A Political Scapegoat

For years, the Houston Police Department (HPD) and area law enforcement have been trying to solve a string of murders in the Acres Homes area here in our city. The killings have involved prostitutes in a depressed area of our city. The women all had criminal histories for drug possession and prostitution. They had all been victimized by the part-time criminal which is unmasked as life's circumstances. And because the women were disenfranchised and the safety of a community was threatened, local Community leaders and activists have been rightfully putting pressure on HPD to solve the cases. Every citizen should be afforded equal protection of the laws irrespective of their socioeconomic background.

Last week, HPD charged one of my clients with one of the murders and, even though there was no evidence linking him to several other killings, HPD announced that they were confident that they "had the person responsible" for the other killings as well. It was shameful. For years, HPD announced that they did not suspect that the killings were linked. And within the last four years, HPD declared that the case was solved on at least two previous occasions - with the arrests and convictions of two different individuals. My client is the third person that HPD has labeled the killer. Although there was no evidence that he killed any other person, the police suggested that he was the killer in the press. What further upset me was that HPD spoke to my client's family, knowing that I was going to be hired on the case, and told my client's family not to hire a lawyer for him. I had dealt with some of the detectives in other cases prior to my client being charged and was disappointed.

Furthermore, there was evidence that many of the other victims' bodies bore the DNA from semen of multiple different and unidentified contributors. My client's DNA was not found on the bodies of any of these homicide victims. Yet he was labeled the "probable killer." So, when I heard the announcement and the defamation of my client at a recent press conference, I spoke up and told the truth - my client was being politically scapegoated. HPD was taking credit for solving cases with his arrest; even though there was no evidence proving he was the killer. As expected, some people took exception to my assertion that my client was being scapegoated by the Houston Police Department. But the truth remains that HPD is attempting to gain political favor off the back of one of my clients.

The negative press, orchestrated by a police agency that has been pressured to solve a string of crimes, will deny my client a fair trial. All we hear is "DNA....DNA does not lie. It is scientific and science will be one credible witness." If that is the case, why smear Mr. McWilliams outside the courtroom before ever filing charges? Why leak damaging, untrue information to the press prior to ever filing any charges? Why not plainly tell the media that many of the bodies had the DNA of other people on them and did not contain Mr. McWilliams DNA? To date, the media has not been shown any DNA test results. In fact, when asked where was the DNA found...HPD refused to answer? Why overstate and/or misstate the evidence in the press?

Poor women in Acres Home deserve equal protection of the laws. Just and equitable law enforcement efforts to protect women, irrespective of their socioeconomic backgrounds should be SUSTAINED! But why not really go out and try to protect the women in Acres Homes? Why not provide the women with much needed services to insure that they stay off the streets? Why try Mr. McWilliams in the press for cases that cannot even be charged in court?

ACORN: Not Just A Bunch of Nuts

There is no way to reconcile the recent actions of ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now) representatives who offered advise about how to start a prostitution business during an undercover expose'. The whole incident was captured on camera and is inexcusable. (Video). As a result, the organization has come under scrutiny on a national level from most members of congress. Congress has threatened to bring ACORN's federal funding to an end. Republicans and other sharks preying on the politically weak smell blood in the water and are circling for the kill. As usual, the national fervor is making its way to the local political arena. Just last week, Harris County Republican Party Chairman Jared Woodfill sent Houston Mayor Bill White a letter asking that all funding of ACORN be disclosed and that the organization “not receive another penny of taxpayers' money.”

ACORN is perhaps the largest organization in America which spends a considerable amount of time registering eligible voters who come from disadvantaged communities (video). It is on the front line in the battle against voter suppression. It is an organization which is indirectly responsible for the recent upswing that I have noticed in eligible minority jurors. In Harris County (like most other local counties in America), prospective jurors are drawn from voter registration rolls. Less minorities as registered voters, generally means that there will be less minorities on jury panels. ACORN's fight against voter suppression is essential to the proper administration of justice and should be SUSTAINED!

Although the current incident is reprehensible, it appears limited to one branch and only a few employees. ACORN, as far as organizations go, may be the last active legal advocate for the people in our area. ACORN has three separate entities operating in Houston: Houston ACORN (an activist group that supports low- and moderate-income families), ACORN Housing Corp. (a non-profit group that helps first-time home buyers and fights mortgage foreclosures) and ACORN Political Action Committees (which support candidates). There have been no reports of corruption in the Houston area.

Nevertheless, the absence of government funding might enhance the organization's advocacy. Much of ACORN's funding comes from private donations and membership fees. Many of its workers are volunteers. Less than half of its funding comes from the government and is primarily limited to the administration of certain programs dealing with housing. To ensure government funding a certain image had to be maintained. Also, the government effectively restrained the organization by controlling the purse strings. Some things, such as opposing certain government programs, usually were off-limits for an organization which received government funding. Even with these restraints, the organizations existence was a threat to Republicans. The Bush White House and other conservatives repeatedly sought to curtail ACORN's effectiveness. The Bush administration even fired U.S Attorneys for refusing to prosecute ACORN representative's for voter fraud. Yet, the organization survived scrutiny.

ACORN's response to the current incident appears appropriate. The organization started an internal audit to insure compliance with the organizations goals. It suspended all intake into the organization's services programs until the internal audit could be completed. Even if this incident involved a few employees, the organization must take decisive and public steps to restore public confidence that it is committed to meeting its goals. It might consider changing leadership and bringing in a reformer as its president to influence public perception. It must throw the nuts out for the political squirrels. And it must get back to its mission of empowering the disenfranchised. In our increasingly polarized nation, much is depending on its mission.

Talk is Cheap

Tonight the heads of several police agencies in the Houston area held a forum at the Houston Area Urban League to discuss racial profiling. It was a calm event were the attendees mostly wore suits and acted "dignified." Racial profiling is an offensive policing practice that has existed for decades. Progressive Americans use to associate it with unacceptable prejudice. But now, due in part to the dilution of the toxic potion of racism by conservative commentators and others seeking to stifle the eradication of racism's poison with labels (accusing people of "playing the race card" for example); it has become a tolerated practice. But had this event been in the "Hood" where our county's citizens encounter racial profiling more frequently, people might not have been as dignified and calm when they heard some of what was being said.

The leaders of Houston's largest law enforcement agencies spoke as if they were trying to develop ideas for combating racial profiling. They were still establishing goals. To the audience this seemed acceptable. I was astonished. Racial profiling has been a problem for far too long, yet local law enforcement was speaking about it as if it were a new issue with which to deal. Law enforcement, if they were sincere about addressing the issue, would have been much further along the road of finding solutions to the problem. Yet the crowd was not offended. I did not get the impression that they thought anything was wrong. Perhaps for some, being part of the discussion was sufficient. Many of these leaders are all too content with engaging in discussion. They travel a circuit of forums in overdrive to engage in discussions, but they idle in park when it comes to implementing effective change.

Such may be the result of the absence of strong legal interest groups seeking to change our justice system and seeking to ensure social justice. I am astounded by the evolution (or devolution) of the Urban League and other historic civil rights groups from their innovative approaches through litigation, to their marketing efforts to improve their image by becoming more mainstream to gain funding. To my knowledge, there is no group which is seeking to eradicate racial profiling through litigation as the NAACP did in the 1950s and 1960s with desegregation. Even though access to justice was restricted during the Jim Crow era, Civil Rights organizations developed strategies and fought. Federal Courts SUSTAINED! their opposition to racist policies; and hard-fought legal victories brought about the death of Jim Crow. Racial profiling is no less offensive. Talking about the problem has gotten us no where. Litigation in the same manner that was employed by civil rights organizations in years past may be an effective means to bringing about change. If lawsuits become the norm, then law enforcement officials will realize that talk without action may be more expensive than implementing change.

Preoccupation With a Vaccination

I was scheduled to try a sexual assault of a child case in a small, rural town in Oklahoma this upcoming week (the actual charges were Rape by Instrumentation and Lewd Molestation of a Child). My client was accused of some indecent acts with a child and was facing life in prison. But at the last minute, the prosecution offered my client a probation and he accepted. Because of the nature of the allegations, these cases are dangerous to defend. I have defended many such cases in my career, but this one was unique.

During trial preparation, I visited the town at least four times over the past year. And each time I visited, I studied the area and tried to interact with as many people as I could to get a feel for our prospective jury. Each time I visited, my client was the only African American I would see. And as you might have guessed, the alleged victim in the case was white. My client was a black man accused of molesting a young, blond white girl in a small rural predominantly white town. To make matters worse, the girl's family was politically connected. They owned several businesses in the town and were related to an Assistant District Attorney.

Before I was hired on the case, my client's family paid a well-known Houston activist a few thousand dollars to "help." The activist ended up telling my client to enter a plea for prison time to avoid the potential of a life-sentence. He told him that he did not have a chance to win. Thereafter, on the recommendation of one of my former clients, my client's mother paid me a visit. They were at their wits end. They did not know which way to turn. When they told me about the case, I was surprised that he had not turned up dead in the county jail. The story closely resembled most stories about lynchings. My only guess was that they would try to lynch him through the legal system. Initially, the case intrigued me. As I have expressed in other posts, I believe many black men are not treated fairly by the criminal justice system. Such unfair treatment is magnified when there is a cross-racial crime. This seemed like one of those cases. But as I visited the area to scout out the land, the case began to haunt me. My evaluation of the case was that it was defensible. My office had successfully defended another sexual assault of a child case where our client was black and the child was white in Fort Bend County, Texas last year, And if this case were in the Houston area, I would expect to win the case. But in this rural all-white town.....

I have to admit that initially I was disappointed that my client agreed to probation. I so much wanted to try this case and disprove my perception of rural white America. Inside I so much wanted to show them that I, a black man, had ability and intellect. I so much wanted my beliefs about race to be disproved and the notion that "we have overcome" to be SUSTAINED! by a jury. I saw an opportunity to fight against racism on a few different levels, so I seized the gauntlet and suited up for battle. We prepared for several months to defend this case, and with the help of an expert in child sexual abuse, we were preparing to fight to win.

But after reflection, I was relieved that we would not be going to trial. When I walked the streets of that town, I got a few stares and a few looks that made me wonder. Ego drives some lawyers, and I'll admit that I hate to lose. But this was no game. No case is. This was my client's life. The perception that some whites have of blacks in big cities is that we are prone to crime. Truth be told, many African-Americans think the same thing about other African-Americans. Even though this notion is racist and blatantly false (VIDEO), I could not think people in a small town who had limited exposure to black people would be immune to the disease of racist thinking. One trial with me advocating for my client's interest was not the vaccination. My client, although he protested his innocence, decided that a plea of no contest was better than facing the possibility of a legal lynching.

"Have We Strayed So Far From the Path?"

I have a client who is in jail awaiting trial. He has been my client for over a year. His situation is typical of many young black men in Houston. Charged with aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, he is facing a lengthy prison sentence. I remember speaking with him about his decision to go to trial. One of the reasons he stated for wanting to go to trial, besides asserting his innocence, was that his mother was ill and he wanted to see her before she died. Our trial is set for November of this year.

When I got to my office this evening from visiting clients in jail, I discovered I had a message from my client's mother. Prior to today, I had never spoken to my client's mother. Nor had I ever received a phone call from her. So, I immediately called her back. My client's sister answered the phone and politely asked me to call her mother on a cell phone because the house phone could not reach the room that contained her mother's bed. His sister told me that their mother was bed-ridden and could not come to the phone. I called back on the cell phone and I got his mother. Immediately a great feeling of respect came over me. Feeling that this was the right response to her, I consciously tried to show her as much respect as I could without making her feel awkward. My heart SUSTAINED! my feeling that I needed to slow down and spend time meeting her need for information about her son. Her health had failed her and she was now facing death. She deserved all of the respect I was capable of giving. As I reflect on my day, the situation makes me think about how far we as a nation have strayed from the path.

Our country is at a cross roads. Perhaps one of the greatest potential social reforms in the last fifty years may be lost because of disrespect and politics. Universal health care for all Americans may be sacrificed on the altar of political expedience. I used a story in a closing argument of a previous case that I remembered from my childhood - "butterbeans and cucumbers." I used the story to achieve jury nullification. When I was a child, an elderly neighbor was taking vegetables from my father's vegetable garden without permission (he was taking butterbeans). I saw him one day and ran to tell my father. To my surprise, the next day my father had me accompany him to pick vegetables from a section of his garden that our elderly neighbor could not reach (the cucumbers grew along a different side of the fence). My father placed the vegetables in a bag and had me bring them to the neighbor with the message "Anytime you need some more, feel free to come right over and help yourself."

There was a time when America would seize the stethoscope, mend wounds and champion the cause of the less fortunate. There was a time when we showed respect to the elderly and afforded them the opportunity to maintain their dignity. Service of others was held in high esteem. Now, politics and selfishness rule the day. Politics are stifling information and debate at town hall meetings. (Video). Politics will rob us of life and the pursuit of happiness. Politics are blinding us from the path of charity we trod in decades past. We have strayed far from the path.