PBS's Frontline, "The Plea" -- I'm sickened

[orthogonal]

I just watched PBS's Frontline, "The Plea", which recounts the stories of four probably innocent people who had their lives ruined by lazy cops, overzealous prosecutors, a judicial system turned into a revenue-generating machine for local government, and a holier-than-thou judge.

I'm just sick to my stomach. What's happening in this country is little better than Stalin's show trials, and probably more widespread, and replete with innocents ground down in our own version of the Gulag Archipelago.

And the terrible thing is, we all know it's wrong, and we all know the prisons -- except the country club prisons for CEOs and politicians -- are hell-holes of unending rape and humiliation and Sgt. Garner-like guards, yet we sit back and let it happen and then we congratulate ourselves on how civilized and enlightened we are and go to church and tell ourselves how holy we are and how we are living like Jesus.

God Bless America!

The Land of the Free!

[TexasProgresive]

1. I never serve on juries because I send a prewriten note

to the judge explaining that I don't trust what is done and that I'm not a good candidate for service. It has worked everytime. Most people believe that if you are indicted you are guilty. The prosecutors and police are too close to one another. The defense attorneys if capable generally don't have enough resourses (money) to really challenge the deep pockets of the state.

And then when someone gets sent to prison they are subjected to horrors beyond belief. The weak have to align themselves with a protector who uses them in all kinds of ways. Rape and assault is rampant in prisons and the prison authorities not only turn a blind eye to it-they encourge it to "control" inmates they don't like. Did you ever wonder why no inmate is charged and tried for rape and/or assault?

[mongo]

4. I would want you as a juror if I was ever on trial

Because you think for yourself. By not serving, you are giving away a precious right as an American.

Judges tell juries today that they can only decide on the evidence, that they can not find someone innocent because they disagree with the law, but that is BS.

Jury nullification freed many runaway slaves preceding the civil war.

Of course, there are some evil sociopaths that NEED to be in prison. Not that there is a rehabilitation aspect, but at least it gets them off the street.

[Jake_DeLeon]

11. So instead of serving as an unbiased juror you left the defendent...

in the hands of people who werent able to come up with an excuse to get out of jury duty?

[newyawker99]

13. Hi Jake_DeLeon!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[alfredo]

18. Being honest kept me off juries.

I either knew the lawyers, the judge, the accused or the plaintiffs. If I got a bad reaction to the accused, I told the judge.

[Taylor Mason Powell]

24. That's exactly why you SHOULD be on a jury.

I'd totally want you there if I was a defense attorney.

[kerry-is-my-prez]

29. They need more people like you on juries. Of course, most of us here

would be kicked off a death penalty case since we're against the death penalty. THAT really sucks.

[mike1963]

30. In my 62 years, I've been called up for jury duty exactly ONE time...

in Tampa ca. 1985 (and yes, I've been a registered voter for 41 years)
But I was willing to give it one shot mostly to see how it all worked.
I sat in a hot room for 4 hours waiting and lost what little patience I started out with. Finally got 'selected'...went into the courtroom and it was a drug case (we weren't told what case we might be picked for previously). The lawyers started asking us questions. One of them asked me something, and oddly, I can't even recall what it wass, but I very clearly remembering being pissed off (because I think drug laws are Draconian, unfair and ridiculous, as I thought then) and replying after looking over at the defendant, "I can see just from looking at that scummy bastard he's guilty as hell!"

Was home in time for lunch.
;-)

[jus_the_facts]

2. Yep it is sickening.....

.....and what they showed goes on a whole lot more than you'd ever want to believe....down here in Louisiana the parish jails are beyond hell holes...Paul Wellstone came down here to personally complain about one of our PRIVATIZED prisons a while before his death...it was just closed permanently a couple weeks ago. :(

[merh]

3. we are a disposable society and we don't care what happens to what

we toss away whether it be our garbage, our senior citizens or those convicted of crimes. Only problem with that is the land fills are overflowing and growing in numbers, one day we too will be old and a vast majority of the convicts will have served their time and be returned to society.

Quick fix, those 'em. Worry about it later.

I have worked in corrections and am presently working my heart out trying to assist my boss who has been charged by the GOP USA for political crimes that are not crimes, but, as we all know, you can indict a ham sandwich if you are a prosecutor. Grand juries only hear the "evidence" presented by the prosecutor. They don't hear the full story, they don't get all the facts. If a prosecutor says there is a crime, then of course, there is a crime.

I pray ever day that the truth will come out, but the emotional and financial expenses are overwhelming and taking their toll on him and me.

[TeeYiYi]

5. The best Frontline I think I've ever seen . . .

. . . I am so completely moved by the plight of Erma Faye Stewart. She is the woman on the left in this picture.



No apology can help Erma Faye Stewart. Three years after she pleaded guilty in order to go home and take care of her children, she is destitute. Because of the plea, she is not eligible for food stamps for herself or federal grant money for education. She can't vote until two years after she completes her 10-year probation. And she has been evicted from her public housing for not paying rent. Her children sleep in various homes and she spends her nights outside the housing project, waiting for the the morning when she can go to work as a cook -- a job that pays $5.25 an hour. She owes a $1,000 fine, court costs and late probation fees which she has been pressured to pay. "They see it like, as long as I have a job, I can pay them," says Erma Faye. "I already told them, I'm having a hard time, buying my son medicine. I have to have his medicine for his asthma. They don't really care about that. All they want is, you know, the money."

Says Kelly, "I honestly don't believe she really understood the full extent of everything. She's a single mother. I'm a single mother. There is no way we can live without help from the government. We need that help and you cannot get that if you plea out to this."

Stewart will be under probation for at least seven more years. The fact that her case would have been dismissed with all the others, had she not taken the plea, makes no difference.

I found both of their addresses at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plea/four/stewart.html

Erma Faye Stewart's address for those who would like to write:

822 B Riley Street,
Hearne, TX 77859


Regina Kelly's address (the woman on the right in the photo):

P.O. Box 22
Hearne, TX 77859

________________________

TYY:cry:

[jus_the_facts]

6. Mercy...that was so incredibly sad....

:cry:

[NJCher]

7. yeah, and here is the kind of wingnut crap that is floating around

This was sent to me by--are you ready for this?--a female friend who is also a physician.

It made me so sick I responded, which I usually do not. Here is what she wrote and my response is below:

Sheriff Joe Arpaio (in Arizona) is doing it RIGHT!!:

He has jail meals down to 40 cents a serving and charges the inmates for them.

He stopped smoking and porno magazines in the jails.

Took away their weights.

Cut off all but "G" movies.

He started chain gangs so the inmates could do free work on county and city projects. Then he started chain gangs for women so he wouldn't get sued for discrimination.

He took away cable TV until he found out there was a federal court order that required cable TV for jails. So he hooked up the cable TV again but only let in the Disney channel and the weather channel. When asked why the weather channel he replied, so they will know how hot it's gonna be while they are working on my chain gangs.

He cut off coffee since it has zero nutritional value.

When the inmates complained, he told them.....this is a good one......"This isn't the Ritz/Carlton. If you don't like it, don't come back."

He bought Newt Gingrich' lecture series on videotape that he pipes into the jails. When asked by a reporter if he had any lecture series by a Democrat, he replied that a democratic lecture series might explain why a lot of the inmates were in his jails in the first place.

More on the AZ Sheriff.

With temperatures being even hotter than usual in Phoenix (116 degrees just set a new record), the Associated Press reports:

About 2,000 inmates living in a barbed-wire-surrounded tent encampment at the Maricopa County Jail have been given permission to strip down to their government-issued pink boxer shorts.

On Wednesday, hundreds of men wearing boxers were either curled up on their bunk beds or chatted in the tents, which reached 138 degrees inside the week before.

Many were also swathed in wet, pink towels as sweat collected on their chests and dripped down to their pink socks.

"It feels like we are in a furnace," said James Zanzot, an inmate who has lived in the tents for 1 1/2 years. "It's inhumane."

Joe Arpaio, the tough-guy sheriff who created the tent city and long ago started making his prisoners wear pink, and eat bologna sandwiches, is not one bit sympathetic He said Wednesday that he told all of the inmates:

"It's 120 degrees in Iraq and our soldiers are living in tents too, and they have to wear full battle gear, but they didn't commit any crimes ..... so shut your mouths."

----------------------

Isn't this just so typical of the r-w attitude? Just "stump stupid," as they say in the south.

So I responded:

That (that prisons are like hotels) is BS passed around by the right wing. It is not true and if you've been paying attention to the news, you would know that there have been more and more stories coming out about torture right here at home. In the last few weeks I can think of three that I've seen! Right here, in the good ole' US of A.

The libraries and gyms are only there because they have to give them something to do--otherwise they would make life miserable for the guards and prison administration. Believe me, it is not because we "care" so much about the prisoner. Furthermore, check into the quality of the libraries and gyms. Bottom of the barrel, all the way.

This man is a sadist and a sick-o. He needs mental help, not adulation.


Here is her response to me:

His method is more of a deterrent to repeat offenders than those prisons that are more like hotels.

Most prisoners have 3 meals a day, access to the internet, libraries, gyms and other amenities. Life on the inside is a lot better than most of them have on the outside which is why a lot want to go back. And lets not forget those conjugal visits.

This sherif is my kind of man. But then, so was Gen. Patton. LOL.

----------------------

Is that stupid or what?


Cher

[Toucano]

8. Oh, it's plenty stupid alright.

No argument there.

I especially love the "Life on the inside is a lot better than most of them have on the outside which is why a lot want to go back."

Someone's been drinking a little deep at the Kool-Aid well.:)

Reminds me of Tom DeLay's explanation of why he didn't serve in Vietnam. It seems to Tom that all the minorities signed up and took the available spots. They were, of course, trying to escape their hard lives in the projects with a little R&R on the Mekong Delta.

[rumguy]

9. people like that live in a right wing fantasy world

a fantasy world where the government can do no wrong and criminals are all living high on the hog in comfy jails...

shit, she has no clue about reality, she's just swallowed the right-wing lies hook. line and sinker....

she's the kind who during the Holocaust in Nazi Germany would have been fucking clueless cuz she can't think independently, and she questions nothing...

people like your "friend" make me sick to my stomach...

[graham67]

14. I'll be happy....

to take your friend inside a prison for a day.

[rumguy]

10. right wing loons should be forced to watch this Clockwork Orange style

I'm so sick of their self-righteous law and order bullshit. They've created a nation of law-breakers so they can cash in on guilt. They are well on their way to making so many things a crime it'll soon be impossible to live without breaking laws...

Fucking police state nazi pieces of human scum...

[Scairp]

12. I watched it too

When I see stories like this one, I wish more than anything to be wealthy, not for myself alone, but so that I could have the means to step in and help people like this woman. She's in dire straights, and the only reason that she and the other girl were pressured into these guilty pleas with the promise of probation was so that the prosecutor could have convictions on the books without having to prove his cases against them. And of course, those who did spend several months in jail and went to trial were exonerated because in the end all of the evidence was bogus and they had no case. I still think that we have the best legal system in the world, but it's examples like these that really magnify the flaws within in it. Sometimes, there is no justice in the justice system.

[erpowers]

15. What Made Me Angry

The prosecutor in Texas and the Judge in New York that would not admit that they were wrong about the people who were put in jail. At one point I told my mom that the judge in New York was someone who should not be a judge.

I was extremely angry at the Texas prosecutor who dealt with the rape case. Instead of just admitting that the state of Texas got the case wrong he wanted to convict the guy in some way. That prosecutor should have just dropped the case in that he had no evidence, but he still went for a no contest plea. Then when it was proven beyond a reasonible doubt that the guy they had arrested did not committ the crime he still said the guy was guilty.

I really think we should come close to getting rid of plea bargins. I do not think they work. Sometimes as with the New Orleans brothel case some informants say things just to get their case reduced. In the brothel case the FBI spent taxpayer money to wiretap a brothel because a former drug user turned business man who got in trouble with the police claimed that drugs were being sold out of the brothel. After months of an investigation, the FBI only found that the brothel was selling sex. To often plea bargins just lead to a waste of taxpayer money and people being wrongfully charged with a crime, as in the Texas cases.

[TeeYiYi]

23. You know what I noticed about that brothel case? . . .

. . . that they were spending obscene numbers of hours wire tapping and recording NOTHING trying to prove their stupid phony drug case against three women and they were doing it prior, during, and following 9/11. That means that all of that Eff Bee Eye manpower and taxpayer money was being used to try to monitor an alleged pot sale in a whore house rather than trying to find Al Qaeda et al. And we all know what happened in the interim.

TYY:grr:

[datasuspect]

16. what was the stat . . .

a few weeks ago? one in 75 US males in prison?

what is the composition of that population? primarily poor, primarily black.

they can't have slaves outright anymore, but the white racist america machine figures out different ways to get the same effect.

this country more and more disgusts me. i feel like i have awakened from a deep sleep or something, because the more "in your face" the racism has become since bush has taken office, the more i start seeing that this country is a sham and always has been.

i watched this documentary on HBO about the grandchild of the rosenbergs (atomic secrets, the ones executed in the 50s).

she was trying to learn more about them, but in the course of the movie they interspersed archival footage from i guess a national political convention and some news sources that WERE NO DIFFERENT FROM WHAT YOU SEE TODAY ON FOX OR CNN OR ANY NEWS CHANNEL.

just swap "communist" for "terrorist."

i'm 34, i should have noticed these things, but the vile rhetoric, the violent innuendoes about "killing" traitors and shit like that. man, sometimes i'd like to just get out of this corporate wasteland, but i fear it isn't better anywhere else.

but the point is there is a severe racism problem in this country. the funny thing is, i don't think most well-intentioned people are aware of their own racism. i think people react toward "others" the same instinctual way they would respond to a bear: automatic, primordial fear. there is no other way to explain it.

i've done things like walk through black ghettoes after dark, lived in slums, and otherwise have gone out of my way to get past my own innate fears and beliefs. but there is still danger.

be an identifiable yuppie on washington blvd. and pulaski in chicago at 2 am.

be an identifiable black "thug" type driving through winnetka at 2 am.

you still are gonna get the same results.

somebody is gonna get hassled somewhere.

and there is a profit in all of it.

[mike1963]

31. Your comment intrigued me:

"i've done things like walk through black ghettoes after dark, lived in slums, and otherwise have gone out of my way to get past my own innate fears and beliefs. but there is still danger."
---------------------------------------------------------------

A few years ago, my partner & I were in D.C. on some business...we got it done much quicker than we had expected and had a day and a half to kill so we spent the time sightseeing and running around. Daytime, visited the Jeff Memorial, Lincoln Monument, Smithsonian, Capitol, and later in the evening walked all the way around the WH.

After dark, we took the rent car and barged all over Washington, including all the "bad" areas...I even parked & walked up to a store with barred windows & bought a case of beer. The black clerk did seem to be a bit surprised to see me (clearly very caucasian) there, but was polite and other folk in the vicinity were as well.

This was about 9 p.m. We decided to go back to the hotel and relax, and returned there but on arrival, we heard some ruckus from the next room and went to investigate (we were both a little tipsy by that time) - turned out there were a dozen or so african-americans from Chicago there for a Bears/Redskins game the next day. They invited us in for a drink. (We were, at the time, from Tampa and got a lot of good-natured shit about "our" Buccaneers which were then bigtime losers)...

A couple hours later they all decided it was time to go to a night club. That wasn't my first choice of recreation at that point of inebriation, but they were so damn nice, we agreed to go along. And we did...to some wild joint the location of which I can't even begin to remember, but it was an experience - we were the only 2 'white' people in this place but nobody gave us any crap. (Interestingly, it mirrored a similar situation in Jamaica from a couple years prior to this, which is another story.)

Anyway, amidst all this rambling, I guess what I'm trying to say is that a little diplomacy and deference goes a long way to defuse potential conflict...which now that I think about it, you guys know already so I've wasted all this finger power...
;-)

[redqueen]

17. Everyone always says we have the best legal system in the world

Obviously, it's a flat out lie.

[Bluebear]

19. I wonder if there is an Erma Faye fund....

I would certainly love to help her get back on her feet. It's just one person out of many who suffer this injustice but my heart just broke when I saw her on this show....

[TeeYiYi]

25. Her address is listed . . .

. . . in post #5. You could write to her and ask her how you can help. That's what I'll probably end up doing. I tried to find out more about her situation through the ACLU and they weren't exactly helpful. Then in the same breath they asked for a donation. Argh.

TYY

[jannyk]

27. Erma Faye Stewart - Frontline

The address listed on the Frontline website belongs to Erma Faye's sister. Erma Faye is still homeless. To my knowledge there is no 'official' fund. Whether Erma has a checking account is doubtful.

Like many others, Erma Faye's plight touched me deeply. So, on friday I called both the DA and Erma's Probation Officer with the intent of paying her fines etc.. I was told that there may be an arrest warrant out for Erma Faye for 'failing to appear' and that paying her fines wasn't going to 'sort things out'. I am to call back monday when they will have more details for me. They asked me if I knew where Erma could be found - I said I did not.

In the meantime I emailed Frontline and informed them of Erma's new predicament. I received a reply that they too were trying to reach Erma but had been unable to do so, and they would also call the DA on monday. We are going to be in contact again after we have spoken to the respective officials on Monday.

In a nutshell, an innocent women with limited education and less resources, was coerced into pleading guilty to a crime that she would have been found innocent of. She was given 10 years probation (that she has to PAY for), lost her government assistance, her home and her children and is now going to be arrested because she couldn't meet the terms of her probation.

If you are interested in Erma Faye's plight, please email me and I'll update you on what I find out Monday and maybe we can, together, come up with a way to rescue from this mess. I've never done anything like this before and am going to need help (not $$).

For those that did not see the Frontline program - 'The Plea' here is a link:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plea/four/stewart.html

my email is [e-mail]

[wurzel]

20. This is no country to be poor in.

You don't stand a prayer.

[rumguy]

21. fuck the right wing kick!

[Carl Brennan]

22. You should read this book:

"Defrauding America". The US court system is horribly corrupt.

[Tamiati]

28. So then you all know about the jury nullification

Here's the link to learn more about how we as jurors can effect the change...please check your local state laws.....as some states have negated the whole of this constitutional right....

http://www.libertocracy.com/Policy/jury_nullification.htm

Check it out, check into further!!!!!

[TeeYiYi]

26. kick

TYY:kick: