On June 1, a week past her 31st birthday, civil rights activist Catrina Wallace was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. This was first arrest for Wallace, a single mother who became politically active when her brother was arrested in the case that later became known as the “Jena Six.” Wallace was part of a small group of family members and friends who built a movement that eventually brought 50,000 people to a September 2007 march in the small northern Louisiana town of Jena. The mass movement eventually led to freedom for the six young men, who have since gone on to college.
On March 31, a 12-person jury with one Black member convicted Wallace of three counts of distribution of a controlled substance. At her June 1 sentencing, Wallace received 5 years for each count, to be served consecutively. Even in Louisiana, the incarceration capital of the US, fifteen years for a first offense is somewhat exceptional, as is the stacking of consecutive sentences. “I’ve never seen a judge run anything consecutive, certainly not for drugs or a first offender,” says Miles Swanson, an attorney in private practice who used to work
"There is something fundamentally anti-democratic about relinquishing control of the public education policy agenda to private foundations run by society's wealthiest people. When the wealthiest of these foundations are joined in common purpose, they represent an unusually powerful force that is beyond the reach of democratic institutions. ..The foundations demand that public schools and teachers be held accountable for performance, but they themselves are accountable to no one. If their plans fail, no sanctions are levied against them. They are bastions of unaccountability." — Diane Ravitch (The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice are Undermining Education)
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So what exactly were the suspected crimes that required the Department of Education to send a dozen or so armed men to execute a search warrant at 6 a.m. on the house of a man who was handcuffed for several hours in front of his three bawling pre-teen kids even though the target of the raid was allegedly his estranged wife who no longer lived there? Now we have a partial search warrant to tell us: Financial Aid Fraud, Conspiracy, Theft of Government Funds, False Statement to Government Agency, Wire Fraud. While some of those charges are classic prosecutorial multipliers, it seems likely given this listof DoE Inspector General activities that the underlying charge will be more elaborate than mere trying to weasel out of loan payments.
Then again, take a good long look at that list of DoE prosecutions, and ask yourself, "Which of these crimes would require a dozen armed men barging down the door of a house where three young kids live?" Here's how one of Kenneth Wright's neighbors described the scene in Stockton:
"They surrounded the house; it was like a task force or S.W.A.T team," across the street
