George Will is the king of common sense.  Why, he asks, are we hearing so little talk about the failings of the criminal justice system these days?  Why is the New York Times no longer lamenting the combination of rising incarceration rates and falling crime rates?  It’s simple common sense: the crime rate is falling because we are locking up so many people.

It’s hard to argue.  If we locked up every last American the crime rate would disappear altogether, right.  So why are we surprised that the incarceration of a mere 2 million people is taking a bite out of crime?

George Will is right about one thing: there isn’t much public debate about crime and incarceration these days. 

For reform advocates like Friends of Justice, this silence is ominous.  Our goal is to get people talking about these matters. 

Will suggests that the conservatives have crushed their liberal critics so convincingly that there is no longer anything to talk about.

It’s a lot more complicated than that. 

This is an election season.  Mr. Will uses Barack Obama as his whipping boy in his influential essay “More prisons, less crime” (published in the Washington Post and reprinted copiously).  Obama says more young black males are in prison than in college (Will says it ain’t so).  Obama complains that sentences for selling crack cocaine (the preferred drug of street addicts) are much higher than those for powdered cocaine (a rich man’s drug).  Will says (correctly) that this is only true in the federal system, so what’s the big deal?

But the quotes from Barack Obama are becoming dated.  These days, the Democratic presidential nominee isn’t talking much about our failed criminal justice system.  The closer we get to election day, the deeper the silence will grow. 

On the other hand, you won’t hear John McCain beating the tough-on-crime drum too loudly either.  America’s preference for prisons over schools is embarrassing to moderate conservatives like McCain and the recent spate of DNA exonerations have only deepened the embarrassment.  Like, Mr. Obama, the Republican nominee doesn’t want to hand his opponent a cudgel at this sensitive juncture.

With the politicians silent on the subject, you won’t be hearing much about crime and punishment from the talking heads.  Which leaves the debate (to the extent there is one) in the hands of the usual partisan combatants.   Folks on the right endorse George Will’s linkage between high incarceration rates and falling crime.  Liberals argue that the mass incarceration of Black males reflects white America’s irrational fear of “the Black other”. 

Conservatives counter that Black males comprise roughly half of prison inmates because they commit roughly half of crimes.  Quoting a study by Heather Mac Donald of the Manhattan Institute, Wills argues that “In 2005 the black homicide rate was over seven times higher than that of whites and Hispanics combined. . . . From 1976 to 2005, blacks committed over 52 percent of all murders.”  

Murder statistics are hard to manipulate.  Disproportionate numbers of young Black males may be nailed for drug crimes because law enforcement targets predominantly Black neighborhoods–but murder is murder.

So, which side is right?

Both . . . and neither.

Liberals point out that a simple survey of prison and jail populations shows that we are locking up the poor, the drug addicted, the mentally retarded and the mentally ill. 

Conservatives counter that poverty, per se, can’t explain high crime rates.  Lots of folks were poor during the great depression, but few went the way of Ma Barker and Al Capone.  The real issue isn’t poverty; it is the growth of welfare dependency, single-parent families and a general decline in moral values and personal responsibility.  The problem isn’t economic, it is spiritual.

George Will makes this argument with an assist from conservative scholar James Q. Wilson who believes that marriage has been undermined by the enlightenment focus on personal freedom and by slavery’s corrosive influence on the Black family.  Since slavery has been illegal for over 140 years, there is nothing to be done about that now.

This conservative argument has gained some traction among Black opinion leaders–Barack Obama among them.  White academicians may dismiss talk of personal morality and family values, but people who live close to the mean streets beg to differ.  To them, crime and poverty are spiritual issues.

The conservative emphasis on the erosion of individual and community values is legitimate, so far as it goes.  But the social collapse so apparent in our poorest neighborhoods can’t be reduced to a simple formula.  Ironically, the success of the civil rights movement has a role to play.  The desegregation of schools spawned the mass exodus we call white flight.  In a decade or two, neighborhoods once dominated by white folks and their prosperous businesses became overwhelmingly Black and Latino.  A similar retreat by the Black middle class (though it has received much less attention) also figures into the equation.

Money chases money.  With few exceptions, businesses locate as close to the affluent as possible.  Poor people with little money to spend are forced to pay jacked up prices at the convenience store because all the supermarkets have left the region along with financial institutions, government offices, big box outlets, and specialty shops.  As business flees to the suburbs, the economic life of once-thriving neighborhoods dies a slow death.  In the end, there are no jobs to be had within walking distance and folks looking for high rates of return on their labor are driven into the underground economy.

For decades, conservatives have insisted that intact working families should be barred from receiving public assistance–tax money should only be diverted to the truly needy.  The struggle to support large families on even two minimum wage jobs (the only kind available in many neighborhoods) was more than many marriages could handle.  Eventually, marriage becomes a rarity.  The common expectation is that girls will start having babies in their teens and that children will grow up hardly knowing their fathers.

The big problem in the poorest neighborhoods is alienation, not immorality.  young people grow up like outcasts, non-citizens.  Even those in search of Middle America don’t know where to begin. 

For the best guide to the streets don’t consult a book or an academic study; just check out the HBO series The Wire.  In one scene in the 5th (and last) season, a young “corner boy” goes to the local gym to learn how to defend himself.  The place is run by an ex-con who has made several unsuccessful runs at the American dream.  

“You only got to know how to fight if you’re gonna be on the streets,” the older man says, “but that isn’t all there is–at least that’s what they tell me. There’s supposed to be a whole other world out there.”

The corner boy stares straight ahead.  “How do you get from here to the rest of the world?” he asks.

The answer comes with a sigh of resignation: “Damned if I know.”

No government program can fix a system this broken.  Neither can a call to spiritual regeneration.  The only response with any chance of success will combine better schools (with lower teacher-pupil ratios); government sponsored economic stimulus programs (the kind the free market can’t provide); diversion programs for non-violent criminals (a truce in the drug war); and re-entry and work programs for ex-offenders.

But without a strong emphasis on marriage, personal responsibility and honest work these much-needed shifts in public policy will fall short.  Individual and community values must be rooted in what Alcoholics Anonymous calls “a higher power”.  This is why many Black community leaders are sounding the call to spiritual renewal. 

Unfortunately, the insertion of religious language into the debate drives a wedge between Black activists and white liberals.  Mention religion and most secular liberals think of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson–the only white preachers they have ever seen on television.  The elite campuses of America have produced many first-rate studies related to crime and poverty, but in this rarified world words like “religion” and “spiritual” serve as rough equivalents for “superstitious” and “irrational”. 

Now you begin to understand the silence that has descended upon this subject.  Liberals don’t want to talk about “social pathologies”; it sounds too much like blaming the victim.  Conservatives can’t admit that public policy shifts are possible or desirable.  Liberals can’t employ the language of the spirit.  Conservatives talk like sociological morons, insisting that crime is simply a function of bad people making bad decisions . . . plus nothing.  Hence, the only solution is for bad people to exercise better judgment and harsh prison terms are a great way to drive this point home.

How can we spark a no-nonsense conversation incorporating the legitimate contributions of liberals and conservatives? 

Friends of Justice thinks this conversation can only begin in the churches.  Starting in the Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex (where we have been located for the past year), we are starting to visit with faith communities about the need for spiritual renewal and criminal justice reform.   We call it “The Common Peace Initiative”. The Bible teaches that public safety is rooted in the principle of equal justice and we agree.

How’s it going?  We’ll keep you posted.

I have had little to say about the legal plight of Little Rock attorney Alvin Clay for a couple of months now.  Nonetheless, the story attracts several dozen hits on our website every day.  A lot of you want to know what happens next.

The wheels of justice grind slowly.  During the trial in early June, I provided you with a blow-by-blow account, emphasizing that the Government’s case was entirely dependent on the testimony of a single, highly compromised witness, Donny McCuien. 

Alvin Clay has filed a motion for a new trial.  To save money, he wrote the motion himself, arguing that not a single witness testified at trial that Alvin Clay had personal knowledge of the fraudulent loan documents produced by Ray Nealy.

Clay asserts that the Government had to prove three things to the jury beyond a reasonable doubt.  1. That there was an agreement between Ray Nealy, Donnie McCuien and Alvin Clay to achieve an illegal purpose; 2. that Alvin Clay had personal knowledge of such an agreement; and 3. that Alvin Clay knowingly participated in the conspiracy.  Clay summarizes his argument like this:

“Alvin Clay asserts to this court that the admissible and credible evidence at trial was insufficient to support a conviction to commit wire fraud.  And further that there was no credible evidence worthy of consideration by the jury presented by the Government to prove that he knowingly joined a conspiracy to launder money . . . Clay asserts that the verdict is contrary to the weight of evidence and that this court should outright acquit or order a new trial.”

Further, “In light of McCuien’s testimony and the absence of any other evidence, there is simply no evidence from which one could conclude that Alvin Clay participated in a conspiracy or otherwise knew that the proceeds in issue were derived from criminal activity.”

A glance at the transcript of Donny McCuien’s testimony demonstrates the force of Clay’s argument.  When first questioned, McCuien told the Government that Alvin Clay paid him for subcontracting rehab work on the five properties in question.  McCuien said he figured that Clay and Ray Nealy split up the rest of the money paid to Clay construction, but he had no first-hand knowledge that this happened.

By the time of trial, the Government’s star witness had changed his story.  In the new version, McCuien accompanied Clay and Nealy to the bank after every deal closed.  There they would split up the proceeds.  As I have reported elsewhere, McCuien testified at trial that he never intended to do any rehab work, that he owned no construction tools, that he had never done any construction work for anyone, and that Alvin Clay was aware of these facts.

In rebuttal, Alvin Clay’s defense team produced witnesses who testified that McCuien owned construction tools, that he had performed rehab work on several properties other than those in question at trial, and that significant rehab work had been performed on the five properties named in the indictment.

McCuien testified the way the Government told him to testify.  His reward: a sweetheart deal.  Clay is arguing that, even if you take McCuien’s testimony at face value, the fast food manager never suggested that Alvin Clay had personal knowledge of fraudulent loan documents–the central allegation the Government had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

The transcript of McCuien’s testimony runs to 106 pages, but here is the salient quote.  McCuien admitted that he told prospective home buyers that they would get a kick-back after the deal closed.  Clay’s attorney then asked, “You told them they were going to get money, but you don’t know how it worked?”

Check out McCuien’s response: “No, I don’t know how it worked because I am not a loan–I am not in the mortgage game of doing the loans or nothing like that.  All I know is I found the buyers that wanted to buy and make money, and I give them to Ray Nealy so he can do the financing.”

Did you catch that?  Donny McCuien told the jury that he had no personal access to the fraudulent loan documents that Ray Nealy prepared.  This raises an obvious question: if McCuien didn’t see the fraudulent loan documents, how could he know if Alvin Clay saw them?

There are only two witnesses who could testify intelligently on that question: Ray Nealy and Alvin Clay.  Clay testified repeatedly at trial that he had no personal knowledge of the loan documents Ray Nealy prepared.  Nealy has yet to testify.

You see the problem.  Not a single witness suggested that Alvin Clay possessed the personal knowledge on which this case hinges.  A jury can make inferences from the testimony presented at trial, but jurors are not free to speculate in the complete absence of actual testimony. 

The jury (as juries are prone to do) believed that Alvin Clay was in on Ray Nealy’s scheme because the Government of the United States seemed to believe it.  Since federal prosecutors had spent several years going over this stuff they must know what they are talking about, right?  Besides, Alvin Clay was paid what would amount to half a year’s salary for most people without lifting a finger.  That’s not right.

Although the Government repeatedly reminded the jury that Clay got something for nothing, that fact was legally irrelevant.  Bill Clinton commands hundreds of thousands of dollars for making a single speech.  Michael Phelps will get millions of dollars for signing his name to a simple contract.  This is America folks; the place where CEO’s get the big bucks for firing people and shipping jobs overseas.  There is nothing illegal (or even improper) about allowing a business associate to use your contractor’s license.

Alvin Clay didn’t see Ray Nealy’s fraudulent loan documents for the same reason he didn’t inspect the properties Nealy insisted had been rehabbed by McCuien–he didn’t have the time.  When you run a full-time law practice while supervising six real estate agents, you don’t have the luxury of perusing deals in which you are only peripherally. 

It could be argued, of course, that Alvin Clay had no business biting off more business than he could chew.  Clay wouldn’t argue; but getting in over your head isn’t illegal, it is simply unwise.

This isn’t a question of whether you believe Clay or whether you believe the Government.  The Government told Donny McCuien how to testify and then pretended to believe him, even though, like you and me, they had no way of distinguishing fact from fiction.  The Government guessed, and not intelligently.  Basing a conclusion on the word of a scamp like McCuien isn’t just arbitrary, it is dangerous.

Hence my questions about the Government’s motivation in this case.

Everything depends on how Judge Leon Holmes makes of all this.  He now sits as the 13th juror and is perfectly capable of vacating the conviction and ordering a new trial.  That is precisely what federal judge Tucker Melancon did when Ann Colomb and her sons were falsely accused of selling over $500,000 of crack cocaine every month to convicted drug dealers.  Fortunately, Friends of Justice cried foul.

As Radley Balko reported a few months ago,

The family was released from prison when it was revealed that the jailhouse witnesses in the case had participated in an information sharing network within the federal prison system. Inmates were sharing photos, case summaries, and even grand jury testimony about pending cases, memorizing the information, then offering to testify in exchange for breaks on their own prison terms.

U.S. Attorney Donald Washington’s office had been made aware of this network in a prior conspiracy case, yet his subordinates went on to ask some of the same witnesses to testify in the Colomb case. Even after the extent of the network was revealed in the Colomb trial, federal prosecutors attempted to use some of them again in yet another federal drug case.

In other words, federal prosecutors sometimes use witnesses they can’t trust.  Most US Attorneys wouldn’t have touched the Colomb case, but Mr. Washington trusted Assistant US Attorney Brett Grayson to make the right call.  Unfortunately, as Grayson admitted in open court, he had no idea if his witnesses were telling the truth; that was for the jury to determine.

The same kind of unconstitutional reasoning is at work in the Clay case.  “Maybe McCuien is lying,” the feds are saying, “and maybe he’s just telling us what we want to hear.  Who cares?  If we can get a conviction, let’s go for it.”

Why would the federal government want to play such a dangerous guessing game? 

But there’s more . . .  

A few months ago I reported that the federal government has been offering lenient treatment to the drug defendants Alvin Clay has represented over the years.  The offer should be familiar to any regular reader of this Blog: “tell us what we want to hear and we’ll be nice; tell us what we don’t want to hear and we’ll be nasty”.

When I talked to several young men who had been subjected to this harrowing ordeal I knew it was just a matter of time before some wretched soul took the bait.  A few weeks ago, the feds told Alvin Clay that if he would confess to being part of the Nealy conspiracy they were willing to offer him probation (no prison time); moreover, they wouldn’t proceed with a drug-related indictment. 

Alvin Clay, being a self-respecting American, told the feds to take a one-way trip to the fires of perdition. 

Like they say, the Devil plays hardball and wears a three-piece suit.

Rick Perlstein doesn’t believe in gradual, incremental reform.  Writing in the American Prospect, he argues that FDR and LBJ rammed through ambitious legislative agendas as quickly as possible because (like the Devil in Revelation 12:12) they knew their time was short.  The great depression gave FDR his opening; with LBJ it was the civil rights movement and the assassination of JFK. 

Perlstein is too young to remember the 1960s, but his attention to the historical record gives him a deep understanding of past epochs.  His latest book, Nixonland, provides a 780-page travelogue through the trauma of the 1960s and early 70s.  Perlstein argues that the Watts riot (and the apocalyptic horrors that followed in its wake) sounded the death knell for the civil rights movement. 

Friends of Justice understands how quickly windows of opportunity can slam shut.  In the wake of the Tulia drug sting, laws were passed restricting the use of uncorroborated snitch testimony.  This legislation wouldn’t have stood a chance prior to Tulia (and might not if it were introduced today).  Similarly, the distressing rash of DNA exonerations has produced what theologians call a “Kairos moment”: a time of crisis when the stars align and a new thing becomes possible.

The American public thinks the criminal justice system is tilted to the advantage of the accused with little thought for victims’ rights.  It is commonly believed that dangerous criminals are frequently returned to the streets by silly technicalities; that draconian sentences make criminals think twice; that young people will say no to drugs if the penalties for using and dealing go high enough and that serial killers stalk the land (after all, you see five or six or them in action every night on TV).  People believe the system is equitable because, on television shows like CSI and Law and Order, the perps are always rich and white.  When crime rates soar it shows we need to be even tougher; when they fall it demonstrates the success of harsh sentencing.   

We believe these things because we are afraid of muggers and gang violence and drugs and things that go bump in the night.  Politicians act tough because macho posturing attracts votes.  Why else would a sensible man like John McCain tell Rick Warren’s congregants that he aims to defeat evil?

It takes a blunt shock (to borrow Rick Perlstein’s phrase) to transcend the paranoia that appears to be America’s default position. 

Last Friday, Bill Moyers devoted an entire hour to an intriguing conversation with Andrew J. Bacevitch, a conservative military expert who wonders how American leaders ever believed they could remake the Middle East through military might.  Bacevitch, like most traditional conservatives, focuses on the limits of power and the dangers of hubris. 

The same mentality that took us into Iraq has created an American Gulag that now houses over 2 million souls.  We think we can solve complex social problems with hammers and steel.  American fortunes in Iraq improved considerably when our soldiers began treating the populace like human beings.  This shift doesn’t make the invasion any less of a disaster, but it has limited the damage.  A similar approach to America’s poorest and most volatile neighborhoods would improve public safety the way a thousand prisons never could. 

Street criminals and suicide bombers are both driven by a desperation so deep that the normal human concern for self-preservation goes by the boards.  Most drug dealers and petty thieves know they will eventually be caught; they simply can’t envision an existence apart from the streets.  There is a nihilism at work in the suicide bomber and in the street punk.  Neither will step back from the cliff unless they see a reason to hope. 

The criminal justice system will stagger down the same dysfunctional path until prominent politicians have the guts to call insanity by its proper name.  Will Barack Obama or John McCain be the one?  Probably not.  No knock against either of these men, but advocating a more compassionate approach to crime, poverty and violence is a sure recipe for political suicide–at least in the present environment.  

That’s why we must keep the tragic consequences of the prevailing madness before the eyes of the American people.  Only in the wake of a blunt shock like Tulia or Jena can politicians act decisively.  Incremental reform has gained a tenuous foothold.  We have stopped the bleeding.   But we won’t see any real healing until ordinary voters grasp how badly broken the system has become.

Journalists like DNA exoneration stories.  Who couldn’t feel for a guy who has suffered through a decade or more of prison hell for somebody else’s crime.  The exoneration story is becoming a media staple, especially here in the Dallas Metroplex.   Everytime you turn around another innocent person is walking out of prison or being freed from parole as cameras roll and reporters scribble. 

Recently, these stories have featured people who have struggled to maintain stable relationships, a decent job and a religious faith after being set free.  The horrors of prison life, the humiliation of registering as a sex offender, and the mind-boggling ineptitude of the criminal justice system leave a mark.  Some of these guys bounce back with remarkable resiliency; others are down for the count.

This morning, a story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram told the story of John Michael Harvey’s post-exoneration saga.  It hasn’t been an easy ride.  Harvey’s health has recovered and he’s got a girlfriend, but the faith he lost in prison hasn’t returned and the emotional walls haven’t come down.  Here’s a telling quote:

“You might think it is a dumb or ridiculous thing to say, but I proved my innocence and I’m free now – but the price was too high,” Harvey said. “I remember when I first got out my cousin says, ‘You won! You finally won!’ No, the punishment stopped, but what did I win?

Last week, the Dallas Morning News featured a story about David Pope, the first inmate exonerated by DNA evidence in Dallas County seven years ago.  Mr. Pope still lives with his mother–the two seldom speak.  Wome adapt well to the peculiar rhythms of prison life that they have difficulty functioning in the free world.  David Pope appears to one of them.  Consider this:

“There were a lot of good guys in there,” he says, noting that troublemakers are usually separated from the general population. “When you’re living in that environment, around hundreds of people, there was an energy. And when you get out, that’s gone,” he says.

 Some ex-inmates commit dumb crimes just to get back in the joint.  It isn’t that they enjoy being in prison that much; they just don’t know what to do with themselves in the free world.

Another Dallas Morning New Story features the more upbeat experience of exonerees who have made a healthy readjustment to the outside world.  Sadly, these men express little sympathy for fellow exonerees who can’t reconnect with family and the working world.

Though he knows how hard it is to find work as a parolee and sex offender, (James Giles) has little patience for people who say they can’t get hired. “They don’t have the determination,” he says. “If you don’t give me a job, I’ll make my own job. That’s what they don’t have – that zeal.”

Many inmates, innocent or guilty, respond to the free world like military veterans with post traumatic stress syndrome.  Others struggle for a few years before regaining their equilibrium.  When we lock up innocent people (or when the guilty spend too much time behind bars) we eliminate potential employees and create unnecessary public safety hazards.

I wish journalists would start asking why so many innocent people are being prosecuted and convicted.  Many of these stories (the Star-Telegram piece on John Harvey is a good example) contain strong evidence that exculpatory evidence has been withheld from defense counsel.  As I have argued elsewhere, investigators, prosecutors and jurors are driven by a desire for closure.  The passion to nail somebody is so strong that sometimes anybody will do.  Busy professionals want to clear their desks and move on to the next case; they hate question marks and love exclamation points. 

Journalists are often reluctant to hold criminal justice professionals accountable–they depend on these people for valuable information.  Still, there is a growing awareness that the system is badly broken and needs fixing.  If DNA evidence has exonerated so many people, shouldn’t we assume that hundreds of innocent people are doing time in Texas for crimes they didn’t commit.  Few cases involve DNA evidence.

These questions form the unstated sub-text of the new journalistic genre: the exoneration story.

Aaron Graham, featured in this intriguing clip from ABC News, is a good friend of my daughter (and Friends of Justice Development Director) Lydia Bean.  Before moving to Washington DC to work with the progressive evangelical group Sojourners, Aaron, and his wife Amy, served as pastors in a poor neighborhood in Boston.  That might not sound like typical evangelical behavior (aren’t evangelicals the folks who hate poor people?) but Graham is 100% evangelical–his parents are Southern Baptist missionaries, for crying out loud.

Also featured in the ABC report is prominent evangelical pastor Rick Warren.  Religious leaders like Warren and Graham conform to the usual evangelical mold: they take their Bible straight and they are opposed to abortion.  But they also care about things like global warming, poverty, war and injustice. 

Aaron Graham is responsible for organizing a series of Sojourners-sponsored “Justice Revivals” across America.   Friends of Justice (and others) are working hard to make Dallas the next location.  In the process, we are hoping to stir a table spoon of criminal justice reform into the issue mix.  Poverty is the primary focus of a Justice revival, and that is appropriate.  But can you talk about poor people without addressing the criminal justice system?  We think not. 

The first debate between Barack Obama, John Edwards and Hillary Clinton (way back in June of 2007) was co-sponsored by Sojourners and CNN.  And now, it appears, the first debate between John McCain and Mr. Obama will be hosted by evangelical pastor Rick Warren. 

Does this mean that white evangelicals are waking up to the biblical call to justice and compassion.  Not really.  The shift in focus, particularly among young evangelicals like Aaron Graham, is real, but it isn’t big enough to swing an election anytime soon.  When most white evangelicals think of “justice” they picture criminals getting their “just deserts”.  Evangelicals generally fail to grasp the radical truth: God stands on the side of the oppressed and Jesus came into the world to preach good news to the poor (Luke 4:18). 

A biblical awakening at the heart of evangelicalism may not help Democrats get elected in the next decade; but it may transform the face or Republican politics.

Gerald Britt is Vice President of Public Policy and Community Program Development for Central Dallas Ministries.  In a previous life he was pastor of New Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Dallas.  Rev. Britt argues that the media flap over Jeremiah Wright’s preaching shows how little white people know about the Black church. 

When I was just cutting my teeth as a Baptist minister a seasoned black pastor joined the staff of my home church, McLaurin Memorial, in Edmonton, Alberta.  “You do pretty good for a white preacher,” he said after hearing me preach.  “I like the way you modulate your voice.  Too many white preachers drone along in a monotone, and that’s hard for folks to listen to.”

Black preachers (at least the good ones) are masters of modulation.  They move from a whisper, to flights of rhetorical fury and back again.  They make church musicians (generally the organist) and the congregation part of the production.  Black worship is participatory.

Rev. Britt agrees with the old bromide that eleven o’clock on Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week, but he has no great passion for integrated worship.  The traditions of Black worship are rooted in a painful and singular history and it is unlikely that many white people could relate even if they wanted to.  

Nonetheless, segregated worship has its downside.  White America (especially secular white America) misread Jeremiah White’s preaching because they weren’t familiar with the extreme emotion black preachers can unleash in the pulpit.

When Jeremiah Wright shouted “God damn America,” he wasn’t being unpatriotic, Britt argues, he was being prophetic.  When the congregation responded rapturously to this rhetoric it was showing an appreciation for the difference between patriotism and nationalism.  

Although I grew up worshipping white, I was baffled by the media’s feeble grasp of black preaching and the tradition of Black liberation theology.  As Rev. Britt argues, historical prophets like Jeremiah Write’s namesake subjected ancient Israel to the same scathing critique the Chicago preacher unleashed against his country of birth. 

Christians, even the most patriotic, are citizens of the Kingdom of God first, and citizens of their country of residence second.  Few white Protestants have come to grips with this fact.  America, like every other nation on earth, is subject to the judgment of God.  Living under oppression makes this fact obvious; the fruits of white privilige make it hard to grasp.  As Jesus put it, we cannot worship God and Mammon (material prosperity). 

Rev. Britt isn’t signing off on every word that has proceeded from the mouth of Jeremiah Wright, nor does he criticize Barack Obama for distancing himself from his controversial mentor.  But the furious outcry generated by Wright’s “God damn America” theme reveals how much white people have to learn about the Black church and about biblical religion. 

If you care about bridging the perception gap between white and Black America, please give this excellent essay from the ezine New Wineskins your respectful attention.

The ex-officer who used a taser to torture Baron “Scooter” Pikes to death has been indicted by a Winn Parish grand jury.  This outcome, and the fact that the grand jury heard two days of testimony, suggest that Winn Parish DA Chris Nevils grasps the seriousness of the charges against Scott Nugent.  A failure to indict would have created a national scandal.  The good people of Winnfield can thank their district attorney for allowing their community to sidestep the unwanted scrutiny that towns like Tulia, Texas and Jena, Louisiana have received.

Friends of Justice salutes Alexandria radio journalist Tony Brown for getting this story to the media, and Chicago Tribune reporter Howard Witt for staying with it.  Sherrell Wheeler Stewart of Black America Web just sent me an in-depth story featuring comments from Mr. Brown and Baron Pikes’ mother.  Mr. Witt’s story appears below. 

Former cop indicted in Taser death in Louisiana

By Howard Witt | Tribune correspondent
8:09 PM CDT, August 13, 2008
NEW ORLEANS – Ruling in a racially explosive case that some forensic experts have described as police torture, a grand jury in the small Louisiana town of Winnfield indicted a white police officer Wednesday on charges of manslaughter and official malfeasance for repeatedly shocking a handcuffed black suspect with a Taser device, resulting in the man’s death due to cardiac arrest.

After two days of closed testimony, Winn Parish District Atty. Chris Nevils announced that the grand jury had indicted Scott Nugent, 21, for the death in January of Baron “Scooter” Pikes, 21, while in police custody. Two other Winnfield police officers who were present during the incident were not charged.

Nugent, who was fired from the police force in May, could face up to 45 years in prison if convicted on the charges. He surrendered to sheriff’s deputies immediately after the indictment was issued, a spokesman for Nevils said, and a $45,000 bond was set.

“It is our intention to show at trial that Mr. Nugent caused the death of Baron Pikes by ‘Tasing’ him multiple times, unnecessarily and in violation of Louisiana law, and by failing to get him medical attention when it was apparent he needed it,” Nevils said in a statement. “In a civilized society, abuse by those who are given great authority cannot be tolerated.”

Nugent’s attorney has said previously that his client was following police procedures during Pikes’ arrest.

Pikes, wanted on a drug possession warrant, was apprehended and handcuffed Jan. 17 after a foot chase. Although Nugent’s police report of the incident stated that Pikes did not resist or struggle after being handcuffed, the officer administered nine 50,000-volt Taser shocks to Pikes’ body after he was slow to respond to Nugent’s order to stand up.

Witnesses said Pikes pleaded with Nugent to stop Tasering him. But within 39 minutes after he was first subdued, Pikes was dead.

Winnfield police claimed that Pikes told them during the incident that he suffered from asthma and was high on PCP and crack cocaine. But Winn Parish Coroner Dr. Randolph Williams found no evidence of such drugs in Pikes’ system or any sign that he suffered from asthma. He ruled Pikes’ death a homicide and noted that Pikes was unconscious when the last two Taser shocks were administered, after he had been loaded into a squad car and delivered to the police station.

Both Williams and Dr. Michael Baden, a nationally prominent forensic pathologist who reviewed the case, said the incident “could be considered to be torture.”

The Pikes’ case, first recounted in the Tribune in July, aroused fears of a cover-up among family members and civil rights groups because Winnfield, the birthplace of Louisiana Govs. Huey and Earl Long, has a long history of political corruption.

Nevils’ predecessor as district attorney committed suicide amid allegations that he had skimmed $200,000 from his office accounts and demanded payoffs from criminal suspects. The former police chief, who was Nugent’s father, also killed himself, after losing a close election campaign marred by fraud allegations. The current police chief was convicted of drug possession as a young man and was pardoned by former Louisiana Gov. Edwin Edwards, who is now serving a federal prison sentence for corruption while in office.

Earlier this week, the mother of Pikes’ 4-year-old son filed a wrongful-death suit in federal court against Nugent, Winnfield city officials and Taser International Inc. The suit accuses city officials of civil rights violations in Pikes’ death.

hwitt@tribune.com

Matt Bai’s essay, “The End of Black Politics” stayed on the NYT’s Top Ten list for several days and has spawned a sharp reaction from Black activists like Dr. Ronald Walters of the University of Maryland.  Walters argues that the Black middle class is backing away from civil rights activism because they don’t want to upset the white folks.  Civil Rights activists like Martin Luther King Jr. have always made the white establishment uncomfortable, Walters argues, and that is the last reaction upwardly mobile African Americans want to create.   The prime beneficiaries of the civil rights movement are content with the status quo not because they think it’s just but because its good for business.

Walters has a point, but he hasn’t come to grips with Matt Bai’s thesis.  The issues have changed.  You can get 200,000 people to drive to the national mall to dismantle Jim Crow segregation or to rally for the right to vote; but is mass action the best tactic when the locus of oppression shifts from the schools and the lunch counters to the courts and the prisons?

The jury is still out on that one.  Walters slips Jena into a litany of civil rights cases highlighted by marching feet and suggests that the September 20th protest saved the Jena 6 from “a legal lynching”.

Not so.  The march on Jena demonstrated that segments of Black America are deeply concerned about the impact of the criminal justice system on young African American males.  That much is true.  But the current team of top-flight attorneys representing the defendants was in place prior to the march and did not assemble because of it.   Friends of Justice worked with a wide variety of civil rights organizations to put the legal team together.  Jena 6 attorneys were scared to death of the September 20 march because they were afraid it would make their job harder.  I had difficulty talking them into allowing the defendants to be a part of that historic event.  Subsequent events (especially the BET fiasco in Atlanta) validated these concerns.

The September 20 revealed the depths of concern within the African American community, but when the vast throng of protesters left town the only people with a long-term plan were the attorneys representing the defendants (many of whom are white).  The men who led the march didn’t understand the legal issues in Jena and didn’t particularly want to understand.  They came for a photo op, they got what they were looking for and they hit the road.  They had no long-term plan.  They came to Jena because the cameras were there; and they left the moment the cameras were gone.  Without the attention of the media, the civil rights celebrities wouldn’t have come in the first place. 

The household names who attracted big crowds to a small Louisiana town had a role to play–nobody was coming to Jena because Friends of Justice asked them to.  The presence of civil rights celebrities swelled the crowd and expanded media attention–at least momentarily. The cameras love Mr. Sharpton as much as Mr. Sharpton loves the cameras.  But Friends of Justice got the injustice in Jena to the national media and hard working attorneys put Reed Walters and Judge JP Mauffrey on the defensive. 

Was Jena the beginning of a new civil rights movement?  Not at all.  Jena demonstrated the potential for such a movement, and that’s important.  But a genuinely new civil rights movement will require new strategies crafted in response to new issues.  Applying old methods (mass marches, for instance) to new problems (like our broken criminal justice system) won’t get us where we need to be. 

The justice system disproportionately affects Black America, no doubt about it; but it also damages Latinos and poor whites.  The problems are systemic and cross racial lines.  Only a unified, multi-racial coalition can bring long-term change. 

The criminal justice system as we now know it was shaped by white politicians exploiting the paranoia of white voters.  So long as the white electorate responds to law ‘n order, lock-’em-up, tough-on-crime rhetoric, mass incarceration will persist.  Meaningful reform will come when the white electorate moves beyond fear.  A strictly black politics can’t make that happen.

Like me, Matt Bai is a white guy who tackles the thorny issue of race.  To his credit, Bai acknowledges the insecurity his subject matter can produce.  What’s a white man know about Black America, anyway?

I profile this lengthy tome for a number of reasons.  For one thing, it touches on the reaction of Black opinion leaders (including Friends of Justice ally, James Rucker of Color of Change) to the Jena story.  For another, Bai uses the fruit of his extensive investigation to examine the often-frosty reception Barack Obama has received from traditional civil rights leaders.

Is Black politics gradually disappearing into the American political soup the way Irish or Italian issues, once distinctive, eventually became indistinguishable from mainstream politics?  Or, is the plight of Black America distinct and unique.  How long do the shadows of history stetch? 

Why does Jesse Jackson Sr. want to cut off Barack Obama’s nuts, and why has his son, Jesse Jr., taken his father to task over his incendiary remarks?  Why did so many Black politicians initially prefer a white woman to a black male?  Why did Barack Obama have a hard time finding a place in the Congressional Black Caucus?

Bai’s answers may surprise you.

Few reporters have attached much significance to the recent recusal of Jena Judge J.P Mauffray.  Sherrell Wheeler Stewart is a blessed exception.  When I talked to Sherrell on Saturday morning it was clear she had talked to virtually every person associated with the struggle for justice in Jena . . . DA Reed Walters included.

I should clarify the remarks ascribed to me.  I refer to the “lynch mob mentality” that existed in Jena when I first arrived in town in January of 2007.  A quick perusal of the Jena Times made it clear that the defendants now known as the Jena 6 were in deep jeopardy. 

I had no problem with the idea that, if guilt could be demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt, these kids needed to be held accountable for their actions.  But the charges filed by DA Walters had the defendants facing between 25 and 100 years in prison without parole.  Even if these charges were considerably reduced, I feared that young lives would be destroyed.

Some suggest that would have been a good thing.  Toby Keith was on the Colbert Report this Monday singing the song he recorded with Willie Nelson a few years ago: “Whiskey for my men, beer for my horses”.  I like the song but had never listened to the lyrics.  Even a lefty like Nelson interpreted the country anthem as a gentle, tongue-in-cheek poke at red neck rage.  Steven Colbert likely did the same.  But the lyrics are really scary.  Here’s a sample:

Well a man come on the 6 oclock news
Said somebodys been shot, somebodys been abused
Somebody blew up a building
Somebody stole a car
Somebody got away
Somebody didnt get too far yeah
They didnt get too far

Grandpappy told my pappy, back in my day, son
A man had to answer for the wicked that he done
Take all the rope in texas
Find a tall oak tree, round up all of them bad boys
Hang them high in the street for all the people to see that

Chorus:

Justice is the one thing you should always find
You got to saddle up your boys
You got to draw a hard line
When the gun smoke settles well sing a victory tune
Well all meet back at the local saloon
Well raise up our glasses against evil forces
Singing whiskey for my men, beer for my horses

The song recommends hanging as the remedy of choice for stealing a car and, one assumes, for every other criminal offense.  The boys in the saloon do their part by cheering on the hangman.  The “lynch mob mentality” celebrated by Toby Keith’s song was alive and well in Jena when I first arrived.

Unfortunately, a vocal minority really thinks this way (Jena isn’t unique); just read the “comments” section at the end of any news story featuring crime and punishment.

The folks who allegedly jumped Justin Barker were being portrayed as grown men; dark, sinister cretins lurking in the shadows, waiting for a white man, any white man, to saunter past.  It was even suggested by a local minister that Jena’s traditional innocence was being swept away on the Katrina flood waters.  Thugs from the 9th Ward of New Orleans, the minister said, had invaded a once-peaceful community.

 The notion that the assault on Barker was in any way associated with the fire that engulfed the school a few days earlier, or with a weekend of white-initiated racial violence, was rejected out of hand.  Nobody even addressed the possibility that the beef between Barker and his assailants could be traced back three months to the day when school administrators dismissed a hate crime as an innocent prank.

After interviewing everyone willing to speak with me (and a few who weren’t) it was clear that the violence at the high school could have been avoided.  The Jena 6 weren’t a street gang; they were adolescent athletes exposed to a toxic social brew beyond their understanding or control.

I have always argued that the culpability of the Jena 6 can only be evaluated against the full historical backdrop.  That said, I give you read Ms. Stewart’s report.

Judge Removed in Jena Six Case; 5 Youths Still Face Trial

Date: Monday, August 04, 2008
By: Sherrel Wheeler Stewart, BlackAmericaWeb.com

The LaSalle Parish, La., judge who had presided in the cases of the Jena Six was removed from that role, a change that legal observers and advocates said should signal a new day for the remaining five defendants who were the subject last year of national attention and civil rights marches.

“I think what will happen now is that these young men will be allowed to have a fair trial,” said Daryl Washington, deputy chief of staff for the National Bar Association, the largest organization of black lawyers in the country. “Now a new judge will be appointed. He’ll know that he is under the scope and the chances will be better for a fair trial,” Washington told BlackAmericaweb.com.

The six black youths received stiff charges following a Dec. 4, 2006 school fight with a white student that came after months of racial tension in the tiny Louisiana town of Jena. One of the youths, Mychal Bell, was convicted and later reached a plea agreement requiring him to serve 18 months in juvenile custody.
Jesse Ray Beard, Robert Bailey Jr., Bryant Purvis, Theo Shaw and Carwin Jones still await trial.

Initially, all but Beard were charged as adults and their bonds ranged as high as $135,000. The potential maximum sentences on those felony charges could have been as high as 75 years, attorneys have said.

Those charges have since been reduced.

No charges were brought against whites who hung a noose at the school earlier that year, an incident which students and townspeople say touched off the following months of tension.
Judge J.P. Mauffray Jr., the only judge in the parish, had acknowledged calling the teens “trouble makers” and “a violent bunch” but insisted he could be impartial. Defense attorneys disagreed and asked that he be removed.

Judge Thomas M. Yeager, who was appointed by the state Supreme Court to decide whether Mauffray should be taken off the case, found there was an appearance of impropriety. Mauffray was removed from the case on Thursday.

Attempts by BlackAmericaweb.com to reach Mauffray were unsuccessful. He has not returned previous call placed to his office.

The recusal can be appealed, and the LaSalle Parish district attorney said he would decide soon whether to pursue that route.

“Whatever ultimately happens concerning the judge, this does not mean these cases go away,” District Attorney Reed Walters said in a prepared statement provided to BlackAmericaweb.com. “It will just take longer to get them to trial. However, I may seek to have the decision overturned by taking a writ to the Court of Appeals.”

Walters has characterized the fight as an “assault” and said the six youths used dangerous weapons – their sneakers – to beat Justin Barker, who had to be taken to the hospital for treatment.

The Rev. Alan Bean, director the advocate group Friends of Justice, said removing the judge from the case was just the first step needed to ensure that the youths get a fair trial.

“The trials need to be moved to another venue. Because of the attention placed on this, I don’t think anyone in the parish can claim to be objective,” Bean told BlackAmericaweb.com.

“They all have been caught up in a lynch mob mentality that prevailed in Jena,” Bean said. “They thought of these young men as thugs, unlike none Jena had ever experienced and they treated them in court as dangerous adults.”

Bean also wants to see Walters removed from the case. The district attorney, he said, has not acted in the best interest of justice in matters related to the Jena youths.

“He (Walters) has to realize that no one takes him seriously as an objective prosecutor,” Bean said. “If another prosecutor is brought in, I believe they can reach a plea agreement that will be acceptable to all parties.”

James Rucker, director of Color of Change, said though there hasn’t been much talk about Jena in recent months, there still is a need to do everything possible to resolve matters there so that the young men can get on with their lives.

“Their lives still hang in the balance,” Rucker told BlackAmericaweb.com.

In addition to the trials that still await five of the defendants, the family of Justin Barker, the young man with whom their fought, has filed a civil suit.

The outcome in the Jena Six cases is something that is being observed around the country, said Richard Cohen, director of the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center. That organization has helped staff the defense for two of the young men and also assisted in some other legal matters, he said.
“You don’t have to look far to see the disparity in the treatment of blacks and poor in the justice system,” Cohen told BlackAmericaweb.com.

“There is a little Jena in a lot of places.”