Terrain Dandridge, one of the New Jersey 4, released after 2 years of incarceration; first day free will be spent meeting with Angela Davis and the Queer Community in San Francisco
Appeal Update for the case of the New Jersey 4
Terrain Dandridge’s appeal has been successful and she should be released from Albion Correctional Facility as early as this Monday, June 23, 2008! Terrain Dandridge’s case was overturned, all her charges were dropped and her record has been cleared.. Renata Hill is awaiting a new trial of the events concerning the night of August 18, 2006, where her and seven other young black lesbians from Newark, New Jersey faced a homophobic assault in New York’s East Village.
The lawyers, who agreed that there was no strategy for involving grassroots support in the appeals process, have called this, “a miracle”. Terrain’s lawyer has acknowledged that to be granted a new trial is rare; to have charged dropped is unprecedented. The Bay Area Solidarity Committee realizes that regardless of whether we were factored in by lawyers as part of the appeals process, this unprecedented turn of events had little to do with divisive legal strategy, an unjust system’s benevolence or retributive justice. Terrain’s freedom is directly related to an international campaign of radical queers of color and their allies.
While we celebrate this victory, we mourn the divisive legal strategy, which has attempted to pit these friends and lovers against one another and further complicate those whose appeals are yet to be heard. Despite our great news, we must ensure that no one is left– not Venice, not Renata, not Patreese– to endure the horror of the prison industrial complex.
As a result of sexist, homophobic, and racist stereotypes held by law enforcement agents and institutions, the women later known as the New Jersey 4 were deemed to be a “lesbian wolfpack gang”, who were organizing to terrorize straight men. Our stories are so often retold with a complete reversal of who is being harmed and who is doing the harming. The impacts of allowing Dwayne Buckle to be popularly depicted in the media and during the court proceedings as the “victim” fails to identify how his desire to dominate women (and their spaces) only leads to the violence that resulted. On a broader social level, such negligent media reporting, police investigation, and courtroom bias only promises to generate more of these same violent experiences which target women and queers. The New Jersey 4, like so many of us, are survivors of a system which incorrectly identifies the root causes of violence and crime, only to create conditions for mass incarceration and displacement of queers, especially those queers, like the 4, who are already vulnerable to criminalization because of their race or class identity.
While, Monday, June 23rd marks Terrain’s long awaited release date from Albion Correctional Facility, where she has been caged for six hundred seventy three days of her life because of a wrongful prsecution and conviction, we must remember Terrain still unjustly spent two years of her young life in prison, which cannot be returned to her. Chenese Loyal, Lania Daniels, and Khamysha Coates still have felony charges that prevent them from getting jobs, registering for housing and other unjust discrimination. Renata is still behind bars awaiting a new trial. Venice, sentenced to 5 years and Patreese, sentenced to 11 years, remain incarcerated, awaiting appeals to be heard in the fall. , The 3 women will continue to navigate the legal system until the day comes when their stories will finally be heard without the racist homophobic sexist bias that denied them a fair trial to begin with.
Terrain Dandridge and her mother, Kimma Walker are due to arrive to the bay area on Tuesday June 24th, 2008 to meet with Angela Davis and the Queer community at the San Francisco Women’s Building. This public event is scheduled for Tuesday, June 24th, 7-9 pm, during PRIDE week in order to unravel the experiences of violence that Queer people of color face and how to prepare ourselves and our communities in the face of police harrassment, criminalization and mass incarceration.
The Bay Area Solidarity Committee is dedicated to promoting self-defense of our bodies to all forms of violence! We especially call on Queer People of Color to come to the fore to exposes the lesser talked about queer experience and it’s relationship to criminalization, policing, harsher sentencing, incarceration and state assault. This PRIDE week, we intend to remind all oppressed communities of the way racism and sexism set up predictably violent outcomes and to understand that this too is part of the Queer struggle.
The local organizing effort, broadly made up of Lesbians, Transgender, Gay, Two-Spirit, and multi-generational Queers, also encourages our peers to name and articulate the elements in the Criminal Justice System that permit homophobic and transphobic violence to be promoted and carried out on the community level. Please join us in this growing resistance movement of trans/queer communities of color!
co sponsors of the event include: Critical Resistance, LAGAI-queer insurrection, QUIT!-Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism, SF Women Against Rape, OLOC, Radical Women, and Gay Shame SF.
Terrain Dandridge Release; Fight for the NJ4 Continues
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2 of the NJ 4 are getting out!
A brief in the Philadelphia Daily News-
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/national/20593929.html
NEW YORK - A New York state appeals court has reversed the gang-assault convictions of two of four New Jersey lesbians convicted of attacking a man who was stabbed after he made advances toward one of them.
The court vacated the conviction of 21-year-old Terrain Dandridge yesterday and dismissed the indictment against her. She was sentenced last year to 3 1/2 years in prison. She's expected to be released within days.
The court also vacated the conviction of 26-year-old Renata Hill and sent it back for a new trial. Hill was sentenced to eight years. Her lawyer says she's "delighted" by the ruling.
The appeals of the other two women are pending.
The four were convicted of assaulting 30-year-old Dwayne Buckle. He called the incident "a hate crime against a straight man."
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/national/20593929.html
NEW YORK - A New York state appeals court has reversed the gang-assault convictions of two of four New Jersey lesbians convicted of attacking a man who was stabbed after he made advances toward one of them.
The court vacated the conviction of 21-year-old Terrain Dandridge yesterday and dismissed the indictment against her. She was sentenced last year to 3 1/2 years in prison. She's expected to be released within days.
The court also vacated the conviction of 26-year-old Renata Hill and sent it back for a new trial. Hill was sentenced to eight years. Her lawyer says she's "delighted" by the ruling.
The appeals of the other two women are pending.
The four were convicted of assaulting 30-year-old Dwayne Buckle. He called the incident "a hate crime against a straight man."
Ask your reps to support GENDA
You are receiving this e-mail because the Gender Expression Non-Discrimination Act (GENDA) is on the Assembly calendar for the first time ever and could be voted on any day now by the full Assembly. The time is NOW to take action and make our final push to get the Assembly to vote to end discrimination against transgender New Yorkers.
We need you to get on the phone and call your Assemblymember to tell them that you want them to vote for GENDA. We’re in the final stretch and it is vital that they hear from you.
You can find your Assemblymember’s Albany phone number here.
GENDA will ensure that all New Yorkers, including transgender people, are protected from discrimination based on gender identity and expression in housing, employment, credit, public accommodations, and other areas of everyday life. Passing GENDA will mean that transgender New Yorkers will no longer have to live in fear that they will lose their jobs, get kicked out of their homes, or be denied service in restaurants.
With 75 co-sponsors and more than 100 Assemblymembers on record as in support of GENDA, we know that we have enough support to get it passed in the Assembly if it comes to a floor vote. So now is the time to call your Assemblymember!
Talking Points:
Find your representative’s phone number here, and then call their office to tell them that the time is now to end discrimination against transgender New Yorkers.
Remember to give them the number of the GENDA bill (A.6584).
Ask them to vote for GENDA, and to ask Speaker Silver and their fellow Assemblymembers bring the bill to the floor for a vote now.
Tell them about the broad support for GENDA statewide, including:
*
78% of New York voters
*
Unions representing 461,000 working New Yorkers
*
26 Fortune 500 companies based in cities like Rochester, Corning, New York City and White Plains.
*
130 clergy and lay leaders, representing 20 different denominations
Working together, we can make this happen! Start making those phone calls now!
We need you to get on the phone and call your Assemblymember to tell them that you want them to vote for GENDA. We’re in the final stretch and it is vital that they hear from you.
You can find your Assemblymember’s Albany phone number here.
GENDA will ensure that all New Yorkers, including transgender people, are protected from discrimination based on gender identity and expression in housing, employment, credit, public accommodations, and other areas of everyday life. Passing GENDA will mean that transgender New Yorkers will no longer have to live in fear that they will lose their jobs, get kicked out of their homes, or be denied service in restaurants.
With 75 co-sponsors and more than 100 Assemblymembers on record as in support of GENDA, we know that we have enough support to get it passed in the Assembly if it comes to a floor vote. So now is the time to call your Assemblymember!
Talking Points:
Find your representative’s phone number here, and then call their office to tell them that the time is now to end discrimination against transgender New Yorkers.
Remember to give them the number of the GENDA bill (A.6584).
Ask them to vote for GENDA, and to ask Speaker Silver and their fellow Assemblymembers bring the bill to the floor for a vote now.
Tell them about the broad support for GENDA statewide, including:
*
78% of New York voters
*
Unions representing 461,000 working New Yorkers
*
26 Fortune 500 companies based in cities like Rochester, Corning, New York City and White Plains.
*
130 clergy and lay leaders, representing 20 different denominations
Working together, we can make this happen! Start making those phone calls now!
Thank Govenor Paterson
As you may have heard, Governor Paterson has instructed all state agencies to revise their policies to respect legal out-of-state marriages of same-sex couples performed in places like Canada, and very soon, California.
This is wonderful news for our families and is another big step forward for marriage equality in New York.
Please take a moment to call the Governor at 518-474-8390 and thank him for issuing this directive to state agencies. When you place your call be sure and provide your name and your zip code.
While this move by the Governor does not legalize marriage for our families here in New York, it does mean same-sex couples with out-of-state licenses will have access to many of the 1,324 rights and responsibilities that New York State provides to two people when they marry.
In taking this step, Governor Paterson is simply following the law, which was recently reaffirmed in an appellate level court decision in Western New York, saying that couples with legal out-of-state marriages are married here in New York.
The reality is that a number of state agencies, cities, counties, labor unions and companies in New York have been doing this for several years now when it comes to gay couples with marriage licenses. The NYS Comptroller began doing this in 2004 as it related to New York’s retirement system, and last year the NYS Civil Service Department did the same and began offering spousal benefits to state and local LGBT employees who have out-of-state licenses. Governor Paterson in his May 14 memo simply instructed all state agencies to do on a uniform basis what an agency like the Department of Civil Service has already been doing for some time now.
While state agencies have until June 30 to report back on actions they have taken to implement the law, it is clear the consequences of this for our families will be significant.
While the Pride Agenda Foundation and the New York City Bar Association have cataloged up to 1,324 rights and responsibilities the state provides to two people when they marry, here’s a quick overview of which of these rights and responsibilities are enforced or administered by New York State’s agencies and how they can affect you.
In general, the rights and responsibilities of marriage that flow through New York State’s agencies fall into five general categories:
*
Benefit programs: Probably the biggest and most important category, eligibility and requirements for most state relief programs are affected by martial status. For some purposes, this means that spouses have access to programs that non-spouses don’t, including the ability to receive workers’ compensation death benefits, inheritance of public housing, receiving lifetime payments from the pension of a deceased state worker, eligibility for line-of-duty death benefits for police and firefighters, the ability to apply for certain college scholarships for police, firefighters, armed service personnel and others who die in the line of duty, etc. In other purposes, the couple’s income must be pooled to determine eligibility or amount of payments for programs, like Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverage (E.P.I.C.).
*
Licensing: (e.g. vending licenses, commercial fishing licenses, food processing licenses, alcoholic beverage licenses, bingo operator licenses, etc.) There are certain abilities of spouses to use each other’s licenses or inherit them, as well as some restrictions on licenses based on a spouse’s past record (e.g. a criminal record).
*
Conflicts of interest: Throughout the law, various types of officials (state and local legislators, state and municipal officers and employees, even a bank’s board of trustees) are required to disclose certain types of employment or financial activities of spouses (e.g. contracts or stock holdings), or are prohibited from serving in certain capacities.
*
Voting: Spouses have certain abilities to obtain absentee ballots for each other in certain circumstances (e.g. illness or disability, accompanying the spouse out of the country, military service, etc.)
*
Taxes: Certain transfers of property between spouses are exempt from state taxation, such as changing the title on a car from one spouse to another, whereas domestic partners incur the same taxes as selling the car to a stranger. It remains to be seen how the state Taxation & Finance Department treats filing status (i.e. whether same-sex spouses will be able to file jointly on state income taxes), since that has traditionally been tied to the federal file status. The federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) prohibits any same-sex married couples (even those in Massachusetts or California) from filing as married on their federal income taxes.
It is important to realize that many of the state rights and responsibilities of marriage are not administered through the state agencies, but through the courts. These include inheritance, child matters (adoption and custody), divorce, testimonial immunity, medical decision making and others. Whether or not the governor can direct the courts to respect marriages of same-sex couples for these purposes is unclear at this time.
While the coming days and weeks will bring much more clarity to today’s exciting development, I wanted to be sure you heard today’s good news.
Ultimately, though, this issue will only be settled when we have a law saying that same-sex couples can marry here in New York State. That means getting the State Senate to do what the Assembly has already done and the Governor has promised to do, and that is to support marriage equality for our families.
By continuing to work with you, we will make that happen!
With hope,
Alan Van Capelle
P.S. Just hours after Governor Paterson’s announcement was made public, Senate Majority Leader Bruno threatened legal action to block the Governor’s directive. Be sure and call Senator Bruno at 518-455-3191 and ask him to stand up for all New York families, including LGBT families. Provide your name and zip code when you make your call.
This is wonderful news for our families and is another big step forward for marriage equality in New York.
Please take a moment to call the Governor at 518-474-8390 and thank him for issuing this directive to state agencies. When you place your call be sure and provide your name and your zip code.
While this move by the Governor does not legalize marriage for our families here in New York, it does mean same-sex couples with out-of-state licenses will have access to many of the 1,324 rights and responsibilities that New York State provides to two people when they marry.
In taking this step, Governor Paterson is simply following the law, which was recently reaffirmed in an appellate level court decision in Western New York, saying that couples with legal out-of-state marriages are married here in New York.
The reality is that a number of state agencies, cities, counties, labor unions and companies in New York have been doing this for several years now when it comes to gay couples with marriage licenses. The NYS Comptroller began doing this in 2004 as it related to New York’s retirement system, and last year the NYS Civil Service Department did the same and began offering spousal benefits to state and local LGBT employees who have out-of-state licenses. Governor Paterson in his May 14 memo simply instructed all state agencies to do on a uniform basis what an agency like the Department of Civil Service has already been doing for some time now.
While state agencies have until June 30 to report back on actions they have taken to implement the law, it is clear the consequences of this for our families will be significant.
While the Pride Agenda Foundation and the New York City Bar Association have cataloged up to 1,324 rights and responsibilities the state provides to two people when they marry, here’s a quick overview of which of these rights and responsibilities are enforced or administered by New York State’s agencies and how they can affect you.
In general, the rights and responsibilities of marriage that flow through New York State’s agencies fall into five general categories:
*
Benefit programs: Probably the biggest and most important category, eligibility and requirements for most state relief programs are affected by martial status. For some purposes, this means that spouses have access to programs that non-spouses don’t, including the ability to receive workers’ compensation death benefits, inheritance of public housing, receiving lifetime payments from the pension of a deceased state worker, eligibility for line-of-duty death benefits for police and firefighters, the ability to apply for certain college scholarships for police, firefighters, armed service personnel and others who die in the line of duty, etc. In other purposes, the couple’s income must be pooled to determine eligibility or amount of payments for programs, like Elderly Pharmaceutical Insurance Coverage (E.P.I.C.).
*
Licensing: (e.g. vending licenses, commercial fishing licenses, food processing licenses, alcoholic beverage licenses, bingo operator licenses, etc.) There are certain abilities of spouses to use each other’s licenses or inherit them, as well as some restrictions on licenses based on a spouse’s past record (e.g. a criminal record).
*
Conflicts of interest: Throughout the law, various types of officials (state and local legislators, state and municipal officers and employees, even a bank’s board of trustees) are required to disclose certain types of employment or financial activities of spouses (e.g. contracts or stock holdings), or are prohibited from serving in certain capacities.
*
Voting: Spouses have certain abilities to obtain absentee ballots for each other in certain circumstances (e.g. illness or disability, accompanying the spouse out of the country, military service, etc.)
*
Taxes: Certain transfers of property between spouses are exempt from state taxation, such as changing the title on a car from one spouse to another, whereas domestic partners incur the same taxes as selling the car to a stranger. It remains to be seen how the state Taxation & Finance Department treats filing status (i.e. whether same-sex spouses will be able to file jointly on state income taxes), since that has traditionally been tied to the federal file status. The federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) prohibits any same-sex married couples (even those in Massachusetts or California) from filing as married on their federal income taxes.
It is important to realize that many of the state rights and responsibilities of marriage are not administered through the state agencies, but through the courts. These include inheritance, child matters (adoption and custody), divorce, testimonial immunity, medical decision making and others. Whether or not the governor can direct the courts to respect marriages of same-sex couples for these purposes is unclear at this time.
While the coming days and weeks will bring much more clarity to today’s exciting development, I wanted to be sure you heard today’s good news.
Ultimately, though, this issue will only be settled when we have a law saying that same-sex couples can marry here in New York State. That means getting the State Senate to do what the Assembly has already done and the Governor has promised to do, and that is to support marriage equality for our families.
By continuing to work with you, we will make that happen!
With hope,
Alan Van Capelle
P.S. Just hours after Governor Paterson’s announcement was made public, Senate Majority Leader Bruno threatened legal action to block the Governor’s directive. Be sure and call Senator Bruno at 518-455-3191 and ask him to stand up for all New York families, including LGBT families. Provide your name and zip code when you make your call.
Safe Walk
STARTS TODAY, APRIL 18:
Hanging out in Brooklyn? You don't have to risk walking alone.
Call the volunteers at SafeWalk: (866) 977-WALK (9255)
SafeWalk is a free service to increase safety in our communities. The service is available from 11 pm Friday night to 2 am Saturday morning, and anyone is welcome to use it. We organize volunteers to take your call, bike to your location, and walk you to a destination within a 10-15 block radius. Our area of service currently includes Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and downtown Brooklyn.
SafeWalk is a program of RightRides: www. rightrides.org
Questions? Interested in becoming a volunteer? E-mail safewalknyc at gmail. com.
Hanging out in Brooklyn? You don't have to risk walking alone.
Call the volunteers at SafeWalk: (866) 977-WALK (9255)
SafeWalk is a free service to increase safety in our communities. The service is available from 11 pm Friday night to 2 am Saturday morning, and anyone is welcome to use it. We organize volunteers to take your call, bike to your location, and walk you to a destination within a 10-15 block radius. Our area of service currently includes Williamsburg, Greenpoint, Bedford-Stuyvesant, Bushwick, Fort Greene, Clinton Hill, and downtown Brooklyn.
SafeWalk is a program of RightRides: www. rightrides.org
Questions? Interested in becoming a volunteer? E-mail safewalknyc at gmail. com.
