Issue 346
September 23, 2005
· In prosecuting federal crime, jury pool can be an issue of race by Peter S. Cannellos, The Boston Globe
· Deep Flaws, and Little Justice, in China’s Court System by Joseph Kahn, The New York Times
· For the Poor, Sudden Celebrity by Kevin Merida and Michael A. Fletcher, The Washington Post
· The Afghan Difference – Editorial, The New York Times
· G.I.’s Role in Detainee Abuse Is Starkly Contrasted at Retrial by David S. Cloud, The New York Times
· Slurs at U-Va. Undermine Efforts to Thwart Racism by Michelle Boorstein, Washington Post
In
prosecuting federal crime, jury pool can be an issue of race
By Peter S.
Canellos, Globe Columnist
WASHINGTON
-- Over the past two decades, the Justice Department has been prosecuting crimes that used to be the
purview of local district attorneys, from drug sales to gang hits to inner-city
murders. The rationale for the federal crime initiative was that some scourges
of the inner city -- drug dealing, gun sales, and gangs -- are problems that
cross state
borders and that thus require a federal response.
Some local
district attorneys resented having their turf invaded by the feds. Others,
however, were only too happy to send prisoners over to the federal system,
where they could be prosecuted and punished more severely.
For
instance, federal criminals can be sent to a prison outside their states, far
from family and friends, and from fellow inmates from previous tours in the
state system. Local gang members can be prosecuted under federal racketeering
laws, which were originally designed to combat organized crime by holding
participants in a criminal organization
responsible
for crimes by the organization as a whole. And murder defendants in the
Massachusetts system do not face the death penalty -- but they can in the
federal system.
In Boston,
as in some other large cities, there is another reason why some criminal
defendants fear being prosecuted in the federal system: Black defendants are
likely to face a jury with fewer blacks.
It is simple
arithmetic. Suffolk County juries are drawn mostly from Boston, with a large
minority population. Juries in the federal district for Eastern Massachusetts
are drawn from counties east of Worcester, including largely white suburbs.
The
''federalization" of street crime in recent decades, and the geographical
reality that fewer blacks are in federal jury pools than the local jury pools
in many locations, set the stage for the current dispute surrounding jury
selection in the federal court in Boston. That issue could have implications
for cases around the country.
Nancy
Gertner, the liberal-leaning federal judge who triggered the dispute, is not
seeking to redress the racial imbalance between Suffolk County and the much
larger area from which federal courts draw their juries. But Gertner found that
a far higher percentage of jury summonses to black neighborhoods are returned
as undeliverable or unanswered in
black
neighborhoods, as compared with white suburban areas.
That phenomenon
-- which Gertner found at least partly attributable to outdated records in
urban areas -- has probably meant that an even smaller number of minorities
have been placed on federal juries than population distribution would dictate.
So Gertner, preparing to oversee jury selection for two black murder
defendants, declared that any undeliverable or unanswered summonses should be
replaced by summonses to the same zip codes. That way, Gertner decided,
replacements might come from the same
neighborhoods as those who were not reached.
The system,
she pointed out, would be race neutral; the same rules would apply in Roxbury
and Needham. But the result, perhaps, would be a higher percentage of blacks on
the jury.
US Attorney
Michael J. Sullivan objected to Gertner's decision. Last week, the appeals
court decided to suspend Gertner's order pending consideration of Sullivan's
objection. In the meantime, Chief Judge William G. Young of the US District
Court appointed a committee of five judges to review the racial makeup of the
jury pool for federal trials.
The dispute
could turn on whether the appeals court believes that the racial makeup of a
jury plays a significant role in its decisions. While prosecutors and defense
lawyers assert that no jury is truly predictable, many of them assume that
black defendants get a better shake from juries that include blacks. Likewise,
many people believe that white juries are
generally
friendlier to white defendants.
The cases of
O.J. Simpson and the officers accused of beating the black motorist Rodney King
in Los Angeles are the most publicized examples of cases that may have turned
on juries' racial makeup.
No one
believes that the federal initiative against street crimes was prompted by a
desire to have fewer blacks on juries. But Gertner's investigation presents the
likelihood that federal courts are drawing even fewer blacks into the jury pool
than their proportion of the local population, exacerbating the existing
imbalance.
The federal
crime initiative is considered a success across the country, driving down rates
of murder, cocaine distribution, and gun trafficking in many cities; but it
falls to judges to make sure that the federal initiative is appreciated for its
fairness as well as its toughness.
* * * * *
Deep
Flaws, and Little Justice, in China's Court System
By JOSEPH
KAHN
ANYANG,
China - For three days and three nights, the police wrenched Qin Yanhong's arms
high above his back, jammed his knees into a sharp metal frame, and kicked his
gut whenever he fell asleep. The pain was so intense that he watched sweat pour
off his face and form puddles on the floor.
On the
fourth day, he broke down. "What color were her pants?" they
demanded. "Black," he gasped, and felt a whack on the back of his
head. "Red," he cried, and got another punch. "Blue," he
ventured. The beating stopped.
This is how
Mr. Qin, a 35-year-old steel mill worker in Henan Province in central China,
recalled groping in the darkness of a interrogation room to deduce the
"correct" details of a rape and murder, end his torture and give the
police the confession they required to close a nettlesome case.
On the
strength of his coerced confession alone, prosecutors indicted Mr. Qin. A panel
of judges then convicted him and sentenced him to death. He is alive today only
because of a rare twist of fate that proved his innocence and forced the
authorities to let him go, though not before a final push to have him executed
anyway.
Justice in
China is swift but not sure. Criminal investigations nearly always end in
guilty pleas. Prosecutors almost never lose cases brought to trial. But recent
disclosures of wrongful convictions like Mr. Qin's have exposed deep flaws in a
judicial system that often answers more to political leaders than the law.
"Our
public security system is the product of a dictatorship," Mr. Qin wrote
his family when he was on death row. "Police use dictatorial measures on
anyone who resists them. Ordinary people have no way to defend
themselves."
The viability
of China's Communist Party depends more than ever on its ability to create a
credible legal system. The party needs the law to check corruption, which has
eroded its legitimacy. The authorities want people to turn to the courts,
rather than take to the streets, to resolve social discontents that have made
the country more volatile than at any time since the 1989 democracy movement.
The law, in
other words, has become a front line in China's struggle to modernize under
one-party rule. Yet Mr. Qin's persecution and similar miscarriages of justice
that have come to light this year suggest that China is struggling with a
fundamental question of jurisprudence: Do officials serve the law, or do laws
serve the officials? Or, to put it another way, is the Communist Party creating
rule of law or rule by law?
Twenty-seven
years after Deng Xiaoping declared at the outset of China's economic reforms,
that "the country must rely on law," the Communist Party realizes
that it cannot effectively govern a thriving market-oriented economy unless
people trust in law. Hundreds of thousands of new lawyers, stronger courts and
a blizzard of Western-inspired codes protect property, enforce contracts and
limit police powers.
Disgruntled
peasants, displaced urban homeowners and newly wealthy entrepreneurs demand
that the authorities respect constitutional rights long treated as notional.
Even inside the system, some policemen, prosecutors and judges have tried
making the law into a more independent force.
But the transition
has been arduous, and the outcome remains uncertain. Beijing draws the line at
legal challenges to senior officials or important government agencies. The
courts rarely if ever rule in favor of political protesters. Even in business
cases, political influence often proves decisive.
Criminal law
poses one of the biggest challenges - and most pointed sources of discontent.
The police and courts still rely mainly on pretrial confessions and perfunctory
court proceedings to resolve criminal cases instead of the Western tradition of
analyzing forensic evidence and determining guilt through contentious court
trials.
China's
criminal laws forbid torture and require judges to weigh evidence beyond a
suspect's confession. But lawyers and legal scholars say forced confessions
remain endemic in a judicial system that faces pressure to maintain
"social stability" at all costs.
The police
and government officials in Anyang, the northern Henan county seat where Mr.
Qin was interrogated, and authorities in Zhengzhou, the provincial capital,
declined repeated written requests to discuss his case.
But Mr. Qin,
his family members and several people involved in his defense said the case
showed how political motives and collusion among police, prosecutors and the
courts could make the law a source of terror for people who lack the power or
money to defend themselves.
A Suspect
Investigation
Just after
noon on Aug. 3, 1998, Jia Hairong, a 30-year-old peasant woman, was found
murdered on her family's farm in the village of Donggaoping, an hour's drive
from Anyang, according to court documents. Her pants had been cut off with a
razor blade. She was raped and strangled, her body stashed behind tall
cornstalks.
The police
found a plastic alarm clock and the razor blade at the scene. They determined
that both items were stolen from a nearby home just before the assault.
Court
documents do not make clear whether physical evidence - fingerprints, blood,
semen, traces of clothing - could have identified the killer. If there were
such forensic leads, they were not followed.
Instead, the
police relied on the accounts of three children who were playing outdoors in
Qinxiaotun, a village about a mile east of Donggaoping, the records show. The
children recalled seeing Mr. Qin, who lives in Qinxiaotun, walking from the
direction of Donggaoping that afternoon.
Around
midnight on Aug. 4, four officers arrived at the steel plant where Mr. Qin
worked nights and took him away for questioning.
Mr. Qin is a
tall, shy, doe-eyed man who rarely travels farther than a bicycle ride from his
dirt-floored village home. When he speaks - friends say he generally speaks
only when spoken to - he has a heavy local accent that even Anyang residents
have trouble understanding.
The police would
not tell him why he was being detained. But through the early morning hours, he
was told to detail how he spent Aug. 1 to 3, and especially the afternoon of
Aug. 3. He said he had stayed at home that day before going to work at night.
After the
police said a witness told them that he walked through the village that
afternoon he amended his story, recalling that he visited the family farm, a
short distance from home, to fertilize the fields.
"The
farmland is close, so it is not like leaving home," Mr. Qin said later.
"But
they thought they had caught me lying."
He was
handcuffed and shackled. He still had no idea what he was suspected of doing.
But he overheard some officers and drivers discussing a local murder. He
wondered if his detention had some connection.
"I kept
asking them what this was all about," Mr. Qin said. "No one would
tell me."
A senior
detective named Shen Jun took charge of his interrogation, court documents
show. Mr. Qin described Mr. Shen's approach as polite, even conciliatory at
first. The detective said he was investigating the theft of an alarm clock. He
said Mr. Qin's fingerprints matched those found on the clock.
"He
said it was a cheap little alarm clock and that there was no reason to
lie,"
Mr. Qin
said. "I should just confess. "Then everyone could go home."
Mr. Qin said
he hoped his detention really was prompted by a petty theft. But instinct told
him not to admit stealing something he did not steal. So the pressure
intensified.
Mr. Shen
organized four teams of two policemen each. The teams interrogated Mr. Qin in
consecutive six-hour shifts, day and night, for three days.
The
questioning quickly turned to torture. Mr. Qin said he was made to sit for many
hours on the open metal frame of a chair without a back. His feet and arms were
strapped to the chair legs and his body slumped through the frame, forcing the
backs of his knees and his lower back against the sharp edges. The technique is
known as "tiger stool."
Alternately,
Mr. Qin's hands were handcuffed behind his back and cinched up until they were
above his head and his arms felt as though they would separate from his
shoulders. This was referred to as "taking a jet plane."
He described
the pain as piercing. But he said he suffered even greater agony from lack of
sleep. The police poured frigid water on his head and pounded him awake when he
nodded off. They referred to this as "circling the pig." By his third
day in detention, he said, he felt delirious.
"It
would take a superman to resist," he recalled.
Finally,
pressed to specify the color of the stolen alarm clock, he made a guess:
"White." An officer whacked his head and asked again, "What
color was the clock?" "Red," he offered, but he got another
blow. Then he said, "Green." The beating stopped.
Soon
thereafter, Mr. Shen told Mr. Qin his theft of the alarm clock proved he had
killed Ms. Jia. The police now had all the evidence they needed, he said, but
Mr. Qin must cooperate fully to avoid the harshest punishment. That meant he
must volunteer every detail of the crime, three times over, and confess a
complete narrative.
Still dazed,
Mr. Qin hazarded guesses to every question - was she wearing shorts or long
pants? did he strangle her with his hands or with a rope? - until he was allowed
to sleep.
In the eight
months between his arrest and his trial, Mr. Qin wrote a series of anguished
letters home, urging his family to disregard the charges.
"Every
word of the confession is a joke," he wrote in one letter to his older
brother in early 1999. "To this day, I have no idea what the victim looks
like, and I certainly didn't know the color of her pants."
Unwavering
Conviction
In prison,
Mr. Qin tutored himself in criminal law. His letters cited passages that he
felt would aid his defense. Article 38 of the Chinese Constitution forbids
extracting confessions by torture and "frame-ups." Article 46 of the
1996 revised Criminal Procedure Law declares that "oral confessions"
are not sufficient grounds for conviction. Article 12 mandates that suspects
must be presumed innocent until proven guilty.
His anger
convinced his older brother, Qin Yanqing, who became his tireless champion. The
elder Mr. Qin petitioned legal officials in Anyang and Zhengzhou to review the
case. He exhausted the family savings on travel and lawyer fees.
He even
sought out Mr. Shen. But the detective expressed unwavering conviction.
"I
stake my 20 years of leadership experience as a guarantee," the elder Mr.
Qin quoted Mr. Shen as telling him. "If your brother did not commit this
crime, then I will accept punishment."
When the
trial opened in April 1999, 50 relatives and villagers went to Anyang to
testify on Mr. Qin's behalf. But the three-judge panel ordered the trial closed
and excluded them from the courtroom, villagers said.
The
prosecution brought no witnesses, and Mr. Qin said the judges prevented him
from calling any. Mr. Qin vigorously recanted his confession. His lawyer argued
that the prosecution's case, which depended wholly on the confession, was invalid.
The trial was over before lunch.
Six months
later, a judge visited Mr. Qin in prison and delivered the verdict: Mr. Qin was
guilty of rape and murder, and would be executed. Mr. Qin had a right to
appeal.
On death
row, his cell contained 15 people and one toilet. He said that in his two years
there, a dozen cellmates were escorted away in the early morning hours and
executed with a bullet to the back of the head.
He was
spared that fate not by his appeals, or by new DNA evidence, but by a stroke of
luck that might count as a miracle.
One day in
January 2001, a retired soldier named Yuan Qiufu walked into a police station
in Linzhou, a town not far from Anyang, and told the officer on duty that he
had raped, robbed and strangled 18 women. He provided voluminous details of his
killing rampage that included an unerring account of the rape and murder of Ms.
Jia and the theft of a green alarm clock.
Reversal of
Fortune
Even in the
world's most populous country, such definitive exonerations are not common. But
this year alone about a dozen similar reversals of fortune have come to light,
suggesting that legal officials and the state media are paying more attention
to problems in the judicial system - and that such problems run deep.
For example,
last May, She Xianglin, a 39-year-old former security guard in Hubei Province,
was released from jail after serving 11 years when his wife, whom he was
convicted of murdering, returned for a visit. In 1994, she had run away and
remarried in another province. The police decided that a body they found must
be the wife's and that Mr. She must have killed her.
In June, a
30-year-old laborer in Shanxi Province was released from custody after a boy he
confessed to killing and dumping into the Yellow River last year came back
home. The boy had migrated to a city to find work.
In July,
three police officers in Yunnan Province were convicted of torturing a man into
saying he killed a prostitute. The man had been scheduled to go to trial for
murder in 2002 when someone else admitted committing the crime.
Official
statistics show such abuses are numerous. The Supreme People's Procuratorate,
China's Justice Department, said in July that 4,645 criminal suspects had
suffered human rights violations, including torture during inquisitions, in the
previous 12 months.
Top
officials are pushing to improve criminal procedures. Some legal scholars say
one measure under consideration could give suspects the right to have a lawyer
present during interrogations.
But such changes,
if they come, will take time. China's Communist Party-run legislature has been
urged to consider many new protections, like a right to remain silent. But such
proposals have gone nowhere because the police steadfastly oppose them.
The last
time the government overhauled criminal law procedures, in 1996, it toughened
an existing ban on forced confessions, while declaring that suspects were
entitled to a presumption of innocence. The current publicity campaign
effectively acknowledges that the 1996 rules did not have the desired effect.
One obstacle
is China's long history, in which criminal law was viewed as an extension of
the power of the emperor rather than an objective code that applies to
everyone. Confession amounted to a submission to authority, while a plea of
innocence was viewed as a form of rebellion.
The legal
code of the Tang Dynasty, for example, specified that guilt could only be
finally assigned through confession, and that cases could not be officially
recorded without a confession.
Li Bin, a
defense lawyer and former government prosecutor in Yunnan, who was involved in
the trial of the three policemen on charges of forcing a confession, said the
problem was systemic.
In China's
top-down political system, the police, prosecutors and judges respond mostly to
incentives from above, Mr. Li said. They pay a much higher price for failing to
maintain the appearance of social order than for torturing suspects, he said.
"The
judicial system is set up to protect the authority of the government," he
said. "It is not set up to protect the rights of suspects."
'No Hard
Feelings'
The
disclosure that Mr. Yuan, the serial killer, had murdered Ms. Jia set off alarm
bells among Anyang officials. But the concern was the possibility that the
wrongful arrest, prosecution and conviction of Mr. Qin could damage careers,
Mr. Qin's family members and an investigator in the case who is based in
Beijing said.
The
officials' response was to suppress the new information - and keep Mr. Qin on
death row.
The
investigator talked to the local officials involved, but asked to remain
anonymous because of restrictions on speaking with reporters. He said that the
authorities in Linzhou, who were handing the case of Mr. Yuan, and those in
Anyang, responsible for Mr. Qin's incarceration, agreed between themselves to
keep the crucial part of Mr. Yuan's confession secret. Mr. Yuan would be
prosecuted for 17 murders instead of 18, leaving Mr. Qin's conviction intact.
"Their
attitude was that if my brother was released, 20 officials would suffer,"
said Qin Yanqing, Mr. Qin's elder brother. "But if he was executed, only
one person would suffer."
The
agreement held for more than a year. It came to light only after an official in
Linzhou joked about the matter to a reporter for a national legal affairs
publication. Although the reporter did not publish an article on the subject,
he did alert authorities in the capital, who ordered an inquiry.
In May 2002,
a provincial-level legal investigation determined that Mr. Qin should be
released. He was given a suite at a hotel. The Anyang County police organized a
banquet.
"When I
got back to my room, I cried and cried," he said. "I could not
control myself."
A few days
after his release, Mr. Qin went to the county police station and demanded to
see Mr. Shen. The detective rushed out of a meeting to greet him, shaking his
hand and apologizing profusely, Mr. Qin recalled.
"He
said my case had been a severe lesson for them all," he said.
But whether
they treated it that way is unclear. It took Mr. Qin and his brother several
months to negotiate compensation. Local authorities eventually agreed to the
equivalent of $35,000 in damages for four years of incarceration on false
charges.
But the
payment came with strict conditions. Mr. Qin had to agree not to talk about the
matter with the news media or to petition higher authorities for more money.
He initially
accepted those terms. But he broke the pledge this year, he said, because the
authorities had refused to fully exonerate him. Although he has a notice from
the police confirming that he was arrested in error, the notice attributes the
arrest to a "work mistake." Mr. Qin has never been declared innocent
of murder.
"They
hope they can just make this disappear with no hard feelings and no problems
for anyone involved," he said.
The last
time Mr. Qin visited the police to press for a full restitution, he discovered
that Mr. Shen had been promoted. He is no longer a detective team leader, but
Anyang County's deputy chief of police.
* * * * *
For
the Poor, Sudden Celebrity
By Kevin
Merida and Michael A. Fletcher
Washington
Post Staff Writers
DALLAS --
All of a sudden the poor have emerged from the shadows of invisibility, lifted
onto a temporary pedestal by natural disaster. Whether it is because of guilt,
pity or the nation's generosity in times of crisis, those who lost everything
-- many of whom had little to begin with -- find themselves in a strange
wonderland of recognition.
The
destitute people sent fleeing by Katrina have been offered free housing, free
clothing, free cars, free toys, special admission to universities and
preferential job treatment. Athletes come to them , bestowing jerseys and
autographs. Entertainers sing for them, and Bennigan's restaurants here and in
Houston announced Katrina's kids could eat without paying for a while.
This is what
it's like for the celebrity poor, a new subculture created by Hurricane
Katrina.
Chris
Lawrence, 49, who spent five days on a New Orleans overpass, is not sure what
it all means. Mostly, he sits still in a Dallas shelter and reads the Bible.
Describing himself as bone-tired after a life of working two jobs in New
Orleans, he figures he's blessed just to be alive. The outpouring of kindness
by Texans has restored his belief in compassion. "I had lost faith in
humanity," he said.
How far this
compassion should extend -- and what it should look like over time -- is
looming as the next great social policy debate. What began as a response to the
most devastating hurricane in the country's history is segueing to a grander
discussion about the treatment of those who live on the margins. Will the Chris
Lawrences now be able to improve their lives? Or will they return to their
previous status as forgotten Americans with little hold on the attention or
sympathies of politicians? And what of those already on the edge of poverty --
or worse -- who do not share the celebrityhood of those displaced by the
ravaging floods of Katrina?
These
questions are now confronting President Bush -- and the rest of political
Washington. In the early days of the crisis, Bush was beset by criticism that
he had been insensitive to the black and destitute. But lately, he has been
speaking to them. During a prayer service for Katrina's victims at the National
Cathedral in Washington on Friday, Bush said the nation must grapple with the
entrenched problems of poverty.
"Americans
of every race and religion were touched by this storm; yet some of the greatest
hardship fell upon citizens already facing lives of struggle: the elderly, the
vulnerable and the poor," Bush said. "And this poverty has roots in
generations of segregation and discrimination that closed many doors of
opportunity. As we clear away the debris of a hurricane, let us also clear away
the legacy of inequality."
Some found
Bush's words reassuring. Others worried that they would not resonate far into
the future. "New Orleans is sort of like South Central [Los
Angeles]," said Alan Curtis, president of the Milton S. Eisenhower
Foundation, a Washington nonprofit that funds anti-poverty programs.
"People ignore the problem of poverty, then every once in a while
something catastrophic happens. We talk about it, then we forget about
it."
In his plan
to rebuild the Gulf Coast, Bush has called for tax breaks to encourage small-
and minority-business development and individual accounts of as much as $5,000
to help storm victims with job training, transportation, child care and other
needs. He proposed that the federal government give poor victims its unused
property, including foreclosed homes and vacant lots on which they could build
their houses.
Democrats
have their own big ideas. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (Mass.) has proposed a Gulf
Coast Regional Redevelopment Authority, modeled after the Tennessee Valley
Authority, which was created during the New Deal era to address issues from
flood control to power production to malaria prevention. Kennedy's Gulf Coast
version would fund large education, health and job training initiatives while
overseeing rebuilding in the region.
The sense
that Democrats have controlled the landscape on poverty and race is not lost on
Republican stalwarts who hope their party doesn't miss an opportunity. Ronald
Reagan's description in 1976 of the Chicago "welfare queen" who
drives a Cadillac lives on as a tale of infamy, remembered by African Americans
and anti-poverty advocates as crucial in fueling the perception that blacks
were exploiting the welfare system.
"There
really has not been a strong Republican message to either the poor or the
African American community at large," said Jack Kemp, a former housing
secretary and standard-bearer for Republican ideas to fight poverty.
Added former
GOP House speaker Newt Gingrich: "This is one of the most important
moments in modern history, and in the next three to four weeks we will find out
if the party is ready and able to govern."
Extending an
Ambivalent Hand
The nation
has long been ambivalent toward the poor. The humanitarian instinct to help those
in dire straits is often constrained by a lurking feeling that the needy are
responsible for their own bad circumstances.
"This
country was founded on a very strong work ethic, which has created this sense
that if you work hard in America, you get ahead," said Rebecca M. Blank,
dean of the Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of
Michigan. "But not far from that is the idea that if you don't get ahead,
you must not be working hard."
David K.
Shipler, in his book "The Working Poor," explains the complexity of
the struggle to get ahead: "Breaking away and moving a comfortable
distance from poverty seems to require a perfect lineup of favorable
conditions. A set of skills, a good starting wage, and a job with the likelihood
of promotion are prerequisites. But so are clarity of purpose, courageous
self-esteem, a lack of substantial debt, the freedom from illness or addiction,
a functional family, a network of upstanding friends, and the right help from
private or governmental agencies. Any gap in that array is an entry point for
trouble, because being poor means being unprotected."
When severe
floods struck the lower Mississippi River in 1927, leaving more than 700,000
Delta residents homeless, those dirt-poor victims -- nearly half of whom were
black -- received no federal aid. The government simply was not in the business
of helping the poor.
It wasn't
until nearly a decade later that the first widescale effort to attack poverty
was launched with enactment of Social Security, a welfare program for destitute
widows and unemployment insurance. Those initiatives were followed by a housing
program and later free school lunches, a response to the alarmingly poor
nutrition among many World War II recruits. The Great Society efforts of the
1960s and their progeny in the 1970s broadened educational and housing
assistance while expanding the nation's safety net with health care programs,
food stamps and disability insurance. But since the 1996 passage of national
welfare legislation, tax credits have become among the government's biggest
vehicles for helping the poor.
Excluding
Social Security, congressional researchers say there are more than 80
poverty-related programs, which in 2003 cost $522 billion. Yet despite those
programs, 37 million Americans -- 12.7 percent of the population -- continue to
live in poverty, and the rates are higher in the states hit hardest by Katrina:
16.7 percent in Louisiana, 17 percent in Alabama and 18.6 percent in
Mississippi.
In New
Orleans, 27.9 percent of the residents are below the federal poverty line --
$15,000 a year for a family of three, a measure that only begins to capture the
deprivation in a city where in 2000, more than one in five households reported
incomes of less than $10,000 per year.
Competing
for Jobs and Attention
Some who
have fled the Big Easy, where the livin' ain't always easy, are wondering what
will become of them. Will they make it?
Ebony
Turner, a New Orleans health technician, struggled to keep her optimism but
frustration had her near tears. She was staying at a temporary shelter -- a
Motel 6 -- in Lewisville, Tex., which has a black population of 7 percent and
is 22 miles from downtown Dallas. Officials from federal, state and private
agencies were set up at the Dallas Convention Center to help her access the
services she needed, but Turner was having a difficult time connecting her
needs with their suggestions.
She was told
she could get food stamps. "But, Miss," Turner pleaded, "where
are we going to cook the food? We're in a shelter." She was told she could
get unemployment benefits, that a letter could be mailed to her in two weeks.
"Miss, where are you going to send the letter when I don't have an
address?" She was told she was eligible for a low-interest federal loan.
"Miss, how am I going to pay it back to you? I don't have nothing."
She was told
the Salvation Army could provide clothes for her son, a ninth-grader who has a
40-inch waist and wears a size 12 1/2 shoe. The Salvation Army didn't have
clothes that fit him, she already knew, and now she was at her wit's end.
"I'm
not sending my child to school in flip-flops," she said angrily. "I'd
rather go live in swampland than send my kid to school in flip-flops. Where is
the government right now? I don't know what to do."
This same
sense of demoralization is heard by the down-and-out who are not Katrina
celebrities. They have watched from the background as the hurricane's victims
have been shuttled to the front of the help lines. They wonder: After Katrina's
survivors are taken care of, will there be anything left for us?
This anxiety
was starkly displayed at a Dallas job fair last week. The plan was to hold the
fair at a local community college with 30 employers manning booths. But in the
hurricane's wake, the event was switched to the Dallas Convention Center and it
grew to 225 employers -- so many wanted to take part that some companies had to
be turned away.
Technically,
the job fair was open to anyone in search of work. But employers' soft hearts
were reserved for the Gulf Coast's displaced residents. For recruiters, the
requirement for admission was that they have actual jobs to hand out right
away. To emphasize that point, each recruiter was given a whistle to blow when
someone was hired.
Jennifer
Carter, who had been a data-entry technician for the New Orleans police
department, didn't realize the fair was open to non-Katrina survivors until she
noticed the nicely tailored Nora Gonzalez assert herself at the hiring table of
a personnel services company. According to Carter, Gonzalez jumped in front of
her, saying, "Well, I'm from Texas, this is my résumé." Fumed Carter:
"They should give us an opportunity because we have nothing."
Told of
Carter's perspective, Gonzalez seemed surprised. Her friend, Keyla Robinson,
who was looking for clerical work, chimed in: "Why should you feel guilty?
We're in need, too."
That
sentiment was echoed during interviews at the job fair, as hardship stories
were told by those whose lives had come unglued by disasters of a different
kind.
Keisha Sims,
29, had been an order clerk at a Dallas barbecue joint until her son was
partially paralyzed when he fell off the monkey bars at a day care center. She
took off two years to care for him but needed to return to work. She wound up
at the 7-Eleven booth, where the hiring whistle was screeching, hoping to land
a job selling Slurpees.
Sims was
despondent. She had just heard from her sister, who called crying because she
had been bumped from an apartment she had been approved for. Again, Katrina
benevolence. "I feel like this: It's okay to help people," said Sims.
"But it's like they went above and beyond to help them."
Melvin
Hewitt understands this. The union representative from the Gentilly area of New
Orleans recounted what he had seen outside of Reunion Arena, which had been
serving as a downtown shelter in Dallas. A man offered Hewitt's brother a crisp
bill, only to ask for it back when he realized it was $10. The man apologized,
saying he hadn't meant to give the Katrina survivor such a small amount. He
then pulled a $100 bill from his pocket.
"They
show us love," Hewitt remarked, still amazed by that act of generosity.
"Much,
much love."
* * * * *
The
Afghan Difference
Afghanistan
and Iraq were both invaded by United States-led forces, which overthrew outlaw
regimes. Both have new constitutions, guided by the same American diplomat.
Both have foreign armies of significant size on their sovereign soil. But Iraq
is careering toward civil war, while Afghanistan has just completed an
encouragingly inclusive parliamentary election. Iraq cannot even begin to talk
about defending itself without American troops. Afghanistan is already saying
it's time for the United States to cease major military operations on its territory.
While no one
should underestimate Afghanistan's serious problems, including a resurgent
Taliban, a shattered infrastructure and rampant drug trafficking, no one can
fail to see the many signs of progress there, while only the most die-hard Bush
administration spinners pretend to see any significant and lasting gains in
Iraq. It is important to try to understand why this is happening.
One reason,
surely, is that Afghanistan, for all of its ethnic diversity and political
turbulence, has a long continuous history as a single nation. International
intervention can, with skill and luck, revive a battered and prostrate nation.
But it cannot easily create one where the population has no real history of, or
desire for, willing coexistence and cooperation.
Another is
that the full backing and support from the United Nations for Afghanistan's
transformation and recovery encouraged the provision of international financial
support and expertise and, even more important, endowed the new government with
crucial international legitimacy. That imposed a useful measure of
self-restraint on neighboring countries like Pakistan and Russia, which had
long meddled in Afghan affairs with highly destructive consequences.
Afghanistan
has also benefited from the skilled and effective leadership provided by
President Hamid Karzai, a surprisingly adept domestic politician and
international diplomat. Mr. Karzai has not hesitated to criticize the United
States and Pakistan when necessary. He has also struck an acceptable balance
between two powerful forces. One is the political need to reach out to other
ethnic groups and to former Taliban members who are willing to play by the new
rules of peaceful politics. The other is the moral and strategic necessity of
gradually marginalizing the most notorious warlords and pressuring all of them
to disarm their unacceptable private militias.
The world
has a chance to help Afghanistan build on this hopeful start. In particular,
the international community needs to put more pressure on President Pervez
Musharraf of Pakistan to end Taliban activities, especially recruiting, on
Pakistani soil. And NATO countries must send the additional troops that are
badly needed to ensure enough security throughout Afghanistan to rebuild roads,
reservoirs and power plants, and to attract private investment.
The
challenges facing Afghanistan are enormous, but with luck and continued
international cooperation, this is one American-led intervention that could
wind up actually making people's lives better.
* * * * *
G.I.'s
Role in Detainee Abuse Is Starkly Contrasted at Retrial
By DAVID S.
CLOUD
FORT HOOD,
Tex., Sept. 21 - The court-martial of Pfc. Lynndie R. England, accused of
abusing Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison, opened Wednesday with her lawyer
saying she became involved in the mistreatment because she had "an overly
compliant personality" that "left her open to the suggestions of
others."
The lawyer,
Capt. Jonathan Crisp, appealed to the jury to look beyond the photographs made
public since the abuse came to light last year showing Private England in lurid
poses with naked prisoners.
He described
a troubled young woman with a history of depression who took part in the
mistreatment because of she was under the influence of Charles Graner, an
enlisted man who was her boyfriend and who oversaw an Abu Ghraib cellblock.
Private Graner was convicted in January of helping direct the abuse. "She
has had and still does have a great deal of difficulty functioning in
life," Captain Crisp said in his opening statement. Of Private Graner's
influence, he added, "Those pictures don't show the absolute amazing trust
she placed in him because she loved him."
Private
England is the last - and in some ways the most notorious - of nine enlisted
soldiers involved in the abuse at Abu Ghraib to have her case resolved. The
scandal has become an uncomfortably long-running spectacle for the military,
one that Bush administration officials concede has damaged American credibility
in the Middle East.
The trial,
which is expected to last until next week, will also further lay out a seamy
slice of military life, involving serious breakdowns in discipline in the
military police unit guarding Abu Ghraib and questions about whether officers
overseeing the prison have been held sufficiently accountable. But the outcome
of the court-martial may well rest on how the all-male jury of five officers
views the two starkly different portrayals of Private England.
Prosecutors
made clear on Wednesday that they planned to depict Private England not as
easily manipulated and mentally slow, but as an enthusiastic participant in the
abuse who later admitted that it was done for the amusement of guards.
Flashing a
few of the roughly 30 photographs of abuse expected to be introduced as
evidence, Capt. S. Charles Neill said, "You see Pfc. England smoking and
smiling derisively and pointing in a humiliating and mocking way at the
detainees."
At least one
juror questioned during the jury selection process on Wednesday seemed inclined
to blame officers in charge of the prison for the abuse. "I would say
there was a definite failure of leadership," Col. Gregory A. Brockman
said.
Private
England was on the verge of pleading guilty in May to taking part in a
conspiracy with Private Graner and Sgt. Ivan Frederick to mistreat prisoners,
but the plea deal collapsed after Private Graner testified that the prisoner
treatment was legitimate and that she had taken part at his request. The judge
overseeing the case, Col. James L. Pohl, immediately barred the plea deal,
ruling that his testimony contradicted her admission of guilt.
With a plea
deal no longer under discussion, her lawyers plan to call a former school
psychologist from her hometown in West Virginia who has known her since age 4.
Captain Crisp said the psychologist would describe what he said were learning
disabilities that prevented her from speaking with normal regularity until she
was 8. With help, she was taken out of special education classes in eighth
grade, but she continued to have "language processing" problems into
adulthood, Captain Crisp said.
The
psychologist, Thomas Denne, will testify that "in the presence of
authority figures she was compliant," Captain Crisp said.
Those
problems and her love for Private Graner, who Private England has said fathered
her child and who has since married another woman, contributed to her
involvement in the abuse, he said.
Private
Graner, who was sentenced to 10 years in prison and reduced in rank from
specialist, is likely to be called as a witness.
Anticipating
that Private Graner may again contend that the abuse was a legitimate tactic to
soften up resistant detainees, Captain Neill emphasized that mistreated
prisoners had their hands bound and were wearing hoods. In addition, he said,
abused prisoners were not being interrogated. Nor, he said, did Private
England, who was a file clerk, not a guard, have any reason to be handling
prisoners.
If convicted
on all seven counts of conspiracy and prisoner abuse, Private England faces a
maximum of 11 years in military prison.
No officers
responsible for Abu Ghraib have been court-martialed, though the general
responsible for the prison was demoted to colonel and more than a dozen
officers have received reprimands or other administrative punishments.
* * * * *
Slurs
at U-Va. Undermine Efforts to Thwart Racism
School,
Students 'Standing Together' After Incidents
By Michelle
Boorstein
Washington
Post Staff Writer
CHARLOTTESVILLE
-- The recent surge of racist incidents at the University of Virginia is a blow
to a two-year effort by the institution to end a lingering legacy of racial
segregation and inequality, and has left many black students feeling shaken and
looking at their colleagues with a wary eye.
Reports of
nine incidents in which black students were verbally assaulted in the past few
weeks are unparalleled in the school's contemporary history but reflect the
type of problems the school said it has been trying to solve with new strategies.
"We are
going to stay the course," said Patricia Lampkin, vice president for student
affairs. "We want to move to another place, a new place -- one that's better,
we hope."
For the 9
percent of black undergraduate students, the assaults simply amplify their
awareness of themselves as minorities at a university that fully accepted black
undergraduates only 35 years ago.
Although the
school stands as a beacon of independence and excellence in education for
Virginians, it has long wrestled with racial strife. But now, things look
different. Some parents of black students are considering removing their
children, and about 60 students, many of them white, have tried to help by patrolling
the campus in small groups each night to aid security.
Officials
are responding with unprecedented actions: President John T. Casteen spoke
Friday about the incidents on the steps of the school's Rotunda and is planning
to speak again at Saturday's homecoming football game -- to a crowd of more
than 61,000 -- on screens at the stadium.
"The
act of standing together, of refusing to let our sisters or our brothers be cut
off from us . . . that, in the end, is the fundamental gesture that can be made,"
he said at the Rotunda. Such appearances are rare by Casteen, who previously
has communicated with students about racist incidents via mass e-mails.
Yet black
students said this week that dealing with outsider status is simply part of the
experience of being at a university where 65 percent of the student body --
including graduate students -- is white. Nine percent is of Asian descent and
2.6 percent is Hispanic.
Angelique
Lynch visited the school as a high school senior in fall 2001 and fell in love
with the stately campus, the warmth of the people and the idea of an education
so first-rate that she could go on to do anything. But she soon learned from
other black students that the best way to thrive is to be part of a network of
support for one another. She heads a black singing group and mentors younger
black students, the sort of thing you need "at a school like this,"
she said.
"A lot
of it goes back to the history of this university. . . . I don't think a lot of
people were open to African Americans being here, and that has carried on in
the hearts and minds of students," said Lynch, 20, a pre-med senior from
the District.
Her
equilibrium, however, has been thrown off balance by the incidents that some officials
are calling "racial terrorism." Racist epithets have been shouted
from cars, left scrawled on apartment and dorm doors and on a note under a windshield.
Although officials are conducting interviews and dusting for fingerprints, no
arrests have been made and university officials have said it is probable that
no one will be caught -- as no one has been for other racist incidents in
recent years.
"I used
to feel relatively safe here, I could go alone at night, but now I wouldn't
even think of it," said Lynch, who returned to her off-campus apartment one
recent evening to find a racist and sexist message for her and her three roommates
on their door.
No one has
been physically harmed in the incidents, and black students said the acts have
not diminished their affection for the school. They, however, are considering
anew where they fit into the community.
"When
these things happen, we feel we are obviously not fully welcome and we need
support," said Jade Craig, 21, a senior from Hattiesburg, Miss. "We
need the community and the administration saying: 'We will stand on the front
line with you.' "
The school
last week announced the appointment of its first chief officer for diversity
and equity and has seen its undergraduate black population climb to 9 percent
after that figure slipped for several years. This year's freshman class is 10
percent black. Twenty percent of the state's population is black.