PUBLISHER'S NOTE: The Louisiana criminal justice system has been coming under intense scrutiny. The lightning rod, in recent times, has been notorious prosecutor Dale Cox's outrageous comment, in the Shreveport Times that the state should kill more people. Cox's obsession with the death penalty has led to outrageous conduct in the courtroom which, not surprisingly has led to Louisiana's disgusting record of miscarriages of justice. As reported by the New Yorker,
"The autopsy report was sent to the
office of Dale Cox, the first assistant district attorney of Caddo
Parish, which includes Shreveport. After reading the police reports, he
decided to seek the death penalty. Cox told me that in the past forty
years he had never prosecuted a man between the ages of seventeen and
twenty-six who grew up in a nuclear family. “Not one,” he said. He
believes that the “destruction of the nuclear family and a tremendously
high illegitimate birth rate” have brought about an “epidemic of
child-killings” in the parish. At
the time that he learned of Crawford’s case, he was prosecuting another
young black man accused of killing his infant. After the man was
sentenced to life without parole, rather than death, Cox told a local TV
station, “I take it as a failure that I was unable to convince the jury
to kill him.” (This is so reminiscent as Charles Smith's fundamentalist beliefs in the purity of the nuclear (read 'Christian') law-abiding, church-going family, which also led to a disturbing number of wrongful prosecutions.) No single parent, no marijuana, no children from different fathers, no welfare, no family protection proceedings somewhere in the history. No this. No that. No recognition that his job was to follow the evidence objectively and put all personal prejudice, ideology and bigotry aside. Cox was so committed to killing Rodricus Crawford, a young man, who had hardly had the opportunity to experience life beyond his teens, that he invoked Jesus Christ and the Bible. The urge to kill Rodicrus was so, so strong. Can you imagine, as the Catholic News Service reported, the following language in a civilized court of law?
"During the trial, in
questioning Crawford’s pastor, Cox asked, “Referring to children, Christ
said to his followers: Woe unto you, any of that would harm one of
these. It would be better … as though you will never born. You will have
a millstone put around your neck and dropped into the sea. Do you
believe in that concept?” After some back-and-forth with the pastor, who
said he believed not only in that passage from the Gospel but also in
mercy, Cox asked him, “So, Pastor, then we should just ignore that
Scripture from Christ?” Cox used the passage once more in his closing
argument. Cox is the acting district attorney for Caddo Parish, or
county, which accounts for nearly half of the Louisiana’s death
sentences in the past five years." To make matters even worse, Cox took the outrageous, vindictive step of sending Louisiana's probation department a memo "expressing regret
that the state only used lethal injection for the death penalty,
because “Crawford deserves as much physical suffering as it is humanly
possible to endure before he dies.” At this point, as I write this post, I am thinking of Al Pacino's great movie "And Justice for All" - except for the fact that Rodricus Crawford is not a fictional character caught in a fictional, cruel, topsy turvy, irrational, justice system. His case is all too real. Also real are the two additional problems tainting Louisiana's justice system as borne out by the following stories: The first - Pascal Calogero's commentary in the National Law Journal, headed: 'U.S Supreme Court should undo death-row injustice in Louisiana' - makes the point that Louisiana needs the high court's guidance on handling exculpatory evidence violations. It confronts the disturbing number of cases in the state where the prosecutors have withheld evidence pointing to innocence which, under the law, should have been turned over to the state. Pascal Calogero was an associate justice of the Louisiana
Supreme Court from January 1973 to April 1990 and was the chief justice
from April 1990 to December 2008. Since retirement, he has engaged in
the private practice of law in civil cases. The second,is an article in the 'Atlantic' headed "On the Defensive," which runs under the sub-heading: "The right to legal
counsel has long been the gold standard of American justice under the
Constitution. But what happens when a state refuses to budget for public
defenders? Louisiana is finding out." Read on!
STORY 1: "U.S. Supreme Court Should Undo Death-Row Injustice in Louisiana," by Pascal Calogero, published by the National Law Journal on May 30, 2016.
GIST: When I served as chief justice of Louisiana in 1990,
Associate Justice James Dennis (now a judge on the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Fifth Circuit) and I dissented when the Louisiana
Supreme Court denied review to a death row inmate named Curtis Kyles.
Kyles had petitioned the court for relief on his claims that his due
process rights were violated when prosecutors suppressed exculpatory
evidence at his death penalty trial in New Orleans in 1984. Five years later, the U.S. Supreme Court reversed Kyles' conviction and death sentence on those precise grounds in
Kyles v. Whitley, an important precedent in the
Brady v. Maryland
line of cases that governs the prosecution's obligation to disclose
evidence that is favorable to the defendant in criminal trials. Of the four cases that the U.S. Supreme Court has reversed on
Brady grounds in the past four decades, three were from Louisiana:
Kyles v. Whitley (1995),
Smith v. Cain (2012), and
Wearry v. Cain (2016). Just three months ago, the Louisiana Supreme Court issued a decision much like the denial in
Kyles similarly denying the
Brady claim of Louisiana death row prisoner David Brown, this time over the dissent of three justices. As
in Kyles' case two decades ago, Brown's case is now before the U.S.
Supreme Court, which has an opportunity to both correct the erroneous
result in Brown's case and, equally importantly, to provide clearer
direction to the Louisiana courts about the rules that govern the
discovery rights of criminal justice defendants. Only through such
guidance from the U.S. Supreme Court will Louisiana courts begin to
enforce these rules meaningfully. Hopefully, such a ruling would ensure
that Louisiana prosecutors' distressing pattern of failing to disclose
evidence is finally ended.
Like Brady itself, Brown's case
was never a whodunit. It was simply a who did what. At Brown's trial,
prosecutors, without any direct evidence to prove which defendants
actually killed the victim, argued that Brown was the worst of the worst
and was personally responsible. At trial, Brown claimed that when he
last saw the victim, he was alive. He said that he was unaware anyone
had died until informed by law enforcement. Clearly, the jury did not
credit Brown's account. They found him guilty and sentenced him to
death. However, the jury was never told that one of Brown's
co-defendants, Barry Edge, had confessed to an inmate that Edge and
another co-defendant had decided to kill the victim on their own, and
then they took his life. Prosecutors were well aware of the
confession months before Brown's trial. However, the jury never heard
this because they failed to disclose it to Brown, disregarding his plea
for life and ignoring his constitutional right to any evidence that is
favorable to him and could affect the outcome of the trial. It is
the duty of prosecutors to adhere to standards set in the state and
federal constitutions, especially in cases where they are seeking the
ultimate punishment. In this case, the state had an obligation to
evaluate the confession for its potential to exculpate any of the five
defendants in this case, including Brown. Part of the Brady
requirement is that prosecutors may not assess the potential materiality
and favorability of evidence in the light most supportive to the
state's case. But, what occurred in Brown's case is exactly what
happens all too often in Louisiana courtrooms: the state either failed
to recognize the value of the evidence or disregarded it, and then acted
accordingly. In my time as a justice and then chief justice of the Louisiana Supreme Court, I confronted cases like Kyles and Brown all too often. Brady
issues are and have been, for decades, an endemic and persistent
problem in Louisiana courts in both capital and noncapital cases. The
Louisiana Supreme Court had a chance to address this in Brown, but instead, once again, neglected to do so."
The entire commentary can be found at:
http://www.nationallawjournal.com/id=1202758802489/US-Supreme-Court-Should-Undo-DeathRow-Injustice-in-Louisiana#ixzz4ARrGHfIT
STORY 2: "On the Defensive" by Dylan Walsh, published by the 'Atlantic' on June 2, 2016.
SUB-HEADING: "The right to legal
counsel has long been the gold standard of American justice under the
Constitution. But what happens when a state refuses to budget for public
defenders? Louisiana is finding out."
GIST:
"Statewide,
public defenders represent more than 85 percent of those who pass
through the criminal courts, many of them black and uneducated. Without
public defenders available, pretrial detainees awaiting representation
will clog the jails, judges will be unable to clear dockets, detention
costs will rise, and the state will sink, eventually, into a
constitutional crisis for failure to provide adequate counsel. “I
fully expect litigation around the state to ignite toward the end of
this year or the beginning of 2016,” said Derwyn Bunton, the chief
public defender of New Orleans, last October. His office had $850,000
less than its forecasted need, a budget gap of 15 percent. In January,
his prediction came true: The American Civil Liberties Union sued the
city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana for “indefinite denial of
counsel” and “chronic underfunding of its public-defender system.”.........Criminal-justice reform is having
its moment. In mid-October, President Obama embarked on a national tour
to discuss reentry after detention and alternatives to incarceration. In
January, he announced a decision to ban solitary confinement for
juveniles held in federal prison. A handful of judges and cities are
pushing for bail reform. Both Republicans and Democrats have advanced
legislation to reduce mandatory minimum sentences for nonviolent
offenses. The troubling economics of incarceration, aggressive policing
in poor communities, and the wide-ranging discretion of prosecutors
are all coming under scrutiny. But strangely absent from this
discussion is the role of public defenders. “That’s a fatal omission,”
said Jonathan Rapping, president and founder of the advocacy
organization Gideon’s Promise. “If we believe in equal justice, then the
single most important thing to do is make sure poor people have the
kinds of lawyers richer people would have."..."Over
the last several decades, as the criminal-justice system
industrialized—sweeping people off the streets, processing them through
courts, housing them in jails and prisons, and monitoring them with
supervised release—this constitutional right has grown more important.
“Public defenders are meant to be the friction in a system that’s often
focused on efficiency, on whisking people through,” said Rapping. He
contends that other reforms will bear little fruit without
criminal-defense lawyers to uphold them. Implicit in Gideon is
the idea that a client’s lawyer, more than anyone else, is in the best
position to uncover abuses of due process. “The right to counsel is the
vehicle through which all other rights are realized,” Rapping said. But
as public defenders’ workloads climb, their ability to safeguard client
rights suffers. A census of 22 states carried out by the Bureau of
Justice Statistics found that, between 1999 and 2007, the number of
public defenders increased by 4 percent while their caseload increased
by 20 percent. Until recently in New Orleans, public defenders assigned
to misdemeanor courts each had upward of 19,000 cases per year,
affording them an average of seven minutes for every client.
Unsurprisingly, some detainees end up staying in jail waiting for
attorneys for longer than the potential sentences for the crimes they
were accused of. “You can’t dig into the details. There isn’t time to
uncover the facts, to marinate in them, to do the research necessary,”
Carson said about managing his caseload. “It becomes like herding
cattle.”..."For
public defenders, reliance on these court fees places them in the
questionable position of drawing a salary from the guilt of those they
represent; defendants who are found innocent pay no court costs. A
class-action lawsuit filed in September on behalf of six New Orleans
residents alleges that these “financial conflicts of interest have
derailed the pursuit of justice.” But questionable ethics aside, this
system has proved to be fiscally ineffective year after year. Despite a
recent increase in the public defender’s cut of the court fee from $35
to $45, nearly every office operates at a loss. The small chunk of
funding that comes from state appropriations—about $16.5 million in
2014—is spread thinner every year to stanch mounting deficits. Districts
across Louisiana are firing lawyers and support staff, creating client
waiting lists, canceling contracts with basic legal-research services,
and dumping more cases on fewer attorneys for less compensation. What’s
more, the 2017 annual budget, approved by the legislature, slashes
public-defender funding by an additional 62 percent—a cut “that would
require additional service restrictions on a scale unprecedented in the
history of American public defense,” wrote the president of the American
Bar Association in a letter to Louisiana’s governor.In
September, the New Orleans office ran a $50,000 online crowdfunding
campaign. Recognizing a strain of dark humor in the situation, HBO’s
John Oliver called attention
to the effort. Donations jumped. The office met its goal. In part, the
campaign was needed to avoid immediate cuts in essential services. “But
it was also to show that this is what it takes to secure the Sixth
Amendment in Louisiana,” said chief defender Bunton. “It’s ridiculous
and absurd that one of the original 10 Amendments of the Constitution
relies on crowdfunding for its guarantee.”..."Louisiana,
incidentally, has one of the country’s highest rates of proven wrongful
convictions. In Louisiana State Penitentiary, or Angola, about 20 men
serving life sentences have been exonerated since 2001. Emily Maw,
director of the Innocence Project New Orleans, noted that every
Louisianan her office has freed from that prison was black; every one
had a trial at which the presentation of evidence lasted for less than
one day; and every one was sent to prison for the rest of his life
without the possibility of parole, probation, or suspension of sentence.
A well-resourced defense lawyer, she said, could have prevented most of
those injustices before they began."
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/06/on-the-defensive/485165/
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: (1): Many people are asking how they can help
free and exonerate Rodricus Crawford. Crawford himself, his family, and
Marlene Belliveau, who is advocating for Crawford, believe that
personal pleas directly to District Attorney James Stewart or Governor
of the State of Louisiana John Bel Edwards to review the case before it
is too late could help make a difference - and would be most
appreciated. The pleas can be sent as follows:
DA James Stewart
501Texas St, 5th Floor
Shreveport, LA 71101
(or)
Governor John Bel Edwards
Office of the Governor
PO Box 94004
Baton Rouge, LA 70804
For more information with respect to this case, you may also contact Marlene Belliveau at : MarleneABelliveau@gmail.com ( for the Crawford family);
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: THE EIGHT POST SERIES:
Part One: 'TakePart' tells
the compelling story of a sister's (Vicki Crawford-Sharp) efforts to
save her brother from Louisiana's death row - with the fervent
support of a Canadian woman (Marlene Belliveau) drawn to the case by a
horrific personal experience of her own.
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2016/05/rodricus-crawford-louisiana-death-row.html
Part
Two: Marlene Belliveau's compelling plea to Caddo Parrish's new
District Attorney James Stewart to spare an innocent father's life and
proclaim his innocence.
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2016/05/rodricus-crawford-louisiana-death-row_28.html
Part Three:
The Innocence Network
files an Amicus Brief urging the US Supreme Court to reverse his
conviction - asserting that the victim’s death resulted not from
suffocation, but from a fatal illness.
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2016/05/rodricus-crawford-louisiana-death-row_29.html
Part Four:
In his own words
Rodricus Crawford - through an open letter - tells anyone who will
listen that all he asks is for the new DA (James Stewart) "to do the
right thing and re-examine the case...There's only one reasonable
conclusion."
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2016/05/rodricus-crawford-louisiana-death-row_30.html
Part Five:
Catholics lead calls for court to spare life of death-row inmate; Catholic News Service.
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2016_05_01_archive.html
Part Six:
More on the perverse
criminal justice culture in which Rodicrus Crawford - and many others -
have been trapped: A recent study conducted by the 'Southern
University Law Center’s Journal of Race, Gender and Poverty' which
shows that "few Louisiana death row inmates are actually executed, since
the majority have their verdicts reversed upon appeal, or are
exonerated due to innocence findings".
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2016/06/rodricus-crawford-death-row-louisiana.html
Part Seven:
Good news for
Rodricus Crawford and the rest of the more than 80 people on death row
in Louisiana; It just got more difficult for the state to push forward
on executions.
http://smithforensic.blogspot.ca/2016/06/rodricus-crawford-death-row-louisiana_1.html
Part
Eight: Publisher's view; (Editorial); "Apart from the factual
component of the case which cries out Rodricus Crawford's innocence -
after he had been trapped in Louisiana's perverse criminal justice
culture - we still have to view Rodricus in the context of a father
wrongfully convicted of the murder of his son, charged with the most
horrific offence in the criminal law, and awaiting a meeting with the
state's executioner."
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=120008354894645705#editor/target=post;postID=3030613652084038518;onPublishedMenu=allposts;onClosedMenu=allposts;postNum=8;src=link
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:
I have added a search box for content in this blog which now encompasses
several thousand posts. The search box is located near the bottom of
the screen just above the list of links. I am confident that this
powerful search tool provided by "Blogger" will help our readers and
myself get more out of the site.
The
Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty
incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the
harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into
pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology
system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent
stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at:
http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith
Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at:
http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html
Please
send any comments or information on other cases and issues of
interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com;
Harold Levy;
Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
