Criminal Justice

Federal Judge Orders Documents From Sheriff Joe Arpaio

July 26, 2015 Reuters, www.rawstory.com Educate! Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Immigration, Racism

By Reuters. Maricopa County, AZ - A Federal judge on Friday ordered U.S. marshals to seize documents from the office of controversial Arizona lawman Joe Arpaio as part of an ongoing racial profiling case. U.S. District Judge Murray Snow issued the order at an emergency hearing he convened after a court-appointed monitor reported that the sheriff’s office had failed to turn over information being sought in connection with the case. In a brief order, Snow required that 1,459 identifications apparently taken from people by sheriff’s deputies during law enforcement actions and which were about to be destroyed be produced for federal marshals. The judge also ordered that computer hard drives, documents and other materials related to an investigation involving the judge by a confidential informant be given to marshals by the end of the day on Friday.

Drunk Executives Poured Beer On Native American Children’s Heads

July 24, 2015 Carimah Townes, www.thinkprogress.org Educate! Criminal Justice, Indigenous People, Law, Racism

At the start of the year, a group of 57 Native Americans students from the Lakota tribe were taken to a minor league hockey match in Rapid City, South Dakota to celebrate their academic achievements. But what started as a field trip to reward the students quickly turned into a nightmare, when a group of drunk men in an executive suite dumped beer on their heads and yelled “go back to the Rez!” Seven months later, only one of the perpetrators faces criminal charges. His trial begins today, and if found guilty he will be convicted of disorderly conduct and fined $500 — avoiding hate crime charges, a jury, and jail time. In January, a group of third through eighth grade students from the American Horse School were watching the local hockey team, the Rapid City Rush, before several adults started asking them questions about where they are from.

Activists Arrested For Bogotá Bombing Without Evidence

July 21, 2015 Kate Aronoff, www.wagingnonviolence.org Resist! Colombia, Criminal Justice, FARC, Law

By Kate Aronoff in Waging Nonviolence - On the morning of July 8, the district attorney of Colombia, in coordination with the National Police, rounded up and arrested 16 people for their alleged connection to a bombing in the capital city of Bogotá a few days earlier. Today, those arrested sit in their cells awaiting indictment. The question being asked by the country’s activists, progressive media and a growing base of skeptics outside of the cellblock is whether they’ve done anything wrong. Despite a marked lack of evidence, Colombian President Manuel Santos has pinned the attack on the National Liberation Army — the country’s second largest terrorist group next to the FARC. Following the raids, Santos’ Defense Ministry further claimed that the suspects were “acting in the name of the ELN,” the Spanish abbreviation of the rebel group.

3 Senior Officials Lose Their Jobs After Torture Scandal

July 16, 2015 Spencer Ackerman, www.theguardian.com Resist! American Psychological Association, Criminal Justice, Law, Psychology, Public Health, Torture

By Spencer Ackerman in The Guardian - The torture scandal consuming the US’s premiere professional association of psychologists has cost three senior officials their jobs, part of a reckoning that reformers hope will lead to criminal prosecutions. As the American Psychological Association copes with the damage reaped by an independent investigation that found it complicit in US torture, the group announced on Tuesday that its chief executive officer, its deputy CEO and its communications chief are no longer with the APA. All three were implicated in the 542-page report issued this month by former federal prosecutor David Hoffman, who concluded that APA leaders “colluded” with the US department of defense and aided the CIA in loosening professional ethics and other guidelines to permit psychologist participation in torture.

TSA Finds Money In Passenger’s Bag, DEA Takes It

July 14, 2015 Lisa Simeone, www.tsanewsblog.com Educate! Criminal Justice, Law, National Security, TSA

By Lisa Simeone in TSA News Blog - From the Washington Post comes this story of not only another instance of TSA abuse, but the TSA’s bragging about said abuse. The headline reads: “Why the TSA posted a photo of a passenger’s cash-filled luggage on Twitter.” And the TSA tweeter in question is none other than PR flack Lisa Farbstein, about whom we’ve written so many times before. From the Post: "The photo, from the Richmond airport, shows a passenger’s luggage containing $75,000 in cash. Farbstein asks, “Is this how you’d transport it?” Most people would not, but there is nothing illegal about simply checking a bag containing $75,000, or carrying it with you on the plane. Passengers aren’t under any obligation to report large sums of cash unless they’re traveling internationally, though the TSA recommends that passengers consider asking for a private screening."

Eric Garner Family Reaches Settlement Of $5.9 Million

July 13, 2015 Kelly McLaughlin, www.dailymail.co.uk Educate! Criminal Justice, Eric Garner, NYC, NYPD, police brutality, Racial Justice

By Kelly McLaughlin in The Daily Mail - As the family of Eric Garner awaits closure a year after the father-of-six's untimely death, the police officer who put the 43-year-old in a fatal chokehold said that he can't wait to get back on the job. Though he's been stripped of his gun and is receiving death threats, 30-year-old Daniel Pantaleo wants to keep working for the New York City police, his lawyer said. 'The unbelievable part is this has not soured him one bit on doing law enforcement,' his lawyer Stuart London told the New York Daily News. 'It hasn't diminished his desire to help the citizens of this city.' Garner's widow, however, is enraged that there is even a possibility Pantaleo could get his job back.

Blood & Fog: The Military’s Germ Warfare Tests In SF

July 13, 2015 Rebecca Kreston, www.blogs.discovermagazine.com Educate! Criminal Justice, History, Medicine, Public Health

By Rebecca Kreston in Discover Magazine - Over a period of six days in September 1950, members of the US Navy sprayed clouds of Serratia from giant hoses aboard a Navy minesweeper drifting two miles along the San Francisco coastline, a bacterial fog quickly enveloped and disguised by the region’s own mist. By monitoring the air at 43 scattered sites throughout the region, the Navy found Serratia bacteria blown throughout San Francisco and extending to the adjacent communities of Albany, Berkeley, Daly City, Colma, Oakland, San Leandro, and Sausalito (3). In this regard, the experiment was a success: the San Francisco Bay was identified as a highly susceptible site for a germ warfare attack and a quantifiable range for the airborne dispersal of microbes was established.

Justice Dep’t Must Investigate APA’s Role in U.S. Torture Program

July 13, 2015 Physicians for Human Rights, www.physiciansforhumanrights.org Resist! Criminal Justice, Human Rights, Psychology, Public Health, Torture

By Physicians for Human Rights - Physicians for Human Rights today called for a federal criminal probe into the American Psychological Association's (APA) role in the U.S. torture program following the release of a damning new report that confirms the APA colluded with the Bush administration to enable psychologists to design, implement, and defend a program of torture. In light of the 542-page independent report first reported by The New York Times, PHR again called for a full investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice. “The corruption of a health professional organization at this level is an extraordinary betrayal of both ethics and the law, and demands an investigation and appropriate prosecutions,” said Donna McKay, PHR’s executive director. “Rather than uphold the principle of ‘do no harm,’ APA leadership subverted its own ethics policies and sabotaged all efforts at enforcement.”

Egypt Will Be Worse Than Pre-2011 With New Terrorism Law

July 7, 2015 Sarah El-Deeb, www.AP.org Resist! Criminal Justice, Dictatorship, Egypt, Freedom of Expression, Law, Revolution, Terrorism

By Sarah El-Deeb in Business Insider - After a series of stunning militant attacks, Egypt's government is pushing through a controversial new anti-terrorism draft bill that would set up special terrorism courts, shorten the appeals process, give police greater powers of arrest and imprison journalists who report information on attacks that differs from the official government line. The draft raised concerns that officials are taking advantage of heightened public shock at last week's audacious attacks to effectively enshrine into law the notorious special emergency laws which were in place for decades until they were lifted following the 2011 ouster of autocrat Hosni Mubarak. Rather than reviewing security policies since the attacks, officials have largely been focusing blame on the media for allegedly demoralizing troops and on the slowness of the courts.

Judge Probes Claim Of Evidence Destruction In NSA Leak Prosecution

July 5, 2015 Marisa Taylor, www.newsobserver.com Resist! Courts, Criminal Justice, Thomas Drake, Whistleblowers

By Marisa Taylor for McClatchy News. A federal judge is investigating allegations that the government may have improperly destroyed documents during the high-profile media leak investigation of National Security Agency whistleblower Thomas Drake. U.S. Magistrate Judge Stephanie Gallagher’s inquiry was launched after Drake’s lawyers in April accused the Pentagon inspector general’s office of destroying possible evidence during Drake’s criminal prosecution, which ended almost four years ago, McClatchy has learned. In a May 13 letter, Gallagher told Justice Department lawyers that the judge who had presided over the case asked her to evaluate the allegations from Drake’s lawyers “for further investigation and to make recommendations as to whether any action by the court is warranted or appropriate.” The allegations raise new questions about a prosecution that had been excoriated by the presiding judge after the Justice Department’s case against Drake unraveled and resulted in the former senior NSA official pleading guilty to a misdemeanor charge.

The Injustice Inflicted On Julian Assange Must End

June 21, 2015 John Pilger, www.counterpunch.org Educate! Criminal Justice, Julian Assange, Wikileaks

By John Pilger in CounterPunch. London, UK - Julian Assange, founder and editor of WikiLeaks, has now been a refugee in the Ecuadoream embassy in London for three years. The key issue in his extraordinary incarceration is justice. He has been charged with no crime. The first Swedish prosecutor dismissed the misconduct allegations regarding two women in Stockholm in 2010. The second Swedish prosecutor’s actions were and are demonstrably political. Until recently, she refused to come to London to interview Assange. Finally, when the British government almost pleaded with her to come, she agreed. She has now cancelled her trip. It is a farce, but one with grim consequences for Assange should he dare step outside the Ecuadorean embassy.

The Triumph Of Occupy, & The Costs To The Occupiers

June 15, 2015 Jay Elias, www.dailykos.com Strategize! Criminal Justice, Law, Occupy, Surveillance

By Jay Elias in Daily Kos - What took a lot longer to reach the public eye, and did so after the cameras were largely off the Occupy movement, was the lengths, many of which were illegal, that the Federal and local governments went to spy on the Occupy movement, to use anti-terrorism powers against them, and to share information about their activities with those whom Occupy was protesting. In 2012, Rolling Stone reported on the Department of Homeland Security’s surveillance of the Occupy movement, which began no less than a month after the protests began in 2011. The DHS report stated that the NYPD was sharing information on the protesters and their plans with landlords and business owners, including according to the DHS memo “large banks”. Rolling Stone also reported that information about the locations and times of protests and gatherings nationwide was “borrowed, improbably enough, from the lefty blog Daily Kos.”

End All Youth Detention & Torture At Rikers Island Now

June 15, 2015 Marian Wright Edelman, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Criminal Justice, Mass Incarceration, mental health, Torture

By Marian Wright Edelman in Huffington Post - Nobody of any age should be held in jail without a trial for three years. No child or adolescent should be held in an adult jail. No child or youth should be housed in facilities where those entrusted to care for them violently assault them. Yet, a 16-year-old accused of stealing a backpack was kept in one of the most violent adult jails in the United States, Rikers Island in New York City, for three years without a trial. This was morally scandalous and inhumane. Even worse, he spent more than two years of that time in solitary confinement, locked up alone except to go to the shower, the recreation area, the visit room or the medical clinic. This was torture. The suicide of 22-year-old Kalief Browder on June 6, barely two years after his release and return home, was the final horror in his tragic and brutal journey into the depths of the adult criminal justice system in New York City and state.

Judge Finds Cause To Prosecute Police Who Killed Tamar Rice

June 12, 2015 Ben Mathis-Lilley, www.slate.com Educate! Criminal Justice, Law, police brutality, Racial Justice, Tamar Rice

By Ben Mathis-Lilley in Slate - Cleveland activists and civic leaders have formally asked a judge to arrest the police officers involved in the shooting death of 12-year-old Tamir Rice, taking advantage of an Ohio law that allows citizens to file requests for prosecution. "Ohio law allows anyone with 'knowledge of the facts' to file a court affidavit and ask a judge to issue an arrest warrant," the New York Times writes. "If approved, the arrest would be followed by a public hearing." Per Cleveland.com, the activists' approach would expedite the process by which the case is brought before a grand jury; county prosecutors reportedly plan to eventually take such an action, but at the moment say they are continuing to investigate Rice's death.

Turkish Cop Who Teargassed Woman Ordered To Plant 600 Trees

June 12, 2015 Simon Tomlinson, www.dailymail.co.uk Resist! Criminal Justice, Environment, police brutality, Türkiye

By Simon Tomlinson in The Daily Mail - A Turkish policeman whose teargassing of a woman in a red dress became a symbol of environmental protests two years ago has been ordered by a court to plant 600 trees. The image of Ceyda Sungur, dubbed the 'lady in red', her hair billowing upwards as officer Fatih Zengin sprayed tear gas in her face, was endlessly shared on social media. It was also replicated as a cartoon on posters, mugs and stickers during the protests in Istanbul. After being found guilty misconduct yesterday, Zengin's sentence appeared to contain a deliberate irony. The protests, which began as a bid to stop the redevelopment of Gezi Park in central Istanbul, were dismissed by the government at the time as 'nothing to do with trees'.

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