Greene County Democrat

Category: Crime

  • Obama Administration steps in after Federal Judge rules against Standing Rock Sioux tribe on pipeline

    By: Dierdre Fulton, Common Dreams

    A series of “game-changing” developments impacting the Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) battle on Friday afternoon were testament to the power of organizing.

    Striking a blow to the vibrant, Indigenous-led resistance movement that has sprung up against the four-state oil pipeline, a federal judge on Friday denied the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s attempt to halt its construction.

    Shortly afterward, however, the Department of Justice, the Department of the Army, and the Department of the Interior issued a joint statement indicating that “important issues raised by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe and other tribal nations and their members regarding [DAPL] specifically, and pipeline-related decision-making generally, remain.”

    As a result, the statement read, construction on Army Corps land bordering or under Lake Oahe—which straddles North and South Dakota—will be halted until the Corps “can determine whether it will need to reconsider any of its previous decisions regarding the Lake Oahe site under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) or other federal laws.”

    “In the interim,” the agencies continued, “we request that the pipeline company voluntarily pause all construction activity within 20 miles east or west of Lake Oahe.”

    The statement continued: Furthermore, this case has highlighted the need for a serious discussion on whether there should be nationwide reform with respect to considering tribes’ views on these types of infrastructure projects. Therefore, this fall, we will invite tribes to formal, government-to-government consultations on two questions: (1) within the existing statutory framework, what should the federal government do to better ensure meaningful tribal input into infrastructure-related reviews and decisions and the protection of tribal lands, resources, and treaty rights; and (2) should new legislation be proposed to Congress to alter that statutory framework and promote those goals.

    Sen. Bernie Sanders, who on Thursday proposed legislation that would prevent the Army Corps from approving the pipeline until the agency has completed an environmental impact statement, praised the agencies’ decision:

    As Common Dreams has reported extensively, the Standing Rock Sioux had challenged the Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to grant permits for Dallas-based Energy Transfer Partners’ $3.8 billion pipeline, saying that the project violates federal laws—including the Clean Water Act and National Historic Preservation Act—and would endanger both water supplies and ancient sacred sites.

    But in his decision (pdf), U.S. District Judge James Boasberg in Washington, D.C., said “the Tribe has not carried its burden to demonstrate that the Court could prevent damage to important cultural resources by enjoining the Corps’ DAPL-related permitting.” He ordered the parties to appear for a status conference on Sept. 16.

    Still, those who have voiced their opposition to the controversial project said they’d fight on.In the lead-up to the ruling, tribal chairman David Archambault II declared: “Regardless of the court’s decision today, we will continue to be united and peaceful in our opposition to the pipeline. Our ultimate goal is permanent protection of our sacred sites and our water. We must continue to have faith and believe in the strength of our prayers and not do anything in violence. We must believe in the creator and good things will come.”

    Earthjustice, who filed the lawsuit in July on behalf of the tribe, said in the days before the ruling that it would be challenged.

    A press conference and protest will take place at the North Dakota Capitol starting at 3pm local time on Friday. Solidarity events are planned nationwide next week.

    Updates are being shared under the hashtags #NoDAPL, #RezpectOurWater, and #StandWithStandingRock.

     

     

  • Lawyers’ Committee files lawsuit challenging discriminatory method of electing judges to highest courts in State of Alabama

                MONTGOMERY, ALA. and WASHINGTON, D.C., September 7, 2016 – Today, the Lawyers’ Committee for Civil Rights Under Law (Lawyers’ Committee), filed a lawsuit on behalf of the Alabama State Conference of the NAACP and four individual black voters alleging that the method of electing Alabama’s most powerful judges violates the Voting Rights Act. The suit maintains that Alabama’s statewide method of electing members of the Alabama Supreme Court, Court of Criminal Appeals and Court of Civil Appeals deprives the African-American community of the ability to elect any judges of their choice. Currently, all 19 of Alabama’s appellate judges are white.

    “In 2016, Alabama’s appellate courts are no more diverse than they were when the Voting Rights Act was signed more than 50 years ago,” said Kristen Clarke, president and executive director of the Lawyers’ Committee. “It is time for the highest courts in the state of Alabama to reflect the diversity of the communities they serve. This lawsuit seeks to provide African-American voters an equal opportunity to elect judges of their choice, achieve long overdue compliance with the Voting Rights Act and instill greater public confidence in the justice system of Alabama.”

    The Supreme Court of Alabama has nine members and is the state’s court of last resort. Alabama’s intermediate appellate courts, the Court of Criminal Appeals and the Court of Civil Appeals, each has five members. All 19 judges are elected statewide. Because white Alabamians comprise the majority of the voting age population in the state, and because of racially polarized voting, black-preferred candidates are consistently defeated in elections involving the highest levels of the state’s judiciary. Such vote dilution is prohibited by the Voting Rights Act and the state could easily devise a fairer electoral system.

    The Lawyers’ Committee filed today’s suit in partnership with James Blacksher and Edward Still, two long-time Alabama civil rights attorneys, Montgomery-based attorney J. Mitch McGuire, as well as with pro bono counsel Crowell & Moring LLP and Stroock & Stroock & Lavan LLP. The suit was filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama and is part of the Lawyers’ Committee’s national initiative to bring state courts into compliance with the Voting Rights Act and promote judicial diversity. On July 20, 2016, the Lawyers’ Committee and another set of partners filed a similar suit alleging that the statewide method of electing Texas’s most powerful judges violates the Voting Rights Act.

    In the history of Alabama, only two African Americans have won an election to statewide office. Every other black statewide candidate has been defeated by a white candidate. Alabama’s appellate judges have been all-white for 15 years.

    “The Alabama NAACP continues to fight for equitable representation of all communities in our judicial system at all levels,” said Benard Simelton, president of the Alabama NAACP. “Alabama cannot continue to have a system that ignores segments of the community. We believe that a revised method of electing judges will lead to representation of all segments of the community.”

    “The fact that no African-Americans are on the Alabama Supreme Court or any other office elected statewide sends a clear message that black Alabamians remain subordinate to whites in state government, just as the 1901 Constitution intended,” said James Blacksher.

    “Jurors are supposed to represent all of the adult population, yet the State uses a system of electing appellate judges that insures those judges come from only part of the population,” said Edward Still.

    Alabama has the sixth largest black population in the country with African Americans comprising almost 25 percent of the state’s voting age population.  However, with voting polarized along racial lines, African Americans have been underrepresented on the three courts at issue for decades. In 1991, the U.S. Supreme Court made clear that the Voting Rights Act applies to judicial elections.

    The courts at issue in this case handle cases of all kinds, including important criminal cases.  Notably, nearly 63 percent of Alabama’s prison population is black.

    “The right to vote is essential to our democracy, and that right must be meaningful for our system of government to function properly,” said Crowell & Moring partner Richard Schwartz.  His partner Keith Harrison explained, “We believe that African Americans must have an effective part in the election of appellate judgeships in Alabama. When judges are elected, equal justice under the law requires meaningful voting rights for all citizens, including Alabama’s African-American citizens.”

    “The right to vote is the right from which all other rights flow,” said Michael Keats of Stroock & Stroock & Lavan. “That right to vote takes on a special significance in electing the judges and justices who define our legal rights and obligations, who adjudicate our guilt and innocence. A judiciary elected through a racially-discriminatory system like Alabama’s, deprives African-Americans of their own voice in the administration of justice. That is illegal and this lawsuit will end that discriminatory system.”

     

     

  • Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota fights oil pipeline that threatens water rights and sacred sites

    By: Annalisa Merelli

    protestors-at-standing-rock

     Protestors at Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in ND opposing pipeline construction across their lands

     bloody-dog-who-bit-protestors

    Bloody dog, one of several that bit protestors

     

    For months, the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe in North Dakota has been protesting the construction of a $3.8 billion (paywall) oil pipeline that would cut through four US states. Last week, the protests reached unprecedented size.

    Hundreds of environmental activists joined the local community of about 8,000. The BBC reports that the largest gathering of Native Americans in over a century, with over 90 tribes represented, is currently underway in Cannonball, North Dakota.

    The Native tribes and environmentalists say the pipeline would disrupt a sacred burial ground, as well as threaten water quality in the area. They say that the Army Corps of Engineers should never have granted permits for its construction.

    Those that support the pipeline, which would carry crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken Shale formation to Illinois, claim it will be spill-proof, and argue that its construction will generate thousands of jobs.

    Because of the protests, which led to the arrest of the Standing Rock Sioux chairman among others, work has temporarily been halted, and a judge who has heard arguments against the construction is expected to rule by Sept. 9.

    Things turned tense on Sept. 3. Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman reported from the scene, where protesters clashed with security forces, who had dogs and reportedly used pepper spray or mace:

    The image of Native Americans being attacked as they try to protect a land that is sacred to them shocked many, among them the commentator Lawrence O’Donnell on MSNBC whose damning condemnation of their treatment on Aug. 26 has been widely shared:

    “Dakota means friend, friendly,” he begins. “The people who gave that name to the Dakotas have sadly never been treated as friends.”

    In his short, poignant message, O’Donnell calls the events in Standing Rock a “morally embarrassing reminder” of America’s history of mistreatment of Native people, noting that those who lived in the country before European settlers arrived have been “dealt with more harshly than any other enemy in any of this country’s wars.”

    “The original sin of this country is that we invaders shot and murdered our way across the land, killing every Native American we could, and making treaties with the rest,” he says. “This country was founded on genocide.”

    Even after the killings stopped, deals and treaties made with the tribes have been consistently broken. “We piled crime on top of crime on top of crime, against the people whose offense against us was simply that they lived where we wanted to live,” he says.

    He counts the current events at Standing Rock among those crimes. “That we still have Native Americans left in this country to be arrested for trespassing on their own land is testament not to the mercy of the genocidal invaders who seized and occupied their land,” O’Donnell says, “but to the stunning strength and the 500 years of endurance and the undying dignity of the people who were here long before us.”

     

  • SOS holds rally at State House to demand that Governor Bentley and Alabama Legislature expand Medicaid to serve the working poor

    The Save Our Selves (SOS) Movement for Justice and Democracy came again to the steps of the Alabama State House in Montgomery on Wednesday, August 24th. According to State Senator Hank Sanders, more than 100 SOS members came from all over the state and held a mock funeral for as many as 1,700 Alabamians who died over the last three years because the Governor has refused to expand Medicaid.
    The SOS members came to lift the deceased by demanding expansion of the state’s Medicaid program for more than 250,000 residents of our state who fall in the gap between Medicaid coverage for children and the very poor and working people who are ineligible for subsidized medical insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act (ACA).
    This group of people, who need health care the most, are being excluded from a benefit of the ACA because the state of Alabama has refused to extend Medicaid coverage to those whose income is below 138 percent of the poverty level income (approximately $17,000 annual income). Most of these low-income people are working at minimum wage or part time jobs and deserve access to the full benefits of the health care system.

    The State of Alabama has refused to extend Medicaid for three years since 2013 when this national benefit became available. The Federal government agreed to pay 100% of this new Medicaid program for the first three years. The state share beginning in the fourth year of the program would have increased over the next four years to ten per cent of the cost.
    A study in 2013 by medical experts, funded by the Kaiser Family
    Foundation showed that in Alabama – 235,084 more people would have been insured for health care if the State of Alabama had expanded Medicaid. The same study showed, based on a complex review of medical conditions in the state that 215 (at the lowest estimate) and 572 (at the highest estimate) would die because of the lack of medical coverage.
    “This is an average of one person a day, for over three years – more than 1,000 fellow human beings – who have died because the State of Alabama has not extended Medicaid to the working poor in our state!” said Shelley Fearson, a spokesperson for the SOS.
    Another more recent study by the Urban Institute and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation shows that in the 24 states that have not expanded Medicaid, 6.7 million residents are projected to remain uninsured in 2016 as a result. These states are foregoing $423.6 billion in federal Medicaid funds from 2013 to 2022, which will lessen economic activity and job growth.
    Hospitals in these 24 states are also slated to lose a $167.8 billion (31 percent) boost in Medicaid funding that was originally intended to offset major cuts to their Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement. According to this study, for Alabama, this means this means 254,000 people who will not be eligible for Medicaid. The state lost $1.5 billion in Federal revenues for 2016 and $14.5 billion for the ten years (2013-2022).
    The impact on hospitals, especially small rural hospitals, is great. Hospitals in Alabama, lost $700 million in reimbursement revenues in 2016 and $7 billion for the ten year period 2013 –2022. The cost of expanding Medicaid to the working poor in the same study was calculated at $105 million a year for 2016 and a little over a billion for the ten year period (2013-2022).
    These hospitals have no way to replace this revenue and in fact must provide “uncompensated care” in emergency rooms and other facilities to these same people who do not have insurance.
    The decision of the state of Alabama not to expand Medicaid means that poor people in other states are receiving Federal funding for their health needs that also should be coming to Alabama. In addition, the cost of insurance to those who have it is higher in Alabama because the cost to hospitals and medical care providers for uncompensated costs are figured into the payment and premium calculations. Expanding Medicaid would be a net plus to the state in tax revenues, jobs and a healthier workforce.
    “We in SOS and our affiliate organizations, support the efforts of the Governor and Legislature to meet the immediate $85 million gap in the Medicaid budget. We implore you to consider closing the health care gap that leaves a quarter of a million of our fellow residents without care. Based on the studies cited above, if the Governor had extended Medicaid in 2013 or agrees to extend it now, the state would benefit economically and avoid the current health crisis that results in at least one unnecessary and untimely death of a fellow Alabamian, ever single day!” said Sanders on behalf of SOS.
    For more information, contact: Shelley Fearson, at 334.262.0932 and alabamanewsouth@aol.com or Senator Hank Sanders at hank23sanders@gmail.com.

     

  • Escapee from Greene County jail captured in Boligee

    eric washingtonGreene County inmate Eric Washington was captured shortly after 1:00 p.m. Monday, Aug. 22, in Boligee. Washington, who escaped Tuesday, Aug. 16 from the Greene County jail, and was armed, was taken into custody without incident. Authorities say they were acting on a tip when they found Washington in a railroad car in Boligee on Monday afternoon.
    Lt. Jeremy Rancher, of the Greene County Sheriff’s Department, said after getting the tip, Greene County officials called the Alabama Department of Corrections (ADOC), who sent tracking dogs from Bibb County to the area. Those tracking dogs and officers searching from helicopters spotted Washington.
    Officials say Washington was armed with a hand gun but was captured without incident. Greene County Sheriff Joe Benison thanked multiple West Alabama and state law enforcement agencies for their help. Benison noted that capturing Washington was a collective effort with the Alabama Law Enforcement Agency’s (ALEA) State Bureau of Investigation (SBI), the Greene County Sheriff’s Department, as well as ALEA’s Aviation Unit, the U.S. Marshals, the 17th Judicial Task Force, the Department of Corrections K-9 tracking team and local law enforcement agencies from neighboring jurisdictions.
    According to court records, Washington was charged in a shooting that injured a Greene County deputy last year. The deputy involved was injured by glass when Washington shot at his vehicle.
    Benison confirmed that Washington was sentenced just last week in that case to 30 years in state prison. He added that Washington was days away from being transferred to a state prison. Authorities have not commented yet on any new charges Washington may face.