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10 Apr, 4 tweets, 2 min read
23 years in a cage for 2 t-shirts.

Its a human rights catastrophe this kind of punishment is allowed.

And a prosecutor requesting this punishment is so much more depraved than the vast majority of offenses for which people are punished.

“Habitual offender” laws must go.
This man. Sentenced to life for stealing batteries. Served 22 yrs before sentence finally was vacated. Sentenced like this bc of "habitual offender" laws. No matter the charge, time goes up for mistakes of the past. We are sick w/ a love for punishment.
A 63 y/o Black man will be caged the rest of his life for stealing hedge clippers. The Louisiana Supreme Court upheld the sentence. The lone dissent was Chief Justice Bernette Johnson. The only female & Black person on court. The rest are white men. cnn.com/2020/08/06/us/…
He was paroled. Finally.

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More from @ScottHech

Scott Hechinger Profile picture
12 Apr
25 years ago, the US Supreme Court ruled that cops could use any pretext (read: lie) to stop a car to search it & courts would not secondguess their motivations—race or otherwise. Car stops of Black & Brown people exploded. Congress & state legislatures can & must change this.
"An analysis of 7,000 police stops in 2019 in Boston showed that 70% of the people the BPD stopped were Black, though less than a quarter of Boston’s residents are Black." wgbh.org/news/local-new…
"The Stanford Open Policing Project analyzed 200 million records finding that Black drivers are stopped more often than white drivers and that police require less suspicion to search Black and Hispanic drivers than they do to search white drivers." openpolicing.stanford.edu/findings/
Read 7 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
9 Apr
“Judges don't give a damn about us. They'll start to care when we have people power behind us.”

Qiana & Carmen grew a courtwatching force of hundreds. Including Fiona Apple. Courts now trying to shut them down. Not giving up. If you read one thing today: washingtonpost.com/local/public-s…
Back near the beginning of the pandemic, I met Qiana Johnson & Carmen Johnson. Two formerly incarcerated leaders of a local organization in Prince George's County, MD helping women coming out get back in to society. Started a courtwatch program. Carmen was the lone court watcher.
Carmen had just been released when she "started court-watching every day. Slowly she felt her pain transform into purpose." Took meticulous notes. Sent accountability letters. Then COVID struck. Fought to secure virtual access. Was a lot for 1 person. That's when an idea arose.
Read 13 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
8 Apr
TOMORROW I’ll be in conversation w/ Fiona Apple! She’s court watching now. But courts are trying to shut down virtual access & accountability. Joined by friends & colleagues: organizer Qiana Johnson & public defender Marguerite Lanaux. It’s free. Sign up: 92y.org/Event/Criminal…
Early in COVID, Fiona Apple stepped up. After a federal judge dismissed dozens of sworn declarations from inside PG County, MD jail as “unhelpful” & only “marginally relevant.” She read their words. “I’ve lost my spirit, sort of given up.” Joined 60 others:
Fiona’s reading was part of a joint collaboration between public defenders, community organizers, & artists. GaspingForJustice.org is the product. Translated the lawsuit into video declarations. Asked people to sign up to court watch. Close to 200 did. Including Fiona. Explore:
Read 8 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
4 Apr
ENRAGING: Queens cop kneels on a man’s neck. Couldve killed him like George Floyd. Caught on camera. Man charged w/ a crime. But DA Melinda Katz declines to charge cop. “Insufficient evidence.” Get this: Her office didn’t even interview the man assaulted. queenseagle.com/all/queens-da-…
DA Katz: “Law requires that the officer restricted the flow of air or blood by either compressing Mr. Arnold’s windpipe or carotid arteries on each side of his neck. There could be no such finding under the facts here.” 

Any other case, the DA would rely on the survivors’ word.
Arnold’s public defender Olayemi Olurin (@msolurin) said no experts spoke to her client.

“How could make that determination with no one ever speaking to him? My client said the officer obstructed his breathing. He could not breath. Deliberate miscarriage of justice.”
Read 9 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
1 Apr
🚨SIGNIFICANT MOMENT. Human Rights Watch (@hrw) has issued a warning to all state leaders with the power to act to correct past wrongs--U.S. governors, mayors, attorneys general, prosecutors. Your failure to do so violates international human rights standards. First stop: Oregon.
"When a legal system has obtained convictions through a discriminatory mechanism for decades, it should take on the task of fixing its mistake. Denial of equal rights for decades outweighs concerns about court efficiency."
In May 2020, US Supreme Court held that convictions by non-unanimous juries are unconstitutional, motivated by racial and ethnic bias. Yet Oregon’s AG @EllenRosenblum refuses to allow those whose appeals happened to be final before the decision a new trial.
Read 14 tweets
Scott Hechinger Profile picture
1 Apr
READ: "Rose didn’t want her daughter arrested; that wasn’t why she called. It would only hurt her daughter. But the police didn’t listen. They arrested Anna. And the familiar nightmare began."
On our irrational, traumatic responses to mental health crises.currentaffairs.org/2021/03/our-no…
How it starts: "Rose (57) & Anna (31) were arguing. Anna threw a plate down too hard. The plate bounced up & hit her mom's nose, which didn’t stop bleeding. Out of an abundance of caution, Rose dialed 911 & asked for medical help. Help did come—but so did 3 armed officers."
"As Rose received attention for her nose, cops asked her a series of questions. Yes, her nose was hurting. She didn’t need an ambulance. No, her daughter didn’t mean to hurt her. And she suffers from bipolar disorder & schizophrenia and sometimes loses control of her emotions."
Read 15 tweets

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