VIDEO ABOVE: CHANNEL 7 EXPOSES ROLE OF TRUMP, DEVOS IN BETHANY CHRISTIAN SERVICES, WHICH HAS KIDNAPPED CHILDREN OF IMMIGRANT FAMILIES FOR PROFIT

A Michigan state official told Rewire.News there is no real system in place for finding the parents of children separated from their families by the Trump administration. Some of those children are being housed in the state by Bethany Christian Services, a religious adoption agency with a troubling record.

Vicki Levengood, spokesperson for the Michigan Department of Civil Rights, described a “chaotic” situation where the foster agency calls detention center officials, who then cry out the names of children into rooms full of people to see if anyone there knows them.

Levengood said the department’s director, Agustin V. Arbulu, learned the details during a phone call with Dona Abbott, branch director of refugee services for Bethany.

“She described to him how they are backtracking with the little information children come with: name, age, gender, nation of origin, and the area where they were held, not necessarily [the] name of the exact detention facility,” Levengood said. “Staff at Bethany, from what they’re telling us, contact detention centers in the vicinity where the child was taken, asking the staff if they have anyone in detention who is connected to X child and leave a name.”

 

Children detained by the Trump administration in one of the cages at a facility in McAllen, Texas. (Photo: U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s Rio Grande Valley Sector via AP Photo)

 Levengood’s agency released a statement last week noting that infants as young as three months old had been transported to the state.

“We’re doing our best, but I don’t think we have a handle on it all,” Levengood said.

Her words reflect the apparent lack of a plan to unify about 2,000 migrant children who remain divided from their parents, though a federal judge on Tuesday ordered that border authorities reunite families within 30 days. Rendered “unaccompanied” by the government, these children are now the responsibility of the Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR), which handles unaccompanied immigrant minors.

ORR has funneled these children into a patchwork of shelters and foster homes overseen by organizations including Bethany, which has long faced accusations of discriminating against LGBTQ couples and coercing parents into giving up babies for adoption.

Toddlers as young as three are being taken from parents.

Media outlets have largely overlooked the troubling record of Bethany, a well-connected powerhouse of the anti-choice movement, even as reporters have interviewed the agency’s leaders on the plight of migrant kids. Nor have outlets mentioned the troubling history of ORR director, Scott Lloyd, who blocked young people in ORR custody from accessing abortion care.

Nothing in Lloyd’s professional background suggests he is qualified to head ORR, yet he’s been tasked with overseeing the day-to-day care of the country’s most vulnerable people: child refugees, many of whom came to the United States to escape persecution and gender-based violence. As Rewire.News reported, Lloyd is an anti-choice radical who has emerged as a staunch opponent of reproductive rights. Lloyd has taken it upon himself to “counsel” pregnant young people in ORR-affiliated shelters, as he admitted to the Christian Broadcasting Network. Immigration advocates see Lloyd as an ideological pick by the Trump administration as it ushers “anti-choice fanaticism” into the immigration system.

Bethany, other foster care agencies profit with federal funds for every child snatched.

Even prior to the Trump administration, there have been documented cases of young people being punished for wanting abortion care.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is currently litigating a religious shelter case against ORR that began in 2016 under the Obama administration. Religiously affiliated shelters, which have received millions of dollars in federal funds as contractors with ORR, have kicked out young people for having an abortion or simply requesting access to abortion.

Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s Reproductive Freedom Project, is the lead attorney on both the religious shelter case and Azar v. Garza, a class action lawsuit challenging the Trump administration’s exercise of veto power over unaccompanied immigrant minors’ access to abortion in ORR custody. The attorney told Rewire.News earlier this month that even if the class action is successful and the injunction in Azar v. Garza essentially stays in place, things will go back to where they were under the Obama administration. Meaning: “If you are in a religiously affiliated shelter, you get kicked out for even asking for an abortion,” Amiri said.

Jane’s Due Process

Susan Hays is the former legal director of Jane’s Due Process, one of the grassroots organizations that initially alerted the ACLU to the fact that young people in ORR custody were being denied access to care, even in instances of rape. The information led to Azar v. Garza, which is ongoing, but an injunction is currently in place allowing young people in ORR custody to access care.

“Perhaps it’s my paranoid mind or doing this work too long, but since the policy emerged from ORR that was trying to force migrants to have children, I’ve worried this was always about getting babies [away from migrants for adoption],” Hays told Rewire.News. “We have no idea if they are shuffling children around as quickly as possible so their parents can’t find them, and I frankly don’t believe the [Department of Homeland Security’s] claim that 500 children have been reunited with their families. We have no way of knowing if they’re actually making an effort to reunite families.”

In a written statement to Rewire.News, Bethany denied that any of the children in its custody would be put up for adoption, saying the agency “will not rest until every separated child in Bethany’s care is safely reunified with family.”

But the concerns of advocates like Hays are rooted in reality: Christian adoption agencies like Bethany have “a pattern and history of coercing women to relinquish their children,” as journalist Kathryn Joyce has reported.

Much like ORR’s director, Bethany has gone to great lengths to dissuade people from seeking abortions, raising questions about access to reproductive health services for migrant youths in their care, many of whom may be sexually assaulted en route to the United States.

As Rewire.News revealed in 2016, Bethany’s particular efforts to cajole patients out of ending their pregnancies have included hiring an ad firm to target “abortion-minded women” by sending ads for Bethany to their smartphones while they are sitting in Planned Parenthood clinics.

But that’s just scratching the surface of its long and complicated history. Here’s what we know.

1. Bethany has several federal contracts.

Despite speaking out against the Trump administration’s treatment of refugees, the Christian adoption agency has announced plans to expand its foster care operations as a result of President Trump’s policy of separating families at the border. As of June 19, Bethany had reportedly placed nearly 100 migrant children in foster homes in Maryland and Michigan.

The organization was initially approved by the U.S. State Department to resettle refugees as part of its resettlement program in Michigan in 1998. However, in 2016, Bethany was approved to “provide refugee resettlement and refugee youth foster care services” in Pennsylvania, according to the agency’s site.

Protesters outside Bethany’s headquarters in Grand Rapids.

Indeed, the agency has a wide variety of federal contracts, with millions in annual revenue coming from government-funded programs. It offers refugee and immigrant foster care, resettlement, and unaccompanied children reunification. Bethany has also received hundreds of thousands of dollars as a participant in the federal Family & Youth Services Bureau’s “Sexual Risk Avoidance Education Program,” an abstinence-only education program that targets Latinx and Black youth ages 14-to-19.

2. Bethany has a record of coercive adoption practices.

Last year, 17-year-old Alex Robinson gave birth at a Catholic hospital in Muskegon, Michigan. Robinson had been on a beach trip with friends and did not realize she was pregnant until she went into labor. While her mother was five hours away in Illinois, a counselor told Robinson she could give the baby up for adoption without anyone knowing, according to a local news report.

Within a few hours of the birth, a Bethany representative was at the hospital with adoption paperwork. But after returning home, Robinson changed her mind. She ultimately had to fight Bethany in court to regain custody of her child.

“They exploited her,” Robinson’s mother, Leah McDonald, told the news team Local 4 Defenders. “You know, they took advantage of her because they wanted her baby.”

This was not an isolated incident for Bethany.

The agency’s 2017 tax forms show it provided “pregnancy counseling services protecting unborn children” to “3,078 expectant parents” under its domestic adoption program.

But such counseling often amounts to coercion, as journalist Kathryn Joyce, author of The Child Catchers: Rescue, Trafficking, and the New Gospel of Adoption, has reported.

“They come on really pro-life: look at the baby, look at its heartbeat, don’t kill it,” one woman, whom Joyce called Carol Jordan, recalled of her experience with Bethany in South Carolina in 1999. “Then, once you say you won’t kill it, they ask, What can you give it? You have nothing to offer, but here’s a family that goes on a cruise every year.”

Jordan told Joyce that Bethany isolated her by sending her to stay with one of its “shepherding families,” where she felt “like a walking uterus for the agency.”

When Jordan had second thoughts about the adoption after delivering her baby, a Bethany counselor brought the prospective adoptive parents, sobbing, into her recovery room.

“The counselor warned Jordan that if she persisted, she’d end up homeless and lose the baby anyway,” Joyce wrote.

Bethany declined to respond directly to concerns about its record of coercive practices.

In March, Philadelphia announced it had halted adoptions through Bethany following reports the agency refused to work with same-sex couples who wanted to be foster parents. In Michigan, one of the states where Bethany is caring for migrant children separated from their families by the Trump administration, same-sex couples sued the state last year for contracting with Bethany and other agencies that turn away prospective adoptive and foster parents because of their sexual orientation. Bethany had lobbied Michigan to pass legislation in 2015 allowing such agencies to discriminate against same-sex couples under the guise of religion.

At least nine states have passed such measures, five of them since last year. Of the states where migrant children have been placed, at least five have passed such provisions allowing discrimination.

“Bethany is part of this wider movement of organizations pushing to enshrine the right to discriminate into law—an effort that has gained widespread success under Trump,” Jessica Mason Pieklo, Rewire.News vice president of law and the courts said.

4. Bethany has benefited from figures within the Trump administration.

Bethany has a massive reach, with an annual revenue of more than $98 million, millions of which comes from government-funded programs, tax filings show.

Among the lawmakers who have directed public funding to Bethany is Vice President Mike Pence. As governor of Indiana, Pence shifted funds intended for low-income families in the state to a crisis pregnancy center umbrella organization, Real Alternatives, that subcontracted with Bethany Christian Services, Rewire.News reporter Jenn Stanley reported.

The agency has also benefited from the family of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos. The Dick and Betsy DeVos Foundation donated $25,000 to Bethany in 2015 and 2016, while the Richard and Helen DeVos Foundation outlined $2.5 million in planned and executed donations to Bethany in its 2016 filing alone.

IN 50 STATES AND EXTREME HEAT, THOUSANDS MARCH IN ‘FAMILIES BELONG TOGETHER’ RALLIES

Doug Stanglin and Marina Pitofsky,

USA TODAY  June 30, 2018

Washington D.C: Families have no borders.

WASHINGTON — Thousands of people descended on cities from coast-to-coast Saturday in “Families Belong Together” rallies to protest the Trump administration’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy that left more than 2,000 children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border. 

In the nation’s capital, thousands poured into Lafayette Square, across from the White House, to chant “We care” and “No Trump, No KKK, No Fascist USA.”

While President Donald Trump and first lady Melania Trump avoided the chants in Washington, the protests followed them to their weekend retreat in Bedminster, N.J.

Rally at Indiana Statehouse

Only a few miles from Trump National Golf Course, more than 100 protesters lined the side of a major New Jersey highway waving anti-Trump signs and chanting, “Where are the children!”

Jack Gavin, of West Caldwell, N.j., handed out miniature copies of the U.S. Constitution, “Facts Matter” pins and cold drinks. He said he also planned to attend rallies in Newark and Clifton,N.J.

In Washington, Shelley Kohl, a retired business owner from Johnson City, Tennessee, said she does not usually engage in politics, but the images of children being separated from their parents motivated her to travel to Washington for today’s protests. 

Indiana rally.

“Kids don’t belong in cages. Families don’t belong in cages, and kids absolutely don’t belong being removed from their families,” Kohl said. 

In New York City, protesters at a Manhattan park chanted “shame!” and “shut detention down” as they geared up to march across the Brooklyn bridge to Cadman Plaza, near the federal courthouse.

Episcopalian Chaplain Jenifer Gamber, 52, said she hoped to send a strong signal to elected officials about the public’s opinions on immigration. 

“I am appalled at the Trump administration’s treatment of people seeking asylum in the United States that criminalizes asylum-seeking and separates families,” Gamber said. 

Washington D.C. Rally: Families Belong Together

Organizers in the Families Belong Together Coalition included the National Domestic Workers Alliance, the ACLU, Leadership Conference and MoveOn.org.

“(The) family separation crisis is not over. We have a situation where the Trump administration seems to be aiming to detain families,” said Karthik Ganapathy, a MoveOn.org spokesman. 

Each state is hosting at least one event, with some states, such as Texas and Massachusetts, participating some 30 events. California was on track to host at least 80 on Saturday, according to the Families Belong Together website. 

In Boston, the “Rally against Family Separation” was beginning with a morning march from City Hall to Boston Common, where a large rally will take place. The protest was timed with other protests nationwide and is also meant to oppose Trump’s ban on travelers from certain Muslim-majority nations. 

Washington, D.C.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Joe Kennedy III, both Democrats, will be among the attendees.

A second demonstration Saturday afternoon was expected to begin with a march from Wellington Common Park to the South Bay House of Correction, a county jail in Boston which houses undocumented immigrants apprehended by federal officials.

Rallies were also underway at mid-morning in El Paso and Atlanta, and communities big and small.

Among the protests:

— In Louisville, Ky., protesters sought refuge from thesweltering heat arond Metro Hall. Art Baltes stood out from the crowd, pacing back and forth under the sunshine with a banner in hand: “Immigrants and Refugees Welcome.”

Baltes, of Louisville, said his Catholic faith spurred him to attend the rally. “That’s exactly where it starts — our faith,” he said. “We just want people to know that people in this town support immigrants and refugees.” 

Rally at Senate Office Bldg.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Congressman Joe Kennedy III, both Democrats, will be among the attendees.

A second demonstration Saturday afternoon was expected to begin with a march from Wellington Common Park to the South Bay House of Correction, a county jail in Boston which houses undocumented immigrants apprehended by federal officials.

Rallies were also underway at mid-morning in El Paso and Atlanta, and communities big and small.

Among the protests:

— In Louisville, Ky., protesters sought refuge from thesweltering heat arond Metro Hall. Art Baltes stood out from the crowd, pacing back and forth under the sunshine with a banner in hand: “Immigrants and Refugees Welcome.”

Baltes, of Louisville, said his Catholic faith spurred him to attend the rally. “That’s exactly where it starts — our faith,” he said. “We just want people to know that people in this town support immigrants and refugees.”

— In Nashville, Abigail Taylor, a 37-year-old mother of three, said she “can’t in good conscious pretend like nothing is happening and have my family go about like nothing is wrong.”

“The idea of someone taking them from me without saying goodbye, and them thinking I abandoned them, breaks my heart,” she said. 

The rallies were in response to a widespread desire among many Americans to take action against Trump’s strict immigration policies, said Lorella Praeli, ACLU director of immigration policy and campaigns.

“This is our country, and if there is something happening that takes us in the wrong direction, we can’t stay silent,” Praeli said. “It’s on us to hold our elected officials accountable, to hold our president accountable and to demand action. So silence in this moment is complicity.” 

After Trump signed an executive order last week ending the family separations, a California judge ordered the Trump administration Tuesday evening to reunite the migrant families it had separated.

There are 2,047 children that must be placed in the same facility as their parents within the next two to four weeks. But U.S. law and a series of court rulings that limit the amount of time minors can be held in detention will further complicate those reunions.

More: Illegal immigration: Separating the facts from fiction

More: As thousands prepare to rally, here’s where things stand on immigration

A June 18 CBS News poll showed 67 percent of Americans found separating undocumented immigrant children and parents at the border “unacceptable.” 

Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, said she has been engaging with organizers ahead of Saturday’s demonstrations, and many are concerned about the direction of the country. 

“The separation policy here, separating children from their parents and detaining them in internment camps and caging them is something that you would think would happen in tyrannical, authoritarian countries, not in a country that says that it is a democracy, not in the United States of America,” Weingarten said. 

Fabiola Perez, 24, said she will be protesting in Winston-Salem, N.C., because of her personal history with the U.S. immigration process. 

“I have been in those kids’ shoes. I’m currently a DACA recipient; my parents brought me to the U.S. when I was only 7 years old. I had to cross the border and we failed multiple times, my little brother, my mom and I were detained by the immigration officials,” said Perez, a sales operations coordinator at PepsiCo. “It was scary not knowing what to expect and also not knowing the language at the time. Thankfully, we were always kept together, which helped my brother and I feel safe.” 

Perez said she’s also protesting as the mother of a 6-year-old son. 

“Just the thought of getting my son ripped away from while only trying to get a better life for him would not only devastate me but it would definitely traumatized him,” Perez said.

Contributing: Nick Muscavage, in Bedminister, N.J.; Jordyn Pair, in Nashville; Shannon Hall, in Louisville, USA TODAY Network

Family and friends of Charles Lewis and Michael Calvin, both recommended for LWOP by Wayne Co. Pros. Kym Worthy, at Juvenile Lifer For Justice Rally last June.

Cites states’ rights to “develop their own procedures to enforce new rule”

Dissenting opinion says USSC requires ALL  judges to make statement of facts regarding JLWOP sentence, including finding re: incorrigibility  

Michigan one of three rogue states with two-thirds of nation’s juvenile lifers, most of them Black and Latin 

PA. State Sen. Sharif Street rallies to pass bill ending all life without parole

Lee Boyd Malvo, 17 when D.C. sniper killings carried out, granted juvenile lifer re-sentencing by 4th Circuit Court

By Diane Bukowski 

June 22, 2018 

Kenya Ali Hyatt

Tia Marie Skinner

DETROIT – With its June 2o ruling on the Skinner/Hyatt cases, the Michigan Supreme Court basically torpedoed the hopes of the Michigan 247. They are the two-thirds of state juvenile lifers who are still incarcerated because county prosecutors recommended renewed life without parole for them, despite U.S. Supreme Court dictates in Miller/Hobbs v. Alabama (2012) and Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016). Many have spent decades behind bars.

In a 4-2 ruling on the combined cases of Kenya Ali Hyatt and Tia Marie Skinner, the court essentially sided with the prosecutors responsible for the continued confinement of  the 247. It ruled a judge, not a jury, must preside over re-sentencings, but that the judge does not have to find that the defendant is a “truly rare” and incorrigible juvenile, with less culpability than an adult, as defined in Miller and Montgomery.

Juvenile lifer and long-time jail-house lawyer Charles Lewis said these cases must be further appealed in order to blunt the ruling’s effect on the Michigan 247. Neither attorneys for the defendants nor the Michigan ACLU answered VOD’s calls for comment.

Tia Marie Skinner, 17, of  Port Huron, Michigan, enlisted two adult male friends to kill her adoptive parents, both of whom were white, as were her friends. They succeeded in killing her father and wounding her mother.  Skinner was convicted of first-degree premeditated murder and sentenced to mandatory life without parole. She was re-sentenced to LWOP at a Miller hearing, but her defense attorneys appealed, saying the ruling should be made by a jury “beyond a reasonable doubt,” according to the Sixth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.

Justice Bridget McCormack, dissent

Chief Justice Stephen Markman, majority

In its June 20 majority ruling written by Chief Justice Stephen Markman, the MSC found that a judge should make the decision.

But the greatest part of the majority ruling was devoted to the Eighth Amendment issue of “cruel and unusual punishment” in the case of Kenya Ali Hyatt,17, regarding the standard of review in such cases. Hyatt, 17, was convicted of first-degree felony murder for participating with two adult co-defendants in the robbery and fatal shooting of a security guard in Flint, Michigan.

The state Supreme Court reviewed the majority ruling of an appellate conflict panel that was convened to decide discrepancies between trial court rulings in Hyatt and two other cases including Skinner.

The four judge majority on that panel said, “As evidenced by the existence of this special conflict panel, we recognize that this is a difficult issue.  Also not lost on this panel is the understanding that juveniles who commit a heinous offense, while undoubtedly deserving of punishment, are categorically less culpable than their adult counterparts and are less deserving of the maximum punishment available under the law.  As the United States Supreme Court has made unmistakably clear, it is only the truly rare juvenile who will be deserving of the harshest penalty available under the laws of this state, and a life-without-parole sentence is an unconstitutional penalty for all juveniles but for those whose crimes reflect irreparable corruption.  Thus, while we conclude that a judge, not a jury, is to make this determination, the sentencing judge must honor the mandate that was made abundantly clear in Miller v Alabama. . .”

However, Chief Justice Markman of the Michigan Supreme Court wrote for the majority, “The Eighth Amendment, under either Miller or Montgomery, does not require additional fact-finding before a life-without-parole sentence can be imposed. 

“Although there was language in those cases that could be read to suggest that the sentencer must find that the juvenile offender’s crime reflects irreparable corruption before a life-without-parole sentence could be imposed, Miller simply held that mandatory life-without-parole sentences for juveniles violate the Eighth Amendment and that before such a sentence could be imposed on a juvenile, the sentencer must consider the mitigating qualities of youth, and Montgomery expressly stated that Miller did not require trial courts to make a finding of fact regarding a child’s incorrigibility.”

Markman said the rulings allowed the states to develop their own procedures to comply with them. 

See full ruling at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/MSC-Skinner-Hyatt-decision.compressed-1.pdf

The Court thus deliberately ignored the increasing trend across the states to outlaw juvenile life without parole, period, and further branded Michigan as a rogue state, particularly in its treatment of children of color. Two-thirds of Michigan juvenile lifers are Black or Latin.

“Twenty states and the District of Columbia do not have any prisoners serving life without parole for crimes committed as juveniles, either due to laws prohibiting the sentence or because there are no individuals serving the sentence at this time,” says the Campaign for Fair Sentencing of Youth. “Thus, while 30 states allow the sentence, just three – Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Louisiana – account for about two-thirds of JLWOP sentences.”

The U.S. is the ONLY country in the world that allows this barbaric sentence at all. It is virtually the only country with actual life without parole sentences period.

Pennsylvania State Senator Sharif Street has just introduced a bill in that state’s legislature that would abolish ALL life without parole there, allowing parole board hearings at least after 15 years. (See story below.)

“Not all victims of crime want people to die behind bars,” Street said in March. “Many times the people who are victims of crime, they have another loved one who is also serving behind bars. Sometimes people themselves are both perpetrators and victims of crime.”

In addition to Michigan’s rogue status on JLWOP, it is also notorious for decades of state takeovers of its majority-Black cities, including Detroit, the largest majority Black city in the U.S. The takeovers have meant the theft of public assets from citizens, and left extreme poverty and unemployment among people of color in their wake, creating a constant pipeline to the state’s prisons.

Justices Bridget McCormack and Richard Bernstein dissented, saying that both the U.S. Supreme Court and Michigan statutes MCL 769.25 and MCL 769.25a mandate much more than just a jury verdict to impose life without parole on a child.

“In short, MCL 769.25(9) authorizes a maximum term-of-years sentence for juveniles convicted of the enumerated offenses based solely on the jury’s verdict. The remainder of the statute requires motion + hearing + consideration of the Miller factors +a statement of aggravated and mitigating circumstances considered by the court and reasons supporting its sentence before a trial court can impose LWOP on a juvenile,” McCormack wrote. “For these reasons, the most reasonable reading of MCL 769.25, is reading it as murder-plus.”

Notably, neither side acknowledged that both U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith   and the Sixth Circuit Court have struck the portions of each statute that forbid “good time” credits to be included when calculating new term of years sentences for juvenile lifers. Under Michigan law, even those sentenced to LWOP accumulate such credits.

Hopefully, it is not the stance of the Michigan Supreme Court majority that NONE of the Michigan 247 would be allowed term of years re-sentencings.

Friends of Charles Lewis demonstrate outside the Frank Murphy Hall in Detroit before his hearing Oct. 11, 2016.

PA. LAWMAKER AIMS TO END LIFE WITHOUT PAROLE SENTENCES

By Ray Downs  |  March 26, 2018 at 11:38 PM

Pennsylvania State Sen. Sharif Street

March 26 (UPI) — A Pennsylvania lawmaker is leading an effort to end life without parole sentences, which would make his the first state to do away with the permanent punishment.

State Sen. Sharif Street, a Democrat out of Philadelphia, introduced Senate Bill 942 back in October and is preparing for a rally to promote it in Harrisburg, the state’s capital, on Tuesday. The bill would allow people sentenced to life in prison to be eligible for parole after 15 years. Street says it’s a bill that makes sense punitively and fiscally.

“There are also fiscal conservatives who support this because they believe that the purpose of our criminal justice system is to keep people safe, to rehabilitate people, and that to incarcerate people beyond that point is an expensive luxury that we can no longer afford,” Street said, according to WHYY radio.

At the Mosaic Community Church in Philadelphia on Monday, Street told constituents that the bill doesn’t guarantee parole to anybody given a life sentence, but extends the process of parole board hearings to people who have spent at least 15 years in prison. It also keeps intact the opportunity for victims of crime to speak at parole board hearings, which Street points out is not necessarily a plea to keep the perpetrator in prison.

“Not all victims of crime want people to die behind bars,” Street said. “Many times the people who are victims of crime, they have another loved one who is also serving behind bars. Sometimes people themselves are both perpetrators and victims of crime.”

Not all life without parole sentences are for murder or sex crimes.

Rally to end life without parole,, held in Harrisburg, PA March, 2018

Looking at data in nine states and the federal prison system from 2012, the ACLU found 2,578 people serving life without parole for drug crimes, 652 for property crimes and 48 for other nonviolent offenses.

Street’s effort to end life without parole sentences comes on the heels of the Supreme Court‘s 2012 decision that said life without parole sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional. Since that ruling, 20 states, including Pennsylvania, have banned the sentence for juveniles.

Alaska is the only state in the country that does not have an official life without parole sentence on the books, but it does impose a 99-year sentence and judges can impose multiple 99-year sentences.

RELATED STORIES:

Charles K.K. Lewis, 59

(The story below on innocent juvenile lifer Charles Lewis has links to many JLWOP cases. Lewis had another in a series of dozens of hearings over the last two-and-a-half years on June 19; story upcoming. He has filed motions to dismiss case for actual innocence, inadequate assistance of counsel, and prosecutor’s move to re-sentence him to LWOP. His entire official court file has been lost, and his Register of Actions wiped out; MSC ruling in People v. Fullman, 1974 says file CANNOT be re-created, despite court’s order to do so, but must be dismissed.)

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2018/06/15/key-hearing-in-chas-k-k-lewis-case-june-19-new-motions-re-innocence-biased-atty-jlwop-bond/

APPEALS COURT STRIKES DOWN 4 LIFE SENTENCES VS. ‘D.C. SNIPER’ LEE BOYD MALVO

Lee Malvo was 17 was he was convicted of the D.C. Sniper killings, accompanying adult John Allen Muhammad.

VOD: In contrast to the intransigent stance of the Michigan Supreme Court in the Hyatt/Skinner ruling, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals has granted juvenile lifer re-sentencings to Lee Boyd Malvo, who was 17 when he participated with adult co-defendant John Allen Muhammad in the D.C. Sniper killings.

THE DAILY CALLER 4:26 PM 06/22/2018

Anders Hagstrom | Justice Reporter

District of Columbia sniper Lee Boyd Malvo had four life sentences deemed unconstitutional Thursday, in line with a 2012 Supreme Court ruling that mandatory minimum life sentences cannot apply to minors.

See full ruling at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Lee-Boyd-Malvo-Fourth-Circuit-Court-opinion.pdf

Malvo, now 33, pleaded guilty to murdering six people in the Washington, D.C., area in 2002 when he was 17 and received four life sentences under a mandatory minimum law in Virginia. A federal appeals court threw out his sentences, his convictions remain and he will be re-sentenced, The Washington Post reported. The ruling also doesn’t affect the six life sentences he received in Maryland. His accomplice, John Allen Muhammad, was executed in 2009.

Lee Malvo, from Jamaica, had been homeless before John Allen Muhammad took him in.

“[The shootings] were the most heinous, random acts of premeditated violence conceivable, destroying lives and families and terrorizing the entire Washington, D.C., metropolitan area for over six weeks, instilling mortal fear daily in the citizens of that community,” Virginia circuit court judges stated. But, “Malvo was 17 years old when he committed the murders, and he now has the retroactive benefit of new constitutional rules that treat juveniles differently for sentencing.”

Malvo’s attorneys will now relitigate his sentencing, claiming that a jury would have granted a more lenient sentence had the option been available. (RELATED: DC Sniper Gets Life Sentence Overturned)

“We’re pleased with the decision, of course, and not just for Lee Malvo, but for all juveniles that are in a similar situation,” one of his attorneys, Craig Stover Cooley, told WaPo. “I think at the time we would have had a sentence of less than life without parole.”

Malvo and Muhammad threw D.C. into a terror during their 6-week murder spree, shooting six people indiscriminately while they were getting gas, going for runs, or other everyday actions.

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Herman Vallery II is at bottom right being interviewed during his family’s 20th anniversary memorial for his only child Lamar Grable, on Sept. 21, 2016. Others in photo include Lamar’s mother Arnetta Grable, Sr. in black and gray dress and Cornell Squires, Sr., at her left. The two preceded Val in death after lifetimes of struggle against police brutality and injustices inflicted on poor and working people. Val constructed all the signs at the right, which he and others carried for those 20 years.

 MEMORIAL SET FOR MON. JUNE 18, 4-6 P.M. AT SWANSON’S , 806 E. GRAND BLVD. DETROIT

By Diane Bukowski

Lamar Grable, 20 when he was murdered by Detroit cop Eugene Brown with partner Vicki Yost Sept. 21, 1996

Herman Vallery II, affectionately known as “VAL” to his friends and family, passed away June 7, 2018 after a lifetime devoted to the struggle for the people. He was the father of Lamar Grable, his only child, who was shot to death by notorious Detroit killer cop Eugene Brown on Sept. 21, 1996. Brown killed three people without cause, and shot and wounded at least nine people.

Afterwards, Val joined with Lamar’s mother Arnetta Grable and her other children Aaron Grable and Arnetta Grable, Jr. in forming the Detroit Coalition against Police Brutality, which grew exponentially afterwards as police continued murdering Detroiters and others across the country. It preceded the founding of the national Black Lives Matter movement that swept the U.S. after the 2014 police murder of Michael Brown in Ferguson, MO.

Val was a jazz musician and motorcyclist as well as a stalwart fighter. He created numerous posters throughout the ten years of struggle for justice for Lamar, including one with a blow-up of the front page of the Michigan Citizen with the headline “SERIAL KILLER KOPS” about Brown. He organized tirelessly in the community, speaking at the Detroit City Council and Detroit Police Commission meetings. During that battle, he also lost “Dee Dee,” the love of his life, but he kept on fighting. 

Members of the Original Detroit Coalition against Police Brutality at the April 28, 2015 protest against Terrance Kellom’s killing by police inside his father’s house. They are (l to r), Arnetta Grable, Jr., Butch Carrington, Arnetta Grable, Sr., Herman Vallery (father of Lamar Grable), and Cornell Squires.

He was never without fliers about his beloved son, and always wore a button with Lamar’s photo on his cap. Lamar Grable lived with Val at his home on Canton for several years before his death. Lamar had left his father’s home the night of Sept. 21, 2016 to attend a Police Athletic League (PAL) event with a friend at a nearby church. As he was returning across a vacant lot on Field St., Eugene Brown and his partner Vicki Yost unleashed a barrage of bullets at him, striking him eight times in the back and chest. 

When the family’s civil suit finally came to trial years later, testimony elicited by Attorneys David Robinson and Melissa El demonstrated unquestionably that Brown and Yost shot Lamar thinking he was another man they were pursuing. Brown admitted on the stand that he “could have” shot Lamar three times in the chest as he lay on the ground, already wounded by gunfire to his back.

Val was sorely grieved by Arnetta Grable’s death Oct. 30, 2017. He said he spent many hours talking on the phone with her and he shared a friendly relationship with Aaron and Arnetta Jr. as well as other members of both their extended families. Val will be sorely missed by many, but his memory will live on in the continued battles for justice for Black and poor America.

Families display signs outside courthouse (l to r) Gabrielle and Dominique Harrison, Oct. 22 protester, Khalid Fareed, Roberto Guzman, unnamed, Gary of Oct. 22nd, Herman Vallery, Cornell Squires, unnamed, daughter of Taminko-Sanford-Tilmon at her left, Jermaine Tilmon, with grandson Omari.

Members of the Original Detroit Coalition against Police Brutality, including Herman Vallery (2nd from left) and Arnetta Grable (6th from left), outside Frank Murphy Hall to demand that Pros. Kym Worthy bring charges against Eugene Brown after the release of the “Shoulders Report” which recommended those charges. Worthy never did so.

Lamar Grable’s family and supporters flew this banner from the site of his murder on Field St. to downtown Detroit’s DPD and court HQ and back on Sept. 21, 2016.

Jackson College graduation ceremony at Parnall Correctional Facility. Jackson was one of many colleges in Michigan to offer Pell grants to prisoners under a federal pilot program. MDOC photo 

VOD staff writer Ricardo Ferrell

By Ricardo Ferrell

VOD Editorial

An out-of-control corrections budget continues to contribute to the practice of keeping those within the system locked-up longer than necessary. Ask unpopular questions such as: What are some of the driving factors associated with over-incarceration? Why does the State of Michigan think it’s making communities safer by arbitrarily denying parole to those who no longer pose any significant danger to public safety? How can the MDOC, specifically the Michigan Parole Board, reform their draconian practices?

Perhaps by returning to a prison system which promotes rehabilitation inclusive of educational opportunities for all prisoners – whether that looks like GED programming for lifers and those serving long indeterminate sentences, skilled trades, higher education thru Pell Grants, or allowing more colleges & universities like Calvin College, Grand Rapids Community College, Davenport College, Montcalm Community College, Olivet College, Kellogg College, Wayne Community College, Jackson Community College, Albion College, Delta College, Northern Michigan University, Lake Superior State University, Central Michigan University, Michigan State University, Wayne State University, University of Michigan, Eastern Michigan University, Grand Valley State University, and Ohio University to be expanded to more facilities which would provide opportunities for individuals to receive an education.

Studies have shown significant reductions in recidivism for those released who were afforded some educational opportunities during their incarceration. With acquiring some education the offender is placed in the more likely than not category to succeed after his or her release. Thus recidivism is reduced to right around 50 percent.

Therefore, it would seem that the Michigan Department of Corrections would be out front in the lead to better prepare those confined in correctional facilities to experience and benefit from what’s being currently offered by many of the College’s & Universities mentioned above. That is of course, if the MDOC wishes to get serious about reducing its prison population, its enormous budget, and contribute to making communities safer.

And, the question should be asked. What’s more important, saving money or saving people? Well, if you save people (offenders) then theoretically speaking you will save money, especially, with providing them with the tools they need such as: education, counseling, and a skilled trade to meet today’s demand in the workforce. Michigan not only can slash its enormously high corrections budget but also contribute to reducing recidivistic trends by focusing more on helping offenders succeed rather than inadvertently perpetuating their failure.

By leaving in place failed practices which have kept the corrections department behind other states that have actually taken a serious approach and initiative to reform their prison systems, Michigan will undoubtedly remain in virtually the same position and predicament we’ve seen for the last 40 years or more. Michigan and its Corrections Department have a perfect opportunity right now to become like its five lakes – Great!!!

Tax breaks and other incentives are given to companies and businesses that provide employment opportunities for returning citizens seeking to become a part of the workforce. Basic conditions of their parole require they obtain and maintain gainful employment. Considering the fact some 95 percet of those incarcerated will eventually be released; it seems both logically sound and economically feasible for the Michigan Department of Corrections to really put more of an emphasis on preparing those under its care with what’s essential for them to succeed and not become an alarming statistic due to not being given such a chance.

Common sense approaches demand a rational minded individual to do the right and practical thing like what’s being written here.  Michigan taxpayers cannot be expected to keep fueling a broken MDOC engine by helping to pay its outrageously high $2.2 billion wasteful budget year in and year out. More emphasis on investment and providing educational opportunities for prisoners instead of throwing and pouring billions of dollars into a broken prison system would be a smart start.

Incarcerated individuals have gone from convicted felons paying their debts to society to Prison Industrial Complex commodities, costing taxpayers over $80 billion annually here in the United States. No other country on the globe incarcerates more of its citizens than that of the U.S. The U.S. has five percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of its incarcerated population.

MICHIGAN COLLEGES LEADERS IN OFFERING PELL GRANTS TO PRISONERS

By Lindsay VanHulle  (excerpt)

Crain’s Detroit Business

August 6, 2016

Jackson College, Michigan

LANSING — Several years ago, as administrators at Jackson College prepared to offer courses to inmates at a state prison, they weren’t optimistic about success.

The community college in Jackson County had educated inmates for decades, but stopped in the mid-1990s when a federal law change prohibited incarcerated students from receiving Pell Grants. This time around, administrators thought the first class of 18 prisoners paying their own way would be the most academically disadvantaged students they’d ever taught. They planned remedial courses and leveled their expectations.

That inaugural class in 2012 eventually grew to about 400 prisoners today, partly due to additional grants. Those students would not only raise the bar, but shatter it, said Todd Butler, the college’s dean of arts and sciences. Inmates make up about 3 percent of Jackson College’s part-time student population, Butler said, but 46 percent of the part-time dean’s list. Their success rate on their first attempt at completing a developmental math class is near 100 percent, compared to 54 percent of on-campus students.

Butler said instructors attribute the difference in part to a noticeably strong work ethic among incarcerated students.

Mott Community College

“It’s that moment when we begin to pull (back) that curtain of our own imagination,” Butler said, “and say, ‘I didn’t realize that this level of potential existed.’?”

Jackson College has been a leader among higher education institutions in Michigan in teaching prisoners while they’re behind bars. Offering college classes in prison is one piece of a broader approach within state corrections departments nationally — and particularly in Michigan — to try to increase inmates’ employment opportunities post-release and lessen the chances they’ll get locked up again.

The college is one of three in Michigan, and more than 60 across the country, to be chosen to participate in a U.S. Department of Education pilot program that will waive restrictions on federal Pell Grants for prisoners in order to find out whether more prisoners will pursue education if they have financial assistance. Jackson College was slotted for 1,305 Pell Grants, more than any other selected college or university in the nation, according to the department.

Delta College

Mott Community College in Flint and Delta College near Bay City also were chosen to participate.

Michigan is second only to Texas in the total number of Pell Grants received, at 1,475. The three schools will teach students at a number of state prisons, including the Detroit Re-entry Center on Ryan Road and Macomb Correctional Facility in New Haven, according to the federal government.

VOD Editor’s Note: Why don’t Michigan’s top universities like Wayne State, UofDMercy, Grand Valley State, and others located in cities with high incarceration rates, request these grants for prisoners? Instead, county prosecutors are focused on keeping 247 of the state’s juvenile lifers behind bars until they die, in violation of two U.S. Supreme Court rulings, Miller v. Alabama, and Montgomery v. Louisiana.

           LINK TO RESERVE A SEAT IS AT http://www.michiganppc.org

For FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF THE POOR PEOPLES’ CAMPAIGN, go to http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Fundamental-principles-of-the-Poor-Peoples-Campaign.pdf

Kansas City MO Poor People’s Rally

Police occupy the PGA, prevent march

Police murdering, molesting, and framing up Black citizens

Berrien County prosecutor Sepic has recommended that all 100 of the county’s “juvenile lifers” be re-sentenced to LWOP, violating U.S. Supreme Court decisions

Juvenile Lifers for Justice leader Efren Paredes, Jr. of Benton Harbor fights back

By Diane Bukowski

Including special video presentation by Mac Speaking (Leona McElvene)

 May 30, 2018

 Benton Harbor—Rev. Edward Pinkney, home from two and one half years in prison, and supporters from Chicago, New York, and Columbus, Ohio joined with the people of Benton Harbor Sat. May 26 to celebrate the Michigan Supreme Court’s reversal of Pinkney’s fraudulent conviction May 1. Standing on the steps of the Benton Harbor City Hall, they chanted “FIGHT BACK” against the corporate takeover of their city by Whirlpool, the racist police state and courts, the destruction of the city’s public education system, and the city’s 49.2 percent poverty rate.

(See Michigan Supreme Court opinion exonerating Pinkney at: http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Pinkney-supreme-court-victory.pdf.)

Many youth attended the rally May 26, an increase from numbers at earlier demonstrations.

The rally was held as hundreds of wealthy golfers and fans, 99 percent white, descended on this 86 percent Black town to watch the 77^th Senior PGA Tour held at the luxurious Harbor Shores Jack Nicklaus golf course, which abuts the city’s gorgeous Lake Michigan beaches off Jean Klock Park. The park is publicly-owned land, but Whirlpool and its subsidiary Kitchen Aid have claimed it and the surrounding areas for the golf course and multi-million dollar housing development.

“OCCUPY THE PGA,” the rally theme, became “police occupy the PGA,” as squadrons of Benton Harbor and Berrien County police turned marchers back from any downtown outlet approaching the golf course. “Parking for the PGA” signs were posted everywhere as travelers entered, even in the poorest stretches of this state’s poorest city.

Whirlpool long ago closed its plants in Benton Harbor, depriving residents of their main source of jobs, and then seized publicly-owned assets, with the help first of the state’s Emergency Manager law, then with the continued collaboration of “elected” officials. Pinkney was targeted as he led a campaign to recall the mayor. Prosecutors produced no evidence that he had altered several dates on a recall petition, but an all-white jury convicted him anyway. He was sentenced to 2.5 to 10 years in prison, but was released after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that he had violated no law.

Speakers at the rally included family members of two young men murdered by Berrien County police in 2016, Martell Walker-Hadley, 26, and Darius Wimberly, 28.

Walker-Hadley’s mother LaDona Walker-Hadley addressed the crowd demanding justice for her son, who died Feb. 27, 2016 at the age of 26 in the Benton Harbor jail. Police alleged the father of a two-year-old son hung himself after he was arrested for “fleeing and eluding” police, and sentenced to one to two years in prison. But the family insists that Martell was murdered. 

His mother noted that a second autopsy showed he had blunt force trauma to his chest in addition to the presence of suspicious chemicals in his system, not consistent with the official autopsy results of “asphyxiation. 

They have established a GoFundMe page for Martell at https://www.gofundme.com/dvrvtmhw.

Darius Lamar “Karate” Wimberly, 28, was killed Oct. 18, 2016 by Benton Harbor police, who alleged he fired at them, on Pavone St., only a block away from the site where Benton Harbor youth rose up against police killings in 2003, carrying on a rebellion for three days. 

Berrien County Prosecutor Michael Sepic cleared the cop who killed Wimberly. Sepic also prosecuted Rev. Pinkney and has recommended that all 100 of Berrien County’s “juvenile lifers” be re-sentenced to life without parole. Sepic and most other county prosecutors in Michigan are thus in violation of two Supreme Court rulings outlawing juvenile life without parole as unconstitutional. 

Martell Walker-Hadley

Darius ‘Karate” Wimberly

Wimberly’s mother spoke at the rally, saying neighborhood residents wanted to rise up again after police killed her son, but that she asked them not to do so because police would kill others. She said although police claimed Wimberly fired two guns at them, there was no gunshot residue on his hands.

A friend of his, Canvas Smith, earlier told Benton Harbor’s TV 16, “This was really brutal, like really, because if it was that bad, no officer got shot…nobody’s hurt. You just got a dead body. I do know the whole investigation sounds like a load of crap. If he was trying to shoot and kill somebody, why was he the only one that got shot? No other officer was hurt. Haven’t said anything about there was a bullet hole in the car anything. Just that he’s dead out on the street and they didn’t even have the decency to call the fire department or anyone to wash his blood up. His family had to get out there and wash the blood up. They treated it like it was nothing.”

Rev. Pinkney addressed the ongoing police war against the people in Benton Harbor, including drug frame-ups of 300 men and molestations of 20 women in the city, as seen below.

A speaker from Chicago said that so-called “gang” members are trying to come together there in order to stop killing each other and direct their anger at the forces that are impoverishing Black and Latin neighborhoods in Chicago and throughout the country.

The crowd then began a silent march led by a coffin symbolizing the death of Benton Harbor, but were immediately turned back by Berrien County and Benton Harbor police at every access point that would have led to the golf course. In 2012, Pinkney led the march through the city’s streets all the way to the gates of Harbor Shores and the golf course.

BELOW: SPECIAL VIDEO PRESENTATION BY MAC SPEAKING.

Video recorded on Saturday, May 26, 2018 during the “Occupy The PGA – Mass Demonstration: To Save Our Children” Rally and Silent Walk event, featuring Rev. Edward Pinkney (Civil Rights Leader, former Michigan Political Prisoner), Minister Kuhgangah Ashe’ (Human Rights Activist, United Nations), David L. Lowery, Jr. (Founder, Living and Driving While Black Foundation, Inc.), LaDonna Walker (Mother of the late Martell Walker Hadley), Ayanna Johnson (Mother of the late Darius L. Wimberly aka “Karate”), Ralph Poynter (Civil Rights Activist, and Widower of the late Attorney Lynn Stewart), George Lyons (Attorney at Law), Juanita Henry (Commissioner, Benton Harbor, MI); and others at Benton Harbor City Hall located in Benton Harbor, MI.

Below, Efren Paredes, Jr., one of the county’s juvenile lifers who is a leader of Juvenile Lifers for Justice and was arrested in Benton Harbor at the age of 15, recounts his recent experience at Oaks Correctional Facility.

MDOC LIBRARIAN CITES “CUSTODY AND SECURITY CONCERNS” TO DENY LIBRARY ACCESS 

By Efren Paredes, Jr., Juvenile Lifer from Benton Harbor

Efren Paredes Jr. with family

The afternoon of 5/15/18 I was conducting legal research in the law library at the Oaks Correctional Facility (ECF). A short time after my arrival Librarian Leah Berean called me to a law clerk desk as she stood behind it. When I approached the desk she proceeded to tell me she was denying the request for additional legal research time I submitted the previous day. She remarked in a rude and condescending manner, “You were already given an additional two-hour session each week. It’s my discretion and you’re not getting any more time!”

When I asked if she could provide her decision to me in writing so I could file a grievance in response to her denial she became irate and snarled, “No, you can write it down if you want to!” She then walked away from the desk and returned to her office, offering me no explanation for her decision. Approximately 25 minutes later Berean returned to the law clerk desk bringing along with her my request for additional time which now included a handwritten response she signed. Her response read in relevant part, “Due to custody and security concerns this is the only amount of additional time the library can give you.”

OP ECF 05.03.115 “Use of Law Library by General Population Prisoners,” authorizes librarians to grant additional time to prisoners to conduct legal research who are within 60 days of a verified court deadline. I provided a court order to the librarian verifying that I have a pending court hearing scheduled within that timeframe.

The policy also states, “The Department of Corrections recognizes the constitutional right to access to the courts. Therefore, the Oaks Correctional Facility shall not prohibit, restrict or deny prisoners in the general population access to the main law library wherein prisoners can use an Electronic Law Library (ELL) and other legal research documents for legal research purposes related to challenging a prisoner’s conviction or conditions of confinement.”

In my request for additional research time I stated that a great deal of my legal research involves reading dozens of peer-reviewed law journal articles regarding adolescent development, fMRI brain imaging studies, and other mitigating factors related to my upcoming resentencing hearing. There are hundreds of these articles I need to review in a short span of time which is an impossible undertaking given the time I am currently authorized to conduct legal research in the law library.

I pointed out that I have paid to have several of the peer-reviewed journal articles photocopied so I can read them in my cell but cannot afford to have them all reproduced. This was the reason I was requesting additional legal research time. Though I was authorized to receive two additional hours a week it will be insufficient to conduct all the necessary research before my next scheduled court hearing. The articles I need to research frequently exceed 30 pages in length (sometimes up to 70 pages) and I am often unable to read an entire article during a single two-hour law library session and take the necessary handwritten notes which itself is a time-consuming task.

I even offered to provide her evidence of the many pages of notes I have already taken from the articles I read each week. I am currently being limited to six hours of legal research per week to prepare for arguably the most important court hearing of my life. [Efren is referring to the “mitigation hearing” he and others who face prosecutor’s revived recommendations for LWOP].

My request for additional legal research time was for two additional hours during regularly scheduled hours on the weekend which would not have prevented other prisoners from using any of the available computers. The law library has 15 computers available for prisoners to conduct legal research with which provide access to LexisNexis, a legal research portal. Less than a third of the computers are used at any given time when Level II prisoners are permitted to use them.

The notion that allowing a prisoner to use one of the idle computers for legal research triggers a “custody and security concern” is delusional and absurd. More than double the number of Level IV custody prisoners use the law library computers than the number of Level II lower custody prisoners for legal research each day during their scheduled time and it is not deemed a “custody and security concern” by custody staff or the Warden. Since Berean’s reasoning for her denial is obviously false and baseless it begs the question: what was her true motive?

Later that day after speaking to Berean I showed two custody staff members her response to my request for additional legal research time. When I asked the staff members if they felt my request was a “custody and security concern” they shook their heads and laughed. One replied, “No. What does she know about custody and security, she just started working here. Plus, people hardly even use the law library and there are always computers open to use.” The other responded, “She sounds ridiculous. When a prisoner is doing legal research and trying to go home at least he’s doing something constructive and isn’t on the yard bothering anyone or getting into trouble. You should write a grievance.”

Berean’s distorted reasoning for denying my request to be granted additional legal research time is arbitrary and a clear abuse of authority. It is divorced from reality, illogical, and provides a snapshot into what she thinks about prisoners using the law library to conduct legal research. It also demonstrates she may be ill-equipped with the temperament, social skills, or decision-making capacity to properly fulfill her job duties.

Warden Lester Parish at right.

Even other staff members agreed that her decision to deny me additional research time was irrational. Her actions stain the image of the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) and interfere with prisoners’ rehabilitation. When MDOC staff members subvert policy and devalue prisoners’ lives they send a chilling message that their future is devoid of meaning. There is little wonder why prisoners often return to society frustrated, demoralized, and battling anxiety having been forced to endure the exhausting experience of repeated instances of staff engaging in microaggressions and abusing their power.

Since his recent arrival at ECF Warden Lester Parish has laudably begun transforming the culture of the prison from its shameful past of mismanagement and hostility toward the prisoners in its care to a culture that promotes the MDOC’s vision and values policy. Staff members like Berean threaten to destabilize this progress. Her actions are evidence of a belief that prisons should be monuments to punishment and exclusion which contravene the Warden’s proactive efforts.

This episode is only one among the many examples of unfortunate challenges prisoners are forced to deal with as they navigate the minefield of staff abusing their power in prison daily life. Fabricating unreasonable excuses to obstruct a prisoner’s access to the courts rises to the level of a civil rights violation. Sadly it is not the first time a prisoner has been compelled to challenge similar injustices in federal courts.

There is a long history of prisoners litigating against MDOC staff members for their refusal to recognize fundamental constitutional rights. In a civil suit recently filed by a prisoner challenging a violation of his constitutional rights by an MDOC employee a federal judge ruled that MDOC staff members are not impervious to civil litigation because they simply claim immunity. The court added that staff members are not able to enrobe themselves in an absolute shield against legal action brought against them for violating constitutionally protected conduct.

Unfortunately it is taxpayers who keep bearing the burden of paying the costs associated with litigation resulting from the obstinate behavior of prison staff members who are allowed to engage in unconstitutional behavior. The moment taxpayers refuse to continue paying for their misdeeds it will change their behavior. When state employees begin paying their own legal fees to defend themselves for offending protected constitutional rights they will become less impetuous to entertain their darker impulses. It is a prospect taxpayers should consider exploring.

(Efren Paredes, Jr. is a Michigan prisoner, social justice activist, and blogger who is a frequent guest on the “Elena Herrada Show” on Detroit Superstation AM 910. You can learn more about Efren at www.4Efren.blogspot.com and www.fb.com/Free.Efren.)