Haters Effort To Repeal CA DREAM Act #Fail

Ha-ha! This is excellent news. The California DREAM Act was signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown last year and the racist xenophobes started circulating petitions to put a referendum on the November 2012 ballot. The CA Dream Act  allows undocumented youth to receive state financial aid and scholarships for college.

Today comes words that the haters have had a major #fail!

Opponents of the California Dream Act have failed to gather enough petition signatures to qualify an initiative for the November ballot that would have repealed the legislation, organizers said Friday. 

Volunteers and a small group of paid signature gatherers had hoped to collect more than 500,000 valid signatures by this week to stop the legislation, which gives illegal immigrants access to state financial aid at public universities and community colleges. They were able to gather nearly 450,000 signatures, Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-San Bernardino) said in a statement. 

Supporters of the California Dream Act have argued that many young undocumented immigrants came to the country through no fault of their own; those opposed stressed that the state should not use scarce resources on illegal immigrants.

The haters can still try and get signatures to put an initiative statute on the ballot in November but they have to collect twice as many signatures, and they have to have that done at least 150 days before the election.

I think even if the DREAM Act was up for debate on the ballot that California voters would re-affirm their commitment to equal opportunity and fairness.

Ha-Ha! Author of SB-1070 Gets Recalled

Ha,ha! This was the most encouraging election result in a night full of heart-warming election results (rejecting Mississippi's zygote personhood amendment, repealing Ohio's anti-union law and rejecting Maine's voter suppression law): the xenophobic author of multiple pieces of immigrant-bashing legislation (but most notably SB 1070), Arizona State Senate President Russell Pearce was recalled by voters on Tuesday night.

KPHO reports:

Voters have ousted state Sen. Russell Pearce in an unprecedented recall election, a first for an Arizona legislator.

With a majority of the precincts reporting, the top vote-getter, Republican Jerry Lewis, steps into the District 18 legislative seat for the second year of a two-year term.

Lewis claimed victory at 9 p.m.  "Our opponent was the most powerful politician in Arizona and one who had deep-pocketed and powerful interests from outside our district backing him, as well as the entire muscle from our state Republican Party," Lewis said.

Lewis, 54, a charter school executive, has been a resident of Mesa for nearly 30 years.  His victory now forces the Senate's majority Republicans to pick a new leader for the chamber.

People on both sides of the debate said that removing Pearce would send a powerful message to the Legislature that uncompromising stances on immigration and other issues will not be tolerated by voters.

Pearce, a 64-year-old conservative Republican from Mesa, outspent his challenger by more than a 3-to-1 ratio and painted the recall advocates as liberal outsiders who targeted him because of his immigration stance.

Pearce was unabashedly racist and an asshole and it's a good riddance of bad rubbish. However, Sheriff Joe Arpaio and Governor Jan Brewer are still elected officials in Arizona and should be removed from office by voters as well.

LA County Settles Police Brutality Case For $650K

The 5-member Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors unanimously approved a settlement of $650,000 to Erick Hoxey and his girlfriend Shatwan Smith in response to a civil lawsuit which charged outrageous behavior by Los Angeles County Sherriff officials during an April 2008 incident in Compton.

The Los Angeles Times covers the story:

On trial for allegedly assaulting two Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies, Erick Hoxey took the witness stand in his own defense and told jurors it was the other way around.

He said he was waiting in his car outside a Compton apartment building where his girlfriend was making an appointment to braid a little girl's hair, when deputies pulled up. After asking him a few questions, Hoxey said they inexplicably yanked him out of the car, punched him and struck him with a flashlight before pepper-spraying his eyes and inside his mouth.


Then, he said, one grabbed him by the hair and slammed his head twice against the pavement.

The prosecutor, troubled by the young man's testimony, cut him off suddenly and asked the judge for a recess. When he returned an hour and a half later, the prosecutor announced that all charges were being dropped.

On Tuesday, two years after the criminal case fizzled, the county agreed to pay Hoxey, now 24, and his girlfriend $650,000.

The payout comes despite the Sheriff's Department defending the deputies' conduct in arresting Hoxey, his girlfriend, Shatwan Smith, and a bystander who came to their aid during the April 2008 altercation.

According to Deputies Samuel Orozco and Scott Giles, they were on patrol when they spotted Hoxey driving with his seatbelt off. The deputies said Hoxey was immediately aggressive, cursing at them, before reaching under his leg for what they believed was a handgun. The deputies unlocked the car door and pulled Hoxey out of the vehicle. The young man then spun around and took a swing at them, according to the deputies' account. Hoxey continued to fight back, the deputies said, while his girlfriend ran out from the apartment building and began hitting them too.

Although the deputies said they believed Hoxey was armed with a gun, no weapon was recovered. Deputy Orozco testified that a woman at the scene, who did not identify herself because she feared retribution, told him that she saw a man run and grab something from the car, presumably the weapon.

The couple, and the bystander who interceded and pleaded with the deputies to stop, denied the deputies were assaulted.

After hearing the conflicting testimony about the incident, the L.A. County district attorney's office abandoned its prosecution of Hoxey and Smith.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Eric Siddall said in a deposition that Hoxey's testimony "made me think that there was reasonable doubt in the case."

The couple's civil attorney, Glen Jonas, accused the deputies of framing Hoxey on charges of resisting arrest and drug possession and Smith of resisting arrest and assault. Giles said he found a cocaine rock in Hoxey's car, while he and other deputies were searching the vehicle.

"It ruined their lives," Jonas said of the ordeal. He said Smith, who was a student at UC San Diego at the time, "was so distraught over being falsely prosecuted that she couldn't concentrate in school…her grades fell and ultimately she wasn't able to stay in school."

During the trial, Orozco's past on-duty behavior was also scrutinized in testimony from residents in the area who said they had run-ins with him. One woman said he used the N-word against her. Another testified that she'd also been roughed up by Orozco, booked and was eventually acquitted.

Sheriff's spokesman Steve Whitmore declined to comment on specific allegations but said the department maintains the couple was resisting arrest. "This settlement is not an admission of wrongdoing," he said. "Deputies don't make stuff up, the hope is, and we contend they did not fabricate anything."

I don't usually include such an extensive excerpt from a newspaper story but one really needs to see all the paragraphs that I have included in order to draw your own conclusions about what really happened*. Two Sheriff deputies see a Black guy sitting in a car and decide to rough him up for some bizarre reason only known to themselves. They start beating the crap out of him, then his girlfriend and a bystander come to the guy's defense.  Then the deputies have the gall to claim that the person that they assaulted was "resisting arrest" AND they claim the existence of a gun which is not found AND attempt to plant drugs in the vehicle. It reads like something out of FX's The Shield!
(That was a show starring Michael Chiklis as a rogue cop who basically takes the law into his own hands.)

The real hero of the piece is the Deputy District Attorney Eric Siddall who refused to condone the cops lying and when he realized what was going on, declined to perpetrate a fraud upon the court. I'm not convinced that $650,000 is enough money for the two people who were attacked by the very same people their own taxes pay to protect them and keep them safe. What is a reasonable price for violation of the public trust?

Another question is why do Samuel Orozco and Scott Giles still have jobs with Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department and why hasn't the Los Angeles County District Attorney charged them with perjury?
Even the Sheriff's Department spokesperson says "Deputies don't make stuff up, the hope is." Really? Do you think this is some kind of joke?

 It is incredibly damaging to how all police officers are viewed and public safety overall if it appears that some officers of the court are getting away with activities that if they were just regular people would result in jail time. Police officers and sheriff's deputies (and elected officials) who are presumed to have the public trust should be held to a higher ethical standard than the general public. Even the appearance of hypocrisy is unacceptable.

*DISCLAIMER: Nothing in this blog posting should be construed as claiming any individual of having committed any criminal or civil offense.

Cop Serves 220 Days For Killing Unarmed Black Man

Johannes Mehserle claimed that he shot Oscar Grant by mistake,
using his gun instead of his Taser, and a jury with no Black members agreed

The former BART police officer who shot and killed an unarmed Black man while holding him restrained face down on the ground on New Years Day 2009 has been released from prison this morning after serving an astonishing (and sickening) 220 days in prison after being found guilty of involuntary manslaughter (as I blogged about last fall).

The San Francisco Chronicle reports:

E-mail and phone notifications made at 12:01 a.m. today said Mehserle had been released, and the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department's online inmate locator also said he had been freed.

[...]

Mehserle, 29, was sentenced to two years for shooting Oscar Grant in the back while the 22-year-old Hayward man lay face down on the platform at Oakland's Fruitvale BART Station after being pulled from a train.

Mehserle has been imprisoned in Los Angeles County Jail since being convicted July 8. He was eligible for release with credit for time served before his trial and what is known as "good time" credit: one day for every day spent behind bars.

[...]

Mehserle testified that he had thought he was firing his Taser stun gun instead of his pistol as he was trying to arrest Grant for allegedly resisting an officer. The case drew widespread outrage, prompting the trial to be moved from Alameda County to Los Angeles. The jury there acquitted Mehserle of murder.

[Mehserle's attorney] Rains said at least eight other law-enforcement officers across the country have similarly mistaken their Tasers for their service weapons and were never criminally charged "and, in some cases, not even disciplined."

On Sunday, several hundred protesters marched peacefully from the Fruitvale BART Station to 14th Street and Broadway in downtown Oakland.

The saddest part of this case is that it must be considered progress that Mehserle was even charged with murder, since as the lawyer says, this was one of the rare times that the "peace officer" offending actions were caught on video and a public outcry finally lead to a criminal prosecution for murder.

SHOCKER! Alabama Passes Racist Immigration Law

Following up on the controversial passage of Arizona's SB 1070 last year and Republican's assuming control of state houses after the midterm elections, several states have attempted to pass even stricter legislation to "regulate immigration." On Thursday, Alabama's Republican governor Robert Bentley signed what he promises is the nation's toughest anti-immigration law.

The PBS News Hour described some of the more prominent provisions:

In addition to allowing law enforcement officers to arrest and detain anyone they suspect of being in the country illegally, Alabama’s measure introduces new rules for educators, would-be landlords, and businesses.


"This signals real momentum on the side of immigration hawks," said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a think tank in favor of stricter enforcement. Among the provisions of the new law:

• Public schools will have to confirm students’ legal residency status through birth certificates or sworn affidavits.
• Illegal immigrants are banned from attending state colleges. 
• Transporting, harboring, or renting property to undocumented immigrants will be illegal.

The housing aspect is one that Ali Noorani of the immigrant-rights group the National Immigration Forum finds troubling: “This is of special concern to mixed status families – children could be arrested for transporting their undocumented parents, for example. It can also impact churches who are ‘transporting’ immigrants to church or are providing any services that may be considered as ‘harboring.'"

Georgia and Utah have also passed anti-immigration laws this year. Utah's law has already been enjoined in court. Arizona's SB 1070 has also been enjoined and has been appealed to the United States Supreme Court.

Alabama's Latino population has doubled to a high of 3.9% from 2000 to 2010. I wonder how many white people will be arrested by Alabama police in order to have their immigration status tested?

Celebrity Friday: Goodwin Liu Withdraws Nomination

Goodwin Liu, Professor of Law at University of California, Berkeley has written President Obama, withdrawing his name from consideration for a seat on the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals after Republicans successfully filibustered his nomination on the floor of the United States Senate on May 19th.

The text of the letter is here:

Dear Mr. President:


I have been deeply honored to be your nominee to the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. The nomination has been a tremendous source of pride for my family and community, and it would be a great privilege and responsibility to serve our country as a member of the judiciary. 


In light of last week's unsuccessful cloture vote, however, I respectfully ask that you withdraw my nomination from further consideration by the United States Senate. With no possibility of an up-or-down vote on the horizon, my family and I have decided that it is time for us to regain the ability to make plans for the future. In addition, the Judicial Council of the Ninth Circuit has noted the "desperate need for judges" to fill current vacancies,  and it is now clear that continuing my nomination will not address that need any time soon.


I am profoundly indebted to you for your confidence in me and to the many people wh workd tirelessly in support of my nomination. Thank you for this great honor and opportunity


Sincerely,


Goodwin Liu

Sometimes the bad guys win. Interestingly, President Obama has now nominated a judge named Morgen Christen from Alaska put on that state's Supreme Court by Governor Sarah Palin for the 9th Circuit. It will be interesting to see what response she gets from Senate Republicans!