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% [?]

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% [?]

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% [?]

Back in July, I stated that something stunk about the case against seven Miami, Florida men the government claimed was plotting to blow up the Sears Tower in Chicago. The issue that I saw was that these men had neither the talent or the means to carry out this plot. In fact, their so-called weapons training involved going paintball shooting. They had so little money that the FBI agent who “infiltrated” them had to buy them boots. The agent says that the swore allegience to al Quaeda but the only “contact” they had with anyone in al Quaeda was the agent himself, who claimed to be tied to al Quaeda.

So, today, the Bush administration got egg on its face. They and a lot of right-wing talking heads spoke about breaking up this plot justified all the Bush administrations actions in its so-called war on terror. Today, a jury acquitted one of the men involved and had a hung jury on the other six:

The mistrial means prosecutors will have to decide whether to retry the six men.

The outcome was a setback for the Bush administration, which had seized on the case to illustrate the dangers of homegrown terrorism and trumpet the government’s post-Sept. 11 success in infiltrating and smashing terror plots in their earliest stages.

Lyglenson Lemorin, who was not the alleged ringleader, was acquitted.

The jury gave up on the other defendants after nine days of deliberations on four terrorism-related conspiracy charges that carry a combined maximum of 70 years in prison. The jury of six men and six women twice sent notes to the presiding judge indicating they could not reach verdicts but were told to keep trying. The mistrial came after their third note.

To this, I quote what I wrote in July:

“…hyping up cases like this makes me question if we are serious about battling terrorism or if it’s more like our war on drugs — just occasionally bust a few people to make it seem like something is really being done and keep your political office for another term.”

Popularity: 23% [?]

Four Chicago men will receive a settlement of nearly $20 million for the alleged torture at the hands of Chicago Police. In July 2006, a report revealed that at least 5 Chicago police officers used torture to get confessions out of suspects. These officers utilized tactics as extreme as electric shock and Russian roulette to force confessions. As a result, the men — Leroy Orange, Stanley Howard, Madison Hobley and Aaron Patterson — ended up on death row.

These men were released after each spending more than a decade on death row while the ringleader for this torture, police commander Jon Burge finished out his career and retired in Florida.

These were not the first or the last instances of such tactics by police. However, with settlements such as this, let’s hope that more cities give a long, hard look at how their officers are behaving.

Popularity: 30% [?]

I’ve been meaning to speak on this for a little while now but, I am just now getting around to it.

You might remember me posting about ColorOfChange.org. Color of Change is a group that brings black activism to the web. One of its campaigns has been to raise money for the legal defense of the Jena 6.

However, despite their best efforts, this did not stop them from being the subject of attack by radio talk-show host Michael Baisden. Baisden had Marcus Jones on his show. Jones is the father of one of the Jena 6, Mychal Bell. On this show, Jones claimed that ColorOfChange.org was collecting money against the wishes of the Jena 6 families. Bell and Baisden went on to claim that Color Of Change had been pocketing the money for themselves, even saying that a $10,000 donation made by David Bowie was kept by Color Of Change.

Unfortunately, this was untrue and this dishonesty was spread across the airwaves.

Where do I begin? First, Bowie never made a $10,000 donation for the Jena 6 defense to Color of Change. That donation was made to the NAACP (see the press release from the NAACP).

To date, Color of Change has raised over $230,000 for the legal fees of the the Jena 6 and their attorneys have acknowledged receipt of the funds.

Now, honestly, I would have cut Baisden some slack, had I not been informed of the background. You see, Baisden’s interview with Jones was on November 5th. But, Baisden’s staffers had contacted Color Of Change in October for information regarding these allegations and Color Of Change provided them with information supporting the fact that they were operating above-board:

James Rucker (Director for Color Of Change) has talked with Baisden directly, and at his direction, with Pamela Exum, his business manager, and Yvonne Gilliam, his publicist. From the start, we have explained our procedures to Baisden and his staff; we had them verify payments were received by lawyers; we had them verify our process with the lawyers and families–it was in response to an inquiry they started, driven by Marcus Jones’ accusations almost two months ago.

In fact, Yvonne Gilliam faxed us Marcus’ Jones authorization to release funds. It makes it clear that Baisden’s staff knew that Marcus knew ColorOfChange.org and that he had asked us to direct funds to his attorney.

In mid-October, Yvonne Gilliam, who works for Baisden indicated by phone that every lawyer she’d contacted had received their checks.

But, despite knowing the truth, they went on ahead with the show.

However, it gets even better.
Read More… »

Popularity: 42% [?]