NEWSCOURT SYSTEM

In 2009, the Florida Supreme Court ruled in favor of limiting the shackling of children in Florida courtrooms. In fact, they called the practice "repugnant, degrading [and] humiliating." But because he's being tried as an adult in Jacksonville, Florida, 13-year-old Cristian Fernandez is likely to walk into his February 8 hearing wearing shackles.

Following the justices' ruling, the shackling of a child in Florida could only be done if that child was determined to be a substantial flight risk, have a history of disruptive courtroom behavior, or be a danger to him/herself or others in the court. No statement has been made regarding whether or not Cristian Fernandez meets this criteria.

In an email to a Jacksonville resident concerned about the shackling of young Cristian, State Attorney Angela Corey stated that the decision to remove the shackles is up to Duval County Judge Mallory Cooper and chief bailiff, Lt. Weintraub of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

Alicia Torres is a Jacksonville resident and the mother of one of Cristian Fernandez's former classmates. When she heard that Cristian was likely to be shackled during the trials, she wrote an open letter to Judge Mallory Cooper and Lt. Weintraub and posted it to her Change.org petition kindly asking that they remove the degrading and dehumanizing shackles and follow the Florida Supreme Court's ruling on the issue. Now, her petition is taking off! Nearly 200 people have signed in just the last few days.

Read Alicia's letter below and sign her petition here: https://www.change.org/petitions/shackling-children-is-wrong

An Open Letter to Duval County Judge Mallory Cooper and Lt. Steve Weintraub of Jacksonville Sherrif's Office

We are writing to you in the hopes that you will allow 13 year-old Cristian Fernandez to attend his hearings and trial without being shackled.

The Florida Supreme Court banned the indiscriminate shackling of juveniles in 2009 stating "We find the indiscriminate shackling of children in Florida courtrooms as described in the NJDC's Assessment repugnant, degrading, humiliating and contrary to the stated primary purposes of the juvenile justice system and to the principles of therapeutic justice,"  in an unsigned 6-1 opinion.

Because Cristian is being tried in adult court, there is a loophole that allows him to be shackled. But the shackling of this young child is not necessary for the safety of others or to keep Cristian from escaping. The use of shackles on him is a dehumanizing and degrading act.

The decision to move Cristian's case to the adult courts is hotly contested by hundreds of thousands of people throughout the world - many are citizens of our great state. But that's not what this is about. Common sense, human kindness, and Florida state law tells us that the shackling of a 13 year old boy is wrong - thats why the Supreme Court banned it unless absolutely necessary.

This petition is meant only as a means of showing you that there is widespread support for Florida's statutes against shackling children. We understand this is an unusual and complicated case and thank you for your service - but we also hope you will take into account that Cristian Fernandez has been in custody for nearly a year now and has not had any incidents or indication that he needs to be shackled.

I started this petition because I am a parent and the mother of one of Cristian's former classmates. I believe in Florida's statutes against shackling juveniles and I believe in our country's system of due process which says that Cristian is innocent until proven guilty.

Please do the right thing and allow Cristian to attend his hearings without shackles.

The image of Iraq Veteran Scott Olsen being carried by protestors during the Occupy Oakland protests after he was critically injured by Oakland Police Department is one that people all over the world have seen. For many, Scott became the face of the 99% and his injury an example of police brutality.

Now, Scott is asking the Department of Defense to allow UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Juan Mendez to have a private interview with Bradley Manning to discuss the conditions of his detainment.

Bradley Manning, is accused of stealing and leaking over a quarter million classified documents that were published online by Wikileaks while he was serving as an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2009 and 2010.

Cristian Fernandez has been detained for more than 8 months. At 12 years-old, we can only imagine how scared he is and how he'll have to spend this holiday season behind bars as Florida State Attorney Angela Corey seeks to send him to prison for the rest of his life.

Cristian isn't allowed to have toys sent to him at the detention center where he is being held but he does like to get cards and there is no doubt that the will be lonely this holiday season. So we're asking that you send Cristian Fernandez a holiday card to cheer him up and let him know people around the world care about him.

Cristian is housed at the Duval Regional Juvenile Detention Center. Please send holiday cards addressed to:

Crisitan Fernandez
c/o Duval Regional Juvenile Detention Center
1241 East 8th Street
Jacksonville, FL 32206-4099

In a matter of days, the Change.org campaign to have 12 year old Cristian Fernandez tried as a juvenile in Florida has grown from 10,000 to over 160,000. Supporters all over the world have been asking Angela Corey to try Cristian as a juvenile, and above all else, ensure that he is not sent to an adult prison facility. They have been hopeful and confident that Corey will do the right thing. And they might just be right.

Corey has recently stated that Fernandez will not serve life in prison and that he will serve his sentence in a juvenile facility. He will not stand trial, and a plea deal is expected to be worked out soon.

In early March, Cristian was left alone with his two year-old half-brother David, despite having broken David’s leg a year prior. While the two boys were alone, Cristian allegedly pushed his brother against a bookcase, and David sustained a head injury. After their mother returned home, she waited six hours before taking David to the hospital, where he eventually died.

Grand jury proceedings examining the death of Pace University student Danroy "DJ" Henry concluded Monday, with jurors announcing that they believed the officer responsible for Henry’s death did not commit a crime. Though the Henry family and supporters held out hope they would hear otherwise, the decision ultimately came as no surprise.

“Our faith was never in DiFiore (the local District Attorney), it was in God," Mr. Henry said at a press conference. "But we were hoping she would surprise us.”

The overwhelming lack of surprise was based on the knowledge that the closed-door proceedings that had been going on for the past few weeks were tainted by close, interdependent professional relationships and couldn’t possibly result in an unbiased outcome. Mr. Henry compared it to a family investigating the guilt of their own brother, not likely to end with an indictment.

Former Chicago Police Commander Jon Burge was sentenced to 4 1/2 years in federal prison on Friday, nearly two decades after he was fired from the department for his role in torturing more than a hundred suspects, almost all of them black and many of them completely innocent.

Burge’s four-year sentence drew understandable anger from many, especially among those directly affected by his actions, who are tired of seeing racial injustice punished with a slap on the wrist. Although I can never know what it felt like to fall victim to Burge’s torture, and although I’m a white boy from the suburbs who has no idea what living on the South Side of Chicago in the 1970s felt like, I want to make a challenge those angry with Burge’s sentence.

First, four years is not a slap on the wrist. It’s not an acquittal, and it’s twice as long as sentencing guidelines recommended. Too often, serious misconduct like Burge’s doesn’t even draw an investigation, let along charges and convictions. This measure of justice took too long to come, but it should mean something that it came at all.

Yes, you read that right. While we’re accustomed to seeing criminal penalties for driving under the influence (DUI) get more severe, particularly under the watchful eye of lobbyist groups like MADD, Texas may be taking a step towards easing up on first-time DUI offenders.

Proposed legislation would allow those accused of drunk driving to opt for what’s called “deferred adjudication.” This means they would be able to serve a period of probation, including treatment, while avoiding jail time— freeing up space in overcrowded jails and overburdened courtrooms.

Deferred adjudication was eliminated in Texas DUI cases back in the 1980s in hopes potential jail time would scare away would-be drunk drivers. But now, even MADD is supporting the change back. Could it be that MADD and Texas lawmakers alike see DUI penalties are often way out of line with the crime at hand? Not hardly. Instead, they say their support is because current laws (and the lack of a deferred option) is causing many of those first-time DUI cases to be pled down to reckless driving or other similar, non-alcohol related charges—something they don’t like.

The proposed legislation (HB 189) comes from Republican legislator Todd Smith and is getting support from a variety of sectors. So, if it has mass appeal and support from MADD, it’s got to have problems right? Well, it’s definitely not perfect. Popular Texas criminal justice blogs like Grits for Breakfast are all weighing in on the bill’s shortcomings and promise of progress.

Indiana is on the brink of making some major progressive changes to their criminal sentencing practices. Governor Mitch Daniels announced his support last week for sweeping reforms that could ultimately save over a billion dollars in the next seven years. Not just fiscally responsible, these changes would also serve to halt the progression of the incarceration monster, a beast that caused Indiana’s inmate population to skyrocket 41 percent from 2000 to 2008.

In a report commissioned by the state, the Pew Center on the States and the Council of State Governments Justice Center revealed that Indiana had the fastest growing prison population in the nation; more than 55 percent of new incarcerations were for drug offenses and nonviolent thefts.

These two organizations made a series of recommendations to stop the prison growth and save the state an estimated $1.2 billion between now and 2017. Though all of these recommendations haven’t been released to the public yet, the governor is pushing lawmakers to get busy on drafting legislation to make them a reality. Some sources say legislators have already begun preparing prison-reform bills they hope to pass in the upcoming legislative session. And they could use your support.

The Women and Innocence Conference was held only three weeks ago, yet there have already been new and exciting developments. The conference was the first such event staged by and for female exonerees and their supporters. Attended by exonerees, family members, lawyers, authors and Innocence Project members, the conference broke new ground by reaching out to the family and friends of wrongfully convicted women who are still incarcerated.

Networking, sharing experiences, and healing trauma were addressed, but a major emphasis was on focusing attention on female wrongful convictions. Participants were in agreement that women have been generally overlooked in the Innocence Movement for various reasons, with family members and friends of wrongfully convicted women often finding it more difficult to obtain help for their loved ones. Women’s cases often involve the death or alleged abuse of a child, and the stigma attached to those cases has also been a problem.

The conference, and the Women and Innocence Network, were formed to bring attention to wrongfully convicted women. Cases of wrongfully convicted women were presented at the conference and participants wrote cards and letters to these women. Responses have been received and the incarcerated women have been both surprised and grateful to be remembered. As one inmate wrote, “receiving your letter and knowing that you understand what I’m going through has been so helpful. Most importantly knowing, that you survived this experience, gives me added strength to hang on.” Encouraging these women and helping them with support and resources is a primary focus of the new network.

Former U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens is speaking out, and he's making himself heard loud and clear on the death penalty.

Stevens, who retired in June after serving 35 years on the bench and authoring countless opinions that changed the shape of American history, put his public face forward this weekend with an appearance on "60 Minutes" and an article in the New York Review of Books on the death penalty.

His NYRB article fronts as an examination of David Garland's new book, "Peculiar Institution: America's Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition," but the article is much more than that. It's an historical analysis of death penalty jurisprudence from a man who studied and lived and created this history, and it shares some of Stevens' personal journey from support for executions in 1976 to his belief today that the death penalty is unconstitutional.

Stevens brings the history of death penalty decisions at the nation's highest court to life and suggests that if the makeup of the court had been different at a few key moments, the death penalty may not have survived. He points to the racial disparities, to the disturbing ties between elected prosecutors and death penalty cases and to legislative biases in authorizing or abolishing the death penalty.

"To be reasonable," he writes, "legislative imposition of death eligibility must be rooted in benefits for at least one of the five classes of persons affected by capital offenses." He goes on to examine these five classes (victims, survivors, paricipants in the judicial process, the general public and the defendants themselves), finding arguments against execution in considering each group. Vengeance shouldn't be a primary motivator, jury selection biases the system toward the death penalty, death cases grind on our judicial systems and any deterrent effect is questionable, he writes.