John Grisham takes up case of sailors jailed for murder

Coerced confessions again

The thriller writer John Grisham is working on a screen-play about the murder and rape of an 18-year-old navy wife in the hope of securing pardons for four men he believes were wrongly convicted, even though they confessed repeatedly to the crime.

Michelle Moore-Bosko had eloped with her husband, Bill Bosko, just two months before her murder in 1997. They had set up home in a modest flat near his naval base in Norfolk, Virginia, and were planning a second, “big wedding”, which their parents could attend.

Bosko returned from a week at sea to find the house was “nice and clean” until he walked into the bedroom. “I found my wife butchered on the floor,” he said.

He ran to a neighbour, Danial Williams, a fellow member of the navy, crying out, “My wife is dead”. Williams, 35, is serving a life sentence for her murder after a friend claimed he was “obsessed with Michelle”. Another six men went on to be accused of raping and killing Moore-Bosko.

Four men, all belonging to the navy, were jailed, although one who was convicted only of rape was released after serving eight years. Charges against three other men were dropped.

No DNA evidence linked any of the convicted men to the crime. In 1999 an eighth suspect emerged from the shadows: Omar Abdul Ballard, who was sentenced to 40 years’ imprisonment for attacking and raping a woman 10 days after Moore-Bosko was killed, only a mile from her flat. He was not linked by police to her murder but wrote a letter in jail, claiming, “Michelle got killed, guess who did that, Ha Ha Ha.”

Ballard’s semen and blood matched DNA found at the scene. He told police that he had worked alone, a claim supported by the even stab wounds on her body, and said, “Them four people that opened their mouths is stupid.” Yet he, too, later claimed they had participated in the murder, a statement he now says was “totally false”.

For Grisham, who has sold 250m copies of thrillers including The Pelican Brief and The Firm, which were turned into Hollywood films, the case of the “Norfolk Four” sheds light on the “unbelievable world of false confession”.

The parents of Moore-Bosko, in contrast, are convinced of the men’s guilt. In a statement, they said they were “devastated to learn that . . . people with inaccurate information and personal agendas are attempting to profit from the tragic death of our daughter. Please do not put us through this again”.

The Norfolk Four are hoping to be pardoned by Tim Kaine, the governor of Virginia, but he has said it could be difficult to disregard as many as 12 taped confessions. One of the convicted men described calmly on tape how seven men took turns raping Moore-Bosko, urging him to “just go ahead and stab the bitch”.

The foreman of the jury said: “Nothing could blunt the force of that taped confession.” However, no tape exists of the men’s interrogations. What began as a simple murder accusation against one man, Williams, turned into an ever-growing list of participants when police grew frustrated by the lack of a DNA match. The case is unusual because the absence of DNA evidence served to ensnare rather than exonerate the men.

Williams, the first suspect, initially denied killing Moore-Bosko but claims he was bullied into confessing after the detective in charge of the case threatened him with the death penalty. “They wear you down to the point that you are exhausted,” he said. “I just wanted the questioning to end.”

Six months later, the police went on to arrest his flatmate Joe Dick, then 21, who has witnesses to support his claim that he was on board a naval ship at the time. Yet he not only confessed to the crime, but testified in court against two of his codefendants. Before he was sentenced, he apologised to Moore-Bosko’s parents. “I know I shouldn’t have done it,” he said. “I have got no idea what went through my mind that night and my soul.”

A naval officer described Dick as mentally impaired: “The Joseph Dick I knew couldn’t chew bubblegum and tie his shoes at the same time.” Dick told The New York Times his mind had been “messed up” by detectives. “It didn’t cross my mind that I was lying. I believed what I said was true,” he said.

By the time Ballard emerged as the killer, none of the men’s stories matched. Instead of reexamining their cases, the police surmised that Ballard must have been present with them, even though he was a complete stranger. By then, the “neat and clean” apartment, described by Bosko, had become the alleged scene of a gang rape and murder by up to eight rampaging men.

Ballard now claims he changed his story to fit the police’s account in exchange for the offer of a life sentence rather than the death penalty.

Yet the notion that so many members of the navy could be pressured into false confessions defies belief, says a former prosecutor of the case. He believes the men’s protestations of innocence are “soundbites” invented by the “clemency gang”.

Grisham thinks that freeing the men could be an uphill struggle. “I don’t know if they can be helped,” he said. “They have many years to go in prison.”

Original report here



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Channeling the Soviet Union

BOOK REVIEW of "Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent". By Harvey A. Silverglate

For the past seven years, I have written a number of articles about the growing power of federal prosecutors who are able to apply vague statutes to behavior that historically has not been illegal. Along the way, I have earned a number of enemies and detractors, and even some of my friends have been incredulous, especially when I questioned the conviction of Ken Lay.

One of my mentors in this legal and political journey has been the well-known and principled attorney, Harvey A. Silverglate, one of the founders of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education or The FIRE, and a co-author of The Shadow University. Silverglate not only has tirelessly challenged one injustice after another, representing unpopular clients, but he also has tirelessly answered one email after another from me, as I sought legal guidance in making my own personal statements.

Finally, Harvey himself has come up with what I believe to be the authoritative book on federal criminal law, Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent. If you want to understand the federal assault on the law and upon our rights, read this book, for it will provide an education for those who believe that federal prosecutors have long been overstepping their constitutional boundaries and are railroading thousands of innocent people into prison.

This is more, much more, than a book full of anecdotes, although the anecdotes themselves tell a depressingly familiar story of the decline of law in the United States. This book also lays out the chilling facts of how the federal system of what Candice E. Jackson and I have called "derivative crimes" is patterned not after anything that Americans inherited from Great Britain and its great body of common law, but from the former Soviet Union.

That is correct. Federal criminal law closely mirrors the Soviet code and its "crimes of analogy." Silverglate writes that under the old Soviet law, "any citizen was in constant danger of being prosecuted for virtually any action if it could be analogized to or derived from something in the criminal code" (emphasis his). As Lavrentiy Beria, Stalin’s head of the dreaded secret police said proudly, "Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime."

Most readers will stop here and wonder if Silverglate is engaging in Red-baiting or using hyperbole to make a point. I wish that were true. I wish that typical federal prosecutors did not have the power simply to target individuals and then look for a "crime" for which to pursue, but that is exactly what now exists within the federal criminal system. Yet, this chilling passage taken from a 2007 article in Slate lays out the system in its full ugliness:

At the federal prosecutor's office in the Southern District of New York, the staff, over beer and pretzels, used to play a darkly humorous game. Junior and senior prosecutors would sit around, and someone would name a random celebrity – say, Mother Theresa or John Lennon.

It would then be up to the junior prosecutors to figure out a plausible crime for which to indict him or her. The crimes were not usually rape, murder, or other crimes you'd see on Law & Order but rather the incredibly broad yet obscure crimes that populate the U.S. Code like a kind of jurisprudential minefield: Crimes like "false statements" (a felony, up to five years), "obstructing the mails" (five years), or "false pretenses on the high seas" (also five years). The trick and the skill lay in finding the more obscure offenses that fit the character of the celebrity and carried the toughest sentences. The result, however, was inevitable: "prison time."

One asks how this can be, how a Mother Teresa or anyone else who clearly lives an exemplary or at least law-abiding life can be targeted, tried and convicted as a felon. The reason is that federal prosecutors have a stunning arsenal of weapons given to them by a Congress that no longer cares about law and courts that are all-too-happy to concentrate vast power into the hands of federal prosecutors who are busy trying to satisfy conviction and property-seizure quotas.

The key to understanding prosecutorial weapons is to understand how the various fraud and conspiracy statutes are applied. Prosecutors are able to take even legal acts and hammer them into "fraud, conspiracy, and money laundering," each of which carry severe penalties and make it nearly impossible for someone who is targeted to escape.

An extreme example is the prosecution of the late Ken Lay, who was the CEO of Enron, which failed spectacularly in 2001. As Silverglate points out, federal authorities were able first to move "up the ladder" by going after lower-level executives and employees and threatening to charge them with crimes unless they agreed to testify against higher-ups. The testimony that the government instructed these people to give, as Silverglate points out, often was not true, but it was useful to prosecutors, who were seeking indictments and convictions against people who had become unpopular.

To understand the case against Enron and other corporations in which executives went to prison, first one must understand that the nebulous "fraud" statutes under which they were convicted can be enacted even if the executives did not break a single law. For example, the infamous off-loading of Enron’s non-earning assets into "special purpose entities" resulted in "securities fraud" convictions, yet the presence of the SPEs was not hidden, but rather was included in Enron’s financial statements at the instructions of the auditor. Silverglate asks: "Is it fraud when questionable accounting practices, approved by an auditor, are hidden in full view?"

When Lay was convicted of "securities fraud" for selling Enron stock (while also buying shares of the same), the media portrayed it as a case of the CEO "quietly dumping his stock" while urging others to buy it. However, when Lay sold that stock, he did so to raise cash to cover margin calls for other investments, and before he sold anything, he sought the advice of an attorney in order to determine how he legally could do so.

Yet, prosecutors were able to lump these actions – all legal by themselves – into "securities fraud" and have a judge and jury, not to mention the general public and the supposed "watchdog" press, buy into it. Like the hapless Soviet citizen who averaged committing three felonies daily, even when Enron executives were trying to obey the law, they still were "breaking" it.

This is not a defense of Enron itself or the complex mathematical models that the company used to wow the investors of Wall Street. Nonetheless, the Enron prosecutions came about because the company failed, not because of any real criminality. For that matter, if Ken Lay and Jeffrey Skilling were convicted of "fraud" because of SPEs, then why are members of Congress and the administration not prosecuted for putting huge unfunded liabilities carried by taxpayers "off-budget"? Both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were engaged in actions that dwarfed any alleged wrongdoing at Enron, yet even though the financial damage caused by these mortgage giants was far greater than anything that came from Enron’s fall, nonetheless Fannie Mae executives like Jamie Gorelick and Franklin Raines were able to walk away from Fannie with millions of dollars in their pockets and have no worries at all about being hauled into criminal court. They had political connections – the right kind of connections – and that was all that was needed.

Thus, we see prosecutions that not only are selective – channeling Beria – but federal law itself also permits prosecutors to fashion acts that are legal into crimes that carry serious time. Furthermore, prosecutors can take one action and then pile multiple acts upon it. For example, when jurors declared Lay guilty of "fraud," they also convicted him of "money laundering, "wire fraud," and other such acts that by themselves carry draconian prison penalties.

What makes these other "crimes" so insidious is that they cannot be instituted without an underlying act, which means they cannot stand alone. If I mail a letter with a fraudulent tax return, then not only am I guilty of "tax evasion," but I also can be charged with "mail fraud" for the simple act of mailing a letter. If I put some of my alleged ill-gotten gains in a bank, or purchase any goods with that money, I have committed "money laundering," for which the penalty is a maximum of 20 years in prison.

The combination of these "crimes" gives prosecutors enormous leverage against defendants, for if they choose to go to trial and falter on just one criminal count, they are sent to prison for many years. Thus, many people – even people who maintain their innocence – will plead to something because the alternative is much worse. As Silverglate says, that is not justice; it is tyranny. He writes:

"If I am right, we must foster the realization that the Justice Department’s tactics too often are employed not to protect, but to attack law-abiding society (emphasis mine). While it is true…that sometimes creative criminal "miscreats" cleverly get around the letter of the law (especially laws that have become obsolete) and therefore tempt equally creative prosecutors to stretch the law, it is also true that too many ordinary, well-meaning, and innocent people get caught in the maw of the Department of Justice’s prosecutorial machinery. For them, life becomes nightmarish, like an episode in a Franz Kafka novel."

I realize this book will not convince everyone of the peril we face at the hands of rapacious federal prosecutors. Federal jurors, like nearly everyone else, seem to defer to the very worst prosecutors as though they were giving an Edict from the Gods. The press is of no help, as reporters seem to enjoy the "perp walks" and every other trapping that comes from covering federal criminal cases.

In the Martha Stewart case, the press was much more interested in what Stewart wore to her trial than to the nature of the charges against her. It mattered not a whit to the press that federal prosecutors had illegally leaked grand jury information in order to trick Stewart into meeting with them so they could charge her with lying. Certainly, no one in the numerous U.S. law schools is trying to deal with this problem, and forget Congress.

To put it another way, when the U.S. Government embraces the law of the Soviet Union, then the law is lost. Federal criminal law cannot be salvaged or rewritten to restore even a modicum of the "rule of law." Yet, unless that is what is done, federal prosecutors will continue to wrongfully charge and prosecute individuals who are innocent, juries will convict them, judges will send them to prison, and the New York Times will continue to tell us how lucky we are that federal prosecutors are on the job.

Like the infamous Lavrentiy Beria, who headed Stalin’s secret police, once he had targeted someone, it was conviction first, trial later. Although the Department of Justice headquarters does not have a statue in its lobby honoring Beria, nonetheless, he seems to be the muse for the current crop of federal prosecutors.

Original report here



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FEDERAL CRIMINAL LAW: HOW THE GOVERNMENT FIGHTS CAPITALISM

Last weekend, I visited a young woman in Charlotte, North Carolina, once a successful real estate attorney, but now facing the prospect of spending the rest of her life in federal prison. The young woman is very pleasant, not one who a visitor might think is a criminal “kingpin” who federal prosecutors want to serve more time than often is dished out to murderers and rapists.

LasSaturday was July 4, a day in which Americans celebrate the Declaration of Independence from Great Britain. However, in the centuries since Thomas Jefferson penned those wonderful words of freedom, the United States of America has embraced a system of criminal law that King George himself would have decried as tyrannical and unfit for any Englishman.

As I investigated her case, I came to realize that not only is this woman not a criminal, but that she was railroaded into a conviction. This hardly is unusual today, and because many Americans have lost their capacity for outrage or are likely to believe whatever prosecutors declare to be true, most people are not going to share my point of view on this or any other federal criminal case.

I won’t go into the details of this particular case except to say that as one who has devoted much of his research and writing time over the past seven years to the subject of federal criminal law, even I am shocked at what the prosecutor was able to do. She secured the services of a competent attorney for her sentencing hearing and appeal, and he has told her that he can only read her trial transcript for a couple of hours at a time. After that, he said, he becomes too angry and must stop.

In the past seven years, I have written articles and papers on this subject and I must say that I still find myself surprised at what the courts allow to happen. This is a system in which federal prosecutors are able to engage in double jeopardy, regularly breach the attorney-client privilege, and generally do away with the entirety of the Bill of Rights. Prosecutors can take legal acts by individuals, bundle them into a fictitious “crime” of “fraud” or “racketeering,” and criminalize them.

Many targets today are businesspeople, as prosecutors now are able to use the law as a means to fight capitalism. That was the original dream of the man who coined the phrase “white-collar crime,” a sociologist and socialist named Edwin Sutherland. He believed that all private economic transactions were inherently criminal, but because the United States had a relatively free-market economy, people were able to get away with committing acts that should have been labeled as crimes. Sutherland set out to change that state of affairs, and as U.S. law schools became more socialist and radical in their teachings, a new generation of lawyers was trained to put into law what Sutherland could not.

During the 1980s, as the U.S. economy began to grow in the wake of financial and economic deregulation, others sulked and named that time the “Decade of Greed.” Investment banker Michael Milken became a household name as his financial innovations enabled companies like Cable News Network and MCI Communications to grow in a way that would have been impossible in earlier times.

Rudy Giuliani, who then was the U.S. attorney in New York City, saw an opportunity to score political points, and he aimed squarely at Milken and others on Wall Street. He had his Greek Chorus in the New York Times, Time, and Newsweek, all of which saw Giuliani as a potent weapon in their never-ending battle against capitalism. In the end, Milken went to prison, pleading guilty (after Giuliani threatened to indict most members of his family) to “crimes” that the courts later ruled were not crimes at all.

Original report here



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Ohio: Police refuse to recognize a hate crime committed by blacks

Akron police say they aren't ready to call it a hate crime or a gang initiation. But to Marty Marshall, his wife and two kids, it seems pretty clear. It came after a family night of celebrating America and freedom with a fireworks show at Firestone Stadium. Marshall, his family and two friends were gathered outside a friend's home in South Akron. Out of nowhere, the six were attacked by dozens of teenage boys, who shouted ''This is our world'' and ''This is a black world'' as they confronted Marshall and his family.

The Marshalls, who are white, say the crowd of teens who attacked them and two friends June 27 on Girard Street numbered close to 50. The teens were all black. ''This was almost like being a terrorist act,'' Marshall said. ''And we allow this to go on in our neighborhoods?''

They said it started when one teen, without any words or warning, blindsided and assaulted Marshall's friend as he stood outside with the others. When Marshall, 39, jumped in, he found himself being attacked by the growing group of teens. His daughter, Rachel, 15, who weighs about 90 pounds, tried to come to his rescue. The teens pushed her to the ground. His wife, Yvonne, pushed their son, Donald, 14, into bushes to keep him protected.

''My thing is,'' Marshall said, ''I didn't want this, but I was in fear for my wife, my kids and my friends. I felt I had to stay out there to protect them, because those guys were just jumping, swinging fists and everything. ''I'm lucky. They didn't break my ribs or bruise my ribs. I thank God, they concentrated on my thick head because I do have one. They were trying to take my head off my spine, basically.''

After several minutes of punches and kicks, the attack ended and the group ran off. The Marshalls' two adult male friends were not seriously hurt. ''I don't think I thought at that moment when I tried to jump in,'' Rachel Marshall said. ''But when I was laying on the ground, I was just scared.''

Marshall was the most seriously injured. He suffered a concussion and multiple bruises to his head and eye. He said he spent five nights in the critical care unit at Akron General Medical Center. The construction worker said he now fears for his family's safety, and the thousands of dollars in medical bills he faces without insurance. ''I knew I was going to get beat, but not as bad as I did,'' Marshall said. ''But I did it to protect my family. I didn't have a choice. There was no need for this. We should be all getting along. But to me, it seems to be racist.''

Akron police are investigating. Right now, the case is not being classified as a racial hate crime. There were no other reports of victims assaulted by the group that night. The department's gang unit is involved in the investigation, police said. ''We don't know if it's a known gang, or just a group of kids,'' police Lt. Rick Edwards said.

The Marshalls say they fear retaliation at home or when they go outside. They are considering arming themselves, but they're concerned about the possible problems that come with guns. For now, they are hoping police can bring them suspects. They believe they can identify several of the attackers. ''This makes you think about your freedom,'' Marshall said. ''In all reality, where is your freedom when you have this going on?''

Original report here



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Why not punch a nun while you’re at it?

From the Associated Press, via the New York Daily News:

Police used a Taser on a pastor and pepper spray to disperse his congregants Wednesday after the pastor allegedly interfered with a traffic stop in the church parking lot.

Congregants say they were in the Iglesia Profetica Peniel church for an early morning prayer when pastor Jose Elias Moran went to assist the stopped driver, a church member, by asking the police what had happened.

An incident report on the Webster police department's Web site said Officer Raymond Berryman tried to calm Moran and arrest him. But police say he pushed the officer, went inside the church and returned with 40 other congregants.

The congregants say Moran fled into the church when the officer grew angry and began to yell, and Moran's family disputes that the pastor touched the officer.

Moran's son Miguel said 30 witnesses saw the officer turn aggressive and repeatedly kick the church door. Several members were hit with pepper spray and children were present, Miguel Moran said.

Obviously, we don't know the full story yet. Maybe the pastor and his flock were out of line. But if 30 people really saw the officer flipping out, I'm curious to see how the PD will try to put a positive spin on this.

If you want a disturbing insight into what's wrong with this country, look at the knee jerk support for the boys in blue in the comments to an article on the incident at the Houston Chronicle. It seems that Tasers and pepper spray may not have been enough; perhaps the riot guns should have been broken out to teach proper respect for authoritah.

Original report here



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Three British cops charged over soldier 'assault'

Three police officers have been charged with assaulting a soldier who had been praised for bravery against the Taleban in Afghanistan, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC) said today.

Lance Corporal Mark Aspinall, 24, was allegedly attacked by the officers after being arrested during a night out in Wigan in July last year.

L/Cpl Aspinall, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, was charged and convicted on two counts of attacking police officers. But he won an appeal to have the verdict quashed at Liverpool Crown Court last November.

Greater Manchester Police officers Sergeant Stephen Russell, Pc Richard Kelsall and Special Constable Peter Lightfoot, who are all based in Wigan, are charged with assault and conspiracy to pervert the course of justice. Special Constable Lightfoot also faces a charge of perjury.

An IPCC spokesman said: “The charges relate to an allegation that excessive force was used during the arrest of 24-year-old Bolton man Mark Aspinall in Wigan town centre in the early hours of Sunday July 27.

“The IPCC managed the Greater Manchester Police investigation into the incident.” The three officers will appear before Oldham Magistrates’ Court on in July.

Original report here



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MORE POLICE NEWS FROM AUSTRALIA

Three articles below. All deplorable in different ways, as usual

Alleged bashing victims to sue Queensland Police Service

The Queensland Police Service is facing a million-dollar civil lawsuit over alleged brutality in the bashing of three tourists by a former officer. Families of the alleged victims plan to file a joint civil damages claim against the Queensland Police Service alleging excessive force and a breach in duty of care. Former Senior-Constable Benjamin Price, 32, has pleaded not guilty to the alleged assaults at Airlie Beach and is backed by the Queensland Police Union, which is footing his legal bill.

Video footage of two of the alleged assaults was shown in court ahead of the former officer being ordered on Friday to stand trial on six counts of assault on three holidaymakers. Magistrate Athol Kennedy ordered Price to stand trial after a four-day committal hearing heard evidence from the victims, witnesses, fellow officers, and a whistleblower who filed a misconduct complaint against her former partner. Price quit the police service last year.

An internal affairs investigation obtained the dramatic CCTV footage from Airlie Beach police station. Graphic footage shows the uniformed officer allegedly punching, kicking and "nearly drowning" one of his victims, Timothy Steele, 24. Price is shown jamming a fire hose into the mouth of the handcuffed Steele as fellow police looked on.

In another incident, Sydney bartender Renee Toms, 22, was allegedly swung around by her hair by Price inside the police station. Ms Toms, who weighs 47kg, subsequently needed medical attention for a cut to the chin.

Sydney investment banker Nicholas Le Fevre, 32, alleged he was king-hit and beaten unconscious by Price and mocked by other police as he begged for help.

Four other officers have quit the QPS under the probe by internal affairs into alleged police brutality. Steele, 24, a plasterer from NSW, allegedly suffered a broken nose, black eyes, a head wound, hearing problems, and memory loss in his May 24 arrest last year.

Steele's parents have criticised the police union for their financial support of Price. "We are at a loss to understand why the Queensland Police Union is continuing to meet the considerable costs of Price's defence," they said.

Price allegedly handcuffed Steele after a scuffle outside a nightclub, before smashing his face into the side of the police car, knocking him out. He then allegedly dragged Steele from the car outside Airlie Beach watchhouse, repeatedly punched him and "kicked him with his boots" in the face, breaking his nose.

CCTV video footage from the police station shows a dazed, heavily bleeding Steele being dragged into an alley beside the watchhouse. It shows the handcuffed man being punched in the head before having a fire hose jammed into his mouth.

See here

Tiny bureaucratic minds running the South Australian police



The offending blue cap can be seen above

A police officer, who rushed to the aid of colleagues during a violent rampage has been asked to explain why he wore a baseball-style cap instead of official uniform. And a senior officer, who sent an email to his superiors defending the officer involved, was counselled after his email was deemed "inappropriate". That email was forwarded to The Advertiser by a third party.

The junior officer was photographed by the newspaper after rushing to help colleagues in Snowtown, where a man allegedly went on a rampage, slashing the throat of an elderly woman, stabbing her daughter, running down one man and attempting to run down others.

But in the email to his superiors, the traffic policeman's senior officer said there was "no thanks, job well done ". "Can you imagine the disbelief when (the officer) is advised he has to submit a police report for why he was wearing the baseball cap. . .(the officer) is very upset and demotivated by this," he wrote. "And so he should be. (the officer) was dumbfounded and quite rightly so."

The Advertiser reports the junior officer was attached to the Northern Traffic Enforcement Section, predominantly motorcycle officers who are permitted to wear the baseball-style cap as part of their uniform. It understands his senior officer, who wrote the email and forwarded it to Assistant Commissioner Graeme Barton and the Northern Traffic Enforcement Section, was counselled after the action was deemed "inappropriate".

Other officers who contacted The Advertiser said bad management was adding to stress. "The road toll is through the roof and all management can do is have this officer type a report why he was wearing a baseball cap," one said.

SA Police spokeswoman Roberta Heather said: "As part of a review of that incident, where the officers were commended for their good work, an officer was reminded he was not authorised to wear a baseball cap."

See here

Police wobble when asked to intervene against school bullies

The resultant police "action" was just talk: to "formally counsel them and issue cautions". No prosecution for assault despite undisputable evidence of it? It should surely have been up to a court to decide what punishment was appropriate

WA Police have for the first time taken action against a school student who encouraged bullying by recording it on a mobile phone. The Education Department has described the decision by police to refer the 14-year-old girl to the Juvenile Justice Team as a landmark development. Determined to get a grip on the troubling trend of students filming fights and bullying, education chiefs have backed principals who call in police.

In the past, the camera-wielding bullies -- who replay videos of their victims' torment to classmates or even upload them to the internet -- have been disciplined by schools. But calling in police means students face criminal charges.

Kiara police were called to investigate an assault on a schoolgirl at Lockridge Senior High School on June 25. The girl was assaulted by a 15-year-old classmate in the school toilets. A 14-year-old girl was a given a phone and took pictures of the incident. Police inquiries led to the two girls being referred to the Juvenile Justice Team, which formally counselled them and issued cautions. They escaped stronger action because of their age and clean records. One was referred for common assault, the other for inappropriate use of a mobile phone. They were also suspended from school.

Despite Government efforts to reduce school violence, latest figures obtained by The Sunday Times reveal that in the first semester of this school year there were 413 assaults in public schools _ little change from the previous semester. Of these, 132 were student-against-student assaults and 281 were student-against-staff assaults.

Education Minister Liz Constable said the case was a timely reminder to students and parents that police involvement was a possibility in bullying cases. "Kids have to understand that it is, in fact, a crime to assault someone,'' Dr Constable said. ``I don't think there is any one rule, but they do need to know that if they behave in this totally unacceptable, anti-social way, that one of the sanctions considered is police involvement.''

Education Department head Sharyn O'Neill also backed the police action against the LSHS student who held the mobile phone. ``I endorse the police taking action against both students, including the one who recorded the incident, as it sends a very strong message that this will not be tolerated both in and outside of school,'' she said. ``The fact that the police have taken action against the students shows just how serious the inappropriate use of mobile phones is and sends a very strong warning to anyone against being involved in this kind of behaviour.''

Ms O'Neill had written to every public school principal to ensure they had a mobile phone policy that was understood by staff, students and parents. This had to include a statement of the consequences students could expect for using mobiles inappropriately. ``Currently, every school must ban mobile phone use in the classroom, but some schools may take this further and ban their use anywhere on the school site if they feel this is necessary,'' Ms O'Neill said.

A Youth Poll survey released last year found that cyber bullying affected more than one in five young Australians. Latest Roy Morgan research shows 23 per cent of children aged six to 13 in Australia own a mobile phone. For 12 to 13 year olds, the figures are 55 per cent for boys and 65 per cent for girls. Text messaging is the most common form of cyber bullying and is used to deliver and spread death threats, insults and rumours.

Original report here. (Via Australian Politics)



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TX: George Rodriguez wins verdict in HPD Crime Lab lawsuit

An appalling case of official negligence

In his civil rights lawsuit against the City of Houston (case number 4:06-cv-02650), George Rodriguez alleged that inadequate training and supervision at the Crime Laboratory of the Houston Police Department and erroneous or fabricated scientific conclusions caused a state court to wrongfully convict him of aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping (see previous articles about the lawsuit). In order for Mr. Rodriguez to win his lawsuit, the jury in the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas had to answer “yes” to four questions:

Did the knowingly misleading and scientifically inaccurate serology report by a supervisor at the Crime Lab play a substantial part in bringing about or actually causing Mr. Rodriguez’s injury or damages?

Do you find by a preponderance of the evidence that Defendant City of Houston had an official policy of inadequate supervision or training of its Crime Lab personnel?

Do you find by a preponderance of the evidence that the City’s policymaker was deliberately indifferent to the substantial risk that the City’s policy of inadequate supervision or training would result in a constitutional violation similar to the one suffered by Mr. Rodriguez?

Do you find by a preponderance of the evidence that the inadequate supervision or training was the moving force behind the violation of Mr. Rodriguez’s rights?

On June 25, 2009, the jury answered in the affirmative and gave Mr. Rodriguez a verdict for five million dollars ($5,000,000). Neither money nor anything else, however, can adequately compensate Mr. Rodriguez for the 17 years that he spent behind bars for crimes he did not commit.

Original report here

More background

George Rodriguez is seeking justice. In 2004, DNA testing exonerated Rodriguez for the 1987 abduction and sexual assault he had been convicted of seventeen years earlier. During his trial, a Houston Police forensic analyst testified that biological evidence pointed to Rodriguez's guilt; it was later discovered that the analyst lied. Rodriguez is one of forty individuals exonerated by DNA in Texas, and one of six exonerated in Harris County. Read more about DNA exonerations in Texas.

A trial is now underway in Rodriguez's civil lawsuit against the City of Houston, and the city is claiming that there was nothing it could have done to prevent the misconduct of their lab analyst, whose lie led to Rodriguez's wrongful conviction. Houston city attorney Arturo Michel stated: "I think what you have here is a person who was simply not honest and it doesn't matter how many funds you put into something, how good a program you have, that cannot guard against a person's dishonesty."

This argument is very troubling because it ignores the tragic history of mistakes and misconduct within the Houston Police Department's crime lab. Independent research conducted in 2007 found that the crime lab repeatedly incorrectly tested DNA samples, and in some cases, made up the results without actually testing the evidence. It was also discovered that serology work, the same type of forensic evidence used against George Rodriguez, was not properly performed in over four hundred cases. With a history of producing flawed and inaccurate analysis, it is little wonder that the problems of the Houston crime lab led to the false testimony of the crime lab analyst.

Forensic science is not flawless, and its use in the criminal justice system is in great need of reform. To ensure a more fair and accurate criminal justice system, it is critical to improve the reliability, objectivity, and independence of forensic analysis and forensic expert testimony in criminal investigations and trials. Last year, the Justice Project published a policy review that outlined policies for improving the quality of forensic evidence. One of the central recommendations was the need to create forensic labs that were independent of law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies. Earlier this year, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) echoed The Justice Project's recommendations in their report, Strengthening Forensic Science in the United States: A Path Forward, in which they recommended, among other things, funding to assist all forensic laboratories in the states to become independent from law enforcement agencies. With nearly all state forensic labs under the jurisdictions of police departments or the attorney general, analysts may come to see their role as part of the "crime-fighting team" rather than as neutral and objective agents of science. This bias hinders justice. Just ask George Rodriguez. His attorney is arguing that the analyst in Rodriguez's case had a habit of altering findings to match the theories of the police and prosecution.

Of course, structural independence of the labs is only one needed step. Because we know the risks of both misconduct and inadvertent bias, we should make sure that labs have appropriate internal safeguards to regulate the flow of information between analysts and police and prosecutors. By providing forensic analysts only with discreet forensic questions and limiting unnecessary contextual information about the crime, we can help ensure that the most accurate and reliable evidence is presented in the courtroom.

Forensic labs provide critical evidence in countless cases, but without the proper safeguards, evidence can be misused and misinterpreted with disastrous consequences. All of us have a vested interest in making sure the necessary reforms are implemented to make forensic evidence as accurate and reliable as possible.

Original report here



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Australian police "fudge" crime statistics too

Catching up with Britain. Left-run Britain has the most unreliable official statistics since Stalin

SENIOR police say they are being forced to "fudge" reports, and test drivers for drink-driving at times and places they know few offenders will be caught, to manipulate crime statistics. Officers from at least three Local Service Areas have told AdelaideNow it is common for reports to be manipulated and for traffic blitzes to be held to improve statistics and meet specific targets. The officers, who do not wish to be named, say police often blitz areas for the drug and alcohol testing of drivers at times and in places where results are not expected to be significant, a practice commonly referred to as "dumb testing".

In a statement Assistant Commissioner Neil Smith, of the Performance Management and Reporting Service, said police complied with the National Crime Reporting Standard governing crime statistics. "SAPOL refutes any suggestion that our crime statistics misrepresent the incidence of crime," he said.

Crime statistics are analysed daily from police incident reports (PIRs) and one senior officer has described how reports are commonly manipulated to keep crime statistics lower and apprehension rates higher. "Say a car gets broken into and something gets stolen," the officer said. "Rather than two charges, illegal interference and theft, it just gets entered as a theft – one charge. "If we happen to stumble across someone who'd broken into a car, then they would get charged with both, so your statistics show your crime rate lower, but your apprehension rate being high." In offences with multiple victims, the victims are often grouped or become witnesses and the matter is entered as one incident report.

Assistant commissioner Smith said: "The rule is one victim per one PIR. "SAPOL has clear strategies to ensure data integrity and consistency across the state," he said.

One person told AdelaideNow one management directive was to redirect schoolyard assaults back to the school so they were not recorded as crimes. "That way the LSA can claim a downturn in assaults," the person wrote. Patrol police say traffic benchmarks are a "stats game", with directives from upper management to chase the numbers. "We get memos from the Assistant Commissioner asking why haven't you got your numbers . . . even traffic statistics are fudged to a degree," an officer said.

To collect numbers, police will "dumb test". "Once we get close to what we need for the month, then we'll do smart testing and specific targeting, where we know we will get results," the officer said.

Original report here. (Via Australian Politics)



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DNA testing gets a boost in Australia

There is still a shameful amount of resistance to allowing it in many jurisdictions worldwide

A MAN convicted of brutally murdering a young female tourist on the Gold Coast almost 20 years ago is believed to be the first prisoner in Australia granted access to DNA evidence to try to gain his freedom. And he has Griffith University law students to thank.

Shane Sebastian Davis has proclaimed his innocence since he was jailed for stomping 19-year-old South African Michelle Cohn to death at a Surfers Paradise holiday resort on Boxing Day, 1990. After an 11-day trial, a Supreme Court jury took just over three hours to convict Davis of murdering Cohn, whose body was found in a poolside toilet.

After seven years of lobbying by the Griffith University Innocence Project, the State Government has agreed to let DNA evidence used to convict Davis be re-tested. The Innocence Project is a collaboration of academics, lawyers and law students who work to free prisoners they believe have been wrongly convicted. Project co-founder, high-profile Gold Coast criminal lawyer Chris Nyst, said Queensland was the first state to allow access to DNA evidence to be re-tested and described the move as a "landmark" development.

He said former attorney-general Kerry Shine had approved the re-testing earlier this year. "This is the first time DNA innocence testing - outside of a pardon application - will take place in Queensland," Mr Nyst said. "In fact, it's the first time anywhere in Australia an attorney-general has personally intervened to allow such a process."

Mr Nyst said the re-testing of DNA evidence could show someone else committed the crime. "If the wrong person is in prison, that means the real perpetrator is free to commit further crimes - that's something no one wants to see." Mr Nyst said almost 250 prisoners had been exonerated in the US as a result of DNA re-examination.

Mr Nyst said advances in DNA technology had revealed potential shortcomings in many earlier DNA cases. He is pushing for permanent protocols to allow prisoners access to DNA evidence. "There is always the potential for human error and that can lead to wrongful convictions," he said.

The Griffith University Innocence Project was established in 2001. It employs students to examine cases under the direction of pro bono lawyers and academics.

Original report here



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Man awarded $21M in wrongful conviction case

(CHICAGO) A man who spent eleven and a half years in prison for a murder he did not commit has been awarded $21 million in a wrongful conviction case. His attorneys say that is the largest amount ever awarded for a wrongful conviction in Chicago history.

Juan Johnson says he is grateful to the jury and his attorneys for the large award. The 39-year-old says he was framed by a Chicago police detective who specialized in gang investigations.

Johnson was convicted and eventually acquitted of beating to death a man with a two-by-four. Despite that, city of Chicago lawyers do not believe Johnson is innocent.

"Statesville is pure hell. You are surrounded among the worst. I didn't expect to survive. I gave up hope," said Johnson.

He may have given up hope but Juan Johnson's lawyers never did. Johnson was 19 when he was sentenced to a 30 year prison term for a 1989 Humboldt Park murder he says he didn't commit. Five years ago, a jury acquitted him in a retrial and on Monday, a federal jury awarded Johnson with the largest wrongful conviction jury award in Chicago history.

"What we proved in this federal case that his conviction was not an accident but he was a victim of police misconduct by Officer Guevara," said Jon Loevy, Johnson's attorney. Johnson's attorneys claim the now retired Area 5 Chicago Police Detective Reynaldo Guevara framed Johnson. "This is a murder that happened in a public place. There were 150 witnesses, there's all kinds of physical evidence. He managed to close it in a couple of hours, getting people who didn't even see it to point the finger at Juan Johnson," said Loevy.

But city of Chicago lawyers say that is not what happened. They believe Johnson would never have been awarded $21 million had the federal jury heard critical evidence about witnesses. "What they weren't told was that two witnesses, who later changed their stories years later, were forced to do so by gang leaders. That was the evidence that the judge excluded," said Jim Sotos, City of Chicago attorney.

While Juan Johnson's lawyers and others say there are several complaints against Guevara, the city says Guevara was a good officer who was targeted by gangs. "What they do is manipulate the court system through intimidating witnesses and they force witnesses to change their testimony," said Sotos.

City lawyers say the 1989 murder Juan Johnson was arrested for was over a gang dispute. The city says Johnson was part of a gang back then and is currently a gang member. Johnson's lawyers say that is not the case.

Meantime, Northwestern University's Center on Wrongful Convictions is investigating more than 40 alleged frame-ups by Detective Guevara.

Original report here



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Welcome to Shreveport, Louisiana: Your rights are now suspended

According to Cedric Glover, mayor of Shreveport, Louisiana, his cops "have a power that [. . .] the President of these Unites States does not have": His cops can take away your rights.

And would you like to guess which rights he has in mind? Just ask Shreveport resident Robert Baillio, who got pulled over for having two pro-gun bumper stickers on the back of his truck -- and had his gun confiscated.

While the officer who pulled him over says Baillio failed to use his turn signal, the only questions he had for Baillio concerned guns: Whether he had a gun, where the gun was, and if he was a member of the NRA. No requests for a driver's licence, proof of insurance, or vehicle registration -- and no discussion of a turn signal. Accordingly, Baillio told the officer the truth, which led the police officer to search his car without permission and confiscate his gun. However, not only does Louisiana law allow resident to drive with loaded weapons in their vehicles, but Mr. Baillio possessed a concealed carry license!

What does such behavior demonstrate, other than transparent political profiling -- going so far as to use the infamous Department of Homeland Security report on "Americans of a rightwing persuasion" as a how-to guidebook, no less? Mr. Baillio made no secret of his political affiliations: An American flag centers a wide flourish of pro-freedom stickers and decals on his back windshield. In fact, when Baillio asked the officer if everyone he pulls over gets the same treatment, the officer said no and pointed to the back of his truck.

Baillio phoned Mayor Glover to complain about this "suspension of rights" only to find that his city's morbidly obese "commander in chief" was elated at the story: According to Glover, Baillio got "served well, protected well, and even got a consideration that maybe [he] should not have gotten."

Thankfully, Mr. Baillio recorded a good bit of that phone call. You can watch a video with the transcriptions here. I've reproduced a chunk of the call below:

Baillio: (in the context of being asked about the presence of a gun) Well, I answered that question honestly, and he disarmed me.

Glover: Which would be an appropriate and proper action, sir. The fact that you gave the correct answer -- it simply means that you did what it is you were supposed to have done, and that is to give that weapon to the police officer so he could appropriately place it in a place where it would not be a threat to you, to him, or to anyone in the general public. [. . .] Glover: My direction to you is that, had you chosen not to properly identify the fact that you had a weapon and directed that officer to where that weapon was located; had you been taken from the vehicle, and the officer, in the interest of his safety, chose to secure you in a safe position, and then looked, found, and determined that you did, in fact, have a weapon...then, sir, you would have faced additional, [inaudible], and more severe criminal sanctions.

Baillio: So what you're saying is: I give up all my rights to keep and bear arms if I'm stopped by the police: Is that correct?

Glover: Sir, you have no right, when you have been pulled over by a police officer for a potential criminal offense [which would be what?! - DB] to stand there with your weapon at your side in your hand [Baillio's weapon was nowhere near his side or his hand, and Glover knew that. -- DB] because of your second amendment rights, sir. That does not mean at that point your second amendment right has been taken away; it means at that particular point in time, it has been suspended.

Will Grigg from ProLibertate, an excellent freedom blog, has this to say:

According to Glover, a police officer may properly disarm any civilian at any time, and the civilian's duty is to surrender his gun -- willingly, readily, cheerfully, without cavil or question. From Glover's perspective, it is only when firearms are in the hands of people other than the state's uniformed enforcers/oppressors that they constitute a threat, not only to the public and those in charge of exercising official violence but also to the private gun owner himself.

NAGR spoke with Mr. Baillio, and he told us that he's in the process of securing the official procedures and codes for firearm handling and private property confiscation for the Shreveport police department. So far, the city has been half-heartedly cooperating with him.

"I felt sick," Baillio told NAGR. "My uncles didn't die for this country so I could surrender my rights like a wimp. I felt terrible. I was just thinking of all that my family has done for freedom in this nation -- including dying -- and here they are disarming me at a traffic stop."

I'll leave you with one last consideration. As a licensed firearms instructor in charge of a hundred different students every month, I'm often asked if citizens should voluntarily inform police officers of the presence of a firearm during a routine traffic stop.

While different states have different laws, my answer for Colorado citizens is an emphatic "No": Colorado law doesn't require you to volunteer that kind of information, and this case in Louisiana proves why, if at all possible, you should never invite trouble by doing so.

Original report here



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The police beat

In Metro Detroit, the Warren city government’s police chased down Robert Mitchell — an unarmed, 16 year old black boy, weighing in at about 110 pounds — and killed him with non-lethal force in an abandoned house of Eight Mile. This extrajudicial electrocution of an unarmed young man was carried out in the attempt to arrest him; the reason the cops were chasing him down and trying to force him to surrender himself to them is that he jumped out of the passenger side of his cousin’s car during a traffic stop for an expired license plate. For, that is, trying to leave the scene in a situation where he himself was not suspected of any crime.

Boss cop William Dwyer believes that his forces had no alternative to blasting an unarmed 16 year old with a 50,000-volt electric shock in order to force him to surrender to arrest. Of course they did have an alternative; they could have let him leave, since they had no probable cause to suspect him of any particular crime. But government cops in America aren’t actually interested in dealing with crimes; they are interested in targeting suspects, and are willing to summarily declare you a suspect sort of guy based solely on your failure to follow their arbitrary bellowed commands, or your decision to try to leave the scene when they are present. They are quite willing to say that running away from cops, just as such, without any evidence of any specific crime, is considered good enough grounds for chasing you down, beating, shooting, or electrocuting you first and asking questions later, and arresting you on suspicion of resisting arrest. Presumably because the sheep are supposed to stay where they’ve been herded.

The commissioner called Mitchell’s death a tragedy, but said police who watch someone run from them can only assume he committed a crime or is wanted for a crime.

Boss cop William Dwyer adds that, since the cops have been trained by a bunch of other cops to use 50,000-volt electric shocks to torture anyone resisting arrest until they surrender, regardless of the risks involved and even if their chosen target is unarmed and poses no physical threat to anyone present, as a form of pain compliance, well, that makes it O.K. for them to do so. Just following orders, you know:

The officers had been trained to use Tasers on people resisting arrest, so there was nothing wrong with using that Taser, Dwyer said.

Renea Mitchell, the mother of the victim, says They are here to protect us. There’s no reason for what they’ve done…. There’s no reason, no excuse. She also calls what happened to her son a murder at the hands of police. And that’s about the size of it. Her son was not suspected of any crime; he was not even on the scene for anything more serious than an expired license plate. He tried to leave because he doesn’t feel safe around cops — and, given that cops are the ones who eventually killed him, why should he have? — and the cops took this as good enough reason to treat him as presumptively criminal, and therefore to use any level of violence necessary to stop him from leaving — whether or not they have any knowledge of his having been involved in any specific crime, or even whether or not any specific crime has been committed, and regardless of the fact that he was completely unarmed and posed no threat to absolutely anyone’s person or property. They had no reason to use force at all, let alone the potentially lethal force of a taser.

Meanwhile, back over at POLICE magazine, editor David Griffith believes that political correctness is killing a lot of Americans because cops in some major cities can’t use suspicion of immigration violation as [Probable Cause] to roust any gang member. Apparently suspicion of immigration violation means looking Latino. Griffith asks and answers a few clarifying questions: Would that be profiling? Absolutely. Would some American citizens get hassled? Surely. Would there be a lot less violent crime in our cities if we deported many gang members who are probably illegal aliens [sic]? You tell me.

In other words, in the name of controlling crime by controlling entire populations, Griffith wants for cops to have unilateral authority to roust absolutely anyone based solely on their ethnic status, without any evidence of having committed any crime whatsoever, and so to bring them under the control of the police unless and until they can prove, to the police’s own satisfaction, that they have a permission slip from the government for existing in this country. Griffith asks, rhetorically, What is our priority? Do we want to make Americans safer? But which Americans does he have in mind, and what does he hope to make them safer from? Apparently not the Americans he explicitly expects to be hassled, that is, terrorized, manhandled or, if necessary, killed in order to put them under, and to keep them under, the physical control of those cops who Griffith would like to grant unlimited discretionary authority to detain anybody that they want, for absolutely any reason or for no reason at all, based solely on their ethnic status, and without any connection to any known crime.

In the same article, Griffith mentions an Atlanta cop, Scott Kreher of the local Fraternal Order of Pigs, who is pissed off about inadequate bennies for Atlanta city cops; so he told the city council that the situation made him want to beat Mayor Shirley Franklin in the head with a baseball bat. (Griffith doesn’t have anything worse to say about this than a weak joke about how he hopes that Kreher does not command the APD’s crisis negotiation team.)

Does a police state, staffed by men who deal with stress like Sergeant Scott Kreher does, with the powers that David Griffith wants to give them, make you feel safer? Probably depends on what side of the taser, or the baseball bat, you expect to end up on.

More here



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Australia: No jail time for killing a woman??

This is preposterous. It is plea-bargaining gone mad. But even after the plea bargain, a jail term could have been imposed

A SECOND man charged over the cruise ship death of Dianne Brimble has pleaded guilty in a Sydney court to involvement in the incident. Letterio "Leo" Silvestri, from South Australia, pleaded guilty in the Downing Centre District Court today to concealing a serious indictable offence.

Ms Brimble, a 42-year-old Brisbane mother of three, died 100 nautical miles out to sea on board the P&O liner Pacific Sky in September 2002. She had ingested a toxic mix of alcohol and the date-rape drug known as fantasy. Her body was found in a cabin belonging to Silvestri, Ryan Kuchel and one other man, who were also charged after a 16-month inquest into Ms Brimble's death.

Last week, Kuchel also pleaded guilty to hindering a police investigation. Kuchel was sentenced to an 18-month good behaviour bond. Kuchel and Silvestri had both been due to face trial in the NSW District Court today charged with perverting the course of justice. Lawyers for Silvestri said the trial could have lasted up to four weeks.

Judge Greg Hoskins has adjourned the matter until 2pm (AEST) while he sees if a pre-sentence report investigating sentencing options can be obtained for Silvestri.

Original report here. (Via Australian Politics)



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Police lose it after car chase

I am actually rather glad that these low-lifes got a good thrashing and there appears to have been some provocation but the police are not judge and jury. I suspect that the police would have been let off except for the race angle



Three men charged in a triple shooting wept openly in court yesterday as a videotape of their beatings at the hands of Philadelphia police officers was screened at the Criminal Justice Center. [Three big brave black men who can dish it out but can't take it]

Dwayne Dyches [above], Brian Hall, and Pete Hopkins are charged with attempted murder and other counts in connection with a May 5, 2008, shoot-out that injured three men in the Feltonville section. After the shooting, the men allegedly led police on a high-speed chase in a tan Mercury Grand Marquis. The chase ended at Second and Pike Streets with the men being dragged from the vehicle, and beaten and kicked by tens of Philadelphia police officers. A Fox29 news crew in a helicopter captured much of the pursuit and the beating that followed. That video resulted in the firing of four officers and the demotion of four others.

As the video was screened, Hopkins, the alleged gunman, used his necktie to dab away his tears. Dyches and Hall choked back sobs as family members seated in the courtroom gallery cried and groaned.

The video followed testimony by the three victims wounded in the shooting at Fourth and Annsbury Streets. Gerald Cooper, Brandon Crow, and D'Angelo White had been hanging out on the corner when they were sprayed with bullets. Each was hit, but not one of the three recalled seeing the gunman. "I didn't see nothing," said Crow, who was struck in his lower back, both sides of his buttocks, and his right foot. "I heard gunshots, then ran . . . and I just kept running."

Two officers involved in the chase also testified. Officer Mario DeLaurentis, driving an unmarked car, was the first to follow the Marquis as it left the scene of the shooting. DeLaurentis said he had activated his car's siren and front grille lights when he saw one of the car's occupants toss a "six- or seven-inch-long object" from the front passenger-side window. At another point in the chase, DeLaurentis said he watched as a backseat passenger in the Marquis opened a door.

Officer Lisa Pittoulis was driving the first of more than a dozen marked police cruisers that joined the pursuit. Pittoulis said the Marquis disregarded stop signs and reached over 60 m.p.h. before it was blocked and stopped by another marked cruiser on Second Street.

Pittoulis recalled the chaos that ensued. At least 10 uniformed police approached the Marquis and, with guns drawn, ordered the occupants to show their hands. "I saw multiple officers giving multiple commands to put their hands on their heads," Pittoulis said. When the men did not respond, they were dragged from the Marquis, she said.

During what she described as "a violent struggle," Pittoulis said, she watched the backseat passenger, Dyches, assault one of the officers by trying to pull him inside the car and punching him in the face. She said officers kicked the three suspects because they refused to show their hands. "The hands are what's going to hurt you," she said.

Original report here



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Forensic science — it ain’t CSI

William Dillon spent 27 years behind bars for a crime he didn't commit. Wilton Dedge spent a similar stretch behind bars before finally being exonerated. Juan Ramos was sentenced to death before being freed from prison over a crime he didn't commit. The three men are linked not just by their innocence, but by the role played in their cases by dog handler John Preston, a one-time Pennsylvania state trooper, and his amazingly talented dog, Harass II. Preston was only one of many "scientific" experts later exposed as a fraud, some of whose victims may still wait to be revealed.

Scott Maxwell of the Orlando Sentinel has the details regarding Preston and the wreckage he left behind. But the fact that Preston and his "wonder dog" were so relied upon by prosecutors and courts until exposed in the media and humiliated by one judge demonstrates just how much suspension of disbelief (or outright dishonesty) is behind the acceptance of "forensic science" that too often turns out to be either poorly applied -- or even pure hocum.

Reason magazine's Radley Balko has made justified waves in recent years by exposing the nonsense disguised as medicine peddled by Dr. Michael West, a dentist who offered scientifically implausible evidence of guilt (in several cases, of defendants later proven innocent), based on his exclusive bite-mark "technique."

Balko was also largely responsible for (hopefully) ending the career of the notorious Dr. Steven Hayne, a medical examiner without credentials who seemed to customize his testimony to meet the needs of prosecutors.

But it's not just corrupt individuals who deserve skepticial consideration -- so do whole areas of forensic "science." Drug testing, for instance, is a highly subjective "science" that has a lot to do with the skill -- and honesty -- of technicians. It's not at all uncommon for ordinary soap to test positive for illegal intoxicants.

A report on the state of forensic medicine for the National Academies of Science concedes that "The fact is that many forensic tests -- such as those used to infer the source of toolmarks or bite marks -- have never been exposed to stringent scientific scrutiny."

Overall, says the report: "[I]n some cases, substantive information and testimony based on faulty forensic science analyses may have contributed to wrongful convictions of innocent people. This fact has demonstrated the potential danger of giving undue weight to evidence and testimony derived from imperfect testing and analysis. Moreover, imprecise or exaggerated expert testimony has sometimes contributed to the admission of erroneous or misleading evidence."

"Faulty" science has to include the evidence of dogs, which have become so ubiquitous in recent years because of their supposed ability to connect defendants to crime scenes, or to simply detect forbidden substances.

But, despite the legendary power of their noses, canine-based evidence has to be taken with a grain of salt. For starters, dogs' "testimony" is highly dependent on the word of their handlers. In fact, there's no standard way for a dog to tell us that something has been detected. Some dogs just sit, others jump up and bark -- interpretation is in the eye of the handler.

Dogs, also, are notoriously easy to manipulate, since they develop close bonds with their handlers. For a 2004 report on the unreliability of detection dogs, Auburn University professor Larry Myers, a leading expert on canine detection programs, told CBS News, “They can tell you that something's there, that's not there, simply to get praise, to get food, to get whatever they're working for.”

Through improperly training his dogs, or simply lying about their alerts, it was easy for John Preston to manufacture evidence of the guilt of innocent men.

But fallibility can be as dangerous as fraud. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit ruled in 2007 that canine testimony was acceptable in a case where the dog was only 54% accurate.

How many years of prison time are we willing to let ride on a 54% accuracy rate?

None of this is to say that forensic science is worthless. Properly used and understood it's absolutely necessary. After all, William Dillon and Wilton Dedge were freed of the shackles placed on them by bogus canine testimony because of the more rigorous standards set by DNA evidence.

But presenting fallible and sometimes fraudulent evidence as if it's beyond question runs the risk of discrediting good science along with the bad. The damage done by the John Prestons of the world can only be undone if we treat science as an imperfect part of an imperfect world -- not as the magic so-often peddled by charlatans.

Original report here



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“Someday they’ll break from the weight of their sins”

On July 27, 2009, a parole hearing will be held for Leonard Peltier. Mr. Peltier has served 33 years in federal confinement for a crime I believe he did not commit. The preponderance of evidence supports my belief. Peltier’s last parole hearing was held in 1993.

Leonard Peltier is not in prison for killing the two Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) Agents as is alleged, he has been incarcerated for 33 years because he belonged to a group (American Indian Movement) that dared to challenge the federal government and their lies. When one has the audacity to challenge the fedgov, he/she becomes a target for malicious prosecution, fabricated evidence, witness tampering and illegal imprisonment. Leonard Peltier has experienced all of these in the extreme.

AIM was founded in 1968 in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In 1972, AIM staged a "Trail of Broken Treaties" march that terminated in Washington, D.C. They simply marched to demand a series of treaties that had been signed between various American Indian Tribes and the fedgov be honored. A revolutionary idea is it not to demand the fedgov honor its promises! The fedgov negotiated with AIM, not to honor the treaties, but to end their occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) building, which was rapidly becoming a major embarrassment for the government.

The fedgov promised to "look into AIM’s grievances." Like the previous treaties, this promise too was broken. AIM quickly became the target of the FBI; the agency’s corrupt and illegal activities in this matter are well documented.

On June 26th, 1975, two FBI agents, supposedly in pursuit of a thief who had stolen a pair of boots, entered the Jumping Bull Ranch (private property) on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. They were in civilian clothes, driving an unmarked car. This act in itself is suspicious, for the FBI is tasked with investigating felonies on Indian Reservations and their pursuit of someone who had stolen a pair of cowboy boots does not ring true. Most FBI agents consider themselves above pursuit of a common thief. Perhaps this was a ruse to check out members of AIM who were camped on the Jumping Bull Ranch.

There is no record of who fired the first shot, or why the firing started. A family with children reportedly yelled they were under attack and many present at the time rushed to their defense. When the shooting stopped, the two FBI agents and a young Indian laid dead. All were shot through the head. Ironically, there has never been an investigation into the murder of the young Indian.

In what, almost two decades later, would be seen at Ruby Ridge and Waco, the FBI surrounded the area with SWAT teams and agents. Reportedly, for the next few days FBI agents terrorized local residents with no-knock raids and home and property searches, all without warrants.

While there will be some who question my assertions of illegal activities by federal agents, I would suggest any who fall into that camp read this 10 part investigative article on federal law enforcement and prosecutorial misconduct. This quote from that article tells it all: "They lied, hid evidence, distorted facts, engaged in cover-ups, paid for perjury and set up innocent people in a relentless effort to win indictments, guilty pleas and convictions, a two-year Post-Gazette investigation found."

Without any corroborating evidence, warrants were quickly issued for Leonard Peltier, Darrelle "Dino" Butler, Bob Robideau and Jimmy Eagle for murder. Prosecutors would later drop the charges against Eagle when it was proved he was not even on the reservation the day of the shooting. Since no warrant shall issue without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, someone lied to obtain the warrant on Eagle. Why, then, should anyone believe the facts presented in the warrants for the other three?

Butler and Robideau would stand trial separately from Peltier because Peltier had fled to Canada. The FBI reverted to standard operating procedure (SOP) by demonizing the suspects before their trial in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Local authorities were told by the feds that large groups of AIM members/terrorists (they love that word) would be descending on the town. Employees in the Court House were told to prepare for shooting incidents and the seizing of hostages by marauding Indians.

The trial began on June 7, 1976 with Judge Edward McManus presiding. McManus, under vigorous objections of federal prosecutors, allowed a broad range of evidence to be introduced. Testimony was given concerning the "Reign of Terror" in and around Pine Ridge Reservation and the FBI’s tactics operating under their COINTELPRO directives.

During the trial, a federal witness admitted to being threatened into changing his testimony by FBI agents and to have provided testimony as instructed by those agents.

The jury returned a verdict of innocent, ruling there was no evidence shots fired by Butler and Robideau killed the two FBI agents and furthermore, their return fire was an act of self-defense.

Leonard Peltier was captured in Canada in 1976 and extradited to the US. The affidavit for extradition was one of three prepared by the FBI. In the affidavit finally filed with the Canadian government, focus was directed towards eyewitness statements from Myrtle Poor Bear, who claimed to have been Peltier’s girlfriend and present at the time of the shooting. It was necessary for the FBI to provide this testimony to the Canadian authorities, for it was their (Canada) legal position the FBI did not have enough evidence to warrant extradition.

It is important to note that Poor Bear later sought to recant her testimony (she claimed she was coerced and threatened by FBI agents) and appear as a defense witness at Peltier’s trial. The trial judge ruled she was mentally incompetent and could not be called as a witness. The fedgov today admits Poor Bear was not present at the Jumping Bull Ranch on the day of the shooting. They obviously fabricated evidence and suborned perjury to facilitate Peltier’s extradition.

In March of 1977, Leonard Peltier was found guilty of the murder of two FBI agents and given two life sentences. Peltier was found guilty without any witness testimony placing him as the shooter of the two agents. Exculpatory ballistics evidence was withheld and the new judge refused to allow testimony showing FBI tampering or witness intimidation. In short, Peltier was found guilty on the same testimony that set Butler and Robideau free. The difference was in the evidence that was allowed by the judge in Peltier’s trial.

Famed attorney, William Kunstler, would discover in 1982, in a telephone conversation with Judge Edward McManus, (who had presided over the Butler/Robideau trial) that McManus, not Benson, had been scheduled to try the Peltier case. Judge McManus had been astonished, he said, to find himself arbitrarily removed in favor of Judge Benson.

There exists zero evidence that Leonard Peltier was responsible in any way for the deaths of those two FBI agents. He has spent the last 33 years in confinement because the fedgov found it necessary to cover its crimes and malicious prosecution and to "get" someone for the deaths of two agents who were operating outside of the law and their oath to "uphold and defend" the constitution.

When President Reagan and Soviet Premier Gorbachev discussed human rights and political prisoners, Mikhail Gorbachev evoked a wave of protest from the U.S. press when he responded to Reagan's "human rights agenda" by suggesting the U.S. clean up its human rights violations, citing Indians in general and Leonard Peltier in particular.

I enthusiastically support the immediate release of Leonard Peltier and the prosecution of those who wrongfully caused his imprisonment. What I do vehemently oppose is the allegation by many American Indians that Leonard Peltier was convicted and imprisoned because of the color of his skin and that President Obama, himself a victim of racial prejudice, will move to pardon Peltier. Is it not absurd to claim the elected leader of the "free world" to be a victim of racial prejudice? Does his white half discriminate against his black half?

I would remind those who believe Leonard Peltier was targeted because of the color of his skin that Samuel Weaver, who was shot in the back by federal agents at the age of 14, was white. It was a federal agent (FBI agent Lon Horiuchi) who later shot his mother, Vicky, in the face, as she held Samuel’s younger sister; both were white. Although there were several minorities among the men, women and children incinerated or shot by federal agents at Waco, the majority of the 82 who died were white.

Indians, your fight is with the federal government, not a race of people. To allow your fight to be framed by those who profit from the polarization of the races is pure folly and plays into the federal government’s hands; it is possible Leonard Peltier will remain in prison as long as the race card is employed, because, to do so benefits those who put him there.

It is obviously hard for American Indians to challenge and lay at the feet of the federal government the blame for the above listed atrocities, considering a large number of American Indians are in the employ of the fedgov. The great majority of Indians employed by the fedgov have those jobs because of "Indian preference" hiring policies. Simply stated, many have these jobs, not because of their qualifications for the job, but because of the color of their skin. Has the fedgov purchased the right to wrongfully imprison Indians because they provide many of them with a paycheck?

Is it not racism when one reads the following in published employment ads: "We are an equal employment opportunity employer (EEO), Indian preference observed?" Does this mean a less qualified person should have the job if they are of the preferred skin tone? (Would Indians accept this practice in their brain surgeon; they accept it in those who teach their children.) It is impossible to claim racism when one claims preference in anything because of the color of their skin. Only the federal government could get away with claiming racism while practicing racism!

It is imperative all races stand together for justice and place the blame for corruption and criminality where it belongs. A thorough reading of the investigative articles in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette will show the victims of fedgov misconduct and criminal activity to be of all races; a large number of them white.

Original report here



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FL: Cop shoots Arab tourist

Killed for uttering unknown words

A tourist visiting Miami Beach was shot and killed by a police officer Sunday, and family members say it was due to a grave mistake. Miami Beach police said they were looking for a man who was reportedly walking with a gun about 4 a.m. near Washington Avenue and 15th Street.

Minutes later, a police officer stopped Husien Shehada, 29, a limousine chauffeur from Woodbridge, Va., who was nearing the end of a five-day vacation clubbing in Miami Beach. Shehada and the officer spoke. Unknown words were exchanged. A confrontation followed. Then, according to police, the officer shot Shehada, who later died at Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center.

All other details remain shrouded in mystery. Police and family members have different accounts of the shooting and what happened next. After the shooting, police arrested Shehada's brother, Samer, and charged him with battery. Police said he was beating a woman and kicking her head. But Samer Shehada's girlfriend, Karlia Karpel, denies the allegations, saying she was with him all Saturday night and Sunday morning. ''Can you look at me?'' she asked Monday evening, sitting in the lobby of the Loews Miami Beach Hotel. There were no visible bruises or cuts on her face, arms or legs. ``Do you see any bruises? Nothing.''

Samer Shehada, a 31-year-old engineer, was arraigned Monday morning and posted $1,500 bond.

The Shehada brothers were born in the United States to Palestinian immigrant parents. Two of their uncles traveled to Miami on Monday to piece together why Husien Shehada was shot by police minutes after he, his brother and their girlfriends left their hotel.

His cousin, Najwa Ghannam, said police stopped the wrong man. ''How can an officer shoot an unarmed person to death?'' she wrote in an e-mail to The Miami Herald. ``They shot to kill. My cousin didn't stand a chance.''

Police did not provide additional details about the shooting and had not released the officer's name by Monday night. The Miami-Dade State Attorney's Office is investigating the shooting. In addition, the Miami Beach Police Department's internal affairs unit is investigating what led to the shooting, according to Detective Juan Sanchez, a department spokesman.

Family members said an autopsy had not yet been done, but they had still made funeral plans, which included returning Shehada to Virginia on Tuesday. The vacation, Karpel said, was supposed to be an unforgettable gift from Husien Shehada to his girlfriend, who accompanied them on the trip. The plan was simple: two brothers, their girlfriends, the beach and clubs. The shooting changed everything, Karpel said. ''Sunday was going to be an all-beach day,'' she said. ``It was the worst day of my life.''

The family has hired criminal defense attorney John Contini to sort out what they allege is police wrongdoing. ''I think it's clear the police are desperately trying to cover up a police killing of an unsuspecting, innocent citizen,'' Contini said.

Contini said that after the shooting, police individually questioned the brother and both women, asking them whether Husien spoke Arabic. He said he had already been contacted by worried representatives of the Arab League in Washington, D.C. According to Contini, several people witnessed the shooting, and he urged others to contact him at his Fort Lauderdale office to provide testimony.

Original report here



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Crooked British police cover up evidence to hide their social class bigotry

An opera singer who became a policewoman was sacked for cowardice after allegedly failing to help a colleague when he was attacked by yobs. Alison Wheeler, 39, was accused of standing by instead of using her CS spray as PC Rory Channon was punched and kicked to the ground outside a police station.

Former public schoolgirl Miss Wheeler, however, has launched an employment tribunal fight against her dismissal, claiming £350,000 in compensation, and saying her sacking was sexist and ageist, and that she had been bullied throughout her time in the force.

She claims CCTV footage of the incident which showed her intervening in the fight was kept secret from her. And her friends have claimed many officers wanted to force her out, believing that because she had been an opera singer and owned a grand piano she was 'too posh' to be in the police. Miss Wheeler gained a diploma from London's Trinity College of Music and worked as a mezzo soprano for ten years - appearing in operas including the Magic Flute and Eugene Onegin - before joining Surrey Police in January 2006.

A tribunal in Croydon, South London, yesterday heard that a month before her two-year probationary period was up she was told she was being sacked for cowardice, dishonesty and incompetence. Central to the allegations - all of which she denies - was a fight outside the police station in Walton, Surrey, in the early hours of a Sunday in October 2007.

According to PC Channon, who was off duty at the time, he found up to five young men fighting outside the doors of the station, and attempted to arrest one of them. He was then attacked, and tried to make his way into the station while being punched and kicked.

He said he saw Miss Wheeler, in uniform, standing nearby and sought her help. He went on: 'She was shaking her CS gas but was not moving. When she did come, she kept to the other side of the barrier where I was struggling with the male and made no attempt to keep the other males away. She did not use the CS spray and did not use her radio to contact anyone.'

Miss Wheeler's superiors went on to claim that she had shown a 'lack of courage, and failed to take appropriate action to support a colleague'. When she disputed this version of events, she was accused of dishonesty.

But Miss Wheeler, of West Molesey, Surrey, told the tribunal that when she asked for CCTV footage of the fight to help her case, she was told she could not be seen on screen. Months later, however, she saw a copy of the film and it clearly showed her in the middle of the melee, attempting to physically restrain one of the men involved. She said she did not use her gas on one yob because he put his hands up in surrender.

An internal report, completed six months after she was sacked, found the allegation she showed a 'lack of courage' to be unfair. A friend of Miss Wheeler told the Daily Mail: 'Because Alison didn't drop her aitches and once took a day off to have a grand piano fitted, some people thought she was too posh to be a police officer. 'She made the mistake of going to private school too. She is fighting this case to show she was not a coward, or dishonest.'

Original report here



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Chicago again: No jail time for brutal cop

The video is horrifying. It's lucky the victim survived. The cop is quite simply a dangerous animal who needs to be put down

The videotape of an off-duty Chicago police officer beating up a female bartender half his size was seen on the internet around the world. Now Anthony Abbate, 40, has been sentenced to two years probation and anger management classes for the attack on Karolina Obrycka. Judge John Fleming also gave Abbate a home curfew of 8pm to 6am and ordered him to do 130 hours of community service.

Prosecutors and Ms Obrycka said they were disappointed with the sentence. Her attorney, Terry Ekl, said he expected the lawsuit Ms Obrycka filed against Abbate and city to go to trial this year. "No one in recent memory ... has done more to tarnish the reputation of the Chicago Police Department than Anthony Abbate," Cook County Assistant State's Attorney LuAnn Snow said.

Prosecutors had asked for prison for Abbate - he could have been sentenced to up to five years behind bars - but the judge said he didn't see aggravating factors to justify a prison term. The judge said Abbate had a clean record before the incident, did not seriously injure the bartender, and underwent alcohol rehabilitation "and has not had a relapse". "If I believed sentencing Anthony Abbate to prison would stop people from getting drunk and hitting people, I'd give him the maximum sentence," Fleming said.

Earlier this month, the judge rejected Abbate's claim he acted in self-defence and convicted him of aggravated battery. A tavern security video shows a drunken Abbate punching and kicking Ms Obrycka as she tended the bar in February 2007. The altercation happened after she refused to serve him more drinks.

The video received a lot of attention as it was seen as another example of misconduct by Chicago police. Then-Superintendent Phil Cline suddenly announced his retirement shortly after the video surfaced and former FBI official Jody Weis was appointed to the spot with an order to clean up the department's image.

Abbate acknowledged during the trial that he was drunk during the incident. But he said Ms Obrycka pushed him first as she tried to remove him from behind the bar.

Ms Obrycka said during the hearing that she continues to suffer psychological wounds, often has nightmares and has trouble trusting people, including her husband.

Abbate declined comment as he walked out of the courtroom holding his girlfriend's hand. "He's not a bad man, he did something bad," said his defence attorney, Peter Hickey. He characterised the incident as "one silly, stupid act". Abbate has been relieved of his duties and pay, Chicago Police Department spokesman Officer Robert Perez said. The department is looking into "separation proceedings", Mr Perez said. Mr Weis has said he wants Abbate fired.

Original report here



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