Mediaboss Marketing

A new bill under consideration by the Florida Legislature would make it easier for defendants to use the "Stand Your Ground" defense when faced with use of force charges.

For years, Florida laws have had provisions for self-defense immunity, protecting people who use force in self-defense from being prosecuted. There are certain restrictions on where and when you are justified in using various kind of force in self-defense.

In 2005, Florida passed "Stand Your Ground" legislation, which greatly expanded the circumstances in which an individual could use justifiable force. Florida Statute 776.012 expanded the application of self-defense to cases when you might have an opportunity to retreat.

George Zimmerman used this defense successfully in avoiding punishment after shooting and killing TrayvonMartin in 2012.

Zimmerman and his legal team mounted this defenseat trial, but they could have used itat a pretrial immunity hearing.

And a new bill that has passed committee muster in the state Senate could make it easier to get immunity for claims of self-defense including in situations of stand your ground, making that option more attractive for defense attorneys and their clients

The way it works now, if you are arrested for killing someone, you can request an immunity hearing if you thinkthe killingwas done in self defense and should not be prosecuted.

In that hearing you have to show that it was, in fact, self defense. Theburden of proof is on you, the defendant.

But Florida Republican Sen. Rob Bradleysays thats not in the spirit of the law, which puts the onus of proving guilt on the state.

He wants to shift the burden in pretrial immunity hearings to the state. Under his bill, prosecutors would have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that you cant use the stand your ground defense.

What I hope is the outcome is that people who should not go to trial should not go to trial, said Bradley, of Orange Park near Jacksonville. If a prosecutor does not have evidence to convince a judge at a pretrial hearing, then the prosecutor doesnt have enough evidence to go to trial and get a conviction before a jury.

Here's the proposed change to the statute:

In a criminal prosecution, once a prima facie claim of self-defense immunity from criminal prosecution has been raised by the defendant at a pretrial immunity hearing, the burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt is on the party seeking to overcome the immunity from criminal prosecution...

But many prosecutors dont think this is a good idea.

For one, it means theres less to lose for defendants brought up on use-of-force charges to try out this defenseby requesting an immunity hearing.

The bill also sets the standard of proof to beyond a reasonable doubt, the same standard as a full trial.

Pulling together that kind of evidence for a pre-trial hearing is exceptionally burdensome, says Phil Archer, state attorney for the 18th Judicial Circuit (Brevard and Seminole counties).

If youre going to hurt someone, if you are going to kill someone, the least we can require is that at a preliminary hearing that you carry the burden of telling us why we should give you complete immunity, said Archer.

The bill passed favorably out of committee with a 5-4 vote.

A related bill has been filed in the Florida House and has been referred to the Criminal Justice Subcommittee and Judiciary Committee.

See more here:
Florida Considers Bill To Make It Easier To Use The 'Stand Your Ground' Defense - WLRN

Native Son is an exceptionally powerful play.

One that potentially could goad white Marin residents into pushing harder for black social equality.

But I question whether the Marin Theatre Company, where the 90-minute shows running, isnt merely preaching to the choir even if that liberal choirs singing Black Lives Matter in multi-part harmony.

Id be willing to lay odds there wasnt a single Trump voter in the audience on opening night.

The nonlinear play, adapted from an iconic, groundbreaking 1940 novel by Richard Wright about systemic racism, justice and freedom, is at once surreal and impressionistic, jaggedly zipping across timeframes of present and past.

And, if a theatergoer will allow it, sure to get under his or her skin no matter what color that skin is.

I first read Wrights novel in my early teens. I loved the passion and vitriol yet understood little because I didnt know any oppressed black people.

Reading Native Son, however, led me to Ralph Ellisons Invisible Man, several of James Baldwins essay collections and novels, and, eventually, The Autobiography of Malcolm X.

Not to mention a love of race records and, ultimately, Alan Freeds radio broadcasts that extolled the virtues of rhythm and blues.

None of that, of course, could lead me a white male to genuine empathy.

And neither (though Nambi E. Kelley marvelously adapted it from the book) did the MTC play.

Despite its inherent passion and vitriol, mega-potent acting by Jerod Haynes and the rest of the sterling ensemble, top-notch directing by Seret Scott, and ultra-exciting stagecraft, sound and lighting.

It all takes place in cold, snowy Chicago, in the minds-eye of Bigger Thomas, a 20-year-old black man from a rat-infested environment who accidentally kills a white heiress and flees the crime scene.

Wright, son of a sharecropper who liked to insert his Communist leanings into his work, based his novel on a real story, one in which a black man was electrocuted.

Kelley who purportedly began working on her adaptation right after George Zimmerman was found not guilty of murdering Trayvon Martin in 2013 fabricated Biggers alter ego/conscience in the corporeal form of The Black Rat, a shadowy figure who often replicates Biggers words.

And sometimes contradicts them.

That voice is riddled with echoes of the trap the protagonist finds himself in, summed up by this line:

White folks dont let us do nuthin.

Bigger, in fact, is not allowed to be a man but a subhuman person.

A big rat he kills early on becomes a palpable metaphor reflecting his self-image, yet its chilling to watch his descent into a hell that reflected real life in the late 30s and, sadly, real life in 2017.

The play in contrast to the lily white society that rapidly closes in on Bigger, and the lily white cat constantly fondled by one supporting character is dark.

Unfortunately, considering who just took up residence in the White House, the audience has scant hope of escaping like darknesses in the near future.

Native Son will play at the Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller Ave., Mill Valley, through Feb. 12. Night performances, 7:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Sundays; matinees, 2 p.m. Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays. Tickets: $22 to $60. Information: (415) 388-5208 or marintheatre.org.

Go here to read the rest:
'Native Sun' is a potent tale of black oppression, but - Marinscope Community Newspapers

Photo by: Heather Coit/The News-Gazette

Katie Koca Polite, assistant curator and publications specialist at Krannert Art Museum, talks about the upcoming Works Progress Administration exhibit next to Edwin Boyd Johnson's 1934 'Mural Painting' last week at the museum in Champaign.

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

CHAMPAIGN There is no relief program for artists as well-known as the Works Progress Administration Federal Art Project during the Great Depression, it put some 10,000 artists and craftsmen to work.

They created thousands of paintings, lithographs, sculptures and other pieces that often depicted, in American Regionalism style, Americans at work, along with their hopes and dreams.

Starting Thursday evening, visitors to Krannert Art Museum will be able to view 45 of the 575 New Deal artworks allocated to the museum last century in an exhibition titled "Enough to Live On: Art from the WPA."

"Allocation means they are in our collection and we maintain them, but we don't own them," said Krannert's Katie Koca Polite, who curated the exhibition, on view through April 22. "They're basically a super-long loan."

And the University of Illinois campus museum can't be sure how much longer it will be able to keep the WPA art.

"In the last few years, the government asked us for an inventory of all the allocations," Polite said. "The government could come in and say, 'We want those back.' I don't think President Trump will really authorize that, but you don't know."

The works on view at Krannert include paintings, works on paper, lithographs, woodblock prints, sculptures and a brass repousse an image hammered into relief from the reverse side of the metal.

One of the most outstanding is "Mural Painting," likely a study by artist Edwin Boyd Johnson for a mural he would create.

It features female figures holding objects such as a baby and a golden egg and a man wielding a hammer. Behind them are smokestacks, and airplanes in the sky.

Johnson worked for the WPA from 1935 to '43, creating mainly murals, among them "The Old Days" in the Tuscola Post Office.

"Mural Painting" looks particularly good, having been restored and cleaned by Restoration Division, an art-restoration company in Chicago.

Johnson and other artists who worked for the federal program were given broad guidelines by Holger Cahill, national director of the Federal Art Project.

He wanted to promote the styles of American Regionalism, showing average Americans at work or in their everyday lives, and social realism, depicting the everyday but looking more at class structure and other social aspects, Polite said.

However, some European modernism crept into some of the WPA artworks. At least four pieces at Krannert show influences of surrealists Salvador Dali, a Spaniard, and Italian Giorgio de Chirico, as well as of German Expressionism.

However, they're accessible, as are all the WPA pieces. Because the art was often displayed in libraries, hospitals, public schools and federal, state and municipal buildings, the government wanted the art to appeal to the average person and not be over his or her head, Polite said.

Also opening Thursday evening at the museum:

"Land Grant," an exhibition on view through May 14 that pays tribute to the 150th anniversary of the UI. It was put together by students who were in a seminar on curatorial methods taught by UI art history Professor Terri Weissmann and Amy L. Powell, Krannert's curator for modern and contemporary art.

This eclectic exhibit features photos, paintings, documents, newspaper accounts, experimental projects and objects such as a concrete canoe painted by UI engineering students to resemble an ear of corn. Other objects speak to the indigenous who lived here before the university was established.

A focal point is the Billy Morrow Jackson painting "We the People: The Land Grant College Heritage," commissioned in the 1980s by the university for the president's office.

It features prominently portraits of Abraham Lincoln, Justin Morrill and Jonathan Baldwin Turner, who were instrumental in the Morrill Act that established land-grant colleges.

"Light and Movement in Sculpture," curated by Powell, is a small show, also on view through May 14, at the main entrance of the Kinkead Pavilion. It features light-and-kinetic sculptures from the 1960s and '70s; a few have an "op-art" look.

They were created by Fletcher Benton, Chryssa, Max Finkelstein, Richard Hunt, Josef Levi, James Libero Prestini and Earl Reiback.

New York performance artist's first solo presentation features five public events

CHAMPAIGN Krannert Art Museum will host the first solo museum presentation by performance artist Autumn Knight, the current artist-in-residence at New York City's The Studio Museum in Harlem.

Her first performance, "El Diablo y Cristo Negro," a comedic dialogue between the devil and black Christ, will be during the public opening from 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday of the new spring exhibitions at the museum.

"El Diablo y Cristo Negro" explores the relationship between good and evil, or the frenemy relationship between the devil and the black Christ. Joining her in that performance will be Xavier Roe, a University of Illinois theater student, and Chivas Michael, a New Orleans-based actor.

Krannert has given her a performance space at the museum called "In Rehearsal," from the idea that "she's always reworking ideas and presenting them in new formats," said Amy L. Powell, the curator of contemporary and modern art at the museum and the curator for Knight's exhibition.

"There's always this sense that the work isn't finished yet," Powell told the UI News Bureau. "We're getting a peek into her process. She's bringing this sense of rehearsal into the space."

The installation will include videos showing Knight's past work; some of the sources of her inspirations; and companion pieces. Her performances there will be scheduled intermittently throughout the semester.

Here are some of her public performances:

"Here and Now," 7:30 p.m. March 30, Krannert Art Museum. The conversation with Knight will include audience members and a licensed mental-health counselor.

Gallery conversation, 2 p.m. March 31, Krannert Art Museum. Knight and Powell will talk during an informal Q&A about Knight's work and "In Rehearsal."

"Lament," 7:30 p.m. April 13, UI Stock Pavilion, 1402 W. Pennsylvania Ave., U. The dance performance interprets addiction, class and mental illness, with Knight collaborating with Rebecca Ferrell, a choreographer and lecturer in the UI dance department, on the piece. It will feature Abijan Johnson, a Houston-based dance and movement therapist.

"An Experimental Freezing of a Room through Metaphorical Means," week of April 17, Activities and Recreation Center pool, 201 E. Peabody Drive, C. Knight will portray a figure of black motherhood against the soundtrack of the jury's decision to acquit George Zimmerman of murder in the death of Trayvon Martin.

If you go

What: The spring 2017 opening night of new exhibitions "Enough to Live On: Art from the WPA," "Land Grant," "Light and Movement in Sculpture" and performance artist Autumn Knight in rehearsal.

When: 6 to 7 p.m. today, with remarks at 6 p.m. by Kathleen Harleman, museum director and acting dean of the University of Illinois College of Fine and Applied Arts.

Where: Krannert Art Museum, 500 E. Peabody Drive, C.

Admission: Free; suggested donation of $3.

Read the original post:
(Dis)playing it cool: WPA exhibit headlines Krannert Art Museum season - Champaign/Urbana News-Gazette

Imagine a Women's March Against Black Genocide and the Struggle of Tennie White Black Agenda Report ... Michigan lead poisoning, prisons swelling up with Black bodies, police murders of Black men and women, Department of Justice refusal to press civil rights violations against the murderers of Trayvon Martin (George Zimmerman) and Michael Brown ... and more »

Visit link:
Imagine a Women's March Against Black Genocide and the Struggle of Tennie White - Black Agenda Report

"North DakotaLegendarily Easy for Legally Killing People."

I can see Josh Duhamel in the slick YouTube video now, speeding along a rural highway and picking off walkers and joggers with Rep. Keith Kempenich riding shotgun.

"Shouldn't have been obstructing me on this public road, right Keith? I think that first one was a hippie, judging by the long hair. That's 15 points!"

Speaking of shotguns, in the next scene Josh and Republican Sen. David Clemens of West Fargo are firing their 12-gauges at fleeing teenagers in downtown Fargo.

"I think they were about to key my car, Dave. We winged one of 'em. Let's go have a beer and maybe we can pick up the blood trail later."

And if Duhamel's half-million price tag is out of reach considering all the budget woes the state is having, maybe the governor could slap a tax on kids in the cancer ward to cover the shortfall.

"North Dakota," Josh could say, looking into the camera with that goofy bomber's hat framing his dreamy mug. "Where Teddy Roosevelt came to hunt buffalo, and you can come to hunt people. Legendary."

And y'all thought the "pornographic vending machine" bill was going to be the bill by which all others were measured this session.

The hits just keep on coming.

First there was the bill introduced by Kempenich, an oil-country lawmaker from Bowman who wanted a way to keep the roadways clear of First Amendment rights. He came up with the idea of removing liability from a driver who "negligently causes injury or death to an individual obstructing traffic on a public road, street or highway."

Kempenich's purpose was to make it legal to run over Dakota Access Pipeline protesters"They're intentionally putting themselves in danger," he told the Bismarck Tribunebut the bill was so broadly written it applies to every road and a million situations. If a group of kids are standing in the middle of Elm Street playing catch, "obstructing vehicular traffic," and a driver turns them into speed bumpsthat driver "is not guilty of an offense."

It's a get-out-of-jail-free card. Except they'll never go to jail in the first place. No word on whether the victims' families will have to pay for fender damage caused by thumping somebody in the road.

Then there's the bill authored by Clemens, a rookie legislator from West Fargo. Clemens wants to protect you from bad guys real and imagined, so he's proposing to expand the justifiable use of deadly force (i.e., shooting somebody dead like in a John Wayne movie) to, well, just about everything.

Under Clemens' bill, if you even think somebody is about to vandalize your car you can come out guns a-blazin'!

The use of deadly force is justified, in the bill, "to prevent the other individual's imminent commission of arson, burglary, robbery, aggravated robbery, theft, or criminal mischief."

Imminent means about to happen. Criminal mischief means vandalism, perhaps doing as little as $100 in damage.

You see a kid about to throw a rock through your picture window ... it's open season, baby.

The best part is, no closed seasons and no limits. In North Dakota, you can legally shoot ducks from September into December and you're limited to six ducks a day. Clemens didn't include any such pesky restrictions in his deadly force bill, so North Dakotans can kill potential arsonists and cellphone thieves all day, every day.

We're probably making too much of this. Even though the actual words in Clemens' bill make it legal to shoot someone in the back if they're running away after stealing a box of doughnuts, he says he wants North Dakotans to exercise good judgment in using deadly force.

So plugging somebody for swiping doughnuts might be a stretch. But a Carson Wentz jersey? Fire away. Those suckers cost $100. Just make sure it's a head shot so the jersey doesn't get holes in it. Blood washes out.

Clemens says his bill isn't a reaction to any specific incident, but he wants to send a message to "the unlawful public" that entering someone's home illegally could have consequences. As if they didn't know that already, which is why homes aren't broken into at 8 o'clock on Saturday mornings.

The way the bill is written, he also wants to send a message to kids who are about to spray-paint graffiti on a wall. Details, details.

If Clemens' bill passes, North Dakota can return to its Wild West roots. It'll be the rootin'-est, tootin'-est show west of the Mighty Mississippi. Come to think of it, maybe Josh Duhamel wouldn't be the best choice for the tourism ads. Wonder what George Zimmerman is doing? He has experience at this sort of thing.

See the original post:
McFeely: 'North Dakota 'Legendarily Easy for Killing People' - Grand Forks Herald