Jailed Black Panther demands retrial
July 21, 2008
AFP
- Black Panther-turned human rights campaigner Mumia Abu-Jamal has requested a retrial on his conviction of murdering a police officer, after his death sentence was overturned in March, his lawyer said Sunday.
A three-member Philadelphia appeals court on March 27 voted two-to-one to overturn the former radio journalist’s death sentence, while upholding his conviction for the 1981 murder of Daniel Faulkner.
The court said Abu-Jamal, 54, should face a new sentencing hearing or have his sentence commuted to life in jail.
Abu-Jamal, 54, has always claimed his innocence while on death row for 25 years. While in jail, he became a leading campaigner against the death penalty.
In his request for a retrial, Abu-Jamal’s lawyer Robert Bryan asked for a decision by a full panel of 12 judges, not a three-member court like Philadelphia’s.
“Even though the federal court granted a new trial on the question of the death penalty, we want a complete reversal of the conviction,” he said.
“If unsuccessful, we will proceed to the United States Supreme Court,” Bryan added.
Abu-Jamal has argued that he was denied a fair trial in 1982 because the prosecution barred 10 qualified African-Americans from sitting on the jury, which in the end consisted of 10 whites and two blacks.
The Philadelphia appeals court had rejected his arguments on lack of evidence of any racist intent on the part of the prosecution.
Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence in March was automatically commuted to life in jail, which could be overturned if he is granted a new trial.
Study: State sentencing guidelines ease discrimination
May 21, 2008
LARRY O’DELL, Associated Press
- State sentencing guidelines virtually erase discrimination in criminal punishments, regardless of how much judges are allowed to deviate from recommended prison terms, according to a study released Thursday.
The National Center for State Courts examined significantly different guidelines in three states: Virginia, where the guidelines are voluntary; Michigan, which offers some judicial discretion and Minnesota, which has the most mandatory system of the three.
The study concluded that the guidelines in each of those states result in consistent sentences that generally are not influenced by race and economic status. Wiping out racial discrimination was the major goal of a sentencing guidelines movement that began in the 1970s.
“These findings stand in marked contrast to the inconsistent and discriminatory sentencing practices documented in all three states prior to the implementation of guidelines,” the researchers wrote.
The study was released at a National Governors Association retreat on sentencing and prison issues in Jacksonville, Fla.
At least 20 states and the District of Columbia use guidelines that consider the nature of the offense and the defendant’s criminal history. Minnesota, Michigan and Virginia were studied because their guidelines allow varying degrees of judicial discretion.
“No matter what form the guidelines took, they seemed to eliminate any measurable discrimination,” Michigan State University political science professor Charles W. Ostrom, one of the report’s four authors, said in a telephone interview.
He said that finding was particularly surprising in Virginia.
“The voluntary nature of the Virginia guidelines do not preclude it from having real positive effects,” Ostrom said. “We thought it would not compare favorably to Michigan and Minnesota.”
Isabel Gomez, executive director of the Minnesota Sentencing Commission, said she had not seen the report but was pleased with its results. She blamed the overrepresentation of blacks in her state’s prisons on social factors.
“In Minnesota, there’s a widely held belief the guidelines have failed because they haven’t reduced racial disparity,” Gomez said. “The fact is, it would be worse if not for the guidelines.”
Guidelines–particularly the more mandatory ones–also improve consistency and predictability, which helps state policymakers ensure that the prison population does not grow beyond capacity.
However, sentencing guidelines are most effective in that regard if they are overseen by an active sentencing commission, Ostrom said. Virginia and Minnesota have such commissions. Michigan abolished its commission the year after its guidelines took effect in 1999.
The study found that without a commission to adjust the guidelines, a regional disparity has developed in Michigan. Courts in the high-crime Detroit area sentence more leniently than the rest of the state, even though all courts in Michigan are operating under the same guidelines.
“A commission that saw that would take some action,” Ostrom said. “Guidelines are an evolutionary process. You put them in place and make changes as you go. Michigan does not make any. If other states are going to think about this, they need to know a well-staffed, ongoing sentencing commission is needed.”
Legislation is pending in Michigan to revive the sentencing commission. The Michigan Department of Corrections supports the measure, spokesman Russ Marlan said.
Marlan said 25 percent of Michigan’s criminal cases land in “a large gray area” of the guidelines where defendants may or may not be sentenced to prison. The original belief was that 20 percent of defendants in that gray area would get prison time, but it’s been double that, Marlan said.
“There’s some need for adjustment,” he said. “Our incarceration rate is the highest in the Midwest, but we have not seen a resulting decrease in the crime rate.”
The study by the nonprofit, Williamsburg, Va.-based NCSC was funded by the National Institute of Justice, the research arm of the U.S. Department of Justice. The report was financed by the Pew Charitable Trust’s Center on the States.
The Hutchinson Report: Result of Excessively Imprisoning Black Youth Before Trials Has Been Catastrophic
May 4, 2008
Earl Ofari Hutchinson, Special to BlackAmericaWeb.com
- On Sept. 4, 21-year-old Joshua Pomier will have served nearly four years in a detention center near San Bernardino, California. Pomier is charged with multiple counts of car theft and robbery.
There are two deeply troubling problems with the amount of time he has spent behind bars. One, he has not been convicted of any of the crimes he’s charged with. He had barely turned 18 years old when he and another juvenile were arrested for the crimes in September 2004. Pomier and family members vehemently protest his innocence. The even more tormenting problem is not Pomier’s guilt or innocence, but the absurdly long length of time that he has been jailed awaiting disposition — any disposition — of the charges leveled against him.
Two separate societies: one in prison and one not
April 21, 2008
MARIE GOTTSCHALK, Houston Chronicle
- Forty years ago, the Kerner Commission concluded in its landmark study of the causes of racial disturbances in the United States in the 1960s: “Our nation is moving toward two societies, one black, one white — separate and unequal.” Today we are still moving toward two societies: one incarcerated and one not. The Pew Center on the States released a study in February showing that for the first time in this country’s history, more than one in every 100 adults is in jail or prison. According to the Justice Department, 7 million people — or one in every 32 adults — are either incarcerated, on parole or probation or under some other form of state or local supervision.
A 26-year-old secret could free inmate
April 12, 2008
SHARON COHEN, Associated Press
For nearly 26 years, the affidavit was sealed in an envelope and stored in a locked box, tucked away with the lawyer’s passport and will. Sometimes he stashed the box in his bedroom closet, other times under his bed. It stayed there — year after year, decade after decade.
Then, about two years ago, Dale Coventry, the box’s owner, got a call from his former colleague, W. Jamie Kunz. Both were once public defenders. They hadn’t talked in a decade.
And so, Coventry began reading aloud the five-line declaration the lawyers had written more than a quarter-century before: An innocent man was behind bars. His name was Alton Logan. He did not kill a security guard in a McDonald’s restaurant in January 1982.
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