Eternally Tan, Always Wrong

Ai, RIP

The NY Times reports:

The prominent American poet Ai, whose work — known for its raw power, jagged edges and unflinching examination of violence and despair — stood as a damning indictment of American society, died on March 20 in Stillwater, Okla. She was 62 and lived in Stillwater.

And then there's this extraordinary poem:

I scissor the stem of the red carnation

and set it in a bowl of water.

It floats the way your head would,

if I cut it off.

But what if I tore you apart

for those afternoons

when I was fifteen

and so like a bird of paradise

slaughtered for its feathers.

Even my name suggested wings,

wicker cages, flight.

Come, sit on my lap, you said.

I felt as if I had flown there;

I was weightless.

You were forty and married.

That she was my mother never mattered.

She was a door that opened onto me.

Brilliant!!!

BREAKING: Today's Planned Texecution STAYED

UPDATED: 6:20 pm EDT, 3/24/10: The Innocence Project reports that the US Supreme Court has issued a stay that prevents the execution of Hank Skinner.


Hank Skinner

Texas plans to kill death row prisoner Hank Skinner by lethal injection today. Even though DNA from the crime scene has never been tested, and even though Skinner has insisted for more than sixteen years that he is innocent, Texas plans today to have its inexorable revenge against Skinner for a triple homicide. Stopping the execution now so that DNA testing can be conducted depends on long shots: Texas Governor Rick Perry and last minute appeals to the Supreme Court.

The New York Times reports:

Texas death row inmate Hank Skinner doesn't deny he was in the house where his girlfriend was fatally bludgeoned and her two adult sons stabbed to death in 1993, but he insists that DNA testing could exonerate him.

Skinner, scheduled to die Wednesday in Huntsville for the New Year's Eve triple slaying more than 16 years ago, visited with his French-born wife as he waited for the U.S. Supreme Court or Texas Gov. Rick Perry to decide whether to stop his execution.

He and his attorneys contend his lethal injection should be halted for DNA testing on evidence from the crime scene in the Texas Panhandle town of Pampa. Results of those tests could support his innocence claims, they said.

''It's real scary,'' Skinner, 47, said recently from death row. ''I've had dreams about being injected. I didn't commit this crime and I should be exonerated.''

Prosecutors and the Texas Courts have insisted that Skinner isn't entitled to DNA testing of evidence that was not tested before his 1995 trial. His appointed lawyer inexplicably didn't demand it before trial. The remaining evidence in question will probably reveal whether Skinner or another man committed the murders for which Skinner was convicted.

Testing this evidence is important if Texas wants to be sure that it is not (again) killing an innocent person. The amount of evidence is not large; a DNA testing lab has agreed to conduct the testing for free. If testing does not show that Skinner is innocent, there would be slight reason to disturb his conviction. On the other hand, if the testing exonerates Skinner, he should clearly be spared and released from confinement.

What is the role of this physical evidence in this case? Dave Lindorff explains:

The thing about Skinner’s case is it would be relatively easy to prove whether or not he was really the killer of the three. There are two bloody knives that have never been tested for Skinner’s DNA--or for the DNA of Twila’s uncle, the man who had reportedly made several unwanted sexual advances at her earlier that evening, leading her to leave a party early, and who Skinner claims is the real killer. Nor was semen that was found on Twila Busby, who was raped, or skin found under her fingernails, ever DNA tested to see who they belonged to.

There were, to be sure, plenty of circumstantial reasons at the time of the trial to suspect Skinner. It is undisputed that he had been drunk and passed out on the couch in Busby’s house shortly before the murders, which occurred in the same room he was in. The drunken Skinner also staggered from the home in Pampa, TX, his hands bloodied, following the killings. But Skinner maintains that he had cut his hand, falling off the couch, and that the blood was his own. He says he had woken up to find Busby and her sons already dead.

Incredibly, police investigators at the crime scene never took fingernail clippings from Busby, nor did they take a vaginal swab at the scene, though she had clearly struggled and had apparently been raped.

This physical evidence should be tested. The execution, which has waited for more than sixteen years, can be delayed an additional few months so that testing can be completed. If the physical evidence does not exonerate Skinner, claims that Texas is executing an innocent man should be diminished.

The important questions for Texas today are these: what is the rush? Isn't it more important after all of this time, to know the truth about Hank Skinner?

Please sign this Innocence Project petition to Governor Perry.

Tiger, Tiger Burning Bright

This requires no comment:

A zoo where 11 rare Siberian tigers recently starved to death is fast becoming a symbol of the mistreatment of animals in China, with allegations of misspent subsidies, bribes, and the deaths of at least dozens of animals.

The local authorities stepped in over the weekend, taking control of the 10-year-old zoo, in Shenyang in northeastern China, and dispatching experts to try to save the remaining 20 or so tigers, three of which are in critical condition.

Among the charges under investigation are employee reports that the zoo used the bones of dead tigers to illegally manufacture a liquor believed to have therapeutic qualities. One employee said he had made vats of the liquor and served it to visiting government officials.

The government action comes after years of troubles at the zoo, the Shenyang Forest Wild Animal Zoo in the capital of Liaoning Province. The zoo’s animal population has declined from a high of more than 1,000 to about half that now.

This would be a good time (again) to donate to Panthera.

Feliz Dia de San Patricio!!

Listen to the classic “Canción Mixteca,” sung in Spanish by the Mexican supergroup Los Tigres del Norte, accompanied by [Irish] accordion, bajo sexto, tin whistle and uilleann pipes.

“How far I am from the land where I was born! Immense longing invades my thoughts, and when I see myself as alone and sad as a leaf in the wind, I want to cry. I want to die of sorrow.”

The New York Times writes:

What brings this juxtaposition to mind is “San Patricio,” a new album from Paddy Moloney of the great Irish traditionalist band the Chieftains. It commemorates a historical footnote: the San Patricio battalion of Irish-immigrant soldiers who deserted the United States Army and fought for Mexico in the Mexican-American War of 1846-48. They picked the losing side, were captured, executed or branded as traitors, and then forgotten, except by Mexicans.

Mr. Moloney, a musician of restless curiosity, saw it as a tale of tragedy and loss, but also a chance for creative collision. “If the Irish were there, there would most certainly have been music,” he says. The same goes for the Mexicans. He invited Irish, Mexican and American musicians to play and sing, to see what would happen.

What happened was not all dolorous lamentation, though there is some of that. The rest is joy, thoroughly Mexican yet utterly Irish, carried aloft by tin whistles, skin drums, pipes, harps, guitars and stomping feet. It’s a mix you’ve never heard, but eerily familiar. ...

Th[is] old song, woven into the Mexican soul, is as Irish as it gets. And it’s an American song, too. We are all people who have lost our land in one sad way and found another. Whether we lament and celebrate in a pub or cantina, whether our tricolor flag has a cactus on it or not, we are closer to one another than we remember.

So today we are all Irish. And Mexican. And everything else. Salud!

------------------------
simulposted at docuDharma and dailyKos

I Want These Prayers!.

The ABA (that's the American Bar Association) Journal brightens my day with this item:

The Christian law firm Liberty Counsel is selling “Adopt a Liberal” playing cards designed to harness the power of prayer to restore “poor leaders to right thinking.”

For $20, liberal detractors can buy the playing cards, featuring 51 liberals and an “unknown” liberal card that can represent their liberal of choice, the Washington Post reports. The cards come with instructions that say: "We encourage you to seek the Lord's guidance on how to pray for your liberal(s), always allowing God to temper your prayer with his love and mercy."

A press release on the playing cards features a trademark designation after the “Adopt a Liberal” name.

I am respectfully soliciting designation as the "'unknown' liberal" in everyone's deck. Obviously I'm not famous enough (yet) to have my own card. According to the WaPo, those who are famous enough to be on the cards include Barbara Boxer, DiFi, Ahnold, Pelosi, Oprah, Hillary, and Michael Bloomberg. Also, Al Gore (surprise!), Arianna, Bill Maher. And Arlan Spector. Sadly, I'm just not that famous, but, and this is a very, very important but, I am far, far more liberal than most all of those listed.

Here's how to order.

Place your hands upon that keyboard and send those prayers my way. I will appreciate them. I promise.

Nasri's Goal

Crack And Powder: A Drug War Reform That Preserves Inequality

This seems to be progress. The Senate measure is an initial, timid step in the right direction. But it doesn't end a decade's long, offensive, racially based inequality in federal drug sentencing. It just makes it a fifth as bad as it was.

The United States at this moment imprisons more than 2 million people. 7 million additional people are under supervision of some sort. Seventy percent of US prisoners are non-white. Approximately one-quarter of all those held in US prisons or jails have been convicted of a drug offense. "The United States incarcerates more people for drug offenses than any other country. With an estimated 6.8 million Americans struggling with drug abuse or dependence, the growth of the prison population continues to be driven largely by incarceration for drug offenses." Forget the statistics for a second. US prisons are disproportionately jammed with non-white people who have been convicted of drug crimes, and non-whites serve longer sentences than whites for possession of drugs.

One of the many reasons for these disparities in prison populations is that for more than a decade the law has made sentences for crack far, far more severe than those for powder cocaine. Since 1986 crack sentences have been 100 times those that would be imposed for the same amount of powder cocaine. That was offensive in 1986. And its continuation for the past 24 years has filled prisons with non-whites. One could ask whether this federal legislation was intentionally racist in its impact: the law presumes intent from the "natural and probable consequences of acts". And the natural and probable consequences of this legislation has been to fill prisons with people of color.

On Friday, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed a measure that would reduce but not eliminate the sentencing disparities. The WaPo reports:

A long-standing dispute over huge disparities in sentencing between crack vs. powdered cocaine appears to be headed for a resolution in Congress.

Senate lawmakers reached across the aisle and brokered a landmark deal this week to reduce criminal penalties for defendants caught with crack cocaine...snip

The often-divided Senate Judiciary Committee unanimously passed the measure 19 to 0 the same day, addressing for the first time in two decades a sentencing disparity that has troubled civil rights organizations, prisoners rights advocates and officials in the Obama White House.

The compromise would reduce the sentencing disparity to 18 to 1 for people caught with crack cocaine vs. those who carry the drug in powdered form. The current ratio has rested since 1986 at 100 to 1, disproportionately hurting African Americans, who are convicted of crack possession at far greater numbers.

The Senate bill would increase the amount of crack cocaine required to trigger a five-year mandatory minimum sentence for possession with an intent to distribute from 5 grams to 28 grams. Possessing cocaine in rock form would no longer carry a mandatory minimum prison term, equalizing that penalty to that of other drugs and marking the first time that Congress has overturned a mandatory minimum.

The House has passed a more equitable bill. In July, 2009, the House Judiciary Committee passed a cocaine sentencing bill that would treat all forms of cocaine the same for sentencing purposes, lowering the ratio to 1 to 1. The Senate bill leaves the ratio at 18:1.

Durbin and Senate Judiciary Chairman Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) continue to argue that equalizing the penalties would be the fairest approach, but gaining Republican and law enforcement support proved difficult.

"The most important thing is to change the law," Durbin said in a telephone interview. "There's been a lot of injustice. . . . I gave a little, and they gave a little."

Officials say the crack sentences undermine public confidence in the criminal justice system because they tend to penalize minorities far more than whites.

President Obama and Vice President Biden pledged to reduce the cocaine sentencing inequity on the campaign trail, and Obama called one reluctant GOP senator in the past month to express his commitment to the issue, a Senate aide said.

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. hailed the Senate Judiciary vote as a significant step toward achieving fairness in sentencing.

This is a start. It's an initial step. It does not fix the problem for the future. And it certainly doesn't fix the problem for the hundreds of thousands of imprisoned crack defendants. The bill is just "one fifth as racist as it used to be." The bill does not address whether re-sentencing should be granted to those presently serving long, crack sentences. And it doesn't address the irrationality of demonizing crack as opposed to injectable cocaine.

How many decades more will it take finally to eliminate this discrimination?

Quietly Sanctioning Prison Beatings

Clarence Thomas may not have spoken in oral arguments at the Supreme Court in more than four years, but this morning Linda Greenhouse writes in the New York Times about Thomas's consistent, twice repeated argument that the Eighth Amendment does not proscribe "harsh treatment", including beatings of prisoners. You read that correctly. Prison beatings, according to Justice Thomas, aren't forbidden by the Eighth Amendment. And presumably, neither are stress positions, sleep deprivation and other forms of torture. And as if that position were not repulsive enough, Thomas apparently wants it to be adopted by the new majority of the Supreme Court.

Greenhouse points out that during his confirmation hearing, Thomas expressed his empathy for prisoners:

During his Senate confirmation hearing, he had claimed a certain empathy for prisoners. He described looking out the window of his chambers at the Court of Appeals and watching prisoners being loaded into buses to be taken back to their cells. “I say to myself every day, but for the grace of God there go I,” he told the members of the Senate Judiciary Committee.

Those sentiments, however, must have been added solely to manipulate the listeners. They must have been just another sleight of hand attempt to cast himself as a victim. Why do I say that? Because in 1992, four months after he assumed his seat on the Court, Thomas dissented in Hudson v. McMillan. Keith Hudson, if he believed what Thomas said during the confirmation hearings, must have been happy to have him on the Court to hear his case. Hudson "had been kicked and punched by three guards while he was handcuffed and shackled. He suffered bruises, swelling and loosened teeth, injuries that a federal appeals court, in dismissing his lawsuit, deemed so minor as to be beneath the notice of the Eighth Amendment." The Supreme Court reversed and reinstated the suit. In behalf of a 7-judge majority Judge Sandra Day O'Connor wrote, “When prison officials maliciously and sadistically use force to cause harm, contemporary standards of decency always are violated.” Put another way, the Eighth Amendment forbids malicious and sadistic beatings of prisoners.

And what did Thomas (and Scalia) find objectionable with this ruling? Greenhouse puts it this way:

The new justice said that the Constitution’s framers “simply did not conceive of the Eighth Amendment as protecting inmates from harsh treatment.” The Eighth Amendment dealt with only the actual sentence, he maintained, and not with conditions inside a prison or deprivations that were not a formal aspect of the sentence. He said the Supreme Court had taken a wrong turn in the 1970’s when it adopted a more expansive view, and he added, “The Eighth Amendment is not, and should not be turned into, a National Code of Prison Regulation.”

Isn't that wonderful? Guards have always beaten prisoners. The Constitution, and particularly the Eighth Amendment proscription against cruel and unusual punishments, according to Thomas and Scalia, doesn't apply in any fashion to these myriad beatings. The Constitution is silent about post sentence events, including beatings and torture and excessive solitary confinement and lack of medical care and brutality in all forms during a sentence. So prisoners have no recourse in federal court, when they are beaten or otherwise brutalized. So much for empathy. Long live hypocrisy.

Unfortunately, that's not the end of the story. Eighteen years later, in a 9-0 decision, the Supreme Court relying on stare decisis followed Hudson in Wilkins v. Gaddy. Jamey L. Wilkins claimed that a guard had answered his request for a grievance form by slamming him onto the concrete floor and then punching, kicking and choking him until another guard pulled the attacker off. Thomas and Scalia concurred in the result in a separate opinion, in which Thomas sought to solicit a case in which he and others in the new Supreme Court majority might overrule Hudson and advance the argument that the Eighth Amendment permits guards to beat prisoners who ask for grievance forms. Greenhouse writes,

Justice Thomas, joined by Justice Scalia, concurred only in the judgment, not the court’s opinion. “I continue to believe that Hudson was wrongly decided,” he said. But noting that “no party to this case asks us to overrule Hudson,” he said that he was going along with the majority because as long as the precedent was on the books, it clearly required the result the Supreme Court had reached.

Justices do not casually note that “no party has asked us to overrule” a particular precedent. It is an invitation to send the court just such an invitation, and it is a technique that Justice Thomas has used before to good effect. Concurring in a 1997 decision, Printz v. United States, which struck down a federal background check for gun purchasers on states’-rights grounds, Justice Thomas observed that no one has asked the court to look at the case through the lens of the Second Amendment’s right to bear arms. “Perhaps at some future date” the court would have the opportunity to consider the scope of the Second Amendment, he added, helping to initiate a project that came to fruition in the Heller decision in 2008.

I am horrified, but not surprised by Thomas's views. And to the rest of the world, these views make the United States appear to be a band of brutal barbarians. But, of course, there is really nothing that can be done about this. Thomas and Scalia were appointed for life. One has to wonder aloud how judges with such aberrant and bizarre views of the Constitution have been confirmed.

The Gitmo 9: First Let's Bash All The Lawyers

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.

Henry VI, Part 2; Act 4, Scene2

The New York Times editorial gets it right. The Right is attacking DoJ lawyers who once represented Gitmo detainees. The Times correctly points out that this is a smear for political gain that undercuts justice in this country.

In the McCarthy era, demagogues on the right smeared loyal Americans as disloyal and charged that the government was being undermined from within.

In this era, demagogues on the right are smearing loyal Americans as disloyal and charging that the government is being undermined from within.

These voices — often heard on Fox News — are going after Justice Department lawyers who represented Guantánamo detainees when they were in private practice. It is not nearly enough to say that these lawyers did nothing wrong. In fact, they upheld the highest standards of their profession and advanced the cause of democratic justice. The Justice Department is right to stand up to this ugly bullying.

Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, has been pressing Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. since November to reveal the names of lawyers on his staff who have done legal work for Guantánamo detainees. The Justice Department said last month that there were nine political appointees who had represented the detainees in challenges to their confinement. The department said that they were following all of the relevant conflict-of-interest rules. It later confirmed their names when Fox News figured out who they were.

It did not take long for the lawyers to become a conservative target, branded the “Gitmo 9” by a group called Keep America Safe, run by Liz Cheney, daughter of former Vice President Dick Cheney, and William Kristol, a conservative activist (who wrote a Times Op-Ed column in 2008). The group released a video that asks, in sinister tones, “Whose values do they share?”

"Whose values do they share?" They share my values. I've been a criminal defense lawyer for more than thirty years. When I represent someone who is charged with murder, I'm not endorsing murder. When I represent someone who is charged with other heinous acts, I'm not advocating for those acts. No. Not at all. Not ever. I'm trying to do something that's hard: to make sure that the accused gets a fair trial regardless of what s/he is charged with. I'm trying to make sure that the accused has the benefit of each and every legal right s/he has under the US Constitution and laws. And I do this proudly. It's a sacred obligation. It's called justice. And it doesn't depend on the popularity of the accused.

But that's not the approach of the Righwing talkers and blabbers.

On Fox News, Ms. Cheney lashed out at lawyers who “voluntarily represented terrorists.” She said it was important to look at who these terrorists are, including Salim Ahmed Hamdan, who had served as Osama bin Laden’s driver. Let’s do that.

Mr. Hamdan was the subject of a legal battle that went all the way to the Supreme Court. Ms. Cheney conveniently omitted that the court ruled in favor of his claim that the military commissions system being used to try detainees like him was illegal. Republican senators then sponsored legislation to fix the tribunals. They did not do the job well, but the issue might never have arisen without the lawyers who argued on behalf of Mr. Hamdan, some of whom wore military uniforms.

In order to attack the government lawyers, Ms. Cheney and other critics have to twist the role of lawyers in the justice system. In representing Guantánamo detainees, they were in no way advocating for terrorism. They were ensuring that deeply disliked individuals were able to make their case in court, even ones charged with heinous acts — and that the Constitution was defended.

It is not the first time that the right has tried to distract Americans from the real issues surrounding detention policy by attacking lawyers. Charles Stimson, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for detainee affairs under George W. Bush, urged corporations not to do business with leading law firms that were defending Guantánamo detainees. He resigned soon after that.

If lawyers who take on controversial causes are demonized with impunity, it will be difficult for unpopular people to get legal representation — and constitutional rights that protect all Americans will be weakened. That is a high price to pay for scoring cheap political points.

Put another way, the Rightwing argument from Beckistan is that Atticus Finch should never have taken on that case in Maycomb County, Alabama. And William Kunstler and Leonard Weinglass should never have taken on that case in Chicago. And Thurgood Marshall should never have taken on that case about the Topeka, Kansas Board of Education. The list of lawyers who shouldn't have taken various cases is a proud and an exhausting one. I can think of a few cases I have handled that I hope fit comfortably in the same category. After all, it's relatively easy for lawyers to know which cases these are: they're the ones where complete strangers, not to mention immediate family members say to you in words or substance, "How could you represent that awful person who did such terrible things?"

The Times is right that the tactic from Fox and elsewhere is about "scoring cheap political points." The bigger question, the one the Times doesn't reach, the one that is really most disturbing, is how the general state of understanding of the justice system became so beclouded that the Fox argument was not immediately scoffed at as arrant stupidity.

Chile: A Call For Your Assistance

Chile's Earthquake

The New York Times is reporting that yesterday's Chile's government having recognized the far ranging extent of the national catastrophe, was calling for international assistance. The Times reports:

Chile’s government, after initially waving off outside aid, changed course Monday as the devastation from the powerful earthquake sank in and the nation’s pressing needs became clear.

With the desperation of many Chileans mounting, the United Nations said that the government had asked for generators, water filtration equipment and field hospitals, as well as experts to assess just how much damage was caused by Saturday’s magnitude 8.8 quake, one of the largest ever measured.

“Everything is now moving,” said Elisabeth Byrs, a spokeswoman for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. “We are looking immediately to match the needs.”

Chile has always been considered Latin America’s most earthquake-ready country.... /snip

But despite all that, the powerful quake that jolted Chileans awake has left the country reeling. Collapsed bridges and damaged roadways have made it difficult to even get to some areas. Downed phone lines and cellular towers have made it impossible to communicate. And many residents in the most damaged areas have not only taken food from supermarkets, but also robbed banks, set fires and engaged in other forms of lawlessness.

The Times also notes what should be obvious to people who know Chile: the income and wealth disparities in the country are cavernous. Poor people, to no one's surprise, are most affected by the devastation the quake caused:

The quake has also exposed the fact, experts say, that although Chile is one of the most developed countries in the region, it is also one of the most unequal, with huge pockets of urban and rural poor, who suffered most in the quake.

“It’s the poorest Chileans who live near the epicenter,” said Carolina Bank, a Chilean-born sociology professor at Brooklyn College.

This means that this would be a really good time to get out our wallets and to give aid to organizations that are providing assistance in Chile. Let's remember that this is the internet. Large numbers of people making small donations can have an enormous impact.

My essay on the weekend gave this information, which I repeat here:

The Nation let's us know how to help:

Save The Children -- Save The Children is sending an emergency assessment team to Chile, and is asking for contributions to its Children's Emergency Fund to aid these efforts.

World Vision -- The international development, relief and advocacy organization has already sent its first relief flight, from Bolivia this afternoon, with supplies like tarps, blankets, plastic sheeting, and collapsible water containers for survivors. Support these efforts with earmarked gifts to families that need them.

AmeriCares -- Vice President of Emergency Response, Christoph Gorder, says AmeriCares is sending medical supplies and humanitarian aid to Chile. Make a direct contribution to AmeriCares' Chilean earthquake fund.

Habitat for Humanity -- Habitat for Humanity has a continual presence in Chile, where the group has constructed more than 1,300 homes. Habitat will be essential in reconstruction efforts, especially in hard-hit rural areas.

International Medical Corps -- IMC has a presence in dozens of countries around the globe, providing immediate medical care to those affected by natural disasters. Contribute to its emergency response fund.

ShelterBox -- International disaster relief agency ShelterBox has mobilized a team to bring aid to Concepcion, Chile's second largest city, which saw the worse damage.

There are other groups listed below I like to support. Also, I have some antipathy to some of the groups here, particularly World Vision, because of their proselytizing activities to indigenous people in the high Andes, but right now I think the primary idea is to get aid on the ground to places that need it. There doesn't seem to me to be time to apply litmus tests to the groups that can help right now.

Please add to groups that can help the following:

Oxfam America and

Doctors Without Borders

You can also donate via text message as follows:

* Text CHILE to 90999 to donate $10 to the Red Cross

* Text CHILE to 23583 to donate $10 to Habitat for Humanity

* Text CHILE to 20222 to donate $10 to World Vision

* Text CHILE to 50555 to donate $10 to the Friends of World Food Program

* Text CHILE to 52000 to donate $10 to the Salvation Army

* Text REBUILD to 50555 to donate $10 to Operation USA

* Text 4CHILE to 50555 to donate $10 to Convoy of Hope

Finally, google is supporting donations to UNICEF and Direct Relief International.