FRIDAY CHATTER

 COURT REPORTER UPDATE:

After spending a night in TGK, she was released this morning and we are being told the transcripts were produced. Gratified to learn this woman did not have to spend a holiday weekend in jail. Thus ends yet another REGJB contretemps. The Judge who incarcerated the reporter was Judge Delancy, one of our best, so we will not second guess her decision without seeing the transcript. Judge Wolfson issued the release order today, but that may be because the transcripts were produced and Judge Delancy might have been unavailable. We do not think Judge Delancy, unlike many of her (DeSantis Drone) colleagues takes incarcerating anyone lightly. 

FLY THAT FLAG

Judge Michael Ponsor has been a US District Court judge in Boston for four decades. He wrote this op -ed piece about Justice Alito. It is worth a read. Here are some highlights if the pay wall stops you: 

To me, the flag issue is much simpler. The fact is that, regardless of its legality, displaying the flag in that way, at that time, shouldn’t have happened. To put it bluntly, any judge with reasonable ethical instincts would have realized immediately that flying the flag then and in that way was improper. And dumb.

Courts work because people trust judges. Taking sides in this way erodes that trust.

...

In four decades as a federal judge, I have known scores, possibly hundreds, of federal trial and appellate judges pretty well. I can’t think of a single one, no matter who appointed her or him, who has engaged or would engage in conduct like that. You just don’t do that sort of thing, whether it may be considered over the line, or just edging up to the margin. Flying those flags was tantamount to sticking a “Stop the Steal” bumper sticker on your car. You just don’t do it.

...

 But basic ethical behavior should not rely on laws or regulations. It should be folded into a judge’s DNA. That didn’t happen here. The flag display may or may not have been unlawful, but as far as the public’s perception of the court’s integrity, it certainly was not helpful.

WRONGFUL EXEXCUTION

And finally this. For all of you who champion the American Justice system as the best in the world, we respond, we are far from the best- we murdered a child by a Judge ordered execution simply because the child was black and a white woman was killed.  Here is the NY Times Article

On June 8, 1931, Alexander McClay Williams, a 16-year-old Black student, was executed by electric chair, the youngest person to be put to death in Pennsylvania history.

Ms. Robare’s body was found in her apartment, which was on the campus of the Glen Mills School, on Oct. 3, 1930. She had been stabbed 47 times with an ice pick. The body was discovered by her husband, Fred Robare. According to the suit, The Chester Times, a local newspaper, quoted Oliver Smith, a detective investigating the case, as saying that the murder had been committed by “a full-grown and strong man.”

An overturned lamp was the only sign of disruption. Ms. Robare’s keys were missing, according to the lawsuit, but a wristwatch and $15 had been left untouched on a bureau.

Investigators zeroed in on Alexander, one of the 600 students at the school, though it is unclear why. Alexander is described in the suit as having been 5 feet 5 inches tall and weighing 125 pounds, contradicting Mr. Smith’s description of the killer. Initially, Alexander denied having anything to do with the murder. But over the course of multiple interrogations, without a lawyer or his parents present, he eventually confessed. There was no physical evidence tying him to the scene. There was, however, a bloody handprint found at the scene, which did not belong to him.

One piece of evidence that was used against Alexander was testimony of a school employee who said that on the day of the murder, Alexander and a classmate were sent to procure shovels, and that Alexander was to deliver the receipts for those shovels to someone else at the school. The employee testified that it took Alexander 20 minutes to return after dropping off the receipt. When he returned, he did not have any blood on him, nor was there anything odd about his demeanor. It was within this 20-minute window that prosecutors contended Alexander committed the murder.

“How can you stab somebody 47 times, break their ribs and just go around the house and not have any blood on you anywhere?” Ms. Carter, who is one of Alexander’s 12 siblings, said in the interview. “That should have told them that this was wrong.”

Investigators did not appear to consider Mr. Robare as a suspect. Nine years earlier, Ms. Robare filed for divorce from her husband, citing “extreme cruelty.”

A judge overturned the conviction in 2022 and granted a motion for a retrial. Jack Stollsteimer, the Delaware County district attorney, moved to dismiss the charges posthumously, acknowledging yet another example of a Black person being wrongfully convicted of a crime they hadn’t committed.

On Friday, Alexander’s family filed a federal lawsuit in the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania against Delaware County, as well as the estates of the detectives and prosecutors on the case, calling their conduct “outrageous, malicious, wanton, willful, reckless and intentionally designed to inflict harm.”

You want to tell us we have the best justice system in the world? Start with this damn case. 

Sorry to end with a downer. 
Enjoy your holiday weekend and in thinking about Memorial Day spend a  moment saying the name of young Alexander McClay Williams and remember all that was taken from him.