POST: "Why should taxpayers subsidize Joe Arpaio’s legal defense?" by Radley Balko, published by The Washington Post on Juy 27, 2017. (Radley Balko blogs about criminal justice, the drug war and civil liberties for The Washington Post. He is the author of the book "Rise of the Warrior Cop: The Militarization of America's Police Forces.)
GIST: "The man formerly known as “America’s toughest sheriff” is facing federal criminal contempt charges for allegedly continuing with his racially profiling “immigration patrols” and detentions in defiance of a federal order. The trial ended last month, and the judge is expected to issue a ruling soon. This week, I received two unsolicited emails purporting to be from Arpaio’s wife — one from “Mrs. Joe Arpaio,” and another from “Ava Arpaio.” Both — with the same text — were fundraising emails for Arpaio’s legal defense......... I don’t doubt that Ava Arpaio loves her husband and that she intended this as a compliment. And I suppose that if you think it is commendable for a man to treat animals better than he treats the human beings entrusted to his care, then you’re free to donate. I suspect, however, that most people won’t see this particular passage in a light as complimentary to Joe Arpaio as Ava Arpaio seems to see it. But I was also drawn to another phrase in the email. Apparently, Arpaio’s defense fund is being handled by a group called the National Center for Police Defense (NCPD), a nonprofit organization. That means that donations to Arpaio’s defense are, as the email put it, “100 percent tax-deductible.”......... The only listed staff member on the NCPD website is James Fotis, listed as the president. Prior to his current gig, Fotis was the longtime head of a group called the Law Enforcement Alliance of America (LEAA). That, too, was a pretty shadowy group. For more than 15 years, the LEAA ran exploitative, often misleading ads in state attorney general, state supreme court and other state races across the country. But the group never disclosed its donors and rarely talked to the press about its funding. ........ According to the Time report, written by the Center for Public Integrity, the LEAA was created in the 1990s by the National Rifle Association in an effort to get police officers and law enforcement groups on board with the gun rights movement. The NRA stopped funding LEAA in 2010. Sometime in the early 2000s, the LEAA began to focus more on pushing law-and-order candidates in state elections. Despite its name, the Time/CPI report points out that police organizations have distanced themselves from the LEAA. Even the head of the nation’s largest police union told the author of the report, “If we have ever agreed with them, it’s been totally coincidental.” Though the LEAA never disclosed its donors, it has also apparently received funding from fiscally conservative groups such as Americans for Tax Reform and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce — presumably on the assumption that tough-on-crime candidates also tend to be fiscally conservative. I first learned about the LEAA through its involvement in Mississippi Supreme Court elections. I’ve been covering the state’s death investigation system for over 10 years now, in particular the tenure of discredited medical examiner Steven Hayne and his sidekick, the “bite mark” and “tool mark” specialist Michael West. One of the first Mississippi Supreme Court justices to question West’s credibility was former justice Charles McRae. He did so in a lonely dissenting opinion in the case of Levon Brooks, who had been convicted of raping and killing a 3-year-old girl. Brooks was convicted almost entirely due to West’s bite-mark testimony, which McRae found dubious. When McRae was up for reelection, the LEAA took out ominous ads noting that McRae “was the only judge to reverse the conviction of the murderer of a 3-year-old.” McRae lost. In 2007, Levon Brooks was exonerated and released from prison. Kennedy Brewer was also exonerated and released. He had been convicted and sentenced to death for a remarkably similar crime. It would turn out that the same man committed both murders. In 2008, the LEAA ran more vicious attack ads against Mississippi Supreme Court Justice Oliver Diaz, one of the few members of that court to question the credibility of Hayne, who even a federal appeals court now concedes has been “discredited.” The LEAA ad accused Diaz of siding with “baby killers.” One of the cases mentioned was that of Jeffrey Havard, who still sits on Mississippi’s death row. But in Havard’s case, even Hayne now concedes that his testimony was in error. He also claims the little girl in the case was never sexually assaulted, as prosecutors claimed at trial. Havard will have an evidentiary hearing later this summer. The LEAA ads were condemned by a judicial integrity committee but eventually pulled by local TV stations for being unfair. Diaz lost, too."
PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. 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/c
