Why? Because the post-traumatic disorder being experienced by Iraq and Afghanistan veterans is real. Combat, especially in wars with unclear goals, inadequate planning, lack of resources, and hopeless re-integration back into society, f**** with people’s minds, and it’s not their fault. And we argue it would be counterproductive to jail him because the treatment for such trauma in US prisons is woeful. Tens of thousands of veterans currently languish in American jails, forgotten and unaided.
They didn’t ask to go to war, and many US service people are simply desperate refugees from poverty and unemployment anyway.
In a civilised society, this man should be diverted into intensive psychological care and properly rehabilitated. At least given the opportunity to be rehabilitated. He is clearly suffering from trauma in his current life, not just when serving.
The quality of mercy is measured by how we treat those who think, say or do things we would find unconscionable, but whose responsibility is diminished by their mental state.
When that mental state is directly related to their efforts on behalf of the rest of us, for which they are inadequately rewarded, then we should be doubly careful in how we respond when they go off the rails.
The issues raised in the case apply equally to Australia, the United Kingdom, and many other countries …
From Raw Story:
An Alabama man is asking a judge for mercy after pleading guilty to hiring a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) hitman to murder his black neighbor.
Defense attorneys for Allen Wayne Morgan told U.S. District Judge Karon Bowdre that their client — a veteran of over 175 combat missions in Iraq who struggled with post traumatic stress disorder, depression, and drug addiction — should not spend more than five years in prison. Judge Bowdre referred the matter to a government expert, who will review the report on Morgan’s mental health submitted by the defense.
On August 29, 2013, Federal Bureau of Investigation agents arrested Morgan at an Econo Lodge in Oxford, Alabama. He thought he was speaking with the KKK hitman he had hired to kill his neighbor, Clifford Maurice Mosley, a black man he believed had raped his wife.
He allegedly told an undercover agent that “I want this man hung from a tree like he is an animal. I want his penis cut off and I want him cut. You’re a hunting man right? I want him hung from a tree and gutted.”
Morgan is also alleged to have told the agent that he had recently confronted Mosley outside his house, firing several shots in his direction, but that he did not intend to kill him that day because there would be witnesses. He also said that he was certain Mosley had raped his wife, because when confronted, he did not attempt to stand his ground or reason with him.
He planned to check himself into a Veterans Administration hospital in order to provide himself with an alibi.
After being taken into custody, Morgan confessed to having tried to hire the hitman.
The previous year, Morgan had been profiled in a Birmingham News piece on Iraq veterans dealing with post traumatic stress disorder and depression via music.
“During times of my deepest abuse, I would try to cancel myself out chemically,” he said. “But even if we’re just jamming, it’s like time stands still. I’m not saying like all of my problems go away. But for that little bit of a moment, everything is OK. If it can make me feel like that, I know it can make others feel like that.”
He also said that when unexpected people arrive at his house, “I usually pull out a gun and run them off.”
A sickening re-confirmation, if re-confirmation was really needed, both that the American legal system is ridiculously litigious, and also that “suffering” now includes being publicly shamed for behaving in an egregiously violent and unnecessarily offensive manner to people who are merely exercising their constitutional rights.
Some points to consider:
The concept of reasonable force. Was this in any way “reasonable”?
Americans are supposed to have the right to protest peacefully. Or do they?
We also think it is very helpful to read the full Wikipedia transcript on the incident, which puts this incident in the broader context of unnecessary violence used against students at UC (including being beaten by batons) and elsewhere during “Occupy” protests.
John Pike
Anyhow: according to HuffPost, Pike was fired in July 2012 after eight months of paid administrative leave. Apparently, he and his family received death threats. Needless to say, no-one could, in all conscience, excuse that. Nevertheless, the compensation payout to him is surely yet another example of a world gone mad.
Not to mention $38,000 the University won’t get to spend on education.
Report begins:
Former police Lt. John Pike, who became infamous after cameras captured footage of him using pepper spray on protestors at the University of California at Davis, was recently awarded more than $38,000 in workers compensation from the University for “suffering he experienced after the incident,” SFGate has reported.
In the 2011 incident, students were protesting a tuition hike. Footage of Pike’s actions went viral, resulting in a popular meme, in which people digitally edited photos to include Pike pepper-spraying things and people.
Pike reportedly received more than 17,000 angry emails and 10,000 texts after the incident.
After the ensuing outrage, Pike was suspended with pay.
Citing a database of state employee salaries, SFGate reports that Pike earned $110,243 in 2010. He left the police force in 2012.
In a statement to SFGate regarding Pike’s workers compensation, U.C. Davis spokesperson Andy Fell said, “This case has been resolved in accordance with state law and processes on workers’ compensation. The final resolution is in line with permanent impairment as calculated by the state’s disability evaluation unit.”
Last year, U.C. Davis settled a lawsuit with 21 of the students who were pepper-sprayed during the protest. Each student received a $30,000 settlement.
In discussing the events, Fox News commentator Megyn Kelly called pepper spray a “food product, essentially,” sparking some to hilariously suggest she test her theory by drinking pepper spray on the air.
(Materials sourced from SFGate/Yahoo/Seven News)
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A case where the punishment uniquely and perfectly fits the crime.
Judge Mark A. Ciavarella, 63, serves as an example of why the private prison industry can do more harm than good.
Ciavarella worked alongside owners of private juvenile facilities to ensure that the prison remained occupied. More prisoners equated to more profits for the owners of the prison.
As a result, Ciavarella would sentence offenders with small offenses to months and, at times, years behind bars. He once sentenced a teen to three months in jail for creating a MySpace page that mocked her school’s assistant principal. Ciavarella also sentenced another teen to 90 days in jail after a simple schoolyard fight.
But after a federal investigation, it was discovered that Ciavarella and his colleague, Judge Michael Conahan, received more than $2.6 million from privately run youth centers owned by PA Child Care. In 2011, Ciavarella was convicted of racketeering and sentenced to 28 years in prison. He was also forced to pay $1 million in restitution.
Once Ciavarella was convicted, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court tossed out an astonishing 4,000 convictions issued by the judge.
Ciavarella appealed to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to have his 28-year sentence overturned. But on July 25, the court denied his request.
Ciavarella’s attorneys may attempt to appeal the case before the U.S. Supreme Court. Whilst we have frequently railed against “justice denied”, we frankly wouldn’t be distressed if it took a long, long time to consider any such appeal.
Is it not unfathomable that people can be this wicked? But the facts show that human depravity frequently knows no bounds. Can one imagine the grief and distress caused, not only to the non-criminals thus sentenced, but also to the shocked families and friends?
It hardly bears thinking about.
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Jailing children for life. Hardly the action of a "civilised" country.
Locked up for life at 16, with no possibility of parole. Christi Cheramie is living a nightmare.
When Christi was 16 years old, back in 1994, she couldn’t vote, drink alcohol, serve on a jury, or buy lottery tickets. She was considered a minor – a child. But that didn’t stop the state of Louisiana from giving this 16-year-old a sentence of life without parole.
Uniquely in the civilised world, only in the USA – where children as young as 11 have faced life in prison – are such harsh sentences against juveniles allowed. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child prohibits life without parole for offenses committed under the age of 18. This is not about excusing or minimizing the consequences of crimes committed by children, but about recognizing that children are not yet fully responsible for their actions and also have special potential for rehabilitation and change.
Christie Cheramie - rehabilitated, but never to be released.
Christi, who is now 33 years old, has spent more than half of her young life in prison. She’s earned her high school equivalency diploma and an associate’s degree in Agriculture Studies, and teaches classes to her fellow inmates. A prison warden who oversaw Christi considers her a “model inmate” who has grown into a “remarkable young woman” deserving of “a second chance in society.”
But if we all don’t act now to secure her release on license, a mandatory sentence of life without parole means that Christi will die – needlessly, pointlessly – in prison.
A victim of sexual abuse and depression, and caught in the web of an aggressive and controlling older fiancé, Christi found herself unwittingly at the grisly murder scene of her fiancé’s great aunt. She was charged with murder just for being there – even though it was her fiancé who wielded the knife and the chief investigating officer confirmed that was his unshakeable belief.
The victim’s closest family members are sympathetic to Christi’s case. But Christi’s fate is now in the hands of Louisiana’s governor and Board of Pardons.
Amnesty International’s 2011 Write for Rights campaign highlighted Christi’s case, and thousands of letters have already poured into Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s office. Next week, the Board of Pardons will meet to decide whether or not to move forward with Christi’s clemency application – a decision that the governor can influence, incidentally. You can tweet him at @bobbyjindal.
Christi has already changed people’s lives for the better through her work at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women, but she will never be able to realize her full potential – and society won’t benefit from her potential contributions – and we all have to keep paying for her incarceration – if she spends the rest of her life behind bars.
It’s time for the U.S. to join the rest of the world and end the cruel and unusual punishment of juvenile life without parole. People convicted of crimes while still children — like Christi Cheramie — should be given a chance at rehabilitation. They shouldn’t be left to rot and grow old in a jail cell.
It is worth trying anything to secure her release, but sadly, Louisiana reduces virtually no “life means life” sentences. Even close relatives of Aunt Nan – the lady who was murdered – think Christi should be released.
You can also see an excellent and balanced report, and hear Christi Cheramie’s story in her own words and an intelligent discussion about her case, from CBS, here: http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6489113n
I would recommend watching the CBS report if for no other reason than to witness the implacable Louisiana prosecutor who thinks Christi should never be released. His motive, clearly and concisely explained, more than once, is, quite simply, is vengeance. Not rehabilitation. Not protection for society. Not deterrence.Vengeance. He calls it “punishment”, but that is what he means.
No doubt he righteously attends church every Sunday – what is certain, in my mind, is that he and those like him will never see the Kingdom of God.
Oh, and by the way? When Americans bleat that they don’t understand why people in the rest of the world criticise their freedom-loving country, this is why. Partly, at least.
Your legal system often horrifies us. That you allow it to continue to behave like this horrifies us even more.
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Many people have asked me for the full details of why Troy Davis should not be executed next week. Rather than express a purely personal view, I think it would be more helpful if people could read the full story from an independent source, in this case the NAACP, who yesterday delivered more than 660,000 signatures to the Georgia Paroles Board arguing that Davis’s case does not allow the death penalty to be fairly applied. You can watch the delivery of the petition here:
And there is still time – urgently – for you and your friends to sign the Amnesty International petititon here:
(There is a link for overseas residents to email him at the top of the form.)
Meanwhile, here are the detailed facts of the case. They reveal the iniquity of suggesting Troy Davis should be legally murdered. They are also an utter indictment of the judicial system that would allow such a thing to happen.
In its public order granting a stay of execution to Troy Davis in 2007, the Board of Pardons and Paroles set out a standard for clemency: “[The Board] will not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused.”
Case Background
In the early morning hours of August 19, 1989, several people including Troy Davis and Sylvester “Redd” Coles were hanging out near a Burger King parking lot adjoined to a Greyhound bus station in Savannah, Georgia. Coles started arguing with a homeless man named Larry Young, demanding that Young give him a beer. As Young walked away, he was pistol-whipped in the head. Police officer Mark MacPhail, serving off-duty as a security guard at the bus station, responded to a call for help. As he came running to Young’s aid he was shot and killed by the same man who had attacked Young. The day after the shooting, Coles went to the police station with his lawyer and said that Troy Davis was the shooter.
Major Issues in the Case
1) Witnesses Implicate a Different Man as the Shooter
Since the Board last examined Davis’ case, two additional witnesses have implicated Sylvester Coles. First is Benjamin Gordon, who clearly testified at the 2010 federal evidentiary hearing that he saw Coles shoot Officer MacPhail. Gordon recounted specific details of the shooting that have not been publicized and police reports hours after the shooting put him across the street from the crime scene at the moment of the shooting. Gordon is related to Coles, has known him all his life, has been ostracized by his family for testifying and has said that he kept quiet all these years for fear of Coles retaliating against him.
Second is Quiana Glover, who, like Gordon, has no connection to Davis or his family and has known Coles most of her life. She has sworn that she heard a flustered Coles confess in 2009 to the MacPhail murder. Unfortunately, her testimony was excluded at the 2010 evidentiary hearing. Several witnesses have implicated Coles in sworn statements, including two others who stated he confessed to the murder.
2) Investigation Excluded Important Figure as a Suspect
In the investigation, Coles was never treated as a suspect, despite the fact that he indisputably was the one who began the altercation with Young that led to the shooting of Officer MacPhail. Several witnesses indicated that only one person was arguing with Young and this person was also the shooter. Coles admitted at trial that he was arguing with Young. Further, Coles admitted to having had a .38 caliber revolver that night, the exact type of gun used to shoot MacPhail. There was never a search for his gun nor did he ever produce it, claiming it was lost; therefore, it could never be tested.
Of the eyewitnesses to the murder, only Coles and Darrell Collins (who tried to recant before and after trial) knew Davis. It is critical to note how most of the eyewitnesses first identified Davis as the shooter. Within a week of the murder, they were gathered together by the police for a reenactment of the crime at the crime scene. By then, witnesses would have likely been exposed to Davis’ image, which was all over the local news and he was in jail as the prime suspect. In a photographic spread of five men, Davis was the only one pictured who had been at the crime scene close to the time of the shooting. Not only was Coles not pictured, but he was treated as the principle witness, invited to the reenactment, and treated as an innocent bystander standing alongside the other witnesses.
3) Most of State’s Witnesses Contradicted Their Testimony
Too much doubt to kill a man
Since trial in 1991, seven of the nine state trial witnesses have contradicted their testimony or admitted their testimony was false. Additionally, several informants who testified at trial also recanted. All of the state trial witnesses who recanted that are still alive have testified to the Board or the federal district court:
Kevin McQueen told the Board in 2007 that he was a jailhouse snitch and that his testimony that Troy Davis confessed to him was a complete fabrication.
Larry Young told the Board in 2007 that Coles, not Davis, most likely attacked and pistol-whipped him. The record shows that the shooter attacked Young before shooting MacPhail.
Antoine Williams told the Board in 2008 that he had serious doubts about his identification of Davis. Also, he told the board the shooter was the same man arguing with Young.
Darrell Collins recanted his police statement at trial and at the 2010 federal evidentiary hearing, testifying that the police had threatened him as an accessory if he did not implicate Troy Davis.
Jeffrey Sapp told the Board in 2007 that his trial testimony that Troy Davis confessed to him was a fabrication that was a result of police suggestion and intimidation.
Dorothy Ferrell told the Board in 2008 that she lied at trial when she confidently implicated Davis. The shooter’s light colored skin led her to conclude before trial that Coles was the likely shooter (Coles’ complexion is lighter than Davis’, hence the nick name “Redd”). Ferrell testified at trial that she could identify Davis, despite being positioned across a four-lane tree-lined boulevard with poor lighting conditions at 1:00am.
Harriet Murray (died in 2006) signed an affidavit in 2002 reaffirming her initial statements that the shooter was the same person who argued and followed Young. She could not initially “put a face” on anyone in the lot and identified Davis only after the problematic crime reenactment.
Of the two witnesses who have not contradicted their trial testimony, one (Steven Sanders) could only identify Troy Davis at trial, two years after he told police that he “wouldn’t know the shooter again if I saw him.” The other is Sylvester Coles, whose recantation would implicate himself.
4) New Analysis of Physical Evidence Contradicts the State’s Case
In 2008, the State submitted to the Board a report by the Georgia Bureau of Investigation (GBI) that purportedly showed the presence of blood on a pair of shorts recovered from Davis’ home in the days after the murder. Davis’ attorneys were unaware of the existence of this report. Following the Board’s denial of clemency in 2008, a DNA and serology expert reviewed the full GBI report. The federal court in 2010, after reviewing the new expert analysis, concluded that “the shorts in no way linked Mr. Davis to the murder of Officer MacPhail,” and found that “it is not even clear that the substance was blood.” The court concluded that even if the substance was blood, it “could have belonged to Mr. Davis, Mr. Larry Young, Officer MacPhail, or even [could] have gotten onto the shorts entirely apart from the events of that night.” Therefore, the value of this item as evidence has been thoroughly challenged.
Justifications for Clemency
In 2004, Willie James Hall was granted clemency partly because former jurors said they would have voted for life without parole had it been an option. Davis’ 1991 jury took ample time to deliberate on the sentence and asked the judge whether life without parole was an option, but it was not. In 2007, before Davis’ first execution date, four jurors signed affidavits expressing concerns and a desire that the execution not proceed. Juror Brenda Forest said in a TV interview, “If I knew then what I know now, Troy Davis would not be on death row…the verdict would be ‘not guilty.”
Because executive clemency exists to provide a final failsafe it is not bound by the same strict rules and procedures as the courts. The Board is able to intervene in cases like Mr. Davis’ where the evidence is circumstantial and contradictory. Davis’ task in federal court was to prove his innocence. While the court felt he did not meet this admittedly “extraordinarily high” burden, serious and unresolved doubts persist. These doubts put Georgia at risk of an irreversible and monumental mistake which could weaken public confidence in the justice system. By following the “no doubt” standard made by the Board in 2007 and commuting Davis’ sentence to life imprisonment, today’s Board could eliminate this risk altogether by choosing to mercifully err on the side of life.
PLEASE ACT NOW. THIS MAN HAS LESS THAN ONE WEEK TO LIVE – AND GEORGIA POLICE, PROSECUTORS, GOVENOR AND PEOPLE SHOULD THINK ABOUT THIS: THE REAL MURDERER IS STILL AT LARGE.
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It's the thin line between reality and fantasy. It's the thin line between sanity and madness. It's the crazy things that make us think, laugh and scream in the dark.
Well, This Is What I Think 