[Blog/Commentary] [USA] Was Pres. Obama's Signature on the Hate Crimes Act Just a Waste of Time & Ink??
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Stephanie Stevens
May 9, 2012, 11:54:44 AM5/9/12
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abitchforjustice, USA
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Was Pres. Obama's Signature on the Hate Crimes Act Just a Waste of Time & Ink??
by Cheryl Courtney-Evans
[Photo: CeCe McDonald]
In October of 2009, President Obama finally signed into law the
"Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act". This
law was to address the violence visited upon the Gender Non-Conforming
(GNC, aka TBGL) community. Besides providing for stiffer penalties for
perpetrators of hate crimes against this community, it's purpose was
to provide avenues for the FBI's Civil Rights division to take over
investigation of violent crimes when local authorities lacked the
resources or intention to investigate them (indeed even if the local
authorities are/were the perpetrators). The CeCe McDonald case would
indeed seem to be just such a case. The local authorities, and the
prosecutor in the person of Michael Freeman of Hennipen County,
Minneapolis, certainly seem to have maitained a miscarriage of justice
against this young African American transwoman, CeCe McDonald.
As I first posted November 8, 2011
<http://abitchforjustice.blogspot.com/2011/11/another-piece-of-transgender-injustice.html>
, she was being held and charged with murder after she and her friends
were attacked by a group of drunken hate-filled bigots. A man who was
with the attackers, Dean Schmitz, was stabbed in the melee and as a
result died; CeCe had sustained a cut to her face requiring 11
stitches (due to a glass being shattered in her face). But now to add
insult to this injury, she is continuing to be punished for her
survival! THIS IS A TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE!! The Hate Crimes Act not only
did not "prevent" the crime against her, BUT IS NOT PROTECTING HER
NOW! Was President Obama's signature on this Act just a waste of ink??
By all accounts she and her friends were victims of a hate crime, and
the authorities have done nothing to address that, preferring instead
to blame the death on the intended victim(s)! One can't help but
wonder if this is because CeCe McDonald is transgender, African
American or both. It would seem to me to mean that the local
authorities would be accomplices in the hate crime.
It is now my sad duty to report that CeCe McDonald has pleaded guilty
to 2nd degree manslaughter...
<http://www.glaad.org/blog/cece-mcdonald-pleads-guilty-second-degree-manslaughter>
THIS IS A FUCKING SHAME (sorry y'all but that's the only way
"abitchforjustice" can see to express how I feel about this)!
Where is the Hate Crimes Act when we need to have it utilized??? I may
not be a great legal mind, but where are the legal minds among CeCe's
supporters? Has no one contacted the Department of Justice (DOJ), that
the federal government can step in and do the investigation that the
local authorities have obviously failed to do? Would this young
transwoman be in jail if she'd been biologically female and she and
her friends, beset by muggers, killed on of them? I highly doubt it...
I say the DOJ should be called in and some legal way needs to be found
to have this plea set aside. I believe this is a clear case of
coercion; Ms. McDonald, after all this time behind bars has very
likely had her indomitable spirit (that I have seen in all her smiling
pictures) sorely tested by this trial, and knowing this, prosecutor
Freeman has used it to coerce her, threatening a much stiffer
sentence should she make him take the case to trial (we know too well
how that works)...he wants another conviction to his record, justice
be damned.
I'm sending out this plea to anyone who's a lawyer, as well as a
reader of "abitchforjustice", or knows a lawyer with a deep sense for
justice, to take this up as a 'friend of the court', and file papers
with the DOJ (or whatever it takes to get their attention to this
case; perhaps CeCe's Minneapolis friends could start an online
petition to the DOJ also...THIS CASE NEEDS ATTENTION IN THE PLACE
WHERE THAT ATTENTION MAY DO THE MOST GOOD, certainly NOT Hennepin
County).
Meanwhile, if you'd like to support CeCe McDonald, you may visit the
Supporting CeCe McDonald
<https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/138224446310449/> page on facebook
to see what you can do to help this young transwoman in desparate need
of this support.
Posted by Cheryl Courtney-Evans at 7:12 AM
http://abitchforjustice.blogspot.com/2012/05/was-pres-obamas-signature-on-hate.html
Tuesday, May 8, 2012
Was Pres. Obama's Signature on the Hate Crimes Act Just a Waste of Time & Ink??
by Cheryl Courtney-Evans
[Photo: CeCe McDonald]
In October of 2009, President Obama finally signed into law the
"Matthew Shepard and James Byrd, Jr. Hate Crimes Prevention Act". This
law was to address the violence visited upon the Gender Non-Conforming
(GNC, aka TBGL) community. Besides providing for stiffer penalties for
perpetrators of hate crimes against this community, it's purpose was
to provide avenues for the FBI's Civil Rights division to take over
investigation of violent crimes when local authorities lacked the
resources or intention to investigate them (indeed even if the local
authorities are/were the perpetrators). The CeCe McDonald case would
indeed seem to be just such a case. The local authorities, and the
prosecutor in the person of Michael Freeman of Hennipen County,
Minneapolis, certainly seem to have maitained a miscarriage of justice
against this young African American transwoman, CeCe McDonald.
As I first posted November 8, 2011
<http://abitchforjustice.blogspot.com/2011/11/another-piece-of-transgender-injustice.html>
, she was being held and charged with murder after she and her friends
were attacked by a group of drunken hate-filled bigots. A man who was
with the attackers, Dean Schmitz, was stabbed in the melee and as a
result died; CeCe had sustained a cut to her face requiring 11
stitches (due to a glass being shattered in her face). But now to add
insult to this injury, she is continuing to be punished for her
survival! THIS IS A TRAVESTY OF JUSTICE!! The Hate Crimes Act not only
did not "prevent" the crime against her, BUT IS NOT PROTECTING HER
NOW! Was President Obama's signature on this Act just a waste of ink??
By all accounts she and her friends were victims of a hate crime, and
the authorities have done nothing to address that, preferring instead
to blame the death on the intended victim(s)! One can't help but
wonder if this is because CeCe McDonald is transgender, African
American or both. It would seem to me to mean that the local
authorities would be accomplices in the hate crime.
It is now my sad duty to report that CeCe McDonald has pleaded guilty
to 2nd degree manslaughter...
<http://www.glaad.org/blog/cece-mcdonald-pleads-guilty-second-degree-manslaughter>
THIS IS A FUCKING SHAME (sorry y'all but that's the only way
"abitchforjustice" can see to express how I feel about this)!
Where is the Hate Crimes Act when we need to have it utilized??? I may
not be a great legal mind, but where are the legal minds among CeCe's
supporters? Has no one contacted the Department of Justice (DOJ), that
the federal government can step in and do the investigation that the
local authorities have obviously failed to do? Would this young
transwoman be in jail if she'd been biologically female and she and
her friends, beset by muggers, killed on of them? I highly doubt it...
I say the DOJ should be called in and some legal way needs to be found
to have this plea set aside. I believe this is a clear case of
coercion; Ms. McDonald, after all this time behind bars has very
likely had her indomitable spirit (that I have seen in all her smiling
pictures) sorely tested by this trial, and knowing this, prosecutor
Freeman has used it to coerce her, threatening a much stiffer
sentence should she make him take the case to trial (we know too well
how that works)...he wants another conviction to his record, justice
be damned.
I'm sending out this plea to anyone who's a lawyer, as well as a
reader of "abitchforjustice", or knows a lawyer with a deep sense for
justice, to take this up as a 'friend of the court', and file papers
with the DOJ (or whatever it takes to get their attention to this
case; perhaps CeCe's Minneapolis friends could start an online
petition to the DOJ also...THIS CASE NEEDS ATTENTION IN THE PLACE
WHERE THAT ATTENTION MAY DO THE MOST GOOD, certainly NOT Hennepin
County).
Meanwhile, if you'd like to support CeCe McDonald, you may visit the
Supporting CeCe McDonald
<https://www.facebook.com/#!/events/138224446310449/> page on facebook
to see what you can do to help this young transwoman in desparate need
of this support.
Posted by Cheryl Courtney-Evans at 7:12 AM
http://abitchforjustice.blogspot.com/2012/05/was-pres-obamas-signature-on-hate.html
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