Bearing Witness

#44 March 6, 2025BEARING WITNESS... “Instead of asking whether anyone should be locked up or go free, why don’t we think about why we solve problems by repeating the kind of behavior that brought us this problem in the first place?” —Ruth Wilson Gilmore“If it takes a village to raise a child, it certainly takes a movement to undo an occupation.” —Ruth Wilson Gilmore“Racism enshrines the inequalities that capitalism requires.” —Jodi MelamedGood Thursday evening everyone, Ruth Wilson Gilmore is the director of Center for Race, Culture and Politics at CUNY. She is also a co-founder, along with Angela Y. Davis, of Critical Resistance, which almost 30 years ago called for the abolition of the Prison Industrial Complex. Jodi Melamed is professor of English and Africana Studies at Marquette University. Professor Melamed’s book, Represent and Destroy: Rationalizing Violence in the New Racial Capitalism” shows how racial liberalism, liberal multiculturalism, and neoliberal multiculturalism made racism appear to be disappearing, even as they incorporated the assumptions of global capitalism into accepted notions of racial equality. Please read and maybe even re-read their quotes above. Please.Courtwatch. Competency restoration is crushing mentally ill defendantsOne after the other, each of the four prisoners—cuffed around their wrists and ankles bound to a belly-chain—shuffled from the courtroom pew to the podium facing State Court Judge Charles Auslander III. All were misdemeanor defendants: Christian B. was charged with damaging a vehicle, Gloria J. and Carrie J. were charged with trespassing, and the fourth, Charles C., allegedly obstructed an Athens cop. They were each appearing at their case status hearings on February 25, 2025. Christian B. had been caged in the Clarke County jail for 240 days. Charles C. had been locked up for 431 days. Gloria J. had been tossed into jail 338 days ago. Carrie J. had been incarcerated for 234 days. Collectively, these four alleged misdemeanor defendants had spent a total of 1,243 days in our jail. They are still locked up tonight.Why? At some point early in their journey through ACC MISDEMEANORLAND, each of these four prisoners were found “incompetent to stand trial” after a cursory examination at the jailhouse by a traveling state-employed shrink. Judge Auslander then ordered that the four receive inpatient (in custody) treatment so that they could be “restored” to competency to allow the State to eventually prosecute them for their transgressions. (This has never made any sense to me: So, let’s say I am not well mentally when I commit the crime of trespassing, or shoplifting, or jaywalking, or obstruction. But I’ve been arrested nonetheless, and while I’m incarcerated—pretrial—it’s determined that I’m too crazy to be prosecuted. So I’m kept in confinement to be evaluated, then treated—always with medications—until I’m finally considered lucid enough to be prosecuted. That is, prosecuted for the same misdemeanor crime I was accused of committing many months ago, when, according to the punishment system, I was not in my right mind.) But here’s the most important reason why Christian B, age 30, Gloria J., 63, Carrie J., 38, and Charles C., 69, have been wasting away in our jail: None of these four indigent defendants—all were homeless when arrested—have been unable to come up with the money to gain their pretrial liberty. Charles C. was arrested on December 15, 2023 on obstruction and given a $3,000 bond. Gloria J. was jailed on March 25, 2024, charged with trespassing at the Athens-Clarke County bus terminal, and given a $1,500 bond. Christian B. was arrested on July 1, 2024 for damaging a car that wasn’t hers and assessed a bond of $3,000. And on July 7, 2024, Carrie J. found herself in jail on a trespassing beef and needed $1,000 to purchase her way out of jail. As best as I can tell from looking at the court records, their public defenders did not file motions for bond reduction hearings; instead they filed incompetency motions which, it turns out, have kept their clients in jail for a long, long time. Each of these four prisoners has been waiting—and waiting—for what the Court calls “restoration treatment” by Georgia’s Department of Behavior Health and Developmental Disabilities (DBHDD). This means they have to be transported to the Augusta State Hospital and confined there while undergoing inpatient (in custody) treatment. And once these pretrial defendants are moved to the Augusta prison hospital, they will face another wait, perhaps as long as six months, before their minds can be “fixed”. Finally, once they are diagnosed competent and ready for prosecution, they will be returned to the Clarke County jail and remain in custody until their misdemeanor cases are resolved. And oh yes, their original bail amounts will remain the same. To be fair to the public defense attorneys, they have asked Judge Auslander to allow their clients to receive restoration treatment on an outpatient basis and be released from custody. However, the prosecutors opposed the requests, and in each instance, Judge Auslander sided with the State’s insistence that the defendants remain incarcerated. In Gloria J.’s case, prosecutor Tori Goff opposed outpatient treatment and wanted Ms. J. to remain in jail because Ms. J. “Is repeatedly returning to places where she’s been barred and has no ability to do what is required of her.” Judge Auslander agreed: “(Ms. J.) has an extensive history of trespassing at the bus terminal. She has difficulty in following rules.” It is, in my estimation, absolutely inhumane that these four human beings—Charles C., Gloria J., Carrie J., and Christian B.—are being forced to remain in jail while their mental health deteriorates every single day they are locked up. Sadly—and maybe criminally—they are not alone. Here’s a partial list of other prisoners in our jail tonight who have also been found incompetent to stand trial and are waiting to be restored to a point where the State can prosecute them for their alleged crimes: Daniel A., in jail since June 4, 2024, charged with aggravated stalking, no bond; Terry B., arrested June 19, 2022, charged with trespassing/damage to property, $1,500 bond; Kayser D., arrested 5/23/24 for giving a false name to a law enforcement officer, bond $1,000; Freddie E., in jail since August 13, 2024, charged with trespassing, obstruction and reckless conduct, bond $500. (Mr. E. is 72-years-old); Mary F., arrested January 1, 2024, charged with trespassing and has no bond; Memory G., arrested May 15, 2024, charged with battery, $2,500 bond; Jill L., arrested August 26, 2024, charged with trespassing, bond set at $1,000 (Ms. L. is 62-years-old); Mario N., arrested September 18, 2023, charged with trespassing, bond $1,000; Sally T., arrested June 26, 2024, charged with terroristic threats, no bond (Ms. T. Is 70-years-old). Every last one of these prisoners is indigent. Most were without housing before they were jailed. All are represented by the public defender’s office.My season with Kenyatta B.I’ve known Kenyatta B. for almost two years now. On July 12, 2023, I met him at the Clarke County jail after I’d handed $21 to the release officer to purchase Mr. B.’s pretrial liberty. He was unable to post this small bond and been locked up seven days for trespassing at one of Athens’ public parks. Since that day in July 2023, our community bail fund has posted seven small bonds—ranging from $1 to $33—on Mr B.s behalf. In fact, since July 5, 2023, the 58-year-old Mr. B. has spent a total of 531 days in our jail! He’s been arrested more than a dozen times over the past 20 months, ALL arrests alleging he committed misdemeanor offenses. He’s been busted for trespassing in our parks, in a local drug store’s parking lot, (a half-dozen times), behind a grocery store (where he was sleeping and urinating nearby), outside a chiropractor’s office (where he was using a garden hose to wash himself). On September 1, 2023, Mr. B. committed the misdemeanor crime of shoplifting after he went into Walmart and attempted to walk out with “Payday candy bars, a package of Snickers, Blow-Pops, a Coke Zero, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups, a pair of socks, blue jeans and earbuds.” Kenyatta B. has been in jail more than out over the past several years. When he’s out I’ve managed to spend time with him whenever I provide transportation to his courthouse hearings, or visit with him on the streets of Athens. (Our sheriff has eliminated ail in-person visitation for prisoners’ families and friends, so I’m unable to visit Mr. B. when he’s in jail.) He has two adult children. He played football in high school. He drove 18-wheelers for a living. I’ve also gotten to know Mr. B.’s 83-year-old mother Dorothy Griffin, who lives in Lawrenceville and has managed to get to Athens to attend some of his court hearings. “My son is not a criminal,” Ms. Griffin told me. “Something happened to him several years ago and he’s not right anymore. He’s never been like this.” Dorothy Griffin is convinced that her son needs a neurological examination followed by appropriate treatment in a care facility. “Just to look at him and to hear him speak should be obvious to anyone that Kenyatta isn’t right,” she said. “He has a hard time putting a sentence together now. He stumbles when he walks and his hands and arms are always flailing about. When he’s sitting, his head jerks back and forth.” But try telling any of this to the court officials in ACC MISDEMEANORLAND, who seem to think the answer to Kenyatta B.’s struggle with the law is to send him to an inpatient drug-and-alcohol treatment facility. “Drinking or drugging is not my son’s problem,” Dorothy Griffin insisted. “Lord, have mercy.” Two months ago, on January 6, 2025, Kenyatta B. appeared in front of Judge Charles Auslander III at a State Court status hearing. He’d been in jail over four months this time around, again charged with trespassing at the the Hawthorne Avenue grocery store. In a bewildering turn of events that day, Mr. B.’s public defender Sydney Crudo reached an agreement with assistant solicitor Tanner Huff, that allowed Mr. B. to plead guilty to two of the twelve outstanding misdemeanor cases, The remaining ten cases would be dismissed. The guilty plea would result in Mr. B. being sentenced to “12 months confinement suspended upon his entering The Potter’s House.” The Potter’s House is an inpatient sober living facility located in nearby Jackson County. According to Ms. Crudo, Potter’s House was willing to accept Mr. B. Into their program, pending an intake evaluation. Kenyatta B stood at the podium facing Judge Auslander to formally enter his plea of guilty. He was cuffed and shackled and his orange pants sagged blow his butt. “Are you entering this plea freely and voluntarily?” the judge asked Mr. B. “Yes.”“I’m happy for this outcome,” Judge Auslander announced from his perch on the bench. Then, as Mr. B., stood spasming, tossing his head from side-to-side, the judge added this comment: “Mr. Booze, I enjoy seeing you in court. You’re always so positive and nice.” Kenyatta B. remained in jail for 42 more days waiting for acceptance into The Potter’s House, which finally happened, or so we thought, after he participated in a brief telephone interview from the jail. I asked him if his attorney or the public defender’s social worker was present when he talked with the The Potter’s House representative. “No, it was just me. It (the phone conversation) lasted five minutes,” he remembered. On February 17, I picked up Kenyatta Booze from the jail and we drove to Arcade, Georgia and The Potter’s House. After we pulled into the parking lot we telephoned his mother Gloria to share the good news with her. Kenyatta was out of jail and about to have a roof over his head! I told her I’d call her back with more information once Mr. B. was admitted. “I love you mama!” Mr. B. told her. A few minutes later, a gentleman with a name tag appeared at the car and escorted Mr. B. into a nearby office building. “We have to drug test him and then we’ll be back out to get his belongings.” I had purchased socks, underwear, t-shirts, toiletries and a few clothing items to leave with Mr. B. I sat in my car for thirty minutes when Mr. B. walked out of the office building, now with a female employee by his side. “Are you family?” she asked. “A good friend,” I replied. “Well, we’re not going to be able to accept Mr. B.,” she announced. “Does he have anywhere else he can go?” I was dumbfounded. “I was told he’d been accepted here and that you all had agreed to admit him after you had a phone interview with him. He has no place else to go—except back to jail.” “We didn’t know that he had physical limitations,” the young woman apologized. “We’re a program that requires the men to work while they are with us, to help pay for their room and board. He doesn’t meet that requirement.” The staff member told me she would make a few phone calls to see if there might be another program that would consider accepting Mr. B. and for us to wait in the car. Forty-five minutes later we were still sitting in the car. No one ever returned with any information. I called Judge Auslander’s office to explain what happened. The judge told me to bring Mr. B. to the courthouse. Mr. B. and I waited outside the State Court courtroom while Judge Auslander was handling a half-dozen guilty pleas from other misdemeanor defendants. Mr. B.’s lawyer, Sidney Crudo, told us her office’s social worker was on her way to the courthouse to speak with Mr. B. The social worker never showed up but instead evidently provided Ms. Crudo with a phone number for a for-profit company called “Sober Living America.” Sober Living America is an addiction-recovery franchise and owns and operates a half-dozen facilities in Georgia.Ms. Crudo dialed the number and explained to someone at Sober Living America that her client Kenyatta B. needed an inpatient treatment bed ASAP and what would he have to do to gain admission? “Put him on the phone.”I heard Kenyatta B.’s part of the phone call, which lasted less than three minutes.“I’m 58.”“I’m homeless.”“I really don’t have a problem with drugs or alcohol.”“Okay.”And Mr. B. handed the phone back to Ms. Crudo. “Do you know how soon?” she asked the Sober Living America intake specialist, then thanked that person and concluded the call.“You’ve been accepted,” she told Kenyatta B. “Maybe as soon as sometime this week.” Judge Ausländer called Mr. B. Into the courtroom and had him sit with Ms. Crudo at the defense table. Ms. Crudo announced that Mr. B. had been accepted into Sober Living America’s Jonesboro, Georgia facility, nearly three hours from Athens. The judge ordered Mr. B. back to jail until that bed was available at Sober Living America; he also ordered the ACC Sheriff’s Department to transport him from the jail to Jonesboro. Sadly, I watched a deputy sheriff handcuff and shackle Kenyatta B. to take him back to jail. From the time I picked him up from the jail earlier that morning, Kenyatta B. had experienced just six hours of freedom. That all happened on Monday, February 17. On Friday, February 21, Kenyatta B. was still in the Clarke County jail. Apparently Sober Living America, like The Potter’s House, was having second thoughts about accepting someone into their program which, also like The Potter’s House, required its recovering residents to maintain employment to pay for room, board, and treatment costs. Judge Auslander brought Kenyatta B. to that Friday’s weekly jail call. Still no public defender social worker in sight. Lawyer Crudo seemed intent on figuring out a way to get Mr. B. into Sober Living America. Clearly frustrated (and I’m convinced ready to wash his hands of Mr. B.), Judge Auslander told Ms. Crudo and assistant solicitor Huff that he was ending the case altogether. “Mr. B. has already spent nearly five months in jail and if he were to get a day’s credit for every day served he’d be just a few weeks shy of serving the 12-month sentence,” the judge reasoned. “I’m concluding this matter. Mr. B., you’ll be able to get out of jail Monday morning. I’m ordering that the sheriff release you to Mr. Vodicka at 10 a.m., Monday, February 24.”Really, judge? Released to what? And where?Kenyatta B. walked out of the Clarke County jail that Monday morning. Sitting in my car in the jail parking lot, we talked about his options. He’d stayed at the Salvation Army shelter on previous occasions, but Salvation Army’s shelter was closed indefinitely for renovations. The only other adult shelter in Athens, Bigger Vision, has a first call-first serve policy. If you are seeking an overnight bed there, you have to call them at 4 p.m. and hope your call is among the first received. Even if you are lucky enough to land an overnight bed there you can’t check in until 6 p.m. and have to leave the building the following morning at 5 a.m. “Take me to the church downtown,” Mr. B. said. “I’ll get some lunch there.” We drove to First Baptist Church. I gave Mr. B. a used backpack stuffed with the socks and underwear and t-shirts I’d bought him for Potter’s House. I added a gray hoodie to the mix. Mr. B. led me on foot across the church parking lot to a bench located in a quiet, sunny spot. “This will be fine,” he said. We hugged. “Don’t worry, John, it’ll be okay.” I gave him a little spending money and walked back to my car. An hour later, I saw Mr. B. walking alone on Prince Avenue, heading in the direction of the Hawthorne Avenue grocery store from which he’s been barred. The next day, Tuesday, February 25, around 10 a.m., almost exactly 24 hours from the time he’d left the jail with me the day before, Kenyatta Booze was arrested and jailed. This from ACCPD officer Kalina Thurmond’s report: “The suspect was identified as Kenyatta B. Wearing a gray sweatshirt with the hood up and blue jeans. I went to speak to the manager of Bell’s, who stated that they had video footage of Mr. B. on their property. After viewing the video footage of a B/M wearing a gray sweatshirt with the hood up and blue jeans identical to what Mr. B. was wearing when I encountered him. He was placed under arrest for criminal trespass.” The next morning, Wednesday, February 26, Kenyatta B. appeared in Magistrate Court for a bond hearing. Chief Judge Benjamin Makin let me speak on Mr. B.’s behalf. He set his bond at $1. Unable to post this bond, Mr. B. remained in jail for nine more days.Then somehow, sometime yesterday morning, March 5, someone posted Kenyatta B.’s $1 bond. As I write tonight, Mr. B. is a free man. Alas, dear Kenyatta B., I fear MISDEMEANORLAND beckons still.Overheard in the Courtroom.1.“I was just trying to get some pork chops and mashed potatoes.” —Bobby M., explaining to Chief Magistrate Judge Benjamin Makin why he had been—again—operating a motor vehicle while his driver’s license was suspended. “I was hungry, your honor.” Arrested and jailed on February 5, 2025, the 38-year-old Mr. M. appeared at bond hearings the next morning, February 6. Bobby M. has been on Athens-Clarke County’s criminal legal system’s radar for nearly 20 years; his “criminal” history shows a slew of misdemeanor and drug-related felony arrests and convictions, short jail stints and times on probation. Despite his run-ins with the law over the years, Mr. M. has always appeared in court when required to do so, not something easily accomplished. And because there were no “failures to appear” on his record, Judge Makin was able to grant Mr. M. an unsecured judicial release (UJR), allowing hm to leave jail without having to post a money bond. 2.“I been living in my car and it got repossessed.” —Dana M., appearing at her bond hearing on February 20, 2025, charged with felony shoplifting. The 58-year-old Ms. M. was now homeless and had been arrested the day before for allegedly stealing $258 worth of clothing items from Half Moon Outfitters, an upscale Athens store (“The best trends, the best prices”; “Affordable looks, no compromises”). Ms. M. never made it out of the store. It was Ms. M.’s fourth shoplifting arrest, hence the felony charge. Magistrate Judge Donarell Green set bond at $500, which totaled $650 after court surcharges and the sheriff’s fee. Somehow Ms. M. managed to find $100 to fork over to a predatory bond company to purchase her release from custody. Dana M. will be arraigned in Superior Court later this spring. Conviction on a fourth shoplifting charge in Georgia results in a mandatory 12-month jail sentence. 3.“I go to that church sometimes.” —65-year-old Kathy O., appearing in front of Magistrate Judge Donarell Green on February 20, 2025. Ms. O. had been arrested for misdemeanor trespassing two days earlier, February 19, while sitting on a bench on the property of St. Mark’s AME church in Athens. This from ACCPD Officer Brooklynn Dowdie’s written report: “On February 18, 2025 I was patrolling the area of Gressom St., when I noticed three individuals sitting on the benches at St. Mark’s church. Based on previous interactions, I recognized one of the women as Kathy O. I knew that O. had previously been barred from St. Mark’s, as I was the officer who assisted with the barring. I verified with dispatch, where they confirmed that O. was actively barred. O. was taken into custody (handcuffed, double-locked), and placed in the back of my patrol car where she was transported to the Athens-Clarke County jail. Recorded via Axon body camera.” Judge Green set Ms. O.’s bond at $1.00, an amount she thankfully was able to post on the afternoon of February 20. Ms. O. was scheduled to be arraigned on the trespassing charge in State Court on April 17, but on February 28, just over a week after she was arrested, Chief Magistrate Judge Benjamin Makin dismissed the warrant altogether. Police Officer Dowdie had failed to present the warrant in a timely manner. Case closed. You lose this time, St. Mark’s church.4.“Judge, what you say would be true if I would be a free man until proven guilty of a crime, but that isn’t the truth now, is it?” —Pierre G., arguing with Magistrate Judge Donarell Green at Mr. G.’s first appearance bond hearing on February 19. Mr. G. had been jailed two days earlier, on February 17, and charged with disorderly conduct after he had allegedly argued with staff at the Hampton Inn on West Broad Street. According to the police report, Mr. G. was attempting to rent a room at the hotel but wasn’t able to produce a valid ID. A motel clerk, and later the arresting officer, reported that Mr. G.’s behavior became increasingly loud, erratic and threatening. Officer Brianna Basinger asked Mr. G. if he needed to go to the hospital and he declined. “(G.) continues ranting, and nothing he says makes any logical sense. I decided to take him to jail. On my way there he says I am an alien.” Pierre G. found himself locked up just before midnight, February 17. His preset bond—as it is for anyone accused of misdemeanor disorderly conduct—was $10. The homeless Mr. G. had no money, so he was unable to post the low bond that night nor on the next day, February 18. On February 19 the 35-year-old appeared in front of Judge Green. The judge explained to Mr. G. what rights he had under the U.S. and Georgia constitutions, including the right “to be presumed innocent until proven guilty.” That’s when Pierre G. attempted to provide Judge Green with his interpretation of his constitutional rights, debunking the concept of presumption of innocence. Judge Green was having none of it and, to courtwatchers’ surprise, told Mr. G. he was increasing his bond to $1,000! “So you’re saying my bond is going up from $10 to $1,000?” A clearly aggravated Judge Green declared Pierre G.’s bond hearing over. Pierre G. remained in jail for six more days, when he appeared—shackled—in Athens Municipal Court. His public defender encouraged him to plead guilty to the disorderly conduct rap, and Judge Marcie Jolles sentenced Mr. G. to eight days confinement, the same amount of time he’d already spent in jail. “Mr. G., I apologize that you had to spend eight days in jail because a magistrate judge increased your bond one hundred-fold from $10 to $1,000, Judge Jolles told him. “I’m sorry the solicitor’s office didn’t consent to a lower bond prior to today. I’m sending an order out to the sheriff to have you released from custody as soon as you return to the jail.” OCONEE STREET UMC BAIL INITIATIVE.Regardless of actual guilt or innocence, poor people are criminalized for their inability to buy their way out of jail. Shadrina B. was arrested and jailed on December 16, 2024 after she was charged with misdemeanor terroristic threats and disorderly conduct. The 47-year-old Ms. B. had gone to her ex-husband’s home in Athens in an attempt to see her children. It didn’t end well that day. A police officer reported that Ms. B. was acting in a “violent and tumultuous way” with her ex. Three days later, on December 19, Magistrate Judge Donarell Green set Ms. B.’s bond at $500, an amount she was unable to make. Shadrina B. had been living on the streets and “camping” in a wooded area near downtown. Ms. B. is also borderline schizophrenic and, at the time of the alleged December 16 incident, had been off her prescribed medications. Still in our jail 47 days after her arrest, Shadrina B. appeared in State Court on January 31, 2025, where her public defender successfully argued that his client’s bond should be reduced. Judge Ryan Hope lowered the bond by $499—to $1--with instructions that she undergo a mental health care evaluation upon release and take whatever medicines were recommended for her. He also ordered that if Ms. B. was able to post the $1 bond, she should return to court February 7 so he could have an update on her progress. On the afternoon of January 31, the Oconee Street UMC Bailout Initiative deposited $10 on Shadrina B.’s jail account so she could post the $1 bond and leave jail with a little pocket change. (It should be noted that putting $10 on a Clarke County prisoner’s account won’t mean that prisoner has $10 to spend; there’s a $3.25 deposit fee! Adding that “fee” to the $1 bond meant Ms. B. left jail with $5.75.). Leaving jail on the afternoon of January 31, Shadrina B. found her way back to the campsite. We gave her a cellphone with a month’s worth of minutes attached. The following Friday morning, February 7, Ms. B. walked to the ACC Courthouse and I met her in Judge Hope’s courtroom. Ms. B. was toting two back-packs, an umbrella, and a handbag. The two of us sat for over three hours waiting for her “case status” hearing to begin. “I’m sorry you had to be in jail over Christmas,” I told her. “Yeah, there was nothing special about Christmas in jail,” she said. “We didn’t even get a good meal.” She smiled and thanked me again for helping her get out of jail. “I had almost $6 when I left the jail, so I guess I celebrated Christmas a week late. I used your money to buy a snack—that was my Christmas present—a bag of chips, a pack of skittles, and a soda, And I took a shower at Sparrow’s Nest.” Then she added, smiling again, “I would have liked to have a piece of avocado toast—I’m addicted to avocado toast—but the chips and candy were alright.” Since February 7, Ms. B. has had to return to court each successive Friday morning for “status” updates. She’s managed to stay out of trouble, but it seems clear that the prosecutor wants to lock her back up. Ms. B. has not yet complied with Judge Hope’s order pertaining to mental health treatment, and assistant solicitor Austin Ramsey has become increasingly frustrated. Thankfully, Judge Hope has so far been patient and is allowing Ms. B. more time to get connected with a mental health provider. The judge understands—as we all should—that someone like Shadrina B.—and there are many like her in ACC, homeless, without transportation, scarce monetary resources—does not belong in the jailhouse. That’s why he reduced Ms. B.’s preposterous $500 bond to $1, and that’s why the OSUMC Community Bail Initiative posted her bail.Typically, the OSUMC Community Bail Initiative tries to keep an eye out for pretrial prisoners who remain in our jail because they are without any monetary resources. Twenty-two times now we've posted bonds as low as $1. The highest bonds we've posted thus far were when I handed over $670 to the ACC sheriff's office to first spring Antonio C. from pretrial captivity in August 2022, then another $670 this past January to get Louis P. out of jail. Most recently, on October 26, 2024, we posted $670 on behalf of Latif A., who until his bond was reduced to $500 spent 271 days of pretrial confinement in our jail.Since June 2021, we've gotten 143 men and women out of jail or off probation. We’ve also purchased 10 one-way bus tickets for people we’ve bailed out so they can leave Athens and return to family or friends elsewhere. Far more than half of those we’ve bailed out were homeless. Many were essentially living hand-to-mouth, some with mental health diagnoses, others hounded by alcohol and/or drug-related issues. Most had been locked up after allegedly committing misdemeanor nuisance crimes or drug-related felony offenses. As a result of their marginalization in our community, and their poverty, the 143 women and men spent a combined 5,019 days in our jail before their cash bonds were posted or bus tickets purchased. Our federal lawsuit, Barred Business, et al v. Kemp, et al, is ongoing. Steve Williams and I are plaintiffs along with the Atlanta non-profit Barred Business. We filed the lawsuit in June to challenge a portion Georgia’s SB 63, the law aimed to restrict—indeed criminalize—charitable bond efforts in Georgia. SB 63 was signed into law by Gov. Brian Kemp in May and the law took effect on July 1, 2024. Among other things, SB 63 prohibits charitable organizations—including faith communities—from posting bonds for more than three persons per year. Thanks to our lawsuit we were able to obtain a temporary injunction from U.S. District Judge Victoria Calvert, which has allowed the OSUMC Community Bail Initiative, Barred Business and other non-profits to continue to post bonds on behalf of poor folks locked away in jail. Already this year, since January 1, 2025, we’ve posted nine bonds, six over SB63’s three-person limit. Were it not for our lawsuit, posting the fourth bond, which we did on January 16, would have likely resulted in our being charged with a misdemeanor offense! The defendants (Gov. Kemp, Attorney General Chris Carr, ACC Solicitor General Will Fleenor, and Fulton County Solicitor General Keith Gammage) have appealed Judge Calvert’s ruling and the case is now with the U.S. Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals. Written briefs from both sides have been filed. We expect a hearing before a three-judge panel sometime in the next few months. We give thanks for our legal team—lawyers and law students from the Georgia ACLU and Georgetown University’s Institute for Constitutional Advocacy and Protection. ✳ Folks have asked if and how they might contribute money to the OSUMC Community Bailout Initiative. Yes! And here's how: Send a check made out to Oconee Street United Methodist Church, earmarked "Bail Fund." Send your donation to Courtwatch Project/John Cole Vodicka, 92 Brooklyn Road, Athens, GA 30606. Thank you! OUR CARCERAL COUNTY: THE CLARKE COUNTY JAIL ROSTER.On this Thursday evening, 446 women and men are confined in the Clarke County jail, 300 of whom are African American. There are also 26 Hispanic folk behind bars. 55 women are locked away in our jail tonight. One 72-year-old, one 71-year-old and two 70-year-olds are in our jail tonight; three 66-year-olds; two 65-year-olds; one 64-year-old; five 63-year-olds; two 62-year-olds; one 61-year-old; and four 60-year-olds. All told, 78 people 50-years-old-and-older are in confinement tonight. Over the last seven days local law enforcement arrested and booked 124 people into the jail, 77 of whom were people of color. 1,817. This is how many days it's been since Sheriff John Q. Williams has allowed in-person visitation at the Clarke County jail. Sheriff Williams first suspended visitation on March 15, 2020 in response to the COVID outbreak. He's never reinstated it. Making sense. Here are important and relevant books, articles and movies to consider. (New selections in boldface) Non-Fiction Abolition Geography: Essays Toward Liberation, Ruth Wilson Gilmore Are Prisons Obsolete?, Angela Y. Davis All That She Carried: The Journey of Ashley's Sack, a Black Family Keepsake, Tiya Miles And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank, Steve Oney At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America, Philip DrayBegin Again: James Baldwin's America & Its Urgent Lessons for Our Own, Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow's Legal Executioners, Margaret A. Burnham Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent, Isabel Wilkerson Charged: The New Movement to Transform American Prosecution and End Mass Incarceration, Emily Bazelon Chasing Me to My Grave: An Artist's Memoir of the Jim Crow South, Winfred Rembert (as told to Erin I. Kelly) Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs, Johann Hari Courtroom 302: A Year Behind the Scenes in an American Courtroom, Steve Bogira Crazy: A Father's Search Through America's Mental Health Madness, Tony Earley Decarcerating Disability: Deinstitutionalization and Prison Abolition, Liat Ben-Moshe Deep Denial: The Persistence of White Supremacy in U.S. History and Life, David Billings Elegy For Mary Turner: An Illustrated Account of a Lynching, Rachel Marie-Crane Williams Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, Matthew Desmond Fire in a Canebrake: The Last Mass Lynching in America, Laura Wexler Freedom's Dominion: A Saga of White Resistance to Federal Power, Jefferson Cowie Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting WWII At Home And Abroad, Matthew F. Delmont Halfway Home: Race, Punishment, and the Afterlife of Mass Incarceration, Reuben Jonathan Miller Hell Put to Shame: The 1921 Murder Farm Massacre and the Horror of America's Second Slavery, Earl Swift How the Word is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, Clint SmithIda B. Wells, The Light of Truth: Writings of an Anti-Lynching Crusader, edited by Henry Louis Gates, Jr. Insane: America's Treatment of Mental Illness, Alisa Roth Invisible Child: Poverty, Survival, and Hope in an American City, Andrea Elliott I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War against Reconstruction, Kidada E. WilliamsJust Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption, Bryan Stevenson King: A Life, Jonathan Eig Lay This Body Down: The 1921 Murders of Eleven Plantation Slaves, Gregory FreemanLocking Up Our Own: Crime & Punishment in Black America, James Forman, Jr. Madness: Race and Insanity in a Jim Crow Asylum, Antonia Hylton Men We Reaped, Jesmyn Ward Murder at the Broad River Bridge: The Slaying of Lemuel Penn by the Ku Klux Klan, Bill Shipp No One Cares About Crazy People: The Chaos and Heartbreak of Mental Health in America, Ron Powers Not a Crime to Be Poor: The Criminalization of Poverty In America, Peter Edelman One Nation Under Guns: How Gun Culture Distorts Our History and Threatens Our Democracy, Dominic Erdozain On the Courthouse Lawn: Confronting the Legacy of Lynching in the 21st Century, Sherrilyn Ifill Ordinary Injustice: How America Holds Court, Amy Bach Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism, Eve L. EwingPassionate for Justice: Ida B. Wells As Prophet For Our Time, Catherine Meeks & Nibs Stroupe Poverty, by America, Matthew Desmond Prison by Any Other Name: The Harmful Consequences of Popular Reforms, Maya Schenwar & Victoria Law Prison: A Reporter's Undercover Journey into the Business of Punishment, Shane Bauer Punishment Without Crime: How Our Massive Misdemeanor System Traps the Innocent, Alexandra Natapoff Radical Acts of Justice: How Ordinary People Are Dismantling Mass Incarceration, Jocelyn Simonson Reparations Now!, poems by Ashley M. Jones Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature, Farah Jasmine Griffin Red Summer: The Summer of 1919 and the Awakening of Black America, Cameron McWhirter Rough Sleepers: Dr. Jim O'Connell's Urgent Mission to Bring Healing to Homeless People, Tracy KidderSlavery by Another Name: The Re-enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II, Douglas Blackmon Stony the Road: Reconstruction, White Supremacy, and the Rise of Jim Crow, Henry Louis Gates, Jr. The Blood of Emmett Till, Timothy B. Tyson The Burning: The Tulsa Race Massacre of 1921, Tim Madigan The Color of Law: A Forgotten History of How Our Government Segregated America, Richard Rothstein The Cross and the Lynching Tree, James Cone The Fire This Time; A New Generation Speaks About Race, Jesmyn WardThe New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, Michelle AlexanderThe People's Plaza: Sixty-two Days of Nonviolent Resistance, Justin Jones The Rage of Innocence: How America Criminalizes Black Youth, Kristin Henning The Rise and Fall of the Second American Republic: Reconstruction, 1860-1920, Manisha Sinha The Trayvon Generation, Elizabeth AlexanderThe United States Governed by Six Hundred Thousand Despots: A True Story of Slavery, John Swanson Jacobs The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Great Migration, Isabel Wilkerson To Keep the Waters Troubled: The Life of Ida B. Wells, Linda McMurryTrouble in Mind: Black Southerners in the Age of Jim Crow, Leon Litwack Under the Skin: The Hidden Toll of Racism on Health in America, Linda VillarosaStrangers to Ourselves: Unsettled Minds and the Stories that Make Us, Rachel Aviv Usual Cruelty: Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Justice System, Alex Karakatsanis We Carry Their Bones: The Search for Justice at the Dozier School for Boys, Erin Kimmerle We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance, Kellie Carter Jackson When Innocence Is Not Enough: Hidden Evidence and the Failed Promise of the Brady Rule, Thomas L. Dybdahl Without Sanctuary: Lynching Photography in America, James Allen Fiction A Lesson Before Dying, Ernest GainesBilly, Albert French Harlem Shuffle, Colson Whitehead Hell of a Book, Jason MottIf Beale Street Could Talk, James Baldwin Out of the Rain, J. Malcolm Garcia Sing, Unburied, Sing, Jesmyn Ward The Last White Man, Mohsin Hamid The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois, Honoree Fannone Jeffers The Nickel Boys, Colson Whitehead The Reformatory, Tananarive Due Film Exterminate All the Brutes (Documentary film on the impact of European colonial policies in Africa and the Americas, Raoul Peck, Director, HBO, 2021)I Am Not Your Negro (James Baldwin documentary film, Raoul Peck, Director, Netflix, 2018)Life (Documentary film, Garrett Bradley, Producer & Director, Amazon Prime Video, 2020) 13th: From Slave to Criminal With One Amendment (Documentary film, Ava DuVernay, Director, Netflix, 2016) The 1619 Project (Documentary series, Nikole Hannah-Jones, streaming on Hulu, 2023) True Justice: Bryan Stevenson's Fight for Equality (Equal Justice Initiative documentary film, www.eji.org) The Fiction of Percival EverettOur friend Al Lawler at Jubilee Partners suggested that Bearing Witness make mention of novelist Percival Everett’s astounding work. For years, Everett has been riding under the radar for many of us, Al and myself included. Then, fairly recently, we both read Everett’s 2021 novel, Trees, an astounding and provocative page-turner that takes direct aim at racism and police violence and offering a devastating critique of white supremacy while confronting the painful legacy of lynching in the U.S. Last year, Everett’s 2001 book Erasure—which skewers the conventions of racial and political correctness—was made into the Academy Awards-nominated film, “American Fiction.” And now, just last month, Percival Everett’s 2024 novel, James, which tells the story of Jim instead of Huckleberry Finn, won the National Book Award for fiction. In addition to these three brilliant novels, Al Lawler also recommends Dr. No, I Am Not Sidney Poitier and Telephone. Check out Percival Everett’s entire canon. He’s written many, many more! "If one refuses abdication, one begins again..." James Baldwin Our work too, is not done. We must, as Baldwin insists, begin…again.Chaining and binding prisoners is not right! It is, indeed, cruel and unusual punishment.“A presumptively innocent defendant has the right to be treated with respect and dignity in a public courtroom, not like a bear on a chain.” —U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, 2018Please, please understand that all prisoners in the Clarke County jail appear in our courtrooms with their hands and ankles cuffed and a belly chain holding their arms close to their waist. The majority of these prisoners are African American. Almost all are pretrial defendants, that is, presumed innocent of the offense they have been charged with.Click on this link and look at this photograph of four shackled prisoners on a Georgia chain gang, circa 1914, and ask yourself, “How far have we really and truly evolved over the last 111 years?” Https://www.loc.gov/resource/det/4a10700/ Contact the following individuals to urge them to change the AC Sheriff’s Department policy and UNSHACKLE ALL Athens-Clarke County pretrial prisoners when they appear in our courtrooms! Sheriff John Q. Williams: sheriff@accgov.com. Chief Judge Lisa Lott: lisa.lott@accgov.com. District Attorney Kalki Yalamanchili: kalki.yalamanchili@accgov.com. Solicitor Will Fleenor: william.fleenor@accgov.com Stop the shackling!!Our work is not done. We all must continue to confront and educate our public officials on the issues that are destroying those who live on the margins in our community: the homeless poor, families facing eviction, people caught up in a dehumanizing and racially unjust criminal legal system, and our children who are dumped into the school-to-prison nexus.On February 25, Steve Williams and I had the pleasure of speaking to students participating in UGA’s “Criminal Justice Society.” Our discussion focused on courtwatching in Athens-Clarke County and its importance for anyone pursuing a degree in criminal “justice.” Thanks to CJS chair Nymisha Vitta for arranging the meeting!A very special thanks goes out to Kitty Donnan, Jean Dixen, Teresa Smith, Anusha Tembe, Alyssa Graham, Trisha Kumar, Kendra Kline, Isabella Picciano, Matthew Adkins, Rev. Haley Lerner, Audrey Markham, Ladontric Walton, and Steve Williams for their courtwatching these past few weeks. And as always, thanks to each of you for your work in, for, and with our community. “We who believe in freedom will not rest until it comes.”Be well,JohnJohn Cole VodickaBearing Witness…Athens Area Courtwatch Project612-718-9307