House Appropriation Committee Emergency Request to Defend Ourselves

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URGENT.  This is a consolidated mailing from multiple individuals requesting Congress place an emergency pause on government overreach. Emergency action is needed to protect our Constitution’s Sixth Amendment rights of our family and community to defend ourselves against prosecutorial overreach without oversight and transparency. 

August 11, 2023

The Honorable Kay Granger, Chairwoman Appropriations Committee
The Honorable Rosa Delauro, Ranking Member, Appropriations Committee
The Honorable Hal Rogers, Chairman, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
The Honorable Steve Womack, Chairman, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee
The Honorable Dave Joyce, Chairman, Homeland Security Subcommittee
The Honorable Mike Simpson, Chairman, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
The Honorable Robert Aderholt, Chairman,, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee
The Honorable Mark Amodei, Chairman, Legislative Branch Subcommittee
The Honorable John Carter, Chairman Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee
Distribution List of Honorable Committee and Subcommittee Members

Dear Congressional Committee Chairpersons, Ranking Members, and Members:     

Thank you for your service to support and defend the Constitution. 

Background.
1)  America has more U.S. Codes than can be read in a lifetime, yet we are responsible to obey each one. When the government followed the rights guaranteed to citizens by the Sixth Amendment, Americans did not worry about being imprisoned unjustly.  We were pleased to have the options of jury trials or plea-bargaining with prosecutor oversight and transparency.  A fair plea-bargaining process gave Americans the option to settle charges speedily and get on with law-abiding lives.  However, this changed when the Department of Justice (DOJ) issued unfair and non-compliant procedures and Congress funded unconstitutional government work.  Details of the problem, cause, and solution are shown in the Executive Summary referenced below. The overcriminalization of Americans personally affects everyone. 

2) We Can Be Heroes Foundation honors heroes and provides educational forums on America’s founding values and the Constitution.  Extensive research by various U. S experts on the Sixth Amendment abuses led many volunteers to request you and each Committee Member place an Emergency Legislative Pause on government unconstitutional prosecutorial overreach. 

The Legislative Pause should allow you time to enact fair and reasonable Sixth Amendment Constitution-compliant measures through your bureaucracy without causing future harm to the Americans you serve.

The Chairpersons and Committee Members are respectfully requested by the undersigned to: Please take emergency action to protect the Constitution Sixth Amendment rights of my family and community to defend ourselves against prosecutorial overreach without oversight and transparency.  This is a respectful demand for the protection of my family as well as yours that you place an Emergency Legislative Pause on 1) prosecutor unfairly engaging in plea-bargaining without oversight, transparency, and right to appeal; and 2) the power to sentence to transfer from judges to prosecutors.  This abusive government overreach created the over-criminalization of Americans as shown in the below-referenced reports, and is widely known as “The Trial Penalty”. 

The power to sentence must be restored to judges.  The unilateral DOJ Sentencing Commission Mandatory Minimum Sentence Guidelines should not dictate mandatory sentences.  An unbiased judge should be permitted to consider a person’s history, culpability, and responsibilities to sentence as justice dictates.  It appears DOJ Sentencing Commission Mandatory Sentencing Guidelines are designed to imprison our population with ever-increasing mandatory imprisonment time. These “Guidelines” with prosecutor sentencing authority have not reduced crime in my community.   

Please review the enclosed Executive Summary on The Problem, and the online reports referenced below for your necessary due diligence to restore our Sixth Amendment rights to defend ourselves.  This request is simple.  My family, as well as others, are simply requesting you and each Committee member place an emergency pause on the above two horrific government overreach powers affecting the freedom of all Americans and violating the letter and the spirit of our Constitution.

All plea-bargaining lacking proof and admissible or legally obtained evidence in grand jury and other criminal cases must be stopped and de-funded immediately.  This abusive government prosecutorial misconduct makes a mockery of our liberty and the Constitutional intent of grand juries. Please note the Executive Summary referenced below suggests you re-think and redefine the necessity, use, and validity of abusive grand jury indictments lacking prosecutors’ oversight, admissible evidence, and withheld evidence.

To be clear, we fully support prosecutorial plea-bargaining power when transparency and oversight outside the prosecutor’s agency chain of command exists and when an unbiased judge has the authority to waive the DOJ Sentencing Commission Mandatory Minimums. Plea-bargaining compliant with the spirit of the Sixth Amendment serves our community in the speedy resolution of cases.

We are sharing this urgent request to sound the alarm for the Chairpersons and Committee Members, your constituency, and Americans across the country.  Please reply with your plan of action.  We trust you will stop funding unconstitutional work of prosecutors and the DOJ.  May God grant you the speed and courage to act responsibly with haste to save lives and freedom. 

References:
The We Can Be Heroes Foundation Constitution Reports:
https://wecanbeheroesfoundation.org/executive-summary-your-probable-imprisonment-reaches-alarming-rate;
https://wecanbeheroesfoundation.org/your-probable-imprisonment-reaches-alarming-rate/ and
The prestigious National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers complete report for download at https://www.nacdl.org/Document/TrialPenaltySixthAmendmentRighttoTrialNearExtinct

Very respectfully,

Beth Heath
and the parties named below choosing to consolidate their request to you with this one mailing to alleviate the burden on your office to handle each request individually:  ON FILE

cc:  Honorable Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy, 2468 Rayburn House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515 

Enclosure:  Executive Summary Excerpt, The Problem

Executive Summary – The Problem
https://wecanbeheroesfoundation.org/executive-summary-your-probable-imprisonment-reaches-alarming-rate

• You have a 1 in 3 probability of getting a criminal record.
• America has the largest prison and jail population in the world.
• America has 20% of the world’s prison population, yet only 5% of the world’s population.
• America, “the former land of free,” significantly leads all Communists, Islamic, Dictatorships, and other countries in incarcerating its people.
• The United States incarcerates its people five times that of NATO countries as shown below:

• Holding hands, Americans with arrest records could circle the earth three times.
• More Americans have a criminal record than a college degree.
• Rights to defend yourself enumerated by the Constitution’s Sixth Amendment near extinction.
• Prosecutors are the most powerful officials in the American criminal justice system.
• In 97% of cases, citizens lost their Sixth Amendments rights.
• 65% of the 181,000 veterans incarcerated in prisons and jails saw combat.
  
• 55% of incarcerated combat veterans struggle with post-traumatic stress or traumatic brain injury.
• Government left the majority of incarcerated Americans in prison during COVID-19 and violated government demands for social distancing, quarantines, and increased healthcare. 
• 6 out of 10 Americans in State Prisons are brown or black.
• 6 out of 10 Americans in Federal Prisons are white.
• FBI reported arrests for 2020 are 32% aged 26 to 35, 73% male, 27% female, 68% white, 27% black, 5% other or unknown races.
• Numerous scholars have examined plea bargaining and estimate up to 27% of Americans who plead guilty may actually be innocent.
• Nearly half of black males and almost 40 percent of white males are arrested by age 23.
• African Americans convicted of murder are 50% more likely to be innocent than other convicted murderers.
• Over 5 million Americans were forbidden from voting in 2020 due to a felony conviction.
• Most crimes reported to the police go unsolved.

The Florida Problem. (Other States to follow.)

• The State’s Department of Corrections is largest agency in the state and the third largest state corrections system in the United States. 
• Florida’s 2021 incarceration rate is higher than national average, with 367 per 100,000 compared to the national average of 300 per 100,000.
• Black-to-white imprisonment ratio is higher than national average, with ratio: 4.1
• Duval County population is 4.5% of the State, whereas Duval’s inmate population is nearly double with 8% of the State Prison population.
• Florida is shown with lowest number of 2021 crimes committed in the U.S., but studies show the State reported only 0.3 percent of their crime data to the FBI.
• Failure to understate crime data could create mistrust in Florida reports.                                                                               

Distribution List Alphabetical Order
Honorable Representative Robert Aderholt, Appropriations Committee, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Pete Aguilar, Appropriations Committee

Honorable Representative Mark Amodei, Appropriations Committee, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Stephanie Bice, Appropriations Committee, Legislative Branch Subcommittee, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Sanford Bishop Jr., Appropriations Committee, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Ken Calvert, Appropriations Committee

Honorable Representative Jerry Carl, Appropriations Committee, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee

Honorable Representative John Carter, Appropriations Committee, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Matt Cartwright, Appropriations Committee, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Ed Case, Appropriations Committee, Homeland Security Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Juan Ciscomani, Appropriations Committee, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, Labor, Health & Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Ben Cline, Appropriations Committee, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Michael Cloud, Appropriations Committee, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, Homeland Security Subcommittee, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Andrew Clyde, Appropriations Committee, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee, Legislative Branch Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Tom Cole, Appropriations Committee

Honorable Representative Bonnie Watson Coleman, Appropriation Committee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable Henry Cuellar, Appropriations Committee, Homeland Security Subcommittee, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Rosa DeLauro, Appropriations Committee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Mario Diaz-Balart, Appropriations Committee

Honorable Representative Jake Ellzey, Appropriations Committee, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Adriano Espaillat, Appropriations Committee, Legislative Branch Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Chuck Fleischmann, Appropriations Committee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Lois Frankel, Appropriations Committee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Scott Franklin, Appropriations Committee, Legislative Branch Subcommittee, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Mike Garcia, Appropriations Committee, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Tony Gonzales, Appropriations Committee, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Michael Guest, Appropriations Committee, Homeland Security Subcommittee, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Josh Harder, Appropriations Committee, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Andy Harris, Appropriations Committee, Homeland Security Subcommittee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Ashley Hinson, Appropriations Committee, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, Homeland Security Subcommittee

Honorable Steny Hoyer, Appropriations Committee, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable David Joyce, Appropriations Committee, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee

Honorable Marcy Kaptur, Appropriations Committee

The Honorable Derek Kilmer, Appropriations Committee, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Jake LaTurner, Appropriations Committee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee, Legislative Branch Subcommittee

Honorable Barbara Lee, Appropriations Committee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable Susie Lee, Appropriations Committee, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Julia Letlow, Appropriations Committee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable Betty McCollum, Appropriations Committee, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Grace Meng, Appropriations Committee, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable John Moolenaar, Appropriations Committee, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable Joseph Morelle, Appropriations Committee, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Dan Newhouse, Appropriations Committee, Homeland Security Subcommittee

Honorable Chellie Pingree, Appropriations Committee, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Mark Pocan, Appropriations Committee, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable Mike Quigley, Appropriations Committee, Legislative Branch Subcommittee

Honorable Guy Reschenthaler, Appropriations Committee, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Hal Rogers, Appropriations Committee

Honorable Dutch Ruppersberger, Appropriations Committee, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable John Rutherford, Appropriations Committee, Homeland Security Subcommittee, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Appropriations Committee, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Michael Simpson, Appropriations Committee, Labor, Health and Human Services, Education Subcommittee

Honorable Chris Stewart, Appropriations Committee, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Norma Torres, Appropriations Committee, Financial Services and General Government Subcommittee

Honorable David Trone, Appropriations Committee, Commerce, Justice, Science, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, Homeland Security Subcommittee

Honorable Lauren Underwood, Appropriations Committee, Homeland Security Subcommittee

Honorable Representative David G. Valadao, Appropriations Committee, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee

Honorable Jennifer Wexton, Appropriations Committee, Legislative Branch Subcommittee

Honorable Representative Steve Womack, Appropriations Committee

Honorable Ryan Zinke, Appropriations Committee, Interior, Environment, and Related Agencies Subcommittee, Military Construction, Veterans Affairs, and Related Agencies Subcommittee