Martin Anderson Boot Camp Verdict: NOT GUILTY

[Nihilanthic]

Well, Florida's Civil Rights just got pushed back to damn near the Jim Crow era.

 :roll:

Yanno, I really, really hope this causes a veritable shit storm, gets something done for the better, and just maybe reform the prison industry here.

But I'm damn sure people will lose sight of the original problem here and instead make this completely about race and specifically black people, and not everyone fucked up by the program industry, the prison industry, and the asswipes in government responsible for both.

 

[exhausted]

Niles you know it's going to become a race issue

it's up to those who can see the real issue to keep (the fact that this is an issue about a load of people killing a child) alive

Do lawyers there argue cases using previous cases? As in, if someone is up for exactly the same crime they#ll argue that someone else got a certain punishment, so therefore we must be fair about it?

If so, go kill a load of people, you too can walk free claiming they had some illness that would killl them anyway  :roll:

[Nihilanthic]

Well, clearly being guilty of having teenage hormones = deadinsaneorinjail, so I should go open a program.

I mean, its OKAY right?

I love how we get to take a mile of steps forward on Wednesday and on Friday we lost half of them, AND get to see the race card played to completely fuck this up.

I really wish I could get on TV and say "IT ISN'T JUST BLACK KIDS", but that would make me a "RACISS"

God this country is getting on my nerves.

[ZenAgent]

Well, clearly being guilty of having teenage hormones = deadinsaneorinjail, so I should go open a program.

I mean, its OKAY right?

I love how we get to take a mile of steps forward on Wednesday and on Friday we lost half of them, AND get to see the race card played to completely fuck this up.

I really wish I could get on TV and say "IT ISN'T JUST BLACK KIDS", but that would make me a "RACISS"

God this country is getting on my nerves.

Like I said, the focus should stay on Martin Anderson's murder, and the subsequent denial of justice.  I'm not sure of the racial make-up of the jury - it could be racism was a factor in the verdict.

I guess in the end, whatever brings more attention to Martin Anderson's death should be viewed as positive.  Anyone looking at the abuses of the industry will quickly discover programs don't discriminate - they're colorblind when it comes to handing out torture.

[Nihilanthic]

Some jurors were family friends of the Guards, for one.

For two, if this becomes PURELY a white vs black issue, then the actual cause of his death, the child torture industry, will basically fall by the wayside, YET AGAIN!

[Joyce Harris]

Zen,  Jury Panel:

The 6 final members of the Jury were chozen by which seats they were seated in.
The final Jury Panel was all-white..

The Jury
A 32-year-old business analyst. White male
A 59-year-old landscaping manager. White male
A 73-year-old homemaker. White female
A 56-year-old homemaker. White female
A 61-year-old retired teacher. White female
A 62-year-old librarian. White female
A 28-year-old maintenance worker. White male
A 26-year-old mortgage loan processor. White female
A 51-year-old retired Air Force member. Asian male
A 51-year-old disabled white female

[ZenAgent]

Zen,  Jury Panel:

The 6 final members of the Jury were chozen by which seats they were seated in.
The final Jury Panel was all-white..

The Jury
A 32-year-old business analyst. White male
A 59-year-old landscaping manager. White male
A 73-year-old homemaker. White female
A 56-year-old homemaker. White female
A 61-year-old retired teacher. White female
A 62-year-old librarian. White female
A 28-year-old maintenance worker. White male
A 26-year-old mortgage loan processor. White female
A 51-year-old retired Air Force member. Asian male
A 51-year-old disabled white female

Ugh...I won't make any rash judgments about the jury, but I can see a possible lack of empathy for Martin Anderson, based on their ages and professions.

I can see something more sinister, too.  Niles, the "race card" has been abused in the past - Michael Jackson played it against his record company for not promoting his album.  The real issue was very simple -  the album was a turd and not worth losing more money on.  It was used as an excuse, and I'm aware of other examples.  No one's looking for an excuse here, just answers to how eight people could kill a young man and have a jury decide they weren't culpable, despite a video of the defendants punching and kicking Martin Anderson.  

It wouldn't take the focus off the industry's abuses, and it could expose another ugly side of programs.  Rumors abound about PV and racism...a quick look at their website's staff page shows the clinicians are Milk of Magnesia pale and pasty, except for one guy, who's of Filipino descent, I think.

[Antigen]

Front	Back

Get yer Charles Helms Jr. commemorative tshirt right here! (some proceeds go to feed the Fornits)

[Nihilanthic]

Zen,  Jury Panel:

The 6 final members of the Jury were chozen by which seats they were seated in.
The final Jury Panel was all-white..

The Jury
A 32-year-old business analyst. White male
A 59-year-old landscaping manager. White male
A 73-year-old homemaker. White female
A 56-year-old homemaker. White female
A 61-year-old retired teacher. White female
A 62-year-old librarian. White female
A 28-year-old maintenance worker. White male
A 26-year-old mortgage loan processor. White female
A 51-year-old retired Air Force member. Asian male
A 51-year-old disabled white female

Ugh...I won't make any rash judgments about the jury, but I can see a possible lack of empathy for Martin Anderson, based on their ages and professions.

I can see something more sinister, too.  Niles, the "race card" has been abused in the past - Michael Jackson played it against his record company for not promoting his album.  The real issue was very simple -  the album was a turd and not worth losing more money on.  It was used as an excuse, and I'm aware of other examples.  No one's looking for an excuse here, just answers to how eight people could kill a young man and have a jury decide they weren't culpable, despite a video of the defendants punching and kicking Martin Anderson.  

It wouldn't take the focus off the industry's abuses, and it could expose another ugly side of programs.  Rumors abound about PV and racism...a quick look at their website's staff page shows the clinicians are Milk of Magnesia pale and pasty, except for one guy, who's of Filipino descent, I think.

I'm still utterly expecting this to turn into a new "Rodney King" and the real issue to be left by the wayside. He would not be dead now if not for the Floridian problem with civil rights and habit of programming juveniles, period!

At the very least the people who DROPPED THE BALL and set themselves up for the race card to be played and supposedly had jurors as family friends of the defendants (is that verified?) need to get fired. And I'm expecting protests and a ton of shit to happen. I hope to god nobody is dumb enough to riot in this state. I do NOT want to see hell break loose.

Regarding this exposing the industry's racism: Do you think the NAACP knows (or cares?) ANYTHING about this shit? Black people aren't as lacking in common sense as much as white people apparently do, look at demographics of program families!

They also seem to have a healthy limit to their blind trust in "the man" which I think white-bread, middle class America could stand to get.

[ZenAgent]

Whitey Bourgeois is always looking for someone to raise his kids for him and fix his screw-ups with meds and straitjackets.  The industry is like an exercise in Eugenics:  your kid is not "normal", he has "problems"... place the kid in a duck farm for behavior modification and all types of ill quackery in hopes of rendering the kid "normal".  The next step after programs would be "euthanizing" kids who are different, and put an end once and for all to the troublesome artists, musicians, writers, and people who question their society.

...And I'm off the subject!  If what you say is true, then there won't be many cases of racism to cite.  End of it there, but we already saw bi-partisan shock and outrage at the stories of death and abuse during the GAO hearing.  Ideological and racial lines of division blur when the issue is protecting children.

[Anonymous]

Federal Review of Martin Anderson Boot Camp Case?

Federal Review Looms in Boot Camp Death
By MELISSA NELSON – 6 hours ago

PANAMA CITY, Fla. (AP) — Seven former juvenile boot camp guards and a nurse had barely processed an all-white jury's decision to acquit them in a black teenager's death before federal authorities announced they would review the case.

Since jurors on Friday acquitted them of manslaughter charges, federal prosecutors likely would have to try another tactic, such as seeking an indictment alleging obstruction of justice, legal experts said.

"It's too early to say that the final chapter has been written with respect to the criminal justice system in this case," said Kendall Coffey, a former U.S. attorney in Miami.

Florida civil rights leaders called for federal charges hours after a jury took 90 minutes to exonerate the eight in state court in the death of Martin Lee Anderson, 14.

By Friday evening, officials from the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington and the U.S. Attorney's Office in Tallahassee announced they were reviewing the state's prosecution.

Anderson died Jan. 6, 2006, a day after being hit and kicked by the guards as the nurse watched after he collapsed while running laps. The 30-minute confrontation was videotaped.

The altercation drew protests in the state capital and marked the end of Florida's system of juvenile boot camps.

Defense attorneys argued that the camp workers were using accepted tactics and that the boy died because of a pre-existing medical condition.

Coffey said state prosecutors might have laid a foundation for their federal counterparts to seek an obstruction charge by grilling the eight about inconsistencies and omissions in their written accounts of the last conscious moments of Anderson's life when they testified last week.

But lawyer Bob Sombathy, who represented ex-guard Patrick Garrett, said he doubted a federal prosecution would be successful. Sombathy said the state trial showed the medical findings are on the side of the defendants.

"With a 90-minute verdict after a three-week trial (in the state case), it would be the same result," he said.

Ashley Benedik, defense attorney for nurse Kristin Schmidt, said the federal government might not bring charges.

"To a certain extent there was more at stake for the state, there was more of a public outcry," she said.

At a vigil in the impoverished neighborhood where Anderson grew up, community leaders appealed for calm in the wake of the verdict, which they said was affected by Circuit Judge Michael Overstreet's decision to hold the trial in Panama City, where the boot camp was located.

"This is not the end of it. We can take it to a higher court and I hope it will be taken to a higher court," said Panama City Commissioner Jonathan Wilson.

Laurie Levenson, a professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, said she was not surprised the guards were acquitted by a "hometown jury." Nor would it surprise her if the federal government stepped in, she said.

"This is the very type of case you would expect the Justice Department to take a very close look at, just like the Rodney King case," Levenson said.

King was pulled over for speeding in Los Angeles' eastern San Fernando Valley, where police officers who said he acted menacingly and refused to follow their orders were videotaped kicking him, pummeling him with their nightsticks and shooting him with stun-gun darts.

After a jury acquitted the officers in 1992, riots broke out across Los Angeles and lasted four days, leaving 55 people dead and more than 2,000 injured.

Federal prosecutors in the King case presented new evidence during their trial of the officers, including testimony that the officers had lied and had laughed about the incident, Levenson said.

In the federal trial, two officers were convicted of violating King's civil rights.

Associated Press Writer Brian Skoloff contributed to this report from West Palm Beach.

[try another castle]

The prosecutors should have gone for charges of aggravated assault or abuse---the only thing proved beyond a doubt by the video. If they had been found guilty, the sentence would have been longer because the child died. The prosecutor's office got greedy and was doing some political grandstanding, certain the emotional issue would override the law. In a place that favors conservatives, they should have known better.

Probably the best angle would be that of malpractice/gross negligence. These places offer services in the form of treatment, so  regard it as such. The malpractice angle was used for the KIDS of north jersey case, I believe.

[Nihilanthic]

Whitey Bourgeois is always looking for someone to raise his kids for him and fix his screw-ups with meds and straitjackets.  The industry is like an exercise in Eugenics:  your kid is not "normal", he has "problems"... place the kid in a duck farm for behavior modification and all types of ill quackery in hopes of rendering the kid "normal".  The next step after programs would be "euthanizing" kids who are different, and put an end once and for all to the troublesome artists, musicians, writers, and people who question their society.

...And I'm off the subject!  If what you say is true, then there won't be many cases of racism to cite.  End of it there, but we already saw bi-partisan shock and outrage at the stories of death and abuse during the GAO hearing.  Ideological and racial lines of division blur when the issue is protecting children.

Really?

I haven't seen any politicians or any people in the secondary media (radio... and well in that case, heard) speak about that shit yet.

They seem to be avoiding it like the plague, waiting for the other side to commit first.

[ZenAgent]

Whitey Bourgeois is always looking for someone to raise his kids for him and fix his screw-ups with meds and straitjackets.  The industry is like an exercise in Eugenics:  your kid is not "normal", he has "problems"... place the kid in a duck farm for behavior modification and all types of ill quackery in hopes of rendering the kid "normal".  The next step after programs would be "euthanizing" kids who are different, and put an end once and for all to the troublesome artists, musicians, writers, and people who question their society.

...And I'm off the subject!  If what you say is true, then there won't be many cases of racism to cite.  End of it there, but we already saw bi-partisan shock and outrage at the stories of death and abuse during the GAO hearing.  Ideological and racial lines of division blur when the issue is protecting children.

Really?

I haven't seen any politicians or any people in the secondary media (radio... and well in that case, heard) speak about that shit yet.

They seem to be avoiding it like the plague, waiting for the other side to commit first.

 

Oh yeah, my mother-in-law is a hardcore Republican, pissed that it took a Democrat to bring this mess to answer, but she's growing fond of George Miller.  Party affiliations don't mean shit to a grandmother who's granddaughter was abused, she just wants some ass kicking.  

Um...but I guess she isn't a politician or media.  Give it time.

[ZenAgent]

http://www.house.gov/apps/list/speech/e ... 01207.html

Chairman Miller Statement on Not Guilty Verdicts in Martin Lee Anderson Case
   
   

Friday, October 12, 2007
   
 
   

WASHINGTON, DC -- U.S. Rep. George Miller (D-CA), chairman of the House Education and Labor Committee, issued the following statement today after learning that eight employees of the Bay County, Florida, Sheriff’s Office Boot Camp facility were found not guilty in the 2006 death of 14-year-old Martin Lee Anderson:

“When a Florida court sent Martin Lee Anderson to a county-run boot camp in 2006, the court didn’t intend to sentence him to death. But tragically, a death sentence is what Martin Lee Anderson got. The boot camp has since closed and the state of Florida has revised its policies. While these are welcome steps, Anderson’s family deserves every opportunity to see that those involved are held criminally responsible for their actions. That is why I am encouraged that the U.S. Justice Department is reviewing the case to see whether charges of federal criminal civil rights violations are possible.

“Sadly, this type of child abuse has happened before and continues to happen in many states throughout the U.S., because of a lack of sufficient safeguards to prevent it. Earlier this week, investigators for the Government Accountability Office reported that they had found thousands of allegations of child abuse and neglect in residential treatment programs for children, including boot camps and wilderness programs. In many cases where a child died, none of the adults entrusted with the child’s care was ever held responsible.

“Such cases show the urgent need for stronger laws. Congress will act to stop these abuses of children once and for all. In cases involving privately-run facilities, which often lack regulations of any kind, we will establish standards to keep children safe. In cases involving county- or state-run facilities, we will act to strengthen existing standards. We have no mandate more urgent than the health and safety of children.â€