I was finishing up my morning stretching ritual this morning when Wade Goodwyn’s story on Tim Cole aired on NPR.  I had heard the Cole saga before, but Goodwyn has a rare gift for storytelling and his dispassionate rendition of the essential facts gave me the chills.

Dissect a case of wrongful conviction and you will find yourself at the heart of the New Jim Crow. 

The problem is spiritial and it is structural. 

Changes in the legal code can help, but the real problem lies in the hearts of men like Jim Bob Darnell, the former Lubbock County District Attorney who decided Tim Cole was guilty when all the facts pointed to another man.  Jim Bob wanted a conviction.  The rape victim thought she recognized Cole.  And when a parade of Cole’s friends testified that he was at home at the time in question an all-white jury was unconvinced.

Even now, when DNA evidence clearly proves that Cole was innocent, no court in Lubbock will grant an exoneration hearing.

Earlier this week, I was talking to a religious leader from Plainview, Texas, a town of 25,000 half-way between Lubbock and Tulia.  He rembered the day a local attorney dropped by to visit.  The earnest young man had watched yet another miscarriage of justice and needed to talk.

“You won’t get an argument from me,” the preacher told the lawyer; “the criminal justice system in this community is evil.”

The lawyer shifted forward in his chair.

“Frankly,” he said in a half-whisper, “I’m surprised to hear you say that out loud.”

“Well, I’m just calling it the way I see it,” the preacher replied.  “No one cares about the truth or the defendants; we’re just throwing lives away without remorse.”

The lawyer hesitated before speaking.  Finally he said, “If I were you I’d keep thoughts like that to myself.”

I entered this barren spiritual landscape in the summer of 1999.   Four months before an innocent Tim Cole succumbed to chronic asthma in his prison cell, forty-six people, all of them poor and most of them black, had been picked up in a single drug bust in Tulia, Texas.  (more…)

Before I give Howard Witt an opportunity to respond to a critic from Paris, Texas, I should clarify a couple of things: 

First, my aim is to give all sides an opportunity to share their views.  Folks from Paris who take issue with Mr. Witt’s remarks are free to respond and I promise to publish any responsible remarks.

Second, I contacted Howard Witt about the mess in Jena, Louisiana after reading his early reports on the Shaquanda Cotton story.  I was impressed with his willingness to bring an obscure but troubling case to the attention of the wider world.  Although I have only met Mr. Witt on one occasion, he is on my mailing list and frequently sends me articles he has written with some relation to racial justice. 

In short, I am not trying to put anyone in their place nor do I want to slant the conversation to the advantage of either side.  Hopefully we are all searching for the truth and this exchange will shed needed light on an important subject.

Howard Witt Responds

Thanks for the opportunity to respond to the inaccuracies and falsehoods contained in this message. I understand that many town leaders in Paris believe I have been “pushing this story for a long time,” but in fact I keep returning to Paris because important developments keep happening there that are worthy of outside attention.

Contrary to the vehement insistence of some white people in Paris that I have some sort of personal agenda–a local Methodist minister at last week’s public meeting declared that I am a “Christ killer” because of my reporting–I’m actually interested in the struggles of this east Texas town as it grapples with its troubled history of race relations. (more…)

In recent years, Paris, Texas has been reluctantly entered into a competition for the uncoveted title of Most Racist Town in America.  The competition comes from towns like Jena, Louisiana and Texas communities like Tulia and Jasper.  It hasn’t been the intention of groups like Friends of Justice to encourage this silly competition, nor do reporters like Nate Blakeslee (currently with the Texas Monthly) and Howard of the Chicago Tribune set out to blacken the reputation of small southern towns.  Unfortunately, it is impossible to chronicle troubling instances of injustice without drawing unwanted attention to places like Tulia, Jena and Paris.

Recently, a community meeting in Paris degenerated into a angry free-for-all.  At least that’s the way it appeared to Chicago Tribune reporter Howard Witt.  In the wake of this debacle, a prominent resident of the North Texas community who had seen my post on Witt’s story, expressed his frustration to a Dallas resident.  I don’t know the identity of the author, but these comments were passed on to me in the interest of airing all sides of the story. 

I have been given permission to pass these comments on to my readers with the understanding that (a) the author should remain anonymous and (b) Mr. Witt would be given an opportunity to respond.  My guess is that the comments below are widely shared in Paris and I share them with you because I believe the issues in Paris should be vigorously debated from every c0nceivable angle. 

An email from Paris, Texas

The Tribune has been pushing this story for a long time. They came to Paris to write a discrimination article and they wrote one the facts not withstanding. Shaquanda Cotten had a long term history of relatively serious problems including an average of over an incident per day at school, all of which her mother chalked up to racism. The hall monitor was the last straw. She was almost 60 years old, barely five feet tall and left the school in an ambulance.

Superville went the TYC route only after offering different options if her mother would give up custody so as to stop the enabling. He, of course, did not sentence her to seven years but gave the normal “indeterminate” sentence which would have allowed for her to be released at any time after she showed any remorse and indicated she might be able to interact in society.

The Tribune knows this but continues to print misleading commentary. The local Black population not only was not “up in arms” — they were very supportive. The Black Panthers from Dallas came over and held a small demonstration — which was very helpful. Leaving alone the question of whether personal assault or the property crime of arson is more serious, the Tribune either didn’t bother to print or didn’t bother to learn that the “white” arsonist was also a victim of domestic assault and was acting out and that every psychologist and advocate that dealt with both cases recommended the sentences that Chuck handed out. They also didn’t follow up and learn that the “white” girl didn’t make her probation and went to TYC. And while no one knew what was going on at TYC at the time that girl was assaulted while under TYC jurisdiction.

The last case [Brandon McClelland]  is more troubling, but once again the Trib ignores facts and details that confuse the situation. There were two white guys and a black guy, the black guy was killed in a horrible manner, they were also friends of some duration who were out drinking together. I don’t know whether it’s a hate crime but I know it was hard for the DA to figure what to make of it so they farmed it out to the former chief prosecutor from Dallas–the guy Watkins beat–which I think was a good idea.

Don’t get me wrong there’s racism in Paris and all our communities need a lot of work, but Chuck Superville ain’t a racist and the Chicago Tribune ain’t trying to promote social justice.

Amnesty International has produced a compelling on-minute video summarizing the Troy Davis case.  You will also be given an opportunity to contact Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue on behalf of Mr. Davis. 

 

If you have been thinking that the last election ushered in a post-racial America this dispatch from Paris, Texas will give you pause.  I didn’t attend the meeting described in Howard Witt’s article, but I have been in conversation with several Paris residents.  The Community Relations Service of the Department of Justice can be a useful resource when folks are ready to talk, but in towns like Paris there isn’t much that public officials like Carmelita Pope Freeman can do. 

I considered attending this event, but decided to let the Parisiennes (Parisites?) work things out in their own way.  Until the Brandon McClelland dragging death case is resolved there won’t be much common ground or shared vision in this North Texas community.

The disconnect between white and black evangelicals described in my last post springs to life in Mr. Witt’s poignant article.  White folks, arms folded defiantly across their chests, shake their heads in disbelief as black folks share personal encounters with racism.  Are the white folks racists?  Are the black folks playing the race card?  It all depends on who you ask.

One thing is certain, America remains divided by race.  You see it most clearly in places like Jena, Tulia, Bunkie and Paris; but this is a distinctly American story.

RACE IN AMERICA

Hard truth, but little reconciliation, in Paris, Texas

By Howard Witt | Tribune correspondent
1:50 PM CST, January 30, 2009
PARIS, Texas – Ten days into the new America, a hundred white and black citizens of this deeply-polarized east Texas town tried their hand at the kind of racial reconciliation heralded by the historic inauguration of President Barack Obama, gathering for a frank community dialogue on the long-taboo topic of race.

Things didn’t go so well. (more…)

UnChristian, a book by David Kinnaman and Gabe Lyons of The Barna Group, emerged in the midst of the most recent election cycle.  Kannaman and Lyons are a couple of twenty-or-thirty-something nerds who have crunched the numbers and concluded that Christians have a serious image problem.  (In the picture above, Lyons is seated on the left; Kinnaman on the right.)

But who are these Christians?  If you read carefully you will discover that the authors are really talking about Christian evangelicals.  Although the authors suggest that only 9% of the American electorate fits a strict definition of “evangelical” (in their view you have to believe in an error-free Bible and a personal Satan to qualify), the 38% of the electorate described as “non-evangelical born-again Christians” might also make the cut.  The general tenor of the book suggest that “other self-identified Christians” (29% of voters) are guilty of false advertising; they aren’t real Christians. 

unChristian is a book written for and about evangelicals.

But is it about all evangelicals?  In a  chapter titled “Too Political”, we learn that “Christians” are commonly viewed as pro life and anti-gay.  So maybe this is a good working definition of “evangelical”: folks who oppose abortion and the gay rights movement.

Few students of American religion would be comfortable with such a definition, but it comports well with popular perception.  The term “evangelical” is commonly used to describe religious people who vote Republican, and there is little in unChristian that challenges this perception.

This suggests strongly that Kinnaman and Lyons (perhaps unwittingly) are only talking to and about white evangelicals.

Most African Americans are evangelical Christians (even in the very strict sense cited above).  The passage of Proposition 8 in California indicates that most of the black Americans who voted for Barack Obama are uncomfortable with gay marriage.  Most black Christians also have big problems with abortion.  Moreover, black Christians tend to be religiously conservative–if you like King James english drop by the nearest black church and chances are you will get an ear full of it.

Black Christians are overwhelmingly evangelical and they rarely vote for republicans.  You would be hard pressed to find a black evangelical who favored John McCain over Barack Obama.  Such people likely exist, surely, but they are lying low at the moment.

Sociologists Michael Emerson and Christian Smith addressed the striking perceptual gap between black and white evangelicals in their groundbreaking study, Divided by Faith: Evangelical Religion and the Problem of Race in America.  While in solid agreement on many issues, white and black evangelicals part company on the subject of race.  (more…)

Over at Grits for Breakfast, Scott Henson walks us through recent scandals involving Texas sheriffs.  Texas lawmen may get more negative press than their counterparts in other states, but the problem of police corruption is widespread.  I uncovered some horrendous examples of corruption in Arkansas while researching the background to the Alvin Clay case.  It isn’t that most peace officers are corrupt–they aren’t; the problem, as Henson argues, is that when a lawman goes bad we frequently discover that nobody is paying attention and few seem to care.  As Henson says, “Texas spends too few resources ferreting out public corruption and too much on law enforcement pork.”  

If you aren’t sure what Scott is driving out, make sure to check out the PBS documentary on the Tulia drug sting on February 10th.

The race issue is incredibly sticky and prone to over-simplification.  When I stumble over a word of wisdom on the subject I intend to pass it on.  In this piece, New York Times columnist Charles Blow has some important things to say about children and the limits of positive thinking.  Let me know what you think.

Alan Bean, Friends of Justice

Warden Burl Cain

This article from the Wall Street Journal asks how the inauguration of America’s first black president looks to the inmates in Angola prison in Louisiana–three-quarters of whom are black.  Warden Burl Cain comes off as a criminal justice reformer in this piece and I suppose that in some respects he is.  This doesn’t alter the fact that Cain wants to keep the two remaining Angola 3 inmates locked in solitary confinement because, guilty or innocent, their organizing work with other inmates creates administrative problems.   

Positively, this article suggests that concern about our system of criminal justice is widespread and growing.

Alan Bean, Friends of Justice

What the Audacity of Hope Looks Like From Behind Bars

By GARY FIELDS

ANGOLA, La. — The horses were grazing, and the rifles were stored in their armory racks. The inmates who normally tend crops weren’t working, so the officers who watch over them in the fields didn’t need horses or guns.

Change, at least for a day, had come to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, the state’s maximum-security prison. On Tuesday, Warden Burl Cain gave the inmates the day off to watch Barack Obama take the oath of office. It was the first time in the prison’s history that inmates were free to watch a president being sworn in.

 “Most of the guys here face the reality that a president can’t change things overnight,” says Jerry Ward, 43 years old and 19 years into a life sentence for second-degree murder, convicted of shooting a man during a domestic dispute. At the same time, he says, “life here is what you make it and there are rewards for acting like men should, even here.”

Normally, most of the 5,100 men here would be somewhere on the prison’s vast farm, perhaps toiling in the broccoli or turnip fields. Angola, a prison for more than 120 years, sits on 18,000 acres wedged between the Mississippi River and the pine-covered Tunica Hills.

Tuesday, nearly all of the inmates stood glued to televisions scattered throughout the facility. About 250 of them squeezed into Angola’s main activity room broke into applause and a standing ovation as Mr. Obama became the nation’s 44th president.

More than half the men in this prison, once known as one of the most dangerous in America, are here for killing someone. Seventy percent have life sentences and the average sentence for the remainder is more than 80 years. With few paroles or pardons, almost all the prisoners will die here.

That makes President Obama’s promise of “change” and “hope” less realistic for the residents of Angola. Long sentences also complicate Mr. Cain’s job as warden. How do you entice a man to behave when he has no compelling reason to do so? For most, the threat of a negative recommendation to the parole or pardon boards is empty.

 

Ronnie Moran, 50, serving a life sentence for rape, says he appreciated being able to watch the inauguration, but doesn’t believe Mr. Obama’s election will change anything. “Until we decide to put down the guns and the drugs and stop the violence, it doesn’t matter that we have an African-American president,” he says. “You can have all the Barack Obamas in the world.”

Warden Cain nonetheless seized on the election of an African-American as president as a teachable moment for inmates. Because the prison he oversees is three-quarters black, Mr. Cain reasons, Mr. Obama’s inauguration is especially potent.

Mr. Cain says he tries to use moments like this, historic inaugurations and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday, as well as privileges for good behavior, to treat inmates like humans. “I tell them I can be as nice as you let me or as mean as you make me,” he says.

Inmates greet the 66-year-old man, with his white hair and Southern drawl, as an old friend as he walks through the main prison. He has argued for years with state officials that more inmates should get parole.

Inmates began lining up three hours before the swearing in. The all-purpose activity room is in the prison’s main camp, which houses 2,500 people. The atmosphere was almost festive, with inmates ordering food from the canteen and filling up the room, taking the front seats first.

Raymond Flank, 46 years old, convicted of second-degree murder in a robbery in New Orleans, says he felt like he was being allowed to participate in the inauguration in some small way. “Not only do we get the day off, but we get to see an example of who we can be and what we can accomplish if we try,” he says.

Mr. Flank, who is African-American, says he expects to see the results here in Camp J, the disciplinary unit where men who rebel against the system are placed with few privileges. “For years, they’ve had no image to look up to, but now they have the image of Barack Obama,” he says.

“This is my first inauguration speech, ever,” says Jim Young, a 69-year-old white inmate from Sand Point, Idaho. Mr. Young has been here since 1983 after stabbing a man to death in a barroom fight that, he says, “went too far.” He helps train boxers in the inmate program and hopes that seeing the inauguration opens the eyes of some of the younger inmates.

Imprisoned the past 26 years, Jeffrey Lewis, 48, was convicted on two counts of manslaughter and is serving a total of 80 years. He says Mr. Obama’s election and swearing in let him think “anything is possible.”

He says he will recommit to his work with the hospice where inmates who are terminally ill spend their last days. He also intends to get other inmates to reconnect with their families. “The key is to work and stay useful,” says Mr. Lewis.

Douglas Dennis, his arms scarred and his left eye blinded from long-ago knife fights with other inmates, didn’t come to the activity room. He watched from the offices of the Angolite, the prison magazine produced by inmates.

Mr. Dennis, 73, has been here since June 1957, except for a period when he was a fugitive. A drifter, born in Chicago, he was hitchhiking through Shreveport, La., when he was picked up by a patrol car. Mr. Dennis, who is white, got into a fight at the jail, killing his cellmate. He was sentenced to life and sent to Angola, where he killed another inmate. He got his second life sentence.

Mr. Dennis has little hope Mr. Obama will tackle the problems of the criminal-justice system. “He’s got his hands full: Two wars, the economy is going in the tank and the health-care costs are skyrocketing,” says Mr. Dennis. “I’d be surprised if he has time to brush his teeth in the next four years.”

Warden Cain says Mr. Obama’s election makes him optimistic. “My daddy had a phrase: ‘We’ve got to grab a root and growl,'” he says, meaning, it is time for work. He says Mr. Obama shows his inmates that the country is full of possibilities, even in a prison. “If the men here can have hope, then why can’t the rest of the country?”

Write to Gary Fields at gary.fields@wsj.com

I first heard from Cassandra Herrman and Kelly Whalen in late 2002,  a few weeks before the week-long evidentiary hearing that exposed Tulia’s famous drug string as a fraud.  Stationed in San Francisco, documentary filmmakers Herrman and Whalen were so captivated by the Tulia story that they determined to compress a complicated story into a riveting half hour production.

Here’s how Herrman and Whalen describe their unique take on Tulia:

By the time we began filming in Tulia, the drug sting and its aftermath
had captured considerable national media attention, but most of the
television coverage consisted of formulaic news magazine stories or
talk-shock programs. By presenting a different take on the story, we
wanted to reach a broad viewing audience, including those who had
been alienated by the divisive news reports. We felt it was important
to minimize “outsider” voices; we wanted to put the Tulia story back in
the voices of those people who had lived it and tell the story without
a narrator. By framing the Tulia story from the different perspectives
of those most closely involved, we ask viewers to consider the
experiences of all those involved: from law enforcement and jurors
to the defendants and their families. With our access to the array
of people featured in the film, we hope viewers will walk away with
surprising counterpoints to the broad-stroke portrayals in the popular
media.

(more…)