Gangsters in Blue

Submitted by Captain Six

From Station.6.Underground

What is Jury Nullification? You won’t find it defined in your dictionary or described in your encyclopedia. You weren’t taught about it in school, and indeed it is even considered a crime to tell other people about it in some circumstances. Imagine that for a moment – it is a crime to inform a citizen as to their right, even the scope of their duty while serving on a jury.

According to the Wikipedia entry:

Jury nullification is a constitutional doctrine which allows juries to acquit criminal defendants who are technically guilty, but who do not deserve punishment. It occurs in a trial when a jury reaches a verdict contrary to the judge’s instructions as to the law. 

A jury verdict contrary to the letter of the law pertains only to the particular case before it. If a pattern of acquittals develops, however, in response to repeated attempts to prosecute a statutory offence, this can have the de facto effect of invalidating the statute. A pattern of jury nullification may indicate public opposition to an unwanted legislative enactment…

Most Americans have never even heard of such a doctrine. Thanks to numerous TV shows and real-life judges telling us that the only function of the jury is to render a decision based strictly upon the facts of the case, a key tenet of the justice system envisioned by the Founding Fathers has been lost. You see, it is not only the job of the jury to weigh guilt or innocence against the letter of the law, but also to judge the just nature of the statutes themselves. In this way, The People ultimately retain power over the government, rather than the government dictating to The People what is and what is not justice. This tenet is instrumental in protecting ourselves, as The People, from tyrannical laws and cronyism. This is why we have a jury system in the first place, not simply to act as a cog in the wheel of the justice system, but to be the justice in the system.

Let us imagine for a moment, that you live in a city where the Mayor makes soda-pop illegal. So illegal that he actually signs into law a criminal statute that makes it a jailable offense to dispense soda-pop. He makes a public campaign to warn about the evils of soda-pop, how detrimental it is to your health, while being crowned king of national doughnut day, and holding a vast amount stock in the city’s number-one importer of iced-tea.

Fascist Food and Nutrition Nazis

Now let us imagine that you are sitting on the jury for a criminal trial of a single-mom arrested for selling soda-pop to her neighbor, which had been “smuggled” in from outside of the city limits, and that the transaction was captured on an audio-video recording by police. You see that she is plainly guilty of violating the law, technically, but can’t in good-conscience send her off to jail for a year. You, and other jury members voice that dilemma to the judge, who then instructs you to render a verdict based strictly on the facts of the case, the evidence presented, and that all other considerations have no bearing on your duty to render a verdict. What do you do? It appears that you have no choice, and you find her guilty.

But if you had actually been a FULLY INFORMED JUROR, rather than just listening to the instructions of the judge who owed his career to the Mayor, you would have known that you did have an alternative. That it was not actually illegal for you to ignore the judge’s instructions, and that you could have rendered a verdict based on your conscience rather than a law in a book. You would have known that Jury Nullification not only gives you this right, but that it is your duty as a juror to render your verdict in such a manner. In this way, you see, not only have you protected the accused from overzealous and tyrannical prosecution, but you have also struck a blow against cronyism. Cronyism by the Mayor who stands to make a profit from the law he made, in relation to the company stocks he owns and the companies that own him. Cronyism by police and prosecutors who turn a profit on the backs of the taxpayers for every arrest and prosecution they make, maintaining their job security and giving the United States the largest prison population in the world in the process.

Imagine how many ridiculous laws would be suddenly rendered obsolete. Imagine how many frivolous prosecutions would be avoided. Imagine how many people would not be sitting in prison today for victimless crimes. Imagine how much lower your taxes would be if you didn’t have to pay for all this nonsense. Imagine how powerless the government would suddenly find itself, in the face of a population that was no longer going to take any of their shit.

Maybe that’s why the principle of Jury Nullification is the most taboo subject in our justice system today, and has been continually eroded in landmark decisions by the courts since 1895, as time has distanced us from the core principles of liberty on which this nation was founded.

In 1794, the case of Georgia v. Brailsford was being heard before the Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS). The court’s first Chief Justice, John Jay, established precedent that the Common Law practice of Jury Nullification was valid in the United States. He wrote, in part…

“It may not be amiss, here, Gentlemen, to remind you of the good old
rule, that on questions of fact, it is the province of the jury, on
questions of law, it is the province of the court to decide. But it must
be observed that by the same law, which recognizes this reasonable
distribution of jurisdiction, you have nevertheless a right to take upon
yourselves to judge of both, and to determine the law as well as the fact in controversy. On this, and on every other occasion, however, we
have no doubt, you will pay that respect, which is due to the opinion of
the court: For, as on the one hand, it is presumed, that juries are the
best judges of facts; it is, on the other hand, presumbable, that the
court are the best judges of the law. But still both objects are
lawfully, within your power of decision.”

That precedent held, unmolested, for 99 years. Prior to the Civil War, the Fugitive Slave Act made it a Federal Crime to help escaped slaves, but jury nullification was instrumental in undermining that law and bringing an end to slavery America. Jurors refused to render a guilty verdict against those who had helped escaped slaves. But in 1895, the Supreme Court of the United States struck it’s first blow against the Common Law principle of Jury Nullification. In Sparf v. United States, SCOTUS held in a 5-4 decision that federal judges were not required to inform jurors of their inherent right to judge the law in a case.

In the 1969, the Fourth Circuit upheld in the case of U.S. v. Moylan that a court could refuse to allow instruction to a jury regarding nullification, yet hypocritically upheld the jurors inherent right to nullify. In other words, they were denying the right of the juror to be informed of their right, while still maintaining the validity of Jury Nullification stating,

“If the jury feels the law is unjust, we recognize the undisputed power of
the jury to acquit.”

In the 1972 case of United States v Dougherty  the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit maintained that the courts could deny the defense a chance to instruct a jury on their right to nullify.

In 1988, in U.S. v. Krzyske, the jury asked the judge about jury nullification. The judge responded “There is no such thing as valid jury nullification.” The jury convicted the defendant, and the judge’s answer was upheld on appeal. Another judge did dissent however, and cited United States v. Wilson, 629 F. 2d 439 – Court of Appeals, 6th Circuit 1980, that the panel had unanimously decided “In criminal cases, a jury is entitled to acquit the defendant because it has no sympathy for the government’s position.”

In 1997, the Second Circuit ruled that jurors can be removed if there is evidence that they intend to nullify the law, under Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure 23(b). There have even been instances of jurors being removed and mistrials declared after informed-jury activists distributed literature near courthouses.

Now here’s one final gut-check for the uninformed public. We often assume that it is the job of the defense attorney to defend their client to the best of their ability, with all of the knowledge at their disposal. This is not true, however. Attorneys, including defense attorneys, are an Officer of the Court. This means that their first duty is to the law, and not their client. With a sworn oath to uphold the law, they are forbidden from advocating jury nullification. Your lawyer works for the court, not you.

If you ever sit on a jury, remember one important fact. You do not work for the court.

Lawmall.com

A History of Jury Nullification

The Straight Dope
stationsixunderground@gmail.com
Yes

What Is Jury Nullification? is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

The following story caught my attention because I went to jail for highlighting something similar – police abuse (or interactions) with kids in school. This story comes from Akron, Ohio where it seems a Middle School Police Relations (funny, relations) Officer fractured the arm of a (then) 13 year old girl because she was swearing. According to Ohio.com:

A mother is challenging the school assignment of an Akron police officer accused of fracturing her daughter’s arm while physically restraining the eighth-grade girl.

The incident was recorded on a security camera at Jennings middle school. The video shows Officer Jon Morgan rushing 13-year-old Tamika Williams at a doorway and forcing the student backward across a hall and against a locker.

The officer then grabs the girl’s left arm and spins her around, raising the arm up toward her right shoulder. At one point, the girl appears to be lifted by the officer several inches off the ground while other students mill through the hallway.

Morgan appears to speak into the girl’s ear before escorting her by the arm to an assistant principal’s office. There is no sound to the video.

The student, who has since turned 14, is not charged with resisting arrest or any other crime related to the Oct. 26 incident.

She has since transferred to another Akron middle school. Morgan remains assigned to Jennings while an investigation into the incident enters its third month.

Before I get to the actions of the officer and my rant about the utter silliness going on here. Take a look at the video again and this time watch the other children. What do you see them do? Nothing right? In fact, some stroll on by like nothing is going on. Wake up Parents! You’re raising your children to be obedient slaves who accept violence by some random government agent without question. Fathers, would you want the man (eventually/hopefully) dating your daughter to stand by, doing nothing, while some government agent breaks her arm? Please talk to your kids about doing what’s right, even if just filming the interaction for transparency and accountability.

Now that I got that off my chest let’s talk about having cops in schools! I know with the recent school shootings people are calling for more Cops in schools so let me clarify. I’m all for responsible people having firearms in schools and by responsible I also mean accountable. For example, Officer Morgan – the arm breaker – has continued to work at the Middle School with the internal investigation is completed. Meanwhile, the girl – who had her arm broke – has since transferred to another school. Are you freaking kidding me? This is how the public officials running the police and school departments decided to handle this? This is accountability? They can’t even put the officer on a desk job for a little while but have no problem shipping off the girl who swore.

Who’s a bigger threat, or more likely to use violence, towards the student body? The 13 year who swore or the grown adult who broke her arm for it? Give me a break people! Stand up and speak out. Get these people, who just so happen to be cops, away from your children. The Parents of Jennings Middle School should be pulling Officer Morgan out of the building by his shiny little badge. Maybe the parents would if they weren’t just as scared as their kids are in this video. End the fear, live in peace.

If you (dis)like this story, check out the Manchester Excessive Force post/videos that landed myself in jail for 90 days. Once again proving how backwards the system is. Neither I or this 13 year old girl ever laid our hands on anyone, yet, we were punished. While those who did  harm others walk freely amongst your children. Are you concerned yet?

Get Cops Out of Schools Before It’s Too Late is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

By Davy V.

Convicted felon and former Greece, NY Police Chief Merritt Rahn was released from the Hudson, N.Y. Correctional facility Wednesday morning.

In 2010, Rahn was convicted of several felonies in connection with covering up for two of his officers, including former Greece, NY Police Sgt. Nick Joseph’s hit and run accident in which Joseph, high on cocaine and alcohol rear ended a stalled vehicle.

Inside that vehicle was Alexis Sharpe, who was pregnant.

The impact ruptured Sharpe’s placenta and she had to undergo emergency surgery, forcing her to deliver her daughter, Azaria, 14 weeks prematurely.

Azaria spent 93 days in the hospital and suffers ongoing medical problems.

Nick Joseph fled under the cover of darkness immediately after crashing into Sharpe’s vehicle.

Joseph was later convicted and sentenced to 3 to 7 years in State prison.

Rahn was found guilty of tampering with public records, hindering a prosecution, falsifying business records, falsely reporting an incident, and two counts of official misconduct in an attempt to cover up the Joseph incident.

He was also found guilty of offering a false instrument for filing in the case of former Greece Police officer Gary Pignato’s background check.

In 2009, Greece Police officer Gary Pignato, also a former Rochester, NY Police officer, who was fired from the RPD, was charged with bribery and coercion, stemming from several traffic stops of women, whom he would try to force into having sex with him in exchange for him letting them off traffic tickets and crimes.

In one case, Pignato responded to a domestic disturbance call where the boyfriend of a young woman had called police.

The woman had been drinking alcohol.

Once Pignato learned the woman was on probation, he bribed the woman by telling her that if she did not have sex with him he would arrest her and she would be in violation of her probation.

Pignato would routinely follow women to their homes and stalk them.

At his sentencing, Pignato told the Judge “I literally placed my life on the line” as an officer and that it’s “degrading and demoralizing to be in jail.”

Pignato was sentenced 2 to 6 years in New York State Prison.

Rahn served only 28 months of a five year sentence.

He will be on parole supervision until July 2015.

Follow me on twitter https://twitter.com/davyvara

Convicted Felon and Former Greece, NY Police Chief Merritt Rahn Released from Prison is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

The American Dream

Waking People Up And Getting Them To Realize That The American Dream Is Quickly Becoming The American Nightmare

EndOfTheAmericanDream.com shared:

With each passing year, the difference between America’s prisons and America’s public schools becomes smaller and smaller.  As you read the rest of this article, you will be absolutely amazed at some of the crazy things that school children in America are being arrested for.  When I was growing up, I don’t remember a single police officer ever coming to my school.  Discipline was always handled by the teachers and by the principals.  But today, there are schools all over the country that have police officers permanently stationed in the halls.  Many other schools will call out police officers at the drop of a hat.  In the classrooms of America today, if you burp in class, if you spray yourself with perfume or if you doodle on your desk, there is a chance that you will be arrested by the police and hauled out of your school in handcuffs.  Unfortunately, we live in a country where paranoia has become standard operating procedure.  The American people have become convinced that the only way that we can all be “safe” is for this country to be run like a militarized totalitarian police state.  So our public schools are run like prisons and our public school students are treated like prisoners.  The United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world by far, and our schools are preparing the next generation to either “do time” in the prison system or to live as good little slaves in the Big Brother prison grid that is being constructed all around us.  But what our schools are not doing is giving these children the critical thinking skills that they need to live as free citizens in a nation that used to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave”.

Of course very few people would deny that the character of American schoolchildren has changed dramatically over the decades.  Back in the 1950s, some of the biggest school discipline problems were gum chewing and hair pulling.  Today, kids bring knives, guns and drugs with them to school.  Gang activity is rampant in many of our schools and in some schools kids are even having sex in the school bathrooms.

So there is definitely a discipline problem in our schools.

But what is going on in many areas of the country is absolutely ridiculous.  For example, in 2010 alone police down in Texas issued an astounding 300,000 tickets to school children.

Yes, if a kid pulls a knife on someone the police should get involved, but teachers and administrators should be able to use some common sense and handle the vast majority of discipline problems that happen themselves.

What you are about to read is absolutely going to amaze you.  The following are 19 really crazy things that school children are being arrested for in America….

#1 At one public school down in Texas, a 12-year-old girl named Sarah Bustamantes was recently arrested for spraying herself with perfume.

#2 A 13-year-old student at a school in Albuquerque, New Mexico was recently arrested by police for burping in class.

#3 Another student down in Albuquerque was forced to strip down to his underwear while five adults watched because he had $200 in his pocket.  The student was never formally charged with doing anything wrong.

#4 A security guard at one school in California broke the arm of a 16-year-old girl because she left some crumbs on the floor after cleaning up some cake that she had spilled.

#5 One teenage couple down in Houston poured milk on each other during a squabble while they were breaking up.  Instead of being sent to see the principal, they were arrested and sent to court.

#6 In early 2010, a 12-year-old girl at a school in Forest Hills, New York was arrested by police and marched out of her school in handcuffsjust because she doodled on her desk. “I love my friends Abby and Faith” was what she reportedly scribbled on her desk.

#7 A 6-year-old girl down in Florida was handcuffed and sent to a mental facility after throwing temper tantrums at her elementary school.

#8 One student down in Texas was reportedly arrested by police for throwing paper airplanes in class.

#9 A 17-year-old honor student in North Carolina named Ashley Smithwick accidentally took her father’s lunch with her to school.  It contained a small paring knife which he would use to slice up apples.  So what happened to this standout student when the school discovered this?  The school suspended her for the rest of the year and the police charged her with a misdemeanor.

#10 In Allentown, Pennsylvania a 14-year-old girl was tasered in the groin area by a school security officer even though she had put up her hands in the air to surrender.

#11 Down in Florida, an 11-year-old student was arrested, thrown in jail and charged with a third-degree felony for bringing a plastic butter knife to school.

#12 Back in 2009, an 8-year-old boy in Massachusetts was sent home from school and was forced to undergo a psychological evaluation because he drew a picture of Jesus on the cross.

#13 A police officer in San Mateo, California blasted a 7-year-old special education student in the face with pepper spray because he would not quit climbing on the furniture.

#14 In America today, even 5-year-old children are treated brutally by police.  The following is from a recent article that described what happened to one very young student in Stockton, California a while back….

Earlier this year, a Stockton student was handcuffed with zip ties on his hands and feet, forced to go to the hospital for a psychiatric evaluation and was charged with battery on a police officer. That student was 5 years old.

#15 At one school in Connecticut, a 17-year-old boy was thrown to the floor and tasered five times because he was yelling at a cafeteria worker.

#16 A teenager in suburban Dallas was forced to take on a part-time job after being ticketed for using foul language in one high school classroom.  The original ticket was for $340, but additional fees have raised the total bill to $637.

#17 A few months ago, police were called out when a little girl kissed a little boy during a physical education class at an elementary school down in Florida.

#18 A 6-year-old boy was recently charged with sexual battery for some “inappropriate touching” during a game of tag at one elementary school in the San Francisco area.

#19 In Massachusetts, police were recently sent out to collect an overdue library book from a 5-year-old girl.

Unfortunately, what is going on in our schools is a reflection of the broader society as a whole.  Our schools are being turned into prisons because our entire society is being turned into a giant prison.

Our nation is rapidly heading down the toilet, and the children of this nation do not have a bright future to look forward to.

If the police really want to find some criminals, they should start investigating some of the sickos that are in charge of some of these classrooms.

It seems like almost every day now there is a news story about some public school teacher that is involved in some kind of really perverted stuff.

For example, just check out what police down in Los Angeles recently found that one teacher was hiding….

A former Los Angeles elementary school teacher has been arrested for felony molestation of nearly two dozen students, accused of gagging children and putting live cockroaches on some of their faces. Deputies say the crimes were committed on campus.

Sickos who do that kind of stuff to kids should be punished very severely.

America’s schools are changing, and not for the better.

Personally, I went to public schools all my life, but I would not recommend that anyone send their kids to public schools today.  There is just way too much crazy stuff that goes on.

And our kids are learning less than ever in these public schools.  As I have written about previously, many of them are coming out of the system as dumb as a rock.  Instead of teaching our kids how to think critically and examine all sides of an issue, these schools areindoctrinating our kids and pushing particular social and political agendas on them.

There are a few public schools out there that are still good, but the vast majority of them are horrible.  They are not producing the leaders of tomorrow and they are not preparing the next generation with the tools that they need to survive in a complex world.

So is there much hope that our schools can be turned around?  Feel free to leave a comment with your opinion below….

19 Crazy Things That School Children Are Being Arrested For in America is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

(This video is from “thecopblock” youtube channel archives)

Ademo Freeman (Adem Mueller) Hard at Work

Welcome to copblock.org!

We, in the good old USA, possess 25% of Earth’s prisoners.  We have the highest incarceration rate the world has ever known. Yet, only 5% of Earth’s inhabitants live in the states.

We simply hold folks in positions of authority accountable by videotaping their actions. Nothing to hide right?

—Stop by daily for up to date news on folks who are sworn to protect and serve.—

FreeAdemo!

Thanks for stopping by, and please, always film police. It’s legal and necessary in every single state.

Welcome to Copblock! (VIDEO) is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

See The Video Here:    tristatehomepage.com

The expectation that our innocent veterans, children, and pets will be murdered by sub-machine gun toting police is common in The Land of The Free. You may simply be guilty of having an address similar to that on a piece of paper which claims to allow government agents to bomb and ransack the home of another.  Your, “Offense” could be as minimal as placing plant matter into a pipe or as egregious as selling raw milk to willing consumers.

According to net-security.org:

Nearly half of home wi-fi networks can be hacked in less than five seconds, according to a new study.

Unfortunately Police in Evansville IN didn’t catch that article or the thousands of others like it. The cops had received threats of bombs against themselves and their families via some obscure website comment section. Instead of exercising due diligence they destroyed the front door, which was reportedly open, and bombed some unsuspecting innocent elderly folks. They did to these people exactly what they feared for their own families. The elderly victims reportedly lived at the home for 30 years without any police incidents.

Here is another article on the incident.

Feel free to contact the Evansville IN PD:

Phone:    (812) 436-7896

Address:
Evansville Police Department
15 NW Martin Luther King Jr. BLVD
Evansville, IN 47708

Please Don’t Throw That Bomb At My Grandmother… is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

In 1993, I watched the Waco, “Standoff” live on the NBC Nightly News as a young man while eating meatloaf in front of the TV with my family. What exactly is a, “Standoff?” In my early years, I understood a standoff  as an incident which one party was wrong and the State comes in to correct or murder them.  I had a hard time comprehending why the military blazed in with tanks and burned a bunch of kids alive but understood that if the government takes such action, it must be justified. I also vaguely remember, “Ruby Ridge.”

My old man is a Navy Veteran. He served 4 years during the War In Vietnam.  He worked on the ship’s engines to insure plenty of Vietnamese were killed by artillery from the Destroyer he occupied.  He was just under ten when the last known US Civil War Veteran passed. He grew up in a time when government mandated reefer madness prevailed and The US Public Health Service was busy secretly infecting impoverished Black Americans with syphilis. We kept a flag flying on the front porch to show our unwavering support for our government, almost without question.

I’ve attempted to expose my father to the idea that just because this government is ours doesn’t mean it has our best interests in mind, to little avail. I believe he’s too conditioned to understand the idea of True Liberty.

I guess this is why I wasn’t overly surprised when he told me about a standoff a few blocks from his and my mother’s home in Janesville WI. He had told me that the previous evening they were walking the dog when the neighborhood erupted with screeching tires, sirens, and heavily armed men. He of course wasn’t able to walk up the street he’s lived near for almost 40 years because some twenty-something cop said he couldn’t.

We try not to talk about political issues due to our differences but I couldn’t help but notice that after 4 days with nothing in the paper he seemed concerned with what may have happened.  I suggested he call the PD but after a week he hadn’t so I stepped in.

I contacted JPD about the incident in Oct. 2011 on Forest Park Blvd. Robin picked up the phone and I posed my question. She didn’t object to glancing at the log and dismissed it as a potential gun call where no gun was found.  I persisted with questions and she stated that a twelve year old had been taking out the garbage around dusk and saw a person in a car with a gun. He ran back into his home and told his mom who called it in.

In WI concealed carry is legal. Open carry is also legal and it isn’t uncommon to see people on the side of  the State Highways standing around with their shotguns or rifles heading into the fields to hunt wild game.  People occasionally walk the grocery store isles with a sidearm on their hip and there usually aren’t problems.

I continued to question Robin at the PD despite her increasing reluctance to answer my questions.  What’s the big secret? She reiterated that no gun was found and nobody was arrested so it wasn’t a big deal. I asked if the gun, “Suspect” was pulled out at gunpoint or searched. She stated she didn’t know. I asked if the dispatch actually vetted this child personally, again, no apparent answer. She stated I wouldn’t be able to obtain the police reports because none exist. Just a brief dispatch log.

It turned out that the gun was actually a cell phone.  And the two alleged “gunmen” were 17 year old-ish boyfriend and girlfriend stopping by the house quick.  My Dad said the cops were yelling but he couldn’t hear exactly what was being said. I’m guessing this is an experience these young people will never forget. It may seem like a funny story in hindsight but on the other hand, I’ve never had multiple guns pointed at my torso.  I have been inadvertently swept by a live firearms and it really pisses me off.

Waukesha Standoff Society

On a regular basis the Waukesha Police play soldier in our neighborhoods. They call in the county tank and halt our outdoor activities by the sounds of cops yelling on a PA system.  I’ve done several videos of these standoff when I happen upon them. I don’t use a scanner but every month and a half or so I can usually find one by just cruising.

They bring the shields and AR’s but overwhelmingly just hang out and soak up the overtime. I don’t often see anything in the news other than the fact that one of these occurred.  It seems that if the police call these incidents, “Medicals” they can get away without scrutiny or further information.  I’ve taken video of three in the last year or so.

I don’t need to ask what precipitates a standoff. Pretty much anything in this area. Perhaps a neighbor hears an argument and you choose not to answer the door for the cops? Maybe you’ve had a few drinks and throw on your favorite Metallica CD. As we all know the police have no legal duty to, “Protect us.”  What if an, “Emotionally disturbed person who is potentially armed” is greeted by the mom or brother instead of a heavily fortified militarized sect of the police. Perhaps a well known,  friendly, willing,  neighbor would produce better results than flash bang grenades and sub-machine guns.

As is common,  in the video above, no gun, according to local YouTube friends, and no real threat by the female suspect. I’d love to tell you the whole story but it seems to be a secret.

It appears standoffs will be entrenched in Waukesha culture for the time being.

John Freeman – Milwaukee area Copblock

Wisconsin Standoff Society is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

Too many laws, too many prisoners via the Economist

THREE pickup trucks pulled up outside George Norris’s home in Spring, Texas. Six armed police in flak jackets jumped out. Thinking they must have come to the wrong place, Mr Norris opened his front door, and was startled to be shoved against a wall and frisked for weapons. He was forced into a chair for four hours while officers ransacked his house. They pulled out drawers, rifled through papers, dumped things on the floor and eventually loaded 37 boxes of Mr Norris’s possessions onto their pickups. They refused to tell him what he had done wrong. “It wasn’t fun, I can tell you that,” he recalls.

Mr Norris was 65 years old at the time, and a collector of orchids. He eventually discovered that he was suspected of smuggling the flowers into America, an offence under the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species. This came as a shock. He did indeed import flowers and sell them to other orchid-lovers. And it was true that his suppliers in Latin America were sometimes sloppy about their paperwork. In a shipment of many similar-looking plants, it was rare for each permit to match each orchid precisely.

In March 2004, five months after the raid, Mr Norris was indicted, handcuffed and thrown into a cell with a suspected murderer and two suspected drug-dealers. When told why he was there, “they thought it hilarious.” One asked: “What do you do with these things? Smoke ’em?”

He pleaded innocent. But an undercover federal agent had ordered some orchids from him, a few of which arrived without the correct papers. For this, he was charged with making a false statement to a government official, a federal crime punishable by up to five years in prison. Since he had communicated with his suppliers, he was charged with conspiracy, which also carries a potential five-year term.

As his legal bills exploded, Mr Norris reluctantly changed his plea to guilty, though he still protests his innocence. He was sentenced to 17 months in prison. After some time, he was released while his appeal was heard, but then put back inside. His health suffered: he has Parkinson’s disease, which was not helped by the strain of imprisonment. For bringing some prescription sleeping pills into prison, he was put in solitary confinement for 71 days. The prison was so crowded, however, that even in solitary he had two room-mates.

A long love affair with lock and key

Justice is harsher in America than in any other rich country. Between 2.3m and 2.4m Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. If those on parole or probation are included, one adult in 31 is under “correctional” supervision. As a proportion of its total population, America incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany and 12 times more than Japan. Overcrowding is the norm. Federal prisons house 60% more inmates than they were designed for. State lock-ups are only slightly less stuffed.

The system has three big flaws, say criminologists. First, it puts too many people away for too long. Second, it criminalises acts that need not be criminalised. Third, it is unpredictable. Many laws, especially federal ones, are so vaguely written that people cannot easily tell whether they have broken them.

In 1970 the proportion of Americans behind bars was below one in 400, compared with today’s one in 100. Since then, the voters, alarmed at a surge in violent crime, have demanded fiercer sentences. Politicians have obliged. New laws have removed from judges much of their discretion to set a sentence that takes full account of the circumstances of the offence. Since no politician wants to be tarred as soft on crime, such laws, mandating minimum sentences, are seldom softened. On the contrary, they tend to get harder.

Some criminals belong behind bars. When a habitual rapist is locked up, the streets are safer. But the same is not necessarily true of petty drug-dealers, whose incarceration creates a vacancy for someone else to fill, argues Alfred  Blumstein of Carnegie Mellon University. The number of drug offenders in federal and state lock-ups has increased 13-fold since 1980. Some are scary thugs; many are not.

Michelle Collette of Hanover, Massachusetts, sold Percocet, a prescription painkiller. “I was planning to do it just once,” she says, “but the money was so easy. And misery. Before long, she was taking 20-30 a day.I thought: it’s not heroin.” Then she became addicted to her own wares. She was unhappy with her boyfriend, she explains, but did not want to split up with him, because she did not want their child to grow up fatherless, as she had. So she popped pills to numb the

When Ms Collette and her boyfriend, who also sold drugs, were arrested in a dawn raid, the police found 607 pills and $901 in cash. The boyfriend fought the charges and got 15 years in prison. In a plea bargain Ms Collette was sentenced to seven years, of which she served six.

“I don’t think this is fair,” said the judge. “I don’t think this is what our laws are meant to do. It’s going to cost upwards of $50,000 a year to have you in state prison. Had I the authority, I would send you to jail for no more than one year…and a [treatment] programme after that.” But mandatory sentencing laws gave him no choice.

Massachusetts is a liberal state, but its drug laws are anything but. It treats opium-derived painkillers such as Percocet like hard drugs, if illicitly sold. Possession of a tiny amount (14-28 grams, or ½-1 ounce) yields a minimum sentence of three years. For 200 grams, it is 15 years, more than the minimum for armed rape. And the weight of the other substances with which a dealer mixes his drugs is included in the total, so 10 grams of opiates mixed with 190 grams of flour gets you 15 years.

Ms Collette underwent drug treatment before being locked up, and is now clean. But in prison she found she was pregnant. After going through labour shackled to a hospital bed, she was allowed only 48 hours to bond with her newborn son. She was released in March, found a job in a shop, and is hoping that her son will get used to having her around.

Rigid sentencing laws shift power from judges to prosecutors, complains Barbara Dougan of Families Against Mandatory Minimums, a pressure-group. Even the smallest dealer often has enough to trigger a colossal sentence. Prosecutors may charge him with selling a smaller amount if he agrees to “reel some other poor slob in”, as Ms Dougan puts it. He is told to persuade another dealer to sell him just enough drugs to trigger a 15-year sentence, and perhaps to do the deal near a school, which adds another two years.

Severe drug laws have unintended consequences. Less than half of American cancer patients receive adequate painkillers, according to the American Pain Foundation, another pressure-group. One reason is that doctors are terrified of being accused of drug-trafficking if they over-prescribe. In 2004 William Hurwitz, a doctor specialising in the control of pain, was sentenced to 25 years in prison for prescribing pills that a few patients then resold on the black market. Virginia’s board of medicine ruled that he had acted in good faith, but he still served nearly four years.

Half the states have laws that lock up habitual offenders for life. In some states this applies only to violent criminals, but in others it applies even to petty ones. Some 3,700 people who committed neither violent nor serious crimes are serving life sentences under California’s “three strikes and you’re out” law. In Alabama a petty thief called Jerald Sanders was given a life term for pinching a bicycle. Alabama’s judges are elected, as are those in 32 other states. This makes them mindful of public opinion: some appear in campaign advertisements waving guns and bragging about how tough they are.

Many Americans assume that white-collar criminals get off lightly, but many do not. Granted, they may be hard to catch and can often afford good lawyers. But federal prosecutors can file many charges for what is essentially one offence. For example, they can count each e-mail sent by a white-collar criminal in the course of his criminal activity as a separate case of wire fraud, each of which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years. The decades soon add up. Sentences depend partly on the size of the loss and the number of people affected, so if you work for a big, publicly traded company, you break a rule and the share-price drops, watch out.

Eternal punishment

Jim Felman, a defence lawyer in Tampa, Florida, says America is conducting “an experiment in imprisoning first-time non-violent offenders for periods of time previously reserved only for those who had killed someone”. One of Mr Felman’s clients, a fraudster called Sholam Weiss, was sentenced to 845 years. “I got it reduced to 835,” sighs Mr Felman. Faced with such penalties, he says, the incentive to co-operate, which means to say things that are helpful to the prosecution, is overwhelming. And this, he believes, “warps the truth-seeking function” of justice.

Innocent defendants may plead guilty in return for a shorter sentence to avoid the risk of a much longer one. A prosecutor can credibly threaten a middle-aged man that he will die in a cell unless he gives evidence against his boss. This is unfair, complains Harvey Silverglate, the author of “Three Felonies a Day: How the Feds Target the Innocent”. If a defense lawyer offers a witness money to testify that his client is innocent, that is bribery. But a prosecutor can legally offer something of far greater value—his freedom—to a witness who says the opposite. The potential for wrongful convictions is obvious.

Badly drafted laws create traps for the unwary. In 2006 Georgia Thompson, a civil servant in Wisconsin, was sentenced to 18 months in prison for depriving the public of “the intangible right of honest services”. Her crime was to award a contract (for travel services) to the best bidder. A firm called Adelman Travel scored the most points (on an official scale) for price and quality, so Ms Thompson picked it. She ignored a rule that required her to penalize Adelman for a slapdash presentation when bidding. For this act of common sense, she served four months. (An appeals court freed her.)

The “honest services” statute, if taken seriously, “would seemingly cover a salaried employee’s phoning in sick to go to a ball game,” fumes Antonin Scalia, a Supreme Court justice. The Supreme Court ruled recently that the statute was so vague as to be unconstitutional. It did not strike it down completely, but said it should be applied only in cases involving bribery or kickbacks. The challenge was brought by Enron’s former boss, Jeff Skilling, who will not go free despite his victory, and Conrad Black, a media magnate released this week on bail pending an appeal, who may.

There are over 4,000 federal crimes, and many times that number of regulations that carry criminal penalties. When analysts at the Congressional Research Service tried to count the number of separate offenses on the books, they were forced to give up, exhausted. Rules concerning corporate governance or the environment are often impossible to understand, yet breaking them can land you in prison. In many criminal cases, the common-law requirement that a defendant must have a mens rea (ie, he must or should know that he is doing wrong) has been weakened or erased.

“The founders viewed the criminal sanction as a last resort, reserved for serious offenses, clearly defined, so ordinary citizens would know whether they were violating the law. Yet over the last 40 years, an unholy alliance of big-business-hating liberals and tough-on-crime conservatives has made criminalisation the first line of attack—a way to demonstrate seriousness about the social problem of the month, whether it’s corporate scandals or e-mail spam,” writes Gene Healy, a libertarian scholar. “You can serve federal time for interstate transport of water hyacinths, trafficking in unlicensed dentures, or misappropriating the likeness of Woodsy Owl.”

“You’re (probably) a federal criminal,” declares Alex Kozinski, an appeals-court judge, in a provocative essay of that title. Making a false statement to a federal official is an offence. So is lying to someone who then repeats your lie to a federal official. Failing to prevent your employees from breaking regulations you have never heard of can be a crime. A boss got six months in prison because one of his workers accidentally broke a pipe, causing oil to spill into a river. “It didn’t matter that he had no reason to learn about the [Clean Water Act’s] labyrinth of regulations, since he was merely a railroad-construction supervisor,” laments Judge Kozinski.

Society wants retribution

Such cases account for only a tiny share of the Americans behind bars, but they still matter. When so many people are technically breaking the law, it is up to prosecutors to decide whom to pursue. No doubt most prosecutors choose wisely. But members of unpopular groups may not find that reassuring. Ms Thompson, for example, was prosecuted just before an election, at a time when allegations of public corruption in Wisconsin were in the news. Some prosecutors, such as Eliot Spitzer, the disgraced ex-governor of New York, have built political careers by nailing people whom voters don’t like, such as financiers.

Prison deters? Not much, not the worst

Some people argue that the system works: that crime has fallen in the past two decades because the bad guys are either in prison or scared of being sent there. Caged thugs cannot break into your home. Bernie Madoff’s 150-year sentence for running a Ponzi scam should deter imitators. And indeed the crime rate continues to drop, despite the recession, as Michael Rushford of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation, an advocacy group, points out. This, he says, is because habitual criminals face serious consequences. Some research supports him: after raking through decades of historical data, John Donohue of Yale Law School estimates that a 10% increase in imprisonment brings a 2% reduction in crime.

Others disagree. Using more recent data, Bert Useem of Purdue University and Anne Piehl of Rutgers University estimate that a 10% increase in the number of people behind bars would reduce crime by only 0.5%. In the states that currently lock up the most people, imprisoning more would actually increase crime, they believe. Some inmates emerge from prison as more accomplished criminals. And raising the incarceration rate means locking up people who are, on average, less dangerous than the ones already behind bars. A recent study found that, over the past 13 years, the proportion of new prisoners in Florida who had committed violent crimes fell by 28%, whereas those inside for “other” crimes shot up by 189%. These “other” crimes were non-violent ones involving neither drugs nor theft, such as driving with a suspended licence.

And now the reckoning, in dollars

Crime is a young man’s game. Muggers over 30 are rare. Ex-cons who go straight for a few years generally stay that way: a study of 88,000 criminals by Mr Blumstein found that if someone was arrested for aggravated assault at the age of 18 but then managed to stay out of trouble until the age of 22, the risk of his offending was no greater than that for the general population. Yet America’s prisons are crammed with old folk. Nearly 200,000 prisoners are over 50. Most would pose little threat if released. And since people age faster in prison than outside, their medical costs are vast. Human Rights Watch, a lobby-group, talks of “nursing homes with razor wire”.

Jail is expensive. Spending per prisoner ranges from $18,000 a year in Mississippi to about $50,000 in California, where the cost per pupil is but a seventh of that. “[W]e are well past the point of diminishing returns,” says a report by the Pew Center on the States. In Washington state, for example, each dollar invested in new prison places in 1980 averted more than nine dollars of criminal harm (using a somewhat arbitrary scale to assign a value to not being beaten up). By 2001, as the emphasis shifted from violent criminals to drug-dealers and thieves, the cost-benefit ratio reversed. Each new dollar spent on prisons averted only 37 cents’ worth of harm.

Since the recession threw their budgets into turmoil, many states have decided to imprison fewer people, largely to save money. Mississippi has reduced the proportion of their sentences that non-violent offenders are required to serve from 85% to 25%. Texas is making greater use of non-custodial penalties. New York has repealed most mandatory minimum terms for drug offences. In all, the number of prisoners in state lock-ups fell by 0.3% in 2009, the first fall since 1972. But the total number of Americans behind bars still rose slightly, because the number of federal prisoners climbed by 3.4%.

A less punitive system could work better, argues Mark Kleiman of the University of California, Los Angeles. Swift and certain penalties deter more than harsh ones. Money spent on prisons cannot be spent on more cost-effective methods of crime-prevention, such as better policing, drug treatment or probation. The pain that punishment inflicts on criminals themselves, on their families and on their communities should also be taken into account.

“Just by making effective use of things we already know how to do, we could reasonably expect to have half as much crime and half as many people behind bars ten years from now,” says Mr Kleiman. “There are a thousand excuses for failing to make that effort, but not one good reason.”

Never in the civilized world have so many been locked up for so little is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

Yesterday I was arraigned on three counts of felony wiretapping – click here to read about Pete’s and my year long fight on MA wiretapping charges. If convicted I face anywhere from 11.5 to 21 years in prison and up to $12,000 in fines. I say IF because the only way I’ll be convicted is if the state (the system itself) protects it’s own. The three people claiming that I wire tapped them are public officials, whom I recorded while acting in their “public” capacities, but we’ll get more into that as we approach trial.

An arraignment is pretty basic, it’s a hearing where the state decides your bail – a place holder essentially – which is to secure your appearance at future hearings/trial. If you can think of any reason you need to be outside of jail, this is where you explain that to the judge. If you’re representing yourself, the goal here is to make the judge understand that you WILL be present at the scheduled dates/times.

As seen in the video above, I stated to the judge that a) I feel the charges are frivolous b) I’ve never missed a court date in the past – and I’ve had plenty c) I’m a full time activists/blogger and have ever intention of highlighting the silliness of the state’s aggression toward me. The judge seemed to agree because not only did he lower my PR bond from $10,000 to $1,000 but he also removed the clause banning me from possessing firearms. Though the DA made it clear that federal law still permitted it and I told them both that I’m a convicted felon. So the squabble was for nothing.

The only other thing I’d like to note about in the video is how the DA – Michael Valentine – stated that I wasn’t a harm to the community. Yet is going to spend alot of tax dollars attempting to cage me and a lot more if he actually secedes.

I encourage anyone being charged with a victimless crime to visit NeverTakeAPlea.org – that’s where I’ll be posting my court hearings and where you can network with others facing similar charges.

More to come from the magical land of Manchester Superior Court.

Meta Post with current information and backstory – HERE.
 

Ademo’s Arraignment on Wiretapping Charges is a post from Cop Block - Badges Don't Grant Extra Rights

Early last month, Cop Block covered the horrible charges that Michael Allison is facing (read the in depth coverage here), but since the podcast reaches a different audience, I thought it would be a good idea to get Michael’s story to as many ears as possible. Listen to the podcast below, and if you feel so inclined, contact Tom Wiseman, the Crawford Co. state attorney that is pursuing these charges… 5 counts of felony eavesdropping that could put Mr. Allison behind bars for 75 years, basically a life sentence for this middle aged man.

Tom Wiseman
Crawford County Courthouse
105 Douglas St.
Robinson, IL 62454
phone: 618.546.1505
fax: 618.544.4912
email: twiseman@crawfordcountycentral.com

Special thanks to YouTube user MikeHansonArchives for compiling all of the NBC 2 news clips in one easy place that made this podcast possible. You can watch the full 15 minutes of coverage here.

If you would like to submit a story or record a segment for the Police Accountability Report (on lack of accountability for police in your area) please email podcast[at]copblock[dot]org. We also welcome feedback.

You can also hear the podcast and other great liberty minded programs on LRN.FM. If you have an Apple iPhone or iPad, you can download the free LRN.FM app and have access to the live LRN stream as well as quick and easy access to the podcast archives for all of the shows in the LRN family.

Police Accountability Report – Episode 38 – Michael Allison is a post from Cop Block - "Something must be done about vengeance, a badge, and a gun"