Another Black Man Exonerated in Texas.

I love the Dallas County DA - they're clearing these cases at an unbelievable rate...

Hard to believe so many innocent black men were imprisoned in Texas to begin with. They'd die in prison without DNA to exonerate them. A bunch of people already are.

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

Dallas County man cleared in 1979 rape, robbery will be Texas' longest-serving exoneree

12:00 AM CST on Tuesday, January 4, 2011

By JENNIFER EMILY / The Dallas Morning News
jemily@dallasnews.com

Two men convicted in connection with a 1979 Dallas rape, robbery and abduction have been cleared of the crime through DNA testing. They have served about three decades in prison – more than any other Texas inmate cleared by DNA testing.

The exonerations are also the first where DNA testing has been used in Dallas County to prove men innocent of crimes that occurred as far back as the 1970s. Until recently, authorities thought that evidence had only been preserved by the county's crime lab since 1981, said Nina Morrison of the Innocence Project in New York. The discovery that other testable evidence exists could mean Dallas County's national record number of 20 exonerations since 2001 will keep growing.

"It may provide grounds to go back and look at other evidence from older cases where we thought there was nothing to test," Morrison said. "It's really a miracle it was saved."

Cornelius Dupree Jr., 51, is expected to be exonerated today in a Dallas County courtroom. He is on parole after having been released in July. He spent more than 30 years in prison.

His exoneration, the 21st, will be the first in Dallas County since May 2009, although three other men have been cleared since then with other evidence.

The second man, Anthony Ray Massingill, 49, will remain behind bars for now while authorities search for evidence to test in a second rape for which he is serving a life sentence.

Neither Dupree nor Massingill could be reached for comment. They were wrongly convicted in a Nov. 23, 1979, attack on a 26-year-old woman who was confronted at gunpoint along with a male friend after they stopped for cigarettes and to use a pay phone at a liquor store on Dolphin Road, north of Interstate 30.

The attackers carjacked the victims and eventually ordered the man from the car. They then raped the woman while holding a gun on her. They debated whether to kill her before shoving her out of the vehicle and threatening to kill her if she called the police. She was found unconscious in a median by a police officer.

Five or six days later, two men tried to sell the woman's rabbit fur coat at a grocery store two miles from the liquor store. The stolen car was found in the parking lot. Dupree and Massingill are not believed to be these men.

Dupree and Massingill were arrested Dec. 1, 1979, two miles from where the abduction occurred. Police initially stopped them because they matched the description of men wanted in connection with a similar case. Massingill had a gun; Dupree was unarmed.

Wrongly identified

Paul Cates, also of the Innocence Project, said the rape victim wrongly identified Dupree and Massingill in a photo lineup. The male victim could not pick out Dupree or Massingill.

At trial, both victims identified Dupree as one of the men who abducted them. Cates said that the woman, at times, confused the identities of the two defendants when identifying them in court.

Massingill was sentenced to three 10-year terms and a life sentence in connection with the liquor store abduction and another 1979 rape-robbery.

Dupree was sentenced to 75 years in prison for the liquor store robbery. He was not tried on the liquor store abduction-rape because prosecutors thought it wouldn't result in any more prison time. Although he was a suspect, a grand jury declined to indict him in the second 1979 robbery-abduction.

Evidence preserved

The Innocence Project accepted the case in 2007 after an intense review. Morrison said Dupree had written to them a few years earlier.

The Innocence Project first contacted the Dallas County district attorney's office about the case in 2008. The district attorney's office then asked the crime lab to search for any evidence in the case.

The lab found and tested pubic hairs from the victim's rape exam that contained genetic material from two men who were not Dupree and Massingill. Had the hair not contained two other men's DNA, neither Dupree nor Massingill would have likely been cleared in the case, Morrison said.

Morrison said that even if the crime lab does not find DNA to test in Massingill's other case, it's possible he could still be freed. She said that authorities at the time believed the same men were responsible for both crimes.

Morrison said the real perpetrators have not been identified, but she was not sure whether the test results had been compared with a national DNA database.

The Dallas County district attorney's office said Monday that prosecutors would answer questions about the case today. Massingill's attorney, Michelle Moore of the Dallas County public defender's office, declined to comment.

Preliminary tests showing Dupree's innocence came back two weeks after he was paroled because of time he'd earned through good behavior. The results of the final test – DNA from the victim confirming that the lab correctly labeled the sample – were not available until December.

Morrison said Dupree could have been released on parole earlier if he had admitted his guilt. But like many exonerees, he refused to do so. 

Scott Watch: Free at Last, Free at Last.

Spread the word! Both Justice and Grace prevailed in Mississippi this week - Jamie and Gladys Scott are to be set free at last...

Thank Governor Barbour at 601.359.3150

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Mississippi Governor's Office
Dec. 29, 2010

GOV. BARBOUR’S STATEMENT REGARDING RELEASE OF SCOTT SISTERS

"Today, I have issued two orders indefinitely suspending the sentences of Jamie and Gladys Scott. In 1994, a Scott County jury convicted the sisters of armed robbery and imposed two life sentences for the crime. Their convictions and their sentences were affirmed by the Mississippi Court of Appeals in 1996.

"To date, the sisters have served 16 years of their sentences and are eligible for parole in 2014. Jamie Scott requires regular dialysis, and her sister has offered to donate one of her kidneys to her. The Mississippi Department of Corrections believes the sisters no longer pose a threat to society. Their incarceration is no longer necessary for public safety or rehabilitation, and Jamie Scott's medical condition creates a substantial cost to the State of Mississippi.

"The Mississippi Parole Board reviewed the sisters' request for a pardon and recommended that I neither pardon them, nor commute their sentence. At my request, the Parole Board subsequently reviewed whether the sisters should be granted an indefinite suspension of sentence, which is tantamount to parole, and have concurred with my decision to suspend their sentences indefinitely.

"Gladys Scott's release is conditioned on her donating one of her kidneys to her sister, a procedure which should be scheduled with urgency. The release date for Jamie and Gladys Scott is a matter for the Department of Corrections.

"I would like to thank Representative George Flaggs, Senator John Horne, Senator Willie Simmons, and Representative Credell Calhoun for their leadership on this issue. These legislators, along with former Mayor Charles Evers, have been in regular contact with me and my staff while the sisters' petition has been under review."

Prosecuting Innocence: Resistance is (damn near) Futile

----------Mental Illness Awareness Week: October 3-9, 2010-----------

Article originally posted Thursday, February 25, 2010.

Resurrected for the Arpaio 5 and the Freedom March.

The sentencing committee meeting was canceled again today, by the way - I have no idea when it's rescheduled for. I hung out at the Capitol awhile anyway, handing out copies of Tenacious to the women legislators I could find, since it was "Women's Day at the Legislature" today, and I didn't think they'd made any arrangements for state prisoners to participate or talk to their legislators. I also left one for Governor Brewer, with an article done by a woman who had cancer while at Perryville a few years back. She's now with an organization that helps women in prison. I'll post her story here when I get permission.

I hope those legislators I gave the zines to actually bother to read them. I don't know when or how they're going to hear a woman prisoner's voice address their conditions otherwise. Maybe we should try to get them to hold hearings out at the prisons themselves. Given the Arizona Republic and Lumley Vampire reports on the physical condition of the facilities alone, they should have organized an emergency oversight committee to check it out in person. The legislature is responsible, after all, for compromising the safety of state prisoners and corrections employees in the first place. They've now been duly warned that they'll be held liable for failing to follow up on it.

Anyway, the following article is very pertinent to the work of the House Sentencing Committee - and most of the issues I have with Andrew Thomas' office. In fact, this is a very good reason why we don't want that man to be Attorney General. He'll be putting ten times as many innocent people away, while letting the really guilty ones walk by making questionable deals - like the one that put the Scott Sisters away. The innocent don't have anything to fear, they think, nor do they have anything to trade. The guilty, on the other hand - the "triggermen" - can trade them.

There's nothing guaranteed to get you a more severe punishment in America than insisting that you're innocent and losing to the prosecutor at trial - and they make sure you know that when they make their offer. Their job is to prove guilt, not to find truth - don't make any mistakes about that. They're out to get convictions, by and large - not to protect the innocent. Victims are just useful tools to win their cases with, and to use to promote their own tough-on-crime image.

There are a few remarkable exceptions to that rule, of course. Some DA's have been very committed to investigating reports of wrongful prosecutions/convictions. I hope that's the beginning of a trend towards more ethical, responsible prosecutorial conduct. I have yet to see evidence of that happening in Arizona, though.

Borrowed the post below from our friends at Idaho Prison Watch...

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What is Wrong with the Plea Bargain System in our Courts Today?

Frontline Interview with
John H. Langbein

John Langbein is a professor of law and legal history at Yale Law School. In this interview, he describes how the plea bargain system pressures people to buckle and accept a plea-even if they are innocent-and how prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys have a role, a stake even, in seeing that this happens. He also talks about the Supreme Court's indifference to the pressures on a defendant in the plea process, and why he believes the rampant growth of pleas is rooted in the trial system's failures.

(I have condensed this interview for the sake of this forum. You can view the entire interview on the link I provided below)

Q: "What is wrong with the plea bargain system in our courts today?"

Plea bargaining is a system that is best described as one of condemnation without adjudication. It is a system that replaces trial, which is what our constitution intended, with deals.

Second, those deals are coerced. The prosecutor is basically forcing people to waive their rights to jury trial by threatening them with ever greater sanctions if they refuse to plead and instead demand the right to jury trial.
But every defendant has a right to go to trial; it's a choice they make to plead guilty.

The problem with choice arguments is that they neglect the main dynamic of plea bargan which is the pressure that the prosecutor puts on you to do it his way.

Plea bargain works by threat. What the prosecutor says to a criminal defendant in plea bargaining is, "Surrender your right to jury trial, or if you go to trial and are convicted of an offense, we will see to it that you are punished twice. Once for the offense, and once for having had the temerity to exercise your right to jury trial." THAT is a coercive system.

And the prosecutor has many devices which increase the level of coercion: multiplying the counts, threatening to recommend the most severe end of the sentence range, keeping you locked up in pretrial detention if you're poor - most people who are in the criminal justice system are poor - prosecuting your wife as well as yourself, and things of this sort. The prosecutor can pile it on if you don't play it his way. It is therefore a deeply coercive system. Yes, you have a choice, but your choice is constrained by coercion.

Q: What is the role of the defense lawyer?

Sometimes defense counsel does a very good job for people in the plea bargaining process, and gets you a good deal. But there are many other outcomes.

In the public defender system the defense counsel is representing a hundred other people; the defense counsel can not take every case to trial....

Defense counsel in some circumstances is not very competent and is delighted simply to take his money and run, so to speak."

"So there's no particular reason to think that defense counsel is any serious answer to the intrinsically coercive nature of plea bargaining."

Q: Whom does the system benefit?

The main winner in the plea bargaining process is the prosecutor. I describe plea bargaining as a system of prosecutorial tyranny..."

What has happened is that a single officer, the prosecutor, now is in charge of investigating, charging--that is, bringing formal charges--deciding whether to prosecute, evaluating that evidence, deciding whether or not in his or her judgment you're guilty or not, and then basically sentencing you.

"....what we have now is a system in which one officer, and indeed a somewhat dangerous officer, the prosecutor, has complete power over the fate of the criminal accused."

Q: You let the defense attorney off lightly.

I think defense counsel is to some extent at the mercy of a bad system. There's not a lot you can do when the other guy has all the chips. And the prosecutor has an awesome pile of chips in our plea bargaining system, because the prosecutor can threaten ever larger sanctions if you don't do what he wants.

So I believe that by far the worst failure in the plea bargaining system is the prosecutor, and I think that's in part because the prosecutor is not always as noble as he would like you to believe he is."

"It's a lot easier to coerce somebody into waiving all his defenses than to actually investigate the case thoroughly..."

But, again, the trial is there for anyone who chooses that option.

It is true that one always has the right to go to trial, but the prosecutor can make that right so costly that only a fool will exercise the right..."

Part of the reason why we in this country have criminal sentences that are so much more severe than in the rest of the civilized world, is the need that prosecutors have to threaten people with these huge sentences in order to get them to waive the right to jury trial...."

".... most people (in the system) are too poor to afford bail, and these people are particularly likely to yield to the demand that they confess whatever it is they're being charged with rather than wait for some kind of trial, because they'll be sitting in jail for months and months and months, and therefore there is a very evil interaction of prosecutorial power with poverty, with indigence."

It is very sad that the Supreme Court, which has been so anxious to protect various rights of persons who go to trial, has been so cowardly about seeing the evils of the plea bargaining process."

"...the Supreme Court has been indifferent to the pressures on accused in the plea bargaining process, as exemplified by the famous Alford case, where the fellow actually stood up and said, "I'm innocent, but I'm pleading because the disparity of outcome that they're threatening me with is too great". It's terribly sad."

"...the prosecutor is allowed to coerce people out of trial."

"...what happens is that prosecutors don't have to prove their cases; they're simply allowed to coerce people into waiving their rights. Judges are spared the difficulty of conducting trials and the danger of being found to have erred; they (plea bargains) can't be appealed from .."

"...what actually happens is you're coerced into confessing yourself guilty, whether you are or not."

"The saddest things about plea bargaining is that it is not widely understood. Most people have the television model of Perry Mason or somebody similar contesting for a verdict of a jury."

"Plea bargaining is sometimes justified on the ground that we are giving a lighter sentence to someone who is showing contrition or remorse for the offense. But that's a pack of lies. What is in fact happening is that the accused is being told by the prosecutor, "You accept guilt and confess and bear false witness against yourself and we will then see to it that it gets characterized as contrition or remorse."

The point is that the coercion, which eliminates trial, eliminates our ability to know you were in fact beyond reasonable doubt, guilty or not. And therefore it makes the remorse talk just window dressing by apologists who want to keep this existing system which is convenient for them."

Q: Do you have a solution?

I think the solution is very complex. I think it requires facing the underlying failure of this adversary criminal justice system. The idea that having one pack of lawyers and investigators saying, "You did it," and another pack saying, "We didn't," and nobody actually looking for what actually happened, nobody having an interest in investigating the truth, is a bit mistake."

"No knowledgeable student of comparative criminal justice is likely to fall victim to the notion that our is an admirable system.

It is an appalling system.

We have ten times as large a percent of our population locked up in jail by comparison with the European countries. We have sentences which are draconian. We've just had a 12 year old put in jail for life in Florida. Things of this sort are unheard of in the rest of the world.

There are many causes, but the failure of our adversary system is central, and the political nature of our prosecutorial system is also central..."

(complete interview at: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/plea/interviews/langbein.html)

Liberty and Justice for All: AZ Freedom March 2010.

Staggering into the morning from a two-week period of fevers, fatigue, and altered consciousness - punctuated by the grief of traumatized families - I found myself at the Freedom March for the Wrongfully Convicted on the State House lawn Saturday. It was organized by Camille Tilley, Courtney Bisbee's mom. As detailed by Stephen Lemons in the Phoenix New Times, Courtney was a school nurse and single mom when she was falsely accused of touching a teenaged boy and sentenced to 11 years in prison as a child molester. Sensationalized by the press, Courtney was convicted and condemned before she even went to trial.

Camille and Tom Tilley, 2008.

Now, six or seven years later, Courtney's still fighting for her child and her freedom from behind bars. The evidence exonerating her has been in the hands of the Maricopa County Attorney's office for over 4 years now. Andrew Thomas just sat on it. We're waiting to see if Rick Romley picks her file up before he goes. He had the courage to drop capital murder charges against Lisa Randall, the babysitter the county worked two years on prosecuting for the death of a child who was in her care, so we're hopeful.

Camille is an extraordinary woman. She sees the bigger picture - the contexts in which her family has been repeatedly victimized by agents of the state - and goes after every piece of it she can get her teeth into: not just abuses of prosecutorial discretion, but also minimum mandatory sentencing, police brutality, conditions of confinement and medical neglect in the prisons, racial profiling, and early release provisions for non-violent offenders. The devastating events of recent weeks, the rapid rise in the prisoner death toll, and the timing of the Freedom March this year brought a new constituency under her wing: the families of people prosecuted for the symptoms of their mental illnesses.

I've spent much of my adult life studying crime, punishment, and serious mental illness in an effort to keep my own loved one out of prison. I successfully convinced a handful of judges and prosecutors across the country to drop charges against him drawing on my research into the trans-institutionalization of the mentally ill, particularly those dually diagnosed with psychiatric and substance abuse disorders. I kept a few of my homeless clients out of jail that way, too. My experience has been that most people working in the criminal justice system agree that most of the seriously mentally ill whose lives are being chewed up there don't belong in jail or prison, they need housing, community support services and access to psychiatric hospitals. Instead, unfortunately, the seriously mentally ill are three times more likely to be incarcerated than hospitalized.

Shannon Palmer is one of the most stark examples of the damage done to a person's life by wrongful prosecution and incarceration that I've ever seen, but "justice" destroys innocent lives every day. According to Camille's research (based, I believe, on exonerations in death penalty cases), up to 10% of people in prison may be wrongfully convicted; factually innocent. If you look at prosecutions such as Shannon's, sentences of imprisonment for women like Lasasha Cherry, and Tony Lester's prosecution and sentence, then the number of people we have in prison who really shouldn't be there increases dramatically.

As of August 2010, the Arizona Department of Corrections estimates than about 9,362 of their 40,204 prisoners - about 25% - need on-going mental health treatment. Many of those individuals were too incompetent to stand trial or even to plead guilty when first arraigned - how can we then hold them fully culpable for criminal intent and send them to prison? They also estimate that 75% of offenders enter the system with major substance abuse issues. It's a serious and common error to believe that the mentally ill and addicted are getting the treatment they need in a safe environment when incarcerated. They are the most vulnerable to trauma, abuse and exploitation, which most have endured enough of already.

Most of us fail to appreciate the huge chunk we take out of people's lives when we criminalize and incarcerate them, and what lasting repercussions there are. We take it for granted that our system is just. American justice is not designed to expedite the exoneration and liberation of the innocent or even to equalize the punishment of the guilty. Once you plead guilty or are convicted, it's damn near impossible to get out through the appeals system, and no matter how innocent you are, it's all too easy to be violated on probation or parole - Arizona couldn't keep the prisons full otherwise.


There are people still trying to clear their names who have long since done their time - time they never should have had to do. Many have lost their careers, homes and families in the process of being branded a criminal. And some, like Shannon Palmer and Tony Lester, have lost their lives to our way of dealing with crime and doling out punishment.

What really astonished me - everyone, perhaps - at Saturday's Freedom March was how well one of our state legislators, Cecil Ash, articulated all that and more. Representative Ash is the chair of the House Study Committee on Sentencing Reform and Co-Chair of the House Judiciary Committee. He not only spoke to the issues we've been dealing with, he sat and listened to every single story, in 100 degree heat, until 2:15 in the afternoon. He even took notes as families were talking about their experiences. And as far as I could tell, of all our state lawmakers, he was the only one to bother to come.

AZ Representative Cecil Ash,
Freedom March Phoenix, 2010.

You could tell by the way he talked about his letters from Arizona's prisoners that Representative Ash not only reads them, he's sincerely troubled by their predicaments and has been thinking about solutions. We incarcerate far too many non-violent offenders, and he wants to reduce time served before parole eligibility for some from 85% of their sentence to 65% of their sentence. He wants to rewrite some of the minimum mandatory sentencing guidelines to give judges more flexibility when they encounter defendants in exceptional circumstances.


Because of Brewer and Bill Macumber, Ash also wants a constitutional change to remove the power of clemency from the hands of the governor and invest it solely in a non-partisan board. And he wants to see prison reform so that people aren't needlessly suffering and dying while serving their time, regardless of their crime (or lack of one). Those are just a few of the changes he touched on wanting to raise the next legislative session.

Julie Acklin, Freedom March 2010, Phoenix.

While Representative Ash is our knight in shining armor, he wasn't the star of the show. The stars were the ordinary citizens who stood up to tell their stories and share their grief. Julie Acklin talked about her son Davon, sick in prison with Hep C and not getting treatment. She hopes his fight brings relief to all prisoners infected with HCV. We're planning to hit the lawn at CASS shelter this week to collect signature for the petition to the clemency board and educate people about Hep C.

Patti Jones brought nephew Tony Lester's daughter, just turning 1 that day, and told of his love for his family, the torment of his first psychotic break, his prosecution in the wake of a suicide attempt, and his death after being taken off his meds just a few weeks into a devastating 12-year prison term. Probably 20 of his relatives were there wearing t-shirts in his memory; they converted a table into a memorial with pictures and balloons. Patti pledged to organize with other families to push sentencing and prison reform to prevent what happened to Tony, trading numbers with Julie.

one of Tony Lester's little loved ones.

Other individuals and family members spoke eloquently and passionately about their disillusioning experiences with the criminal justice system in Arizona as well. There was considerable emphasis on mandatory minimum sentences and enhancements, abusive prosecution and the coercion involved in plea bargaining, and the non-incarceration consequences of being criminalized - including stigma, child custody issues, and the challenges that probation and parole stipulations present even to innocent people.

Allison Hicks ("Backspin") talked about her time in the Maricopa County Jail and her ordeal with wrongful prosecution, about which she has written and will soon have a movie. The Arizona Death Penalty Forum gave a brief presentation, and some of Jim Rix' books, Jingle Jangle, about AZ death row exoneree Ray Krone were on hand. Daniel Horne was with us in spirit - his books about Maricopa County corruption were distributed, and he sent an extensive handout for folks, which I hope to touch on in another post.

We also celebrated the success of our extensive efforts to get Andrew Thomas out of the Maricopa County Attorney's office and keep him from becoming AZ attorney general. He was huge obstruction of justice there. According to Camille, his office convicted over 200,000 people during his tenure. If 10% of them are innocent, that's a long trail of beaten families and damaged lives he left in his wake, with no sign of remorse or concern. We will be expecting more out of Mr. Montgomery - who is reportedly sympathetic towards people with mental illness - assuming he takes office after Romley's term expires. Hopefully Arizonans will never again have to tolerate someone like Andrew Thomas in a position of such power again.

Thanks, Camille, for all you did to put together the day - and for all you do year round for prisoners and their families.

And thank you, Representative Ash. You give us hope that our government is not completely lost, and that our loved ones have not been permanently discarded.

The Long Road Ahead: The National Criminal Justice Commission.

While I fear this means that the system will be "fixed", as opposed to being scratched completely and replaced with neighborhood-based models of community problem-solving and restorative justice, I do hope the process exposes the serious flaws in how we implement "justice" via "law and order" in this nation.

Besides, we've been hearing about this commission in the wings so long, that it's good to finally have a place to get things out on the table - like the ethics of privatizing prisons, racial disparities in arrests and sentencing, the horrendous health care prisoners receive, the damage done by the PRLA to the overall cause of prisoner rights and protections in this country, and the outrage that innocent people continue to languish for years in prison - as their families suffer their absence - while smug or lazy DA's sit on the very evidence that could and should set them free immediately. Any county attorney (or underling) who fails to act on new evidence in such a case is in grievous violation of their own ethical standards, and perhaps the law.Perhaps they'll even address how the feds can deal with rogue sheriffs and prosecutors abusing their power a little more promptly than they have of late (it's been over a year, now, dear DOJ. What's the hold up?)

That's just to name a few of the things on my list tonight...


Dare I say "at least" Rick Romley has taken back the County Attorney's office from Thomas? He had the guts to admit he'd been wrong himself when it was Ray Krone, one of his own convictions, who needed to be exonerated. Will he show the same courage and sense of urgency to helping to free Courtney Bisbee?

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U.S.: Overflowing Prisons Spur Call for Reform Commission
Inter Press Service
William Fisher

NEW YORK, May 16 (IPS) - Despite the lacklustre performance of  so-called "blue ribbon commissions" in the United States over the years, sponsors of the latest proposal - the National
Criminal Justice Commission - are optimistic that it will become a reality and that its recommendations will be taken seriously by the president, Congress and the U.S. public.

The reason, says its sponsor, Senator Jim Webb, a Democrat from  Virginia, is that "America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace".

 He added, "We are wasting billions of dollars and diminishing  millions of lives. We need to fix the system. Doing so will require a major nationwide recalculation of who goes to prison and for how long and of how we address the long-term consequences of incarceration."

 Given the chequered history of blue ribbon commissions in the  nation's capital, a spokesman for Sen. Webb told IPS that "with nearly 40 Democratic and Republican cosponsors, there is a strong
likelihood of success".

 In the past, Congressionally-appointed commissions are  typically set up, staffed, complete their investigative and analytical work, make recommendations that are received by a senior official, a press release is issued, and then the commission's report is consigned to a shelf where it gathers dust.

 Throughout U.S. history, there have been relatively few bodies  that have gained the notoriety, media coverage, and attention from Congress and the president as the 9/11 Commission,
established in the wake of the terrorist attacks if Sep. 11, 2001.

 Over time, most of its recommendations were implemented. One  reason was the severity of the issue - almost 3,000 deaths. Another was ongoing, well-organised, effective support from the
families of the 9/11 victims.

 A prison commission has none of those attributes - and  prisoners can't vote. So the political inventive appears minimal.

 But the issue is not. Statistics compiled by the Congressional  Research Service begin to tell the story.

 The United States has the highest incarceration rate on the  planet - five times the world's average. A total of 2,380,000 people are now in prison. The U.S. has five percent of the world's population, but 25 percent of the world's prison population.

 Minorities make up a disproportionately large share of inmates.  Black males have a 32 percent chance of serving time in prison at some point in their lives; Hispanic males have a 17 percent
chance; white males have a six percent chance.

 African American men and boys are grossly over-represented at  every stage of the judicial process. Although African Americans make up just over 12 percent of the national population, 42
percent of those currently on death row are African American.

 African American women have the highest rate of incarceration among women in the U.S. - four times higher than that of white women.

 Initial contacts with police officers are often driven by  racial profiling and other racially tainted practices, and the disparities exist through the sentencing phase: African Americans routinely receive more jail time and harsher punishments.

 Cocaine laws in particular disproportionately affect African  Americans, who account for 25 percent of total crack cocaine users, yet who comprised 81 percent of those convicted of federal
crack cocaine offences in 2007.

 Drug offenders in prisons and jails have increased 1200 percent  since 1980. Nearly a half million persons are in federal or state prison or local jail for a drug offence, compared to an estimated 41,100 in 1980. A significant percentage of these offenders have no history of violence or high-level drug selling activity.

 As a result, spending on corrections rose 127 percent at the  state level while higher education expenditures rose just 21 percent.

 Prisons and jails have also become holding facilities for the  mentally ill. There are an estimated 350,000 men and women prisoners with serious mental disorders - four times the number in mental health hospitals.
 It is against this background that Sen. Webb introduced the  National Criminal Justice Act, authorising the Commission. There has been no in-depth or comprehensive study of the entire
criminal justice system since The President's Commission on Law Enforcement and Administration and Justice, impaneled in 1965.

 A companion to the Webb bill has been introduced in the House  of Representatives with bipartisan sponsorship. The Senate Judiciary Committee has approved the proposal with strong
bipartisan support. The legislation is now awaiting action by the full Senate and is pending in the House.

 The Commission would carry out a comprehensive review of the criminal justice system, and make reform recommendations to improve public safety, cost-effectiveness, overall prison administration, and fairness in the implementation of the criminal justice system.

 It "would also be charged with looking at how we have arrived  at this convoluted mess, how many of our problems are interrelated and often feed off of one another, and how we can correct a system that is badly in need of a new course," Sen. Webb said.

 Other powerful actors agree. Among them is Hilary O. Shelton,  director of the Washington Bureau of the National Association for the Advancement of Coloured People (NAACP).

 In a telephone interview, Shelton told IPS, "At every stage of  the criminal justice process serious problems undermine basic tenets of fairness and equity, as well as the public's expectations for safety."

 "Perhaps the most glaring problem inherent in today's system is  the number of racial and ethnic minorities who are disproportionately treated more harshly and more often by our nation's criminal justice system," he noted. "From initial contact to sentencing to the challenges facing those reentering the community after incarceration, racial and ethnic minorities are disproportionately represented in the number of people stopped, arrested, tried, convicted and incarcerated."

 The Commission would include members appointed by the president  and by federal and state politicians, as well as private sector specialists in law enforcement, criminal justice, national
security, prison administration, prisoner reentry, public health, including drug addiction and mental health, victims' rights, and social services.

 The bill has also been endorsed by the International  Association of Chiefs of Police, the largest organisation of police executives.

MEChA de ASU Solidarity With Mississippi Youth

Here's some cross-movement organizing for you. A few of us got together yesterday and came up with this sign, then I stopped by the MEChA de ASU meeting and told them what was up, so a bunch of them signed to support the youth and church groups, mainly, working to free the Scott Sisters.

We know this is all about civil rights and justice, not just about seeking mercy.

I'll be down at the Palestinian Wall memorial on Hayden Lawn today seeking support, too.

Hang in there, Mrs. Rasco. All of you. We've still got a long haul ahead, I think, but there's a lot of love and outrage stirring on the Scott Sisters behalf. This is America, after all. This kind of thing should be fixed when it happens here, not re-written for history books...who are we, if we can't be real?

Good for the media covering this now, by the way - the first ones show the most courage.






This is a close-up of the insert to Nina Simone's Anthology. Great tunes. Seemed appropriate to tack on there, since I've been listening a lot.

Still recruiting more Mississippi Prison Watchers!

- Peggy Plews

Scott Watch: International Day for Abolition and Blogging for Freedom.

I've been MIA, folks. Actually, I'm still in action - just otherwise occupied with things off-line. Blogging from Conspire today since my internet has been down since Monday morning. The folks here are pretty decent (it's an anarchist hangout). I may well be here tomorrow, too, blogging for the Scotts, now that I'm back.

FYI (more on this later) - tomorrow is also the "International Day for the Commemoration of the Abolition of the Transatlantic Slave Trade" (that's just a little history). Since there are direct links between plantations and prisons, the end of slavery and the enslavement of prisoners in America , Jim Crow and felon dis-enfranchisement laws, and the institution of slavery and persistent racial and economic inequalities, it seems appropriate to blog that day for the Scott Sisters - as well as for the awesome women who have been anchoring this campaign, including their Mom, Mrs. Rasco.

So, remember the day, tomorrow, in honor of those who have passed in the streets, in shelters, and in prison while fighting for human liberation, and out of respect and gratitude for those who fight on with everything to lose - including those who end up in our prisons on this journey...disproportionately the poor and people of color, ironically.

That's got be something like being drafted into the Vietnam War. You go or they take you, and you don't get back home until they're done with your body; no guarantees you'll still be alive. We need to be watching prisoners' backs more closely, now, addressing their and their families' trauma, and getting them out as soon as we can.

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SPREAD THE WORD & DON'T BE MIA FOR THE 3/25 DAY OF BLOGGING FOR THE SCOTT SISTERS - ALL PARTICIPATING BLOGS WILL BE LISTED AT http://www.facebook.com/l/7f874;www.freethescottsisters.blogspot.com

**SPECIAL SNEAK PREVIEW**

Sis. Terry Howcott answers this call as only she can, please check out "SCOTT SISTERS ARE US" right now at http://www.facebook.com/l/7f874;terryhowcott.com/greenspace.asp?id=1296
and be inspired!!

Please send your blog URL's to nattyreb@gmail.com so that they can be acknowledged,
help to make the Scott Sisters case one that no one can say they've not heard of, together we can save the life of Jamie Scott and free she and Gladys from their 16 years in that prison hellhole!!
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PLEASE PARTICIPATE AND SPREAD THE WORD!
3/25 DAY OF BLOGGING FOR THE SCOTT SISTERS

Thanks to the many excellent bloggers who participated in our initial Day of Blogging for the Scott Sisters on 3/18!! The notices didn't reach everyone in a timely manner and so we are happy to announce a new date for bloggers to unite around this case of Mississippi injustice and particularly to intervene in the prison's medical malpractice being suffered by Jamie Scott!

In early January both of Jamie Scott's kidneys shut down and she has been swiftly declining due to unprofessional medical care that is inadequate, cut-rate and frighteningly inept. Jamie was rushed to the hospital last week due to severe infection
and the need for prolonged medical attention. However, Jamie continues to require ongoing close monitoring as when she is returned to the prison it is well documented that the medical staff there has provided abysmal health care in filthy conditions that have put Jamie's life at risk far too many times to be acceptable. Jamie needs to be released from prison, period!

We ask that bloggers put out calls for students, clubs, churches/temples/mosques, organizations, creative artists, media, politicians, community leaders, journalists, etc. to
become aware of the case of the Scott Sisters and to make certain that all of their contacts are informed, as well. There is something that each person can do and we need to get Jamie home while she still has time to be with her family!

Thanks to all who will participate in this and help to raise the call to FREE THE SCOTT SISTERS throughout the blogosphere 3/25 and beyond! In the spirit of International Women's Month, please support our women! Please send notification of any blog postings to nattyreb@gmail.com!
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In conjunction with: http://www.facebook.com/l/7f874;www.blackperspective.net

For Immediate Release Afrosphere Action Coalition – March 22, 2010

Contact: Marpessa Kupendua of the Committee to Free the Scott Sisters at nattyreb@gmail.com

Wrongly Convicted In Dire Health Situation
3/25 DAY OF BLOGGING FOR THE SCOTT SISTERS

On 12/24/93, the Scott County Sheriff’s Department arrested Jamie and Gladys Scott for armed robbery even though three young males, ranging from ages 14 to 18, confessed to committing the crime and the women have unwaveringly maintained their complete innocence. Despite this, the corrupt Mississippi sheriff used coercion, threats, and harassment to compel the young men to turn state’s evidence against the Scott Sisters due to a long-standing vendetta against a family member. In 10/94 the Scott Sisters were sentenced to extraordinary double-life terms each, despite the facts that no one was harmed, neither sister had prior convictions, no weapon was ever recovered, and the amount alleged to have been taken was approximately $11.00. Even if they were guilty as charged, this sentence is completely outrageous and cruel.

Jamie Scott, who entered the prison system as a healthy young woman, is now suffering from complete kidney failure and other life-threatening medical conditions. Since January, 2010 Jamie has endured almost weekly severe health setbacks that the state has either outright refused to address or handled in a slipshod manner. Jamie has had weeks of serious infections that could have taken her life, has gone into shock, been given sporadic dialysis treatments, and suffered the state's refusal to provide her with adequate nutrition as required for her serious medical condition.

The Scott Sisters are now in their 16th year of incarceration and their five children and grandchildren are being raised by their now ailing mother. The defendants and their family are wholly dependent on support from the press, organizations, and all those dedicated to justice in making this debacle as public as possible. The lengthy incarceration of these women to date and their draconian sentences are completely shocking and must be challenged, enough is enough!

Mrs. Rasco and Afrosphere Bloggers are calling on the public to press the governor's office to pardon the Scott Sisters and release them, particularly Jamie who needs to be at home with her family during her very serious illness. Please ask that the media and politicians do an investigative inquiry about this tragic situation and the outrageous case of the wrongfully convicted Scott Sisters!

Hold DAs Accountable for Abusive Prosecutions, Wrongful Convictions.

I certainly hope the AZ House Sentencing Study Committee takes a look at this issue and recommends legislation assuring that we're all protected from wrongful convictions and abusive prosecutions, especially in Maricopa County. Prosecutors everywhere seem more invested in ease of conviction than actual guilt of the accused, and bully even the innocent into plea bargains that send them to prison by punishing people who resist them with the equivalent of life sentences for economic crimes like fraud and writing bad checks.

Unfortunately, AZ judges are also seemingly numb to the inhumanity of incarceration - they tear apart lives and families all too readily. Not enough of them know what it's like to be taken prisoner and held under threat of death if they resist, to lose their kids when wrongfully convicted of a sex crime, or to be raped while being detained in the custody of the state. If they did, we'd have half the number of people in prison as we do now - and a lot fewer kids suffering from their parent's punishment through their forced absence and economic incapacitation.

Anyway, more DA's are finally stepping up to look at innocence claims and exonerations. We can't rely on all of them to be noble and honest, though. In light of the way Thomas has handled (or refused to handle) wrongful convictions in Maricopa County - and appears to go after his political enemies with the weapons of his office - someone other than the original prosecutor and judge should be monitoring for wrongful convictions and abusive prosecutions and sentences.

We need to start making this one of the most "talked-about issues" of the campaign for Attorney General and Maricopa Co. Attorney's Office - even the governor's race, since Goddard should be more on the ball with these himself.

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Prosecutor in Manhattan Will Monitor Convictions

New York Times
March 4, 2010

The Manhattan district attorney, Cyrus R. Vance Jr., announced Thursday that he would start a program to safeguard against wrongful convictions, addressing one of the most talked-about topics during his campaign for the office.

Known as the Conviction Integrity Program, the effort will be led by Bonnie Sard, a veteran assistant district attorney, who will monitor cases that raise red flags and oversee reinvestigations. The program will also include a panel of 10 of Mr. Vance’s top assistants to review cases and the office’s prosecutorial practices, as well as a panel of outside experts to advise on policy.

While Mr. Vance said he believed the office had long tried to make sure that it did not make mistakes, he said a structured system would take the approach one step further.

“I think this will help lawyers do better what they already were doing, and with more consistency,” Mr. Vance said in an interview.

It is nothing new for prosecutors to vet their own convictions and to question their investigations, said Joshua Marquis, the district attorney in Astoria, Ore., and a member of the board of the National District Attorneys Association. But establishing a specific unit in a district attorney’s office to examine convictions is an emerging trend, Mr. Marquis said, adding that the Manhattan office faced unique challenges because of its size. The office has about 400 assistant district attorneys.

“The worst nightmare of a prosecutor is not losing a case; it’s convicting an innocent person,” Mr. Marquis said. “I think a prosecutor’s always got to be willing to look back and say, ‘Hey, did we do the right thing?’ ”

Ms. Sard and both panels are expected to come up with additional training procedures to pass on to all assistants in the office, Mr. Vance said.

The Manhattan district attorney’s office has not always had a reputation for admitting its faults. In one instance, a former assistant district attorney, Daniel L. Bibb, said his bosses had urged him to defend the convictions in the 1990 Palladium nightclub shooting at a hearing, even though he believed that the two defendants were not guilty.

But Mr. Vance, who became the district attorney this year, said he believed he was setting a tone.

“Young assistants who have issues know they can raise those issues,” he said. “There is no downside. There is only an upside to raising a concern.”

Scott Sisters still in need of legal representation.

A message from the Scott Sisters' supporters. If anyone out there can help find an attorney who will or get an innocence program (or aspiring journalism class) in on this, it would alleviate a lot of the strain on the family.

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Subject: Attorney Chowke Lumumba Is NOT The Scott Sister's Attorney

Please be advised that Attorney Lumumba previously represented the Scott Sisters and is not the attorney for Jamie and Gladys Scott presently. I've verified this information with Attorney Lumumba. He is currently assisting to acquire professional medical assistance for Jamie Scott in this emergency situation.

Our dear friends, Eady and Associates have listed Chowke Lumumba as The Attorney for The Scott Sisters within their blog talk profile and I've requested that Mr. McBride and Mr. Eady make that correction.

The Scott Sisters are currently in need of a criminal law attorney. Please also continue to make phone calls to the governor's office and the media.

Nancy

Scottt Watch: Jamie back in Hospital

I'm not sure how the prison can withhold her hospital location from Mrs. Rasco, or what action the campaign would like us to take on it. If anyone out there has a connection with the kidney foundation, an organ donation group, a politically active women's health clinic or rights organization, a disability rights group - anything like that in Mississippi (we need the locals) - we need some community organizations with an appropriate stake in these issues to begin making concerned inquiries of their state legislators, requesting some immediate relief for Jamie that includes her family in the treatment planning process and allows Gladys to donate a kidney, if that's necessary. I think right now we may still just be the usual suspects.

The men's medical care is bad too, but if we focus most closely on women's health care in the Mississippi prisons - including getting documentation about rights' violations and grievances from other prisoners - we may be able to help get more voices lobbying for Jamie's health care from different places in the Mississippi community  by expanding our characterization of her identity. 

That is, while Jamie is a wrongfully-convicted victim of the state at risk of dying in prison before her innocence can be proven, she is also a mother (we could use help from groups that advocate for moms in prison, even though her son is an adult now),  a black woman (whose health care is notoriously substandard), a poor woman needing medical care (is it her poverty, her sentence, her specific illness, or standard MDOC policy that is preventing her from getting the proper treatment?), as a critically ill adult child (parents' groups of disabled children may be helpful), as a woman with a major mood disorder (Alliance for the Mentally Ill may help advocate), as a woman with a disability (disabled rights activists in Mississippi would be able to see quickly that the value of Jamie's life to society has been diminished not just by her criminalization, but also by virtue of her disabilities - they don't like it when disabled people are cut out of the health care rations, and get left to die when life-saving measures are still available). 

That Jamie appears to have advanced kidney disease is significant - the Kidney Foundation should be interested to hear that she can't get her special diet, and that her sister offered her a kidney and that the prison won't allow the transplant...so many people suffer and die waiting for transplants, I don't see how the prison could make that a blanket policy. It should at least be seriously explored. Would they prohibit Gladys from making a donation to a non-prisoner? Would they permit the transplant if costs could be mitigated in some way? 

Someone who knows more about these details needs to contact the kidney foundation and organ transplant groups in Mississippi and ask them to make a formal inquiry into prison policies and what treatment options kidney patients and people needing transplants in prison do and don't have available to them. They can probably make a legal and moral case which may be more compelling than what we can come up with. help the DOC figure out other resources for treating these patients.

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Nancy Lockhart (January 30 at 5:18pm)

 

Mrs. Evelyn Rasco has confirmed through a sergeant and nurse at the prison that Jamie was rushed to the hospital due to a decline in her condition earlier today. The prison will not confirm anything further, whatsoever, not even whether Jamie is still alive or where specifically she has been taken (the hospitals will not confirm whether Jamie is a patient at any of them either).

We had received a report a few days ago that Jamie should have been  returned to the Medical Bldg. at the prison due to severe weakness and difficulty carrying out her activities of daily living, however this did NOT happen.

Jamie Scott should have remained hospitalized long ago due to her kidney failure and other health issues that are impacted by such a serious development!! The prison has played games with Jamie's life long enough and should have never moved her back from the hospital to begin with!

We need to know Jamie Scott's condition and what is happening to her. She must not, once again, be returned to the prison to continue to deteriorate, her medical care must be taken out of the prison's hands!

Updates will follow as soon as they are available! Please keep checking in as much as you are able!

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BACKGROUND INFO AT: http://www.freethescottsisters.blogspot.com

Chicago's Area 2 torture: Daley and Devine complicit

These men who go around so recklessly destroying the lives of innocent people are corrupt and need to be removed from power. They should have to spend at least at long in prison as those they locked away. Not very abolitionist of me, but this is some real sick BS. These guys are more malicious and malevolent than some child molesters are - they derive sadistic pleasure from torturing people more vulnerable than they are, and have the blessings and force of the law behind them.

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Muckraking AlterNet Coverage Exposes Wrongful Incarceration

By Liliana Segura, AlterNet
Posted on January 15, 2010, Printed on January 15, 2010
http://www.alternet.org/story/145191/

On Thursday, January 14th, Michael Tillman walked out of the Cook County Courthouse and headed straight for Mac Arthur's Restaurant, a soul food institution on Chicago's West Side.

After 23 years of being wrongfully incarcerated and facing a life behind bars, the barbeque ribs tasted particularly sweet.

About an hour earlier, Cook County Circuit Judge Vincent Gaughan had dismissed the original 1986 murder, rape and kidnapping charges that had kept Tillman locked away in Illinois prisons since the age of 21. Those charges were based on a confession that Tillman says was tortured out of him by officers under the command of former Chicago Police Detective Jon Burge. Cook County Special Prosecutors declined to bring new charges against him and, after attorneys faxed some paperwork to the Illinois Department of Corrections, Tillman was free to go.

It was a long road to justice, a journey that gained critical momentum after a July 2008 investigative story in AlterNet, written by Chicago-based reporter Jessica Pupovac, tipped area lawyers off to the facts of Tillman's case.

"If it weren't for the publicity that was brought to the case in the early stages, being only a couple of years ago, by AlterNet… he might still be in prison now," Flint Taylor founding partner of the People's Law Office and co-counsel in Tillman's case, told AlterNet. "The first news organization that showed interest was AlterNet, and Jessica Pupovac (whose name I can never pronounce). She not only wrote a very exhaustive article that brought a lot of local and national attention to the case, but she herself stayed in touch with Mr. Tillman."

As AlterNet reported in July 2008, Tillman's personal horror in the predawn hours of July 22, 1986, when Detectives Ronald Boffo and Peter Dignan took him to an Area 2 interrogation room and pressed him for information about the murder of 42-year-old Betty Howard, whose body had been found the day before in the apartment building overseen by Tillman.

When Tillman insisted upon his innocence, Boffo and Dignan, along with three other officers, handcuffed him to the wall, hit him in the face and punched him in the stomach until he vomited blood. During the course of what appeared to be three days, rotating pairs of officers brought him to the railroad tracks behind the station and held a gun to his head, suffocated him repeatedly with thick plastic bags, poured soda up his nose and forced him into Dumpsters outside of the apartment building, ordering him to search through the rubbish for a murder weapon until, according to Detective John Yucaitis, Tillman confessed to the crime.

At the time, Michael Tillman was 20 years old, with a 3-year-old daughter and an infant son. He was charged with first degree murder, aggravated kidnapping and sexual assault and sentenced to life in prison. [For more details on Betty Howard's brutal murder and the subsequent trial of Michael Tillman and his co-defendant, Sean Bell, who was found not guilty, see AlterNet's initial coverage here.]

Three weeks after Tillman's arrest, police found two men driving Howard's stolen car, with the knife used to stab her still in the vehicle. Those men led the officers to 27-year-old Clarence Trotter, who had Howard's camera and stereo in his apartment. His fingerprints were found on a soda can at the murder scene, and evidence linked him to the gun used in her murder.

Police found no physical evidence tying Tillman to the scene, or to Trotter. Weeks later, after Tillman's case file was sealed, Trotter was also given a life sentence in a separate trial.

Tillman appealed the decision in 1999 and lost. The judge wrote in his decision that even though the corroborating evidence may only be circumstantial, it "need only tend to confirm and inspire belief in the confession."

Tillman's mother, Elizabeth says that they had a series of public defenders and lawyers they couldn't afford, and that her son no longer had legal representation at the time the AlterNet story was published. However, after the story circulated among social justice and legal circles, People's Law Office attorney Ben Elson contacted Pupovac to learn more about the case. He brought it to the attention of his colleagues and soon they were joining forces with a team of lawyers with Northwestern's MacArthur Justice Center. By now, they argued, police torture in Area 2 in the era that Tillman was allegedly brutalized is now "common knowledge."

Indeed, according to U.S. District Judge Milton Shadur, "that in the early to mid-1980s, (Jon Burge) and many officers working under him regularly engaged in the physical abuse and torture of prisoners to extract confessions. Both internal police accounts and numerous lawsuits and appeals brought by suspects alleging such abuse substantiate that those beatings and other means of torture occurred as an established practice, not just on an isolated basis."

It has taken decades for many of Burge's victims to find relief. Three -- Marc Clements, Marvin Reeves, and Rodney Kitchen -- were freed this summer. But many still languish behind bars, their cases never revisited. That's because many of the co-conspirators who helped conceal the abuse are today among Chicago's political elite. They include prominent Cook County and Illinois Appellate Court judges (including one of the prosecutors in Tillman's case), Illinois State's Attorney Richard Devine and Mayor Richard M. Daley, who was the state's attorney when many of the cases were tried and would have been responsible for bringing official charges against the abusive officers, but chose instead to look the other way. 

Devine was Daley's first assistant when he served as a "tough-on-crime" state's attorney from 1980 to 1989, a period that saw 55 allegations of confessions elicited through torture. He later went into private practice (before assuming his current role of state's attorney), where he was paid more than $1 million by the City of Chicago for defending Burge and the other officers involved in Wilson's civil suit. He then represented Burge in proceedings before the Police Board. Later, as state's attorney of Cook County, Devine discouraged investigations of Area 2 torture and continued to uphold confessions obtained by that means.

Because of this conflict of interest, in 2002, at the request of a coalition of civil rights attorneys and activists, Circuit Judge Paul Biebel transferred jurisdiction over all torture-related cases to Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan. But in 2009, after a new State's Attorney was elected, Madigan's office filed a motion to transfer the cases back to the State's Attorney's office. Judge Biebel transferred them to the authority of State's Attorney Special Prosecutor Stuart A. Nudelman.

According to Taylor, that was key in securing Tillman's case receive a fair reading. "He actually looks at the evidence," said Taylor. They actually looked at this as an independent prosecutor actually would, not as prosecutors who were implicated and had covered up over the years, such as Devine and Daley. And, unfortunately, Madigan didn't have the courage, either. So, that changed things."

In regards to Tillman's case, says Taylor, "When they examined these transcripts in minute detail, they came to the conclusion that not only did he not have a fair trial, but that they needed to dismiss the case."

Taylor says the next step for Michael Tillman is to file for a certificate of innocence with the chief judge, which will qualify him for some compensation in the court of claims for the 23 years he spent behind bars. "The special prosecutor has said they will support petition," he said.

Jon Burge himself was arrested in October 2008, on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice relating to a civil suit brought forth by another victim of police torture. His trial is slated to begin in May, but he has won multiple delays thus far because he is being treated for prostate cancer.

Activists, including Julian Ball and other dedicated members of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, regularly rally in front of Madigan's office for the rest of the victims of Jon Burge who remain in prison. The People's Law Office estimates that at least two dozen African-American men still serving sentences for crimes they say they confessed to only after enduring hours of torture at the hands of Chicago police officers under Commander Jon Burge between 1972 and 1992. Attorneys are hoping that the case will continue to have impact beyond today.

According to Taylor, the Tillman outcome was important because it was, "the first time in the 35 years of this torture scandal that a prosecutor has conceded that a man has been coerced and abused as part of a pattern of torture at Area 2 and as a result that he was wrongfully convicted and spent 23 years in jail."

In their statement of facts, Cook County prosecutors suggested for the first time that a defendant's allegations of torture were bolstered by "evidence existing outside of this trial record," including "findings of a pattern and practice of abuse at Area 2 Headquarters during the time in which Petitioner was detained."

At a press conference following his release, Tillman expressed his gratitude to Pupovac and his attorneys. Thanks to them, he said, "here I am."

Asked how he survived all these years, he said: "I took it one day at a time."

For Pupovac, Tillman's release is not just a story of the reversal of a grave injustice; it is also a testament to the power of alternative media. "I was thrilled that my editor at AlterNet encouraged me to follow my conviction and delve into the Tillman story," she said. "With media professionals being laid off left and right these days and newsrooms shrinking the size of their staff and the scope of their coverage, it is vital that outlets like AlterNet, which still value muckraking reporting, are given the support they need to thrive. I'm proud to be one of their contributors."