attack on Christopher O'Brien almost defies belief," he said. "Notwithstanding that knowledge you co-operated in doing things aimed at protecting those who had killed O'Brien."

The judge rejected submissions by the prosecution and the defence for wholly suspend sentences for Singh and Summers, which would have allowed them to walk free. But outside court Mr O'Brien's aunt, Carmel, said the jail terms were not enough. "Chris was the most beautiful person . . . to hear what actually happened in his last hours of life, days of life, is just so upsetting," she said.

Singh was jailed for two years and three months with a non-parole term of 14-months. Summers was given 2 1/2 years' jail with a minimum of 16 months. The youth was jailed for 18 months but the judge recommended immediate parole. Two men who have pleaded guilty to the manslaughter of Mr O'Brien are yet to be sentenced.

Original report here






Stupid and thuggish Australian cops again

Man cleared of sex attacks traumatised in custody -- after arrogant police accept without question notoriously unreliable eyewitness identification. There IS a resemblance between the innocent guy (See pic below) and the desciption of the actual attacker -- which shows again the perils of eyewitness ID. Thank goodness for DNA evidence



A Sydney man wrongly accused of being a sex predator says he was traumatised after being charged and locked up by police despite having an alibi. Joey de Mesa, 23, of Minchinbury, was released yesterday after forensic tests cleared him of assaulting several young women in Sydney's north-west.

Mr de Mesa saw CCTV footage of himself at Blacktown railway station on the television news and went to Mount Druitt police station on Saturday to clear his name. "I saw a picture of myself. It looked like it was taken at Blacktown station and then I didn't know what to do after that," Mr de Mesa told Network Ten tonight. "I told my parents it's not me, please believe me."

He said he told police he was working at a fruit shop in Edgecliff when some of the attacks occurred. "I told them that it wasn't me. I told them to get more hard evidence, but they said they've got all the evidence that they needed, that's it." He said he told police to check CCTV footage at his work. However, police later said they had "compelling evidence" before the forensic tests were returned.

One of the victims told police she had spotted her attacker at Blacktown last week, and police circulated CCTV footage of the man captured at the railway station. Mr de Mesa was charged with three counts of aggravated sexual assault, three counts of aggravated robbery, indecent assault and stalking and intimidation linked to assaults on five women in Sydney's north-west between April and June. He was strip searched and faced Parramatta Bail Court on Sunday, where he was refused bail. "I was about to break down. I didn't know what to do," Mr de Mesa said.

He said he barely slept or ate while locked up and began questioning whether he was responsible for the crimes. "(Police) made me think that it was me, that I'd done all these things, so in my mind I had to go through it (to) think whether I really did rape anyone or not. That's how much they put it on me," he told Fairfax. "I had never been to a court before. I was just so confused and shocked," he said.

Police today refused to comment on whether an apology would be made to Mr de Mesa. Detectives continue investigations into the string of attacks, during which victims as young as 16 were sexually assaulted by the same attacker, who was armed with a knife on each occasion. "Detectives are encouraging children and young people to avoid walking or travelling alone, especially if going to and from school," police said.

Each victim has described their attacker as being of Asian appearance, aged between 18 and 21, with two prominent top front teeth.

Original report here




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Britain: Uninsured learner driver who killed schoolgirl walks free from court with $530 fine

A grieving mother yesterday condemned an uninsured driver who was handed a $530 fine for causing a crash which resulted in the death of her daughter. Samuel Clements, 19, illegally drove his Renault 19 two days after buying it, but the vehicle was unroadworthy. As he sped along a busy dual carriageway, he lost control of the car and rolled it along an embankment, coming to rest upside down. His passenger Sarah Gaecke, 15, was stumbling out of the wreckage when she was struck and killed by another car.

Despite previous convictions for driving without insurance and without a licence, Clements walked free. He was fined $50 for driving without a licence, $80 for having a defective tyre and $400 for having no insurance. He was also ordered to $160 costs and given eight penalty points on his driving licence. The trainee forklift-truck driver was banned from driving for a year under the totting up rules because he already had six points for his previous offences in March last year.

Sarah's mother Vici Gaecke, 36, who has three other children, said yesterday: 'He has ended my daughter's life and he has destroyed my family and what has he got? 'Nothing. There's no justice. There's been no closure. 'The fact he was in court last year charged with doing the same thing just twists the knife even further. 'It just shows he's going to keep doing it. If he'd been imprisoned there would have been justice for Sarah. Even community service would have been better than a small fine.'

Miss Gaecke, of Ipswich, who is divorced from Sarah's father Chris, 41, a security guard, said she supported the Daily Mail's campaign to raise the minimum age for driving to 18. 'These young male drivers cause the majority of serious accidents,' she said. 'They think they are indestructible.'

Sarah had been in Felixstowe with a group of friends when they started heading back towards Ipswich in two cars on the A14 on December 21 last year. Prosecutor Sandra Dyer told South East Suffolk Magistrates' Court that Clements's car ended up on its roof in lane one. Sarah was hit by another vehicle as she tried to scramble away, and died instantly. The driver of the car that hit her was not charged. Checks by police later revealed Clements's car had a badly defective tyre which probably caused him to lose control.

Chairman of the bench Anthony Baker said the teenager's decision to drive the vehicle was a ' deliberate act'. But he allowed him to walk free from court after hearing he had not been charged with any offences relating to Sarah's death. The Ministry of Justice yesterday said a long-awaited law that could see motorists charged with causing death while driving unlicensed, disqualified or uninsured - carrying a maximum two-year jail term - would be introduced this summer.

But Mrs Gaecke said the new law probably wouldn't have applied in her daughter's case as she was killed while getting out of Clements's car after the accident. 'Two years for killing someone while driving without the right documents is not enough. 'I think if you take someone's life you should go down for life,' she said. Speaking after the hearing, Clements, who admitted all the offences, said: 'It's been a nightmare. I'll never forget about it.'

Original report here







Innocence is no defense again

According to an article in the Orange County Register. Nature's Wellness Collective owner Bob Adams said the dispensary was raided by approximately 14 DEA agents armed with assault rifles and accompanied by members of the Orange Police Department. Adams said agents took all of his medicinal marijuana supply, money from the store's register and ATM machine, computers, cameras, smoking pipes and his city-issued business license and detained him and his three employees.

Now why is this ridiculous? Because they were released without being charged of any crime. So if no crime was being committed then why did the inappropriate number of officers participate in this raid? Do they not have more pressing issues to address or is Orange County the only county in America that does not have car thefts, home burglaries, armed robberies, etc?

Apparently there was no intent in the raid to prosecute the alleged perpetrators, just to seize the money and assets and to send a message that the DEA was on da job. And if there was no intent to prosecute, then why did the raid happen in the first place and why did they need so many officers to raid a non-violent medical marijuana dispensary? Do these places have a history of being violent? Did the owner and employees have previous arrests for violence? I know that I would be ashamed to participate in this type of police action.

Original report here



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British judges’ error over suicide note gives husband hope of appeal

A glaring error by judges in the case of a man accused of killing his wife by faking her suicide is to be used in a fresh attempt to clear his name. Eddie Gilfoyle was convicted of murder after prosecutors said that he dictated a suicide note to his pregnant wife, Paula, then hanged her to make it look like she killed herself. Court of Appeal judges who upheld his conviction thought that her final letter had been typed when it was actually in Mrs Gilfoyle’s handwriting, The Times can disclose. Academic lawyers say that the error could open the door to a fresh appeal by Gilfoyle, who has served 15 years of a life sentence, and has consistently protested his innocence. The Court of Appeal’s judgment has become contentious among legal scholars, with one book by a law professor turned Crown Court judge describing its language as glib.

Gilfoyle’s campaign was boosted when the criminal profiler David Canter disclosed in The Times in February that research into suicide notes indicated that Mrs Gilfoyle’s was genuine. A former Merseyside assistant chief constable, a Police Complaints Authority investigator and the chairman-elect of the Bar Council have all now said that the conviction was unsafe.

The prosecution said that Gilfoyle dictated suicide notes to his wife by tricking her into believing that they were for a course at work. Three appeal court judges upheld the conviction in 2000, but their judgment contains important factual errors. It reads: “According to the appellant, he went home at about 4.40pm, noticed his wife was missing and found a suicide note in the kitchen. It was typed and was before the jury. It started, ‘I’ve decided to put an end to everything’.”

A draft had also been found. “Another typed ‘suicide’ letter, referred to as the ‘indented’ letter, was revealed in a notebook,” the Court of Appeal stated. The Times has published the suicide note, in Mrs Gilfoyle’s looping feminine hand, and the draft is obviously handwritten, as it was detected only by studying indents on paper. The error may be explained because the judges were given typed versions of the notes when hearing the appeal.

Andrew Roberts, of Warwick School of Law, said: “An error of fact that provides the basis of the decision on appeal could be the subject of further appeal.” Paul Caddick, Gilfoyle’s brother-in-law and a former policeman who found Mrs Gilfoyle’s body in Upton, Wirral, said: “I would be suspicious if somebody presented me with a suicide note that was typed.”

The Gilfoyle judgment is criticised in Murphy on Evidence, a standard law textbook. The Court of Appeal refused to hear Professor Canter’s profiling evidence that analysed how Mrs Gilfoyle suffered disquiet during pregnancy while showing a positive face to the world. “Observing (with respect, rather glibly) that whether a person appeared to have been happy was not a matter that required assessment by experts, the court held that psychological autopsies were not recognised as having any real scientific basis and so should not form the subject of expert evidence,” Professor Murphy, now a Crown Court judge, writes.

Original report here




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British teacher fails to have false rape claims struck from his record

Guilty until proven innocent, apparently. This could happen to anybody -- and do lots of harm to the victim. It cost this man his job

A teacher who says he was falsely accused of sexually abusing pupils yesterday lost a legal battle to clear his name. John Pinnington, 59, was told that all potential future employers must be told about the accusations, even though they were never proved. Mr Pinnington was fired from his job as deputy head of a college for autistic young adults when the allegations, made when he worked at another college, came to light, in 2005. He was accused of sexually inappropriate behaviour with three young men. Police investigated, but in each case no action was taken.

Mr Pinnington's lawyer, Tania Griffiths QC, told the High Court that one of alleged victims 'could not stop telling lies' and claimed he made the complaint simply to 'get attention'. Nonetheless, the fact that the allegations were made meant that he lost his job. Since then Mr Pinnington has failed to find a job because the abuse allegations appear on his file at the Criminal Records Bureau, which issues certificates for everyone seeking to work with children.

The father of two argued that the certificate produced by the CRB was 'based on lies' but had nonetheless cost him 'my life and my livelihood'. He argued that police CRB checks should only include unsubstantiated abuse allegations if there is good cause to believe they are true.

Yesterday, the High Court dismissed his attempt to prevent Thames Valley Police from including the information in the CRB check. Although Lord Justice Richards agreed that the accusations against Mr Pinnington, of Wallingford, Oxfordshire, had 'serious weaknesses' and 'could not be substantiated', he said that did not entirely negate them. He ruled there was nothing unlawful about the force's actions and said that future employers 'should be aware' of the accusations, however weak and unreliable they are. 'In relation to employment with children or vulnerable adults, it is information of which an employer should be aware. 'It is then for the employer to decide whether the employment of the person concerned involves an unacceptable risk'.

But Chris Keates, of the teachers' union NASUWT, said: 'This shows that even when someone is cleared of all allegations made against them, there is no escape as far as working with children is concerned. 'It simply cannot be right that even when somebody has been through an investigation, and they are found to be innocent, they can never clear their name. 'The teacher in this case will have to live his life with this hanging over him.'

Original report here



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British loner cleared of murder after 8 years in jail

Barry George is free to seek more than $2 million compensation as the victim of a miscarriage of justice after being cleared yesterday of the murder of the Crimewatch presenter Jill Dando. The Times has learnt that the Government has not yet implemented laws passed four months ago that would have capped his claim for damages at $1,00,000. The Ministry of Justice said that there was no limit on what Mr George, a convicted sex attacker and persistent stalker, could receive. He is also understood to be considering media bids for his story in excess of $200,000.


Ms Dando, 37, was shot in the head at point-blank range outside her home in Fulham, West London, in April 1999. Her murder is likely to remain unsolved. Police indicated that the case was effectively closed. Mr George spent eight years in jail, having faced two Old Bailey trials and two appeals. His case was the subject of a prominent miscarriage of justice campaign. As the jury returned its unanimous verdict yesterday, his eyes welled with tears. He later told his solicitor: “I can’t believe it.” His sister, Michelle Diskin, who led the campaign for his acquittal, punched the air and shouted “Yes” before breaking down in tears.

Scotland Yard said officially that it was disappointed with the outcome of the case, but senior sources told The Times that they were furious with the way the case ended. One said: “This was a year-long investigation which accrued a huge amount of evidence. The jury deliberated for less than eight hours — can they really say they gave due consideration to all the facts?” The family of Ms Dando declined to comment on the verdict.

Mr George, who has a low IQ, mental health problems and epilepsy, left court with Susan Young, a psychologist who sat with him through years of legal hearings to ensure that he understood the proceedings. She said: “Mr George feels overwhelmed by the verdict as, throughout the trial, he did not dare to get his hopes up and he continually said to me in the dock he believed he would be convicted.” She told The Times: “I have spent hours and hours with Barry George. I would seriously doubt that someone with his level of problems could carry out the murder. And I would expect someone who has his problems to let something slip, but he never has.”

Jeremy Moore, Mr George’s solicitor, confirmed that there would be a claim for compensation. It will be up to Jack Straw, the Justice Secretary, to decide if he is eligible. If so, the case will be passed to Lord Brennan, QC. Reforms of the compensation scheme were included in the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act, which received the Royal Assent in May. They would have limited the maximum amount payable to Mr George to $1,000,000 because he had been in jail for less than ten years, but the capping clause has yet to take effect. The claim will cover loss of liberty, housing and living allowances and could increase if Mr George requires continuing specialist mental health care.

Commander Simon Foy, of the Metropolitan Police, said: “We are disappointed by today’s verdict, but especially disappointed for Jill’s family and friends. However, we respect the decision of the court. The investigation into her murder was complex, thorough and professional, with more than 2,500 statements taken and 3,700 exhibits recovered.”

Hilary Bradfield, the Crown Prosecution Service’s reviewing lawyer, said: “Mr George now has the right to be regarded as an innocent man, but that does not mean it was wrong to bring the case. Our test is whether there is sufficient evidence for a realistic prospect of conviction. It would be wrong to only bring cases where we were guaranteed a conviction.”

Original report here




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Camera captures cop body-slamming bicyclist

A New York City cop has been stripped of his gun and badge after a video camera caught him on tape lowering his shoulder and slamming a bicyclist to the ground. Officer Patrick Pogan, a 23-year-old policeman working his first month on the job in the city's Midtown South Precinct, was standing in the middle of the street near Times Square, monitoring traffic as a parade of bicycle riders passed by as part last week's Critical Mass ride, a monthly protest of urban reliance on motorized vehicles.

As the video shows, Pogan began walking toward the curb, then took a hard step toward an oncoming cyclist identified as Hoboken, N.J., native, Christopher Long. Pogan then delivered a massive shoulder check into the bicyclist, sending Long sprawling to the ground. The video of the assault has since been posted on YouTube.

Craig Radhuber was riding his bike behind Long and witnessed the event. "He was body-slammed," Radhuber told Newsday. "I was so angry. I was ready to jump on the police officer. ... This was totally uncalled-for." "It was unprovoked," Radhuber told the Associated Press. "It was like the cop was waiting for him and then just checked him as he got closer. I couldn't believe it."

Officer Pogan then arrested Long on charges of attempted assault, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest, according to papers filed in Manhattan Criminal Court. Pogan reported that Long was weaving in traffic, "forcing multiple vehicles to stop abruptly or change their direction" to avoid a collision. Pogan also cited Long for physically struggling during the arrest, refusing to put his hands behind his back, "thereby making handcuffing difficult."

Radhuber disagreed with the police report. "There was no traffic behind us – there was no traffic to weave in and out of," he told the New York Times. "The police officer looked to see who he was going to pick off."

Police spokesman Paul Browne told the Associated Press that Pogan has since been placed on desk duty pending the outcome of a police department investigation.

Christopher Long was released from custody without bail but faces a Sept. 5 court hearing on the charges filed against him. Long's attorney, Mark Taylor, told the New York Times he hoped the charges would be dropped against Long, saying, "We believe the video speaks for itself."

Original report here




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