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https://WeCanBeHeroesFoundation.org
THIS IS CONSOLIDATED MAILING FROM MULTIPLE INDIVIDUALS.
August 22, 2023
The Honorable Gary C. Peters Chairman, Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs
The Honorable Rand Paul, Ranking Member, Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs
340 Dirksen Senate Office Building Washington, DC, 20510
The Honorable Richard Blumenthal, Chairman, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
The Honorable Margaret Wood Hassan, Chairwoman, Emerging Threats, and Spending Oversight Subcommittee
The Honorable Krysten Sinema, Chairwoman, Government Operations and Border Management Subcommittee
Distribution List of Honorable Committee and Subcommittee Members
Dear Senate 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 their 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’s 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 exist 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: (The many names are not listed on this website but are on file.)
cc: Honorable Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, 322 Hart Senate Office Building, Washington, DC 20510
Enclosure: Executive Summary Excerpt, The Problem
Excerpt from Executive Summary
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 in Alphabetical Order
Honorable Thomas Carper, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Government Operations and Board Management Subcommittee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Honorable Josh Hawley, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Honorable Ron Johnson, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Government Operations and Board Management Subcommittee
Honorable James Lankford, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight Subcommittee, Government Operations and Board Management Subcommittee
Honorable Roger Marshall, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations
Honorable Jon Ossoff, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Emerging Threats, and Spending Oversight Subcommittee
Honorable Alex Padilla, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Government Operations and Board Management Subcommittee
Honorable Mitt Romney, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Emerging Threats, and Spending Oversight Subcommittee, Government Operations and Board Management Subcommittee
Honorable Jacky Rosen, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Emerging Threats and Spending Oversight Subcommittee
Honorable Rick Scott, Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee, Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Emerging Threats, and Spending Oversight Subcommittee