50 Shots=Not Guilty

I just keep thinking of Aunt Sally in Huck Finn:

NEW YORK (CNN) -- A judge acquitted three New York Police Department detectives of all charges Friday morning in the shooting death of an unarmed man in a 50-bullet barrage, hours before he was to be married.

Detectives Michael Oliver and Gescard Isnora were found not guilty of charges of manslaughter, assault and reckless endangerment in the death of Sean Bell, 23, and the wounding of two of his friends.

Detective Marc Cooper was acquitted of reckless endangerment.

Keep in mind that this case was decided by a single judge, rather than a jury. The cops weren't comfortable with the idea of a jury of their peers.

This verdict occurs at a time when the NYPD has lapsed into a pattern of unaccountability, where instead of pursing violations, cops are given a tongue lashing:

In 2004, 88 cases against police officers actually made it to trial. Last year, that number was eight. And yet, the police department claims that it's actually doing a better job of prosecuting bad cops. How? By employing a complex manipulation of statistics.

Complaints are prosecuted not by the CCRB itself but by the NYPD's Department Advocate's Office, which, since Julie Schwartz took over in 2004, has increasingly used a light hand with police officers who are found to deserve discipline. After Schwartz took over, the percentage of officers receiving "instructions" (what amounts to a talking-to, the lightest possible penalty) jumped from 29 percent of those disciplined in 2004 to 57 percent in 2005. In her second year, the number increased to 73 percent.

That's a lot of stern lectures.

The NYCLU referred to it as "a free pass to engage in misconduct".

Calling it a "seismic shift" in policy, Christopher Dunn, the NYCLU's associate legal director, asserts: "Between the dramatic increase in the number of CCRB [Civilian Complaint Review Board] cases the department is dismissing, and the large number of cases where officers get only a slap on the wrist in the form of instructions, the department has essentially given officers a free pass to engage in misconduct."

That's my concern with the Sean Bell verdict. With violations being punished less often and less harshly within the department, and these cops facing no consequences for pumping 50 shots at three unarmed black men, things will only get worse.

This was not a murder trial. The men were given lesser charges that I believe were more suited to their crime. These did not sound like bloodthirsty men who just wanted to pop somebody, they sounded like cops who got scared and behaved recklessly. A man is dead because of that, and I don't see any justice in allowing them to go free without consequences.

And I will say this: 50 shots at an unarmed target. That kind of thing never, ever seems to happen to anyone else.

Crack Penalties Could Be Reduced Retroactively

The Post is reporting that penalties for selling crack cocaine could be reduced, and the sentences imposed retroactively, allowing thousands to be be freed. The penalties for crack-related crimes are far harsher than those for crimes involving powder cocaine.

Should the panel adopt the new policy, the sentences of 19,500 inmates would be reduced by an average of 27 months. About 3,800 inmates now imprisoned for possession and distribution of crack cocaine could be freed within the next year, according to the commission's analysis. The proposal would cover only inmates in federal prisons and not those in state correctional facilities, where the vast majority of people convicted of drug offenses are held.

By far the largest number -- more than 1,400 -- of those who would be eligible for sentence reductions were convicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, which has jurisdiction over Northern Virginia and the Richmond area, according to an analysis done by the commission. Nearly 280 inmates convicted in federal courts in Maryland would be eligible, as well as almost 270 prisoners found guilty in the District of Columbia.

The commission is taking up one of the most racially sensitive issues of the two-decades-old war on drugs. Jurists and civil rights organizations have long complained that the commission's guidelines mandate more stringent federal penalties for crack cocaine offenses, which usually involve African Americans, than for crimes involving powder cocaine, which generally involve white people. The chemical properties of the drugs are the same, though crack is potentially more addictive.

Nearly 86 percent of inmates who would be affected by the change are black; slightly fewer than 6 percent are white. Ninety-four percent are men.

The commission's proposal does not change sentencing recommendations for powder cocaine.

A few things come to mind: Given the incredible amount of people in prison for nonviolent drug offenses, this is really a trickle. Also, releasing people from prison really isn't enough; to reduce recidivism inmates have to have the kind of vocational or educational skills necessary to find gainful employment and avoid the traps of their former lives.

Naturally, the Bush Administration is opposed, because cocaine makes people dangerous, irrational, paranoid, and possibly prone to messianic delusions. Of course, Mr. Bush is only speaking from his own personal experience.

Well, that's not exactly what they said.

The Bush administration opposes the new plan, arguing that it would overburden federal courts and release potentially dangerous drug offenders. In a letter to the commission, Assistant Attorney General Alice S. Fisher wrote that the release of a large number of drug offenders "would jeopardize community safety and threatens to unravel the success we have achieved in removing violent crack offenders from high-crime neighborhoods."

But many federal judges, public defenders, parole officers and civil rights advocates favor the move, asserting that the penalties for crack cocaine charges have fallen disproportionately onto black people.

Were the Bush Administration concerned with creating sound policy rather than moralizing, they would propose a plan to help inmates re-enter society safely and with the proper career tools to help them avoid a life of crime. Even from a conservative point of view; recidivism is a disaster for taxpayers.

But black people don't vote Republican. So isn't it better to have as many of us disenfranchised and unable to vote as possible?

Reed Walters Forgot To Mention A Few Things In His NYT Op-Ed

In his Op-Ed for the Times, Jena DA Reed Walters attempts to shift the discussion from unequal justice in Jena to one of sentimentality, where the march last week was simply an emotional reaction to nooses hanging from a tree rather than a response to a long trail of incidents in Jena for which only black students faced serious legal consequences. In his attempt to garner national sympathy, Walters omitted several important details even among the incidents he decided to include, most notably this one:

Only the intervention of an uninvolved student protected Mr. Barker from severe injury or death. There was serious bodily harm inflicted with a dangerous weapon — the definition of aggravated second-degree battery. Mr. Bell’s conviction on that charge as an adult has been overturned, but I considered adult status appropriate because of his role as the instigator of the attack, the seriousness of the charge and his prior criminal record.

Well, aside from the details of how one Godlike student managed to deter the fiery wrath of six "attempted murderers," (attempted murder was the crime Walters originally charged five of the six with, not "aggravated battery," either way, the question remains) what is the distinction here between "severe injury" and "serious bodily harm?" and how exactly, did Justin Barker suffer one, and not the other? Walters clumsiness here hides the simple fact that Justin Barker walked out of the hospital two hours later and attended a social event, not something that people do after being the victim of a life threatening beating. Just ask John Lewis.

But perhaps most telling is that Reed Walters conveniently omits from his Op-Ed a description of the "dangerous weapon" used in the attack.

It was their sneakers.

The black boys were charged with attempted murder, which threatened to put them in prison for most of their lives. The district attorney alleged they'd used a deadly weapon: their sneakers.

Walters didn't say that because it would have made him look absurd, and it would have shattered the narrative of the reluctant white lawman trying to keep the piece in a town full of savage Negroes.

I can understand the emotions generated by the juxtaposition of the noose incident with the attack on Mr. Barker and the outcomes for the perpetrators of each. In the final analysis, though, I am bound to enforce the laws of Louisiana as they exist today, not as they might in someone’s vision of a perfect world.

That is what I have done. And that is what I must continue to do.

One might think that if Walters hadn't repeatedly used his prosecutorial discretion only to seek jail time for the Jena Six, not after the nooses, but after the series of violent incidents that occurred in the town between students at the school for months after.

The Chicago Tribune reported that there were a series of fights at the school, and yet, no charges were filed:

First, a series of fights between black and white students erupted at the high school over the nooses. Then, in late November, unknown arsonists set fire to the central wing of the school, which still sits in ruins. Off campus, a white youth beat up a black student who showed up at an all-white party.

The details of the fight at the party were reported by the Washington Post. Apparently, while Mr. Walters believes sneakers to be a deadly weapon when wielded by a black teen, the same does not hold true for a white kid brandishing a beer bottle.

In the weeks that followed, the fighting continued. In one scuffle, Robert Bailey, one of the six teenagers now facing trial, said a white man broke a beer bottle over his head after jumping him at a party, but there was no immediate investigation. Months later, Justin Sloan, who is white, was charged with simple battery and given probation for that attack.

For some reason, Walters did not see that particular incident as "an attack with a dangerous weapon." I wonder why.

Mr. Walters discretionary oddities abound. Apparently a shotgun is also not a weapon in the hands of a white person.

The critics note, for example, that the white youth who beat the black student at the party was charged only with simple battery, while the white man who pulled the shotgun at the convenience store wasn't charged with any crime at all. But the three black youths in that incident were arrested and accused of aggravated battery and theft after they wrestled the weapon from the man -- in self-defense, they said.

Once again, the charge is "aggravated battery" against a group of black teenagers who wrestled a shotgun from someone who was essentially threatening to shoot them. While that man wasn't charged with a crime, the black teenagers apparently once again had a "dangerous weapon" in their possession. Was it their sneakers this time as well? Should black people in Jena be walking around barefoot just to make sure they aren't charged with aggravated battery?

There are other relevant details Walters omitted or failed to explain, such as the threat he delivered exclusively to black students at Jena High School, or the circumstances surrounding weapons charges Justin Barker faced for bringing a loaded shotgun to school that have now mysteriously disappeared. (Although perhaps we have already established that Reed Walters does not consider a shotgun to be a weapon as long as a white person is holding it.)

In his Op-Ed yesterday, Mr. Walters attempted to mask a serious of decisions he made as a District Attorney that had they been presented, would have been indefensible. The incident is actually less about the nooses than it is about Mr. Walters, who has consistently failed to pursue justice against any aggressive acts by the white community in Jena, Louisiana. The issue isn't the symbolic meaning of the nooses, the issue is equal protection under the law. Which doesn't exist in Jena. Not if you're black.