The Washington-based IMF stressed the importance of a new series of stress tests on banks The International Monetary Fund has warned that the eurozone debt crisis could spread across the region unless European countries step up efforts to fix their banks. In its latest economic outlook for Europe , the IMF said that the debt crisis in Greece, Portugal and Ireland could hit the wider eurozone by hitting bank lending and delivering a confidence shock, despite the rescue packages that are already in place. “Financial linkages between countries with sovereign debt troubles and the rest of Europe could potentially pose more risk to the outlook,” the IMF said on Thursday. “Restoring fiscal health, squarely addressing weak banks, and implementing structural reforms to restore competitiveness are key.” The Washington-based organisation stressed the importance of stress tests on banks, saying they are a key opportunity to force those found to be weak to raise new capital to bolster their finances. The European banking regulator is busy running a new round of stress tests and will publish the results in June. Tests conducted last year were regarded as too easy. The IMF estimates that the eurozone will grow by 1.7% this year, the same as in 2010, and 1.9% next year, assuming debt crises don’t derail the economy. It also expressed concern about Britain’s economic position. The UK faces “considerable short-term uncertainty, as growth turned flat in late 2010 – taking out temporary weather-related effects – and fiscal consolidation accelerates,” said the IMF. However, the drop in sterling and low interest rates should help mitigate the effects of the “sizeable” government spending cuts, it added. The report was issued just hours after Finland agreed to support a rescue package for Portugal. The Finnish finance minister said that Finland was prepared to sanction the €78bn (£67bn) aid deal, as long as Portugal started negotiations to persuade private investors to keep their funds in the country. Shocks could spread fast With banks in countries like Germany, the UK and France holding bonds from highly indebted nations, “a shock to confidence could spread quickly throughout Europe,” the organisation warned. A default or restructuring of Greek, Portuguese or Irish debt could hit those banks so hard they would have to cut lending to companies and threaten the European recovery. Morgan Stanley estimates that France’s BNP Paribas is the most exposed of the non-Greek banks to Greek debt, holding about €5bn of bonds, but fellow French bank Société Générale and Germany’s Commerzbank are also at risk. The IMF report said: “Restoring confidence in the euro area’s banking system is a prerequisite to turning the page on the crisis. The upcoming round of strong, broad, and transparent stress tests provides an opportunity to address remaining vulnerabilities. But to be effective, the stress tests need to be followed by credible restructuring and recapitalisation programmes. Efforts to strengthen the banking systems in vulnerable countries will need to accelerate.” European debt crisis IMF Economics Global economy European banks Banking Julia Kollewe guardian.co.uk
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Police have launched a murder hunt after boy was attacked in Camberwell and died six hours after he was taken to hospital A teenage schoolboy who as stabbed in a south London street has died. Police say the 15-year-old who was set upon in Camberwell, south London, was pronounced dead at 10.30pm on Wednesday – six hours after he was taken to hospital. His family has been informed. Police sources confirmed a murder hunt had been launched. Emergency services arrived at Cormont Road on Wednesday afternoon and found the teenager with stab wounds to his body. Police are investigating the death and are understood to have made several arrests overnight. Detectives are still trying to establish a motive for the attack and it is not yet known if the murder was gang-related. Formal identification of the victim has yet to take place. The victim is the fifth teenager to be stabbed to death in the capital this year, Scotland Yard said. The Guardian is interested in covering this story in more depth. Please contact matthew.taylor@guardian.co.uk if you have any information about this case. Knife crime Crime London Matthew Taylor guardian.co.uk
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Corpse found near site where two badly beaten bodies were discovered on Tuesday A third body has been found in a country lane close to where two others were discovered by a passing motorist. Firefighters were called to a fire in Holme Lane, near Tong, Bradford, where they found the corpse at about 6.40am. A spokesman for West Yorkshire police said detectives would examine any links between the death and the ongoing investigation into the murders of two men whose badly beaten bodies were found in nearby New Lane on Tuesday night. It is not yet known whether the body discovered on Thursday is male or female. West Yorkshire police said the bodies of two men in their mid-20s to 30s were discovered by a motorist in New Lane, near the junction with Raikes Lane on the outskirts of Bradford, at about 10.20pm on Tuesday. Neither victim has been identified. The area where the bodies were found is open countryside, a mile or two from the suburbs of south Bradford. It is thought that the first two murders may be gang-related. Crime Helen Carter guardian.co.uk
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Concerns over how relatively minor tremors caused serious damage to buildings in Lorca, where eight people died Residents of the Spanish town of Lorca have begun sifting through the rubble left by two earthquakes as the death toll was reduced to eight and questions were asked about how such apparently minor tremors could cause such havoc. Authorities put the number of injured at 120 and said three people were still in a serious condition. Two pregnant women and a child were among those who died in the two quakes. Up to 20,000 people spent the night in squares, parks and nearby countryside amid fears of aftershocks. People slept in tents and cardboard boxes, while hundreds more bedded down on the ground with nothing more than their clothes and blankets. “Today will be even longer than yesterday,” warned mayor Francisco Jódar, who vowed to get people under cover for Thursday night and proclaimed three days of mourning. Rescue teams, military personnel and bulldozers moved into the city on Thursday morning to clear away rubble, which included one three-storey building that collapsed across a city street. At least two of the dead were killed by falling masonry which crashed to the ground from an apartment building in one of the town’s poorer neighbourhoods. Some of those who began returning to their homes on Thursday morning reported serious damage, raising concerns about the quality of building work in an area known for normally low-level earthquakes. Engineers, architects and surveyors began the task of checking buildings for structural damage. Roger Musson, a seismologist at the British Geological Survey, said the town had been unlucky because the quake had happened two miles (3km) underground. “It’s only really caused such damage because it was so shallow and the epicentre was so close to the town of Lorca,” he said. “A magnitude 5.2 is not that big – it’s not considered a large earthquake.” Earthquakes normally strike at a depth of between six and 12 miles, and the shocks are more dispersed. “On average there are probably about 1,000 magnitude 5 earthquakes every year, which is around three per day,” he said. “They mostly happen in the sea, or in remote places. It’s only when you get one in a place like this where you get significant damage,” he added. “It’s certainly unlucky for the people of Lorca to get one so close and shallow.” The town is in an area of Spain were quakes are not uncommon, but where they mostly cause little damage. This was the deadliest quake in Spain since 1956, when 12 people died and some 70 were injured in the southern Granada region. Spain Natural disasters and extreme weather Europe Giles Tremlett guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …10-year-old climbed into a container beneath transport truck thinking it would take him from Andean highlands to Cochabamba, where his mother was jailed Franklin Villca Huanaco ran away from home to be reunited with his mother but hid in a truck going the wrong way and wound up in a foreign country lost, frozen, ragged – and apparently successful. The 10-year-old clambered into a metal container beneath a transport truck thinking it would take him from Oruro in Bolivia’s Andean highlands to the city of Cochabamba, where his mother was jailed for three and a half years for transporting chemicals to make cocaine. Instead he emerged two days and 620 miles later on Chile’s Pacific coast. Famished and disoriented, wearing only trousers, a pullover shirt and battered shoes, Huanaco wandered the streets of Alto Hospicio, a poor community just outside the city of Iquique. Three strokes of luck then supplied the story with a happy ending. The boy was taken in by a local woman, Margarita Valencia, who fed and looked after him along with her other children. Chilean state TV picked up on the tale and broadcast his heartfelt plea: “I wanted to see my mother.” Word reached his mother, Zenobia Huanaco, who it turned out had been released from jail a month ago and was working as a farm labourer near Cochabamba. Bolivia’s foreign ministry said she will be flown to Iquique where the Bolivian consul is waiting to help. “I’ve never been separated from my son until I went to jail,” she told the ATB television station. An emotional reunion awaits. “Franklin, my child, I’m here crying for you. Where have you gone, little one? I love you. You know that I was in prison and then in the fields and you told me ‘I am content with my papa,’” she said. The boy told Chilean TV he had been beaten at home by a 14-year-old brother. Chile’s National Service for Minors said Huanaco would remain with his adoptive family until being handed over to his mother. A final piece of luck may be in the offing: with the story streaking across the internet mother and son could, if well advised, milk the media. Bolivia Chile Rory Carroll guardian.co.uk
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Judges and magistrates told to impose severe sentences on criminals who inflict anguish or trauma on victims Burglars who target homes will normally be expected to be sent to jail, under new sentencing guidelines for judges and magistrates. But the Sentencing Council concedes that community orders may be appropriate for the lowest level of offenders, such as those who reach through an open window before taking goods of little or no value. The council says the guidelines, which will apply in crown and magistrates courts, place a renewed emphasis on imposing more severe sentences on those who inflict anguish or trauma on their victims. But it believes that the impact of the new guidelines is unlikely to change the number of burglars sent to prison each year or the average length of their sentences. Instead, it is being introduced to improve the consistency of sentencing and to encourage judges to focus on the harm of the victim, as well as the culpability of the offender. It suggests that in the most serious cases of aggravated burglary, where an intruder is carrying a weapon, an offender should expect to be sentenced to up to 13 years in prison on conviction. In ‘standard’ cases of domestic burglary, the guideline increases the current four-year maximum sentence to six years and it takes a fresh approach to non-domestic, burglary asking judges to look at the harm to the victims beyond the economic implications alone. But the Sentencing Council also recognises that current sentencing practice in cases involving the lowest level of offenders does lead to community penalties being imposed rather prison sentences. It says the sentencing advisory panel “consulted specifically on whether a community order starting point, where no factors indicating greater culpability or harm are present, was appropriate”. “There was broad agreement with the approach, though some responses expressed grave concerns that any sentence for domestic burglary should be non-custodial,” the council said. “However, the panel identified that even those responding in this way seemed to be content for a non-custodial sentence to result following consideration of mitigating factors applying either to the offence or to the offender. “Existing sentencing practice also demonstrates the use of community sentences in some circumstances.” Lord Justice Leveson, the Sentencing Council chairman, said: “Burglary can have a very serious impact on victims. It is very far from being only a crime against property. As a result, we have ensured that the impact on victims is at the centre of considerations about what sentence should be passed on a burglar.” Sentencing Prisons and probation Crime Police UK criminal justice Alan Travis guardian.co.uk
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The Libyan leader, who had not been seen in public since the April 30 strike, has appeared on state television meeting officials in a Tripoli hotel Libyan state television has shown footage of Muammar Gaddafi meeting officials in a Tripoli hotel, ending nearly two weeks of doubt over his fate since a NATO air strike killed his son. The Libyan leader, who had not been seen in public since the April 30 strike on his Tripoli compound killed his youngest son and three of his grandchildren, made his appearance on Wednesday in his trademark brown robe, dark sunglasses and black hat. “We tell the world these are the representatives of the Libyan tribes,” said Gaddafi, pointing to the officials and naming a few of them. “You will be victorious,” an old man told Gaddafi, referring to the three-month-old revolt in the North African country against the Libyan leader’s 41 years of rule. A screen behind Gaddafi showed a morning chat show on state al-Jamahirya television. A zoom-in on the screen showed Wednesday’s date displayed in the corner. Reuters journalists based at the same hotel said some rooms had been sealed off during the day for an event, but they had not seen Gaddafi. In the past he has made high-profile entrances accompanied by a large staff of minders and aides. A Reuters correspondent said he heard at least two blasts in Tripoli early on Thursday and that they were believed to have been the result of NATO strikes. The blasts rattled the windows of the hotel, he said. On Wednesday, rebels trying to overthrow Gaddafi said they had captured the airport in the city of Misrata in heavy fighting. Hailing it as a major victory, the rebels said they had also seized large quantities of weapons and munitions. No independent verification of the rebels’ account was available. Misrata, besieged by Gaddafi’s forces for eight weeks, is strategically important to rebel hopes of winning the war because it is the only city they hold in the west of the North African country. It also has a key port. The war, linked to this year’s uprisings in other Arab countries, has reached a stalemate. The rebels hold Benghazi and other towns in the oil-producing east while the government controls Tripoli and almost all of the west. Thousands have been killed in the fighting. Tripoli’s consul in Cairo said he was quitting his post to join rebel ranks, the latest Libyan official to break ties with the government. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on Wednesday for an “immediate, verifiable ceasefire” but the rebels dismissed the idea. “We don’t trust Gaddafi … This is not the time for a ceasefire because he never respects it,” said a rebel spokesman called Abdulrahman, speaking by telephone from Zintan in the Western Mountains region. “He bombards civilians immediately after his regime speaks of willingness to observe a ceasefire,” the spokesman said, adding that Gaddafi’s forces fired 20-25 Grad missiles at rebels on Wednesday, killing one and wounding three. Gaddafi’s government has made several ceasefire declarations but has continued attacks on Misrata and other rebel-held areas including the Western Mountains near the Tunisian border. The government says the rebels are armed criminals and al Qaeda militants and that the majority of Libyans back Gaddafi. It says NATO’s intervention is an act of colonial aggression by Western powers intent on stealing the country’s oil. NATO says it wants to protect Libyan civilians. In an effort to drum up more aid for the rebels’ cause, one of their senior leaders will visit London on Thursday. Mustafa Abdel Jalil, chairman of the Libyan National Transitional Council, was due to meet British Prime Minister David Cameron to discuss the possibility of obtaining more non-lethal equipment supplies. The United States has also been providing the rebels with help, delivering its first shipment of food rations as part of a $25 million non-lethal aid package. Libya Muammar Gaddafi Nato Arab and Middle East unrest guardian.co.uk
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We love you too, Roger Brink. Hailing from El Dorado Hills, California, Brink has collected covers of our magazine for the past 39 years. After he gets his TIME issue in the mail each week, he sends out the cover to the person featured, asking for an autograph. The 2,000 covers take up five huge
Continue reading …Maddow Falsely Claims Black Juror in Murder Case Dismissed for Protesting Confederate Flag at Courthouse
May 11, 2011 No Comment
Rachel Maddow on Monday again demonstrated how absolutely pathetic a journalist she is. Without anything in the court records to support her assertion – in fact, the transcript of the proceedings thoroughly refutes it – Maddow claimed on the MSNBC program bearing her name that an African-American man was tossed off a Louisiana jury in a 2009 murder trial because he protested the presence of a Confederate flag in front of the courthouse (video follows with transcript and extensive commentary): RACHEL MADDOW: The United States has the highest documented incarceration rate of any country in the world. We like to spend money locking people up here. We put more of our own citizens in prison than any other country in the world. USA, USA, USA! This is an accurate statistic. However, Maddow chose to not inform her viewers that America also has the world's eighth highest crime rate. You think there's a correlation? MADDOW: That said, only a small proportion of those locked up in the U.S. are locked up by the federal government. In federal prison, most of the Americans in prison are in prisons that are run by the states. So, in the most incarcerated country on earth, what’s the most incarcerated place in the country? It is not that easy to find out. Not that easy to find out? Well, all I did was a Google search of the words “incarceration rates by state” and I immediately found a nice chart at Public Agenda. But I digress: MADDOW: But at the Web site of the Sentencing Project, they’ve got this cool, nifty rollover map where you can get the incarceration rate for every state in the country just by moving your mouse around the country. And you can see when you do it that way that the use of prison in this country all essentially just drips down to the Southeast and it pools in Louisiana. All of the highest rates of incarceration are in the Southeast, but the closer you get to Louisiana, the higher your rate of locking up your citizens more or less. The national average per 100,000 population is about 500 people in prison — 500 nationally. Louisiana is at 881. The only states that come anywhere near Louisiana in terms of how much of their population they lock up are the states that touch Louisiana or that try to — Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and Oklahoma. They are vaguely in competition with Louisiana but are left way behind. In the country that locks up more people than anywhere in the world, by a mile, Louisiana locks up more people than anywhere else by a mile. By a mile? Hardly. According to Public Agenda, Louisiana's incarceration rate per 100,000 is 865. Mississippi's is 734, or about 15 percent lower. What Maddow also chose to not inform her viewers was that in 2008, Louisiana had the third highest crime rate in the nation. This was down from number two in 2007. Think there's a correlation? Taking this further, if you have a lot of crime in your state, wouldn't you want a high incarceration rate? Wouldn't that be a sign that the criminal justice system was working, and that police and prosecuting attorneys were doing a good job of bringing criminals to justice? Conversely, wouldn't a low incarceration rate in a high crime state suggest those involved in law enforcement were doing a poor job? Such logic obviously eluded Maddow as she instead opted to blame Louisiana's high incarceration rate on – wait for it! – the Confederacy: MADDOW: During the Confederacy, during the course of the Civil War, Louisiana as a Confederate state had three different state capitals. They had to keep giving up their state capitals and founding new ones as Union troops kept invading them and taking them over in succession. The only Confederate Louisiana state capital that Union troops did not take over, as far as I understand it, was the city of Shreveport, tucked up into the far northwest corner of the state. Shreveport held on even after Robert E. Lee surrendered in April, 1865. They held on as long as they could. In the reconstruction era just after the Civil War, Caddo Parish earned the nickname the “bloody Caddo” for its high proportion of black citizens who were murdered. Congressional inquiries and historians documented the white posses and paramilitary organizations that maintained Caddo parish as the last stand of the Confederacy in more ways than one. In 1902, Caddo Parish gifted a parcel of land to the daughters of the Confederacy to put up this monument. It is a monument to Caddo Parish being supposedly the last place on land where the Confederate flag was lowered after the South lost the war. The monument has busts of four Confederate generals, Confederate general its corner. Its top has an anonymous Confederate soldier holding a rifle. Cleo, the muse of history, is depicted below the words “Lest we forget.” That monument went up in front of the courthouse in 1902. In 1951, in case, the meaning wasn’t clear enough, with those four Confederate generals and all the rest — in 1951, they added to it — they added a flag pole and the Confederate flag. And there it stands, still, outside the Caddo Parish courthouse today in 2011. Got that? So, there's a Confederate monument and flag in front of the courthouse. Now here comes the punch line: MADDOW: Two years ago this week, a 30-year resident of Shreveport named Carl Staples was summoned to jury duty at that courthouse, the one with the confederate monument and flag out front. Mr. Staples called the parish clerk’s office to say he did not want to attend jury duty because of that Confederate flag out front. The clerk told him a warrant would be interest — a warrant for his arrest would be issued if he did not show up to serve. So, Carl Staples went to the courthouse to fulfill his civic responsibility. He ended up in the case of an African-American man accused of killing a white man. Notice how Maddow glossed over the charges? Felton Dorsey was accused of staging a home invasion robbery with an accomplice in which they bound a 79-year-old woman to a chair while they looted her home. When her son, a recently retired fire chief, stopped by to check on her, they beat him to death in front of his mother and set the house on fire with both of them still in it. The elderly woman managed to escape, fleeing past her son's burning body to get help. His brother responded to the scene extinguishing the blaze that included his brother's remains. The prosecution presented evidence during the trial including cell phone records, multiple accomplice witnesses, testimony from the defendant's own girlfriend and her cousin. The murder weapon was found under the defendant's bed with his DNA and that of the victim's on it. So convincing was the case that the jury only deliberated for 45 minutes before finding the defendant guilty as charged. You can see why Maddow chose to ignore these inconvenient details. She also opted to not tell her viewers that the judge presiding over the trial, John D. Mosely, was a highly-respected African-American jurist in the Parish. But I once again digress: MADDOW: During the jury selection process, Mr. Staples restated his objection to the Confederate flag flying yards away. He told the courtroom that it was “a symbol of one of the most heinous crimes ever committed to another member of the human race and I just don’t see how you could say that. I mean, you’re here for justice and then again you overlook this great injustice by continuing to fly this flag.” Readers are advised that while Maddow was saying this, a photo of Monday's Wall Street Journal article concerning this matter was on the screen. Although she may have used this piece as a source of information, she offered her viewers conclusions neither reached by the Journal nor supported by the court transcripts: MADDOW: The prosecutor in the case moved to strike Carl Staples from the jury, saying that based on those comments, he could not be fair in the case. The judge granted the motion. There were seven remaining qualified black prospective jurors. The prosecution successfully moved to strike five of them. But Carl Staples was taken off that jury specifically because of his stated objections to the Confederate flag flying outside the courthouse. The jury in the end consisted of 11 white people and one African-American, one African-American woman. The man on trial in the case is named Felton Dorsey. He was eventually convicted. He was sentenced to death. This is utter nonsense, and could easily have been refuted if Maddow and her staff bothered to take the time to review Staples' questioning in the courtroom. Although complicated and lengthy, it is important for readers to not only understand just how absurd Maddow's position was, but also how easy it would have been to identify the truth if she or those involved in her program cared to do so. The following comes directly from the transcript of the court proceeding involving jury selection for the trial of Felton Dorsey. Readers are advised that such transcripts can contain many spelling and punctuation errors: BRADY O'CALLAGHAN, PROSECUTING ATTORNEY QUESTION. Sir, do you think your concern about your wife's ability to go to work and do whatever she needs to do would distract YOU i f you were selected as a juror? A. (By Mr. Brown) Yes, it would. Q. Do you feel.that it would prevent you from giving either side a fair trial based on the evidence? A. (By Mr. Brown) Yes, it would. Q. How about you, Mr. Staples? A. (By Mr. Staples) I have personal convictions in regards to the criminal justice system. Q. Okay. And, you know, I am happy to talk to you about that in just a minute. A. (By Mr. Staples) Okay. Q. I want to just stay focused on the sequestration issue for right now. And then a little later in the voir dire, I think there would be a good opportunity for us to explore those and see if it's going to impair you too much. A. (By Mr. Staples) I would like to explain it in private with the judge and the court officials. Q. We can make those arrangements. I'll make a note. A. (By Mr. Staples) Okay. Q. Just focusing on the sequestration issue, would it present a hardship fo'r you, Mr. Staples? A. (By Mr. Staples) It would. Q. Can you explain, please. A. (By Mr. Staples) Well, financially. I only have a part-time job. Q. If you were to miss, am I correct in gathering that you won't get p a i d if you don't work? A. (By Mr. Staples) I won't get paid. Q. Would the lost income from a week or two of sequestration put you i n d i r e f i n a n c i a l straits as far as any house payments or rent or anything like that? A. (By Mr. Staples) Yes, it would. Q. Do you feel that your concerns about the financial situation might keep you from giving both sides a fair trial and that you might be distracted from hearing all the evidence and listening to the arguments of the lawyers? A. (By Mr. Staples) I believe my opinions that I have to express to the Court in regards to the system, I think that might be more detrimental in say this gentleman having a fair trial. So, when Staples was first questioned concerning the potential of him serving on the jury, he made it clear that he didn't want to. This was not only for financial reasons but also personal ones that he wanted to discuss in private. This is obviously in stark contrast to Maddow's claim, “Carl Staples went to the courthouse to fulfill his civic responsibility.” Later, during questioning by first the prosecution and then the defense, Staples made clear why he was opposed to serving: MR. O'CALLAGHAN: Your Honor, back on the record, we are outside the presence of the prospective jurors. We were discussing at the bench, the State would suggest subject to any defense counsel's objection returning those jurors who expressed significant hardships about sequestration, expressed significant preconceived opinions based on pretrial publicity, and I would like to bring back Mr. Staples to find out what his issues with the entire criminal justice. (Whereupon the prospective juror was seated in the courtroom.) THE COURT: That's fine right there, Mr. Staples. We just brought you in to ask you a few questions outside the presence of the other jurors. Is the State ready proceed. MR. O'CALLAGHAN: Yes, Your Honor. Thank you, sir. VOIR DIRE EXAMINATION BY MR. O'CALLAGHAN: Q. Mr. Staples, you v o i c e d some — I don't want to put words in your mouth — some grave concerns or some attitudes about the criminal justice that you felt needed to be explored privately. This is as about as p r i v a t e a s we can g e t . I f you c o u l d share that with us, so you can let us know if you think that's going to affect your jury service. A. (By Mr. Staples) I do not fully embrace the criminal j u s t i c e system due t o t h e fact tha't I had the experience of some so-called injustices in growing up in Chicago. I was born and raised in Chicago. Q. Okay. A. (By Mr. Staples) During the '60s and ' 7 0 s . Q. And that was a turbulent time. A. Very turbulent time, very turbulent. Q. Do you feel that those attitudes and those experiences in Chicago, you know, two things, one, I'm not trying to argue wit'h you.I'm just trying to get how you f e e l . A. (By Mr. Staples) Okay. Q. And maybe we disagree on this, but it has been a while. A. (By Mr. Staples) About forty-one years. Q. It's a different, you know, different time. Do you think that you still have some issues with the criminal justice system even though that time has passed and there have been a lot of changes in our country? A. (By Mr. S t a p l e s ) I s t i l l have issues. Q. Do you think that those would impair you from being a fair juror to either side? A. (By Mr. Staples) They would. Q. I'll just go ahead and ask, I think I know, but which side do you f e e l l i k e YOU would have problem accepting or giving a fair shake? A. (By Mr. Staples) Well, as I said before, I just don't embrace the system wholeheartedly. I do respect the laws which were say implemented say by the f e d e r a l government, state governments or local governments, so on. I do respect and abide by the laws, but so far as participating in the say penalties that are being issued for breaking those laws, I don't feel that I would a good person to have that power delegated to someone. Q. Do you think you would find it really hard to ever convict anyone of a crime? A. (By Mr. Staples) I would, I would. For those familiar with a criminal voir dire, this would have been enough for the prosecuting attorney to challenge this juror. You can't have on a jury someone that admits he would find it hard ever convicting anyone of a crime. Readers are also advised that Staples up to this point had not said one word about the Confederate flag in front of the courthouse. This would not come up at all during prosecution's examination: Q. I mean, I appreciate your candor. So is there anything that I say or the defense lawyer likely to change your view about that? A. (By Mr. Staples) The events that occurred made a very profound effect on my, say, psyche or existence or whatever. And if you would like for me to elaborate, I would. Q. I mean, if you feel comfortable. I'm not — I need to know whether or not you can be a fair juror. I need to know that. And I feel like you are telling me, if you want to share what happened to make that clearer, by all means. A. (By Mr. Staples) I guess you could say I'm a throwback to the ' 6 0 s . I was, like I said, attending school in Chicago. T h e r e was an incident that occurred at one of the elementary schools where a child was struck by a bus. And there was no stoplight at this particular intersection where the s c h o o l k i d s would frequent, say, after school. And a friend of mine, personal friend of mine, by the Johnny Sotre, he organized a protest to, say, protest against the city and the other people in power or whatever to have a stop light installed at this particular corner. This bears repeating: the prospective juror's negative feelings about the criminal justice system go back to when he was a child in Chicago. To this point, he had still said not one word about the Confederate flag in front of a courthouse in Louisiana: A. (By Mr. Staples) This went on for I guess several weeks and, of course, the city gave in and the stoplight was installed. And several weeks after this had occurred,, this young gentleman was gunned down by a member of the Chicago Police Department. And it was the usual scenario which was given in, say, as a result of something like this, it was said that he was stopped to be questioned and a scuffled ensued, the gun went off and the ricochet hit him in the back of the head. Okay. Now, on the day of his funeral — this was once again in Chicago — his brother was summoned. He was serving in Vietnam. His older brother was summoned to come home for the funeral. On the day of his funeral, his older brother was also gunned down by the Chicago Police Department. This was under the pretense that he had robbed t h e A & P Grocery store after the funeral. And this, like I said, these incidents of, I would call them, just flagrant injustice, you know, i t ’ s just made a p r o f o u n d effect or impact on me, and I have reservations about the so-called criminal justice system in that regard. So, folks were allegedly shot by Chicago police officers decades ago, and this led the prospective juror to have a negative view of our criminal justice system. Readers are reminded that if anyone at MSNBC affiliated with the “Rachel Maddow Show” wanted to find out the truth about this prospective juror, the full PDF of these proceedings is public record. But I once again digress: A. (By Mr. Staples) Also, the night that — you probably heard a b o u t it — t h e Fred Hampton, Mark Clark, the former leaders of the Chicago Black Panther Party or whatever, they were assassinated, and this was at the beh.est or the direction of the states attorney. This was the order that was given down from the states attorneys office. And of course the state attorney, Edward B. Hanrahan.’ And the morning that this occurred, I was,coming from what we call a gig, I was a musician, I played with a band. And I was jostled by the Chicago police, four members of the Chicago Police Department, and I was searched. There was no probable cause for that search. I was searched. My instrument was taken apart and so on, and I was kind of roughed up. And I didn’t know what had happened previous to this until I had gotten to school the next morning. And, like I said, that's another one of the reasons that's going to be part of my conviction is to having this feeling in regards the criminal justice system. Also — Q. Mr. Staples, let me stop you there. A. (By Mr. Staples) Okay. Q. I think I get everything you're saying and I feel that it's fair to say you feel strongly about this? A. (By Mr. Staples) I really do. MR. O'CALLAGHAN: I appreciate it, sir. I'm not trying to cut you o f f . I think I understand where you're coming from. THE J U R O R : (By Mr. Staples) Thank you. MR. -0'CALLAGHAN: No further questions, Your Honor. At this point, the prosecuting attorney had heard enough, and was obviously going to challenge this prospective juror after the defense finished its voir dire. As not one word about the Confederate flag in front of the courthouse had yet been raised by Staples, how could this have had anything to do with why he was dismissed? Yet, as Maddow continued with her fact-challenged indictment Monday, she disgracefully said: MADDOW: And Mr. Dorsey maintains that he is innocent of the crime for which he has been sentenced to die. He is challenging his conviction and sentence. Today, Felton Dorsey’s attorney from the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, his attorney, incidentally, is a white woman attorney who is from Caddo Parish, she argued at the Louisiana state Supreme Court in New Orleans today that Mr. Dorsey’s conviction should be overturned. Carl Staples was struck off that jury explicitly because he objected to the Confederate flag flying outside that courtroom. And so, in the most highly incarcerated state of the most highly incarcerated country on earth, where 32 percent of Louisiana’s population is black but 70 percent of its prison population is black, do we accept that it is a prerequisite for serving on a jury that you do not object to doing so under the Confederate flag? Louisiana Supreme Court started mulling that over today. I thought we stopped mulling over stuff like this 146 years ago this spring at Appomattox, but we will keep you posted on what they figure out in New Orleans. Despite the prosecution's examination of Staples not resulting in one single word about the Confederate flag in front of that courthouse, Maddow had the gall to claim otherwise Monday night. Moving forward, when defense attorney Alan Golden had his shot at Staples, the prospective juror was equally dismissive of our criminal justice system: VOIR DIRE EXAMINATION BY MR. GOLDEN: Q. Mr. Staples, despite our failings in the past and despite the errors that we made, can you think of any system of justice in the world that's better than ours? A. (By Mr. Staples) No, I cannot. Q. Who do you think makes our system work? A. (By Mr. Staples) Well, the people. Q. Who is the great leveler of the truth? A. (By Mr. Staples) (No response.) Q. What is the great leveler of all men; isn't it the jury system? A. (By Mr. Staples) When it works, yes, it is. But still again, you ha've to realize that the jury system you still have the human element involved. We, as human beings, are governed by our emotions, and a lot of emotions are just inherent. Q. True. A. (By Mr. Staples) That say of love, hate, anger and happiness and so on, there's always going to be that variable there, that is going to affect the outcome, the total outcome of any decision that might be made by a so-called jur.y. Q. Mr. S t a p l e s . A. (BY Mr. Staples) Yes, sir. Q. Do you believe that sometimes jurors make bad decisions? A. (By Mr. Staples) Yes, they do. Q. And as a result of those bad decisions, there are sometimes miscarriages of justice? A. (By Mr. Staples) Yes. Q. And sometimes those miscarriages result in wrongful convictions. A. (By Mr. Staples) Um-hum. Q. Wrongful sentences, right? A. (By Mr. Staples) That's right. Q. Sometimes wrongful acquittals of somebody who is really guilty. A. (By Mr. Staples) That's right. It works both ways. Q. And in order to make it better or more perfect takes good people, doesn't it? A. (By Mr. Staples) It does. Q. Are you a man of conviction? A. (By Mr. Staples) I am a man of conviction, sir. Q. You are a man who's not only seen but apparently experienced some wrongdoing? A. (By Mr. Staples) I have lived through it. I didn't tell you about t h e shakedown by the police — Q . That's okay, but I understand you went through a lot. A. (By Mr. Staples) Yeah, it was quite a bit, v e r y traumatic. Q. Let's say you were arrested for a crime right, right here, what kind of juror would you want to decide that case? A. (By Mr. Staples) (No response.) Q. Decide your case, your guilt or innocence? A. (By Mr. Staples) Well, most of all, you would want an impartial juror, someone who is not going. to say l o o k at certain aspects of the character. I mean, the way you dress, the way you talk, the way you look, and so on, that's impartial. Q. Somebody who is impartial? A. (By Mr. Staples) Impartial. Q. You would want someone who's objective? A. (By Mr. Staples) Objective, yes. Q. Someone who is articulate. A. (By Mr. Staples) Yes. Q. Somebody who is diligent in listening to the evidence and analyzing the evidence, right? A. (By Mr. Staples) Yes, sir. Q. Could you be such a person? A. (By Mr. Staples) I don't think so, no. Q. Why couldn't you be? A. (By Mr. S t a p l e s ) I couldn't be objective. I couldn't be. The scars are too deep. The scars are too deep. This also bears repeating: the prospective juror told defendant's counsel that he could not be “diligent in listening to the evidence and analyzing the evidence” and “couldn't be objective.” That's ball game over for a prospective juror. The defense attorney probably would have stricken him for this. Yet, despite Maddow's claim Monday, Staples had still not said one word about the Confederate flag in front of that courthouse. But he was about to when further pressed by the defense: Q. S e e , here's what I am having a problem with. A. (By Mr. Staples) Okay. Q. Is that you'.re complaining about a system that you feel is sometimes unjust and yet, you understand what the basic flaws are that we have sometimes, and'yet because of your understanding, you would seem like the perfect juror who could help remedy that, but yet you are unwilling to put in that position to help make it better. Do you see the inconsistency? A. (By Mr. ,Staples) Well, I guess you could say it's an inconsistency there, but I just don't buy into it. I don't. You speak of justice here in the'se, you call these halls of justice or the courthouse, this is the place where justice is administered and so on. I came to Shreveport in 1975. Okay. There was an issue some years back, I don't mean to get off the subject, but I guess it would be considered also in regards to say the law, in front of the courthouse, the Confederate flag flies., Okay. This a symbol of one of the most, to me, one of the most h e i n o u s crimes ever committed to another member of the human race, and I just don't see how you could say that, I mean, you're here for justice, and then again you overlook this great injustice by continuing to f l y this flag which continues to say put salt in the wounds of say people of color, I don't buy it. I don't buy it. And it is not — Q* Mr. Staples. A. (By Mr. Staples) — prejudice or anything like that, but it's just the idea. Q. Mr. Staples. A. (By Mr. Staples) It's contradicting. You are contradicting yourself. So, finally, after almost ten pages of transcript, and having been examined by the prosecution and the defense, Staples brought up the Confederate flag. Did this seem like his entire motive for not wanting to serve on that jury? Certainly not, for his experiences in Chicago decades before were what made him distrusting of our criminal justice system. Interestingly, the defense attorney didn't buy into Staples' concern about the flag, and continued to press in order to find a juror that would be suitable to his team: Q. We can't solve all the problems of the world. A. (By Mr. Staples) No, we can't. Q. But right now we have a specific case that's coming to trial for a very, very serious offense, and we are trying to make this the best system that we can. It takes conscientious people to do that. And what you have expressed are conscientious scruples about a variety of issues. So that tells me that you 'are conscientious person; am I right? A. (By Mr. Staples) You are right. Q. But yet you don't want to help make the system better by adding yourself, your conscientious self into the process as a conscientious decision-maker. You don't want to give us the b e n e f i t of your insights,.your objective way of looking at things. A. (By Mr. Staples) No, I don't. Q. You're saying you could not be fair and impartial? A. (BY Mr. Staples) I could n o t be f a i r and impartial. Like I said, I don't embrace the system wholeheartedly. I'll abide by the laws. I will not break the laws and that's as f a r as I can go with i t . That's as f a r as I can go. Q. You are unwilling to help US administer it, though; is that what you're saying? A. (By Mr. Staples) Yes, that's the best I can do. This also bears repeating: Staples said he couldn't be fair and impartial and was unwilling to help in this trial. As a result, the defense had heard enough: M R . G O L D E N : T h a n k you. No further questions. THE COURT: Anything further by the State? MR. 0'CALLAGHA.N: No, Your Honor. THE COURT: All right. Thank you, Mr. Staples. You may return outside, and we will call you back shortly. (Whereupon the prospective juror was excused from the courtroom.) MR. O'CALLAGHAN: Your Honor, the State would move to excuse Mr. Staples for cause, his inability to be fair and impartial, his characterization that the scars of his past, adverse experiences with the criminal justice system are too deep for him to be a fair impartial juror or ever conceive of returning a guilty verdict in any case in a criminal justice system in this country. The State would respectfully submit that constitutes valid challenge for cause. MR. GOLDEN: No objection. THE COURT: So ordered. (Whereupon the prospective juror was excused from the venire panel.) Readers are advised the defense did not object to Staples being excused. In summation, what Maddow presented to her viewers Monday evening was a farce and a sham. In any other industry, such negligence would meet with severe disciplinary action and/or termination. Consider this segment from Maddow's report: During the jury selection process, Mr. Staples restated his objection to the Confederate flag flying yards away. He told the courtroom that it was “a symbol of one of the most heinous crimes ever committed to another member of the human race and I just don’t see how you could say that. I mean, you’re here for justice and then again you overlook this great injustice by continuing to fly this flag.” The prosecutor in the case moved to strike Carl Staples from the jury, saying that based on those comments, he could not be fair in the case. Absolute nonsense. Here's what O'Callaghan said after the defense attorney finished his voir dire: Your Honor, the State would move to excuse Mr. Staples for cause, his inability to be fair and impartial, his characterization that the scars of his past, adverse experiences with the criminal justice system are too deep for him to be a fair impartial juror or ever conceive of returning a guilty verdict in any case in a criminal justice system in this country. The State would respectfully submit that constitutes valid challenge for cause. He didn't say one single word about his strike being about Staples' comments concerning the Confederate flag. Not one. As I said earlier, every prosecutor worth his salt in this country would have stricken this prospective juror as soon as he said he couldn't conceive of returning a guilty verdict in any case and couldn't be fair or objective. That Maddow and Company misrepresented this was gross negligence on their part. But their media malpractice didn't end there for Maddow also said, “Carl Staples was taken off that jury specifically because of his stated objections to the Confederate flag flying outside the courthouse.” Hogwash. The moment the examination of Staples began, he was asking to be excused. This request went to both the defense and the prosecution. Staples was taken off that jury because he said he couldn't return a guilty verdict on any case and could be neither objective nor impartial. Such statements would disqualify a prospective juror in every state in this nation. The transcript bears this out. But Maddow and her crack research team clearly didn't bother reading the transcript. Apart from the previously referenced Journal piece, they instead relied on the amicus brief filed by the ACLU concerning Staples and the Dorsey case. Much as Maddow's segment Monday, it contained a history of Caddo Parish as well as background concerning the Confederate monument and flag in front of the courthouse in question. Maybe in the future, Maddow and Company ought to do some research on their own for reports they're about to air rather than just mimicking documents filed by the ACLU. Unfortunately, this appears far too much to ask from people associated with this abomination of a “news” network.
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Horde of writings on computers, flash drives and in diary reveal morbid emphasis on another atrocity Osama bin Laden went to the bizarre length of trying to calculate how many more American deaths it would take to force the US to retreat from the Middle East, his writings have revealed. The al-Qaida leader was convinced that only a massive blood-letting on the scale of 9/11 would have the necessary shock factor to effect a change in US policy around the region. He told his followers that a sprinkling of smaller attacks would not have the desired effect. The revelation of Bin Laden’s morbid emphasis on another mass atrocity comes from the large stash of his writings that was discovered in his hideout in Pakistan and brought by Navy Seals to the US after they killed him. The horde, which has been compared in size to a small college library, included five computers and about 100 removable digital storage devices or flash drives. It also included a diary that Bin Laden wrote by hand. US intelligence officers poring through the data told the Associated Press the information underlines how proactive Bin Laden continued to be even when al-Qaida as a movement was on the defensive. Though he didn’t appear to have the ability directly to co-ordinate specific attacks from his lair in Abbottabad, he did have input into every major al-Qaida plot, including those across Europe last year, the officials said. He was also in touch with many of the most dangerous al-Qaida offshoots around the world that some had assumed were working independently, such as the branch in Yemen that has become a leading centre of al-Qaida activity. He pointed the network in certain directions. One of his missives to his supporters was to stop focusing on the big cities, particularly New York, and spread their targets out to include Los Angeles and other smaller cities. That, he said, would make it easier to have the impact he sought– a high number of American deaths at the same time. Similarly, he urged them not just to focus on planes but to target trains as well – an instruction that chimes with last week’s warning from US authorities alerting people to be especially vigilant on trains. And in a further indication of the al-Qaida leader’s thinking, AP says that he also plotted ways to encourage politicians in Washington to war with one another. The insight into Bin Laden’s activities during the six years he is believed to have been hidden away in Abbottabad came as his adult sons called for the UN to launch an inquiry into the killing of their father. In a joint letter the family said it wanted to know “why an unarmed man was not arrested and tried in a court of law so that truth is revealed to the people of the world”. “Arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems,” they said. The letter was sent to the New York Times under the name of Omar bin Laden, the 30-year-old fourth son of Bin Laden who lived with the al-Qaida leader in Sudan and Afghanistan but has publicly denounced his attacks on civilians. Drawing comparisons with Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, the statement said “international law has been blatantly violated” and, referring to the shooting of others in the compound, said Barack Obama had ordered “the execution of unarmed men and women”. Bin Laden said it was “unworthy” of US special forces to kill an unarmed female family member and one of Osama bin Laden’s sons, identified in news reports as 22-year-old Khalid. Bin Laden’s family said it was calling on Pakistan to repatriate his three wives and several children, who are in military custody. In a eulogy to Osama bin Laden posted on the internet yesterday, the leader of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula, Nasser al-Wuhayshi, said his group would fight on. “What is coming is greater and worse, and what you will be facing is more intense and harmful.” Osama bin Laden Global terrorism al-Qaida Middle East United States Ed Pilkington Declan Walsh guardian.co.uk
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