Justice System Reform

____________________ BY THOMASI MCDONALD - STAFF WRITER RALEIGH - More than 20 years ago, a Warren County Superior Court judge sentenced Wonis Davis to 10 years in prison for second-degree murder. Since his release in 1999, Davis has bagged groceries, cooked, supervised a restaurant kitchen, worked as a church custodian and had two of his fingers sliced off while working in construction. But his past haunts him every time he fills out an application and has to check the box next to the question: "Have you ever been convicted of a felony?" Advocates for fair hiring think it's a question Davis and others like him should not have to answer. They want to "Ban the Box." Gaining momentum across the nation, the movement had seen new laws removing the felony question in Minnesota, New Mexico, Hawaii and New York. About 21 cities, including San Francisco, Cincinnati, Boston, Chicago and Austin, Texas, have already banned the box. Local advocates want Raleigh and Wake County to take the first step to remove the question on applications for public-sector jobs. About 150 people gathered in Durham last week to push for city and county ordinances to ban the felony question. A Ban the Box rally is scheduled Dec. 13 at Durham City Hall. Thousands affected More than 1.6 million people in North Carolina have criminal records. The Community Success Initiative, the Raleigh Second Chance Alliance, Congregations for Social Justice, and the N.C. Justice Center all say removing that question in this state is a critical step toward former offenders finding jobs and the economic security that may keep them from returning to prison. The Community Success Initiative provides support for people coming out of prison and jail. Its founding director, Dennis Gaddy, said 22,000 to 26,000 people come out of North Carolina's prisons each year. As of August, more than 6,700 people were under the supervision of the state Department of Correction on probation or parole in Wake County alone. In Durham County, nearly 4,000 people are on probation or parole, according to Durham Second Chance Alliance members. Thousands more have criminal convictions. The issue is "important for a couple of reasons," said Ajamu Dillahunt, an outreach coordinator with the N.C. Justice Center in Raleigh. "Right now the economic crisis we're in makes it difficult for people to find employment. We need to remove the barriers that exist so that people can find jobs." Employers who invest in people with criminal histories are ultimately investing in the safety of the greater community by helping them secure legitimate employment, he said. Raleigh manager's take Raleigh City Manager Russell Allen said he was sure the City Council would be happy to discuss the Ban the Box proposal's merits and listen to why it would be good for Raleigh. But he has concerns about removing the felony question from city applications. "Particularly for public-sector jobs, we need to bevery aware," Allen said. "The fact of the matter is that employees in the public realm get very close to people's homes, children. And then you have police, fire and other aspects of public safety; energy, water, financial information ... it's important that we have applicants who are truthful and fully disclose whatever is in their background." Allen said if someone has been convicted of a crime but has managed to turn his or her life around then it's appropriate for that job candidate to submit letters of recommendation and other statements of support to counter the criminal record. "There's no prohibition against that," he said. The initial application But those pushing for the change in Raleigh are only proposing that the question be removed from the initial application so that employers won't be immediately dissuaded by a criminal record before learning more about a job candidate's experience, skills and personality. A criminal background check would still be required before the applicant is hired, but making it to the interview phase would give the applicant a chance to explain the nature of the crime, how long ago it occurred, incarceration and rehabilitation efforts. Davis, 42, admits that his criminal record was 12 pages long when he was sent to prison, but he says he hasn't been arrested since he was released from prison more than 10 years ago. "When I see the box, the box doesn't even give you the chance to say, 'That was me then. Look at me now,'" Davis said, taking a break at Blaylock's Barbershop and Hair Salon in downtown Raleigh, where he works as a barber. "I'm always honest, but when I put the charge on a job application, they tell me, 'We don't hire violent offenders here.'" A difficult journey Davis has come a long way. "I got a little breathing room," he said. "It's kind of like swimming - take a stroke and breathe." He was sentenced to life plus 10 years in prison along with several other people for the second-degree murder conviction. But he said the life sentence was dropped after investigators found that he had little to do with the killing. "They got me for association," he said. When he got out of prison, he went to live with his sister in Warrenton. She bought him $150 worth of clothes and let him stay at her house for two months, before she told him to leave because he hadn't found a job. "I stayed homeless for about three months," he said. Then temptation and the lure of fast money through crime came calling. "A guy called me and said he heard about my situation. He offered me a 'care package.' The package was $10,000 in cash and a half-kilo of cocaine." Small jobs, hard work Instead, Davis got a job at a Burger King through a friend who knew the manager. That's how he has beat the box for the past 10 years - by finding work through friends willing to give him a chance. He worked minimum-wage jobs until he scored a job at a Golden Corral in Warrenton. Davis spent a year working up the ladder to become a kitchen manager in training. Then a new store manager checked his application and accused him of lying about his criminal history. "I did a telephone interview back then," Davis said. "They accepted it. The new manager came along and said I checked 'No' in the box." He was fired. Still, there was a silver lining. Davis had acquired enough cooking skills to start his own catering business. Love Life Catering struggled, but Davis figured he was on his way to becoming an independent business owner. "I didn't have to worry about the box because I can't fire myself," he said. While he operated his business part time, Davis worked for a Durham construction company and severed two fingers off his left hand in 2006. In 2008, he attended barber school in Raleigh and went to work at the downtown barbershop where he has built a customer base. Thursday, he catered a meeting in which former inmates like himself shared their stories and their difficulties trying to find work. It was an opportunity for them to organize and strategize - to Ban the Box. Staff writer Anne Blythe contributed to this report.

____________________ By Jordan Green A Durham-based social justice organization has filed a complaint with the US Justice Department alleging that the Greensboro Police Department has engaged in a pattern of discrimination against the North Carolina chapter of the Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation. Based on Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, the complaint alleges that the police department’s “gang suppression” strategy intentionally targets the group commonly known as the Latin Kings because of their race, color and national origin. The complaint, which was filed on Oct. 30, alleges that the Latin Kings have been subjected to a pattern of unlawful traffic stops and searches and unjustified arrests, that members have been charged with serious crimes that are later dismissed for lack of evidence, that officers in the gang enforcement unit have been going to members places of employment to get them fired and have used excessive force during arrests. Many of these alleged abuses have been richly documented in stories published by YES! Weekly over the past two and a half years. The complaint filed by the Latin Kings comes at a time when three black and Latino police officers who have made allegations of discrimination and retaliation have been fired. AJ Blake, who was assigned to the gang unit at one time, has publicly criticized its practices. Anita Earls, executive director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, compared the Latin Kings’ filing to a complaint filed by a local chapter of the NAACP against the Montgomery County Police Department in Maryland alleging racial discrimination in which the Justice Department found that police subjected African Americans to different treatment during stops. “A memorandum of agreement was reached between the Justice Department and the Montgomery County Police Department based on much less compelling evidence,” Earls said. “The allegations here are more severe based on a longstanding pattern of treatment by the gang unit. I think we are raising very serious claims and they’ll take a close look at it.” Earls served as deputy assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Division of the Justice Department under President Clinton. In addition to her work at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, she serves on the NC Board of Elections. Title VI of the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color and national origin in programs and activities receiving federal financial assistance, including law enforcement agencies and hospitals. The law allows individuals who feel they have been subjected to discrimination to file an administrative complaint with the Justice Department as an alternative to resorting to litigation in the federal courts. “I think it’s worth noting that these are things that could have caused grounds for a civil suit seeking monetary damages,” Earls said. “Jorge and the Latin Kings made a deliberate choice to pursue this remedy rather than litigating because they wanted to make sure the police department works for the entire community.” North Carolina Latin Kings leader Jorge Cornell said during a press conference at the Beloved Community Center last week that he decided to found the group after an incident he witnessed in which four Hispanics got into a vehicle accident near the Greensboro Coliseum and ran from the scene and Greensboro police officers responded by going inside a nearby restaurant and arbitrarily arresting four Hispanics who had nothing to do with the accident. Cornell said the Latin Kings were harassed by Greensboro police almost from the inception of the North Carolina chapter, but that scrutiny increased dramatically after he made a call for peace among street organizations in the summer of 2008. “I’ve tried every single avenue in this community to fix the wrongs done by the police department,” Cornell said. “I’ve filed report after report with the human relations department. We’ve sat down with ministers, and they’ve talked to the police, but they’ve broken their promises. We’ve sat down with city council members, but everything falls on deaf ears. Please understand that this is not just an Almighty Latin King and Queen Nation thing. This is for the whole community. We just happen to be the ones standing up.” Following a community meeting at Oka T. Hester Park in which police Chief Ken Miller defected questions from an African-American captain who alleges he was fired for discriminatory reasons, the chief dismissed the Latin Kings’ complaint. “My position is they’ve reached out to [the] Justice [Department] like they’ve done before to say, ‘We’re a street gang and we’re being picked on,’” Miller said. “We’ll see what they say.” This is the first and only complaint that the Latin Kings have filed with the Justice Department, although Cornell took part in a delegation to the agency headquarters in Washington with a number of black and Latino officers in September. The Justice Department began an investigation of the police department in 2009 to look into allegations of employment discrimination and underrepresentation of blacks and Hispanics on the force. The results of that investigation are not known. YES! Weekly is currently seeking correspondence between outside counsel for the city and the federal agency through a public records request. In response to a request for comment, Assistant City Manager Denise Turner released a statement maintaining that “the city of Greensboro does not tolerate discrimination against any class of persons by city employees and the management fully enforces the policy against discrimination. The Greensboro Police Department working with the human relations department aggressively investigates and pursues all complaints of inappropriate treatment by Greensboro police officers through the citizen review complaint committee.” The statement also indicates that the city “will cooperate fully with any investigation from the Department of Justice but we feel confident they will find that the behavior of the city of Greensboro and the Greensboro Police Department mimics our commitment to the equal treatment for all residents of the city.” Earls said her organization has chosen to not publicly release the complaint at this time so that the city will have an opportunity to respond to it and provide data to the Justice Department. That process is likely to take a couple months, she said. The complaint also alleges that the police department’s internal process to investigate citizen complaints and the outside complaint review committee “do not constitute an adequate complaint procedure.” Anthony Wade, the city’s human relations director, said last week that he had not been aware of the complaint. “The complaint review committee has been a mechanism that’s been used in responding to citizens’ complaints and working within city departments between the police and the city manager’s office,” he said. “That’s all I can actually say without knowing more about the specific complaint.” Among the remedies suggested in the complaint is an immediate cessation of harassment; dismantling or retraining the gang unit and abandoning the suppression policy towards gangs; installing mobile video and audio equipment in all patrol vehicles; a requirement that officers provide detailed documentation for each traffic stop, including information about race of the driver, whether consent to search the vehicle was requested and granted, and whether a nonconsensual search was conducted. The complaint also calls for stronger citizen oversight of the police department, including granting the complaint review committee the power to subpoena witnesses, access to officers’ personnel files and the ability to initiate investigations based on media reports. A grassroots group calling for police accountability and professionalism will hold a meeting on Thursday at 6 p.m. at Bethel AME Church, at which citizens will have an opportunity to file additional complaints based on racial and other types of discrimination with the Justice Department. Organizers say they expect representatives from two different section of the Justice Department to be present at the meeting. Mayor Bill Knight, City Manager Rashad Young and Chief Ken Miller have also been invited, although the chief has a conflicting community meeting scheduled at Lewis Recreation Center.

'----------------------------------------------- By Arthur Mondale Click here for the video story. GREENVILLE, N.C. - The debate over reducing life sentences has hit another road block. The NC Supreme Court ruled against Alford Jones and Faye Brown. Both are among dozens of inmates sentenced under a 1974 law that defined a life sentence as 80 years. The high court said they did not qualify for good behavior that would have cut that sentence in half. In a statement released on Friday, the Gov. Perdue said: "I stood up for what I believed was right for North Carolina, and I thank the victims, their families, and law enforcement who stood up with me." Last November, the governor told our cameras, “Somebody interpreted the law the way the law wasn't supposed to be interpreted...I think we'll keep the prisoners in jail I hope." Even then, the Department of Corrections called the proceedings a complicated situation. But reducing good conduct credits would ultimately be for the courts to decide. But not everyone believes the decision is 100% right for North Carolina. “Fundamentally it comes down to---is it retribution or is it rehabilitation? And I think that's the core of the debate,” said Anita Earls, exec. Director of the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. Earls joins others who argue the NC Supreme Court ruling gives the Department of Corrections too much power to award and take away good conduct credits as they see fit, “If they have the authority to do that, then there's no logic that says they can only do that in cases where there's a life sentence.” But opponents also argue there is a fundamental resource issue, the cost of housing prisoners for life. State officials had originally said more than two dozen violent criminals could have qualified for early release after serving only half their sentence if good conduct credits were applied.

Group arrested at city council meeting by Yasmine Regester Carolina Peacemaker Originally posted 7/28/2010 The five young people who were arrested at a May 4 Greensboro City Council meeting had their day in court this past Monday, July 26. Cherell Brown, Clarence Bradley Hunt II, Jonathan Johnson, Wesley Morris, and Carlyle Phillips were arrested in the lobby of the Melvin Municipal Building after refusing to leave the building and were charged with second degree trespassing. Prior to their arrest, the five students and others occupied the dais during the council meeting’s recess. According to Morris, the group’s attorney, Becky Jaffe of Southern Coalition for Social Justice in Durham, asked the judge for “a prayer for judgment,” which called for a dismissal of charges upon payment of court costs. The judge ruled in favor of the group and each person was ordered to pay $126 in court costs and an extra $20 if they were unable to render payment the same day. After being arrested back in May, the group was released from custody on a written promise to appear in court, given a 6 p.m. to 6 a.m. curfew, and banned from city council meetings for two years. The curfew was lifted on May 24, but they are still banned from attending city council meetings. Those arrested were members of the Spirit of the Sit-in Movement Initiative, a local organization advocating for accountability and bringing attention to social issues plaguing the community such as an alleged subculture of corruption in the Greensboro Police Department. Comprised of mostly local college students, but includes members of the community as well, the group currently has between 20 and 25 members. Morris made a short speech at the group’s court hearing explaining their actions. “This act was not committed as an attempt to gain notoriety, political standing or to disrespect any individuals or personalities. It came from a firm belief that the larger Greensboro community, as diverse as any, required a sacrifice to urge its city’s leaders and to inform its public and to participate more fully in its city’s decision making process and oversight as it relates to the police department and city government. It also came with knowledge of the tradition of non-violent actions to petition for rights.” Hunt said he felt a good decision was made on the judge’s part, “It always feels good to be vindicated, but this whole ordeal was a personal lesson for me that you must take responsibility for your actions. But I would do it again.” Brown, one of the activists said of the court appearance, “The presence of our co-workers, elders, community members, brothers and sisters at our trial was both encouraging and reaffirming. The consequences we face in response to our act of civil disobedience pales in comparison to the injustices that our community, our family, is facing everyday due to a fragmented and corrupt system.” Morris noted that the group will continue to work on Greensboro Justice Summer, a grassroots campaign to register voters and educate people about community issues. “When it comes to justice, what we stood for is still out there and it’s getting worse, particularly what Officer AJ Blake and Captain Charles Cherry are going through. This a minor burden compared to what others are going through. I’m glad we were able to do what we did,” said Morris.

North Carolina NAACP Holds Forum Monday Night In Greenville Do Greenville Police Officers use racial profiling? It's a question that's been a hot topic ever since the arrest of City Councilwoman Kandie Smith last month. Monday night the NAACP held a forum in Greenville to discuss alleged police misconduct, and Ms. Smith was there along with dozens of others. One by one, Pitt County residents lined up at the Lucille Gorham Inter-Generational Center to speak out about alleged racial profiling and police misconduct. Organized by the NAACP, the UNC Center for Civil Rights, and the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, it was a chance for residents to present their concerns to a hearing panel comprised of lawyers, so a written report can be established and statistical arrest records can be pulled on the Greenville Police Department. While Kandie Smith was in attendance, she did not speak during the comment period allotted for Pitt County residents. Not in attendance was Greenville Police Chief William Anderson. The NAACP and the Southern Christian Leadership Conference have previously asked for the Chief's resignation in the wake of Smith's arrest. Previous Story: The North Carolina NAACP is holding a public hearing Monday in Greenville to discuss alleged police misconduct, excessive force and racial profiling. The NAACP announced the forum earlier this month after the arrest of Greenville city councilwoman Kandie Smith. The group, along with the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, asked for the resignation of Police Chief William Anderson, who is black. Smith said in a later statement that the two groups do not speak for her and she is not advocating the chief's removal. Smith was arrested June 6th in the parking lot of a Greenville convenience store for trespassing and resisting arrest when police say she failed to follow an officer's directive and to leave. A press release was sent by Reverend William Barber II, president of the NC NCAAP, and Amina Turner, the group's executive director, about Monday night's civil rights forum in Greenville. The press release is below. NAACP Press Release: The NC State Conference of the NAACP along with the Southern Coalition for Social Justice and the UNC Center for Civil Rights will conduct a public hearing for Eastern North Carolina to receive public comment on police misconduct, excessive force and racial profiling. It will be held on Monday, June 28 at 7:00pm at the Lucille Gorham Intergenerational Center located at 1100 Ward Street in West Greenville. Persons or youth who are 18 years and younger and have experienced an incident of excessive force or police misconduct must present with an adult. All speakers must sign in before speaking. Through its Law Enforcement Accountability project, the NAACP has developed a “smart and safe” framework in which to advocate for equal justice and safer communities. This hearing is an effort to receive live reports of incidents and allegations and to collect statistical data from the region. NAACP strongly believes that all communities seek a fair and just administration and enforcement of the law, and that all communities, irrespective of race, gender, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age or religion have a right to be safe. A report released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and The Rights Working Group indicated that, “racial and ethnic profiling by members of law enforcement at federal, state and local levels is one of today's most significant challenges to equality.” State NAACP President, Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II, remarked, “Our goal in advocating for justice in the criminal justice system is to eliminate disparate treatment of African-Americans and other minorities in all aspects of law enforcement and criminal justice. As the oldest civil rights organization in the nation, we are mandated to stay informed of issues that occur in our communities, and investigate and then working with key stakeholders such as civic leadership the faith community, and other organizations to ensure that law enforcement is just and fair in both administration of justice and the enforcement of the law.” End Of Release

The "Ban the Box" campaign calls for an elimination of the questions about prior convictions on employment applications. This practice imposes an unfair barrier to felon reenfranchisement. More information coming soon.