For an UPDATE on this article that contains some shocking information, please see
"Pennsylvania: Black Mental Patients 4 Cash"http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2014/01/pennsylvania-black-mental-patients-4.html
The following information and documents were provided by the family of Scott Terrell, a mentally ill inmate in Pennsylvania. Plea deals are often used to deny trials to innocent Americans, particularly defendants who cannot afford a good defense. It also happens to defendants who paid for a good lawyer but wound up with a prison investor. In December 2012, Representative Tim Murphy (R-PA) introduced House Bill 3717, called "Helping Families in Mental Health Crisis Act." The arrest of mentally ill people, especially on false charges, is one of the worst crises a family can face. This is particularly true in the Pennsylvania case involving Terrell Scott, who has been detained without an arrest warrant and denied a trial for nearly five years.
Holly Alston, a battered wife with multiple sclerosis, watched helplessly from her bed the night her former husband evicted her eldest son, Terrell Scott. Scott had dared to ask his stepfather to stop abusing his mother. When Holly was strong enough to end her disastrous marriage, she started paying regular visits to her son. After living homeless for several months, Terrell had been taken in by Crystal, a Caucasian woman supposedly in her 40s. He lived with her and her five children for the next four years, after agreeing to have sex with Crystal, take care of her house and children, work and give Crystal his paycheck. At age 17, Terrell Scott, a shy, mentally ill youth, had become Crystal's sex slave.
When Scott's mother was able to rescue her son from Crystal's home, he refused to abandon the children that he had spent four years trying to protect. Scott reported the children's negligence and abuse by their mother to authorities. Investigations proved the truth of Scott's claim, and the children were removed from Crystal. Naturally, Crystal was angry. At Crystal's word, the State of Pennsylvania has put Scott through even more torture than Scott saved Crystal's children from experiencing. Holly Alston shared the post below on a social network:
Terrell Scott saved Crystal's five children from negligence, abuse, and possibly death, like Crystal's child who perished mysteriously before Scott met the family. The baby was infected from wearing re-used disposable diapers. The children risked food poisoning from being fed rice with bugs crawling through. Two preteen girls were used as prostitutes whenever Chrystal's money ran low. Scott's allegations were investigated, found to be true, and all five children were removed from Crystal's care. The enraged mother retaliated against Scott by falsely reporting to police that Scott had sexually molested the children he had actually saved. Six months after the children were taken, Scott was arrested on the unfounded allegations.
A white woman's lies have more strength in America than a black man's denials, even if he has a clean criminal background and honest lifestyle, no matter how disreputable the white woman is. Scott was arrested on Crystal's false report during an election year, and he was crucified in the press, which helped justice officials' careers. Because Pennsylvania has absolutely no proof for the criminal charges against Scott, he has been imprisoned nearly five years without a trial. The conspiracy to hold Scott indefinitely without trial involves a devious defense attorney, a prosecutor and a judge - the deadly trio.
How do officers of the court keep an innocent American imprisoned without trial for nearly five years? It is apparently done in part by tricking the mentally ill man into signing a waiver to speedy trial, then lying on court records. Phil Lauer, pictured, is Scott's defense attorney. This man, who Scott's family paid $10,000 for Scott's defense, induced Scott to sign a waiver to speedy trial when he was initially arrested. According to Scott's family, the lawyer ignored Scott and worked against his interests, but the attorney will not accept being fired, and neither will the court accept the devious attorney's termination. Until Holly Alston appeared as a guest on "Assistance to the Incarcerated Mentally Ill" radio shows at Blogtalkradio, Scott's attorney allegedly ignored Scott for 4.5 years and only visited his client a few times since signing contract to defend him. When Scott was raped and beaten half to death in prison, Lauer did nothing. According to Ms. Alston, he said, "Nobody said prisons are nice places." However, after Scott's indefinite detention without trial became public, the defense attorney visited Scott numerous times, offering him a plea deal to forego trial - a trial that was wrongly withheld for five years because the state has no case.
Phil Lauer - 701 Washington Street, Easton, PA 18042
| phil@lauerlaw.net
Phone: (610) 258-5329
| Fax: 610-258-0155
Last week, Phil Lauer again induced the mentally ill youth to sign something without approval by Scott's mother, who has his power of attorney. Scott told his mom, "They're never going to give me a trial, Mom, but Mr. Lauer said if I would only sign the papers, I could get out of jail." So once again, Scott has been tricked. Scott, who was declared to be incompetent to stand trial every time a trial date was available for his case, was nevertheless found to be competent to sign a plea deal whereon he wrote, "I DON'T UNDERSTAND THIS. I AM MENTALLY ILL."
Below is a pdf of Terrell Scott's Court Docket, pages 20-21, that indicate Attorney Lauer asking for a continuance when Scott could have had a court date. The prosecutor lied and said Scott was unavailable for trial because he was in a mental hospital when the case should have gone to trial, although he was not. Scott was in prison. The problem is that Scott refused to sign a plea deal and misrepresent himself. He refused to compromise on his innocence and chose to await a day in court - a day that never came.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/194905163/TerrellScottDocket-p20-21
Scott did not understand what he was doing when he signed the waiver produced by his attorney years ago, and he has asked for a trial repeatedly since. He tells his mother, "I'm innocent, Mom. I want to go to court and prove it." But Scott may never have a trial. The torture he has endured since incarceration makes him an expensive risk should he be allowed to prove his innocence at this late date. Scott has been beaten so violently during his wrongful imprisonment that he is deaf in one ear and blind in one eye. He was exposed to HIV when he had to clean blood and urine off his cell's floor without latex gloves or any other protection whenever his cellmate's colostomy bag overfilled. He has been confined in solitary confinement and refused the simple comfort of a human voice and touch. Scott has been tortured, taunted, lied to, spat upon with HIV-infected saliva, and threatened that he will NEVER exit prison if he does not sign a plea deal and lie on himself.
The injustices Scott has suffered since saving five children from negligence and abuse have been so horrendous that deception, threats, and lies on public records are now used to prevent Scott from going to trial to defend himself against Crystal's false allegations - lies which Crystal already apologized to Scott's brother for telling police. She said she lied in order to retaliate against Scott after the state rescued her children from her custody.
See below the "Application for Continuance and Waiver of Rule 600 - Right to a Speedy Trial," which everybody signed except Terrell Scott.
Should mentally ill people be imprisoned indefinitely and refused the opportunity to defend themselves against false allegations? It is easy to deny justice to innocent mentally ill people. All prison investors need to do is claim they are incompetent to stand trial unless they agree to sign a plea deal. The moment innocent mentally ill people agree to sign a plea deal that relieves the prosecution of proving criminal charges in court, then PRESTO, they are are declared competent! See an excerpt from a June 2012 article by Riley Yates, of The Morning Call. Scott's attorney and prosecutor repeatedly claim Terrell Scott is incompetent. That is because he had not agreed to sign a plea deal:
Under the state's Mental Health Procedures Act, the prosecution of incompetent defendants must be stayed "so long as such incapacity persists." But many defendants can gain competency with treatment or training, even if that takes months or years at an institution.
Scott's lawyer, Philip Lauer, said his client isn't getting better, despite many efforts. Lauer wants Judge Leonard Zito to order Scott to be released from Northampton County Prison and sent to a secure facility for persistent mental illness, such as Wernersville State Hospital in Berks County.
"Nothing good can be happening to Terrell when he is sitting in county prison, and there are facilities where he could be treated," Lauer said.
Assistant District Attorney Patricia Broscius acknowledged jail isn't where Scott needs to be, but said the many mental health evaluations he's undergone say he could one day become competent. She suggested that Scott should go to the state forensic hospital at Norristown, where defendants in criminal cases are often sent to see if they can gain competency.
*******
Phil Lauer finally got his 20-page plea deal signed. Terrell and his family are not quite sure what the mentally ill young man was induced to sign. As Terrell wrote on the document, "I'm mentally ill. I don't understand this." Whatever deals Lauer and D.A. Broscius made after nearly five years of torturous imprisonment of an innocent mentally ill black man will be revealed January 31, 2014, when Terrell Scott will be sentenced for his crime: Being black and mentally ill in America.
The Terrell Scott case demonstrates what is worst about America's criminal justice system:
~ Arrest a black mentally ill youth without an arrest warrant, on the word of a disreputable white woman
~ Accuse him of vile crimes without any intention of defending the allegations in court
~ Trick the mentally ill man into signing away his right to a speedy trial
~ Hold him indefinitely under oppressive, torturous prison conditions, including beatings and HIV exposure
~ Tell him he will NEVER get out of prison unless he agrees to a plea deal that requires him to lie
~ Falsify court records about the inmate's whereabouts and competency until the plea deal is signed
Pennsylvania has been proved guilty of some horrible crimes against humanity in recent years, such as the "Kids for Cash" scandal by juvenile court justices and the Penn State debacle, a pedophilia sex ring. The Terrell Scott case is one of Pennsylvania's worst but certainly not the first example of the state's penchant for taking unfair advantage of people who are young and helpless. It is especially shameful is that five years of trauma happened to Terrell Scott while he was denied help from NAMI, ACLU, the NAACP, or any other civil rights/human rights organization to which his family turned for assistance. I am the sister of a black mentally ill heart patient who was murdered under secret arrest (a police kidnapping), and my family has been denied accountability in these United States of America for ten years. Denial of due process of law to the mentally ill and to their survivors if they are killed is usual and ordinary in a country that treats disabled people like they are "useless eaters" (see "Wrongful Death of Larry Neal").
The main problem is that Crystal Hodgkins is an elderly Caucasian woman who made Terrell Scott, a homeless teenager, her live-in sex toy in a country that is so racially prejudice that an entire community of black people were bombed and their property stolen simply because a black man touched a white woman when their elevator lurched. See an eight-video documentary about the Tulsa, Oklahoma riot of 1921 at YouTube (the url is below). A man wrote to me on a social network and implied that Terrell Scott deserved to be raped, beaten, deprived of hearing in one ear and blinded in one eye, spat upon by an HIV cellmate in his open eye, and held indefinitely without trial because he had lived with a white woman.
Holly Alston filed a Petition for Emergency Writ of Mandamus with the court, objecting to her son's plea deal that requires Terrell to pay $25,000 in fines and spend 20 years on the sex offender list - written by his own attorney, Lauer. To require Terrell, who is now blind in one eye, partially deaf, and severely traumatized from being raped, beaten, and isolated in prison, to pay $25,000 in fines is a set-up to arrest him in the future. Furthermore, Terrell would again be homeless. Holly Alston has a ten-year-old son and lives very close to schools, so Terrell would be violating probation to live with his family.
Terrell Scott needs and deserves an opportunity to clear his name, as provided in the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America.
Denying Americans their Sixth Amendment right to a fair, public trial is one of the main ways American prisons and jails are kept overly filled. Innocent mentally ill people are charged with crimes that prosecutors cannot prove. They are then incarcerated for years without trial unless and until they agree to sign a plea deal that relegates them (through probation) to the prison's waiting room. There is no way for Terrell Scott to pay $25,000 in fines for the crimes he did not commit, but that is what his plea deal requires. Therefore, Scott may be remanded back to prison within months. By having the mentally ill man sign a plea deal, Pennsylvania prosecutors will NEVER have to prove the original charges in a court of law, but the state gets to imprison the mental patient anyway once he violates probation by missing a payment. To date, America has 1.25 million mentally ill inmates. Scott's case causes one to wonder how many of them were bamboozled by prison investors posing as officers of the court.
Trials are also denied to force plea deals with mentally sound defendants when prosecutors have a weak case. See updates on the Shannon Nyamodi case at "Shannon Nyamodi: Good Samaritan Imprisoned"
http://humanrightsforprisonersmarch.blogspot.com/2013/12/shannon-nyamodi-good-samaritan.html
See articles and hear radio interviews with Holly Alston and Terrell Scott's brothers at these urls:
January 28, 2014 Update on Terrell Scott Case by Holly Alston on radio (listen)
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/nnia1/2014/01/29/enslavement-and-genocide-of-africans-and-indigenous
Terrell Scott - Teen Sex Slave Wrongly Arrested in PA
http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2013/11/teen-sex-slave-wrongly-arrested-in-pa.html
Terrell Scott and Shannon Nyamodi: Forcing a Plea
http://dogjusticeformentallyill.blogspot.com/2013/12/terrell-scott-and-shannon-nyamodi.html
Indefinite Detention for Race Mixing
Facebook Support for Terrell Scott - Colorlines
Prisoner Named Terrell Scott Needs Assistance from the Public
