Then Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon tells City Council Nov. 20, 2012 that she cannot ethically recommend they vote for a contract with the Miller-Canfield law firm and other portions of the “Milestone Agreement” because they represent stae “extortion.”
By Diane Bukowski
January 14, 2013
DETROIT – Detroit’s former Corporation Counsel Krystal Crittendon, known for her firm stance against the city’s Public Act 4 consent agreement and what she termed “extortion” on the part of the state in the subsequent “Milestone Agreement,” announced today that she is forming an exploratory committee on a run for Mayor of Detroit this year.
“Many people have been approaching me,” Attorney Crittendon said on WCHB’s Mildred Gaddis show. “Detroit needs a strong leader and I believe that I can be that leader. . . .Detroit is at the crossroads. People need someone very strong, who will not compromise, who will work with them in the best interests of the city.”
Detroiters at City Council meeting Aug. 7, 2012, including (l to r) Edith Lee Payne, Valerie Glenn, Keith Hines, Pontiac resident who has protested her city’s EM, Tina Person and Sandra Hines Aug. 7, 2012, after PA4 was placed on ballot.
Crittendon said she has been contemplating the possibility for the last year, and that her announcement is not retaliation for her demotion by Bing and six City Council members last week. She stressed the insight into the city’s workings that she has gained as Corporation Counsel and in the Law Department, along with her total of 18 years in the profession.
Free Detroit-No Consent drove U-Hauls outside CAYMC Aug. 7, 2012, ready to remove Detroit’s unelected consent agreement leaders.
“The papers have portrayed me as a polarizing figure,” she said. “This is not true. I can work with both branches of government, as well as residents and the business and corporate community. . . .This is not about me. It’s about what events have done [for people’s consciousness]. They have gotten them believing we can reclaim this city. So many people are saying to me, what can I do to help you? There are so many bright talented people in Detroit. If we get together, the city of Detroit can be turned around and manage her own future.”
She said her first course of action would be to thoroughly examine the city’s books, find out how much is owed to the city, and the exact amount of the city’s debt. Then, she said, she would begin by hiring more revenue collectors.
Detroit City Councilmembers JoAnn Watson (l), Brenda Jones, (center), and Kwame-Kenyatta-consult-after Council’s “Fatal Five” members approved consent agreement April 4, 2012, the anniversary of Dr. Martin Luther King’s assassination.
Councilwoman JoAnn Watson had the Council pass a resolution which estimates that $800 million is owed to Detroit, even aside from more than $300 million Crittendon said the state owes the City when she filed suit to overturn the Apri 4 consent agreement in May. (Click on Money Owed the City12-11-12 final and Crittendon Lawsuit 6 1 12.)
“The City Council should not be afraid to take a bold stand . . .listen to the people, not be afraid,” she stressed. Even if the Council passes every demand made by the state, she said, there is “no guarantee the governor wouldn’t appoint an Emergency Manager anyway.”
She added that even if an EM is appointed prior to the election, “he will not be here forever. Bright people should not be scared off from getting involved.”
She said she is not contemplating a run for any other elected position because Detroit has a strong mayor form of government, and true leadership must come from that position.
Cecily McClellan speaks at Benton Harbor rally after appointment of state’s first PA 4 EM in that city.
Attorney Crittendon said that attorney Phil Brown is heading her exploratory committee, which currently has eight working members. She expressed thanks to City Council members JoAnn Watson, Kwame Kenyatta, and Brenda Jones as well.
Reaction from Detroiters who heard her announcement during the show was almost exclusively supportive, although only a few calls were taken. Attorney Richard Mack, who represents AFSCME Council 25 on many matters, was one of the positive callers, as were Stephen Boyle and “Bernice” of Detroit.
VOD interviewed others afterwards.
“It’s a breath of fresh air,” Cecily McClellan of Free Detroit-No Consent said. “I was not feeling good about this race, but I feel better now. She has a thorough knowledge of the city and I would be pleased to have someone with a legal background who is a woman as well.”
Another Black woman leader, Baltimore Mayor Stephanie Rawlings has taken the lead in a massive class action lawsuit against banks accused of bid-rigging in the LIBOR scandal.
Sandra Hines, a long-time community activist who won 40 percent of the vote in her run for a school board position agreed that having a female mayor would make a difference.
“She knows the law and would be an asset in terms of running the administration,” Hines said.
Edith Lee Payne is a long-time civil rights activist who marched as a young woman with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and was also a litigant in a state-wide class action lawsuit against Public Act 4.
“Krystal Crittendon would be a formidable opponent in the Mayoral race because of her direct involvement with city government,” Payne said. “Her legal experience is a strength that should be brought to the Mayor’s office, so that its legal representation would not be compromised as it has been under the current administration.”
Michael McGee of Miller Canfield (front right in blue suit) advises PA4 CFO Jack Martin, since disappeared COO Chris Brown, Mayor Dave Bing, and Deputy Mayor Kirk Lewis at Council meeting June 12, 2012.
Bing has refused to consult with Crittendon over the past year on critical matters, preferring instead to use Attorney Michael McGee of Miller Canfield. McGee is a co-author of Public Act 4, who also helped draft the Consent and Milestone Agreements, and represented both the state and the city in setting terms of a $137 million loan from the state Municipal Finance Authority. State Treasurer Andy Dillon has repeatedly refused to release portions of that loan unless the Mayor and Council agreed to various state demands.
“Corporation Counsel Crittendon was dismissed for standing on the side of justice,” Payne added. “I applaud her integrity and believe that’s the kind of leadership we need if justice is to prevail.”
The unexpected firing of the Detroit’s Charter defender and Corporation Counsel, Krystal Crittendon, yesterday is perhaps the most egregious violation of the city’s new Charter to date. The without cause firing leaves Detroiters defenseless before very powerful forces which the new charter was designed to protect the people from.
As of now, Miller-Canfield, a dubious city vendor, is the unofficial, de facto “Shadow Corporation Counsel” for the City of Detroit and will likely decide the Law Department’s next head. This despite multiple conflicts of interest by representing the State of Michigan, the City of Detroit in negations and by codifying a contract for itself into the Consent Agreement and Memorandum of Understanding foisted upon the City by the State.
Bosom buddies Dave Bing and Rick Snyder.
“This is an affront to the city residents of Detroit and an offense to our very democracy. Unfortunately, it bodes ill for the future of governing in Detroit and how it will be managed,” said Tom Barrow.
“I urge Detroiters to become outraged at this ‘State Ordered’ firing of the citizens’ watchdog carried out by a weak Mayor and City Council, both under the seeming control of Michigan’s Governor, “said Barrow.
Each City Council member who voted to eliminate Ms. Crittendon must immediately explain why they chose this action and whether and where any meetings occurred with Mr. Bing and or Governor Snyder or their representatives at which this seeming treasonous action was discussed.
Detroit City Council Sellout Six who voted to remove Crittendon: (l to r) Kenneth Cockrel, Jr., Saunteel Jenkins, Gary Brown, Charles Pugh, Andre Spivey, James Tate. They are shown taking their oaths of office after election.
Citizens for Detroit’s Future stands ready in the fight against the unscrupulous forces which seek to take and control our city’s resources and assets and holds Council members to account for this hurtful and destructive vote.
Anthony King (center) lived in his home 41 years, caring for his parents before their deaths there. Members of Moratorium NOW!, other groups and his neighbors moved him back in March 11, 2009, but he eventually lost his home, as have millions of others across Detroit and the U.S. King is featured in Michael Moore’s movie, ‘Capitalism: A Love Story.” Photo by Diane Bukowski
Jerry Goldberg of Moratorium NOW! coaition speaks to media at banks protest May 9, 2012.
Two settlements were announced Jan. 7 in ongoing legal actions against the major banks for abuses in placing millions of homes into foreclosure throughout the U.S. But both only help banks, not homeowners.
In one settlement, the Office of the Controller of the Currency (an agency of the federal Treasury Department) and Federal Reserve, in exchange for a meager payment of $8.5 billion by the banks, agreed to lift consent decrees under which they had placed major mortgage lenders. Under the decrees, the lenders were required to review 4.3 million foreclosures initiated in 2009 and 2010. The banks involved in the settlement were Aurora, Bank of America, Citibank, JP Morgan Chase, MetLife Bank, PNC, Sovereign, SunTrust, U.S. Bank and Wells Fargo.
The Office of the Controller had mandated independent foreclosure reviews of every foreclosure conducted or initiated in 2009 and 2010 for two reasons. One was due to massive abuses by the banks in placing homeowners not in default into foreclosure. The other was lenders’ failures in implementing federal programs mandating evaluations of homeowners for loan modifications under the Home Affordable Modification Program.
Under the OCC Financial Remediation Framework of June 21, 2012, homeowners claiming servicing errors on their mortgages were to have their foreclosures suspended pending review, reversed if violations were discovered, and paid compensation ranging from $5,000 to $15,000 for those still in their homes and $125,000 plus lost equity to those who illegally lost their homes.
The U.S Government insures banks against losses when they make loans under their FHA program. When these loans go bad, the banks get their money back while the government takes ownership of the property. These government-owned properties are called HUD Homes – named after the department that handles their liquidation. In Detroit, over half the evictions being conducted are done by the government.
The OCC paid private contractors $1.5 billion to conduct reviews for the 495,000 homeowners who applied for them. Another 3.8 million homeowners eligible for review did not apply because they never received applications or because they were demoralized by the constant bad news they received from the banks. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com, Jan. 7)
Not one homeowner received the promised relief! And despite the published regulations, not one foreclosure was suspended pending reviews with lawyers representing the banks. The federal government continues to execute foreclosures in direct violation of its own regulations.
The settlement provides a pool of $3.3 billion in direct payments to eligible borrowers. This amounts to only $868 per homeowner, comparable to the meager payments extended to homeowners under the previous Attorney General/federal settlement announced several months ago. Another $5.5 billion will be allocated for loan modifications — probably to “incentivize” the same banks that refused to carry out the modifications in the first place — and for forgiveness of deficiency judgments on foreclosures that never should have happened.
Bank of America & Fannie Mae settlement
In the second mortgage settlement, also revealed Jan. 7, Bank of America announced it would pay $8.5 billion to Fannie Mae to settle claims by the U.S. Justice Department that Bank of America and Countrywide, the notorious subprime lender taken over by Bank of America, had sold Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac 30,000 defective and fraudulent mortgages worth $1.4 trillion from Jan. 1, 2000, through Dec. 31, 2008. The $8.5 billion is a tiny fraction of the $300 billion that was lost on these mortgages as a result of Countrywide’s and Bank of America’s practices. (Deutsche Well, Jan. 7; huffingtonpost.com, Jan. 7)
Because Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were completely taken over in 2008 by the federal government as part of the Housing and Economic Recovery Act, this settlement means that taxpayers will be responsible for $290 billion in losses not recovered from the banks.
Feds still bail out banks while people suffer
These new mortgage “settlements” reflect the collusion of the federal government with the banks in the housing debacle that continues to cost millions of working-class families their homes.
While the corporate-owned media try to make it sound like the foreclosure crisis has ended, as of the third quarter of 2012 there were 1.17 million homes in the foreclosure process. (dsnews.com, Dec. 21) In that quarter, mortgage servicers initiated 252,604 new foreclosures. More than 11 percent of all mortgages were delinquent, with 4.4 percent seriously delinquent, meaning 60 or more days past due. (OCC report, Dec. 21) A 1 percent seriously delinquent rate would have been considered a national crisis 10 years ago.
The federal government has fully nationalized the mortgage industry. Seventy-five percent of all mortgages originated since 2008 are guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The remainder of the loans are insured by the Federal Housing Agency. Private mortgage securitization has completely disappeared.
Taxpayers have already paid $180 billion to cover the losses on payments to the banks on failed mortgages insured by the government. According to the January 2010 Congressional Budget Office Report, the CBO estimates the tab for this taxpayer bailout as $389 billion, with many estimates much higher.
While the banks make record profits by servicing government-backed mortgages and selling them to borrowers at inflated interest rates, homeowners continue to be deprived of their homes by the callous and fraudulent practices of the bailed-out banks.
Homeowners, renters and all concerned activists must continue to organize and demand that the federal government put the people before the banks. We need a moratorium on all foreclosures and foreclosure-related evictions and an immediate reduction in principal, so mortgages reflect the true value of homes. With the federal takeover of the mortgage industry, President Barack Obama can implement these policies today through an immediate executive order.
Goldberg is a people’s attorney in Detroit who fights the banks in foreclosure cases, as well as a leading organizer in the Moratorium NOW! Coalition to Stop Foreclosures, Evictions & Utility Shutoffs.
VIDEO ABOVE: Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative and a MacArthur Fellow, argued the cases of Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Arkansas before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of two prisoners who were 14 when they were sentenced to life without parole. On June 25, 2012, the high court ruled that sentencing children under the age of 18 to death is prison is “cruel and unusual punishement” and therefore unconstitutional. Stevenson’s own grandfather was killed by a group of youths, but he has devoted his own life to fighting for fair sentencing, particularly for juveniles.
State stalls enactment of US Supreme Court Miller/Jackson ruling;
DETROIT – Michigan’s 361 juvenile lifers, at first elated by last year’s U.S. Supreme Court (USSC) decision outlawing mandatory life without parole for children, are now waging a protracted battle to have the state’s courts and legislators recognize that the decision is retroactive, and speedily act to re-sentence them.
Edward Sanders says some older juvenile lifers may die before Michigan complies with Miller/Jackson.
Michigan has the second highest per capita number of juvenile lifers in the country. Seventy-five percent of them are individuals of color. It spends over $2 billion a year on corrections, making it one of only four states where spending on prisons exceeds spending on higher education.
“There are some older juvenile life without parole offenders who could very well die in prison before they realize their change in fate because of their ages, being in their late 60’s to early 70’s,” says Edward Sanders, 53, incarcerated since 1975 for a crime committed when he was 17.
A Michigan Appeals Court panel held Nov. 15, 2012that the U.S. high court ruling on Miller v. Alabama/Jackson v. Arkansas, of June 25, 2012, is not retroactive. In People of Michigan v. Raymond Carp, the appeals court did rule that the state’s current parole statute as applied to juveniles is now unconstitutional.
Raymond Carp, 15 at time of sentencing. Michigan Appeals Court ruled in his case that Miller/Jackson is not retroactive.
But its ruling against retroactivity has temporarily suspended a massive campaign by 150 progressive Michigan attorneys to win re-sentencings for all the state’s juvenile lifers, pro bono if need be. An appeal aided by the state ACLU, the State Appellate Defenders’ Office, the University of Michigan Juvenile Justice program, and many other groups is progressing.
“The state courts of Louisiana, North Carolina and Illinois have all determined that Miller v. Alabama must be applied retroactively to relieve those individuals who are serving a mandatory life without parole sentence, for offenses committed as a child, from cruel and unusual punishment,” said attorney Deborah LaBelle, a coordinator of the juvenile lifers campaign, in a filing in a related federal case, Hill vs. Snyder.
Illinois court ruled in the case of Carl Williams that Miller/Jackson is retroactive for all juvenile lifers.
“The most recent ruling, [by an Illinois appeals court] People v. Carl Williams, (Nov. 27, 2012) recognized Miller as a ‘watershed rule of criminal procedure,’” LaBelle continued. “Holding that it would also be ‘cruel and unusual’ punishment to apply the Miller case only to new cases, the Williams case found Miller to be retroactive.”
A favorable ruling by U.S. District Court Judge John Corbett O’Meara in the Hill case may nullify the Carp decision.
Meanwhile, says Sanders, who was not the shooter in his case and completed his college degree in prison, “Both the Appeals Court and Michigan lawmakers are favoring the prosecutors in these ‘re-sentencings’ over the trial judges who oversaw the trials. I have not heard anything from my attorney [Susan Reed] yet. Note that most of these attorneys have not yet filed anything. They all are waiting on a green light on the issue of retroactivity. I am very hopeful that our state high court will overturn Carp. My case is where it is due to the ACLU, who provided me with the attorney pro bono; the court had nothing to do with it.”
Damion Todd (r) with brother John Meyers and mother Pamela Todd, has been in prison since 1986 at 17. He and other older prisoners at Carson City mentor incoming youth in need of role models.
Damion Todd, 43, has been incarcerated since 1986, when he was 17. Both he and Sanders, who met while both were housed in Mound Road Prison in Detroit, have become jailhouse lawyers and helped mentor other prisoners. Todd said he and a group of older prisoners at Carson City Correctional Facility concentrate in particular on counseling young offenders. He plans to continue doing so on his hoped-for release.
“It’s been a roller coaster ride,” he said. “We were very excited when the Supreme Court decision came down, but then state Attorney General [Bill] Schuette filed a challenge contending that it isn’t retroactive for people like myself, who have been locked up for decades. That was very disappointing, but we are still hopeful. I don’t want to dismiss the pain our actions caused our victims, but we have to live with the horrible decisions we made for the rest of our lives as well. In my case, I consider my greatest achievement to have been forgiven by the victim’s family after expressing my remorse and sympathy.”
Appeals Court Judge Michael Talbot wrote Carp decision, halting release of Michigan’s juvenile lifers.
Todd’s sentencing judge, Michael Talbot, gave the 17-year-old not only life without parole, but said he should serve it in solitary confinement at hard labor, a sentence not currently recognized by the Michigan Department of Corrections. Talbot is now an Appeals Court Judge. He wrote the Carp decision, and was also the original sentencing judge in the Carp case.
Todd’s friend Tracy Williams told VOD that Vera Rucker, the mother of Melody Rucker, the 16-year-old killed in a cross-fire between two groups of male youths in 1986, has embraced both Todd and herself, essentially taking them into her family. Williams calls her “Mom.” (For more on Todd’s case, which made the front page of the local Metro Times, click on http://www2.metrotimes.com/editorial/story.asp?id=9966.)
So far, a bright light still shines for juvenile lifer Cortez Davis. The Michigan Supreme Court remanded his key case back to Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Vera Massey Jones Sept. 7, while refusing to weigh in on the issue of retroactivity. With passionate remarks, Judge Massey Jones granted his motion for re-sentencing Dec. 11, 2012. His sentencing hearing is set for Jan. 25, 201e. (See sidebar for Judge Jones’ decision.)
Cortez Davis is to be re-sentenced by Judge Vera Massey-Jones Jan. 25, 2013..
“The most important thing she said, especially in light of the Carp case, is that she declared the mandatory life sentence to be cruel and unusual in this case 18 years ago—before the case had not yet become final,” Davis’ attorney Clinton Hubbell told VOD. “The Court of Appeals in Carp, however, is bootstrapping a denial of resentencing to Mr. Davis by indicating that his case is already final in spite of Judge Jones’ 1994 ruling, and that the Miller/Jackson decision is not retroactively applicable.”
Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy has filed an emergency Application for Leave to Appeal to the Appeals Court, asking that a decision be made by Jan. 24, 2013 banning the re-sentencing. She argued that the Carp decision binds lower courts, although it was rendered after the state Supreme Court remanded the Davis case to Judge Jones.
Judge Vera Massey Jones declared JLWOP to be unconstitutional in 1994, when she sentenced Cortez Davis.
During the Dec. 7 hearing, Judge Jones asked Assistant Prosecutor Timothy Baughman, “Mr. Davis has waited how many years? After I ruled that the thing was cruel and unusual, how many years has Mr. Davis been in prison waiting for the Supreme Court of the United States to come to a rational decision on this case?’
Baughman replied that it has been 18 years. He argued that Judge Jones is bound by the Carp decision, and that a final decision on retroactivity has to go through the appeals process to the U.S. Supreme Court all over again.
Judge Jones, who has been on the bench for over 30 years, is set to retire in 2015. She said people have asked her why she stayed so long.
“I stayed here because I wanted to see justice done to my people,” Judge Jones said. “I followed my father around Recorder’s Court when I was a little kid . . . .I had a great deal of respect for him and for the other people who happened to be African-American lawyers, and really fought for people’s rights. And so, to me, doing the right thing was more important than anything else. And doing the right thing back then was not to sentence Mr. Davis to natural life in prison.”
She noted that it has taken 18 years for the U.S. Supreme Court to confirm her 1994 ruling that juvenile life without parole was “cruel and unusal” punishment.”
“And so it would be unfair to keep Mr. Cortez Davis tethered by wrong decisions made by other courts over the years,” Judge Jones explained. “And so Carp, in my opinion, does not apply to this case.”
U.S. District Court Judge John Corbett O’Meara may hold the fate of Michigan’s juvenile lifersi in his hands, but so far has not ruled in Hill v. Snyder.
While Davis awaits his sentencing hearing, the federal class action case filed on behalf of 13 Michigan juvenile lifers in Nov. 2010, still lingers in front of U.S. District Court Judge John Corbett O’Meara, of the Michigan Eastern District.
The plaintiffs, represented by Attorney LaBelle and others with the ACLU, moved for summary judgment on the unconstitutionality of the current parole statute, asking the court to go beyond Miller/Jackson to include even non-mandatory sentencing of juveniles.
During hearing on their motion Sept. 20, Judge O’Meara did not make a ruling. He said he was inclined to rule in favor of the plaintiffs, but wanted to hear arguments and ideas from both sides on enforcing the USSC ruling in Miller/Jackson, as well as prisoners serving life without parole sentences in general.
Atty. Deborah LaBelle represents juvenile lifers in federal case, and is coordinating campaign for re-sentencing all the state’s juvenile lifers.
Attorney LaBelle noted that even the Carp COA panel agreed the parole statute is unconstitutional in light of Miller/Jackson.
“You know, we extensively briefed it, and Defendants [the state of Michigan] do not disagree with the fact that Miller and Graham and Roperall make arguments that say that children are different than adults,” LaBelle argued. “Children are less culpable than adults, and that all the legitimate penological objectives for life without parole sentences simply cannot apply to children.”
She referred to two earlier USSC decisions outlawing juvenile life without parole in non-homicide cases, Graham v. Florida, and the death penalty for juveniles, in Roper v. Simmons.
She continued, “Miller went even further and said that Graham’sreasoning implicates any life without parole sentence imposed on a juvenile, and it’s not crime specific, it’s child specific. This court can, and we think should, determine that the harshest punishment available in Michigan to anyone who commits a crime as an adult, a first degree murder crime, cannot be applied to children in the same way as adults . . . .the Court says no one, no psychologist, no soothsayer, no judge can stand and look at a child and say I know who you will be when you mature. No one can do it, and to impose a life without parole sentence does exactly that and says I know you’re irredeemable now.”
Michigan State Rep. Joe Haveman (R) Holland.
Since the Sept. 20 hearing, both sides have continued to submit filings to Judge O’Meara, with no indication as to when he will finally rule. The last submission, by Attorney LaBelle, was filed on Nov. 28, 2012. (See link below.)
Meanwhile, State Rep. Joe Haveman (R-Holland) submitted a package of bills Nov. 8, including HB 6014, which makes a grudging attempt to comply with Miller/Jackson. It would however confirm Miller’s retroactivity. It does not provide for re-sentencing, but provides parole eligibility for individuals sentenced before the age of 16 after serving 15 years, and those sentenced between the ages of 16 and 18 after 20 years.
However, Michigan’s parole board is appointed by the governor and has been extremely restrictive about granting parole to anyone, including parolable lifers convicted of offenses like second-degree murder.
Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder controls parole board, which releases few long-time prisoners.
The bill requires that the parole board consider numerous factors not part of Miller, including whether the offense “occurred during an act of terrorism,” whether three or more individuals were involved in committing the offense, whether there were multiple murders, whether victims were minors, disabled adults, or law enforcement officials; whether the victim was threatened with torture, or whether the victim was killed due to witnessing a crime.
The bill does include other factors specified in Miller, including the previous record of the individual, whether another individual dominated him or her in the commission of the crime, and “whether the individual’s age, family circumstances or mental development substantially affected his or her ability to appreciate the consequences of his or her actions.”
The bills were referred to the House Judiciary Committee. It is unclear what will happen to them in the 2013-14 session.
“Both the court and the House Bill only provide for a ministerial act of sentence correction and not what the U.S. Supreme Court ordered, sentences that look at the person on a case by case basis,” Sanders summed up. “They only look at life with or without parole.”
Some of Michigan’s 371 juvenile lifers involved in current litigation: (l to r, top through bottom row), Cortez Davis and Raymond Carp, awaiting re-sentencing under USSC decision; plaintiffs in USDC case Henry Hill, Keith Maxey, Dontez Tillman, Jemal Tipton, Henry Hill, Nicole Dupure, Giovanni Casper, Jean Cintron, Matthew Bentley, Bosie Smith, Kevin Boyd, Damion Todd, and Jennifer Pruitt; Edward Sanders and David Walton, in prison since 1975 at the age of 17; (photos show some lifers at current age, others at age they went to prison).
Prisoners are shown at the Ryan Correctional Facility in Detroit, Thursday, May 3, 2007. Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s administration is scaling back plans to release more than 5,000 parole-eligible prisoners to ensure only nonviolent or sick inmates get out. Under a revised plan obtained by The Associated Press, officials trying to slow Michigan’s prison spending are eyeing around 3,200 inmates for parole, or about 36 percent fewer than originally proposed. (AP Photo/Paul Sancya)
(VOD: this article was forwarded to VOD by writer Mitch McKay in December, 2012.)
Protester at Federal Building demonstration in Detroit July 9, 2012 depicts Snyder on his T-shirt.
Michigan Governor Rick Snyder has wasted no time in brandishing his broad budget battle-axe in an effort to chop away at the state’s excessive deficit by, among other things, closing several State Police Posts and cutting public funding for universities by 15 percent, but with little or no positive reform effect on the out-of-control prison spending that has plagued the state for decades.
Snyder’s prison budget for 2011 comes in at just over $2 billion and appears to be the same ol’ story for Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) funding; retaining otherwise ill-conceived, inadequate or grossly underfunded prison programs and services implemented under former MDOC Director Patricia Caruso & Company, while making minor and largely symbolic changes aimed at diminishing the quality of life for prisoners.
This is in stark contrast to his predecessor, former Governor Jennifer Granholm, who in her tenure as the state’s Governor implemented numerous prison cost cutting measures including closing a total of fourteen (14) of the State’s 47 prisons from 2003 to 2009 (See Prison Legal News [PLN], Dec. 2009, page 46). Snyder’s efforts to solve the prison budget problems appear slightly, if not completely, misguided, perhaps even downright dangerous.
Detroiters support massive Goergia prison strike in Dec. 2010, standing outside Detroit’s Mound Road prison. Gov. Snyder has since closed the prison, which housed many from Detroit. They have been transferred all over the state, away from family and friends.
His official budget plan calls for closing one prison for an estimated annual savings of $18.9 million, statewide privatization of the prison food service and prisoner store operations, and reducing additional administrative costs to save another estimated $32 million. However, if Governor Snyder thinks that privatization is the panacea for effective service and savings he obviously hasn’t been paying attention to the countless problems experienced by other prison systems that have privatized prison food service operations (See PLN, April 2010, pgs. 1-7).
State. Rep. John Proos
This is a potentially dangerous move for staff and prisoners alike in an already volatile, overcrowded prison system, with fewer work opportunities for already hungry prisoners to supplement their daily diets from the overpriced prison canteen.
In August 2010, under pressure from State Rep. John Proos –R, the MDOC implemented a statewide standardized prison food service menu and dramatically reduced the portion size of prisoner meals in an effort to save an estimated $6 million a year (See PLN, Dec. 2010, pg. 46).
Early rumors indicate that under the new privatization of the MDOC food service operations prisoners will receive only one hot meal per day while being provided cold bag meals or meals-ready-to-eat for the other two meals. And for prisoners serving relatively short sentences, up to a few years, this might be acceptable.
“We are men. We are not beasts, and we do not intend to be beaten or driven as such.” (L.D. Barkely, a 21 year old prisoner serving time for breaching parole by driving without a license. He died in the Attica prison assault, shot 15 times at point-blank range.) Twenty-nine prisoners and 10 hostages were shot to death by New York State Police to quell the historic Attica Prison rebellion of Sept. 1971. The New York State Special Commission on Attica wrote, “With the exception of Indian massacres in the late 19th century, the State Police assault which ended the four-day prison uprising was the bloodiest one-day encounter between Americans since the Civil War.”
However, for prisoners serving Life or long, indeterminate sentences, one must question the wisdom of such an imprudent contract. The more the system squeezes these long-term or Lifer prisoners, the less incentive there is for them to conform and go with the flow. They become embittered and angry at the system that continues to take and take from them. The result is increased violence against staff and other prisoners borne of utter frustration, anger and desperation. This in turn results in increased prison spending to house these now assaultive prisoners in higher custody levels, medical expenses and perhaps even prosecution costs resulting from these otherwise avoidable violent acts of discontent.
In another unwise move touted to save money, Governor Snyder has done away with the Granholm-appointed 7-member Executive Clemency Advisory Council which reviewed some 20 cases a month and made recommendations for or against commutations. Since its inception, to justify the former Governor’s reforms, there have been no commutations for prisoners whose victims have been law enforcement officers or minors; for prisoners who are healthy and have committed armed robbery or criminal sexual conduct; for prisoners who committed first degree murder; or for drug offenders who were responsible for operating a drug ring.
New parole board members appointed by Granholm are shown here with chair Barbara Sampson. Snyder drastically changed make-up of parole board.
In her November 6, 2010 address to the attendees of the annual Michigan CURE meeting Ms. Barbara Sampson, then Chairwoman of the Michigan Parole and Commutation Board (MPCB), reported that “very few individuals whose sentences were commuted…have been returned to prison. And each of those returned had been serving a sentence for a property crime or [minor] drug offense when his or her sentence was commuted.”
By Executive Order 2011-3, which took effect April 15, 2011, Governor Snyder also abolished the Granholm-appointed 15-member MPCB and replaced it with a new 10-member Michigan Parole Board appointed, not by Governor Snyder but, by the new MDOC Acting Director Richard M. McKeon. (Effective June I, 2011 Jackson County Sheriff Daniel Heyns became the new MDOC Director). Five members of the new 10-member board, are former MPCB members including former MPCB Chairwoman Barbara Sampson, and of the remaining five members four are longtime MDOC staff and the other a former prosecutor. Continue reading →
The Wilmington 10, falsely convicted for the 1972 bombing of a Wilmington, N.C. grocery, served many years in prison before their release on various dates, including Rev. Ben Chavis, (bottom left), released in 1979.
The nine African-American men and one white woman had been convicted in the 1972 firebombing of a Wilmington, NC grocery store during civil-rights protests that arose after police shot an African-American teenager. Between the ten, they received combined sentences totaling 282 years in prison.
The Rev. Benjamin Chavis gives a clenched fist salute after arriving at Washington National Airport on Friday, Dec. 14, 1979, after being paroled by North Carolina Gov. Jim Hunt. Chavis, one of the Wilmington 10 defendants, was convicted in connection with the 1972 firebombing of a Wilmington, N.C. grocery. At right is Dr. Charles Cobb, a United Church of Christ official, for whom Chavis will work. (AP Photo/Charles Tasnadi)
, Governor Perdue, a Democrat, said that she “decided to grant these pardons because the more facts I have learned about the Wilmington Ten, the more appalled I have become about the manner in which their convictions were obtained.” That manner was outlined on our show Saturday by host Melissa Harris-Perry, who added her voice to the more than 130,000 who signed their names to petitions delivered to the governor’s office:
“…it was so overt that by 1977, at least three witnesses had recanted their testimony. And in 1980, the U.S. Court of Appeals overturned the convictions of the Wilmington Ten—noting that the chief witness lied on the stand and that prosecutors concealed evidence.
And now, according to the NAACP, newly discovered notes from the prosecutor suggest he racially-profiled prospective jurors—writing ‘KKK —good’ next to some names and referring to at least one black candidate as an ‘Uncle Tom.’”
Governor Perdue used similarly strong language in her statement about the injustices done in the trial:
This conduct is disgraceful. It is utterly incompatible with basic notions of fairness and with every ideal that North Carolina holds dear. The legitimacy of our criminal justice system hinges on it operating in a fair and equitable manner with justice being dispensed based on innocence or guilt – not based on race or other forms of prejudice. That did not happen here. Instead, these convictions were tainted by naked racism and represent an ugly stain on North Carolina’s criminal justice system that cannot be allowed to stand any longer.
RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) – Outgoing North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue issued pardons Monday to the Wilmington 10, a group wrongly convicted 40 years ago in a notorious Civil Rights-era prosecution that led to accusations that the state was holding political prisoners.
Perdue issued pardons of innocence Monday for the nine black men and one white woman who received prison sentences totaling nearly 300 years for the 1971 firebombing of a Wilmington grocery store during three days of violence that included the shooting of a black teenager by police.
The pardon means the state no longer thinks the 10 – four of whom have since died – committed a crime.
“I have decided to grant these pardons because the more facts I have learned about the Wilmington Ten, the more appalled I have become about the manner in which their convictions were obtained,” Perdue said in a news release Monday.
The three key witnesses in the case later recanted their testimony. Amnesty International and other groups took up the issue, portraying the Wilmington 10 as political prisoners.
In 1978, then-Gov. Jim Hunt commuted their sentences but withheld a pardon. Two years later, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Va., threw out the convictions, saying perjury and prosecutorial misconduct were factors in the verdicts. Continue reading →
AUTOWORKERS TO TARGET WORSENING WORKING CONDITIONS AS AUTO COMPANY PROFITS SOAR, PLAN TWO DAYS OF PROTEST AT THE NA INTERNATIONAL AUTO SHOW
Contact: Frank Hammer AUTOWORKER CARAVAN 313-863-3219
WHO: Autoworker Caravan WHAT: Informational Picket Lines WHEN: Sunday, January 13th and Monday, January 14th, 1:30-3 PM WHERE: Cobo Center, 1 Washington Blvd,, Detroit 48226
WHY: As the successful turnaround of GM and Chrysler (and Ford’s ongoing success) continue to be touted in the main stream media, the story of the continued sacrifices of the workers who are making it possible continues to be ignored. As a result, the public is left with the impression that autoworkers are sharing in the new-found prosperity, which is decidedly not the case.
Pres. Barack Obama campaigns for auto bail-out at Chrysler Warren Stamping Plant.
Still trying to recover from the “austerity” measures imposed by the White House Auto Task Force during the bailout of 2009, autoworkers are continuing to lose rights and benefits once considered untouchable.
“If they dare complain,” says Martha Grevatt, a tool and die maker at Chrysler’s Warren Stamping Plant, “they are told to be silent and just ‘be happy you have a job.’” Workers are thus being forced, for example, to accept so-called “Alternative Work Schedules” and “Flexible Operating Patterns” by which the employers extract more value from the workers for less pay, all the while their personal and family lives are increasingly disrupted and stressed.
“Maquiladora” plant workers in Mexico.
More and more workers are being hired as low-paid permanent “temporaries,” as the auto companies accelerate to eliminate long-term, permanent workers. According to line worker Debi Muncy, who suffered a work-related injury at her former Ford plant in Saline, Michigan, “once injured on the job, we often are harassed by management, and forced back to work and put back on jobs we shouldn’t do.” In these and other ways the Detroit 3 are importing their so-called “maquiladora” labor practices developed in countries like Mexico, Colombia and Brazil into their US operations.
U.S. autoworkers have more reason than ever to express their solidarity with workers in the global south who are confronted with these “maquiladora” practices. “The auto show is a perfect opportunity,” says Nick Waun, a GM worker in Lake Orion Michigan, “for us to show our support for GM workers in Colombia, for example, who’ve suffered crippling occupational injuries and who’ve been fired by a heartless company. We will stand with these heroic workers who have gone to great lengths – including a 525 day encampment and hunger strikes – to win their jobs back, and their right to a union.”
Fresh from witnessing the attacks on union rights in states like Wisconsin, Indiana and now Michigan, autoworkers will be demanding repeal of such anti-union measures as the recently enacted, so-called “Right to Work” laws. “Allowing these to laws to remain,” according to Chrysler hi-lo driver Melvin Thompson, “will weaken labor and set the stage for Colombia style-working conditions to be introduced here.”
“The global restructuring of the Detroit Three is being accomplished not only at the expense of the workers, but also at a huge cost to the environment,” adds Dianne Feeley, a retiree from the now closed American Axle plant in Hamtramck, Michigan. “Autoworkers will be demanding a restructuring of the auto industry and a retooling of the closed plants, to build what is necessary to stop global warming, and prevent more disasters like Superstorm Sandy. We need renewable energy and more public transit. We know that such a project would unleash workers’ energies and create much-needed jobs for Detroit and other hard hit communities.”
RALLY WITH US AGAINST RICK SNYDER & RIGHT TO WORK!
When: Friday, January 18, 2013 Time: 5:00 PM Where: Cobo Hall (We will meet here at the Local hall first, located at 2604 Fourth Street, Detroit, MI 48201)
Join us on Friday, January 18th when we tell Gov. Rick Snyder that we won’t stand for his attacks against Michigan workers. As you all know, Snyder signed Right to Work legislation into law in December. What you may NOT know is:
– On average, workers in Right-to-Work states earn $5,000 less than those in free bargaining states.
– Fewer people — 21% of workers in Right-to-Work states — have health insurance.
– The poverty rate in Right to Work states is considerably higher than in free bargaining states.
– Workplace deaths are 51% higher in Right to Work states
The fight is far from over. We have to keep letting our voices be heard so join us at Cobo Hall for this important action. We will meet at the Local Hall at 5:00 pm. See you all there!
Transportation and food will be available. For more information call Good Jobs Now at (877) 740-5033 or email us at info@goodjobsnow.org. You can also receive our mobile updates by texting ‘weareMI’ to 64336.
Good Jobs Now will never charge you for text message alerts, but carrier message and data rates may apply. Text STOP to 64336 to unsubscribe, and HELP for more info. Periodic updates, up to 5 per month.
Group Urges Detroit to Go on Offense To Stop EFM and Protect City Assets
From Tom Barrow, previous mayoral candidate
(DETROIT (JANUARY 8) —-A Detroit civic organization, Citizens For Detroit’s Future (CFDF), headed by prominent Detroit accountant Tom Barrow, today delivered letters to Detroit’s elected leaders calling on them to accept that the railroad is running towards the city and is controlled by conservative interests seeking to take the City’s coveted resources and assets.
Recount hearing on 2009 Detroit mayoral elections, requested by candidate Tom Barrow (l) was packed with his supporters. The Wayne County Board of Canvassers found that over 60 percent of the ballots, including all the absentee ballots, were unrecountable. Was Dave Bing really elected by the people?
“It is clear to city residents and our suburban neighbors– Detroiters all–that our city is being maligned daily and a conservative agenda being perpetrated against it to get what our late Mayor Young called, the city’s ‘Crown Jewels’,” said Barrow.
CFDF has long taken the public stance that a Detroit Emergency Financial Manager (EFM) will be appointed no matter what the Mayor or Council does. Therefore, the city must get off of defense and go on offense to protect the city’s jewels.
“If Detroit’s Mayor and Council continue to act like lambs, conservatives will continue to feast like lions.” Barrow said.
Contrary to the view by some on the city’s council, “it is naive to believe that if you take draconian actions desperately trying to satisfy unrealistic milestones, extremists will somehow like you, be pleased and stop coming after at you…they will not because their agenda is rooted in a phony fiscal ruse which can never to be satisfied.” Barrow explained.
States with municipalities authorized to file for bankruptcy under Chapter Nine of the US Bankruptcy Code.
CFDF’s Executive Board passed a resolution calling on Detroit’s city council to immediately order the city’s law department, not Miller-Canfield, to explore Detroit’s options under Title 11 of the US Bankruptcy Code at Chapter 9, specifically designed for municipalities.
Why a municipal bankruptcy reorganization? Because it is vastly preferable to a state appointed EFM.
Barrow, who has been appointed by the federal courts as a trustee in multiple corporate bankruptcies in the past, said “I understand the process.”
CFDF believes that a conservative railroad is running on tracks designed by the Koch Brothers, Devos and Walton Foundations. These conservative financiers’ plan of EFMs, right-to-work and voter suppression efforts is operating nationally and here in Michigan and goes like this:
First, the EM will be appointed by the conservative state and will be someone we recognize but who has quietly bought into the conservative right-wing philosophy and will wear a seeming Democrat’s suit;
DWSD workers picket Huber plant in Aug. 2012 before striking the Wastewater Treatment Plant in September for one week. They demanded not only preservation of city ownership of DWSD, but also protection of their pensions. Public pension plans may be endangered under a bankruptcy filing.
Second, s/he will render the elected Mayor and Council impotent (thus the people silent);
Third, s/he will sell or transfer city assets including the water department and Belle Isle etc. to private outside interests using the fiscal ruse a la Pontiac, Flint, Benton Harbor, Ecorse etc.;
Fourth, the EFM then will decimate the city’s unions and privatize multiple clear government functions; and
Fifth, its most impactful effect on our over 230-year old democracy, the EFM once in, no matter what anyone says, will last indefinitely and not be accountable to anyone in Detroit. (Just Look at Detroit Public Schools) and become an indefinite overseer.
Conversely under a self-imposed Chapter 9 Reorganization, the Mayor and Council control everything. City assets remain under the ownership of the city and cannot be sold or transferred and the Mayor and Council is given absolute power to set aside any contract they decide.
While a Chapter 9 Mayor and Council can set aside a union contract, a new Mayor and Council will have the same power to re-instate any contract or whatever has been done during that short and interim period.
Linda Willis participates in downtown Detroit protest May 9, 2012 demanding payback from the banks.
But most importantly, because Detroiters are in control and because the primary concern of the bankruptcy court will be the Bond Debt with which the city is fine, it should immediately re-affirm all General Obligation and Special Revenue Bond debt to reassure the financial markets. The city can then on its own:
– Set aside any state or local agreement, including having the ability to abrogate the Consent Agreement, and the Memorandum of Understanding;
– Dissolve the Financial Advisory Board and remove the state’s two $260,000 per year imbedded operatives and all other state operatives whom we have been forced to hire.
In short, by judicious use of Chapter 9, the city can get the state out of its business and allow the current and future Mayors and Councils to run the city subject only to the Court and without state interference. The mayor and council can decide when to emerge from the Bankruptcy Reorganization. Should the city need to borrow it need only ask the court, not Treasurer Andy Dillon or Governor Rick Snyder.
Fitch Ratings Joe O’Keefe (3rd from left0 and S & P’s Stephen Murphy (2nd from right) pressured Council to borrow $1.5 billion in Pension Obligation Certificates unnecessarily in Jan. 2004, from UBS whiah has now admitted to massive fraud.
CFDF has railed repeatedly that the city was NOT running out of cash and that the state’s claims were a ruse orchestrated by their imbedded operatives to generate a false flag media furor to make the city appear inept and incapable of managing it’s finances.
State operatives, with the complicity of some naive elected officials (Note: none of our elected officials are trained in finance), falsely pushed city leaders to borrow money they did not need and then use the funds as a faux bludgeon to demand compliance with a conservative privatizations of city services and hiring more state operative.
All while the city is sitting on a half a billion dollars in its own water department, half of which is “unrestricted” and which, properly structured, could have been used to borrow from ourselves with the interest paid to ourselves.
International Underground Railroad Monument in Detroit’s Hart Plaza.
Around the end of November, the state’s bluff was called by a Council super-majority, 8-1, legitimately concerned with Miller-Canfield’s obvious conflicts representing all sides, the State, the City and even itself (inserted into the MOU with a requirement that the firm be hired “or else”), our Mayor was forced to admit that we would not be running out of cash and will last through the Spring of 2013, contradicting three years of Chicken Little shouts of “We’re running out of money!” That entire argument has now gone quietly away.
Yet, state operatives continue to set up faux milestones designed to get their EFM and make it appear rational and Detroiter’s own fault. This to provide justifications to disintegrate city unions, privatize essential government services and city’s departments and ruining city workers lives, further depressing the local economy.
Trains have been very good to Detroit in the past, but not this one. Our local history, from the metaphorical Underground Railroad that delivered escaped enslaved people to Canada via Detroit; to the great railways that delivered the Arsenal of Democracy in World War II; to the automobile makers receiving steel and supplies from across the nation, it served as a symbol of the city’s dominance. This train, conducted by a conservative Gov. Snyder, however, is steaming toward downtown Detroit to load up on city jewels and must be derailed with this very prudent and necessary step to solvency.
(VOD is researching the issues surrounding a bankruptcy filing, which many Detroiters called for at a City Council meeting today, and will later publish an independent article. An alternate proposal that VOD has raised for years is a moratorium on the city’s massive debt to the banks, a result of predatory lending advanced by Wall Street. As Councilwoman JoAnn Watson has raised, corporations owe Detroit over $800 million.
Additionally, dozens of cities, states and other borrowers are suing global banks including UBS, largely responsible for Detroit’s debt, for rigging interest rates in the LIBOR scandal. UBS just paid the U.S. a $1.5 billion fine, admitting to criminal fraud.)
Records obtained from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) by DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy (DBA/CMD) through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request indicate that the FBI employed tactics under a “counter terrorism” initiative called “Operation Tripwire” in the monitoring of Occupy Wall Street (OWS) activists.
[Note: records referenced in this article were obtained by DBA/CMD on November 8, 2012, as a partial response to a FOIA request submitted by DBA/CMD to the FBI on June 7, 2012. DBA/CMD have been analyzing these incomplete materials along with other public records to tell a more complete story of the pattern of domestic surveillance that has been underway.]
“Tripwires,” Mall Cops, and “Radical Cheerleaders”
On October 19, 2011, an FBI agent filed a report, titled “Domain Program Management [,] Domestic Terrorism,” detailing an October 11 briefing given to “Jacksonville Executive Management” (EM) and a supervisory special agent (SSA) “Counter Terrorism Program Coordinator.” The subject of the October 11 briefing had been the potential growth of the OWS movement throughout north/central Florida. (All agent names were redacted from this, and other, FBI reports.)
“During the 11 October intelligence meeting, writer advised EM of the Occupy venues and further advised that they may provide an outlet for a lone offender exploiting the movement for reasons associated with general government dissatisfaction,” wrote the agent, who went on to say that special areas of concern were Daytona, Gainesville, and Ocala, where “some of the highest unemployment rates in Florida continue to exist.”
As such, the report’s author recommended that the Counter Terrorism Program Coordinator, “consider establishing tripwires with the Occupy event coordinators regarding their observance of actions or comments indicating violent tendencies by attendees” (emphasis added).
Occupy Gaineville cheerleaders were targeted by Tripwire.
Interestingly, the report went on to discuss the author’s sharing of information obtained from the FBI Houston field office– as an example of such potential “exploitation”– with the Jacksonville Counter Terrorism Program Coordinator. The FBI Houston information related to the “exploitation” of Occupy Houston by an individual (name redacted) who had allegedly plotted to “kill local Occupy leaders via sniper fire.” (It is worth noting here that one of the few other instances of a credible threat identified by the FBI in relation to OWS contained in the DBA/CMD FOIA records relates to an October 2011 instance in which a person reportedly threw a “chemical bomb” made from tinfoil and Drano at “Occupy Maine” protestors after shouting “get a job!”)
US DOJ “Operation Joint Terrorism Task Force.”
According to the FBI, “Operation Tripwire,” established in 2003, focuses on “information and intelligence-sharing operations from the NJTTF’s [National Joint Terrorism Task Force] participating agencies to help identify terrorist sleeper cells in the U.S.” Such information is obtained through intelligence provided by various private sector “critical infrastructure stakeholders,” along with apparent networks of informants established through regional JTTF “community outreach” activities.
An example of Tripwire’s intended use at the time of its inception is as follows: a suspicious pattern of chemical purchases might be provided to the FBI by a merchant. This information would be relayed from the regional JTTF to NJTTF. Continue reading →
