Civic Cipher 042322 Darryl Howard and The Justice System's Disregard for Black Men (Part 2)

you didn't know that we know very well. Unfortunately. You know, Q and I both have personal stories, uh not, I guess, not personal, but I guess in our family folks dealing with the criminal justice system and just how unfair it is, and you know, you're kind of fighting a hopeless fight just kind of sucks you and choose you up and swallows you. A little Later in the show, we're also going to talk about the first African American umpire in

Major League Baseball. But first and foremost, let's discuss how to become a better ally. So give me a favorite. Make a note. There's a movie called Who We Are and I talked about this a lot of you know, I do a show for iHeartMedia. They have a vertical called the Black Information Network, and I host this show for them. And I got a chance to speak with the director of this film. Amazing film. If you're black, if you're white, it doesn't matter who you are, if

you're a citizen in this country. It is a film worth watching. It will educate you. It educated me. And I'm I live this. You know, I does this, and I've found out some stuff, So I'll read this briefly. Former a c ACOU deputy legal director Jeffrey Robinson had one of the best educations in America. Went to Markette University in Harvard Law School in a trial lawyer po over forty years. Twenty eleven, Robinson began raising his thirteen year old nephew as a black man raising a black son.

Struggled with that to tell his son about racism in America. How, he wondered, did we get here? And when he started looking at our nation's history, Robinson was shocked by what

he had not known. The film interweaves historical on present day archival footage, Robinson's personal story, and observational and interview footage capturing Robinson's meetings of meetings with black change makers and eyewitnesses to history, from Hain Tree in Charleston, South Carolina, to a walking tour of the origins of slavery and colonial New York, to the site of a nineteen forty

seven lynching at rural Alabama. The film brings history to life, exploring the enduring legacy of white supremacy and our collective responsibility to overcome it. Robinson shows us how legalized discrimination and state sanctioned brutality murdered disposition, and this possession, sorry and disenfranchisement continued long after slavery ended, profoundly impeding Black Americans' ability to create and accumulate wealth, as well as to

gain access to jobs, housing, education, and healthcare. His words laid bare and all but forgotten past, as well as our shared responsibility to create a better country in our lifetimes. Again. The movie is called Who We Are. Watch it for me you will love it now. I mentioned earlier in the show about wrongful convictions a person that I very much look up to named Brian Stevenson, who has a program we call it the Equal Justice Initiative, and he's a lawyer, and what he does is he works to

overturn wrongful convictions. Oftentimes he finds him he's a black man. He often finds himself helping out black men caught up in the criminal justice system again who've been wrongly convicted. He does help other folks almost everyone is poor, but but yeah, he finds that a lot of times black

people end up in these strange situations. We mentioned confessions you know how police Earlier in the show, we mentioned how police can lie to you to get you to confess to things that you didn't do, something you may not know, and we'll end up doing a full episode on this. Is that there are about ten thousand laws in existence in this country, and that means that police have ten thousand ways two get you caught up in something that you didn't even know was wrong. You might

think you're helping. If they want to, they can get you. I was, in fact, I was watching a documentary or sorry, a lecture from a police officer who said, you know, if I get behind you and I follow you long enough, eventually you're going to break some law and I'll be able to pull you over. And this is a real thing. I remember when I was in college, we had an officer teaching one of my classes back then, and he

said he was an office. He was telling a story about sort of the mid nineties when I'm from the Southwest, so lowrider culture was real big then think you know, early to mid nineties Snoop Dog Doctor Dre death Row records this time in America, so lowriders were a big deal. So in college, this is my first year of college. This this officer was telling us that he was like

a high up officer, maybe like a boss officer. I don't know what the rankings are called or whatever, but the main guy who told the other police what to do. And he says, hey, guys, we're going to get out in the streets and we're going to like clean up these streets or whatever. And so I want you pulling over every car that even crawls like a lowrider. And he explained how they were able to do it, which

was effectually the same way. Just follow them until they break some you know, have some in fraction, and then pull them over, pull them out of the car, search the car, you know whatever. You know. To people where this is not their reality, it sounds crazy. It sounds like, well, if you just don't do anything wrong. The police won't bother you. No, the police won't bother you. This is called privilege, you know what I mean. So this doesn't

happen to you, You might want to check that. And again I will say, because that word is triggering for a lot of folks. Privilege is not starting with more. It's just not starting with less. Okay, that's privilege. You're not starting behind the start line. These things and others frame the criminal justice system, you know, if it wants to, it'll just reach out, grab you, suck you, and you don't have to necessarily even do anything wrong. Of course,

we know about if you do something wrong. There's disproportionate sentences. There's all kinds of crazy stuff that goes on, mistreatment, you know, at every step along the way, you know, which is more prevalent for black and brown folks than it is for non black and brown folks in this country. But the whole thing works very well for one group of people, and it doesn't really work so well for

everyone else. And the people that it works well for are very supportive of keeping it the way that it is, and oftentimes they have enough votes or influence or otherwise to maintain the status quo. The world is perfect for them, then it should, in theory, be perfect for everyone. Otherwise we need to adjust to it. The thing is, it's very difficult to adjust to it when it eats up black lives. One such black life is the story I'll be telling you today. This comes from the Atlanta Black Star.

A wrongfully convicted black man who successfully fought to have two murder convictions overturned and received a pardon from the North Carolina governor for those crimes, sued the city for six million dollars and one remember that he won wrongful convictions sued the city and one. However, officials in the city of Durham have rejected the jury's judgment, deciding they will not pay the award after spending money to fight

the case. How about that? According to The News Observer, a federal jury found retired detective Daryl Dowdy, who spent thirty six years with the city, lied on Daryl Howard in nineteen ninety five. As a result, Howard spent twenty one and a half years of an eighty year sentence in prison. A federal jury found that Doughty violated Howard's civil rights by fabricating evidence and purposefully conducting a poorly

run investigation. These actions resulted in a jury convicting Howard of two counts of second degree murder and one count of arson. The costly trial lasted several weeks, with the city spending more than four million dollars in litigation and defense of the detective. Howard and his attorney argued Dowdy was given the authority by way of his badge, to set Howard up to be convicted for murdering Doris Washington twenty nine or thirteen year old daughter Nishanda in nineteen

ninety one. The two females were found dead in their Few Gardens apartment. DNA evidence suggested both mother and daughter were sexually assaulted before they were set on fire. However, no DNA or biological evidence linked Howard to the crime scene or as the rapist. At one point, there was an eyewitness who testified against Howard, but his accounts were scrutinized for being vague or contradictory. The witness reportedly even recanted his story to police overtime. Let's call it collercion.

I don't know that, so let me not call it that. I'm going to preserve some journalistic integrity here. But it looks like that. Okay, I'll say that all right. In twenty fourteen, Durham Senior Resident Judge Orlando Hudson vacated Howard's conviction, but the state pushed back with an appeal. The Innocence Project decided this is different from Brian Stevenson, so this is called The Ennocence Project decided to represent the fifty eight year old, presenting new DNA evidence that led to

a reversal of his conviction. Originally, Howard asked for forty eight million dollars in damages, two million for each year he was incarcerated, plus five million for the impact his imprisonment had on his life. The jury decided to award him six million dollars, so he didn't get the forty eight He got six million. But you know it's not nothing, right, Actually it is nothing. So despite this finding, the Durham City Council opted to withhold the recommended seven figure judgment

in the case. The decision was made during a series of cold closed meetings over a three month span between December and February. City Attorney Kimberly Reeberg said this was the first time a jury made a bad faith finding huh regarding a city employee, quote, the city generally proceeds under the presumption that, however conduct may have been portrayed in a complaint, the employee was engaged in the good faith execution of their duties on behalf of the city

and was thus entitled to defense and quote. One of Howard's lawyers, Brad Bannon, called his client an actual victim. They pay all that money, they enrich a bunch of lawyers, and then the moment they have to pay the actual victim of the city's conduct here, they said, we're not going to back this. He said about the decision. Quote, do you know how hard that? Sorry? Do you know how hard that is? In a system? Oh? Sorry, I'm

saying it wrong. Do you know how hard that is in a system that gives police officers almost absolute immunity? There it is that gives prosecutions complete immunity. Ben In asked, it's not easy. I can tell you that, he said, noting that his client did it and won. It is offensive.

That is not being honored. Weberg wrote in a statement, if the facts and circumstances of the claim or the suit in which the judgment is entered, showed that the officer or employee was engaged in good faith performance of his duties on behalf of the city when the act of omission, the act or omission giving rise to the claim or suit occurred. A jury of mister Dowdy's peers determined that mister Dowdy engaged in fabrication of evidence and

bad faith failure to investigate. She continued, But that decision about Dowdy, not the city. The municipality's reaped suggest Initially, the city and other employees were named in the lawsuit, she said, but those claims are all dismissed her dropped by the time the case made it to trial. Dowdy's lawyer, Patricia Shields, thinks the city should pay and not leave

her client with the bill. She revealed she had an inkling the city was not going to settle or pay a jury's judgment against Dowdy as far back as August twenty twenty one, someone close to the case told her the city didn't believe they were obligated to pay if the court said he was guilty. She also questioned the rationale to spend so much of taxpayer's dollars to defend the former detective to simply refuse to pay the judgment, saying, quote, the city has known all along what Captain Dowdy did,

decided to defend him on that basis. All right, we're almost on here. Poor People's campaign leader Reverend William J. Barber blasted the council decision, calling it an injustice. He noted the case wasted taxpayers money considering the millions of dollars they spent on a trial. The preacher called for the council to change their minds. Quote. While mister Howard didn't die, his life, died, his years, died his opportunity, died, his time died. You took twenty years, said Barbara. While

the city is opting not to compensate Howard. Legal documents showed the city once the wrongfully convicted man to pay the legal fees of two city workers dropped from the original lawsuit. Okay, so let me boil that back down to you. This man was arrested, convicted, and imprisoned. Right police officer fabricated evidence, otherwise framed him to get that

initial conviction. After twenty one and a half years, we're talking about black life and how the system, the justice system treats black life, and the reason why this case doesn't surprise us, but hopefully it surprises you. Hopefully this is not your norm, because then we're all in a lot of trouble, you know what I mean, not just black folks. But you need to know this, especially if you're not a black person, because you need to know the sort of things that happened to us that we're

numb to. I'll continue the officer fabricated evidence. Man goes to jail for twenty one and a half years, he gets his conviction overturned, and he's awarded six million dollars in damages. Right, So that's a tragedy by itself because if someone asked me to go to prison for twenty one and a half years and I would get six million dollars at the end of it, I'd say absolutely not. I want to live my life. Right, I'm sure you would agree, But whatever, six million dollars. The city says, Nope,

we're not going to pay. Knowing that after the new trial, all the new evidence that's presented, all the DNA everything, and it's not going to pay it. Then they say they want him to pay for the lawyer fees for the other city employees dropped from the complaint. Now, I know that this is kind of an example that kind of pulls from so many different things that black folks complain about. But I've shared on this show before that I have an older brother who went to prison for

was it twelve or fourteen years something like that. For those of you who are fans of Merse from the Living Legends, LA underground hip hop group, there's a song called Oakie Dog. You can look it up on YouTube. It's a dope song and Mrs wrote that song about my brother. Okie Dog. Okay, I e ed Og. Check it out. Anyway, my brother bought a new Escalade when those were still new and was driving around in California, you know where there's a lot of carjackings and sort

of them. He did have a gun kept it in the car just because carjackings. You know, he's he's a gun guy. I'm not a gun guy, So that'll be that. One night, there were some people that were kind of messing with his then girlfriend now life. She stayed with him when he was in prison. So shout out to Lou, we love you, Lou. Anyway, some guys were messing with

her at an apartment complex, right, altercation occurred. My brother went and trying to protect his women from these guys, like kind of trying to you know, guys can be guys like hey, what's up lady, you know whatever, trying to touch on you whatever. Got his gun. After the altercation, shot the gun in the air to scare the guys away. Police get called out, my brother gets arrested. Now, if you're discharging a weapon in California, I think that's illegal

or something like that. So you know, you get punished for that, probably not fourteen years of your life punished, but you get punished. But what they did was they called it attempted murder, and that changes things. And sort of good news early on was that it was on video because the complex had video cameras. Now I didn't know. I don't know all the details of the story. A it was a million years ago, and b I was

so much younger than that. They didn't want to share the details of the story with me, right, But I remember there being a video and everyone was so happy, like, Okay, there's a video, so clearly it shows the gun was getting shot in the air, not at the people. So it's not attempted murder. It's just simply discharging the weapon. And even though it's wrong, we understood why he did it. He wasn't just being an idiot. He was trying to protect his woman and scare these guys off or whatever.

Somehow or other, that video was not allowed to be presented to the court as evidence, like somehow it was. I'm not a legal expert, so I couldn't tell you how or why, but that was what ended up happening. So what ended up happening was my brother had to accept a plea deal. Well he didn't have to because he had all the lawyers in the world. My other brother is a lawyer, you know what I mean. So there was a team of lawyers. But you know, the police kind of cornered him and scared him. I guess,

you know. We talked about it a couple of times, but I don't know what was going through his brain in that moment. I feel like he was scared and he accepted a plea deal, which basically says, yes, it was attempted murder, don't go so hard on me, and

I'll just go to prison. And so what the top end could have been maybe a year sentence for discharging a weapon, which again understandably if you got to sometimes you got to make that tough call, you know what I mean, like, Hey, am I going to protect my family or am I going to and risk going to jail? Or am I going to just let this stuff happen?

You know, when I'm outnumbered and there's clearly a lot of these guys and I have access to this weapon that could help, you know, protect us in this situation. So that decision ended up taking my brother away from all of us for I think it was fourteen years. I saw him one time in jail because he was so far away, and then I lived in a different state and just you know, we wrote letters and things like that, but I only was able to go see him once. I went to see him again, but they

wouldn't let me go. And so that's a personal story that actually happened. Right. So this person we're talking about right now, Darryl Howard, a wrongful conviction. How the criminal justice just takes these people, and you know, black people are disproportionately represented in prison populations. Oftentimes people become instant initutionalized. You know, and you know, their prospects shift because now they've been in prison there, you know, this is all

they know. You know, this is their skill set and they can't get a job. And then they've been hanging out with criminals for however long, so you know, they move like a criminal. Now they think like a criminal because that's what they've been around. They're trying to protect themselves at every move. So it's there to become institutionalized. And when they get back out on the streets, it's like your likelihood of reoffending skyrockets because you don't believe

that you have any problem. What am I good at? What can I do? I've been in a box for one hundred years and now I have to figure out how to make money and live, you know. So there's a human element that I think a lot of people miss when it comes to, you know, the prison system by itself, but it's especially cool in how it treats black people. And we say that a lot on this show. But it was to kind of breathe life into a

story and give you an example. And you know, I could have made this a footnote on a much bigger, you know, subject, but I felt like this kind of could stand on its own. So qute, I got it. I'm sorry, man, I've been talking about this show, but I got about another minute. Give me how this hits you once again? There's no shockers here.

to drown. And the power in this country, even when there are punitive damages, get to just say no, we don't want to, and then that has to be this man's reality. Yeah you won, and yeah we messed up. But and I know our listeners can't.

the race or the ethnicity to white. That's all. That's it. Yeah, you're right. But yes, when you do that and you tell yourself the same story, does it sound the same? You know? And the thing is, we're trying to see what justice is. Justice is supposed to be blind. So in theory, it could be a person who is twenty six years old, you know, blah blah, it could be anyone. That's just in my mind, the easiest place to go, because it seems like that person gets justice more often

than everyone. And so if that's the standard that we all are trying to meet. Then let's rethink these with a different sort of protagonist or antagon is, depending on how you feel, and see if the criminal justice system treats them the same way in your thought experiment. And if the answer is no, then you have recognized the same problem that we often recognize here. So moving on, it's time for the way Black History fact. It's an

interesting one. You know, I'm not a sports person, and I'm not a baseball person, you know, in particular like that. If I was going to do sports, I think it would probably be basketball or something like that. But this one was interesting to me because I've been reading a lot about cases of discrimination when a black person was the first person to cross into a new field or

into a new position or whatever. I recently read a book called Segregated Skies was able to interview the author the author again on my my show with the Black Information Network. Be sure to check out that podcast. It's awesome. Look up Black Information Network. You can't miss me. I'm

the one with the hair. And uh, you know, obviously, you know, with Katanji Brown Jackson being nominated to the Supreme Court, you know, I just kind of realized that, you know, her getting there was only kind of the first step in the battle, that she might endure some some troubling things, you know, until she's firmly established in the consciousness of the country and of her peers. As you think that's going to change something for her. But I'm you know me, I'm an optimist man.

His father, Lyttleton, was a policeman, but abandoned the family, leaving Ashford's mother, Adele, to raise Emit and his brother Wilburg. Ashford earned money selling Liberty magazine and is a cashier in supermarket. Ashford attended Jefferson High School and was co editor at the school paper, played baseball, track, and was a senior class president. He attended Los Angeles Junior College

and graduated from Chapman University in nineteen forty one. And about nineteen thirty six, he took a job as a post office clerk, position he held for fifteen years. In the late nineteen thirties, Ashford briefly attempted to play semi pro baseball, but turned to empiring move he was asked to fill in for an umpire who did not show

up for a game. He served in the Navy during World War Two and was inspired to become the first black Major League Empire wall station in Corpus Christi, Texas when an announcement came on the radio that Jackie Robinson had broken baseball's color barrier. In nineteen fifty one, Ashford took a leave of absence from his Santa Anna, California post office job, where he moonlighted as a Santa Anna Municipal League Softball National Night Ball League of Southern California umpire.

His colorful style included a personal trademark when a batter received a base on balls. Instead of simply calling ball four, Ashford would grandly intone ball FOA, you may proceed to first base. He left Santa Anna to umpire in the Southwestern International League, becoming the first black umpire in the traditionally white professional baseball system. When he was offered a full season umpiring job, Ashford resigned from his post office job.

After the Southwestern International in the league folded mid season, Ashford joined the Arizona Texas League. He moved on to the Western International League in nineteen fifty three and was promoted to the Pacific Pacific Coast League in nineteen fifty four. He worked with C. C. Carlucci as his crew chief for nine hundred and twenty two games. He spent twelve years in the PCL and became known for his exuberance, showmanship,

and energy, even interacting with the crowd between innings. During the off season, Ashford refereed pack eight basketball games in college football. He also umpired in the Caribbean Winter Leagues and ran several umpiring clinics. In nineteen sixty three, Ashford was named the PCL's umpire in chief, making him responsible for training crews and advising the league on disputed games

or rules by early nineteen sixty. By the early nineteen sixties, many West Coast sports riders began to suggest that Ashford be promoted to the major leagues. In September nineteen sixty five, Ashford's contract was sold to the American League. Ashford made his debut at DC Stadium on April eleventh, nineteen sixty six. Before then, it was all white men. He quickly became a sensation, becoming known for his sprinting around the infield after foul balls or plays on the basis, Ashford also

brought a new style of being an umpire. He wore jewelry, including flashy cuplings, and wore polish shoes and freshly pressed suits. While some observers believed that his race prevented him from working in the majors earlier than he did, others maintained that his flashy style actually delayed his major league debut due to general disdain for umpires to draw attention to themselves. Sporting News stated that for the first time in the history of grand old American game, baseball, fans may buy

a ticket to watch an umpire perform. Ashford was the left field umpire in the nineteen sixty seven All Star Game, and worked all five games in the nineteen seventy World Series, but did not work home plate. Ashford was one of the only umpires fiery Baltimore Orioles manager Earl Weaver was

ever nice to. During a game during a double header against Washington on April thirteen, nineteen sixty nine, Ashford ruled that a ball hit by Ken McMullan had landed fair in left field, when in actuality Don Bufford had caught it just before it hit the ground. Weaver went up to Ashford and politely asked him, quote, can you change your call? Just ask the other umpires because I understand you couldn't see it where you were running from end quote.

The other umpires all said Buford had made the catch, so Ashford reversed the call. Ashford reached the American League's retirement age of fifty five in December nineteen sixty nine, but still umpired one additional season in nineteen seventy before retiring in nineteen seventy one. Ashford was hired by Bowie Kohn as the public relations advisor, a role in which Ashford spoke and held clinics on the West Coast and

as far away as Korea. He also served as an umpire in chief for the Alaskan Summer League for three years. He appeared in television commercials, playing a cashier in an ad for AMP grocery stores. Ashford also appeared as an umpire in the nineteen seventy six film The Bingo Long Traveling All Stars and Motor Kings, and in episodes of Ironside, The Jackson's and What's My Line, in which Ashford appeared

in his first major league season. Ashford was also a contestant on the November seventeen, nineteen fifty five TV edition I Bet Your Life. Ashford was inducted into the Baseball Reliquery's Shrine of the Eternals in two thousand and eight. He died of a heart attack in at age sixty

five in Marina del Rey in California. Upon his death, Bowie Kuhn issued a statement saying quote, as the first black umpire in the major leagues, his magnanimous nature was sternly tested, but he was unshaken and uncomplaining, remaining the colorful, lively personality he was all his life. At his funeral Ashford. Ashford was eulogized by Kuhn and former USC baseball coach Rod Did. Ashford was cremated and his ashes were interned

in Cooperstown, New York. Sorry that was a lot of reading, but all these firsts coming my way, I feel like it's important to celebrate them. Perhaps in honor of Katanji Brown Jackson becoming the first black woman to be nominated to the Supreme Court. A statistic I read was that ninety three percent of all air commercial airline pilots are still white. So first really matter, representation matters, and of course Emmit Littleton Ashford matters. But that's going to do

it for us today on Civic Cipher. So once again, I am your host, Rams's Jah. I go by the name Qward and the United States was founded July fourth, seventeen seventy six. It is twenty twenty two, and we're still introducing the first black person to do stuff. How about that? Well, you can always find out more about our thoughts on the Tanji Brown Jackson by checking out the website and downloading any one of our old episodes at civiccipher dot com. Of course, you can follow us

on all social media at Civic Cipher. Hit us with any topics and questions, suggestions. You know it's our show, but it's your show too, so let's do it together and until next week, y'all pains, y'all like yo, we handle it. These brothers are fabulous.