Monday, March 29, 2010

America's Judicial Caste System and DNA Testing


(14 paragraphs and 7 links before the CBS article) I wrote an email to principals among several political parties and suggested that candidates for elected office who make justice reform a party platform would enjoy good support from voters. People are more aware than ever before about denial of justice in criminal and civil courts, and fair-minded Americans want change. Ironically, wrongful verdicts in civil cases are automatically VOID if the evidence used to reach the verdict or judgment was false. Such judgments are not merely voidable, but already void. Civil court cases are ordinarily about money. Why does the justice system prioritize fairness regarding money matters above justice for innocent Americans who are wrongly incarcerated? Could it be that money is deemed more important than citizens' lives to those who make our laws? Apparently, that is exactly the case.

My family experienced two void judgements regarding our civil lawsuit against The (Johnnie) Cochran Firm. When we sued the firm for fraud, the law firm claimed in court not to have any office within the State of Georgia where our lawsuit was served, although the Atlanta law office is open and conducting business every day. That perjury was used to have our lawsuit dismissed without the necessity of either settling with my family or facing a jury. Surprisingly, the Superior Court judge agreed that there is no such thing as a Georgia office of The Cochran Firm and dismissed our lawsuit, and The Cochran Firm never even paused its prolific advertising for new clients and continues to accept high-profile cases in its Atlanta office. We then sued The Cochran Firm in United States District Court under the diversity rule based on the law firm's fraud on the court. Since both judgments were rendered based on The Cochran Firm's perjury about its Georgia office, both are VOID judgments. See information about the case at this website and view some of the evidence under the DOCUMENTS tab: http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com/

How would you like it if days after such perjury was allowed in court to cheat you out of millions of dollars in a righteous lawsuit, your defendant issued a commercial like the one at this link? YouTube Commercial for Atlanta Office of The Johnnie Cochran Firm http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlcolpUzckU. The Cochran Firm published that YouTube commercial admitting its Atlanta office within a week of the USDC judge ruling that my family is too "immaterial" to matter, and that judge also dismissed our lawsuit and prevented the case from going to jury, WHICH WE PAID TO DO. No one should leave a lawsuit against billionaires in the hands of a single judge to decide. Money is too important to some people. "JURY TRIAL DEMANDED" should be respected in the United States of America - that is supposed to be a Constitutional right, also. Unfortunately, "justice" in civil courts as well as criminal courts depends on who you are - being a citizen is not nearly enough, especially if your case is against someone in the "protected class." Perhaps The Cochran Firm hurried and published the YouTube commercial for its Atlanta office to prevent class action lawsuits against for false advertising against media companies that continued the law firm's Atlanta ads after being notified of the court's verdict. Media companies may suppress everything to do with Larry Neal's murder and The Cochran Firm's fraud against his survivors for that reason, or it could be because they are interested in hiding government corruption in the expectation of a bailout for censoring your news. Now my family is expected to just go somewhere and eat our chicken and join Larry's wrongful death cover-up, or we are harassed, stalked, and practically imprisoned in our own home to avoid harm! See "Black Relatives Killed by Police? So? Just Eat Yo Chicken and Shut up!" http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2009/11/blacks-relatives-killed-by-police-just.html

Working class and indigent people have no protected rights, whether they are black or white, especially if the people who wrong us are in a higher caste. During both court cases regarding The Cochran Firm having used its position as Larry Neal's wrongful death attorneys to work for Shelby County Jail behind our backs, Larry's survivors experienced cyberterrorism, censorship, and actual stalking. All of those crimes continue today in violation of U.S. Code 18, sections 242 and 245 and other laws, but police and the U.S. Department of Justice REFUSE to investigate the terrorism, just as they refuse to investigate Larry Neal's murder. At the link below is a two-minute example of illegal cybercensorship my advocacy for justice for Larry and other wrongly incarcerated inmates is met with every day (I have a library of such video proof): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=icRD77mugaI As a poor black woman who has been deprived of a comfortable income as a legal assistant by stalkers who followed me from home from work each night and deprived of a righteous settlement or jury award by unscrupulous people - criminals! - in the "justice" system, I can do nothing about the censorship and harassment my family and I endure. However, people will NOT treat us this way and proclaim "equal justice" and "American values" and issue much-belated apologies for slavery that are believed. Larry was killed and discarded like a slave. Like families in the 1940's who awoke to burning crosses on their lawns, there is the intention to intimidate Larry's survivors into silence about the crimes we face.

How much do you think my censorship video library is worth? Cyberstalkers prevent me from being able to collect advertising income off the hundreds of articles I write about wrongful incarcerations, the need to eliminate the death penalty and decriminalize mental illness. People were hired to continually click ads at my articles and force Google to cancel my AdSense account to protect its ad customers from paying from false clicks. Cyberstalkers are particularly zealous to ensure that my articles reach a minimum of African Americans and Christians. I feel pressed to hurry and tell people how little citizens' rights are respected for whites like Hank Skinner as well as Africans like the Neals - before the FEMA camps under H.R. 645 are ready for tenants. Because I do so, it is apparently dangerous to go out to work since I am allowed to be stalked by vehicles full of men wearing bluetooths led by a USDOT truck. Google "Mary Neal 911" to see the actual police report about one horrifying ordeal that police also ignored. I urge Americans to wake up and smell the koffie in my articles and at Twitter, where I am KoffieTime - http://www.Twitter.com/KoffieTime

Perhaps the plan is to starve Larry Neal's family for daring to ask the justice system to tell how they killed him and because we sued their very useful law firm, The Johnnie Cochran Firm, for its fraud. (These events transpired after Mr. Cochran was no longer available to prevent his name and reputation from being used to mistreat minorities, as stated by former Cochran Firm attorney Shawn Holley, who sued the firm for racial discrimination after Mr. Cochran died and African American lawyers were reportedly dismissed or forced out of the law firm.) Such intense censorship is applied to my publishing government crimes that people could learn much from my videos. I would upload a couple at this article, but people are hired to watch my computer input and see that I do cannot publish them. Someone else posted the "Prison Labor Profits" sample video at YouTube for us. Being African American and having African Americans in high positions over justice has not mattered regarding my family's persecution, and neither has Larry Neal been elevated above the dog caste in America - canines' deaths are investigated and prosecuted.

After it became obvious that mainstream media would not report to unsuspecting consumers (like Kathryn Johnston's family) that The Cochran Firm denied its own famous law office in Georgia to further defraud the Neal family, I began publishing the news myself in articles such as this one. I also founded an online advocacy to RESIST OPPRESSION on behalf of other inmates like Larry Neal, who died on August 1, 2003. My physically and mentally handicapped brother was secretly arrested for nearly three weeks and returned to his family as a naked corpse without any explanation as to why he was arrested, why police lied and kept the lifelong schizophrenic man for weeks in order to deny him his heart medicines, and under what exact circumstances Larry died. Did police Taser him? Kill him in a restraint chair? Was Larry assaulted to bring on his heart attack? Was he used for waterboarding training?

AND WHERE IS MITRICE RICHARDSON, ANOTHER AFRICAN AMERICAN MENTAL PATIENT WHO HAS NOT BEEN SEEN SINCE HER ARREST IN CALIFORNIA LAST SEPTEMBER? I hope her family finds her alive and well or is able to learn what happened to Mitrice. Memphis/Shelby County Jail never had to answer my family's questions about murdering Larry thanks to The Jonnie Cochran Firm, which signed contract to represent us in a wrongful death lawsuit against the jail but the lawyers secretly held our lawsuit inactive while the Tennessee statute of limitations passed. One good turn deserves another, so the justice system rallied around to protect the traitor law firm from paying damages for its horrible fraud against our grieving elderly mother and my family. Our advocacy group to help others who are wrongly treated in or by the justice system is called Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill (AIMI), a/k/a, The Dorothea Dix Group, at this link - http://www.Care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI - AIMI's 240 members are involved in a HUMAN RIGHTS FOR PRISONERS MARCH across the Internet to support H.R.619, a congressional bill to help decriminalize mental illness. We also advocate to repeal capital punishment and end wrongful convictions, juveniles being prosecuted as adults, and other injustices. A list of justice concerns is at this link: http://3.vu/5hdEl

When witnesses present false testimony that leads to wrongful convictions or DNA tests could make determinations about inmates' guilt or innocence, criminal laws shoud be as fair as civil laws. Such convictions should be just as VOID as wrongful judgements are in civil court.

Over 400 convictions have been overturned after new trials, hearings, or DNA tests. This proves that many prisoners are truthful when they protest "I Didn't Do It, Your Honor!" Thousands more convicted persons seek DNA tests through the Innocence Project, but will they get them? How much does innocence matter in criminal justice? Do Americans want to continue paying around $60,000 per year for each innocent inmate's incarceration? (NY rate for inmates in the general prison population. Rate increases substantially for death row inmates, the incarcerated mentally ill, and inmates with severe health problems like cancer. The amount varies by state.)

In 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that convicted persons have no constitutional right to DNA tests, although most Americans thought they had a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Wrongful executions and incarcerations certainly impact citizens' rights.

The High Court's disappointing ruling in 2009 regarding post-conviction DNA tests, the battle rages on. Each state can still deteremine how much innocence matters for residents. On March 24, the U.S. Supreme Court stopped the execution of condemned Texan Henry Skinner with only one hour to spare. Unfortunately, numerous inmates who won stays of execution were nevertheless deprived of re-trials or DNA tests. Georgia death row inmate Troy Davis has been granted three stays; Alabama death row inmate Thomas Arthur has also been granted three stays. After Arthur's last stay of execution that prevented his July 31, 2008 execution, he was finally allowed a DNA test. Arthur's DNA was found not to match any of the crime scene evidence tested. The forensic lab results were released in July. Amazingly, the judge sealed Arthur's DNA test results, and he remains on death row nearly a year later. A hearing is planned in his case.

Millions of people agree that it is important to give new trials with substantial new evidence like Troy Davis has and give people like Hank Skinner DNA tests. It would be unfair to have Hank Skinner wait years on death row for a test he never actually receives after his stay of execution. Thomas Arthur received stays, but he kept being prepared for execution with DNA tests denied. Troy Davis received stays, but no new trial so far. Furthermore, it seems terrribly unjust to have a man pass his DNA test and STILL be on death row almost a year later like Arthur is. God help!

Since all the ads on this article have turned into ads about 9mm guns and home security, I will post the CBS article now. The CBS news below is about wrongful convictions. Please note that although 47 states grant post conviction DNA testing rights as CBS reports, some states only grant the right to test for condemned inmates - not those facing life in prison for rapes or other crimes that testing might prove the convicted person did not do. Furthermore, there should be a national mandate on how long evidence is maintained and under what conditions. Unfortunately, many of the thousands of hopeful inmates who expect to some day have the right to conduct DNA tests on the evidence that was used to convict them might be disappointed to learn that forensic evidence was not maintained in their case files.

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Case Renews Wrongful Conviction Debate

Laws Granting Right to Post-Conviction DNA Testing on Books in 47 States, But Advocates Push for Change in Holdouts

(CBS) Henry Skinner was an hour from death last week when the Supreme Court stayed his execution. At issue: could DNA testing prove his innocence? Three [states] remain without laws allowing post-conviction DNA testing, and some advocates are touting this turn of events as a victory that may bring about legislative change, as CBS News correspondent Manuel Gallegus reports.

Dennis Maher spent 19 years in a Massachusetts prison for a series of rapes he did not commit. But he's not angry. "If I am angry then I am going to be bitter and dwell on what I lost," he said. Maher was falsely identified by an eye-witness and was sentenced to 20 years to life in 1984. He was 26. After his conviction, he tried for years to have the DNA evidence in his case tested. But, for convicted felons in Massachusetts, that decision rests with the judges and prosecutors - the same people who sent the convicts to prison.

"The judge thought I was guilty so he didn't have to allow DNA testing," Maher said.

Massachusetts, Alaska and Oklahoma are the only states that don't have a standardized law granting convicted felons a right to test DNA evidence in their cases. Advocates for DNA testing have tried at least three times to push the issue through the state legislature, but it's always failed. Critics found it too vague and prosecutors fought back.

As Plymouth County District Attorney Timothy Cruz put it, "At what point do we say no?" Cruz insists DNA requests should still be handled case by case and says that any new law would overload the system.

"We'd have individuals who will just say, 'I want this, I want to test,' this and it really would open up the flood gates," Cruz said.

Even without the law, nine prisoners in Massachusetts have been exonerated though DNA. But they spent a combined 117 years locked up for crimes they didn't commit. Former prosecutor David Meier leads a Boston bar association task force now urging Massachusetts to change its law.

"These cases strike at the heart of criminal justice system," Meier said and "the bill recommended by the task force would create uniformity and consistency."

Dennis Maher was released in 2003 and since then has been outspoken about the system that locked him up. "The others who are still in prison - they are just looking for a chance, a chance to prove they didn't do what happened to them," Maher said - a chance to begin a new life.


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Mary Neal
Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill

P.O. Box 153, Redan, GA 30074

1 comment:

MaryLovesJustice Neal said...

http://freespeakblog.blogspot.com/2010/03/am-i-bad-person.html

People perish for the lack of knowledge. Spread some.

Thanks,
Mary