Detroit COVID-19 data: Tracking cases, deaths (clickondetroit.com)

1 out of 6 Detroiters (98,919) have confirmed COVID cases

GET VACCINATED, BOOSTED — WSU Mobile Health Unit

No cost, no insurance or ID required; diabetes and cholesterol testing also

Russ Bellant, President Detroit Library Commission

By Russ Bellant

Jan 7. 2022

UPDATE WITH FUTURE LOCATIONS, DATES

Jan. 9, 2022

The national numbers are worse, with 58.4 million cases out of 332,000,000 citizens, or one of every 5.7 people. Over 832,000 have died from COVID, more loss of U.S. lives than from World Wars 1 and 2, Vietnam, Korea, Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

Please encourage everyone you know who isn’t vaccinated to come to 

WILDER LIBRARY BRANCH

7140 E. Seven Mile (a few blocks west of Van Dyke) 

SATURDAY, JANUARY 8, FROM 11 A.M. TO 4 P.M. 

Wayne State University’s Mobile Health unit will be set up to give free testing for COVID, vaccinations or boosters. No cost, no insurance nor ID is required. You can also get diabetes and cholesterol testing.

The odds of a COVID carrier in supermarkets, churches, classrooms and sporting events make it necessary to act. There are no perfect solutions, but to not act is surely the most dangerous and deadly way to go.

 VOD’s staff lives either on limited fixed incomes or is incarcerated. We are not paid; we publish the newspaper pro bono. Help keep us afloat by chipping in to keep stories on this Prison Nation and Police State, and related matters, coming! Any amount is appreciated.

      DONATE TO VOD

                 https://www.gofundme.com/donate-to-vod

(Contact editor for details on other ways to send funds, at 313-825-6126 or diane_bukowski@hotmail.com.)

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Neo-Nazi Azov Battalion in Kyiv Photo: Sopa Images / SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty

​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist

Jan. 6, 2022

“…it is imperative that everyone, in particular Black and working-class people, understand that not having an awareness of the interconnections of the “grind” (the struggle to survive in the U.S.) and U.S. white supremacist, imperialist policies, and not being prepared to commit to altering those power relations, ensures that the conditions will persist that translates into suffering and even death for the colonized, the working classes, the oppressed, and all of global humanity”

____________________________________________________________

Voice of Detroit Editor’s Note: This article is being re-printed here, with additional photos, because the situation with U.S. foreign policy in Ukraine and around the globe intimately affects those affected by mass incarceration and police abuse in this country.

While millions, mostly Black people and others of color, and poor people languish in the concentration camps that are U.S. prisons, and while police murder and abuse of the same populations increases without pause, the U.S. continues to spend over half the federal budget on the military, and para-military funding of local police forces, rather than on health care for all, jobs, social services, and infrastructure needs.

___________________________________________________________

President Joe Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that the US and its allies “will respond decisively if Russia further invades Ukraine,” according to a readout of a call between the two. CNN

The worldview of liberals usually ends at the borders of the U.S. settler-state until they are mobilized by the oligarchy to provide ideological cover for the latest imperialist intrigue. This is as true for the liberal Black “misleadership” class as it is for Euro-American liberals.

But U.S.-centrism and class collaboration are not just maladies of the liberal class. Self-identified radicals or leftists from all backgrounds also suffer from this affliction, resulting in a very thin social base for anti-imperialism in the U.S., and even throughout Western Europe.

So, Ukraine, Russia, and NATO feel like a world away and in no way relevant to the everyday grind that the millions of working people are forced to engage in as part of this vicious, backward social, economic system called capitalism. However, because of the startling incompetency of the Biden Administration, the strong possibility of a misstep in Ukraine could very well lead to a nuclear confrontation with Russia — making the situation in Ukraine as significant as life itself for all of us.

What is in play? 

The pro-state, pro-imperialist propaganda operations that masquerade as a press involved in journalism never bring any international issue to the attention of the U.S. public unless it is to mobilize the public to support the policies and interests of the capitalist elites. Over the last few weeks, the propagandists have been busy inundating the public with stories of Russia aggression in Ukraine.

Why? 

Because even though it has only been a few months since the U.S. had to retreat from Afghanistan, the public is once again being mobilized to support the mad policies of the U.S. in Ukraine; policies that appear to be purposely attempting to evoke some kind of military response from the Russia Federation, which the U.S. has explicitly stated it would respond to.

The U.S. Peace Council’s statement on Ukraine Reveals why Ukraine is important. 

The statement first provides important historical context in order to counter the narrative being pushed by the corporate press and their liberal and radical collaborators:

“For weeks, the U.S. corporate media have been shrill in declaring that Russia, having positioned tens of thousands of Russian troops on the border, may be about to invade Ukraine. U.S. State Department spokesmen have been threatening Russia with punishing economic sanctions if there were an invasion. Daily, if not hourly, TV viewers are shown satellite images supposedly showing Russian troop concentrations on the Ukraine border, accompanied by unflattering photos of a scowling Vladimir Putin, depicted as the evil source of the new U.S.-Russia tensions.”

And how did this situation emerge in Ukraine?

The fascist neo-Nazi coup in Ukraine in 2014 was a precursor of the attempted fascist, racist coup in the U.S. on Jan. 6, 2021; white supremacists from the U.S. are now campaigning for the neo-Nazis in Ukraine; see: A Year After 1/6, Ukraine’s War Draws U.S. Far-Right to Fight Russia, Train for Violence at Home (newsweek.com)

The corporate press usually leaves out vital information, like the U.S.-supported coup against the democratically elected government of Victor Yanukovych in 2014 (one of a number of coups that the Obama/Biden administration pulled off during its eight years in office).

As a result of the coup, many people in that country, but particularly in the more Russia speaking parts of Eastern Ukraine that had overwhelmingly supported Yanukovych, rejected the new coup government as illegitimate. In response, the coup government, which had significant numbers the extreme right- neo-Nazis in the government and in the security forces, attacked the peoples in the East. In other words, the government attacked its own people — a charge that the Obama administration had levelled at Syrian president Bashar al-Assad to delegitimize his government just a couple of years earlier.

MINSK II ACCORDS

As a result of the military assault by the new government, two regions in the East, Donetsk and Luhansk, broke away from Ukraine and declared themselves independent. The intensification of the ensuing war led to an agreement referred to as the Minsk II Accords in early 2015. This agreement was negotiated and agreed to by France, Germany, Russia, and Ukraine and endorsed unanimously by the UN Security Council, including the United States.

“The Accords provided for demilitarization of eastern Ukraine, restoration of Ukrainian sovereignty over the eastern regions, and full autonomy for the Donbas region. Despite occasional lip service, they have been largely ignored by the U.S. and NATO.”

The US Peace Council (USPC) statement also points out that Victoria Nuland, one of the architects of the Obama/Biden coup in 2014, testified before Congress on the billions of dollars the U.S. pumped into Ukraine to provoke the coup and then prop-up the coup government.

Back in power, the Democrats apparently have decided to take up where they left off in Ukraine. They consciously encouraged Ukraine’s government to ignore the Minsk agreement and to take back the Donbas region in the East by force and provided them with the military means to do so.

________________________________________________________

PRINCETON STUDY ESTIMATES THAT 32 MILLION PEOPLE IN THE U.S. AND RUSSIA WOULD DIE AT THE OUTSET OF A NUCLEAR WAR.

________________________________________________________

“The incorporation of Ukraine into NATO would move NATO weapons and troops even closer to the heartland of Russia. This is to say nothing of the fact that, within living memory, the Russian people suffered invasion from the West. In 1941-45 Hitler’s armies, 4 million strong, devastated the country in a genocidal war that took some 27 million lives.”

In his year-end press conference on December 23rd, Mr. Putin stressed that “Further movement of NATO eastward is unacceptable. They are on the threshold of our house. Is it an excessive demand — no more attack weapons systems near our home? Is there something unusual about this?” One need not be an unqualified admirer of the politics of Vladimir Putin to acknowledge that the Russian leader has legitimate security concerns.

What must be done according to the USPC:

U.S. Peace Movement Must Act Before it is Too Late

To counter those permanent powerful forces will take counterpressure. The U.S. peace movement should reject demonization of Russian leaders. We must act urgently to push for immediate de-escalation of this NATO-created dangerous crisis. We must vehemently demand that:

• The Minsk II agreement serves as a framework for a non-violent, diplomatic solution to the crisis that also fully involves the United Nations Security Council.
• The U.S. and its allies cease unnecessary provocations including increased arms sales to Ukraine and suggested NATO membership.
• Potential threats to international peace be taken up by the United Nations and subjected to the provisions of the UN Charter and other elements of international law instead of arbitrary and illegal actions by any state or regional formation.”

The U.S./EU/NATO Axis of Domination has been a continuous threat to global peace and security. However, with the precipitous decline in their global prestige if not actual power, because they still possess enormous economic and military power, the inability of the white supremacist colonialist mind to come to terms with the new realities of the present world makes the decision makers in the U.S. and Europe an existential threat to all of humanity.

The military pivot to China, criminal sanctions against over thirty nations, wars, subversion, torture, the commodification of disease, the blatant disregard for life represented by the CDC’s decisions to force workers back on job even if they are sick, mass incarceration, militarized police, over eight hundred military bases around the world — all testify to why radical change in the U.S. and the dismantling of the U.S. empire is a global imperative.

It is also why it is imperative that everyone, in particular Black and working-class people, understand that not having an awareness of the interconnections of the “grind” (the struggle to survive in the U.S.) and U.S. white supremacist, imperialist policies, and not being prepared to commit to altering those power relations, ensures that the conditions will persist that translates into suffering and even death for the colonized, the working classes, the oppressed, and all of global humanity.

The right to peace is fundamentally intertwined with the right to life, and both rights are “People(s)-centered human rights.” However, these fundamental rights will never be realized as long as we allow the capitalist criminals currently in control of the U.S. state and system to operate with impunity. The task is clear.

Ajamu Baraka 

Ajamu Baraka is the national organizer of the Black Alliance for Peace and was the 2016 candidate for vice president of the United States on the Green Party ticket. Baraka is an editor and contributing columnist for the Black Agenda Report and was awarded the US Peace Memorial 2019 Peace Prize and the Serena Shirm award for uncompromised integrity in journalism. He is a member of the Executive Committee of the U.S. Peace Council.

Related:

U.S.-Russia confrontation over Ukraine threatens to become all-out war — but why? | Salon.com

US-Russia nuclear war would kill 34 million people within hours and is increasingly likely, Princeton study concludes | The Independent | The Independent

Everything you wanted to know about the Minsk peace deal, but were afraid to ask | Euromaidan Press | Euromaidan Press

A Year After 1/6, Ukraine’s War Draws U.S. Far-Right to Fight Russia, Train for Violence at Home (newsweek.com)

 VOD’s staff lives either on limited fixed incomes or is incarcerated. We are not paid; we publish the newspaper pro bono. Help keep us afloat by chipping in to keep stories on this Prison Nation and Police State, and related matters, coming! Any amount is appreciated.

                        DONATE TO VOD

               https://www.gofundme.com/donate-to-vod

(Contact editor for details on other ways to send funds, at 313-825-6126 or diane_bukowski@hotmail.com.)

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Detroit Channel 7 News appears to have been the ONLY news outlet that portrayed the grim reality behind Charles Pugh’s 2016 conviction of sexual abuse of a 14-year-old child, and others, in the wake of his release from prison after serving only five years of a possible 15-year sentence.

Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell.

Pugh’s ability to commit such atrocities while serving as an elected City Council member and president, despite broad awareness of his crimes behind the scenes, stands as a condemnation of an entire system. That system also perpetrated the devastation of the City of Detroit by banks and corporations for profit, before, during and after the unprecedented bankruptcy declaration in 2014, assisted by Pugh and his cronies.

It is a grim tale akin to the crimes of Jeffrey Epstein, Ghislaine Maxwell, and their wealthy allies in the ruling class who shamelessly exploited young women for their pleasure for years before they were finally exposed.

By Diane Bukowski

December 22, 2021

DETROIT–The Detroit News today announced the expected parole of former Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh after he served only FIVE YEARS of a maximum 15 years for the sexual abuse of a 14-year-old child. His prison sentence in that case followed a civil suit for the abuse of a 17-year-old during his tenure in public office, and multiple reports of similar alleged cases.

Pugh, Gary Brown, and the rest of the “Fatal Five” on the Detroit City Council authorized the state take-over of the City of Detroit in 2012, which led to the Wall Street-manufactured Detroit “bankrupcty” in 2014. As a resullt, Detroit residents lost ownership of nearly all the city’s assets, including the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, and tens of thousands of city jobs. Meanwhile, the theft of tens of thousands of homes and the closure of hundreds of city schools proceeded in the ongoing tidal wave of bankster foreclosures and state-sponsored theft.

In contrast to its coverage of Pugh’s impending release, and its previous advocacy in favor of the Detroit bankruptcy, the Detroit News published an astoundingly vindictive article on the release of juvenile lifer William Bryant, who was convicted at the age of 16 and served 35 years in prison for the robbery-killing of a Detroit Tigers fan during the 1984 World Series street “celebrations.”

Bryant was released due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2012 Miller v. Alabama ruling outlawing mandatory juvenile life without parole.

According to the Register of Actions in Bryant’s case, he was belatedly released only after multiple proceedings in front of Third Judicial Circuit Court Judge Shannon Walker beginning in 2018, despite the U.S. Supreme Court’s mandate.

Below are links to the Detroit News articles referenced here.

What former Detroit council president Pugh hopes to achieve on parole (detroitnews.com)

Man killed Tigers fan after ’84 World Series. Now he’s free and victim’s family is devastated (detroitnews.com)

The Voice of Detroit is re-publishing excerpts from its 2015 article on Pugh’s role in dismantling the City of Detroit below.

JAIL CHARLES PUGH! CIVIL MOLESTATION TRIAL NOV. 3; FORMER CC PRES. ALSO GUILTY OF CRIMES VS. DETROIT

Posted on 10/11/2015 by Diane Bukowski

City Council Pres. Charles Pugh (r) berates public commenter opposing takeover of Detroit as VP Gary Brown listens.

Pugh on trial in civil lawsuit by “K.S.,” young man who alleges Pugh sexually abused him

Pugh needs to be CRIMINALLY tried along with Fatal Five who approved 2012 Consent Agreement leading to Detroit bankruptcy, Gov. Rick Snyder, Kevyn Orr, collaborators, for genocidal crimes against people of Detroit

By Diane Bukowski

 Editorial

 Oct. 8, 2015

In 2012, students at Frederick Douglass Academy walked out, chanting, “We demand an education.”

DETROIT – The daily media is currently keeping pretty mum about the ongoing civil trial of former Detroit City Council President Charles Pugh, alleging sexual abuse of a student at the Frederick Douglass Academy for Young Men in 2013. A jury trial in front of U.S. District Court Judge David Lawson is set for Nov. 3.

Also named in the lawsuit, filed on behalf of “K.S.,” are former Detroit Public Schools emergency managers Roy Roberts and Robert Bobb, and DPS officials Berry Greer and Monique McMurtry.

Among the shocking allegations in the suit, which is linked at the conclusion of this article:

“34. On or about May 31, 2013, defendant PUGH began bribing plaintiff, promising him gifts, such as video games and money for performing sexual acts and/or making videos of plaintiff performing sexual acts. Defendant PUGH made it clear to plaintiff that his career would be ruined if anyone found out about these bribes, and continuously told plaintiff to keep their conversations private.

35. On or about June 1, 2013, plaintiff told defendant PUGH he needed One Hundred Sixty ($160.00) Dollars, and defendant PUGH agreed to give plaintiff the money, in exchange for plaintiff making a video of himself masturbating.”

 

.

Charles Pugh published this selfie of himself after losing 55 lbs. in 2015.

The suit also alleges that Pugh deliberately disobeyed orders from the student’s mother to cease contact with her son. It says Pugh provided him with a cell phone so that they could communicate without her knowledge.

Detroit school board members also filed a 450-page Title VI complaint with the U.S. Justice Department in August, alleging that emergency managers appointed by the state have stripped the school district of its civil rights, by creating “separate and unequal treatment for African-American students”, the majority of the district.

The complaint cites the teen’s case as a glaring example of such treatment, and says board members had repeatedly warned the EM’s against allowing Pugh to mentor young Black men.

VOD is not writing about this matter out of interest in its salacious content, or out of anti-gay bias. VOD is strongly in favor of rights for gay, lesbian, bi, and transgendered people, including the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in favor of gay marriage.

This editorial is inspired by outrage that Pugh may have been carrying out activities such as sexual abuse of students and minors as he led efforts to dismantle the City of Detroit, in effect raping its people’s assets, in his role as Council President. At the same time, he abused and disrespected hundreds of Detroiters who came before Council.

At left, Sandra Hines and Lila Cabill  wait to speak against Detroit take-over for hours in hall after CC Pres. Charles Pugh refused to move meeting to the auditorium Nov. 20, 2012.

Pugh cast the deciding Council vote the hotly-contested Consent Agreement with the State of Michigan June 4, 2012. It opened the way for Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s appointment of Kevyn Orr as Emergency Manager, and later for Orr’s declaration July 17, 2013 that the city was bankrupt.

The bankruptcy trial in front of U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Steven Rhodes, also involving U.S. District Court Judges Gerald Rosen and Sean Cox, was essentially a dog-and-pony show whose racist, genocidal outcome had been determined long before it began by Wall Street. It ended with Detroit being ordered to hand over its Water & Sewerage Department to the Great Lakes Water Authority and billions of dollars worth of publicly-owned art at the Detroit Institute of Arts to the Founders’ Society.

The bankruptcy Plan of Adjustment stole $7 billion from Detroit retirees, condemning many to official poverty status, and was responsible for the ongoing lay-offs of thousands of active workers, contracting out of their jobs, and deprivation of union rights for those who remained.

During consent agreement hearings, Detroit retiree Walter Knall (l) and historian Paul Lee (r) hold up photo depicting historic rally in Detroit. Pugh ordered police to remove Lee from chambers.

It rewarded Detroit’s wealthy creditors including global banks and insurance companies with 95.9 percent of their claims; Detroit retirees and poor folks got 13.5 percent.

During days of Council debate on the Consent Agreement, hundreds of Detroiters showed up to decry the giveaway of their city in public comment sessions. Pugh was abusive and disrespectful to most of them.

He refused to move the hearings to the auditorium, forcing long lines of Detroiters to stand waiting in the hall in order to make their one-and-a-half minute comments, then forcing them to leave the Council chambers once they were done. He clearly violated the Open Meetings Act in doing so, because he should have provided full access to Detroit citizens to the entire Council sessions.

Pugh showed utter disrespect for well-known community leaders who gave comments, including Cardinal Baye Landy of Detroit’s historic Shrine of the Black Madonna, a Black Christian nationalist church with broad political influence in Detroit since the militant days of the 1960’s.

When Cardinal Landy took his place for comment, dressed as usual in casual clothing, Pugh asked, “You’re a Cardinal?” apparently ignorant of the Shrine’s history in Detroit.

The Shrine of the Black Madonna was founded and led by for three decades by Jaramogi Abebe Agyeman, formerly Dr. Albert Cleage, seen in Paul Lee’s interview above.

Pugh had several people, including Lee, arrested and removed by police for allegedly exceeding the ridiculously picayune time limits on their comments. He threatened this reporter with arrest when she asked for 15 seconds more to speak. He noted on camera that she had been arrested before. He referred to her arrest and two felony convictions stemming from her legitimate duties as a reporter for the Michigan Citizen in covering a fatal state trooper police chase on Nov. 4, 2008, the day U.S. President Barack Obama was first elected.

Campaign for a state-mandated Detroit referendum vote on the seizure of the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department failed, resulting in massive flooding and other disasters under the Great Lakes Water Authority.

Pugh played a prominent role in the City’s giveaway, traveling to Lansing with Co-Chair Gary Brown to meet with Snyder officials to set up the Consent Agreement, which became the blueprint for the bankruptcy plan of adjustment. Ironically, Pugh as a former journalist himself signed an affidavit in her support during trial proceedings.

He also sat on a secret “Roots Cause Committee” with Brown that planned the dismantling of the Detroit Water & Sewerage Department under Judge Sean Cox.

VOD clearly condemns Pugh’s alleged sexual violation of the youthful K.S. and others it is rumored were subjected to such treatment as well. It is horrifying that a man in such a position could act in such a manner after centuries of the oppression of African people which included rape and sexual abuse, not to mention the African Holocaust, slavery, lynchings, torture, murder, and disrespect of Black women as Pugh allegedly disrespected the mother of “K.S.”

It is even more horrifying that Detroit’s leaders including Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy allowed such a man to ride off into the sunset of New York City to work as a waiter and carry on with his life and likely further abuses, without prosecution.

JAIL PUGH NOW!

Related documents and some of many VOD articles:

Pugh lawsuit and Pugh jury trial set for 11 3 15

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2012/04/09/banks-state-take-control-of-detroit-council-assassinates-city-in-5-4-consent-vote/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/10/09/rally-v-bankruptcy-imposed-layoffs-union-busting-in-detroit-water-all-city-depts-tues-oct-13/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2014/11/15/detroit-bankruptcy-plan-genocide-in-usas-largest-black-majority-city-rich-get-95-9-poor-get-13-5/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/02/21/rhodes-says-detroits-unique-racial-composition-led-to-bankruptcy-ignores-cops-fraud/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/10/06/detroit-retirees-vow-to-continue-fight-after-u-s-district-judge-dismisses-bankruptcy-appeal/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/06/16/authority-approves-bankruptcy-theft-of-detroits-water-system-retirees-begin-referendum-campaign/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2015/03/17/should-rhodesrosenorr-be-jailed-for-failure-to-report-bankruptcy-fraud-to-proper-authorities/

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 VOD’s staff lives either on limited fixed incomes or is incarcerated. We are not paid; we publish the newspaper pro bono. Help keep us afloat by chipping in to keep stories on this Prison Nation and Police State, and related matters, coming! Any amount is appreciated.

                        DONATE TO VOD

               https://www.gofundme.com/donate-to-vod

(Contact editor for details on other ways to send funds, at 313-825-6126 or diane_bukowski@hotmail.com.)

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Michael Hicks serving life without parole for murder since 1993; prosecutor falsely told jury at beginning of trial that he had confessed to a cellmate

“YEP, YEP”–AP claimed Hicks used those words to tell jail-house informant he killed Shawn Stalworth, but informant did not testify at trial

USDC Judge Arthur Tarnow ruled that Hicks’ 6th Amendment right of confrontation was violated, other evidence likely not enough to convict

Hicks has written three books, including award-winning “The Nat Turner Papers,” works with U-M’s Creative Arts Project, studies constitutional law

Ricardo Ferrell

By Diane Bukowski

with Ricardo Ferrell, VOD Field Editor

December 15, 2021

 Battle Creek, MI — In his opening statement, Calhoun County Asst. Prosecutor Daniel Buscher told Michael Hicks’ jury 28 years ago that Hicks had confessed to a jail-house informant, saying “Yep, yep” when asked if he killed Shawn Stalworth in Battle Creek on July 25, 1993.  The following words from Buscher likely have kept Hicks in prison ever since.

Michael Hicks today (l) and (r) with younger brothers during the holidays as a youth in Detroit

But the alleged informant, Lorenzo Brand, did not testify at trial. U.S. District Judge Arthur Tarnow ruled on Jan. 7, 2003, that Hicks was denied his Sixth Amendment right to confront his accuser.

“Petitioner was deprived of the opportunity to cross-examine Lorenzo Brand.” Judge Tarnow said. “Not only was Mr. Brand’s incrimination devastating to Petitioner, Mr. Brand’s credibility as a jail-house informant is suspect at best.” Tarnow said other testimony at the trial was likely not sufficient to convict Hicks. He ordered a new trial or Hicks’ release within 90 days.

But the State of Michigan appealed, and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned Tarnow’s ruling, citing a “procedural default of his Confrontation Clause claim,” saying, “petitioner, thus, cannot establish that he suffered actual prejudice flowing from such a violation.”

“I was pulled over miles from a homicide that occurred in Battle Creek,” Hicks told VOD. “The police claimed they were looking for a dark complected male 5’7″ – 6’2″, 150 lbs. – 225lbs and driving an SUV or Green Cadillac. I was arrested and interviewed. I told the police I didn’t have anything to do with the shooting and that I was innocent. I thought this would all be cleared up at the line-up they said they were conducting.”

But Hicks said no line-up ever took place. Instead, an officer took a polaroid photo of him.

Two weeks later, the morning of the preliminary exam, he recalled, “I saw Detective Scott Metzgar and Asst. Prosecutor Daniel Buscher in the hallway talking to a kid who was crying. When I walked by, they stopped talking.”

Then, he said, Lorenzo Brand, 17,  walked in to testify. Judge Michael Kingsley called a long recess during which his attorney and Buscher went into his chambers prior to the testimony, which led to his case being bound over. Brand, however, never testified at Hicks’ trial.

‘Now almost 30 years later, I’m still sitting in prison an innocent man,” Hicks said. “I had never met Lorenzo Brand before, let alone confessed to committing a homicide to him. Although Brand told my attorney that he would come into his office and swear in an affidavit that he lied, he never held to his verbal commitment.”

Hicks and his girlfriend Latrina Porter, who was with him that day, testified at trial that they were stopped miles away from 66 Kendall in Battle Creek, the scene of the crime, by Emmett Township police. Hicks said he ran because he was driving without a license and had drugs in the black Bronco he was driving.

Entire 33 pp. opinion from USDC Judge Arthur Tarnow linked below story.

“Shortly after the shooting, approximately two and a half miles away from the site of the shooting, police began following a black Bronco driven by Petitioner, because it matched the description given of the suspicious vehicle near the shooting site, ” Judge Tarnow wrote.

“Defendant pulled into the driveway of a house on Golden Avenue and then fled into a swamp behind the house. Police officer Robert Corbin testified that he chased Petitioner into the swamp and apprehended him there. . .The police did not see Petitioner with a weapon or throwing one away. . . No gun was recovered from the area.”

Eyewitnesses interrogated by police, according to police records reviewed by VOD, gave substantially conflicting accounts of the killing. These included descriptions of cars they saw outside of 66 N. Kendall other than the Black Bronco police claimed was involved.

Killing happened at 66 N. Kendall in Battle Creek.

No murder weapon was ever produced. Police found a .380 shell casing on the floor of the Bronco, but the two bullets later retrieved from Stallworth’s body were from a 9 mm. gun according to police records. No positive gunshot residue tests were conducted.

Hicks was 23 years at the time.  He grew up in Detroit, graduated from Mumford High School and was attending Highland Park Community College at the time of his arrest.

Jacqueline Degreaffenried and son Michael Hicks.

Hicks told VOD that he has kept his spirits alive in prison by writing and studying constitutional law and psychology.  Prior to his 1993 arrest, he said, he studied psychiatric nursing for two years at Highland Park Community College and served an internship at the now shuttered Detroit Psychiatric Institute in the Herman Kiefer Complex on Taylor.

“I have written three books,” he told VOD. “I got a second-place award in 2009 from a Pennsylvania writers’ group for ‘The Nat Turner Papers.’ I’m an active member of the PCAP—Prison Creative Arts Project [sponsored by the University of Michigan].”

He said he met and spoke with Judge Tarnow during an educational visit the Judge made to one of the facilities he served time in.

“It was like meeting Yoda,” he said. “My lawyer told me Judge Tarnow is the smartest man in the world.” Hicks was represented in that habeas appeal by Attorney Carole Stanyar, who also argued it at the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Yoda from “Star Wars”

Hicks is one of four sons of Jacqueline Degreaffenried, a retired nurse who spent most of her career at Detroit Receiving Hospital.

“Michael is the oldest of my four sons,” Mrs. Degreaffenried told VOD. “He was studying nursing as a career because I told him more men are choosing nursing and that would be a good field for him.  He did not get a chance to realize his dream of a nursing career.”

Mrs. Degreaffenreid lamented, “Our system is broken, but we cannot fix it by breaking those that are innocent.”

NEW HOPE FOR HICKS APPEAL: Brother of “Informant” comes forward, swears brother told him he was “forced” to testify at preliminary exam.

Hicks told VOD that on October 7, 2019 (his birthday) he was getting his hair braided by another prisoner who turned out to be Colbert Brand, the brother of Lorenzo Brand.

Drawing shows police officer (l) and prosecutor (r) coercing witness.

“As he was braiding my hair, we started a conversation about the law,” Hicks said. “I told him I had just gone back to court to address the fact that prior to the jailhouse informant testimony at the prelim there were no witness statements, evidence or identification of me, so how was the process even initiated? This was all confirmed by an affidavit from private investigator Timothy Gilbert who personally went to the Battle Creek Police Department, Calhoun County Prosecutor’s Office and the District & Circuit Courts.”

Hicks said Brand mentioned he was from Battle Creek, and he asked him if he knew Lorenzo Brand.

“Lorenzo Brand is my brother,” Colbert Brand responded.

“I then told him I’m Michael Hicks,” Hicks said. “He told me he had called his brother on the phone and asked him does he need to be on the lookout for anybody he may have wronged in the past? He said his brother told him when he was about 17, the police forced him to lie on a guy named Michael Hicks in court by falsely saying that Hicks confessed to committing a murder.”

Colbert Brand has submitted the sworn affidavit below to Hicks.

Hicks told VOD that his case has been submitted to State Attorney General Dana Nessel’s Conviction Integrity Unit for review.

“…It’s a jailhouse informant’s dream to be able to use a get out of jail-free card.” — Sherry Gay-Dagnogo, former MI State Representative

Sherry Gay-Dagnogo campaigns for criminal justice reform.

By Ricardo Ferrell, VOD Field Editor

The day after the Nov. 2nd election, I had the honor of interviewing Sherry Gay-Dagnogo for comment to this story, where a 17-year-old teenager was pressured by police detectives to become a jailhouse informant, a practice that’s commonly used in a lot of homicide cases where there’s a lack of sufficient evidence linking suspects to the crime.

In Wayne County some 30 people have been exonerated through its Conviction Integrity Unit. In over half of those cases, a trained jailhouse snitch was used by homicide detectives and prosecutors to secure statements/testimonies. Its a fact that Wayne County isn’t the only jurisdiction where this practice has been utilized. As noted in this story, it occurred nearly 30 years ago in Calhoun County.

Longtime Detroit resident, advocate and politician Sherry Gay-Dagnogo shares her point-of-view with VOD:

“Where is the justice? When we have police & prosecutors engaging in practices that can remove innocent citizens from our society, based on concocted and fabricated lies leading to them being wrongfully convicted and sent to prison for the rest of their lives to die for a crime they didn’t commit, solely for the purpose of obtaining a conviction and advancing their careers, then we have a serious problem in our judicial system, especially when it’s a jailhouse informant’s dream to be able to use a get out of jail-free card,” states Sherry Gay-Dagnogo.

Full NRE Report: “Government Misconduct and Convicting the Innocent” at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Government_Misconduct_and_Convicting_the_Innocent2.pdf

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RELATED DOCUMENTS:

U.S. District Court Judge Arthur Tarnow’s ruling on Hicks habeas appeal

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Michael-Hicks-amended-ruling-by-Judge-Tarnow-TiffDLL.pdf

Michael Hicks habeas petition filed by Atty. Carole Stanyar

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Michael-Hicks-Petition-for-Hab.pdf

Michael Hicks 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling 

http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Michael-HICKS-v.-STRAUB-6th-Circuit-_-FindLaw.pdf

BREAKING NEWS: Henry Montgomery, juvenile lifer in Montgomery v. Alabama 2016 US Supreme Court ruling that led to thousands of JLWOP re-sentencings, paroled after 57 yrs. He was convicted of killing a deputy sheriff.

FREE EFREN PAREDES, Jr. and remaining Michigan juvenile lifers now!

Efren Paredes was 15 when he was charged with the murder of a white store manager in Berrien County.

Michigan Court of Appeals cited the passage above from Miller v. Alabama in overturning 2015 JLWOP sentence of Victor Garay of Kalamazoo County.

To date, 94% of Michigan juvenile life sentences have been replaced with terms of years, after U.S. Supreme Court rulings outlawing JLWOP

Michigan appeals courts have overturned many of the remainder, most recently that of Victor Garay of Kalamazoo County

Paredes arrested at 15 in 1989 in majority-white St. Joseph for death of storeowner, has long maintained his innocence.

Berrien County courts, cops, have long targeted Benton Harbor’s Black and Latin youths; investigation of 1991 death of Eric McGinnis re-opened

by Necalli Ollin

Story edited for length and clarity; original at http://fb.com/Free.Efren

From the the campaign to Free Efren: “We are asking people who use Facebook to leave comments regarding the post that was recently made to the Free Efrén Facebook page titled “Judge Upholds Veritable Death Sentence for Efrén Paredes, Jr., Arrested for Crime at Age 15.” The link is available at http://fb.com/Free.Efren.

We are trying to garner a large number of comments opposing the judge’s ruling for the general public to read,

September 10, 2021

Berrien County Judge Charles LaSata, on bench since 2004

Today, Berrien County Circuit Court Judge Charles LaSata upheld a life without parole (LWOP) sentence for Efrén Paredes, Jr., a 48-year-old Latinx man, for a crime he was convicted of when he was 15.

Previous to the ruling, Michigan had been trending away from imposing or re-imposing juvenile LWOP sentences.

According to statewide data, 251 of the 367 juvenile lifer cases have been resolved as of September 9, 2021. Of that number, 94% have received term of year sentences and only 6% have received a LWOP sentence again. Statewide, juvenile lifers have received sentences averaging 30.5 years. Nationwide the average sentence has been 25 years, according to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth.

Efrén was originally arrested at age 15 for the March 8, 1989 shooting death and robbery of a grocery store manager in St. Joseph, a majority-white town across the river from majority-Black Benton Harbor in southwestern Michigan. He was the first juvenile in Berrien County to be automatically transferred to Berrien County Circuit Court to be tried as an adult after passage of a 1988 Michigan law which authorized prosecutors to do so without a waiver hearing.

Benton Harbor youth at protest against racism by cops and courts May 26, 2018. VOD photo

Only three months after his arrest, Efrén was convicted by a jury composed of 11 white jurors and one African-American juror. He was subsequently sentenced to two LWOP sentences for one count of homicide and a parolable life sentence for one count of armed robbery.

Three other juveniles were also convicted in the case. Eric Mui, a 17-year-old Asian-American, received two 18-45 year sentences for one count of murder and armed robbery. Alex Mui, a 16-year-old Asian-American, received an 18-45 year sentence for one count of armed robbery. Jason Williamson, a 16-year-old white teen, received a six month sentence in a juvenile facility for one count of armed robbery.

All three received plea deals from the prosecutor’s office. Eric and Alex Mui were released from prison after serving 16 years in prison and Williamson served six months. Efrén was the only person charged in the case who went to trial.

U.S. SUPREME COURT INTERVENES

Kuntrell Jackson and Evan Miller, plaintiffs in USSC Miller v. Alabama/Jackson v. Arkansas, 14 when charged.

The U.S. Supreme Court issued a landmark decision in 2012, Miller v. Alabama, which banned mandatory LWOP sentences for juvenile offenders. In 2016, the high court made  Miller retroactive, and applicable to juvenile offenders already serving the sentence. (Montgomery v. Louisiana.)

The U.S. Supreme Court also ordered that all juvenile offenders impacted by the ruling have their cases reviewed by a trial court judge from the respective county they were convicted in for resentencing consideration.

Berrien County Prosecutor Michael Sepic, now retired, prosecuted Paredes in 1989 and still claims his case was the most “memorable” of his career.

Former Pros. Michael Sepic

In 2016, Sepic filed a motion with the trial court seeking to reinstate a LWOP sentence in Efrén’s case, pursuant to Miller and . Sepic had originally prosecuted the case more than 32 years ago as an assistant prosecutor.

In 2020, Sepic retired as the county prosecutor. After his retirement, the newly elected county prosecutor, Steve Pierangeli, swore Sepic in as an assistant prosecutor so he could continue working on Efrén’s case. In a December 30, 2020 interview with the local newspaper, The Herald-Palladium, Sepic referred to Efrén’s case as the most memorable of his career.

On October 5-6, 2020, LaSata held a two-day hearing  At the hearing, several witnesses testified on Efrén’s behalf, presenting an abundance of compelling anecdotal evidence of his growth, change, and rehabilitation. Other documentation was presented showing a wide range of programs he has successfully completed during his three decades of incarceration. Sepic was allowed to present evidence at the hearing as to why he felt a LWOP sentence was justified.

LaSata denies existence of racial injustice and mistreatment in St. Joseph

LaSata claimed in his ruling that racial injustice and the mistreatment of people of color has never existed in St. Joseph.

LaSata remarked he did not believe Efrén’s claim of ever being subjected to episodes of ethnic slurs, bullying, and shaming growing up as a brown boy in a majority white community. The year of Efrén’s arrest the city of St. Joseph was 94% white residents. Blacks made up 3% of the population and the Latinx population was a mere one percent.

Berrien County has seated white judges on the bench and white males have occupied the prosecutor’s office since its inception. This is true of other Michigan counties as well which has vastly contributed to the acute racial sentencing disparities.

“Children of color are 27% of the child population [in Michigan] and 71% of  children  serving LWOP sentences.” (Connie de la Vega & Michelle Leighton, “Sentencing Our Children to Die in Prison: Global Law and Practice,” 42 U.S.F. L. Rev. 983, 994 (2008)).

To many folks, LaSata’s ruling in Efrén’s case was a modern day legal lynching, one of many cases of the deaths and incarceration of Black and Latin residents of Benton Harbor.

(For further info on Benton Harbor cases above, go to The River (abc57.com)

The September 10th  ruling reveals likely racial bias and disparate treatment in the cases of the two juvenile lifers on his docket, Paredes and Mark Abbatoy, who is white. Despite Sepic’s recommendations that both be re-sentenced to life without parole, LaSata re-sentenced Abbatoy to 40 to 60 years.

Mark Abbatoy

Efrén Paredes was convicted of shooting a white store manager four times and robbing the store where he and the victim were both employed.  Four alibi witnesses have attested to Efrén’s whereabouts at the time the crime was committed which is corroborated by forensic evidence that disproves he committed the crime. In recent years new witnesses have also provided sworn affidavits that Mui and others convicted in the case admitted to lying about Efrén’s involvement in the crime to evade murder charges. Since his March 15, 1989 arrest Efrén has maintained his innocence and denied any involvement in the crime.

In Abbatoy’s case, he and another 17-year-old killed the co-defendant’s mother in 1997 so they could steal her car. According to a March 22, 2021 court hearing transcript in the Abbatoy case, LaSata described the tragic event by stating: “Defendant [Abbatoy] was incredibly brutal and depraved. The defendant beat [the victim] with a shovel for ten to fifteen minutes. The defendant struck the victim at least ten times with a shovel. … Three to four blows [were] so forceful that they fractured her skull embedding nine fragments of bone into her brain.”

To many folks, LaSata’s ruling in Efrén’s case was a modern day legal lynching.

State Appellate Court overturned trial court in JLWOP case of David Bennett

David Bennett at age 17 going into Garden City courtroom; and at 66 today.

Attorneys in Efrén’s case also cited a published Michigan Court of Appeals ruling made earlier this year named People v. Bennett, 2021 Mich. App. LEXIS 472. In 1972, David Bennett, age 17, was convicted of stabbing a woman in Wayne County dozens of times resulting in her death and sentenced to LWOP. Bennett was subsequently resentenced to LWOP on June 5, 2020 by a Wayne County trial court judge who reviewed the case to consider possible resentencing pursuant to the U.S. Supreme Court Miller v. Alabama ruling.

The Michigan Court of Appeals reversed the trial court ruling in the Bennett case on January 21, 2021. In doing so the appeals court stated that trial courts must decide “whether [a] defendant ‘was and would remain WHOLLY incapable of rehabilitation for THE REMAINDER OF HIS LIFE[.]'” (emphasis added) Failure to do so constitutes an abuse of discretion subject to reversal. (People v. Bennett, at *9) (quoting People v. Garay, 320 Mich. App. 29, 49 (2017)).

The Michigan COA added, “[t]o the extent that the resentencing court made a factual finding regarding Bennett’s risk of reoffending, it was clearly erroneous because no evidence supported it. Nor did any evidence support any other ground for Bennett’s continued incarceration.”

The state COA also said, “‘rehabilitation’ involves the successful completion of vocational, education, OR counseling programs designed to enable a prisoner to lead a useful life, free of crime, when released.” (emphasis added) (People v. Bennett, at *19).

Efrén’s legal team provided the court a robust body of anecdotal and documented evidence of his successful completion of each of these examples a multiplicity of times. They also provided results from psychological tests and actuarial risk assessment instruments that reflect Efrén poses a low risk of violence or recidivism if released.

Letters of support from three retired MDOC career professionals with decades of corrections experience (i.e., a former Warden, corrections officer, and Efrén’s employer of thirteen years) attesting to his capacity for change and rehabilitation, as well as letters from multiple professors from universities who taught classes Efrén participated in at various prisons, were provided to the court as well.

LaSata involved in wrongful conviction of Corey McCall

Corey McCall

The conviction of Corey Quentin McCall, was vacated on June 25, 2021 and he was released after spending 16 years behind bars for a crime he did not commit. LaSata was the district court judge responsible for a 2005 ruling that found there was sufficient evidence to bind the McCall case over to the circuit court to be tried for three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder.

While issuing his ruling on Paredes, LaSata cited decades-old prison rule infractions and alleged violations to justify his decision as well. Some included allegations of misconduct that was not substantiated by MDOC reports or that have been disproven. Included in LaSata’s list of infractions was that Efrén fathered a child nearly twelve years ago with a former staff member who was employed at a prison where he was being housed at the time. Efrén and his child’s mother subsequently became married and remain so today. According to LaSata, this human act between two consenting adults “violated all kinds of prison rules.” Efrén, however, never received a misconduct report for any rule violation related to the incident by MDOC staff.

LaSata begrudgingly acknowledged a number of Efrén’s accomplishments throughout his incarceration, as well as his large support system. But while he described Efrén as “intelligent, charismatic, and diligent,” he also characterized him as manipulative. He dismissed three decades of Efrén’s completion of rehabilitative programming, enriching the lives of others, participating in therapeutic counseling for the past eleven years, and numerous other achievements by theorizing it “may have” all been simply to receive “opportunities.”

31 states no longer sentence children to die in prison

Since 2012, thirty-one states in the U.S. and the District of Columbia have abandoned the practice of sentencing children to die in prison or have no juvenile offenders serving a LWOP sentence according to the Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth.

“[O]nly thirteen states have not substantially narrowed the application of LWOP to juveniles through statutory reform or by a lack of sentencing in practice.” (Elizabeth C. Kingston, “Validating Montgomery’s Recharacterization of Miller: An End to LWOP for Juveniles,” 38 U. La Verne L. Rev. 23, 51 (2016)). A growing consensus of states have embraced the U.S. Supreme Court’s view that LWOP sentences for juveniles are inhumane, draconian, and “akin to the death penalty.” (Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455, 2466 (2012)).

After having spent more than two-thirds of his life behind bars Efrén deserves to receive a term of year sentence like the overwhelming majority — ninety-four percent — of other similarly situated juvenile lifers who have been resentenced across the state.

The Michigan Court of Appeals made it abundantly clear in the Bennett case that “‘[i]rreparable corruption,’ [i.e., forever having no capacity for change] is the ONLY ground [the U.S. Supreme Court] specifically identified for imposing a life-without-parole sentence [for a juvenile offender]. See Miller [v. Alabama], 567 U.S. at 479 (2012).” (emphasis added) (People v. Bennett, at *10).

RELATED:

DOES KYM WORTHY WANT 54 MICH. JUVENILE LIFERS TO DIE IN PRISON, VIOLATING U.S. SUPREME COURT ORDERS? | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

150 MICHIGAN JUVENILE LIFERS FACE POSSIBLE DEATH FROM COVID-19 AS THEY SERVE OUTLAWED SENTENCES | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

‘END MICHIGAN’S SECRET DEATH ROW’–HUNDREDS DEMAND END TO LWOP, OTHER REFORMS AT STATE CAPITOL | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

MICHIGAN BILL HB 4999 WOULD END ENHANCEMENT OF ADULT SENTENCES WITH JUVENILE CONVICTIONS | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

STOP NEW WAVE OF COVID-19 DUE TO DELTA VARIANT IN MICHIGAN PRISONS–FREE EFREN PAREDES JR. | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

LIFER EFREN PAREDES, JR. REPORTS ON COVID-19 IN MDOC; PRISONERS IN GRAVE DANGER WORLD-WIDE | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

SEEDS OF HUMANITY BLOSSOM IN A MICHIGAN COURTROOM AS JUVENILE LIFER WINS OPPORTUNITY FOR PAROLE | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

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Voice of Detroit newspaper, published pro bono, was founded in 2010 and has covered numerous issues related to the oppression of Black, Latin, and poor people across the U.S. and the world. Since last year, VOD has devoted its coverage exclusively to the epidemics of mass incarceration and killings and brutality by police in Michigan and the U.S. Our editors, writers and other staff are not paid. We live on very limited fixed incomes or are incarcerated.

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Video above by Jody White Productions, LLC

STORY UPDATED OCTOBER 26, 2021, noting the following:

Support Wrongfully Convicted Lifers Darrell Ewing and Derrico Searcy 

 COURT HEARING THURS. OCT. 28 9 AM  Frank Murphy Hall,  Gratiot at St. Antoine, Judge Darnella Wms. Clayborne      

 Herman Wallace: ‘Angola Three’ inmate dies days after release from solitary | Louisiana | The Guardian

1 in 7 U.S. prisoners is serving life, and two-thirds of those are people of color

National Lifers Association, dozens of endorsers, call for Second Look laws to allow review of  LWOP sentences after no more than 20 years

Most countries in the world do not sentence prisoners to actual death in prison with no substantive review leading to release

Michigan joins 24 states now considering Second Look legislation

“I think everyone should have an opportunity to get out some day”—Ingham County Pros. Carol Siemon

By Ricardo Ferrell, VOD Field Editor

October 18, 2021

Ricardo Ferrell

HAPPY 63rd BIRTHDAY, RICARDO! 

VOD Field Editor Ricardo Ferrell covered the “Second Look” Rally at Michigan’s Capitol in Lansing October 14 from a prison cell at MDOC’s Gus Harrison Correctional Facility, calling participants for their comments and impressions.

Ferrell observed his 63rd birthday Oct. 12, two days before the event. He has been in prison since 1982, nearly four decades, on a questionable parolable life charge of 2nd-degree murder. Despite his achievements, he has been denied parole numerous times.  He has become a dedicated journalist and advocate for those incarcerated with him during those years. VOD has published more than 40 of his articles and he has been published on other media sites, including  .  To read his VOD articles, put his name in the search engine at the top right of VOD’s home page.

Ricardo Ferrell is a shining example among thousands of men and women who should have their life sentences capped at 20 years in the battle to end mass incarceration, as the National Sentencing Project advocates. Globally, most countries allow substantive review of life sentences which can result in parole, after 15-20 years. Only a handful of countries mandate death by incarceration, as does the U.S., for those sentenced to life terms.

A portion of thousands who rallied in Lansing Oct. 14 to “END MICHIGAN’S SECRET DEATH ROW.’ Photo: Isaac Ritchey

David Shelton, center, with daughter and son David Stinson. Facebook

LANSING, MI  — On the afternoon of the rally, I called David Stinson who attended the gathering and was able to listen in on what sounded like a large crowd. Stinson, who was present during the October 2019 rally told me it looked like there was a bigger turn out than the previous event, including lawmakers and many stakeholders.

The climate surrounding the State Capital, according to Stinson appeared to be shifting in a progressive direction and showing a lot of promise. Stinson is advocating for his father David Shelton, incarcerated for 28 years since Stinson was a child. Shelton is asking the State Conviction Integrity Unit to review the racially motivated Oakland County case which resulted in David Shelton being wrongfully convicted of rape. His appeals have failed despite evidence at the scene that shows a white man committed the crime.

James Harris OTIS photo

I also spoke with National Organization of Exonerees member Larry Smith Jr., and he said, “Ricardo, the time is coming where we will finally see comprehensive criminal justice restructuring to be reflective of reducing the prison system and releasing folks like yourself locked up 40 years too damn long. Just look at how James Harris has been in there 51 years under the abolished felony murder statute. He didn’t pull the trigger but he’s still sitting in there for over half a century, man this system has got to be fixed and fast.”

The family of Terrell Spencer traveled to Lansing last week to join the NLA sponsored rally in hopes of bringing attention to their loved one’s plight. Spencer who is serving a 42-80 year sentence out of Wayne County has been incarcerated now for 23 years, and as a first time offender with no adult criminal history, has an outrageous long indeterminate sentence that represents what’s long been termed a disproportionate sentence which appears to have been given to him, in a disparate fashion.

His sisters and aunt were calling on legislators and those in authority to take a Second Look at his sentence. They wore t-shirts with his name and photo and were spreading the word among gatherers.

Terrell Spencer/OTIS photo

I spoke with Spencer afterwards asking him his take on the efforts of his family and supporters during the rally. He responded, “My baby sister Latrena who was only 2 when I left, she told me that the politicians are trying to help us, but they need their help in the community in order for their efforts and mission to be impactful and complete.”

He also shared a conversation he had with his aunt Ann who has attended other rallies in the past concerning prison and criminal justice reforms and she seems to believe that the efforts being put forth now are headed in the right direction and will yield the necessary results organizations and concerned citizens have been fighting the past two-three decades for in an effort to effect the change needed to fix the broken system.

If the State of Michigan wants to get serious about reforming its criminal justice system, then its going to require the State Legislators, Judges, Prosecutors and Advocacy Organizations, all to get on the same page and get smart on crime and justice. Draconian practices and policies driven by outdated and ineffective approaches needs to change now!!!

Supporters of Wrongfully Convicted, including Jason Bowers (Alicia Garcia holding photo at bottom left) and others, at Second Look rally October 14, 2021. FB PhotoLawanda Hollister was among many women speaking for women lifers at the Oct. 14 rally. Photo: Isaac Ritchey

MOST COUNTRIES HAVE NO LWOP;  25 STATES  HAVE LEGISLATION PENDING TO END IT

By Diane Bukowski, VOD editor

October 20, 2021

Ingham Co. Prosecutor Carol Siemon speaks at Oct. 14 Second Look Rally. Photo 

LANSING, MI--The Second Look rally in Lansing Oct. 14 was a stunning development akin to the turn-out of families of the wrongfully convicted at a five-hour protest that took the streets around Detroit’s Frank Murphy Courthouse June 4.

Ingham County Prosecutor Carol Siemon, the keynote speaker at the Oct. 14 rally, spoke in support of statewide sentencing reforms, including legislation that “would allow courts to re-evaluate sentencing after inmates serve a certain amount of time in prison.”

Her office said Michigan Senators Stephanie Chang and Jeff Irwin, who also attended the rally,  plan to introduce this legislation, with the support of a coalition of reform advocates.

“The severity of the crime used to be the only thing we really looked at,” Siemon told Lansing’s City Pulse when she announced a review of the sentences of ninety Ingham County lifers earlier this year. Over 60 elected prosecutors and law enforcement leaders, have called for such legislation, with several prosecutors’ offices having launched such sentence review units.“

Washtenaw Co. Asst. Prosecutor Victoria Burton-Harris (center) and Prosecutor Eli Savit (upper r) speak with families of prisoners at Sec0nd Look rally in Lansing October 14, 2021. Photo Isaac Ritchey.

“If someone committed a crime 20 years ago, that tells me who they were then,” said Siemon. However, it’s not always who they still are now. . . . I’m not here to do vengeance. It’s not my job. If you’re a prosecutor, it can be really hard to go against this sort of law and order because people think you don’t care but that’s simply not true. I do care.”

Siemon has since faced concerted attacks on this issue.

Washtenaw County Prosecutor Eli Savit and Asst. Prosecutor Victoria Burton-Harris also attended the rally, speaking with families of prisoners.

Kenneth Nixon, Larry Smith, and Marvin Cotton, of the National Organization  of Exonerees, which has been campaigning nationally on behalf of those they left behind in prison who are unjustly convicted as well.

Wayne Co. exoneree Larry Smith addresses Second Look rally Oct. 14, holding photo of Tamera Washington, whose family says she is wrongfully convicted. Kenneth Nixon, Pres. of Natl. Org. of Exonerees (at podium) and Marvin Cotton also participated.  Wrongfully convicted Demell Dukes in photo at front of podium.    Photo: Jason Bowers FB

“To end mass incarceration we must address life sentences,” says the national Sentencing  Project.  “A record one of every seven people in U.S. prisons is serving a life sentence. [One of five African American prisoners are lifers.] While most have committed a violent offense, research finds that people age out of criminal behavior — producing diminishing returns for public safety.

“The financial and moral costs of life imprisonment also burden communities by diverting vital resources from crime prevention and social intervention programs. This country needs a crime policy rooted in research and mercy. It’s time to end life imprisonment.”

According to the Sentencing Project, Washington, D.C., California, and New York have already passed forms of Second Look legislation, including special considerations for juvenile lifers and elderly prisoners. Now, lawmakers in 25 states. including Minnesota, Vermont, West Virginia, and Florida, have recently introduced such legislation.

At the federal level, the Second Look Act would appoint federal judges to consider petitions for sentence reduction after 10 years.

LIFE SENTENCES ACROSS  THE WORLD

“In most of Western Europe, for example, a life sentence actually means that after a minimum term of 12 to 25 years, the prisoner becomes eligible for parole,” according to figures compiled by the Reeves Law Group. “However, in most of Europe, prisoners who are considered to be dangerous can be sentenced to “indefinite detention” despite eligibility for parole.”

The Law Group reports that judges determine the minimum term for eligibility for parole or ‘early release’ for each defendant, with the average minimum term at 15 years. In exceptionally grave cases, a judge can issue a “whole life order” meaning natural life.

Women at rally campaign for women lifers Oct. 14 in Lansing, MI. Photo: Isaac Ritchey

In France, Germany, Denmark and Poland, life prisoners are eligible for parole from between 12 to 25 years. In Denmark, such prisoners serve an average of 16 years, while in Poland, the highest maximum prison term is 50 years, according to figures compiled by the Law Group.

“In Latin America, life imprisonment [without parole] exists in only six countries: Argentina, Chile, Cuba, Honduras, Mexico and Peru,” says the Bloomsbury Report. “Considering that this geographic and linguistic area is made up of 19 countries, this proportion seems to suggest that Latin American legal systems are characterized by low levels of punitiveness, especially when compared with other geographic areas in which life sentences are widely used . . .”.

Advocates for Temujin Kensu (Paula  at left,  Marco and Vargas Johnson, and Jason Bowers (Alicia Garcia at right)) join others at Second Look rally Oct. 14, 2021, Lansing, MI.  Photo: Jason Bowers Facebook

DETROIT: FAMILIES OF WRONGFULLY CONVICTED TELL PROS. KYM WORTHY, POLICE, JUDGES–‘FREE THEM ALL’ | VOICE OF DETROIT: The city’s independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

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