Would independent prosecutors make police shooting investigations fairer?
Would independent prosecutors make police shooting investigations fairer?
Critics say the close connections between prosecutors and local police leads to unjust decisions not to prosecute...
Critics say the close connections between prosecutors and local police leads to unjust decisions not to prosecute officers following officer-involved shootings.
The absence of indictments of police officers in shooting deaths – especially in high-profile cases like the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson and Tamir Rice in Cleveland – is raising questions about the fairness of using local prosecutors to investigate police officers with whom they may have close ties.
Critics say the close working relationships between local prosecutors and law enforcement injects a bias into investigations of shootings and other deaths at the hands of police. A solution, some suggest, would be to use independent prosecutors to investigate charges of wrong-doing by police officers.
The investigation into the death of Alton Sterling in Baton Rouge, La., offers one example of the closeness often seen between prosecutors and police departments. East Baton Rouge District Attorney Hillar Moore recused himself from the investigation, as he had worked closely with both police-officer parents of one of the officers involved in the shooting.
When a police officer is involved in a shooting, often the officer's own police department opens an internal investigation into the incident. In some cases, says Walter Katz, an independent police auditor of the city of San Jose, Calif., who has studied investigations of police use of lethal force, there is evidence that suggests the investigator's close relationship to the officer can lead to a lack of objectivity.
"That can be amplified when also the local prosecuting agency is the agency that reviews to decide whether or not to file criminal charges against a police officer," Mr. Katz tells The Christian Science Monitor. "In smaller jurisdictions ... they're going to have a close working relationship, so it creates the potential impression that it's not an arm's length review of the use of force."
The scarcity of indictments in a variety of high-profile shootings has increased scrutiny of officer prosecutions by local authorities. The prosecutors in both the Tamir Rice case in Cleveland and the Michael Brown case in Ferguson said they believed the officers involved had acted legally. Both were accused of not presenting a fair review of possible charges to the grand juries, as Ari Melber, MSNBC’s chief legal correspondent, explained in The Washington Post.
The problem of officer-involved shootings of blacks wouldn't be solved with independent prosecutors, Marbre Stahly-Butts, the deputy director of racial justice for the Center for Popular Democracy, a progressive advocacy organization, tells the Monitor. But "certainly accountability is an essential step that needs to happen," she says.
"We have the common sense that asking prosecutors who work everyday with police and depend on police for their cases, to then be objective in prosecuting them, is just not reasonable," Ms. Stahly-Butts says.
Local advocates are working to address these issues, Stahly-Butts says, especially in St. Louis and New York, where it has contributed to the passage of an executive order ensuring independent prosecutors.
On the federal level, Congressman Steve Cohen (D) of Tennessee is sponsoring a bill that would withhold federal funding from law enforcement unless the use of independent prosecutors to address instances of deadly force by police is instituted.
"There's no good reason not to have independent prosecutors," he tells the Monitor. "If you have the prosecutors who work with the law enforcement agency, which they do hand-in-glove to investigate cases and present cases, there is... an appearance of, if not outright, impropriety."
This can limit the citizenry's faith in the justice system, especially if no charges are brought against the officers, Representative Cohen says. On the flip side, when local prosecutors do bring charges, police can react negatively. After Baltimore State's Attorney Marilyn J. Mosby brought charges against officers in the death of Freddie Gray, some believe there was a work slowdown among Baltimore Police, which police officials denied, the Baltimore Sun reported. This hurts the entire community, Cohen says.
The bill, introduced in October 2015, has 80 co-sponsors as of Wednesday morning. Several states have made moves to implement independent prosecutors, including Connecticut and New York. Cohen says it is important to set a nation-wide standard, but House Judiciary Chairman Rep. Bob Goodlatte (R) of Virginia has not yet scheduled a hearing.
The bill is opposed by the National Association of Police Organizations, a law enforcement advocacy group. The organization's executive director, William Johnson, wrote a letter to Cohen expressing fears that officers would face "a great deal of pressure" if investigated by independent prosecutors, The Hill reported.
"There is a risk that decisions to prosecute would be made based on politics, not on the law and admissible evidence," Johnson wrote. "NAPO is concerned that an officer would be indicted, even if he/she did nothing wrong."
Johnson did not respond to requests for comment from the Monitor.
Cohen says local law enforcement may oppose his bill because they benefit from the current system and may be "getting home cooking".
"That's not what justice is about," he says. "All games should be on neutral courts."
By AIDAN QUIGLEY
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New York Plans $15-an-Hour Minimum Wage for Fast Food Workers
The labor protest movement that fast-food workers in New York City began nearly three years ago has led to higher wages...
The labor protest movement that fast-food workers in New York City began nearly three years ago has led to higher wages for workers all across the country. On Wednesday, it paid off for the people who started it.
A panel appointed by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo recommended on Wednesday that the minimum wage be raised for employees of fast-food chain restaurants throughout the state to $15 an hour over the next few years. Wages would be raised faster in New York City than in the rest of the state to account for the higher cost of living there.
The panel’s recommendations, which are expected to be put into effect by an order of the state’s acting commissioner of labor, represent a major triumph for the advocates who have rallied burger-flippers and fry cooks to demand pay that covers their basic needs. They argued that taxpayers were subsidizing the workforces of some multinational corporations, like McDonald’s, that were not paying enough to keep their workers from relying on food stamps and other welfare benefits.
The $15 wage would represent a raise of more than 70 percent for workers earning the state’s current minimum wage of $8.75 an hour. Advocates for low-wage workers said they believed the mandate would quickly spur raises for employees in other industries across the state, and a jubilant Mr. Cuomo predicted that other states would follow his lead.
“When New York acts, the rest of the states follow,” said Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, citing the state’s passage of the law making same-sex marriagelegal. “We’ve always been different, always been first, always been the most progressive.”
The decision, announced in a conference room in Lower Manhattan, set off a raucous celebration by hundreds of workers and union leaders outside.
Flavia Cabral, 53, a grandmother from the Bronx who works part-time in a McDonald’s for $8.75 an hour, pointed out the scars where fry baskets had seared her forearms. “At least they listened to us,” she said, referring to the panel. “We’re breathing little by little.”
Bill Lipton, state director of the Working Families Party, called the decision a victory for the “99-percenters.” Mr. Lipton, who has campaigned for better pay for low-wage workers for years, said, “There’s clearly a new standard for the minimum wage, and it’s actually a living wage for the first time in many, many decades.”
The decision comes on the heels of similar increases in minimum wages in other cities, including Los Angeles, San Francisco and Seattle. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors agreed to raise the county’s minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020, matching a move the Los Angeles City Council made in June.
But a more complicated political terrain in New York forced Mr. Cuomo to take a different route.
Mayor Bill de Blasio has demanded a higher minimum wage in the city to account for its higher cost of living. But neither he nor the City Council has the power to set wages citywide.
When lawmakers in Albany balked at the idea, Mr. Cuomo convened a board to look at wages in the fast-food industry, which is one of the biggest employers of low-wage workers in the state, with about 180,000 employees.
After hearing testimony from dozens of fast-food workers, the board members decided the state should mandate that fast-food chains pay more. Advocates often pointed to the giant pay packages the chains gave to their top executives.
The board’s decision removed the last significant hurdle to raising wages, since the acting labor commissioner, Mario Musolino, who must act on the recommendation, is widely expected to accept it.
The board said the first wage increase should come by Dec. 31, taking the minimum in the city to $10.50 and in the rest of the state to $9.75. The wage in the city would then rise in increments of $1.50 annually for the next three years, until it reaches $15 at the end of 2018. In the rest of the state, the hourly wage would rise each year, reaching $15 on July 1, 2021.
The mandate should apply to all workers in fast-food restaurants that are part of chains with at least 30 outlets, the board said. They defined fast food as food and drinks served at counters where customers pay before eating and can take their food with them if they choose.
The restaurant industry has chafed at these decisions. “We continue to say that we think it’s unfair that they singled out a single segment of our industry,” Melissa Fleischut, the executive director of the New York State Restaurant Association, said.
McDonald’s, a multinational corporation that paid its chief executive more than $7.5 million last year, said in April that it would raise the minimum wage it pays workers in company-owned stores to $9.90 by July 1 and to more than $10 next year.
Source: The New York Times
How Laid-Off Toys R Us Workers Came Together To Fight Wall Street
How Laid-Off Toys R Us Workers Came Together To Fight Wall Street
The campaign took on the name Rise Up Retail, which is funded by the Organization United for Respect and the liberal...
The campaign took on the name Rise Up Retail, which is funded by the Organization United for Respect and the liberal advocacy group Center for Popular Democracy. Through Rise Up Retail, Garcia met fellow Toys R Us veterans agitating for severance pay, like Maryjane Williams.
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Report Shows Illinois Has One of the Nation’s Highest Black Unemployment Rates Despite an Improving Economy
Report Shows Illinois Has One of the Nation’s Highest Black Unemployment Rates Despite an Improving Economy
Across the country, the economy is supposed to be slowly picking up, but the unemployment rate for Blacks is still...
Across the country, the economy is supposed to be slowly picking up, but the unemployment rate for Blacks is still about twice the rate of whites. A report by Progress Illinois said the state’s Black unemployment rate is one of the worst in the nation.
According to analysis by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI,) only two other states, New Jersey and South Carolina have higher Black unemployment rates than Illinois. D.C. had the highest Black unemployment rate at 14.2 percent, while Tennessee had the lowest at 6.9 percent. Illinois’ Black unemployment rate declined to 11.5 percent in the second quarter of 2015, according to Progress Illinois.
The nationwide unemployment rate has fallen to about 9 percent. However, the Black jobless rate is twice the white unemployment rate of 4 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
“African Americans are still unemployed at a higher rate than their white counterparts in almost every state,” said EPI economist Valerie Wilson, who conducted the unemployment analysis. “We need policies that look beyond simply reducing unemployment to pre-recession levels as an end goal.”
In a press release, Connie Razza, director of strategic research for the Center for Popular Democracy (CPD), said, contrary to the improving economy, “Black America is still in the middle of a Great Recession.”
According to Progress Illinois, EPI and the Center for Popular Democracy both called on the Federal Reserve to support policies that would help Black America.
“When [Fed] Chair [Janet] Yellen and other Fed officials talk about raising interest rates in 2015, they are talking about intentionally slowing down the economy and job growth, which would make it harder for most Americans, and particularly Black workers, to find good-paying jobs,” Razza said. “The direct consequences of the Fed’s projected interest rate hikes would harm millions of workers.”
A tight labor market, which we have now, benefits employers since there are more people looking for fewer jobs. This allows employers to keep labor costs low and easily fire workers, because there are hundreds of people lined up to replace them. Razza said the Fed needs to support policies that would move towards a full employment economy.
“A full-employment economy, as we saw in the late 1990s, shrinks racial inequity and will bring particular benefits to Black workers, who are disproportionately unemployed, underemployed, underpaid, and endure more difficult scheduling circumstances in the workplace,” Razza said.
Black unemployment has been a long-standing problem. The Labor Department began tracking employment figures by race in 1972 and since then the Black jobless rate has stubbornly remained at twice the white rate. Employment experts say its not just a matter of training and education. Studies have shown Black men with college educations have higher unemployment rates than white men with just a high school education.
However, economists say the improving economy is making it easier for all Americans, including Black people, to find work.
“Now, you’re starting to see a broad recovery which is reaching groups with high unemployment rates like African-Americans and teens,” said Michael Madowitz, an economist at the American Center for Progress in a CNN article.
This issue was also brought up during the last Republican debate.
“Once you have economic growth, it’s important we reach out to people who live in the shadows… which includes people in our minority community and people who feel they don’t have the chance to move up,” said Ohio Gov. John Kasich, a Republican presidential candidate.
Source: Atlanta Black Star
'Nueva York en un Minuto': el fiscal general Jeff Sessions le declara la guerra a la pandilla MS-13
'Nueva York en un Minuto': el fiscal general Jeff Sessions le declara la guerra a la pandilla MS-13
En otras noticias, la dueña de una floristería de Nueva Jersey es acusada de robar flores de un cementerio y el...
En otras noticias, la dueña de una floristería de Nueva Jersey es acusada de robar flores de un cementerio y el expresidente dominicano Leonel Fernández está en Manhattan para presentar su nuevo libro.
Lea el artículo completo aquí.
New York Fed taps Williams for top post, ignoring Democrats on diversity
New York Fed taps Williams for top post, ignoring Democrats on diversity
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) had called for the co-chairs and Williams to appear before the Senate Banking Committee...
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) had called for the co-chairs and Williams to appear before the Senate Banking Committee if Williams ended up as the choice. Fed Up co-director Shawn Sebastian said the coalition supports that call. “Today, the Fed concluded another opaque and controversial Reserve Bank presidential selection process by ignoring the demands of the public and choosing another white man whose record on Wall St regulation and full employment raises serious questions,” he said in a tweet.
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Allentown leaders, residents rally for immigration reform
The Express-Times - June 18, 2013, By Sarah Cassi - Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski and City Council President Julio...
The Express-Times - June 18, 2013, By Sarah Cassi - Allentown Mayor Ed Pawlowski and City Council President Julio Guridy were among the residents and community leaders rallying tonight at City Hall for federal action on comprehensive immigration reform.
Organized by Comunidad Unida del Lehigh Valley, the crowd called on U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey to support the Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act. the bill would create a pathway to citizenship for illegal immigrants already in the country, toughen border security and create a guest worker program.
The Senate is preparing to vote on the bill next week.
Rally participants also called on Congressman Charlie Dent to reject piecemeal measures being advanced in the House.
“The piecemeal immigration bills currently being proposed in the House are cruel and totally miss the point. They ignore the crucial role that immigrants play in our communities and our economy. These bills don’t even offer immigrants a path to citizenship. Today we’re calling on our Congressmen to vocally support the Senate’s comprehensive immigration reform with a pathway to citizenship, which a clear majority of Pennsylvanians support,” Guridy said in a news release.
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ABQ, SF receive grants to help immigrants become citizens
ABQ, SF receive grants to help immigrants become citizens
Cities for Citizenship is a national initiative supported by advocacy groups Center for Popular Democracy and the...
Cities for Citizenship is a national initiative supported by advocacy groups Center for Popular Democracy and the National Partnership for New Americans, with Citi Community Development as founding corporate sponsor. Fourteen cities were awarded challenge grants of either $25,000 or $40,000 a year over two years after 66 cities submitted proposals.
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Why It's a Big Deal Hillary Clinton Plans to Shake Up the Fed
Why It's a Big Deal Hillary Clinton Plans to Shake Up the Fed
Hillary Clinton is taking on the United States Federal Reserve System, but in a wonky, bottom's-up way that shows her...
Hillary Clinton is taking on the United States Federal Reserve System, but in a wonky, bottom's-up way that shows her understanding of a complex and widely misunderstood organization. This is not "End the Fed" or even "audit the Fed" — she wants to rebuild it from its fundamentals at the regional level.
To paraphrase Mitt Romney, the Federal Reserve is people, my friend. Hillary Clinton's recent proposal to change the roster of Fed officials who ultimately make monetary policy and regulatory decisions might be the most effective Fed-reform idea since the financial crisis. Generally, the public pays attention to little more than the face of the organization — the Fed's chairperson, currently Janet Yellen — who announces and explains the Fed's decisions. But beneath Yellen functions an intricate and influential bureaucracy that's dominated by interests from the financial sector, the vast majority of them white men, and may well be blind to the reality of a vast majority of Americans.
The Federal Reserve was set up in 1917, in the wake of a financial crisis, as a private national bank that could serve as lender of last resort to other banks. If a bank needed money to make good on deposits, it could go to the Fed for a short-term loan. It was, since its inception, a bankers' institution, run for banks, by banks. But its role has clearly evolved as credit markets have developed and as the Fed's mandate was changed to pursue price stability (low inflation) and full employment at the same time, while helping to regulate the sector for which it also serves as lender.
As the Fed's mission has expanded, its governance has not. The Fed is run by a seven-member board in Washington, D.C., and a dozen regional bank presidents based in financial centers throughout the country (New York, St. Louis, Kansas City and Cleveland, among others). While the crew in D.C. is selected by the president and vetted by Congress, the regional bank presidents are chosen by the financial industry and tend to be either bankers or career Fed employees. Of the 12 bank presidents, two are women and only one is not white.
New York's regional president is Willian C. Dudley, previously a Goldman Sachs managing director. Robert S. Kaplan of Dallas was a former vice chairman at Goldman. Neel Kashkari, a known financial reformer, is nonetheless a former employee of PIMCO, one of the world's largest asset managers and a subsidiary of German financial behemoth Allianz. Dennis P. Lockhart, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta is a former Citigroup executive.
Clinton's proposal would remove bankers from the regional boards of directors. Those boards choose the regional presidents and generate most of the information and perspective that the Federal Reserve governors use to set monetary policy. Clinton clearly understands how the Fed functions. Donald Trump has said he would not reappoint Janet Yellen as chair. Fine. But appointing the Fed chair is merely the most high-profile action a president can take in this regard. It doesn't change the system, and the Fed is known as the Federal Reserve System for a reason.
This is Clinton at her best – she knows how the government works. The region Federal Reserve boards do not get a lot of press. Most people do not know that they are staffed with chief executives from Morgan Stanley, Comerica, KeyCorp and private-equity firms like Silver Lake, and if they do know it, they do not understand its importance.
The Fed is generally a topic of political bluster. "I appointed him and he disappointed me," complained George H.W. Bush about Alan Greenspan, when the Fed chair refused to cut interest rates in the face of a recession that probably cost Bush his re-election in 1992. Before that, Ronald Reagan had to endure Chairman Paul Volcker raising interest rates so high in an effort to combat inflation that out-of-work construction workers were mailing bricks and wooden beams to the Fed in protest.
The idea that the Fed often acts contrary to the interests of working people is not new, but aside from requiring the Fed to pursue full employment in addition to price stability in 1977, presidents who are unhappy with the Fed have done little more than complain. Even after Greenspan disappointed Bush, Bill Clinton reappointed him to the post. When Greenspan retired, Ben Bernanke, an intellectual heir, took the helm. When he retired, Yellen, also an intellectual heir, took over. The power to appoint the Fed chair and governors is not, clearly, the power to change things.
Clinton is digging deeper. Changing the roster of the regional boards will hopefully help more accurate economic information trickle up to the chairperson and the federal governors. Perhaps, even, a labor representative or somebody with closer ties to the common American experience could become a regional bank president.
In her quiet way, tinkering with the inner workings of a near-century old quasi-government institution that is arcane to most, Clinton has a chance to achieve radical, lasting financial reform.
BY MICHAEL MAIELLO
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Inside the Avengers Cast’s One-Night-Only Performance of Our Town
Inside the Avengers Cast’s One-Night-Only Performance of Our Town
The Avengers, and friends, assembled in Atlanta on Monday night, though without their usual armor, shields, and...
The Avengers, and friends, assembled in Atlanta on Monday night, though without their usual armor, shields, and superpowers. The event, dreamed up by Scarlett Johansson, brought together some of the Marvel Cinematic Universe’s biggest stars—all in town filming Avengers: Infinity War at Atlanta’s Pinewood Studios—for a stage reading of Thornton Wilder’s theater classic Our Town, a benefit for hurricane relief in Puerto Rico.
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