Tuesday, April 22, 2014

Legal Victories Expected re Clemency and Pardons


On the day before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Michigan's right to ban affirmative action in its colleges and universities, Attorney General Eric Holder announced an expansive clemency review that could release thousands of prisoners. Below is an excerpt from the Daily Kos:

Attorney General Eric Holder announced in a video Monday, April 21, 2014, that the Department of Justice on Wednesday will lay out the details of expanded criteria for clemency recommendations it makes to the president for his review. The changes might mean thousands of prisoners could be granted clemency.

Holder did not say which prisoners might benefit from the coming changes. But he took note of the Fair Sentencing Act in 2010. That significantly but not wholly reduced the vast sentencing difference between convictions for crack and powder cocaine, a factor in the previous law that had had a tremendously disparate impact on African Americans. But the 2010 law did nothing for drug offenders sentenced before it took effect.


Holder said, "There are still too many people in federal prison who were sentenced under the old regime —and who, as a result, will have to spend far more time in prison than they would if sentenced today for exactly the same crime,” Holder said. “This is simply not right.”

We may owe this legal victory in part to the United Nations, which criticized the United States on mass incarceration and disparate racial sentencing in its report that was released in March 2014, saying:

“[The] committee continues to be concerned about racial disparities at different stages in the criminal justice system, sentencing disparities and the over-representation of individuals belonging to racial and ethnic minorities in prisons and jails.”

Al Jazeera reported, "The U.N. body calls on the U.S. to retroactively implement the 2010 Fair Sentencing Act and close a loophole that allows thousands of nonviolent offenders to languish in federal prisons as a result of draconian drug laws. The report also demands measures to end to racial profiling and praises steps to end New York City’s stop-and-frisk program."

CONGRATULATIONS, AMERICA. Reducing mass incarceration is a step toward justice - a legal victory for overly-sentenced inmates and for the nation.

Three References:

Attorney General Holder's announcement: Possible release for thousands of prisoners

Al Jazeera Report re United Nations' Assessment of Human Rights in the USA
http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2014/04/black-get-back-affirmative-action-banned.html

Paragraphs 1 and 2 repeated: On the day before the U.S. Supreme Court upheld Michigan's right to ban affirmative action in its colleges and universities, Attorney General Eric Holder announced an expansive clemency review that could release thousands of prisoners. Below is an excerpt from the Daily Kos:

Attorney General Eric Holder announced in a video Monday, April 21, 2014, that the Department of Justice on Wednesday will lay out the details of expanded criteria for clemency recommendations it makes to the president for his review. The changes might mean thousands of prisoners could be granted clemency.


Call or write with information about legal victories you wish to highlight.
MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com or (678) 531.0262.
Messages will be responded to within 24 hours, or please call/write again. 
I endure First Amendment violations to prevent disclosure about theWrongful Death of Larry Neal.com
Thanks.

Friday, April 18, 2014

Disability Law Center Investigates Abuse to Whites with Mental Illness

Disability Law Center, a federal agency, is investigating Bridgewater State Hospital psychiatric prison in Massachusetts because one Caucasian mental patient was murdered in restraint there in 2009, and another patient's mother threatens lawsuit because of his isolation and subjection to restraint. The investigation may be a legal victory to sick inmates in that facility and others.

After the restraint death in 2009, the deceased's survivors were awarded a $3million wrongful death settlement, and we can hope that the patient who was tortured in solitary confinement and restraint recently will also be compensated for his pain and suffering. He may recover damages if he is a Caucasian. Unfortunately, black victims of police violence and survivors of black mental patients who were killed by police, correctional officers, and hospitals generally encounter government cover-ups, denial of due process of law. If they persist in seeking justice, they may encounter surveillance and persecution.

All acute mental patients are subject to being treated as though they are expendable by the justice system. However, that mistreatment is more quickly met with corrective action by higher authorities once the public is informed that the deceased or brutalized mental patients are/were white. Not so if those killed or abused were black.

Farm animals are ordinarily exterminated when they prove to be useless in their prescribed roles, and that is how persons with mental disabilities are often treated. However, if a spotlight is turned on whites being killed by police and in corrections, some Caucasian families are paid settlements even without filing lawsuits. Contrarily, blacks' deaths are subject to cover-up conspiracies from their local governments and Washington.

A recent example is the death of Jerome Murdough, a homeless Marine Corps veteran who was slow-roasted to death on Rikers Island in February 2014. There was no attempt by the prison authorities, the deceased's attorney, or New York officials to notify Murdough's family about his demise in government custody. Three weeks after Murdough baked to death, a reporter from the Associated Press asked his family for an interview, and that was how Murdough's survivors learned about his horrendous death. His survivors were obviously never meant to know.

Larry Neal, a middle aged mentally ill heart patient was secretly arrested (kidnapped) and kept incarcerated 18 days while his family and social worker were lied to by Memphis Shelby County Jail and told he was not in custody. During this 18-day period, Larry Neal was dying in jail without his heart drugs. He might also have had a schizophrenic crisis without his psychiatric medications, leading to death in restraint or by Taser. The Neal family does not know the circumstances of Larry Neal's arrest or his death under secret incarceration because officials from Tennessee and Washington determined that he and his family are too black to matter. His murder was ruled "immaterial." Therefore, our inquiries are ignored altogether or denied records. Worse, we endure persecution for asking about the secret arrest and murder of this lifelong mentally ill heart patient.

Read more about how black mental patients' families are treated after brutality or wrongful deaths by police compared to cases involving Caucasians in a soon to be released book, "COCHRAN FIRM FRAUD."

All persons with mental health disabilities need and deserve assistance by their fellow countrymen. They experience a greater risk of arrests, prisoner abuse, and death-by-police no matter what race they are. But African Americans are further abused AFTER death by cover-ups that Caucasians are usually spared. I already know what will happen when I contact Disability Law Center about Larry Neal's secret murder in government custody in 2003 - likely the same things that happened when I contacted every other government agency. Some of my readers must see it to believe it, especially under this administration.

Murderous police officers need not worry. They usually attack the Neals whenever I ask a government agency "What Happened to Larry Neal?" We are ordinarily punished for asking why Larry Neal was secretly arrested and killed in a jail that was under oversight by the United States Department of Justice after lawsuit by the USA. Investigation and accountability are denied while my family is targeted for intimidation and persecution.


What would happen if the Larry Neal's survivors ask Disability Law Center to investigate Larry Neal's murder under secret arrest? Will our yard be outlined in paint and helicopters stand still over our rooftop again? Will government vehicles leading four other cars trail and waylay me at another Chevron station? Will a car come out of nowhere and rear-end a relative's vehicle and flee again? Will they carry out their threats against children in our family? Will my elderly mother receive more lewd photos on her cellphone of black men's penises?

Will they again order agents to prevent calls to and from our home - especially from potential employers? Will they send another impostor to pose as a health care provider to assault my elderly mother on her hospital bed? Will they send another U.S. Marshal ONLY to our home to say he is looking for an escaped murderer at a neighbor's house who has an assault weapon? Will our home be burglarized again to steal more original court records and other evidence regarding our lawsuit against CoIntelPro lawyers at The Cochran Firm? Will police again be dispatched to warn us not to contact officials? Will police again threaten to Taser and arrest me for notifying the public about Larry's lynching and The Cochran Firm fraud, news which the media refuses to report? What intimidation or actual harm will we suffer if we ask Disability Law Center, a federal agency, What Happened to Larry Neal?


It is a legal victory, especially for Caucasian mental patients, that Disability Law Center is investigating Bridgewater State Hospital psychiatric prison in Massachusetts because one mental patient was murdered in restraint there in 2009 and another patient's mother plans a lawsuit because of her son's isolation and subjection to restraint. It will be a more significant legal victory if America ever becomes a place where the government ceases discrimination against people based on health, race, or socioeconomic classifications. This will not happen as long as racism and health discrimination happen without exposure and opposition. Therefore, we also congratulate persons responsible for three recent studies that shed light on these issues. See the results of the studies in an article in "Dog Justice for Mentally Ill" called "Cards Stacked Against Black Boys, Especially If Mentally Challenged." Three studies are listed below:

1.  The American Psychological Association (APA) proved that black boys as young as age 10 are perceived as being roughly 4. 5 years older than they are and more responsible (especially when legal problems arise) than Caucasian children are.

2.  The Discipline Disparities Research-to-Practice Collaborative proved that black children labeled as having mental challenges are punished more severely than their Caucasian counterparts and healthy African Americans. The disparity continues throughout their adult years, especially regarding their rates of arrest and imprisonment.

3.  A study by Kelly M. Hoffman and Adam Waytz shows that people, including medical personnel, assume black people feel less pain than white people, and they receive less empathy, even from other black people. The cover-up conspiracy and intimidation heaped on Larry Neal's family to prevent our justice quest prove the lack of empathy engulfs blacks as well as Caucasians in government offices, civil and human rights and religious organizations, media, and law enforcement.


The studies proved that the legal system's prejudice against mentally ill people is compounded when those affected by this disability are black. See the article with links at

Few people can imagine the persecution against African Americans families who fight unjust murders and arrests of their members. Holly Allison is the mother of a former Pennsylvania mentally ill inmate named Terrell Scott. Scott endured 4.5 years of wrongful imprisonment while denied a trial regarding child molestation charges. He finally signed a false confession and plea deal to gain release. Alston refuses to abandon Scott to the system that already robbed her son of eyesight in one eye, hearing in one ear, and exposed him to HIV during his rape and brutality while behind bars. Therefore, Pennsylvania courts threaten to take her youngest son, Kai, who is ten. 

Elizabeth Crudup was brutalized during her recent arrest in North Carolina, because she fights for her son, Shannon Nyamodi. Shannon was wrongly arrested for a robbery and shooting that witnesses say a Caucasian youth did. After her brutal arrest for a traffic infraction, Crudup's car was towed to a rural county that has/had a large sign pronouncing it as being KKK territory, and she was afraid to retrieve it. Shannon has been denied a trial for nearly two years while his 19th and 20th birthdays were passed in solitary confinement, where he is prevented visits or phone calls in order to force him to sign a false confession for the crimes of a white youth. Shannon is not mentally ill, but it appears that the justice system is intent on inflicting that ailment on the youth through solitary confinement.

Virginia's Senator Deeds' son was denied treatment in three psychiatric facilities before he stabbed his father in the neck and then committed suicide in 2013. If a Caucasian with a decent income and political clout like Senator Deeds is denied treatment for his mentally ill son, one should be able to imagine what people who are African Americans, Native Americans, or Latinos who lack wealth and connections must endure. Thus far, the Deeds and Kelley Thomas's family, and other Caucasians are spared the persecution that the Neals, Holly Alston, and Elizabeth Crudup face for standing up to the justice system on behalf of their neglected, abused, or murdered relatives.

One solution would be to end private prisons or demand that public officials and their spouses divest themselves of private prison stocks. Government officials are in a position to engage in "insider trading" by diverting funds from mental health programs that actually work, like assisted outpaient treatment (AOT) programs that provide subsistence assistance and mandate psychiatric treatment for people with acute mental illness. Medicaid insurance was withdrawn from psychiatric inpatients, and mental hospitals downsized or closed at a steady rate since the 1970s in order to facilitate the establishment and continued growth of America's private prison industry. Civil commitment laws are in place that prevent families from accessing professional services unless patients are declared a danger to self and others. When patients prove to be dangerous, they are usually imprisoned rather than hospitalized. The mental health laws that overfilled our prisons to the point that private prisons were made necessary were passed by prison investors in Government.

Mentally ill Americans and persons from minority populations comprise roughly two-thirds of the inmates in America (1.25million inmates are mentally challenged people of all races). The prison industry is so important to U.S. officials that deaths in custody are sometimes covered up, like Larry Neal's was and like authorities probably planned for Jerome Mudough. Complaints by African Americans, Native Americans and Latinos whose relatives are wrongly imprisoned and brutalized or killed by police officers and corrections officers are usually ignored or they who complain endure retaliation. The monster must be fed.

More about the Disability Law Center's investigation is available at "Dog Justice for Mentally Ill" in an article entitled "Bridgewater Mental Hospital Investigation."
http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2014/04/bridgewater-state-hospital-investigation.html

First paragraph repeated (the article has two active links, and two more active links are in the signature block beneath Lady Justice): Disability Law Center, a federal agency, is investigating Bridgewater State Hospital psychiatric prison in Massachusetts because one Caucasian mental patient was murdered in restraint there in 2009, and another patient's mother threatens lawsuit because of his isolation and subjection to restraint. The investigation may be a legal victory to sick inmates in that facility and others.


Call or write with information about legal victories you wish to highlight. MaryLovesJustice@gmail.com or (678) 531.0262.Messages will be responded to within 24 hours, or please call/write again.
endure First Amendment violations to prevent disclosure about theWrongful Death of Larry Neal.com

Thanks.