Free state or police state?
Some alarming recent precedents
The enemies of a free state — and a free people — are at it again. Not that they ever stopped, but a recent U.S. Supreme Court decision, along with a new directive within the FBI and a city council ordinance in Iowa. make it perfectly clear that the Fourth Amendment guarantee against unreasonable searches and seizures is a thing of the past.
The Supreme Court decision, issued in May based on a case from Kentucky, allows police officers to enter a residence without a warrant if they contend that they smelled marijuana or some other drug odor, knocked, identified themselves as police and then heard noises that sounded like evidence being destroyed.
Note the assumption that police really did smell drugs, as if police never lie.
Consider the case in Philadelphia during the 1990s when several officers from the same North Philly precinct were convicted of planting evidence on innocent people. This current ruling runs the risk of making the Philadelphia situation routine across the country.
The specifics in the Kentucky case are these: Police were following a suspect who allegedly sold crack cocaine to an informant. They followed him into an apartment building, but did not see which apartment he entered.
Smelling marijuana coming from one unit, the police knocked, identified themselves and then heard movement and a toilet flushing. So, the cops broke in and arrested the occupant who was not the suspect they were following. They did find some powdered cocaine so the man was arrested, tried, convicted, and sentenced to 11 years in prison.
The appellate process took the case to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Judge Samuel Alito Jr. said people don’t have to answer the door when police knock but if police hear movement and the toilet flush, officers may enter without the need for a warrant. In the 8-1 decision, Alito wrote that people who attempt to destroy evidence have only themselves to blame.
The lone dissent came from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg who said the court has now given police an easy way to ignore fundamental rights. The decision “arms the police with a way routinely to dishonor the Fourth Amendment's warrant requirement in drug cases,” she wrote.
Compounding this insidious decision from last month is the FBI’s recent decision to permit agents to initiate any investigation or surveillance that they like without any need to show cause for the action.
Judge Andrew Napolitano, on his Freedom Watch program of June 13, said the new policy: “…would permit [FBI] agents on their own to follow and snoop on anyone they wanted, whether there was any suspicion of criminal activity about that person or not; that it would sort through the garbage of anyone it chose, whether there was any suspicious behavior on the part of whoever used the garbage or not; and that it would search any databases it felt like searching about anyone in whom it was interested, whether there was criminal suspicion about that person or not.”
Those two situations would be hideous enough, but now come the lawmakers from Cedar Falls, Iowa. In 2004, the city council in Cedar Falls enacted an ordinance that required lock boxes on commercial buildings and large apartment complexes. On June 13, the council voted 6-1 to expand the policy to include smaller apartment buildings. It went from a six-apartment minimum to a three-unit minimum.
Tenants are required to place a key to the apartment or property in a universal lock box that firefighters can access so, in case of a fire, they can enter without breaking down the door.
One woman speaking against the expanded measure said that if her apartment were on fire, she wouldn’t care about whether or not firefighters broke the door.
Another rationalization for the ordinance is that if there’s an EMS call, responders can gain access. Again, if it’s a matter of life or death, the door doesn’t matter. Even if it did, those in single dwellings should fork up keys, too. Don’t they deserve to be safe? Don’t their doors deserve the right to remain hinged?
Cedar Falls council members likely got the measure approved because it doesn’t affect the more affluent, those in better neighborhoods with nice houses. It focuses on the poorer in the community, those who rent.
When the law first passed seven years ago, nobody said a word, and now the ordinance has been expanded. Unless people get their act together and get the law overturned, it will expand again, likely to those single-family homeowners.
Think not? When the income tax went into effect in 1914, only those making more than $100,000 per year had to pay. Since nobody cared about the rights of the rich, now the middle class and working poor are paying that tax.
Asset-forfeiture laws were only to be used against organized crime members and drug runners, but forfeiture has been abused. Police across the country routinely confiscate cars and cash without ever charging a person with a crime.
The SCOTUS decision and the Iowa ordinance unfairly target people who live in apartments and condominiums. People in houses don’t have to give spare keys to Cedar Falls authorities — not yet anyway — and folks who live in single-family dwellings have a better chance of keeping suspicious odors from escaping.
To paraphrase Thomas Paine, those who fail to safeguard the rights of others whether it’s because of a difference in income, skin color, gender, or for any reason whatsoever will lose their rights, too.
Regardless, though, the FBI is watching whomever they want, for whatever reason they choose.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Monday, June 20, 2011
Sunday, June 19, 2011
Crooked prosecutors in Sydney, Australia
The Bondi caveman says police held secret information that quashed a sex crime charge against him and kept him in custody for 18 months, writes Les Kennedy.
FOR more than 11 years Peter Millhouse lived in a sandstone cave overlooking Bondi Beach. It was where the 55-year-old chose to recite his poems to passers-by in the hope of payment while relying on food handouts from locals.
He became known as the "Bondi caveman" but some residents and the council sought to evict him because of the unsightly camp and for his own welfare.
Then the law intervened. On Melbourne Cup Day in 2009, a then 21-year-old woman visiting the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition spent six hours feeding birds and chatting to Millhouse. Within an hour of her leaving the cave about dusk, he was grappling with police, arrested for allegedly raping the woman despite his protests that the sex was consensual.
He spent the next 18 months behind bars, awaiting trial, during which time he says he was assaulted.
But on the eve of his trial last month, the Director of Public Prosecutions dropped the rape charge. Now Millhouse intends to sue the NSW police for wrongful imprisonment by withholding information from the DPP that would have led to the charge being dismissed earlier, says his lawyer, Paul Williams.
The case raises questions about the role of police in not revealing to the DPP information about the troubled background of the alleged victim, including a history of unsubstantiated sexual assault claims and multiple personality disorder.
Background information about the woman first emerged last month, on the day Justice Reg Blanch was to assign a District Court judge to hear the trial before a jury.
Crown prosecutors were granted a one-day adjournment to respond to a request from Williams for information on the woman, such as medical reports or criminal history.
The DPP had not received such details from Waverley police, who charged Millhouse. When police provided files to the DPP later in the day, copies were passed to his defence team.
The next day, without explanation, the DPP's office told Blanch it had "no-billed" the charge of intercourse without consent. In no-billing, the DPP does not have to state its reasons for dropping a charge.
The files, seen by The Sun-Herald, contain reports from police - including officers attached to joint police and Department of Community Services child mistreatment teams - of investigations dating back to 2002, when the woman was 14. They included numerous unsubstantiated claims by her of being attacked and sexually assaulted by strangers - one calling himself the devil - in bush and at her home.
One report investigated by police included allegations that she was raped many times at a religious centre by an African immigrant who said it would rid her of a demon.
In the 2006 report of the alleged incidents at the religious centre, police wrote: "History of mental illness and unsubstantiated sexual assault reports."
In 2003 the woman made three reports to police about being dragged into bush and raped. After reviewing them, police said: "There is insufficient evidence to proceed … no further action to be taken." Two more allegations of sexual assault that year were dismissed.
The files also contained a report on the woman four months after the alleged Bondi rape, when Millhouse was in custody, that was never declared to the defence team. It said she was found slumped in her car covered in dirt and insect bites near a coastal lake with no recollection of having left her western Sydney home the night before.
In the car police found a fresh lamb's heart, a broken cross with a date of birth engraved on it, a kitchen knife, scissors and a Stanley knife.
"Police are unable to determine if the [victim] slaughtered a lamb and took its heart," the report said. It also said her guardians had informed officers she had four personalities, each with a different name.
Williams said police should have reviewed the woman's background and given that information to the police legal branch and the DPP for review.
In no-billing the rape charge against Millhouse, the DPP did not drop charges of assaulting two police officers that arose from his arrest - one was allegedly bitten and the other kicked in the groin.
On Friday Millhouse's legal team again appeared before Justice Blanch in the Downing Centre District Court and received an adjournment to July 8, after advising he would make an application to the DPP to no-bill the assault charges and would also make an application for costs.
After his arrest Millhouse lost his cave home - council staff removed his property - and he lives with a former Bondi family who have supported him while on bail.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
The Bondi caveman says police held secret information that quashed a sex crime charge against him and kept him in custody for 18 months, writes Les Kennedy.
FOR more than 11 years Peter Millhouse lived in a sandstone cave overlooking Bondi Beach. It was where the 55-year-old chose to recite his poems to passers-by in the hope of payment while relying on food handouts from locals.
He became known as the "Bondi caveman" but some residents and the council sought to evict him because of the unsightly camp and for his own welfare.
Then the law intervened. On Melbourne Cup Day in 2009, a then 21-year-old woman visiting the Sculpture by the Sea exhibition spent six hours feeding birds and chatting to Millhouse. Within an hour of her leaving the cave about dusk, he was grappling with police, arrested for allegedly raping the woman despite his protests that the sex was consensual.
He spent the next 18 months behind bars, awaiting trial, during which time he says he was assaulted.
But on the eve of his trial last month, the Director of Public Prosecutions dropped the rape charge. Now Millhouse intends to sue the NSW police for wrongful imprisonment by withholding information from the DPP that would have led to the charge being dismissed earlier, says his lawyer, Paul Williams.
The case raises questions about the role of police in not revealing to the DPP information about the troubled background of the alleged victim, including a history of unsubstantiated sexual assault claims and multiple personality disorder.
Background information about the woman first emerged last month, on the day Justice Reg Blanch was to assign a District Court judge to hear the trial before a jury.
Crown prosecutors were granted a one-day adjournment to respond to a request from Williams for information on the woman, such as medical reports or criminal history.
The DPP had not received such details from Waverley police, who charged Millhouse. When police provided files to the DPP later in the day, copies were passed to his defence team.
The next day, without explanation, the DPP's office told Blanch it had "no-billed" the charge of intercourse without consent. In no-billing, the DPP does not have to state its reasons for dropping a charge.
The files, seen by The Sun-Herald, contain reports from police - including officers attached to joint police and Department of Community Services child mistreatment teams - of investigations dating back to 2002, when the woman was 14. They included numerous unsubstantiated claims by her of being attacked and sexually assaulted by strangers - one calling himself the devil - in bush and at her home.
One report investigated by police included allegations that she was raped many times at a religious centre by an African immigrant who said it would rid her of a demon.
In the 2006 report of the alleged incidents at the religious centre, police wrote: "History of mental illness and unsubstantiated sexual assault reports."
In 2003 the woman made three reports to police about being dragged into bush and raped. After reviewing them, police said: "There is insufficient evidence to proceed … no further action to be taken." Two more allegations of sexual assault that year were dismissed.
The files also contained a report on the woman four months after the alleged Bondi rape, when Millhouse was in custody, that was never declared to the defence team. It said she was found slumped in her car covered in dirt and insect bites near a coastal lake with no recollection of having left her western Sydney home the night before.
In the car police found a fresh lamb's heart, a broken cross with a date of birth engraved on it, a kitchen knife, scissors and a Stanley knife.
"Police are unable to determine if the [victim] slaughtered a lamb and took its heart," the report said. It also said her guardians had informed officers she had four personalities, each with a different name.
Williams said police should have reviewed the woman's background and given that information to the police legal branch and the DPP for review.
In no-billing the rape charge against Millhouse, the DPP did not drop charges of assaulting two police officers that arose from his arrest - one was allegedly bitten and the other kicked in the groin.
On Friday Millhouse's legal team again appeared before Justice Blanch in the Downing Centre District Court and received an adjournment to July 8, after advising he would make an application to the DPP to no-bill the assault charges and would also make an application for costs.
After his arrest Millhouse lost his cave home - council staff removed his property - and he lives with a former Bondi family who have supported him while on bail.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Saturday, June 18, 2011
SWAT team who shot Iraq war vet 70 times in his home cleared of any wrongdoing
Five officers involved in the shooting of a U.S. Marine who was killed when he was gunned down in his home near Tucson, Arizona have been cleared of any wrongdoing. Pima County Attorney's Office said the 'use of deadly force by the SWAT team members' in the raid on Jose Guerena's home was 'reasonable and justified'.
The father-of-two, who had served twice in Iraq, died on May 5 after the SWAT team descended on his home believing it was one of four houses associated with a drug smuggling operation.
The Attorney's office revealed that the 26-year-old had been previously arrested on five felony counts, but had never been convicted, as it said the shooting was justified.
'[The] assault rifle held by Mr Guerena held numerous rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber,' chief Criminal deputy county attorney David Berkman wrote in a letter to county sheriff Clarence Dupnik.
'The officers were mistaken in believing that Mr Guerena fired at them. However, when Mr Guerena raised the AR-15...in their direction, they needed to take immediate action to stop the deadly threat against them,' Mr Berkman wrote.
The SWAT team members who fired at Mr Guerena included two officers from the sheriff's office and officers from the Marana, Oro Valley and Sahuarita police departments.
Mr Berkman said that when the first officer fired, other officers mistook the flash from his gun as coming from Mr Guerena's rifle and so they responded with their own shots. Two officers said they heard him say, 'I've got something for you guys'.
'The SWAT team had been briefed on the nature of the operation and the fact that the occupants of the homes to be searched were potentially violent and could be armed,' wrote Mr Berkman.
The terrifying footage released by police shows the uniformed team pulling up outside Jose Guerena's home, sounding their sirens and banging on the door before kicking it in. The sound of bullets then rings out as they open fire shortly after entering the home.
A police investigation revealed that officers fired more than 70 shots.
Police allege that the former Marine was involved in drug smuggling, robbery and human smuggling. But a search of the home found nothing illegal. Officers found a handgun and body armour in the house.
The five SWAT team members remain on active duty. No criminal charges have been filed and no disciplinary action taken.
The Tucson SWAT team responsible for the May 5 house shooting defended its actions, saying the team was conducting a multi-house drug investigation based on a search warrant when they saw Mr Guerena aiming an assault rifle at them.
At first, the SWAT team had said Mr Guerena fired first, but then they retracted that statement, saying he had left the safety on.
SWAT team lawyer Mike Storie claimed weapons and body armour were found in the home, as well as a photo of Jesus Malverde, who Mr Storie called a 'patron saint drug runner'.
In a statement, the sheriff's office criticised those questioning the team, saying, 'It is unacceptable and irresponsible to couch those questions with implications of secrecy and a cover up, not to mention questioning the legality of actions that could not have been taken without the approval of an impartial judge'.
On the night of the raid, Ms Guerena said her husband was asleep, after having worked a night shift at the Asarco copper mine. She said she then saw the armed SWAT team outside her youngest son's bedroom window.
Ms Guerena alleges that she thought it was a criminal assault, since two members of her sister-in-law's family, Cynthia and Manny Orozco, had been killed last year in their Tucson home. Ms Guerena said she shouted for her husband, who told her to take young Joel and hide in a closet.
An ambulance reportedly arrived in a few minutes, but medical personnel were not allowed inside to see Mr Guerena for an hour and 14 minutes, the family's attorney, Chris Scileppi, told ABC News affiliate KGUN.
In contrast, it took responders only 12 minutes to address Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in Tucson in January, according to Mr Scileppi.
Mr Storie defended the SWAT team's actions, saying, 'They still don't know how many shooters are inside, how many guns are inside and they still have to assume that they will be ambushed if they walk in this house'.
Mr Scileppi accused officers of 'circling their wagons'. 'The pieces don't fit. I think it was poor planning, overreaction and now they're trying to CYA', Scileppi told ABC.
Mr Guerena served two tours of duty in Iraq, until he left the Marines in 2006. He had been working for a mining company in the Tucson area.
ABC interviewed his former commander, Sergeant Leo Verdugo, who told them he 'definitely pulled his weight'. 'I have a hard time grasping how something so tragic could happen', he told the network.
The Guerena's oldest boy, Jose, turns 6 Tuesday. Ms Ortiz told ABC, 'He went to school, came back and never saw his daddy again. He's asking, "Why did the police kill my daddy?"
'We were so worried when he was over there fighting terrorism, but he gets shot in his own home. The government killed one of their own', Ms Ortiz said. Mr Guerena was buried in his Marine dress blue uniform.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Five officers involved in the shooting of a U.S. Marine who was killed when he was gunned down in his home near Tucson, Arizona have been cleared of any wrongdoing. Pima County Attorney's Office said the 'use of deadly force by the SWAT team members' in the raid on Jose Guerena's home was 'reasonable and justified'.
The father-of-two, who had served twice in Iraq, died on May 5 after the SWAT team descended on his home believing it was one of four houses associated with a drug smuggling operation.
The Attorney's office revealed that the 26-year-old had been previously arrested on five felony counts, but had never been convicted, as it said the shooting was justified.
'[The] assault rifle held by Mr Guerena held numerous rounds in the magazine and one in the chamber,' chief Criminal deputy county attorney David Berkman wrote in a letter to county sheriff Clarence Dupnik.
'The officers were mistaken in believing that Mr Guerena fired at them. However, when Mr Guerena raised the AR-15...in their direction, they needed to take immediate action to stop the deadly threat against them,' Mr Berkman wrote.
The SWAT team members who fired at Mr Guerena included two officers from the sheriff's office and officers from the Marana, Oro Valley and Sahuarita police departments.
Mr Berkman said that when the first officer fired, other officers mistook the flash from his gun as coming from Mr Guerena's rifle and so they responded with their own shots. Two officers said they heard him say, 'I've got something for you guys'.
'The SWAT team had been briefed on the nature of the operation and the fact that the occupants of the homes to be searched were potentially violent and could be armed,' wrote Mr Berkman.
The terrifying footage released by police shows the uniformed team pulling up outside Jose Guerena's home, sounding their sirens and banging on the door before kicking it in. The sound of bullets then rings out as they open fire shortly after entering the home.
A police investigation revealed that officers fired more than 70 shots.
Police allege that the former Marine was involved in drug smuggling, robbery and human smuggling. But a search of the home found nothing illegal. Officers found a handgun and body armour in the house.
The five SWAT team members remain on active duty. No criminal charges have been filed and no disciplinary action taken.
The Tucson SWAT team responsible for the May 5 house shooting defended its actions, saying the team was conducting a multi-house drug investigation based on a search warrant when they saw Mr Guerena aiming an assault rifle at them.
At first, the SWAT team had said Mr Guerena fired first, but then they retracted that statement, saying he had left the safety on.
SWAT team lawyer Mike Storie claimed weapons and body armour were found in the home, as well as a photo of Jesus Malverde, who Mr Storie called a 'patron saint drug runner'.
In a statement, the sheriff's office criticised those questioning the team, saying, 'It is unacceptable and irresponsible to couch those questions with implications of secrecy and a cover up, not to mention questioning the legality of actions that could not have been taken without the approval of an impartial judge'.
On the night of the raid, Ms Guerena said her husband was asleep, after having worked a night shift at the Asarco copper mine. She said she then saw the armed SWAT team outside her youngest son's bedroom window.
Ms Guerena alleges that she thought it was a criminal assault, since two members of her sister-in-law's family, Cynthia and Manny Orozco, had been killed last year in their Tucson home. Ms Guerena said she shouted for her husband, who told her to take young Joel and hide in a closet.
An ambulance reportedly arrived in a few minutes, but medical personnel were not allowed inside to see Mr Guerena for an hour and 14 minutes, the family's attorney, Chris Scileppi, told ABC News affiliate KGUN.
In contrast, it took responders only 12 minutes to address Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in Tucson in January, according to Mr Scileppi.
Mr Storie defended the SWAT team's actions, saying, 'They still don't know how many shooters are inside, how many guns are inside and they still have to assume that they will be ambushed if they walk in this house'.
Mr Scileppi accused officers of 'circling their wagons'. 'The pieces don't fit. I think it was poor planning, overreaction and now they're trying to CYA', Scileppi told ABC.
Mr Guerena served two tours of duty in Iraq, until he left the Marines in 2006. He had been working for a mining company in the Tucson area.
ABC interviewed his former commander, Sergeant Leo Verdugo, who told them he 'definitely pulled his weight'. 'I have a hard time grasping how something so tragic could happen', he told the network.
The Guerena's oldest boy, Jose, turns 6 Tuesday. Ms Ortiz told ABC, 'He went to school, came back and never saw his daddy again. He's asking, "Why did the police kill my daddy?"
'We were so worried when he was over there fighting terrorism, but he gets shot in his own home. The government killed one of their own', Ms Ortiz said. Mr Guerena was buried in his Marine dress blue uniform.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Friday, June 17, 2011
High Court: Age Must Be Considered In Interrogation
The U.S. Supreme Court has broadened use of the Miranda warning for suspects, extending it to children questioned by police in school. By a 5-to-4 vote, the court said for the first time on Thursday that age must be considered in determining whether a suspect is aware of his or her rights.
This case, involving a 13-year-old North Carolina boy identified only as J.D.B., will likely change police practices across the country. Experts say that police questioning, particularly in school, can no longer be presumed to be legally permissible without advising a youngster of his or her rights.
J.D.B., a special-education seventh grader, was pulled out of his classroom by a uniformed officer and escorted to a conference room where he faced a police investigator, the assistant principal and two other school officials.
For more than half an hour, the investigator interrogated J.D.B. about a string of local burglaries. The boy's legal guardian, his grandmother, was never contacted, and he was not given a Miranda warning — the warnings routinely given by police to criminal suspects once they are taken into custody.
While the police officer later told J.D.B. that he was free to leave, he also told the boy that the police could get a court order to put him in juvenile detention, and the school's assistant principal advised the boy to "do the right thing."
J.D.B. eventually confessed, and helped police recover the stolen items. At trial, his lawyer tried to get the confession thrown out on the grounds that given J.D.B.'s age and the circumstances of the interrogation, the confession was, in essence, coerced, and that the boy should have been advised of his right to an attorney and to remain silent. The state countered that the boy had been free to leave, that he, therefore, was not in custody, and that age should not be considered in determining whether police warn suspects of their rights. The North Carolina courts agreed.
Court's Ruling
But on Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time ruled that the age of a child subjected to police questioning is relevant. Writing for the five-member court majority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said there is "no reason for police officers or courts to blind themselves to [the] commonsense reality" that "children will often feel bound to submit to police questioning when an adult in the same circumstances" would not. Indeed, Sotomayor said that a student required by law to attend school, and who is subject to disciplinary action for disobedience, might well believe that he or she must answer all police questions.
"Our history is replete with laws and judicial recognition that children cannot be viewed simply as miniature adults," said Sotomayor, concluding that because children are different — less mature, less capable of judgment and more susceptible to influence — police and judges must consider age in determining whether a child should have been advised of his or her legal rights.
Joining her in the majority were Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissent for the court's four most conservative justices. The dissenters said, essentially, that the beauty of the Miranda rule is that it is simple and objective. A suspect must be Mirandized once he is in police custody — in short, when he cannot leave. Thursday's ruling, wrote Alito, "blurs" that line and "is fundamentally at odds" with the clarity of the Miranda rule.
More here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
The U.S. Supreme Court has broadened use of the Miranda warning for suspects, extending it to children questioned by police in school. By a 5-to-4 vote, the court said for the first time on Thursday that age must be considered in determining whether a suspect is aware of his or her rights.
This case, involving a 13-year-old North Carolina boy identified only as J.D.B., will likely change police practices across the country. Experts say that police questioning, particularly in school, can no longer be presumed to be legally permissible without advising a youngster of his or her rights.
J.D.B., a special-education seventh grader, was pulled out of his classroom by a uniformed officer and escorted to a conference room where he faced a police investigator, the assistant principal and two other school officials.
For more than half an hour, the investigator interrogated J.D.B. about a string of local burglaries. The boy's legal guardian, his grandmother, was never contacted, and he was not given a Miranda warning — the warnings routinely given by police to criminal suspects once they are taken into custody.
While the police officer later told J.D.B. that he was free to leave, he also told the boy that the police could get a court order to put him in juvenile detention, and the school's assistant principal advised the boy to "do the right thing."
J.D.B. eventually confessed, and helped police recover the stolen items. At trial, his lawyer tried to get the confession thrown out on the grounds that given J.D.B.'s age and the circumstances of the interrogation, the confession was, in essence, coerced, and that the boy should have been advised of his right to an attorney and to remain silent. The state countered that the boy had been free to leave, that he, therefore, was not in custody, and that age should not be considered in determining whether police warn suspects of their rights. The North Carolina courts agreed.
Court's Ruling
But on Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court for the first time ruled that the age of a child subjected to police questioning is relevant. Writing for the five-member court majority, Justice Sonia Sotomayor said there is "no reason for police officers or courts to blind themselves to [the] commonsense reality" that "children will often feel bound to submit to police questioning when an adult in the same circumstances" would not. Indeed, Sotomayor said that a student required by law to attend school, and who is subject to disciplinary action for disobedience, might well believe that he or she must answer all police questions.
"Our history is replete with laws and judicial recognition that children cannot be viewed simply as miniature adults," said Sotomayor, concluding that because children are different — less mature, less capable of judgment and more susceptible to influence — police and judges must consider age in determining whether a child should have been advised of his or her legal rights.
Joining her in the majority were Justices Anthony Kennedy, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Stephen Breyer and Elena Kagan.
Justice Samuel Alito wrote the dissent for the court's four most conservative justices. The dissenters said, essentially, that the beauty of the Miranda rule is that it is simple and objective. A suspect must be Mirandized once he is in police custody — in short, when he cannot leave. Thursday's ruling, wrote Alito, "blurs" that line and "is fundamentally at odds" with the clarity of the Miranda rule.
More here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Today's dangerous police mentality
Their operational credo is not "protect and serve," but rather "control and dominate" -- and, with increasing frequency, "close and kill."
Those options are compellingly displayed in two entirely unnecessary police assaults on young teenagers: The case of 17-year-old Derby, Kansas resident Jonathan Villareal, who was beaten, tasered, and handcuffed by police "resource officers" who took offense over the way the high school student was wearing his pants; and the murder of 14-year-old San Antonio reform school student Derek Lopez. Significantly, both of those incidents occurred after school hours.
Relieved by the end of his daily sentence in the government mind-laundry, Jonthan passed a brace of officially licensed bullies on the way to the bus. One of them told Jonathan to pull up his pants; the youngster replied -- hopefully with the appropriate measure of controlled contempt -- that school was over and he was thus free to dress any way he chose.
One of the thugs -- his tax-fattened bulk making him much larger than the scrawny adolescent -- threw Jonathan to the ground while bellowing the familiar rapist's refrain: "Stop resisting!" The other thug immediately joined in, both of them striking and kneeing the prone, helpless teenager in the back, legs, and neck. Jonathan also suffered a black eye.
When Jonathan struggled to his feet, he was thrown down forcefully; he felt his arm snap as he hit the ground. He struggled to his feet again, thereby giving one of the costumed enforcers an excuse to report that the victim had assumed an "aggressive stance." This supposedly justified a potentially lethal taser attack.
The Derby High School newspaper, appropriately called the Informer, explained that students can be subjected to "administrative" discipline for wearing their pants "inappropriately." Derby Police Chief Robert Lee described the incident as "a flagrant violation of school policy that could have been handled administratively, if he had not resisted the SRO."
Once again, we see the logic of the rapist at work: If the victim is severely injured or killed for fighting back, it's her own fault; she shouldn't have resisted. This comparison, of course, is unfair: Rapists and other aggressors not swaddled in government-issued costumes aren't generally permitted to file criminal charges against victims who fight back. The Derby Police Department "will take the incident to the district attorney for possible criminal charges against Villareal," observes the Informer.
Through an interpreter, Villareal's mother said that she "understands if they need to arrest him for being disrespectful," but that she doesn't understand why "they need to beat him up for whatever reason."
The short answer, of course, is this: They do it because they can.
Derby High's dress code is described as part of an effort to beat back the insidious "gang culture" considered to be a besetting scourge of society. Doubtless the school also participates in the Regime's "anti-bullying campaign," in which students are encouraged to rat out each other whenever they hear inappropriate comments, or see what they believe to be inappropriate conduct.
None of this applies to the sanctified bullies in military attire, of course. Since they belong to the State's punitive priesthood, those skeevy armed adults can loiter around schools, leering like Aqualung at underage girls and taunting smaller young males in an attempt to provoke them into doing something to justify a righteous beating -- followed by prosecution for "resisting arrest."
With troubling frequency, this State-authorized bullying involves the use of consistently lethal weapons, such as the ubiquitous portable electro-shock torture device. On occasion, it involves unambiguous criminal homicide. Witness the November 12, 2010 killing of Derek Lopez by Officer Daniel Alvarado of San Antonio's Northside Independent School District Police.
Alvarado was an exceptionally unqualified officer even by the dismal standards that prevail among the ranks of tax-subsidized gun thugs. Between March 2006 and November 2010, Alvarado was suspended four times. Four times he was informed by supervisors that he faced "immediate termination."
For some reason -- most likely one rooted in police union politics -- when it came time to fire Alvarado, his superiors just couldn't bring themselves to pull the trigger. Alvarado displayed no similar scruples on November 12, 2010, when he murdered 14-year-old Derek Lopez, who had just taken part in a brief scuffle with another student.
Owing to his own troubled past, Lopez was a student at the Bexar County Juvenile Justice Academy. At around 4:30 PM on the fatal day, Lopez sucker-punched a 13-year-old classmate at a bus stop.
"He just hit me once," the student later recalled in a sworn deposition. "It wasn't a fight. It was nothing."
Unfortunately, Alvarado happened to be prowling the intersection in his patrol car, and witnessed the trivial dust-up.
"Freeze!" Alvarado shouted at Lopez, who bolted from the scene. Alvarado, in his mid-40s, briefly gave token pursuit before wheezing out the first of several self-serving falsehoods.
"I just had one run from me," gasped the winded tax-feeder. "I saw an assault in progress. He punched the guy several times."
A supervisor instructed Alvarado "not [to] do any big search over there" in pursuit of the assailant. "Let's stay with the victim and see if we can identify [the suspect] that way."
Rather than doing as he was ordered, Alvarado bundled the "victim" -- who was probably more terrified of the armed functionary than of his obnoxious classmate -- into the patrol car and went in pursuit of Lopez.
Lopez vaulted a nearby fence and hid in a backyard shed containing Christmas decorations. The homeowner saw the intrusion, and a neighbor flagged down Alvarado's patrol car. The officer drew his gun "when he came up the driveway," recalled the homeowner.
Within a minute or so, a single gunshot resonated through the neighborhood. When asked by the horrified homeowner what had happened, Alvarado -- who reportedly looked "dazed or distant" -- replied that Lopez "came at me."
"The suspect bull rushed his way out of the shed and lunged right at me," the timorous creature later claimed in an official report. "The suspect was literally inches away from me, and I feared for my own safety."(Emphasis added.)
Alvarado was lying, of course. An autopsy revealed "no evidence of close range firing [on] the wound," and no gunpowder stains were found on the victim's bloody t-shirt.
By this time, the boy who had taken the punch at the bus stop had called his mother via cell phone. She arrived shortly after Alvarado had gunned down Lopez.
"At one point, the mother told a witness, `He shot him? Why did he shoot him? He didn't have to shoot him," reports the San Antonio News-Express.
Alvarado, who four times was on the cusp of being fired for insubordination, disobeyed a direct order on November 12. He falsified key details of the shooting in his official report. A 14-year-old boy was gunned down execution-style for the venial offense of engaging in an adolescent scuffle, and for compelling an overweight middle-aged badge-polisher to run a few hundred yards. According to the San Antonio Police Department, this is all perfectly acceptable: The department ruled that the murder of Derek Lopez was a "justified" shooting.
Although he's been removed from patrol duty, Alvarado remains on the force, albeit in a tax-underwritten sinecure. Although he had repeatedly been threatened with termination for sloppiness or defiance in carrying out administrative duties, Alvarado faces neither criminal prosecution nor professional censure for murdering a 14-year-old boy.
Apparently, insubordination in carrying out office functions is a much graver matter than insubordination that results in the needless death of an adolescent Mundane.
Despite the fact that this incident involved two teenage boys who attended a special school for troubled juveniles, parents should understand that students in practically any government-run "educational" institution can fall prey to sudden -- and potentially lethal -- police violence.
The purpose of "active shooter drills" is not to refine protocols intended to protect inmates of government schools; instead, it is to habituate children to the presence of paramilitary operators in their midst. Parents should ponder that reality as millions of young Americans begin their welcome Summer parole from the government's hybrid school/prison system -- and they should likewise consider the wisdom of making that parole an unconditional pardon.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Their operational credo is not "protect and serve," but rather "control and dominate" -- and, with increasing frequency, "close and kill."
Those options are compellingly displayed in two entirely unnecessary police assaults on young teenagers: The case of 17-year-old Derby, Kansas resident Jonathan Villareal, who was beaten, tasered, and handcuffed by police "resource officers" who took offense over the way the high school student was wearing his pants; and the murder of 14-year-old San Antonio reform school student Derek Lopez. Significantly, both of those incidents occurred after school hours.
Relieved by the end of his daily sentence in the government mind-laundry, Jonthan passed a brace of officially licensed bullies on the way to the bus. One of them told Jonathan to pull up his pants; the youngster replied -- hopefully with the appropriate measure of controlled contempt -- that school was over and he was thus free to dress any way he chose.
One of the thugs -- his tax-fattened bulk making him much larger than the scrawny adolescent -- threw Jonathan to the ground while bellowing the familiar rapist's refrain: "Stop resisting!" The other thug immediately joined in, both of them striking and kneeing the prone, helpless teenager in the back, legs, and neck. Jonathan also suffered a black eye.
When Jonathan struggled to his feet, he was thrown down forcefully; he felt his arm snap as he hit the ground. He struggled to his feet again, thereby giving one of the costumed enforcers an excuse to report that the victim had assumed an "aggressive stance." This supposedly justified a potentially lethal taser attack.
The Derby High School newspaper, appropriately called the Informer, explained that students can be subjected to "administrative" discipline for wearing their pants "inappropriately." Derby Police Chief Robert Lee described the incident as "a flagrant violation of school policy that could have been handled administratively, if he had not resisted the SRO."
Once again, we see the logic of the rapist at work: If the victim is severely injured or killed for fighting back, it's her own fault; she shouldn't have resisted. This comparison, of course, is unfair: Rapists and other aggressors not swaddled in government-issued costumes aren't generally permitted to file criminal charges against victims who fight back. The Derby Police Department "will take the incident to the district attorney for possible criminal charges against Villareal," observes the Informer.
Through an interpreter, Villareal's mother said that she "understands if they need to arrest him for being disrespectful," but that she doesn't understand why "they need to beat him up for whatever reason."
The short answer, of course, is this: They do it because they can.
Derby High's dress code is described as part of an effort to beat back the insidious "gang culture" considered to be a besetting scourge of society. Doubtless the school also participates in the Regime's "anti-bullying campaign," in which students are encouraged to rat out each other whenever they hear inappropriate comments, or see what they believe to be inappropriate conduct.
None of this applies to the sanctified bullies in military attire, of course. Since they belong to the State's punitive priesthood, those skeevy armed adults can loiter around schools, leering like Aqualung at underage girls and taunting smaller young males in an attempt to provoke them into doing something to justify a righteous beating -- followed by prosecution for "resisting arrest."
With troubling frequency, this State-authorized bullying involves the use of consistently lethal weapons, such as the ubiquitous portable electro-shock torture device. On occasion, it involves unambiguous criminal homicide. Witness the November 12, 2010 killing of Derek Lopez by Officer Daniel Alvarado of San Antonio's Northside Independent School District Police.
Alvarado was an exceptionally unqualified officer even by the dismal standards that prevail among the ranks of tax-subsidized gun thugs. Between March 2006 and November 2010, Alvarado was suspended four times. Four times he was informed by supervisors that he faced "immediate termination."
For some reason -- most likely one rooted in police union politics -- when it came time to fire Alvarado, his superiors just couldn't bring themselves to pull the trigger. Alvarado displayed no similar scruples on November 12, 2010, when he murdered 14-year-old Derek Lopez, who had just taken part in a brief scuffle with another student.
Owing to his own troubled past, Lopez was a student at the Bexar County Juvenile Justice Academy. At around 4:30 PM on the fatal day, Lopez sucker-punched a 13-year-old classmate at a bus stop.
"He just hit me once," the student later recalled in a sworn deposition. "It wasn't a fight. It was nothing."
Unfortunately, Alvarado happened to be prowling the intersection in his patrol car, and witnessed the trivial dust-up.
"Freeze!" Alvarado shouted at Lopez, who bolted from the scene. Alvarado, in his mid-40s, briefly gave token pursuit before wheezing out the first of several self-serving falsehoods.
"I just had one run from me," gasped the winded tax-feeder. "I saw an assault in progress. He punched the guy several times."
A supervisor instructed Alvarado "not [to] do any big search over there" in pursuit of the assailant. "Let's stay with the victim and see if we can identify [the suspect] that way."
Rather than doing as he was ordered, Alvarado bundled the "victim" -- who was probably more terrified of the armed functionary than of his obnoxious classmate -- into the patrol car and went in pursuit of Lopez.
Lopez vaulted a nearby fence and hid in a backyard shed containing Christmas decorations. The homeowner saw the intrusion, and a neighbor flagged down Alvarado's patrol car. The officer drew his gun "when he came up the driveway," recalled the homeowner.
Within a minute or so, a single gunshot resonated through the neighborhood. When asked by the horrified homeowner what had happened, Alvarado -- who reportedly looked "dazed or distant" -- replied that Lopez "came at me."
"The suspect bull rushed his way out of the shed and lunged right at me," the timorous creature later claimed in an official report. "The suspect was literally inches away from me, and I feared for my own safety."(Emphasis added.)
Alvarado was lying, of course. An autopsy revealed "no evidence of close range firing [on] the wound," and no gunpowder stains were found on the victim's bloody t-shirt.
By this time, the boy who had taken the punch at the bus stop had called his mother via cell phone. She arrived shortly after Alvarado had gunned down Lopez.
"At one point, the mother told a witness, `He shot him? Why did he shoot him? He didn't have to shoot him," reports the San Antonio News-Express.
Alvarado, who four times was on the cusp of being fired for insubordination, disobeyed a direct order on November 12. He falsified key details of the shooting in his official report. A 14-year-old boy was gunned down execution-style for the venial offense of engaging in an adolescent scuffle, and for compelling an overweight middle-aged badge-polisher to run a few hundred yards. According to the San Antonio Police Department, this is all perfectly acceptable: The department ruled that the murder of Derek Lopez was a "justified" shooting.
Although he's been removed from patrol duty, Alvarado remains on the force, albeit in a tax-underwritten sinecure. Although he had repeatedly been threatened with termination for sloppiness or defiance in carrying out administrative duties, Alvarado faces neither criminal prosecution nor professional censure for murdering a 14-year-old boy.
Apparently, insubordination in carrying out office functions is a much graver matter than insubordination that results in the needless death of an adolescent Mundane.
Despite the fact that this incident involved two teenage boys who attended a special school for troubled juveniles, parents should understand that students in practically any government-run "educational" institution can fall prey to sudden -- and potentially lethal -- police violence.
The purpose of "active shooter drills" is not to refine protocols intended to protect inmates of government schools; instead, it is to habituate children to the presence of paramilitary operators in their midst. Parents should ponder that reality as millions of young Americans begin their welcome Summer parole from the government's hybrid school/prison system -- and they should likewise consider the wisdom of making that parole an unconditional pardon.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
The Wrongful Conviction as Way of Life
BOOK REVIEW of "CONVICTING THE INNOCENT: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong" By Brandon L. Garrett
Judge Learned Hand called “the ghost of the innocent man convicted” an “unreal dream.” But in “Convicting the Innocent,” Brandon L. Garrett shows that it can be a “nightmarish reality.” Since the late 1980s, DNA testing has exonerated more than 250 wrongly convicted people, who spent an average of 13 years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. (There is every reason to think that more people have been wrongly convicted since then, but only these 250 have been definitively exonerated by postconviction DNA tests.) Seventeen of the 250 were sentenced to die, and 80 to spend the rest of their lives in prison. By poring over trial transcripts and interviewing lawyers, prosecutors and court reporters, Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, seeks to explore who these 250 innocent people are, and why they were wrongly convicted. His alarming conclusion: the wrongful convictions were not idiosyncratic but resulted from a series of flawed practices that the courts rely on every day, namely, false and coerced confessions, questionable eyewitness procedures, invalid forensic testimony and corrupt statements by jailhouse informers. Garrett’s book is a gripping contribution to the literature of injustice, along with a galvanizing call for reform.
Almost 90 percent of the 250 innocent people later exonerated were falsely convicted of rape, or rape and murder, and 40 of them actually confessed to crimes they didn’t commit, most adding specific details that only the real culprit could have known. How did this happen?
Garrett describes how the police, intentionally or not, fed details of the crime to the suspects — and then recorded only portions of the interrogations so that it was difficult for defense lawyers and jurors to reconstruct the truth. Even the selectively recorded interrogations make for painful reading, as the suspects offer facts that are inconsistent with what happened, and the police browbeat them into false confessions. (Detective: “You hung her!” Vasquez: “O.K., so I hung her.”) Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has refused to focus on whether confessions are reliable, asking instead whether they were coerced, or offered without Miranda warnings. Garrett says the best protection against false confessions would be to require that police record interrogations from beginning to end; at the moment, 11 states and the District of Columbia are required or encouraged to record at least some interrogations.
In addition to false confessions, eyewitnesses wrongly identified the accused in 76 percent of the 250 cases. The unreliability of witness identifications is now widely known, but Garrett was surprised to discover how flagrantly unreliable the procedures were in the cases he examined. In 78 percent of the trials, he found evidence that the police contaminated the eyewitness identifications with suggestive methods, like indicating which suspect in a lineup should be selected, or conducting lineups where one suspect obviously stood out from the others. (Many of the convicted looked nothing like the initial description given by the victims.) Garrett learned that while the witnesses were confident by the time of the trial that they had identified the right suspect, in more than half the cases they had not been confident at the time of the initial identification.
Of those exonerated by DNA, 70 percent were from minorities, and in nearly half of the rape cases involving blacks or Hispanics, the victims were white. (Garrett points out that “most sexual offenses, almost 90 percent, are committed by offenders of the same race as the victim.”) Garrett criticizes the Supreme Court for allowing lineups that were unfairly conducted, and says the best way to avoid erroneous identifications is to use a double-blind procedure where police officers can’t influence the witness because they don’t know which person in the lineup is the suspect.
Garrett found invalid forensic testimony in 61 percent of the trials where an analyst testified for the prosecution, including overly confident claims of matching bite marks, shoe prints and hair samples. (One leading geneticist noted in 1989 that clinical and forensic labs have to meet higher standards to diagnose strep throat than to put a defendant on death row.) And Garrett discovered unreliable testimony by jailhouse informers in 21 percent of the trials — informers who, in exchange for lenient treatment from prosecutors, lied about hearing specific details of the crime from their cell mates. Garrett suggests this testimony could be avoided if prosecutors were prohibited from promising informers secret deals that weren’t disclosed to the defense.
Garrett’s statistical analysis is invaluable, but the most dramatic parts of his book are those that provide narrative details of trials that failed to prevent the innocent from being wrongly convicted. It turns out to be surprisingly hard to prove your innocence: most people don’t remember where they were on a particular day months ago, and can present only weak alibis. Especially memorable are the dignity and self-control with which those convicted asserted their innocence and recanted their false confessions.
Even when facing the death penalty at their sentencing hearings, these innocent people often maintained a remarkable degree of poise. After the verdicts were read, some of them understandably lashed out in anger and then sought to compose themselves. In the Central Park jogger case, one of the convicted was taken out of the courtroom after he exclaimed: “No. No. No. Can’t take this. O, Lord. Jesus. No. . . . It’s wrong. It’s wrong. No. No.”
Where were the courts in all of these 250 miscarriages of justice? In 10 percent of the cases, appellate courts called the evidence of the innocent people’s guilt “overwhelming,” while the Supreme Court summarily dismissed requests to review 37 of the cases without giving reasons. I teach criminal procedure, and after reading Garrett’s book, I am looking forward to future discussions with students of the many Supreme Court cases that narrowly concentrate on procedural regularity, rather than encourage appellate courts to review the accuracy of evidence. Garrett makes a powerful argument for enhanced access to DNA testing: in addition to clearing the innocent, DNA tests in 45 percent of the cases he studied identified the actual rapists or murderers, many of whom had been free for more than a decade to commit other crimes. And he insists that by placing too much reliance on decisions made early in the investigative process, we place the innocent at an unnecessarily high risk of being convicted of crimes they didn’t commit.
Garrett ends by reviewing the most promising bipartisan reforms that seek to increase the accuracy and reliability of criminal convictions, like North Carolina’s Actual Innocence Commission, which has required the recording of homicide interrogations, expanded the procedures for preserving evidence and increased defendants’ access to DNA testing. But it’s the stories in his book that stick in the memory. One can only hope that they will mobilize a broad range of citizens, liberal and conservative, to demand legislative and judicial reforms ensuring that the innocent go free whether or not the constable has blundered. “What makes the trials of exonerees so frightening is that they show how the case against an innocent person may not seem weak,” Garrett writes. “The case may seem uncannily strong.”
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
BOOK REVIEW of "CONVICTING THE INNOCENT: Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong" By Brandon L. Garrett
Judge Learned Hand called “the ghost of the innocent man convicted” an “unreal dream.” But in “Convicting the Innocent,” Brandon L. Garrett shows that it can be a “nightmarish reality.” Since the late 1980s, DNA testing has exonerated more than 250 wrongly convicted people, who spent an average of 13 years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. (There is every reason to think that more people have been wrongly convicted since then, but only these 250 have been definitively exonerated by postconviction DNA tests.) Seventeen of the 250 were sentenced to die, and 80 to spend the rest of their lives in prison. By poring over trial transcripts and interviewing lawyers, prosecutors and court reporters, Garrett, a law professor at the University of Virginia School of Law, seeks to explore who these 250 innocent people are, and why they were wrongly convicted. His alarming conclusion: the wrongful convictions were not idiosyncratic but resulted from a series of flawed practices that the courts rely on every day, namely, false and coerced confessions, questionable eyewitness procedures, invalid forensic testimony and corrupt statements by jailhouse informers. Garrett’s book is a gripping contribution to the literature of injustice, along with a galvanizing call for reform.
Almost 90 percent of the 250 innocent people later exonerated were falsely convicted of rape, or rape and murder, and 40 of them actually confessed to crimes they didn’t commit, most adding specific details that only the real culprit could have known. How did this happen?
Garrett describes how the police, intentionally or not, fed details of the crime to the suspects — and then recorded only portions of the interrogations so that it was difficult for defense lawyers and jurors to reconstruct the truth. Even the selectively recorded interrogations make for painful reading, as the suspects offer facts that are inconsistent with what happened, and the police browbeat them into false confessions. (Detective: “You hung her!” Vasquez: “O.K., so I hung her.”) Unfortunately, the Supreme Court has refused to focus on whether confessions are reliable, asking instead whether they were coerced, or offered without Miranda warnings. Garrett says the best protection against false confessions would be to require that police record interrogations from beginning to end; at the moment, 11 states and the District of Columbia are required or encouraged to record at least some interrogations.
In addition to false confessions, eyewitnesses wrongly identified the accused in 76 percent of the 250 cases. The unreliability of witness identifications is now widely known, but Garrett was surprised to discover how flagrantly unreliable the procedures were in the cases he examined. In 78 percent of the trials, he found evidence that the police contaminated the eyewitness identifications with suggestive methods, like indicating which suspect in a lineup should be selected, or conducting lineups where one suspect obviously stood out from the others. (Many of the convicted looked nothing like the initial description given by the victims.) Garrett learned that while the witnesses were confident by the time of the trial that they had identified the right suspect, in more than half the cases they had not been confident at the time of the initial identification.
Of those exonerated by DNA, 70 percent were from minorities, and in nearly half of the rape cases involving blacks or Hispanics, the victims were white. (Garrett points out that “most sexual offenses, almost 90 percent, are committed by offenders of the same race as the victim.”) Garrett criticizes the Supreme Court for allowing lineups that were unfairly conducted, and says the best way to avoid erroneous identifications is to use a double-blind procedure where police officers can’t influence the witness because they don’t know which person in the lineup is the suspect.
Garrett found invalid forensic testimony in 61 percent of the trials where an analyst testified for the prosecution, including overly confident claims of matching bite marks, shoe prints and hair samples. (One leading geneticist noted in 1989 that clinical and forensic labs have to meet higher standards to diagnose strep throat than to put a defendant on death row.) And Garrett discovered unreliable testimony by jailhouse informers in 21 percent of the trials — informers who, in exchange for lenient treatment from prosecutors, lied about hearing specific details of the crime from their cell mates. Garrett suggests this testimony could be avoided if prosecutors were prohibited from promising informers secret deals that weren’t disclosed to the defense.
Garrett’s statistical analysis is invaluable, but the most dramatic parts of his book are those that provide narrative details of trials that failed to prevent the innocent from being wrongly convicted. It turns out to be surprisingly hard to prove your innocence: most people don’t remember where they were on a particular day months ago, and can present only weak alibis. Especially memorable are the dignity and self-control with which those convicted asserted their innocence and recanted their false confessions.
Even when facing the death penalty at their sentencing hearings, these innocent people often maintained a remarkable degree of poise. After the verdicts were read, some of them understandably lashed out in anger and then sought to compose themselves. In the Central Park jogger case, one of the convicted was taken out of the courtroom after he exclaimed: “No. No. No. Can’t take this. O, Lord. Jesus. No. . . . It’s wrong. It’s wrong. No. No.”
Where were the courts in all of these 250 miscarriages of justice? In 10 percent of the cases, appellate courts called the evidence of the innocent people’s guilt “overwhelming,” while the Supreme Court summarily dismissed requests to review 37 of the cases without giving reasons. I teach criminal procedure, and after reading Garrett’s book, I am looking forward to future discussions with students of the many Supreme Court cases that narrowly concentrate on procedural regularity, rather than encourage appellate courts to review the accuracy of evidence. Garrett makes a powerful argument for enhanced access to DNA testing: in addition to clearing the innocent, DNA tests in 45 percent of the cases he studied identified the actual rapists or murderers, many of whom had been free for more than a decade to commit other crimes. And he insists that by placing too much reliance on decisions made early in the investigative process, we place the innocent at an unnecessarily high risk of being convicted of crimes they didn’t commit.
Garrett ends by reviewing the most promising bipartisan reforms that seek to increase the accuracy and reliability of criminal convictions, like North Carolina’s Actual Innocence Commission, which has required the recording of homicide interrogations, expanded the procedures for preserving evidence and increased defendants’ access to DNA testing. But it’s the stories in his book that stick in the memory. One can only hope that they will mobilize a broad range of citizens, liberal and conservative, to demand legislative and judicial reforms ensuring that the innocent go free whether or not the constable has blundered. “What makes the trials of exonerees so frightening is that they show how the case against an innocent person may not seem weak,” Garrett writes. “The case may seem uncannily strong.”
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Policing for profit
A shocking news report recently documented how Tennessee police were stopping drivers on the interstate and confiscating large amounts of cash, even if the drivers were accused of no crime. The report was particularly shocking because the special unit was operating far outside of its jurisdiction in exchange for giving a cut of the seized cash to the local government in question.
This episode is outrageous enough that any regular American can see the problem. Yet most people who see the report will probably conclude that the government "went too far" in this instance, and some reforms are needed. The real lesson here is that the War on Drugs — just like every other war waged by our politicians — doesn't solve the ostensible problem, and in fact strips away other liberties.
More generally, the report is a perfect vindication of the Rothbardian point that, in a very real sense, government is a gang of thieves writ large. Such a radical viewpoint sounds crazy to most Americans in the abstract, but when they watch the video, it's hard to deny.
The Bitter Fruits of the Drug War
From a standard libertarian perspective, the government has no business interfering in capitalist acts between consenting adults (to use Robert Nozick's felicitous phrase). This includes situations where one person wants to grow a plant, for example, and sell it to somebody else who intends to use it to induce a feeling of euphoria.
To be sure, private organizations can lay down whatever regulations they want "regulating" drug use. Airlines can still subject pilots to randomized drug tests, and schools can expel students caught smoking in the bathroom if they so choose. After all, private schools can tell students what clothes they can wear on school property, so they obviously have the right to prohibit the use of particular drugs.
Yet even if we put aside such principled opposition, it should be crystal clear by now that the War on Drugs has shredded traditional liberties. The scandal on the Tennessee interstate shown in the video above is just one example. Precisely because the War on Drugs has fostered an immense black market, the authorities can now seize large amounts of cash from anyone simply on the suspicion that the person "must be" a drug dealer (or a terrorist financier).
This is a very troubling trend. Beyond the obvious inconvenience for people who don't trust banks and want to keep a large amount of cash on hand, it also takes away one of the last escape routes from the tightening vise of financial regulations and controls. As the government's interventions in the banking system and stock market become ever more intrusive, more and more individuals will want to "opt out" by conducting their operations in cash. But now that strategy entails a huge risk, because their holdings can be seized without any formal charges if they happen to get pulled over.
Another major landmark along the road to serfdom is the huge prison infrastructure in the United States. Many Americans don't realize that the United States has the largest prison population in the world, both in absolute terms and per capita (with the possible exception of China, because their government's official figures could be bogus).
If a truly nightmarish scenario ever does develop in what was once a relatively free country, the ruling elite at that time won't have to come up with a pretext for building prisons able to house millions of dissidents. No, that option is already available, courtesy of the Drug War. Most Americans have no problem funding such construction, because they are confident that they would never be locked up.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
A shocking news report recently documented how Tennessee police were stopping drivers on the interstate and confiscating large amounts of cash, even if the drivers were accused of no crime. The report was particularly shocking because the special unit was operating far outside of its jurisdiction in exchange for giving a cut of the seized cash to the local government in question.
This episode is outrageous enough that any regular American can see the problem. Yet most people who see the report will probably conclude that the government "went too far" in this instance, and some reforms are needed. The real lesson here is that the War on Drugs — just like every other war waged by our politicians — doesn't solve the ostensible problem, and in fact strips away other liberties.
More generally, the report is a perfect vindication of the Rothbardian point that, in a very real sense, government is a gang of thieves writ large. Such a radical viewpoint sounds crazy to most Americans in the abstract, but when they watch the video, it's hard to deny.
The Bitter Fruits of the Drug War
From a standard libertarian perspective, the government has no business interfering in capitalist acts between consenting adults (to use Robert Nozick's felicitous phrase). This includes situations where one person wants to grow a plant, for example, and sell it to somebody else who intends to use it to induce a feeling of euphoria.
To be sure, private organizations can lay down whatever regulations they want "regulating" drug use. Airlines can still subject pilots to randomized drug tests, and schools can expel students caught smoking in the bathroom if they so choose. After all, private schools can tell students what clothes they can wear on school property, so they obviously have the right to prohibit the use of particular drugs.
Yet even if we put aside such principled opposition, it should be crystal clear by now that the War on Drugs has shredded traditional liberties. The scandal on the Tennessee interstate shown in the video above is just one example. Precisely because the War on Drugs has fostered an immense black market, the authorities can now seize large amounts of cash from anyone simply on the suspicion that the person "must be" a drug dealer (or a terrorist financier).
This is a very troubling trend. Beyond the obvious inconvenience for people who don't trust banks and want to keep a large amount of cash on hand, it also takes away one of the last escape routes from the tightening vise of financial regulations and controls. As the government's interventions in the banking system and stock market become ever more intrusive, more and more individuals will want to "opt out" by conducting their operations in cash. But now that strategy entails a huge risk, because their holdings can be seized without any formal charges if they happen to get pulled over.
Another major landmark along the road to serfdom is the huge prison infrastructure in the United States. Many Americans don't realize that the United States has the largest prison population in the world, both in absolute terms and per capita (with the possible exception of China, because their government's official figures could be bogus).
If a truly nightmarish scenario ever does develop in what was once a relatively free country, the ruling elite at that time won't have to come up with a pretext for building prisons able to house millions of dissidents. No, that option is already available, courtesy of the Drug War. Most Americans have no problem funding such construction, because they are confident that they would never be locked up.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Monday, June 13, 2011
NH: Eight arrested at pro-police accountable rally
On Saturday, June 4th, 2011 – eight ‘shire-based activists were arrested while at a pro-police accountable rally outside the Manchester, NH PD 603.668.8711. Earlier in the week we had announced our intentions to hold the event due to two recent incidents perpetrated by those wearing “Manchester PD” badges:
* The shooting death of James Breton (interviews of neighbors Ademo captured this week contradict the “official” story – we’ll have this video up soon)
* The clearing of off-duty officers who beat Christopher Micklovich
Those arrested:
Ademo Freeman – criminal mischief and resisting
Charles Nachtrieb – disorderly
Garret Ean – disorderly
Kate Ager – disorderly and resisting
Mike Segal – disorderly
Neal Connor – criminal mischief
Pete Eyre – disorderly
Wes Gilreath – criminal mischief and false report
Kate was bailed out for $540. We were all given court dates of June 23rd. Only Ademo and Wes currently remain behind bars. They were transported to the Valley St. Jail 603.627.5620 and should be arraigned this Monday, June 6th at 8:30am – join us to show support!
Overview:
The event today began at 4pm. At its peak, about 40 activists were present holding signs on the corners of Chestnut and Merrimack and along the street. Passerbys were handed literature and engaged in conversation. Many stopped to share their own stories of rights-violations by those wearing “Manchester PD” badges. Some driving by honked in support.
A short time later Ademo and Wes were arrested – ostensibly for chalking. Next, Mike, Neal and Garret were handcuffed and taken away. A WMUR Channel 9 van driving by was flagged down. Some folks present, including myself, gave interviews. Not sure what, if anything aired from that. Next, Kate was literally surrounded by men and women wearing “Manchester PD” badges and arrested for standing in a “crime scene” (the sidewalk that had earlier been chalked). The group then stood shoulder-to-shoulder and walked north on Chestnut, telling those present to “move back” – supposed so they could capture “evidence” (pictures of the chalking). After passing the last of the chalk someone with a “Manchester PD” badge ordered his colleagues to “arrest them!” and Charlie and I were handcuffed for …?
Video cameras and cell phones were stolen (“seized”) from those arrested. Even some not arrested had their video camera and/or phone stolen by those wearing “Manchester PD” badges on their costumes.
UPDATE by Ademo: I was finally released at approximately 12:30pm after a bail hearing. I was placed on $1,000 Personal Recognizance – meaning if I don’t go to court I’ll be fined that amount – with several ‘bail conditions,’ all things that are illegal already (except the excessive drinking one? – lol). My trial is scheduled for August 18th, 2011, I’m facing three misdemeanor charges (Criminal Mischief and two counts of Resisting).
I want to thank all of those who were at the protest against Manchester Police brutality ofthe past few weeks. Seems folks were right when they said the Manchester police were heavy handed and quick to use force. I also want to thank all those who made calls in support to the police station and jail facility for Wes and I (and the others prior to release).
For now it’s back to work, finishing the Free State Friendship Tour (and PorcFest) and then our trial in Greenfield. After that we’ll revisit this issue, thanks again and stay tuned for more from LibertyOnTour.com and CopBlock.org. – Much love Ademo!
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
On Saturday, June 4th, 2011 – eight ‘shire-based activists were arrested while at a pro-police accountable rally outside the Manchester, NH PD 603.668.8711. Earlier in the week we had announced our intentions to hold the event due to two recent incidents perpetrated by those wearing “Manchester PD” badges:
* The shooting death of James Breton (interviews of neighbors Ademo captured this week contradict the “official” story – we’ll have this video up soon)
* The clearing of off-duty officers who beat Christopher Micklovich
Those arrested:
Ademo Freeman – criminal mischief and resisting
Charles Nachtrieb – disorderly
Garret Ean – disorderly
Kate Ager – disorderly and resisting
Mike Segal – disorderly
Neal Connor – criminal mischief
Pete Eyre – disorderly
Wes Gilreath – criminal mischief and false report
Kate was bailed out for $540. We were all given court dates of June 23rd. Only Ademo and Wes currently remain behind bars. They were transported to the Valley St. Jail 603.627.5620 and should be arraigned this Monday, June 6th at 8:30am – join us to show support!
Overview:
The event today began at 4pm. At its peak, about 40 activists were present holding signs on the corners of Chestnut and Merrimack and along the street. Passerbys were handed literature and engaged in conversation. Many stopped to share their own stories of rights-violations by those wearing “Manchester PD” badges. Some driving by honked in support.
A short time later Ademo and Wes were arrested – ostensibly for chalking. Next, Mike, Neal and Garret were handcuffed and taken away. A WMUR Channel 9 van driving by was flagged down. Some folks present, including myself, gave interviews. Not sure what, if anything aired from that. Next, Kate was literally surrounded by men and women wearing “Manchester PD” badges and arrested for standing in a “crime scene” (the sidewalk that had earlier been chalked). The group then stood shoulder-to-shoulder and walked north on Chestnut, telling those present to “move back” – supposed so they could capture “evidence” (pictures of the chalking). After passing the last of the chalk someone with a “Manchester PD” badge ordered his colleagues to “arrest them!” and Charlie and I were handcuffed for …?
Video cameras and cell phones were stolen (“seized”) from those arrested. Even some not arrested had their video camera and/or phone stolen by those wearing “Manchester PD” badges on their costumes.
UPDATE by Ademo: I was finally released at approximately 12:30pm after a bail hearing. I was placed on $1,000 Personal Recognizance – meaning if I don’t go to court I’ll be fined that amount – with several ‘bail conditions,’ all things that are illegal already (except the excessive drinking one? – lol). My trial is scheduled for August 18th, 2011, I’m facing three misdemeanor charges (Criminal Mischief and two counts of Resisting).
I want to thank all of those who were at the protest against Manchester Police brutality ofthe past few weeks. Seems folks were right when they said the Manchester police were heavy handed and quick to use force. I also want to thank all those who made calls in support to the police station and jail facility for Wes and I (and the others prior to release).
For now it’s back to work, finishing the Free State Friendship Tour (and PorcFest) and then our trial in Greenfield. After that we’ll revisit this issue, thanks again and stay tuned for more from LibertyOnTour.com and CopBlock.org. – Much love Ademo!
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Is an innocent man in jail for the Crozet murders?
Coerced confession again
It was the crime that rocked Crozet: a mother found stabbed to death in bed, her three-year-old son dead from the smoke of a cover-up fire. Amid whispers of witchcraft, four neighborhood teens were arrested, and three are doing time today in state prisons.
One of them, Rocky Fugett, now 27, admits he was there that night in 2003, for which he was convicted along with his sister and another neighborhood kid. Eight years later, Fugett says an innocent man is serving time for something he didn't do, and that man-- Robert Davis-- wasn't even there.
Davis' attorney, Steve Rosenfield, has long maintained that his client was coerced into a false confession, and with Fugett recanting, Rosenfield now seeks clemency from the governor. Fugett, serving a 75-year sentence on a guilty plea, says he has nothing to gain from changing his story.
As the clemency petition heads to Richmond, accounts differ and questions remain. But Rocky Fugett has another bombshell allegation: that another person, showered with sympathy eight years ago, played a key role in the events of that fateful night.
On the morning of February 19, 2003, a Wednesday, snow was on the ground, and school was canceled. Around 8:40am, a female neighbor noticing black smoke pouring out of the Charles home began pounding on the door, according to court documents. She was greeted by the elder daughter, Wendie Charles.
Wendie, 15, and her sister Katie, 11, both with rooms on the first floor, escaped their burning house. Another neighbor testified that she tried to run upstairs to where the girls' mother and baby brother slept, but the smoke stopped her after just three steps.
Crozet volunteer firefighters were the first officials to arrive. After subduing the flames and reaching the charred second floor, firefighters discovered something far more sinister than fire.
"The damage was done before we got there," remembers Albemarle Fire Chief Dan Eggleston, who got the call at his Crozet home.
Upstairs, investigators found Ann Charles face down in the bunk bed where her toddler son usually slept. The 41-year-old woman's arms had been bound behind her back with duct tape, and there was duct tape on her feet and ankles, which had been bound to the bed posts. Police forensic tech Larry Claytor, who today calls it one of the worst crime scenes he's ever seen, saw two aerosol cans on the bed and one on the floor.
In the adjacent bedroom, insulation had fallen, and the sky was visible through a hole in the roof, Claytor later testified. Under the debris in his mother's bedroom, responders found the body of three-year-old William Thomas Charles, who had died of carbon monoxide poisoning from smoke inhalation.
Claytor was still taking in the scene when he noticed a grisly detail he'd overlooked earlier: a knife in Ann Charles' back.
The knife was so badly charred, Claytor later testified, that he didn't initially notice it. What remained of it appeared to match those in a wooden knife-holder in the kitchen. The medical examiner later noted that Ann Charles' throat had been cut.
Investigators discovered that the upstairs smoke detector had been removed from the ceiling and the batteries taken from the kitchen detector downstairs. More ominously, the home's electrical breakers had been thrown.
Within two days, police picked up the Fugett siblings, 15-year-old Jessica and 19-year-old Rocky. After initial denials, the Fugetts admitted their roles. And they fingered two other Western Albemarle High teens: Tygue Herrmann and Robert Davis.
Rocky Fugett now says neither had anything to do with the gruesome invasion.
Herrmann, 17, who lived in nearby Orchard Acres, was held in juvenile detention for several months--- until prosecutors dropped the charges for lack of evidence. Davis, however, had given prosecutors something they weren't able to extract from Herrmann: a confession.
The third person serving time is Robert Davis, 18 at the time. Arrested shortly after midnight on the morning of February 22, he was interrogated for more than five hours, beginning around 2am. As the transcript shows, he insisted dozens of times he had nothing to do with what happened in the Charles house, repeatedly offered to take a polygraph test, and said that he was tired and just wanted to sleep.
With his legs shackled, he complained he was cold, and it was almost 7am when Davis asked a fateful question of his interrogator: "What can I say I did to get me out of this?"
In September 2004, Davis entered an Alford plea, which allowed him to maintain his innocence while acknowledging that the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him.
Rocky recants
Rocky Fugett now resides southeast of Petersburg in Sussex II State Prison. In late April of this year, he meets with two reporters-- one from the Hook and one from the Daily Progress-- to share his story.
Speaking via teleconference at the medium-security facility that bans recording devices, cameras, and face-to-face meetings, Rocky appears to have lost weight since his perp-walk pictures of eight years ago. The first words he utters are about Davis.
"He wasn't there during any of this whole situation," says Fugett, "not in the slightest."
Although Fugett and Davis both lived on Cling Lane, both attended Western Albemarle, and were about the same age, they were the opposite of buddies. Fugett admits that he beat up Davis "six or seven times."
Fugett describes Davis as easily manipulated, a trait evident long before he ended up in a police interrogation room. "He's weak minded," Fugett says. "You're with him 10 minutes, and you can get him to do anything you want."
More here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Coerced confession again
It was the crime that rocked Crozet: a mother found stabbed to death in bed, her three-year-old son dead from the smoke of a cover-up fire. Amid whispers of witchcraft, four neighborhood teens were arrested, and three are doing time today in state prisons.
One of them, Rocky Fugett, now 27, admits he was there that night in 2003, for which he was convicted along with his sister and another neighborhood kid. Eight years later, Fugett says an innocent man is serving time for something he didn't do, and that man-- Robert Davis-- wasn't even there.
Davis' attorney, Steve Rosenfield, has long maintained that his client was coerced into a false confession, and with Fugett recanting, Rosenfield now seeks clemency from the governor. Fugett, serving a 75-year sentence on a guilty plea, says he has nothing to gain from changing his story.
As the clemency petition heads to Richmond, accounts differ and questions remain. But Rocky Fugett has another bombshell allegation: that another person, showered with sympathy eight years ago, played a key role in the events of that fateful night.
On the morning of February 19, 2003, a Wednesday, snow was on the ground, and school was canceled. Around 8:40am, a female neighbor noticing black smoke pouring out of the Charles home began pounding on the door, according to court documents. She was greeted by the elder daughter, Wendie Charles.
Wendie, 15, and her sister Katie, 11, both with rooms on the first floor, escaped their burning house. Another neighbor testified that she tried to run upstairs to where the girls' mother and baby brother slept, but the smoke stopped her after just three steps.
Crozet volunteer firefighters were the first officials to arrive. After subduing the flames and reaching the charred second floor, firefighters discovered something far more sinister than fire.
"The damage was done before we got there," remembers Albemarle Fire Chief Dan Eggleston, who got the call at his Crozet home.
Upstairs, investigators found Ann Charles face down in the bunk bed where her toddler son usually slept. The 41-year-old woman's arms had been bound behind her back with duct tape, and there was duct tape on her feet and ankles, which had been bound to the bed posts. Police forensic tech Larry Claytor, who today calls it one of the worst crime scenes he's ever seen, saw two aerosol cans on the bed and one on the floor.
In the adjacent bedroom, insulation had fallen, and the sky was visible through a hole in the roof, Claytor later testified. Under the debris in his mother's bedroom, responders found the body of three-year-old William Thomas Charles, who had died of carbon monoxide poisoning from smoke inhalation.
Claytor was still taking in the scene when he noticed a grisly detail he'd overlooked earlier: a knife in Ann Charles' back.
The knife was so badly charred, Claytor later testified, that he didn't initially notice it. What remained of it appeared to match those in a wooden knife-holder in the kitchen. The medical examiner later noted that Ann Charles' throat had been cut.
Investigators discovered that the upstairs smoke detector had been removed from the ceiling and the batteries taken from the kitchen detector downstairs. More ominously, the home's electrical breakers had been thrown.
Within two days, police picked up the Fugett siblings, 15-year-old Jessica and 19-year-old Rocky. After initial denials, the Fugetts admitted their roles. And they fingered two other Western Albemarle High teens: Tygue Herrmann and Robert Davis.
Rocky Fugett now says neither had anything to do with the gruesome invasion.
Herrmann, 17, who lived in nearby Orchard Acres, was held in juvenile detention for several months--- until prosecutors dropped the charges for lack of evidence. Davis, however, had given prosecutors something they weren't able to extract from Herrmann: a confession.
The third person serving time is Robert Davis, 18 at the time. Arrested shortly after midnight on the morning of February 22, he was interrogated for more than five hours, beginning around 2am. As the transcript shows, he insisted dozens of times he had nothing to do with what happened in the Charles house, repeatedly offered to take a polygraph test, and said that he was tired and just wanted to sleep.
With his legs shackled, he complained he was cold, and it was almost 7am when Davis asked a fateful question of his interrogator: "What can I say I did to get me out of this?"
In September 2004, Davis entered an Alford plea, which allowed him to maintain his innocence while acknowledging that the prosecution had enough evidence to convict him.
Rocky recants
Rocky Fugett now resides southeast of Petersburg in Sussex II State Prison. In late April of this year, he meets with two reporters-- one from the Hook and one from the Daily Progress-- to share his story.
Speaking via teleconference at the medium-security facility that bans recording devices, cameras, and face-to-face meetings, Rocky appears to have lost weight since his perp-walk pictures of eight years ago. The first words he utters are about Davis.
"He wasn't there during any of this whole situation," says Fugett, "not in the slightest."
Although Fugett and Davis both lived on Cling Lane, both attended Western Albemarle, and were about the same age, they were the opposite of buddies. Fugett admits that he beat up Davis "six or seven times."
Fugett describes Davis as easily manipulated, a trait evident long before he ended up in a police interrogation room. "He's weak minded," Fugett says. "You're with him 10 minutes, and you can get him to do anything you want."
More here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Saturday, June 11, 2011
Self defense injustice
Demonstrating the abuses that mandatory sentences can create
On a spring morning in 2008, Wollard got a panicked call from his wife. The teenage boyfriend who had been beating up his 15-year old daughter was back at their house causing trouble. Wollard rushed home and found the boy on the porch and his daughter with a black eye. Wollard told the boy to leave, but instead, the boy attacked him, ripping out stitches from Wollard’s recent surgery, and then ran off with Wollard’s daughter. When the two returned several hours later, the boyfriend began shoving Orville’s daughter around the Wollards’ home. Wollard’s wife and eldest daughter screamed for him to do something.
Wollard was frightened for his daughter’s and his family’s safety. He grabbed his legally registered pistol and confronted the boy, again asking him to leave. The boy stopped assaulting Wollard’s daughter. He smiled, punched a hole in the wall, and began moving toward Wollard. Wollard, who had had firearms training as a former member of the auxiliary police force, aimed a bullet into the wall next to the boyfriend to scare him. No one was hurt, and the boy finally left.
That is where this story should have ended, but it didn’t. Several weeks later, the abusive boy called the police to report Wollard for aggravated assault, and Wollard was arrested.
Orville Wollard did not think he had committed a crime by protecting his family. He rejected a plea deal that would have given him probation and a felony record and instead took his case to court. Prosecutors charged Wollard with various crimes, including shooting into a dwelling (his own house), child abuse (because the boy was under 18) and aggravated assault with a weapon.
A jury convicted Wollard of possessing and discharging a firearm, which triggered Florida’s mandatory minimum sentence for aggravated assault with a weapon. Wollard was sentenced to the mandatory prison term of 20 years without parole. At sentencing, the judge said, “This [sentence] is obviously excessive … if it weren’t for the mandatory minimum … I would use my discretion and impose some separate sentence, having taken into consideration the circumstances of the event.”
For his part, Wollard told the court, “I’m amazed. I’m stunned. I have spent my life pursuing education [and] helped the community. [T]hen one day this person breaks into my house … he continues to do this, he assaults my daughter, he threatens me, I protect myself. [N]o one is injured in this whole thing, and I’m going to prison. … And again, with all respect to [the court], I would expect this from the former Soviet Union, not the United States.”
Wollard is right. If what he did was so clearly illegal, what did the Supreme Court’s ruling mean? If not to protect one’s young child within the home, what are guns for?
To be clear, a jury found Wollard guilty. Jurors apparently did not believe he acted in self-defense. They might have voted differently if Wollard’s attorneys had been permitted to tell them about the boy’s previous violent attacks.
Whether this jury reached the correct conclusion is open to debate. Whether prosecutors should have charged a crime that carried such a harsh mandatory minimum sentence bears scrutiny.
What is beyond debate is that when judges are prevented from applying sentences that are appropriate to the unique circumstances of each case, injustice is inevitable. And when the constitutional right to bear arms is at stake, violations of the bedrock tenet of American justice - that the punishment should fit the crime and the offender - are all the more intolerable.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Demonstrating the abuses that mandatory sentences can create
On a spring morning in 2008, Wollard got a panicked call from his wife. The teenage boyfriend who had been beating up his 15-year old daughter was back at their house causing trouble. Wollard rushed home and found the boy on the porch and his daughter with a black eye. Wollard told the boy to leave, but instead, the boy attacked him, ripping out stitches from Wollard’s recent surgery, and then ran off with Wollard’s daughter. When the two returned several hours later, the boyfriend began shoving Orville’s daughter around the Wollards’ home. Wollard’s wife and eldest daughter screamed for him to do something.
Wollard was frightened for his daughter’s and his family’s safety. He grabbed his legally registered pistol and confronted the boy, again asking him to leave. The boy stopped assaulting Wollard’s daughter. He smiled, punched a hole in the wall, and began moving toward Wollard. Wollard, who had had firearms training as a former member of the auxiliary police force, aimed a bullet into the wall next to the boyfriend to scare him. No one was hurt, and the boy finally left.
That is where this story should have ended, but it didn’t. Several weeks later, the abusive boy called the police to report Wollard for aggravated assault, and Wollard was arrested.
Orville Wollard did not think he had committed a crime by protecting his family. He rejected a plea deal that would have given him probation and a felony record and instead took his case to court. Prosecutors charged Wollard with various crimes, including shooting into a dwelling (his own house), child abuse (because the boy was under 18) and aggravated assault with a weapon.
A jury convicted Wollard of possessing and discharging a firearm, which triggered Florida’s mandatory minimum sentence for aggravated assault with a weapon. Wollard was sentenced to the mandatory prison term of 20 years without parole. At sentencing, the judge said, “This [sentence] is obviously excessive … if it weren’t for the mandatory minimum … I would use my discretion and impose some separate sentence, having taken into consideration the circumstances of the event.”
For his part, Wollard told the court, “I’m amazed. I’m stunned. I have spent my life pursuing education [and] helped the community. [T]hen one day this person breaks into my house … he continues to do this, he assaults my daughter, he threatens me, I protect myself. [N]o one is injured in this whole thing, and I’m going to prison. … And again, with all respect to [the court], I would expect this from the former Soviet Union, not the United States.”
Wollard is right. If what he did was so clearly illegal, what did the Supreme Court’s ruling mean? If not to protect one’s young child within the home, what are guns for?
To be clear, a jury found Wollard guilty. Jurors apparently did not believe he acted in self-defense. They might have voted differently if Wollard’s attorneys had been permitted to tell them about the boy’s previous violent attacks.
Whether this jury reached the correct conclusion is open to debate. Whether prosecutors should have charged a crime that carried such a harsh mandatory minimum sentence bears scrutiny.
What is beyond debate is that when judges are prevented from applying sentences that are appropriate to the unique circumstances of each case, injustice is inevitable. And when the constitutional right to bear arms is at stake, violations of the bedrock tenet of American justice - that the punishment should fit the crime and the offender - are all the more intolerable.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Friday, June 10, 2011
Thug Washington cops assault handicapped man for throwing rubbish in a bin!
He resisted the cops in self defense because he could not see that he had done anything wrong
A mute man whose treatment by Olympia police prompted about 100 people to show up at a City Council meeting this week in protest had attempted to flee three times before his arrest, according to a police report released Wednesday.
Scott Yoos, 45, of Olympia pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Olympia Municipal Court to charges of criminal trespass and obstructing justice. He is scheduled to return to court Aug. 1.
Protesters at the City Council meeting said Yoos’ June 1 arrest, which culminated in officers throwing him to the ground and handcuffing him, was an example of police brutality. Yoos was just throwing away garbage in a trash bin when he was arrested, they said. Yoos can hear but cannot speak.
Police officers say they used the force necessary to detain Yoos, who was not cooperating.
Yoos did not respond to an email seeking comment on the police report. Yoos told a reporter in writing Tuesday that he had been advised by lawyers not to comment on details of the case.
According to police reports:
Olympia Police Officer Randy Wilson was on patrol in a marked police vehicle at 11:34 p.m. when he spotted Yoos on a bicycle in the Twister Donuts parking lot at 2302 Fourth Ave. E.
He spotted Yoos’ “hands coming out of the dumpster as if he had thrown something in it or taken something out of it.” Wilson drove toward Yoos, who “quickly got on his bicycle and tried to leave.”
The officer left his car and told Yoos to “come here.” Yoos did not look at the officer and began to pedal away, but Wilson grabbed the bike and told Yoos he was not free to leave.
Yoos used sign language and again got on his bicycle and tried to leave, prompting Wilson to stop him again. “At this point I was detaining the male for investigation of criminal trespass,” Wilson wrote. About the same time, Officer Sam Costello arrived.
Wilson pulled out a note pad to communicate with Yoos. “Do you have ID?” Wilson wrote. No, Yoos responded in sign language. “What have I done wrong?” he wrote.
“Criminal trespass,” Wilson responded. “I threw away a bag, is that illegal?” Yoos wrote. “You’d rather I littered?”
Also according to police reports:
Costello radioed for Officer Jason Watkins, who knows some sign language. Yoos tried to ride away again, and Costello blocked him. Wilson again said, “You are not free to leave.”
Costello took Yoos’ bike. Yoos signed “very emphatically, slapping his hands together hard and making some sort of gesture under his chin,” Wilson wrote. “He was to a point where I believed he could become assaultive.”
Yoos attempted to take the bike from Costello, and the two struggled. Wilson grabbed Yoos and pulled him backward away from the bike, and Yoos continued to resist.
Wilson got Yoos to the ground on a third attempt with Costello’s help. Yoos continued to resist as he was placed in handcuffs. Wilson put his knee on Yoos’ back to detain him on the ground; Yoos continued to try to roll away. Wilson told Yoos he was under arrest and handcuffed him.
At one point, Costello tried to remove a bag Yoos was carrying by removing one of his handcuffs, prompting Yoos to resist again, at which point Costello used “pain compliance.” Yoos then “stomped down with his left foot, using his shoe to step forcefully on my right toes,” Costello wrote. As Yoos was led to a patrol car, he kicked Sgt. Paul Johnson, who had recently arrived, in the left upper leg, the report says.
Costello described Yoos’ injuries as “some minor bleeding from scuffing-type abrasions on his hands” and said Yoos did not request aid and aid was not summoned. Costello wrote that he would expect Yoos would experience pain and/or injury to his left wrist, face and/or forehead.
Watkins described asking Yoos if he remembered being told by another officer in the past that he could not be on the donut shop’s property at night, and Yoos responded that he received permission from a male employee of the shop. Yoos told him he was throwing garbage away because he didn’t want to litter.
Yoos told Watkins he resisted “because he had his bicycle stolen from underneath of him and he had done nothing wrong.” City Manager Steve Hall declined to comment, and Police Chief Ronnie Roberts did not return calls seeking comment. His secretary said he was out of the office.
Hall and Roberts did not address the matter at the City Council meeting Tuesday. Mayor Pro Tem Stephen Buxbaum told the crowd at the meeting that he met with the city manager and police chief Monday and talked about starting “a very deliberative process” on the police issue, preferably a structured forum.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
He resisted the cops in self defense because he could not see that he had done anything wrong
A mute man whose treatment by Olympia police prompted about 100 people to show up at a City Council meeting this week in protest had attempted to flee three times before his arrest, according to a police report released Wednesday.
Scott Yoos, 45, of Olympia pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Olympia Municipal Court to charges of criminal trespass and obstructing justice. He is scheduled to return to court Aug. 1.
Protesters at the City Council meeting said Yoos’ June 1 arrest, which culminated in officers throwing him to the ground and handcuffing him, was an example of police brutality. Yoos was just throwing away garbage in a trash bin when he was arrested, they said. Yoos can hear but cannot speak.
Police officers say they used the force necessary to detain Yoos, who was not cooperating.
Yoos did not respond to an email seeking comment on the police report. Yoos told a reporter in writing Tuesday that he had been advised by lawyers not to comment on details of the case.
According to police reports:
Olympia Police Officer Randy Wilson was on patrol in a marked police vehicle at 11:34 p.m. when he spotted Yoos on a bicycle in the Twister Donuts parking lot at 2302 Fourth Ave. E.
He spotted Yoos’ “hands coming out of the dumpster as if he had thrown something in it or taken something out of it.” Wilson drove toward Yoos, who “quickly got on his bicycle and tried to leave.”
The officer left his car and told Yoos to “come here.” Yoos did not look at the officer and began to pedal away, but Wilson grabbed the bike and told Yoos he was not free to leave.
Yoos used sign language and again got on his bicycle and tried to leave, prompting Wilson to stop him again. “At this point I was detaining the male for investigation of criminal trespass,” Wilson wrote. About the same time, Officer Sam Costello arrived.
Wilson pulled out a note pad to communicate with Yoos. “Do you have ID?” Wilson wrote. No, Yoos responded in sign language. “What have I done wrong?” he wrote.
“Criminal trespass,” Wilson responded. “I threw away a bag, is that illegal?” Yoos wrote. “You’d rather I littered?”
Also according to police reports:
Costello radioed for Officer Jason Watkins, who knows some sign language. Yoos tried to ride away again, and Costello blocked him. Wilson again said, “You are not free to leave.”
Costello took Yoos’ bike. Yoos signed “very emphatically, slapping his hands together hard and making some sort of gesture under his chin,” Wilson wrote. “He was to a point where I believed he could become assaultive.”
Yoos attempted to take the bike from Costello, and the two struggled. Wilson grabbed Yoos and pulled him backward away from the bike, and Yoos continued to resist.
Wilson got Yoos to the ground on a third attempt with Costello’s help. Yoos continued to resist as he was placed in handcuffs. Wilson put his knee on Yoos’ back to detain him on the ground; Yoos continued to try to roll away. Wilson told Yoos he was under arrest and handcuffed him.
At one point, Costello tried to remove a bag Yoos was carrying by removing one of his handcuffs, prompting Yoos to resist again, at which point Costello used “pain compliance.” Yoos then “stomped down with his left foot, using his shoe to step forcefully on my right toes,” Costello wrote. As Yoos was led to a patrol car, he kicked Sgt. Paul Johnson, who had recently arrived, in the left upper leg, the report says.
Costello described Yoos’ injuries as “some minor bleeding from scuffing-type abrasions on his hands” and said Yoos did not request aid and aid was not summoned. Costello wrote that he would expect Yoos would experience pain and/or injury to his left wrist, face and/or forehead.
Watkins described asking Yoos if he remembered being told by another officer in the past that he could not be on the donut shop’s property at night, and Yoos responded that he received permission from a male employee of the shop. Yoos told him he was throwing garbage away because he didn’t want to litter.
Yoos told Watkins he resisted “because he had his bicycle stolen from underneath of him and he had done nothing wrong.” City Manager Steve Hall declined to comment, and Police Chief Ronnie Roberts did not return calls seeking comment. His secretary said he was out of the office.
Hall and Roberts did not address the matter at the City Council meeting Tuesday. Mayor Pro Tem Stephen Buxbaum told the crowd at the meeting that he met with the city manager and police chief Monday and talked about starting “a very deliberative process” on the police issue, preferably a structured forum.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Thursday, June 09, 2011
NY prosecutors clear cabbie shot by police
New York prosecutors have dropped criminal charges against a cab driver who was shot in a dispute with two off-duty police officers. Instead, the officers are facing an internal police investigation amid allegations they had been drinking.
The Suffolk County district attorney's office said Monday there was insufficient evidence to support assault and other charges against the cab driver.
Thomas Moroughan had been accused of trying to run down the officers. One of the officers claimed he shot Moroughan in self-defense.
Prosecutors said there was some evidence the officers had consumed alcohol. But they noted the officer who shot Moroughan refused to provide a blood or urine sample when he was taken to a hospital afterward.
A Nassau County police spokesman, where the officers work, confirmed the departmental investigation.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
New York prosecutors have dropped criminal charges against a cab driver who was shot in a dispute with two off-duty police officers. Instead, the officers are facing an internal police investigation amid allegations they had been drinking.
The Suffolk County district attorney's office said Monday there was insufficient evidence to support assault and other charges against the cab driver.
Thomas Moroughan had been accused of trying to run down the officers. One of the officers claimed he shot Moroughan in self-defense.
Prosecutors said there was some evidence the officers had consumed alcohol. But they noted the officer who shot Moroughan refused to provide a blood or urine sample when he was taken to a hospital afterward.
A Nassau County police spokesman, where the officers work, confirmed the departmental investigation.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
British cop 'beat teenage French tourist for urinating in public until he was dripping with blood'
A police officer assaulted a young French tourist and left him needing hospital treatment after spotting him urinating in a bush, a court heard today. Pc John Caulfield chased Charles Quichaud down the street before delivering a series of blows to his head, face and chest as he lay curled up on the ground, it was claimed.
Local residents who witnessed the alleged attack initially mistook Caulfield for a mugger but then realised he was a uniformed officer, the jury was told on the first day of his trial.
Mr Quichaud, then 19, was on a three-week holiday in London on August 27, 2009 and had been drinking with a friend and some other young people in the middle of trendy Hoxton Square. On needing to relieve himself, he headed for the bushes in a corner of the square where Caulfield, who was on patrol, saw him urinating.
Realising he had been caught in the act, Mr Quichaud fled to a nearby bar, chased by the officer, who then left without challenging the young man, Southwark Crown Court in London heard.
But on emerging from the bar, the teenager noticed Caulfield and again fled, this time along a road and into a housing estate, prosecutor Philip McGhee said. 'Mr Quichaud recalls only that he ended up on the floor receiving blows to his body from the police officer,' the prosecutor told the court.
'Local residents, alerted to something going on by the sounds of distress, looked out and saw what was going on.
'They will say variously that they saw a young man on the floor, curled or in the foetal position on the ground, receiving punches to the head, face and upper body, the chest, from someone they thought at first was a mugger but in fact realised was a uniformed police officer.' None said they saw Mr Quichaud struggling or reacting, he added.
Dripping with blood, Mr Quichaud was handcuffed, arrested for urinating in a public place and taken to hospital in an ambulance, accompanied by Caulfield, the court heard. He received stitches to his right eyebrow and treatment for cuts under his eye and behind his ear, he said. He later underwent an operation on his nose, which was allegedly broken in the incident.
Caulfield is charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, which he denies. The police officer claimed he had been attacked by the tourist and had 'simply defended himself', Mr McGhee said.
'He claimed...anything he did was the use of reasonable force to effect an arrest or defend himself from attack,' the prosecutor told the jury.
'The prosecution says that whatever happened, what Pc Caulfield did to Mr Quichaud was not lawful.'
The Frenchman, from Angouleme in the west of the country but now living in London, described the chase that he says culminated in the attack.
Giving evidence through an interpreter, he said: 'I was running...I didn't know where I was and then I remember being on the ground. 'I don't remember exactly how but I didn't fall of my own accord, I was pushed to the ground by the policeman. 'There were blows to my head to my face. I'd never been hit before and I hope I will never be hit like that again.'
He had protected his head with his hands, he said, while the police officer stood next to him and seemed to kick him 'at least five times'. He had been unable to put up any resistance, he added.
When the attack stopped, blood was dripping from his face, he was bleeding from his eyebrow and behind his ear, had blood in his mouth and throat and was in pain and in tears, the court heard.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
A police officer assaulted a young French tourist and left him needing hospital treatment after spotting him urinating in a bush, a court heard today. Pc John Caulfield chased Charles Quichaud down the street before delivering a series of blows to his head, face and chest as he lay curled up on the ground, it was claimed.
Local residents who witnessed the alleged attack initially mistook Caulfield for a mugger but then realised he was a uniformed officer, the jury was told on the first day of his trial.
Mr Quichaud, then 19, was on a three-week holiday in London on August 27, 2009 and had been drinking with a friend and some other young people in the middle of trendy Hoxton Square. On needing to relieve himself, he headed for the bushes in a corner of the square where Caulfield, who was on patrol, saw him urinating.
Realising he had been caught in the act, Mr Quichaud fled to a nearby bar, chased by the officer, who then left without challenging the young man, Southwark Crown Court in London heard.
But on emerging from the bar, the teenager noticed Caulfield and again fled, this time along a road and into a housing estate, prosecutor Philip McGhee said. 'Mr Quichaud recalls only that he ended up on the floor receiving blows to his body from the police officer,' the prosecutor told the court.
'Local residents, alerted to something going on by the sounds of distress, looked out and saw what was going on.
'They will say variously that they saw a young man on the floor, curled or in the foetal position on the ground, receiving punches to the head, face and upper body, the chest, from someone they thought at first was a mugger but in fact realised was a uniformed police officer.' None said they saw Mr Quichaud struggling or reacting, he added.
Dripping with blood, Mr Quichaud was handcuffed, arrested for urinating in a public place and taken to hospital in an ambulance, accompanied by Caulfield, the court heard. He received stitches to his right eyebrow and treatment for cuts under his eye and behind his ear, he said. He later underwent an operation on his nose, which was allegedly broken in the incident.
Caulfield is charged with assault occasioning actual bodily harm, which he denies. The police officer claimed he had been attacked by the tourist and had 'simply defended himself', Mr McGhee said.
'He claimed...anything he did was the use of reasonable force to effect an arrest or defend himself from attack,' the prosecutor told the jury.
'The prosecution says that whatever happened, what Pc Caulfield did to Mr Quichaud was not lawful.'
The Frenchman, from Angouleme in the west of the country but now living in London, described the chase that he says culminated in the attack.
Giving evidence through an interpreter, he said: 'I was running...I didn't know where I was and then I remember being on the ground. 'I don't remember exactly how but I didn't fall of my own accord, I was pushed to the ground by the policeman. 'There were blows to my head to my face. I'd never been hit before and I hope I will never be hit like that again.'
He had protected his head with his hands, he said, while the police officer stood next to him and seemed to kick him 'at least five times'. He had been unable to put up any resistance, he added.
When the attack stopped, blood was dripping from his face, he was bleeding from his eyebrow and behind his ear, had blood in his mouth and throat and was in pain and in tears, the court heard.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Tuesday, June 07, 2011
When punishment is a crime
The Supreme Court takes on California's overcrowded prison system
In his magisterial book The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn recited in gruesome detail the mistreatment of inmates in prison camps in the Soviet Union. "As many as 54 prisoners may share a single toilet," he wrote. "Up to 50 sick inmates may be held together in a 12- by 20-foot cage for up to five hours awaiting treatment."
Mentally ill convicts go untreated until they "suffer from severe hallucinations" and fall "into catatonic states." Suicidal inmates are "held for prolonged periods in telephone-booth sized cages without toilets." Some prisoners die for lack of medical care, and others kill themselves.
Actually, those quotes are not from Solzhenitsyn. They're from the U.S. Supreme Court decision last week on California's grossly overcrowded penal system. A majority of the justices decided that when a state approaches Stalinist standards of barbarity, something has to be done.
The state admitted years ago that its treatment of inmates violated the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishments." After years in which the problem went unrepaired, the court ran out of patience. It ordered California to reduce its prison population, which now stands at around 145,000, by anywhere from 33,000 to 46,000 inmates.
You may assume mobs of cutthroats will soon be let out to rape and pillage. Dissenting Justice Samuel Alito predicted "a grim roster of victims." Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento urged Californians: "Buy a gun. Get a dog."
But before locals go mad with panic, they might consider some reassuring facts. One is that California doesn't have to liberate any inmates. It can keep them all confined, as long as it's willing to provide the space and services to meet minimum requirements of humane treatment.
As the Supreme Court helpfully noted, the state can open more prisons, place convicts in county jails, or ship them to states with vacant cells. Those options cost money, but there's nothing to stop nervous voters from demanding higher taxes to pay for them.
As it happens, many of those serving time in California never had "victims." Nearly 25,000 of them are in prison for nonviolent drug offenses—mostly simple possession or possession for sale.
If these people were out, they wouldn't be particularly scary. Though you may not like the occasional whiff of burning cannabis, guns and dogs won't do much to improve the aroma.
Many of the other prisoners may imperil your property but not your person. They are in for things like shoplifting, forgery, and receiving stolen property. Those are crimes that ought to be punished and prevented, but not crimes that cause most of us night terrors.
It has escaped the notice of Alito that the state can protect the public from such felons without holding them in prison—using electronic monitoring, drug testing, and strict supervision to keep them on the straight and narrow.
"I don't think there's any doubt that we can let out more than 30,000 prisoners and have crime go down, if we spend some of the money we save by not housing them on watching them better in the community," UCLA criminologist Mark Kleiman said in a radio interview.
GPS surveillance of a felon costs about $4 a day, he points out—a massive bargain next to the $100 a day needed to house and feed him in prison. If the function of penitentiaries is to keep bad people from preying on good people, it often can be achieved just as well with newfangled technology as with steel bars and razor wire.
Many legislators have already stumbled on a way to spend less and be more secure: lock up fewer people. States from New York to Texas have decided that mass imprisonment is a luxury they have to curtail. Marc Mauer, head of The Sentencing Project, reports that in the states that have cut back on incarceration, "no adverse impacts on public safety were observed."
In the long run, locking up so many criminals is a false comfort. It may be no coincidence that California has an unusually high rate of recidivism. The former warden of San Quentin State Prison testified that existing prison conditions "make people worse." Most of those people wind up back among us, more dangerous than before.
Cramming ever-growing numbers of offenders into horribly overburdened facilities is an inexcusable way to treat the guilty. And guess what: It's no favor to the innocent.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
The Supreme Court takes on California's overcrowded prison system
In his magisterial book The Gulag Archipelago, Alexander Solzhenitsyn recited in gruesome detail the mistreatment of inmates in prison camps in the Soviet Union. "As many as 54 prisoners may share a single toilet," he wrote. "Up to 50 sick inmates may be held together in a 12- by 20-foot cage for up to five hours awaiting treatment."
Mentally ill convicts go untreated until they "suffer from severe hallucinations" and fall "into catatonic states." Suicidal inmates are "held for prolonged periods in telephone-booth sized cages without toilets." Some prisoners die for lack of medical care, and others kill themselves.
Actually, those quotes are not from Solzhenitsyn. They're from the U.S. Supreme Court decision last week on California's grossly overcrowded penal system. A majority of the justices decided that when a state approaches Stalinist standards of barbarity, something has to be done.
The state admitted years ago that its treatment of inmates violated the Constitution's ban on "cruel and unusual punishments." After years in which the problem went unrepaired, the court ran out of patience. It ordered California to reduce its prison population, which now stands at around 145,000, by anywhere from 33,000 to 46,000 inmates.
You may assume mobs of cutthroats will soon be let out to rape and pillage. Dissenting Justice Samuel Alito predicted "a grim roster of victims." Kent Scheidegger of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation in Sacramento urged Californians: "Buy a gun. Get a dog."
But before locals go mad with panic, they might consider some reassuring facts. One is that California doesn't have to liberate any inmates. It can keep them all confined, as long as it's willing to provide the space and services to meet minimum requirements of humane treatment.
As the Supreme Court helpfully noted, the state can open more prisons, place convicts in county jails, or ship them to states with vacant cells. Those options cost money, but there's nothing to stop nervous voters from demanding higher taxes to pay for them.
As it happens, many of those serving time in California never had "victims." Nearly 25,000 of them are in prison for nonviolent drug offenses—mostly simple possession or possession for sale.
If these people were out, they wouldn't be particularly scary. Though you may not like the occasional whiff of burning cannabis, guns and dogs won't do much to improve the aroma.
Many of the other prisoners may imperil your property but not your person. They are in for things like shoplifting, forgery, and receiving stolen property. Those are crimes that ought to be punished and prevented, but not crimes that cause most of us night terrors.
It has escaped the notice of Alito that the state can protect the public from such felons without holding them in prison—using electronic monitoring, drug testing, and strict supervision to keep them on the straight and narrow.
"I don't think there's any doubt that we can let out more than 30,000 prisoners and have crime go down, if we spend some of the money we save by not housing them on watching them better in the community," UCLA criminologist Mark Kleiman said in a radio interview.
GPS surveillance of a felon costs about $4 a day, he points out—a massive bargain next to the $100 a day needed to house and feed him in prison. If the function of penitentiaries is to keep bad people from preying on good people, it often can be achieved just as well with newfangled technology as with steel bars and razor wire.
Many legislators have already stumbled on a way to spend less and be more secure: lock up fewer people. States from New York to Texas have decided that mass imprisonment is a luxury they have to curtail. Marc Mauer, head of The Sentencing Project, reports that in the states that have cut back on incarceration, "no adverse impacts on public safety were observed."
In the long run, locking up so many criminals is a false comfort. It may be no coincidence that California has an unusually high rate of recidivism. The former warden of San Quentin State Prison testified that existing prison conditions "make people worse." Most of those people wind up back among us, more dangerous than before.
Cramming ever-growing numbers of offenders into horribly overburdened facilities is an inexcusable way to treat the guilty. And guess what: It's no favor to the innocent.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Monday, June 06, 2011
CA: Modesto coverup
In a move unsurprising to many, a five-month investigation into brutality and corruption of the Modesto Police Department has exonerated local law enforcement of any wrong doing. The investigation was launched to look into charges of police brutality that steamed from a series of leaked emails by both former and anonymous police officers claiming that the beating of suspects was common and that higher-up police, including Chief Harden, knew about the violations.
The "findings" of the investigation come at a time when former Stanislaus County Sheriff's detective Kari Abbey is charged with "second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter along with conspiracy, embezzlement, cultivating marijuana, receiving stolen property and child endangerment, according to a criminal complaint." More sinister, is the charge that Kari and her Haywood police boyfriend evicted people from their rentals for Abbey's landlord parents. Several Modesto police officers also face ongoing charges ranging from drunk driving, spousal abuse, and taking drugs from evidence.
And just as the investigation into the Modesto police began at a time of increased police shootings and accusations of abuse and corruption, the day the report was released to the public, local police again made headlines another fatal shooting. Police shot and killed Jermey Atkinson after responding to an armed robbery at a store on Coffee road on May 24th. During a chase of Atkinson, police claimed that he reached into his waistband and they fired in self-defense. Later, according to the Modesto Bee: "A knife was found near the body of the man shot by a Modesto police officer last week, and the loaded rifle police say he used to rob a convenience store was recovered in a nearby field, police said Tuesday."
Again, like a mantra, we hear the police repeating the same line over and over again. A suspect "reaches for their waist-band" and the officers "fearing for their lives" shoot them in self-defense. Only later it turns out that the suspect is armed with only a spatula - or no weapon at all.
The investigative report, issued by a Palo Alto based lawyer, which cost tax-payers $75,000 (on top of the nearly $100,000 for police accreditation), concludes that there is not a problem with rampant police brutality or corruption. The report issued by Robert Aaronson claims that the series of emails issues about ongoing brutality are unfounded, based largely on interviews with police officers. He also cites the shooting death of Francisco Moran, claiming that officers shot Moran in order to protect "his family members and themselves," only later discovering that the weapon he was pulling from his pants was in fact a spatula.
Aaronson's "suggestions" for the community are as follows. He claims that most escalations of force are largely the result of failures by the public to respond and comply with police commands. As he states, "The vast majority of law enforcement uses of force...are in response to a stated or perceived refusal to cooperate." Thus, according to Aaronson, it is the fault of those shot and abused in encounters with the police who are to blame, not the police and the system that gives them power.
Aaronson claims that if citizens do feel that their rights have been violated, they should issue complaints against certain officers in order to hold the police "accountable." He also states that anonymous or "masked" critique at the police hinders the ability of people to hold the police accountable. We feel that this comment is directed not only at the people writing the anonymous emails, but also at Modesto Anarcho who participated in the disruption of the police accreditation meeting while wearing masks with the likeness of Rita Elias and Francisco Moran.
As Kristian Williams, author of Our Enemies in Blue recently wrote:
"The "police accountability" framework suggests, necessarily, that policing can be improved simply by bringing it under the control of the community, or if not the community, then at least its elected representatives. This approach suggests, of course, that the institution will survive, albeit in a more friendly, more lawful form. The view of policing implied in this perspective is that it is legitimate and necessary, and that the problems it presents are the effect of individual misconduct or organizational dysfunction.
The abolitionist critique, on the other hand, is that the problems of policing - the racism, the class bias, the violence - speak to the real character and the deepest purpose of the institution. The answer, then, is not to create better, smarter, more sensitive, skilled, and law-abiding cops; the answer is to get rid of the institution altogether and put in its place something that genuinely does meet our needs for public safety and dispute resolution. As it happens, that requires a totally different kind of society, one without the inequalities that the cops preserve, and the hope is that by going after the cops we bring that new society closer to existence."
Regular readers of this blog know our positions - there is no reasons to beat a dead horse. We feel that the push to hold the police "accountable" is foolish and also not possible. People who issue complaints have their papers lost, often are intimidated, and in general, find their complaints un-sustained. Some people who issue complaints have even been harassed by officers and threatened. Thus, how can we expect people to become open and completely public with complaints when they fear the police themselves. Lastly, it's the police who are the most anonymous. Every time one of them murders, they are put on paid administrative leave and have their names with-held from the newspapers. It is even a crime under the police bill of rights for people to learn the extent of their past brutal "encounters." It is the police who are the most anonymous, not us. It is they who hide behind the full and brutal power of the state - not us.
There is no way to 'hold the police accountable,' when the very system that would do so is the same system that continuously vindicates the police every time they murder and abuse. Following Aaronson's logic, it's the fault of the victim anyway that police encounters get out of hand. Perhaps Oscar Grant just should have followed orders and he wouldn't have been shot. Perhaps women in New York should have shut their mouths and they wouldn't have been brutally raped.
Thus, police apologists, even 'liberal' ones such as Aaronson send us a simple message. The message is to shut up and let the system work. If you have a problem, file a complaint and let the system do it's job. If the police are abusing you or violating you, shut up and let them do their job. If you don't, you'll only risk a bullet to the head or a harsher sentence. This is a message that we don't have to pay $75,000 to obtain, we've been told it day in and day out over and over again. For those of us sick of the rampant murder, corruption, and brutality, it's time flip this script once and for all.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
In a move unsurprising to many, a five-month investigation into brutality and corruption of the Modesto Police Department has exonerated local law enforcement of any wrong doing. The investigation was launched to look into charges of police brutality that steamed from a series of leaked emails by both former and anonymous police officers claiming that the beating of suspects was common and that higher-up police, including Chief Harden, knew about the violations.
The "findings" of the investigation come at a time when former Stanislaus County Sheriff's detective Kari Abbey is charged with "second-degree murder and voluntary manslaughter along with conspiracy, embezzlement, cultivating marijuana, receiving stolen property and child endangerment, according to a criminal complaint." More sinister, is the charge that Kari and her Haywood police boyfriend evicted people from their rentals for Abbey's landlord parents. Several Modesto police officers also face ongoing charges ranging from drunk driving, spousal abuse, and taking drugs from evidence.
And just as the investigation into the Modesto police began at a time of increased police shootings and accusations of abuse and corruption, the day the report was released to the public, local police again made headlines another fatal shooting. Police shot and killed Jermey Atkinson after responding to an armed robbery at a store on Coffee road on May 24th. During a chase of Atkinson, police claimed that he reached into his waistband and they fired in self-defense. Later, according to the Modesto Bee: "A knife was found near the body of the man shot by a Modesto police officer last week, and the loaded rifle police say he used to rob a convenience store was recovered in a nearby field, police said Tuesday."
Again, like a mantra, we hear the police repeating the same line over and over again. A suspect "reaches for their waist-band" and the officers "fearing for their lives" shoot them in self-defense. Only later it turns out that the suspect is armed with only a spatula - or no weapon at all.
The investigative report, issued by a Palo Alto based lawyer, which cost tax-payers $75,000 (on top of the nearly $100,000 for police accreditation), concludes that there is not a problem with rampant police brutality or corruption. The report issued by Robert Aaronson claims that the series of emails issues about ongoing brutality are unfounded, based largely on interviews with police officers. He also cites the shooting death of Francisco Moran, claiming that officers shot Moran in order to protect "his family members and themselves," only later discovering that the weapon he was pulling from his pants was in fact a spatula.
Aaronson's "suggestions" for the community are as follows. He claims that most escalations of force are largely the result of failures by the public to respond and comply with police commands. As he states, "The vast majority of law enforcement uses of force...are in response to a stated or perceived refusal to cooperate." Thus, according to Aaronson, it is the fault of those shot and abused in encounters with the police who are to blame, not the police and the system that gives them power.
Aaronson claims that if citizens do feel that their rights have been violated, they should issue complaints against certain officers in order to hold the police "accountable." He also states that anonymous or "masked" critique at the police hinders the ability of people to hold the police accountable. We feel that this comment is directed not only at the people writing the anonymous emails, but also at Modesto Anarcho who participated in the disruption of the police accreditation meeting while wearing masks with the likeness of Rita Elias and Francisco Moran.
As Kristian Williams, author of Our Enemies in Blue recently wrote:
"The "police accountability" framework suggests, necessarily, that policing can be improved simply by bringing it under the control of the community, or if not the community, then at least its elected representatives. This approach suggests, of course, that the institution will survive, albeit in a more friendly, more lawful form. The view of policing implied in this perspective is that it is legitimate and necessary, and that the problems it presents are the effect of individual misconduct or organizational dysfunction.
The abolitionist critique, on the other hand, is that the problems of policing - the racism, the class bias, the violence - speak to the real character and the deepest purpose of the institution. The answer, then, is not to create better, smarter, more sensitive, skilled, and law-abiding cops; the answer is to get rid of the institution altogether and put in its place something that genuinely does meet our needs for public safety and dispute resolution. As it happens, that requires a totally different kind of society, one without the inequalities that the cops preserve, and the hope is that by going after the cops we bring that new society closer to existence."
Regular readers of this blog know our positions - there is no reasons to beat a dead horse. We feel that the push to hold the police "accountable" is foolish and also not possible. People who issue complaints have their papers lost, often are intimidated, and in general, find their complaints un-sustained. Some people who issue complaints have even been harassed by officers and threatened. Thus, how can we expect people to become open and completely public with complaints when they fear the police themselves. Lastly, it's the police who are the most anonymous. Every time one of them murders, they are put on paid administrative leave and have their names with-held from the newspapers. It is even a crime under the police bill of rights for people to learn the extent of their past brutal "encounters." It is the police who are the most anonymous, not us. It is they who hide behind the full and brutal power of the state - not us.
There is no way to 'hold the police accountable,' when the very system that would do so is the same system that continuously vindicates the police every time they murder and abuse. Following Aaronson's logic, it's the fault of the victim anyway that police encounters get out of hand. Perhaps Oscar Grant just should have followed orders and he wouldn't have been shot. Perhaps women in New York should have shut their mouths and they wouldn't have been brutally raped.
Thus, police apologists, even 'liberal' ones such as Aaronson send us a simple message. The message is to shut up and let the system work. If you have a problem, file a complaint and let the system do it's job. If the police are abusing you or violating you, shut up and let them do their job. If you don't, you'll only risk a bullet to the head or a harsher sentence. This is a message that we don't have to pay $75,000 to obtain, we've been told it day in and day out over and over again. For those of us sick of the rampant murder, corruption, and brutality, it's time flip this script once and for all.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Sunday, June 05, 2011
NY: Cops, firefighters arrested in gambling bust
Several retired and active police officers and firefighters have been arrested in a federal raid on a New York City gambling ring, NBC New York has learned.
Two officials familiar with the case say an NYPD detective and a retired police officer, along with three firefighters, one who is retired, face federal charges after an early morning FBI raid on Thursday.
Some of the first responders helped provide security and muscle for the gambling operation, the officials told NBC New York.
Two of the firefighters arrested are a father and son.
The suspects were snagged in a bust that arrested a total of 15 people allegedly involved in the gambling ring; they are expected to appear later in Brooklyn federal court.
An FBI spokesman referred calls to the U.S. attorney, whose spokesman declined comment.
The NYPD and FDNY also had no immediate comment.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Several retired and active police officers and firefighters have been arrested in a federal raid on a New York City gambling ring, NBC New York has learned.
Two officials familiar with the case say an NYPD detective and a retired police officer, along with three firefighters, one who is retired, face federal charges after an early morning FBI raid on Thursday.
Some of the first responders helped provide security and muscle for the gambling operation, the officials told NBC New York.
Two of the firefighters arrested are a father and son.
The suspects were snagged in a bust that arrested a total of 15 people allegedly involved in the gambling ring; they are expected to appear later in Brooklyn federal court.
An FBI spokesman referred calls to the U.S. attorney, whose spokesman declined comment.
The NYPD and FDNY also had no immediate comment.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Saturday, June 04, 2011
Man sues former Louisville police officials over wrongful conviction
Michael VonAllmen, who spent 11 years in prison for a crime he says he did not commit, has filed a lawsuit against a former Louisville police chief and the primary detective in the case, claiming the investigation was botched and evidence of his innocence was ignored.
In June 2010, a Jefferson Circuit Court judge overturned VonAllmen's 1982 conviction on rape, sodomy and robbery charges, ruling there was enough evidence to exonerate him. He had been paroled in 1994 after more than a decade in prison.
A month after his conviction was overturned, prosecutors asked the judge to dismiss the charges because the victim in the October 1981 rape and robbery in south Louisville did not want to testify if the case was retried.
The lawsuit, filed in Jefferson Circuit Court on Tuesday, accuses former detective John Tarter, who is no longer with Louisville police, of conducting a sloppy investigation and inducing a false identification from the victim by lying to her.
The lawsuit also names former Louisville Police Department Chief Richard Dotson, claiming he did not do enough to clear VonAllmen when there was evidence proving he was not involved.
The only evidence against VonAllmen, according to the lawsuit, was the victim's positive identification of him from a photo pack. During a hearing last year before the charges were dismissed, Ted Shouse, who represents VonAllmen, pointed out that another man who looked like him, Ronald Tackett, was charged with a similar rape in 1978.
Tackett, who was convicted only of misdemeanor assault in that rape case after the key witness declined to testify, died in a 1983 high-speed chase involving Jefferson County police.
The lawsuit accuses Tarter of giving the victim “false, defamatory and insurmountably prejudicial information,” telling her VonAllmen had been identified by five or six other women as assaulting them, though they were too scared to come forward.
“Without the tainted identification, VonAllmen would not have been convicted because there was no evidence against him except that damning identification of him by the victim of a brutal assault,” the lawsuit alleges.
The information about what Tarter allegedly told the victim, according to the lawsuit, only came to light last year and was not part of the case made to overturn VonAllmen's conviction. The victim's husband, according to the lawsuit, told a current police sergeant it was not possible that VonAllmen was innocent because of what they had been told by Tarter about the other women.
Shouse said he would not discuss the allegation or details of the civil case at this point. “I think the complaint speaks for itself,” he said.
VonAllmen also took two polygraph tests after his conviction that were so convincing the polygraph examiner persuaded Dotson to write a letter on VonAllmen's behalf to the parole board, according to court records.
But Dotson, according to the lawsuit, did not reopen the investigation or question Tarter about what evidence lead to VonAllmen's conviction.
The lawsuit claims Tarter never searched or directed a search of VonAllmen's apartment, never conducted a canvass of the neighborhood to find witnesses and did not look for fingerprints on the victim's vehicle, which was driven by the suspect.
Claims made in filing a lawsuit present only one side of the case.
Tarter declined to comment, referring a reporter to Bill Patteson, a spokesman for the Jefferson County Attorney's Office. Patteson said he could not discuss pending litigation.
Dotson could not be reached for comment.
VonAllmen also had strong evidence on his side, according to the lawsuit.
The victim described her rapist's eyes as blue. VonAllmen's are brown, but Tackett had blue eyes. Tackett lived just blocks from where the victim was abducted at gunpoint, according to court records.
And police took a gun from Tackett after arresting him on robbery charges just months after the rape.
Also, three witnesses testified that VonAllmen had been with them at a party the night of the rape, with one man saying VonAllmen had given him a ride home about 3:30 a.m., about the time the rape occurred. And VonAllmen's girlfriend at the time testified she talked with him by phone after that, eventually spending the night with him.
A judge said last year in overruling the verdict against VonAllmen that Tackett was most likely responsible for the crime.
The suit is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, as well as a jury trial.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Michael VonAllmen, who spent 11 years in prison for a crime he says he did not commit, has filed a lawsuit against a former Louisville police chief and the primary detective in the case, claiming the investigation was botched and evidence of his innocence was ignored.
In June 2010, a Jefferson Circuit Court judge overturned VonAllmen's 1982 conviction on rape, sodomy and robbery charges, ruling there was enough evidence to exonerate him. He had been paroled in 1994 after more than a decade in prison.
A month after his conviction was overturned, prosecutors asked the judge to dismiss the charges because the victim in the October 1981 rape and robbery in south Louisville did not want to testify if the case was retried.
The lawsuit, filed in Jefferson Circuit Court on Tuesday, accuses former detective John Tarter, who is no longer with Louisville police, of conducting a sloppy investigation and inducing a false identification from the victim by lying to her.
The lawsuit also names former Louisville Police Department Chief Richard Dotson, claiming he did not do enough to clear VonAllmen when there was evidence proving he was not involved.
The only evidence against VonAllmen, according to the lawsuit, was the victim's positive identification of him from a photo pack. During a hearing last year before the charges were dismissed, Ted Shouse, who represents VonAllmen, pointed out that another man who looked like him, Ronald Tackett, was charged with a similar rape in 1978.
Tackett, who was convicted only of misdemeanor assault in that rape case after the key witness declined to testify, died in a 1983 high-speed chase involving Jefferson County police.
The lawsuit accuses Tarter of giving the victim “false, defamatory and insurmountably prejudicial information,” telling her VonAllmen had been identified by five or six other women as assaulting them, though they were too scared to come forward.
“Without the tainted identification, VonAllmen would not have been convicted because there was no evidence against him except that damning identification of him by the victim of a brutal assault,” the lawsuit alleges.
The information about what Tarter allegedly told the victim, according to the lawsuit, only came to light last year and was not part of the case made to overturn VonAllmen's conviction. The victim's husband, according to the lawsuit, told a current police sergeant it was not possible that VonAllmen was innocent because of what they had been told by Tarter about the other women.
Shouse said he would not discuss the allegation or details of the civil case at this point. “I think the complaint speaks for itself,” he said.
VonAllmen also took two polygraph tests after his conviction that were so convincing the polygraph examiner persuaded Dotson to write a letter on VonAllmen's behalf to the parole board, according to court records.
But Dotson, according to the lawsuit, did not reopen the investigation or question Tarter about what evidence lead to VonAllmen's conviction.
The lawsuit claims Tarter never searched or directed a search of VonAllmen's apartment, never conducted a canvass of the neighborhood to find witnesses and did not look for fingerprints on the victim's vehicle, which was driven by the suspect.
Claims made in filing a lawsuit present only one side of the case.
Tarter declined to comment, referring a reporter to Bill Patteson, a spokesman for the Jefferson County Attorney's Office. Patteson said he could not discuss pending litigation.
Dotson could not be reached for comment.
VonAllmen also had strong evidence on his side, according to the lawsuit.
The victim described her rapist's eyes as blue. VonAllmen's are brown, but Tackett had blue eyes. Tackett lived just blocks from where the victim was abducted at gunpoint, according to court records.
And police took a gun from Tackett after arresting him on robbery charges just months after the rape.
Also, three witnesses testified that VonAllmen had been with them at a party the night of the rape, with one man saying VonAllmen had given him a ride home about 3:30 a.m., about the time the rape occurred. And VonAllmen's girlfriend at the time testified she talked with him by phone after that, eventually spending the night with him.
A judge said last year in overruling the verdict against VonAllmen that Tackett was most likely responsible for the crime.
The suit is seeking compensatory and punitive damages, as well as a jury trial.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Friday, June 03, 2011
MTA Officers Detain Man For Taking Pictures
The Maryland Transit Administration says more training may be called for after three MTA officers detained a man for taking pictures at a light rail station.
Pat Warren has more on the incident.
According to the ACLU, this isn’t the first time MTA Police have overstepped their bounds.
In a YouTube posting, Christopher Fussell left the camera rolling when he was confronted by three MTA officers for taking pictures at the Baltimore Cultural Light Rail Station. “It is my understanding that I am free to take pictures as long as it’s not for commercial purposes but for personal use,” Fussell said in the video.
“Not on state property, not without proper authorization,” an officer said.
Fussell: “From who?”
Officer: “Nobody’s allowed to take pictures.”
The MTA admits the officers were in error. “They can most certainly take photos of our system,” Ralign Wells, the MTA Administrator, said.
In addition to being wrong about MTA and state policy, the officer incorrectly cites the Patriot Act. “Listen, listen to what I’m saying. The Patriot Act says that critical infrastructure, trains, train stations, all those things require certain oversight to take pictures, whether you say they are for personal use or whatever, that’s your story,” the officer said.
“So why don’t you have any signs posted to say I cannot take pictures?” Fussell said.
“Our officers have become very sensitive post 9/11 and we’re trying to see that they understand our passengers and citizens also have a right to take pictures,” Wells said.
The officer eventually threatened to take Fussell into custody.
“Do you have Maryland state identification on you?” the officer asked.
“I am not committing a crime,” Fussell said.
“Sir, I’m going to ask you one last time, then I’m going to take you into custody. Do we understand each other?” the officer said.
The ACLU considers it harassment by the MTA. “This is not South Africa under apartheid and in this country, police do not have the right to walk up to you and demand you produce identification to them,” said David Rocah, ACLU.
The MTA acknowledges that additional training is in order. “We’ll look at our training processes, we’ll look at whether any administrative situations need to occur with those officers,” Wells said.
The ACLU says it’s been working with the MTA on this very issue for five years, with no satisfactory result.
Fussell was detained for more than 40 minutes before MTA Police finally let him go on his way.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
The Maryland Transit Administration says more training may be called for after three MTA officers detained a man for taking pictures at a light rail station.
Pat Warren has more on the incident.
According to the ACLU, this isn’t the first time MTA Police have overstepped their bounds.
In a YouTube posting, Christopher Fussell left the camera rolling when he was confronted by three MTA officers for taking pictures at the Baltimore Cultural Light Rail Station. “It is my understanding that I am free to take pictures as long as it’s not for commercial purposes but for personal use,” Fussell said in the video.
“Not on state property, not without proper authorization,” an officer said.
Fussell: “From who?”
Officer: “Nobody’s allowed to take pictures.”
The MTA admits the officers were in error. “They can most certainly take photos of our system,” Ralign Wells, the MTA Administrator, said.
In addition to being wrong about MTA and state policy, the officer incorrectly cites the Patriot Act. “Listen, listen to what I’m saying. The Patriot Act says that critical infrastructure, trains, train stations, all those things require certain oversight to take pictures, whether you say they are for personal use or whatever, that’s your story,” the officer said.
“So why don’t you have any signs posted to say I cannot take pictures?” Fussell said.
“Our officers have become very sensitive post 9/11 and we’re trying to see that they understand our passengers and citizens also have a right to take pictures,” Wells said.
The officer eventually threatened to take Fussell into custody.
“Do you have Maryland state identification on you?” the officer asked.
“I am not committing a crime,” Fussell said.
“Sir, I’m going to ask you one last time, then I’m going to take you into custody. Do we understand each other?” the officer said.
The ACLU considers it harassment by the MTA. “This is not South Africa under apartheid and in this country, police do not have the right to walk up to you and demand you produce identification to them,” said David Rocah, ACLU.
The MTA acknowledges that additional training is in order. “We’ll look at our training processes, we’ll look at whether any administrative situations need to occur with those officers,” Wells said.
The ACLU says it’s been working with the MTA on this very issue for five years, with no satisfactory result.
Fussell was detained for more than 40 minutes before MTA Police finally let him go on his way.
Original report here
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Thursday, June 02, 2011
FIFTY years on, West Australian man wins $425,000 payment for wrongful murder conviction
The state government has announced it will make a $425,000 ex gratia payment to Darryl Beamish, who was wrongfully convicted and jailed for murder over the death of socialite Jillian Brewer in 1961.
Attorney-General Christian Porter announced this morning the sum would be paid to Mr Beamish, who is deaf and mute, and spent 15 years in jail before winning a lengthy court battle to clear his name.
It was eventually accepted that Ms Brewer was murdered in her Cottesloe flat by notorious Perth serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke, the last man hanged in the state. She was found dead after being attacked with a tomahawk and a pair of scissors.
Mr Beamish is the last of a trio of high-profile accused criminals to win compensation for his ordeal. The wrongful murder convictions of Mr Beamish, John Button and Andrew Mallard left a stain on the WA legal system after serious miscarriages of justice were exposed in all three cases.
Mr Mallard was awarded a record $3.25 million payment in 2009 after being wrongfully convicted of murdering Mosman Park jeweller Pamela Lawrence in 1995. Mr Button was handed $460,000 compensation in 2003 after being cleared of the manslaughter of his girlfriend Rosemary Anderson, who it emerged was also a victim of Cooke's.
Mr Button said the payment to Mr Beamish was not sufficient for ruining his life. "It's not 15 years - to wrongfully convict someone you actually take away their whole life," he told ABC Radio. "We the people of this state have murdered a person and to try and put a cost on that is very hard." Mr Button questioned why he and Mr Beamish were not awarded payments similar to Mr Mallard, who served 12 years in jail.
In 2005, the Court of Criminal Appeal unanimously set aside Mr Beamish's conviction on the basis that a "substantial miscarriage of justice" had occurred following an earlier decision not to grant Mr Beamish a retrial based on Cooke's confessions to the crime.
Mr Porter said the government had considered legal advice when determining the payment and took into account the lack of a conclusive finding of significant misconduct by prosecutors or police in Mr Beamish's original conviction.
The government also considered Mr Beamish's previous offending behaviour; the length of time he spent in jail; and the 2005 Court of Appeal's acknowledgement of the strength of the case which had existed against Mr Beamish at the time of his original appeal and its finding that there was a significant prospect that a reasonable jury would have acquitted Mr Beamish if they had access to Edgar Cooke's subsequent confessions.
"Ex gratia payments are an act of grace, made under the prerogative of the Crown," Mr Porter said. "They are not intended to fully compensate individuals for loss or detriment suffered. In this instance, the government is satisfied that sufficiently extraordinary circumstances exist to justify an ex gratia payment.
"Although the 2005 Court of Appeal noted the case against Mr Beamish had been 'very strong' in 1964, it is clear, based on the 2005 decision, his conviction had been upheld in circumstances where it was legally unsafe to do so. "This payment is intended to express the state's sincere regret for what occurred and provide him with a measure of comfort and financial security in his retirement.
"Following the former government's ex gratia payment to John Button, this payment is another step towards closing a shocking and tragic chapter in Western Australia's criminal history."
Original report here.
Some background here on the bleeding heart judge who was largely responsible for the miscarriage of justice.
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
The state government has announced it will make a $425,000 ex gratia payment to Darryl Beamish, who was wrongfully convicted and jailed for murder over the death of socialite Jillian Brewer in 1961.
Attorney-General Christian Porter announced this morning the sum would be paid to Mr Beamish, who is deaf and mute, and spent 15 years in jail before winning a lengthy court battle to clear his name.
It was eventually accepted that Ms Brewer was murdered in her Cottesloe flat by notorious Perth serial killer Eric Edgar Cooke, the last man hanged in the state. She was found dead after being attacked with a tomahawk and a pair of scissors.
Mr Beamish is the last of a trio of high-profile accused criminals to win compensation for his ordeal. The wrongful murder convictions of Mr Beamish, John Button and Andrew Mallard left a stain on the WA legal system after serious miscarriages of justice were exposed in all three cases.
Mr Mallard was awarded a record $3.25 million payment in 2009 after being wrongfully convicted of murdering Mosman Park jeweller Pamela Lawrence in 1995. Mr Button was handed $460,000 compensation in 2003 after being cleared of the manslaughter of his girlfriend Rosemary Anderson, who it emerged was also a victim of Cooke's.
Mr Button said the payment to Mr Beamish was not sufficient for ruining his life. "It's not 15 years - to wrongfully convict someone you actually take away their whole life," he told ABC Radio. "We the people of this state have murdered a person and to try and put a cost on that is very hard." Mr Button questioned why he and Mr Beamish were not awarded payments similar to Mr Mallard, who served 12 years in jail.
In 2005, the Court of Criminal Appeal unanimously set aside Mr Beamish's conviction on the basis that a "substantial miscarriage of justice" had occurred following an earlier decision not to grant Mr Beamish a retrial based on Cooke's confessions to the crime.
Mr Porter said the government had considered legal advice when determining the payment and took into account the lack of a conclusive finding of significant misconduct by prosecutors or police in Mr Beamish's original conviction.
The government also considered Mr Beamish's previous offending behaviour; the length of time he spent in jail; and the 2005 Court of Appeal's acknowledgement of the strength of the case which had existed against Mr Beamish at the time of his original appeal and its finding that there was a significant prospect that a reasonable jury would have acquitted Mr Beamish if they had access to Edgar Cooke's subsequent confessions.
"Ex gratia payments are an act of grace, made under the prerogative of the Crown," Mr Porter said. "They are not intended to fully compensate individuals for loss or detriment suffered. In this instance, the government is satisfied that sufficiently extraordinary circumstances exist to justify an ex gratia payment.
"Although the 2005 Court of Appeal noted the case against Mr Beamish had been 'very strong' in 1964, it is clear, based on the 2005 decision, his conviction had been upheld in circumstances where it was legally unsafe to do so. "This payment is intended to express the state's sincere regret for what occurred and provide him with a measure of comfort and financial security in his retirement.
"Following the former government's ex gratia payment to John Button, this payment is another step towards closing a shocking and tragic chapter in Western Australia's criminal history."
Original report here.
Some background here on the bleeding heart judge who was largely responsible for the miscarriage of justice.
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
Wednesday, June 01, 2011
No Dancing at TJ Memorial
This was obviously a provocation of sorts but all the more reason for police restraint. Police goonery just escalated an issue that would have quietly gone away if they had ignored it
The past weekend several folks, including RT’s Adam Kokesh, were arrested for dancing in the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. Yes, you read that correctly – people were arrested for dancing, on public property, in a peaceful manner without harming anyone else. Yet, this isn’t the first time people have been arrested at the memorial. A few years ago my former partner with Motorhome Diaries, Jason Talley, and Pete Eyre, contributor here at CB.org, conducted the same activism. Resulting in one arrest and the recent ruling backing that officers decision to arrest a woman for dancing, three years ago.
When asked, “What law would we be breaking?” One officer answered, “you’ll find out.” When the dancing finally started the officers swarmed those bobbing their heads or shaking their hips with force, further highlighting who the aggressors were. I can’t help but wonder what is going through an officers mind when they tackle, choke and drag away someone for dancing? Do they really believe they’ve kept people safe? Is dancing worthy of such force? Would you pay police, voluntary, to arrest people for such an act? Do you like that your money is being wasted on this police state?
Please, watch the video, call the police station and become involved. Make no mistakes, this a police state, one that won’t end until we stop paying for it.
Original report here. Video at link
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
This was obviously a provocation of sorts but all the more reason for police restraint. Police goonery just escalated an issue that would have quietly gone away if they had ignored it
The past weekend several folks, including RT’s Adam Kokesh, were arrested for dancing in the Thomas Jefferson Memorial. Yes, you read that correctly – people were arrested for dancing, on public property, in a peaceful manner without harming anyone else. Yet, this isn’t the first time people have been arrested at the memorial. A few years ago my former partner with Motorhome Diaries, Jason Talley, and Pete Eyre, contributor here at CB.org, conducted the same activism. Resulting in one arrest and the recent ruling backing that officers decision to arrest a woman for dancing, three years ago.
When asked, “What law would we be breaking?” One officer answered, “you’ll find out.” When the dancing finally started the officers swarmed those bobbing their heads or shaking their hips with force, further highlighting who the aggressors were. I can’t help but wonder what is going through an officers mind when they tackle, choke and drag away someone for dancing? Do they really believe they’ve kept people safe? Is dancing worthy of such force? Would you pay police, voluntary, to arrest people for such an act? Do you like that your money is being wasted on this police state?
Please, watch the video, call the police station and become involved. Make no mistakes, this a police state, one that won’t end until we stop paying for it.
Original report here. Video at link
(And don't forget your ration of Wicked Thoughts for today. Now hosted on Wordpress. If you cannot access it, go to the MIRROR SITE, where posts appear as well as on the primary site. I have reposted the archives (past posts) for Wicked Thoughts HERE or HERE or here
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