A 28-year wait for justice could end with this primary
Welcome to a Tuesday morning edition of Progress Report.
Today we’ve got a big new story on an important down ballot race in Ohio and then a roundup of compelling news stories from the states as part of our initiative to have news roundups in every newsletter.
Before that, a few personal updates:
I’m headed back to work tomorrow, exactly five weeks after waking up from open-heart surgery.
Godzilla is now an Oscar-winner. I assure you, this is very personal to me.
Liverpool got robbed after pummeling Manchester City in the second half on Sunday and had to settle for a draw. Still, they remain in great position to win the Premier League. Again, this is very personal to me.
OK, to the news!
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Last month, more than 100 residents, driven through grief by a rekindled outrage, marched through the streets of Columbus, OH carrying banners and signs through the cold winter evening. The high-profile trial of a former police officer who the killed a 23-year-old unarmed Black man had just concluded with a hung jury and the egregious circumstances had them demanding a retrial.
The crime couldn’t have been more obvious: Casey Goodson Jr. was carrying a bag of Subway sandwiches and unlocking the front door to his grandmother’s house when he was shot in the back six times by a SWAT deputy who had tailed his car and liked to brag about “hitting people first.” Goodson was licensed to carry a gun, but was not doing so when he was shot down.
Whether or not cases like Goodson’s — and there are already eight others in Franklin County — get any sort of justice likely rides on the outcome of the March 19th primary for county prosecutor.
Failure to Relaunch
The people of Franklin County thought that they’d voted for change in 2020, when they finally toppled a six-term Republican prosecutor and installed a former judge who promised criminal justice and police accountability reforms.
During his 24 years as county prosecutor, Ron O’Brien only indicted one solitary police officer — a Black vice cop in 2019 — for shooting a civilian. For context, Columbus police shot and killed 48 people in the nine years between 2013 and 2021 alone, which outpaced 99% of US counties. O’Brien’s cozy relationship with the police union was his undoing in 2020, when he was defeated by a Democrat named Gary Tyack. Unfortunately, the inertia caused by O’Brien’s remaining staffers and a stroke that Tyack suffered just before the election stopped any real reforms before they could start.
“I have been extremely disappointed, because I think there was some very low hanging fruit that has not been addressed,” says Sean Walton, a lawyer and founder of the Columbus Police Accountability Project. “The concern with the race here in 2024, is that we could be fooled again by people who are running and have a certain platform, but don't actually follow up on their promises to the people.”
There are three of Democratic candidates this time around, two of whom are viable contenders: Anthony Pierson, who worked under Republican state attorney general Dave Yost before coming to help run Tyack’s office, and Columbus city councilwoman Shayla Favor, who many civil rights leaders believe is far more likely to pursue a holistic and community-driven approach to upholding the law.
Pierson could be considered a soft frontrunner at this point, but the race is fluid as it draws near, in part because his rhetoric about justice and equity does not match his record, which arouses suspicion amongst civil rights leaders and activists. While working for Yost, Pierson served as the lead prosecutor in the case against the eight Akron police officers who shot a 25-year-old Black man named Jayland Walker 46 times as he turned to face them during a chase. Pierson presented the grand jury with the case from the officers’ perspective, an approach that returned zero indictments.
Walker’s murder going unpunished was not an isolated incident. During Pierson’s time as lead prosecutor for the state’s Bureau of Criminal Investigations, 47 officers were cleared after killing somebody. Franklin County has a similar history, including during Pierson’s time as its chief deputy legal counsel, with at least one trial delayed indefinitely.
“The People in Power Don’t Want Her in Office”
Accountability for police is not the only issue that’s top of mind for people in Columbus, where police target Black residents at a rate that is astronomically disproportionate to the size of the community.
“We need more diversion programs; there have been a lot of studies over time talking about the school to prison pipeline and how we condition children to believe that they're on a track to prison, or that they're bad people who deserve to be punished, as opposed to trying to set a better path for them,” Watson says. “I think we have had the same approach with the criminal justice system, in that once someone is arrested, they’re viewed as a criminal and not a person.”
Favor has worked to change that wherever possible during her time on the council and previous stint in the city attorney’s office. Some of her initiatives, such as a stable housing program and mental health crisis center, have offered support for people who may have otherwise wound up caught in the unforgiving criminal justice system.
In both her speeches and policy platform, Favor offers a vision of an equitable society that would deemphasize incarceration and instead minimize the court’s involvement in low-level offenses, provide diversion programs for people at risk, and offer treatment to those in crisis.
During a candidate forum last month, both candidates affirmed that as county prosecutor, they’d seek to retry Jason Meade, the officer who shot and killed Casey Goodson. While Pierson’s record left critics skeptical about his commitment to truly seeking justice for the slain young man, Favor in 2021 helped establish a program named after Goodson, a former truck driver who hoped to re-enter the profession after the pandemic, that helps young people work the barriers to a full-time driving job.
🏳️🌈 Florida’s “Don’t Say Gay” law will be severely curtailed under a settlement reached on Monday between the state government, civil rights attorneys, and the state’s teachers’ union.
The agreement stipulates that teachers and students will be able to discuss sexuality and gender in both the classroom and in homework assignments, while library books that happen to have LGBTQ+ characters won’t be subject to scrutiny or removal. The state also will clarify that schools cannot ban LGBTQ+ groups run by students or theater performances with queer themes.
“This settlement not only reaffirms the rights of LGBTQ+ students and educators to live and speak openly but also marks a significant step towards rectifying the damage inflicted by the ‘Don't Say Gay or Trans’ law,” said Nadine Smith, the executive director of Equality Florida. “It's a testament to what we can achieve when we stand united against discrimination and for the dignity of all LGBTQ+ people in Florida.”
Though he tried to play it off as a victory, the settlement marks another stinging rebuke for Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose racist “Stop WOKE,” meant to limit discussions of race and diversity in the workplace, was ruled unconstitutional by a judge last week.
🏠 A new report found that the construction of market rate apartments has helped to lower housing prices for people across the economic spectrum.
The Minneapolis Federal Reserve, building off a study by a Notre Dame economist, found that every 100 new units of market rate housing results in 70 new openings for renters in lower-income neighborhoods.
It’s not exactly an ideal solution, given the length of time required for the trickle down effect, but with a housing crisis driven by a shortage of 7.3 million affordable housing units nationwide, building any homes, save for the mass production of luxury apartments, can only be a good thing.
⚒️ A new coalition of progressive organizations announced on Monday that they will join forces in an effort to reduce AIPAC’s overwhelming influence of Democratic primary elections.
The new coalition includes the likes of Justice Democrats, the Working Families Party, Sunrise Movement, Our Revolution, and Gen-Z for Change, among others. They’re planning a seven-figure campaign against the candidates being fueled by AIPAC and its affiliates, and it looks likely that they’ll use the messaging that highlights AIPAC’s complete and total endorsement of 100+ election deniers.
🙄 The far-right is pouring even more money into messing around with our election system, starting in Maryland.
Among the most annoying are its troll law firms, which sue over everything under the sun in hopes of catching a friendly judge who will buy into to whatever esoteric argument they’re offering to make it harder to access the ballot.
The latest organization on the scene is going after state election boards altogether, starting with Maryland.
🗳️ Mississippi legislators moved one step closer to allowing some former felons to vote… eventually
The state House of Representatives approved House Bill 1609 by a wide 96-11 margin late last week. The bill, which moves to the state Senate, would restore voting rights to those convicted of non-violent felonies five years after they’ve been released from prison and paid related fines.
It’s the bare minimum, but given the long, vile, and disturbingly recent history of disenfranchisement and voter suppression in Mississippi, it’s an improvement over the status quo.
More news to come tomorrow…
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Thanks for shining a light on Ohio, Jordan. I maintain Ohio is THE most corrupt state in the Union, and is doing it's corrupt best to remain in that "lofty" position. Regarding the prosecutor's position, I will also publicly state that nominating ANYONE who has worked within this so-called administration for ANY position will just perpetuate the corruption. What is needed in Ohio, as well as the entire nation, is a complete shellacking of what used to be the Republican party. They need to be severely punished for undermining democracy, and then go back to their caves, do some serious introspection, and then, attempt to re-emerge as a serious, American conservative party.
Let's start with my Ohio, and with all the other states that are trying their best to overtake Ohio as the most corrupt, and get as many of the traitors out of DC as we can. Then we can turn our attention at undoing the damage that has been done to our Judicial system.
It's going to be a long slog, but with your help, and as many other true patriots wanting a restoration of our democracy. we can do this. Hopefully within what's left of my lifetime.
P.S. I hope you're feeling better, and stronger.