Georgia Justice

[sometimeman]

>> BURNS, Robert Elliott (1890-1965) - Chain Gang Fugitive:
Author of I Am a Fugitive From a Georgia Chain Gang, Robert Elliott BURNS, through his book and a movie about his life, was responsible for the exposure and eventually the end of the inhumane Georgia chain gang system.

A World War I veteran out of a job, BURNS and 2 strangers burglarized $5.80 from a grocery store. For this crime, he was sentenced to 6-10 years on the chain gang. In June 1922 BURNS escaped and was not located until 1930, by which time he had risen to a high position on a magazine in Chicago. BURNS voluntarily returned to Georgia after he was promised by state officials that he would get a pardon. Instead, he was returned to the chain gang. BURNS then escaped again (something no other prisoner had ever done) and assumed a double life in New Jersey. During this time, BURNS began writing magainze articles describing his personal story and exposing chain gang conditions. These articles wer expanded into a book, and in 1932 a movie about his prison life starring Paul MUNI commanded enormous public sympathy.

Georgia officials were outraged. After locating BURNS later that year, they demanded his extradition. New Jersey Governor A. Harry MOORE held a special hearing in the Senate chamber of the State House at Trenton. Heading BURNS defense was Clarence DARROW. The hearing soon turned into a trial of Georgia'a penal system. Described in detail was the "sweat box," a barrel with iron strips on top, in which "bad" prisoners were kept, often with near-fatal results. It was revealed that prison cages built for 18 men actually housed 34 prisoners. Bolstered with endorsements by several other governors, Governor MOORE rejected the extradition request. BURNS was a free man inside New Jersey. Still Georgia did not cease its efforts to recapture it famous fugitive. In 1941, Governor Eugene TALMADGE tried again to extradite BURNS, citing improvements made in the system. The claims were countered by reformers who said the changes were in name only.

In 1945, Governor Ellis ARNALL finally ended the chain gang system and invited BURNS to return to Georgia. He did and ARNALL immediately commuted his sentence to time served. A free man at last, BURNS returned to his New Jersey home and continued to lend support to penal reform movements until his death in 1955.

[sometimeman]

>> FRANK, Leo (1884-1915) - Lynch Victim:
Probably the most infamous anti-Semitic lynching in America was that of Leo FRANK, a 29-year-old Atlanta businessman. FRANK, born in Brooklyn, a graduate of Cornell, and president of the Atlanta chapter of B'nai B'rith, managed the National Pencil Company factory for his wife's uncle. On Saturday, 26 April 1913 (Confederate Memorial Day), the factory was shut, but FRANK was there catching up on some paperwork. At noon, he later told police, 14-year-old Mary PHAGAN, all dressed up to go to the holiday parade, stopped by the factory to pick up her wages. FRANK said she left immediately, but her body was found in the basement sometime after. She had been strangled and beaten. Penciled notes found by her body were supposedly written by the girl. One, addressed to "Mum," described her murderer as a tall African American male.

The next day Leo FRANK was charged with the rape-slaying. James CONLEY, a semiliterate African American employed at the factory made some startling accusations against FRANK, among them that he had been summoned by the white man, shown Mary's dead body, and told to carry it to the basement. In addition, he charged that FRANK had ordered him to write the notes.

Lynch-law pervaded the atmosphere during the 30-day trial. Mobs cheered the prosecutor and harangued the defense attorneys.

While the jury deliberated, crowds outside the courthouse kept chanting the "...monster" had to hang. FRANK was found guilty and sentenced to death.

Leo FRANK defense committees were formed in various parts of the nation. In Chicago 415,000 people signed petitions asking Georgi'a Governor John M. SLATON to commute the death sentence, but the chief executive was also under considerable pressure, and threats of death, not to do so. The FRANK defense brought in William J. BURNS, perhaps the nation's leading detective, to investigate, and he turned up considerable proof of a police frame-up. The police would not open any of their records to BURNS other than those he obtained with a court order; on one occasion BURNS and his assistant barely escaped from a lynch mob determined to make the case against FRANK stand. Ironically, this was perhaps the first murder case in the South in which the word of an African American was taken over that of a white man.

BURNS discovered a witness, an African American woman, who had been CONLEY's lover from time to time, and she signed a statement that CONLEY had told her he had killed the white girl. In response to the BURNS findings, Governor SLATON commuted FRANK's death sentence; it proved to be an act of political suicide. "The Annie Maude CARTER notes, which were not before the jury, were powerful evidence in behalf of the defendant," he wrote.

A Northern newspaper editorial announced, "The reign of terror in Georgia is over." But it was not. On 17 August 1915, 2 months after the commutation, 25 members of a secret vigilate group - the Knights of Mary Phagan - entered the Milledgeville Prison Farm and, without any resistence from armed prison guards, took FRANK away with them on a ghastly 175-mile ride to Marietta, the murdered girl's home town. Leo FRANK was lynched there before a howling, gloating mob. The lynchers then proudly posed for pictures around the hanging corpse.

Two months after the hanging, the Knights of Mary Phagan congregated on the top of Stone Mountain near Atlanta to burn a cross.

[sometimeman]

United States Attorney David E. Nahmias

Northern District of Georgia

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Patrick Crosby

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2008 [phone]

WWW.USDOJ.GOV/USAO/GAN/ FAX [phone]

FIVE DEFENDANTS FROM NORTHEAST GEORGIA DRUG GANG

CONVICTED OF RACKETEERING, MURDER, DRUG,

AND FIREARMS CRIMES

Rome, GA - Five defendants were convicted today by a jury in federal district court of criminal charges that include racketeering, murder, attempted murder, assault, methamphetamine trafficking, and numerous related firearms offenses. The jury convicted the defendants after six weeks of trial and two days of deliberations. The five defendants were the leaders of a racketeering enterprise that originally included 30 defendants in the first indictment.

United States Attorney David E. Nahmias said of today’s verdict, “The truly violent character of this drug gang, which operated out of the small town of Cedartown, Georgia, is demonstrated by the fact that the racketeering convictions are based on several violent crimes, including five murders, attempted murder, and kidnaping, as well as drug trafficking. The five murders for which defendants Villenas-Reyes and Shane Rosser were convicted were 50% of the total number of murders that occurred in Floyd and Polk counties in 2003.” Nahmias added, “The use of federal racketeering and drug statutes to attack the leadership of an organization is important, especially with an organization such as this that operated across local and state jurisdictional lines. Indeed, this prosecution resulted from the excellent combined investigative efforts of local, state, and federal law enforcement agencies.”

FBI Atlanta Special Agent in Charge Greg Jones said, “Getting inside of these violence driven gangs is a very difficult challenge for law enforcement agencies when conducting such investigations. The skills and expertise of the agents and officers brought together from the many varied agencies involved was the key to the successful outcome of this investigation. The FBI remains committed to working with its law enforcement partners in the aggressive investigation and prosecution of these types of criminal organizations.”

“The guilty verdict has made it clear that those involved in criminal activity and responsible for terrorizing communities will be brought to justice,” said Kenneth Smith, Special Agent in Charge of ICE's Office of Investigations in Atlanta. “ICE and its federal, state, and local counterparts will continue working together to dismantle organized crime rings that threaten public safety.”

GBI Director Vernon Keenan said, “The GBI's priority is addressing the violent crime problem in smaller communities across Georgia, and we are pleased with the GBI's role in the successful investigation and prosecution of those involved in this methamphetamine trafficking gang. The cooperation among local, state and federal law enforcement agencies in this effort was outstanding and was paramount to the successful conclusion of this case.”

According to Nahmias and evidence at trial: Daniel Villenas-Reyes, 36, MARCO Antonio Cordero, 33, Sammy Duque, 34, and Juan Duque, 31, all of Cedartown; and Houston Shane Rosser, 36, of Centre, Alabama, were all convicted of conspiring to engage in a racketeering enterprise in Polk and Floyd counties in Georgia between March 2000 and December 2006. The evidence at trial proved that the enterprise trafficked methamphetamine and protected its territory, enforced discipline among members, and collected debts through a pattern of racketeering activities that included the murders of five people, attempted murder, aggravated assault, kidnaping, transporting and harboring illegal aliens, drug trafficking, and arson. The defendants were also convicted of conspiring to distribute and distributing methamphetamine and cocaine.

Daniel Villenas-Reyes was convicted of shooting and killing Cesar Juarez Vasquez, Arturo Torrez Ventura, and a woman who has never been identified, in a house at 506 7th Street, Cedartown, on September 16, 2003, and setting the house on fire to hide the evidence of the murders. Evidence at trial showed that Villenas-Reyes committed the murders after residents of the house refused to pay him for highly diluted methamphetamine that he had supplied them. Villenas-Reyes was also convicted of participating in the shooting of Jesse Vargas in Rome on December 17, 2002, several counts of selling methamphetamine, and several counts of using firearms in connection with crimes of violence and drug trafficking offenses.

In addition to the racketeering and drug trafficking offenses, Houston Shane Rosser was convicted of shooting and killing T.J. Agan and Christopher Fortenberry in their home in southern Floyd County on March 27, 2003. Evidence at trial showed that Rosser killed Agan over a methamphetamine debt, and he killed Fortenberry after finding that Agan was not alone. Fortenberry became Agan’s roommate a few weeks before the murders occurred. Josh Darrell Smith went to trial with the other five defendants on January 14, 2008. But he pleaded guilty midway through the trial and testified that he heard Rosser shoot Agan and watched Rosser shoot Fortenberry. Another eyewitness who had accompanied Rosser to Agan’s home also testified against him.

Marco Antonio Cordero was also convicted of pistol-whipping a victim whom Cordero suspected of stealing methamphetamine, selling methamphetamine while he was escaped from the Polk County Jail in the late winter of 2003, and being a convicted felon and an illegal alien who possessed several firearms on different occasions while he was a fugitive. Other evidence presented at trial showed that Cordero, Villenas-Reyes and Sammy Duque were previously deported to their native country of Mexico before and during the operation of their criminal enterprise, but illegally re-entered the United States.

Sammy Duque and his brother, Juan Duque, were also convicted of selling methamphetamine, and Juan Duque was convicted of participating with Cordero in the pistol-whipping of an innocent victim and using a firearm to commit that crime of violence.

Evidence presented at trial also showed that Polk County and Floyd County law enforcement agencies assisted each other in investigating the five murders when a witness came forward in January 2004 and explained how the killings were part of the violent operation of a single methamphetamine trafficking enterprise that operated out of Cedartown. The FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) then assembled a multi-agency task force that investigated the wide-sweeping enterprise and led to the prosecution of thirty alleged enterprise members. In addition to the five defendants convicted today, 15 other co-defendants have pleaded guilty to the racketeering charges in the indictment. Ten more defendants await trial. No trial date has yet been set.

Villenas-Reyes, Cordero, Rosser, Sammy Duque and Juan Duque face maximum sentences of life in federal prison and fines of at least $4,250,000. There is no parole in the federal criminal system. Their sentencing is scheduled for May 9, 2008, at 1:30 p.m. before United States District Judge Murphy.

This case was investigated by Special Agents of the FBI, ICE, and the GBI, with substantial assistance from the Georgia State Fire Marshal’s Arson Unit, the Floyd County Police Department, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office, the Polk County Police Department and the Cedartown Police Department.

Assistant United States Attorneys Kim S. Dammers and William G. Traynor are prosecuting the case.

For further information please contact David E. Nahmias (pronounced NAH-me-us), United States Attorney, or Charysse L. Alexander, Executive Assistant United States Attorney, through Patrick Crosby, Public Affairs Officer, U.S. Attorney's Office, at [phone]. The Internet address for the HomePage for the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Georgia is www.usdoj.gov/usao/gan.

[sometimeman]

Somebody was handling these fellows money.
Do you suppose ZigZag knows any thing about it?

If he did, recon the "new" judge could handle it?