Social Justice Shorts

(Charts from Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger’s recently signed budget summary.)

AS CALIFORNIA SINKS FISCALLY, STATE ASSEMBLY HANDS OUT RAISES

In an investigation posted Monday, the AP reports:

Against a backdrop of deep fiscal distress, several California lawmakers rewarded their employees with pay hikes during the first half of the year, an Associated Press review of legislative pay records showed.

At least 87 California Assembly staff members received raises totaling more than $430,000 on an annualized basis, even as the state faced a growing budget deficit that led to furloughs and pay cuts for many other government workers and steep reductions in core services

[SNIP]

In the 40-member Senate, nine staffers had a boost in pay, leading to an annualized increase of $152,000.

Aides to several members of the Assembly and Senate said some of the increases were not raises in the traditional sense. Rather, they described the higher pay as extra compensation for employees who were working more hours.

(sound of desperate and hysterical laughter.) Note to Astoundingly Tone Deaf Lawmakers

What in world do you think the rest of Californians are doing? Working fewer hours????

(Good timing, AP. The State Legislature reconvenes today. So those lawmakers and their poor, put-upon staff members will be back from vacation—-meaning that you can call their offices and tell them exactly what you think about the pay raises)

**************************************************************************************************************
SANE TALK ON THE INSANE CALIFORNIA BUDGET

And while we’re on the subject of the budget, in Monday’s CALBUZZ, Jean Ross the executive director of the California Budget Project, a nonpartisan public policy research group, has a clear-headed and pithy column on the wreckage that is our California budget.
***********************************************************************************************************
CLOSING THE DOOR ON DISSENT FOR LA SCHOOL’S TOWNHALL?

This LA Times editorial is from Friday, but it deserves to be fished out and given some focus. It seems that in a much ballyhooed “townhall” meeting held to talk about the proposal to turn 50 of LAUSD’s schools over to charter operators (a proposal I support), the audience for the meeting was cherry picked from hard core supporters of the proposal, and everybody else was shut out.

Not cool, people. Not cool at all. Creepy, manipulative power grabs—even in the service of a good cause—are still just that: creepy, manipulative power grabs.

**************************************************************************************************************

SUPREMES SAY TROY DAVIS MAY PRESENT THE EVIDENCE HE SAYS WILL CLEAR HIM

On Monday, the Supreme Court granted Troy Davis the right to present the evidence that he has long said would prove him innocent of the murder of a police officer.

From the Atlanta Journal Constitution:

[Troy] Davis sits on death row for the killing of off-duty Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail in 1989. His bid to the nation’s highest court was his last chance in the court system.

Since Davis’ 1991 trial, seven of nine state witnesses have recanted their testimony and other witnesses have implicated Sylvester “Redd” Coles as the shooter. Coles, who has denied killing MacPhail, was at the scene and was the first person to implicate Davis in the shooting.

Since the lower court has turned Davis down repeatedly, Antonin Scalia, writing the dissent, suggested that the results of the decision would amount to “a fools errand.”

But Justice John Paul Stevens cited prior court precedent that said it would be “an atrocious violation of our Constitution and the principles upon which it is based” to execute an innocent man.

“Imagine a petitioner in Davis’ situation who possesses new evidence conclusively and definitively proving, beyond any scintilla of doubt, that he is an innocent man,” Steven wrote. “The dissent’s reasoning would allow such a petitioner to be put to death nonetheless.”

Stevens was joined by Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer. The order noted that the court’s newest justice, Sonia Sotomayer, did not participate in the decision.

Go here for back story.

Court opinion and dissent may be found here.

Speaking personally, I don’t know what in the world Scalia is smoking since the lower court has never heard the crucial evidence.

Here’s what Virginia Sloan of the Constitution project had to say:

“Since Troy Davis was sentenced to death nearly twenty years ago, much of the evidence used to convict him has come under question. New evidence could prove his innocence, yet no court has ever heard that evidence. Fortunately, the Supreme Court has decided that – finally – a court must do so.

“Georgia seeks to execute Troy Davis without allowing the courts to hear this evidence, thus allowing the doubts to continue. The Court’s decision means that we may finally know whether Georgia sought to execute an innocent man and allowed the real perpetrator to escape.”

The Constitution Project was one of those who worked on an amicus brief for Davis’s appeal. It was signed by 27 former judges and prosecutors (and not all liberals, by the way) including: Larry Thompson, Deputy Attorney General in the George W. Bush administration; former Congressman Bob Barr (R-GA); former federal judge and FBI Director William S. Sessions; and Norman Fletcher, the former Chief Justice of the Georgia Supreme Court.

***************************************************************************************************************

SHOULD U.S. DISTRICT JUDGE MANUEL REAL STILL BE ON THE BENCH?

A significant number of critics believe that 85-year-old U.S. District Judge Manuel Real should have been asked to step down from the federal bench long ago. He is frequently reversed. He has been yanked off of at least ten cases reports Carol J Williams in Sunday’s LA Times.

Real is by the way, is the judge presiding Alex Sanchez’ bail hearing.

The hearing has, incidentally been postponed from when it was scheduled today, until mid-October.

Many of the complaints against Judge Real are not trivial.

Attorney Gary Dubin was in a Honolulu hospital, sedated and suffering from depression after the death of his son, when U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real had him handcuffed and taken to court — still in his hospital gown — to answer charges of failing to file tax returns.

Real allowed him to send for clothes but refused to postpone the hearing, recalled Dubin, who had to defend himself in a medicated fog without his case files. Judged guilty by Real after a two-day bench trial, Dubin spent 19 1/2 months in federal prison, while his home went into foreclosure and his credit was ruined by identity thieves.

He achieved a measure of vindication years later when the IRS sent him a letter saying he had not violated any tax-filing laws. But he said his encounter with Real caused him professional and economic suffering from which he is still recovering.

Dubin filed a complaint with judicial authorities, one of dozens in which the 85-year-old judge’s behavior has been brought to the attention of judicial disciplinary panels.

*************************************************************************************************************

SGT. CROWLEY SPEAKS TO NATIONAL ORG, OF FELLOW COPS IN LONG BEACH, DOESN’T MENTION BEER SUMMIT

Sgt. James Crowley, the Cambridge officer who arrested Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., spoke before law enforcement officers and their families gathered at the Fraternal Order of Police convention at the Long Beach Convention Center, according to the City News Service.

He thanked the FOP folks for their support of him during the whole news kerfuffle. But failed to mention word one about his beer summit adventure at the White House. (Where’s the fun in that???)

*************************************************************************************************************

NYT v. WSJ – THE QUIETEST NEWSPAPER WAR IN AMERICA

From the always wonderful Nieman Journalism Lab:

…..the Journal and the Times are engaged in a pitched but unusually quiet battle for readers outside the New York metro area who might be persuaded to abandon their local dailies. In a small development on Friday, the Times announced a deal that will extend newsstand sales and home delivery of the newspaper to Nashville, Tenn. That becomes the 26th North American city where the Times is printed….

More here.