132nd person exonerated from death row

cnn.com

Man who spent 22 years on death row is cleared

WASHINGTON (CNN) — A former death row inmate in Tennessee has been cleared of murder, three years after the Supreme Court raised repeated questions about his conviction.

After 22 years on death row, Paul House was released on bail and has now been cleared of murder charges.

1 of 2 State prosecutors on Tuesday asked a judge to drop all charges against Paul House, who was convicted of murder and sentenced to die in 1986. Special Judge Jon Blackwood accepted the request.

House had been scheduled to be executed next month for the 1985 murder of Carolyn Muncey. He had been on death row for 22 years but was released on bail last year. He has multiple sclerosis and must use a wheelchair.

The high court ruled in June 2006 that House was entitled to a new hearing.

“Although the issue is closed, we conclude that this is the rare case where — had the jury heard all the conflicting testimony — it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror viewing the record as a whole would lack reasonable doubt,” wrote Justice Anthony Kennedy for the 5-3 majority.

House’s appeal was championed by the Innocence Project, affiliated with the Cardozo School of Law in New York.

“In the three years since the U.S. Supreme Court stepped into this case and sent it back to the trial court, substantial additional DNA testing and further investigation have shown that he is innocent,” said Peter Neufeld, the group’s co-director. “Each time a layer of this case was peeled away, it revealed more evidence of Paul House’s innocence.”

Muncey disappeared from her rural Luttrell, Tennessee, home on July 13, 1985. Her body was found a day later, badly beaten and showing signs of a struggle. She had been raped.

House, who was on parole at the time as a sex offender, was questioned by police. He denied any involvement in the crime. He was a friend of Muncey’s husband, but claimed he was in his own house several miles away the evening of the murder. But prosecutors found a hole in his alibi, discovering that he had left his home the night of the murder and returned about an hour later with unexplained cuts and bruises.

Forensic evidence found Muncey’s blood on House’s jeans, but questions were later raised whether the samples were contaminated en route to an FBI lab for analysis.

Subsequent state-of-the art DNA testing conducted after the conviction showed that semen on the victim belonged to her husband, not House. Blood under her fingernails and cigarette butts discovered near the wooded crime scene also did not match the accused.

But prosecutors maintain that other evidence points to his guilt. Muncey’s family has also continued to believe that House was involved in the crime.

In 2005, House told CNN he did not rape or kill Muncey, and he wondered why he was still on death row.

“I guess that’s the million-dollar question,” he said.

While maintaining his innocence, he said that lying to police about his whereabouts that night was a big mistake.

Kennedy, in his 2006 high court ruling, offered an extensive summary of the facts of the investigation, especially the DNA evidence, which he said might point to “a different suspect.” Kennedy said jurors might conclude that Muncey’s blood found on House’s pants may have inadvertently spilled there during the autopsy or through mishandling by police at the crime scene.

District Attorney Paul Phillips wrote in his petition this week that he still believes House could have been convicted again in a new trial, “but the new evidence (including the forensic examinations) raises a reasonable doubt that he acted alone and the possibility that others were involved in the crime.”

But Phillips noted the “substantial sentence” House has served as another reason for the charges being dropped now.

Voice of the Day

“A slave-owner who through cunning and violence shackles a slave in chains, and a slave who through cunning and violence breaks the chains – let not the contemptible eunuchs tell us that they are equals before a court of morality!”

- Leon Trotsky

Another Death Row Exoneration

Nathson Fields is the 131st person to be exonerated and freed from death row.

Nathson Fields is also the 13th exonerated death row prisoner in Illinois.

Fields’ case is another typical case in the american justice system, filled with all the usual elements: racism, judicial corruption, prosecutorial misconduct, and on and on.

Nathson Fields is the 131st innocent person to be saved from the american death machine.

How many more lives will it take before the racist, unjust and barbaric death penalty is completely abolished for once and for all in the United States?

www.suntimes.com

Man formerly on Death Row acquitted in retrial

BY RUMMANA HUSSAIN Staff Reporter

A former high-ranking gang member sent to Death Row by a Cook County judge convicted of fixing murder cases was acquitted Wednesday for the double homicide he was imprisoned for two decades ago.

“I feel like my prayers have been answered,” Nathson Fields, 55, said after Judge Vincent Gaughan issued the not guilty verdict in the retrial. “It’s like a dream.”

The former El Rukn “general” spent 11½ years on Death Row for the 1984 murders of rival gang members Jerome “Fuddy” Smith and Talman Hickman.

Fields was granted a new trial in 1998 when the Illinois Supreme Court ruled that he and his co-defendant Earl Hawkins had been denied a fair trial since Thomas J. Maloney, the judge who heard the initial case in 1986, took a $10,000 bribe from Hawkins’ lawyer to acquit the two men.

Maloney later returned the money, convicted the men and sentenced them to death when he learned he was under federal investigation.

Maloney, who died last year, spent 13 years in prison for fixing murder cases.

Gaughan said Wednesday he found the prosecutors’ witnesses, including their key witness, Hawkins, incredible.

Hawkins, who admitted to killing 15 to 20 people, pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of armed violence in exchange for his testimony against Fields.

“If someone has such disregard for life, what regard would they have for the oath?” Gaughan said, questioning Hawkins’ credibility.

Fields’ attorneys, Jean Maclean Snyder and Herschella Conyers, said the state’s attorney’s office should have dropped the murder charges over a decade ago.

“All along they knew these witnesses, to be charitable, were flawed,” Maclean Snyder said.

Fields has been living in the south suburbs since 2003, when he was released on bond. He plans to continue working on rehab construction and speaking to youths about the perils of crime.

Cartoon of the Day

New Mexico Abolishes the Death Penalty!

Back from Spring Break today and I received some truly wonderful news.

The death penalty has been abolished in New Mexico!

After Governor Bill Richardson signed the bill, New Mexico is now the 15th state in America that no longer executes human beings.

Congratulations to all the many people who have worked so hard in New Mexico and can now celebrate a fantastic victory.

Thank you to all who continue to fight for justice and human rights.

Thank you to all who refuse to be on the side of the executioners.

Today is a great day.

ABOLITION IN NEW MEXICO!

www.abqjournal.com

BREAKING: Death Penalty Dead
By Dan Boyd

Gov. Bill Richardson signs death penalty bill, which ends executions in New Mexico.

Richardson announced he would sign the bill at a 6 p.m. press conference today in Santa Fe.

——————————

SANTA FE (AP) — Gov. Bill Richardson says he is signing a bill repealing New Mexico’s death penalty.

The bill replaces lethal injection with a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole.

The governor faced a deadline of midnight for making a decision on the bill that lawmakers sent him last week.

New Mexico is only the second state to ban executions since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976.

It joins 14 other states that do not have capital punishment.

New Mexico has executed nine men since 1933. The most recent execution was in 2001.

There are two men on death row whose sentences are not affected by the repeal.

Junot Diaz interview in Spanish

This interview was published by the arts & culture website REVISTA Ñ which is run by the Buenos Aires newspaper Clarín.

I haven’t seen too many interviews with Junot Diaz conducted entirely in Spanish.

An interesting range of topics from his latest novel, the immigrant experience in America, his use of Spanglish in his novel and more.

Junot refers to his sister’s kids as not being “spanglishparlantes”

Hillarious!!!!!!

“Ser inmigrante es como ser alcohólico: eso nunca se quita”

Entrevista al dominicano ganador del Premio Pulitzer 2008, que estará en Buenos Aires para la Feria del Libro.

Logró reconocimiento y atrajo lectores con su primera novela, escrita en un inglés mezclado con castellano que refleja el habla de los inmigrantes.
Por: Patricia Kolesnicov

¿No era que un escritor era, justamente, alguien con gran, gran dominio del lenguaje? ¿Tanto que podían florearse por diferentes registros? Bueno, miren lo que le dice a Clarín Junot Díaz, el dominicano que ganó el año pasado el Premio Pulitzer (el premio literario más importante de los Estados Unidos) por su novela La maravillosa vida breve de Óscar Wao:

—Los amigos míos dicen que hablo un español muertísimo y que también hablo un inglés muertísimo. Entonces, me parece que yo no tengo una lengua donde me siento muy cómodo.

Justamente. Cuando el jurado eligió la novela de Díaz, elegía un texto escrito en el inglés de un inmigrante “latino”, un inglés mezclado, revuelto con alguna de tantas versiones del español. Y elegía también el imaginario, los mitos, los miedos que esos inmigrantes cargaron consigo a través del Caribe. Y los nuevos, los que aprendieron en el Norte.

Díaz, el novelista incómodo en todas sus lenguas, estará en mayo en Buenos Aires para participar en la Feria del Libro, auspiciado por la embajada de Estados Unidos y Revista Ñ. Además de hablar en público y presentarse con escritores, viene a visitar amigos (“Toditos abogados”) y no está en sus planes nada como ver fútbol (“Soy muy aburrido”) ni recorrer ningún lugar en particular (“Yo prefiero la gente a los edificios”).

Desde que le dieron el premio, su libro -es su primera novela, antes había escrito cuentos- entró en las listas de best sellers en los Estados Unidos y su nombre recorrió el continente. ¿Por qué? El dijo por ahí que su historia “sólo podía ocurrir en (norte)América”. La historia del ascenso social. La historia de cómo el chico que creció en un barrio con vista a un basural se volvió un escritor consagrado. “Me da risa -supo decir-, cada vez que estoy en las reuniones de docentes del MIT, la gente anda como ‘Tengo un Premio Nobel’, O ‘Tengo un Premio Pritzker’. Y yo: ‘Mis padres fueron ilegales’”.

En breve (aunque la brevedad impide hacer justicia al libro): la novela premiada cuenta la historia de Óscar De León, un dominicano negro, gordo, y, palabra clave, nerd. Es decir, algo bastante parecido a un “traga”, que además tiene poco éxito en las relaciones sociales. En definitiva: alguien que rompe con el deber ser del estereotipo caribeño: seductor, canchero, deportista. Óscar (le dirán Wao por la pronunicación “latina” de “Wilde”) no es nada de eso. Y no, no le va bien.

Desde Estados Unidos, en el teléfono, Díaz empieza cauteloso, serio. Pero se irá soltando.

—¿Qué tiene que ver su vida con la de Óscar Wao?

—Uf, no mucho.

—Yo pensaba que un poco sí; usted fue a buenas universidades, se escapaba del barrio a la biblioteca…

—Imagínate, no conozco un escritor que no sea nerd. Yo soy nerd-nerd-nerd. Pero no tan nerd como Óscar. Hay niveles: si Óscar es un 8, yo soy un 3.

—Casi normal…

—La mayoría de mis amigos es un 1. No les encanta leer, no les gusta la literatura, no quieren saber de cómics. Dije que soy un 3, vamos a decir un 5, eso es más justo.

—¿Cuáles son sus características como nerd?

—Me encanta leer. Esa es la enfermedad que se me pegó. Mira, si alguien tiene un librero en su casa y, digamos, una botella de ron abierta, yo primero me acerco al librero.

—¿Cómo le dio esa enfermedad?

—Cuando emigré a Estados Unidos, yo tenía seis años. Creo que fue una reacción, una manera de sobrevivir, tú sabes, esa vaina tan difícil de la emigración, a veces un muchacho busca la forma de sentirse capaz, busca una forma de sobrevivir. La lectura me ayudó. Mira, yo vengo de una familia muy militar. A mis hermanos, a mi papá, la única vaina que les interesaba era el boxeo. Para mí, un muchacho sensible, festivo, eso era demasiado salvaje.

—¿Fue difícil en esa familia convertirse en escritor?

—Imagínate, coño. Me tenía que esconder de mi propia familia. Tenía que esconder los libros para que no se burlaran.

—Usted ganó este premio con una novela medio en español. ¿Mejoró la situación de los latinos en Estados Unidos? ¿Las segundas generaciones ya no tienen que abandonar el español?

—El público norteamericano se está acostumbrando a ver un inglés bien mezclado con español. Para un latino, eso significa que se está mejorando el ambiente, porque en los Estados Unidos hay un prejuicio contra el español bastante grande.

—¿Un prejuicio de clase?

—Claro que hay un prejuicio de clase, pero también hay un prejuicio contra el idioma. Yo veo amigos míos, que son riquísimos, blanquitos, que vienen de buenísima familia, y cuando llegan a los Estados Unidos, no hablan ni papa de español.

—Eso los vuelve negros…

—Se vuelven negros, o peor, se vuelven malditos ilegales. Entonces, hay ese prejuicio en la cultura en general. Aunque yo he visto muchos cambios, los Estados Unidos siguen siendo un país, una cultura muy, muy antilatina.

—Ni inglés ni español. ¿Quién entiende su libro completamente?

—Cuando una novela tiene personajes que le llegan a la gente, yo creo que los lectores aguantan mucha mierda. Aunque encuentren palabras que no entienden. Yo creo que gané este maldito público por mis personajes. Y creo que a mucha gente que ha leído esta novela no le importa ni culo la cultura latina, ni quieren saber nada con el español, pero aguantaron por los personajes.

—Y lo que no entendieron, lo imaginaron.

—Tú sabes cómo es eso de leer, el lector está acostumbrado a no conocer muchas palabras. Y hay gente a la que le encanta ver el español mezclado con el inglés.

—Obama también es un hombre “mezcla”. ¿Es un clima de época? ¿Se acabaron los “puros”?

—Yo no creo ser tan optimista. Una cultura como la de Estados Unidos tiene varias ramas. Una es ese punto de vista, que somos todos mezcladitos, que no hay nada que valga la pena que no venga de otras cosas, de diferentes raíces. Pero también hay zonas de la cultura norteamericana que sueñan con una cultura pura.

—Anglosajona.

—Pureza, blanquedad. Dos impulsos existen en Estados Unidos. Nosotros somos la generación que metió a Obama en la Casa Blanca. Pero también la que quiere botar a los inmigrantes. Y ahora… cuando la economía se pone malísima la gente inmediatamente le cae encima a los inmigrantes.

—¿Hay un deseo de quedarse afuera de esa sociedad anglosajona cuando se habla spanglish?

—¡Yo no hablo spanglish, mi amor! Yo soy el único de la familia que habla un español tan muerto, y eso porque me crié con morenos, con african-americans. Mis hermanas, sus hijos, toditos hablan un español perfecto. Y sus hijos no son nada de spanglishparlantes.

—Pero usted escribe en spanglish.

—Bueno, no, porque mira, no es spanglish. Pero hay muchísimos escritores que mezclan inglés y español y nadie les pega spanglish. Yo creo que lo que sucede en esta novela es code-switching (NdeR: la mezcla de varios idiomas en una frase) entre español e inglés. La nueva generación es completamente bilingüe, habla bien los dos idiomas.

—Es decir que usted no le tiene ninguna fe al spanglish como idioma.

—¡Pero por favor! ¡Nunca! No veo al spanglish como un idioma, lo veo como una etapa.

—¿Cómo se siente cuando va a Santo Domingo?

—Es muy complejo. Me siento un inmigrante. Pero de otro tipo que en Estados Unidos.

—¿En Estados Unidos todavía se siente un inmigrante?

—¡Claro! ¿Tú crees que cuando uno domina el idioma y conoce más o menos la cultura eso cambia? Ser inmigrante es como ser alcohólico. Eso nunca se quita. Mis hijos, si nacen acá, no van a ser inmigrantes. Pero yo, siempre. Siempre, siempre, siempre.

Voice of the Day

“If you have come here to help me, then you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

- Lila Watson

Willie Colón to release new album

A new Willie Colón album is certainly a noteworthy event these days.

The new record will have great traditional Puerto Rican music along with some extended jams and a tribute to Hector Lavoe.

I will be getting this music right away!

nydailynews.com

Willie Colón: ‘El Malo’ strikes back
By Angela González and Maite Junco

More than a decade after his last CD release, and an immersion lesson in digital technology, salsa legend Willie Colón is back with a new album.

In between his latest recording, “El Malo, Vol. 2: Prisioneros del Mambo,” and 1998’s “Demasiado Corazón,” Colón devoted himself to touring and city politics — far from the mixing studio where he last worked with tapes.

“It took me a while to be ready, but once I got used to the new technology, which is like a word processor, I added a lot of details, sound levels,” says the Bronx Boricua. “It looks simple from afar, but it’s complicated.”

The result is 13 songs — some with Colón’s trademark social message — that mix salsa with plena (“El Brujo”), bomba (“Mucha Leña Pa’l Fuego”), son, 1970s descarga and even some urban music, a combo of genres he calls his “Afro-Boricua rhythm.”

“In this album, I play various trumpet and trombone solos, I sing and even do the chorus of some songs,” he explains. “Also, there are various of my own arrangements and compositions. I was able to do a bit of everything.”

The 58-year-old Colón, who has worked with Rubén Blades, Celia Cruz and Héctor Lavoe and whose name is synonymous with the heyday of salsa, retakes the name of his first album, “El Malo,” from 1967.

He also breaks with today’s music rule that songs should not exceed four minutes “so they are played on the radio,” he says.

Actually, nine of the songs in “Prisioneros del Mambo” break the barrier. “Four minutes is not really enough to develop the musical stories that I want to create,” he says.

Released on his own label, Lone Wolf, the CD is on sale on Amazon, in local music stores and at www.williecolon.com.

He hopes it will mark a new beginning for his live performances.

“It would be a gift to be able to play a new repertoire, because where I go, people have the list of what they want to hear. They ask for ‘El Gran Varón,’ ‘La Murga,’ and if you want to play something new, they want to stone you.”

A critic of the “El Cantante” movie because it focused too much on the “tragedy’ of Lavoe’s life and addictions and not his music, Colón includes his own tribute to his friend in the CD.

Nearly 14 minutes long, the “Héctor Lavoe Medley” runs through the classics “El Cantante,” “Periódico de Ayer,” “Todopoderoso” and “La Banda.”

“I wanted to do something fitting,” he says. “I feel I have the right to do it because I wrote the music to all these songs.”

An adviser to Mayor Bloomberg on media and Latino entertainment issues, Colón has run various times for public office. The last time, he was a candidate for Public Advocate in the 2001 Democratic primary.

He told the Daily News he wanted to do this album “before I hang up my trombone.”

“I don’t know the exact date, but it’s a matter of time,” he said.

And from politics?

“They are not getting rid of me yet,” he says with a laugh. “I want to stay active.”

mjunco@nydailynews.com

Cartoon of the Day

Two Judges Admit Jailing Kids For Cash

What a sickening news item.

These judges, though, are in the grand tradition of the american injustice system. You can be sure that this business venture involved selective repression of Blacks and Latinos.

Corrupt judges paid to detain youths in private jails

WASHINGTON (AFP) — Two former judges in Pennsylvania have admitted to receiving more than 2.6 million dollars in pay-offs from companies that run private prisons for sending them minors for detention or disciplinary camps.

The admissions, which were made by judges Mark Ciavarella and Michael Conahan in a plea agreement filed in federal court last week, has sparked protests by outraged parents and relatives of youths whose cases were handled by the judges.

In the plea agreement, Ciavarella and Conahan admitted they “abused their position … by secretly deriving more than 2,600,000 (dollars) in income … in exchange for official actions.”

Those actions included “entering into agreements guaranteeing placement of juvenile offenders with PA Child Care, LLC (and) facilitating the construction of juvenile detention facilities,” according to the document.

Pennsylvania Child Care and Western Pennsylvania Child Care also stood to make tens of millions of dollars from the scheme, the plea document said.

They were charged with wire fraud and conspiracy to commit fraud against the United States.

The Juvenile Law Center, an advocacy organization for youths in trouble with the law, will file complaints from several dozen families who learned that their child was unjustly detained, a spokesman told AFP Monday.

Some families have filed complaints separately.

More than 5,000 adolescents between the ages of 13 and 18 were found guilty between 2002 and 2007 when the judges were active in Luzerne county, an impoverished former mining area where the majority of residents are white.

Of those, more than 2,000 were ordered sent to detention, said Marie Roda, a spokeswoman for Juvenile Law Center.

Many were from families with little money or education, which made them “easy targets,” she said.

“A lot of them didn’t have lawyers and when they asked for a public defender and they were told it would be weeks to wait,” she said.

The judges face at least seven years in prison under the plea agreement. But the federal judge hearing their case could sentence them to up to 25 years in prison.

A decision is not expected for several months.

“Families have been calling non-stop since this came out but not all of the families have signed onto the suit yet,” Roda said.

“We don’t know how many families it’s going to be. We know some of them are not going to file. They just want it to go away, they just want to let it go,” she said.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court on Wednesday named a special judge from outside the area to review all the cases tried by the tainted judges.

The cases include those of a youth detained for nine months for stealing a four-dollar jar of spices, and a 13-year-old who was sent to “boot camp” for several weekends for exploring an abandoned building.

In many cases, youths were sent to prisons far from their families, often against the recommendation of probation officers.