Is Summary Justice OK with White People?

I don't think most people with white skin on juries are making police brutality/atrocity decisions based on the evidence presented at trial. White people believe that the police are there to protect them (white people), so white people ignore the facts and make public poliicy decisions to support police regardless of the evidence presented at trial.

This is why it is so important for prosecutors to select an all-white jury, such as the one that tried Esteban Carpio (even though Providence, Rhode Island is over 50% Black and Latino). By getting an all-white jury AND favorable evidentiary decisions from the judge, prosecutors are more like (practically guaranteed) to get a conviction, regardless of the atrocities that police are shown to have committed during the arrest and questioning.

Of course many or most white people will disagree with what I've said here, but they'll also agree that if police beat or electrically shocked an arrestee, then the arrestee "probably got what he deserved". And white juries are unwilling to convict or punish police for their behavior when they believe that the defendant/victim "probably got what he deserved."

What this means is that many or most white people are willing to accept and support summary justice and pre-trial extrajudicial punishment of prisoners as well as a type of informal double jeopardy, in which arrestees for punished once by police at the time of arrest then a second time by the judge after a conviction.

When "justice" works this way, I'm not sure what distinguishes the United States from many other countries. I personally believe that the right to be tried by a jury or judge before punishment is meted out is a more fundamental and important right than the right to bear firearms. Most white people would strongly disagree with me, at least when it is most important -- when making a decision as a member of a jury, but also when delineating the role of police officers in society.

Most white people would insist that there is a significant difference between the police and the Klu Klux Klan, because police are part of the formal, legal criminal justice system. But when police regularly act summarily, as an angry lawless white-hooded mob would, and with impunity, then the difference between the police and klansmen is one of degree, but not one of substance.

Police taser unarmed, legless black man in a wheelchair

It pretty much got the whole apartment complex in an uproar,
because they we're tasing a man in a wheelchair
and there was no reason for it.
-- A witness speaking on video with reporters.

Electrocuted While Black

Tracking and reporting on pre-trial, extra-judicial death penalty, because it's 21st century lynching, by another name.

Monday, September 21, 2009

Police taser unarmed, legless black man in a wheelchair

Black man said he was humiliated after his pants fell down during the incident. The officers allegedly left him outdoors in broad daylight, handcuffed on the pavement, nude below the waist. Williams said the Sept. 11 arrest also left him with an injured shoulder, limiting his mobility in his wheelchair.

A handful of residents in Williams' apartment complex said they witnessed the incident and supported Williams' charges. A short video clip, shot by a neighbor and obtained by the Sun-Star, shows Williams sitting on the pavement with his pants down, his hands cuffed behind his back.

Hat Tip to Tasered While Black.

http://taseredwhileblack.blogspot.com/2009/09/police-taser-unarmed-legless-black-man.html

Minneapolis Applies Gag Rule to Police Misconduct Findings, Unless Police Department Agrees and Punishes Officer Involved

Reprinted Verbatim from
Minneapolis/St. Paul City Pages

Independent criticism of MPD kept silent, unless MPD agrees

By Erin Carlyle in Police

Wednesday, Sep. 16 2009 @ 11:11AM

​
An opinion by an Assistant City Attorney two years ago made it illegal to tell the public when an information independent review board found MPD officers had engaged in misconduct, according to a story in the University of Minnesota's student newspaper.

The information can only be released if an officer is disciplined by the department, explained Lee Reid, manager of the Minneapolis Civilian Police Review Authority board. That does not often happen, according to the story. Police have alleged in the past that this is because the independent board's decisions are often not well-founded.

Two years ago, the Minneapolis Civilian Police Review Authority, an independent body charged with investigating citizen complaints of police misconduct, held a meeting. Here's what happened, according to Andrew Mannix of MN Daily:

About halfway through, then-Assistant City Attorney Lisa Needham explained the contents of an inter-office memo she sent out earlier that day: Her office had reinterpreted state data laws. As of that day the Authority could no longer release to the public that they sustained a complaint, meaning they sent it off to the police chief with a recommendation for discipline.

Some Authority members protested the ruling, alleging that it was made under pressure from the Minneapolis Police Federation.

Current and former members say the inability to release this information to the public severely cripples the Authority's ability to perform effective civilian oversight of Minneapolis police.

Twenty-one months after the meeting , a community watchdog group led by a University of Minnesota employee sued the city for violating state data laws . A Hennepin County judge ruled on the case earlier this month, siding mostly with the city, and an appeal is in the works.

Last year, a citizen group filed a lawsuit over the ruling, but the judge agreed with the city attorney. The case has been appealed.

A Death by Police Electrocution Ruled Homicide In Texas

By Eddie G.Griffin, BASG

Wednesday, May 06, 2009

On May 4, 2009, the Fort Worth chapters of the Southern Leadership Conference (SCLC), the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), and the community-based Carver Heights East Association, convened a joint press conference and prayer vigil outside City Hall for the families of Michael Jacobs, Jr., Noah Lopez, and Carolyn Daniels.

These families were interviewed by WFAA New 8 TV. (See Prayers for end to Taser use by police, reference http://www.wfaa.com/video/index.html?nvid=358374&shu=1)

Friday, August 28, 2009

World Renowned Medical Examiner Ruled Taser Death: Homicide

UPDATE: The Michael Jacobs Case

Friday, August 28, 2009

The Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports reads: “Fort Worth Taser Death Ruled Homicide”.

FORT WORTH — The Tarrant County medical examiner ruled Thursday that the death of a mentally ill man in April who was shocked twice by a Taser stun gun wielded by a Fort Worth police officer was a homicide.

It was the fourth time that a person shocked by a Taser has died in Fort Worth police custody since the department started using the devices in 2001, according to the Police Department.

But the death of Michael Patrick Jacobs Jr., 24, is the first that Medical Examiner Nizam Peerwani has ruled to be a homicide.

Read more of this article by Eddie Griffin (BASG) at
http://eddiegriffinbasg.blogspot.com/2009/05/taser-fight-in-fort-worth.html

2008 Crime Statistics Reported

Even without having looked at them, I suspect 2008 crime statistics will show an increase in "hate" (envy, low self-esteem, jealousy, fear, auto-homophobia, self-loathing and self-hate) crimes.

By Packratt, Injustice Everywhere blog, on September 15th, 2009

The US DOJ and FBI released their Unified Crime Reporting “Crime in the United States” 2008 statistics on Monday so it seems like I have to update the comparison data I use to determine how US general population crime rates stack up against law enforcement crime rates as determined by our NPMSRP.

Look here at the FBI Hate Crime Statistics. Take a look at the "hate" (envy, low self-esteem, jealousy, fear, auto-homophobia, self-loathing and self-hate, color , gender, religion and sexual orientation-aroused) crime statistics and tell me if my hunch is correct.

Some Police Behavior Goes Beyond "Brutality" and Is Also "Atrocity"

Let's add a new word and phrase to our police abuse-related vocabulary: "police atrocity." Compare the Merriams' definition of "atrocity" (below) to the definition of "brutality" (also below) to confirm that an "atrocity" is much worse than mere brutality. In addition, the word "atrocity" describes the emotional feelings of disgust and revulsion that we experience in response to "atrocious" police behavior.

According to Merriams, an "atrocity" is

1 : extremely wicked, brutal, or cruel : barbaric
2 : appalling, horrifying atrocious weapons of modern war>
3 a : utterly revolting : abominable <atrocious working conditions> b : of very poor quality <atrocious handwriting>

Compare that to mere brutality:

2 : befitting a brute: as a : grossly ruthless or unfeeling brutal slander> b : cruel, cold-blooded brutal attack> c : harsh, severe<brutal weather> d : unpleasantly accurate and incisive brutal truth> e : very bad or unpleasant brutal mistake>

It seems to me that some acts go far beyond merely brutal and are "atrocious." Such as shooting a woman who is holding a baby in her arms, and flipping an 84 year-old woman so that she falls on her head and begins to bleed. These acts are not merely brutal, which is a description of the act itself, but these acts go beyond brutal to also being atrocious, because WE find them to be "appalling, horrifying", "wicked . . . barbaric", "utterly revolting" and "abominable."

Consider the case of Esteban Carpio. Turning his face to hamburger by repeatedly punching him in the face was brutal, but then bringing him to court like that for him family, with his face covered by a white Batman mask whose only purpose was the evidence which nonetheless made people in the court sick was an atrocity that no one will forget with respect to the Providence Police Department.

If the police behavior you are describing is merely brutal, in your intellectual opinion, but does not make you FEEL revolted when you hear about it, then stick with the word "brutal" and call it "police brutality."

However, if you are appalled and horrified by a police act and you find it utterly revolting, then step up the rhetoric and call the act what it is: a police atrocity.

I guarantee you that when we start using the word "atrocity," the media will notice, because an "atrocity" is on a whole different order of barbarism and revulsion than mere brutality.

Much of what police do to Black people goes beyond brutal and can only be described as an atrocious. Let's not oversuse the word atrocity, but let's use it when police behavior goes beyond their normal brutality and reaches into the realm of appalling, revolting and horrifying barbarism.

Remember (Francis): atrocity only has one "t".

Francis

Questionable Superior Court Evidentiary Decisions in the Esteban Carpio Case

I feel more convinced than ever that Esteban Carpio did not receive a fair trial, which is a different question than whether he committed the acts of which he was charged.

First of all, Esteban Carpio' face and forehead were deform beyond recognition at the time when he was questioned at the hospital. The Providence Superior Court decision on the voluntariness of Esteban Carpio statements to police essentially acknowledges that this was so, noting that Carpio's skull was fractured when he arrived at the hospital and a neck brace was applied to stabilize his vertebrae. Nonetheless, the decision also reports that a police official loosened the neck brace, disregarding medical personnel's opinion that the brace was recommended, so that Carpio could sit up and talk. During whatever may have been said, it was two or three in the morning and a police official was saying to Carpio over and over again, "Stay with me." It seems obvious to me that someone in Carpio's condition could not voluntarily agree to speak without a lawyer, even while recovering from a skull fracture from the day before.

More importantly, the Superior Court denied a defense motion to enter into evidence medical records from mental health clinics and hospitals, deciding instead that:

Finally, at the conclusion of the suppression hearing, counsel for the Defendant moved to admit the Defendant’s prior medical records from the Faulkner Hospital and the Providence Center for the Court’s consideration. The Court accepted them de bene in order to determine
admissibility. They are irrelevant and immaterial. This admission is denied. State v. Lorenzo, supra; State v. Squillante, supra.

How could medical records about psychiatric or psychological treatment be irrelevant to the question of knowing and voluntary waiver of the right to remain silent? Before Esteban Carpio's trial began, the Superior Court judge excluded evidence which would almost certainly have demonstrated that Esteban Carpio sought mental health treatment before the acts of which he was accused.

It certainly would be difficult for the defense to prove that the defendant had a mental defect which would vitiatate his ability to voluntarily speak without an attorney present after the Court excluded evidence of his contacts with mental health personnel and the determinations that those personnel had made.

Apparently, during questioning the defendant made repeated comments to the police which a reasonable jury member could have taken as evidence that the defendant had a mental impairment that should have be considered when determining the voluntariness and capacity of the defendant at the time. The Court gives this evidence short shrift:

The tone of the interview is peppered with this type of amicable repartee between Sergeant Mansolillo and the accused. If the Defendant is attempting to convince the Court that his “Devil comments” to Sergeant Mansolillo should induce it to accept that at the time he was
somehow mentally deficient or unable to grasp the reality of his situation, the tone of the interview belies that assertion. The test, of course, is that the Court must find that alleged mental impairment caused Defendant’s will to be overborne. U.S. v. Casals, 915 F.2d 1225 (8th Cir.) Additionally, except for the “Devil” comment, no evidence was submitted by the Defendant in support. The Defendant cannot argue, and does not argue, coercive conduct on the part of the officers because the statement of April 17, 2005 is clearly barren of any such conduct.
Sergeant Mansolillo and Detective Finegan are two highly experienced officers. Their conduct was professional without any hint that they were rude, abrasive or unduly forceful. As this Court sees it, they treated the Defendant with deference and on occasion kindness. Considering the
totality of circumstances of the event, the motion to suppress the April 17, 2005 statement is denied.

Considering the evidence that Esteban Carpio had mental health issues that might have included schizophrenia and psychosis (with his belief that the devil was talking to him and engaging in conversation with him and others), I believe the Court erred in obstructing proffered evidence of such a defect from affecting the decision on the volitional nature of his statements as well as the mental health related information that would reach the jury.

In addition, there was some clear "testilying" by police in this case. The Superior court recounted:

The Defendant was arrested in a struggle with certain Providence police officers in the area of Washington and Matthewson Streets. Because of his resistance to being handcuffed, some blows were obviously struck by some officers but whatever they were; there is no evidence that the Defendant suffered any incapacitation at that time. The police, in particular Detective Sergeant Sweeney, was concerned about possible abuse and immediately ordered “no unnecessary force to be used here. Just get him in handcuffs.” (Supp. 181.) Decision of the Superior Court, p. 6.

Why would it be necessary to remind police not to use illegal force unless they had a known habit or tendency to do so? It simply defies common sense to believe that police chasing down a subject whom they believe to have killed a fellow officer nonetheless have time, concern, and presence of mind to say "no unnecessary force to be used here." Those are clearly words of legal terminology that were sculpted into the conversation after the fact, to help the prosecution and ameliorate the obvious conclusion that Esteban Carpio was beaten half to death, rather than words that a police detective spoke at the scene.

This goes to the reason for an all-white jury. An all-white jury would be more likely and willing to believe that Carpio "got what he deserved", and aslo less willing to consider evidence that Carpio suffered from a mental defect that prevented criminal responsibility.

City Councilman's Daughter Tased in Back While on Her Knees

According to African American Political Pundit's Tasered While Black blog,

Cincinnati police arrested and used a Taser on Celeste Thomas, the daughter of Cincinnati city councilman Cecil Thomas, early Sunday morning.

Her arrest report indicates that Thomas had marks on her upper back from the Taser's barbs.

"It is my understanding that she was on her knees when she was Tased in the back," said Cecil Thomas.

The Pundit's report says that the same officer was removed from the force earlier after it was determined that he used excessive force, but was reinstated a year later, after arbitration.

If your skin is brown and you live in the United States, it doesn't matter that your father is an elected city councilor, representing your community as a member of local government. When police pull your car over in the dark, your just another "N" word to them.


And Lord forbid a Black person should ask a police officer, "What's going on?" Remember, you're Black. You don't have any right to know what's going on with the person with whom you were riding in your car moments earlier. If you ask, "What's going on?" you are effectively saying that there is at least the hypothetical possibility that police are mistreating another Black person. Since, in the minds of police, all Blacks are to be mistreated, they can only understand your question as an act of rebeliousnes - rebelious as a slave who refuses to work for free, under the hot sun.

Do not doubt or question the "hot sun" of the USA's extremely color-aroused police attrocities.

Don't ask police, "What's going on?" If you're Black you have no right to know. Instead, look out of the window of your car (carefully so the police won't know you're observing them), and later read the testilying police report later to find out what the police say was going on.

There are two more immediate alternatives, and those are "self defense" and "defense of another". Remember, you have no right to run over a police officer with your car, unless a jury decides subsequently that you reasonably feared for the life of another and that the force you used was reasonable in light of the circumstances you observed.

You have no right to run out of a watching crowd, kick a police officer in the ass, and run back into the crowd, unless a a jury decides subsequently that you reasonably feared for the physical safety of another and that the force you used was reasonable in light of the circumstances you observed. *

You certainly have no right to discover a police officers home address and then take extra-judicial action there, in the way that police took extra-judicial pretrial action in the case of Esteban Carpio. That would be unlawful, and Lord knows the laws in the United States effectively protect everyone, including the Blacks who unreasonably conclude, based on their experience with police, that "a Black man has no rights which a white man is bound to respect."

And yet, it seems that Esteban Carpio may have taken action against police torture before most of it occurred, rather than afterward.

Blacks in South Africa only began to realize their rights as human beings when they abandoned efforts to orally convince white Afrikkaners, and the African National Congress engaged in an armed struggle for Black rights. They didn't announce that they were armed and ready to struggle, like the Black Panthers did, with public local offices in most major Black US cities.

Instead the African National Congress was a clandestine operation whose armed actions became public knowledge only when they occurred, and not before.

I was upset by members of the Black majority in South Africa who put tires around informants and burned them in public. But, it was part of the armed struggle and obviously Black South Africans knew a lot more about armed struggle than Black people in the United States ever did. Who can gainsay, in retrospect, what was necessary and constructive and what was not?

*Nothing written here is legal advice. You're right to physically defend yourself from police depends upon the statutes and caselaw in your state, as well as whether you are tried before an all-white jury, as Esteban Carpio was, even though the city in which he was tried is half white and half Black and Latino. You should consult a criminal defense lawyer and a public relations specialist in your own state to assess the limits of your right to self-defense and defense of another when you are defending yourself or someone else from police atrocities.

Intense Ongoing Interest in Rhode Island's Infamous Esteban Carpio Case

Why is it considered so important in the United States to try people who are not white before all-white juries, even in cities in which half of the population is non-white? Can justice possibly be fair when it starts with the deck of cards so outrageously stacked on the basis of skin color?

The Police Brutality Blog is the second most-visited blog in the Google universe for people wanting to learn more about Esteban Carpio. Perhaps it is because this blog looks at the case holistically, considering the inexplicable violence of which Esteban Carpio was accused; the color-aroused hammering of his face by police at some point before he went to court, that resulted in broken bones in his face; and the defense's argument that Esteban Carpio behaved like a deranged man because he WAS a deranged man, unable to understand the wrongfulness of his acts and unable to control them.

The Superior Court that tried Esteban Carpio made several questionable evidentiary decisions against Carpio that harmed his ability to defend himself in court.

Watch this video, but be prepared to see before and after photos of Esteban Carpio's viciously beaten face. It leaves me wondering whether Esteban Carpio jumped from third floor window or was heaved out of the window. Was the police officer's gun available to Esteban because police were threatening him with that gun during questioning?

We all heard police initially say that Esteban Carpio's face was turned to hamburger when he jumped out of a third story window. Subsequently, a police official acknowledged having punched Esteban Carpio in the face over and over again, breaking bones in his face.

Once police have lied to the public, the prosecutor(s) and judge(s) about something basic and crucial, we intuitively wonder whether we can believe anything else that they say. That's why a Black jury refused to accept police assertions in the O.J. Simpson case, and that's why the jury refused to convict Simpson. The didn't declare O.J. "innocent"; the declared that the police had not offered enough truthful evidence to find O.J. "guilty".

That's where the all-white jury comes in. Prosecutors know that if they can get an all-white jury of people who don't like Blacks or Hispanics anyway, then they have a much greater likelihood of getting a conviction.

The Providence District Attorney's office made sure none of the strange, extraordinary and inexplicable facts would be seriously considered by the jury, by choosing an all-white jury in a city that is half Black and Latino. That in itself leads to a stench that like a rotten boiled egg never found during an Easter Egg hunt.

And that may help to explain why so many people, from across the country, wonder whether Esteban Carpio was railroaded, whether or not he committed the acts of which he was accused.

Today, reading a post by UndergroundRairoad at Democratic Underground, I confirmed something that I always knew intuitively and logically about the Esteban Carpio case: Police in Rhode Island intentionally turned Esteban Carpio's face into ground beef, breaking bones in his face, before they brought him into court with a horror film-like plastic mask over his face, the intention of which was clearly to literally cover up the brutal beating they had inflicted on Esteban Carpio.

Police were not embarrassed but were proud of what they had done, but covered Esteban's face out of fear of the horror that the beating of this man would have aroused not just in Providence, Rhode Island, but nationally and internationally. Because of police mistakes in this case and intentional acts of lawlessness, Providence has become known as much for this case as it is for its great universities.

As soon as I saw Esteban Carpio's face, I had sympathy for him and no sympathy whatever for the police who had punished him before he could have a trial.

07:17 PM EDT on Wednesday, June 14, 2006

BY GREGORY SMITH
Journal Staff Writer (Via Democratic Underground)

PROVIDENCE -- A state trooper testified today that he punched Esteban Carpio in the face three times because he feared the suspect in the murder of Detective Sgt. James L. Allen only hours before was armed and dangerous.

"I struck him because he was trying to strike me. And I thought he had a weapon,'' State Police Detective Chistopher Zarrella said in Superior Court today from the witness stand in Carpio’s murder trial.

Zarrella said that Carpio continued to struggle after the beating, but not as forcefully.

Until today, the police hadn’t publicly acknowledged punching Carpio during the apprehension. The public never knew who injured Carpio the night of the arrest.

According to today's testimony, Zarrella broke bones in Carpio's face.

Now, there's some testilying! The police officer says Carpio was trying to strike the officer AND that he thought Carpio had a weapon. Well, which one is it? How many times did the officer have to punch Esteban repeatedly in the face before the officer realized that Esteban was no longer struggling AND did not have a weapon.

Police said Esteban Carpio shot a police officer. Frankly some police knowingly shoot innocent and defenseless people all of the time, while other officers help to cover it up, and so I feel no sympathy for police when they live by the sword and die by the sword.

In this particular case, had I been on the jury that tried Esteban Carpio I would have found him innocent simply because nothing the police said about this case could be believed until they admitted that they had tried and punished Esteban Carpio before he could ever present his case to a jury. That being the case, and once having seen his face as presented in court, I would not have been in favor of trying him again, because that would be double jeopardy. No one should be tortured pre-trial and then sentenced post-trial on the same set of facts.

On or about June 14, 2006, Esteban Carpio was found guilty, by an all-white jury, of stabbing an elderly woman and shooting a police detective to death with his own gun during an "interrogation."

What would drive a man to stab an elderly woman, shoot a police officer and then jump out of a third-floor window of the police department, if in fact those things happened? The Providence Journal, as cited at Democratic Underground, said:

Carpio's relatives in the gallery began crying, including Yvonne Carpio, his mother and a teacher in the Boston public schools, who had taken the stand in her son's defense. She recalled how she had him picked up in an ambulance and treated at a hospital when he began acting strangely in the weeks before Allen's murder.

Carpio's defense was based not on the premise that he did not effectuate the murders, but rather that he had a mental defect at the time that made him unable to appreciate the wrongfulness of his conduct, ("or some such language of the insanity defense, based in Rhode Island statutes and caselaw).

Carpio, who did not take the stand, argued through his lead lawyer Robert L. Sheketoff that he was in the throes of a psychosis, could not appreciate the wrongfulness of his actions and was unable to control his behavior. Providence Journal, Wednesday, June 28, 2006.

Is it so hard to believe that a Latino Black man or any man could be insane? Over 99% of the time, the insanity defense is unsuccessful and the jury or judge finds the defendant "guilty", instead of "not guilty by reason of insanity."

The verdict on three counts against Carpio briefly loosed some of the pent-up emotions of the 14-month-old incident, with Carpio's grandmother shrieking in the corridor outside the courtroom, "He didn't get help. He was a sick kid. They knew he was sick.

"That's why you had this tragedy. He should have got help.He should have got help. He should have got help." Providence Journal

Esteban's mother said she warned police that her son was mentally ill when they took him into custody. Apparently, police disregarded the possibility that he might act like a mentally ill person when they left him unhandcuffed, alone, in a room with a middle-aged police investigator who happened to be wearing a gun at the time.

She and her son's girlfriend, Samein "Soul" Phin, who lawyers for both sides called a prostitute during the trial, testified that they warned Allen and other officers who took Carpio into custody for questioning in the stabbing that their suspect was mentally disturbed.

( . . . )

On the other hand, the defense presented him as a man who believed he was cursed and that the devil was out to get him, and who was overwhelmed by the disembodied voice of an absent friend who sometimes commanded him to kill. At one point, according to testimony, Carpio tied a string around his waist to, as he put it, ward off the devil. Providence Journal

Police initially said that Esteban Carpio shot the police detective and then jumped out of a third story window. Was ANY of that true, if they subsequently acknowledge that he got his facial injuries in an horrific beating from police?

I don't know what is "the truth" in this case. I know that I have an visceral and intuitive conviction that Esteban Carpio was railroaded.

Having lived in Providence, Rhode Island, I'm surprised to learn more about its demographics. According to the US Census Quick Facts, a combined 18% of the state of Rhode Island is either Latino or Black. However, in Providence there are a combined 81,000 Blacks and Latinos, with 80,000 whites. Half of the population is non-white but ALL of the jury members who tried Esteban Carpio were white. How did THAT come about? Is there any white person who would seek to be tried by an all Black and Latino jury?

Why is it considered so important in the United States to try people who are not white before all-white juries, even in cities in which half of the population is non-white? Can justice possibly be fair when it starts with the deck of cards so outrageously stacked on the basis of skin color? Are whites so desperately afraid that Blacks and Latinos might have compassion for minorities if we were permitted to sit on juries that will decide our fate?

Is Milwaukee's Therapist/Client Sex Felony Statute Applicable When the Therapist is a White Man and Victim is a Black Woman?

In Milwaukee, Wisconsin, the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare put social worker Peter J. Nelson in charge reviewing of Theola Nealy's custody of her two children. After taking her two children from her, Peter J. Nelson fathered a child with his client, Theola Nealy, and then took that child from her as well, and took the child to his own home, with the approval of the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare.

In this therapist/client sex case, many parties are putting pressure on the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, which was Nelson's employer until this April.. The reason I call it the "therapist/client sex case" is that those are the words used in the Wisconsin statute makes therapist/client sex a crime a felony, with the therapist punishable by up to a ten thousand dollar fine and or 15-year prison term, and required to register as a sex offender if convicted.

Wisconsin Statutes 940.22(2), Entitled "Sexual Exploitation by Therapist . . .", provides:

(2) SEXUAL CONTACT PROHIBITED. Any person who is or who holds himself or herself out to be a therapist and who intentionally has sexual contact with a patient or client during any ongoing therapist−patient or therapist−client relationship, regardless of whether it occurs during any treatment, consultation, interview or examination, is guilty of a Class C felony. Consent is not an issue in an action under this subsection. (Emphasis added.)

Among the parties putting pressure on the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare is Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Frederick C. Rosa, who ruled today that an unbiased social worker, from a different county, who does not work for the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare, and does not know the potential criiminal defendant Peter J. Nelson, must be appointed to make unbiased child custody recommendations in this Peter J. Nelson/Theola Nealy criminal therapist/client sex case.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel is covering the case (below) as it progresses. What I want to know is whether Peter L. Nelson will be prosecuted under Wisconsin Statutes 940.22(2), Entitled "Sexual Exploitation by Therapist . . .". Or will this crime not be prosecuted simply because the sexual predator is a white man and the his victim is a Black woman?

Equal justice is a two-way street. Equal justice requires not merely that Blacks not be arrested, charged and prosecuted more harshly than whites, as we saw occur in the Jena Six case. But equal justice also requires that whites be prosecuted equally for crimes against Black victims, which has yet to happen in the Peter J. Nelson/Theola Nealy criminal therapist/client sex case, .even though there is a Wisconsin law that specifically forbids he white offenders behavior in this case, Wisconsin Statutes 940.22(2), Entitled "Sexual Exploitation by Therapist, saying, "Consent is not an issue in an action under this subsection."

More facts below in the Journal Sentinel article of yesterday.

[Judge] wants inquiry in case of client's baby

By Crocker Stephenson of the Journal Sentinel, Posted: Sept. 9, 2009

A judge Wednesday ordered the Bureau of Milwaukee Child Welfare to appoint a worker from another county to manage the case of a child born to a Milwaukee bureau social worker and the bureau client he impregnated.

Calling the behavior of the social worker, Peter J. Nelsen, "despicable," Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Frederick C. Rosa agreed with the woman's attorney, Scott Phillips, who said that a case manager from outside the bureau, one who hadn't worked with - or was familiar with - Nelsen, was necessary to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

"This is an unusual request," Phillips told the judge. "But this is an unusual case."

Case managers are employed by the bureau or by one of its private agencies to work with children who allegedly have been abused or neglected and also to work with their families.

Their decisions and logged observations are critical in deciding whether these children should remain in their homes or be placed in foster or kinship care.

Nelsen, who is 56 and a 12-year-veteran of the bureau, was allowed to resign in April, shortly after the bureau learned of his relationship with the 31-year-old mother, Theola Nealy.

The bureau has taken the girl from Nealy and has placed her, for the time being, with Nelsen.

Rosa said that one of the issues he will have to decide is, "Did the child need to be removed in the first place?"

The investigations of an independent case manager will be critical in making that decision.

A Journal Sentinel investigation exposed Nelsen's relationship with Nealy last month. In the story, Nelsen admits that he impregnated Nealy after investigating what turned out to be an unsubstantiated report of child abuse and that he hid his relationship with Nealy even as she sought to retain custody of two other children.

A follow-up story reported that the state Department of Children and Families, which runs the Milwaukee welfare bureau, did not report Nelsen to the Department of Regulation Licensing until the day before the story ran - months later than required by law.

Rep. Stephen Nass (R-Whitewater) has asked Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen to investigate whether bureau or department officials were involved in a coverup.

In letter obtained by the Journal Sentinel on Wednesday, Sen. Alberta Darling (R-River Hills) takes department Secretary Reggie Bicha to task for not informing the Milwaukee Child Welfare Partnership Council about Nelsen.

The council, of which Darling is a member, is a panel of public and private child welfare leaders who advise the state about Milwaukee County child welfare services.

"I am requesting an explanation as to why myself and other Partnership Council members were not briefed on the situation with the BMCW social worker," she wrote in the letter, which is dated Aug. 28, the day the first Journal Sentinel story ran about Nelsen.

More at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

References:

• Wisconsin State Rep's Letter to Secretary of State
• http://www.wisn.com/news/20606268/detail.html
• http://aapoliticalpundit.blogspot.com/2009/08/assigned-to-check-abuse-white-social.html
• http://ombudsmanmilw.org/complaintprocess/whocanfile.htm
• http://www.legis.state.wi.us/statutes/Stat0940.pdf
• http://dcf.wisconsin.gov/contact_us.htm
• http://www.wicourts.gov/ca/opinion/DisplayDocument.html?content=html&seqNo=11957
• http://www.wisn.com/news/20606268/detail.html