It has long been recognized that a prosecutor’s duty is to seek justice. In Berger v. United States, 295 U.S. 78 (1935) our Supreme Court declared this mandate recognizing that prosecutors should “prosecute with eagerness and vigor” but may not use “improper methods calculated to produce a wrongful conviction.” If a prosecutor’s misconduct “so reflects the trial with unfairness as to make the resulting conviction a denial of due process” then the conviction might be vacated – but only if the Court finds that the prosecutor’s actions constituted “egregious misconduct.” Darden v. Wainwright, 477 U.S. 168 (1987)
In other words, as long as the reviewing court determines, based upon their own post-conviction subjective interpretation, that the evidence notwithstanding the alleged misconduct is sufficient to support the conviction, a prosecutor’s deliberate misconduct is judicially tolerated, and the conviction cannot be vacated. This is generally called the “harmless error” rule … if the reviewing court determines that the person is probably guilty anyway. Then the “error” of a deliberate prosecutorial misconduct is deemed “harmless.” See, e.g. Cargle v. Mullin, 317 F. 3d 1196 (10th Cir. 2003) (“ A prosecutor’s misconduct will require reversal of a conviction only where the misconduct sufficiently infected the trial so as to make it fundamentally unfair.”); Mason v. Mitchell, 320 F. 3d 604 (6th Cir. 2003) (“The misconduct must be so pronounced and persistent that it permeates the entire atmosphere of the trial”)
Imagine a world where traffic laws said that you must stop at a red light, but another rule is then established by the courts that says that even if you do deliberately run that red light, as long as you don’t hit anyone it’s “harmless error.” What if we change the laws prohibiting drunk driving – but only if you actually hit and kill someone? No harm, no foul … that’s simple enough.
The problem with this perverted logic is that the true harm is not in the result of the deliberate misconduct – but in the misconduct itself. Our constitutional democracy works because we have become a nation of laws that evolve as necessary to protect the rights of all citizens. If we create a system that effectively absolves deliberate prosecutorial misconduct based upon subjective interpretation of actual harm inflicted and not the act of misconduct itself, do we not invite and even encourage prosecution misconduct?
As a civilized society we embrace the concept of law and order. Without laws there can be no “order” as one cannot exist without the other. Now imagine a world where every individual is subject to accountability – except those empowered by the government to enforce those laws. In today’s system with an epidemic of wrongful convictions increasingly undermining confidence in the system as a whole, prosecutional misconduct has become the leading cause of miscarriages of justice.
Even with this epidemic of prosecutional misconduct victimizing innocent men and women with wrongful incarceration and even condemning them to death, prosecutors enjoy “absolute immunity” from judicial accountability. In Imbler v. Pachtman, 424 U.S. 409 (1976) the Supreme Court concluded that prosecutors – even when they deliberately fabricate evidence, present false evidence, and knowingly use perjured testimony, even when they deliberately prosecute someone they know is innocent – are entitled to “absolute immunity” and cannot be held judicially accountable. The Supreme Court concluded, “The ultimate fairness of the system could be weakened” if prosecutors were held accountable in court for even deliberate misconduct.
The majority of prosecutors do exercise self-constraint and do act in good faith. But borrowing from an old adage, it only takes a few bad apples to spoil the whole bunch. Add to that the political consequences that make admitting error, the equivalent of career suicide, and a culture that promotes those who will win at any cost; where the most “successful” prosecutors are those who practice the philosophy that “the ends justify the means” and you have a system that invites injustice, and becomes by its very nature inherently corrupt from within.
The most extreme injustice conceivable is that of an innocent man or woman being wrongfully convicted and condemned to death. Florida by far leads the country in the number of wrongful capital convictions in which innocent men and women were condemned to death only later to be judicially exonerated. But why does Florida wrongfully convict and even condemn so many innocent people?
For one thing, Florida remains the exception to most other states in establishing a means of statutory compensation for those found to have been wrongfully convicted. Most states provide compensation to those found to have been wrongfully convicted … but not Florida Common sense tells you that if the state has to pay substantial amounts of money to compensate those victimized by the system, then inevitably there will be a call to hold those responsible for inflicting the injustice accountable. In Florida at least 24 men and women have been judicially exonerated after being wrongfully convicted and condemned to death – yet not even once has the prosecutor found to have engaged in deliberate misconduct been held accountable.
How can we deny that the absence of accountability is itself an invitation to injustice? If our system can identify the small numbers of specific prosecutors who have reportedly engaged in deliberate misconduct then is there not a moral responsibility to at the very least ensure that these few corrupt individuals never practice law again? If we identify a doctor that has deliberately engaged in malpractice causing injury to his or her patient, do we not take action to strip them of their license to practice? Why would we demand anything less of a person entrusted to represent “We, the people” in a court of law? Is not the deliberate violation or that most sacred test at least as equally contemptible – and intolerable – as a physician deliberately engaging in acts of malpractice that victimizes his patients?
The hypocrisy that presently exists is perpetuated by the system itself. The Florida Supreme Court has repeatedly admonished prosecutors for deliberate misconduct in capital cases, promising that disciplinary actions would follow if that behavior continues, yet not even once has the Court actually taken action. This judicial rhetoric is readily found in case law … In Ruiz v. State, 743 So. 2d 1 (Fla. 1999) the Florida Supreme Court stated that, “ we warned of the dire consequences of such ‘inexcusable prosecutorial overkill.’” citing, Hill v. State, 477 So. 2d 553 (Fla. 1985) “… yet in spite of our admonishment in Hill and despite subsequent warnings that prosecutorial misconduct will be subject to disciplinary proceedings by the Florida Bar, we never-the-less continue to encounter this problem with unacceptable frequency.”
Both Ruiz and Hill were capital cases in which the victimized defendant was sentenced to death; but they’re certainly not the only capital (death sentence) cases in which the Court rhetorically admonished prosecutors for acts of deliberate misconduct. See, e.g. Garcia v, State, 622 So. 2d 1325 (Fla. 1993) (“Once again, we are compelled to reiterate the need for propriety, particularly where the death penalty is involved.”); Nowitzke v. State, 572 So. 2d 1346 (Fla. 1990) (“We are distressed over the lack of propriety and restraint exhibited in the overzealous prosecution of capital cases.”); Garron v. State, 528 So. 2d 353 (Fla. 1988) (“Such violations of the prosecutor’s duty to seek justice and not merely ‘win’ a death case cannot be condoned by this Court.”); andBertolotti v. State, 476 So. 2d 130 (Fla.1985) (“we have recently addressed incidents of prosecutional misconduct, in the face of repeated admonitions against such overreaching, to be grounds for appropriate disciplinary proceedings.”)
All of these cases in which the Florida Supreme Court explicitly recognized acts of prosecutorial misconduct share several things in common … each of these cases the defendant was sentenced to death (several of these defendants have since even been executed) and in each of these cases no actual disciplinary action was taken against the prosecutor found to have engaged in such misconduct.
Two distinct forms of prosecutorial misconduct have accounted for the majority of cases in Florida in which a wrongfully convicted and condemned person was subsequently exonerated by the Courts and released from death row. The first form are acts of prosecutional misconduct in which a prosecutor is subsequently found to have knowingly withheld material evidence of an exculpatory nature from the defense – In many cases evidence that would have proven the person innocent. The second form are acts of overzealous prosecution in which a prosecutor has a wholly circumstantial case of specious nature, yet proceeds to prosecute by simply manipulating the jury into believing the evidence proves guilt beyond reasonable doubt even though the evidence is legally insufficient to support guilt.
The most recent exoneration released from Florida’s death row after almost six years of incarceration is John Ballard. After being convicted and condemned to death without any eyewitnesses, no physical or forensic evidence, and no confession; the Florida Supreme Court concluded that the erroneous conviction was the product of overzealous prosecution; that the prosecutor (Deputy Assistant State Attorney Randall McGruther) improperly stacked circumstantial inference upon inference to convince the jury of Ballard’s guilt even though no credible evidence actually supported guilt. See, Ballard v. State, 923 So 2d 475 (Fla. 2006)
This same prosecutor, Randall McGruther, has a history of unethical overzealous prosecution, especially in wholly circumstantial capital cases – Mr. McGruther was the prosecutor in my own case in which the evidence now shows that the entire wholly circumstantial case of alleged premeditated murder was deliberately fabricated with an intent to have me wrongfully convicted and condemned to death. See, “Southern Injustice: Condemning an Innocent Man.”
Has any disciplinary action ever been pursued against Mr. McGruther? No. In fact, Mr. McGruther is now the top prosecutor in the Twentieth Judicial Circuit States Attorney’s Office, handpicked as “Deputy Assistant State Attorney” by the elected State Attorney Steve Russell himself.
Additionally, that particular state attorney’s office, although comprised of the mostly rural farming counties of Southwest Florida and relatively small in population, has the highest rate of wrongful convictions in capital cases in the entire county. At least five men have been judicially exonerated since 1980 after being wrongfully convicted and condemned to death by that office itself, (Dilbert Tibbs, James Richardson, Bradley Scott, John Landry, and John Ballard), yet to date there has never been an investigation into why that office accounts for such as abnormally high number of wrongful convictions in capital cases.
Capital cases may only reflect a small minority of the collective number of criminal cases prosecuted in this country; but it is these cases that society is asked to impose and extract the most extreme measure of justice. If these examples of injustice, resulting from acts of prosecutorial misconduct, can be found to be what amounts to deliberate policy and practice; then does it not stand to reason that this cancerous corruption of our judicial system exists at an even greater scale in cases that are not subjected to such thorough judicial scrutiny?
Prosecutorial misconduct is a corruption that acts as a cancer upon the very integrity of our judicial system as a whole. This corruption exists only because the judicial system itself is allowing it to exist. When a small group of prosecutors engage in repeated acts of deliberate misconduct resulting in convicting and condemning innocent men and women to death, then those few individual prosecutors become nothing less than state sanctioned killers and it is societies responsibility to insist that these prosecutors who have been found to have engaged in deliberate misconduct never practice law again. If we are not willing to hold them accountable, then we invite the injustice that inevitably results.
April 07, 2008
January 03, 2008
Doing Life On Death Row
There’s a song I recall from many, many moons ago in a life now far, far away ~ the words still haunt me from time to time, and I smile… “Once was the thought inside my head, before I reach 30 I’ll be dead…” At 47 years old now. I’ve spent almost my entire adult life in a solitary cage on Florida’s death row. Doing life on death row isn’t about living at all, but about dying slow, a day at a time. If there’s anything even harder than living alone, it’s got to be dying alone, as I only exist in a very small world where death is the only absolute reality and everything else is just part of that path getting there.
But there’s many kinds of deaths ~ there’s the death of the body and the death of the soul. There’s a point man can reach when even physical death is seen as a blessing, as a means in which to end a nightmare that has no end. I remain alive only because I still have the strength within me to cling desperately to the remnants of hope that pass my way. But perhaps hope is the greatest deception of all ~and the loss of hope the cruelest death. I’ve seen it only too often, men I’ve know for years slowly broken down by the existence in this artificial environment until you can see it in their eyes ~ that dull look that means only one thing… they’ve given up hope and now await the fate of the condemned, a fate that ultimately becomes more of a mercy killing than an execution, as that physical death brings with it the promise of freedom from a fate far worse than death itself.
That’s what doing life on death row really is ~ it’s a fate worse than death. It’s being condemned not merely to death, but the torturous, methodical degradation of one’s humanity in a world designed to first break you down and make you something less than human before they finally strap that broken flesh to a cold chair or gurney and ritualistically terminate your existence. In truth, most of those ultimately executed at the hands of the state have already given up the ghost long before and have embraced death as the end of a long journey through a hell few could begin to imagine.
Hanging On To Hope
Each month all of us receive a slip of paper that advises us of any “gain time” we might have received that previous month. By law, the prison officials are required to do this, as well as provide the prisoners “presumptive release date” recalculated each month to reflect the deduction of any gain time that might have been awarded.
Every prisoner on Florida’s death row has a presumptive release date in the year 9999. That gives me only, 7992 years yet to go before my presently scheduled release and I’m already counting it down one day at a time. I’ve read in the Bible that Methuselah lived to the ripe young age of 969 years and that was thousands of years ago. So, with modern medical breakthroughs extending the average lifespan I figure I’ve got a good shot at it… all I’ve got to do is live to be at least 8,039 years old and then I’ll walk out the front gate a free man.
This is the kind of humorous “hope” that we cling on to. When these slips of paper are passed out each month, inevitably someone on the wing will holler out, “Hallelujah, baby ~ I’m coming home!” or just as often one guy hollering down the row for all to hear, “Pack your sh__, Bubba, they’re throwing you out.” And some laugh.
A lot of us talk about going home and in that stolen moment of fantasy we can see the green, green grass of home. For some, this hopeful fantasy evolves into a form of psychosis and they not only believe they’re soon going home, but know the exact date and when that date approaches they even give away their personal belongings and awake that particular morning and await the guards to escort them to the front gate. Reality is nothing more than what any of us chose to perceive it to be, and in their own little corner of their own little world , that’s their reality and in a way I truly do envy them as I remain trapped in my reality.
Through the years many have gone home, having proven before the courts that they were wrongfully convicted and upon that legal exoneration they won their freedom. There’s been more than I can remember, but knowing that there have been so many is, itself, a form of hope.
About five years ago or better a long time friend of mine, Juan Melendez, known affectionately to us as “Puerto Rican Johnny” was on the floor I was on. Johnny and I had lived in the same area out on the streets and we would often talk about places and even people we both knew. Johnny would show me pictures of the house he grew up in, of his elderly mother, and talk about how when he got out he would return home and take care of his mother.
Just before Christmas back then he got word that the lower state court threw out his convictions, recognizing that the state had illegally withheld exculpatory evidence. Mucho Macho Johnny cried that night and in our own way we all shared a tear with him. In the sixteen years that he lived among us, he became our brother. Then a few weeks after Christmas the warden came up on the floor and told Johnny to get his stuff as they were releasing him that day. Johnny’s cell was down towards the end of the hall and as he passed he spoke to each of us momentarily. As Johnny approached my cell I felt only joy ~ sharing his joy ~ as he told me, “Rum and coke, esso” … remembering our promise to have a drink in the free world . And then he was gone, but a part of each one of us walked out that front gate back into the free world with him.
Hope… yet another four letter word, a mistress that can and gladly will deceive and seduce you with her elusive charms. It’s that whisper of a promise that your time there will come too, that gives a man the strength to keep that hope alive. But when hope fails then that mistress can become the Angel of death as that lost hope becomes nothing more than the desperate last act at the end of the rope. And there are few things more despairing than to watch helplessly as the guards rush into a cell in the middle of the night and can be heard cutting a man down, then moments later passing by your cell with the cold body of someone you knew and lived among for years.
Rotting Away One Day At A Time
While hope is a stolen luxury that brings with it a fragile strength, death continues to be a reality that cannot be denied. For too many of us now doing life on death row this condemnation is about slowly growing old and rotting away until death claims us not at the hands of an executioner, but by “natural causes.”
Although I have now been on death row almost a quarter of a century, there are many who have been here much, much longer. After the Supreme Court threw out the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia (1972) Florida was the first state to rush newly written laws into effect to allow the continued use of capital punishment. Although these new laws didn’t pass constitutional challenge until 1976 in Proffit v. Florida, many of the men still on Florida’s death row today have been here since at least 1974.
When I was charged with the capital murder case that brought me here, I was 22 years old. Recently divorced at the time, I had three young children; my youngest barely a year old. I look in my mirror today and it’s hard to see that young man I once was, as the face looking back is that of a grandfather. My full head of hair is long gone and what hasn’t fallen out is turning gray.
I am not alone. Death by default that’s what it is. Too often when morally corrupt prosecutors know they cannot kill you, they will maliciously drag your case out until you simply die of old age. Under any circumstances living in solitary confinement under the stress of being condemned to death takes its toll upon the physical and mental health of even the strongest men.
Inevitably, we all grow old, and again, death is the only absolute reality. In a way I should consider myself lucky as at least I came to the row while still a young man. There are many more significantly older when they arrived and the years living in a cage were not as easy. For every man executed in the past 30 years, there’s been at least one other slowly rotting away and inevitably dying of old age.
I read recently in the past 10 years alone at least 30 men have died of “natural causes” on Florida’s death row. Some were of old age ~ others of various types of cancer… many I personally knew. With so many here now for well over 25 and even 30 years, death row is growing gray. At the front of each death row floor there is a handicapped cell intended to house the many who are already confined to wheelchairs. More than a few are now over 75 and will almost certainly slowly rot away and die in their cell as even if they lost all their appeals the governor would not sign a death warrant on them as it’s politically incorrect to put an old, physically disabled man to death ~ but it’s perfectly acceptable to, instead, let him rot away until he eventually dies.
In some cases this is actually by intent and purpose. I know at least a few here today who have lost touch with reality and if ever scheduled for execution the courts would be forced to reduce their sentence to life as it’s constitutionally prohibited to execute a person who has become legally insane. It’s also politically unacceptable to recognize their insanity and reduce their sentences to life. So that they can be transferred to a prison psychiatric unit and receive proper care. The solution is to simply ignore them ~ to deliberately let them rot away until they die in that cage. Inevitably they do… they always do.
But nobody cares. When was the last time you saw any newspaper talk about the many on death rows growing old and dying alone? Recently a national debate about the constitutionality of using lethal injection as a means of carrying out executions generated substantial media interest after Angel “Popo” Diaz was allegedly “tortured” to death by a botched execution and witnesses said it took at least 24 minutes to kill him…. 24 minutes.
But what of the many more who are slowly dying in their cells? If prolonging a man’s death for 24 minutes constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, then why can’t it also be argued that allowing a man to slowly rot away in solitary confinement for many decades until he dies is also cruel and unusual? As a presumably civilized society we are ultimately defined by the measure of humanity we show to others and yet nothing personifies that malignant evil within the heart of man than by looking at the inhumanity we so deliberately inflict upon the least of the least ~ and nothing in our contemporary society illustrates this truth better than the deliberate deprivation imposed upon the condemned ~ it’s not enough to want to take our lives, society demands that we must also suffer until we are slowly broken and then ~ for those who are lucky ~ something less than human is put to death.
From Cockroaches & Rodents to Rats & Snakes
When I first came to death row in March of 1984 this was a much different place ~ not only physically, but the mentality was different. At that time Florida’s main death row was at Florida State Prison, long infamous as the end of the line, where prisoners were warehoused when they could not be securely kept elsewhere. Physically, the wings housing death row were comparable to Third World living conditions. In the winter we froze and in the summer we boiled. With “open wings” (the interior of the wings open from the first tier all the way up to the third tier) it was noisy, as a hundred men would be yelling or watching TV or whatever. With no screens on the always broken windows, the wings were quite literally infested with cockroaches, rodents, even snakes, and birds ~ and then there were many wild cats that would come in to feed off the mice and rats.
But as bad as the physical conditions were it was a better place. In 1992 they built and opened a new building designed exclusively to house death row. Soon after the majority of the over 300 condemned were transferred to this “Northeast Unit” of the Union Correctional Institution. As I write this I can look outside the window on the catwalk and in the distance I can see the Florida State Prison ~ so close, and yet so far away.
At “FSP,” as we call it, there was a unity ~ even a “brotherhood” ~ that tied us all together. We lived in close proximity to each other and looked out for each other. If a guard came down and screwed with one of us without cause, he took on the whole wing. Although there were always a few assholes and idiots on both sides of the bars, most of us looked out for each other. Back then you knew the difference between a convict & an inmate and a correctional officer & a guard ~ and there is a world of difference. A convict is a stand up guy whose word is his bond and he knew enough to mind his own business and keep his mouth shut when he didn’t know something for a fact. An inmate was seen as a prison rat; the lowest form of life; worthy of no respect. An inmate was by nature unworthy of respect, he was the kind of guy who would lie, gossip, and backstab even his own best friend; often for no reason at all. Inmates were rare on death row back then.
Equally so, the difference between a corrections officer (known only as an “officer”) and a guard was like night and day. An officer came in to work his eight hours and go home ~ it’s just a job and he wasn’t going to take it personally. An officer had no personal malice towards the prisoners and didn’t go out of his way to provoke anyone. If he came in to do a cell search (“shakedown”) he did it without maliciously destroying your property and didn’t have to prove his manhood by being a jerk. Although avoided as much as possible, officers were respected ~ guards were not.
A guard was commonly referred to as inbred redneck scum, the kind of guy who got the job because he couldn’t work anywhere else. A guard didn’t just work eight hours ~ he lived the job and it ate him away like a cancer until all that was left was a bitter broken man who went out of his way to make everyone else miserable. He has malice in his heart and was looked upon with nothing less than contempt, not only by prisoners, but the officers who respected their job.
In those early years a man was allowed to do his own time. In the early 80’s we had only just began to see politicians begin to campaign on promises to lock up more people and make sure prisoners did “hard time.” Although physically our environment was deplorable, we would all gladly go beck if we could have all our privileges returned. Back then we had packages sent in from family and friends four times a year with personal clothes, shoes, cosmetics, maybe even a decent watch or ring and a nice radio. We were allowed to receive “hobby craft” packages monthly with materials for painting, crocheting, and all sorts of other stuff. All of that is long gone now ~ nothing comes in from the outside world anymore and anything we might get must be bought from the prison store at significantly marked up prices; the profits used to subsidize our incarceration, as the prison system has become a virtual industry with thousands of companies now dependant upon contracts they receive to provide everything from the food we eat to the toilet paper we wipe our asses with. It’s all about politics now.
Death row has changed, in every conceivable way. No longer is a man able to do his own time and mind his own business. A new generation has taken over and even so many of the old timer “convicts” are now nothing more than inmates themselves. Because of this death row has become hard time as now not only do we live in a much more deliberately segregated building with only 14 men on each closed run, but you learn to keep to yourself as the man you call a friend today will only too quickly backstab you tomorrow. Respect means nothing in this new generation. And it’s become a much lonelier place.
Watching the World Slip Away
I see that outside world only through the very limited media I’m allowed… a small TV, which the powers that be have determines necessary to prevent against insanity ~ if I were to go insane, then they could not kill me. A small “walkman” type battery powered radio, that doesn’t pick up any stations, and a few magazines and newspapers.
In my world there are no computers, no cell phones, and none of the electronic conveniences that most people take for granted. In the past 24 years I have not touched dirt or grass as our small fenced yard is nothing more than a concrete pad between two wings. I sometimes wonder if the moon and stars still exist as I haven’t seen the night sky in so many years it becomes hard to even remember it.
The deprivation of material those material things that most people simply take for granted out there in the real world certainly pale in comparison to those things that really do matter; especially in this world ~ those things that once separated make it seem that we are helplessly watching the world slowly slipping away.
It is the nature of prison to alienate a man from those he loves. For most, with very few exceptions, as the years pass the few family and friends that once stood by slowly drift away and move on with their own lives. Through the years I can count on the fingers of a single hand the number of death row prisoners who have had family consistently stand by them. Friends tend to drift away even quicker.
That’s not to say they deliberately abandon those they love at the time they need them most. I’d like to believe that most of our families and friends never intended to abandon any of us, but simply moved on and we became less and less of their lives. I’m personally blessed with a large family but haven’t had any communication at all with most of them for many, many years. Life out there in the real world doesn’t come to a stop just because we are no longer in it and as time takes its toll the distance becomes greater and before you know it you’re no longer part of their lives. That’s just the reality of doing time. Accepting that reality doesn’t make it any easier and many in here do turn cold and bitter as they’re abandoned by those who mean the most.
Most of us learn early on not to count on anyone other than ourselves. Contrary to a popular myth the prison doesn’t provide all our needs ~ at best, it provides only the absolute minimum and even then does so in such a way that encourages ~ if not coerces ~ each prisoner to actually purchase even the basic necessities from the prison store, as with each purchase the prison makes a substantial profit.
Without a friend or two outside willing to help prisoners ~ especially those on death row ~ can become even worse than what might be imagined. At least in general population most prisoners can work a job and “hustle” for what they need through a long established barter system. Death row prisoners are not allowed to work a job and have no means in which to barter ~ our only means of survival with minimal comfort is through the compassion and generosity of those who care about us.
As family and friends tend to drift away we are forced to try and reach out to new friends and establish new ties with that outside world. But there are many who hold nothing but malice in their hearts towards prisoners ~ especially death row prisoners ~ and have exerted political pressure to pass laws that now prohibit prisoners from placing personal ads that might allow them to meet new friends, perhaps even a girlfriend who might want to visit.
Florida is unique in the country in implementing these draconian rules prohibiting prisoners from attempting to meet new friends and the result can be seen ~ more and more. Those of us who have been here the longest are increasingly isolated from the free world; effectively abandoned and left to die alone. More and more I see strong men break down and give up, unwilling to have to beg their neighbors for a simple cup of coffee or bar of soap and slowly retreating into his own world of self consuming bitterness and anger and a fate far worse than death.
When it comes down to it, that’s what doing life on death row is really all about… it’s not about living, but about dying one slow day at a time. It’s about simply existing in a solitary concrete crypt. Increasingly isolated from all that really matters, of being methodically deprived of the most basic elements that make us human ~ companionship, compassion, and hope, as hope itself is dependent upon a reason to live.
As I am increasingly isolated from all that matters, that hope and will to live continues to erode ~ I’m not doing life on death row … I’m simply waiting to make my death final.
But there’s many kinds of deaths ~ there’s the death of the body and the death of the soul. There’s a point man can reach when even physical death is seen as a blessing, as a means in which to end a nightmare that has no end. I remain alive only because I still have the strength within me to cling desperately to the remnants of hope that pass my way. But perhaps hope is the greatest deception of all ~and the loss of hope the cruelest death. I’ve seen it only too often, men I’ve know for years slowly broken down by the existence in this artificial environment until you can see it in their eyes ~ that dull look that means only one thing… they’ve given up hope and now await the fate of the condemned, a fate that ultimately becomes more of a mercy killing than an execution, as that physical death brings with it the promise of freedom from a fate far worse than death itself.
That’s what doing life on death row really is ~ it’s a fate worse than death. It’s being condemned not merely to death, but the torturous, methodical degradation of one’s humanity in a world designed to first break you down and make you something less than human before they finally strap that broken flesh to a cold chair or gurney and ritualistically terminate your existence. In truth, most of those ultimately executed at the hands of the state have already given up the ghost long before and have embraced death as the end of a long journey through a hell few could begin to imagine.
Each month all of us receive a slip of paper that advises us of any “gain time” we might have received that previous month. By law, the prison officials are required to do this, as well as provide the prisoners “presumptive release date” recalculated each month to reflect the deduction of any gain time that might have been awarded.
Every prisoner on Florida’s death row has a presumptive release date in the year 9999. That gives me only, 7992 years yet to go before my presently scheduled release and I’m already counting it down one day at a time. I’ve read in the Bible that Methuselah lived to the ripe young age of 969 years and that was thousands of years ago. So, with modern medical breakthroughs extending the average lifespan I figure I’ve got a good shot at it… all I’ve got to do is live to be at least 8,039 years old and then I’ll walk out the front gate a free man.
This is the kind of humorous “hope” that we cling on to. When these slips of paper are passed out each month, inevitably someone on the wing will holler out, “Hallelujah, baby ~ I’m coming home!” or just as often one guy hollering down the row for all to hear, “Pack your sh__, Bubba, they’re throwing you out.” And some laugh.
A lot of us talk about going home and in that stolen moment of fantasy we can see the green, green grass of home. For some, this hopeful fantasy evolves into a form of psychosis and they not only believe they’re soon going home, but know the exact date and when that date approaches they even give away their personal belongings and awake that particular morning and await the guards to escort them to the front gate. Reality is nothing more than what any of us chose to perceive it to be, and in their own little corner of their own little world , that’s their reality and in a way I truly do envy them as I remain trapped in my reality.
Through the years many have gone home, having proven before the courts that they were wrongfully convicted and upon that legal exoneration they won their freedom. There’s been more than I can remember, but knowing that there have been so many is, itself, a form of hope.
About five years ago or better a long time friend of mine, Juan Melendez, known affectionately to us as “Puerto Rican Johnny” was on the floor I was on. Johnny and I had lived in the same area out on the streets and we would often talk about places and even people we both knew. Johnny would show me pictures of the house he grew up in, of his elderly mother, and talk about how when he got out he would return home and take care of his mother.
Just before Christmas back then he got word that the lower state court threw out his convictions, recognizing that the state had illegally withheld exculpatory evidence. Mucho Macho Johnny cried that night and in our own way we all shared a tear with him. In the sixteen years that he lived among us, he became our brother. Then a few weeks after Christmas the warden came up on the floor and told Johnny to get his stuff as they were releasing him that day. Johnny’s cell was down towards the end of the hall and as he passed he spoke to each of us momentarily. As Johnny approached my cell I felt only joy ~ sharing his joy ~ as he told me, “Rum and coke, esso” … remembering our promise to have a drink in the free world . And then he was gone, but a part of each one of us walked out that front gate back into the free world with him.
Hope… yet another four letter word, a mistress that can and gladly will deceive and seduce you with her elusive charms. It’s that whisper of a promise that your time there will come too, that gives a man the strength to keep that hope alive. But when hope fails then that mistress can become the Angel of death as that lost hope becomes nothing more than the desperate last act at the end of the rope. And there are few things more despairing than to watch helplessly as the guards rush into a cell in the middle of the night and can be heard cutting a man down, then moments later passing by your cell with the cold body of someone you knew and lived among for years.
While hope is a stolen luxury that brings with it a fragile strength, death continues to be a reality that cannot be denied. For too many of us now doing life on death row this condemnation is about slowly growing old and rotting away until death claims us not at the hands of an executioner, but by “natural causes.”
Although I have now been on death row almost a quarter of a century, there are many who have been here much, much longer. After the Supreme Court threw out the death penalty in Furman v. Georgia (1972) Florida was the first state to rush newly written laws into effect to allow the continued use of capital punishment. Although these new laws didn’t pass constitutional challenge until 1976 in Proffit v. Florida, many of the men still on Florida’s death row today have been here since at least 1974.
When I was charged with the capital murder case that brought me here, I was 22 years old. Recently divorced at the time, I had three young children; my youngest barely a year old. I look in my mirror today and it’s hard to see that young man I once was, as the face looking back is that of a grandfather. My full head of hair is long gone and what hasn’t fallen out is turning gray.
I am not alone. Death by default that’s what it is. Too often when morally corrupt prosecutors know they cannot kill you, they will maliciously drag your case out until you simply die of old age. Under any circumstances living in solitary confinement under the stress of being condemned to death takes its toll upon the physical and mental health of even the strongest men.
Inevitably, we all grow old, and again, death is the only absolute reality. In a way I should consider myself lucky as at least I came to the row while still a young man. There are many more significantly older when they arrived and the years living in a cage were not as easy. For every man executed in the past 30 years, there’s been at least one other slowly rotting away and inevitably dying of old age.
I read recently in the past 10 years alone at least 30 men have died of “natural causes” on Florida’s death row. Some were of old age ~ others of various types of cancer… many I personally knew. With so many here now for well over 25 and even 30 years, death row is growing gray. At the front of each death row floor there is a handicapped cell intended to house the many who are already confined to wheelchairs. More than a few are now over 75 and will almost certainly slowly rot away and die in their cell as even if they lost all their appeals the governor would not sign a death warrant on them as it’s politically incorrect to put an old, physically disabled man to death ~ but it’s perfectly acceptable to, instead, let him rot away until he eventually dies.
In some cases this is actually by intent and purpose. I know at least a few here today who have lost touch with reality and if ever scheduled for execution the courts would be forced to reduce their sentence to life as it’s constitutionally prohibited to execute a person who has become legally insane. It’s also politically unacceptable to recognize their insanity and reduce their sentences to life. So that they can be transferred to a prison psychiatric unit and receive proper care. The solution is to simply ignore them ~ to deliberately let them rot away until they die in that cage. Inevitably they do… they always do.
But nobody cares. When was the last time you saw any newspaper talk about the many on death rows growing old and dying alone? Recently a national debate about the constitutionality of using lethal injection as a means of carrying out executions generated substantial media interest after Angel “Popo” Diaz was allegedly “tortured” to death by a botched execution and witnesses said it took at least 24 minutes to kill him…. 24 minutes.
But what of the many more who are slowly dying in their cells? If prolonging a man’s death for 24 minutes constitutes cruel and unusual punishment, then why can’t it also be argued that allowing a man to slowly rot away in solitary confinement for many decades until he dies is also cruel and unusual? As a presumably civilized society we are ultimately defined by the measure of humanity we show to others and yet nothing personifies that malignant evil within the heart of man than by looking at the inhumanity we so deliberately inflict upon the least of the least ~ and nothing in our contemporary society illustrates this truth better than the deliberate deprivation imposed upon the condemned ~ it’s not enough to want to take our lives, society demands that we must also suffer until we are slowly broken and then ~ for those who are lucky ~ something less than human is put to death.
When I first came to death row in March of 1984 this was a much different place ~ not only physically, but the mentality was different. At that time Florida’s main death row was at Florida State Prison, long infamous as the end of the line, where prisoners were warehoused when they could not be securely kept elsewhere. Physically, the wings housing death row were comparable to Third World living conditions. In the winter we froze and in the summer we boiled. With “open wings” (the interior of the wings open from the first tier all the way up to the third tier) it was noisy, as a hundred men would be yelling or watching TV or whatever. With no screens on the always broken windows, the wings were quite literally infested with cockroaches, rodents, even snakes, and birds ~ and then there were many wild cats that would come in to feed off the mice and rats.
But as bad as the physical conditions were it was a better place. In 1992 they built and opened a new building designed exclusively to house death row. Soon after the majority of the over 300 condemned were transferred to this “Northeast Unit” of the Union Correctional Institution. As I write this I can look outside the window on the catwalk and in the distance I can see the Florida State Prison ~ so close, and yet so far away.
At “FSP,” as we call it, there was a unity ~ even a “brotherhood” ~ that tied us all together. We lived in close proximity to each other and looked out for each other. If a guard came down and screwed with one of us without cause, he took on the whole wing. Although there were always a few assholes and idiots on both sides of the bars, most of us looked out for each other. Back then you knew the difference between a convict & an inmate and a correctional officer & a guard ~ and there is a world of difference. A convict is a stand up guy whose word is his bond and he knew enough to mind his own business and keep his mouth shut when he didn’t know something for a fact. An inmate was seen as a prison rat; the lowest form of life; worthy of no respect. An inmate was by nature unworthy of respect, he was the kind of guy who would lie, gossip, and backstab even his own best friend; often for no reason at all. Inmates were rare on death row back then.
Equally so, the difference between a corrections officer (known only as an “officer”) and a guard was like night and day. An officer came in to work his eight hours and go home ~ it’s just a job and he wasn’t going to take it personally. An officer had no personal malice towards the prisoners and didn’t go out of his way to provoke anyone. If he came in to do a cell search (“shakedown”) he did it without maliciously destroying your property and didn’t have to prove his manhood by being a jerk. Although avoided as much as possible, officers were respected ~ guards were not.
A guard was commonly referred to as inbred redneck scum, the kind of guy who got the job because he couldn’t work anywhere else. A guard didn’t just work eight hours ~ he lived the job and it ate him away like a cancer until all that was left was a bitter broken man who went out of his way to make everyone else miserable. He has malice in his heart and was looked upon with nothing less than contempt, not only by prisoners, but the officers who respected their job.
In those early years a man was allowed to do his own time. In the early 80’s we had only just began to see politicians begin to campaign on promises to lock up more people and make sure prisoners did “hard time.” Although physically our environment was deplorable, we would all gladly go beck if we could have all our privileges returned. Back then we had packages sent in from family and friends four times a year with personal clothes, shoes, cosmetics, maybe even a decent watch or ring and a nice radio. We were allowed to receive “hobby craft” packages monthly with materials for painting, crocheting, and all sorts of other stuff. All of that is long gone now ~ nothing comes in from the outside world anymore and anything we might get must be bought from the prison store at significantly marked up prices; the profits used to subsidize our incarceration, as the prison system has become a virtual industry with thousands of companies now dependant upon contracts they receive to provide everything from the food we eat to the toilet paper we wipe our asses with. It’s all about politics now.
Death row has changed, in every conceivable way. No longer is a man able to do his own time and mind his own business. A new generation has taken over and even so many of the old timer “convicts” are now nothing more than inmates themselves. Because of this death row has become hard time as now not only do we live in a much more deliberately segregated building with only 14 men on each closed run, but you learn to keep to yourself as the man you call a friend today will only too quickly backstab you tomorrow. Respect means nothing in this new generation. And it’s become a much lonelier place.
I see that outside world only through the very limited media I’m allowed… a small TV, which the powers that be have determines necessary to prevent against insanity ~ if I were to go insane, then they could not kill me. A small “walkman” type battery powered radio, that doesn’t pick up any stations, and a few magazines and newspapers.
In my world there are no computers, no cell phones, and none of the electronic conveniences that most people take for granted. In the past 24 years I have not touched dirt or grass as our small fenced yard is nothing more than a concrete pad between two wings. I sometimes wonder if the moon and stars still exist as I haven’t seen the night sky in so many years it becomes hard to even remember it.
The deprivation of material those material things that most people simply take for granted out there in the real world certainly pale in comparison to those things that really do matter; especially in this world ~ those things that once separated make it seem that we are helplessly watching the world slowly slipping away.
It is the nature of prison to alienate a man from those he loves. For most, with very few exceptions, as the years pass the few family and friends that once stood by slowly drift away and move on with their own lives. Through the years I can count on the fingers of a single hand the number of death row prisoners who have had family consistently stand by them. Friends tend to drift away even quicker.
That’s not to say they deliberately abandon those they love at the time they need them most. I’d like to believe that most of our families and friends never intended to abandon any of us, but simply moved on and we became less and less of their lives. I’m personally blessed with a large family but haven’t had any communication at all with most of them for many, many years. Life out there in the real world doesn’t come to a stop just because we are no longer in it and as time takes its toll the distance becomes greater and before you know it you’re no longer part of their lives. That’s just the reality of doing time. Accepting that reality doesn’t make it any easier and many in here do turn cold and bitter as they’re abandoned by those who mean the most.
Most of us learn early on not to count on anyone other than ourselves. Contrary to a popular myth the prison doesn’t provide all our needs ~ at best, it provides only the absolute minimum and even then does so in such a way that encourages ~ if not coerces ~ each prisoner to actually purchase even the basic necessities from the prison store, as with each purchase the prison makes a substantial profit.
Without a friend or two outside willing to help prisoners ~ especially those on death row ~ can become even worse than what might be imagined. At least in general population most prisoners can work a job and “hustle” for what they need through a long established barter system. Death row prisoners are not allowed to work a job and have no means in which to barter ~ our only means of survival with minimal comfort is through the compassion and generosity of those who care about us.
As family and friends tend to drift away we are forced to try and reach out to new friends and establish new ties with that outside world. But there are many who hold nothing but malice in their hearts towards prisoners ~ especially death row prisoners ~ and have exerted political pressure to pass laws that now prohibit prisoners from placing personal ads that might allow them to meet new friends, perhaps even a girlfriend who might want to visit.
Florida is unique in the country in implementing these draconian rules prohibiting prisoners from attempting to meet new friends and the result can be seen ~ more and more. Those of us who have been here the longest are increasingly isolated from the free world; effectively abandoned and left to die alone. More and more I see strong men break down and give up, unwilling to have to beg their neighbors for a simple cup of coffee or bar of soap and slowly retreating into his own world of self consuming bitterness and anger and a fate far worse than death.
When it comes down to it, that’s what doing life on death row is really all about… it’s not about living, but about dying one slow day at a time. It’s about simply existing in a solitary concrete crypt. Increasingly isolated from all that really matters, of being methodically deprived of the most basic elements that make us human ~ companionship, compassion, and hope, as hope itself is dependent upon a reason to live.
As I am increasingly isolated from all that matters, that hope and will to live continues to erode ~ I’m not doing life on death row … I’m simply waiting to make my death final.
May 25, 2007
Death by Default: killing the condemned when they can’t be executed
When I was sentenced to death over 24 years ago, in my ignorance I thought my fate might lie in “Old Sparky,” Florida’s then infamous electric chair. I didn’t realize that the reality is that most of those condemned to dearth are not condemned to die at the hands of the state, but slowly rot away in solitaire confinement until they inevitably die of “natural causes.”
Recently several newspapers have reported that in the past decade more men on death row have died of natural causes than of actual executions. According to these published reports at least 29 men have died on Florida’s death row in recent years while waiting their judicially imposed date with death -- a few more have been stabbed by other prisoners and at least one (Frank Valdes) was beaten to death by prison guards. See, Valdes v. Crosby, 450 F. 3d 1231 (11th Cir. 2006).
The truth is that increasingly those sentenced to death are more likely to slowly die of old age than by execution. Although the state sanctioned serial killers (politicians and judges who exploit the death penalty to advance their own pathetic careers) constantly cry about speeding up executions – most of this is rhetoric – the truth is that they actually only want to speed up executions against those they believe they can actually execute… and many of those presently sentenced to death cannot be executed without controversy that would undermine the credibility of the death penalty itself. See, Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied.
That’s the dark secret of the death penalty in America – when the judicial system screws up and sentences someone to death who legally should not have been sentenced to death; then what do you do with him? In Florida, and many other states, it’s become death by default -- killing the condemned when they cannot be executed by simply letting them slowly rot away in a solitary cage until they die of old age, or other convenient “natural cause.”
Earlier today on the wing adjacent to the one I am warehoused on the guards were making their routine rounds when they discovered death row inmate Jack Farrell laying dead in his cell. Preliminary examinations indicate that Jack, a longtime diabetic, died of a massive heart attack. Another dead of “natural causes” after many, many years of waiting for his court ordered death sentence.
Down the hall from me just a few cells away a man I’ve known many years is slowly dying of cancer. Henry Garcia has been locked up almost his whole life. Now well over 50, he has almost nobody other than the friends he has in here. That’s the nature of the beast – as the years pass the condemned become increasingly isolated from the free world. Both family and friends drift away and we find ourselves abandoned and forgotten. See, Doing Life On Death Row.
When Henry was told that he had cancer they also told him that it was decided by the medical department that it was not “cost effective” to treat him – that the prison would not even attempt to fight the cancer, but would only let him die… death by default. Now Henry must face a slow but inevitable death alone in his solitary cage – and somehow this is supposed to be “humane.”
Maybe that’s what bothers me the most… we are supposed to be a Christian society, a society that values compassion and humane treatment, and yet we will deliberately turn a blind eye towards the inhumanities that exist in our own backyard.
Maybe if Henry was a mangy stray dog starving on the street then someone might care enough to show him compassion. Am I the only one that’s bothered by the fact that my friend Henry Garcia has now effectively been thrown out alongside the road and left to die while the world races by?
Equally so, what does it say about our system when we allow a man to simply rot away, deliberately deciding that he is not worth saving? How would any one of us feel if we went to our doctor today and were told that we had cancer – but that the doctor decided it was not “cost effective” to treat us and that we have already been given up for dead? How can we call ourselves a humane and civilized society when bureaucrats, who are more concerned with their budget than the patient’s life, decide the value of any person’s life?
If I had access to a telephone, I would personally call the Florida Department of Corrections appointed secretary Jim McDonough (phone number 850/488-7480) and ask him why prison doctors are refusing to treat Henry Garcia – why they have decided to simply let him die. But death row prisoners in Florida are not allowed to use the phone, so I can’t… I wish I could get others to. (Can you take a hint? The phone number is above or you can email him at secretary@mail.dc.state.fl.us)
You have to excuse my ignorance, but even after spending my entire adult life in a cage in solitary confinement condemned to death for a crime I did not commit, there’s still a part of me that believes that there is good in each of us… that there are still people who are compassionate and do care, even about the welfare of the least of our society. That I’m not the only one who finds it morally offensive that any man should be abandoned and left to die alone. I’ve seen the worst of humanity and lived among the evil incarnate. But I’ve seen men society labeled as monsters show genuine compassion for those they live among while the world outside relentlessly gathers in glorified lynch mobs slobbering at the mouths while screaming for our deaths.
Now I look around me at the world I remain condemned to and I see what society doesn’t want to acknowledge… I see that the malice society has for the lowest of low has reached new heights, as society remains deliberately oblivious to the fact that more and more of those we condemned to death decades ago are rotting away and left to die of “natural causes” when they cannot be killed quick enough by the hands of the State.
And nobody cares. What could be more inhumane than to deliberately confine a man to a cage for decades (many now in excess of 30 years!) and when unable to quickly carry out his execution instead let him slowly rot away until he dies? To be deliberately isolated from the free world, abandoned and forgotten by society and given up for dead as if your life means nothing? Henry Garcia is only one of many others presently condemned to the same fate – death rows across the country have hundreds of condemned men and women perhaps even thousands, who will never actually face execution, but will be left to slowly rot away in their solitary cage until they die. Death by default is America’s new means of carry out the death penalty and this form of execution is administered not in minutes, not in hours, or ever months, or years – but in decades. It is a slow and methodically torturous death that is designed to kill the man’s soul long before the body finally gives up the ghost.
Is this what we, as a self-proclaimed “civilized” society intended? As a matter of moral conscience shouldn’t it bother us that another human being has now been left to die in a such a manner? If these men were dogs, every animal rights group in the country would beat the hates of the prison down to save them – why is it so hard for people to show that same measure of compassion to another human being? As Henry Garcia now slowly dies alone and abandoned by the world beyond, his inevitable death will remain as a commentary on the kind of society we have become – and perhaps that is the greater tragedy.
Recently several newspapers have reported that in the past decade more men on death row have died of natural causes than of actual executions. According to these published reports at least 29 men have died on Florida’s death row in recent years while waiting their judicially imposed date with death -- a few more have been stabbed by other prisoners and at least one (Frank Valdes) was beaten to death by prison guards. See, Valdes v. Crosby, 450 F. 3d 1231 (11th Cir. 2006).
The truth is that increasingly those sentenced to death are more likely to slowly die of old age than by execution. Although the state sanctioned serial killers (politicians and judges who exploit the death penalty to advance their own pathetic careers) constantly cry about speeding up executions – most of this is rhetoric – the truth is that they actually only want to speed up executions against those they believe they can actually execute… and many of those presently sentenced to death cannot be executed without controversy that would undermine the credibility of the death penalty itself. See, Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied.
That’s the dark secret of the death penalty in America – when the judicial system screws up and sentences someone to death who legally should not have been sentenced to death; then what do you do with him? In Florida, and many other states, it’s become death by default -- killing the condemned when they cannot be executed by simply letting them slowly rot away in a solitary cage until they die of old age, or other convenient “natural cause.”
Earlier today on the wing adjacent to the one I am warehoused on the guards were making their routine rounds when they discovered death row inmate Jack Farrell laying dead in his cell. Preliminary examinations indicate that Jack, a longtime diabetic, died of a massive heart attack. Another dead of “natural causes” after many, many years of waiting for his court ordered death sentence.
Down the hall from me just a few cells away a man I’ve known many years is slowly dying of cancer. Henry Garcia has been locked up almost his whole life. Now well over 50, he has almost nobody other than the friends he has in here. That’s the nature of the beast – as the years pass the condemned become increasingly isolated from the free world. Both family and friends drift away and we find ourselves abandoned and forgotten. See, Doing Life On Death Row.
When Henry was told that he had cancer they also told him that it was decided by the medical department that it was not “cost effective” to treat him – that the prison would not even attempt to fight the cancer, but would only let him die… death by default. Now Henry must face a slow but inevitable death alone in his solitary cage – and somehow this is supposed to be “humane.”Maybe that’s what bothers me the most… we are supposed to be a Christian society, a society that values compassion and humane treatment, and yet we will deliberately turn a blind eye towards the inhumanities that exist in our own backyard.
Maybe if Henry was a mangy stray dog starving on the street then someone might care enough to show him compassion. Am I the only one that’s bothered by the fact that my friend Henry Garcia has now effectively been thrown out alongside the road and left to die while the world races by?
Equally so, what does it say about our system when we allow a man to simply rot away, deliberately deciding that he is not worth saving? How would any one of us feel if we went to our doctor today and were told that we had cancer – but that the doctor decided it was not “cost effective” to treat us and that we have already been given up for dead? How can we call ourselves a humane and civilized society when bureaucrats, who are more concerned with their budget than the patient’s life, decide the value of any person’s life?
If I had access to a telephone, I would personally call the Florida Department of Corrections appointed secretary Jim McDonough (phone number 850/488-7480) and ask him why prison doctors are refusing to treat Henry Garcia – why they have decided to simply let him die. But death row prisoners in Florida are not allowed to use the phone, so I can’t… I wish I could get others to. (Can you take a hint? The phone number is above or you can email him at secretary@mail.dc.state.fl.us)
You have to excuse my ignorance, but even after spending my entire adult life in a cage in solitary confinement condemned to death for a crime I did not commit, there’s still a part of me that believes that there is good in each of us… that there are still people who are compassionate and do care, even about the welfare of the least of our society. That I’m not the only one who finds it morally offensive that any man should be abandoned and left to die alone. I’ve seen the worst of humanity and lived among the evil incarnate. But I’ve seen men society labeled as monsters show genuine compassion for those they live among while the world outside relentlessly gathers in glorified lynch mobs slobbering at the mouths while screaming for our deaths.
Now I look around me at the world I remain condemned to and I see what society doesn’t want to acknowledge… I see that the malice society has for the lowest of low has reached new heights, as society remains deliberately oblivious to the fact that more and more of those we condemned to death decades ago are rotting away and left to die of “natural causes” when they cannot be killed quick enough by the hands of the State.
And nobody cares. What could be more inhumane than to deliberately confine a man to a cage for decades (many now in excess of 30 years!) and when unable to quickly carry out his execution instead let him slowly rot away until he dies? To be deliberately isolated from the free world, abandoned and forgotten by society and given up for dead as if your life means nothing? Henry Garcia is only one of many others presently condemned to the same fate – death rows across the country have hundreds of condemned men and women perhaps even thousands, who will never actually face execution, but will be left to slowly rot away in their solitary cage until they die. Death by default is America’s new means of carry out the death penalty and this form of execution is administered not in minutes, not in hours, or ever months, or years – but in decades. It is a slow and methodically torturous death that is designed to kill the man’s soul long before the body finally gives up the ghost.
Is this what we, as a self-proclaimed “civilized” society intended? As a matter of moral conscience shouldn’t it bother us that another human being has now been left to die in a such a manner? If these men were dogs, every animal rights group in the country would beat the hates of the prison down to save them – why is it so hard for people to show that same measure of compassion to another human being? As Henry Garcia now slowly dies alone and abandoned by the world beyond, his inevitable death will remain as a commentary on the kind of society we have become – and perhaps that is the greater tragedy.
May 20, 2007
"Dead Man Walking"
by Sister Helen Prejean (Vintage Books)
Sister Helen Prejean's book can be considered only as an argument against capital punishment, and on those terms the book has merit for presenting that case passionately and backing its sentiments up with solid data about our criminal justice system. Then, one's feelings about the book are likely to be swayed by one's opinion about that particular issue.
There is much more to this book, however. It addresses themes far wider than our national debate on executions. Sister Helen Prejean has written a gutsy account of lessons she has learned in ministry -- of plunging into unknown territory as a nun, of facing aspects of humanity that confuse her, frighten her, frustrate her -- and persisting in offering her Christ's forgiveness and love to every customer.
Her decision, for instance, to face the families of the victims of homicide, not to convert them but to listen to anything they offer and accept instruction from them, is courageous and moving.
The book will not last because of its political position or because of any special literary merit; it will, I think, survive as a spiritual memoir and, perhaps, as a compelling argument for seeing even our worst offenders as human beings rather than monsters.
The thing that will stay with me about this book is the spare, unflinching, hypnotic tone of the writing. Helen Prejean has a writing style that will not let the reader look away. This is just as true when she is writing lists of facts as it is when she is recounting her personal odyssey. No matter which side of this debate one personally comes down on, her strength as a person is impossible to negate. She is painfully honest, revealing her own human fears and concerns, and recounting her growth as she acknowledges and faces them.
This is a book that is hard to leave and will be difficult to forget.
Reprinted by permission of the author and the Watkins/Loomis Agency
May 11, 2007
Time To Impeach The Supreme Court
America has become a nation of brain dead punks – cowards incapable of thinking on their own. Just look around and you will see these yellow-bellied, pink-pantied wannabe’s all around you. And while you’re at it, look in the mirror – there’s another one. It’s no surprise we can’t win a war and even worse, let out elected leaders deliberately deceive us and get us into a war we had no business getting into in the first place. When other countries look at us they see our weakness – and they laugh at us. We are pathetic.
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area in the late sixties and early seventies at the height of the Vietnam War and can vividly remember how so many stood their ground to protest government when they believed the government was wrong. These were the college kids across America that knew in their hearts that our country was heading in the wrong direction – and they were right. Just look at us today, only a generation later. The same generation that stood its ground against government when they believed in what they were doing has now raised a generation of spineless, self-centered, materialistic spoiled brats who are far more likely to whine when their Ipod batteries run low, than when their Constitutional rights as abrogated by parasitic politicians and conservative judicial activists.
Whatever happened to that generation that stood their ground even when Uncle Sam called out the National Guard and Mayor Daley sent in platoons of armed cops to beat them back at the Democratic Convention in Chicago? I’m not talking about the Height-Ashbury hippies that found peace at the end of a pot pipe, but the idealistic students that marched on Telegraph Avenue at the gates of Berkeley, and countless other colleges and universities across America. These were the educated, the idealistic cream of the crop, America’s future leaders who believed in a cause and were willing to stand their ground to make their voice heard. Where are they today?
I believe in America and I believe in a Constitutional Democracy and it makes me proud to be a citizen of a country that was founded not by rule of government, but by revolution of the people. But that democracy is dead and its battered body, decaying like an abandoned corpse callously thrown out with the trash. The America I believe in no longer exists and in its place is a contemptuous conservative theocracy, a beast that feeds off the individual to give power to this religious dictatorship. Am I the last true American – myself but a man condemned to death by an injustice deliberately perpetuated by the corruption of our judicial system?
I am also a Christian, believing without doubt in the resurrection of Christ as my only hope of salvation, believing in an eternity that can only come through salvation and faith in a God greater than myself. But I must hang my head in shame when I call myself a Christian as I know only too well that the right wing conservative Christians of America are by far the primary cause of the corruption of our Constitutional Democracy… and the cause of its probable if not inevitable death.
Our Constitutional forefathers knew of the evil of allowing religion to control government. The Constitutional mandate of separation of church and state was never intended to take God out of the country, but rather these founding fathers knew that to allow government to become one with any specific religion would ultimately be the destruction of our Constitutional Democracy. Only by separating religion and government could both survive in a balance that they fought to preserve.
But now the right wing conservative “Christians” control all three branches of our government. The beast has risen and taken control, and its evil tentacles have choked the life out of our democracy. The true “axis of evil” is the corruption of the three branches of government by those fanatically committed to instilling their own theocracy, to allow their own religion to rule our government.
Biblical prophesy speaks of the beast and warns that its power will come through the deception of the believers. The beast’s power comes from controlling those who call themselves Christians and blindly follow their leaders. But would a true man of God lead our nation into a modern day crusade against non-Christians? Think about it… What is the war in Iraq and Afghanistan (and before it’s over, the entire Middle East) really about? We already know the Bush Administration deliberately deceived our country. This past week former CIA Director George Tenet has come forth claiming that the Bush Administration also knew of an impending terrorist attack before 911, but deliberately took no action. Why? (Does anyone really ask?)
Is it really so hard to consider whether this contemporary conservative theocracy might have an insidious agenda? We all know that George W. Bush is nothing more than a puppet and the true power lies with the puppet masters that cower behind the scenes and call the shots. And they do have an agenda… they want America to be legislatively and judicially transformed into a theocratic apartheid – and they are winning!
Which brings us back to America becoming a nation of spineless cowards who today take their Constitutional rights for granted and have long forgotten the sacrifices so many made to preserve our Democracy.
What is it that makes America great? It’s not out government, but our people… it’s our 300 million diverse individuals, each with the inalienable Constitutional right to fundamental freedoms. But these freedoms are being methodically eroded. In today’s America, the individual person has become expendable as this conservative theocracy gives the power to government. How many of us have actually taken a moment to read the original “Bill of Rights,” the very foundation of our Constitutional Democracy? How many of us as parents have ever – even once – sat down with our children and talked about our Constitutional rights? When we do actually read the preamble of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we realize that virtually every right articulated in unquestionably intended to give the individual the power to protect against government – not even one of these rights were intended for the government or for the government to have power over at the expense of the individual. Think about that.
We call ourselves the land of the free and yet America today has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Our prison system has become a virtual industry of government. Equally so the quintessential American Dream is to own our own house, yet the conservation judicial activists on the Supreme Court have decreed that government can take your house and sell it to developers who want to build condo’s – why? Because condo units pay more taxes to the government than a single family home and the individual is expendable for the greater good of government. Where does it say that in the Constitution?
Growing up I watched with awe and reverence as masses of both men and women marched in the streets in anticipation of the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in Roe V. Wade and I believe it was their collective voice that made a difference. Growing up Catholic – even an alter boy at the time – I was indoctrinated to believe that abortion is murder… and maybe it is. But what right do I have to force my belief on another? Our constitution is about individuals’ rights.
Last month for t he first time since Roe v. Wade, the contemporary conservative cabal on our Supreme Court has finally succeeded in compromising Roe v. Wade when by a marginal majority the conservative judicial activists (Roberts, Saclia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy) ruled that “partial birth” abortions are unconstitutional. For the first time, since Roe v. Wade this case placed the perceived rights of the unborn fetus over the rights of the women – no exception was made for partial birth abortions necessitated by the health of the mother. Not surprisingly, conservative politicians in many states quickly introduced proposed new laws limiting abortions even further in anticipation of a legal fight in the Courts that they now feel they can win, with the objective of having all abortions ultimately declared illegal. And that will come if up to this court.
What offends me about this “right to life” movement is the blatant hypocrisy – when the Supreme Court conservatives ruled partial-birth abortions to be unconstitutional, they cited to their fundamental belief in the “sanctity of life.” But these very same conservative justices consistently are the ones who also slobber at the mouth like rabid dogs in their zeal to quickly kill condemned prisoners – even the innocent, See, Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390(1993). In Marsh v. Kansas, Justice Scalia even took the position that the claims of innocent people being wrongfully condemned to death is overblown – that there are very few truly innocent people convicted as the system works. And that although the system is not perfect, a few mistakes are acceptable in the interest of the greater good.
Why does the sanctity of life apply to an unborn child but not to an innocent man wrongfully convictred and condemned to death? Where exactly in the Constitution does it say that an unborn child has any rights? Our constitution says nothing about when, as a matter of law, life begins – this fantasy is created by the Supreme Court Justices to juetify their own agenda and that is the textbook definition of judical activism.
Recent polls show that President Bush’s popularity is about as low as any president’s popularity has ever sunk. Some are calling for the impeachment of President Bush. Which is arguably justified in you believe President Bush deliberately misled Congress and our country to it into a war… which I personally do.
But President Bush’s days are already numbered. Already the campaign for a new President is running. Although he can still inflict great harm to our country such as deliberately escalating Mideast tensions and perhaps even instigating a war with Iran and Syria, that conceivably could quickly evolve into World War III, one way or another in November 2008 we will elect a new President… thank God!
But the greater evil is the legacy he leaves behind. If we are truly tired of being force-fed this conservative hypocritical ideology and what to purge our country of its evil then perhaps the time has come to consider impeaching the conservative justices presently on the Supreme Court. These justices are appointed for life and will be around long after Bush is gone, and unless they too are removed from office this generation will see our Supreme Court transform America into a theocracy ruled by five men. The strength of a democracy is that we have the power to demand their impeachment in Congress – but are there enough people in America still willing to stand up for what they believe in? Or are we truly a nation of cowards, unwilling to confront this evil that threatens our constitutional democracy.
I grew up in the San Francisco Bay area in the late sixties and early seventies at the height of the Vietnam War and can vividly remember how so many stood their ground to protest government when they believed the government was wrong. These were the college kids across America that knew in their hearts that our country was heading in the wrong direction – and they were right. Just look at us today, only a generation later. The same generation that stood its ground against government when they believed in what they were doing has now raised a generation of spineless, self-centered, materialistic spoiled brats who are far more likely to whine when their Ipod batteries run low, than when their Constitutional rights as abrogated by parasitic politicians and conservative judicial activists.
Whatever happened to that generation that stood their ground even when Uncle Sam called out the National Guard and Mayor Daley sent in platoons of armed cops to beat them back at the Democratic Convention in Chicago? I’m not talking about the Height-Ashbury hippies that found peace at the end of a pot pipe, but the idealistic students that marched on Telegraph Avenue at the gates of Berkeley, and countless other colleges and universities across America. These were the educated, the idealistic cream of the crop, America’s future leaders who believed in a cause and were willing to stand their ground to make their voice heard. Where are they today?
I believe in America and I believe in a Constitutional Democracy and it makes me proud to be a citizen of a country that was founded not by rule of government, but by revolution of the people. But that democracy is dead and its battered body, decaying like an abandoned corpse callously thrown out with the trash. The America I believe in no longer exists and in its place is a contemptuous conservative theocracy, a beast that feeds off the individual to give power to this religious dictatorship. Am I the last true American – myself but a man condemned to death by an injustice deliberately perpetuated by the corruption of our judicial system?
I am also a Christian, believing without doubt in the resurrection of Christ as my only hope of salvation, believing in an eternity that can only come through salvation and faith in a God greater than myself. But I must hang my head in shame when I call myself a Christian as I know only too well that the right wing conservative Christians of America are by far the primary cause of the corruption of our Constitutional Democracy… and the cause of its probable if not inevitable death.
Our Constitutional forefathers knew of the evil of allowing religion to control government. The Constitutional mandate of separation of church and state was never intended to take God out of the country, but rather these founding fathers knew that to allow government to become one with any specific religion would ultimately be the destruction of our Constitutional Democracy. Only by separating religion and government could both survive in a balance that they fought to preserve.
But now the right wing conservative “Christians” control all three branches of our government. The beast has risen and taken control, and its evil tentacles have choked the life out of our democracy. The true “axis of evil” is the corruption of the three branches of government by those fanatically committed to instilling their own theocracy, to allow their own religion to rule our government.
Biblical prophesy speaks of the beast and warns that its power will come through the deception of the believers. The beast’s power comes from controlling those who call themselves Christians and blindly follow their leaders. But would a true man of God lead our nation into a modern day crusade against non-Christians? Think about it… What is the war in Iraq and Afghanistan (and before it’s over, the entire Middle East) really about? We already know the Bush Administration deliberately deceived our country. This past week former CIA Director George Tenet has come forth claiming that the Bush Administration also knew of an impending terrorist attack before 911, but deliberately took no action. Why? (Does anyone really ask?)
Is it really so hard to consider whether this contemporary conservative theocracy might have an insidious agenda? We all know that George W. Bush is nothing more than a puppet and the true power lies with the puppet masters that cower behind the scenes and call the shots. And they do have an agenda… they want America to be legislatively and judicially transformed into a theocratic apartheid – and they are winning!
Which brings us back to America becoming a nation of spineless cowards who today take their Constitutional rights for granted and have long forgotten the sacrifices so many made to preserve our Democracy.
What is it that makes America great? It’s not out government, but our people… it’s our 300 million diverse individuals, each with the inalienable Constitutional right to fundamental freedoms. But these freedoms are being methodically eroded. In today’s America, the individual person has become expendable as this conservative theocracy gives the power to government. How many of us have actually taken a moment to read the original “Bill of Rights,” the very foundation of our Constitutional Democracy? How many of us as parents have ever – even once – sat down with our children and talked about our Constitutional rights? When we do actually read the preamble of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, we realize that virtually every right articulated in unquestionably intended to give the individual the power to protect against government – not even one of these rights were intended for the government or for the government to have power over at the expense of the individual. Think about that.
We call ourselves the land of the free and yet America today has the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Our prison system has become a virtual industry of government. Equally so the quintessential American Dream is to own our own house, yet the conservation judicial activists on the Supreme Court have decreed that government can take your house and sell it to developers who want to build condo’s – why? Because condo units pay more taxes to the government than a single family home and the individual is expendable for the greater good of government. Where does it say that in the Constitution?
Growing up I watched with awe and reverence as masses of both men and women marched in the streets in anticipation of the 1973 Supreme Court ruling in Roe V. Wade and I believe it was their collective voice that made a difference. Growing up Catholic – even an alter boy at the time – I was indoctrinated to believe that abortion is murder… and maybe it is. But what right do I have to force my belief on another? Our constitution is about individuals’ rights.
Last month for t he first time since Roe v. Wade, the contemporary conservative cabal on our Supreme Court has finally succeeded in compromising Roe v. Wade when by a marginal majority the conservative judicial activists (Roberts, Saclia, Thomas, Alito, and Kennedy) ruled that “partial birth” abortions are unconstitutional. For the first time, since Roe v. Wade this case placed the perceived rights of the unborn fetus over the rights of the women – no exception was made for partial birth abortions necessitated by the health of the mother. Not surprisingly, conservative politicians in many states quickly introduced proposed new laws limiting abortions even further in anticipation of a legal fight in the Courts that they now feel they can win, with the objective of having all abortions ultimately declared illegal. And that will come if up to this court.
What offends me about this “right to life” movement is the blatant hypocrisy – when the Supreme Court conservatives ruled partial-birth abortions to be unconstitutional, they cited to their fundamental belief in the “sanctity of life.” But these very same conservative justices consistently are the ones who also slobber at the mouth like rabid dogs in their zeal to quickly kill condemned prisoners – even the innocent, See, Herrera v. Collins, 506 U.S. 390(1993). In Marsh v. Kansas, Justice Scalia even took the position that the claims of innocent people being wrongfully condemned to death is overblown – that there are very few truly innocent people convicted as the system works. And that although the system is not perfect, a few mistakes are acceptable in the interest of the greater good.
Why does the sanctity of life apply to an unborn child but not to an innocent man wrongfully convictred and condemned to death? Where exactly in the Constitution does it say that an unborn child has any rights? Our constitution says nothing about when, as a matter of law, life begins – this fantasy is created by the Supreme Court Justices to juetify their own agenda and that is the textbook definition of judical activism.
Recent polls show that President Bush’s popularity is about as low as any president’s popularity has ever sunk. Some are calling for the impeachment of President Bush. Which is arguably justified in you believe President Bush deliberately misled Congress and our country to it into a war… which I personally do.
But President Bush’s days are already numbered. Already the campaign for a new President is running. Although he can still inflict great harm to our country such as deliberately escalating Mideast tensions and perhaps even instigating a war with Iran and Syria, that conceivably could quickly evolve into World War III, one way or another in November 2008 we will elect a new President… thank God!
But the greater evil is the legacy he leaves behind. If we are truly tired of being force-fed this conservative hypocritical ideology and what to purge our country of its evil then perhaps the time has come to consider impeaching the conservative justices presently on the Supreme Court. These justices are appointed for life and will be around long after Bush is gone, and unless they too are removed from office this generation will see our Supreme Court transform America into a theocracy ruled by five men. The strength of a democracy is that we have the power to demand their impeachment in Congress – but are there enough people in America still willing to stand up for what they believe in? Or are we truly a nation of cowards, unwilling to confront this evil that threatens our constitutional democracy.
May 04, 2007
Does DNA Condemn The Innocent??
This past week the media reported that according to the Innocence Project, the 200th person has now been exonerated by DNA evidence. This sobering milestone was reached when Jerry Miller, a now 48-year old former Army cook was proven innocent by DNA. Evidence from a brutal kidnapping and rape that took place in Chicago in September of 1981 had sent Miller to prison. The victim never identified Miller as her assailant but two parking lot attendants did identify him.Miller spent 25 years in several Illinois prisons insisting he was innocent before recently being paroled. Through these many years Miller filed numerous appeals challenging the validity of his wrongful convictions; to no avail. With no appeals left, about ten years ago Miller sought out the assistance of the New York based Innocence Project, co-founded in 1992 by renowned attorney Barry Scheck. Agreeing to take the case, Miller was released from prison on parole before the DNA testing was completed. Last week the Cook County Court granted a motion vacating Miller’s convictions and legally exonerating him.
But with all the attention focused on DNA testing, has exoneration by DNA evidence now become the new litmus test for proving innocence? If so, then could it be that DNA is now actually condemning more innocent people than it is exonerating? Through the past 30 years over 125 men and women have been legally exonerated and released from death row; after being found to have been wrongfully convicted and condemned to death. Of that number, only a handful, were exonerated by DNA evidence.
Of the 200 exonerations through DNA evidence, 54 of those were convicted of murder – with less than 10 also wrongfully sentenced to death. Like in the Miller case, the leading cause of the wrongful conviction was mistaken identity, followed closely by faulty scientific evidence. False confessions accounted for only about 25 percent.
There is no question that DNA testing has proven to be a valuable tool in exonerating the innocent. In fact, the very first criminal case in which DNA testing was used in an attempt to prove guilt actually resulted in an unexpected exoneration. The story of how DNA testing came to be utilized in criminal cases begins in Leicestershire, England. In November 1983 a local 15-year old Lynda Mann was raped and strangled to death with her body callously discarded in a field not far from her home. Although the local community searched for the killer, the case went unsolved.
Then almost three years later in August 1986 the body of another 15-year old girl (Dawn Ashworth) was found – she too had been raped and strangled in a manner remarkably similar to Lynda Mann. An investigation led local police to Richard Buckland, a porter at a nearby hospital. Buckland soon confessed to the Ashworth murder, but given the similarities and proximity of the earlier murder of Lynda Mann the police felt that Buckland had to also be responsible for that murder.
Anxious to close the books on both murders the police called upon Alec Jeffries, a professor at Leicestershire University, in England, who while attempting to identify the myoglobin producing gene, which governs the tissues that carry oxygen from the blood to the muscles discovered that DNA is unique to each individual.
The English police thought this new discovery could help them prove that Richard Buckland had also murdered Lynda Mann and Professor Jeffries collected blood samples from Buckland to compare against semen recovered from both of the young victims. The results shocked both Professor Jeffries and the police – contrary to his own confession; Buckland did not commit either murder! The semen taken from both Lynda Mann and Dawn Ashworth undoubtedly did come from the same man – the same man committed both crimes – but it wasn’t Buckland.
With this DNA evidence now able to identify the true killer, the police launched an extensive manhunt, collecting over 5,000 DNA samples from men living around the Leicestershire area – but no match was found, The cases seemed to be destined to remain unsolved and the killer free to kill again until the police unexpectedly received a call from an acquaintance of Ian Kelly, a baker who lived some distance from the area of the crime. He claimed that Kelly had told him that he had provided the DNA sample for a friend and information led the police to Colin Pitchfork . Pitchfork’s DNA was then proven to be a match for the semen found in both victims.
Based on this evidence in January 1988 Pitchfork became the first ever person convicted based upon genetic fingerprinting and was then sentenced to life on both murders.There can be no question that DNA’s genetic fingerprinting has proven to be an invaluable tool in both identifying the guilty and exonerating the innocent. And that those who are committed to fighting for justice by using DNA to exonerate the wrongfully convicted should be commended for their work. Barry Shack and the Innocence Project, as well as the many universities that now have similar projects, have brought hope to countless victims of injustice and have successfully brought justice to at least 200.
But the problem is that the success of of these numerous DNA exonerations have effectively stolen the limelight. Increasingly, because of all the attention on exonerations by DNA evidence, those who cannot prove their innocence by DNA – because it doesn’t exist or was lost by the state in their case – are ignored. Most of the Innocence Projects today will not even accept cases unless there is forensic evidence that can be subjected to DNA testing. Almost without exception, those exonerated by DNA evidence were convicted of sexual assaults, yet these crimes account for only a small percentage of those wrongfully convicted.
Historically most of those exonerated after being wrongfully convicted (and even condemned to death) never had any DNA evidence to prove their innocence – does this make them less innocent? If society and the judicial system place to much dependence upon DNA to prove a person’s innocence, then ultimately this dependence on DNA evidence as the litmus test of innocence will actually condemn far more innocent people that it will exonerate.
It is an unfortunate tragedy that there are very limited resources available to handle the many thousands of cases in which wrongfully convicted and even condemned prisoners allege innocence. Our judicial system generally has proven unwilling to provide legal support to the allegedly innocent and contemporary politics has resulted in Draconian procedural rules that actually make it almost impossible for a wrongfully convicted person to even argue – much less prove – his or her innocence.
Is it really fair that with all the attention on DNA and the vast majority if these limited resources available to the organization dedicated to fighting the injustices of wrongful convictions are now dedicated almost exclusively to cases where DNA evidence is an issue? What about the larger number of prisoners wrongfully convicted that do not have DNA evidence that are being deliberately ignored and forgotten?
Am I the only one troubled by the fact that in the numerous articles I read proclaiming the 200th person exonerated by DNA evidence this past week, not even one article mentioned that DNA exonerations actually account for only a small percentage of the cases in which the wrongfully convicted and condemned were subsequently exonerated and released? That in fact, DNA exonerations are almost exclusively limited to cases involving and alleged sexual assault and that of the now over 125 men and women exonerated and released from death row across the country in recent years, less than ten percent were exonerated by DNA evidence.
It is not my intent to negate the commendable job, Barry Scheck and many other dedicated lawyers associated with these Innocence Projects are doing. These are the hero’s of all those wrongfully convicted. But it is my belief that they have a responsibility to remind the public that DNA exonerations are actually only the more visible tip of the proverbial iceberg and that the greater mass if wrongful convictions cannot be so easily exposed by DNA testing. Without constantly reminding the public of this undeniable truth the greater injustice will be perpetuated by the very individuals so obviously and selflessly devoted to exposing injustice, as the general public becomes fixated on DNA evidence as the litmus test of innocence. As attention becomes increasingly focused on DNA exonerations inevitably overshadowing the significantly greater number of wrongful convictions that cannot be expose by DNA testing, then ultimately DNA will actually condemn far more innocent people than it will exonerate – and that would be the greater injustice.
~Mike~
April 22, 2007
Obstructing Justice – An Injustice Perpetuated By The Courts
Justice delayed is justice denied – this seems like a simple and self-evident truth, but in our politically corrupt contemporary judicial system this truth takes on two completely different and conflicting meanings. Those familiar with this blog are already aware of the case of Mike Lambrix, who has now been on Florida’s death row for over 23 years, (See, Condemning An Innocent Man) and his continuous fight to compel the courts to expidite review of his appeals. For over 9 years Lambrix’s now substantiated claim of actual innocence has been pending before the lower state court despite Lambrix’s own aggressive efforts to compel the court to provide timely review and reach a final disposition in his case.
Confronted with the lower court and the state prosecutors consistently obstructing timely review Lambrix petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to compel that lower state court to expedited review, but that court refused to take any action. Lambrix has now filed a petition with the United States Supreme Court arguing that his protected constitutional right to timely review of his capital post conviction appeals has been violated -- but will the Supreme Court intervene and hold the state as equally accountable for unnecessary delays as it so often does in holing death row prisoners who fail to “timely” file their appeals? Or is the Supreme Court’s push to expedite a “finality” in capital cases only applicable when its objective is to carry out an execution – and not applicable when the objective is to expedite justice? (The petition can be read in its entirety here.)
If the courts and politicians are so committed to expediting review of capital post conviction appeals under the pretense of promoting a timely “finality,” then why is it they only want to expedite review when their objective is to carry out executions – and not when the state itself deliberately obstructs timely review of a legitimately pled claim of actual innocence? If this is really about objectively expediting a finality in capital cases, then shouldn’t both the courts and politicians be as equally committed to expediting review when a claim of actual innocence is raised as they are when they seek to expedite an execution?
But again, it’s not about expediting justice – it’s about expediting executions. Think about it… the only time politicians and courts pass laws that they claim are intended to speed up death row appeals is when these laws are imposed exclusively against the condemned prisoner. Not even once has Congress or The Supreme Court ever passed a law that imposes any form of sanctions against the state if and when the state is the party responsible for deliberately delaying timely review.
The public remains conveniently oblivious to the insidious nature of these politically motivated campaigns to expedite review of capital post conviction appeals – what it is really about is devising insidious ways to deliberately circumvent a full and fair review of capital cases. (See, Supreme Court Slams Death Row Appeals.) But when confronted with a timely filed and legitimately pled claim of actual innocence, the politicians and the courts no longer have an interest in pushing for an expedited review as if the wrongfully convicted and condemned person is then exonerated that exoneration undermines their true objective of promoting more executions.
The simple truth is that allowing wrongfully convicted and condemned prisoners to fairly prove their innocence undermines public confidence in the judicial system and erodes public support for the death penalty itself. In recent years over 125 men and women have been judicially exonerated and released from death rows across the county. As the public has become aware of the inherent fallibility of our judicial system support for capital punishment itself has substantially declined.
Incredibly, confronted with this substantial decline, both conservative politicians and the conservative judicial activists on our courts have responded by pushing for even more limitations on death row appeals, especially limiting collateral post conviction appeals – the very type of appeal traditionally used to expose an injustice. By devising disingenuous means in which to effectively procedurally bar condemned prisoners from pursuing these appeals – thus eliminating any means in which to present the evidence necessary to prove their innocence; the embarrassment of having so many wrongful convictions exposed is circumvented.
But is this insidious practice of deliberately circumventing review of a legitimate claim of actual innocence only really painting our judicial system into a corner? Although it can be argued that most of these death row claims of innocence are specious, at best, many of these seemingly specious claims have proven to be substantiated upon full review.
Public confidence in our judicial system is dependent upon the perceived integrity of the courts themselves. Even with a marginal majority of our population still supporting the death penalty, no person of moral conscience supports a system that would inevitably result in executing innocent people. Advocating the execution of a guilty person can be called “justice.” but inevitably executing even one innocent person can only be called murder and in a constitutional democracy advocating the execution of even one innocent person makes murderers out of all of us.
Assume for a moment that a condemned prisoner does develop evidence to substantiate his long pled claim of innocence. Before our society carries out that execution, don’t we have a moral obligation to fully a fairly address that claim of innocence? Equally so, when a condemned prisoner properly presents a legitimately pled claim of actual innocence to the courts, then don’t the courts themselves have a moral obligation to ensure that timely review is provided? If justice delayed is justice denied, then isn’t the ultimate injustice that of deliberately delaying the probably exoneration of an innocent man?
Think about it for a moment… what conceivable purpose does the state (or the courts) have in deliberately obstructing timely review of a legitimate actual innocence claim? Being wrongfully convicted and condemned to death itself is an injustice of such extreme proportion that it can never truly be remedied. Even if the innocent person is ultimately exonerated and released from death row, the actual irreparable injury of being condemned to death; the many years of solitary confinement confronting that unjustified sentence of death; has already been irreversibly inflicted and cannot be undone. ( See, Bowels of the Beast: Condemned to a Fate Worse Than Death).
Lambrix has already been on Florida’s death row well over 23 years, with his substantiated claim of actual innocence based upon exculpatory evidence deliberately concealed by the prosecutor now pending before the lower state court for over 9 years. If Lambrix’s claim has no merit, then why is the lower court and the state deliberately delaying review? Is Lambrix’s case an exception? Or is this deliberate deprivation of timely review of a substantiated claim of actual innocence actually a policy and practice condoned by the courts? Do our courts collaborate with the state to deliberately obstruct and deny timely review in capital cases that present a legitimate claim of actual innocence?
Consider the case of Frank Lee Smith, a poor man convicted of allegedly raping and killing an 8 year old girl in Broward County, Florida. There were no witnesses to the crime, but a witness did allegedly see him leaving the house where the little girl’s body was later found. For many years Smith screamed he was innocent to anyone who would listen—but very few would. After many years on death row the science of DNA testing was introduced into the judicial system and finally Smith had hope of proving his innocence.
In 1991 Smith’s court appointed lawyers filed the necessary legal action to have the evidence recovered at the crime scene tested, only to then have the State of Florida obstruct any DNA testing of that evidence. Smith’s case dragged out in the lower state court for many years when finally --9 years later!-- testing was completed and concluded that Smith actually was innocent – and even identified the true perpetrator.
But the injustice deliberately perpetuated against Frank lee Smith by allowing the state to deliberately obstruct timely review of his claim of innocence could never be remedied and justice could never be served – several moths before the DNA test results finally were released, Frank Lee Smith died of cancer while still on Florida’s death row. (See, Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied.)
By allowing the state to deliberately obstruct and delay timely review Smith’s exoneration was a hollow victory – Smith still died a wrongfully convicted and condemned man.
When our courts effectively collaborate with the state to deliberately obstruct and deny timely review of a legitimately pled claim of actual innocence then our courts themselves become responsible for perpetuating the ultimate injustice against an innocent man. The reality of it is that these same politicians and justices who relentlessly advocate expediting death row appeals under this pretense of promoting a timely “finality” actually only want to expedite executions – not justice.
If the Supreme Court is so willing to protect the states interest in expediting review of capital cases when the objective is to expedite executions, then why won’t the Supreme Court recognize the wrongfully convicted and condemned prisoner’s right to timely review of a legitimately pled claim of actual innocence?
When it comes down to it, our courts have a constitutional responsibility not only to enforce laws intended to punish the guilty but even more so, to protect the innocent from unjustified punishment. When our courts deliberately turn a blind eye when state prosecutors first wrongfully convict and condemn an innocent man, then when evidence of that prosecutorial misconduct is finally exposed, allows the state to deliberately deny timely review, effectively allowing the ultimate injustice to be indefinitely perpetuated against an innocent man, then our courts have failed to carry out their constitutional responsibility.
Equality and fairness are the cornerstones of justice. If our courts are willing to prohibit a condemned prisoner from filing a substantiated claim of innocence because he failed to timely file the claim (See, Herrara V. Collins 506 U.S. 390 (1993)), then equally so – when a condemned prisoner does timely file a legitimate claim of actual innocence and the state obstructs and denies timely review, then equality and fairness demand that the state be procedurally barred from any further defense, and relief summarily granted, as Lambrix now argues in his petition presently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. To hold otherwise would only encourage the states to obstruct justice and the resulting injustice, would be perpetuated as a result of and by our courts.
(note: comments to this article are invited)
Confronted with the lower court and the state prosecutors consistently obstructing timely review Lambrix petitioned the Florida Supreme Court to compel that lower state court to expedited review, but that court refused to take any action. Lambrix has now filed a petition with the United States Supreme Court arguing that his protected constitutional right to timely review of his capital post conviction appeals has been violated -- but will the Supreme Court intervene and hold the state as equally accountable for unnecessary delays as it so often does in holing death row prisoners who fail to “timely” file their appeals? Or is the Supreme Court’s push to expedite a “finality” in capital cases only applicable when its objective is to carry out an execution – and not applicable when the objective is to expedite justice? (The petition can be read in its entirety here.)
If the courts and politicians are so committed to expediting review of capital post conviction appeals under the pretense of promoting a timely “finality,” then why is it they only want to expedite review when their objective is to carry out executions – and not when the state itself deliberately obstructs timely review of a legitimately pled claim of actual innocence? If this is really about objectively expediting a finality in capital cases, then shouldn’t both the courts and politicians be as equally committed to expediting review when a claim of actual innocence is raised as they are when they seek to expedite an execution?
But again, it’s not about expediting justice – it’s about expediting executions. Think about it… the only time politicians and courts pass laws that they claim are intended to speed up death row appeals is when these laws are imposed exclusively against the condemned prisoner. Not even once has Congress or The Supreme Court ever passed a law that imposes any form of sanctions against the state if and when the state is the party responsible for deliberately delaying timely review.
The public remains conveniently oblivious to the insidious nature of these politically motivated campaigns to expedite review of capital post conviction appeals – what it is really about is devising insidious ways to deliberately circumvent a full and fair review of capital cases. (See, Supreme Court Slams Death Row Appeals.) But when confronted with a timely filed and legitimately pled claim of actual innocence, the politicians and the courts no longer have an interest in pushing for an expedited review as if the wrongfully convicted and condemned person is then exonerated that exoneration undermines their true objective of promoting more executions.
The simple truth is that allowing wrongfully convicted and condemned prisoners to fairly prove their innocence undermines public confidence in the judicial system and erodes public support for the death penalty itself. In recent years over 125 men and women have been judicially exonerated and released from death rows across the county. As the public has become aware of the inherent fallibility of our judicial system support for capital punishment itself has substantially declined.
Incredibly, confronted with this substantial decline, both conservative politicians and the conservative judicial activists on our courts have responded by pushing for even more limitations on death row appeals, especially limiting collateral post conviction appeals – the very type of appeal traditionally used to expose an injustice. By devising disingenuous means in which to effectively procedurally bar condemned prisoners from pursuing these appeals – thus eliminating any means in which to present the evidence necessary to prove their innocence; the embarrassment of having so many wrongful convictions exposed is circumvented.
But is this insidious practice of deliberately circumventing review of a legitimate claim of actual innocence only really painting our judicial system into a corner? Although it can be argued that most of these death row claims of innocence are specious, at best, many of these seemingly specious claims have proven to be substantiated upon full review.
Public confidence in our judicial system is dependent upon the perceived integrity of the courts themselves. Even with a marginal majority of our population still supporting the death penalty, no person of moral conscience supports a system that would inevitably result in executing innocent people. Advocating the execution of a guilty person can be called “justice.” but inevitably executing even one innocent person can only be called murder and in a constitutional democracy advocating the execution of even one innocent person makes murderers out of all of us.
Assume for a moment that a condemned prisoner does develop evidence to substantiate his long pled claim of innocence. Before our society carries out that execution, don’t we have a moral obligation to fully a fairly address that claim of innocence? Equally so, when a condemned prisoner properly presents a legitimately pled claim of actual innocence to the courts, then don’t the courts themselves have a moral obligation to ensure that timely review is provided? If justice delayed is justice denied, then isn’t the ultimate injustice that of deliberately delaying the probably exoneration of an innocent man?
Think about it for a moment… what conceivable purpose does the state (or the courts) have in deliberately obstructing timely review of a legitimate actual innocence claim? Being wrongfully convicted and condemned to death itself is an injustice of such extreme proportion that it can never truly be remedied. Even if the innocent person is ultimately exonerated and released from death row, the actual irreparable injury of being condemned to death; the many years of solitary confinement confronting that unjustified sentence of death; has already been irreversibly inflicted and cannot be undone. ( See, Bowels of the Beast: Condemned to a Fate Worse Than Death).
Lambrix has already been on Florida’s death row well over 23 years, with his substantiated claim of actual innocence based upon exculpatory evidence deliberately concealed by the prosecutor now pending before the lower state court for over 9 years. If Lambrix’s claim has no merit, then why is the lower court and the state deliberately delaying review? Is Lambrix’s case an exception? Or is this deliberate deprivation of timely review of a substantiated claim of actual innocence actually a policy and practice condoned by the courts? Do our courts collaborate with the state to deliberately obstruct and deny timely review in capital cases that present a legitimate claim of actual innocence?
Consider the case of Frank Lee Smith, a poor man convicted of allegedly raping and killing an 8 year old girl in Broward County, Florida. There were no witnesses to the crime, but a witness did allegedly see him leaving the house where the little girl’s body was later found. For many years Smith screamed he was innocent to anyone who would listen—but very few would. After many years on death row the science of DNA testing was introduced into the judicial system and finally Smith had hope of proving his innocence.
In 1991 Smith’s court appointed lawyers filed the necessary legal action to have the evidence recovered at the crime scene tested, only to then have the State of Florida obstruct any DNA testing of that evidence. Smith’s case dragged out in the lower state court for many years when finally --9 years later!-- testing was completed and concluded that Smith actually was innocent – and even identified the true perpetrator.
But the injustice deliberately perpetuated against Frank lee Smith by allowing the state to deliberately obstruct timely review of his claim of innocence could never be remedied and justice could never be served – several moths before the DNA test results finally were released, Frank Lee Smith died of cancer while still on Florida’s death row. (See, Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied.)
By allowing the state to deliberately obstruct and delay timely review Smith’s exoneration was a hollow victory – Smith still died a wrongfully convicted and condemned man.
When our courts effectively collaborate with the state to deliberately obstruct and deny timely review of a legitimately pled claim of actual innocence then our courts themselves become responsible for perpetuating the ultimate injustice against an innocent man. The reality of it is that these same politicians and justices who relentlessly advocate expediting death row appeals under this pretense of promoting a timely “finality” actually only want to expedite executions – not justice.
If the Supreme Court is so willing to protect the states interest in expediting review of capital cases when the objective is to expedite executions, then why won’t the Supreme Court recognize the wrongfully convicted and condemned prisoner’s right to timely review of a legitimately pled claim of actual innocence?
When it comes down to it, our courts have a constitutional responsibility not only to enforce laws intended to punish the guilty but even more so, to protect the innocent from unjustified punishment. When our courts deliberately turn a blind eye when state prosecutors first wrongfully convict and condemn an innocent man, then when evidence of that prosecutorial misconduct is finally exposed, allows the state to deliberately deny timely review, effectively allowing the ultimate injustice to be indefinitely perpetuated against an innocent man, then our courts have failed to carry out their constitutional responsibility.
Equality and fairness are the cornerstones of justice. If our courts are willing to prohibit a condemned prisoner from filing a substantiated claim of innocence because he failed to timely file the claim (See, Herrara V. Collins 506 U.S. 390 (1993)), then equally so – when a condemned prisoner does timely file a legitimate claim of actual innocence and the state obstructs and denies timely review, then equality and fairness demand that the state be procedurally barred from any further defense, and relief summarily granted, as Lambrix now argues in his petition presently pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. To hold otherwise would only encourage the states to obstruct justice and the resulting injustice, would be perpetuated as a result of and by our courts.
(note: comments to this article are invited)
April 15, 2007
Supreme Court Reviews Southern Injustice
With corruption and injustice within the judicial system becoming increasingly exposed through unconventional media sources, those want to seek out the truth are increasingly turning to the Internet to get the story. Those already familiar with this blog know of “southerninjustice.com,” a website dedicated to exposing the new face of bigotry and injustice in the south. Southern Injustice especially details the corruption within the 20th Circuit State Attorney’s Office of Southwest Florida, as although relatively small in size this one particular office presently has the highest rate of wrongful convictions in capital cases in the entire country.
Southern Injustice’s efforts to expose the corruption with this particular judicial circuit has only been going for about six months now, but has already drawn in thousands of supporters. Among the repeat visitors to this site is the Florida Supreme Court, which according to “Google Analytics” recently spent three days downloading content relating to information based upon public records regarding the 20th Circuit’s State Attorney’s Office. See, the evidence of these visits here.
Why would the Florida Supreme Court suddenly develop an interest in Southern Injustice and its content? Recently both the Miami Herald and the Ft Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel exposed a dirty, dark secret going on in the courts of South Florida when it was discovered that the state circuit courts in Broward and Dade Counties have been secretly working with prosecutors to fabricate false records to illegally protect “jailhouse snitches” and others. See, “Florida Courts Caught Fabricating Records.”
In Florida, as in most states, it is against the law to conceal court records unless the records are sealed by specific court order upon a showing of cause. The intent of the law is obvious – if court records are not open and available to the public, then public confidence can easily be undermined by projecting an appearance of something to hide. In America, our courts are constitutionally obligated to administer justice openly, not in dark rooms behind closed doors; they are also ethically mandated to be free from even any appearance of impropriety.
According to the investigative reports in the Miami Herald and Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, the Broward and Dade County Courts deliberately fabricated records made available to the public while concealing the actual records. After this alleged misconduct was publicly exposed the matter was brought to the attention of the Florida Supreme Court. Immediately chief Justice Lewis promised a full investigation.
Southern Injustice has filed a formal complaint with the Florida Supreme Court concerning court records in the 20th Judicial Circuit. Although circuit court records are computerized or physically available at each county’s courthouse, the records in the capital case of Cary Michael Lambrix are not. Lambrix was tried, convicted, and condemned to death in rural Glades County, Florida in early 1984. When the Clerk of Court in Glades County was contacted, Southern Injustice was advised that all records are kept in Lee County (Ft. Myers). However, the clerk of the Court in Lee County claims that although the records are in Lee County, they do not know where. Both counties use a computerized docketing system, but neither could explain why the current Lambrix case files were not on their computerized system and were not accessible to the public. While they were both aware he had been convicted and condemned to death, they assured Southern Injustice that nothing had been filed on this case since 1992.
Why would the current court records in the Lambrix case be illegally concealed from the public? To understand the motivations of those who do not want these records readily accessible, a brief history of this case helps. The case brought against Lambrix over 24 years ago was wholly circumstantial – there were no eyewitnesses, no physical or forensic evidence, and no confessions. As the local prosecutor Randall McGruther conceded to the jury the entire case was built upon the testimony of Lambrix’s then recently estranged ex-girlfriend Frances Smith (now Frances Ottinger) who conveniently claimed Lambrix had told her he committed this brutal double murder only after she was herself arrested and in unrelated felonies.
Lambrix adamantly insisted that he was innocent and that the state and key witness Smith deliberately fabricated the specious, wholly circumstantial theory of premeditated murder. The jury was not allowed to hear that she actually told the police numerous stories before coming up with the one that conveniently won her immunity from any prosecution. Nor was the jury allowed to know that she failed a state administered polygraph prior to trial. In fact the jury was led to believe that she was not given any deal for her testimony and let her get away with saying under oath she wasn’t given anything for her cooperation. Then Lambrix himself was prohibited from personally testifying, leaving her testimony unchallenged. See, “Southern Injustice: Condemning An Innocent Man” Lambrix was convicted and condemned to death and has been on death row now since March 1984.
Throughout these many years Lambrix has remained on death row even coming within hours of actual execution – but still adamantly insisting on his innocence, steadfastly claiming the circumstantial case was deliberately fabricated.
Then on 1998 the only other witness who corroborated key witness Smith’s claim that Lambrix admitted committing these murders stepped forward and admitted under oath her testimony claiming Lambrix told her he had committed this crime was not true. See, “Woman Recants Testimony.”
Hearings were subsequently held at which time this witness testified that both key witness Smith and the State’s investigator coerced her to provide that false testimony against Lambrix. When Lambrix’s own lawyers then looked into these claims, even more evidence was revealed – key witness Smith was actually having a secret affair with the local state attorney’s lead investigator, Robert Daniels, while Lambrix was prosecuted. See, “Witness Admits Affair.”
In fact, records show that investigator Daniels was the very person who swore out the affidavit leading to Lambrix’s arrest, then personally supervised the development of the specious circumstantial evidence used to corroborate key witness Smith’s own testimony. Of course, the jury was not aware of this intimate relationship between the key witness and Investigator Daniels.
As the evidence substantiating Lambrix’s long pled claim of innocence began to accumulate, a funny thing happened – inexplicitly, all the court files in this case were suddenly transferred from Glades County to Lee County (Ft. Myers) and public access prohibited. Could the Florida Supreme Court now be looking into this illegal concealment of public court records? But why would Circuit Court Judge R. Thomas Corbin, who has presided over this case since 1998, remove the files of a capital case and effectively prohibit public access?
To address that question we must go back to the fact that this judicial circuit presently has the highest rate of wrongful convictions in capital cases in the entire country. The prosecutor, Randall McGruther who put Lambrix on death row has a significant history of alleged misconduct that includes sending at least one other subsequently exonerated man to death row. McGruther is now the Chief Assistant State Attorney in that judicial circuit.
In recent months Southern Injustice has investigated Lambrix’s case and obtained public records relevant to that state attorney’s office that exposes a troubling truth. Quite simply, this 20th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office has been, and continues to be, controlled by an inner circle of college classmates and alumni of Florida’s Stetson University… it’s a virtual Southern style “good ole boys” club of college buddies who consistently cover for each other to avoid exposure of alleged and apparently systemic prosecutorial misconduct. See, “Anatomy of a Corrupt Prosecutor.”
But this apparent corruption reaches beyond the local state attorney’s office as review of public records show that this Stetson “good ole boy’s club” also controls the local circuit courts. Again, when looking into the Lambrix case Southern Injustice discovered that although the case is assigned to Circuit Court Judge R. Thomas Corbin, it is actually managed by Senior Staff Attorney Steven A, Hooper and supervised by the Chief Administrative Judge Hugh Cary --both of whom are closely connected to The prosecuotr on Lambrix's case either through having gone to Stetson University Law School or who were originally recruited by and worked with the prosecutor Randall McGruther and elected State Attorney Steve Russell. See, our connection chart here.
As if this was not enough, further review of court records revealed that the Senior Staff Attorney Stephen A. Hooper now controlling this case in Judge Corbin’s Court was previously assigned to Circuit Court Judge Thomas Reese in 1994 when Judge Reese presided over Lambrix’s earlier post conviction appeal arguing his actual innocence, which was “procedurally barred” from review upon the pled merits… apparently, Stephen Hooper’s job is to make sure the Lambrix case is not heard.
Unable to credibly dispute Lambrix’s now substantiated claim of innocence, those responsible for perpetuating this deliberate injustice against Lambrix are now obstructing timely review of Lambrix’s “actual innocence” appeal, which has now been pending before the lower state court for over 9 years. See, “Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied.”
Lambrix has recently filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court (Lambrix v. Florida, case #06-9634) in which Lambrix argues that the failure to provide timely review of his pled claim or actual innocence in the lower state court violates his constitutional right to meaningful post conviction appellate review, entitling him to have his convictions automatically vacated. The petition can be read in its entirety here. Also see, Does the Supreme Court Suborn Perjury in Capital Cases?
But with the undisputable influence of the local state attorney’s office corrupting any chance of receiving full and fair review of Lambrix’s pled claim of actual innocence before the lower court, how can there be any hope that justice will prevail in this case? Lambrix has already attempted to compel the Florida Supreme Court to intervene, but they refused to address the petition until after the circuit court’s review.
What this Lambrix case is increasingly exposing is a corruption not simply of a single capital case, but of an entire judicial circuit. Southern Injustice has received letters from numerous other prisoners presently incarcerated after being convicted of crimes within the 20th Judicial Circuit and a pattern of “win by any means necessary” prosecutorial misconduct is indisputably emerging.
Could it be as this corruption is finally now being publicly exposed the Florida Supreme Court is beginning to take notice? Do we dare hope that a formal investigation of the 20th Judicial Circuit’s Stetson University “good ole boy club” may finally be imminent? If you haven’t already read the website www.southerninjustice.com, you should now do so now… has justice in the Deep South really changed?
~Info~
Southern Injustice’s efforts to expose the corruption with this particular judicial circuit has only been going for about six months now, but has already drawn in thousands of supporters. Among the repeat visitors to this site is the Florida Supreme Court, which according to “Google Analytics” recently spent three days downloading content relating to information based upon public records regarding the 20th Circuit’s State Attorney’s Office. See, the evidence of these visits here.
Why would the Florida Supreme Court suddenly develop an interest in Southern Injustice and its content? Recently both the Miami Herald and the Ft Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel exposed a dirty, dark secret going on in the courts of South Florida when it was discovered that the state circuit courts in Broward and Dade Counties have been secretly working with prosecutors to fabricate false records to illegally protect “jailhouse snitches” and others. See, “Florida Courts Caught Fabricating Records.”
In Florida, as in most states, it is against the law to conceal court records unless the records are sealed by specific court order upon a showing of cause. The intent of the law is obvious – if court records are not open and available to the public, then public confidence can easily be undermined by projecting an appearance of something to hide. In America, our courts are constitutionally obligated to administer justice openly, not in dark rooms behind closed doors; they are also ethically mandated to be free from even any appearance of impropriety.
According to the investigative reports in the Miami Herald and Ft. Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel, the Broward and Dade County Courts deliberately fabricated records made available to the public while concealing the actual records. After this alleged misconduct was publicly exposed the matter was brought to the attention of the Florida Supreme Court. Immediately chief Justice Lewis promised a full investigation.
Southern Injustice has filed a formal complaint with the Florida Supreme Court concerning court records in the 20th Judicial Circuit. Although circuit court records are computerized or physically available at each county’s courthouse, the records in the capital case of Cary Michael Lambrix are not. Lambrix was tried, convicted, and condemned to death in rural Glades County, Florida in early 1984. When the Clerk of Court in Glades County was contacted, Southern Injustice was advised that all records are kept in Lee County (Ft. Myers). However, the clerk of the Court in Lee County claims that although the records are in Lee County, they do not know where. Both counties use a computerized docketing system, but neither could explain why the current Lambrix case files were not on their computerized system and were not accessible to the public. While they were both aware he had been convicted and condemned to death, they assured Southern Injustice that nothing had been filed on this case since 1992.
Why would the current court records in the Lambrix case be illegally concealed from the public? To understand the motivations of those who do not want these records readily accessible, a brief history of this case helps. The case brought against Lambrix over 24 years ago was wholly circumstantial – there were no eyewitnesses, no physical or forensic evidence, and no confessions. As the local prosecutor Randall McGruther conceded to the jury the entire case was built upon the testimony of Lambrix’s then recently estranged ex-girlfriend Frances Smith (now Frances Ottinger) who conveniently claimed Lambrix had told her he committed this brutal double murder only after she was herself arrested and in unrelated felonies.
Lambrix adamantly insisted that he was innocent and that the state and key witness Smith deliberately fabricated the specious, wholly circumstantial theory of premeditated murder. The jury was not allowed to hear that she actually told the police numerous stories before coming up with the one that conveniently won her immunity from any prosecution. Nor was the jury allowed to know that she failed a state administered polygraph prior to trial. In fact the jury was led to believe that she was not given any deal for her testimony and let her get away with saying under oath she wasn’t given anything for her cooperation. Then Lambrix himself was prohibited from personally testifying, leaving her testimony unchallenged. See, “Southern Injustice: Condemning An Innocent Man” Lambrix was convicted and condemned to death and has been on death row now since March 1984.
Throughout these many years Lambrix has remained on death row even coming within hours of actual execution – but still adamantly insisting on his innocence, steadfastly claiming the circumstantial case was deliberately fabricated.
Then on 1998 the only other witness who corroborated key witness Smith’s claim that Lambrix admitted committing these murders stepped forward and admitted under oath her testimony claiming Lambrix told her he had committed this crime was not true. See, “Woman Recants Testimony.”
Hearings were subsequently held at which time this witness testified that both key witness Smith and the State’s investigator coerced her to provide that false testimony against Lambrix. When Lambrix’s own lawyers then looked into these claims, even more evidence was revealed – key witness Smith was actually having a secret affair with the local state attorney’s lead investigator, Robert Daniels, while Lambrix was prosecuted. See, “Witness Admits Affair.”
In fact, records show that investigator Daniels was the very person who swore out the affidavit leading to Lambrix’s arrest, then personally supervised the development of the specious circumstantial evidence used to corroborate key witness Smith’s own testimony. Of course, the jury was not aware of this intimate relationship between the key witness and Investigator Daniels.
As the evidence substantiating Lambrix’s long pled claim of innocence began to accumulate, a funny thing happened – inexplicitly, all the court files in this case were suddenly transferred from Glades County to Lee County (Ft. Myers) and public access prohibited. Could the Florida Supreme Court now be looking into this illegal concealment of public court records? But why would Circuit Court Judge R. Thomas Corbin, who has presided over this case since 1998, remove the files of a capital case and effectively prohibit public access?
To address that question we must go back to the fact that this judicial circuit presently has the highest rate of wrongful convictions in capital cases in the entire country. The prosecutor, Randall McGruther who put Lambrix on death row has a significant history of alleged misconduct that includes sending at least one other subsequently exonerated man to death row. McGruther is now the Chief Assistant State Attorney in that judicial circuit.
In recent months Southern Injustice has investigated Lambrix’s case and obtained public records relevant to that state attorney’s office that exposes a troubling truth. Quite simply, this 20th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office has been, and continues to be, controlled by an inner circle of college classmates and alumni of Florida’s Stetson University… it’s a virtual Southern style “good ole boys” club of college buddies who consistently cover for each other to avoid exposure of alleged and apparently systemic prosecutorial misconduct. See, “Anatomy of a Corrupt Prosecutor.”
But this apparent corruption reaches beyond the local state attorney’s office as review of public records show that this Stetson “good ole boy’s club” also controls the local circuit courts. Again, when looking into the Lambrix case Southern Injustice discovered that although the case is assigned to Circuit Court Judge R. Thomas Corbin, it is actually managed by Senior Staff Attorney Steven A, Hooper and supervised by the Chief Administrative Judge Hugh Cary --both of whom are closely connected to The prosecuotr on Lambrix's case either through having gone to Stetson University Law School or who were originally recruited by and worked with the prosecutor Randall McGruther and elected State Attorney Steve Russell. See, our connection chart here.
As if this was not enough, further review of court records revealed that the Senior Staff Attorney Stephen A. Hooper now controlling this case in Judge Corbin’s Court was previously assigned to Circuit Court Judge Thomas Reese in 1994 when Judge Reese presided over Lambrix’s earlier post conviction appeal arguing his actual innocence, which was “procedurally barred” from review upon the pled merits… apparently, Stephen Hooper’s job is to make sure the Lambrix case is not heard.
Unable to credibly dispute Lambrix’s now substantiated claim of innocence, those responsible for perpetuating this deliberate injustice against Lambrix are now obstructing timely review of Lambrix’s “actual innocence” appeal, which has now been pending before the lower state court for over 9 years. See, “Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied.”
Lambrix has recently filed a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court (Lambrix v. Florida, case #06-9634) in which Lambrix argues that the failure to provide timely review of his pled claim or actual innocence in the lower state court violates his constitutional right to meaningful post conviction appellate review, entitling him to have his convictions automatically vacated. The petition can be read in its entirety here. Also see, Does the Supreme Court Suborn Perjury in Capital Cases?
But with the undisputable influence of the local state attorney’s office corrupting any chance of receiving full and fair review of Lambrix’s pled claim of actual innocence before the lower court, how can there be any hope that justice will prevail in this case? Lambrix has already attempted to compel the Florida Supreme Court to intervene, but they refused to address the petition until after the circuit court’s review.
What this Lambrix case is increasingly exposing is a corruption not simply of a single capital case, but of an entire judicial circuit. Southern Injustice has received letters from numerous other prisoners presently incarcerated after being convicted of crimes within the 20th Judicial Circuit and a pattern of “win by any means necessary” prosecutorial misconduct is indisputably emerging.
Could it be as this corruption is finally now being publicly exposed the Florida Supreme Court is beginning to take notice? Do we dare hope that a formal investigation of the 20th Judicial Circuit’s Stetson University “good ole boy club” may finally be imminent? If you haven’t already read the website www.southerninjustice.com, you should now do so now… has justice in the Deep South really changed?
~Info~
April 03, 2007
“Does The Supreme Court Suborn Perjury In Capital Cases?”
Our Judicial system is the very foundation upon which our constitutional democracy stands – yet increasingly that foundation is becoming nothing more than shifting sands so easily manipulated by deliberate deception. The sacred concepts of truth and justice have given way to a system in which lawyers win at any cost. Without truth, there can be no hope for justice, and without justice there can be no hope in sustaining our constitutional democracy.
For several weeks now the headlines across the country have told the story of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales being “under the gun” for acts of misconduct within the Attorney General’s Office. Repeatedly it has been found that the Attorney General’s Office has deliberately deceived both Congress and the public in the matter of why numerous prosecutors were fired.
Confronted with this pattern of deceptions Congress has called for formal hearings to discern the truth only to have President Bush obstruct their proceedings by refusing to cooperate. Once again declaring that he has absolute confidence in a number of his inner circle, Bush blindly stands behind Attorney General Gonzales – just as he did for numerous other appointees when their integrity and competence were publicly questioned. One could even argue that the surest way to predict a soon to be announced resignation by one of Bush’s inner circle is to have Bush publicly declare his confidence in that individual.
The public is becoming increasingly familiar with this song and dance as those we place our trust in are subsequently exposed as corrupt. If our top prosecutors such as Alberto Gonzales will obstruct the truth from being revealed, then what does that say about the integrity of our judicial system itself?
Although the matter concerning Alberto Gonzales is played in the front page of most daily newspapers across the country, a far more insidious example of suborning deception and perjury can be found in a matter pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Is it possible that our Supreme Court itself actively encourages governmental lawyers to commit perjury and protects these lawyers by granting them absolute immunity from accountability?
What does it say about our American legal system when at the highest levels of our judiciary -- The Supreme Court Justices knowingly turn a blind eye to governmental lawyers who deliberately misrepresent facts with the intent to deceive the Court? The truth is that these state lawyers know that the courts will protect them even when they commit perjury, and that it has come to the point where truth and integrity mean so very little to our Supreme Court that material misrepresentations of for (or in simpler language, deliberate lies) have become a way of life… a way to deliberately circumvent the truth.
Several months ago death sentenced prisoner Michael Lambrix, unable to obtain legal counsel, filed a “pro se” (acting as his own lawyer) petition in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the State of Florida has denied him timely review of his pled and substantiated actual innocence claims. See, Lambrix v. Florida, U.S. Ct. Case #06-9634 (The full Petition can be read here) and also please read, “Condemning An Innocent Man” (Full length summary of the Lambrix case from the time of his arrest, through the trial, the appellate process, and finally the new evidence uncovered that substantiates his long pled claim of innocence.)
Mr. Lambrix argues that in January 19998 his state appointed lawyer filed an appeal in the lower state court arguing an actual innocence claim. Now, well over 9 years later that appeal remains pending despite Lambrix’s repeated and even relentless efforts to expedite review and reach a final disposition. At the time in which the Supreme Court aggressively pushes to expedite capital state post conviction proceedings, under what conceivable circumstance could any state post conviction appeal remain pending before a single court for over 9 years?
Quite simply, the evidence supporting Lambrix’s pled claims that the local state attorney’s office deliberately conspired and collaborated with the sole key witness to fabricate the entire wholly circumstantial case brought against Lambrix, is now, so overwhelming that it cannot be denied. See, Southern Injustice: The New face of Bigotry and Injustice in the South. Unable to discredit Lambrix's claims of innocence, the state has instead decided to deliberately perpetuate this injustice by obstructing and denying timely review -- effectively holding the case hostage in the lower state court, refusing to allow it to proceed. See, “Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied.”
Determined to bring an end to this nightmare of injustice, Lambrix filed a petition in the Florida Supreme Court attempting to compel that Court to take the action necessary to force the lower court to expedite review and make a ruling. However, Florida’s Senior Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar convinced the Florida Supreme Court that Lambrix was prohibited from petitioning the Court for relief as only the state appointed supervised post conviction counsel could file any action in the case – Lambrix had no right to personally address the Court. The Florida Supreme Court blindly adopted this pathetically disingenuous argument in an unprecedented ruling, refusing to compel the lower state court to provide timely review. See, Florida Supreme Court Says, “No Right To Expedited Review of Actual Innocence Claim.”
Lambrix then initiated the now pending Petition in the U.S. Supreme Court. In a response to this petition submitted by Senior Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar, the State of Florida again is attempting to manipulate the Court to circumvent review of the issue of whether a capital post conviction (death-sentenced) prisoner has any enforceable right to reasonably timely review of a pled and substantiated claim of actual innocence Once again Florida’s legal counsel Carol Dittmar has filed an action saturated with deliberate deceptions and factual misrepresentations intended to deceive the Supreme Court. (Both Ms. Dittmar’s response and Mr. Lambrix's reply to that response will be posted in their entirety on this site within the next week.)
Why has our contemporary judicial system become so inherently corrupted that even a capital defendant arguing a substantiated claim of actual innocence cannot even hope that truth and justice will prevail? Because those at the highest levels of our state and federal judiciaries refuse to take any action against these morally and ethically corrupt state prosecutors who repeatedly resort to deliberate misrepresentations and outright lies to defend against claims. See, “Prosecutorial Misconduct: Does Immunity Invite Injustice?.”
What is even more tragic is that our courts themselves have lost their own moral compass – truth and integrity mean nothing in today’s judicial system. State lawyers such as Senior Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar know that they can flagrantly commit perjury before even the highest Court as they know the Court will not even concern itself with discerning the truth, much less take any disciplinary action against corrupt state lawyers who do unethically perjure themselves with complete impunity.
Under the pretense of a “conservative judicial agenda,” today’s courts would rather deliberately put an innocent man to death than expose an injustice. Incredibly, many of these so-called conservatives adopt a philosophy that it is acceptable to execute an innocent man as the Constitution does not protect the innocent from being executed – it only protects the right to a fair trial. See, Blessings of Liberty in the Land of the Free. Unless a factually innocent man (or woman) can show that he was denied a “fair trial” and show it within the statutorily mandated time limits; innocence is irrelevant.
How can anyone have any confidence in such a system? In case after case we see that the corruption of the system itself is the product of corrupt state attorneys who will do anything to win at any cost. See,"The Anatomy of A Corrupt Prosecutor". Truth and integrity are no longer relevant… only winning matters and state prosecutors such as Senior Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar knows that the only way to climb that politically controlled career ladder is to do whatever it takes to win – even put innocent men and women to death.
Is our own Supreme Court suborning perjury? Of course they are -- just watch as this case unfolds and you will see that the Supreme Court, even when it is brought to their attention that Ms. Dittmar has flagrantly misrepresenting material facts with the intent to deceive the Court, the Court will not make any attempt to discern the truth. To knowingly turn a blind eye when lawyers commit perjury is to encourage and invite unethical behaviors. By refusing to take action against parties that violate ethical standards; the Supreme Court does induce and suborn perjury.
Justice can never prevail when truth itself becomes irrelevant. In the words of President Abraham Lincoln, “Evil can only prevail when good men choose to do nothing!” There can be no greater within our judicial system than the deliberate disregard of the sacred concepts of truth and justice within our court system… justice can only hope to prevail when truth itself is religiously protected and preserved. The Supreme Court has a moral and ethical obligation to aggressively take action against any party who dares to misrepresent material facts before it – but today’s Supreme Court will do nothing.
When a state attorney general can appear before our Supreme Court and so blatantly defend against a state prisoners substantiated claim of actual innocence by presenting deliberate material misrepresentations intended to intentionally deceive the Court, and be so confident that they can do so with complete impunity, knowing full well that the Court will not take action against a state lawyer; then that itself provides a telling commentary on the integrity of today’s judicial system as a whole.
This is the greater tragedy… this unethical and contemptuous action by Senior Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar will be rewarded by the court because the Supreme Court itself has become so corrupt by its own bias against capital (death sentenced) prisoners that truth and justice are irrelevant. But consider this… when the very least of our society can no longer come before our courts with any hope of having truth and justice prevail, then the very soul of our constitutional democracy itself has now been executed at the hands of these conservatives who adhere to the philosophy that it is far better to execute an innocent man than to expose an injustice that might embarrass the judicial system and undermine the public’s confidence.
Don’t these conservative justices get it? The greatest threat to undermining public confidence in the judicial system is not exposing injustices, but eroding the sacred concepts of truth and justice. The integrity of our judicial system is dependent upon the Court’s willingness to protect truth allowing anyone to appear before the court and deliberately deceive the Court with complete impunity is the greatest threat. Eliminate integrity and there can be no justice.
For several weeks now the headlines across the country have told the story of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales being “under the gun” for acts of misconduct within the Attorney General’s Office. Repeatedly it has been found that the Attorney General’s Office has deliberately deceived both Congress and the public in the matter of why numerous prosecutors were fired.
Confronted with this pattern of deceptions Congress has called for formal hearings to discern the truth only to have President Bush obstruct their proceedings by refusing to cooperate. Once again declaring that he has absolute confidence in a number of his inner circle, Bush blindly stands behind Attorney General Gonzales – just as he did for numerous other appointees when their integrity and competence were publicly questioned. One could even argue that the surest way to predict a soon to be announced resignation by one of Bush’s inner circle is to have Bush publicly declare his confidence in that individual.
The public is becoming increasingly familiar with this song and dance as those we place our trust in are subsequently exposed as corrupt. If our top prosecutors such as Alberto Gonzales will obstruct the truth from being revealed, then what does that say about the integrity of our judicial system itself?
Although the matter concerning Alberto Gonzales is played in the front page of most daily newspapers across the country, a far more insidious example of suborning deception and perjury can be found in a matter pending before the U.S. Supreme Court. Is it possible that our Supreme Court itself actively encourages governmental lawyers to commit perjury and protects these lawyers by granting them absolute immunity from accountability?
What does it say about our American legal system when at the highest levels of our judiciary -- The Supreme Court Justices knowingly turn a blind eye to governmental lawyers who deliberately misrepresent facts with the intent to deceive the Court? The truth is that these state lawyers know that the courts will protect them even when they commit perjury, and that it has come to the point where truth and integrity mean so very little to our Supreme Court that material misrepresentations of for (or in simpler language, deliberate lies) have become a way of life… a way to deliberately circumvent the truth.
Several months ago death sentenced prisoner Michael Lambrix, unable to obtain legal counsel, filed a “pro se” (acting as his own lawyer) petition in the U.S. Supreme Court arguing that the State of Florida has denied him timely review of his pled and substantiated actual innocence claims. See, Lambrix v. Florida, U.S. Ct. Case #06-9634 (The full Petition can be read here) and also please read, “Condemning An Innocent Man” (Full length summary of the Lambrix case from the time of his arrest, through the trial, the appellate process, and finally the new evidence uncovered that substantiates his long pled claim of innocence.)
Mr. Lambrix argues that in January 19998 his state appointed lawyer filed an appeal in the lower state court arguing an actual innocence claim. Now, well over 9 years later that appeal remains pending despite Lambrix’s repeated and even relentless efforts to expedite review and reach a final disposition. At the time in which the Supreme Court aggressively pushes to expedite capital state post conviction proceedings, under what conceivable circumstance could any state post conviction appeal remain pending before a single court for over 9 years?
Quite simply, the evidence supporting Lambrix’s pled claims that the local state attorney’s office deliberately conspired and collaborated with the sole key witness to fabricate the entire wholly circumstantial case brought against Lambrix, is now, so overwhelming that it cannot be denied. See, Southern Injustice: The New face of Bigotry and Injustice in the South. Unable to discredit Lambrix's claims of innocence, the state has instead decided to deliberately perpetuate this injustice by obstructing and denying timely review -- effectively holding the case hostage in the lower state court, refusing to allow it to proceed. See, “Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied.”
Determined to bring an end to this nightmare of injustice, Lambrix filed a petition in the Florida Supreme Court attempting to compel that Court to take the action necessary to force the lower court to expedite review and make a ruling. However, Florida’s Senior Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar convinced the Florida Supreme Court that Lambrix was prohibited from petitioning the Court for relief as only the state appointed supervised post conviction counsel could file any action in the case – Lambrix had no right to personally address the Court. The Florida Supreme Court blindly adopted this pathetically disingenuous argument in an unprecedented ruling, refusing to compel the lower state court to provide timely review. See, Florida Supreme Court Says, “No Right To Expedited Review of Actual Innocence Claim.”
Lambrix then initiated the now pending Petition in the U.S. Supreme Court. In a response to this petition submitted by Senior Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar, the State of Florida again is attempting to manipulate the Court to circumvent review of the issue of whether a capital post conviction (death-sentenced) prisoner has any enforceable right to reasonably timely review of a pled and substantiated claim of actual innocence Once again Florida’s legal counsel Carol Dittmar has filed an action saturated with deliberate deceptions and factual misrepresentations intended to deceive the Supreme Court. (Both Ms. Dittmar’s response and Mr. Lambrix's reply to that response will be posted in their entirety on this site within the next week.)
Why has our contemporary judicial system become so inherently corrupted that even a capital defendant arguing a substantiated claim of actual innocence cannot even hope that truth and justice will prevail? Because those at the highest levels of our state and federal judiciaries refuse to take any action against these morally and ethically corrupt state prosecutors who repeatedly resort to deliberate misrepresentations and outright lies to defend against claims. See, “Prosecutorial Misconduct: Does Immunity Invite Injustice?.”
What is even more tragic is that our courts themselves have lost their own moral compass – truth and integrity mean nothing in today’s judicial system. State lawyers such as Senior Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar know that they can flagrantly commit perjury before even the highest Court as they know the Court will not even concern itself with discerning the truth, much less take any disciplinary action against corrupt state lawyers who do unethically perjure themselves with complete impunity.
Under the pretense of a “conservative judicial agenda,” today’s courts would rather deliberately put an innocent man to death than expose an injustice. Incredibly, many of these so-called conservatives adopt a philosophy that it is acceptable to execute an innocent man as the Constitution does not protect the innocent from being executed – it only protects the right to a fair trial. See, Blessings of Liberty in the Land of the Free. Unless a factually innocent man (or woman) can show that he was denied a “fair trial” and show it within the statutorily mandated time limits; innocence is irrelevant.
How can anyone have any confidence in such a system? In case after case we see that the corruption of the system itself is the product of corrupt state attorneys who will do anything to win at any cost. See,"The Anatomy of A Corrupt Prosecutor". Truth and integrity are no longer relevant… only winning matters and state prosecutors such as Senior Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar knows that the only way to climb that politically controlled career ladder is to do whatever it takes to win – even put innocent men and women to death.
Is our own Supreme Court suborning perjury? Of course they are -- just watch as this case unfolds and you will see that the Supreme Court, even when it is brought to their attention that Ms. Dittmar has flagrantly misrepresenting material facts with the intent to deceive the Court, the Court will not make any attempt to discern the truth. To knowingly turn a blind eye when lawyers commit perjury is to encourage and invite unethical behaviors. By refusing to take action against parties that violate ethical standards; the Supreme Court does induce and suborn perjury.
Justice can never prevail when truth itself becomes irrelevant. In the words of President Abraham Lincoln, “Evil can only prevail when good men choose to do nothing!” There can be no greater within our judicial system than the deliberate disregard of the sacred concepts of truth and justice within our court system… justice can only hope to prevail when truth itself is religiously protected and preserved. The Supreme Court has a moral and ethical obligation to aggressively take action against any party who dares to misrepresent material facts before it – but today’s Supreme Court will do nothing.
When a state attorney general can appear before our Supreme Court and so blatantly defend against a state prisoners substantiated claim of actual innocence by presenting deliberate material misrepresentations intended to intentionally deceive the Court, and be so confident that they can do so with complete impunity, knowing full well that the Court will not take action against a state lawyer; then that itself provides a telling commentary on the integrity of today’s judicial system as a whole.
This is the greater tragedy… this unethical and contemptuous action by Senior Assistant Attorney General Carol Dittmar will be rewarded by the court because the Supreme Court itself has become so corrupt by its own bias against capital (death sentenced) prisoners that truth and justice are irrelevant. But consider this… when the very least of our society can no longer come before our courts with any hope of having truth and justice prevail, then the very soul of our constitutional democracy itself has now been executed at the hands of these conservatives who adhere to the philosophy that it is far better to execute an innocent man than to expose an injustice that might embarrass the judicial system and undermine the public’s confidence.
Don’t these conservative justices get it? The greatest threat to undermining public confidence in the judicial system is not exposing injustices, but eroding the sacred concepts of truth and justice. The integrity of our judicial system is dependent upon the Court’s willingness to protect truth allowing anyone to appear before the court and deliberately deceive the Court with complete impunity is the greatest threat. Eliminate integrity and there can be no justice.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)