Karyn Spencer’s Coroner’s Report, Amy Bach’s Ordinary Injustice.

Amy Bach identifies many flaws in the state criminal trial system.

Last year, Omaha World-Herald reporter,  Dart Center Ochberg Fellow and friend Karyn Spencer did a massive series on coroners in Nebraska.

The project had several striking findings.

In many cases, coroners were county attorneys who had absolutely no training in their newly appointed field.

There was no required training.

The law governing coroner policy in Nebraska had essentially been unaltered since 1917.

The series hit hard and prompted changes, with mandatory training being one of the most significant ones.

Spencer talked briefly and in typically humorous fashion about her work at this past weekend’s Dart Society reunion in Indianapolis. 

One aspect she emphasized was the thoroughly entrenched acceptance of competely untrained people serving in this important public position.

Unfortunately, this is far from an isolated instance.

In her new book, Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court, writer and lawyer Amy Bach identifies four different aspects of America’s state criminal courts in which the ideals of justice, and many of the nation’s citizens, are very poorly served.

In successive chapters, Bach takes on public defense, excessive bail and denial of representation, dropped cases and misplaced prosecutorial zeal that ignores the facts and unfairly leads to innocent people spending decades behind bars. 

Bach spent eight years researching her work, each section of which is set in a different part of the United States.  By moving from small-town Georgia to upstate New York to Mississippi and Chicago, she effectively illustrates the problem’s national scope.

Bach’s book also impressively demonstrates that these systemic failures go beyond the work of an individual with lots of power and plenty of bad intentions.  

In the first chapter, for example, she writes about Robert Surrency, a public defender who actions illustrate much of what is wrong with public defense while working in Greene County, Georgia, but who finds new life and professional vigor when he is employed in another office. 

Rather, she paints a picture of continual compromise of individuals’ rights and undermining of the system’s integrity. 

This tendency and accompanying murky picture is painted particularly well in the second chapter, which focuses primarily on Judge Hank Bauer in Troy, New York.   Almost universally respected by prosecutors, public defenders, and defendants alike, Bauer was eventually shown to have imposed inordinately high bails on many occasions and also to have denied people their right to representation. 

The Bauer chapter boost Bach’s credibility because it demonstrates her obvious outrage is tempered with a willingness to present not so much opposing information, but a fuller portrait of the context in which he and the other players in this legal drama perform.

Bach’s ability to drop in the evolution of legal doctrines while advancing the narrative also enhances her book’s stature, as does her pointing out numerous people and organizations like Stephen Bright and the Southern Center for Human Rights who are involved in reform efforts. 

At the same time, Bach is more skilled in pointing out problems than in identifying solutions.  She writes in the conclusion about establishing external monitoring system and talking through metrics by which lawyers and judges could be evaluated-a surprisingly tepid proposal after such a thorough exposition of the many ways in which the system is failing, if not completely broken.

An uninspiring end does not negate the value of all that came before it. 

Like Spencer in Nebraska, Bach has provided a thorough, lucid and eminently readable account of the state criminal court’s many failings and their impact on the people who appear in them.   This reader emerged more informed and wanting to learn more, even if Bach’s call to action sounded a less dramatic note than her depiction of the system’s problems.

More Dart Thoughts.

 

Lori Grinker's book is just one of the many incredible bodies of work done by Dart Center Ochberg Fellows.

 

I’m still brimming with excitement from all that I saw and heard during the past couple of days at the Dart Society reunion in Indianapolis.

The caliber of the other Ochberg Fellows is phenomenal.  

Among our ranks are Lisa Pollak, who wrote a Pulitzer Prize-winning story about umpire John Hirschbeck, who came to national attention in the late 90s after being spat on by Roberto Alomar, Pulitzer Prize-winning photographers Kim Komenich and John Moore, and outstanding shooters like Lori Grinker, who published an illuminating and haunting book about war veterans called Afterwar: Veterans From A World in Conflict, were there, too.   I’ve not yet looked at Lori’s whole book, but am excited to do so soon. 

Kelly Kennedy, herself a veteran, has written a forthcoming book about a hard hit squad with which she embedded.  The book builds on a powerful multi-media series she wrote for the Military Times. 

Photo editor Kari Rene Hall shared the results of the intimate access she gained during four years to the struggles and triumphs of Henry Guiliante , his wife Michelle and their four children, all of whom lived in a hotel room.  Kari initially published her work in the Los Angeles Times and did a follow up piece for Brian Storm, who was then at MSNBC.com.

Fellows also shared the impact that covering trauma had on them.  

I wrote yesterday about Mike Walter’s documentary film, Breaking News, Breaking Down, which includes a section on how witnessing a American Airlines flight crashing into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001 affected him.  

Photographer John Trotter, in a photo exhibit and audio slideshow, chronicled his near death due to a savage beating by five people and his learning anew how to photograph by returning six months later to the same facility where he had received medical treatment.

And on and on and on. 

In short, it is an utterly remarkable group of talented, ambitious, idealistic, driven and dedicated journalists and editors, and I felt and feel humbled to be part of the group.

Four Years Since Hurricane Katrina

 

Scenes like this were commonplace four years ago today.

 

 

Today marks four years since Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans and the Gulf region with a fury.

 

Four years ago, the levees broke.

 

Four years ago, ten of thousands of people had their homes and lives utterly shattered and permanently altered.

 

Four years ago, the illusion of federal caring about, and competence in responding to, the needs of the some of the country’s most vulnerable citizens was undeniably exposed. 

 

The hurricane and its destructive aftermath have generated a host of books, films and even songs.

 

New Orleans Times-Picayune editor Jed Horne’s Breach of Faith: Hurricane Katrina and the Near Death of a Great American City is a panoptic and accessible account of Katrina and the devastation it left it ins considerable wake.

 

Harold Platt’s Shock Cities has a hauntingly prescient chapter in which he describes both the placement of the poor residents of Manchester, England in harm’s way during the nineteenth century as well as the repeated ignoring of warnings about the negative and predictable consequences that would ensue were the levees not given adequate support.

 

I wrote about Platt’s work earlier this year. 

 

Dart Society Vice-President and friend Mike Walter has put together a moving documentary film, Breaking News, Breaking Down, about the impact on reporters and photographers of covering the story for weeks and moths. 

 

The film focuses on photographer John McCusker, who suffered a mental breakdown and ended up getting arrested for a confrontation he had with police during his altered state.

 

Spike Lee’s When The Levees Broke is worth seeing, too, as is Trouble The Water. 

 

The firsthand footage of the hurricane as it was happening can make the viewer feel dizzy, but the story of Kim Roberts and her husband Scott’s journey before, during and after Katrina provides an intimate look at the love so many New Orleanians had for their community and the impact the hurricane had on them. 

Day of Dart

 

This photograph of Benazir Bhutto by John Moore is just one of the many treats for those of us at the Dart Society reunion.

I’m here in Indianapolis for a Dart Society reunion.  

 

It’s a remarkable group, and I feel highly privileged to be part of the group. 

 

Last year I had the honor to be an Ochberg Fellow.  

 

The Dart Center is an organization that works to support journalists who cover issues of violence and trauma. 

 

The support can take many forms. 

 

For some journalists, it’s helping them grapple with the effects of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder from covering the unspeakable horrors that we as humans do to each other.  

For others, it’s providing resources to cover trauma and violence in humane, sensitive and informative ways that illustrate people’s capacity for resilience and survival.   

 

For still others, it’s strategizing about how to get these stories onto the pages, airwaves or screens of their news organizations. 

 

The fellowships are named for Frank Ochberg, a psychiatrist who is perhaps best known for his research led to the coining of the phrase, “the Stockholm Syndrome.“  Frank has been one of the guiding forces behind the Dart Center since its inception. 

 

The group has a dizzying and humbling array of talent from Australia, England, New Zealand, Georgia and Colombia, among other countries.

 

Dart Fellows have covered trauma across the world, from the Oklahoma City bombings to the September 11 terrorist attacks to wars in Iraq Afghanistan, civil unrest in Haiti, the genocide in Rwanda. 

 

Many risk their lives to do their work.  

 

Last year, John Moore, a photographer who took iconic photographs of Benazir Bhutto just before and right after her assassination and who has worked in dozen of countries around the globe, told me he puts himself in these situations not because he is an adrenaline junkie, but because he knows that few, if any, other people will record these stories if he does not. 

 

Dart fellow cover stories in the U.S., too. 

 

Fellows have also written and photographed and done radio projects about domestic violence, about murder in Detroit, and about a the death of a 19-year-old Native American man named Mylo Harvey during a struggle with police.  

 

Among some of the many, many outstanding journalists: Dave Cullen, author of Columbine, the definitive work about the 1999 massacre of more than a dozen students by Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colorado.

 

I wrote about Dave’s book earlier this year.  

 

There’s also Bruce Shapiro, the Center’s executive director, who wrote a very powerful essay in the mid-90s about being stabbed while at a cafe in New Haven, Connecticut.

 

This of course is just a small sampling of the people who belong to this global community. 

 

I look forward to the day’s conversations, which promise to provoke, move and inspire.

Aidan’s Football Decision and the story of the Smith Center Redmen.

 

Joe Drape tells a heartwarming tale of football success and traditional values in the Heartland.

 

The Evanston Township High School football team’s season opener is tomorrow night under the lights at Murney Lazier Stadium. 

Aidan will be in the stands, not on the field. 

The decision to stop playing football was his own.  

Dunreith and I are relieved that he emerged uninjured from four years of playing the game.  

We are also proud of the maturity behind his choice.  

Aidan is taking a heavy academic load this year and knows that he would be very hard pressed to attend all the practices and games involved in football and fulfill his responsibilities in the classroom.  

High school football has been the subject of some memorable and well written books.

Chief among them Buzz Bissinger’s Friday Night Lights, which later became a movie and television series.  

Originally intended to a be a heartwarming tale of how the team can bind together a small West Texas town that is subject to the boom and bust cycles of the oil economy, Bissinger painted a vivid and much darker portrait of players treated like gods while also under immense pressure to perform, of racial prejudice among the residents and even some of the coaches, and of an unhealthy obsession with victory.  

A far different picture emerges in Joe Drape’s Our Boys: A Perfect Season on the Plains with the Smith Center Redmen. 

Drape moved his family to tiny Smith Center, Kansas to chronicle the Redmen’s 2008 season and quest for a fifth consecutive undefeated season and state championship.

At the helm is Roger Barta, a Wilford Brimley look alike whose entire coach has either played for him or been with him for each of his 31 years. 

Barta talks to the young men about football, but talk at least if not more often about values, respect and love-love the coaches, parents and community feel for the young men who are embarking on their mission.   While he understands the importance of the streak, Barta emphasizes the importance of showing up each day and trying to improve. 

He doesn’t just talk.

When Barta decides he has been too hard on a player, he apologizes to them, does so man-to-man in front of the entire team, and then uses humor to lift their mood.  

The staff follows his lead.  

One of the book’s narrative threads is former player and coach Mike Rogers’ acceptance of the mistakes his undersized son Colt makes.  At one point the older Rogers reprimands his son loudly and publicly for a muffed punt return; the other coaches get on him instantly.  

Drape also shows the pre-game rituals of breaking bread, relaxation and then getting revved up to play that Barta has implemented and that each have a sacred quality. 

Our Boys is not just about the team, but about the community in which they live.

Like Bissinger, Drape writes about the players’ town and state.   About as solidly Republican a community as is possible, Smith Center is a farming community that has been hit hard both by the gradual decline in small farms as well as the economic crash.   

More personal than Friday Night Lights-Drape drops details in throughout the book about his young son’s joyful experiences-Our Boys is clothed in a gauzy filter of a bygone era of timeless values passed through the generations from father to son. 

It’s moving stuff, and important to note that people and communities like Smith Center exist.  While I enjoyed Bissinger’s writing and more textured description of the town, I did move swiftly along Drape’s heartwarming tale of success and values in America’s Heartland.  

I imagine that Aidan may feel a twinge or when he sees his friends and former teammates take the field tomorrow, and I am heartened by the values he has shown, too.

R.I.P., Ted Kennedy

 

Edward Kennedy, the last surviving sibling of his generation, has died at 77 years old.

 

 

Senator Edward M. Kennedy has died, just days after the death of one of his last surviving siblings, Eunice Kennedy Shriver.

He was 77 years old.

Kennedy’s death marks the end of an era in American political and public life, both because of his individual death and because of the near passage of his generation of siblings.  

Kennedy did not live to see the passage of fundamental health care reform he cherished so deeply, but he did help usher through many landmark pieces of legislation during his nearly half-century of public service.  In addition to championing legislation that addressed the needs of America’s underserved communities for nearly half a century, Kennedy eventually came to be considered one of the most fair and bipartisan senators in the entire chamber.  

President Obama, whose campaign benefited heavily last year from Kennedy’s endorsement, has already labeled him “the greatest senator of our time.”

Tributes from both sides of the aisle are likely to pour in during the upcoming days and weeks.

In June I wrote about Edward Klein’s recent admiring biography, Edward Kennedy: The Dream That Never Died. 

In the book Klein argues that Kennedy conquered his personal demons and eventually became a lion of the senate, worthy of being mentioned along with giants like Daniel Webster, Henry Clay and John C. Calhoun.    The three nineteenth century legislators are discussed in John F. Kennedy’s Profiles in Courage, which I wrote about earlier this month. 

Each of these men bear similarities to Kennedy.  

Each embodied a region of the region.

Each had thwarted presidential ambitions.

And each had lengthy, contributory senatorial careers in which they ultimately put the interests of the nation above their own personal ambition and regional or state interest. 

Kennedy’s successor will be chosen by a special election.  

While the identity of that person is not yet known, what is known is that he or she will have impossibly large shoes to fill.

Best Boston Resources for John Myers and Liza Weinstein.

 

This is just one of the many attractive views in store for my friend John Myers and his wife Liza Weinstein, who move to Boston on Sunday.

 

Buddy John Myers and his wife Liza Weinstein are moving to Boston.

It’s one of a series of major changes in their lives.

On Friday she received her doctoral degree in Sociology from the University of Chicago.

On Saturday they finish packing up and celebrating with both sets of parents.

And on Sunday they drive to Boston, where Liza will soon start working for Northeastern University. 

She also will have their first child in a few short months. 

John and Liza are both Michiganders who have never lived in Boston, so I’m putting together this list of Boston resources for them. 

Debate and amendment are welcome.

I. Best Boston Dictionary: The Boston Dictionary, by John Powers.  While just a tad dated-the book has an image of Michael Dukakis reading an article about Swedish land management technique under the term “furma govna”-this illustrated work is a perfect introduction to the much imitated Boston accent. 

II. Best Book about Boston Busing: Common Ground, by J. Anthony Lukas.  One of my all-time favorite books, this Pulitzer Prize-winning book tells the story of three families during the decade that started with Dr. King’s assassinations, with individual chapters about Boston’s then-Mayor Kevin White, Boston Globe Editor Tom Winship, activist and mayoral candidate Louise Day Hicks, Cardinal Humberto Medeiros, and Judge W. Arthur Garrity. 

III. Best Boston Memoir: All Souls, A Family Story From Southie, by Michael Patrick MacDonald.  Friend MacDonald brings it in this coming of age story that has vivid scenes of a community’s member going to funeral after funeral for its murdered youth, all the while saying that drugs and violence are the exclusive province of black neighborhoods.  The busing chapter is particularly memorable. 

IV. Best Boston Sports Memoir:  Drive: The Story of My Life, by Larry Bird.  The self-proclaimed “Hick from French Lick” restored Celtics glory in the 80s after an embarrassing downturn in the late 70s, leading the team to three titles and helping, along with Magic Johnson and Michael Jordan, the league reach unprecedented heights.  This straightforward book, written toward the end of his glorious care, tells the story of his hardscrabble youth.

V. Best Local Historian: Anthony Sammarco.  This well known local historian has published a series of beautiful books, many about specific Boston neighborhoods, that combine well-written text with attractive pictures that effectively convey the feel of each area.  

VI. Best Bookstore/Record Cafe: Rhythm and Muse.  Got to give the love to dear friend and former roommate David Doyle, who’s been operating in Jamaica Plain for more than a decade now.

VII. Best Medical Thriller Set in Boston: Coma, by Robin Cook.  Ultimately turned into a film by a pre-Jurassic Park Michael Crichton, this chilling novel of death in a hospital may not be the best choice for John and Liza as I imagine her pregnancy will require her to take quite a few hospital trips.

VIII. Best Children’s Book Set in Boston: Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey, and The Trumpet of the Swan, by E.B. White.  It’s too hard to distinguish between these two classics, which are geared toward slightly different audiences.  Both are wonderful, though.

IX. Best Legal Book Set in the Boston Area:  A Civil Action, by Jonathan Harr.  This book takes place in Woburn, which is just outside Boston, and the story of the fast-driving Jan Schlichtmann’s efforts to hold polluter W.R. Grace to account makes for gripping reading in Harr’s capable hands.

X. Category and book determined by readers:  I’m leaving this one open for suggestions.

More good news, thanks!

 

Usain Bolt is not the only one setting records these days (Although, to be fair, mine are not even close to a world record.). Thanks for the help!

 

Last week brought several more records for the blog:

Most page views in one days: 251, on Tuesday.

Most page views on a Sunday: 192, yesterday.

Most page views in a month, 4,100 and counting, as of this morning.

Thanks to all who are checking out the blog, commenting and spreading the word!!

District Nine, Richard Rive’s Buckingham Palace, District Six

 

Richard Rive's novel provides entertaining background to Richard Rive's dynamic new film.

 

Dunreith, Aidan, Diane and I saw District Nine on Saturday.

The tale about what happens when an evil, multi-national munitions-selling corporation and the post-apartheid government start to remove the 1.8 million aliens who live in a segregated area near with the aliens’ ship landed a generation earlier has got all kinds of fun: memorable special effects; plenty of blood- and alien innard-splattering action; and a touching if predictable love story between seemingly ineffectual government agent Wikus Van der Merwe and his wife Tania. 

It also has plenty of social commentary.

The Peter Jackson-produced film is based on events surrounding South Africa’s District Six, which during the apartheid area was a vibrant,  mutli-racial but largely mixed-race or “Colored” community that was razed in the mid-60s under the notorious Group Areas Act.  

The late novelist Richard Rive wrote an entertaining novel, Buckingham Palace, District Six, about what was destroyed during the forced relocations that provide much of the basis for the current film. 

The palace in the book’s title refers to a row of five houses in which there is plenty of action and little, if any, payment of rent.  

Two of the major characters are Zoot September, the ringleader of a group of men who evoke John Steinbeck’s cast of characters in Cannery Row, and Mary, the leader of a group of prostitutes, all of whom seem to possess a heart of gold.  

A District Six native, Rich intersperses the action between the characters with three authorial reflections that take place over the course of 15 years starting in 1955 and that tell the story of the neighborhood’s heyday, impending destruction and downfall.  

A character whose dignity ascends as the book progresses is Katzen.  

For much of the book, he is a hapless landlord who tries unsuccessfully to collect rent and who is often the butt of jokes.  During a meeting to discuss what will happen to the area in the face of the proposed removals, however, he reveals that he is a German Jew who fled the Nazi regime and who will not comply with this different application of treating people of different races like untermenschen. 

Unfortunately, his son, a prosperous Johannesburg lawyer, has no such personal memory and feels no compunction to honor his father’s commitment. 

The palace is destroyed, the residents are dispersed and few physical reminders of the vital community are left behind. 

Zoot, who stands out among the cast as having a political sensibility, prepares to take up the struggle while also emphasizing the importance of passing the story of the district onto subsequent generations. 

To some degree his desires have materialized.

A museum exists to honor the people of District Six during its heyday and a small number of residents have returned to the area from which they were forcibly removed. 

It’s by no means what it was, but it does help keep the story and memory of this area alive.  

Jackson’s film, which seems ripe for a sequel, helps do this, too.  For those wanting to learn more about the film’s background, Rive’s novel is a fine place to start.

Aidan’s Summer Reading, Frederick Douglass’ first autobiography

Frederick Douglass' autobiography is highly worthwhile reading.

We are spending time today with Mom at her apartment in the Brook House.

We had a wonderful time last night hanging with Kelly Matthews and Ronnie Millar, who just returned to the U.S. from Northern Ireland a week ago. 

Ronnie just completed a four-year stint as director of Corrymeela, a marvelous center right on the northern coast of Northern Ireland-on a clear day, you can see Scotland-that is dedicated to peace and reconciliation.

Kelly completed her doctoral work while in Northern Ireland, so will be assuming a tenure track position in the English Department at Framingham State.

Aidan stayed in, much to the disappointment of Kelly and Ronnie’s two boys, Rory and Andrew.

In addition to happily watching the first television he had seen in a week-Dad and Diane don’t have one at Rockport-he also moved closer to complete his summer reading for his upcoming A.P. English class: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass an American Slave.

This slight volume is the first of Douglass’ three memoirs. 

The very fact that any exist is testament to his triumph over slavery’s oppressive rules which forbade him to read and which he defied.

The first installation of Douglass’ autobiography covers his early life, his gradually dawning awareness of being a slave, and his growing determination to be free.

Learning to read with the assistance of a white woman is a pivotal moment in the book, and one that Aidan duly annotated.

His fight with the cruel overseer Covey is another.

Tired of being repeatedly beaten, Douglass fought back.   The two men battled to a draw, which in essence represented a victory for Douglass on three accounts.

First, he had held his own and refused to be physically abused.  Second, Covey no longer attempted to whip him.

Third, and perhaps most important, the fight marked a dramatic change in how Douglass thought of himself.

He writes that although his body was still enslaved, his spirit was free.

It wasn’t too long before his corporeal freedom matched his spirit.

Douglass escapes and begins what turned out to be a half-century of activism against slavery and for human rights for all as a speaker, editor, ambassador to Haiti and general moral authority.

He is one of the most impressive Americans of all time, and his memoir is an excellent place to start to gain insight on the forces that shaped and his early actions.