Sunday, May 08, 2005
People Think That They Have Rights in This Country
For too many African American males, false imprisonment operates as a national means of sociopolitical control. Society tends to stigmatize young African American males, invisible no more, strictly as criminal elements. In “Portraits in Racial Profiling: When Clothes Make the Suspect,” written for the Village Voice in 2000, Peter Noel exposed how “’the felon look’ – that ‘Tupac-thug-for-life’ image – account[s] for a majority of the stops and frisks.” He also noted that whites wearing the same style are rarely criminalized According to one local public defender, the Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) generally casts a broad net to arrest these African American males at an exorbitant rate. Policemen establish charges that can be plea-bargained down but still translate into long sentences. Prosecutors insist on upholding the sentencing guidelines set by Florida legislators, seemingly in violation of the separation of the judicial and legislative branches. Tallahassee’s State Attorney, William Meggs, is known for his aggressive prosecution. As reported by James L. Rosica in 2002 for The Tallahassee Democrat, “State Attorney Willie Meggs' office filed formal charges in 93 percent of 1999 arrests; the statewide average was 77.5 percent.” And jurors are not from among the defendants’ peers. Based on licensed drivers, they derive almost solely from the middle class instead of registered voters.
Christopher Smiley (his name is changed) represents this grim reality. Chris comes from an upstanding family that was changed forever by the wrongful imprisonment of their son, grandson, and nephew. On a sweltering summer day in 2003, he discovered himself charged for grand theft larceny of $100, 000. The charge carries a maximum sentence of thirty years. His girlfriend, a bank courier, apparently, failed to lock her vehicle, allowing someone to abscond with bags containing bank receipts and checks. Of course, no money was being transported. But rather than conducting a full investigation, the TPD focused only on Chris, without any evidence linking him to the bank’s property. Eventually, after perjuring herself, the girlfriend copped a plea, and Chris was left holding the proverbial bag. Writing to the judge, Chris expressed:
Dear, Judge ________
This [is] Christopher Smiley, the young man who [was] sent to trial on the 25th and lose, well first thing first how could ya’ll find a person guilty when there is no witnesses only and she has a perjury charge and also it wasn’t no evidence to link to me. Sir, on the day this happen I really was to my sister-in-law’s house, I was thinking that Mr. ________ was going to put her on the witness stand so she could notify that I was to her house, but he didn’t. I never agreed to nothing when I was at trial, except I said that I wasn’t going on the stand if I would’ve known then I would have gotten up there. Mr. ______, I am innocent of this crime and, if I have to go to prison, I will be back to prove that I am. Sir, I am not a troublemaker or bad I always catch myself in some B.S. if you [know what] I mean. I am not the mastermind behind this. In fact, I never knew nothing about this ‘til I got arrested the first time. Like I said, sir, my sister-in-law and my lover, which is her next-door neighbor, can notify that I was to her house. Sir, you can go check my record and you will not find grand theft or burglary on it because I am not that type of person.
His voice speaks for many presently in the Leon County jail and state prison system due to legal ineptness and misguided justice, not criminal activities. The public defender’s office is deluged with such cases. According to a well-known local criminal attorney, such letters are usually indicative of a defendant who retained poor legal council. Chris wrote his judge four letters. At one point in our history, we would expect this disregard for human rights and liberty from Leon County sheriffs. But today, the TPD defies all the gains of the Civil Rights Era and wantonly creates criminal records by entrapping unsuspecting youth. Of course, I do not equate all prisoners with false incarceration. In 2001, a Citizen Task Force Committed submitted to County Commissioners a report on the “Over-Representation of Black Youth and Adults in the Leon County Jail,” which revealed a nearly 1:4 ratio (white to African Americans). Being the highest of eight Florida counties, I would also project this predatory beast feasts on considerable monetary incentives for the arresting agency. In the Fiscal Year 2004, the Police Department's operating budget totaled $38.7 million dollars. In 2003, it reported an average daily population of 1,035. The TPD, with the unbridled support of the State Attorney’s Office, clutters the jail without regard to the truth behind convictions such as that experienced by Chris.
Mr. Judge ______________
This is Christopher Smiley again writing you to ask you to spare my life from the situation I am in. Mr. _________ I know I haven’t been a perfect person in my life, but everyone make mistakes, but these charges the state have on me is not one of the mistakes I made. Mr. ________ I was on my way to be a successful career man and probably to be an army man as soon as I would of got my G.E.D. I had goals I was trying to achieve, but now I can’t because I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. Sir just because the juror found me guilty really doesn’t mean I am, they don’t even know me not even as a person who has these charges pending on them. I am not a bad person Mr. ________ I’m just trying to straighten my life out. Sir, I will tell you and I will tell the whole world that I am innocent and that I have been lied on by a person who has a perjury charge and cant get her stories right. Sir, if you go back and look at my case she had told the police a million stories and she doesn’t know how to be honest. When I say her I mean _________ __________. She got on the stand and lied on me. The reason why I didn’t get on the stand was Mr. ________ said it wouldn’t be my best entrance [sic]. That’s why I kept saying ‘no’ when you were asking me. I never been to trial on a case before. So I didn’t know what to expect, I was just following my lawyer procedures as told. Before you make the decision on what you going do with me just go back and look at my case and you will wee how I have been framed. Please, Sir, I am innocent and I really need you to help me.
Do not let this melancholic voice go unrequited. The citizens of Tallahassee should call for a moratorium on the sentencing of young African American males arrested by the Tallahasse Police Department for nonviolent crimes to determine those wrongfully accused. Other city and state governances have imposed moratoriums on the use of stun guns (Chicago) and on the issuing of the death penalty (Illinois). We have no reason to feel safe in our homes knowing a general population is being preyed upon by city workers, whose sworn duties are to serve and to protect. As for Chris, he is supposed to be happy with a 48-month prison sentence at a facility where he cannot even earn his G.E.D.
More information:
For Rosica’s article, which bears out much of what is stated here, see www.kri.com/papers/greatstories/tally/justice1.html.
For too many African American males, false imprisonment operates as a national means of sociopolitical control. Society tends to stigmatize young African American males, invisible no more, strictly as criminal elements. In “Portraits in Racial Profiling: When Clothes Make the Suspect,” written for the Village Voice in 2000, Peter Noel exposed how “’the felon look’ – that ‘Tupac-thug-for-life’ image – account[s] for a majority of the stops and frisks.” He also noted that whites wearing the same style are rarely criminalized According to one local public defender, the Tallahassee Police Department (TPD) generally casts a broad net to arrest these African American males at an exorbitant rate. Policemen establish charges that can be plea-bargained down but still translate into long sentences. Prosecutors insist on upholding the sentencing guidelines set by Florida legislators, seemingly in violation of the separation of the judicial and legislative branches. Tallahassee’s State Attorney, William Meggs, is known for his aggressive prosecution. As reported by James L. Rosica in 2002 for The Tallahassee Democrat, “State Attorney Willie Meggs' office filed formal charges in 93 percent of 1999 arrests; the statewide average was 77.5 percent.” And jurors are not from among the defendants’ peers. Based on licensed drivers, they derive almost solely from the middle class instead of registered voters.
Christopher Smiley (his name is changed) represents this grim reality. Chris comes from an upstanding family that was changed forever by the wrongful imprisonment of their son, grandson, and nephew. On a sweltering summer day in 2003, he discovered himself charged for grand theft larceny of $100, 000. The charge carries a maximum sentence of thirty years. His girlfriend, a bank courier, apparently, failed to lock her vehicle, allowing someone to abscond with bags containing bank receipts and checks. Of course, no money was being transported. But rather than conducting a full investigation, the TPD focused only on Chris, without any evidence linking him to the bank’s property. Eventually, after perjuring herself, the girlfriend copped a plea, and Chris was left holding the proverbial bag. Writing to the judge, Chris expressed:
Dear, Judge ________
This [is] Christopher Smiley, the young man who [was] sent to trial on the 25th and lose, well first thing first how could ya’ll find a person guilty when there is no witnesses only and she has a perjury charge and also it wasn’t no evidence to link to me. Sir, on the day this happen I really was to my sister-in-law’s house, I was thinking that Mr. ________ was going to put her on the witness stand so she could notify that I was to her house, but he didn’t. I never agreed to nothing when I was at trial, except I said that I wasn’t going on the stand if I would’ve known then I would have gotten up there. Mr. ______, I am innocent of this crime and, if I have to go to prison, I will be back to prove that I am. Sir, I am not a troublemaker or bad I always catch myself in some B.S. if you [know what] I mean. I am not the mastermind behind this. In fact, I never knew nothing about this ‘til I got arrested the first time. Like I said, sir, my sister-in-law and my lover, which is her next-door neighbor, can notify that I was to her house. Sir, you can go check my record and you will not find grand theft or burglary on it because I am not that type of person.
His voice speaks for many presently in the Leon County jail and state prison system due to legal ineptness and misguided justice, not criminal activities. The public defender’s office is deluged with such cases. According to a well-known local criminal attorney, such letters are usually indicative of a defendant who retained poor legal council. Chris wrote his judge four letters. At one point in our history, we would expect this disregard for human rights and liberty from Leon County sheriffs. But today, the TPD defies all the gains of the Civil Rights Era and wantonly creates criminal records by entrapping unsuspecting youth. Of course, I do not equate all prisoners with false incarceration. In 2001, a Citizen Task Force Committed submitted to County Commissioners a report on the “Over-Representation of Black Youth and Adults in the Leon County Jail,” which revealed a nearly 1:4 ratio (white to African Americans). Being the highest of eight Florida counties, I would also project this predatory beast feasts on considerable monetary incentives for the arresting agency. In the Fiscal Year 2004, the Police Department's operating budget totaled $38.7 million dollars. In 2003, it reported an average daily population of 1,035. The TPD, with the unbridled support of the State Attorney’s Office, clutters the jail without regard to the truth behind convictions such as that experienced by Chris.
Mr. Judge ______________
This is Christopher Smiley again writing you to ask you to spare my life from the situation I am in. Mr. _________ I know I haven’t been a perfect person in my life, but everyone make mistakes, but these charges the state have on me is not one of the mistakes I made. Mr. ________ I was on my way to be a successful career man and probably to be an army man as soon as I would of got my G.E.D. I had goals I was trying to achieve, but now I can’t because I don’t know what’s going to happen to me. Sir just because the juror found me guilty really doesn’t mean I am, they don’t even know me not even as a person who has these charges pending on them. I am not a bad person Mr. ________ I’m just trying to straighten my life out. Sir, I will tell you and I will tell the whole world that I am innocent and that I have been lied on by a person who has a perjury charge and cant get her stories right. Sir, if you go back and look at my case she had told the police a million stories and she doesn’t know how to be honest. When I say her I mean _________ __________. She got on the stand and lied on me. The reason why I didn’t get on the stand was Mr. ________ said it wouldn’t be my best entrance [sic]. That’s why I kept saying ‘no’ when you were asking me. I never been to trial on a case before. So I didn’t know what to expect, I was just following my lawyer procedures as told. Before you make the decision on what you going do with me just go back and look at my case and you will wee how I have been framed. Please, Sir, I am innocent and I really need you to help me.
Do not let this melancholic voice go unrequited. The citizens of Tallahassee should call for a moratorium on the sentencing of young African American males arrested by the Tallahasse Police Department for nonviolent crimes to determine those wrongfully accused. Other city and state governances have imposed moratoriums on the use of stun guns (Chicago) and on the issuing of the death penalty (Illinois). We have no reason to feel safe in our homes knowing a general population is being preyed upon by city workers, whose sworn duties are to serve and to protect. As for Chris, he is supposed to be happy with a 48-month prison sentence at a facility where he cannot even earn his G.E.D.
More information:
For Rosica’s article, which bears out much of what is stated here, see www.kri.com/papers/greatstories/tally/justice1.html.
# posted by Power2People @ 6:45 PM 
