Especially at this time of year, my mother taught me, we should not forget the poor. We should not forget those who cannot afford a place to sleep or food to eat, much less the holiday trimmings many people take for granted. There are some injustices that result from poverty that don’t always come to mind, but that also need attention. One is the erroneous imposition of the death penalty for defendants who are poor and cannot afford effective lawyers. While never appropriate, the use of the death penalty should certainly not depend on how much money the accused possesses, and our government should not wrongly execute people because they lack the means to adequately defend themselves.
Empirical studies have repeatedly found that erroneous death sentences most often result from incompetent lawyering, which disproportionately affects the poor. Under Supreme Court rulings, a death sentence cannot be upheld unless the jury imposing it has had an opportunity to consider all pertinent “compassionate or mitigating factors stemming from the diverse frailties of humankind.” But most often, death sentences result because unprepared and under-funded defense attorneys utterly fail to learn of and present to the jury such mitigating and compassionate factors.
For example, a Tennessee jury sentenced Gaile Owens to death for having her husband murdered without the jury ever having heard that the husband brutally sexually abused her over a period of thirteen years. In one incident during one of her pregnancies, his brutality caused her placenta to detach partially, resulting in an emergency C-section. The jury heard none of this evidence due to defense counsel’s failure to investigate, a key issue in Ms. Owens’ pending appeal. Appointed counsel for Ms. Owens completed time sheets stating that counsel conducted a scant two-hour investigation in preparation for the mitigation or sentencing phase of Ms. Owens’ trial. That is not justice.
This year, poor people receive an extra lump of coal in their stockings. In one of its final moves before it leaves office, the Department of Justice under the Bush administration recently promulgated final regulations that will speed the path to execution for people like Ms. Owens. Under these regulations, promulgated pursuant to President Bush’s Patriot Act II, states will be permitted to radically shorten the amount of time that many death penalty prisoners have to seek federal habeas corpus review of their cases, if the states can meet requirements for adequate representation of poor death-row inmates that many experts have called a “a sham and a ruse.”
Unless the new Patriot Act regulations are reversed, our government may execute poor death-row inmates like Ms. Owens without providing them a crucial federal review of egregious errors in their cases such as their attorneys’ woefully inadequate representation. One day, like Mr. Scrooge viewing the ghosts of Christmas past, Americans will look back with shame on this period in which poverty played a decisive role in determining who lives and who dies.
December 26th, 2008 at 9:51 am
It’s NOT just the poor who are being victimized by draconian measures justified under the banner of the “war on terror.”
DOMESTIC TORTURE VIA RADIATION WEAPONRY has spawned a silent holocaust that has gone largely undetected and unchallenged.
The reality of domestic torture delivered by ideologically-driven, cold-hearted agents of government and their vigilante citizen operatives is finally gaining public exposure by way of first-hand accounts — including that of this correspondent, a mainstream journalist with a recognized body of work.
In a matter of weeks, operatives who have been involved in the purposeful “dosing” of American citizens with radiation emitted from widely deployed “directed energy weapons” and hand-held devices will begin to come forward, confirming reports of what’s been euphemistically labeled as “electronic harassment” by victims of so-called “community stalking” or “gang stalking.”
The “gang stalking” moniker trivializes what is an extensive, multi-level government campaign of extrajudicial targeting and punishment.
The “targets” are not limited to “terrorists” or drug traffickers. They include individuals who have been labeled by persons in positions of authority as “dissidents,” “radicals,” “whistle-blowers” or undesirables, perhaps due to their lifestyles, their ethnic heritage, or their religious or political beliefs. Many find themselves slandered and unjustly accused of wrongdoing (but, notably, not charged with any violation of the law). Journalists are among targeted classes; but many don’t realize they are subject to pervasive surveillance, physical harassment and career sabotage until they are already ruined, professionally and personally.
These targeted persons — and their families — are subject to relentless harassment, with surveillance data about their whereabouts and personal daily routines funneled to “community stalkers” who are recruited under the cover of government-funded community policing, town watch, and business-related anti-terrorism programs. The operations of these civilian vigilantes are supervised by agents of government, ranging from local police personnel to federal intelligence and security agents under whose direction these programs have been institutionalized.
Under the guise of performing “surveillance,” the “targets” are subject to electromagnetic radiation of various forms — ranging from microwave energy, sound waves, even X-rays and gamma rays. The government publicly claims that these “directed energy weapons,” or “D.E.W.”, are still in the experimental stage, or that working equipment is large and bulky, such as the Army’s recent demonstration of a microwave weapon tagged with an innocuous-sounding sobriquet, the “Active Denial System.” The government describes these weapons as “non-lethal” — when in fact, depending on the dosage of radiated energy delivered, they can stun, maim, induce illness, or kill.
These D.E.W. have are being widely deployed, as noted in an article in the April 2008 FBI Law Enforcement Bulletin. The article discusses the potential adverse health effects of D.E.W. fire. The article also states that law enforcement personnel themselves may fall victim to these effects, should criminals or terrorists obtain D.E.W.
What the article does not state is that victims of “community stalking” have complained for several years that they are being tortured by painful D.E.W. radiation attacks, and that their health has been degraded by the cumulative effects of exposure to silent and potentially lethal beams of radiated energy.
These weapons share a characteristic that explains why few people outside of law enforcement are aware of their widespread deployment and usage: The energy the weapons emit is silent and invisible, making possible “the perfect crime” — the covert application of potentially lethal force.
Victims of D.E.W. attack have tried to appeal to law enforcement for justice, but to no avail. Indeed, that’s part of the “M.O.” — when victims complain, they are routinely written off as delusional or mentally ill. Some may even find themselves subject to attempts to commit them to psychiatric facilities, thus accomplishing the underlying goal of extrajudicial targeting and punishment — the removal of “targeted individuals” (and by extension, their families) from mainstream society.
There is no rational or moral defense for this horrific domestic torture, which is happening right now in cities and towns across America. The “targets” typically pose no danger to society. They are victims of a political system that has institutionalized — and has attempted to legalize — extrajudicial punishment. The “war on terror” is the pretext that has been employed for a wholesale bypass of the judicial system, and of constitutionally protected rights.
This is the transformation of American democracy into a fascist police state — an American Gestapo, a frontal assault on our constitutionally guaranteed civil rights and liberties.
When the pervasiveness of this officially sanctioned and funded domestic terrorism and torture is confirmed by “official sources” — in recent times, the only sources that much of the mainstream media considers sufficiently credible — any excuses for the excesses that heretofore have come to light will be exposed as evil sophistry.
That day is coming, and very soon. In the meantime, please read my articles at http://members.NowPublic.com/scrivener and help me secure the legal assistance of the ACLU and/or any other organization capable of bringing justice to the untold thousands of victims of extrajudicial targeting, punishment, and TORTURE in America 2008.
FOR MORE ON DOMESTIC TERRORISM IN AMERICA:
http://www.nowpublic.com/world/american-gestapo-state-supported-terrorism-targets-u-s-citizens
OR members.nowpublic.com/scrivener
– Vic Livingston, former business reporter, Fox TV Phila., NY Daily News, Phila. Bulletin, St. Petersburg Times
December 26th, 2008 at 12:24 pm
Can someone at ACLU please explain why the often indicate there are “no comments” — but when I click on the comments — days later — see a post that I have written, with the message that the post is “awaiting moderation.”
The last time I posted, the “awaiting moderation” post stayed up a couple of days, then the post was taken down entirely.
Is ACLU doing this… or is a third-party hacker with an ideological mission CENSORING political posts here and else — using remote computing software and the insertion of “spoofed pages” into the datastreams of persons “targeted” by warrantless surveillance programs?
I believe that a powerful third party may be using sophisticated technology to exercise prior restraint and outright censorship on the political posts of those targeted via warrantless surveillance.
I’ve seen articles how “spoofed pages” are used in online scams… but I have not seen any journalism about the technology being employed to censor free speech in America. But that is what I believe is happening.
Does the ACLU have any technical experts who could investigate this?
And please tell me why the “no comments” message persists when readers have indeed posted. Thank you.
January 6th, 2009 at 11:13 am
Do you psychos really believe this moronic babble that you type. Oh my god, the only person in the government right now that has anything to do with domestic terrorism is Barrack Obama, he supports domestic terrorist and is friends with them. My god I will never know how you poeple make it through each day your freaking idiots.
Tie your shoes morons.