By: Qadir Walid
Anything done by the United States justice system is done in the name of the People, by the People who vote. The people running the judicial system often disdain people who prove their innocence or have been excessively sentenced. The people running the judicial system openly admit its prejudicial abuse of discretion often falls on the socially and economically disadvantaged black people. There are a lot of violations, serving as reasons the people in the Missouri courts, prosecuting attorney’s office, and prison industrial complex need to be removed from office, for their social and economic racist bias, as part of needed justice reconstruction and reform. In Missouri, several cases highlight a pattern of racial and social economic abuse that need a federal pattern and practice investigation. Over five years ago, in 2017, Lamar Johnson proved his innocence when newly discovered evidence came forward proving the prosecutors, Jennifer Joyce and Dee Joyce Hayes paid a witness bride money to testify against Mr. Johnson. Yet Lamar Johnson is still incarcerated to this day in December of 2022, even though the person who committed the murders has come forward to take responsibility for the murder. The Judge’s and Attorney Generals’ disdain for innocence and proof of excessive sentencing is so bad they claim no laws exist that allow them to release the wrongfully convicted and excessively. These actions by Missouri Officers of the Court forced the legislature to change the laws because Missouri Judges claim actual innocence is not a jurisdictional claim strong enough to release a person who does not have the death penalty. This disdain for innocence and proof of excessive sentencing is shown in the case of Kevin Strickland, who had proved his innocence 15 years ago in pro se motions he had filed himself. The people in court, judges, and prosecutors ignored his evidence and motions until the facts reached the international media world. So they knew and understood that Mr. Strickland was innocent for 43 years, but they ignored him because he filed the motions himself. The Missouri Department of Corrections staff was so upset they had to release Mr. Strickland that they attempted to dump him out of his wheelchair onto the ground in the prison parking lot. This willful pattern continues to grow, with cases like Marcus Busey, whose cases had been dismissed and thrown out by prosecutors 16 years ago, in 2006. When the prosecutor told the Missouri Department of Corrections that Mr. Busey’s convictions were dismissed, the prison said they refused to release him without a court order to do so. The courts refused to issue any order, claiming there was no case pending before the court, to issue an order for his release from prison. If the Department of Justice cared about the abuse of discretion to the magnitude that there is a pattern and practice of mass incarceration of socially and economically disadvantaged black people. One good place to start this investigation would be with Geraldine Deerdorff, the former Records Office, who intentionally miscalculated sentences. When confronted about her part in this oppressive scheme, she said she was only doing the job she was told to do. No further investigation or questioning of Mrs. Deerdorf has been conducted. There is a need to ask Mrs. Deerdorf about who or what group of people she is working with because this pattern and practice are too far-reaching for it to come from one person. Is this the American way of the People? Is this really what America is voting for?