Not surprisingly, a recent investigation by Dafna Linzer and Jennifer LaFleur of ProPublica revealed that whites are almost four times more likely than are minorities to succeed in receiving a presidential pardon. According to Linzer and LaFleur, these statistics hold true even when accounting for other factors such as the type of crime, the length of sentence, and the gender and age of the applicant.
Although ProPublica’s findings initially did little to indicate why this racial disparity exists, deeper investigation sheds light on the subjectivity that exists within the pardons process.
Linzer and LaFleur report that, during his administration, George W. Bush relied heavily on recommendations from lawyers in the Office of the Pardon Attorney when deciding whether or not to grant a pardon. This paved the way for the pardons office to use subjective standards when analyzing pardon cases and making recommendations to the President. ProPublica found that these standards included subjective factors such as “judgments about the ‘attitude’ and the marital and financial stability of applicants.”
“Bush followed the recommendations of the pardons office in nearly every case,” ProPublica reports, “The results, spread among hundreds of cases over eight years, heavily favored whites.” (more…)
Friends of Justice is a member of the Coalition for Education Not Incarceration. The coalition’s efforts focus on ending the school-to-prison pipeline in Dallas ISD. Please see the message below from the coalition and consider signing the pledge in support of a Dallas ISD Resolution in Support of Fair and Equitable School Discipline Practices. MW
End the Pipeline to Prison in Dallas ISD
CONTACT: Allison Brim (214) 455-9115
Dear Friends:
When such a high percentage of children end up incarcerated instead of educated, it is time to challenge ourselves to find real solutions. Every child deserves the right to learn in a nurturing environment, but instead, DISD disciplinary measures set our kids up to fail.
The Coalition for Education Not Incarceration is fighting for positive solutions instead of our schools using juvenile and criminal justice systems to correct student behavior.
Take for example the story of Mr. Stephen King: His son is a senior in High School and a special needs student who cannot read. During a class assignment his teacher asked him to read aloud, and sadly he could not. After feeling ashamed and embarrassed his son left for home. He was written a ticket for leaving school grounds, an infraction that led to expulsion and time in a juvenile justice center.
“When a kid feels like he cannot learn, and he is kicked out of school, what options are you leaving him?” asks Mr. King.
In addition to appearing at the board meeting on December 15th, we will continue to draw public attention to the gravity of student criminalization. This Thursday, December 8th, concerned parents, clergy, and community members will form a “Human Chain” interlocking arms to symbolically block our children from being thrust through the pipeline to prison.
DISD can no longer ignore the necessity for real change. With your support of the resolution, and a strong community presence at the December 15th board meeting, we can end the pipeline to prison in Dallas schools.
The Coalition for Education not Incarceration is made up of Texas Organizing Project, Dallas Peace Center, Friendship West Baptist Church, St Luke “Community” United Methodist Church, Paradise Missionary Baptist Church, NAACP, LULAC, Friends of Justice, Center on Communities and Education, CitySquare, People’s Lunch Counter, and Malcolm X Grass Roots Dallas Chapter.
Enrique Salazar, Irma Muniz, Ramsey Muniz, Alan Bean and Ernesto Fraga
By Alan Bean
Friends of Justice is on the road again. Thus far we’ve held sit-down meetings with folks in Waco and Houston, Texas, and the Louisiana towns of Crowley, Lafayette and New Orleans. The agenda is broad. Over the next year we plan to engage every advocacy organization in TX, LA and MS working on indigent defense, juvenile justice and immigrant rights issues. The long-range goal is to create a collaborative platform that makes it possible for a number of diverse groups to participate in a single narrative campaign. The big goal is to allow advocacy organizations to pursue their distinct (and limited) agendas while addressing the larger issue of mass incarceration.
At this point, we’re mostly listening. We want to learn more about how our natural allies see the world, what worries and excites them, and how they feel about working with organizations that focus on a different piece of the mass incarceration pie.
While Melanie Wilmoth and I are on the road we’re also spending time with the families of Jace Washington and Kelvin Kaigler, two young men from Slidell, Louisiana who, in unrelated cases, were framed by jailhouse snitches.
On Friday, we will be visiting with Ramsey Muniz, an icon in the Texas Latino community who is serving a life sentence for a crime he did not commit. Over the past few months we have been working through all the legal documents related to this bizarre case and will soon be releasing a narrative summary.
While we’re on the road, three families with heart breaking stories have reached out to us. The patterns are familiar. Little or no investigation. Over-investment in snitch testimony. Overworked defense counsel. Prosecutorial tunnel vision. In virtually every case, legal remedies have been exhausted, but the power of story in inexhaustible.
We spend a lot of time with the affected community for a number of very practical reasons, but brushing up against the human consequences of mass incarceration heads the list. We need to remember why we do what we do.
Some found it shocking when Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber granted convicted double-murderer Gary Haugen a reprieve Tuesday, setting aside Haugen’s scheduled December 6 execution. Haugen, who killed another prisoner while serving a life sentence for a previous murder, had waived all appeals.
In a previous term as governor, Kitzhaber allowed two men to be executed, and he explained Tuesday that “I simply cannot participate once again in something that I believe to be morally wrong.” A medical doctor with an active license, the governor also referred to his oath as a physician to “do no harm” as he announced Haugen’s reprieve and a moratorium on executions for the remainder of his term in office. Notably, in issuing a reprieve (or delay) rather than commuting Haugen’s sentence, Kitzhaber left open the possibility of Haugen’s execution under a future governor.
As the news spread, many people reacted with anger. Kitzhaber has been called a coward and worse. This wave of anger, though, should not distract from two important truths: first, that Kitzhaber’s actions are within, not without, the basic rules of our democracy; second, that Kitzhaber is a proxy for the thousands of people in this country who have had to live with doubt and even regret because they were thrust into the death penalty process while doing their civic duty as jurors, judges or lawyers.
In 1984, Oregon voters chose by referendum to reinstate the death penalty. The legislature formulated rules for capital punishment. Prosecutors elected, as they could, to pursue the death penalty against Haugen. A jury heard the evidence, and 12 Oregon citizens voted to have Haugen put to death.
The courts that heard Haugen’s appeals (up to the point he dropped them) found the process fair. Then, after all of this, Kitzhaber chose not to finish this expensive and consuming project. Kitzhaber’s choice is anti-democratic, it does frustrate the will of prosecutors, it must be confounding to those 12 jurors, and it constitutes a tremendous exercise of power based on just one person’s sense of morality. It is also wholly within the genius of American government.
Oregon and other states have incorporated executive clemency into their systems of criminal law, drawing on the example laid out in the United States Constitution. The framers of the Constitution chose intentionally to give the executive that power, knowing full well that it would necessarily run contrary to popular will.
If you are angry with Kitzhaber for using that power, also direct your anger at Alexander Hamilton, who was a driving force behind the institution of executive clemency in the United States. Here is part of what Hamilton said about it in Federalist Paper 74: “Humanity and good policy conspire to dictate, that the benign prerogative of pardoning should be as little as possible fettered or embarrassed. … On these accounts, one man appears to be a more eligible dispenser of the mercy of government, than a body of men.”
The anti-democratic institution of clemency that is generating such anger is contrary to the voters of Oregon, yes. However, we should not forget that that same institution is ancient, principled and an integral part of the broad scheme of justice that wiser men than I have constructed.
A second buried truth is revealed within the tortured way in which Kitzhaber announced his decision. During a prior term as governor, in 1997, he had allowed two executions, and it seems clear that he was deeply troubled by his role in those killings. How could he not be? It is a heavy responsibility to participate in a deliberative process that identifies a citizen to be put to death by the state. However, Kitzhaber is just the exposed tip of an iceberg of human emotion. Beneath him are thousands of others who have been forced by the institution of capital punishment to live with their role in an intentional death.
Among that group are lawyers, witnesses and judges, but perhaps most sympathetic of all are the jurors. They are plucked from their daily lives by the government and suddenly thrust into the most important role of all — they must vote, unanimously, after deliberation, on whether someone will live or die. If they vote for execution, they must file back into that hushed, tense room, look that person in the eye and say in the most public of ways that they have chosen him to die.
I have known some of those jurors. Years later, even if they were convinced they were right, they revealed deep and dark emotions related to what they had done. At best, that service was seen as a difficult but worthwhile sacrifice, and at worst as a moment they too often relived while filled with doubt.
Kitzhaber is right to say that the capital process is fatally flawed. It is unfair to some defendants, yes. But a system that tries many, condemns some to die and executes few is also cruel and unusual to those who work within the process. It is primarily inflicting pain on victims’ relatives who wait in limbo, on jurors who relive those discussions, on prosecutors whose hearts are hardened while their efforts are frustrated and on the budgets and reputations of the states that choose to go on with it anyway.
Kitzhaber is not wrong to declare a moratorium, but he would be better advised to fully commute the sentences of those on death row and urge his fellow citizens to be done with the whole mess that this process has become.
That kind of bold action is not cowardice. It is leadership.
Mark Osler, a professor of law at the University of St. Thomas Law School in Minnesota, is a former federal prosecutor and the author of “Jesus on Death Row,” a book about capital punishment.
Exacerbated by the economic recession and increased home foreclosures, the homelessness crisis in the U.S. continues to grow at an alarming rate. According to a new report published by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty (NLCHP), over 650,000 individuals in the U.S. are without a home on any given night. The report, “Criminalizing Crisis,” highlights the increasing criminalization of homeless individuals.
NLCHP reports that, despite the knowledge that there are inadequate services for those who are homeless, cities continue to prohibit activities that are essential for survival:
“Criminalization measures often prohibit activities like sleeping/camping, eating, sitting, and/or begging in public spaces and include criminal penalties for violations of these laws…Many of these measures appear to be designed to move homeless persons out of sight, or even out of a given city.”
Once individuals are criminalized (and, therefore, have a criminal record), they face more barriers when trying to obtain employment, housing, public benefits, and healthcare.
In a recent survey of large employers, “over 90% performed a criminal background check on some or all job applicants.” Moreover, individuals with a criminal record may be suspended from or ineligible for public benefits such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and food stamps. Furthermore, many Public Housing Authorities (PHAs) have policies that disqualify individuals from housing based on arrest records. Thus, criminalization serves to preclude individuals from working toward economic self-sufficiency, further perpetuating the cycle of homelessness. (more…)
Would Jesus Christ support the death penalty? Would a modern-day jury sentence Jesus to death?
Those exact questions were the inspiration for Director Joshua Rofe’s documentary, “JESUS CHRIST: Capital Defendant.”
Through his interactions with Professor Mark Osler and Attorney Jeanne Bishop, Rofe was compelled to create the documentary. Both opponents of the death penalty, Osler and Bishop travel the country, holding trials in which Jesus Christ is the defendant in a death penalty case. One goal of these trials is to challenge audiences to use a faith-based lens to think critically about capital punishment.
In April 2012, Crossings Church in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma will hold a trial of Jesus Christ. The congregation will be the jury. Rofe will document the entire process and, from that, create his film. Check out Rofe’s video about the documentary here. MW
Bill Moyers is the Edward R. Murrow of our day. When his PBS program, Bill Moyers’ Journal, went off the air last year, a gaping hole appeared in American journalism that has yet to be filled. Fortunately, in the last edition of his program, Moyers shared his bias: “plutocracy and democracy don’t mix.”
This message lies at the heart of the Occupy movement.
The text of Moyers’ brief essay appears below and you can find the video at Nation of Change.
Plutocracy and Democrary Don’t Mix
Bill Moyers
You’ve no doubt figured out my bias by now. I’ve hardly kept it a secret. In this regard, I take my cue from the late Edward R. Murrow, the Moses of broadcast news.
Ed Murrow told his generation of journalists bias is okay as long as you don’t try to hide it. So here, one more time, is mine: plutocracy and democracy don’t mix. Plutocracy, the rule of the rich, political power controlled by the wealthy. (more…)
When the U.S. Census counts the population of the country every 10 years, who qualifies as a person? This week, the state of Louisiana filed a lawsuit which challenges the Census’ long-standing policy of counting all residents — citizens and non-citizens — and using those results to divide up seats in the U.S. Congress.
The lawsuit, which has broad implications for the political role of immigrants, comes after Louisiana lost a Congressional seat following the 2010 Census count. Thanks to the massive displacement after Hurricane Katrina — the city of New Orleans lost 30% of its population between 2000 and 2010 — Louisiana’s delegation fell from seven seats to six.
During the last 10 years, every other Southern state saw growth — in many cases fueled by new immigrants. Texas, for example, gained four Congressional seats thanks to its burgeoning population; the Census estimates two-thirds of the growth came in the Latino/Hispanic community.
New immigrants were also key to increases in size, and added Congressional seats, in Florida, Georgia and South Carolina. Nationally, about 22% of voting-age Latinos are not citizens.
In the lawsuit filed directly to the Supreme Court, Louisiana v. Bryson [pdf], Louisiana argues that the Census policy of counting non-citizens allows other states to gain clout “at the expense of states containing relatively few” undocumented immigrants, like Louisiana. Leave out the undocumented residents, Louisiana says, and it would still have seven Congressional seats.
Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell innocently says that “Louisiana’s complaint simply asks the court to require the federal government to re-calculate the 2010 apportionment of U.S. House of Representatives seats based on legal residents.”
If the Supreme Court ruled in Louisiana’s favor, the fallout would be anything but simple. Aside from forcing 17 states to scrap their political maps on the eve of the 2012 elections, the law would fundamentally change how the Census works and immigrants are recognized in the country.
The U.S. Constitution originally said the Census should involve “counting the whole number of free persons,” which the 14th Amendment changed to “counting the whole number of persons,” including non-citizens.
Changing that mandate would be felt at every level of government and the economy. States and localities, which provide services like police, fire and medical treatment to undocumented residents, depend on billions in federal aid based on whole-person counts. Undocumented residents also paid $11.2 billion in taxes in 2010.
If the Supreme Court sided with Louisiana in saying that undocumented residents shouldn’t count in divvying up Congresional districts, they may be cornered into saying the Census can’t count them for other policy matters as well.
This isn’t the first time Louisiana leaders have dragged the Census into the immigration debates roiling the South and country. In 2009, U.S. Sen. David Vitter (R-LA) introduced an amendment to the bill funding the 2010 Census that would have required Census workers to ask residents if they were U.S. Citizens; the senate voted down the measure.
How appealing will be an argument to a bunch of originalists/textualists that the term “persons” in the Constitution does not include all people, and in fact excludes non-legal residents?
To the surprise of no one, the students of Arlington were once again denied a May holiday honoring civil rights legend Cesar Chavez.
Last night’s meeting of the Arlington ISD school board reminded me of the climactic scene in To Kill a Mockingbird. An all-white jury convicts the black defendant even though the case against him has crumbled to dust. As the article below suggests, last night’s decision was a foregone conclusion.
Last year, the statements of support for a Chavez holiday, mine included, were polite and deferential. This year was different.
I used my five minutes to address the elephant in the room. The school board trustees are both politicians and public servants, I said. There is no political upside to voting to rename a generic “May holiday” in honor of Chavez. The majority of voters in Arlington have little interest in honoring a Latino icon, and many would staunchly oppose the move. This is, after all, one of the most conservative demographics in America.
On the other hand, 65% of the students (and therefore a solid majority of the parents) are people of color who would love to see Chavez honored. There is a disconnect between the political imperative to please the voters and the moral imperative to do what’s best for the children. The heart sides with the kids; the head craves political security. (more…)
Many of the problems dealt with by Friends of Justice are created by prosecutors behaving badly. Part of my own vocation is to train prosecutors to act from principle in a public way, to avoid some of these tragedies before they happen. This paper sets out a few of my thoughts on training future prosecutors so that they may show true wisdom in solving problems, rather than simply multiplying the tragedies inherent in criminal law.
When I was a federal prosecutor, I got to be a tangential player in one of the great and compelling dramas in American law—a beautiful juxtaposition of transgression and truth, violence and principle.
A man (it was nearly always a man) would run from the police. He had robbed a bank, or sold narcotics, or fled the border, and was caught. He would run across a street, a field, a frozen lake, pursued by three or four officers. When he was caught, as he usually was, he would be thrown to the ground, rolled over, a knee would be placed roughly on his neck to hold him in place, and his hands would be shackled behind his back while he writhed on the ground.
It would be then—after the man was subdued but while he still struggled—that the most remarkable thing would happen. One of the officers would reach, still breathing heavily, into his pocket, retrieve a card, and read aloud the Great Principles of the Fourth and Fifth Amendment:
You have the right to remain silent.
You have the right to talk to a lawyer and have him present with you.
If you cannot afford to hire a lawyer, one will be appointed for you.
You can decide at any time to stop any questioning….
What a glorious, amazing thing! There in that rough field or alleyway, the improbable is recited—that we do not force confessions, that we value counsel, and that we do not favor the rich over the poor. These are principles. These exemplify wisdom. And, sadly, they are rarely addressed as such in law school, where we bury ourselves in rules that have come to encase those principles within a thick coat of opaque and hoary jurisprudence.
This article has a simple premise: That if we are to teach towards wisdom in addition to knowledge, we must teach principles in addition to rules. Principles, unlike rules, allow room for personal agency, inner conflict, and the entry of the Holy Spirit—a perfect recipe for wisdom. (more…)
By Melanie Wilmoth
Friends of Justice is a member of the Coalition for Education Not Incarceration. The coalition’s efforts focus on ending the school-to-prison pipeline in Dallas ISD. Please see the message below from the coalition and consider signing the pledge in support of a Dallas ISD Resolution in Support of Fair and Equitable School Discipline Practices. MW
By Melanie Wilmoth
Would Jesus Christ support the death penalty? Would a modern-day jury sentence Jesus to death?
By Alan Bean
By Chris Kromm
By Alan Bean
Friends of Justice 