The Cambridge Police Department has arrested Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., after Dr. Gates entered in own home and produced proof of his identity. 

This story caught my eye because my daughter, Dr. Lydia Bean, recently graduated from Harvard and begins teaching sociology at Baylor next month.  Our family was recently in Cambridge for the graduation ceremony.  Gates’ attorney, Dr. Charles Ogletree, is a Harvard law professor who provided invaluable behind the scenes assistance in the Jena 6 case. 

Friends of Justice generally intercedes on behalf of low-status residents of small southern towns.  You don’t expect to find this kind of crude stereotyping in Cambridge, MA. 

Pasted below you will find Professor Ogletree’s statement on behalf of his client followed by the AP story.  (more…)

July 23, 2009 marks the 10th anniversary of the Tulia drug sting.  Early that morning, officers from a dozen Panhandle law enforcement agencies fanned out across the poor end of Tulia, rousting unsuspecting defendants from their beds and parading them before the television cameras.  Although the raids turned up no drugs and no large sums of money, undercover agent Tom Coleman assured reporters that every defendant had been carefully identified. 

Friends of Justice formed a few months later.  We didn’t believe Coleman and we didn’t believe we should have to.  If the deals were good, where was the evidence?  Was it wise, or just, to passively accept the uncorroborated testimony of a man who had been arrested on theft charges in the middle of an eighteen-month operation?

On the tenth anniversary of the Tulia sting the Amarillo Globe-News interviewed several of the key figures on both sides of the controversy for a feature story that ran in the Sunday newspaper.

The woman who interviewed me over the phone had little first-hand knowledge of the controversy and the story is told as if no one from outside the Panhandle played a meaningful role.  In reality, it took the concerted (and sometimes disconcerted) efforts of a massive coalition to win justice in Tulia. 

As Scott Henson suggests in Grits for Breakfast, the key issue in Tulia was the sufficiency of evidence. This point was hammered home in the writ Friends of Justice wrote for defendant Joe Moore.  Gary Gardner argued that, in the absence of corroborating evidence, if the cop says the deal went down and the defendant says it didn’t, you have reasonable doubt.

The presumption of innocence is meaningless if it can be rebutted by “one man pointing”.  (more…)

(This post is part of a series concerning Curtis Flowers, an innocent man convicted of a horrific crime that has divided a small Mississippi town.  Information on the Flowers case can be found here.)

Lydia Chassaniol’s decision to address a group famous for it’s crude racism has Mississippi baffled (thus far, no one else is paying attention).  Why would an astute politician with a reputation for Christian rectitude feel “hopeful” talking to a roomful of unapologetic white supremacists?  This doesn’t sound like political opportunism if you live in Washington DC or even Jackson, Mississippi; but Miss Lydia knows what’s she’s doing.

In the late 1990s, just as Trent Lott and Bob Barr were apologizing for their association with the Council of Conservative Citizens, Governor Kirk Fordice refused to back away from the racist organization.  Lott and Barr had to adapt their rhetoric to the norms of Washington DC; Governor Fordice had only the voters of Mississippi to worry about.

Lydia Chassaniol had little to gain from addressing the CCC.  Only 300 delegates heard her speak and only a few dozen of that number will ever pull the lever in the Senator’s district.  So why bother?

Miss Lydia was sending a signal to the residents of communities like Winona, Greenwood and Grenada:  she feels their pain and shares their anxiety.  That’s a message that gets people elected. (more…)

(This post is part of a series concerning Curtis Flowers, an innocent man convicted of a horrific crime that has divided a small Mississippi town.  Information on the Flowers case can be found here.)

 In fairness, Senator Chassaniol isn’t the only fan of the Council of Concervative Citizens in the Mississippi Legislature.  Bobby Howell, the Republican State Representative from Kilmichael (another small town in Montgomery County) also has close ties with the organization.   Long after Lott and Barr retreated from the group, Bobby Howell was happily speaking at their conferences and attending the annual Blackhawk event supporting segregated private schools (Blackhawkis just down the road from both Winona and Kilmichael).

Senator Chassaniol and Representative Howell did the heavy lifting for a bill that was created to break a legal logjam in Montgomery County.   On July 16, 1996, between 9:00 and 10:00 a.m, four people were gunned down execution-style in Winona’s Tardy furniture store: Bertha Tardy, 59, and three employees, Carmen Rigby, 45, Derrick “Bobo” Stewart, 16, and Robert Golden, 42.

Six months elapsed with no arrest and local residents were growing restive.  Then the police arrested a suspect.  The theory was that Curtis Flowers, a young man who had worked less than a week for Bertha Tardy, was so upset that $82 had been deducted from his paycheck (to cover damaged merchandise) that he was driven to the most heinous crime in the history of Montgomery County. (more…)

Jennifer Thompson knew she had identified her rapist.  He had a criminal record.  His alibi didn’t check out.  Physical evidence from the scene appeared to match his footwear.  Most importantly, she had studied her assailant carefully during the assault so that, if she survived, she could put him away.  She knew what he looked like–his face haunted her dreams.  When the officer spread out pictures of six black males Jennifer’s finger moved to the picture of Ronald Cotton.

But Jennifer got it wrong.  Those of you who caught this remarkable story on 60 Minutes last night know why.  Memory is fragile and vulnerable to suggestion.  This explains why DNA evidence has exonerated hundereds of innocent people nationwide.

You will be moved by Lesley Slahl’s report on this story (you can get a text version of the story here).  But there’s a problem.  Everyone knows that most victims of false identification and prosecutorial misconduct are never exonerated.  DNA evidence figures in only a tiny fraction of criminal cases.  Whenever we convict an innocent person the real perpetrator is free to strike again.

What can be done to prevent wrongful convictions in cases that don’t involve viable DNA?   (more…)

My recent piece on the lessons of Jena inspired some justifiable criticism when it was picked up by Sojourners’ God Politics blog.  I suggested that folks who grow up attending Klan rallies have a hard time adapting when a new set of post-Jim Crow social rules are suddenly enforced on their town.  The comment fits the Jena context because the Klan was strong in that community into the early 70s making it perfectly conceivable that some of the leading actors in the Jena saga attended Klan functions as children.

On the other hand, the KKK lost favor among southern conservatives when their crude tactics inspired embarrassing headlines and cast the South in the worst possible light.  Neo-confederate groups like the Council of Conservative Citizens now carry the torch for southern-style racism and none of these organizations boasts very impressive membership lists.

It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that conservative southerners have outlived their deep resentment of the civil rights movement.  Consider this distressing article from the Dallas Morning News (and the Rev. Gerald Britt’s anguished response).

The committee in charge of shaping curriculum for the Texas public schools solicited the advice of six “experts” and the recommendations these men provided have been controversial to say the least. (more…)

What lessons do we take away from the Jena 6 story? Six young men won’t be dragging a felony conviction into adult life. That’s reason for rejoicing, but as this saga approaches its third birthday it’s fair to ask if we have learned anything?”

Jena 6″ was briefly transformed into a popular movement that brought at least 30,000 people to a small central Louisiana town in September of 2007.

Mass awareness of the Jena story was spread by the black blogosphere, radio personalities like Michael Baisden, internet-savvy organizations like Color of Change and the brief but highly publicized involvement of civil rights celebrities like Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson.

Unfortunately, the movement that culminated with the September 20th march lacked an end game. Nobody knew what came next, so not much did. 

Or so it seemed. (more…)

RESPONDING TO THE CRISIS IN JENA, LOUISIANA

 The Jena Case in Brief

 On the morning of September 1, 2006, three nooses dangled from a tree in the High School square in Jena, Louisiana.  The day before, at a school assembly, black students had asked the vice principal if they could sit under that tree. 

 Characterizing the noose incident as an innocent prank, a discipline committee meted out a few days of in-school suspension and declared the matter settled.

 At the end of November, the central academic wing of Jena High School was destroyed by fire (the smoke damage is evident in the picture above).  Over the weekend, a stream of white-initiated racial violence swept over the tiny community, adding to the trauma and tension. The following Monday, a white student was punched and kicked following a lunch-hour taunting match.  Six black athletes were arrested and charged with conspiracy to attempt second-degree murder.  If convicted, some defendants are facing sentences of between twenty-five and 100 years in prison without parole. (more…)

Chances that the Supreme Court will address the Troy Davis case improved markedly when the court took its summer break without making a decision on the vexing case. 

The Davis case demonstrates the weakness of circumstantial murder prosecutions based largely on eyewitness testimony.  A series of crucial eye witnesses have recanted earlier testimony, often complaining that they were pressured by the authorities. 

What do we make of a juror who swears to one thing on the witness stand then, years later, reverses course?  Spencer Lawton, the prosecutor who convicted Troy Davis eighteen years ago, called the recanted testimony “suspicious”.  But will Larry Chisolm, the new Chatham County DA take the same view?

Common sense suggests that witnesses were more likely to get it right eighteen years ago because memory fades over time.  On the other hand, investigators desperate for a conviction in a high-profile case can shape testimony by abusing the power of suggestion.  Memory isn’t like photography; you don’t capture a pristine and timeless image that can be taken out and re-examined at a later date.  Initial impressions fade with remarkable rapidity.  At best, memory is a jigsaw puzzle with most of the pieces missing.  The mind creates a coherent memory by filling in the missing pieces, often drawing on fragments of unrelated memory and personal prejudice (wishful thinking) to connect the dots.  (more…)