Law

Tulsa Cop Facing Manslaughter Charges Takes Vacation

April 24, 2015 Kalli Holloway, www.alternet.org Educate! Criminal Justice, Law, police brutality

Robert Bates, the Oklahoma volunteer sheriff’s deputy who shot and killed an unarmed man earlier this month, is heading to the Bahamas on vacation with the blessing of a local district court. Currently free on $25,000 bond, Bates says he thought he was firing his taser when he fatally shot Eric Harris. The 73-year-old appeared before a judge on Tuesday to enter a not-guilty plea on a charge of second-degree murder. While he was there, he requested that he and his family be allowed to take a “previously planned vacation” to the Caribbean. The judge agreed, stipulating that Bates needed to be back for his July 2 court date.

Michael Brown Family Sues For Wrongful Death

April 24, 2015 Jon Swaine, www.theguardian.com Resist! Ferguson, Law, Michael Brown, police brutality

The family of Michael Brown, the unarmed black 18-year-old whose fatal shooting by police led to months of unrest last year, are suing the city ofFerguson, Missouri, their lawyers said on Wednesday evening. Relatives of Brown will announce their filing of a civil lawsuit against the St Louis suburb at a press conference on Thursday morning, attorneys Benjamin Crump and Daryl Parks said in a statement. The lawsuit will accuse city authorities of liability for “the wrongful death of Michael Brown Jr”, the statement said. A city spokeswoman did not respond to a request for comment. Their civil action, which will almost certainly seek financial damages, is likely to be the Brown family’s final opportunity to hold authorities responsible for the death of their son.

Louisiana Judge: Local Zoning Laws Can’t Stop Fracking

April 22, 2015 Robert Rhoden, www.nola.com Resist! Environment, Fracking, Law, Louisiana

Fracking opponents suffered a major defeat Monday morning (April 20) when a state judge ruled St. Tammany Parish cannot use its zoning regulations to block a proposed oil drilling and fracking project northeast of Mandeville. Judge William Morvant of the 19th Judicial District Court in Baton Rouge said parish regulations cannot trump state law and that the Department of Natural Resources' Office of Conservation is the sole regulator of oil and gas drilling in Louisiana. The much-anticipated ruling, coming after a year of controversy over the project, does not mean Helis Oil & Gas Co. of New Orleans is free to start drilling, however. An appeal is likely to be filed, and Helis still needs a wetlands permit from the Army Corps of Engineers before it could begin work.

The Truth About The Detroit Water Shutoffs

April 20, 2015 Matthew Kovac, www.occupy.com Educate! Detroit, Human Rights, Law, Water

Ever since the City of Detroit started shutting off water to low-income residents last summer in what United Nations investigators denounced as a human rights violation, city officials have maintained that they are simply responding to Detroiters’ failure to pay their bills. Now it’s looking like that’s not the case. The independent investigative outlet Motor City Muckraker recently revealed that the city had shut off water to residents with up-to-date bills, including a Detroit Free Press editor. When called on it, the Detroit Water and Sewerage Department (DWSD) told Muckraker that a clerical error resulted in 11 such shutoffs.

FBI Admits Flaws In Hair Analysis Over Decades

April 20, 2015 Spencer S. Hsu, www.washingtonpost.com Educate! Criminal Justice, FBI, Law, Media

The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000. Of 28 examiners with the FBI Laboratory’s microscopic hair comparison unit, 26 overstated forensic matches in ways that favored prosecutors in more than 95 percent of the 268 trials reviewed so far, according to the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers (NACDL) and the Innocence Project, which are assisting the government with the country’s largest post-conviction review of questioned forensic evidence.

Black Lives Matter Raising $90,000 Bail For Jailed Activist

April 18, 2015 Tasbeeh Herwess, www.magazine.good.is Educate! California, Criminal Justice, Law, police brutality, Political Prisoner

Black Lives Matter (BLM) is mounting a campaign to crowdfund $90,000 for the bail of 28-year-old Jasmine Richards, a Pasadena-based activist who was arrested on a slew of charges related to a protest against police brutality that she helped organize. Richards was arrested on Monday, just as she was preparing to appear at a City Council meeting to talk about the death of Kendrec McDade, an unarmed black teenager who was shot seven times and killed by Pasadena police officers in 2012. “[Richards] has been working tirelessly to build a BLM Pasadena chapter, so black folks in Pasadena know their lives matter,” said BLM organizers in a statement. “Courageously, Jasmine reached out to Anya Slaughter, Kendrec McDade's mother, making sure that she had a community supporting her in seeking justice for Kendrec.”

For Every 1,000 People Killed By Police, Only 1 Is Convicted

April 18, 2015 Josie Wales, www.alternet.org Educate! Criminal Justice, Inequality, Law, police brutality, Racial Justice

A new study released by the Washington Post reveals that for every 1000 people killed at the hands of police, only one officer is convicted of a crime. Since 2005, although there have been thousands of fatal shootings by police officers, only 54 have been charged. Of those charged, most were cleared or acquitted. It stands to reason that if there are thousands of fatalities due to police shootings, the number of police charged would be much higher than it is. According to the analysis, in order for prosecutors to press charges, there had to be exceptional factors at play. These include “a video recording of the incident, a victim shot in the back, incriminating testimony from other officers or allegations of a coverup.” According to Bowling Green criminologist Philip M. Stinson, “To charge an officer in a fatal shooting, it takes something so egregious, so over the top that it cannot be explained in any rational way. It also has to be a case that prosecutors are willing to hang their reputation on.”

Bank Workers: Stop Making Us Sell Shady Products To Poor People

April 16, 2015 Alan Pyke, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! Banking, Law, wealth inequality

The newest line of criticism for the banking industry is coming from within, as a group of rank-and-file banking employees prepare to demand that their employer stop ordering them to use predatory sales tactics and start treating them as a valued piece of the workforce. A group of tellers, loan officers, and customer service representatives from the country’s largest commercial banks will rally Monday outside office towers in Minneapolis to call attention to their own low pay and to consumer-harming sales policies they say are imposed on them by management. As part of the demonstrations, workers will ask to meet with executives at Wells Fargo to deliver a petition calling for the bank to do away with high-pressure sales quotas for its customer service staff.

Under Trade Deal, Disputes Settled Outside US Judicial System

April 15, 2015 Dean Baker, www.america.aljazeera.com Educate! Americas, Law, Obama, Trade

One of the most important Supreme Court cases this year is King v. Burwell. The suit questions the legality of the subsidies to low- and middle-income families in the health-insurance exchanges run by the federal government. If the Court rules for the plaintiff, millions of people in the 36 states that did not set up exchanges could lose their subsidies. With insurance now unaffordable for much of the population in these states, their exchanges will no longer be operational, leading to the collapse of the Affordable Care Act in much of the country. The whole basis for King v. Burwell is one sentence in the 1,700 page law indicating that subsidies are only supposed to be paid to people in states that have set up their own exchanges.

Story Of Danielle Hicks-Best

April 15, 2015 Dr. Marsha Coleman-Adebayo, www.blackagendareport.com Educate! Criminal Justice, Law, Police the Police, Racial Justice

An 11 year old African girl, Danielle Hicks-Best, reported to Washington, DC police that she had been raped twice by older men (in their early to late 20’s) in her neighborhood. In both cases, forensic medical evidence supported her claims. Considering her age and the ages of the assailants, one would have assumed that the police would have conducted an investigation into statutory rape. Instead under the mis-leadership of DC Police Chief Cathy Lanier, Danielle, then 12 years old, was charged with filing false police reports. “After 11, she lost the rest of her childhood,” her mother Veronica Best lamented. Ms. Best launched a campaign to save her daughter’s life that leads all the way to the Washington, DC Police Chief Lanier. The family devoted their limited financial and emotional resources to addressing their daughter’s legal entanglement and providing psychological support against a system with unlimited financial resources.

“Silenced” Film Shows Price Paid By Government Whistleblowers

April 15, 2015 John Zangas, www.dcmediagroup.us Educate! Government, Law, Media

Director James Spione premiered his documentary film “Silenced” at the Goethe Institute in Washington, DC on Saturday, April 10. “Silenced” features three prominent whistleblowers: former US Department of Justice attorney Jesselyn Radack, former NSA Senior Director Thomas Drake, and former CIA Analyst John Kiriakou, all who paid a heavy price for following their consciences. Drake, Kiriakou, and Radack were present for a question and answer period following the showing. Their political stories have been widely reported in the press. The film does much more than tell the story of how three whistleblowers courageously reported crimes they witnessed within their security agencies. It shows their personal struggles through interactions with their families and in their homes, while touching on their collapsing careers and estates.

Confronting The Surveillance State

April 14, 2015 Patrick G. Eddington, www.washingtonexaminer.com Resist! Law, NSA, Snowden, Surveillance

By Memorial Day weekend, Congress will likely have decided whether the federal government's mass surveillance programs — exposed first by The New York Times in December 2005 and more broadly by National Security Agency contractor-turned-whistleblower Edward Snowden in 2013 — will be partially reined in or will instead become a dominant, permanent feature of American life. The creation of what many refer to as the "American Surveillance State" began in secret, just days after the Sept. 11 attacks. As the wreckage of the Twin Towers smoldered, President Bush and his top national security and intelligence advisers were making decisions that would trigger a constitutional crisis over surveillance programs that the public was told was essential to combating terrorism.

Communities Demand An Accountable Government

April 14, 2015 Angela Vogel, www.beyondextremeenergy.org Resist! Energy, Environment, FERC, Law

The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) regulates the interstate transmission of electricity, gas, and oil. FERC also reviews proposals to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminals and interstate natural gas pipelines as well as licensing hydro-power projects. Since 1935 when it first became an independent regulatory agency it has done little to protect citizens from exploitation. Instead, the agency uses its vast powers to facilitate the expansion of dirty and deadly extraction for export to international markets. FERC ensures that toxic energy projects create greater profits for rich developers while leaving poisoned communities with the lie of so-called U.S. energy independence through fossil fuels.

Video Shows Cop Mocking Unarmed Man Dying From Police Bullet

April 13, 2015 Ian Millhiser, www.thinkprogress.org Resist! Law, Oklahoma, police brutality, Police the Police

Video released by an Oklahoma sheriff’s department on Friday shows an unarmed black man named Eric Harris fleeing police as they exit their cars to chase him. After officers catch up to Harris and bring him to the ground, an officer calls out the word “Taser” twice, before firing a single shot at Harris. The shot, which was fired by Reserve Deputy Robert Bates, was fatal. Harris was pronounced dead an hour later. The shooting appears to be a tragic accident. Bates did say “Taser” before shooting Harris, and immediately after pulling the trigger, Bates drops the gun and says “Oh! I shot him. I’m sorry.” At a press conference on Friday, a Tulsa County Sheriff’s Office spokesperson claimed that Bates was a “true victim” of something called “slips and capture” — a police term for when someone does one thing while believing they are doing something else in a high stress situation.

Debt Resistance Grows, Attorney General’s Call For Loan Forgiveness

April 11, 2015 Shahien Nasiripour, www.huffingtonpost.com Resist! Capitalism, Debt, Law, Politics

Top state prosecutors from Oregon to Massachusetts, who contend they have evidence that thousands of Americans were fraudulently urged to take out federal student loans to attend dodgy for-profit schools, urged the U.S. Department of Education on Thursday to forgive the borrowers’ debts. The group of nine Democratic attorneys general demanded that Education Secretary Arne Duncan use his existing authority to cancel debts for students who attended schools currently or formerly owned by Corinthian Colleges Inc., a once-multibillion-dollar company that owned more than 100 for-profit schools with names such as Everest, Heald and Wyotech. The Thursday letter follows similar requests made by Senate Democrats and appeals from consumer groups, such as the National Consumer Law Center, that the Education Department grant debt relief to those who attended Corinthian’s schools.

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