Author: Alan Bean
A crumbling cover-up: Mississippi prosecutor hides the truth about his star witness
By Alan Bean
If you want to understand just how flawed the case against Curtis Flowers is, consider the state’s failed conspiracy to conceal the sad truth about its star witness.
The defense attorneys representing Curtis Flowers have filed a supplemental motion for a new trial. As previously reported on this blog, Patricia Sullivan, the state’s key witness against Mr. Flowers was convicted on eight counts of income tax fraud in early 2011 and sentenced to 36 months in federal prison. But Ms. Sullivan was indicted on February 17, a full four months before Curtis Flowers was convicted in Winona, and therein lies the problem. (more…)
Learning from Joe Paterno
By Alan Bean
According to the Christian Science Monitor, Penn State University stands to lose a large chunk of the institution’s $1.8 billion endowment to the victims of Jerry Sandusky’s abusive behavior. A scathing report issued by a group headed by former FBI director Louis Freeh alleges that Football coach Joe Paterno and other senior Penn State officials “concealed critical facts” about Jerry Sandusky’s child abuse because they feared negative publicity.
Part of the problem, I suspect, is that Penn State football, symbolized by the revered Joe Paterno, was such a central part of life in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that any threat to the reputation of the institution, the Nittany Lions, or the iconic coach who symbolized the university and its beloved football team was doggedly resisted. It wasn’t just that Paterno had won two national championships; he was part of America’s love affair with college football. Paterno pacing the sidelines was a familiar and reassuring part of Saturday afternoons for decades. You couldn’t tell the truth about Jerry Sandusky without making Joe Paterno look bad; you couldn’t damage Paterno’s reputation without besmirching Penn State University; and you couldn’t drag the alma mater through the mud without driving a stake through the heart of Keystone State. Everything was connected. (more…)
How Immigration Reform Got Caught in the Deportation Dragnet
Things have only gotten worse since Seth Wessler published this piece in Colorlines almost two years ago. From Bill Clinton to Barack Obama, proponents of comprehensive immigration reform (CIR) have believed that tough deportation policies provided the quid pro quo concession that would bring immigration hawks to the bargaining table. It hasn’t worked. This misbegotten strategy has simply ensured that hardliners provided the harsh narrative driving the immigration debate. Minor tweaks to American immigration policy (like president Obama’s recent announcement that undocumented adolescents would no longer be targeted for deportation) aren’t sufficient. We need a thoroughgoing critique of existing policy and an alternative vision rooted in compassion and common sense. The status quo has got to go. AGB
How Immigration Reform Got Caught in the Deportation Dragnet
Thursday, October 7 2010,
On the night that Shahed Hossain left his family’s house in a Haltom City, Texas, to drive to Laredo, his mother, Habiba Hossain, cooked dinner—chicken and rice and okra picked from the garden. She piled her son’s plate high and watched him eat. Then, she took his Bangladeshi passport from a drawer and handed it to him, leaving his green card safely stored away. The 21-year-old had a penchant for losing things and a green card is not a thing to lose. She hurried him out the door and into the white utility van in the driveway where his boss waited.
“I’ll see him in a week,” she thought. Like every other time he’d set off for work trips all over Texas, she figured, her younger son would return to that house where he grew up with his brother and his parents and the dog.
But that night was the last time Shahed Hossain’s mother would see him free in United States, the last time she’d have a chance to worry he’d lose anything. Six days later, Hossain was locked up in a privately run immigration detention center near the U.S.-Mexico border. He spent more than a year there, a period he’s tried to forget, before he was shackled, loaded onto a plane and flown to Dhaka, Bangladesh. (more…)
Red River Justice
Until today, the only coverage of the strange doin’s down in Clarksville, Texas story was Friends of Justice blogging and a couple of radio pieces by NPR’s Wade Goodwyn. Now Texas Observer journalist Patrick Michels has produced a thorough and engaging account of a scarcely believable story. It should be noted that the Texas Observer was the first publication to take our concerns in Tulia, Texas seriously. Thank God for genuinely independent media! AGB
Red River Justice
In an East Texas county known for corrupt law enforcement, Mark Lesher fought the justice system—until it came for him too.
Published on: Wednesday, July 11, 2012
East Texas lawyer Mark Lesher says he and his wife were targeted by law enforcement for stirring up trouble in Red River County.
THE LAW CAUGHT UP WITH Rhonda Lesher on a quiet Monday afternoon in April 2008. She was doing the books at Unique Touch, the hair salon and day spa she owned in the small northeast Texas town of Clarksville. She didn’t take appointments on Mondays, so the cutting stations, blow dryers and massage tables were empty when the deputies walked in.
The officers had a warrant for her arrest, but wouldn’t explain the charges. They promised more details at the sheriff’s office, and Rhonda wondered why they hadn’t just asked her to drop by. She would have walked the five blocks. They let Rhonda make a call, so she picked up a phone on the back wall and dialed her husband’s Clarksville law office. Mark wasn’t always good about answering his phone, but she knew his assistant Kenny Mitchell would be there.
“Kenny, I’m here at the shop, and I’m getting arrested.”
“For what?”
“Hell, I don’t know,” she said. “I guess it’s that crap on the Internet.” Call Mark, she told him, and hung up.
Rhonda followed the deputies out to the street fronting the town square. She knew her arrest would soon be big gossip. She’d been a pretty teenager in the late 1970s at Clarksville High, and some folks still whispered about her like they had in the high school halls. Rhonda, like many who grew up in town, remained an object of fascination into adulthood. Gossip is a popular way to fill time in Red River County, especially for those who can’t find jobs. Some county residents work at the Campbell Soup factory in Paris, 40 minutes to the west, in the neighboring county. There is a hospital in Red River, ranch land, and not much else. (more…)
An Innocent Question
By Alan Bean
“Is there any way that I could get a permit that would let me stay in this country?”
The question came from a young man who, the day before, had been nabbed by Border Patrol officers as he waded the Rio Grande River. Like most of the men in the courtroom, the questioner was short, thin and young. I guessed his weight at 120 pounds, but it could have been less.
Like the thirty-five men and women standing with him in the magistrate court on the fourth floor of the federal courthouse in McAllen, Texas, the man asking the question was pleading guilty to a charge of entering the United States illegally. Most of the defendants had been deported on multiple occasions, but this young man was apprehended by Border Patrol on his first attempt to enter the country illegally.
And yet he asked an innocent question; innocent in the sense that children are innocent. He meant no one any harm. He was just looking for a chance to earn a decent living. He was ready to work long and hard. He was eager to contribute to the greater good. He entered the United States for the purest of motives, and yet he was being prosecuted as a criminal. (more…)
Conservative lawyer Ted Olson makes the case for gay marriage
By Pierre R. Berastain
Ted Olson and David Boies–opposing counsel in the Supreme Court case Bush V. Gore–have been on the same legal team defending the right to gay marriage. Mr. Olson is one of the most conservative lawyers in the nation, while Mr. Boies falls the other extreme end of the spectrum. They won the landmark case of Perry v. Schwarzenegger at a federal court and in the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. The case is set to go before the U.S. Supreme Court next year.
In this video, Mr. Olson explains the difference between judicial activism and judicial responsibility, arguing that upholding the right to gay marriage would not fall under judicial activism; after all, the United States Supreme Court has upheld the right to marriage fourteen times since 1888, and upholding it again would reflect the responsibility of the Court to defend people’s right to marriage. When Fox News’s Chris Wallace asks Mr. Olson why we should not let the people decide state by state–as we did in California–Mr. Olson asks, “Would you like your right to free speech put up by a vote?…We do not put the Bill of Rights for a vote.”
A mother’s thoughts on life-imprisonment for children
By Pierre R. Berastain
The United States Supreme Court ruled this past month that children cannot receive life-without-parole sentences. The following letter from a mother appeared on Douglas A. Berman’s blog. In 1986, Dr. Linda White’s daughter was abducted, raped, and murdered. In 2000, Dr. White met her daughter’s killer thanks to Bridges to Life, an organization that employs the practices of restorative justice and victim-offender dialogue to help victims of crime heal by allowing them to meet their perpetrators.
On June 25, the Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs that it is cruel and unusual to impose mandatory life-without-parole sentences on children. As a mother whose daughter was murdered by two teenage boys, I speak for many victims’ family members who support the Court’s sound decision.
I certainly never imagined that I would become a passionate advocate against life imprisonment without parole for juvenile offenders. I had never confronted the issue until November 18, 1986, the day my world was forever changed when my 26-year-old daughter Cathy, then pregnant with her second child, was killed by two teenage boys.
This tragedy set me on an unlikely path that led me to discover that even youths who commit the worst crimes have the capacity to grow into mature, redeemed adults. I know this because I watched my daughter’s killer, Gary, become such an adult.
I spent the years following Cathy’s death studying to become a grief counselor. I became involved in a restorative justice program, Bridges to Life, that allows convicts and crime victims to open a dialogue and work toward reconciliation. In 2000, I opened myself up to this dialogue with Gary.
When I met Gary, I found that he was a very different person from the boy who once committed a horrible act. He was a remorseful grown man desperately seeking forgiveness and a chance to make up for the hurt he caused. My decision to forgive Gary does not mean that what happened is OK. It can never be OK, and Gary knows that as well as I do. But keeping him in prison for a longer period would not bring my daughter back.
Gary has now been out of prison for over a year. He has since dedicated himself to being a positive influence in his community, including working with drug and alcohol addicts at his church. He regularly tells me that he wants to live a good, impactful life as a “memorial” to my daughter.
Gary is a poster child for why I believe life sentences are so unjust for juveniles. I have seen that youth have enormous potential to change, and that we should not lock them up without giving them a second chance.
I have also seen that my story is not unique. I was one of many victims’ family members who appealed to the Supreme Court to do away with juvenile life-without-parole sentences. While each of our experiences are different, we are united in our belief that keeping children like Gary permanently locked away only compounds the ugliness of crime with the ugliness of hopeless prison sentences.
I strongly believe that young offenders need to be held accountable for their actions. But it is wrong to sentence them to punishments that fail to take into consideration their age and capacity for change. By denying children the opportunity to someday earn release, you are telling these kids, as Justice Ginsburg stated, that they are throwaway kids. As they go before judges for resentencing, factors that were dismissed before, such as their age at the time of the crime, their histories of abuse and neglect and their roles in the crime must be considered. I will feel a sense of calm that children who made tragic mistakes will have an opportunity to be judged by more than their worst act.
Even though he committed an unspeakable crime, Gary was not a throwaway kid. Had he been sentenced to life-without-parole, he would never have been able to become a living memorial to Cathy.
“I forgive you, and God will, too.” These were the last words Cathy spoke before her death. I know Cathy would be gratified to see Gary have a second chance and become the positive member of society that he is today.
Stories of redemption like Gary’s are testaments to why the Supreme Court got it right by prohibiting mandatory life-without-parole sentences for children. The Court has taken an important step in upholding America’s promise to never give up on our children.
The following is part 1/4 of Meeting with a Killer, a brief documentary on Dr. White’s experience.
“You never know what’s behind the door”
By Alan Bean
An Arlington, Texas family has filed a wrongful death suit after officers with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies broke down a door and killed an innocent, unarmed man.
This is an old, old story. As an ATF agent quoted in the story says, officers never know what might be waiting for them behind a locked door. For all they know, a gang of desperadoes, AK 47s at the ready, might be lying in wait. You have to be prepared for every eventuality, right?
The chances of things ending badly increase with every additional officer involved in the raid. All it takes is one paranoid kid or a budding sociopath eager for a little gun play and bad things are bound to happen. A small, experienced unit with high standards of professionalism is much less likely to gun down innocent people than a ragtag assortment of officers who aren’t used to working together.
In this case, at least the ATF had the right house and they appear to have been looking for a genuinely dangerous individual. But kicking down doors and storming into a room is an intrinsically dangerous undertaking. The inevitable excuse when the innocent die is the old “I thought he had a gun” canard. When you enter a room, it can take several seconds to evaluate whether the folks behind the door constitute a threat. Since dead people can’t kill you, the chances that some undisciplined cowboy will shoot first and ask questions later are unacceptably high. Anyone, even a child, could be armed.
The high degree of risk inherent in no-knock raids makes the occasional tragedy inevitable. The officers should have known that the guy they were looking for didn’t own the home they were entering, and that they would likely encounter a family member with no connection to organized crime. Much better to approach a suspect in such a way that the chances of collateral damage can be reduced.
Overwhelming force is great for officer safety, but it places the public at risk. No-knock raids should be reserved for truly exceptional situations and I doubt the case described below qualifies.
Arlington family files wrongful death suit after ATF raid
By Darren Barbee
The morning he was killed, Harry Wilson Aguilar Sr. stood in the kitchen of an Arlington apartment making school lunches for his grandchildren.
Dallas County sued for $60 million for racial discrimination and harassment
By Pierre R. Berastain
David Womble, a supervisor of facilities management in Dallas County, received a pay raise after R.L. Lawson filed a complaint indicating Womble had made racial and anti-gay remarks. Now, Dallas County is being sued for sixty million dollars.
According to the lawsuit, plaintiffs were subjected to a racist and discriminatory work environment that included graffiti with the words “white power”, a “black Coke can found hanging with a “noose” from a box in the North Tower engine room,” and better tools for white workers. Womble is also said to have worn a fake gold tooth while mocking his black subordinates.
Dallas County maintenance workers allege racial discrimination in federal lawsuit
By Kevin Krause
kkrause@dallasnews.com
Published: 27 June 2012 10:55 PM
Dallas County has a history of racial discrimination in its jail maintenance department and officials have done little about numerous complaints in recent years, even boosting the pay of one white supervisor at the center of the allegations, a $60 million federal lawsuit claims.
County officials have said they are investigating allegations in that department after several black employees complained about racist graffiti and mistreatment. But an attorney for Dennis Jones, R.L. Lawson and Clarence Jones said it’s too little, too late.
“If Dallas County was serious in addressing the problems, this action would have been taken long before now,” said the attorney, Larry E. Jarrett.
County officials declined to comment about the investigation or the allegations because of the pending lawsuit. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins said he couldn’t comment but said the county is “committed to providing a nondiscriminatory workplace for all of its employees.”
The problems allegedly began in 2010 when black maintenance employees first complained. Grievances tell of “white power” epithets spray-painted on jail walls, anti-gay jokes, a noose and racially insensitive remarks made by white supervisors.
One supervisor allegedly put false gold teeth in his mouth to mock a black subordinate.
Jarrett said he has photographs of the graffiti and what he says was a noose, as well as witnesses to the hostile work environment.
Dennis Jones, 51, who initiated the lawsuit, claims he was fired along with two other black employees — LaParker Smith and Darian Fisher — for having felony records even though they disclosed their records when they were hired. They were the only ones fired. The lawsuit said whites and Hispanics with similar backgrounds were allowed to keep working.
All three men were later rehired.
The lawsuit was originally filed last year and amended to include Lawson and Clarence Jones this month.
Clarence Jones, 27, who is not related to Dennis Jones, filed a grievance through the county in February, saying he went to the depopulated Bill Decker jail on his normal rounds and saw the words “white power” sprayed on the walls in the maintenance shop. He said in the grievance that management “does not do enough to inform employees of what harassment is nor admonish or warn individuals to abstain from such behaviors.”
Read full article here
Friends of Justice 