State Courts at the Tipping Point

Published: November 24, 2009

State courts are not just another government agency. They are at the center of the nation’s legal system and enforcement of the rule of law, handling more than 95 percent of all civil and criminal litigation. This vital institution — constitutionally, an independent, co-equal branch of government — has been spiraling into crisis as cash-starved states struggle with huge deficits.

In a sobering speech earlier this month at a gathering of the New York City Bar Association, Margaret Marshall, the chief justice of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court, warned that because of budget cuts in tough economic times, state courts across the country stand at “the tipping point of dysfunction.”

Chief Justice Marshall’s sense of alarm is well founded. Reductions in financing have led to some overdue efficiencies that states might not have made if the recession had not forced their hands. But in too many cases, the cuts are already impeding core court functions, forcing court closures, shortened court hours and a tangible narrowing of access to justice.

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A New York Time editorial from Tuesday. Tom

Feeling Nervous? 3,000 Behavior Detection Officers Will Be Watching You at the Airport This Thanksgiving

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet. Posted November 24, 2009.

Nearly 100,000 passengers were pulled aside by TSA behavior watchers last year, and it remains to be proven whether you can spot terrorists by the looks on their faces.

Here's a question to ponder the next time you're taking off your shoes at airport security: Can you spot terrorists by the look on their faces?

For the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), the answer is yes. For the past few years, airports across the country have been using what many call "behavioral surveillance" to weed out potential hijackers among us, by covertly examining travelers' facial expressions and body language as they go through security. Unlike those airport employees who herd us along as we remove our shoes and relinquish all liquids over three ounces (with dubious results), this new program, named "Screening Passengers by Observational Techniques," or "SPOT," is carried out by TSA employees who have been trained to monitor travelers' faces and movements. As Americans head out of town this holiday season, more than 3,000 "Behavior Detection Officers" will be at 161 airports nationwide, watching our every move.

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Black Teacher May Get 15 Years in Prison for Cutting in Line at Wal-Mart

By Devona Walker, The Loop. Posted November 25, 2009.

This is not how our criminal justice system is supposed to operate.

Think about the story of Heather Ellis, then think about the fact that half of the people in the United States prison system are Black folks, even though we make up just 13 percent of the population. Then, ask yourself if our criminal justice system is operating the way it's supposed to operate.

Three years ago, Heather Ellis, a college student at the time, was waiting on line at Wal-Mart. She decided to get into another line, then got into a verbal altercation with customers. The cops were called. And she is facing a possible 15-year sentence in prison.

Black folks keep focusing on Ellis' background — she's a young school teacher with no record. Seemingly a good person, right? While that is true, my point is that should be irrelevant. Even if Ellis were a convicted felon, even if she had been stuffing DVDs down her pants, she should still not be facing 15 years in prison. Our criminal justice system is supposed to work for all of us, not just the good Blacks, not just those of us with character above reproach.

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All power to the people

And speaking of lost causes… there’s a fascinating new documentary making the rounds that you might want to keep an eye out for. William Kunstler: Defending the Universe is a sometimes stirring, sometimes confounding but ultimately moving portrait of the iconoclastic and controversial defense lawyer who was sort of the Zelig of the radical Left throughout most of the 1970s. Somehow, he became THE key legal champion for the Chicago 7, The Black Panther Party, anti-war activist Father Daniel Berrigan, the American Indian Movement and the ill-fated inmates who initiated the Attica prison riots.

However, beginning sometime in the 1980s (for reasons known only to himself, or perhaps just merely in keeping with the inherently contrarian nature of a defense lawyer) he slowly but surely turned to The Dark Side (at least in the opinion, and to the chagrin, of many of his professional cohorts and former “co-conspirators”). He started to take on high-profile cases involving clients who were, well, decidedly less sexy to the dedicated followers of fashionable radical chic; terrorists (including the chief planner of the first World Trade Center attack and the man accused of murdering Rabbi Kahane), mobsters (John Gotti and other Gambino family associates), notorious murderers (L.I. Railroad killer Colin Ferguson) and rapists (the Central Park jogger assault case)-to name a couple.

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You'll have to scroll down a bit to get to the Kunstler article.... Tom

Daily Kos TASERS: How Police & TASER, Inc. Bamboozle The Press

by Zwoof

he following is an excerpt from an article instructing Law Enforcement personnel how to explain to the media why Taser victims die from Excited Delirium, a non-existent medical condition.

When law enforcement administrators are confronted by the
media event surrounding a Sudden In-Custody Death (SICD), they
often do not know what to say. Many times, what the chief says
during an unplanned media event will haunt that chief for a long
time and provide a basis for unpleasant cross-examination during
a civil trial.
Police & Security News; SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER 2007 VOL. 23 ISSUE 5 (PDF)

The article deals with language and terms.

For example, do not say, "The officer shot
the man with an ECD." ECDs are not firearms, but the word "shot"
will imply that notion. Instead, say the ECD was "deployed." Also,
do not use the word "tased," as this not only negatively impacts
the trademark, TASER, but it also helps to perpetuate the use of
this improper word, and it sounds unprofessional in reports and in
print. Again, simply say, "deployed."

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This Seeming Brow of Justice

By Samuel Moyn

JUSTIN IDE/HARVARD NEWS OFFICE

Every fall they pack Sanders Theatre to the rafters. A spellbinding philosopher takes the stage before a rapt crowd of Harvard students, and soon enough the cavernous space becomes a classroom where the bright shades of Aristotle, Jeremy Bentham, Immanuel Kant and John Rawls are summoned to have their say on the enduring questions. What is the good life? Is pleasure the highest end, or is something else? Are acts moral because they lead to good consequences, or because they are done on principle? To keep the discussion grounded, the class--called simply "Justice," it now regularly enrolls more than 1,000 undergraduates--is asked to confront these quandaries in the context of hard cases brought to life by the philosopher's trademark hypothetical situations or policy dilemmas culled from newspaper articles.

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This is a nice read for a Sunday morning. Tom

Cop Tases 10-Year-Old Girl

Arkansas mother suggested stun gun treatment for unruly daughter

NOVEMBER 18--An Arkansas cop tasered an unruly 10-year-old girl after her mother called police to report that the child was crying, screaming, and refusing to go to bed. The tased girl, Kiara Medlock, is about 65 pounds and 4' 6", according to her father. Anthony Medlock, a truck driver who does not live with the fifth grader and her mother, provided TSG with a recent photo of his daughter, which can be seen at right.

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Manhattan TransferThe right's nonsensical arguments against trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in New York.

By Dahlia Lithwick

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed

Opposition to the Obama administration's plan to try alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his confederates in a federal court in New York City is hardening into two camps. One is concerned that we may be unwittingly playing into the terrorists' hands. The other is incensed that we already have. What both camps share, besides a kind of unhinged logic and complete disregard for the legal process, is an obsessive fascination with the accused. The result is a broad willingness to sacrifice our commitment to legal principles in favor of the symbolic satisfaction of crushing the hopes and dreams of a motley group of criminals.

Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, firmly in the first camp, is hopping mad that we are poised to make all the suspect's dreams come true. As he said on ABC's This Week: "Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, when he was first arrested, asked to be brought to New York. I didn't think we were in the business of granting the requests of terrorists."

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There is also a fear that as all the torture evidence gets entered into court, George Bush and his buddies might face some legal jeopardy. Tom

What Makes a Prison "State of the Art"?

By Brian PalmerPosted Monday, Nov. 16, 2009, at 7:44 PM ET

Thompson Correctional Center

Federal officials visited a correctional center in Thomson, Ill., on Monday, to see if it might be appropriate for housing detainees from Guantanamo Bay. A statement from the governor's office described the prison as a "virtually vacant, state of the art facility." What makes a prison "state of the art?"

A triangle shape, in part. Modern prisons are generally designed with three sides, no more than two stories of cells lining the perimeter, and communal activities like dining in the center. The shape supposedly allows guards stationed in the middle to see every corner of the building, with better sight lines than you'd get from a rectangular layout. (The triangle design came into fashion in the United States after World War II and soon spread to other countries.)

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