The man who sleeps under the bridge enjoys a certain freedom. The stag in the forest is also free. The first is free to starve and to die of exposure, the second to become a trophy on the hunter’s wall. The man with a family has lost the freedom of a bachelor who, in his single state, is free to suffer loneliness and perhaps a life without direction.
The worker has sold his freedom to his dead employer, the corporation that was never alive, but he can buy frozen dinners, a TV set and mortgage his future wages for his new SUV and a tract house that will own him. He is free to leave his employment and seek a more fulfilling job, but the new job will likely be as stifling as the old. The worker is free to vote for anyone he chooses. But his choices were sold out to the dead before he entered the voting booth.
Fathers and mothers are free to scrimp, sacrifice and save in order to send their children to college. Once qualified, the children will be sold to another dead corporate master in another city where their choices are substantially the same. None of us, not the homeless, the stag, the well employed, the mothers and fathers, the CEOs of the dead who are only the overseers of slaves—none of us are free.
The good news comes when we recognize our state as slaves. For recognition of that truth will permit us to take the first steps toward our personal freedom. Be patient with me. We cannot find our way out of the jungle until we recognize we are lost. There are many ways out. We shall find them together.
Gerry Spence's Blog 
FIRST BLACK AMERICANS & NOW THE LATINO AMERICANS !
The most devious and deceptive way to keep certain groups of American citizens falsely imprisoned is to simply deny them proper federal appeal legal counsel ! Black Americans had to deal with this exact injustice over 100 years ago all through our Southern states.
Poor prison inmates with little education being forced to submit their own federal appeal legal cases has turned out to become the longest running injustice in the American judicial system! Quietly falsely incarcerating 100,000 poorer innocent prison inmates nationwide can only be done with the US media’s cooperation !
lawyersforpooramericans@yahoo.com
US CONGRESSIONAL GED LAWYERS THAT NEVER LEAVE AMERICAN PRISONS !
It appears that the US Supreme Court way back in 1984 knew the injustice of our federal appeal retrial review process really only being available for affluent Americans to get benefit from.
The masses of poor and mostly uneducated prison inmates who are being forced to write their own federal appeal legal cases, are being denied new trials by the federal courts in mass all across this country everyday.
Some believe this injustice stems way back in our history to the Civil War era when the US Southern States were railroading blacks into prolonged prison sentences and knowing all along that the Federal Courts would never grant these poor black prison inmates new trials because they never could properly write their own federal appeal legal cases.
The real horror here is that this form of injustice is even in 2008 assisting in the prolonged false incarceration of over 100,000 innocent mostly uneducated American prison inmates nation-wide.
We all know the federal appeal retrial process was designed for all Americans as a fail safe device that every American should be entitled to utilize, but it is quite obvious that our government has allowed this appeal process to slip into a completely new facade in which it has become an exclusive opportunity for only rich Americans to be able to properly benefit from.
A MUST READ OF AMERICAN INJUSTICE:
Yahoo and Google;
MANNY GONZALES THE KID THAT EVERYONE FORGOT IN THE CA PRISON SYSTEM FOR A JUDICIAL RIDE OF ONES LIFE !
lawyersforpooramericans@yahoo.com
INNOCENT AMERICANS ARE DENIED REAL HC RIGHTS WITH THEIR FEDERAL
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE $LOWLY FINDING OUT HOW EA$Y IT I$ FOR MIDDLE CLA$$ AND WORKING POOR AMERICAN$ TO FALL VICTIM TO OUR U$ MONETARY JUDICIAL $Y$TEM.
****WHEN THE US INNOCENT WERE ABANDONED BY THE GUILTY ****
The prison experts have reported that there are 100,000 innocent Americans currently being falsely imprisoned along with the 2,300,000 total US prison population nationwide.
Since our US Congress has never afforded poor prison inmates federal appeal legal counsel for their federal retrials,they have effectively closed the doors on these tens of thousands of innocent citizens ever being capable of possibly exonerating themselves to regain their freedom through being granted new retrials.
This same exact unjust situation was happening in our Southern States when poor and mostly uneducated Black Americans were being falsely imprisoned for endless decades without the needed educational skills to properly submit their own written federal trial appeals.
This unjust judicial process of making our poor and innocent prison inmates formulate and write their own federal appeal legal cases for possible retrials on their state criminal cases,is still in effect today even though everyone in our US judicial system knows that without proper legal representation, these tens of thousands of innocent prison inmates will be denied their rightful opportunities of ever being granted new trials from our federal appeal judges!!
Sadly, the true US *legal* Federal Appeal situation that occurs when any of our uneducated American prison inmates are forced to attempt to submit their own written Federal Appeals (from our prisons nationwide) without the assistance of proper legal counsel, is that they all are in reality being denied their legitimate rights for Habeas Corpus and will win any future Supreme Court Case concerning this injustice!
For our judicial system and our US Congressional Leaders Of The Free World to continue to pretend that this is a real and fair opportunity for our American Middle Class and Working Poor Citizens, only delays the very needed future change of Federal Financing of all these Federal appeals becoming a normal formula of Our American judicial system.
It was not so very long ago that Public Defenders became a Reality in this country.Prior that legal reality taking place, their were also some who thought giving anyone charged with a crime a free lawyer was a waste of taxpayers $$.
This facade of our Federal Appeal proce$$ is not worthy of the Greatest Country In The World!
A MUST READ OF AMERICANS INJUSTICE;
YAHOO AND GOOGLE
MANNY GONZALES THE KID THAT EVERYONE FORGOT IN THE CA PRISON SYSTEM FOR A JUDICIAL RIDE OF ONES LIFE !
***GREAT SOCIETIES THAT DO NOT PROTECT EVEN THEIR INNOCENT, BECOME THE GUILTY!
lawyersforpooramericans@yahoo.co
The worker … is free to leave his employment and seek a more fulfilling job, but the new job will likely be as stifling as the old.
Which is why I say learn a trade. Local wages for electricians have gone up 33% in the last year. I paid my way through college working at my trade and left with a degree and no debt. It beats the soul sucking jobs with no security most work at.
I think that there is a simple answer to this!
There is hope for us all.
We all, have the potential to leave footprints.
Joseph Campbell said: “Follow your bliss”…
How many get up in the AM and think (uhugh, They gotta go to work, to a job that they really don’t love)! The writings of Joseph Campbell and Clarissa Estés echo myths, history, and the a human need to fully live one’s life. What is following your bliss? Even if we don’t this bliss, or don’t know what it is…, we do understand it when we meet it. We are all destined to what we must do, and what we must do is to be true to our inner soul. Each of us, we are circled by a very strong wind. When we are not doing what we are supposed to be doing, we are caught in the wind, fighting with those winds, every minute of our day, we are off balance, not getting anything done, and with what we do, because of the distraction of the wind, we don’t ever do it well. When we are doing exactly what we should be doing, there is no wind to fight, we are in the center, at a calm place, we are balanced. We are able, with each breath we take, with less effort to excel beyond others, like that long distance runner in a trance, everything happening as it should. There is no 40 hour work week anymore because 40 hours is not enough time of our waking day to get done, what we really love doing! It could be for no real money this true life path that we take, as our bliss or passion, is often shared with others who share the same interests. Our reward could be simply their respect. Money comes because the quality of our work comes naturally, we are not fighting the winds, we are able to reach heights not imagined by those still fighting the winds. Our peers understand when they meet us and view the fruits of our energy…, they instantly understand that we are running free and making our own wind. There is an aura, the quality of our labor reflects back in the knowledge and love of what is no longer just work. We meet people doing great things every day, and those who naturally do what they do best, they all have an aura about both themselves and their work. We know them instantly by the evidence, as they are the ones who leave those footprints that last throughout all of time.
I agree.
After fifty-five years as a trial lawyer in the American justice system I generalize by saying that Liberty and Justice is not available for the poor, but it is also not available for the average citizen. The idea of justice in America is an ideal, not a reality. It is a cruel myth.
The public defender system is too often broken and provides only the second wheel to the bicycle that transports victims, many innocent, to the penitentiaries. The other wheel, of course, is the prosecution. Without that second wheel as it operates in many broken public defender systems (and public defenders are the true heroes of our judicial system) the accused could never be convicted.
I am seeing public defenders with hundreds of cases, with no time to prepare, and little if any of the resources necessary to launch an effective defense. This is more often the rule than the exception. The horror stories in this regard abound.
Per capita we house more people in penitentiaries than in any other country in the world including China. We have more black men confined in penitentiaries than attend our universities. This in America,the land of the free!
My answer beginning with, “I agree.” was in response to Douglas Field. If I were learning to drive a car I would be running up on the curb.
“We have more black men confined in penitentiaries than attend our universities.”
Myth? Maybe…
http://blog.washingtonpost.com/fact-checker/2007/10/young_black_males_headed_for_e_1.html
But close enough?
http://www.cnn.com/2007/US/09/27/census.prisons.ap/index.html
In any case a sad state of affairs…
NilsR
Well, Gerry, to quote the Beatles, “baby you can drive my car…”
what is that “trickle down” phrase? We now have prosecutor’s with robes, who sign warrants to search lawyer’s offices for evidence. I don’t know where the chain begins, but the money controls. Our branches of Government aren’t separate and independent at all. The people have been told, using fear, to believe what it takes to be a good judge. “They” have a good team. As you have said,…”they come into our homes…”and tell us what is right and wrong. What makes a good team? A bunch of individuals?
OUR US CONGRESS IS HOLDING 100,000 INNOCENT AMERICAN PRISON INMATES HOSTAGE !!!
NO $$ NO JUSTICE
NO LOBBY, NO US SENATE ASSISTANCE !
NO $$ NO LOBBY == 100,000 INNOCENT AMERICANS FALSELY IMPRISONED IN US.
TENS OF THOUSANDS OF INNOCENT POORER AMERICAN PRISON INMATES NEED INTERNATIONAL ASSISTANCE FOR LEGAL FEES IN HELPING THEM ATTEMPT TO EXONERATE THEMSELVES FROM OUR US PENAL COLONIES!
Most Americans are well aware that there are plenty of innocent poorer US citizens in our prison systems nationwide,but very few of us have ever heard about our US Congressional representatives who are mostly lawyers themselves, denying our Middle Class and Working Poor Americans proper legal counsel for their federal appeals. When any poorer American is charged with a Federal crime all legal costs and appeals are paid for,but when one is charged in the various 50 states and run out of higher court state appeal opportunities and need to appeal to the Federal courts,it appears that these poorer and mostly uneducated prison inmates are left to their own best lawyering skills to attempt to write a federal appeal that could sway a US Federal judge to grant them a new retrial.
Our US Congressional Representatives sleep soundly every night knowing there are reported to be an estimated 100,000 innocent Americans (some residing for decades even on death row) in our US Prisons who have been denied proper legal counsel to help them attempt to exonerate themselves with their Federal Appeals?
lawyersforpooramericans@yahoo.com
GIVE THEM LIBERTY OR GIVE THEM LAWYERS !!!
WHICH AMERICANS ARE INTERESTED IN PROTECTING OUR INNOCENT US PRISON INMATES RIGHT TO BEING AFFORDED PROPER LEGAL REPRESENTATION ???
TAX CUT$ , EARMARK$, TRILLION $$ WAR & BILLIONS IN FOREIGN AID, AND WERE TOLD THERE IS NO $$ FOR LAWYERS TO PROPERLY REPRESENT OUR MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING POOR AMERICANS ? ?
We have all been made publicly aware that Americas 100,000 innocent and falsely imprisoned American inmates nationwide,have no real assistance or protections afforded them by our US Congress concerning their federal retrial appeals!
How in the world can affluent guilty American defendants with proper federal appeal legal counsel,have the greater advantage of receiving new retrials being granted them from our US Federal Judges,then the tens of thousands of innocent poor American prison inmates who are being forced to represent their own federal appeal legal cases from prison??
Innocent but poor prison inmates who are being denied new federal appeal retrials in mass all across our nation,have never had anyone in America interested in focusing on their horror of being falsely imprisoned for decades in the wealthiest nation in the world. Without proper legal assistance being afforded these innocent prison inmates,they will never really ever be capable of exonerating themselves through the federal appeal judicial process!
We ask every caring and loving American to just attempt to put yourself into this same exact situation for just one minute in your mind. Being falsely imprisoned in an American prison for 25 or 30 years without the US Congress affording you proper legal counsel to ever have the slightest opportunity to possibly exonerate yourself using the federal appeal process.
Lawyers for poor Americans has just recently begun our national educational plea for the hearts and souls of the American people concerning this injustice,and our mission of exposing this injustice and freeing all of our innocent fellow Americans from our national prisons, will not stop until our US Congress legislates the needed and proper funding to bring our innocent and missing American prison inmates back home !!!
A MUST READ OF AMERICAN INJUSTICE:
1) Yahoo & 2) GOOGLE
MANNY GONZALES THE KID THAT EVERYONE FORGOT IN THE CA PRISON SYSTEM FOR A JUDICIAL RIDE OF ONES LEFE !
lawyersforpooramericans@yahoo.com
ENEMY COMBATANTS ARE GIVEN FEDERAL APPEAL HC RIGHTS LAWYERS,AND POORER AMERICANS ARE ROTTING IN US PRISONS NATIONWIDE WAITING FOR THEIR PROPER FEDERAL APPEAL LEGAL REPRESENTATION ????????
**** INNOCENT AMERICANS ARE DENIED REAL HC RIGHTS WITH THEIR FEDERAL APPEALS !
THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE $LOWLY FINDING OUT HOW EA$Y IT I$ FOR MIDDLE CLA$$ AND WORKING POOR AMERICAN$ TO FALL VICTIM TO OUR U$ MONETARY JUDICIAL $Y$TEM.
****WHEN THE US INNOCENT WERE ABANDONED BY THE GUILTY ****
The prison experts have reported that there are 100,000 innocent Americans currently being falsely imprisoned along with the 2,300,000 total US prison population nationwide.
Since our US Congress has never afforded poor prison inmates federal appeal legal counsel for their federal retrials,they have effectively closed the doors on these tens of thousands of innocent citizens ever being capable of possibly exonerating themselves to regain their freedom through being granted new retrials.
This same exact unjust situation was happening in our Southern States when poor and mostly uneducated Black Americans were being falsely imprisoned for endless decades without the needed educational skills to properly submit their own written federal trial appeals.
This devious and deceptive judicial process of making our poor and innocent prison inmates formulate and write their own federal appeal legal cases for possible retrials on their state criminal cases,is still in effect today even though everyone in our US judicial system knows that without proper legal representation, these tens of thousands of innocent prison inmates will be denied their rightful opportunities of ever being granted new trials from our federal appeal judges!!
Sadly, the true US *legal* Federal Appeal situation that occurs when any of our uneducated American prison inmates are forced to attempt to submit their own written Federal Appeals (from our prisons nationwide) without the assistance of proper legal counsel, is that they all are in reality being denied their legitimate rights for Habeas Corpus and will win any future Supreme Court Case concerning this injustice!
For our judicial system and our US Congressional Leaders Of The Free World to continue to pretend that this is a real and fair opportunity for our American Middle Class and Working Poor Citizens, only delays the very needed future change of Federal Financing of all these Federal appeals becoming a normal formula of Our American judicial system.
It was not so very long ago that Public Defenders became a Reality in this country.Prior that legal reality taking place, their were also some who thought giving anyone charged with a crime a free lawyer was a waste of taxpayers $$.
This facade of our Federal Appeal proce$$ is not worthy of the Greatest Country In The World!
***GREAT SOCIETIES THAT DO NOT PROTECT EVEN THEIR INNOCENT, BECOME THE GUILTY!
A MUST READ ABOUT AMERICAN INJUSTICE::
1) YAHOO AND 2) GOOGLE
MANNY GONZALES THE KID THAT EVERYONE FORGOT IN THE CA PRISON SYSTEM.
** A JUDICIAL RIDE OF ONES LIFE !
lawyersforpooramericans@yahoo.com
FIRST THE BLACK AMERICANS, AND NOW THE LATINO AMERICANS !
THE MOST DEVIOUS AND DECEPTIVE MEANS TO KEEP CERTAIN GROUPS OF AMERICANS IN US PRISONS, IS TO NOT OFFER THEM LEGITIMATE HC RIGHTS TO OUR US FEDERAL COURTS !
THIS LEAGL FACADE OF THE MANNY GONZALES CASE ONLY POINTS OUT JUST ONE PERFECT EXAMPLE OF WHY ALL MIDDLE CLASS AND WORKING POOR AMERICANS DESERVE EQUAL AND JUST OPPORTUNITIES WITH PROPER LEGAL COUNSEL TO OUR FEDERAL COURT OF APPEALS.
FOR OUR US CONGRESS TO CONTINUE TO DENY LEGITIMATE HC RIGHTS TO OUR FEDERAL COURTS FOR POORER AMERICANS AND OUR US SUPREME COURT AWARD ENEMY COMBATANTS FEDERAL APPEAL LAWYERS AND THEIR RIGHTS TO HC IN OUR US FEDERAL COURTS,MAKES A PICTURE PERFECT MOVIE SCRIPT ( OF AMERICAN INJUSTICE ) FOR MICHAEL MOORE OR SPIKE LEE TO PURSUE !!!
**What we have here in this Manny Gonzales criminal case is a jury,judge and DA taking care of their communities safety from gangs in a typical vigilante hang them high process.The presiding judge tells both attorneys(defense and prosecutor)prior the trial that this specific case is not gang related and advises the DA to instruct their witnesses not to mention or insinuate gang association information to the jury.
** At this point in this trial the presiding judge is aware of and and protective of the defendants rights to a fair trial,knowing darn well that if a LA jury is lead to believe (rightly or wrongly)that a defendant is affiliated with a gang that a fair trial is almost impossible. What happens next when this DA decides to use gang association (over the presiding judges orders and objections)on this jury is really quite devious.LA judges are allowing these type of unjust trials to continue knowing these defendants can appeal for a new trial from prison after they lose their jury trials.
** Local DA’s know this local judicial system will not dismiss a jury due to DA’s using gang association with defendants and they have a free hand to play their jury to the max.This play acting between the presiding judge pretending to protect the defendants right to a fair trial and the devious DA who wants to protect our society by taking justice into their own hands,is a little what Manny Gonzales and his public defender had to deal with.
** Any judge that allows a rogue DA to disobey their specific orders on misleading their jury into believing the defendant is either a gang member or the specific crime is gang related should have the common sense and decency to dismiss the jury and call for a new trial.
** This kid Manny Gonzales tried as an adult needed this judge not just to set the guidelines in the beginning of the trial with this rogue DA, but also to continue to protect the defendant with his right to a fair trial throughout the entire trial. When this presiding judge allowed this trial to continue, the jury believed both the DA and the judge that Manny Gonzales was a gang member and this specific shooting incident was not related to his affiliation with gang activity. Every night during this two week trial this jury went home and had the opportunity to watch gang violence reported on the nightly news.How could anyone think that Manny Gonzales and his public defender in tow could defeat a presiding judge,rogue DA and a inflamed jury with nightly exposure to gang TV violence?
*** If anyone deserves a call for GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME A NEW TRIAL Manny Gonzales Does !!
YAHOO & GOOGLE MANNY GONZALES THE KID THAT EVERYONE FORGOT IN THE CA PRISON SYSTEM ! IT IS A JUDICIAL RIDE OF ONES LIFE !
lawyersforpooramericans@yahoo.com
WILL OUR DEMOCRATIC US CONGRESS INVESTIGATE AND CHANGE THESE JUDICIAL INJUSTICES BEING INFLICTED ON POORER AMERICAN’S ??
THIS IS ONLY THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG OF OUR UNDERFUNDED JUDICIAL SYSTEM THAT NEEDS…C*H*A*N*G*E…….
**** GOD’S HAND IS INVOLVED IN THIS ONE ****WHEN THIS HORROR IS PROVEN TO BE A TRUE EVENT AFFECTING THE POSSIBLE ENSLAVEMENT OF 2,500 POORER AMERICAN’S, THEN ALL OF AMERICA WILL BE AWARE THAT THIS SAME EXACT TREATMENT OF OUR POORER CITIZENS NEEDS A FORMAL US CONGRESSIONAL AND JUSTICE DEPARTMENT INVESTIGATION NATIONWIDE !!!
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Posted on October 31, 2008 by Gideon
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I’m a little late on writing about this story (via several sources), but it sure is a doozy.
You know how it’s common knowlege that most appeals aren’t successful? Well, if you were a pro-se petitioner in Louisiana for the last 13 years, you knew that you wouldn’t win. Why is that? Because the Chief Judge of their Court of Appeals directed his clerk to summarily deny all appeals from pro-se petitioners without circulating the appeal to other judges.
The clerk, ridden with guilt, committed suicide earlier this year and left a note confessing everything.
This immoral and apparently illegal policy was in place until Jerrold Peterson, the staffer charged with implementing it, blew his brains out in May of last year. Peterson was driven to it in part, his suicide note suggested, by guilt over the nefarious tasks the judges made him perform.
In his note Peterson explained how the court gave indigent appellants the bum’s rush.
Although every criminal writ application is supposed to be reviewed by three judges, he was deputed to winnow out any that had been filed pro se and arrange for their automatic rejection.
Thus were an estimated 2,500 appeals deep-sixed without any judicial consideration whatsoever.
Now, facing public embarassment and possible ethical violations, the Louisiana Supreme Court has stepped in and asked…get this…the same appellate court to look at the appeals again. Note that they did not ask the Court to conduct an investigation into this practice, but simply to consider those appeals that were so summarily denied.
Because, if we placate the defendants with another cursory look at their appeals, we can sweep the ethical violations under the carpet.
At first this whole thing seemed rather odd to me. After all, how is this even possible? Here’s how:
Edward Dufresne, Chief Judge of the Fifth Circuit, took charge of pro se appeals in 1994. He then had Peterson prepare rulings denying writs for all of them and signed off “without so much as a glance,” according to the suicide note. “No judge ever saw the writ application before the ruling was prepared by me,” Peterson wrote in a second suicide note to the Judiciary Commission.
The rulings also bore the names, though not the signatures, of judges Marion Edwards and Wally Rothschild. Neither Edwards nor Rothschild had any clue as to what was in the applications, or even knew that they had been filed, according to Peterson.
So you’ve got one complicit judge and maybe three. But there are 5 more on that court. What of them? Are we to really believe that these 5 (or 7) other judges never once questioned the stark absence of pro-se appeals? Particularly in Louisiana, whose system has the following characteristics:
* About 90 percent of criminal defendants in Louisiana are indigent.
* Louisiana only provides post-conviction legal aid in death penalty cases. Everyone else must either hire a lawyer, find a lawyer to handle their case pro bono, or handle the appeal themselves. Obviously, most have no choice but to opt for the latter.
* One criminal defense lawyer in Louisiana told me that if you’re convicted of murder in Louisiana and you’re innocent, you’re actually better off getting the death penalty. At least then you’ll get a team of lawyers, investigators, and experts to help with your appeal.
This from a state whose criminal justice system was already crumbling. It’s hard to believe that people such as Judge Dufresne take an oath to uphold the law and to prove equal protection under it. Disbarment may be enough, but only barely.
Justice delayed is no justice at all.
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THE SMOKING GUN LINK TO AMERICA’S JUDICIAL INJUSTICES BEING INFLICTED ON POORER AMERICAN’S !
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