Justice In America: A Tale Of Two Crimes

[Judi Lynn]

06.24.11 - 7:00 PM
Justice In America: A Tale Of Two Crimes
by Abby Zimet

Consider Paul Allen, 55, a former mortgage CEO who defrauded lenders of over $3 billion. This week, prosecutors celebrated the fact they got him a 40-month prison sentence. Consider Roy Brown, 54, a hungry homeless man who robbed a Louisiana bank of $100 - the teller gave him more but he handed the rest back. He felt bad the next day and surrendered to police. He got 15 years. Justice in America has a ways to go.

http://www.commondreams.org/further/2011/06/24-8

[mrcheerful]

1. What do you mean a long way to go? The US has been marching towards the justice system

of the 17th century since Nixon started the Law and Order nonsense. To be honest I'm surprised the CEO got 40 months, usually the CEO's walk away with a bonus for defrauding. To be frank the people who can't afford to slap $10,000 on a lawyer end up getting screwed. On top of that most people who can't afford a lawyer will try to talk their way out of jail by thinking they can "tell their side" to the police, anyone who watches police shows on TV hear it time after time, come clean, tell your side of the story and you won't go to jail. In fact when a suspect chooses to remain silent as the show cuts away to the break you hear the cop tell the camera "well he had his chance to tell his side, now he will be jailed. I'm so sick of the justice system it's not funny.

edited to correct a missing letter

[Doctor_J]

7. Yup.

It's working just perfectly, like our financial system, media, and elections. The PTB have them working EXACTLY as they've been planning.

[classysassy]

2. Justice in America

for the poor is a big joke.

[Stuart G]

3. Could be fradulent Story...cause..

this ran in Discussion forum on June 23..

two of us researched this..It is an endless blog, referencing to blogs referencing to more...
no original source,
no judge
no local coverage of crime..would seem that there would be some coverage due to fact that robber only took one some money and gave back the rest...
Nothing at all from Louisana on this..absoltuely nothing.
no follow up for 2 years cause original crime hit in 2007..originally I saw this one referenced to Bernie Maddow..
seems to have hit the internet in 2009



here is link at DU in discussion forum..

(in a moment I will give other Du poster who saw this as fraud..

slackmaster in posts 84, 86 and 87 question this stories validity.

I questioned it in post 126....
I recall it got 427 recs..something about it didn't feel correct.
I still don't like this one..and you can look for yourself..no 2007 reference from La ..none.

This story started to run on June 23 in Discussion Forum
AlecBGreen posted this........................post time...... Thu Jun-23-11 09:09 PM
Original message..title of post with over 130 responces..
Facebook post sums up American justice in one picture


http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1353941&mesg_id=1353941

[Judi Lynn]

6. Here's the story from a Shreveport radio station webpage, worded differently:

Man Who Took One Bill And Handed Rest Back To Bank Teller Gets 15-Year

A man who said he robbed a downtown Shreveport bank because he was out of a job and hungry has been sentenced to 15 years in prison for first-degree robbery.

Roy Brown, 54, of Audrey Lane, pleaded guilty in Caddo District Court to robbing the Capital One bank in December 2007.

Brown admitted walking up to a teller with one of his hands under his jacket and telling her it was a "stickup." The teller handed the man three stacks of bills and he took a single $100 bill, told her he was homeless and left, police said.

Brown surrendered to police the next day, telling them his mother didn't raise him that way.

Police let him sober up and interviewed him two days later. Police said Brown told them he needed money to stay in a downtown detox center, had nowhere to stay and was hungry -- so he walked up the street and robbed the bank.

http://www.ktbs.com/news/23350821/detail.html

That story has a 2010 copyright.

~ ~ ~
The event was also featured in an editorial in Salon magazine in 2009:

Wednesday, Jan 28, 2009 05:56 ET
The definition of a "two-tiered justice system"
By Glenn Greenwald

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2009/01/28/prosecutions/

[slackmaster]

9. The Astute Reader(TM) will note that neither link cites a verifiable ORIGINAL source for the story

That's why I believe it's bogus.

I want to know the name of the person who provided the information originally, the name of the reporter who took it in, etc.

[Judi Lynn]

10. Not every story is bylined. I'd like to mention I never imagined my story was bogus. n/t

[Stuart G]

11. If it is bogus, well.. should be trust "Common Dreams"?

Lots of websites published this one.
Many people passed it on. Not many questioned.
How are you to know?
Short, easy to read, sounds correct.
Someone must have checked it out..sure.
Years ago, more than 15, I used to teach this stuff in high school. (that is research) it ain't easy. believe me..
(either teaching it, or doing it...)


We all trust the internet too damn much.
Often people lie about news.

[Judi Lynn]

12. Who knows? Common Dreams, I've always found, before now, was very circumspect.

Never wild and wooley, half-assed.

I did a lot of looking, also, didn't find anything beyond the brief story.

I started wondering if it could have been buried, or killed, as an editorial decision not to give it a lot of play in that town, which could generate sympathy for someone they wanted the public to see only as a criminal. In the slammer. For his sins. Not to get any crazy ideas about committing robberies, then saying "sorry" in order to get leniency.

It wouldn't hurt at all to take a longer, harder squint at articles before posting them.

[Stuart G]

4. More

I particularly searched for the CADO District Court where this happened (supposively)


nothing on this case...not one story from any search engine with that reference
....all references are to blogs,
internet sources, not reliable, linking to other sources..that I found...

please, go look yourself. But look for 2007, when this happened, not a couple of years later..
When you find it, I will be glad to eat my mistake,
I don't mind it. It won't be the first time. and it won't be the last............

thanks for reading this
.Stuart G.

[slackmaster]

5. Here's a letter I sent to the news contact for KTBS asking for a confirmation of the robber story

Mr. Bain has not responded.

To: [e-mail]
Subject: Regarding the homeless man who got a 15-year sentence for robbery

Dear Mr. Bain,

I am interested in more information about the story at http://www.ktbs.com/news/23350821/detail.html

Can you please give me more detail about this story?

What is the name of the judge who handed down the harsh sentence? Did Mr. Brown have a public defender? If so, what is that person's name?

Has Mr. Brown appealed, and if so what was the outcome?

Where is Mr. Brown incarcerated?

Thanks in advance,

slackmaster
San Diego

[Stuart G]

8. All the stories that I have found, have copyrights from 2009 and later.

So at the time, 2007, that is the date that I found for this robbery,
....... this one ........supposively got no publicity

I don't believe that. sounds too interesting to get no publicity..

Sure, it will get repeated by anyone once it gets on the net...that is what the internet is.
.......telling and retelling the same thing...over and over again..
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Here is one with proveable sources about injustice in America..but..it will take 5 to 10 minutes to read..
but it is real, and proveable. A man sent to jail for a murder he didn't commit, put on death row, retried 3 times, when another
person had offered a confession at about the time the first man was sent to jail..yea..really..and although he was sentenced to die,
he didn't and consequently, his case of injustice helped to end the death penalty in Illinois...got the time to read this one.
(yes it is wikipedia, but all is proveable and real..cause I remember the case in the Chicago area..and all its twists and turns..




http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rolando_Cruz_case