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

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.)

Robert McCoy, Louisiana death-row prisoner

“One of 10 death sentences in Louisiana since 2000 that have been tainted with the same flaw”

“Decision to maintain one’s innocence falls within the category of decisions reserved for the defendant” — USSC

VOD: Some have estimated conservatively that at least 20 percent of Michigan’s 343 juvenile lifers are innocent. Many were represented by court-appointed attorneys, some of whom argued they were guilty, because their families could not afford paid counsel. They were falsely convicted after corrupt police and forensic testimony.

County prosecutors have recommended renewed life without parole sentences for at least 247 of them, although the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2012 and 2016 that mandatory juvenile life without parole is retroactively unconstitutional, and that “only the rarest child” should die in prison.  

Unfortunately, many current court-appointed attorneys,  have refused to argue innocence claims, saying that the re-sentencings do not allow for such arguments. The McCoy v. Louisiana case strongly makes the point that a lawyer is OBLIGATED to argue innocence if that is what the client wishes.

USSC Justices who voted to overturn McCoy conviction are shown in color. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsbury wrote the majority opinion.

Amy Howe Independent Contractor and Reporter

Opinion analysis:

Posted Mon, May 14th, 2018 11:42 am

 [NOTE: This post was updated with additional analysis at 4:18 p.m.]

This morning the Supreme Court overturned a Louisiana inmate’s death sentence because the inmate’s lawyer – hoping to save his client’s life – had told the jury that the inmate was guilty, even though the inmate had expressly objected to that strategy. The 6-3 ruling reiterated that the Constitution gives a criminal defendant the fundamental right to make decisions about his defense and therefore bars a defense lawyer from going against his client’s instructions, even when the lawyer’s defense strategy might seem perfectly reasonable.

Attorney Larry English

The decision came in the case of Robert McCoy, who in 2011 was on trial for the shooting deaths of his estranged wife’s son, mother and stepfather. McCoy clashed with his public defenders, so his parents hired a private attorney, Larry English, to represent him. McCoy insisted that he was innocent and was being framed in retaliation for revealing that local police were involved in a drug ring, but English believed that the evidence against his client was “overwhelming.”

So English first encouraged McCoy to plead guilty in exchange for a life sentence; as McCoy’s trial approached, English told McCoy that he planned to tell the jury that McCoy had committed all three murders, in the hope that doing so would convince the jury to sentence McCoy to life in prison, rather than death. McCoy was furious, but English went ahead with his plan, telling the jury that McCoy was “crazy” and “lives in a fantasy world.”

English’s strategy failed: The jury found McCoy guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced him to death. State courts in Louisiana upheld McCoy’s conviction and death sentence, rejecting his argument that English’s decision to admit McCoy’s guilt, despite McCoy’s objections, violated the Constitution. Today the Supreme Court, in a relatively brief (13-page) decision by Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, ordered the Louisiana courts to give McCoy a new trial. (See full ruling at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/McCoy-v-Louisiana.pdf .)

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsbury wrote the McCoy opinion.

The majority acknowledged that English found himself “in a difficult position: he had an unruly client and faced a strong government case.” And it was reasonable for him to believe that he should try to avoid a death sentence for McCoy. But, the majority explained, even when a defendant is represented by an attorney, he does not give up all control over his case to the attorney.

A criminal defendant’s lawyer may be responsible for what the court described as “trial management” – for example, what evidence to object to and what arguments to pursue – but the defendant himself has the sole right to make some decisions, such as whether to plead guilty or to waive the right to a jury trial. The decision to maintain one’s innocence, the court reasoned, falls within the category of decisions reserved for the defendant: If the defendant tells his attorney that “the objective of ‘his defence’ is to maintain innocence of the charged criminal acts,” the court continued, the attorney must follow that instruction and cannot “override it by conceding guilt.”

This means, the majority concluded, that once English knew that McCoy objected to his proposed strategy of admitting McCoy’s guilt to the jury, it was not English’s place to override McCoy’s objection.

Prof. Rory Little

The majority went on to rule that this violation of McCoy’s rights falls within the category of errors known as “structural” – violations that, as criminal law expert Rory Little has explained, “are so fundamental and difficult to quantify” that a defendant does not need to show that they changed the outcome of a trial. The justices explained that, in McCoy’s case, English’s insistence on conceding McCoy’s guilt even after McCoy had objected blocked McCoy’s “right to make the fundamental choices about his own defense.”

Moreover, they added, “the effects of the admission would be immeasurable, because a jury would almost certainly be swayed by a lawyer’s concession of his client’s guilt.” Therefore, the majority concluded, McCoy is entitled to a new trial, without having to show that he was harmed by English’s strategy.

One of McCoy’s attorneys hailed today’s decision, declaring that, although “rare in the rest of the country, what happened to Mr. McCoy was a part of Louisiana’s broken criminal justice system that fails to respect individual human dignity. Mr. McCoy’s was one of ten death sentences imposed in Louisiana since 2000 that have been tainted with the same flaw.”

Louisiana protest vs. state injustice system; Louisiana and Michigan have been called the two worst states in the U.S. regarding their treatment of juvenile lifers.

Justice Samuel Alito dissented, in an 11-page opinion that was joined by Justices Clarence Thomas and Neil Gorsuch; he would have left the Louisiana Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of the state (and, by extension, McCoy’s death sentence) in place. Alito maintained that the majority had gotten the issue at the heart of the cases wrong: English had not argued that McCoy was guilty of first-degree murder, but had instead told the jurors that although McCoy had killed the three victims, he was not guilty of first-degree murder because he hadn’t intended to kill them, as first-degree murder convictions require.

But in any event, Alito continued, the right described in the court’s opinion today “is like a rare plant that blooms every decade or so”: Among other things, it is only likely to surface in capital cases in which defendants are acting irrationally by contesting their guilt despite overwhelming evidence, and in which lawyers continue to represent those defendants even though they cannot agree with their clients on their strategy. “In short,” Alito concluded, “the right that the Court now discovers is likely to appear only rarely, and because the present case is so unique it is hard to see how it meets our stated criteria for granting review.”

This post was also published at Howe on the Court.

Related:

http://www.scotusblog.com/2018/05/opinion-analysis-court-rules-for-death-row-inmate-whose-lawyer-conceded-guilt/   

https://www.law.com/nationallawjournal/sites/nationallawjournal/2018/01/09/safeguarding-a-defendants-core-right-to-maintain-his-innocence/ 

http://louisianajusticeinstitute.blogspot.com/2013/02/a-child-on-death-row-story-of-shareef.html 

https://newsone.com/3799904/supreme-court-ruling-death-row-robert-mccoy/ 

https://www.outsidethebeltway.com/supreme-court-reaffirms-defendants-right-to-decide-whether-or-not-to-plead-guilty/

Rev. Edward Pinkney (left center with hat) and wife Dorothy Pinkney (behind woman in red jacket) with supporters after Michigan Supreme Court hearing. Photo: Joseph Peery

 MICHIGAN SUPREME COURT OVERTURNS REV. PINKNEY CONVICTION

DEMONSTRATE IN BENTON HARBOR MAY 26, 2018, 11 A.M.

FREE MICHIGAN’S JUVENILE LIFERS!

By the People’s Tribune Editorial Board

May, 2018 

Below: Glen Ford of the Black Agenda Report interviews Rev. Pinkney

In a victory for the people in the fight against naked corporate power and defending democracy, the Michigan Supreme Court has ruled 6-0 that Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan, was improperly charged with five felony counts of election forgery in 2014 by the Berrien County prosecutor, that he was improperly tried and sentenced by the Berrien County Circuit Court, and improperly served 30 months in prison as a result.

(See complete MSC ruling at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Pinkney-supreme-court-victory.pdf. It remands Pinkney’s case to the trial court in Berrien County to comply with its orders to exonerate and free Rev. Pinkney. Rev. Pinkney said the trial court had 21 days to comply.)

Rev. Edward Pinkney speaks out against Whirlpool’s corporate takeover of Benton Harbor, and Snyder’s Emergency Manager law May 26, 2012.

In overturning Pinkney’s conviction, the Michigan Supreme Court ruled that the statute he was sentenced for supposedly violating did not create any substantive criminal offense at all, but was merely a sentencing provision for other election forgery offenses which Rev. Pinkney was not charged with. The state Supreme Court ruling marked a rebuke of the Michigan Court of Appeals, which had ruled against Pinkney. 

The People’s Tribune congratulates Rev. Pinkney, the people of Benton Harbor and his supporters across the country on this victory. Rev. Pinkney has been a leader of the struggle against the corporate dictatorship in Benton Harbor and Michigan for many years.

The Whirlpool Corporation dominates Benton Harbor, and Pinkney has been in the forefront of the fight against Whirlpool’s efforts to take over the Lake Michigan beachfront property and public parks in Benton Harbor for private profit.

He has also defended democracy in the fight against the dictatorial emergency manager system imposed by the state in Benton Harbor and elsewhere in Michigan. The emergency manager system opens up cherished public assets such as land and even water to be handed over to the corporations. Rev. Pinkney continues to fight police repression in Benton Harbor, and he helps local people have their rights respected in court.

 The assault on democracy in Benton Harbor

Rev. Pinkney, with wife Dorothy in front, is supported in his Detroit court battle to retain leadership of Benton Harbor NAACP.

When Rev. Pinkney stood up for Benton Harbor, corporate power used the race card to try and shut him up and to destroy democracy in the town. Benton Harbor, a poor Black community, could be easily isolated. An all-white jury from affluent towns was selected to judge Pinkney; jurists had not lived under the oppression of emergency management where corporate officials replace elected officials.  

During the trial, the prosecution admitted there was no physical evidence linking Rev. Pinkney to the crime they were charging him with. And yet the prosecution repeatedly introduced examples of Rev. Pinkney exercising his First Amendment right to free speech, political activities and community activism as evidence he committed the crime.

The corporations thus set the stage to destroy democracy in all of Michigan, and then throughout the United States. The race question has historically been used by the powerful in America to divide and conquer the working class. Today, racial division is one of the main weapons being used to impose fascism on all of us. To win this war we must take this historic weapon of race away from the enemy, and fight for the political as well as economic rights of all Americans. 

Rev. Pinkney (r) speaks at first mass rally in Detroit against what became Public Act 4, the emergency manager law. Photo: Dale Rick

The attack on democracy and Rev. Pinkney’s conviction symbolizes an entire process under way in America. The once stable working class community of Benton Harbor has been devastated by automation and globalization. Today, the former industrial workers have become the marginally or permanently unemployed, and the open rule of corporate power is arising to oppose their struggle. The governing bodies that once controlled us by buying up the people’s leaders now turn to intimidation and brute force. The corporate attack launched on Benton Harbor is now being repeated in one form or another across Michigan and the country.

 Benton Harbor shows that the corporations have continued to escalate their control over the government. That is the foundation of American fascism. They see the little democracy that still remains in our country as an obstacle to their rule. They are determined to destroy it before the deteriorating economic conditions kick the people awake.

Rev. Pinkney asks that everyone continue the boycott of Whirlpool, as well as the Harbor Shores development, and the Sr. PGA held at its golf course, all backed by Whirlpool.

A major battle has been won, but the war is not over. Fascism consolidates down below—by gaining victory after small victory until it has the base for the “important” struggles. This is why it is so important that the revolutionary and democratic forces learn to confront fascist, corporate power at every turn.

From time to time an attack against democracy is so blatant that it symbolizes the entire process. This is the importance of the victory in Benton Harbor. The only way we’re going to ultimately achieve democracy is if the people control the necessities of life. True democracy is the rule of the people. People can’t rule if they’re living in the streets or working two jobs just to survive. If you control the necessaries of life, you are a free person. There’s only one solution. We have to build a huge movement to take over the corporations and run them in the interest of humanity. 

The defense of our leaders is critical to building such a movement. The case of Rev. Pinkney and Benton Harbor shows the importance of the American people taking a stand before it is too late. People rallied in support of Rev. Pinkney because of the injustice and also because he exhibited the characteristics of a new kind of leader, one that cannot be bought off or side tracked from a consistent fight for the needs of the people. When leaders like Rev. Pinkney come under attack, we must defend them. A movement that does not defend its leaders cannot grow. 

The People’s Tribune has covered this fight from the beginning. We urge our readers to take this newspaper out and help awaken America. Learn more about the history of the Benton Harbor struggle by ordering copies of the People’s Tribune pamphlet Benton Harbor, MI: Fighting the Corporate Dictatorship in America’s Rust Belt. To order, email info@peoplestribune.org or call 800-691-6888. A $4 donation is suggested for each pamphlet. 

Rev. Pinkney is available to speak. To schedule him as a speaker, contact: Speakers for a New America at 800-691-6888 or email info@speakersforanewamerica.com/

 We encourage reproduction of this article so long as you credit the source.
Copyright © 2018 People’s Tribune. Visit us at http://peoplestribune.org  

VOD: We spoke briefly with Rev. Pinkney May 21, asking him about 40,000 Michigan prisoners still left behind in the state’s concentration camps. Experts say at least 30 percent are innocent, as in the case of Charles Lewis, and another 50 percent did not get fair trials. At least 70 percent are people of color.

Efren Paredes, Jr.

Charles K.K. Lewis

Still languishing in prison are 247 Michigan juvenile lifers, out of 363, in violation of two U.S. Supreme Court decisions in Miller v. Alabama (2012) and Montgomery v. Louisiana (2016). These rulings held that juvenile life without parole is unconstitutional, “cruel and unusual” punishment, and that “only the rarest” child should be sentenced to die in prison.

Among them is Efren Paredes, Jr., one of Berrien County’s 100 juvenile lifers. Berrien County Prosecutor Eric Sepic, who also prosecuted Pinkney, has recommended that all 100 of the County’s juvenile lifers be re-sentenced to die in prison.

Federal troops must be sent to Michigan to enforce the U.S. Supreme Court decisions and liberate Michigan’s child lifers, just as they were sent to Southern schools to enforce Brown v. the Board of Education.

Sign the petition for Efren Paredes, Jr. at https://www.change.org/p/efrenuncaged-gmail-com-efren-paredes-jr-resentencing-hearing-support-letter

Previous VOD stories:

GIVE 67-YEAR-OLD REV. EDWARD PINKNEY A PRESIDENTIAL PARDON

A VISIT WITH MICHIGAN POLITICAL PRISONER REV. EDWARD PINKNEY

FIGHT TO FREE REV. EDWARD PINKNEY FROM PRISON, CONVICTED BY ALL-WHITE JURY WITH NO EVIDENCE

REV PINKNEY NOW IN MARQUETTE PRISON; TRIAL MOTIONS HEARING TUES. FEB. 24, 1 PM, ST. JOSEPH, MI

REV. PINKNEY DEFENSE CAMPAIGN BUILDS; WIFE SAYS THEY REMAIN STRONG DESPITE RACIST IMPRISONMENT

REV. PINKNEY GETS 2.5-10 YRS. AS COPS WILSON, PANTALEO WALK ON MIKE BROWN, ERIC GARNER MURDERS

REV. PINKNEY: LYNCH MOB MENTALITY IN ST. JOSEPH AS HE AWAITS SENTENCING DEC. 15

ALL WHITE JURY CONVICTS REV. PINKNEY OF 5 FELONY COUNTS–PROSECUTOR WANTS LIFE SENTENCE

FREE REV. PINKNEY! BENTON HARBOR FRAME-UP TRIAL TARGETS NATIONALLY-KNOWN FREEDOM FIGHTER!

DROP THE CHARGES AGAINST REV. EDWARD PINKNEY OF BENTON HARBOR; TRIAL SET FOR JULY 21

BENTON HARBOR: REV. PINKNEY TO FACE TRIAL ON FELONY CHARGES JULY 21 DESPITE NO EVIDENCE

REV. PINKNEY ‘IN THE MOUTH OF THE BEAST’ IN BENTON HARBOR

DISMISS ALL CHARGES AGAINST REV. PINKNEY; COURT FRI. MAY 30! SAVE BENTON HARBOR! BOYCOTT WHIRLPOOL!

REV. EDWARD PINKNEY, MARCUS MUHAMMAD BATTLE WHIRLPOOL FOR BENTON HARBOR; PINKNEY COURT HEARING MAY 30

FREE REV. EDWARD PINKNEY! RECALL WHIRLPOOL STOOGE, BENTON HARBOR MAYOR JAMES HIGHTOWER

Site of 2004 “Black Party” where Jamal Segars was killed; area was filled with pedestrians and bumper-to-bumper traffic.

Evidentiary hearing in case against Thelonious Searcy proceeds May 15 

Invalid jury instructions re: ballistics  

Testimony that police fired guns, contradicting officers’ reports at trial 

Letter from Corp. Counsel re: second fatality at the scene never investigated

 By Diane Bukowski

 May 16, 2018

Update April 20, 2021: DeAnthony Witcher, referenced in stories on Thelonious Searcy case, stated in a phone call to VOD Editor Diane Bukowski that he is NOT a police  informant and denies all allegations made against him in this and subsequent stories on the Thelonious Searcy case.

Thelonious Searcy (r, seated) listens as his attorney Michael Dezsi plays Vincent Smothers’ confession into the record March 19. Smothers is on stand with head bowed.

DETROIT – In addition to Vincent Smothers’ confession on the stand to the murder of Jamal Segars during a Sept. 4, 2004 “Black Party” outside Detroit City Airport, other stunning discrepancies in the prosecution’s case at trial against Thelonious Searcy surfaced during the fourth part of his evidentiary hearing May 15.

Searcy’s defense attorney Michael Dezsi exposed the following key factors during examination of prosecution and police department witnesses, which conformed with Smothers’ account on March 19:

• Confirmation of the presence of a 9 mm shell casing at the scene, not noted at trial;
• Invalid jury instructions given at trial that the bullets found in Segars’ body were too deformed for identification;
• Confirmation that two .40 caliber bullets were obtained from Segars’ chest and neck by the medical examiner;
• Witness testimony that police fired their guns at a “a driver,” not raised at trial, contradicting officers’ trial testimony that did not fire their weapons;
• A law department memo referencing another fatality at the scene, in a burgundy Marauder which sped off to an unknown location after colliding with a police car;
• A police report confirming the collision, not raised at trial or further investigated by DPD.
• Witness confirmation of the collision and police gunfire.

Assistant Prosecutor Timothy Chambers asked Sgt. Patricia Little, a “prosecuting detective” from the Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office, about the bullet from a sealed envelope examined in her presence at the Michigan State Police crime lab during an inspection Judge Timothy Kenny ordered earlier.

AP Timothy Chambers questions Pros. Det. Patricia Little May 15

“The tag on the envelope said it was bullet 04-08114, removed from the deceased Jamal Segars by Drs. Schmidt and Gupta,” Little read. “The date of the autopsy was Sept. 6, 2004, and it was removed from [Segars] chest.”

She also testified to the medical examiner’s discovery of a second bullet in Segars’ neck. Both were later identified as .40 caliber bullets.

On cross-exam, Dezsi presented a note from trial judge Timothy Kenny responding to  a trial jury inquiry about what caliber bullet(s) were found in Segars’ body.

“Now with regard to your first question about what type of caliber of bullet was found in the deceased. After speaking with the attorneys, they have agreed to my sharing with you that the bullets recovered from the deceased were too deformed to identify what gun they came from or what caliber bullet they were.”

Dezsi asked Little, “Do you agree that the bullet you brought here today has since been identified and labeled as a .40 cal bullet?  Would you agree that telling the jury we don’t know presents a discrepancy from what we see?”

After Chambers’ objection, Little did not respond.

Smothers testified March 19 that he killed Segars with multiple shots using a .40 caliber gun, and that his accomplice Jeffery Daniels approached Segars’ silver Corvette from the passenger side with a .45 caliber gun, but fired it into the air. An investigator’s report from the scene corroborates that:

PAGE FROM INVESTIGATOR’S REPORT AT SCENE SAYS CASING ON REAR OF CORVETTE WAS 40 CAL., NOTES NUMEROUS .45 CAL. CASINGS IN PARKING LOT WHERE POLICE CAR/MARAUDER COLLISION TOOK PLACE.

Also during cross examination, Little admitted to Dezsi that a white tag identifying a 9 mm casing inside an envelope was generated when she picked up evidence from the police property office “a couple of months ago.” She agreed that a 9 mm shell casing was included on a property room inventory report Sept. 16, 2004.

“Does that lead you to believe that as far back as Sept. 16. 2004, somebody had logged in a 9 mm casing, although you testified the last time you thought it was a data entry error?” Dezsi asked Little. “Did this make you believe there was evidence that a 9 mm casing was found at the scene?”

Officer in Charge Sgt. William Anderson on stand May 15, 2018

Little responded in the affirmative.

Sgt. William Anderson, who was working in the Homicide Unit at the time of the Segars killing, and became the Chief Investigative Officer in the case, took the stand next.

“On the night of the shooting I was one of the investigators at the scene,” Anderson told Chambers.  “Regarding Prosecutor’s Exhibit 16, it is a Detroit interoffice memo addressed to me from Kathy Christian Asst. Corp. Counsel. I don’t recall getting it. It does make reference to the case number [in the Segars homicide] 04-289.”

Anderson read the memo, shown below, into the record. Atty. Christian is deceased and was not available to testify.

“It does not sound like the scene I responded to,” Anderson said. “We were there for quite some time. I never saw a dead woman there. I have no idea of what Kathy Christian was talking about.”

Anderson said the DPD keeps books with yearly lists of homicides. He said each listing has a number, name of complainant [deceased], location of crime, fatal or non-fatal, cause of death, homicide file number, and detectives assigned. 

On cross, Dezsi asked him, “Does this book just include Detroit –not Macomb, Oakland, or Washtenaw County?”

Anderson responded in the affirmative.

2004 Mercury Marauder

Dezsi told VOD after the hearing that he was raising the possibility that the burgundy Marauder driver referred to in the memo may have taken the victim to a hospital outside of Detroit if he had a criminal record, and the fatality would not have appeared in the Detroit journal.

Dezsi then introduced into evidence a police report regarding a police car collision with the burgundy Marauder.

The report indicated that as the “crew was approaching a burgundy Mercury Marauder, it sped up, hit the police car, and sped away.”

“Some of your officers in an unmarked car were involved in a collision with another car, which is what the letter from Kathy Christian says to you,” Dezsi said to Anderson, who reiterated that he didn’t recall seeing that letter.

“You were the officer in charge,” Dezsi reminded Anderson. “You sat through most of the trial, and were present for witness interviews leading up to the trial. You don’t remember Kathy Christian’s letter that someone else was fatally shot in the car that struck the police car?”

Lt. Roy McCalister Jr. is now a Detroit City Council member.

Dezsi noted a handwritten notation on the letter “TT—talked to Roy about getting it on TV—can the tapes be released,” and a note at the bottom dated Oct. 8, 2004 that “we will not release due to the ongoing investigation.”

Anderson said handwritten initials on the bottom of the note belonged to Lt. Roy McAlister and Lt. Ventavogel, but that there were no notes from him.

“Do you see anywhere where [those officers] advised Ms. Christian that her statement was not correct, anything like that,” Dezsi asked. “No notation challenging or questioning Ms. Christian’s remark that there was a second fatality at the crime scene?”

Anderson responded in the negative.

“ I was interviewing people all through the scene; I spent several hours there,” Anderson said. “Had there been another shooting, I would have been concerned about the officers’ well-being.  I don’t know if another incident occurred much earlier or much later. While we were there, there was nothing referenced in the [letter.]”

Deszi then introduced a written statement by witness Latasha Boatwright, which he said she also testified to at Searcy’s preliminary exam.

“She said the police started shooting at the driver,” Dezsi said. “Do you have any recollection of the fact that the police were shooting at the car that left the scene? They weren’t shooting at the decedent [Segars].  What do you interpret her statement to say?”

Jamal Segars was driving a Corvette convertible like this, with the top down, according to Vincent Smothers.

Anderson replied,“It says the Marauder was in the gas station, then turned out of the parking lot.[She] heard shooting and he took off. [She] saw the shooter standing in the middle of the street about ten feet from the Corvette; the police were stuck in traffic. By the time the Marauder and the police car hit, the guy was up on the Corvette still shooting into it, and the passenger jumped out and ran.”

Then Anderson read a key portion of the statement: “The police started shooting at the driver. I only saw one officer, the passenger, shooting. People in the parking were running away from him.”

Deszi asked, “[So] the police were shooting at the driver. What driver—the Corvette, the Marauder, or was it a different driver?”

Anderson said that was not clear.

Following up, Dezsi asked, “Kathy Christian says in her letter that there was a second fatality in the car that hit the cop car. A witness statement says police were shooting at the driver. At no time did you investigate these statements? Were you interested in knowing that the police were shooting that night? The officers testified at trial that they did not discharge their weapons. You did not take any steps to find out whether those statements were accurate?”

Judge Timothy Kenny (r) holds sidebar conference with AP Chambers and Atty. Dezsi at conclusion of hearing.

Anderson responded that there were no shell casings recovered that would indicate the officers fired their guns, and that he would have called in a second investigative team if that had been the case.

Dezsi then asked Anderson if he had reason to believe that a 9 mm shell casing was collected from the scene, referencing the inventory and evidence tag Sgt. Little identified.

Anderson replied in the affirmative.  Dezsi also asked about Kenny’s note to the jury and the fact that bullets found in Segars’ body were identified as .40 caliber.

Dezsi then asked Anderson if he recalled testimony that a .45 caliber gun was found when Searcy was arrested at his grandmother’s home.

“Now we’ve heard that the bullet that was opened was established to be a .40 caliber. Would you agree that the gun that was offered as evidence against Mr. Searcy could not have been the gun that killed Segars?”

Asst. Prosecutor Chambers interjected that a .45 cal shell casing found on the trunk of Segars’ car matched the gun found in Searcy’s [grandmother’s] house.

Smothers earlier testified on the stand and in written affidavits that his accomplice Jeffery Daniels had a .45 caliber gun that he fired into the air during the City Airport killing.

City graph shows 384 homicides in 2004.

During the trial, Searcy’s relatives testified that Daniels had left the gun at Searcy’s grandmother’s house after taking her to the supermarket, and that it did not belong to Searcy. The investigator’s report shown above references a number of .45 caliber shell casings found in the parking lot where the Marauder collision occurred. Detroit police officers regularly use .45 caliber bullets.

Judge Kenny asked that the prosecution locate the DPD homicide journal for 2004, and said that he felt that both sides should be able to come to an agreement about the second alleged homicide after studying that book. He asked that both sides submit their briefs summarizing their positions to him by June 15. He admitted both the police report about the collision with the Marauder and the Boatwright statement into evidence. He announced a motion hearing date of June 29.

Kenny also released his writ on Searcy, sending him back to the Thumb Correctional Facility and out of terrible conditions in the Wayne County Jail. Searcy waved to his dozens of supporters as he left the courtroom.

Related stories:

http://www.truth-out.org/news/item/29950-ring-of-snitches-how-detroit-police-slapped-false-murder-convictions-on-young-black-men

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2017/06/10/false-detroit-conviction-vincent-smothers-says-he-not-thelonious-searcy-killed-jamal-segars-in-2004/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2017/07/05/is-exoneration-near-for-thelonious-searcy-serving-life-for-murder-vincent-smothers-confessed-to/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2017/08/14/searcy-wins-evidentiary-hearing-smothers-expected-to-testify-he-was-the-killer-in-2004-case/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2018/03/13/pack-court-to-stop-wrongful-conviction-of-thelonious-searcy-mon-march-19-9-am-judge-kenny/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2018/03/23/vincent-smothers-takes-stand-to-exonerate-thelonious-searcy-in-2004-detroit-murder/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2018/03/27/smothers-co-defendant-marzell-black-backs-confession-to-segars-murder-at-searcy-hearing/

https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2017/jan/10/michigans-wayne-county-jails-plagued-inhumane-conditions/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2018/04/26/testimony-at-2-march-hearings-showed-searcy-likely-innocent-next-hearing-delayed-to-may-9/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2018/02/02/the-innocence-deniers-prosecutors-who-have-refused-to-admit-wrongful-convictions-starring-wayne-co-prosecutor-kym-worthy

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2018/05/10/favorable-significant-evidence-surfaces-at-searcy-hearing-on-innocence-claim/

https://youtu.be/xXU-la1Wg8g

TRUMP DECLARES ‘HOLY CITY’ OF JERUSALEM, CLAIMED BY ALL RELIGIONS, NOT TEL AVIV, CAPITAL OF ISRAEL

Declaration comes one day before 70th anniversary of  occupation of Palestine by Israel, supported by U.S., U.K., western nations

PressTV
Published on May 14, 2018

At least 52 Palestinians have been killed by Israeli forces in the Gaza Strip as anger rages on over the relocation of the US embassy to Jerusalem al-Quds. There were six teenagers aged 15 and 16 among those killed. More than 2400 protesters were wounded, 900 of them with live rounds fired by Israeli soldiers.

Clashes have been underway on Monday, the day the US embassy was relocated to Jerusalem al-Quds. The Palestinian Authority has accused Israel of massacring the protesters in Gaza. It says moving US embassy to al-Quds would fuel instability and incitement in the region. The Palestinian Liberation Organization has called for a general strike. There have been confrontations between Palestinian protesters and the Israeli army and settlers in Bethlehem and East Jerusalem al-Quds. Watch Live: http://www.presstv.com/live.html

GAZA PROTEST DEATH TOLL RISES TO 58 AS US EMBASSY OPENS IN JERUSALEM

Related: Israeli violence in Gaza sparks international condemnation

Israeli troops killed at least 58 Palestinians along the Gaza border on Monday, health ministry officials said, as demonstrators streamed to the frontier as the United States opens its embassy in Jerusalem.

Amid deadly clashes, President Donald Trump’s top aides and supporters are celebrating the opening of the new US embassy in Jerusalem as a campaign promised fulfilled.

US Ambassador to Israel David Friedman greets Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner at Ben-Gurion airport prior to embassy ceremonies.

Trump’s daughter Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner, along with US Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin were leading the ceremonies. 

Turkish Foreign Ministry called US actions null and void in an official statement.

“We strongly condemn the decision of the US Administration to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem violating international law and all relevant UN Resolutions,” Ankara said.

Protests intensified on the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding, with loudspeakers on Gaza mosques urging Palestinians to join a “Great March of Return”. Black smoke from tires burned by demonstrators rose into the air at the border.

“Today is the big day when we will cross the fence and tell Israel and the world we will not accept being occupied forever,” said Gaza science teacher Ali, who declined to give his last name.

A Palestinian woman walks through black smoke from burning tires during a protest on the Gaza Strip’s border with Israel, Monday, May 14, 2018. Thousands of Palestinians are protesting near Gaza’s border with Israel, as Israel prepared for the festive inauguration of a new U.S. Embassy in contested Jerusalem. (AP Photo/Khalil Hamra)

“Many may get martyred today, so many, but the world will hear our message. Occupation must end,” he said.

Israeli troops killed 55 Palestinians on Monday, including a 12-year-old boy and a man in a wheelchair, and over 2,000 protesters were injured. The man in the wheelchair had been pictured on social media using a slingshot.

The killings have drawn international criticism, but the United States, which has angered the Palestinians and Arab powers by relocating its embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv, has echoed Israel in accusing Gaza’s ruling Hamas movement of instigating violence, an allegation it denies.

“What a moving day for the people of Israel and the State of Israel,” Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Jason Greenblatt, Trump’s Middle East peace envoy, said on Twitter that “taking the long-overdue step of moving our Embassy is not a departure from our strong commitment to facilitate a lasting peace deal. Rather, it is a necessary condition for it.”

Rami Hamdallah, Palestinian Prime Minister

But Palestinian Prime Minister Rami Hamdallah said Trump’s recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital in December and the relocation of the embassy were “blatant violations of international law”

The Palestinians, who want their own future state with its capital in East Jerusalem, have been outraged by Trump’s shift from previous administrations’ preference for keeping the US Embassy in Tel Aviv pending progress in peace efforts.

Those talks have been frozen since 2014. Other international powers worry that the US move could also inflame Palestinian unrest in the occupied West Bank, which Israel captured along with East Jerusalem in the 1967 Middle East war.

Israel’s military dropped leaflets into the enclave early on Monday, warning Palestinians “not to serve as a tool of Hamas” or approach or damage Israel’s frontier fence.

But thousands of Palestinians massed at five locations along the line. Of the 35 people wounded by Israeli gunfire, four were journalists, the officials said.

https://youtu.be/RAngbg_dXDM

The Israeli military says its troops are defending the border and firing in accordance with the rules of engagement.

“We are prepared to face the Hamas threats to disrupt the (embassy) festivities,” Israeli Defence Minister Avigdor Lieberman tweeted.

“My recommendation to the residents of Gaza: Don’t be blinded by (Hamas’s Gaza leader, Yehya Al-) Sinwar, who is sending your children to sacrifice their lives without any utility. We will defend our citizens with all measures and will not allow the fence to be crossed.”

The protests are scheduled to culminate on Tuesday, the day Palestinians mourn as the “Nakba” or “Catastrophe” when, in 1948, hundreds of thousands of them were driven out of their homes or fled the fighting around Israel’s creation.

Palestinian demonstrator with a slingshot looks on during a protest against U.S. embassy move to Jerusalem and ahead of the 70th anniversary of Nakba, at the Israel-Gaza border. (Reuters)

“Choosing a tragic day in Palestinian history (to open the Jerusalem embassy) shows great insensibility and disrespect for the core principles of the peace process,” Hamdallah wrote.

Most countries say the status of Jerusalem – a sacred city to Jews, Muslims and Christians – should be determined in a final peace settlement and that moving their embassies now would prejudge any such deal.

But Guatemala, which received support from Israel in its counter-insurgency campaigns in the 1980s, plans to open an embassy in Jerusalem on Wednesday. Its ambassador visited the new site, in an office building in the western part of the city, on Monday. Paraguay is to follow suit later this month,

In London, the British government said it had no plans to move its Israel embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and said it disagreed with the US decision to do so. The Russian government said it feared the embassy move would increase tensions across the Middle East.

AS US BLAMES HAMAS FOR GAZA DEATHS, WORLD CONDEMNS ISRAEL

(Excerpt) White House iterates support for Israel in wake of Gaza Strip riots, says ‘no justification for Hamas recklessness, cynicism’; South Africa recalls ambassador after condemning Israel’s ‘violent aggression on Gaza border’; UN Security Council to convene to discuss riots, deaths of 52 Palestinians.

Itamar Eichner

Ynet News

May 14, 2018

Sisa Ngombane, South Africa Ambassador to Israel

The White House blamed Hamas leaders Monday evening for the deadly violence in Gaza earlier in the day—in which 52 Palestinians were killed and more than 1,200 wounded—and said Israel has a right to defend itself.

“There is no justification for the recklessness and cynicism Hamas has shown in urging people to engage in violence that exposes them to terrible risk. As the Secretary of State has said, Israel has a right to defend itself,” a White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said in a statement.

The official further maintained a solution needed to be found to the “serious humanitarian challenges facing Palestinians” in Gaza.

Conversely, the South African government has decided to recall its ambassador to Israel after issuing a harsh condemnation of “Israeli armed forces’ violent aggression on the Gaza border.”

 The Foreign Affairs Ministry confirmed that the ambassador has indeed been called back, and will fly back to the African country Monday night.

 The South African Department of International Relations and Cooperation said that the Gazan casualties were “taking part in a peaceful protest against the provocative inauguration of the US Embassy in Jerusalem.”  

Palestinian demonstrators in Gaza May 14, 2018

“Given the indiscriminate and grave manner of the latest Israeli attack,” the department’s statement continued, “the South African government has taken a decision to recall Ambassador Sisa Ngombane with immediate effect until further notice.”

The statement further called on Israel to “withdraw from the Gaza Strip and bring to an end the violent and destructive incursions into Palestinian territories”, adding that the violence in the strip may scuttle the rebuilding of Palestinian institutions and infrastructures alike.

“The routine actions of Israeli forces present yet another obstacle to a permanent resolution to the conflict,” South Africa alleged, “which must come in the form of two states—Palestine and Israel—existing side by side in peace.”

Palestinians in Gaza fight back against Israel, U.S.

“Like other members of the international community, South Africa is disturbed by the latest deadly aggression and reiterates calls for an independent inquiry into the killings, with a view to holding to account those who are responsible,” the statement concluded.

Fifty-two Palestinians, eight children among them, were killed Monday after coming close to the Gaza border fence. Some 40,000 people demonstrated in the area, and 1,204 were wounded, according to Gaza medical sources—marking the highest Palestinian single-day death toll since Operation Protective Edge.

The IDF attacked a series of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad targets using aircraft and tanks, in retaliation to Palestinians shooting and lobbing explosives at IDF forces earlier.

The Palestinian Authority has declared three national days of mourning starting Tuesday, and a general strike on Tuesday itself.