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Posts published in “Justice”

Ohio Man Ricky Jackson Receives $1 Million After Spending 39 Years in Jail for a Murder He Didn’t Commit

By goodblacknews on March 20, 2015

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Ricky Jackson (YOUTUBE SCREENSHOT)

Ricky Jackson, 57, spent 39 years in prison for a murder he didn’t commit, and on Thursday an Ohio judge ordered the state to pay Jackson $1 million for his wrongful imprisonment, Reuters reports. Jackson was freed from prison last November.

Jackson was informed by a journalist about the $1 million check coming his way. “Wow, I didn’t know that,” Jackson told the Cleveland Plain Dealer after he found out. “Wow, wow, wow, that’s fantastic, man. I don’t even know what to say. This is going to mean so much.”
Jackson was convicted of murder in connection with the death of Cleveland salesman Harold Franks in 1975, alongside two other men, Kwame Ajamu and Wiley Bridgeman, who are brothers. Jackson was the longest-held U.S. prisoner to be eventually cleared of a crime. Ajamu and Bridgeman also were exonerated. Ajamu’s sentence was commuted and he was released from prison in 2003, and Bridgeman was freed shortly after Jackson in November.
A 12-year-old boy named Eddie Vernon testified during the original trial that he saw the attack. Vernon later recanted his testimony, telling authorities that he did not, in fact, witness the crime.
According to Reuters, there was no other evidence linking Jackson to Franks’ death. Other witnesses said that Jackson, who was a teenager at the time, was on a school bus at the time of the killing.
article by Diana Ozemebhoya Eromosele via theroot.com

Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity to Announce Plan to Combat Racial Intolerance

By goodblacknews on March 18, 2015
CHICAGO (AP) — A fraternity under scrutiny because of a racist chant caught on video plans to announce an extensive review of its chapters around the country.
Sigma Alpha Epsilon Fraternity said it will unveil Wednesday what it calls a “national plan to combat racial intolerance.” The Evanston, Illinois-based organization is holding a news conference in Chicago to announce its plans to eliminate insensitivity among its members.
The fraternity is responding to a video that surfaced last week. It showed University of Oklahoma fraternity members engaging in a racist chant that referenced lynching and indicated that black students never would be admitted to that university’s chapter.
SAE has disbanded the local chapter for the video. The university has expelled two students and banned SAE. Two students identified in the video have apologized publicly.
article via blackamericaweb.com

PROTEST: Hundreds Shut Down Decatur, GA For #AnthonyHill, U.S. Veteran Killed By Police

By goodblacknews on March 12, 2015
Anthony Hill Protest
Brandon Marshall carries a photo of Anthony Hill as protesters march through the street demonstrating Hill’s shooting death by a police officer, Wednesday, March 11, 2015, in Decatur, Ga. (AP Photo/David Goldman) 
Hundreds took to the streets of Decatur, Georgia yesterday, stopping traffic, chanting and holding signs like “Demilitarize the police” to protest the officer-involved shooting death of Anthony Hill, an unarmed 27-year-old black man in DeKalb County, a suburb of Atlanta.
Protesters, using hashtags like #Antlanta and #AnthonyHill are questioning the use of force against Hill, an Air Force veteran who was naked and unarmed, when he was shot and killed by a white police officer on Monday.
Activists announced the protest with an email asking this very question reports the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

“Anthony was naked and unarmed at the time of the shooting, yet Officer Olsen found him to be enough of a threat to take his life.”

The officer who shot Hill, a seven-year veteran of the force has been identified by police as Robert Olsen, and has been placed on administrative leave, reports Reuters via The Huffington Post.
Hill was shot after he was dealing with what looked to be a mental health issue, said the DeKalb County police Chief Cedric Alexander on Monday. Alexander confirmed that police received a call about a man “acting deranged, knocking on doors, and crawling around on the ground naked.”
After “running towards a responding officer,” Hill was shot twice. Police found no weapon. Almost immediately, Twitter was flooded with the hashtags #AnthonyHill and #BlackLivesMatter.
Ironically, Hill had used the #BlackLivesMatter himself in the days before his death, reports Reuters:
“The key thing to remember is, #blacklivesmatter, ABSOLUTELY, but not moreso than any other life,” Hill wrote on his Facebook page on March 6.
In another post the same day, he said, “No man (or woman) is ever going to stop me from living the life I envision…Empower yourself. Show these kids that #blacklivesmatter by living yours like it does.”
Hill is at least the third African-American man since Friday who was unarmed when shot dead by police. Thousands have been rallying for the last few days in the streets of Madison Wisconsin for 19-year-old Tony Robinson, who was killed by police last week. Aurora, Colorado police confirmed that Naeschylus Vinzant, 37, was unarmed when he was shot and killed with one bullet by police on Friday.
Hill’s shooting investigation went to the Georgia Bureau of Investigation in an effort at “transparency.”
article by Angela Bronner Helm via newsone.com

Duke University Debuts Website Documenting SNCC & the Voting Rights Struggle

By goodblacknews on March 12, 2015

Vq1ywrurDuke University in Durham, North Carolina, has just debuted a new website documenting the struggle of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC) to secure voting rights for African Americans. The site, entitled “One Person, One Vote: The Legacy of the SNCC and the Fight for Voting Rights,” went live one week before the 50th anniversary of the “Bloody Sunday” voting rights march in Selma, Alabama on March 7, 1965.
Students and faculty at Duke University worked with veterans of SNCC and other civil rights leaders to develop the website. The site includes a timeline, profiles of the key figures in the struggle to secure voting rights, and stories relating to the struggle.
5193ppoofzL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_Wesley Hogan, the director of the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University and the author of Many Minds, One Heart: SNCC’s Dream for a New America (University of North Carolina Press, 2007), stated that “this is an enormous achievement, to find ways to bring these experts who were so central to the voting rights struggle, into the formal historical record through their own words and on their own terms. The project comes at a moment when our nation is both commemorating key victories of the civil rights movement and seeing those victories challenged by new restrictive voting laws in many states.”
 
[vimeo 87707071 w=500 h=281]
article via jbhe.com

2 Ferguson Police Officers Quit & 1 Clerk Is Fired After Racist Emails Are Made Public From Justice Report

By goodblacknews on March 8, 2015
Ferguson Police Department
(Photo courtesy Getty Images)

Three Ferguson employees are currently out of jobs after racist emails discovered during the course of the U.S. Department of Justice’s investigation of the city’s racial bias against African-Americans in the police department and judicial system. Capt. Rick Henke and Sgt. William Mudd of the Ferguson police department resigned from the force on Thursday and the city’s top court clerk Mary Ann Twitty was fired earlier in the week once emails showing President Barack Obama as a chimpanzee were found in the DOJ’s investigation.  CNN is reporting several of the employees shared and forwarded the emails but none of them were punished, until now.

Other disgusting emails featured a topless woman dancing in Africa with the caption, “Michelle Obama’s High School Reunion,” was sent Oct. 2011 and in June of that year of a man being described as attempting to place his dogs on welfare due to the animals being “mixed in color, unemployed, lazy can’t speak  English and have no … clue who their Daddies are.” Meanwhile, demands for Police Chief Thomas Jackson’s removal from office were made yet again, after the DOJ cleared ex-cop Darren Wilson who gunned down unarmed 18-year-old Michael Brown, of federal civil rights charges.There is no evidence which suggest Jackson and other police administrators were aware of the emails.

In the DOJ’s report, it described a “pattern and practice” held by the Ferguson police and courts of discrimination against Blacks. The report revealed black drivers were more than twice as likely than others to be searched during a traffic stop, face excessive force by the police during unnecessary stops.

article by Jillian Bowe via hellobeautiful.com

Obamas Launch "Let Girls Learn" Education Initiative

By goodblacknews on March 7, 2015

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President Barack Obama and first lady Michelle Obama put their weight behind Let Girls Learn on Tuesday, an initiative to help girls around the world attend secondary school and complete their education.

“Let Girls Learn” began as a United States Agency for International Development effort last summer, and featured a video with celebrities like Alicia Keys and Shonda Rhimes. The goal was “to provide the public with meaningful ways to help all girls to get a quality education,” building on past work on girls’ education and empowerment around the world. Now, the Obama administration will enhance existing programs and expand efforts across the government and through partnerships with the private sector.

“A good education can lift you from the most humble circumstances into a life you never could have imagined,” the first lady said Tuesday when she and the president announced the plan. “I see myself in these girls. I see our daughters in these girls,” she said. “I want to use my time and platform as first lady and beyond to make a real impact.”

According to a FLOTUS tweet, women and girls make up 70 percent of those living in extreme poverty around the world, a fact that education can help change. Approximately 62 million girls around the world are not in school, explains a fact sheet published Tuesday by the White House, with half that number representing adolescent girls.

“These girls have diminished economic opportunities and are more vulnerable to HIV/AIDS, early and forced marriage, and other forms of violence,” the fact sheet says. “Yet when a girl receives a quality education, she is more likely to earn a decent living, raise a healthy, educated family, and improve the quality of life for herself, her family and her community. In addition, girls’ attendance in secondary school is correlated with later marriage, later childbearing, lower maternal and infant mortality rates, lower birth rates, and lower rates of HIV/AIDS.”

imagesThe first lady will work with the Peace Corps to develop community-based solutions and recruit and train volunteers. During the first year of the program, the Peace Corps will implement Let Girls Learn in 11 countries—Albania, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, Georgia, Ghana, Moldova, Mongolia, Mozambique, Togo, and Uganda—and will expand to additional countries the following year.

The initiative will include programs focused on education, empowerment and leadership, health and nutrition, preventing gender-based violence, and preventing child, early and forced marriage.

Partnerships with the private sector include commitments from the Center for Universal Education at the Brookings Institution, CARE, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A., PBS Learning Media and the U.N. Foundation’s Girl Up campaign.

To join the efforts please go to letgirlslearn.peacecorps.gov
article by Stav Ziv via newsweek.com

Justice Department Finds Pattern of Police Bias and Excessive Force in Ferguson

By goodblacknews on March 3, 2015
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Ferguson, Mo., police officers at a news conference in August. A Justice Department report will force Ferguson officials to either negotiate a settlement with the department or face being sued by it on charges of violating the Constitution. (WHITNEY CURTIS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES)

WASHINGTON — Police officers in Ferguson, Mo., have routinely violated the constitutional rights of the city’s black residents, the Justice Department has concluded in a scathing report that accuses the officers of using excessive force and making unjustified traffic stops for years.

The Justice Department, which opened its investigation after a white Ferguson police officer shot and killed a black teenager last summer, says the discrimination was fueled in part by racial stereotypes held by city officials. Investigators say the officials made racist jokes about blacks on their city email accounts.

Ferguson is a largely black city with a government and a police force that are mostly white. After the shooting of the teenager, Michael Brown, the city erupted in angry, sometimes violent protests and looting. Since then, Ferguson has been at the center of a national debate over race and policing that has drawn in President Obama, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. and the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey.

The report’s findings were summarized by a federal law enforcement official. The full report is expected to be released on Wednesday. A separate report is expected to clear the officer, Darren Wilson, of any civil rights violations in the shooting of Mr. Brown.

Ferguson officials now face the choice of either negotiating a settlement with the Justice Department or potentially being sued by it on charges of violating the Constitution.

In compiling the report, federal investigators conducted hundreds of interviews, reviewed 35,000 pages of police records and analyzed race data compiled for every police stop. They concluded that, over the past two years, African-Americans — who make up about two-thirds of the city’s population — accounted for 85 percent of traffic stops, 90 percent of citations, 93 percent of arrests and 88 percent of cases in which the police used force.

Black motorists were twice as likely as whites to be searched but were less likely to be found in possession of contraband such as drugs or guns.

The findings reinforce what the city’s African-American residents have been saying publicly for the past year: that years of discrimination and mistrust created the volatile environment that erupted after Mr. Brown’s shooting.

article by Matt Apuzzo via nytimes.com

NYC Awards $3.9M In 2012 Police Killing Of Unarmed Bronx Teen Ramarley Graham

By goodblacknews on January 31, 2015
Frank Graham (C), father of Ramarley Gragam, who was shot and killed by police officers in New York in 2012, speaks outside the New York Police Department Headquarters after marching in the National March Against Police Violence, which was organized by National Action Network, on December 13, 2014 in New York City. The march coincided with a march in Washington D.C. and comes on the heels of two grand jury decisions not to indict white police officers in the deaths of two unarmed black men. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)
Frank Graham (C), father of Ramarley Gragam, who was shot and killed by police officers in New York in 2012, speaks outside the New York Police Department Headquarters after marching in the National March Against Police Violence, on December 13, 2014 in New York City. The march coincided with a march in Washington D.C. and comes on the heels of two grand jury decisions not to indict white police officers in the deaths of two unarmed black men. (Photo by Andrew Burton/Getty Images)

New York City agreed Friday to pay $3.9 million to the family of a Bronx teenager shot to death by a white police officer in 2012.  The deal settled a federal lawsuit brought by the family of 18-year-old Ramarley Graham (pictured below).

“This was a tragic case,” said New York Law Department spokesman Nicholas Paolucci. “After evaluating all the facts, and consulting with key stakeholders such as the NYPD, it was determined that settling the matter was in the best interest of the city.”

Attorney Royce Russell said the family will comment Monday.

Graham died after he was shot once in the chest in February 2012 in a tiny bathroom in the three-family home where he lived with his grandmother and other relatives.  Richard Haste, the officer who shot him, said he fired his weapon because he thought he was going to be shot. No weapons were found in the apartment.

Haste was indicted on manslaughter charges in the summer of 2012, but charges were dismissed by a judge who said prosecutors improperly instructed grand jurors to imply they should disregard testimony from police officers that they radioed Haste in advance to warn him that they thought Graham had a pistol. A second grand jury declined to re-indict the officer.

Manhattan federal prosecutors are conducting a civil rights investigation.

Ramarley Graham story

The Graham shooting has been cited during demonstrations after grand juries in Missouri and New York declined to indict police officers in the deaths last year of 18-year-old Michael Brown in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson and 43-year-old Eric Garner on a Staten Island sidewalk after he was put in a chokehold when he was stopped on suspicion of selling loose, untaxed cigarettes. The deaths fueled a national conversation about policing and race.

The Graham deal adds to a series of settlements in high-profile civil rights claims against police, jail officers and the city under first-term Mayor Bill de Blasio.

Sly Stone Wins $5 Million Verdict in Lawsuit Against Former Manager and Attorney

By goodblacknews on January 28, 2015
Sly Stone Wins $5 Million Verdict
Sly Stone (TIM MOSENFELDER/GETTY IMAGES)

Legendary singer/songwriter Sly Stone has been awarded $5 million by a Los Angeles jury in his lawsuit against a former manager and attorney he claimed diverted royalties from his music for their own benefit.  The Los Angeles Superior Court announced its verdict on Tuesday, after two days of deliberations.
Stone’s litigation, filed under his real name Sylvester Stewart, involved millions of dollars in royalties and stretched over almost five years.
He filed suit in 2010, claiming that manager Gerald Goldstein and attorney Glenn Stone in the late 1980s induced him to sign an employment and shareholder agreement with Even Street Prods., but that they instead used the arrangement to divert millions in royalties, leaving him unable to get the money he said was due him.
The jury awarded $2.5 million in damages against Even St. Productions, $2.45 million against Goldstein and $50,000 against attorney Glenn Stone.
“It was a classic case of Hollywood accounting, but I guess it would have to be called record industry accounting,” said Nick Hornberger of Hornberger Law Corp., the lead attorney for the singer.
The jury, he said, “sent a very clear message.”
Gregory Bodell of Kozberg & Bodell, lead attorney for the defendants, said via e-mail that the jury found that Sly Stone was underpaid by $2.5 million under the employment agreement with Even St. Prods., and that the money was paid instead to Goldstein and Stone.
“We are disappointed in the finding and believe it will be changed by further proceedings,” Bodell said.
Stone, whose real name is Sylvester Stewart, testified that he had not received any royalty payments between 1989 and 2000.
But attorneys for Goldstein and Glenn Stone contended that the singer was paid millions, but broke an agreement to make new records. They claim that the singer was not tricked into signing the contract, but was aware of the terms and renewed the agreement 40 times over 15 years between 1994 and 2006.
article by Ted Johnson via Variety.com

Judge in South Carolina Throws Out Sit-In Convictions for "Friendship Nine"

By goodblacknews on January 28, 2015

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A judge in Rock Hill, S.C., vacated the convictions of nine black men who were arrested in 1961 for sitting at a whites-only lunch counter. (Photo by Megan Gielow for The New York Times)

Rock Hill, South Carolina (CNN) A South Carolina judge on Wednesday threw out the convictions of the Friendship Nine, who were jailed in 1961 after a sit-in protest in Rock Hill, South Carolina, during the civil rights movement.

“Today is a victory in race relations in America,” said Bernice King, daughter of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., said in a news conference following the ruling. “It is a new day.”

The prosecutor who pushed for this momentous day, 16th Circuit Solicitor Kevin Brackett of Rock Hill, cited King’s father when explaining to CNN on Tuesday why he was motivated to take up the cause of the Friendship Nine: “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”

The proceedings began at the Rock Hill Law Center with Municipal Judge Jane Pittman Modla reading from the original court record for each of the men. She asked each of the seven men in attendance — one has since died, while another had transportation issues — to stand as their names were called.

“Offense: trespassing. Disposition: guilty. Sentence: $100 or 30 days. Condition: sent to the chain gang,” she said for each of them, reading from the 1961 docket.

Retired state Supreme Court Justice Ernest Finney, who was the men’s defense attorney in 1961, entered the motion to have the sentences tossed out. The 83-year-old required help standing and propped himself on the table in front of him as he spoke.

“May it please the court, today I’m honored and proud to move this honorable court to vacate the conviction of my clients. These courageous and determined South Carolinians have shown by their conduct and their faith that the relief that they seek should be granted. I move for the convictions entered in 1961 to be vacated.”