Category: American Injustice System,

Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office Wins Court Battle Against Police Union Over ‘Do Not Call List’ – NBC 10 Philadelphia

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Local Interest,Leave a comment

The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas ruled against a lawsuit filed earlier this year by the Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5, which claimed that the DA’s office violated police officers’ rights by maintaining a “Do Not Call List” filled with the names of cops whose past misconduct branded them as unreliable witnesses.

…The court added that Krasner has an “obligation” to the information because it could negatively affect the outcomes of future court cases.

Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office Wins Court Battle Against Police Union Over ‘Do Not Call List’ – NBC 10 Philadelphia

If the rights and privileges of police officers do not come second to the greater good than their very existence is an insult to not only law and order but justice.

Continued efforts by an association to put the rights and privileges of so-called officers of the law above the just functions of a civilized society is an offence against the society they are duty bound to serve and disqualifies from the position they claim to hold.

The moment any law enforcement officer or organization seeks to raise an officer above the law or set aside behavior that is not 100% strictly in accordance with the laws they are sworn to uphold, they become an enemy of law and order itself.

The Amount of Money Being Made Ripping Migrant Families Apart Is Staggering

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Money, Class, and Poverty,, Race,, The Americas,Leave a comment

Microsoft’s Azure cloud-computing software was “mission critical” for ICE’s operations, as Berkowitz explained to me, and the agency paid Microsoft nearly $20 million for its use. 

…Accenture, Boeing, Elbit, G4S, General Dynamics, IBM, L3 Technologies, Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Palantir (with software provided by Amazon), Raytheon, and UNISYS are among the hundreds of companies who are facilitating the migrant detention and deportation machine—and have been raking in, from 2006 to 2018, more than a combined $45 billion, dispersed among nearly 100,000 separate contracts with CBP and ICE. 

…Immigration enforcement budgets have ballooned from $350 million in 1980, to $1.2 billion in 1990, to $9.1 billion in 2003, to a whopping $23.7 billion in 2018. …Those budgets then annually funnel $2.32 billion back to the private sector through federal immigration, corrections, and detention contracts.

…Since 2006, “177 people have gone through the DHS revolving door and 34 have worked both for the House Homeland Security Committee and for a lobbying firm,” the report notes. Just from 2003 to 2017, four CBP commissioners and three DHS secretaries went on to work in homeland security corporations after leaving government.

…John Kelly …joined the board of directors of Caliburn International.  …[During] the period Kelly was in office, from July 2017 to December 2018, …the average length of stay for an unaccompanied child migrant in US custody “skyrocketed.” The company that ran Homestead, a subsidiary of Caliburn, also happened to land a contract, in that same period, for a whopping $222 million.

…The border-security corporate giants, especially Lockheed Martin, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and Boeing, are the biggest campaign contributors to members of the House Appropriations Committee—the congressional body that regulates expenditures of the federal government. Between 2006 and 2018, these companies contributed a total of $27.6 million just to members of the committee.

Texas Democrat Henry Cuellar, to take just one example, received large campaign contributions from GEO Group and CoreCivic ($55,690), Northrop Grumman ($13,000), Boeing Corporation ($10,000), Caterpillar Inc ($10,000) and Lockheed Martin ($10,000). 

The Amount of Money Being Made Ripping Migrant Families Apart Is Staggering | The Nation

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Some Louisiana felons regain the right to vote

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Gulf Coast Region,Leave a comment

[Last year] Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) signed into law a bill that will restore voting rights to people with felony records who are on probation or parole, as long as they have been out of prison for five years. Both chambers of the state’s GOP-controlled legislature passed House Bill 265 with bipartisan support in May 2018.

No longer ‘voiceless,’ Louisiana felons regain the right to vote – ThinkProgress

hmmmm

Oklahoma mom imprisoned for 15 years for not reporting boyfriend’s abuse freed

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Chick Stuff,, Modern Parenting,Leave a comment

Tondalao Hall was sentenced in 2006 to 30 years in prison under Oklahoma’s “failure to protect” law after her then-boyfriend, Robert Braxton Jr., abused two of their children so severely, at least one had multiple broken bones.

…Braxton, meanwhile, pleaded guilty to abusing the children, but was given no additional time behind bars: He received a 10-year suspended sentence and was released on probation after having served his two years in jail,

…Oklahoma’s law makes no exception for parents who stay silent out of fear for their own safety — which Lambert said was the case in Hall’s situation. In addition to choking and punching their young children, Lambert said, Braxton beat and psychologically abused Hall.

Oklahoma mom imprisoned for 15 years for not reporting boyfriend’s abuse freed

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Louisiana DA tries to remove black judge from 300 cases over comments alleging racial bias

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Race,Leave a comment

Sixteenth Judicial District Attorney Bo Duhé’s office has moved to remove a black judge from more than 300 criminal cases across the district’s three-parish area, arguing she’s made unfounded comments alleging their office is biased against African Americans.

…District Court Judge Lori Landry’s reported comments include statements that certain assistant district attorneys “deliberately incarcerate African Americans more severely and at a higher rate than others.” She also intimated the District Attorney’s Office knew or should have known about misconduct at the Iberia Parish Sheriff’s Office that eventually led to a federal civil rights case, the motion says.

…First Assistant District Attorney Robert Vines, who is white, filed the recusal motion on behalf of the District Attorney’s Office.

…Landry’s reported comments about racial bias focused largely on perceived injustice and inconsistency in the District Attorney’s Office’s plea offerings and selective use of the state’s habitual offender statute to harm black defendants, the court documents say.

Louisiana DA tries to remove black judge from 300 cases over comments alleging racial bias | Courts | theadvocate.com

Oh, Louisiana…

First Step Act Isn’t Sweeping Criminal Justice Reform

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,Leave a comment

The legislation, when enacted, would enable some federal inmates to seek early release, while also granting federal judges greater freedoms with regards to minimum sentences in certain cases, among other minor reforms. 

…THE REFORMS IN the First Step Act would be very real — just not very big. Measures included in the bill would retroactively end the discrepancy in federal sentences for drug offenses involving crack and the powder form of cocaine; this would reduce jail time for thousands of prisoners already serving time for crack offenses. Federal judges would be granted more flexibility from mandatory minimum sentences, and some mandatory minimums would be reduced. The bill’s provisions also include increased funding for educational and vocational training programs, and would allow prisoners to earn greater sentence reductions through good behavior and vocational training. Up to 4,000 of the 180,000 people incarcerated in federal prison could see early release on the new good behavior standard.

…The legislation could make a crucial material difference to the lives of thousands of incarcerated people — something that should not be dismissed ­— but it would hardly make a dent in America’s mass incarceration problem.

First Step Act Isn’t Sweeping Criminal Justice Reform

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Kamala Harris’s Offices Fought Payments to Wrongly Convicted

On By peanutgallerynhIn American Injustice System,, Domestic Affairs,Leave a comment

The Diaz case is one of a series of battles Harris’ prosecutors waged — in both the offices of San Francisco district attorney and California attorney general — to resist innocence claims, often using technical timeliness or jurisdictional arguments, lawyers and innocence advocates say.

…Whatever her involvement in the Diaz case and other innocence claims, actions by Harris’ offices — carried out in her name, by people working on her behalf — have left some voters and advocates distrustful. Criminal justice advocates are critical of her handling of wrongful conviction cases, in particular, saying her offices resisted at least five such claims despite compelling evidence of innocence.

…The following April, Diaz says, Harris’ office told him that, in fact, he must continue to register as a sexual offender — although by that time he had obtained a formal judgment of innocence — because he’d been released on parole before he filed the petition to vacate his conviction.

…Diaz said he believes Harris’ office was trying to intimidate him out of seeking compensation.

…Harris’ office continued to fight Diaz’s right to compensation for almost a year. Documents filed by Schwartzbach detail filings and arguments both the compensation board and the attorney general’s office used to try to block the claim.

In October 2014, more than two years after his conviction was vacated, Diaz was awarded $305,300 for his almost nine years in prison. The requirement to register as a sex offender was also eventually dropped.

…“The idea that some innocent person should have to labor under the branding of a sex offender for the rest of their lives because they didn’t meet the technical requirements, that’s just wrong,” Green said.

…Newly-elected attorneys general, Green said, often find a certain culture and set of practices in place in the offices when they take charge. “If you start to overturn convictions others obtained, it doesn’t make you popular with your staff,” he said.

…In the Maurice Caldwell case, Harris’ DA’s office filed for multiple extensions rather than responding to his innocence petition, causing Caldwell to spend an extra year in prison before he was exonerated.

…A judge declared in 2014 that false statements made by a prosecutor working for Harris about the fears of the only eyewitness against Jamal Trulove had likely prejudiced the jury. 

…Harris’ office also contended that Larsen’s arguments were too late. “A federal habeas petition filed even one day late is untimely and must be dismissed,” the office said. After Larsen was released, Harris’ office successfully campaigned against compensation for the more than 13 years he was imprisoned.

Kamala Harris’s Offices Fought Payments to Wrongly Convicted – Bloomberg

Whether these incidents occurred because she is a poor administrator or because she was afraid to rock the boat (or -as is more likely- both) doesn’t matter. All that matters is that it happened on her watch and she is ultimately responsible.