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Interview with Richard Peritz

John Contini, in a televised interview with Richard Peritz, host of the TV show, "Shalom"

Words that would forever change the world . . .

In Congress, July 4, 1776

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America

When in the Course of human events it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. --That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

Here is the complete Declaration of Independence: http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/

"Florida: it's not all fun in the sun!"

"Thankfully, we have real heroes who are fighting to achieve meaningful, authentic change for the sake of sanity and humanity in the criminal justice system in Florida - compassionate and yet courageous folks like Debra Scanlon, Carol Leonard, Wanda Valdes and Fatima Hawkins, women on the front lines of this fight to get the word out about the need for Restorative Justice!" – John Contini

By Debra Scanlon

THERE IS SOMETHING YOU CAN DO!

Dear Families: Please forward this if you know of others with loved ones incarcerated in Florida!! Numbers can make a difference!!! There are currently 137 facilities state-wide. Many of them without properly trained & supervised staff, many of them conducting daily business with little/no regard toward the FDoC stated mission: "... To provide proper care and supervision of all offenders under our jurisdiction while assisting, as appropriate (?), their reentry into society". If you know of a facility like this, there are things you can do to bring transparency, accountability, and community oversight back into the picture. These emails will contain documents/processes that can be shared and replicated. We urge you to forward this email to others who share our concerns over how Florida metes out “justice".

In this email you'll find:

1. The FDoC is the “third largest state prison system in the country with a budget of $2.3 BILLION, almost 94,000 inmates incarcerated and another 153,000 offenders on some type of community supervision”. This is posted quite proudly on the FDoC website. To me, it’s nothing to brag about! The FDoC $2.3 Billion annual budget is quite a “gravy train”1 for the many Prison Profiteers who are members of the unholy alliance between state powers and private industry generically referred to as the prison-industrial complex. You might be surprised to know who belongs to this exclusive group. Of course the FDoC, along with state legislators and local politicians along with bankers and investment companies who structure the deals to keep building new prisons. Then you have the players in all prison-related industries from the taser-makers, to the security training companies to the prison health care providers, ad nauseum….. These people/groups ALL HAVE A VESTED INTEREST IN AND PROFIT FROM GROWING THE MASS INCARCERATION! And to add insult to injury, they are DOING IT AT THE TAXPAYER’S EXPENSE! No Transparency! No Accountability! No Oversight! And apparently No Management!

2. According to the Orlando Sentinel, there was a $1.1 BILLION shortfall in 2007 for the state of Florida and were predicting the current $2.5 BILLION state budget deficit. The HUGE STATE DEFICIT has come as no surprise to anyone. Florida State has an annual budget of $66.2 BILLION, and still can’t seem to manage the money. Why is this?

a. The legislators don’t seem to understand a couple of simple principles put forth by Einstein: * No problem can be solved from the same level of consciousness that created it and its correlate…. * Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

b. The time has come to implement RESTORATIVE JUSTICE! 2 It is cost effective, humane, reduces recidivism and builds stronger, more cohesive communities!!

c. It is common knowledge as to what works in Corrections and what is counterproductive yet the politicians continue making deals and passing laws that are not in the interest of the state and her communities. In upcoming FFRJ Emails, we’ll meet the legislative bodies/politicians and see what they are up to. In the meantime, study up for the Presidential General Election, 4 Nov 2008! A good resource is: www.fvap.gov (federal voting assistance program). There are links to Federal, State & Local voting info. VOTE!!!! Your voice does count! First vote for our next president then we’ll look at the State (FL) elections.

3. The Florida prison system has been ‘cutting back’ for some time. This will be covered in more detail in future emails. Just be aware that Florida is cutting more deeply now. Good case in point, public defenders and programs. More examples:

a. Instead of changing her sentencing laws (Mandatory Minimums), Florida prefers to continue to warehouse her inmates. Her prisons are bursting to overflowing- but that’s no problem. Florida is now putting inmates in tents: Taylor Workcamp is one such site.

b. Again at Taylor, the cut-backs are even affecting contracts. Contracts like the food contract (Trinity)- The inmates are supposed to have 2000 calories a day. That’s hard to do when keep cutting back on size of the meals, entrees are now 2 ozs smaller! But it keeps those bottom line profits high for the company. We’ll revisit the food situation in another email. A solution: PERMACULTURE done at each correctional facility might even eliminate the need to have a food contract at all!

c. Families: Currently Florida’s public servants, up to and including the Governor Charlie Crist, act as though all this is NOT PERSONAL- IT’S JUST BUSINESS. They nod their heads and appear to be listening to our concerns- and then they go and do business-as-usual (see 2 and 2a above). Two things I want to make perfectly clear to them: ACTIONS SPEAK LOUDER THAN WORDS! AND IT’S VERY PERSONAL!! (See 2c above).

4. Before we end this FFRJ Email, another organization you need to know about it is the Florida Prisoners Legal Aid Organization (FPLAO). They publish The Perspective, an excellent overview of what is happening in Florida as it happens. I highly recommend you subscribe. Cost is very reasonable- $15/family and $10/prisoner. Address is: FPLP, PO Box 1069, Marion, NC 28752.

5. The Dept of Justice (DoJ) has just released an update on current funding opportunities for Community Initiatives. Current Funding Opportunities for U.S. Department of Justice. This page has recently been updated with the following new items: http://www.usdoj.gov/10grants/Latino Youth Mentoring Program, Grant Announcement National Mentoring Programs, Grant Announcement

Footnotes:
1. Tara Herivel, in the book Prison Profiteers: Who Makes Money From Mass Incarceration, can be ordered through www.prisonlegalnews.org. Prison Nation: The Warehousing of America’s Poor is another great read, authors are Tara Herivel and Paul Wright, editor of Prison Legal News.

2. More information on Restorative Justice can be gotten from: The Little Book series (Little Book of Restorative Justice, Howard Zehr); For practical applications: St Mary’s Law School Restorative Justice Initiative- Randy Langford; University of Texas San Antonio (UTSA) Criminal Justice Dept, Michael Gilbert, PhD.

IN LAST WEEK'S EMAIL we covered asking questions of the system through the Public Records Act. We introduced the group Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM) and a provided their case profile summary. We reminded you there was strength in numbers and encouraged you’re connecting with other families in the visiting park (or waiting to get in). We are working on alternative business models to help the families while their loved one is incarcerated. We asked for volunteers with IT skills. And last but not least, we introduced the concept of Restorative Justice, a holistic framework for social justice. A ‘green’ model, if you will.

NEXT WEEK'S EMAIL will focus on the conditions at some of the facilities where the prevailing atmosphere is 24/7 hostility with a good dose of brutality thrown in (Abu Ghraib is alive and well and operating in Florida). We’ll discuss the lack of integrity and professionalism on the part of staff and their arbitrary ways. And we’ll talk about some groups that are a part of the prison-industrial complex and culture in Florida, to include the Florida Dept of Law Enforcement (FDLE), Florida Police Benevolent Association (PBA), and the KuKluxKlan (KKK)? We’ll lastly we discuss some extremely interesting and relevant URLS/related books.

I hope you have found the FFRJ Email to be of some interest, and better yet- some usefulness. If you have, please forward it. But if you'd like to stop receiving it, please let me know to take you off the list.

Thank you!

Debra Scanlon
PO Box 2365
Universal City, TX 78148

Come to Florida; bring the kids! (Don’t forget the suntan lotion and bail money!)

"John, just letting you know that your article, "Come to Florida; bring the kids! (Don't forget the suntan lotion and bail money!") is in the EscaRosa Press. Just in case you didn't already know. If you have not checked out www.escarosapress.com you really need to. It is quite impressive. You can view it in 9 different languages…that's pretty cool." - Bonnie


I’ve gotten to be pretty good friends with our Sheriff of Broward County, Al Lamberti. I was telling him yesterday of my concerns over the jailing of so many of Broward County kids, just talking about some of the scary statistics. He too, has been telling citizen groups of the fact that Broward County leads ALL 67 counties in Florida in jail population, so this wasn’t news to him at all. What we discovered together was the fact that Florida now leads the nation in per capita prison population, finally “beating” California, Texas and New York in percentage of people incarcerated!

Were that not amazing enough … when you then factor into the equation that the U.S. just exceeded China as #1 in “most number of people imprisoned nationally,” this reveals a frightening statistic: The United States now imprisons more of its people than any nation on the globe; and with Florida now leading the nation in per capita prison population, that means Florida leads in world in numbers of people imprisoned in any one nation-state; but even more revealing and even scarier for the citizens of Broward County (Fort Lauderdale, Hollywood, Pompano Beach, etc), Broward tops them all!

Why? Just do the simple math: Broward leads Florida, Florida leads America, and America now leads the world! This means that Broward County, per capita, imprisons more of its people than any other county on the planet!!! When I was sharing this with Sheriff Lamberti, he replied, “That’s not even all of it John.” He went on to give me even more cause for concern about our County’s children and young adults:

Sheriff Al Lamberti shared the very disturbing fact that 70 % of our County’s crimes committed during the day are committed by truant kids - kids skipping school or kids suspended from school. He went on to explain that kids are suspended ‘from” school, but they are not suspended “to” any program or detention hall, etc. This means that they are suspended “to the street,” since their parents are typically working.

This is a huge problem, especially given the fact that we have 1.8 million people in Broward! We are a huge County, with a greater population than nine (9) U.S. States! We had 5,486 people incarcerated in our County’s five (5) jails as of yesterday morning. We had only one (1) jail 30 years ago when Lamberti started as a detention deputy in the jail, and we’re at five (5) jails now; and because we’ve exceeded the jail cap, our brilliant County Commissioners want to build a sixth (6th) jail to warehouse even more of our kids and addicted adults - rather than use all three parts of their brains and come up with alternative solutions to this problem.

The Sheriff has had to start a whole new truancy unit just to keep up and track these kids, doing their level best to hunt them down for their own good. His solution to date: His deputies find the kids, and bring them to their parents; but since most of the parents are working, they bring the kids straight to the parent’s workplace, essentially saying, “We’ve been babysitting your kid, and now it’s your turn.”

This is a sad revelation to me - and I know a lot of concerned parents and citizens generally. I have three kids who are school age, 17, 16 and 11; and because of this fact alone, and since I represent a lot of families suffering and in fear over the arrest of their child, I’m particularly sensitized to these issues. We can’t blame the schools for suspending the kids for committing crimes or serious transgressions at school - since we want the majority of the other kids to get an education and not be distracted and disturbed by the rowdy minority; so the school no doubt did the right thing by separating those kids by suspension; and yet they probably ought to be suspended “to” a program of sorts - perhaps a work program or detention hall, and not “to the streets.”

The parents can’t babysit the kids as mom and dad are typically both working just to survive and provide for their families in this cruel economy; or many of these households are run by single mom’s and as you can all too well imagine, they’ve got their hands full working full time and trying their level best to raise the kids, exhausted.

The crime rate is only going to go up as the economy gets worse, according to historical trends. Industrialized China and India are buying up all the barrels of crude oil that we don’t consume; and therefore the demand for oil from the oil producing Arab nations is only going to continue increasing, which means that the prices for fuel will only increase, and not decrease. This means that the prices for goods (all transported by fuel!) will increase, causing inflation to skyrocket even more, making it even more impossible for our kids to afford to buy gas or anything at all. (We can hardly afford anything these days, let alone our kids!) This is alarming too, since this will only cause the crime rate to escalate even more.

Meanwhile, the rest of us who may not be struggling with this truancy problem, don’t want to pay the higher taxes to support all these new truancy officers, and yet we want our homes safe and we don’t want to personally fall victim to juvenile crime … so we can’t have them roaming the streets getting into trouble. That revealing statistic is haunting: “70% of crimes committed during the day are committed by these truant kids.”

Prison/jail population: Broward leads the State of Florida; Florida leads America, and America now leads the world. This means that Broward leads the planet in per capita imprisonment of its people - and that means lots of kids!! The syllogism is scary: If A = B and B = C, then A = C!

These statistics are obviously sad and scary for a lot of Florida's parents and kids, but actually, these Draconian sentences and effects extend all across our country.

All the more reason we’ve got to pray more and spend as much time with our kids as possible … pouring more and more of ourselves into teaching them whatever we can … especially since they live in such an unforgiving world today.

Humanity and basic civil rights now extended to Florida's poor kids:

In a 4-3 decision, the Florida Supreme Court ordered that all Florida children be given the same meaningful right enjoyed by adults, to wit: the opportunity to confer with a lawyer before waiving their 6th Amendment (under the United States Constitution) "right to counsel" and entering a plea to a crime.

This opinion from the Florida Supreme Court was authored on May 1st in case number SC07-1162 in re: Amendment to Florida Rule of Juvenile Procedure 8.165 (a), specifically finding that "the substantive right to counsel for children in juvenile delinquency proceedings is firmly established under the United States Constitution and Florida statutes.

Chief Justice Fred Lewis and Justices Harry Lee Anstead, Barbara Pariente and Peggy Quince held that "consultation with an attorney prior to waiving counsel is an important and necessary procedural safeguard designed to protect a juvenile's constitutional right to counsel."

Carlos Martinez, the elected Public Defender of the 11th Circuit, said it best:

"The Supreme Court should be commended for approving a court procedure to ensure equal justice under law for all of Florida children - not just those with parents who can afford to pay for an attorney.

"With this rule, troubled kids and poor kids will have a better shot of outgrowing their delinquent behavior and becoming productive adults. Thousands of Florida's children, particularly in rural areas, are missing out on the American dream because they plead guilty without an attorney, then they can't get jobs, housing or higher education. This procedure ensures that the kid can discuss it with an attorney before making a decision with lifelong consequences."

www.myspace.com/jpcontinibooks

Yet ANOTHER death row exoneration....

"Check out this (newest!) EXONERATION of a death row inmate. This is the second EXONERATION based on DNA within a week, the last guy after being wrongfully convicted and incarcerated in Texas for 27 years, and then yesterday, thank God, the other man released from death row after 13 years!

2 May 2008

Earlier today the NCADP issued the following statement, and below that you will find a press release from the ACLU Capital Punishment Project, whose attorneys worked on this case.

AS EXECUTIONS ARE SET TO RESUME,
NATION LEARNS OF YET ANOTHER DEATH ROW EXONERATION

May 2, 2008 -- Diann Rust Tierney, executive director of the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, issued the following statement today in response to today's announced exoneration out of North Carolina:

"It's been more than seven months since an execution occurred in the U.S. - the longest de facto moratorium in our country in 25 years. And today, just as executions are set to resume in the U.S., Levon "Bo" Jones becomes the 129th person to be freed from death row since 1976, after evidence of innocence emerged. He's the eighth wrongly convicted death row inmate out of North Carolina alone. Nationally, there have been five death row exonerations since the current de facto moratorium began in late September. Jones is the second consecutive North Carolina man to be freed from death row after evidence of police misconduct was brought to light.

"It is therefore inappropriate -- indeed, incredible -- that executions are set to resume beginning next Tuesday in Georgia. Today I am reflecting on the fact that during the seven-month moratorium, states that are now gearing up to resume executions did absolutely nothing to assure that society's ultimate sanction is fair or accurate.

"New Jersey is an example of the good that can come when states stop and assess. Legislators there during the past year held hearings on New Jersey's death penalty system and ultimately decided to repeal it. Other states such as California and Tennessee also launched studies of their death penalty statutes.

"In contrast, states like Alabama and Texas sat on their hands - waiting for a signal from the U.S. Supreme Court that they could resume executions. And when the Court did rule, its conclusions did nothing to clean up the mismanagement and incompetence that is more routine than not in states carrying out executions. Mr. Jones spent 13 years on death row, and had he been an inmate in Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas or Virginia, it is quite likely he would be dead today - and the truth buried with him.

"This is proof positive that we don't need to return to business as usual. States should suspend executions until they have examined their system and can assure us that innocent people are not at risk of execution."

And here is the press release from the ACLU.

Innocent North Carolina Man Exonerated After 14 Years On Death Row
Levon "Bo" Jones Fifth Innocent Death Row Inmate Freed In Past 11 Months And 129th Since 1973

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
May 2, 2008

CONTACT: Will Matthews, ACLU, (212) 549-2582 or 2666; media@aclu.org

KENANSVILLE, NC - An innocent man who spent 14 years on North Carolina's death row after being wrongfully convicted for a 1987 murder will be released from prison today. Jones has been represented by American Civil Liberties Union Capital Punishment Project lawyers Cassandra Stubbs and Brian Stull, along with North Carolina attorney Ernest "Buddy" Connor.

Levon "Bo" Jones, an African American man who has always maintained his innocence, was sentenced to death in 1993 for the murder of Leamon Grady, a white man. Jones is the fifth innocent death row inmate to be exonerated in the United States in the past 11 months, and the third innocent North Carolina death row inmate to be granted release in the past six months. He is the 129th death row exoneree since 1973.

"We never had any doubt about Bo Jones' innocence," said Connor. "We knew when we started the case that there were serious holes in the evidence. After we began seriously investigating the case, it completely unraveled."

A federal judge ordered Jones off death row in 2006 and overturned his conviction, declaring that the defense provided by Jones' initial defense attorneys was so poor that they missed critical evidence pointing to his innocence. After keeping him imprisoned in anticipation of a retrial, the Duplin County, N.C. District Attorney announced Thursday that the state was dropping all charges and Jones would be released.

The sole witness accusing Jones of the murder, Lovely Lorden, admitted in an affidavit filed last month that she "was certain that Bo did not have anything to do with Mr. Grady's murder" and that she did not know what happened the night Grady was murdered. A new trial had been set to begin May 12.

Jones' exoneration and release comes two weeks after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Baze v. Rees upholding the three drug lethal injection method of capital punishment used in Kentucky. Other states have begun to lift a de facto national moratorium on the use of the death penalty.

"This case highlights the serious and rampant flaws inherent in the death penalty," Stubbs said. "A system that can't protect the innocent from conviction shouldn't gamble with life and death. This case - and those of the many other innocent exonerees - should give states pause about lifting moratoriums after the Baze decision."

Stull said there is a direct link between Jones' 14 years on death row and the quality of his first trial counsel.

"This case points out the problems with capital counsel in many parts of the country," he said. "Bo Jones's first trial lawyer never bothered to get the many conflicting statements of Lovely Lorden, let alone do the kind of investigation necessary in a first degree murder case. We will never know if Lorden would have admitted the truth earlier had the case been investigated and had she been adequately cross-examined."

Jones was represented in post-conviction by the North Carolina Center for Death Penalty Litigation, which persuaded the federal court to grant him a new trial.

Larry Lamb, a codefendant of Jones who has also always maintained his innocence, remains behind bars, serving a life sentence. Lamb turned down a plea offer of a six year sentence and was also convicted based on the testimony of Lorden. He plans to ask the newly formed North Carolina Innocence Inquiry Commission to review his case.