Category Archives: Law and Justice

We Have the Means to Fund Reparations. Where Is the Political Will?

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. . . Between 1983 and 2016, the median net worth for Black Americans actually went down by 50 percent. Paired with a growing Latinx population that also lags far behind whites in household wealth, the U.S.’s overall median wealth trended downward over those decades, even as median white wealth increased.These trends go hand-in-hand with the rigging of the overall economy. Over the last 30 years, the wealthiest 20 percent of households have captured almost 97.4 percent of all increases in wealth, leaving only scraps for the rest.To repair these breaches — between Black and white, as well as between the rich and the rest — we must restore the wealth of communities that were literally used as a foundation of the nation’s wealth, while being prohibited from building their own.

As Ta-Nehisi Coates wrote in his groundbreaking case for reparations in The Atlantic, reparations are “the price we must pay to see ourselves squarely.”It won’t be an easy task. But it’s by no means insurmountable.”

Source: We Have the Means to Fund Reparations. Where Is the Political Will?

Trump Is Leaving Democrats No Choice but to Impeach. And That’s Just Fine. | The Smirking Chimp

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“By the end of the hearing, Barr had simply stopped trying to justify his actions. Asked if he would provide certain notes taken on a conversation between himself and special counsel Robert Mueller, Barr responded curtly, “No.” Asked why not, he offered, “Why should you have them?” In other words, Barr dropped any pretense whatsoever of being cooperative, instead suggesting, Yeah, I’m obstructing, what are ya going to do about it?”

Source: Trump Is Leaving Democrats No Choice but to Impeach. And That’s Just Fine. | The Smirking Chimp

Mueller Report Says Trump Committed Crimes – The Atlantic

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Mueller does not accuse the president of crimes. He doesn’t have to. But the facts he recounts describe criminal behavior. They describe criminal behavior even if we allow the president’s—and the attorney general’s—argument that facially valid exercises of presidential authority cannot be obstructions of justice. They do this because they describe obstructive activity that does not involve facially valid exercises of presidential power at all.

Source: Mueller Report Says Trump Committed Crimes – The Atlantic

There were nearly a million black farmers in 1920. Why have they disappeared? | Environment | The Guardian

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Today there are just 45,000 African American farmers. One man is fighting to save them.

Source: There were nearly a million black farmers in 1920. Why have they disappeared? | Environment | The Guardian

White Privilege and White Disadvantage – Race, Racism and the Law

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Simply stated, “poor people and people of color,” as well as its variants, imply that being poor is like being non-white. Now, if being poor is, in fact, like being non-white, then poor white people are like people of color. Significantly, if poor white people are like people of color, then the concept of white privilege becomes a bit misleading, if not altogether inaccurate. As Part II explains, white privilege refers to advantages that white people are supposed to receive by virtue of the fact that they are white. The concept presupposes that all white people–even the poor ones–have privileges on account of their race. However, if being poor is like being non-white, and if poor white people are like people of color, then it may not make sense to conceptualize poor white people as being privileged relative to people of color. If poor white people’s class disadvantage puts them in a social position that is similar to that occupied by people of color, then white privilege may not be something that they enjoy. Further, if white privilege is not enjoyed by poor white people, then it may make little sense to call it white privilege– inasmuch as white privilege implies that the privilege flows from being a member of the white race. It may make more sense to admit the error involved in the concept of white privilege and come up with a different concept altogether–something like affluent white people’s privilege or white class privilege.

Source: White Privilege and White Disadvantage – Race, Racism and the Law

The Central Park Five, Criminal Justice, and Donald Trump | The New Yorker

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In two trials, in 1990, Santana, Wise, Richardson, McCray, and Salaam were convicted of the attack, even though there was no physical evidence tying them to it, only their supposed confessions, which contradicted one another. They were sentenced to terms of between five and fifteen years. The accused came to be known as the Central Park Five, but that, too, was a linguistic dodge. Better to identify them by their number and the scene of their alleged crime than by the brutality visited upon them by an arbitrary justice system and the public opinion that abetted it. In 2002, Matias Reyes, a convicted rapist, confessed to the crime, and, based on DNA evidence, the charges against the five were vacated. In 2014, the city paid them forty-one million dollars, to settle a federal civil-rights lawsuit.

Source: The Central Park Five, Criminal Justice, and Donald Trump | The New Yorker

Ten Solutions to Bridge the Racial Wealth Divide – Inequality.org

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The deep and persistent racial wealth divide will not close without bold, structural reform.  It has been created and held in place by public policies that have evolved with time including slavery, Jim Crow, red lining, mass incarceration, among many others. The racial wealth divide is greater today than it was nearly four decades ago and trends point to its continued widening.

Source: Ten Solutions to Bridge the Racial Wealth Divide – Inequality.org

Trump’s Man on the Inside at the IRS | DCReport.org

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Charles Rettig is Running the Tax Agency for One Reason Only—To Keep His Boss’s Returns Locked Up

“Unless they are too brazen or clumsy, very rich tax cheats with very good lawyers get to deal with their tax offenses behind closed doors.  As a criminal tax defense lawyer once told me, “I get paid to save people from indictments for their tax crimes by settling cases before their names go into the public record.”

 

Source: Trump’s Man on the Inside at the IRS | DCReport.org

Cornel West and the Intellectual Dishonesty of the ADOS Movement

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Cornel West recently expressed support for the ADOS movement . . . not surprising… Martin Luther King, whom West has written about, was not a Pan-Africanist, but he clearly saw the connection between the African struggle for freedom and the African American struggle for freedom. King said:

The masses of people are rising up. And wherever they are assembled today, whether they are in Johannesburg, South Africa; Nairobi, Kenya; Accra, Ghana; New York City; Atlanta, Georgia; Jackson, Mississippi; or Memphis, Tennessee — the cry is always the same: “We want to be free.”

In embracing ADOS, West is embracing the opposite of King’s vision.

Source: Cornel West and the Intellectual Dishonesty of the ADOS Movement

Time Served-Justice Still Denied: the Wrongful Conviction of Rodney K. Stanberry | freerodneystanberry.com Blog

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Rodney K. Stanberry- Innocent and Incarcerated for 20 Years

Rodney K. Stanberry spent 20 years in prison for crimes he did not commit. He received three 20 year sentences to be served concurrently for burglary, attempted murder, and robbery.   He was arrested in 1992, convicted in 1995 and began serving a prison sentence in 1997.   He left prison on March 13th, 2017.  Like Thompson, like Williams and Myers, like Michael Morton, like so many others, his case should have been an open and shut case.  The prosecutor had a confession from another individual who was actually present when the crimes took place. The individual who confessed did so BEFORE Rodney’s trial.  He had one of the best attorneys in Mobile, AL as his attorney and his attorney told the prosecutor that he would tell him everything.  Why would he do this? Because the person who confessed thought the prosecutor was actually interested in arresting and convicting the actual culprits. He knew an eyewitness on the ground saw him as he was exiting the victim’s home. He thought he was caught.  He, the person who actually was one of the two people present when the victim was brutally shot, got a firsthand view of how prosecutors will let the guilty go free in order to convict the innocent. And less he thought it was just one prosecutor, Joe Carl Buzz Jordan, he would discover that on Rodney’s appeal, another prosecutor also with the Mobile District Attorney’s Office would go out of her way to ensure that he did not say in court what she knew he would say. So she said if you talk, you are going to get life. She did not want him to go on record to tell the truth, for that would mean that the record further reflected that the Mobile District Attorney’s Office convicted an innocent man.  Upholding the conviction should not be more important than letting an innocent man out of prison.   http://www.freerodneystanberry.com/yahoo_site_admin/assets/docs/tierny_redo.9113550.pdf)

 

Source: Time Served-Justice Still Denied: the Wrongful Conviction of Rodney K. Stanberry | freerodneystanberry.com Blog