INDICTED: VP Chaney and former Attorney General Gonzales

TODAY’S COMMENTARY from Citizens for Legitimate Government reports:  Vice President Dick Chaney and former Attorney General Gonzales have been indicted on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners in Willacy's federal detention centers. The indictment criticizes Cheney's investment in the Vanguard Group, which holds interests in the private prison companies running the federal detention centers. It accuses Cheney of a conflict of interest and "at least misdemeanor assaults" on detainees by working through the prison companies. Another indictment charges state Sen. Eddie Lucio, Jr. with profiting from his public office by accepting honoraria from prison management companies.

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Grand jury indicts Cheney, former Attorney General Gonzales

http://www.bizjournals.com/dallas/stories/2008/11/17/daily26.html
Dallas Business Journal
Tuesday, November 18, 2008

Vice President Dick Cheney and former Attorney General Alberto Gonzales have been named in a South Texas grand jury indictment on charges related to the alleged abuse of prisoners being detained in Willacy County federal detention centers, The Associated Press said.

Willacy County is located in South Texas and includes the cities of Lyford, Raymondville and San Perlita.

The AP says the indictment alleges Cheney maintains a conflict of interest on the grounds that he has an investment in the Vanguard Group, a company that holds interest in private companies running federal detention centers. The indictment cites Cheney for “at least misdemeanor assaults,” on detainees because of his work with the prison companies, The AP is reporting.

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Private prisons are big business in <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 />America, a country where 1 in every 134 citizens is presently imprisoned.  The number of people imprisoned in America is currently around 2.3 million, and of those, 1.25 million are mental patients who should be in hospitals or in community care.  

Taxpayers are made to believe mental hospitalized closed due to lack of available resources and to deinstitutionalize mental patients for humanitarian reasons.  Both are false.  The average mental patient imprisoned cost taxpayers in the neighborhood of $100,000 per year to imprison.  And there has been no “deinstitutionalization.”  Mental patients who would have been in hospitals about 20 years ago are instead relegated to prisons now, because the nation has criminalized mental illness.  

Imprisoning mental patients cause much pain to the families of those who are incarcerated for having a common and treatable health disorder.  Being a prisoner can only worsen the mental state of those who are incarcerated to punish them for having an “illegal” health condition.  American values of equal rights suffer, because mental patients are often incarcerated without any understanding of their Miranda rights or the ability to contribute to their own defense against criminal charges.  The only winners are Private Prison Profiteers.

Mandatory sentencing provisions and three-strikes laws have added many people to the burgeoning prison population.  The cost to taxpayers is staggering, as states seek increasing allocations of funds to cover the expense, as Gov. Schwarzenegger does in the below article excerpt.  In many cases, the money goes to Private Prison Profiteers.

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Schwarzenegger seeks $67 million boost for private-prison operator

By Andy Furillo
Published: Sunday, Mar. 09, 2008 | Page 1A
http://www.sacbee.com/111/story/771380.html 

McFARLAND, Kern County – As far as the inmates are concerned, it's fine if California pays tens of millions of dollars more to their private-prison captors.

This year, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's state corrections agency is proposing a five-year, $67 million increase to one company, GEO Group Inc. The proposal would bump up the daily rate the state pays per inmate by 50 percent, which the company says it needs to increase the minimum pay of its officers from $10 an hour to $14.70.

(See link above for entire article.)

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One example of excessive sentencing judges is Judge Joseph E. Spruill, who recently sentenced a 23-year-old father with no prior convictions to 120 years behind bars for passing a note to his pharmacist for a prescription drug he had taken since age 17, and to which he became addicted.  Judge Spruill reportedly said he used the excessive sentence to “make an example” of Kiser.  Perhaps on appeal, Kiser’s attorney should try to subpoena Judge Spruill’s investment portfolio to ensure there was no conflict of interest.  Plenty of judges may very well be private prison profiteers, as well as some prosecutors, who frequently withhold evidence at trial.  Prison privatizing a major reason why taxpayers currently pay $185 BILLION annually for its prison budget, although two-thirds of offenders in prison were incarcerated for non-violent crimes. 

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Young father unfairly sentenced to 120 yrs in prison on 1st offense
http://kristyn24k.newsvine.com/_news/2008/11/14/2110460-young-father-unfairly-sentenced-to-120-yrs-in-prison-on-1st-offense?r=253030998&threadId=419999&commentId=4076223

Newsvine
Fri Nov 14, 2008

A 23 year old man was sentenced to over a century in prison.  Ricky Kiser was sentenced by Judge Joseph E. Spruill in February 2008 to 120 years for robbing pharmacy of prescription medication Kiser was addicted to by Dr. Shriharsh Pole, who had prescribed him the medication since the age of 17 (5 yrs) and abruptly cut off of because Pole was being investigated by the F.B.I.  Judge Spruill did not sentence Kiser based on the non‑violent robbery in which Kiser did not possess a weapon, harm, intend to harm, or threaten anyone in any way.

Read more about the case here:  http://www.care2.com/news/member/713942253/952643

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MARY'S COMMENTARY

Alberto Gonzales was Attorney General when my mentally ill brother, Larry Neal, was secretly arrested and died in Memphis/Shelby County Jail in August of 2003.  Gonzales was in that position in 2005 when my family requested the USDOJ to please do its job of protecting institutionalized persons and investigate Larry's death and the likelihood of a conspiracy between Shelby County Jail and The Cochran Firm, the law firm that pretended under contract to be our wrongful death attorneys.  Five years after Larry's death and even with the changes in the Attorney General's office, justice for Larry is still denied.  Read more about Gonzales here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_R._Gonzales

Perhaps it will be a good idea for Albeto to spend some time in prison himself, considering the many ways the USDOJ has failed the American people over the last number of years, and certainly under Gonzales' directorship.  Some of the commissioners on the Shelby County Board of Commissions when Larry died under secret arrest in Shelby County Jail ended up going to prison, also, including the nephew of ex-NAACP President, Benjamin Hooks, Michael.  Attorney Julian Bolton, ex-Cochran Firm managing partner, was himself a Shelby County Commissioner, Larry's family discovered after the Cochran Firm fraud.  This writer is not surprised that Gonzales was indicted and faces prison, or that some of the members of Shelby County Commission were arrested.  Some people call it Karma.  When I was a child, old people used to say, "What goes around comes around."  

Regarding private prisons, Americans should demand to see the stock portfolios of judges who give out over-long sentences, politicians who advocate for three-strikes laws, mandatory sentencing, make misdemeanor crimes into felonies, and other legislation designed to increase the stock of young, able-bodied people being condemned to prison, who are then effectively made slaves for prisons owners that use their labor to manufacture goods for sale through interstate commerce. Sentences like Judge Spruill’s (discussed above) are perceived of as making no sense, but perhaps sometimes the excessive sentencing judges order makes perfect sense – for them.

Injustice and abuse of power coming from people who Americans have placed in a position of trust is abominable, and it needs to CHANGE.  Hopefully, with the new administration in Washington, some justice might be brought back to the United States Justice Department and to our courts.

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Mary Neal

Website:  http://wrongfuldeathoflarryneal.com

My page http://www.care2.com/c2c/people/profile.html?pid=513396753

My group:  http://www.care2.com/c2c/group/AIMI

My articles:  http://my.nowpublic.com/search?fulltext=1&type=story&keys=mary+neal