10/25/2003

Omaha, Neb. - Terry Harrington embarked on his new life Friday night, free after serving 25 years of a life sentence and always maintaining his innocence.

“There are very few of us who can look down the barrel of injustice for 25 years and say the truth will come out,” said his attorney, Tom Frerichs, after a first-degree murder charge was dismissed.

Harrington, 44, pressed a cell phone to his ear to talk to loved ones as a free man.

“I’ve been an insomniac since the first day I got locked up until last night,” Harrington said. “Right now, I am so relieved. I can breathe normal. I may go home and do a Rip Van Winkle. I hope I don’t, you know, because there’s so much I’ve missed out on already.”

Harrington was convicted in 1978 for the murder of a retired Council Bluffs police officer. He spent years appealing before new evidence got him released in April. Days later, the murder charge was refiled.

On Friday, a judge dismissed the case, ending a quarter-century quest for redemption.

“I did not murder John Schweer,” Harrington said. “But I do sympathize with their family right now, because my family had to go through basically the same thing they went through – the loss of a loved one.”

Harrington talked to well-wishers and reporters in an Omaha hotel lobby.

He mentioned praying a lot and thanked God for his good fortune, which included previously undisclosed police reports uncovered by a woman who took up his cause.

Asked what he was going to do now, he broke into a big smile and joked, “I’m going to Disneyland!”

Earlier in the afternoon, Pottawattamie County Attorney Matthew Wilber announced he had reluctantly ended an effort to re-try Harrington for the 1977 shotgun slaying.

“After personally spending hundreds of hours on this case, I have no doubt that Terry Harrington committed the murder of John Schweer in 1977,” Wilber said at a press conference in his office. “The jury made the right decision in 1978, and the right man went to prison for 25 years. That said, I also have no doubt that the admissible evidence which is left after 26 years is not sufficient to sustain a conviction against Mr. Harrington.”

Wilber said he filed the dismissal of charges without prejudice, meaning the charge could be refiled if new evidence comes to light or becomes admissible.

Wilber asked that the charges be dismissed largely because of changing testimony of witnesses, particularly Kevin Hughes, who identified Harrington as the shooter but recanted several times, most recently on Thursday afternoon.

“The interesting irony of this case is that Terry Harrington was put in prison by his own friends and associates,” Wilber said.

Also Friday, prosecutors sentenced Curtis McGhee to time served and allowed him to go free. McGhee, who like Harrington was found guilty of first-degree murder, pleaded no contest to second-degree murder last month in exchange for his testimony in Harrington’s trial.

Harrington was offered a similar deal, but chose to do what he has since his trial in 1978: proclaim his innocence.

It was a risky strategy that could have sent him back to prison. But on Friday both McGhee and Harrington – two black teenagers convicted of a crime they say they didn’t commit – were free men.

Frerichs was upset by Wilber’s dismissal motion that laid out the state’s theory: Harrington, McGhee and Hughes went to Council Bluffs to steal a buckskin 1977 Toronado. Schweer, a night watchman, interrupted the theft and pursued Harrington and McGhee along a stretch of railroad tracks.

“While searching the area for the car thieves, Schweer was shot at close range by Terry Harrington in the right shoulder and right chest,” the motion said.

Frerichs noted that all the witnesses in the case have recanted. “If they still think they have such a good case,” Frerichs said, “they shouldn’t have dismissed it.”

Frerichs said it was too early to say whether Harrington will pursue a wrongful conviction case in civil court.

Both sides offered their sympathy to the Schweer family, members of which were unavailable for comment.

Wilber said he spoke with the Schweer family for two hours Friday. While disappointed with the outcome, they are supportive of the decision, Wilber said.

Harrington also expressed his condolences.

Harrington talked with some of his loved ones via cell phone Friday night, telling them to watch for him on television. He gave them the news and thanked those who helped win his freedom – particularly Anne Danaher.

While the case might not be over, the dismissal ends what is an amazing story of redemption. Harrington had run out of appeals, and it appeared he would live out the rest of his days in prison when his family – visiting him at the Iowa State Penitentiary – struck up a conversation in the parking lot with a prison barber.

The barber, Danaher, took up Harrington’s cause. Eventually, she discovered previously undisclosed police reports, one that mentioned another suspect in the case.

The new reports persuaded the Iowa Supreme Court that Harrington did not receive a fair trial. The high court overturned his conviction, and Gov. Tom Vilsack granted him a temporary reprieve in April.

Harrington has been out on bond since his release in April. And he has been fighting to clear his name.

“God is great. God is great. God is great,” Harrington said to another well-wisher as he flung a handful of coins into the hotel fish pond.

Luck? Divine intervention? Whichever, Terry Harrington is a free man.

PORT-AU-PRINCE (Reuters) – Haitian police have arrested 10 U.S. citizens caught trying to take 33 children out of the earthquake-stricken country in a suspected illicit adoption scheme, authorities said on Saturday.

The five men and five women were in custody in the capital, Port-au-Prince after their arrests on Friday night. There are fears that traffickers could try to exploit the chaos and turmoil following Haiti’s January 12 earthquake quake to engage in illegal adoptions.

One of the suspects, who says she is leader of an Idaho-based charity called New Life Children’s Refuge, denied they had done anything wrong.

The suspects were detained at Malpasse, Haiti’s main border crossing with the Dominican Republic, after Haitian police conducted a routine search of their vehicle.

Authorities said the Americans had no documents to prove they had cleared the adoption of the 33 children — aged 2 months to 12 years — through any embassy and no papers showing they were made orphans by the quake in the impoverished Caribbean country.

“This is totally illegal,” said Yves Cristalin, Haiti’s social affairs minister. “No children can leave Haiti without proper authorization and these people did not have that authorization.”

U.S. authorities could not be reached for immediate comment on the arrests.

But Laura Sillsby from the Idaho group told Reuters from a jail cell at Haiti’s Judicial Police headquarters, “We had permission from the Dominican Republic government to bring the children to an orphanage that we have there.”

“We have a Baptist minister here (in Port-au-Prince) whose orphanage totally collapsed and he asked us to take the children to the orphanage in the Dominican Republic,” Sillsby added.

“I was going to come back here to do the paperwork,” Sillsby said. “They accuse us of children trafficking. This is something I would never do. We were not trying to do something wrong.”

In addition to outright trafficking in children, authorities have voiced fears since the quake that legitimate aid groups may have flown earthquake orphans out of the country for adoption before efforts to find their parents had been exhausted.

As a result, the Haitian government halted many types of adoptions earlier this month.

There are no reliable estimates of the number of parentless and lost children at risk in Haiti’s quake-shattered capital.

(Editing by Peter Cooney)

On CNN last night Haitian Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive talked to the network’s Christiane Amanpour about the unsettling reality of trafficking of human organs from victims in the wake of the earthquake that struck a few weeks ago.

“A lot of organizations – they come and they say there were children on the streets,” Bellerive said. “They are going to bring them to the States — we have already reports of trafficking, even of organ trafficking.”

AMANPOUR: And do you know for sure that children are being trafficked now?
BELLERIVE: There are children trafficking for children and adult persons, also. Because they need
all types of organs.

AMANPOUR: No, but I mean live children. Are they being trafficked now?

BELLERIVE: The reports I receive; yes.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/28/haitian-pm-human-organs-a_n_440212.html

10 000 U.S. troops deployed in Haiti, a nuclear ship, all at less than 1,000 miles from Venezuela: this is the result of the earthquake that took place there less than a week on that unfortunate island affected only then almost anyone.

We may find that a normal human perspective, or hypocritical in view of the history of this unfortunate state victim essentially neglect or exploitation from the very countries that come in help today. But this justification does the sending of a nuclear aircraft carrier in the region?

It is that part of my question. The goal is it simply to “see how well” the international community, or are there from the United States a windfall to justify the investment of its troops near one of his best enemies of the moment?

Because we know how the relationship between these two states have been strained since the acceptance by Colombia to host its U.S. military bases. Moreover, the economic situation in Venezuela, through some decisions and denunciations, make the United States hostile to the government. Just days before the earthquake, a military plane was intercepted by the Venezuelan army twice its territory, and we have seen lately the tone up between the two countries, Venezuela accused the United States through the British, to organize provocations, the U.S. pretext for their part want to fight against narco-trafficking and guerrillas suspected of being protected or hosted by Venezuela.

Always keen to find explanations for events that intrigue me, so I wanted to make a clean breast, and whether sending American troops in Haiti were the result of a windfall for the United States (as September 11 to invade some countries), or if there was a possibility that this windfall is caused by a technology which we know the power. I had an idea in mind of course, and a quick search on the internet led me quickly on the track I wanted.

Of course, typing in “how to create an earthquake, I prepared to find everything and anything, from simple enlightened supporters of aliens, of course, passing by the famous Project HAARP, well known to the European Commission itself, prevented a few years ago to inquire about it. I also fell on the links made between this project and the rather obscure 1999 storm in France, the earthquake Chichuan and one on Jjapon.

I do not really know what is really the project or what are its possible applications, but it seems like the mystery surrounding this project is dark enough to scare us.

Also, I found another article on the topic of earthquakes explaining that it is possible to artificially create this kind of reaction in the basement, which foreshadowed the authors of this paper a kind of “trigger preventive “on a small scale and short range, just like the triggering of avalanches in the mountains, but perhaps also a possibility under humanitarian use for war …

I can well imagine what will be the reactions to this article, and without doubt is there any connection between seismic activity inevitable browsing our planet and this amazing project, but if subsequent events related to the disaster Haitian occurred, then there would be resting question: what are the activities and technical capabilities of the HAARP which hardly anyone knows something safe and verified.

Meanwhile, it seems that the fate of that unfortunate island can be arranged for millions of dollars, because experts are categorical: the tectonic plates traversing this region have not stopped giving in to pressure, and other earthquakes a comparable intensity are to be feared in future more or less close (a century or less). These millions will no doubt give a good image of the states participating in the reconstruction, but will not solve anything about the real future of this island was swallowed up, eventually, that this island has again forgotten in six months.

Hugo Chavez will stop at nothing. Slayer of “American imperialism” also known obstinate, the head of the Venezuelan State has gone very far in the challenge these days in giving the U.S. the direct responsibility of the earthquake that devastated Haiti on 12 January. According to the populist leader, citing reports from the deliquescent “Russian Northern Fleet” (*), the U.S. Navy would have caused the earthquake testing in the Caribbean Sea a weapon of a particular type. It would indeed missile called seismic running through “pulsed plasma generators. Also according to the master of Caracas, the ultimate goal of these experiments, which were initiated by the U.S. Army in the 1990s under the acronym HAARP (for High Frequency Active Auroral Research Project), would “destroy Iran through a series of earthquakes.
Internet feasts

At the podium before an audience of military and remarks relayed by the public television ViveTV Hugo Chavez has backed his argument by stating that “last week, the American tests have caused an earthquake of magnitude 6.5 on the scale Richter in the city of Eureka, California, causing no casualties. In contrast, the same experiment in Caribbean Sea, it “caused the deaths of at least 140 innocent 000. Intended effect of these military operations, Chavez continued, and caused the earthquake in Washington has provided the opportunity “to begin its invasion by sending humanitarian at least 10 000 soldiers to control, instead of the UN, the territory Haiti. Hard to believe? Obviously not for the Venezuelan leader who wants to show the presence in Haiti, before the disaster, General P. K. Keen, high ranking officer in the Navy, responsible for “supervising the relief operations predictable.

Whoever advises its citizens to sing in the shower – to save water – and they recommend not to buy Christmas gifts for children – to stem the “consumer madness” – is still not a chimera closely. This latest release of Hugo Chavez might even raise a smile if the Haitian people were not faced with a tragedy so horrible (according to the latest official figures, more than 75 000 people have died in the earthquake). The fact remains that the statements of Venezuelan president has in a few hours, went around the net. And sites interested in conspiracies and other conspiracy theories – including the Voltaire Network, a movement founded by Thierry Meyssan and sulfur dissolved in 2007 – obviously have not failed to field day with these new ramblings Chavez.

(*) The jewel of the Soviet navy in his time, the Russian Northern Fleet, stationed in the Barents Sea, is a now a real danger because of its high concentration of nuclear often derelict buildings, but still not disarmed nor dismantled. Moreover, only by Hugo Chavez, “the Russian Northern Fleet observes the movements and naval activities of the United States in the Caribbean since 2008.

Pat Robertson

According to US televangelist Pat Robertson, it was a pact with ol’ Beelzebub that caused the earthquake.

On the Christian Broadcasting Network’s “700 Club” yesterday, after a lengthy interview with a missionary who talked about helping the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, the gibbering old loon offered his explanation as to why the earthquake struck the impoverished nation:

And you know, Kristi, something happened a long time ago in Haiti, and people might not want to talk about it. They were under the heel of the French, uh, you know Napoleon the 3rd and whatever, and they got together and swore a pact to the Devil.

They said, ‘We will serve you if you’ll get us free from the French.’

True story.

True my arse!

But back to Robertson:

And so the Devil said, ‘Okay, it’s a deal.’ And, uh, they kicked the French out, you know, with Haitians revolted and got themselves free. But ever since they have been cursed by, by one thing after another, desperately poor.

That island of Hispaniola is one island. It’s cut down the middle. On the one side is Haiti on the other side is the Dominican Republican. Dominican Republic is, is prosperous, healthy, full of resorts, etcetera.

Haiti is in desperate poverty.

Same island.

They need to have and we need to pray for them a great turning to God and out of this tragedy I’m optimistic something good may come. But right now we’re helping the suffering people and the suffering is unimaginable.

In an article entitled God, Satan and the Birth of Haiti, Jean R Gelin, PhD, writes:

I was born and raised in Haiti, and I am a graduate of the State University in Port-au-Prince. I am also a believer in the Lord Jesus  Christ in accordance with the Bible. In all of my studies of Haitian history, however, I have yet to find a good evidence of even the idea of Satan’s assistance in the Independence War, let alone a satanic pact.

Obviously, the idea that Haiti was dedicated to Satan prior to its independence is a very serious and profound statement with potentially grave consequences for its people in terms of how they are perceived by others or how the whole nation is understood outside its borders. One would agree that such a strong affirmation should be based on solid historical and scriptural ground. But, although the satanic pact idea is by far the most popular explanation for Haiti’s birth as a free nation, especially among Christian missionaries and some Haitian Church leaders, it is nothing more than a fantasist opinion that ultimately dissipates upon close examination.

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TOO MANY PHYSICAL AND INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE AGAINST BLOOMFIELD POLICE CORRUPTION SQUAD, AND THE ESSEX COUNTY PROSECUTORS OFFICE.

DR MAX AND HIS DEFENSE OF CRIMINAL LAWYRS,  CIVIL LAWYERS, COUNTER AND CROSS DETECTIVES GOT THEM SO GOOD THIS TIME. THIS IS NOT THE 1996 TIME, THIS IS THE 2009 TIME NOW. THIS TIME THERE IS NO WAY OUT FOR FAKE DETECTIVE CRIMINAL DAVID SANABRIA…AND HIS ACCOMPLICES, MALES AND FEMALES., NO ALIBY, NO EXCUSES THAT CAN BE USED FOR THEM TO GET OUT OF THIS CRIMINAL  ENTRAPMENT CASE, AND GROSS OFFICIAL AND JUDICIAL CORRUPTIONS OF ALL TIME……

WE WILL EXPOSE THEM ALL ON THE GLOBE !!, WE GOT THEM ALL ON VIDEO TAPES, AUDIO, CROSS ELECTRONIC WIRES, HUMAN-WIRES, BUGS, JUST TO NAME A FEW OF THESE INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE…THESE EVIDENCE HAVE NOW BEEN TRANSFERRED TO A SAFER PLACE OF OUT NEW JERSEY. THEY WILL NEVER FIND THEM UNTIL THE A SITTING JURY ARE READY TO WATCH AND LISTEN….WE ARE SOI HAPPY FOR DR MAX !! REMEMBER FOLKS, SILIENCE IS THE BEST TOOL OF ANY WAREFARE…, YOUR ENEMIES NEVER SHOULD NEVER KNOW WHAT AND HOW YOU ARE THINKING……!!! AND THAT’S HOW WE MANAGE TO GATHER THESE MASSIVE INCRIMINATING EVIDENCE AGAINST THE BLOOMFIELD DETECTIVES AND THE ESSEX COUNTY PROSECUTORS DETECTIVES, AND LINK THEM INTO THIS MALICIOUS PROSECUTION CRIMES.

AMEN IN THE NAME OF YAHWEH ! THE ALMIGHTY GOD !!  WE ARE WORKING RIGHT NOW WITH NUMEROUS NATIONAL TELEVISIONS AND RADIO NEWS CASTERS, AND WE WILL SOON EXPOSE THEM ON NATIONAL TELEVISIONS AND RADIOS AROUND THE GLOBE. WE WILL MAKE SURE THEY NEVER FORKED WITH DR MAX AGAIN OR ANY OTHER BLACK NIGGERS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. THEY CLAIMED THEY WERE WATCHING DR MAX, BUT WHAT THEY DID NEVER KNOW, IS THE THAT FACT THAT DR MAX AND HIS DEFENSE SQUADS WERE WATCHING THEM FOR 13 YEARS, 24 HOURS,AND 7 DAYS A WEEK. !!! AMEN, AND GLORY TO THE LORD…… THEY GOT TRAPED AND CAUGHT INSIDE THEIR OWN NEST THIS TIME…….

WE GOT THEM ALL SO GOOD, THANKS TO THE POWER OF GOD, AND TECHNOLOGY AND COUNTER-SURVEILANCE., COUNTER DETECTIVE SABRINA, THAT WE KNOW FOR SURE WILL GO AND END UP IN JAIL… WE GOT THEM ALL SO GOOD…WE WILL PROVE THEM THAT DR ANTOINE IS DEFINITELY RIGHT WHEN HE SAID THAT AMERICA IS NOT A LAWLESS COUNRTY, AND THAT NO ONE IS VER BE ABLE THE LAW OF OUR STATE AND FEDERAL CONSTITUTIONS…AMEN !!

GOD BLESS AMERICA AND DR MAX ANTOINE’S TOP NOTCH

FORMER FBI AND FORMER CIA COUNTER DETECTIVES,

AND HIS DEFENSE AND PROSECUTING ATTRONEYS FOR A JOB WELL DONE..

J. A. McGUIRE,

AFFILIATE PI & COUNTER PRESS AGENT

C/O NATIONAL JUSTICE COMMITTEE 4 DR MAX D. ANTOINE

A Professional Pacifist and a Victim of Criminal Corruptions

According to the Obama administration, the answer is no.

Solicitor General Elena Kagan argues in a friend of the court brief that local, state, and federal prosecutors must enjoy absolute immunity from citizen lawsuits – even when they sent innocent men to prison for life by fabricating incriminating evidence and hiding exculpatory evidence.

Those are the allegations in a case from Iowa set for oral argument on Wednesday morning. According to legal briefs filed in the case, prosecutors in Pottawattamie County, Iowa, solicited false testimony implicating two innocent African-American teens in the murder of a recently retired police officer in 1977. At trial, the false testimony led to their convictions. They were sent to prison for life.

When the false testimony and other exculpatory evidence was discovered, the two innocent men, Curtis McGhee and Terry Harrington, were released after 25 years in prison. They filed a lawsuit against the prosecutors.

The question before the high court is whether the prosecutors can be held accountable in a civil trial or instead are entitled to absolute immunity from such lawsuits.

“If the allegations here are true, [the Iowa officials] engaged in prosecutorial misconduct of an execrable sort, involving a complete breach of the public trust,” Solicitor General Kagan writes in her brief to the court. “But absolute immunity reflects a policy judgment that such conduct is properly addressed not through civil liability, but through a host of other deterrents and punishments.”

Absolute vs. qualified immunity

Lawyers for Mr. McGhee and Mr. Harrington argue in their briefs that police officers who fabricate evidence do not enjoy such absolute protection from a civil lawsuit. They say prosecutors who actively participate in the pre-trial investigation of a case must be held to the same standard as police officers, detectives, and agents, who can be sued if they violate clearly-established constitutional rights.

“When law enforcement officers fabricate evidence with an intent to use it to deprive innocent citizens of their liberty, they violate the Constitution,” writes Paul Clement, a former US Solicitor General who is arguing the case for McGhee and Harrington.

“The framing of innocent African-American citizens for a crime they did not commit, lies at the core of what Congress sought to prevent in the Civil Rights statutes,” Mr. Clement says in his brief.

Lawyers for the two prosecutors counter that there is no constitutional right “not to be framed.”

The critical question is whether the trial is fair, they say. The constitutional infraction occurs not when the false statements are first obtained, but when they are introduced at trial. Since prosecutors enjoy absolute immunity from lawsuits related to the actions they take at trial, any false testimony cannot form the basis of a lawsuit against a prosecutor, they say.

Attorneys general from 27 states and the District of Columbia filed a friend of the court brief urging the high court to embrace this broader view of absolute prosecutor immunity.

However, the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, the Cato Institute, and the American Civil Liberties Union argue for a lower level of immunity that offers prosecutors protection from lawsuits except when they have violated a clearly-established constitutional right.

Confidence in justice system

New Jersey-based group Black Cops Against Police Brutality also filed a friend of the court brief in the case.

“This case is not just about drawing a good lawyerly line between precedents,” writes Chicago lawyer Mark Herrmann in a brief for the group. “The facts are that Terry Harrington and Curtis McGhee are black and once were young, and that [the murder victim] was white and had been a police captain. Together, these facts made it easy for [the prosecutors] and their accomplices to frame Harrington and McGhee for murder.”

Mr. Herrmann writes: “We can imagine few rulings of this Court that would send a more negative message about American criminal justice than to permit white prosecutors to frame African-American suspects for the murder of a white police officer, admit the outrage, and then walk away with impunity, after their victims have wrongfully suffered twenty-five years in prison.”

The case is Pottawattamie County, Iowa, v. McGhee and Harrington.

The case, Pottawattamie County v. McGhee and Harrington, was brought by Curtis McGhee Jr. and Terry Harrington, who had been found guilty in the 1977 murder of John Schweer, a retired police officer in Council Bluffs, Iowa. The two, who spent 25 years in prison before being freed in 2003, sued Iowa prosecutors for violating their civil rights by falsifying evidence used against them before arrest and at trial. They were released after being able to document the actions taken by prosecutors to doctor evidence and influence testimony to point the finger at them, even though there was another suspect.

As we reported here, former Solicitor General Paul Clement, now with the Washington office of Atlanta-based King & Spalding, took on McGhee and Harrington as clients after the Supreme Court agreed to hear the county’s challenge of a lower court decision upholding their suit. In oral arguments in November, it appeared Clement had gone a long way toward weakening the argument in favor of strict immunity for prosecutors, though the outcome was not entirely clear. Some justices appeared concerned that prosecutors would become timid if they had to worry about being sued for their actions, while other justices seemed struck by the abuses perpetrated by the prosecutors in the case.

After the arguments, settlement discussions — which had been tried on and off at earlier stages in the litigation — resumed, according to Harrington’s lawyer, J. Douglas McCalla of the Spence Law Firm of Jackson, Wyo. Though he would not say that Clement’s argument had pushed the county to seek settlement, McCalla said, “We had the wind at our back. There was a reasonable chance that the Supreme Court would see it our way.”

McCalla added, “I would have liked to see what the Supreme Court had to say about the case.” But “there are a lot of risks in that,” he added. “This is a good solution for my client.”

The parties reached a settlement on New Year’s Eve, McCalla said, with $7 million going to Harrington and $5 million going to McGhee. The prosecutors did not concede any wrongdoing, according to an account in the Daily Nonpareil newspaper of Council Bluffs. McCalla declined to say how much of the settlement would go to his firm or to McGhee’s lawyer, Stephen Davis of Canel, Davis & King in Chicago, though McCalla said they were both working on a contingency basis.

Clement handled the case pro bono. “I can’t praise Paul and King & Spalding enough,” said McCalla. Clement declined to comment.

The civil case filed by McGhee and Harrington against Council Bluffs police and the city of Council Bluffs still remains alive and could go to trial this year.