This law was signed by former president George W. Bush’s brother Jeb Bush.

It has been stated that Zimmerman will use such law in his defense if he’s charged with the murder unless FBI intervenes and charge it as a hate crime.

To brief you Trayvon was walking home from the store after purchasing skittles and an Ice tea as he was being followed by Zimmerman, his Killer. Zimmerman, a so called Sanford Fl. neighborhood watch volunteer had called police dispatcher, which has been released saying that he was following Trayvon, who looked suspicious due to their recent neighborhood break ins. Police dispatcher clearly states “we don’t need you to do that.”

Zimmerman did not obey and a young 17 year old is murdered. Trayvon was on the phone with his girlfriend who pleaded with him to run but he did not. The girlfriend was hospitalized after hearing the news of his death.

Other states that have the same law “Stand Your Ground” are listed: Arkansas, Illinois, Delaware, Kentucky, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah, Washington and West Virginia

As of now Brown has filed a lawsuit against the district after being suspended with out pay for five days. Brown was teaching a lesson on “Perils of Racism” when the N-word was used. Just so happens the principle George Mason was walking in the Murray Language Academy classroom at the same time.

Principle Mason has stated and has accused Brown of “using verbally abusive language to or in front of students” also stating, “cruel, immoral, or criminal conduct or communication to a student, that causes psychological or physical harm.”

Brown is fighting to correct his reputation and ability to continue teaching has been destroyed. Brown stated to the media “this cannot be a part of what people think I am.” “My character has been assassinated.” “It is something I can’t accept and can’t have on my record and more importantly it’s not who I am.” In my opinion “yea ok” he stilled used it, no matter in which way he referenced it in. What he is fighting for is not justified at all.

Chicago’s Public School Director of Comminication Robyn Ziegler states Brown’s lawsuit is without merit. Brown has also gone on saying that he has been teaching in predominantly black schools for over 25 years as proof of him not being considered a racist. ……Whateverrrr!!!

So tell me does this not make him a racist since he claims of working in predominantly black schools for thus many years??? The matter at hand is he still used the N-Word!

Hit me up @DonDivaMagazine

Seventy-seven per cent of delegates at the Liberals’ biennial convention told their party’s leadership Sunday morning that they want a future Liberal government to legalize marijuana.

Their interim leader Bob Rae acknowledged the war on drugs hasn’t worked, but told reporters the party’s caucus would have to study the implications of the resolution.

“Frankly, the status quo doesn’t work and that’s what needs to change,” Rae said. “The Liberal party is saying that the current laws do not work and that we need a new direction.”

Do you support the legalization of marijuana in Canada?

“It’s now up to us to take that resolution and see exactly what it will mean in terms of policy, because there are some practical questions that we have to look at,” Rae added, noting in French that one such issue would be how to control the supply of legalized pot.

Rae insisted he was at ease defending the principles of the resolution and that he would work with the membership on the issue in the months and years ahead as the party drafts its next election platform.

“I accept that it is the will of the party that was expressed and as leader we will continue to work together,” Rae said.

During a debate on the floor of the Ottawa convention hall, one Liberal delegate, a police officer, told the crowd Canada’s drug policy was misguided.

“This country does not need more prisons, it needs less criminals,” he said.

The resolution, which was brought forward by the party’s youth wing, calls upon a Liberal federal government to legalize, regulate and tax marijuana production, distribution and use while enacting “strict penalties for illegal trafficking, illegal importation and exportation, and impaired driving.”

The resolution also calls for significant investments in prevention and education programs on the harms of marijuana and amnesty for Canadians convicted of simple possession in the past.

Samuel Lavoie, the president of the Young Liberals of Canada, said he wasn’t sure the resolution would make it into the Liberal party’s next election platform, but that he hoped it would not be ignored.

“I think everyone in the party, not only the interim leader (Rae), but everyone in the party, recognizes that there were 3,000 Liberals here this weekend and that this is a motion which, however controversial, passed with more than 75% of support, so I think it would be difficult for anyone to just ignore the result and the will of the membership,” he said.

Liberals should stop being scared of any soft on crime label the Conservative party might give them, Lavoie added.

“The Conservative staffers in the Prime Minister’s office will never vote for the Liberal party,” Lavoie said. “We are talking to Canadians, the fact is this is a sensible policy, an evidence-based policy that is very easy to defend and polls show that we have a majority of support amongst Canadians. There is a cross-partisan support amongst non-conservative voters for this. So we feel like this is something that will get us votes not lose us votes,” he said.

More than 1,400 delegates took part in the vote. If Liberal members re-affirm the motion in two years during another policy process, the Liberal leader will still have the right to veto any part of the election platform under current rules.

Like Huffington Post Canada’s Ottawa Bureau Chief Althia Raj’s reporter page on Facebook and follow her onTwitter for all the latest news from Parliament Hill.

althia.raj@huffingtonpost.com

A little pot is trouble in NYC: 50k busts a year

NEW YORK – As the nation’s biggest city deals with threats of terrorism and a variety of violent crimes, carrying a little bit of marijuana is still a big deal.

There are more arrests for low-level pot possession in New York City – about 50,000 a year – than any other crime, accounting for about one of every seven cases that turn up in criminal courts.

It’s a phenomenon that has persisted despite more leniency toward marijuana use – the state loosened its marijuana-possession laws more than 30 years ago.

Critics say the deluge has been driven in part by the New York Police Department’s strategy of stopping people and frisking those whom police say meet crime suspects’ descriptions. More than a half a million people, mostly black and Hispanic men, were stopped last year – unfair targets, critics say. About 10 percent of stops result in arrests.

The department says that the strategy’s main goal is to take guns off the street and prevent crime, and that the tactic is a life-saving tool. But critics say officers looking for guns in pockets more often find pot and – though state law says the drug is supposed to be in open view to warrant an arrest – lock up the possessor anyway.

In response, Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly recently reminded officers they can’t make arrests for small amounts of pot in people’s pockets or bags – and can’t trigger an arrest by searching people or telling them to empty their pockets.

“No one has showed me any evidence that this is how a large number of arrests are being made,” he said. “But the allegation was made. So, in order to clear up any confusion that may exist, we put that order out to make certain that officers know that they cannot be the reason for someone displaying (marijuana) publicly.”

Kelly said the vast majority of pot arrests come from undercover officers who witness hand-to-hand drug transactions or people smoking pot in public. And, the department says, as low-level arrests have risen, violent crime has decreased dramatically.

But many New Yorkers, mostly black and Hispanic men, say they’re being targeted in the name of keeping the city safe.

Bronx community organizer Alfredo Carrasquillo, 27, estimated he’s been arrested on marijuana possession charges more than 20 times, starting when he was 14 and police ordered him to empty out his pockets outside his high school. He says he was arrested, but was never found smoking the drug or holding it out in the open – though a 1977 state law says those with 25 grams of the drug or less in their pockets or bags should only be ticketed. Legally, it’s a violation that doesn’t result in a criminal record.

“We weren’t stupid enough to smoke it in the middle of the day,” he said.

Gabriel Sayegh, the New York director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a group critical of the national war on drugs, said the department benefits from the arrests.

“Every year, they’re bringing 50,000 people into their system,” he said. “A significant portion of whom have not been arrested before.

Even if the cases ultimately get dismissed, as most first-time marijuana-possession arrests do, police net names, fingerprints and other information for law-enforcement databases, he noted.

New York’s lowest-level marijuana-possession charge – criminal possession of marijuana in the 5th degree, a misdemeanor – has been the most common arrest charge in the city for much of the past decade, and the numbers have been steadily rising. So far this year there have been 38,359 reported arrests. Last year, there were 50,377 arrests citywide, up from 46,492 in 2009, according to statistics from the state Division of Criminal Justice Services. That represents about 616 arrests per 100,000 city residents.

Police officials say the studies done by the New York-based Drug Policy Alliance and others are flawed, and also ignore the context of what has been happening in the city as these arrests continue to rise. Overall, they cite significant decreases in murder and major crimes – the last decade has seen the four lowest annual murder totals since at least 1962.

“Drug use advocates ignored both the very high incidents of violent crime when low-level offenses were enforced far less vigorously than today, and the steep decrease in violence crime that occurred when less serious offenses, like marijuana, were consistently addressed,” said Paul Browne, the department’s chief spokesman.

Comparing different cities’ arrest data is difficult because drug laws and data-keeping differ. In Chicago, possessing even 2.5 grams of marijuana is a crime that warrants arrest, and possessing up to an ounce is considered a misdemeanor. Chicago logged 22,291 arrests on that and other misdemeanor marijuana possession charges in 2009 and 22,764 last year, or about 826 arrests per 100,000 people, according to data from the Chicago Police Department provided to The Associated Press.

Earlier this week, a Chicago politician proposed to make possession of up to 10 grams of marijuana a summary offense, like a parking ticket, with a potential $200 fine, rather than a misdemeanor that carries possible jail time.

Chicago Police Superintendent Garry McCarthy didn’t endorse the ordinance but has signaled he’s open to it.

“With minor possession, it would be in everybody’s interests to free up officers,” said department spokeswoman Sarah Hamilton.

In California, possession of up to an ounce of marijuana was a misdemeanor until last Jan. 1; now it’s a non-criminal infraction. The City of Los Angeles had 3,465 such arrests in 2010 and 4,714 in 2009 – about 90 arrests per 100,000 residents, according to data from its police department.

In New York, two state lawmakers have proposed a similar measure: to make possession of less than 25 grams – 7/8 of an ounce – a violation, whether it’s in the open or not.

It’s difficult to put a price tag on the city’s arrests. They add to already-busy arraignment court dockets; many cases are put on track to be dismissed quickly. Others take longer to resolve, sometimes because defendants have prior criminal records.

A report done earlier this year for the Drug Policy Alliance concluded it cost an estimated $75 million in 2010 to process, jail and prosecute the low-level arrests in New York. That figure was a compilation of estimated court costs, police manpower and jail time, averaging about $1,500 per arrest – a cost shared by the state and city. The city budget alone is $65 billion.

The arrests can carry a heavy personal cost. An arrest alone can prompt a child-welfare inquiry, jeopardize job licenses and turn up in a background check.

Chino Hardin, 31, has been busted on marijuana charges more times than she can remember, most recently in 2003.

For each arrest, she pleaded guilty to misdemeanor possession and was released, sometimes with a community-service sentence, Hardin said.

“At the time, I didn’t really have a good grasp of the laws around possession of marijuana,” she said, and after hours in custody, “all I wanted to do was just get out and go home.”

She now has a job at a juvenile-justice group that entails telling teens about their rights in a police stop.

—

Associated Press Writer Tom Hays contributed to this report.

By COLLEEN LONG and JENNIFER PELTZ Associated Press
2011-11-05T23:12:41+0000 GMT

Issue 45 Tail of Two Cities NYC and B-More Bike Riders

The writer of the Baltimore City section was Anett Snyder. Authors name was incorrectly spelled.

click here to read complete updated story

The below photos were inadvertently mis-identified:

Baltimore Rider – Brandon

Baltimore Rider – Scony

Baltimore Rider – Kev Hoon

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Bills in Congress that could affect you or a loved one!

Although most of us are concentrating our efforts on paying bills, saving money and monitoring what is going on with the countries health care and deficit; we can’t forget about the injustices that STILL exist in the criminal justice system.  Most of us still have family/friends that are in prison. Below are a list of bills currently in Congress that we should be monitoring via FAMM.ORG.

IMPORTANT: Federal bills do not become law until they pass both the House of Representatives and the Senate and are signed by the President. If the House and the Senate pass different versions of the same overall legislation, then typically a special conference committee composed of representatives of both chambers meets to try to settle the differences. If they reach agreement, the compromise is sent back to the floors of the House and Senate for a final vote. If both bodies approve it, the compromise is sent to the President.

The bill has to travel through Congress and be signed by the President during the congressional term in which they are introduced. Each congressional term is two years. If the bill does not pass both the House and Senate before the end of Congress, the bill does not become law.  For a reminder on how a bill becomes a law, take a walk down memory lane on the Office of the Clerk of the House of Representatives’ website that explains how a bill becomes a law.

Federal sentencing bills that FAMM is following:

INCREASED JUDICIAL DISCRETION

H.R. 3327, The Ramos-Compean Justice Act of 2009

H.R. 2934, the Common Sense in Sentencing Act of 2009

MANDATORY MINIMUMS: DRUGS

H.R. 1466, the Major Drug Trafficking Prosecution Act of 2009

CRACK COCAINE SENTENCING POLICY

H.R. 3245, the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act of 2009

H.R. 2178, the Crack Cocaine Equitable Sentencing Act of 2009 H.R. 1459, the Fairness in Cocaine Sentencing Act of 2009

H.R. 265, the Drug Sentencing Reform and Cocaine Kingpin Trafficking Act of 2009 H.R. 18, the Powder-Crack Cocaine Penalty Equalization Act of 2009

REVIEW OF CRIMINAL JUSTICE AND SENTENCING

S. 495 and H.R. 1412, the Justice Integrity Act of 2009

S. 714, the National Criminal Justice Act of 2009

MANDATORY MINIMUMS: GUNS

H.R. 834, the Ramos and Compean Justice Act of 2009

H.R. 866, the Law Enforcement Protection Act of 2009

H.R. 2933, the Firearm Recidivist Sentencing Act of 2009

GOOD TIME LEGISLATION

H.R. 61, Federal Prison Bureau Nonviolent Offender Relief Act of 2009

H.R. 1475, the Federal Prison Work Incentive Act of 2009

REENTRY AND EXPUNGEMENT

H.R. 1529, the Second Chance for Ex-Offenders Act of 2009

Eighty percent of the people in the United States cannot afford to hire an attorney.  In a court fight, 80% of the population would appear to be unarmed.  You don’t have to be one of them.

With very few exceptions, you can be your own lawyer in most legal situations.  This has been true in the federal courts since 1792.  See 28 U.S.C. § 1654, a federal law.  Many states allowed it even before then.

How do you become your own lawyer?  You read how-to books on the subject and learn how to do it.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Brown’s Lawsuit Cookbook:  How To Sue and Win $25.00

Filing a lawsuit or defending a lawsuit is easier than you think.  You simply have to know how to look up what the law is on a particular subject.  The law has an indexing system.  Chapter 4 in this book will teach you how to look up anything any lawyer can look up in about 90 minutes.

It’s easier than you think.  Title 28 U.S.C. § 1654, for example, simply refers to Title 28 (Judiciary and Judicial Procedure) of the United States Code.  Section 1654 is merely the number of the statute, which reads:

§ 1654. Appearance personally or by counsel

In all courts of the United States the parties may plead and conduct their own cases personally or by counsel as, by the rules of such courts, respectively, are permitted to manage and conduct causes therein.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Criminal Defendant’s Bible $50.00

If you have been indicted, you need this book.  Most people panic when they are charged with a criminal offense and, in that state of panic, blindly put their trust in the first lawyer they talk to.  You might want to learn what to expect in the court system first.

The first motion in this book—all you have to do is connect-the-dots for your case—is a Motion to Dismiss for Ineffective Assistance of Counsel.  Do you have a lazy, worthless, arrogant, incompetent public defender?  File this motion.  They won’t dismiss the charges but—in most cases—they will give you another public defender.  Quite often you will wind up with a public defender who will actually fight your case.  You may have to go through more than a couple of them.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Drug Defendant’s Handbook $30.00

Don’t think you have a drug problem?  Guess again.  What are you going to do when a cop throws drugs into your car and then “finds” it?  This practice is so common that it is referred to as “farming” or “flaking” by the police themselves.

Are you actually guilty of smuggling or peddling drugs?  Not to worry, almost everyone makes the mistake of attempting to fight a case on the facts, which is a bad idea.  Most criminal cases are decided these days by Napoleon’s definition of history:  a set of lies agreed upon.  Prosecutors suborn perjury, bribe witnesses (his), intimidate witnesses (yours), the list is endless.

This book shows you how to fight a case on the law.  E.g., if a prosecutor charges you with felon-in-possession of a loaded gun clip (in the gun) in count two in federal court under 18 U.S.C. § 922(g), that’s illegal.  Make the court dismiss count two before you go to trial or negotiate a plea to count one in exchange for dismissing count two.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Bill of Rights Handbook $5.00

The sequel to the Citizens Rule Book, which only addresses jury nullification, which is almost impossible in federal court these days.  This book describes what unelected judges have done to the Constitution, your rights, and what to do about it—an education on the Constitution that fits in a shirt pocket.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why You Have No Civil Rights $5.00

How federal judges have destroyed your right to petition your government for the redress of grievances and how to overcome government blocking access to the grand jury.  Free on the Internet at:

judgesabovethelaw.com

Sources:

Brown’s Lawsuit Cookbook

The Criminal Defendant’s Bible

call 877-366-3482

email inquiries to  info@dondivamag.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Drug Defendant’s Handbook

call 877-366-3482

email inquiries to  info@dondivamag.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Bill of Rights Handbook

Marshall J. Martin

PO Box 913

Wilmington, OH  45177

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Why You Have No Civil Rights

Mike Lee

7601 North Eastlake

Chicago, IL  60626

(773) 251-197

—–

Legal Information Is Not Legal Advice

This site provides information about the law designed to help users safely cope with their own legal needs. But legal information is not the same as legal advice — the application of law to an individual’s specific circumstances. Although we go to great lengths to make sure our information is accurate and useful, we recommend you consult a lawyer if you want professional assurance that our information, and your interpretation of it, is appropriate to your particular situation.

Mandatory Minimum Sentences (MMS) are automatically enacted when you commit certain drug crimes with specified quantities. The only way to get a lesser sentence on a MMS crime is to cooperate with the government.
LSD

1 GRAM     5YR MMS

10 GRAMS     10YR MMS

WEED

100 PLANTS OR 100 KILOS  5YR MMS

1000 PLANTS OR 1000 KILOS     10 YR MMS

CRACK

5 GRAMS     5YR MMS

50 GRAMS     10 YR MMS

POWDER COCAINE

500 GRAMS     5YR MMS

5 KILOS     10 YR MMS

HEROIN

100 GRAMS     5YR MMS

1 KILO     10YR MMS

METH (PURE)

5 GRAMS     5YR MMS

50 GRAMS     10YR MMS

METH (MIXED)

50 GRAMS     5YR MMS

500 GRAMS     10YR MMS

PCP (MIXED)

10 GRAMS     5YR MMS

100 GRAMS     10YR MMS

PCP (MIXED)

100 GRAMS     5YR MMS

1 KILO     10YR MMS

NOTE:

5 YEAR MANDATORY MINIUM SENTENCES

DOUBLE TO 10 YEARS WITH 1 PRIOR DRUG OFFENSE

MANDATORY 20 YEARS FOR FIRST OFFENSE IF DEATH RESULTS

MANDATORY LIFE SENTENCE IF DEATH RESULTS AND OFFENDER HAS 1 PRIOR FELONY DRUG OFFENSE.

10 YEAR MANDATORY MINIUM SENTENCES

DOUBLE TO 20 YEARS WITH 1 PRIOR DRUG OFFENSE

MANDATORY 20 YEARS FOR FIRST OFFENSE IF DEATH RESULTS

MANDATORY LIFE SENTENCE IF DEATH RESULTS AND OFFENDER HAS 1 PRIOR FELONY.

MANDATORY LIFE SENTENCE IF OFFENDER HAS 2 OR MORE PRIOR FELONY DRUG OFFENSES.