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February 16, 2005
USSC hearings continue...
Another big day at the US Sentencing Commission, with 11 witnesses with a variety of guideline experiences and perspectives scheduled to testify. A lot of today's witnesses' testimony is already linked to this agenda, and I hope to report on highlights later today. Coverage of yesterday's hearings can be found here and here.
UPDATE: And after a loooooong morning, the USSC hearings finished up this afternoon with a lot of important ground covered and key issues spotlighted. I will have a series of coming posts about the substantive issues, but I can start the post-mortem by highlighting two evolutions in the developing post-Booker nomenclature: (1) Judge Cassell's term "variance" to describe non-guideline and non-departure sentences seems to be gaining adherents, and (2) the Bowman fix may become known as the Collins fix now that Professor Bowman has officially abandon the idea, but former Associate Deputy AG Daniel Collins continues to promote it.
February 16, 2005 at 08:59 AM | Permalink
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» Booker, FanFan 1-2-3 from TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime
Law Prof Doug Berman of Sentencing Law and Policy makes it sound so easy....Just back from a week in Washington attending hearings where he testified before the Sentencing Commission, he writes: ...Many Commissioners and witnesses at the USSC hearings ... [Read More]
Tracked on Feb 18, 2005 4:43:41 PM
Comments
Hello:
I am a known convicted felon that started with a 180 day misdemeaner in Kansas in September 1991 for violating at PFA order awent to trial, was convicted, sentenced to 180 days. The only witnesses of the incident was my former wife and brother-in-law William Copeland. I also had a felony charge pending and after I was sitting in jail my prosecutor, Thomas Bath, offered to reduce my sentence to 120 days if I pled no contest to a pending charge for a terrristic threat, a Class E Kansas felony.
Never being in prison and flabergasted I was found guitly at trial, I took the plea, not knowing all the strings attached.
I was given the 120 call-back as promised but I had to agree to not to contract my former wife or my three sons and go to the Corrections Center. (I have no history of either child-abuse or neglect.) At the corrections center I was told I could not use the phone at all and that I could not continue the program unless I committed myself. So I committed myself to the nut-house. After a few days at the nut-house I decided I would rather be in prison where I could have contact with my children instead in the nut-house or half-way house and not have contact. I wrote my former wife and children a letter indicating this. She turned it over to the judge unopened and I have revoked for not following my release conditions.
After serving a a year I was released. This time I was given release conditions that said I could not contact my sons and could not be within five miles of them, yet I was approved to live at my cousins house who lived one mile from my former wife. I went to the Warden and said I refused to abide by these conditions and that I could not even got to where I was conditionally released!!
My freedom consisted of a Big Mac and fries as I immediately reported to my parole officer and told him I had no intention to live by these condictions, that I could not go to the residence I was released, and that I would rather be in prison where I can contact my sons that "free" and unable to contact them.
I was revoked and waived any adminstrative remedies to get back before the parole board thinking this was all a mistake that could be corrected.
At my hearing the parole board acting like I had the plague and revoked my for another year! Flabbergasted, my father and I wrote then Demcratic Gov. Joan Finney. Governor Finney sent me a letter from parole board member Joan Bengtson that said the real reason I was revoked from supervised release is because they had letters from my to siblings (sister's Linda Copeland and Virginia Hammes) that the consider me a danger.
My father was incensed and basically divorced himself from is two daughters. My siblings were incensed, not for what they had done, but because they were found out! Apparently the Johnson County Prosecutor's Offices solicted these letters from my siblings with the promise that they would remain secret.
The Johnson County Prosecutor's office then went to the Kansas Attorney Genral's Office and the Republican Attorney General Robert Stephen publicly and privately reprimanded Governnor Finney for revealing the existence of these letters stating that it has been public policy not to disclose such information for 14 years.
It was front page news in the Johnson County Metro Section of the Kansas City Star authored by
government propagandist Tony Rizzo.
I did a little reseach at the law library. While it is true that such letters are not required to be disclosed at a parole hearing, any evidence used for revocation must be disclose. (Morrisey v. Brwer). If the state believes the evidence poses a risk, an attorney must be appointed and the evidence disclosed to the attorney. (Gagnon v. Scarpelli.)
I wrote Governor Finney and Attorney General Robert Stephan and notifed them that the Governor needed to publicly and privately reprimand the Attorney General for violating clearly established law as public policy for over 14 years. Within a week I was shipped to the Larned
Facility for the criminally insane, declared insane by a room of Kansaas bureacrats, and handed a direct order from the Warden not to contact my sons citng the original PFA order as authority. I immediately wrote a letter to my sons and sent a copy to the Warden, the Governor, and the Attorney General. The following day I was escorted to the hole of the insane aslyum.
I asked to access to the law library to file suit and was instructed that I could not have access unless I agreed not to contact me son (another civil rights violation). I finally agreed so file suit in federal court.
The insanity determination was never taken before any judge and I was then sent to a maximum security prison where I was greeted by the White Aryian Nation who approached me and said "We don't know who the fuck you are, but there is a staff contract on your life and we are watching your back!"
At the same time my busines, Gold Standard Corporation collapsed after a year and a half in Kansas prisons and I now faced a federal mail and wire fraud indictment. I was turned over to federal custudy after serving two years on what was suppose to be a 120 sentence!!
At my federal bond hearing I had an entire police department and Johnon County Kansas Prosecutors testify against granted bond because I was a danger to the community. The first to testify was Leawood Police Records Sargent who testified that all police reports having anything to do with the Braun situation was being entered as evidence.
Leawood Police Officers and Johnson County Prosecutors then when on to testify that I had continue violated a no contact PFA court order. The order actually reads that I am not to threaten, harass or in any way disturb the peace of my former wife or sons. My position was always that I am disturbing my son's peace if I am not a father to them. My bond hearing went on for 3 weeks and had three sessions. At the last session it was revealed that the Leawood Police
Department ran failed sting operations with my former wife and brother-in-law using my youngest son, Adam, then 9 years old as bait! The police and prosecutor knew the PFA order was not a not contact order and deliberately concealed this evidence at trial! Once I was wrongly convicted and in jail, this evidence was then concealed again to secure a plea to a felony with a promise I would be released 60 days earlier.
My oldest son, Aaron, then 15, testified at my bond hearing and was suspended from school for being truant! Later AUSA Linda Parker bragged to my court appointed attorney Susan Hunt that he was reported truant by my former wife from the U.S. Attorney's Office after his testimony so she could not be accused of tampering with a witness!
(Apparently, she failed to realize that retaliating against a federal witness is also a felony!)
I pled guilty to the federal charges with the understanding I could address my prior convictions. But when I got my PSR it was obvious Johnson County Prosecutor's went on to lie to federal parole office Larry T. Revella causing him to write a false criminal history for sentencing. (another felony!)
Prior to sentencing my court appointed attorney Susan Hunt wrote me a letter that said the U.S. Attorney's Office threatened that if I continue to contact and write letters to my sons it would go hard at sentencing. Intead of passing these threats on to the judge she passed the threats to me, I notified the Judge Bartlett, and he went on to threanten my harshly based on the false criminal history.
When I finally got to a federal prison libary I read the law and specialized in trapping abusive offiers. One of my studies and post-conviction petitions challenged the enactment of the Sentencing Reform Act of 1984. The centerpiece of my argument was and remains that this law is in violation of Title 1 USC 4(a) as it has never been enacted.
While the courts have addressed enactment challenges and AUSA's have cited these to avoid the issue, they have never addressed this challenge.
In fact, in written arugments AUSA Linda Parker argued that it was my obligation to prove a negative, a logical impossiblity, and well established legal principle with a Latin name I cannot recall.
My reply was that as I sit in the prison law library and state there are no ants in the law library, I can look high and low and not find any ants but this does not prove my claim. By the same token if the DOJ can scour the prison law library with Correctional Officers and they find just one ant, my statement is false.
The Sentencing Reform Act of 1984 is not in the National Archives because it is new original legislation that was attached an appropriations bill that expired in 90 days. An appopriations bill may be used to repeal or amend existing legislation, but here it created a whole new section of federal law and corresponding bureacracy. Apparently, our government will not address the issue as they regard the consequence a threat to national security.
My argument was thorough, short, sweet, and totally avoided.
I was finally released in May of 2000. My oldest son, then 24 drove from California to Texas to pick me up. On the trip to California I learned he was sexually traumatized by my former wife and lover and it was shortly after this incident I was ordered by Kansas authorities not to contact my children. To shorten my story I was revoked in September 2000 and finally released without strings in April 2002. I now reside in San Diego, have started a small business and guess where my sons and grandson are? Yep, they are here and there Mom is in Ft. Lauderdale.
I am determined to bring this to the public eye.
Unfortunately, or should I say typically, my entire legal record was seized and destroyed by a CCA RD Officer after I filed suit against him and notified a federal judge of deliberate overcrowding. Interestingly, I learned the system and reported the seizure to my prison counselor (the very lowest ranking adminstrative federal officer) on a Form 8. The prison counslor investigated and reported to me that the RD Officer told him the United States Marshall's seized and destroyed my legal record. As Marsha Stewart knows lieing to a federal officer is a felony. This case remains open, the Sentencing Reform Act encatment needs to be resurrected, but right now I am in the midst of a obstruction of justice, cover-up, denial of familial relationship, and retalaition conspircy also know as a Title 42 USC 1985(2) before the semi-colon claim. But, of course, I must get these priors off of me before anything tolls.
Anyway, if I have spurred your interest, email my and I will bring you up to speed. I have lost touch and have no idea what Blakely or Booker are about. I am very busy trying to get restblished and fighting more retalation (fales blackmail charges) from Johnson County Prosecutors who are under DOJ investigation for their actions.
I will check out your website and hope we can touch bases.
CONRAD
Posted by: Conrad J Braun | Feb 20, 2005 2:20:28 AM
Posted by: | Oct 14, 2008 8:15:27 AM
