[Update]:Today is election day in the LMJC, and while House has no opposition and will be returned to the bench, there is a choice for district attorney. While I don't know Doug Woodruff and have not followed his campaign, nonetheless Buzz Franklin needs to be replaced if for no other reason than to send a message that people like him do not belong in public office.
This is not an official endorsement of Woodruff, but consider it to be an official Non-Endorsement of Buzz Franklin. That man does not deserve a single voter, period. [End Update]
In 1990 I was a jury foreman in a civil case in Walker County. The jury found for the plaintiff and afterward, the defense attorney and I had a long conversation about the strengths and weaknesses of his case.
Likewise, prosecutors often will speak to jurors after a verdict, be it guilty or not guilty. Prosecutors like to know what they did right -- and what they did wrong.
However, following the Craft verdict no prosecutor spoke to a juror. In fact, some of the jurors actually attempted to contact Buzz Franklin's office in order to be able to speak to either Chris "Cruisemaster" Arnt or Len "the man" Gregor. No one in that office was interested in speaking to a juror despite the opportunity.
This is highly suspicious. I have known prosecutors who believed they had a good case and lost, and they wanted to know why. In this case, Franklin even put out a statement after the trial attacking the jury and making a claim that Arnt and Gregor had put on a "compelling case for conviction." Now, if these men really believed Craft was guilty and that they had presented a great case to jurors, then I am sure they would have wanted to know what went wrong.
Instead, they continued to claim jury misconduct and lamented a child molester being set free. In other words, they continued to lie.
Lying is something that both Buzz Franklin and "judge" Brian Outhouse do, and they do it with ease. Outhouse, when confronted about a piddly thing like a campaign sign, lied to Channel 3 News. In other words, he could not even tell the truth about a small thing.
One hopes that the voters of the LMJC have had enough of these two miscreants. Franklin not only lied in his press release after the Tonya Craft acquittal, but he also refused to meet with any Craft jurors to find out just why they disagreed with him and the "compelling case for conviction."
If the LMJC voters do re-elect Franklin and Outhouse, they will be making a statement that they prefer dishonesty to honesty. Also, they had better hope that they don't fall into the system the way that Tonya Craft, James Combs, Brad Wade, and others have done, for they will find out the hard way that there are no honest people employed in the LMJC, or if they are honest, they are quite silent.
Showing posts with label Tonya Craft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tonya Craft. Show all posts
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Another Big Lie from the Authorities: Innocent People Don't Plead Guilty
Ten years ago, Brian Banks, a high school football star from Los Angeles with a promising future, pleaded "no contest" to raping and kidnapping classmate Wanetta Gibson in a school stairwell. Despite the evidence to the contrary, Banks' attorney advised the youngster to plead "no contest" (which essentially is a guilty plea) with the assurance that he only would get 18 months, as opposed to a possible 41 years if he was found guilty.
Banks and his family did the math and he pleaded, and five years later, he still was in prison. After being released, the girl finally admitted to having lied, but did not want to publicly admit the truth because her mother had sued the Los Angeles School District and got $1.5 million. Having essentially stolen the money in the first place, they did not want to be faced with giving it back.
The various news stories have turned it into something in the human interest category, as though it were a heart-warming account instead of the cold-blooded lie that essentially took a young man's life from him. As I see it, the media is missing the real story, which is this: the entire system of "justice" in California, despite huge holes in the girl's story, was ready to assume that she was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Why? As in the Duke Lacrosse Case, the various players in the system discarded forensic evidence, timelines, and the very Laws of Time and Space to rush to a judgement of GUILTY, but the rush is not simply a psychological event, but also a legal one, and one can trace a lot of the rush to federal law, and specifically the Violence Against Women Act.
In 1974, Congress passed the Mondale Act and the ultimate result was a huge rash of cases in which authorities were REQUIRED to rush to judgment no matter how outlandish the charges of child abuse and molestation. The Mondale Act and Violence Against Women Act were similar pieces of legislation, in that they promised federal help and money (lots of money) to states that were aggressive in pursuing child abuse/molestation charges and charges of rape and sexual assault against women.
Besides the money, Congress also stipulated that states change how they approach due process and how they viewed evidence. Before the VAWA, for example, many states required that with rape charges, there also be corroborating evidence because it was too easy for people to make false accusations. In order to be in compliance with both the VAWA and the Mondale Act, however, states had to just accept the word of a "victim," no matter how outlandish or dishonest the story might have been. In the Wonderland of federal law, the accusation alone is all the proof the authorities need for conviction.
To the feds and all of the activists that were behind these laws, no story would be considered outlandish, because everyone knew that all men were rapists or potential rapists and that all parents actually were secret child molesters (or at least those parents and men who did not have the proper political connections). We know the results, and they are ugly.
To the Progressive mindset that is behind the modern governing philosophy, both child abuse/molestation and rape were "epidemic" until Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice stepped in to put an end to the violence. Thus, any criticism of these laws or any attempt to restore due process of law or to demand that the rules of evidence actually require real evidence is seen as an attack on women and children.
Without the Mondale Act, there is no McMartin Case, no Little Rascals, no Tonya Craft, and no Creative Frontiers. There is no rash of false accusations of abuse/molestation in child custody cases, no Joal Henke and his "I just remembered" perjury, and James Combs does not plead guilty to a felony for something he never did.
Without the VAWA, there is no Duke Lacrosse Case because the investigation would have been very, very different. And Brian Banks would not have spent five years in prison, and thousands -- yes, thousands -- of other people would not have been falsely accused.
In the United States today, defendants face mountains of charges, courtesy of how prosecutors operate, so that conviction on any one of them can result in decades in prison. People come to understand that the system is stacked against them and that in this country, neither judges nor prosecutors nor those that govern consider innocence to be a legitimate defense.
Despite what one might see on the various "CSI" shows or see on TV or the movies, police no longer do real investigations. In cases of accused rape, sexual assault, child molestation or child abuse, police ARE REQUIRED BY LAW to "investigate" as though the charges are true, which means the bias always is toward "proving" guilt. One should not be at all surprised that this federally-mandated method of "investigation" bleeds off into other cases such as robbery and murder, which guarantees not only that there will be a spate of wrongful convictions, but also that the system will be utterly biased toward keeping such convictions from being overturned, no matter how obvious it might be that the defendants were railroaded.
As for Brian Banks, a number of people engaged in criminal behavior, beginning with Wanetta Gibson. However, the police and prosecutors engaged in false accusations and false charges, people lied to a grand jury that indicted, and prosecutors lied in court. Banks' attorney encouraged him to accept an outcome at odds with justice, and Gibson and her mother stole more than a million dollars from taxpayers, as did their attorney, who got at least a half-million dollars from the theft.
Unfortunately, false pleas are not limited to just these kinds of cases. I have a good friend who pleaded guilty to a number of things that both he and the prosecutors knew he did not do, but did so because had he not done so, prosecutors would have brought vague charges against him in the federal court in Washington, D.C., and he being a Jewish Republican, did not want to face a jury of mostly African-American Democrats.
That is the system we now have, and it cannot and will not be fixed. No "reforms" will work because too many people make too much money and the voices of justice and responsibility are drowned out by those who dominate our political and legal institutions.
Banks and his family did the math and he pleaded, and five years later, he still was in prison. After being released, the girl finally admitted to having lied, but did not want to publicly admit the truth because her mother had sued the Los Angeles School District and got $1.5 million. Having essentially stolen the money in the first place, they did not want to be faced with giving it back.
The various news stories have turned it into something in the human interest category, as though it were a heart-warming account instead of the cold-blooded lie that essentially took a young man's life from him. As I see it, the media is missing the real story, which is this: the entire system of "justice" in California, despite huge holes in the girl's story, was ready to assume that she was telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.
Why? As in the Duke Lacrosse Case, the various players in the system discarded forensic evidence, timelines, and the very Laws of Time and Space to rush to a judgement of GUILTY, but the rush is not simply a psychological event, but also a legal one, and one can trace a lot of the rush to federal law, and specifically the Violence Against Women Act.
In 1974, Congress passed the Mondale Act and the ultimate result was a huge rash of cases in which authorities were REQUIRED to rush to judgment no matter how outlandish the charges of child abuse and molestation. The Mondale Act and Violence Against Women Act were similar pieces of legislation, in that they promised federal help and money (lots of money) to states that were aggressive in pursuing child abuse/molestation charges and charges of rape and sexual assault against women.
Besides the money, Congress also stipulated that states change how they approach due process and how they viewed evidence. Before the VAWA, for example, many states required that with rape charges, there also be corroborating evidence because it was too easy for people to make false accusations. In order to be in compliance with both the VAWA and the Mondale Act, however, states had to just accept the word of a "victim," no matter how outlandish or dishonest the story might have been. In the Wonderland of federal law, the accusation alone is all the proof the authorities need for conviction.
To the feds and all of the activists that were behind these laws, no story would be considered outlandish, because everyone knew that all men were rapists or potential rapists and that all parents actually were secret child molesters (or at least those parents and men who did not have the proper political connections). We know the results, and they are ugly.
To the Progressive mindset that is behind the modern governing philosophy, both child abuse/molestation and rape were "epidemic" until Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice stepped in to put an end to the violence. Thus, any criticism of these laws or any attempt to restore due process of law or to demand that the rules of evidence actually require real evidence is seen as an attack on women and children.
Without the Mondale Act, there is no McMartin Case, no Little Rascals, no Tonya Craft, and no Creative Frontiers. There is no rash of false accusations of abuse/molestation in child custody cases, no Joal Henke and his "I just remembered" perjury, and James Combs does not plead guilty to a felony for something he never did.
Without the VAWA, there is no Duke Lacrosse Case because the investigation would have been very, very different. And Brian Banks would not have spent five years in prison, and thousands -- yes, thousands -- of other people would not have been falsely accused.
In the United States today, defendants face mountains of charges, courtesy of how prosecutors operate, so that conviction on any one of them can result in decades in prison. People come to understand that the system is stacked against them and that in this country, neither judges nor prosecutors nor those that govern consider innocence to be a legitimate defense.
Despite what one might see on the various "CSI" shows or see on TV or the movies, police no longer do real investigations. In cases of accused rape, sexual assault, child molestation or child abuse, police ARE REQUIRED BY LAW to "investigate" as though the charges are true, which means the bias always is toward "proving" guilt. One should not be at all surprised that this federally-mandated method of "investigation" bleeds off into other cases such as robbery and murder, which guarantees not only that there will be a spate of wrongful convictions, but also that the system will be utterly biased toward keeping such convictions from being overturned, no matter how obvious it might be that the defendants were railroaded.
As for Brian Banks, a number of people engaged in criminal behavior, beginning with Wanetta Gibson. However, the police and prosecutors engaged in false accusations and false charges, people lied to a grand jury that indicted, and prosecutors lied in court. Banks' attorney encouraged him to accept an outcome at odds with justice, and Gibson and her mother stole more than a million dollars from taxpayers, as did their attorney, who got at least a half-million dollars from the theft.
Unfortunately, false pleas are not limited to just these kinds of cases. I have a good friend who pleaded guilty to a number of things that both he and the prosecutors knew he did not do, but did so because had he not done so, prosecutors would have brought vague charges against him in the federal court in Washington, D.C., and he being a Jewish Republican, did not want to face a jury of mostly African-American Democrats.
That is the system we now have, and it cannot and will not be fixed. No "reforms" will work because too many people make too much money and the voices of justice and responsibility are drowned out by those who dominate our political and legal institutions.
Monday, May 14, 2012
Channel 3, which provided the best coverage of the Tonya Craft case and trial (as opposed to Channel 9, which kissed the posteriors of Chris Arnt, Len Gregor, Tim Deal, Brian House, Sandra Lamb, and Joal Henke and called it "news"), has run an interview with Tonya on the second anniversary of the "not guilty" verdict against her.
As Tonya notes so well, the people who broke the law, committed perjury, and Brian House, who tried to rig the trial, have not been held accountable. Sandra Lamb has enrolled her daughter at Girls Preparatory School, which places every teacher there in danger, given that Lamb and her actress child have no scruples against lying when someone makes them mad.
Joal Henke committed perjury in Judge Marie Williams' court and Hamilton County DA Bill Cox ignored the felony committed in the building where he works. Henke also admited under oath to mortgage fraud, but apparently the U.S. attorney in Chattanooga was too busy pursuing non-crimes to deal with a felon in his midst.
As I see it, the Tonya Craft case presents a perfect picture of "justice" in Northwest Georgia and Hamilton County. The authorities there will move heaven and earth to pursue false charges and to prop up lies and even suborn perjury, but apparently they are incapable of actually going against people who commit real crimes.
By the way, I noticed that that alleged rape at East Ridge Middle School was a hoax, and that was what I thought when I first read the article. Notice that the rape crisis center along with Child Protective Services AND the police were involved. And how much does one wish to bet that the people at the rape crisis center and CPS believed the girl from the beginning?
What we have is a system out of control. Government agencies are full of people who will believe lie after lie and pursue the innocent. It does not just happen in the Chattanooga area, but from what I can tell, Northwest Georgia and Hamilton County are pretty hopeless when it comes to "justice."
As Tonya notes so well, the people who broke the law, committed perjury, and Brian House, who tried to rig the trial, have not been held accountable. Sandra Lamb has enrolled her daughter at Girls Preparatory School, which places every teacher there in danger, given that Lamb and her actress child have no scruples against lying when someone makes them mad.
Joal Henke committed perjury in Judge Marie Williams' court and Hamilton County DA Bill Cox ignored the felony committed in the building where he works. Henke also admited under oath to mortgage fraud, but apparently the U.S. attorney in Chattanooga was too busy pursuing non-crimes to deal with a felon in his midst.
As I see it, the Tonya Craft case presents a perfect picture of "justice" in Northwest Georgia and Hamilton County. The authorities there will move heaven and earth to pursue false charges and to prop up lies and even suborn perjury, but apparently they are incapable of actually going against people who commit real crimes.
By the way, I noticed that that alleged rape at East Ridge Middle School was a hoax, and that was what I thought when I first read the article. Notice that the rape crisis center along with Child Protective Services AND the police were involved. And how much does one wish to bet that the people at the rape crisis center and CPS believed the girl from the beginning?
What we have is a system out of control. Government agencies are full of people who will believe lie after lie and pursue the innocent. It does not just happen in the Chattanooga area, but from what I can tell, Northwest Georgia and Hamilton County are pretty hopeless when it comes to "justice."
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Justice for James? Certainly not in the LMJC or Hamilton County
Honest and decent people do live in the United States, but they no longer work in the "justice" system. Instead, we are seeing a system that is populated with liars, criminals, bullies, and people who have no place in a decent society.
If there is any place in the USSA where that especially is true, it is in the heavily-churched and supposedly "Christian" area of Northwest Georgia, the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit. On Sundays, many of the players in the LMJC go to church and sing about Jesus, and then the rest of the week, they worship their real god, the Devil.
Why do I wrote so graphically? Let me quote Jesus (whom Brian House and Tim Deal claim to worship) who told the Pharisees in John 8:44:
All of this leads me to the present situation of James Combs, who agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor in House's court because, to be frank, he could not trust House to run a fair trial, Norton and Deal to tell the truth, and a Catoosa County jury to listen to evidence. That is a damning indictment upon the people of Catoosa County and Northwest Georgia, who have put these people into power.
From what I have been hearing, Deal and Norton have tried to get James listed as a "sex offender" in Tennessee (where he lives and will be under probationary supervision) even though the misdemeanor to which he pleaded guilty does not carry the "sex offender" label. Nonetheless, dishonesty rules not only in Catoosa County and the LMJC, but also in Hamilton County, home of gang warfare, brutal (and dishonest) cops, and prosecutors who look the other way when felonies are committed in front of them.
From what I also understand, local cops are constantly harassing the Combs family. What can I say except that this kind of behavior from those who wear the blue costumes can be expected.
When Joal Henke testified in October 2010 in Hamilton County Circuit Court (Judge Marie Williams), he committed perjury and then admitted to having committed mortgage fraud, which is a federal offense. In fact, today, I just signed a paper in which I acknowledged that mortgage fraud is a felony punishable up to 30 years in prison.
So, Henke committed two felonies in Hamilton County, one a state crime and the other federal. But does Bill Cox or the local U.S. attorney care? Well, of course not! Why pursue criminals when one can harass and imprison innocent people?
If people wonder why I am so cynical about Chattanooga and North Georgia, all I can say is to look at the liars and thugs that inhabit "law enforcement" and "justice." I continue to wonder if there are any decent people left in public life in my old hometown, but I am having my doubts.
If there is any place in the USSA where that especially is true, it is in the heavily-churched and supposedly "Christian" area of Northwest Georgia, the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit. On Sundays, many of the players in the LMJC go to church and sing about Jesus, and then the rest of the week, they worship their real god, the Devil.
Why do I wrote so graphically? Let me quote Jesus (whom Brian House and Tim Deal claim to worship) who told the Pharisees in John 8:44:
You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and has nothing to do with the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies. (ESV)Deal has lied under oath and at least on one occasion, fabricated a document in which he claimed to be somewhere where he was not. House has lied about his ex parte meetings with prosecutors and went along with Chris Arnt when Arnt openly lied to jurors in the closing arguments of the Tonya Craft trial. In other words, both of these men, along with prosecutors like Arnt, Len Gregor, and Alan Norton are all about lies, and according to the Jesus these men claim to follow, Jesus said that people who lie (and lie consistently) have Satan as their father.
All of this leads me to the present situation of James Combs, who agreed to plead guilty to a misdemeanor in House's court because, to be frank, he could not trust House to run a fair trial, Norton and Deal to tell the truth, and a Catoosa County jury to listen to evidence. That is a damning indictment upon the people of Catoosa County and Northwest Georgia, who have put these people into power.
From what I have been hearing, Deal and Norton have tried to get James listed as a "sex offender" in Tennessee (where he lives and will be under probationary supervision) even though the misdemeanor to which he pleaded guilty does not carry the "sex offender" label. Nonetheless, dishonesty rules not only in Catoosa County and the LMJC, but also in Hamilton County, home of gang warfare, brutal (and dishonest) cops, and prosecutors who look the other way when felonies are committed in front of them.
From what I also understand, local cops are constantly harassing the Combs family. What can I say except that this kind of behavior from those who wear the blue costumes can be expected.
When Joal Henke testified in October 2010 in Hamilton County Circuit Court (Judge Marie Williams), he committed perjury and then admitted to having committed mortgage fraud, which is a federal offense. In fact, today, I just signed a paper in which I acknowledged that mortgage fraud is a felony punishable up to 30 years in prison.
So, Henke committed two felonies in Hamilton County, one a state crime and the other federal. But does Bill Cox or the local U.S. attorney care? Well, of course not! Why pursue criminals when one can harass and imprison innocent people?
If people wonder why I am so cynical about Chattanooga and North Georgia, all I can say is to look at the liars and thugs that inhabit "law enforcement" and "justice." I continue to wonder if there are any decent people left in public life in my old hometown, but I am having my doubts.
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Way to go, Norton; you "won" a "victory"
The Times-Free Press today is reporting that James Combs has given a guilty plea of "cruelty to children" in exchange for the office of Mr. Perjury (Buzz Franklin) dropping charges against Mr. Combs of "child molestation." James will serve no time and will be on probation for six years.
The article is self-explanatory and I won't add anything to it except to say that it is utterly clear to anyone (besides officers of Perjury Central, LMJC) that Tim "Dirty" Deal manipulated the boys in the taped interviews to make the accusations against Mr. Combs. Dr. Nancy Aldridge, one of the world's best experts in questioning children about molestation and sexual abuse, was going to testify for the defense that Dirty's questioning was coercive and misleading.
That is not how Alan "I Sold My Soul" Norton puts it. According to the TFP, he claims to "believe the children," but did not want to put them through any more trauma. That is rich; the LMJC coached Sandra Lamb's daughter, the McDonald girl, and Tonya Craft's daughter and had no problem with having them lie on the stand.
No, Norton was able to play on Mr. Comb's real fears that he was walking into a courtroom where none other than Brian House sat as a judge (although the man at best is qualified to change sheets at a roach motel). Knowing House's penchant for trying to rig a trial, Mr. Combs decided not to risk the lies and abuse that surely would follow. I can understand what he did, and I believe fully in his innocence.
Keep in mind that Norton was going to claim that almost as soon as Mr. Combs walked into the classroom as a substitute teacher almost two years ago, he openly began molesting children. Right. And, no, the kids did not get the story straight, but stuff like that does not matter when Mr. Perjury is the DA.
I wish the Combs family well, and I wish nothing but ill for Alan Norton and his career as a professional liar. The LMJC is nothing but a cesspool, a repository for liars, sex perverts, and outright criminals wearing suits, blue costumes, and judges' robes. But, as long as voters in Northwest Georgia are happy with the status quo, nothing is going to change.
So, I guess Norton has "made his bones." Given that the LMJC makes the worst Third World dictatorships look good, I guess it is not hard to win "the big one."
The article is self-explanatory and I won't add anything to it except to say that it is utterly clear to anyone (besides officers of Perjury Central, LMJC) that Tim "Dirty" Deal manipulated the boys in the taped interviews to make the accusations against Mr. Combs. Dr. Nancy Aldridge, one of the world's best experts in questioning children about molestation and sexual abuse, was going to testify for the defense that Dirty's questioning was coercive and misleading.
That is not how Alan "I Sold My Soul" Norton puts it. According to the TFP, he claims to "believe the children," but did not want to put them through any more trauma. That is rich; the LMJC coached Sandra Lamb's daughter, the McDonald girl, and Tonya Craft's daughter and had no problem with having them lie on the stand.
No, Norton was able to play on Mr. Comb's real fears that he was walking into a courtroom where none other than Brian House sat as a judge (although the man at best is qualified to change sheets at a roach motel). Knowing House's penchant for trying to rig a trial, Mr. Combs decided not to risk the lies and abuse that surely would follow. I can understand what he did, and I believe fully in his innocence.
Keep in mind that Norton was going to claim that almost as soon as Mr. Combs walked into the classroom as a substitute teacher almost two years ago, he openly began molesting children. Right. And, no, the kids did not get the story straight, but stuff like that does not matter when Mr. Perjury is the DA.
I wish the Combs family well, and I wish nothing but ill for Alan Norton and his career as a professional liar. The LMJC is nothing but a cesspool, a repository for liars, sex perverts, and outright criminals wearing suits, blue costumes, and judges' robes. But, as long as voters in Northwest Georgia are happy with the status quo, nothing is going to change.
So, I guess Norton has "made his bones." Given that the LMJC makes the worst Third World dictatorships look good, I guess it is not hard to win "the big one."
Sunday, March 18, 2012
An open letter to Alan Norton
This week, the child molestation trial of James Combs is set to begin in Catoosa County, and if what I have seen of the interviews that Tim "Dirty" Deal did with the accusing children, we have another farce on the dishonesty magnitude of Tonya Craft. If there is anything we CAN know before the trial begins, it is that Combs is innocent of the charges and that if you, Mr. Alan Norton, prosecute this case, you will have to suborn perjury to do it.
So, I ask you, sir, the following question: Is it worth it to sell your soul in order to follow Buzz Franklin's orders? Before I go into the Combs case, let me remind you that Buzz already demanded that you suborn perjury in the failed Higgenbottom case in which you were supposed to depend upon a "jailhouse snitch" that you knew from the start was lying.
Do you remember Eric Echols? Yes, you were supposed to lead that trial, too, and you had video evidence of his being assaulted by "Mommie Dearest" Sandra Lamb, who called him a "black bastard" on camera. Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you were going to try him for felonies you knew he had not committed.
Mr. Norton, what is it about the LMJC that leads someone to sell his soul? What is it about the influence of Buzz Franklin and Chris Arnt and Len Gregor and Tim Deal and Phil Summers and Brian House that would lead a man to knowingly suborn perjured testimony?
I have no idea of you believe in God, Mr. Norton, but prosecutors who lie to juries and coach witnesses to lie are not going to be entering the Pearly Gates, sir. I hate to tell you, but the Georgia State Bar does not control the entry roster for Heaven, and while they have your back in Atlanta when it comes to committing felonies while acting as an officer of the court, God is not particularly impressed with the state of "justice" in Georgia and is likely to mete out some justice of His own.
Is it really worth it to work for these people, sir? I can tell you that they would sell you down the river with smiles on their faces if they thought they could get away with it. I also know enough about one of your LMJC colleagues to know that you don't want to leave him alone with either your wife or your daughter (should you have either or both). True, those who are employed by the LMJC are permitted to commit sexual assault and worse and not face any prosecution or even arrest, but nonetheless I doubt you would be much pleased if one of those LMJC employees were to do such a number on one of your family members.
You really do have a choice; you can get out, resign, leave the LMJC altogether. I have no idea if you have a conscience or even one shred of decency in you, but if the answer to either is "yes," then you cannot afford to stay a minute longer in that employ unless you want your final dwelling place to be Hell itself.
Even if you have a conscience, the people who are your LMJC colleagues do not. When Len Gregor managed to bamboozle a jury to convict Brad Wade -- whom all of you know was and is innocent of the charges against him -- do you think the man lost a minute of sleep? When Chris Arnt, Gregor, and House were having secret (and illegal) meetings to plan how they would try to railroad Tonya Craft into prison, do you think any of them were concerned that they were breaking the law and engaging in the worst kind of unethical conduct?
When Arnt lied to jurors in the Tonya Craft closing arguments in which he made an open and obvious dishonest statement about the testimony of Dr. Nancy Fajman, do you think it bothered him even a whit that he was lying? When Brian House desperately was trying to keep Craft's lawyers at bay by granting 90 percent of the prosecution's objections during the trial, do you think he worried that maybe the appellate courts would criticize him?
Let me be honest (since no one else in the LMJC seems to want to tell the truth). You can work in this job for a long as you want, and you can lie, coach others to lie under oath, help convict innocent people, and generally live a life of crime, and nothing will happen to you. That's right, nothing. No one from the State of Georgia will intervene, and the U.S. Department of Justice will whistle right past you, no matter how egregious your conduct.
But if you stay in that office as a prosecutor, you will be selling your soul and destroying whatever conscience you might have, and a man without a conscience is nothing more than a psychopath. I hate to say it, but you already work with sociopaths and their influence upon you only can make things worse.
Let me ask you this question: If you had a relative or loved one on trial, would you want to see Chris Arnt and the prosecutor, Brian House in the judge's seat, and Tim Deal testifying on the stand? Could you trust any of them? If the answer to any of these questions is "no," then you also have to understand that every day you work among these people brings you one step closer to Hell.
Yes, leaving a job and one's home is difficult, especially in this time of an uncertain economy. Having to earn a living as a private attorney can be unsettling and there is no guarantee of a regular paycheck as there is when you are in Buzz's employ.
However, if you continue to stay, you will be destroyed from within. You will have to sell your soul and one day the Devil himself will come to collect.
It is too late for Arnt, Gregor, Buzz, Deal, and House. They are beyond hope and beyond redemption. Pharaoh after the Ninth Plague had a softer heart than do these men. I hope it is not too later for you, but you need to ask yourself if you spent all of those tough years in law school so that you could take orders from some of the most unethical and dishonest people on this planet.
Gregor once wrote on a blog that he went to law school so that he could be a prosecutor and be (in his words) "the man." I have no idea if the guy is a "man" at all; I do know he is a bully, a coward, and a liar, and while he apparently thought his bombast and bullying during the Craft trial was impressing the jurors, it turned out that they thought he was a bully and a creep.
Why would you work with someone like that? You don't have to do it, and you do not have to hang around so that you can share a condo in Hell with "the man."
Indeed, if you resign and leave the employ of the LMJC, you really will be a man because you will have done something that people like Buzz, Gregor, Deal, House, and Arnt are not capable of doing: engage in an act of real integrity.
So, I ask you, sir, the following question: Is it worth it to sell your soul in order to follow Buzz Franklin's orders? Before I go into the Combs case, let me remind you that Buzz already demanded that you suborn perjury in the failed Higgenbottom case in which you were supposed to depend upon a "jailhouse snitch" that you knew from the start was lying.
Do you remember Eric Echols? Yes, you were supposed to lead that trial, too, and you had video evidence of his being assaulted by "Mommie Dearest" Sandra Lamb, who called him a "black bastard" on camera. Yet, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, you were going to try him for felonies you knew he had not committed.
Mr. Norton, what is it about the LMJC that leads someone to sell his soul? What is it about the influence of Buzz Franklin and Chris Arnt and Len Gregor and Tim Deal and Phil Summers and Brian House that would lead a man to knowingly suborn perjured testimony?
I have no idea of you believe in God, Mr. Norton, but prosecutors who lie to juries and coach witnesses to lie are not going to be entering the Pearly Gates, sir. I hate to tell you, but the Georgia State Bar does not control the entry roster for Heaven, and while they have your back in Atlanta when it comes to committing felonies while acting as an officer of the court, God is not particularly impressed with the state of "justice" in Georgia and is likely to mete out some justice of His own.
Is it really worth it to work for these people, sir? I can tell you that they would sell you down the river with smiles on their faces if they thought they could get away with it. I also know enough about one of your LMJC colleagues to know that you don't want to leave him alone with either your wife or your daughter (should you have either or both). True, those who are employed by the LMJC are permitted to commit sexual assault and worse and not face any prosecution or even arrest, but nonetheless I doubt you would be much pleased if one of those LMJC employees were to do such a number on one of your family members.
You really do have a choice; you can get out, resign, leave the LMJC altogether. I have no idea if you have a conscience or even one shred of decency in you, but if the answer to either is "yes," then you cannot afford to stay a minute longer in that employ unless you want your final dwelling place to be Hell itself.
Even if you have a conscience, the people who are your LMJC colleagues do not. When Len Gregor managed to bamboozle a jury to convict Brad Wade -- whom all of you know was and is innocent of the charges against him -- do you think the man lost a minute of sleep? When Chris Arnt, Gregor, and House were having secret (and illegal) meetings to plan how they would try to railroad Tonya Craft into prison, do you think any of them were concerned that they were breaking the law and engaging in the worst kind of unethical conduct?
When Arnt lied to jurors in the Tonya Craft closing arguments in which he made an open and obvious dishonest statement about the testimony of Dr. Nancy Fajman, do you think it bothered him even a whit that he was lying? When Brian House desperately was trying to keep Craft's lawyers at bay by granting 90 percent of the prosecution's objections during the trial, do you think he worried that maybe the appellate courts would criticize him?
Let me be honest (since no one else in the LMJC seems to want to tell the truth). You can work in this job for a long as you want, and you can lie, coach others to lie under oath, help convict innocent people, and generally live a life of crime, and nothing will happen to you. That's right, nothing. No one from the State of Georgia will intervene, and the U.S. Department of Justice will whistle right past you, no matter how egregious your conduct.
But if you stay in that office as a prosecutor, you will be selling your soul and destroying whatever conscience you might have, and a man without a conscience is nothing more than a psychopath. I hate to say it, but you already work with sociopaths and their influence upon you only can make things worse.
Let me ask you this question: If you had a relative or loved one on trial, would you want to see Chris Arnt and the prosecutor, Brian House in the judge's seat, and Tim Deal testifying on the stand? Could you trust any of them? If the answer to any of these questions is "no," then you also have to understand that every day you work among these people brings you one step closer to Hell.
Yes, leaving a job and one's home is difficult, especially in this time of an uncertain economy. Having to earn a living as a private attorney can be unsettling and there is no guarantee of a regular paycheck as there is when you are in Buzz's employ.
However, if you continue to stay, you will be destroyed from within. You will have to sell your soul and one day the Devil himself will come to collect.
It is too late for Arnt, Gregor, Buzz, Deal, and House. They are beyond hope and beyond redemption. Pharaoh after the Ninth Plague had a softer heart than do these men. I hope it is not too later for you, but you need to ask yourself if you spent all of those tough years in law school so that you could take orders from some of the most unethical and dishonest people on this planet.
Gregor once wrote on a blog that he went to law school so that he could be a prosecutor and be (in his words) "the man." I have no idea if the guy is a "man" at all; I do know he is a bully, a coward, and a liar, and while he apparently thought his bombast and bullying during the Craft trial was impressing the jurors, it turned out that they thought he was a bully and a creep.
Why would you work with someone like that? You don't have to do it, and you do not have to hang around so that you can share a condo in Hell with "the man."
Indeed, if you resign and leave the employ of the LMJC, you really will be a man because you will have done something that people like Buzz, Gregor, Deal, House, and Arnt are not capable of doing: engage in an act of real integrity.
Tuesday, March 6, 2012
The LMJC and the Culture of Legal Corruption
When my family moved to Lookout Mountain in 1964, I must admit that parts of the region known as Northwest Georgia were reminiscent of places I have seen in Third World countries. Until moving there, I never had seen tarpaper shacks, children at school with what seemed to be permanently dirty faces, and general, grinding poverty.
Much has changed in that region since then. While there still are poor people, the poverty I saw hardly is widespread anymore, and in many ways, the region can be a pleasant place in which to live. Unfortunately, its legal climate is still stuck in 1964, a time when it was de facto legal in the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit for a white man to murder a black man.
My father brought us down to the LMJC when Covenant College moved from St. Louis to the old Castle in the Clouds, and at Covenant, which is located in Dade County, black students were told in no uncertain terms that they were NOT to be seen walking south of the college's property, and especially along Highway 157. In fact, over the years, a number of black students did receive death threats from the good people residing in the LMJC, but no one was killed. I'm sure that had someone killed one of Covenant's black students, he would not have been charged or prosecuted.
This was a time when the Dade County portion of Sand Mountain had a sign that declared: "N*gger, don't let the sun set on you here." The people there meant every word, and I still would caution any black person from venturing up there without an armed escort. That was the kind of place the LMJC was then, and while I don't see the same overt racism that once characterized the place, the area's "justice" system is racist, as Len Gregor proved during the Tonya Craft trial, when he lied to jurors, telling them that Ms. Craft has slept with a black man.
Now, for the most part, I do consider many of the people living in the LMJC to be honest, or at least decently honest. Unfortunately, they put up with a culture of corruption that exists with police, prosecutors, and, yes, judges.
To be fair, the LMJC hardly stands alone. My friends from Texas tell me horror tales of Williamson County police, courts, and prosecutors, and K.C. Johnson has a great post on his blog about the legal corruption that permeates Durham County, North Carolina. Interestingly, in many ways, the corruption of the LMCJ and Durham County seems to be similar.
What makes this point even more interesting is that demographically and politically, the two places hardly could be more different. The LMJC is overwhelmingly white and politically conservative. The most prominent college in that district, Covenant College, is both theologically and socially conservative. The region abounds with "Bible-believing" churches and I would venture to say that a large portion of the population claims to be "saved."
Durham County, on the other hand, is dominated by the hard left, including a coalition of blacks and activists associated with Duke University. Duke would be the antithesis of Covenant, its student body dominated by "hookup" culture, and the university does everything it can to promote gratuitous sex by handing out condoms everywhere and promoting disgusting things like the "Sex Workers Show" on campus. The university there is not "liberal" by any means; no, it is hard left, and though it is tied to the United Methodist Church, the university itself is virulently hostile to anything that might smack of Christianity.
Yet, when it comes to issues of justice, these communities are mirror images of each other. Durham was made infamous by its attempt to railroad three Duke University lacrosse players into prison for allegedly raping a black stripper, Crystal Mangum. As the case wore on, it became clear that the prosecutor, Michael Nifong, was lying and hiding exculpatory evidence, even while he rode the case to electoral victory, as the black voters of that county demanded a trial (and one person told Newsweek that it did not matter if the players were guilty, as they should be convicted solely because they were white).
The North Carolina State Bar intervened, and ultimately the charges were investigated by special prosecutors employed by North Carolina's attorney general. After a thorough investigation, the AG declared the players to be "innocent" and told the media that Nifong was a "rogue prosecutor." Later in 2007, the State Bar stripped Nifong of his law license, and he was removed as Durham County's AD.
Just five years later, Nifong's successor, Tracey Cline, a black woman who was second chair in the lacrosse case (and who lied about her involvement in it -- lying is part of the legal culture in that county), was removed from her office because of inflammatory statements she made in publicly attacking the senior judge in that county. (The judge also is black.) So, twice in five years, Durham County has seen its top prosecutors removed forcibly from office for misconduct.
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So, why would I compare the LMJC to Durham, despite all of its cultural and racial differences? Like Durham, the prosecutors in the LMJC have a sorry history of withholding evidence and fabricating documents. Unlike Durham, there is no state bar and apparently no judicial or legal apparatus at all in the State of Georgia that effectively deals with prosecutorial misconduct.
However, like Durham, the LMJC has a policy of taking sex cases to trial no matter what the evidence might be. And like Durham, prosecutors in the LMJC always take the side of an accuser in a sex crime, no matter how specious the evidence actually might be, and like Nifong, LMJC prosecutors, once they latch onto a sex case, take a "win at all costs" mentality that throws justice out the window.
It was not just the Craft case. Brad Wade sits in prison and the case that Len Gregor brought against him was so dishonest and so bogus that it is hard to believe he was convicted of child molestation. The reason is one more strike against the LMJC: defense attorneys in that district know that their job is to offer up defendants to the altar of conviction.
Now, when someone is charged with a crime in the LMJC, that person faces a terrible dilemma: hire a local attorney (which prosecutors and judges prefer) and automatically get convicted, or hire someone outside the LMJC who will be roundly attacked by prosecutors, sneered at by judges, yet might be willing to put up a real defense. In the Craft case, prosecutors Chris Arnt and Len Gregor routinely launched verbal attacks against Tonya's defense team, made snide remarks, tried to disrupt defense attorneys while they were questioning witnesses, yet "judge" Brian House not only ignored the misconduct of the prosecutors, but actually teamed up with them in an attempt to rig a conviction.
(While I know there are some attorneys in the LMJC who have integrity, nonetheless the judges and Buzz Franklin and his minions have made it absolutely clear that an aggressive defense is not permitted -- even while prosecutors are permitted to run wild. The one exception is Bobby Lee Cook, who is permitted to win once in a while.)
The jurors in the Craft case did something that neither House nor the prosecutors ever could imagine them doing: demonstrate integrity. The shocked, ashen look on House's face when the verdict was being read spoke volumes to the integrity or the lack thereof of the people in the LMJC who are in positions of authority.
You see, if there is one thing that I believe characterizes the LMJC is the belief of the principals in that district who really seem to believe that they ARE the law, and that they are entitled to do whatever they damn well please. Anyone who followed the Duke Lacrosse Case can attest to the arrogance of prosecutor Mike Nifong and everyone else in the Durham "justice" system. Like Buzz Franklin, Arnt and Gregor, Nifong knew that his authority alone could force a bogus case to trial, and he also believed that a Durham jury would be craven enough to convict the players despite the fact that Nifong had no evidence -- and he knew he had no evidence, which is why he continuously lied to judges throughout the proceedings.
Likewise, House teamed with Arnt, Gregor, and Tim Deal not only to help Deal commit a felony (fabricating a document during the trial in order to fill a huge hole in the evidence), but also meeting secretly with the prosecutors in order to further their strategy. Observers at the hearings before the trial began told me that House was utterly hostile to ANY attorney for Craft that did not come from the LMJC and that he routinely and automatically ruled against the defense no matter how ridiculous the prosecution's position might have been.
The trial itself was a farce, but the difference -- and this was a huge difference -- was that the jurors did not take the bait from House and the prosecutors and act in a hostile manner toward the defense. House, Arnt, and Gregor believed that the jurors automatically would discount EVERYTHING the defense did because neither they nor their expert witnesses were from the LMJC, but that is not what happened. Instead, the jurors acted like people who wanted to do justice, and did not act like House, Arnt, and Gregor.
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All of this raises a question as to why this kind of legal corruption exists in the LMJC. Why are police and prosecutors permitted to literally commit felonies in broad daylight, yet nothing is done? Why the silence from the media and the other gatekeepers, and especially the churches and the largest and most influential "gatekeeper" in the LMJC, Covenant College?
Other than one pastor, no one in a position of influence has spoken out about the massive lawbreaking, lying, and misconduct that has become the very trademark of the LMJC. During the Craft trial, no one from Covenant demonstrated a whit of concern as to what was happening, and at least one administrator there is friends with Holly Kittle, who to me represents everything that is wrong with the LMJC.
(Covenant says that it is "reclaiming the world for Jesus Christ," but the one part of the world that matters -- its own backyard -- apparently is off-limits when it comes to "reclaiming" for Christ. As I see it, the people there believe that legal trouble is for "other people," and if by chance someone from Covenant were to be falsely accused, most likely the administration and faculty there would do what evangelical Christians usually seem to do when one of their own is in crisis: shoot their wounded and move along.)
In the end, we see small, dishonest people gaining enormous amounts of power and authority, and they use it like a club against the innocent. Tonya Craft, Brad Wade, and James Combs can tell you that when it comes to dishonesty, no one does it better than the police, judges and prosecutors of the LMJC. Perhaps in my lifetime, someone, somewhere in a position of authority in Northwest Georgia will do what is right, but I have my doubts.
Much has changed in that region since then. While there still are poor people, the poverty I saw hardly is widespread anymore, and in many ways, the region can be a pleasant place in which to live. Unfortunately, its legal climate is still stuck in 1964, a time when it was de facto legal in the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit for a white man to murder a black man.
My father brought us down to the LMJC when Covenant College moved from St. Louis to the old Castle in the Clouds, and at Covenant, which is located in Dade County, black students were told in no uncertain terms that they were NOT to be seen walking south of the college's property, and especially along Highway 157. In fact, over the years, a number of black students did receive death threats from the good people residing in the LMJC, but no one was killed. I'm sure that had someone killed one of Covenant's black students, he would not have been charged or prosecuted.
This was a time when the Dade County portion of Sand Mountain had a sign that declared: "N*gger, don't let the sun set on you here." The people there meant every word, and I still would caution any black person from venturing up there without an armed escort. That was the kind of place the LMJC was then, and while I don't see the same overt racism that once characterized the place, the area's "justice" system is racist, as Len Gregor proved during the Tonya Craft trial, when he lied to jurors, telling them that Ms. Craft has slept with a black man.
Now, for the most part, I do consider many of the people living in the LMJC to be honest, or at least decently honest. Unfortunately, they put up with a culture of corruption that exists with police, prosecutors, and, yes, judges.
To be fair, the LMJC hardly stands alone. My friends from Texas tell me horror tales of Williamson County police, courts, and prosecutors, and K.C. Johnson has a great post on his blog about the legal corruption that permeates Durham County, North Carolina. Interestingly, in many ways, the corruption of the LMCJ and Durham County seems to be similar.
What makes this point even more interesting is that demographically and politically, the two places hardly could be more different. The LMJC is overwhelmingly white and politically conservative. The most prominent college in that district, Covenant College, is both theologically and socially conservative. The region abounds with "Bible-believing" churches and I would venture to say that a large portion of the population claims to be "saved."
Durham County, on the other hand, is dominated by the hard left, including a coalition of blacks and activists associated with Duke University. Duke would be the antithesis of Covenant, its student body dominated by "hookup" culture, and the university does everything it can to promote gratuitous sex by handing out condoms everywhere and promoting disgusting things like the "Sex Workers Show" on campus. The university there is not "liberal" by any means; no, it is hard left, and though it is tied to the United Methodist Church, the university itself is virulently hostile to anything that might smack of Christianity.
Yet, when it comes to issues of justice, these communities are mirror images of each other. Durham was made infamous by its attempt to railroad three Duke University lacrosse players into prison for allegedly raping a black stripper, Crystal Mangum. As the case wore on, it became clear that the prosecutor, Michael Nifong, was lying and hiding exculpatory evidence, even while he rode the case to electoral victory, as the black voters of that county demanded a trial (and one person told Newsweek that it did not matter if the players were guilty, as they should be convicted solely because they were white).
The North Carolina State Bar intervened, and ultimately the charges were investigated by special prosecutors employed by North Carolina's attorney general. After a thorough investigation, the AG declared the players to be "innocent" and told the media that Nifong was a "rogue prosecutor." Later in 2007, the State Bar stripped Nifong of his law license, and he was removed as Durham County's AD.
Just five years later, Nifong's successor, Tracey Cline, a black woman who was second chair in the lacrosse case (and who lied about her involvement in it -- lying is part of the legal culture in that county), was removed from her office because of inflammatory statements she made in publicly attacking the senior judge in that county. (The judge also is black.) So, twice in five years, Durham County has seen its top prosecutors removed forcibly from office for misconduct.
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So, why would I compare the LMJC to Durham, despite all of its cultural and racial differences? Like Durham, the prosecutors in the LMJC have a sorry history of withholding evidence and fabricating documents. Unlike Durham, there is no state bar and apparently no judicial or legal apparatus at all in the State of Georgia that effectively deals with prosecutorial misconduct.
However, like Durham, the LMJC has a policy of taking sex cases to trial no matter what the evidence might be. And like Durham, prosecutors in the LMJC always take the side of an accuser in a sex crime, no matter how specious the evidence actually might be, and like Nifong, LMJC prosecutors, once they latch onto a sex case, take a "win at all costs" mentality that throws justice out the window.
It was not just the Craft case. Brad Wade sits in prison and the case that Len Gregor brought against him was so dishonest and so bogus that it is hard to believe he was convicted of child molestation. The reason is one more strike against the LMJC: defense attorneys in that district know that their job is to offer up defendants to the altar of conviction.
Now, when someone is charged with a crime in the LMJC, that person faces a terrible dilemma: hire a local attorney (which prosecutors and judges prefer) and automatically get convicted, or hire someone outside the LMJC who will be roundly attacked by prosecutors, sneered at by judges, yet might be willing to put up a real defense. In the Craft case, prosecutors Chris Arnt and Len Gregor routinely launched verbal attacks against Tonya's defense team, made snide remarks, tried to disrupt defense attorneys while they were questioning witnesses, yet "judge" Brian House not only ignored the misconduct of the prosecutors, but actually teamed up with them in an attempt to rig a conviction.
(While I know there are some attorneys in the LMJC who have integrity, nonetheless the judges and Buzz Franklin and his minions have made it absolutely clear that an aggressive defense is not permitted -- even while prosecutors are permitted to run wild. The one exception is Bobby Lee Cook, who is permitted to win once in a while.)
The jurors in the Craft case did something that neither House nor the prosecutors ever could imagine them doing: demonstrate integrity. The shocked, ashen look on House's face when the verdict was being read spoke volumes to the integrity or the lack thereof of the people in the LMJC who are in positions of authority.
You see, if there is one thing that I believe characterizes the LMJC is the belief of the principals in that district who really seem to believe that they ARE the law, and that they are entitled to do whatever they damn well please. Anyone who followed the Duke Lacrosse Case can attest to the arrogance of prosecutor Mike Nifong and everyone else in the Durham "justice" system. Like Buzz Franklin, Arnt and Gregor, Nifong knew that his authority alone could force a bogus case to trial, and he also believed that a Durham jury would be craven enough to convict the players despite the fact that Nifong had no evidence -- and he knew he had no evidence, which is why he continuously lied to judges throughout the proceedings.
Likewise, House teamed with Arnt, Gregor, and Tim Deal not only to help Deal commit a felony (fabricating a document during the trial in order to fill a huge hole in the evidence), but also meeting secretly with the prosecutors in order to further their strategy. Observers at the hearings before the trial began told me that House was utterly hostile to ANY attorney for Craft that did not come from the LMJC and that he routinely and automatically ruled against the defense no matter how ridiculous the prosecution's position might have been.
The trial itself was a farce, but the difference -- and this was a huge difference -- was that the jurors did not take the bait from House and the prosecutors and act in a hostile manner toward the defense. House, Arnt, and Gregor believed that the jurors automatically would discount EVERYTHING the defense did because neither they nor their expert witnesses were from the LMJC, but that is not what happened. Instead, the jurors acted like people who wanted to do justice, and did not act like House, Arnt, and Gregor.
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All of this raises a question as to why this kind of legal corruption exists in the LMJC. Why are police and prosecutors permitted to literally commit felonies in broad daylight, yet nothing is done? Why the silence from the media and the other gatekeepers, and especially the churches and the largest and most influential "gatekeeper" in the LMJC, Covenant College?
Other than one pastor, no one in a position of influence has spoken out about the massive lawbreaking, lying, and misconduct that has become the very trademark of the LMJC. During the Craft trial, no one from Covenant demonstrated a whit of concern as to what was happening, and at least one administrator there is friends with Holly Kittle, who to me represents everything that is wrong with the LMJC.
(Covenant says that it is "reclaiming the world for Jesus Christ," but the one part of the world that matters -- its own backyard -- apparently is off-limits when it comes to "reclaiming" for Christ. As I see it, the people there believe that legal trouble is for "other people," and if by chance someone from Covenant were to be falsely accused, most likely the administration and faculty there would do what evangelical Christians usually seem to do when one of their own is in crisis: shoot their wounded and move along.)
In the end, we see small, dishonest people gaining enormous amounts of power and authority, and they use it like a club against the innocent. Tonya Craft, Brad Wade, and James Combs can tell you that when it comes to dishonesty, no one does it better than the police, judges and prosecutors of the LMJC. Perhaps in my lifetime, someone, somewhere in a position of authority in Northwest Georgia will do what is right, but I have my doubts.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Why do things like this make me suspicious?
A recent death at the Dade County Jail, ostensibly by suicide, is one of those things that makes me suspicious. According to the Times-Free Press:
Yet, this is Dade County, the place where Brad Wade was convicted after what essentially was a crooked trial in which Len "The Man" Gregor withheld evidence, lied to jurors, suborned perjury and gave the world a look at how he later would act in the Tonya Craft trial, which was just as crooked. This is Dade County, where "judge" brian outhouse resides in the judge's chair, and his exploits of operating his office outside of the bounds of the law already have been laid out in this blog.
Again, maybe the story that Dade County officials are telling is the truth and things transpired just as they claim. However, given that the "law enforcement" mechanism in that county -- and in the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit in general -- operates almost completely outside the law, I reserve the right to be skeptical, very skeptical.
A Dade County, Ga., inmate was found dead in his cell 14 minutes after being jailed for driving under the influence of alcohol, authorities said.At least that is the story readers are told. And maybe it is true. Perhaps Cochran was so depressed about many things, including his arrest, that he just snapped and killed himself. We never will know.
A detention officer found Joseph Cochran, 29, dead at 4:40 Tuesday morning, Sheriff Patrick Cannon said. Authorities believe Cochran used his thermal underwear to hang himself, Cannon said.
Cochran had been arrested earlier in the morning and charged with DUI. He was in the holding cell when he was found, Cannon said.
“It’s a sad situation,” the sheriff said.
Yet, this is Dade County, the place where Brad Wade was convicted after what essentially was a crooked trial in which Len "The Man" Gregor withheld evidence, lied to jurors, suborned perjury and gave the world a look at how he later would act in the Tonya Craft trial, which was just as crooked. This is Dade County, where "judge" brian outhouse resides in the judge's chair, and his exploits of operating his office outside of the bounds of the law already have been laid out in this blog.
Again, maybe the story that Dade County officials are telling is the truth and things transpired just as they claim. However, given that the "law enforcement" mechanism in that county -- and in the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit in general -- operates almost completely outside the law, I reserve the right to be skeptical, very skeptical.
Friday, September 30, 2011
The Northwest Georgia Conference on How to Commit Perjury (and get away with it)
Despite the fact that Northwest Georgia is one of the most heavily-churched areas in the nation (and it even features a Christian college, Covenant College), it also is a place where the police and judicial systems are so utterly corrupt that they are beyond any repair. And when dishonest people get together for a conference, well, things happen that fall into the category of "You Can't Make Up This Stuff."
On October 3 and 4, the Northwest Georgia Child Abuse Conference will be held at The Colonnade in Ringgold. Not surprisingly, the Usual Suspects will be there and three men who are experienced in suborning perjury and lying to juries will be featured speakers. If you love perjury, then you don't want to miss this conference that will tell you how to lie in court, make up outlandish stories, and pretend you are "saving children."
In fact, this conference is aptly named, for people who coach children to lie under oath and to give false testimony against their mothers and fathers and teachers indeed are child abusers. So, if you want a career in legal child abuse, then this is the place to start.
Because this conference is one big howler, featuring child abusers from all over the State of Georgia, I will concentrate upon just one session, and it is self-explanatory: Overcoming Defenses in Child Molestation Cases. The presenters? Chris Arnt, Len Gregor, and Alan Norton. (I guess Buzz Franklin could not make it, as he must be engaged in something else, like writing stupid press releases.)
I will include the conference blurb on this session, which you don't want to miss:
On the prosecution side, we had Suzi Thorne, who at the time was studying for an on-line college degree with Kaplan University, a for-profit diploma mill. According to Arnt, Gregor, and Norton, Thorne (who did attend a five-day training class) was eminently qualified to testify as an "expert" in child sexual abuse. Furthermore, despite the fact that Thorne never has written about child sexual abuse in any publication, and despite the fact that she never has read any publications in any reputable journal, professional or academic, on this subject, Arnt, Gregor, and Norton believe she is eminently qualified to testify.
Furthermore, despite the fact that Thorne clearly committed perjury during the Tonya Craft trial (and there is no doubt about this), Arnt, Gregor, and Norton want people to believe that her testimony ALWAYS is true and perfect. Compare Thorne to a witness that Arnt, Gregor, and Norton claim is a "liar" and a "whore of the court," Dr. William Bernet of Vanderbilt University.
Dr. Bernet has his medical doctorate from Harvard University Medical School (which tends to have higher academic standards than Kaplan University's undergraduate program) and is widely published and widely respected in his profession. This is a man who has published in top journals and is asked to speak at conferences and sessions all over the world. (Yeah, he is not good enough to speak at the Northwest Georgia conference, but everyone knows that the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit is a world-class example of honest police, prosecutors, and judges.)
Lest one think I am exaggerating, let me remind readers of what Arnt and Gregor did during the Tonya Craft trial:
No doubt, these men will share with conferees why it is important for prosecutors to act like spoiled children, and why it is so important that the courts of the LMJC perform like the courts of bastions of freedom and liberty like North Korea. They also will stress the importance of teaming with the judge in order to have a rigged trial, although they might claim afterward that the judge was a "pointy-headed liberal" who was too lax toward the defense. They will give techniques in making improper and prejudicial pre-trial statements to the media and maybe they might REALLY go to the Dark Side and give tips on how to contact jurors during the trial in order to intimidate them into voting guilty. (I'm just imagining the last point, but given that these men already have demonstrated that they have no problem in suborning perjury and openly violating the Rules of Ethics that supposedly govern their behavior, I doubt seriously that Chris Arnt and Len Gregor would frown upon anyone on the prosecution side illegally contacting jurors. Prosecutors elsewhere have done it and, if anything, these men have demonstrated that they are willing to engage in extreme prosecutorial misconduct.
Will they answer questions about the Tonya Craft trial? If they do, I'm sure they will spout the line that they have been giving everyone:
As an added attraction, Chris Arnt will give pointers on how to have fun on a cruise! Enjoy the conference!
On October 3 and 4, the Northwest Georgia Child Abuse Conference will be held at The Colonnade in Ringgold. Not surprisingly, the Usual Suspects will be there and three men who are experienced in suborning perjury and lying to juries will be featured speakers. If you love perjury, then you don't want to miss this conference that will tell you how to lie in court, make up outlandish stories, and pretend you are "saving children."
In fact, this conference is aptly named, for people who coach children to lie under oath and to give false testimony against their mothers and fathers and teachers indeed are child abusers. So, if you want a career in legal child abuse, then this is the place to start.
Because this conference is one big howler, featuring child abusers from all over the State of Georgia, I will concentrate upon just one session, and it is self-explanatory: Overcoming Defenses in Child Molestation Cases. The presenters? Chris Arnt, Len Gregor, and Alan Norton. (I guess Buzz Franklin could not make it, as he must be engaged in something else, like writing stupid press releases.)
I will include the conference blurb on this session, which you don't want to miss:
Child molestation cases are outside the norm for the average citizen. Defense attorneys often will take advantage of the general public’s misperceptions concerning such cases. The presentation will to teach those who investigate child molestations cases to be cognizant of such defenses and properly prepare with such defenses in mind.In case one does not understand the language of these "professionals," here is an interpretation:
Prosecutors are desperate to keep exculpatory evidence out of child molestation trials, and they also are desperate to keep the defense from exposing prosecution lies. Given that fact, this session will teach budding prosecutors how to lie to jurors, how to get judges to make outrageous rulings in order to deny the defendant a fair trial, and it will give demonstrations on how to bully witnesses. Of extreme importance in this session will be a segment on how to employ the non sequitur when the defense starts blasting holes in your case, in hopes that jurors will buy into your diversion tactics.Lest anyone think I am exaggerating, do the following comparison:
This session also will include interview techniques if you lose so that when you are interviewed by the media, you can continue to lie, blame jurors, and try to push your view that no accused ever should be allowed any kind of defense. The prosecutors also will show you how to lie about the credentials, testimony, and qualifications of the defense expert witnesses, and of special importance is the segment on trying to convince jurors that your own "experts," most of whom have no credentials or field of relevant study (except for taking a five-day course), really are more qualified than the other experts who have spent their entire careers studying this material, and who have doctorates and often have engaged in extensive post-graduate study.
The final part of the session will involve how to make false comments to jurors, how to lie about the testimony of expert witnesses, and how to disrupt the work of the defense, all with help from friendly judges. The sum total of this session will be teaching attendees how to make sure that truth never enters the courtroom so that you can get wrongful convictions and boost your careers. Len Gregor also will give conferees a demonstration on how to run to one's car following a verdict of "not guilty" and hide one's face from the media by using a notebook.
On the prosecution side, we had Suzi Thorne, who at the time was studying for an on-line college degree with Kaplan University, a for-profit diploma mill. According to Arnt, Gregor, and Norton, Thorne (who did attend a five-day training class) was eminently qualified to testify as an "expert" in child sexual abuse. Furthermore, despite the fact that Thorne never has written about child sexual abuse in any publication, and despite the fact that she never has read any publications in any reputable journal, professional or academic, on this subject, Arnt, Gregor, and Norton believe she is eminently qualified to testify.
Furthermore, despite the fact that Thorne clearly committed perjury during the Tonya Craft trial (and there is no doubt about this), Arnt, Gregor, and Norton want people to believe that her testimony ALWAYS is true and perfect. Compare Thorne to a witness that Arnt, Gregor, and Norton claim is a "liar" and a "whore of the court," Dr. William Bernet of Vanderbilt University.
Dr. Bernet has his medical doctorate from Harvard University Medical School (which tends to have higher academic standards than Kaplan University's undergraduate program) and is widely published and widely respected in his profession. This is a man who has published in top journals and is asked to speak at conferences and sessions all over the world. (Yeah, he is not good enough to speak at the Northwest Georgia conference, but everyone knows that the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit is a world-class example of honest police, prosecutors, and judges.)
Lest one think I am exaggerating, let me remind readers of what Arnt and Gregor did during the Tonya Craft trial:
- Arnt lied to jurors about the testimony of Dr. Nancy Fajman of Emory University, telling jurors that Fajman said she saw evidence of sexual abuse when, in fact, Fajman said she saw NO physical evidence of sexual abuse. All of the jurors caught this lie, and maybe Arnt will tell conferees how to do a better job of covering up lies;
- Arnt and Gregor desperately tried to keep Dr. Fajman, Dr. Ann Hazard, Dr. Nancy Aldridge, and Dr. Bernet from testifying, and after their testimony, they told jurors that these were unqualified witnesses and that they were nothing but "liars" and "whores of the court" who lied for money. I am not kidding. They actually said that;
- They regularly had ex parte meetings with "judge" brian house before and during the trial, and reported none of them to the defense, despite the requirement by the Code of Ethics of the Georgia State Bar, which means that these are people who believe they are not bound either by law or ethics.
No doubt, these men will share with conferees why it is important for prosecutors to act like spoiled children, and why it is so important that the courts of the LMJC perform like the courts of bastions of freedom and liberty like North Korea. They also will stress the importance of teaming with the judge in order to have a rigged trial, although they might claim afterward that the judge was a "pointy-headed liberal" who was too lax toward the defense. They will give techniques in making improper and prejudicial pre-trial statements to the media and maybe they might REALLY go to the Dark Side and give tips on how to contact jurors during the trial in order to intimidate them into voting guilty. (I'm just imagining the last point, but given that these men already have demonstrated that they have no problem in suborning perjury and openly violating the Rules of Ethics that supposedly govern their behavior, I doubt seriously that Chris Arnt and Len Gregor would frown upon anyone on the prosecution side illegally contacting jurors. Prosecutors elsewhere have done it and, if anything, these men have demonstrated that they are willing to engage in extreme prosecutorial misconduct.
Will they answer questions about the Tonya Craft trial? If they do, I'm sure they will spout the line that they have been giving everyone:
- Craft was guilty and got away with it;
- Defense objections were frivolous, as all defense attorneys really should expect prosecutors to scream in the face of witnesses, yell about someone's "boobs," throw books down on the table while the defense is making its case;
- The jurors were fooled by the idiot expert witnesses like Dr. Bernet and should have been impressed by experts like Holly "Roll Your Eyes and Make Noises" Kittle and Suzy "Perjury" Thorne;
- The jurors were too stupid to recognize that Arnt and Gregor are brilliant prosecutors and that when jurors all caught Arnt lying about Dr. Fajman's testimony (and all of the caught it), well, they were so stupid that they could not recognize that Dr. Fajman was speaking in code that only a brilliant guy like Arnt could understand;
- The defense shamelessly carried on a campaign in the media and the blogosphere that prejudiced the case and "deprived the state of a 'fair trial'." This despite the fact that the defense operated under a gag order and the defense had NO contact with the "blogosphere," and that Tonya Craft was on trial, not the state, which is under the legal obligation to present a fair trial. (So much for the State of Georgia performing its obligations.)
As an added attraction, Chris Arnt will give pointers on how to have fun on a cruise! Enjoy the conference!
Thursday, August 11, 2011
Brian House and the moral bankruptcy of judges
Brian House and I read the same Bible (I guess they read the Bible at Peavine Baptist Church, where House attends), but I don't think we find the same meaning in it. Where the Holy Scriptures admonish judges to act honestly, show integrity, and not to "pervert justice," House must interpret those passages to mean that judges are supposed to rig convictions and destroy the lives of innocent people.
As the child molestation trial of James Combs approaches, I still am thinking back to House's performance in the Tonya Craft trial. There is good reason that House had an ashen expression when he discovered the jury's verdict, as the jurors were openly declaring that House's best efforts to rig an illegal conviction were wrong, unjust, and his actions demonstrated that his judgeship is fraudulent.
Why do I write about House more than a year after the Craft trial? I do it because he still is on the bench, bilking Georgia taxpayers for six-figures, and tag teaming with dishonest prosecutors like Chris Arnt to screw over innocent people. Let us revisit some of the things he did in that case that demonstrate beyond any doubt at all that he tried to rig a conviction.
Yes, there are good judges out there, but the number of honest men and women wearing the black robes is dwindling. Furthermore, when the good ones retire, they are replaced by people like Brian House.
As the conflagration known as World War I began, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey declared, "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time." I must admit to believing the same about this country and our system of "justice." Americans once prized justice, but like so many things that have been good about this country, that also is in our past, not our present and certainly not our future.
*Here are some things that the Georgia Judicial Code of Ethics includes. Compare this code with House's conduct and you will see that no one in authority in Georgia actually believes in these things, as those in power hold that living by the rules does not apply to them.
Canon 1
Judges Shall Uphold the Integrity and Independence of the Judiciary.
An independent and honorable judiciary is indispensable to justice in our society. Judges shall participate in establishing, maintaining, and enforcing high standards of conduct, and shall personally observe such standards of conduct so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary may be preserved. The provisions of this Code should be construed and applied to further that objective.
Canon 2
Judges Shall Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in All Their Activities.
A. Judges shall respect and comply with the law* and shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.
B. Judges shall not allow their family, social, political or other relationships to influence their judicial conduct or judgment. Judges shall not lend the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others; nor should they convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence them. Judges should not testify voluntarily as character witnesses. (House also has done that in a recent divorce/custody case)
Canon 3
Judges Shall Perform the Duties of Their Office Impartially and Diligently
On ex parte meetings, the Georgia code declares:
Judges shall accord to every person who has a legal interest in a proceeding, or that person's lawyer, the right to be heard according to law*. Judges shall not initiate or consider ex parte communications, or consider other communications made to them outside the presence of the parties concerning a pending or impending proceeding, except that:
(a) where circumstances require, ex parte communications for scheduling, where administrative purposes or emergencies that do not deal with substantive matters or issues on the merits are authorized; provided:
(i) the judge reasonably believes that no party will gain a procedural or tactical advantage as a result of the ex parte communication, and
(ii) the judge makes provision promptly to notify all other parties of the substance of the ex parte communication and allows an opportunity to respond.
None of those things held during the trial. Instead, House was engaged in strategy sessions and his personal conversation with Lamb before her testimony demonstrated beyond a doubt that not only was he Lamb's sock puppet, but that he has absolutely NO RESPECT for the law and for the codes that supposedly are to govern his conduct.
Yet, Brian House will continue as a judge, and I would not be surprised if the voters of the LMJC were to return this sorry person back to office for another four years in the 2012 elections. One hopes otherwise, but I cannot say I have much confidence in the political choices that Americans make.
As the child molestation trial of James Combs approaches, I still am thinking back to House's performance in the Tonya Craft trial. There is good reason that House had an ashen expression when he discovered the jury's verdict, as the jurors were openly declaring that House's best efforts to rig an illegal conviction were wrong, unjust, and his actions demonstrated that his judgeship is fraudulent.
Why do I write about House more than a year after the Craft trial? I do it because he still is on the bench, bilking Georgia taxpayers for six-figures, and tag teaming with dishonest prosecutors like Chris Arnt to screw over innocent people. Let us revisit some of the things he did in that case that demonstrate beyond any doubt at all that he tried to rig a conviction.
- He consistently refused to permit Tonya Craft's defense to admit exculpatory evidence even though the evidence was legitimate and documented. For example, after Sandra Lamb told the court that her daughter had not received acting lessons, House refused to let the defense enter the online IMDb resume of the child, despite the fact that it was a public link that anyone could look up on the web.
- He permitted the admission of a forged document that Tim Deal created during the trial, a document that was not in his or any other files before the trial began. The prosecution had created a huge hole with the "hand rape" allegations and Deal had to cover for them. Do I believe that House knew the document was forged? Absolutely. I have no doubt at all.
- He permitted Joal and Sarah Henke to give "I just remembered" testimony that was perjury on its face, and the testimony directly contradicted earlier sworn testimony that both had given a year before.
- According to media representatives who were keeping count, he sustained 90 percent of the prosecution's objections and only 10 percent of the objections from the defense.
- He permitted prosecutors Arnt and Len Gregor to yell, make catcalls, throw books down on the table, scream at defense witnesses, verbally attack the defense team, and harass Craft all during the trial. Any attempt by the defense to protest this action was met with a personal attack from House himself who refused to discharge the ethical duties of his office.*
- He had a long conversation with Sandra Lamb a few days before she testified, yet he did not report this illegal ex parte conversation to the defense. During the trial, a number of people contacted me to say that they saw House meeting with prosecutors on several occasions after court had ended for the day. One observer told me about seeing House and the prosecutors leave the courtroom together and enter a room adjacent to the courtroom. I have no doubt that he, Arnt and Gregor had illegal strategy sessions together, none of which were reported to the defense as required by Georgia's rules of ethics for judges.
- All during the trial, he and the prosecutors (especially Arnt) had pre-worked signals in which House would look at Arnt, who then would signal to House what his next move should be. (More than one observer told this to me.)
- Jurors after the trial said that one thing that really bothered them was the obvious prejudice that House showed against the defense and in favor of the prosecution.
- During a break in the trial, House spoke to a court employee and vilified both Craft and the defense in private conversation, not knowing that it was being recorded. While that recording has not been released, nonetheless, the incident demonstrated House's lack of integrity.
Yes, there are good judges out there, but the number of honest men and women wearing the black robes is dwindling. Furthermore, when the good ones retire, they are replaced by people like Brian House.
As the conflagration known as World War I began, British Foreign Secretary Sir Edward Grey declared, "The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our time." I must admit to believing the same about this country and our system of "justice." Americans once prized justice, but like so many things that have been good about this country, that also is in our past, not our present and certainly not our future.
*Here are some things that the Georgia Judicial Code of Ethics includes. Compare this code with House's conduct and you will see that no one in authority in Georgia actually believes in these things, as those in power hold that living by the rules does not apply to them.
Canon 1
Judges Shall Uphold the Integrity and Independence of the Judiciary.
An independent and honorable judiciary is indispensable to justice in our society. Judges shall participate in establishing, maintaining, and enforcing high standards of conduct, and shall personally observe such standards of conduct so that the integrity and independence of the judiciary may be preserved. The provisions of this Code should be construed and applied to further that objective.
Canon 2
Judges Shall Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety in All Their Activities.
A. Judges shall respect and comply with the law* and shall act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.
B. Judges shall not allow their family, social, political or other relationships to influence their judicial conduct or judgment. Judges shall not lend the prestige of judicial office to advance the private interests of the judge or others; nor should they convey or permit others to convey the impression that they are in a special position to influence them. Judges should not testify voluntarily as character witnesses. (House also has done that in a recent divorce/custody case)
Canon 3
Judges Shall Perform the Duties of Their Office Impartially and Diligently
On ex parte meetings, the Georgia code declares:
Judges shall accord to every person who has a legal interest in a proceeding, or that person's lawyer, the right to be heard according to law*. Judges shall not initiate or consider ex parte communications, or consider other communications made to them outside the presence of the parties concerning a pending or impending proceeding, except that:
(a) where circumstances require, ex parte communications for scheduling, where administrative purposes or emergencies that do not deal with substantive matters or issues on the merits are authorized; provided:
(i) the judge reasonably believes that no party will gain a procedural or tactical advantage as a result of the ex parte communication, and
(ii) the judge makes provision promptly to notify all other parties of the substance of the ex parte communication and allows an opportunity to respond.
None of those things held during the trial. Instead, House was engaged in strategy sessions and his personal conversation with Lamb before her testimony demonstrated beyond a doubt that not only was he Lamb's sock puppet, but that he has absolutely NO RESPECT for the law and for the codes that supposedly are to govern his conduct.
Yet, Brian House will continue as a judge, and I would not be surprised if the voters of the LMJC were to return this sorry person back to office for another four years in the 2012 elections. One hopes otherwise, but I cannot say I have much confidence in the political choices that Americans make.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Is this another Craft/McMartin case?
The headlines are quite familiar to those of us who have been in this country post-Mondale Act: "Molestation investigation shuts down _______ school." (Of course, it always seems to be a private school, as I don't recall the government going after government schools or daycare centers.)
While I think that the writer for the Sacramento Bee in this story at least tries to give another side to the story in writing about the McMartin case, although she does not give full justice to how bad those accusations were and why they were bogus. As I read her article, however, I cannot help but wonder just how bad this investigation really is and I cannot help but wonder if we have another Craft/McMartin situation.
Before explaining my position, however, I cannot help but note that it was also a McClatchy-owned newspaper (like the Bee), the Raleigh News & Observer, that jump-started the false accusations in the Duke Lacrosse Case, as the newspaper published one false story after another. (The N&O even distributed the infamous "wanted" poster of the lacrosse players with a Sunday edition, thereby lending credence to what was found to be an utterly dishonest investigation.) One hopes that McClatchy has learned a lesson about rushing to judgment, but given that most journalists are anxious to jump off the cliff whenever police and prosecutors tell them to do so, I'm not confident that ANY mainstream paper can handle such a story.
Here are some excerpts from the story, and I will explain afterward why my b.s. detectors are on full alert:
Believe me, the police and prosecutors in Citrus Heights already have made up their minds, and now the social services interviewers are going to try to manipulate the children they interview in order to obtain the results that they want to get. I will GUARANTEE that this will NOT be an investigation carried out by honest brokers. Honest brokers no longer exist in any sizable numbers in the various U.S. government systems of "justice."
People familiar with the Craft case, or, for that matter, Brad Cooper's case, already know the drill. Police and prosecutors begin with a conclusion, and then they manipulate the "evidence" in order to prove that one really can easily drive square pegs into round holes.
Don't forget that it was the State of California that touched off the whole modern Molestation Witch Hunts, first with Ed Jaegels in Bakersfield, California, and then the McMartin Case. Janet Reno in Miami joined in the chase later, and it was off to the races from there.
This would not be possible, except that judges often are in on the fix, as they were in the Craft and Cooper cases. I hope that things are different in this one, but right now, I have the sickening feeling that everyone is going to jump off the same cliff once again.
While I think that the writer for the Sacramento Bee in this story at least tries to give another side to the story in writing about the McMartin case, although she does not give full justice to how bad those accusations were and why they were bogus. As I read her article, however, I cannot help but wonder just how bad this investigation really is and I cannot help but wonder if we have another Craft/McMartin situation.
Before explaining my position, however, I cannot help but note that it was also a McClatchy-owned newspaper (like the Bee), the Raleigh News & Observer, that jump-started the false accusations in the Duke Lacrosse Case, as the newspaper published one false story after another. (The N&O even distributed the infamous "wanted" poster of the lacrosse players with a Sunday edition, thereby lending credence to what was found to be an utterly dishonest investigation.) One hopes that McClatchy has learned a lesson about rushing to judgment, but given that most journalists are anxious to jump off the cliff whenever police and prosecutors tell them to do so, I'm not confident that ANY mainstream paper can handle such a story.
Here are some excerpts from the story, and I will explain afterward why my b.s. detectors are on full alert:
Officials shut down a private Citrus Heights elementary school Monday and suspended its license pending a sweeping investigation into allegations that its principal molested children over the past 15 years.And:
In its complaint, the Social Services Department alleges that Adams, whom students referred to as "Mr. Bob," touched female pupils on their chests and vaginal areas, touched their bodies under their shirts and down their pants, and "secluded" female children under a computer desk and lay with them on a mat in his office.OK, now I have some questions:
The complaint also names office administrator Cynthia Higgins, alleging that she failed to report the principal's behavior after receiving complaints. It says a volunteer, Irma Mertens, saw Robert Adams touch a girl's buttocks after inserting his hand under her swimsuit and told Higgins about it.
- How does something like this go on for 15 years and NO ONE report it? No one else witnessed the kind of behavior that we see? Sorry, people, but child molesters don't just do this in complete anonymity for 15 years without people getting suspicious, especially in an open setting like a school.
- What are the cirumstances under which Mertens made the claim? For example, Sandra Lamb and Sherri Wilson wanted to "get back" at Tonya Craft, and had the means to do it through Chris Arnt, who had hoped to be able to ride a "big case" to a higher political office. Did Mertens actually see this? Was she on the "outs" with Adams or someone else? The article does not say, but I would be quite interested to know some of the background.
- How is it that parents would rave about the school for years? Would they have been THAT blind? Would not have kids and parents have been talking?
- Did he allegedly go after both boys and girls, for if that is the claim, then we know it HAS to be suspect, as real child molesters go for one or the other. (Yes, I know, the Usual Trolls will claim that Adams is that one-percent exception. Yeah, everyone accused ALWAYS falls into that one-percent category, which is interesting, since one-percent means one out of a hundred, not everyone.)
Believe me, the police and prosecutors in Citrus Heights already have made up their minds, and now the social services interviewers are going to try to manipulate the children they interview in order to obtain the results that they want to get. I will GUARANTEE that this will NOT be an investigation carried out by honest brokers. Honest brokers no longer exist in any sizable numbers in the various U.S. government systems of "justice."
People familiar with the Craft case, or, for that matter, Brad Cooper's case, already know the drill. Police and prosecutors begin with a conclusion, and then they manipulate the "evidence" in order to prove that one really can easily drive square pegs into round holes.
Don't forget that it was the State of California that touched off the whole modern Molestation Witch Hunts, first with Ed Jaegels in Bakersfield, California, and then the McMartin Case. Janet Reno in Miami joined in the chase later, and it was off to the races from there.
This would not be possible, except that judges often are in on the fix, as they were in the Craft and Cooper cases. I hope that things are different in this one, but right now, I have the sickening feeling that everyone is going to jump off the same cliff once again.
Friday, June 24, 2011
The framing of Bradley Cooper
I have despised the "justice" (sic) system in North Carolina for a long time, beginning with the railroading of the Little Rascals defendants when prosecutors and police falsely accused a number of people of horrible acts of child molestation, although it was clear from the substance (or lack, thereof) of those charges that the Laws of Time and Space contradicted what the authorities were claiming. Unfortunately, many lives were ruined before the North Carolina Supreme Court overturned the convictions.
That was only the beginning. The Duke Lacrosse Case, with all of the lies told by government officials and others in authority, told me that once and for all, North Carolina is a dangerous place to live, as the authorities are not bound by the law or even common decency. The Durham Police, along with Durham County DA Mike Nifong, did everything possible to frame Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans, and while the case fell apart, it was only because some members of the North Carolina State Bar actually did their duties and ultimately disbarred Nifong.
I had no forum by which to protest the lies told by authorities in the Little Rascals case, but by the time Nifong went after the Duke students, there was Lew Rockwell's blog, and he generously let me fire away at the false charges, which I did on a regular basis for a year. When Tonya Craft was falsely charged with child molestation in my old stomping grounds of North Georgia, I had this blog, and utilized it to expose the lies being told under the direction of prosecutors Len "The Man-Racist" Gregor, Chris "Facebook-Cruisemaster" Arnt, and "judge" brian (out)house.
Craft was acquitted and one of the ringleaders of the farce, Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Buzz Franklin, blamed me in part for the state's failure to secure a wrongful conviction. I deeply appreciate the compliment that Buzz gave me, although something tells me he wasn't saying those things as praise.
Over the next several days, I will be spending a number of posts examining the trial and conviction of Bradley Cooper, who allegedly murdered his wife, Nancy, in Wake County, North Carolina. I have looked over a lot of the evidence and have become convinced that Cooper was framed.
Readers should understand that I don't come to this conclusion easily. When Cooper's wife was murdered three years ago, like the police, I immediately suspected that Bradley was the killer, as he seemed to be the obvious choice.
However, as the case went on, and especially during the trial, I came to believe that (1) the state had destroyed or hidden possible exculpatory evidence, and (2) their "smoking" gun, a Google search map of the area where her body was found that allegedly was found on his computer, was the work of the authorities themselves.
In other words, I am accusing North Carolina authorities of deliberately framing someone because they could do it. This is not a hard thing for me to believe, given what I have seen in past incidences in that state.
Yes, it is true that NC Attorney General Roy Cooper did declare the lacrosse players to be "innocent" after his appointees did their own investigation. What else could have he done, given that the "evidence" already had been made public and there was no way that the charges could have had an ounce of truth? Likewise, Cooper could have further investigated the whole mess and found criminal conduct on behalf of authorities, but neither he nor anyone else in government, state or federal, wanted to go there.
Would a North Carolina cop lie on the stand? Absolutely. "Testilying," a term made up by police officers themselves to describe what they do after taking an oath to tell the truth, is common all over the country and North Carolina is no exception. A middle class woman was murdered and the police and prosecutors had the pressure to find a killer.
Given the lawlessness and dishonesty that dominates the police and prosecutorial culture in North Carolina, I doubt that framing Cooper was a difficult decision. And, if there is a conspiracy to lie, destroy or alter evidence, and to railroad an innocent man into prison, what better people to do it than the men and women who wear the blue costume.
When people speak of the infamous "Blue Wall of Silence," they are speaking of the various police departments in the United States. No one lies better than a cop and no one covers up a lie better than a whole police department.
I make this point because one of the problems of holding conspiracies together is that someone spills the beans. Police departments tend to be the exception because cops tend to stick together, and if a cop were to tell the truth, he knows that his life afterward most likely will be very short.
Bradley Cooper was convicted by a jury that saw only weak and contrived circumstantial evidence. A judge who was in league with the prosecutors oversaw the trial, or whatever one calls one of those things in North Carolina. While it was true that the authorities from police to the judge in Craft's trial were trying to rig a conviction, jurors in Catoosa County saw through the lies.
Jurors in Cooper's case, however, did not. But their verdict will not stop me from presenting the case against guilt over the next several days.
That was only the beginning. The Duke Lacrosse Case, with all of the lies told by government officials and others in authority, told me that once and for all, North Carolina is a dangerous place to live, as the authorities are not bound by the law or even common decency. The Durham Police, along with Durham County DA Mike Nifong, did everything possible to frame Reade Seligmann, Collin Finnerty, and David Evans, and while the case fell apart, it was only because some members of the North Carolina State Bar actually did their duties and ultimately disbarred Nifong.
I had no forum by which to protest the lies told by authorities in the Little Rascals case, but by the time Nifong went after the Duke students, there was Lew Rockwell's blog, and he generously let me fire away at the false charges, which I did on a regular basis for a year. When Tonya Craft was falsely charged with child molestation in my old stomping grounds of North Georgia, I had this blog, and utilized it to expose the lies being told under the direction of prosecutors Len "The Man-Racist" Gregor, Chris "Facebook-Cruisemaster" Arnt, and "judge" brian (out)house.
Craft was acquitted and one of the ringleaders of the farce, Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit District Attorney Buzz Franklin, blamed me in part for the state's failure to secure a wrongful conviction. I deeply appreciate the compliment that Buzz gave me, although something tells me he wasn't saying those things as praise.
Over the next several days, I will be spending a number of posts examining the trial and conviction of Bradley Cooper, who allegedly murdered his wife, Nancy, in Wake County, North Carolina. I have looked over a lot of the evidence and have become convinced that Cooper was framed.
Readers should understand that I don't come to this conclusion easily. When Cooper's wife was murdered three years ago, like the police, I immediately suspected that Bradley was the killer, as he seemed to be the obvious choice.
However, as the case went on, and especially during the trial, I came to believe that (1) the state had destroyed or hidden possible exculpatory evidence, and (2) their "smoking" gun, a Google search map of the area where her body was found that allegedly was found on his computer, was the work of the authorities themselves.
In other words, I am accusing North Carolina authorities of deliberately framing someone because they could do it. This is not a hard thing for me to believe, given what I have seen in past incidences in that state.
Yes, it is true that NC Attorney General Roy Cooper did declare the lacrosse players to be "innocent" after his appointees did their own investigation. What else could have he done, given that the "evidence" already had been made public and there was no way that the charges could have had an ounce of truth? Likewise, Cooper could have further investigated the whole mess and found criminal conduct on behalf of authorities, but neither he nor anyone else in government, state or federal, wanted to go there.
Would a North Carolina cop lie on the stand? Absolutely. "Testilying," a term made up by police officers themselves to describe what they do after taking an oath to tell the truth, is common all over the country and North Carolina is no exception. A middle class woman was murdered and the police and prosecutors had the pressure to find a killer.
Given the lawlessness and dishonesty that dominates the police and prosecutorial culture in North Carolina, I doubt that framing Cooper was a difficult decision. And, if there is a conspiracy to lie, destroy or alter evidence, and to railroad an innocent man into prison, what better people to do it than the men and women who wear the blue costume.
When people speak of the infamous "Blue Wall of Silence," they are speaking of the various police departments in the United States. No one lies better than a cop and no one covers up a lie better than a whole police department.
I make this point because one of the problems of holding conspiracies together is that someone spills the beans. Police departments tend to be the exception because cops tend to stick together, and if a cop were to tell the truth, he knows that his life afterward most likely will be very short.
Bradley Cooper was convicted by a jury that saw only weak and contrived circumstantial evidence. A judge who was in league with the prosecutors oversaw the trial, or whatever one calls one of those things in North Carolina. While it was true that the authorities from police to the judge in Craft's trial were trying to rig a conviction, jurors in Catoosa County saw through the lies.
Jurors in Cooper's case, however, did not. But their verdict will not stop me from presenting the case against guilt over the next several days.
Thursday, June 9, 2011
The Joe Collins case: yet another prosecutor breaking the law (and getting away with it)
The Tonya Craft case was full of illegal and immoral actions by prosecutors Chris Arnt and Len Gregor, along with the predations of "judge" brian outhouse, and it is hard to pinpoint any one low point, given the whole thing was in the gutter from the start. However, besides illegally (and knowingly) bringing false charges against Craft, Arnt also had private investigator Eric Echols indicted on false charges of "intimidating a witness."
While the charges against Echols ultimately were dismissed, it was yet another attempt by a lawless prosecutor to demonstrate to others that he indicted Echols -- because he could do it. Unfortunately, lawbreaking is not limited to Arnt; in fact, prosecutors all over the country are finding that they can indict any private investigator who manages to shoot holes in their flimsy cases.
Joe Collins, a successful private investigator in Minnesota goes on trial in Isanti County next week in what clearly is a contrived charge of felony bribery. The scenario is all-too-familiar.
In this case, a woman claimed that a man kidnapped her and raped her. (They left a party together and she spent the night and most of the next day with him. After that, she realized that her boyfriend might not like her sleeping around, so she then claimed rape.) The details of the story (like so many others) don't match the prosecution's line, especially given that the woman was not exactly anxious to flee from the home of her "rapist."
Collins was hired by the defendant's law firm and it did not take him long to start blowing holes in the woman's story, and he also found that the Isanti County Sheriff's Office had conducted a slapstick investigation, led by Det. Lisa Lovering, who moonlights as a real estate agent.
Furthermore, he found out that "the victim" had stolen something from an antique store in another county. He spoke to her about it, and she admitted stealing the item. She asked him if he could make the charges (no one had charged her with anything at that point) go away, and he agreed that he would, provided that she would tell the truth about the alleged rape.
You see, whether in Minnesota or Georgia or Washington, D.C., getting someone to tell the truth is a crime, while prosecutors are permitted -- indeed, encouraged -- to suborn perjury. The one thing that seems not to be tolerated by judges and prosecutors these days is the truth.
So, Isanti County County Attorney Jeffrey Edblad filed felony charges against Collins and that is where we stand. (Edblad, however, has recused himself from the case, citing a "conflict of interest.")
I'll be reporting on the trial next week.
While the charges against Echols ultimately were dismissed, it was yet another attempt by a lawless prosecutor to demonstrate to others that he indicted Echols -- because he could do it. Unfortunately, lawbreaking is not limited to Arnt; in fact, prosecutors all over the country are finding that they can indict any private investigator who manages to shoot holes in their flimsy cases.
Joe Collins, a successful private investigator in Minnesota goes on trial in Isanti County next week in what clearly is a contrived charge of felony bribery. The scenario is all-too-familiar.
In this case, a woman claimed that a man kidnapped her and raped her. (They left a party together and she spent the night and most of the next day with him. After that, she realized that her boyfriend might not like her sleeping around, so she then claimed rape.) The details of the story (like so many others) don't match the prosecution's line, especially given that the woman was not exactly anxious to flee from the home of her "rapist."
Collins was hired by the defendant's law firm and it did not take him long to start blowing holes in the woman's story, and he also found that the Isanti County Sheriff's Office had conducted a slapstick investigation, led by Det. Lisa Lovering, who moonlights as a real estate agent.
Furthermore, he found out that "the victim" had stolen something from an antique store in another county. He spoke to her about it, and she admitted stealing the item. She asked him if he could make the charges (no one had charged her with anything at that point) go away, and he agreed that he would, provided that she would tell the truth about the alleged rape.
You see, whether in Minnesota or Georgia or Washington, D.C., getting someone to tell the truth is a crime, while prosecutors are permitted -- indeed, encouraged -- to suborn perjury. The one thing that seems not to be tolerated by judges and prosecutors these days is the truth.
So, Isanti County County Attorney Jeffrey Edblad filed felony charges against Collins and that is where we stand. (Edblad, however, has recused himself from the case, citing a "conflict of interest.")
I'll be reporting on the trial next week.
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Reason Magazine and Criminal "Justice"
In the everlasting "war on crime," the people with whom I have the most in common -- religious conservatives -- pretty much do not "get it." Most of the people at my church tolerate me, and even a few have said I have helped them change some of their thinking, but overall, it was the Right that ratcheted up the "crime wars" in the 1970s and 80s.
After first resisting, the Left joined in the race. During Bill Clinton's eight years in office, the nation's prison population doubled, and it was Clinton's own Department of "Justice" that carried out the biggest government-caused massacre of individuals since Wounded Knee in 1890. (And the biggest cheerleaders for Clinton's massacre were liberals and the Religious Right, which showed that at least on the shooting and burning of innocent children, Left and Right happily could co-exist.)
Not everyone has been silent. Radley Balko of Reason Magazine (and now the Huffington Post) has been a hero, and his work on behalf of those who have been falsely accused is featured in the recent Reason Magazine edition that covers this nation's system of "justice." Radley's article on wrongful convictions alone makes the issue outstanding.
Why are wrongful convictions endemic? Balko gives a number of reasons, but he singles out what he calls "he professional culture of the criminal justice system." He writes:
Then there is lying. This comes from one prosecutor who apparently believes lies are just fine with him:
I wish the state of things was different, but it is not. Lying is accepted in our political and "justice" culture, and nothing ever will change. Those of us who believe that lying has no place in either sphere are a tiny minority, but at least we still can raise our voices, just as the people at Reason have done so.
After first resisting, the Left joined in the race. During Bill Clinton's eight years in office, the nation's prison population doubled, and it was Clinton's own Department of "Justice" that carried out the biggest government-caused massacre of individuals since Wounded Knee in 1890. (And the biggest cheerleaders for Clinton's massacre were liberals and the Religious Right, which showed that at least on the shooting and burning of innocent children, Left and Right happily could co-exist.)
Not everyone has been silent. Radley Balko of Reason Magazine (and now the Huffington Post) has been a hero, and his work on behalf of those who have been falsely accused is featured in the recent Reason Magazine edition that covers this nation's system of "justice." Radley's article on wrongful convictions alone makes the issue outstanding.
Why are wrongful convictions endemic? Balko gives a number of reasons, but he singles out what he calls "he professional culture of the criminal justice system." He writes:
In addition to the more specific causes of wrongful convictions listed above, there is a problem with the institutional culture among prosecutors, police officers, forensic analysts, and other officials. Misplaced incentives value high conviction rates more than a fair and equal administration of justice.For all of the points prosecutors make of criminal liability and state bar sanctions against prosecutors guilty of misconduct, Balko sets the record straight:
Prosecutors in particular enjoy absolute immunity from civil liability, even in cases where they manufacture evidence that leads to a wrongful conviction. The only time prosecutors can be sued is when they commit misconduct while acting as investigators—that is, while doing something police normally do. At that point they’re subject to qualified immunity, which provides less protection than absolute immunity but still makes it difficult to recover damages.
...criminal charges are few and far between, and prosecutors can make egregious mistakes that still don’t rise to the level of criminal misconduct. Professional sanctions are also rare. A 2010 study by the Northern California Innocence Project found more than 700 examples between 1997 and 2009 in which a court had found misconduct on the part of a prosecutor in the state. Only six of those cases resulted in any disciplinary action by the state bar. A 2010 investigation of federal prosecutorial misconduct by USA Today produced similar results: Of 201 cases in which federal judges found that prosecutors had committed misconduct, just one resulted in discipline by a state bar association. Prosecutorial misconduct was a factor in about one-quarter of the first 225 DNA exonerations, but none of the prosecutors in those cases faced any significant discipline from the courts or the bar.In fact, NO prosecutor in this country EVER has been convicted of prosecutorial misconduct, and it is not because the prosecutors in the dock were innocent. Instead, juries tend to treat prosecutors like they do police officers, often engaging in nullification decisions because Americans are taught to hold people of these professions in absolute deference.
There is also a common misconception that appeals courts serve as a check on criminal justice abuse. It is actually rare for an appeals court to review the evidence in a criminal case. Appeals courts make sure trials abide by the state and federal constitutions and by state or federal rules of criminal procedure, but they almost never second-guess the conclusions of juries.
Then there is lying. This comes from one prosecutor who apparently believes lies are just fine with him:
If you were to take every jailhouse informant at his word, you’d find that a remarkably high percentage of the people accused of felonies boast about their crimes to the complete strangers they meet in jail and prison cells. Informants are particularly valuable in federal drug cases, where helping a prosecutor obtain more convictions is often the only way to get time cut from a mandatory minimum sentence. That gives them a pretty good incentive to lie.No, Grayson won't have to worry about being charged with suborning perjury, nor will he face discipline from his state bar. And it is my sense that Grayson is typical of prosecutors, both state and federal. We saw enough of that during the Tonya Craft trial, and a representative of the Georgia State Bar told me that she was just fine with that conduct, and that the State Bar pretty much condoned it. "They were just doing their jobs," she told me.
There is some disagreement over a prosecutor’s duty to verify the testimony he solicits from jailhouse informants. In the 2006, Church Point, Louisiana, case of Ann Colomb, for example, Brett Grayson, an assistant U.S. attorney in Louisiana, put on a parade of jailhouse informants whose claims about buying drugs from Colomb and her sons were rather improbable, especially when the sum of their testimony was considered as a whole. According to defense attorneys I spoke with, when one attorney asked him if he actually believed what his informants were telling the jury, Grayson replied that it doesn’t matter if he believes his witnesses; it only matters if the jury does. He expressed a similar sentiment in his closing argument. (Emphasis mine)
I wish the state of things was different, but it is not. Lying is accepted in our political and "justice" culture, and nothing ever will change. Those of us who believe that lying has no place in either sphere are a tiny minority, but at least we still can raise our voices, just as the people at Reason have done so.
Friday, May 20, 2011
"An Absolute Honest-to-God Texas Frame-up"
People have written me on occasion asking if I were familiar with the "Mineola Swingers Club" case, and while I was, I can say I didn't know much about it. As this article in Texas Monthly demonstrates, those who did know the facts decided that the facts were not good enough, and that the only "satisfactory" outcome would be to frame the defendants. And that is what the authorities did.
The facts are fairly well-known. A group of adults supposedly had young children engage in sex behavior on stage at a "swingers club" in Mineola, Texas. The children alleged a number of wild things, but at the beginning the authorities in Woods County could see through it, but, as often happens, someone else got involved, the "child protective" workers did their guilt-assuming, suggestive interviews, and the rest was history. Innocent people went to jail.
Writes Michael Hall:
It happens because people in authority are not held accountable for their actions. Protected by legal immunity and the mainstream news media, which needs these people as sources for their stories (no matter how fantastic those stories might be), the bad actors are free to lie, suborn perjury, and conspire with judges to rig trials. Protected by politicians and the U.S. Supreme Court, police, prosecutors, and "child protective" workers will pull off this scam time and again -- because they can do it.
Hall ends with this depressing thought:
The facts are fairly well-known. A group of adults supposedly had young children engage in sex behavior on stage at a "swingers club" in Mineola, Texas. The children alleged a number of wild things, but at the beginning the authorities in Woods County could see through it, but, as often happens, someone else got involved, the "child protective" workers did their guilt-assuming, suggestive interviews, and the rest was history. Innocent people went to jail.
Writes Michael Hall:
To recap, from 2005 to 2008, four Tyler children--three siblings and their aunt—all aged 4 through 7, made allegations that in 2004 seven adults, including their parents, had forced them to attend a sex kindergarten in a trailer park, where they learned to play sex games, and then took them to a swingers club in nearby Mineola, where they performed sex acts on stage in front of crowds of as many as 30 adults, who videotaped the shows. The stories told by the kids were wildly inconsistent and sometimes outright bizarre: adults casting spells, wearing witch outfits, and sacrificing chickens; one child said she had flown around on a broomstick. Every single child initially denied to social workers knowing anything about a sex kindergarten or club; it was only after multiple interviews that they started making outrageous allegations. But there was nothing to back them up: no adult witnesses and no physical evidence—no DNA, no fingerprints, not even any videotapes.Unfortunately, the truth was not enough:
In fact, Wood County, where Mineola is located, did its own investigation, back in 2005, when just one child was talking about a sex club. Investigators (including an FBI agent), found absolutely no evidence to back up her accusations.
This didn’t stop the criminal justice machinery of Smith County. A Texas Ranger got involved and before long he was helping interview the other kids. In 2007 arrests were made; the public was outraged that a sex kindergarten and a sex club would operate under their noses. Three of the adults went to trial in 2008 and their juries, made of good country people who want nothing more than to protect their children, found them guilty in a matter of minutes. A fourth defendant was found guilty last summer.If you wish to know why I have no hope at all that authorities will want to do what is right, the following pretty much explains the current state of "law" in this country:
I find it unfathomable that so many good people could allow and encourage these prosecutions to go forward. What happened to the lawyerly skepticism of Judge Jack Skeen and DA Bingham and the other men and women in his office?No matter how many times these kinds of cases are exposed, no matter how much research is published on problems that we find when "child protective" workers interview young children, no matter how many times that the "evidence" contradicts the Laws of Time and Space, the authorities will bring charges and compliant juries will vote guilty. Why does it happen?
*Why didn’t they look closer at the kids’ weird, implausible stories?
*Why didn’t they look closer at the foster mother of three of them, a woman named Margie Cantrell who moved to Mineola from California in 2004 and who has a history of manipulating her foster kids? (One of her California kids characterized her to me as “the puppet master” and said, “She brainwashes the kids to believe the stories she makes up.”)
*Why didn’t they give serious credence to the fact that not one of the seven defendants would testify against the others in exchange for a lesser sentence?
If they had done just one of these three, much less all of them, they would have realized the obvious: Nothing happened. There was no crime. There was no sex kindergarten and there were no child-sex shows at a swinger’s club. Ultimately, I can’t help but believe that Bingham knows this. Let’s put it this way: If he really believed these people put on live sex shows with children, would he really be setting them free now?
I always figured the cavalry would ride in and save the day for them. First I thought it would be the office of the Attorney General, which, in the summer of 2009 sent two lawyers to help investigate the case after Bingham tried to recuse his office from further prosecutions. But the AG’s office didn’t do anything. Then in the spring of 2010 two of the defendants had their verdicts thrown out by the 14th Court of Appeals in Houston—a process which saw the DA in neighboring Wood County file an extraordinary amicus brief in which he officially called into question everything the Smith County DA had done. “[N]o evidence was found to corroborate the stories told by the children,” he wrote.
But that was it. No cooler or wiser heads stepped in to actually free these people. In fact, those two defendants whose cases were overturned were going to be folded in with the remaining defendants (two of whom are grandparents of two of the children) into one mass trial in June. It is these six who pled guilty.
It happens because people in authority are not held accountable for their actions. Protected by legal immunity and the mainstream news media, which needs these people as sources for their stories (no matter how fantastic those stories might be), the bad actors are free to lie, suborn perjury, and conspire with judges to rig trials. Protected by politicians and the U.S. Supreme Court, police, prosecutors, and "child protective" workers will pull off this scam time and again -- because they can do it.
Hall ends with this depressing thought:
Why would they do this if they aren’t guilty? Well, innocent people plead guilty all the time. They confess to crimes they didn’t commit (about a quarter of the DNA exonerations involve some form of false confession) and they plead guilty to crimes they didn’t commit. They especially do it when they are certain they will be found guilty, no matter what they do or how good their attorneys are. In these cases we’ve already seen four different juries vote guilty—in the time it takes to watch a movie. These defendants know the realities. They can go to prison for life—or they can go home. They don’t have a whole lot to lose by pleading guilty. Their lives have already been ruined—they’ll always be known for these allegations anyway.In Catoosa County a year ago, the "bad guys" did not win when jurors saw through the lies of the authorities and acquitted Tonya Craft. But they still are on the job, still trying to frame innocent people, still lying, still suborning perjury, still fabricating "evidence." As long as people like this are in positions of power and authority, the "bad guys" will be winning.
So, Patrick “Booger Red“ Kelly told his mother that he was taking the plea. “I don’t like it at all,” she told me. “But he’s screwed here. Despite all anybody can do, he’s never going to be found ‘not guilty’ in Tyler. He’s at the end of his rope. He told me, ‘Mama, I’m tired. I’m in here for something I haven’t done. I want to go home.’”
I usually believe in the ultimate good will of good people; justice will triumph. Of course, that only happens if people actually do something about injustice. In this case decent people turned away from doing anything about a terrible wrong. They’ve got a word for that, and the word is “evil.”
In Smith County, the bad guys won.
Thursday, March 31, 2011
What if you are falsely accused? Part I: What NOT to do
None of us believe that we ever will be falsely accused of a sex crime. After all, we have been brought up to believe that the USA has the best "justice" system in the world, and that police and prosecutors are honest people who never would try to frame an innocent person.
Unfortunately, that is not the case anymore. Police gladly will frame innocent people and prosecutors are all-too-happy to put innocent people on trial or force them to plead out to crimes they didn't commit because they cannot afford to defend themselves. THAT is the reality of law in the USA.
Most likely, the person reading this won't ever be charged in a sexual assault/child molestation case, as prosecutors cannot charge everyone. If you are falsely accused, however, there are a number of things that you should do -- and not do. I will deal with those things in this post.
After you get over the first wave of shock and anger of being falsely accused, you probably just are confused and want this nightmare to go away. You have to understand, however, that the police and the local prosecutors really are not interested in whether or not you actually did the things of which you are accused. That's right; they are not interested. They already have decided you are guilty, and their mission is to spin everything that they find into a way to get you thrown into prison for the rest of your life.
It does not matter if the accusations are a lie. Cops and prosecutors lie all the time and the honest people in that business often are intimidated and threatened by the bad guys. You are going to be dealing with people who don't care if you are innocent or guilty; they already have decided you are guilty, and they don't like to be confused with facts.
So, let us assume that you are accused. What do you do. What do you NOT do?
Don't Talk to the Police
The first thing that you DO NOT do is talk to the police without an attorney present. If you wish to have an expert tell you why, just watch this video by a law school professor telling people NOT to talk to the police.
Yes, you reply, but the police will listen. They will hear your story and then they will realize that the charges are ridiculous and the whole thing will go away. Right.
It is not going to happen. If you sit down with the police, they are not going to try to find out what occurred; no, they are going to try to find a way to twist your statements into an admission of guilt. No matter how much they tell you that they only are trying to help, it is a lie.
As Tonya Craft has told me more than once, charges of child molestation and rape are very different than, say, charges that you robbed a convenience store. Regarding the latter, you can present evidence that you were not there or that the eyewitness has engaged in mistaken identity. (Granted, cops try to find ways to work around alibis in these kinds of cases, too, but if you can prove you were not there, you have a strong case for innocence.)
In charges of child molestation or rape, however, alibis simply don't matter. For example, "judge" brian outhouse actually claimed in court that prosecutors had demonstrated that Tonya Craft molested the daughter of Sandra Lamb at her home -- before she even bought the home and moved into it. Logically, there was no way that Ms. Craft could have been at that place when prosecutors said she was (and entered no evidence at all to show she had been there before she bought the house), but it did not matter.
Why? House and the prosecutors already were of the mindset that they were going to rig a conviction, and had no interest in evidence. That is common in such cases. We have seen it not only in the Craft case, but also all of the other cases covered on this blog, including the one against Michael Rasmussen.
Look what happened when Rasmussen agreed to talk to detectives Young Austin and Kim Selkirk. They wrote down a bunch of notes and claimed that he had "confessed" to everything they had claimed. Given that Selkirk and Austin did not record this supposed momentous "confession" and given that Selkirk's notes conflicted with the state's own "evidence," it is not hard to conclude that Austin and Selkirk are lying.
A friend of mine who was a police officer in Florida for many years told me that all too often, cops reach conclusions first and then try to find "evidence" that fits their theories. A good investigator, he told me, tries to let the evidence lead to a conclusion, not the other way around.
Yet, cops also are under pressure to charge people, to close cases, and to help prosecutors get convictions. The "win at all costs" combined with the fact that the ONLY "evidence" needed in many rape and child molestation cases is an accusation. For example, it was painfully clear in the Duke Lacrosse Case that (1) Crystal Mangum was not raped, and (2) that the three lacrosse players could not have been the "rapists," anyway.
Yet, the charges stayed live for a year even though they had thoroughly been debunked by the attorneys and by outside experts who saw the "evidence" for what it was: a sham. But because of political considerations and because of the feminist ideologies driving the charges, the case very well could have gone to trial and there very well could have been a conviction.
It is very rare in these kinds of cases that police and prosecutors will look at evidence that does not fit a profile that says you are guilty. That is just the way it is. Don't talk to the police; they only will use your words against you.
Don't Assume the People in the System will be Fair
Americans like to believe that this is a country where fairness and justice reign. That is nonsense, but most people don't discover just how bad things are until they are charged with something they did not do. The American courts will go overboard to convict the innocent, and once there is a conviction, it is almost impossible to have it overturned, as the courts love "finality."
As I noted in a previous post, the immunity that government players have in the justice system also provides perverse incentives for them to lie. After all, prosecutors don't get raises and promotions for "seeking justice." They get raises and promotions for winning.
Chris Arnt believed that he could ride a conviction against Tonya Craft to much higher political office. Despite the fact that he lied in court, suborned perjury, and broke the law with impunity, he still is employed as a prosecutor, going after other people who allegedly have broken the law.
In other words, Arnt paid no legal price for his actions. Whether or not he ever can be elected to public office after his show of dishonesty depends upon how much garbage voters in North Georgia are willing to swallow.
Even though the police will accuse you of "not cooperating," you MUST invoke your Constitutional rights at this point. Trust me when I tell you that neither police nor prosecutors care about your rights and will violate them with impunity if they think they can get away with it.
You have to be responsible to protect yourself, and that means invoking your rights. Don't talk to the police, period.
In Part II, I will write about choosing an attorney. In Part III, I will point out resources you can use to help defend yourself.
NOTE: Good news from North Carolina. A federal judge has ruled that the lawsuits filed by various Duke lacrosse players against Duke University, Durham, and Mike Nifong can proceed. If Duke and Durham lose on appeal, I suspect that the defendants will settle quickly with the plaintiffs.
Unfortunately, that is not the case anymore. Police gladly will frame innocent people and prosecutors are all-too-happy to put innocent people on trial or force them to plead out to crimes they didn't commit because they cannot afford to defend themselves. THAT is the reality of law in the USA.
Most likely, the person reading this won't ever be charged in a sexual assault/child molestation case, as prosecutors cannot charge everyone. If you are falsely accused, however, there are a number of things that you should do -- and not do. I will deal with those things in this post.
After you get over the first wave of shock and anger of being falsely accused, you probably just are confused and want this nightmare to go away. You have to understand, however, that the police and the local prosecutors really are not interested in whether or not you actually did the things of which you are accused. That's right; they are not interested. They already have decided you are guilty, and their mission is to spin everything that they find into a way to get you thrown into prison for the rest of your life.
It does not matter if the accusations are a lie. Cops and prosecutors lie all the time and the honest people in that business often are intimidated and threatened by the bad guys. You are going to be dealing with people who don't care if you are innocent or guilty; they already have decided you are guilty, and they don't like to be confused with facts.
So, let us assume that you are accused. What do you do. What do you NOT do?
Don't Talk to the Police
The first thing that you DO NOT do is talk to the police without an attorney present. If you wish to have an expert tell you why, just watch this video by a law school professor telling people NOT to talk to the police.
Yes, you reply, but the police will listen. They will hear your story and then they will realize that the charges are ridiculous and the whole thing will go away. Right.
It is not going to happen. If you sit down with the police, they are not going to try to find out what occurred; no, they are going to try to find a way to twist your statements into an admission of guilt. No matter how much they tell you that they only are trying to help, it is a lie.
As Tonya Craft has told me more than once, charges of child molestation and rape are very different than, say, charges that you robbed a convenience store. Regarding the latter, you can present evidence that you were not there or that the eyewitness has engaged in mistaken identity. (Granted, cops try to find ways to work around alibis in these kinds of cases, too, but if you can prove you were not there, you have a strong case for innocence.)
In charges of child molestation or rape, however, alibis simply don't matter. For example, "judge" brian outhouse actually claimed in court that prosecutors had demonstrated that Tonya Craft molested the daughter of Sandra Lamb at her home -- before she even bought the home and moved into it. Logically, there was no way that Ms. Craft could have been at that place when prosecutors said she was (and entered no evidence at all to show she had been there before she bought the house), but it did not matter.
Why? House and the prosecutors already were of the mindset that they were going to rig a conviction, and had no interest in evidence. That is common in such cases. We have seen it not only in the Craft case, but also all of the other cases covered on this blog, including the one against Michael Rasmussen.
Look what happened when Rasmussen agreed to talk to detectives Young Austin and Kim Selkirk. They wrote down a bunch of notes and claimed that he had "confessed" to everything they had claimed. Given that Selkirk and Austin did not record this supposed momentous "confession" and given that Selkirk's notes conflicted with the state's own "evidence," it is not hard to conclude that Austin and Selkirk are lying.
A friend of mine who was a police officer in Florida for many years told me that all too often, cops reach conclusions first and then try to find "evidence" that fits their theories. A good investigator, he told me, tries to let the evidence lead to a conclusion, not the other way around.
Yet, cops also are under pressure to charge people, to close cases, and to help prosecutors get convictions. The "win at all costs" combined with the fact that the ONLY "evidence" needed in many rape and child molestation cases is an accusation. For example, it was painfully clear in the Duke Lacrosse Case that (1) Crystal Mangum was not raped, and (2) that the three lacrosse players could not have been the "rapists," anyway.
Yet, the charges stayed live for a year even though they had thoroughly been debunked by the attorneys and by outside experts who saw the "evidence" for what it was: a sham. But because of political considerations and because of the feminist ideologies driving the charges, the case very well could have gone to trial and there very well could have been a conviction.
It is very rare in these kinds of cases that police and prosecutors will look at evidence that does not fit a profile that says you are guilty. That is just the way it is. Don't talk to the police; they only will use your words against you.
Don't Assume the People in the System will be Fair
Americans like to believe that this is a country where fairness and justice reign. That is nonsense, but most people don't discover just how bad things are until they are charged with something they did not do. The American courts will go overboard to convict the innocent, and once there is a conviction, it is almost impossible to have it overturned, as the courts love "finality."
As I noted in a previous post, the immunity that government players have in the justice system also provides perverse incentives for them to lie. After all, prosecutors don't get raises and promotions for "seeking justice." They get raises and promotions for winning.
Chris Arnt believed that he could ride a conviction against Tonya Craft to much higher political office. Despite the fact that he lied in court, suborned perjury, and broke the law with impunity, he still is employed as a prosecutor, going after other people who allegedly have broken the law.
In other words, Arnt paid no legal price for his actions. Whether or not he ever can be elected to public office after his show of dishonesty depends upon how much garbage voters in North Georgia are willing to swallow.
Even though the police will accuse you of "not cooperating," you MUST invoke your Constitutional rights at this point. Trust me when I tell you that neither police nor prosecutors care about your rights and will violate them with impunity if they think they can get away with it.
You have to be responsible to protect yourself, and that means invoking your rights. Don't talk to the police, period.
In Part II, I will write about choosing an attorney. In Part III, I will point out resources you can use to help defend yourself.
NOTE: Good news from North Carolina. A federal judge has ruled that the lawsuits filed by various Duke lacrosse players against Duke University, Durham, and Mike Nifong can proceed. If Duke and Durham lose on appeal, I suspect that the defendants will settle quickly with the plaintiffs.
Monday, March 28, 2011
The False Accusation Industry and Why I Write about It
For the most part, this blog deals with individuals who have been falsely accused of sex crimes. Its genesis comes long before blogging even existed, with the starting point being a PBS Frontline broadcast of the the Little Rascals case in North Carolina.
As I watched the series, I realized that there was no way -- no way -- that the charges could be true, yet so many people seemed inclined to believe them. People went to prison only to have convictions overturned; lives were ruined, and it became obvious that if the authorities wanted to convict someone on the basis of, frankly, coached testimony from children, it was not difficult to do so.
For whatever reasons, I came to see these kinds of cases as a symbol of what American "justice" was becoming, and as more and more cases, like that in Wenatchee, came about, I realized that when it comes to these kinds of accusations, the authorities seem to lose all sanity and the ability to reason. Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal picked up on the subject and wrote a number of columns and editorials excoriating police, prosecutors, and judges for going along with the scam, winning a Pulitzer Prize and writing an excellent book, No Crueler Tyrannies.
At the time, I had no forum to stand up for people falsely accused, but my opportunity finally came when Lew Rockwell gave me near carte blanche on his blog in the infamous Duke Lacrosse Case of 2006-07. In response, over the next year, I would write nearly 70 articles on his blog about the case, the lies being told by prosecutor Mike Nifong, and the misconduct of the Duke University faculty and administration.
The Duke case was a watershed for me, as I came to understand that the Progressive institutions in this country are built and primed for false accusations in sexually-charged situations. The problem, as I came to see it, was not "overzealousness," "mistaken identity," or even "insanity" or "misunderstandings."
No, the problem is systematic and it is built into the very laws passed supposedly to protect "victims" of these crimes. The formula for tyranny came about innocuously and innocently enough; Congress passed laws to aid local law enforcement in order to stop sexual crimes against children and women. The formula, whether it was contained in the Mondale Act of 1974 (and subsequent such acts) or the Violence Against Women Act, went as such:
The same is true regarding any claim of child molestation, "inappropriate" touching, or anything of the sort, and the charges MUST be investigated as though they were true. Furthermore, in the case of children, the various federally-created (and often funded) agencies like Child Protective Services and the Children's Advocacy Center become involved in the investigations and the interviews with children.
One easily can spot the bias for assuming guilt in such situations. In the Duke Case, Tara Levicy, a hardcore feminist who was seeking her certification to be a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE), was involved in the investigation and ultimately fabricated material and lied to the police in an attempt to frame the three defendants. It is clear that Levicy was not interested in the facts, but rather promoting her "women never lie about rape" ideology that is common among many (but certainly not all) feminists.
In Tonya Craft's case, we saw not only just how the Children's Advocacy Center "interviewers" acted unprofessionally while testifying (giggling, shrugging their shoulders, rolling their eyes, and sighing out loud). Even a cursory look at the transcripts of their interviews with the child accusers demonstrates just how they broke every rule of forensic interviewing, yet were treated by the court as "experts" in investigating "child molestation."
Combined with the federal money that comes to states and localities for pursuing such accusations, as well as the built-in bias that comes into the way the authorities are to pursue such cases, it is no wonder that people are easily railroaded into prison even if they are innocent.
There are other factors at work, too. First, defending oneself is an expensive proposition, and very few people have six figures of spare change needed to have the kind of legal representation that will effectively deal with false allegations. Second, the authorities are spending other people's money and have nothing of their own at stake, which means that the odds are against the person falsely accused.
Third, the media often jumps on the "Guilty!" bandwagon early. There is the use of the mug shot, which exists ONLY to make someone look guilty. Second, because media sources usually are concentrated in the government sector, prosecutors and police are first in line to undermine the defendant's case, and most reporters (but not all) gladly go along with the scam.
To me, this not only is wrong, but it is immoral and has no place in a free society. (Of course, ours no longer is a "free society," but we like to pretend that it is.) People who are falsely accused -- and it is not difficult to see that many of those charged with the "crimes" I have mentioned -- are demonized unfairly in the media and have a huge battle to fight just to win their freedom. I believe that fighting for the rights of the accused is a battle worth fighting, especially since the so-called gatekeepers of our rights -- the news media -- for the most part have decided that helping to deny the rights of the accused is more fun and more profitable.
In future posts, I will cover things one should do if falsely accused, and I will write on things that one might do in order to avoid false accusations, at least in some circumstances.
As I watched the series, I realized that there was no way -- no way -- that the charges could be true, yet so many people seemed inclined to believe them. People went to prison only to have convictions overturned; lives were ruined, and it became obvious that if the authorities wanted to convict someone on the basis of, frankly, coached testimony from children, it was not difficult to do so.
For whatever reasons, I came to see these kinds of cases as a symbol of what American "justice" was becoming, and as more and more cases, like that in Wenatchee, came about, I realized that when it comes to these kinds of accusations, the authorities seem to lose all sanity and the ability to reason. Dorothy Rabinowitz of the Wall Street Journal picked up on the subject and wrote a number of columns and editorials excoriating police, prosecutors, and judges for going along with the scam, winning a Pulitzer Prize and writing an excellent book, No Crueler Tyrannies.
At the time, I had no forum to stand up for people falsely accused, but my opportunity finally came when Lew Rockwell gave me near carte blanche on his blog in the infamous Duke Lacrosse Case of 2006-07. In response, over the next year, I would write nearly 70 articles on his blog about the case, the lies being told by prosecutor Mike Nifong, and the misconduct of the Duke University faculty and administration.
The Duke case was a watershed for me, as I came to understand that the Progressive institutions in this country are built and primed for false accusations in sexually-charged situations. The problem, as I came to see it, was not "overzealousness," "mistaken identity," or even "insanity" or "misunderstandings."
No, the problem is systematic and it is built into the very laws passed supposedly to protect "victims" of these crimes. The formula for tyranny came about innocuously and innocently enough; Congress passed laws to aid local law enforcement in order to stop sexual crimes against children and women. The formula, whether it was contained in the Mondale Act of 1974 (and subsequent such acts) or the Violence Against Women Act, went as such:
- The nation faced a "crisis," whether it was children being abused or women being the victims of rape and other violence;
- The federal government would provide financial and other assistance to state and local governments in exchange for those entities aggressively pursuing those kinds of charges.
The same is true regarding any claim of child molestation, "inappropriate" touching, or anything of the sort, and the charges MUST be investigated as though they were true. Furthermore, in the case of children, the various federally-created (and often funded) agencies like Child Protective Services and the Children's Advocacy Center become involved in the investigations and the interviews with children.
One easily can spot the bias for assuming guilt in such situations. In the Duke Case, Tara Levicy, a hardcore feminist who was seeking her certification to be a Sexual Assault Nurse Examiner (SANE), was involved in the investigation and ultimately fabricated material and lied to the police in an attempt to frame the three defendants. It is clear that Levicy was not interested in the facts, but rather promoting her "women never lie about rape" ideology that is common among many (but certainly not all) feminists.
In Tonya Craft's case, we saw not only just how the Children's Advocacy Center "interviewers" acted unprofessionally while testifying (giggling, shrugging their shoulders, rolling their eyes, and sighing out loud). Even a cursory look at the transcripts of their interviews with the child accusers demonstrates just how they broke every rule of forensic interviewing, yet were treated by the court as "experts" in investigating "child molestation."
Combined with the federal money that comes to states and localities for pursuing such accusations, as well as the built-in bias that comes into the way the authorities are to pursue such cases, it is no wonder that people are easily railroaded into prison even if they are innocent.
There are other factors at work, too. First, defending oneself is an expensive proposition, and very few people have six figures of spare change needed to have the kind of legal representation that will effectively deal with false allegations. Second, the authorities are spending other people's money and have nothing of their own at stake, which means that the odds are against the person falsely accused.
Third, the media often jumps on the "Guilty!" bandwagon early. There is the use of the mug shot, which exists ONLY to make someone look guilty. Second, because media sources usually are concentrated in the government sector, prosecutors and police are first in line to undermine the defendant's case, and most reporters (but not all) gladly go along with the scam.
To me, this not only is wrong, but it is immoral and has no place in a free society. (Of course, ours no longer is a "free society," but we like to pretend that it is.) People who are falsely accused -- and it is not difficult to see that many of those charged with the "crimes" I have mentioned -- are demonized unfairly in the media and have a huge battle to fight just to win their freedom. I believe that fighting for the rights of the accused is a battle worth fighting, especially since the so-called gatekeepers of our rights -- the news media -- for the most part have decided that helping to deny the rights of the accused is more fun and more profitable.
In future posts, I will cover things one should do if falsely accused, and I will write on things that one might do in order to avoid false accusations, at least in some circumstances.
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