The U.S. Senate, the world's greatest deliberative body, deliberated only two minutes before voting to deny food stamps and welfare benefits to people convicted of felony drug possession

SentencingProject The U.S. Senate, the world's greatest deliberative body, deliberated only two minutes before voting to deny food stamps and welfare benefits to individuals convicted of felony drug possession.  Although the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act (PRWORA) was enacted in 1996 on a neutral basis, over time, it has had a disparate effect on women, on African Americans and on Hispanics who are convicted of felony drug charges at much higher rates than white men are. At the time, Sen. Phil Gramm (R., Texas), who sponsored the ban amendment to the legislation, said: "If we are serious about the drug laws, we ought not give people welfare benefits who are violating the nation's drug laws.” Gramm's amendment was a product of the times, part of the war on drugs, according to A Lifetime of Punishment: The Impact of the Felony Drug Ban on Welfare Benefits, a new report from The Sentencing Project.  The war on drugs is now considered by many to be a failure that has led to high rates of arrest and convictions of black men, Hispanics and now women, Marc Mauer, executive director of The Sentencing Project, described Gramm's amendment "as a feel-good provision in the bill."  He said the brevity of the debate shows how little the Senate cared about those affected by the policy. It also shows that U.S. Senators viewed only welfare recipients as drug users. Most surprising of all, the bill's ban did not apply to convicted armed robbers or rapists. Although PRWORA banned the receipt of welfare (Temporary Assistance to Needy Families) and food stamps (Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program) for individuals convicted of felony drug offenses in all states, the law gave states discretion to opt out. By 2001, eight states and the District of Columbia had entirely opted out of the ban, and 20 states had modified the ban. But in 12 states-- Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Missouri, Mississippi, Nebraska, South Carolina, South Dakota, Texas and West Virginia--180,000 women, many whom are mothers, are denied welfare benefits because of the law. "Given that TANF benefits are quite modest to begin with, a reduction of this size creates substantial additional hardship for such families," the report stated. "While the TANF ban does not target any demographic groups specifically, the dynamics of social class and the accompanying disparate racial effects of criminal justice policy and practice combine to produce highly disparate effects on women, children and communities of color. "

Poll: Obama Approval Sinks to All-Time Low with white people

BlackListedNews

President Barack Obama has hit an all-time low in approval ratings, thanks in large part to the troubled rollout of the Affordable Care Act website aimed at signing up people for coverage, according to a new poll.

Just 42 percent approve of Obama while a record high of 55 percent disapprove, according to a Washington Post/ABC News survey released Tuesday. His approval rating is down 6 percentage points in the last month and 13 percentage points so far this year, compared with similar surveys.

Obama is now also upside down in the public's eye when it comes to personal ratings: More than 50 percent say he's not a strong leader, does not understand 'people like me' and is not honest and trustworthy.

Nazi - Israel to stop issuing birth certificates to babies born to [non-white] foreigners

BlackListedNews

Israel is to stop issuing birth certificates to babies born to foreigners – a move targeted at migrants but will also encompass diplomats and other international workers. The absence of official documentation is likely to cause major problems when applying for passports and other identity papers. The plan was disclosed in state papers filed to the high court on Monday in response to a challenge to an existing policy of refusing to include the father's name in foreigners' birth certificates. As part of this policy, Israel also insists that only the mother's family name may be documented as the baby's last name. The Israeli government says it has no legal obligation to issue official birth certificates to foreigners, and intends to stop doing so to prevent foreigners using such documentation to claim the right to stay in the country. Instead, foreigners will be given hospital-issued birth notices, which are currently hand-written in Hebrew. A legal challenge, due to be heard on Sunday, has been brought by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI) and two other rights groups on behalf of a family of asylum seekers from the Democratic Republic of Congo. A child born to parents with permission to stay in Israel and in possession of work permits was denied a birth certificate including the father's name. The ministry of interior also refused the parents' request to give the child her father's last name. cv

Oakland moves forward with surveillance center

BlackListedNews

Oakland's City Council voted to move ahead with controversial city surveillance center during a raucous council meeting Tuesday morning that only ended when the police cleared out the chambers. The council voted 6-1 to approve an incremental resolution allowing the city to hire a new contractor to assemble the Domain Awareness Center, a surveillance hub that would allow police and city officials to continuously monitor video cameras, gunshot detectors and license-plate readers across the city. Dozens of Oakland residents, deeply worried the center would allow the city to spy on people's everyday lives, tried to turn the resolution into a referendum on surveillance and persuade council members to stall, or scrap, the process.

British marine found guilty over Afghanistan killing

Aljazeera

A British Royal Marine was found guilty by a military court on Friday of murdering an injured Afghan insurgent. It was the first time a U.K. soldier has been convicted of such a crime related to the war in Afghanistan.

The marine, who will be sentenced next month, faces a maximum penalty of life in prison.

Two other marines were acquitted of killing the unknown man in Helmand province in 2011. The three were identified in court only as marines A, B and C; their identities have been withheld under an anonymity order.

The victim, already severely injured by an Apache helicopter after an attack on a local patrol base, was shot at close range with a 9 mm pistol by Marine A in a field.

Audio clips from a video showing the killing, inadvertently filmed by Marine B on his helmet camera, were released on Thursday, but the judge blocked the release of the full video evidence to prevent it from being used as propaganda.

In the clips, Marine A can be heard shooting the man and then saying, "There you are. Shuffle off this mortal coil,” a quote from Shakespeare’s "Hamlet."

“It's nothing you wouldn't do to us,” he said, before warning his companions to keep the killing secret.

"Obviously this doesn't go anywhere, fellas. I just broke the Geneva Convention."

Other evidence in the trial was a diary entry by Marine C, in which he described how he felt "mugged off" that he had not been the one to shoot the prisoner.

White Judge/Former Prosecutor to spend 10 days in jail for wrongful conviction

Aljazeera

Former Texas prosecutor and district court judge Ken Anderson agreed Friday to serve 10 days in jail, complete 500 hours of community service and give up his law license for hiding evidence in a 1987 murder trial that sent an innocent man to jail for nearly 25 years.

Anderson hid two crucial pieces of evidence from the defense team of Michael Morton, who was accused of beating his wife to death, which would have supported their theory that Morton’s wife Christine was killed by a stranger who came into the house via an unlocked back door, not her husband.

According to local newspaper The Austin American-Statesman, Anderson hid a typewritten transcript of an interview with Christine Morton’s mother, Rita Kirkpatrick, that revealed Morton’s 3-year-old son saw the murder take place, described the attacker as a “monster” and said Michael was not home during the attack.

Anderson also hid a police report about the suspicious behavior of an unknown driver of a green van who had on several occasions parked and walked into the wooded area behind the Morton’s home before the murder.

Anderson offered up a different theory, that Michael Morton killed his wife Christine in a late-night fit of rage, staged the home to appear as if a break-in had occurred, and left to go to work the next day.

According to the medical examiner on the case, the time of death could have been no later than 1:15 a.m., which made Morton the only viable suspect. No witnesses or forensic evidence ever tied Morton to the crime, and a murder weapon was never found.

Morton was released in 2011 after an appeals-court-ordered DNA test of blood from a blue bandanna found on the street behind the house revealed that a man named Mark Alan Norwood was the actual killer.

Norwood is serving a life sentence for Christine Morton’s murder and was also charged with the 1988 murder of Debra Masters after his DNA was discovered in her home.

The case was one of Anderson’s first major cases as a top prosecutor for the state. Barry Scheck, co-founder of The Innocence Project, an NGO which advocates for prisoners who claim they were wrongly convicted, announced after the verdict that his group will conduct an independent review of all cases Anderson prosecuted in his 16 years as district attorney to see if Anderson hid evidence in those cases as well.

As a part of the deal that will put Anderson behind bars for 10 days, charges of tampering with evidence have been dropped and Anderson has settled his civil suit with the State Bar of Texas, agreeing to be disbarred and pay a $500 fine.

Anderson faced up to 10 years in prison if he had been convicted of tampering with evidence. Anderson accepted the plea deal in the same Williamson County courthouse where he later spent 11 years as a state judge. He resigned in September.

Morton watched from the front row of the gallery Friday as the man who helped convict him now sat at the same defense table he once did. Morton smiled and was hugged by family members after the judge adjourned.

“It’s a good day, ” Morton told the Statesman after the hearing. “I said the only thing that I want, as a baseline, is Ken Anderson to be off the bench and no longer practicing law — and both of those things have happened, and more.”

Anderson has previously apologized to Morton for what he called failures in the system but has said he believes there was no misconduct.

Lawmakers defeat bill to repeal Stand Your Ground; expand immunity in warning shot cases

MiamiHerald

A panel of state lawmakers on Thursday soundly rejected a proposal to repeal the Stand Your Ground self-defense law, but enthusiastically approved a pitch to expand Stand Your Ground immunity to people who fire a warning shot.

The votes took place at a highly anticipated hearing that lasted five hours before the House Criminal Justice Subcommittee. Nearly 300 people attended, and scores signed up to give their opinion on the controversial law.

Rep. Alan Williams, a Tallahassee Democrat, said his push to repeal Stand Your Ground had “everything to do with making sure we keep our streets and our communities and our neighborhoods safe.”

“We have had a number of cases that have shown us over and over that the law as adopted in 2005 isn’t working,” Williams said.

But a half-dozen lawmakers, some of whom weren’t on the subcommittee, came to the defense of Stand Your Ground.

“Today, our state is a safer place and has the lowest crime rate in 42 years,” said Rep. Marti Coley, a Marianna Republican. “Florida’s Stand Your Ground law is solid. It’s good and should not be changed.”

Said Democratic Rep. Katie Edwards, of Plantation: “The people I represent, the people we represent, need not be required, or have imposed upon them, a duty to retreat… I won’t turn my back on responsible self-defense laws.”

The committee shot down the repeal bill in a 2-11 vote.

The two supporters: Democrats Rep. Kionne McGhee, of Miami, and Randolph Bracy, of Orlando.

The hearing followed a tempestuous summer which saw neighborhood watch volunteer George Zimmerman acquitted in the shooting death of Trayvon Martin, an unarmed teenager from Miami.

Zimmerman did not claim a Stand Your Ground defense, but language from the law was included in the jury instructions.

Following the acquittal, a group of young activists known as the Dream Defenders held a 31-day protest outside Gov. Rick Scott’s office to demand a special legislative session on the self-defense law. Scott refused to call lawmakers to Tallahassee, but House Speaker Will Weatherford agreed to a hearing on the law in the fall.

From the time it was filed, the repeal bill was a long shot in the Republican-dominated Legislature.

Rep. Matt Gaetz, the Fort Walton Beach Republican tapped to lead the hearing, said he would not support changing “one damn comma” of the statute.

The repeal bill’s chances diminished even further on Wednesday, when House Minority Leader Perry Thurston said he would prefer a bipartisan reform bill similar to one being considered in the Senate.

Still, scores of people traveled to Tallahassee to provide emotional and sometimes racially charged testimony.

The speakers included Lucia McBath, whose 17-year-old son Jordan Davis was gunned down following a 2012 dispute at a Jacksonville gas station.

“My grief is unbearable at times,” said McBath, advocating for the repeal. “I’m here as a face of the countless victims of gun violence.”

Arguments on the other side of the debate were just as impassioned.

“Florida sheriffs unequivocally support the right to stand your ground,” said Okaloosa County Sheriff Larry Ashley, noting that people don’t have time to ponder why an intruder is in their home.

The committee passed a separate bill ensuring people who fire a warning shot are not subject to the minimum mandatory sentencing law known as 10-20-Life.

Edwards and Reps. Neil Combee, a Polk City Republican, filed the bill after Marissa Alexander, of Jacksonville, was sentenced to the mandatory 20 years in prison for firing a warning shot at her husband. Alexander tried to claim immunity under the Stand Your Ground law, but was nonetheless found guilty.

The proposal by Combee and Edwards garnered 28 co-signers, and found support on both sides of the aisle.

The bill also won the support of Marion Hammer, the chief lobbyist for the National Rifle Association in Florida

“10-20-Life was never intended to be used against citizens who, in an act of self defense, threatened the use of force to stop an attack,” Hammer said.

The proposal passed by a 12-1 vote, with McGhee dissenting. Final passage into law will eventually be up to the Florida Legislature, which convenes in March for its annual 60-day session.

“To simply give a blanket cover to anyone simply because he or she raises the issue of Stand Your Ground, could be more problematic in the future than it is now,” said McGhee, an attorney.

After the meeting, Rep. Dennis Baxley, the Ocala Republican who helped write the original Stand Your Ground law, said the votes were a testament to the popularity of the statute.

“Eighty percent of Floridians still agree that we are safer because of this law,” he said.

Williams said he would put his energy into amending Stand Your Ground.

“If we can’t repeal, we must repair,” he said.

Swiss Report Supports Theory Arafat Was Poisoned

NYT

Nine years of mystery and intrigue surrounding the death of Yasir Arafat, the symbol of the Palestinian national struggle, took a contentious turn on Wednesday with the publication of a forensics report by Swiss scientists that lends support to the theory that Mr. Arafat died of poisoning with radioactive polonium-210.

Al Jazeera, the Arabic television channel based in Qatar, reported the findings of the Swiss team and posted what it said was a copy of the team’s 108-page report on its website.

The news channel has been instrumental in advancing the theory that Mr. Arafat was poisoned with polonium, a radioactive element that became widely known following the death of Alexander V. Litvinenko, a former K.G.B. agent who became a critic of the Russian government. He died in London in 2006 after drinking tea contaminated with the substance.

The University of Legal Medicine in Lausanne, Switzerland, said that it was approached by a reporter for Al Jazeera English on behalf of Suha Arafat, Mr. Arafat’s widow, in January 2012. Providing a travel bag containing personal effects that Mr. Arafat took with him to the French military hospital where he died, Al Jazeera commissioned a forensic examination. The Swiss institute found “an unexplained, elevated amount of unsupported polonium-210” in Mr. Arafat’s belongings and recommended further testing. Those results led to an exhumation a year ago.

Along with the Swiss, Russian and French teams were assigned to test the remains in an effort to resolve questions about Mr. Arafat’s death in November 2004 at age 75,  given the suspicions among his supporters and others that he had been killed by agents of Israel or by Palestinian rivals.

The latest Swiss report, dated Nov. 5, said that taking into account analytical limitations such as the time elapsed since Mr. Arafat’s death, its findings “moderately support the proposition” that the death was the consequence of polonium poisoning.

Yet last month the head of the Russian team told the Interfax news agency that Russian experts had found no traces of polonium in Mr. Arafat’s remains. Soon after, the Russians denied having made any statement.

The French investigators have not yet released any findings, lawyers for Ms. Arafat in Paris said Wednesday evening.

In an interview broadcast on Al Jazeera on Wednesday, Ms. Arafat, who received a copy of the Swiss report, said its findings proved that her husband had been assassinated. “I am mourning Yasir again,” she said.

She said she would not stop fighting until the perpetrators were brought to justice, but added, “I don’t know who did it.”

Ms. Arafat’s relations with the current Palestinian leadership are notoriously hostile.

The official Palestinian news agency Wafa reported on Tuesday that the Swiss report had been received by the special Palestinian committee investigating Mr. Arafat’s death and that the Russian team had handed in its results on Nov. 2. There was no indication of when the French results were expected. “Experts are studying the results in order to inform the Palestinian people of the findings,” Wafa stated, without elaboration.

Ghassan al-Shaka’a, a member of the Palestine Liberation Organization’s Executive Committee from Nablus, in the West Bank, said that it was now confirmed that Mr. Arafat was poisoned but that “we need to know who planned, who instigated, who implemented” the alleged killing. He said the Palestinian Authority had decided to postpone revealing the test results for a few months for “political reasons.”

Israel has consistently denied any involvement in Mr. Arafat’s death. Yigal Palmor, spokesman for Israel’s foreign ministry, said the Swiss results were “inconclusive, at best,” adding that even Ms. Arafat “understands that the evidence is so scant she cannot point the finger at anybody.”

Judge Removed from NYPD Stop & Frisk Case Retains an Attorney to fight charge of "judicial misconduct"

WSJ

A lawyer for U.S. District Court Judge Shira Scheindlin filed a motion Wednesday challenging a federal appellate court’s rare decision last week to remove her from a case in which she ordered a monitor to oversee changes to the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk policy.

Judge Scheindlin was “completely blindsided” by the three-judge panel’s Oct. 31 ruling that she had “run afoul” of the code of conduct by improperly assigning a stop-and-frisk case to herself in 2007 and subsequently giving several media interviews, according to the motion.

The motion says that federal procedural rules assure judges accused of judicial misbehavior receive notice and “an opportunity to seek leave to be heard.”

The motion requests that the appellate panel, from the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, vacate its own order or that its decision be reviewed en banc—in which all the Second Circuit’s judges, from Vermont to New York, gather and review their colleagues’ ruling.

The motion, filed in the Second Circuit on Wednesday by New York University School of Law professor Burt Neuborne, who said he was retained by the judge, alleged that her due process rights had been violated. Judge Scheindlin declined to comment, as did city officials.

On Oct. 29, the panel presided over a hearing regarding the city’s request to stay, pending an appeal, Judge Scheindlin’s August ruling that the NYPD’s stop-and-frisk program was unconstitutionally racially biased. The stay sought to block the judge’s order to install a monitor to the program in which police stop and sometimes frisk people they suspect of committing crimes.

Two days later, the appellate judges returned an order sue sponte, or without request from either party, to remove Judge Scheindlin from the case. Legal experts couldn’t recall another case in which a federal judge was removed without a request from the litigants.

Brazil demands explanation over alleged Google Drive-by spying

Rt.com

Brazil has called for an explanation from internet giant Google over allegations it gathered data on Brazilians through Street View. Following reports of the program being used to spy on EU citizens, Brazil has demanded data on its activities.

The Brazilian authorities have given Google until Saturday to divulge data on its activities in Brazil or face fines of US$43,000 a day, up to a maximum of $450,000.

Google Street View allows web users to zoom into Google Maps and look at locations on street level. In order to build the Street View images, Google sent cars equipped with cameras to take 360-degree photos of streets and roads around the world. Currently around 3,000 cities in about 39 countries can be viewed on Street Maps.

The Brazilian Institute of Computer Policy and Rights opened an investigation into Google’s Street View program in June of this year. They believe that “the company collected the secret and personal data of Brazilians using open Wi-Fi networks as it has already done in almost 30 countries where there have been similar allegations.”

“The American company has already been condemned abroad for intercepting the electronic communications, emails, passwords, photos and personal data of people residing in the cities where [Google’s] vehicles were stationed,” said the institute in a statement.

Google denies the claims that it collected data in Brazil and released a statement, alleging that the equipment used for data gathering was removed from the company’s vehicles in May 2010. Moreover, Google maintains that any information that did happen to be recorded ‘unintentionally’ is now ‘inaccessible’.

“Google respects personal privacy. All of the issues related to the collection of data in the Street View project were addressed in 2010,” said Google in a statement.

Several of Brazil’s main cities are now visible on Google Street View, including Belo Horizonte, Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. 

‘One of the biggest data protection violations in history’

Earlier this year Google Street View came under fire in Germany and the company was forced to pay a fine of 145,000 euros ($195,000) for the illegal collection of data. German data chief Johannes Caspar described the company’s activities as “one of the biggest known data protection violations in history.”

"Among the information gathered in the drive-bys were significant amounts of personal data of varying quality. For example, emails, passwords, photos and chat protocols were collected," said a statement from the German authorities. 

Prisons Profit from [white supremacy] Lock Up Quotas

White genetic survival is the dynamic behind the high incarceration rate of non-white males in the U.S. It contributes in genocidal fashion to the prevention of Black births and the Black male-supported development of all Black children, particularly boys. [MORE] 

Sentencing Project

The private prison industry's profiteering off mass incarcerations has come under fire by prison reform advocates who blasted the industry’s use of bed or lockup quotas to pad their bottom line even as states attempt to decrease their prison population.

The backlash stems from a September report by Washington D.C.-based watchdog group In the Public Interest (ITPI). Their report found states and local governments that have contracts with private corporations, like Corrections Corporation of America (CCA) and the GEO Group, to run their prisons contain clauses requiring high occupancy levels. And if those prisons fall below those levels, states must foot the bills for those empty prison beds often at taxpayers’ expense.

Nicole Porter of The Sentencing Project called occupancy quotas problematic. The quotas, she said, tie lawmakers’ hands in managing state prison population.

“If they build prisons, they’ll fill them,” Ms. Porter said, noting that lawmakers often see increased prison capacity as a “safety vale” to address crime rather than reserving incarceration “for people who actually need to be in prison.”

The C.I.A. is paying AT&T more than $10 million a year to assist with overseas counterterrorism investigations by exploiting the company’s vast database of phone records

NYTimes

The C.I.A. is paying AT&T more than $10 million a year to assist with overseas counterterrorism investigations by exploiting the company’s vast database of phone records, which includes Americans’ international calls, according to government officials.

The cooperation is conducted under a voluntary contract, not under subpoenas or court orders compelling the company to participate, according to the officials. The C.I.A. supplies phone numbers of overseas terrorism suspects, and AT&T searches its database and provides records of calls that may help identify foreign associates, the officials said. The company has a huge archive of data on phone calls, both foreign and domestic, that were handled by its network equipment, not just those of its own customers.

The program adds a new dimension to the debate over government spying and the privacy of communications records, which has been focused on National Security Agency programs in recent months. The disclosure sheds further light on the ties between intelligence officials and communications service providers. And it shows how agencies beyond the N.S.A. use metadata — logs of the date, duration and phone numbers involved in a call, but not the content — to analyze links between people through programs regulated by an inconsistent patchwork of legal standards, procedures and oversight.

Because the C.I.A. is prohibited from spying on the domestic activities of Americans, the agency imposes privacy safeguards on the program, said the officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity because it is classified. Most of the call logs provided by AT&T involve foreign-to-foreign calls, but when the company produces records of international calls with one end in the United States, it does not disclose the identity of the Americans and “masks” several digits of their phone numbers, the officials said.

Still, the agency can refer such masked numbers to the F.B.I., which can issue an administrative subpoena requiring AT&T to provide the uncensored data. The bureau handles any domestic investigation, but sometimes shares with the C.I.A. the information about the American participant in those calls, the officials said.

Non-White Immigrants in Custody Facing Deportation get Public Defenders in NYC

NY Times

At about 1:15 p.m. on Wednesday, Maximino Leyva Ortiz, wearing an orange jumpsuit, his wrists shackled, stood before a judge in an immigration courtroom in Lower Manhattan, a lawyer at his side. The federal government was seeking to deport him.

He took an oath, lawyers’ identities were confirmed, and then Mr. Leyva told the judge he would not fight the order; he was prepared to be deported.

“You’re doing so voluntarily, sir?” Judge Brigitte Laforest asked.

Within minutes the hearing was over and Mr. Leyva was being led out of the courtroom by a bailiff; he was on his way back to Mexico.

The proceedings were quick and subdued. But the banality of the scene belied its significance. Mr. Leyva was the first client in a new program that seeks to provide public defenders for all poor immigrants residing in New York who have been detained and are facing deportation. The initiative is the first of its kind in the country.

Unlike in the nation’s criminal court system, defendants in immigration court have no constitutional right to a court-appointed lawyer. Fear and ignorance conspire with language barriers and poverty to keep detainees from securing legal counsel.

The new initiative, called the New York Immigrant Family Unity Project, emerged from several years of study and lobbying among immigration lawyers and immigrants’ advocates. They were concerned that the absence of competent legal representation for many of New York’s immigrant detainees was resulting in unnecessary deportations that ruptured families and put an undue financial burden on government.

Last summer, the New York City Council allocated $500,000 to help pay for a pilot program to test the viability of the initiative. The project’s organizers said that money, plus a supplementary contribution from the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law, would allow them to provide representation to 190 immigrants.

“At its core, it’s a justice issue,” said Peter L. Markowitz, a professor at Cardozo who helped lead the initiative. “Most excitingly, it’s a chance to mark a sea change in the treatment of immigrants in this country.”

The organizations behind the project are the Kathryn O. Greenberg Immigration Justice Clinic at Cardozo Law School, the Center for Popular Democracy, the Northern Manhattan Coalition for Immigrant Rights, the Vera Institute of Justice and Make the Road New York. They are ultimately seeking to provide representation for all indigent immigrants living in New York who have been detained and are facing deportation in immigration courts in New York City; Batavia, N.Y.; Newark; and Elizabeth, N.J. — an annual population of about 2,450.

Full funding would cost about $7.4 million per year, proponents said. But in a report to be released on Thursday, the advocates argue that by shortening detentions and reducing deportations, the full-blown program would save governments and private employers an estimated $5.9 million a year.

Though the pilot project opened on Wednesday with a deportation, Mr. Markowitz, who watched the proceedings from the gallery of the small, windowless courtroom, said the benefits of the program were immediately evident. Mr. Leyva had no legal relief from deportation, Mr. Markowitz explained, and to prolong his case would have meant postponing the inevitable, at great cost to the government and to Mr. Leyva.

“He didn’t spend needless time in detention,” Mr. Markowitz said.

By the end of the afternoon, 10 detainees had faced the court accompanied by lawyers from Bronx Defenders and Brooklyn Defender Services, which are providing legal counsel for detainees in the pilot program. 

D.C. officer gets 2 years’ probation for False Report & excessive force against Black Man

WashPost

A D.C. police officer was sentenced to two years of supervised probation Friday for assaulting a man and using excessive force in January 2011 at a store in Northeast Washington.

D.C. Superior Court Judge Robert E. Morin also sentenced Clinton Turner, a patrol officer in the 6th District, to 180 days in jail but suspended that. Morin angrily reprimanded Turner for attacking the man and lying about it in a police report.

Turner, 42, said in the report that the victim had attacked him Jan. 20, 2011, inside the Downtown Locker Room store in the 3900 block of Minnesota Avenue.

Video from the store’s security camera was shown at Turner’s trial last month, and it indicated that Turner attacked the victim during a 20-second altercation.

“I don’t underestimate the stress police officers are under,” Morin said. “This wasn’t stress. You attacked this individual and then filed a false report.”

Morin said that had it not been for the security camera, the victim might have been convicted of assaulting an officer. The judge said he had planned to have Turner serve some time in jail but decided instead to defer to the prosecutor’s recommendation of probation.

Morin also ordered Turner to perform 200 hours of community service, attend anger-management classes, pay $1,200 in restitution to the victim — who said several of his dreadlocks were pulled out by Turner — and stay away from the victim.

Prosecutors said that Turner, who was on patrol at the time, had exchanged words with the store employee, who walked away from the argument. Turner followed him and kept telling him, “Don’t let us get you locked up on your birthday,” prosecutors said.

The victim asked why he would be arrested for being at work doing his job, and the officer warned that if he said something else, he would be arrested, according to prosecutors. The employee sarcastically replied, “Something else,” and Turner slammed him into a display wall. Turner then arrested him for assaulting a police officer.

A Living Wage? D.C. education agency pays Chicago firm nearly $90,000 for one day of work

WashingtonPost

A D.C. government agency paid a Chicago consulting firm $89,995 for one day of work at a recent city education conference, a fee that included a half-hour keynote speech, three 45-minute parent workshops and hundreds of copies of parenting books.

The Office of the State Superintendent of Education hired the firm without soliciting or considering other bids, according to an agency spokeswoman. The agency sponsored the Sept. 7 conference in an effort to reach out to parents, using D.C. tax dollars to pay the Chicago firm even as many speakers that day — as well as the keynote speaker at the same conference in 2012 — volunteered.

The payment to SPC Consulting is about $12,000 more than the average D.C. Public Schools teacher earns in a year, and is more than three times the “living wage” — $26,000 per year — that Wal-Mart would have been required to pay employees under a bill that Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) vetoed this year. It’s also higher than the $50,000 that former D.C. schools chancellor Michelle Rhee, arguably the most widely recognized education figure in the country, charged for individual speaking appearances in 2011.

The superintendent’s office is responsible for citywide education policies, and the agency funnels federal and local funds to city schools. The agency selected SPC Consulting based on a recommendation by Chief of Staff Jose Alvarez, a top agency official who has played a leadership role during months of turnover, and who knew the firm and its founder from a previous job in Chicago. [MORE]

The NYPD doesn't answer document requests

BlackListedNews

The New York Police Department's records office is notorious among reporters for being about as transparent as a bank vault. It's storied history of non-disclosure includes an overeager rejection stamp and a convenient tendency to “not receive” letters in time.

Having submitted my share of records requests to cops and military across the country, I have few illusions of chipper customer service from police clerks. But the NYPD takes it to a whole new level.

Reporters Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman, who shared a Pulitzer last year as part of the Associated Press team covering the NYPD’s surveillance activity, have summed it up perfectly: The NYPD doesn't answer document requests.

“For the most part, they don’t respond,” Apuzzo told the Huffington Post. "Even the NSA responds.”

It's not just reporters who've noticed. New York City Public Advocate and mayoral candidate Bill de Blasio gave the police department a failing grade in an April report based on its dismal response rate to Freedom of Information requests. By de Blasio’s analysis, nearly a third of requests submitted to NYPD go unanswered.

Shackles and Ivy: The Secret History of How Slavery Helped Build America's Elite Colleges

Democracy Now

A new book 10 years in the making examines how many major U.S. universities — Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Brown, Dartmouth, Rutgers, Williams and the University of North Carolina, among others — are drenched in the sweat, and sometimes the blood, of Africans brought to the United States as slaves. In "Ebony & Ivy: Race, Slavery, and the Troubled History of America’s Universities," Massachusetts Institute of Technology American history professor Craig Steven Wilder reveals how the slave economy and higher education grew up together. "When you think about the colonial world, until the American Revolution, there is only one college in the South, William & Mary ... The other eight colleges were all Northern schools, and they’re actually located in key sites, for the most part, of the merchant economy where the slave traders had come to power and rose as the financial and intellectual backers of new culture of the colonies," Wilder says.

Click here to watch part 2 of this interview.

Civil Rights Coalition Victorious in Suit Against Alabama’s Anti-Immigrant Law

ACLU

The coalition of civil rights groups that challenged Alabama’s anti-immigrant law, HB 56, announced today an agreement that permanently blocks key provisions of the law and significantly limits racial profiling under Sections 12 and 18, the “show me your papers” provisions. A similar agreement is being entered in a case brought by the Department of Justice and also in one brought by church leaders. Both agreements are pending final approval by the court.

Under the agreement, the provisions currently temporarily blocked by the courts will be permanently blocked. The state will also pay the coalition attorneys’ fees and costs, as required under federal law. Alabama joins Arizona, South Carolina, Georgia and other states whose anti-immigrant laws have been stopped by the courts.

"This court order gives firm assurance that all Alabamians are on equal footing, regardless of their immigration status," said Cecillia Wang, director of the ACLU Immigrants' Rights Project. "Law enforcement agencies throughout Alabama are on notice – if they detain anyone based on suspicions about immigration status, they will be violating the U.S. Constitution and we will take swift action to protect people’s civil rights against such violations."  

The state also agrees that local police cannot hold someone during a traffic stop solely to check immigration status. This is a significant victory because many departments across the state have interpreted the “show me your papers” provisions to authorize detaining people just to check their immigration status. The coalition will remain vigilant to ensure these abuses do not continue.

"I am thankful that most of the law has been permanently blocked and that tranquility has been restored to the Hispanic community," said Maria D. Ceja Zamora, a plaintiff in the lawsuit. "I am glad to see there are still organizations like those that brought the lawsuit to help stop discriminatory laws like HB 56. God bless and keep up the good work."

"We warned the legislature when they were debating HB 56 that if they passed this draconian law, we would sue in court and win," said Kristi Graunke, senior staff supervising attorney for the Southern Poverty Law Center. "That we have done. Now it is time for our state lawmakers to repeal the remnants of HB 56, and for our congressional delegation to support meaningful immigration reform that will fix our broken system."

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), the National Immigration Law Center (NILC), American Civil Liberties Union Foundation (ACLU), Mexican American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF) and other civil rights groups filed the class action suit – HICA v. Bentley – in July 2011.  It challenged provisions of the law that chilled children’s access to public schools, authorized police to demand “papers” during traffic stops, and criminalized Alabamians for everyday interactions with undocumented individuals.

"Today’s settlement should remind legislators in both Montgomery and Washington that a person’s constitutional rights may not be legislated away," said Linton Joaquin, general counsel of the National Immigration Law Center. "Supporters of attempts to nationalize racial profiling policies such as Alabama’s HB 56 should be warned: we will fight these efforts at the Capitol, and, if necessary, in the courtroom."

The following key provisions of the law have now been permanently blocked by the courts as a result of this lawsuit:

• Section 10, which criminalized failing to register one’s immigration status, was initially blocked by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit and now has been permanently blocked;
• Section 28, which required schools to verify the immigration status of newly enrolled K-12 students, was initially blocked by the 11th Circuit and now has been permanently blocked.
• Section 13, which criminalized giving a ride or renting to someone who is undocumented, was initially blocked by the U.S. District Court in Birmingham and now has been permanently blocked;
• Section 11(a), which criminalized the solicitation of work by unauthorized immigrants, was initially blocked by the District Court in Birmingham and now has been permanently blocked;
• Sections 11(f) and (g), which criminalized day laborers’ First Amendment right to solicit work, was initially blocked by the District Court in Birmingham and now have been permanently blocked; and
• Section 27, which infringed on the ability of individuals to contract with someone who was undocumented, was initially blocked by the 11th Circuit and now has been permanently blocked.

"The heart of Alabama’s unconstitutional anti-immigrant law will be blocked permanently with this agreement, an historic victory for everyone living in the state," said Victor Viramontes, National Senior Counsel, MALDEF. "Other states and localities that consider targeting day laborers, immigrant school children, or immigrant workers should learn from Alabama’s costly mistakes."

The state agreed to pay $350,000 in legal fees and costs to the coalition lawyers.

"During the long two years since HB 56 was implemented in our state, we have witnessed its harmful effects on our community members and on the reputation of our state," said Isabel Rubio, executive director for Hispanic Interest Coalition for Alabama, a plaintiff in the lawsuit. "We are thankful that state and local officials have worked with the courts and our legal partners to resolve the destructive issues brought about by this unjust law. We will continue to work toward building a future in which Alabama is known as a place where immigrants are welcomed and recognized for their valuable contributions."

"We advised the legislature that HB56 would not pass Constitutional muster and warned against a state policy that pitted neighbors against one another" said Shay Farley, legal director for Alabama Appleseed Center for Law & Justice, Inc., a plaintiff in the lawsuit. "Today, we celebrate this victory with our co-plaintiffs and counsel; thankful that the mean-spirited prohibitions and sanctions unlawfully imposed by HB56 are now history and are permanently enjoined."

More information about the case and settlement can be accessed here:
https://www.aclu.org/immigrants-rights/hispanic-interest-coalition-alabama-v-bentley-proposed-final-order