VOICE OF DETROIT: The city's independent newspaper, unbossed and unbought

People's Task Force rallies outside Kym Worthy's office June 17; Pres. Marilyn Jordan is at center in orange shirt; Exec. Dir. Kevin Carey at left.

 People’s Task Force to meet with U.S. Rep. John Conyers Tues. June 28 at 1:30 p.m., calling for “Peace Rally” at Federal Bldg. on W. Lafayette

By Diane Bukowski

 June 17, 2011

DETROIT – Families of prisoners packed the streets outside the Frank Murphy courthouse in downtown Detroit June 17. They denounced Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy for not re-opening the cases of their loved ones, who they say were convicted based on deliberately falsified forensic evidence.

Marilyn Jordan calls for justice for her son Kelly Nobles

They also called on Worthy to charge Police Officer Joseph Weekley and others who shot seven-year-old Aiyana Stanley Jones to death after bombing her home in Detroit in May of last year.

The Detroit police crime lab was closed in 2008 after an audit showed its firearms unit, staffed by police officers, produced false results in at least 10 percent of its cases.

“WE ARE NOT GOING ANYWHERE UNTIL OUR DEMANDS ARE MET!” declared Marilyn Jordan, president of the Detroit Peoples’ Task Force to Free the Wrongfully Convicted, whose son is serving a life term in prison.

At least a hundred people were at the protest, chanting, “Worthy is Worth-less,” and “What are we going to do? Walk like an Egyptian!” They released blue and orange balloons into the sky at the conclusion of the rally, representing the hoped-for freedom of their loved ones.

MDOC prisoners usually are required to wear blue and orange uniforms.

Task Force paralegal Roberto Guzman said their members will meet with U.S. Representative John Conyers (D-Detroit), head of the House Judiciary Committee, on June 28 at 1:30 p.m. to ask for federal intervention. They plan to hold a “peace rally” at the same time outside the Detroit federal court building where his offices are.

“The Detroit Police, Kym Worthless, and the City Council have a wicked interest in keeping these scandals covered up,” Guzman told the protesters. “Because to confess error as she continues to promise but not do would mean the end of her career; it would mean both the city and the county would have to pay millions of dollars in wrongful convictions.”

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy

The current City Council approved funds for Worthy’s investigation in 2010.  She claimed she would investigate all cases brought to her, including 147 questionable cases identified at the time. She later limited her review to convictions from 2003 to 2008, involving only firearms evidence, and recently said it was not possible to comb through all 31,000 cases from those five years.

Only four cases have been re-tried since Worthy began her investigation, with three re-convictions resulting.  She has refused to re-try one case.

In May, large amounts of forensic evidence from cases under investigation at the time the crime lab closed were found in the building which housed it, the former Stephen Foster Elementary School. The building was open to trespass and in deteriorated condition.

Kelly Nobles

Among cases Worthy has refused to review is that of Jordan’s son, Kelly Nobles, 36, who was convicted in 2002 of first-degree murder and related charges, just outside her arbitrary time limits. 

The victim was Nobles’ best friend.  Jordan said forensics evidence, including a 19^th shell casing proving more than one gun was used, was deliberately kept out of his trial, in retaliation for his refusal to plead to lesser charges. 

“He said he was innocent, why would he kill his friend?” commented Kevin Carey, Executive Director of the Task Force.  “The evidence in his case, along with thousands of others, is tainted.”

Jarrhod Williams' sister Dominique Manuel and mother Valarie Watts at right demand his freedom, in case that shut crime lab.

The family of Jarrhod Williams, 24, including his mother Valarie Watts and sister Dominique Manuel, was present with signs and photos of their loved one.

“It was my son’s case that shut down the crime lab,” Watts said.  Jordan calls her the “mother” of the Task Force.

Williams initially confessed to the shooting deaths of two men in May, 2007 in exchange for a reduction of charges to second-degree murder. Williams said all along, however, that his confession was coerced, and withdrew his guilty plea after the broadly-publicized exposure of falsified evidence.

Jarrhod Williams during first trial

The same scenario occurs in many cases, said families at the protest.  Black defendants  take plea bargains even if they are innocent,  because the alternative is facing juries composed predominantly of suburban whites who tend to believe whatever the police say.

In Williams’ case, Detroit police officers, who staffed the firearms unit of the crime lab, claimed all 42 spent shell casings at the scene came from Williams’ gun. When State Police re-examined the casings, at the request of Williams’ attorney at the time, Marvin Barnett, they found that they came from at least two different guns.

Judge Timothy Kenny

Worthy would not drop the case. Instead of throwing out the evidence and dismissing the case, Wayne County Circuit Court Judge David Allen ordered a new trial. Williams was re-convicted by an all-white jury in 2009 during a trial presided over by Judge Timothy Kenny, Watts said.

“The prosecutor brought in the same gun they used in the first place, except this time they showed it to the jury and said it was the wrong weapon,” she explained. “But all the jury saw was the gun. There were no eyewitnesses. How can you convict someone on a statement a police officer wrote down, and didn’t even read to him? The police said they found a scoop of shell casings all in the same spot. My son’s gun was never fired and its clip couldn’t hold that number of bullets anyway.”

Watts said she is retaining an attorney to take her son’s case to federal court.

Attorney David Moffitt, representing Alexander Aceval, addresses rally

“Worthy cannot be trusted to bring herself to justice,” attorney David Moffitt told the crowd.  “She knows what is going on among the top staff at her office.”

Worthy faces charges before the attorney grievance commission related to the case of Alexander Aceval, Moffitt’s client.

“The case against my client lays bare the worst instance of public corruption in the history of Michigan jurisprudence,” Moffitt said. “It involved a vertically integrated perjury conspiracy where a Circuit Judge, the Chief of the Drug Unit of the Prosecutor’s Office, and two police officers conspired together to falsify not merely trial testimony, but proofs in every proceeding from warrant swear-to, to preliminary exam, to evidentiary hearings, to jury trial, to corruptly-declared mistrial, to post-trial cover-up, to second falsified trial, to appeal after appeal.”

Alexander Aceval

As a result of the highly publicized scandal, former Wayne County Circuit Court Judge Mary Waterstone, former Assistant Prosecutor and Narcotics Unit head Karen Plants, and two Inkster police officers were convicted in March, 2009 of committing perjury in Aceval’s case.

With the full knowledge of Plants and Waterstone, the officers did not disclose to Aceval’s jury that the chief witness against Aceval was a paid informant who had the drugs in his own car trunk. Despite the perjury convictions, Aceval is still serving 10 to 15 years in prison, having lost all appeals at the state level.

Karen Plants

Worthy allowed Plants to continue in her position until the charges were brought by State Attorney General Mike Cox.  Plants is currently serving a six-month term in prison, and the other parties are awaiting sentencing.

Video of interview with Moffitt after arraignment of Plants, Waterstone and the Inkster officers is below.

Latonia Lindsay’s son Joseph McNoriell, 30, was convicted of assault with intent to commit murder and sentenced to 15 to 25 years in 2002, again outside Worthy’s time limits.

Erika Williams; Natl. Acad. of Sciences says crime labs should be independent of law enforcement

“He’s been in there for 10 long years, and he is unjustly accused,” Lindsay said. “The police lost evidence and placed other evidence at the scene themselves. The bullets that were used did not go to the gun they claimed he used. They came into our house without a warrant, and did an unlawful search and seizure, and came up with items that didn’t even pertain to the case.”

Erika Williams has been active with the Task Force since it testified before City Council in 2008.  The City Council as constituted at that time voted unanimously for a federal investigation of the crime lab scandal, despite Worthy’s appearance before them.

Her husband is Terrance Lonzell Williams, 38, who is serving a sentence of 30 to 60 years for second degree murder. He was convicted in 2005.

“He was railroaded,” Erika Williams said. “They falsified the firearms evidence. He was 100 percent innocent. He wasn’t even at the scene. Kym Worthy should not be in charge of this investigation.”

Williams told this reporter after the 2008 City Council hearing that police had confiscated a gun from Williams during a traffic stop, than later used that gun and a bullet they said was fired from it to convict him for a murder that happened later. His first trial resulted in a hung jury, but the prosecutor’s office re-tried him and he was convicted the second time.

Family of Toriano Johnson, including mother Sharon Johnson, center

Toriano Johnson, 40, was sentenced to life without parole in 2001 on three counts of felony murder, among other charges.

“My son did not commit the crime, he didn’t even know the people who were killed,” said Johnson’s mother Sharon Johnson. “He was at work when it happened. A crackhead in the basement of the place where the killings happened testified against him, but a little boy who was there couldn’t even pick him out of a line-up. But the judge said it was a hideous killing, and he was getting what he deserved.”

Johnson’s aunt Paulette Strayhorn and cousin Tina Williamson attended the protest in his support as well.

Crime lab protesters: in case of Johnnie Henderson, cops claimed they lost fatal bullet

One of the protesters, whose name is being withheld to avoid retaliation, said he served five years in prison on a firearms charge, with police using an inoperable gun they found down the street as evidence. He said he was stopped in his car by police for no reason, and that they conducted an illegal search of the car three times over, finally coming up with a quantity of heroin.

He said the drug charge was dismissed in 36^th District Court, but the police got two witnesses to say they saw him throw the gun out of the car before the stop.

James Burbridge, 20, is serving five to twenty years for armed robbery and carjacking. He was convicted in 2010, putting him out of Worthy’s 2003-08 time limits.

“I feel my son was wrongfully convicted,” said Denise Beard. “I want people to know we care about our loved ones, whether they are down here or up north. If attorneys for the prosecution and the defense would take the time to really look at the cases, they could do something to stop all these young men and women from going to prison. They could do community service or be put in diversion programs.”

Comments from Kym Worthy’s office on the allegations made by the Detroit People’s Task Force are included in an earlier VOD article, at http://voiceofdetroit.net/?p=7930.

To read official speech from Task Force delivered by Roberto Guzman during rally, click on Speech by Detroit People’s Task Force.

To contact the Detroit People’s Task Force to Free the Wrongfully Convicted, call Marilyn Jordan, at (313) 784-4021, Kevin Carey, at (313) 887-4344, or Roberto Guzman, at (313) 272-1406.

Families pray for justice for loved ones at end of rally.

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington, D.C.

By Eileen Fleming

http://Salem-News.com

“Any nation that year after year continues to raise the Defense budget while cutting social programs to the neediest is a nation approaching spiritual death.” – Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.

 (BALTIMORE) – The United States Conference of Mayors, representing 1,200 cities with populations over 30,000, voted in their June 20 plenary session to call on the federal government to end America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and redirect that military spending to home land priorities.

The Conference of Mayors first convened during the depths of the Depression and mayors have met annually ever since; but the last time they addressed American military policy was when they called for an end to America’s war in Vietnam.

Kitty Piercy, Mayor Eugene, Oregon

Mayor Kitty Piercy, of Eugene, Oregon, introduced Resolution 59 stating, “Mayors call on our country to begin the journey of turning war dollars back into peace dollars, of bringing our loved ones home and of focusing our national resources on building security and prosperity here at home. Our children and families long for and call for a real investment in the future of America. It is past due.”

Resolution 59 does not call for immediate withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan, but calls with the “fierce urgency of now” to speed up those efforts as nationwide municipalities face cuts in services that affect all citizens and most especially those in the greatest need.

In 1967 at Riverside Church, Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. delivered a sermon and speech, “Beyond Vietnam: Time to Break Silence” and addressed three of America’s demons; racism, materialism and militarism.

King called our government; “the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today” and “the war in Vietnam is but a symptom of a far deeper malady within the American spirit.”

Being a person of faith, King knew the power within and that, “there is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from reordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war.”

Mayor Dave Norris of Charlottesville meets with women of Code Pink

Among the mayors who comprehend King, is Mayor Dave Norris of Charlottesville, Va., who issued a statement:

“It is our citizens who are being asked to fund these wars with their tax dollars. And it is our communities that struggle when huge sums of money are being diverted from local priorities to military adventurism and ‘nation-building’ activities abroad.

“You might say, it’s time to do some ‘nation-building’ here at home for a change.

“Passage of this resolution puts the U.S. Mayors firmly on the side of a growing bipartisan coalition, whose members include Senate Tea Party Caucus Founder Rand Paul, Congressional Progressive Caucus Founder Bernie Sanders, former Ambassador and current Republican Presidential candidate Jon Huntsman, Democratic Senator Dick Durbin, Republican Senator Mike Lee and many others, who have argued for a quicker drawdown of American fighting forces than the Obama Administration has seemed inclined to support. This position was embraced by 73 percent of Americans in a recent ABC News poll, where strong majorities of Democratic, Independent and Republican respondents alike agreed that we should start bringing substantial numbers of American troops in Afghanistan home to their loved homes as soon as this summer.

“We know that this action alone won’t bring a speedier end to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, but we certainly hope it will help amplify the growing chorus of support for the effective enshrinement in national policy of Isaiah 2:4, which reads:

And He will judge between the nations,
And will render decisions for many peoples;
And they will hammer their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks.
Nation will not lift up sword against nation,

And never again will they learn war.” [1]

As read by the parliamentarian, this is the amended resolution passed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors Calling on Congress to redirect military spending to domestic priorities:

— Whereas, every member of the United States Conference of Mayors and the Americans they represent support our brave men and women and their families; and

— Whereas, the drawdown of troops should be done in a measured way that does not destabilize the region and that can accelerate the transfer of responsibility to regional authorities; and

— Whereas, the severity of the ongoing economic crisis has created budget shortfalls at all levels of government and requires us to re-examine our national spending priorities; and

— Whereas, the people of the United States are collectively paying approximately $126 billion per year to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan; and

— Whereas, 6,024 members of the US armed forces have died in these wars; and at least 120,000 civilians have been killed in Iraq and Afghanistan since the coalition attacks began.

–Now, therefore, be it resolved, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors supports efforts to speed up the ending of these wars; and

Be it further resolved, that the U.S. Conference of Mayors calls on the president and the U.S. Congress to end these wars as soon as strategically possible and to bring these war dollars home to meet vital human needs, promote job creation, rebuild our infrastructure, aid municipal and state governments, and develop a new economy based upon renewable, sustainable energy. [2]

Reverend King knew that the only hope for real change “lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.”

The choice is also ours to email -or not- Congress and Obama in support of Resolution 59 @ http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/6503/p/dia/action/public/?action_KEY=4328 

1. http://warisacrime.org/node/58226

2. http://edition.cnn.com/2011/US/06/20/mayors.conference/

One million Libyans demonstrate to support Gaddafi June 17, 2011

Click on http://www.presstv.ir/detail/185602.html for video showing civilians, including toddlers, murdered by NATO; interviews with independent journalists regarding demonstration of one million supporting Gaddafi and anti-government forces lynching Black Libyans

Sent by Don DeBar of WBAIX

Tue Jun 21, 2011 6:2AM

Press TV talks with Lizzie Phelan, journalist and political activist in London who has been to Libya and says that Western media is complicit in war crimes in the North African country through omission of fact and that the vast majority of the population are in support of the Libyan government. Following is a transcript of the interview.

Libyans show clothing of toddlers killed by NATO in airstrike

The mass pro-Gaddafi street demonstration of one million Libyans held in the capital Tripoli has gone unreported by Western media as has news of civilians killed for the past three months

.

Press TV: NATO have issued an apology for a strike so about this publicized NATO strike that has killed civilians, they have blamed ‘technical error’. The conclusion we can draw from that is if that happens it may happen again, which relates to the risk of more civilian casualties. Concerning this air campaign – Do you think it has actually gone too far when it is not saving lives?

Phelan: Yet again we are seeing what the US and Europe shamefully call collateral damage in the form of human lives like we have seen previously in Iraq and Afghanistan and in many other parts of the world.

In this photo taken on a government-organized tour, members of the media and others examine the remains of a damaged residential building in Tripoli, Libya Sunday, June 19, 2011. The Libyan government accused NATO of bombing a residential neighborhood in the capital and killing civilians early Sunday, adding to its charges that the alliance is striking nonmilitary targets. (AP Photo/Adam Schreck)

This apology by NATO is an absolute joke. It’s the first apology we’ve had from them in the three months despite the fact that civilians have been dying at the hands of NATO air strikes everyday in the past three months there have been thousands of strikes on the country so they made the apology yesterday on Sunday. But again at 2am in the morning there was another attack on the city of Sorman, 130km west of Tripoli where a further fifteen civilians were killed and a further three children were killed.

In previous weeks we have seen the bombing of al-Nasr university in Tripoli in the daytime where civilians were killed and so these are the military targets that we’re seeing them bomb – we’re seeing them bomb universities; we’re seeing them bomb Friday market street in Tripoli where there is no military site in the area. Friday market street – I’ve been there – it begins with a GPO post office and ends with a primary school and they bombed four buildings and killed nine civilians including a toddler of four months old.

So, we are seeing what ‘humanitarian intervention’ and the ‘protection of civilians’ al-a-NATO means – it means the killing of children as we are seeing.

The real crime here is the crime of the media. Where has the media been? The media has picked up on this now because NATO has made their apology, but we’ve been seeing civilians dying every day for the past three months; we have a swarm of western journalists based in Tripoli…

Press TV: The NATO apology concerns it’s responsibility for the deaths of 9 civilians and 18 injured in an early morning strike at an apartment building. In terms of what NATO is exercising it does put into question the goals of what NATO has on the ground… and this comes when there are CIA officers and covert operators as has been reported that are on the ground in touch with the revolutionaries.

Phelan: I wouldn’t call anybody who is inviting NATO or the CIA or intelligence services into their country revolutionaries, they are in fact counter-revolutionaries.

French helicopters readying to attack Libya

The purpose is clear and that is to curb the Arab spring, but it goes back further than that since the revolution (military coup) of 1969-70, when Gaddafi kicked out the British and the Americans and closed their military bases and nationalized the oil. The West has had an agenda since then to get back into Libya and take complete control of the oil resources. Yes they’ve had a period of reproachment with Libya whereby they have been able to make some good deals with Libya, but they haven’t had any where near the kind of control that they would like to have – like they have in Saudi Arabia or Qatar or the other Gulf states where these are effectively client regimes.

So the agenda is clear to completely violate international law and assassinate Gaddafi against the will of the Libyan people without actually every asking them what the Libyan people want.

Press TV: Since you have visited Libya, what is the support that Muammar Gaddafi has and what is going on in terms of the tribal allegiance that exists there? Because as we understand there has been a split along traditional tribal lines – animosity has existed; and also based on some research done this has indeed been funded by the West.

Phelan: Exactly. Just on Friday there was a complete blackout in the media except for one CNN report about a march of one million Libyans in a country of six million people in Tripoli towards Green Square in support of the government and also in support of the people of Benghazi and Misrata who are being harassed and persecuted by what I call counter-revolutionaries, which is what others call rebels – in particular black Libyans who because of the really shameful story that al-Jazeera has pumped out about Gaddafi hiring African mercenaries, black Libyans in places like Misrata and Benghazi – I’ve met refugees from these areas who are victims of these atrocities – black Libyans being lynched publicly and the most unspeakable atrocities are being committed against them by pro-NATO counter revolutionaries.

In terms of the tribes in Libya – from my sources I have information that 90% of the tribes in Libya are supportive of the government including the largest tribe in Libya.

Of course, before the uprising there were frustrations In Libya as there are within every singly country, but the Libyan people are an extremely non-confrontational people that will go to the ends of the earth to resolve in a non-confrontational way.

And that is also reflected in the government in the way in which the government has tried over the decades and bent backwards to accommodate opposition forces within the government, which in a sense has backfired as we saw from the people who defected from the government and who sold out because they were in the pockets of the CIA andMI6 and the other Western intelligence services.

So, from my experience in Libya the support for the government is absolutely widespread. There was a Guardian journalist in Libya who thankfully was deported from Libya for reporting that the reason why there is no opposition in Tripoli is because there are informers everywhere. A million people marched through the streets of Tripoli so the people have spoken for themselves.

Press TV: When will a political solution be discussed? Is NATO going to be ready to face the fact that there has to be a political solution in Libya? Many officials in the US have talked about having a political solution in Afghanistan and have conceded that for any war this is the best way forward…So why is this (military bombing) continuing in Libya?

Phelan: I have no faith in NATO to ever have the humility to suggest that what is needed and what was needed from the outset is a political solution.

It’s clear that NATO have no way at the moment to get out. They have gone into this war and they can’t lose face now.

I want to quickly mention something that has not been or rarely gets mentioned and that is the sanctions imposed on Libya have led now to a crisis in the country whereby people have to queue for six days for food and fuel and we’ve seen the impact from that in Iraq; sanctions are one of the greatest killers, sometimes more so than outright military war; it killed millions of people in Iraq.

…Coming back to your question, I would say that the UN has been acting as an extension of NATO and has done so in Libya.

Press TV: I have said that NATO is the armed wing of the UN in which the UN is used and then of course NATO comes in and of course we see how that gets exercised when it comes to various countries.

Phelan: I would say it the other way round that the UN is essentially a wing of NATO in the sense that it gives legitimacy to what NATO’s agenda is. And I have no faith in either of these institutions to deliver any kind of political solution in the country. The UN has proved itself a failure since the war on terror began and even before then…

Lizzie Phelan’s website, Lizzie’s Liberation, is listed in VOD links at right: http://lizziesliberation.wordpress.com/.

Another excellent website reporting world news including the US/NATO war on Libya has also been added to the VOD links: http://alexandravaliente.wordpress.com/

Also PressTV at http://www.presstv.ir/ .

Photo montage by VOD

By Diane Bukowski

 Commentary on the Bing, Snyder, Duncan, Bobb, Lewis et al. orgy

DETROIT – Just before Mayor Dave Bing’s former executive assistant Rochelle Collins filed her lawsuit against him and his now former chief of communications Karen Dumas, Bing announced it contained “salacious” allegations.

Karen Dumas and Dave Bing: Detroit's latest celebrity couple

Collins levels charges in the suit that Dumas falsely accused her of authoring an anonymous letter stating Bing and Dumas were having an affair, and that Dumas told her the Mayor and his wife Yvette have a “strange” marriage.  She says Dumas ran around on shopping trips during a joint trip to Washington, D.C., preventing Bing from having a scheduled meeting with a U.S. Senator. (Lawsuit pdf too large to download to VOD; click on http://detnews.com/article/20110616/METRO01/106160424/Ex-Bing-aide%E2%80%99s-lawsuit-stirs-City-Hall-turmoil for link to lawsuit, at right of article. )

Rochelle Collins with husband Oreese Collins, Jr, former DPS purchasing chief; is this why she wanted mayoral control over DPS?

Here we go again. But whether Bing and Dumas were screwing around on the side, or whether Dumas was busy stocking up on Burberry apparel, is not the point.

The real and absolutely appalling affair exposed in the lawsuit is that between Bing and Governor Rick(tator) Snyder.  According to Collins, not only did those two have a relationship which gravely betrayed Bing’s oath of office, it was a regular orgy involving U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, DPS czar Robert Bobb, Bing’s Group Executive Kirk Lewis, and various and sundry staff members of all involved.

According to Collins, Bing, Snyder, et. al. were intimately involved in the birth of Public Act 4, better known as the “Dictator” Act. They also planned to eliminate officials elected by the people of Detroit, including the City Council and the Detroit Public School Board, and put the city and school district under the dictatorial rule of Bing as emergency manager. 

So the issue is not whether Bing is screwing Dumas, but that Bing, Snyder et. al. are screwing the people.

More players in Bing-Rick-tator gate orgy: U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan, billionaire advocate of charter schools Eli Broad

Dumas and Collins, while aiding and abetting this clandestine orgy, no doubt provided a titillating sideshow for its chief players. They are now providing a distracting “catfight” for the daily media to amuse itself with, while ignoring the real scandal. Unashamed, Dumas even had the nerve to appear on Channel 2’s “Let It Rip.”

The dark heart of the lawsuit is the following section:

Suit says DPS communications chief Steve Wasko and DPS czar Robert Bobb were part of conspiracy

“With the full knowledge and authorization of Defendant Mayor Bing, Plaintiff [Collins]participated in the strategy developed by the Governor and his Executive Staff,  the Emergency Financial Manager of Detroit Public Schools (DPS), Defendant Mayor Bing, and the Group Executive to transfer control of DPS to the Mayor of Detroit; including, but not limited to, performing the following duties:

• Worked with a consultant paid for by the Bing Institute (click on BING Institute helps put feet to big ideas) to conduct polling of Detroit citizens whether they support mayoral control of DPS, the results of which showed overwhelming support for the idea; 
• Scheduled clandestine meetings between Detroit Mayor Dave Bing, the Governor and/or his Executive Staff, and/or the DPS’ Emergency Financial Manager to develop and execute the strategy; 
• Worked with stakeholders to ensure that Public Act 4 contained all necessary provisions to accomplish the goals of the strategy, which included Defendant Mayor Dave Bing being named emergency manager for the city of Detroit and DPS, and dissolving both the Detroit City Council and the DPS School Board; 
• Participated in meetings with the Group Executive, the U.S. Department of Education, the Deputy Superintendent for DPS, and/or the chief communications officer for DPS to develop and execute the strategy; and 
• Handled every detail of the Group Executive’s transition to become the new Emergency Manager for DPS, and worked closely with the Governor’s Administration and the existing Emergency Manager to finalize details of the transition and ensure that all paperwork was in order.

 

Recount hearing called for by Tom Barrow (l) Dec. 23, 2009 was packed by his supporters

To add injury to injury, Bing was clearly not truly elected as Mayor of the City of Detroit in 2009. The recount conducted on the election, requested by his opponent Tom Barrow, found that up to 60 percent of the vote, including 100 percent of all absentee ballots, were classified as “non-recountable.”

Barrow has appealed his lawsuit to the State Supreme Court. But if the “mayor” becomes Bing-tator of Detroit and the Detroit Public Schools, the issue of whether he was honestly elected will become moot.

APTE Vice-President Cecily McClellan at Charter Commission meeting Aug. 10, 2010

Meanwhile, said Cecily McClellan, vice-president of the city workers’ Association of Professional and Technical Employees, the City Council needs to begin action to remove Bing for violation of his oath of office by conspiring to trash the Council, the School Board, the City Charter and the State Constitution. She said members of various organizations plan to appear in front of City Council to demand action Tues. June 21 during public comment in the morning session.

Also see upcoming stories on campaign for a referendum to repeal Public Act 4, which was rolled out at AFSCME Council 25’s hall in Detroit June 18, and 12 other cities across the state; the privatization of Catherine Ferguson Academy and other DPS schools under Evans Solutions (owned by Blair Evans, brother of Warren Evans, former Wayne County Sheriff and Detroit police chief);  and update on new assault on DPS announced today by Rick-tator Snyder.

By Todd A. Heywood | 03.30.10 | 7:31 am

Michigan Messenger

Michigan prisoner at work

LANSING — Under a budget proposal released by the Michigan House GOP last week, prisoners housed in the Michigan Department of Corrections would see their pay for work and educational assignments eliminated, and an increase the fees assessed for phone calls. Advocates for prisoners call the move “immoral” and the MDOC says it opposes the plan.

Under the proposal, the state would eliminate $11 million in prisoner pay, and raise an additional $4 million by charging prisoners more for phone calls.

The prisoner pay policy (pdf) on the MDOC website shows prisoners are paid anywhere from 17.5 cents an hour to $1.24 an hour. Some prisoners are eligible for pay of $3.29 per day to $3.34 per day.

John Cordell, an MDOC spokesperson, says prisoner pay is important to making prison life “more tenable.”

“It gives them a little bit of spending money,” Cordell said. “It allows them to buy some extra goods through their prisoner store.”

Prison store

Those items include food items and writing supplies. The prisoners are also allowed to use money in their accounts to purchase goods through “approved vendors.” Those goods can include tennis shoes and clothing, says Cordell.

“[If that pay is eliminated] then the state may be subject to that expenditure. That would be a greater loss [budget wise],” Cordell said.

Cordell said the money spent in the prisoner stores are then used to finance the store operations, as well as other prison related expenses such as purchasing new recreation equipment and paying for cable or satellite costs.

State Rep. John Proos (R-St. Joesph) called Cordell’s argument a “misnomer.” He said the legislature would be very willing to shell out $250,000 for exercise equipment in order to save the state $11 million in prisoner pay.

Asked if the MDOC supported the budget proposal Cordell said he had not discussed it with the administration of the department, but he said he “doubts” it would garner support.

He also said that there are other good reasons to maintain the program. “It provides an incentive for our prisoners to work or go to school,” Cordell said.

Penny Ryder, co-director of the Criminal Justice Program of the American Friends Service Committee in Ann Arbor, says that the prisoner pay is about more than “incentive.”

A prison reform conference at Plymouth Congregational United Church of Christ included a panel of prison reform advocates representing various agencies accross Michigan. Left to right: David Tjapkes, Penny Ryder, Kay Perry, Miriam J. Aukerman and David Moore. Photo by Bethany Duemler

“The prisoners definitely need to have meaningful work. One of the big issues for many prisoners is that they never had a work ethic,” Ryder explained. “In our culture a work ethic is tied to some form of compensation. [Eliminating the pay] would be equating them with slaves again, and many of the prisoners are African Americans, and it doesn’t provide an appropriate philosophy in terms of the work ethic. We try to get them to understand that they need to put in a good day’s work for their pay.”

Ryder says her group encourages prisoners to save their payments for their eventual release. But she said they find many spend their money on food from the prisoner store because the prisoners don’t like the food served in the “chow hall.”

“Some prisoners have put their children through college — or helped put them through college — with the money they have earned, little by little with the work in prison,” says Ryder. “And they should be allowed to do that.”

“We are built on the idea of being a capitalistic society,” says Ryder. “We should show that standard and acknowledge that standard for prisoners’ work.”

Michigan State Sen. John Proos

Rep. John Proos, Minority Vice Chair of the House Appropriations Corrections and Human Services Subcommittee, said he takes Ryder’s views “very seriously.”

“I would not disagree with that perspective at all,” he said, “but during these extraordinary times, we have to make tough cuts.”

He said he would like to see the committee hold a hearing about the proposal to eliminate prisoner pay, so that the committee could fully hear the perspective of Ryder and her program. He said that in doing so the public may better understand the importance of the program and how it reduces recidivism.

Prisoner pay rates have not been increased in “at least” 10 years, Ryder said. And her group has been advocating for an increase, not an elimination or reduction. She notes that while prisoner pay rates have stagnated, costs in the prisoner store and for approved items from approved vendors has increased.

A second proposal would reinstate a surcharge on all phone calls from prisoners. The GOP plan says the surcharge would raise an additional $4 million. But exactly how much that surcharge would be was not detailed.

Proos said he could not recall what the original surcharge was, nor could he recall what the surcharge was that was used to calculate the $4 million revenue stream. But he said it was a conservative estimate based on technology, the former surcharge rate, and the cost of bidding the phone service out to a third party. The last of those items, he said, was particularly difficult and is currently undergoing a bidding process.

He called the surcharge a “significant” revenue generator for the department. He sad the item was eliminated in the 2008-2009 budget, at the insistence of Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith (D-Salem Twp.).

“It’s an argument Chairman Smith made and it’s one she won on a public policy debate,” said Proos about the earlier elimination of the surcharge.

The GOP plan noted that when the surcharge was being charged to prisoners it resulted in a $10 million revenue stream to the state. Again, specifics of the surcharge at the time were not included in the plan.

But Ryder says the move to start the charge over again was “discriminatory.”

“We believed it was discriminatory. It unfairly targets a class of people and if you communicate with that class of people, you are gouged,” said Ryder. “I believe it is totally immoral and unethical for the state to try to bring in a tax for something like this.”

The charge, Ryder says, has been an unfair burden in years past. She said some family members, eager to continue communications with their loved one, racked up huge phone bills in the process. She said some families ended up declaring bankruptcy as a result.

“We fought and fought for years to get the cost of a telephone call down to where it is because we know communication with the outside world is very important,” Ryder said. “In some situations making telephone calls is necessary and with the focus on re-entry all studies have shown that a contact with a family is extremely important in the recidivism rate going down.”

Attorneys Jerry Goldberg and Vanessa Fluker (speaking) opened rally

ORGANIZERS MOBILIZE AGAINST ARCHITECTS OF CITY’S RUIN

PLANS INCLUDE: 

• Moratorium on foreclosures in Wayne County; investigation of bank and mortgage fraud
• National moratorium on foreclosures
• Referendum campaign vs.  PA 4 to be kicked off Sat. June 18, 11 a.m. at AFSCME Council 25 in Detroit and across the state
• Class action lawsuit vs. PA 4 announcement Wed. June 22 at Spirit of Detroit and cities across Michigan
• Urban Marshall Plan to bail out the cities; $15 billion for Michigan
• Mass meeting at Erma Henderson Auditorium in late July to target the banks
• Seizure of homes illegally taken by banks and governments
• People’s control of government budgets
• International Tribunal vs. the banks at Dems Convention in Charlotte, N.C. Sept. 4 2012
• Take back the annual $700 billion military budget to fund needs at home; end U.S. wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Pakistan, Yemen, and elsewhere

By Diane Bukowski

Moratorium NOW! marches in downtown Detroit with unions, community Aug. 28, 2010

DETROIT – While Mayor Dave Bing and the City Council haggle over what services to cut from the budget of the poorest city in the country, while Detroit Public Schools Emergency Manager Roy Roberts gets set to close 45 more schools on top of 100 others, while metro Detroiter homeowners continue to be thrown on the streets, a group of activists convened June 11 to target the archenemy behind the devastation: the BANKS and their lackeys.

MAKE THE BANKS PAY! was the rallying cry for the small but influential crowd from Detroit, Cleveland, Wisconsin and North Carolina that gathered at UAW Local 22’s headquarters.  The meeting was sponsored by the Moratorium NOW! Coalition against Foreclosures, Evictions and Shut-Offs, and the Harriet Tubman School.

Protest against the IMF in Athens, Greece May, 2010

Speakers said they hope to build a massive people’s movement to reclaim the wealth the banks stole and return it to the people, like that which is rising throughout the rest of the world. 

“This is not an individual fight, this is not a legal fight, this is not a political fight—this is a justice fight!” said attorney Vanessa Fluker. “The people have to come together to make this happen! We need 50,000 people out in the streets to start!”

Fluker is battling an $18,000 fine levied on her by Judge Robert Colombo because of her determined battles against the banks to keep families in their homes. (See coming story on June 2 fundraiser for Fluker and the battle against foreclosures, held at UAW Local 600, for more on this, including comments by Fluker and Goldberg.)

Among points raised at the rally:

Fluker and Goldberg asked the audience to attend a public hearing June 13 to pressure the Wayne County Commission to pass a resolution, introduced by Commissioner Martha Scott, for a moratorium on foreclosures, and an investigation of fraudulent practices by banks and mortgage companies.

Rakiyah Curtis

Goldberg introduced his client Raziyah Curtis, the first person in Michigan to successfully challenge a bank eviction by demanding that the bank negotiate rental options, one of the requirements set forth under the federal TARP legislation that bailed out the banks and mortgage companies. Despite the law, only a very small percentage of homeowners have been able to get the banks to set affordable mortgage payments or rental options.

“Raziyah is an activist in her community,” Goldberg said. “She got hundreds of her fellow neighbors and others to rally around her home, and she is still in it, and now she owns it.

U.S. Congressman Hansen Clarke

Newly-elected U.S. Congressman Hansen Clarke announced that he has introduced legislation for a national moratorium on foreclosures.

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson invited the attendees to hold a similar televised meeting targeting the banks in the Erma Henderson auditorium of the Coleman A. YoungMunicipal Center in July, in commemoration of the 1967 Detroit rebellion.

“The U.S. has shown its willingness to rebuild the criminal banks and auto companies with our tax dollars, but has done nothing to re-build the city that is the home of the auto industry,” Watson said. “We cannot have a comeback of GM and Chrysler without a comeback of Detroit. The city needs to be bailed out, right now, it needs to be repopulated, not shrunk, it needs more jobs from a green economy. It doesn’t need to turn into ‘Little House on the Prairie.’”

City Councilwoman JoAnn Watson

 She passed out copies of an urban Marshall Plan she has given to Mayor Dave Bing, which demands massive intervention by the federal government to rebuild cities across the U.S., $15 billion for Michigan alone. (Click on Marshall Plan for copy of the plan.)

Watson announced that the We are the People Coalition, which has sponsored massive rallies of unions and community representatives in Lansing, will file a class action lawsuit June 22 to overturn Public Act 4, the emergency manager or “dictator” bill. The lawsuit includes plaintiffs from across the state. Attorneys and advocates have been meeting for months at the AFSCME Council 25 hall in Detroit to generate the suit.

Watson said a press conference announcing the lawsuit against PA 4 will be held Wed. June 22 at 10 a.m. in front of the Spirit of Detroit statue on Woodward at Jefferson, along with other announcements the same day in Benton Harbor, Pontiac, Flint, and other cities in Michigan.

Watson staffers Debra Taylor and Monica Patrick rally the crowd in Lansing April 13

Watson said the state owes Detroit $220 million in unpaid revenue sharing money. She called on the city to stop paying Blue Cross/Blue Shield $200 million a year for city workers, and instead assist their unions in creating their own insurance plans. She also demanded that $47 million in federal Neighborhood Stabilization funds the city has received from U.S. Housing and Urban Development department (HUD) be used to create jobs for Detroiters, as required by federal law.

Herb Sanders addresses crowd in Lansing April 13

Herb Sanders, International Representative for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Workers (AFSCME), who co-chairs the Coalition with Watson, confirmed separately that the coalition is also participating in a campaign to repeal PA 4 by referendum.

Anti-PA4 referendum petitions will be distributed, and signatures collected, beginning Sat. June 18, at 11 A.M. at AFSCME Council 25’s headquarters at 600 W. Lafayette. 

At an earlier meeting, Greg Bowens, a referendum organizer, said state law provides that once the required number of signatures is collected and certified, PA 4 will be frozen and emergency managers thrown out until the referendum vote in Nov. 2012. (Click on  Michigan Constitution referendum language  to read language in Michigan Constitution).

Bowens said 161,000 signatures are needed, but that organizers across the state are aiming to collect at least 250,000 as a cushion. He said the coalition has until next March to collect the signatures. 

Bob Day

Bob Day is an attorney with the Legal Aid and Defender Association (LADA), who represents people facing evictions throughout the tri-county area. He is also president of LADA’s AFSCME Local 2095. He did not mince words.

“The property of the rich is nothing but theft,” Day said. “The wealth of the banks came from the people, it belongs to us. Government debt service to the banks be must canceled, and we must seize their assets.

Ordinary people across the world are rising up in the millions, to stand against the banks, facing bullets and torture and dying in the streets, from Egypt to Tunisia to Spain to Greece to  Mexico and Latin America to Wisconsin here in the U.S.”

Deutsche Bank

He said that not only have the banks robbed people nationwide by foreclosing on them, they are coming back for a second round. Companies like Paramount Land Holdings, Inc., the Rice-Peters Financial Corporation, Destiny Ventures and others are buying thousands of foreclosed Detroit homes in bundled packages for $1 each from Deutsche Bank, Bank of America, and others who evicted the original owners.

Those banks already made huge profits because the full sums of their mortgages were guaranteed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, in addition to money they got from insurance against vandalism, and the trillions in bail-out tax dollars from the U.S. government.

“The developers are putting up signs saying ‘Buy, don’t rent,’ and even going to churches to recruit unaware victims to buy the homes on land contract.” Day said.

Lansing marchers demand foreclosure moratorium 2009

“One of my clients bought a $1 home for $45,000, put $750 down, and made her monthly payments,” he explained. “But when her furnace went out and she tried to get state aid to fix it, she did not show up as the owner of record because Paramount had not put the legal description of her property in the land contract, so she couldn’t register it. Then she got a notice of property tax foreclosure because Paramount hadn’t paid taxes on the home. Another client got hit with an outstanding $13,000 water bill.”

• Day advocated mobilizing the people in the thousands to seize homes foreclosed by the banks as well as by city and county governments. He said they should be given to those who need them to fix them up and put them back on the property tax rolls, to rebuild the city. 

Cheryl Labash

“They are telling us, we are too old to work, but too young to die,” said Cheryl Labash, a City of Detroit retiree. “They’re attacking our pensions, which are nothing but deferred wages. Even retired city workers may be given the option of giving back their guaranteed defined benefit plans and getting a lump sum in a defined contribution plan which they can invest in the stock market. Who wants to invest in a stock market that is constantly tumbling?”

She called on  GM and the other corporations to pay restitution to Detroit for the moving plants and jobs out, and an end to the massive amounts of property and income taxes that go to the banks for debt service.

She noted that the City of Detroit’s budget is over $3 billion a year.

“We need people’s control of the budget!” she demanded. “We must come out in the masses and stop business as usual. We have the freeways, we have trucking, there are lots of ways we can make our power felt.” 

Bryan Pfeiffer, who recently moved back to Wisconsin and is in the thick of the fray there, said that the massive people’s struggle that began last February continues every day on the streets of Madison, despite the lack of coverage in the big business media.

Walkerville tent city at capitol in Madison, Wisconsin

He said that the previous week, thousands of high school students walked out once again, and that tent cities are being set up in the capital. He said despite metal detectors and other barriers set up in the capitol building, people are still getting through and stopping committee meetings on right-wing legislation.

He recounted the massive struggles that have taken place in Wisconsin since February.

Bryan Pfieffer

“The courts reflect what’s happening in the streets,” Pfieffer said. “It was the mass movement that forced the judge to grant a permanent injunction against the union-busting legislation in Wisconsin,” Pfeiffer said. “It must be the same in Detroit.” 

Susan Schnur, paratransit worker and a board member of Amalgamated Transit Union (ATU) Local 268 in Cleveland, Ohio, said she has asked the treasurer of the Regional Transit Authority (RTA) there, “Is the authority about transit or is it about investors?” She and others are calling on the RTA to negotiatiate with the banks to reduce debt payments and provide the transportation the people of Cleveland desperately need. 

Lisa Franklin, president of Warriors on Wheels (WOW) in Detroit, chimed in.

Lisa Franklin, President Warriors on Wheels

“The cuts in regular bus service have hurt people in our community too,” Franklin said. “You have to wait almost an hour to get a bus, and then if you’re taking the bus to cash a check, you have to wait in the check cashing place for three hours just to get a bus back.  For regular riders, they cut routes and hours and didn’t even publicize it ahead of time. People are still standing at bus stops not knowing what has happened.”

Marguerite Maddox of WOW, who was at the meeting, must use a service dog. Franklin said in Detroit and across the country, people are being denied the right to take their service dogs on public transportation.

“The civil rights movement began in public transportation, with Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycott,” Franklin said. “We have the RIGHT to public transportation and we must mobilize to get it!” 

Crowd applauds Lisa Franklin of Warriors on Wheels

Youth organizer Derrick Thacker said that $826.5 billion in student loans is now owed to the federal government, and one-quarter of that, $206.5 billion, is being held by the banks, who are profiting royally from the interest.

Derrick Thacker

“Many people owe up to $40,000 a year when they graduate,” Thacker said.“Meanwhile, tuition costs are going up, scholarships and federal aid are being reduced, there are incredible cuts in education. The Detroit Public Schools are being strategically dismantled. As the city dies, so does the future of hundreds of thousands of our young people.”

“There must be a people’s state of emergency declared,” Thacker said. “We want an immediate moratorium on school closings and lay-offs, cancellation of all student loan debt, and cancellation of all public and private debt to the banks. We must institute a public works program to employ the youth, they are the heirs of our legacy and they can rebuild Detroit.”

 Ben Carroll, of FIST (Fight Imperialism, Stand Together) lives in Charlotte, N.C

Ben Carroll

“Along with UE Local 150 and Black Workers United for Justice, we are calling for an International Tribunal to put the banks on trial during the Democratic Convention in Charlotte Sept. 4, 2012,” Carroll said.  “The Bank of America has extended a multimillion-dollar line of credit to the Dems. Their world headquarters is in Charlotte, along with the largest utility company in the U.S., Duke Energy, which is carrying out tens of thousands of shut-offs. They must all go on trial before the people.”

Abiyomi Azikiwe of the Michigan Emergency Coalition against War and Injustice analyzed the international banking crisis, which he said is far worse than it is being portrayed in the U.S. media.

“Even a recent analysis by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) of the crisis differed markedly from those offered in the U.S. and Britain,” Azikiwe noted. U.S. Hands off LibyaHe called for an end to U.S. direct and proxy wars abroad, in Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia, Colombia, Palestine and elsewhere.

“The military budget is over $700 billion a year, and more is being spent on Homeland Security,” he said. “We can rebuild Detroit with just $5 billion of that, and the rest must come home to rebuild the rest of the country and supply the people’s needs.”      

The Moratorium Now! Coalition has a website at www.moratorium-mi.org  and can be reached at 313-680-5508.

People's Task Force members, including families of wrongfully convicted prisoners, testified at City Council hearing May 11, 2009; Task Force President Marilyn Jordan is second from right in red; Task Force Vice-President Kevin Carey is at left

Rally Fri. June 17 8 a.m. Frank Murphy Hall, St. Antoine and Gratiot

Demands include:

• Remove Worthy from crime lab review
• Forensic investigation of lab evidence independent of city and state
• Freedom for wrongfully convicted prisoners with no time limits
• DPD, MSP, prosecutors, corrupt lab staff be disciplined and charged

Wayne Co. Pros. Kym Worthy at City Council hearing May 11, 2009; former Group Executive for Public Safety Saul Green is at right

New revelation: Prosecutor’s office destroyed all pre-1995 files in violation of state law

By Diane Bukowski

DETROIT – The Detroit People’s Task Force to Free the Wrongfully Convicted believes that not only the Detroit Police, but Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy and the state police are liable for crimes related to falsification and destruction of forensic evidence that go far beyond the recent expose of materials left behind at the shuttered Detroit police crime lab.

In a telling comment on the state of affairs in Detroit, the portion of the police crime lab which studied current cases was located in the closed Stephen Foster Elementary School; adjudicated evidence is kept at police HQ

The lab was completely closed in 2008 after a forensic audit of its firearms and ballistics testing unit found a 10 percent error rate. The Michigan State Police Crime Lab found that Detroit firearms technicians, all of whom were Detroit police officers, bordered on “misconduct” when they produced false lab results.

“The task force has been fighting for three years for an independent audit into the investigations of adjudicated cases of wrongful convictions,” the group said in a release. “With the recent revelations of yet more scandals involving the Detroit Police and the Prosecutor as it concerns these cases, enough is enough.”

This statue outside the Frank Murphy Hall of (In)Justice belies the horrors that take place there every day

The Task Force includes prisoners, their families and advocates. The lives of thousands of men and women currently behind bars, many for decades, are at stake, they say. 

 “We are demanding a federal investigation,” Task Force Vice-President Kevin Carey said. “We also want Prosecutor Kym Worthy to be removed from handling the crime lab review because of conflict of interest, that she return the $2.7 million she obtained from the city for it, that prisoners wrongfully convicted be set free, and that the police, the prosecutor and crime lab staff who falsified evidence be disciplined and charged.”

Roberto Guzman, Task Force paralegal

Task Force President Marilyn Jordan is the mother of prisoner Kelly Nobles, who says ballistics evidence in his case was falsified. Task Force paralegal Roberto Guzman said Worthy refused to review his case, saying it fell a few months short of the 2003-2008 limit she placed on cases subject to review.

“We are not going anywhere until our demands are met,” Jordan asserted. “When Worthy asked for the money from the city, she said nothing about time limits, and she has no jurisdiction anyway. Now she suddenly says it is impossible to review 31,000 cases, when she hasn’t even reviewed all the original 147 cases specified by the audit.”

The City Council passed a resolution granting funds to Worthy in Feb. 2010, but nothing in the resolution itself specifies a time limit on cases reviewed.  (Click on CC lab resolution, MOU   to read resolution.)

Worthy has refused to review Kelly Nobles case because he was incarcerated (for life) in 2002

An exhibit entitled “Forensic Evidence Review Unit” which did include that time limit was attached to a three-page Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) signed by Worthy, the city’s executive staff, and on behalf of the Council.

“I want members of the City Council to be held accountable as well,” Jordan said.  Task Force members say the Council should have exercised due diligence prior to voting on the matter, as well as recognizing that Worthy had no jurisdiction.

After hearing testimony from the People’s Task Force, the previous Detroit City Council, chaired by President Pro-Tem Monica Conyers during Pres. Maryann Mahaffey’s illness, voted unanimously on May 11, 2009 for a federal investigation of the lab, instead of a review conducted by Worthy. Council member JoAnn Watson made the motion.

Councilwoman JoAnn Watson in Feb. 2009

Meanwhile, Worthy’s office recently revealed that a massive amount of their own records, essential to the continued appeal of prisoners’ cases, have been destroyed.

Edward Sanders with author, who was visiting him at Mound Road before he was transferred

In February, VOD made a Freedom of Information Act request for the prosecutor’s file on Edward Sanders, incarcerated since 1975.

“It appears the file you requested has long since been destroyed in a routine purge of files,” said FOIA officer Barbara Brown in a letter in response. “An administrative decision was made to destroy all pre-1995 files, as a remedy to a shortage of shelf space for our office as the archives.” (Click on Worthy files before 95  to read letter.)

Sanders, who was sentenced to life without parole as a juvenile at 17, has been fighting to re-open his case for the 36 years he has been imprisoned. He contends among other matters that shell casings involved in his case, and the condition of the gun, will show that the shooting, committed by a man riding in his car, was unintentional.

According to the State of Michigan’s General Retention Schedule #19 for prosecuting attorneys, files in capital cases (any crime with a life sentence) must be retained “until final disposition of the case plus 50 years, or the felon dies, whichever is sooner.”

(Click on http://www.michigan.gov/documents/hal/mhc_rm_gs19_195723_7.pdf to read document.)

Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy’s spokesperson, Assistant Prosecutor Maria Miller, said the destruction of files did not happen under Worthy’s administration.

“Since she has been the elected prosecutor we do not destroy any capital felony files,” Miller said. “In fact, we keep indefinitely all homicide cases, and any cases in our Special Victim’s Unit (which handles  child abuse, domestic violence , criminal sexual conduct and homicides).  Our appellate division keeps all homicide cases indefinitely as well under the file retention policy.”

(Further comments from Miller in response to this article are included in an addendum at its conclusion.) 

Many of the prisoners who are part of the People’s Task Force were also incarcerated prior to 1995, for life terms.

Darryl Dulin-Bey

Darryl Dulin-Bey, incarcerated in 1988 for life, says the gun produced at his trial was not the gun used in the killing involved, and that he did not shoot either gun. He says the police and prosecutor were fully aware of this.

“During my trial, there was no actual murder weapon presented but there was an unrelated 9 mm handgun and shotgun shells presented, also bullets that were on display on the prosecutor’s table in front of my jury and the and the prosecutor presented and waved this evidence like a flag,” Dulin-Bey wrote.

Michael Harris, a founding member of the People’s Task Force, has been in prison since 1983 and says the Michigan State Police (MSP) crime lab falsified evidence in his case, as well as many other cases.

Michael Harris

“My attorney helped to expose two Michigan State Police DNA experts in 2004, Lynn Helton and Charles Barna, who fabricated evidence against me in Washtenaw County,” Harris said in a letter. “They used my blood samples to wrongly contaminate crime scene evidence and frame me for murders.”

In the wake of daily media reports that evidence was left behind after the crime lab building closed, Worthy has turned over the investigation to the Michigan State Police. She is also using the MSP labs to review crime lab evidence as part of a “Forensic Integrity Unit” she set up after the Detroit crime lab closed.

Harris called instead for an independent forensic investigation of both the Detroit and Michigan crime labs. He encouraged people to attend the June 17 rally in a recent letter from Kinross Correctional Facility in Kincheloe, where both he and Sanders are incarcerated.  

Part of Kinross Prison, located in Kincheloe in the Upper Peninsula

“Kym Worthy [must be] removed from the Detroit police crime lab investigation on the grounds of a conflict of interest,” he said. “Also, all Detroit crime lab cases must be removed from the jurisdiction of the Michigan State Police crime labs. The Detroit Police Crime Lab has falsified ballistics test results .  .  .  . the Michigan crime labs were exposed for forging DNA records.”

Guzman said the case of Johnnie Henderson, grandson of Essie Henderson, also a member of the Task Force, is one of the most glaring examples of prosecutorial atrocities.

Johnnie Henderson

“The court transcripts showed the ballistics and physical evidence did not match,” he said. “They didn’t find any bullet in the deceased victim, claiming it had somehow slipped out. This is one of the cases Worthy is trying to cleanse because Henderson’s defense attorney also asserted that it was likely the fatal bullet came from a police officer’s gun.”

Larry Porter, now 59, was sent to prison in 1989 and is also a founding member of the People’s Task Force. 

Larry Porter

“Ms. Worthy, you haven’t shown one ounce of any genuine concern for those of us who are wrongfully convicted, let alone any compassion for our families and loved ones,” said Porter, Harris, Dulin-Bey, and Nobles in an open letter in 2008. “That comprehensive program you purportedly designed to address the failures of the Detroit Police crime lab has virtually fizzled out .  .  . simply because none of the wrongfully convicted have been set free yet!”

Worthy recently said that it is “impossible” to review even the 31,000 cases adjudicated between 2003-08 with her current staff, including that financed by the city.

Former MGM Grand Casino, slated to be new police HQ with MSP crime lab

In addition to giving Worthy $2.7 million, the current  City Council voted in July, 2010 to issue up to $100 million in general obligation bonds to finance the purchase and renovation of the former MGM Grand Casino in downtown Detroit into a new Detroit police headquarters and Michigan State Police crime lab.

The bonds are guaranteed by the city’s revenue-sharing funds from the state, which are in line to be cut under Michigan Governor Rick Snyder’s budget.

“We don’t want to hear her sob stories now,” Guzman said.

Asst. Pros. Robert Moran, speaking during Kilpatrick court hearing, heads Worthy's crime lab investigative unit; Task Force members say Worthy should focus on freeing the wrongfully convicted rather than garnering publicity for her prosecution of Kilpatrick

“Kym Worthy knew going into this that the cases were in the thousands,” he continued. Her fingerpointing is nothing more than a sinister effort to throw the scent off her staff, which knowingly prosecuted many of these cases with falsified forensics evidence, to say nothing of the convictions in which prosecutors also deliberately concealed exculpatory forensics evidence at trial. Worthy herself should have invited a federal probe as we have repeatedly insisted since the lab debacle first exploded in 2008.”

The Detroit Free Press itself is calling for a federal investigation. (Click on    http://www.freep.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011105290502 to read article.)

The article quotes David A. Moran, co-director of the Michigan Innocence Clinic, who said his office has been requesting evidence from the lab for years through the FOIA, to no avail.

Attorney David Moran (r) with Marvin Reed, freed through U-M's Innocence Project

“I wouldn’t be surprised, if in FOIA requests where we got a response saying, ‘Sorry, it’s gone,’ the evidence is sitting in that crime lab,” Moran told the Freep. He added, “A federal investigation is really called for here. … Everyone had been led to believe that the crime lab scandal had been contained, and that it was in the hands of police, but that wasn’t done.”

However, said the Freep, U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade refused comment on such an investigation, saying only, “We are looking into the situation.”

In fact, the National Academy of Sciences has called for all crime labs to be separated completely from any law enforcement agency, including the Department of Justice.

“Forensic scientists who sit administratively in law enforcement agencies or prosecutor’s offices, or who are hired by these units, are subject to a general risk of bias,” the Feb. 18, 2009 NAS report said. “The potential for conflicts of interest between the needs of law enforcement and the broader needs of forensic science are too great.”

Read release on NAS study of forensics practices, published in Feb. 2009, with link to full report, at http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12589

Read release on NAS study of forensics practices, published in Feb. 2009, with link to full report, at http://www8.nationalacademies.org/onpinews/newsitem.aspx?RecordID=12589.

The report called for the creation of an independent National Institute of Forensics Sciences, which would conduct scientific research, set national standards, and certify, regulate, enforce and standardize forensic testing and testimony.

Below is a response from Assistant Prosecutor Maria Miller on behalf of Kym Worthy to issues raised in this story, along with a reply from the Task Force’s Roberto Guzman.

RESPONSE FROM APA MARIA MILLER, COMMUNICATIONS CHIEF FOR PROSECUTOR KYM WORTHY

Here is some background about the Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) that was formed in 2010.

The unit consists of CIU Chief, Robert Moran, CIU Director APA Patrick Muscat and three other APAs assigned to the unit.  The WCPO has been reviewing these cases with SADO [the State Appellate Defenders Office) since 2008.  The Michigan State Police does all of the re-testing of firearm evidence.  Continue reading →

Joyce Moore, Charter Commissioner 93-97

June 11, 2011

(VOD ed. note: Many Detroiters do not realize that they have the final say so on the draft Charter recently produced by the Charter Revision Commission. As former Charter Commissioner Joyce Moore says, we CAN and SHOULD vote NO!  VOD will publish an additional analysis of other problems with the proposed Charter revision.)

SUBJECT:   CHARTER AND DISTRICTS

As you know crucial issues are coming before the voters in this upcoming November election.  These issues could become the demise of our city unless we continue to educate ourselves, our voters and mobilize now.

AFSCME Co. 25 President Al Garrett speaks against charter changes as others line up to call for a NO vote on revision, at Charter meeting Aug. 24, 2010

One of the greatest threats to the existence of Detroit is the revision of our City Charter which was not to be revised until 2018 and in a gubernatorial election (Section 9-403.)

The Detroit City Charter is our Constitution as it outlines the city council’s and the mayor’s responsibility and authority to the people.  It also determines the ownership of our valuable assets, such as Belle Isle, the Detroit Water and Sewage Department, the Public Lighting Department, Cobo Hall and the Zoo to name a few.

Compuware CEO Peter Karmanos bought prime downtown land for his HQ for $1 a block

The main issue of this Charter Revision is Districts.  The proposal for Districts was placed on the ballot illegally and was passed in the November 2009 election.   This issue of Districts alone now poses an even greater threat due to the need to draw boundaries. Ultimately, Districts will:

• clear the way to take control of more of our assets, 
• reduce the voting power for all the citizens, 
• consolidate the voting blocks of those who wish to confiscate the most desirable and valuable areas in our city, 
• finalize the concept as far back as 1972 of, a “City within a City”, and 
• the Mayor will be in charge of city services.  The better services will be provided to those districts of choice. 

A clear example of these events is Midtown.  It is one of the choice areas of the City for Districts and is being populated by rewarding people to move into this particular area. 

One of Detroit's impoverished neighborhoods: what will happen to them?

The sad and devastating part is that most of the general public is unaware of the politics that is changing our city, partly because the mainstream media has not provided accurate information to the public. YOU MUST VOTE ‘NO” ON THE CHARTER REVISION IN THE NOVEMBER 2011 ELECTION and  BE PREPARED FOR A RE-COUNT.

 Detroiters cannot afford to sit by and watch others benefit from our struggle.  We must recognize our collective power to protect our votes and rebuild the city to benefit US.

By Joyce Moore – Charter Revision Commissioner (1993-1996) 

AFSCME Local 207 President and DGRS Pension Board Trustee John Riehl

PENSION TRUSTEE REPORT

BY JOHN RIEHL

(VOD ed. note: John Riehl has been a militant, dedicated, honest union leader as President of AFSCME Local 207, representing water and public lighting workers, for many years. He was recently elected by city workers to sit on the Detroit General Retirement System Board.)

Since being elected as a Pension Board Trustee I have learned much about our system and the dynamics of the dangers to our retirement security.

There are politician driven schemes in many states to reduce or eliminate public employee retirement benefits. On a recent 60 Minutes program New Jersey ’s governor was attacking that state’s retirement benefits. An alert reporter did follow up with an important fact that the state had failed to make 13 of the last 16 required contributions to the retirement systems.

Detroit city worker at mass rally in Lansing April 13

Since the start of the current recession there has been an enormous redistribution of wealth in the United States away from the working class. Millions lost jobs, with many today subsisting on part time work or unemployment benefits. Those still working are confronted by employers demanding and imposing pay cuts and reduced health insurance and retirement benefits.

 In Detroit the attacks on public workers are similar. The former mayor Kilpatrick was very active in giving away public jobs to select private contractors. He worked with Feikens and Mercado and the Business Leadership Group (including Dave Bing) by attempting to give away our Detroit Water Department to a regional authority.

He also pushed for investments by Detroit ’s two pension systems in various projects. Some of these investments were failures. There was a surge of “alternate investments” in 2007. Detroit can use the local investment since big business has largely written us off, but some resulted in investment losses. It is important to understand though, that many types of investments lost value during the recession and the credit crash.

Some real estate investments in particular have lost value. Much of our system’s most successful investments now are stocks due to the business economy improving. We regularly have to make decisions on what can be done about problem investments. We have sued to recover investments or reassert control.

Some of these involve the big New York investment banks that collapsed in 2008, others include companies whose stock prices dropped when deceptive practices were exposed. The stimulus actions of the US government and Federal Reserve did help stop further economic collapse, but at the cost of over empowering the largest banks.

These same banks were the cause of recession and now profit from it. 

Since I have been on the Pension Board I have seen great care being put into investment decisions. There are now several new trustees. Recently Lou Hatty was elected as an Employee Representative and Tom Sheehan was elected as the Retiree Representative. Mayor Bing recently installed James Edwards as his Appointed Representative. 

NAACP Pres. Wendell Anthony, Mayor Dave Bing, and Kid Rock (without his usual Confederate flag)

Recently Mayor Bing has been advocating changes in union contracts and the pension plans. The AFSCME contract for one will not be up for renegotiation for a year. Bing had a proposal to suspend next year’s required payments from the city to the retirement systems. We pointed out to him and city council that this was a violation of the employer’s obligation under the state constitution. That idea is now dead. He had been in support of turning our pension systems over to Michigan Employees Retirement System based in Lansing . Hundreds of city workers and retirees came to a special City Council session and lined up to insist that Bing’s giveaway be stopped. He was defeated. 

Recently Bing asked Detroit ’s two retirement systems to lengthen our smoothing period to ten years. Our Pension Board was using a five year “smoothing” to average its valuation of assets. This means that bad years like 08 and 09 are averaged with three other, hopefully better years. This means that we are taking the short term sting out of the extreme fluctuations in the investment markets. We now have installed a seven year corridor modified smoothing period. This reduces the contribution cost to city for the General Retirement System about 11 million next year, but will increase it in future years.

These accounting changes have no impact on benefits. Keep in mind that Detroit ’s financial problems will only get worse now that Governor Snyder is cutting revenue sharing. What would help is if Washington would direct its spending away from wars and the military and towards our states and cities.