Innocent until proven guilty?

I first became interested in the Innocence Project and other organizations working towards exonerating those wrongfully accused when I heard the story of Brian Banks. Banks was a standout player at Polytechnic High School in Long Beach, California. In 2002, Banks verbally committed to play for USC, and he was on his way to athletic stardom.

However, during the summer before Bank’s senior season at Poly (2002), he was arrested and charged after a classmate (Wanetta Gibson) accused him of kidnapping and rape. Banks was faced with a possible 41 years to life sentence. He chose to accept a plea deal that included five years in prison, five years of probation, and registering as a sex offender.

Forget football, Banks’ life was ruined. Or so he thought.

In March 2011, Gibson met with Banks and admitted she had fabricated the story. Banks was recording the conversation and with the tape and help from the California Innocence Project attorneys, Los Angeles County prosecutors overturned Banks' conviction on May 24, 2012.

As of April 3, 2013, Banks has signed with the Atlanta Falcons. He will begin off-season workouts later this month in hopes of gaining an insider linebacker position.

Banks now serves as a spokesperson for the California Innocence Project and is working on a documentary to tell his story.

For more information, click here.

photo credit: http://brianbanks.org/photo-gallery-2/banks-personal/

Status of SB 89 in Austin: Since my last post, SB 89 still remains in Stage 1 (Filed). On April 18, 2013, another co-author was authorized: On motion of Senator Ellis, Senator Hinojosa will be shown as Co-author of SB 89.

Brian, Banks, Long Beach, California, Atlanta, Falcons, Poly, USC, Los Angeles, exonerate, Wanetta, Gibson, innocence, project, commission, NFL, DNA, football

Henrietta Williams

The Innocence Project goes global

Recently, there has been a lot of recognition in the U.S. media for the founder of the Innocence Project in the Philippines. Dr. Maria Corazon Abogado De Ungria is the head of the DNA Analysis Laboratory of the Natural Sciences Research Institute, University of the Philippines, the Director of the Program on Forensic and Ethnicity of the Philippine Genome Center, and the founder of the Innocence Project Philippines. De Ungria is a hero of science not only in her country, but globally. She almost single-handedly built the DNA forensics database in the Philippines in the late 1990s.

“[De Ungria] has played a major role in resolving forensic cases, bringing justice to victims of abuse and heinous crimes, and those who have been wrongfully accused or convicted,” the Asian Journal said.

According to the Innocence Project Philippines Facebook page, the project is "a network of law school clinics, scientific and academic laboratories and non-governmental organizations that seeks to make justice accessible for wrongfully convicted persons."

The Innocence Project at the National Bilibid Prison aims to:

• Provide coordinated free legal assistance to persons wrongfully convicted;

• Advocate reforms in policies, laws, judicial rules, legal education, and criminal investigative procedures and evidence handling to redress wrongful convictions in the Philippines;

• Enhance the capacities of justice stakeholders including judges, prosecutors, lawyers, criminal and forensic investigators, law students, etc. to eradicate or mitigate wrongful convictions in the country; and

• Establish an independent and accurate data bank containing all pertinent information on wrongful convictions in the Philippines.

For more information, click here.

Photo credit: Asian Journal

Status of SB 89 in Austin: Since my last post, SB 89 remains in Stage 1 (Filed). On Feb. 25, 2013, a co-author was authorized: On motion of Senator Ellis, Senator Rodriguez will be shown as Co-author of SB 89.

innocence project, innocence commission, Philippines, innocent, DNA, De Ungria, Bilibid, science

Henrietta Williams

Motivation to Act

For decades, the issue of international involvement has been a highly disputed topic in American politics. If a foreign nation is acting in a way contrary to what we deem moral, at what point do we have a responsibility as human citizens to stand up for the fair treatment of others? Many argue that governments of foreign nations have the right to deal with their own people as they see fit. That it isn’t our responsibility, as a diplomatic nation, to step in and defend the rights of those in other countries?

But what about when the people being wronged are our own?

Last year, there were 1900 calls to the National Trafficking Hotline from Texas alone, yielding 353 cases in which there was an instance of human trafficking in Texas. This means that 353 human beings were being bought and sold for sex or labor in the state we call home. Shouldn’t this alarming statistic be enough to propel legislators to action?

In the 2013 Texas state legislature, several pieces of legislation aimed at fighting this domestic issue are stuck in the committee stage. HB 91 is currently awaiting action by the House Judiciary and Civil Jurisprudence Committee, as is SB 92. As the 2013 session of the Texas State Legislature winds down, it is hard to say if these pieces of legislation will ever get out of committee to be voted on by the House.

This issue should, however, motivate prompt action.

Rachel Adcock

Blog Post 5 

Why SB 182 will not advance in this session of the Texas Legislation

Update on SB 182: this bill would make it legal to carry firearms on campuses of higher education. However, it has moved out of the Criminal Justice committee. Let’s be honest, it probably won’t advance anymore this session due to the slowness of the legislative system.  The trip to Austin to observe the Texas Legislation in action made it apparent that the session would no produce any results besides a few bills and the passing of the budget for the next two years.

For those of you who do not know, the Texas Legislation only meets every ‘odd’ year for six months. So that means that within that time two things happen: planning and passing of the budget and proposals of bills that are up for passing.

I’m sorry, but that isn’t a lot of time to plan and pass a budget that is suppost to last for two years. It is a faulty system because the population of our state is growing everyday so it is impossible to project what the spending is going to look like two years from now.

SB 182 will not succeed this session because of the system that is in place. The bill does not have a lot of push behind it, which is what it takes for a bill to be passed in the type of system. Currently, another big issue for this session is the education. In the 82^nd session, education was cut by $5.2 billion dollars. This session is planning on putting about half of that back into the budget. We discovered this issue when we met with Holly Taebel, Director of Professional Development and Advocacy for the Texas Classroom Teachers Association.

This video shows Texas Representative Eric Johnson talking about the voucher system that would come with the new education budget. 

Video credit: YouTube

Blog Post #4

Topic: SB 182

Cody Coke

Human Trafficking Internationally

Human trafficking is defined as modern day slavery in the form of buying and selling men, women, and children for sex or for labor. It is speculated that currently there are over 27 million slaves worldwide.

That means there are more slaves today than at any other time in human history.  

Last year, in 2012, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime created the first comprehensive international report on the status on trafficking in persons. The report includes both the status of trafficking in each country, as well as the legal response to the crime. Alarmingly, the report revealed that as many as two of every five countries included in the report are yet to successfully convict a suspect of human trafficking. 

Globally, children account for roughly 20% of trafficking victims. Astonishingly, however, nearly 100% of victims in many parts of Africa are children. The report also reveals that 79% of trafficking is sexual exploitation, while 18% is forced labor.

The UN took its first formal actions against human trafficking in 2003 with the The United Nations Protocol against Trafficking in Persons. This document laid forth the first international protocol against trafficking. Though many countries are yet to opt in to this protocol, momentum has increased significantly in recent years. The UN does acknowledge, however, that many governments are still reluctant to admit this shameful crime happens on their soil.

Until then, the UN has committed to increase public awareness as well as government knowledge on the issue of human trafficking.

Read the full UNDOC report here.

For more information on the global issue of human trafficking, check out this video made by fellow Schieffer school student, Lyndsey Evans.

Rachel Adcock

Post 4

I've been researching what effects the legal drinking age has on a person's relationship with alcohol. As it turns out, there is some good research to be found on the topic.

I found a study that was reported by U.S. News and World Reports that generated some insightful data. The study observed over 39,000 Americans who grew up and resided in various states with different laws regarding alcohol.  Some of these states allowed drinking at age 18, while others allowed it at age 21.

Let's start off by stating the facts: binge drinking is defined as a man who drinks five or more alcoholic drinks in one drinking session or a woman who drinks four or more drinks per session. This study followed the drinking habits of people who started drinking in the 1970s, and has followed those people for decades.

The studies showed that people in states with a drinking age below 21 had a much higher rate for binge drinking. They were not shown to drink more often, nor were they reported to consume more alcohol than states with a drinking age of 21. They were, however, reported to consume more alcohol during a drinking session than people from states who had a drinking age of 21.

In other words, people who lived in states with laws allowing the drinking of alcohol at an age younger than 21 are more likely to be binge drinkers today.

One frightening statistic: binge drinking is 19 percent higher for men who grew up in states with a lower drinking age, and among men who didn't go to college, it's even 31 percent more likely.

"Binge drinking on college campuses is a very serious problem," Plunk says. "But it's also important not to completely forget about young people who aren't on college campuses. In our study, they had the greatest risk of suffering the long-term consequences linked to lower drinking ages." -- HealthDay News

-Hannah Teague

Texas Vs. Oklahoma: the Red River rivalry outside the football field

The Oklahoma-Texas water debate that began in 2007 continues today as it approaches its U.S. Supreme Court hearing. The conflict is over water in the Red River, which borders Texas and Oklahoma. Oklahoma argues that the Tarrant Regional Water District has no right to withdraw water from the “Oklahoma Side” of the Red River. In Texas’ argument, the Red River is only 125 miles away and less salty than western water which would require less treatment. In addition, in relation to the proposed 2012 Texas State Water Plan, because the water is to the east, “it is less susceptible to drought and it is uphill, so it would require less energy to pump into the metroplex” (E&E 2013). 

The Oklahoma Water Resources Board released Oklahoma’s State Water Plan after the 2012 legislation, which is expected to guide water use and conservation for the next 50 years. The plan lays out the  4 significant factors affecting Oklahoma’s future. Specifically, data is a factor that correlates with the current Texas-Oklahoma water debate: “the State of Oklahoma must not only reestablish its dwindling base of reliable water data but expand the network of stream gages, monitoring wells, and water quality monitoring sites, as well as the tools necessary to quantify, manage, and allocate surface and groundwater resources confidently.” The Texas-Oklahoma water dispute also referred to the Red River Compact between Texas, Oklahoma, Louisiana and Arkansas. According to E&E, until recently, “no state has sought to draw water from another using the compact”.

Oklahoma argued that, “If Texas thought it could take desirable stream water from other states for free, Texas might have mentioned that right in its water plans” (Law 360 2013)

On Wednesday, March 27, 2013, the Texas House passed HouseBill 4, which will “create a water bank that would offer loans for projects like new water reservoirs, pipelines and conservation projects,” according to the Texas Tribune. Conservation plays a large priority in the State Water Plan and funding. The bill is now headed to the Senate as the 2013 legislation continues, and it will be interesting to see if the Red River debate will be impacted by the Senate’s decision.  

-Becca Adkins