In all the hoopla about James O’Keefe and Rand Paul‘s filibuster (still support him on that), I completely forgot aout International Women’s Day (IWD), which was yesterday. I was impressed to read the list of countries who now recognize the day.  IWD has been observed since the early 1990s.  It received a boost when women marched through New York city in 1908, demanding better working conditions (better pay and shorter hours) and voting rights.  According to the official page:

“IWD is now an official holiday in Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Burkina Faso, Cambodia, China (for women only), Cuba, Georgia, Guinea-Bissau, Eritrea, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Laos, Madagascar (for women only), Moldova, Mongolia, Montenegro, Nepal (for women only), Russia, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, Uganda, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam and Zambia. The tradition sees men honouring their mothers, wives, girlfriends, colleagues, etc with flowers and small gifts. In some countries IWD has the equivalent status of Mother’s Day where children give small presents to their mothers and grandmothers.”

Women’s rights globally have improved but according to that same site (and what we see around us):

“The unfortunate fact is that women are still not paid equally to that of their male counterparts, women still are not present in equal numbers in business or politics, and globally women’s education, health and the violence against them is worse than that of men.”

As inspirational as it may be to read about advancements women have made  globally — women have been elected president and prime minister in multiple countries, head up Fortune 500 companies and are in nearly every profession (a woman is slated to try out for the National Football League this year) — we are an inward looking country.  I am not any better.  When I am overseas as I am just as obsessed with what’s happening in the US as when I am here.

Why should women (and men) care about IWD in the United States, don’t we have equality here?  No.  Hillary may have put thousands of cracks in the glass ceiling but it is still there.

From a 2010 Washington Post piece:

“The distressing statistics don’t stop with violence: Women hold 17 percent of the seats in Congress; abortion is legal, but more than 85 percent of counties in the United States have no provider; women work outside the home, but they make about 76 cents to a man’s dollar and make up the majority of Americans living in poverty.”

Violence against women is a serious problem.  As many as one in four women in the US are raped.  In terms of domestic violence, female murder victims are most often killed by a partner.  Additionally, murder is one of the leading causes of death among pregnant women.

According to the National Organization for Women (NOW):

“In 2005, 1,181 women were murdered by an intimate partner. That’s an average of three women every day. Of all the women murdered in the U.S., about one-third were killed by an intimate partner.”

In cases of domestic violence, the victims are most often women.  The problem of intimate partner violence has even been studied by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).  They define it as:

“Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a serious, preventable public health problem that affects millions of Americans. The term “intimate partner violence” describes physical, sexual, or psychological harm by a current or former partner or spouse. This type of violence can occur among heterosexual or same-sex couples and does not require sexual intimacy.”

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) CDC put out a report entitled “The Cost of Domestic Violence Against Women in the United States.”   The full report can be found here. They found:

“Data about nonfatal IPV victimizations and resulting health care service use were collected through the National Violence Against Women Survey (NVAWS), funded by the National Institute of Justice and CDC. Based on NVAWS data, an estimated 5.3 million IPV victimizations occur among U.S. women ages 18 and older each year. This violence results in nearly 2.0 million injuries, more than 550,000 of which require medical attention. In addition, IPV victims also lose a total of nearly 8.0 million days of paid work—the equivalent of more than 32,000 full-time jobs—and nearly 5.6 million days of household productivity as a result of the violence.”

This is why passage of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) was so important and the law is still needed.

It is easy to look around and think that we have reached a point where we have full equality (unless you’re gay and then you know too well how different we treat straight couples than gay ones, though same sex marriage will be legal in my lifetime.  Thank you Bill Clinton for your late decision the DOMA you signed into law should be overturned — read his op-ed here.) but we don’t.  Women make less money, are not represented equally in government or in board rooms across the nation.  Moreover, we are subject to more violence — domestic and not.  VAWA did more than allocate resources, it made combatting it a priority.  A friend asked me “Why did we need a federal law, couldn’t the states handle it?”  He recounted stories about how, in Texas, law enforcement did not prosecute women who had killed their husbands (most were victims of domestic abuse, or that was the assumption).  He added they started in the 1980s when more resources were made available to these women.  Personally, I don’t want to leave my safety up to the whims of local sheriffs and prosecutors who may or may not believe domestic violence is an issue.  That’s why we need this law.

Women have had the right to vote for less than 100 years (since 1920).  In that time, a  lot has changed.  Progress has been made but we still have a long way to go.

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James Holmes in court

The Daily Banter headline grab from USA Today:

The suspect in the Colorado shootings appeared in court for the first time Monday with dyed red-orange hair looking groggy as his eyes drooped shut during the brief proceeding.

Unshaven and wearing a burgundy jailhouse top, James Eagan Holmes, 24, sat motionless and didn’t say anything as the judge advised him he is being held on suspicion of first-degree murder.

The former graduate student is accused of killing 12 people and injuring 58 when he started shooting at a midnight showing of the latest Batman movie early Friday.

Holmes appeared in court shackled in a chain that bound his legs and hands. Authorities say Holmes is refusing to cooperate and it could take months to learn what prompted the attack.

Carol Chambers, district attorney in the 18th Judicial District, which includes Arapahoe County, said after the hearing that “there’s no such thing as a slam-dunk case.”

She said prosecutors have not decided whether they will seek the death penalty. That decision could take at least two months and will be made after discussions with the surviving victims and the relatives of all victims.

“There’s so much that victims have to take into account,” she said, adding that victims are affected when the death penalty is sought because it becomes a long process that affects their lives.

Chambers said it could take a year before the case goes to trial. Holmes is scheduled to be arraigned on formal charges on July 30.

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Zimmerman's account of events now in serious doubt

From the Huff Post:

A new trove of evidence released by the Florida state attorney prosecuting George Zimmerman for second-degree murder in the killing of Trayvon Martin reveals the extent to which law enforcement doubted Zimmerman’s early claims of self-defense.

“His actions are inconsistent with those of a person who has stated he was in fear of another subject,” an investigator wrote in an early report on the Feb. 26 shooting. “Investigative findings show that George Michael Zimmerman had at least two opportunities to speak with Trayvon Benjamin Martin in order to defuse the circumstances,” and Zimmerman twice “failed to identify himself as a concerned resident or a neighborhood watch member.”

The report also said that Martin’s and Zimmerman’s respective physical dimensions did not place Zimmerman at a disadvantage worthy of lethal force.

“Investigative findings show the physical injuries displayed by [Zimmerman] are marginally consistent with a life-threatening violent episode described by him, during which neither a deadly weapon nor deadly force was deployed by Trayvon Martin,” the report said.

The evidence released this afternoon includes a one-hour video recording of an interview between lead investigator Christopher Serino and Zimmerman at the Sanford, Fla., police headquarters, a pair of audio recordings between Serino and Zimmerman, and 29 pages of police reports and notes, including a handwritten narrative by Zimmerman recounting the events on the night of Feb. 26.

Hours after the release of the new evidence, Serino, who had expressed doubts over Zimmerman’s story and suggested that charges be filed, was reassigned to the patrol division, according to the Associated Press. The reassignment came at his own request, AP reports.

This latest Zimmerman disclosures are the latest in a series of releases of formerly sealed evidence, made public under pressure from media companies, who have argued that full disclosure of the evidence is in the public’s interest. The prosecution and the defense both objected.

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The neighborhood watch volunteer who fatally shot Trayvon Martin, an unarmed black teenager in central Florida, could soon be released from custody after a judge set a $150,000 bond that will let him get out of jail while he awaits trial.

George Zimmerman apologized in court Friday to Martin’s family for shooting the 17-year-old boy in a confrontation that has riveted the nation and sparked intense discussions about race and gun control.

“I wanted to say I am sorry for the loss of your son,” Zimmerman said in an unusual appeal directly to Martin’s family before he testified in the Seminole County Courthouse in Sanford. “I thought he was a little bit younger than I was, and I did not know if he was armed or not.”

Zimmerman’s attorney, Mark O’Mara, said after the hearing that his client was responding to an interview in which Martin’s mother, Sybrina Fulton, said she wanted to hear from the man who shot her son.

“He didn’t want to defend himself, he didn’t want to discuss the facts of the case. He heard the request of the family, and he wanted to respond to it,” O’Mara said, adding that an attempt to apologize to the family in private was rebuffed.

Attorneys for Martin’s family, however, called the apology a self-serving act by a man facing a life prison sentence if convicted of the second-degree murder charge against him.

Read more at CNN…

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leparisien-cover-2012-03-25 (Photo credit: Patrick Peccatte)

The brother of the man who killed seven people in south-west France in recent weeks has been charged over the murders, judicial sources say.

Abdelkader Merah, 29, is suspected of complicity in murder and theft, and involvement in terrorism. He will be kept in custody, prosecutors said.

Abdelkader Merah denies the accusations but says he was there when his brother stole a scooter used in the attacks.

He also denies being proud of his brother, who was killed on Thursday.

According to his lawyer, Abdelkader Merah “strongly condemns” his brother’s actions, saying he is “not at all proud” of them.

“Otherwise, he just hopes he does not become the scapegoat for his brother’s acts because this is in some ways what is happening,” Anne-Sophie Laguens said.

Mohamed Merah died in a shoot-out with police following a 32-hour siege of his apartment in Toulouse.

During the stand-off, he had admitted shooting dead three soldiers in two separate incidents, and, last Monday, killing three children and a teacher at a Jewish school in the city. Read more at the BBC…

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From the Guardian:

The mother of Stephen Lawrence accused the police of putting her through 18 years of grief and uncertainty after witnessing the conviction of two of her son's killers for his racist murder nearly a generation ago.

Outside a grey and rainswept central criminal court in London, to cheers from members of the public and campaigners, Doreen Lawrence said she could not celebrate; all she felt was relief that at last "some sort of justice" had been done, with the jury's unanimous guilty verdicts on Gary Dobson, 36, and David Norris, 35…..

It took just a few seconds for the jury foreman to pass judgment on the cutting-edge scientific evidence presented by the crown against Dobson and Norris after years of humiliating failures by the Metropolitan police.

One spot of the dead teenager's blood, a few fibres and two microscopic hairs brought Dobson and Norris – who became suspects within hours of the murder in 1993 – to justice. They will be sentenced on Wednesday. The blood found on the collar of Dobson's jacket was the smallest spot scientists have ever used in a criminal prosecution.

I vividly remember the murder of Stephen Lawrence in London back in 1993. The subsequent trials, police inquiries and political upheaval shaped the Britain I grew up in and forced the nation to take a long hard look at itself. While our politicians portrayed Britain as a tolerant society, the truth was far more complex and uncomfortable. The police bungling over the Lawrence case revealed a stunning lack of professionalism and disregard for the rights of minorities. After the killers were acquitted in the trial, Lawrence's parents launched a tireless campaign to bring them to justice and expose police corruption. The Machpherson inquiry in 1999 revealed institutionlized racism within the Metropolitan police, radically changing how it operated.

While there are still serious problems with racism in the police, Britain is no doubt a better place to live because of the murder of Stephen Lawrence. As my friends and I grew up, casual racism became far less acceptable and although police harassment was still an issue, there were procedures available to combat it. The Britain of today is not perfect, but it has come on leaps and bounds since the senseless killing of Stephen Lawrence. 

Sadly, the changes Britain made were at a price that no one should have to pay. A bright young man with a promising future was brutally murdered and two loving parents lost a son.

At least now two of his killers have been brought to justice and his family can try to move on, proud of their contribution to society and proud mostly of their son.

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When it comes to legal cases, I refrain from weighing in with an opinion because in most cases I do not know enough about the case to make a judgment one way or the other. I was almost certain that OJ Simpson killed his wife because I read many documents pertaining to the case and took the time to research it. Other than that, I haven't spent a huge amount of time looking through high profile court cases because generally speaking, the ones that get media attention only involve celebrities or good looking women. They are of no real national importance and mostly serve the media's insatiable desire to drive ratings with trashy gossip stories.

However, the execution of Troy Davis last night does hold political importance because it puts in to question the legality and morality of the death penalty. I have not had time to do enough research to weigh in on an opinion about Davis's guilt. From preliminary reading, there does seem to be ample doubt about his involvement in the killing of a homeless man in 1989. Some key facts stick out. From the Guardian:

Apart from the witness evidence, most of which has since been cast into doubt, there was no forensic evidence gathered that links Davis to the killing. In particular, there is no DNA evidence of any sort.

 Of the two of the nine key witnesses who have not changed their story publicly, one has kept silent for the past 20 years and refuses to talk, and the other is Sylvester Coles. Coles was the man who first came forward to police and implicated Davis as the killer. But over the past 20 years evidence has grown that Coles himself may be the gunman and that he was fingering Davis to save his own skin…..

No gun was ever found connected to the murder. Coles later admitted that he owned the same type of .38-calibre gun that had delivered the fatal bullets, but that he had given it away to another man earlier on the night of the shooting.

Again, I am not pretending to be an expert and I haven't done nearly enough research to justify an opinion one way or the other, but it does seem fair to say that there is at the very least, reasonable doubt about the case. And if there is reasonable doubt, there can be absolutely no justification for the use of the death penalty – the ultimate penalty – regardless of whether you believe in the state's right to kill people. Davis never received a retrial and has paid for a crime he may not have committed with his life.

I am undecided when it comes to the death penalty – in certain cases I support it, but I have very serious problems with giving the state the power of life and death over its citizens. Troy Davis's case highlights the serious ethical problems with the death penalty, and its proponents will have a hard time arguing otherwise. For me, it's another powerful argument to abolish it all together.

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