Guilty?

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

11OCT

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, especiallyone 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

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Posted by swilliamsjd on October 11, 2012 in Amnesty International, Capital punishment, Civil Rights, Human Rights, Law, News, Poverty, Race, Social Justice, Wrongful Convictions

Tags: 300th, Adam Gopnik, American criminal justice, Anthony Gregory, convict, Damon Thibodeaux, DNA exonerations, exoneration, false confession, Franklin E. Zimring, Huffington Post, innocent, mass incarceration, politics, prisons, University of Michigan, WDSUTV, William J. Stuntz

Kosher Coke

Kosher Coke out in Calif.
By Christo­pher Se­ward cse­ward@ajc.com
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
March 23, 2013

Coca-Cola prod­ucts that are "kosher for Passover" won't be on store shelves again this year in Cal­i­for­nia, but the At­lanta-based com­pany said they should be back in stores next year.

Cal­i­for­nia is the only state where Coke is not pro­vid­ing the prod­ucts un­til sup­pli­ers com­ply with a new state law de­signed to re­duce lev­els of a chem­i­cal byprod­uct that Cal­i­for­nia has deemed to be a car­cino­gen. The chem­i­cal is 4-methylim­i­da­zole, or 4-MEI, and can be formed when caramel col­or­ing is made for Coke prod­ucts.

Coke, which said it did not agree that a pub­lic health risk ex­isted, nev­er­the­less di­rected sup­pli­ers to change the way they man­u­fac­ture caramel to re­duce lev­els of 4-MEI in kosher for Passover prod­ucts.

The kosher for Passover prod­ucts are spe­cially la­beled and dif­fer­ent from other kosher Coke bev­er­ages in that they use reg­u­lar sugar as a sweet­ener in­stead of high-fruc­tose corn syrup due to some Passover di­etary re­stric­tions on use of grains such as corn.

"We want to en­sure that our kosher for Passover prod­ucts us­ing the new process caramel pro­vide the same high qual­ity taste and ex­pe­ri­ence that our con­sumers ex­pect," Coke said in a state­ment. "In other states, we are able to pro­vide kosher for Passover prod­ucts us­ing our tra­di­tional caramel."

---

Copyright © 2012 NewspaperDirect Inc.

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Road Rage Just Not an Atlanta Problem

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 A New Jersey man was arrested Friday and charged with attempted homicide in a shooting last week on Interstate 78 in Lower Saucon Township that put a bullet in a Bethlehem woman's car.

Lee E. Kish, 65, of Fanwood, N.J., allegedly shot at the 39-year-old woman's car at 3:45 p.m. March 13 after she honked at him for driving 40 mph next to a tractor-trailer, slowing both lanes of eastbound traffic, state police at Belfast said.

The woman also was concerned that Kish appeared to be swerving too close to the big rig as he maintained the slow speed, police said.

Kish shot at the woman's car after he eventually passed the tractor-trailer and let her pass, giving her the middle finger as she went by, according to state troopers, who said they found a bullet in the woman's passenger's side rear door.

The woman reported the vehicle that had blocked her was a silver sport utility vehicle with a New Jersey license, police said. She said she heard a loud bang as she passed the SUV near the Route 33 interchange, police said.

No one was injured, but the woman pulled over and phoned for police.

Pennsylvania State Police notified New Jersey State Police of the shooting, but the SUV could not be located that day. An intense investigation led to Kish's arrest Friday in New Jersey, 57 miles east of the I-78 shooting scene.

Pennsylvania state Trooper Brian C. Roberts made the arrest. Kish was taken to Union County Prison to await extradition to Pennsylvania.

In addition to attempted homicide, Kish is charged with aggravated assault, carrying a firearm without a license, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.

— Frank Warner

Stop-and-Frisk in Court, Police Testify About Orders to Increase Stops, Democrats Jockey Ahead of Election

Stop-and-Frisk in Court, Police Testify About Orders to Increase Stops, Democrats Jockey Ahead of Election
REASON MAGAZINE | MARCH 22, 2013
http://pulse.me/s/jNPOq


The NYPD's stop and frisk program began in 2002 and since then, according to data compiled by the New York Civil Liberties Union, the police have con... Read more

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Police search for young suspects after Georgia infant shot, killed in stroller

Police search for young suspects after Georgia infant shot, killed in stroller
FOX NEWS | MARCH 22, 2013
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A young boy opened fire on a woman pushing her baby in a stroller in a Georgia neighborhood, killing the 1-year-old boy and wounding the mother, polic... Read more

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Pistorious Released

News

Oscar Pistorius has been granted bail and released pending murder trial of Reeva Steenkamp

• From: News Limited Network 
• February 23, 20134:17AM

Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius and his sister Aimee are driven to a relative's home in Pretoria after his release on bail. The judge banned Pistorius from returning to the home where he fatally shot girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

Source: AP

 

 

 

 

 

 

OSCAR Pistorius has been granted bail and freed from custody pending his trial in the Valentine's Day shooting death of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

Chief Magistrate Desmond Nair said the prosecution not been established that Pistorius was a flight risk, nor had it been established the accused would be violent again.

Judge Nair made the ruling after four days of arguments from prosecution and defence in Pistorius' bail hearing, and after spending about one hour and 45 minutes announcing his decision.

"I come to the conclusion that the accused has made a case to be released on bail," Judge Nair said to cries of "yes!" from Pistorius's family and supporters.

"The issue is not guilt, but where the interests of justice lie," Judge Nair said.

Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius and his sister Aimee are driven to a relative's home in Pretoria after his release on bail. The judge banned Pistorius from returning to the home where he fatally shot girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

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Radio stations and a TV news network in South Africa broadcast the audio of the decision live, and even international channels like the BBC and CNN went live with it, underscoring the huge global interest in the case.

Judge Nair banned cameras from Friday's dramatic bail hearing and complained about cameras constantly "flashing" in Pistorius' face the previous three days of hearings, saying the spectacle made the athlete look like "some kind of species the world has never seen before."

Judge Nair set the bail at 1 million rand ($109,000), with $11,300 in cash up front and proof that the rest is available. The magistrate said Pistorius must hand over his passports and also turn in any other guns that he owns.

Pistorius also cannot leave the district of Pretoria, South Africa's capital, without the permission of his probation officer, Judge Nair said, nor can he take drugs or drink alcohol.

Oscar Pistorius has been freed on $109,000  bail and released ahead of his murder trial, after the judge determined the athlete was not a flight risk.

The double-amputee Olympian's next court appearance was set for June 4. He left the courthouse in a silver Land Rover, sitting in the rear, just over an hour after the magistrate imposed the bail conditions.

The magistrate ruled that Pistorius could not return to his upscale home in a gated community in the eastern suburbs of Pretoria, where the killing of Reeva Steenkamp took place.

Pistorius' uncle, Arnold Pistorius said: "We are relieved at the fact that Oscar got bail today but at the same time we are in mourning for the death of Reeva with her family. As a family, we know Oscar's version of what happened on that tragic night and we know that that is the truth and that will prevail in the coming court case."

Pistorius' senior defence lawyer Barry Roux told reporters the defence is satisfied with the bail.

Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius, silhoetted in front vehicle, centre, arrives at a relative's home in Pretoria, South Africa after being released from custody.

Judge Nair made the ruling after four days of arguments from prosecution and defense in Pistorius' bail hearing.

During the long session overnight in Pretoria Magistrate's Court, Pistorius alternately wept and appeared solemn and more composed, especially toward the end as Judge Nair criticised police procedures in the case and as a judgment in Pistorius' favour appeared imminent.

Judge Nair said Pistorius' sworn statement, in which he gave his version of the events of the shooting during the predawn hours of Feb. 14 in a sworn statement, had helped his application for bail.

"I come to the conclusion that the accused has made a case to be released on bail," Judge Nair said.

Oscar Pistorius arrives in court for the fourth day of his bail hearing. After a marathon 1 hour and 45 minute ruling, the judge released the athlete under strict conditions.

Pistorius said in the sworn statement that he shot his girlfriend - a model and budding reality TV contestant - accidentally, believing she was an intruder in his house.

Prosecutors say he intended to kill Steenkamp and charged him with premeditated murder, saying the shooting followed a loud argument between the two.

Sharon Steenkamp, Reeva's cousin, had said earlier that the family wouldn't be watching the bail decision and hadn't been following the hearing in Pretoria.

"It doesn't make any difference to the fact that we are without Reeva," she told The Associated Press.

Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius' father Henke Pistorius, right, with Oscar's brother Carl and sister Aimee watch as Oscar Pistorius enters court for his bail hearing overnight.

Despite the bail decision, prosecution spokesman Medupe Simasiku said: "We're still confident in our case," outside court.

Pistorius faced the sternest bail requirements in South Africa because of the seriousness of the charge, and his defence lawyers had to prove that he would not flee the country, would not interfere with witnesses or the case, and his release would not cause public unrest.

Judge Nair questioned whether Pistorius would be a flight risk and be prepared to go "ducking and diving" around the world when he stood to lose a fortune in cash, cars, property and other assets.

Judge Nair also said that while it had been shown that Pistorius had aggressive tendencies, he did not have a prior record of offenses for violent acts.

Arthur Pistorius, the uncle of South African Olympic sprinter Oscar Pistorius told the media the family is relieved at the bail decision and believes the shooting was a tragic accident.

He criticised Hilton Botha, the previous lead investigator in the case, for not doing more to uncover evidence that the Olympian had violent tendencies. WO Botha was removed from the case after it was revealed he is facing murder charges.

"There is ample room and ample time to do that by looking at the background of the accused," he said.

But while Judge Nair leveled harsh criticism at former lead investigator WO Botha for "errors" and "blunders," he said one man does not represent the state's case and that the state could not be expected to put all the pieces of its puzzle together in such a short time.

Anticipating the shape of the state's case at trial, he said he had serious questions about Pistorius' account: Why he didn't try to locate his girlfriend on fearing an intruder was in the house, why he didn't try to determine who was in the toilet and why he would venture into perceived "danger" - the bathroom area - when he could have taken other steps to ensure his safety.

"There are improbabilities which need to be explored," Judge Nair said, adding that Pistorius could clarify these matters by testifying under oath at trial.

"I come to the conclusion that the accused has made a case to be released on bail," Judge Nair said.

Pistorius said in the sworn statement that he shot his girlfriend accidentally, believing she was an intruder in his house.

Experts said the case would now be fast-tracked through the courts.

Olympic athlete Oscar Pistorius' coach Ampie Louw speaks to the media during the bail hearing at the magistrates court in Pretoria, South Africa.

"This is probably going to get priority and will probably take about six months to go to trial," said Stephen Tuson, a criminal law professor at the University of Witwatersrand.

"It's a high profile matter."

EARLIER: The prosecution case wrapped up, prosecutor Gerrie Nel focusing on Pistorius's affidavit testimony as to what happened the night Reeva Steenkamp was killed. He said the accused athlete should take the stand to testify personally.

He says every angle of the athlete's story is "improbable".

Aimee, Carl and Henke Pistorius have taken the same seats each day during the dramatic and emotional bail hearing for Oscar Pistorius, charged with the murder of his girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. AFP

"It's always easy to give a version, especially if there's only one person there," he said.

His version: The Pistorius affidavit

On the accusation that the alleged murder was premeditated, the prosecutor said: "I'm not saying the murder of Reeva Steenkamp was planned days in advance, or weeks in advance". But he says Pistorius "wanted to kill".

He also repeated the prosecution stance that Pistorius should not get bail because he is a flight risk and has likened the case to that of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who is wanted for questioning over alleged sexual assaults but has claimed political asylum at an embassy in London. Mr Nel said Assange has skipped bail.

The police station in Pretoria where Oscar Pistorius has been spending his nights in a holding cell with no bed.

"He is a well-known person, he is as well known as Mr Pistorius," he said, explaining that fame should not be a reason to consider an accused person would not flee. He also said the double-amputee's disability should not be given special consideration.

"If somebody with disability commits a crime, we have to treat him differently? Courts cannot be seen to treat famous people differently."

"He (Pistorius) hasn't said so, but he must think that conviction is likely,'' Mr Nel said.

"He must realise that a long term of imprisonment is almost guaranteed. If you're looking at life imprisonment as a possibility, it's not easy to stay if you have means to leave.''

Carl Pistorius (right) accompanies his brother Oscar as the athlete is led from the Boschkop police station east of Pretoria, en route to court for his first appearance on February 15.

Mr Nel said Pistorius "has the international status to be accommodated elsewhere''.

But Magistrate Desmond Nair seemed sceptical over the argument that Pistorius would be a flight risk: Would he be "ducking and diving every day? On those prostheses?" he asks.

The defence has also raised this issue, lawyer Barry Roux saying Pistorius's disability meant he could never go through an airport without being noticed.

"If Pistorius goes through airport security, there's always a commotion, the system reacts. That shows you how difficult it is."

One feature of the hearing has been the silent presence of Pistorius's family.

Grim-faced and occasionally wiping away tears, his father Henke, older brother Carl and younger sister Aimee have occupied the same three seats in the front row of the court house each day. Oscar's mother Sheila - who the Olympian credits as the driving force behind his success - died when he was 15.

Carl Pistorius (@carlpistorius) has been tweeting regularly since Oscar' Pistorius's arrest a week ago.

During Thursday's hearing he accused prosecutors of lying "with a straight face" as judge Desmond Nair complained about the poor quality of evidence from investigating officers.

Carl Pistorius took the unusual step of tweeting from inside the courtroom to condemn prosecutors.

His tweet followed claims by Mr Nel, for the prosecution, that Oscar Pistorius remains a flight risk. He said that the athlete had said that he needed his passport to compete internationally, and that he had not said he would not go anywhere.

Moments afterwards, Carl, who was sitting behind his brother, tweeted: "How does the prosecution lie with a straight face. Passport was tendered to IO [investigating officer]! I went to collect in Johannesburg upon the IO's request."

Earlier, as Mr Nel summed up the prosecution's case opposing bail, Oscar Pistorius began to weep in the crowded courtroom, leading Carl to reach out and touch his back.

During breaks in the proceedings Carl walks through the gallery shaking hands with supporters. He regularly has his arm was wrapped protectively around Aimee while his other shoulder, is pressed tightly against his father's.

But later, after the dramas involving Hilton Botha and problems with the prosecution's evidence, Carl told reporters outside court: "I feel like the court proceedings went well today. We trust that everyone has more clarity about this tragic incident."

Oscar' Pistorius's official website  has been turned over for updates on the case.

In the latest update, his uncle, Arnold Pistorius, said on behalf of the family: "We believe that this is an appropriate way to deal with the expressions of support we have received as well as keeping the media informed about any key developments in the case.

With wires

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