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AMY GOODMAN: In what may be the single largest dismissal of wrongful convictions in U.S. history, Massachusetts prosecutors announced Tuesday theyre going to throw out 21,587 criminal drug cases. The cases were all prosecuted based on evidence or testimony supplied by a former state chemist who admitted to faking tests and identifying evidence as illegal narcotics without even testing the evidence. The chemist, named Annie Dookhan, pleaded guilty in 2013 to tampering with evidence during her nine years working at a state crime lab in Boston. During that time, thousands of people were convicted based on her false statements. Tuesdays announcement is a major win for civil liberties attorneys and public defenders who spent years in litigation fighting to have these drug cases dismissed. Many of the so-called Dookhan defendants have completed lengthy prison sentences and continue to suffer the consequences of being convicted of a drug offense, from not being able to get jobs to already being deported.

Well, for more, were joined by three guests. Matt Segal is with us in D.C. He is the legal director of the ACLU of Massachusetts. Mallory Hanora is a member of the Boston-based group Families for Justice as Healing, which has been advocating for those wrongfully convicted as a result of tainted evidence handled in the scandal. And Timothy Taylor also joins us from Massachusetts. He was arrested in 2009, served five years in prison on a drug trafficking charge. Annie Dookhan is on record as having handled evidence in his case. Taylor has asked for it to be reopened.

We welcome you all to Democracy Now! Matt Segal, first talk about the breadth, the scope of this case. This is historic. Over 21,000 cases? Whats happening to them?

MATTHEW SEGAL: Well, youre right, Amy, and thank you for having me. It is historic. We think it is going to be, when all is said and done, the single largest dismissal of cases in U.S. history. And its because this misconduct was allowed to go on for so many years. And as a consequence of that, people have already served their sentences and have been living with the collateral consequences of those sentences. So what we hope will happen as a result of these dismissals is that it will allow people like your guest, Timothy, to move on with their lives, to rebuild their lives and to move on from these convictions.

AMY GOODMAN: So, give us the history of what took place, Matt. Talk about thethis one tester in Massachusetts and what this led to, how many years she worked there. And are there others involved?

MATTHEW SEGAL: Well, she worked there for around eight years. And, unfortunately, you know, it sort ofit takes a village to taint 21,000 cases. And although she was probably the only person who was intentionally falsifying evidence, there were a lot of missteps along the way. She was caught red-handed in June 2011. Her misconduct wasnt disclosed to the public until August 2012. And even then, prosecutors didnt step forward to voluntarily vacate these convictions. Instead, it took years of litigation by the public defenders, by pro bono lawyers and by the ACLU to get to this point now, where prosecutors, having lost in court at the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court in January, are agreeing to these dismissals. So it was, unfortunately, a really long and difficult process. But what were hoping comes out of it is a roadmap for dealing with these kinds of scandals, both in Massachusetts and throughout the country.

AMY GOODMAN: Now, explain again. What is the deal that was worked out? Originally, you had the state prosecutors pushing for individualindividual reconsideration of Dookhans cases rather than a mass resolution.

MATTHEW SEGAL: Right.

AMY GOODMAN: But whatultimately, how was it resolved?

MATTHEW SEGAL: Well, so, I mentioned the roadmap. And I think the thing that really flipped the switch and made these dismissals possible was putting the burden on prosecutors to come forward to say which cases that they think should be dismissed and which cases they think they could keep, using untainted evidence. And thats crucial, because when the state wrongfully convicts people, it should be up to the state to say how theyrehow its going to fix that problem, instead of requiring individual people, by the thousands, to come forward and litigate case by case. So, what happened in this litigation was our states highest court put that burden on the prosecutors to come forward, and to do so in 90 days from the courts decision, to identify cases to dismiss. And that flipping of the burden really opened the doors to a more just outcome. And in addition, what were going to see, going forward, is a process of giving robust and real notice to the people who are wrongfully convicted, so that they can take advantage of these dismissals and help to rebuild their lives.

AMY GOODMAN: How was Annie Dookhan caught, this chemist at the Hinton drug lab? How was she caught falsifying evidence? I mean, the number of people that she has been responsible for putting away.

MATTHEW SEGAL: Yes. Well, she was caught, essentially, several times, because people kept coming toreportedly, to supervisors at the lab, expressing concerns that she was doing a superhumanly high volume of testing. And it turns out thats because she was inventing the test results. But eventually, the final disclosure that allowed the public to eventually learn about this was when there was a transfer in who was running the lab where she worked. She was actually interviewed by the state police and essentially confessed to all manner of wrongdoing. And this was in 2012. And what had happened before then is that potential whistleblowers, people who came to lab managers to express concerns about their colleague, Annie Dookhan, were told things like, "Well, this is being handled as a personnel matter," when in fact it wasnt. So what we had was the silencing, really, of whistleblowers, of potential whistleblowers, and then followed by a state police investigation, which revealed this to the public in 2012.

AMY GOODMAN: And what about another lab worker, at another lab, at the Amherst lab, Sonja Farak, what she did?

MATTHEW SEGAL: Well, this was a lab worker who was actually, herself, suffering from addiction and was taking drugs and using drugs and even manufacturing drugs at the lab where she worked. And thatshe, too, has been prosecuted. But there, again, we havent seen resolution. And this is something that the ACLU and defense lawyers all across Massachusetts are working on. And thats why its sort of crucial that what we hope comes out of this is not only justice for the defendants who have been harmed, but a roadmap for fixing these scandals without allowing them to linger on for years, because the one thing we know about treating the problem of drug addiction or drug use as a criminal justice issue and not as a public health issue is that these kinds of scandals of wrongful convictions are going to be inevitable.

AMY GOODMAN: Mallory Hanora, you are with Families for Justice as Healing. Talk about

MALLORY HANORA: Yes.

AMY GOODMAN: first, your response to the vacating of these cases, the dismissal of the more than 21,000 drug cases, and how your organization was involved.

MALLORY HANORA: Im experiencing happiness when we win a victory for the people. I think that people have been waiting a long time to experience any amount of relief and validation for the burden that theyve experienced with these wrongful convictions. And the mission of Families for Justice as Healing is to end the incarceration of women and girls. And also, as women in the community, we experience harm when our loved ones go to prison and were dealing with our loved ones who arent with us. So, for us, we see this as a systemic issue. And moving forward, we are continuing to organize, because I agree with Matt that this type of abuse of power and misconduct is inevitable when were prosecuting so many thousands and thousands of people every year. And instead of doing this, we need healing, housing and treatment. We dont need to be railroading more thousands of people into the criminal punishment system.

See more here:
Massachusetts to Throw Out 21000 Drug Convictions After State Chemist Tampers with Evidence - Democracy Now!

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (Image via Wikipedia)

Turkeys April 16 referendum will be long remembered as a turning point in the countrys political history.

Turks were asked to grant additional executive powers to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, bringing an end to the separation of powers. The 18 proposed constitutional amendments grant the Turkish president sweeping authority over the executive, legislative and judiciary branches, including power to dismiss the Turkish Grand National Assembly and autonomy in drawing the state budget with minimal parliamentary oversight and directly appointing 12 members of the 15-member Constitutional Court. The post of prime minister will also be eliminated to make way for an executive president.

The meager 51.4 percent yes vote shows a divided Turkey. In main urban centers and western Turkey, people overwhelmingly voted against the executive presidency, while rural and poorer segments of the Turkish society mostly voted in favor of strong-man rule.

The no campaign has called for the cancellation of the vote due to fraud. They argue that the High Electoral Board unlawfully allowed for the count of 1.3 million unofficiated yes ballots halfway through the count, tilting the result in favor of Erdogan. A group of international observers has also voiced concerns over the legality of the referendum.

Lets take a look at how a once trustworthy NATO ally, an aspiring EU candidate and an emerging power came to the brink of autocracy.

Erdogans AKP, the Justice and Development Party, has been running the country since 2002. This 15-year-long journey started with a series of democratization reforms supported with steady economic growth.

Ever since his days as the mayor of Istanbul during the 1990s, Erdogan has built his political career as a crafty politician willing and capable of making temporary deals with nonconventional partners against common enemies. For example, Erdogans persistent struggle against the Turkish militarys influence over the regime helped him gain the alliance of the secretive Fetullah Gulen network.

Id argue that liberals in Washington, D.C. and in European capitals misread Erdogans ambitions. They saw him as an open-minded reformer who could bring Islam and democracy together at home and abroad. Barack Obama visited Turkey on his first major foreign trip in April 2009 to underline Turkeys unique role in the Middle East. I myself recently edited a volume that examines a period (2007-2011) when Turkish diplomats and businesspeople served as mediators in different parts of the world from the Western Balkans to Somalia, from Golan Heights to Afghanistan.

But that period was short-lived. The turning point in Turkeys slide toward authoritarianism came as the result of a major miscalculation in international politics.

In 2011, in the wake of the revolutionary uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Libya and Syria, Turkeys former Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu saw a great opportunity for Erdogan and his AKP to leverage Turkeys liberal Islam model elsewhere in the Middle East.

Erdogan unconditionally supported Islamist groups across the region under the disguise of supporting democratization against dictatorships. Even after the revolution in Egypt failed, Erdogan persisted in pursuing pro-Muslim Brotherhood policies across the Middle East. As the Syrian civil war raged on, Turkey allowed jihadist fighters to cross from Turkey into Syria to fight against the Assad regime.

With time, Turkeys sizable democratic and liberal-minded population began to react against the growing government intervention in their way of life. The Gezi Park protests in summer of 2013 started against the demolishing of a central city park in Istanbul to build a shopping mall. However, it quickly turned into a widespread pro-democracy show of force against Erdogan and his brand of Islamist politics. This drove Erdogan to relinquish his ties with his former liberal allies.

Another thorny issue for Erdogan has been making peace with the countrys 14 million Kurds. Kurds have been demanding political and cultural autonomy from the central government in Ankara. Clashes between the the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Turkish military have cost lives of more than 40,000 people over the last four decades.

When official peace talks began between Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned leader of the PKK, and President Erdogan, a sense of optimism prevailed in the Kurdish towns of Turkey. But the peace process lacked parliamentary oversight, and it collapsed when Ankara refused to help the Kurdish fighters surrounded in September 2014 by the Islamic State in Kobane, Syria just a few hundred yards from the Turkish border.

The following summer, the AKP lost its majority in parliament when a pro-Kurdish party won a record number of seats. As a result, Erdogan unilaterally ended the peace process with the PKK. He built a new alliance with ultra nationalists that carried out retaliatory attacks in Kurdish population centers, further alienating the Kurds from the countrys political mainstream. Many elected Kurdish MPs and mayors have been imprisoned since the failed coup attempt in July.

Erdogans last and most formidable enemy turned out to be his former ally, the U.S.-based cleric Fetullah Gulen and his secretive and extensive network. Erdogan believes the Gulen network was behind the failed coup attempt of July 2016. He alleges the Gulenists wanted to retaliate against Erdogans punitive measures against their education, business and media networks in Turkey which began after corruption allegations against Erdogan and his family.

Turkey has been living in a state of emergency since July 2016. Erdogan claims that the new executive powers granted him in the referendum will allow him to single-handedly cleanse the enemies of the nation from the judiciary, military and media. Already, thousands of people have been forced out of their government jobs and put in high-security state prisons due to allegations of being a member of the Gulen network.

Is democracy dead in Turkey?

The 51.4 percent yes vote certainly seems to mark the beginning of the end for Turkeys fragile democracy. However, Erdogans clear defeat in Turkeys urban centers and in the western part of the country suggests that a self-confident pro-democracy movement could make life much more difficult than Erdogan expected in the coming months and years.

Doga Ulas Eralp, Professorial Lecturer, American University School of International Service

This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.

Read this article:
A Turning Point For TurkeyAnd Democracy Across The Globe - GOOD Magazine

American democracy has always been a work in progress. What Abraham Lincoln called the unfinished work of ensuring government of the people, by the people, for the people has suffered its share of setbacks. For decades, Americans trust in government has been declining, signaling that not all was well. Yet until recently, democracy seemed secure in the United States.

No longer. President Donald Trump has unleashed a barrage of attacks on the underpinnings of democratic governance, threatening checks and balances, civil liberties, civil rights, and long-established norms. During last years presidential campaign, Trump discarded the notion of facts as necessary anchors of political discourse and challenged the legitimacy of his political opponent, threatening to lock her up if he won. Since his inauguration, he has castigated sections of the mainstream media as fake news and called them the enemy of the American people, attacked the judiciary, and claimedwithout evidencethat electoral fraud cost him victory in the popular vote. These displays of illiberalism suggest that the American project of self-governance, which Americans have long taken for granted, may be in a more precarious condition than most assumed.

How did the United States come to this point? And how can it revitalize its democracy? Two new books offer useful guidance. Democracy for Realists, by the political scientists Christopher Achen and Larry Bartels, helps explain the roots of the current crisis. And Democracy, by the historian David Moss, reveals how Americans have overcome political divisions in the past.

The authors of both books make clear that political conflicts in the United States are nothing new. Today, Americans face serious threats to their countrys democracy, but they can draw on a long tradition of conflict resolution. They should relearn how to use the institutions and toolsleadership, negotiation, and compromisethat have sustained American democracy in the past.

FALLING APART

In Democracy for Realists, Achen and Bartels explain that deep-seated social identities and group affiliations motivate political action far more than

See the original post:
Democracy on the Brink - Foreign Affairs (subscription)

The election of Donald Trump as president of the United Statesa man who has praised dictators, encouraged violence among supporters, threatened to jail his rival, and labeled the mainstream media as the enemyhas raised fears that the United States may be heading toward authoritarianism. While predictions of a descent into fascism are overblown, the Trump presidency could push the United States into a mild form of what we call competitive authoritarianisma system in which meaningful democratic institutions exist yet the government abuses state power to disadvantage its opponents.

But the challenges facing American democracy have been emerging for decades, long before Trump arrived on the scene. Since the 1980s, deepening polarization and the radicalization of the Republican Party have weakened the institutional foundations that have long safeguarded U.S. democracymaking a Trump presidency considerably more dangerous today than it would have been in previous decades.

There is little reason to expect Americans commitment to democracy to serve as a safeguard against democratic erosion.

Paradoxically, the polarizing dynamics that now threaten democracy are rooted in the United States belated democratization. It was only in the early 1970sonce the civil rights movement and the federal government managed to stamp out authoritarianism in southern statesthat the country truly became democratic. Yet this process also helped divide Congress, realigning voters along racial lines and pushing the Republican Party further to the right. The resulting polarization both facilitated Trumps rise and left democratic institutions more vulnerable to his autocratic behavior.

The safeguards of democracy may not come from the quarters one might expect. American societys purported commitment to democracy is no guarantee against backsliding; nor are constitutional checks and balances, the bureaucracy, or the free press. Ultimately, it may be Trumps ability to mobilize public supportlimited if his administration performs poorly, but far greater in the event of a war or a major terrorist attackthat will determine American democracys fate.

WHAT BACKSLIDING

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Is America Still Safe for Democracy? - Foreign Affairs (subscription)

The Hindu

Challenges to party democracy The Hindu In the 21st century, among countries where there is electoral democracy, the dominant form is representative democracy. Daniele Caramani's paper, published in the American Political Science Review, titled 'Will vs. Reason, the populist and technocratic ...

Excerpt from:
Challenges to party democracy - The Hindu