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Texas Prison Heat

The Texas Extreme Summer Heat is here - EXTREME HEAT this TEXAS SUMMER HEAT

INMATES need fans to move the air inside of their cells because they only have like a 4" x 8" window (if it can be opened) to circulate air inside of their cell. If they have the metal door on their cell instead of the bars, then the only opening on that door is the bean hole slot that is like a mail slot, if they have no circulation inside their cell then the heat becomes almost intolerable.

Please contact the listed people asking that the electrical wiring be upgraded in "ALL" prison units enabling the Inmates to have fans. If the Unit can have fan please be sure your "Inmate" has one.

Please ask the Legislators to instruct the Texas Industrial Prison Directors,Supervisors,Captains,Wardens, to see that "ALL" Inmates have a fan to prevent HEAT STROKES, HEART FAILURE due to the HEAT, Sickness due to the excessive heat. In this drought time of TEXAS the summers is going to be really "HOT" and dry creating more illness for the Inmates especially the elderly,sick,mentally disabile ones ... be sure to ask that the inmates being held in solitary confinement have circulation of air via Fans.

DO NOT DONATE FUNDS FOR FANS UNTIL YOU KNOW IF:This is a reminder that many of the older Texas Prison Units ****** DO NOT ****** have the electrical capabilities to carry the extra load of FANS for the Inmates. As a result of this problem many Inmates ****** CAN NOT ****** have fans.

People Against Prison Abuse aka PAPA, requested several times from the TDCJ administration, the facilities names and locations of the units within TDCJ that are not able to have fans due to the old wiring and breaker boxes. PAPA did not receive this list in order to inform the people of the many units that are not allowed to have fans.

It has been reported that many of the units have closets full of fans that were donated, but, the INMATES are not allowed to have due the fans due to the electrical problem.It has been said many times that ALL Inmates are supposed to be allowed to have fans but that is not happening due to the electrical wiring problems in some of the units.

For those that do not know, several of the TDCJ Units in the Huntsville area are 75 to 125 years old including East Texas and South Texas. These old buildings do not allow Inmates to have more than a 25 wyatt light bulb because the electrical wiring will not carry the extra load of more wattage. Also, the plumbing is just as old where the sewers are always backing up and where brown water comes out of the pipes and the Inmates have to use this for their drinking water. These old units are infested with roaches, spiders, rats, mice, with dugeon like atmospheres.

Before more fans are purchased to be stored in closets, those that are concerned for Inmates to have fans, need to call, email, fax, write their REPRESENTATIVES (Texas Legislator on Line email:

http://www.capitol.state.tx.us or look in your search for Texas Online Legislators

for the Representative for your area requesting that something be done about this situation. Request that units be replaced with new unit buildings that are up to date in the electrical and plumbing areas enabling the Inmates to have proper electrical, plumbing, and water facilities in place of Cruel and Unusual Punishment.

Also send a copy of your complaint to:

Sunset Commission<br>Texas Department of Criminal Justice
1400 North Congress
Capitol Extension, Suite E2.2002
Austin, TX 78701
EMAIL: Sunset@Sunset.state.tx.us

Governor Rick Perry
State of Texas
The Capitol
P.O.Box 12428
Austin, TX 78711
governor.state.tx.us/contact/

Lt. Governor David Dewhurst, Chair
Legislative Council of Texas
The Capitol
Austin,TX 78711-2968
EMAIL: www.ltgov.state.tx.us/contact.php


Senator John Whitmire,Chair
Senate Committee on Criminal Justice
P.O.Box 12068,Capitol Station
Austin, TX78711
EMAIL: www.whitmire.senate.state.tx.us = CONTACT EMAIL

Representative Jerry Madden, Chair
House Correction Committee
Capitol Office: EXT E1-506
P.O.Box 2910
Austin, TX 79711-2910

2mpCIA "TAKE ACTION"
write to:<br>Rep. Jerry Madden, Chair
Texas Correction Committee:
http://www.house.state.tx.us/members/member-page/?district=67 to EMAIL Madden

Thank you 2mpCIA TEAM MEMBER
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!
STOP-the-INSANITY
"NOT" Soft on Crime,"STRONG" on FAIR JUSTICE

2mpCIA ALERT - "TAKE ACTION"
http://www.peopleagainstprisonabuse.com/2mp/2mpciaindex.html
2mp "TAKE ACTION"

Notation: TEXAS Prison Summer HEAT, any request for funds for Fan Projects from other locations. Remember many units are not allowed to use fans due to the old electrical wiring and any fans sent in are just stored in storage and the INMATES never get them! Verify that fans can be used at the unit you are requesting a fan for Inmate

Use of Lies to Obtain the Truth" The Police Can Lie to You

 

August 21, 2006

Use of Lies to Obtain the Truth:
The Police Can Lie to You

By: Colin McKibben, Attorney at Law &

In his closing argument in State of California v. O.J. Simpson, Johnnie Cochran told the jury how they should view Detective Vannaters testimony: You cant trust him. You cant believe anything he says because it goes to the core of this case. When you are lying at the beginning, you will be lying at the end. The book of Luke talks about that if you are untruthful in small things, you should be disbelieved in big things. Deborah Young, Unnecessary Evil: Police Lying in Interrogations, 28 Conn. L. Rev. 425 (1996).

Nevertheless, the United States Supreme Court has ruled that the Police can lie to you in order to extract a confession, Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 739 (1969). The only place an officer cannot lie is while testifying under oath in court, and criminal defense attorneys occasionally catch an officer lying, even on the witness stand. Police are only required to advise you of your Constitutional rights under Miranda v. Arizona, 384 U.S. 436, if you are in custody and being interrogated about the offense for which you are being confined. This point is usually determined to be the point in which the suspect is placed under arrest, or the suspect would reasonably conclude that he or she is under arrest and not free to leave. Detectives are very good at creating the illusion that you are free to go, when actually, you are not. For example, the detective may tell you that you are free to go at any time, but that it would benefit you to provide your side of the story as the evidence does not look to be in your favor, therefore you can be pursuaded into continuing the interrogation.

During interrogations, police who use this tactic may lie about the facts of a case. For example, where you have an 18 year old male who has a 15 year old girlfriend, the officer will tell him that they have evidence that he raped her, when in fact, they do not. The 18 year old tells the officer that they had consensual sex and that there was no rape involved; now the officer has a confession as to Statutory Rape that came straight from the mouth of the suspect. In trying to exonerate himself from the charge of Rape, the 18 year old legally confessed to the lesser crime of Statutory Rape. In Frazier v. Cupp, 394 U.S. 731, 739 (1969), the officer was able to extract a confession from the criminal defendant by lying about the strength of the case. During interrogation, the officer lied to the criminal defendant and told him that his cousin, had confessed to the possession of cocaine with intent to distribute, also implicating the criminal defendant in the crime. The criminal defendant then also confessed to the crime in reliance of the officers false statement. The Court determined that the criminal defendants confession was voluntary and the fact that he was given his Miranda rights prior to making the confession was relevant to a finding of waiver and voluntariness. Id.

Police officers are also allowed to fabricate evidence to support a deception. In re D.A.S., 391 A.2d 255, (D.C. App. 1978) the police pretended to compare the defendants fingerprints to a fingerprint on the victims checkbook and pronounced them a match when in truth, no fingerprints were recovered from the checkbook. The defendant confessed to the robbery and the Court held that the police deception did not by itself invalidate a voluntary confession. Id. at 258. Confessions are not invalid or inadmissible, even if they are obtained by deception or trickery, as long as the means employed are not calculated to produce an untrue statement. Only if the deception, combined with other factors, coerces the suspect or defendant to confess, will the court deem the confession inadmissible. Id., at 259.

In order to extract confessions, police may also attempt to persuade the suspect or defendant that her conduct was less blameworthy than anticipated. Deborah Young, Unnecessary Evil, 28 Conn. L. Rev. 425, 433 (1996). Police may lie about the victim to diminish the suspects fear of confessing. In People v. Jordan, 597 N.Y.2d 807 (N.Y. App. Div. 1993), the police told the defendant that he may be able to save the victim if he told the police exactly what happened. The police falsely told the defendant that the victim had just received eighteen stitches for her knife wound and would soon be out of the hospital, when in actuality, the victim had died. The defendant confessed to stabbing the victim believing that he would be charged with assault and not murder. The court affirmed the murder conviction, holding that, "mere deception by the police is not alone sufficient to render a confession inadmissible unless accompanied by a promise or threat that could induce a false confession." Id. at 808.

In Massiah v. United States, 377 U.S. 201 (1964), federal agents used an informant as a secret conspirator to listen in on the criminal defendants conversations. He made incriminating statements to the informant, not knowing that the informant was secretly working with the federal agents. At the time the statement was made, the criminal defendant was out on bail and had already secured an attorney. The Court held that because the criminal defendant had secured an attorney and had already been indicted, federal agents could not attempt to elicit a confession without the presence of the criminal defendants retained counsel. Id., at 204.
The Court is reluctant to bar such police tactics and confessions because of the assumption that an innocent person of normal intelligence will not admit to a crime she did not commit. Patrick M. McMullen, Questioning the Questions: The Impermissibility of Police Deception in Interrogations of Juveniles, 99 Nw. U.L. Rev. 971, 974 (2005). However, the Court has recognized the inherently coercive nature of police interrogations, thereby mandating the police to provide Miranda warnings to suspects and defendants to lessen such coercion. The intimidation is even greater on juveniles. The power of police to deceive juvenile suspects during interrogations is significant since kids may be even more impressionable and confused. Juveniles are more likely than adults to defer to the wishes of adult authority figures and are more susceptible to suggestions of guilt. Id., at 975. Juveniles are more likely to believe things that adults, especially powerful authority figures, tell them. Many kids are taught to trust police officers and to have faith in them as enforcers of law. They are not raised to believe that officers will resort to deception in order to carry out the law. Id., at 997. Thus juveniles are easily pressured into admitting guilt or agreeing to false information. Unfortunately, the interrogation room is one of the few places where the Court has been unwilling to protect juveniles from their own bad or premature decisions. In Fare v. Michael C., 442 U.S. 707 (1979) the Supreme Court decided that juvenile confessions were to be assessed under the totality of circumstances standard and thus age was only one of many factors that come into play when assessing the admissibility of juvenile confessions.

Police deception may be helpful in eliciting confessions from guilty suspects. However, such manipulation also extracts false confessions, especially from juveniles. Placing false hope in young suspects by promises of leniency and misrepresentation of evidence are effective in inducing such false confessions. Patrick M. McMullen, Questioning the Questions, 99 Nw. U.L. Rev. 971, 988 (2005). The vast majority of evidence that prosecutors obtain against defendants comes straight from their own mouths because of the Police interrogation methods discussed.

For these reasons, it is best to obtain the services of a skilled criminal defense attorney before an opportunity for questioning arises, or any charges are filed. After discussing with the client what is known about the scope of the investigation, the attorney should start by advising the detective that the defendant is represented by counsel, and not to talk to his client without that counsel present. If you have no inkling that you might be investigated or charged with a crime prior to being contacted by law enforcement, it is very important that you consult an attorney before speaking to authorities. While an officer may imply that failure to speak immediately will result in arrest, a person cannot be arrested for exercising the right to remain silent. Police can only arrest a person if probable cause exists, and the choice to remain silent cannot be part of that analysis. If the officers already have probable cause, they would not need to question you. If they do not, the statement you make could well supply it.

HELP IS NEEDED FROM "YOU" TO MAKE CHANGES
IT ONLY TAKES ONE
ARE YOU THAT ONE?
JOIN US AT:

www.peopleagainstprisonabuse.com/page1

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