Everyday Injustice

This spring after a long and at times bitter process, activists following the killing of George Floyd pushed for and finally got the city of Placerville to remove a noose from the city’s seal but the council opted to keep the Gold Rush-era nickname, “Hangtown.”

The noose was probably not historical - and probably not incorporated into the city logos until the 1970s but is now widely considered a hate symbol.

Leading the way in the battle over the noose was the young activist Lizzie Dubose. She is joined by Stuart Harmon, a documentary filmmaker who chronicled the fight.

Listen as Lizzie Dubose describes her motivation and the hardships of taking on what turned out to be a very disharmonious process - with anger and hate erupting along the way.

It was once a poster child for things like Wrongful Convictions and the carceral state. But the Orleans DA has transformed his office - immediately dismissing over 400 cases that were prosecuted under his predecessor - a majority of those were drug related.

When he ran for DA in 2020, Jason Williams, a former councilmember in New Orleans, pledged to free people from prison - already he “has granted new trials to nearly two dozen people convicted by split juries, announced he would no longer oppose parole applications, dropped his predecessor’s efforts to maintain life without parole sentences for people convicted when they were minors, and moved to secure the release of multiple wrongfully convicted people.”

“There are innocent people in jail,” said Williams. “There are people in jail for sentences that are far longer than they should be. … There are people who got convicted without a fair trial.”

Listen as Jason Williams talks with Everyday Injustice about the work he has done and the work that still remains to be done.

Vanguard Court Watch is a unique and innovative program that trains college interns on the law and journalism, sends them into the courts where they report and monitor on injustice in the system. Listen as they tell their stories about what they see and what they have learned in the process.

While the public has become aware of how various aspects of the criminal legal system produce unjust results, one area that many are less aware of is that things seemingly as simple as fines and fees can devastate millions of Americans who are poor, end up in debt, lose their vehicles and other impacts.

The Fines and Fees Justice has been working to identify the problems associated with fines and fees, educate the community and change laws.

They note: “Those who cannot immediately pay these costs face additional fees, license suspensions, loss of voting rights, arrest and jail. Stuck in a cycle of punishment and poverty, people can lose their jobs, their homes, and even their children. We have created a two-tier system of justice where poor people – and particularly communities of color – are disproportionately punished.”

Everyday Injustice speaks with FFJC co-director Joanna Weiss about fines and fees and how they impact the lives of poor Americans.

In 2020, San Joaquin District Attorney Tori Verber Salazar made headlines when she resigned from the California District Attorney Association (CDAA) after noting the organization has been opposing criminal justice reform for many years.

While that action was notable enough, it was even more so because Verber Salazar is not a progressive liberal like much of the reform movement instead she is a lifelong Republican in a relatively conservative county.

In a 2020 interview with the Vanguard, Salazar noted the CDAA’s opposition to Proposition 47, which cleaned up past criminal histories and felony convictions and changed the law where a person could steal up to $950 and get away with a misdemeanor (two separate parts of the same proposition), and Proposition 64, which legalized marijuana.

Her interview with Everyday Injustice she explained her support for reforms and the need to find a balance between protecting the public and opposing mass incarceration.

Dr. Vilasni Ganesh in November will be heading off to prison for 63 months away from her husband and children. Her husband, also a doctor is facing a one-year sentence himself. In mixed verdict, she was convicted of fraudulent billing -as her attorney explains, without any evidence of wrongdoing or intent.

The story as she and her attorney tell has so many layers. In her arguments to the Court of Appeals, she has claimed Insufficient Legal Representation. She was appalled that her defense attorney failed to make an affirmative defense, attempted to fire them, and denied this by the trial judge.

Moreover, she claims prosecutorial misconduct in that the prosecutor in the case presented spreadsheets that did not evidence fraud, as evidence that she committed fraud. The Government, her attorney now alleges, used irrelevant spreadsheets to obtain a conviction through the use of false evidence.

Listen to Dr. Ganesh and attorney Lisa Rasmussen discuss this massive injustice as the day tick away before Dr. Ganesh reports for her nearly five years of incarceration for a fraud that clearly was never committed.

On September 15, 2021, Nakia Porter at a press conference spoke out publicly about her ordeal with Solano County police.

Attorneys for Nakia Porter filed suit in Federal Court in Sacramento in August following an incident on August 6, 2020, where Porter and her father were driving from Oakland to their home in Sacramento.

The vehicle was already stopped and in park when approached by Sheriff’s Deputies. She had stopped to take over driving for her father.

At the press conference in August, 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.

In September, Nakia indicted the entire system. Hear her full comments.

Incumbent Alex Villanueva has become one of the most polarizing sheriff figures in the country. Now Eric Strong has emerged as a challenger to the incumbent.

“Leadership. That crisis of leadership has interfered with a course of calls for a modern and more transparent LA County Sheriff’s Department. It has undermined our honorable profession’s ability to deliver on our promise of a more safe and a more just future for Los Angeles,” Strong said during his announcement speech a few weeks ago.

Strong is leading his campaign with a promise to fight against deputy gangs and cliques with a promise to dismantle the dangerous groups growing within the department.

“As LA County Sheriff, my mission will be to enhance safety, protect victims of crime, and rid the Department of a culture that has allowed deputy gangs to fester. We can, and we will, make this a world-class department that Los Angeles can trust and be proud of,” said Strong.

Listen as Eric Strong talks about his vision for the department as well as his candidacy for sheriff in Los Angeles.

This week on Everyday Injustice featured women across the country whose loved ones were killed by police - whether it be sons, brothers, or partners.

Marissa Barrera in 2017 lost her brother Michael in Woodland, California to a police incident. The DA cleared the officers of wrongdoing, but she and her family have taken the matter to civil court and video shows Michael Barrera at one point informing officers that he couldn’t breathe, as usual they discounted his complaint and he ended up going into distress and dying.

Marissa has gone on to create a non-profit, Voices of Strength, to highlight the stories of so many victims of police violence across the nation and this week on Everyday Injustice we talk to a few of those women as they tell their stories unvarnished and unfiltered.

Family Outraged by Excited Delirium Diagnosis in Police Killing in Contra Costa County, California

It may have been a scene reminiscent of George Floyd, but unless the California AG or Contra Costa DA step into this, the police may well get away with it after the coroner ruled accidental death in the death of 30-year-old Angelo Quinto, a Filipino male with a recent history of mental impairment.

Quinto was grabbed from his mother’s arms and thrown to the floor in his home by Antioch police officers. After that, one officer handcuffed and placed his knee on the back of his neck, and at the same time another officer bent both of Angelo’s legs up and backward toward his back for an extended period of time, resulting in his death. Or at least that’s what attorneys for his family believe.

Civil Rights Attorney John Burris said, “Angelo’s death could have been avoided if the officers took the time to talk with Angelo instead of using similar restraints that killed George Floyd and, like George Floyd, Angelo said to the officers ‘please don’t kill me’ but the officers did exactly that.”

Everyday Injustice this week caught up with the family of Angelo Quinto as well as Attorney Ben Nausimbaum to discuss the death of Quinto and the coroner’s diagnosis of excited delirium.