All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Study: Racial Disparities in Death Penalty Begin with Investigations and Arrests

A study of more than three decades of homicide arrests suggests that racial disparities in arrests and policing practices introduce an additional layer of bias in the application of the death penalty in the United States. While earlier research has documented that the race of victims affects prosecutors’ decisions to seek the death penalty, and juries’ and judges’ decisions to impose death sentences, a new study by Professors Jeffrey Fagan of Columbia University (pictured, left) and Amanda Geller of New York University (pictured, right) has found that those disparities appear even earlier in the process, at the arrest stage. “[H]omicides with white victims are significantly more likely to be ‘cleared’ by the arrest of a suspect than are homicides with minority victims,” the authors write. Since death-penalty prosecutions must begin with an arrest in a capital-eligible murder, these clearance rates create a disproportionately larger pipeline of white-victim cases. Fagan and Geller examined every homicide recorded in the FBI’s Supplementary Homicide Reports from 1976 to 2009, uncovering county-level patterns in the “clearance rate” (the rate at which cases are closed by the arrest of a suspect). Counties with higher proportions of minority residents had lower clearance rates than counties with whiter populations, but the authors say that county characteristics alone do not completely account for the disparities. Rather, they say that broader policing practices also play a role. “Inequalities in policing, such as the underpolicing of the most serious crimes in the most disadvantaged communities, coupled with overpolicing of the least serious offenses in those same places, seem to extend to the initial stages of the production of death sentences and executions,” they write. They attribute the lower clearance rates of black-victim cases in part to distrust of police in communities of color, resulting in less willingness to cooperate in investigations. “Perceived injustices can disincentivize citizens from cooperating with the police,” they explain, “including both ‘petty indignities’ and egregious acts of police violence.” Thus, discriminatory policing practices contribute to disparate clearance rates, which in turn contribute to the discriminatory application of capital punishment.

(Jeffrey Fagan and Amanda Geller, Police, Race, and the Production of Capital Homicides, Columbia Public Law Research Paper No. 14-593, July 12, 2018.) See Race and Studies.

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IOF attack, arrest Coptic Priest from Church of Holy Sepulcher 

PNN/ Jerusalem/

Israeli occupation forces (IOF) on Wednesday arrested a Coptic priest during at a protest organized by the Coptic Orthodox Patriarchate in Jerusalem against the Israeli government’s rejection of restoration works within the monastery of Coptic Sultan, while the Israeli government is carrying the work itself without the consent of the Coptic Church.

Local sources said that the occupation forces suppressed the protest and attacked a number of priests and participants before arresting one of the pritests.

The sources pointed out that situation is still intense in the vicinity of Deir Sultan adjacent to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the old city of occupied Jerusalem, amid intensive presence of the occupation forces.

For its part, the Christian Islamic Organization condemned the attack by the occupation authorities against Coptic priests in the occupied city of Jerusalem.

The Secretary-General of the Commission, Dr. Hanna Issa, condemned and denounced the intervention of the occupation authorities in the work of restoration, because this is not within its jurisdiction in the occupied city of Jerusalem on the grounds that the eastern part of the Holy City area subject to the rules of international humanitarian law.

The Commission appealed to the Egyptian government and the Christian world to immediately intervene with the occupation authorities to stop these attacks on the monastery of Sultan adjacent to the Church of the Resurrection and not to enter the monastery under the pretext of restoration, because that is the prerogatives of the Coptic Orthodox Church only. The Christian Islamic Organization called on all the free world to stand by the Palestinian right to sovereignty over its land in this holy city and other occupied territories and to stop the Israeli occupation measures which violate international legitimacy and international humanitarian law.

 

 

Exclusive: Trump, industry work to save much-touted $110 billion Saudi arms deal

There is no such deal – just another pipe dream lie! The Trump administration and the U.S. defense industry are scrambling to save the few actual deals in the much-touted $110 billion arms package for Saudi Arabia as concerns rise about the role of the Kingdom’s leadership over the death of a prominent critic.

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Nazism was ‘left-wing ideology’ remark by British MEP Syed Kamall sparks uproar

Some people should consult history experts or read a D@mn book before making really stupid remarks – apologies not accepted! A leading British conservative has told European lawmakers that the Nazis believed in a “strain of socialism.” Many members of social democratic and socialist parties were imprisoned or killed by the Nazi party.

European parties urged to agree Israel boycott tactics are antisemitic

So if you were Irish and in 1920s British controlled Ireland and boycotted British goods or American and dumping tea in Boston Harbor you would be racist-anti-British?

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Convention backed by Israeli government to propose red lines for prospective MEPs

A conference in Brussels backed by the Israeli government is to push for all European political parties to sign up to “red lines” that declare boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) tactics to be “fundamentally antisemitic”.

The two-day convention, attended by Israel’s minister of Jerusalem affairs, Ze’ev Elkin, will propose a text for prospective MEPs and political parties to sign up to before European elections in May next year.

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