System Rigged: Study finds courts give prosecutors leeway on disclosing evidence

SF Chronicle 

More than 50 years ago, the U.S. Supreme Court said prosecutors, who have much more access to crime-scene evidence than defense lawyers, must turn over any information they find that might help the defendant. But when they fail to turn over favorable evidence, courts these days seldom do anything about it, according to a new study co-authored by a Santa Clara University law professor.

Farrakhan: Remembering a hero and champion: Marion S. Barry Jr.

Final Call

Statement from the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan on the passing of the Honorable Mayor Marion S. Barry, Jr.

 Marion S. Barry Jr., former four-time District of Columbia Mayor and three term Ward 8 Council member, died early Nov. 23 at the District’s United Medical Center, after he was released earlier in the evening from Howard University Hospital.

The legendary political icon was admitted Nov. 20 to Howard Hospital because he was not feeling well, according to his D.C. council spokeswoman LaToya Foster.

Mr. Barry was discharged Nov. 22 and reported that he was in good spirits. He went home, watched TV and went out to get something to eat. He returned home where he collapsed while getting out of his vehicle. He was 78.

Reflections and memories were still pouring in from around the country at Final Call press time including sentiments from the Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan of the Nation of Islam. Minister Farrakhan released a statement extending condolences to the family while praising the life, legacy and work of Mr. Barry as a giant in the liberation struggle of Black people. (Please see page 23 for Min. Farrakhan’s statement in its entirety.) 

Mr. Barry was a steadfast supporter and advocate whose intervention was invaluable to the success of the Million Man March in 1995 held in the Nation’s Capital.

“Marion was not just a colleague but also was a friend with whom I shared many fond moments about governing the city,” Mayor Vincent Gray said in a statement. “He loved the District of Columbia and so many Washingtonians loved him.”

Mayor-elect Muriel Bowser called Mr. Barry an “inspiration to so many people and a fighter for people.” Mr. Gray ordered flags at all D.C. buildings to be flown at half-staff.

“From my earliest encounter with Marion Barry, when he was the first chair of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee until I came back home and found him mayor of my home town, I have seen Marion take hold and write his signature boldly on his own life and times and on the life of the nation’s capital,” D.C. Congressional Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton said in a statement.

“Many took his struggle to personify in some way their own, endearing him and making him a larger-than-life figure as he became a creator of post-home-rule D.C.,” she said.

President Barack Obama also issued a statement expressing sadness on behalf of himself and Mrs. Obama which said in part:

“During his decades in elected office in D.C., he put in place historic programs to lift working people out of poverty, expand opportunity, and begin to make real the promise of home rule. Through a storied, at times tumultuous life and career, he earned the love and respect of countless Washingtonians, and Michelle and I extend our deepest sympathies to Marion’s family, friends and constituents today.”

Rep. Marcia L. Fudge (D-Ohio), issued a statement on behalf of the Congressional Black Caucus in which she serves as chair. Mr. Barry leaves a legacy and passion that will not be forgotten said Rep. Fudge.

“A hero of the Civil Rights Movement and a longtime leader in the District of Columbia, (Mr.) Barry’s personal demons could not obscure his deep and abiding love for the city and its people,” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), Chair of the Democratic National Committee said. “His voice and his constant presence will be missed by the people of Ward 8 and residents across the District,” said Rep. Schultz.

Mr. Barry battled kidney problems stemming from diabetes and high blood pressure and underwent a kidney transplant in February 2009. He served as a member of the D.C. council since 2005, winning re-election twice. He was still often referred to by his admirers all over the city and the country as “Mayor Barry” despite not having held that office since 1999.

Mr. Barry was first elected mayor in 1978 after building a political career as an official of the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) and as a local activist in Washington. He was re-elected in 1982 and 1986, and again in 1994.

“I want to take the boards off of houses and put people in them,” Mr. Barry said shortly after being sworn in in 1979. “I want to provide minimal care for all people, regardless of their financial situation. And I want to live out (Dr. Martin Luther) King’s legacy of peace, brotherhood and survival.”

Despite embarrassing episodes because he was a self-described “night owl,” and because of a misdemeanor drug conviction after a multi-million dollar investigation and sting in a downtown hotel in 1993, Mr. Barry is remembered most for being a “champion” who opened the door to Blacks in the D.C. government; for establishing a popular summer job program which guaranteed work for every high-school-age youth in the city; for advocating on behalf of and delivering city services to the elderly and to citizens returning from incarceration.

Marion Barry’s death at age 78, is clearly the end of an era, because, as he said of himself, he was a voice for the “last, the lost, and the least.”

AIDS campaigners say pandemic has finally reached tipping point

Aljazeera

For the first time since the HIV virus started spreading across the globe 30 years ago, the world has reached “the beginning of the end of AIDS,” a leading campaign group said on Monday, while cautioning that further concerted efforts are needed to control the disease worldwide.

In a study to mark World AIDS Day, the advocacy group ONE Campaign reported that for the first time since the pandemic began, the number of HIV-infected people added to antiretroviral treatment in 2013 was greater than the number of people newly infected with the deadly virus.

UNAIDS, the United Nations AIDS agency, says that by June 2014, some 13.6 million people globally had access to AIDS drugs, a dramatic improvement on the 5 million who were getting treatment in 2010.

The AIDS pandemic that began more than three decades ago has killed up to 40 million people worldwide.

"We've passed the tipping point in the AIDS fight at the global level, but not all countries are there yet, and the gains made can easily stall or unravel," said Erin Hohlfelder, ONE's director of global health policy.

Supreme Court to hear First Amendment case on violent Facebook rap lyrics

AlJazeera

The Supreme Court on Monday was set to hear arguments on violent rap lyrics posted to Facebook — a case that could redraw the boundaries between protected free speech, criminal threats made over social media and the latitude that is often granted for artistic expression.

The case involves Pennsylvania resident Anthony Elonis, who was sentenced to four years in prison for posting explicit rap lyrics in which he threatened to murder his estranged wife, shoot up elementary schools and slit the throat of an FBI agent who was investigating his case. He was convicted in federal court on five counts of transmitting interstate threats — over the Internet, in this case — “to injure the person of another.”

"The Appearance of Justice" Department to issue new guidance on racial profiling

AlJazeera

U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said Monday that he will soon unveil long-planned Justice Department guidance aimed at ending racial profiling.

Holder traveled to Atlanta to meet with law enforcement and community leaders for the first in a series of regional meetings around the country. The president asked Holder to set up the meetings in the wake of clashes between protesters and police in Ferguson, Missouri.

"In the coming days, I will announce updated Justice Department guidance regarding profiling by federal law enforcement. This will institute rigorous new standards — and robust safeguards — to help end racial profiling, once and for all," Holder said.

Tensions between police and the community in Ferguson boiled over into violent confrontations in August after a white police officer shot a black teenager. Protests turned violent again last week after a grand jury declined to indict officer Darren Wilson in the death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.

Holder's meeting in Atlanta included a closed roundtable discussion with law enforcement and community leaders followed by a public interfaith service and community forum.

The meeting came after President Barack Obama's request to federal agencies Monday for recommendations to ensure the U.S. isn't building a "militarized culture" within police departments. The White House also announced it wants more police to wear cameras that capture their interactions with civilians. The cameras are part of a $263 million spending package to help police departments improve their community relations.

See? Winning is Not Everything. Redskins Lose Another Game but White Fans Super Relieved to have a white QB Again

Supreme court agrees to hear two cases involving mortgage liens

[JURIST]

The US Supreme Court [official website] on Monday granted certiorari [order list, PDF] in two bankruptcy cases on appeal from the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit [official website], consolidating them for one hour of oral argument. The two cases, Bank of America, NA v. Caulkett and Bank of America, NA v. Toledo-Cardona [SCOTUSBlog backgrounders], both involve mortgage liens and Section 506(d) of the Bankruptcy Code [text], and both seek the court's answer to the same question: "Whether a chapter 7 debtor may 'strip off'—that is, void—a valid junior lien on the debtor's house when the debt owed to a senior lienholder exceeds the house's current value." The cases present a circuit split between the Eleventh Circuit's decision, which has held that a debtor may strip off such a junior lien, and decisions from the Fourth, Sixth and Seventh Circuits.

The Supreme Court ruled in several bankruptcy cases last term. In June the court ruled [JURIST report] unanimously in Clark v. Rameker [SCOTUSblog backgrounder] that funds held in inherited individual retirement accounts (IRAs) are not "retirement funds" for bankruptcy purposes. In the same week the court held [JURIST report] that when a bankruptcy court lacks jurisdiction to enter a final judgment, the bankruptcy court can still issue proposed findings of fact and conclusions of law to be reviewed de novo by the district court. In March the court ruled [JURIST report] that a bankruptcy court improperly exceeded its authority by ordering legally exempt funds to be used to pay attorney's costs.

Ferguson shooting evidence released following grand jury decision

JURIST

A grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri, decided Monday not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown in August. St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert McCulloch [official website] released documents and evidence [NYT materials] that were presented to the grand jury, including jury transcripts, witness interviews, forensic reports and photographs. As protesters take to the street in response to the grand jury decision, Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy website] urged Missouri law enforcement not to resort to excessive force [press release]. Commenting on the grand jury decision, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri [advocacy website] issued a statement [ACLU press release]:

The grand jury's decision does not negate the fact that Michael Brown's tragic death is part of an alarming national trend of officers using excessive force against people of color, often during routine encounters. Yet in most cases, the officers and police departments are not held accountable. While many officers carry out their jobs with respect for the communities they serve, we must confront the profound disconnect and disrespect that many communities of color experience with their local law enforcement.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein also commented on the "disproportionate number of young African Americans who die in encounters with police officers." He urged [press release] authorities to examine how race-related issues are affecting law enforcement and the administration of justice at both state and federal levels.

The death of Michael Brown [USA Today report], an African American teenager, has prompted mass protests as many Ferguson residents believe the killing was racially motivated. Last month AI reported that police in Ferguson committed human rights abuses [JURIST report] against peaceful protestors. Earlier in October a federal judge ruled that a tactic employed by police to control protestors in Ferguson in August was unconstitutional and issued a preliminary injunction [JURIST report]. In late August five people brought a lawsuit against the city of Ferguson [JURIST report] for the use of unnecessary and unwarranted force by St. Louis County Police and Ferguson Police.

The UN Committee Against Torture urges US to investigate police brutality

Jurist

The UN Committee Against Torture [official website] has urged the US [report, PDF] to begin prompt, impartial investigations into all cases of police brutality and excessive use of force by police officers, and to limit the use of electrical discharge weapons. The committee expressed concern over the use of force against people of "certain racial and ethnic groups, immigrants and LGBT individuals, racial profiling by police and immigration offices and growing militarization of policing activities," especially in Chicago, where according to the committee, there have been reports that the Chicago Police Department [official website] has harassed, racially profiled and used excessive force on African-American and Latino youths. In particular, the report "expresses its deep concern at the frequent and recurrent police shootings or fatal pursuits of unarmed black individuals." The committee also suggested prosecuting all individuals suspected of torture or excessive force and to remedy the victims. Additionally, the report criticized the use of tasers on unarmed individuals for fleeing minor crime scenes, resisting arrest and even on minors. The committee urged the US to limit the use of these weapons to situations where there exists a risk of serious bodily harm or death, and to prohibit their use against children and pregnant women. Other topics examined by the committee's report on the US include counter-terrorism measures, alleged tortures overseas, interrogation techniques, immigrant detention and solitary confinement.

The report, which was based on conclusions adopted last week by the committee, was published just days after a grand jury in Ferguson, Missouri decided not to return an indictment [JURIST report] against police officer Darren Wilson for the shooting death of teenager Michael Brown in August. Police in Ferguson have since received much criticism for force of use and alleged human rights abuses. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International (AI) [advocacy websites] issued reports [JURIST report] in August alleging the use of police force and intimidation tactics to dispel largely nonviolent protesters threatens constitutional freedoms. Last month AI further reported that police in Ferguson, Missouri committed human rights abuses [JURIST report] against peaceful protesters. Five people brought a lawsuit [JURIST report] in August against the city of Ferguson, Missouri and several officials for the use of unnecessary and unwarranted force by St. Louis County Police and Ferguson Police against demonstrators.

Kobe Bryant on Ferguson: "The System Enables Young Black Men to Be Killed Behind the Mask of Law"

USA Today

Kobe Bryant joined the many voices in sports speaking about the situation in Ferguson, Missouri, where on Monday a grand jury declined to indict Darren Wilson in the shooting death of unarmed teenager Michael Brown. On Tuesday Bryant, after practice, called for changes in the legal system and the standards for law enforcement officials.

“You can sit here and argue about it until we’re blue in the face and protest about it,” Bryant said following practice on Tuesday at the Lakers’ practice facility in El Segundo. “Until the legal system, we have a serious legal system conversation, it’s going to keep on happening.”

He added that he thought there needed to be more accountability for law enforcement officials.

Again from the Daily News:

“What’s justifiable? What calls for legal action and what qualifies as the threshold in being able to use deadly force in that situation?” Bryant asked rhetorically. “Those are higher conversations that need to be had.”

Earlier on Tuesday, Bryant tweeted the above response to the grand jury’s decision, which set off riots and protests in Ferguson as well as protests around the country.

Workers vs. Undocumented Immigrants: The Politics of Divide & Conquer

Genocide and America’s Thanksgiving Myth

4th Media

The Defining and Enabling Experience of Our “Civilization” 

As we again plan to celebrate what US “Americans”call Thanksgiving, let us pause for a moment of reflection. Let us recognize that accounts of the first Thanksgiving are mythological, and that the holiday is actually a grotesque celebration of our arrogant ethnocentrism built on genocide.

Native Americans in the Caribbean greeted their 1492 European invaders with warm hospitality. They were so innocent that Genoan Cristoforo Colombo wrote in his log, They willingly traded everything they owned . . . They do not bear arms . . . They would make fine servants . . . They could easily be made Christians . . . With fifty men we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want. This meeting set in motion a 500+-year plunder of the Western Hemisphere, which then spread to the remainder of the globe. And it has not stopped!

Historian Hans Köning concludes that what sets the West apart is its persistence, its capacity tostop at nothing. Cultural historian Lewis Mumford declared, Wherever Western man went, slavery, land robbery, lawlessness, culture-wrecking, and the outright extermination of both wild beasts and tame men went with him.

Jump 129 years to 1621, year of the supposed “first Thanksgiving.” There is not much documentation of that event, apparently a three-day feast, but surviving Indians do not trust the myth. Natives were already dying like flies thanks to European-borne diseases. The Pequot tribe in today’s Connecticut reportedly numbered 8,000 when the Pilgrims arrived, but disease had reduced their population to 1,500 by 1637, when the first, officially proclaimed, all-Pilgrim “Thanksgiving” took place. At that feast, the whites of New England celebrated their massacre of the Pequots in the Connecticut Valley where the Mystic River meets the sea. The Indians were in fact celebrating their annual green corn dance ceremony. But it was to be their last.

William Bradford, the former Governor of Plymouth and one of the chroniclers of the supposed 1621 feast, was on hand for the unspeakable massacre of 1637. He described it thus in his History of the Plymouth Plantation(@1647): Those that escaped the fire were slain with the sword; some hewed to pieces, others run through with their rapiers, so that they were quickly dispatched and very few escaped. It was a fearful sight to see them thus frying in the fire…horrible was the stink and scent thereof, but the victory seemed a sweet sacrifice, and they gave praise thereof to God, who had wrought so wonderfully for them, thus to enclose their enemies in their hands, and give them so speedy a victory.

The rest of the white folks thought so, too. This day forth shall be a day of celebration and thanksgiving for subduing the Pequots, read Massachusetts Bay Governor John Winthrop’s proclamation. The authentic proclaimed Thanksgiving Day was born. Few Pequots survived.

The English commander John Mason declared that the attack against the Pequot was the act of a God who “laughed his Enemies and the Enemies of his People to scorn making [the Pequot] as a fiery Oven . . . Thus did the Lord judge among the Heathen, filling [Mystic] with dead Bodies.” The Narragansett and Mohegan warriors with the English were horrified by the actions and “manner of the Englishmen’s fight . . . because it is too furious, and slays too many men.” The Narragansett returned home and no longer participated in the war. This image is courtesy of forquignon.com.

Most historians believe about 700 Pequots were slaughtered at Mystic. Many prisoners were executed, and surviving women and children sold into slavery in the West Indies. Pequot prisoners that escaped execution were parceled out to Indian tribes allied with the English. The Pequot were thought to have been extinguished as a people.

But, the epitaph was premature. Enough survived such that today the Pequots own the Foxwood Casino and Hotel, in Ledyard, Connecticut, larger in size than the Pentagon, with gaming revenues in the billions. [MORE]

How Police Unions Stopped Congress From 'Militarization' Reform

Bloomberg

Kentucky Senator Rand Paul took his time responding to Monday's events in Ferguson, Missouri. After the grand jury's decision not to indict Officer Darren Wilson, Paul's office politely rebuffed requests for an immediate reaction. He concentrated on an op-ed, published in Time magazine.

"I will continue to fight to end the racial disparities in drug sentencing," wrote Paul. "I will continue to fight lengthy, mandatory sentences that prevent judges from using discretion. I will continue to fight to restore voting rights for non-violent felons who’ve served their sentences... I will continue the fight to reform our nation’s criminal justice system." 

Not mentioned, apart from an aside about an infamous case of police misconduct in Georgia, was the subject of Paul's first Ferguson op-ed, also published in Time. "We must demilitarize the police," wrote Paul in August, as he listed the ways that local police departments obtained and misused surplus military equipment. "The militarization of our law enforcement is due to an unprecedented expansion of government power in this realm. It is one thing for federal officials to work in conjunction with local authorities to reduce or solve crime. It is quite another for them to subsidize it."

Three months later, as Evan McMorris-Santoro reports, the anti-"militarization" is nowhere. Even by Washington's amnesiac standards, the efforts to reform the 1033 program that makes military gear available to police departments faded absurdly fast. An Aug. 31 Politico story reported on lawmakers' optimism that Ferguson "actually will lead to some policy changes." One week later, Politico published a report about how "substantive action on the federal level is an uphill battle," and that lobbyists for the cops were likely to save the military gear program.

So they did. While the National Sheriffs Association declined comment, the Fraternal Order of Police made executive director Jim Pasco available to talk about how the skeptics—like Paul—were defeated.

"Nothing much has happened except that some members of Congress had kneejerk reactions to the optics of Ferguson or the rhetoric of Ferguson," said Pasco. "They thought there was something problematic about the equipment they saw on the streets. In the intervening period, some of them have come to see that beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It’s not what the equipment looks like, it’s what its utility is."

According to Pasco, FOP members reached out to "maybe 80 percent of senators and half the House." Since militarization was at the greatest risk in the Democratic Senate, the disparity made sense. As McMorris-Santoro reported, the departing Senate's blockade on Republican amendments made it impossible for Paul to attach anything to a passable bill. And the clock's basically run out for reform. A new Congress is coming in, but the FOP doesn't see it as particularly likely to dismantle 1033.

"I'm not, for example, optimistic about Rand Paul or whasisname from Georgia—Rep. Hank Johnson, the real scholar," said Pasco. (Johnson, a Democrat from the Atlanta area, infamously asked a witness in the House Armed Services Committee if the island of Guam might one day capsize.) "We wouldn’t be talking about Ferguson if it wasn’t for the fact that a white police officer shot a young black man, but a lot of people didn’t want to jump on that specifically. They jumped on this militarization issue because it made them look like being in the mix on Ferguson without being in the mix on Ferguson. Rather than be proponents of good public policy, they were practicing that tactic of political opportunism." 

In week before Ferguson verdict, 12 killed by law enforcement across US

Aljazeera

While much of the nation’s attention is focused on the aftermath of a grand jury’s decision not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson in the Aug. 9 shooting of Michael Brown, the United States has witnessed police-involved violence resulting in the shooting deaths of at least 12 people across the country in just the last week.

The Cleveland police shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir E. Rice on Nov. 23 sparked outrage and national attention after it appeared that the child was shot after brandishing a BB gun. While in New York City, the accidental shooting death of Akai Gurley, 28, by an NYPD officer patrolling a stairwell in a Brooklyn public housing unit has also provoked public indignation.

Other police-involved shooting deaths from Monday, Nov. 17 to Sunday, Nov. 23 occurred in California, Arizona, Florida, New Jersey and Utah. According to the Salt Lake Tribune, more people have died in Utah due to police shootings in the last five years than violent deaths at the hands of gang members and drug dealers.

The FBI does not release annual data on how many Americans are killed by law enforcement officers — information that activists who mobilized after the Ferguson shooting in August have demanded of the Obama administration.

Although Al Jazeera identified 12 incidents of deadly police force over the span of seven days, the number of actual incidents may be higher. Killed By Police, a Facebook page that posts links to news reports of homicides by law enforcement, found 23 incidents during the same timeframe.

But even that number seems low, says D. Brian Burghart, editor of Reno News & Review, who founded Fatal Encounters, a project compiling comprehensive and searchable national data of people killed by law enforcement officials.

The Uniform Crime Reports (UCR), official national crime data complied annually by the FBI, indicates that there were 461 total deaths at the hands of law enforcement in 2013, the most recently published year. But Burghart told Al Jazeera that after scanning local government agencies and media reports the number of police-related fatalities was “closer to about 1,400 a year,” with at least 9,000 from 2000 to 2014.

Over 18,000 law enforcement agencies — including city, county, state and federal law enforcement departments — voluntarily participate in sharing crime data with the FBI. However, only 750 of those agencies contribute to UCR’s data on law enforcement-related incidents, leaving a gap in the fatalities reported by UCR versus the actual number of incidents. 

Samuel Walker, a professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska and author of In Defense of American Liberties, told Al Jazeera that the problem of reporting police-cause fatalities remains "the failure of the FBI and the Justice Department to insist that all agencies report this data."

"Officers assaulted and killed by citizens — well they're very eager to collect and report that data, but they don't report the other side of the equation," said Walker.

The U.K's Solution to Police Brutality Is Something the U.S. Would Never Consider

MIC

Fact: Police officers in America keep shooting — and killing — unarmed (and largely innocent) black men. 

Nearly every 28 hours the police shoot and kill an unarmed person, usually a black male (man, teenager or child), and they're doing so without repercussion. This has resulted in myriad calls to "demilitarize the police," but no one has stated the obvious. To "demilitarize the police," and to find a solution to police brutality, there is one clear solution: Disarm the police.

This isn't a new idea, yet Americans, especially American politicians, willingly avoid having this specific conversation. 

In 2012, 409 out of 410 "justifiable" killings by American police were caused by guns. Conversely, that year in the U.K., there was just one fatality. And in 2013, the Economist reports, "British police officers actually fired their weapons three times. The number of people fatally shot was zero."

The difference? American police carry guns. The police patrolling Britain, Scotland and Wales don't. 

Indeed, only roughly 5% of police in the U.K. are even authorized to carry guns. This nearly 200-year-old tradition was born of the mandate of the police to function as servants of the public rather than to the state. "In terms of the police being approachable, in terms of the public being the eyes and ears of the police, officers don't want to lose that," former police deputy assistant commissioner Brian Paddick said in an interview with the BBC.

Meanwhile, Japan has cut its firearm homicide rate to the low double and sometimes single digits due to restrictive gun laws. Japan's police force does carry guns, but only after submitting to a rigorous training process. [MORE]