AP | August 04, 2012
GOLDMAN Sachs will invest almost $US10 million ($9.5m) in a New York City jail program that will allow the investment firm to profit if it can reduce recidivism rates.
The move makes New York the first US city to test "social impact bonds" that enlist private entities to help save governments money over the long term.
Inmates aged 16 to 18 will receive education, training and counselling intended to reduce the likelihood of reoffending after their release.
"New York City is continually seeking innovative new ways to tackle the most entrenched problems, and helping young people who land in jail stay out of trouble when they return home is one of the most difficult - and important - challenges we face," Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
"As the first city in the nation to launch a social impact bond, we are taking our efforts to new levels and we are eager to see the outcome of this initiative."
City officials said Goldman would provide a $US9.6m loan to pay for the program at the Rikers Island jail complex.
If recidivism drops by 10 per cent, the firm will get back the $US9.6m. If it drops even more, Goldman could make as much as $US2.1m in profit. If recidivism doesn't drop by at least 10 per cent, Goldman will lose as much as $US2.4m.
Nearly half of the adolescents who leave city jails return within one year. Social impact bonds were first used in Britain and are being explored in Australia and elsewhere in the US.
Showing posts with label US Criminal Justice. Show all posts
Showing posts with label US Criminal Justice. Show all posts
Friday, August 17, 2012
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Texas view of executing mentally ill based on fiction
Lisa Falkenberg | The Houston Chronicle | 7 August 2012
At 54, Marvin Wilson can't use a telephone book. He reads and writes on a first- or second-grade level. Those who know the Southeast Texas man say he can't match socks, he doesn't understand what a bank account is for, he's been known to fasten his belt to the point of nearly cutting off his circulation. The day his son was born, one sister recalled, he reverted to the familiar habit of sucking his thumb.
His IQ, according to the most valid indicator of human intelligence, is 61, below the first percentile. This was one of many clinical tests and factors that led a neuropsychologist with decades of experience to diagnose Wilson with "mild mental retardation."
Nevertheless, at 6 p.m. Tuesday night, the state of Texas, in your name and mine, is scheduled to kill Marvin Wilson by lethal injection. The U.S. Supreme Court - citing the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment - banned the execution of the mentally retarded a decade ago.
But like other federal mandates, Texas has found a way around this one, too.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 2002 decision in a case called Atkins, exempted all mentally ill offenders from execution, in part because those who struggle with impulse control, for example, are less culpable for their crimes. But also because mentally ill offenders may be especially vulnerable to wrongful convictions since they're less able to help attorneys build strong defenses.
Wilson is a textbook example. According to his attorneys' brief, Wilson was fingered as the lead shooter by a more sophisticated accomplice, and evidence of his "confession" in the murder of police informant Jerry Williams came from the accomplice's wife.
In Atkins, the high court held that the states, many of which had begun to ban executions of the mentally retarded on their own, had reached a national consensus that the practice was immoral.
Steinbeck's Lennie
Of course, certain conservative factions in Texas, as usual, fell somewhere outside those evolving standards of decency. The Supreme Court left it up to the states to design procedures to implement the ban, but the state with the most active death chamber took that as an invitation to redefine the ban itself.
In a 2004 opinion, Texas' highest court announced that, where executions were concerned, it didn't have to define "mental retardation" the same way as other states. It didn't even have to define it the same way it does for impaired Texas school children.
No, the fine jurists of Texas' Court of Criminal Appeals made up a new definition of "mentally retarded" especially for defendants in capital crimes. It wasn't based on science or the generally accepted definition of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. It was based on myths, stereotypes and even a fictional character: Lennie in Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men."
Forget the national consensus. The Texas court was concerned only with the Texas consensus, "the level and degree of mental retardation" that Texans would agree should be exempted from the death penalty.
"Most Texas citizens might agree that Steinbeck's Lennie should, by virtue of his lack of reasoning ability and adaptive skills, be exempt," the court said. But someone else who didn't meet that stereotypical description and merely had a clinical diagnosis to prove his mental retardation? Well, that's a different story.
The court then set about redefining what it means to be mentally retarded in a capital case. The "Briseno factors" are a list of questions fact-finders should ask in criminal cases to determine whether a defendant is mentally retarded enough to be spared. The goal, of course, is to spare as few as possible.
The factors include such subjective and unscientific questions as whether a defendant can plan and lie. (My toddler is capable of both when there's a cookie within reach.) Another question asks whether family and friends in the defendant's life "think he was mentally retarded." Never mind that mental retardation can be genetic and family members themselves may be impaired. The seventh, and most problematic factor invites the fact-finder to look at how the crime was perpetrated, which introduces emotion into a process that should be solely based on reason.
Wilson's last hope
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has found the lower court's interpretation reasonable. TheTexas Legislature has failed to address the issue after Gov. Rick Perry vetoed an earlier ban on such executions passed by lawmakers.
Wilson's last hope is for the U.S. Supreme Court to step in on Tuesday and grant a stay of execution so that the high court can consider his case along with another similar Texas case pending before it.
Once again we need the nation's highest court to save us from ourselves. To remind us of our humanity. To impose on us the cruel confines of decency.
At 54, Marvin Wilson can't use a telephone book. He reads and writes on a first- or second-grade level. Those who know the Southeast Texas man say he can't match socks, he doesn't understand what a bank account is for, he's been known to fasten his belt to the point of nearly cutting off his circulation. The day his son was born, one sister recalled, he reverted to the familiar habit of sucking his thumb.
His IQ, according to the most valid indicator of human intelligence, is 61, below the first percentile. This was one of many clinical tests and factors that led a neuropsychologist with decades of experience to diagnose Wilson with "mild mental retardation."
Nevertheless, at 6 p.m. Tuesday night, the state of Texas, in your name and mine, is scheduled to kill Marvin Wilson by lethal injection. The U.S. Supreme Court - citing the Eighth Amendment prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment - banned the execution of the mentally retarded a decade ago.
But like other federal mandates, Texas has found a way around this one, too.
The U.S. Supreme Court, in a 2002 decision in a case called Atkins, exempted all mentally ill offenders from execution, in part because those who struggle with impulse control, for example, are less culpable for their crimes. But also because mentally ill offenders may be especially vulnerable to wrongful convictions since they're less able to help attorneys build strong defenses.
Wilson is a textbook example. According to his attorneys' brief, Wilson was fingered as the lead shooter by a more sophisticated accomplice, and evidence of his "confession" in the murder of police informant Jerry Williams came from the accomplice's wife.
In Atkins, the high court held that the states, many of which had begun to ban executions of the mentally retarded on their own, had reached a national consensus that the practice was immoral.
Steinbeck's Lennie
Of course, certain conservative factions in Texas, as usual, fell somewhere outside those evolving standards of decency. The Supreme Court left it up to the states to design procedures to implement the ban, but the state with the most active death chamber took that as an invitation to redefine the ban itself.
In a 2004 opinion, Texas' highest court announced that, where executions were concerned, it didn't have to define "mental retardation" the same way as other states. It didn't even have to define it the same way it does for impaired Texas school children.
No, the fine jurists of Texas' Court of Criminal Appeals made up a new definition of "mentally retarded" especially for defendants in capital crimes. It wasn't based on science or the generally accepted definition of the American Association on Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities. It was based on myths, stereotypes and even a fictional character: Lennie in Steinbeck's "Of Mice and Men."
Forget the national consensus. The Texas court was concerned only with the Texas consensus, "the level and degree of mental retardation" that Texans would agree should be exempted from the death penalty.
"Most Texas citizens might agree that Steinbeck's Lennie should, by virtue of his lack of reasoning ability and adaptive skills, be exempt," the court said. But someone else who didn't meet that stereotypical description and merely had a clinical diagnosis to prove his mental retardation? Well, that's a different story.
The court then set about redefining what it means to be mentally retarded in a capital case. The "Briseno factors" are a list of questions fact-finders should ask in criminal cases to determine whether a defendant is mentally retarded enough to be spared. The goal, of course, is to spare as few as possible.
The factors include such subjective and unscientific questions as whether a defendant can plan and lie. (My toddler is capable of both when there's a cookie within reach.) Another question asks whether family and friends in the defendant's life "think he was mentally retarded." Never mind that mental retardation can be genetic and family members themselves may be impaired. The seventh, and most problematic factor invites the fact-finder to look at how the crime was perpetrated, which introduces emotion into a process that should be solely based on reason.
Wilson's last hope
The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has found the lower court's interpretation reasonable. TheTexas Legislature has failed to address the issue after Gov. Rick Perry vetoed an earlier ban on such executions passed by lawmakers.
Wilson's last hope is for the U.S. Supreme Court to step in on Tuesday and grant a stay of execution so that the high court can consider his case along with another similar Texas case pending before it.
Once again we need the nation's highest court to save us from ourselves. To remind us of our humanity. To impose on us the cruel confines of decency.
Monday, June 18, 2012
Plantations, Prisons and Profits
Charles M. Blow | The New York Times | May 25, 2012
“Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s and 10 times Germany’s.”
“Louisiana is the world’s prison capital. The state imprisons more of its people, per head, than any of its U.S. counterparts. First among Americans means first in the world. Louisiana’s incarceration rate is nearly triple Iran’s, seven times China’s and 10 times Germany’s.”
That paragraph opens a devastating eight-part series published this month by The Times-Picayune of New Orleans about how the state’s largely private prison system profits from high incarceration rates and tough sentencing, and how many with the power to curtail the system actually have a financial incentive to perpetuate it.
The picture that emerges is one of convicts as chattel and a legal system essentially based on human commodification.
First, some facts from the series:
• One in 86 Louisiana adults is in the prison system, which is nearly double the national average.
• More than 50 percent of Louisiana’s inmates are in local prisons, which is more than any other state. The next highest state is Kentucky at 33 percent. The national average is 5 percent.
• Louisiana leads the nation in the percentage of its prisoners serving life without parole.
• Louisiana spends less on local inmates than any other state.
• Nearly two-thirds of Louisiana’s prisoners are nonviolent offenders. The national average is less than half.
In the early 1990s, the state was under a federal court order to reduce overcrowding, but instead of releasing prisoners or loosening sentencing guidelines, the state incentivized the building of private prisons. But, in what the newspaper called “a uniquely Louisiana twist,” most of the prison entrepreneurs were actually rural sheriffs. They saw a way to make a profit and did.
It also was a chance to employ local people, especially failed farmers forced into bankruptcy court by a severe drop in the crop prices.
But in order for the local prisons to remain profitable, the beds, which one prison operator in the series distastefully refers to as “honey holes,” must remain full. That means that on almost a daily basis, local prison officials are on the phones bartering for prisoners with overcrowded jails in the big cities.
It also means that criminal sentences must remain stiff, which the sheriff’s association has supported. This has meant that Louisiana has some of the stiffest sentencing guidelines in the country. Writing bad checks in Louisiana can earn you up to 10 years in prison. In California, by comparison, jail time would be no more than a year.
There is another problem with this unsavory system: prisoners who wind up in these local for-profit jails, where many of the inmates are short-timers, get fewer rehabilitative services than those in state institutions, where many of the prisoners are lifers. That is because the per-diem per prisoner in local prisons is half that of state prisons.
In short, the system is completely backward.
Lifers at state prisons can learn to be welders, plumbers or auto mechanics — trades many will never practice as free men — while prisoners housed in local prisons, and are certain to be released, gain no skills and leave jail with nothing more than “$10 and a bus ticket.”
These ex-convicts, with almost no rehabilitation and little prospect for supporting themselves, return to the already-struggling communities that were rendered that way in part because so many men are being extracted on such a massive scale. There the cycle of crime often begins again, with innocent people caught in the middle and impressionable young eyes looking on.
According to The Times-Picayune: “In five years, about half of the state’s ex-convicts end up behind bars again.”
This suits the prison operators just fine. They need them to come back to the “honey holes.”
Furthermore, the more money the state spends on incarceration, the less it can spend on preventive measures like education. (According to Education Week’s State Report Cards, Louisiana was one of three states and the District of Columbia to receive an F for K-12 achievement in 2012, and, this year, the state, over all, is facing a $220 million deficit in its $25 billion budget.)
Louisiana is the starkest, most glaring example of how our prison policies have failed. It showcases how private prisons do not serve the public interest and how the mass incarceration as a form of job creation is an abomination of justice and civility and creates a long-term crisis by trying to create a short-term solution.
As the paper put it: “A prison system that leased its convicts as plantation labor in the 1800s has come full circle and is again a nexus for profit.”
The picture that emerges is one of convicts as chattel and a legal system essentially based on human commodification.
First, some facts from the series:
• One in 86 Louisiana adults is in the prison system, which is nearly double the national average.
• More than 50 percent of Louisiana’s inmates are in local prisons, which is more than any other state. The next highest state is Kentucky at 33 percent. The national average is 5 percent.
• Louisiana leads the nation in the percentage of its prisoners serving life without parole.
• Louisiana spends less on local inmates than any other state.
• Nearly two-thirds of Louisiana’s prisoners are nonviolent offenders. The national average is less than half.
In the early 1990s, the state was under a federal court order to reduce overcrowding, but instead of releasing prisoners or loosening sentencing guidelines, the state incentivized the building of private prisons. But, in what the newspaper called “a uniquely Louisiana twist,” most of the prison entrepreneurs were actually rural sheriffs. They saw a way to make a profit and did.
It also was a chance to employ local people, especially failed farmers forced into bankruptcy court by a severe drop in the crop prices.
But in order for the local prisons to remain profitable, the beds, which one prison operator in the series distastefully refers to as “honey holes,” must remain full. That means that on almost a daily basis, local prison officials are on the phones bartering for prisoners with overcrowded jails in the big cities.
It also means that criminal sentences must remain stiff, which the sheriff’s association has supported. This has meant that Louisiana has some of the stiffest sentencing guidelines in the country. Writing bad checks in Louisiana can earn you up to 10 years in prison. In California, by comparison, jail time would be no more than a year.
There is another problem with this unsavory system: prisoners who wind up in these local for-profit jails, where many of the inmates are short-timers, get fewer rehabilitative services than those in state institutions, where many of the prisoners are lifers. That is because the per-diem per prisoner in local prisons is half that of state prisons.
In short, the system is completely backward.
Lifers at state prisons can learn to be welders, plumbers or auto mechanics — trades many will never practice as free men — while prisoners housed in local prisons, and are certain to be released, gain no skills and leave jail with nothing more than “$10 and a bus ticket.”
These ex-convicts, with almost no rehabilitation and little prospect for supporting themselves, return to the already-struggling communities that were rendered that way in part because so many men are being extracted on such a massive scale. There the cycle of crime often begins again, with innocent people caught in the middle and impressionable young eyes looking on.
According to The Times-Picayune: “In five years, about half of the state’s ex-convicts end up behind bars again.”
This suits the prison operators just fine. They need them to come back to the “honey holes.”
Furthermore, the more money the state spends on incarceration, the less it can spend on preventive measures like education. (According to Education Week’s State Report Cards, Louisiana was one of three states and the District of Columbia to receive an F for K-12 achievement in 2012, and, this year, the state, over all, is facing a $220 million deficit in its $25 billion budget.)
Louisiana is the starkest, most glaring example of how our prison policies have failed. It showcases how private prisons do not serve the public interest and how the mass incarceration as a form of job creation is an abomination of justice and civility and creates a long-term crisis by trying to create a short-term solution.
As the paper put it: “A prison system that leased its convicts as plantation labor in the 1800s has come full circle and is again a nexus for profit.”
Saturday, May 19, 2012
The NYPD's criminal stop-and-frisk record
Darius Charney | The Guardian | 15 May 2012
A march earlier this month against the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy, led by community leaders and Princeton University professor and activist Cornel West. Photograph: Scott Houston/Corbis
The police department's policy amounts to racial profiling and the illegal harassment of thousands of New Yorkers a day.
Last week, the New York Police Department released quarterly data on its stop-and-frisk program. The numbers are worse than ever, and they confirm everything that is wrong with this practice.
From January through March 2012, 203,500 New Yorkers were stopped and frisked. That's an average of 2,200 people per day. Twenty-two hundred people a day, many of whom are stopped for no reason – or the wrong reason, like the color of their skin, or their age, or their gender expression – patted down, sometimes roughed-up, intimidated, asked for ID in their own neighborhood, sometimes in their own buildings, asked to empty their pockets. Twenty-two hundred people a day stopped by police as they walk down the street on their way home, to school, the corner deli, or to see friends. Twenty-two hundred people a day asked to justify their presence in the city in which they live.
This is already an outrage; but if you look further at the numbers, it's even more outrageous. Despite years of public outcry and lawsuits, theNYPD is stopping even more people than in previous years. In 2011, the department stopped a record 685,724 New Yorkers, a 600% increase since Raymond Kelly took over as police commissioner in 2002. But the 2012 numbers are on track to be still worse. At the rate it's going, the NYPD will stop nearly three-quarters of a million New Yorkers in 2012.
Eight-seven per cent of the people stopped by the NYPD in the first quarter of 2012 were black or Latino, while only 54% of the city's population is black or Latino. Despite claims to the contrary, the data show that even when you take other factors into consideration – including crime rates –stops are disproportionately concentrated in black and Latino neighborhoods. And in all neighborhoods, blacks and Latinos are significantly more likely to be stopped than whites. The data also show that NYPD officers use physical force more often when stopping blacks and Latinos.
Stop-and-frisk, as practiced by the NYPD, amounts to racial profiling, which is illegal. It violates the 14th amendment of the US constitution, which prohibits racial discrimination, and the fourth amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Stop-and-frisk also fails to make New Yorkers safer. There is an implied trade-off that New Yorkers are told to accept: OK, so the practice is intrusive and humiliating and it violates your rights, but it's necessary to fight crime. That is a lie. The vast majority of stop-and-frisks – 90%, in the first quarter of 2012 – do not uncover evidence of a crime. Less than 1% lead to recovery of guns, the supposed goal of the stop-and-frisk program.
The NYPD is not catching criminals; they are stopping and humiliating thousands of New Yorkers a day who have done nothing wrong.
There is no evidence that stop-and-frisk is responsible for the city's drop in crime rate in recent years. On the contrary, New Yorkers feel less safe and often have their lives upended by unlawful stops. Many communities, especially communities of color, feel that they are under siege. To them, the presence of police on the streets signals not protection against crime, but a danger of becoming the victims of a crime: being illegally stopped, harassed, possibly beat up.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is suing New York City to end these gross violations of hundreds, or thousands, of people's rights. Occupying entire neighborhoods and treating vast portions of the city's citizenry as suspects violates the US constitution and fundamental human rights.
A march earlier this month against the NYPD's stop-and-frisk policy, led by community leaders and Princeton University professor and activist Cornel West. Photograph: Scott Houston/Corbis
The police department's policy amounts to racial profiling and the illegal harassment of thousands of New Yorkers a day.
Last week, the New York Police Department released quarterly data on its stop-and-frisk program. The numbers are worse than ever, and they confirm everything that is wrong with this practice.
From January through March 2012, 203,500 New Yorkers were stopped and frisked. That's an average of 2,200 people per day. Twenty-two hundred people a day, many of whom are stopped for no reason – or the wrong reason, like the color of their skin, or their age, or their gender expression – patted down, sometimes roughed-up, intimidated, asked for ID in their own neighborhood, sometimes in their own buildings, asked to empty their pockets. Twenty-two hundred people a day stopped by police as they walk down the street on their way home, to school, the corner deli, or to see friends. Twenty-two hundred people a day asked to justify their presence in the city in which they live.
This is already an outrage; but if you look further at the numbers, it's even more outrageous. Despite years of public outcry and lawsuits, theNYPD is stopping even more people than in previous years. In 2011, the department stopped a record 685,724 New Yorkers, a 600% increase since Raymond Kelly took over as police commissioner in 2002. But the 2012 numbers are on track to be still worse. At the rate it's going, the NYPD will stop nearly three-quarters of a million New Yorkers in 2012.
Eight-seven per cent of the people stopped by the NYPD in the first quarter of 2012 were black or Latino, while only 54% of the city's population is black or Latino. Despite claims to the contrary, the data show that even when you take other factors into consideration – including crime rates –stops are disproportionately concentrated in black and Latino neighborhoods. And in all neighborhoods, blacks and Latinos are significantly more likely to be stopped than whites. The data also show that NYPD officers use physical force more often when stopping blacks and Latinos.
Stop-and-frisk, as practiced by the NYPD, amounts to racial profiling, which is illegal. It violates the 14th amendment of the US constitution, which prohibits racial discrimination, and the fourth amendment, which protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.
Stop-and-frisk also fails to make New Yorkers safer. There is an implied trade-off that New Yorkers are told to accept: OK, so the practice is intrusive and humiliating and it violates your rights, but it's necessary to fight crime. That is a lie. The vast majority of stop-and-frisks – 90%, in the first quarter of 2012 – do not uncover evidence of a crime. Less than 1% lead to recovery of guns, the supposed goal of the stop-and-frisk program.
The NYPD is not catching criminals; they are stopping and humiliating thousands of New Yorkers a day who have done nothing wrong.
There is no evidence that stop-and-frisk is responsible for the city's drop in crime rate in recent years. On the contrary, New Yorkers feel less safe and often have their lives upended by unlawful stops. Many communities, especially communities of color, feel that they are under siege. To them, the presence of police on the streets signals not protection against crime, but a danger of becoming the victims of a crime: being illegally stopped, harassed, possibly beat up.
The Center for Constitutional Rights is suing New York City to end these gross violations of hundreds, or thousands, of people's rights. Occupying entire neighborhoods and treating vast portions of the city's citizenry as suspects violates the US constitution and fundamental human rights.
Monday, April 2, 2012
In the Eye of a Firestorm
Dan Barry, Serge F. Kovalevski, Campbell Robertson and Lizette Alvarez | New York Times | April 1, 2012
Trayvon Martin’s body was found in this part of the Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Fla., where his father’s girlfriend lives.
COMMENTS(106)
SANFORD, Fla. — Once again, a river of protest raged through Sanford this weekend to demand justice in the name of an unarmed black teenager shot dead. It gathered strength in front of the historic Crooms Academy, the first high school for black students in Seminole County, surged through the streets, and formed a flood of grief and outrage just outside the Sanford Police Department.
Once again, thousands chanted the name of Trayvon Martin, 17, the youth killed with one bullet while returning to a home in a gated community where he was a guest. Once again, they cried for the arrest of George Zimmerman, 28, the neighborhood watch coordinator who has claimed self-defense under a Florida law with the assertive name of Stand Your Ground.
With five weeks’ passage, the fateful encounter between a black youth who wanted to go to college and a Hispanic man who wanted to be a judge has polarized the nation.
And, now this modest central Florida community finds its name being mentioned with Selma and Birmingham on a civil rights list held sacred in black American culture, while across the country, the parsing of the case has become cacophonic and political, punctuated by pleas for tolerance, words of hatred, and spins from the left and right.
The racial divide that once partly defined Sanford, with U.S. 17-92 serving as the inviolable line separating black and white, has faded over the decades, leaving a casually integrated downtown. Yet the sense remains among residents of both races that the police department has not come as far as the city as a whole.
Trayvon Martin’s body was found in this part of the Retreat at Twin Lakes in Sanford, Fla., where his father’s girlfriend lives.
COMMENTS(106)
SANFORD, Fla. — Once again, a river of protest raged through Sanford this weekend to demand justice in the name of an unarmed black teenager shot dead. It gathered strength in front of the historic Crooms Academy, the first high school for black students in Seminole County, surged through the streets, and formed a flood of grief and outrage just outside the Sanford Police Department.
Once again, thousands chanted the name of Trayvon Martin, 17, the youth killed with one bullet while returning to a home in a gated community where he was a guest. Once again, they cried for the arrest of George Zimmerman, 28, the neighborhood watch coordinator who has claimed self-defense under a Florida law with the assertive name of Stand Your Ground.
With five weeks’ passage, the fateful encounter between a black youth who wanted to go to college and a Hispanic man who wanted to be a judge has polarized the nation.
And, now this modest central Florida community finds its name being mentioned with Selma and Birmingham on a civil rights list held sacred in black American culture, while across the country, the parsing of the case has become cacophonic and political, punctuated by pleas for tolerance, words of hatred, and spins from the left and right.
The racial divide that once partly defined Sanford, with U.S. 17-92 serving as the inviolable line separating black and white, has faded over the decades, leaving a casually integrated downtown. Yet the sense remains among residents of both races that the police department has not come as far as the city as a whole.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
Bank of America: Too Crooked to Fail
Matt Taibbi | Rolling Stone | March 14, 2012
At least Bank of America got its name right. The ultimate Too Big to Fail bank really is America, a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we'll all be paying for until the end of time. Did you hear about the plot to rig global interest rates? The $137 million fine for bilking needy schools and cities? The ingenious plan to suck multiple fees out of the unemployment checks of jobless workers? Take your eyes off them for 10 seconds and guaranteed, they'll be into some shit again: This bank is like the world's worst-behaved teenager, taking your car and running over kittens and fire hydrants on the way to Vegas for the weekend, maxing out your credit cards in the three days you spend at your aunt's funeral. They're out of control, yet they'll never do time or go out of business, because the government remains creepily committed to their survival, like overindulgent parents who refuse to believe their 40-year-old live-at-home son could possibly be responsible for those dead hookers in the backyard.
It's been four years since the government, in the name of preventing a depression, saved this megabank from ruin by pumping $45 billion of taxpayer money into its arm. Since then, the Obama administration has looked the other way as the bank committed an astonishing variety of crimes – some elaborate and brilliant in their conception, some so crude that they'd be beneath your average street thug. Bank of America has systematically ripped off almost everyone with whom it has a significant business relationship, cheating investors, insurers, depositors, homeowners, shareholders, pensioners and taxpayers. It brought tens of thousands of Americans to foreclosure court using bogus, "robo-signed" evidence – a type of mass perjury that it helped pioneer. It hawked worthless mortgages to dozens of unions and state pension funds, draining them of hundreds of millions in value. And when it wasn't ripping off workers and pensioners, it was helping to push insurance giants like AMBAC into bankruptcy by fraudulently inducing them to spend hundreds of millions insuring those same worthless mortgages.
But despite being the very definition of an unaccountable corporate villain, Bank of America is now bigger and more dangerous than ever. It controls more than 12 percent of America's bank deposits (skirting a federal law designed to prohibit any firm from controlling more than 10 percent), as well as 17 percent of all American home mortgages. By looking the other way and rewarding the bank's bad behavior with a massive government bailout, we actually allowed a huge financial company to not just grow so big that its collapse would imperil the whole economy, but to get away with any and all crimes it might commit. Too Big to Fail is one thing; it's also far too corrupt to survive.
All the government bailouts succeeded in doing was to make the bank even more prone to catastrophic failure – and now that catastrophe might finally be at hand. Bank of America's share price has plunged into the single digits, and the bank faces battles in courtrooms all over America to avoid paying back the hundreds of billions it stole from everyone in sight. Its credit rating, already downgraded to a few rungs above junk status, could plummet with the next bad analyst report, causing a frenzied rush to the exits by creditors, investors and stockholders – an institutional run on the bank.
They're in deep trouble, but they won't die, because our current president, like the last one, apparently believes it's better to project a false image of financial soundness than to allow one of our oligarchic banks to collapse under the weight of its own corruption. Last year, the Federal Reserve allowed Bank of America to move a huge portfolio of dangerous bets into a side of the company that happens to be FDIC-insured, putting all of us on the hook for as much as $55 trillion in irresponsible gambles. Then, in February, the Justice Department's so-called foreclosure settlement, which will supposedly provide $26 billion in relief for ripped-off homeowners, actually rewarded the bank with a legal waiver that will allow it to escape untold billions in lawsuits. And this month the Fed will release the results of its annual stress test, in which the bank will once again be permitted to perpetuate its fiction of solvency by grossly overrating the mountains of toxic loans on its books. At this point, the rescue effort is so sweeping and elaborate that it goes far beyond simply gouging the tax dollars of millions of struggling families, many of whom have already been ripped off by the bank – it's making the government, and by extension all of us, full-blown accomplices to the fraud.
At least Bank of America got its name right. The ultimate Too Big to Fail bank really is America, a hypergluttonous ward of the state whose limitless fraud and criminal conspiracies we'll all be paying for until the end of time. Did you hear about the plot to rig global interest rates? The $137 million fine for bilking needy schools and cities? The ingenious plan to suck multiple fees out of the unemployment checks of jobless workers? Take your eyes off them for 10 seconds and guaranteed, they'll be into some shit again: This bank is like the world's worst-behaved teenager, taking your car and running over kittens and fire hydrants on the way to Vegas for the weekend, maxing out your credit cards in the three days you spend at your aunt's funeral. They're out of control, yet they'll never do time or go out of business, because the government remains creepily committed to their survival, like overindulgent parents who refuse to believe their 40-year-old live-at-home son could possibly be responsible for those dead hookers in the backyard.
It's been four years since the government, in the name of preventing a depression, saved this megabank from ruin by pumping $45 billion of taxpayer money into its arm. Since then, the Obama administration has looked the other way as the bank committed an astonishing variety of crimes – some elaborate and brilliant in their conception, some so crude that they'd be beneath your average street thug. Bank of America has systematically ripped off almost everyone with whom it has a significant business relationship, cheating investors, insurers, depositors, homeowners, shareholders, pensioners and taxpayers. It brought tens of thousands of Americans to foreclosure court using bogus, "robo-signed" evidence – a type of mass perjury that it helped pioneer. It hawked worthless mortgages to dozens of unions and state pension funds, draining them of hundreds of millions in value. And when it wasn't ripping off workers and pensioners, it was helping to push insurance giants like AMBAC into bankruptcy by fraudulently inducing them to spend hundreds of millions insuring those same worthless mortgages.
But despite being the very definition of an unaccountable corporate villain, Bank of America is now bigger and more dangerous than ever. It controls more than 12 percent of America's bank deposits (skirting a federal law designed to prohibit any firm from controlling more than 10 percent), as well as 17 percent of all American home mortgages. By looking the other way and rewarding the bank's bad behavior with a massive government bailout, we actually allowed a huge financial company to not just grow so big that its collapse would imperil the whole economy, but to get away with any and all crimes it might commit. Too Big to Fail is one thing; it's also far too corrupt to survive.
All the government bailouts succeeded in doing was to make the bank even more prone to catastrophic failure – and now that catastrophe might finally be at hand. Bank of America's share price has plunged into the single digits, and the bank faces battles in courtrooms all over America to avoid paying back the hundreds of billions it stole from everyone in sight. Its credit rating, already downgraded to a few rungs above junk status, could plummet with the next bad analyst report, causing a frenzied rush to the exits by creditors, investors and stockholders – an institutional run on the bank.
They're in deep trouble, but they won't die, because our current president, like the last one, apparently believes it's better to project a false image of financial soundness than to allow one of our oligarchic banks to collapse under the weight of its own corruption. Last year, the Federal Reserve allowed Bank of America to move a huge portfolio of dangerous bets into a side of the company that happens to be FDIC-insured, putting all of us on the hook for as much as $55 trillion in irresponsible gambles. Then, in February, the Justice Department's so-called foreclosure settlement, which will supposedly provide $26 billion in relief for ripped-off homeowners, actually rewarded the bank with a legal waiver that will allow it to escape untold billions in lawsuits. And this month the Fed will release the results of its annual stress test, in which the bank will once again be permitted to perpetuate its fiction of solvency by grossly overrating the mountains of toxic loans on its books. At this point, the rescue effort is so sweeping and elaborate that it goes far beyond simply gouging the tax dollars of millions of struggling families, many of whom have already been ripped off by the bank – it's making the government, and by extension all of us, full-blown accomplices to the fraud.
Friday, March 30, 2012
Killed at Home: White Plains, NY Police Called Out on Medical Alert Shoot Dead Black Veteran, 68
Democracy Now | 29 March 2012
(start the video at 11:00)
As the Trayvon Martin case draws national attention, we look at another fatal shooting of an African-American male that has received far less scrutiny. Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr., a 68-year-old African-American Marine veteran, was fatally shot in November by White Plains, NY, police who responded to a false alarm from his medical alert pendant. The officers broke down Chamberlain’s door, tasered him, and then shot him dead. Audio of the entire incident was recorded by the medical alert device in Chamberlain’s apartment. We’re joined by family attorneys and Chamberlain’s son, Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr., who struggles through tears to recount his father’s final moments, including the way police officers mocked his father’s past as a marine. "For them to look at my father that way, (with) no regard for his life, every morning I think about it," he says.
GUESTS:
Randolph McLaughlin, attorney for the family of Kenneth Chamberlain. He is a longtime civil rights attorney. He teaches at Pace Law School.
Mayo Bartlett, attorney for family of Kenneth Chamberlain. He is the former chief of the Bias Crimes Unit of the Westchester County District Attorney’s office and the former chair of the Westchester County Human Rights Commission.
Kenneth Chamberlain Jr., son of Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr.
(start the video at 11:00)
As the Trayvon Martin case draws national attention, we look at another fatal shooting of an African-American male that has received far less scrutiny. Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr., a 68-year-old African-American Marine veteran, was fatally shot in November by White Plains, NY, police who responded to a false alarm from his medical alert pendant. The officers broke down Chamberlain’s door, tasered him, and then shot him dead. Audio of the entire incident was recorded by the medical alert device in Chamberlain’s apartment. We’re joined by family attorneys and Chamberlain’s son, Kenneth Chamberlain, Jr., who struggles through tears to recount his father’s final moments, including the way police officers mocked his father’s past as a marine. "For them to look at my father that way, (with) no regard for his life, every morning I think about it," he says.
GUESTS:
Randolph McLaughlin, attorney for the family of Kenneth Chamberlain. He is a longtime civil rights attorney. He teaches at Pace Law School.
Mayo Bartlett, attorney for family of Kenneth Chamberlain. He is the former chief of the Bias Crimes Unit of the Westchester County District Attorney’s office and the former chair of the Westchester County Human Rights Commission.
Kenneth Chamberlain Jr., son of Kenneth Chamberlain, Sr.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Op-Ed: Shooting Of Black Teen Reveals 'Blindness'
Talk of the Nation | NPR News | 19 March 2012
Read The Op-Eds
Jonathan Capehart's "Under 'suspicion': The Killing of Trayvon Martin" in The Washington Post
Leonard Pitts' "Tragic teen shooting raises old fears, questions" in The Miami Herald
Three weeks after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, no arrests have been made in what critics are calling a case of racial profiling. Columnist Leonard Pitts says the incident exposes society's "blindness" to African-Americans.
NEAL CONAN, HOST:
And now, the "Opinion Page." The death of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old shot and killed by a crime-watch volunteer in Florida, prompted Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post to recall "the conversation" - what his mother told him on his first day at a predominantly white school. It prompted Leonard Pitts Jr., of the Miami Herald, to cite Ralph Ellison and the "Invisible Man." Both writers join us in just a moment. We'd like to hear from African-American men in this segment, about the conversations you remember.
Who talked to you about how to behave downtown? - 800-989-8255 is the phone number; email talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org, and click on TALK OF THE NATION. Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts is with us from his home in Maryland; Jonathan Capehart, from his office here in Washington. And let me begin with you, Jonathan Capehart. Remind us what your mother told you.
JONATHAN CAPEHART: It happened after we left the sort of sheltered environment of Hazlet, New Jersey, in sort of central New Jersey, and moved back up to Newark when my mom remarried. And the conversation that we had was just a series of rules for my own safety. At the time, I was 16. They were, don't run in public; don't run while carrying anything in your hand - the first one being, you know, lest anyone think you're suspicious; and the second one being, lest anyone think you stole something. And the third was, don't talk back to the police - lest you give them a reason to take you to jail, or worse.
CONAN: And were - that must have been a stark moment.
CAPEHART: Yes, it was because - you know - as kids, as children, you think that, you know, the world is open and welcoming and friendly because that's the way you've lived your life - at least, that's the way I lived my life. And to be told that no, there are limits on what you can do simply because of who you are - yes, it was a bit jarring.
Read The Op-Eds
Jonathan Capehart's "Under 'suspicion': The Killing of Trayvon Martin" in The Washington Post
Leonard Pitts' "Tragic teen shooting raises old fears, questions" in The Miami Herald
Three weeks after 17-year-old Trayvon Martin was shot and killed by neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman, no arrests have been made in what critics are calling a case of racial profiling. Columnist Leonard Pitts says the incident exposes society's "blindness" to African-Americans.
NEAL CONAN, HOST:
And now, the "Opinion Page." The death of Trayvon Martin, the 17-year-old shot and killed by a crime-watch volunteer in Florida, prompted Jonathan Capehart of the Washington Post to recall "the conversation" - what his mother told him on his first day at a predominantly white school. It prompted Leonard Pitts Jr., of the Miami Herald, to cite Ralph Ellison and the "Invisible Man." Both writers join us in just a moment. We'd like to hear from African-American men in this segment, about the conversations you remember.
Who talked to you about how to behave downtown? - 800-989-8255 is the phone number; email talk@npr.org. You can also join the conversation on our website. That's at npr.org, and click on TALK OF THE NATION. Syndicated columnist Leonard Pitts is with us from his home in Maryland; Jonathan Capehart, from his office here in Washington. And let me begin with you, Jonathan Capehart. Remind us what your mother told you.
JONATHAN CAPEHART: It happened after we left the sort of sheltered environment of Hazlet, New Jersey, in sort of central New Jersey, and moved back up to Newark when my mom remarried. And the conversation that we had was just a series of rules for my own safety. At the time, I was 16. They were, don't run in public; don't run while carrying anything in your hand - the first one being, you know, lest anyone think you're suspicious; and the second one being, lest anyone think you stole something. And the third was, don't talk back to the police - lest you give them a reason to take you to jail, or worse.
CONAN: And were - that must have been a stark moment.
CAPEHART: Yes, it was because - you know - as kids, as children, you think that, you know, the world is open and welcoming and friendly because that's the way you've lived your life - at least, that's the way I lived my life. And to be told that no, there are limits on what you can do simply because of who you are - yes, it was a bit jarring.
Miami judge decides fatal stabbing was self-defense
David Ovalle | The Miami Herald | 21 March 2012
Judge Beth Bloom threw out the murder charge against a man who chased a car burglar for more than a block and then stabbed him, killing him.
As critics assail Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law in the wake of the killing of an unarmed Miami Gardens teen in Sanford, a Miami-Dade judge on Wednesday cited the law in tossing out the case of a man who chased down a suspected burglar and stabbed him to death.
Greyston Garcia was charged with second-degree murder in the slaying of Pedro Roteta, 26, whom he chased for more than a block before stabbing the man.
The case illustrates the difficulty police and prosecutors statewide have experienced since the 2005 law eliminated a citizen’s duty to retreat in the face of danger, putting the burden on a judge, not a jury, to decide whether the accused is immune from prosecution.
In Sanford, police have cited the Stand Your Ground law in their decision not to arrest a neighborhood watch volunteer in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, 17. A Seminole County grand jury will decide on whether the man who shot Trayvon, George Zimmerman, 28, should face homicide charges.
Miami police Sgt. Ervens Ford, who supervised the Garcia case, was floored when told Wednesday of the judge’s decision. Ford called the law and the decision by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beth Bloom a “travesty of justice.”
“How can it be Stand Your Ground?” said Ford, a longtime homicide investigator who on his off-day on Monday plans to attend a rally in the Trayvon case in Sanford with his two teenage sons. “It’s on [surveillance] video! You can see him stabbing the victim . . .”
Bloom granted Garcia, 25, immunity under the 2005 law after she decided that his testimony about self-defense was credible. The judge did not issue a written ruling, but is expected to do so in the next few days.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office is likely to appeal the judge’s ruling. Garcia’s defense attorney could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Judge Beth Bloom threw out the murder charge against a man who chased a car burglar for more than a block and then stabbed him, killing him.
As critics assail Florida’s “Stand Your Ground” law in the wake of the killing of an unarmed Miami Gardens teen in Sanford, a Miami-Dade judge on Wednesday cited the law in tossing out the case of a man who chased down a suspected burglar and stabbed him to death.
Greyston Garcia was charged with second-degree murder in the slaying of Pedro Roteta, 26, whom he chased for more than a block before stabbing the man.
The case illustrates the difficulty police and prosecutors statewide have experienced since the 2005 law eliminated a citizen’s duty to retreat in the face of danger, putting the burden on a judge, not a jury, to decide whether the accused is immune from prosecution.
In Sanford, police have cited the Stand Your Ground law in their decision not to arrest a neighborhood watch volunteer in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, 17. A Seminole County grand jury will decide on whether the man who shot Trayvon, George Zimmerman, 28, should face homicide charges.
Miami police Sgt. Ervens Ford, who supervised the Garcia case, was floored when told Wednesday of the judge’s decision. Ford called the law and the decision by Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Beth Bloom a “travesty of justice.”
“How can it be Stand Your Ground?” said Ford, a longtime homicide investigator who on his off-day on Monday plans to attend a rally in the Trayvon case in Sanford with his two teenage sons. “It’s on [surveillance] video! You can see him stabbing the victim . . .”
Bloom granted Garcia, 25, immunity under the 2005 law after she decided that his testimony about self-defense was credible. The judge did not issue a written ruling, but is expected to do so in the next few days.
The Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office is likely to appeal the judge’s ruling. Garcia’s defense attorney could not be reached for comment Wednesday.
Trayvon Martin: the 911 calls
Much of the commentary in the Trayvon Martin case has centred on the lack of evidence to contradict the claims of the shooter Robert Zimmerman's claim of self-defence. See here for a summary of the case.
However, there are available a series of 911 calls, which provide a backdrop to the circumstances of the death:
The first is the crucial call from Zimmerman, the armed self-appointed Neighborwood Watch captain, in which he reports to the Police his suspicions about the black male he thinks is up to no good or is on drugs, who runs away and who Zimmerman follows, contrary to instructions given to him in the call.
The second is a call from a witness, who reports hearing cries for help and gun-shots, both of which appear to be recorded on the call.
A third records another witness hearing the calls of help and gun-shots, as well as making observations of a person apparently dead on the ground, hearing Zimmerman admit he shot the person, and seeing Police arrive on the scene. She later speaks about having earlier seen the two wrestling.
However, there are available a series of 911 calls, which provide a backdrop to the circumstances of the death:
The first is the crucial call from Zimmerman, the armed self-appointed Neighborwood Watch captain, in which he reports to the Police his suspicions about the black male he thinks is up to no good or is on drugs, who runs away and who Zimmerman follows, contrary to instructions given to him in the call.
The second is a call from a witness, who reports hearing cries for help and gun-shots, both of which appear to be recorded on the call.
A third records another witness hearing the calls of help and gun-shots, as well as making observations of a person apparently dead on the ground, hearing Zimmerman admit he shot the person, and seeing Police arrive on the scene. She later speaks about having earlier seen the two wrestling.
A Gun But No Shield
Simple Justice | 21 March 2012
The tragic killing of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black youth, by white, armed, "community watcher," George Zimmerman, raises many questions, from racist perceptions, such as looking "suspicious," to the efficacy of Florida's "stand your ground" law, permitting someone to kill rather than avoid killing.
The fact that Zimmerman was roaming around with a gun, whether in search of something suspicious or just to fulfill some macho fantasy, is a problem that goes well beyond this instance. While the focus is usually on police officers who use needless force, as its more likely to be a cop than a Zimmerman who does the damage, the dark side of the legal carry crowd can't be ignored.
When Joel Rosenberg was alive, he would be the first to argue that men and women who were lawfully allowed to carry handguns, properly trained, would provide an extra hedge against crime and a calming influence on violence. If a perp feared that the person he was about to attack was armed and ready to act, he would be less inclined to take a chance. On the other hand, if a legal gun carrier happened upon a person's life being threatened, and there was no cop in sight, his gun could prove the difference between life and death. All good things.
What nobody really wanted to talk about was the Zimmerman effect. That there were people who had nothing in their background that precluded their obtaining a carry permit, who superficially appeared sufficiently sane to be allowed to possess deadly force, and relished the opportunity to do so. When Joel described the carry crowd, they were all good, solid people, more like inchoate heros than potential killers. As the t-shirt Joel sold for his licensing business said, reluctant participants.
Not every person who carries a gun is quite so modest. When they also carry a shield, there are other implications worth considering. They are trained. They are supervised. They are subject to certain scrutiny, both before they pull the trigger as well as the moment they do. This is not to say it always works out as planned, but that systems exist to theoretically keep a close watch on the use of deadly force by police.
The tragic killing of Trayvon Martin, a 17-year-old black youth, by white, armed, "community watcher," George Zimmerman, raises many questions, from racist perceptions, such as looking "suspicious," to the efficacy of Florida's "stand your ground" law, permitting someone to kill rather than avoid killing.
The fact that Zimmerman was roaming around with a gun, whether in search of something suspicious or just to fulfill some macho fantasy, is a problem that goes well beyond this instance. While the focus is usually on police officers who use needless force, as its more likely to be a cop than a Zimmerman who does the damage, the dark side of the legal carry crowd can't be ignored.
When Joel Rosenberg was alive, he would be the first to argue that men and women who were lawfully allowed to carry handguns, properly trained, would provide an extra hedge against crime and a calming influence on violence. If a perp feared that the person he was about to attack was armed and ready to act, he would be less inclined to take a chance. On the other hand, if a legal gun carrier happened upon a person's life being threatened, and there was no cop in sight, his gun could prove the difference between life and death. All good things.
What nobody really wanted to talk about was the Zimmerman effect. That there were people who had nothing in their background that precluded their obtaining a carry permit, who superficially appeared sufficiently sane to be allowed to possess deadly force, and relished the opportunity to do so. When Joel described the carry crowd, they were all good, solid people, more like inchoate heros than potential killers. As the t-shirt Joel sold for his licensing business said, reluctant participants.
Not every person who carries a gun is quite so modest. When they also carry a shield, there are other implications worth considering. They are trained. They are supervised. They are subject to certain scrutiny, both before they pull the trigger as well as the moment they do. This is not to say it always works out as planned, but that systems exist to theoretically keep a close watch on the use of deadly force by police.
Saturday, March 24, 2012
Trayvon Martin's death: the story so far
Karen McVeigh | The Guardian | 20 March 2012
In February, an unarmed black teenager was killed by George Zimmerman, who claims he acted in self defence. Three weeks on, Zimmerman is still free, and questions remain unanswered
The basic facts
On a rainy night in February, Trayvon Martin was returning to his father's girlfriend's house in Sanford, Florida, after a trip to the local 7-Eleven before the NBA all-star game. He carried a bag of Skittles and a can of Arizona iced tea for his little brother.
As he walked home, the unarmed 17-year-old spoke to his girlfriend in Miami via a hands-free earpiece on his cellphone he often used. He was spotted by George Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighbourhood watch volunteer, who was patrolling the gated community, the Retreat at Twin Lakes, in his vehicle.
Zimmerman called 911 to report what he described as Martin's "suspicious behaviour", telling the operator he looked like he was "up to no good, on drugs or something". Zimmerman was warned by the operator not to follow the teenager. But he did, getting out of his vehicle and taking a 9mm handgun with him.
Martin's girlfriend, who has provided her account to the family's lawyer Benjamin Crump, says Martin told her a stranger was following him. She told him to run home. Then the man reappeared behind him, she said. She then heard Martin say: "What are you following me for?" and someone else saying "What are you doing around here?". She then heard pushing, she said, because Martin's head set fell. At 7.16pm, four minutes after the call began, the phone went dead.
What happens in the last moment of Martin's life went unwitnessed by anyone other than Zimmerman.
According to neighbours, there was an altercation between the two men – Zimmerman, weighing 250lbs and armed, and Martin, weighing 140lbs and unarmed.
Witnesses and 911 calls record one of the men in great distress crying out for help.
One woman anxiously says she can hear someone calling for help while in the background, a wailing voice pleads, "No! No!"
By the time police arrive on the scene, at 7.17pm, Martin lay fatally wounded by a gunshot to the chest.
Zimmerman has admitted to the killing but told police he fired in self-defence.
Three and a half weeks later, Zimmerman is still free.
The police chief has said that, because Zimmerman has made a statement of self-defence, and there is no evidence to dispute that, he has not been arrested.
On Monday, following a national outcry over the case, the US justice department announced that it would investigate the case, along with the FBI.
In February, an unarmed black teenager was killed by George Zimmerman, who claims he acted in self defence. Three weeks on, Zimmerman is still free, and questions remain unanswered
The basic facts
On a rainy night in February, Trayvon Martin was returning to his father's girlfriend's house in Sanford, Florida, after a trip to the local 7-Eleven before the NBA all-star game. He carried a bag of Skittles and a can of Arizona iced tea for his little brother.
As he walked home, the unarmed 17-year-old spoke to his girlfriend in Miami via a hands-free earpiece on his cellphone he often used. He was spotted by George Zimmerman, a self-appointed neighbourhood watch volunteer, who was patrolling the gated community, the Retreat at Twin Lakes, in his vehicle.
Zimmerman called 911 to report what he described as Martin's "suspicious behaviour", telling the operator he looked like he was "up to no good, on drugs or something". Zimmerman was warned by the operator not to follow the teenager. But he did, getting out of his vehicle and taking a 9mm handgun with him.
Martin's girlfriend, who has provided her account to the family's lawyer Benjamin Crump, says Martin told her a stranger was following him. She told him to run home. Then the man reappeared behind him, she said. She then heard Martin say: "What are you following me for?" and someone else saying "What are you doing around here?". She then heard pushing, she said, because Martin's head set fell. At 7.16pm, four minutes after the call began, the phone went dead.
What happens in the last moment of Martin's life went unwitnessed by anyone other than Zimmerman.
According to neighbours, there was an altercation between the two men – Zimmerman, weighing 250lbs and armed, and Martin, weighing 140lbs and unarmed.
Witnesses and 911 calls record one of the men in great distress crying out for help.
One woman anxiously says she can hear someone calling for help while in the background, a wailing voice pleads, "No! No!"
By the time police arrive on the scene, at 7.17pm, Martin lay fatally wounded by a gunshot to the chest.
Zimmerman has admitted to the killing but told police he fired in self-defence.
Three and a half weeks later, Zimmerman is still free.
The police chief has said that, because Zimmerman has made a statement of self-defence, and there is no evidence to dispute that, he has not been arrested.
On Monday, following a national outcry over the case, the US justice department announced that it would investigate the case, along with the FBI.
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
Legalization Debate Takes Off in Latin America
Ethan Nadelmann | The Huffington Post | Mar 10, 2012
Comments (336)
Something incredible is happening right now in Latin America.
After decades of being brutalized by the U.S. government's failed prohibitionist drug policies, Latin American leaders, including not just distinguished former presidents but also current presidents, are saying "enough is enough." They're demanding that the range of policy options be expanded to include alternatives that help reduce the crime, violence and corruption in their own countries -- and insisting that decriminalization and legal regulation of currently illicit drug markets be considered.
Guatemala's new president, Otto Perez Molina, is providing important leadership. As a political conservative and former general, he has credibility that others lack. When he started speaking out publicly last month about the need to consider new drug policy options including legalization, many observers thought it was just a ploy to secure greater economic and military aid from the United States. But he's demonstrated a commitment and engagement over the past month that have persuaded fellow presidents that he's serious about this. Within Guatemala, his initiative has been praised by diverse voices including prominent business leaders, Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian and the head of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), Francisco Dall'Anese.
Comments (336)
Something incredible is happening right now in Latin America.
After decades of being brutalized by the U.S. government's failed prohibitionist drug policies, Latin American leaders, including not just distinguished former presidents but also current presidents, are saying "enough is enough." They're demanding that the range of policy options be expanded to include alternatives that help reduce the crime, violence and corruption in their own countries -- and insisting that decriminalization and legal regulation of currently illicit drug markets be considered.
Guatemala's new president, Otto Perez Molina, is providing important leadership. As a political conservative and former general, he has credibility that others lack. When he started speaking out publicly last month about the need to consider new drug policy options including legalization, many observers thought it was just a ploy to secure greater economic and military aid from the United States. But he's demonstrated a commitment and engagement over the past month that have persuaded fellow presidents that he's serious about this. Within Guatemala, his initiative has been praised by diverse voices including prominent business leaders, Archbishop Oscar Julio Vian and the head of the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG), Francisco Dall'Anese.
Pat Robertson Says Marijuana Use Should be Legal
Jesse McKinley | The New York Times | March 7, 2012
Of the many roles Pat Robertson has assumed over his five-decade-long career as an evangelical leader — including presidential candidate and provocative voice of the right wing — his newest guise may perhaps surprise his followers the most: marijuana legalization advocate.
“I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol,” Mr. Robertson said in an interview on Wednesday. “I’ve never used marijuana and I don’t intend to, but it’s just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded.”
Mr. Robertson’s remarks echoed statements he made last week on “The 700 Club,” the signature program of his Christian Broadcasting Network, and other comments he made in 2010. While those earlier remarks were largely dismissed by his followers, Mr. Robertson has now apparently fully embraced the idea of legalizing marijuana, arguing that it is a way to bring down soaring rates of incarceration and reduce the social and financial costs.
“I believe in working with the hearts of people, and not locking them up,” he said.
Mr. Robertson’s remarks were hailed by pro-legalization groups, who called them a potentially important endorsement in their efforts to roll back marijuana penalties and prohibitions, which residents of Colorado and Washington will vote on this fall.
Of the many roles Pat Robertson has assumed over his five-decade-long career as an evangelical leader — including presidential candidate and provocative voice of the right wing — his newest guise may perhaps surprise his followers the most: marijuana legalization advocate.
“I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol,” Mr. Robertson said in an interview on Wednesday. “I’ve never used marijuana and I don’t intend to, but it’s just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn’t succeeded.”
Mr. Robertson’s remarks echoed statements he made last week on “The 700 Club,” the signature program of his Christian Broadcasting Network, and other comments he made in 2010. While those earlier remarks were largely dismissed by his followers, Mr. Robertson has now apparently fully embraced the idea of legalizing marijuana, arguing that it is a way to bring down soaring rates of incarceration and reduce the social and financial costs.
“I believe in working with the hearts of people, and not locking them up,” he said.
Mr. Robertson’s remarks were hailed by pro-legalization groups, who called them a potentially important endorsement in their efforts to roll back marijuana penalties and prohibitions, which residents of Colorado and Washington will vote on this fall.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Broken Windows: the police and neighborhood safety
George L. Kelling | James Q. Wilson | The Atlantic | Mar 1, 1982
In the mid-1970s The State of New Jersey announced a "Safe and Clean Neighborhoods Program," designed to improve the quality of community life in twenty-eight cities. As part of that program, the state provided money to help cities take police officers out of their patrol cars and assign them to walking beats. The governor and other state officials were enthusiastic about using foot patrol as a way of cutting crime, but many police chiefs were skeptical. Foot patrol, in their eyes, had been pretty much discredited. It reduced the mobility of the police, who thus had difficulty responding to citizen calls for service, and it weakened headquarters control over patrol officers.
Many police officers also disliked foot patrol, but for different reasons: it was hard work, it kept them outside on cold, rainy nights, and it reduced their chances for making a "good pinch." In some departments, assigning officers to foot patrol had been used as a form of punishment. And academic experts on policing doubted that foot patrol would have any impact on crime rates; it was, in the opinion of most, little more than a sop to public opinion. But since the state was paying for it, the local authorities were willing to go along.
Five years after the program started, the Police Foundation, in Washington, D.C., published an evaluation of the foot-patrol project. Based on its analysis of a carefully controlled experiment carried out chiefly in Newark, the foundation concluded, to the surprise of hardly anyone, that foot patrol had not reduced crime rates. But residents of the foot patrolled neighborhoods seemed to feel more secure than persons in other areas, tended to believe that crime had been reduced, and seemed to take fewer steps to protect themselves from crime (staying at home with the doors locked, for example). Moreover, citizens in the foot-patrol areas had a more favorable opinion of the police than did those living elsewhere. And officers walking beats had higher morale, greater job satisfaction, and a more favorable attitude toward citizens in their neighborhoods than did officers assigned to patrol cars.
In the mid-1970s The State of New Jersey announced a "Safe and Clean Neighborhoods Program," designed to improve the quality of community life in twenty-eight cities. As part of that program, the state provided money to help cities take police officers out of their patrol cars and assign them to walking beats. The governor and other state officials were enthusiastic about using foot patrol as a way of cutting crime, but many police chiefs were skeptical. Foot patrol, in their eyes, had been pretty much discredited. It reduced the mobility of the police, who thus had difficulty responding to citizen calls for service, and it weakened headquarters control over patrol officers.
Many police officers also disliked foot patrol, but for different reasons: it was hard work, it kept them outside on cold, rainy nights, and it reduced their chances for making a "good pinch." In some departments, assigning officers to foot patrol had been used as a form of punishment. And academic experts on policing doubted that foot patrol would have any impact on crime rates; it was, in the opinion of most, little more than a sop to public opinion. But since the state was paying for it, the local authorities were willing to go along.
Five years after the program started, the Police Foundation, in Washington, D.C., published an evaluation of the foot-patrol project. Based on its analysis of a carefully controlled experiment carried out chiefly in Newark, the foundation concluded, to the surprise of hardly anyone, that foot patrol had not reduced crime rates. But residents of the foot patrolled neighborhoods seemed to feel more secure than persons in other areas, tended to believe that crime had been reduced, and seemed to take fewer steps to protect themselves from crime (staying at home with the doors locked, for example). Moreover, citizens in the foot-patrol areas had a more favorable opinion of the police than did those living elsewhere. And officers walking beats had higher morale, greater job satisfaction, and a more favorable attitude toward citizens in their neighborhoods than did officers assigned to patrol cars.
Monday, February 20, 2012
New Jersey Governor Calls for Mandatory Treatment for Low-Level Drug Offenders
By Join Together Staff | drugfree.org | January 20, 2012
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie this week called for mandatory treatment for all low-level drug offenders. The Wall Street Journal calls it “the most sweeping criminal-justice proposal of his tenure.”
In his State of the State address, Christie said, “”Every one of God’s creations can be redeemed. Everyone deserves a second chance.” He also called for a revision of bail laws to keep violent drug dealers in prison. He said the state’s bail system should mirror the federal courts, where judges decide whether violent offenders should remain in jail while they await trial if they are considered to be a threat to society or a flight risk.
According to the article, drug treatment advocates say the state’s residential drug treatment facilities are already overcrowded. “There are waiting lists of people begging to get into drug treatment. We should fund and expand it for the people who want it,” said Roseanne Scotti, Director of the Drug Policy Alliance in New Jersey.
In 2010, there were 51,985 people admitted into substance-abuse programs in New Jersey, compared with 47,442 in 2008. An estimated 62 percent of New Jersey prison inmates have a moderate to severe drug addiction, the article states.
Christie once served on the board of a Daytop Village treatment program, and his wife volunteers with former convicts, including at drug treatment centers, the newspaper notes.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie this week called for mandatory treatment for all low-level drug offenders. The Wall Street Journal calls it “the most sweeping criminal-justice proposal of his tenure.”
In his State of the State address, Christie said, “”Every one of God’s creations can be redeemed. Everyone deserves a second chance.” He also called for a revision of bail laws to keep violent drug dealers in prison. He said the state’s bail system should mirror the federal courts, where judges decide whether violent offenders should remain in jail while they await trial if they are considered to be a threat to society or a flight risk.
According to the article, drug treatment advocates say the state’s residential drug treatment facilities are already overcrowded. “There are waiting lists of people begging to get into drug treatment. We should fund and expand it for the people who want it,” said Roseanne Scotti, Director of the Drug Policy Alliance in New Jersey.
In 2010, there were 51,985 people admitted into substance-abuse programs in New Jersey, compared with 47,442 in 2008. An estimated 62 percent of New Jersey prison inmates have a moderate to severe drug addiction, the article states.
Christie once served on the board of a Daytop Village treatment program, and his wife volunteers with former convicts, including at drug treatment centers, the newspaper notes.
Rules of American justice: a tale of three cases
Glenn Greenwald | salon.com | January 24, 2012
Developments in three legal cases, just from the last 24 hours, potently illuminate the Rules of American Justice. First, the Justice Department yesterday charged a former CIA agent, John Kiriakou, with four felony counts for having allegedly disclosed classified information to reporters about the CIA’s interrogation program. Included among those charges are two counts under the Espionage Act of 1917, based on the allegation that he disclosed information which he “had reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of any foreign nation.” Kiriakou made news in 2007 when he told ABC News that he led the team that captured accused Terrorist Abu Zubaydah and that the techniques to which Zubaydah was subjected, including waterboarding, clearly constituted “torture,” though he claimed they were effective and arguably justifiable. He’s also accused of being the source for a 2008 New York Times article that disclosed the name of one of Zubaydah’s CIA interrogators.
What’s most notable here is that this is now the sixth prosecution by the Obama administration of an accused leaker, and all six have been charged under the draconian, World-War-I era Espionage Act. As EFF’s Trevor Timm put it yesterday: this is the “6th time under Obama someone is charged with Espionage for leaking to a journalist. Before Obama: only 3 cases in history.” This is all accomplished by characterizing disclosures in American newspapers about America’s wrongdoing as “aiding the enemy” (the alleged enemy being informed is Al Qaeda, but the actual concern is that the American people learn what their government is doing). As The New York Times‘ Charlie Savage wrote this morning, Obama has brought “more such cases than all previous presidents combined,” and by doing so, has won the admiration of the CIA and other intelligence agencies which, above all else, loathe transparency (which happens to be the value that Obama vowed to provide more of than any President in history).
Also yesterday in American justice, a three-judge panel of a federal appellate court in Virginia upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought against Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush officials by Jose Padilla, the U.S. citizen who was imprisoned for almost three years without charges or even a lawyer and was systematically tortured to the point of permanent mental incapacitation. Padilla sued the former Defense Secretary on the ground that he had authorized Padilla’s illegal imprisonment and torture. The Obama DOJ vigorously defended Rumsfeld, arguing (a) that Rumsfeld is entitled to immunity on the ground that he had reason to believe his acts were legal and (b) an American citizen has no right to sue a government official for the treatment he receives as a designated “enemy combatant” — even if the treatment in question is torture and prolonged imprisonment without charges.
Developments in three legal cases, just from the last 24 hours, potently illuminate the Rules of American Justice. First, the Justice Department yesterday charged a former CIA agent, John Kiriakou, with four felony counts for having allegedly disclosed classified information to reporters about the CIA’s interrogation program. Included among those charges are two counts under the Espionage Act of 1917, based on the allegation that he disclosed information which he “had reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States and to the advantage of any foreign nation.” Kiriakou made news in 2007 when he told ABC News that he led the team that captured accused Terrorist Abu Zubaydah and that the techniques to which Zubaydah was subjected, including waterboarding, clearly constituted “torture,” though he claimed they were effective and arguably justifiable. He’s also accused of being the source for a 2008 New York Times article that disclosed the name of one of Zubaydah’s CIA interrogators.
What’s most notable here is that this is now the sixth prosecution by the Obama administration of an accused leaker, and all six have been charged under the draconian, World-War-I era Espionage Act. As EFF’s Trevor Timm put it yesterday: this is the “6th time under Obama someone is charged with Espionage for leaking to a journalist. Before Obama: only 3 cases in history.” This is all accomplished by characterizing disclosures in American newspapers about America’s wrongdoing as “aiding the enemy” (the alleged enemy being informed is Al Qaeda, but the actual concern is that the American people learn what their government is doing). As The New York Times‘ Charlie Savage wrote this morning, Obama has brought “more such cases than all previous presidents combined,” and by doing so, has won the admiration of the CIA and other intelligence agencies which, above all else, loathe transparency (which happens to be the value that Obama vowed to provide more of than any President in history).
Also yesterday in American justice, a three-judge panel of a federal appellate court in Virginia upheld the dismissal of a lawsuit brought against Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush officials by Jose Padilla, the U.S. citizen who was imprisoned for almost three years without charges or even a lawyer and was systematically tortured to the point of permanent mental incapacitation. Padilla sued the former Defense Secretary on the ground that he had authorized Padilla’s illegal imprisonment and torture. The Obama DOJ vigorously defended Rumsfeld, arguing (a) that Rumsfeld is entitled to immunity on the ground that he had reason to believe his acts were legal and (b) an American citizen has no right to sue a government official for the treatment he receives as a designated “enemy combatant” — even if the treatment in question is torture and prolonged imprisonment without charges.
Friday, February 17, 2012
The cynical world of America's private prisons
Sadhbh Walshe | guardian.co.uk | 3 February 2012
A major factor in why US prisons are overflowing is the highly profitable privatised industry that has an incentive to fill them.
In the past few decades, changes in sentencing laws and get-tough-on-crime policies have led to an explosion in America's prison population. Funding this incarceration binge has been an enormous drain on taxpayer dollars, with some states now spending more to lock up their citizens than to provide their children with education. It's difficult to spin anything positive out of that scenario, but as it turns out, even this blackest of clouds has a silver lining – silver as in dollars, that is, for the private prison industry.
In 2010, two of the largest private prison companies in America, GEO Group, Inc and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) generated over $4bn dollars in profit between them. Their respective CEOs,George Zoley and Damon Hininger, each earned well in excess of $3m in 2010. Although there have been some concerns that any relaxation of sentencing or drug laws might negatively impact their bottom line (profit), they remain confident in their ability to drum up new ways of generating their taxpayer-funded commodities (also known as inmates): lobbying California for their excess prisoners being one; caging juveniles on trivial charges another. But the favorite, by a long shot, is the accelerated drive to lock up America's immigrants.
So far, these strategies seem to be working nicely. In their 2011 third-quarter earnings report, the GEO group proudly announced an increase in profits from the previous year. This joyous news can be at least partially attributed to changes in immigration law, particularly in states like Arizona and Oklahoma, which allow for, among other things, the indefinite detention of illegal immigrants, including those whose asylum proceedings are underway. The majority of immigrants who are picked up by law enforcement officials, mostly on civil charges, like being caught with a broken tail light for instance, will end up in privately run prisons. In many of these facilities, they will be charged $5 per minute to call their loved ones, whilst earning $1 per day for their labor, from which the corporation running the facility will profit.
A major factor in why US prisons are overflowing is the highly profitable privatised industry that has an incentive to fill them.
In the past few decades, changes in sentencing laws and get-tough-on-crime policies have led to an explosion in America's prison population. Funding this incarceration binge has been an enormous drain on taxpayer dollars, with some states now spending more to lock up their citizens than to provide their children with education. It's difficult to spin anything positive out of that scenario, but as it turns out, even this blackest of clouds has a silver lining – silver as in dollars, that is, for the private prison industry.
In 2010, two of the largest private prison companies in America, GEO Group, Inc and the Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) generated over $4bn dollars in profit between them. Their respective CEOs,George Zoley and Damon Hininger, each earned well in excess of $3m in 2010. Although there have been some concerns that any relaxation of sentencing or drug laws might negatively impact their bottom line (profit), they remain confident in their ability to drum up new ways of generating their taxpayer-funded commodities (also known as inmates): lobbying California for their excess prisoners being one; caging juveniles on trivial charges another. But the favorite, by a long shot, is the accelerated drive to lock up America's immigrants.
So far, these strategies seem to be working nicely. In their 2011 third-quarter earnings report, the GEO group proudly announced an increase in profits from the previous year. This joyous news can be at least partially attributed to changes in immigration law, particularly in states like Arizona and Oklahoma, which allow for, among other things, the indefinite detention of illegal immigrants, including those whose asylum proceedings are underway. The majority of immigrants who are picked up by law enforcement officials, mostly on civil charges, like being caught with a broken tail light for instance, will end up in privately run prisons. In many of these facilities, they will be charged $5 per minute to call their loved ones, whilst earning $1 per day for their labor, from which the corporation running the facility will profit.
Monday, February 13, 2012
Trial By Media: The Justice System No One Wants You to Know About
William Fisher | Truthout, News Analysis | 25 December 2011
Remember Mike Nifong? Sure. He's the sleazebag former district attorney in the Duke University lacrosse team's rape scandal back in 2006. He made himself a short-lived hero by agreeing to prosecute members of the Duke Lacrosse team for allegedly raping an African-American exotic dancer the team had hired for a party.
But Nifong, hellbent on winning re-election, forgot that he was an officer of the court. He went public with a series of accusations that later turned out to be untrue; he exaggerated and intensified racial tensions; he unduly influenced the Durham police investigation; he tried to manipulate potential witnesses; he refused to hear exculpatory evidence prior to indictment - that regulations on the conduct of an identification exercise were breached by failure to include "dummy" photographs, that he had never spoken directly to the alleged victim about the accusations and that he made misleadingly incomplete presentations of various aspects of the evidence in the case (including DNA results).
He was dismissed from his job and later disbarred.
Or how about federal prosecutor William Welch, and his deputy chief, Brenda Morris, who convicted the late Sen. Ted Stevens - and helped their own cause by withholding evidence from the defense that could have helped the defendant.
Or there's Richard Convertino, the lead prosecutor in the so-called Detroit Sleeper Cell terrorism case. He was removed from the case on suspicion that he allegedly failed to turn over photographic evidence to the defense.
These acts and alleged acts by prosecutors all qualify as prosecutorial misconduct. There are hundreds of such cases in our justice system every year. Very few of them ever get such high visibility. In fact, most abuses of this kind probably go unnoticed and unreported. In the three cases referenced above, only Nifong lost his law license. The others did not.
But, since 9/11, there has been another kind of misconduct growing. It usually takes place outside the courtroom and is a favorite of politicians of both parties, especially if they are running for re-election.
This is the phenomenon of politicians and others with private agendas calling press conferences to launch inflammatory - and usually false or grossly exaggerated - claims about the importance of a given case to the national security of the United States.
Remember Mike Nifong? Sure. He's the sleazebag former district attorney in the Duke University lacrosse team's rape scandal back in 2006. He made himself a short-lived hero by agreeing to prosecute members of the Duke Lacrosse team for allegedly raping an African-American exotic dancer the team had hired for a party.
But Nifong, hellbent on winning re-election, forgot that he was an officer of the court. He went public with a series of accusations that later turned out to be untrue; he exaggerated and intensified racial tensions; he unduly influenced the Durham police investigation; he tried to manipulate potential witnesses; he refused to hear exculpatory evidence prior to indictment - that regulations on the conduct of an identification exercise were breached by failure to include "dummy" photographs, that he had never spoken directly to the alleged victim about the accusations and that he made misleadingly incomplete presentations of various aspects of the evidence in the case (including DNA results).
He was dismissed from his job and later disbarred.
Or how about federal prosecutor William Welch, and his deputy chief, Brenda Morris, who convicted the late Sen. Ted Stevens - and helped their own cause by withholding evidence from the defense that could have helped the defendant.
Or there's Richard Convertino, the lead prosecutor in the so-called Detroit Sleeper Cell terrorism case. He was removed from the case on suspicion that he allegedly failed to turn over photographic evidence to the defense.
These acts and alleged acts by prosecutors all qualify as prosecutorial misconduct. There are hundreds of such cases in our justice system every year. Very few of them ever get such high visibility. In fact, most abuses of this kind probably go unnoticed and unreported. In the three cases referenced above, only Nifong lost his law license. The others did not.
But, since 9/11, there has been another kind of misconduct growing. It usually takes place outside the courtroom and is a favorite of politicians of both parties, especially if they are running for re-election.
This is the phenomenon of politicians and others with private agendas calling press conferences to launch inflammatory - and usually false or grossly exaggerated - claims about the importance of a given case to the national security of the United States.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Our Dangerous Devotion to Eyewitness Testimony
Patricia J. Williams | The Nation | February 6, 2012
The eyes of Troy Anthony Davis as he entered a courtroom on January 16, 1991. (AP Photo/Savannah Morning News)
“We see what we want to see,” my grandmother used to say. This insight visited me recently after I ran across the mall chasing a woman I thought was my cousin. It wasn’t, as it turned out, but I didn’t realize that until after I had puffed up behind her, bopped her amiably on the shoulder and cried out, “Boo!”
How was it possible, I thought in retrospective embarrassment, to so wrongly misidentify someone I know so well? Empirically my experience was all too common. I’d been thinking about my cousin a few moments before and saw the woman through the lens of those thoughts. We often project our life’s associations onto the faces of strangers. Constantly—if mostly unconsciously—we familiarize them with learned stereotypes. If we are wise, we learn to take caution with our assumptions. We recognize this innate fallibility, and most of the time it doesn’t matter very much.
Oddly enough, however, we reverse that supposition in the one context where fallibility matters most: in criminal cases, eyewitness testimony is viewed as the ne plus ultra for the prosecution, despite a century’s worth of psychological and sociological studies revealing that, from Sacco and Vanzetti to Troy Davis, witnesses misperceive a startling percentage of the time. “Human beings are not very good at identifying people they saw only once for a relatively short period of time,” writes Cornell law professor Michael Dorf. “The studies reveal error rates of as high as fifty percent—a frightening statistic given that many convictions may be based largely or solely on such testimony. These studies show further that the ability to identify a stranger is diminished by stress (and what crime situation is not intensely stressful?), that cross-racial identifications are especially unreliable, and that contrary to what one might think, those witnesses who claim to be ‘certain’ of their identifications are no better at it than everyone else, just more confident.”
The eyes of Troy Anthony Davis as he entered a courtroom on January 16, 1991. (AP Photo/Savannah Morning News)
“We see what we want to see,” my grandmother used to say. This insight visited me recently after I ran across the mall chasing a woman I thought was my cousin. It wasn’t, as it turned out, but I didn’t realize that until after I had puffed up behind her, bopped her amiably on the shoulder and cried out, “Boo!”
How was it possible, I thought in retrospective embarrassment, to so wrongly misidentify someone I know so well? Empirically my experience was all too common. I’d been thinking about my cousin a few moments before and saw the woman through the lens of those thoughts. We often project our life’s associations onto the faces of strangers. Constantly—if mostly unconsciously—we familiarize them with learned stereotypes. If we are wise, we learn to take caution with our assumptions. We recognize this innate fallibility, and most of the time it doesn’t matter very much.
Oddly enough, however, we reverse that supposition in the one context where fallibility matters most: in criminal cases, eyewitness testimony is viewed as the ne plus ultra for the prosecution, despite a century’s worth of psychological and sociological studies revealing that, from Sacco and Vanzetti to Troy Davis, witnesses misperceive a startling percentage of the time. “Human beings are not very good at identifying people they saw only once for a relatively short period of time,” writes Cornell law professor Michael Dorf. “The studies reveal error rates of as high as fifty percent—a frightening statistic given that many convictions may be based largely or solely on such testimony. These studies show further that the ability to identify a stranger is diminished by stress (and what crime situation is not intensely stressful?), that cross-racial identifications are especially unreliable, and that contrary to what one might think, those witnesses who claim to be ‘certain’ of their identifications are no better at it than everyone else, just more confident.”
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