A Thinking Break

So, does that mean a break from thinking?  Or a break so I can think?  More the latter, but it's the thoughts invading my brain more than my deliberately saying, "Whoa, I need to stop and think a while."

So this post is just a brief (yeah, that's always my intent) overview of the action taking place in my brain, in hopes of not forgetting the many loose ends.  [And it didn't stay brief so I'm adding an overview so you don't get lost in the meanderings.]

• OLÉ classes - Project Innocence and the Fairbanks Four  and a proposal for police to have Devil's Advocates keeping them from straying after the wrong suspects
• OLÉ classes - Homelessness 
• The Struggle for Modern Tibet
• Dan Sullivan and the tension between loyalty and the rule of law and Profiles In Courage

I've bolded these highlights and enlarged them so you can scan on down to the ones you're most interested in.  Or just quit right here.


Thursday I went two OLÉ classes:  The Innocence Project and the Pebble Mine class.
Friday was State and Federal Courts in the morning and Homelessness in the afternoon.

I'm also reading ahead for my December book club meeting - The Struggle for Modern Tibet, by Goldstein, Stebeschuh, and Tsering.  It's Tsering's story and the other two helped him getting written down in English.  He's a Tibetan, from a peasant family, who gets to Indian and works with the Dalai Lama's older brother and then manages to get a scholarship to the US.  He feels the Tibetans in India who follow the Dalai Lama are basically supporting the old Tibetan class system and he feels appreciation for the Chinese who are interrupting that and bringing roads and schools and hospitals to Tibet.  He wants to help with bringing Tibetan culture into the modern world (he was partly influenced by reading medieval Western history in the US and thinking they had the same kind of religiously dominated class system then too, but were able to modernize yet keep their distinct cultures.  Everyone thinks he's crazy to go back, but he does and gets sent by the Chinese to a    that is training Tibetans to be teachers and to go back to Tibet.  It's the beginning of the Cultural Revolution and gets to go on a field trip to march before Mao at Tiananmen Square.  That's as far as I've gotten.  I'm still waiting to see how it ends up.  (Well, I know he got back to the US somehow and with the two co-authors to write the book.)

Tibet was one of about three or four topics that my Chinese students were united and unbudging on:  China saved the Tibetans from a slave culture run by the Dalai Lama and the ruling class.  And Tshering gives support for this interpretation.  So I'm challenging my own Western take on Tibet by even reading this book.

So what else am I thinking?

The Innocence Project - Thursday was the last class.  The executive director and until recently the only employee, Bill Oberly, is the main speaker, sometimes backed up by Board president, Mark Johnson.  Thursday, Bill finished up the reasons people are wrongly convicted and then chronicled the Fairbanks Four trials, the one case the the Alaska Innocence Project has overturned and gotten the wrongly convicted freed.
As he told the saga, he illustrated the reasons for wrongful convictions he'd just finished.  The problems included:

• false confessions
• false eye-witness testimony, 
• misuse of forensic pattern identification (in this case using bootprints to 'prove' a suspect's boot was involved) (I did a blog post on this topic a week or so ago)
• false informant testimony
• police misconduct (intentional and unintentional)

In fact, all of the problems as Oberly tells it (and I don't doubt him, but he's my only source) seemed  to stem from police misconduct - from how they got the confessions, how they pressured a witness to tell their story even though it was different from the witnesses original and then later story, and the coached testimony of a prison inmate who said one of the Fairbanks Four had confessed to him in prison.

This issue is one that's been rummaging through my brain and has come up with the idea that police (and probably many other types of government, and for that matter private companies) need to have some form of Devil's Advocate involved in murder and other felony investigations.  The Devil's Advocate would be there to challenge the lead investigators when they seem to be caught up in confirmation bias (seeing the facts that confirm their suspicions, and not seeing ones that challenge their theory of the case).  The Devil's Advocate's job would be to put pressure on the investigators when their not following proper procedures for interrogating suspects (no lawyers, no parents even for minors, planting false scenarios (in this case on pretty intoxicated suspects who couldn't remember anything from the previous couple of hours), etc.

We have people who do this sort of work after the fact - Ombuds offices, Inspectors General, etc.  But if this work had been done on the front end, innocent people wouldn't end up spending five, ten, fifteen, and more years in prison.  And the actual murderers wouldn't still be loose killing other people.  And overzealous cops and prosecutors would be checked early, and perhaps disciplined or terminated before doing more damage.

Would this cost more?  Cost isn't supposed to be a factor in getting to justice.  But trying innocents suspects costs way more than the cost of a position of Devil's Advocate.  And if the victims are able to sue and win a wrongful conviction case, well, there's money that would have funded a dozen Devil's Advocates.

I've not given details of this case yet and won't today.  So it's hard for readers to feel the injustices done in this case.  But I've recommended several times already that readers here watch the Netflix short series When They See Us about the Central Park Five.  All the reasons for wrongful convictions are clearly illustrated in that case.  It's heartbreaking, but compelling viewing.  And all five have been exonerated and released.

Tied to all this is a notion of written about professionally on corruption.  There's a natural tension in all of us between following our human social value of loyalty and the value of following the rule of law.   We all have genetically built into us a loyalty to our 'group' whether that be family, team, school, profession, work group, whatever.  And that notion of loyalty is reinforced by our society and every other society.  Studies show that loyalty is a more important value for political conservatives in the US than for liberals.  We can see that playing out in Washington now as the Republicans are being held tightly in control by the president, despite their private misgivings.  It's the power that mafia bosses and platoon leaders and sports coaches have.   They are far less likely to vote, as the Democrats did with Senator Al Franken, to give up one of their own because of a violation of principles.

The idea of rule of law is, in part, to counter blind loyalty so that people are treated fairly and equally.  While loyalty can work in concert with the rule of law, it can also thwart the rule of law.  In police and military and corrections organizations unwritten "Codes of Silence" or "The Blue Wall" will keep police and corrections officers from reporting crimes within their ranks.

This loyalty vs rule of law tension also got me to thinking about one of my Senators - Dan Sullivan.  While he has said he did not vote for Trump, he's since been caught up in the loyalty to the Republican Bully in Chief (sorry conservatives, that characterization is pretty accurate - just look up any literature on bullying and the spell they hold on those around them).  He even signed Sen. Graham's letter condemning the House impeachment investigation.  (My other Republican Senator did not.)

So I've been wrestling with how to reach out to him - not to attack him, but to find ways to open his brain to alternative ways of seeing all this.  He's a Marine (still in the reserves) and their values are all for courage.  But they are also indoctrinated into a loyalty to the Marines that means not following orders to run into danger takes less courage than not.  So while he might have tremendous physical courage and be willing to risk his life on the battlefield, the moral courage to break with his loyalty to the president and the Republican Party is much more difficult.

So how can someone talk to him about that?  I've started looking at John Kennedy's book Profiles in Courage (it's available at the link online.)
 Kennedy wrote about six US Senators who stood out by overcoming all the pressures weighing dow US Senators.  Maybe that would help, but I doubt it.

I'm also pondering all the data we've gotten on homelessness.  The Municipality of Anchorage is participating in a data gathering and management plan based on a nation wide data system, Built For Zero. It tracks monthly:

• newly homeless (and where they come from in terms of previous housing)
• current homeless
• exiting homelessness

 The intent is to always have enough beds so that zero people spend the night homeless.  It involves collecting and sharing data on all the homeless, why they're homeless, what level of services they need, etc. so that they can find the right level of help for people in different categories of need.  And always making sure there are enough beds.   The plan they have addresses most of the questions the class raised the first week.   Here are some links - though they don't quite deal with some of the programs and data we've seen in class:

• MOA Housing and Homelessness Page - the basic Muni page on homelessness with links
• Data Dashboard - some numbers on the Anchorage homeless population

That's just a smattering of the activity going on in my skull.  When things get so busy, it's hard to sit and write something that doesn't meander a bit.

Steller Jay, Escape Room, Homeless Camp At Valley Of The Moon

A Steller Jay dropped by yesterday just outside the kitchen window.  These bird are beautiful and brazen and there's some kind of a turf war in our yard now and then between the jays and magpies.







My OLÉ one time class at the Anchorage Escape Room near G and 5th Avenue, was a lot of fun.  There were about ten of us on this hour long adventure to escape.   And it took all of us to figure out the clues to open pad locks that got us more clues to get us to the final room and out the last door.  There were some cool surprises.  I don't want to say more.  Here we are gathering in the downstair office.  The room with the Tree Door is a new escape adventure that isn't completed yet. They want to make it perfect.  We went into the door on the left.

Our group reminded me that everyone has something valuable to contribute if others just give them a chance.  We didn't get out in the allotted hour, but since there was no one else waiting, they let us keep going and we got out in 90 minutes instead of 60.  They said only 30% of the groups make it out in 60 minutes.


I was pleased that the weather was warm enough and dry enough I didn't have to think about ice and could ride downtown for the escape room.

On the way home I passed a large homeless camp in the woods to the east of Valley of the Moon Park.  I'd guess there were 15 to 20 tents.  I didn't see anyone so could do an impromptu extra-credit for my Homelessness class.  Last Friday's was full of the kind of data I was looking for.  Dr. Richard Mandsager was the speaker and he had lots of data about the different causes of homelessness, how many in the different categories in Anchorage, and looked at the larger environmental factors that push people into the streets.  I hope I can get more into that here one of these days.

The sign says, "Camp Here - Occupy to Overcome."  (I'm having trouble with iPhoto.  It's not saving the edits when I crop photos.  And Apple would rather we move 'up' to their newer software, Photo, and hook us into paying monthly fees for iCloud.   No wonder no one has any money.)

Why People Are Falsely Convicted

Here's some info from the Innocence Project class I'm taking through OLÉ.  I'd note that most of the information in this post comes from the class, though I've added some links for people who want to dig a little deeper.

The Innocence Projects seeks to help prisoners who have been wrongfully convicted to get released from prison.  To date, according to the class, 367 people in the United States have been exonerated by DNA testing and 162 actual assailants identified.  (That is the people who actually committed the crimes.)

6 Common Causes of Wrongful Conviction
1. Eyewitness misidentification 2. False confessions or admissions 3. Government misconduct 4. Inadequate defense 5. Informants (e.g., jailhouse snitches) 6. Unvalidated or improper forensic science

Today I'm going to just look at number 6.

6.  Unvalidated or improper forensic science

“When we looked at all the cases of people who have been exonerated by DNA evidence, we found that in 60 percent of those cases, experts who testified for the prosecution produced either invalid evidence or the misapplication of science in their testimony.” Peter Neufeld, Co-founder of the Innocence Project

• DNA is now 'the gold standard' for criminal cases.  However, there are cases of contamination of DNA - the DNA that is gathered at the scene, or contamination in the lab.  But modern technology is more likely to be able to detect contamination.  
• Odontology - This is used most effectively when there's a fire or accident, and the teeth are used to identify a body.  But there were experts who claimed to be able to match teeth based on bite marks and a number of people have been convicted based on testimony from 'experts.'  But it turns out this can be bogus.  There was no real science behind it and different experts could interpret it differently.  
• Pattern Evidence - Shoe Prints, Tire Tracks, and bullet striations - all these methods were also shown to be unreliable, that is, different experts could come up with different conclusions and there was no scientific standards for showing how close the match was.  You can read more about this and scientific advances here.
• Arson - Again, a few 'experts' gained credibility on being able to determine arson.  However, the case of Cameron Todd has debunked this method.  Todd, unfortunately had been put to death before the evidence in his trial was faulted.  
• Fingerprints - once the gold standard (before DNA) the infallibility of fingerprints was shattered in a case that came from a terrorist bombing in Madrid.  The Spanish police put fingerprints out worldwide and the FBI found an attorney in Oregon whose prints matched.  And he'd recently become a Muslim.  Three FBI fingerprint experts agreed and sent the data to Spain.  The Spaniards were dumbfounded.  How could this be?  There was no record the lawyer had ever even been to Spain.  Other fingerprint experts identified an Algerian terrorist whose prints matched better than the Oregon attorney.  Because of this case, they no longer say they're 100% sure.  Instead they say "it matches on these points."  Here's a link to the FBI's report on that case.
• Shaken Baby Syndrome - A pediatrician in 1971who had a number of infant deaths tried to figure out what had caused them and decided it might stem from shaking the baby.  He came up with three symptoms.  If the baby had those three symptoms, then the last person in contact with the baby was guilty.  The case of Audrey Edmunds was the case that eventually debunked that theory. She got out of prison, but there are still many other prisoners in prison because of the shaken baby theory.  

That should be enough for one bite.  I'll add more in future posts.  I'd also recommend watching "When They See Us" to those who have Netflix.  It's about the Central Park Five.  I didn't want to watch it at first, but it got good reviews, and so I checked the first episode and then finished them all.  Including the last one with Oprah Winfrey (who was the producer of the film) interviewing the  key actors AND the actual exonerated men who had been wrongly convicted.  That show illustrates most of the six common causes listed above.  It does a particularly good job on false confessions, which most people have trouble understanding.  

On The Edge Of Snow - And OLÉ Classes Continue

It was in the mid 30s when I went to Pecha Kucha class yesterday, but the streets were good, so I biked.  My presentation was ok, people said nice things afterward.  Here's the first of the 20 slides.

and I tried to make the case for how learning another languages let's you escape the confines of English (or whatever your first language is) as you learn that the words and grammar of one language reflect the world differently from other languages.  This shows most concretely in the fact that words of one language don't translate exactly into the words of the other language.  Even concrete objects might not translate right.  Banana would seem an easy translation, but in Thailand there are about 20 kinds of bananas that regularly show up in the market and many people there pick bananas off trees in their garden.   And that, say, a black cat, has meanings in one culture that it might not have in another.  And words that describe relationships get even trickier.

The Thai words closest to brother and sister really focus on the older/younger relationship more than the gender relationship, or even the blood relationship

People without any blood connection use the terms for older and younger about each other all the time. (And it's different from the more recent US use of 'Bro'.)  At one point I asked somebody, after he'd introduced me to his sixth or seventh 'brother', how many brothers did he have.  Oh, they aren't that kind of brother, he said.

The class liked the blue and red circles I used to show how much the English and German or Thai words overlapped.  I didn't think of that until I was finishing the last slide, the night before the presentation.  Then I went back and put in circles for the different slides that compared English and German or English and Thai words.  Good thing I did.  I argued that when the words don't overlap completely (usually the case) is when you learn what your own language doesn't capture about the world.  And the less the words overlap, the more you learn about yourself and the world.

It was just starting to rain when I returned yesterday.  It was more a light drizzle, and the drops were tiny specks of hail.  Much better than raindrops, not as good as snow.  I could feel them on my face.  But I got home fine, but I was expecting snow on the ground this morning.

There wasn't any and the street in front of our house was wet, but not icy.  And large chunks of sky were blue.   So I biked.  For the most part it was ok but then I saw a police car's lights flashing ahead and this car on the side of the road.

The culprit seems to have been a piece of light brick colored cement at the intersection.  While all the other surfaces were fine, that piece of cement was really slick.  Was there a second car involved?  I don't know.  A stop sign had been flattened.  (I thought I took a picture, but it's not on my phone.)  I walked the bike around the debris and down the hill.  Back on the flat I rode carefully to the church where today's OLÉ classes were held.

By 2:30 when I came back, the sun was out and any ice or frost that had been there was either a puddle or dry pavement.  But I did have two voices in my head this morning.  One said:  "Don't be such a wimp.  You can't let a little weather threat keep you off the bike."  The other said, "A broken arm would really be a pain.  Don't be stupid."  Stupid beat wimp today, but I know I should be more careful.

The classes today were good.  The Innocence Project class was a continuation of last week's list of reasons innocent people are convicted.  I'll put that into another post.  It's interesting.  And this class is a great one after seeing "When They See Us" the Netflix series on the Central Park Five case.  Everything they talk about in the class happens in the series.

The afternoon class was on Pebble Mine.   We've had a representative from Pebble. A person from the Army Corps of Engineers, whose in charge of the Environmental Impact Statement, and today, was someone from Bristol Bay Native Corporation who are strongly opposed to the mine.

OLÉ Courts Class Does Tour of State Court Buildings Anchorage

This first picture is to remind my non-Alaskan readers that since we are post equinox, we're losing 5 minutes a day of daylight.  So waiting at the bus stop at 7:25am it was still dark!

Here's the courthouse directory on the wall.

We first stopped in a courtroom and Superior Judge Una Gandbhir talked about the kinds of cases she normally hears (civil) and answered questions.  OLÉ folks tend to have lots of questions.  The comment that got my attention was that there was a growing number of people who defend themselves these days.  Fortunately, someone else asked a follow up on that and she expanded.  This only works with civil cases (not criminal) and without a jury.  It's difficult if one side has an attorney and the other is self representing.  

In civil cases, there's no court appointed attorney for those who can't afford one, so that's probably one reason for this.  The judge also said there are lots of material available to help people find the forms they need and learn what they need to do.  

Here's a link to the Alaska Courts main self-help page.

I didn't know what the rules for photos was.  I know that reporters take pictures in state trials.  So I took this one as we were settling down and didn't take a picture when the judge came in.  

There's a tunnel between the Nesbitt and Boney Courthouses, that goes under the street.  We watched the video they show jurors, which I'd seen when I was called to jury duty.  It's quite good going explanations that jurors should hear about their role, the judges' role, the jury's role, etc.  

Then retired Superior Court Judge Elaine Andrews came in and started talking about work she's doing now to help educate people about the court system.  But time was short and we went back through the tunnel to the security office.   This office is responsible for the prisoners who come to court each week and they had a selection of cuffs on the table.  After that we got to see the room where they monitor all the security cameras - including the cells with awaiting prisoners.  We could see some of the cells from that room.  It did not look like a cheerful space.  And I was thinking I'm glad I'm taking the Innocence Project class at the same time as this one.  

Then back through the tunnel to the Boney Courthouse and up to the Supreme Court chamber, where I wanted to be Wednesday afternoon to hear the case of the Alaska youths suing the state for policies (development of oil and gas) which endanger their future by worsening climate change.  I had been up here once when i was covering redistricting.  It's a much nicer space than the cells we'd just been in.

Appellate Judge Tracy Wollenberg was our host here.  She talked about conditions for appealing a case.  A small percentage of cases actually go to trial.  So those that do are people who feel strongly and she said a large number appeal.

She did point out that in Alaska only criminal cases go to the appellate court and are heard by three judges.

Civil cases that are appealed go directly to the Supreme Court.  But the court only hears a relatively few cases.  I think I got that right, but check before you bet money on that.

The tour was over at 10 am (we met at 8:15am) and it was plenty light out by then.  We didn't have any snow in the Anchorage bowl yet, but someone on the tour said there was snow falling (but not sticking) at her Hillside home.  Not sure where this truck started out this morning.

What We Need To Know About Homelessness In Anchorage - Working My OLÉ Class Notes

Our Friday Homelessness OLÉ class speaker was late Friday afternoon.  The class monitor, at one point, was going to call the day's class off.  But someone in the class suggested we get to know each other and why we were taking the class.  And as we did that, we learned the speaker was on the way besides.  I had my iPad and took notes.

There were about 30 students.  Everyone's 'older' since OLÉ classes are aimed at retired folks.  A lot more women than men.  I gave the class monitor my notes to go along with hers to give to the speaker - there are seven more sessions.

I went home and sifted through the notes which were chronological by speaker.  I wanted to focus more on the ideas than the speaker.  I grouped similar comments.  Then I tried to see differences in the kinds of comments, the different perspectives they represented, etc.   I was trying to condense this as much as possible without losing content, but also to help make us as conscious as possible of how different kinds of comments reflected different needs and interests.

Then I did that again.  Here are my final two iterations of people's comments.

Here's the second cut:

General Issue	Specifics
Opinions - general	Never seen it so bad System isn’t working Need to do something
Opinions - Specific	Protect public spaces In My neighborhood Tired of being afraid
Solutions  - housing	Build Housing Homeless Housing on Park Strip Use empty buildings - like Sam’s Club Tiny Houses
Need to Know more	Learn from the homeless What are the resources? What are the different types of homeless? How much low income affordable housing is there in Anchorage? What are trends from past until now? Definitions of homelessness.
Things individuals can do to help out Larger societal problems that create homeless people	-

And here's the third cut.

General	More Specific
Perspectives for Looking at Homeless	View of ‘victims’ of the homeless View of the homeless population View of ‘solvers’ of homelessness
Ways to ‘solve’ homelessness	Solve problems caused by homelessness -To community -To homeless Solve problems that cause homelessness
Information we want	Definitions of homeless Categories of homeless (assuming different categories can be handled in different ways) Total # of homeless # in each category of homeless # of those transitioning out of homelessness each year # of new homeless each year # of chronic homeless Definitions/categories of low cost housing Data on available low cost housing in Anchorage Data on successful approaches elsewhere Current costs of homelessness to -MOA -Residents with homes -Homeless residents -Others Resources available -Funds allocated -Positions allocated -Expertise available -Resources still needed Sources of homeless people (why people become homeless)
Solutions	Money -Taxes -Lottery More low cost housing Mental health services Addiction help Employment help Health Costs help

There are a lot of savvy people in the class coming at this from different perspectives.  I hope I've been reasonably faithful in how I've pulled together the comments.  Once I had these frameworks, I did add a few more items in (particularly things we want to know).  I was concerned that we distinguish between short term fixes to help individuals who are homeless and people who are affected negatively by nearby homeless cams on the one hand, and how to 'fix' the societal changes in the US that are causing homelessness, that Anchorage, on its own can't 'fix'.  Changes in wages, job security, student debt, veteran's physical and mental health issues resulting from their service, access to health care, etc.  It's in there, but not that explicitly.

We've got different people coming in to talk to us over the next seven weeks.  Though I don't think that we've got any homeless folks coming in to talk.

A Recovery Day

That's me, like the sun, trying to see through the clouds.  101˚F, chest full of crud.  It wasn't quite that bad yesterday when I went to my OLÉ classes.  But I did try to sit away from others.

I'm staying in today.  I'm not good at being sick  I'm drinking lots of hot water with honey.  But I'll try to get some stuff done.

The sun has broken through a couple of times.  The trees are losing their leaves.  I do want to write a bit about SB 91 - the criminal justice reform bill that was essentially repealed this year because that was the main topic of our state and federal courts class yesterday.  And also about how our class talked about homelessness (the other class) while waiting for the speaker to come.  Actually, it was a good thing we had time to get to know each other better.

OLÉ - The Innocence Project: "50 To 150 People In Alaska Prisons Are Innocent"

It's sort of like I ordered way more off the menu than I'm going to be able to eat.  Yesterday was the Pecha Kucha (pronounce in the four syllables you see) class and today began with the Innocence Project and the Pebble Mine.  And I seem to be coming down with a cold.  

But let me get a little up here since I didn't post yesterday.  Let's get some of the Innocence Project up.  This is the work of saints - helping people wrongly convicted to get out of prison.  The speakers were Mark Johnson, (sitting) the head of the board for the IP, and Bill Oberly the employee who does most of the work.  I took the picture after the presentation when they were answering individual questions.  

Every time I read about a prisoner getting out of prison after 10, 15, 30 years because of evidence that clearly exonerates them, or a confession by another of the crime, it breaks my heart thinking of someone taken from the family and thrown into a cell.  For example from The National Registry of Exonerations.

Many prisons are inhumane for guilty prisoners.  Imagine if you didn't do the crime.  

If imagining that is hard to do, watch Netflix's When They See Us*  about five teenagers who were imprisoned for a rape they didn't commit because of a prosecutor who coerced confessions and ignored evidence that didn't fit her story.   This is the story of the kids convicted of the Central Park jogger rape.  I confess, that I didn't want to watch it, but saw it was getting awards and so we decided to try the first episode.  It's mostly painful, but the actual rapists eventually confesses (after meeting one of the five in prison) and they do get out.  There's an extra episode which is an Oprah show of sorts (she was the producer I think) where all the actors who played the boys and their older selves are interviewed.  And then the original real prisoners are interviewed as well.  

*This is not a great link here, but when I link to Netflix, to goes to my subscription which won't work for others.  It may go to the right place for other Netflix subscribers, I don't know.  And reviews at Washington Post and New York Times have paywalls.  You might also want to check Wikipedia.  

It's pretty powerful, and one line from the film's director really caught my attention.  She challenged people who talk about the system being broken.  It's not broken, she said, it was designed that way.  And when it comes to people of color and poor folks that seems to be accurate.  

So that was my most recent connection to this sort of injustice and was good background for understanding the enormity of the wrongs that the Innocence Project tries to right.  

A little bit from today's class from my notes.  

Innocence Project's MISSION

1. Identify , investigate, and exonerate individuals who have been wrongly convicted in the State of Alaska
2.  Education - doing that today (at OLÉ).  Provide ed opportunities for advocates and for the public that foster a culture that champions the defense of the innocent.  
3. Implement policies, practices, and reforms  that will prevent wrongful convictions and hasten the identification and release of innocent persons.

Number 1 is the main priority.  

History

The Alaska IP is part of a national Innocence Network   All independent, but share experiences, best practices.  There originally was just one, but it became clear quickly that they couldn't cover the whole country.  A Northwest PI was started, but they couldn't even handle all of Washington, let alone the rest of their territory.  Alaska's Project Innocence began in 2006.  

The Project has 6 criteria for accepting cases.

1. Individual is incarcerated
2. Individual has at least two years remaining on sentence.
3. Factually, the client is actually innocent.  (They don't work on technical legal issues for people who aren't innocent.)
4. Evidence is available which may prove actual innocence
5. Individual has exhausted all court actions under the facts of the criminal conviction upon which the individual is incarcerated where the individual has appointed counsel as a matter of right
6. Notwithstanding numbers 1 through 5, the Board of the Alaska Innocence Project may accept any case at its discretion.  (but number 1 - actual innocence - is necessary)

They said that research suggests that 1-3% of people in prison are innocent.  Given Alaska's prison population, that means 50 - 150 people!   

The only people exonerated so far through the Alaska Innocence Project have been the Fairbanks Four, which is a big deal.  There are more potential cases in the pipeline.  

Here's a link to their website.  You can find more there.  We've got three more session on this topic.    

Sorry for such a truncated post, but really need to get to bed.  I have a 9am class on State and Federal Courts tomorrow and a 3pm class on Homelessness.  

Once Upon A Time I Thought I Might Catch Up. Fat Chance.

As I wrote the title, I realized we never can catch up in life, but I was referring to little things like writing blog posts and paying the bills.  Today was my wife's birthday.  We went for a movie and dinner.   It seemed like a good day to spend the early afternoon in a movie, but the rain had stopped and there were even breaks in the clouds when we got there.

 And the snow was mostly gone from the Chugach.


I've already  written about my mixed feelings about going to see Once Upon A Time In Hollywood.   Now that I've seen it, if I hadn't, I wouldn't have missed anything important.

Even though I've eaten at Musso & Franks, went to movies at the Bruin theater when I was a student at UCLA, and even interviewed George Putnam (there was an ad for his newscast on a bus stop) for my junior high school newspaper.  Putnam arrived in a gold limo - a Rolls, I think - and he smoked through the interview even though his bio said he didn't smoke. (At least that's what my memory tells me.)

The movie began in a Pan Am 747, which set alarms off right way, since the date posted was 1969.  I'd read that the period details had been carefully done.  And yes, I know some odd details.  In this case because I first flew on one of the early Pan Am 747 flights - from Honolulu to Tokyo - in March 1970. (I was flying from a Peace Corps training program I worked at in Hilo to the second part of the training in Thailand.)  Pan Am 1 and 2 had just started flying. I think it was Pan Am 1 that flew around the world toward the west and Pan Am2 to the east.  Did it start earlier in 1969?  I've now had time to look it up and the first commercial flight was in January 1970.

It wasn't a bad movie - though I generally skip movies with lots of violence - but it felt artificial throughout.  Cardboard.  I assume that was intentional since it was about Hollywood and all the phoniness of that life, but as the birthday girl said over dinner at the Thai Kitchen, with all the really good stuff we're seeing on Netflix, it just didn't cut it.

So I'm reduced to writing filler pieces like this because I just haven't had time to finish my thoughts on the Joseph Maguire hearings and several other drafts that probably will never get beyond that stage.  

And tomorrow I start a slew of OLÉ classes.  (Continuing ed classes aimed at retired folks at UAA.  I think they pay for themselves so maybe they won't disappear next year.)   I have an actual project in one that I need to spend extra time on and I haven't figured out what I'm going to do.  It's a Pecha-Kucha class - you present 20 pictures in seven minutes with narration of the story they tell. Well, I've got plenty of pictures, but organizing a compelling story is the challenge.  As I see it now, though I'll probably discover that was the easy part once I get the story figured out.

Other classes I enrolled in include:

• An Overview of the Pebble Copper-Molybdenum-Gold Prospect 
• The Innocence Project
• State and Federal Courts and Current Legal Issues
• Homeless, Homelessness and Finding "Home"

And a one time short class that's a trip to an Escape Room.

I'm hoping the classes will provide plenty of fodder for the blog.