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Slide 1
Slide 2
Presents A Community Outcry For Justice A GREATER HOUSTON
COALITION FOR JUSTICE
Slide 3
Houston a Beautiful Majestic City But, behind this beauty,
there is a dark side. An unbridled use of excessive or deadly force
by law enforcement
Slide 4
Criminal Justice for the community of color has been elusive in
Houston-Harris County. A perception exist that Harris County is a
discriminatory institutionalized criminal justice system, beginning
with the Harris County Grand Jury, police departments internal
affairs and other criminal justice institutions. Much has been
written about Harris Countys Grand Jurys system miscarriage of
justice, especially when it involves Police use of force and deadly
force against people of color. The formation of the Greater Houston
Coalition for Justice was for the purpose of initiating a cohesive
community strategy to address critical issues that could result in
serious consequences to our communities. HARRIS COUNTY GRAND
JURY
Slide 5
A QUESTIONABLE GRAND JURY SYSTEM IN HARRIS COUNTY Is the Harris
County Grand Jury commissioner selection system susceptible to
abuse? In Texas, state law allows two choices for seating grand
juries: random selection as in jury trials and a system using
commissioners. In Harris County, 12 of 21 criminal district courts
use the commissioner approach to empanel a grand jury, while
another seven courts employ the random system. One of the remaining
courts uses a combination of random jurors and people who volunteer
on their own to serve on grand juries. One court relies exclusively
on those who volunteer or already have served on grand juries. The
U.S. Supreme Court upheld the use of the commissioner method in
Texas, justices warned in a 1977 opinion that it is susceptible to
abuse.
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Investigation raises questions about whether grand jury system
in Harris County favors police Grand jurors empathizing with police
officers is at the heart of questions raised about the shooting
simulator. Source: By James Pinkerton
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HAS THE USE OF SHOOTING SIMULATORS TRAINING BY GRAND JURORS
TAINTED INDICTMENTS OF POLICE OFFICERS IN HARRIS COUNTY? The
District Attorneys use of a Simulator Training Program for Grand
Jury members is an impermissible influence on the Grand Jury
system. How can Grand Jurors be expected to look at a case
impartially when they start their term by watching a one-sided
simulator? Grand Jurors either be shown an opposing view of the
simulator program or else shown nothing at all - just like real
jurors.
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HAS THE USE OF SHOOTING SIMULATORS TRAINING BY GRAND JURORS
TAINTED INDICTMENTS OF POLICE OFFICERS IN HARRIS COUNTY? The
Simulator is inherently flawed because it is simply not based on
reality. Is the DAs Office saying that the scenarios depicted in
the Simulator are based on actual events? OF COURSE NOT. It is more
appropriate, and more in line with the adversarial system of
American Jurisprudence, to offer alternative points of view. In
light of recent cases highlighting prosecutorial misconduct and the
conviction of innocent people, Grand Jurors would be better served
- and so would justice- if they were also required to view recent
documentaries on this subject. Documentaries such as The Thin Blue
Line or the Recent CNN program on the Michael Morton Case. There
are numerous examples. One could go as far back as The Scottsboro
Boys, an incident from the early 1930s.
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HAS THE USE OF SHOOTING SIMULATORS TRAINING BY GRAND JURORS
TAINTED INDICTMENTS OF POLICE OFFICERS IN HARRIS COUNTY? Grand
Jurors should also be exposed to the advances of DNA evidence and
how that has revealed terrible miscarriages of justice (e.g. The
Innocence Project). In conclusion, justice is not justice when only
one side is presented; nor when opposing view points are
deliberately omitted; and certainly not when grand jurors start out
with biases. Was the Simulator shown in the Brian Claunchs
proceeding? Houston police officer cleared Grand Jury who shot and
killed a one- armed, one-legged man in a wheelchair.
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REPORTED CASES OF POLICE BRUTALITY
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A Call for Justice JAMES PINKERTON Houston Chronicle Published
06:30 a.m., Tuesday, January 26, 2010 Houston and Texas Local civil
rights activists Tuesday called for the U.S. Department of Justice
to review the elevated number of officer-involved shootings in the
Houston area. Greater Houston Coalition for Justice Local civil
rights activists Tuesday called for the U.S. Department of Justice
to review the elevated number of officer-involved shootings in the
Houston area last year, and asked the City Council for public
access to internal police reviews of the use of deadly
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Reaction Over Another DOJ Request by: Pat Hernandez, February
17, 2011. There is another call for a Justice Department
investigation of the Houston Police Department. The Greater Houston
Coalition for Justice claims there is an apparent culture of
lawlessness in the HPD that needs to end. Pat Hernandez has more.
The Greater Houston Coalition for Justice, a group that includes
many civil rights organizations, announced it has filed a request
with the DOJ to launch a full investigation. The group says there
have been patterns and practices of civil rights violations by the
Houston Police Department against minorities.
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NO BILLED CASES BY HARRIS COUNTY GRAND JURIES SOURCE: (SOURCE:
BY JAMES PINKERTON HOUSTON CHRONICLE -
WWW.NEWS-JOURNAL.COM/NEWS/STATE/SHOOTING-SIMULATOR-SPURS HPD's own
records paint a controversial portrait. During the last decade,
2,135 complaints about alleged police brutality. Only 33 were
sustained -- less than two percent. And if you count only citizen
complaints, the number of times the brutality allegation has been
confirmed is just 16 -- 16 of more than 2,100. Harris County grand
juries have cleared HPD officers in shootings 288 consecutive
times. The last time a Harris County grand jury charged an HPD
officer in a shooting was in 2004. Since then, only three other
officers from other departments have been charged in shootings in
Harris County
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HARRIS COUNTY GRAND JURIES SELECTION PROCESS Advocate for state
Legislative change in Harris Countys Grand Jury System, including
how grand juries are selected. Grand Juries in Harris County have
close ties to the legal system. They included judges, attorneys,
court employees, bail bond agents, probation officers and law
enforcement officers. This is a selection process that is
antiquated and needs to be abolished. Its stacked, because the
selection is done for a judge by a commissioner, The commissioner
(he or she) select peers, people of their way of thinking. Its an
unfair practice, its subjective, encourages bias in the selection
process.
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THE GREATER HOUSTON COALITION FOR JUSTICE GRAND JURY REFORM
CAMPAIGN
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A PETITION BY CITIZENS OF HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS TO IMPROVE THE
SELECTION OF GRAND JURY MEMBERS BY RANDOMIZED METHODS Petition By
Citizens of Harris County, Texas To Improve the Selection of Grand
Jury Members by Randomized Methods Please review and sign this
petition. It is meant to improve the Harris County Grand Jury
System by ensuring qualified grand jurors are selected at random,
as opposed to potentially biased, and discriminatory manners that
exclude Blacks and Hispanics, as well as Women and Others. Partida,
430 U.S. at 494, 1977, in Karson, 2006, p. 10).
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A PETITION BY CITIZENS OF HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS TO IMPROVE THE
SELECTION OF GRAND JURY MEMBERS BY RANDOMIZED METHODS Background:
Over half of the commissioners nominating individuals to serve as
grand jurors were associated with the criminal justice system, and
less than 10% of the serving grand jurors were Hispanic-surnamed
though approximately 33% of the county population was Hispanic
(Karson, 2006, p. 3). Black and Women grand jurors face similar,
unfavorable odds. The exclusion of otherwise eligible persons from
jury service solely because of their ancestry or national origin is
discrimination prohibited by the Fourteenth Amendment (U.S. Supreme
Court, in Hernandez v. Texas). In Powers v. Ohio the Supreme Court
held that jurors have a right not to be excluded based on their
race, yet race-based exclusion continues to stigmatize growing
numbers of Americans.
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A PETITION BY CITIZENS OF HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS TO IMPROVE THE
SELECTION OF GRAND JURY MEMBERS BY RANDOMIZED METHODS History:
Racist Klansmen prevented the indictment of suspected murderers
during the Civil Rights movement in Mississippi in the 1960s and
that colonial rebels influenced the indictment of British soldiers
for murder during the Revolutionary War. Thus, it is suggested that
control of the grand jury is effectively the control of justice
(Karson, 2006, p. 4). The concept of being propertied in the system
gives one the power to create laws, to decide who will be defined
as the law breaker, to use the law to support ones own interests,
or to be able to have the law serve the interests of the ruling
class (Adler, Mueller & Laufer, 2004). Social power is retained
through the political power process (Mann, 1986). While there are
differing criminological perspectives on the origins of criminal
law, most recognize that the propertied influence the definition of
the law. The law, for all intents and purposes, is their property.
As such, some states continued to limit those eligible for jury
duty to those who were landholdersthose who were propertied in the
traditional sense of the word (Younger, 1963, in Karson, 2006, p.
4).
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A PETITION BY CITIZENS OF HARRIS COUNTY, TEXAS TO IMPROVE THE
SELECTION OF GRAND JURY MEMBERS BY RANDOMIZED METHODS Chronicle
author, Gutheinz (2008) served in the Harris Count Grand Jury
system, and termed it laughable, The grand jurors that are chosen
in Harris County are too white and too conservative. Most grand
juries here don't even come close to reflecting the ethnic, racial
and political makeup of Texas' most populous county. I know mine
didn't (June 1, 2008; too white, too right; minorities; democrats
pay unfair price). Call for Action: The County district courts have
continued to use the key-man system and have systematically
discriminated against the Hispanic population by limiting their
participation in the grand jury process. This failure jeopardizes
the assurance of an impartial jury (Holland v. Illinois, 1990) by
not allowing a fair cross-section of the populace to be considered
for service and it can be considered intentional discrimination as
the jury pool selection practice is susceptible of abuse or is not
racially neutral (Castaneda v. Partida, 430 U.S. at 494, 1977, in
Karson, 2006, p. 10).
Slide 20
We Can Do Better In America! The Greater Houston Coalition for
Justice (GHCFJ) has dedicated this presentation to the victims and
families of those who died or were seriously injured due to the use
of deadly or excessive force of police officers, during traffic
stops, investigations, or while in the custody of law enforcement
officers of the Houston Police Department, Harris County Sheriffs
Office, and other agencies in the greater Houston metropolitan area
and its surrounding counties The Greater Houston Coalition for
Justice (GHCFJ) has dedicated this presentation to the victims and
families of those who died or were seriously injured due to the use
of deadly or excessive force of police officers, during traffic
stops, investigations, or while in the custody of law enforcement
officers of the Houston Police Department, Harris County Sheriffs
Office, and other agencies in the greater Houston metropolitan area
and its surrounding counties.