UK or US: Who is More Civilized?

The following info-graph/poll can be found at the Justice Gap, a magazine about law and justice. And the difference between the two

See which side of the pond of justice you stand.

Read more...

Meet the Should Be Exonerated: Crosley Green

Crosley Green

Update: (August 19, 2017):

Despite a mountain of evidence that proves Crosley Green's innocence, in January 2016, due to a trivial procedural technicality (one day late), Green's petition for a new trial was denied. So, in other words, 59-year old Crosley Green could stay in prison for the rest of his life even though there is very clear evidence of his innocence and very clear evidence that he should never have been convicted in the first place.

"People are alarmed to find out that courts have no problem at all saying you filed one day late… we're gonna use that as a basis to keep you in prison for the rest of your life not withstanding the fact that you can prove a clear miscarriage of justice," -- Seth Miller, runs the Innocence Project of Florida.

And then, in June 2017,the 11th Circuit Federal Court of Appeals will allow Green's attorneys to argue in person why his case should not have been dismissed. If the three-judge panel agrees, Crosley Green will finally get his case heard in federal court.

Please watch the the most recent 48 Hours episode which also features three similar cases of wrongful convictions from Brevard County Florida in the 1980s that were subsequently overturned.

Please sign this petition for clemency (or new trial) on Change.org.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Something new and different, a Florida man convicted for murder and sentenced to death simply because he was black. As attorney, Keith Harrison said, "an example of race being a substitute for evidence,race substituted for evidence." 

For more than 16 years, 48 Hours has investigated the case of the 1989 murder of 22-year old Charles "Chip" Flynn because they believed it involved prosecutorial misconduct, which resulted in the conviction of Crosley Green (left) who was later sentenced to death, an absolute travesty of justice not uncommon as I have documented repeatedly.

It all began on April 4, 1989 when Flynn's former girlfriend, Kimberly Hallock called 911 saying she thought her boyfriend had been shot by a a black man with a gun who had hijacked and drove them to a remote Florida citrus grove. Keep in mind, this black guy would've had to steer and shift gears all while he was holding the gun on them. Oh, and after her ex-boyfriend, with his hands tied behind his back, grabbed a gun and shot the assailant, she alone managed to get back into the truck and escape.

Despite a story that kept changing, littered with troubling inconsistencies:

• Crosley didn't match the original description of the assailant;
• ex-girlfriend waiting almost an hour to call for help;
• a truck that was hard to handle because it had a custom gear shift;
• shoe prints that did not match...that tracked in different direction than testimony indicated;
• no gun powder residue on Flynn's hands; no shell casings from Flynn's testified to gunshots;
• no bare footprints or knee prints of either Flynn and Hallock at scene
• witnesses who later said they were coerced into testifying recanted their testimony
• a police dog, despite not having an item of Green's to scent upon, somehow connected him to the crime scene
• no fingerprints or any physical evidence that linked Green to the crime
• ten alibi witnesses who place Green miles away from the murder,

Crosley Green was arrested and charged with kidnapping, robbery and murder. It took the all-white jury just three hours to convict Crosley Green; the judge sentenced him death.

Crosley Green, top row center, target with a bull's eye...the black spot you focus on.

“That's a target with a bull's-eye for Crosley Green. ...His picture is smaller and darker than the other pictures," Harrison said of the photo lineup. "Anybody involved in police investigation and prosecution knows this. ...the position that your eyes are normally drawn to are right in the middle."

"It's a black spot," Green said of the photo. "That's what you focus on, that black spot." [...]
“When I went to homicide school ... they told us that this spot is the most likely that someone will pick a picture from," Mark Rixey said of the photo lineup.

"And where exactly is Crosley Green in that--"

"That's Crosley Green right in that spot," Green said, pointing to the second of three images in the top row.

"Anything that strikes you about this lineup?" Moriarty asked Christopher White.

"You can't see the guy in the top middle very well at all," he replied. "Crosley Green's photo is the darkest."

"If you don't specifically know who you're looking for, then that's the spot you will pick nine times out of 10," said Rixey.

And why was Kim Hallock eliminated as a suspect when it's normal procedure to investigate the last people to see victim alive...everyone closest to the scene? No one knows.

“That's homicide 101, anybody who is present at the scene of a shooting ... gets their hands tested for gunshot residue," Rixey explained. "That should have been the very first thing that was done. ...That was never done."

Moreover, the Brevard County State's Attorney's Office had a history of pressuring, coercing witnesses into lying. In the 1980s, Brevard County put away three men whose convictions have since been overturned.

“They coerced witnesses ... to lie and it's really as though you see -- a deliberate pattern of the state creating evidence to achieve a result that they wanted to achieve and that's what they got," said Jeane Thomas.

In 2009, Green received a reduced sentence (life in prison)  due to an error in sentencing. In total, Crosley Green has spent almost 26 years incarcerated for a crime he did not commit.  Three witnesses recanted their testimony. 

“Every witness recanted their story," Moura explained. "And every one of them had reason to be afraid of the police. ...They were squeezed. ...And they were squeezed hard."

As it stands now, undeterred by exculpatory evidence withheld by the prosecution, the recantations of four of the prosecution's star witnesses, not to mention, more inconsistencies than a government's official story, the Florida Attorney General's Office is fighting to uphold Crosley Green's conviction. It says Green failed to meet a filing deadline for his appeal.

Links:

Investigators say condemned man not guilty

Former Florida Death Row Inmate Crosley Green Asks Orlando Federal Court To Overturn His Conviction: Crowell & Moring Files Habeas Corpus

Read more...

Revoking Passports without Due Process Under the Pretense of Terrorism

In 15 minutes, with virtually no media attention, the House of Representatives passed HR 237, the Foreign Terrorist organization (FTO) Passport Revocation Act, which allows the federal government  the power to arbitrarily strip you of your passport and right to travel without any due process.   Why? Like every "law" that's passed to strip us of our rights: to stop alleged "terrorists". In this case, to keep them from from traveling.

Now, define terrorist. Well,

“Are you a conservative, a libertarian, a Christian or a gun owner? Are you opposed to abortion, globalism, Communism, illegal immigration, the United Nations or the New World Order? Do you believe in conspiracy theories, do you believe that we are living in the “end times” or do you ever visit alternative news websites (such as this one)? If you answered yes to any of those questions, you are a “potential terrorist” according to official U.S. government documents. At one time, the term “terrorist” was used very narrowly. The government applied that label to people like Osama bin Laden and other Islamic jihadists. But now the Obama administration is removing all references to Islam from terror training materials, and instead the term “terrorist” is being applied to large groups of American citizens. And if you are a “terrorist”, that means that you have no rights and the government can treat you just like it treats the terrorists that are being held at Guantanamo Bay. So if you belong to a group of people that is now being referred to as “potential terrorists”, please don’t take it as a joke. The first step to persecuting any group of people is to demonize them. And right now large groups of peaceful, law-abiding citizens are being ruthlessly demonized."

In other words, anyone and everyone, no matter how law abiding you think you are,  is a potential terrorist in the U.S. 

The core of the Rule of Law in the United States is that governmental power be bound strictly by law in order to protect individual freedom or liberty.  It is realized through the judicial process. In other words, the Rule of Law holds that powers and rights vest naturally in individuals and that government is limited in its power to infringe upon those rights.

Read more...

Talk About False Advertising: Just Say No to no!no!

While the FDA is busy attacking legitimate companies like Blue Diamond for making truthful claims about walnuts, based on hard science, companies like PhotoMedex-Radiancy [PHMD], manufacturer of no!no! Hair Removal System engages in an extraordinarily heavy campaign of national television and Internet advertising to promote the sale of this product, making false claims, supposedly supported by science and research in order to rob decent people of their time and money.

“As Radiancy documents submitted in court show, Radiancy deliberately engaged in a massive advertising campaign based on bogus claims lacking any scientific basis, including knowingly false claims that the no!no! "provides an effect similar to what lasers accomplish in the dermatologist office"; produces "laser-like results"; is "like laser and IPL [intense pulsed light] treatments, the heat gradually disrupts the hair growth cycle." Mimicking medical laser claims, Radiancy claimed that the no!no! Hair provided "up to 94% reduction in hair re-growth", allowed users to "get rid of unwanted hair and keep it gone" and "have a life of freedom from hair." As Radiancy admitted in papers filed with the court shortly before the settlement, it has dropped all such claims as a result of Tria's lawsuit.

In these hard-to-avoid infomercials, the aforementioned company declares that no!no! not only slows down hair regrowth, it actually helps keep it from growing back. It asserts that the use of their product results in “up to 94% less hair regrowth with no pain, no mess, no stress,” when it's an outright lie. Not only that, according to thousands of customer complaints, they refuse to honor their 60-day return policy unless the customer has the wherewithal to devote all of their time and effort to the refund, or the customer threatens with legal action.

Now, the manufacturer has not submitted these so-called "studies" about the use and efficacy of its product to the FDA and despite the fact that these blatantly unsupported claims are designed to mislead and deceive consumers into buying this expensive and ineffective, and even potentially dangerous product, the FDA ignores them.

In fact, a blinded, controlled, prospective clinical study by the Department of Ophthalmology, Dermatology, Otolaryngology, out of Vanderbilt University Medical Center, found that the no!no! Hair Removal System is no more effective than shaving with a razor.

“CONCLUSIONS: Relative to shaving, the hot-wire (no!no!) device does not produce lessened hair density, decreased hair re-growth rate, greater duration of effect, nor induce changes in hair thickness and color. We conclude that the hot-wire device does not offer any benefit as compared to shaving.

Read more...

House of Death Lawsuit Exposes "War on Drugs"

“Mr. Peyro put his life on the line for the United States of America time after time. He is directly responsible for approximately 50 criminal convictions of upper echelon cartel members, as well as the removal of huge quantities of drugs from the streets of this country….

There is no question that Americans are some of the most naive people on the planet. In fact, even non-Americans are naive when it comes to the subject of the USA. A little naiveté is a good thing because without it no-one would attempt anything, but too much, and you're a sitting duck.

 Perhaps, I'm a bit too naive because I truly believe that most of us do the best we can, given our circumstances, but holding onto the credulous expectation of people doing right, especially of those in power--anywhere in the world, including America--can be very dangerous to one's health. Those in positions of influence have been, according to their own definition, "successful" within the system, so, of course, have an interest in maintaining the status quo at all costs. We give these people decision-making abilities who are growing increasingly remote, as local council power is removed to national government and even to international government.

But when I inform others of what's really going on behind the scenes, of the profit-before-people motivation of our decision/policy-makers, I'm often told that even if what I'm saying is true, there is nothing you or I can do to solve this problem that's plagued mankind for centuries, because the powers that want to continue have all of the wealth and power at their fingertips while the rest of us are just barely getting by. To a point, I agree. However, no-one can convince me that ignorance is bliss as it makes us vulnerable should we be unlucky enough to get caught up in the system. Many veterans can testify to the dangers of ignorance and/or naive and senseless hope based on the unawareness of the fact that all war--including the "war on drugs"--is merely a pursuit to preserve power and wealth, a redistribution schemes to finance the lifestyles of the elites. In other words, blind trust, and/or willful nescience only makes you part of the problem at the very least, and at most, can put you at great risk as you will see from the example below.

Many--unfortunately, not even close to most-- of us are aware of what happens to the enlisted. After putting their lives on the line, for what they're told is our freedom, they suffer grave consequences. If our troops are lucky enough to make it home, they confront another battle: the tangled bureaucratic web of chaos while at the same time, trying to find work in an unstable economy that is very leery of hiring veterans. All of it, to line the already lined pockets of ruling class. Then there are the "veterans" of the equally fraudulent "war on drugs." Not a pretty picture for anyone who gets caught up in it.

Take former ICE informant,  Guillermo Eduardo Ramirez Peyro, employed as a "Mexican federal cop who worked for a top lieutenant (Humberto Santillan Tabares) of the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes drug organization in Ciudad Juarez, Mexico, in the early to mid-2000s" who is suing US prosecutors and federal agents as well as several county sheriffs and detention-facility officials (include past and present employees of US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the US Marshals Service and various county sheriffs in Texas and Minnesota and some of the most powerful US prosecutors in Texas) for conspiring to silence him in an effort to cover up their role in the "House of Death" murders in Ciudad Juarez Mexico. Yes, this man trusted the U.S. government enough to risk his life several times over, and for his loyalty and effort, was severely punished.  The lawsuit is sealed but Narco News was able to obtain pleadings from the case.

“In affidavits linked here and here,filed in prior litigation related to the House of Death murders, Fielden and former ICE Special Agent in Charge Giovanni Gaudioso, (also named as a defendant in the current case) each contend they did nothing improper in the handling of Ramirez Peyro as an informant and also stress that they had no prior knowledge of any of the murders carried out at the House of Death in Juarez.

Ramirez Peyro oversaw--assuring the house was opened whenever Santillan wanted a murder carried out, as well as being responsible for overseeing the burial of the bodies--the infamous House of Death, the site of multiple gruesome torture/murders. Between August 2003 and January 2004, Peyro "informed his US government handlers about subsequent murders at the House of Death, often in advance of them taking place."

“Both ICE and the US Department of Justice had knowledge of these executions, both through the tapped cell phones and the information provided by [Ramirez Peyro],” the lawsuit alleges. “After each such execution, [Ramirez Peyro] and Raul Benecomo asked for the operation to be terminated and for arrests to be made. However [Ramirez Peyro] was instructed to continue his undercover work.”

In 2004, after the House of Death was exposed, Peyro was put in protective custody. and then placed in an isolation unit at a detention facility in Texas “under the guise of a material witness” for the pending Santillan trial that never took place due to the US Attorney cutting a deal with VCF cell-leader Santillan. But Peyro was not released. Instead, US prosecutors and agents kept him in prison "under threat of deporting his wife and children — who had been given temporary visas to stay in the US and who would have faced certain death at the hands of VCF operatives if sent back to Mexico."

“In May 2005, after Sutton’s plea deal with Santillan was inked, the US government initiated deportation proceedings against Ramirez Peyro — who also faced the prospect of certain torture and murder by VCF assassins upon his return to Mexico.

So for risking his life and helping the U.S. government,  Peyro was severely punished instead of rewarded,  spending six years in prison, mostly in isolation.  Why?  In an effort to cover up the complicity of the government in the House of Death murders.

From Ramirez Peyro’s legal pleadings:

“ … Sutton, Gaudioso, Fielden, Leachman, Durbin [and other defendants] entered into a conspiracy to cover up the fact that they not only knew about the murders [at the House of Death in Juarez], but were listening in on devices provided to [Ramirez Peyro] by Defendants for that purpose, and to cover up the fact that they had instructed [Ramirez Peyro] to continue his work with full knowledge that he had been assigned to maintain the "House of Death" where executions on behalf of the Juarez Cartel [the VCF] were occurring.

…Fielden, Sutton, Gaudioso, Leachman and Durbin decided that if [Ramirez Peyro] was allowed to testify truthfully at the Santillan trial, that they would be implicated in the murders and that ICE … had knowledge, both before and after the fact, that individuals were being executed and buried by the Juarez Cartel at the "House of Death."

… Sutton, Gaudioso, Fielden, Leachman and Durbin hatched a conspiracy to cover up the House of Death murders.

… Sutton, Gaudioso, Fielden, Leachman and Durbin conspired to enter [into] a plea deal with Santillan so his matter did not go to trial.

During the five years after the Santillan plea deal, Ramirez Peyro was kept imprisoned by US officials while facing deportation proceedings. Ultimately, Ramirez Peyro prevailed, and was released from prison in April 2010 after securing a temporary deferral of removal under United Nations Convention Against Torture (CAT) due to the credible threat to his life should he be deported to Mexico.

[Ramirez Peyro] was moved from one county detention facility to another, including Wilson County Jail in Floresville, Texas; Midland County Central Detention Center in Midland, Texas; Washington County Jail in Stillwater, Minnesota; and Sherburne County Jail in Elk River, Minnesota [and ultimately the Buffalo Federal Detention Facility in New York], and each of which he was sequestered in SHUs [Special Housing Units].

[Ramirez Peyro] … at each of the county detention facilities, was held in total isolation from other prisoners, deprived of his family, friends, and the outside world under conditions far more stringent than necessary.

… Said conditions did not affect any legitimate purpose of ensuring his testimony or protecting [Ramirez Peyro] from potential assassins or serve any other legitimate purpose.

… During the period [Ramirez Peyro] was confined in said county facilities, he had no access to a phone, no access to television or newspapers, was deprived of access to soap and other elementary means of sanitation, was housed in a tiny cell sometimes up to 23 hours a day, with a floor contaminated by feces and urine, and his hands and ankles were chained and shackled to his waist any time he was outside his cell.

… Each time that [Ramirez Peyro], who had no charges, criminal or otherwise, filed or pending against him, was transferred from one facility to another, his feet were shackled together, his hands were shackled to his waist, he was accompanied by at least 10 federal agents, was moved in the middle of the night, with lights and sirens on the vehicle he was transported in, and with escort vehicles closing traffic. If he traveled by airplane, it was on a private plane owned by the US government.

Read more...

Why is Government Trying to Cripple the Second Largest Employer in America?

I do a lot of shipping for my business, therefore, I must interact with the post office on a daily basis. Over the past year or so, many of the items I ship come back stamped, "return to sender" falsely claiming there is no such address, amongst other equally irritating reasons.  This had never happened before, so I asked one of the postal workers, "What's going on, here?"  He told me ever since they've had to lay off their top tier employees, errors abound.  So I decided to do some research and here's what I found.

Firstly, if you depend upon the  mainstream media for news about the post office, the second largest employer after Walmart, you're led to believe the post office is on its last legs.  Politicians claim it's in crisis and therefore USPS must layoff thousands of workers and reduce services, right down to taking the courtesy scotch tape off the counter. However, the truth of the matter is the self-supporting post office has been doing very well over the last couple of years despite email, due mostly to the booming e-commerce sector and the ever increasing number of people shopping online...all of those items must be shipped!

Second, since 1981--under the Reagan administration--the postal service has been required by law to be entirely self-sufficient.  In other words, the post office receives NO taxpayer funding, while having to adhere to caps on the rates they can charge.

Third,  if that wasn't enough, under the Bush administration, Congress passed the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act of 2006 (PAEA)  forcing USPS  to “prefund its future health care benefit payments to retirees for the next 75 years in an astonishing ten-year time span” — meaning that it had to put aside billions of dollars [$5.5 billion per year] to pay for the health benefits of employees it hasn’t even hired yet, something “that no other government or private corporation is required to do.”  As of now, they have set aside $50 billion to pay for future retiree health benefits.  How many corporations can claim the same?

Although, President Obama had nothing to do with this outrageous burden put upon the post office, he hasn't done anything to remedy the situation.  In fact, Obama pushed for the end of Saturday delivery in his budget proposal  even though the institution receives NO funding from the government. Meanwhile, another attempt is being made to put profit ahead of public interest:  H.R. 2748: Postal Reform Act of 2013 by Rep. Darrell Issa and S. 1486: Postal Reform Act of 2013 by Sen Thomas Carper.

Most of us take the Post Office for granted because it's always been there. However, aside from the great number of people it employs and the convenience it provides, when you consider that the cost of mailing a letter to any area in the country cost only .46 cents versus mailing that same letter to any area in the country through let's say, UPS or Fedex--which cost at the very least costs $9, it becomes clear just how important this institution is. In addition, few realize that the post office actually delivers packages for UPS and Fed Ex (25% of all packages) to places they refuses to go, for instance, rural and other non-profitable areas. The USPS has always been and will continue to be a VITAL connection for those who live in rural areas.

Also, keep in mind, the post office is the only government bureaucracy mentioned in the Constitution.

“In June 1788, the ninth state ratified the Constitution, which gave Congress the power “To establish Post Offices and post Roads” in Article I, Section 8. A year later, the Act of September 22, 1789 (1 Stat. 70), continued the Post Office and made the Postmaster General subject to the direction of the President. Four days later, President Washington appointed Samuel Osgood as the first Postmaster General under the Constitution. A population of almost four million was served by 75 Post Offices and about 2,400 miles of post roads.

The Post Office received two one-year extensions by the Acts of August 4, 1790 (1 Stat. 178), and March 3, 1791 (1 Stat. 218). The Act of February 20, 1792 (1 Stat. 232), continued the Post Office for another two years and formally admitted newspapers to the mails, gave Congress the power to establish post routes, and prohibited postal officials from opening letters. Later legislation enlarged the duties of the Post Office, strengthened and unified its organization, and provided rules for its development. The Act of May 8, 1794 (1 Stat. 354), continued the Post Office indefinitely.

The Post Office moved from Philadelphia in 1800 when Washington, D.C., became the seat of government. Two horse-drawn wagons carried all postal records, furniture, and supplies.

The last three decades have proved that the world’s most efficient mail system not only does quite well on its own, but even in the face of Machiavellian forces trying its absolute best to destroy the well-established fundamental part of our society.

Links:

Don't Shrink the US Post Office; Expand It!

Community and Postal Workers United

Delivering for America

Delivering the Truth: Postal Service Myths and Facts

Read more...

United States of ALEC

1973 was a watershed year in American history as it marked the end of the greatest prolonged boom in the history of capitalism and the beginning of a  punitive, neoconservative era of gradual decline.  In 1973, the Nixon administration started dismantling many of the social programs launched in the 1960s, while calling for the reinstatement of the death penalty.  That year also gave birth to the Rockefeller drug laws and the passage of draconian sentencing laws, not to mention a little known entity called the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), now 40-years old, which is essentially a corporate funded legislation factory, much more powerful than any lobby or front group.

Through membership in ALEC, global captains of industry and state legislators,  overwhelmingly Republican, work together to change the law so that it benefits the corporation's bottom line. Corporations and legislators alike  pay for a seat on ALEC task forces where corporate lobbyists and special interest reps vote with elected officials to approve “model” bills."

“Forty years later, ALEC legislators seem to be hankering for this bygone era. In this report, the Center for Media and Democracy identifies hundreds of ALEC “model” bills introduced in 2013, yet pursuing a retrograde agenda. At the top of the heap, bills to roll back wages, worker rights, access to paid sick leave, and even renewable energy standards.

ALEC’s education agenda is geared almost entirely toward starving the public education system to fund private schools and returning us to the days when rich and poor were safely segregated. ALEC’s corporate agenda would turn back the clock to the time when consumers had no recourse when they were injured or killed by dangerous products or services."

Read more...

House Leadership Invokes "Martial Law" to Muscle Through Legislation.

Yesterday, congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee stated (see video below):

“We have martial law…and my colleagues know what it means…"

This is the procedure that the leadership uses to muscle through important bills.

Under “martial law,” the leadership can file legislation with tens or hundreds of pages of fine print, and move immediately to debate and votes on it before members of Congress, the media, or the public have an opportunity to understand fully what provisions have been altered or inserted into the legislation behind closed doors.

What is “Martial Law”?

“The House leadership is using a parliamentary gambit to evade a longstanding House rule that is supposed to ensure that this kind of obfuscation does not occur. That House rule (Rule XIII(6)(a)) provides that a resolution (called a rule) reported by the Rules Committee cannot be considered by the House on the same legislative day that the rule is reported (except by a two-thirds vote of the House). This is supposed to ensure that Members of the House and the public have at least one day to examine and analyze what is in legislation before they have to debate and vote on it.

To maneuver around this House rule and rush the three proposals discussed above to a vote before they have been fully examined, the Rules Committee reported a rule late Thursday afternoon (H.Res. 958) that would waive the application of Rule XIII(6)(a). Instead, it would allow the Rules Committee to wait until the last minute and not to report the rules governing the consideration of these bills or to release the text of the bills themselves until immediately before debate and votes on the bills, and on the rules governing their consideration, commences.

This extraordinary procedure is known as a “martial law” rule because it suspends the normal procedures and safeguards and allows the House Leadership to operate in a more authoritarian fashion. It enables the Leadership to seek to ram a bill or conference report through before the Members have the opportunity to fully understand what they are voting on.

Legislation that has far-reaching implications for millions of Americans deserves to be considered under a more democratic process. Waiting until the last minute to reveal what is in these bills, and then “spinning” or potentially mischaracterizing changes in the bills without Members of the House or the public having an opportunity to obtain a more objective review of what the legislation does, is unfair to Members of the House. It also is unfair to the millions of Americans whose lives could be affected by this legislation. It represents a further step in reducing the degree of transparency and democracy in how this country is governed and how decisions are made. At a time when our leaders preach the goal of promoting democracy abroad, they should not be reducing it at home.

Read more...

Children in Long Term Solitary Confinement.

"Why lock somebody up while you're locked up? You're trying to kill their spirit even more," says Michael Kemp, describing his six-month stay in solitary confinement at age 17.

Solitary confinement was once a punishment reserved for the most-hardened, incorrigible criminals. Today, it is standard practice for tens of thousands of juveniles in prisons and jails across America. Far from being limited to the most violent offenders, solitary confinement is now used against perpetrators of minor crimes and children who are forced to await their trials in total isolation. Often, these stays are prolonged, lasting months or even years at a time.

Widely condemned as cruel and unusual punishment, long-term isolation for juveniles continues because it's effectively hidden from the public. Research efforts by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition have struggled to uncover even the most basic facts about how the United States punishes its most vulnerable inmates.

How can a practice be both widespread and hidden? State and federal governments have two effective ways to prevent the public from knowing how deep the problem goes.

The first has to do with the way prisons operate. Sealed off from most public scrutiny, and steeped in an insular culture of unaccountability, prisons are, by their very nature, excellent places to keep secrets. Even more concealed are the solitary-confinement cells, described by inmates as "prisons within prisons." With loose record-keeping and different standards used by different states, it's almost impossible to gather reliable nation-wide statistics.

The second method is to give the old, horrific punishment a new, unobjectionable name. Make the torture sound friendly, with fewer syllables and pleasant language. This way, even when abuse is discovered, it appears well-intentioned and humane.

So American prisons rarely punish children with prolonged solitary confinement. Instead, they administer seclusion and protective custody. Prison authorities don't have to admit that "administrative segregation" is used to discipline children. Just the opposite, actually. It's all being done "for their own protection."

Seclusion? Protecting children? Who could argue with that?

For starters, there is Juan Mendez, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture. Americans are accustomed to the U.N. investigating incidents of prisoner abuse in other countries -- which Mendez has done in faraway places like Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. But increasingly, his inquiries are focused on American prisons.

Mendez spoke publicly about Bradley Manning's deplorable treatment in solitary confinement. Now he is calling on the United States to ban isolation for minors, which he considers, "cruel, unusual, and degrading punishment." It's a recommendation he shares with the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychology.

The ACLU report, Growing Up Locked Down, is one of the few detailed, comprehensive examinations available. This devastating and detailed look at solitary confinement for minors has led to this online petition that will be presented to Attorney General Eric Holder in October 2013.

Because the prison system is so opaque, reform has been slow in coming. A congressional hearing on solitary confinement, chaired by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) last year, heard testimony from mental health experts, questioned the director of federal prisons, and brought a replica of a solitary confinement cell onto the Senate floor. In recent years, seven states -- Maine, Connecticut, West Virginia, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Arizona, and Alaska -- have enacted laws to restrict the use of punitive isolation on young people. As awareness of the magnitude of the problem grows, more reforms are likely to follow.

If we believe that juveniles are inherently less responsible for their actions than adults - and more susceptible to rehabilitation - then it follows that their punishments should be less severe.

Given the severity of the punishment, prohibiting solitary confinement for young people is a first step. The greatest challenge remains demanding greater transparency from a prison system that wields total control over its most vulnerable inmates.

Read more...

When Drone Strikes Become the "New Normal" for the Shining City on a Hill.

Can you imagine if one American citizen was killed by a foreign drone strike in the United States? Let alone, 2...3...103 Americans? The foreign country responsible would be labeled a terrorist state faster than the Department of Homeland Security scream "Red Alert!" Yet, when the U.S. is behind foreign drone strikes that strike civilians or even American citizens, it's called collateral damage.  Why?  Because we're supposedly locked in a struggle with primitive, barbaric terrorists determined to destroy the “American way of life,” which is, of course, exceptional.  This state of exception and/or exceptional state mythology is used to defend and justify this "shining city on a hill's" legal transgressions by appealing to what is believed to be a higher standard of justice.

Since 9/11, the U.S. has been/is allegedly waging battle in this epic "War on Terror" with "no discernible end," against this nameless, faceless, and all encompassing enemy. Never mind that most "Al Qaeda" operatives have been recruited, trained, and funded by US and NATO intelligence agencies from the very beginning almost 30 years ago. Pre-emptive wars directed against “Islamic terrorists” everywhere is required to defend the Homeland. That's what we've been told, not only from the never-ending "news" stories that litter the 24-hours news networks, but also from the constantly reinforced narratives of countless TV shows and movies as "television [and I would add  movies] is the ideal medium for disseminating and encouraging a perspective on the “war on terror”. However, almost twelve years after 9/11, it appears that this nameless, faceless, all encompassing "enemy" could very well include we-the-American-terrorists.

In the "terrorist," as opposed to the communist, or foreign state, we have a nearly perfect, ubiquitous and enduring enemy. A terrorist can conveniently be anyone, anywhere at any time for the greedy, heartless self-serving imperialists, who create and control the vague definition, which can be changed or modified as needed. It includes an extraordinarily broad spectrum of people from the evil warlord to anyone who expresses discontent with the current state of the union.

On Sept. 30, 2011, missiles fired from an unmanned drone killed U.S. citizens Anwar al Awlaki and Samir Khan, along with at least two other people in Yemen. Two weeks later, another drone strike at an open-air restaurant in Yemen killed seven people including Abdul Rahman Anwar Awlaki, the 16-year-old son of al Awlaki.

In the case of Al Awlaki’s son, nothing has been published to suggest that he had been involved in any acts against the US, yet the Executive Branch’s rules for authorizing the murder of US Citizens using drones in non-combat areas and defining them as collateral damage supposedly gives the state, our state, total immunity from the law, from the Constitution. In other words, American courts cannot second-guess drone strikes that kill American citizens overseas.

What about killing American citizens here? So far, aside from the all out attack on the non-violent Occupy Wall Street movement, the massive surveillance of American citizens, and what appears to be random cases government sanctioned murder of American citizens, the ever-growing national security apparatus has focused on foreign as opposed to domestic "threats"...domestic threats to the plutocracy, that is. The scary part is that the oligarchy is becoming so confident of success that they're allowing the illusion of civil society to disappear, revealing the plutocrat's contempt for the "We the People".  It is becoming more evident every day and their true intent more clear. Don't for one second think anything the ruling class does is about keeping us safe. It's about keeping them "safe" from us.

“He who joyfully marches to music in rank and file has already earned my contempt. He has been given a large brain by mistake, since for him the spinal cord would fully suffice. This disgrace to civilization should be done away with at once. Heroism at command, senseless brutality, and all the loathsome nonsense that goes by the name of patriotism, how violently I hate all this, how despicable and ignoble war is; I would rather be torn to shreds than be part of so base an action! It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." - Albert Einstein

Read more...

It's "Always Nigger Season" Even When the President is Black

Or I might add especially when the President is black. At least when 'W' did something horribly  racist and criminal, as he often did, there were loud voices protesting  in opposition. But when Obama does the same thing, it’s considered good leadership. President Obama received 95% of the black vote. In return, African Americans received a check that came back stamped: insufficient funds. He tells African Americans to stop whining and pull themselves up by their own bootstraps while his actions set these same people up to fail and keep them trapped by his support of legislation--specifically, in this case, by actively trying to maintain racially discriminatory prison sentences--that further empowers and emboldens the New Jim Crow Lulled to sleep by the rhetoric of color-blindness and the appearance of great racial progress, most of us are blind this new form, or should I say, formless invisible institutional racism.

In UNITED STATES OF AMERICA v. CORNELIUS DEMORRIS BLEWETT (12-5226) and JARREOUS JAMONE BLEWITT (12-5582),, "a crack cocaine case brought by two currently incarcerated defendants seeking retroactive relief from racially discriminatory mandatory minimum sentences imposed on them in 2005," President Obama quietly tried to enforce racially biased federal crack cocaine laws that have since been repealed" by the  2010 Fair Sentencing Act. The Obama administration asked a federal appeals court to make sure thousands of people--almost all of them poor and most of them black--remain locked in prison despite a total lack of justification.

Crack cocaine and powder cocaine are "pharmacologically identical," the only difference being who consumes these pharmacologically identical substances: crack cocaine, the drug of mostly poor black folk, and powder cocaine, the drug of wealthier white folk. To be sure, young African American males are the most disposable, yet at the same time, profitable--for the for-profit prison industry--demographic in this prison nation. Not only do the private prisons prosper, corporations can put these people to work for a few cents an hour, not to mention, these human-beings are excluded from poverty statistics and unemployment data thus masking the severity of issues more than they already are.

Although Black people make up only 34% of crack users, they are 85% of those convicted on crack charges. As early as 2011, 30,000 people were serving time for crack charges in federal prison, 85% of them Black.

“…persistent bias occurred with respect to the contemporary enforcement of drug laws where, in the 1990s and early 2000s, blacks constituted a minority of regular users of crack cocaine but more than 80 percent of crack defendants.” -- Harvard Professor William J. Stuntz

As legal scholar Michelle Alexander argues, "we have not ended racial caste in America; we have merely redesigned it." One such strategy is through targeting black men and women (often mothers) through the "War on Drugs," decimating communities of color.

“There are more African American adults under correctional  control today, in prison or jail, on probation or parole, than were enslaved in 1850, a decade before the Civil War began. As of 2004, more black men were disenfranchised than in 1870, the year the 15th amendment was ratified explicitly prohibiting laws that deny the right to vote on the basis or race....During the Jim Crow era, poll taxes and literacy tests, circumvented the 15th amendment and operated to deny African Americans the right to vote. A black child born today has less of a chance of being raised by both parents than a black child born during slavery. This is due in large part to the mass incarceration of black men....The mass incarceration of black men take them out of the dating pool at the years they would be most likely to commit to a partner, to a family.  But, what's worse is that by branding them criminals and felons at early ages, often before they're even old enough to vote, they're rendered permanently unemployable in the legal job market, virtually guaranteeing that most will cycle in and out of prison, sometimes, for the rest of their lives. 
[...]
Today, in many states, felon disenfranchisement laws accomplish what poll taxes and literacy tests ultimately could not. This does not effect some small segment of the African American community. To the contrary, in many large urban areas, more than half of working age African American men now have criminal records and thus subject to legalized discrimination for the rest of their lives. In some cities--Baltimore, Philadelphia, Chicago (80%), DC--the statistics are far worse." -- Michelle Anderson, highly acclaimed civil rights lawyer, advocate, and Associate Professor of Law at Ohio State

The incarceration rate has quintupled over the last 30 years, from a prison population of 300,000 in the early 1970s to well over 2 million! During this same period of time that the incarceration rates increased exponentially, crime rates have fluctuated, leading most sociologists and criminologists to admit that incarceration rates and crime rates have moved independently of one another.

So for now the grant of en banc review puts Blewett relief for Sixth Circuit prisoners on hold. Why?  Is  the Department of Justice afraid of re-hearing thousands of old cases?  If so, can't President Obama just commute all of the pre-Fair-Sentencing-Act minimums to their equivalent minimums under the new law? Or is the reason for en banc review far more nefarious?

Links:

How the mass incarceration of black men harms black women.


Race to Incarcerate: A Graphic Retelling by Sabrina Jones and Marc Mauer

Stop the Drug War

Read more...

It's Always "Nigger Season"

Always “Nigger Season”  by Rev. Reynard N. Blake, Jr.

What is “Nigger Season?”

It’s George Zimmerman walking free

It’s all-white juries

When Skittles and iced tea become weapons

It’s a “justice system”

That’s soooo proficient

Putting black people in jail

And, can’t get justice for one

It’s 44 days for a killer to be arrested

It’s a damn “knock, knock” joke

Glib to black death

It’s white expectations of black violence

It’s Fox News jumping with glee

It’s their analysis being justified

It’s “Stop and Frisk” being justified

It’s colleges and universities fiending for black athletes

But dismantling affirmative action

Killing voting rights

Here’s what kills rednecks

Specifically, Republicans and Conservatives

This is what they think:

“A nigger president”

YET

That president

Wanting a “bromance”

Having a schoolboy crush on Republicans

Acting like one

Wanting to do their bidding

He kills for them

With them

Drones and all

Brown-skinned folks run

Soon to be turned on to Americans

Spy on them, too

We go from COINTELPRO to COINTELBRO

AND they STILL think he’s a nigger

(Like their boy, Clarence Thomas)

Conservatives and the GOP

Making his girls political fodder

Sanctioning one of their fellow “Crackers”

Talking about Michelle’s butt

It’s that same Cracker having fantasies

Of days of yore

Dreaming of being a slave owner

Or, a ship’s captain

Seeking the “good ol’ days”

Having his way with nigger bitches

Enhancing his proficiency with the lash

Bible on his right hip

(Analyzing it wickedly)

Gun on his left hip

Mastering the use of shackles

Aroused at thoughts

Wiping Native Americans and Africans

Whipping Native Americans and Africans

Christianizing Native Americans and Africans

(By dehumanizing them)

Off the face of the earth

Sensenbrenner feeling good about those fantasies

GOP couldn’t even feign to disavow him

But then, why should they?

If the hood fits WEAR IT!

DAMN HIM!

DAMN THEM ALL!

Some 2520s

Thinking, but not saying “nigger”

Prejudging black people

Associating them with the worst

Expecting them to be:

“The Chuckle People”

Joking and singing on TV and movies

And in the office

Or, acting like orifices

Or, expecting them to go to the “Big House”

And, I’m not writing about the U of M football field

Although for some that’s pleasing

“Run that ball, nigger!”

(“Look at that nigger run!”)

“Jump over that hurdle, nigger!”

“Slam that ball, nigger!”

“All the day long, nigger!”

“All the live-long day, nigger!”

Then, when those “niggers” are off the field

Or, the dance floor

Some 2520s think:

“Serve me quick, nigger!”

“I’ll pay you less nigger!”

“I’m Paula Deen, nigger!”

“This is Dixie, nigger!”

“Rather, this is America, nigger!”

“You’re just monkeys, nigger!”

(“What’s a ‘honky,’ nigger?”)

(“Why do you niggers say, ‘My nigger?’”)

“You just steal, nigger!”

“You’re hard to believe, nigger!”

“Even when you academically achieve, nigger!”

“You’re still OJ, nigger!”

“Not always OK, nigger!”

“I’m going to follow you in this store, nigger!”

“Even if you can pay for something, nigger!”

“You’ve got to have bad credit, nigger!”

“Killing Trayvon’s OK, nigger!”

(“Zimmerman’s my hero, nigger!”)

“Keep wearin’ a hoodie, nigger!”

“I’ll drop a cap in you, nigger!”

“I won’t even go to jail, nigger!”

(“Cause I can get better lawyers, nigger!”)

(“That’s why I don’t go to jail on drug charges, nigger!”)

“Be gone, nigger!”

“Get out my way, nigger!”

“Know your place, nigger!”

“They’re called ghettos, nigger!”

“Or, called barrios, nigger!”

“Or, reservations, nigger!”

“All of you look the same, anyway!”

“I’m always right, nigger!”

“Because I’m white, nigger!”

So, brothers and sisters of all hues

Of all races

Considering the events of the day

Any day

In America

Or, globally

How should I feel?

What should I believe?

Based on the evidence

Based on my experience

Based on what I see:

Without rhyme or reason

IT’S ALWAYS NIGGER SEASON!

Read more...

Meet the Exonerated From Death Row Updates Alabama through Louisiana

Daniel Wade Moore [Alabama Conviction: 2002, Acquitted: 2009]  spent six years on death row for a crime he did not commit.  He was acquitted of all charges by a jury in Alabama on May 14. .

Moore was originally found guilty of the murder and sexual assault of Karen Tipton in 2002. The judge overruled the jury’s recommendation of a life sentence and instead sentenced him to death in January 2003, calling the murder one of the worst ever in the county.

A new trial was ordered in 2003 because of evidence withheld by the prosecution. (See State V. Moore, No. CR-04--0805, Ala. Ct. of Crim. App. (2206) (providing procedural summary at pp.2-3; the circuit judge's order for a new trial was upheld by the Ala. Supreme Court, State v. Moore, No. Ms. 1030218, Nov. 6, 2003)). A second trial in 2008 ended in a mistrial with the jury deadlocked at 8-4 for acquittal.

Judge Glenn Thompson, who originally sentenced Moore to death, ordered a retrial upon discovery that the prosecution had withheld important evidence. "Orders were entered in any capital case, that whatever the state has, whatever the prosecutor has, whatever the investigation has they should provide that to the defendant," said Judge Thompson. The evidence missing was a 256-page F.B.I. report.

“The prosecution, Mr. Valeska specifically, looked me in the eye and said, quote, 'there ain't no such thing as an F.B.I. report.' Well, there probably wasn't a report, but there were 256 pages of information collected by Decatur police officers that were sent to the F.B.I.," -- Judge Thompson

According to Judge Thompson, Assistant Attorney General Don Valeska later came to him confessing there was withheld information. "Mr. Valeska came forward with the information after the conviction," said Judge Thompson. “Clearly, the only remedy was to grant him a new trial and I did," he said. "It frustrated and angered me that he would be willing to lie to the court," he continued.

Meanwhile, the Alabama Court of Criminal Appeals ordered Judge Thompson to stand down from the trial and continued to let Valeska prosecute Moore. Upon hearing the jury’s not guilty verdict, Judge Thompson responded, "I felt like it was the only conclusion that a jury could reach if they actually followed the law." Thompson also said that the problems with the prosecution withholding evidence continued throughout the 10 years of the case. Just days before the current trial started, the prosecution called the defense saying they had just found new evidence from the victim's home computer.

Seth Penalver, [Florida conviction: 1999, Acquitted: 2012] spent 13 years in prison, seven of which were on death row.

On December 21, Seth Penalver was acquitted of all charges and will be freed from Florida's death row, 13 years after being sentenced to death. He was originally charged with a triple murder and armed robbery that occurred in Broward County in 1994. His first trial ended with a deadlocked jury. At his second trial in 1999, he was convicted and sentenced to death. In 2006, the Florida Supreme Court (Penalver v. Florida, No. SC00-1602, Feb. 2, 2006) overturned his conviction because the prosecution had introduced improper evidence at his trial. A co-defendant, Pablo Ibar, was also sentenced to death and remains on death row. A video from the crime scene helped convict Ibar, but images showing another suspect were inconclusive. Penalver has always maintained his innocence. At Penalver's most recent trial, which began 5 months ago, the jury was deadlocked 10-2, and both the prosecution and defense agreed to replace two jurors with alternates who had attended the proceedings. The newly constituted jury began deliberations afresh and found Penalver not guilty of all charges. Penalver is the 142nd person to be exonerated and freed from death row since 1973, and the 24th such person in Florida, the most of any state.

Nathson Fields [Illinois Conviction: 1986, Acquitted: 2009] spent nearly two decades behind bars, including more than 11.5 years on Death Row for a crime he did not commit.

 Nathson Fields,  and a co-defendant were sentenced to death for the 1984 murders of two rival gang members. The original trial, however, was marred by corruption, as the the judge in the case, Circuit Judge Thomas Maloney, accepted a $10,000 bribe during the trial.

Thomas Maloney, who died in 2008, was ultimately convicted and spent 13 years in prison for fixing murder trials. As a result, Fields and co-defendant Earl Hawkins were granted new trials in 1998. Hawkins, who had admitted to killing 15 to 20 people, testified against Fields in exchange for a lesser sentence. However, at Fields' retrial, Judge Vincent Gaughan found Hawkins "incredible," saying that "If someone has such disregard for human life, what regard will he have for his oath?"

Fields spent almost twenty years in prison, including 11.5 years on death row. He was released on bond in 2003 while awaiting retrial and has been residing outside of Chicago. This is the 19th exoneration from death row in Illinois since 1973, which is second only to Florida in the number of exonerations.

Following the not guilty verdict handed down by Judge Gaughan, Fields said,

“I feel like my prayers have been answered...It's been 24 years of this ordeal for my family and my friends, and now with it coming to an end, it's like a dream come true." -- Nathson Fields

(M. Walberg, “23 years after judicial misconduct, ex-gang leader freed," Chicago Tribune, April 9, 2009). (R. Hussain, Man formerly on death row acquitted in retrial,” Chicago Sun-Times, April 8, 2009). See also People v. Hawkins, et al., 181 Ill.2d 41 (January 29, 1998) (upholding a circuit court's reversal of Fields' and Hawkins' convictions).

Damon Thibodeaux [Louisiana conviction: 1997, Charges dismissed: 2012] spent 15 years on death row convicted for a crime he did not commit.

On September 28 2012, Damon Thibodeaux was freed from death row in Louisiana after an extensive investigation, including DNA testing and the cooperation of Jefferson Parrish District Attorney Paul Connick. Thibodeaux was sentenced to death for the 1996 rape and murder of his cousin. He at first confessed to the attack after a nine-hour interrogation by detectives. He recanted a few hours later and claimed his confession was coerced. In releasing Thibodeaux, Connick said, "I have concluded that the primary evidence in this case, the confession, is unreliable. Without the confession the conviction can't stand, and therefore in the interest of justice, it must be vacated."

Thibodeaux spent 15 years on death row in Angola. The reinvestigation of the case cost more than $500,000, an expense shared by the defense and prosecution. Regarding his early statement to the police, Thibodeaux noted, "They look for vulnerable points where they can manipulate you, and if you’re sleep-deprived or panicked, or you’re on something or drunk, it makes it that much easier to accomplish what they want to accomplish.... I was willing to tell them anything they wanted me to tell them if it would get me out of that interrogation room.”

Read more...

Meet the Exonerated: Massachusetts Death Row

Laurence Adams spent 30 years in prison--one of those years on death row--for a crime he did not commit. Adams escaped execution because Massachusetts had abolished capital punishment soon after he was sentenced.

In March 1974, Laurence Adams was convicted and sentenced to death as one of allegedly three men who had beaten, robbed, and killed a subway porter in Boston in 1972.

In March 1973, Harry Ambers confessed to the crime and implicated Adams along with his own brother, Warren Ambers as his accomplices. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts eliminated the death penalty one year after Adams’ conviction and his sentence was changed to life imprisonment.

Adams was further implicated in the murder by the testimony of Prosecution witnesses, Wyatt Moore and his sister Lynne (Suzie) Moore, who testified that Adams had admitted to committing the crime with the Ambers brothers. Exculpatory evidence in the files of the Boston Police Department was not revealed until decades later. This included the fact that Suzie recanted her trial testimony, admitting that she had testified to help get her brother out of jail. Wyatt was being held on serious felony charges, (and he was released the day after Adams’ trial). In fact, Wyatt Moore was in prison on the same date Adams allegedly confessed his participation in the crime to the Moores. Police further withheld a sworn statement from a witness who said that Harry Ambers had confessed that he and his brother Warren alone had committed the murder.

In May, 2004, the Superior Court Justice allowed a Motion for Postconviction Relief and ordered a new trial because records, witness statements, and police reports that had not been disclosed were considered newly discovered evidence. However, in June the district attorney announced that, “the state was dropping the case because witnesses are dead and physical evidence is lacking,” (Boston Herald, June 8, 2004, at 26). Adams was released after 30 years of incarceration.

Lawyer Johnson Massachusetts Conviction: 1971, Charges Dismissed: 1982
Lawyer Johnson was sentenced to death by an all white jury for the murder of James Christian, a white victim. In 1982, the charges were dropped when a previously silent eyewitness, Dawnielle Montiero, who was 10 years old when the murder was committed, says the real killer, Kenneth Myers, was the man who testified against Johnson in two previous trials, the state's chief witness as the actual killer.

Johnson has said all along that he was not at the scene, but in two trials could not prove it so he spent ten years incarcerated for a crime he did not commit.

In 1983, a bill was filed to obtain compensation for Johnson's wrongful conviction. (Commonwealth v. Johnson, 429 N.E.2d 726 (1982)).

“In an interview yesterday in his mother's house, where he has lived since he was released in February on bail, Johnson said that "anger destroys," but still he is bitter about the legal system that twice convicted him, once to death, and once to life in prison. He accused prosecutors of manipulating both the jury and the testimony because they cared only about getting a conviction, not about the truth.

"It was a legal lynching," he said. The prosecution, he said, "fabricated and conspired" with Meyers. Both juries were all white; the murder victim was white, too, and Johnson, who is black, said the racial fears of the jurors were played on by the prosecution.

"I totally believed in the system of justice," he said. "My faith in the system is gone."

 

Louis Greco died in prison following a 1965 Chelsea murder conviction and was posthumously exonerated.

Louis Greco joined the Army before World War II, became a professional prizefighter, and was sent off to combat in the South Pacific. He won two Bronze Stars, a Purple Heart and came back disabled for life with a shattered ankle and no future in the ring.

With a sixth grade education, he did what a lot of broken-down fighters did in that era, he sold his muscle as an enforcer and worked as a repo man for the mob.

In 1965, Louis Greco and his co-defendants were convicted in the murder of a small-time hoodlum named Teddy Deegan in a Chelsea alley. The prosecution charged Louis Greco with being the shooter and the three others as accessories to conspiracy. Greco was sentenced to death, as were Limone and Tameleo.

Greco submitted himself to eight different lie detector tests administered by outside experts and passed all eight of them. He wasn't even in Massachusetts at the time of the shooting; he was in Florida. Judge Gertner would declare that the FBI had deliberately withheld exculpatory evidence at the 1968 trial: namely, that its star witness, a contract killer for the Mob, was telling considerably less than the whole truth. The Justice Department task force's discovered compelling new evidence that Greco and his co-defendants were actually innocent of the murder of Edward Deegan.

Peter Limone Massachusetts Conviction: 1968, Charges Dismissed: 2001
Thirty -three years after being convicted and sentenced to death for a 1965 murder, Peter Limone's conviction was overturned (Commonwealth v. Limone, 2001 Mass. Super. LEXIS 7 (2001)) and the case against him officially dropped.

The move came as a result of a Justice Department task force's discovery of compelling new evidence that Limone and his co-defendants Joseph Salvati, Henry Tamelo, and Louis Greco were actually innocent of the murder of Edward Deegan.

In 1968, all four were convicted and Limone was sentenced to die in Massachusetts' electric chair, but was spared in 1974 when Massachusetts abolished the death penalty and his sentence was commuted to life in prison. Salvati, who was released from prison in 1997 when the governor commuted his sentence, received word from prosecutors that they were dropping the case against him as well. Tamelo and Greco both died in prison.

At trial, the main witness against the four men was Joseph Barboza, a hit man cooperating with prosecutors, who later admitted that he had fabricated much of his testimony. The recently revealed FBI documents show that informants had told the FBI before the murder that Deegan would soon be killed and by whom, and a memorandum after the crime listed the men involved. Neither list included Limone, Salvati, Tamelo or Greco. (New York Times, 2/2/01 and Boston Herald, 1/21/01)

Henry "The Referee" Temeleo  was one of the founding members of the Boston criminal activities along with Phil Buccola and Joe Lombardo. Henry Tamaelo was also a member of the Bonanno Family and was the underboss of Family boss Raymond Patriarca in the 1950's till the end of the 1960's. In 1967 he and Patriarca were arrested for the murder of bookmaker Willie Marfeo. Before the trial's conclusion, Tameleo, along with Peter Limone, Louis Greco and Jospeh Salvati were indicted for the murder of Edward "Teddy" Deegan on March 12, 1965. In 1968, all four men were found guily of the Deegan murder in the Superior Court of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, and sentenced to death by the state. This penalty was later reduced to life in prison, where Tameleo died in 1985.

By 2000, all charges were dismissed against Tameleo and the other accused men, amid a flurry of accusations of a government frame-up and cover-up extending over thirty years. In 2007, a federal judge in Boston awarded damages of $101.7 million to the four men who were wrongly convicted for Deegan's murder in 1965 after Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) agents H. Paul Rico, Dennis Condon, John Morris, and John Connolly took affirmative steps to withhold evidence of their innocence in order to protect FBI informants Vincent Flemmi and Joseph Barboza. $13 million went to the estate of Enrico Tameleo, specifically his son, Saverio, as administrator of the Tameleo estate, and Tameleo's wife Jeanette.

Read more...

Lawless America: Justice Denied.

From the wrongfully convicted to outrageous sentences for victimless "crimes", to outright harassment by law enforcement, our prisons are overflowing with people denied justice. Unfortunately, corrupt judges and corrupt government officials are not the exception, they are the rule. In other words, this is not a case of a few bad apples, it's the result of not only an elitist and prohibitively expensive system of "justice" but also a for-profit incarceration system.

Let's face it. Law is only as good as our ability to enforce that law, and without a high-priced attorney, it's only the exceptional American who can find true justice without one. Even with a high-priced attorney, you are at his or her mercy, as we the people are not officers of the court, and therefore, lack subpoena power and knowledge of the inner-workings of the court.

Here are a few examples from Lawless America:

Tiarra Fain, from Virginia, served three years in jail and paid a $1700 fine for parking in a fire zone for 25 seconds, failing to produce her driver's license (driver's license suspended for not paying a speeding ticket), and giving a false name to the policeman because she borrowed her friend's car and she didn't want her friend's car impounded. At the time of sentencing, Tiarra was seven months pregnant. For this victimless "crime" she gave birth to her son shackled to a bed.



Daniel Weber's (from Iron County Utah) son was incarcerated for a misdemeanor amount of marijuana, contained in a child-proof bottle, that he used to treat his severe headaches. However, the police did not show up because they suspected marijuana; rather, the police traced his son's ip address to check on some computer equipment he bought online, which was out in the open for the police to see. Yet the police still insisted on searching his home, and that's when they found the small amount of raw marijuana. From there, Weber's son was accused of cultivating marijuana, despite the total lack of evidence.



Travis Braun, a small business owner (Edible Decorative Landscapes which teaches people how to grow food) from Iron County, Cedar City Utah, pulled out of a liquor store parking lot and after traveling five blocks was pulled over for supposedly failing to turn on his blinkers. Moreover, the cop told Travis he had no insurance. When Travis pulled out his insurance information, the cop made Travis do a field sobriety test. He passed five of the six points--took 11 steps instead of 9-- and had a 0.014 (one-tenth of a beer) reading from the breathalyzer test. Six cops kicked Travis in the face, tazed him twice, dislocating his L4 vertebrae, and basically beat the crap out of him (all of this is on video). At this point, Travis fell into an epileptic seizure. At the hospital, they arrested Travis for assault on a police officer, resisting arrest, DUI metabolite, and possession of marijuana...all false charges.

After he was bailed out of jail, he went through the law enforcement chain of command, and they all said they backed their police officers, 100% and will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law to which Travis responded that he would go to the newspapers and file a lawsuit. From that point on, Travis has endured outright harassment from the police. They even raided his house, based on a statement from an unverified source, blowing the back door off its hinges, and without finding one iota of evidence, claimed he was growing marijuana, manufacturing mushrooms, selling drugs, etc.

After he bailed out a second time, they dropped the charges, but sent the "case" to the feds. A few days later, the U.S. Marshall's showed up at his house and arrested him in front of his six kids for selling a weapon by a restricted person, a person he met only one time. Threatening him with ten years, he told them, fine, lets go to trial. He spent six months waiting in jail. One week before the trial, the feds dropped all charges for lack of evidence. The state picked it back up and refiled the charges.

Travis has been fighting these cases for four years now, yet he still hasn't been to court. Every time it's time to go to trial, they postpone it for one excuse or another. They even raided his attorney's house, then arresting him again on trumped up domestic abuse charges (he punched a hole in the wall on his way out after an argument). He spent another five months in jail.



Johnita M. DeMatteo's son, Joseph DeMatteo, deaf since birth, and a member of a biker group, was merely having a conversation (he can read lips) in a bar in Rome NY, when he was told to get out of the way. Being deaf, he did not hear the command, and was subsequently grabbed from the behind and thrown out. The police were called and he was arrested and sent to jail. The judge threatened that if he didn't accept the plea bargain he could get up to 15 years for merely being associated with a biker gang.



Sandy Fonzo's son committed suicide after being incarcerated in what became known as the "Kids for Cash" scandal.



Judge Mary Elizabeth Bullock on the corrupt judicial system.



Hans Sherrer, president of "Justice Denied" who works with the wrongfully convicted.

Read more...