Google “all white jury” and Mychal Bell of the Jena 6 will be at the top of the list.  According to Jena 6 attorney David Utter, not a single African American has been seated in the Jena courtroom since 1994 (that’s not a typo).

I didn’t say much about the racial composition of Alvin Clay’s jury during the trial; they deserved a chance to show their shine.  If any of the jurors in Clay’s case wish to respond to my harsh assessment I will be happy to discuss the issues in private, or to publish your views without comment. 

Alvin Clay’s jury filed out of the court room at the lunch hour.  The first order of business had to be polishing off the boxed lunches provided by the court.  Then they had to pick a foreman.  To get a verdict decided in an hour, the foreman only had time to take an initial poll of the jury.  There couldn’t have been the slightest hint of disagreement. 

In short, a one-hour verdict is really a ten-minute verdict.  

This case boiled down to a swearing match between Alvin Clay and Donny McCuien.  Judge Leon Holmes admitted as much when he denied a defense motion for acquittal.  Only one witness suggested that Alvin Clay was in on the conspiracy: Donny McCuien.  To convict Clay on all counts, you had to believe McCuien.

Judge Holmes ruled (correctly) that he was not allowed to assess the credibility of witnesses; that was a job for the jury.

McCuien testified in exchange for lenient treatment.  He quickly learned that the federal government had no interest in Donny and Ray; they wanted Alvin.

Donny and Ray would have pulled off their scheme without detection if the government hadn’t been trying to nail a black Little Rock attorney who had embarrassed them once too often.  Even if the feds had stumbled upon their real estate scam, they would have tossed it to state officials.  It’s a simple slam dunk document case that would never have gone to trial.

McCuien originally told the government he had no association with the Nealy scam until late in the game.  In reality, McCuien was instrumental in linking both buyers and sellers with Nealy.  The buyers were contacted at Burger King and most of the sellers lived in McCuien’s neighborhood. 

When FBI agent Rodney Hays learned he had been scammed by McCuien he made no attempt to alert the grand jury to the fact that they had been scammed.  Hays knew what the US attorney’s office was looking for and he gave it to them, even if he had to suborn perjury to do it.  So long as Hays delivered the goods, all sins would be forgiven.

McCuien was all too cooperative.  He told Hays that Nealy and Clay had cashed in big-time by selling a home to a woman named April Flowers.  Unfortunatgely for McCuien, when the feds raided Nealy’s office they found no reference to the phantom transaction.  You can’t work with a lending agency and a title company without creating a paper trail.  Donny McCuien was scamming the federal government and they knew it. 

So long as McCuien was feeding the feds what they wanted, they proved to be remarkably forgiving.  He could lie to them as long as he was also willing to lie for them.

McCuien and Nealy assured Alvin Clay that rehab work was being completed and he believed them.  This was also the testimony of the sellers, lenders and title agents involved in this case.  Jurors were asked to evaluate the truthfulness of this testimony.  If they believed Clay they had to acquit.  If they thought he was lying, they had to convict. 

Jurors were assured that, although Donny McCuien had a history of lying to the federal government, he was now telling the truth.  

Steven Snyder made this assertion forcefully and earnestly.  There wasn’t a shadow of equivocation in his voice or in his manner.  He was a preacher on fire with the very truth of God.

In reality, Steven Snyder is just a guy who chose to believe a witness he knew was lying to him because that’s what it took to convict the defendant du jour.  Unlike men like Bob Govar and George Vena, Steven Snyder didn’t have a personal dog in this fight.  He couldn’t drop the charges against Clay without making his colleagues in the Eastern District look suspect, so he packaged a notorious liar as the voice of truth.

Snyder didn’t enjoy the task that had been dumped into his lap.  Throughout the trial he looked like a man on the verge of a nervous collapse.  But when he got in front of the jury he was a man on a mission.  Everything was simple; the case was unassailable; Clay was guilty.  Period!

That’s what prosecutors are paid to do.  Defense attorneys are paid to do the reverse. 

But how could the jury be so thoroughly convinced by Donny McCuien that they reached a verdict in less time than it took to bolt down a box lunch?

In theory, the government had to prove that Alvin Clay was guilty, and they had to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.  And they had to do all of that with nothing to work with but the word of a notorious liar who lied to the jury just as he had lied to buyers, sellers, Alvin Clay and the federal government.  In theory, selling McCuien as a credible witness should have been a tall order, but it wasn’t.

I doubt jurors spent a lot of time assessing Donny McCuien’s credibility.  McCuien was believed because he was singing in harmony with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the US Attorney’s Office.  A liar was believed because he was standing on the side of the Eagle.  

The Alvin Clay trial was a marketing scam.  Most middle class white jurors are like the guy who would rather push a Ford than buy a Chevy.  They believed McCuien because he was sponsored by the Eagle.  They pulled for the scruffy hustler in the ill-fitting suit for the same reason they will pull for TEAM USA at the Olympics.  It’s their brand, their team, their product of choice.

They would have believed Alvin Clay if he was allied with the Eagle brand.

Black jurors, as a group, are a much harder sell than white jurors.  Black Americans were only half as likely to back the invasion of Iraq.  They wanted more assurance than the simple fact that the Eagle was in a warlike mood. 

Black Americans are half as likely as their white counterparts to express confidence in the criminal justice system.

Jurors want to believe they have sacrificed two weeks of their lives to some noble purpose.  Putting a bad guy behind bars makes them feel good.  Acquitting a man who may or may not be guilty leaves them feeling uneasy and dissatisfied.  Give them clear evidence of innocence and they will acquit; otherwise, they will convict.  Every time.

Judge Holmes once said that pregnancies resulting from rape are as rare as snowflakes in Miami.  So are acquittals in federal trials.  (In fairness to Holmes, he has since admitted that the “snowflakes in Miami” remark was over-the-top and inaccurate).  

A fascinating study conducted by Tufts Unversity shows that white jurors are far more willing to consider the racial dynamics of a trial, are more attentive to detail, and are more concerned with due process issues when they are working shoulder-to-shoulder with minority jurors.  (More on this groundbreaking study can be found here.)

The Alvin Clay trial shows what happens when white jurors hold the fate of a black man in their hands.   Few white jurors aren’t consciously aware of their own prejudices.  But the Tufts study found that white jurors think and behave differently when they work with black jurors.  The effect is so strong, in fact, that simply knowing they are going to be working in a diverse setting impacts the pre-deliberation attitudes of white jurors.

Black jurors would have asked why it had taken the federal government five years to bring this black attorney to trial, and why the feds were in bed with a proven liar.  

White jurors easily convince themselves that a case has nothing to do with race, even if the judge, the prosecutors, the FBI agents, and all twelve jurors are white.

Black jurors would have written off Donny McCuien as just another Uncle Tom snitch selling his soul to the man. 

That’s precisely who Donny McCuien is; that’s why he was weeping in the witness room.

Steven Snyder didn’t lose any sleep last night.  He convinced himself that Alvin Clay was guilty long ago.  With that issue settled, the federal functionary was willing to climb under the covers with McCuien.

But Steven Snyder doesn’t have a clue what transpired between Clay, Nealy and McCuien.  Only two men who graced Leon Holmes’ courtroom know the truth–Alvin Clay and Donny McCuien.  On the stand, Clay was respectful, calm, reasonable, and revealing.  The government didn’t catch him in a single contradiction.

McCuien’s testimony was bizarre, desperate and demonstrably false.  He had memorized a few catch lines, but was utterly flummoxed when defense questions wandered off the subjects on which he had been carefully prepped by the FBI.  Every claim he made was impeached by credible witnesses.

For instance, McCuien claims that, following the FBI raid, Clay told him to lie to the authorities.  Jeron Marshall was testifying for the government under full immunity, but she testified that McCuien told her that Clay told him to “tell the truth”. 

A jury with three of more African Americans would never convict a man like Alvin Clay on the basis of such shoddy “evidence”.  White jurors wouldn’t have done it either if anyone had been in the room to pose the hard questions. 

I have been asked if it is possible to appeal a conviction on the basis of jury composition.  Not unless it can be demonstrated that the selection process was flawed in some way.  I will leave it up to the lawyers to address that issue. 

The deeper question is how seriously we take the right of every American citizen to be tried by a jury of peers?  If Alvin Clay possessed that right, it would have taken his jury longer than ten minutes to send him down the river.

All White Jury Reaches Verdict Over Lunch

Judge Leon Holmes’ Courtroom

I never get used to this.  Alvin Clay and I spent a couple of hours together last night.  He had spent a grueling day telling his story to the jury and I knew he was drained.  He seemed surprisingly quiet and resigned as we considered the “what next” question.  Part of him, I suspected, was eager for some closure.

Alvin asked me how I was feeling about the trial.  “I have never seen an all-white jury do the right thing,” I said.  “Maybe this time will be different.”

It wasn’t. 

I don’t blame the jurors.  They looked like pleasant, well-intentioned people; but they had obviously achieved consensus by the time the box lunches were cleared away.   This wasn’t a difficult decision for them. 

Steven Snyder is a deliberate, painstaking prosecutor with a mind-numbing attention to detail, but his opening and closing remarks to the jury were incendiary.  The evidence presented at trial may have been all-smoke-and-no-fire, but his closing statements burned the courthouse down.  Almost trembling with righteous indignation, Snyder derided the heartless greed on display in the Nealy-McCuien real estate scam.  The fact that the only witness to suggest Alvin Clay knew what was going on was a pathological liar wasn’t mentioned.  It was easy to forget that the US government told this man how to testify and then pretended to believe him.

After closing arguments I went to lunch with Alvin’s parents, his brother, and Sharon Christianson, a good hearted woman from New Jersey who answered my call to attend Mr. Clay’s trial.  We ate our meal, dissected the closing statements, looked for rays of hope and found none.  By the time we made it back to the courtroom the jury had its verdict.

Alvin Clay needs a world class appeals attorney. 

If you fit the bill, or if you know of someone who might, please call me (817-688-6765).  Alvin already has compentent counsel; what he needs is someone who is exceptionally skilled at writing appeals.  This case will give you plenty to work with. 

When the white jurors had delivered their verdict, Judge Holmes announced that there was a fire alert so the courthouse had to be vacated immediately.  The jury hurried out of the building.

When I arrived at street level a small crowd of twenty supporters was numb with grief.  The fire alert had been cancelled, but a fire truck was still waiting at curbside.  There hadn’t been a real fire; they were just being careful.

It seemed appropriate somehow.  There hadn’t been any fire in the courtroom either, but the jury decided to err on the side of caution.  Donny McCuien may have told a few lies.  In fact, every word he uttered was impeached by more credible witnesses.  But you couldn’t side with the government unless you believed McCuien.  Mr. Snyder believed him.  So did Mr. Hays, the clean-cut FBI agent.  So the jury went along for the ride. 

They almost always do.

When a jury without a single black juror convicted Ann Colomb and her sons of selling millions of dollars of drugs from their FHA bungalo, I printed an angry diatribe called “The end of the innocence” (based on the popular song Tucker Melancon played during sidebar conferences).  The local paper printed my piece in their web blog.  A young Latina, the only non-white juror, called me up the next day.  Her initial reaction had been the same as mine, but eleven white folks disagreed and she lost her nerve. 

If any of the jurors in the Clay trial read this please know that I’m not angry with you.  I only ask that you read my Vindictive Prosecution piece before laying this exhausting chapter of your life to rest.  You owe that much to Alvin Clay. 

Friends of Justice is just getting started with this case.  Every intervention we have ever performed began with a conviction; it’s just a painful part of the process.  The Alvin Clay case demonstrates, in real time, how and why innocent people are convicted in these United States.

If we hope to build a new civil rights movement in this country we must learn to engage the courtroom.  Alvin Clay is the closest thing to Rosa Parks we are going to find.  The Old Jim Crow (Jena notwithstanding) is largely an artifact of history. 

But the New Jim Crow is just as frightening.  Check into any courthouse in America and you will quickly learn what I mean.

We need to transcend the “Sharpton Syndrome” that has sucked energy and credibility from the faded remnants of the old civil rights movement.  We wait passively for a sign of unequal treatment, then we intervene before the media loses interest–often without checking our facts.  The goal is to lure in the cameras even if this means standing with irresponsible prosecutors like Mike Nifong in North Carolina.  We go for the spectacular cases that have already grabbed the headlines.

Instead, we need to seach out the anonymous tragedies unfolding under our noses.

Alvin Clay has been subjected to a vindictive prosecution and investigation stretching over five long years.  The government’s behavior has been outrageous and criminal; but nobody knows because hardly anyone is paying attention.

A mature movement will focus on folks like Alvin Clay. 

The courthouse really is on fire, folks.  It’s time to grow up and get real. 

Alvin Clay took the witness stand today in a tense confrontation with his accusers.  U.S. Attorney Steven Snyder, sparking with righteous indignation, spent several hours lighting cigarettes, playing with matches and rubbing sticks together.  The idea was to convince his all-white jury that a few whiffs of smoke translate into the great balls of fire promised in his opening remarks.

Nothing would catch.  The courtroom got a bit hazy a time or two, but there was never a hint of fire.

Alvin Clay was composed an confident.  He established eye contact with the jury and employed a frank and respectful tone throughout.  Defense attorney Ron Davis made a few vague references to vindictive prosecution, but he was shut down in mid-sentence by Mr. Snyder.

The government shuns embarrassing questions because it doesn’t have any good answers.

• Why has the government hitched its wagon to a man who lies when the truth would sound better?
• Why has the government spent five years and a million dollars in pursuing an innocent man?
• Why did the government initiate an investigation of Alvin Clay before they had any evidence of wrongdoing?
• Why has the government used the threat of pain and the promise of relief to suborn perjury from its star witness?
• Why did FBI agent Rodney Hays lie to a judge to get a search warrant and perjure himself before a grand jury to get an indictment?
• When the Eastern District of the US Attorney’s Office was forced to recuse itself from this case; why did the Western District pick it up?

I could go on, but you get the idea.

Alvin Clay started the day talking about his childhood, his education and his early interest in real estate.  He told the jury that he obtained a contractor’s license because he wanted to rehab affordable housing for low income tenants; a way of doing well by doing good.  He talked about meeting Ray Nealy and why he trusted a man who was unworthy of his trust.  He talked about his hands-off management style and why he will be far less trusting in future.

Clay frustrated Steven Snyder by refusing to defend his negligent behavior.  “The buck stops with me, whether I knew what was going on or not,” he said.  “At the end of the day I have to take full responsibility for what happened.”

But asked if he was guilty of engaging in the conspiracy cited in the indictment, Clay was adamant.  “My intent was to do a legitimate construction transaction,” he told Mr. Snyder.  “I absolutely did not know that any fraudulent activity was being done by Ideal Mortgage [Ray Nealy’s operation].”

When Snyder tried to suggest that Clay had misrepresented his intentions to title companies by submitting invoices for work which was never performed, Clay refused to take the bait.  He had been informed that the rehab work had been completed, he said, and he believed these representations.  “The invoices were not false or phoney,” Clay told Snyder.  “What was phoney was the applications submitted by Ideal Mortgage.”

Clay repeatedly pointed out that the invoices, though made out in his name, were actually created by Ray Nealy.

Clay admitted that he had been far too trusting of Ray Nealy and Donny McCuien and that he should have personally inspected the worksites to make sure that all the work was being completed.

Curiously, Clay’s trust in Donny McCuien is currently mirrored by the government; but with one important difference.  Clay believed McCuien before the man had shown his propensity for lies and larceny; the government believed the man after his deep flaws were a matter of public record. 

This isn’t a case of the government being snookered by a snake oil salesman; it’s a case of the government telling the salesman what kind of snake oil to sell.  The message is simple: “Don’t lie to us; lie for us.”

By the end of the day, Steve Snyder was lighting matches like a man possessed, but to no avail.  He asked Clay why he had failed to mention Clay Construction on a list of companies he owned when he filed for bankruptcy in 2001.  Clay answered quietly that the company had yet to transact a dime’s worth of business and had therefore slipped his mind.  He had no sinister reason for leaving Clay Construction off the list since it had no effect on his financial situation.

When Ray Nealy poked his head in the door and told Clay that another deal had closed, the Little Rock attorney wanted to see three things: the invoice, the check and the HUD 1 (a document signed by all parties at closing).  If the dollar amount on these three documents matched up, Clay was satisfied.  The HUD 1 form showed him that the terms of the transaction were acceptable to the buyer, the seller, and the lender.  If they were satisfied, Clay was satisfied.

Next, Clay would take Donny McCuien to Simmond’s Bank, write himself a cashier’s check for the amount he was owed, and a second check for McCuien.  He would then make a copy of both checks and staple them to the appropriate invoice so his financial man could write an accurate 1099 for the IRS stipulating how much money each man received.  This was his usual way of doing business because it ensured that the federal government would have a clear paper trail.

“I have held myself out as a hardworking attorney,” Clay told the jury.  “Not perfect, but not the sort of person who would be involved in these kind of shenanigans.  The hardest part has been knowing that I didn’t do what the government has accused me of doing.  There are aspects of the government’s investigation that have frankly been improper.”

The jury never heard Clay elaborate on this theme; Steven Snyder immediately objected and Judge Leon Holmes sustained the objection.

Snyder landed a few glancing blows, he never connected with a solid punch.

Shortly after 3:30, the defense rested and Judge Holmes dismissed the jury.  First thing tomorrow both sides will make their closing statements and the jury should have the case my 10:00.  We could have a verdict by noon, and will almost certainly have one by the end of the day.

Can 12 white men and women understand that the government hasn’t got the lightest idea what transpired between Ray Nealy, Donny McCuien and Alvin Clay?

Can they grasp the fact that only two witnesses know for sure if Mr. Clay was in on the conspiracy; Donny McCuien and Clay himself? 

Donny McCuien took the stand and insulted the jury’s intelligence.  Every other word he spoke was a lie and the government knows it.

Alvin Clay took the stand today and gave a credible and consistent explanation of his relationship to Nealy and McCuien.  His testimony throughout was consistent with what we have heard from other witneses; it possessed the simplicity of truth.

If the government really had to overcome the presumption of innocence their cause would be hopeless.  If they really had to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt I would already be celebrating.  Unfortunately, the government’s burden is remarkably low.  They will argue that Clay should have known what was going on.   They will ask the jury to make an educated guess based on common sense.

White folks trust the government.  Twice as many white Americans supported the invasion of Iraq as black citizens.  A few months into the conflict, the gap had widened further.  White Americans believe the criminal justice system is fundamentally fair; most African Americans do not.  White Americans love to bash the government, but when it comes to security issues they are loyal patriots.

In a criminal case, an all-white jury will tend to support the government unless a defendant can prove innocence beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Two facts should doom the government’s case: (a) they need Donny McCuien to connect Clay to a conspirary; (b) Donny McCuien is a pathological liar.

Tragically, a jury is perfectly capable of finding Alvin Clay guilty even if they are convinced of both ‘a’ and ‘b’.  Only 5% of federal trials end in acquital.

That said, I have never seen the federal government put on a weaker case than we have seen in the first six days of this trial.  Nor have I seen a more eloquent, persuasive and savvy defendant than Alvin Clay. 

If you are the praying kind, please pray for Alvin Clay, his family and his friends.

If you ain’t the praying kind . . . please make an exception in this case.

O what a tangled web we weave, when first we practice to deceive

Sir Walter Scott

The government’s case against Alvin Clay proceeded at a jackrabbit clip because the government doesn’t have a case against Alvin Clay.

Alvin Clay’s defense has moved ahead with even greater dispatch because the defense can’t accuse federal actors of suborning perjury.

The day began with a motion for acquittal from Mr. Hairston. “It is very, very clear that Alvin Clay had absolutely no part in submitting fraudulent loan applications . . . The buyers, without exception, denied knowing Mr. Clay . . . The only witness to inculpate Mr. Clay was Donny McCuien, and his testimony has been absolutely impeached. . . There was no testimony that Mr. Clay entered into an agreement to commit fraud. There is no evidence that Mr. Clay knew that the money paid to him came from illegal conduct by Mr. Nealy and Mr. McCuien, and Mr. Clay sought to account for the money he received.”

Judge Leon Holmes was unmoved. “It is not my job, nor am I permitted, to judge the credibility of witnesses,” he said. “According to Donny McCuien, Alvin Clay knew no work was done, or intended to be done. If the jury believes that, there is evidence to convict.”

My mind wandered back to the testimony of a woebegone crack addict named Stevie Charlot in the case of Mary Ann Colomb and three of her sons. After twice denying in transcribed and tape recorded affidavits that he had ever bought drugs from the Colombs, Charlot took the stand at trial and spouted a pathetic river of contradictions.

So lamentable was Charlot’s performance that federal judge Tucker Melancon called it “an abomination.”

Yet, like Leon Holmes, Melancon was powerless to intervene. After being convicted by an all-white jury, Ann Colomb and her sons were eventually exonerated and released.

Stevie Charlot and Donny McCuien perjured themselves for the same reason Galileo told the Inquisition that the sun revolves around the earth-they were shown the instruments of torture.

I do not condemn torture victims for their actions, however ignoble.  John McCain had his limit, and I know I have mine.

I have a harder time forgiving men like Rodney Hays and Assistant US Attorney Steven Snyder who use the government’s arrows and olive branches to suborn perjury. They do it for the same reason agents of the federal government at Abu Graib and Guantanamo Bay do what they do: the behavior is first tolerated, then accepted and finally expected. It’s all in a day’s work.

Last week, the government’s own witnesses frequently contradicted Donny McCuien’s testimony. Today, with the defense calling the witnesses, it just got worse.

McCuien had testified that he never owned or sold properties.

“I purchased a couple of properties from Donny McCuien [Jr],” Patrice Dean told the jury this morning. To make the homes ready for sale, Dean said, McCuien “fixed a front door, shingles, and a portion of the roof.”

Later, she said, McCuien also did some rehabilitation work on some apartments he sold her.

McCuien has insisted that he never owned construction tools, that he had never used tools, that his father didn’t do carpentry didn’t own any tools.

This morning, Donny McCuien Sr, took the stand. He testified that he owned a wide range of heavy construction tools and that Donny Jr. frequently borrowed them but never gave them back. “He had a key to get access to my storage shed,” Sr. explained. “Donny borrowed some of my tools and I never got them back. I can’t say what he done with them.” These tools included generators, reciprocating saws, hacksaws and circular saws.

Later, a contractor named Roma Isom testified that Donny McCuien Jr. had sold him “Compressors, generators, nail guns, and a couple of other items.” In other words, Donny Jr. stole Donny Sr.’s tools and sold them to the highest bidder. Perhaps it’s not stealing if the victim is your own sweet dad.

The heart of Donny Jr.’s testimony was that Alvin Clay didn’t own a real contracting company, had never done any contracting work, and had no expectation of ever doing so.

A contractor named Roma Isom testified that Clay Construction performed $21,000 of rehab work on one of his properties in September of 2002. The work was subcontracted to another individual and passed two inspections, one from an Arkansas housing inspector.

Isom didn’t recall ever seeing Alvin Clay on the worksite. It wasn’t unusual, he said, for contractors to own no equipment, employ no staff, and to subcontract all of the work to second parties.

Then Graylon McFadden testified that he had performed subcontract work for Clay Construction. “I had several carpenters helping me out,” he said, including his son Darren McFadden, a two-time Heisman runner-up for the Arkansas Razorbacks.

Billie Burnett, a handyman who admits to being a habitual criminal, entered the courtroom between two burly prison guards. Clad in an orange jumpsuit and flip flops, he didn’t immediately inspire confidence, but he proved to be the most convincing witness to take the stand thus far.

Asked if he was a felon, Burnett shook his head in agreement. In fact, he said, he had been convicted of burglarizing businesses on five separate occasions. He wasn’t bragging; it was just who he was.

Burnett told the jury that he had done rehab work on three of the five properties at issue in this trial. At McCuien’s request, he had done yard work, painting, floor finishing and roofing work.

Burnett testified that he met McCuien when “I was working on a house on Elm Street and he stopped me and asked if I did general [contracting] work.” On one of the properties he did “roofing work on a garage and put a ceiling on a garage bedroom. Probably took me about two days.”

McCuien paid Burnett in cash.

Two real estate agents who had worked for Clay Realty talked about his loose management style. “Some offices wanted you to sell a lot,” Kevin Howard testified; “but with Alvin, what you brought in was what you brought in.” Howard called Clay “laid back.” “You basically worked your own deal.”

Geno Tucker told the jury that he worked out of his home while working for Clay Realty, coming to the office only when he had a contract. “It was ideal for me because I had a second job. I could do my thing on my own with little supervision from Mr. Clay.”

Clay’s style was so casual, in fact that “he didn’t even look at the contract; he just took my word for it.”

This hands-off approach would not serve Alvin well when he ran across slick operators like Nealy and McCuien.

When Rodney Hays was called to the stand the faces at the prosecution table went gray.

George Hairston is generally quiet and respectful when questioning witnesses. When dealing with inveterate liars like Hays and McCuien, however, the elderly black attorney goes through a curious transformation. He once broke off a conversation with me because the break was almost over, McCuien was on the stand, and “I need to go off by myself for a minute and get my mean on.”

“All the files you used to prosecute Alvin Clay came from Ray Nealy’s office, right?” Hairston asked.

“Correct,” Agent Hayes said.

“You and McCuien both use the term, ‘correct'” Hairston pointed out. “You two have had a lot of contact, have you not?”

“We have met a couple of times.”

“Just a couple?” Hairston asked, his voice rising.

“We have met multiple times,” Hays admitted.

“Multiple times?” Hairston repeated. “Then why did you say just a couple?”

The FBI man was taken through the history of the prosecution, especially the eleven months stretching from the raid to the eventual indictment. Hairston asked why the original prosecutor, George Vena had been replaced and why his successor, Karen Whately, had been taken off the case?

Steven Snyder was immediately on his feet questioning the relevance of the question. The entire Eastern District of Arkansas had been yanked off the case by the feds in Washington; but the prosecutor didn’t want the jury to know that.

Judge Holmes said he was inclined to agree with Snyder but said he was ready to listen to Hairston’s side of the argument.

“Let me see if I can persuade you,” Hairston said with a wry smile. The two sides met for a sidebar discussion.

The attempt at persuasion having failed, Hairston moved on to Donny McCuien.

Hairston handed Hays a transcript of the notes he had taken after talking to his star witness. Did Donny talk about a deal involving April Flowers that was just like the five real estate deals cited in the indictment.

“Correct,” Hays said.

And wasn’t McCuien upset because Clay, Nealy, Flowers and the loan processor all profited handsomely from the deal while he had to settle for a crummy $1,000.

“I don’t know that there was any Clay Construction involvement in her case,” Hays said.

“Did any of that even occur?” Hairston asked.

“In this incidence, I think Mr. McCuien was confused about some of the details with April Flowers,” Hays said.

“Was he confused, or was he just lying?” Hairston shot back.

When Hays continued to prevaricate, Hairston sharpened the question.

“Did you find that Mr. McCuien’s credibility was somewhat suspect, sir?”

“He made plenty of statements up here and that’s his view of things. Is everything he told me truthful? He is like any other witness; he has his own perspective on things.”

Hairston then asked the witness if he had told the original grand jurors that McCuien wasn’t deeply involved in the fraudulent real estate deals and that he had been “brought in at the end.”

Hays eventually admitted that he had learned soon after that McCuien had lied to him.

“But you didn’t go back and correct the grand jury did you?” Hairston asked.

Judge Leon Holmes rose to Hay’s defense. The defense team had been told that they couldn’t refer to vindictive prosecution and Hairston was getting into that territory.

Hairston changed direction. McCuien had testified that, in the immediate aftermath of the raid, Alvin Clay told him to find some witnesses willing to lie on his behalf. But on Friday, Jeron Marshall testified that McCuien had given her a different version of that conversation a few days after it happened. McCuien told Marshall that Alvin had simply told him to “tell the truth.”

“Did that influence your sense of his credibility?” Hairston asked.

The government objected and Judge Holmes sustained the objection.

Evidentiary rule 608 allows a witness to give his personal estimate of another person’s reputation for honesty; but specific bad acts cannot be referenced unless it resulted in a felony conviction. Since Hays had already given his opinion of McCuien’s credibility, no more specific lies could be mentioned in the hearing of the jurors.

It was this line of reasoning that allowed Terry McEachern to wrongfully convict several dozen defendants in Tulia, Texas eight years ago (before Governor Rick Perry was forced to issue mass pardons).

A strict interpretation of Rule 608 means that Hairston couldn’t accuse Hays of suborning perjury because Hays has yet to be convicted of that crime. The fact that he is clearly guilty is neither here nor there.

Hairston had intended to push Hays much harder, but a glance at the jury made him reconsider. He didn’t want them feeling sorry for the hapless FBI agent.

Only one witness remained, Alvin Clay. Although it was only 3:30, Judge Holmes agreed to call a recess until Tuesday morning.

The jury may have this case as early as tomorrow afternoon. They will be asked to adjudicate a swearing match between Donny McCuien and Alvin Clay. McCuien spelled his name correctly; after that it was all downhill.

Tomorrow, Alvin Clay gets his chance to set the record straight.

 Alvin with his mother

(If you want to know why the US government has invested over $1 million of your tax money in prosecutingt an innocent man, go to https://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/alvin-clay/)

The government’s case against Alvin Clay wrapped up at 4:30 Friday afternoon; just in time for everyone to break for the weekend.  Jurors feared that they might have to work on Saturday, but the Clay trial has moved much more quickly than anyone expected.

The government has done a thorough and workmanlike job of making their case against Ray Nealy, the brains behind a real estate scam that hoodwinked buyers, sellers, mortgage firms, title companies and a Little Rock attorney. 

Since Mr. Nealy and his attorneys were not in the courtroom to counter the government’s case, the jury was treated to witness after witness laying out the manifold sins of Ray Nealy and his sidekick, Donny McQuien.  Defense counsel had little comment on this testimony, other than to point out that Alvin Clay was almost never mentioned. 

For four days of often tedious testimony it has been the Ray and Donny show.

The big exception to this rule was the testimony of the government’s star witnesses, Ray Nealy’s confidence man, Donny McCuien, and Nealy’s secretary and partner in crime, Jeron Marshall.

McCuien claims he never told a soul that rehab work was being done or that his company would be doing it, even though he gladly received $80,000 in checks from Alvin Clay for precisely that purpose.  According to McCuien, “Me, Ray and Clay,” would split up the proceeds after McCuien’s check had been cashed.

All the documentary evidence contradicts McCuien’s story, but the government has hitched its wagon to McCuien’s star nonetheless.  This is hardly surprising: the feds told McCuien what to say and how to say it.  In return, the star witness can expect lenient treatment at his sentencing hearing. 

Before the defense put on a single witness, it is clear to every observer (including, I pray, the jury) that McCuien is a pathological liar.  That doesn’t mean he finds it easy to bring down an innocent man.  A fellow spectator tells me Donny McCuien was sobbing in the witness room. 

Which is more pathetic: watching a compromised witness lying under oath, or watching an assistant US attorney suborning perjury?

Jeron Marshall is well acquainted with Alvin Clay; he used to be her boss.  In her Friday testimony, Marshall claimed she was fired because an illness kept her off the job.  The real story will come out when Mr. Clay takes the stand later this week.  Marshall was terminated for lying to her boss.

Now she’s lying about her boss–or at least she’s trying.

Marshall is desperate to cooperate with the government.  She resent Clay for firing her, and, by her own admission, she helped Ray Nealy fill out and fax fraudulent documents.  Names were forged, false claims were made and incomes were inflated.  Until I heard the government witnesses testify last week, I never realized how strong their case against Nealy and McCuien is.  Since Marshall was a willing participant, she is vulnerable to criminal charges, and she knows it.

Nonetheless, Ray Nealy’s secretary couldn’t come up with anything incriminating against Clay.  She shared the unremarkable fact that she sometimes saw Clay conversing with Nealy and McCuien.  Since Clay believed he was paying McCuien to rehab five properties, it is inevitable that a few quick discussions took place.

But Marshall couldn’t tie Alvin Clay to the fraudulent loan applications.  She testified that Clay never saw the applications, he never met the buyers or the sellers, and he made no representations, false or true, to loan companies.  Since these are the crimes the government has alleged against Alvin Clay you begin to wonder why this case is being tried.

(For answers, check out the document cited above.) 

                                                           Alvin Clay enters the courthouse 

This doesn’t mean that Clay is home free.  All the government has to prove is that Alvin Clay knew a crime was being committed.  That is why Donny McCuien is so important to the government’s case–he is the only witness suggesting that Clay had the slightest notion that the real estate deals were bogus.

I have always wondered why the home buyers caught up in the Nealy-McCuien scam were willing to pay top dollar for run-down real estate.  The federal government has done an excellent job of answering that question. 

Buyers like Linda Jones were told they could flip the properties at a considerable profit within weeks of purchase.  If they asked why they were paying considerably more than the sellers were receiving, they were told that rehab work was being done to make the homes easier to re-sell.

Next, the buyers were given money to validate their financial standing.  Deposits and withdrawls were made on the same day and the money went back in Ray Nealy’s pocket.  Then, Nealy gave the buyers money to cover closing costs (none of these people had a dime to their names). 

The silence of the buyers was guaranteed in two ways.  Although they possessed only the dimmest understanding of the details, the buyers were willing participants in illegal acts; therefore it was unlikely they would complain.  Secondly, each buyer was given a single cash payment of between $1,500 and $3,000 a day or two after closing to cushion the shock of a monthly mortgage payment.

The most revealing testimony during four days of trial came from Marcus Patillo, a Burger King employee with a bachelors degree in political science.  Patillo is no budding intellectual, but he was smart enough to ask a few questions.

Remarkably, none of the buyers had seen the inside of the homes they were buying prior to purchase.  According to Patillo’s testimony, Donny McCuien promised him that Clay Construction had been hired to do rehab work on the property.  Since the home was uninhabitable in its current form, Patillo tried to contact Clay Construction. 

He couldn’t find a number.  Although Clay’s firm is legally incorporated and licensed, Clay only agreed to sub contract the work to McCuien on the understanding that Clay Construction would do no actual work.  Clay wasn’t looking for contracting work so his business wasn’t in the phone book.  In his mind, his agreement with Nealy was a paper transaction; Nealy and McCuien were paying a fee for using Clay’s contractor’s license.

Unable to locate Clay Construction, Marcus Patillo called Donny McCuien and asked when the rehab work would be done.  McCuien sent the buyer to Nealy.  Nealy sent him back to MCuien.  “They were just giving me the run-around,” Patillo testified.

Ultimately, Nealy and McCuien stopped taking calls from Patillo.

Here’s the critical question: why didn’t Nealy and McCuien direct Patillo to Alvin Clay?

If, as McCuien asserts, Clay was in on the scam, his co-conspirators would have forced him take the heat from Patillo.

There is only one answer to that question: Ray Nealy and Donny McCuien didn’t want Alvin Clay to talk to their unsatisfied customer.  So long as they were assuring Clay that rehab work was being done, he was in the same position as the loan and title companies.  Only the buyers and Jeron Marshall had any reason to believe that the representations made to them were false.  When Nealy told the loan companies that the applicants were wading in cash, the loan companies believed him.  When Nealy assured Alvin Clay that McCuien was doing the rehab work, Clay believed him.

If Nealy and McCuien had directed Patillo to Clay, their game would have been over.  Clay doesn’t like being lied to, especially when his professional reputation is on the line.  At first suspicion would have started asking questions, and, being the tenacious attorney he is, he would have made things right–even if that meant Ray and Donny went to prison.

Ray and Donny didn’t want to go to prison, so they never put Patillo in touch with Clay.

Patillo was convincing because he wasn’t trying to convince.  He doesn’t know Alvin Clay and has no interest in helping him out.  But his testimony is just one more indication that the US government has no case against Alvin Clay.

Nealy and McCuien were running a confidence game.  They used Alvin Clay because he was a respected attorney with a legitimate contractor’s license; he gave them credibility.

Twenty-five members of two Baptist churches lined Capitol street in front of the federal courthouse on Friday morning.  The signs said, “Alvin Clay is innocent!” and “US v. Clay: Vindictive prosecution by the U.S. government.”

The first printing company contacted to print the signs refused the business.  “I saw the story in the paper,” the man said, “we can’t get wrapped up in that kind of thing.”

This reaction demonstrates the kind of fear the American government can inspire in its own citizens.  It’s not supposed to be that way. 

An African American firm agreed to print the signs.

This demonstrates the dangers of an all-white jury.  White motorists driving by the demonstration grimaced in anger or averted their eyes; black motorists smiled and waved.  The perception gap between white and black America is enormous.

Trial resumed at 9:00 Monday morning and my next report will appear Monday evening.

Alvin Clay’s Father sends a message

Howard Witt gives us a brief overview of Friday’s hearing in Jena.  Although there was no ruling on the motion to recuse Judge JP Mauffray, the hearing is being viewed in a positive light by attorneys and the Jena 6 families.  Mauffray admitted that he has made repeated comments that appear to pre-judge the defendants; something a judge cannot do. 

Lawyers in Jena 6 case seek judge’s ouster

By Howard Witt

Tribune correspondent

8:40 AM CDT, May 31, 2008

I hold the Lafayette Daily Advertiser in high regard.  In 2006, they published my trial blogging on the Colomb case and gave the trial extensive coverage.  Inmates reading this coverage were motivated to step forward and inform defense counsel that perjury mills were running within the prison system.  Now the Daily Advertiser is editorializing in favor of legislation designed to make the hanging of the noose (except on private property) a hate crime.

The article makes specific reference to Jena and disimisses the notion, popular in that central Louisiana town, that the message of the noose symbol is ambiguous and relatively innocuous. 

I would direct you, however, to the comments at the bottom of the editorial . . . just more racist blather.  The coverage of the Colomb trial received the same response; everybody was sure they were guilty because they had been charged.  Three months later they were released and fully exonerated.  There are solid grounds for opposing restrictions on speech, but the folks commenting here just don’t think hate is a big deal.  The solution, it appears, is to focus even more attention on the behavior of black folks so that even more African Americans can go to prison. 

It is hardly surprising that Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

Just pull them little strings and I’ll sing you a song, I‘m your puppet
Make me do right or make me do wrong, I’m your puppet.
Treat me good and I’ll do anything
I’m just a puppet and you hold my string

It is becoming increasingly obvious that Alvin Clay is just one in a long list of people who were scammed by Ray Nealy and his sidekick, Donny McCuien.   Mortage lenders, title companies and sellers all believed that Nealy and McCuien were operating in good faith.  So did Alvin Clay. 

Clay was repeatedly told that rehab work was being done on the five real estate transactions Ray Nealy was brokering.  On that understanding, the Little Rock attorney submitted invoices to title companies stating that the work was being performed.  When he received a check from the title companies, he immediately paid Donny McCuien, his subcontractor, the lion’s share of the funds, keeping a small portion for Clay Construction.  Finally, he issued an IRS 1099 to Mr. McCuien to ensure that a complete paper trail of the these transactions was on record. 

This should have been a simple case to prosecute.  If the government had gone after Ray Nealy and Donny McCuien they could have obtained easy convictions without setting foot in a courtroom.  The documentary evidence against Nealy is overwhelming.  The buyers and the sellers were all recruited by Donny McCuien.  Ray Nealy filled out five fraudulent loan applications.  Go after these two men and the tax payers would be several hundred thousand dollars ahead.

The government wanted to prosecute Clay and Nealy together.  Then, two weeks before trial, Nealy’s attorney withdrew from the case and Judge Leon Holmes ruled that it was in the legal interest of both defendants that the cases be severed.  Jurors must be asking themselves why all these witnesses are testifying about Ray Nealy when Alvin Clay is the guy standing trial.

In the normal course of events, Alvin Clay would never be prosecuted on such flimsy evidence.  A natural reading of documented facts suggests that Clay was duped along with everyone else.  Driven by a weird desire to render an unnatural reading of the facts, the government embarked on a five-year quest to manufacture a case out of thin air.

Donny McCuien was the key to their plans. 

The former Burger King manager took the stand today and the results were deeply embarrassing for the federal government.  That the US attorney’s office chose to associate itself with a grotesque individual like McCuien proves that this has been a vindictive and warrantless prosecution from the start.

McCuien didn’t want to lie for the government, but they made him an offer he couldn’t refuse.  The pathetic street hustler has already been convicted of wire fraud, but he has yet to be sentenced.  The government has told him that, so long as he tells the story their way, he will get the olive branch at his sentencing hearing.  If he sticks with the story he originally related to FBI agent Rodney Hayes, he will get the arrows–straight through the heart.

So Donny decided to sing in harmony with the feds.  Unfortunately, he didn’t know the tune. 

He got off to a pretty good start; he had been well coached by agent Hayes and he had his mantra down cold.  “Clay would give me a check, then me, Ray and Clay woudl go to the bank, I’d cash the check, and we’d split it up.”

That’s hasn’t always been McCuien’s story.  Originally, he said he suspected that Ray and Alvin had split up the money–now he saw them do it.

Then George Hairston asked Donny to provide jurors with a step-by-step description of how the money was divided, Mr. Burger king was suddenly at a loss.  With no actual memory to fall back on, he couldn’t describe the scene in concrete terms.

Worse still, McCuien was so desperate to please the feds, he actually invented a real estate deal the feds didn’t know about.  According to a statement defense counsel received two days ago, McCuien claims that Clay and Nealy did a did with a woman named April Flowers and cut him out of the action.

Unfortunately for McCuien and his handlers, the government seized Ray Nealy’s completge financial records.  You can’t do a real estate deal without leaving a copious paper trail, and there is no documentary record of a deal involving April Flowers.

Caught in a lie, McCuien would ask, “Where did you get that?”  When it became clear that Mr. Hairston was reading from agent Hayes notes, Donny said, “If it is in black and white, that’s what I said.”

Presumably, if it hadn’t been in writing, he didn’t say it.  McCuien seems to be suffering from an acute case of amnesia; unless we are talking about Alvin Clay.

McCuien admitted that, at Nealy’s suggestion, he incorporated as McCuien Property Management and Construction, Inc.  That fact, however, was meaningless.  He never did any rehab work, he never hired anyone to do rehab work, and he never agreed to act as Alvin Clay’s subcontractor, even though the checks Alvin write to Donny clearly stipulate that Donny was being paid as a subcontractor.

McCuien accused Clay of giving him a 1099 for far more money than he actually received.  All the documentary evidence backs up Clay’s story.  Nothing reinforces McCuien’s account.  And yet the government, desperate to convict Clay, has chosen to go with the hamburger man.

The presumption of innocence is often derided as “a legal fiction”.  We don’t really consider defendants to be innocent until guilt is proven beyond a reasonable doubt.  Regretably, there is a great deal of truth to this position.

A second kind of legal fiction that is even more sinister: the use of arrows and olive branches to mold testimony to the government’s will.  By promising leniency and threatening dire consequences, people like Rodney Hayes and US Attorney Steven Snyder can line up witnesses willing to say virtually anything.   If they choose to abuse the power vested in them, they can create a virtual world completely dissociated from the bricks and mortar, flesh and blood world you can touch and taste and smell. 

Today in the courthouse, playing Pinnochio to the government’s Gepetto, Donny McCuien created a legal fiction so bizarre it will inevitably come back to haunt the corrupt public officials driving this inane prosecution.

There was some truth mixed in with the fiction, of course, and some of it was quite revealing.  McCuien admitted to paying the buyers a kind of honorarium after the deals closed–sort of a thank you gift for allowing themselves to be defrauded.

It seems that McCuien promised his marks that they could make good money flipping the properties they were buying.  He also admitted that Ray Nealy was completely responsible for filling out and submitting fraudulent loan applications. 

Alvin Clay’s only crime was trusting a couple of two-bit hustlers.  He has plenty of company in that regard, including some of the most prominent lending institutions in the nation.  The lending industry is learning some painful trust-and-verify lessons; so is Mr. Clay.  Naivete is not a crime; suborning perjury is.

Donny McCuien will return to the stand next week as a defense witness.  It will not be an easy ride for the prosecution.

Background on the Alvin Clay story can be found here.

Alvin Clay just dropped me off at my motel room. He’s feeling strong and his spirits are high. “I’m not going to quit, even if they convict me,” he said as I shook his hand in farewell. “They’ve taken five years of my life and they need to pay for that.””I’ll be fighting with you,” I assured him.

Today was document day at the federal courthouse in Little Rock. Six well-groomed white women in business suits and high heels took the stand; they were all associated with firms from California, Kansas City, Missouri, and Little Rock that lent money to Ray Nealy’s clients.

“What would you do if you knew that an applicant was giving you fraudulent information?” the government repeatedly asked.

“We wouldn’t make the loan,” the bean-counters replied.

The prosecution was trying to show that Ray Nealy and Donny McCuien had faxed in fraudulent loan applications. That doesn’t take much effort; the fraud is obvious and blatant.

Just one problem: when all the puzzle pieces are painstakingly assembled they don’t look like Alvin Clay; they look like Ray Nealy.

“Did Alvin Clay send you any documents?” defense attorneys asked the well-groomed white women in high heels.

“No, sir, he didn’t” came the inevitable reply.

“And these were as-is loans, weren’t they?” defense counsel would ask.

“Yes, sir.”

“So, your approval of the applications was not tied to Alvin Clay’s rehab work in any way?”

“No, sir,” the women replied dutifully, “that had absolutely no bearing on our decision to release funds.”

This was bad news for the government. Clay is charged with faxing fraudulent loan applications to lenders. But Clay didn’t meet the buyers or the sellers, and he played no role in arranging financing or filling out the applications.

The jury didn’t learn much about Clay, but, as the testimony unfolded, document by dreary document, they witnessed a workshop on America’s mortgage mess.

The loans offered to Ray Nealy’s clients were “stated income” mortgages. In theory, these loans are for folks who want to maintain their privacy or for affluent folks who have trouble documenting income. In reality, these financial instruments were aggressively marketed to people with shaky credit, low incomes and no collateral. It was time for the lending industry to boldly go where no lender had gone before.

“Was there an assumption by these companies that this was an invitation to fraud?” attorney George Hairston asked one well-groomed white woman.

She shook her head vigorously. “The assumption was that people were going to be honest with one another,” she said. “We certainly didn’t want people to commit fraud with us.”

That is true. Lenders simply discounted their shaky stated income loans and passed them on to the highest bidder. With interest rates two or three points above market norms, lenders could afford to take a small loss.

It was also disclosed that Ray Nealy was tying his customers to variable rate mortgages that start at 8.5% and balloon to a much higher rate after two years.

All of this explains why seventeen of the nation’s largest lenders are currently being investigated for fraud. These companies didn’t just beg clients to defraud them; most of the hanky-panky was internal.

“This is a case in which everybody is scamming everybody else,” Hairston told me in his Morgan Freeman baritone. “Ironically, the only innocent dupe happens to be my client.”

Before the parade of well-groomed white women began, the government spent a couple of hours painting Alvin Clay as a liar and a cheat. In 2001, Clay and a friend named Pat Joyner started a non-profit 501 (c) 3 organization dedicated to making decrepit homes habitable for low-income renters. Clay lined up a couple of handy men to work with him, but first he needed a Contractor’s License.

Although he scored 94% on the written test, Alvin had no actual experience. He was informed that, if he applied as a corporation, he could enter the experience of employees on his application as his own.

But Alvin’s company didn’t have any employees-not yet. So he decided to use the experience of two men whom he planned to hire. This was stretching the rules to the breaking point, but the regulations were so elastic that it is hard to say if he stepped over the line. His questionable tactic left him legally vulnerable when he and Joyner had a falling out and he was unable to follow through with his plan to hire workers for Clay Construction.

In 2007, FBI agent Rodney Hayes told a grand jury that Clay had forged the signatures of three people on his contractor’s application. Was he lying, telling the truth, or is Hayes living in a magic kingdom where terms like “true” and “false” don’t apply?

Asked if she had signed her name as a reference on Clay’s contractor’s license, Joyner looked like a deer caught in the headlights. She said that a friend named Earl Jones did the work ascribed to Clay Construction on Alvin’s application.

Asked if she had attributed the work to Clay construction, Joyner hesitated before answering. “I don’t remember doing that?” she said.

“Is this your signature?” the government asked.

“No, it’s not,” she said.

The witness was passed to Ron Davis, one of Clay’s attorneys.

“This is your signature, isn’t it?” Davis asked.

Joyner paused. “Yes,” she said at last.

“And didn’t we have a conversation just yesterday in the hall outside this courtroom in which you told me that when agent Hayes interviewed you, you told him you signed Alvin’s application?”

“Yes,” she said, a look of silent terror spreading across her face.

Slowly, the story about the non-profit organization came out. An architect had even been hired. Alvin Clay fully intended to work as a contractor.

“Unified CDC [the name of the company] was intended to do legitimate real estate transactions, was it not?” Davis asked.

Joyner admitted it was so.

Next it was time for Earl Jones, a retired AT&T shipping clerk who did handy man work on the side, to testify. Questioned by the government, he insisted that he had never signed Clay’s application.

Seconds later, Ron Davis had Jones admitting that he had agreed to serve as a reference for Clay and that a signature on his application was a necessary part of that process. “You had no problem having Clay use your name on the document,” Davis said.

“No,” Jones admitted.

Then Allan Nelson was on the stand. “You said your son could use your name as a reference,” Davis told Nelson.

Nelson acknowledged that it was true. After a good deal of back-and-forth, it became clear that Allan Nelson had allowed his son Kristian to sign his name. There is nothing illegal about that, Davis pointed out. It’s isn’t forgery unless your name is signed without your knowledge or consent.

Absolute power doesn’t buy you the truth; it buys you what you want to hear. Water-boarding victims don’t tell dark secrets; they say whatever will make the torture stop.

Joyner, Jones and Nelson are no different.

Like the fearsome eagle on the Great Seal; federal officials come with one hand bristling with arrows and the other hand extending an olive branch. “Which will it be?” they ask, “the arrows or the olive branch?”

Joyner, Jones and Nelson didn’t want to go to prison over a simple signature; so they told agent Hayes what he wanted to hear. FBI agents, CIA operatives and federal prosecutors are very good at getting people to say the right words; they aren’t much good at getting the truth.

One of the well-groomed white women in high heels said she became unemployed when her subprime mortgage firm declared bankruptcy. The day came when no one would buy their worthless loans at any price.

The implied message had been simple: “Tell us what we want to hear. Please! Say you’re drowning in cash; that you’re hauling down 100K a year; that your credit’s rock solid, and we’ll give you all the money you want.”

Agents of the federal government have worked the same scam on the weak, fearful people associated with the Clay case.

If you really want to see the arrows and the olive branch in action, stay tuned for the testimony of Donny McCuien, that man Alvin Clay paid $80,000 to rehab Ray Nealy’s houses.

If you’ve been wondering whatever happened to the Jena 6, this report from the Huffington Post will tell you everything you need to know.  When I first intervened in this case in January of 2007, my primary goal was to get good attorneys for these kids.  I knew this would require media attention, but I never anticipated 40,000 people surrounding the courthouse.

As we all know, the big crowds came and went, the locals dug in their heels, and a long standoff ensued between DA Reed Walters (assisted by his tag-team partner, JP Mauffray) and the strong team of attorneys who have rallied to the defendants. 

I wish I could attract this kind of attention to the Alvin Clay case because it is much more representative of business-as-usual corruption in the legal system.  I know that isn’t realistic.  Ultimately, it didn’t matter how many people flocked to Jena; this was a legal fight and there are times when only good lawyers can help you.  My activisim was designed to bring legal experts like Jim Boren and David Utter into the fight.  That done, the work of Friends of Justice was accomplishyed.  

Still, I wish I could attend Friday’s hearing–there should be a lot of drama.

Friends of Justice specializes in narrative intervention–telling the big story when prosecutors want to keep it small; telling the true story when the system is peddling deceptive half-truths.  For most victims of wrongful prosecution there is no DNA exoneration; they just do their time.  That’s why we like to intervene before and during the trial phase.

We will be following the Friday hearing with great interest.  As this article suggests, Color of Change is doing a great job of handling the media and the legal team is loaded for bear.  The Jena 6 are in good hands.