Charter for Compassion

Bonnoe says: "The folks at the TED Prize have been working with partners around the world to fulfill the wish of best-selling author and former nun, Karen Armstrong – the Charter for Compassion. The Charter is a document collaboratively written with contributions from thousands of people from more than 100 countries. With a sense of urgency, the Charter is a call to action for all of us to live more compassionately with each other in the hopes of ending global suffering. People from every corner of the world – including Oslo, Buenos Aires, Vancouver, Tehran, Capetown, Sydney, San Francisco, Mumbai and more - have embraced the Charter’s inclusive message by affirming the Charter at the Charter for Compassion website and posting the official widget on their blogs in a show of solidarity (see here). It’s a powerful message and one that we wanted to share."

Charter for Compassion

Karen Armstrong's TED Prize: Charter for Compassion - Boing Boing

Technorati Tags: compassion, charter for compassion, ted, karen armstrong, prison, crime, law, human rights

New Guest Blogger: Brandi Pool

We have a new guest blogger here at Genpop.org, Brandi, who is a criminology student in Odessa, Tx. Here are the answers to the questions I posed to guest bloggers:

1.       Are there any circumstances under which you would support state sanctioned killing?
None that I can imagine at this point. I was asked this question this morning in my Law & Society class by a class mate, “you mean if your daughter was raped and murdered you wouldn’t want the person who did it to die?” My reply was that in that situation I wouldn’t have the ability to make a rational decision on the matter and that emotion shouldn’t play a role in determining the fate of another person. See 1st attachment.

2. Do you believe there are situations in which children should be tried as adults? If yes, which situations.
Laws surrounding this issue in Texas currently seem well thought out, but the age at which you can be tried as an adult varies from state to state – with some of them being ridiculous. I believe North Carolina permits it at age 7! If I were to say yes to this question it would be based on the individual. How close to 18 are they? Whether or not there were extenuating circumstances, if they had a long record of felonies, if animal abuse was a part of their history, if their crime “shocked the conscience,” if they seemed unable to be rehabilitated, then yes, I don’t think they should benefit from a clean slate at the age of 18. The death penalty needs to remain unconstitutional for those under 18, regardless of my overall opinion on the death penalty.

3. Name one thing that could change in the American Justice System that you think would make a massive difference in the public's safety and US crime rates.
My goal is to become a college professor with the privilege to remain gainfully employed, to further the Liberal Education of others, and – here’s the selfish part – to do research that can and hopefully WILL influence our state and federal legislators on editing current and creating new laws that BENEFIT everyone. I’m cautiously optimistic, willingly sounding cliché. To address the real question you’ve asked, however, the second attachment should cover it.

Brandi also writes for Amazon Cares and you can follow her on Twitter here: @TxCriMjr

I look forward to her first post! If you are interested in becoming a guest blogger here on Genpop.org, read the info posted at : http://www.genpop.org/2009/11/guest-bloggers-needed.html

Technorati Tags: prison, crime, law, blogger, criminology

Goodnight John Allen Muhammad

John Allen Muhammad, the supposed sniper that terrorized Washington DC for 3 weeks in 2002, is set to die tonight at 9pm.

His lawyer insists he is innocent. As we learned from the Cameron Todd Willingham case, this could very possibly be true. Which means a few things:

1. An innocent man could be murdered legally tonight.
2. A very guilty murderer remains at large and could kill again at any moment.
3. Whether this man is innocent or guilty, a law-abiding, innocent family will be punished for loving him.

All in your name. Think about it. Think about your tax dollars (a lot of them) being spent on this. Mull it over tonight while your government kills another human being. Just think about it. It's all I ask.

Technorati Tags: prison, death penalty, capital punishment, john allen muhammad, sniper, dc, washington, death sentence, death row, inmate, execution, crime, law, murder

Guest Bloggers Needed!

The business is picking up, the boy is walking, and living in the big city just has a tendency to suck up your time. Doing what? I can't put my finger on it, but it seems I had a lot more time to do things like blog on Genpop.org when I was living in Mexico. In any case, I love this blog, I love this web site and I don't want it's readers to get bored and abandon it, so I'm looking for someone or several people who want to blog about prison issues, treatment of inmates, the anti-death penalty movement, wrongful convictions and prison books.

Candidates must be fully literate, good with English grammar and spelling (funnily, I typed that wrong and had to edit) and have a serious interest in these issues whether they are professionals or not. I don't want death penalty supporters, I don't want tough-on-crimers. I would like thoughtful, intelligent individuals that can look at empirical data that is widely available from one coast to another, and see that the way we treat our criminals is not helping to make us safer.

While I have absolutely nothing against any religion, I would like to keep religion out of this blog so as not to alienate anyone. This blog is about prison and the death penalty and how both of these punishments simply do not work.

You must also agree that anything you post is subject to my own personal edits. Yeah. That's how we're running things over here. Big brother style. Take it or leave it. (I can't think of any situation that would call for these edits, so long as we stick to the subject matter).

Benefits to you include:

- Doing something good for people who really need it, and for your community
- Educating the public on very serious issues that threaten our personal safety.
- Being able to plug your own related web site or organization every once in a while.

Send me your full name, email address, location, what your relationship to the issues surrounding prison is, an example of your writing and answer these 3 questions:

1. Are there any circumstances under which you would support state sanctioned killing?

2. Do you believe there are situations in which children should be tried as adults? If yes, which situations.

3. Name one thing that could change in the American Justice System that you think would make a massive difference in the public's safety and US crime rates.

If you don't want to be a guest blogger but still want to answer these questions, I welcome the answers in the comments. Otherwise email your application to vlu777@gmail.com

Technorati Tags: prison, crime, law, bloggers wanted, blogging, bloggers

Prison Twitter List

So I started a Twitter list for all my favorite prison related tweeple, which you can see here: http://twitter.com/vlu77/prison-related - I skimmed through all the people I followed and picked out the members of the list, but 5000 twitter accounts is a lot so I probably missed a few here and there. If you'd like to be added to it, @reply me, don't DM. I get too many direct messages, I never read them. I wish I had time, but I barely have time to run this blog. Which brings me to my next post, coming in a few minutes.

Technorati Tags: twitter lists, twitter, prison, crime, law

Prosecutorial Immunity

SCOTUSblog on prosecutorial immunity in the case of Curtis McGhee:

Prosecutors are normally immune from suit for their official actions during a trial. Tomorrow, in Pottawattamie County v. McGhee, the Court will consider whether that immunity extends to actions taken in preparation for trial. The stakes in this technical question are high because the prosecutors’ actions at issue in the case resulted in two men – the respondents here – being incarcerated for twenty-five years based on falsified evidence.

In 1978, Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington were convicted of murdering a retired police officer in Pottawattamie County, Iowa and sentenced to life in prison. Twenty-five years later, the release of new files in the cases revealed that prosecutors had fabricated the testimony of a lead witness at their trials and failed to disclose evidence about an alternative suspect to the defense. The Iowa Supreme Court vacated Harrington’s sentence, and McGhee pleaded guilty to a lesser charge in exchange for time served. Both prisoners were freed.

After their release, McGhee and Harrington sued the prosecutors and the county officers under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. The district court ruled that the prosecutors could be held liable for violating McGhee and Harrington’s substantive due process rights, and the Eighth Circuit affirmed that conclusion.

Amy Howe has previously written on the certiorari‑stage briefs in the case at SCOTUSwiki; you can read her discussion here.

The two main issues discussed by both parties in their merits briefs are, first, whether the respondents McGhee and Harrington can establish a constitutional violation by the Pottawattamie County prosecutors; and, second, whether the prosecutors have immunity from suit under § 1983 for such a violation.

In 1976, the Supreme Court held in Imbler v. Pachtman that prosecutors have absolute immunity from liability for their official actions during trial. That conclusion rested largely on policy reasons: the Court emphasized that prosecutors must be able to pursue criminals with “courage and independence,” and without worrying about the threat of lawsuits.

Read the rest: How Broad Is Prosecutorial Immunity? | SCOTUSblog

Anyone who knowingly introduces falsified evidence in court and it results in an innocent man's freedom being taken away, especially for that amount of time, ought to be treated like a criminal. I don't see the question here. It's pretty straight forward to me.

Technorati Tags: prosecutorial immunity, scotus, curtis mcghee, prison, crime, law, murder

Featured Prison Revisit: Pleasant Valley State Prison, CA

I covered Pleasant Valley State Prison in Coalinga, California back in July, but we're going to bring it up again because it is where Robert F. Kennedy's assassin, Sirhan Sirhan has been transferred to from Corcoran recently.

Sirhan is now 65 years old, and remains a target in the prison system. He had been in protective housing at Corcoran after being single out as a potential terrorist threat. He had been in isolation for 6 years, and was concerned about his safety at Pleasant Valley. At Pleasant Valley, he would still have his own cell but would interact with more inmates than at Corcoran.

Pleasant Valley is a minimum to medium security prison, unlike the minimum to maximum security Corcoran. Pleasant Valley State Prison is grossly overcrowded.

The Associated Press: Robert F. Kennedy's killer is moved to new site

Technorati Tags: sirhan sirhan, robert f kennedy, bobby kennedy, assassination, assassin, prison, crime, law, murder, corcoran state prison, pleasant valley state prison, california