SPM Responds (Part 8.a)

Yo Fam,

            There were two questions that won this month’s poll:

1.)    What would it take to get your appeal into the Supreme Court?

2.)    What kind of new evidence would be most helpful?

Answer to first question: Well, my appeals lawyer was supposed to bring up mistakes that were made in my trial that violated my rights. These mistakes would have had to be significant enough, (in the eyes of the appeals court), to make a difference in whether the jury believed I was innocent or guilty. In other words, if my lawyer found a mistake but the appeals court said, “Well, this mistake would not have made a difference; the jury would have still found Carlos Coy guilty,” then they dismiss that error. My appeals lawyer told me that he was just going to use the biggest errors he found because the court of appeals don’t like reading something that looks like a book. But that’s the problem, they did so much bullshit, day after day, that it surmounted into a mountain of wrong doing. In the end, that mountain was enough to block the truth out of sight.

      Another thing was how the judge made it more than clear that he wanted the jury to find me guilty. A jury will follow a judge’s lead, assuming that he knows more about the case than they do. That’s why it’s so important that judges keep their oaths to conduct fair trials. Even when my lawyer, Chip, would make an objection, the judge would overrule it with such disdain that Chip felt it was better to object as least as possible. Imagine objections hurting someone’s case when they’re meant to uphold the law. The fact about the judge’s overrulings being so unfavorable that they discouraged Chip from objecting, came out during a hearing that my appeals lawyers did. I’ll get that hearing mailed to me so you can see what I mean.

      The judge and D.A.’s in my case made crooked and underhanded look like the norm, and I’ll expose a little of that in this letter. But, obviously, nothing was significant enough, out of the eight, or so, mistakes that my appeals lawyer brought up, to win my appeal. It’s like I was killed by thousands of ant bites.

      But you guys remember the letter my appeals lawyer wrote. He said something about the Supreme Court not reviewing my appeal because of the lower courts decision not to write an opinion. I’m not sure what that means, but now it’s all about finding new evidence. Why? Because my appeals lawyers weren’t able to get what they needed the first time around. Once we can get new evidence, then we can start the appeals process over. It will work it’s way through three or four lower courts before it gets to the Supreme Court.

      Answer to second question: Probably several things. If any of the witnesses come forward and say “I wasn’t truthful about this or that,” then that would help. Still, the appeals court has to ask the question: If this person had told the truth, would it have made a difference in the outcome of the trial?

      In my case, that method really isn’t fair because one mistake may not have made a difference, and it seems that the appeals court only weighs one error at a time. A jury can be persuaded by several unruly tactics, that all come together to paint a convincing picture.

      In my eyes, the judge did more to persuade the jury’s decision than even the D.A.’s. But you’ll see that they were a team in the Get-SPM-Convicted game.

      For example, Incandesio wrote (on the same letter that had the two questions) that a New Jersey Court had rules that if the defendant could provide ‘some proof’ that a child witness’s testimony had been screwed with by the adults in charge, then they were entitled to a taint hearing to review the interviews.

      Incandesio spoke about a “Michaels Case” where the kids in that case “were not intentionally lying; a story was cultivated in their minds, fleshed-out by ‘helpful’ adults, and by the time they got to court they truly believed they had experienced it.”

      An example of that very thing happened in my trial. But it was all done outside the presence of the jury, so the jury never saw how easily this child’s testimony could be controlled. That’s likely why the judge didn’t allow any TV cameras in the courtroom. He knew he’d be doing and allowing all he could to help the D.A.’s convict me, and that don’t look good on camera.

      Before I get to this example, this plot, I want to explain something as quickly as I can: I had a child with an underaged girl, as most of you know. I met this girl back in 1993. I was twenty-two. She lied about her age, she spent a few nights at my house like it wasn’t shit, and no one in her household seemed to lift an eyebrow. Then she got pregnant.

      First of all, I’m attracted to a grown woman’s body and a grown woman’s mind, just like any other sane man. I don’t fuck with people’s kids. If I had known this girl was underage, I would not have had sex with her. Plus, I would have had to be fucking nuts to be planting my seed in a girl who I knew was a minor. But not knowing is no excuse in the state of Texas and I always knew this would catch up to me one day.

      So, we had a beautiful little boy and I’ll never regret the gift of my son. I brought up this ordeal because nine years after getting this girl pregnant, my wife’s so-called friend called my family’s home. This woman said that I touched her daughter and was threatening to call the police. She said something to the tune of, “I’m calling the cops, and I’m also going to tell them about the boy that Carlos had with that underaged girl.”

      My family called me. I was at a club at the time. I said, “If she calls again, tell that snake to call the police. If her daughter said I touched her, then something is going on in that child’s life that needs to be checked out. And don’t worry, just tell her what I said. Nobody’s going to blackmail me over my son.”

      It was done, and the cops were called, and she told them about the underaged girl. I faced two charges: My baby’s mom, and the little girl’s accusation. In the following months, the D.A.’s found more girls to say they were under eighteen when they had sex with me. You’ll see how those cases came about and what methods were used to accomplish those charges. They were fraud and paper thin and all they really had was my baby’s mom. There was no denying that my boy was mine. But the D.A.’s decided to gamble and try the little girl’s case first. Anyway, if they lost, they could always fall back on the real case. But when the D.A.’s try a case, it costs the state a lot of money, so they do all they can to win. Me being this anti-system gangster, ex-dope dealer gone rapper, drug user and, most concerning to them, blowing up nation-wide, only made their chance at destroying me more appealing.

So, with all that said, I’ll begin explaining the incident that Incandesio’s letter, about the Michaels case, encouraged.

Continued in Part 8.b

How can we be sure?

I got some great questions from a commenter, and I want to go through them one by one and answer each, but first I want to point something out; most of these questions can be boiled down into one: How can I be sure Carlos Coy is innocent before I give him my support?

My answer to that is, and always will have to be, you can’t.

No one will ever be able to prove, with 100% scientifically verifiable positivity, that he did not commit this crime.

At the beginning of the blog I hoped that there was some kind of ignored or hidden physical evidence that could answer the question definitively, but according to the DA’s office and Coy himself, there is none. Nothing that could prove him innocent, and nothing that could prove him guilty.

At some point, you’re going to have to make a judgment call; You’re going to have to weigh what you know about Carlos Coy the man against what you know about the Harris County justice system. It’s pretty obvious what conclusion I came to, but your decision rests with you and no one else.
I believe Coy is innocent, but I don’t argue his innocence. I argue the justice of his trial. The points I make could be made just as well by someone who believed that he was guilty, but who still wanted to see justice in the justice system. I believe that Harris County screwed up big time, in thousands of cases, over many years. Whatever you think about Carlos Coy, I don’t believe any reasonable person can say that I’m wrong.

Hey, Incandesio. I just got a few questions I hope get cleared up, first off I am a huge SPM fan and advicate for his innocense, but I still have some doubts concerning the case. First, is it possible that the court is holding back evidence and or important details about the case that the public is not aware of? It seems like all you show in this blog are documents expressing his innocence, but there has to be some that make him look guilty.

We know from the response of Baldwin Chin that, according to the DA’s office, “In Mr. Coy’s case, there is no physical evidence (like a sexual assault kit) upon which forensic analysis can presently be conducted that would establish Mr. Coy’s innocence.”

But of course there must have been details that made him seems guilty. I’m guessing they were

1) His presence in court (If he’s here, he must be guilty)

2) Testimony (From the girl, the mother, the grandmother, the social worker, the psychiatrist, the police, etc)

That’s why I highlight cases involving the CAC nurse who conducted hundreds of unacceptable interviews on children to make cases for the DA. I point out Officer Ruiz’s “relentless” nature, and cases in which police departments and prosecutors all over the state have lied, hidden evidence, and fought tooth and nail to convict innocent men; they illegally conceal evidence that would provide proof of innocence, they ignore witnesses that don’t support their case, and they encourage children and adults to lie to get convictions.

And when the judge said that theres one thing hes learned about sex offenders, its that their all liers, i really believe that statement is true. Sexual offenders will cover up what they have done not just sexually but in life with lies[…]

In my experience, you can’t divide people up into classes and say “THESE people always lie.” For instance, there’s a national organization dedicated to the legalization of fucking little boys. They have a website, they have membership cards. They don’t lie, they come right out and tell you what they want.

The lying baby-raper and the innocent man are going to say the same thing: I didn’t do it. If you want to believe he’s guilty because he says he’s innocent, go ahead. It’s a moronic argument, but there’s no law against willful stupidity.

 if you are basing your arguments with Carlos's word, i dont think its very strong. Hes already in prison, if he lies its not like his prosecutor will come and prove wrong his lies wrong on this blog, they could care less they already won.

If you read the blog, you’ll find that very few of my arguments are based on anything said by Carlos Coy. I use newspaper articles, court documents, and whatever else is relatively verifiable. I'd never come into contact with Coy until several months after I began writing about him. I started because the situation seemed wrong, obviously wrong, and neither Coy nor anyone connected with him made me see that.

The case the prosecutors made is the wall that keeps Coy imprisoned. If they did a good job then it will answer any argument I could make because they will have removed all reasonable doubt of his guilt. Unfortunately, we're not allowed to examine the case to see how it holds up. The government chooses to hide what the wall is built from.

The only thing Carlos has now is his friends, family, and fans, and the only way to keep all them is by lying about what he did.

This not a question; this is two assumptions (He’s guilty, and he’s lying) and a supposition (He’s lying to keep his fans), and can't be answered.

Also i want to know how strong the little girls testimony was, i think that the testimony is the biggest part of the case and i do believe that alone even without evidence can make someone guilty.

Testimony doesn’t ‘make someone guilty’…Committing the act makes them guilty. The way our justice system is set up, jurors are only supposed to convict if they have proof ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’…Meaning proof so compelling, so convincing, that they would use it to act on the most important of their own affairs.

If a nine year old girl told you “Bob scratched your car”, would you go kick Bob’s ass based on that?

What if there was actually no scratch anywhere on your car?

What if a policewoman who disliked Bob and was known to her peers as “The Relentless Tigress” locked herself into a room with this little girl for a few hours, unrecorded, before the accusation was made?

What if you find out that the expert witness, who swore that she had no reason to believe that Bob didn’t scratch your car(a testament to the girl's truthfulness & reliability) didn’t know the girl was taking medications for neurological problems, including possible hallucinations?

I could go on with the comparisons, but you see my point. Was the jury presented with evidence ‘beyond a reasonable doubt’ that Carlos Coy committed this crime? Going off what’s available to me, I’d say no.

The difference between this scenario and the case, of course, is that when we think someone has hurt a child, our first instinct is to gut them like a fish. It’s almost impossible for someone, especially a parent, to make an emotionless decision when the well-being of a child is involved. A car doesn’t inspire people to that level of reactionary behavior. Well, most people. I love my car passionately.

I mean cmon shes a lil kid, no normal lil kid wud be able to tell of these sexual acts without it actually happening,

Assuming she didn’t see it on TV, it could have been anyone in her life, a relative, a friend of the family, a caregiver...I’m not saying it’s impossible she was abused, but the evidence currently available to me does not support the state’s case that Carlos Coy was her abuser.

I think if they are coached there testimony wudnt be that real and convincing.

You may think that if you like. If you read the blog, you’ll find examples of children who gave false testimony (the Tony Hall case comes to mind) that was enough to get a conviction, and later proved false. Children have convinced juries that they have been raped with knives, even though there was no physical evidence that it had occurred. If you’re young, you probably don’t remember the day-care sex abuse hysterias that swept the nation in the 80’s and 90’s. Here’s a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Day-care_sex-abuse_hysteria
 Innocent people have been imprisoned on what seems to be absolutely ridiculous claims.

"When you once believed something that now strikes you as absurd, even unhinged, it can be almost impossible to summon that feeling of credulity again. Maybe that is why it is easier for most of us to forget, rather than to try and explain, the Satanic-abuse scare that gripped this country in the early 80s — the myth that Devil-worshipers had set up shop in our day-care centers, where their clever adepts were raping and sodomizing children, practicing ritual sacrifice, shedding their clothes, drinking blood and eating feces, all unnoticed by parents, neighbors and the authorities."

Do you have any quotes from court from the little girls testimony?

As it happens, I do. I just received the last of a 30-page answer from SPM dealing with the girl’s testimony and how it was shaped by prosecutors. It’ll be up in June.

Again I am a big SPM fan and I want to believe he is innocent, i did not write to argue about the case I really do want you to help me erase these doubts I have.

There is nothing wrong with talking about this case, asking questions, even arguing. How can we get sunlight on the roaches if we don't lift up the carpet?

I can present you with the facts I’ve found, and show you the connections I’ve made, but I can’t take away your doubts. At some point, you’re going to have to look at what you know about Carlos Coy, what you’ve learned about the justice system, and decide what you think.

Billy Frederick Allen

"Kristopher Moore, one of Allen's attorneys, said the ruling should send a message to Combs that the state's top financial officer is not qualified to interpret criminal law."

Billy Frederick Allen spent 26 years in prison for two murders. The police testified in court that before one of the victims died, he said the name of his killer was “Billy Allen”. However, after the trial(why do they always investigate this shit after it’s too late?), it was discovered that one of the paramedics remembered him saying “Billy WAYNE Allen, who was another person of interest in the case. The other paramedic remembered that he said three names, but couldn’t remember the middle one.

But hey, two out of three is good enough for government work. So Allen goes to prison until 2009, when the CCA admits that, yeah, if he probably would not have been convicted if all the evidence had been included in his defense. They didn’t say he was innocent, but that his trial was bad. The prosecutor decided not to re-try the case, and Allen asked the state for compensation for the years he spent in prison because of this bad conviction.

“WHAT THE FUCK?” Says the state Comptroller’s office. “We let your ass out of prison because your lawyers sucked, NOT BECAUSE YOU’RE INNOCENT. We're not giving you shit!”

^(I’m dramatizing a bit here)

This does not seem that complicated; your trial gets overturned, and everything gets reset to the way it was before; you are presumed innocent. If the prosecution decides that they can’t win another case against you, you remain innocent, retroactive to when the first trial began. The state kept an innocent man in prison for 26 years in this case, and it seems like there should be some responsibility taken for it.

If the Comptroller is so worried about giving money to men who might be guilty, maybe they should get with the DA’s office and suggest that, if a solid case can’t be built, don’t take it to court. If you wouldn’t convict your grandmother with this evidence, then don’t convict someone else’s son with it.

Surprisingly, the Texas Supreme Court agreed that the Comptroller should not be the arbiter of which of Texas’ citizens are guilty or not, and told her to pay the man for his time.

I believe this another sign of the changing attitudes toward the criminal justice system; even if you have no DNA evidence, even if the state won't give you a piece of paper admitting it, you can be convicted, and still innocent. It gives me hope because Carlos Coy's case is going to have to be overturned on the trial. Since no hard evidence was used to convict him, it can't exonerate him. We must rely on TDCJ to show a little common sense which, until recently, seemed impossible.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/05/18/texas-high-court-orders-state-to-pay-ex-inmate-2m/

http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-texas-court-inmate-20120518,0,5439511.story

Dear Family (Part 5)

Dear Family,

What it did?!! That’s my new greeting. I wonder if someone already thought of that? I know someone already thought of “What it do?” but I don’t think anyone has came up with “What it did?” Someone please get that greeting copyrighted for me under code 21.03, category “Ridiculous Ghetto Greetings.” Please spell my name correctly as the founder and creator of “What it did?” Also protect “What it diddle?”, “What it doo doo?” and “What it decided?” My question is: What is the “it” in all this?

We all want to know what “it” do, or did, or does, but the “it” is the mystery. Is the “it” a hamster, or somebody’s goldfish? We should be more clear and say something like, “What the hamster did?” That way the person can either answer, “Well, I don’t have a hamster” or “How the fuck did you know I had a hamster?” Then you can say, “No man! That’s just a greeting. Just say, ‘He be chillin in the cheese’.” Life would be much easier that way.

Alrighty, then. I can tell this will be one of my more intellectual letters. Actually, this is a letter that includes a letter I wrote to a young man out of Utah. His letter will be first and then my response. I did this same thing with a young lady named Cari except I didn’t include her letter. I also forgot to include a Cold Forty after responding to Cari. Therefore I shall write you a Cold Forty and put it at the end of my letter, which is really a response to Luis’s letter, which both letters are a part of your letter as I honor my bi-weekly letter that Incandesio volunteered to transcribe so we letter, I mean let her. Uh, remind me not to write you guys this late again.

Luis’s Letter To Me

Dear Carlos,                                                                                                    2/18/2012

How you been man?

My name is Luis I’m 13 and I’m from Utah. I know that’s a long ways to Texas but anyways I’m writing this letter to let you know I’m your biggest fan you’ll ever have. I know you hear that everyday man but I think I’m like you in a way. I grew up with no father, I got held back in the 6th grade. I got kicked out of school and I just got out of Juvenile Detention Center about 2 weeks ago. Anyways man I just think it’s fucked up that they gave you 45 years for some shit you didn’t do.
I got Free S.P.M. posters all over my room I even got some shirts too. Anyways man I hope you get this letter man. If you have time to write me back hit me up. I hope I get a letter from you.
Sincerely Luis,
P.S. If you write me back a
letter sign your name on another
piece of paper.
Hope to hear from you soon.

My Response

Luis,

Thank you for your letter. Your love and support mean the world to me.
I wish I could answer all the people that write me, everytime they write me, but it’s just not possible.
But one thing I try to do is at least write someone who write me for the first time. So pay attention to this letter because I might not be able to write you another.

The reason you’re always in trouble is because you were raised in a lot of pain. It’s no one’s fault, so you can’t blame anyone. You don’t know what kind of pain your father was raised in, so you don’t know why he wasn’t equipped with the love to be a better father. We can’t judge anyone in this world because when people are fucked up, mean, shitty, cold, sorry, there’s always a reason why. Usually it’s because something fucked up, mean, shitty, cold or sorry was a part of their upbringing. You seem like a smart boy, and you’re the same age as my son, so I’m writing you as if you were my own.

What happens when people get raised in pain, and pain has many faces, is that they somehow become addicted to that pain. They don’t really feel like they’re addicted, but the addiction is so deep that it’s hard to see. But that person will always be in trouble because trouble is what their addiction needs. They’re addicted to the risk, the danger, the drama of being bad. People raised in storms, grow up chasing storms. I heard one person say “The burnt child loves the fire.” They expect bad things from people, from life, and whatever you expect to happen, you’ll create for yourself. But your expectation levels were set when you were just a baby.

The first five years of your life is the time when your expectation levels and definition of normal is set. Expecting bad things causes you to look out for bad things. When you’re looking for a certain thing, you’ll miss the other things, like the good things in life. You’ll miss all the blessings you have because you’re too busy looking out for the bad shit.

If you had been raised in peace and happiness and serenity and people that spoke in kind tones and handled their problems with patience and love, then your expectation levels would be totally different. You’d expect people to be kind, patient, peaceful, and when people weren’t those things, you would think, “Man, something is wrong with this person. Let me stay away from them.” And you continue living and expecting good things until you find more and more of what you were raised in.

Sadly, many times the opposite happens. You run into someone very kind, very patient, very peaceful and you think, “There’s something weird about this dude. He’s definitely not my kind of people.” What we were raised with is what we were made with, and it’s almost impossible to change. It takes so much hard work to overcome a negative first five years of life. Because you’re not fighting what you learned, you’re fighting your very instincts.

So how can we hate people when it’s not their fault what they were made with? What I’m telling you, little brother, is it’s not your fault that you’re fucking up. It’s no one’s fault. The people who raised you did the best they could with the abilities they had. But here’s the deal: Now, you’re fucking up and headed towards a sad outcome. All these people in prison went through all the shit you’re going through right now. Juvenile, Fucking up in school, talking back to adults, being disrespectful to their mom, causing pain to themselves and those who love them, all that shit. You’re just like many other people that screw their lives up, and either fall in a cage or a casket, or work some sorry ass job and live a sorry ass life. I’m not being mean, Luis, I’m just telling you where you’re going. It doesn’t take a fortune teller to see which kids are throwing their lives way. The biggest problem is that these kids don’t give a fuck. Not only young people, but adults, too.

When I was young, I was the same way and I carried that attitude into adulthood. My mom would tell me, “Son, you’re messing up your life.” And I would say, “I don’t give a damn.” I didn’t care about having a fucked up life because I was addicted to things being fucked up, so it was no big deal. But it is a big deal, and only you can save yourself, homie. You have to someway, somehow find the love for yourself to start caring for yourself. I know that you really don’t give a fuck, but I’m telling you that you’re worth caring about.

You’re a beautiful person, and you can do beautiful things in this life. You can educate your mind and make it powerful. You can live in a beautiful home, with a beautiful wife, and raise awesome kids. A beautiful home doesn’t mean it has to be big and brick and swimming pools and marble staircases. A beautiful home is one that is decorated with the most priceless décor, the décor of peace and warmth and love and happiness. But only you can give yourself the best, no one can do it for you. You can either ruin your life, or save it.

You’re right, me and you were a lot alike, and even when I made money with my music, I was still very poor, because I continued to live in pain. I continued to hurt my wife, my mom, and I was never around for my kids. But check this out: When you love someone, you don’t like to see them get hurt. So, guess why you keep hurting those who love you; it’s because when you hurt them it gives you the pain you seek. You’re really doing it to inflict pain on yourself! I didn’t want happiness, I wanted pain because the addiction was still there. Money doesn’t help. So even though I drove around in fancy cars, and lived in a fancy house, I was still poor. Because people that are rich means that they have truckloads of happiness. Don’t ever think a lot of money makes you rich. It doesn’t.

What makes you rich is being kind, and patient, and peaceful, and forgiving and all the powerful things that will build a beautiful world for you. But a lot of people are more comfortable when shit’s all screwed up. They aren’t interested in happiness. People just aren’t comfortable around strangers, and for many people, peace and happiness are strangers. But you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do to create happiness. Then you’ve got to get used to it. Learn to love and appreciate it. It might feel boring at first. It might not be as fulfilling as running from the cops and breaking your mom’s heart, but just make yourself get used to happiness.

You deserve the best, little homie, and the best is peace and warmth and love. I hope you’re smart enough to understand what I’m telling you. Then, I hope you’re strong enough to do it. It’s easy to be a fool. It’s easy to end up in a casket or a cage. It’s easy to do wrong, but the strongest, bravest people on this planet grow the nuts to take care of themselves, and those who love them. And when it’s time, they can also help other people who need it. Any dumbass can hurt people, and be mean to people, but the strong uplift people. You’ve got the strength to do it, but you’ve got to start fighting for yourself. The big thing right now is school. School will build you into an awesome person, especially once you get to college. But first things first, and if you’ve got homework today, that’s a good place to start.

With All My Love,
Carlos


Family!
What the hamster did! (You know, that could really take off.)
Alright, that’s that. As always, I hope that these truths will help you in your own journey, or helping someone in theirs. I encourage your comments and/or questions on this. Now, we shall pop the top of an ice cold 40 and be refreshed, or possibly offended.
Con Todo Mi Amor,
Losy

Another Cold Forty

"Where Lions Play With Lambs"

Syrup in a tall cup, thick yella dolled up

When I bust millis like Daffy they will all duck

All I do is call bluffs, how you gon scare a ghost

swimmin with the polar bears, ice up in my varicose

everybody share a toast, "To the streets that married Los!,

Swangin on two pair of vogues, showin naked ass while wearin clothes!"

here I come, there I go, you see me but I'm outa sight

ya'll remember when I sold dope on Sylvia's mountain bike

niggaz know I clown da mike, found the weed then found the light

"Hold up! That was dead wrong!" I don't know, it sounded right

Rambo taught me how to fight, Janey taught me how to fly

Jesus taught me how to live and Grandpa taught me how to die

with his grandkids all around, then he took his last breath

stepped into the afterlife, where lions play with lamb let's

gravitate on memories, before my tan Dickies sagged

before I bought that quarter ounce and started on my wicked path

never meant to hurt or kill, never knew his perfect will

torn between this life and death, feels like righteous versus real

Bible is my hope'n'light, wonder why they wrote it like

today would be our last, well, I guess ya never know, it might

gangsta ways, blowin jays, got more balls dan-da-Oakland A's

Teacher told my mom, "He's the highest kid with the lowest grades.

Mrs. Coy, ya son is slower than the school speed limit

Farts in class, points at me, then he yells, 'She did it!'

Yesterday his breath was like a malt liquor brewery.

Asked'em what he drank, all he said was, 'maybe two or three.'

Sure as I am Capricorn we don't want'em back no more.

Maybe you can get'em hired at some little random store."

Then my mom finally said, "No, he couldn't keep a job.

Once I went out of town, he wouldn't even feed the dog.

Came back a week later, what I saw was soberin;

a full blooded Rottweiler turned into a Doberman!"

They was just talkin bout me like I wasn't even there

so I got so pissed and gave both of them the evil stare

mom took a swing at me, teacher hit me from the back

then I kicked'em both with a double clap jumpin jack

momma hadda swolen eye, teacher hadda bloody nose

still they came rushin I was bobbin, weavin, duckin blows

crowd of students gathered round, most of them was in my class

people that I thought were my friends, yellin, "Kick his ass!!!"

                                                                            (laughing!)

May 18

Ten years ago today, Carlos Coy was convicted of aggravated sexual assault of a child.

Tell someone what you know.

Ineffective assistance

Ernie Lopez’ conviction was overturned because “his original legal team had provided him with ineffective assistance during his trial by "failing to call medical experts" to dispute the prosecution's theory”

I can only find evidence of two witnesses called in SPM’s defense. One is a John Hernandez, who seems to have been a friend of Jane Doe’s family. The other is mentioned briefly on page 36 of the Habeas Corpus:

“…the prosecutor overreached in questioning a defense expert…”

Carlos Coy has not mentioned either of these witnesses that I know of; my best guess is that the ‘defense expert’ mentioned is probably Jane Doe’s neurologist, who testified about her medication and the illness he was treating. Who else was there?

Did Chip Lewis ‘adequately investigate’ Jane Doe’s claims, and produce any scientific support for Carlos Coy?

I kind of doubt it; after Coy appealed the ineffective assistance, the court had some kind of competency hearing. During this, Mr. Lewis revealed that part of his strategy was to NOT object during the trial. This is stupid for two reasons that a non-lawyer like myself can think of.

First of all, it lets the prosecution get away with whatever the fuck they want.

Second, if your lawyer doesn’t object to it, you can’t appeal it.

Basically the client gets screwed during the trial, and then again after the trial, coming and going. Looking at some of the newspaper articles and Coy’s habeas, another large part of Lewis’ strategy seems to have been telling anyone who would listen, both in and out of the courtroom, that Jane Doe told only the truth.

I shit you not.

“The court also found that part of the defense’s strategy was to cast O.S. as a“truth teller” who was manipulated by various state actors,”…blah blah blah.

                                          

The prosecution even quoted Mr. Lewis in their closing statement, using his comments that the little girl was “a truthteller.”

Looking at this, I find it hard to believe that Mr. Lewis considered his client innocent, and even less likely that he put forth very much effort into rounding up experts that could have helped prove it. This is my uneducated opinion. Mr. Coy has never suggested to me that he was unhappy with Lewis’s performance; maybe there were scads of scientists all dolled up in lab coats testifying that we just didn’t hear about. Maybe.

If a lack of defense experts was enough to get Ernie Lopez a new trial, why shouldn’t the same be true for Carlos Coy? I don’t think it would take much to convince a reasonable person that his defense didn’t put forth much of an effort.

http://law.justia.com/cases/texas/first-court-of-appeals/2003/79743.html

Letter to Pat Lykos 19

Here is a link to the video story of Ernie Lopez: http://video.pbs.org/video/2028481038

And here is today's letter to Pat Lykos; please, send this one to the address below, write your own, or print & send one of the flyers to your right. Remember that this is an election year, and the District Attorney needs to know what potential voters are thinking about. Let her know you want to see justice for Carlos Coy!

District Attorney Patricia Lykos
1201 Franklin St
Houston, Tx
77002

Ma’am,
I’m writing today about the case of Carlos Coy, #908426
I recently updated myself on the status of Mr. Ernie Lopez. Convicted in Potter County in 2003, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals recently determined that his defense counsel had failed to adequately investigate the death of the baby he was accused of raping & murdering, and ordered him a new trial. For now, Mr. Lopez is back home with his family and friends.

I don’t know the truth of his guilt or innocence, but the fact that the prosecution could not truly prove that the baby was assaulted by anyone seems significant. You know the strictness of the TCCA, and for them to agree that competent medical testimony could have changed the outcome of his first trial is surprising…Harmful error is rare in the Court of Appeals.

Why pursue this case, and send a man to prison for the rest of his life, if there was doubt that a crime had occurred? Was this really justice? How can we be sure of the safety of our children and loved ones when Texas seems determined to pursue cases built on conjecture and a knee-jerk reaction to any tragic event?

Mr. Lopez was sent to prison because of the prosecution’s narrow interpretation of subjective evidence; Mr. Coy was sent to prison without any physical evidence of any kind, and very weak testimony. According to the Houston Chronicle the alleged victim stated three times in court, twice to the prosecutor's face, that she wasn’t even sure she had been assaulted.

Mr. Lopez is home with his family today; please, for the sake of Coy’s family, examine the evidence against him and ask yourself if the prosecutors in his case were fighting for justice, or merely a high-profile conviction.

Thank you for your time.

Me, my address, blah blah blah.

Weekend Reading 34

More Houston press shenanigans, this time revolving around a man named Shawn Roberts, via Defending People: http://blog.bennettandbennett.com/2012/05/on-fictionalist-craig-malisow.html

Ernie Lopez

Potter County

Ernie Lopez was convicted of raping a six month old baby girl to death.

Imagine going to court for that. Imagine standing there while the prosecutors swear up and down that you fucked a tiny little baby, who was probably just big enough to start crawling, until she DIED.

The viciousness, the complete lack of human feeling that would be required to commit a crime like that is appalling; you would hope that Texas wouldn’t go around accusing or convicting it’s citizens of something so disgusting unless it was, you know, true.

Mr. Lopez was convicted in 2003 and sentenced to serve 60 years. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned his conviction last year. They didn’t say “He’s innocent”, they said “Well, your defense attorneys failed to present medical evidence that could have proved the baby was not raped at all.”

In January, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals overturned Lopez's conviction [6], saying that his original legal team had provided him with ineffective assistance during his trial by "failing to call medical experts" to dispute the prosecution's theory that Lopez had attacked the baby.

Waaaaait a second here. The rape of this child was the prosecution’s theory? A theory that even the TCCA admitted was weak enough to be destroyed by competent testimony from a medical expert? And this was enough to send a man to prison for 60 years?

In August 2010, Potter County Judge Dick Alcala recommended that Lopez’s conviction be overturned, stating that Lopez’s original attorneys had failed to “fully investigate the medical issues of whether a sexual assault had occurred” and “the cause of death of the child.”

Shouldn’t that job belong to, I don’t know, the Medical Examiner? Isn’t it his job to tell the DA’s office that there was no actual proof that the baby was murdered? To make sure that they pursue justice, and not just a gruesome and news-worthy conviction? The Potter County DA has ‘signaled’ his intention to re-try Lopez, who’s home with his family for now on bond. I’m wondering how this new trial’s going to go.

“Your honor, this man is a filthy baby-raper!”

“Do you even have any concrete evidence that the baby was assaulted by anyone?”

“Uh…Wolf!”

 http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/criminal-justice/the-child-cases/texas-court-voids-conviction-in-child-death-case/

http://www.propublica.org/article/free-but-not-cleared-ernie-lopez-comes-home

http://freeernielopez.com/

Lala's World

LaLa did a segment on S.O.N., check it out: http://youtu.be/ja-sTB_tvug

Sylvia's Testimony

I found an interesting article from the Houston Press. It was published 5/24/2002. After the guilty verdict was handed down, the punishment phase of the trial began; witnesses were called to help the jury decide whether Coy should receive anything from probation to a life-sentence. The defense called Sylvia Coy, his sister(emphasis mine):

"I know he didn't molest a 9-year-old girl. There has not been any evidence whatsoever," Sylvia Coy, 37, said before being cut off by an objection from prosecutor Lisa Andrews.

[…]

Defense lawyer Chip Lewis asked Sylvia Coy what things about her brother the jurors should consider in deciding whether to give him probation.

"There was no evidence," she began again, prompting state District Judge Mark Kent Ellis to remove the jury.

Now, I’m not a lawyer. I don’t know what the rules in ‘punishment phase’ are. I don’t know the grounds on which Lisa Andrews objected to Sylvia Coy pointing out what had already been thrown around the courtroom for days; if I had to make a guess, I’d say the court wants people to believe that every conviction is righteous, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Allowing jurors to soften punishment because the prosecution made a weak-ass case and the jury really only convicted out of some sense of obligation weakens the court’s image.

Or something.

So maybe pointing out the sniveling soppiness of the state’s case against Coy was against the rules. I don’t fucking know. What caught my attention was how this event relates to another article published five days before, right after the guilty verdict was given:

Jurors, who were sequestered Friday night in a hotel, deliberated about seven hours over two days.[…]

Defense lawyer Chip Lewis said he was curious about how the jury reached a verdict 20 minutes after returning from lunch, after having spent hours in deliberation over two days.

The alternate juror told him the jury had been leaning toward acquittal, Lewis said.

"It certainly makes you raise your eyebrow and wonder what the quick change was," he said

So I’m just thinking here…The prosecutors made a weak case. The jurors are leaning towards acquittal, but suddenly decide to convict.

Then along comes Coy’s sister, pointing out that they made this decision based on no evidence whatsoever. The judge is so pissed-off by her bringing this up that he sends the jury out of the room, and threatens not to allow her to finish testifying on Carlos’s behalf unless she shuts up about the complete failure of the prosecution to produce one solid piece of evidence

Again, I’m not a lawyer. Maybe there’s some super-nuanced legal interpretation of what was going on here that I just don’t understand, but it looks to me like this guy knew he had barely managed to squeeze a conviction out of these people, and he didn’t want to risk letting them think back on how they made their decision.

I suspect he didn’t want them to give Coy a light sentence based on the weakness of the prosecution’s case. He didn’t want them looking back and saying “Hmm, we found this guy guilty based on the testimony of a child who wasn’t sure that it happened, a cop that spews her vitriolic opinions like a fact-generating fire hose, and a therapist that didn’t think her patient’s history was important enough to read...Maybe we were wrong; gee, I’d hate to see an innocent man go to prison, maybe we should give him probation.”

You can’t maintain the integrity of the justice system and the all-important ‘Finality of Conviction’ if you’re willing to question yourself; after all, there aren’t degrees of ‘guilty’. You’re either guilty or you’re not; except on Planet Ruiz, where Coy was not just guilty, but ‘more guilty’ than any other criminal in her universe.

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/2002_3548193/coy-s-sister-tells-jury-brother-s-no-molester.html

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl/2002_3546262/jury-finds-musician-coy-guilty-prison-time-possibl.html

http://www.chron.com/CDA/archives/archive.mpl?id=2002_3550078

Weekend Reading 33

Lansing artist James Dehuelves is putting together a mixtape to raise awareness of SPM's case, and he's looking for contributing artists. This is the kind of project that has the potential to reach all over the world so if you think you can add something, contact him and let him know. Here's a little about him:

What's your experience? How long have you been involved in music?

 I started 8 years ago by buying a mixer. It was a dream that me and my brother had for the longest time, so I built a computer and started with a sound recording progam. the sound was not all that great but we still put a mixtape out; but as the years went on and I started networking, I found out of real progams and diffent kinds of mics and sound proofed a room. From there I dropped Countdown to Iceage.

 About a year after that, I dropped Iceman Presents Iceage, then I just pushed back and worked with some of my artists, known as AK47, to put something of theirs out.  So it's been some years working on the music; still working on getting it right, you know. My most recent mixtape, Ice City, is a mixtape with many artists from around the country. It was more like a promo mixtape, to get my name back out there.

As far as engineering, I'm finishing up my degree up at Lansing Community College; I have one more year but I have gained a lot of smarts up there. My brother has been like my back bone; when no one else has been, he produced many of my mixtapes and also the album art. He also makes his music and helps with the company.

What's the inspiration for this new project, Can't Stop the Hustle?

Since the first time I ever heard an SPM cd, that's when I started looking up to him. He made me feel like no matter what you go through, you can still make it. He made a big difference in my life and made me feel as if  one day, if I put my all into it, I can make it too.
I been following SPM through out my life with his music, and no matter what I can still put on a cd and listen to it, and remember old times when my mom was still alive.

I'm looking forward to seeing this mixtape completed. This is the kind of awareness-raising project that I know a lot of you can get behind, and I hope you'll consider lending your skills.
You can contact him through Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/THAONEICE

Letter to Pat Lykos 18

First of the month, time for another letter to Lykos!
We’ve almost arrived at the tenth anniversary of Coy’s conviction; ten years away from his family. Ten years between him and his wife, his children, his sister, brother, mother and father. Ten years away from his business, from his friends, from life.
Please, take a moment to send a letter to DA Lykos, and ask her to take another look at this case.

District Attorney Pat Lykos
1201 Franklin St
Houston, Tx
77002

Ma’am,

I’m writing to you today about the case of Carlos Coy, #908426.

I saw, via Scott Henson’s blog Grits for Breakfast, that the work of a lab technician at the Houston Regional Laboratory has been called into question. I believe the lab manager contacted you about it, and your office is now in the process of examining this tech’s past work, all the way back to 2006.
I am glad to see that your office continues to take a proactive stance in cases where those entrusted with our rights and freedom fail to protect these precious things. Please, allow me to urge you again to take a look at the case of Carlos Coy.

I believe it is very clear that sometime in the recent past a culture of careless or even malicious prosecution was put into place, and only with the rise of those interested in true justice is it slowly coming to an end. In Dallas, over 200 cases are under review; CBS news has done a fascinating piece on the 40+ men who have banded together for support in the wake of their exonerations.

Ma’am, I am not a lawyer, or someone who has any legal background, but I strongly believe that Coy’s case will eventually be overturned. I hope and pray that you will be the driving force behind it. Your insistence on holding the state accountable for its actions is inspiring, and I have great faith in your unflagging desire for justice.

Please, consider this case; look into it, and give us justice.

Me, my address, blah blah blah.

As always, feel free to copy this letter and send it, write your own, or just print out one of the flyers to your right and send that. We can get this overturned. I believe the judicial culture is changing; please, take a moment and help us bring one more bad trial to light.

http://gritsforbreakfast.blogspot.com/2012/04/drug-analyst-at-dps-crime-lab-issued.html

Questions for SPM

Head over to the Facebook page and pick a question to send to SPM!