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Erica Goode, "When DNA Evidence Suggests 'Innocent,' Some Prosecutors Cling to 'Maybe,'" in The New York Times, November 16, 2011, at p. A19.
John Paul Stevens, "Our Broken System of Criminal Justice," in The New York Review of Books, November 10, 2011, at p. 56.
William J. Stunz, The Collapse of the American Criminal Justice System (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2011).
As with the continuing efforts by New Jersey to deny what is now obvious criminal wrongdoing in covering up matters pertaining to me, so it seems that Justice Stevens has offered a compelling assessment of the racism, structural unfairness, and many dismal failures of a U.S. criminal justice system that has become a cautionary tale for all First World legal systems.
America's criminal justice system is the opposite of what the rest of the world wishes to emulate as an example of respect for human rights. This includes China whose response to U.S. human rights criticisms has been to point to our own catastrophes in violating civil rights and our surreal denial of what is obvious to everyone, as in New Jersey's stonewalling refusal to reveal the truth in these matters:
"In the years between 1972 and 2007, the nation's imprisonment rate more than quintupled -- increasing from 93 to 491 per 100,000 people. The rate at the end of that period vastly exceeded the analogous rate in other Western countries, which varied from 132 for England and Wales to a mere 74 in Germany and 72 in France." (Stevens, p. 56.)
America has become Foucault's "carceral continuum," a Benthamite "Panopticom" in which we are all monitored and surveilled, especially when writing on-line. Most significant and surprising is the recognition from a retired Justice of the United States Supreme Court -- one of the best jurists in our history -- that all is not well:
" ... [Our laws reveal] SYSTEMIC racial discrimination [emphasis added!] -- excessive enforcement against offenders and inadequate protection of black victims." (Stevens, supra.)
A case in point illustrating Justice Stevens' observations is the sadistic unwillingness of Chicago Prosecutor Anita Alvarez to recognize the DNA-demonstrated innocence of Terrill Swift, an African-American falsely convicted of raping and murdering a prostitute. The explanation offered by this prosecutor is that Mr. Swift had "used the services of prostitutes" -- along with Jimmy Swaggart and former Governor of New York Eliot Spitzer -- but probably "only killed" the victim in that case.
False confessions are easily obtained from anyone through interrogational hypnosis, drugging, coersive manipulations and good-old fashioned physical brutality against defendants. In fact, such methods of extracting confessions have become a specialty of so-called "experts," like Terry Tuchin and Diana Lisa Riccioli, allegedly. ("Terry Tuchin, Diana Lisa Riccioli, and New Jersey's Agency of Torture" and "New Jersey's 'Ethical' Legal System.")
Mr. Swift has served 17 years for a crime that, science tells us, he did not commit. An abusive prosecutorial establishment complicit in the enslavement of this man wishes to avoid responsibility for this atrocity which is, obviously, all about race and the arrogance of power, also as in New Jersey. The usual disclaimer may be in order: I have never paid for sex or been charged with a crime. ("America's Holocaust" and "Give Us Free!")
"The Cook County" -- Scott Turow country! -- "state's attorney has opposed vacating the men's convictions, arguing that [exculpatory] DNA match alone is not sufficient to cast significant doubt on their guilt."
Curiously, these same prosecutors speak of the merits of DNA evidence when it helps to convict those accused of crimes. Not mentioned by the authorities is the concern by prosecutors to cover their backsides from any possible "blowback" (as it were) for participating in a criminal conspiracy to violate a man's civil rights so as to subject an innocent person to 17 years of incarceration. ("Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal.")
"It was a tragedy for everybody," Mr. Swift said, "we're innocent but they didn't want to listen."
Does New Jersey want to listen to the voices of those damaged by the failures of the state's corrupt legal system? I doubt it. I certainly sympathize with this man's dilemma.
Mr. Rabner, the word "ethics" on the lips of New Jersey's OAE attorneys and your brethren on the New Jersey Supreme Court has become and will remain a lie until these issues are discussed openly and truthfully with me. ("No More Cover-Ups and Lies, Chief Justice Rabner!" and "New Jersey's Feces-Covered Supreme Court.")
The facts concerning the abuse, hypnosis, assaults, sexual and otherwise, to which I and so many others have been subjected must be a part of any genuine conversation between us.
Time is of the essence. Each day that the cover-up continues is a renewal of the tortures for many innocent persons. No New Jersey judge or other official should be protected at the expense of the Constitution.
Have you no sense of decency, sir?
