CALL FOR IMMEDIATE ACTION!!!

BREAKING NEWS FROM THE FEDERAL PRISON IN POLLOCK, LA
FROM COMRADE KEITH "MALIK" WASHINGTON:

A couple of months ago, David Sumera (#37063-034), who is from Louisiana, but serving in the federal system, had a Gran Mal seizure which left him paralyzed from the waist down. He shouldn't even be here! They don't have the facilities in place nor the staff to offer him adequate medical care. Recently, staff have not been giving him the opportunity to shower and clean himself so he is left sitting and laying in his urine and excrement.

On July 4th, David requested to be placed in the shower. His cellmate, Jason Lee, who is also from Louisiana, helped him get in the shower. On or about 5 p.m., David had a seizure. During and after the seizure, numerous officers and prisoners were eye witnesses to a Lieutenant Rene (White, male) saying to David (and I quote): "I hope he fuckin' dies." And he kicked him in the ribs.

I will write a grievance tonight, but please -- as soon as possible -- organize a Phone Zap to call Warden Chris McConnell at 318-765-3119 demanding that David Sumera be moved immediately to an appropriate facility where he can and will be given the medical attention and on-going care he needs.

As we know, federal and state prison systems have suspended visiting "privileges" using the COVID-19 pandemic as the excuse. This makes it even more important for us to act quickly and powerfully to hold administrations and staff accountable for the safety and care of those in their custody. Please act now.

South Carolina Prisoners, Stay Strong! ~ Part 2

In 1971, when I first started haunting the doors of the prisons of this country, it didn't take long for me to hear about solitary confinement and the extraordinary ways it was sometimes being used. Unrest was rippling across America like a swarm of rabid locusts and the Powers-That-Be at the top of the prison food chain were dealing with "criminals" the likes of which they were unaccustomed. There were still bank robbers, of course, but sometimes now, they were committing their crimes to bankroll a group protesting the Vietnam War or police brutality. And the Black Panther Party had offices in 68 cities serving thousands of members. Folks at the top were worried -- and even scared. And not without reason.

Alcatraz had been closed eight years before with the prisoners showing up at Marion Federal Pen in southern Illinois, a new kind of prison for prisoners deemed "incorrigible" or "sociopathic" (both of which terms we knew meant "won't bow to authority"). As members of the Black Panthers and other politically-conscious groups hit the tiers, though, it became quickly apparent that this new breed of incarcerated citizens were not only dangerous because they would punch a guard where it hurts the most, but because they were smarter than the guards and even, in most cases, smarter than the wardens. They had read Mao and Marx and Lenin, as well as books by prisoner intellectuals like George Jackson. They held political education reading groups inside that quickly caught on like wildfire. They organized groups of resisters and modeled how solidarity between the groups would make it possible to fight the authorities instead of each other. It was a new and exhilarating era.

Then Attica upped the ante and it was on.

South Carolina Prisoners, Stay Strong! We Got Your Back!

The United Nations recognizes as torture all solitary confinement for more than 15 days. Lockdowns, amounting to solitary confinement and therefore torture, are group punishment, undeserved and infuriating. Add to that steel plates covering cell windows. The denial of a view of outdoors and of all natural light is described as torture by prisoners in windowless supermax prisons like the dreaded Pelican Bay SHU in California. Here, prisoners’ families, worried that the oppression may become intolerable, protest outside Perry Correctional Institution in Pelzer, S.C. – Photo: FitsNews

by Keith "Malik" Washington, Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee*

Revolutionary greetings, Comrades and all fellow workers throughout the world!

It seems like only yesterday when we all heard about the bloody riot that occurred at Lee County Correctional Facility in South Carolina. Too many of our incarcerated comrades died.

I remember the call that was made for a National Prison Work Stoppage in 2018. I didn’t hesitate to answer the call. Our comrades at the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee did not hesitate to answer the call or lend their support. Amani Sawari and her comrades from Jailhouse Lawyers Speak were on the front lines of the struggle for human rights.

I knew the real reason for the work stoppage.

I knew about the inhumane prison conditions in South Carolina. I knew that the state prison officials were attempting to control the narrative that was fed to the public at large. They claimed that the violence at Lee County was all about drugs, cellphones and turf wars.

The warriors and freedom fighters at the Free South Carolina Movement reminded all of us what the oppressors were attempting to suppress. The oppressors forgot to mention the lack of rehabilitative programming in South Carolina prisons.

They forgot to say anything about the squalid living conditions and the deadly extreme heat which is killing prisoners right now. They forgot to talk about the antiquated and bigoted criminal justice system which continues to manifest and perpetuate a program of modern day slavery. The spirit of Denmark Vesey lives! George Jackson lives!

Today, the oppression has, if anything, intensified. Many prisons are still on and off of lockdown TWO YEARS after the riot at Lee that touched off the 2018 prison strike. Friends and family of loved ones in South Carolina are organizing – the current demand is for removal of the steel plates installed over all the cell windows in some institutions, denying all natural light for the duration of the lockdowns – but change is slow and folks lose hope. 

The oppressors who operate these slave kamps in South Carolina need to know that the struggle for freedom, justice and equality for all is alive.

We demand dignity, respect, and humane treatment for our comrades in South Carolina now! Locking human beings in cages for months at a time is not rehabilitation – it is torture!

Congressman James Clyburn must be encouraged strongly to get involved here. We don’t need any Jeffin House Negroes or Step-N-fetchits! We need servants of the people!

Presidential candidates Bernie Sanders, Corey Booker and Elizabeth Warren as well as Kamala Harris had some strong words in regard to criminal justice reform at the most recent presidential debate that was held in Houston, Texas. Well, now they all have an opportunity to put some “muscle with they hustle” and show us what they talkin’ about.

Speak out right now about what is happening to the incarcerated human beings trapped in these slave kamps in South Carolina! Or were they just rappin’?

Comrades, the struggle for human rights and prison abolition is a protracted struggle. There will be ups and downs. Make this message go viral, y’all! Let’s see what these politicians are really about.

Dare to struggle! Dare to win! All Power to the People!

*Keith “Malik” Washington is co-founder and chief spokesperson for the End Prison Slavery in Texas Movement, a proud member of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee and an activist in the Fight Toxic Prisons campaign. Read Malik’s work at ComradeMalik.com. Send our brother some love and light: Keith “Malik” Washington, 34481-037, FCC Complex USP, P.O. Box 26030, Beaumont TX 77720.

NOTE: This communique was first published in the San Francisco Bay View.

Decarcerate Louisiana and Supporters Call for Change

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

*  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *  *

DATE:           May 1, 2019

CONTACT:  Email: decarceratelouisiana@gmail.com

                       Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100015779203681

                       Website: https://decarceratelouisiana.com

                       Mike Lukash, Outside Member, Decarcerate Louisiana / Phone: 330-714-3464

ANGOLA PRISONERS AND SUPPORTERS CALL FOR CHANGE

            On May 8, 2019, incarcerated citizens at Louisiana State Prison at Angola, their families, and other supporters will mark the anniversary of a nationally-reported* prison strike and work stoppage on that date in 2018, calling the commemoration “Mayday” to highlight the sense that it is a distress call to everyone that believes all people have human rights. Members of Decarcerate Louisiana admit that prison administrators have made limited efforts to address some of the prisoners’ grievances, but little has actually occurred to meet the demands put forward a year ago.

            As a result, the members of Decarcerate Louisiana are now renewing their demands as outlined below, while also connecting their struggle to a larger movement for social justice by standing in solidarity with Louisiana state teachers who have been waiting for more than a decade to see their pay reach comparable levels with the rest of the country. While the Louisiana Governor’s office reports that the state spent roughly $12,000 per public school student in 2018, the Vera Institute of Justice reported that the Louisiana Department of Corrections spent more than twice that (at $25,310) per prisoner.

            Decarcerate Louisiana, a movement that focuses on the rights of prisoners and their families, originated in Angola, but has since spread to other institutions in the state. Members are pledged to continue to make public their concerns related to, among other things, the use of incarcerated citizens as slaves, which is currently sanctioned by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Decarcerate Louisiana supporters point out that forcing prisoners to work for as little as four cents per hour under the threat of severe punishment, including solitary confinement, is slavery pure and simple and should be abolished completely.

            Movements calling for the abandonment of this practice have risen in recent years across the nation, supporting each other and organizing across state borders in an effort to increase public awareness of the issues raised by the wording of the 13th Amendment, which was ratified in 1865: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

            Many believe that this wording was drafted the way it was in order to provide a process to develop a system so a nation that had been widely dependent on the use of literally millions of slaves could continue to access free labor. After the 13th Amendment became law, convict leasing systems quickly developed and then turned into state-run prisons. But more recently, correctional systems in America have added privately-owned for-profit prisons, as well as the widely used practice of making sweetheart deals between prisons and corporations that regularly use incarcerated citizens as workers for a tiny fraction of the cost of workers outside the walls. As if in support of this suggestion, Louisiana Department of Corrections statistics report that seven out of ten prisoners in Louisiana are Black.

            Aside from the underfunding of public education which has exacerbated the nationally researched School-to-Prison Pipeline, Decarcerate Louisiana is also concerned and expects to make future statements about the use of excessive force by prison guards, the excessive and inappropriate use of chemical agents, the housing of mentally ill prisoners in situations that routinely become violent and sometimes fatal, the lack of adequate mental health services in general, the overuse of solitary confinement for punitive reasons or no reason at all, the exorbitant cost of the current phone system available for prisoners to remain connected to their loved ones (which is ranked 43rd in the nation in affordability), the more than 7,000 geriatric prisoners that pose no safety problem to the public, and the many prisoners who remain incarcerated despite their being convicted by non-unanimous juries, a practice that is no longer legal.

            As a result of these concerns, the members of the Decarcerate Louisiana movement are reiterating their original demands made public on May 8, 2018:

            (1)  We believe that all living human beings are created equal and have inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, regardless of the social status.

            (2)  We believe in human rights and human dignity and that government has a fundamental obligation to protect all its citizens from slavery and human degradation.

            (3)  We are demanding a national conversation inquiring how state prison farms across the country came to hold hundreds of thousands of people of African descent against their will.

            (4)  We are urging that local, state, and federal governments who currently hold hundreds of thousands of African Americans on prison farms across the country be investigated for antebellum criminality, involuntary servitude, and slavery.

            (5)  We are demanding an end to the systematic oppression and exploitation of prisoners and their outside family and supporters for profit.

            (6)  We are demanding classrooms for our education and rehabilitation, not slavery.

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NOTE: The graphic above is the work of Heshima Denham .

* “Louisiana Prisoners Demand An End To ‘Modern Day Slavery,’” Bryce Covert, The Appeal, 6/8/18

* “Angola Inmates Halt Farm Work, Demand ‘Slavery’ Investigations of U.S. Prisons,” Benjamin Fearnow, Newsweek, 5/9/18

Call for Immediate Action!

The following communique was received today (handwritten) from men incarcerated at David Wade Correctional Center. We need to get these brothers some immediate attention, aid, and relief. The Governor's website literally has a heat warning listed.

Louisiana prison officials have a Constitutional obligation to provide conditions of confinement that comport with present day concepts of Human Dignity and we are requesting State and Federal Louisiana Public Officials, the media and Legal Aid Organizations to use their Official and Regulatory Powers to immediately investigate the foregoing Conditions of Confinement at the David Wade Correctional Center N-1, N-2, N-3 and N-4, 670 Bell Hill Road, Homer, Louisiana 71040, United States of America.

Warden: Jerry Goodwin
Phone: 318-927-0400

Governor: John Bel Edwards
Phone: 225-342-7015 or 866-366-1121

State Speaker of the House: Taylor F. Barras
Phone: 225-342-7263 or 225-342-8336

Bryan Stevenson: How To Change The World

Will California’s Governor Block Parole For Soledad Brother John Clutchette?

BREAKING: John Clutchette was released on parole from a California prison on Wednesday, June 6th. As he re-entered society, Mr. Clutchette had a few words for his supporters.

On January 12, 2018, the California Board of Parole Hearings granted parole to an elderly inmate named John Clutchette. However, supporters of parole for Clutchette are concerned that California Governor Jerry Brown will reverse the Board's decision, and Clutchette will not be released.

Supporters have a reason to be concerned. After all, this is exactly what happened in 2016 when Clutchette was similarly granted parole by the Board but Governor Brown chose to reverse the Board's ruling.

No Shackles Radio Tonight!

What Racism Has To Do With The Cost of College

A few days ago, I posted a video of a young Black woman expressing her frustration with how Black college students are often viewed, even by each other. Today, I'm posting another video about race and higher education. It explains how White Supremacy as an ideology has paired up with public policy in the United States to gut everything public and most especially public universities.

Be careful not to misunderstand what they say at the end of the video, though. When they explain that racism in the public sphere hurts everybody, they don't mean Black students and White students are equally affected. In fact, they say quite clearly at one point that Black students are more negatively impacted by racist public policies than White students are. But when the Powers-That-Be use racism to send tuition and student loans sky-rocketing, everybody gets sucker-punched.

What they're trying to get across is that White students shouldn't let the public policy decision-makers fool them into believing that attacks on the public sphere only hurt Black people. If teachers -- and students -- form a solid front, we can stop the neo-liberal bulldozer in its tracks.

In Memoriam -- While The Fight Goes On

 

On September 9th, 1971, the prisoners at the Attica "Correctional" Facility near Buffalo, New York, went down in history when they seized control of the institution and rode that bull to the end. Five days later, Governor Nelson Rockefeller, a representative of one of the oldest richest families in America, picked up the twin lightening bolts of his privilege and his power and crushed the prisoners to claim his position as the ogre he obviously was.

That was forty-five years ago. I had only been a part of the Prisoners' Digest International collective in Iowa City for about six months when it all went down. And I was sitting at a typewriter in the basement of our commune on South Lucas, dropping white crosses and neck-deep in the process of answering two huge cardboard boxes overflowing with unopened letters out of prisons and jails from coast to coast. Prisoners who had been waiting for months -- something they know well how to do -- were finally going to hear from the PDI and its umbrella entity, the National Prison Center. And I had found my niche in life.

So What Are We To Do?

I'm launching my book on race Saturday. The press release appeared in the daily newspaper last Sunday and the flyer is making the rounds. I put up a Facebook event page for it. Then, when I found out about Alton Sterling this morning, I fired off a letter to the editor. Sterling was killed 45 miles from the little town where I live, so I decided to make Saturday's launch an opportunity to invite White townspeople who want to become part of the solution to show up. I don't know if the editor will print it. It might be seen as somewhat confrontational (a-hem!), which was not my intention. I just thought maybe a few folks might be ready to answer a call to action. Though I have no control over who all might show up...

Regardless, I'm not posting about Alton Sterling's murder because the news is unfolding every two minutes and there are many ways to get it faster. Besides, I'm pissed and depressed and feeling helpless and hopeless. And everybody's being whipped to a lather already on social media anyway, but I do need to write something about what we can do to stop this.

Jamilah King: 7 Ways Black People Still Aren't Free in America

This essay was originally published on mic.com

"What to the slave is the 4th of July?"

That's the question Frederick Douglass asked during a speech in Rochester, New York, on July 5, 1852. That speech, titled "The Meaning of July 4th to the Negro," is among Douglass' most famous public addresses in part because it focuses on the irony of a country celebrating its freedom while holding millions of people in bondage.

But there's another reason why Douglass' words still resonate 150 years later. It's that his fundamental question still remains. How are black people in America, still mired in institutional racism created by slavery and white supremacy, supposed to celebrate their country?

By no stretch of the imagination are black people still slaves in America. But the institutions created by slavery, namely white supremacy, still dictate black lives daily. Nowhere is this reality as stark today than in our criminal justice system.

Black people are imprisoned in exceptionally high numbers.

African-Americans make up one million of America's 2.3 million prisoners, according to the NAACP. They're incarcerated at a rate that's six times higher than that of whites. And those numbers have exploded since the 1970s, when America's War on Drugs exploded the country's overall prison population.

Black people are more likely to be arrested for nonviolent offenses.

As more and more people were sent to prison for drug-related crimes, black people fared worse than other groups. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, black people are 3.2% more likely to be arrested for possession of marijuana than their white peers, even though blacks and whites use the drug at similar rates.

Black people are more likely to be sentenced to death for crimes against white people.

Since the death penalty was reinstated in 1976, 80% of people who have been executed have been put to death for crimes against white people — even though blacks and whites are likely to be murder victims at roughly equal rates, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.

Black people are less likely to be judged by a jury of their peers in criminal trials.

Studies have found that racism is common in jury selection. The practice is so common that the Supreme Court ruled in May that a black man named Timothy Foster on death row in Georgia could be granted a new trial because he was convicted by an all-white jury. "Even after the undeniable evidence of discrimination was presented in this case, the Georgia courts ignored it and upheld Foster's conviction and death sentence," said Foster's lawyer, Stephen Bright after the Supreme Court's ruling.

Black children are more likely to be disciplined in school than their white peers.

The pipeline to prison starts early. Black children are more likely to be disciplined and suspended from school than their white peers starting as early as pre-school. That's the beginning of what experts call the school-to-prison pipeline, which slowly puts kids on the path to incarceration.

Each day, 500,000 people fill America's jails awaiting trial because they are too poor to afford bail. Most of them are black.

Americans are technically innocent until proven guilty, but hundreds of thousands of people sit in prison every day because they're too poor to afford bail. In 2013, a study from the Vera Institute found that 50% of people awaiting trial couldn't afford bail of $2,500 or less.

Even black men who do not have criminal records are less likely to be hired for jobs than white men who've been convicted of felonies.

While a criminal record can prevent a person from any race from having a fair shot at getting a job, one study found that even when a black man doesn't have a criminal record, he's less likely to be considered for certain positions than white men with felony convictions.

For black America, freedom isn't a guarantee of American citizenship.
_______________________________________________________
NOTE: Jamilah King is a senior staff writer at Mic, where she focuses on race, gender and sexuality. She was formerly senior editor at Colorlines, an award-winning daily news site dedicated to racial justice. Prior to Colorlines, Jamilah was associate editor of WireTap, an online political magazine for young adults. She's also a current board member of Women, Action and the Media (WAM!). Her work has appeared on Salon, MSNBC, the American Prospect, Al Jazeera, The Advocate, and in the California Sunday Magazine.

Fire!

This is what I woke up to on Facebook this morning -- a video of a fire that had been set in the Holman Correctional Center in Atmore, Alabama. And I'm sure most viewers in the United States will look at this, shrink back from the screen, and shake their heads, saying, "That's why they're in there. They're right where they belong. We don't want them out here with the rest of us..."

But I'm reminded of something I wrote for the Prisoners Digest International back in 1973 when the prison in McAlester, Oklahoma, went up in flames. I am reprinting it here dedicated to the men in the HCC who are, I'm sure, this morning suffering greatly and as far as I'm concerned through no fault of their own.

"The Fire"
by Becky Hensley, SRM, EcD
(PDI, Vol. 3, Issue 3 - 8/1/73)

"Burn, baby, burn!" and the smoke rolled out -- for forty miles you could see it touch the clouds. "Those animals," says Mrs. Johnson, six miles down the road. "They're burning tax dollars of hard-working citizens!"

They're burning your heart, not your cash, Mrs. J. They would set you on fire along with the "overworked" attorneys and underpaid prisoners' rights groups and pompous, phony legislators and silent ex-prisoners and uncaring mothers and hot-pantied girl friends and all the rest of those millions of hard-working, tax-paying citizens who sit on their hands 'cause it feels so good and suck Uncle Sam's tit when they can't reach his crotch.

Sit down, thirty-one-sixty-nine-twelve, you're trying to thaw out a freezer with a three-thousand-mile diameter. Why can't you learn to sit on your hands, too? Society wants you. It has big plans for its prisoners...

Listen to the smoke, folks. Listen to the smoke go forty miles or forty years or forty more lives -- you do remember Attica? How strange. Then how many Christs will it take to satisfy the God of the People? How many nails can you drive into somebody's brain before you puke, Mrs. Johnson? Two? Ten? A thousand? Maybe more! You have a strong stomach, America, but a weak backbone.

What color is smoke made of tears, made of pain, made of law-ful petitions to unlawful courts, made of unanswered letters, made of waiting for, waiting for, waiting for waiting?

Is it the same color as the smoke belched unendingly out of the chimneys of the corporation factories and collecting in the lungs of our children? Is it the same color as the smoke that hung over Watts and Cleveland and Dante's Inferno? Is it the same color as the smoke that always exists where the plague has struck when the dead are burned with everything they touched in their dying?

Is our Spirit so dead that the flames can't ignite it? Does anyone think for a minute ole thirty-one-sixty-nine-twelve wants to die? Does anyone think for a minute that fire was started by animals? There is blood on your hands, Mrs. Johnson. There is blood on my hands. We started that fire and it won't be put out until we put it out.

S-he whose Spirit does not burn will lose their bodies to the flames and finally get just what they earn with sniveling, groveling, sweetheart games.

Play on, America -- McAlester Atmore burns.

Albert "Shaka" Woodfox Will Remain Locked Down

On Monday, June 21, the US Fifth Circuit Court ruled to overturn a July 2008 decision that ordered that Albert Woodfox's conviction and life sentence be "reversed and vacated." As James Ridgeway and Jean Casella write in their article below, yesterday's decision was "a crushing blow to prisoners' rights."

What's Next for Albert Woodfox of the Angola 3?

by James Ridgeway and Jean Casella

(Published by Mother Jones and Solitary Watch)

Albert Woodfox has spent nearly all of the last 38 years in solitary confinement at the Louisiana State Penitientiary at Angola. His case has brought protests from Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, who argue that Woodfox's decades in lockdown constitute torture, and from a growing band of supporters, who believe that he was denied a fair trial. For more than ten years, he has been fighting for his release in the courts. But yesterday, a ruling by a federal appeals court [1] ensured that for the forseeable future, Albert Woodfox will remain right where he has been for the last three decades: in a 6 x 9 cell in the heart of America's largest and most notorious prison.

It's been nearly two years since a federal district court judge in Baton Rouge overturned Woodfox's conviction [2] for the 1972 murder of a guard at Louisiana's Angola prison. Judge James Brady's 2008 ruling, which ordered the state to retry Woodfox or release him, brought new hope to the 63-year-old Woodfox, who has been in Angola-originally for armed robbery-since he was 24. A member of the group known as the Angola 3, Woodfox has always contended that he was effectively framed for the guard's murder-and then thrown into permament lockdown-because of his involvement with the Black Panther Party, which was organizing against conditions in what was then known as the "bloodiest prison in the South."

Without drawing any conclusions about Woodfox's guilt or innocence, Judge Brady of the Federal District Court, Middle District of Louisiana, concluded that Woodfox had not received due process at his 1998 trial (which was intself a replacement for a faulty 1973 trial). The main grounds for overturning Woodfox's conviction were ineffective assistance of counsel, which allowed questionable evidence and irregular practices to stand without challenge. Woodfox had argued that better lawyers could have shown that his conviction was quite literally bought by the state, which based its case on jailhouse informants who were rewarded for their testimony. (Woodfox's case was described in full in this 2009 article for Mother Jones [3].)

Judge Brady agreed, and in July 2008 he granted Woodfox's Petition for Writ of Habeas Corpus, ordering that his conviction and life sentence be "reversed and vacated." But some of the most powerful figures in the Lousiana justice system were committed to keeping Woodfox in prison and in lockdown. After his conviction was overturned, Attorney General James "Buddy" Caldwell declared [4], "We will appeal this decision to the 5th Circuit [Court of Appeals]. If the ruling is upheld there I will not stop and we will take this case as high as we have to. I will retry this case myself...I oppose letting him out with every fiber of my being because this is a very dangerous man."

Caldwell put his case before the federal Fifth Circuit in March 2009-and in yesterday's decision, he prevailed. In a 2-1 decision, a panel of three federal appellate judges ruled that Judge Brady had erred in overturning Wallace's conviction. Their decision is not only a crushing blow for Woodfox, but also a manifestation of how far the rights of the accused have fallen in recent decades.

The Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals once had a reputation [5] as one of the finest appellate courts in the land. In the 1960s, a small group of Fifth Circuit judges­ -- mostly Southern-bred moderate Republicans -- ­was known for advancing civil rights and especially school desegregation. But today the Fifth Circuit, which covers Louisiana, Texas, and Mississippi, is seen as among the most ideologically conservative of the federal appeals courts. It is notable for its overburdened docket and for its hostility to appeals from defendants in capital cases, including claims based on faulty prosecution and suppressed evidence. The court has even been reprimanded by the US Supreme Court, itself is no friend to death row inmates: In June 2004, Justice Sandra Day O'Connor wrote that the Fifth Circuit was "paying lip service to principles" of appellate law in handing down death penalty rulings.

In addition, the decision in Woodfox's case shows the crippling effects on prisoners' rights of the 1996 Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) which was passed under Bill Clinton in the wake of the Oklahoma City bombings. That legislation has become the bane of anti-death penalty lawyers and activists, and of thousands of other prisoners seeking to challenge their convictions-a pursuit which AEDPA now renders nearly impossible.

As the Fifth Circuit noted in its ruling, "The AEDPA requires that federal courts "defer to a state court's adjudication of a claim" unless the state court decision ran "contrary to...clearly established Federal law, as determined by the Supreme Court," or was "based on an unreasonable determination of the facts in light of the evidence presented in the State court proceeding." And as the judges pointed out, "An unreasonable application of federal law is different from an incorrect or erroneous application of the law."

In other words, the state courts could be wrong, they just couldn't be so far out as to be undeniably "unreasonable." And in the end, the Fifth Circuit judges agreed with the State's argument that "the district court failed to apply the AEDPA's heightened deferential standard of review to Woodfox's ineffective assistance claims." For Woodfox, this means that his time in prison stretches before him with no foreseeable end in sight. His lawyers have promised to return to his case with new evidence, but that could take years, and the outcome might still be the same. In the meantime, Woodfox and fellow Angola 3 members Herman Wallace and Robert King have mounted a constitutional challenge to their solitary confinement [6], which may come to trial before the end of this year. That case, too, will eventually go before the Fifth Circuit-and even a win would mean only a release from permanent lockdown, not from Angola.

This post also appears at James Ridgeway's personal blog, Solitary Watch[7].

________________________________________________________
Source URL: http://motherjones.com/mojo/2010/06/albert-woodfox-angola-3

Links:

[1] http://content.usatoday.net/dist/custom/gci/InsidePage.aspx?cId=theadvertiser&sParam=33855807.story

[2] http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5339513&page=1

[3] http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/03/36-years-solitude

[4] http://a.abcnews.com/Blotter/Story?id=5894181&page=1

[5] http://www.thenation.com/issue/may-3-2004

[6] http://motherjones.com/politics/2009/06/life-permanent-lockdown

[7] http://solitarywatch.wordpress.com/

Remembering a Prince and the Ones Who Took Him From Us

When Lawrence Hill Books sent me a copy of The Assassination of Fred Hampton: How the FBI and the Chicago Police Murdered a Black Panther by Jeffrey Haas, I was excited to receive it, but wondered how in the world I was going to find the time to read it in a timely manner at the end of a semester. The book came out, after all, the first of November and technically, this review should have appeared weeks ago. But I didn't finish reading it until last Sunday night and, though it's perfectly kosher to write the review before you finish the book, I couldn't bring myself to do it. The memory of Fred Hampton, a revolutionary Black Panther leader who was brutally cut down even as his star ascended, deserves better. Jeffrey Haas, a European-American civil rights lawyer who cut his legal teeth representing Black Panthers and ultimately helped to win $1.85 million for the survivors of the infamous police raid in Chicago that killed two young Black leaders, deserves better, as well. And anyway, I didn't want to jump ahead to find out how it ended. I wanted to savor every word. It's that kind of book.

A Tale of Two Henrys

When the first news stories about the arrest of world renowned scholar, author and Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates appeared, I shook my head and swore that it was just too obvious for me to "waste my time on." I refused to even imagine writing a post on the situation because, for real now, what kind of moron would arrest a 58-year-old Harvard professor (regardless of skin tone) wearing an upscale polo shirt, standing on his own porch with his photo identification in his hand? (And yes, Sgt. Crowley, I called you a moron -- no matter what a nice guy you are -- and I don't drink alcohol, so I guess we're not gonna be talkin' about it all over a beer, are we?)

Then, as the days passed and I watched the mainstream media grapple with the "issues" of the case, I became increasingly mesmerized by the attempts -- from the President on down -- to make this incredible display of institutionalized White supremacy wearing a gun Gates' problem. How dare he, the media et al seemed to be saying, come home from abroad and unjam his own front door in broad daylight? How dare he ask his driver for assistance in doing this to protect the hip he's already had to have replaced once? How dare he run the risk of confusing some woman watching him do all this so that she winds up embarrassed for being a "good citizen?" And above all, how dare he become frustrated with and worse yet, berate a uniformed law enforcement officer who had treated him with no more than the same dismissive disdain reserved for all Black men in the United States? Didn't he realize he could've been Tasered or even shot? The media and everybody they talked to seemed to be saluting the cop for not really letting loose on this uppity old man with a cane who obviously didn't re-ca-nize who he was talkin' to. In fact, other than the President (for a hot minute) and a handful of bloggers*, nobody seemed to be taking Gates' side.

"He oughta know better," said one article, speaking of Gates rather than the policeman who, we are told teaches other cops how to resist racial profiling -- which would certainly explain why some of them are so good at it. They're being trained by a guy who's surely gotta be one of the best since he can profile even a guy like Henry Louis Gates. I mean, if Crowley is the standard, it's a wonder there are any Black men at all still out of jail.

After hashing our blogospheric outrage to death, some of us even finally got around to asking the harder questions. Like why the President of the United States, himself a Black man, only stepped up to defend his "brother" when his brother was also rich and famous. Like why what happened to Gates was horrific, but when it happens to other, poorer, less privileged Black men every few minutes day and night in this country, it bearly gets a mention and a shrug. And like how this experience might affect Dr. Gates' work now that he's discovered what poor African-Americans have always known: that Blacks are virtually helpless in the face of institutionalized racism in this country and most particularly when it's wearing a badge and a gun. He never seemed to get that before. I suspect he'll have much less trouble believing it now. What more could we hope for, right?

Of course, eventually, the charges were dropped and everything went back to business as...well...usual. Which is where I come in, I guess, now that everybody's tired of reading and thinking and talking about what the Governor of Massachusetts called "every Black man's nightmare". What could I possibly have to add that hasn't already been written?

Just one small anecdote about another Henry, a man I watched for two years before I recently made it a point to meet him.

This Henry is also an older man -- maybe in the same age bracket as Gates -- but he isn't a Ph.D. He's a much more ordinary person, a working man, a Vietnam veteran who still looks into space and wanders a bit when he recalls what it meant to be Black and a soldier at war.

This Henry doesn't sit at a big, fine desk in an ivory tower at Harvard. He sits on a curb on a bridge across from my building. And he sits out there a lot.

Being a sociologist and all, I knew I had to approach him and even went so far once as to lean out my car window when the light was red and call out to him my name and a request to talk with him. He was agreeable, he said. But months more slipped by before I finally got there.

I crossed the busy street and stuck out my hand, introducing myself.

"Mind if I sit down?" I asked.

He was steady and welcoming, though not effusive. And we spent a half hour or so comparing notes on life.

Henry feeds the ants and the birds and he sits on his throne in the kingdom he has created, watching his subjects go about their daily lives while the trees behind him and across the street grow and move in the Louisiana breeze. He used to work in a restaurant, but it moved to another town. And now, Henry works here and there as he can: an afternoon's yard work or a handyman job for a day or so. At night, he goes home to his step-brother's house, where neither has steady employment. One wonders how they eat.

"The student's call you 'The Bridge Man.'" I told him. "How do you feel about that?"

"'S'all right," Henry answered.

"This is kind of like your front porch, huh?" I pushed a little further. "You sit out here and watch the cars go by...?"

Here Henry reached back into Vietnam and brought me up through the decades of his existence to the present. He's seen the world. He's lived up north. And he came back to Louisiana -- a Black man in A-merry-ca. Then, he reached back even further into history and touched the bases that the White establishment made such a crucial part of the game.

"They enslaved us and they worked us and they sent us off to war. They brutalized us and put us in schools without books and locked us in jail even when we didn't break any laws. But we're still here..."

At this point, Henry turned his head and, looking me straight in the eye, said, "I sit out here day after day -- in the rain, in the sun, in the cold, year after year -- and every person that goes by has to see me whether they want to or not. I am the Black man and in spite of all they've done to break us down and try to wipe us out, I'm still here. And I make them know that -- every day."

That, as Paul Harvey used to say, is the rest of the story. The Powers-That-Be can arrest Henry Louis Gates, proving once again that they are the Powers-That-Be and even the President better be careful what he says about it, no matter what. But there is no power that can best the spirit of Henry the Bridge Man. However quickly the cars speed by, the drivers who pointedly keep their eyes on the road have to work hard to ignore Henry the Bridge Man. He's the Truth sitting there on the curb. And the truth, Dr. Gates, will set you free.

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*See, for example, Nordette (who re-visited the highway trooper attack on the EMT in light of this newer situation), Carmen (who reminded us that the police -- ostensibly, at least --work for us), field (who shown a light on the way oppression uses language), and Macon D. (who wrote on how clueless White people are about what it's like to be Black in the USA).

Fight Human Rights Violations Today

Over the last year or so, I've nearly always posted something on human rights on the 27th of each month. Today, it's going to be short and to the point. We have two human rights related opportunities to act on today.




The first involves Leonard Peltier, the Native American who was sent to prison in 1977 for the killing of two FBI agents even the government now admits he didn't kill. He comes before the parole board tomorrow, so gear it up, readers! Watch this, if you have time. But regardless, visit this site, and then call, fax and email your congressional representatives, the warden, whatever today. Let's bring him out of there and return him to his family and friends that have sustained him during his ordeal.

The second action we're being called to take is in support of Francisco Torres, the remaining member of the San Francisco 8 who still has charges that have not been dropped. The case involves a group of former Black Panthers who were framed for the killing of a police officer back in the 1970's after several of them were tortured mercilessly by the police in New Orleans (why am I not surprised?). All of the accused have either had their charges dropped or pled no contest to greatly reduced charges, so for them, the nightmare is -- for the third and hopefully final time -- over. Torres, however, needs our help and the plan is to read up on the case and then call (916-322-3360, ext. 7) and fax (916-323-5341) California Attorney General Jerry Brown today.

Am I Not Human?

It's the 27th again and time to post on human rights with the folks at AfroSpear. And, as a matter of fact, in keeping with another of AfroSpear's recent campaigns, I'm going to take this opportunity to post on Tasering in particular as a human rights violation disproportionately -- though not only -- perpetrated against people of color in situations patently uncalled for. I received an email from the African American Political Pundit recently about a petition AfroSpear has generated to call for a Congressional hearing on the use of these weapons and I most assuredly concur with their concerns.

I've been watching in horror ever since the Taser first hit my radar a decade or so ago. I mean, all we need in this country is more ways to do bodily injury to people and get away with it. (Tasers are legal to carry -- open or concealed -- in 43 states!) But obviously, my main attention has been focused on the fascist way law enforcement officers have tended to use these tools of torture. Even Amnesty International, citing more than 300 deaths by Taser since 2001 (which averages out to about one death per week, by the way), has called for police to severely limit or suspend their use.

And no wonder. Just off the top of my head, I can recall a whole string of cases in less than a year. A 21-year-old last July; a 15-year-old in March; a 16-year-old in April; and even the near misses can do lasting damage, as indicated by the case of a 14-year-old in February. At least one branch of the NAACP is seeking information for an investigation it's doing on excessive use of Tasers. And AfroSpear announced a Day of Blogging for Justice in April, calling death by Taser "pre-trial, extra-judicial execution." In addition, a new blog, Electrocuted While Black, tracks and reports on the issue of Taser use and abuse.

Numbing U.S. citizens to the use of force resulting in "accidental" deaths ought to be reminding us of Nazi Germany, when the population was trained fairly quickly to accept whatever happened to "other people" until it started happening to everybody and it was too late to put on the brakes. Anyone that has done even a cursory exploration of history knows better than to believe the assumption that if you just "keep your nose clean," you don't have to worry about those with the Power-To-Define, including in this case, the police, who get to define these situations and their outcomes in ways that make the question "Am I not human?" moot.

"Those who are not afraid to die, come to the front."

For those who haven't been reading this blog lately, let me explain first that I'm in New York City right now. And tonight, I went to the Film Forum in Greenwich Village to watch "Burma VJ," an HBO documentary about the underground video bloggers who chronicled the popular uprising in Burma in September of 2007. Three of the monks who led the demonstrations and then had to run for their lives disguised as car salesmen (now that would be a major leap even for the paranoid Burmese military to make) were at the theater for a question-and-answer session after the showing and now I feel like a baby-stepping slacker of a social change agent. A bunch of talk and some occasional action, maybe, but nothing like what they've been doing in an attempt to free their people.

I spent most of the film with my hands up under my chin, unconcerned with what those sitting next to me must have thought. The suspense was chilling, despite the homework I did before leaving Louisiana so I'd have a clue what I was looking at. I mean, I knew the end of the story and yet I was still shallow-breathing through it, almost afraid to blink.

Some of the marching monks were children. Few were very far into their adulthood. And there were hundreds, maybe thousands of them, leading the demonstrations in their saffron-colored robes carrying their alms bowls bottom up to symbolize their unwillingness to accept contributions from the military officers who do the dirty work of the junta that has changed Burma's name to Myanmar and crushed its people for forty years. Monks refusing alms in a country where 90 per cent of the people are Buddhist is a major statement of shaming condemnation. And even after the military brutally beat the demonstrators in front of their supporters, killing one monk in the process, the monks came back again and again, forcing the government's hand until more than two hundred monks at one time were dragged bloody out of a single monastery and caused to disappear.

Even after that, monks and students still took to the streets, belligerently ignoring the government's edict that no more than five people could congregate at a time. At one point, when it became apparent that the guns were coming out, a VJ only an arm's length from the action captured the student leaders declaring over a bull horn, "Those who are not afraid to die, come to the front."

All of this is only in the film because incredibly brave and dedicated souls committed themselves to filming the events in a country where people were being shot for having cameras. In fact, more than one of the Burma VJ's were filming when a Japanese photographer was shot to death, sending that single incident out over the airwaves by satellite to the astonishment of a watching world and the horror of the military leaders giving the orders. Which was the whole point of the VJ's actions. They wanted to show the world what the dictatorship in Burma was up to. And show us all they did.

Now that U Pyinya Zawta, U Gawsita, and U Agga have been forced to run for their lives, they worry about their friends back in Burma. They know some of them are imprisoned and being ill treated. They know that some of them are dead (the film shows one monk floating face down in a creek). And they can't get good information to even know which are which. Not only are the monks and students under constant surveillance now, however. The fact is, no one in Burma dares talk about "politics" with anyone else for fear it will get back to the Powers-That-Be. There's no wiggle room. And still they fight.

Most of the Burma VJ's are now in prison or in hiding and no longer in touch with each other. Wildly popular opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi has been under house arrest for years and is about to be tried in a kangaroo court to move her into prison proper. Nevertheless, "Joshua," the VJ who was in Thailand during the demonstrations in 2007, catching what the other VJ's pitched and forwarding it on to the rest of the world because his cover had already been blown, has walked back over the mountains into Burma to set up another VJ network in preparation for the next revolution.

At the end of the showing, the three monks in attendance politely described their concerns -- two through an interpreter and one in halting, but understandable English -- and asked for help for their fellow Burmese citizens. They want China and Russia to vote as U.N. Security Council members to bring pressure to bear on the military junta in their country. The U.N. talks about how wrong the junta is, but implements nothing to put teeth in their statements. The U.S., too, of course, only talks about democracy in Burma without doing anything to encourage that as a reality. But then, the U.S. has never really had a problem accepting fascist dictatorships. It's the socialist democracies that make our government nuts.

In any case, the three monks, one of whom said later that they pray loving kindness constantly on the military tormentors who hold their country's people in thrall, not surprisingly, chose to close this evening with a prayer, as well:

"May there be no deception of one another;
may loving kindness envelop the world;
and may there be peace on Earth."

Indeed. Indeed.
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NOTE: The three monks at the film showing have apparently reached President Obama, according to The Huffington Post. Not that the Burmese junta is likely to listen. But still...

Am I Not a Human?

Last month, on the 27th, I was ill. So ill, I not only forgot to write my usual post on human rights, I didn't notice I had forgotten for days. And when I finally did remember, I felt so disappointed and was so far behind on everything, I didn't even try to explain my situation.

Things are still hectic, but not having an excuse this time, I'm going to highlight -- as I often do -- the criminal justice system. ColorofChange.org is again calling for action in support of making the sentencing of those convicted of drug offenses more balanced. They write:

"The so-called 'war on drugs' has created a national disaster: 1 in 15 Black adults in America are behind bars. It's not because we commit more crime but largely because of unfair sentencing rules that treat 5 grams of crack cocaine -- the kind found in poor Black communities -- the same as 500 grams of powder cocaine, which is the kind found in White and wealthier communities.

"These sentencing laws are destroying communities across the country and have done almost nothing to reduce the level of drug use and crime. We now have an opportunity to end this disaster once and for all. A bill is moving through Congress right now that would end the sentencing disparity. It's critical that members of Congress see support from everyday folks. Join us in asking our representatives in the House and Senate to push for its passage, and please ask your friends and family to do the same. It only takes a moment. At every step in the criminal justice system, Black people are at a disadvantage -- we are more likely to be arrested, charged, and convicted, but less likely to have access to good legal representation, and get out of prison on parole. While there's no denying that the presence of crack has a hugely negative impact in Black communities across the country, it's clear that the overly harsh crack sentencing laws have done more to feed the broken system than improve our communities.

"You have to be convicted of moving roughly $75,000 worth of cocaine to trigger a 5-year sentence. For crack? About $500 worth. These laws punish the lowest-level dealers, while providing a loophole that helps those running the trade escape harsh sentences.

"Recently, attention has turned to these ill-conceived policies as prisons burst at the seams with non-violent drug offenders. The U.S. Sentencing Commission, which provides sentencing guidelines for judges, has petitioned Congress numerous times to change the sentencing laws.

"Last year, we reached out to you when Senator Joe Biden -- one of the original architects of the disparity -- introduced a bill that would have finally eliminated it and ended the mandatory minimum for crack possession, while increasing funding for drug treatment programs and providing additional resources for going after major cocaine kingpins.

"His proposal stalled, but that same legislation is moving through Congress again with new support, and it looks like there's a real chance it could pass. The White House is a clear ally. President Obama has said many times that punishment for crack and powder cocaine should be the same, and Biden is now Vice President and still an ardent advocate for getting rid of the disparity.

"But there are foes of this plan. Others want to see the disparity reduced to 20-to-1 or 10-to-1, but not eliminated. As Bill Piper of the Drug Policy Alliance has said, that 'would be like amending the Constitution's three-fifths clause to make African-Americans fourth-fifths citizens or desegregating 60 percent of public establishments instead of all of them.' Members of Congress need to hear that there is strong support for a full elimination of the disparity, and that now's the time to support such legislation."We can take this opportunity to join the Sentencing Commission and countless other advocates in calling on Congress to change this unjust law. Please join us. -- James, Gabriel, William, Dani, and the rest of the ColorOfChange team "