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17 Feb, 4 tweets, 2 min read
🗳️ ✔️Friends & family keep reaching out, asking who should be the next Manhattan DA. Here's how to start narrowing down.

Each of these (👇) candidates were identified by NY public defenders as posing the least risk of harm to the people of NY. Tomorrow night, they'll debate.
The purpose of the debate is to help voters with decarceral priorities distinguish between candidates whose platforms may seem very similar to someone who is not intimately familiar with the criminal punishment system.
Five Boro Defenders (@5BoroDefenders), a volunteer group of NYC public defenders, will be hosting a debate (not a forum!) between the four Manhattan District Attorney candidates whose platforms represent the greatest departure from the policies of current Manhattan DA Cy Vance.
The 4 candidates participating in the debate--Tahanie Aboushi, Alvin Bragg, Eliza Orlins, & Dan Quart--were identified as posing the least risk of harm in the voter guide analysis released by @5BoroDefenders in January. They didn't endorse. They analyzed. 5bd.org

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Scott Hechinger Profile picture
17 Feb
🚨The cruelty continues. What the Texas snow & power outages mean for incarcerated people. Just in from a man caged pretrial in Harris County:

"We don't have any running water anymore. No drinking water. Rations are now half measures. Tensions are running high here."
"We got 3 oz of some mashed potato something last night. This morning around 4:30 we got a one ounce packet of PB and a small muffin and a small carton of milk. They said they are out of bread."
Yesterday, this same man shared people were sleeping on the ground. Harris County Jail flat out denied it.

His response: "Well they are lying. I am counting right now. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7 are sleeping on the floor. They can come up and check all the 5th floor pods from A to E."
Read 13 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
17 Feb
🚨 Across the country, courts are using COVID as excuse to perpetuate cruelty. Example: Trials suspended bc of claimed concern for jurors. Jailed awaiting trial indefinitely. But no concern for grand jurors forced to continue charging & caging people. More:taibbi.substack.com/p/s-t-public-d…
"Trials were suspended. This left a lot of people who couldn’t afford bail in a purgatory-like state of open-ended detention. However, official concern for jury safety seemed limited. Police continued to arrest people & prosecutors continued to use grand juries to indict."
“Speedy trial rules only worked in one direction. Officials basically said: 'Bc we’re still arresting people at same rates & need to keep prosecuting, we’re just going to have jurors risk their lives in a way we said we really cared about, to have them vote on new indictments.”
Read 8 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
16 Feb
🚨What the Texas snow & power outages mean for incarcerated people. Just in from a man caged pretrial in Harris County:

"No power since Sunday night/early Monday. We didnt get dinner last night. Its freezing. They put on a movie instead of dinner. How does that make any sense?
“We asked for extra blankets. They said no. We got a PB & J at 4:30 a.m. today. Not sure if we will get any lunch. Commissary orders go in on Thursday for Friday delivery. No hot water either.”
Can you please deposit some funds so we can buy food? We'll be praying for y'all. I know it's bad out there too." 

The cruelty with which we allow our leaders to treat human beings who happen to be incarcerated is constant & perpetual in this country. In a pandemic. In the cold.
Read 8 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
14 Feb
Abolishing our criminal legal system is the opposite of “radical.” It’s completely rational & reasoned. Data driven. Sound.

What’s radical is perpetuating the system we now have. Wholly irrational. Unsupported by data & reason. Built to oppress. Driven by propaganda & fear.
An important alternative view on the use of word “radical.”
Another view: Note: I’m not thinking of one definition here. Of course abolition is “relating to the fundamental nature of something.” But so many disparage abolition as “radical” i.e. extreme, crazy, irrational. And I’m like “NO. What we have now is all those things.”
Read 5 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
14 Feb
Every single public defender. Every single day.
Bail arguments, motions, oral arguments, hearings. Judges don’t know, follow, or care about the law. Prosecutors are willing to take advantage of it. And mandatory minimums, withheld evidence, & pretrial detention coerces people to plead before trial. When theres a jury. A shot.
But defenders still fight. And still win. Most times wins aren’t “Justice.” It’s power of repetition of argument in front of same judges. Introducing those in power to the people they oppress. Not just a RAP sheet or words on a page. Defenders make it harder to be brutal & cruel.
Read 10 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
9 Feb
READ THIS: Meet Cassandra. Her husband Nick died in a Chicago jail from COVID. She called for help 132 times. In this powerful essay, she *slams "so-called 'progressive' leaders praised for their pandemic response," but indifferent to those they cage. More:currentaffairs.org/2021/02/covid-…
"When the coronavirus seeped into the facility, Nick was sleeping in a dormitory with 50 others, including those w/ COVID. No ability to social distance. Denied even basic sanitary products, like sanitizer or a mask. Nick had to use his shirt to cover his nose and mouth."
"I started calling Tom Dart, the beloved Democratic sheriff. Who runs the jail—moldy; infested w/ mice, cockroaches, & COVID; filled w/ predominantly Black & brown people—that killed Nick. To make sure he knew about the cramped quarters. I wanted him to help. I never heard back."
Read 18 tweets

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