Dear Gautam,

I have observed that you have a tendency to write and shoot from the hip and then backtrack very quickly and apologise for your assumptions and claims. Its quite disturbing that you have publicly slated someone who is currently on trial (not a very compassionate or wise move; defamation of someone's character before a trial)..and then publicly apologise to him and his family and then offer support-flip flop if you will.

I have read your articles over a period of a couple of years.and its worrying that your journalism tends to be sensationalist rather than balanced or intelligent at times.

As I said in my previous comments on the first piece you wrote..'innocent until proven guilty'. Were you fully aware of the connotation of what you wrote?

Please accept this as a personal comment on an open blog forum.

Best

Kamini

and sorry for mispelling your name!

Hey Kamini!

I think our lesson here is about judgment some of which Gotham's previous blog post contained.

Gotham,

I see you picked up on the clever retort to flip flopping that one had articulated here many times for those so accused. It is a truth.

We are all evolving and may we assist all of our self in the evolution. It might help to communicate to Anand Jon that this situation is part of his evolution. If he can evolve then the impetus goes away.

Aloha Gotham

I am grateful that you are continuing to support your friend at this difficult time. As your dad has shared time is the movement of thought that separates. It is like the woven bamboo puzzle: you place your fingers in the ends of the tube and when trying to remove them one at a time, the bamboo tightens, it is only when you relax both fingers that they come out. It is all allowed. Time works when we remember we are in God's Time.

May your friend and all involved experience God's Speed by being Present. love patty

Dear Anand, It sounds as if you have access to email, If not, I know these words will find there way to you.
Know that your loved and thought of, and prayed for. You are in there for a reason, to learn, and grow. This is the most valuable time in your life, as you are being taught lesson that are priceless.
One piece of IMPORTANT advice that will help you the most, " Pray for those that accusing you" think about them all a lot with compassion, they are in prison as well my dear, compassion and love IS the only thing that will free US.

Love
TC

So true Tammy. It is the ability to love and forgive and be able to do a little sacrifice for other is what defines humanity, no matter how many million years humanity were to progress.

So true Tammy. It is the ability to love and forgive and be able to do a little sacrifice for other is what defines humanity, no matter how many million years humanity were to progress.

At the same time we also need to have truth amongst us for our common good and also the need to safeguard it, for us to rely up on, in the face of human fallibility.

"Seemingly" other because there is no other, just another, one being, a character in the infinite play.

In infinite play the movie there is this designer label that transforms the world. It blends with reality so it exists as a real designer label that the audience has bought. A mysterious designer this one is. There is this revelation and suddenly there is this massive domino effect self realization and a reminder every time one looks at the label.

you never know....

When we do what is right, there is always power behind that force. This blog of Gotham's lifted my heart, as part 1 broke my heart.

Love, Char

Hi Gotham,

Thanks for your reply. I think my point was that we live in times of titillation and sensationalism..everyone these days likes good gossip to read..which sometimes can be very dangerously misconstrued as such, when voicing one's personal opinion publicly in a sensitive context-with a negative impact on the very issue you are trying to raise.

I love your faith in politicians! I work in the political field..and believe you me, most politicians are stunted in their intellectual evolution once elected..very few evolve and learn and utilise data or operate on informed knowledge!! Too often they tend to ignore data or knowledge if it doesn't fit with their political agenda or it means losing precious votes. Anyway, that's a digression.

In Mr. Jon's case; Inshallah...the truth is out there!!

Hey Richard-how are you doing? Longtime :-)Kxx

Are we talking about the AJ who used to blog here?

Gotham,

Thanks for the update. Once thoughts and feelings (energy) are emitted into the cosmos everything changes. It's a quantum soup, right?...as one's thoughts and feelings bounce around and rearrange in the whole field.

We see ourselves differently as a result of response from others as well as from our own reflection. Sometimes words and feelings are off beat and adjustments are made. This is that evol process -- fluid rather than stagnant/lethargic.

Trish~~

Gotham,

As you have done, I believe that some of our political leaders continually reflect and evolve their ideas as new knowledge becomes available. I believe that some people in positions of power are on the path to enlightenment.

Peace
Sharon

Thank you, Trish. I love this idea. It rings true. If we can be open to the feedback we get from others as well as ourselves, rather than holding tight to our positions, we can evolve. Think fluidity. Very nice.

Peace
Sharon

or be fluid

Some discussion on delay of the Anand Jon's trial here:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/7/23/101059/464/716/555601

"I think we should wait for the trial.

The rights of the women, his potential victims, deserve to be respected too. There just doesn't seem to be alot of public info to go on." -iRobert

*

"Agreed.

Wait for the trial, DON'T pre-judge, and don't make him OR his alleged victims wait much longer for justice. That's the most criminal part of our "criminal justice" system - that the wheels of justice now grind so slowly that there can be no justice for anyone." -TheOtherMaven

*

"In part though.

In it may be his defenders holding things up. I am not going to say the guy did it. But I don't buy, necessarily, it is all the state holding up the trial." -iRobert

***

"He has been in pretrial detention for over a year. Usually prosecutors want to get the trials started ASAP because they are constitutionally bound to do so, so the delay is probably due to Jon's lawyers in their efforts to gain his release and/or exonerate him.

Given the number of women who have come forward, I'm not surprised the court is unwilling to let him back on the street.

He says they're all models who are upset he didn't make them famous, and I might even buy it if it was one or two, but there appears to be about a couple dozen women who are complaining he committed some form of sexual assault with them and no women are coming forward to defend him. At minimum that is an indication of how much of an ass he is even if all the sex was as he said, consentual.

He doesn't deny having sex with the 15 year old, he just says she lied about her age and that may be true, however unless he can prove it through his hiring records, he's going to have a hard time with that defense." -Cali Techie

Man Died of Neglect, Inmates Say

Khem Singh in Fresno

http://articles.latimes.com/2004/mar/15/local/me-corcoran15

From the comment's section in the above daily kos diary (Ref. #18), indianobserver notes:

"Elderly Sikh died of starvation in Fresno prison. This man sentenced to 27 years for child molestation in a California prison, starved to death apparently because he was vegetarian and the prison kept trying to feed him meat."

"Now that is injustice.
They let him die because he was unable to follow their procedures." -Cali Techie

"Yes, this case is extremely depressing to read about. There was a cultural disconnect which is 'criminalised' within the justice system. It shows the need for proper community support groups to be involved during the prosecution itself and then later when Indians are sent to prison." -indianobserver

"Indians or any other non-western culture...
That's part of the problem with the US. We (meaning the collective we) have no desire to understand any other culture other than our own. That's one of the primary reasons why we screwed up in Korea and Viet Nam, and why we've screwed up in the Middle East." -Cali Techie

Check this out:

'JUDICIAL MURDER'

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,567593,00.html

Despite Doubts, Alabama Man Faces Execution

"..there is plenty of potentially exculpatory DNA evidence. Yet the governor of Alabama, the Republican Bob Riley, is refusing to permit tests on it and is insisting that the execution be carried out on the stated date -- even though the wrong man may die.

Stone is not the only one who is dreading what she describes as a "judicial murder." Amnesty International, too, has voiced "concerns" over Arthur's execution and called the verdict -- which rests almost solely on the testimony of a questionable witness -- "highly problematic."

Even the United Nations has weighed in. In late June, Philip Alston, the UN Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, criticized Alabama's governor. "Government officials seem strikingly indifferent to the risk of executing innocent people and have a range of standard responses, most of which are characterized by a refusal to engage with the facts," Alston wrote in a scathing report. "It is entirely possible that Alabama has already executed innocent people, but officials would rather deny than confront flaws in the criminal justice system."

[...]

Sherrie Stone has no pleasant memories of her father back then. "I was 15 when he was arrested for the first time," she says. "Alcohol was always a big problem." Arthur was violent, the family ended up on the streets, Stone's stepmother ran off. Stone heard of Wicker's killing while she was staying with her grandmother. "I always thought he was guilty, too. We didn't speak for 15 years."

Only later Stone began studying the case files. "When I looked I was in shock," she says. "There was no evidence against him."

Instead, plenty of evidence had been ignored.

[...]

The Rethuglians obstructing justice!

From the Spiegel artcile(#20):

Will The Truth Come Out Before We're Executed?

"Ever since, Stone has been fighting for her father. The real estate broker has started a Web site, has written petitions, has even filmed a video and put it on YouTube. Last year, she spent so much time on the case that she had to file for bankruptcy. Her husband, she says, "really doesn't know how to react to it. All he does is support me."

Arthur, too, tried to challenge the verdict. Because Alabama doesn't automatically provide public defenders, he was on his own. He worked from his cell, without access to even a law library. When the deadline for his last appeal came, he missed it.

Which is even more alarming as DNA evidence has become such a central focus in reviewing verdicts, thanks to ever improving technology. Yet seven US states still don't require DNA testing, Alabama among them.

So far, 16 US death row inmates have been exonerated by DNA evidence, according to the Innocence Project, a New York organization "to assist prisoners who could be proven innocent through DNA testing." A total of 3,014 inmates -- not all of them convicted murderers -- have written letters to the Innocence Project asking for help. Currently, the group has 279 active cases. One of them is Thomas Arthur.

"We don't have a position on whether he is guilty or innocent," said staff lawyer Jason Kreag to SPIEGEL ONLINE. "We simply think that he deserves the opportunity to have the DNA evidence tested."

The Innocence Project sent a letter to governor Riley, signed by six men wrongfully sentenced to die, who were later exonerated by DNA. "Each of us", they wrote, "sat on death row, wondering whether the truth would come out before we were executed."

Yet Riley refuses all appeals. So does his Attorney General Troy King, who is also a high-profile member of Republican John McCain's Alabama Campaign Team. "It is the appropriate time," he said in his last petition to set an execution date, "for this Court to enter an order to execute Arthur's duly-adjudicated sentence."

Twice that date was postponed at the last minute. The last time was in December, when the US Supreme Court debated the constitutionality of lethal injection. In April, when the Supreme Court ruled it constitutional, Arthur's execution date was set for July 31."

::::::::::::::::::::::::

"Poisonous Cocktail to Paralyze Muscles and Stop Heart

If the state prevails, Arthur's last moments will look something like this. He will be strapped to a gurney. He will be given 100 cc's of sodium pentothal, a barbiturate, followed by the rest of the poisonous cocktail -- pancuronium bromide, to induce paralysis, and potassium chloride, to stop the heart.

"I just talked to him yesterday," says Stone. "He's pissed off that they are going to kill him for something he didn't do. But he's not giving up the fight."

In case he does lose the fight, his family will have another chore to do. There are paternity issues to resolve, because it's unclear if Sherrie Stone's sister is really Arthur's daughter. "We'll take care of that," says Stone cooly, "if the execution happens." How? By DNA testing."

Too sad! We will know his fate a week from now.

Hi Gotham,
Well done on your part. You are very Human, very Real.

Hi John
Love how you mention this other case.

The Judicial system decides who shall live and who shall die - based on how they have conducted their lives - and what means would be employed to assist the body's passing on to the other world.

Yet when it comes to releasing a soul from the torture and pain of living on in a body that has long given up on them (I am talking of mercy killing) that very system is unwilling to "allow" anyone to end a life...........but I guess that is a whole different blog.

Tori Roy

Hi Gotham
this was in lamag.com
In a telephone interview with Waxman, he has said he is “100 percent innocent.” His letter has been edited for length and clarity.

I have not seen the sky in months – six, maybe seven. Kind of easy to lose track of time and yet be unbearably aware of its existence. I am awakened at around 5:30 a.m. usually and on court days (once or twice a month so far) about 4:30 a.m. and then remain in shackles while being “sergeant-escorted” to a tiny moving metal vertical coffin in a van and transported underground to the downtown court.

The time in front of the judge is the only time I am not in shackles and handcuffed. The wait in the holding tanks, usually 3 feet by 7 feet high, is among those disorienting experiences that are carved into your sensory memory, some days as long as 18 hours, surrounded in filth of both indefinable and unidentifiable sources.

Welcome to the strangest episode of my blessed life as I near one year in L.A. County jail.

There is a possibility I may not survive this ordeal. I realized this most blatantly while in a holding tank at court, the only place where you actually “interact” with another inmate with only steel bars separating you. “I’m glad we got to chat, Don Juan, ’cause based on what that detective said about you on TV, I was going to cut you,” grinned the inmate. Any doubts I had about him joking evaporated as he pulled out a homemade “shank” (jail term for “mini-knife”), which he had somehow snuck past two strip searches while being handcuffed.

The threats against me escalated over the first five months, and it got so bad that my food was being kicked around and there were all-night howling sessions and hurling sessions of substances with such aggression that it is better not discussed. One deputy demanded why I eat kosher and how it meant to him that a rabbi spit into the food as a blessing. When I was arrested, the detective’s severe racial and anti-Semitic comments echoed – the prejudice, the bigotry gave me a taste of what my ancestors endured.

Before I was moved to total solitary confinement, I was on a “high profile” row and was constantly made fun of due to my total ignorance of “crime as a culture.” A local drug pusher to the clubs who, being familiar with my case, commented, “I can see why they hate you…It’s your image and attitude. You come off as the perfect party guy, and these chicks, even if they don’t get to make it big, at least expect guys to pay for them to get high, party, and get laid, and that’s what they expect. And what do they actually get? A workaholic into passion and meditation who avoids substances and wakes up at 6:30 in the morning.”

Yoga, meditation, and the love of my family and God have sustained me as I grapple with blankets that have blood stains dried in tie-dyed patterns and battle nocturnal visits from entities that include, but are not limited to, rodents and insects (that I have not even seen in the jungles of India!). How much of it is my imagination? I’m not really sure. But the whole thing feels like a Stephen King novel turned into a movie directed by M. Night Shyamalan.

A fair trial is a wonderful concept but more of a satire in my case, based on how this has been manipulated and has been anything but fair. No one besides the parties involved (traditionally “two”) knows IF intimacy/sex even happened or much less if it was consensual or not. Wouldn’t one call 911? Get a rape kit or at least STD testing? Would anyone continue to follow, travel, live with someone who allegedly assaulted them?

How can one defend himself without access to his last eight years of life, witnesses, records, paperwork? And how is one supposed to possibly fund all of this without being able to work? The few hours that one can get a private investigator at $125/hr inside to meet, how effective can that be? All the while both hands of mine chained down to the table so I can’t even flip a page or write notes!

More ironic is the fact that none other than the very chaperone who was there to protect me, today she and her daughter are among the leaders of the pack.

A “fair trial” seems more like a “fairy tale” when ALL the exculpatory evidence has been kept hidden from the grand jury by the prosecution. When you find out about witnesses being coaxed by the detectives. Conveniently the texts and all traces of favorable evidence have “disappeared” from the cell phones and computers seized.

I realize that this is the test. While some get a trial of fire, some inherit an inferno, and all one can choose is how we face these adversities. Either we do so in despair or in dignity. A hundred lies cannot change the truth.

I do know that there is a purpose to all of this and it is beyond my own exoneration. God clearly had bigger plans for me than just influencing the hemlines, and though I can and will win this ordeal, I may not survive it, and this makes me concerned about the pain my loved ones will go through.

It is a fascinating concept that I think more about them than myself. My pencil (I only get two per week) is running out of lead, so I also learn patience. Maybe that’s what it’s all about – taming the ego and revealing love.

Love and Light,
Anand Jon

Ref. 20, 21

Anand Jon lucky he isn't holed up in Alabama or... Mississippi:

Bishop put to death: Apology precedes execution

Kathleen Baydala
July 24, 2008

PARCHMAN — Before he died Wednesday evening, death row inmate Dale Leo Bishop apologized to his victim's family, thanked America and urged people to vote for Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama.

"For those who oppose the death penalty and want to see it end, our best bet is to vote for Barack Obama because his supporters have been working behind the scenes to end this practice," Bishop said.

Bishop, 34, was pronounced dead by lethal injection at 6:14 p.m....

[...]

Bishop did not deliver the fatal blows. He became only the eighth person put to death who did not directly kill his victim among the more than 1,100 executed since the U.S. Supreme Court reinstated the death penalty in 1976 - not including contract killings.

Described as talkative in his final hours, Bishop visited with family, including his parents, and finished his last meal - three pieces of pineapple supreme pizza, cherries-and-cream-flavored ice cream and root beer. He declined a final shower and sedative.

Bishop's final words were: "God bless America. It has been great living here. That's all."

[...]

Bishop called Gentry's beating death on Dec. 10, 1998, a "senseless and needless act." Earlier in the day, Bishop described the fatal beating as "a fight that had gone too far," state Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said.

About an hour before Bishop was executed, the nation's high court denied his last appeal. Gov. Haley Barbour had denied clemency earlier Wednesday.

[...]

Bishop, who was mentally ill, asked a judge for the death penalty after he was convicted.

[...]

The other man convicted of Gentry's murder, Jessie Johnson, who was tried separately, is serving a life sentence.

Protesters have used the disparity in the two sentences to illustrate the injustice they say is inherent in the death penalty. Under Mississippi law, an accessory before the fact can be convicted of the same crime someone else commits.

[...]

Though Bishop eight years ago had asked a judge for the death penalty, officials said he had changed his mind.

"He wants to live, at least that's what he indicated to us," Epps said a few hours before the execution. "He said when he asked to be sentenced to death he was at a low point in his life. He was getting separated, and his wife was taking their three kids."

[...]

http://www.clarionledger.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080724/NEWS/807240387/1001

Gotham,
Thanks for writing this.
I can see that a lot of us overtly busy people don’t seem to have the time to read the posts properly and simply react to what jumps out at us, and some of the comments reflect that.

Firstly, my understanding is that a blog is a “personal” space for someone to share their thoughts/experiences, and not a format for investigative journalism. So I don’t understand why a personal opinion about Anand Jon(he is some one you know-he is NOT a friend-you didn’t pursue the friendship because he is not your type) in Blog 1 was perceived as a condemnation and perception of guilt, and Blog 2 where you simply said-okay so I got a dignified email from Jon and he is going through a rough time and I apologized to his family for an insensitive comment-now be perceived that you and Anand Jon are best buddies, and you now think he is all that and more.

No matter what your personal opinion of Jon, the main point in Blog 1 and 2 was the same-that you strongly condemn a community that is apathetic and that Jon deserves a fair trial. It doesn’t make him your enemy in Blog 1 and friend in Blog 2.

I have realized in this darned rat race people never read things properly since everyone is on the run..but let me say this- I wouldn’t change you for the world. It takes a man of courage, with a strong sense of fair play to stand up and apologize on a public forum read by thousands for an insensitive remark, and not kill blog number 2 and let sleeping dogs lie.

I hope the truth whatever it is comes out in this case and that Jon gets the speedy and fair trial he deserves. My good wishes are with the family because they are the ones who pay a heavy price when a loved one is in trouble-guilty or not and they don't deserve that.

But again for me this blog has opened the most key question-how far are we as a society willing to compromise to become rich and famous.

The repercussions of sexual molestation of a young child -male or female can have long lasting and traumatic repercussions-I have counseled many such victims and it is the saddest thing in the world.

dear gotham,
i have read both of your articles and sadly i have some alarming news.
anand jon does know how to drive.
he drove a motorbike when he was 17.
then he drove a mazda when he lived in ft. lauderdale florida.
i don't know whether he is guilty or innocent.
but i do know that something is not legally justifiable when a mature man who is going to be 35 years old on november 28, is always accompanied by underage women.
best regards and do keep us posted regarding anand jon's trial.
thanks

Its quite sad that you would indulge in talking about someone who is sitting in Jail and here you are trying to make a point that - YES you did go out with Anand Jon but never approved of him. He is the sinner and you the saint.
I am afraid, it doesnt look like that anymore. please refrain from talking about people who have no way of defending themselves. And if you are woried about him not getting a trial, please dont call out on the asian communite - Do it yourself..