Author: Alan Bean

Narcotics: Attack Capital, Not People

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Mark Osler, a law professor at the University of St. Thomas, believes we should stop arresting scores of low-level drug dealers and start interdicting drug money in high places.  This concise form of his unique take on drug policy appeared in the Huffington Post.  If you are intrigued by Professor Osler’s thesis but aren’t sure about the details, an in-depth statement of his argument can be found here.  Highly recommended. 

Narcotics: Attack Capital, Not People

By Mark Osler

The war on drugs is over. Drugs won.

There seem to be two common answers as to what to do next. The political establishment (including the Obama administration) largely supports doing the same things we always have — locking up lots of people who are selling, making or carrying drugs. Meanwhile, increasingly vocal groups of reformers on both the right and left support the legalization of narcotics.

They are all wrong. Supporters of the same tactics we have pursued for decades need to recognize the failure of that enterprise. Many drugs are cheaper, purer, and more widely available now than they were twenty years ago. Legalization proponents, meanwhile, ignore the dire social consequences of narcotics like crack cocaine and methamphetamine (they have a stronger argument in relation to marijuana). There simply is no ignoring the way hard drugs can rip apart the social fabric of a family or community — especially in areas that are already economically vulnerable. (more…)

Civil rights community divided as exonerees take their own lawyers to court

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By Alan Bean

I first discussed this story in December of 2009 when the controversy between exonerated Texans and their former attorneys appeared on the pages of the Dallas Morning News.  Lubbock attorney Kevin Glasheen signed a standard contingency contract with a number of exonerees that gave him 25% of the eventual settlement with the city of Dallas.  The clients eventually got their money, but it didn’t come from the city of Dallas.  Instead, Glasheen lobbied the state legislature to enact a dramatic increase in the amount the wrongfully convicted are reimbursed.  The contract says nothing about a fee for lobbying efforts and the clients say they don’t owe Mr. Glasheen (and Jeff Blackburn, the Innocence Project of Texas attorney who enlisted Glasheen’s efforts) a nickel.

A year and a half later, the issue is going before the state bar.   John Schwartz of the New York Times, summarizes the central issues thusly:

The word “lobbying” does not appear in the contracts, and perhaps with good reason. Much of the legal world operates on contingency fees, allowing people with no money to get to court. The lawyer takes on the financial risk and, if successful, reaps a healthy chunk of the reward. But in Texas it is a felony to lobby the Legislature on a contingent-fee basis, because it can skew the incentives underlying public policy.

(Over at Grits for Breakfast, Scott Henson takes issue with the accuracy of the Times article.)

But this isn’t just a dispute over billing fees and the interpretation of legal contracts; the issue has emotional and moral components.  No one should denigrate civil rights attorneys for charging a healthy fee for their services.  Law school is expensive and attorneys frequently invest hundreds of thousands of dollars in the cases they litigate.  But most criminal justice reform advocates wish to believe that, for those involved in the legal side of the justice fight, altruism and a sense of higher purpose is part of the motivational mix.  The advocacy community in Texas is divided over precisely this issue and there is no strictly legal answer.  (more…)

Michael Gerson displays his ignorance of drugs and the drug war

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By Alan Bean

Michael Gerson doesn’t like Ron Paul for all the wrong reasons.  George W. Bush’s ex-speech writer is appalled that a presidential candidate who advocates the legalization of heroin expects to be taken seriously.  Me?  I am appalled that a man who doesn’t grasp the futility of the war on drugs can be taken seriously as an authority on the subject.  Has he not been following the debate?  Apparently not. (more…)

Freedom ride anniversary sparks questions about today’s young people

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By Alan Bean

Last week, Oprah Winfrey shared her stage with 178 veterans of the 1961 Freedom Rides.   There they stood, black and white, mostly in their 70s, looking proud and maybe just a little embarrassed. 

The fiftieth anniversary of the freedom rides has sparked more retrospection than introspection.  Last summer, I discussed the freedom rides in detail on the eve of the trial of Curtis Flowers.  How much had changed, I asked, since thousands of heroic young people flocked to the South to challenge segregation laws and, more often than not, pay a visit to Mississippi’s notorious Parchman prison (where, incidentally, Curtis Flowers now resides).  The post has received 4,000 hits (that’s a lot by the modest standards of this blog), suggesting that interest in the freedom riders remains high.

An article in the Washington Post poses the obvious question: If all these young people were willing to place their lives on the line in 1961, why aren’t today’s young people demonstrating a similar dedication to justice?  Few real answers emerge.  American schools have essentially resegregated and nobody seems to care.  Jackson, Mississippi was the primary destination of the freedom riders.  In 1961, the Post article reports, Jackson was only one-third black, now, largely thanks to white flight, the school system is overwhelmingly black.  (more…)

Why Georgia WON’T execute Troy Davis

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By Alan Bean

-Can a system that routinely gets it wrong justifiably execute anyone?-

Predictions are always dangerous, but I am quite confident about this one.  The state of Georgia will NOT execute Troy Davis. 

Why am I so sure about this?  Because public officials are averse to embarrassment.  Politicians will back away from a sinful decision for the same reason they generally adopt a tough-on-crime stance–it’s the easiest way to go.   (more…)

Laura Moye of Amnesty International discusses the Troy Davis case

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The state of Georgia will soon be announcing an execution date for Troy Davis even though the state’s case has largely disintegrated.  

Troy Davis with family members

Our Friends at Angola 3 News have published an informative interview with Laura Moye, director of the Amnesty International USA Death Penalty Abolition Campaign that addresses most of the questions this tragic case inspires and holds up the Davis case as a symbol of a broken system. You can sign an Amnesty International petition and a Color of Change petition calling on Georgia officials to back away from their date with death. 

 

Troy Davis Execution Date Expected Anytime –An interview with Laura Moye of Amnesty International

Laura Moye is director of the Amnesty International USA Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. In this interview, Moye talks about 42-year-old Troy Davis, an African American who has been on death row in Georgia for over 19 years—having already faced three execution dates. The continued railroading of Davis has sparked outrage around the world, and public pressure during the last few years of Davis’ appeals has been essential to his survival today. (more…)

Michelle Alexander: The human rights nightmare nobody wants to talk about

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Michelle Alexander

By Michelle Alexander

How a Human Rights Nightmare Can Happen in Our Country on Our Watch — and Go Virtually Undiscussed

If we fail to commit ourselves to ending mass incarceration, future generations will judge us harshly.

April 28, 2011

So much about our racial reality today is little more than a mirage. The promised land of racial equality wavers, quivers just out of our reach in the barren desert of our new, “colorblind” political landscape. It looks so good from a distance: Barack Obama, our nation’s first black president, standing in the Rose Garden behind a podium looking handsome, dignified, and in charge. Flip the channel and there’s Michelle Obama, a brown-skinned woman, digging a garden in the backyard of the White House — not as a servant or a maid — but as the first lady, schooling the nation on better health and the need to be good stewards of our planet. Flip the channel again and there’s the whole Obama family exiting Air Force One, waving to the crowd, descending the flight of stairs — a gorgeous black family living in the White House, ruling America, cheered by the world.

Drive a few blocks from the White House and you find the Other America. You find you’re still in the desert, dying of thirst, wondering what wrong turn was made, and how you managed to miss the promised land, though you reached for it with all your might. (more…)

Texas Outrage: Not only has Anthony Graves been denied compensation, his paycheck is being garnished for child support

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Anthony Graves

Anthony Graves spent 18 years on Texas’ death row, the victim of a classic case of investigative and prosecutorial tunnel vision.  You would think that would qualify Mr. Graves for the $80,000 a year the wrongfully convicted are due under the Tim Cole Act.  But no.  According to a Houston Chronicle Editorial, Anthony Graves was denied $1,440,000.00 the State of Texas owed him and then, as if to pour salt in the wound, garnished his wages for the child support he didn’t pay because he had been wrongfully accused and convicted.

According to the Chronicle editorial, Texas Attorney General, Greg Abbott, feels Anthony Graves’ story is “truly troubling and deeply compelling” but felt he had no choice but to deduct the child support money.

Scott Henson has a good post on this truly disgusting development at Grits for Breakfast.

Will Georgia execute Troy Davis?

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By Alan Bean

This article by Amnesty International’s Brian Evans provides the most concise status report on the Troy Davis case I have encountered.  According to judge William T. Moore, Mr. Davis failed to prove his innocence.  Meanwhile, the essential features of the state’s case have crumbled to dust.  Will the State of Georgia execute Troy Davis because he can’t prove his innocence to a legal certainty?  Wouldn’t it make more sense to commute his sentence to life without parole so his attorney’s can continue the fight? (more…)

Head in the sand over prosecutorial misconduct

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Law Professor Erwin Chemerinsky is dismayed by Supreme Court rulings that protect unscrupulous prosecutors from the consequences of their actions.  The Friends of Justice share this concern.  The pious doctrine that American citizens stand before the law as equals is a worthy aspirational goal, but it bears little relation to actual practice.  The title of this post is taken from the title of professor Chemerinsky’s article in the National Law Journal.

In the real world, American citizens are scattered along a continuum stretching from low-status black males (who can be prosecuted and convicted on the basis of uncorroborated snitch testimony) all the way to prosecutors and judges whose professional behavior, no matter how flagrantly illegal, cannot be prosecuted at all.  We cannot admit that some can be convicted without real evidence (ala Tulia) while others smoking-gun isn’t enough to put people like Terry McEarchern (Tulia, TX), Brett Grayson (AUSA, Western Louisiana) and Harry Connick Sr. (New Orleans) out of business.  (more…)