At 9am, three NYPD officers will hear their fate in the fatal shooting of Sean Bell in November 2006. Bell died in a hail of 50 bullets after leaving a bachelor party at a strip club.

Police say that Bell and his friend got into an altercation with another group of men outside the club and, believing one of Bell’s friends had a gun, a plainclothes officer followed them and called in for backup.

Bell’s friends say that detectives drew their guns on them but, never identified themselves as police. Fearing that some unknown men were about to fire on them, Bell sped off in his vechicle.

Police say they thought Bell was trying to run them down and began shooting. Now, this runs counter to the earlier version of their story in which officers where saying that they thought there was a person wielding a gun inside the vehicle and began firing on the vehicle.

The verdict is minutes away but, I fear the fix is in on this one. This is a bench trial (no jury) and, given what has happened in cases like that of Amadou Diallo, I have my doubts that there will be any real accountability for these officers.

UPDATE: The three officers have been acquitted on all charges related to the killing of Sean Bell.  There may be some hope for justice, still.  Federal prosecutors have been monitoring this trial to determine if civil rights charges can be brought forward.

Popularity: 11% [?]

An Indiana staffing firm has just agreed to a substantial settlement to settle discrimination claims.

The Renhill staffing company will pay $585,000 in an age, race and retaliation discrimination suit. According to the suit, brought forth by the EEOC, “Renhill’s Fort Wayne office and a former office in Decatur violated federal law by failing to refer African-American applicants and applicants ages 40 and older for work assignments.” Furthermore, the EEOC claimed that employees of the firm were retaliated against when they complained about these practices.

In addition to the financial settlement, Renhill will be under a consent decree for the next three years, so that monitors can ensure that the company’s discriminatory practices are not continuing.

Popularity: 76% [?]

…and, ABC News, your debate stunk.

I understand that there have been a lot of Democratic debates (last night made the 21st) but, seeing how they sunk to the levels of tabloid journalism in presenting this debate, they could have left it at 20.

Many bloggers have already panned this debate. It was over 50 minutes before a single policy question. Instead, we were treated to a rehash of Rev. Wright, Hillary Clinton’s Bosnia story, an obscure reference to 60’s radical William Ayers and — *gasp* — flag pins.

However, it’s not just me and bloggers. Just check out the comments on ABC’s web site. There are over 12.000 at this point and from what I have read, the general consensus is that ABC did a horrible job last night.

Popularity: 75% [?]

Why am I not surprised this fool is from Ohio?

46-year-old David Tuason of Pepper Pike, Ohio faces federal charges over what authorities claim have been some 200 threatening letters he’s sent over the past 20 years. It appears that the targets of his threats were black men who were in relationships with white women.

One of these letters apparently targeted Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, threatening his life by castrating him, shooting him and setting him on fire.

Needless to say, Tuason is one sick puppy. I just hope that he has never acted on these sentiments.

You can read the federal indictment here.

Popularity: 14% [?]

Craig Holcomb is a white man suing his former employer for discrimination. Now, some might say, “what happened, did they hire a black person for a job he should have gotten?” In a word, no.

Holcomb is alleging he was fired because of who he chose to love and marry. Holcomb was the top assistant basketball coach at Iona College in New York. In 2004, Holcomb was fired from his coaching job by what he says were a group of racists in the athletict department. Specifically, he names the school’s Vice President and former Athletic Director Richard Petriccione as one of the main perpetrators. According to Holcomb, Petriccione repeatedly referred to players as “ni**ers” and called a Nigerian employee a “jungle bunny”. When it was clear that Holcomb was going to marry his then-fiancee Pamela Gauthier, a black woman, Holcomb said Pamela Gauthier told him, “You’re really going to marry that Aunt Jemima? You really are a ni**er lover.”

Originally, his case was thrown out of court because the judge ruled that Holcomb couldn’t file racial discrimination because the racial hostilities alleged were aimed at Holcomb’s wife. However, the 2nd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in Manhattan has reinstated his case, ruling that it would be possible for Holcomb to be discriminated against due to his association with his wife.

Holcomb with have his day in court and a college will have to answer questions of discrimination. If true, this is a sad commentary and a reminder that, even today, some people want to enact their own miscegenation laws.

Popularity: 8% [?]

You might remember the horrifying story of the ordeal experienced by Megan Williams. For a week, she was imprisoned by seven racists who beat her, tortured her, stabbed her, sexually assaulted her and forced her to eat feces.

Two members of this lynch mob received the maximum sentences their charges allowed.

46-year-old Karen Burton (pictured right) and 49-year-old Frankie Brewster heard their fates yesterday. Burton, received three 2-10 year sentences for malicious assault and assault during the commission of a felony, to be served consecutively. She also received a 10-year sentence for a civil rights charge.

Brewster received a 10-25 year sentence for second-degree sexual assault.

They became the 4th and 5th people to receive sentences in this case:

Burton’s 23-year-old daughter, Alisha, and George Messer, 27, both of Chapmanville, both pleaded guilty in February to kidnapping and assault and received 10-year sentences.

…

A seventh defendant, Karen Burton’s son, Linnie Burton Jr., 21, was indicted on a misdemeanor battery charge.

This leaves Brewster’s son, Bobby, and another man, Danny Combs, as the only two to not tried for these crimes. Both face charges, including kidnapping and sexual assault.

Popularity: 18% [?]

It seems pretty obvious to me that Alphonso Jackson has no problems playing in the dirt and giving poor folks the shaft. With that being said, this time, he might have really stepped in it. Jackson is accused of retaliating against the mayor of Philadelphia for not hooking up Jackson’s friend, former songwriter Kenny Gamble, with a $2 million property. Gamble owns a real estate firm.

So, the city of Philadelphia is suing HUD over this alleged retaliation. Here’s how the story reads:

Housing Secretary Alphonso Jackson demanded that the Philadelphia Housing Authority transfer a $2 million public property to a developer at a substantial discount, then retaliated against the housing authority when it refused to do so, a recent court filing alleges.

The authority’s director, Carl Greene, contends in a court affidavit that Jackson called Philadelphia’s mayor in 2006 to demand the transfer to the developer, Kenny Gamble, a former soul-music songwriter who is a business friend of Jackson’s. Jackson’s aides followed up with “menacing” threats about the property and other housing programs in at least a dozen letters and phone calls over an 11-month period, Greene said in an interview.

Greene and his colleagues have alleged in the court filing that Philadelphia is now paying a severe price for disobeying a Bush Cabinet official. The Department of Housing and Urban Development recently vowed to strip the city’s housing authority of its ability to spend some federal funds, a move that the authority said could raise rents for most of its 84,000 low-income tenants and force the layoffs of 250 people.

The housing authority responded by filing a civil suit in December against HUD and Jackson, in which Greene claimed that the actions by Jackson’s department are “retaliatory” and that the Bush administration has exaggerated the troubles it cited as grounds for stripping the funds. Greene said the developer failed to deliver on contracts, leading the housing agency to conclude that the transfer would be improper.

Okay, so, I know that scandal and Bush administration are no different that saying “peanut butter and jelly” but, nonetheless, this appears to be another case of scandal tied to this crew. Is it January 2009, yet?

Popularity: 20% [?]

If you’re an attorney, being called a “Supreme” would only be a compliment if it was in reference to a seat on the Supreme Court. So, when it was used recently by a county judge in Hagerstown, MD to describe public defenders there, it was no compliment.

Recently, Washington County Circuit Judge W. Kennedy Boone was officially reprimanded for his incredible lack of professionalism and discretion when he referred to three black female public defenders as the “Supremes” and instructed the defendant in the case to get “an experienced male attorney.”

In a letter from the Maryland Commission on Judicial Disabilities, Boone’s actions were labeled as “undignified and disparaging.”. Though Boone has offered to recuse himself from their future cases, each of the attorneys in question has appeared before his court since the remarks were made last April.

Popularity: 24% [?]

At age 47, Charles Chatman has spent more than half of his life behind bars. At age 21, Chatman was convicted of the rape of a 20-year-old woman who picked him out of a lineup.

She might have recognized him because he lived down the street from her in their Dallas neighborhood. Mix that in with an overzealous prosecution and you get a sentence of 99 years.

However, there was a big problem: Chatman didn’t do it and spent the next 26 years behind bars, knowing this fact.

As you can surmise, this is yet another case of a wrongfully-convicted black man exonerated by DNA evidence.

Dallas County has developed quite an infamous reputation as the town with the highest number of inmates exonerated by DNA testing nationwide. Since 2001, there have been 15. Furthermore, the state of Texas leads all states in exonerated prisoner. There have been 30 freed since 2001.

And that number is only expected to increase:

One of the biggest reasons for the large number of exonerations in Texas is the crime lab used by Dallas County, which accounts for about half the state’s DNA cases. Unlike many jurisdictions, the lab used by police and prosecutors retains biological evidence, meaning DNA testing is a viable option for decades-old crimes.

District Attorney Craig Watkins also attributes the exonerations to a past culture of overly aggressive prosecutors seeking convictions at any cost. Watkins has started a program in which law students, supervised by the Innocence Project of Texas, are reviewing about 450 cases in which convicts have requested DNA testing.

Thankfully, these men can leave prison but, what happens when you’ve taken away what could be the most productive parts of a person’s life? I only hope that Chatman, as well as others, receives adequate compensation. It can’t buy back the lost years but it can, at least, provide him with something to help cover what he has lost over the years.

However, there is a bigger question - when is America going to deal with the realities of racism that clearly enabled convictions like these to happen in the first place?

Popularity: 21% [?]

I’ve often stated that I get insulted when prosecutors say that, when they have a black defendant, they want to weed black people off juries to avoid our going soft on them. In other words, they insinuate that white jurors are never biased and always make fair judgements in regards to black defendants.

54-year-0ld John White was recently convicted of second-degree manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a 17-year-old. White, who could receive up to 15 years in prison, claims he was defending his family and the person he shot, Daniel Cicciaro Jr, was part of a “lynch mob” that had formed outside of the White household to confront his son.

So, after 4 days of deliberation, the jury returned a guilty verdict but, now, one juror is speaking out:

Juror Francois Larche, who is white, said he and another juror changed their votes after enduring “a lot of psychological tactics” from fellow jurors during an unusual weekend session ordered by the judge over jurors’ protests.

“It was a huge burden to bear,” Larche, 46, told the New York Post in Monday’s editions. He added, “I took a lot of heat.”

…

Judge Barbara Kahn said the jury would have to return on Sunday if they didn’t reach a decision. Larche told the Post the judge told them a mistrial would burden the families and the next jury.

“I thought about my family and the families of the other jurors,” Larche said. “It was not worth it in the end.”

After reading this, I am left to ask if a jury saw a middle-aged white male who had shot a 17-year-old black male, who the former had said gathered with a “lynch mob” to attack the man’s son would they 1) even had to deliberate 4 days to let the man go or, to be fair, 2) at least not let their concerns about quickly wrapping up a case get in the way of fair and honest deliberations?

In either scenario, I would be inclined to say “no”.

Popularity: 20% [?]