According to The News & Observer February 4, 2011 edition, Floyd Brown’s civil suit against the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation will be allowed to proceed. The article by Mandy Locke and Joseph Neff, which strictly followed the PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) never once mentioned the name of Brown’s prosecutor, Anson County District Attorney Michael D. Parker. It was Parker who charged the severely retarded African American male, with the intelligence of a seven year-old, with a 1993 murder that was based solely on the existence of a so-called confession from Brown that was taken by verbatim by SBI agent Mark Isley.
There was no eyewitness or forensics evidence tying Brown to the crime… in other words, there was no credible evidence for with which to charge Brown. Therefore, Parker relied on the “verbatim confession” to charge Brown with murder and hold him in a mental institution. It was the objective of the mental health staff to somehow miraculously whip Brown’s severe retardation into a state that would allow him stand trial for the murder with which he was charged. But the mental health team was unable to perform miracles, and Floyd Brown languished in the institution at taxpayer expense for fourteen years until an appeal was held outside of Anson County wherein he was freed.
Brown’s declaration of freedom was based on the fact that the judge heard from a variety of expert mental health witnesses who averred that Floyd Brown’s retardation was so severe that there was no way that the six page verbatim written confession could have been attributed to him. So Brown was finally released to the custody of his family, but not before prosecutor Parker maliciously went out of his way to disrupt assisted living plans that the government social workers had put together for Brown’s release.
Brown’s family sought to bring a civil suit against the prosecutors, but Attorney General Roy Cooper proclaimed that Michael Parker had immunity against such action. This is not the stance he took in the Duke Lacrosse case when he invited civil suits against former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong who had prosecuted the Duke Lacrosse case within acceptable bounds, acted as a true “minister of justice,” and did so without malice.
Parker, with the complicity of media-types, transferred all of the blame for the “doctored” confession on SBI agent Isley. Any person of reasonable mind would no doubt believe that Parker was aware that the alleged “verbatim confession” by Brown was a fabrication, which was more likely than not pressed forward by prosecutor Parker. Michael Parker is an intelligent man, and has likely had much experience in orchestrating unethical schemes to prevail with a favorable verdict, yet steer clear of any liability. Parker was also indoctrinated by the state’s policy of “selective justice based on Class and Color” and was fully aware that stealing years of a man’s life would be of little consequence as long as he/she were poor, disenfranchised, and a person of color.
When Brown’s family brought the suit against the SBI for its role in Floyd’s lengthy detention, the Attorney General’s Office objected, according to the newspaper, by arguing that it didn’t matter whether a SBI agent “elaborated or augmented or even smoothed out the alleged confession.” In other words, when defendants belong to a certain class and color, it is permissible in the eyes of the state’s head prosecutor to charge a defendant with a confession that is bogus… or as the state euphemistically put it “smoothed out.”
Unfortunately the state of North Carolina “smooths out” a lot of evidence and testimony in order to place behind bars many innocent people who are considered by the Powers-That-Be to be disposable. Attorneys representing the Attorney General’s Office do not feel that Floyd Brown, a retarded man who was involuntarily held in a mental hospital for fourteen years based on a bogus “verbatim confession,” is deserving of any compensation from the state. There is no doubt that he deserves compensation… just like Alan Gell deserved compensation… and Greg Taylor deserved compensation. Many others who deserve compensation by the state but are unlikely to receive any are Erick Daniels, Levon Bo Jones, and James Arthur Johnson.
Superior Court Judge Forrest D. Bridges undeniably made the right decision in allowing the civil case against the SBI to proceed. The civil suit against Mike Nifong for his handling of the Duke Lacrosse case is the one that should have been dismissed, as it was prosecuted honorably and in good faith. Not to mention that the three Duke Lacrosse defendants not only received seven million dollars each, but in contrast to Floyd Brown, Gell, Taylor, Johnson, Daniels, and others, never spent one day in jail.
With the SBI now under scrutiny thanks to the ill-advised challenge by Prosecutor Tom Ford and Wake County District Attorney Colon Willoughby against Greg Taylor’s release, it seems like the scales of justice are tipping, ever so slightly, towards that which is just.
Be sure to catch the latest installment of Episode V of “The MisAdventures of Super-Duper Cooper” -- Part 6. Just click on to the Link below. Also be sure to view the “Commentary, Insight, and Analysis” which immediately follows the strip. A new feature to the commentary allows viewer feedback by e-mail at its conclusion.
LINK: http://justice4nifong.com/direc/sdcDirec/sdcEpv/sdc127.htm
Note: The e-mail response at the end of the commentary which follows the strip may not be functional at this time.
Showing posts with label Floyd Brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Floyd Brown. Show all posts
Sunday, February 6, 2011
Thursday, October 28, 2010
The mystery of Isley’s promotion is elementary
In the Sunday, October 17, 2010 edition of The News & Observer, was a front page, below the fold, article titled, “Isley’s climb at SBI followed his claim of racism.” Evidently Mark Isley’s claim had teeth, and in accordance with terms of a 2005 settlement which was reached after he filed a discrimination complaint against the SBI, he was promoted with a wage increase.
Mark Isley is an African American SBI agent who played an integral part in the successful incarceration of mentally impaired Floyd Brown, who was held in limbo for years awaiting a trial that never materialized. The article, by staff writers Mandy Locke and Joseph Neff, was in strict compliance with the paper’s PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy, as it never once mentioned the name of the prosecutor responsible for the handling of Mr. Brown’s case, Anson County prosecutor Michael D. Parker.
Now the question posed by the N & O writers concerns the mysteries of how SBI agent Mark Isley’s career "soared" while evidence mounted that he fabricated a confession that forced a disabled man to be locked away at a mental hospital for 14 years. After putting on my “Sherlock Holmes cap,” and making a few deductions, the answer is, well, elementary. The key to this puzzle has to do with the timeline.
The investigative reporting in this article is a little sloppy and vague, with attempts to mislead the reader. In early 2004, Mr. Isley had been employed by the SBI for approximately 15 years… the length of time spent as a supervisor of field agents is unclear. At some point during his employment he began to complain about discriminatory practices in the SBI which had prevented him and other African Americans from advancing in the ranks. Now the N & O, without giving dates, stated that Isley began complaining months after attorneys for Floyd Brown began registering complaints about Isley’s work. The importance of this statement is to dispel any “cause and effect” relationship. However, I believe that Mr. Isley’s complaints about racial discrimination preceded those against him by Brown’s attorneys. The timing is a critical issue here. Why in spring of 2004 would one look into Isley’s handling of Brown’s case?
The facts concerning Floyd Brown had not changed since he was first charged and held in a mental hospital in 1993. He was severely retarded and, according to mental health experts, could not have dictated a confession which Isley allegedly wrote word for word. This so-called confession was the only thing tying Brown to the crime, as no forensic or physical evidence linking Brown to the murder could be established. The defense attorneys were aware of this, as was Anson prosecutor Michael D. Parker. But everyone, including the media, was content to allow Brown to languish in the mental hospital because he was disenfranchised, poor, and an African American… in accordance with the state’s tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color.”
So, evidently there seemed to be no movement in Brown’s situation until nearly a decade later… around the time Mark Isley began complaining about being discriminated against by being passed over for promotion by other less qualified white SBI applicants. Then, all of a sudden and out of the clear blue Floyd Brown’s attorneys request Isley’s personnel records from the SBI and began making allegations of misconduct against him. There was no indication that any complaints were made against the prosecutor who was actually responsible for Brown being held in custody without a trial, Michael D. Parker.
It can also be deduced from the newspaper article that the SBI and Mr. Isley did not see eye to eye regarding his complaints, as he was forced to eventually file a racial discrimination claim against the SBI.
It can also be deduced, from the settlement which included a promotion and pay raise for Isley, that his claim of racial discrimination had substance, a matter that the media has chosen to gloss over. In addition to settling with Isley, the agency was forced to pay Isley’s attorney fees, and the SBI later issued a revised policy regarding the promotion process and incorporated increased minority hiring and recruitment.
After being dealt a significant blow by Mr. Isley’s complaint, it is not a stretch to come to the realization that Mr. Isley did not hold a favored agent status within the state agency. This is a situation which usually engenders retribution… and what better way to knock Mr. Isley down a peg or two than to bring to the fore earlier acts of possible serious misconduct, of which the agency had been aware since the beginning.
Now, David Rudolf, a Charlotte criminal defense attorney who filed a civil suit on behalf of Floyd Brown and is smacking his lips at the thought of his percentage of a potential humongous award in court, was quick to criticize SBI agent Mark Isley. He was quick to blame Isley for Brown being held for fourteen years in a mental hospital without a trial. I have not heard a disparaging word coming from the mouth of Mr. Rudolf about the prosecutor, Michael D. Parker. Parker was the person in charge of the Brown case, and he knew, or should have known, about the legitimacy, or lack thereof, of Brown’s so-called written confession. Parker was also the person who refused mental health staff requests to allow Mr. Brown to have lunch with his sister and to leave for several hours to attend the fair. Parker was also the person who maliciously interfered with living arrangements which had been painstakingly made by state social workers for Brown in an assisted living facility. But, again, there apparently are no complaints from Attorney Rudolf about Mr. Parker’s conduct.
I only used the newspaper article as a source for analyzing its topic of Isley’s complaint, his promotion, and the Brown case, so my conclusions, which follow, are mostly based on educated supposition. They are as follows:
(1) Attorneys on both sides of the murder charge against Brown knew that the so-called confession allegedly obtained by Isley was bogus, but it was the only thing that the prosecution had with which to hold Brown;
(2) Floyd Brown definitely had ineffective counsel at his original trial;
(3) the North Carolina SBI agency practiced racial discrimination with regards to promotions at the time that Isley first complained about it;
(4) the sudden emergence of complaints by Brown’s attorneys about Isley, including the request to see his personnel records, was directly related to Isley’s complaints of discrimination;
(5) as pointed out in The News & Observer, Isley’s promotion was related to his settlement regarding complaints of racial discrimination in the SBI;
(6) the media reporting on the Floyd Brown case adhere to the PAPEN Policy, and are scapegoating Mark Isley; and
(7) the problems Mark Isley now face are a result of his complaints against the SBI.
Mark Isley is an African American SBI agent who played an integral part in the successful incarceration of mentally impaired Floyd Brown, who was held in limbo for years awaiting a trial that never materialized. The article, by staff writers Mandy Locke and Joseph Neff, was in strict compliance with the paper’s PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy, as it never once mentioned the name of the prosecutor responsible for the handling of Mr. Brown’s case, Anson County prosecutor Michael D. Parker.
Now the question posed by the N & O writers concerns the mysteries of how SBI agent Mark Isley’s career "soared" while evidence mounted that he fabricated a confession that forced a disabled man to be locked away at a mental hospital for 14 years. After putting on my “Sherlock Holmes cap,” and making a few deductions, the answer is, well, elementary. The key to this puzzle has to do with the timeline.
The investigative reporting in this article is a little sloppy and vague, with attempts to mislead the reader. In early 2004, Mr. Isley had been employed by the SBI for approximately 15 years… the length of time spent as a supervisor of field agents is unclear. At some point during his employment he began to complain about discriminatory practices in the SBI which had prevented him and other African Americans from advancing in the ranks. Now the N & O, without giving dates, stated that Isley began complaining months after attorneys for Floyd Brown began registering complaints about Isley’s work. The importance of this statement is to dispel any “cause and effect” relationship. However, I believe that Mr. Isley’s complaints about racial discrimination preceded those against him by Brown’s attorneys. The timing is a critical issue here. Why in spring of 2004 would one look into Isley’s handling of Brown’s case?
The facts concerning Floyd Brown had not changed since he was first charged and held in a mental hospital in 1993. He was severely retarded and, according to mental health experts, could not have dictated a confession which Isley allegedly wrote word for word. This so-called confession was the only thing tying Brown to the crime, as no forensic or physical evidence linking Brown to the murder could be established. The defense attorneys were aware of this, as was Anson prosecutor Michael D. Parker. But everyone, including the media, was content to allow Brown to languish in the mental hospital because he was disenfranchised, poor, and an African American… in accordance with the state’s tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color.”
So, evidently there seemed to be no movement in Brown’s situation until nearly a decade later… around the time Mark Isley began complaining about being discriminated against by being passed over for promotion by other less qualified white SBI applicants. Then, all of a sudden and out of the clear blue Floyd Brown’s attorneys request Isley’s personnel records from the SBI and began making allegations of misconduct against him. There was no indication that any complaints were made against the prosecutor who was actually responsible for Brown being held in custody without a trial, Michael D. Parker.
It can also be deduced from the newspaper article that the SBI and Mr. Isley did not see eye to eye regarding his complaints, as he was forced to eventually file a racial discrimination claim against the SBI.
It can also be deduced, from the settlement which included a promotion and pay raise for Isley, that his claim of racial discrimination had substance, a matter that the media has chosen to gloss over. In addition to settling with Isley, the agency was forced to pay Isley’s attorney fees, and the SBI later issued a revised policy regarding the promotion process and incorporated increased minority hiring and recruitment.
After being dealt a significant blow by Mr. Isley’s complaint, it is not a stretch to come to the realization that Mr. Isley did not hold a favored agent status within the state agency. This is a situation which usually engenders retribution… and what better way to knock Mr. Isley down a peg or two than to bring to the fore earlier acts of possible serious misconduct, of which the agency had been aware since the beginning.
Now, David Rudolf, a Charlotte criminal defense attorney who filed a civil suit on behalf of Floyd Brown and is smacking his lips at the thought of his percentage of a potential humongous award in court, was quick to criticize SBI agent Mark Isley. He was quick to blame Isley for Brown being held for fourteen years in a mental hospital without a trial. I have not heard a disparaging word coming from the mouth of Mr. Rudolf about the prosecutor, Michael D. Parker. Parker was the person in charge of the Brown case, and he knew, or should have known, about the legitimacy, or lack thereof, of Brown’s so-called written confession. Parker was also the person who refused mental health staff requests to allow Mr. Brown to have lunch with his sister and to leave for several hours to attend the fair. Parker was also the person who maliciously interfered with living arrangements which had been painstakingly made by state social workers for Brown in an assisted living facility. But, again, there apparently are no complaints from Attorney Rudolf about Mr. Parker’s conduct.
I only used the newspaper article as a source for analyzing its topic of Isley’s complaint, his promotion, and the Brown case, so my conclusions, which follow, are mostly based on educated supposition. They are as follows:
(1) Attorneys on both sides of the murder charge against Brown knew that the so-called confession allegedly obtained by Isley was bogus, but it was the only thing that the prosecution had with which to hold Brown;
(2) Floyd Brown definitely had ineffective counsel at his original trial;
(3) the North Carolina SBI agency practiced racial discrimination with regards to promotions at the time that Isley first complained about it;
(4) the sudden emergence of complaints by Brown’s attorneys about Isley, including the request to see his personnel records, was directly related to Isley’s complaints of discrimination;
(5) as pointed out in The News & Observer, Isley’s promotion was related to his settlement regarding complaints of racial discrimination in the SBI;
(6) the media reporting on the Floyd Brown case adhere to the PAPEN Policy, and are scapegoating Mark Isley; and
(7) the problems Mark Isley now face are a result of his complaints against the SBI.
Keep in mind that Prosecutor Michael D. Parker is in good standing with the North Carolina State Bar... as are Tom Ford (Gregory Taylor), Bill Wolfe (James Arthur Johnson), and David Hoke (Alan Gell). And Mike Nifong is the only prosecutor to be disbarred by the North Carolina State Bar since its inception in 1933 - a travesty of justice... something that defies logic and is definitely not elementary.
Thursday, August 26, 2010
Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett, Wyatt Earp, Eliot Ness, and Mike Nifong
Recently, The Independent Weekly, a Triangle area arts and entertainment publication, which has an aversion to me, featured an article by a “Casual Observer.” The title of the July 14, 2010 article, “Razing questions: The last day of the Duke lacrosse house” by Adam Sobsey, included the following paragraph:
“The next morning, I was sitting in Parker & Otis with a cup of coffee when two men sat down at an adjacent table. One of them turned on a voice recorder and interviewed the other – about the lacrosse scandal, astonishingly. The interviewee vigorously and lengthily attacked the media coverage of the case and defended Nifong. It was even more astonishing to hear him compare Nifong to a cross between Wyatt Earp and Eliot Ness. The building may have been demolished, but apparently we are still picking through its controversial remains.”
Yep, I was the interviewee. A gentleman was working on a project for his doctorial thesis and we met that day in Durham for the interview about how African Americans responded and reacted to the Duke Lacrosse case. As the casual observer accurately observed, I did place well-deserved criticism about biased and unfair coverage on the mainstream media… which is in lockstep with the Carpetbagger Jihad agenda to destroy former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong and anyone considered to be on the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case.
A most conspicuous example of slanted media coverage is the utilization of the PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy as evidenced in the recent series in The News & Observer which lays prosecutorial misdeeds on SBI agents and its lab. No where in the entire four part series, spread out over a week, did any of the articles, or related articles mention a prosecutor’s name with a case of injustice. For example, Wake Prosecutor Tom Ford’s name was never mentioned, although he was responsible for putting an innocent man prison for 17 years of a life sentence (Greg Taylor). The name of Prosecutor David Hoke’s name was put in print, even though he convinced a jury to place an innocent man (Alan Gell) on death row. Anson County District Attorney Michael D. Parker wasn’t named in the paper’s series even though he was responsible for an innocent man (Floyd Brown) being incarcerated for fourteen years without a trial. Instead, the newspaper placed blame for these and other flagrant injustices on SBI agents and workers in its forensic lab.
Contrast that coverage to what happened when police investigator Linwood Wilson was charged with “obscenity stalking” as a result of marital discord… the headlines blared, “Nifong’s investigator arrested,” “Nifong’s investigator charged with stalking,” etc. You get the picture. The media, unfortunately, is integrally involved in shaping public opinion, and every chance it gets to link Mr. Nifong to a negative story, it will jump at the chance.
Now, I was pleased with the reference in The Independent Weekly by Mr. Sobsey. And, as I have said for some time, Mr. Nifong has the important and positive characteristics of Wyatt Earp, Eliot Ness, and Thomas Beckett. As a prosecutor, Mr. Nifong believed in law, and he set his career to seeing justice carried out, as devoted to law enforcement as Marshal Wyatt Earp. Like the “Untouchables’” Eliot Ness, Mr. Nifong would not be swayed by coercion, peer pressure, public sentiment, or “suggestions” from higher-ups. Finally, Mr. Nifong exhibited the courage and independence of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett in seeking justice… not bending under the force of the Carpetbagger Cabal. And contrary to the lies put forth in the media from the unregulated North Carolina State Bar adjudicator F. Lane Williamson, and others, Mike Nifong prosecuted the Duke Lacrosse defendants when doing so presented a definite disadvantage to his being elected to his appointed position of Durham district attorney.
What is truly sad is that the people of Durham have been snookered out of having one of North Carolina’s truly great prosecutors serve their county. Mike Nifong exemplified a “Minister of Justice” who put getting it right ahead of winning no matter what the costs. It is the people of Durham who share in this blame because they remained silent and idle, allowing the travesty against Mr. Nifong to take root and flourish. Unfortunately, as is often the case, a man possessing the admirable qualities of Beckett, Earp, and Ness, was considered too much of a risk for the Powers-That-Be who wanted to have free rein to co-opt their version of justice as opposed to enforcing the sacrosanct principle of “equal justice for all.”
“The next morning, I was sitting in Parker & Otis with a cup of coffee when two men sat down at an adjacent table. One of them turned on a voice recorder and interviewed the other – about the lacrosse scandal, astonishingly. The interviewee vigorously and lengthily attacked the media coverage of the case and defended Nifong. It was even more astonishing to hear him compare Nifong to a cross between Wyatt Earp and Eliot Ness. The building may have been demolished, but apparently we are still picking through its controversial remains.”
Yep, I was the interviewee. A gentleman was working on a project for his doctorial thesis and we met that day in Durham for the interview about how African Americans responded and reacted to the Duke Lacrosse case. As the casual observer accurately observed, I did place well-deserved criticism about biased and unfair coverage on the mainstream media… which is in lockstep with the Carpetbagger Jihad agenda to destroy former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong and anyone considered to be on the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case.
A most conspicuous example of slanted media coverage is the utilization of the PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy as evidenced in the recent series in The News & Observer which lays prosecutorial misdeeds on SBI agents and its lab. No where in the entire four part series, spread out over a week, did any of the articles, or related articles mention a prosecutor’s name with a case of injustice. For example, Wake Prosecutor Tom Ford’s name was never mentioned, although he was responsible for putting an innocent man prison for 17 years of a life sentence (Greg Taylor). The name of Prosecutor David Hoke’s name was put in print, even though he convinced a jury to place an innocent man (Alan Gell) on death row. Anson County District Attorney Michael D. Parker wasn’t named in the paper’s series even though he was responsible for an innocent man (Floyd Brown) being incarcerated for fourteen years without a trial. Instead, the newspaper placed blame for these and other flagrant injustices on SBI agents and workers in its forensic lab.
Contrast that coverage to what happened when police investigator Linwood Wilson was charged with “obscenity stalking” as a result of marital discord… the headlines blared, “Nifong’s investigator arrested,” “Nifong’s investigator charged with stalking,” etc. You get the picture. The media, unfortunately, is integrally involved in shaping public opinion, and every chance it gets to link Mr. Nifong to a negative story, it will jump at the chance.
Now, I was pleased with the reference in The Independent Weekly by Mr. Sobsey. And, as I have said for some time, Mr. Nifong has the important and positive characteristics of Wyatt Earp, Eliot Ness, and Thomas Beckett. As a prosecutor, Mr. Nifong believed in law, and he set his career to seeing justice carried out, as devoted to law enforcement as Marshal Wyatt Earp. Like the “Untouchables’” Eliot Ness, Mr. Nifong would not be swayed by coercion, peer pressure, public sentiment, or “suggestions” from higher-ups. Finally, Mr. Nifong exhibited the courage and independence of Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Beckett in seeking justice… not bending under the force of the Carpetbagger Cabal. And contrary to the lies put forth in the media from the unregulated North Carolina State Bar adjudicator F. Lane Williamson, and others, Mike Nifong prosecuted the Duke Lacrosse defendants when doing so presented a definite disadvantage to his being elected to his appointed position of Durham district attorney.
What is truly sad is that the people of Durham have been snookered out of having one of North Carolina’s truly great prosecutors serve their county. Mike Nifong exemplified a “Minister of Justice” who put getting it right ahead of winning no matter what the costs. It is the people of Durham who share in this blame because they remained silent and idle, allowing the travesty against Mr. Nifong to take root and flourish. Unfortunately, as is often the case, a man possessing the admirable qualities of Beckett, Earp, and Ness, was considered too much of a risk for the Powers-That-Be who wanted to have free rein to co-opt their version of justice as opposed to enforcing the sacrosanct principle of “equal justice for all.”
Saturday, August 14, 2010
NC Justice System: Cruelty without Christianity
To his credit as a columnist, The News & Observer’s Barry Saunders in a recent commentary brought up an issue that is rarely touched upon by the media… the cruelty that seems embedded in our state’s criminal justice system. In his article, Mr. Saunders alluded to Anson County Prosecutor Michael Parker’s treatment of a mentally retarded defendant when he wrote, “Parker spitefully refused Dix workers’ request to take him to the State Fair.” However, Parker carried spite much further by directly interfering with Brown's placement by sabotaging the arrangements at an assisted living facility that had been painstakingly arranged by social workers after his 14 years of wrongful incarceration. Thereafter state employees involved in helping Brown find appropriate housing had to work in secret to prevent District Attorney Parker from intervening.
Is the cruelty exhibited by Michael Parker typical? Yes, and it can be found among police officers serving on the front lines of the urban battlefield to judges sitting behind the benches, and even among ancillary workers in the social/criminal justice field. Is the cruelty exhibit by Parker to be construed as Christ-like behavior? No. People who call themselves Christians and act like heathens are as phony as the currently trumped up charges against Crystal Mangum and those leveled against Mike Nifong by the State Bar. It takes more than attending church to embody the true spirit of Christianity.
The vendetta justice treatment of Crystal Mangum is an example of the cruel and malign attitudes of many in the justice system. The vindictive/retribution motive empowering the backlash by all state officials and staff against Ms. Mangum has its roots in her role in the Duke Lacrosse case. Even though she was the victim in that incident, the state, Carpetbagger families, and the media defined her as the villain. Cruelty in the present problems engulfing Ms. Mangum began on the night of February 17, 2010. Police were summoned to her apartment in response to a 9-1-1 call placed by Ms. Mangum’s daughter who feared her mother might be killed after Mangum’s ex-boyfriend began punching her in the face. When Crystal’s true identity became apparent to police, she was designated as the instigator, aggressor, and offender, and her ex-boyfriend, with a past history of physical violence against women, became the vulnerable victim of the altercation. Then the Durham Police Department got creative and manufactured a crime (which they called “arson”) and laid the blame on Ms. Mangum. A specific incident of police cruelty manifested itself by their commands given to Ms. Mangum to “stand up” while she was lying facedown on the floor with her hands cuffed behind her back. Police reports referred to this as Ms. Mangum refusing to follow commands. (Ask yourself, would a true Christian, in emulating Jesus Christ, taunt a helpless woman lying facedown with her hands cuffed in back, by ordering her to stand up? Is that what Christianity is about?)
What is so tragic about this entire incident is that Durham Police harbored unjustified animosity towards Ms. Mangum based solely on her role in the Duke Lacrosse case, and they abused their power by exacting revenge based on fraudulent and trumped up charges. Most serious was the attempted first degree murder charge. No where in the Durham Police reports is there anything to substantiate such a charge. Likewise, the charge of identity theft was a stretch, to say the least. Ms. Mangum was concerned with how the authorities would respond if they knew her true identity and realized her link to the Duke Lacrosse case. The events that transpired that night validated her concerns, as she was hauled off to jail and placed under a $1 million bail, despite being the victim of domestic violence.
Magistrate B. Wakil acted cruelly towards Ms. Mangum by imposing a $1 million dollar bail on someone who was definitely not a flight risk or a threat to society. By issuing that unreachable bail Ms. Mangum languished in jail, unable to report to work at her full-time job. Because of the bail set by Wakil, Ms. Mangum lost her source of income (with its health benefits), which meant she was unable to pay rent for her apartment (which she lost). Behind bars, she was unable to attend classes at NCCU where she was enrolled in the graduate program working towards a Master’s degree; she was dropped from the courses after she obtained a loan to pay for tuition, books, and supplies. In jail, she was unable to take care of her three children, and she lost custody of them.
Wakil was merely a cog in the wheel of the injustice visited upon Ms. Mangum, but her role in unnecessarily and brutally disrupting Mangum’s life was instrumental and cruel beyond measure. Nothing in the police report could support such draconian treatment. While Ms. Mangum struggles, trying to keep her head above water, Magistrate Wakil goes on with her life, without accounting for the wanton damage to that of another.
Of course, Durham Assistant District Attorney Angela Garcia-Lamarca holds the lion’s share of cruelty and inhumanity towards Ms. Mangum because she is the prosecuting attorney. Ms. Garcia-Lamarca, as a prosecutor, is charged not only with representing the state, but also with seeking the truth… acting as a “Minister of Justice,” if you will. But she has become the hub in this conspiracy of evil by proceeding with a prosecution which is suspect, lacks merit, and trumped up. Her initial plea offer to Ms. Mangum shortly after her arrest was for Mangum to plead guilty to the false charges (eight in total, including attempted first degree murder, arson, assault and battery, and child abuse) against her and serve a two year prison sentence. What a deal. Her public defender thought she should give it serious consideration stating that if she went to trial and was convicted she could possibly be sentenced to six years behind bars. It was only after the miraculous satisfaction of her $100,000 bail by generous and benevolent bail bondsmen several months later that the prosecution’s plea offer was modified as follows: plead guilty to arson, three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, injury to personal property, and resisting a public officer in exchange for time served (three months). This is quite a drastic departure from the prosecutor’s previous offer, which goes to emphasize the non-existence of the prosecution’s case.
Ms. Garcia-Lamarca’s cruelty is also responsible for totally destroying Crystal Mangum’s life. Not being a flight risk or threat to society, Ms. Mangum should have been released without bail, so that she could continue to work, pay the bills, attend classes, support her three children, and help take care of her parents. Instead, Ms. Garcia-Lamarca took the toughest position possible to assure that Ms. Mangum would be locked up for a lengthy period of time. Now ask yourself, if Jesus of Nazareth was prosecuting the case against Ms. Mangum, would he proceed as Ms. Garcia-Lamarca? Undoubtedly not… and if he was given the identical case by police, after looking at it, he would dismiss all charges and rebuke police officers for trumping up such garbage.
District Court Judge Claude Allen’s cruelty and animus against Ms. Mangum is evident by his ruling to subject Ms. Mangum to electronic house arrest in the event that she bonded out. Ms. Mangum (who is neither a flight risk nor threat to society) should not have even been placed under bail, much less considered for monitoring and house arrest after making bond. Judge Allen gave no explanation for this cruel, bizarre and unjust ruling. But, he is not held accountable by any person or body. The Honorable Judge Jennifer Knox when confronting a suspected rape defendant who had been placed under similar conditions (requiring house arrest and monitoring if bonded out), reduced the amount of his bail to $300,000, but dropped the condition of house arrest if he bonded out. Surely, one would consider a suspected male rape defendant more of a threat to society than a female victim of domestic violence. But Judge Knox acted honorably and righteously by dismissing the house arrest condition. There is no doubt that in considering the two aforementioned judges that Judge Knox acted in the true spirit of Christianity. The same cannot be said for Judge Allen.
Crystal Mangum, a victim in the Duke Lacrosse case, has been caught up in the vindictive vortex spun in response to the call of the Carpetbagger Jihad. And this malicious fervor against Mangum and surrogates of Mike Nifong has permeated through all walks of life and levels of government… including the Jail Diversion Program. This county agency provides defendants with an alternative to incarceration while awaiting trial. Since her May 18, 2010 transfer from the Durham County Detention Center to house arrest, Ms. Mangum has been under its auspices. Although she achieved limited relief from the courts (unrestricted mobility weekdays from 8:00 am until 5:00 pm), she is still required to be at home in the evenings and on weekends.
Recently, Ms. Mangum requested to have a weekend free in order to go to the beach. Her immediate supervisor authorized her to have the freedom to enjoy this activity. Days later, she learned that the supervisor had been overruled by someone higher up in the pre-trial program’s chain. The excuse given for denying Ms. Mangum’s request is that “it wouldn’t look good.” This mean-spirited denial by the Jail Diversion Program is yet another troubling example of the cruelty that is so prevalent in the state’s criminal justice system that it has been accepted as the norm. But inhumanity was not the only driving force here… the state does not want to do anything that would make Ms. Mangum look vulnerable, innocent, or non-threatening. Keeping her tied to house monitoring on a short leash, solidifies the media created perception that Ms. Mangum is an imminent threat and danger to society… just like the affable and severely retarded Floyd Brown (as determined by Prosecutor Michael Parker). Therefore, because Ms. Mangum and Mr. Brown do not come from families of wealth, power, and prestige, the North Carolina system of “selective justice based on Class and Color” has no qualms with their being subjected to cruel treatment and punishment.
The state does have a mandate to protect its citizens from criminals and the crimes they commit. That said, in a civilized society, defendants, whether charged or convicted, deserve to be treated with basic dignity and compassion. To act in a malevolent manner against those disadvantaged by being in the throes of the correctional system is contrary to the very principles upon which Christianity is based. Ask yourself this question: “If Jesus of Nazareth was managing the Durham County Jail Diversion program, and Crystal Mangum (wrongfully charged, wrongfully placed on electronic house arrest, not a flight risk, and not a threat to society) requested to have a weekend free to go to the beach, what would he say?”
Is the cruelty exhibited by Michael Parker typical? Yes, and it can be found among police officers serving on the front lines of the urban battlefield to judges sitting behind the benches, and even among ancillary workers in the social/criminal justice field. Is the cruelty exhibit by Parker to be construed as Christ-like behavior? No. People who call themselves Christians and act like heathens are as phony as the currently trumped up charges against Crystal Mangum and those leveled against Mike Nifong by the State Bar. It takes more than attending church to embody the true spirit of Christianity.
The vendetta justice treatment of Crystal Mangum is an example of the cruel and malign attitudes of many in the justice system. The vindictive/retribution motive empowering the backlash by all state officials and staff against Ms. Mangum has its roots in her role in the Duke Lacrosse case. Even though she was the victim in that incident, the state, Carpetbagger families, and the media defined her as the villain. Cruelty in the present problems engulfing Ms. Mangum began on the night of February 17, 2010. Police were summoned to her apartment in response to a 9-1-1 call placed by Ms. Mangum’s daughter who feared her mother might be killed after Mangum’s ex-boyfriend began punching her in the face. When Crystal’s true identity became apparent to police, she was designated as the instigator, aggressor, and offender, and her ex-boyfriend, with a past history of physical violence against women, became the vulnerable victim of the altercation. Then the Durham Police Department got creative and manufactured a crime (which they called “arson”) and laid the blame on Ms. Mangum. A specific incident of police cruelty manifested itself by their commands given to Ms. Mangum to “stand up” while she was lying facedown on the floor with her hands cuffed behind her back. Police reports referred to this as Ms. Mangum refusing to follow commands. (Ask yourself, would a true Christian, in emulating Jesus Christ, taunt a helpless woman lying facedown with her hands cuffed in back, by ordering her to stand up? Is that what Christianity is about?)
What is so tragic about this entire incident is that Durham Police harbored unjustified animosity towards Ms. Mangum based solely on her role in the Duke Lacrosse case, and they abused their power by exacting revenge based on fraudulent and trumped up charges. Most serious was the attempted first degree murder charge. No where in the Durham Police reports is there anything to substantiate such a charge. Likewise, the charge of identity theft was a stretch, to say the least. Ms. Mangum was concerned with how the authorities would respond if they knew her true identity and realized her link to the Duke Lacrosse case. The events that transpired that night validated her concerns, as she was hauled off to jail and placed under a $1 million bail, despite being the victim of domestic violence.
Magistrate B. Wakil acted cruelly towards Ms. Mangum by imposing a $1 million dollar bail on someone who was definitely not a flight risk or a threat to society. By issuing that unreachable bail Ms. Mangum languished in jail, unable to report to work at her full-time job. Because of the bail set by Wakil, Ms. Mangum lost her source of income (with its health benefits), which meant she was unable to pay rent for her apartment (which she lost). Behind bars, she was unable to attend classes at NCCU where she was enrolled in the graduate program working towards a Master’s degree; she was dropped from the courses after she obtained a loan to pay for tuition, books, and supplies. In jail, she was unable to take care of her three children, and she lost custody of them.
Wakil was merely a cog in the wheel of the injustice visited upon Ms. Mangum, but her role in unnecessarily and brutally disrupting Mangum’s life was instrumental and cruel beyond measure. Nothing in the police report could support such draconian treatment. While Ms. Mangum struggles, trying to keep her head above water, Magistrate Wakil goes on with her life, without accounting for the wanton damage to that of another.
Of course, Durham Assistant District Attorney Angela Garcia-Lamarca holds the lion’s share of cruelty and inhumanity towards Ms. Mangum because she is the prosecuting attorney. Ms. Garcia-Lamarca, as a prosecutor, is charged not only with representing the state, but also with seeking the truth… acting as a “Minister of Justice,” if you will. But she has become the hub in this conspiracy of evil by proceeding with a prosecution which is suspect, lacks merit, and trumped up. Her initial plea offer to Ms. Mangum shortly after her arrest was for Mangum to plead guilty to the false charges (eight in total, including attempted first degree murder, arson, assault and battery, and child abuse) against her and serve a two year prison sentence. What a deal. Her public defender thought she should give it serious consideration stating that if she went to trial and was convicted she could possibly be sentenced to six years behind bars. It was only after the miraculous satisfaction of her $100,000 bail by generous and benevolent bail bondsmen several months later that the prosecution’s plea offer was modified as follows: plead guilty to arson, three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, injury to personal property, and resisting a public officer in exchange for time served (three months). This is quite a drastic departure from the prosecutor’s previous offer, which goes to emphasize the non-existence of the prosecution’s case.
Ms. Garcia-Lamarca’s cruelty is also responsible for totally destroying Crystal Mangum’s life. Not being a flight risk or threat to society, Ms. Mangum should have been released without bail, so that she could continue to work, pay the bills, attend classes, support her three children, and help take care of her parents. Instead, Ms. Garcia-Lamarca took the toughest position possible to assure that Ms. Mangum would be locked up for a lengthy period of time. Now ask yourself, if Jesus of Nazareth was prosecuting the case against Ms. Mangum, would he proceed as Ms. Garcia-Lamarca? Undoubtedly not… and if he was given the identical case by police, after looking at it, he would dismiss all charges and rebuke police officers for trumping up such garbage.
District Court Judge Claude Allen’s cruelty and animus against Ms. Mangum is evident by his ruling to subject Ms. Mangum to electronic house arrest in the event that she bonded out. Ms. Mangum (who is neither a flight risk nor threat to society) should not have even been placed under bail, much less considered for monitoring and house arrest after making bond. Judge Allen gave no explanation for this cruel, bizarre and unjust ruling. But, he is not held accountable by any person or body. The Honorable Judge Jennifer Knox when confronting a suspected rape defendant who had been placed under similar conditions (requiring house arrest and monitoring if bonded out), reduced the amount of his bail to $300,000, but dropped the condition of house arrest if he bonded out. Surely, one would consider a suspected male rape defendant more of a threat to society than a female victim of domestic violence. But Judge Knox acted honorably and righteously by dismissing the house arrest condition. There is no doubt that in considering the two aforementioned judges that Judge Knox acted in the true spirit of Christianity. The same cannot be said for Judge Allen.
Crystal Mangum, a victim in the Duke Lacrosse case, has been caught up in the vindictive vortex spun in response to the call of the Carpetbagger Jihad. And this malicious fervor against Mangum and surrogates of Mike Nifong has permeated through all walks of life and levels of government… including the Jail Diversion Program. This county agency provides defendants with an alternative to incarceration while awaiting trial. Since her May 18, 2010 transfer from the Durham County Detention Center to house arrest, Ms. Mangum has been under its auspices. Although she achieved limited relief from the courts (unrestricted mobility weekdays from 8:00 am until 5:00 pm), she is still required to be at home in the evenings and on weekends.
Recently, Ms. Mangum requested to have a weekend free in order to go to the beach. Her immediate supervisor authorized her to have the freedom to enjoy this activity. Days later, she learned that the supervisor had been overruled by someone higher up in the pre-trial program’s chain. The excuse given for denying Ms. Mangum’s request is that “it wouldn’t look good.” This mean-spirited denial by the Jail Diversion Program is yet another troubling example of the cruelty that is so prevalent in the state’s criminal justice system that it has been accepted as the norm. But inhumanity was not the only driving force here… the state does not want to do anything that would make Ms. Mangum look vulnerable, innocent, or non-threatening. Keeping her tied to house monitoring on a short leash, solidifies the media created perception that Ms. Mangum is an imminent threat and danger to society… just like the affable and severely retarded Floyd Brown (as determined by Prosecutor Michael Parker). Therefore, because Ms. Mangum and Mr. Brown do not come from families of wealth, power, and prestige, the North Carolina system of “selective justice based on Class and Color” has no qualms with their being subjected to cruel treatment and punishment.
The state does have a mandate to protect its citizens from criminals and the crimes they commit. That said, in a civilized society, defendants, whether charged or convicted, deserve to be treated with basic dignity and compassion. To act in a malevolent manner against those disadvantaged by being in the throes of the correctional system is contrary to the very principles upon which Christianity is based. Ask yourself this question: “If Jesus of Nazareth was managing the Durham County Jail Diversion program, and Crystal Mangum (wrongfully charged, wrongfully placed on electronic house arrest, not a flight risk, and not a threat to society) requested to have a weekend free to go to the beach, what would he say?”
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
N&O columnist joins in scapegoating the SBI
This week, The News & Observer newspaper has been presenting a four-part series about misconduct and malfeasance at the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigation and its lab. It is nothing more than a blatant attempt to shift all of the blame for exposed prosecutorial misdeeds upon a few “rogue elements” within the SBI. As in keeping within its adherence of following the PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy, I believe that the name of a prosecutor has been mentioned possibly once in the two parts that have been published to date in the newspaper. Recently, Barry Saunders, the paper’s columnist with the acerbic keyboard, jumped into the fray by dumping on two SBI agents in particular in his column titled “Meet he SBI’s bad guys.”
Following the same tenor as articles in the four-part series, Mr. Saunders lambastes the investigators, while not laying a single kid-gloved hand on the prosecutors. This is yet another example of the strict compliance which the media has when it comes to the PAPEN Policy. To his credit, Mr. Saunders does mention the name of a prosecutor in his article once, but he fails to tie him to the real injustice visited upon defendant Floyd Brown.
Barry wrote the following about the Brown prosecutor: “…Anson County District Attorney Michael Parker spitefully refused Dix workers’ request to take him to the State Fair. Brown would have loved that.” However, nowhere in the article does he attribute Brown’s fourteen years of incarceration without a trial to D.A. Parker. Readers of the Saunders column are supposed to believe that SBI investigator Mark Isley is responsible for that. As a matter of fact, the column doesn’t begin to touch upon the depth of Parker’s malevolence and misconduct. Michael Parker not only denied Dix workers’ request for Mr. Brown to have an occasional lunch with his sister, but he willfully and maliciously interfered with Brown’s disposition after being released from 14 years in custody. This was achieved by Parker surreptitiously finding out the assisted living facility where social workers had arranged for Brown to be sent, then talking with the owners of said facility. Shortly thereafter, there was an abrupt 180 by the owners of the house, and Floyd Brown was denied admittance.
What is terribly misleading about these articles is that they put the onus of the injustice in these criminal cases on the investigators, and not on the prosecutors where it squarely belongs. Surely, District Attorney Parker knew that the lucid confession by a severely retarded defendant was flawed to the point of being fraudulent. And don’t think for a minute that investigators work in a vacuum. They are frequently in contact with the prosecutors. As the articles in the four-part series allude, investigators often work to please the prosecutors on the case. So even if the evidence that is brought by investigators before the prosecutor is not credible, it is accepted by the prosecutor if it supports his/her version of events. These articles printed thus far point to the SBI agents and investigators as being the driving force behind the prosecution of defendants. The prosecutors’ roles have almost been relegated to that of bystanders. “Protect those prosecutors… except Nifong” should be the media’s motto.
What I find to be most disingenuous about castigating remarks about SBI agent Dwight Ransome, is that the media maintains that the investigator zeroed in on a particular defendant and skewed his findings to support his belief. But what about the prosecutor? It begs the question, who is running the prosecution? You would believe the investigator and not the prosecutor after reading this week’s articles in The News & Observer. And what I find curious in Barry’s column is the total omission of the highly publicized case to which Ransome was related… that of Alan Gell. Of course, the identity of the prosecutor of Mr. Gell, David Hoke, would not be expected to be mentioned (in accordance with PAPEN).
As you may remember, in the Gell case, the prosecution withheld from defense attorneys the existence of 17 eyewitness statements wherein the alleged murder victim of Gell was seen alive, after Alan Gell had been locked up on an unrelated charge… clearly and definitively exculpatory evidence. Although these documents were within David Hoke’s folder (and I believe that Hoke maintains that he overlooked them), SBI agent Ransome is the one the media holds responsible for defendants not having access to the evidence. What is even further outrageous is that the media contends that had Prosecutor Hoke and defense attorneys been aware of these witness statements that the charges would have probably been dropped. What the media fails to mention however, is that even with knowledge of the 17 witness statements, the Attorney General’s Office chose to re-try Alan Gell (which resulted in an immediate verdict of not guilty). Now if SBI investigator Ransome’s work was so tarnished at Gell’s initial trial, why would state prosecutors take it upon themselves to take Mr. Gell to court a second time? This is not addressed by the media.
What the media needs to focus on is the vendetta case against Crystal Mangum, the former Duke Lacrosse victim who is currently facing trumped up charges of arson and injury to personal property. The News & Observer needs to sic its top investigative reporters on the Durham Police Department and prosecutors. It needs to delve into the basic question of who started the fire. It needs to ask what credible evidence is in possession of the prosecution to support its claim that Crystal Mangum vandalized a car the night of February 17, 2010. It needs to question the specific basis for the initial charges of attempted first degree murder and identity theft lodged against Mangum. It needs to look into the inactivity of police to clothes ablaze in a bathtub. It needs to try and make sense of a timeline vaguely proffered by police and prosecution regarding events that took place the night of February 17th.
There is plenty for a couple of good investigative reporters to sink their teeth into regarding this case. Not only that, but such an exploration would provide fodder for another highly sarcastic and entertaining column by The News & Observer’s own Barry Saunders. I can’t wait.
Now, it is important to pay attention to these blogs, as you might be tested about them in the future. To get an indication of your apprehension of the topic of Duke Lacrosse’s big connection to the media, click on the following link to access the latest quiz on the topic. Click Quiz 10 on the directory page.
LINK: http://justice4nifong.com/quiz/quiz.htm
Following the same tenor as articles in the four-part series, Mr. Saunders lambastes the investigators, while not laying a single kid-gloved hand on the prosecutors. This is yet another example of the strict compliance which the media has when it comes to the PAPEN Policy. To his credit, Mr. Saunders does mention the name of a prosecutor in his article once, but he fails to tie him to the real injustice visited upon defendant Floyd Brown.
Barry wrote the following about the Brown prosecutor: “…Anson County District Attorney Michael Parker spitefully refused Dix workers’ request to take him to the State Fair. Brown would have loved that.” However, nowhere in the article does he attribute Brown’s fourteen years of incarceration without a trial to D.A. Parker. Readers of the Saunders column are supposed to believe that SBI investigator Mark Isley is responsible for that. As a matter of fact, the column doesn’t begin to touch upon the depth of Parker’s malevolence and misconduct. Michael Parker not only denied Dix workers’ request for Mr. Brown to have an occasional lunch with his sister, but he willfully and maliciously interfered with Brown’s disposition after being released from 14 years in custody. This was achieved by Parker surreptitiously finding out the assisted living facility where social workers had arranged for Brown to be sent, then talking with the owners of said facility. Shortly thereafter, there was an abrupt 180 by the owners of the house, and Floyd Brown was denied admittance.
What is terribly misleading about these articles is that they put the onus of the injustice in these criminal cases on the investigators, and not on the prosecutors where it squarely belongs. Surely, District Attorney Parker knew that the lucid confession by a severely retarded defendant was flawed to the point of being fraudulent. And don’t think for a minute that investigators work in a vacuum. They are frequently in contact with the prosecutors. As the articles in the four-part series allude, investigators often work to please the prosecutors on the case. So even if the evidence that is brought by investigators before the prosecutor is not credible, it is accepted by the prosecutor if it supports his/her version of events. These articles printed thus far point to the SBI agents and investigators as being the driving force behind the prosecution of defendants. The prosecutors’ roles have almost been relegated to that of bystanders. “Protect those prosecutors… except Nifong” should be the media’s motto.
What I find to be most disingenuous about castigating remarks about SBI agent Dwight Ransome, is that the media maintains that the investigator zeroed in on a particular defendant and skewed his findings to support his belief. But what about the prosecutor? It begs the question, who is running the prosecution? You would believe the investigator and not the prosecutor after reading this week’s articles in The News & Observer. And what I find curious in Barry’s column is the total omission of the highly publicized case to which Ransome was related… that of Alan Gell. Of course, the identity of the prosecutor of Mr. Gell, David Hoke, would not be expected to be mentioned (in accordance with PAPEN).
As you may remember, in the Gell case, the prosecution withheld from defense attorneys the existence of 17 eyewitness statements wherein the alleged murder victim of Gell was seen alive, after Alan Gell had been locked up on an unrelated charge… clearly and definitively exculpatory evidence. Although these documents were within David Hoke’s folder (and I believe that Hoke maintains that he overlooked them), SBI agent Ransome is the one the media holds responsible for defendants not having access to the evidence. What is even further outrageous is that the media contends that had Prosecutor Hoke and defense attorneys been aware of these witness statements that the charges would have probably been dropped. What the media fails to mention however, is that even with knowledge of the 17 witness statements, the Attorney General’s Office chose to re-try Alan Gell (which resulted in an immediate verdict of not guilty). Now if SBI investigator Ransome’s work was so tarnished at Gell’s initial trial, why would state prosecutors take it upon themselves to take Mr. Gell to court a second time? This is not addressed by the media.
What the media needs to focus on is the vendetta case against Crystal Mangum, the former Duke Lacrosse victim who is currently facing trumped up charges of arson and injury to personal property. The News & Observer needs to sic its top investigative reporters on the Durham Police Department and prosecutors. It needs to delve into the basic question of who started the fire. It needs to ask what credible evidence is in possession of the prosecution to support its claim that Crystal Mangum vandalized a car the night of February 17, 2010. It needs to question the specific basis for the initial charges of attempted first degree murder and identity theft lodged against Mangum. It needs to look into the inactivity of police to clothes ablaze in a bathtub. It needs to try and make sense of a timeline vaguely proffered by police and prosecution regarding events that took place the night of February 17th.
There is plenty for a couple of good investigative reporters to sink their teeth into regarding this case. Not only that, but such an exploration would provide fodder for another highly sarcastic and entertaining column by The News & Observer’s own Barry Saunders. I can’t wait.
Now, it is important to pay attention to these blogs, as you might be tested about them in the future. To get an indication of your apprehension of the topic of Duke Lacrosse’s big connection to the media, click on the following link to access the latest quiz on the topic. Click Quiz 10 on the directory page.
LINK: http://justice4nifong.com/quiz/quiz.htm
Thursday, August 5, 2010
Million dollar bail… a case comparison – Part 11
On June 4, 2010, sixteen year old Ashley Moore of Dunn, NC, died when the SUV in which she was a passenger crashed into the side of a Wal-Mart building. Police believe the driver, Dillon Tart, 18, purposely rammed the vehicle into the structure following an argument between the two teenagers. Tart, who sustained non-life threatening injuries, was charged by police with second degree murder. However, while awaiting trial on the murder charge, he has been placed under house arrest. No bond. Just house arrest.
Now, compare that to what happened on the night of February 17, 2010, to Crystal Mangum, the Duke Lacrosse victim, who was punched in the face by her ex-boyfriend. She was charged with attempted first degree murder by Durham Police officers, although the basis for this charge was never explained, and it was not sought during a grand jury indictment. The attempted murder charge was used by Magistrate B. Wakil to help justify the outrageous $1 million bail set against Ms. Mangum. Durham Police then staged a fire in the bathtub of Ms. Mangum’s apartment and accused her of arson. They also alleged Ms. Mangum caused damage to the car of her ex-boyfriend, without, of course, any credible evidence to substantiate the claim. Ms. Mangum was arrested and spent the next three months in jail. District Court Judge Claude Allen, without explanation, instated the condition that if Ms. Mangum bonded out of the bail which he reduced to $250,000, then she would need to be placed under electronic house arrest. Subsequent judges who sat on the bench regarding hearings on this matter (Judges Paul Ridgeway, Michael Morgan, and Kenneth Titus) left the condition of house arrest in place. Although Ms. Mangum has been given release on weekdays from 8 am until 5 pm, the house arrest is still in effect.
Ms. Mangum is not a flight risk, and there is a $100,000 bond in place to assure that she shows up to court to face charges against her. She is not a threat to society. Her ability to try and get a job and move on with her life during the pre-trial period has been hampered greatly by the house arrest order put in place by Judge Allen. Why is this house arrest order in place?
Is it fair that a young man charged with second degree murder should be placed under house arrest, while an African American woman who has been battered by her ex-boyfriend and charges trumped up against her by Durham police should be sent to jail and placed under a $1 million bail? Does this make sense? Ms. Mangum did not kill anyone. She had no murder weapon. The attempted first degree murder charge was nothing more than a trumped up charge, like all of the others against her.
Let me make this clear. The man who killed a woman does not have to satisfy bail while awaiting trial. He can just go straight to house arrest. Now James Arthur Johnson waited 39 months for his trial, again in which he did not kill anyone, but in fact solved a crime. And, just like Prosecutor Angela Garcia-Lamarca, Wilson Prosecutor Bill Wolfe had no intention of going to trial and folded like an accordion when time for stalling ran out. Then there’s Floyd Brown, who was held fourteen years (14) without a trial, by Anson County Prosecutor Michael D. Parker. Brown did not kill anyone, and the prosecution knew it as the confession they put together for him was far too demanding and sophisticated for Brown to make due to his significant mental retardation.
There is no doubt that North Carolina has a selective justice system that is based on Class and Color, and the media does its best to conceal this fact. Class and color definitely figure into the selective treatment that Crystal Mangum is being subjected to by the state.
Now, if anyone can give a reasonable explanation as to why Mr. Tart (who killed a 16 year old girl and is charged with second degree murder) is released to house arrest without any bail being set, and Ms. Mangum (who is a victim of domestic violence) is charged with attempted first degree murder, arson, injury to personal property and other trumped up charges) and is placed under a $1 million bail, which is ultimately lowered to $100,000 with the condition that if she bonds out she will be placed under house arrest, then he/she will be entitled to receive a $1,000 reward. The explanation must be reasonable and logical to me, in order to collect, and, of course, the award will be made available only after James Arthur Johnson receives the $20,000 reward he earned by solving the Brittany Willis murder.
This is the third logic challenge for $1,000 that I have issued. Because no one has come close to winning on the two previous contests, I have considered offering a guaranteed consolation prize for the best answer. The prize would probably be some type of autographed artwork, possibly connected with the “Super-Duper Cooper” comic strip. More details about the challenge will be forthcoming. (However to receive an award, a name and address must accompany the answer. Be sure to make it clear that it is in reference to Challenge #3. Also send to e-mail: justice4nifong@gmail.com.) This challenge begins today, and I’m not yet sure when it will end… maybe in a month or two.
Finally, the media’s best kept secret from the public. Find out the real link between the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants and the media. Visit the following link. I welcome your response. (Click the button Posted August 15, 2010... mistaken date... should read August 5. Will make correction later.)
LINK: http://justice4nifong.com/btnnews/btnnews.htm
Now, compare that to what happened on the night of February 17, 2010, to Crystal Mangum, the Duke Lacrosse victim, who was punched in the face by her ex-boyfriend. She was charged with attempted first degree murder by Durham Police officers, although the basis for this charge was never explained, and it was not sought during a grand jury indictment. The attempted murder charge was used by Magistrate B. Wakil to help justify the outrageous $1 million bail set against Ms. Mangum. Durham Police then staged a fire in the bathtub of Ms. Mangum’s apartment and accused her of arson. They also alleged Ms. Mangum caused damage to the car of her ex-boyfriend, without, of course, any credible evidence to substantiate the claim. Ms. Mangum was arrested and spent the next three months in jail. District Court Judge Claude Allen, without explanation, instated the condition that if Ms. Mangum bonded out of the bail which he reduced to $250,000, then she would need to be placed under electronic house arrest. Subsequent judges who sat on the bench regarding hearings on this matter (Judges Paul Ridgeway, Michael Morgan, and Kenneth Titus) left the condition of house arrest in place. Although Ms. Mangum has been given release on weekdays from 8 am until 5 pm, the house arrest is still in effect.
Ms. Mangum is not a flight risk, and there is a $100,000 bond in place to assure that she shows up to court to face charges against her. She is not a threat to society. Her ability to try and get a job and move on with her life during the pre-trial period has been hampered greatly by the house arrest order put in place by Judge Allen. Why is this house arrest order in place?
Is it fair that a young man charged with second degree murder should be placed under house arrest, while an African American woman who has been battered by her ex-boyfriend and charges trumped up against her by Durham police should be sent to jail and placed under a $1 million bail? Does this make sense? Ms. Mangum did not kill anyone. She had no murder weapon. The attempted first degree murder charge was nothing more than a trumped up charge, like all of the others against her.
Let me make this clear. The man who killed a woman does not have to satisfy bail while awaiting trial. He can just go straight to house arrest. Now James Arthur Johnson waited 39 months for his trial, again in which he did not kill anyone, but in fact solved a crime. And, just like Prosecutor Angela Garcia-Lamarca, Wilson Prosecutor Bill Wolfe had no intention of going to trial and folded like an accordion when time for stalling ran out. Then there’s Floyd Brown, who was held fourteen years (14) without a trial, by Anson County Prosecutor Michael D. Parker. Brown did not kill anyone, and the prosecution knew it as the confession they put together for him was far too demanding and sophisticated for Brown to make due to his significant mental retardation.
There is no doubt that North Carolina has a selective justice system that is based on Class and Color, and the media does its best to conceal this fact. Class and color definitely figure into the selective treatment that Crystal Mangum is being subjected to by the state.
Now, if anyone can give a reasonable explanation as to why Mr. Tart (who killed a 16 year old girl and is charged with second degree murder) is released to house arrest without any bail being set, and Ms. Mangum (who is a victim of domestic violence) is charged with attempted first degree murder, arson, injury to personal property and other trumped up charges) and is placed under a $1 million bail, which is ultimately lowered to $100,000 with the condition that if she bonds out she will be placed under house arrest, then he/she will be entitled to receive a $1,000 reward. The explanation must be reasonable and logical to me, in order to collect, and, of course, the award will be made available only after James Arthur Johnson receives the $20,000 reward he earned by solving the Brittany Willis murder.
This is the third logic challenge for $1,000 that I have issued. Because no one has come close to winning on the two previous contests, I have considered offering a guaranteed consolation prize for the best answer. The prize would probably be some type of autographed artwork, possibly connected with the “Super-Duper Cooper” comic strip. More details about the challenge will be forthcoming. (However to receive an award, a name and address must accompany the answer. Be sure to make it clear that it is in reference to Challenge #3. Also send to e-mail: justice4nifong@gmail.com.) This challenge begins today, and I’m not yet sure when it will end… maybe in a month or two.
Finally, the media’s best kept secret from the public. Find out the real link between the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants and the media. Visit the following link. I welcome your response. (Click the button Posted August 15, 2010... mistaken date... should read August 5. Will make correction later.)
LINK: http://justice4nifong.com/btnnews/btnnews.htm
Thursday, June 10, 2010
When it comes to injustice, Duke LAX case doesn’t even merit mention
In yesterday’s issue of the News & Observer, an article by staff writer Mandy Locke titled “Former Dix inmate sues SBI agents” tries to dredge up sympathy for the Duke Lacrosse defendants by making a comparison with the injustice Floyd Brown sustained. In what is essentially media blasphemy, she stretches to make a connection between the situations faced by Floyd Brown and the three Duke Lacrosse defendants. Floyd Brown is a mentally retarded man who was held for fourteen years without a trial by Anson County District Attorney Michael D. Parker. Per its customary PAPEN Policy (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong), the prosecutor’s name is never mentioned in the article. Mr. Brown was finally released from custody when a judge from outside of Anson County ruled that he was being held unlawfully. There was no “credible evidence” or any evidence linking Brown to a murder for which he was charged, but never tried. Brown’s fourteen years of confinement were made harder by Parker’s refusal of the staff’s request to allow Brown to have lunch with family, or a day trip to the fair. And after Brown was released, with arrangements made by state social workers for his placement in an assisted living facility, a vindictive Parker went out of his way to disrupt Brown’s disposition. Further arrangements for housing for Brown were made secretly to prevent the D.A. from continuing to maliciously interfere with housing plans. In addition, the charge against Brown by D.A. Parker was based solely on a written confession attributed to Brown that experts claimed he was too retarded to have made.
Contrast Floyd Brown’s situation with the three Duke Lacrosse defendants who did not spend one day in jail, received $7 million each in an out-of-court settlement with Duke University, enjoyed the benefit of being proclaimed “innocent” by Attorney General Roy Cooper during his April 11, 2007 “Innocent Promulgation,” were coddled by the biased media, and are suing the cash-strapped city of Durham for an additional $10 million each… in the words of their attorney “so nothing like this ever happens to anyone else.” Yet, they are claiming that they were denied due process. How? This claim is obviously a bluff, and the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants and their greedy attorneys were expecting the city to roll over just like Duke University. They have no intention of carrying out this lawsuit because they have no case.
The media should be ashamed to even mention the Duke Lacrosse case when it comes to injustice, especially with innocents such as Alan Gell who was falsely convicted of capital murder by Prosecutor David Hoke, and Darryl Hunt in Winston-Salem. These men mentioned in the article, along with others such as Erick Daniels, Gregory Taylor, and James Arthur Johnson are some of the true victims of North Carolina’s justice system, and they have all served excessively long unjust incarceration on convictions made without credible evidence.
One of the most recent victims of injustice is Crystal Mangum, the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case. Durham Prosecutor Angela Garcia-Lamarca is trying to do her best to get a plea deal with Ms. Mangum, now that she is under electronic house arrest and not in an oppressive jail cell. Initially the prosecutor tried to have Ms. Mangum plead guilty to the arson charge and serve a two year jail sentence… as though that was a really great offer. The problem is that the prosecutors have no case against Ms. Mangum, and they know that they would be thoroughly embarrassed if they took their case to court. No credible evidence… nothing. The Mangum prosecution’s position is similar to that of Prosecutor Bill Wolfe’s in the James Arthur Johnson case, in which, to the relief of the prosecution, Johnson accepted an Alford plea on a flimsy charge to avoid the possibility of being returned to jail. The Mangum prosecution’s retaliatory motivation is similar to that of Alan Gell who currently in prison for charges brought as a vendetta against him after he filed lawsuits and complaints for his earlier false murder conviction. Prosecutor Garcia-Lamarca, Judges Claude Allen and Paul Ridgeway, and the Durham Police and Fire departments, along with the media, are all focused on punishing Crystal Mangum for her role in the Duke Lacrosse case. The charges for which she was arrested on February 17, 2010 were merely a means of imposing an indefinite sentence on Ms. Mangum without her being convicted of a crime.
Some media outlets have attempted to mitigate the suffering of Ms. Mangum by falsely reporting, shortly after her arrest, that she was under house arrest on a $250,000 bail. NBC-17 and Newsweek magazine both made the false claims although Ms. Mangum actually spent approximately 90 days at the Durham Detention Center, and is currently under house arrest after the posting of bond. Almost without exception, however, the media goes out of its way to give the Duke Lacrosse players (who attended the beer-guzzling stripper party with under-aged drinking and racial epithets) a positive and sympathetic look. But there is no way that Duke Lacrosse defendants comes close to enduring the hardship and suffering of Floyd Brown, Alan Gell, Crystal Mangum, and others.
However, what I don’t understand is why Floyd Brown’s attorneys are going after the investigators. Surely the SBI agents and sheriff’s deputies acted no more deliberately and in bad faith than lead prosecutor Michael Parker. It was Prosecutor Parker who was responsible for Floyd Brown being unlawfully held fourteen years, not the investigators. Maybe Brown’s attorneys are extending a professional courtesy to Prosecutor Parker by not filing a law suit against him. But, then, the North Carolina State Bar did not even feel motivated enough by the injustice against Brown to initiate its own complaint against Michael Parker. Whereas in the Duke Lacrosse case, the State Bar was quick to lob an ethics complaint against the Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong in order to force him off the case as the prosecutor.
Bottom line is that Floyd Brown deserves compensation for the atrocious injustices he suffered at the hands of Anson County Prosecutor Michael Parker… the defendants in the Duke Lacrosse case, on the other hand, do not even deserve mention.
Contrast Floyd Brown’s situation with the three Duke Lacrosse defendants who did not spend one day in jail, received $7 million each in an out-of-court settlement with Duke University, enjoyed the benefit of being proclaimed “innocent” by Attorney General Roy Cooper during his April 11, 2007 “Innocent Promulgation,” were coddled by the biased media, and are suing the cash-strapped city of Durham for an additional $10 million each… in the words of their attorney “so nothing like this ever happens to anyone else.” Yet, they are claiming that they were denied due process. How? This claim is obviously a bluff, and the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants and their greedy attorneys were expecting the city to roll over just like Duke University. They have no intention of carrying out this lawsuit because they have no case.
The media should be ashamed to even mention the Duke Lacrosse case when it comes to injustice, especially with innocents such as Alan Gell who was falsely convicted of capital murder by Prosecutor David Hoke, and Darryl Hunt in Winston-Salem. These men mentioned in the article, along with others such as Erick Daniels, Gregory Taylor, and James Arthur Johnson are some of the true victims of North Carolina’s justice system, and they have all served excessively long unjust incarceration on convictions made without credible evidence.
One of the most recent victims of injustice is Crystal Mangum, the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case. Durham Prosecutor Angela Garcia-Lamarca is trying to do her best to get a plea deal with Ms. Mangum, now that she is under electronic house arrest and not in an oppressive jail cell. Initially the prosecutor tried to have Ms. Mangum plead guilty to the arson charge and serve a two year jail sentence… as though that was a really great offer. The problem is that the prosecutors have no case against Ms. Mangum, and they know that they would be thoroughly embarrassed if they took their case to court. No credible evidence… nothing. The Mangum prosecution’s position is similar to that of Prosecutor Bill Wolfe’s in the James Arthur Johnson case, in which, to the relief of the prosecution, Johnson accepted an Alford plea on a flimsy charge to avoid the possibility of being returned to jail. The Mangum prosecution’s retaliatory motivation is similar to that of Alan Gell who currently in prison for charges brought as a vendetta against him after he filed lawsuits and complaints for his earlier false murder conviction. Prosecutor Garcia-Lamarca, Judges Claude Allen and Paul Ridgeway, and the Durham Police and Fire departments, along with the media, are all focused on punishing Crystal Mangum for her role in the Duke Lacrosse case. The charges for which she was arrested on February 17, 2010 were merely a means of imposing an indefinite sentence on Ms. Mangum without her being convicted of a crime.
Some media outlets have attempted to mitigate the suffering of Ms. Mangum by falsely reporting, shortly after her arrest, that she was under house arrest on a $250,000 bail. NBC-17 and Newsweek magazine both made the false claims although Ms. Mangum actually spent approximately 90 days at the Durham Detention Center, and is currently under house arrest after the posting of bond. Almost without exception, however, the media goes out of its way to give the Duke Lacrosse players (who attended the beer-guzzling stripper party with under-aged drinking and racial epithets) a positive and sympathetic look. But there is no way that Duke Lacrosse defendants comes close to enduring the hardship and suffering of Floyd Brown, Alan Gell, Crystal Mangum, and others.
However, what I don’t understand is why Floyd Brown’s attorneys are going after the investigators. Surely the SBI agents and sheriff’s deputies acted no more deliberately and in bad faith than lead prosecutor Michael Parker. It was Prosecutor Parker who was responsible for Floyd Brown being unlawfully held fourteen years, not the investigators. Maybe Brown’s attorneys are extending a professional courtesy to Prosecutor Parker by not filing a law suit against him. But, then, the North Carolina State Bar did not even feel motivated enough by the injustice against Brown to initiate its own complaint against Michael Parker. Whereas in the Duke Lacrosse case, the State Bar was quick to lob an ethics complaint against the Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong in order to force him off the case as the prosecutor.
Bottom line is that Floyd Brown deserves compensation for the atrocious injustices he suffered at the hands of Anson County Prosecutor Michael Parker… the defendants in the Duke Lacrosse case, on the other hand, do not even deserve mention.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Serving time without being convicted of a crime
I owe a debt of gratitude to blog commenters “kenhyderal” and “Whatchoo talkin’ ‘bout, Sidney?” for their very interesting and informative exchange in the comment section of my previously posted blog. The exchange, edited for spelling and grammar, is presented below in its entirety, and deserves a serious look.
kenhyderal said...
When will Crystal's charges be disposed of? Is there no time limit as to when this comes to court? Will she, possibly, have any recourse against these extreme over-charges, if they do eventually get thrown out? I'm thinking in terms of, loss of employment, interruption of her education, separation from her children etc.
May 10, 2010 3:12 PM
Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Sidney? said...
kenhyderal said -When will Crystal's charges be disposed of?
Probably sometime this summer, kenhyderal. It looks like her attorney is hoping to get her 6 months, with time served. If she gets more, she may be moved to state jail.
Is there no time limit as to when this comes to court?
Welcome to North Carolina, ken, the state which has no speedy trial law. The DA also controls the docket, unlike any other state I have ever seen.
Reforming those two issues alone would help so many people of color and of limited means, yet folks like Sidney and the NC NAACP prefer to ignore those and make headlines when they get one person freed. Rev Barber does that because that's how he makes his money. Sidney does it because he doesn't know better.
I'm thinking in terms of, loss of employment, interruption of her education, separation from her children etc.
Employment - what job?
Education - NCCU will give her another sheepskin like they did her BA.
Children - her kids are safer now.
May 10, 2010 8:43 PM
kenhyderal said...
Six months!! I guarantee this incident would have resulted in less than one day in gaol in Canada. It would have been dealt with in Family Court or in a Magistrate's Court the following morning resulting in a fine most likely with time to pay and if requested by the victim a no-contact order. The rate of spousal abuse is lower in Canada. 2006 statistics from the USA show 124/1000 couples/year for males, assaulted and 122/1000 couples for females assaulted. In Canada in that year 113/1000 not differentiated by sex
May 10, 2010 9:56 PM
Both commenters make great points. I agree wholeheartedly with kenhyderal’s concerns about how the unjust incarceration of Crystal Mangum is impacting her life. Her incarceration is nothing more than vendetta justice maliciously designed to disrupt and upend her life. As was pointed out by Whatchoo, the lack of a speedy trial law coupled with the District Attorney controlling the docket enables prosecutors to make suspects serve time behind bars without them being convicted of a crime. This especially works well in cases where the prosecutor’s case is weak… the James Arthur Johnson case immediately comes to mind (held 39 months without a trial) and the Floyd Brown case (held 14 years without a trial), as well as the current fiasco involving Crystal Mangum.
Now, I am taking a giant leap of faith in believing Whatchoo without first confirming what he states, but it sounds like it is on the money. If his statements about those two issues are true, then he is absolutely correct when he stated that I was ignorant about it. I appreciate his bringing the issue to my attention, and I will work to see what I can to encourage the General Assembly to work to rectify this injustice. As regarding Reverend Barber’s motive, I am equally ignorant about that too.
Assistant District Attorney Angela Garcia-Lamarca is dragging out the prosecution of Crystal Mangum because she has no legitimate case. Consider the following: (1) the charge of felony attempted first degree murder on her arrest was not included in the grand jury indictment; (2) the misdemeanor simple assault and battery charge on arrest was not included in the grand jury indictment; (3) the misdemeanor communicating threats charge on arrest was not included in the grand jury indictment; and (4) the felony identity theft charge on arrest was not included in the grand jury indictment. These four serious charges, made at the time of arrest with the four additional charges on arrest and brought forth in the grand jury indictment, were responsible for laying groundwork for the million dollar bail.
Of the remaining four charges at arrest and entered in the grand jury indictment, take consideration of the following: (1) Felony first degree arson by definition requires that an occupied structure or building be set afire. There is no doubt that Ms. Mangum executed a controlled burn when she set fire to a few of her ex-boyfriend’s clothes in the bathtub where water from faucets and shower heads is readily available (though the Durham police failed to consider using it to extinguish the fire). This charge is totally bogus, as there is no mention in the police or fire records of any fire damage to the building… there is fire damage to clothing, however, and smoke damage to the building (which was the proximate result of the police electing to wait 23 minutes for the fire department to come and put out the fire).
(2) Misdemeanor child abuse – three counts – is dependent upon Crystal Mangum setting fire to the building or committing first degree arson. She did not do that, therefore this charge is as bogus as the first degree arson charge.
(3) Misdemeanor injury to personal property charge, I believe, is inflated on a grand scale. I am sure that the burned clothes of the ex-boyfriend, counting depreciation, were not worth more than $200. To increase the amount of property damaged, the police record attributed to Crystal damage to the ex-boyfriend’s car’s windshield and tires. The police record and police incident report do not specify what damage was done, whether or not instruments were used to inflict damage, or when the vandalism took place. I doubt that vandalism was done to the car by Ms. Mangum because the biased media did not mention it… and believe me they would’ve reported as much damage as possible to make Ms. Mangum’s actions look bad.
(4) Misdemeanor resist, delay, obstruct public officer charge was made because Crystal Mangum allegedly gave a false a false name which, by their reasoning, interfered with the police investigation. I submit that the Durham police knew her identity before they asked her what her name was. That is why they were quick to arrest her. If police at the site had not known her true identity, then the ex-boyfriend would probably have been the one arrested, the police would have turned on the water in the bathtub and extinguished the fire, and the Durham Fire department, with its multiple units, would not have been beckoned out in the middle of the night to extinguish a few clothes burning in a tub.
None of the charges against Ms. Mangum in the grand jury amount to a hill of beans, yet she is under a $100,000 bail (down from the initial $1 million bail). As of May 12, 2010, she remains in jail (although some in the media which were too embarrassed to admit that she was still in jail, such as Newsweek magazine, stated that she was under house arrest). The fact is, however, that even if Ms. Mangum were to make the bail, she would be released on the condition that she is confined to house arrest!
How about a few comparisons with Ms. Mangum’s $1 million bail and aforementioned charges versus charges and bail set for other North Carolina defendants:
Christopher Ray McBride Bail initially: $125,000. Criminal act: physical child abuse beating his 1 year-old daughter so severely that she was left permanently blind.
Labrian A. Lynch Bail: $60,000. Criminal act: assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. He stabbed his girlfriend, who attempted to escape by running into the street where she was struck by a car. Mr. Lynch also has priors including attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon in 1997.
Bryant Harrison Dennis Bail $10,000. Criminal acts: Statutory sex offenses, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia.
Michele Stein Bail: $200,000. Criminal acts: felony child abuse, severe bodily injury. The three year old victim sustained a skull fracture and bruises to the frontal part of the brain. The boy has been comatose ever since the trauma, more than three weeks ago.
To recap, the scam run by the prosecutors goes like this when a person who they have targeted commits a minor offense:
(1) Overcharge defendant with serious charges and excessive charges upon arrest;
(2) the more severe and numerous the charges, the higher the bail will be set;
(3) with an excessively high bail, the defendant will be unable to make bond and be forced to remain in jail (the beginning of his/her jail sentence);
(4) prosecutors drag out the process, insuring that the defendant will have a longer stay in jail (since the district attorney sets the docket, this can be easily achieved);
(5) get a grand jury indictment, which is private, instead of having a public hearing in court (this prevents the media from realizing that the prosecutor has no case worth merit);
(6) omit the most extreme and outrageous charges when obtaining indictments from the grand jury;
(7) continue to stall and avoid bringing the case to trial by moving the case along at a snail’s pace which will help make the jail sentence last longer;
(8) when satisfied that enough time has been served by the defendant, offer the defendant’s attorney a plea deal for his client, wherein he/she pleads guilty to a lesser offense and is sentenced to time served. More likely than not, the demoralized defendant will accept the plea deal just in order to taste freedom once again and get out of jail.
This is the exact cart-before-the-horse strategy that the prosecution under Assistant D.A. Garcia-Lamarca is following in the Crystal Mangum case. The case is a travesty of justice, using Carpetbagger inspired vendetta justice which has kept Ms. Mangum in jail since February 18, 2010 (nearing the three month mark and counting). And make no doubt about it, Ms. Mangum’s incarceration has nothing to do with justice or the incidents that occurred the night of February 17, 2010… it is purely payback for accusations she made in the Duke Lacrosse case. To repeat, right now she is serving a sentence, not for any of the cockamamie trifle listed in the grand jury indictment in reference to the night of February 17th. She is currently serving an indeterminate sentence for having the gall to accuse Duke lacrosse players from families of wealth, power, and privilege of a sexual assault. And that sentence could last a long time because leaders of the black community remain silent as dormice while the media columnists, op/ed writers, and newspaper editors look the other way.
Keep in mind, that the prosecutorial scam of having a defendant serve a sentence prior to trial was brought to my attention by a blog commenter who is an ardent critic of mine and a person who is very critical of the cause for which I advocate, which is justice for Mike Nifong. Again, Whatchoo, thank you for your contribution… and I would like to thank kenhyderal for your insightful and compassionate statements.
kenhyderal said...
When will Crystal's charges be disposed of? Is there no time limit as to when this comes to court? Will she, possibly, have any recourse against these extreme over-charges, if they do eventually get thrown out? I'm thinking in terms of, loss of employment, interruption of her education, separation from her children etc.
May 10, 2010 3:12 PM
Whatchoo talkin' 'bout, Sidney? said...
kenhyderal said -When will Crystal's charges be disposed of?
Probably sometime this summer, kenhyderal. It looks like her attorney is hoping to get her 6 months, with time served. If she gets more, she may be moved to state jail.
Is there no time limit as to when this comes to court?
Welcome to North Carolina, ken, the state which has no speedy trial law. The DA also controls the docket, unlike any other state I have ever seen.
Reforming those two issues alone would help so many people of color and of limited means, yet folks like Sidney and the NC NAACP prefer to ignore those and make headlines when they get one person freed. Rev Barber does that because that's how he makes his money. Sidney does it because he doesn't know better.
I'm thinking in terms of, loss of employment, interruption of her education, separation from her children etc.
Employment - what job?
Education - NCCU will give her another sheepskin like they did her BA.
Children - her kids are safer now.
May 10, 2010 8:43 PM
kenhyderal said...
Six months!! I guarantee this incident would have resulted in less than one day in gaol in Canada. It would have been dealt with in Family Court or in a Magistrate's Court the following morning resulting in a fine most likely with time to pay and if requested by the victim a no-contact order. The rate of spousal abuse is lower in Canada. 2006 statistics from the USA show 124/1000 couples/year for males, assaulted and 122/1000 couples for females assaulted. In Canada in that year 113/1000 not differentiated by sex
May 10, 2010 9:56 PM
Both commenters make great points. I agree wholeheartedly with kenhyderal’s concerns about how the unjust incarceration of Crystal Mangum is impacting her life. Her incarceration is nothing more than vendetta justice maliciously designed to disrupt and upend her life. As was pointed out by Whatchoo, the lack of a speedy trial law coupled with the District Attorney controlling the docket enables prosecutors to make suspects serve time behind bars without them being convicted of a crime. This especially works well in cases where the prosecutor’s case is weak… the James Arthur Johnson case immediately comes to mind (held 39 months without a trial) and the Floyd Brown case (held 14 years without a trial), as well as the current fiasco involving Crystal Mangum.
Now, I am taking a giant leap of faith in believing Whatchoo without first confirming what he states, but it sounds like it is on the money. If his statements about those two issues are true, then he is absolutely correct when he stated that I was ignorant about it. I appreciate his bringing the issue to my attention, and I will work to see what I can to encourage the General Assembly to work to rectify this injustice. As regarding Reverend Barber’s motive, I am equally ignorant about that too.
Assistant District Attorney Angela Garcia-Lamarca is dragging out the prosecution of Crystal Mangum because she has no legitimate case. Consider the following: (1) the charge of felony attempted first degree murder on her arrest was not included in the grand jury indictment; (2) the misdemeanor simple assault and battery charge on arrest was not included in the grand jury indictment; (3) the misdemeanor communicating threats charge on arrest was not included in the grand jury indictment; and (4) the felony identity theft charge on arrest was not included in the grand jury indictment. These four serious charges, made at the time of arrest with the four additional charges on arrest and brought forth in the grand jury indictment, were responsible for laying groundwork for the million dollar bail.
Of the remaining four charges at arrest and entered in the grand jury indictment, take consideration of the following: (1) Felony first degree arson by definition requires that an occupied structure or building be set afire. There is no doubt that Ms. Mangum executed a controlled burn when she set fire to a few of her ex-boyfriend’s clothes in the bathtub where water from faucets and shower heads is readily available (though the Durham police failed to consider using it to extinguish the fire). This charge is totally bogus, as there is no mention in the police or fire records of any fire damage to the building… there is fire damage to clothing, however, and smoke damage to the building (which was the proximate result of the police electing to wait 23 minutes for the fire department to come and put out the fire).
(2) Misdemeanor child abuse – three counts – is dependent upon Crystal Mangum setting fire to the building or committing first degree arson. She did not do that, therefore this charge is as bogus as the first degree arson charge.
(3) Misdemeanor injury to personal property charge, I believe, is inflated on a grand scale. I am sure that the burned clothes of the ex-boyfriend, counting depreciation, were not worth more than $200. To increase the amount of property damaged, the police record attributed to Crystal damage to the ex-boyfriend’s car’s windshield and tires. The police record and police incident report do not specify what damage was done, whether or not instruments were used to inflict damage, or when the vandalism took place. I doubt that vandalism was done to the car by Ms. Mangum because the biased media did not mention it… and believe me they would’ve reported as much damage as possible to make Ms. Mangum’s actions look bad.
(4) Misdemeanor resist, delay, obstruct public officer charge was made because Crystal Mangum allegedly gave a false a false name which, by their reasoning, interfered with the police investigation. I submit that the Durham police knew her identity before they asked her what her name was. That is why they were quick to arrest her. If police at the site had not known her true identity, then the ex-boyfriend would probably have been the one arrested, the police would have turned on the water in the bathtub and extinguished the fire, and the Durham Fire department, with its multiple units, would not have been beckoned out in the middle of the night to extinguish a few clothes burning in a tub.
None of the charges against Ms. Mangum in the grand jury amount to a hill of beans, yet she is under a $100,000 bail (down from the initial $1 million bail). As of May 12, 2010, she remains in jail (although some in the media which were too embarrassed to admit that she was still in jail, such as Newsweek magazine, stated that she was under house arrest). The fact is, however, that even if Ms. Mangum were to make the bail, she would be released on the condition that she is confined to house arrest!
How about a few comparisons with Ms. Mangum’s $1 million bail and aforementioned charges versus charges and bail set for other North Carolina defendants:
Christopher Ray McBride Bail initially: $125,000. Criminal act: physical child abuse beating his 1 year-old daughter so severely that she was left permanently blind.
Labrian A. Lynch Bail: $60,000. Criminal act: assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill inflicting serious injury. He stabbed his girlfriend, who attempted to escape by running into the street where she was struck by a car. Mr. Lynch also has priors including attempted robbery with a dangerous weapon in 1997.
Bryant Harrison Dennis Bail $10,000. Criminal acts: Statutory sex offenses, contributing to the delinquency of a minor, possession of marijuana, possession of drug paraphernalia.
Michele Stein Bail: $200,000. Criminal acts: felony child abuse, severe bodily injury. The three year old victim sustained a skull fracture and bruises to the frontal part of the brain. The boy has been comatose ever since the trauma, more than three weeks ago.
To recap, the scam run by the prosecutors goes like this when a person who they have targeted commits a minor offense:
(1) Overcharge defendant with serious charges and excessive charges upon arrest;
(2) the more severe and numerous the charges, the higher the bail will be set;
(3) with an excessively high bail, the defendant will be unable to make bond and be forced to remain in jail (the beginning of his/her jail sentence);
(4) prosecutors drag out the process, insuring that the defendant will have a longer stay in jail (since the district attorney sets the docket, this can be easily achieved);
(5) get a grand jury indictment, which is private, instead of having a public hearing in court (this prevents the media from realizing that the prosecutor has no case worth merit);
(6) omit the most extreme and outrageous charges when obtaining indictments from the grand jury;
(7) continue to stall and avoid bringing the case to trial by moving the case along at a snail’s pace which will help make the jail sentence last longer;
(8) when satisfied that enough time has been served by the defendant, offer the defendant’s attorney a plea deal for his client, wherein he/she pleads guilty to a lesser offense and is sentenced to time served. More likely than not, the demoralized defendant will accept the plea deal just in order to taste freedom once again and get out of jail.
This is the exact cart-before-the-horse strategy that the prosecution under Assistant D.A. Garcia-Lamarca is following in the Crystal Mangum case. The case is a travesty of justice, using Carpetbagger inspired vendetta justice which has kept Ms. Mangum in jail since February 18, 2010 (nearing the three month mark and counting). And make no doubt about it, Ms. Mangum’s incarceration has nothing to do with justice or the incidents that occurred the night of February 17, 2010… it is purely payback for accusations she made in the Duke Lacrosse case. To repeat, right now she is serving a sentence, not for any of the cockamamie trifle listed in the grand jury indictment in reference to the night of February 17th. She is currently serving an indeterminate sentence for having the gall to accuse Duke lacrosse players from families of wealth, power, and privilege of a sexual assault. And that sentence could last a long time because leaders of the black community remain silent as dormice while the media columnists, op/ed writers, and newspaper editors look the other way.
Keep in mind, that the prosecutorial scam of having a defendant serve a sentence prior to trial was brought to my attention by a blog commenter who is an ardent critic of mine and a person who is very critical of the cause for which I advocate, which is justice for Mike Nifong. Again, Whatchoo, thank you for your contribution… and I would like to thank kenhyderal for your insightful and compassionate statements.
Tuesday, April 27, 2010
Vendetta justice makes a mockery of the NC courts at taxpayer expense
A 59 year old man went into an online chat room and became the acquaintance of a fourteen year old girl. Later, he traveled from Raleigh to Burlington, North Carolina where he met the young teenager in person. An attentive Burlington police officer noted suspicious activity by a car driven by the man (it had no license plate), and upon pulling it over noted that the 59 year old male driver was accompanied by the 14 year old girl as a passenger. Also in the vehicle were drugs and drug paraphernalia. The man, Bryant Harrison Dennis, was arrested and charged with statutory sex offense, indecent liberties, contributing to delinquency of a minor, possession of marijuana, and possession of drug paraphernalia… and his bail was set at $10,000.
During a domestic dispute which her boyfriend described as a “misunderstanding,” Crystal Mangum allegedly scratched her boyfriend, and executed a controlled burn of some of her boyfriend’s clothes. As a result, she was charged with attempted first degree murder, assault and battery, five counts of felony arson, three counts of contributing to the delinquency of juvenile, communicating threats, identity theft, injury to personal property, and resisting arrest… bail for her was set at one million dollars.
The two-case comparative illustrated above represents but a small sampling of disparity in treatment afforded to the majority of criminal suspects versus someone on the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case. It is the vastness of the difference in treatment between the two which requires the public to suspend logic and sense of fair play that enables the North Carolina justice system to even dare to implement such draconian and excessive charges and outrageously high bail. Strip away the veneer of anti-Nifong public fervor created by the media, and the charges against Ms. Mangum and the million dollar bail are laughable. It is payback… vendetta justice… courtesy of the Carpetbagger Jihadists. What is really ironic is that the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants and their attorneys are able to foment anti-Nifong and anti-accuser sentiment among Durhamians and get unyielding support from them while at the same time costing those same Durhamians millions of tax dollars to defend the city of Durham against the carpetbagger lawsuits. The media has been an effective and willing accomplice of the Jihadists in achieving this outcome which boggles the logical mind.
Probably one of the best known examples of vendetta justice nationally is that which Orenthal James Simpson received in Las Vegas, Nevada, after he succumbed to what I believe to be an elaborately executed sting operation. The judge in that case before handing down an extremely harsh sentence against Simpson, told the courtroom and the media that her ruling was not in the least bit influenced by Simpson’s prior criminal court battle in which he was found not guilty. Although the judge gave those assurances with a straight face, anyone and everyone with any knowledge about the Nicole Brown Simpson/Ron Goldman murders and the subsequent trial of O. J. Simpson, knew otherwise. And the judge knew they knew, but because the public animus and anger towards Simpson, the judge felt comfortable issuing an unprecedented lengthy prison sentence for him… and the judge may have even felt compelled to do so by the people.
There are many instances of vendetta justice in the Tar Heel state, and they include the following cases: Gregory Taylor (charged and convicted by prosecutor Tom Ford because Taylor would not implicate an innocent black man in a murder… after his exoneration by a three judge panel, the state continues its harassment of him, including the withholding of a pardon by the governor); Floyd Brown (a profoundly retarded man who was charged with murder based solely on a confession which experts state he could not have made… held for fourteen years without a trial, and when finally released Prosecutor Michael D. Parker willfully disrupted and interfered with assisted living arrangements that had been set up by his family and state agencies); Theodore Jerry Williams (who complained about the district attorney’s office, and later while in custody, was brutally beaten up – including a broken arm – and then charged with attacking a correctional guard).
One of the most shameful examples of vendetta justice is that of Alan Gell. He was sentenced to death, even though the prosecutors had exculpatory evidence (which they withheld from the defense team) proving that he could not possibly have committed the murder for which he was charged. He served ten years before the evidence came to light and he prevailed at a re-trial. Gell incurred the wrath of the state when he filed civil law suits about his unfair and tragic ordeal (however, unlike Mike Nifong, Prosecutor David Hoke was granted immunity as a state employee). Subsequently, when it came to the attention of the Johnston County prosecutor’s office that Gell impregnated his girlfriend just prior to her being of legal age, he was charged, and given a five year sentence. Under usual circumstances probation would be more likely, but nothing as severe as the sentence he received. This sentence was enforced without consideration given to the fact that Alan Gell had already wrongfully served ten years for a murder he did not commit. The convoluted and tortuous reasoning for the charges against Gell and his sentence defy common sense and mathematics. According to my arithmetic, ten years wrongly served minus five years of a bogus sentence equals freedom with five years credit… and it shouldn’t have taken a Joe Cheshire to get Gell a better deal. Alan Gell remains incarcerated today. He should be immediately released.
Almost everyone associated with the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case has been a victim of vendetta justice… no one more so than Mike Nifong. He has been so vilified and demonized by the Carpetbagger Jihadist Machine with its media and public relations connections, that he, his supporters, Crystal Mangum, and others connected with the Duke Lacrosse case are treated by the police, prosecutors, and courts with the same disregard for the rule of law and fair play that O. J. Simpson was subjected to during his Las Vegas interaction with the criminal justice system.
The public turned a blind eye as unprecedented injustice upon unprecedented injustice was heaped upon former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong… including disbarment, a jail sentence, and a request for the U.S. Department of Justice to proceed with criminal charges against him for depriving the three Duke lacrosse beer-guzzling, stripper partygoers of their civil rights. The public’s blind eye is a powerful enabler that allows those dispensing criminal justice in the state to veer from or even totally disregard the legal statutes in place to assure impartiality and fairness in the system.
Mike Nifong supporters are likewise being targeted with unjust treatment. At a recent event on the campus of Duke University, a known Nifong supporter and member of the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong who was wearing a Committee tee shirt, was accused of trespassing on Duke’s private property despite the fact that he was on campus at the institution’s public invitation to attend a three-way interview featuring U. S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. He was not told prior to attending the event that Mike Nifong supporters were not invited, and he was not warned prior to attending that his presence on the campus was not wanted. Instead, upon leaving the event, a security guard honed in him, telling him that he was trespassing. Despite the Nifong supporter’s protestations, the guard escorted him off the property in a manner to ensure the infliction of emotional pain, humiliation, public scorn, and embarrassment… and there was the continuous threat of imminent arrest, as the guard called in backup. It is evident that Duke University has no qualms with suspending civil rights and First Amendment Rights when it comes to Mike Nifong supporters.
But it is the malicious and cruel treatment of Ms. Mangum that truly puts North Carolina to shame when it comes to vendetta justice. The media is responsible for getting the public to forget that Ms. Mangum was the victim at the Duke Lacrosse beer-guzzling stripper party. She was the one who was scheduled by the escort service (under false pretenses by a Duke lacrosse party host) to perform at the bacchanalian festivity. She was the one who was dehumanized and humiliated by the mostly Duke lacrosse team members… one of whom made obscene gestures with a broom. She was the one with whom the partygoers vented anger after she stopped dancing minutes into the performance due to the audience’s lewd and crude behavior. Finally, she was the one upon whom some of the partygoer’s heaped racial epithets, including the n-word. Yet Crystal Mangum is the one who is targeted for vendetta justice by the courts and the state… and the court and justice system, under the Jedi mind-trick spell of the carpetbaggers, are quick to impose it.
The vendetta justice plan for Ms. Mangum is to punish her by keeping her incarcerated for as long a period as possible. So far she has remained imprisoned since February 18, 2010, and even if she was able to post bond, the judge in the case determined that she would be released to house arrest. No such contingency was made for the aforementioned child predator with the $10,000 bail… when he posts bond, he’s free. A mean-spirited and punitive backbone supports the North Carolina justice system, one in which the principles of fairness, compassion, morality, and rehabilitation are defiled.
Finally, vendetta justice comes at a cost to taxpayers in the state. Using the police, prosecutors and courts to exact private party (i.e. Carpetbagger) revenge results in taxpayer dollars going towards unjustified prosecution, diverts police and court resources that could otherwise be focused on legitimate crime, and pays for expenses needed to incarcerate many individuals who are neither a threat to society nor a flight risk. Especially in this period of economic hardship with the state and municipalities scrapping by financially, the concept of vendetta justice should be immediately jettisoned. It is time to, among other things, release those wrongfully incarcerated by vendetta justice (Alan Gell, Crystal Mangum, George Goode, Rayford Burke, etal.). Money used to pay for their incarceration could be much better spent defending the cash-strapped city of Durham from the lawsuits of the avaricious Carpetbaggers and their money-hungry attorneys.
During a domestic dispute which her boyfriend described as a “misunderstanding,” Crystal Mangum allegedly scratched her boyfriend, and executed a controlled burn of some of her boyfriend’s clothes. As a result, she was charged with attempted first degree murder, assault and battery, five counts of felony arson, three counts of contributing to the delinquency of juvenile, communicating threats, identity theft, injury to personal property, and resisting arrest… bail for her was set at one million dollars.
The two-case comparative illustrated above represents but a small sampling of disparity in treatment afforded to the majority of criminal suspects versus someone on the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case. It is the vastness of the difference in treatment between the two which requires the public to suspend logic and sense of fair play that enables the North Carolina justice system to even dare to implement such draconian and excessive charges and outrageously high bail. Strip away the veneer of anti-Nifong public fervor created by the media, and the charges against Ms. Mangum and the million dollar bail are laughable. It is payback… vendetta justice… courtesy of the Carpetbagger Jihadists. What is really ironic is that the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants and their attorneys are able to foment anti-Nifong and anti-accuser sentiment among Durhamians and get unyielding support from them while at the same time costing those same Durhamians millions of tax dollars to defend the city of Durham against the carpetbagger lawsuits. The media has been an effective and willing accomplice of the Jihadists in achieving this outcome which boggles the logical mind.
Probably one of the best known examples of vendetta justice nationally is that which Orenthal James Simpson received in Las Vegas, Nevada, after he succumbed to what I believe to be an elaborately executed sting operation. The judge in that case before handing down an extremely harsh sentence against Simpson, told the courtroom and the media that her ruling was not in the least bit influenced by Simpson’s prior criminal court battle in which he was found not guilty. Although the judge gave those assurances with a straight face, anyone and everyone with any knowledge about the Nicole Brown Simpson/Ron Goldman murders and the subsequent trial of O. J. Simpson, knew otherwise. And the judge knew they knew, but because the public animus and anger towards Simpson, the judge felt comfortable issuing an unprecedented lengthy prison sentence for him… and the judge may have even felt compelled to do so by the people.
There are many instances of vendetta justice in the Tar Heel state, and they include the following cases: Gregory Taylor (charged and convicted by prosecutor Tom Ford because Taylor would not implicate an innocent black man in a murder… after his exoneration by a three judge panel, the state continues its harassment of him, including the withholding of a pardon by the governor); Floyd Brown (a profoundly retarded man who was charged with murder based solely on a confession which experts state he could not have made… held for fourteen years without a trial, and when finally released Prosecutor Michael D. Parker willfully disrupted and interfered with assisted living arrangements that had been set up by his family and state agencies); Theodore Jerry Williams (who complained about the district attorney’s office, and later while in custody, was brutally beaten up – including a broken arm – and then charged with attacking a correctional guard).
One of the most shameful examples of vendetta justice is that of Alan Gell. He was sentenced to death, even though the prosecutors had exculpatory evidence (which they withheld from the defense team) proving that he could not possibly have committed the murder for which he was charged. He served ten years before the evidence came to light and he prevailed at a re-trial. Gell incurred the wrath of the state when he filed civil law suits about his unfair and tragic ordeal (however, unlike Mike Nifong, Prosecutor David Hoke was granted immunity as a state employee). Subsequently, when it came to the attention of the Johnston County prosecutor’s office that Gell impregnated his girlfriend just prior to her being of legal age, he was charged, and given a five year sentence. Under usual circumstances probation would be more likely, but nothing as severe as the sentence he received. This sentence was enforced without consideration given to the fact that Alan Gell had already wrongfully served ten years for a murder he did not commit. The convoluted and tortuous reasoning for the charges against Gell and his sentence defy common sense and mathematics. According to my arithmetic, ten years wrongly served minus five years of a bogus sentence equals freedom with five years credit… and it shouldn’t have taken a Joe Cheshire to get Gell a better deal. Alan Gell remains incarcerated today. He should be immediately released.
Almost everyone associated with the wrong end of the Duke Lacrosse case has been a victim of vendetta justice… no one more so than Mike Nifong. He has been so vilified and demonized by the Carpetbagger Jihadist Machine with its media and public relations connections, that he, his supporters, Crystal Mangum, and others connected with the Duke Lacrosse case are treated by the police, prosecutors, and courts with the same disregard for the rule of law and fair play that O. J. Simpson was subjected to during his Las Vegas interaction with the criminal justice system.
The public turned a blind eye as unprecedented injustice upon unprecedented injustice was heaped upon former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong… including disbarment, a jail sentence, and a request for the U.S. Department of Justice to proceed with criminal charges against him for depriving the three Duke lacrosse beer-guzzling, stripper partygoers of their civil rights. The public’s blind eye is a powerful enabler that allows those dispensing criminal justice in the state to veer from or even totally disregard the legal statutes in place to assure impartiality and fairness in the system.
Mike Nifong supporters are likewise being targeted with unjust treatment. At a recent event on the campus of Duke University, a known Nifong supporter and member of the Committee on Justice for Mike Nifong who was wearing a Committee tee shirt, was accused of trespassing on Duke’s private property despite the fact that he was on campus at the institution’s public invitation to attend a three-way interview featuring U. S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. He was not told prior to attending the event that Mike Nifong supporters were not invited, and he was not warned prior to attending that his presence on the campus was not wanted. Instead, upon leaving the event, a security guard honed in him, telling him that he was trespassing. Despite the Nifong supporter’s protestations, the guard escorted him off the property in a manner to ensure the infliction of emotional pain, humiliation, public scorn, and embarrassment… and there was the continuous threat of imminent arrest, as the guard called in backup. It is evident that Duke University has no qualms with suspending civil rights and First Amendment Rights when it comes to Mike Nifong supporters.
But it is the malicious and cruel treatment of Ms. Mangum that truly puts North Carolina to shame when it comes to vendetta justice. The media is responsible for getting the public to forget that Ms. Mangum was the victim at the Duke Lacrosse beer-guzzling stripper party. She was the one who was scheduled by the escort service (under false pretenses by a Duke lacrosse party host) to perform at the bacchanalian festivity. She was the one who was dehumanized and humiliated by the mostly Duke lacrosse team members… one of whom made obscene gestures with a broom. She was the one with whom the partygoers vented anger after she stopped dancing minutes into the performance due to the audience’s lewd and crude behavior. Finally, she was the one upon whom some of the partygoer’s heaped racial epithets, including the n-word. Yet Crystal Mangum is the one who is targeted for vendetta justice by the courts and the state… and the court and justice system, under the Jedi mind-trick spell of the carpetbaggers, are quick to impose it.
The vendetta justice plan for Ms. Mangum is to punish her by keeping her incarcerated for as long a period as possible. So far she has remained imprisoned since February 18, 2010, and even if she was able to post bond, the judge in the case determined that she would be released to house arrest. No such contingency was made for the aforementioned child predator with the $10,000 bail… when he posts bond, he’s free. A mean-spirited and punitive backbone supports the North Carolina justice system, one in which the principles of fairness, compassion, morality, and rehabilitation are defiled.
Finally, vendetta justice comes at a cost to taxpayers in the state. Using the police, prosecutors and courts to exact private party (i.e. Carpetbagger) revenge results in taxpayer dollars going towards unjustified prosecution, diverts police and court resources that could otherwise be focused on legitimate crime, and pays for expenses needed to incarcerate many individuals who are neither a threat to society nor a flight risk. Especially in this period of economic hardship with the state and municipalities scrapping by financially, the concept of vendetta justice should be immediately jettisoned. It is time to, among other things, release those wrongfully incarcerated by vendetta justice (Alan Gell, Crystal Mangum, George Goode, Rayford Burke, etal.). Money used to pay for their incarceration could be much better spent defending the cash-strapped city of Durham from the lawsuits of the avaricious Carpetbaggers and their money-hungry attorneys.
Sunday, April 11, 2010
Million dollar bail… a case comparison - Part 4
According to the News & Observer of April 10, 2010, a three year old boy who was adopted from China last November was so severely beaten by his mother on March 19, 2010, that he has been in a coma ever since. The child had a skull fracture with large bruises on the frontal region of his brain. Michele Andi Stein, the mother, was finally arrested and charged by Apex police with one count of felony child abuse, and severe bodily injury. A month earlier in February, workers at the day care the child attended noticed bruises on his back and leg, and the month prior to that the boy was admitted to the UNC-Chapel Hill Burn Center with second and third degree burns to both of his hands.
It is of interest to note that Ms. Stein was not charged with attempted first degree murder or assault and battery despite the traumatically induced coma. Furthermore, she was arrested with a bail of only $200,000.00. Now compare this with Ms. Mangum, who was alleged by the Durham police to have scratched her boyfriend and thrown punches and objects at him. He did not sustain any injuries and did not require any medical attention in a dispute which he termed as a “misunderstanding” and one which he did not press charges. Also, no deadly weapon was involved in the alleged “altercation.” Yet, it is Ms. Mangum who is charged with attempted first degree murder, assault and battery, and placed on a $1million bail… an amount five times more than the mother accused of beating her three year old child and leaving him with a skull fracture and a contused brain which are responsible for him being comatose for three weeks and counting.
The answer to the following rhetorical question of why the disparity in the charges and bail between the two aforementioned cases can be found with four words… the Duke Lacrosse case! The severely excessive accumulation of charges against Ms. Mangum is obviously nothing more than payback for accusations she made years earlier in the Duke Lacrosse case against the sons of the Carpetbagger families. Had the same scenario played out against a couple that did not include Ms. Mangum, then it is more likely than not that the man involved in the dispute, if anyone, would be the one to be arrested. But most of all, none of the charges (such as attempted first degree murder, assault and battery, communicating threats, destruction of personal property, identity theft) would have been made. And had the police been in the apartment when a woman without connections to the Duke Lacrosse case set her boyfriend’s clothing ablaze in the bath tub, then the police would’ve merely turned on the faucet in the tub and put out the fire. They would definitely not have called the fire department and charged her with any counts of arson.
The reason the police saddled Ms. Mangum with the ridiculous charge of attempted first degree murder, assault and battery, etc. was in order to justify the enormous $1 million bail. The high bail was to assure Ms. Mangum languish in jail while the prosecution lollygags, in order to draw out Ms. Mangum’s incarceration. Well, if we’re careful, it might be many years that Ms. Mangum spends behind bars before her case gets to court, as in the James Arthur Johnson case (he wrongfully spent 39 months in jail while the prosecution tried to force him to accept a plea deal), and the Floyd Brown case (he spent fourteen years in jail on a murder charge without his case ever going to trial. The Attorney General’s Office promised to investigate the Brown case… but to no one’s surprise, there’s been no investigation).
The end objective of the police and prosecutors was to impose a lengthy jail stay upon Ms. Mangum. This amoral scheme exposes the visceral hatred and malice Durham prosecutors have towards those viewed unfavorably by the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants. The vacuous minds of those responsible for Ms. Mangum’s lengthy jail stay are undoubtedly under the control of the Carpetbagger Jihadist Movement… like many in the public, victim’s of wide-spread and systemic Jedi mind-tricks of the biased mainstream media.
As things stand, after Monday, April 5, 2010, Ms. Mangum, for allegedly scratching her boyfriend has been indicted by a grand jury of the following: (1) first degree arson, (2) three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, (3) injury to personal property, and (4) resisting a public officer. And for these alleged charges, she is under a $250,000.00 bail, which if met, according to Judge Claude Allen, would require that she be released to house arrest. Keep in mind that the mother arrested for her 3-year old adopted son’s skull fracture, bruised brain, and three week coma has a bail of only $200,000.00, and if she makes bond, there is no stipulation by the court that she be held under house arrest.
The disparity in the treatment of the two mothers in this above case comparison is extraordinary and blatant, and a prime example of the state’s tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color,” which has widespread application in this state. The same disparity of treatment applies to that which former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong was subjected to by the prosecutors, courts, and the media for his handling of the Duke Lacrosse case… his disbarment, his jail sentence, the withholding of his status of immunity as a state employee, his lack of representation by the Attorney General’s Office, to mention a few.
A system wherein court decisions are meted out with disparity is fraught with the very inequities and injustices against which it is supposed to protect. One step that can be taken to chisel off a piece of the slab of mockery and disdain under which the North Carolina system of disparate justice is currently pinned, is to eliminate the bail for Crystal Mangum and release her from custody under her own recognizance. She is definitely not a flight risk, she is definitely not a threat to society, her incarceration is an unnecessary and undue burden on taxpayers, and the charges by the grand jury do not warrant her incarceration.
It is of interest to note that Ms. Stein was not charged with attempted first degree murder or assault and battery despite the traumatically induced coma. Furthermore, she was arrested with a bail of only $200,000.00. Now compare this with Ms. Mangum, who was alleged by the Durham police to have scratched her boyfriend and thrown punches and objects at him. He did not sustain any injuries and did not require any medical attention in a dispute which he termed as a “misunderstanding” and one which he did not press charges. Also, no deadly weapon was involved in the alleged “altercation.” Yet, it is Ms. Mangum who is charged with attempted first degree murder, assault and battery, and placed on a $1million bail… an amount five times more than the mother accused of beating her three year old child and leaving him with a skull fracture and a contused brain which are responsible for him being comatose for three weeks and counting.
The answer to the following rhetorical question of why the disparity in the charges and bail between the two aforementioned cases can be found with four words… the Duke Lacrosse case! The severely excessive accumulation of charges against Ms. Mangum is obviously nothing more than payback for accusations she made years earlier in the Duke Lacrosse case against the sons of the Carpetbagger families. Had the same scenario played out against a couple that did not include Ms. Mangum, then it is more likely than not that the man involved in the dispute, if anyone, would be the one to be arrested. But most of all, none of the charges (such as attempted first degree murder, assault and battery, communicating threats, destruction of personal property, identity theft) would have been made. And had the police been in the apartment when a woman without connections to the Duke Lacrosse case set her boyfriend’s clothing ablaze in the bath tub, then the police would’ve merely turned on the faucet in the tub and put out the fire. They would definitely not have called the fire department and charged her with any counts of arson.
The reason the police saddled Ms. Mangum with the ridiculous charge of attempted first degree murder, assault and battery, etc. was in order to justify the enormous $1 million bail. The high bail was to assure Ms. Mangum languish in jail while the prosecution lollygags, in order to draw out Ms. Mangum’s incarceration. Well, if we’re careful, it might be many years that Ms. Mangum spends behind bars before her case gets to court, as in the James Arthur Johnson case (he wrongfully spent 39 months in jail while the prosecution tried to force him to accept a plea deal), and the Floyd Brown case (he spent fourteen years in jail on a murder charge without his case ever going to trial. The Attorney General’s Office promised to investigate the Brown case… but to no one’s surprise, there’s been no investigation).
The end objective of the police and prosecutors was to impose a lengthy jail stay upon Ms. Mangum. This amoral scheme exposes the visceral hatred and malice Durham prosecutors have towards those viewed unfavorably by the Carpetbagger families of the Duke Lacrosse defendants. The vacuous minds of those responsible for Ms. Mangum’s lengthy jail stay are undoubtedly under the control of the Carpetbagger Jihadist Movement… like many in the public, victim’s of wide-spread and systemic Jedi mind-tricks of the biased mainstream media.
As things stand, after Monday, April 5, 2010, Ms. Mangum, for allegedly scratching her boyfriend has been indicted by a grand jury of the following: (1) first degree arson, (2) three counts of contributing to the delinquency of a juvenile, (3) injury to personal property, and (4) resisting a public officer. And for these alleged charges, she is under a $250,000.00 bail, which if met, according to Judge Claude Allen, would require that she be released to house arrest. Keep in mind that the mother arrested for her 3-year old adopted son’s skull fracture, bruised brain, and three week coma has a bail of only $200,000.00, and if she makes bond, there is no stipulation by the court that she be held under house arrest.
The disparity in the treatment of the two mothers in this above case comparison is extraordinary and blatant, and a prime example of the state’s tenet of “selective justice based on Class and Color,” which has widespread application in this state. The same disparity of treatment applies to that which former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong was subjected to by the prosecutors, courts, and the media for his handling of the Duke Lacrosse case… his disbarment, his jail sentence, the withholding of his status of immunity as a state employee, his lack of representation by the Attorney General’s Office, to mention a few.
A system wherein court decisions are meted out with disparity is fraught with the very inequities and injustices against which it is supposed to protect. One step that can be taken to chisel off a piece of the slab of mockery and disdain under which the North Carolina system of disparate justice is currently pinned, is to eliminate the bail for Crystal Mangum and release her from custody under her own recognizance. She is definitely not a flight risk, she is definitely not a threat to society, her incarceration is an unnecessary and undue burden on taxpayers, and the charges by the grand jury do not warrant her incarceration.
Thursday, March 4, 2010
News & Observer’s familiar dance with the Attorney General’s Office
In an editorial by the News & Observer staff in the March 3, 2010 editorial page titled, “Testing the crime lab,” the newspaper and the Attorney General’s Office waltz around the issues of injustice for appearances sake. Not long ago the newspaper’s editorial chastised a state prosecutor for holding a man, Floyd Brown, for fourteen years without a trial. A judge later dismissed murder charges in this case in which a confession was cooked up by the prosecution. Problem is that the severely retarded defendant could not have possibly made the confession attributed to him. There was no physical evidence linking Mr. Brown to the crime, but he was poor, disenfranchised, and an African American. Nobody cared. However, the newspaper’s editorial pretended to be concerned by challenging the Attorney General’s Office to look into how the man could be held for 14 years without being taken to trial. Over the years, the Attorney General’s Office has not looked into the matter. The News & Observer has not pressed for a response.
With the exposure of the biased State forensic lab testing procedures which helped convict Gregory Taylor of a crime which he did not commit, the News & Observer is now calling for the Attorney General’s Office to investigate other cases in which convictions might have been won through faulty state lab procedures. Pitifully, the News & Observer is trying to reassure its readers that Attorney General Roy Cooper is conscientiously leading the charge in trying to uncover tainted convictions. As the paper puts it, “Fortunately, Attorney General Roy Cooper is facing up to the problem.” As in the Floyd Brown case, the newspaper pretends to be concerned about injustice created by the State’s lab procedures, and the A.G. is pretending to objectively review cases in search of convictions attained with faulty lab results.
The truth of the matter is that the prosecutors knew that the State’s lab was biased against the defendants long ago. Prosecutor Tom Ford and Wake District Attorney Colon Willoughby were aware that the lab results used to help convict Gregory Taylor were flawed when they recently fought to keep him incarcerated for the rest of his life, despite a case that hinged completely on the testimony of a jailhouse snitch and prostitute who received promises of reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony. The backroom deals that Tom Ford hatched with the “witnesses” were withheld from Taylor’s original incompetent attorneys.
Look at the facts in the Gregory Taylor case. D.A. Willoughby and Prosecutor Ford have knowledge that the blood evidence used to convict Taylor was not reliable, yet they fought against justice for Mr. Taylor. Willoughby, because he knew that he had no case, initially tried to indefinitely delay the hearing before the three judge panel which resulted from the Innocence Inquiry Commission. Is this the action of a true minister of justice? The Attorney General’s Office, in the meantime, was silent. However that is not surprising when one reflects on the Alan Gell case in which Prosecutor David Hoke withheld crucial exculpatory evidence from the defense in winning a capital murder conviction. When a new trial was ordered by a judge, the Attorney General’s Office chose to fight to keep Gell incarcerated. The jury, when armed with knowledge of the exculpatory evidence that proved that Gell could not have committed the murder, immediately found him not guilty.
The difference between Hoke, Ford and former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong is that when new evidence or testimony was presented to Mr. Nifong, he was a true minister of justice and acted accordingly. For example, when he heard that the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case could not say with absolute certainty that she had been raped, he immediately dismissed those charges. Tom Ford and David Hoke were unyielding in their positions despite the overwhelming logic against them. And whereas the media, in accordance with the carpetbagger jihad against Mike Nifong, has unfairly and wrongfully defined Mr. Nifong, it has gone out of its way to adhere to the PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy. Tom Ford’s name wasn’t even mentioned in the March 3, 2010 editorial.
What is most telling is what the editorial attributes Attorney General Roy Cooper as saying… which is that “the review (of the cases for flawed State lab reports resulting in convictions) will be conducted internally at the outset, but that an independent look might be warranted.” What is that supposed to mean? Basically, it means that the process will not have transparency and that the so-called review is undertaken for nothing more the sake of appearances. Everyone’s pretending, including the media.
With the exposure of the biased State forensic lab testing procedures which helped convict Gregory Taylor of a crime which he did not commit, the News & Observer is now calling for the Attorney General’s Office to investigate other cases in which convictions might have been won through faulty state lab procedures. Pitifully, the News & Observer is trying to reassure its readers that Attorney General Roy Cooper is conscientiously leading the charge in trying to uncover tainted convictions. As the paper puts it, “Fortunately, Attorney General Roy Cooper is facing up to the problem.” As in the Floyd Brown case, the newspaper pretends to be concerned about injustice created by the State’s lab procedures, and the A.G. is pretending to objectively review cases in search of convictions attained with faulty lab results.
The truth of the matter is that the prosecutors knew that the State’s lab was biased against the defendants long ago. Prosecutor Tom Ford and Wake District Attorney Colon Willoughby were aware that the lab results used to help convict Gregory Taylor were flawed when they recently fought to keep him incarcerated for the rest of his life, despite a case that hinged completely on the testimony of a jailhouse snitch and prostitute who received promises of reduced sentences in exchange for their testimony. The backroom deals that Tom Ford hatched with the “witnesses” were withheld from Taylor’s original incompetent attorneys.
Look at the facts in the Gregory Taylor case. D.A. Willoughby and Prosecutor Ford have knowledge that the blood evidence used to convict Taylor was not reliable, yet they fought against justice for Mr. Taylor. Willoughby, because he knew that he had no case, initially tried to indefinitely delay the hearing before the three judge panel which resulted from the Innocence Inquiry Commission. Is this the action of a true minister of justice? The Attorney General’s Office, in the meantime, was silent. However that is not surprising when one reflects on the Alan Gell case in which Prosecutor David Hoke withheld crucial exculpatory evidence from the defense in winning a capital murder conviction. When a new trial was ordered by a judge, the Attorney General’s Office chose to fight to keep Gell incarcerated. The jury, when armed with knowledge of the exculpatory evidence that proved that Gell could not have committed the murder, immediately found him not guilty.
The difference between Hoke, Ford and former Durham District Attorney Mike Nifong is that when new evidence or testimony was presented to Mr. Nifong, he was a true minister of justice and acted accordingly. For example, when he heard that the accuser in the Duke Lacrosse case could not say with absolute certainty that she had been raped, he immediately dismissed those charges. Tom Ford and David Hoke were unyielding in their positions despite the overwhelming logic against them. And whereas the media, in accordance with the carpetbagger jihad against Mike Nifong, has unfairly and wrongfully defined Mr. Nifong, it has gone out of its way to adhere to the PAPEN (Protect All Prosecutors Except Nifong) Policy. Tom Ford’s name wasn’t even mentioned in the March 3, 2010 editorial.
What is most telling is what the editorial attributes Attorney General Roy Cooper as saying… which is that “the review (of the cases for flawed State lab reports resulting in convictions) will be conducted internally at the outset, but that an independent look might be warranted.” What is that supposed to mean? Basically, it means that the process will not have transparency and that the so-called review is undertaken for nothing more the sake of appearances. Everyone’s pretending, including the media.
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