Afro-Netizen

Troy Davis: A Death Row Inmate’s Chance to Prove his Innocence

By Benjamin Todd Jealous

Courtesy of NAACP.org

On Wednesday the saga of death row inmate Troy Anthony Davis will begin its last chapter. In an extremely rare ruling last summer, the United States Supreme Court ordered a federal judge in Georgia to grant Troy an evidentiary hearing to prove his innocence.

The ruling is unusual in that the Supreme Court has not granted this writ of habeas corpus in more than 50 years. Their decision is a strong indication that they are concerned about the constitutionality of executing the innocent — as am I.

Although much work still must be done in our justice system to ensure the innocent do not pay the price of the guilty, the granting of this evidentiary hearing is a major step for Troy Davis and for many other likely innocent prisoners sitting on death row; Troy Davis will have an opportunity to tell his side of the story and new evidence will be considered in this nearly 20-year-old case.

The hearing will allow the testimony of witnesses who have recanted or contradicted their original eyewitness testimonies to be heard and examined in a court of law. At long last, the courts will hear critical testimony that they were prevented from hearing in the original trial.

Troy’s journey to death row began in the summer of 1989, when he was arrested in connection with the killing of an off-duty police officer outside a Burger King restaurant in Savannah, Georgia. Two years later he was convicted and sentenced to death for a crime many believe he did not commit.

I had the privilege of meeting Mr. Davis almost a year ago, and I was convinced of his innocence. My sense of his innocence is impressionistic, but a close examination of the case indicates there was no physical evidence that tied him to the crime, no weapon was ever recovered and seven of the nine eyewitnesses have recanted or changed their original testimony in sworn affidavits, citing alleged police coercion.

One of the witnesses, a teenager, said the police threatened to hold him as an accessory to murder, warning that he would “go to jail for a long time” and would be lucky to ever get out because a police officer had been killed.

Since that trial, several members of the jury have delivered sworn statements to the court, indicating that their decision was based on incomplete and unreliable evidence. Given the murky timeline of the events in the dead of night, eyewitnesses who changed their stories, the pressure placed on the Savannah police department to promptly arrest and convict a “cop killer,” and the alleged coercion of witnesses, it is easy to understand why some jurors have admitted their uncertainty.

For nearly twenty years, Mr. Davis’s life has hung in the balance. Despite the prevalence of evidence and thousands of people rallying to save him from execution, including the NAACP, Amnesty International, former President Jimmy Carter, actor/activist Danny Glover, former FBI director William Sessions and conservative Congressman Bob Barr, the courts stubbornly refused to hear Davis’s claims of innocence…until now.

It is the unjust reality of the death penalty that in our nation that there are more than 3,300 people withering on our nation’s death rows, men and women who are almost universally poor, disproportionately African-American and in some cases innocent. Since 1973, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, 138 people have been released from death row with evidence of their innocence. Executing an innocent person is a mistake that cannot be rectified.

We still have a long way to go before Troy has a chance at life off death row. The standard of proof in the evidentiary hearing turns our criminal justice system on its head. Mr. Davis will be expected to prove his innocence rather than for the state to prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. This is especially challenging given that the crime happened more than 20 years ago and there is no physical evidence, such as DNA.

The Troy Davis case is the most compelling case of innocence in decades and on June 23, 2010, I will join leaders from NAACP, Amnesty International and other faith and community organizations in Savannah, Georgia, lending our support to Troy and his family and offering prayers for a favorable outcome at the hearing. We continue to work tirelessly on behalf of Troy and the MacPhail family to bring the real killer of Officer Mark Allen MacPhail to justice and to bring closure to both families.

Whatever the outcome of the hearing, we will be in the trenches, knocking on doors and holding prayer vigils in the churches of Georgia and across the country until justice prevails for Troy Davis and for all Americans who have been caught in the painful web of injustice.

Easter Season, Capital Punishment, and the “Drum Major for Peace”

By Margaret Summers

Guest Contributor

During Easter season, Christians worldwide celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ.  It occurs in the early spring, a season rife with anticipation and the promise of new beginnings; of the shoots of green plants pushing their way through soil warmed by the sun, thawed after a long and frozen winter; of new leaves opening on trees and bushes; of blossoming flowers upturned to the rays of a welcoming sun.

This year, in a tragic historic coincidence, Easter Sunday fell on the 42nd anniversary of the killing of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., civil and human rights champion, a self-described “drum major for peace.”   Dr. King was shot dead on April 4, 1968 in Memphis, Tennessee as he stood on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel with friends and fellow activists. They were in Memphis to support economic justice for striking sanitation workers, a majority of whom were African American.

Uprisings exploded in several urban U.S. cities in reaction to the murder – expressions of uncontrollable grief, rage, and hopelessness, now that the man who had led millions up figurative mountaintops where all could share in his vision of a promised land where races could live together in equality, respect and love, was so violently and brutally taken from them.

Undoubtedly such anger and anguish back then prompted many to call for the execution of whoever was responsible for killing Dr. King. But neither Dr. King nor his immediate family had ever supported capital punishment. For Dr. King, a follower of the teachings of Mahatma Gandhi, whose massive nonviolent demonstrations brought down British colonial rule in India – a tactic that Dr. King later used with great success in the sit-ins, pray-ins, and other anti-segregation protests in the Deep South – it was impossible to simultaneously believe in nonviolence as a way of life and also believe in the death penalty.

Dr. King felt the punishment effectively writes off human beings as forever irredeemable and unforgivable. “Make your way to death row and speak with the tragic victims of criminality,” he said. “As they prepare to make their pathetic walk to the electric chair, their hopeless cry is that society will not forgive. Capital punishment is society's final assertion that it will not forgive.”

“I do not think God approves the death penalty for any crime - rape and murder included,” Dr. King asserted. “Capital punishment is against the best judgment of modern criminology and, above all, against the highest expression of love in the nature of God.”

Dr. King’s family, suddenly left without a husband and father 42 years ago, nevertheless agreed with his views that the death penalty perpetuates violence.

 “As one whose husband and mother-in-law have died the victims of murder assassination, I stand firmly and unequivocally opposed to the death penalty for those convicted of capital offenses,” his widow, Coretta Scott King, once said. “An evil deed is not redeemed by an evil deed of retaliation. Justice is never advanced in the taking of a human life. Morality is never upheld by a legalized murder.”

Such sentiments have been echoed by two of his children. “Having lost my father and grandmother to gun violence, I will understand the deep hurt and anger felt by the loved ones of those who have been murdered,” Reverend Bernice King, recently named President of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which was once led by her father, had stated. “Yet I can't accept the judgment that their killers deserve to be executed. This merely perpetuates the tragic, unending cycle of violence that destroys our hope for a decent society.”  His son, Martin Luther King, III, who was named for his father and grandfather, was quoted as saying, “I should be on the front line for those advocating the death penalty, [but] we have always been consistently against the death penalty.”  

The King family’s beliefs are not unusual. They are shared by many murder victims’ families. Among the members of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s Board of Directors, three individuals – New Hampshire State Rep. Robert “Renny” Cushing, Bill Pelke and Bud Welch – lost family members to murder. Rep. Cushing’s father was killed by gunfire through the family home’s screen door. Pelke’s grandmother was killed in the course of a robbery of her home by four teenaged girls.  Welch’s daughter was killed in the Oklahoma City federal building bombing.

The three are active in organizations working to rid the United States and the world of capital punishment – Murder Victims’ Families for Reconciliation, Murder Victims’ Families for Human Rights, and Journey of Hope . . . from Violence to Healing. Victims’ families and the death penalty abolition movement have long worked together to let the public know that the death penalty does not help, but harms such families. The expensive punishment drains needed resources from grief counseling, victims’ families’ compensation, and other services and programs that enable these families to heal. Together, the voices of abolitionists and such murder victims’ families’ organizations and victims’ family members are amplified, united, as they say, “Please – don’t kill in our names.”

It is my hope that this Easter season, as many of us celebrate the resurrection of He who also stood for nonviolence and peace, we remember the words of Dr. King and his family members who rejected a punishment system that in the end dehumanizes us all. “The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy,” Dr. King said. “... In fact, violence merely increases hate. ... Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars.”

Margaret Summers is the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty’s Director of Communications.

Flat Earth Follies: the Religious Right's "egg crusade"

By Sikivu Hutchinson

Guest Contributor

Taking its “life begins at conception” charade from State Legislature to State legislature, one of the most dangerous political forces in the U.S. is stepping up its crusade for the “rights” of the unborn. Backed by an organization called Personhood USA, the latest offensive from the Religious Right involves a renewed movement to amend state constitutions to establish human rights and personhood status for fertilized eggs.

Ever immune to morality, reason, church-state separation precedents and an understanding of the basic laws of biology, the most flat earth reactionary segment of the so-called pro-life movement wants to circumvent constitutional protections for abortion by conferring personhood on fertilized eggs. This would eviscerate the premise that women have a sovereign and singular right to control their bodies by designating rights even before implantation and a clinically viable pregnancy has been determined.

For those who have any elementary grasp of the human reproductive process, conception doe s not automatically result in pregnancy and the majority of fertilized eggs never implant in the uterus. Yet if the egg crusade zealots had their way these new edicts would potentially criminalize any woman attempting to use birth control pills or IUDs, and jeopardize in vitro fertilization procedures and stem cell research.

Though the egg crusade has failed to gain the imprimatur of the National Right to Life Committee those who would dismiss such a campaign as too extreme to gain traction do so at their peril. According to the L.A. Times, earlier this year the egg crusaders were able to convince the North Dakota House of Representatives to pass a constitutional amendment on personhood although it was later vetoed by the State Senate. Colorado voters also rejected a similar ballot initiative 73% to 27%. Yet in California the egg crusaders are collecting signatures and whipping up support for an amendment insidiously dubbed the California Human Rights Amendment.

One of the most reprehensible arguments that the egg crusaders make to bolster their cause is a comparison between their movement and the movement to abolish slavery. Their website cites Joshua Giddings, a 19th century American anti-slavery legislator who held that “God” as “author” of all life grants the inalienable right to life to every being. Following this argument it is unclear who is exactly “enslaving” pre-implanted fertilized eggs. Is it potential mothers who arrogantly lay claim to their own bodies? Is it20the state for failing to protect the right of pre-implanted fertilized eggs to20implantation? By cloaking its propaganda in the rhetoric of civil and human rights the egg crusaders avoid delineation of the real life consequences for women, once again reducing them to vessels with no agency, right to privacy or control over their own bodies.

The website does not specify what rights un-implanted eggs would be conferred with other than, presumably, the right to progress to the implantation stage, fetal development and then birth. There are no details about who or what could act on the behalf of the un-implanted egg as person if the host carrier (formerly known as mother) of the egg were to determine that she should receive medical treatment.

There was no information on who would legally be empowered to intervene or act on behalf of the un-implanted egg as person (the state perhaps?) to object to any stance that the mother might take. It stands to reason that if contraception were used to prevent the inalienable right of the egg as “person” to implant then host carriers who did so would be criminalized and prosecuted for murder. As a preventive measure, potentially offending host carriers could perhaps be fitted with special ankle bracelets or encoded with state monitored electronic microchips to preclude violations.

The Catholic and fundamentalist Christian activists at the forefront of the egg crusade are curiously silent on these small details. In true schizoid fashion they push for special faith-based government entitlements and yet scream about government interference, rallying big government to run roughshod over women’s fundamental right to privacy through a new regime of policing. And indeed, their own “family planning” policies have proven an abysmal failure, as evidenced by the exploding teen birth rates in Bible Belt states like Alabama and Mississippi in comparison to lower rates in the relatively godless Northeast and Northwest (abstinence-only sex education programs and fundamentalist Christian propaganda against fornication outside marriage would seem to be a source of cognitive dissonance for Southern teens).

The decidedly anti-human rights egg crusade would take this national obscenity one step further by deepening the region’s poverty and straining its already overburdened, single parent-averse social welfare net. The fervor of this “new” brand of anti-abortion activism only underscores the need for a vigorous secular defense against the continued incursions of the Religious Right. It’s either that or get ready for the ankle bracelets.

Sikivu Hutchinson is the editor of BlackFemLens.org and a commentator for Some of Us Are Brave KPFK 90.7 FM. This is an excerpt from her book Scarlet Letters on race/gender politics, atheism and secular belief in America.

Another Black life extinguished in a hail of police bullets amidst a "post-racial" America

Five days ago in economically distressed Rockford, Illinois, a 23-year old Black man named Mark Anthony Barmore was shot to death in a church-run daycare filled with children, as reported by the Associated Press.

Witness claim Barmore who tried to evade police, emerged to surrender from a closet in the church, but police officers shot him anyway.

Though this case is unfolding, and all the facts are not known at this time, the refrain in Black America and beyond is, "Would this have likely happened to a white person?"

Increasingly, Afro-Netizen has noticed clear acknowledgment of racism from white people about other white people's motivations -- even within mainstream media. This new, seemingly unprecedented phenomenon is a good and important trend that is not nearly as comprehensive or rigorous as it should be. However, the extent to which race and racism can be brought up appropriately at the urging of white allies may influence America's tolerance for having such meaningful public discussions that have rarely occurred heretofore.

Meanwhile, the national NAACP is calling for federal legislation to address and curtail future acts of police brutality.

Finally, at the intersection of media, politics and policy, there was the ever eloquent and ubiquitous Rev. Jesse Jackson Sr. at the young Barmore's funeral, a tragic fatality amidst an era that many optimists and delusional voters had quizzically embraced as post-racial with the ascent of Barack Obama to the Oval Office.

Post-racial in this context suggests that "getting beyond race" is the task and ultimate goal. For progressive-minded Americans, however, the goal is in acknowledging that race and racism are all too real social constructions that will endure until we embrace racial justice as a core component of the fight for universal human rights.

Rockford activists and concerned residents understand this in a blighted city north of Chicago with rampant unemployment, crime and urban blight.

They know these ills are all related, and that these socio-economic disparities highly correlate to race in ways that America's first Black president will not (and perhaps cannot politically) affirm, unlike his elderly, white Southern predecessor, former president Jimmy Carter, leveraging the white privilege he has towards shedding light on the truth too powerful for a sitting president in this day and age to co-sign -- irrespective of his race or political party.

Whatever level of culpability the two white Rockford police officers and the deceased Barmore had for what quickly escalated to a man's death -- as witnessed in a church by young children -- this much is true: a crime took place on that fateful day that is as political and resonant as the election of a Black president.

The questions remain in the aftermath of such symptomatic violence: Do we know what's on the referendum? When and where we must vote, and how to cast our ballots?

House ethics committee delays probe of Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL)

By Larry Margasak

Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The House ethics committee said Wednesday it will put off for now an expanded investigation into whether Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. or his representatives tried to buy President Barack Obama's former Senate seat.

The committee revealed that the deferred investigation now includes allegations that Jackson, a Democrat, improperly used his staff in Washington and Chicago to mount a public campaign to secure the Senate seat.

The committee acted at the behest of federal prosecutors who already are investigating former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich. The panel normally defers investigations when requested by law enforcement, to avoid interference with prosecutors.

The committee is looking into Jackson's interactions with Blagojevich, who has been indicted on corruption charges including alleged attempts to sell the seat now held by Democratic Sen. Roland Burris.

According to a criminal complaint, Jackson was one of several candidates to whom Blagojevich tried to shop the seat. Jackson's supporters were willing to raise $1.5 million for Blagojevich if he picked the congressman, according to the criminal complaint.

The congressman says he did nothing wrong.

Jackson's alleged use of staff was in a report by the new Office of Congressional Ethics, which reviews potential ethical violations by House members and staff and refers cases to the ethics committee of five Democrats and five Republicans.

The referral, made public by the ethics committee, stated, "In the course of conducting this review, the OCE learned that staff resources of the representative's Washington, D.C. and Chicago, Illinois offices were used to mount a 'public campaign' to secure the representative's appointment to the U.S. Senate.

"In doing so, Representative Jackson may have violated federal law and House rules concerning the proper use of the Member's Representational Allowance." The allowance is a monetary amount allotted to each congressional office for official operations.

The committee also said it would delay for 45 days inquiries involving California Democrat Maxine Waters and Missouri Republican Sam Graves.

Read more

My Brother on Death Row: Troy Davis’ sister speaks out, as Davis awaits a Supreme Court decision

By Alice Kim
Republished courtesy of In These Times

Martina Correia, Troy Davis’ sister, speaks during a July 2008 protest to denounce the death penalty in the United States.

For now, at least, Georgia death row prisoner Troy Davis is safe from execution. When the Supreme Court reconvenes in September, it will decide whether to hear his request for habeas corpus. Davis, an African-American, was convicted of the 1989 shooting and killing of white off-duty police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in a Burger King parking lot in Savannah, Ga. The conviction was based solely on the testimony of nine eyewitnesses—seven of whom have now recanted or contradicted their original statements. Some have even signed affidavits saying that police coerced them into pointing the finger at Davis. The primary witness, Sylvester Coles, is now suspected of committing the murder himself.

Martina Correia, Davis’ sister, has led an international campaign to save her brother’s life and prove his innocence. South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and former President Jimmy Carter have publicly expressed their support for Davis.

Even as Correia faces her own personal battle with breast cancer, she continues to fight to win justice for Davis.

You are calling on Chatham County District Attorney Larry Chisolm to reopen Troy’s case. What are the grounds for a new trial?

Some of the original trial witnesses have recanted, and nine new witnesses have said they either witnessed the murder or heard one of the original eyewitnesses confess to the murder. The prosecution’s whole case against Troy has fallen apart. They have one primary eyewitness left, Steve Sanders, who on the night of the crime couldn’t identify the shooter and two weeks later, two months later, couldn’t identify the shooter. But he came to court and identified Troy. There’s no blood, no physical evidence, no DNA. We can’t kill this man because everything we used to convict him doesn’t exist.

Why has Troy’s case garnered such widespread attention and support?

You have people on both sides of the death penalty debate on the same side for a change, saying that we cannot execute the innocent. These people are willing to put their name on a document and say we need to stop, rewind and give this man a new trial, because this is not a case about black and white. This is a case about the truth. It does not make any sense to deny Troy a hearing based on the evidence, when this state has got millions of dollars to try to kill Troy with no actual evidence.

Rep. Bob Barr (R-Ga.) says that the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996, a piece of legislation he helped to write when he was in the House of Representatives, has been misinterpreted by the courts. What role did this act have on Troy’s case?

It says you have one year from conviction to bring forth information about your actual innocence. The law was enacted in 1996, but President Bill Clinton made it retroactive 10 years, which is against international human rights law.

Troy didn’t have a lawyer from 1991 to 1996. When he was able to obtain a lawyer through the Georgia Resource Center, they didn’t have the funds to properly defend him. When they were getting their witnesses’ statements in the late 1990s and early 2000s, they realized, “We actually have an innocent person here.” They went to the courts and after every affidavit they got, the courts said, “Oh, we don’t have to listen to that, because you should have brought it up in 1992.” Well, we couldn’t bring it up, and why should that law apply if it wasn’t in effect until 1996?

What were the factors that led to Troy’s conviction? Was there prosecutorial or police misconduct?

Both were involved, and there was a media frenzy to hang Troy. We have one newspaper in the city and three television stations, and all the stations promoted were the prosecution’s statements from court.

The police terrify that black community—ride around with shotguns and everything else. So nobody knew what was going on. The prosecutor didn’t have anything. The police didn’t have anything until [Sylvester] Coles went in. Coles was the only one who testified he had heard the shot. Troy never had a weapon. Coles threw his weapon away and they never made him produce it. The ballistics report from 1989 said that it was negative for Troy’s fingerprints, negative for everything. Yet the prosecutors said in open court that they had a ballistics report that linked Troy to the crime.

Do you think Obama will pardon Troy?

No. Because he only pardons at the federal level, so there is no jurisdiction there. But that doesn’t mean that Obama doesn’t have influence. I wish he would intervene. We have been sending letters and sending letters, but Obama hasn’t said anything about Troy’s case. And I can’t believe he doesn’t know about it.

You’ve worked with Amnesty International and other anti-death penalty organizations. How have you been able to build such widespread support for Troy?

I was persistent. People thought I was lying or biased because I was Troy’s sister. But I kept showing people court transcripts and documents, and I was able convince the Amnesty International Secretary General to do a special report on the case. I had Troy’s lawyer send over his court transcripts to a special investigator in the U.K., and this legal expert took about three months to go over Troy’s case line by line, item by item. They wrote a 35-page report, and when the report hit the Internet in February of 2007, everything hit the fan. People could not believe that they were trying to kill Troy with this kind of evidence. If we had the power of Internet 10 years ago, my brother would probably be free right now.

What other factors have been critical in building a loud and vocal movement to save Troy’s life?

Grassroots efforts. Getting the message to the people —not to all the big organizations, but talking to the people who care about human rights, human kindness and dignity, and educating them about the whole system. Then people were willing to spread the knowledge and tell Troy’s story. I challenged them: “Go find the information for yourself.” And that’s what people did.

You have faced a personal battle with breast cancer. It’s not unusual for you to be in chemo one day and flying across the country to speak at a conference the next day. How do you keep going?

I have a strong faith in God and in family. If I have to sacrifice myself or my health to make sure that my brother is free, then I’m willing to do that.

And I live in a place where we don’t just have racism, we have classism and all other kinds of -isms. People tell me all the time, “Oh, Savannah is such a beautiful place.” But you don’t have to live here in my skin. As long as you don’t cross certain lines, everything is fine. People think Savannah has evolved. But those same trees with the moss on them that are so beautiful to look at—if those trees could talk they would tell you a whole different story.

It doesn’t make any sense for me to see little black and Hispanic boys, lined up on a street corner with people searching their pockets just because they’re standing there. When police cars pull up in the park, little boys are so afraid that they just take off running. Then when they shoot one of those boys in the back, it’s always justified.

I’m standing up for a whole lot of Troy Davises. Not just people on Death Row, but people who cannot fight the system, because those are the people that they target. They target people who don’t have power to fight back.

What kind of transformation have you seen in Troy over the last 18 years, and how has he been able to maintain his spirit and his strength?

Troy has always been a good person, a good spirit, a good aura. When you walk into a room with Troy and he smiles, it just lights up your spirit. He has no hatred toward anybody because he believes that in order for God to help him, he can’t harbor ill will toward the people who wrong him.

Troy has a strong sense of family. He has a lot of friends, people from all faiths and religions visiting him, prisoners and guards giving him encouragement. Yet he still knows there’s an underlying thing—that the state of Georgia wants to kill him. But you know what, we can’t live in fear. And so we have to keep fighting, keep pushing and keep doing whatever we can. Troy—through through his letters and cards and pictures that people send him from all around the world—is able to travel in his imagination. That’s a powerful thing, for people who have never met you and who you may never see to stand up for you.

=======

For more information on Troy Anthony Davis, click here.

Harvard Professor Henry Louis Gates arrested for yelling at Cambridge police officer (Police report attached)

Let's cut to the chase . . .

A White female neighbor of Prof. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. called the police on the night of July 20, 2009 to report a possible break-in at the home of Prof. Gates.

She reported seeing two Black men on his porch. That much is undisputed.

Here is the actual (redacted) police report (PDF) documenting the incident from the arresting officer's perspective.

And here is Prof. Gates' lawyer's statement on his arrest, courtesy of TheRoot.com of which Prof. Gates is the Editor-in-Chief.

Here's a taste:

Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. arrested at his home for disorderly conduct

By Melissa Trujillo

Republished courtesy of the Huffington Post

BOSTON — Police responding to a call about "two black males" breaking into a home near Harvard University ended up arresting the man who lives there – Henry Louis Gates Jr., the nation's pre-eminent black scholar.

Gates had forced his way through the front door because it was jammed, his lawyer said. Colleagues call the arrest last Thursday afternoon a clear case of racial profiling.

Cambridge police say they responded to the well-maintained two-story home after a woman reported seeing "two black males with backpacks on the porch," with one "wedging his shoulder into the door as if he was trying to force entry."

By the time police arrived, Gates was already inside. Police say he refused to come outside to speak with an officer, who told him he was investigating a report of a break-in.

"Why, because I'm a black man in America?" Gates said, according to a police report written by Sgt. James Crowley. The Cambridge police refused to comment on the arrest Monday.

Gates – the director of Harvard's W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research – initially refused to show the officer his identification, but then gave him a Harvard University ID card, according to police.

"Gates continued to yell at me, accusing me of racial bias and continued to tell me that I had not heard the last of him," the officer wrote.

Gates said he turned over his driver's license and Harvard ID – both with his photos – and repeatedly asked for the name and badge number of the officer, who refused. He said he then followed the officer as he left his house onto his front porch, where he was handcuffed in front of other officers, Gates said in a statement released by his attorney, fellow Harvard scholar Charles Ogletree, on a Web site Gates oversees, TheRoot.com

He was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after police said he "exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior." He was released later that day on his own recognizance. An arraignment was scheduled for Aug. 26.

Gates, 58, also refused to speak publicly Monday, referring calls to Ogletree.

"He was shocked to find himself being questioned and shocked that the conversation continued after he showed his identification," Ogletree said.

Ogletree declined to say whether he believed the incident was racially motivated, saying "I think the incident speaks for itself."

Some of Gates' African-American colleagues say the arrest is part of a pattern of racial profiling in Cambridge.

Allen Counter, who has taught neuroscience at Harvard for 25 years, said he was stopped on campus by two Harvard police officers in 2004 after being mistaken for a robbery suspect. They threatened to arrest him when he could not produce identification.

"We do not believe that this arrest would have happened if professor Gates was white," Counter said. "It really has been very unsettling for African-Americans throughout Harvard and throughout Cambridge that this happened."

The Rev. Al Sharpton is vowing to attend Gates' arraignment.

"This arrest is indicative of at best police abuse of power or at worst the highest example of racial profiling I have seen," Sharpton said. "I have heard of driving while black and even shopping while black but now even going to your own home while black is a new low in police community affairs."

Ogletree said Gates had returned from a trip to China on Thursday with a driver, when he found his front door jammed. He went through the back door into the home – which he leases from Harvard – shut off an alarm and worked with the driver to get the door open. The driver left, and Gates was on the phone with the property's management company when police first arrived.

Ogletree also disputed the claim that Gates, who was wearing slacks and a polo shirt and carrying a cane, was yelling at the officer.

"He has an infection that has impacted his breathing since he came back from China, so he's been in a very delicate physical state," Ogletree said.

Lawrence D. Bobo, the W.E.B Du Bois Professor of the Social Sciences at Harvard, said he met with Gates at the police station and described his colleague as feeling humiliated and "emotionally devastated."

"It's just deeply disappointing but also a pointed reminder that there are serious problems that we have to wrestle with," he said.

Bobo said he hoped Cambridge police would drop the charges and called on the department to use the incident to review training and screening procedures it has in place.

The Middlesex district attorney's office said it could not do so until after Gates' arraignment. The woman who reported the apparent break-in did not return a message Monday.

Gates joined the Harvard faculty in 1991 and holds one of 20 prestigious "university professors" positions at the school. He also was host of "African American Lives," a PBS show about the family histories of prominent U.S. blacks, and was named by Time magazine as one of the 25 most influential Americans in 1997.

"I was obviously very concerned when I learned on Thursday about the incident," Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust said in a statement. "He and I spoke directly and I have asked him to keep me apprised."

*This booking photo released by the Cambridge, Mass., Police Dept., shows Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates, Jr., who was arrested while trying to force open the locked front door of his home near Harvard University Thursday, July 16, 2009. Gates, a pre-eminent African-American scholar, is accusing Cambridge police of racism after he was arrested on a disorderly conduct charge after police said he "exhibited loud and tumultuous behavior." He was released later that day on his own recognizance and arraignment was scheduled for Aug. 26. (AP Photo/Cambridge Police Dept.)

Supreme Court stalls on Troy Davis death penalty case

According to AP reports yesterday, the U.S. Supreme Court has "recessed for summer without acting on his latest appeal, likely delaying any developments in his case until fall".

While this is likely a de facto stay of execution, it is by no means certain.

What is certain, that the elected officials who influence the outcome of this case are moved towards justice by appealing to their self-preservation instincts as incumbents.

What does this mean?

It means that Larry Chisolm who was elected in 2008 as first Black district attorney of Chatham County (which encompasses Savannah, Georgia) presumably wants to get re-elected. A campaign plank of his during his campaign centered on fairness.

Now, with our help on a national level, we can help his constituents keep him accountable to that pledge. Clearly, if he chooses to look the other way, Black voter turn-out the next time around may not be what he'll need to stay in office.

Let's help Troy Davis by signing this petition to DA Chisolm requesting that he reopen Troy's case.

For more information on Troy's case, please visit the AmnestyUSA site.

For more information on the death penality, please visit the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty (NCADP).

A warrior woman: fighting for life against breast cancer, brother Troy Anthony Davis’ death sentence

By Margaret Summers
Guest Contributor
Courtesy of National Coalition for the Abolition of the Death Penalty (NCADP)
 
Martina Correia, a 42-year-old African American from Savannah, Georgia, is a “warrior woman,” inspiring death penalty abolitionists as well as women like her struggling with breast cancer.

Correia’s brother is Troy Anthony Davis, convicted in 1991 for the shooting death of white police officer Mark MacPhail. There is no physical evidence linking Davis to the crime.  No murder weapon was produced. Seven of nine witnesses who initially implicated Davis have since recanted, stating in sworn affidavits that they were pressured or coerced by police into naming him.   Davis’ attorneys are appealing his case before the U.S. Supreme Court.  The Court will determine whether or not to review Davis’ habeas petition on June 25, and make its decision public on June 26 or June 29. If the appeal is rejected, Davis will be executed.

The case has generated global attention. Former President Jimmy Carter, Pope Benedict XVI, South African Bishop Desmond Tutu, the NAACP, and human rights organization Amnesty International, have called for Georgia Governor Sonny Purdue to grant Davis clemency. Former U.S. Representative Bob Barr, former FBI Director William Sessions, and several former prosecutors and judges, have filed an amicus brief supporting Davis’ plea.

Long before her brother’s involvement in the criminal justice system, Correia opposed the death penalty. An Amnesty International member since age 13, she resigned her U.S. Army nurse position when told she couldn’t express “political opinions” against capital punishment. Since her brother’s conviction, “I speak at universities, high schools and before community groups.  I talk about the injustices that lead to arrests of innocent people, why so many people of color get the death penalty, and how and why prosecutors select people for death sentences. I don’t just talk about my brother on death row, but the system that put him there.”

She didn’t know what to expect when Davis was tried. “I anticipated that my brother would get his day in court,” she explains. “But our judicial system is fraught with biases.    Until my brother was accused of killing a white police officer, I didn’t realize just how black I was.”

Watching Davis’ trial, “I felt like people were angry that my brother had attorneys from out of town,” says Correia.  “I thought he would have more time in the courtroom to argue his case, but he only got 20 minutes, and then a bell rang when he ran out of time.” Alarmed, Correia stepped up her fight for Davis’ exoneration.

Then in 2001, Correia was diagnosed with breast cancer. When chemotherapy treatments resulted in hair loss, she shaved her head and wore hats or scarves. The prison initially barred Correia from wearing head coverings during visits with Davis for “security reasons”; weapons could be hidden in headgear. Davis intervened. Correia was made an exception, “but whenever I wore a scarf the prison guards made me take it off to search it.”

Determinedly working through exhaustion, Correia’s only concession to debilitating chemotherapy is to request airfare from sponsors of appearances located more than five hours from her home. Otherwise, she drives herself, although chemotherapy makes her sleepy. “I have to try to stay awake while driving. When a speaking engagement’s over, I go home and rest, ”she says.  

Correia serves on the boards of death penalty abolition organizations like Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and New Hope House.  She also participates in efforts to increase federal funding for breast cancer research. She is a lobby delegation team leader in the National Breast Cancer Coalition. She teaches health maintenance classes to women with cancer in Savannah’s St. Joseph’s/Candler Health System.

Somehow Correia balances her advocacy with raising her 14-year-old son Antone, an Honor Roll middle school student, whose winning social studies project in a state competition last year was entitled: “How Does the Troy Anthony Davis Death Penalty Case Impact Georgia?” Antone, who considers “Uncle Troy” a role model, wants to be a medical researcher when he grows up, and find the cure for breast cancer that has stricken his mother and thousands of women.

Correia says her brother’s confinement on death row and her illness are difficult for her and their family but “I trust God, I have faith. It’s like Troy said when he was minutes away from execution (before the current U.S. Supreme Court appeal), ‘God didn’t take me this far to leave me.’ I pray for Troy and for Mark MacPhail’s family. I ask God to let me live to see my brother freed and my son graduate from school.  My biggest prayer is that my mother doesn’t continue to suffer. If Troy is executed it will break her heart.

“I’m going to fight this system until somebody says, ‘We made a mistake,’ she adds. “I know that the name Troy Anthony Davis is a name known all over the world by people who believe in truth, justice and fairness. That’s all I’m asking for, fairness.”

The NAACP and Amnesty International U.S.A. are co-sponsoring a “Week of Witness” for Troy Anthony Davis, June 19-26 2009. Faith communities are asked to pray for the Davis and MacPhail families during that week, sign a petition, ask their religious leaders to sign a clergy letter, or discuss Davis’ case during regular weekend worship services.  Additional information, please visit the “Week of Witness”.