VOD FILED HATCH ACT COMPLAINTS AGAINST BING, BROWN, D-D0T’S BILL NOJAY IN AUGUST, FED. OFFICE REPORTED PROBE ONGOING
By Diane Bukowski
November 10, 2012
DETROIT– Detroit’s Channel 7 news is reporting that Detroit Mayor Dave Bing’s Chief Operating Officer Chris Brown has resigned. VOD recently noted his absence from public meetings.
VOD is investigating to see if this is related to our filing of Hatch Act complaints against Mayor Dave Bing, Chris Brown, and former D-DOT Deputy Director Bill Nojay. Nojay left in August amid controversy over his running for office in New York State while overseeing federal funds at D-DOT.
VOD was recently informed by the U.S. Office of the Special Counsel that it continues to investigate those complaints.
The complaint against Brown cites his acknowlegment to the media that both he and Bing knew of Nojay’s run for the New York State Assembly at the time he entered the race, as follows from VOD story:
“Detroit Mayor Dave Bing and City of Detroit Chief Operating Officer Chris Brown were fully aware of Nojay’s situation, according to an article in the Detroit News Aug. 23.
“’The mayor’s office was aware of his radio show and was informed when he decided to run for office,” Chris Brown, the city’s chief operating officer, said in an email,’ wrote News reporter Christine McDonald.
“’Mr. Nojay conducted these activities during off-hours. … Mr. Nojay campaigned on weekends.This department directly affects the lives of Detroiters and the mayor is concerned about what happens in Detroit, not New York.’”
Thus, Nojay, Bing and Brown may all be complicit in violations of the Hatch Act. VOD is contacting the federal Office of Special Counsel for information on their ongoing investigation of Nojay and today filed a complaint of its own against all three individuals.”
A case of foot-in-mouth disease, Mr. Brown? Still going to file slander charges against VOD as you threatened, for calling Mike McGee a co-author of Public Act 4, which he himself admitted in print (another case of foot-in-mouth, we suppose)?
The many faces of Chris Brown, Detroit’s first “white mayor” since before Coleman A. Young, Jr, including (bottom l) Brown consorting with PA 4 co-author Mike McGee (center) and Project Management Director Kriss Andrews on union-busting “City Employment Terms” document before first Financial Advisory Board meeting in June. Now that PA 4 is gone, the Financial Stability Agreement, the FAB, Andrews and others should get swept into the dustbin of history as well.
The family of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, 7, killed by Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley and a police raid team May 16, 2010. (L to r) Aunt Krystal Sanders, grandmother Mertilla Jones, mother Dominika Stanley and the rest of Aiyana’s family including her father Charles Jones have received no justice yet, only constant attacks by police and prosecutor’s office.
FROM: The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement Thursday, November 8, 2012
Now that Barack Obama has been reelected President of the United States of America, it is imperative that the racial justice movement hold him and his administration accountable for the extrajudicial killing of Black and oppressed people throughout the country.
Pres. Barack Obama and family. Aiyana Jones had the same right to grow up in the loving embrace of her family as Obama’s daughters.
The Obama administration must assert its authority over the various law enforcement entities throughout the country and stop the discriminatory policies and programs that demean and endanger Black life like racial profiling, stop and frisk, the war on drugs, and mandatory minimum sentencing that facilitates mass incarceration.
In the first six months of 2012, one Black person every 36 hours was executed in the United States. Since January 1, 2012, police and a much smaller number of security guards and self-appointed vigilantes have murdered at least 140 Black women, men and children.
Aiyana Jones with baby brother before her murder by Detroit police.
This epidemic constitutes an egregious human rights crisis that the Federal Government has a fundamental obligation to address. As party to the Convention to Eliminate all forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) the United States government has an obligation to protect the lives of racial minorities. The government is also obligated under various civil rights laws and executive orders to protect the lives of African Americans.
Our movements must step up our organizing and action over the course of the next several days, weeks, months and years to ensure that the Obama administration complies with our demands. We call on you to once again join us in raising the basic demands listed below by continuing to call, fax, and email the White House and the Department of Justice and tell them to act now!
Tommie Staples Jr., second from left, killed by Detroit cops Barron Townsend and Steven Kopp in 2007 for monitoring police stops of neighborhood youth. Townsend also killed Dennis Crawford in 2004. Although the families won substantial court settlements, none of the cops were charged and are still in the street. /Family photo
The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement urges you to demand that the White House and the Department of Justice take the following corrective measures to respect, protect, and fulfill the human rights of African Americans:
1. A Federal investigation into the civil and human rights violations taking place with the impunity of local police forces throughout the country.
2. A Federal review of the rules of engagement authorizing the use of deadly force being employed by police forces throughout the country.
3. The creation of a Federal database, in line with the 2008 CERD Committee recommendations, that documents cases of extrajudicial killings and acts of police brutality against racial minorities throughout the United States.
Jevon Royall, 30, Brandon Martell Moore, 16, and Artrell Dickerson, 18, killed by Detroit police in last five years, among many others. Dickerson was killed by cop Kata-Ante Taylor, who was part of the police team that raided Aiyana Jones’ home. Taylor ran her out of the house before her family could hold her in the last seconds of her life. See Artrell’s friend Kiana’s comments at end of story.
4. The issuing of Federal injunctions against those police departments where two or more extrajudicial killings of Black people have occurred over the past nine months.
5. The issuing of Federal consent decrees authorizing the creation of locally elected Police Control Boards in cities and/or counties that demonstrate patterns of systemic racial profiling, brutality, and extrajudicial killing.
Detroit cop Joseph Weekley, who killed 7-year-old Aiyana Stanley-Jones in 2010.
6. The creation of a National Plan of Action for Racial Justice to eliminate institutional racism and its expressions in racial profiling, police brutality, extrajudicial killing, mass incarceration and discrimination in housing, educational access, health care, employment, banking and credit markets.
Please call or email the White House and the Department of Justice at the addresses provided below and make your voice heard.
Please send this information to your friends, family, and associates and ask them to support this action and to spread this information and action request to their friends, families and associates.
To demonstrate your support for this action tweet us at @MXGMNational to let us know that you have called the White House and the Department of Justice. You can also let us know by sending us a message on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/MXGMnational?fref=ts.
For more information please visit us at www.mxgm.org. Forward!
Detroit cop Kata-Ante Taylor killed Artrell Dickerson, 18 and was part of the assault team that murdered Aiyana Jones.
Comment below is from Kiana, Artrell Dickerson’s friend, who saw cop Kata-Ante Taylor execute him next to the Cantrell Funeral Home after Artrell’s friend’s funeral:
I WAS THERE . I WAS NO MORE THAN 10 FEET AWAY. I SPENT ARTRELL’S LAST DAY, LAST HOUR, LAST MOMENT WITH HIM. I KNEW ARTRELL ALMOST HIS WHOLE LIFE. HE WAS SWEET, LOVING AND CARING. HE DID WHAT EVER HE COULD DO FOR ANYONE. I WATCHED MR. TAYLOR SHOOT HIM IN HIS BACK AND BECAUSE HE IS A COP HE GOT AWAY WITH MURDER. MY FRIEND NEVER GOT A CHANCE TO EVEN HAVE A CHILD. HIS LIFE WAS CUT DOWN BY A TRIGGER HAPPY COP. I JUST FOUND OUT HE WAS INVOLVED IN THE AIYANA JONES THING AND MR. TAYLOR IS STILL A COP WHILE AN 18 AND 7 YEAR OLD ARE GONE. I STILL CRY EVERY DAY FOR MY FRIEND I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES ABOUT MY FRIEND AND ITS BEEN ALMOST 6 YEARS. IN SEPTEMBER HE WOULD HAVE BEEN 23. I WONDER IF MR. TAYLOR KNOWS HOW HIS ACTIONS HAVE AFFECTED OTHER PEOPLE.
A No Struggle, No Development Production! By KennySnod
Published October 25, 2012
[Angela Y. Davis] Though her activism and scholarship over many decades, Angela Davis has been deeply involved in movements for social justice around the world. Her work as university educator has always emphasized the importance of building communities of struggle for economic, racial, and gender justice.
In the 1970’s, Angela Davis was brought up trumped-up charges of kidnapping, conspiracy, and murder and placed on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted List, leading to her imprisonment for eighteen months. Her case, which highlighted a racist criminal justice system, led to international condemnation and the “Free Angela” movement. Committees from around the world, including Detroit, worked for Angela’s freedom until 1972, when she was acquitted of all charges at her trial.
Angela Davis is the author of nine books and has lectured throughout the US and the world. She also one of the founding members of Critical Resistance, a national organization dedicated to the dismantling of the prison industrial complex.
In Struggle, Development and Unity
Kenny
Internal change bases External, Qualitative change bring Quantitative, Universal connection Opposites, Negation of Negation
Kenneth Snodgrass – Author of “From Victimization to Empowerment The Challenge Of African American Leadership The Need of Real Power”
Prof. Angela Davis speaks in Detroit October 24, 2012.
International freedom fighter, Communist focused on racism, prisons, undocumented workers, imperialist wars, women’s rights, Palestine
By Diane Bukowski
November 5, 2012
(VOD note: This story has been moved up to the eve of the elections because Prof. Davis called for mass struggle. See related articles on Jonathan Jackson and Green Party below this.)
Prof. Angela Davis (second from left) on stage with (l to r) Councilwoman JoAnn Watson, UAW VP Cindy Estrada, Metro Detroit AFL-CIO President Chris Michalakis and others, while choir performs at Fellowship Chapel.
DETROIT – Some speakers at the packed “Welcome to Detroit, Angela Davis” rally Oct. 24 at Fellowship Chapel used it mainly as a mass “get out the vote” rally for Democratic U.S. President Barack Obama.
But during her speech, Professor Angela Davis, world-renowned freedom fighter and Communist, stressed the need for mass struggle against the forces of capitalism, racism, and militarism that are destroying the U.S. as well as countries across the globe. While she did not underestimate the historic nature of the election of a Black president in the U.S, calling it “earth-shaking,” she put it in context.
Occupy Oakland converges on the Port of Oakland, shutting down docks and disrupting banks Nov 2, 2011.
“People forgot the limits of electoral politics,” Prof. Davis said, after describing the elation in the streets of her home city Oakland, California on Nov. 4, 2008. “We forgot that we were electing a President of the United States, the imperialist, militarist, racist, anti-union United States.”
Prof. Davis said she still believes Obama will be the most responsive of the two major party candidates to pressure from the people, noting that he is the first sitting President to endorse gay marriage. But she asked the audience to imagine how the last four years would have been if people had taken to the streets to bring change themselves.
Sitdown strikes paralyzed the U.S. in the wake of the historic plant sitdowns in Flint, Michigan, 1937.
“People were waiting for Obama to emerge as new FDR,” she said. “But was it really FDR who gave us on his own accord unemployment insurance and social security? No, it was the masses of the people in the street, struggles led by communists in the 1930’s, sit-down strikes, marches all over the country, unemployed councils, eviction defense committees. . . .We will never elect a president who will lead us to the promised land. We have to take it on ourselves. As the great Black poet June Jordan said, ‘We are the ones we have been waiting for.’”
Article on Prisoners’ Labor Union of Jackson, Michigan.
She paid tribute to the Occupy Movement of 2011, saying, “If Occupy did nothing elese, it created an opportunity for us to talk openly and critically about capitalism. She then laid out a people’s agenda for the coming period including as major points:
An end to all union-bustingand expansion of unionization. Prof Davis called the U.S. a “prison nation,” housing 25 percent of the world’s incarcerated people while representing only five percent of the world’s population. She called on the labor movement to organize prisoners, noting that a demand of the Attica Rebellion was a prisoners’ labor union. She recalled that prisoners in California formed such unions afterwards, demanding minimum wage and vacation pay. [Here in Michigan, prisoners at Jackson also formed the Michigan Prisoners Labor Union, which this author fought to support along with the Prisoners Solidarity Committee.]
Rally against ICE raids on undocumented workers, students and families in Clark Park, Detroit Oct. 20, 2012.
Support for undocumented workers.“It was undocumented workers who established the May 1 holiday,” Prof Davis said. “They taught us that our struggles always have to be anti-racist, anti-xenophobic, and not anti-communist. No human being is illegal. We want a world free of racism, poverty, homophobia, transphobia, a world that respects our environment. . . .Undocumented youth represent one of most important struggles for democracy today. Education not deportation! Education not incarceration!”
U.S. warship
An end to U.S. imperialist military incursions. Prof. Davis noted that during the Obama administration, the U.S. moved from its occupation of Iraq to the occupation of Afghanistan, and has promoted “the most deadly form of Islamophobia.” She did not however, mention simultaneous U.S. military incursions into Africa and the rest of the Middle East in the wake of the bloody U.S.-NATO occupation and destruction of the African nation of Libya.
Support for women’s reproductive rights. Prof. Davis noted that Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney has sworn to appoint Supreme Court Justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade. She added, however, “Roe v. Wade did not necessarily guarantee poor, Black, Latino women the right to an abortion if they so choose, because it was based on the right to privacy between women and doctors. What about all the women who don’t have doctors?”
An end to the occupation of Palestine. “Since 1948, Israel has confiscated the land, natural resources and future of Palestinians. . . . this was not so much genocide, but rather conscious strategies causing the population to flee, de-territorialization, creating a land without people for a people without a land. Does that sound familiar?” At that point, people in the audience cried out “DETROIT, DETROIT.” Davis also drew the comparison to the forced movement of the indigenous people of the U.S., Native Americans, off their land.
Support for the struggle of Black people in the U.S.including recognition of the role played internationally in that support. “Suppose there had not been international support for Black American struggles from Europe, Africa, Asia, and Latin America, where do you think we would be today?” Prof. Davis asked. “Many of the cases from the civil rights movement were publicized initially in the foreign press.”
Assata Shakur in Cuba after liberation from U.S. prison. Photo: Kenny Snodgrass
Prof. Davis has been in Detroit many times, the last in 1994. But her 1972 appearance at the State Fairgrounds in Detroit, during a rally packed with 10,000 supporters, gives context to her appearance this year.
The photo at beginning of Kenny Snodgrass’ video above is from that rally, which celebrated Prof. Davis’ acquittal of capital charges related to the heroic courthouse rebellion by Jonathan Jackson and other prisoners in 1970, in support of Black Panther Party Field Marshal George Jackson and the Soledad Brothers.
It took place at a time when revolutionary spirit in the U.S. and abroad was at its height. That spirit must be renewed, particularly among the youth. Black youth in particular have been demonized, criminalized and incarcerated by the powers that be, but this must stop. Jonathan Jackson, 17, George Jackson, 20 when he was sent to prison, and Angela Davis, 26 at the time of her arrest, along with the Black Panther Party to which George Jackson belonged, showed the way for today’s youth.
Jonathan Jackson, 17, with William Christmas, James McClain and Ruchell Magee take judge, prosecutor, three jurors as hostages to waiting van Aug. 7, 1970. San Quentin guards and court cops started firing. Jonathan Jackson, McClain and Christmas were killed, along with Judge Haley. Magee and Assistant District Attorney Thomas were wounded.
By Stephen Millies
Published Aug 8, 2010
(Thanks to San Francisco Bay View newspaper for preserving most of photos included with this article.)
Jonathan Jackson was only 17 years old when he gave his life for oppressed people on Aug. 7, 1970, when he went to the San Rafael, Calif., courthouse to free his older brother George Jackson, along with Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette — the “Soledad Brothers.”
These three revolutionary inmates were charged with killing Soledad prison guard John Mills. Just before Mills was thrown over a third floor railing, a grand jury exonerated fellow officer O.G. Miller for shooting to death Black inmates Cleveland Edwards, Alvin Miller and W.L. Nolen on Jan. 13, 1970. African-American witnesses weren’t allowed to testify at the whitewash hearing.
Soledad Brothers George Jackson in the middle wearing glasses, between John Clutchette (left) and Fleeta Drumgo. Jonathan had intended to free his brother, but George was not in the courtroom the day he stormed it. George Jackson, field marshal of the Black Panther Party, was assassinated by prison guards on Aug. 21, 1971.
While no evidence linked the Soledad Brothers to the killing of Mills, California Governor and future U.S. President Ronald Reagan wanted to kill them in the state’s gas chamber because they were revolutionaries.
George Jackson was internationally known for “Soledad Brother,” a book-length collection of his letters from prison. “I met Marx, Lenin, Trotsky, Engels and Mao when I entered prison and they redeemed me,” he wrote.
A field marshal of the Black Panther Party, George Jackson had already spent a decade behind bars for a $70 robbery. As an 18-year-old he was given a one-year-to-life sentence for being a passenger in a car whose driver allegedly robbed a gas station.
George Jackson with little brother Jonathan the last time he was home.
Jonathan Jackson went to Judge Harold Haley’s courtroom armed with guns. San Quentin prisoner James McClain was there, defending himself against frame-up charges of assaulting a guard following the beating to death of Black inmate Fred Billingsley by prison officials. Fellow inmates Ruchell Cinque Magee and William Christmas were also in the courtroom as witnesses for McClain.
Like the enslaved Africans who joined John Brown at Harper’s Ferry, these three San Quentin prisoners immediately joined Jonathan Jackson’s freedom fight. Judge Haley, assistant prosecutor Gary Thomas and three jurors were made their prisoners.
“We are revolutionaries,” they proclaimed. “We want the Soledad Brothers free by 12:30.”
According to Black Panther Party veteran Kiilu Nyasha, “The plan was to use the hostages to take over a radio station and broadcast the racist, murderous prison conditions and demand the immediate release of the Soledad Brothers.” (San Francisco Bay View, Aug. 3, 2009)
California Superior Court Judge Harold Haley with shotgun taped around his neck during Jonathan Jackson’s Marin Co. Courthhouse rebellion. Photo by Jim Kean, Marin Independent Journal.
But the capitalist class would rather have one of their judges killed than let Black prisoners go free. As Jonathan Jackson drove away in a van, San Quentin guards and court cops started firing. Jonathan Jackson, McClain and Christmas were killed, along with Judge Haley. Magee and Assistant District Attorney Thomas were wounded.
“Free Angela! Free Ruchell!”
The courageous action of these four Black heroes at the San Rafael courthouse shook the capitalist state from the White House to the local police precinct.“Psychologically the slave masters have been terrified by the boldness and innovative tactical conception,” wrote Fred Goldstein in Workers World. “No court is safe anymore.” (Aug. 20, 1970)
Angela Davis and Jonathan Jackson march to free George Jackson and the Soledad Brothers in 1970.
Scapegoats had to be found. Magee and Angela Davis, who had chaired the Soledad Brothers Defense Committee, were put on trial. Jonathan Jackson had been a bodyguard for Davis and three of the guns used at the San Rafael jailbreak were registered under her name. That was enough for Gov. Reagan to try to send Davis to the gas chamber as a “conspirator” responsible for Haley’s death. In 1969 Reagan had gotten trustees at the University of California, Los Angeles, to fire the radical philosophy professor for being a member of the Communist Party.
For two months Davis eluded the FBI, which put the Black communist on its“10 most wanted” list. FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover listed her as being “armed and dangerous” — an official invitation to shoot her on sight. President Nixon congratulated Hoover for the capture of Davis and labeled the Black woman “a terrorist.”
From her prison cell Davis declared, “Long live the spirit of Jonathan Jackson!”
The Black community mobilized coast to coast to defend their sister. More than 200 “Free Angela Davis” defense committees were formed [initiated largely by the Communist Party). Members of every Workers World Party branch joined and supported these committees.
Ruchell Cinque Magee
People rallied in Cuba, the Soviet Union and the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) as well. On June 4, 1972, a jury acquitted Angela Davis of all charges.
Tried separately from Davis, Magee had adopted the name “Cinque”after the African leader of the 1839 slave revolt on the ship Amistad. The original Cinque was freed by a Connecticut court. Ruchell Cinque Magee, who also was part of a slave revolt, was convicted of kidnapping after murder charges were dismissed.
Judge Morton Colvin refused to adjourn the trial for a single day when Magee’s mother died. Yet Colvin recessed the hearing for two days following former President Truman’s death. At one point this bigot-in-robes kicked all 40 Black spectators out of the courtroom. (Jet, March 1, 1973)
An appeals court forced Colvin to allow former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, who later founded the International Action Center, to help defend Cinque. Jury foreman Bernard J. Suares stated in a 2001 affidavit that the jury actually voted to acquit Cinque of kidnapping for the purpose of extortion.
Ruchell Cinque Magee remains imprisoned today. Jailed for 47 years, he is the longest held political prisoner in the U.S. and possibly the world. As an accomplished jailhouse lawyer, Cinque has freed dozens of fellow inmates.
You can write to this heroic freedom fighter at Corcoran State Prison. The address is Ruchell Magee # A92051, 3A2-131 Box 3471, C.S.P. Corcoran, CA 93212
The Attica Rebellion in D-Yard, shown here, September, 1971, sparked uprisings in other prisons across the U.S. and gave birth to a new generation of struggle.
Black August
One year after his younger brother sacrificed his life, George Jackson was assassinated by prison guards on Aug. 21, 1971. George Jackson’s murder sparked the Attica prison rebellion in which 29 prisoners were slaughtered by billionaire New York Gov., Nelson Rockefeller.
On March 27, 1972, the two remaining Soledad Brothers — Fleeta Drumgo and John Clutchette — were acquitted by a San Francisco jury.
“Courage in one hand, the machine gun in the other,” was how George Jackson described his 17-year-old brother Jonathan.
Sources: “If They Come in The Morning” by Angela Davis and other political prisoners; “The morning breaks; the trial of Angela Davis” by Bettina Aptheker.
Articles copyright 1995-2012 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
US Major General David Hogg inspects Ugandan troops/ Photo Ryan Sutherland. During the Obama administration, the U.S. has put boots on the ground throughout Africa, in the wake of the U.S./NATO led destruction of Libya and execution of Col. Muammar Gadhafi.
Asst. Editor- | Last updated: Oct 25, 2012 – 10:31:36 AM
Green Party candidate Jill Stein wants to be president
Dr. Stein is highly critical of President Obama’s expansion of drone wars in Yemen and Somalia, as well as sending armed troops into parts of Africa, which she believes was hastened once it was discovered that there was oil in Central Africa.
Green Party Presidential Candidate, Dr. Jill Stein (Right) and her vice-presidential running mate Cheri Honkala (Left) accept their nominations at the 2012 Green Party Convention in Baltimore, MD. Photo: Barbara G. Green
(FinalCall.com) – A recently released report from the Center for the Study of the American Electorate found this year’s estimated national primary turnout has reached a new record low.
According to the Virginia-based non-profit, non-partisan research institute, between 95 and 100 million eligible voters may sit out of this year’s election.
Though many disenchanted voters are unhappy with the binary presidential options presented by America’s two-party dominated political system, many either select what they consider to the lesser of two evils, while some opt-out of voting altogether.
Green Party presidential candidate Dr. Jill Stein articulates a view shared by an increasing number in the U.S. who have grown tired of corporate controlled political parties and their strong-armed dominance within a structure that only seems to benefit the wealthy.
She hopes to mobilize those nearly 100 million American citizens. Even if she were only able to mobilize a portion of those disaffected voters, the electoral landscape would be altered remarkably.
To put that goal and number in perspective, President Barack Obama won the 2008 election receiving over 69 million votes. His vanquished Republican opponent John McCain received just under 60 million.
When asked, she is very clear about why she is running for president and quickly runs down a long list of issues she considers important for the future of the country.
“I think we are in crisis,” said Dr. Stein. “People are losing their jobs, their homes, wages are going down, affordable health care and higher education are being placed out of reach. Our civil liberties are under attack, there is a racist war on drugs and racism is alive and well in America,” she added.
Dr. Stein says the wealthy few are doing better than ever, benefitting from crony capitalism, squandering trillions of dollars on foreign wars. There have been bailouts for Wall Street and tax breaks for the wealthy, while austerity measures are being thrust upon everyone else.
“I think the people of America and ordinary people all over the world in fact are at the breaking point and we need to take it and turn it into a tipping point,” she said.
A viable option?
The Green Party of the United States describes itself as “a federation of state Green Parties committed to environmentalism, non-violence, social justice, and grassroots organizing.”
Cynthia McKinney, formerly Green Party presidential candidate and six-term U.S. Congresswoman, speaks against the U.S.-NATO occupation of Libya on Aug. 27, 2011 in Detroit.
In 2008, former member of Congress Cynthia McKinney was the GP’s presidential candidate and tapped activist Rosa Clemente as her vice-presidential running mate. They garnered 161,680 votes in the election and were on the ballot in 32 states.
On November 6, voters will find Dr. Stein on the ballot as an available choice in at least 85 percent of the voting booths around the country, including the prized states of California, Texas, Illinois, New York, Florida and Ohio.
“We have benefitted from the hard work that Cynthia and Rosa did together. They were fighting this battle at a very difficult time and they were ahead of the curve,” said Dr. Stein. “A lot of people are waking up to the reality that a corporate sponsored candidate and a corporate sponsored political party isn’t going to solve this for us, so we have benefitted from the trailblazing that Cynthia and Rosa did,” she added. Continue reading →
Cecily McClellan (l) and others from “Free Detroit–No Consent” protest Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder’s appearance in downtown Detroit Nov. 1, 2012. A new poll published by the Detroit Free Press shows that PA 4 may be going down to defeat. VOTE NO ON PROP 1!
OPEN LETTER FROM RUSS BELLANT TO AG BILL SCHUETTE:
Russ Bellant
November 1, 2012
Attorney General Bill Schuette –
This is an open letter that I am sharing with about 1,000 Michiganders that is prompted by your reverence for the Michigan Constitution as displayed in your TV ads opposing Proposal 2, which would add collective bargaining rights to the Constitution for more employees than the state troopers that already have such rights in our Constitution.
In order to further your cause of protecting the Constitution, may I suggest two other special interests that are already abusing the Constitution that require your immediate attention:
Michigan Attorney General Bill Schuette
1) In Article I, Section 10 of our Constitution, it says that “No bill of attainder, ex post facto law or law impairing the obligation of contract shall be enacted.” Yet our reckless Legislature passed and our Governor signed a bill, Public Act 4 of 2011, that enables appointees to impair contracts that would give our 1963 Constitutional Convention chairman, George Romney, heartburn. Not only was this law passed, but it is being widely implemented and contracts are being impaired across Michigan.
Do you think that you could help rectify this deplorable situation by calling for a repeal of PA 4 by issuing a press release calling for a NO vote on Proposal 1?
Michigan Supreme Court Justice Robert Young declared that PA 72 cannot be revived if PA 4 is defeated.
I know that you directed staff to argue in the Supreme Court that Prop 1 should be kept off the ballot so that voters could not decide this issue, but we all make mistakes.
Speaking of mistakes, did your Assistant AG tell you that in the July 25 Supreme Court proceeding that Chief Justice Robert Young insisted that PA 72 could not be revived with the mere suspension of PA 4, but then your staff argued in a Wayne County court that it could be revived? Did you know that your staff used a nonexistent citation to make their argument? Seems like someone in a position of responsibility should lose their job in all this mess, doesn’t it?
Perhaps the group sponsoring your ads to protect the Constitution (the Michigan Chamber of Commerce, which is not a special interest?) could pay for some NO on 1 ads with you as the centerpiece, but keep the stone-faced Ionia Sheriff in your Prop 2 ads out of this one – he reminds too many voters of the cop who gave them a ticket for 5 over. The YES on 2 Sheriff has you beat on this one.
Some of the 10,000 people who turned out to protest Public Act 4 in Lansing on April 13, 2011.
2) If you read Article VIII, Section 3 of our violated Constitution says that “Leadership and general supervision over all public education, including adult education and instructional programs in state institutions, except as to institutions of higher education granting baccalaureate degrees, is vested in a state board of education. It shall serve as the general planning and coordinating body for all public education, including higher education and shall advise the legislature as to the financial requirements in connection therewith.”
Now that seems straight forward enough. But again, our Governor, whose office is not even accorded a role in education, has set up a “state school district” and appointed a board to start running that “district” and receive taxpayer funds. Further, he has used his powers of the unconstitutional PA 4 (see above) to take schools from a local school district and claim them for his own “district.”
Did you know that some of those school buildings are being paid for until 2033 by taxpayers who thought that they were voting to approve bonds to build schools for their own local district before the Governor swooped in and just took them? Is that a form of voter fraud that you could investigate? Its almost like a compounded unconstitutional crime wave, wouldn’t you say?
Mr. Attorney General, there are a lot of concerned citizens that wish to arrest this unlawful activity. Please let us know when you are ready to stand with us by redeploying your bully pulpit.
You should consider this a formal complaint and request for action. Please let me know if I must resubmit it in a larger font size.
Mertilla Jones, grandmother of Aiyana Stanley-Jones, shot to death in polce raid at the age of 7, speaks to media before court hearing on cop who killed her Oct. 29, 2012.
Child, shot to death at 7, would have been 10 this year
Court, prosecution, defense delay trial of officer Joseph Weekley
By Diane Bukowski
October 30, 2012
DETROIT – “We are coming out here as long as it takes,” Aiyana Jones’ grandmother Mertilla Jones said before Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley appeared in court Oct. 29 for a second hearing on a motion to dismiss charges against him.
Mertilla Jones shows Aiyana’s photo during Oct. 29, 2012 press conference.
“It is frustrating that this is dragging on for so long, but it is more frustrating that Weekley is not locked up for murdering a seven-year-old girl,” Jones said. “He was supposed to protect and serve. But all he served Aiyana with was a bullet to the head. Many people in Detroit have forgotten about Aiyana by now, but I am still getting messages from people all over the country and all over the world expressing support.”
Weekley shot the child as she slept with her grandmother May 16, 2010, during a horrific military-style midnight raid on her home, as cameras from A&E’s “First 48” show rolled.
Jones spoke during a press conference called by the newly-formed Coalition for Justice for Aiyana Jones.
“The police were showing off for the reality show,” Aaron Petcoff, a representative of the Coalition, said. “They feel they can get away with this in a poor Black neighborhood, and the justice system is working to let them get away with it.”
Joseph Weekley (r) at arraignment in 2011. Also shown (l front) Wayne Co. Prosecutor Kym Worthy, (rear r to l) co-defendant Allison Howard and her attorney. Hedr trial has since been severed, and is set for Dec. 3, 2011.
Although he was charged with involuntary manslaughter and reckless use of a firearm a year ago, Weekley has yet to face trial. It has become apparent during a series of pre-trial hearings that the court, prosecution and defense want the child’s father Charles Jones tried on first-degree murder charges in a separate case first.
“Her daddy can’t even grieve with his family for his daughter, because he has been locked up for a year while Weekley is free with his family,” Jones added. “I have lost two sisters waiting for justice. One of them was in the room with me when my grandbaby was shot, and both just gave up hope on living after that.”
Weekley has been free on personal bond while Aiyana’s father and her aunt’s fiancé Chauncey Owens are in jail awaiting trial. They are accused in the killing of 17-year-old Je’Rean Blake two days before Aiyana’s death. Detroit police used that incident as a pretext to stage a midnight raid with grenades, tanks, and assault weapons on the Jones’ home, while cameras for A & E’s “The First 48” rolled.
Charles Jones (front) is comforted by his aunt JoAnn Robinson, now deceased, the morning of Aiyana’s killing May 16, 2010. His cousin Mark Robinson, who warned police children were in the home, is at left.
Police had a warrant for Owens, but did not obtain an arrest warrant for Jones until one and a half years later. Owens did not live with the Jones family, but in an upstairs flat with a separate entrance. He surrendered voluntarily and could have been arrested earlier when he left the house while police were surveilling it, according to nationally-renowned attorney Geoffrey Fieger.
Weekley’s defense attorney Steve Fishman and Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway expressed surprise at the extensive presence of TV cameras and reporters in the courtroom, claiming the hearing was minor.
“I tried to tell the media not to bother,” Fishman said, “but it was like talking to my wife and children.”
Weekley’s attorney Steve Fishman has defended numerous police officers.
At the first hearing Sept. 28 on the Weekley motion to dismiss, Judge Hathaway said she could not rule on it without reviewing extensive files. She asked Assistant Prosecutor Robert Moran and Fishman to produce those documents, including those from a one-man grand jury hearing conducted by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Timothy Kenny. Judge Hathaway has had the case since November, 2011.
On Oct. 29, the two attorneys said they had compiled records they agreed would be needed, consisting solely of transcripts of testimony by police officers, detectives and two family members. Everything related to the grand jury hearing has been sealed from public view, and both attorneys agreed it should continue to remain so.
Asst. Prosecutor Robert Moran (front) during preliminary exam for Charles Jones, who he is also prosecuting in what many say is a conflict of interest. Jones’ defense attorney Leon Weiss speaks at podium Jan. 26, 2012.
“We didn’t provide photos, evidence technician reports and sketches, firearms reports and the autopsy report because we felt they were not important to the theory of gross negligence,” Moran told the judge.
“One exhibit is a disc of 150 photos,” he added. “We don’t think the court needs to see those. The court doesn’t need to review the entire transcripts. The court might want to focus on the testimony of the Detroit police officers, all the police on the Special Response Team, and the homicide detectives. A number of civilians were not in the room. Just two were there, and the court needs to read those.”
During the raid, numerous members of the Jones family were present in the small flat, including Aiyana’s father, aunt, and younger siblings and cousins, and Owens’ 15-year-old daughter. Her adult cousin Mark Robinson was first detained by police outside the home. He said he warned them that children were present in the house before they fire-bombed it and entered shooting.
Painting of Aiyana Jones on her mother Dominika Jones’ Facebook page.
According to court records, police also brought Owens into the lower flat, seating him on the couch where Aiyana died, with her blood and body fragments still there.
The Wayne County Medical Examiner’s office said in its first autopsy report that Aiyana had been shot through the throat, but later concurred with a second autopsy report by forensic pathologist Daniel Spitz which showed she was shot through the top of her head, with the bullet exiting her throat.
(See video below, in which Fieger explains how the autopsy report is key to the theory of the crime. Channel 7 reported in print, “A Wayne County spokesman is confirming to Action News that the cause of death on the death certificate for Aiyana Stanley-Jones was changed from ‘gunshot wound to the neck’ to ‘gunshot wound to the head.’ The spokesman says it was changed on Friday after the Wayne County Medical Examiner spoke to the Macomb County Medical Examiner, Dr. Daniel Spitz.”
Fishman said, “I feel the same way as Moran as far as the exhibits go, although if the court wants to see them we can have them there.”
Judge Timothy Kenny, the “one-man grand jury” on the investigation of the police killing of Aiyana Jones. He refused to release any documents from court file to VOD.
Hathaway appeared not to be interested in the exhibits, stating, “I would assume the exhibits were included in the probable cause motion to indict.” Judge Kenny granted that motion to indict Weekley on the limited charges, and reviewed those exhibits secretly.
Ron Scott, also working with the Coalition for Justice for Aiyana Jones, questioned why Judge Hathaway would not want to review the same exhibits if she is considering dismissing the case.
Hathaway asked about what she termed “the companion case, for lack of a better term.”
Moran said the hearings on Jones and Owens have been postponed until the beginning of 2013. He said the state Supreme Court should decide by then on an application for leave to appeal filed by Jones’ attorney. An appeals court earlier overturned a ruling by Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Richard Skutt that the testimony of “jail-house snitch” Jay Schlenkerman could not be used against Jones.
Judge Cynthia Gray Hathaway
Hathaway subsequently said she would not be ready to rule on the motion to dismiss the charges against Weekley until “early next year.”
The “companion case” to Weekley’s is actually that of Allison Howard, an Arts & Entertainment (A & E) producer who has been charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for her alleged actions related to A&E’s taping of the raid. Her trial has since been severed from Weekley’s.
Former Detroit police chief Ralph Godbee tried to blame Mertilla Jones for the killing of Aiyana, then later retracted statement.
Jones said that when she was deposed during the grand jury proceedings on possible charges in her granddaughter’s death, the court was most interested in details pertaining to the earlier killing of Je’rean Blake.
“Ralph Godbee [who just resigned as Detroit police chief] said I interfered with Weekley and that made his gun go off,” Jones said after the hearing. “But if I had, I would be dead too.”
Hathaway set Nov. 30 as the date for the next hearing on Weekley’s case. She set the same date for a demonstration of the effects of the “flash-bang” grenade which was thrown through the window above the sleeping child and her grandmother just before Weekley entered and shot the child to death.
The contention has been that the detonation “dis-oriented” Weekley, although Moran said that officers in the SRT are specially trained to function while it goes off.
That demonstration was earlier scheduled for July, but Hathaway said Sept. 28 that she was the only person who showed up for it.
Ron Scott at courthouse Oct. 29, 2012.
“This is a total miscarriage of justice,” Ron Scott, who is also working with the Coalition for Justice for Aiyana Jones, said after the hearing. “Since when have you heard of a case of this magnitude being postponed for this long? In this kind of case, the forensic evidence is placed up front and first, but rhere are certain things they don’t want the public to hear or know. The entire Special Response Team, which is a paramilitary unit, and everyone in the police command who told Weekley what to expect and do need to be indicted as well. It will be a travesty if Weekley and all these others walk.”
Mertilla Jones said her family celebrates Aiyana’s birthday every year. She would have been 10 years old July 20, 2012.
Families brought their children to the rally against ICE raids and deportations, held Sat. Oct. 20, 2012 in Clark Park on Detroit’s southwest side.
Stop the raids at schools, churches, homes and jobs
All human beings are legal
By Diane Bukowski
October 30, 2012
DETROIT – Families from Detroit’s southwest side are rallying to stop rampant raids by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE), including the recent arrest of a father dropping his child off at Cesar Chavez Academy and the attempted detainment of parents dropping another child off at a Head Start Program.
Another father seized by ICE, Alfredo Avila-Mendez, is awaiting a pre-trial hearing Nov. 6 and trial Nov. 8 in front of U.S. District Judge Julian Abele Cook. Francisco Romero-Caspeto was found guilty of illegal re-entry into the U.S. October 17, and is awaiting sentencing by U.S. District Court Judge Marianne O. Battani on Nov. 13 at 2p.m. at the U.S. Federal Courthouse on Lafayette in downtown Detroit, according to court documents.
(Click on Francisco and Alfredo RALLY for flier describing their situations. Both men had been in the country for many years, are married with children, and were working to support their families and pay taxes.)
Attorneys George Washington, Shanta Driver, and Joyce Schon, all affiliated with the national Coalition for Affirmative Action, Integration and Immigrant Rights and Fight for Equality by Any Means Necessary (BAMN), are representing the men in court.
Familes crowded the park to mobilize against ICE raids and in support of two fathers now facing deportation.
“The President has claimed that ICE and DHS (Department of Homeland Security) will only target undocumented people for deportation who pose a ‘threat to society,” said Manuel Mendez, an organizer for the By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) coalition.
Arecely R. tells crowd that her husband, the sole support of herself and three children, was seized by ICE two months ago.
“Yet they are detaining and criminalizing thousands of innocent people whose only so-called ‘crime’ is crossing the border for a better life, just as the ancestors of most Americans did in the past. If this is not the administration’s policy, we demand that the President send out a clear message by firing Detroit ICE Director Rebecca Adducci immediately.”
To date, families including mothers and children deprived of their husbands and fathers have gathered in Clark Park at rallies Oct. 20, 27, and 28. They said ICE has been showing up not only at schools, but churches, homes and workplaces.
“Two months ago, ICE picked up my husband,” Arecely R. said, weeping. “I want them to let him out and stop harassing people. His family, me and our three children, need his support. He is hard-working, responsible and dedicated. We have to join together to stop this. We have a lot of support in the community.”
Western High School student Lydia M. also broke down crying as she said that her grandmother in Mexico is very sick.
Lydia M. weeps as she tells how her father cannot go to visit her sick grandmother in Mexico for fear of not being able to come back home.
“My father really wants to go see his mother, but he is scared that if he does, he will not be able to come back home to us. I am so proud of my sister who is going to law school. She wants to be an immigration lawyer. I want her to go for that dream.”
Another speaker who attends the University of Berkley California said that people there have mobilized a direct action system to stop the ICE raids.
“We had an alert system for when ICE was coming to our school,” he said. “We would surround the student they were looking for with a lot of students so that they couldn’t single out the individual. We need to do the same thing here, to stop ICE from showing up anywhere they please. President Obama’s program to allow students to apply for deferred action is very limited, but it can become a pathway for citizenship.”
Many youth from the Latina/o community in southwest Detroit came to the Oct. 20 rally.
Benjamin Royal reminded the crowd of the spring of 2006, when massive rallies for immigrant rights across the U.S. defeated right-wing anti-immigrant legislation in the U.S. Congress.
“We must build a movement independent of the Democrats and Republicans to demand equality for all people, and put an end to this policy of kidnapping and deporting our friends, neighbors and family members,” Royal said.
Benjamin Royal, Issamar Almaraz, Monica Smith and Leroy Lewis all spoke at the rally; here Almaraz and Smith read position paper on ICE raids.
BAMN attorney Monica Smith co-chaired the rally with Issamar Almaraz translating for Spanish-speakers.
The two read a position paper in both English and Spanish to the crowd. (Click on ICE flier to read entire statement.)
“With only a few weeks remaining until the elections, a mobilization of the Latina/o and immigrant communities can send a message to the President, who is commander of the ICE, that he call off his dogs now,” the two said. “The President or one of his cabinet members could, with a single phone call, end the ICE harassment we face everyday.”
As world-renowned activist and author Angela Davis told a crowd in Detroit Oct. 24, the two said that the people’s power at the polls pales in comparison to the real power communities possess.
“When we stand together, documented and undocumented and take to the streets, we can change the course of history, not just the outcome of a single election,” they said. “Those without a vote—the youth, the undocumented and others, have more social power acting together than individual voters in our communities can cast. . . .Just a few of us need to rival the boldness of the ICE to begin to loosen the fear imposed by them on the majority of people in Southwest Detroit.”
For more information on the growing movement to stop ICE terror on Detroit’s southwest side, contact organizers Monica Smith at 313-585-3637, and Issamar Almaraz (Spanish speaker) at 313-421-2513 or
The Coalition to Defend Affirmative Action, Integration, & Immigrant Rights, and Fight for Equality By Any Means Necessary (BAMN) at 855-ASK-BAMN (855-275-2266), email@bamn.com. www.BAMN.com and twitter: @followbamn.
Rally participants spread out to march to the campaign offices of Pres. Barack Obama at 2727 Second to ask that he stop the raids and deportations.
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).
State AG Schuette wants them to die behind bars
AG lost Davis case; re-sentencing set for Nov. 16, 2012
AG now part of Raymond Carp appeals case
USDC Judge O’Meara considering answer to Mich. ACLU motion; his ruling could override appeals court on Carp
By Diane Bukowski
October 25, 2012
Michigan AG Bill Schuette. Photo: Wikimedia.org.
DETROIT—Despite the Michigan Supreme Court’s refusal Sept. 7 to halt the re-sentencing of Cortez Daviz (shown above), Michigan’s Attorney General Bill Schuette is continuing his crusade to have Davis and the rest of Michigan’s 371 juvenile lifers die behind bars.
Michigan has the second highest number of juvenile lifers in the country. Seventy-four percent of them are prisoners of color, according to a study by the Michigan chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU).
Davis, of Detroit, was 16 when he was sent to prison in 1993 in a felony murder case. But in June, the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed mandatory juvenile life without parole sentences for any crime, in Miller v. Alabama and Jackson v. Hobbs.
Wayne Co. Prosecutor Kym Worthy listens to top assistant prosecutors including Robert Moran (r) during court hearing.
The Michigan Supreme Court refused to hear arguments from Schuette and Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy against Davis’ re-sentencing.
“We REMAND this case to the Wayne County Circuit Court for reconsideration of the defendant’s successive motions for relief from judgment in light of Miller v. Alabama . . . .including the question whether Miller applies retroactively to cases that have become final on direct review,” the state high court wrote.
Judge Vera Massey Jones/Photo: Legal Aid and Defender Association
Wayne County Circuit Judge Massey Jones is now set to conduct Davis’ re-sentencing hearing on Nov. 16, 2012 at 9 a.m.
“We’re pretty excited to have this back at the trial court,” attorney Dylan DuVall, who along with Clinton Hubbell represents Davis, said in published remarks. “That’s where they belong, in the community where they occurred, where the judge is familiar with the case.”
He said he and Hubbell will ask that Davis be re-sentenced to time served.
Raymond Carp in prison six years after conviction at age of 15.
“We are not victimizing the community or anyone else with these re-sentencings,” Hubbell said earlier. “The individuals in question did not actually commit the offense for which they were sentenced, first-degree murder, and they had diminished culpability as juveniles.”
Now Schuette has gone after Raymond Carp, 15 when he was sent to die in prison in 2006 for a murder his adult brother confessed to committing in Michigan’s St. Clair County. His brother testified that Carp did not actively participate in the crime, although a hearsay witness told the court that Carp confessed his participation to him.
Schuette (pronounced “shooty”) has said he considers all juvenile lifers “teen-age murderers” despite a study showing that the majority were not the “principal actors” in the crimes involved.
U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan, who wrote the majority opinion in Miller v. Alabama,
“Hauling hundreds of crime victims and their families back into court to relive these horrific murders would be cruel, unusual, and unnecessary,” Schuette said in a release, repeating terms U.S. Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan used to characterize sentencing children to death in prison. The USSC ruled that such sentencing violated the Eighth Amendment.
“Fortunately that scenario can be avoided by following established court precedent that says U.S. Supreme Court rulings addressing criminal justice processes are not retroactive.”
A Michigan Court of Appeals panel heard Carp’s case Oct. 16. Schuette and the state prosecutors’ association faced a formidable array of adversaries. They included the State Appellate Defenders’ Office (SADO), the Criminal Defense Attorneys of Michigan (CDAM), the Michigan Chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), and the University of Michigan Law School Juvenile Justice Clinic.
Kuntrell Jackson and Evan Miller were both 14 when they were sentenced to death in prison in Arkansas and Alabama, respectively.
These and other organizations have promised to represent every one of Michigan’s juvenile lifers, beginning with those who were not the principal actors and have served the longest terms. They contend that Miller v. Alabama is clearly retroactive.
Presiding Judge Michael Talbot was on the panel that denied Carp’s earlier appeal. In 1986, as a Detroit Recorders’ Court Judge, he caused gasps when he sentenced Damion Todd (shown in group photo above), 17, to mandatory life in prison without parole at hard labor and in solitary confinement, for murder. He added another term of 100 to 200 years for assault with intent to commit murder.
Charles Jones with daughter Aiyana Stanley-Jones before her shooting death by Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley.
Talbot was on the appeals panel that summarily overturned Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Richard Skutt’s recent ruling barring “jail-house snitch” Jay Schlenkerman from testifying against Charles Jones, the father of Aiyana Stanley-Jones.
The child was seven when Detroit police officer Joseph Weekley shot her to death. Jones’ attorney, from Geoffrey Fieger’s firm, is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn the appeals ruling.
Ignoring the state high court’s refusal to weigh in on Miller, Talbot questioned whether the USSC ruling was “substantive” during the Oct. 16 hearing.
“If Kagan had the votes, she would have said it was substantive. But it’s not clear because she didn’t,” Talbot said.
Appeals Court Judge Michael Talbot in 2009. Photo: Detroit Transportation Club.
“Rulings are deemed substantive if they prohibit a certain category of punishment for a class of offenders on the basis of their status or offense,” Carp’s attorney Patricia Selby countered. “In this case… what they banned was mandatory application without parole.”
She said that Miller v. Alabama clearly reflected the intent of the USSC, since the court previously banned mandatory death sentences as well as mandatory juvenile life without parole in non-homicide cases.
“We think because this involves something as significant as the Eighth Amendment,” Selby said, “that it should apply, and that it’s basically telling the courts they have to take a whole new look at people in Mr.Carp’s position.”
SADO Attorney Jonathan Sacks stressed the Supreme Court’s ruling mandating individualized sentencing for juveniles, based on seven factors (see sidebar.)
Sacks and Selby also asked the court to consider changing first-degree sentences for juvenile lifers to second-degree sentences, which would automatically allow parole.
Edward Sanders is one of the state’s longest-serving juvenile lifers, having gone to prison in 1975 at the age of 17 for a drive-by killing in which he was not the shooter. He has now been assigned an attorney, Susan Reed, who is currently preparing his motion for re-sentencing.
Sanders, who obtained his bachelor’s degree while incarcerated and functions as a “jail-house lawyer,” said that he had offered the ACLU his input on the issue of substituting second-degree sentencing before the Oct. 16 hearing.
“I noted a precedent, People v. Jenkins, 395 MI (1975), which remanded a case to the trial court for re-sentencing due to a failure to instruct the jury on the possibility of a second-degree charge,” Sanders said.
The Michigan ACLU report says that juveniles, who are not familiar with legal options and frequently have court-appointed attorneys, often turn down pleas to lesser offenses.
Sanders’ co-defendant David Walton (in group photo bottom right) was also 17 at the time of the alleged crime. Another occupant of the car, under severe pressure from prosecutors and now retired Detroit Police Deputy Chief James Younger, testified that Walton was the shooter. That individual tried to hang himself during a break in the trial according to transcripts.
Edward Sanders as youth; he is shown above in group photo, bottom, second from right.
Younger went on to head the city’s notorious Gang Squad, which since has been severely cut back due to criticisms of its methods. The Detroit Police Department has been under federal oversight since 2001 for issues including excessive force and wholesale witness round-ups, which occurred in the Sanders-Walton case.
Just prior to the Carp hearing, U.S. District Court Judge John Corbett O’Meara of Michigan’s Eastern District heard a motion Sept. 20 for “summary judgment and equitable relief” in a long-standing federal lawsuit filed by the state ACLU on behalf of 13 juvenile lifers. His ruling in that case may supercede whatever the Appeals Court decides.
Judge Corbett O’Meara earlier refused to dismiss the case as the state requested.
Attorney Deborah LaBelle argued the motion, filed on the heels of the U.S. Supreme Court decision. It asks that state law allowing juvenile life without parole accordingly be found unconstitutional.
“As parents, teachers and older siblings, we inherently understand that kids are fundamentally different than adults,” LaBelle said in May while announcing the release of a report, Basic Decency: An Examination of Natural Life Sentences for Michigan Youth.
Attorney Deborah LaBelle
“They are impulsive, inexperienced, vulnerable to mistreatment, and are not able to easily escape or cope with abuse and other trauma. While there is no denying that youth must be held accountable for actions, as a state, we can do better than sentencing them to die in prison.”
During the Carp hearing, Judge Talbot asked attorneys for both sides to come up with proposals for legislative solutions to comply with the U.S. Supreme Court decisions. However, recent actions in other states show there are pitfalls in such solutions.
The state with the highest number of juvenile lifers is Pennsylvania, with 444. The Pennsylvania State House voted 174-20 on Oct. 20 for a measure that would give defendants under age 15 at least 20 years for second-degree murder and 25 years for first-degree murder. Those 15-17 would receive minimum sentences of 25 and 35 years respectively. The measure is supported by Pennsylvania’s Republican Governor Tom Corbett, according to a report from the national Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth.
In California, where more than 309 juvenile lifers are incarcerated, the third highest number in the U.S., Governor Jerry Brown signed a measure Sept. 30 allowing juvenile lifers to ask judges to reconsider their sentences after at least 15 years in prison. The judges would then be able to reduce no-parole sentences to 25-years to life.
Previously, Iowa Governor Terry Branstad commuted the sentences of the state’s 38 juvenile lifers to 60 years, a measure roundly condemned by youth advocates as unduly harsh.
None of the states’ legislative remedies appear to allow for individual consideration of cases by the sentencing judges as Miller mandates, although California’s measure has been hailed by some opponents of juvenile life without parole.
Families AND VICTIMS of Michigan’s juvenile lifers packed the State Captiol in 2006 to lobby for legislation to outlaw juvenile life without parole. No such laws were ever passed. Now Michigan Atty. General Bill Schuette is fighting every attempt by juvenile lifers to be re-sentenced as the U.S. Supreme Court mandated in Mlller v. Alabama/Hobbs v. Jackson.
EDITORIAL
Michigan’s juvenile lifers
Published: 10/22/2012
Last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court finally banned mandatory life sentences for juvenile offenders, including Michigan’s Draconian juvenile-lifer law.
Yet some states with these practically barbaric laws continue to resist efforts to bring their criminal justice systems in line with the Constitution. They should move expeditiously to rehear and resentence the nation’s 2,600 juvenile lifers.
Thomas McCloud, Jr. and Dontez Tillman of Pontiac, Michigan were sentenced to life without parole at the age of 14 four years ago.
More than 350 juveniles, some as young as 14, have been sentenced to life without parole in Michigan — among the most in a nation that stands alone in imposing such sentences on children. Michigan ranks second only to Pennsylvania, which has 475 juvenile lifers.
Others in the top ten include Florida with 355 juvenile lifers, Louisiana with 238, and Illinois with 98. The Supreme Court ruling affects 28 states. Ohio does not have a mandatory juvenile lifer-without-parole law, although it does have 38 prisoners under the age of 18 among its 49,000 inmates.
States with mandatory juvenile lifer laws should try to remedy these injustices as soon as possible, by rehearing the cases of those who are currently convicted, and enacting constitutional sentencing laws for future cases. In Michigan, bills that would enact new juvenile sentencing laws have not been introduced.
The state’s attorney general, Bill Schuette, maintains that the Supreme Court ruling applies only to new offenders and juvenile lifers who haven’t finished their appeals. Nonsense. Those who were sentenced under a law that has been deemed unconstitutional should, at the very least, get a second look.
Michigan’s juvenile lifer law covers homicide cases only, but nearly half of the state’s juvenile lifers didn’t actually kill. Instead, they were convicted of aiding and abetting the crime, which can mean little more than being at the scene or some other peripheral involvement.
The Supreme Court ruling requires judges to consider the backgrounds of individuals and details of their crimes before sentencing. Sentences can’t be automatic, as they were in Michigan.
Banning such laws is consistent with science, logic, and common sense. Medical brain-imaging research has proved what every parent knows: Teenagers are more impulsive than adults, even without the abuse and neglect many young offenders have experienced.
Juveniles don’t possess the same rights and responsibilities as adults because of their maturity levels. Imposing adult penalties on someone who is too young to buy a pack of cigarettes legally is irrational.
Despite compelling legal, moral, and practical arguments, Michigan lawmakers have failed for more than a decade to abolish the state’s Draconian juvenile lifer law, enacted in the 1980s, even though repealing it would not, in itself, release a single prisoner. A new law would only give juvenile lifers a chance to earn a parole after they serve lengthy sentences.
Many juvenile lifers in Michigan have already served decades in prison. Two-thirds are African-American.
Michigan is not the only state that is dancing around the high court ruling. Iowa’s governor commuted mandatory life sentences for his state’s juveniles — on the outlandish condition that they stay in jail for 60 years before they seek parole. That’s tantamount to the life sentences the high court outlawed.
Fighting the Supreme Court decision with unjustifiably narrow legal interpretations, or sidestepping it with unreasonably lengthy minimum sentences, will neither pass constitutional muster nor move states out of the Dark Ages.
