The Trials Of Darryl Hunt

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The Israelis and their US sponsors have created a world where it’s normal to fire on hospitals, journalists and UN workers while killing 5,500 children in 45 days. Rania Khalek will be joined by Prof. As’ad Abukhalil for a special live episode of Dispatches to discuss the genocide in Gaza, western double standards and racism towards Palestinians, Israel’s bad propaganda, and growing resistance from the Middle East to the streets of the US

Jamarion Robinson - shot 76 times by police

                                  Atlanta man shot 76 times by police

The family of an Atlanta man shot 76 times by police has filed a civil rights lawsuit against the officers involved.

Jamarion Robinson, 26, was killed  at his girlfriend’s home in Parkside Camp Creek Luxury Apartments on Candlewood Drive in East Point. He was shot by members of a police task force that included officers from multiple jurisdictions, including the U.S. Marshal Service, who were serving a warrant for his arrest.

On August 5, 2016, US Marshals came to the Georgia home of Jamarion Robinson’s girlfriend. Robinson was suspected of opening fire on a police officer a week prior. When the Marshals left the home where Robinson, a Tuskegee University Biology student was staying, he had been shot 76 times by cops.

Members of local civil rights organizations said at a press conference Wednesday they don’t know why police were looking for Robinson. Law enforcement authorities have said they obtained a warrant for Robinson’s arrest after he fired a gun at police during a previous confrontation.“At the time of the shooting, Jamarion Robinson presented no threat to the defendant officers or anyone else,” according to the lawsuit, filed in federal court.

Jamarion Robinson was shot and killed by U.S. Marshals in East Point, GA within Metro-Atlanta. They had been pursuing a man who allegedly shot at a police officer the week before. A battering ram was used to gain entry into the home and upon entry, marshals began firing their weapons. A neighbor captured the incident on video, but from outside, where you can hear a barrage of gunfire. Out of the 95 shots that were fired, 76 of those bullets hit Jamarion. When relatives arrived on the scene, they were shown a picture of the man marshals had been searching for and they noticed the man in the picture was not Jamarion. Ever since, family and loved ones, along with the community, have been fighting for justice.

Details of the 2016 incident are spelled out in two separate and related federal complaints, the first a civil rights lawsuit filed by the victim's mother and a second from the Fulton County District Attorney seeking documents related to the raid.

According to the DA complaint, on August 5, 2016, Jamarion Rashad Robinson was killed after a federal task force went to serve an arrest warrant at Parkside Camp Creek apartments in Atlanta. That complaint says the task force was made up of 14 law enforcement officers from eight Atlanta-area police departments, and at least one U.S. marshal.

The complaint accuses officers of knocking at the apartment door, but then immediately breaking the door down and “spraying” the interior with 9 mm and .40 mm submachine guns and .40 mm Glock pistols. It also accuses the U.S. Marshals involved with the task force of tampering with evidence by handcuffing Robinson at the apartment, after he was dead from his gunshot wounds, and throwing a flash grenade into the apartment.The lawsuit was filed against eight named law enforcement officers from a number of different law enforcement agencies, as well as 11 unidentified officers. It alleges that the officers used excessive force, manipulated evidence falsified reports.

"At the conclusion of the shooting, a firearm was located, which the officers claimed that Mr. Robinson fired at them three times. However, when the firearm was recovered, it was damaged and inoperable." The complaint does not name the officers who fired, reading "one or more defendants began 'spraying' bullets."

 The lawsuit seeks "substantial actual or compensatory damages" for violations of state law and Robinson's constitutional rights, as well as punitive damages and attorney fees. Officers named in the suit are from the Atlanta Police, East Point Police, Fulton County Police, Clayton County Fire and Police departments, the Fayette County Sheriff’s Office and the U.S. Marshals Service.The Atlanta Police Department said it can not comment on pending litigation and the Clayton County Police department referred questions to the U.S. Marshals office, which did not offer a comment.The Georgia Bureau of Investigation investigated the shooting initially before turning it over to the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office. The District Attorney’s Office did not immediately respond to attempts to reach them about the status of the investigation.Andrew M. Stroth of Action Injury Law Group, a Chicago-based firm specializing in cases of police brutality and excessive force, will represent Robinson’s family in court. Organizations present at the presser were the New Order National Human Rights Organization, the Cobb Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC) and the 1000 Men March.

Jamarion Robinson’s mother, Monteria Robinson, is seeking justice for the horrific murder of her son. If you haven’t heard about his death, it could be considered the epitome of excessive. August 5, 2017, marks the one-year anniversary of Jamarion’s gruesome death. Last year on this day, Jamarion was shot a total of 76 times. Then to make matters worse, he wasn’t killed as a result of his own wrongdoing. Unfortunately, he was murdered by members of law enforcement – U.S. Marshals. Then, to make matters worse, the U.S. Marshals shot and killed the wrong man. Although the case is currently under investigation, his mother cannot understand why more progress has not been made. Now, she wants real answers.

                   He had 76 bullet wounds from police guns. The DA is asking why


              The Mother Of Jamarion Robinson Gives A Powerful Speech At A BLM Protest


                    Jamarion Robinson’s Story | A Mother’s Perspective


       Federal Gov't Not Cooperating In Instigation Into The Murder Of Man Shot 59 Times By Cops


              DA fights US Marshals cloak of secrecy over Jamarion Robinson case


                                  Black Man Shot 76 Times by Police


https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/atlanta-police-officer-charged-in-tasing-of-college-students-was-named-in-prior-excessive-force-lawsuit/ar-BB15lXXY
https://imperialhiphopvideos.com/jamarion-robinson-76-bullets-mothers-quest-justice/
https://ipoppingvideos.com/jamarion-robinson-76-bullets-mothers-quest-justice/
https://www.ebony.com/news/jamarion-robinson-shot-76-times-police/
https://www.ajc.com/news/crime--law/family-man-shot-police-files-suit/jt3ooaaCxhnI5kI6D7MyiL/
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/da-withdraws-subpoenas-in-death-of-man-shot-nearly-60-times-by-officers/85-79fbd568-9624-4328-aa33-ce67af6591aa
https://www.11alive.com/article/news/local/85-ffc15b29-0a8d-4c16-85bc-58f74671b651

Shaun King on the epidemic of police violence in America

Author and activist Shaun King discusses the rising rate of killings by police, in oral testimony submitted to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights for a Thematic Hearing on December 7, 2017 organized by Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights, the International Human Rights Clinic at Santa Clara University School of Law, and ACLU, that examined impunity for police killings in the United States.



 Learn more about our efforts to reform the criminal justice system by visiting www.rfkhumanrights.org.

Learn about our predatory money bail system by visiting our bail reform campaign at www.libertyandjustice.nyc

Dontae Sharpe Did Not Kill George Radcliffe

   
                      Dontae Sharpe Did Not Kill George Radcliffe
By Jessica Brand

He’s been in prison for more than two decades for a crime he didn’t commit. Why won’t North Carolina set him free?

In February 1994, in Greenville, North Carolina, someone fired a fatal bullet at a 33-year-old man named George Radcliffe. Police recovered Radcliffe’s truck, which had crashed into a chain-link fence, near the site of the shooting. They found Radcliffe inside the truck, slumped over in the front seat.

The murder went unsolved for two months, until a troubled teenager claimed a black man named Dontae Sharpe had committed the murder because Radcliffe, who was white, owed him money in a drug deal.

Sharpe, who was 18 when Radcliffe was killed, insisted on his innocence then and continues to insist on it today. Considerable evidence—including recantations by the state’s witnesses, signs of witness manipulation by the Greenville Police Department, and information pointing to another likely culprit—suggests he is telling the truth.

The government’s case hinged largely on the testimony of Charlene Johnson, who initially refused to come to the trial and testify; police, in turn, took her into custody and brought her to court. Johnson admitted at trial that she’d received $500 for “coming forward.”

Thirteen years old and suffering from serious drug addiction at the time of the shooting, Johnson claimed she’d noticed Sharpe and Radcliffe arguing after the latter shorted the former by $2 in a drug deal. Police, however, found a lot more than that amount—$53 to be exact—in Radcliffe’s wallet. She also claimed Sharpe fired one bullet while face-to-face with Radcliffe. An autopsy, though,
showed a wound that traveled from the victim’s left arm through his chest and into his right arm. With the help of a friend standing nearby, the witness claimed, Sharpe placed Radcliffe—who was 5-foot-10 and weighed 225 pounds—into the victim’s compact truck. She said that one of the men “probably” sat on top of Radcliffe, then drove the car until it crashed. Johnson told the jury that Sharpe got out of the car, threw down the keys and the gun, and fled. But police did not recover a gun and found Radcliffe’s keys in the ignition.

       Free Dontae Sharpe! | April 13th Caravan for Justice Promo


Beatrice Stokes, the government’s other eyewitness, claimed she saw a “scuffle” and then the spark of a gun going off. She believed Sharpe had a gun but stopped short of saying he’d fired a shot, and she never identified him as the shooter. A daily drug user, she acknowledged she could have been “high as a kite” on crack at the time of the shooting. Stokes never provided a written statement, and in a highly irregular move, police officers did not memorialize a single interview they’d had with her.

That was the extent of the government’s case implicating Sharpe. No forensic evidence linked him to the murder. Police recovered two fingerprints from Radcliffe’s car, but neither matched Sharpe’s own prints. Nonetheless, in 1995, a jury convicted Sharpe of first-degree murder, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Not long after, the government’s case began to unravel.

First, both Johnson and Stokes recanted their testimony. Johnson admitted just months after the trial was over that she had lied, a position she has maintained for 20 years. In a recent sworn affidavit, she wrote, “My lies have kept Dontae in prison, but they have also been a very heavy burden for me. I feel stuck in Greenville until I fix what I did and Dontae is free.”

Johnson’s medical records, which were never disclosed at trial, provide important insight into her motivation to fabricate. About six days after the shooting and at the behest of Officer Jeff Shrock, who knew her from his policing of the neighborhood, Johnson’s mother committed the 13-year-old to an adolescent psychiatric unit for several weeks. Her medical files note Johnson’s desire to “be submissive and cooperative,” her “sensitivit[y] to external pressures and demands,” and a “vulnerab[ility] to separation fears from those who have occasionally provided support.”

Enter Detective Ricky Best, who both helped run the investigation into Sharpe’s case and played a father-figure role for Johnson. Best gave Johnson and her family gifts and money, and she referred to him as “Daddy Best.”

There is reason to believe Best wanted her to pin the murder on Sharpe. Johnson says Best was frustrated with his inability to arrest Sharpe for drug dealing, allegedly telling her, “I can’t get him for drugs, but I can get him for murder.” While Best has denied making this statement, Schrock said at a hearing that he “knew Mr. Sharpe from the streets” and had “attempted to establish probable cause to arrest Mr. Sharpe for drug dealing, but had always been unsuccessful.”

Stokes recanted in May 2000, confessing she’d held “the truth inside for years.” She said this while speaking to Sharpe’s paid private investigator, a former Greenville police detective who investigated Sharpe’s case and believes he is innocent. In December 2000, Stokes reversed course when reinterviewed by the Greenville police. This time, she claimed her initial trial testimony was true, although she maintains she never saw who fired the fatal shot.

Stokes, too, had a motivation to tell the police what they wanted to hear. Unbeknownst to defense counsel, Stokes was in jail when she first identified Sharpe as the shooter and therefore was in need of police and prosecutorial assistance. It would have been easy for Stokes to point to Sharpe, who was already under arrest for the murder. And although she claimed otherwise at trial, she told Sharpe’s private investigator she was promised $200, which she received after testifying.

There is also evidence the jury never heard that points to a different culprit. At trial, defense counsel proffered Tracy Highsmith’s testimony explaining that her boyfriend, Damien Smith, had confessed to shooting Radcliffe. Highsmith said he’d told her that he “would kill himself before he [would] go to jail for killing a white man.” Later that month, Smith shot himself in the head.

The prosecutor objected to the admission of this powerful testimony, arguing that Smith’s words were hearsay—an out-of-court statement not admissible in court unless it falls within a well-established exception. Sharpe’s attorney—who in 1987, temporarily lost his law license after a conviction for drug distribution—failed to argue that this was a statement against penal interest, one that, if believed, might subject the speaker to criminal liability. Someone saying, essentially, “I am the shooter” certainly falls within that exception. The lawyer’s glaring misstep meant the jury never heard that someone else had confessed to the murder.

Perhaps most importantly, it is now clear that the police misled the judge throughout the case. At a 1997 hearing on a motion for a new trial, Detective Best testified that he believed Johnson’s identification of Sharpe because she’d passed a polygraph administered before her testimony. The results, however, were inconclusive, a fact police did not disclose until 2014. In that same hearing, Shrock testified that Johnson had identified Sharpe while she was with him at the hospital. He now admits this was false. In a 2014 interview with the Greenville police, who are reexamining the case, Shrock blamed Best for what he refers to as a “fuckin’ fiasco.”

If the events following this trial have not undermined public trust in Sharpe’s conviction, it is hard to imagine what will. The recantations, the excluded evidence, and the false statements lead to one conclusion: Dontae Sharpe should not have been convicted of this crime.

There are now petitions pending before three people: North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein, and Greenville District Attorney Kimberly Robb. If Stein and Robb joined in a motion for appropriate release, Sharpe would be let out of prison immediately. Cooper could also grant a pardon of full innocence. Sharpe is otherwise out of appeals. If these three state officials decline to act, he will continue to sit behind bars, hoping to be granted parole—a scenario made less likely by the fact that he insists he is innocent.

                    Dontae Sharpe’s mother Sarah Blakely, Sharpe, and his aunt Sharon Sharpe.

The chorus demanding Sharpe’s release and a full recognition of his innocence gets louder by the day, with leaders from the Duke Law School’s Wrongful Convictions Clinic, the North Carolina NAACP, and the nonprofits Color of Change and Forward Justice holding in-person and online rallies on his behalf. Leading the charge, as she has since he was locked up more than 20 years ago, is Sharpe’s mother Sarah Blakely. “My son is innocent,” Blakely says. “I only ask that all those with power could humble themselves to imagine the living nightmare our family has experienced. We lost Dontae for every major holiday, every birth, and every death in our family, for more than two decades. Every day I pray that the governor and all those with power will finally do justice.”

         NC NAACP Launches "Free Dontae Sharpe and Kalvin Michael Smith"

 
           June 19th "Free Dontae Sharpe NOW!" Call to Action | Promo

Kenneth Young "15 to life"

Judge Daniel H. Sleet of Florida’s 2nd District Court: Shows he has no real understanding of US law or just does not care or he is a real out right racist.
The juvenile justice system in the United States was built on the idea that an individual’s ability to understand right and wrong, as well as the consequences of his or her decisions, is not completely formed until adulthood, when psychological and physiological capacities are fully developed...

Does sentencing a teenager to life without parole serve our society well? The United States is the only country in the world that routinely condemns children to die in prison. This is the story of one of those children, now a young man, seeking a second chance in Florida. At age 15, Kenneth Young received four consecutive life sentences for a series of armed robberies. Imprisoned for more than a decade, he believed he would die behind bars. Now a U.S. Supreme Court decision could set him free. 15 to Life: Kenneth’s Story follows Young’s struggle for redemption, revealing a justice system with thousands of young people serving sentences intended for society’s most dangerous criminals.

       Trailer for 15 TO LIFE Kenneth's Story


           Children In Prison For Life Sentence 'Kids Behind Bars
In June 2000, 14-year-old Kenneth Young was convinced by his mother’s then-24-year-old crack dealer,he had threatened to kill her unless the boy helped rob the hotels. The dealer, Jacques Bethea, who had a long criminal history, made the threat because Young’s crack addict mother had stolen drugs from him, Young said. He had to join him on a month-long spree of four armed robberies. The older man planned the Tampa, Fla. heists and brandished the pistol—and, on one occasion, he was talked out of raping one of the victims by his young partner. Fortunately, no one was physically injured during the crimes, although the trauma that resulted was immeasurable.

When they were caught, Kenneth didn’t deny his part. It was his first serious scrape with the law. But at 15, he was tried under Florida law as an adult. Astoundingly, he received four consecutive life sentences — guaranteeing that he would die in prison. 15 to Life: Kenneth’s Story follows the young African-American man’s battle for release, after more than 10 years of incarceration, much of it spent in solitary confinement. The film is also a disturbing portrait of an extraordinary fact: The United States is the only country in the world that condemns juveniles to life without parole.

Kenneth’s sentence was not a rarity. As 15 to Life shows, there are more than 2,500 juveniles serving life sentences in the United States for non-lethal crimes, as well as for murder. In the 1990s, many states reacted to a rise in violent youth crimes by amending their laws to allow more juveniles to be tried as adults. Then, in 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Graham v. Florida that life sentences for juveniles convicted of crimes other than murder were unconstitutional. That made 77 Florida inmates, including Kenneth, eligible for early release. But how would the Florida courts, historically in favor of juvenile life sentences, apply the Supreme Court decision to a decade-old case?

The cast of 15 to Life includes the legal advocates who have taken up Kenneth’s cause. Paolo Annino, head of Florida State University’s Children in Prison Project and a co-director of the Public Interest Law Center in Tallahassee, has long argued that life sentences for juveniles violate the Constitution’s ban on “cruel and unusual punishment.” His research was cited in Graham v. Florida, which opened the door for resentencing Kenneth and thousands of others.

Corinne Koeppen, a new lawyer and trainee at the Public Interest Law Center, joins Paolo Annino. They argue for Kenneth’s immediate release, contending he has shown the rehabilitation and maturity that the Supreme Court decision requires. They also set out to prove that Kenneth played much less of a role in the crimes than his adult co-defendant.

Public-interest lawyer Bryan Stevenson, founder and executive director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, Ala., provides perspective on the decade-long fight to win fair sentencing for children. “The United States permitted the death penalty for juveniles until 2005,” he says. “When we finally persuaded the Supreme Court to ban the death penalty for children, I was clear that that … life imprisonment without parole would still not be a just outcome for many of these kids.”

The other key character in Kenneth’s story is his guilt-ridden mother, Stephanie, who struggles to convince the court that her son deserves the help she never gave him. Although she is clean and sober now, she was a crack addict for 19 years and largely absent as a mother after Kenneth’s father died. “I know the judge has a heart,” she says. “I’ve prayed and I asked for forgiveness on behalf of me and my son.”

At the core of the story, of course, stands Kenneth, now 26, who is candid about his crimes. He says he has followed a path of self-improvement and is remorseful for what he did, even as he remains flabbergasted about his punishment. (Oddly enough, in a separate trial, Jacques Bethea, the older man who organized the robberies and who carried the gun, received a single life sentence.)

At his hearing for a reduced sentence, Kenneth tells the court, “I have lived with regret every day … I have been incarcerated for 11 years and I have taken advantage of every opportunity available for me in prison to better myself … I am no longer the same person I used to be. First Corinthians, Chapter 13, Verse 11 says: ‘When I was a child I thought as a child. When I became a man I put away all childish things.’ I want to turn around and apologize to my victim for what I did.”

Kenneth’s plight elicits mixed reactions. While some of his victims are inclined to see him let go, others, along with the prosecutor, defend the original punishment. Kenneth’s contention that the older man coerced his cooperation by threatening his mother is dismissed, because he didn’t speak up as a 15-year-old at his original trial. And arguments that Kenneth’s new sentence should take into account his rehabilitation may not convince this Florida court.

15 to Life is an eye-opening portrait of the American justice system as it stands today, putting an indelibly human face on its policies concerning children.

“Few of us would question whether our 13- or 14-year-old needs guidance,” says director Nadine Pequeneza. “As parents we recognize that our children are easily influenced, that they can be impulsive and that empathy and cruelty are both learned behaviors. Given what we know, I was shocked to learn that kids as young as 12 years old are being sentenced to die in prison.

“As I began to research, reading articles, reports and studies from individuals and groups on both sides of this argument, I discovered some shocking statistics: 60 percent of children sentenced to life without parole are first time offenders and every 13 and 14-year-old sentenced to life without parole for a non-homicide crime is a child of color.

“When children commit crimes, should rehabilitation take precedence over punishment? Can children be ruled to be adults, based on a single action? Can children who commit violent acts be rehabilitated? By focusing on Kenneth’s story, we find the answers.”


Judge Daniel H. Sleet of Florida’s 2nd District Court: Shows he has no real understanding of US law or just does not care or he is a real out right racist.
The juvenile justice system in the United States was built on the idea that an individual’s ability to understand right and wrong, as well as the consequences of his or her decisions, is not completely formed until adulthood, when psychological and physiological capacities are fully developed.

The Graham and the Miller decisions by the US Supreme Court really make the same point — that is, that children are different than adults physically, mentally and emotionally and that has to be taken into account when you’re sentencing them. There’s so many things that we restrict children from doing because we recognize that they don’t have the same maturity as adults and the same capacity for decision-making and understanding of the consequences of their actions. So they can’t drive until a certain age, they can’t drink, they can’t vote. But for some reason, when they commit a crime that we feel is serious enough to move them into an adult court, there’s no protection for children anymore, and so that disconnect is something that I think needs to be addressed.

We Are The Ones

Darryl Hunt - A Innocent Man

"We Live" | A Tribute to Darryl Hunt by Rev. Dr. William J. Barber, II


Darryl Hunt 1965 – March 13, 2016 was an African American man from Winston-Salem, North Carolina, who, in 1984, was twice wrongfully convicted of the rape and murder of a young white newspaper copy editor, Deborah Sykes, but was later exonerated by DNA and other forms of evidence. He served 19-and-one-half years in prison before he was freed after review and exoneration.

After 19 years in prison, Hunt was exonerated in February 2004 after DNA evidence led police to Willard Brown, who confessed to the killing. After he was exonerated, Hunt was pardoned by then-Gov. Mike Easley. He was awarded a settlement of more than $1.6 million in 2007 and founded the Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice, an advocacy group for the wrongfully convicted.

But Hunt was also haunted by his experiences, said those who knew him. He would use ATMs daily, not so much to get money but so he could create a time-stamped receipt and an image recording his location.

“Even after all this time – he still carries this kind of fear and anxiety,” said Phoebe Zerwick, who in 2003 as a reporter for the Winston-Salem Journal, wrote an eight-part series on Hunt’s case.

Zerwick now teaches at Wake Forest University and regularly asked Hunt to speak to classes. His last spoke to a group of her students in late January.

“Anybody I’ve ever met who has met him has been deeply touched by him,” she said. “He’s really moving to college students.”

Mark Rabil is an attorney who represented Hunt from his first trial through to his civil settlement with Winston-Salem more than two decades later.

Rabil said he knew Hunt was innocent the first time they talked. “He was very open and trusting,” Rabil said. “There didn’t seem to be any question about it.”

Rabil and Hunt recently traveled together to the University of Virginia for a program at its public policy school.

Hunt often talked about the problems of people released from prison, Rabil said. Hunt called it “homecoming.”

The trauma of wrongful convictions, years in prison, and the responsibilities he took on after he was free wore Hunt down, Rabil said.

“In the long run, he eventually got the death penalty,” Rabil said.

A modern cause célèbre, his case was said to have "helped define race relations in Winston-Salem for 20 years."

 

Darryl Hunt became a Muslim and involved in the Innocence Project, as well as his own group called The Darryl Hunt Project for Freedom and Justice. This project is devoted to "educating the public about flaws in the criminal justice system, advocating for those wrongfully incarcerated as a result of those flaws, and providing resources and support for those trying to rebuild their lives."

Darryl Hunt died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to his torso in Winston-Salem, NC, after a battle with Stage IV cancer.

    Darryl Hunt Interview @ Community Mosque of Winston-Salem, NC

    Darryl Hunt (1965-2016) Last Public Speech at Kalvin Michael Smith Rally

The Invisible Man - CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling

 Judith Ehrlich and RootsAction  - Amplify a whistleblower's voice

I’ve directed several documentaries -- including the Oscar-nominated film about Daniel Ellsberg, “The Most Dangerous Man in America” -- but I’ve never seen one take off faster online than “The Invisible Man: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling.”

Several hundred thousand people saw our film within days of the courtroom sentencing, when the judge announced a prison term of three and a half years.

The good news is that Jeffrey’s voice is being heard -- and you can amplify it.

Please click here to help make “The Invisible Man” visible to many more people.
Predictably, the big networks haven’t aired any of our film. Some TV viewers did see it, thanks to Democracy Now!

Today, we’re launching a campaign to share the film far and wide --showing that the CIA cannot silence the voice of Jeffrey Sterling.

For the first time since his indictment more than four years ago, “The Invisible Man” makes Jeffrey visible and audible.  We want millions more people to see and hear him.

Click here to provide support with a donation (tax-deductible for taxpayers in the U.S.) so that the nonprofit ExposeFacts and RootsAction Education Fund can make this film go viral across the USA and around the world.

Please let others know about this film via the Twitter and Facebook buttons on the right.

Below you will find links to articles about the CIA’s vendetta against Jeffrey Sterling for being a brave whistleblower.
To help amplify Jeffrey’s voice -- to show that the government can lock up his body but not his voice -- click here.

After taking action, please share this email with friends who care about whistleblowers, independent journalism and democracy.

And if you haven’t already watched “The Invisible Man: CIA Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling,” click here.

Thank you!

Judith Ehrlich

Background:
>>  Marcy Wheeler, ExposeFacts: “Sterling Verdict Another Measure of Declining Government Credibility on Secrets”
>>  Norman Solomon, The Nation: “CIA Officer Jeffrey Sterling Sentenced to Prison: The Latest Blow in the Government’s War on Journalism”
>>  John Hanrahan, ExposeFacts: Whistleblowers vs. “Fear-Mongering”
>>  ExposeFacts: Special Coverage of the Jeffrey Sterling Trial

 

 http://www.rootsaction.org/ 

Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling

          CIA Pushes to Demolish Whistleblower Jeffrey Sterling

A jury on Monday found former CIA officer Jeffrey Sterling guilty on nine counts of unauthorized disclosure of national security information. Though many view Sterling as a whistleblower for reportedly leaking to New York Times reporter James Risen classified information about an agency scheme to give faulty nuclear weapons plans to Iranian agents, government prosecutors brought in high-profile witnesses such as former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice to bolster their arguments that he committed espionage and severely damaged national security.

 The Obama administration, despite promises to be “the most transparent administration ever,” the executive branch has led an unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers and those who leak information about national security matters to journalists without government approval.

While prosecutors showed that Risen and Sterling contacted one another dozens of times, Pollack said that nothing the government presented to the jury showed that the two had discussed any classified information. Defense attorneys argued that Capitol Hill staffers who had been briefed on the operation were more likely to be the source of the leak because some of the information in Risen’s book addressed things that happened after Sterling left the CIA, the Washington Post reported.

Earlier in the trial, a CIA manager testified that more than 90 people in the government knew about the covert Iran mission.


 
Sterling worked for the CIA from 1993-2002 and served as a case officer on the Iran Task Force. Sterling left Iran in 1999 after his supervisor failed  to assign him any new cases because according to Sterling, he was told that as “big black guy,” he “stuck out.” In April 2000, he filed  a complaint with the CIA’s Equal Employment Opportunity office. In January 2002, his contract was terminated while the CIA fought to reject his discrimination lawsuit under the doctrine of state secrets privilege. “The federal district court in New York rejected  the government’s assertion of the privilege; but, once the case was transferred to Virginia [per the government’s request], the government reasserted the privilege and prevailed.”

Obama administration’s Department of Justice arrested ex-CIA agent Jeffrey Sterling on January 6, 2011, for leaking information about the agency’s botched attempt under President Clinton to sabotage Iran’s nuclear program. He is charged with passing the information to New York Times’ reporter James Risen, continuing, as the Washington Post  put it, “the Obama administration’s unprecedented crackdown on the flow of government secrets to the media. Sterling was charged with 10 felony counts, including obstruction of justice and unauthorized disclosure of national defense information.”

The Obama administration has faced criticism from First Amendment and whistleblower groups for dramatically ramping up such prosecutions, which were exceedingly rare before President Barack Obama took office.

Obama’s “change.gov” website praises  whistleblowers. “Such acts of courage and patriotism,” it says , “should be encouraged rather than stifled.” Yet in April 2010, Obama’s Attorney General Eric Holder renewed  Risen’s subpoena, asking for the same information. U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema granted  Risen’s motion to quash the subpoena (without  public explanation). Nonetheless, the Justice Department arrested  Sterling on January 6, 2011. In February, federal prosecutors turned over evidence to the defense, which included an orgy of surveillance on James Risen, including his bank, credit, telephone, and even airline records. Politico reported :

The CIA seems virtually obsessed with trying to refute the negative portrayal of Operation Merlin — the CIA’s effort 15 years ago to provide a flawed nuclear weapon design to Iran — in James Risen’s 2006 book State of War.

In February 2000, the CIA hired a Russian scientist to deliver flawed blueprints for a nuclear weapon to the Iranian government. The CIA hoped that the blueprints contained enough real information to fool Iran into building an inoperable weapon. Unfortunately for the CIA, the Russian noticed the flaws. Rather than call off the mission, the CIA allowed him to move forward. He became so nervous, however, that he included a note with the plans alerting the Iranians to the flaw. In other words, due to the real information included in the blueprints, the plan may have completely backfired and actually helped Iran’s nuclear program.

Everyone agrees that Sterling went through proper channels to share his concerns and classified information with Senate Intelligence Committee staff in early March 2003. But the prosecution, armed with a 10-count felony indictment, alleges that he also went to Risen and disclosed classified information. Sterling says he’s innocent on all counts.

Judging from testimony at the trial, the harshest investigative spotlight shines on those seen as malcontents. The head of the CIA press office, William Harlow, indicated  that Sterling (who is African American) became a quick suspect in the Operation Merlin leak case because he’d previously filed a suit charging the agency with racial bias.

Sterling’s other transgressions against a de facto code of silence included his visit to Capitol Hill when he spilled classified beans to Senate oversight committee staffers.

“In the Sterling case, federal prosecutors seem to want to have it both ways,” McGovern observed. “They want to broaden the case to burnish the CIA’s reputation regarding its covert-op skills but then to narrow the case if defense attorneys try to show the jury the broader context in which the ‘Merlin’ disclosures were made in 2006 — how President George W. Bush’s administration was trying to build a case for war with Iran over its nuclear program much as it did over Iraq’s non-existent WMDs in 2002-2003.”

Along the way, the CIA is eager to use the trial as much as possible for image damage control, trying to ascend high ground that has eroded in part due to high-quality journalistic accounts of the sort that Risen provided in his State of War  reporting on Operation Merlin.

The CIA is on a quest for more respect — from news media, from lawmakers, from potential recruits — from anyone willing to defer to its authority, no matter how legally hypocritical or morally absent. Demolishing the life of Jeffrey Sterling is just another means to that end.