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One week after the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown case, President Obama has given his first major policy response to the protests from Ferguson and beyond over racial profiling and police brutality. At a meeting with activists and officials from around the country, Obama unveiled a process to address what he called "simmering distrust." The administration’s response comes as protests continue nationwide over the non-indictment of former officer Darren Wilson over killing Brown. On Monday, demonstrators walked out of workplaces and classrooms in some 30 cities with their hands raised, the symbol of Brown’s death and the movement that has emerged since. As the "Hands Up Walk Out" took place, some of the movement’s key leaders were not out in the streets but inside the White House. Obama’s guests included seven young activists who have helped organize the protests in Ferguson and in other communities of color. We are joined by one of those activists: Ashley Yates, an activist, poet and artist who is co-creator of Millennial Activists United. "While that is a step towards ending this real problem," Yates says of Obama’s reforms, "the real root of it has to be addressed. And the real root of it is racism in America, the anti-black sentiments that exist. Until we begin to address that, we really can’t have any real change — all we have are these small steps towards justice. We need leaps and bounds."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AARON MATÉ: One week after the grand jury decision in the Michael Brown case, President Obama has given his first major policy response to the protests from Ferguson and beyond over racial profiling and police brutality. At a meeting with activists and officials from around the country, Obama unveiled a process to address what he called "simmering distrust."
PRES. OBAMA: Ferguson laid bare a problem that is not unique to St. Louis or that area, and is not unique to our time. And that is a simmering distrust that exists between too many police departments and too many communities of color. The sense that in a country where one of our basic principles, perhaps the most important principle, is equality under the law, that too many individuals, particularly young people of color, do not feel as if they are being treated fairly.
AARON MATÉ: On the policy front, Obama announced a task force to come up with concrete steps for building public trust in police forces nationwide. Obama announced a $263 million community policing initiative, which includes $75 million to provide body cameras to around 50,000 police officers. Obama also announced an executive order that will tighten rules on the provision of military-grade equipment and weapons to local police forces, such as those used in the crackdown on the Ferguson protests. But, in a rejection of activists’ demands, Obama vowed to leave the transfers mostly intact.
AMY GOODMAN: As part of his response to the protests in Ferguson, President Obama also sent Attorney General Eric Holder on a tour of communities nationwide. Holder began in Atlanta at the Ebenezer Baptist Church, where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. preached during the 1960’s. Holder said he’ll soon release new federal guidelines to limit racial profiling.
ATT. GEN. ERIC HOLDER: In the coming days, I will announce updated Justice Department guidance regarding profiling by federal law enforcement. This will Institute rigorous new standards and robust safeguards to help end racial profiling once and for all. This new guidance will codify our commitment to the very highest standards of fair and effective policing.
AARON MATÉ: The new guidelines will not apply to state or local police agencies, such as in Ferguson. But, Holder said they will help set an example. The administration’s response comes as protests continue nationwide over the grand jury’s decision not to charge Officer Darren Wilson for the killing of Michael Brown. On Monday, demonstrators walked out of workplaces and classrooms in over 30 cities with their hands raised, the symbol of Michael Brown’s death in the movement that’s emerged since. In Washington, D.C., a group of protesters held a "die-in" at the Justice Department, laying their bodies on the ground.
PROTESTER: It is our duty to fight.
CROWD: It is our duty to fight.
PROTESTER: It is our duty to win.
CROWD: It is our duty to win.
PROTESTER: We must love each other and protect each other.
CROWD: We must love each other and protect each other.
PROTESTER: We have nothing to lose but our chains.
CROWD: We have nothing to lose but our chains.
AMY GOODMAN: Continuing tactics that sprouted up last week, demonstrators blocked roads in D.C. and other cities, leading to arrests. As the "Hands Up Walkout" took place nationwide, some of the movement’s key leaders were not out in the streets but inside the White House. President Obama’s guests on Monday included seven young activists who have helped organize the protests in Ferguson and in other communities of color. One of those activists joins us now from Washington, D.C. Ashley Yates is an activist, poet and artist raised in Florissant, Missouri, a member and co-creator of Millennial Activists United, and among the group of activists who met with President Obama at the White House on Monday. Ashley, welcome back to Democracy Now! Can you talk about what happened at that meeting?
ASHLEY YATES: What happened at the meeting, Amy — thanks for having me once again. What happened at the meeting was very frank conversation from young activists such as myself who have been on the ground. Four of us from Ferguson, three of us from around the nation — New York and Miami. And we just had really frank conversation but what’s been happening on the ground in Ferguson and around the nation in general and our experience about being black and brown in America and what that really looks like on a day-to-day basis in real time. the president was very receptive and was open and willing to hear our experiences and really get that viewpoint from the other side.
AMY GOODMAN: What did you tell the president, Ashley?
ASHLEY YATES: I told the president, myself, the reason that I know that this movement has to be maintained. I gave him a very personal story about why I continue to do this work, why I am so committed to this work. My family is a large part of that. In particular, one of my younger cousins, who is a very fast runner and less to run everywhere, and I looked the president in his eye and said, I do this because I want to make sure that unlike Tamir Rice and unlike Trayvon Martin and unlike Mike Brown, my little cousin can make it home safely.
AARON MATÉ: Ashley, what were the policy prescriptions that you offered to the White House on Monday and what’s your response to those that they announced; the task force, the tightening slightly of the rules for giving military equipment to police forces, and the body cameras to police?
ASHLEY YATES: Well, the steps that they introduced yesterday are just that, they’re steps, right? They have to lead to something. So, we laid on the table what we’ve said from day one, that 1033 as a program needs to be abolished. There is no reason that our local law enforcement should have military weapons. And especially in the way in which they’ve been using them. They were given as weapons in order to fight terrorism, but they are the ones in acting terrorism upon our communities, therefore, they have proven that program is not effective. And not only is it not effective, it’s being used to oppress American citizens, so it needs to be stripped away.
So, the step that they took yesterday to actually monitor the program, which should have been done in the first place right? But to actually monitor it, that’s a step. We do have to have some accountability as to how these weapons are being used on our American citizens, but we have all seen it. We saw it for the last 115 days in Ferguson. So, to me, that monitoring has been occurring for 115 days. So, now we have to see accountability and we need to see those stripped away. So, that is a step towards progress, but we need to see more, and that’s why we continue. This movement does not stop.
The body cameras? Once again, a step. But, cameras didn’t save Tamir Rice. Cameras didn’t save John Crawford. They didn’t make sure that John Crawford saw justice. So, we know that while that is a step towards ending this real problem, the real root of it has to be addressed. And the real root of it is racism in America. The anti-black sentiments that exist. And we have to have a cultural shift. It’s the reason why Darren Wilson is able to get in front of a grand jury and say that he saw a young black boy as a demon and people can accept that. We have to address why that is reality in our community, and until we begin to address that we really can’t have any real change, and all we have is these small steps towards justice, but we need leaps and bounds.
AMY GOODMAN: Ashley, your response to the grand jury decision and to Darren Wilson resigning from the Ferguson police force?
ASHLEY YATES: Darren Wilson should not have been an able to resign. He should have been fired over 100 days ago. Also, he is resigning a much richer man. It is profitable to kill a black boy. Not only is a profitable, but you get away scott free, as we saw with the grand jury’s decision not to indict him. It’s absolutely heartbreaking, and that’s why we continue to do this work, because like we have said time and time again —
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean by he retired — he resigns as a much richer man.
ASHLEY YATES: I think it is pretty public knowledge that he — there are several people who set up a GoFundMe for him, which is a reason why I don’t support that site. They set up a GoFundMe, he raised over $500,000, and there is also speculation out there that the interview he did, he also received some attention for. But, we definitely know that there is money being put into his pocket from several different places, and the only reason is people are supporting him throughout this. The only thing we know about him is that he killed a black boy. He has been scrubbed clean. Meanwhile, Mike Brown has been demonized in the media, and they’ve done everything they can to dehumanize him and defame his character. So, like I said, it’s absolutely heartbreaking that this can occur in America. It is absolutely heartbreaking that we didn’t see justice in this case. It’s absolutely heartbreaking that I had to sit in front of Lesley McSpadden and watch her breakdown because she had an expectation that the American justice system would work for her family, and it didn’t. So, we continue to do this work so we don’t have to see another family go through that.
AMY GOODMAN: Ashley Yates, I want to thank you for very much for being with us. Ashley Yates is one of the young activists who met with President Obama yesterday at the White House. Activist, poet and artist, raised in Florissant, Missouri. She is a member and co-creator of Millennial Activists United. This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we’ll speak with Lehigh University Professor James Peterson. Stay with us.
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Will Obama’s Police Reforms Bring Change? Admin Urged to Seize Political Momentum of Ferguson Moment
Responding to the protests in Ferguson and cities nationwide, President Obama has announced several new actions: a new task force to come up with concrete steps for "building public trust" in police forces nationwide; a $263 million "Community Policing Initiative," which includes $75 million to provide body cameras for around 50,000 police officers; and an executive order that will tighten rules on the provision of military-grade equipment and weapons to local police forces, such as those used in the crackdown on the Ferguson protests. But in a rejection of activists’ demands, Obama vowed to leave the transfers mostly intact. Obama has also sent Attorney General Eric Holder on a tour of communities nationwide. Holder will soon release new federal guidelines to limit racial profiling, but they will not apply to state or local police agencies, such as in Ferguson. We are joined by James Peterson, director of Africana studies at Lehigh University and the author of "The Hip-Hop Underground and African American Culture: Beneath the Surface."
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman with Aaron Maté.
AARON MATÉ: Well, as we continue to talk about Ferguson, I want to turn back to President Obama. On Monday he reflected on previous federal efforts to address police brutality. Obama said this time will be different because he is personally invested in change.
PRES. OBAMA: Part of the reason this time will be different is because the president of the United States is deeply invested in making sure that this time is different. When I hear the young people around this table talk about their experiences, it violates my belief in what America can be.
AMY GOODMAN: That’s President Obama at the White House yesterday, having meetings around police community relations in the militarization of police. We’re joined now by James Peterson, Director of Africana Studies and Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University, author of, "The Hip-Hop Underground and African American Culture: Beneath the Surface." Welcome to Democracy Now!, Professor Peterson. Can you respond to how President Obama is dealing with this crisis in Ferguson?
PROF. JAMES PETERSON: Well, I think it’s interesting. I think people found his original responses to the crisis somewhat lacking and the pressure of the people, all these organized, strategic instances of civic unrest, the die-ins, the different marches and the different sort of ways in which these things were organized across the nation, demand and really command a certain kind of response from the office of the president, and so, I think that was the response you saw yesterday. And obviously, there is a couple of pieces here that I think are important. One, for him to hear people out, to hear the activists on the ground. Note well here; the president is well aware of the challenges that young people of color and poor people face in certain communities with police forces that are charged with protecting and serving them but ultimately end up containing and terrorizing them. So, he’s aware of that.
But, this is important political theater for him, because the pressure from the public is what creates space for this administration to move on something like this, and I think that’s why you see the policy initiative, some $260 million for community policing. Although, I think we gotta kinda dig deep and see exactly what that training is going to be like. And as you pointed out earlier in the earlier segment, even though we can see changes at the federal level, a lot of these problems are operating at the state level and at the municipal level. And so, although the feds can be a model, we are going to need more oversight into sort of what I refer to as a radical reordering of what local law-enforcement looks like in order to see some justice out of some of these instances that we’ve been dealing with over the last several years, actually.
AARON MATÉ: I want to hone in on some of President Obama’s rhetoric and get your response. When he talks about issues of racial injustice, it seems like it’s often framed in this language of subjective emotional experience. In his comments on Monday, I counted the word "feel" four times.
PROF. JAMES PETERSON: Lot of feeling, that’s right.
AARON MATÉ: He says "young people of color do not feel as if they’re being treated fairly... Young people feeling marginalized." Instead of an actual reality. Does this language minimize the actual reality of what is happening?
PROF. JAMES PETERSON: I don’t want to minimize the affective nature of these things. It is about how people feel. That’s important, but that is not strong enough language, in my opinion, because the reality is, a young black person, as a teenager, is 21 times more likely to be murdered at the hands of police. And that is just from the data that we have. That is not a full accounting of the data, that’s just the data that we have access to. 21 times more likely to be murdered than his or her white counterparts. That’s not a feeling, those are actual facts. There is data.
We have all of these sort of cases that have risen to the level of international sort of media attention. Everything from Michael Brown, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, we can go back into the years and look at other instances of this and see certain names bubble up to the surface. So, you have that sort of sensational data, but beneath the surface of that, there are hundreds if not thousands of these kinds of cases that don’t rise to that level of attention. So, that is actual data.
People are dying at the hands of law-enforcement, and that is not even taking into account the data that we know around stop-and-frisk, around police stops period, about police brutality and police harassment. It doesn’t take into account a full range of other unfortunate situations when we look at the contact between police forces and the communities with which they are charged to protect. So, there is real data here. This is not just about how people feel. That’s not to minimize people’s feelings about it, but, I think to just talk about the affect is not enough to get at the hard-core data that sort of underwrites all these issues and problems that we’re wrestling with.
AMY GOODMAN: On Monday, President Obama said his new task force will come up with concrete recommendations of building public trust in police forces nationwide.
PRES. OBAMA: They’re going to co-chair a task force that is not only going to reach out and listen to law enforcement, community activists, other stakeholders, but is going to report to me specifically in 90 days with concrete recommendations, including best practices for communities where law enforcement and neighborhoods are working well together. How do they create accountability, how do they create transparency, how do they create trust, and how can we at the federal level work with state and local communities to make sure that some of those best practices get institutionalized?
AMY GOODMAN: As President Obama was speaking, he is sitting next to police chief Charles Ramsey. That’s Charles Ramsey the Commissioner of the Philadelphia Police Department. As the police chief of Washington, D.C. in the 2000’s, Ramsey faced criticism for the mass arrests of protesters during the meetings of International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund, a group that brought suits against Ramsey said, "You’d be hard-pressed to find a more inappropriate choice." Apparently the Philadelphia police were surprised he was named this. They said they hadn’t known about this as he went to Washington D.C. for these meetings. You are in Philadelphia, Professor Peterson. Can you talk about your response to Charles Ramsey as a choice?
PROF. JAMES PETERSON: One, I don’t think there are any easy solutions here. Chief Ramsey has had an interesting tenure here in the City of Philadelphia. Philadelphia has had its own set of challenges around law-enforcement behaving badly. I think for the president’s perspective, he wanted to get a law-enforcement officer who had some experience in cities that have had these challenges just so that he would have the bona fides of having the experience of understanding how you repair some of these issues and challenges. But, unfortunately, it’s not a strictly law-enforcement problem to be solved. Right? What Ashley was saying in the previous segment is really, really important, and again, politicians don’t want to hear this, but there is a longer haul here; the long hard word of working with things like racial bias, there’s been a new study out on super-humanization bias which I think really informs some of these issues. And unless that —- the trust can’t be rebuilt unless we’re going to directly -—
AMY GOODMAN: Explain what you mean by the super-humanization bias.
PROF. JAMES PETERSON: So, there is racial bias. People make decisions based on what their perceptions of race are, but there’s new data out around super-humanization bias where if you go back to data or the transcript of the grand jury, when you have Darren Wilson referring to Michael Brown as a demon or referring to him as feeling like he was hulk hogan, or if you think about the reporting around the shooting of Tamir Rice where they felt that he was a 20-year-old and he was a 12-year-old kid, that is what we might refer to a super-humanization bias. Where whites see black people as literally being superhuman, as being able to endure more pain as being older than they are, stronger than they are, faster than they are, in some instances more evil or more demonic that they are. And unfortunately, those — that kind of bias has had some awful consequences once it’s really present in an interface between a law enforcement officer and an unarmed civilian.
So, those are the kind of complex things that any kind of rebuilding of the trust between the police institutions and communities that are charged with serving and protecting — that’s the only way that’s going to happen, if we start to get to the social science behind some of the ways in which people are acting. Now, obviously, we all suffer from bias. Everyone operates based upon biases, it is just that it’s much more pronounced when an officer is making a decision between using lethal force and trying to defuse a situation, and they can’t see a person for the full human being that they are.
AARON MATÉ: Professor, a big issue that came out of the Michael Brown case is the role of the grand jury, especially when you have a prosecutor who works often with police like Bob McCulloch. What reforms, if any, do you want to see on the issue of grand juries investigating cases like these?
PROF. JAMES PETERSON: Let’s take the federal data, 162,000 cases brought before grand juries, only 11 of those did not result in indictments. When you talk about the — people say this kind of cliché thing, you can indict a ham sandwich with a grand jury, that’s not really an exaggeration. and so when you look at that data, that is enough to show you what sort of — what the context is, but when you dial down on some of that, what we’re realizing is, it’s almost impossible to get a conviction of a low enforcement officer who murders a civilian while in the line of duty. That is whites, blacks, whatever. It is more pronounced because more black folk are being murdered — unarmed black folk being murdered by law enforcement, but, the reality is that we have got to at least revise the grand jury process for the indictment and prosecution of law-enforcement who are accused of or suspected of or alleged to have murdered civilians, particularly unarmed civilians. You have people playing for the same team and that is why you can’t get indictments out of those particular kinds of situations. So, the grand jury process has got to be revised for those cases. Once again, biases shape and inform how those processes work as well but there are some structural things, some policy things that we can do directly to get the grand jury process to work in these particular kinds of cases.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to ask you about the "hands up, don’t shoot" image that now, in addition to the kids coming out of school, the hands up — the "hands up" walk yesterday, you had Congress members on the floor of the house like Hakeem Jeffries, the new whip in the Congressional Black Caucus, with his hands up as well as other Congress members. I was watching Joe Scarborough, a former conservative Congress member on "Morning Joe" on MSNBC today saying, how dare they do this. It is based on a lie. Now you also have the members of the National Football League’s St. Louis Rams, taking part in the act of protest before the Sunday football game. During player introductions, a group of players took to the field with their hands raised overhead, you know, "hands up, don’t shoot" in solidarity with Mike Brown. The police said an official with the Rams apologized, but the Rams Executive Vice President told the St. Louis Post Dispatch he didn’t apologize, merely told police he regretted any offense they might have taken. But, this idea that has come out of McCulloch description of what grand jury witnesses said, that in fact, Michael Brown’s hands — did not put his hands up, wasn’t it something like 16 of the 18 witnesses say he did?
PROF. JAMES PETERSON: Sixteen — 16 of the witnesses, Amy, said that they saw him with his hands up. How is that a lie? I really don’t understand that. Now, the law enforcement response to the St. Louis Rams protest to me seems to be a little bit desensitized to the situation as well. Remember, so, we can debate back and forth there were some people who didn’t see but there were at least 16 witnesses in that grand jury who saw Michael Brown with his hands up, including the young man who was a right there, who was a part of that whole situation. And so, I’m not sure who we are supposed to believe or what constitutes a lie or what constitutes the truth. But what I would say to my colleague Joe Scarborough, to the law enforcement in St. Louis is, if we had had an indictment and could’ve properly had a trial by jury, where the evidence could have been vetted and publicly engaged, we might be able to figure what the truth in this situation is. But, because the system does not work in a way that allowed us to have open access to all the data and information, we are playing some of these guessing games. But, by my count 16 people, 16 eyewitnesses see him with his hands up in that grand jury process is enough for me to at least understand that it is not a lie.
But, let’s take it a step further as well. Right? Because, what we’re seeing now is that this has become symbolic for what this movement is, it is not just about Michael Brown. It is about the killing of unarmed young black people, young Latino people, young poor people in this nation. The killing of American citizens by American law enforcement. So, the "hands up, don’t shoot" movement is symbolic in such a way that transcends even the Michael Brown case. For people trying to bog it down just in this one case, you’ve got to understand what this movement is about. This is a nationwide movement at this point in time.
AARON MATÉ: The proposal for body cameras, Obama proposing funding for 50,000 body cameras on police, is that a positive step in your view?
PROF. JAMES PETERSON: Well, it’s, it’s an interesting step. And I know a lot of people are calling for body cameras, and I think in some of these cases, body cameras would help. I would point out two things, though. Number one, just because a law enforcement officer has on a body camera does not mean that it will immediately erases their biases. We have seen it in some communities where it’s sort of reduced police brutality and reduced some of these incidents, and that’s all well and good. But, I would say, first, that we still need the long, hard work of changing the culture of the United States around race and racial bias.
But then, Number two, I’m deeply concerned about the surveillance issues that go along with this. Remember, so these body cameras, I’m assuming, are going to go to the communities with the highest crime rates, which are communities that also have the highest concentrations of poverty and communities that also have the highest incidences of police brutality and police misconduct. Now we’re adding an additional layer of surveillance in those communities. I’ve often already spoken about the ways in which we talk about the kind of NSA surveillance, but people in these communities have been dealing with physical surveillance; the stop tactics — the stop-and-frisk and things of that nature.
To add body cameras, I’m not sure if we’re having the right conversations about that extra layer of surveillance for communities that are already, in some ways, under siege by law enforcement. And so, I think we need to have that conversation and to understand what the consequences are of adding a layer of surveillance on top of an already explosive situation where you’re thinking about this interface between law enforcement and the people they’re charged to protect.
AMY GOODMAN: James Peterson, we want to thank you very much for being with us, director of Africana Studies and Associate Professor of English at Lehigh University, also a contributor at MSNBC. Professor Peterson is the author of, "The Hip-Hop Underground and African American Culture: Beneath the Surface."
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Will Texas Execute a Schizophrenic Man Who Tried to Subpoena Jesus, JFK & the Pope at His Own Trial?
We look at the case of a Texas prisoner scheduled to be executed Wednesday despite the wide belief he is mentally ill. Scott Panetti was convicted of killing his wife’s parents in 1992, more than a decade after he was first diagnosed with schizophrenia. His mental health history until that point included hallucinations that prompted his dismissal from the Navy, and 14 hospitalizations for schizophrenia and depression, often under a court order. His previous wife divorced him after he buried their furniture because he said it was possessed by the devil and also nailed his curtains shut. Panetti’s murder trial drew headlines when he was allowed to represent himself after dismissing his court appointed attorney. He dressed as a cowboy in a purple suit and a hat, and the witnesses he tried to subpoena in his defense included John F. Kennedy, the Pope, and Jesus Christ. At one point, he assumed his alternate personality of "Sarge" and testified in the third person about carrying out the murders. Then in 2007, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Panetti lacked the understanding of why he was being put to death, and asked a lower court to re-evaluate whether he was sane enough to execute. But the courts accepted the argument from the state’s lawyers that Panetti was faking his illness and reinstated his death sentence. We speak to Panetti’s attorney, Kathryn Kase, and Ron Honberg, national director for policy and legal affairs of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We are broadcasting on over 1300 public radio and television stations around the United States and around the world. We also stream and audio and video podcast online at democracynow.org. You can read the transcript of every show and you can go to our extensive archive of video from Ferguson. As well we’ll be broadcasting throughout next week from Lima, Peru from the U.N. climate summit. So, tell your friends, tune in, play this in your classroom. As we turn now to a story that is taking place in Texas.
AARON MATÉ: We turn now to a Texas execution that has attracted international attention because the man is set to die is believed to be mentally ill. Scott Panetti was convicted of killing his wife’s parents in 1992, more than a decade after he was first diagnosed with schizophrenia. His mental health history until that point included hallucinations that prompted his dismissal from the Navy, and 14 hospitalizations for schizophrenia and depression, often under a court order. His previous wife divorced him after he buried their furniture because he said it was possessed by the devil and also nailed his curtains shut.
Panetti’s murder trial drew headlines when he was allowed to represent himself after dismissing his court appointed attorney. He dressed as a cowboy in a purple suit and hat, and the witnesses he tried to subpoena in his defense included John F. Kennedy, the pope, and Jesus Christ. At one point, he assumed his alternate personality of "Sarge" and testified in the third person about how carried out the murders. After he being sentenced to die, Panetti said he believed he was being executed not for the killings, but for preaching the Gospel to his fellow death row prisoners.
AMY GOODMAN: Scott Panetti’s family sat through his trial when he was allowed to represent himself and passed him notes to try to help. This is his father Jack Panetti, his former lawyer, Meridel Solbrig and his sister Vicki Panetti speaking and a 2007 video made for The Texas Defender Service.
JACK PANETTI: We’d send him a note and say show those medical records. He was up there by himself. I said, show the medical records. Well, Scott would be up scribble and drawing pictures on them. And then he would finally get it up to the judge. The judge said, I can’t accept that, you scribbled on it. Throw it out.
MERIDEL SOLBRIG: The trial of Scott Panetti was, to me, a circus. And I think that other people saw it that way as well.
VICKI PANETTI: He was more obsessed with how he looked and his fantasy of being his own lawyer in a 1930’s cowboy costume than what reality was, and that was that he was under trial for murder. He didn’t understand that.
MERIDEL SOLBRIG: It would have been like an old Hollywood cowboy movie. It’s nothing that anybody would wear to anything other than a costume party. It was bizarre.
AARON MATÉ: In 2007, the Supreme Court ruled Panetti lacked the understanding of why he was been put to death and asked the lower court to reevaluate whether he was saying enough to execute. But, the court accepted the argument from the state’s lawyers that Panetti was faking his illness and reinstated his death sentence. Now he is set to die Wednesday at 6:00 p.m. On Monday, the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole refused his, clemency request and his lawyers have asked Governor Rick Perry to issue a stay of execution.
AMY GOODMAN: For more we go to Houston, Texas, where we’re joined by Panetti’s attorney Kathryn Kase, Executive Director of The Texas Defender Service. Panetti would be the 11th prisoner executed in Texas this year, the most of any state. Missouri is close behind with eight men put to death this year. Talk more about your case and what you are calling for right now in the — as a result of the execution being set for Wednesday evening of Scott Panetti, Kathryn Kase.
KATHRYN KASE: We have three efforts going on simultaneously. We’re in the fifth circuit where we are seeking time and resources to litigate Scott’s competence to be executed because his psychiatric condition continues to deteriorate day by day. We are also in the U.S. Supreme Court where we are arguing that it is unconstitutional to execute the seriously mentally ill. And, finally, we have a 30-day reprieve request before the governor, Rick Perry, saying that we would like additional time to, again, litigate Scott’s competence to be executed.
AARON MATÉ: Can we back up and go to the trial? Can you describe the scene in the courtroom and explain how was it that he was allowed to represent himself?
KATHRYN KASE: This is a question that no one can answer sufficiently. Scott was wearing a cowboy outfit during this trial. His jeans were tucked into his boots. He had on a TV Western cowboy shirt, a purple bandanna around his neck and he was waving a cowboy Bible. He was representing himself because, before the trial began, he became extremely paranoid, he was off his medication, and he believed that his lawyers were in league against him, so, he fired them and told the judge that he wanted to represent himself. Oddly, though, the judge allowed this after having sat through two competency trials and knowing Scott’s 12 year history at the time of chronic paranoid schizophrenia. To this day, there has not been an adequate explanation by the Texas justice system as to how this man was permitted to fight for his life on his own in a death penalty trial.
AMY GOODMAN: Kathryn Kase, talk about the history of mentally ill prisoners and what kind of precedent this sets.
KATHRYN KASE: With Scott’s execution, Texas will cross in irrevocable moral line. The State of Texas, to my knowledge, has never executed, post Furman, anyone who was — who had a history of severe mental illness and who represented himself at his death penalty trial. Now, the state did execute Kelsey Patterson in 2004. Mr. Patterson also had a history of severe psychosis, and the board of pardons and paroles, in contrast to Scott’s case, recommended that Mr. Patterson’s sentence be commuted. However, the Texas governor, Rick Perry, let that execution occur. And on the gurney, as the state prepared to lethally inject him, Mr. Patterson told onlookers that — in some in-substance — that he was the warden and that the correctional officers should get their warden off the gurney. He went to his death babbling, and I’m convinced, incompetent. So, Texas is not exactly covered with glory in its efforts to protect the mentally ill from the criminal justice system.
AARON MATÉ: And what is Scott Panetti’s current mental state? Is he taking any medication? What is his situation?
KATHRYN KASE: If you’re on death row in Texas, you don’t really get treatment unless you are so ill that the state can’t ignore it, such as the situation with Andre Thomas who only was sent to the Jester IV psychiatric unit in the prison system after he plucked out his remaining eye and swallowed it on death row. So, Scott Panetti has been unmedicated largely for 20 years on Texas death row. And today, his condition continues to deteriorate. My co-counsel, Greg Wiercioch, of the University of Wisconsin School of Law, have gone — has gone to see him regularly, as have I, and Scott continues to be delusional and he is hearing voices. And what’s worse is, he is trying to hide that. He knows that when he hears voices, that something is wrong. And his response is to read Scripture and to believe that his obligation as a good Christian is to preach the Bible and set an example for other people on death row. Because that’s why, he believes, he is being executed. It doesn’t have anything to do, in his mind, with the deaths of his in-laws, Jo and Sonia — Amanda Alvarado.
AMY GOODMAN: His former wife, the daughter of his in-laws, who he is convicted of killing, she is calling for him not to be executed?
KATHRYN KASE: I am not in contact with her, but I do know that after he was convicted and sentenced to death, she submitted a sworn affidavit to the courts where she said, I know that Scott is mentally ill and he should not be put to death for this. So there was recognition on her part as someone who is the daughter of the victims that the criminal justice system should not respond with the death penalty. And also Sonja Alvarado, sadly, was present when Scott Panetti killed her parents. She was in the best position to say what should happen to him. That has been ignored.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re also joined right now from Washington, D.C., by Ron Honberg, National Director for Policy and Legal Affairs at the National Alliance on Mental Illness. His editorial just published in the L.A. Times is headlined, "Texas execution of a severely mentally ill man would be an outrage." Can you talk about the significance of the possible execution of Scott Panetti, how the National Alliance on the Mentally Ill is dealing with this?
RON HONBERG: Thank you, yes, the Supreme Court has already banned the execution of people with intellectual disabilities, mental retardation, and juveniles. And they did so because they recognize that the brains of individuals who fall into those categories are impaired. And the Supreme Court, while not going quite that far with mental illness, has said very clearly that if someone is so delusional that they don’t have a firm grasp on reality at the time they commit their crime, that person should not be executed. That should be recognized as a mitigating factor. And yet Texas has ignored the evidence, continuous evidence, for over 30 years that Scott Panetti is highly delusional due to his schizophrenia.
And this is not a recent phenomenon with Scott Panetti. He was hospitalized 10 times prior to his crime. In the course of 12 years he was hospitalized 10 times. He has been consistently delusional, and irrational, really, since the crime. This has not changed. Every evaluation that has been done of him establishes that. It has not been, frankly, controverted by the prosecution. And yet, despite the Supreme Court’s decision, Texas is proceeding with executing him, and that would just be a gross injustice. No matter how you feel about the death penalty, people in this country recognize that it should be used only for the worst of the worst with no mitigating factors, and here this case has all sorts of mitigating factors.
AMY GOODMAN: The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals rejected Panetti’s appeal Tuesday in a 5-4 vote. But, the statements from the dissenting judges suggest his case is prompting serious debate, even among Texas’ conservative judges. In her dissent, Republican Judge Elsa Alcala said a decision to execute Panetti, "will result in the irreversible and constitutionally impermissible execution of a mentally incompetent person." Another dissenting voice, Judge Tom Price, wrote, "We are the guardians of the process. Based on my specialized knowledge of this process, I now conclude that the death penalty as a form of punishment should be abolished because the execution of individuals does not appear to measurably advance the retribution and deterrence purposes served by the death penalty; the life without parole option adequately protects society at large in the same way as the death penalty punishment option; and the risk of executing an innocent person for a capital murder is unreasonably high." That’s what Judge Price wrote while dissenting in the decision to execute Scott Panetti. Kathryn Kase your response?
KATHRYN KASE: I think that Judge Price is in the same group with the outpouring across the country regarding Scott Panetti’s execution. We’ve had Evangelical Christian leaders, national leaders come forward and say that this execution should not occur, that Scott Panetti should be protected as a result of his mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association, NAMI, Mental Health America have come forward, but also political conservatives have spoken out. And I think that this shows that there has been an emerging consensus that the seriously mentally ill like Scott Panetti should not be executed. And this is an issue that the Supreme Court is going to have to confront. Certainly, with Scott Panetti’s case, but also with the cases of other seriously mentally ill who are on death row around this country.
AARON MATÉ: Ron Honberg, what is it that you think people need to understand most about people who suffer from schizophrenia, whether they are in prison or on the outside? What do you think are the key issues that people might not know about schizophrenia?
RON HONBERG: OK, well, first of all, most people with schizophrenia are not violent. And with treatment, many people with schizophrenia can live productive, meaningful lives and do live productive, meaningful lives. But, what people who have not experienced the terrifying symptoms of schizophrenia don’t understand — it’s a hard thing to really understand unless you have experienced it — is that while schizophrenia may not impact on the intelligence, it impacts on one’s very perception of reality, and that the voices and delusions, the hallucinations that people experience, while, to somebody not experiencing them may seem nonsensical, are very, very real to those individuals. And the more that we can understand that, the more compassionately we can respond to people experiencing the symptoms., and frankly, the more we can fix the broken mental health system in this country because it’s often times almost impossible to get services until you are in crisis, that would be akin to waiting ’til somebody has a heart attack to treat them. The more we can fix that, the better off people are going to be, the more people that will recover and, certainly, the relatively rare number of cases that lead to violence will be decreased. It will also, frankly, significantly reduce the numbers of people with mental illness who are in our jails and prisons in this country. Very tragically, jails and prisons have become the de facto mental health treatment system. There are far more people in jails and prisons in this country with serious mental illnesses with schizophrenia than there are in hospitals or in community programs.
AMY GOODMAN: What about that issue of the jails, the prisons, of the United States becoming the warehouses of the mentally ill?
RON HONBERG: It’s, I think, this one of the great tragedies of modern time. It is — it’s the worst possible place that someone who is experiencing these kind of serious symptoms can be in. It only makes the symptoms worse. Most people eventually are released and they’re not in any position to re-enter communities. And then, when they re-enter communities, the services that they need are not available to them. The one positive development that I see happening is that I think there’s increased recognition of this and Kathryn mentioned that there have been conservative voices that have been raised in objection to Scott Panetti being executed. There’s also been a groundswell of conservative sentiment for putting more resources into treatment for people so that they don’t end up in jail and prison. Why? Because it’s very expensive to keep people incarcerated and it is also, from a public safety standpoint, very bad thing to do.
AARON MATÉ: Kathryn Kase, the clemency petition that you submitted to the Texas Board of Pardons and Parole has received support from conservatives like former Texas coccurredongressmember Ron Paul. Just last year, Paul endorsed a new advocacy group Conservatives Concerned About the Death Penalty saying, "I believe that support for the death penalty is inconsistent with libertarianism and traditional conservatism." Then in November Paul wrote, "In order to be considered competent for execution, Mr. Panetti needs to understand the reason for his execution. He believes that he is being put to death for preaching the Gospel, not for the murder of his wife’s parents. The circumstances of this case present a situation where execution does not serve the state of Texas." What about this — Mr. Panetti receiving some unlikely political support from the likes of Ron Paul?
KATHRYN KASE: What this shows is that there is an emerging awareness around the country, even among political conservatives who, I think most people would say, oh, they’re strongly in favor of the death penalty. But, this emerging consensus shows that there is great concern about who we use the death penalty against. And certainly, no one asks to be diagnosed with schizophrenia. It is an incurable brain disease. Nobody asks, as has occurred with Scott Panetti, to be poorly controlled on medication. During Scott Panetti’s life, during the years when he repeatedly sought treatment, he was on some fairly heavy anti-psychotic medication, but he still experienced symptoms. Nobody would ask for that. And I think what we’re seeing among conservatives, among Christian evangelicals, among many people around the country is that people with serious mental illness who become involved in the criminal justice system are less culpable and therefore, deserving of more protection from the system. The system has failed Scott Panetti and his family because it has failed to protect him. It failed to protect him from himself when he represented himself at trial.
AMY GOODMAN: Kathryn Kase, we’re going to have to leave it there, attorney for Scott Panetti, Director of the Texas Defender Service. And Ron Honberg, thanks for joining us, National Director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness.
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"Hands Up" Walkouts Sweep U.S. as Obama Unveils Police Reforms
In more than 30 U.S. cities, workers and students walked out of school or off the job Monday with their hands raised to protest the police shooting of unarmed black teenager Michael Brown. In Washington, D.C., protesters staged a die-in at the Justice Department. In Cambridge, Massachusetts, dozens laid down in a major intersection in Harvard Square. President Obama. meanwhile, issued his first major policy response, announcing a community policing initiative.
President Obama: "The sense that, in a country where one of our basic principles — perhaps the most important principle — is equality under the law, that too many individuals, particularly young people of color, do not feel as if they are being treated fairly. As I said last week, when any part of the American family does not feel like it is being treated fairly, that’s a problem for all of us."
Obama’s plan includes $75 million to equip police with body cameras. He also announced an executive order to tighten rules on the provision of military-grade equipment to local police, but vowed to leave the transfers mostly intact. Speaking in Atlanta, Georgia, Attorney General Eric Holder also announced steps to curb racial profiling. We will have more on the protests and the Obama administration’s response after headlines.
St. Louis Rams, Police Differ on Apology over Protest
St. Louis County police say an official with the St. Louis Rams football team has apologized after players raised their arms in the air before a game in a gesture of solidarity with Michael Brown. But Rams’ Executive Vice President Kevin Demoff told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch he did not apologize, but merely told police he "regretted any offense their officers may have taken."
ISIS Leader’s Wife, Child Detained in Lebanon
The Lebanese army has detained the wife and child of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, leader of the militant group Islamic State, which has claimed swaths of Iraq and Syria. The news comes as the United States has continued airstrikes against the group with at least 55 since Friday. Meanwhile a U.S. fighter pilot has died in a noncombat crash, reportedly in Jordan.
U.N. Cuts Food Aid to 1.7 Million Syrian Refugees
The United Nations World Food Programme has suspended aid to 1.7 million Syrian refugees due to budget shortfalls after donor nations have failed to deliver on their pledges. The U.N. agency said the move could be "disastrous" for Syrians in countries like Lebanon and Turkey.
Kenya: Al-Shabab Militants Kills 36 Workers
In northern Kenya, Somali militants from the group al-Shabab have killed 36 non-Muslim workers at a quarry near the town of Mandera. Last week the group killed 28 people in an attack on a bus in the same area.
WHO: Ebola Targets Met in Guinea, Liberia
The World Health Organization says Liberia and Guinea have met a goal to treat 70 percent of patients suffering from Ebola, while Sierra Leone has not. The agency warned it may not reach a year-end goal to isolate and care for all patients. But Antony Banbury, head of the U.N. Ebola response mission, cited progress.
Antony Banbury: "The global response to the Ebola crisis has succeeded in turning this crisis around. Where we were 60 days ago compared to where we are now, we, by we I am talking about all actors in the response, are extremely successful in getting this crisis under control. We are far away from being out of the woods, but there has been remarkable result achieved in the past 60 days."
Russia Scraps Gas Pipeline to Europe amid Ukraine Tensions
Russian President Vladimir Putin has scrapped plans for a major gas pipeline to Europe amid tensions over Russia’s role in Ukraine. After the European Union opposed the pipeline, Putin announced the gas would instead flow to Turkey.
West Virginia: Gunman Accused in Domestic Violence Case Kills 4
In West Virginia, a man suspected of killing four people in a shooting spree has been found dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Police say Jody Lee Hunt was suspected in three shootings. One of the people he killed had filed a domestic violence case against him.
Police: Austin, Texas Shooter Linked to Christian Hate Group
In Austin, Texas, police say a man who opened fire on government buildings and tried to burn the Mexican consulate was a "American terrorist" with ties to a Christian hate group. Police say Larry McQuilliams had expressed frustration over immigrants receiving aid while he could not find a job. He had multiple weapons and a map of 34 potential targets when he was shot dead by police.
Mexico: Outrage Marks Peña Nieto’s 2nd Anniversary; 11 Protesters Released
In Mexico, outrage erupted across the country on the second anniversary of Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto’s rule, as protesters denounced state-backed violence, corruption and the disappearance of 43 students in September. Over the weekend, 11 people held in maximum security prisons after an earlier protest were released following an international outcry. Anger intensified after a university student, Sandino Bucio, was grabbed from the streets Friday by undercover police whom he said threatened to rape and disappear him.
Colombia: General Resigns After Release by FARC Rebels
In Colombia, FARC rebels have released a general and two other hostages captured last month. General Ruben Dario Alzate resigned shortly after his release, saying he should have taken more precautions. His kidnapping prompted Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos to suspend peace talks aimed at ending the 50-year-conflict with the FARC.
Bahrain Activist Maryam Alkhawaja Jailed for Year in Absentia
Bahraini human rights activist Maryam Alkhawaja has been sentenced to a year in prison in absentia for what she says are false charges of assaulting police. That means Alkhawaja would face prison if she returns to Bahrain, where her father, human rights activist Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, is serving a life term. Bahrain is a key U.S. ally, home to the Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
Bill Cosby Resigns from Temple University Board as Abuse Reports Hit 20
Comedian Bill Cosby has resigned from the board of trustees of Temple University amid mounting claims he drugged and sexually assaulted women over a period of four decades. Other institutions, including Cosby’s alma mater, University of Massachusetts Amherst, have cut ties with Cosby as the number of his alleged victims has hit 20.
UVA President Vows to Address Rape on Campus After Protests
The president of the University of Virginia canceled a speaking event in Washington, D.C., Monday to deliver a speech at the university vowing steps to address sexual assault. An article in Rolling Stone magazine about a gang rape by fraternity members revealed a pattern of rape and impunity and sparked protests on campus. President Teresa Sullivan has outlined steps including increased policing and an added trauma counselor.
Snowden, McKibben Among Recipients of Right Livelihood Award
In Stockholm, Sweden, the Right Livelihood Award, known as the alternative Nobel Prize, has been awarded to five people, including National Security Agency whistleblower Edward Snowden. Snowden accepted by video link from Russia.
Edward Snowden: "All the prices we’ve paid, all the sacrifices we made, I believe we would do again — I know I would do again, because it was never about me ... (inaudible) this is about us, this is about our rights, this is about what kind of societies that we want to live in, the kind of government that we want to have."
Snowden was honored along with Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian newspaper, which published reports using Snowden’s leaks to expose sweeping NSA surveillance. The other Right Livelihood honorees were Pakistani human rights activist Asma Jahangir, Basil Fernando of the Asian Human Rights Commission in Hong Kong and U.S. environmentalist "Bill McKibben":http://www.democracynow.org/appearances/bill_mckibben, founder of 350.org and a leading voice against climate change.
30th Anniversary of Bhopal Disaster Marked
Tonight marks the 30th anniversary of the Bhopal disaster, the worst industrial tragedy in history. Campaigners say more than 20,000 people died as a result of toxic gas that leaked from the Union Carbide pesticide factory, while half a million more were poisoned. The toxic legacy continues as Union Carbide and its parent firm, Dow Chemical, have refused to pay for clean up or face charges in Indian court.
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