theintercept--2020-05-03--Through Creative Accounting, Trump Tries to Cast America’s Death Toll as an Achievement

where the number of Americans killed by Covid-19 passed 65,000 , Donald Trump assured us that this death toll , looked at from the right angle , is really proof of how great he is at his job .
Asked on Thursday to account for his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner ’ s description of the federal government ’ s chaotic response to the coronavirus pandemic as “ a great success story ” that “ needs to be told , ” the president said that he agreed .
“ We ’ ve solved every problem , ” he claimed .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ I don ’ t think anybody has done a better job — with testing , with ventilators , with all of the things that we ’ ve done , ” Trump added .
“ And our death totals , our numbers per million people , are really very , very strong .
We ’ re very proud of the job we ’ ve done.
” Trump ’ s strange boast about the “ very , very strong ” death toll puzzled many viewers , but it helps to know that , for weeks @ @ @ @ @ @ @ adviser , Dr. Deborah Birx , have been urging Americans to consider that , on a per capita basis , the U.S. mortality rate is lower than that of several of the worst-hit countries in Western Europe .
On April 10 , for instance , Trump asserted that “ we ’ ve kept our fatality rate very , very low compared to other countries.
” Later in the same briefing , Birx said that he was right .
“ As the President noted , our mortality in the United States is significantly less @ @ @ @ @ @ @ you correct them for our population.
” “ The United States has achieved a significant lower mortality rate than almost all other countries , ” Trump said at another briefing six days later .
“ While we mourn the tragic loss of life — and you can ’ t mourn it any stronger than we ’ re mourning it , ” Trump said at the start of a briefing on April 18 , “ the United States has produced dramatically better health outcomes than any other country , with the possible exception of @ @ @ @ @ @ @ re as good or better.
” Birx then presented a bar chart comparing the death toll in the U.S. , expressed as a share of population , to the far higher rates of death in six European nations : Belgium , Spain , Italy , France , the United Kingdom and the Netherlands .
After she did so , Trump interrupted her presentation to point to the far lower reported mortality rate of another country on the chart , China , and suggested that the authorities there must have lied about their death @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the data presented by Birx showed , as of mid-April , Americans were more than twice as likely as Germans to have died from Covid-19 .
While the U.S. had recorded 11.24 deaths per 100,000 people then , Germany , which had a high rate of infection , had kept deaths down to 5.25 per 100,000 .
Today , Americans are faring even worse in comparison to Germans .
According to updated mortality rates compiled on May 1 by Johns Hopkins researchers for the 10 countries with the most confirmed cases of Covid-19 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ per 100,000 , compared to 8.12 in Germany .
Expressed in Trump ’ s preferred metric of deaths per million , for every 196 Americans lost to Covid-19 so far , just 81 Germans have perished .
What this means is that if the federal government in Washington had been as successful at keeping its citizens alive as the one in Berlin , the death toll in the U.S. would not be , as it is today , close to 66,000 , but less than 27,000 .
In other words , Trump and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of statistical sleight-of-hand , one that seems designed to distract attention from the fact that tens of thousands of Americans would still be alive today had their government managed the crisis as well as the German one .
At no point in the April 18 briefing did either Trump or Birx explain why Americans should be satisfied with being less likely to die of Covid-19 than citizens of Britain or France , but in so much more danger than Germans .
There are also other ways in which it is misleading to compare @ @ @ @ @ @ @ those of the six European nations with the worst mortality rates .
To start with , by focusing just on other hard-hit countries , Trump distracts attention from the fact that another nation , South Korea , was so successful at suppressing the outbreak , through early action and widespread testing , that it is not included .
Then there is the fact that all six of the most affected European countries are much more densely populated than the U.S. , and population density appears to make it harder to stop the spread @ @ @ @ @ @ @ South Korea are also densely populated indicates that there are other factors at play , but the first wave of outbreaks in Europe and the U.S. have been most intense in major cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas .
Even the least densely populated of the six European nations that have been hit the hardest by the outbreak , Spain , is more densely settled than it might seem .
Alasdair Rae , a professor of urban studies and planning at the University of Sheffield , noted in 2018 that Spain ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ kilometer is misleading , since only about 13 percent of the country ’ s territory is actually lived in .
Barcelona , along with Madrid , has been one of the two Spanish cities most affected by the pandemic .
As Rae pointed out , “ more than 53,000 people inhabit a single square kilometer area in Barcelona , ” making it the most densely populated square kilometer in Europe .
As a series of visualization of population density created this week by Rae shows , the worst affected areas of Europe — @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , northern France and southern England — are among the continent ’ s most tightly packed regions .
The U.S. by contrast , has a much higher rural population than Western Europe .
For that reason , it might be more appropriate to compare the mortality rates of those European nations to that of the seven badly hit northeastern American states that have formed an interstate compact to collaborate on the phased reopening of their economies .
Those states — New York , New Jersey , Connecticut , Massachusetts , Rhode Island , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deaths out of a combined population of about 53.6 million .
That mortality rate of 66.6 per 100,000 for the region exceeds the current figure for every European country except Belgium , which , unlike the U.S. , includes in its count a large number of deaths in nursing homes that are suspected of being virus-related , but have not been confirmed by testing .
While Belgium ’ s coronavirus emergency task force has come under some political pressure for including so many suspected cases — nearly half the nation ’ s total @ @ @ @ @ @ @ change their method , describing surveillance of the disease as more important than negative publicity .
One Belgian government minister , Denis Ducarme , noticed and was not happy about the chart of national mortality rates displayed by Birx and Trump last month to bolster their argument that the U.S. was doing relatively well in handling the pandemic .
“ Our method of counting is the most exhaustive possible , ” Ducarme wrote on Twitter .
“ When @ realDonaldTrump makes a macabre ranking , by pointing the finger at Belgium to give @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the U.S.A .
I find it disgraceful , the basest of politics .
”

In a week where the number of Americans killed by Covid-19 passed 66,000, Donald Trump assured us that this death toll, looked at from the right angle, is really proof of how great he is at his job.
Asked on Thursday to account for his son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner’s description of the federal government’s chaotic response to the coronavirus pandemic as “a great success story” that “needs to be told,” the president said that he agreed. “We’ve solved every problem,” he claimed. “We solved it quickly.”
“I don’t think anybody has done a better job — with testing, with ventilators, with all of the things that we’ve done,” Trump added. “And our death totals, our numbers per million people, are really very, very strong. We’re very proud of the job we’ve done.”
Trump today: "Our death totals, our numbers, per million people, are really very, very strong. We're very proud of the job we've done." Via CSPAN pic.twitter.com/gOi7DIJIQX — Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 30, 2020
Trump’s strange boast about the “very, very strong” death toll puzzled many viewers, but it helps to know that, for weeks, the president and his senior medical adviser, Dr. Deborah Birx, have been urging Americans to consider that, on a per capita basis, the U.S. mortality rate is lower than that of several of the worst-hit countries in Western Europe.
On April 10, for instance, Trump asserted that “we’ve kept our fatality rate very, very low compared to other countries.” Later in the same briefing, Birx said that he was right. “As the President noted, our mortality in the United States is significantly less than many of the other countries when you correct them for our population.”
Dr. Birx says that the covid19 mortality rate in the United States is "significantly less" than that of other countries when adjusted for population pic.twitter.com/jmixmm36gS — Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) April 10, 2020
“The United States has achieved a significant lower mortality rate than almost all other countries,” Trump said at another briefing six days later.
“While we mourn the tragic loss of life — and you can’t mourn it any stronger than we’re mourning it,” Trump said at the start of a briefing on April 18, “the United States has produced dramatically better health outcomes than any other country, with the possible exception of Germany — and I think we’re as good or better.”
Birx then presented a bar chart comparing the death toll in the U.S., expressed as a share of population, to the far higher rates of death in six European nations: Belgium, Spain, Italy, France, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands. After she did so, Trump interrupted her presentation to point to the far lower reported mortality rate of another country on the chart, China, and suggested that the authorities there must have lied about their death toll to produce that statistic.
But that chart also included evidence that it is profoundly misleading to cast the U.S. response as a success by comparing it to just those six countries. That’s because the data also showed that Germany, whose success Trump had downplayed, had a far lower mortality rate than the U.S.
Photo: CSPAN, via YouTube
As the data presented by Birx showed, as of mid-April, Americans were more than twice as likely as Germans to have died from Covid-19. While the U.S. had recorded 11.24 deaths per 100,000 people then, Germany, which had a high rate of infection, had kept deaths down to 5.25 per 100,000.
Today, Americans are faring even worse in comparison to Germans. According to updated mortality rates compiled on May 10 by Johns Hopkins researchers for the 10 countries with the most confirmed cases of Covid-19, the U.S. now has 24.31 deaths per 100,000, compared to 9.13 in Germany.
Photo: Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center
Expressed in Trump’s preferred metric of deaths per million, for every 243 Americans lost to Covid-19 so far, just 91 Germans have perished. What this means is that if the federal government in Washington had been as successful at keeping its citizens alive as the one in Berlin, the death toll in the U.S. would not be, as it was on May 10, 80,087, but 30,077.
In other words, Trump and Birx have been engaged in a kind of statistical sleight-of-hand, one that seems designed to distract attention from the fact that tens of thousands of Americans would still be alive today had their government managed the crisis as well as the German one.
At no point in the April 18 briefing did either Trump or Birx explain why Americans should be satisfied with being less likely to die of Covid-19 than citizens of Britain or France, but in so much more danger than Germans.
There are also other ways in which it is misleading to compare deaths in the U.S. so far to those of the six European nations with the worst mortality rates. To start with, by focusing just on other hard-hit countries, Trump distracts attention from the fact that, as of May 10, 131 countries had lower mortality rates than the U.S. — including Greece, Austria, Denmark, Portugal, Canada and Japan.
Most notably, South Korea, which was so successful at suppressing the outbreak through early action and widespread testing that it has recorded just 256 deaths — a mortality rate of 0.50 per 100,000 on May 10 — was also not included in the ranking presented by Birx. If the U.S. had matched South Korea, just over 1,500 Americans would have died to date.
Despite this, Trump has continued to incorrectly refer to that chart from the April 18 briefing as proof that the United States is “right at the top” of world rankings. Speaking to the press on Thursday during an Oval Office meeting with New Jersey’s governor, Phil Murphy, Trump asked Birx to get out the chart, falsely claiming that it showed “we’re the leader of the world, we’re really the leader, in this case, the leader of the world. And we’ve done better, if you look at our deaths, if you look at mortality rates…. I’m going to get a chart, because it’s maybe the most impressive thing — right? — how we’ve done.”
Then there is the fact that all six of the most affected European countries are much more densely populated than the U.S., and population density appears to make it harder to stop the spread of the virus.
Photo: World Bank
That Germany and South Korea are also densely populated indicates that there are other factors at play, but the first wave of outbreaks in Europe and the U.S. have been most intense in major cities and their surrounding metropolitan areas.
Even the least densely populated of the six European nations that have been hit the hardest by the outbreak, Spain, is more densely settled than it might seem. Alasdair Rae, a professor of urban studies and planning at the University of Sheffield, noted in 2018 that Spain’s population density of 93 people per square kilometer is misleading, since only about 13 percent of the country’s territory is actually lived in. Barcelona, along with Madrid, has been one of the two Spanish cities most affected by the pandemic. As Rae pointed out, “more than 53,000 people inhabit a single square kilometer area in Barcelona,” making it the most densely populated square kilometer in Europe.
As a series of visualization of population density created this week by Rae shows, the worst affected areas of Europe — northern Italy, Belgium, the Netherlands, northern France and southern England — are among the continent’s most tightly packed regions.
The U.S. by contrast, has a much higher rural population than Western Europe. For that reason, it might be more appropriate to compare the mortality rates of those European nations to that of the seven badly hit northeastern American states that have formed an interstate compact to collaborate on the phased reopening of their economies.
Those states — New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania and Delaware — have recorded 35,718 deaths out of a combined population of about 53.6 million. That mortality rate of 66.6 per 100,000 for the region exceeds the current figure for every European country except Belgium, which, unlike the U.S., includes in its count a large number of deaths in nursing homes that are suspected of being virus-related, but have not been confirmed by testing.
While Belgium’s coronavirus emergency task force has come under some political pressure for including so many suspected cases — nearly half the nation’s total deaths — health officials have refused to change their method, describing surveillance of the disease as more important than negative publicity.
One Belgian government minister, Denis Ducarme, noticed and was not happy about the chart of national mortality rates displayed by Birx and Trump last month to bolster their argument that the U.S. was doing relatively well in handling the pandemic. “Our method of counting is the most exhaustive possible,” Ducarme wrote on Twitter. “When @realDonaldTrump makes a macabre ranking, by pointing the finger at Belgium to give the impression that all is well in the U.S.A. I find it disgraceful, the basest of politics.”
Last Updated: Monday, May 10, 2:21 p.m. PDT
This article was updated with the latest mortality rate data, as of May 10, for 10 nations, including the United States and Germany.


theintercept--2020-05-03--“It’s Like Purgatory”: How the U.S. Has Undermined the Promise of Asylum

The Trump administration has upended the asylum system as we knew it , slashing refugee admissions and placing endless roadblocks in the way of people who arrive at the border to ask for safety .
But the promise of asylum has always been political , situated uneasily between human compassion and national interest , as reporter John Washington explains in his book “ The Dispossessed : A Story of Asylum at the U.S.-Mexico Border and Beyond , ” published this week by Verso .
Washington ’ s book traces the history of the concept of asylum from ancient Greek city-states @ @ @ @ @ @ @ telling the story of the asylum-seekers he has met along the way .
In this excerpt , Washington explains how the U.S. uses prolonged detention as a way to pressure people to give up their cases and accept deportation .
weigh competing emotions — the current misery of confinement , the fear of future death — as detained asylum-seekers are forced to do .
Humans recoil from death as well as from captivity .
We want to live and we want to live free .
We want both .
Since detention standards were @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , in direct refutation to the 1951 Refugee Convention , has locked up hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers who have broken neither domestic nor international law .
The idea is to use them as an example of the misery the government is willing to draw on the bodies and minds of those seeking its protection , in order to convince future asylum-seekers from even trying .
When former White House chief of staff John Kelly first introduced the idea of separating migrant families in 2017 , he said , “ Yes , I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network .
I am considering exactly that.
” But deterrence — prolonged detention , family separation , or forcing migrants to walk through the remote deserts — doesn ’ t work .
Bertha , for example , a 63-year-old Honduran grandmother fleeing to save her and her granddaughter ’ s life , came to the United States knowing that they would likely be detained .
And they were .
Even after Bertha ’ s granddaughter was released , Immigration and Customs Enforcement kept @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
I met Bertha in a small echoic room in the El Paso Processing Center , in her 18th month of detention .
Boggled as to why ICE would detain , for such a long time , a shy grandmother with developing health complications who poses neither flight risk nor security concern , I asked her lawyer , Ed Beckett , if he knew why the government hadn ’ t released her .
They ’ re just assholes , Beckett told me .
Cruel and unusual punishment , that ’ s about it @ @ @ @ @ @ @ prime example of deterrence .
At her first asylum hearing in the low-ceilinged court inside the El Paso Processing Center , Bertha was denied asylum but was offered protection and relief from deportation through the Convention Against Torture .
But then , a few days after the hearing , and before she was released , the judge suddenly changed his mind and reversed his decision .
As Beckett helped Bertha appeal , she was kept in detention .
I ’ ve been in here 18 months , she told me in the spartan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the department of Cortés .
I came to the bridge on November 18 .
We were in the hielera — an icebox , and the common Spanish name for freezing-cold holding cells — for one day , and then they sent us here .
I came … I fled .
We came together .
My granddaughter was only 14 , her name is Yariela .
The gangsters wanted her to be their wife .
But I couldn ’ t let that happen .
And then they wanted to kill me .
They said @ @ @ @ @ @ @ We left the next day .
I knew … well , I ’ m scared to return to my country , that ’ s what I told them .
I asked her what the security situation was like in her hometown .
I lost my grandson on October 11 , 2013 .
They disappeared him .
We don ’ t know where he is .
I raised them both .
Their mom was already here , in Houston .
And when we had to leave , we just left , without hardly anything @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Guatemala .
We had to go asking for money , asking for alms , for food .
I was asking God for help .
We traveled by bus .
I wouldn ’ t know how to take a train .
We were hungry sometimes , but people treated us OK .
They gave us food .
They respected me because of my age .
An abuelita .
A little grandmother .
That ’ s why we left .
Because a gangster was trying to make my granddaughter his wife .
I turn to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ there .
I came to ask for protection .
I didn ’ t kill anyone , she says .
She began counting on her fingers , starting with her thumb , then index finger .
I didn ’ t rob anyone .
I don ’ t do drugs , don ’ t have anything to do with drugs .
She held up all five fingers to me , and then dropped her hand .
I ’ m clean .
A good woman .
My daughter is the only one who helps me with @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , for phone calls , but I can ’ t stand anything from the vending machines anymore .
I can ’ t stand the soda … I ’ m just asking God to get me out of here .
And my granddaughter .
She asks me , she ’ s so sad , she asks me , Mami , she calls me , why don ’ t they let you out ?
And she starts to cry .
You raised me .
Please come here with me .
You can ’ t make @ @ @ @ @ @ @ back in Honduras , Bertha told me , because they ’ ll know .
They have a system , they can track you .
I was looking for my grandson after he disappeared , but trying not to make too much noise .
And we never found him .
I imagine that they killed him , dropped him off somewhere , in some ditch , that ’ s how they do it .
You can ’ t try to talk to the police or they ’ ll disappear you .
If you see @ @ @ @ @ @ @ zipped her lips with a finger .
I don ’ t know why there ’ s so much violence .
I can ’ t explain it .
It started around , around 2000 .
It wasn ’ t like this when I was a girl .
Everything was much calmer .
But it ’ s so bad now .
Everybody , so many people are leaving .
They told me they had to separate us , but they didn ’ t tell me where they were taking her .
I was so … @ @ @ @ @ @ @ long .
To kill time I read the Bible .
I also like to play Monopoly .
I used to play with this other woman , from Honduras .
We played a game last night .
But she left today .
She smiled , embarrassed .
I did , she said .
I ’ ll miss her a lot .
She went back to Honduras , just today .
I lie in bed and read the Bible .
The Psalms .
My dad died when he was 91 years old , and he @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , your tongue , she said , and stuck out her tongue , they ’ ll kill you … for talking , for saying what you see .
The gangs , they were taking money , war taxes .
They charge you for everything .
There wasn ’ t any more money for food .
Here , in detention , we wake up at five , we have breakfast .
Lunch at 11 .
And dinner at 4:30 .
But sometimes I ’ m hungry at night .
At home we ate at @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Sometimes I buy something from the vending machine , but I don ’ t like those crackers or cookies anymore .
I don ’ t even like soda .
I go to bed hungry .
Lights out at nine o ’ clock .
There ’ s count three times a day .
At 10 in the morning , at 3:30 , and at nine .
At count we have to be quiet .
We have to lie in our beds and we can ’ t talk .
If we make noise we @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , it ’ s hard to sleep .
If someone ’ s snoring , she says , laughing and putting her hands on her cheeks , we have to deal with it .
There ’ s always someone in the barracks with us .
One of the guards .
They ’ re not mean , but they talk strong if we ’ re loud , if someone ’ s talking during count .
She paused to think .
Sometimes , to pass the time , I draw .
I draw flowers , princesses @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
Curlicues .
Just to pass the time .
It ’ s not good to be in here .
This situation … it ’ s like a purgatory .
It ’ s like we ’ re never going to leave .
I just think I ’ m never going to leave .
If I get out I ’ m going to do what I always do , follow the right path .
Be good .
Do right .
We ’ re all the same .
You have to treat people nice .
I @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the United States .
They have no heart .
We ’ re people .
We ’ re old women .
We can ’ t be here .
I don ’ t know why they don ’ t let us go .
I just don ’ t know why .
Bertha started telling me about her favorite Psalms , but then one of the guards interrupted us .
Our time was up .
I told her I would read a couple of her recommendations , and , as I scribbled into my notebook and @ @ @ @ @ @ @ told me to read Psalms 23 , 91 , 102 , 27 , and 71 .
It had been a long time since I read any of them , and , at my hostel later that night , as I began to read them on my computer , I wondered at first if all the Psalms referred to danger and searching for refuge in times of trouble and old age , or if she had just selected those that so precisely fit her situation .
I will say of the Lord , He @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler .
He shall cover you with His feathers , and under his wings you shall take refuge .
You shall not be afraid of the terror by night , nor of the arrow that flies by day , nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness , nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday .
For my days are consumed like smoke , and my bones are burned like a hearth .
My heart is stricken and withered like grass @ @ @ @ @ @ @ my bread .
My bones cling to my skin .
I am like a pelican of the wilderness , I am like an owl of the desert .
I lie awake , and am like a sparrow alone on the housetop .
Do not cast me off in the time of old age .
Do not forsake me when my strength fails .
You prepare a table before me .
You anoint my head with oil .
My cup runs over .
In the summer of 2018 , after 20 months of detention @ @ @ @ @ @ @ deported alone back to Honduras .
When I think of her now , I think of another poem , the line from Keats — “ Where but to think is to be full of sorrow ” — and of Saint Oscar Romero , who was reading the 23rd Psalm , one of Bertha ’ s recommendations , during mass on the day he was assassinated in the cathedral in El Salvador ’ s capital .
“ May God have mercy on the assassins ” were the archbishop ’ s last words .
Sixteen @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the trigger and killed Romero , on March 24 , 1980 , the U.S. House Foreign Operations Subcommittee began hearings on the $ 5.7 million in military aid that the archbishop had begged President Jimmy Carter not to send , which Romero said would “ surely increase injustice here and sharpen the repression that has been unleashed.
” Though the vote was postponed , the military aid was eventually approved .
Joan Didion described the administration ’ s account of the Salvadoran government ’ s progress toward human rights , on which the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ The adjective also would apply to ICE ’ s self-proclaimed compliance with its own standard of guaranteeing “ safe , secure , and humane environments ” for what it calls “ custodial supervision .
”

The Trump administration has upended the asylum system as we knew it, slashing refugee admissions and placing endless roadblocks in the way of people who arrive at the border to ask for safety. But the promise of asylum has always been political, situated uneasily between human compassion and national interest, as reporter John Washington explains in his book “The Dispossessed: A Story of Asylum at the U.S.-Mexico Border and Beyond,” published this week by Verso. Washington’s book traces the history of the concept of asylum from ancient Greek city-states to today’s militarized borders, telling the story of the asylum-seekers he has met along the way. In this excerpt, Washington explains how the U.S. uses prolonged detention as a way to pressure people to give up their cases and accept deportation.
It’s hard to weigh competing emotions — the current misery of confinement, the fear of future death — as detained asylum-seekers are forced to do. Humans recoil from death as well as from captivity. We want to live and we want to live free. We want both.
Since detention standards were changed in 1996, the U.S. government, in direct refutation to the 1951 Refugee Convention, has locked up hundreds of thousands of asylum-seekers who have broken neither domestic nor international law. The idea is to use them as an example of the misery the government is willing to draw on the bodies and minds of those seeking its protection, in order to convince future asylum-seekers from even trying.
When former White House chief of staff John Kelly first introduced the idea of separating migrant families in 2017, he said, “Yes, I’m considering” family separation “in order to deter more movement along this terribly dangerous network. I am considering exactly that.” But deterrence — prolonged detention, family separation, or forcing migrants to walk through the remote deserts — doesn’t work. Bertha, for example, a 63-year-old Honduran grandmother fleeing to save her and her granddaughter’s life, came to the United States knowing that they would likely be detained. And they were. Even after Bertha’s granddaughter was released, Immigration and Customs Enforcement kept Bertha locked up for almost two years.
Humans recoil from death as well as from captivity. We want to live and we want to live free. We want both.
I met Bertha in a small echoic room in the El Paso Processing Center, in her 18th month of detention. Boggled as to why ICE would detain, for such a long time, a shy grandmother with developing health complications who poses neither flight risk nor security concern, I asked her lawyer, Ed Beckett, if he knew why the government hadn’t released her.
They’re just assholes, Beckett told me. Cruel and unusual punishment, that’s about it. I think she’s a prime example of deterrence.
At her first asylum hearing in the low-ceilinged court inside the El Paso Processing Center, Bertha was denied asylum but was offered protection and relief from deportation through the Convention Against Torture. But then, a few days after the hearing, and before she was released, the judge suddenly changed his mind and reversed his decision. As Beckett helped Bertha appeal, she was kept in detention.
I’ve been in here 18 months, she told me in the spartan interview room. I’m from the department of Cortés. I came to the bridge on November 18. We were in the hielera — an icebox, and the common Spanish name for freezing-cold holding cells — for one day, and then they sent us here. I came … I fled. We came together. My granddaughter was only 14, her name is Yariela. The gangsters wanted her to be their wife. But I couldn’t let that happen. And then they wanted to kill me. They said they were going to kill me. We left the next day. I knew … well, I’m scared to return to my country, that’s what I told them.
I asked her what the security situation was like in her hometown.
I lost my grandson on October 11, 2013. They disappeared him. We don’t know where he is. I raised them both. Their mom was already here, in Houston. And when we had to leave, we just left, without hardly anything. We ran out of money in Guatemala. We had to go asking for money, asking for alms, for food. I was asking God for help. We traveled by bus. I wouldn’t know how to take a train. We were hungry sometimes, but people treated us OK. They gave us food.
They respected me because of my age. An abuelita. A little grandmother.
That’s why we left. Because a gangster was trying to make my granddaughter his wife. I turn to ice when I think about going back there.
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I came to ask for protection. I didn’t kill anyone, she says. She began counting on her fingers, starting with her thumb, then index finger. I didn’t rob anyone. I don’t do drugs, don’t have anything to do with drugs. She held up all five fingers to me, and then dropped her hand. I’m clean. A good woman. My daughter is the only one who helps me with some money, for the vending machine, for phone calls, but I can’t stand anything from the vending machines anymore. I can’t stand the soda … I’m just asking God to get me out of here. And my granddaughter. She asks me, she’s so sad, she asks me, Mami, she calls me, why don’t they let you out? And she starts to cry. You raised me. Please come here with me.
You can’t make a complaint or go to the police back in Honduras, Bertha told me, because they’ll know. They have a system, they can track you. I was looking for my grandson after he disappeared, but trying not to make too much noise. And we never found him. I imagine that they killed him, dropped him off somewhere, in some ditch, that’s how they do it. You can’t try to talk to the police or they’ll disappear you. If you see something, she said, and then zipped her lips with a finger.
I don’t know why there’s so much violence. I can’t explain it. It started around, around 2000. It wasn’t like this when I was a girl. Everything was much calmer. But it’s so bad now. Everybody, so many people are leaving. They told me they had to separate us, but they didn’t tell me where they were taking her. I was so … I never expected to be here so long.
To kill time I read the Bible. I also like to play Monopoly. I used to play with this other woman, from Honduras. We played a game last night. But she left today.
I asked her who won.
She smiled, embarrassed. I did, she said. I’ll miss her a lot. She went back to Honduras, just today. I lie in bed and read the Bible. The Psalms. My dad died when he was 91 years old, and he told me, hija, for this, your tongue, she said, and stuck out her tongue, they’ll kill you … for talking, for saying what you see. The gangs, they were taking money, war taxes. They charge you for everything. There wasn’t any more money for food.
Image: Courtesy of Verso
Here, in detention, we wake up at five, we have breakfast. Lunch at 11. And dinner at 4:30. But sometimes I’m hungry at night. At home we ate at nine. I get hungry at midnight. Sometimes I buy something from the vending machine, but I don’t like those crackers or cookies anymore. I don’t even like soda. I go to bed hungry. Lights out at nine o’clock. There’s count three times a day. At 10 in the morning, at 3:30, and at nine. At count we have to be quiet. We have to lie in our beds and we can’t talk. If we make noise we get in trouble. At night though, it’s hard to sleep. If someone’s snoring, she says, laughing and putting her hands on her cheeks, we have to deal with it. There’s always someone in the barracks with us. One of the guards. They’re not mean, but they talk strong if we’re loud, if someone’s talking during count. She paused to think. Sometimes, to pass the time, I draw. I draw flowers, princesses, little animals, things like that. Curlicues. Just to pass the time.
It’s not good to be in here. This situation … it’s like a purgatory. It’s like we’re never going to leave. I just think I’m never going to leave. If I get out I’m going to do what I always do, follow the right path. Be good. Do right. We’re all the same. You have to treat people nice. I hope, I hope that God forgives the United States. They have no heart. We’re people. We’re old women. We can’t be here. I don’t know why they don’t let us go. I just don’t know why.
Bertha started telling me about her favorite Psalms, but then one of the guards interrupted us. Our time was up. I told her I would read a couple of her recommendations, and, as I scribbled into my notebook and the guard stood watching us, she told me to read Psalms 23, 91, 102, 27, and 71.
“This situation … it’s like a purgatory. It’s like we’re never going to leave.”
It had been a long time since I read any of them, and, at my hostel later that night, as I began to read them on my computer, I wondered at first if all the Psalms referred to danger and searching for refuge in times of trouble and old age, or if she had just selected those that so precisely fit her situation.
I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress. Surely He shall deliver you from the snare of the fowler. He shall cover you with His feathers, and under his wings you shall take refuge. You shall not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor of the pestilence that walks in darkness, nor of the destruction that lays waste at noonday. For my days are consumed like smoke, and my bones are burned like a hearth. My heart is stricken and withered like grass, so that I forget to eat my bread. My bones cling to my skin. I am like a pelican of the wilderness, I am like an owl of the desert. I lie awake, and am like a sparrow alone on the housetop. Do not cast me off in the time of old age. Do not forsake me when my strength fails. You prepare a table before me. You anoint my head with oil. My cup runs over.
Read Our Complete Coverage The War on Immigrants
In the summer of 2018, after 20 months of detention, Bertha lost her appeal and was deported alone back to Honduras. When I think of her now, I think of another poem, the line from Keats — “Where but to think is to be full of sorrow” — and of Saint Oscar Romero, who was reading the 23rd Psalm, one of Bertha’s recommendations, during mass on the day he was assassinated in the cathedral in El Salvador’s capital. “May God have mercy on the assassins” were the archbishop’s last words.
Sixteen hours after a Salvadoran army sniper pulled the trigger and killed Romero, on March 24, 1980, the U.S. House Foreign Operations Subcommittee began hearings on the $5.7 million in military aid that the archbishop had begged President Jimmy Carter not to send, which Romero said would “surely increase injustice here and sharpen the repression that has been unleashed.”
Though the vote was postponed, the military aid was eventually approved.
Joan Didion described the administration’s account of the Salvadoran government’s progress toward human rights, on which the U.S. aid depended, as hallucinatory. The adjective also would apply to ICE’s self-proclaimed compliance with its own standard of guaranteeing “safe, secure, and humane environments” for what it calls “custodial supervision.”


theintercept--2020-05-03--“Exceptionally Dire”: Secondary Impacts of Covid-19 Could Increase Global Poverty and Hu

“Exceptionally Dire”: Secondary Impacts of Covid-19 Could Increase Global Poverty and Hunger

240,000 people worldwide have already died of Covid-19 , and before the pandemic finishes , it could kill hundreds of thousands , even millions , more .
But the final toll is destined to be far higher than just those who die of Covid-19 .
Experts warn that deaths from secondary impacts – poverty , hunger , diseases , and violence exacerbated by the pandemic – may dwarf the number of those who die of the coronavirus itself .
A new analysis by researchers from King ’ s College London and Australian National University , under the aegis of the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Economics Research , for example , warns that the economic contraction caused by Covid-19 could push an additional 500 million people – about eight percent of the earth ’ s population – into poverty , reversing 30 years of economic improvement .
“ We were surprised at the sheer scale of the potential poverty tsunami that could follow Covid-19 in developing countries , ” said Andy Sumner , one of the study ’ s authors .
Not surprisingly , such financial fallout has grim knock-on effects .
“ I want to stress that @ @ @ @ @ @ @ health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe , ” warned David Beasley , the executive director of the United Nations World Food Program .
“ Millions of civilians living in conflict-scarred nations , including many women and children , face being pushed to the brink of starvation , with the specter of famine a very real and dangerous possibility.
” A new study by the WFP found that lockdowns and the economic recession caused by Covid-19 may exacerbate an already dire worldwide hunger crisis , almost doubling the number of people who @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of 265 million people to the brink of starvation by the end of the year .
Meanwhile , the World Health Organization notes that a diversion of resources could have especially devastating effects on the fight against malaria .
Under a worst-case scenario , in which all insecticide-treated bed net campaigns are suspended and there is a 75 % reduction in access to effective antimalarial medicines , fatalities from the mosquito-borne illness could reach 769,000 – double the number of deaths in 2018 – effectively wiping out 20 years of gains in suppressing @ @ @ @ @ @ @ analysis by researchers at Imperial College London found that in low- and middle-income countries , disruptions to health services could cause deaths from HIV , tuberculosis and malaria to increase by up to 10 , 20 , and 36 percent respectively over five years .
“ As Covid-19 cases surge worldwide , the survival of pregnant women and children is at great risk due to strained healthcare systems , and the disruption of life-saving health services , ” said Dr. Stefan Peterson , associate director and global chief of health at the United @ @ @ @ @ @ @ .
In fact , researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health warn , for example , that the impact of the pandemic to newborn , child and adolescent health and nutrition services might lead to the deaths of 1.2 million children – a 45 percent increase over existing child mortality levels .
The overall death toll among the young may actually be exponentially higher according to a recent report from the Christian aid organization , World Vision .
An analysis of 24 countries with existing humanitarian crises – from Afghanistan @ @ @ @ @ @ @ as 30 million children ’ s lives are at risk from other diseases , like diphtheria , whooping cough , and tetanus , if healthcare systems are swamped by the pandemic and resources are diverted from immunizations .
“ We are wrong if we think this is not a children ’ s disease , ” said Andrew Morley , World Vision ’ s president and chief executive .
“ Experience tells us that when epidemics overwhelm health systems , the impact on children is deadly.
” Among youths , girls will suffer most @ @ @ @ @ @ @ International , an aid organization that advocates for children ’ s rights and equality for girls .
Since women and girls undertake more than three quarters of unpaid care and , in rural communities and low-income countries , spend up to 14 hours a day on such work , girls will likely be at greater risk of infection .
But this is just one type of collateral damage .
“ Covid-19 shutdowns will disrupt early learning , formal education and livelihoods , ” according to the report .
“ Measures to curb the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ girls out of school and placing them at heightened risk of violence in their home.
” UNHCR , the United Nations ’ refugee agency , notes that even before the Covid-19 pandemic , an estimated one in three women had experienced physical or sexual abuse .
Confinement , lockdowns , and quarantines coupled with deteriorating socioeconomic conditions have now created a perfect storm .
“ These factors significantly increase the risks of intimate partner violence , with refugees , internally displaced and stateless persons among the most vulnerable , ” according to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ” of violence against girls and women extends far beyond refugees and displaced war victims , with reports of domestic violence having increased by 30 % in France while calls to helplines have jumped 30 % in Cyprus , and 33 % in Singapore .
The United Nations study forecast that the greatest economic impact of Covid-19 will be in sub-Saharan Africa , where cases are rapidly increasing and , if projections prove accurate , “ up to half of the new poor will live.
” There , the effects will be felt @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , malnourishment , and educational achievement , among other indicators .
Alexandra Lamarche , senior advocate for West and Central Africa at Refugees International , explained that preventative measures aimed at countering Covid-19 were also impediments to humanitarian aid , leaving poor people without access to food .
“ We ’ re going to see significant impacts on malnutrition rates , ” she told The Intercept .
“ And we ’ re seeing all sorts of secondary impacts .
For example , there ’ s a polio outbreak in Niger because they stopped @ @ @ @ @ @ @ poverty and violence , the follow-on effects of Covid-19 threaten to be as wide-ranging as they are lethal .
“ There are just so many different unexpected consequences , ” said Lamarche .
“ It ’ s extremely disheartening .
And it ’ s going to be exceptionally dire .
”

More than 240,000 people worldwide have already died of Covid-19, and before the pandemic finishes, it could kill hundreds of thousands, even millions, more. But the final toll is destined to be far higher than just those who die of Covid-19. Experts warn that deaths from secondary impacts — poverty, hunger, diseases, and violence exacerbated by the pandemic — may dwarf the number of those who die of the novel coronavirus itself.
Read Our Complete Coverage The Coronavirus Crisis
A new analysis by researchers from King’s College London and Australian National University, under the aegis of the United Nations University World Institute for Development Economics Research, for example, warns that the economic contraction caused by Covid-19 could push an additional 500 million people — about 8 percent of the Earth’s population — into poverty, reversing 30 years of economic improvement. “We were surprised at the sheer scale of the potential poverty tsunami that could follow Covid-19 in developing countries,” said Andy Sumner, one of the study’s authors.
Not surprisingly, such financial fallout has grim knock-on effects. “I want to stress that we are not only facing a global health pandemic but also a global humanitarian catastrophe,” warned David Beasley, the executive director of the United Nations World Food Program. “Millions of civilians living in conflict-scarred nations, including many women and children, face being pushed to the brink of starvation, with the specter of famine a very real and dangerous possibility.” A new study by the WFP found that lockdowns and the economic recession caused by Covid-19 may exacerbate an already dire worldwide hunger crisis, almost doubling the number of people who could go hungry, pushing a total of 265 million people to the brink of starvation by the end of the year.
Meanwhile, the World Health Organization notes that a diversion of resources could have especially devastating effects on the fight against malaria. Under a worst-case scenario, in which all insecticide-treated bed net campaigns are suspended, and there is a 75% reduction in access to effective antimalarial medicines, fatalities from the mosquito-borne illness could reach 769,000 — double the number of deaths in 2018 — effectively wiping out 20 years of gains in suppressing malaria mortality. Similarly, a new analysis by researchers at Imperial College London found that in low- and middle-income countries, disruptions to health services could cause deaths from HIV, tuberculosis, and malaria to increase by up to 10, 20, and 36 percent respectively over five years.
“As Covid-19 cases surge worldwide, the survival of pregnant women and children is at great risk due to strained healthcare systems, and the disruption of life-saving health services,” said Dr. Stefan Peterson, associate director and global chief of health at the United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund. In fact, researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health warn, for example, that the impact of the pandemic to newborn, child, and adolescent health and nutrition services might lead to the deaths of 1.2 million children — a 45 percent increase over existing child mortality levels.
The overall death toll among the young may actually be exponentially higher according to a recent report from the Christian aid organization, World Vision. An analysis of 24 countries with existing humanitarian crises — from Afghanistan to Yemen — found that as many as 30 million children’s lives are at risk from other diseases, like diphtheria, whooping cough, and tetanus, if health care systems are swamped by the pandemic and resources are diverted from immunizations. “We are wrong if we think this is not a children’s disease,” said Andrew Morley, World Vision’s president and chief executive. “Experience tells us that when epidemics overwhelm health systems, the impact on children is deadly.”
Among youths, girls will suffer most according to a recent analysis by Plan International, an aid organization that advocates for children’s rights and equality for girls. Since women and girls undertake more than three-quarters of unpaid care and, in rural communities and low-income countries, spend up to 14 hours a day on such work, girls will likely be at greater risk of infection. But this is just one type of collateral damage. “Covid-19 shutdowns will disrupt early learning, formal education and livelihoods,” according to the report. “Measures to curb the disease have worsened existing inequalities, forcing girls out of school and placing them at heightened risk of violence in their home.”
UNHCR, the United Nations’ refugee agency, notes that even before the Covid-19 pandemic, an estimated one in three women had experienced physical or sexual abuse. Confinement, lockdowns, and quarantines coupled with deteriorating socioeconomic conditions have now created a perfect storm. “These factors significantly increase the risks of intimate partner violence, with refugees, internally displaced and stateless persons among the most vulnerable,” according to the agency. But the “shadow pandemic” of violence against girls and women extends far beyond refugees and displaced war victims, with reports of domestic violence having increased by 30% in France, while calls to help lines have jumped 30% in Cyprus and 33% in Singapore.
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The United Nations study forecasts that the greatest economic impact of Covid-19 will be in sub-Saharan Africa, where cases are rapidly increasing and, if projections prove accurate, “up to half of the new poor will live.” There, the effects will be felt in infant and maternal mortality, undernutrition, malnourishment, and educational achievement, among other indicators.
Alexandra Lamarche, senior advocate for West and Central Africa at Refugees International, explained that preventative measures aimed at countering Covid-19 were also impediments to humanitarian aid, leaving poor people without access to food. “We’re going to see significant impacts on malnutrition rates,” she told The Intercept. “And we’re seeing all sorts of secondary impacts. For example, there’s a polio outbreak in Niger because they stopped vaccinating.” Between hunger and disease, poverty and violence, the follow-on effects of Covid-19 threaten to be as wide-ranging as they are lethal. “There are just so many different unexpected consequences,” said Lamarche. “It’s extremely disheartening. And it’s going to be exceptionally dire.”


theintercept--2020-05-04--Missouri’s Attorney General Is Fighting for the Right to Keep an Innocent Man in Prison

Gary Elking were sitting in the dark on the stoop of Boyd ’ s apartment in St. Louis , Missouri , when two masked men brandishing guns ran up to them and started to fire .
Boyd was shot multiple times and died at the scene .
Elking , terrified but unharmed , fled on foot .
Days later , Elking would tell the police that he couldn ’ t identify either of the assailants because they wore dark clothing and black ski masks that covered all but their eyes .
The only other person at the scene , Boyd @ @ @ @ @ @ @ was similarly unable to identify the attackers .
She ’ d been upstairs drawing a bath for the couple ’ s young daughter when she heard the popping of gunfire ; she made it down to the porch in time to glimpse a man in black holding a gun .
The police had nothing concrete to go on .
But by the time they finally interviewed Elking , they had already latched onto a suspect : 20-year-old Lamar Johnson .
Johnson would soon be arrested and tried for the October 1994 murder on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ s theory of the crime was that Johnson murdered Boyd over a drug-related dispute .
And Elking , who had been at Boyd ’ s that night to pay off a drug debt , would be key to the conviction .
Although he ’ d told police he didn ’ t know who the masked men were , he later picked Johnson out of a lineup .
The prosecution also relied on the testimony of a jailhouse informant , William Mock , who said he ’ d overheard Johnson brag about the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in the same unit after Johnson was arrested .
In 1995 , Johnson was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole .
Still , he has long maintained his innocence — and now has a powerful ally in his corner : Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner , chief prosecutor for the city of St. Louis .
Gardner ran on a reform agenda and in 2016 became the first black elected prosecutor in the city ’ s history .
She won federal funding to start a conviction integrity unit and in 2018 @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Innocence Project , began investigating Johnson ’ s case .
A year later , she concluded that he was innocent .
In July 2019 , Gardner filed a motion with Circuit Court Judge Elizabeth Hogan conceding that Johnson was wrongfully convicted .
She asked the judge to grant a hearing on the matter and , ultimately , a new trial for Johnson .
“ When a prosecutor becomes aware of clear and convincing evidence establishing that a defendant in the prosecutor ’ s jurisdiction was convicted of a crime that the defendant did @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the circuit attorney now finds herself — the prosecutor is obligated to seek to remedy the conviction , ” Gardner wrote in the court filing .
But Hogan balked , questioning whether Gardner had the power to challenge the conviction .
She called in Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt to see what he had to say about it .
Schmitt argued that not only did Gardner lack that authority , but the court couldn ’ t even entertain the matter .
Hogan aligned herself with Schmitt and dismissed the case without considering the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ s decision sparked a unique legal battle that , on April 14 , culminated in a video conference hearing before the Missouri Supreme Court .
The question before the judges , who are working remotely amid the coronavirus crisis , is whether a prosecutor has any power to right a wrongful conviction — a decision that will resonate far beyond the current case .
According to Schmitt ’ s office , the answer is no .
Giving a prosecutor that power “ has the potential to undermine public confidence ” in the criminal @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of the attorney general ’ s criminal division , told the judges .
“ The prosecutor ’ s interests are broader than the interests of a single individual.
” I Was There , Johnson Was Not Gardner ’ s yearlong inquiry revealed that Johnson ’ s conviction had been marred by extensive police and prosecutorial misconduct .
She found that police had fabricated witness statements in an effort to frame Johnson ( the witnesses said they ’ d never told police the things that had been attributed to them ) and had pressured @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ d repeatedly told them he did not know who had attacked Boyd that night .
Elking said that a detective told him who to pick out of the lineup .
Gardner learned that Elking had been paid more than $ 4,000 in exchange for his testimony and that prosecutors had also fixed a string of traffic tickets for him .
None of this information was turned over to Johnson ’ s defense .
Beginning in 2009 , Johnson ’ s lawyers repeatedly requested records related to the payments , but the state @ @ @ @ @ @ @ located more than 60 documents related to the benefits Elking was awarded in exchange for his cooperation .
The state also failed to tell the defense that the jailhouse informant , Mock , had an epic criminal history ( some 200 pages long ) and a history of testifying for the state , and that he ’ d indicated in a letter to prosecutor Dwight Warren that racial animus was motivating him to help convict Johnson .
“ Yet , the state failed to disclose any of this information to Johnson at trial @ @ @ @ @ @ @ filing .
There was also the fact that Johnson had an alibi : He was with his girlfriend , child , and two friends several miles away at the time of the shooting .
But his whereabouts that night were never fully investigated by police nor raised by the defense at trial .
On top of it all , Gardner learned that not long after Johnson was convicted , two men , Phillip Campbell and James Howard , had each separately confessed to killing Boyd .
Both insisted that Johnson had nothing to @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to the crime after Johnson was convicted and was sentenced to seven years .
Howard , who is currently in prison for an unrelated crime , has never been charged with Boyd ’ s murder , so by standing up for Johnson he has put himself on the hook for another potential conviction .
“ Lamar Johnson was not involved in the death of Marcus Boyd , ” Howard said in an affidavit .
“ I know Lamar Johnson is innocent of that crime because I was there and Lamar Johnson was not.
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ , Gardner felt she had to find a way to make things right — after all , it was her office that was responsible for Johnson ’ s conviction .
“ A prosecutor ’ s duty is not circumscribed by time or place .
A prosecutor ’ s duty is to maintain the integrity of our justice system as a whole , ” she wrote .
“ Because the circuit attorney has become aware of evidence of government misconduct , perjured testimony , concealed exculpatory and impeachment evidence that is clearly material , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ duty-bound to move for a new trial.
” Not everyone agrees with that position .
Schmitt ’ s office has since doubled down in opposition to Gardner with a mind-numbing array of arguments .
Among these is a seemingly mundane one : The court rule governing the ability to file a motion for a new trial — which Gardner did in seeking review of Johnson ’ s case — has a hard-and-fast 15-day deadline that can ’ t be waived , Schmitt wrote in a court brief .
And since Gardner ’ s @ @ @ @ @ @ @ July 2019 , it was “ 8,758 days out of time.
” Before the Missouri Supreme Court , Daniel Harawa , a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who is representing Gardner , noted that affirming the sanctity of a 15-day deadline would produce an absurd result .
“ It should not be that a prosecutor can learn that a person is wrongfully convicted on day 14 and take action , but that on day 16 it can do nothing.
” Either way , he said , the court has the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ to amend the rules to make clear that a prosecutor can always file a new trial motion whenever evidence of a wrongful conviction comes to light.
” Not so , says the attorney general , who has argued that no prosecutor in the state of Missouri has the power to undo a wrongful conviction .
Sure , Gardner has a duty to turn over to Johnson or his lawyers the evidence of official misconduct that she ’ s gathered , but that ’ s all , Mackelprang said .
To allow her more @ @ @ @ @ @ @ erode the public ’ s faith in the system .
Just because Gardner has “ reached the opinion ” that Johnson is innocent doesn ’ t mean he is , Mackelprang told the court .
Prosecutors aren ’ t allowed to “ advocate on behalf of the defendant , ” he said , because that is “ inconsistent with the adversarial nature of our system , ” where evidence is tested under cross-examination .
And that can ’ t happen “ if the prosecutor was allowed to simply , unilaterally present evidence ” @ @ @ @ @ @ @ released .
“ The previous prosecutor doesn ’ t believe that Mr. Johnson was innocent , at least as far as I know , ” Mackelprang told the court .
“ The 12 jurors who found him guilty also did not believe he was innocent.
” The AG ’ s argument overlooks important facts — including that if Johnson was convicted based on prosecutorial misconduct , whatever the original prosecutor thought about his guilt is irrelevant .
Moreover , jurors contacted during the reinvestigation of Johnson ’ s case said that if they @ @ @ @ @ @ @ hidden evidence , they would have been unlikely to convict .
“ I do not believe I would have voted to convict Mr. Johnson , ” one juror said .
But a larger problem with the state ’ s position is that it is inconsistent with the everyday practice of criminal prosecution .
Prosecutors routinely exercise discretion and stipulate to facts and evidence in individual cases — in other words , they make agreements with defendants that circumvent the adversarial process , such as with plea deals .
That is key to the @ @ @ @ @ @ @ , a law professor at the University of Missouri , Kansas City .
Following the AG ’ s logic “ is like saying that a prosecutor should never accept a guilty plea , ” he said .
“ That ’ s nuts.
” O ’ Brien also notes that it is well-established that the U.S. criminal justice system is not purely adversarial precisely because a prosecutor ’ s duty is to seek justice .
“ So , if an innocent person is acquitted even the prosecutor wins because justice is done.
” O @ @ @ @ @ @ @ scholars to sign on to an amicus brief filed with the Missouri Supreme Court in support of Gardner , who they say not only has the right , but also the duty to correct a wrongful conviction .
A variety of friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed at various stages of the case — including by retired Missouri judges , 45 elected prosecutors from across the country , and the Innocence Network — advising the court that the law does , and must , allow Gardner to act .
The prosecutor in Johnson ’ @ @ @ @ @ @ @ rights in order to convict ” that Gardner “ needs to purge the taint of misconduct ” from her office , O ’ Brien said .
“ Her ethical obligation to do so is not in question.
” Once Upon a Time in Missouri Schmitt says that Johnson can vindicate his rights by following regular post-conviction procedure : File a challenge based on the evidence Gardner has supplied and let the legal system work its ordinary , slogging magic .
Once upon a time in Missouri , this might have been a reasonable @ @ @ @ @ @ @ of post-conviction challenge would have been brought in the county where the conviction was obtained — in Johnson ’ s case , St. Louis — which makes sense because that prosecutor represented the state in the underlying case and would have ready access to its history .
If that rule had been retained , there is every reason to think that Johnson would be able to receive relief since Gardner would have the power to agree to it .
O ’ Brien says that there are a number of examples of that happening @ @ @ @ @ @ @ in an effort to speed along death penalty appeals , the rule was changed to require that post-conviction challenges be raised in the county where the defendant is incarcerated — often quite far from the original jurisdiction .
And in practice , since the prosecutor in that county has no connection to the case , that has meant the AG ’ s office is called in to represent the state .
“ The Missouri attorney general has never agreed to an innocence claim , ” O ’ Brien said .
“ They have @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Johnson ’ s previous appeals , which the AG successfully argued should be tossed out on procedural grounds .
And even if Johnson ’ s appeal were to survive a procedural challenge , the process would only draw out his already wrongful incarceration .
O ’ Brien ticked off a list of cases where innocent men had waded through years of litigation before being freed .
There ’ s Ricky Kidd , who spent 10 additional years behind bars after bringing evidence of his innocence to court ; Dale Helmig , who spent @ @ @ @ @ @ @ and Darryl Burton , who did an additional eight years .
At times , the AG ’ s office has taken its opposition in these cases to the extreme .
In 2003 , the Missouri Supreme Court considered the case of Joseph Amrine , who was on death row for a murder he did not commit .
The issue before the judges was whether Amrine , who had exhausted his regular avenues of appeal , had the right to court consideration of his innocence claim .
The AG argued that he did not @ @ @ @ @ @ @ we find that Mr. Amrine is actually innocent , he should be executed ?
” Judge Laura Denvir Stith asked .
“ That ’ s correct , your honor , ” the assistant attorney general replied .
“ The whole court was just stunned by that argument , ” O ’ Brien , who represented Amrine , recalled .
Since 1991 , 47 people have been exonerated in Missouri , including Amrine , Kidd , Helmig , and Burton .
To date , none of those exonerations has been attributed to the work @ @ @ @ @ @ @ have become crucial to freeing the wrongfully convicted .
There are 59 such units in operation across the nation , according to the National Registry of Exonerations .
In 2019 , conviction integrity units were involved in 55 exonerations , nearly 40 percent of the year ’ s total ; in all , they have been involved in more than 400 exonerations And unless the Missouri Supreme Court steps in , prosecutors in the state may remain hobbled , which is essentially what Schmitt is advocating : Keep the power to vet these @ @ @ @ @ @ @ the process elected prosecutors like Gardner , who vowed on the campaign trail to work toward a more equitable criminal justice system .
Aside from a narrow and vengeful reading of the law and procedural rules , there is likely one other element underpinning Schmitt ’ s position : politics .
Since taking office , Gardner has been battling the status quo .
She is hardly alone .
Reform prosecutors across the country have faced varying degrees of backlash from the entrenched power structures they ’ ve challenged , and they ’ ve @ @ @ @ @ @ @ ’ ve sought changes that upset the old guard .
And , as has also happened in other jurisdictions , Missouri lawmakers are now pushing a bill that would give the AG power to wrest from Gardner any number of criminal cases for prosecution .
This kind of pushback has been especially brutal against prosecutors of color , like Gardner , who have been the target of racist attacks and death threats .
“ I ’ ve not seen a prosecutor as disrespected as Kim Gardner , ” O ’ Brien said .
@ @ @ @ @ @ @ actions are being singled out .
In one example included in a brief filed with the state Supreme Court , Johnson ’ s attorneys point to several drug convictions that were tossed out by a trial court in 2003 — some two years after the defendants were sentenced — when the elected prosecutor in Cole County discovered evidence that they had been tainted by police misconduct .
Nonetheless , the current elected Cole County prosecutor , William Locke Thompson , penned an amicus brief in support of Schmitt ’ s position .
( @ @ @ @ @ @ @ onto the brief .
All of them are from small or rural counties .
Twenty-four of them are men ; all of them are white .
No prosecutor from the state ’ s major population centers joined in . )
“ You have to ask yourself , what ’ s different about this case ?
” said Lara Bazelon , a professor of law at the University of San Francisco who was among 106 scholars of legal ethics to sign on to a brief in support of Gardner .
“ Is Lamar Johnson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ Kim Gardner , she ’ s a progressive prosecutor and she ’ s a black woman and that sure is different.
” “ When she brought her motion , the trial judge ’ s reaction was to question her ethics and appoint the attorney general to intervene , ” Bazelon added .
“ Do I think that would happen if Gardner had been a white man ?
No .
Do I think that would have happened absent the long history of tension between Kim Gardner and the establishment that she successfully took on @ @ @ @ @ @ @ There ’ s a direct line between who she is , what she stands for , and where we are with this case.
” So even though there is ample evidence of Lamar Johnson ’ s innocence , he remains locked up in Missouri ’ s Jefferson City Correctional Center as the Covid-19 pandemic maintains its stranglehold on the nation , including in prisons and jails , which are ill-equipped to contain its spread .
To date , there are no confirmed coronavirus cases where Johnson is housed .
Since March 23 , @ @ @ @ @ @ @ that just 30 inmates and 13 staff members have become infected — though , as a general rule , testing throughout the nation ’ s correctional systems has been limited .
“ Things are definitely crazy with the coronavirus , ” Johnson wrote in an email to a Kansas City television reporter .
“ But I ’ m staying strong and faithful and of course , prayed up .
A just result has to happen.
” That ’ s the result O ’ Brien is hoping for too .
“ In Lamar Johnson @ @ @ @ @ @ @ got a prosecutor who was confronted with hard evidence that this guy doesn ’ t belong in prison .
She did the right thing , ” he said .
“ The question here is whether the system is going to do the right thing .
”

Marcus Boyd and Gary Elking were sitting in the dark on the stoop of Boyd’s apartment in St. Louis, Missouri, when two masked men brandishing guns ran up to them and started to fire. Boyd was shot multiple times and died at the scene. Elking, terrified but unharmed, fled on foot.
Days later, Elking would tell the police that he couldn’t identify either of the assailants because they wore dark clothing and black ski masks that covered all but their eyes. The only other person at the scene, Boyd’s girlfriend, Leslie Williamson, was similarly unable to identify the attackers. She’d been upstairs drawing a bath for the couple’s young daughter when she heard the popping of gunfire; she made it down to the porch in time to glimpse a man in black holding a gun.
The police had nothing concrete to go on. But by the time they finally interviewed Elking, they had already latched onto a suspect: 20-year-old Lamar Johnson.
Johnson would soon be arrested and tried for the October 1994 murder on thin and troubling evidence. The state’s theory of the crime was that Johnson murdered Boyd over a drug-related dispute. And Elking, who had been at Boyd’s that night to pay off a drug debt, would be key to the conviction. Although he’d told police he didn’t know who the masked men were, he later picked Johnson out of a lineup. The prosecution also relied on the testimony of a jailhouse informant, William Mock, who said he’d overheard Johnson brag about the killing while the two were locked up in the same unit after Johnson was arrested.
In 1995, Johnson was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Still, he has long maintained his innocence — and now has a powerful ally in his corner: Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, chief prosecutor for the city of St. Louis.
Gardner ran on a reform agenda and in 2016 became the first black elected prosecutor in the city’s history. She won federal funding to start a conviction integrity unit and in 2018, at the behest of the Midwest Innocence Project, began investigating Johnson’s case. A year later, she concluded that he was innocent.
In July 2019, Gardner filed a motion with Circuit Court Judge Elizabeth Hogan conceding that Johnson was wrongfully convicted. She asked the judge to grant a hearing on the matter and, ultimately, a new trial for Johnson. “When a prosecutor becomes aware of clear and convincing evidence establishing that a defendant in the prosecutor’s jurisdiction was convicted of a crime that the defendant did not commit — the position in which the circuit attorney now finds herself — the prosecutor is obligated to seek to remedy the conviction,” Gardner wrote in the court filing.
Photo: Courtesy of the Midwest Innocence Project
But Hogan balked, questioning whether Gardner had the power to challenge the conviction. She called in Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt to see what he had to say about it. Schmitt argued that not only did Gardner lack that authority, but the court couldn’t even entertain the matter. Hogan aligned herself with Schmitt and dismissed the case without considering the evidence Gardner had uncovered.
Hogan’s decision sparked a unique legal battle that, on April 14, culminated in a video conference hearing before the Missouri Supreme Court. The question before the judges, who are working remotely amid the coronavirus crisis, is whether a prosecutor has any power to right a wrongful conviction — a decision that will resonate far beyond the current case. According to Schmitt’s office, the answer is no. Giving a prosecutor that power “has the potential to undermine public confidence” in the criminal justice system, Shaun Mackelprang, chief of the attorney general’s criminal division, told the judges. “The prosecutor’s interests are broader than the interests of a single individual.”
I Was There, Johnson Was Not
Gardner’s yearlong inquiry revealed that Johnson’s conviction had been marred by extensive police and prosecutorial misconduct. She found that police had fabricated witness statements in an effort to frame Johnson (the witnesses said they’d never told police the things that had been attributed to them) and had pressured Elking into making an identification after he’d repeatedly told them he did not know who had attacked Boyd that night. Elking said that a detective told him who to pick out of the lineup.
Elking said that a detective told him who to pick out of the lineup.
Gardner learned that Elking had been paid more than $4,000 in exchange for his testimony and that prosecutors had also fixed a string of traffic tickets for him. None of this information was turned over to Johnson’s defense. Beginning in 2009, Johnson’s lawyers repeatedly requested records related to the payments, but the state denied their existence. Ultimately, Gardner located more than 60 documents related to the benefits Elking was awarded in exchange for his cooperation.
The state also failed to tell the defense that the jailhouse informant, Mock, had an epic criminal history (some 200 pages long) and a history of testifying for the state, and that he’d indicated in a letter to prosecutor Dwight Warren that racial animus was motivating him to help convict Johnson. “Yet, the state failed to disclose any of this information to Johnson at trial,” Gardner wrote in a court filing.
There was also the fact that Johnson had an alibi: He was with his girlfriend, child, and two friends several miles away at the time of the shooting. But his whereabouts that night were never fully investigated by police nor raised by the defense at trial.
Photo: Courtesy of the St. Louis Circuit Attorney
On top of it all, Gardner learned that not long after Johnson was convicted, two men, Phillip Campbell and James Howard, had each separately confessed to killing Boyd. Both insisted that Johnson had nothing to do with it. Campbell pleaded guilty to the crime after Johnson was convicted and was sentenced to seven years. Howard, who is currently in prison for an unrelated crime, has never been charged with Boyd’s murder, so by standing up for Johnson he has put himself on the hook for another potential conviction. “Lamar Johnson was not involved in the death of Marcus Boyd,” Howard said in an affidavit. “I know Lamar Johnson is innocent of that crime because I was there and Lamar Johnson was not.”
Given the breadth of the misconduct, Gardner felt she had to find a way to make things right — after all, it was her office that was responsible for Johnson’s conviction. “A prosecutor’s duty is not circumscribed by time or place. A prosecutor’s duty is to maintain the integrity of our justice system as a whole,” she wrote. “Because the circuit attorney has become aware of evidence of government misconduct, perjured testimony, concealed exculpatory and impeachment evidence that is clearly material, and evidence of innocence, she is duty-bound to move for a new trial.”
The Taint of Misconduct
Not everyone agrees with that position. Schmitt’s office has since doubled down in opposition to Gardner with a mind-numbing array of arguments.
Among these is a seemingly mundane one: The court rule governing the ability to file a motion for a new trial — which Gardner did in seeking review of Johnson’s case — has a hard-and-fast 15-day deadline that can’t be waived, Schmitt wrote in a court brief. And since Gardner’s original motion wasn’t filed until July 2019, it was “8,758 days out of time.”
Before the Missouri Supreme Court, Daniel Harawa, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis who is representing Gardner, noted that affirming the sanctity of a 15-day deadline would produce an absurd result. “It should not be that a prosecutor can learn that a person is wrongfully convicted on day 14 and take action, but that on day 16 it can do nothing.” Either way, he said, the court has the power to “clarify the rule or to amend the rules to make clear that a prosecutor can always file a new trial motion whenever evidence of a wrongful conviction comes to light.”
If Johnson was convicted based on prosecutorial misconduct, whatever the original prosecutor thought about his guilt is irrelevant.
Not so, says the attorney general, who has argued that no prosecutor in the state of Missouri has the power to undo a wrongful conviction. Sure, Gardner has a duty to turn over to Johnson or his lawyers the evidence of official misconduct that she’s gathered, but that’s all, Mackelprang said. To allow her more leeway would “create chaos” and erode the public’s faith in the system.
Just because Gardner has “reached the opinion” that Johnson is innocent doesn’t mean he is, Mackelprang told the court. Prosecutors aren’t allowed to “advocate on behalf of the defendant,” he said, because that is “inconsistent with the adversarial nature of our system,” where evidence is tested under cross-examination. And that can’t happen “if the prosecutor was allowed to simply, unilaterally present evidence” of innocence and expect Johnson could be released. “The previous prosecutor doesn’t believe that Mr. Johnson was innocent, at least as far as I know,” Mackelprang told the court. “The 12 jurors who found him guilty also did not believe he was innocent.”
The AG’s argument overlooks important facts — including that if Johnson was convicted based on prosecutorial misconduct, whatever the original prosecutor thought about his guilt is irrelevant. Moreover, jurors contacted during the reinvestigation of Johnson’s case said that if they had known about the state misconduct and hidden evidence, they would have been unlikely to convict. “I do not believe I would have voted to convict Mr. Johnson,” one juror said.
Photo: Jim Salter/AP
But a larger problem with the state’s position is that it is inconsistent with the everyday practice of criminal prosecution. Prosecutors routinely exercise discretion and stipulate to facts and evidence in individual cases — in other words, they make agreements with defendants that circumvent the adversarial process, such as with plea deals. That is key to the job, notes Sean O’Brien, a law professor at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. Following the AG’s logic “is like saying that a prosecutor should never accept a guilty plea,” he said. “That’s nuts.” O’Brien also notes that it is well-established that the U.S. criminal justice system is not purely adversarial precisely because a prosecutor’s duty is to seek justice. “So, if an innocent person is acquitted even the prosecutor wins because justice is done.”
O’Brien is one of nine legal scholars to sign on to an amicus brief filed with the Missouri Supreme Court in support of Gardner, who they say not only has the right, but also the duty to correct a wrongful conviction. A variety of friend-of-the-court briefs have been filed at various stages of the case — including by retired Missouri judges, 45 elected prosecutors from across the country, and the Innocence Network — advising the court that the law does, and must, allow Gardner to act. The prosecutor in Johnson’s case “violated so many constitutional rights in order to convict” that Gardner “needs to purge the taint of misconduct” from her office, O’Brien said. “Her ethical obligation to do so is not in question.”
Once Upon a Time in Missouri
Schmitt says that Johnson can vindicate his rights by following regular post-conviction procedure: File a challenge based on the evidence Gardner has supplied and let the legal system work its ordinary, slogging magic.
Once upon a time in Missouri, this might have been a reasonable suggestion. Until 1987, this kind of post-conviction challenge would have been brought in the county where the conviction was obtained — in Johnson’s case, St. Louis — which makes sense because that prosecutor represented the state in the underlying case and would have ready access to its history. If that rule had been retained, there is every reason to think that Johnson would be able to receive relief since Gardner would have the power to agree to it. O’Brien says that there are a number of examples of that happening under the old rule.
“The Missouri attorney general has never agreed to an innocence claim.”
But, in an effort to speed along death penalty appeals, the rule was changed to require that post-conviction challenges be raised in the county where the defendant is incarcerated — often quite far from the original jurisdiction. And in practice, since the prosecutor in that county has no connection to the case, that has meant the AG’s office is called in to represent the state. “The Missouri attorney general has never agreed to an innocence claim,” O’Brien said. “They have fought every single one.”
That includes Johnson’s previous appeals, which the AG successfully argued should be tossed out on procedural grounds.
And even if Johnson’s appeal were to survive a procedural challenge, the process would only draw out his already wrongful incarceration. O’Brien ticked off a list of cases where innocent men had waded through years of litigation before being freed. There’s Ricky Kidd, who spent 10 additional years behind bars after bringing evidence of his innocence to court; Dale Helmig, who spent nearly six extra years in prison; and Darryl Burton, who did an additional eight years.
At times, the AG’s office has taken its opposition in these cases to the extreme. In 2003, the Missouri Supreme Court considered the case of Joseph Amrine, who was on death row for a murder he did not commit. The issue before the judges was whether Amrine, who had exhausted his regular avenues of appeal, had the right to court consideration of his innocence claim. The AG argued that he did not. Are you suggesting that “if we find that Mr. Amrine is actually innocent, he should be executed?” Judge Laura Denvir Stith asked. “That’s correct, your honor,” the assistant attorney general replied.
“The whole court was just stunned by that argument,” O’Brien, who represented Amrine, recalled.
Photo: Courtesy of the Midwest Innocence Project
Since 1991, 47 people have been exonerated in Missouri , including Amrine, Kidd, Helmig, and Burton. To date, none of those exonerations has been attributed to the work of a conviction integrity unit, which have become crucial to freeing the wrongfully convicted. There are 59 such units in operation across the nation, according to the National Registry of Exonerations . In 2019, conviction integrity units were involved in 55 exonerations, nearly 40 percent of the year’s total; in all, they have been involved in more than 400 exonerations
And unless the Missouri Supreme Court steps in, prosecutors in the state may remain hobbled, which is essentially what Schmitt is advocating: Keep the power to vet these claims in his hands and dismiss from the process elected prosecutors like Gardner, who vowed on the campaign trail to work toward a more equitable criminal justice system.
Aside from a narrow and vengeful reading of the law and procedural rules, there is likely one other element underpinning Schmitt’s position: politics.
Aside from a narrow and vengeful reading of the law, there is likely one other element underpinning Schmitt’s position: politics.
Since taking office, Gardner has been battling the status quo. She is hardly alone. Reform prosecutors across the country have faced varying degrees of backlash from the entrenched power structures they’ve challenged, and they’ve repeatedly had their discretion questioned as they’ve sought changes that upset the old guard. And, as has also happened in other jurisdictions, Missouri lawmakers are now pushing a bill that would give the AG power to wrest from Gardner any number of criminal cases for prosecution. This kind of pushback has been especially brutal against prosecutors of color, like Gardner, who have been the target of racist attacks and death threats. “I’ve not seen a prosecutor as disrespected as Kim Gardner,” O’Brien said.
It does appear that Gardner’s actions are being singled out. In one example included in a brief filed with the state Supreme Court, Johnson’s attorneys point to several drug convictions that were tossed out by a trial court in 2003 — some two years after the defendants were sentenced — when the elected prosecutor in Cole County discovered evidence that they had been tainted by police misconduct. Nonetheless, the current elected Cole County prosecutor, William Locke Thompson, penned an amicus brief in support of Schmitt’s position. (In fact, 30 elected prosecutors signed onto the brief. All of them are from small or rural counties. Twenty-four of them are men; all of them are white. No prosecutor from the state’s major population centers joined in.)
“You have to ask yourself, what’s different about this case?” said Lara Bazelon, a professor of law at the University of San Francisco who was among 106 scholars of legal ethics to sign on to a brief in support of Gardner. “Is Lamar Johnson any less innocent? No. But Kim Gardner, she’s a progressive prosecutor and she’s a black woman and that sure is different.”
“When she brought her motion, the trial judge’s reaction was to question her ethics and appoint the attorney general to intervene,” Bazelon added. “Do I think that would happen if Gardner had been a white man? No. Do I think that would have happened absent the long history of tension between Kim Gardner and the establishment that she successfully took on in her reform campaign? No. There’s a direct line between who she is, what she stands for, and where we are with this case.”
So even though there is ample evidence of Lamar Johnson’s innocence, he remains locked up in Missouri’s Jefferson City Correctional Center as the Covid-19 pandemic maintains its stranglehold on the nation, including in prisons and jails, which are ill-equipped to contain its spread. To date, there are no confirmed coronavirus cases where Johnson is housed. Since March 23, the Missouri Department of Corrections has confirmed that just 30 inmates and 13 staff members have become infected — though, as a general rule, testing throughout the nation’s correctional systems has been limited. “Things are definitely crazy with the coronavirus,” Johnson wrote in an email to a Kansas City television reporter. “But I’m staying strong and faithful and of course, prayed up. A just result has to happen.”
That’s the result O’Brien is hoping for too. “In Lamar Johnson’s case, you’ve got a prosecutor who was confronted with hard evidence that this guy doesn’t belong in prison. She did the right thing,” he said. “The question here is whether the system is going to do the right thing.”