Violence Prevention Advocate Alex Sánchez Arrested by FBI Under Questionable Circumstances
Community and peace advocate and Executive Director of Homies Unidos in Los Angeles, Alex Sánchez was arraigned last week in federal court, accused of conspiracy under the RICO statutes for crimes he allegedly committed over the past 15 years. He was denied bail on June 30th despite an outpouring of support from the community.
These types of federal ‘conspiracy’ charges always endanger civil rights because they tend to be overbroad, vague and often times, outright false when the accusers have a long history of corruption, such as the LAPD.
In fact, in the late 1990s, Alex led a community grassroots campaign to shed light on police corruption and successfully exposed the CRASH Ramparts scandal where LAPD were found to have falsely framed Latinos on bogus charges.
This became one of the largest police corruption scandals in U.S. history with over 70 officers named as corrupt. Homies Unidos made an issue out of holding police liable to California state and federal law.
As a result, Alex was arrested and handed over to then INS (today known as ICE). After being deported, Alex successfully secured asylum in the U.S. Now that authorities in Los Angeles cannot attack Alex based on his immigration status, we are faced with his indictment.
Read Roberto Lovato’s analysis on his Of América blog (excerpt below) and a subsequent post, “Why Was Alex Sanchez Arrested? Uprising Radio Interview.”
I for one do not believe the charges. Rather, I think that these recent accusations are but the most recent in the long, rotten chain of attempts by law enforcement officials to frame Alex, who was regularly beaten, framed, falsely arrested, deported, and harassed by the Los Angeles Police Department since founding Homies Unidos in 1998. First and foremost, I spent the evening calling those who know and have worked most closely with him, and they ALL share that sense that, as one of his best friends told me, “He really is a good person.” I’ve known him for years and will be sending a strongly worded support letter like the many I’ve sent over the course of the many years and many frame-ups law enforcement has ravenously pursued. Those close to Homies and Alex know and are again feeling that cloud of anger and concern that comes with being harassed by authorities abusing the power delegated to them.
Also, Alex is alleged to have conspired to kill Walter Lacinos, who sources in the Salvadoran and gang communities tell me had, in the words of one gang expert interviewed, “many, many enemies in the U.S.-and El Salvador.” While most of charges levelled against most of the the 24 other plaintiffs point to physical acts and evidence, the one and most serious indictment (see full indictment here)naming Alex alleges that he participated in “a series of phone conversations” in which the possibility of killing Lacinos is discussed. No proof is offered to corroborate the charges relating to managing narcotics operations for MS.
Lastly, the sensationalistic judgements of many media and some law enforcement officials raises serious concerns, as well. Close scrutiny of the media coverage reveals an definite disposition to judge and convict Alex even before his trial begins. For example, almost all of the coverage follows uncritically the logic laid out in the indictment. No attempt is made to notice that, for example, Alex is not named in most of the 66-page indicment. Other plaintiff’s names appear throughout. Those reading reporting in the LA Times and other outlets might come away believing that Alex might be involved in the murder of seven people or in conspiring to kill another 8. Consider this note from today’s LA Times:
The arrests cap a three-year investigation into the gang and its cliques, which operated in the Lafayette Park area, west of downtown. Among the most serious allegations contained in a 16-count federal indictment unsealed today was the claim gang members conspired to murder veteran LAPD gang officer Frank Flores.
Those named in the indictment include Alex Sanchez, a nationally recognized anti-gang leader and executive director of Homies Unidos.
Notice how there’s zero attempt to clarify or give greater context to Alex’s story, even though he headlines most of these stories. Even worse is the way that law enforcement authorities like L.A. Police Chief Bill Bratton, who the Times tells us has a big “I told you so” for the city, use Alex’s case to build the case for punitive-and failed-anti-gang policies, LAPD Chief William J. Bratton said the Sanchez case reinforces the thinking behind the city’s efforts to consolidate and more strongly regulate anti-gang funding.
Dying While Black: An Examination of Race and the California Death Penalty
Photo by nodeathpenalty.org
The foundation of the Equal Justice Society is based on the premise that racial justice cannot be achieved when the law fails to reflect actual experience. Under existing equal protection law, the constricted “Intent Doctrine” (as established in the 1976 United States Supreme Court decision Washington v. Davis) ignores much of what we know about the dynamics of modern day discrimination and therefore deprives underrepresented groups access to our courts and redress for discrimination.
By requiring plaintiffs to prove a decision-maker’s conscious intent to discriminate, they are faced with an almost impossible burden.
Our focus on the Intent Doctrine intersected with the efforts of journalist Claire Cooper, formerly of the Sacramento Bee, to draw attention to the structural causes of the vast over-representation by Blacks on death row to a degree virtually unmatched in the nation.
We share Claire’s thoughts below:
In late 2008, I was asked to participate in a panel discussion on race and the California death penalty. What I learned in preparing for my remarks surprised me, though I had covered the state’s death penalty for almost 30 years as a newspaper reporter. Because this information has not been part of our death penalty debate, it may surprise you, too.
I learned, in sum, that blacks in this progressive state are over-represented on death row to a degree virtually unmatched in the nation. Death sentence rates for black defendants here (but not Latinos) far exceed black population rates and even black homicide arrest rates. I also learned that neither race-of-victim information nor any other available data seem sufficient to explain the wide disparities.
Please take a few minutes to read my Sacramento Bee commentary, “Scales of justice may weigh heavily against blacks.” Share with us your reactions and suggestions here. If you are in California, please consider how we might bring the issues to the attention of the state’s policy-makers. If you are outside California, please consider whether hidden racial issues are affecting the death penalty in your state.
My own view is that California should be collecting data on the way discretion is exercised in charging, prosecuting and defending homicide cases, as well as data on the racial composition of death penalty juries. But please share your understanding of the situation. Tell us how we can raise awareness of it and begin to fix it.
- Claire Cooper
EJS has examined the intersection of the doctrine and the death penalty before.
In August 2004, more than 60 people from the Bay Area legal and social science communities gathered for an EJS brown bag to discuss how we can use social science research to advocate for social justice and challenge existing legal frameworks
At the gathering, we discussed how the death penalty — in this case, at the federal level — and race is a good example of an arena with a high potential for frame-breaking.
There have been many cases where the Supreme Court ruled that racial disparities in the way the death penalty is administered are not that important even though in the last 30 years data show that there is a much greater likelihood that Black Americans will be sentenced to death in homicide cases (if and when the victim is white).
The U.S. Supreme Court has chosen to ignore data showing racial patterns, and has instead insisted on an individual case-by-case assessment of fairness.
In the fall of 2005, following the Katrina disaster, EJS began working with a coalition of more than 140 U.S. social justice groups in an effort to focus international attention on human rights violations in the United States. EJS focused on race discrimination and the impact of the intent doctrine on civil rights litigation, and other groups dealt with issues ranging from voting rights to environmental racism and the death penalty.
June 30: California’s Day of Action to End the Death Penalty
The Equal Justice Society is deeply committed to racial justice and preserving human dignity for all people. Consistent with these commitments, we have joined the fight to help stop executions in California, and we encourage you to join us.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) recently released new regulations on its lethal injection process - a first step towards resuming executions in our state.
No one has been executed in California for more than three years. Unfortunately, the new CDCR regulations will not only re-engage the machinery of death, but they also contain several provisions that fail to preserve the dignity of prisoners and their families. For instance:
- The regulations do not provide non-Christian inmates equal access to their spiritual advisors or permission to conduct the end-of-life rituals necessary to obtain peace of mind before their deaths;
- The regulations do not provide adequate resources for non-Native English speaking inmates and their families that would guarantee full understanding of the process by which the inmate’s life will be taken;
- The regulations unduly limit the media’s access to information about executions, and do not provide for notice to ethnic or non-mainstream media outlets;
- Finally, the CDCR has refused to disclose how much the implementation of its new regulations will cost the state (despite that this information is required by law). In this time of fiscal crisis, the public has a right to know how many millions of dollars these executions will cost.
The new regulations are currently open for public comment and the CDCR is required to satisfactorily respond to each and every relevant comment prior to implementation. Click here for a summary of the regulations and information about how to submit comments.
Additionally, on Tuesday, June 30, a public hearing on the new CDCR regulations will take place as part of a Day of Action to End the Death Penalty.
JOIN EJS IN THE FIGHT TO END THE DEATH PENALTY
http://deathpenalty.org/article.php?id=362
LGBT Legal Groups Decry Obama Administration’s Defense of DOMA
The National Center for Lesbian Rights (EJS board member Kate Kendell is NLCR’s executive director), Lambda Legal, the ACLU, Human Rights Campaign, GLAD and the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force issued a statement today objecting to the Obama administration’s recent filing in support of the a law that discriminates against LGBT.
(San Francisco, CA, June 12, 2009)—We are very surprised and deeply disappointed in the manner in which the Obama administration has defended the so-called Defense of Marriage Act against Smelt v. United States, a lawsuit brought in federal court in California by a married same-sex couple asking the federal government to treat them equally with respect to federal protections and benefits. The administration is using many of the same flawed legal arguments that the Bush administration used. These arguments rightly have been rejected by several state supreme courts as legally unsound and obviously discriminatory.
We disagree with many of the administration’s arguments, for example that DOMA is a valid exercise of Congress’s power, is consistent with Equal Protection or Due Process principles, and does not impinge upon rights that are recognized as fundamental.
We are also extremely disturbed by a new and nonsensical argument the administration has advanced suggesting that the federal government needs to be “neutral” with regard to its treatment of married same-sex couples in order to ensure that federal tax money collected from across the country not be used to assist same-sex couples duly married by their home states.
There is nothing “neutral” about the federal government’s discriminatory denial of fair treatment to married same-sex couples: DOMA wrongly bars the federal government from providing any of the over one thousand federal protections to the many thousands of couples who marry in six states. This notion of “neutrality” ignores the fact that while married same-sex couples pay their full share of income and social security taxes, they are prevented by DOMA from receiving the corresponding same benefits that married heterosexual taxpayers receive.
It is the married same-sex couples, not heterosexuals in other parts of the country, who are financially and personally damaged in significant ways by DOMA. For the Obama administration to suggest otherwise simply departs from both mathematical and legal reality.
When President Obama was courting lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender voters, he said that he believed that DOMA should be repealed. We ask him to live up to his emphatic campaign promises, to stop making false and damaging legal arguments, and immediately to introduce a bill to repeal DOMA and ensure that every married couple in America has the same access to federal protections.
Bittersweet Week: Judge Sotomayor, Prop 8 Upheld, Ron Takaki Passes; Launching ConfirmSotomayor.org
We experienced last week several gut-wrenching and rejoiceful moments.
On Tuesday, May 26, President Barack Obama announced his historic nomination of Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court. On the same morning, the California Supreme Court ruled against marriage equality by upholding Prop. 8. The following day brought news that a preeminent scholar on our nation’s diversity, UC Berkeley professor Ronald Takaki, passed away.
SUPREME COURT NOMINEE JUDGE SONIA SOTOMAYOR
In nominating Judge Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court, President Obama fulfilled a promise to the American people to appoint judges who are well-qualified, grounded in the rule of law and the Constitution, fair-minded and committed to equal justice for all. Judge Sotomayor embodies all these traits.
In the course of a life that began in a housing project in the South Bronx and brought her to the pinnacle of her profession, Judge Sotomayor accumulated more experience on the federal bench than any incoming Supreme Court Justice in the past 100 years, touching nearly every aspect of our legal system.
But Judge Sotomayor’s ethnicity has proven too much of a temptation for the voices of hate and extremism, who instead of looking at her judicial record have launched a vocal rampage that has reached new heights of absurdity, including calling her a “reverse racist” and calling the National Council of La Raza (NCLR) “the Latino KKK without the hoods and nooses.”
Condemn these unacceptable attacks on Latinos and Judge Sotomayor now. Join NLCR and send a message to Chairman Michael Steele of the RNC, House Minority Leader John Boehner, and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell asking them to denounce these statements and restore the nomination process for Judge Sotomayor to a more appropriate and civil discourse.
EJS has also launched a blog and Facebook page in support for Judge Sotomayor. Visit http://ConfirmSotomayor.org and join the Facebook page as a fan. The blog includes a page with information on how you can support Judge Sotomayor.
And if you’re in California, please support our Californians for Fair and Independent Judges coalition so that organizations and individuals here can work together to support Judge Sotomayor’s confirmation. Email Keith Kamisugi at kkamisugi@equaljusticesociety.org for information about joining the coalition.
CALIFORNIA SUPREME COURT RULING ON PROP. 8
The California Supreme Court last Tuesday in a 6-1 vote upheld Prop. 8, the ballot measure discriminating against marriage by same-sex couples.
EJS is relieved the Court protected couples who married before November 5. The presence of thousands of married same-sex couples across California will show that marriage strengthens families and communities and threatens no one.
But by upholding Prop 8, the Court has diminished its legacy as a champion of equality. No minority group should have to defend its right to equality at the ballot. The Court’s decision jeopardizes every minority group in California.
As a racial justice organization, the Equal Justice Society opposes Prop. 8 – not only because it’s the right thing to do, but also because EJS strongly believes in working with others to ensure that the rights of all are expanded, rather than diminished, in our society.
We cannot just pigeonhole Prop. 8 as a ‘gay’ issue. By rolling back the fundamental rights of one group, the Supreme Court’s decision on Prop. 8 casts a threat that now looms over the civil rights of all.
Since the vote on Prop 8, there has been a tidal wave of momentum in favor of full equality. Five states now embrace marriage equality for same-sex couples, and several more are on the brink. We believe that California voters will reverse this injustice at the ballot. California has been a leader in standing up for equality, and it will be again.
Banning same-sex couples from marriage is unfair. Same-sex couples have the same hopes, dreams and concerns for their families as everyone else. They should be allowed the dignity, recognition, and responsibility that come with marriage, just like everyone else.
The fight is not over. Join our friends at the National Center for Lesbian Rights (led by EJS board member Kate Kendall) to receive updates on next steps in this battle for justice.
PROF. RON TAKAKI PASSES AWAY
Ronald Takaki, professor emeritus of ethnic studies at the University of California, Berkeley, and a preeminent scholar of U.S. race relations who taught the University of California’s first black history course, died at his home in Berkeley on Tuesday, May 26, at age 70. He had struggled for years with multiple sclerosis, an autoimmune condition that attacks the central nervous system.
During his more than 40 years at UC Berkeley, Takaki established the nation’s first ethnic studies Ph.D. program as well as UC Berkeley’s American Cultures requirement for graduation, and advised President Clinton in 1997 on his major speech on race.
“Ron Takaki elevated and popularized the study of America’s multiracial past and present like no other scholar, and in doing so had an indelible impact on a generation of students and researchers across the nation and world,” said Don Nakanishi, director of and professor at UCLA’s Asian American Studies Center and a longtime friend of Takaki’s.
Takaki’s 1989 book, “Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans,” was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.
A descendent of Japanese field workers in Hawai’i, Takaki was acutely attuned to the inequities in Hawai’i’s tough and ethnically divided plantation system.
In 1966, he was hired to teach UCLA’s first black history course in the wake of the explosive Watts riots. “I can still remember the smoke rising from Los Angeles and the sound of gunfire - it was a war zone,” he told the San Francisco Chronicle in that same interview.
When a student in the black history class asked him which revolutionary tools he could teach them, Takaki replied: “We’re going to study the history of the U.S. as it relates to African Americans. We’re going to strengthen our critical thinking skills and our writing skills. These can be revolutionary tools if we make them so.”
After five years at UCLA, Takaki returned in 1971 to UC Berkeley as the Department of Ethnic Studies’ first full-time teacher. He became wildly popular, filling auditoriums with hundreds of students hungry for perspectives on the struggles of America’s minority groups, and went on to win the campus’s Distinguished Teaching Award in 1981.
Takaki is survived by his wife, Carol; his three children, Todd of El Cerrito, Calif., Troy of Los Angeles and Dana of Chester, Conn.; and several grandchildren.
Takaki has donated his research and published papers to the Ethnic Studies Library at UC Berkeley. His family asks that, in lieu of flowers, donations be made in Takaki’s name to the Asian Law Caucus in San Francisco. Plans for a campus memorial service are pending.
All of us at the Equal Justice Society mourn Prof. Takaki’s passing and we express our deepest condolences to Ron’s family and friends.
Join a Facebook page launched in tribute to Prof. Takaki.
Kellogg Foundation Awards Equal Justice Society Three-Year Grant
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation has awarded the Equal Justice Society (EJS) a $1 million, three-year grant to support the organization’s ongoing efforts to address structural racial inequities, restore equal protection jurisprudence and help build a public platform - a “Grand Alliance” - for the racial justice advocacy movement.
EJS is a national strategy group heightening consciousness on race in the law and popular discourse. Employing strategies including law and public policy advocacy, cross-disciplinary convenings and strategic public communications, EJS seeks to restore race equity issues to the national consciousness, strengthen progressive alliances, and advance the discourse on the positive role of government.
The Kellogg Foundation grant will enhance EJS’s capacity in two key areas: improving the understanding and consideration of race in the law to minimize or remove barriers to equal opportunity; and fostering a “Grand Alliance” that encompasses a wide range of individuals, organizations and movements working together to achieve common goals and a collective vision.
“We are deeply grateful for the Kellogg Foundation’s generosity and its recognition of our work to move us closer to a society where race is no longer a barrier to opportunity,” said Eva Paterson, EJS co-founder and president. “EJS can now more aggressively pursue initiatives that have a long-term impact on the progressive and racial justice movements.”
EJS is one of the few institutions with an explicit focus on overturning barriers to implementing the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and antidiscrimination legislation. We are dedicated to redefining the “Equal Protection” clause of the Fourteenth Amendment in order to redress and prevent present-day forms of bias and discrimination.
Our legal strategy aims to broaden conceptions of present-day discrimination by redefining the legal understanding of discrimination and how it operates. Our theory of changing the law relies upon real-life experiences of race and racial discrimination, and is supported by scientific evidence regarding the process and operation of discrimination at multiple levels, including the individual, institutional and structural. Because contemporary discrimination is frequently structural in nature, unconscious, or hidden beneath alternative excuses for a decision maker’s behavior (despite the fact that a tangible harm has resulted from their actions), the showing of “intent,” as required under current Equal Protection doctrine, becomes a near impossible burden to meet.
Moreover, the notion of proving “intent” has started to bleed into areas of law outside equal protection jurisprudence. In recent years, courts have demanded that plaintiffs prove “intent” in education, employment, criminal law and environmental discrimination cases. Thus, protection against any form of discrimination is under attack as long as the “intent” doctrine remains in place.
In developing a progressive vision of the law and of justice, we must acknowledge the interconnectedness between various issues, struggles and constituencies. This philosophy is the basis of EJS’s efforts to build a national “Grand Alliance.”
A Grand Alliance will create a culture of, and infrastructure for, engaging in cross-silo organizing and strategizing, educating our allies and ourselves - and supporting each other during difficult periods. Today’s civil rights movement must coalesce diverse communities and achieve a broad-based advocacy agenda inclusive of issues such as equal opportunity, marriage equality, and progressive immigration reform.
EJS has a proud tradition of reaching out to marginalized communities and advocating on behalf of social justice issues that have not always fallen under the civil rights umbrella.
EJS will continue supporting legal action to overturn California Proposition 8 and strengthen alliances between the African American and LGBT communities. We will also continue participating in strategic convenings on marriage equality, racial justice, and other intersecting issues. Likewise, EJS will continue supporting the immigrants’ rights movement by helping advance a progressive immigrant integration platform as well as strengthen support for immigrants’ rights from the civil rights, legal, and African American communities.
The Kellogg Foundation grant provides $200,000 to be applied in the first two years and $600,000 in the third and final year.
The W.K. Kellogg Foundation was established in 1930. The organization supports children, families and communities as they strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society. Grants are concentrated in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, and the southern African countries of Botswana, Lesotho, Malawi, Mozambique, South Africa, Swaziland and Zimbabwe. For further information, please visit the Foundation’s website at www.wkkf.org.
Ideas Matter: The Case for Regulation
In addition to our deep commitment to racial justice, we at the Equal Justice Society are committed to the realization of a broad progressive vision that goes beyond race.
Inspired by Dr. King’s strategist, Bayard Rustin, and his dream of the Grand Coalition, EJS is pursuing the creation of a Grand Alliance filled with individuals and groups who are moving beyond issue area silos.
One of the aspects of the Grand Alliance is the notion that “Ideas Matter.” Forward progress is made when transformative ideas are translated into reality. One of these ideas is that regulation of business by government can be a good thing. We feel that the current economic crisis is, in part, the result of the failure of regulation.
On Wednesday night, The Daily Show with Jon Stewart featured the fabulous Elizabeth Warren of Harvard Law School. She gives an incredibly cogent and historically based analysis of the choice we as a nation are facing in the next six months about whether or not business should be regulated.
You may have heard Terry Gross interview Professor Warren on Fresh Air on abuses of credit card companies and on the lack of transparency vis a vis the bailout. This interview is amazing. It even made Jon Stewart feel better about the current state of affairs. Enjoy.
