From [HERE] A panel of federal judges in San Antonio has ruled that a handful of Texas congressional districts drawn by the Republican-dominated state Legislature in 2011 discriminated against black and Hispanic voters and violated the Voting Rights Act and the Constitution.
The ruling striking down the maps was made late Friday. It is the latest development in a long-running and racially charged redistricting case that locked Democratic lawmakers, minority groups, the Obama administration and the Texas Republican leadership in a legal battle for nearly six years. Democrats and civil-rights lawyers accused the majority-white Texas Republican leadership of drawing district maps in ways that diluted the voting power of Democratic-leaning minority voters, accusations that Republicans denied.
“The court’s decision exposes the Texas Legislature’s illegal effort to dilute the vote of Texas Latinos,” said Nina Perales, the vice president of litigation for the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, which represented a coalition of Latino organizations that sued Texas over the redistricting maps. “Moving forward, the ruling will help protect Latinos from manipulation of district lines in order to reduce their political clout.”
The next steps in the case were unclear. Texas is likely to appeal the decision, and because of the legal dynamics, any appeal would go directly to the Supreme Court. The process of redrawing the maps may be delayed not only by an appeal but also because the San Antonio panel has yet to rule on another aspect of the case, the district maps drawn for the state’s House of Representatives.
The Texas attorney general’s office did not respond to a request for comment.
The judicial panel’s decision came eight months after a federal appeals court ruled in a separate case that the state’s tough voter-identification law needed to be made less restrictive because it discriminated against minority voters who lacked the required government-issued photo IDs. The Republican-led Legislature that passed the voter ID bill in 2011 also passed the contested redistricting maps.
Friday’s decision means that in the span of months, two federal courts in two voting-rights cases found that the 2011 session of the Texas Legislature discriminated against black and Hispanic voters.
“Republicans have ensured that the dark days of discrimination in Texas continue to loom, but the sun will soon shine,” Gilberto Hinojosa, the chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, said in a statement after the redistricting decision. “In time, justice prevails.”
From [HERE] A report published by The League of Women Voters of Kentucky on Monday says that over 300,000 residents are barred from voting due to Kentucky’s lifetime voting bans on people with felony convictions.
The report says the figure (312,000 residents,) is an increase of 68,000 residents since their report in 2013, and 126,000 since the 2006 report.
Titled, “Felony Disenfranchisement in the Commonwealth of Kentucky,” the report also says Kentucky is third in the nation in the rate of disenfranchisement, and first in the disenfranchisement of African Americans.
Other notable figures include:
One of every 11 adults in Kentucky is ineligible to vote due to a previous felony conviction, a rate of 9.1 percent, nearly three times the national average of 2.47 percent or one in 40.
Among African Americans, almost one in four is disenfranchised, a rate of 26.2 percent, more than triple the national rate of 9.1 percent.
92 percent of those disenfranchised live in the community and 78 percent have completed their full sentence.
Kentucky is one of four states to ban former felons from voting.
The League of Women Voters of Kentucky also included recommendations for alleviating disenfranchisement of individuals with felony convictions, suggesting:
A ballot measure to allow Kentucky voters to decide whether people living in the community and who have completed their full sentence have their voting rights restored automatically;
Increased assistance to eligible persons with the restoration of voting rights application process;
Increasing public education about the process of restoring voting rights and available resources to help those wishing to vote;
Annual release of data on the number of people applying for restoration of voting rights and expungement of felony records and the number approved and denied
Reduction and/or waiver of the $500 application fee for expungement of felony records.
“The League was created by women who struggled many years seeking the right to vote,” said Nita Smith, co-president of the state League. “We believe citizens who have made a mistake should have that right reinstated once they have completed their full sentence and/or parole. The League of Women Voters believes that our society is stronger when all of our citizens vote.”
Corey Batchelor spent about 15 years in prison for a 1989 murder of a white cop's wife.From [HERE] Attorneys for two Black men convicted of the 1989 murder of a retired Chicago police sergeant’s wife were headed to court Wednesday, seeking to prove their innocence based on DNA evidence and allegations of police torture.
Kevin Bailey and Corey Batchelor were 19 when they were found guilty of the fatal stabbing of Lula Mae Woods, whose body was found in the garage of her home in June 1989.
Police said an informant who claimed Batchelor admitted to the killing led to the arrests of the two suspects. They were convicted without physical evidence linking them to the crime, based largely on confessions.
Innocence Project attorney Jarrett Adams said recent DNA evidence proves Bailey and Batchelor are innocent. He said hair from a Domino’s Pizza hat found under Woods’ body does not match either man’s DNA, and neither does DNA evidence on a bloody towel found at the scene.
“Let me be very clear: I don’t want the listeners to feel like this is an attack on the police. At the same time, we know that technology, science has advanced. So now we have clear and convincing evidence of their innocence,” Adams said. “It was not Kevin Bailey and it was not Corey Batchelor.”
The case also has ties to detectives who worked for notorious Chicago Police Cmdr. Jon Burge. Batchelor has claimed detectives under Burge’s command tortured him into confessing to the murder.
“We have evidence of these same individual officers in different cases with the same allegations: choking, the beating, the smacking with a phone book,” Adams said.
Batchelor was sentenced to 30 years, and freed from prison on parole in 2004, but Bailey has remained behind bars on an 80-year sentence.
“Corey Batchelor is out, but he’s incarcerated minus the bars. Kevin Bailey, he’s still in prison. Each day that goes by is a gamble, because prisons aren’t country clubs,” Adams said.
From [HERE] Maybe someday it will menacingly order citizens to drop their weapons — or else — a la Robocop.
But for now, the Knightscope crime-fighting robots, demonstrated for the University of Texas at Arlington Police Department and the media on Thursday, are limited to less aggressive tasks like scanning license plates for unauthorized vehicles or alerting authorities to people in restricted areas.
Or, for mall bots, telling shoppers how to get to Macy’s. And they’re always videotaping and collecting data, including markers that help identify nearby wireless devices. Those latter skills helped solve a robbery recently, said Knightscope co-founder and former UTA student Stacy Stephens
But he has much higher expectations for the technology.
“Long-term, our ultimate goal is to be able to predict and prevent crime,” he said, by analyzing past data with real-time, on-site information collected by the robots. “Then maybe we have the ability to put the robots into a patrol state where they are hitting those hotspots.”
The demonstration model rolling slowly around the halls of UTA’s College Park Center on Thursday morning was the Knightscope K3, a 4-foot-4, 300-pound, bullet-shaped robot, which looked like a slower version of the motorized — and creepy — tackling dummies showing up on more NFL practice fields.
And of course, comparisons with whistling and chirping R2D2, the more charming Star Wars utility droid, are inescapable.
Knightscope, based in Mountain View, Calif., has about two dozen robots employed through leases to about a dozen clients, all in California, including Microsoft, the Westfield Shopping Centers, Juniper Network and the Sacramento Kings.
The demonstration was the company’s first in Texas. The UTA police hosted the event and “definitely have an interest” in the product, though no decisions have been made, said Assistant Chief Patrick Bridges.
“We’re always looking for new ideas and new technology that will make our jobs safer and easier and protect our communities,” Bridges said. “It’s amazing technology.”
The robots, encased in a lightweight composite material Stephens called “similar to a Corvette,” roam freely at up to 3 mph within the confines of a programmed “geo-fence” that defines their beats.
The robots detect crimes or violations using a video camera and an array of sensors, including thermal imaging and air quality sensors, and a microphone that someone in distress can use to talk directly with security.
Officers can use smartphones to sync with a robot for real-time viewing of video and alerts that could help them do their job better. For example, the robot could detect a black-listed license plate number of a dangerous person, Stephens said, providing a chance to “keep domestic violence from becoming workplace violence.”
The K3’s sibling is the K5, a taller, more durable version for outdoor patrols, and a four-wheel version for scaling rougher terrain will be launched later this year, said Stephens. [MORE]
From [WashPost] Nefi Flores had been in an immigration detention center in Tacoma, Wash., for three months when a fellow inmate told him there was a company that could help him get out.
Libre by Nexus was barely a year old. But by the time Flores heard of the company in June 2014, it had grown from a tiny operation in rural Virginia into a booming national business.
More than 350,000 undocumented immigrants were detained between Oct. 1, 2015, and Sept. 30, 2016 — a number that could rise this year under President Trump’s immigration crackdown. As asylum seekers, visa violators and those charged with crimes wait for their cases to be heard in badly backlogged immigration courts,thousands are eligible for bail, just as they would be in criminal courts. Yet few can afford it.
Libre has found a niche helping them post their bonds — for a price.
In exchange for their freedom, immigrants sign contracts promising to pay Libre $420 per month while wearing the company’s GPS devices. But these contracts are the subject of lawsuits and allegations of fraud by immigrants such as Flores who claim they didn’t understand them.
In interviews with The Washington Post, a dozen of Libre’s clients said they struggled to pay the monthly fee for the device — which they call a “grillete,” or shackle — and feared if they didn’t, they would be detained again.
Most said Libre employees threatened them with exactly that. One asylum seeker said he was so afraid of being sent back to detention that he returned to Honduras, where he is in hiding.
Micheal Donovan, Libre’s co-founder and chief executive, disputed those allegations by former clients. He said the company explains its contracts and doesn’t pressure anyone to sign them. He also denied that clients are threatened and said Libre has never returned anyone to Immigration and Customs Enforcement for failing to pay. Although some immigrants also report injuries from the GPS devices, he maintained they are safe and fairly priced.
From [NY Times] and [MORE] Wait a minute, didn’t President Trump say he had inherited a mess? Yet there he was on Friday retweeting a Twitter post about the solid February jobs report. “GREAT AGAIN:+235,000.”
He may want to take credit for the 235,000 jobs created last month, but at this early stage of his administration, the tally reflects trends established under President Obama.
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), the economy created 235,000 jobs in February 2017 and the unemployment rate fell to 4.7 percent, building on a record-breaking 77-month streak of job creation dating to 2010:
Total nonfarm payroll employment increased by 235,000 in February, and the unemployment rate was little changed at 4.7 percent, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment gains occurred in construction, private educational services, manufacturing, health care, and mining.
The change in total nonfarm payroll employment for December was revised down from +157,000 to +155,000, and the change for January was revised up from +227,000 to +238,000. With these revisions, employment gains in December and January combined were 9,000 more than previously reported. Monthly revisions result from additional reports received from businesses since the last published estimates and from the recalculation of seasonal factors. Over the past 3 months, job gains have averaged 209,000 per month. [Bureau of Labor Statistics, February 2017]
February 2017 Report Is The First BLS Data Release Of Trump’s Presidency. The February 2017 report, released on March 10, marked the first jobs and unemployment data released by the BLS to reflect labor market conditions during the Trump administration. Fox News and other right-wing outlets had mistakenly hyped positive jobs data for January, which were released on February 3, as “great” and “fantastic news” for Trump even though the reference week for those data ended before he took office. [Media Matters, 2/3/17]
Trump Retweets Matt Drudge: “GREAT AGAIN: +235,000.” Minutes after the jobs report was released, President Donald Trump’s official Twitter account retweeted right-wing conspiracy peddler Matt Drudge summarizing the jobs data as “GREAT AGAIN: +235,000.” Drudge linked to an article from Bloomberg that notes that the jobs report, which included a spike in construction employment, may have been buoyed by unseasonably warm weather last month:
Remember When Cable News Helped Trump Push His Conspiracy Theory That Jobs Numbers Were “Phony”?
February 2016: “It's A Phony Number, Bill. The Number Is 25 Percent, And Probably Higher Than That.” During an appearance on the February 5, 2016, edition of Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor, Trump, then a presidential candidate, falsely claimed that the real unemployment rate was “25 percent, and probably higher,” in response to the suggestion that President Barack Obama deserved credit for bringing the unemployment rate down to 4.9 percent -- its lowest point in eight years: [see video at top] [MORE]
With a long record of demeaning Black people, Trump's ideas about helping Blacks are just paper boats. From [HERE] Before, during, and after his inaugural speech, President Dummy Trump promised to fix “inner cities,” which he’s conflates with the supposedly crime-infested neighborhoodswhere African Americans and Latinos live. [MORE] Less than two months into his presidency, he’s very close to breaking that promise.
Under the Office of Management and Budget’s (OMB) latest budget proposal, the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) — the federal agency tasked with expanding housing access for low-income families — could stand to lose billions of dollars. According to the Washington Post, the proposal calls for $6 billion to be cut from the department’s budget for Fiscal Year 2018. And the pool of money for public housing repairs and the Community Development Block Grant Program will be hit especially hard.
The budget will also gut community development spending altogether, cutting $4 billion from funding that was once geared toward projects like neighborhood clean-ups, creating an exercise trail, and building Boys and Girls Club facilities, according to the Post.
A “tough-on-crime” president, Trump keeps saying he wants to help poor Black people escape their poverty and violent neighborhoods. He picked Ben Carson to lead HUD and advance his “urban renewal” agenda, and even convinced Black comedian and TV host Steve Harvey to publicly talk up his administration’s efforts. But the latest OMB budget would eliminate billions of dollars in assistance for low-income urban neighborhoods.
“These sorts of cuts could . . . increase the number of families and people that are homeless because housing is less affordable,” President Marc Morial of the National Urban League Morial told the Post. “It’s a slap in the face of working Americans, urban communities, to suggest that you should make all these cuts to buy more tankers, aircraft carriers and missile systems.”
"Racism is a virus in the mind" - Dr. Blynd.As explained by Dr. Amos Wilson many whites see "Blacks [non-whites]as the primary impediment to governing" and many working class, non-college educated whites express a profound distaste for blacks, a sentiment that pervades almost everything they think about government and politics. Blacks constitute the explanation for these white voters' vulnerability and provide an explanation for almost everything that has gone wrong in their lives; not being black is what constitutes being middle class; not living with blacks is what makes a neighborhood a decent place to live ... The special status of blacks is perceived by almost all of these individuals as a serious obstacle to their personal advancement. [MORE] The mention of census data [Fear of a non-white planet] and the word "Obama" are triggers to this delusional idiocy. Racists want to be deceived, dominated & feel necessary to Trump's domination and deceiver Trump will oblige with his "granfalloons":
From [Media Matters] Fake news purveyors are invoking conspiracy theories and false claims to back up President Donald Trump’s lie that former President Barack Obama directly ordered a wiretap on him at Trump Tower during the 2016 election.
Trump Echoes Right-Wing Media, Makes Evidence-Free Claim That Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower
Trump Pushed Baseless Right-Wing Media Claim That Obama Administration Spied On Him During Election. President Donald Trump accused former President Barack Obama of improperly tapping Trump’s communications during the presidential campaign. In a series of tweets, Trump cited no evidence to support his allegation, which, according to BuzzFeed, “appears to have followed a path through the pro-Trump media” and may have been sparked by a right-wing radio host’s commentary that was featured in a Breitbart.com post. From BuzzFeed’s March 4 report:
Without offering a scintilla of evidence, President Donald Trump on Saturday accused former President Barack Obama of spying on him by ordering the wiretapping of phones in Trump Tower during the 2016 election campaign — a charge the former leader denied.
Like much of what Trump tweets, the Obama wiretap claim appears to have followed a path through the pro-Trump media. The president may have been referring to an article from alt-right media outlet Breitbart, which makes claims that Obama worked to undermine Trump during the election. The Breitbart story references a segment from conservative commentator Mark Levin’s Thursday night radio show in which he said Obama used surveillance techniques to gather information on Trump.
In a series of early morning tweets on Saturday, Trump shared the claims: “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
“Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!”
[...]
In further tweets, Trump claimed a “good lawyer could make a great case” out of the alleged phone-tapping.
He also called Obama a “bad (or sick) guy,” comparing him to former President Richard Nixon and the infamous Watergate scandal. [BuzzFeed, 3/4/17]
CNN’s Jake Tapper: Trump “Got The Info About Wiretap From Media - Breitbart, Levin - Not From [Government] Sources." CNN’s Jake Tapper reported that Trump relied on Breitbart.com and conservative talk radio host Mark Levin as the sources for his claim:
Fake News Purveyors Are Defending Trump’s Lie By Pushing Conspiracy Theories And False Claims
CONSPIRACY THEORY: Obama Pushed DOJ For Warrants To Wiretap Trump And Associates
Angry Patriot: Obama Could Have “Press[ed] The Department Of Justice’s Lawyers To Request” A FISA Warrant. Fake news purveyor Angry Patriot suggested that Obama could have “press[ed] the Department of Justice’s lawyers to request a warrant via the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).” From the article (emphasis original):
The denial itself appears to be more of a confession of guilt rather than a profession of innocence. While the Obama camp claims Obama never “directly” ordered the tap, the wording left the door wide open that wiretap was indeed ordered through secondary channels. In other words, being aware of and having the words come directly out of Obama’s mouth are two different things where Obama is concerned. (via Breitbart)
But here’s the thing… Obama was the president and all departments of our government fell under his watch so regardless of what Dems want everyone to believe, if it happened, Obama himself is guilty as charged!
The Democrats are relying on slippery language to defend Obama. While it is true that the president cannot “order” a wiretap, he can press the Department of Justice’s lawyers to request a warrant via the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
[...]
To me, it sounds like Obama officials, or the man himself, pressured the court to give in. However, Dems still argue that Obama is guiltless, and that since the second wiretap was approved, this must be proof that Trump is guilty of a crime. Newsflash: you do not need proof that a crime was committed to get a warrant for surveillance. [Angry Patriot, accessed 3/5/17; Media Matters, 12/14/16]
Racist Idiot Sean Hannity Says Obama's Campaign Database Is Proof Of A Shadow Government
Mad World News: “Obama Had His Department Of Justice Lackey Loretta Lynch” Request A FISA Warrant. Fake news purveyor Mad World News claimed that “Obama had his Department of Justice lackey Loretta Lynch petition the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court” to wiretap Trump in June, but “when that initial application failed, Obama had the DOJ rewrite it with bogus allegations that Obama thought Trump had some nefarious dealings with Russian banks, making sure it would be granted in October.” From the March 5 article:
President Donald Trump is blasting Barack Obama as overwhelming evidence proves that the former president spied on Trump as far back as June 2016. Shocking details of Obama’s plot are now known, including wiretapping Trump Tower. Obama is running scared, trying to explain what he did while mounting evidence points to the former president and other leading Democrats all being guilty of treason.
[...]
The treasonous plot to overthrow Donald Trump started as far back as June 2016 when he became the GOP nominee. Barack Obama, no doubt with Hillary Clinton’s approval, hatched a plan to wiretap Trump Tower to listen in on all of the Republican nominee’s communications.
Obama had his Department of Justice lackey Loretta Lynch petition the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC, also called the FISA Court) in June for the wiretapping, but when that initial application failed, Obama had the DOJ rewrite it with bogus allegations that Obama thought Trump had some nefarious dealings with Russian banks, making sure it would be granted in October.
So, a month before the 2016 election, Obama had Trump Tower wiretapped. He listened in on everything going on at the opposition’s headquarters. This is exactly what police states do; they bug private citizens, and they interfere in free elections, making Obama as bad as any communist dictator. [Mad World News, 3/5/17; Media Matters, 12/14/16]
FACT: Obama And Intelligence Officials Said There Was No Surveillance Order
Obama Spokesperson “Issued A Strong Denial” To Trump’s Claims. A spokesperson for Obama “issued a strong denial” of Trump’s claims, according to ABC News. In the statement, Obama spokesperson Kevin Lewis said that “neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen,” adding, “Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.” [ABC News, 3/4/17]
Former Intelligence Head James Clapper: “There Was No Such Wiretap Activity Mounted Against” Trump Or His Campaign. Former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper told NBC’s Chuck Todd that “for the part of the national security apparatus that I oversaw as DNI, there was no such wiretap activity mounted against the president-elect at the time or as a candidate or against his campaign.” From the March 5 edition of NBC’s Meet the Press:
From [HERE] The New York Police Department [official website] (NYPD) reached a new settlement [text] on Monday over its surveillance of Muslims after a federal judge rejected an earlier deal [JURIST report] in October. The new settlement would create greater oversight of the NYPD's intelligence-gathering programs by a civilian representative. In the original rejection of the case, the judge stated that the agreement did not ensure that the NYPD would be limited in how it could monitor political and religious activity. Zachary Carter, head of New York City's law department, said [Reuters report] that the new settlement agreement addresses the judge's previous concerns.
The ACLU represents Muslim individuals and organizations who sued New York City in 2013 in Brooklyn federal court claiming they were targeted by police surveillance.
The new deal gives the civilian representative the power to report on violations of the guidelines to the court at any time, and requires the mayor to get court approval before removing the representative, according to the New York Civil Liberties Union. The earlier version allowed the mayor to eliminate the position after five years.
The civilian representative can now also review how investigations are conducted, not just how they are started or extended. [MORE]
In October 2015 the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit [official website] revived [JURIST report] the civil rights lawsuit filed by a coalition of Muslim groups that accused the NYPD of conducting unjustified surveillance of Muslims in New Jersey. In April 2014 the new commissioner of the NYPD William Bratton announced [JURIST report] the disbanding of the Demographics Unit surveillance unit used to spy on the Muslim communities. In February 2014 a judge for the US District Court for the District of New Jersey ruled [JURIST report] that the NYPD's surveillance of Muslims was a lawful effort for national security and did not constitute harm or violation of civil rights. The Muslim Advocates filed [JURIST report] the lawsuit in 2012. In September 2013 former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg and former Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly admitted [JURIST report] that the NYPD spied on mosques and on a Muslim preacher but requested that the court dismiss the complaint.
As recounted in his guilty plea last year to a federal civil rights charge, Robert Nalley had 26 years under his belt on the Charles County Circuit Court when in July 2014 he was presiding over the criminal trial of Delvon King [aka Saamir Jhaled Khaleel Kingali] on gun charges.
The suit, which seeks $5 million in punitive damages, says King wasn't raising his voice or threatening anyone when he was shocked while representing himself on gun charges. Convicted by a jury, King later received probation after a public defender asked for a new trial based on Nalley's actions.
King, who was wearing electroshock “stun cuffs around his ankle” apparently angered the white judge by refusing to answer the judge’s questions and speaking over the judge. Nalley quickly growing impatient with the black man as he calmly read from a prepared statement.
The courtroom’s closed-circuit cameras captured what happened next: Nally ordered a sheriff to activate the cuff, and Nalley fell to the ground in a fetal position and screamed in pain as an electric charge coursed through his body for about 5 seconds.
“Stop, stop,” Nalley told King. “Mr. Sheriff, do it. Use it.” The cuffs carried a 50,000-volt charge of electricity.[MORE]
In a pause between King’s screams after being shocked, Nalley called for a break. “We will wait until he calms down and then we’ll be right back,” the judge said of King. “Five minutes.”
As a result the former Maryland judge plead guilty to civil rights violations last year and was sentenced to one year on probation that included anger-management classes and a $5,000 fine [a hook up]. A video of the exchange without sound and separate audio was played in court during his sentencing. Prosecutor Kristi O'Malley noted that the defendant didn't raise his voice or yell during the exchange and even called the judge "sir."
She said Nalley "very quickly grew impatient" and that his use of the stun-cuff was "highly disproportionate" for "nothing more than verbal interruptions."
"Our constitution does not allow a violation of rights based on annoyance," she said. [MORE]
King’s attorney Steven Silverman explained in an interview Tuesday why they are now suing Nalley for punitive damages.
“The bottom line is Mr. King is not satisfied with the disposition of the criminal prosecution of Judge Nalley and feels the necessity to pursue the civil prosecution of the case civilly,” said Silverman, an attorney with the firm Silverman Thompson Slutkin & White.
Nally had retired from the bench a year before the incident but continued to preside over cases on a part-time basis. The Maryland Court of Appeals banned him from the be
In racist system criminal courts produce nothing but the appearance of justice.The [white] 'powers that be' go through great effort to produce this show of something called “fairness” and the court's emphasis on “procedural due process.”
This production of the appearance of fairness leaves out no detail. Along with the traditional plastic flags, oaths, black robes, elevated judge platform and high ceilings found in a courtroom, more necessary props are; [well intentioned] Black defense lawyers and prosecutors, Black judges, Black courtroom staff and probation officers and of course, occasional acquittals for Black criminal defendants. [MORE]
From [HERE] African-American defendants are statistically seven times more likely to be wrongfully convicted of crimes than white defendants, according to a study released Tuesday.
The National Registry of Exonerations, a joint project run between the University of Michigan, Michigan State and University of California, Irvine, examined the cases of 1,900 people in the U.S. who were exonerated after being convicted of crimes between 1989 and October 2016. Researchers from the registry found that 47 percent of that group were African-Americans — a demographic that makes up just 13 percent of the U.S. population.
The study also discovered that African-Americans were 12 times as likely to be wrongfully convicted of drug crimes than white Americans. And while black defendants accounted for 40 percent of those found guilty of murder, they made up 50 percent of people wrongfully convicted for the crime.
Police and prosecutorial misconduct contributes to the disproportionate rate of wrongful convictions for black defendants, the study's authors said.
"In the murder cases we examined, the rate of official misconduct is considerably higher in cases where the defendant is African-American compared to cases where the defendant is white," Samuel Gross, a University of Michigan Law School professor and senior editor of the Registry, told Reuters.
The study found misconduct in 76 percent of cases that resulted in black murder defendants going to prison for crimes they did not commit, compared to just 65 percent of the cases in which white defendants were wrongfully convicted.
Researchers also learned that victims of sexual assault were more likely to misidentify their assailants in cases where the defendant was black. Misidentification can happen, for example, when a victim chooses the wrong suspect out of a police lineup.
These kinds of mistakes were much more likely to happen in sexual assault cases where the victim was white and the accused assailant was black. That racial dynamic was in play in half of all sexual assault cases that led to wrongful convictions but occurred in only 11 percent of all sexual assault cases in the U.S.
From [HERE] Georgia's Black Caucus is calling for the immediate resignation of a county commissioner more than 40 days after he called civil right icon and U.S. Congressman John Lewis a "racist pig".
Gwinnett County Commissioner Tommy Hunter posted the comments on Facebook following a Meet the Press Interview. In that interview, Rep. Lewis said, "I think the Russians participated in helping this man get elected. And they helped destroy the candidacy of Hillary Clinton."
Lewis boycotted the Trump inauguration saying, "You cannot be at home with something that you feel that is wrong, is not right."
On January 14, Hunter published a Facebook post saying, "John Lewis is a racist pig. There ain't one political pundit that didn't say on November 9 that this would be Demonrats EXACT response to Trump winning." Two days later, he took to Facebook, saying Lewis' election wins were "all illegitimate".
Reaction to Hunter's post was swift and severe. Protestors have been attending Gwinnett County Commissioner meetings, calling for his resignation. An ethics complaint was filed in February. At the time, Seth Weathers, a consultant for Hunter said, "There is zero chance that Hunter will be removed,” Weathers said. “Nothing that he said could possibly be viewed as a criminal complaint. The complaint is going to be thrown out as the joke that it is.”
Mayor Reed sent a letter to Hunter's firm, United Consulting, saying Hunter's remark was toxic and insulting. Now, the Georgia Legislative Black Caucus is saying Hunter "must resign".
Hunter apologized for the "racist pig" comment, calling it "a poor choice of words". [MORE]
Do-gooder, deluded devil [Trump] worshippers spread delusions at a #MARCH4TRUMP in support of Trump on 2/4/17 in Emmet County. The chairman of the Emmet County Republican Party stated Monday the group does not support a sign that had racist tones against former President Barack Obama during a rally designed to show support for current President Donald Trump.
The sign [above], which was shared online by a number of people, stated “Hallelujah, Lord Hallelujah, B.O. Jangles has Left the Building.” The sign also featured a drawing of the White House with a sign stating “Under New Management.” [MORE]
Neely Fuller says that most white people have made racism/white supremacy their religion and have made themselves the God of that religion.
Do you believe in it? Objectively observe your own thoughts. Relentlessly programmed with a false consciousness from birth, many Black people also believe in the lies of white supremacy/racism. Belief in white supremacy by Blacks makes Black people crazy. Amos Wilson explains, "it is a crazy reaction to what he [racist man] says, an insane and unthinking kind of approach to dealing with what he says about us, that maintains the craziness." [MORE] This condition is sometimes referred to as "mentacide."
Sunday, March 12, 2017 at 01:33AM 
