Wednesday, September 30, 2015

HAPPY 87TH BIRTHDAY! ELIE WIESEL [JUSTICE QUOTE]



 

Elie Wiesel on justice
QUOTE: I swore never to be silent whenever and wherever human beings endure suffering and humiliation. We must always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented.
[Nobel acceptance speech (1986)]

AUTHOR: Eliezer "Elie" Wiesel KBE (born September 30, 1928) is a Romanian-born Jewish-American professor and political activist. He is the author of 57 books, including Night, a work based on his experiences as a prisoner in the Auschwitz, Buna, and Buchenwald concentration camps. Wiesel is also the Advisory Board chairman of the newspaper Algemeiner Journal.
When Wiesel was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1986, the Norwegian Nobel Committee called him a "messenger to mankind," stating that through his struggle to come to terms with "his own personal experience of total humiliation and of the utter contempt for humanity shown in Hitler's death camps," as well as his "practical work in the cause of peace," Wiesel had delivered a powerful message "of peace, atonement and human dignity" to humanity.

UNIT 1012 BOOK CLUB: DEAD FAMILY WALKING



To denounce Helen Prejean’s book, ‘Dead Man Walking’, we the comrades of Unit 1012: The VFFDP, recommend people who want to know the truth to read this book, ‘Dead Family Walking: The Bourque Family Story of Dead Man Walking’. We will post information about this book from several sources.


Dead Family Walking Book

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

GLOSSIP ATTORNEYS CROSS LINE WITH CRITICISM OF DA




Glossip attorneys cross line with criticism of DA
by The Oklahoman Editorial Board Published: September 28, 2015

EVERYONE deserves a zealous defense, but efforts to prevent the execution of Richard Glossip are taking on the appearance of a smear campaign aimed not only at Oklahoma's law enforcement community, but also all Oklahomans who support them.

Glossip has been convicted, twice, of paying a co-worker in 1997 to murder his employer, Barry Van Treese. Glossip's defenders argue the co-worker, Justin Sneed, lied about Glossip's role in order to avoid the death penalty himself.

Now Glossip's attorneys have come forward with last-minute affidavits from former convicts who claim to have been incarcerated with Sneed and heard him make vague comments about sending Glossip “up the river” for the murder.

Of course, one reason juries believed Glossip played a role in the killing is because Glossip admitted he tried to cover up the murder. This, it must be noted, is not a minor point.

Among other things, Glossip diverted cleaning staff from the motel room where Van Treese had been killed to prevent discovery of the body; he and Sneed split thousands of dollars stolen from Van Treese; and Glossip not only failed to immediately tell police investigators he knew who killed Van Treese, but gave conflicting statements that impeded the
investigation.

In short, for a supposedly innocent man, Glossip did plenty to look guilty.

The filing of the affidavits led the court, hours before Glossip was to be executed, to delay the execution by two weeks. It is now set for Wednesday. Yet this new “evidence” seems shaky, at best. One former inmate involved, Michael G. Scott, previously admitted to Department of Corrections officials in 2005 that he lies “all the time.”

Glossip's attorneys did little to suggest they're confident in the validity of the new affidavits when they objected to prosecutors interviewing the supposed witnesses. Instead, they suggested Oklahoma County District Attorney David Prater and law enforcement officials across the state are trying to intimidate defense witnesses and railroad an innocent man.


Those claims were levied after Rogers County authorities arrested Scott for parole violations and Prater and other Oklahoma County officials questioned Scott while he was in custody.

Yet as The Oklahoman's Graham Lee Brewer reported, “It is not uncommon for prosecutors to interview defense witnesses directly to determine if what they are saying in an affidavit is accurate, and sometimes parole arrests play a role in that process.”

Among the details Glossip's attorneys highlighted was that the room where Scott was interviewed “was equipped with a camera, although Mr. Scott did not know if it was turned on or not.”

If Scott is telling the truth, why would a camera be intimidating? On the other hand, if Prater and other law enforcement officials are pressuring Scott to change his story and frame an innocent man for a murder he didn't commit and for which he may soon be executed, why would they film themselves?

Contrary to the implications made by Glossip's legal team, Prater has a long-established record as an above-board, independent prosecutor. So his blunt rebuttal of their claims is noteworthy: “The day will come when it will be clear that everything that the defense lawyers and their witnesses say in this case are lies.”

Glossip's attorneys are obligated to defend him by every legal means. But if they are demonizing law enforcement officials for merely doing their jobs, they've gone too far.