Injustice In Brooklyn - A short documentary about 3 wrongfully convicted Black men in the borough

The Leslie Jones hack [racists] used all the scariest tactics of Internet warfare at once

WashPost

What happened to Leslie Jones happened quickly: In an instant, hackers infiltrated the actress’s personal website and replaced it with a public invitation for online abusers to try to destroy her.

Their call to arms began with a racist insult, and then came the pictures of identifying documents, phone numbers and passwords that appeared to belong to her. They stole nude photographs and posted those too. The Department of Homeland Security is now investigating the matter.

But what happened to Leslie Jones has been happening online for a long time, long enough that each of the tactics used has a name: doxxing, revenge porn, hacking. What is slightly unusual about what happened to Jones is that every single one of these tactics was used against her at once.

“It was everything they could do to her,” said Shireen Mitchell, the founder of Digital Sisters and Stop Online Violence Against Women and an expert in online diversity and safety. “It was every tactic in the playbook.”

What happened to Leslie Jones can happen to anyone, experts say. But the danger of it happening to you — and what it will look like if it does — isn’t the same for everybody.

“Women of color are the canaries in the coal mine. They get both the racism and sexism,” Mitchell said. “Online, almost every vocal woman of color I know has been attacked and harassed in some way.”

Two days later, we don’t know who doxxed and hacked Jones, or why the Department of Homeland Security — and not the FBI — are the ones investigating it. But two things are clear about the people who did this to Jones: First, they were extremely motivated to do the worst they could possibly do to her. It was not a casual act. And second, the stated justification for what they did is, essentially, they were angry about a tweet: the hacked page displayed a screenshot and a link to one of Jones’s tweets, where she told one of her trolls she was going to “retweet your hate” for all her followers to see and respond to.

Jones was no stranger to being a target of racist harassment online, but the release of the “Ghostbusters” reboot in July seemed to inspire a new wave of vitriol from those who hated the film, and hated that she was in it. Jones began to retweet and screenshot just a small sample of what was coming her way, including a wave of comparisons to Harambe, the gorilla who was killed in the Cincinnati Zoo this summer. Her hackers repeated that racist, menacing comparison, embedding an image of Harambe at the top of her website when they took control of it.

It takes very little time to write and send a menacing or threatening tweet. What happened to Jones took dedication and skill, but not enough of either to be a deterrent for someone who is motivated to destroy someone online. With enough time, anyone can steal, collect and distribute private information and photos about their enemies to try to ruin their reputation or shame them off the Internet. “Being able to aggregate people’s personal information is very easy,” Mary Anne Franks, a law professor at the University of Miami and legislative and tech policy director of the Cyber Civil Rights Initiative, said. “We put pieces of ourselves online without really thinking about it.” [MORE]

The 5th Amendment is (Allegedly) Also for the Innocent: Law Scholar Says 'Don’t talk to cops—except to tell them, respectfully, that you will not answer any questions without a lawyer'

LA Times

Someday soon, when you least expect it, a police officer may receive mistaken information from a confused eyewitness or a liar, or circum­stantial evidence that helps persuade him that you might be guilty of a very serious crime. When confronted with police officers and other government agents who suddenly arrive with a bunch of questions, most innocent people mistakenly think to themselves, “Why not talk? I haven’t done anything. I have nothing to hide. What could pos­sibly go wrong?”

Well, among other things, you could end up confessing to a crime you didn’t commit. The problem of false confessions is not an urban legend. It is a documented fact. Indeed, research suggests that the innocent may be more susceptible than the culpable to deceptive police interrogation tactics, because they tragically assume that somehow “truth and justice will prevail” later even if they falsely admit their guilt. Nobody knows for sure how often innocent people make false confessions, but as Circuit Judge Alex Kozinski recently observed, “Innocent interrogation subjects confess with surprising frequency.”

It happens especially in cases when the suspect is young and vulnerable. An analysis of 125 proven false confes­sions found that 33% of the suspects were juveniles at the time of arrest, and at least 43% were either mentally disabled or ill. Another study of 340 exonerations found that 13% of adults falsely confessed compared to 42% of juveniles. And nearly half of the exonerated children were put behind bars because of something they said to police without an attorney present.

In Oakland, police isolated and interrogated a 16-year-old named Felix in the middle of the night without a lawyer and denied his requests to see his mother. Eventually he gave them a detailed, videotaped confes­sion to a murder, allegedly filled with numerous specifics only the real killer would have known. At that point, it looked like there was little chance this young man would be able to avoid a conviction; when a jury hears that someone has confessed, they are almost certain to convict. But fortunately for young Felix, it was later revealed that he had an airtight alibi: He had been locked up in a juvenile detention facility the day of the killing. The charges were dismissed, and he was released from jail.

Eddie Lowery was a 22-year-old soldier stationed at Ft. Riley, Kan., when he was interrogated for an entire workday about a rape and murder he never committed. Like a typical innocent man, he persisted for hours in emphatic assertions of innocence. Like typical police officers, the inter­rogators acted open-minded and unconvinced. Perhaps, he foolishly hoped, he might persuade them of his innocence if he repeated his story over and over again at greater and greater length. After the daylong interrogation, he was worn out and gave them a detailed confession. He served more than 20 years in prison until he was recently released, after evidence proved that he was actually innocent.

So why in the world did Lowery confess to such a terrible crime, when we now know that he was innocent all along? He explained the mindset of someone who has been broken down by seven hours of relentless interro­gation: “I didn’t know any way out of that, except to tell them what they wanted to hear, and then get a lawyer to prove my innocence…. You’ve never been in a situation so intense, and you’re naive about your rights. You don’t know what [someone] will say to get out of that situation.”

One analysis of 44 proven false-confession cases revealed that more than a third of the interrogations lasted six to 12 hours, many lasted between 12 and 24 hours, and the average length was more than 16 hours. The longer you speak to police officers, the more likely it is that you will confess to some crime that you did not commit—isn’t that enough of a reason to avoid speaking to them?

Don’t talk to the police—except to tell them, respectfully, that you will not answer any questions and that you would like a lawyer.

James Duane is a professor at Regent Law School in Virginia Beach, Va. This essay is adapted from his book “You Have the Right to Remain Innocent,” forthcoming from Little A in September.

Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood [white man] defends discredited forensic experts, harasses defense attorneys instead

WashPost

Yesterday, The WashPost posted article about a crazy deposition from last April in which longtime Mississippi forensic expert Michael West went wildly off the rails. West was profane, belligerent, and openly contemptuous of the fact that anyone would dare question his expertise. The remarkable thing is that this was a deposition for a post-conviction hearing in a death penalty case. And in that case, West is the star witness. His testimony was the only physical evidence putting defendant Eddie Lee Howard at the crime scene.

Once in post-conviction, these cases are handled by the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office. You might think that the Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood would be embarrassed by West’s antics. The actions from his office after the deposition indicate that that you’d be wrong.

The deposition occurred on April 16. On April 25th, in anticipation of the evidentiary hearing that followed in May (that hearing went down about the same way as the deposition — the judge has yet to rule on the matter), Tucker Carrington of the Mississippi Innocence Project sent a letter to assistant attorney general Jason Davis. In it, Carrington again pointed out that since Howard’s trials West has been widely discredited. He pointed out that in the deposition itself, West contradicted his testimony at trial. And he pointed out West’s wholesale failure to take any of this seriously — he failed to prepare for the deposition, his failed to produce the appropriate documents and records, and he of course showed an appalling lack of professionalism and reverence, particularly given that a man’s life is at stake. Carrington again requested that the AG’s office drop the charges.

The next day, Davis and Hood filed a motion requesting a hearing to assess the competency of Howard’s legal team. It’s an astonishingly brazen reaction. Faced with an embarrassing performance in which the state’s already-discredited primary witness in a death penalty case came completely unhinged, Hood chose instead to attack the credibility of Eddie Lee Howard’s lawyers.

My sources in Mississippi tell me that Hood’s office has using this tactic for a while now. The motion was based on Rule 22 of the Mississippi’s Rules of Appellate Procedure. The intent behind that rule is sound: It gives the state’s courts a mechanism to ensure that defendants in capital cases are getting adequate legal representation in their appeals. These are complicated and consequential cases. You don’t want death penalty appeals and post-conviction petitions handled by fresh law school grads or washed up schlubs. [MORE]

B-More PDS: No more secret surveillance on Baltimore citizens

Baltimore Sun

The Baltimore City Police Department, with direction from the FBI, has engaged in a practice of using machines that act as cell phone tower simulators to spy on its own citizens, in secret, and sometimes illegally. These cell site simulators are portable and allow the police to electronically connect with all cell phones in a given area — temporarily disconnecting them from their providers — in an attempt to locate a particular phone.

If you try to call 911 while the police are searching your cell phone (or your child's) you will not know why the phone is not working. Last year, Detective Emmanuel Cabreja testified in a hearing in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City that this technology was used approximately 4,300 times during the past eight years — far from a small infringement on the privacy of Baltimore's citizens.

When applying to a court for authority to use this technology, Department of Justice guidelines require law enforcement personnel to disclose to the judge the disruption of service that occurs for those affected by the simulator. This is not the practice in Baltimore. Instead, in 2011, city police, prosecutors and the FBI have all agreed to not disclose any information related to the use of cell site simulators — not even in court documents or proceedings. Only with written approval from the FBI can Baltimore City reveal certain information about this surveillance practice, according to the agreement, which was revealed in response to a Maryland Public Information Act request made by the state Office of the Public Defender last year.

Earlier this year, in a criminal case involving defendant Kerron Andrews who was represented by the Office of the Public Defender, a Baltimore Circuit Court judge and the Maryland Court of Special Appeals found that use of such technology to target and search Mr. Andrews' phone violated the 4th Amendment.

Judge Leahy, writing for the appellate court, addressed the nondisclosure agreement: "We observe that such an extensive prohibition on disclosure of information to the court — from special order and/or warrant application through appellate review — prevents the court from exercising its fundamental duties under the Constitution," he wrote, and is "inimical to the constitutional principles we revere."

What type of law enforcement practice could be legitimate when it hinders judges from following the law? And how many other Baltimoreans have been secretly surveilled by this technology?

Now, 16 months after the tragic death of Freddie Gray, police practices in Baltimore have been under particular scrutiny. On August 10th, the Department of Justice issued a comprehensive report criticizing aspects of the Baltimore Police Department including its use of excessive force, illegal street stops and discriminatory practices against African-Americans. Not a word, though, was mentioned about the secret and prevalent surveillance by the Baltimore police of its own citizens. Could it be because the FBI, an agency of the Department of Justice, is directing local law enforcement to continue this practice, instead of promoting transparency in policing?

As the Baltimore Sun reported last week, a number of civil rights groups filed a complaint with the Federal Communications Commission alleging violations of federal law in regard to the Baltimore police's widespread disruption of phone service for city residents. The complaint alleges that this practice is most prevalent in minority neighborhoods where the police most frequently use these cell site simulators. This administrative complaint will, I hope, shed further light on this secret practice by the police.

Government derives its "just powers from consent of the governed," as Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence, and the citizens of Baltimore never consented to these practices. All of us suffer when citizens are secretly watched by their own government. This is particularly true in poor and minority neighborhoods, which are always disparately impacted by inappropriate police practices. For our communities, for our children, for our city, this widespread secret surveillance should cease immediately.

David Walsh-Little is the chief attorney of the Felony Trial Division of the Office of the Public Defender in Baltimore; his email is DWalsh-Little@opd.state.md.us.

Ohio Supreme court rules prior juvenile charges cannot be used to increase sentences

Jurist 

The Ohio Supreme Court [official website]ruled [opinion, PDF] Thursday that courts cannot use prior juvenile charges to enhance the sentence of an adult criminal offender. In a 4-3 decision, the court held that using prior juvenile charges to enhance sentencing for adult criminals is unconstitutional and "fundamentally unfair." The majority relied primarily upon two arguments. First, juvenile cases are handled in civil court and are therefore meant to help children avoid a life of crime, while criminal cases for adults are meant to punish the wrongdoer and provide retribution to society. Second, juvenile proceedings do not grant children a right to a jury trial. The dissent argued that a portion of Ohio's criminal code clarified this issue, allowing courts to use earlier juvenile convictions to enhance an adult criminal's sentence.

This case is the most recent in a series of attempts to reform the criminal justice system, a campaign spearheaded by President Barack Obama. Last year US President Barack Obama spoke at the NAACP Annual Convention and urged [JURIST report] Congress to reform the criminal justice system by enacting legislation that would enforce criminal laws fairly and reduce sentencing disparities. Earlier that week Obama commuted the sentences [JURIST report] of 46 drug offenders in what he said was part of an effort by his administration to remedy the unfairness of the criminal justice system. In 2014 the US Department of Justice announced support for reducing the sentences of nonviolent drug offenders in federal prisons after the US Supreme Court relaxed [JURIST reports] sentencing guidelines on drug dealers earlier that year. In 2013 the American Civil Liberties Union published a study [JURIST report] finding that 3,278 Americans are currently serving life sentences without parole for nonviolent offenses.

Navajo Nation Sues EPA Over Gold King Mine Disaster

IndianCountry

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is among several defendants named in a lawsuit brought by the Navajo Nation alleging that the Gold King Mine spill in August 2015 could have been prevented, and seeking damages. 

When three million gallons of mining wastewater were let loose last August by EPA contractors attempting to remediate the site in Silverton, Colorado, it gushed into the Animas River, then the San Juan, prompting it to be declared off-limits for agriculture and drinking for several days. Even today, the tribe is still seeing fallout.

“For nearly two days, the USEPA did not call, alert or notify the Nation that this toxic sludge had been released and was headed into their waters and land,” the Navajo allege in the complaint. “Now, a year after one of the most significant environmental catastrophes in history, the Nation and the Navajo people have yet to have their waterways cleaned, their losses compensated, their health protected, or their way of life restored.”

Members of Congress representing the region that encompasses the Navajo Nation applauded the move. A statement from the office of U.S. Rep. Raúl M. Grijalva, D-Arizona, said the EPA’s priority should be to “make the Navajo community whole and mitigate financial risk to Navajo tribal members” and urged the agency to consider a fast settlement so as not to drag the process out. Other Democrats expressed support as well. [MORE]

Nearly half of youth detention centers use isolation as a form of control

ThinkProgress

Counties that use death penalty are plagued by prosecutorial misconduct, bad lawyers & racial bias

Fair Punishment.org

The death penalty in America is dying.

The trends are clear. In 2015, juries returned the fewest number of new death sentences—49—since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976.1 The number of death sentences in 2015 has declined by more than 50 percent since 2009, which saw 118 death sentences, and by more than 600 percent since the peak of 315 sentences in 1996.2 Of the 31 states that legally retain the death penalty,3 only 14— or less than half—imposed a single death sentence in 2015.4

When we drill down to the county level, the large-scale abandonment of the death penalty in the country becomes even more apparent. Of the 3,143 county or county equivalents in the United States, only 16—or one half of one percent—imposed ve or more death sentences between 2010 and 2015.5 Six of those coun es are in Alabama (Je erson and Mobile) and Florida (Duval, Hillsborough, Miami-Dade and Pinellas)—the only two states that currently permit non-unanimous death verdicts.6 Of the remaining 10 coun es, ve are located in highly-populated Southern California (Kern, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, and San Bernardino). The others include Caddo (LA), Clark (NV), Dallas (TX), Harris (TX) and Maricopa (AZ). As Jus ce Stephen Breyer noted in his 2015 dissent in Glossip v. Gross, “the number of ac ve death penalty coun es is small and ge ng smaller.”7 

Chicago Dodges Claims of Planned Apartheid

Courthouse News

A Chicago realtor and philanthropist did not prove that the city strategically zoned wealthy, predominately white neighborhoods to promote segregation, the Seventh Circuit ruled.

     "Chicago is, by its own admission, a 'highly segregated city' and has been for more than 50 years," Chief Judge Diane Wood wrote for the three-judge panel Monday.

     Since 1980, whites have lived mostly on the north, northwest, southwest and far south sides of Chicago, while blacks have lived mostly on the west and south sides, census records show.

     Trends like those led Albert Hanna — a realtor, philanthropist and long-time resident of Lincoln Park, an affluent North Side neighborhood — to sue the city in 2011.

     Hanna alleges that Chicago snagged more than $1 billion in federal housing funds by lying to the federal government about its housing policies from 2005 to 2011.

     The city actually increased segregation by administering its funding programs, along with its zoning and land use laws, to place affordable housing in less desirable areas, Hanna claims.

     Those "low-opportunity areas," with over 40 percent of residents living below the federal poverty line, have mostly minority populations, the lawsuit states.

     The city's "areas of opportunity," however, — with "lower poverty rates, good community services and commercial amenities, job opportunities, safe neighborhoods and good schools" — have more whites than blacks and Latinos, compared to Chicago in general, Hanna claims.

     Chicago allegedly used "aldermanic privilege" and "down-zoning" of 5,200 acres of mostly desirable land to prevent or limit new construction of affordable housing.

     But in the 1960s to 1980s, when most projects were not controlled by the city, roughly half of affordable rental housing was located in well-to-do areas, according to Hanna's complaint.

     That statistic allegedly dropped to just 10 percent in the '90s after the city council took over.

     Indeed, 93 percent of the more than 2,600 affordable housing units built from 2005 to 2011 are located in low-income areas, according to the complaint.

     Hanna says that in 2004, then-Mayor Richard Daley's zoning ordinance's stated purpose — to "preserve neighborhood character" — was a smokescreen.

     A federal judge dismissed the amended complaint, and Hanna appealed.

     But the Seventh Circuit affirmed the lower court's ruling Monday, finding that Hanna's complaint gives no information about which regulatory provisions the city allegedly violated.

     "The city has a point," Judge Wood wrote. "Where the allegedly false certification relates to a failure to comply with certain statutory and regulatory provisions, the plaintiff should be able to tell the city which ones it flouted, and how and when."

     This lack of specificity makes it "nearly impossible for the defendant to prepare a defense," according to the ruling.

     Hanna also failed to specify the time, place, and method of the alleged falsification, the ruling states.

     "Beyond the fact that the certifications were made yearly, 'typically in December,' Hanna says nothing more about timing," Wood wrote. "Nor does he allege the place, either the physical location or the specific documents."

     The judge later added that "the documents in question are probably publicly accessible. This may be the real problem with Hanna's case: the [False Claims Act] is meant to encourage whistleblowing by insiders, and Hanna seems to have no insider knowledge."

     Judges Richard Posner and Ilana Rovner rounded out the unanimous panel.

     One of Hanna's attorneys, Michael Allen with Relman, Dane & Colfax in D.C., declined to comment on the ruling.

Although Justice Department No Longer Will Use Private Prisons - It Will Not affect other federal agencies –Immigration and Customs Enforcement, for example – or state and local contracts

BlackListed News

For over half of the United States and its federal government this has translated into the systematic incorporation of privately-operated prisons; throughout corrections, contracting has facilitated whole industries unto themselves, from video visitation to drone detection to food services, helping drive the direction of prison policy much more quickly through new technology, marketing, and the power of the commission than through data and debate.  

The incarceration ecosystem is vast. Private prisons are perhaps the most explicit example of murky monied interests, but they’re far from the only one. They’re further still from going away. [MORE]

US Admits Syria Bombing "May Have" Killed [all non-white] Civilians

BlackListedNews

American jets targeting an ISIS 'weapons facility' in Raqqa, Syria "may have killed an unknown number of civilians" during an airstrike Tuesday according to statement from US Central Command.

As RT notes, Raqqa, under control of jihadist rebels since March 2013, was declared the capital of the self-proclaimed Caliphate in January 2014. In October that year, Washington launched a campaign against IS, eventually named “Inherent Resolve.” The US war effort is coordinated by CENTCOM, from its headquarters in Tampa, Florida.

Black Men Charged with murder, but they didn’t kill anyone—Chicago police did

ChicagoReader and [MORE]

On July 8, 2012, as the summer sun rose over the Auburn Gresham neighborhood on the south side of Chicago, police hauled a distraught 19-year-old named Tevin Louis away from a murder scene. The victim was Louis's best friend, Marquise Sampson. The shooter was a veteran police officer, Antonio Dicarlo.

For the previous five years, Louis and Sampson had been inseparable, drawn together by rough childhoods marked by foster care and poverty. In good times, Sampson made Louis laugh. In hard times, Louis made sure Sampson had food and a place to stay. As the boys became young men, they began to work the streets together, as they did everything, for better and for worse.

The day Sampson died, the pair had allegedly robbed a local gyros shop of approximately $1,250. Louis then ran from the restaurant. Sampson soon followed, then crossed paths with police.

After spotting Sampson running, Dicarlo and his partner gave chase, according to the Chicago Police Department's case report, pursuing the teen for a quarter mile as he ran to the block where he often stayed with Louis and his cousin. But Louis never saw his friend alive again.

Louis didn't arrive on the scene until after Dicarlo shot Sampson three times—in the shoulder, chest, and back, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's autopsy report. Louis attempted to cross the police line to be at his friend's side. He was promptly arrested for disorderly conduct and has been locked up ever since.

"Marquise was like a brother—like he came from my momma's womb," Louis told the Reader by phone from Lawrence Correctional Center in southern Illinois. "It was heartbreaking. I lost somebody I be with every day."

In a statement given to the Independent Police Review Authority, the agency that investigates police shootings and allegations of misconduct, Dicarlo described in detail the lead-up to Sampson's death, claiming the teen had pointed a weapon in his direction, prompting him to fire. That Dicarlo fatally shot Sampson is also acknowledged in Chicago Police Department reports.

Yet it's Louis whom the Cook County criminal justice system has held responsible. Following Louis's initial arrest, the charge of disorderly conduct evolved to include robbery and first-degree murder. In the subsequent months, he was found guilty of each.

Under a controversial legal doctrine known as the "felony murder rule," the teen's prosecution relied on a theory of accountability enshrined in Illinois's criminal code: that while committing a felony, a person can set in motion a chain of events that lead to the death of another person.

"I cried," Louis admitted, remembering the moment he learned that he was being charged with murder for his friend's death. "It was unreal. I didn't know what was happening."

But Louis's prosecution was no fluke. Rather, a Reader investigation finds that his case was one of at least ten in Cook County in the past five years in which killings by Chicago Police Department and Cook County sheriff's officers have resulted in felony murder charges for civilians. In particular, the Reader found three cases in which police fatally shot passengers in fleeing vehicles—an act that's come under intense scrutiny since the fatal shooting of 18-year-old Paul O'Neal in late July—before holding a surviving passenger responsible.

Although these prosecutions are sanctioned by Illinois law, these cases raise difficult questions about the law's use and impact—especially when felony murder charges stem from situations involving possible police misconduct.

At trial, Louis refused a plea deal on the murder charge. Presiding judge Jorge Alonso instructed the jury to consider Louis's murder and robbery charges as interdependent, explaining that under the law it's "immaterial whether the killing in such a case is intentional or accidental or conflicted by a third person."

The jury found Louis guilty. He's now serving a 32-year sentence for armed robbery and an additional 20-year sentence for Sampson's death. He's also appealing his case.

"I'm not perfect," he says. "But I don't deserve this."

While in prison, he had "Marquise 7-8-12" tattooed on one hand, and his best friend's birthday on the other.

And while Louis is serving time for his friend's murder, the officer who actually pulled the trigger has been commended for his actions. For fatally shooting Sampson, Dicarlo received a 2013 Superintendent's Award for Valor, which honors "an act of outstanding bravery or heroism," according to CPD. Mayor Rahm Emanuel presided over the ceremony.

CPD spokesman Anthony Guglielmi deferred to IPRA for comment on specific cases, although IPRA did not respond to three detailed interview requests. In a statement, Guglielmi said that "when wrong doing [sic] or intentional misconduct is discovered, CPD holds individuals accountable," and that the department's "commitment to the highest levels of integrity and the highest levels of professional standards is unwavering." Attempts to interview the individual officers named in this story, including Dicarlo, made through requests sent to personal e-mail addresses, phone numbers, and via CPD and the Fraternal Order of Police (the police union), yielded no response from the officers. The FOP didn't respond to other requests for comment, nor did the Cook County Sheriff's Office.

Based on Dicarlo's account, IPRA found the shooting of Sampson justified in February 2014, as it has in nearly all of the 238 closed shooting investigations detailed on the organization's website. In dashcam video obtained by the Reader via a Freedom of Information Act request, Dicarlo's encounter with Sampson is obscured, visible only through the windshields of a car parked between Dicarlo's police vehicle and the officer and suspect. Their interaction lasts just a few seconds before Sampson appears to collapse.

Dicarlo's 15-year career with CPD has been marred by at least 21 misconduct complaints, including four excessive force complaints, one of which alleged improper use of a weapon, according to documents obtained via FOIA request and from the Citizens Police Data Project. Misconduct complaints also accuse Dicarlo of conduct unbecoming an officer, unnecessary physical contact, illegal search, illegal arrest, and five separate instances of failure to provide service.

The city has settled at least two civil lawsuits against Dicarlo—for a total of $55,000—including one that alleged the officer had beaten a man so badly he was left bleeding from the head, that he then tried to convince fellow officers to forgo calling an ambulance, and then lied to a health-care provider about the cause of the man's injuries.

For his part, Louis doesn't believe his friend would have pulled his weapon on police.

"There's a difference between doing something wrong and just being fucking stupid," Louis says. "Marquise wasn't stupid. I think [Dicarlo] murdered him in cold blood."

THE FELONY MURDER RULE has its roots in English common law, under which all felonies were punishable by death, and any participant in a violent crime could be liable for a killing by an accomplice. Starting in the 19th century, most American states enacted laws imposing murder liability for killing in the course of the most serious felonies—robbery, rape, arson, and burglary. These laws didn't require intent, but in practice they were generally limited to cases in which one of the accused fatally attacked a victim with a weapon.

Today, almost every state has some form of felony murder liability. The laws vary as to which felonies can give rise to murder charges and how directly the arrestee must be involved in the death in order to be charged. Many felony murder laws—including those in California, Pennsylvania, and Maryland—contain a separate rule that requires the killer to be a participant or "agent" in the felony. Other states, such as New York and Kansas, have a "protected person" rule that prevents an arrestee from being liable for the death of a co-arrestee. [MORE]

Embracing the Alt-Right: New Trump Campaign Chief "Created an Online Haven for White Nationalists"

Democracy Now

Last week, Donald Trump once again upended his campaign team and named Stephen Bannon, the head of Breitbart Media, to be his campaign chief. Breitbart regularly sparks controversy with headlines such as "Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy," "Trannies Whine About Hilarious Bruce Jenner Billboard" and "Bill Kristol: Republican Spoiler, Renegade Jew." In a new article published by Mother Jones, investigative journalist Sarah Posner writes, "By bringing on Stephen Bannon, Trump was signaling a wholehearted embrace of the 'alt-right,' a once-motley assemblage of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, ethno-nationalistic provocateurs who have coalesced behind Trump and curried the GOP nominee’s favor on social media." For more, we speak to Sarah Posner and Heather McGhee of Demos.

With New DNA Testing Proving Innocence, Black Man Acquitted of Murder in Less Than An Hour After Retrial

Innocence Project 

After Innocence Project lawyers presented DNA evidence proving the innocence of Anthony Wright and pointing to the real assailant, a Philadelphia jury today acquitted Wright of the 1991 rape and murder of Louise Talley, becoming the 344th DNA exoneree in the nation. Wright wrongly served 25 years for the rape and murder. At the retrial, it was disclosed that DNA testing of clothing alleged by police to have been worn by Wright to commit the crime were not his and could not have been in his home as the police claimed.

“We are extremely relieved that this very long nightmare is finally over for Mr. Wright and his family. DNA testing proved not only that Mr. Wright is absolutely innocent but also that law enforcement fabricated evidence against him,” said Peter Neufeld, Co-Director of the Innocence Project, which is affiliated with Cardozo School of Law. “But it’s outrageous that he has been forced to endure a retrial to gain his freedom after DNA testing already proved his innocence. This case raises many serious questions, and Philadelphians should be deeply concerned about the manner in which law enforcement handled this case and should demand a review of three police detectives responsible for Mr. Wright’s wrongful conviction.”

At the retrial, it was revealed that since the DNA testing was conducted 3 ½ years ago that identified Ronnie Byrd as the real assailant, neither the Philadelphia Police Department nor the District Attorney’s office has conducted any additional investigation. The former district attorney fought efforts by the Innocence Project to conduct the testing for more than 5 years, eventually sending the case to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which remanded the case back to the district court for a hearing on the testing. The testing of the rape kit identified spermatozoa recovered from the victim’s vagina and rectum that excluded Wright as the source, and was then identified as Byrd’s. Byrd was twice the age of Wright and almost half the age of the victim at the time of the crime and had a long criminal record, which included crimes in and around Philadelphia. Byrd died in South Carolina in early 2013 and was never able to be questioned about the crime or prosecuted for it. DNA testing of the clothes police claimed were worn by Wright to the victim’s home the night of the murder demonstrate that the clothing did not belong to Wright but in fact had been worn by the victim.

Nina Morrison, a Senior Staff Attorney the Innocence Project, added, “Judging by the treatment that Mr. Wright has endured, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has no intention of learning how this tragic miscarriage of justice occurred or how to prevent future injustice. While the Philadelphia police have a policy requiring the recording of interrogations, the state legislators should, at a minimum, enact a law requiring the recording of interrogations throughout the Commonwealth.”

Wright was originally convicted of the 1991 rape and murder of the 77-year-old North Philadelphia resident on June 8, 1993. Police claimed that after merely 14 minutes in custody, Wright voluntarily gave a full and complete signed confession to the crime. Wright, however, who was just 20 when he was arrested, has always maintained his innocence and testified in both the original and the retrial that he only signed the alleged confession, which the police wrote out, after the interrogating detectives threatened him with bodily harm.

All of the prosecution’s original trial witnesses, two of whom were admitted crack dealers, claimed that Wright committed the crime alone, saying either that they saw him enter the victim’s home alone or that he described his actions to them. Not only did the witnesses provide conflicting details, but most importantly, none of them mentioned anything about Byrd, the then 39-year-old convicted felon whose semen was identified by DNA testing on the vaginal and rectal swabs collected from the victim at autopsy.

Since the original trial, two of the witnesses passed away, but under Pennsylvania law, the prosecution was allowed to enter their earlier testimony into evidence without providing the lawyers the opportunity to question them regarding the new DNA evidence.  The prosecution was also allowed to enter the original testimony of three other witnesses, who where then teenagers and known to the police, after they testified at the retrial that they had no recollection of their earlier testimony.

Wright again testified in his own defense, telling the jury that he worked at his full-time construction job on the day of the crime and later went to a night club.

The jury deliberated for less than an hour before reaching its verdict.  Wright, who has now wrongly served 25 years for the crime walked out of the courtroom a free man.  He was surrounded by his family, which includes a son and a granddaughter.  At his original trial, Wright narrowly escaped the death penalty by a 7 to 5 vote of the jury.

“Philadelphia law enforcement has a lot of questions to answer following today’s verdict. This case should have never been put before a jury given all the evidence pointing to Mr. Wright’s innocence,” said Samuel Silver of Schnader Harrison Segal & Lewis LLP, co-counsel for Wright and Pennsylvania Innocence Project board member. “But we are relieved that justice has prevailed and Mr. Wright has been given back his life.”