...it doesn't always get better.

[pastwatcher]

Fuck this. Fuck that judge.

The start of the story of Cece McDonald is here, including the judge's awful decisions about which evidence to include in a murder trial. May be triggering. She does have people rallying in support, but they can't change the minds of the people on the case.

I didn't even know you could exclude evidence like the defendant's wounds from the actual prior attack, or the "victim's" history of assault and Nazi tattoo, from a murder trial. Doesn't that make it not a fair trial?

This is why so many people have no reason to trust the "justice system". Someone mentioned the comparison to the Trayvon Martin case, where all the circumstances and evidence are so different. Except, it seems the identities of the people involved are the only variables that matter.

Comments

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

Not just the justice arm of the system, but every last ounce of the legal system is incredibly corrupt and fucked up. (Okay, maybe wills are done reasonably. Most of the time.) Even when judges/prosecutors/cops/etc. aren't explicitly corrupt, the incentives are terrible and the lawyers only make shit worse. The plea bargain system only makes things worse.

The US imprisons a greater % of its people than any other 1st world country, probably more than any other country, period. We imprison more than Russia. And that's not to even mention the terrible racial biases in what we outlaw, length of sentences, police patrolling, etc.

A certain fellow I live with did a summer as a public defender. He had clients who'd been arrested for things like sitting on their own front steps ("loitering"). They start with a loitering accusation, then search you for drugs, try to step it up however they can. Get pulled over for a broken tail light, get your car searched. You can guess what skin tones his clients had.

This case doesn't sound exceptional to me at all--the judge's rulings sound about what I would expect--but only because I have seen so many cases that make me just want to flee the country. A 40 yr old substitute teacher imprisoned because her students were looking at porn on a school computer. Teenagers jailed for posting pictures of themselves on MySpace. A real-life friend accused of domestic violence, whose life was so destroyed that even though the case was dropped, she lost her job and home, changed her name and moved across the country to start again. And then there are the atrocious, 300$ an hour copyright cases I shan't bore you with, the patent cases destroying the development of new drugs and technologies, blah blah blah.


I don't mean to say that this case isn't a tragedy. I mean to say that the entire fucking system is a tragedy.

[pastwatcher]

"I mean to say that the entire fucking system is a tragedy"

Yeah, I agree with that. The system is horribly racist, and pretty bad for queer people; the system focuses on punishment in the first place when there are plenty of opportunities to get people productively engaged in society. And that whole mentality starts in our schools, which could change maybe. But the corruption keeps it going in criminal punishment.

[http://users.livejournal.com/little_e_/]

There are a lot more people making $$$ off of punishment than off of rehabilitation or compassion or even plain ol' justice.

I know I said it already, but dammit, we in the "land of the free" have the world's highest incarceration rate. That just never ceases to astound me. And the numbers are even worse for black folks. They're astronomical.

We live in a police state.

[pastwatcher]

Yeah that's what I meant by "the corruption keeps it going". The $$$. And the disdain for poor people, people who've been in jail, and people without jobs, that prevents a whole lot of economists and policymakers and voters from proposing/making/supporting effective solutions.

[mikevonkorff.livejournal.com]

An interesting parallel which took place in the same city: here (http://kstp.com/article/stories/s2349047.shtml). A black man robs an elderly woman, is chased by an white man (who legally possesses a concealed handgun). According to witnesses, the chaser confronts the thief and asks him to return the purse. The thief raises his gun. The chaser draws his concealed weapon and shoots the thief, killing him. The chaser is subsequently labelled a "Good Samaritan" by police.

"The statements from all of the witnesses corroborate that our concerned citizen thought he was just going to retrieve the victim's purse, but within seconds was faced with a man pointing a gun at him," Hennepin County Attorney Mike Freeman said. "When he fired, it was self-defense."

Obviously, there are differences in the two cases which might have led to different actions on the part of the attorney's office. For example, in the case I'm mentioning, it's uncontested that the slain man was armed and pointing a gun. (Of course, this isn't sufficient evidence to exculpate the chaser. For one thing, if the chaser knew that the thief had a firearm, he should not have pursued, since he would then have a reasonable expectation that he would wind up using his gun against the thief.)

At the same time, one person was never charged (ok, fine, that sounds perfectly reasonable), and the other pled guilty to this (http://supportcece.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/details-of-what-cece-pled-to/), which doesn't really seem like a crime...? (I'm annoyed that my best source of facts in this case is the supporters for one particular side, but I can't really find any useful information elsewhere. Luckily, this list appears to be an attempt to accurately recall courtroom events, so I'm going to assume it's correct.)

[pastwatcher]

Yes, exactly. Of course, I know what Cece's supporters would expect. When a trans woman of color has had a violent altercation with a white cis guy, the chances are huge that he started it, and chances are still high that he would kill her if he could. You can look at Transgender Day of Remembrance victims, and a study of trans misogyny combined with racism will explain how much people manage to remove empathy for people like CeCe. It continues to shock me, and I really don't understand it; however, it does happen.

But careful and thorough consideration of the apparent facts of this particular case, including the plea (thanks for pointing to that, I hadn't been keeping up with the site!) does nothing to contradict that expectation. There were plenty of eyewitnesses, and the story has not changed; I think this time, everyone agrees on what actually happened. It'd be great if there were more media coverage, as you suggest.

I'm less upset now, let me say why this case matters so much.

One, rather than being tried for the fair charge of manslaughter mitigated by self-defense in the first place, CeCe was threatened with 40 years' prison and completely unfair evidence at the trial. Surprise, the justice system is unjust! (as little_e_ said.)

Two, this is a blow to hope for trans women. I think it still does more good than anything else to have this case of a survivor circulated within the trans community (if only it got more media coverage). But it must feel hopeless to expect that this is what you get for defending yourself in fear of your life.

Three, there is reason to worry about what will actually happen to CeCe in prison. It is kind of sickening to get into that. Suffice to say that putting a queer man in a male prison is bad enough for him, putting a woman in is far worse for her. Risks of abuse from prisoners and staff. This is why 41 months, plus whatever's happened in the last 11 months, is bad.

----

And also, thanks for bringing up the parallel in the same city, and useful comparisons with it. Controlling for location is imperfect in something like this, but more useful than comparing Florida and Georgia as I did recently.