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 Msg  : #5025 [100]                                                             
 From : Korey J. Kruse                      1:2613/335      Tue 01 Mar 94 09:05 
 To   : (crosspost 1) All                                                       
 Subj : Kansas Senate -- a bunch of racists                                     
ÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ
From: kkruse@abc.ksu.ksu.edu (Korey J. Kruse)
Organization: Kansas State University


      As if minorities aren't punished enough already.   Here in
Kansas our Senate has advocated a law that will double the
sentences of criminals if they are members of a gang.   The use
language in the bill which makes it clear that they are advocate
punishing blacks more severely than whites.     The specifically
want to punish people who are part of gangs that go by names and
are identified with colors -- a practice that is almost exclusively
used by blacks in the inner-city to identify themselves.

     Blacks and whites use drugs in equal numbers but blacks are
already anywhere from 4 - 25 times as likely to be punished for
drug use as whites depending on what city you study.

Anyway....here's the article.    I'd like to hear some comments
from others.

-----------BEGIN kansas.senate.is.racist.txt-------snip snip snip------

The Kansas City Star
Tuesday, March 1, 1994
pg B-4, col 1

"Senate advances anti-gang bill"

"Tougher sentences would be allowed for gang members"

The Associated Press

====================

      TOPEKA -- The Senate on Monday tentatively approved a measure
that would allow a judge to increase criminal penalities for members
of street gangs who commit crimes.

     The Senate advanced the measure after considerable opposition
from one of the chamber's more conservative members, however.  A
final vote was scheduled today.

     Sen. Todd Tiahrt, a Goddard Republican, said the bill, which
was designed as an anti-street gang measure, would threaten people's
freedom of association, guaranteed by the First Amendment to the
U.S. Constitution.

     Sen. Tim Emert, an Independence Republican who explained the
street gang bill on the floor, said the measure would pass Consti-
tutional muster.

     It would allow a judge to double a person's sentence if that
person commits a drug-related felony or a felony against another
person, such as aggravated assault, under the direction of a gang.
The gang would have to be readily identifiable, with a name and colors,
and two of its members would have to have committed felonies to
benefit the gang.

     "Association alone is not the issue," Emert said.

     However, Tiahrt said the measure went beyond combating street
gangs.

     "The bill says no longer do we have the right to choose our
friends," he said.  "The bill says no longer do we have the freedom
of association."

     The Legislature has been working on a measure aimed at street
gangs for four years, but lawmakers felt past proposals had consti-
tutional problems.

     "It goes a long way to telling and sending a message to the
kids in the streets that we are taking our streets back." said Sen.
Paul Feleciano, a Wichita Democrat.    "We have narrowed it to the
point where it's almost useless."

     Sen. U.L. Gooch, a Wichita Democrat, said two people who commit
identical crimes could be treated differently in the courts under the
bill.

     Tiahrt said the measure would create two systems of justice --
one for members of acceptable groups and another for members of
unacceptable groups.

     "Justice must be blind," he said. "It must be blind to race.  It
must be blind to creed.  It must be blind to whomever we associate
with."

     Tiahrt said after the debate that he was partly worried about
religious groups being singled out later by prosectuors, using David
Koresh's Branch Davidians as an example.   He said such minority
groups need to be protected.

     "We're applying selective justice," Tiahrt said.

-----------END   kansas.senate.is.racist.txt-------snip snip snip------

--
"Law never made men a whit more just; and, by     | Korey Jerome Kruse
 means of their respect for it, even the well     | kkruse@ksuvm.ksu.edu
 deposed are daily made the agents of injustice"  | kkruse@ksuvm.bitnet
    --Henry David Thoreau "Civil Disobedience"    | kkruse@ksu.ksu.edu

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