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Ferguson Cop Darren Wilson Is Just the Latest to Go Unprosecuted for a Fatal Shooting

by Nan2817kwcxkqfc Posted on November 25, 2014

Mother Jones

After weeks of rising tension in Ferguson and the broader St. Louis region, the St. Louis County grand jury reviewing the death of Michael Brown has decided not to indict Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who shot and killed Brown on August 9. Reported leaks during the grand jury proceedings suggested there would be no indictment—and that outcome fits a long-standing pattern. Few police officers who shoot and kill citizens in St. Louis have been investigated by a grand jury, let alone charged by one, according to data from city and county prosecutors.

More MoJo coverage of the Michael Brown police shooting


10 Hours in Ferguson: A Visual Timeline of Michael Brown’s Death and Its Aftermath


Michael Brown’s Mom Laid Flowers Where He Was Shot—and Police Crushed Them


Exactly How Often Do Police Shoot Unarmed Black Men?


The Ferguson Shooting and the Science of Race and Guns


How Many Ways Can the City of Ferguson Slap You With Court Fees? We Counted


Here’s Why the Feds Are Investigating Ferguson

Between 2004 and 2014, there have been 14 fatal officer-involved shootings committed by St. Louis County PD officers alone, according to police data collected by David Klinger, a criminologist at the University of Missouri-St. Louis. That does not include fatal shootings by Ferguson police or by officers from various other law enforcement agencies within the county. Many officer-involved fatalities likely were not subject to grand jury investigations because they were deemed justified by police internal affairs or the local prosecutor’s office, Klinger says. Since 2000, only four cases in all of St. Louis County, including Wilson’s, have been investigated by a grand jury, according to a spokesperson for St. Louis County prosecutor Robert McCulloch’s office. McCulloch’s office declined to provide details to Mother Jones on the three other cases, which it says are closed.

In September, Heather Cole of Missouri Lawyers Weekly used news reports to identify five grand jury investigations of officer-involved fatalities prior to Wilson’s that took place during McCulloch’s tenure, which began in 1991. As with Wilson’s case, none led to an indictment:

Missouri Lawyers Weekly

McCulloch’s record and family ties to the police force sparked controversy in the wake of Brown’s death.

Statistics from the City of St. Louis paint a similar picture: A total of 39 people were fatally shot by police officers between 2003 and 2012; according to the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s office, only one police officer has been indicted in such a case since 2000, and that officer was acquitted.

Roger Goldman, an expert on criminal procedure and constitutional law at the Saint Louis University School of Law, says that a long-standing Missouri statute gives police officers wide latitude to shoot to kill. The law states they are justified in doing so if they “reasonably believe” their target “has committed or attempted to commit a felony” and deadly force is “immediately necessary to effect the arrest.” According to Goldman, the existence of this law—despite a 1985 Supreme Court ruling suggesting it may be unconstitutional—is one reason why “it’s particularly difficult to get grand juries to indict or prosecutors to even take the case to the grand jury in the first place.”

But with a case like Wilson’s, weeks of high-profile public protests likely pressured the prosecutor’s office to present a case to a grand jury, says Delores Jones-Brown, a law professor at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. “This way the prosecutor cannot be accused of having made a unilateral biased decision.” Still, the prosecutor has a lot of sway in how a case is presented to the grand jury, she noted.

Prior to the decision in Wilson’s case, McCulloch said he would seek to release transcripts and audio from the grand jury investigation if it resulted in no indictment for Wilson. But it remains unclear whether a circuit court judge will approve that request for transparency.

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Ferguson Cop Darren Wilson Is Just the Latest to Go Unprosecuted for a Fatal Shooting

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"I Could Krushchev You": 9 Shocking Allegations From the Don Blankenship Indictment

by WVTJoannevapufa Posted on November 14, 2014

Mother Jones

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Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship was indicted by a federal grand jury on Thursday, more than four years after an explosion at his company’s Upper Big Branch Mine killed 29 coal miners. The four-count indictment alleges that Blankenship “conspired to commit and cause routine violations of mandatory federal mine safety standards” in order to “produce more coal, avoid the costs of following safety laws, and make more money.” (Blankenship was also indicted for allegedly making false statements to the Securities and Exchange Commission.)

Blankenship, characteristically, is not backing down. In a statement, his attorney, William Taylor, said that “Mr. Blankenship is entirely innocent of these charges. He will fight them and he will be acquitted.” Taylor called Blankenship “a tireless advocate for mine safety” and argued the prosecution had been triggered by Blankenship’s “outspoken criticism of powerful bureaucrats.”

But the 43-page indictment tells a different story—in which Massey employees devised secret codes to thwart safety inspectors, and workers risked drowning while laboring in flooded mines that lacked even the minimum safety precautions.

Here are some allegations from the indictment:

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"I Could Krushchev You": 9 Shocking Allegations From the Don Blankenship Indictment

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Republican Agenda Starts to Take Shape

by EmiliaSawtell Posted on November 10, 2014

Mother Jones

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Reading between the lines, I gather that Republicans are starting to coalesce around a legislative agenda to celebrate their recent midterm victory:

Ban abortions after 20 weeks.
Wipe out all of Obama’s new and pending EPA regulations.
Repeal Obamacare bit by bit.
Figure out a way to obstruct Loretta Lynch’s nomination as Attorney General.

Oh, there’s still some desultory happy talk about tax reform and fast-track trade authority and other “areas of agreement,” but that seems to be fading out. Poking a stick in President Obama’s eye is very quickly becoming the order of the day.

And no reason not to, I suppose. Republicans won, after all. But they shouldn’t be surprised if Obama continues to plan to poke back.

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Republican Agenda Starts to Take Shape

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Gov. Susana Martinez’s Emails Have Mysteriously Disappeared

by RenatoRosenberg Posted on September 24, 2014

Mother Jones

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One of the central themes in my April cover story about New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, a rising star in the Republican Party touted as a potential vice presidential candidate, was the paranoia displayed by Martinez’s 2010 gubernatorial campaign. Here’s one of the juiciest nuggets illustrating this behavior:

Martinez’s 2010 crew saw enemies everywhere. A former staffer recalls the campaign on multiple occasions sending the license plate numbers of cars believed to be used by opposition trackers to an investigator in Martinez’s DA office who had access to law enforcement databases. In one instance, a campaign aide took a photo of a license plate on a car with an anti-Martinez bumper sticker and emailed it to the investigator. “Cool I will see who it belongs to!!” the investigator replied.

After my story went live and the Santa Fe Reporter published its own report on the license plate controversy, the Democratic Party of New Mexico filed an open-records request with the state’s Third Judicial District Attorney’s Office, which Martinez ran as DA before becoming governor in 2011. The Democrats asked for emails spanning August to December 2010 written by Martinez; Amy Orlando, a close friend who was Martinez’s chief deputy DA and then briefly succeeded her as DA; and a senior investigator in the DA’s office. The Democrats also asked for all correspondence to and from employees of Martinez’s DA office relating to her 2010 gubernatorial campaign, and any correspondence from August to December 2010 mentioning the words “Diane Denish,” “Denish,” and “license plate.” (Diane Denish was Martinez’s 2010 Democratic opponent.)

On Tuesday, Mark D’Antonio, the current DA in New Mexico’s Third Judicial District, released the findings of an internal investigation that concluded that large amounts of emails—potentially including those sought by the Democrats—had been “deleted and/or removed” during the period when the office was briefly run by Orlando, Martinez’s onetime deputy. Two of the four hard drives used by Orlando’s administration—hard drives that might have contained the requested emails—were missing. And investigators noted that all emails in the DA’s office were supposed to be backed up by a “special tape drive” in the office, but the back-up tapes were “blank and appear to have been erased.”

The report also noted that, under Orlando, the DA’s office misled a reporter who’d made his own request for similar records. The DA’s office told the reporter that the records he wanted didn’t exist because the office’s server “is routinely cleaned.” But after interviewing IT staffers, investigators concluded this statement “was inaccurate because IT personnel stated that servers were not routinely ‘cleaned’ and that the data should exist on a server.”

Orlando, who is now general counsel at the New Mexico Department of Public Safety, did not respond to a request for comment. She told the Albuquerque Journal that the report was an “amateurish political stunt on the eve of an election” filled with “baseless innuendos.” Martinez’s office did not respond to a request for comment. The investigative report was not a criminal investigation, and none of its claims constitute criminal wrongdoing.

The report also turned up evidence of troubling behavior by Orlando. Of the few emails dug up by investigators, one exchange showed Orlando trying to thwart D’Antonio, who replaced her as DA starting in 2013, from applying for and receiving several hundred thousand dollars in grant funding for DA operations. “Don’t leave ANY notes about how to do it!! Please,” Orlando wrote to a colleague in the DA’s office. Investigators call this “a conspiracy to actively deny Dona Ana County and related law enforcement agencies with much needed grant money.”

In a September 2010 email, Orlando asked the tech staff in the DA’s office to change the access level to her calendar and to obfuscate the reason why. “I need the people that have access to my calendar changed. But I need it done quietly. Please get with senior investigator Kip Scarborough and he will explain. And we will need to say that a virus or something happened.”

In an August 2010 email addressed to Orlando, a staffer in the DA’s office appears to admit to forging then-DA Martinez’s name on an affidavit relating to a hotel bill. “I had to fill out an affidavit that SM had to sign (forgery), and fax to the Hyatt to get her hotel bill.”

And in a November 2010 email, Orlando makes a snide remark about the planning for Martinez’s upcoming inaugural ball (she was then the governor-elect). Apparently relaying Martinez’s wishes about the theme of the ball, Orlando wrote to a party planner (whose name is redacted): “She wants it blk and white w a hint of Susan Komen color pink!”

Orlando added: “No mexican affair!!”

Read the full report:

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Gov. Susana Martinez’s Emails Have Mysteriously Disappeared

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The Majesty of the Law, Rare Wine Edition

by ElviraChilders Posted on August 9, 2014

Mother Jones

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Rudy Kurniawan is a rare wine dealer who was convicted of defrauding his billionaire clients by pouring cheap wine into faked-up bottles and pawning them off as rare vintages. Yesterday he was sentenced to 10 years in prison despite his attorney’s plea for leniency:

“Nobody died,” Mr. Mooney said. “Nobody lost their job. Nobody lost their savings.”

Judge Richard M. Berman interrupted him to ask, “Is the principle that if you’re rich, then the person who did the defrauding shouldn’t be punished?”

Stanley J. Okula Jr., a federal prosecutor, said it was “quite shocking” that Mr. Mooney was arguing for a different standard for those who have defrauded rich people. “Fraud is fraud,” he said. “There is no distinction in the guidelines, or in logic, for treating it differently.”

Quite right. As we all know, the law treats the rich and the poor equally. And the rich especially equally.

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The Majesty of the Law, Rare Wine Edition

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33 Years Ago: Reagan Goes Union-Busting, Fires 11,000 Striking Air Traffic Controllers

by CorrineFaulding Posted on August 5, 2014

Mother Jones

A group of uniformed men, who acknowledged they were military air traffic controllers, stand at the door which leads to the tower of Washington’s National Airport, as a guard rises to let them in. The Reagan administration claims its firings of striking air traffic controllers have broken the strike, partly due to the work of military controllers. Jeff Taylor/AP

Just days after members of the Professional Air Traffic Controls Organization (PATCO) went on strike, President Ronald Reagan declared the strike illegal under the Taft-Hartley act. Reagan ordered the 13,000 striking air traffic controllers to return to work within 48 hours. On August 5, 1981 Reagan fired over 11,000 workers who refused to return to work. PATCO, who supported Reagan in the 1980 election, was decertified as a union and the fired workers were banned from holding federal jobs ever again. It took the FAA close to ten years to return staffing to its normal level. Some former air traffic employees were eventually rehired. Military air traffic controllers also worked as replacements until new controllers could be trained. In 1993 Bill Clinton lifted the civil service ban on former strikers.

President Reagan with US Attorney General William French Smith making a statement to the press regarding the air traffic controllers strike from the Rose Garden. White House Photo/Ronald Reagan Library

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33 Years Ago: Reagan Goes Union-Busting, Fires 11,000 Striking Air Traffic Controllers

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Why’s This Tea Party PAC Going After a Top Tea Partier?

by JoyPostbtocen Posted on August 5, 2014

Mother Jones

Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-Kan.) just wanted to get rid of a program good-government advocates consider corporate welfare. He ended up in the tea party’s crosshairs instead.

Since last week, voters in Kansas’ first congressional district—covering the western part of the state—have been flooded with ads blasting the second-term incumbent for co-sponsoring a bill in April that would eliminate a federal mandate that gasoline include ethanol. “Washington, DC, sure has changed Tim Huelskamp,” Tom Willis, an agribusiness CEO from Liberal, Kansas, says in one ad.

The ad was paid for by Now or Never PAC, a conservative super-PAC that has spent more than $8 million since 2012 in support of tea party candidates. Huelskamp, who once compared the Obamacare rollout to Hurricane Katrina and proposed impeaching Attorney General Eric Holder over his refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, is the kind of candidate Now or Never PAC would traditionally get behind. Instead, in the week leading up to Tuesday’s congressional primary, Now or Never has spent $260,000 hammering Huelskamp—and in the process, propping up his opponent, Alan LaPolice, a little-known Army vet and onetime actor who has lived in the district full-time for only a year.

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Why’s This Tea Party PAC Going After a Top Tea Partier?

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Yet Another Man With a Gun Just Murdered His Wife and Children

by LQVDeangelo Posted on July 30, 2014

Mother Jones

In Saco, Maine on Saturday night, 33-year-old Joel Smith used a pump-action shotgun to kill his 35-year-old wife, Heather Smith, his 12-year-old stepson, and the couple’s two biological children, a 7-year-old boy and a 4-year-old girl, before turning the gun on himself. The horrific scene was discovered on Sunday morning after a concerned family friend called the apartment complex where the Smith family lived and asked a maintenance worker to check on them. In a statement to the media, a Maine State Police official called the mass shooting “one of the worst cases of domestic violence in Maine’s history.”

As we reported in the wake of a mass shooting in Texas earlier this month, domestic violence and guns are a frightening combination: A woman’s chances of being killed by her abuser increase more than fivefold if he has access to a gun. And most fatal violence between intimate partners across the United States involves firearms. (Here are just a few examples from the past few months.)

A photo of Heather Smith, left, and her sons from one of her Facebook albums Facebook

The night before the shooting, Heather Smith told a friend that her husband had threatened suicide earlier in the week, pointing a gun to his head, according to the Portland Press Herald. Joel Smith’s mother, Jerys Thorpe, told the Herald that she’d long been trying to get her son to see a therapist for his depression. “His mind was just gone, he had to be,” she said, regarding the murder-suicide. Research shows a strong correlation between suicidal thoughts and deadly domestic violence. As Maine Attorney General Janet Mills put it in a statement on Monday: “Recognizing the signs of abuse—and acting upon them—is key to preventing future tragedies like this.”

Police investigators also said that the couple had been struggling with “domestic issues,” including financial problems, but that they were aware of no protective court orders or history of abuse regarding the couple, who moved to Maine from Arizona about three years ago. But even if there had been such a history with the legal system, it’s likely that Smith still would have been able to possess a gun, because state and federal laws generally do a poor job of keeping firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers. Most state laws overlook various groups of men who potentially pose a threat, including misdemeanant stalkers, abusive dating partners, and subjects of temporary restraining orders. And Maine is no exception—its laws are among the more lax, as this chart shows:

Moreover, data suggests that states with weaker gun laws regarding domestic abusers see more murders among intimate partners involving guns.

Three federal bills aimed at addressing these problems—opposed by the National Rifle Association—are currently stalled in Congress. But a handful of states have passed tougher laws this year, in part due to lobbying by groups such as Everytown for Gun Safety, and the issue may now be rising on Washington’s radar: On Wednesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee holds its first-ever hearing on domestic violence and guns.

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Yet Another Man With a Gun Just Murdered His Wife and Children

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Migrant Kids Need a Good Lawyer. But Who’s Gonna Pay?

by LakeshaBabin Posted on July 9, 2014

Mother Jones

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As the Obama administration continues to grapple with the humanitarian crisis surrounding unaccompanied immigrant children, some have suggested processing the children faster and moving them quickly through the immigration courts. One problem: The vast majority don’t have lawyers. The ACLU and several other groups, including the American Immigration Council, filed a lawsuit Wednesday to force the government to provide these kids with counsel as they deal with the wildly complex immigration system.

More MoJo coverage of the surge of unaccompanied child migrants from Central America.


70,000 Kids Will Show Up Alone at Our Border This Year. What Happens to Them?


What’s Next for the Children We Deport?


This Is Where the Government Houses the Tens of Thousands of Kids Who Get Caught Crossing the Border


Map: These Are the Places Central American Child Migrants Are Fleeing


4 Reasons Why Border Agents Shouldn’t Get to Decide Whether Child Migrants Can Stay in the US

The ACLU’s suit represents eight children, ages 10 to 17, from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Mexico, but is also trying to force representation for the thousands of children who go through the same thing each year. The suit alleges that the children are being deprived of due process, citing previous case law ruling that children should have legal representation in legal matters. A 2014 report (PDF) from the University of California-Hastings and Kids in Need of Defense argues, “Without counsel, the children are unlikely to understand the complex procedures they face and the options and remedies that may be available to them under the law.”

Part of Obama’s $3.7 billion plan to address immigration issues is to provide $15 million to fund legal representation for unaccompanied children. (Notably, a 2012 report said that 40 percent of them were eligible for some sort of deportation relief.) The government says it’s also trying to recruit lawyers and paralegals to help these children, but according to Ahilan Arulanantham, the deputy legal director of the ACLU of Southern California and the senior staff attorney for the ACLU’s Immigrants’ Rights Project, “it’s pretty clear that it’s not enough.”

“Obviously, we’re happy the government is trying to do more, but this is entirely within government control,” Arulanantham says. “These are complex cases, and the question at the core isn’t about money. The question is about whether it’s fair to have them present their cases on their own.”

US Attorney General Eric Holder—a named defendant in the case—seems to agree, saying in March 2013 that it is “inexcusable that young kids…six-, seven-year-olds, 14-year-olds—have immigration decisions made on their behalf, against them…and they’re not represented by counsel.” More than a year later, though, unaccompanied kids still struggle to find pro bono legal representation, either because they and their families can’t afford it or there is simply none available.

One child mentioned in the complaint, a 10-year-old boy from El Salvador, watched his father get killed by gang members in front of his house, and was threatened by that same gang a few years later at the age of nine. Another, a 14-year-old girl from El Salvador, was also threatened by gang members after her uncle, a police officer, refused to supply gang members with supplies.

“I wish we could have a judge or a government attorney question her about her case and about how immigration law works,” Arulanantham says. “It’s laughable.”

Read the full complaint below:

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Unaccompanied children lawsuit ACLU (PDF)

Unaccompanied children lawsuit ACLU (Text)

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Migrant Kids Need a Good Lawyer. But Who’s Gonna Pay?

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The Red Cross Won’t Say How It Spent Sandy Money

by ChristoLardner Posted on June 27, 2014

Mother Jones

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This story first appeared on the ProPublica website.

Just how badly does the American Red Cross want to keep secret how it raised and spent over $300 million after Hurricane Sandy?

The charity has hired a fancy law firm to fight a public request we filed with New York state, arguing that information about its Sandy activities is a “trade secret.”

The Red Cross’ “trade secret” argument has persuaded the state to redact some material, though it’s not clear yet how much since the documents haven’t yet been released.

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The Red Cross Won’t Say How It Spent Sandy Money

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