Are the Democrats nuts? Part Deux

05/25/2004 01:46:16 PM · #26

Well that's a long post. But, as always, I will offer rebuttal point by laborious point, if for no other reason than to point out, once again, the manner in which the left leaning media will twist the truth to push their own agenda, hoping that some uninformed folks will buy it hook, line, and sinker. Note that a LOT of what is stated in the Article is highly editorialized. Oh, and before I even get started, let me point out that the article appeared in CounterPUNCH, not CounterPOINT. If you're going to cut & paste and quote, at least get your sources correct.

Point one:

Originally posted by Article:

Pickering's appalling ideas on race, state's rights, women, and workers are largely an open book. And there's quite a paper trail, starting with a 1960 law review article for the University of Mississippi Law School. In a piece titled "Criminal Law Miscegenation/Incest" Pickering lamented that the Mississippi's law criminalizing marriages between blacks and whites wasn't being enforced strictly enough. He took it upon himself to draft a plan to beef up the statute and toughen the sanctions for sex between blacks and whites. Two months after the law review article appeared in print, the Mississippi legislature turned the Pickering plan into law.

a) Pickering's article nowhere lamented that the law wasn't being enforced strictly enough. Oh, and it was written in 1959 not 1960.
b) The Mississippi State Supreme Court held that a problem in the state statutes made the existing criminal law unenforceable - Pickering did, indeed, advise the state legislature on how to amend the law to make it constitutionally enforceable. Namely, he advised them on how to enforce the law as it was intended.
c) In the brief, he specifically stated that if the law were to "serve the purpose that the legislature undoubtedly intended it to serve, the section should be amended. He also said, quote "Certainly, recent decisions in the fields of education, transportation, and recreation, would cause one to wonder how long the Supreme Court will allow any statute to stand which uses the term "race" to draw a distinction." The latter is hardly to be considered a "racist" statement or anti-black in nature - rather, quite the opposite.

Point two:

Originally posted by Article:

As a legislator, Pickering demonstrated an unremitting hostility for even the most cautious steps toward giving blacks any kind of foothold in the state's political system. In a senate floor speech in 1975, Pickering denounced the Voting Rights Act as an attack on state sovereignty. He backed reapportionment plans that deliberately submerged black voter strongholds into white dominated districts. And he supported an "open primary" plan for the state, which the Department of Justice said was unconstitutional and the three black members of the Mississippi House of Representatives characterized as an attempt by old-line racists to keep black candidates from winning general elections.

It WAS an attack on state sovereignty. Because in 1975, Congress was about to renew Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which mandated pre-clearance of voting changes in jurisdictions with a history of discrimination like Mississippi. Pickering co-sponsored a Mississippi Senate resolution calling on Congress to repeal the provision or apply it to all states equally, regardless of their discrimination history.

So Pickering supported an "open primary" plan. Alaska and Washington hold open primaries and so did California before their state plan was ruled unconstitutional ( note: it's back on the ballot as a citizen initiative this year ). Open Primaries, in and of themselves, are neither illegal nor racist. In fact, since non-caucasian people are now in the majority in many states, it would be, if anything, in the interest of non-caucasians to hold open primaries.

Point three:

Originally posted by Article:

Pickering has long denied any association with the vile Mississippi's Sovereignty Commission, a kind of secret police force which worked to keep Mississippi segregated in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. The Sovereignty Commission, often employing KKK thugs, spied on civil rights organizers, politicians, preachers and rockers (including B.B. King, Elvis Presley, B.B. King, James Brown and the Rolling Stones). They acted like a racist COINTELPRO operation, paying their snitches $100 to $150 for information, infiltrating civil rights groups, and deploying a robust arsenal of dirty tricks and smear tactics. The Commission also helped to cover up attacks on blacks and civil rights workers by the KKK and other vigilantes.

It's scarcely surprising that Pickering would want to maintain a healthy bit of distance between himself and this state-sanctioned goon squad. But he may have been so anxious to hide from his past that he perjured himself. In his 1990 testimony before the Senate judiciary committee, Pickering emphatically denied any association with the Sovereignty Commission.

"I never had any contact with that agency and I had disagreement with the purposes and the methods and some of the approaches that they tookLet me further point out that the Commission had, in effect, been abolished for a number of years. During the entire time that I was in the senate, I do not recall really that commission doing anything."

He was being disingenuous on nearly every point. Far from being mothballed, the Commission was regularly coming to the legislature for funds and Pickering was only to happy to oblige, voting to appropriate money for the segregationist snoops in both 1972 and 1973. The governor of Mississippi vetoed state funding for the Commission in 1973, but the plug wasn't officially pulled on it until 1977.

Back in 1990, Pickering may have felt secure that his secret ties to the Sovereignty Commission would never see the light of day. After all, as a senator he had twice voted to keep the records of the Commission sealed from public inspection until 2027. But in 1998, after protracted litigation, the ACLU finally won a lawsuit opening what remained of the files (much had been lost or destroyed) for public review.

Late last year a review of the Commission's files turned up an astounding memo written by one of the Commission's investigators detailing a request made by Pickering in 1972, while he was a senator, for the snoops to develop a dossier on a union that had launched a strike against the largest employer in Laurel, Mississippi, Pickering's hometown. He also asked the Commission to pass along to him background information on the strike's leading organizer.

In light of these documents, Pickering's denials amount to willful distortions if not to perjury.

Very nice propaganda, but come on. The only proven tie between Pickering and the Sovereignty Commission was ONE contact with a Commission investigator who says that Senator Pickering was interested in union activities at a plant under strike. No proof was even provided that Pickering was aware of the fact that the man he spoke with was a Commission Investigator or had ties to the Sovereignty Commission. Now, explain to me, if you can, how this interest in union activity can be used to paint Pickering as racist.

Point four:

Originally posted by Article:

..... But Pickering has done plenty of damage since he ascended to the federal bench, where his evident animus toward blacks has surfaced again and again in his rulings and opinions. In a case called Fairley v. Forrest County, Pickering lashed out against the one-man/one-vote doctrine as "obtrusive".

In that case the plainiff requested a court order to settle a redistricting issue. Pickering refused to order the state to redraw the lines. In his reasoning, he cited the expense to the taxpayers. He did not cite race as a factor.

Point five:

Originally posted by Article:

In another case, Citizens Right to Vote v. Morgan, Pickering characterized the Voting Rights Act as "an unnecessary intrusion" of federal authority into matters that the states are "perfectly capable of resolving." This is perverse legal reasoning to say the least, since the federal role that Pickering is carping about came about only after Mississippi's voting procedures had been ruled repeatedly to be racist and unconstitutional.

??? Are they quoting from the right case ???
In Citizensâ�� Right to Vote v. Morgan, the claims raised by the plaintiffs were ones for state court, not federal. The city had issued bonds to finance the construction of a convention center. Plaintiffs opposed this and started a petition calling for an election. At first, enough names were on the petitions to obtain an election, but plaintiffs alleged that defendants "engaged in a concerted effort" to persuade people to remove their names. As a result, not enough names were present to hold an election.

Plaintiffsâ�� claims were state causes of action, not federal ones. The right to petition for an election on a bond issue is rooted in state law, not the Constitution. Plaintiffsâ�� also claimed a violation of their rights under the Privileges and Immunities Clause in the Constitution. However, the Privileges and Immunities Clause only guarantees those rights with respect to United States citizenship, not state citizenship. Judge Pickering did not attempt to change the Constitution, but dismissed the case and recommended it be heard in state court where the claims could be properly adjudicated.

Point six:

Originally posted by Article:

..... Under withering questioning at his confirmation hearing in February by Senator John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat and former trial lawyer, Pickering admitted that in 1994 he tried to convince an old friend in the Clinton Justice Department to tell federal prosecutors to propose a more lenient sentence for a defendant in a federal trial he was overseeing.

And this should be considered racist because...?

Originally posted by Article:

Now Pickering is not known for being soft on crime. He regularly berates defendents and prisoners seeking new trials with quotes from the Bible on the punitive nature of Old Testament justice, routinely denies plaintiffs access to trial transcripts and their requests for DNA tests that might prove their innocence. In fact, Pickering has let it be known that he believes in the habeas corpus doctrine applies only to the "truly innocent".

But in this case Pickering took a unwontedly merciful line. The government, using a standard formula under the US Sentencing Guidelines, wanted Daniel Swann to spend to spend seven years in prison. Pickering thought the sentence was too harsh and that Swann should be released on supervised parole. The man's crime: he burned a cross in the front yard of a mixed-race couple in Mississippi.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ah, the big one. At last. About time.

In this case, three young white men were arrested for burning a cross on the lawn of an interracial couple. Two of the three defendants pleaded guilty to avoid going to jail. Prosecutors initially thought â�� wrongly -- that the third defendant, Daniel Swan, had been the ringleader, so they offered him the worst plea deal, which would have required 18 months in prison. He turned it down, and he went to trial.

Pickering said he "didn't feel like it was right for the others not to have any jail time and for him ( Swan ) to go to the penitentiary. And the jury convicted himâ�¦of a hate crimeâ�¦ And then the government came back and recommended 7-1/2 years sentence, which I thought was a bad case of disproportionate sentencing. No proportionality."

Pickering said this was the worst case of disproportionate sentencing he'd ever seen, especially since the real ringleader (who didn't go to prison) had attacked the same house before. "He had shot into this same home. He not only had shot into this same home, but he also had fought with African Americans at school and been suspended. Swan had none of this background."

So Judge Pickering, instead of following federal sentencing guidelines of five years in prison, put strong pressure on prosecutors to drop part of Swan's hate-crime conviction. The prosecutors finally gave in and the judge sentenced Swan to 2 1/2 years in prison.

"And when I came to sentence him," recalls Pickering, "I told him that what he did was a heinous, reprehensible, despicable, dastardly act. And that he was going to the penitentiary for it. There wasn't any question about that. And that we had to learn to live, to get along with one another. And if anyone will read the transcript of where I sentenced him, there's no way that an objective person will come with any view that I was soft on a cross burner or that I had sympathy for a cross burner."

Anyone besides Gingerbaker feel that this is judicial racism?

Ron

Message edited by author 2004-05-25 13:51:28.

LoudDog

Canon EOS-350D Rebel XT

Canon EF 17-40mm f/4.0L USM

05/25/2004 02:27:26 PM · #28

Ron is clearly the winner of the longest post contest.

gingerbaker

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 135mm f/2.0L USM

05/26/2004 10:31:53 AM · #30

Originally posted by RonB:

Well that's a long post. But, as always, I will offer rebuttal point by laborious point, if for no other reason than to point out, once again, the manner in which the left leaning media will twist the truth to push their own agenda, hoping that some uninformed folks will buy it hook, line, and sinker. Note that a LOT of what is stated in the Article is highly editorialized. Oh, and before I even get started, let me point out that the article appeared in CounterPUNCH, not CounterPOINT. If you're going to cut & paste and quote, at least get your sources correct.

Yes sir!! I apologize sir! My mistake, you are right, it was Counterpunch.

Point one:

[quote=Article]Pickering's appalling ideas on race, state's rights, women, and workers are largely an open book. And there's quite a paper trail, starting with a 1960 law review article for the University of Mississippi Law School. In a piece titled "Criminal Law Miscegenation/Incest" Pickering lamented that the Mississippi's law criminalizing marriages between blacks and whites wasn't being enforced strictly enough. He took it upon himself to draft a plan to beef up the statute and toughen the sanctions for sex between blacks and whites. Two months after the law review article appeared in print, the Mississippi legislature turned the Pickering plan into law.

a) Pickering's article nowhere lamented that the law wasn't being enforced strictly enough. Oh, and it was written in 1959 not 1960.

Well, Free Congress, the conservative think tank that published 90% of the replies you have posted here without attribution, states that the article "nowhere laments" that the law wasn't being strictly enforced.

I guess we just have to take it on faith that Pickering was at least concerned, because he did go out of his way to make it known in the article that the state statute " SHOULD" be amended.

In fact, he than goes on to give the specific adaptation needed which would then make the statute MORE ENFORCEABLE.

Remember, this was a case involving real people - where a black woman was subject to up to ten years in prison for marrying a white man! The conviction was overturned, and Pickering not only analysed why that decision was correct, but he went furthur - and showed Mississippi (?) how to amend the law to avoid furthur problems with appeals - and they adopted it. And Pickering never said a word of regret or protest - until the eve of his confirmation, of course. When he said who you marry is your own business.(!)

You are right on the second point - it was written in 1959.

But that he
b) The Mississippi State Supreme Court held that a problem in the state statutes made the existing criminal law unenforceable - Pickering did, indeed, advise the state legislature on how to amend the law to make it constitutionally enforceable. Namely, he advised them on how to enforce the law as it was intended.

Which was to jail couples for interracial marriage!

c) In the brief, he specifically stated that if the law were to "serve the purpose that the legislature undoubtedly intended it to serve, the section should be amended. He also said, quote "Certainly, recent decisions in the fields of education, transportation, and recreation, would cause one to wonder how long the Supreme Court will allow any statute to stand which uses the term "race" to draw a distinction." The latter is hardly to be considered a "racist" statement or anti-black in nature - rather, quite the opposite.

I think not, Ron. It can certainly be regarded as a lamentation. Especially considering that he next advised how to amend the law - hardly the action of someone who believed it unconstitutional.

And also, because of the enormous amount of history this fellow has as being anti-civil rights. And there is a LOT there.

Point two:

Originally posted by Article:

As a legislator, Pickering demonstrated an unremitting hostility for even the most cautious steps toward giving blacks any kind of foothold in the state's political system. In a senate floor speech in 1975, Pickering denounced the Voting Rights Act as an attack on state sovereignty. He backed reapportionment plans that deliberately submerged black voter strongholds into white dominated districts. And he supported an "open primary" plan for the state, which the Department of Justice said was unconstitutional and the three black members of the Mississippi House of Representatives characterized as an attempt by old-line racists to keep black candidates from winning general elections.

It WAS an attack on state sovereignty. Because in 1975, Congress was about to renew Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, which mandated pre-clearance of voting changes in jurisdictions with a history of discrimination like Mississippi. Pickering co-sponsored a Mississippi Senate resolution calling on Congress to repeal the provision or apply it to all states equally, regardless of their discrimination history.

So Pickering supported an "open primary" plan. Alaska and Washington hold open primaries and so did California before their state plan was ruled unconstitutional ( note: it's back on the ballot as a citizen initiative this year ). Open Primaries, in and of themselves, are neither illegal nor racist. In fact, since non-caucasian people are now in the majority in many states, it would be, if anything, in the interest of non-caucasians to hold open primaries.

Yes, but what he did was a POLITICAL ploy, guaranteed to deny blacks equal rights - it was not an exercise in open primary government.

Pickering has been against the Voting rights act all along. Think about that!! Think what that means!

The people you quote from, are just trying to polemically defend a very unworthy candidate.!! Pickering, if installed, will be in charge of civil rights cases in the deep south, for crying out loud!

Point three:

Originally posted by Article:

Pickering has long denied any association with the vile Mississippi's Sovereignty Commission, a kind of secret police force which worked to keep Mississippi segregated in the wake of the Brown v. Board of Education ruling. The Sovereignty Commission, often employing KKK thugs, spied on civil rights organizers, politicians, preachers and rockers (including B.B. King, Elvis Presley, B.B. King, James Brown and the Rolling Stones). They acted like a racist COINTELPRO operation, paying their snitches $100 to $150 for information, infiltrating civil rights groups, and deploying a robust arsenal of dirty tricks and smear tactics. The Commission also helped to cover up attacks on blacks and civil rights workers by the KKK and other vigilantes.

It's scarcely surprising that Pickering would want to maintain a healthy bit of distance between himself and this state-sanctioned goon squad. But he may have been so anxious to hide from his past that he perjured himself. In his 1990 testimony before the Senate judiciary committee, Pickering emphatically denied any association with the Sovereignty Commission.

"I never had any contact with that agency and I had disagreement with the purposes and the methods and some of the approaches that they tookLet me further point out that the Commission had, in effect, been abolished for a number of years. During the entire time that I was in the senate, I do not recall really that commission doing anything."

He was being disingenuous on nearly every point. Far from being mothballed, the Commission was regularly coming to the legislature for funds and Pickering was only to happy to oblige, voting to appropriate money for the segregationist snoops in both 1972 and 1973. The governor of Mississippi vetoed state funding for the Commission in 1973, but the plug wasn't officially pulled on it until 1977.

Back in 1990, Pickering may have felt secure that his secret ties to the Sovereignty Commission would never see the light of day. After all, as a senator he had twice voted to keep the records of the Commission sealed from public inspection until 2027. But in 1998, after protracted litigation, the ACLU finally won a lawsuit opening what remained of the files (much had been lost or destroyed) for public review.

Late last year a review of the Commission's files turned up an astounding memo written by one of the Commission's investigators detailing a request made by Pickering in 1972, while he was a senator, for the snoops to develop a dossier on a union that had launched a strike against the largest employer in Laurel, Mississippi, Pickering's hometown. He also asked the Commission to pass along to him background information on the strike's leading organizer.

In light of these documents, Pickering's denials amount to willful distortions if not to perjury.

Very nice propaganda, but come on. The only proven tie between Pickering and the Sovereignty Commission was ONE contact with a Commission investigator who says that Senator Pickering was interested in union activities at a plant under strike. No proof was even provided that Pickering was aware of the fact that the man he spoke with was a Commission Investigator or had ties to the Sovereignty Commission. Now, explain to me, if you can, how this interest in union activity can be used to paint Pickering as racist.

Ok. Remember, the Sovereignty Commission was a state funded group dedicated to opposing desegregation, sying on civil rights leaders, and undermining union activities. Just the fact that Pickering voted to fund this organizaton maked him a racist, in my book,( and the book of most black activists).

The big problem for Pickering here, is that ANY association with the commission is basically de facto racism. So, HE DENIED ALL knowledge or contact. That is what screwed the pooch for him. from People for the American Way:

Pickering's "contacts" with the Commission were hardly "incidental." As a state Senator, he voted twice to appropriate state monies to fund its operations. Moreover, according to a 1972 Commission memorandum publicly released only in the past few years as a result of a court order unsealing the Commission's records, Pickering and two other state legislators were "very interested" in a Commission investigation into union activity that had resulted in a strike against a large employer in Laurel, Pickering's home town. Also according to the same Commission memorandum, Pickering and the other legislators had "requested to be advised of developments" concerning the union investigation, and had requested background information on the union leader. (See, e.g., PFAW Report at 9-10; AFJ Report at 3-4.)

Here again, the concern is not simply Pickering's conduct as a state Senator, but also how he has responded when questioned about this matter by the Judiciary Committee, including at his most recent hearing. When asked at his district court confirmation hearing in 1990 by the Senate Judiciary Committee about the Sovereignty Commission, Pickering denied under oath having had any contact with it. He also told the Committee in 1990, "I know very little about what is in those [Commission] records. In fact, the only thing I know is what I read in the newspapers."

Confronted with the 1972 Commission document that conflicts not only with his 1990 denial of contact with the Sovereignty Commission but also with his professed lack of knowledge about the Commission, Pickering suggested at his February 7, 2002 hearing that he was worried about Ku Klux Klan attempts to infiltrate the union. The Sovereignty Commission, however, worked to infiltrate and spy on civil rights organizations and to obstruct desegregation, hardly the group to which one would turn if concerned about the Klan, as Senator Durbin observed at the February 7 hearing. Moreover, the Commission memorandum itself, which Pickering read before the hearing in order to refresh his recollection, contains no foundation for the suggestion that Pickering's request had anything to do with the Klan. To the contrary, it states that the request from Pickering and the other legislators was to be "advised of developments in connection with SCEF [Southern Conference Educational Fund] infiltration of GPA [Gulfcoast Pulpwood Association] and full background on James Simmons [President of the GPA]." The SCEF was a pro-civil rights group. It appears that Pickering has been less than forthcoming with the Judiciary Committee about this entire matter, and it is that more than the "incident" itself that is so disturbing.

Point four:

Originally posted by Article:

..... But Pickering has done plenty of damage since he ascended to the federal bench, where his evident animus toward blacks has surfaced again and again in his rulings and opinions. In a case called Fairley v. Forrest County, Pickering lashed out against the one-man/one-vote doctrine as "obtrusive".

In that case the plainiff requested a court order to settle a redistricting issue. Pickering refused to order the state to redraw the lines. In his reasoning, he cited the expense to the taxpayers. He did not cite race as a factor.

I'll let S.A.L.T. to the rebuttal on this one :D

RE: STATEMENT OF SOCIETY OF AMERICAN LAW TEACHERS REGARDING THE NOMINATION OF JUDGE CHARLES PICKERING TO THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

On behalf of the Board of Governors of the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) â�� the largest membership organization of law professors in the nation â�� we write to express our grave concerns regarding the nomination of Charles Pickering to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

Since its founding thirty years ago, SALT has sought to make the legal profession more inclusive and responsive to under-served individuals and communities. These goals have particular meaning in the states of Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi, which comprise the Fifth Circuit. The Fifth Circuit also is home to the largest percentage of racial and ethnic minorities in any of the eleven circuits. [1] For residents of these states who must turn to the courts to vindicate their rights, the Fifth Circuit is, as a practical matter, the court of last resort. In light of these concerns and after careful review of Judge Pickeringâ��s record, the Society of American Law Teachers (SALT) urges the Senate Judiciary Committee to reject his nomination to the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit.

The available public record raises troubling questions about Judge Pickeringâ��s ability to enforce federal law guaranteeing civil and reproductive rights, as discussed below.

â�¢In his opinion in Fairley v. Forrest County, Miss., 814 F.Supp. 1327 (S.D. Miss. 1993), rejecting a challenge to a county supervisory districting plan under the â��one-person, one-voteâ�� principle of the Fourteenth Amendment, Judge Pickering repeatedly described the courtsâ�� role in such cases as â��obtrusive.â��[2] Much of Judge Pickeringâ��s opinion was devoted to explaining his conclusion that â�� contrary to the United States Supreme Courtâ��s precedents â�� a total deviation of 16.4% among election districts â��is really de minimis variation in actual voter influence.â��[3] He then complained of the costs of enforcing this constitutional right:

[I]t is submitted that no one can know or assimilate information as to the tremendous amount of taxpayer money that has been spent on apportioning and reapportioning political bodies to comply with court rulings or to comply with what lawmakers perceive to be judicial requirements. No one can calculate the number of hours devoted by public officials to resolving reapportionment issues, trying to live by court mandates. Oftentimes, other government problems are ignored because legislative bodies are trying to solve reapportionment according to what they think the courts will require . . . It is submitted that most voters care less about such mathematical precision when it changes their actual influence so little, than they desire to save tax dollars, avoid disruption and the breaking of so many political subdivision lines.[4]

Judge Pickering has made clear his preferred methodology for deciding civil rights and constitutional claims: if Judge Pickering believes the asserted right is of little value, and the cost of protecting such rights is too burdensome, the right should not be protected

Point five:

Originally posted by Article:

In another case, Citizens Right to Vote v. Morgan, Pickering characterized the Voting Rights Act as "an unnecessary intrusion" of federal authority into matters that the states are "perfectly capable of resolving." This is perverse legal reasoning to say the least, since the federal role that Pickering is carping about came about only after Mississippi's voting procedures had been ruled repeatedly to be racist and unconstitutional.

??? Are they quoting from the right case ???
In Citizensâ�� Right to Vote v. Morgan, the claims raised by the plaintiffs were ones for state court, not federal. The city had issued bonds to finance the construction of a convention center. Plaintiffs opposed this and started a petition calling for an election. At first, enough names were on the petitions to obtain an election, but plaintiffs alleged that defendants "engaged in a concerted effort" to persuade people to remove their names. As a result, not enough names were present to hold an election.

Plaintiffsâ�� claims were state causes of action, not federal ones. The right to petition for an election on a bond issue is rooted in state law, not the Constitution. Plaintiffsâ�� also claimed a violation of their rights under the Privileges and Immunities Clause in the Constitution. However, the Privileges and Immunities Clause only guarantees those rights with respect to United States citizenship, not state citizenship. Judge Pickering did not attempt to change the Constitution, but dismissed the case and recommended it be heard in state court where the claims could be properly adjudicated.

Don't know where all that goes....??

(S.A.L.T.)"In 1975, he co-sponsored a Mississippi Senate resolution calling on Congress to repeal the Voting Rights Act or apply it to all states, regardless of whether a state shared Mississippiâ��s extensive history of blatant violations of voting rights of African Americans. Enough said?

Point six:

Originally posted by Article:

..... Under withering questioning at his confirmation hearing in February by Senator John Edwards, the North Carolina Democrat and former trial lawyer, Pickering admitted that in 1994 he tried to convince an old friend in the Clinton Justice Department to tell federal prosecutors to propose a more lenient sentence for a defendant in a federal trial he was overseeing.

And this should be considered racist because...?

... some may consider this as part of a pattern of anti-black bias, because he was a white defendant accused of burning a cross on a black man's lawn? Because Pickering went to extraordinary lengths - many say inappropiate lengths - to minimize this federal crime as a "prank"?

Originally posted by Article:

Now Pickering is not known for being soft on crime. He regularly berates defendents and prisoners seeking new trials with quotes from the Bible on the punitive nature of Old Testament justice, routinely denies plaintiffs access to trial transcripts and their requests for DNA tests that might prove their innocence. In fact, Pickering has let it be known that he believes in the habeas corpus doctrine applies only to the "truly innocent".

But in this case Pickering took a unwontedly merciful line. The government, using a standard formula under the US Sentencing Guidelines, wanted Daniel Swann to spend to spend seven years in prison. Pickering thought the sentence was too harsh and that Swann should be released on supervised parole. The man's crime: he burned a cross in the front yard of a mixed-race couple in Mississippi.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Ah, the big one. At last. About time.

In this case, three young white men were arrested for burning a cross on the lawn of an interracial couple. Two of the three defendants pleaded guilty to avoid going to jail. Prosecutors initially thought â�� wrongly -- that the third defendant, Daniel Swan, had been the ringleader, so they offered him the worst plea deal, which would have required 18 months in prison. He turned it down, and he went to trial.

Pickering said he "didn't feel like it was right for the others not to have any jail time and for him ( Swan ) to go to the penitentiary. And the jury convicted himâ�¦of a hate crimeâ�¦ And then the government came back and recommended 7-1/2 years sentence, which I thought was a bad case of disproportionate sentencing. No proportionality."

Pickering said this was the worst case of disproportionate sentencing he'd ever seen, especially since the real ringleader (who didn't go to prison) had attacked the same house before. "He had shot into this same home. He not only had shot into this same home, but he also had fought with African Americans at school and been suspended. Swan had none of this background."

So Judge Pickering, instead of following federal sentencing guidelines of five years in prison, put strong pressure on prosecutors to drop part of Swan's hate-crime conviction. The prosecutors finally gave in and the judge sentenced Swan to 2 1/2 years in prison.

"And when I came to sentence him," recalls Pickering, "I told him that what he did was a heinous, reprehensible, despicable, dastardly act. And that he was going to the penitentiary for it. There wasn't any question about that. And that we had to learn to live, to get along with one another. And if anyone will read the transcript of where I sentenced him, there's no way that an objective person will come with any view that I was soft on a cross burner or that I had sympathy for a cross burner."

This is interesting, because I have read that the opposite was true. That Swan was , in fact, the real ring leader - that the other two were a child and a mentally retarded person.

In any case - they pled guilty. The only one facing trial was Swan. Now, in addition to how the whole matter looked as a racial issue, what troubled Congress was the means by which Pickering tried to strong arm a reduced sentence. Not terribly interesting - but exposed as violations of the Code of Conduct, evidently.

Anyone besides Gingerbaker feel that this is judicial racism?

Don't think I've called anyone a "racist" Ron. No need to put words in my mouth, OK?

Message edited by author 2004-05-26 10:38:27.

RonB

Canon EOS-300D Rebel

05/26/2004 11:15:56 AM · #32

Originally posted by gingerbaker:

I have to apologize for my inability to get my replies to your posts inserted as bold type. Is there a way to to this easily? I'm sorry for all the trouble.

To Bold, surround selected text with [ b ] xxx [ /b ] ( no spaces inside brackets )
To Italic, surround selected text with [ i ] xxx [ /i ] ( no spaces inside brackets )
To Bold/Italic, surround selected text with [ b ] [ i ] xxx [ /i ] [ /b ] ( no spaces inside brackets )

Ron

gingerbaker

Canon EOS-5D

Canon EF 135mm f/2.0L USM

05/28/2004 10:32:36 AM · #34

Originally posted by RonB:

Originally posted by gingerbaker:
I have to apologize for my inability to get my replies to your posts inserted as bold type. Is there a way to to this easily? I'm sorry for all the trouble.

To Bold, surround selected text with [ b ] xxx [ /b ] ( no spaces inside brackets )
To Italic, surround selected text with [ i ] xxx [ /i ] ( no spaces inside brackets )
To Bold/Italic, surround selected text with [ b ] [ i ] xxx [ /i ] [ /b ] ( no spaces inside brackets )

Ron

Thanks, Ron! :)

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