Category: Uncategorized

Update: when I called the Gov’s office at 2:28 pm the receptionist said that “the Federal District Court has issued a stay”–gm

Reposted from OpEdNews. Get more info and link to contact the Governor at: savejeffwood.com–gm

TODAY, JEFF WOOD will take his place beside my mentally ill brother, who is no. 26 on the home page of this prisoner genocide website:

geocities.com/prisonmurder

On August 21, Texas is poised to do the unthinkable: execute a mentally ill young man who the state knows killed no one. In fact, Jeff is facing execution for a murder that he was not even present to witness. He was found guilty of a murder committed by David Reneau. David killed Kriss Keeran while robbing a Texaco convenience store in Kerrville, Texas.

It happened on January 2, 1992, when Jeff was 22 years old, a mentally challenged young man. It is sad that mental patients and people with learning disabilities like Jeff are often easily led like little children. Jeff was abused during his early childhood, leaving him with a submissive personality. How hard was it for Daniel Reneau to get Jeff to accompany him to a robbery?

Wood’s defense attorneys stated in a clemency brief early this month, “Reneau — the only person inside the store and who carried a weapon — alone made the decision to take Keeran’s life. Mr. Wood was outside the store in his brother’s truck.” Daniel Reneau carried a gun that Jeff never knew he had and committed a murder that Jeff didn’t see occur.

Although Daniel Reneau has already been executed for murdering Keeran, today Jeff will also be executed. Initially, Jeff was found not mentally fit to stand trial. He was admitted into a mental hospital and a couple of weeks later was found ‘trial ready’. But one could argue whether Jeff was really competent at his trial, considering the way he tied his lawyers’ hands as they tried to defend him.

“Bowing to Mr. Wood’s emotional and irrational insistence, Mr. Wood’s appointed lawyers declined to cross-examine any witnesses or present any evidence on Mr. Wood’s behalf,” his appeals attorneys argue. “Mr. Wood’s trial attorneys called Mr. Wood’s actions a ‘gesture of suicide.’” (Quote source: Alternet )

I received a message a couple of days ago from a man who identified himself as Daniel Reneau’s brother, Ben Reneau. He implored us to save Jeff, saying Jeff’s execution is wrong. He expressed regret that his brother, Daniel Reneau, did not make a statement to clear Jeff of the murder.

The truth is that a statement from Daniel probably would not matter to Texas, as the state acknowledges that Jeff actually killed no one. Jeff was sentenced to die under the Law of Parties, which makes all parties to a crime equally guilty of the crime. Perhaps they are like the people in this satire and believe it is simply time for Texas to have another execution, because executions are fun for some folks:

Texas Pardons and Parole Board decided not to grant clemency. The fate of this condemned mental patient is now up to Governor Rick Perry. August 21 is a sad day for justice if Jeff Wood is executed.

Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill
P.O. Box 7222, Atlanta, GA 30357

The combination of racism and warmongering are perfectly encapsulated in “gook,” a racist term formed during numerous U.S. wars, from the invasion of the Philippines (1898-1902) to the occupation of Haiti in 1920, to the Korean and Vietnam Wars. John McCain used this anti-Asian slur freely and casually until he was forced to for fear of sabotaging his own presidential ambitions.

The portrait of John McCain painted in “Gook: John McCain’s Racism and Why It Matters” is far more disturbing than any racial epithet. A central thesis of Gook: war fertilizes racism, and racism justifies wars and the killing of civilians. This dynamic thrives within the most dangerous leaders of the world. Is John McCain one of them?

Irwin A. Tang holds an M.A. in Asian Studies. He is the co-author of Asian Texans and When Invisible Children Sing.

Attorney wants to know how the agents knew that his client was in court-ordered mediation

by Greg Moses

An asylum seeker from Kosovo has been taken to Haskell Prison where federal officials continue efforts to deport him despite a pending civil suit that might contribute to his winning legal residency in the USA. Bujar Osmani was arrested Tuesday morning at an attorney’s office while he was attempting to mediate a scheduled lawsuit against two people who represented him in his failed asylum claim.

Mr. Osmani says that he fled Kosovo in 2004 after a family home was set fire during an ethnic riot. He entered the USA through Mexico and applied for asylum in Dallas. (See more background in a story below).

Mr. Osmani is suing two people who he says took thousands of dollars to represent him, but who instead, he alleges, defrauded him of his cash and his opportunity to win asylum.

If the pending court case is successful, Mr. Osmani would be able to demonstrate that he was a victim of fraud by the persons who purported to represent him. But federal officials this week have said that Mr. Osmani can pursue his legal rights by sending depositions from Kosovo instead of appearing in court in his own behalf.

Meanwhile, Mr. Osmani’s attorney questions the manner and motivation of the arrest.

“When they arrested Bujar, they did not even let him tell his attorney or the mediator that he was leaving,” wrote attorney John Wheat Gibson in an email to federal officials, copied to the Texas Civil Rights Review. ” We found out after he had been missing for half an hour and we could not find him.”

“A secretary told us she had seen two men take him away. The arresting officers did not allow Bujar to make any arrangements for his car, which is still in the mediator’s parking lot, if it has not been towed. The interpreter and I had to make special arrangements to get back to our offices.”

“I do not understand why BICE (Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents would go out of their way to protect [the defendants in Mr. Osmani’s lawsuit] . . .,” said Gibson. “I would be very interested to know who made the decision to . . . arrest Bujar at the time and place and in the manner in which he was arrested.”

Attorney Gibson says his client is willing to accept any terms of supervision that the Department of Homeland Security may offer in order to continue his civil appeals.

Meanwhile, Haskell prison remains a 3 1/2 hour drive from Dallas, meaning that any lawyer-client conference will cost a day’s time.

“Unfortunately, the expense of taking Bujar’s deposition at the prison is prohibitive,” says Gibson, “especially because he cannot speak English.”

United Nations Special Rapporteur for Rights of Migrants Jorge Bustamante complained in a recent report that immigrants in the USA are “often transferred to remote detention facilities, which interferes substantially with access to counsel.”

As an immigrant prisoner, Mr. Osmani is caught up in a historic detention binge that often involves privately run prisons such as the Rolling Plains Regional Prison in Haskell, Texas, a 548-bed medium security prison that is managed by the Emerald Companies of Louisiana.

“In 1996,” reported Bustamante, “the Immigration and Naturalization Service had a daily detention capacity of 8,279 beds. By 2006, that had increased to 27,500 with plans for future expansion. At an average cost of US$ 95 per person per day, immigration detention costs the United States Government US$ 1.2 billion per year.”

“On average, there are over 25,000 migrants detained by immigration officials on any given
day,” reported Bustamante. “The conditions and terms of their detention are often prison-like: freedom of movement is restricted and detainees wear prison uniforms and are kept in a punitive setting.”

“In sum,” warned Rapporteur Bustamante, “in the current context the United States detention and deportation system for migrants lacks the kinds of safeguards that prevent certain deportation decisions and the detention of certain immigrants from being arbitrary within the meaning of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR), which the United States has signed and ratified.”

Attorney Gibson agrees that the treatment of Mr. Osmani is at least arbitrary.

“DHS has unlimited discretion to decide whom to arrest and whom to leave alone, and whom to release on orders of supervision and whom to detain and deport,” said Gibson.

“I hope you will reconsider releasing Bujar on an order of supervision until his suit against [the defendants] is finished,” pleads Gibson. “Since the EOIR [Executive Office of Immigration Review] and the DHS [Department of Homeland Security] are totally unwilling to move against thieves and imposters . . . I would hope they at least could refrain from collaborating to prevent civil suits against them. There will be plenty of time to deal with Bujar’s immigration case after his lawsuit is over. Please release Bujar on an order of supervision.”

From email, June 17, 2008–gm

Federal immigration prosecutions continued their recent and highly unusual surge in March 2008, apparently reaching an all-time high, according to timely data obtained from the Justice Department by TRAC. The total of 9,350 such prosecutions was up by almost 50% from the previous month and 73% from the previous year.

The spurt in the prosecution of individuals charged with various immigration crimes is the result of “Operation Streamline.” Under this recently intensified administration policy, according to news reports and interviews with federal public defenders, the government has charged a rapidly growing number of undocumented aliens with various federal criminal charges, almost all in selected districts along the Mexican border. “Operation Streamline” began as a pilot project in December 2005 in Del Rio, Texas.

The data further show that virtually every one of the individuals referred by the investigative agencies for prosecution — 99% of them — are then being charged by the U.S. Attorneys, and that the resulting median or typical sentence is one month.

To read the latest TRAC immigration report, go to:

http://trac.syr.edu/immigration/reports/188/