At what point does the system fail? Is it possible to pinpoint the time when a criminal justice degree becomes a total abortion, leading to the arrest and conviction of innocent people? Thousands of people are wrongly convicted each year, mostly because America is a country full of poor people who can’t afford $400/hr+ lawyers and are willing to accept unfair plea deals under pressure. The criminal justice system has become a menacing one; when the word ‘justice’ has lost much of its meaning, we have to wonder what all those people are really doing with their criminal justice degrees. Not only are thousands of innocent people currently sitting in jai, but some of the wrongly convicted have even been put to death while the real perpetrators roam the streets, free from consequences and to commit more horrendous crimes as they please. It can only be hoped that those pursuing a criminal justice degree now are doing so with a goal of making a positive change — that is, trying to ensure that the verdict of a trial depends on more than simply providing closure for a case or having someone — anyone — to blame. Here are just three of literally thousands who were allowed to waste away behind bars, punished for another person’s horrible deeds.

Ryan Matthews – Death Row

What happened to ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’? Ryan Matthews was a 17 year old high school student at the time of his arrest. When a grocery store owner was robbed and shot down, eyewitness testimony that was questionable at best ultimately condemned him. The clearly inaccurate testimony was not the most baffling part of his conviction, however. DNA on a ski mask found at the scene absolutely did not match Matthews’ DNA — but he was convicted and sentenced to death anyway. The police department seriously messed up when they nabbed this kid — all those people, qualified individuals with criminal justice degrees, stole five years of an innocent teenager’s life. Luckily for Matthews, he was exonerated at the age of 24 — but only after a Louisiana inmate was overheard bragging to his jail buddies about having committed the murder himself. Another interesting point in this case is that many people convicted of torture-murders have been convicted and sentenced to significantly shorter lengths of prison time; if you’re at all familiar with the show I Survived, you may already be aware. Featuring individuals who survived life threatening, harrowing situations, many victims of torture, rape, and attempted murder see their attackers sentenced to as little as between 15-25 years in prison. How a 17 year old was sentenced to death over inaccurate DNA in a botched robbery is baffling.

Anthony Graves – 20 Years

One thing a criminal justice degree will undoubtedly teach the student is that sometimes, clerical errors, meaningless legal jargon, and paperwork can override a person’s stark and obvious innocence. Anthony Graves was convicted of murdering a grandmother and five children, a heinous crime that saw him put on death row. Despite the fact that there was absolutely no physical evidence tying Graves to the murders, one Robert Carter’s lying testimony threw him under the bus. Carter immediately confessed to the crimes but claimed that Grave was his accomplice all along — a statement that Graves vehemently denied from the very start. After his exoneration, the prosecutor was accused of manipulating witnesses and even providing fake evidence against Graves. The prosecutor, however, blames the jury who convicted Graves. Graves was only exonerated after Carter confessed to lying about his involvement only weeks before his own execution. Graves was released and tried to make good on Texas’ policy of gifting every wrongly convicted inmate with $80,000 for every year the innocent person spent behind bars. The state tried to deny his motion based on the grounds that his release paperwork did not include the words “actual innocence.” Therein lies a giant WTF — when people begin using their criminal justice degrees to be paper-slave robots, the system has no option other than failure.

Ray Towler – 29 Years

In the 80s, Ray Towler was a 24-year-old musician who had attended art school and was talented with his guitar. Despite a solid alibi (he was home all day), a nine-year-old’s inaccurate testimony against him would condemn Ray Towler to life behind bars for the rape and kidnapping of two young children. Given that four people (incorrectly) testified to seeing Towler, the “only black person in the park”, on the day two children were raped in a secluded part of the forest beside a lake, there was more convincing evidence of his innocence. The rapist’s description, said to be a man with stubble, did not match Towler’s physical appearance — he had a full beard. There was also his alibi, confirmed by his family, which was all but completely disregarded. In his almost three decades in prison, Towler’s multiple motions for an appeal, writ of habeas corpus, and early release were all denied again and again. In jail, his refusal to stand before a group and confess the crimes he never committed lead him to be excluded from group activities. In jail, Towler spends his time creating incredibly beautiful pencil portraits, which he sells for money or other goods. When his friend and fellow inmate is exonerated from a rape he didn’t commit using (what was at the time) brand new DNA technology, Towler attempts to get the evidence from the case tested for DNA. Two envelopes mysteriously missing the evidence needed and four years later, Towler once more reaches out for help in a legal system which seems to disregard all sense of consideration and decency toward another human being. A lawyer interested in his case pushes for yet another DNA testing, which comes back showing that Towler clearly did not rape those two children. After thirty years in jail, he walks out of the courtroom a free man and gets himself what was probably the best pizza in the world.

I fully understand that – in the most progressive major city with the most progressive governing body in the country – it is impossible to resist the temptation to occasionally legislate based on their core belief that no citizen can make a decision for themselves or their family without the Supervisors benevolent dictates guiding forcing them to “do the right thing”. But – when even the Daily Show is pointing and laughing – you’d think our Supes might get a clue.

Featured in the clip is SF Supervisor Eric Mar as he is made to look particularly stupid by Daily Show comedian Asaif Mandvi. It’s not like that is a difficult thing to do with our Board of Supes, but Asaif dishes it out with an extra helping of much deserved derision. I can only hope that Mar’s decision to appear on The Daily Show was a career limiting move.

Our local fishwrap transcribes the funniest bit:

“But the most brutal part comes when Mar explains that his 10-year-old daughter, Jade, doesn’t like fast food anymore after watching the documentary “Super Size Me” with him. Those opposed to the to ban maintain it’s up to parents, not McDonalds, to ensure their kids learn healthy habits.

Mandvi: “So she learned from her parents?”
Mar: “That’s a large part of it.”
Mandvi: (staring in wide-eyed disbelief) “Would it be hard to pass a law to force Netflix to send ‘Super Size Me’ to every parent in San Francisco?”
Mar: “We can’t force Netflix, a private company, to do something like that.”
Mandvi: “Are you serious right now?”
Mar:“We have no power to force Netflix or a private company like that to change a business practice.”
Mandvi: “So on one hand, you’re like, ‘We can’t do that’ but on the other hand, you are doing that.”

Mar, looking very tired, shakes his head, stumbles over one of the progressive supervisor’s favorite words, equitability, and mercifully the interview ends. Oy.”

The good news is that four of our Supes have termed out and will be leaving office this week. The bad news is that Eric Mar is not among them.

Reason TV also took note of SF Local Accomplishments in 2010:

Cross posted from Divided We Stand United We Fall.

I am now using a Droid phone.

My whole life is on this device. My “real” email accounts and my “fake” ones – they’re all Gmail accounts and linked on the Gmail app. My phone numbers, credit card information and my real name. Facebook , blogs and tweets. It’s all conveniently tied together and linked to me (within a meter of my actual global position).

Google now has more on me than the United States Government. Comforting in that they’ll probably offer a better franchise, but can I trust them?

Certainly someone at Google has the ability to listen to and record everything I say or write on that phone. Have you used Google’s voice services? It’s no longer necessary to type text messages on a keyboard. Simply push a button and talk – the phone translates words into text and very rarely gets one wrong. This software can easily be programmed to listen all day long and perk up when it hears keywords – like “bomb”, “Jihad” or “Spaghetti Monster”.

I figure there are unlimited dystopian scenarios that arise from such an entanglement with Google. Go ahead and list a few. I have several. Naturally, there are also unlimited Utopian scenarios. List a few, I dare you.

The only way this ends well for me is to accept personal responsibility for my privacy and disentangle my life from Google.

This means I have to learn how to build my own server, host my own email, root my phone and install Linux on my computer. It’s possible, but it’s way harder.

I’ll let you know how it goes.

My answer? Ummm…no.

Well, at least with anything political. I’d trust him to borrow a garden hose, but that’s about it.

Because if even one tenth of what’s in the new book ‘Game Change’ is true about Edwards (and his wife) it would be enough. The book paints Edwards as a reckless opportunist, an ego monster, a guy who’s so blinded by the need for power that he would do nearly anything to get it.

For instance, after it was well established inside the Edwards camp that he was having an affair, it didn’t stop him. Not for a moment. In fact, he became even more brazen. So much so that he proposed the following deal to Obama after Iowa…

Yet Edwards had no intention of going quietly into any good night. He had a contingency plan. Two months earlier, he had asked Leo Hindery, a New York media investor who was one of his closest confidants, to convey an audacious proposal to Tom Daschle, the former Senate majority leader and a mentor to Obama: If Edwards won the caucuses, Obama would immediately drop out of the race and become his running mate; if Obama won, Edwards would do the converse. Wounding though a loss in Iowa would be to Hillary, she might be strong enough to bounce back. The only way to guarantee her elimination would be to take the extraordinary step of uniting against her.

Hindery had presented the proposal to Daschle, with whom he’d long been friends. Daschle brought it to the Obama campaign. The talks were tentative; nothing had been decided.

Now, with the results of Iowa in, Edwards determined it was time to make the deal. A little while before taking the stage to deliver his concession speech, he summoned Hindery to his hotel suite and issued a directive: “Get ahold of Tom.”

Hindery considered the timing miserable. Obama just frickin’ won Iowa, he thought. Give him a chance to savor it. But Edwards wanted to set the wheels in motion—immediately.

Edwards knew that the Rielle Hunter affair could explode at any moment, but his ego was willing to pull the entire Democratic party down with him. Ladies and gentlemen, that’s world class douchebaggery at its very douchbaggiest.

Thankfully Obama rejected the offer. After all, he was on a roll and Edwards didn’t bring a lot to the table. Also, it’s not like he added very much to Kerry’s ticket in 2004. The deal made no sense.

Oh, but that didn’t stop John…

Clinton’s astonishing comeback in New Hampshire put an end to Obama’s hopes of a quick finish to the nomination contest—and led Edwards to believe that there was still an opening to strike a bargain. On the eve of the South Carolina primary two weeks later, he again dispatched Hindery to make a revised offer, this time a trade for Edwards’s endorsement.

“John will settle for attorney general,” Hindery e-mailed Daschle.

Daschle shook his head. How desperate is this guy?

“Leo, this isn’t good for John,” Daschle replied. “This is ridiculous. It’s going to be ambassador to Zimbabwe next.”

When Obama heard about the suggested quid pro quo, he was incredulous. That’s crazy, he told Axelrod. If I were willing to make a deal like that, I shouldn’t be president!

Indeed.

By the way, the entire excerpt about Edwards is well worth the read over at New York Magazine. Because it’s not just about the the affair. Lots of behind the scenes revelations, including the difference between the public Elizabeth Edwards and the private one…who appears to be just as egomaniacal and power hungry as her husband.

What to say to this?

Well, I’ll give it a try…

Looks like 1st Amendment rights are alive and well if folks can create a billboard that sits on one of the most well traveled highways in the country and suggest Obama is a communist and make a quasi-revolutionary call. I mean…do they not see the irony of that?

Second, has Obama restricted ANY 2nd Amendment rights so far? Obviously he’s not a big gun rights advocate, and he was in favor of renewing the Federal Assault Weapons Ban, but abandoned that in April in favor of ratifying a treaty that only deals with small arms trafficking.

So yes, once again the scare tactics are easily disproved.

Moving on…

Why yes…yes there is.

And all they’re asking you to do is give them $30 so they can send all 50 state attorney generals a fax demanding Obama show his birth certificate.

Fun fact: this is actually running on a CBS affiliate in Texas and other locales across the country.

In related news, if you think Obama is the anti-christ, you’re much more likely to support Sarah Palin.

And scene!

I’ve found the base camp of crazy.

Have a look:

At the time that I am writing this, at least 20 – 30% of Americans understand thus far, know the true nature of President Obama, and the steps he is now taking to destroy freedom.  [...]  A real Second American Revolution is now on the horizon.

We are witnessing the literal death of our Republic, that can come in less than 4 years.

Well, let us start the journey down the road to Revolution in the United States of America.  I believe you will understand it all, and at the very least, by the end of this article you will be ever vigilant.  Perhaps maybe, you’ll even exercise your 2nd Amendment rights, before you can no longer do so.

maybe, just maybe, enough of us can “peacefully” prevent it all.  It is not likely by far, but we can hope.  Marxists won’t go down without a fight so keep this in mind…

Even if you have never fired a weapon, do yourself a favor and exercise your constitutional right to bear arms. Buy a rifle, take some lessons and start up a hunting club. Even if you don’t hunt.  Start a marksmanship club in your college or even high school.  Whatever you do, DO NOT EVER Give up your right to bear arms! Not to any government EVER.

I’m a fan of the 2nd amendment…

the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.

Every American should be able to own the biggest, sickest, machine-gunniest weapon they can afford. The modern day fight against tyranny will require more than your average hand gun. These people are spot on.

However,

A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state

A well regulated militia (read: gun-toting populace) should be educated enough to actually recognize tyranny, distinguish between fact and fiction, and exercise some amount of self-control and patience before blowing the roof off the White House. These people are – what’s the opposite of spot on?

These days everybody has a reason for saying that the founders are rolling over in their graves. Here’s mine:

It’s because their Republic is becoming a nation expecting to be ignorant and free.

Everyone has one. The one piece of technology that makes it official for you that you’re living in the future. Whether it’s a Roomba vacuum, Skype, the iPhone or something else – there’s something floating around in your mind that, when you see it in real life, you’ll know you’ve reached the future.

For me it’s cloud ships that look like this:

When this flotilla (1500+) of wind-powered spew ships is complete and I can watch them bellow sea water and (presumably) fish guts into the sky, I will have reached the future. One can only hope that the accordion-like stacks will crouch lower and lower as the pressure builds until BOOM! A new cloud is born … to reflect the sun … so the Earth doesn’t get warm.

Clouds are good. Let’s make more.

WTF?

Obviously I don’t take part in jingoistic, populism often, but this just strikes me as just plain unamerican.

From NY Times:

In a sentimental gesture from a no-nonsense kind of guy, Jory Spears lifted his camera phone on Friday in a somber salute to this city’s beloved Sears Tower.

“The Sears Tower has some really big shoulders, it works hard and it can stand the Chicago winter — kind of like me,” said Mr. Spears, 52, a native Chicagoan who is among the many unhappy with the imminent renaming of the 110-story skyscraper, the tallest in the Western Hemisphere, to Willis Tower.

Many here say the purchase of the naming rights to the building by Willis Group Holdings, a London-based insurance brokerage, announced Thursday, is just the latest snub in a sad collection of architectural indignities.

I mean, seriously, can’t Chicago get the name protected since it’s part of American history. It shouldn’t be treated like a sports stadium sponsorship.

Thoughts?

I say that with all sincerity because where would I be without clips like this?

Obviously I’m putting aside his economic views, because many of you would agree with those, but as for most of the rest of it…Keyes is a living, breathing example of why 3rd party candidates aren’t allowed into serious presidential debates.

It’s kind of a shame really, because a more robust debate would probably be good, but who wants to give this guy a national audience?

Whichever one of the Ten Commandments tells us not to bow down to idols, that’s the one we’ve been breaking with all the Abraham Lincoln worship lately.

There’s no way he was even half as popular amongst Northerners back in the 1860s (I still bump into Civil War kooks down South who HATE Lincoln more than my wife hates the Dukes of Hazzard).

Amongst the dozens of new Lincoln tributes is a 2,024 page biography that weighs 9.3 pounds. The longest book I ever read was Stephen King’s The Stand, a good-vs.-evil plague morality tale that made me get nervous anytime I hung around someone with a terrible cough. That book weighed in at 1,141 pages — and that is my upper limit.

Any Abraham Lincoln comic books out there?

In honor of Lincoln’s birthday, I would like to shine the spotlight on one of his most devoted admirers — a banjo-playing, wood-chopping fringe presidential candidate who believes he’s channeling Honest Abe in the woods of New Hampshire.

Sadly, Carmen Chimento’s life doesn’t even merit a one-line cameo in that new 2,024 page biography.

Carmen also boasts the distinction of making the most bizarre comment I’ve ever heard about Lincoln assassin John Wilkes Booth.

What do you think?  Would we be better off today if we had a Chimento White House?

(New Hampshire political junkie Darren Garnick can be reached at www.cultureschlock.com)

Bernie Madoff scam artist action figure

In this economy, would you pay $149.99 for a Bernie Madoff action figure?

Would your answer be influenced if you knew it was a limited edition action figure?

Herobuilders.com is no stranger to controversy, brazenly giving G.I. Joe collectors the meanest enemies possible to wage war on — Saddam, Osama, Hugo Chavez.  Without bad guys, who are the good guys gonna fight, right?

But as brash toymaker Emil Vicale tells the Boston Herald, not everyone wants real-world evil (corrupt CEOs like Lex Luthor are fine) represented in the playroom.

“Everything we do offends somebody,” he says. “If you are looking for a company not to offend somebody, it’s not us.”

(Darren Garnick, who has an Apollo Creed bobblehead on his desk, can be reached at www.cultureschlock.com)

You’d think that Ron Paul, CEO of Eagle Bank, would be thrilled to receive $38 million dollars in TARP funds. But, it turns out, he’s pretty frustrated.

This is Danielle Ivory from the American News Project.

As another $350 billion goes out the door, ANP looks at one small bailed-out bank. Eagle Bank is having trouble making loans. Its CEO, Ron Paul, says that the government has not taken fleeing depositors into account and, as a result, small banks and their surrounding communities will suffer.

Follow Danielle’s reporting on twitter.

http://americannewsproject.com/node/190

WATCH:

More delicious crazy…

A Wichita, Kansas preacher says he will not remove a message on his church sign that says President-Elect Barack Obama is a Muslim.

The sign is staying up despite the fact that Obama is a Christian.

At least it’s not in Missouri, but it’s close enough to be embarrassing.

Do far right conservatives really think that setting the bar so low for an Obama presidency is a wise move?

Because let’s go down the list of things that Obama has to prove: that he’s an American, he’s not a terrorist, he won’t take away people’s guns, he’s not like Hitler and that raising taxes 3% on the wealthiest 2% isn’t socialism.

In any event, enjoy the crazy because there’s plenty to go around…

Presidential candidate Alan Keyes, vice-presidential candidate Wiley S. Drake, and the Chairman of the American Independent Party, Markham Robinson, have filed suit in California Superior Court in Sacramento seeking to bar Secretary of State Debra Bowen from certifying to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger the names of Electors, and from transmitting to each presidential Elector a Certificate of Election, until documentary proof is produced and verified showing that Senator Obama is a “natural born” citizen of the United States, and does not hold citizenship of Indonesia, Kenya or Great Britain.

In addition, they have asked that the court issue a peremptory writ barring Senator Obama’s California Electors from signing the Certificate of Vote until such documentary proof is produced and verified.

In response to questions about why the suit was being filed, Ambassador Alan Keyes commented, “I and others are concerned that this issue be properly investigated and decided before Senator Obama takes office. Otherwise there will be a serious doubt as to the legitimacy of his tenure. This doubt would also affect the respect people have for the Constitution as the supreme law of the land. I hope the issue can be quickly clarified so that the new President can take office under no shadow of doubt. This will be good for him and for the nation.”

Wow. That was some delicious crazy. I can’t wait to see what the right wing dishes up next.

Also, congrats to Mr. Keyes. You made the news cycle!

Now then, let’s talk about tort reform…

(h/t: Below The Beltway)