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Talk Nation Radio for October 30, 2008

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Post Bush policy in Iraq, Syria, Pakistan, and the so-called ‘war on terror’

Produced by Dori Smith, WHUS FM 91.7 in Storrs, Ct
TRT: 29:44
Download at Pacifica’s Audioport or Archive.org and Radio4all.net

Guests: Brandon Roberts of the Working Poor Families Project and journalists Lionel Beehner and Dahr Jamail

US air strikes across the Iraq border into Syria and ongoing US attacks in Pakistan. Where is Bush/Cheney doctrine on counter terrorism leading us as they prepare to leave the White House? Lionel Beehner discusses his October 27th piece in the Guardian UK is titled, ‘Striking Out in Syria’ and looks at new trends in Bush/Cheney counter terror war. Would the next president, Barack Obama perhaps, continue this policy that Beehner sees as leading to failure?

Dahr Jamail has just finished a manuscript on resistance in the ranks, how US Iraq War veterans are working to save their own lives and shut the war down. He talks about US air strikes on Syria and Iraq. The Iraqi Government, such as it is, is also starting to try to push the USM out, and have impact on status of force agreement. Changes in USM policies may be leading to an escalation of the Iraq War.

And on the elections, coverage of one race that could be an upset for an 11 term Representative: Connecticut Republican Rep. Chris Shays is running neck and neck with Democrat Jim Himes in the 4th Congressional District. Lead issues are the economy which Shays has continued to insist is “still strong” and the Iraq War. Shays is also running into trouble over support for the Bush administration’s private accounts for Social Security, otherwise known as privatization.

Pollsters at Rassmussen give Democrats a 98.3% chance of winning in this democratic stronghold, they put Barack Obama ahead of Republican John Mccain by 17 points. The Hartford Courant newspaper found Obama leading by 25%, and a recent University of Connecticut poll found students favoring Obama by a 3-to-1 margin. But will heavy support for Obama translate into victory in state Congressional races? The answer could depend on who voters blame for the economic crisis, the failure of US banks and the biggest decline on Wall Street in 60 years.

Connecticut has previously ranked at the top in per capita income, but a 2008 report showed the state slipping to number three behind Delaware and Alaska in per capita income and ranking below New York on annual income. In fact, the number of poor working families has grown significantly significantly in Connecticut according to a report released by the Working Families Project. They found a sharp increase in the overall number of working poor, and one out of four families with children now fall into the low-income category. 19 percent of the state’s children now live in low-income working families.

Brandon Roberts of the Working Poor Families Project hopes all of the candidates running for office this year will study their latest report showing a sharp increase in working poor in America. He hopes the people running this year’s political campaigns will study his organization’s report for clues about what types of policy to implement when they get into office. (Roberts interview)

The Bush administration’s record has been affecting the status of Republicans in Connecticut. Rassmussen polls show that while Connecticut voters see higher taxes as a negative overall, a majority, 58%, felt that raising taxes on higher income Americans would be a help in dealing with the current economic crisis. A position that favors Barack Obama.

A July poll by Quinnipiac University found voters extremely worried about rising fuel prices, next in line was concern over the cost of food and health care, then concern about having enough retirement funds. And voters here do tie Iraq War spending to the economic crisis. These and other concerns have put Republican Christopher Shays at risk of losing his 4th district seat after 11 terms. The 4th district includes wealthier voters in suburban Greenwich and working class and poor voters in the cities of Bridgeport and Stamford. Some of the nation’s most poor can be found living in close proximity with billionaire hedge fund managers.

Democratic challenger Jim Himes has been running neck and neck with Chris Shays, who has run into problems over his support for the Bush administration’s plan to create private accounts for Social Security: Himes has been targeting working class voters, has won the support of major unions, and has credentials as someone who has also worked in the financial district has been helping him too.

Polls taken during the 2006 Congressional race in Connecticut indicate a deep mistrust for the Bush administration’s private accounts plan, and that voters here may never support privatization. On his web site Democratic challenger Jim Himes says he is against the private accounts, and that by taking even one-third of Social Security funds to create private savings accounts, Chris Shay’s plan would signal the start of a Republican privatization strategy. Himes joined another Connecticut Democrat, State Representative Rosa Delauro of the Third Congressional District, to call attention to his opposition to privatizing Social Security.

Includes clips from The Real News network, October 15, 2008, Pakistani Lashkars join fight against Taliban. Tariq Amin-Khan : Pakistani government is playing with fire by arming more tribes with modern weapons. http://therealnews.com

Contacts: Lionel Beehner
Dahr Jamail
Brandon Roberts, Working Poor Families Project

We sometimes reedit our show for incorporation into Sprouts a Pacifica Network show airing weekly via satellite. Scroll to list for two part series on Troy Anthony Davis, a land mark case for innocence.

This week’s Sprouts: 11th Circuit Court gives Troy Anthony Davis new hope for an appeal

Listen to the broadcast here

Today on Sprouts we look at the original trial, the evidence, and efforts to win a new trial for Troy Davis or at least review of evidence by the 11th Circuit Court in GA.

Produced by: Dori Smith, WHUS Storrs, CT
(Listen to Talk Nation Radio airing weekly at WHUS.org
Left KU Channel
Thursday, October 30, 2008 3PM EST
TRT: 28:01 (music fades, theme music, and Black Note Soul)

Download either at Pacifica’s Audioport
Or at Archive.org
(Note many formats to chose from including podcasts)

The original prosecutor in the Troy Davis case, Savannah, GA District Attorney Spencer Lawton, offers a revealing look back at the case that sparked over 800,000 letters to Georgia officials asking that they offer clemency or a new trial for Davis.

During a Talk Nation Radio interview Spencer Lawton admitted to having made some surprising assumptions about Davis’s guilt. He says he didn’t ‘investigate’ a second person who should have aroused his suspicion because his attorney didn’t accompany him to his office to make his statement implicating Troy Davis. In fact, the record shows, Sylvester Redd Coles attorney did accompany him to the precinct to make his statement.

During the 10-23-08 interview, Chatham County Georgia District Attorney Spencer Lawton defended unreliable evidence presented at trial. This original prosecutor in the Davis case said for example that none of the witnesses said they were coerced during trial. We air a clip of his Assistant DA David Lock who said during a Georgia Supreme Court proceeding, “there were witnesses who tried to back up at trial who said they had been coerced by police into signing statements:”

On October 14th the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Davis V. Georgia. On the 24th the 11th Circuit Court in Georgia surprised Davis and his attorneys by allowing another Habeas Corpus appeal. Davis came within three days of being executed for his conviction in the 1989 murder of Savannah police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. This is the third time Troy Davis has come within days or hours of his execution. The Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole has received messages from some 800 thousand people asking for clemency and a new trial. There are many well known people asking for clemency including former President Jimmy Carter, the Pope, and former FBI Director William Sessions.

Earlier appeals on behalf of Troy Davis failed on procedural grounds with prosecutors basing their arguments on Georgia legal precedent that says the defense must go beyond offering witnesses who recant trial testimony, they must prove such witnesses were lying through either establishing that they could not have been at a certain place at a certain time or other argument. This is Georgia’s “Purest Fabrication” standard. Troy Davis’s attorneys argue that it is has been impossible to find an adequate remedy for any wrongfully convicted client who must demonstrate his actual innocence on the basis of recanted testimony.

We hear from: The original prosecutor in the case, Savannah D.A. Spencer Lawton. He and his assistant David Lock have sought to block Davis’s previous appeals, Attorney Thomas Ruffin, Washington D.C., Nat Turner Rebellion, Attorney Ezekiel Edwards, an eyewitness expert and staff attorney at the Innocence Project based in New York, “Zeke” Edwards is also Mayer Brown fellow in the field of eye witness identification. Before joining the Innocence Project in October 2006, he worked for four years at the Bronx Defenders, a community-based public defender office in the South Bronx. He represented over 2,000 clients in felony and misdemeanor jury and bench trials, preliminary hearings, and grand jury proceedings. From 1996 to 1999, Zeke was an investigator at the Capital Defender Office in Manhattan working on behalf of people facing the death penalty. Attorney Deirdre O’Connor of Innocence Matters. She wrote an amicus brief for the 2007 Georgia Supreme Court appeal in support of the defense. Kathleen ‘Kitty’ Behan is one of Troy Davis’s previous attorneys. And Martina Correia, Troy Davis’s sister, who works with Amnesty International and other groups helping support her brother’s case for innocence.

Davis has been on death row in Georgia for 17 years, for a total of 19 years in jail. His case represents the latest example of failures within state and federal courts that have been asked to review complex challenges to verdicts in capital murder cases. There have been 130 people liberated from death row because attorneys were able to get the judicial system to review evidence.

see also: Freetroydavis.com

Sprouts is a weekly program that features production at independent radio stations and other grassroots media groups. It is produced collaboratively between Pacifica and community radio stations across the country. The program is offered free of charge to all radio stations and welcomes submissions from producers in independent media. For information or to submit work, contact Ursula Ruedenberg at:ursula@pacifica.org.

Contact Dori Smith at talknationradio@gmail.com

AND see: Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty — The American Medical Associate Code of Medical Ethics explicitly provide that “A physician, as a member of the profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, should not be a participant in a state execution.” With these letters, we will remind Dr. Musso of his oath to facilitate healing, not killing. There are three ways you can send this letter: 1) Fax it to 770-692-4754. 2) Snail mail (only if sent before 10/22) to Carlo Musso, MD, President, CorrectHealth, 9020 Peridot Parkway, Stockbridge, GA 30281 3) On the internet: copy and paste the letter in their online contact form at: http://www.correcthealth.org/contact

Sprouts is produced by Pacifica affiliate radio stations and other grassroots media groups. It is produced collaboratively between Pacifica and community radio stations across the country. The program is offered free of charge to all radio stations and welcomes submissions from producers in independent media. For information or to submit work, contact Ursula Ruedenberg at:ursula@pacifica.org.

Published on Saturday, October 25, 2008 by CommonDreams.org
Can Georgia Do Right?
Troy Davis: What the Stay of Execution Means?

by David Morse

“Is the legal system of the state of Georgia up to the task – when the task is to rectify the flawed trial of a black man accused of killing a white police officer?

The world is waiting to see if justice can prevail.”

Continue reading here

Talk Nation Radio for October 23, 2008

Chatham County Georgia District Attorney Spencer Lawton on Troy Anthony Davis
Unreliable evidence at trial defended by original prosecutor in Davis case

zip Listen to this week’s broadcast: here
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TRT:30:08
Produced by Dori Smith,
WHUS Storrs, FM 91.7 at the University of CT, a Pacifica Affiliate Station
Download at Pacifica at http://www.audioport.org
Or go to Archive.org
for a wide variety of formats suitable for podcasting, online listening, broadcasting on regular channels or LPFM and internet radio stations airing the show.

Chatham County Georgia DA Spencer Lawton discusses his statements to the press about the quality of his original trial of Troy Davis. Davis was arrested in 1989 for the shooting of a police officer, Mark Allen MacPhail. Spencer Lawton explains how he asked for the death penalty and got it. He insists the witnesses at trial were reliable, but seven of nine have since recanted. He finds their recantation evidence ‘suspect’ because it’s ‘too much of a coincidence’.

Lawton begins by arguing that the witnesses were telling the truth at trial but lying when they recanted. When pressed for more detail on the reasons the courts refused to hear the new evidence Lawton admitted it was due to procedure, claiming he had nothing to do with it. ‘Not me, the law!’ Lawton has however been arguing against the defense in the Davis case throughout lower court proceedings including one held at the Georgia Supreme Court in 2007.

As we talked with Spencer Lawton about other aspects of the case he brought against Davis he claimed the original trial witnesses were cross examined by both the prosecution and defense and none of them said they had been coerced. Attorney Deirdre O’Connor says that’s flat out wrong. Then we hear a clip from the 2007 appeal hearing where Lawton was present while his Assistant DA David Lock said some of the witnesses did say at trial that they had been coerced into signing what police wanted them to sign.

The courts found against Davis and his attorneys on procedural grounds however Spencer Lawton insists they did so on grounds that they did not believe the new evidence was worthy. Actually the Georgia Supreme Court decision on Davis’s 2007 appeal was by one vote, and there was a scathing dissent by Chief Justice Leah Sears who wrote: …’I believe that this case illustrates that this Court’s approach to extraordinary motions for new trials based on new evidence is overly rigid and fails to allow an adequate inquiry into the fundamental question, which is whether or not an innocent person might have been convicted or even, in this case, might be put to death’.

The prosecution, Spencer Lawton and Assistant DA David Lock, argued that the recantations were presented ‘too late’ and said there were procedural grounds that should rule them out. One point they raised had to do with due diligence, they argued that by holding on to the affidavits obtained from recanting witnesses rather than presenting them immediately they showed that even they didn’t find them worthy. The defense argued that it took time to gather the affidavits. In the end part of the reason the affidavits were not accepted as a basis for a new trial was that one was not ‘sworn.’

In fact, some of his witnesses were trying to recant at the time of the trial. State and federal courts have blocked affidavits and refused a new trial or evidence hearing on procedural grounds.

Other guests on today’s show include: Attorney Deirdre O’Connor of Innocence Matters. She has been speaking with Troy Davis throughout the week and wrote an Amicus brief for the 2007 Georgia Supreme Court appeal in support of the defense. Kathleen ‘Kitty’ Behan is one of Troy Davis’s previous attorneys. Ezekiel Edwards is an eyewitness expert and staff attorney at the Innocence Project. He offered scientific analysis of the witnesses statements in the Davis trial for an upcoming Talk Nation Radio special scheduled for air on 10/24/2008 at 6 PM Eastern Standard Time at http://www.whus.org or FM 91.7 in the region of Hartford, Storrs, Middletown, eastern MA and western RI. (more below)

Excerpt: The Savannah, Georgia D.A. calls Amnesty International, Innocence Matters, other groups calling for clemency and a new trial for Troy Davis, an angry “mob” at the court house gate. Asks reporter Dori Smith, “Suppose there were a court that was trying to decide somebody’s guilt or innocence and a mob gathered outside the court house chanting and demanding vengeance. I’m prepared to bet you wouldn’t be happy with that. And to think that the court would listen to that would be an un, would be a bad thought. Now let’s suppose that a mob gathers outside the court house while the court is trying to decide guilt or innocence, based on the rule of law mind you, and the crowd chants and demands innocence. In both cases what is sought to be done is that the judicial process should yield to the chants of the mob. Am I right?”

Dori Smith: “Are you calling Amnesty International the mob? I just want to be clear”.

DA Spencer Lawton: “Yeah, sure, I well, I don’t know a mob, I’m calling every, the aggregate of people who have been swayed by what Amnesty International and the Innocence Project, and all these other little projects around, I’m saying that yeah what that is is basically, the thousands of faxes and emails and phone calls that I and others involved in the case have received, I characterize all of that as being a mob, I do”.

—DA Spencer Lawton: “The attorneys for Mr. Davis examined them closely, did everything in their power to get these people to say that they were coerced by the police or that they really didn’t see what they thought they saw or whatever. And they all denied that.”

Dori Smith: “Lawton is incorrect about that says Attorney Deirdre O’Connor, director of the group Innocence Matters based in Georgia and California. O’Connor wrote an Amicus brief to the Georgia Supreme Court in support of an appeal to have evidence in the case officially reviewed. She says several witnesses including a 16-year-old named Darrell Collins, did tell the court the testimony had been coerced.”

Attorney Deirdre O’Connor: “When the prosecutor was trying to get him to implicate Mr. Davis Mr. Collins said listen, these things that I said to the police weren’t true. I said them because they threatened me. They told me that they would put me in jail, that I would be charged with a crime. Here are some quotes. he said, “I told the detective what he wanted to hear cuz I was scared. I didn’t want to go to jail. The police told me if I didn’t cooperate with them I’m gonna be in prison for ten to twelve years.” Right? But this was testimony provided in his presence to the jury in his case in which he was the lead attorney”.

Smith: “During an appeal hearing in 2007 the Georgia Supreme Court heard an Assistant DA named Lock admit that there were witnesses who tried to back up at trial who said they had been coerced by police into signing statements:”

Assistant DA David Lock Savannah Georgia: “There were some witnesses that backed up a little bit at trial. They were cross examined on whether the police coerced them. Some said yeah the police just wanted me to sign the statement. But you know that’s the most police coercion we’ve really heard even alleged in affidavits that oh they wanted me to, they they they forced, they they wanted me to sign the statement, they told me what they wanted me to say”. (David Lock is running for the office of District Attorney for 2008 for the Republican Party ticket.)

More about the guests on this week’s show: Zeke Edwards is a staff attorney at the Innocence Project based in NY and a Mayer Brown Fellow focusing on eyewitness identification. He points out that more than 220 people have been cleared by DNA evidence but testimony from witnesses is another leading problem in the original flawed convictions. http://www.innocenceproject.org/Content/113.php

Kathleen A. Behan, National Law Journal named her one of the Top 50 women litigators
http://www.law.columbia.edu/law_school/communications/reports/Fall2002/risingstars

Innocence Matters, Attorney Deirdre O’Connor, Innocence Matters, www.freetroydavis.com

From the web page: ‘Will this INNOCENT death row inmate – arrested at age 20 and imprisoned for the last 19 years -finally be given the opportunity to have the compelling evidence of his innocence heard by a jury of his peers? NOT ANYTIME SOON. A 57% majority decided that it was legally acceptable to deny Troy a new trial. The other 43% thought the question of Troy’s innocence was a fundamental one warranting a new day in court’.

Amnesty http://www.aiusa.org or GFADP, http://www.gfadp.org/ and NCADP http://www.ncadp.org/ webites to sign the Petition Entitled Innocence Matters asking for Troy to get a new Trial.

Also for further information try: The National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty http://www.ncadp.org/

And the Death Penalty Information Center, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/ (see: ‘Troy Anthony Davis’ and new: ‘Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens took the occasion of the Court’s denial of review to a death row defendant in Georgia to question the adequacy of the appeals process in that state. On October 20, the Supreme Court denied certiorari in Walker v. Georgia, an appeal from the Georgia Supreme Court, and Justice Stevens concurred in that denial. However, Justice Stevens said he found the lack of careful scrutiny by the lower court to be “particularly troubling,” especially since the case involved a black defendant and a white victim. Justice Clarence Thomas also wrote separately in the case, sharply disagreeing with Justice Stevens, and maintaining that no proportionality review by the Georgia Supreme Court was constitutionally required.’)

http://www.troyanthonydavis.org

Talk Nation Radio airs nationally through syndication with Pacifica Network.

Troy Davis could be put to death October 27th for a Crime he Didn’t Do

By, Dori Smith
October 16, 2008

In the death penalty case Davis V Georgia, the defense petitioned the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the lower court’s decision not to hear new evidence of innocence in the capital murder case against Troy Anthony Davis. Davis is black, and the case involved the shooting of a white police officer in the parking lot of a fast food restaurant.

After years of work, a variety of defense lawyers has completely toppled the house of cards that the prosecution created to convict Davis in 1991. Seven of nine witnesses recanted their testimony and the remaining testimony is highly questionable. The prosecution’s star witness was Sylvester Redd Coles, who was given immunity prior to his testimony. Coles admitted to threatening behavior on the night of the shooting, he admitted he had a gun less than half an hour before the crime, and he admits he was at the scene. Coles admits he threatened another man who was attacked that night, Larry Young.

Young was then homeless and after he left a package store with a carton of beer Redd Coles followed him and taunted him, trying to get him to turn over the beer. When Young refused, Redd became angry and threatened Young, ‘You don’t know me. I’ll shoot you.’ Within seconds, Young was pistol-whipped in the parking lot of the Georgia Burger King. The young police officer who tried to help, Mark Allen MacPhail, was shot and killed. He left behind a wife and children.

After the Davis trial was over Larry Young told CBS news he was devastated over the fact that his testimony helped convict an innocent man. He insisted he had never seen Troy Davis at the scene of the crime. Yet, if you go to the web site of Georgia Attorney General Thurbert E. Baker right now you will find that the State of Georgia continues to list Larry Young as one of their credible eyewitnesses in the matter of establishing that Troy Davis was at the scene.

The state convicted Davis of assault against Young too and no court or other judicial body has ever heard Young explain that it was not Davis who attacked him. To make matters worse Larry Young was taken to police headquarters bleeding from a head wound. Police nevertheless interrogated him. Young later admitted he would have said anything they wanted to hear in order to receive emergency care at a local hospital.

Interestingly, the documentation on the Georgia Attorney General’s web site also notes that, ‘Mr. Coles, who was facing Mr. Young, told him not to walk away, ’cause you don’t know me, I’ll shoot you.’ They say Coles then ‘began digging in his pants.’

There are not two realities. The State of Georgia ought to admit that the inconsistencies and flaws in this case should be brought to a new jury, Troy Davis deserves a new trial.

At the original trial the prosecution even admitted, ‘You’ve either got to believe that Troy Davis did all of this stuff or that Sylvester Coles did.’ But Georgia authorities never resolved that question at trial. Redd Coles was not investigated, he was never a suspect, his associates, people who had been in the area of the Georgia Burger King where MacPhail was shot were not shown Coles’ photo, they were shown Troy Davis’s photo. And so the multiple witnesses brought into the court room had all seen pictures of Troy Davis and one by one they would later explain the shocking facts; police used a variety of illegal tactics designed to coerce their testimony in order to convict Troy Davis.

The jury convicted Troy Davis without benefit of any physical evidence. Now that the witnesses have recanted and their testimony is crushed, the State of Georgia should make certain an innocent man is not executed, should release Troy Davis and his family from the hellish existence they have been stuck in for nineteen long years.

Seventeen people have been released from death row after DNA evidence proved they were innocent. In all 130 people have been found innocent of crimes that could have brought the death penalty. Studies have shown that factors such as race, class, and ethnicity, play a role in whether or not someone convicted of a capital offense receives the death penalty. And beyond that it is a well established fact that eyewitness testimony is suspect. Even well intentioned witnesses become confused, feel nervous in areas where there is a shooting and get the facts wrong, or, in some cases police and prosecutors grow overly zealous and pressure people into saying what they want them to.

Lawyers for the defense in Davis V Georgia have pointed out then when you compare the statements of recanting witnesses to other factual evidence things make perfect sense. It was unlikely that some witnesses could actually see the shooting because of distance, in one case more than 160 feet! Other witnesses like Stephen Sanders and his friends were in a van at the drive through window and were getting food after an evening of drinking.

In his original statement Sanders said he thought he saw a, “black male wearing a white hat and white shirt, black shorts” shoot the officer and then run off with another person who Sanders thought was wearing a “black outfit”. He said that he “wouldn’t recognize them again except for their clothes”. Two years later Stephen Sanders walked into court and identified Troy Davis as McPhail’s killer.

These facts alone should call the trial into question, but there is more. Another man with Stephen Sanders in the restaurant parking lot that night at approximately 1:00 a.m., Daniel Kinsman, testified that he remains convinced that the gunman was firing the gun with his left hand. Mr. Davis is right-handed. The full story raises doubt as to the entire process of trying capital murder cases, and states that have imposed a moratorium on the death penalty are wise to do so.

In his OPED written to the Atlanta Journal Constitution, July 11, 2007, former FBI Director William S. Sessions said of Davis, ‘Serious questions have been raised about Davis’ guilt. The murder weapon was never found, and other important physical evidence was missing. Key witnesses made inconsistent statements, and seven out of the nine non-police witnesses have now recanted or changed their original testimony, some stating that they had been pressured by the police to implicate Davis. One of the two witnesses who has not recanted his testimony has now been implicated as the real murderer by two witnesses at trial and four new witnesses. In addition, concerns have been raised about the conduct of the police and prosecutors’.

Judge Sessions asked Georgia’s Board of Pardons and Parole to grant clemency for Troy Davis. They didn’t. Instead the parole board became just one more quasi judicial body taking on the role of judge, jury, and executioner, helping bury the hard won evidence of innocence in the Troy Davis case.

OPED for broad distribution

Related Links:

Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty, re Troy Davis.

Innocence Matters petition to save Troy Davis.

Where is the Justice for Me? The case of Troy Davis, facing execution in Georgia.

Amnesty International’s Death Penalty abolition group, finality over fairness.

Dori Smith of Talk Nation Radio produces Pacifica’s Sprouts, Troy Anthony Davis V Georgia, on the matter of his innocence.

Talk Nation Radio airs at WHUS FM 91.7 at 5:00 PM EST at WHUS, click here to listen live.

This week’s Sprouts:
Troy Anthony Davis V the State of Georgia on the matter of his innocence

Click here to listen to this week’s show.

Or download here in various formats.

Produced by: Dori Smith, WHUS, Storrs, CT
Left KU Channel
Thursday, October 16, 2008 3PM EST
TRT: 28:18

This week’s stories: The U.S. Supreme Court refuses to grant Troy Anthony Davis another chance at life. Attorneys for the defense must now make their final attempts at getting the Georgia Board of Pardons and Parole to grant him clemency.There could also be last minute legal efforts on Davis’s behalf.

As an immediate reaction to the Supreme Court decision, Attorney Deirdre O’Connor who has been working on the case at Innocence Matters suggests hundreds of thousands of supporters all over the world can help by urging doctors working for the State of Georgia to refuse to participate in the execution, thus denying them an opportunity to execute an innocent man.

http://www.gfadp.org for Georgians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and see links.

The American Medical Associate Code of Medical Ethics explicitly provide that “A physician, as a member of the profession dedicated to preserving life when there is hope of doing so, should not be a participant in a state execution.” With these letters, we will remind Dr. Musso of his oath to facilitate healing, not killing. There are three ways you can send this letter: 1) Fax it to 770-692-4754. 2) Snail mail (only if sent before 10/22) to Carlo Musso, MD, President, CorrectHealth, 9020 Peridot Parkway, Stockbridge, GA 30281 3) On the internet: copy and paste the letter in their online contact form at: http://www.correcthealth.org/contact

Guests include:
1.) Martina Correia, Troy Davis on her inspirational life story of advocacy for the brother she loves. She discusses the problems created for her brother when the 1996 Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996. The 11th Circuit Court in Georgia refused to hear new evidence in the case due to a procedural problem created by this Act which was retroactively applied to Troy Davis and other death row prisoners. The Act set tight limits on the number and timing of appeals.
2.) Attorney Deirdre O’Connor, an attorney licensed in California and Georgia, and director of Innocence Matters. She wrote an amicus brief in support of Troy Davis’s Petition for Certiorari and was Attorney of Record on an amicas brief for Troy Davis to the Georgia Supreme Court. We reached Attorney Deirdre O’Conner shortly after she and Troy Davis learned of the Supreme Court’s decision. See more here.
3.) Laura Tate Kagel, Amnesty International’s Georgia Death Penalty Abolition group describes the massive quantities of email, letters, and calls her office receives about Troy Davis.
Troy Davis and various attorneys representing him over the years have been denied the opportunity to have the evidence in the case reviewed by a court or judge at every turn after his 1991 conviction for the murder of Atlanta police officer Mark Allen MacPhail. Davis and his family, attorney’s and many friends, were hopeful, that the high court would finally offer an opportunity for new evidence to be heard. Seven of nine witnesses who originally testified against Davis have recanted their testimony.

Davis has been on death row in Georgia for 17 years, for a total of 19 years in jail. His case represents the latest example of failures within state and federal courts that have been asked to review complex challenges to verdicts in capital murder cases. There have been 130 people liberated from death row because attorneys were able to get the judicial system to review evidence. Today on Sprouts we look at the origins of Davis V Georgia and the international outpouring of support for the movement to give Troy Davis a new trial.

On September 23rd Troy Davis came within 90 minutes of being executed when the US Supreme Court issued a last minute stay of execution to study his executive petition to review evidence in a twenty year old murder case. On October 14th the Court refused to grant the petition. They did not review any of the compelling evidence. They met in closed session to review a petition for certiorari addressing problems with a Georgia Supreme Court decision not to grant Davis an evidentiary hearing. The high court was also asked to review constitutional questions, does the U.S. Constitution prohibit the execution of an innocent man?

As thousands began new attempts to save Troy Davis, the State of Georgia lost no time in seeking a new death warrant. They could schedule an execution as early as October 27th 2008. The death warrant will expire on November 3rd.

http://www.freetroydavis.com/page1.aspx

A 2007 story here on Democracy Now covering 2007, Troy Davis given stay less than 24 hours before his execution.

Sprouts is a weekly program that features production at independent radio stations and other grassroots media groups. It is produced collaboratively between Pacifica and community radio stations across the country. The program is offered free of charge to all radio stations and welcomes submissions from producers in independent media. For information or to submit work, contact Ursula Ruedenberg at:ursula@pacifica.org.

Contact Dori Smith at talknationradio@gmail.com

Scotus Blog reporting:

Court clears way for Davis execution Tuesday, October 14th, 2008 10:06 am | Lyle Denniston

Refusing to decide whether the death penalty is barred for an individual with a strong claim of innocence, the Supreme Court on Tuesday turned aside the appeal of Georgia death-row inmate Troy Anthony Davis. The order clears the way for the state to set a new execution date; a Supreme Court stay of the execution expired with the denial of review. The case is Davis v. Georgia (08-66).

We will be providing updates throughout the week and discussing the ongoing efforts to get Georgia’s Board of Pardons and Parole to grant clemency.

Dori Smith

Talk Nation Radio Election Coverage 2008

Featuring: Dori Smith, Brad Friedman of Bradblog.com, RNC and McCain-Palin campaign manager Rick Davis, Gov. Matt Blunt, and ACORN National and State Directors who respond to various charges by the McCain Campaign.

Listen to this one hour special here

TRT: 59:52 long music fade of 1:36
Download in various formats at Archive.org

McCain-Palin Campaign Director Rick Davis accused ACORN of trying to help the Obama Campaign steal the 2008 Presidential Election in battleground states. The allegations were made during a conference call held by the McCain campaign 10-10-08. We’re fact checking the conference and debunking statements by Rick Davis and Missouri Governor Matt Blunt.

Davis lashed out at the grass roots organization ACORN, which operates on behalf of low and
moderate income people nationally, doing voter registration and legislative advocacy. The press conference was only the latest in barrage of attacks launched by the McCain campaign and Republicans.

Is it a desperate attempt to deflect attention away from Friday’s report of abuses by the Palin administration in Alaska, that as the Republicans experience another dive in the polls and Wall Street suffers worst week in it’s history.

Brad Friedman debunks allegations of “Voter Fraud” and alleged “voter registration fraud.” He defines the two, noting that real voter fraud is extremely rare, and pointing out that it is ACORN that reports the cases mentioned by the McCain campaign.

Obama-Biden campaign response to McCain call on ACORN

“Today’s conference call was another effort by the McCain campaign to throw out false charges to ‘turn the page’ from the issues that matter to American families. Barack Obama strongly condemns voter registration fraud or any other breach of election law by any party or group. The McCain campaign’s allegations about Sen. Obama are completely transparent and false. He believes that the registration of voters at record levels is good for our democracy, and the McCain-Palin campaign’s false claims are nothing more than another dishonorable, shameful attempt to divert voters’ attention from the unprecedented challenges facing their families and our nation,” said Obama-Biden campaign spokesman Tommy Vietor.

ACORN RESPONDS TO MCCAIN CAMPAIGN ALLEGATIONS

Austin King at the National ACORN Headquarters joined us by phone from New Orleans where he works to try to save families’ homes from foreclosure.

Nicholas Graber-Grace of the Hartford and Bridgeport Connecticut offices of ACORN

Bruce Dorpalin of ACORN Housing Corporation operating as a 501c3 since the mid 1980s helping people get affordable mortgages without high adjustable rates and weird sub prime stuff. Over 100,000 mortgages have been created with this program over the past twenty years. They took on the sub prime banks engaging in scandalous abuses years before the term “sub prime” was used.

As of 10:30 PM EST The New York Times had published a story on the McCain campaign’s allegations. The New York Post quickly followed suit, and the RNC and Republican blogs republished these and other stories on ACORN that repeated the McCain campaign’s allegations.

A follow up to the NYT piece that raises some questions Here and
coverage by Lynn Sweet who participated in the conference call here

Also of interest: Media Matters and Huffington Post

More late coverage 1:30 A.M. October 11, 2008 from CBS
featuring only one side of the story but mentioning ACORN denials without going into detail. In this story CBS News claims they, “talked to nearly two dozen ACORN workers who all said they were pressured to increase their number of registration cards – to the point of copying names out of phone books, signing up inmates, and registering the dead”.

This swift moving story is now being called the “swift boat” campaign of the 2008 election, in reference to the Swift Boat attacks that hurt the campaign of Democrat John Kerry in 2004. It has been posted, reposted, and blogged at incredible speed all night.

Will the truth ever be told? Who ARE these ACORN staffers that media seems always able to locate? How does the information about allegations of voter registration fraud involving ACORN magically appear in the hands of Republicans even before investigations are complete as to any charges?

What should happen to those who started these stories if the ‘facts’ offered turn out to be all old, exaggerated tidbits jammed together to make it seem like ACORN has been charged with thousands of ‘violations’ recently?

Talk Nation Radio for October 8, 2008

2008 Economic Crash 101 with Professor Stephen L. Ross

Produced by Dori Smith, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT
A Pacifica Network Affiliate

Listen to this week’s broadcast here

29:46

Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here or use Archive.org for a wide range of formats including podcasting or Radio4all.net too for a 64 k format for air on LPFM stations and community radio.

America is in crisis as college students and their families have begun to worry about where to get shrinking student loan dollars. Professor Stephen L. Ross says his best initial advice is start early and apply for student loan funds from more than one bank. Go to the banks where you may have already gotten loans, if that doesn’t work try your parent’s bank, but keep applying early and working on the problem now for the future because it probably won’t get any easier anytime soon.

David Marriasi, Supervisor of Financial Aid at ECSU, Eastern Connecticut State University, in Willimantic Connecticut, pointed out during a follow up interview that student loan money is awarded on a first come first serve basis. ‘Apply early because as I always tell students here, the line forms much like a buffet table. The earliest you can apply is March 15th and students with applications stamped early get to have their applications reviewed first. Those who wait until say August or September might face a situation where there are only crumbs left. Their applications with the later post marks will probably get Pell Grant money but not the most sought after funding’.

Meanwhile, colleges and universities are struggling to make their financial plans as the State of Connecticut has seen a sharp decline in it’s own . Some, like Eastern Connecticut State University have plans where students can pay tuition via monthly installments.

Yet, there could be a silver lining for colleges according to Ross. A tough job market tends to mean that more people will opt to attend school since they can’t earn money in the market place anyway.

As news of the US financial crisis hit in late September, UCONN economics and political science instructors held an impromptu forum to discuss the crisis. Through only word of mouth promotion the forum hall was quickly packed. We will hear more from professors involved in the forum in upcoming shows and we will post suggestions from area colleges as they may be provided in terms of what students can do to cope with the financial crisis.

At his most recent Presidential debate held in Nashville, with Republican Senator John McCain, Democrat Barack Obama mentioned the need to help students twice. He said, ‘We are mortgaging our children’s future we need to have a different energy plan. We’ve got to invest in college afford ability. So we’re going to have to make some investments but we’ve also got to make spending cuts. And what I’ve proposed, you’ll hear Senator McCain say well he’s proposing a whole bunch of new spending, but actually I’m cutting more than I’m spending’.

Topics include the reality of what deregulation did to the stability of markets, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson’s $700 billion dollar bail out plan for Wall Street, and new ideas about other ways to shore up the economy that began surfacing even as Congress voted on Paulson’s plan.

Stephen L. Ross favors a plan proposed by Luigi Zingales at the University of Chicago which he says would be better for taxpayers than Paulson’s plan.

Also, should investors stay in US markets or not? What should those fortunate enough to have investments do? Ross is not an investment counselor however he offers his best advice which is to assess whether or not you need to use your money soon versus can wait a long period of time to access the funds.

Diversification is still the best strategy, however, use time as your indicator on whether or not to put your money into safe treasury bonds now versus keeping it in long term IRAs, Money Markets, or other investments.

If you need the money for college or other purposes in the next few years, move it into shorter term CDs and safe US Treasury Bonds.

UCONN students were alerted to the potential for rising area housing costs in the event they were seeking off campus housing, and information was provided on the increasing difficulty for students trying to obtain student loan dollars.

During a Presidential debate held in Nashville Democratic Senator Barack Obama mentioned the need to help students twice. His words sparked intense discussion on the internet where a conversation was already buzzing about whether or not social programs like Medicare and Medicaid will be sacrificed in order to bail out Wall Street investors.

During a conference call for the Obama campaign we asked Pennsylvania Senator Bob Casey if he believed the $700 billion dollar bail out for Wall Street would negate any of the social programs being outlined by Barack Obama.

“From my own perspective here and you can get more details from the Obama campaign. The $700 billion dollars that has been talked about, first of all is not, the authority only goes half way, it only goes to $350 billion. Even if there was authority for all $700 billion today this is debt money, in other words the General Fund impact, the same fund that pays for Medicare, Medicaid, Defense, Education, everything, Veteran’s Benefits, that’s General Fund money and basically what you are paying there is debt service on the $700 billion. You are not paying, it’s not a $700 billion drain out of the General Fund and I think that’s been lost on a lot of people. But I think that’s the reality of it. So you are talking about adding to debt service as opposed to draining the General.”

The US Supreme Court will likely consider the case of Troy Anthony Davis October 10th 2008 when it meets in closed session.

from Scotus blog: ‘The Supreme Court, opening a new Term Monday, took no action on an appeal testing whether it is unconstitutional to execute a death-row inmate who has a significant claim of innocence. The Court’s 82-page list of orders on pending cases contained no word on Troy Anthony Davis’ appeal, Davis v. Georgia (08-66). His scheduled execution has been temporarily postponed by the Court. The Court will consider the case again at its private Conference on Friday, according to the Court’s electronic docket’. 1:40 PM update, Dori Smith

Previous: The US Supreme Court, Scotus, blog… features a small paragraph about Troy Anthony Davis. We have been following his case and during one of our last radio features we learned Davis received a stay of execution from the Supreme Court. This came just two hours prior to his execution in the State of Georgia where he has been on death row for 17 years for a total of 19 years in prison.

Scotus Blog: 11:25 a.m. Wed. Oct. 1, 2008: “The Court took no action on a Georgia death-row inmate’s appeal seeking a ruling that it is unconstitutional to execute a convicted individual if there is substantial evidence that he did not commit the crime. The execution of Troy Anthony Davis is temporarily blocked by a stay the Court issued on Sept. 23. —– The next chance for the Court to issue orders will be on Monday, the opening day of the new Term”. They are speaking of Monday the 6th.

There is a ‘call to action’ page here and a petition drafted by Amnesty International here
And an interview with Rep. John Lewis of Georgia here which I would very much recommend. Rep. Lewis was interviewed by Amy Goodman:

REP. JOHN LEWIS: “Race is everything in this case. This is a case involving a young African American male and a white—young white male police officer. And the cards are stacked against this young black man. This has a long history. This is not something that just happened in the past few years, but have been a long history in the state of Georgia, and especially in the American South, of being so quick and so apt to electrocute or provide capital punishment for low-income people and for people of color”.

Let me also recommend A Letter from Troy Davis “The following letter was written by Troy Davis on September 22, a day before he was scheduled to be executed by the state of Georgia. Just two hours before his scheduled execution, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a temporary stay of execution”.

Excerpt from Troy Davis letter September 22, 2008: “I can’t even explain the insurgence of emotion I feel when I try to express the strength I draw from you all, it compounds my faith and it shows me yet again that this is not a case about the death penalty, this is not a case about Troy Davis, this is a case about Justice and the Human Spirit to see Justice prevail.

I cannot answer all of your letters but I do read them all, I cannot see you all but I can imagine your faces, I cannot hear you speak but your letters take me to the far reaches of the world, I cannot touch you physically but I feel your warmth everyday I exist”. ~more~

Dori Smith
talknationradio@gmail.com

Talk Nation Radio for October 1, 2008

Ken Silverstein on John McCain’s Gambling Cronies and Gtech
Do as I say not as I do, a growing credibility problem for McCain/Palin

Listen to this week’s program here

Produced by Dori Smith at WHUS, a Pacifica Affiliate at the University of Connecticut in Storrs, CT
TRT: 29:28
Download at Pacifica’s Audioport here
or at http://www.radio4all.net and http://www.archive.org
(for podcasting)

Ken Silverstein, Washington Editor for Harper’s Magazine, joins us to talk about Republican Presidential candidate John McCain’s growing credibility problem. Silverstein’s latest Harper’s Magazine piece on McCain is titled, ‘McCain Cronies Hit Jackpot with Gtech’.

UPDATE 8:30 pm Thursday October 2, 2008 We just received a reply from the Obama campaign regarding our question on their reaction to Ken Silverstein’s story in Harpers Magazine about John McCain and the gambling industry: “Gambling in casinos that you regulate with the lobbyists that represent those casinos is not the change we need, it is more of the same broken, special interest driven politics that has dominated Washington for the last eight years,” said Obama-Biden Campaign Communications Director, Dan Pfeiffer.

We will air a follow up to this story next week.

Ken Silverstein reports that some of John McCain’s cronies mentioned in a recent New York Times story, “have ties to another gambling behemoth: Gtech, which is heavily involved in state lotteries and online gaming.

From the article: “Rick Davis, who may or may nor have “separated” himself from the firm of Davis, Manafort in 2006, is another one-time Gtech lobbyist. Between 1999 and 2001, Davis, Manafort was paid $90,000 to represent the gambling company. Davis was the sole lobbyist on the account. For part of that period, Davis was running McCain’s 2000 run for the GOP nomination

Scott Reed, the well-known GOP operative and McCain confidante, has been a Gtech lobbyist too. His firm, Chesapeake Enterprises, was paid more than $100,00 by the firm between 1999 and 2004. (Incidentally, it was Reed who suggested to McCain that he hire Davis as his campaign chairman back in 2000.)”

According to the story appearing in the October issue of Harpers Gtech and another firm called Scientific Games dominate the lottery and online gambling industry. McCain wrote or helped write major legislation involving Native American tribes seeking to open casinos while serving as chairman of the Indian Affairs Committee. Ken Silverstein is also author of a recently released book, Turkmeniscam, How Washington Lobbyists Fought to Flack for a Stalinist Dictatorship.

Exposes about Senator McCain’s gambling habits have been overshadowed by recent news of the $700 billion dollar bail out of Wall Street and the banking industry. But revelations about the extent of McCain’s involvement with gambling industry lobbyists could be a kind of last straw for conservative voters who were already worried about a growing list of contradictions between what McCain says and what he does either as Arizona’s Senator or in his private life.

Evangelicals who have supported McCain more recently due to his selection of Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate could also start to back away from their support for the Republican candidate over gambling. Shortly after McCain’s selection of Palin she made headlines for her stand on abortion and her spiritual roots in several Pentacostal churches in Alaska.

The Anchorage Daily News published an interview with her conducted by the Eagle Forum during her 2006 run for governor where Palin was asked, “Do you support the expansion of gambling in Alaska”? She said quote “No, in so many cases, gambling has shown ill effects on families and as Governor I would not propose expansion legislation”. Palin also said she would not sign any bills expanding gaming in Alaska.

The Democratic National Committee has released an ad about McCain’s ties to the gambling industry. The ad lists some of John McCain’s political ties to some 40 individuals in the gambling industry, shows pictures of McCain at casinos gambling, and describes how casino lobbyists organized the trips to casinos at the same time steering hundreds of thousands of dollars to McCain’s campaigns. The New York Times has reported that one of these trips was to Foxwoods Casino in Connecticut where the candidate played high stakes poker and walked away a winner.

In stories that have been overshadowed by the recent US economic scare, Politico.com and the New York Times published a series of exposes about McCain campaign manager Rick Davis after learning he was receiving $35,000 a month for defending Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac against stricter regulations. According to a spokesperson for Fannie Mae, Davis received this amount during 2000 through 2002, as head of the Homeownership Alliance, an advocacy group. In 2004, according to the Times, Davis got McCain to attend a Homeownership Alliance awards banquet held in a Senate office building. Fanny and Freddie have spent at least $170 million on lobbying in the past decade, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

McCain told the New York Times that Rick Davis has had had nothing to do with the mortgage giants recently and he invited the Times to examine Davis’s record. The Times did and found that Rick Davis’s lobbying firm received $15,000 a month in consulting fees from Freddie Mac.

The income began in 2005 and continued through August of 2008. McCain and his surrogates have continued to criticize Democrat Barack Obama for asking Fannie Mae CEO Jim Johnson to head his VP search team in June. However, Johnson stepped a week later amid controversy and so was not working for Obama when he made his selection of Senator Joe Biden as his running mate.

As the major networks CNN and MSNBC discussed the Vice Presidential debate through the day on Thursday October 2nd 2008, they focused on whether or not Democrat Joe Biden might seem like he was ‘bullying’ Republican Sarah Palin if he came across as harsh or insensitive. Meanwhile, US Senator’s Reed, Dodd, and Pelosi, along with Republican counterparts in the Senate are working overtime on a bail out for Wall Street bankers. They claim without the bail out the US economy and Wall Street could fail. –US drones have been attacking villages in Pakistan. The Afghan war is intensifying and U.S. Military leaders warn that the US is failing to secure the country, and that the US installed leader Hamid Karzi has lost political power. In Iraq, suicide bombers continue to take lives despite reports of success and there are indications that the political situation has grown more complex. Iraqis tell the Defense Department they are still too frightened to venture away from their home towns. And the global warming crisis still threatens life on the planet.

We play a clip of the trailer from the film featuring Dustin Hoffman, Wag the Dog, to illustrate how the McCain campaign is being covered and what could be going on behind the scenes.

More article on the history of McCain’s gambling here and here

Ken Silverstein’s book, Turkmeniscam, here

Transcript of Sarah Palin interview with Charles Gibson here

Slate coverage of Palin interview with Gibson here

Anchorage Daily News covers Gov. Sarah Palin regularly, see here

Troopergate inquiry ADN here and note link to audio of
“Frank Bailey, Gov. Sarah Palin’s director of boards and commissions, calls a trooper station complaining about Trooper Wooten”. —This is very illuminating as to Palin’s governing style. The call has lots of implications having to do with the rights of union leaders to have private correspondence and not be pressured by leaders in the organizations where they are working with members.