With the help of Philly DA Larry Krasner’s conviction integrity unit, a Philly man is cleared of murder after 34 years by evidence that was in the police file all along. inquirer.com/news/curtis-cr…
The DA’s search of the police file yielded “extensive undisclosed documents” including evidence that the state’s main informant-witness failed a polygraph, identified a different perpetrator, and sought a benefit in his legal case.
A second state witness “had previously given a false statement in a different murder case.” inquirer.com/news/curtis-cr…
In interviews both witnesses said they felt coerced into giving false statements.
“They threaten you. They will use your family... taking your kids... When you tell the truth, they don’t care. They’ll accept the lies, but they won’t accept the truth.” inquirer.com/news/curtis-cr…
The other witness said “detectives came to her home and woke her up, threatening to arrest her if she didn’t testify. ‘It was him or me...They were threatening me with putting me in jail.’” inquirer.com/news/curtis-cr…
And let’s be clear what role judges have played in all this. THEY TURN A BLIND EYE, over and over again. inquirer.com/news/curtis-cr…
Here is how the wrongfully convicted man reacted when finally saw the evidence that had been covered up in case: inquirer.com/news/curtis-cr…
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1. Amazing how quickly that whole critique of the ACLU as not sufficiently defending free speech goes out the window when the ACLU defends free speech in the Supreme Court and wins.
2. Also how amazing how the same people who depict “woke” students as anti-free speech denigrate those very students as unserious when they take a free speech case all the way to the Supreme Court and win 8-1.
3. Here is a write-up of the very righteous free speech case that the ACLU and “woke” students won in the Supreme Court today. Too bad Andrew Sullivan is so disrespectful of the sacred principle of free speech. Surely the end of liberalism is nigh. nytimes.com/2021/06/23/us/…
Kudos to the @Times@Jonesieman for this solid assessment of the Manhattan DA’s race where it looks like Alvin Bragg will win, though ballots remain to be counted. Though it starts from a pretty bad place, the Times’ reporting on DAs is getting better. nytimes.com/2021/06/22/nyr…
It feels a little early to assume that Bragg will be the winner, but assuming he is, here is a more inside the movement take on the job in front of him. filtermag.org/alvin-bragg-ma…
And here is @Taniel@theappeal’s interview with Bragg: How Alvin Bragg Rejects Bill Bratton and Broken Windows Policing. @Taniel is the definitive voice on DA elections and frankly a national treasure. theappeal.org/politicalrepor…
1. I’m all for evaluating non-police anti-violence strategies but note that reporters NEVER EVER require similar evaluation of policing strategies. Only reforms must prove their worth and cost-effectiveness NEVER mass carceralism.
2. For example, here is a study that suggests that when prosecutors refuse to jail people for low level offenses, VIOLENT CRIME PLUMMETS. bostonglobe.com/2021/03/29/met…
3. I mean check out these results. So when are cops and prosecutors going to have to prove that their strategies work?
I don’t know anything about critical race theory, but as I see some of the stuff floating through my timeline – and the incredibly stupid elite dialogue about it – I just find my mind returning to Baldwin again and again.
I mean THIS. In the end anti-CRT or anti-wokeness or whatever one wants to call this particular incoherent spasm of white supremacist authoritarian backlash, it is in the end about white people and the terror that they have of looking at themselves...
...looking at their forbearers, their history from the perspective of the people they have treated for ~400 years as less than full and equal humans. Their need to maintain the myth of white innocence is just so profound. To relinquish it is an existential threat.
1. Fabulous article about Kip Kinkle who, at age 15, committed the most notorious crime in modern Oregon history when he killed his parents and shot up a school. Now he’s 38, is in treatment for paranoid schizophrenia, and has grown and changed a lot. huffpost.com/entry/kip-kink…
2. As those of us who have represented people on death row know from our own personal experience, even people who commit the most ghastly, unthinkable crimes often grow and change as they get older. Many, (though not all), become rehabilitated. huffpost.com/entry/kip-kink…
3. This is not just true of people who committed their crimes as children, like Kinkel; it’s also true of those who committed crimes as adults. And it’s also not merely true of those who played a small role in a violent crime; principals/ringleaders often transform over time.
1. I mean if you want to understand why there is still so much protest and still so little police reform in Portland the answer is concrete and basically never mentioned in any of these articles.
2. The mayor protects downtown business interests, loves police and always backs them. He got a MINORITY of the vote for reelection, yet he still won the race, because two candidates that promised transformative changes split the vote.
3. So after a year of protest and a lot of support for police reform among radical elements and not so radical elements, hopes were raised and very little changed.