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

Siwatu-Salama Ra with daughter and husband/Courtesy of the Ra family

Vox.com

Jane Coaston 

May4, 2018

She had a concealed carry permit. The gun wasn’t even loaded. Now she’s facing two years in prison.

Last summer, a Black woman in Michigan defended herself, her mother, and her 2-year-old daughter with a registered (and unloaded) gun against a woman who she and her attorneys say tried to hit them with a car. She was a concealed carry permit holder and living in an open carry state — one with a “stand your ground” law in place.

Now, Siwatu-Salama Ra is serving a two-year prison sentence at Huron Valley Correctional Facility for felonious assault and felony firearm convictions. She’s seven months pregnant, and according to her attorneys, she’s receiving insufficient medical care — including being shackled to her bed during a vaginal exam — even though her pregnancy is high-risk. The case is under appeal, but the judge deciding Ra’s fate, Thomas Hathaway, has already denied a request to postpone Ra’s sentence until she gives birth.

Siwatu -Salama Ra, at age 15, speaks at a regional youth climate conference in front of hundreds of college students in Madison, Wisconsin in 2007.

 Ra’s case is yet another instance of a black gun owner, with the permits to legally carry, defending themselves against violence — and getting punished for it.

I spoke with Patrisse Cullors, co-founder of Black Lives Matter, who told me, “Siwatu should be home getting ready to deliver her baby, and being with her family. Instead, she is suffering and isolated being punished for protecting herself, her child and [her] mother. This is a shameful, shameful reality, and it’s clear that we need to challenge a criminal justice system that would try a pregnant black woman for upholding ‘stand your ground’ laws and her Second Amendment rights.”

Black gun owners, particularly black women, face unequal treatment under local laws.

 While concealed carry permit application numbers for both black Americans and women are rising steadily, and the number of Black gun owners in total has spiked since the 2016 election, they have long been unable to access the same protections their white neighbors enjoy when it comes to exercising their gun rights, including in “stand your ground” states.

The Urban Institute found that in “stand your ground” states, when white shooters kill Black people, 34 percent of the resulting homicides are deemed justifiable. Only 3 percent of deaths are ruled justifiable when the shooter is Black and the victim is white. Even when Black shooters kill Black people, those shootings are less likely to be deemed justifiable in a court of law than those involving white shooters who kill white people.

Maj Toure

Maj Toure, founder of Black Guns Matter, a gun rights association aimed at urban communities and Black Americans, told me that too often, local governments “drop the ball” when it comes to protecting the gun rights of Black Americans. He referenced the case of Marissa Alexander, who served three years in prison for firing a single shot near her husband, who she said had threatened to kill her.

“You have situations where women defending their lives are sent to jail for the dumbest s— on earth. [A man] attempts to attack [a woman] and instead of killing the man, [she] shoots in the air, and that woman is facing years,” he said. “Those scenarios are outrageous and mass media and public outrage is heightened, but justice for these situations is trash.”

Making matters worse, while Black Lives Matter and other left-leaning civil rights organizations have been publicizing Ra’s case and others like it, mainstream pro-gun groups, including the National Rifle Association, have been dispiritingly quiet about the incident — though the “stand your ground” law in place in Michigan, passed in 2006, was made possible by a group working in close contact with the NRA.

Marissa Alexander released from prison.

In 2012, the NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) put out a statement saying “stand your ground” legislation allows “lawful people to defend themselves, and deters would-be murderers, rapists and robbers.” NRA-ILA executive director Chris W. Cox said in 2013 that “self-defense is not a concept, it’s a fundamental human right.”

In a response on Twitter, NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch said that she had discussed the case on NRATV and on her radio show, but there appear to be no mentions of the case on the NRA website or social media platforms. I’ve reached out to the group for comment on the case.

Rhonda Anderson, Ra’s mother, is an organizing manager for the Sierra Club and has been outspoken in her daughter’s defense. In a statement to Vox, she said:

“My daughter Siwatu has been a powerful force for justice in Detroit and across the globe since she was just a young teenager. When she was 19 years old, she took on polluters like the Marathon Oil Refinery and the Detroit Renewable Power trash incinerator. As co-director of the East Michigan Environmental Action Council, she planned an environmental justice conference to bring folks from around the country to Detroit — that conference will be happening without her this month as she is incarcerated.”

A DISPUTE BETWEEN PARENTS AND A CONFUSING DETROIT POLICE RULE

Siwatu-Salama Ra in 2014, at a gathering for climate justice in Richmond, CA/C0urtesy of Shadia Fayne Wood/Survival Media

In July of last year, Ra, a prominent environmental activist in Detroit and co-director of the East Michigan Environmental Action Council (EMEAC), was in the midst of a long-running argument with Channell Harvey, the parent of a girl who had been fighting with Ra’s niece at school. When Harvey brought her daughter to the home of Ra’s mother, Rhonda Anderson, for a sleepover on July 16, Ra asked the girl to leave.  What follows is still unclear. At first, Harvey told police that when she returned to pick up her daughter from Anderson’s home, Ra threatened her, then pulled a gun out of her car after saying, “I got something for you.” Harvey then told police that she took pictures of Ra holding the gun, and then drove to the police station and filed a complaint.

But that’s not what Ra and her family say happened. In a video made for supporters of Ra’s case, Ra said that Harvey was “literally going back and forth with this car, putting it in reverse and fixing herself to come at us again, and go after my mother, who was also standing very close to me and wasn’t able to run.”

Harvey later told police that she may have “accidentally” hit Ra’s car while leaving Anderson’s property. According to Ra, she then pulled her 2-year-old daughter out of her car (where she had been playing during the dispute), then grabbed her unloaded handgun out of her car and pointed it at Harvey. After Harvey left, Ra also filed a police report.

The problem is, Harvey filed her report first. And in Detroit, the first person to file a report gets to become the “victim” in a legal dispute. According to the Detroit Metro Times:

“During the trial, a DPD detective testified that the department considers the person who arrives at the police station first to be the victim, lawyers say. Thus, detectives were not allowed to speak to Ra directly.”

That wasn’t the only problem during Ra’s trial. First and foremost, the jury — which, according to one of Ra’s attorneys, Victoria Burton-Harris, was “very diverse” — wasn’t informed that the gun charges carried a mandatory prison sentence of two years. The trial was held with a snowstorm looming, which Burton-Harris told the Metro Times led to the jury making too quick of a decision on a verdict — one that found that Ra was guilty of assaulting Harvey but was acting in self-defense toward Harvey’s daughter (who was in the passenger seat and, notably, not driving the car.)

And according to questions sent to the judge during deliberations, the jury was very focused on why Ra’s gun was in her car, where her daughter was playing — an issue that wasn’t part of the case presented to them.

But Burton-Harris told me that she’ll never really know what went into the jury’s decision, saying, “I wasn’t in the room.”

Today, Siwatu-Salama Ra is in prison, in the only correctional facility in Michigan that houses women — one with severe overcrowding problems and structural issues. There she will stay, away from her young daughter and in the midst of a high-risk pregnancy. Because she defended herself with a legally owned — and unloaded — gun, in a state where doing so appears to be perfectly legal. And for now, the NRA, the nation’s most vigorous defender of the right to bear arms, is curiously and conspicuously silent.

As Burton-Harris told me, “This case was simple — a Black woman, a mother, a daughter, an activist was afraid — and it didn’t matter. Her fear wasn’t significant enough for a jury of her peers to believe it. We’ll never know what more she needed to endure to justify her fear. She stood her ground and is now serving a mandatory two-year prison term. It’s a hard pill to swallow.”

Related from VOD:

NOT GUILTY x 2! VICTORY FOR SCRILL, NEW ERA DETROIT, COMMUNITY

Presiding Criminal Court Judge Timothy Kenny confers with (l) AP Thomas Chambers and (r) defense atty. Michael Deszi March 27, 2018

UPDATE: SEARCY HEARINGS REPEATEDLY CANCELED New hearing Wed. May 9 at 9 a.m. Judge Timothy Kenny Rm. 602 Frank Murphy Hall; was set for April 30

Large crowd of Searcy supporters at initial hearings

Later hearings were converted to in-chambers, off-the-record  judge/attorney conferences 

Is a cover-up in the works? Is this another “innocence denier” tactic?

 By Diane Bukowski

 April 25, 2018  UPDATED May 1, 2018

A cell inside Wayne County’s old jail at 525 Clinton. 

DETROIT—UPDATE: Since the most substantial and relevant portion of Thelonious Searcy’s evidentiary hearing (the confession by Vincent Smothers to the 2004 killing of Jamal Segars, exonerating Searcy) has been held, subsequent scheduled hearings have been repeatedly canceled, including one that was supposed to be held April 30.

VOD spoke with Searcy by phone yesterday. He did not find out that the April 30 hearing, set for 9 am, had been canceled until 2 pm that day.  He told VOD that numerous supporters come to all his hearings, some of them flying in from across the country, taking off work and other inconveniences, only to discover when they arrive that the hearing has once again been postponed.

Entrance to the old Wayne County Jail, built in the 1920’s.

“They wake us up in the jail to go to court at 3 a.m.,” Searcy said. “Then we are moved around to other places in the complex until we finally end up in the bullpen of the judge’s court where our hearing is scheduled. In between, they do numerous practice ‘dry runs’ on other days, waking us up for them at 3 a.m. as well. The conditions in the old jail are terrible; there are bedbugs, overcrowding and constant tension in the population.”

The Prison Legal News reported in a Jan. 2017 article, 

“Things were so bad that in January 2015, as reported by the Detroit Free Press, a Wayne County Circuit judge ordered the county to develop a plan ‘for preventative maintenance that would presumably fix a slew of problems at the jails, including a crumbling kitchen floor, drain fly larvae, organic matter in inmate showers and malfunctioning equipment.”

Ironically, rhe judge who ordered the jail clean-up in Presiding Criminal Court Judge Timothy Kenny, who as Searcy’s trial judge is also holding his evidentiary hearing.

Thelonious “Shawn” Searcy walks into court March 26, 2018.

Thelonious Searcy, 38, has been languishing in the old Wayne County Jail since tw0 court hearings a month ago, during which admitted hitman Vincent Smothers and his co-defendant Marzell Black each testified that Smothers, not Searcy, killed Jamal Segars in 2004, during a “Black Party” outside City Airport.

Smothers’ stark testimony was especially stunning, since his attorney Gabi Silver had advised him to plead the Fifth Amendment.

Searcy’s supporters filled the court for both hearings and even came out for the hearings that Judge Timothy Kenny held later in chambers and off the record.

Searcy was seriously ill for most of the past month. He told VOD that he did not get any medical treatment at the jail until his attorney intervened.  He is normally housed at the Thumb Correctional Facility and is only in the county jail for his court appearances. 

Why the long delay? Two scheduled court hearings have come and gone since then, one postponed by the defense due to illness, and the other by Judge Timothy Kenny. Since then, Kenny has met with attorneys in chambers, OFF THE RECORD, to discuss various issues, on various dates.

Defense atty. Michael Dezsi

One was his March 26 order to have the Michigan State Police Crime lab analyze a sealed envelope containing ballistics evidence from the day Segars was killed, Sept. 5, 2004. Searcy discovered earlier that ballistics reports in his case used the same evidence tag number for a .9mm shell casing and for a .40 mm shell casing.

Police officers at the scene reportedly crashed into a burgundy Marauder exiting the gas station across the street. Some witnesses said they fired their guns, which could account for the presence of a 9 mm casing.

Searcy’s defense attorney Michael Deszi got his own independent expert to oversee the reexamination.

Searcy raised that issue in part because the Detroit Police Officer Kevin Reed, an uncertified city forensics worker, testified at his trial about ballistics evidence. A review by the Michigan State Police crime lab of Reed’s work and other lab results showed that at least 10 percent were falsified, and over 40 percent did not follow standard forensics protocol. As a result, the Detroit Crime Lab was shut down.

Deszi also told VOD, however, that other problems have arisen.

First, he said, Asst. Pros. Thomas Chambers refused to provide him with a copy of the Detroit Police Department homicide file on the Segars case. Judge Kenny told Dezsi to subpoena the file. It is VOD’s understanding that the file has since been provided.

Then, Deszi said, Chambers claimed the prosecution could not find the original trial file on the case. This reporter reviewed that file in July, 2017 while it was in the ninth floor Criminal Division office of the Wayne County Clerk. She obtained copies of Searcy’s motion for a new trial and related documents from the Clerk’s staff. The file, which appeared to be in perfect working order, was returned to the Clerk.

DPD arrest report on DeAnthony Witcher for carrying a concealed weapon in his car, also shows him driving a BLUE Corvette, not a silver Corvette.

Deszi said they have also discussed an arrest report on the prosecution’s chief witness in the case, DeAnthony Witcher.

Dated Nov. 18, 2004, one week before Searcy’s arrest in the Segars case, it shows that Detroit police stopped Witcher, who was driving a blue 1998 Chevy Corvette, and discovered a “.9 mm black/silver frame handgun, Smith & Wesson . . . with 14 live rounds.”

DeAnthony Witcher in police photo line-up.

Searcy himself discovered the report after he had filed a Freedom of Information Act Request for the homicide files through his grandmother. The report says Witcher was to be charged for carrying a concealed weapon.  

However, the only charges listed on the Third Judicial Circuit Court’s website for DeAnthony Witcher relate to an incident dated May 29, 2000, consisting of Homicide-Murder-Second Degree, Assault with Intent to Murder, Assault with a Dangerous Weapon, and Weapons Felony Firearm.  Strangely, Judge Robert Colombo found him NOT GUILTY of all these serious charges in a bench trial.

Searcy says he has questioned all along whether Witcher testified falsely for the prosecution in the Segars case in order to make the concealed weapons charge go away.

The arrest report also shows that Witcher was driving a BLUE 1998 Chevy Corvette. The prosecution’s theory in the Segars case was that Searcy was actually seeking to kill Witcher, and mistook Segars’ SILVER Corvette for Witcher’s car. Since the initial version of this story was published, Searcy says prosecutors have claimed that the CCW charges against Witcher were dropped because the car belonged to another individual.

A man claiming to be DeAnthony Witcher called this reporter to ask to meet with her last week, but his offer was declined. 

Meanwhile, Dezsi also plans to present a motion regarding the Witcher situation at the May 9 hearing, which asks for complete production of all documents in the prosecution’s possession related to the Witcher arrest, and the possibility that he was not charged in exchange for his testimony at Searcy’s trial. If they do not produce the documents, Dezsi is asking that Judge Kenny draw a “negative inference” from their lack of action. See motion at:http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/Searcy.Mtn_.Compel.pdf.

Also evidently not in Deszi’s hands at this point is a list of all of Searcy’s alibi witnesses, in addition to those who testified that Searcy was at a family barbecue during the time of the Segars shooting.

Wayne Co. Pros. Kym Worthy and Mich. AG Bill Schuette, both fervent opponents of justice for juvenile lifers, showing off rape kit. Worthy is conducting a large PR campaign gathering huge amounts of money to process lost rape kits.

In an article published by Slate magazine in January, author Lara Bazelon called Wayne Co. Prosecutor Kym Worthy, along with two other prominent prosecutors across the country, repeat “Innocence Deniers.” She pointed out that Worthy to this day contends that Davontae Sanford, 14 when he was charged with four murders Smothers confessed to, is actually guilty despite her agreement to release him from prison after nine years.

Worthy spent most of a livestreamed press conference announcing Sanford’s release reiterating the evidence the prosecution had against Sanford. To this day, she has not charged Smothers or his partner for the four Runyon Street murders, despite Smothers’ repeated and detailed confessions.

A 114 page report done by the Michigan State Police includes numerous Detroit Police Department reports that, if they had been read by prosecutors, would have ruled out Sanford as a suspect, including tw0 eyewitness reports from the night of the killings.

Is Worthy’s office playing another “Innocence Denial” game in the Searcy case?

Related stories:

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/

‘THE INNOCENCE DENIERS: PROSECUTORS WHO HAVE REFUSED TO ADMIT WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS,’ STARRING WAYNE CO. PROSECUTOR KYM WORTHY

Kendrick Lamar accepts Pulitzer Prize for music.

By Mesfin Fekadu, AP Music Writer

April 16, 2018 

New York – Kendrick Lamar has won the Pulitzer Prize for music, making history as the first non-classical or jazz artist to win the prestigious prize.

The revered rapper is also the most commercially successful musician to receive the award, usually reserved for critically acclaimed classical acts who don’t live on the pop charts.

Kendrick Lamar on cover of his Pulitzer Prize-winning album DAMN

The 30-year-old won the prize for “DAMN.,” his raw and powerful Grammy-winning album. The Pulitzer board said Monday the album is a “virtuosic song collection” and said it captures “the modern African American life.” He will win $15,000.

Lamar has been lauded for his deep lyrical content, politically charged live performances, and his profound mix of hip-hop, spoken word, jazz, soul, funk, poetry and African sounds. Since emerging on the music scene with the 2011 album “Section.80,” he has achieved the perfect mix of commercial appeal and critical respect.

The Pulitzer board has awarded special honors to Bob Dylan, Duke Ellington, George Gershwin, Thelonious Monk, John Coltrane and Hank Williams, but a popular figure like Lamar has never won the prize for music. In 1997, Wynton Marsalis became the first jazz act to win the Pulitzer Prize for music.

To Pimp a Butterfly–Kendrick Lamar

That makes Lamar’s win that much more important: His platinum-selling major-label albums – “good kid, m.A.A.d city,” “To Pimp a Butterfly” and “DAMN.” – became works of art, with Lamar writing songs about blackness, street life, police brutality, perseverance, survival and self-worth. His piercing and sharp raps helped him become the voice of the generation, and easily ascend as the leader in hip-hop and cross over to audiences outside of rap, from rock to pop to jazz. He’s also been a dominator on the charts, having achieved two dozen Top 40 hits, including a No. 1 success with “Humble,” and he has even collaborated with the likes of U2, Taylor Swift, Imagine Dragons, Rihanna and Beyonce.

good kid M.A.A.D. City

His music, with songs like “Alright” and “The Blacker the Berry,” have become anthems in the wake of high-profile police shootings of minorities as the conversation about race relations dominates news headlines. He brought of dose of seriousness to the 2015 BET Awards, rapping on top of a police car with a large American flag waving behind him. At the 2016 Grammys, during his visual-stunning, show-stopping performance, he appeared beaten, in handcuffs, with chains around his hands and bruises on his eyes as he delivered powerful lyrics to the audience.

Lamar’s musical success helped him win 12 Grammy Awards, though all three of his major-label albums have lost in the top category – album of the year. Each loss has been criticized by the music community, launching the conversation about how the Recording Academy might be out of touch. “DAMN.” lost out on the album of the year Grammy to Bruno Mars’ “24K Magic” in January.

The rapper, born in Compton, California, was hand-picked by “Black Panther” director Ryan Coogler to curate an album to accompany the ubiquitously successful film, giving Lamar yet again another No. 1 effort and highly praised project.

The entire album published on YouTube below. (Click on YouTube at bottom to watch it on YouTube site; other cuts will appear.)

By Sara Flounders

April 10, 2018

U.S. wars are based on lies and staged provocations. This is hardly news.

Now comes the charge that on April 7 someone — the imperialists are saying it was the Syrian government, although there is no proof of that — killed dozens of Syrians with a poison gas attack on the town of Douma, which had only recently been liberated from anti-government forces.

The brutal seven-year war against Syria had been winding down after the failure of every effort by U.S. imperialism to overturn the Syrian government.

The last groups of reactionary, Saudi-backed military units were defeated this month. They had relentlessly shelled the civilian population of Damascus, the Syrian capital, for years. Thousands of these fighters have finally surrendered and were forced out of the hills of East Ghouta province overlooking Damascus. They are due to be bused out of the area to Idlib, a rebel-held area in the far north of Syria.

The Syrian government has also established humanitarian corridors enabling more than 150,000 civilians to be evacuated by its forces.

The town of Douma, where the supposed gas attack took place, was the last to be liberated. The Army of Islam or Jaysh al-Islam had agreed to an evacuation.  The Syrian Arab Air Force had destroyed more than 300 positions of Jaysh al-Islam in the Douma district, including its main headquarters, communication networks and ammunition depots, over the last 24 hours before the supposed gas attack.

Syria has no motive

The idea that the Syrian government would choose this moment of victory to suddenly unleash a gas attack is incredible and ridiculous. But it is a charge that serves as an excuse for the U.S. and NATO to renew their bombing, especially since only a week earlier Trump had talked about getting the U.S. out of Syria.

The gas attack, which is said to have killed at least 42 people, was top-of-the-news, front-page coverage in the U.S. media along with Trump’s tweets. While the charge that Syria did it was met with contempt and ridicule throughout most of the world, NATO members France and Britain dutifully chimed in with immediate threats to bomb Syria.

The Israeli regime beat them to it and immediately seized the opportunity to attack Syria. Two Israeli F-15 fighters fired missiles into Syria’s Tiyas Military Airbase in Homs province before dawn on April 9.

It is beyond belief to accept that Israel — whose troops have killed 28 unarmed Palestinian civilians and injured more than 1,500 over the past two weeks, in addition to the thousands it has killed in its past bombings of Gaza — was attacking Syria over the deaths of civilians.

Charges with no proof

The imperialists’ blatant assertion of Syrian guilt is not only totally unfounded, it is unprovable and totally implausible.

Syria has repeatedly denied allegations of chemical weapons use, underscoring that it has no weapons of mass destruction. This was confirmed by the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons.

The Syrian Foreign Ministry points out that similar allegations emerge every time the Syrian Army makes advances in its fight against terrorist groups.

Last year on April 7, the Pentagon, without waiting for any evidence, attacked Syria’s Shuaryat Air Force base with 59 Tomahawk cruise missiles, supposedly in response to chemical weapons being used at Khan Shikhoun, a town in southwestern Syria. The sudden attack, orchestrated with immediate photos and a coordinated campaign of war propaganda by a compliant media, reached new heights.

Protecting civilians is the claim made by the imperialists to justify their massive bombings, destabilizations campaigns and starvation sanctions — resulting in the deaths of hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Wider war threatened

A wider war exploding from a confrontation in Syria is a growing danger. Most dangerous right now is that it coincides with the installation of extreme right-wing war hawk John Bolton as Trump’s new national security advisor.

When the U.S. ruling class wants a war, the corporate media fall into line. Whether it was the phony claim that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction in 2002, which U.S. officials knew to be a lie, or the phony “attack” by Vietnamese PT boats on a U.S. warship in the Gulf of Tonkin in 1964, the U.S. media have repeated the government’s lies to justify its wars.

This goes all the way back to the sinking of the battleship Maine in 1898, which was used to justify the Spanish-American war. A U.S. Navy inquiry in 1974 commissioned by Admiral Hyman Rickover concluded that the Maine sunk, not because of a Spanish mine, but because munitions stored aboard caught fire and exploded.

U.S. military corporations have an enormous stake in continued war. But it goes wider than that. The big imperialist corporations and banks fear the defeat of all U.S. strategic plans for the region. So once again military, corporate and media forces are dragging out the same playbook they have used time and again to keep U.S. troops in Afghanistan, south Korea, Syria and the more than 1,000 U.S. military bases around the world.

It is especially ominous that Russia was immediately blamed, along with Syria. Russian and Iranian assistance to Syria has helped frustrate U.S. plans for the overthrow of the Syrian government. In their constant drumbeat of nonstop demonization, U.S. opinion molders don’t even bother to present facts or motivation when making charges against Russian President Putin.

They also paint a dire picture that a U.S. military pullout from the region would lead to chaos and benefit Russia, Iran or China, while also leading to a resurgence of the Islamic State group in Syria. What the war planners really oppose is a unified, sovereign Syrian state.

Progressive forces opposed to endless U.S. wars must confront these criminal charges against Syria and demand of the U.S. warmakers: “Hands off Syria!”

U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith rules good time/disciplinary credits must be applied to re-sentenced youthful offenders 

50 who have already been re-sentenced eligible to see parole board in 14 days, state has 7 days to calculate credits for others after re-sentencings 

Judge certifies all 363 juvenile lifers as a class, appoints Atty. Deborah LaBelle as class representative; state had asked to eliminate 247 for whom prosecutors are recommending renewed JLWOP

 Judge orders further discovery re: deprivation of rehabilitative trainin

By Diane Bukowski

April 10, 2018 

U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith also ordered a hand recount of Michigan’s ballots in presidential election of Trump.

DETROIT – U.S. District Court Judge Mark Goldsmith ruled April 9 that Michigan juvenile lifers are eligible to have good time and/or disciplinary credits earned since day one of their unconstitutional sentences applied when they are re-sentenced.  He gave the Michigan Department of Corrections 14 days to calculate those credits for those currently in prison.

This means that some individuals currently serving time after re-sentencing will be immediately eligible to see the parole board, while others will have their wait time shortened.

His ruling is part of ongoing proceedings in the federal case Hill v. Snyder, brought by lead attorney Deborah LaBelle and the Michigan American Civil Liberties Union over seven years ago.

“The United States Supreme Court has ruled that juveniles convicted of first-degree murder cannot be subject to mandatory life sentences without parole,” Goldsmith said in a remarkably rigorous ruling. “Because of their lesser culpability and greater capacity to change, they must be sentenced under a process that gives them an individualized opportunity to present mitigating circumstances to avert such a harsh sentence.”

Goldsmith then referred to a statute passed by the Michigan Legislature in 2014, MCL 796.25a(6), which said that re-sentenced juvenile lifers would not be allowed to use their credits, despite the fact that ALL other prisoners are allowed to do so.

Atty. Deborah LaBelle has fought for the rights of juvenile prisoners for decades.

Calling the sentences “illegally imposed,” Goldsmith said, “In that respect, the legislative response ran afoul of our Constitution’s ban on ex post facto laws – the constitutional guarantee that laws may not retroactively criminalize conduct or enhance the punishment for criminal acts already perpetrated. For this reason, the Court must declare that provision of the statute unconstitutional and order that the youth offenders receive the credit that they have previously earned.”

Judge Goldsmith turned down the state’s request for a 14-day stay to allow it to pursue an appeal.

“Today’s ruling is a tremendous victory for fairness in our criminal justice system,” Dan Korobkin, ACLU of Michigan Deputy Legal Director, who argued the case alongside Attorney LaBelle, said in a statement. “Hundreds of youth who were serving unconstitutional life sentences will now benefit from good-time credits they earned in prison for good behavior, credits that were taken away from them by mean-spirited retroactive legislation in 2014.”

See complete opinion at http://voiceofdetroit.net/wp-content/uploads/203-Opinion-and-Order3876.pdf.

Cortez Davis-El

Cortez Davis, a staff writer for the Voice of Detroit, is one juvenile lifer who may go free shortly as a result of Judge Goldsmith’s ruling, after serving nearly 24 years in prison. His attorney Clinton Hubbell had asked that he be re-sentenced to the 10-40 years his trial judge Vera Massey Jones had imposed in 1994.

Eighteen years before the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Miller v. Alabama that mandatory juvenile life without parole was unconstitutional,  Judge Vera Massey-Jones called JLWOP “cruel and unusual punishment.” 

But Judge Shannon Walker re-sentenced Davis to the 25-60 year sentence arbitrarily mandated by Michigan’s legislature in MCL 769.25a. He says application of his good-time credits should allow him to see the parole board immediately.

“Personally, I am humbled and grateful for the Court’s decision and wisdom re: this issue of disciplinary credits and good time for those of us who have earned them for decades,” Davis told VOD by phone today.

“I’m not looking at this as a win for just those who are doing time. It is also a win for Michigan citizens, the taxpayers, because the money that will be saved can be better put to use on our crumbling educational system, our healthcare system, and services for elderly. A lot of men and woman inside these institutions are ready, willing and able to contribute positively to the growth of society, especially within our communities. People say prisons are where you pay your debt to society, but I believe prison only prepares you to pay that debt. You cannot fully pay it until your release and the work that you do to improve society then.”

Davis has a stellar prison record and has been involved in numerous activities organizing other prisoners in positive endeavors. (See box and VOD stories by Davis listed below.) He is an excellent writer and legal researcher. At the youthful age of 41, he will no doubt be a valuable contributor to society.

Another juvenile lifer who badly needs to have her good time credits restored is Jennifer Pruitt, now 42, of Pontiac, Michigan. She was resentenced to 30 to 60 years on March 2, 2017. Her earliest release date is Aug. 30, 2022. 

“Jennifer Pruitt can hardly remember a time when she felt safe,” says an article published in Al Jazeera. “She says her father beat her until her eyes were blackened. He beat her mother and brothers. He drank and crashed their family cars, she says, and then he came home and beat them some more. And starting when she was about 10, Jennifer says, Denny Pruitt would arrange some alone time with her in a bedroom. When she told her mother about the abuse, her father called Jennifer a bitch and a liar.”

Since Pruitt’s incarceration at the age of 15, the abuse has continued in prison. Pruitt was raped by a prison guard, but the state expects her to remain in that chamber of horrors for another four years. 

Jennifer Pruitt

In his ruling, Judge Goldsmith quoted from the plaintiffs’ brief,  “. . .there are 363 offenders who are subject to the resentencing provisions of Section 769.25a. Michigan prosecutors have filed motions seeking the re-imposition of sentences of life without parole for 236 of these individuals. To date, none of these resentencings has taken place. . . . .However, resentencing hearings are proceeding for those individuals who were not the subject of motions for re-imposition of life-without-parole sentences. Approximately one hundred individuals have been resentenced to a term of years; of these, over thirty have been paroled and the remaining are parole eligible. Twenty-two individuals are still awaiting resentencing for a term-of-years sentence.”

He added later regarding state arguments that the federal courts have no jurisdiction over the matter for various reasons, “. . .it would be inequitable to require Plaintiffs – some of whom, if they prevail, would be immediately eligible for parole consideration – to wait even longer to seek resolution of their claims, particularly where the interpretation of the good time and disciplinary credits statute is clear.”

Goldsmith also certified the state’s 363 juvenile lifers as a class for legal purposes, rejecting the state’s argument that two-thirds of them, 247, should not be included because county prosecutors have recommended renewed LWOP sentences for them. Judge Goldsmith appointed attorney Deborah LaBelle, who has campaigned vigorously for juvenile lifers and other prisoners for decades, as the class representative.

Charles K.K. Lewis, wrongfully convicted, in prison 42 years, facing LWOP again

He delayed a ruling on the restoration of rehabilitative programming for juvenile lifers, pending further discovery.

Charles Lewis, a juvenile lifer who has spent 42 years in prison, and is facing a recommendation of LWOP again, said the appointment of Attorney LaBelle as representative of the class could have positive implications for the Michigan 247.

“This ruling is definitely a start,” Lewis, a skilled jailhouse lawyer, noted. “A lot of these guys [already re-sentenced] should discharge, they should take them right on parole. They said they couldn’t really deal with the issue of those re-recommended for LWOP, because nobody has been resentenced yet. But the appointment of Deborah LaBelle as a representative of the class should give her the opportunity to impact the state’s dealings with the 247. The question becomes, what is her plan for the 247? She can create an agenda for the attorneys representing them, for instance, what is required in mitigation hearings, including the provision of expert witnesses, private investigators, child psychologists, and forensic examiners, to start with.”

Lewis will represent himself at a hearing Thurs. May 24 at 9 a.m. in front of Judge Qiana Lillard, to address three motions he has filed. Story on those is forthcoming. They are motions:

• asking for release due to actual innocence,
• a withdrawal of the prosecution’s ex post facto motion to re-sentence him to LWOP because Judge Edward Ewell ordered his re-sentencing under Miller in October, 2012, before the 2014 state statutes were enacted
• a motion for bond pending appeal.

Michigan and Louisiana (up south and down south) are considered the two worst states in the nation regarding their treatment of juvenile lifers, with Michigan having the highest number of juvenile lifers in the world.   Wayne County Prosecutor Kym Worthy wants 67 of the county’s 146 juvenile lifers to die in prison, the highest actual number of any county in the state.

 Prosecutor Kym Worthy

Richard Phillips, on release Dec.14, 2017

She has refused to backtrack on these recommendations.

Last week, she falsely claimed credit for the release of Richard D. Phillips, an innocent man imprisoned since 1971, saying that her revived “Conviction Integrity Unit” headed by former defense attorney Valerie Newman, investigated the case.

In fact, the Michigan Innocence Clinic began work on Phillips’ case in 2014, which led to Judge Michael Cox’s ruling releasing him last December. He was released on his own recognizance, but required to wear a tether. He noted at the time that his situation was not over because he faced re-trial, set by Kym Worthy for Feb. 5, 2018.

Worthy held a press conference last week to announce (finally!) that she would not re-try him. How she could re-try a man 45 years later, anyway, boggles the imagination.

The U.S. is the ONLY country in the world that sentences children to die in prison, as in fact many of Michigan’s juvenile lifers are doing. Most have spent 20, 30, 40 and more years in prison serving sentences that are now considered unconstitutional from day one. Some are actually innocent of the crimes for which their lives have been sacrificed. But Michigan has fought against justice for juvenile lifers every inch of the way.

Isn’t it time for federal troops to be sent to Michigan to enforce Miller and Montgomery?

The Little Rock Nine finishing a school day in Arkansas under the protection of federal troops, enforcing the U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Brown v. Board of Education. to integrate schools.

Related Stories: (mainly on or by Cortez Davis-El; for stories on Charles Lewis and juvenile lifers in general, put each term in the search engine)

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2017/05/09/cruel-unusual-juvenile-sentences-continue-cortez-davis-gets-25-60-not-legal-10-40-yrs/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2017/04/26/free-mich-juvenile-lifer-cortez-davis-now-let-justice-roll-down-like-water-hearing-april-27/

http://america.aljazeera.com/features/2014/1/sentenced-young-thestoryoflifewithoutparoleforjuvenileoffenders.html

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2013/01/10/michigan-juvenile-lifers-justice-delayed-is-justice-denied-re-sentencing-in-key-detroit-case-cortez-davis-jan-25/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2018/01/02/super-stars-and-angels-walk-among-us-spreading-love-and-happiness-in-the-new-year/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2017/11/29/prisoners-push-for-success-while-reforming-themselves-and-others-at-thumb-cf/

http://voiceofdetroit.net/2017/07/07/real-men-help-children-overcome-recklessness-and-other-problems/

http://www.mlive.com/news/detroit/index.ssf/2017/12/prisoner_of_45_years_released.html

Here's a new one: Local Fox anchors criticized this Black teen for working TOO hard pic.twitter.com/sIwyciCC9j

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) April 9, 2018

Lakeith Smith after his arrest at age 15/Photo Elmore County Sheriff

Group of young unarmed teens broke into home, chased out by cops who shot one to death in the neck

Lakeith Smith charged with murder, just sentenced to 65 years in prison

Other three teens await sentencing

By Jessica Lussenhop 

BBC News, Washington

April 9, 2018

Millbrook, Alabama–After police killed a burglary suspect in a shootout, the officer was not charged – instead a teenage boy who did not fire the gun has been found guilty of his murder. How do accomplice liability laws work?

Lakeith Smith was 15 years old when he went along with four older friends on a burglary spree. A neighbour called police when the group went into a home in Millbrook, Alabama, and the responding officers surprised the teenagers as they were coming through the front door.

A’Donte Washington, unarmed, shot dead by cops at 16 for B&E

The group turned and fled out the back door, and a shootout ensued. When it was all over, 16-year-old A’Donte Washington was dead with a bullet w0und to his neck. 

It’s never been in dispute that a Millbrook police officer shot and killed Washington – officer-worn body cameras captured the fatal confrontation. A grand jury declined to charge the officer, finding that the shooting was justified.

[However, A’Donte’s family has put up a GoFundMe site saying that he was sleeping in his friend’s car before the B & E and submitted to peer pressure to go into the house. See https://www.gofundme.com/3byzyhs.]

Instead, Smith was charged and found guilty of his friend’s murder. Last week, a judge sentenced him to 65 years in prison. Under Alabama’s accomplice liability law, Smith is considered just as culpable in Washington’s death as if he had pulled the trigger himself.

“It’s sad in my opinion,” says Smith’s defence lawyer, Jennifer Holton. “The cause of death was the officer’s action.”

LaKeith Smith awaits sentencing in Alabama court April 6, 2018. He got 65 years in prison. Photo: WSFA 12

Alabama’s law is an example of so-called felony-murder laws and they are very common throughout the US – only seven states do not have some type of law that expands the definition of murder to include an unintentional killing in the course of committing a felony. These laws also sweep up accomplices who, again, may not have directly caused harm, but were still a party in the felony that preceded the death.

While rooted in English common law, felony-murder is a rare concept outside of the US.

In the UK, the “joint enterprise” law can be used to convict an accomplice in a murder, but it applies mostly to gang-related crimes. The UK Supreme Court narrowed its application in 2016, ruling that the person must have “foresight” and “intention” to be found guilty of the killing.

Prof. Emeritus Michael G. Heyman

“Felony-murder is a lovely American fiction,” says Michael Heyman, professor emeritus at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago. “It’s a fiction in that it attributes a killing to you that you need not have done by your own hand.”

For example, if a victim has a heart attack and dies while being robbed, the perpetrator can be charged with murder even if he had no intent to kill. If the robber’s friend was sitting in a getaway car a block away, under accomplice liability, he too can be charged with murder. One of the most famous examples involved a man convicted of murder for loaning his car to friends who went on to murder an 18-year-old girl. According to prosecutors, it didn’t matter that he was 30 minutes away.

These laws make cases like Smith’s surprisingly common, where defendants are charged with the murder of their own accomplices, who can be their friends and even relatives. These often occur in the course of burglaries gone wrong, when the perpetrators are confronted by police or armed homeowners. Recent examples include cases in Georgia, Florida and Oklahoma.

The legal logic has expanded into the opioid crisis, where, in one case, a husband was charged with the murder of his wife for providing her with the heroin that killed her.

What makes Smith’s case different, according to Scott Lemieux, a lecturer in the department of political science at the University of Washington, is that Smith went forward to trial instead of pleading guilty.

“These really long sentences are used to put pressure on people to plead,” he says. “The risk of going to trial is so extreme.”

Two brothers, same murder, but one goes free. Why?

Locked up for 23 years when the real killer was already in jail

The teenager sentenced to 241 years in prison

DA Randall Houston

Smith decided to take that risk, turning down a 25-year plea deal, and was found guilty by a jury. The other three surviving suspects have pleaded guilty and are awaiting sentencing. Randall Houston, the district attorney who prosecuted Smith, says he felt the charges and the punishment were appropriate.

“If you’re gonna bring a gun and commit a crime and somebody dies, there’s consequences in Alabama – it’s felony-murder,” he says.

Houston points out that at his sentencing, Smith laughed and smiled. Holton, the defence lawyer, says that only shows how young Smith is.

Andre Washington, A’Donte’s father, attended Smith’s trial, but he didn’t sit on the prosecution’s side of the courtroom. Instead, he sat with Smith’s mother.

“I went there to show him and his family some support. What the officers did – it was totally wrong,” says Washington. “I don’t feel [Smith] deserves that. No. Not at all.”

A’DONTE WASHINGTON’S FAMILY WAS DENIED A PERMIT FOR A PUBLIC VIGIL, HAD CANDLELIGHT VIGIL FOR THEIR SON AT THEIR HOME.