The American INjustice System, Part Two: National Criminal Cases

*Disclaimer: This post is incredibly long as I am passionate and longwinded. I hope you’ll stick around for the whole thing. Thanks for visiting.*

In the first part I covered my depressing and degrading experience with the American INjustice System, specifically the NYS Supreme Family Court. In this second part I’d like to cover some criminal cases from around the country that have been brought to my attention. There are three cases that I’d like to touch on.

One is, of course, the Casey Anthony murder trial. However, I am not out to beat a dead horse or remind anyone of such a horrible tragedy and outrageous injustice on the part of little Caylee.

The second case is of one Marco Sauceda. He is a 30 year old man with the mind of a child who was mistaken for a burglar in his own house and subsequently convicted of evading arrest, found guilty by a jury.

The third case is of an Atlanta, GA woman, Raquel Nelson. She is a single mother of 3. Her son was hit by a drunk driver (who was also on pain meds and partially blind in his left eye), she was charged with vehicular manslaughter and found guilty by a jury. 

Let’s begin with the hugely infamous murder trial of Caylee Anthony. Personally, I believe she is 100% guilty of not reporting her daughter’s “disappearance,” wrongful disposal of a body and murder. All this time I’ve been raging against the jury for the “not guilty” verdict. How could 12 adults really and truly feel this woman was not guilty of all charges?! It’s like saying the sky isn’t blue, it’s neon pink. My sister then raised this very valid point: “The prosecutor and DA pushed to try her before they truly had enough evidence to convict her. They should have charged her with unlawful disposal of a body because then they could have held her while they gathered evidence to charge her with murder.” My sister is absolutely right. Because of double jeopardy Casey Anthony cannot be charged again for the same murder. We the public knew more about the case than the jury as they are not allowed access to media during the trial. As more evidence came to light before our eyes, they remained ignorant. So when their verdict came back we were outraged and rightly so. I challenge you to find ten people who think Casey Anthony is innocent of the worst crime against another human, much less your own flesh and blood. Forget ten, find three and get back to me. The jury, however, had no idea. Until they left the courtroom. I’d hate to be one of those jurors, wouldn’t you? As you get angrier while you’re reading this, I am not justifying any actions of anyone involved in this ludicrous show of justice. That is all this was: a show put on for the public and no real attempt at getting justice for those responsible for the murder and disgusting “burial” of a truly innocent life. Now Casey has attained celebrity status and will gain monetary rewards for her crimes. A coworker of mine said, “She’ll get hers, don’t worry. She’ll blow through her money and be out on the street and not a single person will help her. She’ll get hers.” It’s up to you, karma. It’s up to You, God.

Let’s drop that (phew!) and move on to Mr. Sauceda. A neighbor called the police reporting they had seen a black man kick in the front door of Marco’s house. Police arrived on the scene and entered the house while Marco ran into the bathroom and locked himself in. He does not speak English and like I said before, has the mind of a child. He refused to come out of hiding because he was scared. When police finally broke down the bathroom door, they used pepper spray, a pepper ball gun and wrestled him to the ground in his own living room. The prosecutor said with “police” and the Spanish “policia” being so similar the language barrier is no excuse. He could have said, “Me llamo Marco. Es me casa.” (“My name is Marco. This is my house.”) However, if strangers barged into your house screaming and yelling, where is your child going to go? He is going to run and hide! Prosecutors said his actions were consistent with a criminal and that is why they were charging him; it’s their job. Because Mr. Sauceda did not take the stand in his own defense, the sentencing judge said he found it difficult to sympathize with him. He said, “I don’t agree with the notion you are a victim in this case.” However, before issuing their verdict the jury sent the following note to Judge Flournoy:

 

“We’ve all reached a verdict. To us we feel he has been wronged. Please consider that in his sentencing.”

Without that note, Judge Flournoy says he would have sentenced Marco to six months in jail. Instead he sentenced him to 30 days in jail and a $500 fine. Mr. Sauceda’s lawyer, Mr. Ryan Deaton, intends to pursue a federal civil lawsuit against the city on Sauceda’s behalf which should take place January or February of next year. I am angry with this judge and with Marco’s lawyer. The judge had no way to know firsthand if Marco had the mind of a child without him speaking for himself. On the other hand, after such brutal force, was it really necessary to give him jail time and a fine? Why not just a fine and be done with it? And once again, I’m angry with the jury! I don’t believe for one second he was purposely evading arrest. He clearly had no real idea what was going on and felt very unsafe. If the neighbor reported a black man, why were they beating on an obviously Mexican one? Eye witnesses are often unreliable, but who confuses black with Mexican or Spanish? Ridiculous all around!

Finally, and most dear to me, is Raquel Nelson. Raquel is a black, 30 year old single mother of three: two girls and a boy. After grocery shopping at Wal-Mart with all three, she missed a public bus transfer forcing them all to wait an hour and a half for the next bus. Have you ever had to do that? I have, but not with three kids. Three tired and hungry kids. Whiney kids. So they finally get to their stop on the side of a five-lane speedway, their apartment in sight straight across said speedway. Her four year old son squirmed away from her while they were on the median waiting for cars to pass. Wouldn’t you know it, here comes a drunk driver who’d had “three or four” beers, two pain killers and was partially blind in his left eye, barreling down the road towards this little boy and his family. Ms. Nelson and her younger daughter had minor injuries and her older daughter was physically unhurt.

Recap over, the drunk driver plead guilty to a hit and run (!!!) and served six months of his two year sentence. He is currently serving five-year probation. After he’d been convicted of two hit and runs in the same day (February 17^th, 1997). He was originally charged with hit and run, first degree homicide by vehicle and cruelty to children but the last two were dropped and I haven’t been able to find out why. Raquel has been charged and convicted of homicide by vehicle in the second degree, crossing roadway elsewhere than at crosswalk and reckless conduct. (I’d like to add my sister is partially blind in her left eye due to a childhood injury, but she never drives drunk or while taking pain meds. The “partially blind” part just seems like the icing on a drunken, drugged cake.)

Never mind that the bus stop was a third of a mile from the nearest crosswalk. Never mind every single other passenger who got off at the same stop did the same thing she did and crossed in the middle of the street. Never mind all that. As David Goldberg said, “What about the highway designers, traffic engineers, transit planners and land use regulators who allowed a bus stop to be placed so far from a signal and made no other provision for a safe crossing; who allowed – even encouraged, with wide, straight lanes – prevailing speeds of 50-plus on a road flanked by houses and apartments; who carved a fifth lane out of a wider median that could have provided more of a safe refuge for pedestrians; who designed the entire landscape to be hostile to people trying to get to work and groceries despite having no access to a car? They are as innocent as the day is long, according to the solicitor general’s office.”

I signed a petition at Change.org for Ms. Nelson. It asked for her release as she was facing three years in prison and for a crosswalk at that location. At her sentencing this past Tuesday, July 26^th, Cobb County Judge Katherine Tanksle was handed this petition signed by over 140,000 people nationwide. This compassionate judge gave Raquel a choice: 12 months’ probation and community service or a new trial. This keeps this woman out of jail for now and hopefully for good and gives her the chance to clear her name before a new jury. Hopefully this jury will be made out of her actual peers. The first jury was all middle-class whites who had never taken a bus in metro Atlanta. I have and it’s a huge pain! And it was just me then!

I would like to ask you to visit Change.org and sign this petition. I have a small child and if, God forbid, anything like this ever happened, I’m not sure I’d be functional, let alone sane enough to sit through a trial basically saying I’m the one responsible for the demise of my little boy.

Out of the three stories I picked only one has a happy ending, and it’s really only a hiatus. How is it that we have come so far from compassion and common sense? What world is this that we allow a child killer to walk free while another mother who watched her son get hit by a drunk driver is convicted of vehicular manslaughter? There are so many injustices in this world that get me going. The more passionate I get, the louder I get and people laugh at my vehemence.

But how is anything ever going to change if we don’t show the passion it takes to really make a difference?

The American INjustice System, Part One: My Experience

*Please note: My son’s father shall be called Bob in order to protect myself from getting into any trouble.

11 days after my son was born, I left New York State and moved to North Carolina to live with family. After I’d been in North Carolina about two weeks I was approached by a sheriff’s deputy who said the father of my new baby “was concerned because he can’t get in touch with you.” I replied, “I’ve been sending him pictures of the baby every day, have communicated with text messages and have talked to him on the phone at least once.” He informed me that he was just doing his job and was glad we were okay and that he would report back with the news.

The next week the sheriff’s department tried to serve me. My son’s father was trying to take custody away from me after 10 months of nearly total absence. A deputy pulled my aunt over claiming she ran a stop sign but really attempting to find me concealed in her car. They rang the doorbell at dark, early morning hours and dark, late night hours when no normal person answers the door unless they are expecting someone. I was advised by a lawyer, off the record, to not answer the door. If I cannot be served, there cannot be a court date.

Unfortunately, that did not fly for the NYS Supreme Family Court. I filed paperwork in North Carolina hoping it would happen before the date in NY. The judge we had was extremely sympathetic and was very accommodating for me because I did not have a lawyer. Yes, “a man who represents himself has a fool for a client.” He called the judge who was given our case in NY and they both decided that the case needed to be tried there because my son was born in NY, therefore that state had jurisdiction.

Eventually, the judge ruled that I had to leave my wonderful full time job with great pay, an extensive support system of family and friends and a secure home to go back to that specific county in NY because my son’s father lived there. My lawyer (read: free, overworked, underpaid, miserable, hate-their-job county worker) was a child-less, selfish and snotty product of this town and a family with lots of disposable income. She yelled at me after refusing to listen, causing me to collapse in tears of frustration, stress and anger. She coerced me to give in to their requests with threats of “court dates until your kid is grown if you don’t just agree.” I moved into an apartment that was falling apart, I had no job for almost 5 months, was getting food stamps and cash assistance from the county as well as WIC food checks. Yup, I was living off the government because the INjustice system thought it would be better for my son.

We moved back at the end of December 2009. I have struggled with minimum wage, part time hours, outrageous rent, foot-dragging county assistance workers and reliable means of transportation since day one. I loathe this small town, ghetto-fied, dying dot on the map of an otherwise beautiful state.

My son, who is now almost 2 years old, sees his father perhaps once a month if he’s lucky. Usually it’s an accident and only happens when Bob* stops by his parents’ house or camp for food and money while Ick is with his “Gamma” and “Papa.”

We have been to court two other times with me finally withdrawing my petition to modify at the advisement of my second court appointed lawyer. My goal in life is to become a Doctor of Pharmacy and that is an education not available to me in this county which I cannot leave without court papers allowing me to do so.

In order to get that permission I must prove the following: better job, home, daycare, doctor, and a full support system of friends and family. His father, meanwhile, has only to live here. He doesn’t even have to see our son or interact with him or be a parent in any fashion to keep my son from living a better life. Like most parents, I want my son to have a better adult life than I do. To do that, I must give him the advantages of freedom of choice that money provides. In NY I have no family except my sister who is here temporarily and will be gone before winter. I have two friends whom I rarely see. The “support system” is nothing more than my son’s paternal grandparents.

Ah, yes. The driving force behind Bob’s actions in court: the general deceit, outright lies and ridiculous claims. These seemingly sweet, small town folks want their grandson down the street more than they want him to have a better life than can be obtained in a place where a business closes down every week and the census has shown a mass-exodus for the last five years. There is absolutely nothing wrong with wanting your grandchildren or any family near you. It’s what I want for myself to be honest. There is something wrong with telling the mother of your grandson, “Why do you want to get a PharmD? It’s really hard, you know. Why don’t you just be a pharmacy technician? You can make like $13 an hour.” Yes, because an hourly wage is better than a six figure salary, isn’t it? Yes, it’s good to strive for low class when your dreams are upper-middle class. Yes, it’s perfectly okay to settle for a job any adult can do when you have the intelligence and drive to be more and go farther.

I will attend classes starting this fall in preparation of transferring to a university with a PharmD program. When I have gone as far as I can in this Yankee podunk town, I will once again file a petition to modify with the American INjustice system and hope for the best.

My experience with the American INjustice System has been heart breaking. I have been stripped of dignity, I have been shown in a light of cruelty and heartlessness and I have been coerced by the very people who were sent to help. In fact, the judge told me I was destroying my son with my petition and repeated court appearances. There has been no justice, only prejudice. My second lawyer said, “The law is what it is and we have to work within it. There are precedents that dictate how these kinds of cases go. If I could change the law, I would. But it is what it is and until it changes, we have to work within it as best we can.”

That is a cop out and an excuse. Precedents are merely that: previous decisions on cases that are guidelines and do not apply to every single case. We have amendments for a reason. We have political figures that make laws every day and change them, too. We can change the American INjustice System with passion, common sense and representatives who are in tune with the people they are representing.

Coming Soon… Part Two: Criminal Cases of the American INjustice System

Timeless Words From My Past

Here is a journal entry I wrote on November 8th, 2004. It was titled, "If you think I don't love you well then you're just wrong." I was listening to Counting Crows and Sister Hazel while writing it. I love this and always have and felt it was time to once again show it the light of day and pull it out of the dungeon that is Live Journal. :P

I hope tomorrow is like today. It was a thick golden liquid warming my skin while I sat in a chair and read a book. When I went outside the sun was warming the chilled air that caressed my skin but did nothing to warm my toes that felt the cold dirt and grass as I walked aimlessly around the backyard. My heart beating in my chest with the childish certainty that my life could be and is as poetic as the book I had just read. It beat with an irrational knowledge that everything that happened to me and because of me was important and perfect and full of golden life, real and beautiful. Even mundane talk with [boyfriend at the time] was full, ripe, and juicy with life and my living body. I felt that way for the better part of today and most acutely for the hour or so after I finished reading that book. I was constantly on the verge of tears, constantly wondering if my life was as beautiful as my heart felt that it was. I felt in my skin and my clothes and my self as beautiful as my heart felt. No amount of weight or lack of self-esteem could change that feeling. I want to feel like that all the time. I want to feel limber and lithe and smooth and soft and girlish. I don't want to feel heavy, drained, pained or pessimistically mortal. I want that sharp ... juiciness (what other way is there to describe it?) that makes me understand that this time is temporary and that there's no use dragging it down and being angry about big things, much less petty things. I can't get past that word, "juicy," ha-ha... What other word could I use? Plump, pregnant, full, round, PRESENT. It's hard describing how I felt because it has faded and I'm desperately trying to catch it and pull it back. I'm afraid that if I read the book again too soon or too many times it will lose its magic and be unable to make me feel that way again.

That's why I hope tomorrow is like today. I hope the sun shines as warmly, the breeze swirls as coolly. I want to walk as far as my legs will take me and sit down wherever I am to enjoy the human fullness of the city (or suburb, whatever the case may be). I want to cram a life into a day and enjoy every bit of it. I want to sit on my bed in my room alone and write tortured but hopeful poetry while listening to songs written and sung by scarred poets who had lived through something painful that I wanted for myself. I want to fall in love, I want to be in love, I want to be with the one I love, I want to be with my children, I want to play with my friends, I want to be with my family (all of them), I want everything all at once. I want the learning of school, the harshness of growing up, the uncertainty of parenthood, the joy of love, the pain of longing, the comfort of an embrace with my lover. I want to experience an entire life and then come back to mine

Someone is bound to say, "Not everything has to be prominent, purposeful, meaningful, or ripe with life." But it does! EVERYTHING has to be golden and ripe and meaningful. If it isn't, you'll toss it out without thinking about it. The memory of the day you went driving around aimlessly with no goal or destination while your best friend sat beside you will fade away and you'll never realize it. The long talks about nothing as the sun turned orange and turned the day to melting riches will be forgotten. The laughter you shared will fade from your memory because it was a mundane day that you took for granted. You have to understand that every day is full and ready for the picking. Even if you're angry, if you're crying or dancing, the day is plump with life, ripe with mortality that lasts less than a hundred years while the afterlife lasts for the rest of eternity.

I wish I had the motivation to live life like every second was a grape that I had to pick and eat and enjoy before it shriveled into an inedible raisin, devoid of emotion or the pulse of life. I can only hope that I will be able to get rid of the always lingering bad mood/bad attitude that haunts me at work. I want to be nice to people, to the managers. I want to be sweet and liked and alive.

I want to live. I want everything that life has to offer and I want to take it and know that my experiences and emotions and motivations are my own and no one else's

Just because I want to live and pulse with bubbling life, doesn't mean I'll never be sad. It doesn't mean I won't allow myself to be sad. I don’t mean I don't want to be sad. Because pain is a part of life and it, as well as laughter, is proof that you are alive and feeling. As long as you feel the pain and then let it go. You have to feel it, for growing numb takes away the laughter of life, not just the pain. After feeling the pain and not allowing it to numb you, let it go. If you hold on to it, it will embitter you. The pain will become your life and everything will be an affront to you and your 'precious,' your pain and suffering. The center of your life should always be yourself, your loved one(s) or your God (religions say your God comes first). That way you always have something to take care of. If you let the center of your life be pain or loss then your entire life will be nothing but pain and loss, you'll never see the sun turn molten as it sets in the nest of the earth, crowned with blues, purples and oranges... You'll only see the death of the day, the birth of the cold, mean, lonely night.

I think this is what they mean by "turning over a new leaf" except that I'll wait until it actually happens before I say it. I've found the leaf that I want to claim as my own but I don't know if I can turn it. It's like an old car on a cold morning. I have to nurse it along, encourage the feeling, pet it and sweet talk it into taking hold. And when it does, I'll hold onto it like a mother to a child: With all the gentleness of fragile care, but with the tenacity and forcefulness of love.

"Rapture in the Fall"

On the streets in August

When the leaves are gold and green

The breezes and warmth still flowing through

As I sit down on a swing…

Liquid gold caressing my skin

The cold encompassing my feet.

I’m drinking in the coming fall

And my heart has just begun to beat.

The sun is setting behind houses and trees

Into the nest of the earth

Crowned with colors not yet named

The night waiting to give birth.

                                                                ~Kathryn, 21

Almost seven years later, I read this and was still astounded. This is one of my absolute favorite journal entries and poems that have ever come out of my brain. Did I ever turn over that new leaf? No, I did not. But God sort of turned it for me when I had my son almost two years ago. I’m much more aware of passing time and holding on to moments as they go by. Yes I’m still guilty of wishing days away and saying I “can’t wait” until this or that day. Sometimes I rush my son through our bedtime “routine” (me playing with him in his room for a while) so that I can get online or just plain go to sleep. It’s all about being human, being forgiving and loving. My life isn’t perfect nor would I expect anyone to believe my life is horrible. It’s just pretty average. All the same, I find myself sitting in a moment thinking, “I wish I could live in this moment for years and years.” The book I was referring to is The LovelyBones by Alice Sebold. She is an amazing writer and has inspired me to not only make a millionth attempt at writing (something I’ve been doing since I was about 10), but to live my life in a much more meaningful way. I recommend this book (but not the movie) to anyone, male or female, teenager to senior citizen. The movie, as tends to happen, lessens the passion and emotion of the book and leaves out so much that makes the book as inspiring as it was to me.

The Lovely Bones by Alice Sebold

Is there a book you would recommend that moved you?