Author: mopress

Nick Braune
Mid-Valley Town Crier
by permission

Wouldn’t it be horrible to be 50 and have been in prison for the last 25 years, missing out on seeing your children mature and have children of their own?

Well, that is the story of Steven Phillips from Dallas, a new grandfather who was just freed. He had been accused of sexual assault and burglary in two different cases and convicted in two different trials. (Once the police nailed him for one, they charged him with another one.)

Phillips got 30-year sentences at both trials. While in prison he was then asked by the authorities if he would confess to nine other sexual assaults which fit the pattern, and hoping for some mercy if he cooperated, he confessed to them.

The Dallas police, 25 years ago, were so thrilled to be nailing Phillips for eleven cases of sexual assault that they didn’t pay attention to authorities in Kansas City who also had a suspect, one Sidney Goodyear. Because Phillips had been positively identified by Dallas victims, the police did not bother telling his lawyer about Goodyear and something quite important.

After the Kansas City police sent down a picture of Goodyear, the Dallas police had shown the picture to one of the victims, who said that Goodyear could be the rapist, but the police never told Phillips’ lawyer about the conflicting evidence.

Luckily, one of the cases in which Phillips was tried involved some stored material which could be DNA tested. When the tests were run a year ago, the evidence did not match Phillips’ DNA. But it did match Goodyear’s! It is now conceded by all that Goodyear was the serial rapist in Dallas and Kansas City.

Should we feel pleased that justice has finally been done and Phillips is home? Yes. Should we be pleased that the system has proven itself to work, that bad decisions of the past continue to be corrected? No. The system does not work. At least not well enough to deserve praise. There are millions in prison, but only rare cases, like Phillips’ case, have appropriate specimen material available for DNA testing. And the Steven Phillips case alone reflects three widespread and lingering problems.

First, our old nemesis: eye-witness misidentification. Some backward “red meat” prosecutors still dramatize eye-witness identification as a slam dunk. And juries fall for it. We now know that Phillips did not commit the eleven crimes, but ten witnesses identified him! The national Innocence Project which defended Phillips said in its press release, “It is impossible to know [twenty five years later] how those identification procedures were conducted or how certain the victims were in their identifications. In addition, police circulated Phillips’ name and biographical information widely in the media before most of the victims identified him — this made their identifications highly unreliable.”

Most overturned convictions in Texas have fit the Phillips pattern. Of the 32 total DNA exonerations in Texas — where there is no doubt the accused were innocent — 25 of those cases involved eyewitness identification, sometimes from multiple witnesses.

The Phillips case reflected a second pattern: overzealous prosecutors who ignore conflicting evidence. Dallas alone has had 15 DNA exonerations, and the new prosecutor there has been working with the Innocence Project to undo the damage of a ferocious and racist predecessor. (Texas Monthly, Sept. 2007)

A third pattern: plea bargainings and false confessions. The Phillips case was really bizarre: Although Phillips did not confess to the two crimes he was tried for, the prosecutor bargained him into confessing to nine other ones. Because we have the Innocence Project statistics now, we know a lot more about confessions. Of the 200 people convicted whose innocence has subsequently been completely established by DNA tests, one in four had confessed!

Why so many confessions? Well, interrogation has become a science. (Google “Reid Technique” and you will cringe.) Interrogators are taught techniques like standing too close to you, controlling your space, cutting you off anytime you start to declare your innocence. Interrogators can lie to you legally, make up evidence against you; they can yell at you, insult you, keep you a long time, and suddenly turn friendly and “understanding.” The spare interrogation room is designed scientifically to keep you off balance, while the experts — they practice the techniques and get good at them — list the things you might be charged with.

Emily Horowitz, a criminal justice professor, has a nice piece on false confessions in the latest Counterpunch; she mentions people who have become depressed, abject and “dependent” in a crisis situation. They are nervous wrecks before they are interrogated, and they are no match for scientific accusers. “Just admit you made a mistake, and maybe we can go easy on you,” can be a very enticing line at just the right moment.

Horowitz continues: “According to a raft of social science and psychology research done over the past two decades, techniques like these [check the now common “Reid Technique”] are especially likely to produce false confessions when used on juveniles, the mentally ill, the poorly schooled, immigrants, and those with impaired cognition.” (There is also some evidence that those who have been sexually abused when they were youth are quite susceptible to making false confessions, since part of their survival mechanism was to blame themselves rather than those they admired.)

Steven Phillips, now 50 years old, is fully exonerated now, and we should be joyous. But the current system of vigorous police work and prosecution is still dangerous to society, and we have a lot more work to do.

From the MALDEFian

Judge orders improvements in programs for English language learners

AUGUST 14, 2008 – Citing “palpable injustice” a federal court found that the State of Texas is failing to overcome the language barriers faced by tens of thousands of English Language Learner (ELL) students in the State’s public school secondary programs. MALDEF’s victory in United States v. Texas represents the most comprehensive judicial decision concerning the civil rights of ELLs in a quarter century.

The case was born out of long-standing discrimination against Latino students in Texas schools, which resulted in their inclusion in a 1981 Order that required the State of Texas to, among other things, provide appropriate and effective language educational programs for ELL students. Twenty-five years later, MALDEF and Multicultural Education Training and Advocacy, Inc. (META) filed a Motion under the Modified Order to enforce its terms. MALDEF argued that the State had failed to implement and monitor the bilingual and English as a Second Language (ESL) programs for ELL students in the state, resulting in the denial of equal educational opportunities for those students.

In July 2007, District Court Judge William Wayne Justice ruled that MALDEF was not entitled to the relief it sought. After MALDEF and META persisted in the case on behalf of ELL students, Judge Justice vacated his earlier ruling in its entirety. Finding that “[s]econdary…students in bilingual education fail terribly under every metric,” he ordered the State to create a language program for ELL secondary students and a monitoring system that met the requirements of the federal Equal Education Opportunity Act.

This ruling was a tremendous victory for ELL students in a state that has one of the highest percentages of ELLs in the country. In the 2004-05 school year, more than 15 percent of the student population in Texas’ public schools were identified as ELL. Ninety-three percent of those were Hispanic. According to the Texas Education Agency, only 13.1 percent of those students are recent immigrants.

The education system has significantly failed these students, allowing them to continue to experience the effects of the discrimination that first brought MALDEF to court on their behalf nearly 30 years ago. The court found that not only does the Texas Education Agency under-identify ELL students, but the “achievement standards for intervention are arbitrary and not based upon equal educational opportunity; the failing achievement of higher grades is masked by passing scores of lower grades; and the failure of individual school campuses is masked by only analyzing data on the larger district level.”

“Failed implementation cannot prolong the existence of a failed program into perpetuity,” the court concluded. Texas now has until January 2009 to come up with a revamped monitoring system that actually measures equal educational opportunities and an improved educational program for secondary ELL students. The new system will be introduced in the 2009-10 school year.

“This decision gives hope for the future of thousands of young Texans. Its importance cannot be overstated,” said MALDEF Staff Attorney David Hinojosa who, along with META, brought the case on behalf of LULAC and the American GI Forum.

By Greg Moses

The final report on Riad Elsolh Hamad was signed by the Travis County Medical Examiner on May 14, 2008. Death by drowning. Suicide.

The widely beloved teacher and founder of the Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund (pcwf.org) had gone missing on the evening of April 14. He telephoned Paul Larudee in California at about 7:30 Pacific Time (9:30 Central), and when Larudee told Hamad that a donation had arrived to the new address of the PCWF, Hamad said, “it doesn’t matter.” His body was pulled from Lady Bird Lake at about 2 p.m. on April 16. From the viewpoint of the medical examiner on the morning of April 17, the body was “in a state of early decomposition characterized by marbling and maroon discoloration of the skin.”

“The body is received with the wrists loosely bound in front of the body with a tan rubber telephone-type cord. One end of the cord is looped loosely once around the left wrist and arranged in a very loose knot. The cord is looped loosely three times around the right wrist, and then arranged in a very loose knot. The hands are separated by approximately 1 ½ foot of cord. The cord ligature is easily slipped off of both hands.

“The ankles are bound loosely by black rubber speaker-type cord. The cord is looped twice around each ankle. On the right ankle, the cord is looped over the surface of the skin. On the left ankle, the cord is looped over the surface of the pants. The ends of the cord are arranged in a loose knot in front of the ankle, medially. The loops around the ankles are loose enough to slip off of the body intact. The loops are separated by approximately 6 inches of cord between the ankles.

“Gray duct tape is wrapped neatly twice around the head just above the eyes, and leaves a blanched, slightly depressed band of imprint on the skin. The duct tape passes above the eyelids, and does not cover the eyes. The duct tape passes over the ears.”

The term “atraumatic” appears several times to describe the body’s head, face, neck, and hands. No signs of strangulation. No drugs. The left ventricle of that once exuberant heart had grown thick with hypertension. There was a “history” — notes the report — “of recent depression and stress.”

***

Reporters for the Oak Hill Gazette and the Austin Chronicle have told the story of Imams who reported “bruising” or “facial bruising” when the body was washed for burial. Imam Ibrahim Dremali found the post-autopsy condition of the body so offensive that he complained to officials, to his mosque, and to the press.

“I believe they were sending us a message,” he said, “and that’s what I told the people here [at the mosque], that they believe they do not have to respect the bodies of Muslims,” said Imam Dremali to Austin Chronicle reporter Michael King.

In April, Imam Mohamed-Umer Esmail, of the North Austin Muslim Community Center, told Oak Hill Gazette reporter Ann Fowler, “Those that knew [Riad Hamad], their concern is why was the case closed so quickly? The investigation was made and they closed it really quickly, saying it was suicide.”

***

Although Hamad’s advocacy in behalf of Palestinian children had attracted FBI attention for many years, his recent troubles began in November 2002 when a neighbor complained to the Joint Terrorism Task Force of the FBI that packages were coming to Hamad from the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Hamad was famous for carrying around boxes full of Palestinian crafts that he sold, or gave to friends to sell, as fundraising supplies. Of course, the government found no evidence of terrorism, but Hamad was apparently a tax resister and sloppy bookkeeper.

On the morning of Feb. 27, a team of federal agents entered his house and packed up at least 20 boxes of papers, books, and computer disks. In an email, Hamad estimated the number of boxes at 40. (If the government’s own bookkeeping is to be believed, there is a box numbered 100. I personally suspect, however, that the record for box 100 is a result of sloppy bookkeeping on the part of the FBI.) Federal agents even took a David Rovics CD and a book that was resting on Hamad’s piano entitled, “War on Freedom.” Hamad immediately started looking for a lawyer.

In preparation for this article, the Texas Civil Rights review emailed a query to the Hamad family. A reply was forthcoming from the family attorney: “They are obviously still in the middle of the grieving process [and] are not at a stage where they want to discuss any details regarding his death or the months leading up to it.. . . Thank you so much for respecting the family’s privacy and for your understanding.”

If I ask myself what Riad Hamad would ask me to say next, it is this: donations may be sent to the Palestine Children’s Welfare Fund, 405 Vista Heights Rd., El Cerrito, CA 94530; 510-236-5338; or visit pcwf.org to access an online donation link.

Excerpt from Steve Taylor’s report in the Rio Grande Guardian, “‘We are the abandoned ones,’ say San Carlos residents”:

“Just along the street from where Flores stood guard, members of the Esperanza De Amore church had hooked up a blue tarpaulin sheet to a fence next the ditch, under which they serve hot food. Some residents, who did not wish to be named, said it was their first hot meal since the hurricane. “We need this for our kids,” said one.

“Cano and Belinda Rodriguez, a student, showed the Guardian where most San Carlos residents were getting their food and water. It was the local community center where Rodriguez works as a volunteer. The center has been commandeered by the American Red Cross. Four of the Red Cross’s Disaster Relief trucks were parked outside. Children were helping their parents carry ice and bottled water from the trucks to a room inside the center.

“The center was packed and baking hot. Mothers and their children had been waiting patiently for hours for food and water. There must have been 800 or more people packed inside.

“Ray Roberts, a Red Cross volunteer from east Tennessee, explained the operation. “We are feeding about 2,500 people with each run. We get the food from Kitchen No. 1 in McAllen. Once we run out we go back and bring more supplies. We will be back with more supplies this afternoon,” Roberts said.

“Rodriguez said there has not been enough food and water to go around. “On Sunday, the Red Cross ran out of food and water. Many people went without. Our people need more water,” Rodriguez said. She said San Carlos has been a “desperate” place to be for the past five days. “Some people are living in vans. We have the smell of dead animals. There are lots of mosquitoes. I have lived here 18 years and I have never seen anything like this,” she said.

“Rodriguez said she too had not seen one county official visit San Carlos since the flooding started. “All we have seen is the Red Cross and one church. No one else has been here,” she said.”