Do Killers Have Right To Confront Dead Victims?

That's the question put before the Supreme Court
and it it will hear the matter today. What do you
think? We'll be watching this one.


Dwayne Giles, who shot and killed his ex-girlfriend in Los Angeles, asked the Supreme Court on Tuesday to overturn his murder conviction because he was denied the right to "confront" her in court.

"He never had a chance to cross-examine" the victim, said Marilyn G. Burkardt, a Los Angeles lawyer representing Giles. Burkardt called the prosecution's use of his ex's reports of his threats "highly prejudicial."

Though it sounds far-fetched, Giles' claim could prevail in the high court.

The Supreme Court took up of the case of Giles vs. California to test the outer limits of the so-called confrontation right in the 6th Amendment. It says, "In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right. . . . to be confronted with the witnesses against him."

Until 2004, judges usually allowed jurors to hear "reliable" secondhand accounts of what witnesses said if the witness was not available. A police officer could report on what a missing witness had said.

But in a case that year, Justice Antonin Scalia insisted this "hearsay" violated the defendant's rights under the 6th Amendment. "Where testimonial statements are at issue, the only [test] of reliability . . . is the one the Constitution actually prescribes: confrontation," Scalia said at the time in Crawford vs. Washington.

Now, the court has to decide how strictly to apply that rule.

During Tuesday's argument, Scalia said the court should stick to a no-exceptions rule. He said Giles' rights were violated because a police officer had testified at his trial that the murder victim, Brenda Avie, had said Giles threatened to kill her.

On Sept. 5, 2002, two police officers were called to a house where Giles and Avie had been arguing. She had a bump on her forehead, and she told one officer Giles had pulled a knife on her and said he would kill her if he saw her with another man.

Four weeks later, Giles shot Avie six times at his grandmother's house, left her for dead and fled the scene. He was arrested, and when his case went to trial, he pleaded self-defense. He testified that Avie was aggressive and violent.

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Ignorant Society?

Yesterday's headlines touted "Lack of Skilled Workers
in the Country." Well op-ed columnist Bob Herbert
seems to know why and his opinion is right on the money.


We don’t hear a great deal about education in the presidential campaign. It’s much too serious a topic to compete with such fun stuff as Hillary tossing back a shot of whiskey, or Barack rolling a gutter ball.

The nation’s future may depend on how well we educate the current and future generations, but (like the renovation of the nation’s infrastructure, or a serious search for better sources of energy) that can wait. At the moment, no one seems to have the will to engage any of the most serious challenges facing the U.S.

An American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year, a sign of big trouble for these largely clueless youngsters in an era in which a college education is crucial to maintaining a middle-class quality of life — and for the country as a whole in a world that is becoming more hotly competitive every day.

Ignorance in the United States is not just bliss, it’s widespread. A recent survey of teenagers by the education advocacy group Common Core found that a quarter could not identify Adolf Hitler, a third did not know that the Bill of Rights guaranteed freedom of speech and religion, and fewer than half knew that the Civil War took place between 1850 and 190

“We have one of the highest dropout rates in the industrialized world,” said Allan Golston, the president of U.S. programs for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In a discussion over lunch recently he described the situation as “actually pretty scary, alarming.”

Roughly a third of all American high school students drop out. Another third graduate but are not prepared for the next stage of life — either productive work or some form of post-secondary education.

When two-thirds of all teenagers old enough to graduate from high school are incapable of mastering college-level work, the nation is doing something awfully wrong.

Mr. Golston noted that the performance of American students, when compared with their peers in other countries, tends to grow increasingly dismal as they move through the higher grades:

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It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
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excerpts from this treasured
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Special Order 40?

Well from what I've read it looks to me that
Special Order 40 needs to brought up to fit
the needs of today. Times change so why not
civil guidelines. Anyone Else?


If "Special Order 40" sounds vaguely like a term from a spy or science fiction thriller, that's in keeping with the surreal conversation that is raging around the 1979 Los Angeles Police Department rule. Specifically, the order has figured centrally in discussions of the murder of 17-year-old Jamiel Shaw, allegedly at the hands of 19-year-old illegal immigrant Pedro Espinoza. As LAPD Chief William Bratton noted recently, much of this conversation has been disconnected from the reality of the order, which governs how officers deal with undocumented immigrants and did not factor into the case at hand.

But the passions around this issue suggest something larger than just confusion about procedure or jurisdiction. The Shaw case opens onto a set of crises around crime, illegal immigration, gangs, proper policing roles and the difficulty of ensuring the rights of citizens and non-citizens in Southern California. For some, Special Order 40 is a symbol of L.A.'s collapse into a lawless "sanctuary city." For others it's crucial to the goal of protecting human rights, while still others see it as an important tool in maintaining civil order. There are plenty of other views as well, and though they don't all have direct bearing on Special Order 40, they speak to the tension and anger felt by many locals.

We rounded up quotes from 40 Southern Californians on this controversial police rule.

Constance Rice, co-founder and co-director of the Advancement Project
Special Order 40 is absolutely essential for any workable law enforcement system in Southern California. There will be no integrity to our criminal justice system without it. African Americans can not be advocating racial profiling, which is what ending Special Order 40 would amount to.

Harry Gamboa Jr., artist
Special Order 40 must be respected so that all people can confidently approach the LAPD for emergency assistance or to provide vital information regarding criminal activity. The LAPD should not be as cold as ICE.

Daryl F. Gates, LAPD chief, 1978-1992
Special Order 40 has been following me all these years. It was written at a different time in history, when the state attorney general said illegal entry was not our business, no one was paying attention to the influx of illegals into Southern California, and the community did not seem to be concerned. We had a lot of illegals here who had been victims of crimes, and we wanted to help them. So for one thing, it would help cooperation, and two, I didn't want my guys asking every brown-faced person if they were citizens. That was the purpose of Special Order 40. It was never ever designed to protect criminals. But today the issue is no Special Order 40; it's gangs. The city not doing enough, and it should use every tool available to us to combat gangs. If that means asking them if they're illegal and deporting them, so be it. This is not about Special Order 40, it's about using every legal tool to combat gangs. I don't see any reason for an amendment to the order, but I'm all for Dennis Zine doing something about it. I believe the LAPD has every ability to go after gangs, and to use immigration to do that. Any gang member ought to be fair game.





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"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
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movement and the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
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Was There Any Doubt?

Now this was one decision I knew would set
the current Supreme Court back in line with
their far right wing decision. You can best
believe that a lot of conservatives are breathing
a sigh of relief.


A national drive to halt the death penalty met defeat at the Supreme Court on Wednesday when the justices ruled that lethal injections, if properly administered, were a humane means of executing a condemned prisoner.

By a surprisingly large 7-2 margin, the court rejected a constitutional attack on the main method of carrying out the death penalty across America. Its ruling cleared the way for executions to resume in several states after a seven-month delay.
as
Since October, officials and judges in those states -- including California -- have put executions on hold while awaiting the outcome of the Kentucky case decided Wednesday. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the ruling "supports California's lethal-injection protocol" and should allow executions in the state to resume.

The court's opinion, by Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr., confirmed that there was strong support for the death penalty among the justices, and an unwillingness to tolerate endless delays.

"We begin with the principle . . . that capital punishment is constitutional. It necessarily follows that there must be a means of carrying it out," Roberts wrote.

"Some risk of pain is inherent in any method of execution -- no matter how humane -- if only from the prospect of error in following the required procedure."

Roberts said the court would not allow a theoretical risk that a future execution could be botched to stand in the way of carrying out the death penalty.

He also set a high bar for future challenges to carrying out the death penalty. To halt an execution, defense lawyers must show that there is a "substantial risk" that the condemned prisoner will suffer "severe pain," the chief justice said. And they have yet to provide such evidence, he added.





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"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Sue The Prosecutor?

Not such a good idea. These people need to
be protected from such litigation so that they
can perform their jobs. Putting a target on their
backs can make it difficult for everyone even the
defense.


Prosecutors have long been shielded from lawsuits brought by people who were wrongly convicted. Even if a defendant is later shown to be entirely innocent, the prosecutor who brought the charges cannot be held liable for the mistake.

The Supreme Court has ruled that "absolute immunity" is needed so that prosecutors -- and judges -- can do their jobs without fear of legal retaliation.

But a California case that the high court is considering taking could open a back door for such lawsuits. Prosecutors in Los Angeles are urging the court to block a suit from a man who was wrongly convicted of murder because, they say, it will allow "a potential flood" of similar claims across the nation.

Last year, the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals set off alarms among prosecutors in the West when it ruled that supervising prosecutors could be sued for alleged management failures that led to a wrongful conviction. Its ruling cleared the way for Thomas L. Goldstein to sue former Los Angeles Dist. Atty. John K. Van de Kamp.

The suit does not allege that Van de Kamp, the county's chief prosecutor from 1975 to 1983, played a direct role in Goldstein's wrongful conviction for a shotgun murder in Long Beach in 1979. Indeed, Van de Kamp said he was unaware of the details of this case until decades later when the conviction was reversed.

Rather, the suit alleges that Van de Kamp and his top deputy, Curt Livesay, failed to set up a system to monitor the use of testimony from jail informants.

The Los Angeles County district attorney's office, the nation's largest prosecution office, once made regular use of jail informants, but at the time it had no system for sharing information among prosecutors countywide about which informants were reliable and what they had been promised.




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"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
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movement and the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
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Remember!

This week marks the 40th anniversary of the death
of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. I remember that day
as if it were yesterday and yet there are a great many
Americans of all color that know very little of that tragic
day. If that is so then take a moment and click on story
continued here to get a glimpse of what it was like that
day and the events that led up to it.



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"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
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excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
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Redundant Charges?

Although this case doesn't involve people of color
in a major role I still thought it might interest you
as much as it has me. The case involves a Hollywood
private investigator and the way he was getting his
information through illegal wiretaps which is a federal
offense. Now out of the clear blue sky the government
has decided to drop 28 or half the charges in the case.
See this all goes to show ya how the deck can be stacked
against you!


A federal judge granted a prosecution request today to dismiss 28 charges against private investigator Anthony Pellicano and a co-defendant.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Dan Saunders said the government made the request because some of the alleged victims weren't available to testify and other counts were redundant. More than 35 charges remain against Pellicano and former Los Angeles police Sgt. Mark Arneson.

The dropped counts mostly involved wire fraud that authorities had alleged involved Arneson searching law enforcement databases for Pellicano.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge Dale Fischer came as prosecutors prepared to end their portion of the trial.

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"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
tells the story of the Civil Rights
movement and the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
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Justice Dept. Monkeying With Releases

Seems the Justice Department is delaying the release
of federal inmates convicted under old sentencing
guidelines simply because it does not agree with
the Supreme Court ruling.


New federal sentencing guidelines designed to end the racially tinged disparity between prison sentences for powder and crack cocaine dealers went into effect a month ago, and so far more than 3,000 inmates have had their prison terms reduced.

Dozens have been released, including at least 15 in California, but many others who should have been released have not. Attorneys involved in the process blame bureaucratic delays as well as opposition from the Justice Department.

In North Carolina, which has the country's fifth largest population of crack offenders eligible for early release, four inmates have been freed out of some three dozen who lawyers say should have been released, in some cases, years ago.

The delays appear to be due in part to a procedural bottleneck: Federal judges there did not approve a plan for processing requests for sentence reductions until five days before the new rules were to go into effect. Courts in parts of Texas and south Florida also appear to be lagging.

The U.S. Sentencing Commission approved the guidelines in December after a two-decade debate over the fairness and efficacy of laws that have punished dealers of crack cocaine much more severely than those who sell powder cocaine. The disparity has weighed particularly hard on African Americans, who represent about 90% of the defendants prosecuted for crack offenses in federal court.

The sentencing commission has estimated that about 20,000 inmates are eligible for the reduced sentences.

When the rules were approved, the commission deferred the effective date until March 3 to give courts time to prepare. As of Tuesday, the federal Bureau of Prisons said it had received 3,077 signed orders from judges modifying the sentences of prisoners nationwide. The prisons bureau won't say how many have actually been released; even after the reductions, some inmates will still have much time to serve.

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"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
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excerpts from this treasured
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Martin And The Garbageman

Until now I never really knew or understood why Dr. King
was in Memphis supporting a garbage strike. What did the
strike have to do with civil rights? Well after reading the article
below you'll see just how important this strike by local garbage
men changed the economic picture for blacks.


WHEN MARTIN Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968, he was in Memphis supporting 1,300 striking sanitation workers.

This particular fact is sometimes mentioned in civil rights histories; when it is, the significance of that strike--for King, and for the strikers--is little understood. Likewise, the role of Black workers generally in the fight for racial and economic equality is not nearly as well studied.

In Going Down Jericho Road, historian Michael Honey brings to life the story of the Memphis sanitation strike, illuminating it not only with an organizer's sensitivity to the dynamics of the movement (Honey is a civil rights veteran himself), but with the voices of Black sanitation workers, union activists and Black radical youth.

Jericho Road is organized as two parallel stories--of the Memphis garbage workers fighting for union recognition, and of Martin Luther King Jr. searching for a way to build a movement for economic justice.

The white Memphis elite prided itself on granting enough concessions to Blacks to be able to avoid the explosive confrontations that had rocked other southern cities. Blacks could vote, and newspapers called for some compliance with the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that outlawed segregated schools.

Black sanitation workers saw things differently. They worked in plantation-like conditions for starvation wages, under the watch of racist white supervisors. "Since many of the white bosses came from the plantations themselves," Honey observes, "they treated black workers much like landlords in the Mississippi Delta treated their sharecroppers and tenants."

Forty years after King's last stand
The unfinished struggle

April 4, 2008 | Pages 6 and 7

MARTIN LUTHER King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis 40 years ago in the midst of a struggle that he saw as part of the next stage for the civil rights movement--supporting a strike of African American sanitation workers. Here, BRIAN JONES reviews an excellent new book, Michael Honey's Going Down Jericho Road, which tells the story of that struggle.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

WHEN MARTIN Luther King Jr. was assassinated in April 1968, he was in Memphis supporting 1,300 striking sanitation workers.

This particular fact is sometimes mentioned in civil rights histories; when it is, the significance of that strike--for King, and for the strikers--is little understood. Likewise, the role of Black workers generally in the fight for racial and economic equality is not nearly as well studied.

In Going Down Jericho Road, historian Michael Honey brings to life the story of the Memphis sanitation strike, illuminating it not only with an organizer's sensitivity to the dynamics of the movement (Honey is a civil rights veteran himself), but with the voices of Black sanitation workers, union activists and Black radical youth.

Jericho Road is organized as two parallel stories--of the Memphis garbage workers fighting for union recognition, and of Martin Luther King Jr. searching for a way to build a movement for economic justice.

What else to read Brian Jones expands on the final months of the civil rights leader's life in "Martin Luther King's last fight," published in the International Socialist Review as part of a series of articles on the high points of the revolutionary year 1968. Michael Honey's Going Down Jericho Road tells the story of the Memphis sanitation strike and vividly renders its dynamics and lessons. It is an invaluable read for those who want to carry on King's fight for real social and economic equality. For an overview of the struggle against racism in the U.S., from slavery to the present day, get Black Liberation and Socialism, by Ahmed Shawki. For more on the development of the civil rights struggle specifically, read Jack Bloom's Class, Race and the Civil Rights Movement. One of the best biographies of King is Bearing the Cross: Martin Luther King Jr. and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, by David Garrow. The struggle in Memphis is taken up in At Canaan's Edge: America in the King Years, 1965-68, the final volume of Taylor Branch's multi-part biography. For more on how King's political ideas developed, see Michael Eric Dyson's I May Not Get There with You: The True Martin Luther King Jr.

The white Memphis elite prided itself on granting enough concessions to Blacks to be able to avoid the explosive confrontations that had rocked other southern cities. Blacks could vote, and newspapers called for some compliance with the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court ruling that outlawed segregated schools.

Black sanitation workers saw things differently. They worked in plantation-like conditions for starvation wages, under the watch of racist white supervisors. "Since many of the white bosses came from the plantations themselves," Honey observes, "they treated black workers much like landlords in the Mississippi Delta treated their sharecroppers and tenants."

Workers could be fired for being one minute late or for "talking back." They had no breaks. They had to eat their lunches in 15 minutes and couldn't be seen in the shade of a tree. The shade of the truck was their only refuge from the Memphis heat, even though the trucks were old and outmoded, smelled horribly and often had maggots falling off the side.

The city didn't require residents to pack up their garbage or even bring it to the curb, so the sanitation workers had to grab everything as it lay, including tree limbs, dead animals in the road, and unpacked garbage. "I wasn't making a damn thing," James Robinson recalled. After 15 years on the job, he was being paid $1.65 an hour, only 5 cents above the federal minimum wage. "We were workin' every day then for welfare wages."

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"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
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movement and the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/

Which Way Are They Going?

This current Supreme Court amazes me in that
one day they make a decision that leans one way
then the next day they go in the opposite direction.
Anyway check out the article below and then feel
free to comment.


If a city allows a monument with the Ten Commandments to be erected in a public park, must it also allow other religions and groups to display monuments of their choosing? The Supreme Court agreed Monday to take up that question in an unusual dispute over the reach of the 1st Amendment and freedom of speech.

In the past, the court has said the free-speech rule applies in parks and officials may not discriminate against speakers or groups because of their message. In this context, freedom of speech means a freedom from government restrictions.

But last year, the U.S. appeals court in Denver extended this free-speech rule to cover the monuments, statues and displays in a public park. It ruled in favor of a religious group called Summum, which says it wants to erect its "Seven Aphorisms of Summum" next to the Ten Commandments in Pioneer Park in Pleasant Grove, Utah.

Its ruling left the city with an all-or-nothing choice: Allow Summum and others to erect their own displays in the park, or remove the other monuments.

The city’s lawyers called the appeals court ruling "confused" and "flawed" and said it could cause problems around the nation.

"We're delighted that the Supreme Court agreed to take this critical case," said a statement by Jay Sekulow, chief counsel for the conservative American Center for Law and Justice, which filed an appeal for Pleasant Grove.

He continued: "The lower court ruling -- if left unchecked -- would ultimately force local governments to remove long-standing and well-established patriotic, religious and historical displays."

Sekulow argued that monuments are the property of the city and are not akin to private free speech.




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Get your copy of the award winning King:
"From Atlanta to the Mountain top
It's the 3-Hour Docudrama that
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movement and the life of
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
To learn more and hear
excerpts from this treasured
program,click here:
http://www.kingprogram.net/