Gangsters in Blue

The three members of the Motorhome Diaries crew who were arrested a few months ago in Jones County, Mississippi recently had their first court appearance. Tom Schornhorst, a Fourth Amendment expert and professor emeritus at the Indiana University School of Law is representing them pro bono, and has an interesting write-up of what happened. In short, the case against them looks pretty thin.

Here’s a bit of an odd coincidence: Schornhorst found out about the case via my personal blog, The Agitator. One of the other lawyers helping out with their case is former Jackson, Mississippi Mayor Dale Danks. Danks also happens to be the private attorney of embattled Mississippi medical examiner Steven Hayne.

Reason.tv interviewed the Motorhome Diaries guys twice, once before they began their cross-country trek, and again about midway through their adventures.

Let's add a new word and phrase to our police abuse-related vocabulary: "police atrocity." Compare the Merriams' definition of "atrocity" (below) to the definition of "brutality" (also below) to confirm that an "atrocity" is much worse than mere brutality. In addition, the word "atrocity" describes the emotional feelings of disgust and revulsion that we experience in response to "atrocious" police behavior.

According to Merriams, an "atrocity" is

I feel more convinced than ever that Esteban Carpio did not receive a fair trial, which is a different question than whether he committed the acts of which he was charged.

First of all, Esteban Carpio' face and forehead were deform beyond recognition at the time when he was questioned at the hospital. The Providence Superior Court decision on the voluntariness of Esteban Carpio statements to police essentially acknowledges that this was so, noting that Carpio's skull was fractured when he arrived at the hospital and a neck brace was applied to stabilize his vertebrae. Nonetheless, the decision also reports that a police official loosened the neck brace, disregarding medical personnel's opinion that the brace was recommended, so that Carpio could sit up and talk. During whatever may have been said, it was two or three in the morning and a police official was saying to Carpio over and over again, "Stay with me." It seems obvious to me that someone in Carpio's condition could not voluntarily agree to speak without a lawyer, even while recovering from a skull fracture from the day before.

More importantly, the Superior Court denied a defense motion to enter into evidence medical records from mental health clinics and hospitals, deciding instead that:

Finally, at the conclusion of the suppression hearing, counsel for the Defendant moved to admit the Defendant’s prior medical records from the Faulkner Hospital and the Providence Center for the Court’s consideration. The Court accepted them de bene in order to determine
admissibility. They are irrelevant and immaterial. This admission is denied. State v. Lorenzo, supra; State v. Squillante, supra.

How could medical records about psychiatric or psychological treatment be irrelevant to the question of knowing and voluntary waiver of the right to remain silent? Before Esteban Carpio's trial began, the Superior Court judge excluded evidence which would almost certainly have demonstrated that Esteban Carpio sought mental health treatment before the acts of which he was accused.

It certainly would be difficult for the defense to prove that the defendant had a mental defect which would vitiatate his ability to voluntarily speak without an attorney present after the Court excluded evidence of his contacts with mental health personnel and the determinations that those personnel had made.

Apparently, during questioning the defendant made repeated comments to the police which a reasonable jury member could have taken as evidence that the defendant had a mental impairment that should have be considered when determining the voluntariness and capacity of the defendant at the time. The Court gives this evidence short shrift:

The tone of the interview is peppered with this type of amicable repartee between Sergeant Mansolillo and the accused. If the Defendant is attempting to convince the Court that his “Devil comments” to Sergeant Mansolillo should induce it to accept that at the time he was
somehow mentally deficient or unable to grasp the reality of his situation, the tone of the interview belies that assertion. The test, of course, is that the Court must find that alleged mental impairment caused Defendant’s will to be overborne. U.S. v. Casals, 915 F.2d 1225 (8th Cir.) Additionally, except for the “Devil” comment, no evidence was submitted by the Defendant in support. The Defendant cannot argue, and does not argue, coercive conduct on the part of the officers because the statement of April 17, 2005 is clearly barren of any such conduct.
Sergeant Mansolillo and Detective Finegan are two highly experienced officers. Their conduct was professional without any hint that they were rude, abrasive or unduly forceful. As this Court sees it, they treated the Defendant with deference and on occasion kindness. Considering the
totality of circumstances of the event, the motion to suppress the April 17, 2005 statement is denied.

Considering the evidence that Esteban Carpio had mental health issues that might have included schizophrenia and psychosis (with his belief that the devil was talking to him and engaging in conversation with him and others), I believe the Court erred in obstructing proffered evidence of such a defect from affecting the decision on the volitional nature of his statements as well as the mental health related information that would reach the jury.

In addition, there was some clear "testilying" by police in this case. The Superior court recounted:

The Defendant was arrested in a struggle with certain Providence police officers in the area of Washington and Matthewson Streets. Because of his resistance to being handcuffed, some blows were obviously struck by some officers but whatever they were; there is no evidence that the Defendant suffered any incapacitation at that time. The police, in particular Detective Sergeant Sweeney, was concerned about possible abuse and immediately ordered “no unnecessary force to be used here. Just get him in handcuffs.” (Supp. 181.) Decision of the Superior Court, p. 6.

Why would it be necessary to remind police not to use illegal force unless they had a known habit or tendency to do so? It simply defies common sense to believe that police chasing down a subject whom they believe to have killed a fellow officer nonetheless have time, concern, and presence of mind to say "no unnecessary force to be used here." Those are clearly words of legal terminology that were sculpted into the conversation after the fact, to help the prosecution and ameliorate the obvious conclusion that Esteban Carpio was beaten half to death, rather than words that a police detective spoke at the scene.

This goes to the reason for an all-white jury. An all-white jury would be more likely and willing to believe that Carpio "got what he deserved", and aslo less willing to consider evidence that Carpio suffered from a mental defect that prevented criminal responsibility.

According to African American Political Pundit's Tasered While Black blog,

Cincinnati police arrested and used a Taser on Celeste Thomas, the daughter of Cincinnati city councilman Cecil Thomas, early Sunday morning.

Her arrest report indicates that Thomas had marks on her upper back from the Taser's barbs.

"It is my understanding that she was on her knees when she was Tased in the back," said Cecil Thomas.

The Pundit's report says that the same officer was removed from the force earlier after it was determined that he used excessive force, but was reinstated a year later, after arbitration.

If your skin is brown and you live in the United States, it doesn't matter that your father is an elected city councilor, representing your community as a member of local government. When police pull your car over in the dark, your just another "N" word to them.


And Lord forbid a Black person should ask a police officer, "What's going on?" Remember, you're Black. You don't have any right to know what's going on with the person with whom you were riding in your car moments earlier. If you ask, "What's going on?" you are effectively saying that there is at least the hypothetical possibility that police are mistreating another Black person. Since, in the minds of police, all Blacks are to be mistreated, they can only understand your question as an act of rebeliousnes - rebelious as a slave who refuses to work for free, under the hot sun.

Do not doubt or question the "hot sun" of the USA's extremely color-aroused police attrocities.

Don't ask police, "What's going on?" If you're Black you have no right to know. Instead, look out of the window of your car (carefully so the police won't know you're observing them), and later read the testilying police report later to find out what the police say was going on.

There are two more immediate alternatives, and those are "self defense" and "defense of another". Remember, you have no right to run over a police officer with your car, unless a jury decides subsequently that you reasonably feared for the life of another and that the force you used was reasonable in light of the circumstances you observed.

You have no right to run out of a watching crowd, kick a police officer in the ass, and run back into the crowd, unless a a jury decides subsequently that you reasonably feared for the physical safety of another and that the force you used was reasonable in light of the circumstances you observed. *

You certainly have no right to discover a police officers home address and then take extra-judicial action there, in the way that police took extra-judicial pretrial action in the case of Esteban Carpio. That would be unlawful, and Lord knows the laws in the United States effectively protect everyone, including the Blacks who unreasonably conclude, based on their experience with police, that "a Black man has no rights which a white man is bound to respect."

And yet, it seems that Esteban Carpio may have taken action against police torture before most of it occurred, rather than afterward.

Blacks in South Africa only began to realize their rights as human beings when they abandoned efforts to orally convince white Afrikkaners, and the African National Congress engaged in an armed struggle for Black rights. They didn't announce that they were armed and ready to struggle, like the Black Panthers did, with public local offices in most major Black US cities.

Instead the African National Congress was a clandestine operation whose armed actions became public knowledge only when they occurred, and not before.

I was upset by members of the Black majority in South Africa who put tires around informants and burned them in public. But, it was part of the armed struggle and obviously Black South Africans knew a lot more about armed struggle than Black people in the United States ever did. Who can gainsay, in retrospect, what was necessary and constructive and what was not?

*Nothing written here is legal advice. You're right to physically defend yourself from police depends upon the statutes and caselaw in your state, as well as whether you are tried before an all-white jury, as Esteban Carpio was, even though the city in which he was tried is half white and half Black and Latino. You should consult a criminal defense lawyer and a public relations specialist in your own state to assess the limits of your right to self-defense and defense of another when you are defending yourself or someone else from police atrocities.

According to African American Political Pundit's Tasered While Black blog,

Cincinnati police arrested and used a Taser on Celeste Thomas, the daughter of Cincinnati city councilman Cecil Thomas, early Sunday morning.

Her arrest report indicates that Thomas had marks on her upper back from the Taser's barbs.

"It is my understanding that she was on her knees when she was Tased in the back," said Cecil Thomas.

The Pundit's report says that the same officer was removed from the force earlier after it was determined that he used excessive force, but was reinstated a year later, after arbitration.

If your skin is brown and you live in the United States, it doesn't matter that your father is an elected city councilor, representing your community as a member of local government. When police pull your car over in the dark, your just another "N" word to them.

And Lord forbid a Black person should ask a police officer, "What's going on?" Remember, you're Black. You don't have any right to know what's going on with the person with whom you were riding in your car moments earlier. If you ask, "What's going on?" you are effectively saying that there is at least the hypothetical possibility that police are mistreating another Black person. Since, in the minds of police, all Blacks are to be mistreated, they can only understand your question as an act of rebeliousnes - rebelious as a slave who refuses to work in the hot sun.

Don't ask police, "What's going on?" If you're Black you have no right to know. Instead, look out of the window of your car (carefully so the police won't know you're observing them), and later read the testilying police report later to find out what the police say was going on.

There are two more immediate alternatives, and those are "self defense" and "defense of another". Remember, you have no right to run over a police officer with your car, unless a jury decides subsequently that you reasonably feared for the life of another and that the force you used was reasonable in light of the circumstances you observed.

You have no right to run out of a watching crowd, kick a police officer in the ass, and run back into the crowd, unless a a jury decides subsequently that you reasonably feared for the physical safety of another and that the force you used was reasonable in light of the circumstances you observed. *

You certainly have no right to discover a police officers home address and then take extra-judicial action there, in the way that police took extra-judicial pretrial action in the case of Esteban Carpio. That would be unlawful, and Lord knows the laws in the United States effectively protect everyone, including the Blacks who unreasonably conclude, based on their experience with police, that "a Black man has no rights which a white man is bound to respect."

And yet, it seems that Esteban Carpio may have taken action against police torture before most of it occurred, rather than afterward.

Blacks in South Africa only began to realize their rights as human beings when they abandoned efforts to orally convince white Afrikkaners, and the African National Congress engaged in an armed struggle for Black rights. They didn't announce that they were armed and ready to struggle, like the Black Panthers did, with public local offices in most major Black US cities.

Instead the African National Congress was a clandestine operation whose armed actions became public knowledge only when they occurred, and not before.

I was upset by members of the Black majority in South Africa who put tires around informants and burned them in public. But, it was part of the armed struggle and obviously Black South Africans knew a lot more about armed struggle than Black people in the United States ever did. Who can gainsay, in retrospect, what was necessary and constructive and what was not?

*Nothing written here is legal advice. You're right to physically defend yourself from police depends upon the statutes and caselaw in your state, as well as whether you are tried before an all-white jury, as Esteban Carpio was, even though the city in which he was tried is half white and half Black and Latino. You should consult a criminal defense lawyer and a public relations specialist in your own state to assess the limits of your right to self-defense and defense of another when you are defending yourself or someone else from police atrocities.

According to African American Political Pundit's Tasered While Black blog,

Cincinnati police arrested and used a Taser on Celeste Thomas, the daughter of Cincinnati city councilman Cecil Thomas, early Sunday morning.

Her arrest report indicates that Thomas had marks on her upper back from the Taser's barbs.

"It is my understanding that she was on her knees when she was Tased in the back," said Cecil Thomas.

The Pundit's report says that the same officer was removed from the force earlier after it was determined that he used excessive force, but was reinstated a year later, after arbitration.

If your skin is brown and you live in the United States, it doesn't matter that your father is an elected city councilor, representing your community as a member of local government. When police pull your car over in the dark, your just another "N" word to them.

And Lord forbid a Black person should ask a police officer, "What's going on?" Remember, you're Black. You don't have any right to know what's going on with the person whith whom you were riding in your car with you moments earlier. If you ask, "What's going on?" you are effectively saying that there is at least the hypothetical possibility that police are mistreating another Black person. Since, in the minds of police, all Blacks are to be mistreated, they can only understand your question as an act of rebeliousnes - rebelious as a slave who refuses to work in the hot sun.

Don't ask police, "What's going on?" If you're Black you have no right to know. Instead, look out of the window of your car (carefully so the police won't know you're observing them), and later read the testilying police report later to find out what the police say was going on.

There are two more immediate alternatives, and those are "self defense" and "defense of another". Remember, you have no right to run over a police officer with your car, unless a jury decides subsequently that you reasonably feared for the life of another and that the force you used was reasonable in light of the circumstances you observed.

You have no right to run out of a watching crowd, kick a police officer in the ass, and run back into the crowd, unless a a jury decides subsequently that you reasonably feared for the physical safety of another and that the force you used was reasonable in light of the circumstances you observed. *

You certainly have no right to discover a police officers home address and then take extra-judicial action there, in the way that police took extra-judicial pretrial action in the case of Esteban Carpio. That would be unlawful, and Lord knows the laws in the United States effectively protect everyone, including the Blacks who unreasonably conclude, based on their experience with police, that "a Black man has no rights which a white man is bound to respect."

And yet, it seems that Esteban Carpio may have taken action against police torture before most of it occurred, rather than afterward.

Blacks in South Africa only began to realize their rights as human beings when they abandoned efforts to orally convince white Afrikkaners, and the African National Congress engaged in an armed struggle for Black rights. They didn't announce that they were armed and ready to struggle, like the Black Panthers did, with public local offices in most major Black US cities.

Instead the African National Congress was a clandestine operation whose armed actions became public knowledge only when they occurred, and not before.

I was upset by members of the Black majority in South Africa who put tires around informants and burned them in public. But, it was part of the armed struggle and obviously Black South Africans knew a lot more about armed struggle than Black people in the United States ever did. Who can gainsay, in retrospect, what was necessary and constructive and what was not?

*Nothing written here is legal advice. You're right to physically defend yourself from police depends upon the statutes and caselaw in your state, as well as whether you are tried before an all-white jury, as Esteban Carpio was, even though the city in which he was tried is half white and half Black and Latino. You should consult a criminal defense lawyer and a public relations specialist in your own state to assess the limits of your right to self-defense and defense of another when you are defending yourself or someone else from police atrocities.

Fire chief shot in the back in court by cop will be charged with battering a police officer. Seems there’s a disagreement over who shoved whom first.

Checking Obama’s math on the number of people without health insurance.

Kittycide.

Wonderful photo collection from Afghanistan and Nepal.

I told you this would happen. We don’t even have a health care plan yet and the anti-fact advocates are already figuring out how to use it to police what you eat.

9/11 didn’t change everything. And that’s a good thing.

According to African American Political Pundit's Tasered While Black blog,

Cincinnati police arrested and used a Taser on Celeste Thomas, the daughter of Cincinnati city councilman Cecil Thomas, early Sunday morning.

Her arrest report indicates that Thomas had marks on her upper back from the Taser's barbs.

"It is my understanding that she was on her knees when she was Tased in the back," said Cecil Thomas.

The Pundit's report says that the same officer was removed from the force earlier after it was determined that he used excessive force, but was reinstated a year later, after arbitration.

If your skin is brown and you live in the United States, it doesn't matter that your father is an elected city councilor, representing your community as a member of local government. When police pull your car over in the dark, your just another "N" word to them.


And Lord forbid a Black person should ask a police officer, "What's going on?" Remember, you're Black. You don't have any right to know what's going on with the person with whom you were riding in your car moments earlier. If you ask, "What's going on?" you are effectively saying that there is at least the hypothetical possibility that police are mistreating another Black person. Since, in the minds of police, all Blacks are to be mistreated, they can only understand your question as an act of rebeliousnes - rebelious as a slave who refuses to work for free, under the hot sun.

Do not doubt or question the "hot sun" of the USA's extremely color-aroused police attrocities.

Don't ask police, "What's going on?" If you're Black you have no right to know. Instead, look out of the window of your car (carefully so the police won't know you're observing them), and later read the testilying police report later to find out what the police say was going on.

There are two more immediate alternatives, and those are "self defense" and "defense of another". Remember, you have no right to run over a police officer with your car, unless a jury decides subsequently that you reasonably feared for the life of another and that the force you used was reasonable in light of the circumstances you observed.

You have no right to run out of a watching crowd, kick a police officer in the ass, and run back into the crowd, unless a a jury decides subsequently that you reasonably feared for the physical safety of another and that the force you used was reasonable in light of the circumstances you observed. *

You certainly have no right to discover a police officers home address and then take extra-judicial action there, in the way that police took extra-judicial pretrial action in the case of Esteban Carpio. That would be unlawful, and Lord knows the laws in the United States effectively protect everyone, including the Blacks who unreasonably conclude, based on their experience with police, that "a Black man has no rights which a white man is bound to respect."

And yet, it seems that Esteban Carpio may have taken action against police torture before most of it occurred, rather than afterward.

Blacks in South Africa only began to realize their rights as human beings when they abandoned efforts to orally convince white Afrikkaners, and the African National Congress engaged in an armed struggle for Black rights. They didn't announce that they were armed and ready to struggle, like the Black Panthers did, with public local offices in most major Black US cities.

Instead the African National Congress was a clandestine operation whose armed actions became public knowledge only when they occurred, and not before.

I was upset by members of the Black majority in South Africa who put tires around informants and burned them in public. But, it was part of the armed struggle and obviously Black South Africans knew a lot more about armed struggle than Black people in the United States ever did. Who can gainsay, in retrospect, what was necessary and constructive and what was not?

*Nothing written here is legal advice. You're right to physically defend yourself from police depends upon the statutes and caselaw in your state, as well as whether you are tried before an all-white jury, as Esteban Carpio was, even though the city in which he was tried is half white and half Black and Latino. You should consult a criminal defense lawyer and a public relations specialist in your own state to assess the limits of your right to self-defense and defense of another when you are defending yourself or someone else from police atrocities.