Tag: carceral state

Vax or Jail? The Dilemma Facing Some Americans

Brandon Rutherford was recently presented with a dilemma in an Ohio courtroom: get vaccinated or face incarceration.

The 21-year-old was sentenced to two years probation for fentanyl possession by Judge Christopher Wagner of Hamilton County, Ohio on August 4, but his sentence came with a twist: he was ordered to get a COVID vaccine as a condition of his probation.

Should Rutherford fail to comply, he could be sent to jail for up to 18 months.

“I’m just a judge, not a doctor, but I think the vaccine’s a lot safer than fentanyl, which is what you had in your pocket,” Wagner told Rutherford.

Wagner gave Rutherford 60 days to get vaxxed and said, “You’re going to maintain employment. You’re not going to be around a firearm. I’m going to order you, within the next two months, to get a vaccine and show that to the probation office.”

The judge only knew Rutherford’s vaccination status in the first place because he questioned him when he arrived in court wearing a mask—a rule Wagner put in place for any unvaccinated people in his courtroom.

Rutherford was outraged by the mandate.

“Because I don’t take a shot they can send me to jail? I don’t agree with that,” he said. “I’m just trying to do what I can to get off this as quickly as possible, like finding a job and everything else. But that little thing (COVID vaccine) can set me back.”

The judge’s order created a stir, prompting Wagner to issue a response.

“Judges make decisions regularly regarding a defendant’s physical and mental health, such as ordering drug, alcohol, and mental health treatment,” he wrote in a statement. He also said it was his responsibility to “rehabilitate the defendant and protect the community.”

Wagner is not the only Ohio judge to take such actions. He joined judges in Franklin and Cuyahoga counties who made similar demands.

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BIDEN HAS SAID POT PRISONERS SHOULD BE FREE. NOW HE’S POISED TO SEND SOME BACK TO PRISON.

DIANA MARQUEZ HAS spent the last 14 months going on long walks, hitting the treadmill, and cooking with her daughter. She’s gotten to know her grandson, a fourth grader, helping him with his math homework. She has also lived with a weight hanging over her head — and an ankle bracelet strapped to her leg.

Marquez is one of roughly 4,400 people who were released from federal prison to home confinement starting in April 2020 as part of a Department of Justice directive aimed at preventing the transmission of Covid-19 in prison. Normally, the federal government allows people convicted of nonviolent crimes to serve out the last 10 percent or the last six months — whichever is less — of their sentences from home. Their time at home requires strict state scrutiny, including ankle bracelets and daily call-ins. The Department of Justice memorandum, issued under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act, asked the Bureau of Prisons to relax the eligibility standards for home confinement so that people convicted of nonviolent crimes could leave prison despite having served less of their sentences.

The status of these people has been in limbo since December, when Justice Department officials from the outgoing Trump administration issued a memo stating that people whose sentences would outlast the Covid-19 emergency order would be returned to prison.

Last week, the New York Times reported that Biden administration lawyers had concluded that the Trump administration memo correctly interpreted the law — and that thousands of people in home confinement must be returned to prison after the yet-to-be-determined end of the “pandemic emergency period.” About 2,000 people stand to be impacted, with the rest having now completed enough of their sentences to qualify for early release under the standard guidance.

The Biden Justice Department’s position is especially shocking for people like Marquez who are doing time for marijuana-related offenses. President Joe Biden, after all, campaigned on loosening drug laws and said that people with marijuana records — who comprise a relatively small percentage of the federal prison population — should be freed.

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Franklin County Judge Including Mandatory Coronavirus Vaccine in Terms of Probation

Common Pleas Judge Richard Frye of Ohio’s Franklin County has been including mandatory coronavirus vaccines in the terms of defendants’ respective probations, attaching the stipulation to three of his recent cases.

“It occurred to me that at least some of these folks need to be encouraged not to procrastinate,” Frye said, according to the Columbus Dispatch, which said the judge openly discussed vaccination statuses with the defendants.

According to reports, none of the defendants cited religious, moral, or medical reasons for not yet getting the vaccine.

“I think it’s a reasonable condition when we’re telling people to get employed and be out in the community,” Frye added.

One of the defendants who received the condition, Cameron Stringer, “entered a guilty plea for one charge of improperly handling firearms in a motor vehicle, for which he was sentenced to two years of probation,” per the Dispatch. A coronavirus shot is one of several conditions of his probation, court documents show.

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Iowa man jailed for 10 years after spitting on “mask Nazi”

A 42-year-old father of six from Iowa will spend the next 10 years in prison after being convicted of a Class C forcible felony for defending himself against a “mask Nazi” who assaulted him in an eyewear store.

Shane Michael says he was “shoulder-checked” and “poked” in the stomach by Mark Dinning, a Branch Covidian who confronted Michael on Nov. 11 inside a Vision 4 Less store in Des Moines.

Even though there was no mask mandate in place, Dinning felt the need to try to force his mask fetish on Michael through assault, to which Michael responded in kind by spitting on Dinning.

Michael was reportedly wearing a mask at the time and pulled it down to spit on Dinning, who accused Michael of wearing his mask “incorrectly.” This is how the altercation started with Dinning as the aggressor.

“If I have it, you have it!” Michael reportedly shouted at Dinning, who refused to mind his own business in the store and instead decided to be a mask Nazi.

The situation devolved from there with more physical altercations that resulted in injuries. Dinning pressed charges against Michael and ultimately won in court, illustrating how the Branch Covidian cult has successfully embedded itself within the judicial system.

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Rep. Cori Bush Introduces Bill to Decriminalize Possession of All Drugs

Apair of House Democrats introduced legislation on Tuesday that would decriminalize possession of all drugs at the federal level for personal use and begin the process of prioritizing a public health approach to drug use over punishment and policing. These are the necessary first steps, advocates say, for ending the war on drugs 50 years after it was first declared by President Richard Nixon.

Representatives Cori Bush (D-Missouri) and Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-New Jersey) introduced the Drug Policy Reform Act, which would eliminate federal criminal penalties for possession of any drug for personal use, including marijuana, cocaine, opioids, various psychedelics and other drugs banned under the Controlled Substances Act. The bill aims to begin repairing some of the damage to communities and the lives of individuals caused by the drug war, which has contributed heavily to mass incarceration and other forms of state violence that have fallen hardest on low-income communities and people of color.

“The economic stability of our carceral state depends on this misguided and racist policy, and we are here to say, no more, it’s time that we end this destruction,” Bush told reporters on Tuesday, adding that, as a nurse in St. Louis, she saw how criminalization and stigma harms people who use drugs. “Imagine what we could do if we built systems of care that treated and supported people…that is the world we should build.”

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Innocent Man Falsely Jailed for a Year Only to Be Released and Forced to Pay for His Stay Behind Bars

When David Allen Jones was accused of trafficking in child pornography in 2013, his life came crumbling down. Lexington police allegedly linked Jones’ IP address to a child sex video downloaded from the web. The Clark County Sheriff’s office subsequently raided his home and Jones was thrown in jail before police found any evidence.

Despite repeated searches of his property, including digital devices seized by authorities like his cell phone, computer tablet, Xbox, server, modem, printer and DVDs — police found absolutely nothing incriminating. The alleged IP address link was a fluke that led to the incarceration of an innocent man.

Nevertheless, Jones was thrown in a cage and his bail was set to $15,000 which was too high for him to afford, so he had to wait for his day in court. Knowing he was entirely innocent, Jones waived his right to counsel thinking that it would help speed up his release. He was mistaken.

Despite prosecutors acknowledging that someone else in Jones’ apartment complex was the likely child predator, Jones spent the next 14 months locked in a cage — completely innocent.

In December of 2014, Jones was finally released. His life was in shambles, his name had been dragged through the mud over false accusations, forcing him to have to  move out of Winchester.

“My reputation, it’s shot. I mean, I’ve got people that I’ve known for years won’t have anything to do with me anymore because they believe the law,” Jones said.

After ruining the man’s life over false accusations, just how does the state attempt to repay him? They send him a bill for his stay in their cage.

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