This story is the 6th in a series written by Washington 3-Strikers. Author Steven Darby McDonald's 3 convictions are for Robbery 1, Robbery 2, and burning a doormat, which he denies. I've read excerpts of trial transcripts, investigator reports, media reports and other documents he provided and believe they raise serious questions about local police handling of the case and whether testimony was illegally excised from the trial verbatims. An active campaign seeks to remove low-violence crimes from the state's 3-Strikes list.

DATELINE MOUNT VERNON WASHINGTON: A crime took place in a downtown motel in Mount Vernon Washington on February 4, 1996. A door mat was burned.  Damages were hard to calculate, but an estimate might be determined on the basis of this description in a Washington Supreme Court decision:

"The State charged McDonald with first and second degree arson. The first degree arson charge was based upon the defendant setting fire to the welcome mat outside a motel room, which destroyed the mat and discolored the door before being extinguished." (1)

[WA was the first state in the nation to pass a 3-Strikes law. Low-violence offenses are the most common strikes. Rapid Response. Posted for David by Noemie. Thanks for putting this on the recommend list!]

Hello, my name is David Conyers and I am a current 3 Striker residing at the Monroe Correctional Complex.

Back in 1994, 13 years ago, I was the youngest person in the state of Washington, a tender 21 years old, to be sentenced to life under 3 Strikes - charged and convicted of four counts of second degree robbery.

None of my prior convictions, nor my current offenses involved a weapon whatsoever, nor was anyone hurt or killed.  I was a kid back then with no guidance or direction, just being reckless and foolish.  I very much regret the things I did wrong to my victims, because they didn't deserve to be put in fear or have anything taken from them.  I've grown up a lot and I now see life on a different perspective.  However, I firmly believe that I shouldn't be spending the rest of my life in prison for a crime such as Robbery 2.  

Below the fold is a post by Ron Peters, sentenced to life without parole under Washington's 3-Strikes law for a Robbery 2, a Robbery 1, and a Burglary.

Washington was the first state in the nation to pass a 3-Strikes law and ours is the harshest. In 1993, voters approved the initiative which read: "By aiming at 3-time violent offenders, (593) targets the `worst of the worst' criminals."

Few people would consider robbery 2, which is committed without use of a deadly weapon, to be a "worst of the worst" crime.  Washington's Sentencing Guidelines Commission recommended removing it from the list of 3-Strikes offenses in 2001. Efforts to do this are defeated in the legislature every year.  Ron's post is part of this series.  If you're from Washington, please visit that page to connect with this project.  We need your help.

JOIN: 3-Strikes Rapid Response

Washington was the first state in the nation to impose a 3-strikes law.  Ours is onen of the harshest. Year after year, people who have committed only low-violence offenses struggle to keep hope under the weight of this permanent societal shunning which is administered with extreme racial disparity.

Below the fold is a guest post from Al-Kareem Shadeed, who is serving Life without Parole under Washington's 3-Strikes law for two robberies and an attempted robbery that he committed in his teens and early 20s.  His crimes involved no weapons and no injuries. They were not, by any stretch of the imagination, "worst of the worst" crimes.  Using his own description of his third strike, I think I'm safe in describing them as attempts to "bully" strangers on the street into giving him money to feed his addictions.  Al-Kareem, as a teen, needed help that he did not get. He and the people he victimized would be better off today if he had received that help. It is an affront to our humanity that he is imprisoned for life for these low-level offenses.   Contact: noemie (at) washblog (dot)(com) for Washington action.

Washington was the first state in the nation to impose a 3-strikes and you're out law.  Our law is the harshest in the nation.  Stevan Dozier has served 14 years under 3-Strikes for three unarmed robberies in the second degree that he committed over a decade ago -- the last one a purse snatching. He was unarmed, there were no injuries, and small amounts of money were involved.  His case is not unusual.  Robbery 2 is the most common 3-strikes offense in Washington.

Dozier contributed an opinion piece on this law for publication on Washblog.  I've republished it below the fold here.  Nationally, a tough-on-crime political environment is holding us hostage to irrational -- and unjust policies and exerting a very destructive influence on elections. I'd appreciate advice on strategies to influence policies like Washington's 3-Strikes.  

Adapted from Washblog

This is the image from the faux Attorney General (AG) letterhead used in 06 by WA AG Rob McKenna to support a GOP candidate for state Senate.

During the same election, McKenna recorded a robocall, identifying himself as WA's AG and urging votes for Luke Esser for state Rep.  

Both cases represent a conflating of public and partisan roles by top Republicans in a state with strict ethics in public service laws.  This story details how Luke Esser, who just left his position under McKenna in WA's AG office to take the State GOP Chair, has confused public and private again, perhaps illegally.  McKenna and Esser are central to WA's GOP power structure, and McKenna is said to have national ambitions.  They need to be held to account.  If you're from WA, please visit the Washblog story, take the poll, and pass it on.<hr>

Cross-posted on Washblog

photo by Jason Osgood

'The most difficult thing a person can do inside or outside the military is to think.  Lieutenant Watada is causing Americans to think. His stand has forced Americans to think about this war. All Americans have a responsibility to think and to act.'  Zoltan Grossman, Evergreen State College faculty member, is making the introductory remarks at the Citizen's Hearing on the Legality of US Actions in Iraq.

Jason Osgood (Zappini of Washblog) and I have just arrived at the hearing, held at the Evergreen State College Tacoma campus. 'This an effort for one weekend to set up a parallel citizen's government...' on the legality of the war, says Grossman, because the judge in Lieutenant Watada's case has disallowed the consideration of all substantive issues.  (U.S. Army 1st Lt. Watada is the first commissioned officer to publicly refuse deployment to Iraq.)

Press Release from the Organizing Committee for the Citizens’ Hearing on the Legality of U.S. Actions in Iraq
Tribunal Announced on 60th Anniversary of Nuremberg Principles.

The "Citizens' Hearing on the Legality of U.S. Actions in Iraq" will be held on January 20-21, 2007, in Tacoma, Washington, two weeks before the February 5th court martial of 1st Lieutenant Ehren Watada at Fort Lewis. Organizing Committee member Rob Crawford, Associate Professor at the University of Washington, Tacoma says that the national event "will put the Iraq War on trial, in response to the Army's trial of Lt. Watada, the first U.S. military officer to refuse deployment to Iraq."

Organizers announced the upcoming tribunal today, December 11th, on the 60th anniversary of the United Nations General Assembly's affirmation of the Nuremberg Principles, which--in the aftermath of World War II--disallowed soldiers from following unlawful orders that can lead to war crimes.

(Cross-posted at Washblog. Also see harto's related DailyKos post: Did Howard Rich break the law?) This is third in a series of posts I have written on Stephen Johnson, a senator in Washington state's 47th Legislative District, where I live. Johnson's now running for state Supreme Court.  My first two posts:

1. Stephen Johnson and BIAW Team up to Reshape Washington's Supreme Court.
2. WA Supreme Court Candidate to 5th graders: "I'd get rid of all the Democrats".

Senator Johnson has never been a judge, so it's natural for voters to look at to his 12-year record as a state senator to understand what he might be like as a judge. Johnson makes two reassuring claims about that record.  First, as he says in an Aug 06 Seattle PI Podcast, he has a "moderate to conservative voting record."   Second, he says, his judicial philosophy -- one of restraint -- will not be affected by his legislative philosophy.  But Johnson is one of Washington's most conservative Republican senators. And he's amply signalled to the Religious Right that his legislative record shows he's their philosophical friend.

This story is the second in a series about Washington Senator Stephen Johnson, who is running for state Supreme Court.   The first, Stephen Johnson and BIAW team up to reshape Washington Supreme Court, reports that Johnson and a key funder for his campaign, the Building Industry Association of Washington State (BIAW), are justifying the need to elect a pro-development candidate on a claim that Washington government is out to steal citizen land. Key supporting evidence they present is demonstrably false.

Here I report on denigrating remarks that Johnson made about Democrats in general -- and about Democratic Representative Simpson specifically -- when Johnson visited a fifth grade classroom in Auburn in 2004.   I knew the teacher, Jennifer Deshaies, and she told me the story at the time. Representative Simpson also recounts here what appear to have been purposeful tactics used by Johnson to gain political advantage at the expense of his colleague and of good public policy. It appears that Johnson is an active participant in Washington GOP's culture of aggressive partisanship.*

(Cross posted in a different version at Washblog.)   The 47th Legislative District of Washington is a kind of "ground zero" for the Darcy Burner campaign in the 8th Congressional District.  We're a true swing district that has been represented mostly by Republicans for years and has slowly been turning blue.

Darcy is our chance for effective and balanced representation in the 47th, which includes the more working class south King County and the techie Bellevue area to the east.  Dave Reichert who represents us now has been marketed as a moderate -- but has sided with his DC buddies against the middle class, good government, and civil liberties  at almost every turn.

For years, the small group of Democrats in the 47th kept their grassroots organization going and intensively reached out to voters, knowing that times could change.

We find ourselves in a time when democratic institutions are under coordinated siege -- and injustice and unreason are publicly celebrated as right in line with American values. In the words of Gara LaMarche of the Open Society Institute, these threats to open society call for "a serious and coordinated response."

I've been wondering about the role of progressive bloggers in that response -- particularly in relation to that emerging phenomenon so engagingly known as the progressive infrastructure -- and particularly in relation to Washington State and the Pacific Northwest. The idea of a consciously devised architecture that is making a place not just for progressive policies, but also for progressivism as a whole, that is designed to help us transcend our current dynamic of continual reaction to assaults on sustainable society from the right, is attractive indeed. It does seem past time to get better grounded in some strategic meta-collaboration.