Maryland Becomes the 18th State to Abolish the Death Penalty | HRW

Maryland on May 2, 2013, became the sixth US state in six years to abolish the death penalty, continuing a trend to end this inherently cruel punishment in the United States. Maryland’s governor should commute the sentences of the five men who remain on the state’s death row.

Gov. Martin O’Malley on May 2 signed a bill abolishing the state’s death penalty and replacing it with the sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. However, the law does not directly affect the five inmates in the state awaiting execution. O’Malley has said he will determine on a case-by-case basis whether to commute their sentences.

“By repealing the death penalty, Maryland joins a growing group of states in rejecting a cruel and inherently unjust practice,” said Alba Morales, US criminal justice researcher at Human Rights Watch. “Governor O’Malley should build on his tremendous leadership on this issue by commuting the death sentences of the five men still on death row.”

Maryland’s repeal of the death penalty is just the latest sign of growing momentum against capital punishment in the United States. With the addition of Maryland, 18 states and the District of Columbia have rejected the death penalty. Legislatures in several other states are considering bills to repeal capital punishment. Parallel with these developments, the number of executions in the United States has declined in recent years – with a total of 43 executions nationwide in 2011 and again in 2012, compared with 85 in 2000.

Human Rights Watch [and this blogger] strongly opposes the death penalty in all circumstances as an inherently irreversible and inhumane punishment. Furthermore, the death penalty is inevitably plagued with arbitrariness, racial disparities, and error. In the US, 142 people have been released from death row since 1973 after presenting evidence of their innocence. Kirk Bloodworth, the first person in the United States to be released from death row by DNA evidence, was at the May 2 signing ceremony.

In Maryland, as in many US states, application of the death penalty has been marred by significant racial disparities –four of the five men on Maryland’s death row are African-Americans whose victims were white – and wide discrepancies between jurisdictions. People were far more likely to be sentenced to death, for example, if they committed their crimes in Baltimore County as opposed to the neighboring city of Baltimore.

Since the repeal bill makes no provision for the five men on death row, they could still be executed after exhausting all their appeals. Under the Maryland constitution, the governor has the power to commute sentences. O’Malley should ensure that the death penalty is never again used in Maryland by immediately commuting the sentences of all five death row inmates, Human Rights Watch said.

The new law’s failure to make the repeal of the death penalty retroactive is contrary to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the US is a party. All state governments are bound to abide by its provisions. The covenant states that if a law reduces a criminal penalty, that law should be retroactive. The US included a reservation when it ratified the treaty in 1992 that it would not adhere to this provision, stating that, “US law generally applies to an offender the penalty in force at the time the offense was committed.”

“Maryland did the right thing by ending government-sanctioned killing,” Morales said. “The 32 states that still allow the death penalty should follow Maryland’s lead and end this inhumane practice.”

Reprint: Maryland Abolishes Death Penalty | HRW

 

Willie J. Manning Granted Stay of Execution -By Andrew Cohen | The Atlantic

By a vote of 8-1, the Supreme Court of Mississippi this afternoon halted the scheduled execution of Willie Manning just hours before the convicted murderer was to be put to death by lethal injection at the Parchman prison in Sunflower. In their brief order, which you can read for yourself here, the justices did not give any reason for blocking the execution, and it is unclear at this time exactly how the case will proceed from here.

Manning, who is black, was convicted in 1994 for the murder of two white university students in 1992. He has maintained his innocence ever since, amid troublesome (and growing) questions about the accuracy and reliability of the evidence on which his conviction and death sentence are based. Manning’s long-ago trial was marked by racial bias in jury selection, for example, and a jailhouse informant, who incriminated Manning in 1994, has since sought to recant his trial testimony.

But the Mississippi court’s order Tuesday is likely based upon the scientific evidence that was and was not introduced at trial. Manning’s attorneys have long argued that state officials should test DNA and fingerprint evidence from the crime scene — evidence that has never been tested and that would either incriminate Manning definitively or perhaps identify someone else who may have committed the crimes. The state has consistently refused to undertake this testing even though the FBI has offered to do it, and Mississippi has a remarkable recent record of exonerating criminal defendants in such a fashion.

As a matter of law, the absence of this testing from a shaky case like this was likely enough to warrant a stay of Manning’s execution. But the state’s refusal to test its DNA evidence was made even more pronounced over the past few days by the intervention of federal officials. Since May 2, the Justice Department has sent three letters to the attorneys in the case announcing that the feds now are backing away from the “ballistics” and “hair fiber” testimony their so-called “expert” testified about at Manning’s trial. State prosecutors heavily relied on that now-discredited evidence at trial — as have state court judges ever since — as proof that Manning’s conviction was secure enough to warrant his execution.

The state came within four hours of executing Manning despite the conceded inaccuracy and unreliability of the scientific evidence against him, despite the willingness of a jailhouse informant to recant, despite racial bias in jury selection. It came within hours of executing the man, even though the scientific evidence that could exonerate him was never tested. No matter what happens now — and don’t forget Manning is still a long way from being out of trouble — it is a credit to the eight Mississippi justices who voted for the stay that they were willing to change their minds about this case. Last month, by a vote of 5-4, this same court refused to require the DNA testing.

Excerpt, read: Hours Before Execution, a State Court Grants Willie Manning a Stay  -By Andrew Cohen | The Atlantic

Related: Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Writes a Remarkable Political ‘Dissent’ To Willie Manning’s Stay of Execution –By Radley Balko | HuffPost

 

The Wrong Kind of Caucasian -By Sarah Kendzior | AJE

Alleged Boston bombers Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, left, and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19.

In 1901, a 28-year-old American named Leon Czolgosz assassinated US President William McKinley. Czolgosz was born in America, but he was of Polish descent. After McKinley died, the American media blamed Polish immigrants. They were outsiders, foreigners, with a suspicious religion – Catholicism – and strange last names.

At a time when Eastern European immigrants were treated as inferior, Polish-Americans feared they would be punished as a group for the terrible actions of an individual. “We feel the pain which this sad occurrence caused, not only in America, but throughout the whole world. All people are mourning, and it is caused by a maniac who is of our nationality,” a Polish-American newspaper wrote in an anguished editorial.

It is a sentiment reminiscent of what Muslims and Chechens are writing – or Instagramming  - today, after the revelation that Dzokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings, are of Chechen descent. At this time, there is no evidence linking the Tsarnaev brothers to a broader movement in Chechnya, a war-torn federal republic in southern Russia. Neither of the brothers has ever lived there. The oldest, Tamerlan, was born in Russia and moved to the US when he was sixteen. The youngest, Dzokhar, was born in Kyrgyzstan, moved to the US when he was nine, and became a US citizen in 2012.

Despite the Tsarnaevs’ American upbringing, the media has presented their lives through a Chechen lens. Political strife in the North Caucasus, ignored by the press for years, has become the default rationale for a domestic crime.

“Did Boston carnage have its roots in Stalin’s ruthless displacement of Muslims from Chechnya decades ago?” asked The Daily News, a question echoed by the National Post, the Washington Post , and other publications that refuse to see the Tsarnaevs as anything but walking symbols of age-old conflicts. Blame Stalin, the pundits cry, echoing the argument made every time something bad happens in the former Soviet Union. Blame Stalin, because we can pronounce that name.

In one sense, this sentiment is not new. American Muslims have long had to deal with ignorance and prejudice in the aftermath of a terrorist attack. “Please don’t be Muslims or Arabs“, goes the refrain, as unnecessary demands for a public apology from Muslims emerge. This week made it clear that it is Muslims who are owed the apology. After wild speculation from CNN about a “dark-skinned suspect”, on Thursday the New York Post published a cover photo falsely suggesting a Moroccan-American high school track star, Salah Barhoun , was one of the bombers. ”Jogging while Arab” has become the new ” driving while black “.

Later that Thursday, the FBI released photos of two young men wearing baseball caps – men who so resembled all-American frat boys that people joked they would be the target of “racial bro-filing“. The men were Caucasian, so the speculation turned away from foreign terror and toward the excuses routinely made for white men who kill: mental illness, anti-government grudges, frustrations at home. The men were white and Caucasian – until the next day, when they became the wrong kind of Caucasian, and suddenly they were not so “white” after all.

Excerpt, read more here

Related: Terrorism and Privilege: Understanding the Power of Whiteness |Tim Wise

 

The Best & Worst Human Rights Developments of 2012 -By Mary McGuire | Freedom House

Today is the first day of the new year, 1 January 2013. Before embarking on the new year, I wanted to share a list compiled by Freedom House that reflects back on some of last year’s human rights developments. How did the world do following an eventful 2011?

Unfortunately, the bad seemed to outweigh the good this year, as many authoritarians held on to power and continued upheaval in the Middle East threatened to derail any democratic progress. Internal conflicts in a number of African countries boiled over, and the bulk of the former Soviet Union appeared to be moving in the wrong direction. Meanwhile, widely hailed political achievements in countries like Burma, Egypt and Georgia were complicated by negative twists.

Ongoing ethnic conflicts in Burma have undercut a recent democratic opening that was significant enough to allow the first visit by a U.S. president. Relatively free and competitive elections in Egypt have been overshadowed by continued unrest and authoritarian maneuvers by President Mohamed Morsi. In Georgia, what was considered a historic democratic transfer of power has been potentially jeopardized by what some regard as politically motivated prosecutions of former ruling party officials.

Though this list is far from exhaustive, the following were some of the best and worst human rights developments in 2012.

BEST 

LGBTI Victories in the Western Hemisphere:

There were several important victories in the battle for LGBTI rights in 2012, particularly in the United States and Latin America. A U.S. president voiced public support for gay marriage for the first time, and three states — Washington, Maryland and Maine — passed laws allowing same-sex marriage, bringing the total number of states with such rules to nine. In addition, the first openly gay woman was elected to the U.S. Senate. In Argentina, where same-sex marriage has been legal since 2010, the Senate passed legislation that allows gender to be legally changed without medical or judicial approval, and includes sex-change surgery and hormone treatment in government health insurance plans. The same month, Chile passed an anti-discrimination law that penalizes all forms of discrimination. Although not specifically written to protect LGTBI rights, the measure was spurred by the brutal killing an openly gay man. Even Cuba has jumped on the bandwagon, electing its first transgender person to municipal office. Same-sex marriage is also legal in Canada and some parts of Mexico. Sadly, for all of the progress seen in this hemisphere, the situation for LGBTI people has actually worsened in much of Eurasia and Africa.

Passage of the Magnitsky Act:

Russia’s human rights decline made it an easy choice for this year’s “worst” list, but one development is worthy of celebration — the passage by the U.S. Congress of the Magnitsky Act. The legislation is named after Russian lawyer Sergei Magnitsky, who died in jail after exposing a multi-million dollar fraud by Russian officials. It will place visa bans and asset freezes on Russian officials involved in human rights abuses. The bill received overwhelming bipartisan support as part of a larger measure that normalizes trade relations with Russia and Moldova. President Obama signed the legislation on December 14 despite harsh objections from the Kremlin. This law could set a precedent for how the United States and other free societies address gross human rights violations around the world. The European Parliament has endorsed the adoption of similar legislation.

Conviction of Charles Taylor:

In April, former Liberian president Charles Taylor became the first former head of state to be convicted of war crimes since World War II. He was sentenced in May by a UN-backed special tribunal to 50 years in prison for his role in a decade-long civil war in Sierra Leone. He was specifically found guilty of aiding and abetting the “commission of serious crimes including rape, murder, and destruction of civilian property” by rebel forces in that country. Taylor stepped down as Liberian president in 2003 amid serious domestic challenges to his rule and international calls for his resignation. His departure ended 14 years of intermittent civil war that had killed some 200,000 Liberians. He sought asylum in Nigeria, but was eventually handed over to the special tribunal.

Survival of the Tunisian Revolution:

While the freely elected transitional authorities in Tunisia have been buffeted by public frustration with high unemployment and pressure from conservative Islamists, the country has not yet suffered the fate of many of its neighbors in the aftermath of the 2011 Arab Spring. Varying degrees of instability and repression persist in Libya, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen and particularly Syria, but Tunisia has made slow if uneven gains in its democratic transition. The constitutional drafting process is creeping forward without the bitter conflicts seen in Egypt, and the ruling Ennahda party, which was at one time a radical Islamist faction, has largely followed through on its commitment to govern moderately and work peacefully with secular parties. As the country approaches the two-year anniversary of the revolution, however, economic struggles have led to anti-government protests, one of which left nearly 200 people wounded, and support for the ruling coalition has definitively waned. The constitution is two months overdue, and there have been some concerning violations of press freedom. Despite these challenges, Tunisia continues to provide a positive example to the wider region.

WORST

Civil War in Syria:

The civil war in Syria is the worst human rights and humanitarian catastrophe in the world today. The latest estimates put the death toll at 42,000, with no end in sight. According to the Committee to Protect Journalists, an alarming number of reporters — 28 — have been killed while covering the conflict in 2012. President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has been on the verge of collapse for months, with many of his top advisers defecting or fleeing the country, yet he has vowed to remain in Syria, dead or alive. It is not even clear that his removal alone would end the fighting. Meanwhile, attacks by government forces on civilians in rebel-held areas are unceasing, and there are now concerns that the military is arming missiles with chemical weapons. Some rebel groups in the fragmented opposition have resorted to kidnapping and retribution killings, raising serious questions about postwar governance. No amount of diplomacy or international pressure has succeeded in convincing Russia to stop providing arms to government forces, or China to back broad-based demands for al-Assad to step down. And there is simply no political will within the United States or the rest of NATO to hasten the end of the conflict through direct intervention.

Devastation in Congo:

Over the past century, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, one of the most resource-rich countries on the African continent, has been gutted by a combination of colonialism, corrupt and ineffective government, ethnic conflict and a succession of armed militias and rebel groups that have raped and pillaged their way through the countryside, often using conscripted child soldiers. As many as five million people have died since the late 1990s. The fraudulent 2011 reelection of feckless president Joseph Kabila was followed by the mutiny of hundreds of ethnic Tutsi soldiers, who then formed the March 23 (M23) rebel movement, widely believed to be funded by neighboring Rwanda. In November, M23 invaded and took control of Goma, a provincial capital with a population of 1 million, leading nearly 140,000 people to flee their homes. The international community has largely turned a blind eye to the country’s seemingly endless crisis, perhaps because there does not appear to be an easy solution. On a positive note, international pressure forced M23 to vacate Goma after just a few weeks, and the United States and Britain, which had long tolerated Rwanda’s denials that it was contributing to the unrest, cut military aid to the country as a result of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. But these steps on their own appear unlikely end the fighting.

Coup and Extremism in Mali:

As in Congo, the horrific human rights situation in Mali was not caused by any single event. Rather it was a cascade of disasters that included a military coup, a reinvigorated Tuareg separatist movement, an influx of hard-line Islamist militants and the combined effects of long-term drought, poverty and corruption. This perfect storm has created a humanitarian crisis that demands international action. Northern Mali is now controlled by militant groups that blend radical Islam with transnational crime. These militants have quickly introduced a crude imitation of Sharia, banning music, destroying historic sites deemed “un-Islamic,” and summarily punishing alleged crimes like alcohol use and adultery. There are widespread reports of rape and forced marriage, as well as the recruitment of child soldiers. According to the latest UN report, over 200,000 people are currently displaced. The international community, deeply concerned by these violations as well as the broader security threat posed by such a sizeable haven for terrorists, has pressured what remains of the Malian government to overcome its internal divisions and prepare for an international invasion to reclaim the rebel-held north.

Russia’s Precipitous Decline:

Since Vladimir Putin’s tightly controlled reelection as president in March, the political situation in Russia has become increasingly dismal, with some experts comparing it to the Soviet era. As part of an escalating clampdown on anti-corruption activists and political opponents, the government has enacted numerous pieces of legislation that will have a harmful impact on human rights and the functioning of civil society. Most disturbingly, one new law requires civil society organizations that receive foreign funds to register as “foreign agents” or face possible criminal charges. In a related development, USAID was forced by the Russian government to withdraw from the country. Expanded definitions of “treason” and “espionage” in the penal code have opened the door for authorities to round up government critics as well as citizens who consult with foreign firms or simply monitor human rights abuses. Other repressive measures have recriminalized libel, curbed Internet freedom, outlawed “homosexual propaganda,” and imposed additional restrictions on public gatherings. Independent voices, some within the government, who have tried to speak out against this wave of legislation have been expelled, arrested or otherwise muzzled.

Repression in Bahrain, Other Gulf States:

After an independent report commissioned by Bahrain’s King Hamad uncovered widespread human rights abuses committed during the violent suppression of a protest movement in February 2011, the government promised to implement the recommended reforms. That was a year ago. Not only has the regime failed to enact anything other than minor cosmetic changes, seemingly designed to mollify the international community, it has also continued on a path of repression. Impunity for the security forces and censorship persist, and dozens of human rights activists remain imprisoned, including 2012 Freedom Award winners Abdulhadi al-Khawaja and his daughter Zainab. In recent weeks, the government has stepped up the pressure, banning “unlicensed” demonstrations and stripping 31 opposition members of their citizenship. Journalists and human rights groups, including Freedom House, have been repeatedly denied entry to the country to report on these abuses. Sadly, Bahrain is not the only Gulf state in decline. Several neighboring governments have begun to make some alarming moves to silence their critics. Deportations, travel bans and unexplained detentions, as well as disturbing new legal restrictions freedom of expression, have been seen in the United Arab Emirates. A ban on “unlicensed” peaceful demonstrations was passed in Kuwait. And Oman has jailed dozens of people for making critical comments about the regime.

The Menace of Blasphemy Laws:

The online dissemination of an offensive film that mocked Islam and sparked violent anti-American riots and protests in more than two dozen countries served as a reminder of the pernicious nature of laws that prohibit blasphemy in many parts of the world. These laws, which ban insults to religions and religious figures, not only have a chilling effect on free expression but are often used to justify violence, repress religious minorities, and settle personal grudges rather than combat intolerance. According to a Freedom House special report, there is no evidence that restricting speech reduces religious intolerance. In fact, the evidence shows that prohibitions on blasphemy actually lead to a wide range of human rights abuses. This does not prevent some Islamic leaders from using global bodies like the United Nations to push for international norms that prohibit blasphemy. In 2011, after enormous advocacy efforts by human rights groups and a number of countries including the United States, Canada and much of Europe, the push for this kind of legislation was replaced by a more circumspect call for the promotion of religious tolerance and dialogue. Sadly, these moderating efforts were endangered this year by yet another flare-up of religious outrage.

Reprint: The Best & Worst Human Rights Developments of 2012 -By Mary McGuire | Freedom House.

*This piece originally appeared on Freedom House’s blog, Freedom at Issue. To read the original, click here .

Related: Most Popular Human Rights Topics on Twitter in 2012 | HRW

 

Indian Gang-Raped Victim Dies in Singapore Hospital -By Heather Tan | AP

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

An Indian woman who was gang-raped and beaten on a bus in New Delhi died Saturday at a Singapore hospital, after her ordeal galvanized Indians to demand greater protection for women from sexual violence that impacts thousands of them every day.

Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said he was aware of the emotions the attack has stirred and that it was up to all Indians to ensure that the young woman’s death will not have been in vain.

The victim “passed away peacefully” with her family and officials of the Indian Embassy by her side, Dr. Kevin Loh, the chief executive of Mount Elizabeth hospital, said in a statement.

After 10 days at a hospital in New Delhi, the Indian capital, the woman was brought Thursday to Mount Elizabeth hospital, which specializes in multi-organ transplants. Loh said the woman had been in extremely critical condition since Thursday, and by late Friday her condition had taken a turn for the worse, with her vital signs deteriorating.

“Despite all efforts by a team of eight specialists in Mount Elizabeth Hospital to keep her stable, her condition continued to deteriorate over these two days,” Loh said. “She had suffered from severe organ failure following serious injuries to her body and brain. She was courageous in fighting for her life for so long against the odds but the trauma to her body was too severe for her to overcome.”

The woman and a male friend, who have not been identified, were traveling on a bus in New Delhi after watching a film on the evening of Dec. 16 when they were attacked by six men who raped her. The men also beat the couple and inserted an iron rod into the woman’s body, resulting in severe organ damage. Both were then stripped and thrown off the bus, according to police.

Indian police have arrested six people in connection with the attack, which left the victim with severe internal injuries, a lung infection and brain damage. She also suffered from a heart attack while in the hospital in India.

Indian High Commissioner, or ambassador, T.C.A. Raghavan told reporters that the scale of the injuries the woman suffered was “very grave” and in the end “proved too much.”

He said arrangements were being made to take her body back to India.

The frightening nature of the crime shocked Indians, who have come out in the thousands for almost daily demonstrations. Indian television channels said security had been tightened in New Delhi on Saturday in anticipation of more protests following the woman’s death.

The protesters are demanding stronger protection for women and the death penalty for rape, which is now punishable by a maximum of life imprisonment. Women face daily harassment across India, ranging from catcalls on the streets, groping and touching in public transport to rape.

Singh said he understands the angry reaction to the attack and hopes all Indians will work together to make appropriate changes.

“These are perfectly understandable reactions from a young India and an India that genuinely desires change,” the prime minister said in a statement Saturday. “It would be a true homage to her memory if we are able to channel these emotions and energies into a constructive course of action.”

He said the government was examining the penalties for crimes such as rape “to enhance the safety and security of women.”

“I hope that the entire political class and civil society will set aside narrow sectional interests and agendas to help us all reach the end that we all desire – making India a demonstrably better and safer place for women to live in,” Singh said.

Mamta Sharma, head of the state-run National Commission for Women, said the “time has come for strict laws” to stop violence against women. “The society has to change its mindset to end crimes against women,” she said.

The tragedy has forced India to confront the reality that sexually assaulted women are often blamed for the crime, which forces them to keep quiet and not report it to authorities for fear of exposing their families to ridicule. Also, police often refuse to accept complaints from those who are courageous enough to report the rapes, and the rare prosecutions that reach courts drag on for years.

Indian attitudes toward rape are so entrenched that even politicians and opinion makers have often suggested that women should not go out at night or wear clothes that might be seen provocative.

On Friday, Abhijit Mukherjee, a national lawmaker and the son of India’s president, apologized for calling the protesters “highly dented and painted” women who go from discos to demonstrations.

“I tender my unconditional apology to all the people whose sentiments got hurt,” he told NDTV news.

Several Indian celebrities reacted with sadness Saturday over the woman’s death. Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan tweeted, “Her body has passed away, but her soul shall forever stir our hearts.”

Separately, authorities in Punjab state took action Thursday when an 18-year-old woman killed herself by drinking poison a month after she told police she was gang-raped.

State authorities suspended one police officer and fired two others on accusations they delayed investigating and taking action in the case. The three accused in the rape were only arrested Thursday night, a month after the crime was reported.

“This is a very sensitive crime, I have taken it very seriously,” said Paramjit Singh Gill, a top police officer in the city of Patiala.

The Press Trust of India reported that the woman was raped Nov. 13 and reported the attack to police Nov. 27. But police harassed the girl, asked her embarrassing questions and took no action against the accused, PTI reported, citing police sources.

Authorities in the eastern state of Chhattisgarh also suspended a police officer on accusations he refused to register a rape complaint from a woman who said she had been attacked by a driver.

Reprinted: Indian Gang-Raped Victim Dies in Singapore Hospital -By Heather Tan | AP

Related: Fear of Rape Stalks Indian Women -By Sujoy Dhar | Truthout

Dehli Being Called ‘Rape Capital’, An Interview with Sheila Dikshit – By Barkha Dutt | NDTV (Video)

___

Associated Press writers Faris Mokhtar and Ravi Nessman in New Delhi contributed to this report.

 

 

Broken On All Sides | Documentary

The project began as a way to explore, edu­cate about, and advocate change around the over­crowd­ing of the Philadelphia county jail sys­tem. The documentary has come to focus on mass incarceration across the nation and the intersection of race and poverty within criminal justice.

The feature-length documentary is avail­able for activists and edu­ca­tors to use in order to raise consciousness and organize for change. Since its completion in February 2012 the director, Matthew Pil­lis­cher, has been doing a grassroots tour of the movie: set­ting up meetings in cities across the country, where a screen­ing of the movie can kick off dis­cus­sions by people who were formerly incarcerated and their families and allies on how we can dismantle the sys­tem of mass incarceration. If your school, workplace, organization, or religious institution can host a screening, please contact the director.

The documentary centers around the theory put for­ward by many, and most recently by Michelle Alexander (who appears in the movie), that mass incarceration has become “The New Jim Crow.” That is, since the rise of the drug war and the explosion of the prison population, and because discretion within the sys­tem allows for arrest and prosecution of people of color at alarmingly higher rates than whites, pris­ons and criminal penal­ties have become a new ver­sion of Jim Crow. Much of the discrimination that was legal in the Jim Crow era is today illegal when applied to black people but perfectly legal when applied to “criminals.” The prob­lem is that through subjective choices, people of color have been tar­geted at significantly higher rates for stops, searches, arrests, prosecution, and harsher sentences. So, where does this leave criminal justice?

Through inter­views with people on many sides of the criminal justice system, this documentary aims to answer questions and provoke questions on an issue walled-off from the public’s scrutiny.

Interviews

• Khalid Abdul Rasheed and Theresa Shoatz, activists with the Human Rights Coalition (Philadelphia)
• Michelle Alexander, author of “The New Jim Crow,” Associate Professor of Law at Mortiz College of Law, and Senior Fellow at Kirwin Institute for the Study of Race and Ethnicity
• Jonathan Feinberg, partner with Kairys, Rudovsky, Messing & Feinberg
• John Goldkamp, Chair of the Temple University Criminal Justice Department
• Nathaniel Gravely Hayes, construction worker, formerly incarcerated in the Philadelphia Prison System (PPS)
• Angus Love, board member of PA Prison Society
• Marlene Martin, National Director of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty
• Tom Namako, journalist who toured PPS and wrote City Paper articles on overcrowding
• John Street, former mayor of Philadelphia
• Judge Sheila Woods-Skipper, Supervising Judge at the PA Court of Common Pleas Criminal Division
• Su Ming Yeh, attorney with PA Institutional Law Project
• Carlton Young, former correctional officer in PPS

Drawings

by Leonard C. Jefferson (a prisoner at SCI Albion, Pennsylvania)

Music

• John Coursey
• Brendan Dougherty
• Shaun Ellis
• Jesse Olsen & David Wilson (a poet incarcerated in California)
• Alexander Vittum
• Sunday Labor
• Tide Tables
• Tha Truth
• Matthew Pillischer

Reprint: Broken On All Sides (Website)

 

Teen Activist Malala Yusafzai, 14, Shot by Taliban for Demanding Education for Girls | Al Jazeera

Malala Yusafzai

Malala Yusafzai, a 14-year-old education rights activist, has been shot and injured while on her way home from school in Mingora, the main town in the Swat Valley region of northwest Pakistan.

She is being treated at Peshawar’s Combined Military Hospital, where a bullet has been removed from her skull. She remains in critical condition, family members told Al Jazeera.

Ahmed Shah Yusafzai, Malala’s uncle, said there was “strict security inside and outside the hospital”, after the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack.

Pakistan’s national airline has placed an air ambulance on standby to take Yusafzai abroad for treatment if needed, government sources have revealed, but officials are wary of lengthy travel times given her unstable condition.

Yusafzai was with one other girl, taking a school van home following an examination at the Khushal public school, witnesses told Al Jazeera of the shooting.

Unidentified men stopped the vehicle, asking if it was the transport from Khushal school. When told that it was, one man asked: “Where is Malala?”

As she was identified, the assailant reportedly drew a pistol and shot Yusafzai in the head and the neck. Another girl on the bus was also wounded.

“The man started firing a handgun [...] then I don’t know what happened to me and found myself in hospital,” said Shazia Ramazan, a schoolmate of Yusafzai who was shot in the hand.

Doctors at the Saidu Sharif Medical Complex in Mingora said the bullet penetrated Yusafzai’s skull but missed her brain, leaving her out of immediate danger.

Pakistani Taliban Proudly Claims Responsibility for Shooting

The Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), also known as the Pakistani Taliban, has claimed responsibility for the attack.

Ehsanullah Ehsan, Taliban spokesman, told reporters that the group had repeatedly warning Yusafzai to stop speaking out against them.

“She is a Western-minded girl. She always speaks against us. We will target anyone who speaks against the Taliban,” he said by telephone from an undisclosed location.

“We warned her several times to stop speaking against the Taliban and to stop supporting Western non-governmental organizations, and to come to the path of Islam.”

President Asif Ali Zardari strongly condemned the attack, but said it would not shake Pakistan’s resolve to fight insurgents or the government’s determination to support women’s education. Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf called Yusafzai “a daughter of Pakistan”.

Private schools in the Swat valley have shut their doors today, in protest at the attack, though government schools are open as per their normal routine. Further demonstrations against the Taliban are also expected in the Swat district later today.

The US State Department also spoke out against the shooting.

“Directing violence at children is barbaric. It’s cowardly. And our hearts go out to her and the others who were wounded, as well as their families,” State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in Washington.

The local chapter of the TTP, led by Maulana Fazlullah, controlled much of Swat from 2007 to 2009, but were ousted by an army offensive in July 2009.

Local reports indicate, however, that the group was only driven into the surrounding areas, rather than being wiped out, and it has since staged a resurgence.

Tuesday’s shooting in broad daylight in Mingora, the main town of the valley, raises serious questions about security more than three years after the army claimed to have crushed the local Taliban.

Yusafzai rose to international prominence in 2009, after writing a diary – under a pen-name – for BBC Urdu about life under the Taliban.

She had famously stood against the armed group’s attempts to stop girls from going to school, and was awarded the National Peace Award for Youth. The international children’s advocacy group KidsRights Foundation nominated her for the International Children’s Peace Prize, making her the first Pakistani girl put forward for the award.

Her struggle resonated with tens of thousands of girls who were being denied an education by the Taliban and other extremist groups across northwest Pakistan, where the government has been fighting such groups since 2007.

She was 11 years old when she wrote the blog on the BBC Urdu website, which at the time was anonymous. She also featured in two New York Times documentaries.

Diary Extract

In a 2011 BBC news report she read out an extract of her diary that gave a sense of the fear she endured under the Taliban.

“I was very much scared because the Taliban announced yesterday that girls should stop going to schools,” she said.

“Today our head teacher told the school assembly that school uniform is no longer compulsory and from tomorrow onwards, girls should come in their normal dresses. Out of 27, only 11 girls attended the school today.”

London-based rights group Amnesty International condemned Tuesday’s “shocking act of violence” against a girl bravely fighting for an education.

“This attack highlights the extremely dangerous climate human rights activists face in northwestern Pakistan, where particularly female activists live under constant threats from the Taliban and other militant groups,” it said.

Photo: Faisal Mahmood/Reuters

Mian Iftikhar Hussain, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s information minister, said Yusafzai had been targeted as “an icon of peace”, calling for a sweeping military offensive against all anti-state fighters in northwest Pakistan.

Asked if Malala would continue her work if she recovered, Ahmed Shah Yusafzai, her uncle, told Al Jazeera: “Yes, of course. She always raises her voice in favour of girl’s education, and she was going to establish a foundation named after her name – Malala Education Foundation – and she wanted to work for those children who are not able to go to the school.

Reprint: Teenage Rights Activist Shot in Pakistan | Al Jazeera

Related: Malala is the ‘Daughter of Pakistan’ -By Hameedullah Khan | Al Jazeera

My Conversations with Malala Yousafazi, The Girl Who Stood Up to the Taliban -By Owais Tohid | CS Monitor (+Video)

Support the Malala Fund | Vital Voices

Malala Yousufzai Family Fund | Friends of Malala (Indiegogo)

 

EXECUTED! Jonathan Green’s Last Words: “I’m an Innocent Man”-By Michael Graczyk | HuffPost

Jonathan Green, 44, was executed by legal injection on October 10.

HUNTSVILLE, Texas — A Texas man whose lawyers argued was mentally ill and incompetent for execution was put to death Wednesday evening for killing a 12-year-old girl more than a decade ago.

Jonathan Green, 44, received lethal injection after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected last-day appeals to spare him. A judge earlier this week stopped the punishment, but an appeals court overturned the reprieve. Then 11th-hour appeals delayed the punishment nearly five hours past the initial 6 p.m. execution time and as the midnight expiration of the death warrant neared.

Asked by the warden if he had a statement from the death chamber gurney, Green shook his head and replied, “No.”

But seconds later he changed his mind, saying: “I’m an innocent man. I never killed anyone. Y’all are killing an innocent man.”

He then looked down and said his left arm, where one of the needles carrying the lethal drug was inserted, and said, “It’s hurting me bad.” But almost immediately he began snoring loudly. The sounds stopped after about six breaths.

Green was pronounced dead 18 minutes later at 10:45 p.m.

Excerpt, read: Jonathan Green Executed For Murdering Christina Neal in Texas -By Michael | HuffPost

 

The Justice System’s Imprisonment of Innocent Citizens -By Anthony Gregory |HuffPost

It is frequently said that a civilized people would rather let ten guilty men go free than put one innocent person in prison. I would revise the ratio, myself, yet we are starting to get a glimpse into just how often innocent people are convicted in this country.

Damon Thibodeaux is the 300th convict exonerated through DNA evidence. He is an innocent man who was threatened and intimidated into giving a false confession that never withstood a cursory comparison to the facts. Not only was he innocent, but one of the crimes to which he confessed — sexual abuse — appears never to have happened to the murder victim.

These releases have blown a hole in the myth that the justice system almost never damns the innocent. Some would suggest that the return of these individuals’ freedom shows the system is working — yet for years they have been deprived of their birthright of liberty, and rarely ever receive retribution. Moreover, many more remain imprisoned and are likely never to be released.

Thibodeaux’s ordeal reminds us that even when the facts appear to clearly prove the prosecution’s case, behind-the-scenes criminal justice shenanigans often obscure the picture seen by jurors. The Washington Post reports that among exonerations in the last five years, “as many as a quarter of the cases involved a false confession.” This might shock Americans who have never learned about the way police interrogators can psychologically manipulate suspects, breaking them down hour by hour, until the suspects no longer have any conception of reality or identity.

Research out of the University of Michigan indicates a 2.5 percent to 4 percent error rate in capital cases. And in June, “researchers examining biological evidence from hundreds of Virginia rape convictions between 1973 and 1987 determined that new DNA testing appeared to exonerate convicted defendants in 8 percent to 15 percent of cases.”

This means that for the 140,000 on death row or serving life imprisonment alone, “many thousands of innocent individuals could be in prison for crimes they didn’t commit.” In some categories of offenses, it would seem the U.S. is getting awfully close to an error rate that would mean letting everyone out of prison would satisfy the moral standard that imprisoning an innocent person is worse than letting ten guilty people go. This sounds crazy, but that is the degree of injustice our system has wrought.

Unfortunately, most innocent people will probably never be released, since the vast majority of cases resulting in DNA-based exoneration involve rape where there is DNA evidence to test. There are many more cases in which confessions and eyewitness testimony — two notoriously unreliable forms of proof — are the main ways prosecutors secure convictions. Compounded by the highly problematic reliance on plea bargains, and we see how things can get so awful.

It is almost a certainty that thousands of innocent Americans are behind bars, potentially subject to brutal conditions, violence, and very often rape. This of course does not even touch on those who are punished for peaceful acts that should not be crimes in a free society — like drug or gun ownership or illegal immigration — nor does it take account of the many property criminals who would be more humanely and justly handled through restitution to their victims rather than imprisonment; nor does it consider the hundreds of thousands imprisoned on petty parole and probation violations where no one was actually hurt. Maybe if the criminal justice system were only focused on violent crime, it could better ensure that fewer innocents were locked up, but even this would require eternal vigilance on the part of the people.

Despite the criminal justice system comprising one outrageous injustice mounted atop another, this gets very little attention in mainstream discourse. Why?

Perhaps it is because this reality poses a major inconvenience for the dominant forms of modern political ideology. The progressives believe government is more humane and efficient than the market, and if a system of checks and balances, due process protections, and unanimous jury verdicts has failed so utterly in protecting the rights of the innocent, it only demonstrates why we might not trust it with running education, protecting the environment, or guaranteeing health care to all. Modern conservatives, on the other hand, believe that, while government deserves suspicion in the areas of welfare and regulation, the criminal justice system is a proper role of government and that liberal criticisms have served to coddle criminals and weaken the state’s ability to protect the people from crime. Thus, they trust government with the unparalleled powers of execution and imprisonment where they would distrust it to run the economy or care for the needy. Yet on all fronts, government deserves much less trust, not more.

It is no wonder that almost any other issue is more likely to be discussed in the national debates than the horrible state of our criminal justice system. Countless innocent people are being abused and have had their lives stolen from them by overzealous prosecutors and police, biased judges, and jurors willing to give the state the benefit of the doubt. This one of the greatest injustices in modern American life and exposes the immoralities in pro-government ideologies that have come to dominate modern politics.

So long as this is the system we have, jurors concerned with actual justice need to become far more vigilant. The presumption of evidence means that prosecutors and police should not be given the benefit of the doubt, as they typically are. Independent Institute Senior Fellow Robert Higgs’s rule of thumb is: “whenever any government functionary, especially one connected with the so-called criminal justice system, makes a statement, presume that it is a lie. It may not be, of course, but unless overwhelming independent evidence is adduced in support of it, the odds are that it is a lie.”

This might seem cynical, but that is the proper attitude with which to approach the legal system. Only a principled skepticism can possibly keep the system functioning anywhere close to the ideal, where people are treated as innocent until proven guilty.

Reprint: The Justice System’s Imprisonment of Innocent Citizens -By Anthony Gregory | HuffPost

 Related: The Caging of America: Mass Incarceration and Criminal Justice -By Adam Gopnik | The New Yorker

 

Justice for Reginald “Reggie” Clemons

(St. Louis, Mo.) — More than two and a half years into its global campaign to spare Reggie Clemons’s life and expose the serious mistakes that led to his death sentence, Amnesty International said today it is hopeful that a Missouri judge will bring to light the “highly disturbing” aspects of the 19-year-old case as he opens an extraordinary reexamination of evidence on Monday, Sept. 17.

The special hearing for Clemons, which may take several days, is shadowed by the one-year anniversary on Sept. 21 of the execution of Troy Davis in Georgia. The two cases are eerily similar and highlight many of the failures of the death penalty. Both men are African American and were accused as young men of murder, although no physical evidence tied them to the deaths. In addition, the cases involved suspected police coercion, possible racial bias, inadequate legal representation and unreliable witness testimony.

Laura Moye, director of Amnesty International USA’s Death Penalty Abolition Campaign, said:

We know that mistakes regularly occur in death penalty cases and the innocent are executed. Troy Davis went to his death in Georgia because the justice system failed to adequately scrutinize the doubts raised about his conviction. We commend the Missouri Supreme Court for setting in motion a very unique hearing of Clemons’s case. There is a real opportunity for Missouri to right a wrong and establish a path forward to truth and justice. Additionally, we hope that state lawmakers will look at this case as a symptom of a badly flawed death penalty that must be addressed.

Given the organization’s concerns with the case stemming from its groundbreaking 2010 investigation, Moye will attend the hearing along with other Amnesty International supporters who have been building awareness about the case in Missouri and around the world and campaigning to prevent his execution.

Reginald “Reggie” Clemons

After the hearing, Judge Manners will pass along his recommendations to the Missouri Supreme Court. He could recommend overturning the conviction and ordering a new trial, overturning the death sentence only, or he could recommend leaving the verdict and sentence intact, paving the way for a possible execution. Clemons was sentenced to death as an accomplice in the 1991 deaths of two young women who died after falling from a bridge over the Mississippi River. He has been on death row since 1993.

“This hearing ultimately could determine whether Reggie Clemons will live or die,” said Moye.

The special hearing before Judge Michael Manners will reportedly examine new evidence, including a rape kit found in a police evidence room in March 2010 – nearly two decades after the crime (the hearing begins at 9 a.m. at Carnahan Court building, 114 Market St. between 11th and 12th St).

On Tuesday, more than 13,000 people sent online messages of support to deliver to the Rev. Reynolds Thomas, Reggie’s father, at a rally Saturday, Sept. 15, two days before the hearing.

Hundreds of activists will join Amnesty International and other groups at the rally from noon to 3 pm in St. Louis to show their support for Clemons and his family at this pivotal time (Kiener Plaza by Olive St. and Market St.).

Investigation Questions Fairness of Trial

In its groundbreaking 2010 investigation, “Death by Prosecutorial Misconduct and A ‘Stacked’ Jury,” Amnesty International raised serious concerns about the fairness of Clemons’s trial, including disturbing patterns of prosecutorial misconduct, the unusual selection of a predominantly white jury, the alleged violent police assault on Clemons during interrogation and the woefully poor legal representation he had at trial.

No physical evidence ties Clemons to the deaths. The prosecution conceded that Clemons neither killed the sisters, nor planned the crime. Instead, his fate rested on the testimony of two white men – one of whom had been a suspect and was also a first cousin of the two victims, and the other a co-defendant. Both are now free. Clemons, who was 19 when the deaths occurred, has been on death row since 1993.

Clemons was convicted and sentenced to death as an accomplice in the murder of Julie, 20, and Robin Kerry, 19, who died after falling from a bridge over the Mississippi River. One body was never recovered from the river. Two other African American men were sentenced to death in the case. Marlin Gray was executed in 2005; the death sentence against Antonio Richardson was reduced to life in prison in 2003.

Since Amnesty International launched its appeal to save Clemons’s life, more than 70,000 people around the globe have taken action to demand justice for him.

Over 1,300 men and women have been executed in the United States since capital punishment resumed in 1977. In 2011, 43 men were put to death; 27 have been executed so far this year.

Reprint: Amnesty International USA

Related:  Death Penalty on Trial: The Reggie Clemons Interview (Video)

Justice for Reggie Clemons (Website)

Amnesty International Fact Sheet