I saw this story about CA governor Arnold Schwarzenegger calling for a “Schools not Prisons” politics on the NYT site and thought it warranted a post.  Unfortunately, I’m cramming for Saturday’s Friends of Justice Board meeting and a Sunday preaching opportunity and don’t have time for reflection.  Fortunately, Baylor law professor Mark Osler has addressed the issues over at Osler’s Razor and raises some provocative issues.

Political Mayhem Thursday: Schools or Prisons?

Lame-duck California Governor Arnold Schwartzenegger is supporting a Constitutional amendment in that state which would require that the state spend more money every year on universities than it does on prisons.

I think it is an intriguing idea.

First, though, we have to acknowledge that incarcerating a lot of people is probably going to reduce crime, even if we just incarcerate people at random– there simply will be fewer people on the street to commit crimes. Incarcerating a large part of the population does reduce crime.

However, incarcerating a lot of people is an expensive way to achieve what may be a minor result. The better we target the people who really create crime– the key men– the more efficient the system and the fewer people we need to incarcerate to obtain a given result. Of course, for this to happen, we must acknowledge one over-riding goal in criminal justice: To incapacitate the key men. It would be unusual to find that kind of political discipline.

Still, I would love it if we could try, and as a result give more money to universities than we do to prisons.

What do you think?

-Mark Osler

Larry James is president and CEO of Central Dallas Ministries.  This brief post on the link between poverty and hopelessness is one of the best things I’ve read in a long while.

Hopelessness vs. Laziness

It occurred to me recently that middleclass and upperclass folks who accuse underclass folks of being lazy don’t really understand life in the ghetto.

When you have little or no hope of landing the kind of job that would allow you, literally, to work your way out of poverty and all of its deadends, a paralysis of hopelessness can set in. When it does, lots of people simply come to a halt. It is as if a wall emerges from the ground in the pathway and the parade of a person’s life simply stops.

Hopelessness may lead to a series of odd jobs; you know, hit and miss kind of work that pays a wage, but not one that’s liveable or progressive.

For lots of people the deadends of life signal an end to effort.

“What’s the use?” can become the fundamental question of life. And, until that question finds a reasonable answer, life is going nowhere.

So, the next time you think “lazy,” stop and reconsider.

Ask some questions.

-Larry James

Tom Mangold, a correspondent with the the British Broadcasting Corporation, recently traveled to Winona, Mississippi to investigate the case of Curtis Flowers.  The story came to his attention through this blog, but I have made little attempt to convince Mr. Mangold to see the story my way.  As you would expect from an investigative reporter, he took nothing for granted going in.  Here is a transcript of Mangold’s report in its entirety.

Mississippi Smoldering

Crossing Continents:  Mississippi

Reporter:  Tom Mangold

Producer:  Bill Law

26 November 2009

In Mississippi, a man accused of murder has spent thirteen years in prison on remand. And he’s still inside.

ATTORNEY RAY CARTER: Curtis is a black man in America, a black man in Mississippi, a black man in the South.

LYDIA CHASSANIOL: There has been an effort by some to say that there was a racial motivation. I would like to remind the people who are interested in this case that there was a black man murdered as well.

REPORTER: Curtis Flowers is a black man charged with the murder of four people, three white and one black. Next year, incredibly, he will face his sixth trial. Race has played a significant part in the judicial stand-off that is preventing justice being done. One year into the Obama presidency what does the Flowers case tell us about the dream of a post-racial America? (more…)

End the year with a gift to Friends of Justice!

In the final hours of 2009, I hope you’ll include Friends of Justice in your year-end giving.  If you haven’t already made a generous contribution to support our unique mission, please donate now!

Thank you, we appreciate your support. 

Yours for Justice,
Alan Bean

Several readers have been asking about the current status of the Troy Davis case.  In August, the Supreme Court called for an evidentiary hearing in connection with Davis’s innocence claims and U.S. District Judge William T. Moore Jr. was appointed to oversee that process. 

Judge Moore has been uncertain how to proceed.  The Supreme Court has never ruled that the Constitution recognizes a “free-standing innocence claim”; therefore Moore isn’t sure what law applies to the Davis case and is asking for guidance.  This explains, in part at least, why, four months after the Supreme Court’s unprecedented announcement, the evidentiary hearing still hasn’t been scheduled.

Fortunately, Bill Rankin of the Atlanta Journal-Constitution has just published an excellent summary of the case that contains some exciting new information.  Here is an extended excerpt from the relevant portion of the article.

Davis’ legal team recently provided Moore with a new affidavit from a Savannah woman who said a key prosecution witness, Sylvester “Redd” Coles, told her he was the one who actually shot and killed Officer Mark Allen MacPhail.

Jason Ewart, a member of Davis’ legal team, said Davis is eager to finally present his recantation testimony in court for the first time. But the lawyer acknowledged they “are working on a blank slate. We’re really now talking about what the law should be here.”

Ewart said Davis’ new evidence is powerful. “It essentially eviscerates the evidence presented at trial and presents evidence that wasn’t available at that time,” he said.

In court filings, Davis’ lawyers continue to contend the actual killer was Coles. In a prior interview with The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Coles denied being the triggerman.

Coles went to police shortly after MacPhail was shot dead in a Burger King parking lot. MacPhail, a 27-year-old former U.S. Army ranger, had rushed to the scene responding to the wails of Larry Young, who was being pistol-whipped.

Prosecutors said Davis was with Coles when Coles began harassing Young, demanding Young to give him a beer. Davis then began hitting Young with his pistol. After arriving at the scene, MacPhail was shot before he could unholster his firearm.

When Coles told police Davis was at the scene, Davis became the prime suspect.

At the 1991 trial, nine prosecution witnesses testified they saw Davis at the scene, saw him shoot MacPhail or were told by Davis he killed MacPhail. But since then, seven of these witnesses have recanted, saying police pressured them into falsely fingering Davis.

Coles is one of the two key witnesses who has not recanted his testimony. Since the trial, Coles has confessed to five separate friends and family members that he killed MacPhail, said a court filing by Davis’ legal team.

The most recent person to come forward is Quiana Glover, a Savannah woman who said she was at a friend’s house in June when Coles told her he killed MacPhail, according to her affidavit. Glover said she had known Coles since she was a young girl.

According to Glover’s affidavit, a woman who was with Coles at the party told him he was drinking too much and to slow down. “This [expletive] is killing me,” Coles replied.

When Glover said she asked what Coles was talking about, he said, “Man, looky here, I’m the one who killed that [expletive]. But if they want to hold Troy’s [expletive] then let them hold him. Besides, I’ve got kids to raise.”

Glover said that several days later she was at a sports bar when she saw a married couple, Hollis Mitchell and Alicia Blakely, wearing “I Am Troy Davis” T-shirts and asking people to sign a petition they were going to give to the local district attorney.

Glover said she signed the petition and then, after hesitating, told them what she said Coles had told her, her affidavit said. She gave them her cell phone number and was later contacted by an investigator for Davis’ legal team, who took her sworn statement.

Glover did not return phone calls last week seeking comment.

In a telephone interview on Thursday, Blakely recounted meeting Glover at the sports bar.

“She came up to me and said she had something to tell me,” Blakely said. “She said, ‘I know who killed that police officer.’’’

After Glover repeated what she said Coles had told her, Blakely said, “I couldn’t believe it. I was like, oh, my gosh, we’ve got to get that out there.”

Friends of Justice has been following this case closely, partly because it overlaps considerably with the case of Curtis Flowers in Mississippi.  The manipulation of eyewitness testimony is a major feature of both cases.  Flowers and Davis are unusually egregious examples of a problem afflicting the criminal justice system nationwide.  Not only do police officers and investigators coerce “eyewitnesses” into cooperating with the government’s theory of the case; there is growing evidence that even sincere and well-intentioned eye-witness testimony if far less reliable than is generally believed. 

I will have more to say on this aspect of the two cases as events unfold.

Sheriff Earl Patridge had a problem.  Seven black agitators, five of them beaten within an inch of their lives, were locked in his jailhouse.  It would take just one complaint and the feds would come sniffing around.  They always did.

Twelve hours after the arrest at the Winona Trailways Depot a passel of black agitators from Greenwood had come looking for their friends.  The sheriff’s men arrested Lawrence Guyot, a powerfully built civil rights leader, and used every trick in the book to goad the big man into violent resistance.  Guyot wouldn’t call his captors “Sir” but refused to take the bait.  Patridge’s men beat their prisoner mercilessly.  One officer pulled out a blow torch and threatened to burn off the black man’s testicles.  When a physician warned that they would soon have a corpse on their hands the beating finally ended.  Now Guyot was in solitary confinement.  His face was a mass of cuts and bruises and his eyes were swollen shut. (more…)

Former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee has been taking a lot of heat from his conservative colleagues for pardoning a cop-killer, but Radley Balko thinks Haley Barbour, the sitting governor of Mississippi, is the southern politician who needs to be called to account.

Here’s Balko’s summary of the Mississippi governor’s most controversial pardons:

• Bobby Hays Clark, who in 1996 shot his ex-girlfriend in the neck and beat her boyfriend with a broom handle. Clark, who had a previous aggravated assault conviction, was sentenced to 38 years. Barbour pardoned him last year without notifying the family of Clark’s victim.
• Michael David Graham, who in 1989 shot his ex-wife point-blank with a shotgun while she waited at a traffic light. Barbour suspended Graham’s life sentence, and he was released.
• Clarence Jones, who stabbed his ex-girlfriend 22 times in 1992. She had previously filed multiple assault and trespassing charges against him. He was sentenced to life in prison. Barbour pardoned him last year.
• Paul Joseph Warnock, who in 1989 shot his girlfriend in the back of the head as she slept. He was sentenced to life in prison in 1993. Barbour pardoned him last year.
• William James Kimble, convicted and sentenced to life for robbing and murdering an elderly man in 1991.

Radley Balko finds these pardons particularly incongruous in light of some of the folks Barbour has refused to pardon.  (more…)