A Simple Fix: Should New York Compel Judges to Report Problem Prosecutors?

ProPublica

Shih-Wei Su was jailed for 12 years on attempted murder charges before a federal appeals court overturned his conviction, finding that a Queens prosecutor had "knowingly elicited false testimony" in sending him to prison. The city eventually paid Su $3.5 million. 

The prosecutor received a private reprimand.

Jabbar Collins served 15 years in prison for a murder he didn't commit before his conviction was thrown out in 2010. Michael Vecchione, a senior Brooklyn prosecutor, had withheld critical evidence during trial, a federal judge determined. Collins has filed a $150 million lawsuit against the city.

No action has been taken against Vecchione.

I’m editor-in-chief here at ProPublica. A recent investigation by our reporters Joaquin Sapien and Sergio Hernandez found these cases were hardly unique.

Sapien and Hernandez reviewed a decade's worth of court documents and found 30 instances in which state or federal courts identified misconduct serious enough to throw out a conviction.

Yet hardly anyone involved in the prosecutions was held accountable.

The reporters also identified more than 50 instances in which state appellate courts had criticized the tactics of prosecutors but let convictions stand.

But as far as we could determine, none of these cases resulted in disciplinary action against anyone in the DA's offices either.

Senior prosecutors we interviewed contend that almost all of the instances of alleged misconduct amounted to honest mistakes or differences of opinion on the requirements of the law. And they like to note that cases of misconduct represent a tiny portion of the criminal charges processed each year by courts in the five boroughs.

It's hard to know what to make of that claim. The vast majority of convictions, more than 90 percent, are plea bargains — deals struck outside of public view. If prosecutors are willing to violate rules at trial, who is to say what is going on behind closed doors?

More importantly, the claim that instances of serious misconduct are few amounts to a convenient bit of misdirection. The issue, at heart, is not the frequency of misconduct, but the lack of consequences for prosecutors who violate their oaths.

All of this forces us to ask: What are judges obligated to do, and should they be required to do more?

A judge in New York who learns there is "substantial likelihood" that a lawyer has committed a "substantial violation" of legal ethics must take "appropriate action."

A lawyer who "knows" that another lawyer has violated ethics rules so that a "substantial question" is raised concerning the suspect lawyer's honesty, trustworthiness or fitness must report the issue to an appropriate authority.

Take a close look at these words and you can see pretty quickly why the system has broken down. The words are fuzzy; they leave tremendous discretion.

Our reporters were told the state's disciplinary committees, which work for the court system, do not receive automatic referrals from trial or appellate judges, even when they have found prosecutors manipulated evidence, condoned perjury or worse.

The view of the judges seems to be: We included it in our opinion. That's enough.

The other means of bringing cases involving prosecutors to ethics investigators — referrals by defense lawyers — seems inherently flawed. Few who work regularly in the criminal courts are eager to bite the hand that plea bargains.

There are better ways. Some states have imposed much stiffer requirements on judges to report allegations of wrongdoing by prosecutors.

New York could easily emulate those states. And given what we've uncovered, it's hard to see why leaders of the legal community would want to do anything less.

The IRS may take your emails without obtaining a warrant first

VentureBeat

The Internal Revenue Service could be reading your emails without obtaining a warrant, according to a new document uncovered by a Freedom of Information Act request. In it, the IRS reveals that it still doesn’t believe people have a reasonable expectation of privacy in their emails.

Technically, emails are not yet protected by law under the Fourth Amendment, though a recent court case, U.S. v. Warshak, states differently. In this case, judges ruled that Warshak “enjoyed a reasonable expectation of privacy in his emails,” citing the Katz v. U.S. case that helped define what a search and seizure is under U.S. law.

Advocacy groups and Internet companies alike — including major email provider Google — all stand by that ruling. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, which made the FOIA request, the IRS’ Criminal Tax Division would rather seek out your emails using a subpoena.

Why does this enrage organizations like the ACLU? For some time now, advocacy groups have been pulling for a change to the Electronic Communications Privacy Act. The ACLU calls it “hopeless outdated” — it was established in 1986, a time when telephone calls were a much more widespread way of communicating that emails. But nowadays emails are just as major, if not more prevalent, than phone calls, and include very personal information that people may consider “private.”

The ACLU notes that the ECPA only requires a warrant on emails that have been for 180 days or less on an email provider’s servers, but anything before that time frame, or anything that has been opened to do not require a warrant.

DOJ releases ruling ordering deportation of former El Salvador general

Jurist The US Department of Justice (DOJ) [official website] on Friday released a revised ruling [text, PDF] ordering the deportation of former El Salvador General Carlos Eugenio Vides Casanova. The DOJ Executive Office for Immigration Review [official website] issued the ruling in August, ordering the deportation of Vides for crimes against humanity. He is accused of participating in extrajudicial killings during El Salvador's 12-year civil war [PBS backgrounder]. A judge found last April that Vides could be deported [JURIST report] based on the charges leveled against him. The ruling released on Friday confirms the earlier decision and orders Vides' removal from the US to El Salvador. The Obama administration charged Vides [JURIST report] in April 2012 with human rights crimes and sought to deport him. He had been living in Florida since the conclusion of his term as defense minister in 1988. In 2006, the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit upheld a $55 million verdict [JURIST report] against him and another former Salvadoran general, Jose Guillermo Garcia, in a civil suit for torture and human rights violations. The verdict had previously been thrown out for failure to file within the 10-year statute of limitations but was reinstated because of "extraordinary circumstances." In 2000, however, the US lost in a jury trial [NYT report] when attempting to prosecute Vides and Garcia for the killing of the four American women in 1980. After that case, one juror explained that they did not believe the generals were directly responsible for the killings or that they could have done anything to stop them.

Addiction to Junk Food: More Than Meets The Eye

BlackListedNews

When it comes to processed food, excessive amounts of sugar and hydrogenated fats is the rule rather than the exception. It is no secret anymore that there is a very distinct thread linking the increased consumption of such foods, coupled with relentless advertising campaigns and the epidemic proportions of diabetes and obesity in all age groups on a global scale. In fact, if current trends continue, it is estimated that by 2030, more than 86% of Americans will be either overweight or obese. For some people, this picture looks dreadful enough already, but the truth is that it barely scratches the surface of the problem.

Neurobiology research has shown that food can cause serious addiction, the kind that addictive drugs do. Dr Nicole Avena and her colleagues from the department of Psychiatry, University of Florida, report that the consumption of sugar not only alters brain function and behavior, but it also elicits the same type of withdrawal symptoms like opiate drugs do. In other words, sugar affects the opioid receptors in the brain, which are recognized by natural (endogenous or not) opioid substances. On the other hand, foods rich in fat seem to affect the brain in a different way, although they cause withdrawal-type symptoms as well. Many studies show that there is a unique relationship between emotional balance and fatty acids.

For example, a study published in The Journal of Clinical Investigation in 2011 tested the effects of fat consumption in healthy people while experiencing experimentally induced sad feelings. Within minutes the sad feelings were significantly alleviated and the subjects reported improved mood, while MRI scans confirmed the expected brain response. This study is important because it shows that fat actually does not even have to be properly digested in order to modify brain functions. The mere presence of fat in the gut triggers the release of gastrointestinal hormones, which regulate neurological and emotional responses within very few minutes.

The above studies prove that junk food, high in fat and sugar, is so much more than excessive calories. It truly creates addiction on a biochemical and neurological level. It would be naive to believe that the richness of junk food in these specific compounds is an accident. Michael Moss explains in his incredible book "Salt, Sugar, Fat: How the Food Giants Hooked Us" that the amount of secretive research invested by Big Food giants in finding the right combinations of the cheapest and most addictive ingredients for their products, is tremendous.

What neuroscience is only now starting to understand and elucidate, food companies knew it all along. And they have capitalized hard on it by selling processed food especially designed to bypass appetite control and neurological security valves of any unsuspected victim. Due to the complexity and interconnectedness of the biological functions in the human body, the overall impact of processed food on human physiology, health, life expectancy and quality of life in this generation is still hard to estimate.

But again the full extent of this slow, but efficient, genocide cannot be not fully appreciated if the impact on the future generations is not assessed as well. Latest research shows that the diet during pregnancy has a significant impact on the nutritional choices of the offspring. It is now confirmed that when the expectant mother follows a high-fat diet, her baby shows a measurable preference for sugar. However, this is not just a behavioral trait casually passed on to the next generation by means of mimicking the behavior of adults. On the contrary, as a result of the maternal diet, the DNA and subsequent expression of genes encoding opioid and dopamine receptors in the brain of the child is altered in a manner that promotes addiction.

This is no surprise, since repeated use of certain drugs has been well documented to cause enzymatic DNA modifications (epigenetic changes) which disrupt neuronal gene programs and support addictive behavior. This scientific fact explains why the kids of obese mothers are heavier with increased fat mass and have elevated insulin and glucose levels in their blood in comparison with control groups. Experiments show that the genetic disruption induced by maternal junk food consumption during pregnancy has long-term effects on the child's behavior and neurological responses.

In a twisted way, the new generation is genetically pre-programmed to be addicted to junk food, even before they are born. This perfect self-feeding loop guarantees long-term profits for the food corporations and chronic debilitating disease for humans, for generations to come. By designing and selling addictive, low quality and disease-promoting products, Big Food has achieved the unthinkable: to create a dedicated army of health-compromised, addicted fans, whose cognitive, biochemical and even genetic potential to break free of their addiction is hijacked before birth.

Anonymous launches massive cyber assault on Israel

Rt.com

Hacktivist group Anonymous has launched a second massive cyber-attack against Israel, dubbed #OpIsrael. While the hackers claim to have caused multi-billion dollar damage, Israel declares there haven’t been any major disruptions.

Anonymous threatened to "disrupt and erase Israel from cyberspace" in protest over its mistreatment of Palestinians.

Dozens of Israeli websites were unavailable as of early Sunday, with one of the latest being the Israeli Ministry of Defense online page, according to Anonymous on Twitter.

However, the country's officials indicated that the disruptions haven't been serious.

The Israel Police website had difficulties loading for only a short time before going back to normal. The same went for the Defense Ministry page, which was hacked for a few hours, and then restored.

Anonymous pointed out on Saturday night that they had shut down several government sites, including those of the Prime Minister's Office, the Israel Securities Authority, the Immigrant Absorption Ministry and the Central Bureau of Statistics, but the government denied the claim, Haaretz reported.

The hackers also released a list of email addresses and credit card numbers, reportedly lifted from the online catalog of Israel Military, a privately-owned business that sells military surplus, Haaretz reported. Israel Military officials indicated that the information made public did not come from its site.

Yitzhak Ben Yisrael of the government's National Cyber Bureau told AP that hackers had mostly failed to shut down key sites.

"So far it is as was expected, there is hardly any real damage," Ben Yisrael indicated. "Anonymous doesn't have the skills to damage the country's vital infrastructure. And if that was its intention, then it wouldn't have announced the attack of time. It wants to create noise in the media about issues that are close to its heart.”

Anonymous, however, claimed that more than a hundred thousand websites have been brought down since the start of OpIsrael, and some 30,000 Israeli bank accounts hacked, saying the damage has topped $3 billion.

D.C. Appeals Court: Defendant Had Right to Confront Forensic Scientists

LegalTimes

DNA analysis can make or break a criminal case in a way that most other evidence can't. The District of Columbia Court of Appeals ruled today that under the Sixth Amendment's Confrontation Clause, a defendant had a right to confront the forensic examiners who handled DNA evidence in his case, rather than a supervisor who was not directly involved.

The defendant, Robert Young, was convicted in 2010 of kidnapping and sexual abuse. A unanimous three-judge appellate panel reversed Young's conviction and ordered a new trial.

A spokesman for the U.S. attorney's office, William Miller, said via email that his office is "reviewing the decision and has no further comment at this time." The Public Defender Service for the District of Columbia, which represented Young, was not immediately reached for comment.

The victim, according to the opinion written by Judge Stephen Glickman, was assaulted in her apartment building in October 2006 and forced to perform oral sex on her assailant. The attacker also attempted vaginal penetration. There were two pieces of biological evidence: semen the victim spit into a tissue and a vaginal swab taken at a hospital. Using those samples, scientists at the FBI lab in Virginia made a DNA profile of the assailant and entered it into a national DNA database.

The attacker's DNA profile, the appeals court said, had a "cold hit" with another profile in the database that belonged to Young. In 2009, police took new DNA material from Young using a cheek swab and the FBI lab developed another DNA profile. According to the lab, Young's new DNA profile matched the assailant's.

Prosecutors had FBI examiner Rhonda Craig present the DNA evidence at trial. Craig supervised the scientists who developed the DNA profiles and then compared them to see if they matched.

Young objected to Craig's testimony, arguing it was hearsay because she wasn't directly involved in handling the original evidence samples, developing the DNA profiles, or calculating the random match probability, or RMP, which describes the probability that a random person would have the same DNA profile as the evidence sample. A low RMP means an examiner can testify "to a reasonable degree of scientific certainty" that the DNA came from the suspect, according to the opinion.

The U.S. attorney's office argued that Craig's testimony wasn't hearsay because she made generalized statements about the testing and analysis, as opposed to presenting formal reports or specific statements by other scientists. Prosecutors also said Craig qualified her testimony by saying it was her "understanding" of what happened.

The court found that the substance of the testimony, and not its presentation, was what mattered, and the Craig provided "critical testimonial hearsay" on the DNA profiles. "Because Craig was not personally involved in the process that generated the profiles, she had no personal knowledge of how or from what sources the profiles were produced," Glickman wrote.

Glickman wrote that the D.C. Court of Appeals opinion will not mean that every person with a role in analyzing DNA must testify. However, he said the U.S. Supreme Court "left open" the issue in previous case law. He speculated that one possible compromise might be to allow an expert who was "personally and significantly involved in all critical stages," even if other scientists worked on the case.

The court ordered a new trial, finding that D.C. Superior Court Judge Herbert Dixon's decision to allow Craig's testimony wasn't "harmless beyond a reasonable doubt." The DNA evidence was critical to the government's case, Glickman wrote, since there was no fingerprint or other physical evidence tying Young to the crime. Young did not confess.

"Without Craig's testimony, the government would have been left with an argument that appellant fit [the victim's] comparatively vague description of her assailant and lived not far from where the attack took place," he wrote. "It may be doubted whether this would have been enough to allow the case to get to the jury. Therefore, reversal is required."

Judges Anna Blackburne-Rigsby and Kathryn Oberly also heard the case.

Pew: Majority Of Americans Now Favor Legalizing Marijuana

NPR Audio 4min

For the first time in four decades of polling, a majority of Americans support legalizing the use of marijuana.

A Pew poll released today found that 52 percent of those polled said marijuana should be legal. Forty-five percent said it should be illegal.

Pew reports:

"Support for legalizing marijuana has risen 11 points since 2010. The change is even more dramatic since the late 1960s. A 1969 Gallup survey found that just 12% favored legalizing marijuana use, while 84% were opposed.

"The survey by the Pew Research Center, conducted March 13-17 among 1,501 adults, finds that young people are the most supportive of marijuana legalization. Fully 65% of Millennials –born since 1980 and now between 18 and 32 – favor legalizing the use of marijuana, up from just 36% in 2008. Yet there also has been a striking change in long-term attitudes among older generations, particularly Baby Boomers."

This isn't terribly surprising, of course. Back in October of 2011, we noted that in Gallup's poll, support for legalizing marijuana had reached 50 percent for the first time ever.

The Washington Post reports that a November Post-ABC News poll found "the public split 48 to 50 percent on" the issue. "And 51 percent of registered voters supported legalization in a December Quinnipiac University poll."

We'll leave you with an interesting graph showing support by generational group. Notice that support from boomers is the highest since the '70s.

The 21st Century Africa Land Grab

Tear Down the Walls

Scientific racism, militarism, and the new atheists (White Supremacy)

Aljazeera Scientific racism is a term seldom used today but which has a long and ignoble history in the modern world. In the late 18th century, the renowned scientist and philosopher Christoph Meiners published his famous treatise The Outline and History of Mankind. Central to his analysis was a qualitative comparison of peoples by race - a comparison which his own popularly-accepted findings claimed revealed a clear hierarchy. Drawing in large part on the now-discredited science of Phrenology (the measurement of human skulls), Meiners described whites as being endowed with clear superiority to all races in both their intellectual as well as moral faculties. About blacks, his scientific analysis was far less generous - finding them not only to be inferior to whites in every mental capacity but in fact "incapable of any mental feeling or emotion at all", as well as "unable to feel physical pain". As influential as it was, Meiners' work was par for the course in the institutionalised science of racism of the age. Famous philosopher Voltaire - whose works were among the most significant of the French Enlightenment - wrote of his empirical research on those humans who possessed dark skin: "They are not men, except in their stature, with the faculty of speech and thought at a degree far distant to ours. Such are the ones that I have seen and examined." While they wore a veneer of disinterested scientific analysis in their conclusions, in the context of their times it can be seen that such proponents of scientific racism had the specific goal of legitimating certain policies. With regard to those of African descent, the intention of then-contemporary scientists was often - implicitly or explicitly - to report findings which could be used to justify the socio-political institutions of slavery and colonialism against African societies. Institutional racism  Alongside routine characterisations of blacks in scientific analyses as naturally childish and in need of patronage from "superior races", were outright claims regarding the scientific necessity for slavery as a natural phenomenon. While the prominent American physician Josiah Nott wrote that "the negro achieves his greatest perfection, physical and moral, and also greatest longevity, in a state of slavery", others such as Samuel Cartwright diagnosed aversion to slavery among blacks as a full-fledged disease unto itself.  Calling the purported malady "drapetomania", Cartwright wrote that it was a legitimate mental defect which could be treated by visiting corporal punishment upon blacks - up to and including amputation. We rightly recoil with horror today at what we know to be the false claims and methodologies of the pseudoscience of the past. The level of institutional racism masked under scientific study reached a particularly horrific apex at Paris' infamous "human zoo" - where peoples of different races lived their lives for both scientific observation as well as the enjoyment of the general public. Viewed in proper context it can be seen that the crudest racism has often been cloaked in the guise of disinterested scientific inquiry. Those claiming this mantle have often felt licence to engage in overt bigotry using science as a smokescreen, and yet far from being a relic of history, many celebrity-scientists of today show startling parallels with their now-dishonoured predecessors. In the present atmosphere, characterised by conflict with Muslim-majority nations, a new class of individuals have stepped in to give a veneer of scientific respectability to today's politically-useful bigotry. At the forefront of this modern scientific racism have been those prominently known as the "new atheist" scientists and philosophers. While they attempt to couch their language in the terms of pure critique of religious thought, in practice they exhibit many of the same tendencies toward generalisation and ethno-racial condescension as did their predecessors - particularly in their descriptions of Muslims. To be utterly clear, Islam itself does not denote a race, and Muslims themselves come from every racial and ethnic grouping in the world. However, in their ostensibly impartial critiques of "religion" - and through the impartation of ethno-cultural attributes onto members of a religious group - the most prominent new atheists slide with ease into the most virulent racism imaginable. That this usefully dovetails with government policies promoting the military subjugation of Muslim-majority countries is telling with regard to what purpose these contemporary scientist-philosophers serve. While one could cite Richard Dawkins' descriptions of "Islamic barbarians" and Christopher Hitchens' outright bloodlust towards Muslims - including lamentations of the ostensibly too-low death toll in the Battle of Fallujah and his satisfied account of cluster bombs tearing through the flesh of Iraqis - these have been widely discussed and are in any case not the most representative of this modern phenomena. Indeed, the most illustrative demonstration of the new brand of scientific racism must be said to come from the popular author and neuroscientist Sam Harris. Among the most publicly visible of the new atheists, in the case of Muslims Harris has publicly stated his support for torture, pre-emptive nuclear weapons strikes, and the security profiling of not just Muslims themselves, but in his own words "anyone who looks like he or she could conceivably be Muslim". Islam is not a race Again, while Islam is not a race, those who are identified with Islam are the predominantly black and brown people who would be caught up in the charge of "looking Muslim" which Harris makes. Harris has also written in the past his belief that the "Muslim world" itself lacks the characteristic of honesty, and Muslims as a people "do not have a clue about what constitutes civil society". His sweeping generalisations about a constructed civilisation encompassing over a billion people are coupled with fevered warnings - parallel with the most noxious race propaganda of the past - about the purported demographic threat posed by immigrant Muslim birthrates to Western civilisation. Harris' pseudoscientific characterisations of Muslims dovetail nicely with his extreme right-wing views on military intervention in Muslim-majority countries. As he has said: "It is time we admitted that we are not at war with terrorism. We are at war with Islam." This belief in the need to fight open-ended war against Muslims has extended to both his steadfast support of the Iraq War, as well as to the conflict between Israel and Palestine which - ironically enough for one in his position as a scientist - he sees in strictly religious terms. About this issue he has written: "Liberals ignore the fact that Muslims intentionally murder non-combatants, while we and the Israelis seek to avoid doing so. Muslims use human shields, and this accounts for much of the collateral damage we and the Israelis cause… there is no question that the Israelis now hold the moral high ground." Citing "Muslims" as a solid monolith of violent evil - whilst neglecting to include the countless Muslims who have lost their lives peacefully protesting the occupation and ongoing ethnic cleansing of their homeland - Harris engages in a nuanced version of the same racism which his predecessors in scientific racism practiced in their discussion of the blanket characteristics of "Negroes".   Inside Story - What now for Muslim-Western relations? Indeed he argues in his book that the only suitable form of government for Muslim people is "benign dictatorship", an echo of the 19th century social theorist George Fitzhugh who argued in favour of slavery by saying: "The Negro is but a grown up child, and must be governed as a child." Finally, dismissing the possibility that Muslims may have legitimate objections to being subjects of torture, murder, and - as he's advocated - wholesale nuclear genocide, Harris helpfully states: "The outrage that Muslims feel over US and British foreign policy is primarily the product of theological concerns." A statement of deeper myopia and more emboldened ignorance would be hard to produce. However, what is nearly certain is that Harris' nightmares about, in his words "dangerous and depraved" (not to mention monolithically terrifying and foreign) Muslim hordes aided him in making it. What Harris and those like him represent is the time-honoured tradition of weaponised racism in the guise of disinterested scientific observation. When Harris - as a scientist - claims to observe the innate dishonesty, violence and intellectual inferiority of Muslims, he gives his own scientific approval to the propagation of the most heinous violence against them as a people. Scientific justification Indeed he makes the case for this violence explicitly, putting him in class with the worst proponents of scientific racism of the 20th century - including those who helped provide scientific justification for the horrors of European fascism. Far from being a hyperbolic characterisation of his views, Harris has stated that the correct policy with regard to Western Muslim populations is in fact that which is currently being pursued by contemporary fascist movements today. In Harris' view: "The people who speak most sensibly about the threat that Islam poses to Europe are actually fascists." Given the recent murders and threats to turn Muslim immigrants "into soap" by the most prominent of these fascist movements, this statement leads to understandably troubling questions about what Harris finds attractive and "sensible" about openly racist and genocidal far-right political movements. The right to atheism - as well as the right to criticize Islam or any other religion as a system of belief - is as fundamental as the right of any religious adherent to practice their faith. Islam as an intellectual movement is not above scrutiny any more than any other religious tradition, and attempts to shut down legitimate debate using the charge of Islamophobia should be rejected. However, what is being pursued today by individuals such as Harris and others under the guise of disinterested observation is something far more insidious. By resurrecting the worst excesses of scientific racism and its violent corollaries, Harris is heir to one of the most disreputable intellectual lineages in modern history. Where once scientific racism was trotted out to justify the horrific institution of slavery, today it is produced to justify the wars of aggression, torture and extra-judicial killings of the 21st century. Scientists in the service of power, who once employed Phrenology to "prove" the racial inferiority of blacks, now enthusiastically push forward the belief that Muslims as a people lack basic humanity. While those individuals who have provided the intellectual ammunition for the excesses of the present era will inevitably find themselves as dishonoured as their racist predecessors, in the present they should nonetheless be recognised as the dangerous ideologues which they are. Just as it is incumbent upon Muslims to marginalise their own violent extremists, mainstream atheists must work to disavow those such as Harris who would tarnish their movement by associating it with a virulently racist, violent and exploitative worldview. Murtaza Hussain is a Toronto-based writer and analyst focused on issues related to Middle Eastern politics.

ACLU: Saggy pants proposal could lead to racial targeting of Black Males in Terrebonne Parish (LA)

WDSU

The Louisiana chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union has posted an open letter to Terrebonne Parish officials urging them to reconsider a proposed "saggy pants" ordinance, which the group believes could lead to racial profiling and rights violations.

The letter addresses a proposal introduced last month. If passed, it would punish those whose pants droop lower than the waist, exposing skin or undergarments.

Councilman John Navy said the proposal stems from complaints from residents who want the parish to take the action.

Neighboring Lafourche Parish already has an ordinance that makes it illegal for anyone to reveal underwear or to dress in a way that is deemed "unbecoming of his or her sex." According to Lafourche Parish Sheriff's Office records, 45 people have been ticketed in the law's 5-year existence.

Similar rules have been put in place in Shreveport and in several Mississippi towns.

In the letter, ACLU executive director Marjorie Esman writes, "clothing is a form of expression protected under the Constitution of the United States. To ban a particular clothing style would violate a liberty interest guaranteed under the 14th Amendment of the US.. Constitution."

The document goes on to note: Such an ordinance would inevitably raise questions about racial profiling or disproportionate enforcement. “Saggy pants” is a clothing style typically associated with young African-American males. If enforced against those who choose this style and not enforced against everyone whose pants may inadvertently sag, it will almost certainly be enforced disproportionately against a particular group of people who will be singled out by law enforcement for nothing other than their attire.

The Terrebonne Council is accepting public comment and plans to vote on the ordinance on April 10.

Ark. Senate rejects racial impacts requirement

thv11

The Arkansas Senate has rejected legislation that would have required racial impact statements for any legislation that creates new criminal offenses or changes existing sentencing laws.

The Senate voted 15-10 on Friday in favor of the bill by Democratic Sen. Joyce Elliott of Little Rock requiring the statements, which would detail how legislation would affect minorities in the state. It needed 18 votes in the 35-member Senate.

Elliott's proposal would have required sponsors to consider amending their bill if the statement indicates a disparate impact on minority groups and to explain their reasoning if they don't make any changes.

Elliott has said the proposal would help educate legislators on the unintended consequences of proposals.

The Senate later expunged its vote, meaning Elliott could bring it back for reconsideration later.

Gallup Poll: Brainwashed White Americans Say U.S. Should Aid South Korea if Attacked - after Unnecessary US Provocation

Gallup

The majority of Americans (55%) say the United States should use its military forces to defend South Korea if that nation is attacked by North Korea, while 34% disagree. Americans are split on whether such an attack is likely.

(closet republican) Obama formally proposes cuts to Social Security, Medicare

CitizensforLegitGov

President Obama next week will take the political risk of formally proposing cuts to Social Security and Medicare in his annual budget in an effort to demonstrate his willingness to compromise with Republicans [because he is one] and revive prospects for a long-term deficit-reduction deal, administration officials say.  Besides the tax increases that most Republicans continue to oppose, Mr. Obama's budget will propose a new inflation formula that would have the effect of reducing cost-of-living payments for Social Security benefits, though with financial protections for low-income and very old beneficiaries, administration officials said. The idea, known as chained C.P.I., has infuriated some Democrats and advocacy groups to Mr. Obama’s left, and they have already mobilized in opposition. 

More Evidence of Misconduct In Reggie Clemons Case

HumanRightsNow

On March 18, the final oral arguments in the “Special Master” investigation of Reggie Clemons‘ case were held in Independence, Missouri. Reggie Clemons was sentenced to death in 1993 after a disturbingly flawed investigation and trial.

At the Clemons hearing before Special Master Judge Michael Manners last September, evidence of police brutality and prosecutorial misconduct in his case was presented, and this month that evidence was reinforced by new testimony of a bail investigator named Warren Weeks.

In a video-taped deposition, Weeks said that he saw evidence that Clemons had been brutalized – a golf-ball sized bump on his head – and that he submitted a written report of this observation. Weeks testified that prosecutor Nels Moss attempted to intimidate him about the report. The report obtained by Clemons’ current attorneys and presented to Judge Manners had the word “bump” or “bruise” scratched out.

Judge Manners himself, during the four-hour hearing this month, is reported to have said:

“There was shoddy police work almost beyond comprehension … when I said shoddy I meant they took a path of least resistance, closing an investigation early as it was the easiest thing to do.”

Does this mean Reggie Clemons will get a new trial, or at least have his death sentence quashed? Maybe.Judge Manners announced on the 18th that his final recommendations would be completed by June 1, so we will know in a month or two.

In the meantime, we need to keep taking action for Reggie Clemons, and keep spreading the word about his case. The fundamentally flawed nature of cases like this – and there are many cases like this – is one very obvious and compelling reason why the death penalty must be abolished.

Wesley Snipes released from prison after tax sentence

The Grio

— Wesley Snipes has been released from a federal prison after serving time on tax charges.

Snipes was convicted in 2008. He was released Tuesday and placed under home confinement. A Bureau of Corrections spokeswoman said Friday he’ll be overseen by the New York Community Corrections Office until July 19.

Snipes entered prison in December 2010 to begin a three-year sentence for failure to file income tax returns.

Snipes belonged to a group that challenged the government’s right to collect taxes. U.S. prosecutors say he failed to file returns for at least a decade and owed millions of dollars in back taxes.

The 50-year-old actor has appeared in dozens of films, including the blockbuster “Blade” trilogy.

White Lawmakers Pass Bill To Resume Executions of Non-Whites in North Carolina

ThinkProgress

It’s been nearly seven years since the last execution in North Carolina, but that could soon change after the state Senate passed a bill to resume executions in the Tar Heel State.

The halt in executions stemmed largely from challenges to the state’s lethal injection protocol and questions about whether medical professionals can participate in a state-sponsored killing. Additionally, the 2009 Racial Justice Act allowed death row inmates to appeal their conviction if racial bias may have played a role in his or her sentence. A judge would then decide whether to let the capital sentence stand or commute it to life without the possibility of parole.

However, that law’s days may be numbered after the state Senate voted 33-14 on Wednesday to repeal the Racial Justice Act, in addition to enacting other changes to smooth the path to future executions. The bill now moves to the state House, where Republicans enjoy a 77-43 advantage.

WRAL has more:

When it passed, the [Racial Justice Act] was the only one of its kind in the nation. Supporters said it would renew public confidence in the capital punishment system. Detractors said it would clog the courts with appeals.

The original law allowed the use of statistics to prove a pattern of racial bias in jury selection and sentencing. State lawmakers changed that with a major rewrite last year. Senate Bill 306 repeals the remainder of the law.

Whether North Carolina lawmakers recognize it or not, racial bias plays a major role in the criminal justice sentencing system, particularly in the doling out of death sentences. For example, in capital cases, those with at least one white victim were over three times more likely to result in a death sentence than those without a white victim. In addition, as court documents show, potential jurors who were minorities were struck by prosecutors at nearly twice the rate of potential jurors who were white, regardless of qualification. All- or mostly-white juries have been more likely to sentence a black defendant to death. The Racial Justice Act helped address these biases in the system.

North Carolina’s move bucks the national trend towards repealing the death penalty. Six states in as many years have eliminated capital punishment.

As of last year, more than 160 people were on death row in North Carolina.

AG Holder: ‘We Will Not Sit By’ While Republicans Rig The Electoral College

ThinkProgress

Attorney General Eric Holder has a solid record on voting rights, and he’s criticized Republican state lawmaker’s efforts to restrict the franchise in the past — at one point comparing voter ID laws to an unconstitutional poll tax. At a speech in New Yorkyesterday, Holder added a new line to his previous attacks on voter suppression, suggesting that DOJ will respond with legal action if any Republican state lawmakers move forward with their proposals to rig the Electoral College:

Long lines are unnecessary. Shortened voting periods are unwise and inconsistent with the historic ideal of expanded participation in the process. Recent proposed changes in how electoral votes are apportioned in specific states are blatantly partisan, unfair, divisive, and not worthy of our nation. Let me be clear again: we will not sit by and allow the slow unraveling of an electoral system that so many sacrificed so much to construct.

There are two versions of the GOP’s election rigging plans, both of which Republicans want to enact exclusively in blue states. One version would allocate electoral votes in several targeted blue states by Congressional district, rather than to the winner of the state as a whole. The other version, which is currently being pushed by Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi (R), would allocate electoral votes proportionally — so that Mitt Romney would have won a significant chunk of Pennsylvania’s electoral voters even though President Obama carried the state. As with the congressional districts plan, Pileggi’s election-rigging plan would give away electoral votes to Republicans in his blue state, while still keeping all red state electors in GOP hands:

Holder’s suggestion that he would bring the full weight of the Department of Justice down upon any state that tried to steal the White House is certainly welcome, although it alone will not be enough to stop these election-rigging plans. Ultimately, the Justice Department’s ability to protect voting rights depends on a Supreme Court that is not openly hostile to the franchise — and the Roberts Court’s contempt for voting rights pervades their decisions. If the GOP election-rigging plans are to be defeated, it will require citizens in states like Pennsylvania raising their voice in outrage at this blatant attempt to steal American democracy.

Oregon governor signs tuition bill for undocumented immigrants

Jurist

Oregon Governor John Kitzhaber [official website] signed a bill [text, PDF] Tuesday allowing undocumented immigrants to attend public universities at the same tuition rate as in-state residents. The law requires that in order to qualify for these lowered rates, students must have attended high school in Oregon for at least three years, must have attended school in the US for at least five years, and must show proof of intent to become a US citizen. The subsidized tuition rate will save undocumented immigrants an estimated $20,000 per year, though they will still be ineligible to apply for state and federal financial aid. The bill will go into effect in July.

Immigration laws [JURIST backgrounder] have became a hot button issue over the past few years when many states, Arizona being the first, passed laws giving their state and local officials more power to crack down on illegal immigration. Last month, a judge for the US District Court for the Northern District of Georgia permanently blocked [JURIST report] a key provision in Georgia's immigration law that criminalized knowingly transporting or harboring an undocumented immigrant during the course of any other crime. In January, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange asked [JURIST report] the US Supreme Court to overturn a recent decision striking down provisions of Alabama's controversial immigration law [HB 56, PDF]. In December Thrash lifted a preliminary injunction [JURIST report] blocking part of a Georgia immigration law that allows law enforcement officers to ask about immigration status when questioning suspects in criminal investigations. Thrash's order was in line with an August ruling by the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, which upheld [JURIST report] that provision of the law, but it remains to be seen how police will enforce the provision.

UN rights chief calls for Guantanamo prison closure

Jurist

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay [official profile] on Friday called for [press release] US authorities to close down the Guantanamo Bay [JURIST backgrounder] prison camp, emphasizing the continued indefinite incarcerations of many detainees as a clear violation of international law. Of the 166 detainees in Guantanamo, about half have been cleared for transfer [Reuters report], either to home countries or third countries for resettlement, while only nine of them have actually been charged or convicted of crimes. Pillay stressed that those who have been cleared for release must be released immediately, claiming the US government's continued detention of these individuals is a violation of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [PDF]. The High Commissioner also expressed concern about the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 [text], which she says has created obstacles for the closure of Guantanamo as well as for the trials of detainees in civilian courts.

Last month the Center for Constitutional Rights [advocacy website] and defense lawyers for detainees held in the prison camp sent a letter [JURIST report] to Rear Admiral John Smith Jr. [official profile] describing the harsh conditions faced by the detainees and indicated that the detainees have begun to protest the conditions, including participating in a hunger strike [JURIST report]. In February lawyers for the US Navy contended [JURIST report] that surveillance equipment deployed throughout the Guantanamo Bay detention center was not used to breach attorney-client privilege. Earlier in the month a military judge ordered the removal [JURIST report] of any monitoring system that censors the public broadcast of the hearings. In September a federal judge rejected [JURIST report] new restrictions on the ability of lawyers representing detainees who have had their habeas corpus challenges denied or dismissed to access their clients. In February 2012 the chief US military tribunal judge ruled [JURIST report] that the content of attorney-client mail inspected at the Guantanamo Bay prison is confidential and may not be released.

Hundreds of New York City’s fast food workers go on strike

PressTv

On Thursday, protesters stood outside New York City restaurants including Yum Inc's KFC, McDonald's and Burger King demanding better working conditions such as USD15 an hour wage. 

The protesters chanted slogans such as “Can’t survive on $7.25.” 

“We help them earn those billions of dollars that give them the lifestyle that the CEOs get. They earn million-dollar paychecks, so why can't they give us something that we can live on?,” said a protester during the rally.

The medium wage for the USD 200 billion-dollar industry is USD 8.90 an hour and the starting wage is USD 7.25 an hour, making it the lowest for any occupation in New York City. 

Many employees receive food stamps to provide for their kids. Over 50,000 people work in New York’s fast-food industry and only a few chains offer their employees benefits or health insurance. 

One worker for East Harlem KFC, who asked for payment to cover lost time during Superstorm Sandy, was given a free meal instead of aid. 

 The strike was organized by Fast Food Forward, a movement sponsored by community and civil rights groups. 

During the protest, Jonathan Westin the director of Fast Food Forward issued a statement saying that “What happened today sends a big message to a multibillion fast-food industry that this thing is not going away…We’re going to continue fighting for living wages and the right to organize. ... People deserve more than living in poverty.” 

Activists say there is a situation of extreme inequality and worsening living conditions for a great number of people living in New York. The city’s unemployment rate stands at over nine percent and one-third of the workforce, over one million workers, make less than USD 11.75 an hour. 

About 22 percent of people living in New York City meet the official poverty guidelines. A record number of 47,000 people including 20,000 children live in homeless shelters.