Ringleader in 1998 gruesome Texas dragging death to be executed

Matthew Shepard and James Byrd Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act

The bill was first introduced into the 107 Congress's House of Representatives on April 3, 2001, by Rep. John Conyers and was referred to the Subcommittee on Crime. The bill died when it failed to advance in the committee. It was reintroduced by Rep. Conyers in the 108th and 109th congresses (on April 22, 2004, and May 26, 2005, respectively). As previously, it died both times when it failed to advance in committee.

Ringleader in 1998 gruesome Texas dragging death to be executed

Mylinda Byrd Washington, 66, left, and Louvon Byrd Harris,
61, hold photographs of their brother James Byrd Jr. in Houston.
James Byrd Jr. was the victim of what is considered to be one of
the most gruesome hate crime murders in recent Texas history.

Huntsville, Texas – A man who orchestrated one of the most gruesome hate crimes in U.S. history is set to be executed Wednesday for the dragging death of James Byrd Jr. nearly 21 years ago.

John William King, who is white and an avowed racist, was put on death row for chaining Byrd to the back of a truck and dragging his body for nearly 3 miles along a secluded road in the piney woods outside Jasper, Texas. The 49-year-old Byrd, who was black, was alive for at least 2 miles before his body was ripped to pieces in the early morning hours of June 7, 1998.

Prosecutors said he was targeted because he was black.

Authorities say the 44-year-old King is openly racist and has offensive tattoos on his body, including one of a black man with a noose around his neck hanging from a tree.

If executed, King would be the fourth inmate put to death this year in the U.S. and the third in Texas, the nation’s busiest capital punishment state.

The hate crime put a national spotlight on Jasper, a town of about 7,600 residents near the Texas-Louisiana border that was branded with a racist stigma it has tried to shake off ever since. Local officials say the reputation is undeserved.

King’s attorneys have asked the U.S. Supreme Court to halt his execution, arguing that King’s trial lawyers violated his constitutional rights by not presenting his claims of innocence and conceding his guilt. His lawyers cited a 2018 Supreme Court ruling in a Louisiana case in which the justices said that a lawyer for a criminal defendant cannot override his client’s wish to maintain his innocence at trial.

“From the time of indictment through his trial, Mr. King maintained his absolute innocence, claiming that he had left his co-defendants and Mr. Byrd sometime prior to his death and was not present at the scene of his murder. Mr. King repeatedly expressed to defense counsel that he wanted to present his innocence claim at trial,” A. Richard Ellis, one of King’s appellate attorneys, wrote in his petition to the Supreme Court.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals on Monday rejected a similar request to stop the execution.

John William King

The Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles on Monday turned down King’s request for either a commutation of his sentence or a 120-day reprieve.

Over the years, King has also suggested the brutal slaying was not a hate crime, but a drug deal gone bad involving his co-defendants.

King, who grew up in Jasper and was known as “Bill,” will be the second man executed in the case. Lawrence Russell Brewer was executed in 2011. The third participant, Shawn Allen Berry, was sentenced to life in prison.

King declined an interview request from The Associated Press in the weeks leading up to his planned execution.

In a 2001 interview with the AP, King said he was an “avowed racist” but wasn’t “a hate-monger murderer.”

Louvon Byrd Harris, one of Byrd’s sisters, said she and other family members plan to attend King’s execution.

“I think it will be a message to the world that when you do something horrible like that, that you have to pay the high penalty,” she said.

Harris said she doesn’t expect King to be remorseful. Brewer said nothing to Byrd’s family before he was put to death.

“All they are going to do is go to sleep. But half the things they did to James, all the suffering he had to go through, they still get an easy way out to me,” Harris said.

Billy Rowles, who led the investigation into Byrd’s death when he was sheriff in Jasper County, said after King was taken to death row in 1999, he offered to detail the crime as soon as his co-defendants were convicted. When Rowles returned, all King would say was, “I wasn’t there.”

“He played us like a fiddle, getting us to go over there and thinking we’re going to get the rest of the story,” said Rowles, now the sheriff of neighboring Newton County.

A week before Brewer was executed in 2011, Rowles said he visited Brewer, who confirmed “the whole thing was Bill King’s idea.”

Mylinda Byrd Washington, another of Byrd’s sisters, said she and her family will work through the Byrd Foundation for Racial Healing to ensure her brother’s death continues to combat hate everywhere.

“I hope people remember him not as a hate crime statistic. This was a real person. A family man, a father, a brother and a son,” she said.

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Chairman Conyers on Preventing Hate Crimes

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

CONYERS: We Must Never Forget The Nine Lives Lost In Charleston

"It’s been one year since the brutal murder of nine innocent African-Americans at the historically black Emmanuel AME Church in South Carolina. 

Today we remember them as we reflect on the tragic loss of life. 

I am reminded that while the killer was bound by evil hatred, the system failed us in that situation. 

We must strengthen our gun laws to close loopholes that allow guns to fall into the wrong hands.", said Conyers.

#EndHateCrimes #EndGunViolence

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

CONYERS, COHEN & JOHNSON: GOP’S So-Called “Better Way” Is The Wrong Way For Americans

HOUSE JUDICIARY COMMITTEE DEMOCRATS RESPOND TO SPEAKER RYAN’S “TASK FORCE ON RESTORING CONSTITUTIONAL AUTHORITY” REPORT

Washington, D.C. – House Judiciary Democrats want to address the real problems facing our Nation today by: 

• Preventing Gun Violence: Congress can longer stand idly by while our communities are ravaged by gun violence. Americans should feel safe whether attending school, their place of worship, in their movie theaters or out in their communities.

• Combating Hate Crimes: No American should live in fear of being a target of violence because of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, age, disability or sex.  

• Strengthening Voting Rights: States across the Nation have implemented laws that disenfranchise voters and impede their ability to have their voices heard. Every American deserves equal access to the ballot box.

• Relieving Crushing Student Loan Debt: The class of 2015 graduated with the most student loan debt in U.S. history. Overwhelming student loan debt is preventing young Americans from purchasing homes, starting families, and contributing to our economy.

• Helping American Consumers: Companies should not be able to force Americans to forego their rights to seek legal redress in the courts.

However, House Judiciary Republicans have not held a single hearing on these issues this Congress. Instead, they would rather focus on protecting corporate interests and their own political agenda. Today, Speaker Ryan’s Task Force on Restoring Constitutional Authority issued a report as part of the so-called “Better Way” agenda.  House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-MI), Subcommittee on the Constitution and Civil Justice Ranking Member Steve Cohen (D-TN), and Subcommittee on Regulatory Reform, Commercial and Antitrust Law Ranking Member Henry C. “Hank” Johnson, Jr. (D-GA) released the following statements in response to the report:

Dean of the U.S. House
of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

“For the second time in two days, House Republicans have issued a report consisting mostly of recycled and long-discredited proposals clearly intended to undermine Federal agencies’ ability to protect public health and safety and to open the door to ideologically-motivated lawsuits against the Executive Branch, among other things,” said Congressman Conyers. “Congress delegated broad authority to agencies because they have the expertise to develop highly technical regulations that sometimes require years of study which Congress lacks the time and resources to do on its own.  This is why the Supreme Court has long recognized that the Constitution allows Congress to obtain the assistance of the other branches of government, including the Executive Branch, in implementing the laws that Congress passes.”

Congressman Conyers continued, “While there are areas where Congress has failed to assert itself sufficiently -- such as the President’s exercise of war powers -- this report does little to address those concerns.  Rather, this report simply recycles the same old pro-corporate, anti-consumer proposals that House Republicans have been pushing for decades, masked as constitutional issues.”

“Today’s report on the so-called “A Better Way: The Constitution” is mostly a re-hash of meritless proposals that, among other things, invite frivolous lawsuits by Congress against the President over routine policy debates and hamstring the ability of agencies to do the critical job of ensuring the health, safety, and rights of the American people that Congress tasked them with doing,” said Congressman Cohen.  “In hearing after hearing before the Judiciary Committee, House Republicans have sought to constitutionalize what are essentially policy and political disputes.  Really, this reflects the fact that they do not have the votes to achieve their policy ends through the political process.  And that is because most Americans like the kind of protections for the environment, civil rights, consumer products, and workplace safety that House Republicans have repeatedly tried to undermine.”

“Because dismantling our government’s ability to provide for the public interest is apparently not enough, Republicans now embark on a dangerous path to rig the courts and regulatory system against the public by abolishing longstanding Supreme Court precedent that is fundamental to our legal tradition and upholding the very rights established by both the Constitution and Congress,” Congressman Johnson stated. “These so-called “solutions” appear to come straight from the Koch brothers’ wish list. Yet another example of the corporate-welfare policies that Republicans so eagerly pursue, there is little doubt that the result of this crony-capitalist agenda would be a deep betrayal of our constitutional and statutory protections, practically guaranteeing a rigged system by which corporate misconduct could seldom be held accountable.”

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

CONYERS STATEMENT ON MASS SHOOTING IN ORLANDO

Detroit, MI – House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (MI-13) today released the following statement on the mass shooting in Orlando, Florida:

Dean of the U.S. House of Representatives
John Conyers, Jr.

“The shooting in Orlando early this morning, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history, is a terrible tragedy, made even more appalling by the possibility that it may have been a hate crime against the LGBT community during LGBT Pride month. I am thankful that law enforcement appears to have prevented another attack against the LGBT community in Los Angeles this morning. As we investigate the facts, treat the wounded, and console the victims and their families, we must not delay in taking action to strengthen our gun laws to close gaps and make us safer. 

“The daily, deadly toll of gun violence on our streets, in addition to the all-too regular occurrence of mass shootings, has long demanded that Congress not shrink from this critical task.  We know that closing loopholes regarding firearms background checks, while not the solution for every such instance, will help reduce gun violence. However, as we approach the one-year anniversary of the mass shooting at the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, we are reminded that the system failed us in that situation, yet we have not addressed that weakness in the law. We must take action on a comprehensive set of measures as soon as possible.”

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Conyers Decries Senseless Beating of Steve Utash, Calls for Full Investigation

(WASHINGTON) – Congressman John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) issued the following statement in response to press accounts of the beating of Steve Utash:

U.S. Representative
John Conyers, Jr.

"The tragic beating of Steve Utash has left Detroiters asking how such a senseless act could occur, let alone in one of our neighborhoods. I have full confidence that the Detroit Police Department and Wayne County Prosecutor’s Office will conduct a comprehensive investigation to resolve this deeply troubling case and determine whether state or federal hate crime laws are implicated by the incident. My heart goes out to the family of Mr. Utash, and I will be in touch with them in the coming days.”

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

This New York Times opinion was submitted as testimony in the death of  Trayvon Martin in the Judiciary Forum on Racial Profiling, Federal Hate Crimes Enforcement and

“Stand Your Ground” Laws: Protecting a “Suspect” Community. March 26, 2012

Lobbyists, Guns and Money

Florida’s now-infamous Stand Your Ground law, which lets you shoot someone you consider threatening without facing arrest, let alone prosecution, sounds crazy — and it is. And it’s tempting to dismiss this law as the work of ignorant yahoos. But similar laws have been pushed across the nation, not by ignorant yahoos but by big corporations.

Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times

Paul Krugman

Specifically, language virtually identical to Florida’s law is featured in a template supplied to legislators in other states by the American Legislative Exchange Council, a corporate-backed organization that has managed to keep a low profile even as it exerts vast influence (only recently, thanks to yeoman work by the Center for Media and Democracy, has a clear picture of ALEC’s activities emerged). And if there is any silver lining to Trayvon Martin’s killing, it is that it might finally place a spotlight on what ALEC is doing to our society — and our democracy.

What is ALEC? Despite claims that it’s nonpartisan, it’s very much a movement-conservative organization, funded by the usual suspects: the Kochs, Exxon Mobil, and so on. Unlike other such groups, however, it doesn’t just influence laws, it literally writes them, supplying fully drafted bills to state legislators. In Virginia, for example, more than 50 ALEC-written bills have been introduced, many almost word for word. And these bills often become law.

Many ALEC-drafted bills pursue standard conservative goals: union-busting, undermining environmental protection, tax breaks for corporations and the wealthy. ALEC seems, however, to have a special interest in privatization — that is, on turning the provision of public services, from schools to prisons, over to for-profit corporations. And some of the most prominent beneficiaries of privatization, such as the online education company K12 Inc. and the prison operator Corrections Corporation of America, are, not surprisingly, very much involved with the organization.

What this tells us, in turn, is that ALEC’s claim to stand for limited government and free markets is deeply misleading. To a large extent the organization seeks not limited government but privatized government, in which corporations get their profits from taxpayer dollars, dollars steered their way by friendly politicians. In short, ALEC isn’t so much about promoting free markets as it is about expanding crony capitalism.

And in case you were wondering, no, the kind of privatization ALEC promotes isn’t in the public interest; instead of success stories, what we’re getting is a series of scandals. Private charter schools, for example, appear to deliver a lot of profits but little in the way of educational achievement.

But where does the encouragement of vigilante (in)justice fit into this picture? In part it’s the same old story — the long-standing exploitation of public fears, especially those associated with racial tension, to promote a pro-corporate, pro-wealthy agenda. It’s neither an accident nor a surprise that the National Rifle Association and ALEC have been close allies all along.

And ALEC, even more than other movement-conservative organizations, is clearly playing a long game. Its legislative templates aren’t just about generating immediate benefits to the organization’s corporate sponsors; they’re about creating a political climate that will favor even more corporation-friendly legislation in the future.

Did I mention that ALEC has played a key role in promoting bills that make it hard for the poor and ethnic minorities to vote?

Yet that’s not all; you have to think about the interests of the penal-industrial complex — prison operators, bail-bond companies and more. (The American Bail Coalition has publicly described ALEC as its “life preserver.”) This complex has a financial stake in anything that sends more people into the courts and the prisons, whether it’s exaggerated fear of racial minorities or Arizona’s draconian immigration law, a law that followed an ALEC template almost verbatim.

Think about that: we seem to be turning into a country where crony capitalism doesn’t just waste taxpayer money but warps criminal justice, in which growing incarceration reflects not the need to protect law-abiding citizens but the profits corporations can reap from a larger prison population.

Now, ALEC isn’t single-handedly responsible for the corporatization of our political life; its influence is as much a symptom as a cause. But shining a light on ALEC and its supporters — a roster that includes many companies, from AT&T and Coca-Cola to UPS, that have so far managed to avoid being publicly associated with the hard-right agenda — is one good way to highlight what’s going on. And that kind of knowledge is what we need to start taking our country back
.

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Association of Prosecuting Attorneys Statement For Trayvon Martin Judiciary Hearing, March 26, 2012

Association of Prosecuting Attorneys Statement on Legislative Expansion of the Castle Doctrine. March 26, 2012
Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Join Us for a Forum on Racial Profiling, Federal Hate Crimes Enforcement and “Stand Your Ground” Laws: Protecting a “Suspect” Community

Please join us for a forum on the Federal hate crimes enforcement authority and
racial profiling and “Stand Your Ground” laws on Tuesday, March 27, in Rayburn House
Office Building Room 2237, from 3 PM – 5 PM.  


Please note:  this is not a formal hearing and will not be broadcast on the Judiciary website.  Video will be posted as soon as available.
Join Us for a Forum on Racial Profiling, Federal Hate Crimes Enforcement and “Stand Your Ground” Laws: Pr...

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

Trayvon Martin killing puts Sanford, Florida on edge

Trayvon Martin killing puts Sanford, Florida on edge

View Photo Gallery —  The fatal shooting of an unarmed black 17-year-old from Florida by a neighborhood watch volunteer in Sanford, Fla., has led to a federal investigation, numerous protest rallies and a national spotlight.

(Bloomberg) -- This isn’t the Florida retirement Becky Drumheller imagined back home in Pennsylvania.


She and her husband arrived March 24 in Sanford, a city about 20 miles north of Orlando consumed by the killing of Trayvon Martin, a black, unarmed 17-year-old Miami Gardens resident who was shot Feb. 26 in his father’s gated community by George Zimmerman, a neighborhood watch volunteer. Zimmerman, whose mother is Hispanic and father is white, has claimed self- defense and has not been arrested, a decision that has prompted rallies across the nation, and that residents say has fractured this city of 54,000.

“There is so much negativity,” Drumheller, 63, said as a driver honked and motioned her out of the way in a shopping-mall parking lot. “It’s overwhelming.”

The Sanford City Council will hold a special meeting this afternoon at which Martin’s parents are expected to speak. In addition to the 1,200 seats at the Civic Center, where the meeting will be held, an overflow viewing area with a video screen has been set up at a nearby park.

Martin’s parents will lead an eight-block march to the Civic Center.

“The events that have recently occurred here in the city of Sanford have certainly taken a toll on everyone,” acting police Chief Darren Scott said at a news conference. Scott was appointed to the position today by City Manager Norton Bonaparte after former Chief Bill Lee stepped aside last week.

Florida to Washington

The U.S. Justice Department last week opened a civil rights inquiry into the incident. Fourteen Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee sent a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder asking that as part of it he “explore the applicability” of the federal hate-crime statute and other federal laws.

Tomorrow, Democrats on the U.S. House of Representatives Judiciary Committee will hold an unofficial hearing on Capitol Hill seeking to bring attention to the Justice Department probe of the shooting.

The forum starts at 3 p.m. tomorrow, Matt Morgan, a spokesman for Representative John Conyers of Michigan, the top Democrat on the panel, said in an e-mail today. Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, will testify, said Ryan Julison, a family spokesman.

Force Meets Force

The Congressional Black Caucus, which has been calling for formal hearings to probe the shooting, will hold briefings this week to “raise the level of awareness around the country about hate crimes and racial profiling,” Representative Barbara Lee, a California Democrat and former caucus chairwoman, said today in a statement.

Representative Xavier Becerra of California, a member of the Democratic leadership, said it was “incomprehensible” how long it took for Florida leaders to act after the shooting.

The Reverend Jesse Jackson, the civil rights activist, has advocated a voter-registration drive with the aim of electing officials who would repeal Florida’s “stand your ground” law.

Local officials said the law, which relieves a citizen of responsibility to retreat when he feels threatened in a public place and gives him the right to “meet force with force,” prevented them from making an arrest after Zimmerman killed Martin. The teenager was walking to his father’s home after buying Skittles candy and an iced tea from a convenience store.

Suspended From School

The Orlando Sentinel, citing “authorities” whom it didn’t name, reported today that Martin attacked Zimmerman and slammed his head into the sidewalk. That matches the account that Zimmerman gave police and was corroborated by eyewitnesses, the newspaper reported.

Julison, the Martin family spokesman, said today that the teenager was in Sanford because he was suspended from school last month for having a baggie that contained marijuana residue in his book bag. The family believes the suspension had nothing to do with the killing, he said.

Scott today urged patience for residents who want a “quick and positive resolution in this tragic event.”

“We do have a system in place, a legal system,” he said. “It may not be perfect, but it’s the only one we have.”


Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©

House Judiciary Democrats Encourage Department of Justice to Review Trayvon Martin Shooting Under Federal Hate Crime Laws

U.S. Democratic House Judiciary Letter to Attorney General requesting investigation of hate crime in the murder of Trayvon Martin.
Chairman Conyers' Judiciary Letter to Holder Re Trayvon Martin March 22, 2012

Voting is beautiful, be beautiful ~ vote.©