#Criminal Justice

[politijohn]

Source

[luulapants]

The thing about believing that people who do horrible things are monsters is it forces you to believe in a world full of monsters.

For most people who have horrible things done to them, the worst will be done by people you trust, who you care about, who care about you. If you have to believe those people are monsters, it means that anyone can be a monster.

Trying to live like that, I can tell you from experience, will break you.

People ask why I spend so much time sending books and writing letters to people in prison when I don't have anyone on the inside. It's for a lot of reasons, but a big one is I needed to learn how to be kind to someone who did something really awful, maybe some of the same things that someone else did to me.

Someone I know was murdered last fall, and the guy that killed him just sent in his first request for books. There are some pretty good titles in there, some books I've been meaning to read, too.

I'm turning my monsters back into humans.

[atavist]

The Last Shall Be First

In 1994, the deadliest year in New Orleans history, Len Davis of the NOPD ordered a hit on a civilian who had filed a brutality complaint against him. The most notorious cop in the city went away for murder but left a hidden legacy of harm in his wake. People are still crying out for justice.

Issue no. 150 is now live:

Over the years, the various men whom Davis helped in one way or another to put away for life had advocates on the outside, well-meaning people who did what they could with the resources they had. Juluke pretended that he understood the documents a lawyer shared with him during his appeals—he didn’t know how to read and wouldn’t learn until he was 31 and still locked up at Angola. His grandmother always believed in his innocence, and when she passed away in 2008, it felt like he was left without a soul in the world who truly cared about him. One of Singleton’s young daughters saved the money she otherwise would have spent on sweets—she liked Honey Buns best—because she wanted to help pay the $25,000 retainer she’d heard someone say her father needed for a good attorney. Just the thought of her kindness and naïveté made Singleton tear up. He told himself that if he weren’t in prison, a rival in the drug game might have come along one day and shot up his home. His big-hearted daughter might have been killed.

[typhlonectes]

[reasonsforhope]

Donald Trump charged in Georgia for efforts to overturn the 2020 election

Link here, because WaPo's security measures stop Tumblr previews. Non-paywall link here.

"Former president Donald Trump and 18 others were criminally charged in Georgia on Monday in connection with efforts to overturn Joe Biden’s 2020 victory in the state, according to an indictment made public late Monday night [on August 14, 2023].

Trump was charged with 13 counts, including violating the state’s racketeering act, soliciting a public officer to violate their oath, conspiring to impersonate a public officer, conspiring to commit forgery in the first degree and conspiring to file false documents.

The Recap

The historic indictment, the fourth to implicate the former president, follows a 2½-year investigation by Fulton County District Attorney Fani T. Willis (D). The probe was launched after audio leaked from a January 2021 phone call during which Trump urged Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger (R) to question the validity of thousands of ballots, especially in the heavily Democratic Atlanta area, and said he wanted to “find” the votes to erase his 2020 loss in the state.

Willis’s investigation quickly expanded to other alleged efforts by Trumpor his supporters, including trying to thwart the electoral college process, harassing election workers, spreading false information about the voting process in Georgia and compromising election equipment in a rural county. Trump has long decried the Georgia investigation as a “political witch hunt,” defending his calls to Raffensperger and others as “perfect.”

The Details

“Trump and the other Defendants charged in this Indictment refused to accept that Trump lost, and they knowingly and willfully joined a conspiracy to unlawfully change the outcome of the election in favor of Trump,” the indictment states.

A total of 41 charges are brought against 19 defendants in the 98-page indictment. Not all face the same counts, but all have been charged with violating the Georgia Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act. Willis said she has given those charged until Aug. 25 to surrender.

Among those charged are Rudy Giuliani, the former New York mayor who served as Trump’s personal attorney after the election; Trump’s former White House chief of staff Mark Meadows; and several Trump advisers, including attorneys John Eastman, Sidney Powell and Kenneth Chesebro...

Prosecutors brought charges around five subject areas: false statements by Trump allies, including Giuliani, to the Georgia legislature; the breach of voting data in Coffee County; calls Trump made to state officials, including Raffensperger, seeking to overturn Biden’s victory; the harassment of election workers; and the creation of a slate of alternate electors to undermine the legitimate vote. Those charged in the case were implicated in certain parts of what prosecutors presented as a larger enterprise to undermine the election."

-via The Washington Post, August 14, 2023

[ukthxbye]

[anarchywoofwoof]

do u have posts where you talk abt prison abolition and alternatives to police? that'd be nice

so i've actually tried to approach abolition before multiple times and quite frankly, there are so many incredibly valuable insights provided by POC (People Of Color) and lifelong abolitionists that exist on the internet, it would be a tremendous disservice for my pasty white ass to sit here and try and educate anyone on this topic alone.

the last time i had this ask come up (you can find that post here), i deferred to FD Signifier for my thoughts on police abolition. i will do so again here for maximum visibility because he deserves it far more than i do. it is close to 2 hours long, but easily the best explanation or breakdown you'll find in such a relatively short time frame.

i'll expand on this by offering some of the more popular works that i'm aware of and a few works that i've read regarding abolition.

"invisible no more" by andrea j. ritchie provides an examination of how Black women, indigenous women, and women of color experience racial profiling, police brutality, and immigration enforcement. it aims to contextualize individual stories within the broader system of police violence and mass incarceration, calling for a radical shift in the way that we look at public safety.

"policing the planet" edited by jordan t. camp and christina heatherton combines firsthand accounts from activists with research from scholars and artistic reflections. it aims to trace back the global spread of the broken-windows policing strategy and its wide-ranging effects.

"our enemies in blue: police and power in america" by kristian williams addresses the history of policing in the united states, arguing that police brutality is intrinsic to law enforcement. it explores the relationship you've probably heard before between police and power from the era of slave patrols to modern times.

"the new jim crow" by michelle alexander extremely influential, you've probably heard of this one. it goes over how the u.s. criminal justice system functions as a system of racial control, particularly through the failed war on drugs, disproportionately targeting Black men and devastating communities of color (obligatory fuck nixon and reagan)

"violence work: state power and the limits of police" by micol siegel offers a new perspective on the police as the embodiment of state power, interconnected with the state and global capital. this one gives a unique examination of the u.s. state department's office of public safety and its influence on international police training.

"chokehold: policing Black men" by paul butler, who is a former federal prosecutor, examines the laws and practices that systematically target Black men, perpetuating institutional violence and societal fear.

"no more police: a case for abolition" by mariame kaba and andrea ritchie presents a comprehensive and practical plan for police abolition. it addresses current concerns while envisioning a future of reduced violence and enhanced justice. this is a cornerstone work and it's been lauded in many circles as being a definitive text on police abolition.

[madlori]

Yes, criminals need rights.

So I move in a lot of true crime communities. I’ve been a fan of true crime since, oh, 1980 or so (so enough with this “oh this brand new true crime trend” which has in fact been happening for hundreds of years). 

Sometimes there are opinions there which...trouble me.

Mostly when people express frustration about the rights of the accused, how rigorously they need to be defended, and the wish that criminals just had no rights and we could do whatever we want them.

Stop. That’s BAD.

But what about the rights of the victims and their families?

Here’s a hot take: the rights of the accused - and even the convicted - are more important.

Not because criminals, or those accused of crimes, are widdle babies who need protecting and we want to make things easy for them. That is not the reason.

We have to vigorously defend the rights of the accused, not for their sake, but TO PROVIDE A CHECK ON THE POWER OF THE STATE.

Lemme say that again.

THE RIGHTS OF THE ACCUSED MUST BE DEFENDED IN ORDER TO CURTAIL THE POWER OF THE STATE.

If you are going to give the state the power to punish, to restrict someone’s liberty indefinitely, or in some states take their life, then you better make fucking sure that the rights of the people at risk of this are being defended to the utmost extent of the law. The state can never, never assume that it will be easy to throw someone in jail. It must always know that it will have to prove its case beyond a reasonable doubt, respect the rights of the accused, and that the accused will be defended by people dedicated to that purpose.

If the state starts finding it easy to throw people in jail, or mistreat them during that process, you are handing it a tool to use against its political enemies. Which might at some point include you.

Should an honorable state require such countermeasures? Ideally, no. But the Constitution was written by men who understood the need for checks on governmental authority, and the right to incarcerate or execute citizens is one of the most dangerous rights the state has. 

So the victims and their families have rights, of course. But they are not the ones facing the state’s punishment. Their liberty or life is not in jeopardy.

If someone has committed a crime and the state needs to exercise its right to punish them, they should do so. But only after a rigorous process. Yes, it’s frustrating. Yes, guilty people walk free. Yes our emotions sometimes make us want to just see them hurt, damaged, or violated. But as they say, don’t ever hand the state a weapon it could use against YOU.

The state must have the hardest job in the room when someone is facing imprisonment or execution. That’s why their rights are important.

[isaacsapphire]

Saw a post about the sex offender list that kept repeating, "police love to get minorities for X crime" and I realized, both people who supposedly oppose the system and the system itself very intentionally frame police and police discretion as a more powerful and unilateral part of the system that it actually is, while ignoring or obscuring the rest of the system.

The DA's office decides what cases to drop and what to move forward with, and what punishments to request. The judges decide to throw out cases or let them continue, and then use judicial discretion in handing down sentences. And so on, I am not a legal expert yet, but there's a whole chain of people more powerful than some beat cop who chose to pursue or drop cases.

This all seems very convenient for the DA, as nobody is rioting to abolish or defund their office.

[liberaljane]

Quick color study 🎃

Digital illustration using black, purple and orange depicting a fem witch flying on a broomstick. She has a purple hat, black dress and striped socked with Pom Pom shoes. Text reads, ‘hex the prison industrial complex’

[politijohn]

Source

This should never have been a thing

[shontaaaye]

PLEASE TAKE THE TIME TO LISTEN AND SHARE THIS STORY 🙏🏾. This is the story of my mother Debrah Daniels who has been held in jail in riverside county since March 2023 for aiding and protecting her grandchild (which is my niece) from two girls that attacked her at her job and even sliced her arm with a pocket knife. Those two women have been walking around free with no repercussions for what they’ve done while my mother has been in jail for 4 months. They are trying to OVERCHARGE my mother with 1st degree attempted murder among other charges and stick her with a life sentence. My mother has been underrepresented by a public defender who did not fight for her during the pre trail and now that we were finally able to provide her with a lawyer her fate is in the hands of the jury now. She has not received ANY support from her family except for me and my older sister, our family has turned their backs on us and has not contributed anything to help, they don’t even ask how’s she’s doing. Our last hope is to rely on the kindness and support from strangers to help spread awareness of my mothers story and put pressure on the courts for their injustice. This is our last hope in bringing my mother home.

If you would like to support and share this story please check out the social media pages we have created and use the hashtag #justice4debrahdaniels. Please follow, like, comment, and share the videos detailing the case to help bring this story to light. Please help us bring my mom home.

Facebook:

Twitter: @justice4debrah

Instagram: justice4debrahdaniels

Tiktok:

[shesgoode]

my fault for majoring in forensics ig

[typhlonectes]

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Dozens gathered around a sacred fire in Winnipeg's North End on Tuesday to remember a Métis woman found dead over a decade ago, after a suspect was arrested in connection with her death. Crystal Saunders, 24, was last seen getting into a vehicle at the corner of Sargent Avenue and Sherbrook Street in Winnipeg on April 18, 2007. The next morning, an off-duty police officer found the woman's remains in a ditch near St. Ambroise, a community about 80 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg. Her killing remained unsolved for years, but 42-year-old Kevin Charles Queau was linked to Saunders's death thanks to advancements in DNA technology, Manitoba RCMP revealed Monday.

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[awesomecooperlove]

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