Coverage of drug bust reveals healthy skepticism

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By Alan Bean

A routine drug bust in Fort Worth, Texas has sparked a firestorm of media interest.

Seventeen people have been arrested, almost all of them charged with selling small amounts of marijuana to an undercover agent.

Fifteen of the defendants are students at Texas Christian University and four are football players.  Without the sports connection, no one would give much attention to a routine drug roundup, but in Fort Worth the Horned Frogs are the biggest thing going.

Reading through the half-dozen stories in this morning’s Star-Telegram, I couldn’t help thinking about the big Tulia drug bust in 1999.  But there is a difference.  Media response to the Tulia bust was universally positive.  Seldom was heard a discouraging word . . . until Friends of Justice got involved.

But the local paper’s coverage of the big TCU bust ranges from cautious praise for the school’s proactive stance against the drug scourge to deep skepticism.

Texas has changed a lot since 1999.  The wisdom of the war on drugs is no longer assumed. (more…)

Innocent man finally exonerated

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Richard Miles served 14 years in prison for the murder of one man and the attempted murder of another.

Miles’ guilt rested on the testimony of one eyewitness who claimed that he saw Miles shoot two men in a Texaco parking lot. Similar to the Curtis Flowers case, detectives pinpointed Miles and decided that he was guilty within a few hours of the shootings. Miles had an alibi and several individuals who corroborated his story, but that was irrelevant. 

Despite little evidence, Miles was found guilty and sentenced to 60 years in prison.

As of yesterday, however, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals ruled that Richard Miles is officially exonerated.

Unlike most of the exonerations thus far, there was no DNA to test. After it was discovered that prosecutors withheld exculpatory evidence from the defense, Miles was released in 2009 (but not officially exonerated). In 2010, the original eyewitness recanted his testimony, claiming that prosecutors coerced him into identifying Miles as the perpetrator.

Miles is one of many men who have recently been exonerated in Dallas, TX. The stories of several of these men are told in the book “Tested: How Twelve Wrongfully Imprisoned Men Held Onto Hope” by Peyton and Dorothy Budd. MWN

Two Years After Wrongfully Convicted Richard Miles Was Released, He’s Officially Innocent

by Leslie Minora

Free for two years, Richard Miles has nevertheless waited and waited for today — the official acknowledgement that he did not commit the  murder and attempted murder at a Texaco near Bachman Lake in 1994 for which he was sent to prison. The detailed 52-page opinion handed down from the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals reads like the outline of a Hitchcock film, detailing two police reports that weren’t disclosed at the time of Miles’s conviction, a 2010 recantation from the only uninvolved eyewitness and the determination that the small amount of gunshot residue on Miles’ hand was inconclusive. All of which amounted to the decision that the wrong man spent 14 years behind bars.

“When we balance the newly available evidence … with other exculpatory evidence and the evidence of guilt presented at trial, we are satisfied that Applicant has shown by clear and convincing evidence that no rational jury would convict him in light of the new evidence,” reads the court’s opinion released today.

The Dallas County District Attorney’s office recommended Miles’s release in 2009 after they determined that flaws in his trial violated his constitutional rights. Since his release more than two years ago, he’s been working, piecing his life back together and finding support in other exonerees as he waited for a decision from the state court, which must rule on all exoneration cases. But finally, as of today Miles can file for state compensation for his years spent locked up.

“This is going to be great for him because now he can do some of the things he wanted to do” like help his mother, said Charles Chatman, an exoneree who was released in 2008. Chatman and the other exonerees, including Miles, meet monthly, and Chatman tells Unfair Park that he and the other guys have given Miles a helping had since his release.

“We have helped him,” Chatman says, quickly adding that Miles isn’t “the kind of person who just depends on nobody.” Miles has been getting by working at a hotel, Chatman said, but even finding a job was difficult without a declaration of “actual innocence.”  (more…)

Why we shouldn’t sell our prisons to for-profit corporations

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by Melanie Wilmoth Navarro

States around the country are facing massive budget shortfalls. So it comes as no surprise that the largest private prison company in the U.S., Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), is capitalizing on these budget crises through what it is calling the “corrections investment initiative.”

As reported in the Huffington Post, CCA recently sent letters to 48 states offering to purchase public prisons as a way for states to generate income in these tough financial times. The letter indicates that “CCA is earmarking $250 million for purchasing and managing government-owned corrections facilities.”

If a state decides to sell a facility to the corporation, it would enter into a 20-year contract with CCA and would be required to ensure the facility maintains a 90% occupancy rate throughout the duration of the contract.

There are several serious concerns with this proposition. (more…)

Georgia steps in the right direction

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Gov. Nathan Deal

by Lisa D’Souza

In November 2011, a special council appointed by Georgia’s Governor, Nathan Deal, released its Report of the Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform for Georgians.  This report has resulted in reform proposals that the Georgia legislature will soon consider.
While it is heartening that Georgia has recognized its incarceration rates as a problem the report, and the resulting reform proposals, failed to consider input from the communities most affected by mass incarceration and ignore relevant factors, for example treating addiction as a crime instead of a medical problem.

The Atlanta Progressive News article below has a comprehensive summary of the report’s recommendations as well as criticisms of its shortcomings.

Congratulations, Georgia, for taking this step in the right direction.  We can only hope it is the first of many.

Georgia Considers Reforms to Reduce Prison Population, Costs

by GLORIA TATUM

With additional reporting on the Special Council’s recommendations by Matthew Cardinale.

(APN) ATLANTA — This year, the Georgia Legislature is expected to begin considering a package of reforms intended to reduce the state’s prison population as well as the enormous costs to taxpayers that Georgia’s mass incarceration policies have caused year after year.

The Report of the Special Council on Criminal Justice Reform for Georgians finished its findings and recommendations for the state legislature on Friday, November 18, 2011.  Shortly after his inauguration in January 2011, Gov. Deal had called for prison reform, and the legislature created the Special Council to research the issue. (more…)

Money, morals, and mass incarceration

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by Dr. Charles Kiker

This post is in affirmation of and response to Dr. Alan Bean’s blog on the Friends of Justice site, “‘The Power to Make Us One’: Heather McGhee’s One-People America.” In that post Dr. Bean acknowledges that racially charged language only serves to make white people defensive regarding the plight of black people in America, and thus is counterproductive in bringing about either racial reconciliation or the end to mass incarceration.

In the February 10th edition of The New York Times two entries caught my attention. One was an article by Sabrina Tavernise, “Education Gap Grows Between Rich and Poor, Studies Say.” The finding of those studies, in a nutshell, is that the education gap between the children of well-off families, regardless of race, and poor families, regardless of race, is widening, while the education gap between the children of white families and black families is narrowing.

And it is well known that the level of education is a reliable predictor of income success or lack thereof.

The other was an op-ed piece by Paul Krugman, “Money and Morals.” Not surprisingly, Krugman argues that the big problem for working class families is not moral decay, but “A drastic reduction in the work opportunities available to less-educated men.” Krugman states that “entry-level wages of male high school graduates have fallen 23% since 1970” when adjusted for inflation. To make matters worse, benefits have been drastically reduced. (more…)

The other L-word

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By Alan Bean

Since Ronald Reagan rode to power on a wave of white racial resentment, programs designed to benefit America’s marginalized citizens have been treated as a political pinãta by conservatives and avoided as a liability by . . . well, non-conservatives.  No one dared identify as a liberal.  The L-word had become toxic.

There is another L-word: “legalization”.

Unless you are a big fan of Ron Paul, you have probably never been exposed to a compelling argument for legalizing drugs.  Libertarians support the legalization of drugs because (a) they don’t think the government should regulate hardly anything, (b)drug prohibition, like the prohibition of alcohol, is a futile attempt to repeal the law of supply and demand, and (c) our counter-productive war on drugs eats up billions of tax dollars.

Today, at the Samuel DeWitt Proctor Conference, three of America’s leading authorities on the drug war wrestled with the other l-word.

Michelle Alexander told us she was inching toward support for drug legalization but remained on the fence.  The author of the most successful criminal justice reform book in the history of publishing is committed to ending the war on drugs and the policy of mass incarceration.  Should legalizing drugs be part of the program?  She’s still thinking about it. (more…)

Victory for immigrant rights advocates: ICE backs away from family detention in Texas

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by Melanie Wilmoth

In 2009, immigrant rights activists successfully fought to end family detainment at the T. Don Hutto immigrant detention center in Taylor, Texas. A few weeks ago, Friends of Justice posted a blog about U.S. Immigration Customs and Enforcement’s (ICE) request for 100 new family detention beds in Texas. Many of the same activists who fought against family detention in 2009 joined forces again to keep ICE from opening a new family detention center in the state.

“Last month,” according to Grassroots Leadership, “a broad coalition of more than 65 national, state, and local immigrant, civil rights, and faith organizations called on ICE to end the practice of detaining immigrant families, including small children and infants.”

As a result of these efforts, ICE has decided not to bring family detention back to Texas. Although this is a step in the right direction, there is still a long way to go. “This is a victory for advocacy organizations who did not want to see family detention return to Texas,” said Bob Libal of Grassroots Leadership in a press release, “however, the administration should discontinue the practice of detaining families altogether and prioritize non-restrictive alternatives to detention of families.”

Activists praise ICE decision not to open new family detention center in Texas

By  

Prior to 2009, undocumented immigrant families were detained in a private prison facility in Taylor, Texas. The T. Don Hutto Residential Center, owned by Corrections Corporation of America (CCA), profited from a government contract to imprison undocumented families. After the ACLU of Texas sued the T. Don Hutto Center and Immigration and Customs Enforcement in 2007 for detaining immigrant children, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) changed its policy on family detention in Texas.

Since 2009 the only detention center in the country still housing immigrant families is the Berks County Family Shelter in Leesport, Pennsylvania. As KUT radio in Austin reported, however, in November ICE put out a request for proposals for a new 100 bed family detention center in Texas. (more…)

The Elephant in the Room

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By Lisa D’Souza

Yesterday, I attended a celebration of Timothy Cole’s life at which the State of Texas officially acknowledged the wrong done Mr. Cole by placing a historical marker at his grave.  Among the attendees were six men, all of whom had been arrested, tried and convicted of crimes they had not committed. Each of them served years, some decades, in prison before winning their release.

At the close of the luncheon event, Frederic White, the dean of Texas Wesleyan School of Law, who hosted the event, recollected a police encounter he had as a youngster zooming through town on his new bicycle. The police stopped him and accused him of having stolen it. He was carrying his bicycle registration in his pocket, and could prove the bike was in fact his, so the police allowed him to go on his way. (more…)

“The Power to Make us One”: Heather McGhee’s One-People America

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By Alan Bean

heather.mcghee – Netroots NationI recently heard Heather McGhee speak at the Samuel Dewitt Proctor conference in Chicago. She began with the obvious fact that America was not created to be one people, or one public.  Some folks were clearly part of the culture; others were not.  The primary dividing line was skin color.  Up until 1965, she reminded us, American immigration policy was built around strict racial quotas.  People of African descent were practically excluded altogether.  People from Eastern Europe were also subject to severe restrictions because they were considered ‘ethnic’.

That all changed in 1965.  In the wake of the civil rights movement, mainstream America was embarrassed by the undisguised racism implicit in the nation’s immigration policy.  The rules changed in fundamental ways.  Now, when you walk through an airport, you see every conceivable shade of skin color and you hear a wide variety of accents.  We have become, in a few brief decades, the world’s most audacious experiment in cultural diversity.

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New and Improved Curtis Flowers Page

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By Alan Bean

Friends of Justice is pleased to announce that we have updated our Curtis Flowers page.  All the important stuff from the old page is still available, but thanks to the efforts of Lisa D’Souza, the new Friends of Justice Legal Director, the information is now much much accessible and user-friendly. 

The old page evolved over time, willy-nilly, and had come to resemble an overgrown garden in which it’s hard to find the veggies. 

The appeal filed following the 2010 trial in which Curtis was convicted and sentenced to death  is currently awaiting a response from the Mississippi Supreme Court.  The Court can’t proceed, we are told, because the prosecution has been slow to turn over important documentation.  In the meantime, Friends of Justice has been monitoring the case, visiting Mr. Flowers and his family, and insisting that a crude frame-job of an innocent man be replaced by  a real investigation into the tragic quadruple homicide in a Winona, MS furniture store in 1996.  

If you aren’t familiar with this case, our revised Curtis Flowers page will quickly bring you up to speed.  If you want to delve into the intricacies of the case, or if you’re curious about the social and historical context, you will find a wealth of valuable information.  So, if you’re looking for a quick intro or the whole nine yards, we’ve got what you need.