The Fierce Urgency of Prophetic Hope

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2022 I have never asked readers to help me manage my work as a trial judge. However, I am doing so in this column for one reason. I need your help.   Part of the caseload assigned to 5 th Division (the court over which I preside in the Sixth Judicial Circuit) involves criminal cases ranging from misdemeanors to murders. Prosecutors and defense attorneys know that I do not approve probation requests for persons whose crimes involve physical injury or death to others. On the other hand, accused persons who plead guilty or are found guilty of having committed non-violent offenses are often sentenced to probation. Those persons are then supervised by probation officers – certified law enforcement persons who have been selected for work in 5 th Division to help clients – yes, we call the persons they work with “clients” – face, correct, and hopefully overcome the underlying causes for their offenses such as dishonesty, substance abuse and addiction...

    ©Wendell Griffen, 2022             Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Black American political activist and journalist, has been incarcerated since he was convicted in 1982 and sentenced to death for the 1981 murder of Daniel Faulkner, a Philadelphia, Pennsylvania police officer. When a federal judge overturned the 1982 death sentence in 2001 due to sentencing improprieties, Maureen Faulkner (Daniel Faulkner’s widow) and the Fraternal Order of Police were bitterly disappointed. Mumia Abu-Jamal and his supporters were disappointed that the federal judge rejected Abu-Jamal’s challenge to his conviction and ordered that he was not entitled to a new trial despite evidence that his defense counsel was ineffective, that the prosecution engaged in racial discrimination during jury selection, that the trial judge made racist comments, and that prosecutors engaged in racist tactics. More than 40 years after Daniel Faulkner was murdered, Maure...

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2022 Early voting for the November 2022 election begins across Arkansas on Monday, October 24. Voting is the way people in a democratic society are supposed to choose leaders and laws, as opposed to be ruled by leaders and laws they cannot choose. Arkansans will choose one among three candidates for Governor, the chief executive of our state. The candidates are Ricky Harrington from the Libertarian Party, Chris Jones from the Democratic Party, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders from the Republican Party. Of the three, Chris Jones has been the candidate who walked, talked, and listened to Arkansans in each of the 75 Arkansas counties about issues we face and his vision for the future. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has not been accessible to voters, has avoided countless interview requests from news media, and has campaigned mainly by fearmongering against the media and women, men and children who live with their backs against the wall. Will Arkansans vote for the cand...

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2022 This election cycle Arkansans will vote on whether to amend the Arkansas Constitution when they cast votes on Arkansas Issue 3, the so-called Government Burden on Free Exercise of Religious Amendment. Issue 3 states: An amendment to the Arkansas Constitution to create the "Arkansas Religious Freedom Amendment"; and to provide that government may never burden a person's freedom of religion except in the rare circumstance that the government demonstrates that application of the burden to the person is in furtherance of a compelling government interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling government interest . Issue 3 was proposed by Senator Jason Rapert and Representative Jimmy Gazaway. It was referred to voters by the Arkansas legislature. Every Republican senator voted for it, along with one Democratic senator (Senator Larry Teague). Every Republican representative voted for it except Representative Josh Miller....

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2022   White evangelical Christianity, not the religion of Jesus, is the dominant threat to economic, racial, social, and legal justice in the United States. Do not expect white Christians to agree with that statement. White evangelical Christians have long considered themselves to be loving, welcoming, and justice-minded people. They have long believed that their religious practices and beliefs are uplifting. But millions of Africans were enslaved because white Christians preached, taught, and practiced white supremacy. Indigenous people were massacred and lost tribal homelands because white Christians preached, taught, and practiced white supremacy starting with the Doctrine of Discovery. Latinx people were driven from land owned by their ancestors because white Christians who preached, taught, and practiced white supremacy lied, stole land, and practiced violence against their neighborhoods and families. Women and girls were treated as br...

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2022   The death of Queen Elizabeth requires deep reflection. She was matriarch to her children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, and other family members. She was monarch of Britain for seventy years. Most people in Britain, across the British Commonwealth, and across the rest of the world have never known a time without her being the head of her nation. Morally sensitive people should express condolences to her family and nation. Their loss warrants that respect and sympathy. At the same time, morally sensitive people should express concern about people across the world who have suffered harm due to British colonialism, imperialism, and military incursions. Indigenous people in Africa, Australia, India, Palestine, Cyprus, New Zealand, the Caribbean, North America, and across the Asian Pacific region were colonized by the British Empire. Queen Elizabeth inherited the legacy and consequences of that centuries-long behavior and oversaw those con...

  ©Wendell Griffen, 2022   Donald Trump’s legal team has argued to a federal judge that the US Justice Department’s arguments surrounding Trump’s removal of government records and classified files from the White House to his Mar-a-Lago resort residence in Palm Beach, Florida, and continued possession of those items after he left the White House January 20, 2021, amount to complaining about “an overdue library book.”  Here is what is wrong with Trump’s assertion. Before a library book patron can have an “overdue” book, the patron must first get permission from the library to take the item from the library and agree to return it to the library by a given date. Library material cannot be taken at whim. It must be “checked out.” Trump had no authority, let alone permission, to remove property of the United States from the White House to anywhere else after noon on January 20, 2021, when his presidency ended. He had no authority or permission to remove artifacts from...