More on that Alabama Police Department Planting Evidence to Falsely Convict Black Men

A group of 11 Dothan Alabama Police systematically planted drugs and guns on innocent black suspects for nearly 20 year in a conspiracy by a white supremacist group of officers. At least 1,000 –  and possibly more young black men were falsely convicted.

 

ACORN – Shouldn’t There Be a Class Action Lawsuit? RICO?

Looks to me that ACORN was destroyed intentionally, damaging the rights of millions of poor people in the United States. I think there minimally should be a criminal investigation into this, and a class-action lawsuit on behalf of communities formerly served by ACORN, former ACORN employees, and the former corporate entity.

The Right Wing Mafia and Hit Squad Should Be Held Accountable

Report Finds ACORN Did Not Support Voter Fraud; O’Keefe Is the Real Criminal

A new government report debunks claims made by right-wing politicians and media that the now defunct community advocacy group ACORN violated elections law and supported voter fraud.

The Government Accountability Office (GAO) report released Monday also confirms that two former ACORN employees in Maryland did not break the law when they offered advice to conservative activist James O’Keefe and columnist Hannah Giles, who secretly videotaped a meeting with the employees while posing as a couple interested in starting a brothel.

O’Keefe and fellow activists pled guilty last month to a misdemeanor charge for illegally entering Sen. Mary Landrieu’s New Orleans office and tampering with her phone.

ACORN fired the employees that advised O’Keefe and Giles and then filed a lawsuit against the pranksters, alleging they broke a Maryland law stating that both parties must agree to sound recordings.

The media firestorm created by O’Keefe’s video was the tipping point in a right-wing war against ACORN that can be traced back to the Bush administration. Congress quickly acted to strip the organization of funding, and both public and private donors dropped their sponsorship.

ACORN had been the largest poor people’s rights and community organizing group in the nation, but, starved for funds, the national organization folded in March.

ACORN voter registration drives in poor and minority neighborhoods were apparently a threat to the Bush administration as early as 2004, according to a Truthout investigative report. Emails that surfaced in August 2009 revealed the role that Karl Rove and other administration officials played in the firings of nine US attorneys, two of whom had refused to bring criminal charges against individuals affiliated with ACORN.

The media was quick to report on an alleged history of voter fraud and election violations attributed to ACORN and its affiliates during the 2008 election season, but the GAO report found that, in every case identified, complaints filed against ACORN with the Federal Elections Commission were dismissed.

The report also showed that four of six FBI investigations into alleged voter fraud committed by ACORN employees were closed due to lack of evidence. The two other investigations were also closed and referred to local and state jurisdictions.

The report detailed five cases in which ACORN employees pled guilty to misdemeanor counts of voter registration fraud, but stated that these cases did not allege any wrongdoing on behalf of ACORN or any affiliated organizations. In fact, ACORN offered materials to local election officials that helped initiate the prosecution of the guilty individuals, and each case stated that ACORN had properly trained the individuals to legally register voters.

The GAO report also states that agencies providing funding to ACORN generally did not report “any problem with grants,” although reviews are ongoing.

 

Hang ’em High

Texas Judge Sharon "Killer" Keller and Michael Wayne Richard

Texas judge who shut door on a death row appeal is on trial for misconduct

A prominent Texas judge says she will take the stand to answer charges of professional misconduct for refusing to hear a last-minute appeal from a condemned prisoner that came in after normal office hours, The Associated Press reports.

Sharon Keller, a Republican dubbed “Sharon Killer” for her tough stance on crime, faces a special hearing at the Texas Commission on Judicial Conduct that could result in her removal from the bench of the state’s highest criminal court.

In 2007, Keller had instructed a staffer to close the court after 5 p.m. at a time when lawyers for a convicted killer were scrambling to seek a stay of execution in response to the U.S. Supreme Court decision to hear the man’s case, the AP reports.

The efforts to file the appeal had been delayed by computer glitches and the prisoner’s lawyers had called at 4:45 p.m. to request a delay, but were told by the judge that “we close at 5 p.m.”

The prisoner was executed by lethal injection about three hours later.

The State Commission on Judicial Conduct concluded that Keller had engaged in “willful or persistent conduct that cast public discredit on the judiciary” and multiple newspaper editorials condemned her actions.

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