More Bad News For George Zimmerman

George Zimmerman, the killer of Trayvon Martin, has fallen on hard times. Zimmerman was the darling of the right wing echo chamber while he was on trial for killing Martin, a young African-American. Mark O'Meara, a high-powered, high-cost lawyer, defended him against the charge of murder without asking for any money up front. Thousands of fans of Fox News, Rush Limbaugh, and their ilk, sent money to Zimmerman's defense fund. The man himself was regularly seen on tv, declaring his innocence to all the world. And Zimmerman was acquitted.

Now, Zimmerman is on trial again. This time he is accused of aggravated battery, domestic violence battery, and criminal mischief. Zimmerman says he is indigent and has debts of $2 million. He is also involved in a divorce case in which his wife initially claimed he assaulted her and pulled a gun on her, but his wife decided not to press charges in that case.

Mark O'Meara, the high-priced lawyer who successfully defended Zimmerman in the Martin case, has stated that he is no longer Zimmerman's lawyer. Very probably it is he to whom Zimmerman owes $2 million. The donations from right-wingers have dried up. Zimmerman is on his own.

Aggravated assault is a class 3 felony under Florida state law. The crucial piece of this felony is the charge that Zimmerman brandished a gun before pushing his girlfriend out of the apartment. Under mandatory sentencing laws, the minimum sentence for conviction of this crime is 5 years in prison.

Zimmerman's behavior after his acquittal on murder charges shows just how broken the criminal justice system is right now in Florida. Criminal penalties are supposed to deter people from committing crimes. When the justice system allows people to escape punishment for crimes they obviously commit--no one disputes that Zimmerman shot Trayvon Martin to death--the laws have just the opposite effect. People are encouraged to commit crimes since they can see that criminals go unpunished.

Since his acquittal, Zimmerman has been involved in two violent incidents involving allegations of using firearms.

Florida's system of criminal justice is broken. Its "stand your ground law should be repealed. Its mandatory minimum penalties should be repealed. Its "three strikes" law should be repealed. The penalties Florida exacts on people who have served time in prison need to be seriously diminished, including its refusal to let ex-felons vote.

This post partly based on reports from NBC News.

Marissa Alexander gets a retrial

Marissa Alexander has been granted a retrial in a case that has gotten national attention. Alexander shot a gun at her husband, whom she claimed was threatening her life. Alexander also claimed that he had abused her physically. It was her first offense. A jury found Alexander guilty of discharging a gun in the commission of a felony. Under Florida law, this conviction carries a mandatory sentence of 20 years in prison.

Florida's mandatory sentencing laws have filled its prisons to overflowing. The first such laws passed in 1979. At that time, Florida had about 10,000 inmates. In 2010, it had over 100,000. The incidence of crime has been falling in the state and the U.S. for many years, yet still the prison population increases.

African-Americans outnumber whites in Florida prisons 4.4 to 1. In the general population, blacks represent only 16 percent of the population.

There is a remarkable disparity in Florida's gun laws. Under its "stand your ground" law, a woman has a right to kill someone if she believes her life is in danger. But under Florida's mandatory sentencing law, if a woman does not believe her life is in danger, even if she misses entirely, as in this case, she can be sent to jail for 20 years. The question arises, how can you tell whether she thought her life was in danger or not, especially if she claims she did think it was?

An appeals court granted a retrial in this case because the judge mistakenly told the jury that Alexander had to prove she was acting in self-defense, but the law actually requires the prosecution to prove that she was not defending herself.

A comparison of this case with the Trayvon Martin shooting is instructive. In the Martin case, the shooter was declared not to be the aggressor, even though he was following Martin for several minutes before catching up to him. In the Alexander case, the defendant was declared the aggressor after she walked from the garage, where the gun was stored, to the living room, where the shooting occurred. Both defendants claimed they feared for their lives.

Martin's killer was acquitted. Alexander will likely have a chance at a plea bargain during her second trial, and may end up serving very little prison time beyond the 3 years she has already spent in prison.

Laws should be reasonable. A reasonable person should be able to tell whether a law has been broken or not. Laws should not be able to be twisted so that a white man with a good lawyer goes free while a poor African-American woman goes to prison after committing similar, if not identical, offenses.

The Alexander case is hardly the only abuse of a mandatory sentencing law, but it is a blatant one.

Snopes.com committed a major blunder

Snopes.com committed a major blunder when it rated as false a rumor that Koch Industries (Koch) was paying the defense attorney's fees in the Trayvon Martin murder trial. Koch.com, a website owned by Koch Industries, still publishes Snopes's judgment on the front page of its web site, although the article was published back in April 2012. KochFacts.com implies that Snopes backs up its other claim, that MSNBC falsely accused Koch of supporting the Florida stand-your-ground statute that let Martin's killer go free. This judgment puts Snopes squarely on the side of an organization, Koch Industries, that routinely spreads disinformation about climate change, its own activities, and the reputations of others.

Snopes did not investigate the issue thoroughly enough and was too willing to take the word of company spokespersons. They also wrote that Mark O'Mara, the defense lawyer, said something he didn't say. Snopes went to the Koch web site, kochfacts.com, where it found that Koch denies having anything to do with "stand-your-ground” laws. This is a completely false assertion. Koch-financed groups gave $75,000 to ALEC between 2005 and 2008, a period when ALEC and  the NRA were promoting stand-your-ground laws to state legislatures. ALEC resident fellow Michael Hough explained in a 2008 interview that NRA and ALEC were working together to push stand-your-ground laws to state legislatures.

Koch had two representatives from its Koch Companies Public Sector on the Public Interest and Criminal Law study group at American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in Cincinnati in 2011. Michael K. Morgan of Koch Industries has been on the board of ALEC since 1999.

Snopes also took Koch's word that Koch had “nothing whatsoever” to do with the defendant in the Trayvon Martin case. As verification, Snopes posts an interview with the defense attorney, Mark O'Mara. The interviewer asks O'Mara who financed the defense.

Interviewer: Who gave? Who were the people who gave?

O'Mara: It's funny, because we got a lot of $5 contributions, a lot of $100 contributions...

Snopes should have noticed that O'Mara did not answer this question fully. O'Mara has recently asked the court to pay $300,000 for expenses in the case, so O'Mara did not get the entire amount he was seeking in small contributions. Anyone trying to answer the question of whether Koch helped fund the defense cannot give a definitive answer on the basis of this interview, because the interviewer did not ask about Koch Industries, nor did O'Mara volunteer anything about it.

Snopes was faced with this dilemma. There is no concrete evidence the rumor is true, but there is equally as little evidence that it is false. Snopes decided to believe Koch. There is plenty of evidence on Kochfacts.com and elsewhere, however, that Koch is entirely unreliable. The site is a compendium of scurrilous charges and half-truths which must be familiar to Snopes from every other web site in the right-wing echo chamber.

Kochfacts states that “Democratic operative” Karen Finney wrongly accused Koch of a “connection” with Trayvon Martin's death. This is a false statement, in two ways. Finney did not mention Koch as the cause of Martin's death. She excoriated several Republicans for heightening the atmosphere of racial tension through their thoughtless remarks and personal attacks. Finney made no statement about whether Koch had anything to do with Florida's "stand your ground" law, for she was referring to events after Martin's death, not before it. The remark has been repeated out of context on numerous web sites, but mere repetition does not convert falsehood into truth. Furthermore, Finney is now a commentator on MSNBC, not a Democratic operative. Kochfacts.com calling her an operative is simply another falsehood intended to undermine the reputation of MSNBC.

Koch has underwritten numerous false and misleading statements. Greenpeace documents Koch's funding of a polar bear study, a report that claims that polar bears are not endangered by global warming. This subject is important for oil companies, like Koch, who intend to profit from oil in the arctic. The study discloses that it received funding from Koch Industries, the American Petroleum Institute, and Exxon-Mobil Corporation. The study was a fraud, however, because it pretended to be a research paper and it was not. Its authors, one of whom was an astrophysicist, had no professional knowledge of polar bears and did no original research for the article. Subsequently, two actual experts on polar bears published a response that the Koch-funded study did not adequately support its radical claim that non-climate factors were causing the polar bear population decline.¹

Other examples of Koch front groups publishing misinformation are too numerous to mention here.

Snopes had a problem. It wanted to make a decision about whether this rumor, about Koch paying O'Mara's fee, was true or false, but it had insufficient data. Koch said it didn't pay, but Koch is a notably unreliable witness, having told half-truths or outright lies on numerous occasions. O'Mara said he received small donations, but he didn't deny receiving larger ones, or promises of future donations.

Snopes should have given up at this point and said that the truth of the rumor is unknowable. Instead, it made an unwarranted assumption, that the rumor “appeared to be tied” to a coincidence of other popular beliefs. Saying a rumor “appears” to be something proves nothing at all. It is an opinion based on an assumption, not a conclusion based on facts.

Rumors arise from an excess of secrecy and a shortage of facts. The rumors about Koch Industries arise from the fact that Koch has tried for years to hide its political activities behind numerous front groups and conservative organizations. The habit of secrecy is deeply ingrained.

ALEC also has a history of secrecy. It disbanded the Public Safety and Elections study group--which pushed NRA-backed laws--in response to pressure from civil rights groups and its corporate sponsors. ALEC did not stop its activities in these areas, however. It just transferred the assets into other study groups. The NRA continued to be a partner for ALEC.

The net effect of Snopes's rash assumption is that Kochfacts.com now features Snopes.com on its front page, implying that Snopes has verified all the lies and half-truths that follow. Snopes should repair its reputation by removing its flawed opinion from the website and do some more serious fact checking of Kochfacts.com.  

1Koch Industries Secretly Funding the Climate Denial Machine 25, Greenpeace USA, 2010.

ALEC and NRA: How Trayvon Martin's killer got away with murder

ALEC

A group of conservatives founded the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) in 1973. They intended ALEC to be a study group for advancing conservative ideas on the state level. The original founders included Henry Hyde, Paul Weyrich, and Lou Barnett. Henry Hyde was a practical politician who was elected to the House in 1968. Weyrich became a leader of the religious right and founded the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank. Weyrich gained the backing of Joseph Coors for the organizations he founded, including the Free Congress Association. Barnett had participated in the unsuccessful presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan. He later started the Conservative Political Action Committee.

The founders shared an anti-federalist philosophy that was in line with then-president Nixon, who had decided on a southern strategy to bring southern Democrats into the Republican party. One key tenet of the southerners was a strong commitment to states' rights. Jesse Helms, who had just been elected to the Senate from North Carolina as a Republican, was an early member of the group. Helms was an overt racist and former Democrat. The composition of ALEC mirrored what would later become the Republican coalition. ALEC was at first nonpartisan but became solidly Republican as the white southern Democrats deserted their party.

In 1980 President Reagan formed a National Task Force on Federalism to seek ways to return power to the states. ALEC members took lead roles in the Task Force, and ALEC soon created task forces of its own to study issues and propose legislative solutions. In 1983 ALEC responded to Reagan's report on education by making recommendations to “improve” the educational system. Later statistical analysis (the Sandia report) showed that the educational system wasn't declining at all, but improving. The Sandia report was ignored by conservatives, who didn't want facts to get in the way of their theories—neither the first nor the last time this happened.

In 1986 ALEC started internal task forces of its own. By 1987 the Civil Justice Task Force was formed in response to the nation's “frivolous” litigation explosion. This explosion was an invention of the American Tort Reform Association (ATRA) and other front groups for the asbestos and tobacco industries. The litigation against these companies, far from being frivolous, was a result of decades of deceit and arrogance on the part of the executives of these companies, who concealed from their customers the deadly nature of the products they were selling. This “frivolous” litigation explosion is an example of an invented problem (litigation crisis) whose solution (lower awards, more hurdles and extended delays) coincided exactly with what the corporations needed to solve their own crisis, one which they had caused: an enormous number of product liability cases waiting to be filed.

In 1988, ALEC made the fateful step of inviting direct participation of the corporate sponsors who had until then remained in the background. The wording of positions and model legislation was thenceforward decided, not by the state legislatures who formed the membership, but by the corporations who provided the money for lobbying activities. It can be argued that ALEC was “captured” at that time, that is, it was secretly taken over by the very companies its model legislation was supposed to regulate.

NRA

The National Rifle Association (NRA) is much older than ALEC, having been formed after the civil war by former Union soldiers. The original purpose of the NRA was to promote and encourage rifle shooting on a scientific basis. In keeping with its purpose, NRA spent over 100 years without becoming actively involved in politics.

In their 1975 elections, NRA was taken over by a group of conservatives who envisioned a much more active role for the organization. NRA and ALEC soon began collaborating on legislative ideas. ALEC formed a study group that eventually became the Public Safety and Elections Task Force. ALEC stated that this group was dedicated to producing model bills to reduce crime and violence in our cities and neighborhoods. NRA had a permanent seat on this task force.

Among the model bills developed jointly by NRA and ALEC are those that change the definition of self defense, so-called “stand your ground” laws. These laws came into sharp focus when jurors at the Trayvon Martin murder trial acquitted the killer because they had no other alternative under the new definition of self-defense written into Florida law at the suggestion of ALEC.

NRA may support such laws because their corporate sponsors want to sell more guns. This motive is indefensible morally because it makes profits more important than human lives. This is actually what defines an “outlaw corporation”. People have a low opinion of tobacco companies, not because the business of selling tobacco is despised, but because tobacco kills its users. Tobacco companies were not held liable in court for the deaths of smokers until it was proven that the executives knew their product was deadly and ignored that fact. The same is true of asbestos mining companies.

Gun manufacturers are similarly “outlaws” because their products kill. The public will always look down on people who make a profit from killing.

Stand-your-ground laws are an example of laws that solve a problem that didn't exist. Self-defense laws have been well-accepted for centuries, dating back to English law. Stand-your-ground, or castle doctrine laws, elevate the personal prerogative above the societal one. Under castle doctrine, the most important element is personal honor, so a person has a right to use deadly force if he believes an attacker intends to kill him. Using this premise, it would be dishonorable to retreat before such an attacker.

This conception of personal rights is part of libertarian theory. The Libertarian Party platform asserts:

“We affirm the individual right recognized by the Second Amendment to keep and bear arms, and oppose the prosecution of individuals for exercising their rights of self-defense.”¹

This assertion shows that libertarian thought is just not practical in our society. Civil society cannot exist if you are allowed to kill someone because you don't like his face. Stand-your-ground laws make violence justifiable if the perpetrator believed his life was in danger. If the perpetrator claims that he believed his life was in danger, it is extremely difficult to prove otherwise in court because only he knows the contents of his mind.

The traditional definition of self-defense deals only with actions. It considers what the defendant did, not what he thought. It requires him to avoid violence whenever possible. A person's actions are easier to prove than his thoughts and make a preferable basis on which to draw a reasonable conclusion. If a person tries to avoid violence, he should not be blamed if he is forced by circumstance to use it.

Under traditional laws governing self-defense Trayvon Martin was murdered, because he was not the aggressor. His assailant did not try to avoid violence, he sought it out. Trayvon, on the other hand, did try to escape from his pursuer. We don't need the services of a mind-reader to prove those facts.

1Libertarian Party Platform §1., http://www.lp.org/platform