Lack of Character – Mike Pence Refused Pardon of Innocent Man

The reason Mueller is pursuing the Chumph/Russia case the way he is, is that he knows simply taking down the Chumph won’t solve the problem. VP Mike Pence is every bit as racist, and is likely far more dangerous to the country than the feeble minded Chumph.

Here s hoping that the victim’s lawyers find a route to prosecute Pence criminally.

Keith Cooper spent 10 years in jail for a crime he didn’t commit. Even after being released for innocence, and with a unanimous recommendation from the state parole board, Pence Refused to sign the exoneration to clear Cooper’s name.

 

Exonerated Man Who Mike Pence Wouldn’t Pardon Sues Police Over Wrongful Conviction

A 50-year-old Indiana man who spent 10 years in prison for a crime he didn’t commit has sued, claiming that police framed him. Earlier this year, Keith Cooper, whom Mike Pence declined to exonerate while he was governor, became the first person in Indiana history pardoned for innocence.

An Indiana man who spent 10 years in prison for an armed robbery that he didn’t commit has sued the local police department, claiming they fabricated false evidence to convict him.

Keith Cooper’s case came into the national spotlight after Vice President Mike Pence, while still serving as Indiana governor, declined to pardon Cooper, despite a unanimous recommendation from the state parole board to exonerate him.

In February 2017, Pence’s successor, current Indiana governor Eric Holcomb, granted Cooper’s pardon, making him the first person in Indiana to be pardoned for actual innocence in the state’s history. Cooper waited six years for his pardon and three years for the governor’s office to act on the parole board’s recommendation.

Now Cooper has filed a civil rights complaint against the local police and the City of Elkhart, Indiana, alleging “egregious wrongdoing of manufacturing and fabricating all the evidence of his supposed guilt.”

In August 2016, BuzzFeed News reportedabout Cooper’s wrongful conviction of the 1996 robbery where one man was shot.

Twelve years after the incident, in 2008, shooting victim Michael Kershner and his mother, Nona Canell, gave videotaped statements claiming that they misidentified Cooper.

Canell said that during the initial investigation she requested “numerous times” to see a lineup of suspects, but the lead detective on the case, Elkhart police detective Steve Rezutko, assured her that they had “the right guy” in Cooper.

In 2006, after reviewing the new testimony from Kershner and Canell, along with new DNA evidence putting another man at the crime scene, the state court judge in Cooper’s case offered him a deal to resentence him to time served. Cooper was freed but the felony conviction stayed on his record.

Five years later, Cooper filed a petition to have the crime he didn’t commit erased from his record. It would take another three years, but in 2014 the state’s parole board unanimously recommended that Cooper be pardoned, sending the recommendation to then-governor Pence’s desk.

But Cooper’s attempt to formally clear his name stalled there, as Pence declined to act on the pardon for over two years. Then in the summer of 2016, while Pence campaigned alongside Donald Trump as his vice presidential pick, his general counsel sent Cooper and his attorneys a letter stating that “to our knowledge, Mr. Cooper has not filed a petition with the courts in Elkhart County to determine whether post-conviction relief is available.”

The letter added that Pence would not act on the parole board’s recommendation “out of respect for the judicial process.”

Despite Pence’s claims that Cooper had not fulfilled his obligations with the court, when Gov. Holcomb — who served as Pence’s deputy — took office, he acted on the board’s recommendation and granted the pardon.

Cooper’s lawsuit filed this week doesn’t name the governor’s office as a defendant, rather he is suing the City of Elkhart and the individual officers, including Rezutko, who investigated the robbery. Cooper claims in his lawsuit that they maliciously prosecuted him with false evidence. He says that to this day he suffers from ongoing depression and PTSD from the episode.

“It took more than two decades for Keith to finally get his name back,” said Elliot Slosar, staff attorney with the Exoneration Project at the University of Chicago. “Today begins his much shorter journey towards rebuilding the life he once enjoyed before being framed for a crime he did not commit.”

Trump/Pence – Same racist shit …Different hair color

 

Mueller Nullifies Chump Pardons of Criminals and Family

By the Constitution, a President’s pardoning power only extends to Federal Crimes…Not State crimes.

The Chumpshit’s veiled threat to pardon co-conspirators and criminal family members just got checked. Meaning the treasonous criminal Chumphshit can’t bribe his accomplices to keep their mouths shut in exchange for a pardon from him.

The initial charges that will bring down the Chumphshit will be filed in State Courts – specifically New York. Meaning the only legal escape for Manafort and other Chumphshit Cartel members will be through their legal defense. The New York AG who sucessflly prosecuted the Chumphshit in a Civil Case on his “Trump University” scam adds to an already powerful and skilled investigation team which now includes the top IRS people on financial fraud. Not to mention that there are likely some Patriotic volunteers who specialize in tracking down corporate criminals like the Chumphshit through international financial channels who can open doors the Feds normally can’t…

It appears Mueller is tightening the noose first by taking down the collaborators.

The Chumpshits next vacation at Rikers…

 

Robert Mueller just undercut Trump’s use of the pardon power

Politico reported Wednesday that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is teaming up with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman in the investigation of former Trump campaign manger Paul Manafort. This is extremely bad news for Manafort and others at the center of Mueller’s broader investigation into the campaign.

Federal rules and Justice Department policy clearly provide for such cooperation and would even allow Mueller to share confidential grand jury information with Schneiderman’s office with court approval. Beyond that, there is always a great deal of information not covered by grand jury secrecy that could be freely shared. But although certainly not unheard of, federal and state prosecutors cooperating in an investigation is relatively unusual, at least in a white-collar case.

It’s unlikely that Mueller needs Schneiderman to charge crimes that Mueller otherwise couldn’t reach. Given the breadth of federal white-collar statutes, if Manafort’s financial dealings violated New York state law, they almost certainly could be charged under federal law as well. Federal charges such as mail and wire fraud, money laundering and RICO allow federal prosecutors to reach even transactions that took place entirely within one state.

The New York attorney general’s office is very highly regarded and has a history of bringing complex financial crime cases. It has been reported that Schneiderman’s office was already investigating Manafort for possible crimes related to his business dealings in New York. But the bottom line is that anything state prosecutors might be looking at, Mueller could also investigate on his own if he chose to do so. So why would Mueller join forces with Schneiderman?

One obvious reason is to pool resources. If Schneiderman’s office has already done work relevant to Mueller’s investigation, it makes sense to share that information rather than unearth it a second time. It’s also important for Mueller’s office to have access to things such as witness statements and testimony that the New York investigators may have already obtained.

But as others have noted, the second possible reason also explains why this news is so significant: It cuts the legs out from under any possible attempt by President Trump to use his pardon power to thwart the investigation.

Trump’s recent pardon of former Maricopa County (Ariz.) sheriff Joe Arpaio raised concerns that it might be seen as a signal to potential witnesses against him. They could refuse to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation and feel confident that Trump would pardon them if they ran into any legal trouble.

But the presidential pardon power extends only to federal crimes. Trump can’t do anything about New York state charges, and he can’t fire Schneiderman. The possibility of serious state charges gives Mueller’s team critical potential leverage that the pardon power threatened to take away…

 

 

Hispanic Lawn Jockey Tries to Defend the Chumph

I guess Paris Dennard and the black Lawn Jockeys for Chumph needed some recuperation and healing time from the serial beatdowns the last two weeks. So while those clowns are laid up getting patched with a new layer of paint…Time to trot out the Hispanic Lawn Jockey…

The Lawn Jockey uses the usual right-wing racist rationale and deflection trying to characterize something out last real President Obama did as wrong, in pardoning people.Theren he tries the “but it’s the Democrats! deflection to not have to answer the direct questions…Ramo as usual was polite…Ana wasn’t having any of that.

Ana Navarro, as usual – wasn’t tlerating the bullshit

 

The Chumph Now Looking Into “Pardons” Is an Admission of Criminal Activity

The Chumph apparently believes he can pardon himself. It is a frank admission of numerous crimes by himself, his children, and acolytes,

The most criminal administration in history is going down.

Can the Chumph pardon himself? Most Constitutional scholars say no.

The Chumph is undeniably stupid enough to try, though.

Trump pushes his ‘complete power’ to pardon

President Donald Trump claimed on Saturday morning that “all agree” that he has full power to pardon, following reports that his legal team is exploring his ability to pardon not only his allies and family members but also himself.

“While all agree the U. S. President has the complete power to pardon, why think of that when only crime so far is LEAKS against us.FAKE NEWS,” Trump tweeted.

The Washington Post reported earlier this week that Trump’s lawyers are looking into his pardon powers, a move that prompted a swift rebuke from the Democratic leaders of the House and Senate intelligence committees conducting wide-ranging Russia-related probes.

Special counsel Robert Mueller is also leading a sprawling Russia probe and is said to be investigating whether Trump obstructed justice, in part by firing James Comey, the former FBI director then leading the Russia probe.

Despite Trump’s claim, many legal experts say the extent of his pardon power is far from a settled question. According to Richard Primus, a University of Michigan law professor, Trump would be entering uncharted territory if he tried to pardon himself.

He also said many constitutional lawyers are skeptical that such a move would be legally sound.

“The Constitution doesn’t specify whether the president can pardon himself, and no court has ever ruled on the issue, because no president has ever been brazen enough to try it,” he wrote for POLITICO Magazine.

“Among constitutional lawyers, the dominant (though not unanimous) answer is ‘no,’ in part because letting any person exempt himself from criminal liability would be a fundamental affront to America’s basic rule-of-law values.”

 

A Pardon for Marcus Garvey?

Nearly 100 years ago, Marcus Garvey was the central figure in a black self-help movement though the Universal Negro Improvement Association. He would champion “Back to Africa”, and actually start a steamship line. Unquestionably, Garvey was an early target of J. Edgar Hoover’s racism.

Marcus Garvey’s son wants President Obama to pardon his famous father. Time is running out.

Julius Garvey

Julius Garvey, the son of black nationalist Marcus Garvey, is pacing the lobby of a Washington hotel. His collar is starched. His glasses polished. He holds a stack of fliers displaying photos of his famous father under a headline that reads, “The Exoneration of Marcus Garvey.”

Julius Garvey, an 83-year-old vascular surgeon, is on a mission to clear his father’s name, tarnished by a 1923 federal mail-fraud conviction that he believes was bogus. He wants the country’s first African American president to pardon the fiery founder of the Universal Negro Improvement Association. Marcus Garvey, who died in 1940, led a “back to Africa” campaign that made him a seminal figure in the push for racial and economic justice for black people.

“My father was central to the civil rights movement in the early 20th century,” said Julius Garvey, who lives on Long Island. “His organization was the dominant civil rights organization. It shaped the thinking of that part of the century. It gave birth to the Harlem Renaissance. Black is beautiful — my father was the basis for that ideology.”

Marcus Garvey’s activism is chronicled in the Smithsonian’s new National Museum of African American History and Culture. His son was among the 7,000 dignitaries, celebrities and elected officials who were invited to the museum’s opening, where President Obama spoke about the nation’s history of racial oppression.

Marcus Garvey, 1924

The Obama administration rejected a posthumous pardon for Marcus Garvey five years ago. And Julius Garvey says he knows that time is running out, both for him and for Obama’s tenure in the White House.

“It’s urgent from the point of view of this president, because his term is up,” Garvey says. “The point is the injustice has been allowed to sit for [almost] 100 years. It is a continuing injustice that needs to be corrected.”

Marcus Mosiah Garvey was an immigrant from Jamaica who had already foundedthe Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) when he arrived in the United States in 1916. Eventually, the UNIA claimed millions of members around the world — although those figures remain in dispute.

In 1918, Garvey established the Negro World newspaper and a year later bought an auditorium in Harlem. He called it Liberty Hall, where thousands flocked to hear him speak.

“Black people are subjects of ostracism,” Garvey said in 1921 to thunderous applause. “It is sad that our humanity has shown us no more love — no greater sympathy than we are experiencing. Wheresoever you go throughout the world, the black man is discarded as ostracized, as relegated to the lowest of things — social, political and economical.”

Garvey preached that the problem could be solved only through black pride and self-reliance.

In 1921, the UNIA elected Garvey “President of Africa.” In an iconic photo, Garvey and UNIA members marched through the streets of Harlem in military uniforms, carrying banners that read “We Want a Black Civilization.”

To ferry black people and cargo to Africa, Garvey launched a steamship line, which he called the Black Star Line. The company sold stock for $5 a share, allowing black people to own a piece of the steamship.

This sale, along with Garvey’s rhetoric and following, attracted government attention. Soon after World War I, Garvey was targeted by future FBI director J. Edgar Hoover — as part of a “lifelong obsession to neutralize the rise of a black liberator,” Julius Garvey said.

In documents released later, the FBI acknowledged that it began investigating Garvey to find reasons to “deport him as an undesirable alien.”…Read the Rest Here…

 

Correcting History – Free Black Man Convicted of Freeing Slaves in 1840’s Pardoned by Delaware

Righting the historical wrongs. Samuel Burris had titanium plated brass cajones, knowing what would happen to him if he was caught by the slave catchers!

Delaware Governor to Pardon Man Who Helped Slaves Escape

Not even the threat of being sold into slavery could stop Samuel Burris, a conductor on the Underground Railroad, from helping slaves to freedom in the 19th century.

A free black man, Burris was caught helping a slave try to escape from Delaware in 1847. After Burris was tried and found guilty of enticing slaves to escape, part of his sentence was that he be sold into slavery for seven years. Instead, a Pennsylvania anti-slavery society raised the money to purchase him and set him free. And Burris went right back to helping slaves escape.

Now, Delaware Gov. Jack Markell has decided to posthumously pardon Burris for that long ago conviction, according to two people who have sought that step.

Ocea Thomas of Atlanta said in a telephone interview Tuesday that she received a phone call last weekend letting her know Markell would pardon Burris, who died in the 1860s and was one of Thomas’ ancestors. Phone and email messages left Tuesday for Markell’s spokeswoman, Kelly Bachman, were not immediately returned.

Thomas says she became emotional after learning that Burris, the brother of her great-great grandmother, would be pardoned.

“I stood there and cried. It was pride. It was relief. I guess justification. All of that,” Thomas said.

Robin Krawitz, a historian at Delaware State University who is writing a book about Burris, said historians don’t know exactly how many slaves Burris helped escape but they do know he continued his work even after his conviction, at great personal risk. Slaveholders and sympathizers eventually complained to the state legislature, saying Burris hadn’t stopped enticing slaves to leave their masters. Burris left the state when lawmakers responded with a law that could have brought a lashing so severe it would have been tantamount to a death sentence.

Thomas, Burris’ relative, says she was told the pardon will take place on Nov. 2, the anniversary of Burris’ conviction. The state had already been planning to unveil a historical marker honoring Burris that day. The marker will be placed in Delaware’s Kent County, near where Burris grew up.

Robert Seeley, of Havertown, Pennsylvania, who had asked the governor earlier this year to pardon Burris and two other men, confirmed that he’d also been contacted about the pardon.

“It’s a victory. It brings honor to the Burris family and it brings justice for Samuel Burris and his descendants. It’s making a wrong a right finally,” Seeley said.

Seeley had asked the governor to pardon Burris as well as two others who had worked to get slaves to freedom: John Hunn and Thomas Garrett, one of Seeley’s relatives who is credited with helping more than 2,000 slaves escape. Seeley says he got the idea after outgoing Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn granted clemency to three abolitionists convicted for hiding and helping escaped slaves.

Seeley says he’s been working with Markell’s office but that the governor can’t issue a pardon in Hunn and Garrett’s cases because they were tried in federal court, not state court. He says President Barack Obama would need to pardon them and that he plans to continue to work on a pardon in their case.

“Even if it comes out to be a proclamation or a declaration or not an official presidential pardon, so be it. We’ll see what we can do,” he said, adding there is “a lot of red tape.”

 

75 Years Late…Scottsboro Boys Pardoned

This was one of the major (Mis)Trials of the last century. 9 black Boys accused of raping two white women in the segregated, Jim Crow, Alabama of 1931.Amazingly enough, despite high tensions – they didn’t get lynched. All but one of the boys was convicted and given the death penalty. None of the Boys was executed, but spent long terms in jail.

The Scottsboro Boys, with attorney Samuel Leibowitz, under guard by the state militia, 1932

   Alabama grants posthumous pardons to Scottsboro Boys

Alabama’s parole board voted Thursday to grant posthumous pardons to men known as the Scottsboro Boys from a 1931 rape case.

The Alabama Board of Pardons and Paroles granted full and unconditional pardons to three of the nine black boys who were falsely accused of raping two white women on a train in northeast Alabama in 1931.

The board unanimously approved the pardons for Haywood Patterson, Charlie Weems and Andy Wright after a short hearing in Montgomery. The three men were the last of the accused to have convictions from the case on their records.

“This decision will give them a final peace in their graves, wherever they are,” said Sheila Washington, director of the Scottsboro Museum and Cultural Center in Scottsboro, who helped initiate the petition.

Patterson, Weems and Wright, along with defendant Clarence Norris, were convicted on rape charges in 1937, after a six-year ordeal that included three trials, the recantation of one of the accusers and two landmark U.S. Supreme Court decisions on legal representation and the racial make-up of jury pools.

The men were all convicted by all-white juries, and all but the youngest defendant was sentenced to death.

Alabama ultimately dropped rape charges against five of the accused. Norris received a pardon before his death from Alabama Gov. George Wallace in 1976.

Last spring, the Alabama Legislature unanimously passed a law to allow the parole board to issue posthumous pardons for convictions at least 75 years old. The law was specifically designed to allow the pardon of the Scottsboro Boys to go forward.

In October, a group of scholars petitioned the Board of Pardons and Paroles to grant pardons to the men. The petition was endorsed by the judges and district attorneys of the counties where the initial trials took place.

“This is a different state than it was 80 years ago, and thank God for that,” said state Sen. Arthur Orr, a Republican from Decatur where the second and third round of trials took place. “It’s an important step for our state to take.”

Under Alabama law, pardons can only be granted to those who have felony convictions on their record. The petitioners had initially hoped the board would review the status of each of the defendants.

The Board’s decision led to a round of applause Thursday morning, but many of those who worked on the pardon called the news bittersweet. Patterson died of cancer in 1952, and many of the other defendants, including Weems and Wright, felt compelled to move out of Alabama and keep a low profile after their release from prison.

University of Alabama professor John Miller, who helped prepare the petition, said at the time of his pardon, Norris was living in New York under his brother’s name.

“With some of them, we really don’t know if they died with their right name, or a different name,” Washington said. “They no longer wanted to be known.”

Weems is known to have moved to the Atlanta area after his release, but his date of death is unknown. Washington said Wright, along with his brother Roy, another one of the Scottsboro Boys, is buried in Chattanooga, Tenn.

“It’s tragic in that those young men’s live were destroyed, all by a very biased and unfair judicial process,” Orr said. “The place where you seek justice did not dispense justice for these young men. It ruined their lives, some more than others, and it affected them to their graves.”

 

Giant Negro Rehabilitation – Jack Johnson’s Possible Pardon

Jack Johnson was a turn of the last century prize fighter whose flamboyant lifestyle, penchant for white women, and racial politics of the time put him on a collision course with the powers that be – much as Muhammad Ali’s stand against the Vietnam War. A collision course that would see Jack Johnson jailed.

Hat Tip – The Grio

Fans fight for pardon of boxer Jack Johnson

A century ago, black heavyweight boxing champion Jack Johnson reached the pinnacle of his career when he defeated “Great White Hope” Jim Jeffries in Reno in what was billed as the “Fight of the Century.”

One hundred years later fans of the legendary fighter are still seeking a posthumous presidential pardon for Johnson, saying that his later conviction for transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes was steeped in racism.

The Johnson faithful will gather here July 2-4 for the centennial of the July 4, 1910, bout to celebrate his life. They also hope to build on a resolution passed by Congress last year urging President Barack Obama to issue the pardon.

 

The Forgotten in Kentucky

Steal away
Steal away
Steal away to Jesus
Steal away
Steal away home
I ain’t got long to stay here

Free Kentucky’s Forgotten 44

Most people in Kentucky are unaware that “seducing or enticing slaves to leave their lawful owners” was once such a grievous crime that scores of abolitionists suffered long years behind bars for their common-sense daring. One of them was forgotten in his cell until five years beyond the end of slavery and the Civil War. Others emerged to tell of bleeding under the warder’s lash in a “jaws of hell” torment delivered by the state as the appropriate penalty for urging blacks to find freedom.

Modern Kentucky is blessed that some citizens — including an archivist and a public defender — are roiled enough to be campaigning for a just postscript to that horrendous era: an official pardon for 44 abolitionists long dead and gone. The campaign is a welcome contrast to thoughtless proclamations that embarrass Old South statehouses with salutes to a Confederate history often omitting the towering facts of slavery.

“To be totally forgotten — where nobody today even remembers their names — it seems an incredible injustice,” James Prichard, a retired state archivist, told The Lexington Herald-Leader about his research on the 44, 24 of them whites. Mr. Prichard’s work inspired Rodney Barnes, the public defender in Frankfort, and Jared Schultze, a Kentucky-born college intern determined to set his state’s history right.

Distracted though he is by current criminality, Mr. Barnes presses for the pardons as time-defying challenges for the halls of justice. “These people are heroes — they did the right thing,” said Mr. Barnes, laboring for this chance for Kentucky to stand tall. The office of Gov. Steve Beshear admits to being “intrigued” and is reviewing the pardon request.

Cold cases from slavery days truly come alive in the details Mr. Prichard has gathered. Tales of Tom Johnson, “a free man of color” who fell in love with Amanda, the property of F. B. Merriman of Marion County. The freed slave was imprisoned for wooing Amanda into elopement. And the black matriarch Julett Miles, who doubled back from freedom in Ohio when she heard her enslaved family was up for resale in Kentucky. She did three years for the crime of “stealing” some of her own children. She was buried with her history, until now.