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Incarceration Nation

Supreme Justice?

By Mumia Abu-Jamal

Did you hear the one about the Supreme Court Justice who got convicted of a slew of felonies?

If not, I don’t blame you.

It may sound like a joke, but I assure you, it isn’t.

And the reason it isn’t better known is, well—it’s Pennsylvania.

This is a state where a Supreme Court justice, Joan Orie-Melvin, is convicted of half-a-dozen corruption charges, just several months after her sister, Jane Orie, a state senator, no less, got convicted of several crimes related to her sister’s election campaign to the state’s highest court.

But, as I said, it’s Pennsylvania.  Here, judges run for elections just as do other politicians, and they need to raise vast sums of money for media buys.

Isn’t that a legalized recipe for corruption?

That’s no joke.

And guess what? In Pennsylvania (and elsewhere it seems) it’s not really news.

Why not?

Hmmmm….

PrisonRadio.org, March 1, 2013