The People Of Alabama Collectively Placed Their Hands Around The Neck Of Kenny Eugene Smith And Choked Him To Death With Nitrogen Gas By William Thorpe

So, on Thursday 1/25/24, the people of Alabama collectively placed their hands around the neck of Kenny Eugene Smith and choked him to death with nitrogen gas. Kenny Smith had been convicted of capital murder, a murder for hire scheme concocted and set into motion by the victim's husband, a Charles Sennett who was a pastor or Reverend in the Church of Christ for the sum of $1k. Mr. Smith was tried, convicted and sentenced to death. On November 17, 2022 with intent of carrying out Mr. Smith's death sentence the people of Alabama collectively enthralled by the capital punishment motive jabbed needles extra-judicially into Kenny Smith's body with intent of killing him, they failed. The failure then, to kill Mr. Smith enabled this peculiar emergence of nitrogen as agent of death, which the people of Alabama collectively used in killing Kenny Smith on 1/25/24.What I want to focus on are two occurrences, as a result of the killing of Mr. Kenny Eugene Smith. The first is how, John Hamm Commissioner of The Alabama Department of Corrections misrepresented to the people of Alabama the circumstances of the killing of Mr. Smith .A misrepresentation that will deprive the people of Alabama the necessary information and facts and can subsequently impede their ability to abolish the death penalty as legal instrument in their name. Commissioner Hamm in his comments to the media after the choking death of Mr. Smith said, "he (meaning Kenny Smith) struggled a little bit". However witnesses, media and Mr. Kenny Smith's wife described the circumstances of the killing as "violent convulsions", (I paraphrase) with seepage of stuff, vomit, under the leather mask that was tightly strapped to Smith's face, choking him. This is the reality Commish Hamm said," he struggled a little bit". So the question is why?, Why would a prison official, a public servant, become a partisan in the ongoing argument on Capital Punishment and the Death Penalty? By saying that the dying Kenny Smith only struggled a little bit, Hamm is insidiously attempting to make light of the barbarity and savagery of what was done to Kenny Smith under the misnomer of justice and by making light of the death circumstances Hamm is dumbing the people of Alabama down with what they need to know to then say, Not In Our Name. Lastly if Commissioner John Hamm is certain of his position, that he's on the right and correct side of history he shouldn't cowardly misrepresent what happened at that charnel house of a prison on 1/25/24 of the killing of Kenny Smith. Secondly the surviving sons of the victim, whose preacher husband had her killed, were quoted in the media as saying and I paraphrase that the world has forgotten about their mother and its all about Kenny Smith, what I say to their grief is this, justice shouldn't simply be a one upmanship endeavor, a steppingstone to speculative political power.

By William Thorpe

.I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

Radically Charged Guest Post Brave New Films

Brave New Films

Guest Post, Brave new Films

Racially Charged: America’s Misdemeanor Problem exposes how our country’s history of racial injustice evolved into an enormous abuse of criminal justice power. 13 million people a year – most of them poor and people of color – are abused by this system. Through first-person accounts of those charged under the Black Codes of the Reconstruction era paralleled with the outrageous stories of people trapped in the system today, the film brings to light the unfolding of a powerful engine of profits and racial inequality. With the emergence of the Black Lives Matter movement, this film provides historical context and examines America’s history of racist oppression. Brave New Films

The Failed Promise of Police Body Cameras Guest Post By ProPublica, New York Times Daily

Guest post: ProPublica/New York Times Daily

This episode contains strong language and audio excerpts of violence.

About a decade ago, police departments across the United States began equipping their officers with body cameras. The technology was meant to serve as a window into potential police misconduct, but that transparency has often remained elusive.

Eric Umansky, an editor at large at ProPublica, explains why body cameras haven’t been the fix that many hoped they would be.

Guest: Eric Umansky, an editor at large at ProPublica.

Hosted by Sabrina Tavernise

Featuring Eric Umansky

Produced by Eric Krupke, Olivia Natt and Stella Tan

Edited by Brendan Klinkenberg

With Michael Benoist

Original music by Marion Lozano, Dan Powell, Rowan Niemisto, Diane Wong and Sophia Lanman

Engineered by Alyssa Moxley and Chris Wood

Background reading:

For more information on this episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. 

vapac

ON PRISON REFORM IN VIRGINIA AND WHAT DOES COMPLICITY MEAN By William Thorpe

The author, Nancy Isenberg, a Professor of American History at LSU, produced a book," White Trash. The 400-Year Untold History of Class in America ". In which she brought forth certain facts, moments of History, relevant to America and the activity, in particular of White-European invaders. I start this work, which I expect will be brief with description of Prof. Isenberg's work because it deals with ignorance and how we are not absolved of complicity due to it. Ignorance isn't necessarily bliss as adage attempts to absolve us of the concurrent and accompanying inevitable and inexorable complicity. But what it does is, it permits us to justify (fill in the blank) of why if in all other matters, we can vigorously lay claim to personal sovereignty which naturally is based on cognition and knowledge (knowledge in this context specifically means the honesty of seeking out what we don't know but must in order to function optimally), but as soon as we are confronted with aspects of existence that are to our benefit, we then act as if the underlying travesties of law, (which is primarily our collective social-selfishness regardless of ones participatory understanding), as, Political-Economy, as the justice infrastructure and the practice of imprisonment are then and somehow beyond the reach of our comprehension. I titled this work, ON PRISON REFORM IN VIRGINIA AND WHAT DOES COMPLICITY MEAN, because to reform a system and its practices requires, demands and ask, are we ready to grasp and understand that which is before us? Just as what is a human mind is insular and secret yet its work, its production is inclusively objective on whatever the terms are of the relationship, such then are the substance of society and The Social Contract, because society requires and is based on relationship, regardless of whether one is master of or slave to, it exposes and reveals ignorance and the subsequent complicity. In The Commonwealth of Virginia, The Department of Corrections is under the Secretary of Public Safety and Homeland Security, who is nominated by The Governor of The Commonwealth of Virginia. The Director of The Virginia Department of Corrections is appointed by said Governor, this process is codified at Virginia Code Title 2.2-200.Now I will not waste any ones time stating why the Virginia Department of Corrections is a failed agency unwilling to satisfy the modernity of its mission. Virginia's corporate and legacy media, notwithstanding their status quo and establishment bias have documented enough of The Departments' violations and extra-judicial practices. What I want to get at is the canker of complicity. When one study's Virginia laws, what you will find is outline upon outline of process, intended to hold the Virginia public official i.e prison official accountable. So for example at Virginia code 2.2-520 (C) #9 we see that there is an office of Civil Rights within the office of attorney General authorized to investigate civil right violations (and what is noteworthy is the Virginia prisoner is not excluded from its protections as in other Virginia laws that make a point of excluding the Virginia prisoner)The Virginia prison official is subject to the authority of the law at 2.2-511.1as defined by Va.Code 9.1-101

By William Thorpe

.I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

Solitary Confinement

Visual representation of an excerpt from Central Prison inmate Chris McBride.

vapac

THERE ARE THOSE By William Thorpe

There are those who vociferously claim that calling out politicians is counterproductive. There are those who say, using social media to challenge the fraudulent and self-serving narrative of the Virginia prison official, their Republican allies and Democrat collaborator is a waste of time because, from their experiences hobnobbing with Virginia politicians, has shown that politicians care less about what is said on social media. As such the focus should instead be on flattering politicians in their ornate offices,(which by the way are built on the delusions and naiveté of the general public who are generally denied entrance and access to said politician whose occupancy of said ornate and terrazzo floored office is due to people triumphing over myriad obstacles and impediments to vote for said politician) to achieve the shibboleth of legislative action that will hold the Prison Official accountable and reform the Virginia prison system, consequently the Virginia Department of Corrections. I only say one thing to those minds arguing that: who are you working for? The motive force of social media is irreproachable, it is unimpeachable. It's proof is evidenced by the herculean monetary expenditures devoted towards its use by those same politicians we are told dismiss and won't pay attention to its speech. Look people, society and its social contract is organized on ideas and narratives. When the Virginia Department of Corrections does what it does to prisoners because of inchoate and purposefully undefined laws and its allies subsequently defend it. Acts that are nothing less than extra-judicial practices, based on colloquialisms, suppositions and backwards philosophies. It anticipates and expects support for its actions by slyly introducing its logic to the Virginia public via media, who as a rule never ever challenge the narrative unless the disclosures have exploitive value either for it's bottom line or the existing political opposition of the moment. What legacy or corporate media, for example The Richmond Times-Dispatch enables the prison official and their political overlord allies with is mass dissemination of narrative. So for example when Virginia Republicans during the mid 1990's realized that weaponizing Virginia's parole process allowed them electoral success, The Richmond Times-Dispatch serving as social media enabled the amplification of the abolish parole message, which those who now criticize use of social media fight for its restoration.

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

JUSTICE IS IT PROCESS OR AN ACT By William Thorpe

I'm a Virginia prisoner, exiled to the Texas prison system by executives of Virginia's Department of Corrections. I've been imprisoned in Virginia's justice infrastructure continuously since February 1980, when I was 20. Initially, my imprisonment was based on convictions of robbery and possession of a firearm. However, dealing with the conditions and circumstances of The Virginia Department of Corrections and its extra-judicial practices, I've accumulated added years of imprisonment. Let's begin and I trust I can make this as short, concise and to the point. Are the disenfranchised thousands, due to entanglements and encounters with the justice infrastructure and prison system, disenfranchised because of the "act" predicating the entanglement, encounter or is it a result of the "process" of the justice infrastructure and its apparatus? I chose disenfranchisement as penultimate sanction/punishment next to death. Society proscribes all sorts of behaviors vis a vis acts, yet it's the process or the bureaucracy, the administration of the proscription that asserts its criminality. So for example, let's ask Trayvon Martin's Mother if the acquittal of her son's killer makes him less a murderer to her, yet the bureaucracy of the justice infrastructure due to its acquittal of her son's killer compels her as a social component of society to ignore it's fact and actuality of the "act" and instead accept the determination of the adjudicative process as the true narrative and existential account. Let's also ask all of those Mothers of sons and daughters killed by officials of the state, whether determinations by the infinitude of "processes" make their children any less dead? What I leave you the reader with, what I ask you the reader to ponder is when we start talking about "justice" and "punishment", what is being affirmed and subsequently recognized, is it the harm of the act or is it the process?

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit

Former Attorney General Of Virginia, Jerry Kilgore Playing God With Virginia's Parole Process By Williiam Thorpe

Recent developments in The Commonwealth of Virginia over its Parole process are another reminder that injustices and travesties are not imposed on a people but are consequences of specific facts and symbiotic circumstances. In the mid 1990's, the then Governor of Virginia, George Allen, who revealed himself to be just another crass bigot and retrograde, along with Virginia Republicans, the complicity of Virginia's main stream legacy and corporate media, The Richmond-Times and Dispatch in particular and the foot soldier labors of Jerry Kilgore, abolished Parole as a component of Virginia's justice infrastructure. The summary abolishment of parole by Virginia Republicans wasn't a result of and based on newly realized and gleaned understandings of human psychology, sociology even a begrudging acceptance of political-economic realities. But it was in pursuit of petty speculative political power and their narrow selfish interests, which Jerry Kilgore became one of its beneficiaries by becoming Attorney General and for purposes of this work he has again exploited Virginia's Parole process. 

The Social Contract vis--vis the Society it creates and structures is about Control. Virginian society and its social contract is formulated on control. This is understood. Law and a society's justice infrastructure, as such Virginia's, is about control and the operative is its 'organized violence', meaning its law and justice infrastructure of which, the prison systems' apparatus including the parole process exist for its maintenance. So when Jerry Kilgore exploited Virginia's parole process by abolishing it in pursuit of his selfish, political interest, he exacerbated what historically already was a tenuous and unstable one. Parole as component of a justice system, should stand as an expression of societal humility. But when the imperative of control, inherent to social contract as an in itself fact is corrupted by the variegated expressions of self interests, as embodied by Jerry Kilgore's, supremacist delusions, it perverts the fundamental fact of the human condition, irrespective of society. Recently we learned that Jerry Kilgore in his current role as private attorney secured parole for Mr. Elbert Smith, who was formerly imprisoned at Virginia's Greensville Correctional Center. I stand in solidarity with Mr. Smith securing parole and I'm glad that Jerry Kilgore regained his commonsense and humanity with the recognition that parole is a vital and necessary component of Virginia's justice infrastructure. What this fact reveals and exposes is the rottenness and degree of failed stateness of The Commonwealth of Virginia as a Society and it indicts Virginia Republicans abolishment of parole not as a social good but as the short sighted supremacist delusion it is.

The problem with the playing God behavior of Jerry Kilgore as it pertains to Virginia's parole process is, it undermines the very notion of society and in extension, the human being. When Jerry Kilgore and his Republican cabal removed Parole from the justice infrastructure in the mid 1990's, the motivation was crassly idealistic, a base pursuit of self interest, for political authority in itself. Regardless of how it was packaged, it had nothing to do with issues of criminality and the simple proof of this is, Republicans are still speaking of crime. Meaning parole, its existence or none has had nothing to do with crime. By securing Mr. Smith's parole, former attorney general Jerry Kilgore is acknowledging that he has had a deeper and honestly mature understanding of parole as social and justice utility and we recognize and accept it as such. The only ask we have of him is that, he now exerts and expends his energies in all things examining, reviewing and consequently reforming Virginia's Justice infrastructure, including the prison and parole process.

By William Thorpe

I'm William Thorpe Virginia exiled me to the Texas prison system. I'm solitary confined at the Wainwright Unit