Bill Cosby sentenced to 3 to 10 years in state prison for sexual assault.

A Pennsylvania judge, Steven T. O’Neill, has sentenced Bill Cosby to between 3 to 10 years in state prison for sexual assault. The judge rendered the decision on Tuesday, the second day of the sentencing hearing at the Montgomery County Courthouse in Norristown, Pa., saying, “I’m not permitted to treat him any differently based on who he is or who he was.” O’Neill also ruled that Cosby is a “sexually violent predator” and fined him $25,000.

 

The sentence means that Cosby, once known as “America’s Dad,” will spend at least three years behind bars and then will become eligible for supervised release, although that’s not guaranteed. According to journalist Bobby Allyn, who was in the courtroom, the judge will not grant bail.

 

The comedian was escorted out of the courtroom in handcuffs and was placed in a car, where he was headed off to state prison.

On Justice and the Kind of Life God Wants.

I recently found this gem the other day and thought to share. While it's particularly important for Christians, I also think it's something everyone should consider. So it is from the book of Isaiah in the Bible. Basically, God told the prophet Isaiah to pass on a message to the Israelites. The Israelites always acted very pious, God said. They would go the Temple every day and even seem happy to learn about God. They carried themselves as though they would never abandon God and like they wanted to be near Him. And when there was silence from him, they would protest: 

we have fasted! 

we have been really hard on ourselves; denied ourselves of life's pleasures just to please you! 

why are you NOT impressed, huh? 

why do you act like you don't notice? 

Sounds familiar? I bet it does. You are fasting and praying. You serve in Church. You can quote the Bible from Genesis to Revelations. You can preach the devil back to hell. So what's up? Why does God not notice it?  

Well that's because while you are fasting, you are exploiting and oppressing your workers. While you are fasting, you are fighting with the whole world, and keeping malice. So you do the rites, and fast for 150 of the 365 days in the year. But God is like, nah, that kind of fasting will get you nowhere. That kind of lifestyle really doesn't please him. What kind of fasting does he want, you ask. 

"No, this is the kind of fasting I want:

Free those who are wrongly imprisoned; lighten the burden of those who work for you.

Let the oppressed go free, and remove the chains that bind people.

Share your food with the hungry, and give shelter to the homeless.

Give clothes to those who need them, and do not hide from relatives who need your help." -  Isaiah 58: 6-7. 

If you go on in that passage, it continues to say "THEN..." meaning after you do all of the above, will you experience true healing;

will your godliness lead you forward;

will the glory of God protect you. It is THEN that the Lord will quickly (it specifies) answer your call. 

When you feed the hungry, and help those in trouble, your light will shine out. 

In other words, less of you and more of others. We can see that justice, mercy, and compassion matter to God a lot. And again, we see that hypocrisy really irritates God. I'll give another instance; this time in the new testament. Jesus was dragging the Pharisees and calling them hypocrites and stuff. And then he mentioned how they do everything right, they were careful to tick all the boxes. They would even tithe the tiniest income they earned. BUT, they would ignore the more important aspects of the law—justice, mercy, and faith. I'm not even kidding, Jesus called those the MORE IMPORTANT [THAN TITHE] aspects of the law. He then reiterated that while tithing was and would always be important, justice, mercy, and faith were more important. 

Coincidentally, I was just joking with my dad and sister recently that while no one person can be angry about all injustices, it's important and dare I say, it's our responsibility to care about justice. There has to be something; one thing you care about. Pick that one thing and run with it, in whatever capacity you can.

Is it giving the less privileged? Maybe this year instead of another useless birthday photo-shoot, you can instead ask your friends to give on your behalf?

Someone on Twitter once suggested calling your local school (board) and asking to offset some lunch debt for kids.

Maybe it's your time you can give: to your own family, your friends. Something...just remember God really cares about it.  Also remember you can't just consistently live for yourself and yourself alone. 

Courtesy: Ifeoluwa Olawole.

Nigeria's Security Agency says $800,000 Seized in Raids on Judges.

Nigeria's security agency seized cash in various currencies totaling $800,000 during raids targeting some of the country's most senior judges in corruption investigations, the Department of State Services (DSS) said on Saturday. 

It carried out the sting operations on the judges' premises in the last few days, it said in a statement, without specifying the premises or how many judges had been targeted. It said the judges were from the supreme, appeal and high courts.

President Muhammadu Buhari, a former military ruler, won an election last year largely fought on his vow to crack down on corruption. Since taking office he has said he will recover "mind-boggling" sums of money stolen from public coffers. 

But the president's critics have accused him of mounting a witch-hunt against his political opponents. 

The DSS said its raids were carried out to investigate allegations of corruption against the judges.

"We have been monitoring the expensive and luxurious lifestyle of some of the judges as well as complaints from the concerned public over judgment obtained fraudulently and on the basis amounts of money paid," it said in statement. 

The security agency said it had discovered "cash of various denominations, local and foreign currencies, with real estate worth several millions of naira and documents affirming unholy acts by these judges". 

The DSS said preparations were being made to bring criminal charges.  

Courtesy: Reuters.

President Buhari of Nigeria.

A New Type of Justice for Nigeria.

Mediators oversee the mediation suggestions, reminding participants of the rules before they begin [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera].

In a country where court cases often last 10 years and many suspects languish in jails, could mediation be a solution? The pastor used the Bible to persuade her not to pay her children's school fees, but to invest $1,500 in his friend's farm instead. "If you can't trust a pastor, who can you trust?" the school director from Lagos asks. Now she wishes she hadn't. For the past three years she has been chasing after her money; going to court nine times already and spending the equivalent of $150 in lawyers' fees.

The farmer she has taken to court is just as unhappy. When the police arrested him in 2013, he spent three weeks and four days in Lagos' infamous Kirikiri prison before he was able to make bail. When he returned to his farm, he discovered that his hens had stopped laying eggs. "They're supposed to eat at seven in the morning so they can lay their eggs, but I wasn't around to feed them," he sighs. Since then he has had to appear in court every two or three months. The trip takes a day and costs over $5, which has also hindered his farm.

For the past three years, the school director and the farmer have been embroiled in a seemingly endless court case. Until this morning. It is the last week of July, and Samuel Ilori Courthouse in Ogba, a densely populated area on the Lagos mainland, has been transformed into a modern day palaver house where hundreds of court cases are being heard by mediators. For the entire week, there are no judges in this magistrates' court, the docks remain empty and the opposing parties are instead gathered around a table where they will try to resolve their conflict.

A case in mediation during Settlement Week at Samuel Ilori Courthouse in Ogba [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera].

"Do you want your money back, or do you want this man in jail?" mediator Olayinka Oyelade asks the school director, pointing at the farmer on the opposite side of the table. When she responds that she does not wish prison upon anybody and that her priority is the money, the mediator continues: "In that case, you'd better settle. When he ends up in prison, you will get nothing. And if he has to go back and forth to court, he cannot make the money to pay you back." 

An alternative justice: The magistrate presiding over the school director's case had referred it to the Lagos Multi-Door Courthouse (LMDC), an organization specializing in mediation, which is growing increasingly popular as an alternative way to resolve conflicts in Nigeria's biggest city. 

When the LMDC opened its doors in 2002, it had only one room at the High Court on Lagos Island; now the alternative courthouse occupies almost an entire wing. Since 2009, the LMDC regularly organises Settlement Weeks like this one in Ogba, transforming a traditional courthouse into a mediation centre, hoping to promote the concept, where the parties meet in confidentiality with an independent negotiator, to a wider audience. 

The inertia of the Nigerian justice system - the average timeline of a court case is four to 10 years, and following the case through to the Supreme Court can take at least 20 - makes this an attractive alternative. The average LMDC case takes three to five months, and more than half of the cases that have been referred by magistrates take just a single morning to resolve. And being much faster means it is also much cheaper.

A bulletin board on the wall of the entry hall of Kirikiri Medium Security Prison reveals the repercussions of the slow-turning wheels of Nigerian justice. During a visit early last year it read Convicted: 98. Awaiting trial: 2,457. In other words, less than 4 percent of the prisoners had been convicted of a crime.  

Participants wait in the hallway of the courthouse until their case is called [Femke van Zeijl/Al Jazeera].

In some cases an inmate had been detained for a longer period than the maximum penalty for the crime of which they were suspected but not yet convicted. And many of the detainees' cases were civil, not criminal, anyway. It is these kinds of disputes that the Multi-Door Courthouse is encouraging the judiciary to refer to them during Settlement Weeks like the one in Samuel Ilori Courthouse in Ogba.

The mediator: With their arms crossed and disgruntled expressions on their faces a widow and her stepson sit at the mediation table. Since her husband, his father, died in 2011, the two have been at loggerheads. The police got involved two years ago when the stepson said his stepmother had sent local thugs to molest him. She was taken into custody and spent a week on remand in Kirikiri.

Since then she has been subpoenaed every couple of months as the court case has dragged on for two years. They haven't been on speaking terms all this time. But during a morning session at the Settlement Week, mediator Oyelade gets them to address each other. 

"I know this issue goes much deeper than the beating," says Oleyade, as she leans across the table. After she has listened to the sometimes life-long grievances of both parties, the mediator puts all of those aside. She suggests the real problem is the deceased's inheritance. Five years after his death, the family still hasn't been able to divide the house the father left his two heirs - the widow's stepson and her birth son. 

 "Until that issue is resolved, I don't see peace coming to this family," states Oyelade. "Can we come to a solution this morning if we manage to share the estate fairly?" she asks, looking around the table. The stepson nods and the widow mumbles: "Of course. I want peace in the family." 

The experienced mediator always starts a session by explaining the rules. All phones must be switched off; everyone gets time to say their part without interruptions; the tone should remain respectful. "I will allow you to vent your anger, but you should also be willing to see reason," she says. After hearing them out, Oyelade sends each of the parties out of the room at different times so that she can talk to them separately. In the case of the widow and her stepson, she appeals to their respect for the deceased: what would he say if he saw his loved ones fighting like this? It seems to soften both the plaintiff and the defendant. 

"I use what I understand about personal relationships and our cultural background to reason with people," Oyelade explains afterwards. She used to be a lawyer, but she gave up practice eight years ago when she was introduced to mediation. She was immediately smitten, she says: "To me it comes naturally. When I see a conflict, I feel like settling it, balancing all interests. I feel successful when at the end of the day everyone goes home happy and the parties even maintain their relationship."

Courtesy: Al Jazeera

What Manner of Justice in California?

Condemned murderers in California have every reason to smile lately. They will no longer be executed for their crimes against the society and humanity. On July 16, 2014, a Federal judge, Cormac Carney (pictured above) ruled that California’s process of executing prisoners is so dysfunctional that it amounts to “cruel and unusual punishment” and is therefore unconstitutional. And what was the US District court judge’s reason for making this decision? Of the more than 900 people sentenced to death in that state since 1978, only 13 have been executed. Among the implications of the landmark decision of judge Carney is that upon their cold-blooded murder, victims of crimes will automatically lose their constitutional rights. For instance, the pains, agonies and deaths of the many victims of Ernest Dewayne Jones (the convicted rapist and murderer pictured above) have become insignificant. This is because, according to the judge, the method adopted by California in executing prisoners constituted a “cruel and unusual punishment”. But did anyone tell the judge that all the victims of Jones were murdered in some nice, cool manners?