Tag Archives: New York

Circle of Hope: Food for Thought by Robert Fisher Pa, DR

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Food For Thought Part 45, by Robert Fisher Pa, Death Row
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Food for Thought Part 45

DEATH BEFORE DYING

(A Flawed and Unjust System)

 

          For a country that is dead set in a system of mass incarceration, putting more of their citizens in prison than any other country in the world, there needs to be an extreme overhaul of a broken judicial system.

          The Death Penalty, life without the possibility of parole and other excessive mandatory sentences are not only causing the defendant to die in these prisons, but are killing families that are connected. The sad and scary part about it is that many of those convicted of these crimes are innocent. Hundreds of innocent people have been exonerated through DNA testing, many after spending decades behind bars, often family members dying during the process of their unlawful incarceration.

          Innocent people are dying in these prisons on a daily basis because most of us don’t have DNA as an issue to prove the injustice. Remember even those that were exonerated by DNA went through the same process, court procedure, witnesses, etc, in this so – called best judicial system in the world, but were still convicted. So this so called best judicial system, isn’t so great after all.

          A while back the “National Academy of Sciences” concluded that comparative bullet lead analysis and arson testing were no longer reliable, basically saying it didn’t pass scientific mustard. Now, recently they’ve reported fingerprint comparison hair and fibre and handwriting analysis are all unreliable. The only scientific test that still survives is DNA testing, So for decades, F.B.I agents have been paraded before juries all across America, misleading and persuading them to convict defendants, contributing to this mass incarceration with cold blooded junk science. Why isn’t there any outrage? One of the reasons there isn’t any outrage is because the majority of the people incarcerated and dying in state and federal prisons are poor whites and people of color. These are the people our government feels are expendable.

          This country is still infested with an awful lot of hate and prejudice, Do you think racial profiling is an accident? Do you think the big shots continue to allow and justify “Stop and Frisk” Police tactics in New York and other major cities that target Blacks and other minorities is an accident? Do you think the Klan and other hate groups haven’t infiltrated the ranks of our police forces, prison and judicial system? Why do you think the infamous “Stand Your Ground” laws are readily available when a Black gets shot, but somehow unavailable when a Black Mother earlier the year in 2011 tried to protect herself from an abusive husband, down in Florida, not far from the Zimmerman/Trayvon Martin incident, Why wasn’t she allowed to use it, they sentenced her to 20 years.

          Keeping it real, this racial profiling isn’t ever going to stop! Even if they pass laws saying it’s illegal, they will still do it and find ways to justify their actions, just like they do when they exclude Blacks from the juries. They come up with other reasons to get around the laws and continue the same evil an unjust practice.

         They even got Black leaders, psychological consulter’s, etc. talking to parents, about teaching our kids to not appear suspicious and to be respectful to the police when stopped, Telling them not to make any sudden moves when confronted. Hold up a minute!!! All of that sounds real good and probably would be helpful if those police were actually trying to do their jobs and there wasn’t any hidden agenda. If there weren’t so many that have infiltrated from one of those hate groups or had that “us against them mentality” etc, etc, Black children shouldn’t have to act any different than any other race, It’s not the children that have to change the way they act, it’s the police and all the people co signing their actions.

          The average Joe citizen needs to make this happen, One of the ways to make this change is to get out and vote! I can’t stress enough the importance of voting, especially when the extreme right are definitely going to vote and you can bet your bottom dollar, their vote will be for another extreme right wing clown and things will go from bad to worse, I con go one and on about this but I wont.

To be continued The Struggle continues

by Robert Fisher

(mailing address)

Robert Fisher AS-1738
S.C.I GREENE
175 Progress Drive.
Waynesburg,
PA 15370
USA

http://robertfisher2011.wordpress.com/

mentally ill man …

Mentally ill man gets 10 years in prison for plotting ‘terrorist attack’

 
Ahmed Ferhani (AFP Photo/Gregory P. Mango)

Ahmed Ferhani (AFP Photo/Gregory P. Mango)

 

A mentally ill Muslim man was sentenced to a decade in prison this week after pleading guilty to 10 charges related to a 2011 plot to blow up synagogues and churches in New York City.

Attorneys for 27-year-old Ahmed Ferhani accepted Supreme Court Justice Michael Obus’ decision Monday of 10 years behind bars after the defendant admitted on the stand to conspiring to “create chaos and send a message of intimidation and coercion to the Jewish population of New York City.”

Ferhani could have faced 32 years in prison had he pleaded not guilty and tried for a slew of charges relating to hatching a scheme involving the bombing of synagogues and churches across New York. Prosecutors say Ferhani thought of himself as the “mastermind” of an elaborate terror plot and planned to go undercover as a Hasidic Jew in order to infiltrate non-Muslim religious communities and wreak havoc. Ferhani’s attorney had been adamant with having the most serious charges against their client thrown out, however, citing a history of mental illness and possible police entrapment as factors in their defense.

Ferhani “has been getting institutionalized since he was 17 years old,” defense attorney Lamis Deek told reporters after Monday’s court proceeding.

“The NYPD was called to his house more than a dozen times. They would show up at his house and then take him to Bellevue” hospital,” Deek said.

According to the New York Daily News, Ferhani’s mother said her son was hospitalized for psychiatrist issues more than two dozen times since high school.

Starting in late 2010, agents with the New York Police Department investigated Ferhani for several months because they believed he was interested in committing acts of terrorism. An undercover officer with the NYPD using the name Ilter reached out to Ferhani during the investigation, befriending him in order to get closer to the suspect.

“Ilter pursued Ahmed, driving him to doctor’s appointments, spending money on him, lending him money, and calling him his brother,” supporters of Ferhani write on the Justice for Ahmed website.

“Ahmed was a vulnerable target–he was broke, unemployed, depressed, and struggling with emotional imbalances. The NYPD was fully aware of Ahmed’s condition, and most likely chose him as a target because of it.”

In May 2011, Ferhani and another man were arrested for allegedly trying to purchase semi-automatic pistols, a grenade and 150 rounds of ammunition from an undercover officer posing as an arms dealer. Ferhani was making a $100 down payment on the arsenal of weaponry when he was apprehended and eventually charged with counts involving hate crimes and terrorism.

“Ahmed was tricked and coaxed into a scheme that was completely initiated, constructed, and performed by NYPD agents praying on one Muslim man who they knew to be impressionable and in need of help,” his supporters write.

Entrapment or not, state prosecutors say that they successfully thwarted what could have been a real catastrophe — albeit it one law enforcement orchestrated themselves by using a mentally ill man.

“The threat of terrorism is real,” Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus R. Vance tells the New York Times this week, adding that the case highlights “the importance of state prosecutors and NYPD intel working in partnership to play a critical role to complement our federal colleagues.”

Ferhani’s plea marks the first time a terrorist has been convicted on the new state terror charges set in place following the attacks of September 11, 2001. Previously, all terrorism cases in New York had been tried on a federal level.

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The new resolution, inter alia, calls on all States to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.

 

English: Map that shows how Countries voted to...

English: Map that shows how Countries voted to the 2008 UN moratorium on the death penalty proposal. In green, those who voted in favor. In red, those who voted against. In yellow, those who abstained. Italiano: Mappa che mostra i voti alla proposta all’ONU di moratoria universale della pena di morte del 2008. In verde, i Paesi che hanno votato a favore. In rosso, quelli che hanno votato contro. In giallo, quelli che si sono astenuti. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

http://allafrica.com/stories/201211230911.html

Death Penalty Moratorium

22 November 2012

United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomes a record vote by a General Assembly committee in favour of the call for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty, according to his spokesperson.

“Monday’s vote offers the opportunity to again encourage Member States who still practice the death penalty or retain it in law to follow suit,” the spokesperson added in a news statement, noting that 150 States have either abolished or do not practice the death penalty.

He continued, “The Secretary-General therefore calls on Member States to join the worldwide trend and support next month’s General Assembly resolution on a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.”

The new resolution, inter alia, calls on all States to establish a moratorium on executions with a view to abolishing the death penalty.

The vote took place on Monday in the Assembly’s Third Committee, which adopted the resolution by 110 votes in favour, with 39 against and 36 abstentions.

The Third Committee deals with social and humanitarian issues, as well as human rights. It is one of six such bodies, which each deal with a block of issues and themes under discussion by the wider General Assembly, but which lend themselves to more effective discussion in smaller settings before then being forwarded to all UN Member States – in the so-called General Assembly Plenary – for a final decision.

Mr. Ban’s spokesperson said the Committee’s resolution reflects a trend against capital punishment which has grown stronger across regions, legal traditions and customs since a landmark General Assembly resolution on the topic in 2007.

“The Secretary-General saluted this development at a high-level event on the death penalty in New York this July,” the spokesperson added. “He said then that the taking of life is too absolute, too irreversible, for one human being to inflict on another, even when backed by legal process.”

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The Slow Demise of DEATH PENALTY

 

No death penalty

No death penalty (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Richard C. Dieter

The Slow Demise of the Death Penalty

Posted: 11/12/2012 12:08 pm
The death penalty in California survived by a narrow vote on November 6, but around the country the signs are clear that capital punishment is slowly on the way out. Even in California, the close defeat of the referendum to repeal the death penalty marks a significant milestone: in a state where almost three-quarters of the people supported the death penalty 30 years ago, now almost half the voters want it replaced. (Video version of this post here.)

Although California’s recent vote means the death penalty will remain, the 47% of voters who favored replacing it indicates many Californians have had a change of heart regarding capital punishment. By contrast, the initiative that reinstated the death penalty in 1978 garnered the support of 71% of voters. In 1986, California’s Chief Justice, Rose Bird, was removed from office by 67% of voters because she was perceived as blocking the death penalty.

Nationally, support for the death penalty has seen a similar decline. According to a 1994 Gallup Poll, 80% of respondents supported the death penalty, compared to only 61% in 2011. Moreover, when respondents aregiven alternative choices such as life without parole, support for the death penalty falls below 50%.

Around the country, new death sentences dropped to 78 in 2011, representing a dramatic 75% decline since 1996, when 315 individuals were sentenced to death. It was the first time since 1976 that the country produced fewer than 100 death sentences in a single year. Executions also have steadily decreased nationwide, with 43 in 2011 and 46 in 2010, representing a 56% decline since 1999, when there were 98.

Despite the outcome of Proposition 34, the future of the death penalty in California remains questionable. It will take hundreds of millions of dollars just to continue the death penalty in its current broken fashion – money the state doesn’t have. Much more will be needed if the state wants to have a system with timely and adequate representation.

California’s use of the death penalty has declined in recent years: the state has not carried out an execution since 2006, and death sentences have dropped from 40 in 1981 to only 10 in 2011. Executions are not likely to resume soon because key issues remain unresolved. Questions related to California’s lethal injection process linger in state and federal courts, and challenges to the overall fairness of the death penalty are still being considered.

Gil Garcetti, the former District Attorney of Los Angeles, shifted his position on the death penalty when he became aware of flaws in the system. A leading proponent of Proposition 34, Garcetti said, “Much like millions of other voters, I changed my mind on the death penalty when I understood that it serves no useful purpose, that spending $184 million annually on it is obscenely expensive, and that some of California’s condemned are likely to be innocent.”

Around the country and around the world, the use of the death penalty is in decline. In the U.S., five states in the past five years have ended capital punishment, and more are likely to do so in the near future. The divided vote on Proposition 34 indicates that the machinery of capital punishment may not grind to a halt all at once. But the signs of its demise are clearly on the horizon.

——————————————————————————-

Richard C. Dieter is the Executive Director of the Death Penalty Information Center.

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KILLING & EXECUTION & the question about MISERICORDIA

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/31/donald-moeller-execution-becky-oconnell_n_2048834.html

Donald Moeller Execution: Tina Curl Says Death Of Daughter Becky O’Connell’s Killer Brings Relief

By KRISTI EATON and DIRK LAMMERS 10/31/12 10:29 AM ET EDT reddit stumble fark .

Tina Curl’s daughter, 9-year-old Becky O’Connell, was murdered in 1990.

— Tina Curl was so eager to see her 9-year-old daughter’s killer executed Tuesday night that she couldn’t even take her seat in the witness room.

“I was right up to the glass,” she told The Associated Press after the execution. “I wanted to see it up close.” Donald Moeller, 60, received a lethal injection at the South Dakota State Penitentiary in Sioux Falls on Tuesday night as punishment for the 1990 kidnap, rape and killing of young Becky O’Connell. Curl, who said Moeller’s death brought her relief but not closure, had been steadfast in her wish to watch Moeller die, even raising funds to cover her expenses to make the 1,400-mile trip from her home in New York state to Sioux Falls for the execution. Late Tuesday she said she will never return to South Dakota. Moeller kidnapped Becky from a Sioux Falls convenience store where she’d gone to buy sugar to make lemonade at home. He drove her to a secluded area near the Big Sioux River, then raped and stabbed her. Becky’s naked body was found the next day; investigators said her throat had been slashed. After the execution, Curl showed pictures of Becky at 9 years followed by a framed drawing of how she might have looked had she lived to age 32. Curl said she wanted to know details from Moeller about the crime. She had written to him in prison, but he didn’t respond. She was hoping to get that information Tuesday night in Moeller’s final statement. But when asked if he had any last words, Moeller replied, “No sir,” and then looked up and said, “They’re my fan club?” It’s not clear who Moeller was referring to as his fan club. Moeller then was administered a lethal injection of pentobarbital and took about eight heavy breaths before his breathing stopped and Moeller turned slightly pink. Moeller’s eyes remained open as his skin turned ashen, then purple. The coroner then checked for vital signs, and Moeller was pronounced dead at 10:24 p.m. Gov. Dennis Daugaard said he hoped the execution would bring some peace to Becky’s family and he commended Warden Doug Weber and his staff for their professionalism in planning this state’s second execution in less than a month. “I take no pleasure in his death, but there are those who are so vile that executions are warranted,” Daugaard said in a statement. Moeller initially was convicted in 1992, but the state Supreme Court overturned it, ruling that improper evidence was used at trial. He was again convicted and sentenced to die in 1997. The state Supreme Court affirmed the sentence, and Moeller lost appeals at the state and federal levels. Though he fought his conviction and sentence for years, Moeller said in July he was ready to accept death as the consequence of his actions. He admitted for the first time in court that he killed the girl. But even as Moeller insisted he was ready to die, several motions were filed on his behalf to stop the execution despite his protests. Earlier this month, a federal judge dismissed a pending suit challenging South Dakota’s execution protocol after Moeller insisted he wanted no part of it. Moeller also distanced himself from a motion filed by a woman with loose family ties who argued that his decades in solitary confinement had made him incapable of voluntarily accepting his fate. That motion was dismissed Monday.

Moeller’s execution came just two weeks after the Oct. 15 execution of Eric Robert for killing South Dakota prison guard Ronald “R.J.” Johnson during a failed escape attempt.

Before that, the last execution in South Dakota was in 2007, when Elijah Page died by lethal injection for the murder of Chester Allan Poage, who was abducted and killed in a scheme to burglarize his mother’s home. In 1947, George Sitts was electrocuted for killing two law enforcement officers.

And in 1913, Joseph Rickman was hanged for the murder of a woman and her daughter. They were among 17 inmates executed since 1877, the oldest of which came during the days of the Dakota Territory.

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Donald Moeller + requiescat in pace

St. Joseph Cathedral, Sioux Falls

St. Joseph Cathedral, Sioux Falls (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Circle of Hope – Today, 8:59 AM

  our prayers accompanied You
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“Sometimes I feel like a motherless child…”

TRUE   DEMOCRACY     Summer 2002     TABLE OF CONTENTS

True Story

Framed Twice:
Norman Allen  in New York 

 

 Yard, Attica Photocredit: www.prisonphotography.org/tag/attica

By Arlene Johnson
People easily recognize the name Attica Prison in New York state. Norman Allen was there not because he was guilty but because of his ethnicity. For Norman Allen is an African American.

Here’s the description of the atrocities he underwent while at Attica Prison. “They were hosing us down in our cells with the fire hose in the winter freezing outside and then opening all the windows so we could die. They were jumping on us everyday 10-15 of the 250 pound Hillbilly Rednecks six feet with sticks busting our heads open. They were hanging brothers in their cells just outright murdering us.

This is not what somebody told me; this is what I witnessed okay. I was there in it. They stole our property, ripped up our personal family pictures; I’m talking about some real torture and terrorism here. They murdered some good comrades of mine inside these prisons.

They’re having a field day with this generation now. They have these kids scared to death. They’re raping these kids in Attica. Every time they go to the yard they put them up on the wall and run their hands all between their cheeks. This is done to humiliate, and to see if you’re man enough to come off the wall so they can beat you down. They squeeze their private parts.

Trust me I have broken jaws, ribs, teeth knocked out by these devils, but I have that skin that heals well.”

At Upstate Correctional Facility Norman wrote, “They put glass in my food sis, and I don’t know what else but I bit down on the glass and spit it out, they also have been making comments to one another to determine if I ate and have been checking my tray to see if I ate. So now I must go on a hunger strike. The last couple of days that I ate I have been feeling sick; now the glass tonight confirmed that they have been spiking my food. They get mad as hell any time you write them up for what they do to us but it’s all right when they’re writing us up. Last night they looked at me as though they wanted to kill me. I came in here perfectly healthy.

I heard that they put something in another political brother’s food in Southport [Southport is another correctional facility in New York] and gave him a heart attack.

I don’t know what these cowards put in my food the first couple of days before I got hip [became savvy] to them. But I was having stomach pains a couple of days ago. If they infest me with something and kill me please sis just revenge my death legally. Don’t ever stop pursuing it. Yes, I’m a marked man now, a target. Anytime you’re a writer you’re hated by them.

I have to check daily now when I use the bathroom and see if any blood is in the toilet because I don’t know how long they have been putting this glass in my food. It’s only certain dishes they could have put it in and I don’t remember having a lot of dishes they could have been putting it in until tonight when they had sloppy joes and the first bite I took the glass crunched so I didn’t swallow it; I spit it right in the toilet, washed my mouth out and didn’t eat any more. No wonder the past week I have been having pains by my liver.

Another prisoner told me he wrote a nurse up before I arrived here and then he started having stomach problems as well. He told me he believes they have been putting something in his food and he was asking for a blood test.”

All this occurred to a prisoner who is innocent with the easiest case to rectify except for a lack of money to pay to obtain adequate representation. An eyewitness called 911 which is the emergency telephone system in America to describe the real murderer who is also serving a sentence for the same crime.

The police detectives do not want to admit that they know that Norman Allen is innocent.

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