Deprivation of Justice

“To have once been a criminal is no disgrace.  To remain a criminal is the disgrace.”

Malcom X

Hotep,

When I watched the Oscars this year, the award for best documentary inspired the latest expression by yours truly.  Congrats are in order for the creators of the film “Inside Job.” Ironically the name of this film would be a fitting title for a documentary about North Carolina’s SBI Crime Lab.  

Two of their top agents, Duane Deaver and Brenda Bissette, have left a trail of dishonesty and criminal intent that leads directly to former governor/attorney general, Mike Easley who was recently scrutinized, investigated and rendered guilty for his misuse of state funds and lying to a grand jury.  No state is without injustice.

For example, Louis Micken-Thomas was convicted of the murder and rape of 12 year old girl in 1964.  His conviction rode on the testimony of a crime lab worker who was later accused of having a long history of perjury and faking scientific credentials.  Louis Mickens-Thomas was released after serving 45 years in Grateford State Prison.

The actions of these shoddy crime lab agents and the opportunistic politicians, who directly or indirectly condone this ‘freestyle’ form of justice, are unacceptable.  People are being executed based upon bolstered evidence presented by criminals sanctioned as expert witnesses.  Some prisoners have had the misfortune of requesting clemency from a governor who once served as the attorney general and argued to keep the prisoner on death row.  Now, if that’s not an “Inside Job,” I don’t know what is.  Na mean?

With the hordes of examples of injustice that plague this country, there is one form of Poetic Justice being served.  Michael Ta’bon of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, lived in a makeshift jail throughout the month of February.  He called it the ’28 Day Prison and Death Fast.” Word is bond.

Ta’bon spent nearly a decade behind bars for armed robbery, but his self imprisonment is a means to send the troubled youth in North Philly, the message that “jail is for suckers.” His makeshift jail cell sits in front of a mural called “The Wall.”  It bares the 406 names of the city’s homicide victims of 2066.  Real talk.

If Mr. Ta’bon’s self incarceration can alter one person’s narrow path to destruction, eradicating the course for future injustice, then I believe it to be justice well served, by a man on the inside.  But, this “Inside Job” has yet to become an award winning documentary.  Ya heard?

Keep on Keepin,

MannofStat

Copyright © 2011 by Leroy Elwood Mann