Everyday Injustice

Tony Messenger, a reporter for the St. Louis Post Dispatch talks about the issue of fines and fees and is the author of the recent book, Profit and Punishment How America Criminalizes the Poor in the Name of Justice.

In his book, he goes into rural Missouri to follow the lives of poor white people who are victimized by a system of fines and fees that ends up entrapping them into a cycle of poverty and debt from which many cannot escape.

The issue ironically caught the attention of Messenger and others following reports on Ferguson which showed how that city financed itself on the backs of poor, mostly Black people who commit minor traffic infractions and then get caught into a system of fines and fees which creates debt.

In Missouri though, with its legislature heavily Republican, they have moved away from taxes as a means to finance local government and towards a punitive fines and fees system.

Listen as Tony Messenger talks about some of the more egregious stories he tracked in his book demonstrating the problematic nature of fines and fees.

Kristin Henning is a Georgetown Law Professor and a former public defender in DC. In her book, Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth she discusses how what is ordinary adolescent behavior gets criminalized the criminal justice system and ends up locking Black youth into cycles of incarceration.

She brings vivid case studies and data to bear on her analysis and critique of the system. In one case, a girl gets into a fight with her boyfriend, takes his cell phone and ends up charged with robbery. In another, a 13 year old boy builds a fake Molotov cocktail and ends up with a nine month ordeal in the criminal system.

Listen as Kristin Henning talks about some of the youth she worked with and how ordinary behavior on the part of Black youth turns into an encounter with the criminal legal system.

Rachelle Barbour has worked as an Assistant Federal Defender at the Sacramento federal court for over 20 years. She also heads up the CJS clinic at McGeorge Law School.

Her most prominent case has been that of Iraqi refugee Omar Ameen, who was accused of being an ISIS commander and murdering a police officer in Iraq. He was acquitted of those charges in April as a federal judge ruled this was physically impossible because Ameen was not in Iraq at the time of the alleged murder.

However, he remains detained in an ICE facility, has been detained for more than 1000 days and facing extradition. As Barbour explained, if sent back to Iraq to face criminal charges, he faces certain death by execution – most likely through extra-legal means.

This week, the Immigrant Legal Defense and the University of Chicago Immigrants’ Rights Clinic announced they filed a petition for a writ of habeas corpus on his behalf, seeking his immediate release.

“The government seems to think that it can do whatever it wants as long as it invokes the word ‘terrorism,’” said Nicole Hallett, director of the Immigrants’ Rights Clinic at the University of Chicago Law School.

Listen as Rachelle Barbour discusses the Ameen case as well as her experience working as a Federal Defender and her work with CJS.

Sacramento in 2022 figures to be a hotbed for political intrigue. DA Anne Marie Schubert is running for AG leaving an open DA seat where a progressive – Alana Matthews will take on current Assistant Chief Deputy DA Thien Ho. Sheriff Jones is retiring. And there is a new police chief.

Everyday Injustice talked with longtime attorney Mark Reichel to get the lay of the Sacramento landscape – discussing topics like the DA, policing, and criminal justice reform.

Senator Dave Cortese has sponsored some critical criminal justice reform efforts over the past term, including the current two year bill SB 300 which would allow for people sentenced to LWOP who were not the actual killers to have a chance at parole.

Current California law mandates a sentence of death or life without the possibility of parole (LWOP) for anyone convicted of “murder with special circumstances,” even if the person did not kill anyone, nor intend for anyone to die. Under current law, if a person dies during the course of certain felonies, even if the death is accidental, those who were involved in the felony are subject to these severe punishments regardless of their role in the person’s death or their intent.

“Two-thirds of the people on LWOP are people of color,” he said at a recent rally.

Cortese said, “How heartbreaking it must be for a parent every minute of every day of every week, to know that your child, your child has been sentenced to life without parole.” He said, “When you take away possibility from a human being, you’ve taken everything. That’s all we have is possibility.”

Listen as Senator Cortese talks about this and the future of criminal justice reform, this week on Everyday Injustice.

This fall, attorneys for Nakia Porter filed a federal lawsuit for an incident on August 6, 2020 when she and her father were driving home on I-80. They stopped to switch drivers when the police intervened.

At the press conference attorney Yasin Almadani explained that Porter, age 33 and weighing all of 125 pound “had done nothing wrong” when she was approached by the deputy and explained that they were simply switching seats.

However, as she was explaining this, the complaint explained, Deputy McCampbell suddenly appears, pointed his gun at Porter and said, “Get back in the car now. This is a traffic stop. Get back in the car.”

“Without provocation and in a show of brute force, the deputy suddenly decided to handcuff and arrest Nakia as she was complying with their commands,” he said. “Nakia pleaded in fear for an explanation as her father and children helplessly in a horror inside the car, staying inside because that's what the Sheriff's deputies had ordered them to do.”

This week on Everyday Injustice Nakia Porter and her Attorney Yasin Almadani talk about the incident, the case, and what it says about policing and race in 21st Century America.

UC Davis Law Professor Jack Chin does just about everything and this week’s episode, we discuss the then recent Rittenhouse trial and guns and self-defense, the death penalty and Julius Jones, and the Sentencing Clinic he founded at UC Davis Law School working with the Yolo County DA’s office to reduce the lengthy sentences of incarcerated people.

In 2020, the Vanguard covered a series of hearings involving Zachary Vanderhorst, 65, who had been imprisoned for 46 years after guilty pleas he made 1974 for crimes he did not commit.

A judge after a series of evidentiary hearings vacated the murder charges and Vanderhorst after 46 years was able to be released from prison.

This year, a San Francisco judge vacated two of the remaining charges, including rape, Vanderhorst pleaded to when he was just 19.

“The remarkable efforts made to overturn these convictions reminds us of the dire need for the resources to expand post-conviction work and help heal from state violence and racial injustice. Public defenders and our allies are willing and capable of challenging those convictions if provided the resources,” said San Francisco Public Defender Mano Raju.

”We know that there are thousands of people, just like Zachary Vanderhorst, along with his family, who continue to suffer the trauma and loss that stem from wrongful convictions, bad plea deals, and excessive punishment,” Raju added.

Listen as Everyday Injustice speaks with Public Defender Rebecca Young, who along with Patrick Murray of Kekar, Van Nest and Peters, utilized SB 1437 to win Vanderhorst’s release in February 2020.

In 2020, Melba Pearson ran to attempt to unseat, unsuccessfully the 27 year incumbent prosecutor of Miami-Dade County. Now she is policy director of the FIU project that pushes for data transparency in prosecution, demonstrating racial disparities in the criminal legal system.

Pearson discusses her campaign to reform the criminal legal system in Miami-Dade – including racial disparities and the fight against mass incarceration as well as discussing the need for transparency in prosecution.

On October 8, 2020, Shayne Sutherland, 29, died in a manner similar to George Floyd, with a police officer on his back, handcuffed, yelling, “I can’t breathe,” and calling out for his Momma.

He had called 911 the morning of October 8, 2020. While being questioned in front of a store, Shayne jumped up after hearing a noise, only to be tackled by law enforcement. After close to three minutes of forceful pressure on Shayne’s back, while Shayne was lying face down on the concrete, unarmed, handcuffed, in the prone position, he was in distress and could no longer communicate.

The family is alleging that two Stockton Police officers “used excessive force on an unarmed and handcuffed man, applying full body weight pressure and a police baton to the prone victim’s neck, shoulders and back, resulting in restraint asphyxiation.”

Civil Rights Attorney James DeSimone said “Shayne’s unnecessary death is another result of the SPD’s unconstitutional practice of using improper restraint and excessive force.”

He added, “At the time he was killed, Shayne was unarmed, handcuffed, in the prone position, not resisting, and posing no harm to anyone. Still, while he pleaded for his life, at least one police officer used his full body weight to literally crush the breath out of him. This violates well-established law enforcement standards and training, and the United States Constitution. This has to stop.”

Joining Everyday Injustice is Shayne’s mother, Karen Sutherland and the family’s attorney, Civil Rights Attorney James DeSimone.