By Alan Bean
Michael Gerson doesn’t like Ron Paul for all the wrong reasons. George W. Bush’s ex-speech writer is appalled that a presidential candidate who advocates the legalization of heroin expects to be taken seriously. Me? I am appalled that a man who doesn’t grasp the futility of the war on drugs can be taken seriously as an authority on the subject. Has he not been following the debate? Apparently not. (more…)
By Alan Bean
Last week, Oprah Winfrey shared her stage with 178 veterans of the 1961 Freedom Rides. There they stood, black and white, mostly in their 70s, looking proud and maybe just a little embarrassed.
The fiftieth anniversary of the freedom rides has sparked more retrospection than introspection. Last summer, I discussed the freedom rides in detail on the eve of the trial of Curtis Flowers. How much had changed, I asked, since thousands of heroic young people flocked to the South to challenge segregation laws and, more often than not, pay a visit to Mississippi’s notorious Parchman prison (where, incidentally, Curtis Flowers now resides). The post has received 4,000 hits (that’s a lot by the modest standards of this blog), suggesting that interest in the freedom riders remains high.
An article in the Washington Post poses the obvious question: If all these young people were willing to place their lives on the line in 1961, why aren’t today’s young people demonstrating a similar dedication to justice? Few real answers emerge. American schools have essentially resegregated and nobody seems to care. Jackson, Mississippi was the primary destination of the freedom riders. In 1961, the Post article reports, Jackson was only one-third black, now, largely thanks to white flight, the school system is overwhelmingly black. (more…)
By Alan Bean
-Can a system that routinely gets it wrong justifiably execute anyone?-
Predictions are always dangerous, but I am quite confident about this one. The state of Georgia will NOT execute Troy Davis.
Why am I so sure about this? Because public officials are averse to embarrassment. Politicians will back away from a sinful decision for the same reason they generally adopt a tough-on-crime stance–it’s the easiest way to go. (more…)
Our Friends at Angola 3 News have published an informative interview with Laura Moye, director of the Amnesty International USA Death Penalty Abolition Campaign that addresses most of the questions this tragic case inspires and holds up the Davis case as a symbol of a broken system. You can sign an Amnesty International petition and a Color of Change petition calling on Georgia officials to back away from their date with death.
Laura Moye is director of the Amnesty International USA Death Penalty Abolition Campaign. In this interview, Moye talks about 42-year-old Troy Davis, an African American who has been on death row in Georgia for over 19 years—having already faced three execution dates. The continued railroading of Davis has sparked outrage around the world, and public pressure during the last few years of Davis’ appeals has been essential to his survival today. (more…)
Friends of Justice is pleased to pass along this announcement from Laura Markle, Criminal Justice Reform Grassroots Coordinator with the General Board of Church and Society of the United Methodist Church
Wednesday, April 27th
TEXAS call-in day to support passage of the NATIONAL CRIMINAL JUSTICE COMMISSION ACT . . . please spread the word!
BACKGROUND on the NCJCA:
In early 2011, Senator Jim Webb (D-VA) and bipartisan cosponsors re-introduced the National Criminal Justice Commission Act (S. 306), legislation that would create a bipartisan Commission to review and identify effective criminal justice policies and make recommendations for reform. Currently, the Senate bill is awaiting House introduction and passage. Please help to urge House Judiciary Chairman Lamar Smith (R-21st/TX) to prioritize and pass this important legislation as soon as possible!
ACTION NEEDED: (more…)
By Alan Bean
Hell has always been a hot topic in America. Rob Bell’s Love Wins created such a pre-publication stir that the book debuted at number 2 on the New York Times best-seller list and remains on Amazon’s top 10.
Bell’s take on heaven and hell rests on the recent scholarship of folks like NT Wright (on the evangelical side) and Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan (writing from a more liberal perspective). (Brian McLaren offers a slightly more cerebral, and original, popularization of this new scholarship.) The big idea is that salvation isn’t about going to heaven (or hell) when you die; eternal life (for better or worse) begins now.
In a recent chat with Welton Gaddy, Rob Bell offered this typically folksy summary of his perspective.
I start with the first century world of Jesus. Jesus spoke very clearly and forthrightly about this world: that the scriptural story and the Jewish story that he was living in was about the reclaiming of this world, the restoration and the renewal of this world. So, Jesus comes, He teaches his disciples to pray “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” The action for Jesus was here on earth, about renewing this earth, about standing in solidarity with those who are suffering in this world. And he spoke of a kingdom of God, which is here and now: upon you, among you, around you, within you.
So in the book, I talk about this urgent, immediate invitation of Jesus to trust him, that God is good, that God is generous, that God is loving, that God is forgiving… And to enter into a new kind of quality of life with God right here, right now. So let’s bring some heaven to earth, let’s work to get rid of the hells on earth right now, let’s become the kind of people who love our neighbor… And that, for Him, it was immediate and urgent about this world. What happens when you die? He talks a little bit about that, but He’s mostly talking about this world. I think, for a lot of people, the Christian faith doesn’t have, for them, much to say about this world; that it seems to be all about what happens when you die. And so, the book, in some ways, flips it around and says: “I think this is actually what Jesus was doing.” (My emphasis, along with a few quick edits) (more…)
By Alan Bean
Sometimes innocent people go to prison even though everyone in the legal system behaves with integrity. But what happens when a wrongful conviction results from a prosecutor sitting on a pile of exculpatory evidence? Shouldn’t the man we pay to represent the state be held accountable?
I wish this was a hypothetical question; it isn’t. In this gripping op-ed for the New York Times, John Thompson tells us how it feels to come within a whisker of the electric chair. He also explains the prosecutorial misconduct that placed him in that situation and wonders aloud why the Supreme Court of the United States thinks its okay for prosecutors to withhold evidence.
John Thompson
I SPENT 18 years in prison for robbery and murder, 14 of them on death row. I’ve been free since 2003, exonerated after evidence covered up by prosecutors surfaced just weeks before my execution date. Those prosecutors were never punished. Last month, the Supreme Court decided 5-4 to overturn a case I’d won against them and the district attorney who oversaw my case, ruling that they were not liable for the failure to turn over that evidence — which included proof that blood at the robbery scene wasn’t mine. (more…)
By Alan Bean
Why are so many right-wingers suddenly arguing the case for criminal justice reform? In this fascinating piece in Salon, Justin Elliot of Salon directs this question to Doug Berman, author of the influential Sentencing Law and Policy blog.
Here are the highlights:
1. Prison is far more brutal than most people believe it to be
2. Most of the conservatives currently leading the smart on crime crusade have been locked up: Duke Cunningham, Charles Colson, Pat Nolan, Conrad Black
3. The religious concept of redemption generally plays a large role in these conversions.
4. Historically, mass incarceration required the enthusiastic cooperation of the political left
5. When you do hard time you realize that harsh penalties are typically applied to crimes disproportionately committed by minorities
6. Busting budgets and historically low crime rates make this a good time for reform, but . . .
7. The political forces that drove mass incarceration are always lurking. (more…)
By Alan Bean
Over at his excellent Sentencing Law and Policy blog, Doug Berman highlights an amazing opinion recently issued by US District Judge Jack Weinstein in the case, United States v. Bannister. (You can find the full opinion here.) Federal judges aren’t as constrained by mandatory minimum sentences as they once were, but Jack Weinstein makes it clear that the sentences in this case would have been much less severe if he had his druthers.
“These defendants are not merely criminals,” Weinstein concludes, “but human beings and fellow American citizens, deserving of an opportunity for rehabilitation. Even now, they are capable of useful lives, lived lawfully.”
The eighty-nine year old Weinstein is a philosophical dinosaur who believes we have a duty to create a just society (what kind of socialist claptrap is that?) Read this brief excerpt from a much longer sentencing opinion and you will learn precisely what is wrong with America’s war on drugs. (more…)
By deciding not to hear further appeals in the Troy Davis case, the Supreme Court of the United States has given Georgia officials a green light to proceed to execution. But nothing is simple when issues of life and death are on the line.
Georgia won’t be able to proceed directly with an execution because their supply of sodium thiopental, a powerful anesthetic that is the first of three shots administered during lethal injection in Georgia and dozens of other states, was recently seized by federal authorities. The producer of sodium thiopental announced that it would no longer be exporting the drug to the United States because their product was intended to cure, not kill. Georgia is one of several states that appears to have procured quantities of the drug illegally from a sketchy outfit in the United Kingdom. (more…)
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