Friday, May 25, 2007

Minneapolis Judicial and Police Tryanny Corruption, Collusion


"Corruption and judicial misconduct stands to truimph over human rights within the Hennepin County District Court"
MN Court Room Corruption Designed to target Blacks, poor people, people of color and victims of police brutality:

MN Known for its Police Profiling Trends
MN Profiling Trends towards Racism says MN Congressman Keith Ellison: .http://wcco.com/topstories/local_story_027125547.html
more than two years, there has been proof: a $1.9 million state-funded study, "The Minnesota Statewide Racial Profiling Report." The report concludes police pull over minorities at a greater rate than whites."I think what the study showed, definitively, is that we have a serious problem with racial profiling in our state," Ellison said.


***“Police perjury in criminal cases is so pervasive that "hundreds of thousands of law-enforcement officers commit felony perjury every year testifying about drug arrests" alone http://www.november.org/stayinfo/breaking06/Muckraker.html

Twin Cities Indymedia : "...collusion between Hennipen County Judges, the city attorney's office of Minneapolis and prosecutors..."::_"As an attorney, Jill Clark has experienced first hand and heard directly from her clients about ***collusion between Hennepin County judges (including Chief Justice Lucy Wieland), the city attorney's office of Minneapolis, and prosecutors" ...'mostly people of color and poor people who have been victims of police brutality – a recurring problem in Minneapolis."To view more: http://twincities.indymedia.org/newswire/display/29209/index.php


MN Police and Court Agenda to Falsely Accuse Blacks Minorities Target Attack and Jail them: Minneapolis "Communities United Against Police Brutality" newsletter: http://www.charityadvantage.com/CUAPB/5-27-04Newsletter.asp
Captions from above URL commenting on this:
"This particular court system contributes, in very large measure, to the state of Minnesota having the highest rate of overprosecution of Blacks of any state in the U.S. Of course, they can't do the job alone. Arrests are the entry valve into the system and cops are certainly doing their part to ensure that plenty of Blacks are introduced into the system for prosecution, in part by slapping false charges on folks to cover police brutality and misconduct."



Article “The Color Of Justice” Minnesota leads the nation in the rate at which it imprisons non-whites. For every white person sent to prison in Minnesota, 21 people of color are imprisoned. http://news.minnesota.publicradio.org/features/200111/12_newsroom_colorofjustice/
ALSO SEE:
Accountability in the urban justice system(CLICK) "No one seems to know why Minnesota's predominantly white population turns overwhelmingly non-white inside the state's prison gates. But in the end, judges have the responsibility for sending people to jail. But in the end, judges have the responsibility for sending people to jail..."

Black PASTORS profiled In Minneapolis: http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/07/28/profiling http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2006/07/28/prof

Now a Crime to Report Police Brutality in Minneapolis if cannot be ‘Proven” (Yet a case has not been upheld in their corrupt courts in decades...http://www.petitiononline.com/cuapb02/petition.html During its 2005 session, the Minnesota legislature passed a law making it a crime to “falsely” report police brutality. If found guilty, a person could be jailed for up to a year…clearly meant to frighten people away from filing complaints against abusive police officers.”


Article Captions follow:http://www.charityadvantage.com/CUAPB/120906Newsletter.asp
"Jill Clark has tirelessly and fearlessly defended people of color and poor people who have been targeted by the criminal justice system, especially survivors of police brutality and family members of people killed by police. Jill has encountered and exposed courthouse corruption being used to railroad police brutality victims and others. This corruption contributes to Minnesota having the highest rate of overprosecution of Blacks in the country (according to the Council on Crime and Justice).


Jill Clark: Mpls. Human Rights Defender

Investigating and reporting on violations can help end ongoing violations, prevent their repetition and assist victims in taking their cases to courts. Some human rights defenders provide professional legal advice and represent victims in the judicial process.What should a lawyer do when she encounters apparent evidence of corruption and judicial misconduct? What should a lawyer do when she takes the proper steps to report the corruption, and finds her complaints ignored by the apparent proper channels?

In the Hennepin County District Court, Attorney Jill Clark, along with law partner Jill Waite, has spent nearly ten years defending, often times pro bono, mostly people of color and poor people who have been victims of police brutality – a recurring problem in Minneapolis. They have used incidents of police brutality as an affirmative defense for their client/victims. The City of Minneapolis has paid in excess of $14 million dollars settling cases of MPD brutality over the last 10 years, according to a February 8, 2006 article in the Pulse of the Twin Cities weekly newspaper.


"Minneapolis Urban League2100 Plymouth Avenue North, Minneapolis "We will continue to organize our Hands Off Jill Clark campaign and a counteroffensive campaign of going against the corruption in the Hennepin County courts. Come and join one of our working groups to stand with Jill and take action against the machinery that defends brutal cops and targets police brutality survivors."

Minneapolis Judicial and Police Tryanny Corruption, Collusion http://twincities.indymedia.org/newswire/display/29209/index.php


Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States Minneapolis Racism In "law Enforcement": http://www.hrw.org/reports98/police/uspo85.htm
http://www.charityadvantage.com/CUAPB/120906Newsletter.asp
http://www.charityadvantage.com/CUAPB/120906Newsletter.asp

In Defense of Jill Clark: Human Rights DefenderBy Rashard Zanders, editor of Blacklogic and a member of the Jill Clark Defense Coalition “Human rights defender” is a term used to describe people who, individually or with others, act to promote or protect human rights.

((NOW A DEVIATION FOR A MOMENT: A LOOK AT JUDICIAL TYRANNY OF THIS NATURE PRESENTING IN SOME CAPACITY RAMPANT ACROSS ALL OF AMERICA (though areas such as Minneapolis , Chicago, Los Angeles, New Orleans, Virginia, Louisiana, New York, and Milwaukee are amongst the worst offenders)

))


Shielded from Justice: Police Brutality and Accountability in the United States Minneapolis Racism In "law Enforcement": http://www.hrw.org/reports98/police/uspo85.htm "Fifty-four percent of complaints to the CRA in 1994, 58 percent in 1995, and 61 percent in 1996 were made by people of color, although they constitute just one-quarter of the city's population.6 A representative of the Minneapolis Urban League, which receives complaints primarily from the African-American community, told Human Rights Watch that his office receives approximately fifty complaints a month alleging police misconduct.7 As cited in a 1994 study about drug enforcement in minority communities in Minneapolis, the Urban League said:
The issue is essentially that the black African-American citizen continues to be deprived of the same civil liberties as those offered to the white Anglo suburbanite. The black citizen is caught in an unenviable dilemma. They must depend on the police to provide basic services, yet do not trust the police to provide the service fairly and equitably. There is a basic distrust for the police and the black African-American feels that any time the police will turn on them and they will be the one incarcerated. "

As an attorney, Jill Clark has experienced first hand and heard directly from her clients about collusion between Hennepin County judges (including Chief Justice Lucy Wieland), the city attorney's office of Minneapolis, and prosecutors, including, but not exclusive to, annual social gatherings in Brainerd, MN at Maddens Bar – activities that in her judgment, violated the rights of her clients and further suggested to her that these problems were not isolated, but could in fact be affecting other people brought before the Hennepin County District Court. Consequently, Clark has gathered an array of court documents and audiotapes to support the existence of those problems, and reported them in two separate complaints with the Judicial Standards Board, one complaint with the Lawyer's Board of Professional Responsibility, and one lawsuit in federal district court. The complaints allege activities on the Hennepin County District Court that violate the standards for judges established in the Code of Judicial Conduct, standards for attorney's in the Minnesota Rules of Professional Conduct, and the Human Rights treaties.In violation of Article 9(5) of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, Jill Clark's complaints have not been investigated, nor have there been prompt reviews to date in a public hearing before an independent, impartial and competent authority as required by Article 9(5).

Minneapolis Police Racial Attack/ Beating of Flowers:
"Eyewitnesses testified that he was literally being choked to death--his tongue was hanging out and he could not breathe. Flowers' sister, former MPD cop Alisa Clemons, rushed to aid her brother and totell the cops to stop "acting crazy." Videotape of the incident show she was shoved away by Officer Mooney. Rev. Randy Staten testified that he pulled the cop's hand off Flowers' neck to keep him from choking Flowers to death, and that he had a legal and moral obligation to do so." http://www.charityadvantage.com/CUAPB/5-27-04Newsletter.asp

Beating Of Oscar Hanes and Family "Perhaps the issue was that they were biracial..." http://oscarhanesbeating.blogspot.com/
MN- based Communities United Against police Brutality


PHILANDER JENKINS COURT WATCH, DAY 1
http://www.charityadvantage.com/CUAPB/12-30-03Newsletter.asp
Yesterday was the first day of trial in the case of
Philander Jenkins for charges stemming from an arrest
in May 2003 in which he was beaten and his jaw broken
by Minneapolis police.

>From the moment we walked into the courtroom, it was
clear that the machinery of the criminal justice
system has been tuned up to railroad Philander. About
20 people were in the courtroom to watch the
proceedings and even veteran court watchers were
shocked at the blatant bias against Philander and his
lawyer by Judge Regina M. Chu and Hennepin County
prosecutor Anita Jehl. more

Other General examples of Hennepin County Judicial Abuses Compiled: http://judgeourcourts.org/reallifeexamplesofjudicialabuses.html
_________________________________________________________

MINNEAPOLIS POLICE "BAD COPS" WEB SITE
EXPOSES A PLUTHERA OF POLICE MISCONDUCT ONGOING AND UPDATED REGULARLY
: SEE:

http://www.badcopnews.com/bad_cop_news/minnesota/

______________________________________________________






JUDICIAL MISCONDUCT RACIAL TYRANNY IS NOT AN ISOLATED CASE TO MN BUT SPANS FAR AND WIDE ACROSS THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA: Herein I begin a compilation of cases illustrating this point:

*"JUSTICE" SYSTEM RACISM
Communities United Against PoliceBrutality EMAIL NEWSLETTERSeptember 12, 2007**********************************************No Outsiders in JenaBy Etan Thomas and Dave Zirin
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/etan-thomas-and-dave-zirin/racism-hatred-and-southe_b_64160.html "Outsiders need to stay away." That's what Billy Fowler ofthe school board in Jena, Louisiana, said about those who have raisedconcerns about the sentencing imposed on six African American boys --ages 15-17 -- facing 100 years in prison.Outsiders are always what people in the South have called those whochallenge racism. But the story of Jena is not an outsider/insider story.It's a story about the worst tradition of what is known as SouthernJustice. And like in the days of Jim Crow, it's a story where any shadesof grey matter far less than black and white.The issue by now has become well known: discussed on CNN and in the pagesof USA Today.

At Jena High School, a black student received permissionfrom school authorities to sit underneath what was known as "thewhite tree" (remarkable that he felt he had to ask!) The next day,in retribution, three nooses hung from the branches, threats that theywould soon be harvesting "strange fruit." In protest blackstudents collectively decided to sit under the tree. This a bold and beautiful act in the spirit of the best traditions of the '60s. Theyrefused to comply with racist terror, even when those threats are asdrastic as being lynched for simply not staying in your place.And just like in the old South, the state made clear which side it wason. The town DA, Reid Walters, actually had the audacity to threaten onlythe black students, telling them that he had the power to ruin theirlives with the stroke of his pen if they continued to maketrouble.Tensions escalated over the course of the semester. Two black studentswere beaten by a white student while another group of black students werethreatened with a shotgun by a former classmate. Surprisingly, none ofthe white students or former students were punished in any way for theseincidents.But the following Monday when a white student was beaten up by six blackclassmates, they were immediately arrested and charged with attemptedmurder and conspiracy to commit murder, charges that would put them injail for 100 years without parole. The Jena 6 ranges in age from 15-17.The white student spent three hours in a hospital emergency room andrequired no further medical care.Mychall Bell was the first studenttried. He was represented by a public defender that called no witness,and was quickly convicted by an all-white jury, white judge, and nowfaces up to 22 years in prison.

Recently, in response to a public outcry about the case, prosecutors haveannounced that charges against Shaw and Jones had been reduced to lesserfelonies. But the need to be heard on this continues. Two other students,Robert Bailey Jr. and Bryant Purvis, still await trial for attemptedmurder. Bell's conviction has been allowed to stand even though the judgeruled he had been improperly convicted in an adult court when he shouldhave been tried as a juvenile.

Shaw and Jones still face years inprison.As Billy Hunter, the head of the National Basketball Player'sassociation, said:_ "The situation in Jena, Louisiana is abominableand rotten to the core. The actions of the District Attorney demonstratethat "racism and bigotry are live and well in Jena ." As aformer U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of California andAssistant Chief in the S.F. District Attorney's Office, it is my opinionthat the District Attorney's has severely overcharged the case revealinghis bias against the six black Jena youth.His actions should serve as awake-up call for all Americans who believe in an impartial and faircriminal justice system."This is a case that should outrage any individual regardless of the colorof their skin. When the justice system can be a direct symbol of racism,injustice and terror, the very moral fiber of our society is threatened.This is not a time for neutrality. Insiders and so-called outsiders willbe marching in Jena on September 20th. We will also be circulating astatement in the world of sports for those who choose to support theefforts to have the charges against the Jena 6 dismissed.

The simpletruth is that when it comes to issues of basic justice, there are no suchthing as "outsiders."Etan Thomas is the center for the National Basketball Association'sWashington Wizards. He is the author of the book of poems, More than anAthlete and a member of the NBAPA executive board. Dave Zirin is acolumnist for SLAM magazine and the author of Welcome to the Terrordome(Haymarket Books)Sign a petition calling for US Justice Department intervention inthe Jena 6 case:http://www.petitiononline.com/aZ51CqmR/petition.html

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Many more cases pending or unsettled. The cases which Clark and Waite have won and for which they have fought are numerous and will be reviewed in a follow-up article. But they are cases by whose defense the two attorney's merit recognition and respect as defenders of Human Rights. Furthermore, Clark and Waite have been instrumental in holding police and courts accountable through their involvement in the federally mediated Police Community Relation Council, as well as pushing the Minneapolis City Council to recognize the Civilian Review Authority (CRA) as a legitimate authority in authorizing penalties for MPD brutality. These are some of the reasons why Blacklogic.blogspot.com has joined the broad coalition of Minneapolis community members as a supportive member of the Jill Clark Defense Coalition.According to the non-profit Council on Crime and Justice, Minnesota has the highest rate of over prosecution of Blacks in the nation.



VIOLATION OF ARTICLE 12(3): FAILURE TO PROTECT FROM RETALIATION
MN Human Rights Attorney Jill CLARK TARGETTED BY THE CORRUPT COURT FOR EXPOSURE OF THEIR JUDICIAL CRIMES HEREIN:

A retaliatory complaint filed on October 30, 2006 against Jill Clark with the Lawyers Professional Responsibility Board by Chief Justice Wieland, one of the judges whose conduct Clark had reported to the Judicial Standards Board, has been allowed to proceed to investigation, including the requirement that Clark submit a written response to the 28 allegations made by Justice Wieland against her. According to Peter Brown, a local attorney, member of the MN chapter of the National Lawyer's Guild, and a Jill Clark Defense Coalition supporter, conducted his own independent study ahead of an NLG meeting in February about Clark's situation. His study suggests that “given the timing of the judge's complaint to the Judicial Standards Board (October 30, 2006) and the fact that it complains about statements Ms. Clark made in her [earlier] April 11, 2006 complaint to the Judicial Standards Board and federal lawsuit filed April 25, 2006, the appearance of retaliation is created.“Until the issue of retaliation is forthrightly and thoroughly examined, the appearance is that a person who brought a complaint of human rights violations to appropriate authorities gets no hearing or investigation whatsoever, and a judge complained of subsequently files a counter-complaint and the wheels of investigation swing into action on her behalf. This, we believe, fits the profile of an impermissible retaliation against Jill Clark for complaining about human rights violations“In terms of the Declaration on Human Rights Defenders, the combined effect of the Judicial Standards Board's failure to act upon Ms. Clark's complaints and the Lawyer's Board of Professional Responsibility proceeding to process the judge's complaint against Ms. Clark, therefore, is an apparent failure to protect Ms. Clark from retaliation resulting from her legitimate exercise of her right to report activities that violate human rights, all in violation are Article 12(3).”According to Clark, it was the “alarming conduct of Judge Wieland” that led her, in April '06, to file a complaint with the Judicial Standards Board on behalf of her two young African American clients.Here are some examples from Clark's April '06 complaint letter:Many of you know that I vigorously represent clients of color who were mistreated by police, and are standing up against fabricated criminal charges filed by those police.Around Christmas 2005, Communities United Against Police Brutality called [the] Minneapolis police to ask that they preserve all video footage of an incident of reported police misconduct. As we often see in these cases, following the videotaped incident, both of the young Black men were faced with criminal charges.One of them, Rasheed Abdullah, asked me to represent him. This is the kind of case that I take, this is the kind of case that I have been successful with. Ask yourself who would not want me to be successful with these cases.Evidence shows that Judge Wieland took overt steps to keep me from being able to represent this young Black man, including:My January 10 appearance form notified Judge Wieland's chambers that I was coming onto the case of the loitering ticket for this young man if necessary, I was prepared to defend him by pointing up the misconduct of certain Minneapolis police officers.I gave the ticket number on that filing and faxed it to Judge Wieland's chambers.It turns out the City of Minneapolis hadn't filed formal charges on that ticket. It appears that after [italics Clark's] receiving notice that I was trying to come onto the loiter case, Judge Wieland's chambers contacted the prosecutor from the City of Minneapolis, on my case, to tell her to enter the ticket into the system. That would allow Judge Wieland to act on it. No one told me, the lawyer for this young man, that this was happening. No one sent me a copy of the email.Court was set for January 12.Someone from Judge Wieland's chambers told the Minneapolis prosecutor to come 15 minutes before I was due to arrive. T* o date no one has said what transpired in those 15 minutes (BL)On January 12, even though Judge Wieland knew that I was representing the young man on this loiter case, she had conversations in her chambers with the City prosecutor, without me present.I arrived early to review the court file (which by the way I got from Judge Wieland's chambers), and I was sitting in the courtroom know knowing they were in the chambers. During that time, government lawyers were talking about my case in Judge Wieland's chamber's, just down the hall, and no one came to get me in the courtroom.By the time I learned those lawyers were there, it was clear that they had already met with Judge Wieland about the case(s).When I went back to chambers and questioned what was going on, rather than including me in the chambers discussion, Judge Wieland tried to physically close her chambers door on me, to prevent me from going into chambers, where there had been discussions about my case. She resorted to physical conduct against me, instead of legal process, in order to keep me from coming into her chambers to discuss my case.When it became clear that Judge Wieland would not allow me into her chambers, I was unwilling to resort to physical force to push my way into her chambers. But I demanded that if they talked without me, that I wanted a record. Judge Wieland told everyone to return to the courtroom, which I did. But once I got there, no one else came.When I went into the back hall to see what had happened, attorneys were walking down the hall toward the courtroom and Judge Wieland was bringing up the rear. Judge Wieland told those attorneys that she wanted to “talk to Ms. Clark on a different matter.” Then alone in the back of the hall, just her and me, she got physically close to me and she threatened me about the case of Ali Dunham v. the Wayzata Country Club. That interaction was memorialized in my March 27, 2006 letter to Judge Wieland. [Copy provided with attachments A (my contemporaneous notes) and B]. In my opinion she was trying to intimidate me, under threat of filing an ethics charge on me, from doing my job.Because of these and similar events, Clark believes Judge Wieland was trying to prevent her from representing Rasheed Abdullah on a case that she already knew involved allegations of videotaped police misconduct. The aforementioned facts were put into a complaint to the Judicial Standards Board in April 2006, with an clear statement, Clark says, that I had more evidence and transcripts in my office.“What was I supposed to do, stay silent,” Clark asked at a press conference held December 12, 2006 at the Hennepin County Government Center, shouting distance from Judge Wieland's chambers.FODDER FOR DISCUSSION OR A CALL FOR COMMUNITY ACTION?According to Clark, no one from the Judicial Standards Board ever contacted her about that additional evidence; rather, she got a letter dated May 23, 2006, that stated that there was “insufficient evidence to sustain your complaint or proceed to a public hearing.”She wrote back a letter dated May 25, 2006, questioning how that conclusion could have been made, since she was never contacted to obtain the evidence that she already had in her office.In a letter dated July 18, 2006, David Paull of the Judicial Standards Board told Clark that the Board had reviewed “a number of witness statements” and other documents. However, Clark says that when she talked to Paul on December 4, he said he doesn't take “statements,” he takes notes, and then writes paragraphs. Clark claims she was told the Board's review of complaints is “as loose as can be,” and it decides whether or not it “wants” to pursue the case further.Neither Clark nor the other complainants believe they really know what happened to their April '06 complaint What is certain is that Judge Wieland is using the inaction of the Judicial Standards Board against Clark.Prior to learning of Judge Wieland's October 26 complaint, in September and October 2006 Clark filed another complaint with the Judicial Standards Board, complaining about Judge Wieland's involvement in what Clark believed was a matter of pubic concern.Clark filed a parallel copy with the Office of Lawyer's Professional Responsibility, asking that they investigate whether a lawyer was involved in that situation involving Judge Wieland.About a month later, on October 26, Judge Wieland filed a complaint letter against Clark with that same legal office, claiming, apparently, that Clark violated her ethical rules by complaining against her. It is at this point that Clark had her Eureka moment, and believes without a doubt that Judge Wieland filed her October 26 complaint to retaliate against her, in hopes of intimidating her into silence.A copy of Judge Wieland's complaint against Clark is unavailable because it contains confidential information about a juvenile client of hers, without his permission.Ironically, the Office of Lawyer's Professional Standards decided not to investigate the lawyer's conduct that would have implicated Judge Wieland, but has decided to investigate her. Hence the appearance that the lawyer who questioned the judge is getting investigated, but the judge is not.“I am glad that Judge Wieland filed this complaint against me, because it gives the community the opportunity to discuss these important issues,” Clark said.As advocates of for Human Rights Blacklogic.blogspot will continue to update our readers and report as the situation develops. If you would like to become a part of the Jill Clark Defense Coalition contact Michelle Gross at 612-703-1612 or Pauline Thomas at 612-827-4158.Communties United Against Police Brutality can be reached at 612-874-7867, or visit http://www.cuapb.org/. Rashard Zanders can be reached at 612-812-5261 or via email at rashard.zanders (at) gmail.com.

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