Abandoned Church, Eastern Wyoming
Evening Clouds
The Supreme Court has made it nearly impossible to sue a policeman or other government officer even when they commit egregious misconduct. The Court has limited the victim’s recourse to cases in which the government’s policy was clearly unconstitutional or “every reasonable official” would have known the conduct was unlawful.
So, a man who was wrongfully convicted of murder and spent 14 years on death row was unable to collect damages from the prosecutor who failed to provide him with the exculpatory evidence he had obtained before trial. The unknown perpetrator had left a sample which showed his blood type (and later, his DNA) did not match with the man who was in custody. The prosecutor made a regular practice of concealing exculpatory evidence. The Supreme Court ruled that the city government could not be held liable because ” it could not be proved that its own policies had violated the Constitution.”
Law enforcement personnel who commit perjury and district attorneys who commit misconduct have absolute immunity from civil suits. Remember that next time you talk to a policeman: he can lie to you and there is nothing you can do about it.
And, an eight year old girl who was strip searched because it was suspected that she had a tablet of prescription strength ibuprofen was unable to collect damages: the Court decided that no-one could be held liable for this misconduct.
Finally, a man who was arrested as a “material witness” and held in a maximum-security prison for sixteen days and was then on supervised release for fourteen months, even though the government had no intention of actually using him as a witness, nor even probable cause to arrest him. The Court indicated that the government could not be held liable for this misbehavior.
There is a pernicious tendency in the Supreme Court which matches its other pernicious tendencies in its malicious effects on American society. This tendency is to drastically limit the circumstances under which an aggrieved citizen can sue for government malfeasance. The ability to sue for redress of grievances is one of the few rights that citizens have that could truly correct the malign tendencies of government.
The Supreme Court is the most dangerous retrogressive organization in the world. We must preserve the Presidency in Democratic hands if we are to avoid further degeneration of this most malignant group.
The point is that, after all is said and done, prosecuting the police officer who shot Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri or the officers who allowed Eric Garner to suffocate on Staten Island will be a very dicey proposition.
Racism in the United States
Racism is still prevalent in the United States. Here are quotes from a really strong article in the Prospect by Bob Herbert on August 25 about the persistence of racism:
“And it’s that racism—stark, in-your-face, never-ending, frequently murderous—that has so many African-Americans so angry and frustrated, so furious, so enraged. Black people all across America, not just in Ferguson, are angry about the killing of Michael Brown. And they remain angry over the killing of Trayvon Martin. And many are seething over the fatal chokehold clamped on the throat of Eric Garner by a cop on Staten Island in New York—a cop who refused to relent even as Garner gasped, “I can’t breathe, I can’t breathe.” ”
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They are angry about all those things, but they are also angry and frustrated about so much more. Here are just a few of the complaints. Black people are angry about voter suppression, the relentless, organized, years-long effort to prevent African-Americans from freely exercising their fundamental right to cast a ballot for the candidates of their choice. That effort was bolstered immeasurably and given a veneer of legitimacy last year by the Supreme Court’s vile and destructive evisceration of the Voting Rights Act.
Blacks are angry and bitterly frustrated over the way so many were targeted and victimized by predators in the housing and finance industries, and the disproportionate suffering that African-Americans endured in the subsequent housing meltdown and the recession. And they are angry about being left so far behind in the so-called economic recovery.
Blacks hold a variety of views about the job that Barack Obama has done as president. Most are very supportive; some have been disappointed. But nearly all are furious at the high levels of racism and personal venom that have characterized so much of the opposition not just to the president’s policies but to him personally. Most blacks I know have taken that as an affront to themselves, as well as an appalling affront to the president, and the resentment they feel is off the charts.”
“And, yes, there is profound anger and resentment at the myriad hateful ways that blacks are treated throughout the criminal justice system. I will never forget traveling to Avon Park, Florida, a few years ago to cover the case of an African-American girl in kindergarten who was arrested by the police, handcuffed and taken to the police station in the back seat of a patrol car because she had thrown a tantrum in the classroom. When I interviewed the police chief, I expressed amazement that this had happened to a six-year-old. His reply came in an instant: “Do you think this is the first six-year-old we’ve arrested?””
“These are just a very few of the many deep concerns harbored by black Americans. (Others include the chronic under-funding and wholesale closing of public schools in black neighborhoods; the continued widespread discrimination in employment and housing; and the humiliating, debilitating racist encounters, large and small, that nearly all black people face at one time or another, and that many blacks face on a daily basis.)”
Whatever happened in Ferguson and on Staten Island, the two deaths (among many others) have created immortal monuments to their causes.
Speed Limit 55 in Car Headlights
Longhorn Saloon– No Indians Allowed
Four Geese Flying
Conrad Theodore Seitz 