Violence Witness in Medford Jailed for Being Homeless
On June 3, three homeless people who witnessed a disturbance in Medford, Oregon, that led to a death and an arrest on manslaughter charges were themselves jailed—because a prosecutor argued, and a judge agreed, that as homeless people, the witnesses might prove too difficult to locate at the time of the trial. That trial is scheduled to start September 25. No charges have been brought against the witnesses.
As of press time, two of the three witnesses have been released, but are required to check in with the probation department daily, which puts them in a similar category to what happens when someone is charged with a crime and the judge wants to make sure that the person is around for the trail date. The Medford Three are not the first homeless people to be jailed for the crime of stepping forward to tell police what they witnessed.
“It should alarm everyone in this country, regardless of how you see the issue of homelessness, that our courts are locking people up simply based on the fact that they witnessed (not committed) a crime. Guantánamo Bay comes to Medford, Oregon,” says Paul Boden, Executive Director of Western Regional Advocacy Project, a San Francisco-based coalition of West Coast homeless advocacy organizations.
“An alarming trend has emerged in this country, one that criminalizes those that merely witness a crime; a trend that has led to the jailing of witnesses for indefinite periods of time. This trend has the chilling effect of silencing those who would otherwise be used as tools in the pursuit of justice,” says Pete White, founder and Co-Director of the Los Angeles Community Action Network.
This incident comes on the heels of another case, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. On July 6, Randy Barr, a 41-year-old homeless man, saw a man slashed to death during an argument, called police, and waited for them to arrive at the scene in order to make a statement. He was jailed for four weeks before being put on a house arrest program earlier this month, fitted with a monitoring device, and required to check in with house arrest officials once a week. He is banned from using alcohol or drugs and must also submit to random drug tests and pay $10 a day for the program.
Initially, Barr was thrown in Lackawanna County Prison where, he said, no one told him about anything that was happening with the case.
As advocates for homeless people, we are outraged at this egregious violation of their civil rights. Instead of giving the individuals in these cases a hotel room or other place to stay, they have been thrown into jail and treated as any other inmate for the crime of coming forward as good citizens, while not having a roof over their head. “Just because an individual is without a home, shouldn’t mean you are stripped of your rights as a citizen of the United States,” says Israel Bayer, Director of Street Roots newspaper in Portland, Oregon.
It has often been said that the most precious thing we have in America is our freedom and that Government must be able to show good cause before our freedom can be infringed upon. In an effort to preserve our individual freedom, protections were created that government must be able to prove “beyond a reasonable doubt” that we have committed a crime before it can lock us up in jail. Apparently, those days are over.
“If you’ve got money, you’ve got rights. Since when do you have to buy due process and human rights in this country?” asks Rachael Myers, Advocacy Director with Real Change newspaper in Seattle, Washington.
You can follow other West Coast and national homelessness news at WRAP’s blog at http://wraphome.blogspot.com. Learn more about WRAP’s work and get involved or donate at http://www.wraphome.org.
WRAP
