Uncivilized Authorities in Texas Murder Black Man who Murdered a Black Cop -Jury was Never Instructed to Consider Evidence Supporting a Sentence Less than Death, had an IQ of 65

From [HERE] and [HERE] A 61-year-old Black man was executed Wednesday evening for killing a Black Houston police officer more than three decades ago. He was murdered by Texas amid questions as to his eligibility for capital punishment and the constitutionality of his death sentence.

Jennings was convicted under a sentencing procedure that the U.S. Supreme Court had struck down shortly before his trial in 1989 because it did not adequately allow jurors to consider evidence supporting a sentence less than death.

The jury instructions given in his case to redress that error were also later declared unconstitutional, and 25 Texas death-row prisoners had their death sentences overturned as a result. However, Jennings’s court-appointed trial and appeal lawyers failed to raise the issue in Texas state court and the Texas federal courts refused to consider the issue on the grounds that the state court lawyers had procedurally defaulted the claim. The U.S. Supreme Court later changed federal habeas corpus procedures to permit review if ineffective state-court representation caused the default. But when Jennings’s federal lawyers attempted to raise the issue again, the Texas federal appeals court ruled on January 28 that its prior decision had not been based on procedural default and that it had already rejected the claim. Without comment, the Supreme Court issued an order on January 30 declining to hear Jennings’s case, and he was executed.

Robert Jennings received lethal injection for the July 1988 fatal shooting of Officer Elston Howard during a robbery at an adult bookstore that authorities said was part of a crime spree.

In challenging Jennings’s death sentence, his current lawyers also argued that both Jennings’s trial lawyer and his previous appellate attorney provided inadequate representation. Jennings’s trial attorney was defending two death-penalty cases at the same time and did not investigate significant mitigating evidence that included Jennings’s history of brain damage from a car crash and an injury with a baseball bat, an IQ of 65, and intellectual and adaptive deficits associated with his low IQ. Trial counsel also failed to present readily available evidence of Jennings’s impoverished, abusive, and neglectful upbringing: he was born as the result of a rape, and his mother frequently told him she did not want him. His original appeal lawyers also failed to raise these issues. Edward Mallett, one of Jennings’s current lawyers, said, “There has not been an adequate presentation of his circumstances including mental illness and mental limitations.”

U.S. District Judge Lynn Hughes took the unusual step earlier in January of asking the state to consider supporting clemency for Jennings, citing the 30-year delay between the crime and the scheduled execution. Jennings's attorneys argued in his clemency petition that the state had granted clemency last year to a white death-row prisoner with fewer mitigating circumstances. "Denying a commutation truly will demonstrate that race, class, and privilege matter in determining who is executed in Texas," attorney Randy Schaffer wrote. "This would send a terrible message to the world."

As witnesses filed into the death chamber, Jennings asked a chaplain standing next to him if he knew the name of the slain officer. The chaplain didn't respond, and a prison official then told the warden to proceed with the punishment.

"To my friends and family, it was a nice journey," Jennings said in his final statement. "To the family of the police officer, I hope y'all find peace. Be well and be safe and try to enjoy life's moments, because we never get those back."

Video Shows White Greensboro (MD) Cops "Just Trying to Help" by Beating, Smothering, Crushing & Killing Black Teen they Determined to be Schizophrenic - Under Arrest for Horse Play

From [CBS] Officials have released body camera video of a deadly encounter between police and a black teenager who died after struggling with white officers in a town on Maryland's Eastern Shore, footage that fueled a civil rights group's call for an independent investigation. The video shows the cops manhandling the teenager by beating, pouncing and pulling on the teen as if they were moving heavy furniture.

Greensboro Police Chief Mike Petyo released the footage after a county prosecutor announced Thursday that he isn't asking a grand jury to consider criminal charges in the September 2018 death of 19-year-old Anton Black.

The video shows Black's mother screaming after police chased her son to the driveway of his family's home, where an officer smashed a car window to get to Black inside and then shocked him with a stun gun before the teen struggled with three officers and a civilian. The footage also captured how Black's mother and officers reacted when they realized he stopped responding.

Caroline County State's Attorney Joseph Riley said in a statement that his office "is not empowered to prosecute tragic acts." An autopsy report, signed Wednesday by the state's chief medical examiner, says Black suffered "sudden cardiac death." It said a congenital heart condition, mental illness, and stress from the struggle likely contributed to his death.

Lawyers for Black's family vowed Thursday to ask the U.S. Justice Department's civil rights division to investigate his death. The American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland joined their call for a federal investigation or an independent investigation by the governor-appointed Maryland State Prosecutor, whose office investigates misconduct in office by public officials or employees.

The group said in a statement Friday that the "disturbing" video shows officers used excessive force on a man who shouldn't have been arrested. Family attorneys said in a statement Black committed no crime and there was no reason for Webster and the other officers from neighboring departments to chase him back to his home, no reason for Webster to break the car's window, and no reason to Tase the teen or restrain him.

"There was no reason for Anton Black to die," the statement said.

It says the family only Wednesday received the autopsy report, though it was completed a day after his death.

"The ACLU is outraged by the gross delay in the handling and release of information related to the autopsy and police body camera footage, which raises significant red flags that local law enforcement agencies have something to hide in Anton's death," the statement says.

Riley told The Baltimore Sun that his office's investigation remains open.

"If I am provided new information," he said, "that could potentially change my position."

Family attorneys had urged Riley to convene a grand jury for the investigation. They claim police used excessive force on the teen and argue the autopsy report mischaracterizes his death as accidental.

The attorneys said in a statement the autopsy notes 43 abrasions, contusions or hemorrhages they say Black suffered during the struggle with officers.

"The autopsy raises serious questions about why such a high degree of force was used on an unarmed teenager on his own property who posed no threat to law enforcement or the public," Timothy Maloney, one of the family lawyers, wrote in an email Thursday.

The encounter began when Greensboro Police Department officer Thomas Webster IV responded to a 911 call from a woman who drove by and said she saw the teenager dragging a 12-year-old boy down a street. Lawyers for Black's family say he merely was playing with a longtime friend and wasn't harming the child.

Petyo, the police chief, said the woman who called 911 didn't know Black or the 12-year-old boy.

Webster told investigators he saw Black pin the 12-year-old against the hood of his patrol car, according to the statement from the state's attorney. Black identified himself as the 12-year-old's brother, but the body camera video shows the boy denying that.

The video then shows officers chase Black before he locked himself inside a car parked outside his family's home. An officer used a baton to break the driver's side window and then shocked Black with a Taser through the broken window before the teen got out and began struggling with the officers.

"Stop! You're under arrest!" an officer yelled.

The body camera footage shows Black's mother screaming her son's name as she sees officers pinning him down outside her home. One appears to lie on top of him as officers struggle to handcuff him.

"Anton, stop, baby!" she said after police handcuffed him.

"I love you!" he shouted.

"You'll be better if you don't fight. Calm down," a man said off camera.

"This is a mental health emergency. We're not treating this like a crime," an officer says. "He's not with us right now. He's going to be OK. We're going to get him some help."

The mother asks if her son will be locked up; an officer responds that they will instead take him to a hospital.

About 30 seconds later, the officers turned the handcuffed teen onto his back and checked for a pulse.

"He's breathing," a voice says.

The teen appears to be unresponsive. A dispatcher asks over the radio whether the teen is conscious and alert, and an officer replies, "Negative."

His mother points out that her son is "turning dark." Officers removed his handcuffs and began performing CPR on him. They also administer Narcan, meant to counter the effects of opioids. Black later was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The medical examiner's report says Black's medical record shows he recently had been involuntarily hospitalized and diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The report describes his mental illness as a "significant contributing condition." It doesn't show that drugs were in his system.

Maloney and Rene Swafford, another attorney representing the family, said they are conducting an independent review of forensic and medical evidence. "In any event, Anton Black did not die because of any mental condition," they said in a statement.

Webster was placed on administrative leave earlier this month. Petyo said Webster has returned to active duty following the decision by the state's attorney, but the chief said the officer isn't on a patrol assignment, in uniform, or interacting with the public.

Petyo said he will review the officer's status once the department receives official notice of the prosecutor's decision.

Racist Puppetician Steve King Gets Standing Ovation from his Constituent-believers at 1st Event Since his White Supremacy Rebuke because Most White People Hate Black People

From [NY Post] White Constituents applauded racist Republican Rep. Steve King on Saturday at the Iowa congressman’s first public event since being rebuked by his House colleagues over racist comments he had made to a newspaper earlier this month.

King told the roughly 75 people who showed up for the first of 39 planned town hall meetings in his sprawling district that he doesn’t adhere to a white supremacist ideology and he repeated his assertion that he’s not racist.

The nine-term House member caused an uproar after he was quoted in a New York Times story saying, “White nationalist, white supremacist, Western civilization — how did that language become offensive?” King claimed his comments were taken out of context, but the House voted 424-1 to rebuke him, with King himself voting in favor of the resolution, and Republican leaders denied him any committee assignments.

Addressing what he called “the elephant in the room” in his opening remarks at Saturday’s event, King expressed frustration that his comments about white nationalism and white supremacy in the Times interview led to even his fellow Republicans disowning him.

“It is stunning and astonishing to me that four words in a New York Times quote can outweigh 20-some years of public service, 20-some years of giving you my word every day,” King said. “And not one soul has stood up and said I’ve ever lied to you or misrepresented anything. Not one soul has stood up and said Steve King has ever acted in a racist fashion, that he ever discriminated against anybody.” [MORE]

“Most white people hate Black people. The reason that most white people hate Black people is because whites are not Black people. If you know this about white people, you need know little else. If you do not know this about white people, virtually all else that you know about them will only confuse you." -Neely Fuller.

Federal Judge says Arkansas’ Israel Boycott Law Doesn’t Violate or Restrict 1st Amendment Speech & Activity b/c a Boycott is Not Speech

Can You Afford Free Speech? From [Jurist] A federal district judge in Arkansas on Wednesday upheld a state law prohibiting state entities from entering into contracts with companies for goods or services unless those companies certify in writing that they are not currently engaged in, nor will they engage in for the duration of their contract, a “boycott of Israel.”

The Arkansas Times, which sought an advertising contract from a public university, argued that the law was a violation of the Times‘ First Amendment rights. They argued that the law impermissibly compels speech regarding contractors’ political beliefs, association, and expression and that it “restricts contractors from engaging in protected First Amendment activities, including boycott participation and boycott-related speech, without a legitimate justification.”

The judge found that the Times had standing but failed to show how a boycott of Israel was First Amendment-protected speech. A boycott of Israel “is not speech, inherently expressive activity, or subject to independent constitutional protection,” he said.

“Because engaging in a boycott of Israel, as defined by Act 710, is neither speech nor inherently expressive conduct, it is not protected by the First Amendment. Accordingly, the Arkansas Times has failed to state a claim upon which relief may be granted.”

Nebraska Supreme Court [an all white jury] Upholds Death Sentences [75% Non-White] Following Brief Repeal Orchestrated by Racist Suspect Governor

From [Jurist] The Supreme Court of Nebraska upheld death sentences for eight death row inmates on Friday. 

The plaintiffs, who had all been sentenced before 2015, claimed that when the Nebraska legislature repealed capital punishment in 2015, their sentences should have been commuted, even though capital punishment was reinstated by referendum in 2016. One of the eight plaintiffs had been executed as the case was pending.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) represented the plaintiffs. The ACLU argued that the sentences for the inmates had been automatically commuted after the legislative repeal, and the referendum only applied to future sentencing. They also argued that proper procedures regarding sponsorship were not followed during the referendum and that the executive branch violated the separation of powers in orchestrating the referendum.

The court unanimously (minus the two justices who did not participate) affirmed the district court’s decision to dismiss the suit because “other equally serviceable remedies were available.” The opinion reads, “We have held under similar circumstances that an action for a declaratory judgment does not lie where another equally serviceable remedy is available.” The court noted that the plaintiffs had pending individual appeals and could seek relief through those appeals.  None of the plaintiff’s arguments were discussed in the opinion.

To Create Better Relations with Cops, Racist Suspect Philly DA Appeals Ruling in Mumia Abu-Jamal Case that White Judge Should’ve Recused Himself b/c of his Bias Against Alleged Black Cop Killers

From [HERE] The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office on Friday appealed a judge’s ruling that convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal should be allowed to reargue his appeal before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.

The decision is the latest development in the long-running post-conviction saga of Abu-Jamal, 64, a former Black Panther and sometime radio reporter serving a life sentence for the Dec. 9, 1981, shooting death of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, 25, at 13th and Locust Streets.

The District Attorney’s Office did not comment beyond filing its notice of appeal.

Judith Ritter, an attorney for Abu-Jamal, said in an email that she was “very disappointed” by District Attorney Larry Krasner’s decision.

“Krasner’s appeal only risks delaying our opportunity to make our case to an appellate court untainted by bias,” Ritter said.

Common Pleas Court Judge Leon Tucker ruled last month that Abu-Jamal could reargue his appeal before the high court because former Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille — who previously served as Philadelphia’s district attorney — did not recuse himself when Abu-Jamal’s case came before the court.

The court held that Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal can reargue an appeal before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court because then-Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille [in photo] did not recuse himself from the case despite his prior role as the Philadelphia district attorney. Philadelphia Judge Leon Tucker ruled that Castille should have recused himself because of statements he made as a prosecutor about police killers that suggest a potential bias. They include campaign speeches and letters advocating the issuance of death warrants in such cases. The ruling gives Abu-Jamal the chance to reargue his appeal. However, Judge Tucker denied Abu-Jamal’s claim that Castille had “personal significant involvement” in his case due to lack of evidence.

“Judge Tucker recognized the unconstitutional bias,” said Judith L. Ritter, an attorney for Abu-Jamal, in a statement. “This was a straightforward application of federal and Pennsylvania law requiring cases to be decided by judges whose impartiality cannot reasonably be questioned.”Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther, is currently serving a life sentence for the 1981 death of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. [MORE]

Abu-Jamal’s case has moved slowly through the appeals process, which has frustrated Faulkner’s widow.

Racist suspect John McNesby [in photo above], president of the Philadelphia police officers' union and a frequent Krasner critic, said Friday that the district attorney’s decision to appeal was “the right thing to do.”

“Good," he said when told of the decision. "I applaud them for doing that.”

Supreme Ct Denies Review of 2 Black Men Challenging Racial Bias in Oklahoma Death Penalty: Both Cited Study Showing Death Sentences are 3X More Likely to be Imposed if the Victim was a White Man

Persons Scheduled to Be Murdered by Government in Oklahoma by "Race"

Although Non-whites make up only 28% of the entire population of the state of Oklahoma, they made up 55% of their death row population. It is disproportionately 44% Black.

From [DPIC] The United States Supreme Court has declined to review challenges brought by two Black Oklahoma death-row prisoners who alleged that their death sentences were the unconstitutional product of racial bias. Julius Jones and Tremane Wood had sought to overturn their death sentences based on the findings of a 2017 study that showed significant racial disparities in Oklahoma’s death sentencing practices. On January 22, 2019, the Court denied the petitions for writ of certiorari after having rescheduled consideration of Jones’s (pictured, left) and Wood’s (pictured, right) cases 25 times each.

In their petitions for certiorari, Jones and Wood relied upon a statistical study of Oklahoma death sentences imposed between 1990 and 2012 to argue that racial bias unconstitutionally infected their death sentences. In 2017, the Oklahoma Death Penalty Review Commission released a report on the state’s administration of the death penalty that included the findings of Dr. Glenn L. Pierce and professors Michael L. Radelet and Susan Sharp about the impact of race on death sentences. The study found that a murder defendant in Oklahoma accused of killing a white victim was more than twice as likely to be sentenced to death than a defendant accused of murdering a nonwhite victim. In cases like Jones’s and Wood’s, which involved only male victims, the study found that death sentences were nearly three times more likely to be imposed if the victim was white than if the victim was a person of color. It also found that when the victim was a white male, defendants of color, like Jones and Wood, were twice as likely as a white defendant to be sentenced to death.

Jones and Wood described other evidence that racial bias affected decisionmakers in their cases. The judge who presided over Wood's trial has made openly racist remarks, saying in 2011 that Mexicans are “nothing but filthy animals.” Jones was sentenced to death by a nearly all-white jury, following what his current lawyers describe as “pervasive and highly racialized pre-trial media coverage” and “racialized remarks made by prosecutors and at least one juror” during his trial. Dale Baich, one of Jones’s appellate lawyers, told The Oklahoman, that the facts of the case “vividly show how racial bias can lead to a wrongful conviction.” Jones is scheduled to file a separate petition for certiorari on January 28 raising the issue that one of the jurors in the case said “they should just take the n****r out and shoot him behind the jail.”

Both Jones and Wood were prosecuted in Oklahoma County during the administration of District Attorney “Cowboy” Bob Macy. Macy sent 54 prisoners to death row during a 21-year tenure marred by allegations of extensive misconduct. In 2013, Oklahoma County was one of the 2% of counties in the U.S. responsible for more than half of the prisoners on death row.

NY Authorities Value Kalief Browder's Life at $3 Million: After Unlawful NYPD Stop & Arrest, Lawless System Held Black Teen Pre-Trial in Solitary for 3 Yrs, Causing Suicide after Release

YOU Have “The Right” to a Speedy Trial So Long as You Believe You Do & the Judge, Prosecutor Share the Illusion. In the early hours of Saturday, May 15, 2010, ten days before his seventeenth birthday, Kalief Browder and a friend were returning home from a party in the Belmont section of the Bronx. They walked along Arthur Avenue, the main street of Little Italy, past bakeries and cafés with their metal shutters pulled down for the night. As they passed East 186th Street, Browder saw a police car driving toward them. More squad cars arrived, and soon Browder and his friend found themselves squinting in the glare of a police spotlight. An officer said that a man had just reported that they had robbed him. “I didn’t rob anybody,” Browder replied. “You can check my pockets.”

The officers searched him and his friend but found nothing. As Browder recalls, one of the officers walked back to his car, where the alleged victim was, and returned with a new story: the man said that they had robbed him not that night but two weeks earlier. The police handcuffed the teens and pressed them into the back of a squad car. “What am I being charged for?” Browder asked. “I didn’t do anything!” He remembers an officer telling them, “We’re just going to take you to the precinct. Most likely you can go home.” Browder whispered to his friend, “Are you sure you didn’t do anything?” His friend insisted that he hadn’t.

At the Forty-eighth Precinct, the pair were fingerprinted and locked in a holding cell. A few hours later, when an officer opened the door, Browder jumped up: “I can leave now?” Instead, the teens were taken to Central Booking at the Bronx County Criminal Court.

Late on Saturday, seventeen hours after the police picked Browder up, an officer and a prosecutor interrogated him, and he again maintained his innocence. The next day, he was led into a courtroom, where he learned that he had been charged with robbery, grand larceny, and assault. The judge released his friend, permitting him to remain free while the case moved through the courts. But, because Browder was still on probation, the judge ordered him to be held and set bail at three thousand dollars. The amount was out of reach for his family, and soon Browder found himself aboard a Department of Correction bus. He fought back panic, he told me later. Staring through the grating on the bus window, he watched the Bronx disappear. Soon, there was water on either side as the bus made its way across a long, narrow bridge to Rikers Island. [MORE]

From [WNYC] On Thursday, New York City's Law Department announced it had reached a $3.3 million settlement with Kalief Browder's family. The young man from the Bronx, who spent three years detained on Rikers Island without being tried or convicted, was accused of stealing a backpack.

Nearly two of Browder's three years in jail were spent in solitary confinement. He He was released in 2013 when the prosecutor's case was found to be lacking any evidence against Browder. And in 2015, plagued by what he said was the mental anguish and trauma from his time in jail, hanging himself from an air conditioning unit outside of his mother's home.

"Kalief Browder's story helped inspire numerous reforms to the justice system to prevent this tragedy from ever happening again, including an end to punitive segregation for young people on Rikers Island," Nicholas Paolucci, a spokesman for the city law department told NPR in an emailed statement.

"We hope that this settlement and our continuing reforms help bring some measure of closure to the Browder family," he added.

According to The New York Times, "the civil rights and wrongful death action is before a judge in State Supreme Court in the Bronx."

Browder's family was satisfied with the settlement, Scott Rynecki, one of the family's attorneys, told NPR.

"The family is pleased that they can bring closure to this part of the matter but hopes that the national recognition that the case gave to the need of prison reform and dealing with younger individuals continues," Rynecki said.

Browder’s family could not afford to hire an attorney, so the judge appointed a lawyer named Brendan O’Meara to represent him [court appointed atty are known locally as “18-B attorneys” they make seventy-five dollars an hour for a felony case, sixty dollars for a misdemeanor.] Browder told O’Meara that he was innocent and assumed that his case would conclude quickly. Even the assistant district attorney handling the prosecution later acknowledged in court papers that it was a “relatively straightforward case.” There weren’t hours of wiretaps or piles of complicated evidence to sift through; there was just the memory of one alleged victim. But Browder had entered the legal system through the Bronx criminal courts, which are chronically overwhelmed. Last year, the Times, in an extended exposé, described them as “crippled” and among the most backlogged in the country. One reason is budgetary. There are not nearly enough judges and court staff to handle the workload; in 2010, Browder’s case was one of five thousand six hundred and ninety-five felonies that the Bronx District Attorney’s office prosecuted. The problem is compounded by defense attorneys who drag out cases to improve their odds of winning, judges who permit endless adjournments, prosecutors who are perpetually unprepared. Although the Sixth Amendment guarantees “the right to a speedy and public trial,” in the Bronx the concept of speedy justice barely exists.

A grand jury had voted to indict Browder. The criminal complaint alleged that he and his friend had robbed a Mexican immigrant named Roberto Bautista—pursuing him, pushing him against a fence, and taking his backpack. Bautista told the police that his backpack contained a credit card, a debit card, a digital camera, an iPod Touch, and seven hundred dollars. Browder was also accused of punching Bautista in the face.

But the accusation had been made a week or two after the alleged robbery, and the victim had later changed his mind about when it occurred. (The original police report said “on or about May 2,” but Bautista later told a detective that it happened on May 8th.) [MORE]

Browder adamantly maintained his innocence throughout his incarceration, which he served because his family couldn't afford to pay his $3,000 bail. Over the years, he rejected numerous guilty plea deals that would have allowed him to escape what he said were savage conditions at the prison. He described instances of violent beatings and torment at the hands of other inmates and guards. He said he was starved and kept in filthy surroundings. And he spoke of intolerable mental anguish suffered at the hands of prosecutors who repeatedly delayed his trial in the Bronx's infamously overburdened court system.

Even after being out in the free world for some time, cleared of any wrongdoing and suddenly thrust into the spotlight as a symbol of New York City's pernicious and crippled criminal justice system, Kalief Browder feared he'd been changed forever. That he had been damaged at the core of his innermost self after nearly three years of being caged, mostly in solitary confinement, as an adolescent on Rikers Island after he was arrested.

"People tell me because I have this case against the city I'm all right. But I'm not all right," Browder told The New Yorker in 2014.

The case against the young African-American man, who was jailed in 2010 at 16, was eventually dismissed without ever being tried. After 31 court appearances before eight different judges, the charges against Browder were dropped. His accuser had left the country and the prosecution could not move forward with the case. Meanwhile, Browder had gone from teenager to adult, missing his high school graduation and enduring a brutal existence within the prison's confines, at least half of which was spent alone in a 12- by 7-foot cell.

When he spoke to the magazine he had filed a lawsuit against the city, the New York Police Department, the Bronx District Attorney and the Department of Corrections. Still, he worried that no amount of money would make him whole again.

"I'm messed up. I know that I might see some money from this case, but that's not going to help me mentally. I'm mentally scarred right now. That's how I feel. Because there are certain things that changed about me and they might not go back," Browder said.

In the end it proved too much. In 2015, he took his own life. He was 22.

The New Yorker story catapulted Browder to the fore of a national debate about the criminal justice system, especially as it applies to minors. Two months after the story ran, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio put an end to the city's use of solitary confinement for 16- to 17-year-olds.

Upon learning of Browder's death, de Blasio said, "Kalief's story helped inspire our efforts on Rikers Island, where we are working to ensure no New Yorkers spend years in jail waiting for their day in court."

Later, when plans to permanently shutter the prison were set in motion, de Blasio pointed to Browder's suicide as a "wake-up call" to the city, adding that "his death shook the whole city and opened everyone's eyes and made people think twice."

The city plans to permanently close Rikers Island and has proposed establishing smaller, neighborhood-based facilities.

In 2016, former President Barack Obama similarly noted Browder's experience when he enacted a ban on solitary confinement for juveniles detained in federal prisons.

Browder struggled to find his place outside of Rikers Island after he was released, "Before I went to jail, I didn't know about a lot of stuff, and now that I'm aware, I'm paranoid," he told The New Yorker. It was a feeling he couldn't shake, even as he was championed as the catalyst for much-needed change.

"I feel like I was robbed of my happiness," he said

[whitenology logic] Just b/c Florida Secretary of State Wore Blackface to Degrade Katrina Victims Doesn't Necessarily Mean He Would’ve Used His Powerful Position to Miscount Black Votes

Belief that racism is only bigotry is a vital part of false programming sold to you by the vested interests for your cooperation and submission to your own oppression. [MORE] Defining racism in terms of bad attitude or bigotry leads to solving the wrong problems. [MORE] White Supremacy is a power group dynamic involving the relationship between whites and Blacks in a vast system of unequal power. It is economic discrimination by one group over and against another for the purposes of subjugation and/or maintaining the imbalance of power through cooperative control, misinformation, indoctrination, genocide and oppression. [MORE] and [MORE]

From [WashPost] Florida’s newly appointed secretary of state, once described as a “glimmer of hope” for the state’s new administration, resigned Thursday after the emergence of photos from 2005 of him in blackface, apparently mimicking victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Tallahassee Democrat news outlet reported.

The photos — obtained by the news outlet and presented to the office of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) on Thursday — show Michael Ertel wearing blackface with red lipstick and a New Orleans Saints bandanna. He also donned a shirt that read “Katrina Victim,” the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

Ertel, 49, confirmed to the news outlet that he was the man pictured. “There’s nothing I can say,” he said.

He submitted his resignation about 2 p.m. by email, the DeSantis’s press office told The Washington Post.

“It has been an honor to serve you and the voters of Florida,” Ertel wrote in the email. DeSantis’s office accepted Ertel’s resignation shortly after seeing the photos, the Tallahassee Democrat reported.

The photos were reportedly taken at a private Halloween party two months after Hurricane Katrina, the 2005 storm to which more than 1,800 deaths have been attributed, hit New Orleans and other areas of the Gulf Coast, according to the news outlet. At the time the photos were taken, Ertel was the supervisor of elections in Seminole County. DeSantis appointed Ertel as secretary of state on Dec. 28.

DeSantis’s office said it had not seen the photos of Ertel before the news outlet showed them Thursday.

“It’s unfortunate. He’s done a lot of good work,” DeSantis said at a Thursday news conference on hurricane relief, the Tallahassee Democrat reported. DeSantis said he accepted the resignation because he didn’t “want to get mired in side controversies.”

With the World’s Largest Oil Reserves Venezuela is "a Threat" to White Supremacy, US Govt [CEO of Latin America] Pulls the Strings On [S]elected Puppet who Raised His Hand & Claims to be President

History of Venezuela's claimed reserves (red) in comparison to those of Saudi Arabia (blue)

No Need For Regime Change by Crimeth Inc in Tyrannical Saudi Arabia. Another manufactured racism white supremacy crisis. According to FUNKTIONARY:

COUP - Covert Overthrow Usurping Power. 2) Covert Oppression Using Politics. 3) Chain Of Unbroken Politics. A dirty-bird in the hand is a Bushtit. Our world continues to be a continuous Mickey-Mouse coup of territorial gangsters holed up under the guise of various Corporate States (as all fictitious Corporate States are Rogue States). Look for the Bushtit in the Four Wangs while listening to Johann Fux. (See: Stationary Bandits, GAG, Tyrannolaw, Civilization, Tribute, Taxation, Voting, Taxtortion, Wallflower Order, Crimethlnc. Cities. Lame Duck, Force, Psychopaths, Racism White Supremacy, Gangbanking & Violence)

Crimeth Inc. - an elite class of intergenerational financiers and psychopathic human parasites. Crimethlnc. is a faction of men and their legal fictions created in this Matrix by those who make them rob widows and orphans, who take your sons and daughters into pre-emptive corporate invasions and occupations of foreign lands, who kill the innocent, jail the just, mine the womb of your daughters, devour the weak, terrorize and falsely imprison political activists, traumatize the oppressed, and covet the wealth of all. 2) Back-on-Track crime. 3) the twisted empty-souls of humanity's invisible oligarchy. Crimethlnc. is a geo­political agreement among territorial gangsters to share power over looted differential wealth of people's labor, minds, lands and natural resources. The objective pay-off is still empire no matter the condition of the ecology or many people expire. (See: Doggy. "Credit" & Reificarion)

NC Judge Declines to Certify Election Results as Fraud Investigation Continues into Yurugu’s Efforts to Exclude Blacks from Participating in It’s Illusion of Choice & Open Competition

From [WashPost] A state judge in North Carolina has declined to certify election results in the 9th Congressional District, citing state election officials’ authority to delay certification while they continue to investigate allegations of election fraud.

In a court hearing in Raleigh on Tuesday, Wake County Superior Court Judge Paul Ridgeway ruled against Republican Mark Harris, who leads Democrat Dan McCready by 905 votes in unofficial results from the Nov. 6 election.

“Asking this court to step in and exert extraordinary power to declare the victor in an election that is clearly a purview of other branches of government” would be “highly unusual,” Ridgeway said. “That’s an extraordinary step.”

The State Board of Elections voted not to certify the results after accusations of election fraud surfaced in the 9th District, a rural swath of farmland and small towns that stretches from Charlotte to Fayetteville along the South Carolina border.

A lawyer for Harris argued that the state board had not presented evidence that the fraud was widespread enough to affect the outcome. Harris has said the investigation should continue but argued that he should be seated in the meantime.

“We don’t know if there have been any votes that have been affected in this election,” said Harris attorney Dudley Witt. “There’s nothing in the record, nothing before the court to show any irregularities.”

“I don’t know what this investigation shows,” Ridgeway retorted. “I don’t think anyone knows what the investigation shows.”

Lawyers for the state board and for McCready countered that enough ballots are under review to call the margin into question.

Special Deputy Attorney General Amar Majmundar, an attorney for the election board, noted that there was “an ongoing investigation.”

The investigation, Majmundar said, “may very well reveal evidence sufficient to call into question the margin that currently exists between the candidates.”

Majmundar added that the investigation could be a “springboard” for criminal prosecution.

“It’s an open question as to who rightfully won this election,” he said. “That question is now being answered slowly by the investigation.”

Ridgeway also noted that state law does not require proof that irregularities affected enough ballots to sway an election result. The law also allows an election to be tossed if irregularities sufficiently “taint” the overall outcome, he said.

Marc Elias, a Washington-based election law attorney who represents Democratic political committees and candidates, argued for McCready that there is nothing in North Carolina law that requires the investigation to be completed by a certain date.

At issue are accusations that a political operative hired by Harris to run his absentee-ballot program illegally collected mail-in ballots from voters. Also under investigation is whether the operative, Leslie McCrae Dowless, or his employees discarded ballots that were not cast for Harris.

[N.C. congressional candidate sought out aide, despite warnings over tactics]

The lawyer for the state board noted that the nine-member panel — made up of four Republicans, four Democrats and one unaffiliated voter — had voted unanimously not to certify the 9th District results.

Further complicating the investigation is the fact that the State Board of Elections was disbanded in December, following a court ruling earlier in the year that had found the board’s makeup unconstitutional. The board is expected to be reconstituted on Jan. 31 under a new state law approved in December.

Even if Ridgeway had ordered the board’s staff to certify the results, it’s not clear that Harris would have been welcomed to Congress. House Democrats have vowed not to seat Harris until the state investigation is complete, and have the power with their new majority to call for a new election.

After the hearing, the state board’s staff issued a statement promising a public hearing once a new board is seated “to give North Carolina voters a full picture of the issues that affected” the 9th District election.

Harris attorney David Freedman said no decision has been made on whether to appeal Ridgeway’s decision.

According to a DHS Report, Border Patrol & the TSA Have Given Themselves the Authority to Spy on Everyone's Social Media Accounts to "Understand Relationships Between Individuals" & "Threats"

From [MassPrivatel] The U.S. Border Patrol (CBP) and the TSA claim they need to secretly spy on everyone's social media accounts so they can understand a person's relationship with their friends, family and the government.

According to a DHS report published last month, nothing can stop the Border Patrol or the TSA from secretly spying on everyone's social media accounts.

"In order to conduct a complete investigation, it is necessary for DHS/CBP to collect and review large amounts of data in order to identify and understand relationships between individuals, entities, threats and events, and to monitor patterns of activity over extended periods of time that may be indicative of criminal, terrorist, or other threat."

Understanding a person's relationship with "entities" is just a euphemism for the government. The Feds want to know if you are anti-government an activist or a protester.

To re-cap, DHS claims they need to spy on everyone's Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Qzone, Weibo, Twitter, Reddit, Pinterest, Ask.Fm, Tumblr, Flickr, Google+, LinkedIn, VK, Odonklassniki and Meetup accounts to find out about their political views and much more. (For a complete list of the sixty plus social media accounts DHS spies on click here.)

ACLU is suing the Feds for information about social media spying:

According to a recent article in the ACLU blog, the ACLU is suing the FBI in an attempt to learn more about social media spying.

"Today the ACLU sued the the FBI and six other agencies to get some answers, because the public has a right to know about the exact nature of social media surveillance — especially whether agencies are monitoring and retaining social media posts, or using surveillance products that label activists and people of color as threats to public safety based on their First Amendment-protected activities."

"Based on what little information is publicly available, it’s clear that the federal government routinely tracks domestic social media users, with a particular focus on immigrants."

DHS claims the National Security Act gives them the power to ignore the Constitution and spy on everyone without probable cause.

"The Secretary of Homeland  Security, pursuant to 5 U.S.C. 552a(j)(2), has  exempted this system from the following provisions of the Privacy Act: 5 U.S.C.  552a(c)(3) and (4); (d); (e)(1), (e)(2), (e)(3),  (e)(4)(G), (e)(4)(H), (e)(4)(I); (e)(5), and (e)(8);  (f); and (g). Additionally, the Secretary of  Homeland Security, pursuant to 5 U.S.C.  552a(k)(1) and (k)(2), has exempted this system from the following provisions of the Privacy Act, 5 U.S.C. 552a(c)(3); (d); (e)(1),  (e)(4)(G), (e)(4)(H), (e)(4)(I), and (f). When this system receives a record from another system exempted in that source system under 5  U.S.C. 552a(k)(1), (k)(2), or (j)(2), DHS will claim the same exemptions for those records  that are claimed for the original primary systems of records from which they originated and claims any additional exemptions set forth here."

The extent to which DHS will go to justify secretly spying on Americans is appalling. I encourage everyone to read the "DHS Systems of Records Exempt From the Privacy Act" and tell your family and friends about it.

DHS does not need probable cause to spy on everyone!

"The accuracy of information obtained or introduced occasionally may be unclear, or the information may not be strictly relevant or necessary to a specific investigation. For the reasons noted above, DHS is not required to establish requirements, rules, or procedures with respect to such access."

The Border Patrol's power extends far beyond borders and airports.

A recent article in The Intercept warns that the Border Patrol has almost unlimited authority to stop and detain motorists across the country.

When a Border Patrol agent is contemplating pulling someone over, they have a checklist of possible behaviors to look out for. They can determine “whether the vehicle or its load looks unusual in some way,” or “whether the passengers appeared dirty.” If those descriptions don’t apply, they can assess “whether the persons inside the vehicle avoid looking at the agent,” or conversely, “whether the persons inside the vehicle are paying undue attention to the agent’s presence.” And if those don’t apply, they can simply determine that the car is in an area nearby the border and pull it over on that basis alone."

Which is exactly what I predicted would happen a year ago.

"Imagine driving down the road and being stopped by a Border Patrol agent for speeding. Imagine Border Patrol agents responding to domestic abuse calls at people's homes. Imagine the Border Patrol responding to trespassing calls and detaining motorists with K-9's."

To say that this puts the Department of Douchebaggery (DHS) on par with China really does not do it justice. Government surveillance is getting worse before our very eyes.

Filled w/Extreme Hate Yurugu Will Project & Justify Any Aggression as the Victim: White PA Troopers "Tried to Calm Down" White Man who said, “I’m going to kill this NGHR cop" Before Assaulting Him

Color Confrontation Theory. From [HERE] and [HERE] A white Franklin County man attacked a Black trooper who responded to his residence for a report of a domestic dispute, according to state police.

State police also said that before the attack, Robert Clinton Brooks used racial statements directed toward the officer.

Troopers were dispatched at 7:35 p.m. Monday to the residence off of McKenzie Road in Guilford Township for a report of a domestic disturbance.

Officers arrived and found Brooks inside the residence, and while speaking to those involved, they learned there was a verbal argument before they arrived.

Brooks then became irate and verbally combative, and began screaming “vulgar, ethnic, and racist statements” toward an African American trooper, state police said. Brooks is described in the police report as white.

Some of the statements police said Brooks used include “Get this (expletive) out of my house” and “I’m going to kill this (expletive) cop." He said "I'm not staying here with this n*****. I'm leaving," the report shows. 

Troopers tried to calm Brooks down, but Brooks “explosively shoulder struck” the trooper in the face, police said. Brooks then repeatedly punched the trooper in the rib area, which briefly incapacitated the officer, and the pair then fell to the ground.

A physical struggle ensued between troopers and Brooks, during which troopers had to use physical strikes and a Taser in order to take Brooks into custody, police said.

Minor injuries were reported as a result of the scuffle.

Brooks, 49, of Chambersburg, is charged with aggravated assault, resisting arrest, and ethnic intimidation.

A court docket indicates Brooks was arraigned on his charges Tuesday morning, and was remanded to the Franklin County Prison in lieu of $150,000 bail. He is scheduled for a preliminary hearing on Feb. 5.

At Covington Catholic High School the World’s Future Leaders are Taught They are the God of their Religion [racism]: Photo Shows Students in Blackface Degrading a Black Student at a Basketball Game

From [Truth or Fiction] and {DailyMail] After a viral controversy involving video of Covington Catholic students, photographs surfaced purportedly showing other students from the school. Here's a 2015 photo of a Covington Catholic basketball game where students are clad in blackface and one of them is harassing a black player. Covington's student body is 100% white, their entire faculty is 100% white, but they feel entitled to dress in blackface, call themselves 'The Crazies' and intimidate black youth. If that sounds more like the KKK to you than any high school basketball team, that's because you're right. The Covington bullies and their families are the face of Trump's American Nazi movement--$10,000 tuition, parents all work in white collar jobs. Don't believe a word of their PR spin, these kids are monsters.

Covington High School teachers lead pep rally with students in blackface. In this compilation video the Colonel Crazies (students) can be seen in blackface chanting in the gymnasium over the years. [MORE] The first video showed a compilation of chants students called “the crazies” yell. It was on their official you-tube page. They have removed it.

HOW COME YURUGU TEEN DIDNT’ STEP TO THE BLACK Hebrew Israelites FACE?

According to FUNKTIONARY

Yurugu - a mythological figure within the Dogon tribe (Africa) who is "the incomplete being" (fiend without a face) referring to Neuropeans (neurotic Europeans) within the European asili. 2) a regressive (degenerative) state of consciousness where the soul is cut off from itself. 3) the inability to recognize or abate unacknowledged destructive capabilities. Yurugu also expresses itself and manifests as the pathological condition that utterly fails to convince those in geographical proximity of its harmlessness, therefore has to kill them. Yurugu is in a vicious spiral increasingly at odds with his own humanity—as fragmented, pathological, and distorted as it is. (See: Asili, Caucasian, Racism White Supremacy, Elite, Western Civilization, Neuropean, WASP, Privilege, Oppression, Scarcity, Violence, Genocide, Manifest Density & Ma'afa)

Black Grad Student Gets $1.25M Settlement & a Niggerization Lesson About "His Rights" from 6 White Evanston Cops Who Assaulted Him After a White 911 Caller Assumed He was Breaking Into His Own Car

From [CBS] Dr. Lawrence Crosby spoke publicly about what happened to him on Oct. 10, 2015 and the lasting effects following a 911 call where someone mistakenly thought he was breaking into a car. The City of Evanston has settled his police brutality case for $1.25 million. [MORE]

He also was given a “niggerization” lesson about his rights by the gang of white cops who criminally assaulted and falsely arrested him with impunity. During the assault with punches, kicks and smothering he told the white cops the 4th Amendment protects against unreasonable searches , stops and seizures. Rights are an illusion. On the street rights only exist if cops share the illusion. Lawless Race soldiers so frequently abuse their power that no Black or Latino motorist, juvenile, adult, professional of any kind—could make a compelling argument that constitutional rights afford Black or Latino people any real protection from the Government. As explained by Dr. Blynd, “Enjoyment of rights in a neo-imperialistic world controlled by Yurugu through the Greater System (Symbolic Order), paradoxically, entails not only a recognition of their inevitability but, equally, their impossibility. 

Niggerized -"unsafe, unprotected, subjected and subjugated to random violence, hated for who you are to the point you become so scared that you defer to the powers that be while willing to consent to your own domination." - Dr. Cornell West quoted in FUNKTIONARY.

From [HERE] Pinned to the ground by white officers who kneed and struck him, Lawrence Crosby screamed whatever he could think of to convince them that he was a law-abiding PhD student, not a violent car thief.

“This is my vehicle, sir,” he said, his voice captured by the dashboard-camera video. “I have evidence. . . . I purchased this vehicle Jan. 23, 2015, from Libertyville Chevrolet.”

The white officers placed him in handcuffs in the driveway of a church, two blocks from the police station in Evanston, Ill.

Police released the dash-cam video earlier this week, detailing the half-hour encounter that sparked a civil lawsuit from Crosby and a discussion about race and policing in this city of 75,000, just north of Chicago.

The video includes footage from the dash cam of one of the officers involved in the altercation. But it’s also synced with video of a personal dash cam Crosby kept running in his car.

On that night in October 2015, Crosby was headed to Northwestern University, where he was studying for his doctoral degree in civil engineering. A white woman called 911 and reported that an African American [man] with a black hood was trying to break into a car’. Listen below. The racist suspect also followed him in her car after he drove away [see 2nd video below]

Crosby stops the car in the driveway of a church, and slowly gets out facing the officers with hands in the air.

He begins to explain, but the officers order him to keep his hands up. Others scream at him to get on the ground.

He turns and, in an instant, five white officers sprint toward him. They drive him back several feet, kneeing him to force him to the ground and striking him with open hands to make him [officially] comply, a police spokesman said later.

“Stop resisting,” an officer yells as another strikes Crosby.

“I’m cooperating. I’m cooperating,” Crosby replies. He continues to explain that the car is his, where he got it from and when. He attends Northwestern and is a civil engineering PhD, he says. He was just trying to fix his car.

He asks the officers why he’s being handcuffed; they say they have to figure out who the car belongs to.

They determine it’s his, but he was still arrested and charged with disobeying officers and resisting arrest. A judge later threw out the charges, Crosby’s attorney Tim Touhy, told the Chicago Tribune.

The officers were never charged or disciplined. The Evanston Police Department has defended their actions.

AG Nominee Barr wrote a Memo,“The Case for More Incarceration" Claiming Racial Disparity was Natural & Authorized Indefinite Detention of HIV-positive Haitians Seeking Asylum in Interment Camps

ALWAYS DOWN FOR SHOW AND TELL BUT WHAT DOES IT DO? RACIST SUSPECT Barr was an architect of many policies that have since led to the disproportionate incarceration of African Americans. DURING SENATE CONFIRMATION HEARINGS CORY Booker repeatedly pointed out this discrepancy, and ultimately pressed Barr to commit to a study on these disparities. IN OTHER WORDS LIKE MOST RACISTS BARR BELIEVES BLACK PEOPLE ARE INFERIOR TO WHITES AND PRONE TO CRIMINALITY. he believes crime is evidence of biological difference. as a believer in the concept of “race”, which has no scientific validity and is better translated to mean organization. The sole purpose of WHICH is to maintain white domination and world control of non-whites, HE IS A RACIST.

AS EXPLAINED BY DR. AMOS WILSON, “Black criminals function as a negative reference group vital to maintaining the White American self-image. Alleged Black criminality, while evoking White American fear and loathing, reassures them of their vaunted self-worth, their assumed innately superior moral standing, of their self-congratulatory self-constraint in contrast with presumed Black American unworthiness, innate inferior moral standing, inherent criminality, lack of self-constraint and self-control. [MORE]

COMMIT TO A STUDY? AS EXPLAINED BY DOC BLYND WE ARE ALWAYS OFFERED THE IMAGE AND NEVER THE REALITY IN THE SPECTACLE SOCIETY.

From [MintPress] William Barr — President Donald Trump’s nominee for the position of attorney general, the chief law enforcement post in the U.S. — is the subject of no shortage of controversy over his past as he testifies this week on Capitol Hill. But Democrats are hammering Barr over an unsolicited memo he wrote to the president that slammed the Mueller probe as “fatally misconceived,” while paying far less attention to far more troubling pieces of information about his past.

In particular, Barr, who was attorney general previously between 1991 and 1993 under President George H.W. Bush, has expressed backward views on mass incarceration. And his use of indefinite detention tactics for political gain, his approval of presidential pardons for six Reagan officials involved in the Iran-Contra scandal, his opposition to Roe v. Wade, his views on the president’s authority to use force abroad, and his pioneering of a mass surveillance program should all raise red flags for progressives, lawmakers, and civil liberties advocates alike.

In 1992, Barr, as attorney general, authored a memo entitled “The Case for More Incarceration.” The document includes sections and subsections like “Prisons work,” “A failure to incarcerate leads to increased crimes,” “Prisons do not create criminals,” “More prisons are needed,” “We are not over-incarcerating,” “Failure to incarcerate costs money,” “A failure to incarcerate hurts black Americans most,” and even includes an appendix that cites Rand Corporation “research” supposedly showing that the disparity in incarceration rates along racial lines is not attributable to bias.

“The study concluded that one could predict with 80 percent accuracy whether an offender would be sentenced to probation or prison. Adding the offender’s race to the equation did not improve the accuracy of this prediction. Race was also unrelated to the length of prison term imposed,” Barr’s document read. In other words, the racial disparity wherein black Americans are far more likely to be given harsher sentences or prosecuted at all in the first place is an entirely natural phenomenon, in Barr and Rand’s view.

But when it comes to incarceration, the memo is perhaps the least concerning part of Barr’s record.

Barr’s concentration camp for HIV-positive Haitians fleeing U.S.-backed death squads

Following the CIA-backed coup in Haiti in 1991, hundreds of thousands of Haitians fled the military regime terror that was sweeping the island, many to seek asylum in the United States. The U.S. Coast Guard then destroyed their boats and took them aboard. Eventually, they were taking to the U.S. naval station at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. They were then assessed to determine whether they had real fears of political persecution or were merely seeking economic opportunity.

The State Department went to Belize and Honduras, asking them to take in the Haitian asylum-seekers, but the countries demanded they be tested for HIV. After some tests turned up positive, the U.S. government conducted HIV tests on every single person whom it had determined had a legitimate need for asylum.

But federal law banned the U.S. from accepting HIV-positive refugees, and since their fears were determined to be credible, the U.S. government was unable to return them to Haiti. So the Haitians were detained there in Guantanamo indefinitely. Reportedly even Dick Cheney — then secretary of defense — who is not generally regarded for his commitment to rule of law, objected to the interments Barr had schemed.

“Even Dick Cheney, … not to mention the military’s own doctors, expressed concern about keeping these asylum seekers in Guantanamo for political gain,” Senator Richard Blumenthal recently told The Daily Beast. “When you’re to the right of Dick Cheney on Guantanamo, you know you’ve gone too far.”

Barr later recalled the opposition he faced, saying in an interview years later:

What do you want me to do? You want 80,000 Haitians to descend on Florida several months before the election? Come on, give me a break… Florida will go ape.

Their position was, ‘Guantanamo is a military base, and why were all these people here, the HIV people, all these other people? How long are you going to be on our property with this unseemly business?’ I’d say, ‘until it’s over. But we’re not bringing these people into the United States.’”

Reportedly, conditions at the facility — which was later likened to a concentration camp for HIV patients by federal judge Sterling Johnson — were horrid. Food was covered in maggots and the refugees — among them 200 HIV patients — were forced to live in makeshift barracks with no protection from the outside elements. Women were also reportedly given forced birth-control injections. U.S. military fighters clad in riot gear would be sent in to periodically quell protests and hunger strikes.

Judge Johnson eventually ruled in 1993 that the refugees could not be indefinitely detained, writing:

Although the defendants euphemistically refer to its Guantanamo operation as a ‘humanitarian camp,’ the facts disclose that it is nothing more than an HIV prison camp presenting potential public health risks to the Haitians held there.”

And so the Haitians were released to the U.S. mainland, but the legacy of Barr’s prison lives on in Cuba. The asylum deal blocked any judgments on whether U.S. laws apply to prisoners held in Guantanamo, effectively paving the way for the detainee abuse and torture that have occurred there during the post-9/11 era.

 The “Godfather” of illegal National Security Agency surveillance

In 1992, Barr helped draft a surveillance program for the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), which saw the agency beginning to amass phone call data and order telecommunications companies to covertly turn over records on all phone calls made from the U.S. to a list of other countries (which eventually, according to the ACLU, became “well over 100 nations”).

The program was drafted by Barr and his deputy at the Justice Department, Robert Mueller. That’s the same Robert Mueller carrying out the investigation into allegations of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the officials of the Russian federation, and the same investigator whom some worry Barr will fire should he become attorney general.

Barr and Mueller’s DEA program went on to become the “blueprint” for the National Security Agency’s mass cell-phone surveillance program under the 2001 Patriot Act. Barr later argued that the illegal surveillance and all the other abuses of the draconian post-9/11 security bill did not go far enough.

During the administration of George W. Bush, Barr worked as a lobbyist for Verizon, taking up such causes as getting a bill through Congress that would immunize telecom giants from lawsuits by people illegally surveilled with the telecoms’ assistance.

Supporting the president’s authority to wage war anywhere he damn pleases

William Barr went to bat for President George H.W. Bush on three occasions in the midst of war-powers debates — including Panama, Somalia and Iraq — Chip Gibbons, Policy and Legislative Counsel at Defending Rights & Dissent, uncovered. In the case of Iraq, Barr advised Bush that he had the legal authority to preemptively strike Baghdad, but suggested he seek a non-binding resolution of support from Congress, which the president did.

The subject of who is in charge of authorizing American military force continues to be a contentious one since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. The Authorization for Use of Military Force, passed by Congress just three days after the attacks, allowed for the president to circumvent Congress when waging war on specific, loosely-interpreted targets.

The Senate has recently tried to invoke the War Powers Act, which checks the President’s power to unilaterally wage war, in order to curb U.S. support for the genocidal war in Yemen. As Gibbons notes, it is likely “that the President and Congress may soon butt heads over war powers.”

$3M Settlement: After Shoplifting Arrest Authoritarians at Hampton Roads Jail Denied Mentally Disabled Black Man Water, Food & Medicine in Filthy Cell For 4 Months Causing Death

In photo AUTHORITARIAN David simons, the superintendent of the barbaric hampton roads jail when jamycheal mitchell WAS HELD WITHOUT BAIL.

authoritarians - the great unweaned of the world 2) violentists. 3) 'reality-violaters.' 4) uniform (costume-wearing) and non-costume wearing purveyors of the absolute worst crimes against humanity. 5) the coercive class within an economic and social caste-based society. While the State is a military formation, it is first and foremost a fruit of justice—not to be confused with (or extrapolated to imply or mean that) justice is a seed of the State. There is a high correlation between justice systems and the development or proliferation of the State. (See: Justice, Control, BOG. Statists, Power. Psychopaths & Violence) FUNKTIONARY

From [VA Pilot] Hampton Roads Regional Jail, its former medical provider and the state have agreed to pay $3 million to settle a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the family of Jamycheal Mitchell, a 24-year-old Black inmate with mental health problems whose death in 2015 sparked outrage.

The settlement agreement, part of which required Gov. Ralph S. Northam’s approval, has been in the works for months but was finalized this week, according to court documents. In that time, the U.S. Justice Department released a scathing report that concluded the jail’s treatment of inmates amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. One of the correctional officers named in the suit also was indicted on felony assault charges. The federal investigation of Hampton Roads Regional Jail — where several inmates have died — determined the jail is violating prisoners' rights by failing to provide adequate medical care. It described the jail as lacking enough medical staff to treat a high number of physically sick and mentally ill inmates, many of whom are locked up repeatedly for minor offenses. [MORE]

His family filed its lawsuit the following year, claiming Mitchell was beaten, starved and treated “like a circus animal” in the months leading up to his death. The suit said Mitchell was ultimately left to die in his cell as fellow inmates pleaded with guards to get him help.

Still, the settlement came with no admission of wrongdoing by the jail, NaphCare or others named in the lawsuit — which initially sought $60 million in damages.

The facts in this case are fantastic and egregious. The uncivilized authoritarians have not disputed the facts so BW has provided the factual part of Mitchells’ complaint. It is long but worth reading, parental guidance is suggested:

On August 19, 2015, 24-year-old Jamycheal M. Mitchell was pronounced dead by EMS after being found not breathing and without a pulse while a detainee at the HRRJ.

Approximately four months earlier, in April 2015, Mitchell was arrested for allegedly stealing $5 in snacks from a 7-Eleven.

When he was in or about the fourth grade, Mitchell was diagnosed as mildly intellectually disabled (upon information and belief, Mitchell was characterized in school records as mildly "mentally retarded"). Mitchell had also long suffered from bipolar disorder and schizophrenia. A mental health screening ordered by the Portsmouth General District Court in 2015 noted that "Mr. Mitchell's thought processes were so confused that only snippets of his sentences could be understood, the rest were mumbled statements that made no rational sense." At the urging of a mental health expert, the General District Court ordered that Mitchell be treated at Eastern State Hospital, a state mental hospital, to "restore his competency." However, according to Eastern State Hospital and to a state investigation conducted after Mitchell's death, Defendant Lenna Jo Davis, the Portsmouth General District Court Clerk, and, implicated by circumstances, her employee, Defendant Kelly N. Boyd, did not forward the restoration order to Eastern State Hospital until more than two months after it was issued. When Eastern State Hospital finally received it, the order was never acted upon because Defendant Gail Hart, an Eastern State Hospital admissions employee, simply shoved the order in a drawer; she never entered Mitchell's name into the log used to manage incoming patients to Eastern State Hospital. An investigative report by the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health & Development Services ("DBHDS") found that Hart's drawer contained a "significant number of [competency restoration orders] that had not been entered." By statute, it was the specific duty of Defendant Debra K. Ferguson, the Commissioner of DBHDS, to comply with the General District Court's restoration of competency order regarding Mitchell. During the relevant period, Defendant Ferguson regularly disregarded competency restoration orders issued by judges throughout the Commonwealth of Virginia.

While housed at the HRRJ, Mitchell was repeatedly mistreated and/or purposefully ignored by Jail personnel. The Correctional Officer Defendants sealed Mitchell in his cell by regularly locking shut the "chuck hole" to Mitchell's cell door. During the last months of his confinement, Mitchell was confined in a two-inmate cell that he occupied by himself. The cell door had a Plexiglas window. When the cell door and the chuck hole were closed, the cell was completely sealed, excepting a small gap between the cell door and the door jam. Mitchell and other inmates spoke to each other through the small gaps. Other detainees and inmates were permitted at times to stand in, or pass through, the central pod area in front of Mitchell's cell. However, Mitchell was almost never permitted to leave his cell.

Further, the Correctional Officer Defendants regularly denied Mitchell food. One inmate estimates that Mitchell would sometimes receive only one meal a day or one meal over several days. Mitchell would suffer dramatic, significant weight loss that was never adequately addressed by Defendants HRRJ/HRRJA or their employees, or by HRRJ/HRRJA's medical contractor, Defendant NaphCare/its employees. Despite inconsistencies and incompleteness across medical records and public statements made by Jail officials as to Mitchell's weight, it appears Mitchell lost approximately 40 pounds, and may have lost closer to 50 pounds. What is clear is that his weight ultimately fell to 144 lbs on his 6' 1" plus frame. At a court hearing held approximately three weeks before his death, his family was shocked to see how gaunt Mitchell had become. Mitchell's aunt, Roxanne Adams, Administrator of Mitchell's Estate and Plaintiff in this action, made well over 40 calls to Jail officials seeking help for her nephew. HRRJ officials told Adams that Mitchell's weight loss was due to his failure to eat; however, Jail detainees/inmates have stated that Mitchell ate ravenously when he was provided food. Jail officials told Adams that they would follow up on her concerns, but they never did.

The Correctional Officer Defendants also turned off the water in Mitchell's cell. As a consequence of no toilet water and a sealed door, Mitchell was encapsulated in a cell that reeked from the stench of unflushed urine and feces. Indicative of the depths of his mental illness, and/or out of an effort by him to simply be noticed and helped, Mitchell smeared feces on the Plexiglas window to his cell.

In the air-conditioned Jail that inmates regularly describe as "cold," for months, the Correctional Officer Defendants denied Mitchell clothing, a mattress, a sheet, and blankets (he reportedly received a bare mattress only days before his death). Mitchell's "bed" was a metal sheet. Day after day, he stood cold and naked at the doorway of his cell. He did not have any shoes to insulate his feet from the frigid cement floor. During a period of lucidity, he explained to another detainee that he stood at the doorway because he felt that there was some warmth provided by the overhead light.

Although psychotropic medications (medications capable of affecting the mind, emotions, and behavior) were prescribed for Mitchell and important for the maintenance of his mental competency, Mitchell reportedly received virtually no psychotropic medication at the Jail, and, about a month before his death, his medication was discontinued altogether. Mitchell also was prescribed medication to treat his severe edema, but also did not receive it as ordered. Jail personnel have contended in the press that Mitchell "refused" to take his medications and also refused other treatments, but those statements suggest an informed and conscious decision, which Mitchell was incapable of making. Further, other inmates refute the contentions of Jail personnel that Mitchell was offered medication. The inmates assert that at "pill pass" NaphCare nurses regularly walked past Mitchell's cell without offering any medications. The Correctional Officer Defendants oftentimes encouraged NaphCare nurses to bypass Mitchell, asserting to "not bother with" Mitchell as "he was crazy," or words to that effect. Despite knowing that Mitchell was, among other things, significantly mentally impaired, not receiving his medications or other medical treatments, losing significant amounts of weight, physically deteriorating, and "smearing" feces/urine - thereby creating a highly infectious environment - Defendants NaphCare; Edwards, LCSW; Kolongo, MD; Ngwa, NP; Ray, NP-Psych; Thomas, RN, HSA; Rivers, LPN; Nicholson, MA; Doris Murphy, MSW; and Pam Johnson, RN; did not adequately monitor, treat, and/or attempt to treat, Mitchell, did not have adequate systems in place to allow Mitchell proper medical/mental health care, and did not follow up with DBHDS regarding the failure to transfer Mitchell to Eastern State Hospital per court order.

Mitchell was also physically and verbally abused by the Correctional Officer Defendants. At times, Mitchell was forced to the ground, dragged, sprayed with mace, stood upon, punched and kicked by Correctional Officer Defendants. Inmates state that the Correctional Officer Defendants regularly mocked and laughed at Mitchell. In the words of one inmate, certain Correctional Officer Defendants "treated [Mitchell] like a circus animal." Many times following the abuse, Mitchell could be heard crying from his cell.

Other detainees were deeply disturbed by Mitchell's horrid circumstances and the mistreatment he received, and sought to intervene on his behalf. For instance, one detainee told Correctional Officer Defendants, among other things, "this man shouldn't be here. He needs help." However, the pleas of Mitchell's fellow inmates went unheeded; Correctional Officer Defendants were deliberately indifferent to Mitchell's circumstances, saying, among other things, "as long as he does not die on my watch," they did not care about his circumstances.

In the later part of his detention, Mitchell's feet and legs became very swollen. One detainee said that one of Mitchell's feet and legs was so swollen that it looked as it if he was wearing a large cast. After a considerable period of inadequate attention in-house, Defendant NaphCare finally sent Mitchell to Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center ("Maryview Hospital") for treatment. During his brief ED stay, Mitchell's condition was assessed - lab tests were performed and he was diagnosed as suffering from "Bilateral lower extremity edema," "hypoalbuminemia," and "elevated transaminase level" - but the cause of his conditions was not ascertained nor was he provided any treatment. Mitchell was given a consultation to see a GI doctor. However, Jail medical records reveal that upon Mitchell's return to the Jail, Defendants NaphCare; Kolongo, MD; Ngwa, NP; Pam Johnson, RN; and other NaphCare employees and/or agents, provided no follow up care, including no GI consult, for the remaining 19 days of Mitchell's confinement before his death, nor did they provide proper care or refer Mitchell to an ED again when his medical condition considerably worsened.

Defendants NaphCare; Kolongo, MD; Edwards, LCSW; Ray, NP-Psych; Ngwa, NP; Thomas, RN, HSA; Rivers, LPN; Nicholson, MA; Doris Murphy, MSW; and Pam Johnson, RN; and, upon information and belief, Defendants HRRJA/HRRJ, Simons, and Eugene Taylor, among other HRRJ and NaphCare employees, were well aware that Mitchell was mentally decompensating and physically deteriorating, but did not adequately address such. Indeed, an evaluation for a temporary detention order (TDO) was requested by Defendant Edwards, LCSW, on July 31, 2015. A TDO was not necessary, and likely was contrary to Virginia law in this circumstance, where a CRO had been issued by the Court; in any event, the TDO evaluation was not completed. However, despite her awareness of Mitchell's mental and physical decline, and her acknowledgement with the TDO evaluation request that Mitchell was imminently in danger at HRRJ and needed to be removed, Defendant Edwards, LCSW, failed to follow up when no TDO evaluation had been conducted as of August 3, 2015 and Mitchell otherwise had not been removed from HRRJ (and no other NaphCare or HRRJ/HRRJA employees followed up either). Mitchell thus remained largely abandoned in his cell at HRRJ until his death on August 19, 2015.

Prior to his death, Mitchell, who inmates report was always whistling and making other noises between the crack between his door and door jam, became quiet. For as many as four days before his death, Mitchell uncharacteristically laid slumped on the rack in his cell. When other detainees/inmates asked him what was wrong he moaned that he was feeling very bad and needed medical help. The detainees/inmates relayed that information to Correctional Officer Defendants and implored them to help Mitchell, but the "COs" ignored the requests, or otherwise did not obtain medical help for Mitchell. At one point, inmate witnesses report that Mitchell's cell door was opened and Mitchell stepped out of his cell and asked for medical care, but Correctional Officer Defendants returned Mitchell to his cell and no medical care was provided to Mitchell.

On August 19, 2015, fellow Jail detainees discovered Mitchell unresponsive in his Jail cell. Upon information and belief, a correctional officer employee then attempted to clean Mitchell's cell. Upon information and belief, in response, inmates yelled that the correctional officer was "tampering with a crime scene." Responding NaphCare providers recorded that, upon their arrival, Mitchell was not breathing and had no pulse. Upon information and belief, when these providers attempted to use the defibrillator, it was not working. EMS was called to the scene and pronounced Mitchell dead. In the Death Scene Investigation Report, despite, upon information and belief, the above attempted cleaning efforts, investigators from the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner described Mitchell's cell as having the stench of a "foul odor." The toilet in the cell was full of urine and feces. Investigators found puddles of urine on the floor of Mitchell's cell.

An autopsy performed by the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner listed the cause of Mitchell's death as "Probable cardiac arrhythmia accompanying wasting syndrome of unknown etiology." Assistant Chief Medical Examiner Wendy M. Gunther, M.D., described Mitchell as "nearly cachectic," meaning the loss of body mass that cannot be reversed nutritionally.

Upon viewing his body, Mitchell's family was stunned. Their beloved Jamycheal, despite his struggles with mental illness, had been a vibrant young man who loved music and always made people laugh. In his place was a withered figure the family could hardly recognize. [MORE]

Georgia Ct Grants New Trial to Mentally Disabled Black Man Convicted of Murder & Rape of White Woman by an All-White Jury -White Prosecutors Labelled Prospective Black Jurors as “N"

From [DPIC] A Georgia judge has granted a new trial to Johnny Lee Gates based on new evidence that excludes him as the source of DNA on implements used by the killer during the 1976 rape and murder for which Gates was sentenced to death. DNA testing disclosed that Gates’s DNA was not found on a necktie and the bathrobe belt the prosecution said were used by the killer to bind Kathrina Wright, the 19-year-old wife of a soldier stationed at Fort Benning during the murder. In a January 10, 2019, decision overturning Gates’s conviction, Senior Muscogee County Superior Court Judge John Allen credited the analysis of defense DNA expert Mark Perlin that Gates’s DNA was not present on the evidence. Judge Allen noted that Perline had trained the two Georgia Bureau of Investigation scientists the prosecution relied upon in the most recent court proceedings in the case and that the testimony of the GBI witnesses supported Perlin's conclusions. Judge Allen wrote that “[t]he exclusion of Gates’ profile to the DNA on the two items is material and may be considered exculpatory” and entitled Gates to a new trial.

Gates, who is African American, was convicted and sentenced to death by an all-white jury in a racially charged case. His death sentence was overturned in 2003 based upon evidence that he is intellectually disabled, and he was resentenced to life. Heightening the racial tensions of a black man accused of raping and murdering a young white woman, prosecutors deliberately excluded African American jurors from the case. Lawyers from the Georgia Innocence Project and Southern Center for Human Rights filed a motion in March 2018 arguing that Columbus, Georgia prosecutors engaged in a pattern and practice of systematically striking black prospective jurors because of their race in Gates’s case and six other capital cases with black defendants, discriminatorily empanelling all- or nearly-all-white juries in those cases. The prosecutors’ jury selection notes in those seven capital trials showed that the state attorneys in his case had carefully tracked the race of jurors, struck every black juror they could, and repeatedly wrote derogatory comments about blacks and black prospective jurors.

“The notes reveal that the prosecutors:

(1) labeled the white prospective jurors as “W” and the black prospective jurors as “N”;

(2) singled out the black prospective jurors by marking dots in the margins next to their names;

(3) identified one white prospective juror as a “top juror” because he “has to deal with 150 to 200 of these people that works for his construction co.”; GEORGIA, MUSCOGEE COUNTY SUPERIOR/STATE COURT eFILED 3/19/2018 8:23 AM ANN L. HARDMAN, CLERK 2

(4) described black prospective jurors as “slow,” “old + ignorant,” “cocky,” “con artist,” “hostile,” and “fat”;

(5) tallied the race of the final jurors selected to serve, with twelve marks in the white column and no marks in the black column; and

(6) ranked black prospective jurors as “1” on a scale of 1 to 5 without any further explanation.

These notes do not stand alone. There were two prosecutors at Gates’s trial: Douglas Pullen and William Smith. Pullen was involved in five capital trials involving black defendants between 1975 and 1979. The prosecution struck 27 of 27 black prospective jurors across the five cases. Smith was involved in four capital trials involving black defendants in that same period. In three of the four, the prosecutors struck all of the black prospective jurors. In the fourth, they used 10 strikes to exclude black prospective jurors; however, an all-white jury was impossible because the final pool of prospective jurors had more black citizens than the prosecution had strikes.”

A Georgia Tech mathematics professor provided expert testimony that the probability that black jurors were removed for race-neutral reasons was infinitesimally small – 0.000000000000000000000000000004 percent. In an opinion that excoriated local prosecutors for “undeniable ... systematic race discrimination during jury selection,” Judge Allen found that the prosecutors “identified the black prospective jurors by race in their jury selection notes, singled them out … and struck them to try Gates before an all-white jury.” However, the court said the race discrimination against Gates was not grounds to grant him a new trial because he had not shown that the lawyers who previously represented him did not have access to the evidence of systematic discrimination.