Joel On The Road | Words shot from a loose cannon

More Freep layoffs

Posted on October 17, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

While I was towing our floating docks across Patten Bay closing the cottage for ’09, a good ten hours drive from Motown, managers at the Detroit Free Press were sharpening their knives.

More editorial staffers will be fired.

No more paydays for:

One artist.

One copy editor.

Two reporters.

One photographer.

One editorial assistant.

One designer.

Seven in all.

Here’s the note I received about the latest purge:

In a meeting on Thursday, October 15, the Free Press informed the Newspaper Guild that it will lay off seven employees in the Guild bargaining unit. The layoffs would include one person in the classifications of artist, copy editor, editorial assistant, designer, and photographer and two persons in the reporter classification. Management did not say who it would lay off, but indicated that it would again use some exemptions to layoff by seniority. No detail was provided as to the timing of layoffs.

Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com

Posted in future of newspapers, Joel's J School | Tagged future of newspapers, layoffs, Newspapers | Leave a comment

That island connection

Posted on October 16, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

On the wall of our kitchen there’s a framed motto that says, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

Back when I worked at the Detroit Free Press, I thought we should have hung up another version: “If Zlati ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

Last summer, after I’d gone some weeks without posting a word on JOTR, I got an e-mail from Zlati Meyer, a terrific reporter at the Free Press and congenital gadfly who seems programmed to speak her thoughts frankly and without a trace of subtlety.

Why hadn’t I blogged in so long, Zlati wondered. I was flattered — Zlati confessed that she checks JOTR three times a week, and it had been a long time since I’d posted anything.

She was right. After blustering to myself about how nobody pays me to do this blog and I can post or not as I like, I had to admit that I didn’t like disappointing readers, and in fact, I get great satisfactoin from doing the blog and thus was also disappointing myself.

But as I told Zlati, there were good reasons why I stopped blogging. The death of my father-in-law, a good and true friend, followed by the death of my own dad, a great guy whose loss I miss every minute, sandwiching our purchase of an island cottage in Canada where there is no landline phone or Internet in part explain what looks to blog readers like a long dry spell.

It was anything but, as I explained in a column written on the porch of our cottage and which I fully intended to post from my point of Web entry, the English Pantry sandwich shop in Little Current, Ontario. Earlier in the summer I published a book — a collection of essays about sailing and wooden sailboat restoration. Then from Little Current and McGregor Bay, I brought out yet another book. But I’m stealing my own thunder. Here is the column I intended to post from the English Pantry, but never did:

LITTLE CURRENT, ONTARIO – I’m posting this column from this wonderfully mythic port on the north side of Manitoulin Island because there is no landline telephone or Internet service at our cottage on a small island twenty miles or so north in McGregor Bay. But I’m tapping this piece out on my laptop on the front porch, and every time I look up, I gaze past a pair of tall pines and what would be a large inland lake except it’s connected by channels and cuts to other lakes, all of which make up a big bay that is a microscopic part of a bigger body of water known as Georgian Bay that is part of Lake Huron which really is one with that other huge body of fresh water known as Lake Michigan. I’m looking across our lake towards a big body of land known as Garden Island, and its cottage and surrounding rocks and pines and firs are wonderfully mirrored in the water at this hour of 8:31 a.m. on Sunday, August 16, 2009.

Somewhere underneath all that water, there are lots of smallmouth and largemouth bass and plenty of pike. Somewhere, I say, because I have not so far been able to find them, despite owning a fancy boat with an electric trolling motor, fish finder and two reservoirs with pumps to supply aerated water to bait fish and anything I happen to catch.

I’m writing this because I realize I haven’t posted any thoughts on joelontheroad.com since July 10, 2009, when I wrote about my amazing experience guiding the French filmmaker Florent Tillon up the Rouge River. I was made aware of my lapse by my friend, Zlati Meyer, who wrote –- very flatteringly — that she checks my blog three times a week and nothing, nothing, nothing each time.

Although I might argue that nothing, nothing, nothing is what I get in return for writing in this space, that would not be true. I have plenty of loyal readers from whom I hear, and the whole experience of writing my blog – approaching its second anniversary – has been an exciting thing. My friends, many of whom I have never met, who read my blog, deserve to hear from me.

Where to begin?

Well, there have been losses in recent months. The death of my father-in-law and great friend, Hank Fonde, for one. My dad, Howard Travis Thurtell, nearly died last week, but rallied so much he actually pulled one of his pranks. Lying in a hospital bed in Grand Rapids, he feigned death for a few seconds, hoodwinking my brothers and then getting a big laugh out of his macabre joke.

[Dad died for real on September 4, 2009 in his bed at the Grand Rapids Home for Veterans.]

There have been other losses.

I hear from staff at Wayne State University Press that the book I co-authored last March with Pat Beck is doing well; Pat and I continue to give our talks and slide show about our canoe trip up the Rouge River in 2005 and we have a growing calendar of talks coming up this fall.

Pat and I also published an audio version of “Up the Rouge!” under the imprint of my publishing company, Hardalee Press in Plymouth. Hardalee Press in July published another book, “Plug Nickel,” a collection of essays I wrote about my seven-year quest to restore a wooden Lightning sailboat. The name of my boat: Plug Nickel.

I debuted that book with a trip to Lake Onondaga in upstate New York, taking part in a regatta of vintage wooden Lightnings. I’ll be writing about the Onondaga Yacht Club and their annual woodie regatta – which they say was inspired by the wooden boat columns I wrote for nearly six years for the International Lightning Class Association’s monthly magazine, “Flashes.” That is another story.

Then too, I’m publishing another of my books, and that has been quite a project. It’s called Seydou’s Christmas Tree, a true story about how a Muslim kid and friend of ours in Togo taught us a lesson about the meaning of Christmas. You’ll be hearing more about that, too. The big challenge has been publishing a book from McGregor Bay, where, as I mentioned, we have no landline phone and no Internet connection. Very interesting, but possible in the same way that I will post this column on JOTR.

[As it turned out, I never posted this column from the Bay. But I did publish Seydou’s Christmas Tree, using the wi-fi connection at the English Pantry in Little Current and the wireless hook-up of our friends Zoe and Burnley McDougall across the water from our cottage.]

Our main focus this summer has been on McGregor Bay. My wife’s family, the Fondes of Ann Arbor, took their first vacation in McGregor Bay around 1965. They were introduced to the Bay by a neighbor, Jim Skala, who owned an island not far from the marinas on Birch Island, part of a long concatenation of islands stretching from Espanola through the La Cloche Mountains south to Manitoulin Island, largest fresh water island in the world. Manitoulin Island is so big that it has huge lakes with their own islands, and for all I know those islands have lakes and islands ad infinitum.

I first came to the Bay in 1972, just before Karen joined the Peace Corps and went to Togo in West Africa. She’d talked of her family’s island, a three-and-a-half-acre hump of granite and quartz in what is known as the outer part of McGregor Bay. She told me how wonderful the place was. I couldn’t picture it. She urged me to pay a visit. I drove up with her younger brother, Mark, and his buddy Jim Bowditch, in the summer of ’72. It was a long run up I-75 and then it seemed even longer as we got on Highway 17 going east from Sault Ste, Marie. Probably took a good twelve hours. Espanola is a paper mill town and even now, you can smell sulfur. In those days, there was little effort to contain the stench, and I was not impressed. We left Espy and headed south, winding up, down and around the La Cloche mountains, gateway into a very different world.

I’ve lived in many places and traveled to plenty more, and I can say that I have never seen a more beautiful place. The convergence of cracked hummocks of lichen-encrusted granite, pine and cedar forests and mirror-like water – clean water, by the way – make for a landscape that would be better depicted with photos, which I will try to supply.

Exhausted after our long drive, Mark, Jim and I sacked out in a bunkhouse at the top of the Fonde island, known on maps by its TP number, “TP” standing for Thaddeus Patten, who surveyed the Bay for the Canadian government in the early twentieth century. From where I’m sitting, I can look across the water at the Patten cottage on Vim Island, built in 1917 and the place where Thaddeus Patten’s great-granddaughter, Zoe McDougal, lives and where I approved the proof of my new book about the African Christmas tree.

That morning back in ’72, I was sound asleep when Karen’s parents, Hank and Edith Fonde, drove their motorboat, the Slick Chick, through an archipelago of small islands, spits and shoals to a big island called Wardrope and hailed their friend from Ypsilanti, Papa Jake Stewart, on his dock at the northeast end of Wardrope.

Papa Jake owned a bar in Ypsi, and so the story goes – he’s dead, so he can’t be prosecuted at least in this world’s system of justice – he used to buy a new outboard motor fuel pressure tank every spring and fill it with vodka, smuggling five gallons of hooch through customs in hopes it would last the season.

Papa Jake was a fisherman of mythic reputation. He had a wooden pen beside his dock where he’d release the gargantuan Northern Pike he caught so his neighbors could marvel at his fishing prowess. Hank and Edith asked him how was fishing, and Jake responded that it was lousy, especially around those parts. Thereupon, Hank and Edith dropped their Rapala lures into the water and within a few minutes of trolling had landed seven monster pike within sight of Papa Jake’s pike pen. (You were allowed six pike per license, so they were well within the legal catch limit.)

When they got back to their island, Hank was all for filleting those pike asap. Karen begged him to hold off till I woke up. But I didn’t wake up. So she went up to the bunkhouse and roused me.

“Come see the pike mom and dad caught!”

Pike? Pike! Karen knew I liked to fish, and in fact, I grew up on the Flat River in Lowell and I did a lot of fishing. As a kid of four or five, I’d take my pole and some worms – a family friend owned a worm farm – and I’d go fishing in the tumult of water that tumbled over the King Milling Company dam under Main Street in Lowell. This is not something that would be tolerated today. A kid, almost a toddler, fishing in the spillway of a dam, no life jacket, no parent, indeed no adult in sight? My God, call the cops! Arrest the mom and dad for neglect!

Catch limits? I knew nothing about that. I kept whatever I caught, mostly little suckers and bluegills. My dad or mom would clean them and fry them up. Pike? I’d never seen a pike other than the ones pictured in photos on the shelves of Owen Ellis’s barber shop.

Pike! My God, Hank and Edith had pulled in monsters, to my eyes. They WERE big. Seven and eight-pounders. In no time, I was out in a boat with Hank, who’d taught me to tie the Improved Fisherman’s Knot, and we were trolling off Wardrope and sure nuff, I started catching pike. And bass. Yes, wonderful, tasty bass.

Was I hooked on McGregor Bay? Hoo boy!

Next thing I knew, Karen was in Togo, next door to the Sahara, a helluva long way from Northern Pike, and I was driving the Yellow Cab my brother and I owned in Ann Arbor and scraping up money for a trip to West Africa. A few months later, I was in Togo, training in the Peace Corps to build schools and wells in the sub-Sahara. As exotic as Togo seemed, it was my reality, and McGregor Bay seemed like a dream.

Fast-forward to 2007. The descendants of Hank and Edith and their cousins, the Woods, heirs on each side to one-half of an undivided island, decided to sell what everyone agrees is the most beautiful island in the Bay. The price was too high for us, but not too high for Joe and John Shields, identical twins who are government chauffeurs for members of the Canadian Parliament. The Shields brothers tore down the old Fonde and Wood cottages and are building new cottages – not bigger ones, but structures with an emphasis on glass for better catching the marvelous views in every direction.

It was the Shields brothers who played an essential role in connecting Karen and me to Brian Cram, who early this summer sold us a cottage and 1.8 acres on another TP outcropping — a steep, heavily-wooded seven-acre island in an area of the Bay we hardly knew back in the days when we were concentrated on the Outer Bay.

In our “new” place, a cottage with more square footage than our house in Plymouth, there is a black and white photo dated 1929 showing a building closely resembling our place without its long row of storm windows. You can see two big Union Jack flags hanging from the inside wall of the porch. So our place is one of the oldest cottages in the Bay, which began to attract cottagers in the early 1900s.

I’m going to stop writing now, because it’s time to fry up some incredibly tasty bacon from the butcher shop in Little Current along with a mess of eggs sunny-side up. The weather being clear and fairly still, it will be a good day for us to pack sandwiches, put the cooler in the latest edition of the Slick, our 16-and-a-half-foot Crestliner, and go exploring around that vast mass of land known as McGregor Island in search of Russian Pass, Hanging Rock and the East-West Channel, all so far unknown to us.

I’ll post this next time I go to Little Current, where the best wi-fi connection to the Internet is at the English Pantry. Great excuse to order a tasty sandwich and upload this column.

P.S. I love this life without phones. I saw the most amazing thing yesterday. We were listening to a concert given by the Linvilles, a family of fine musicians from West Virginia. The concert was preceded by a delicious dinner of sloppy joes at the Parish Hall on Iroquois Island in McGregor Bay. Besides good food and great music, nobody – not one single person – did I see or hear yammering on a cell phone.

Posted in Bay | Tagged Canada, Georgian Bay, Ontario. McGregor Bay | 4 Comments

Not so friendly “Friends”

Posted on October 10, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

They call themselves “Friends of the Rouge.”

Try to find out what they do, and they’re not so cordial.

For instance, I’m curious about how the Rouge Report Card was compiled in 1999 and again in 2005. Friends of the Rouge coordinated the discussion groups that led to publication of the 2005 Rouge Report Card. There were a number of down arrows, indicating progress in a negative direction, despite the infusion of $1.6 billion in taxpayer money through varoius governments and the Friends group to make the river usable by humans and fit for animal life.

“Fishable and swimmable” being the objectives, which were to have been achieved by 2005, a goal set by the now-defunct Michigan Water Resources Commission.

Didn’t happen. In 2005, the water in the Rouge watershed was found, after extensive E. coli sampling and analysis, to be fit for human contact at best — AT BEST!! — 5 percent of the time. Ninety-five percent of the time, better not fall in.

In 2005, the Report Card showed several down arrows, meaning retrograde progress: Wildlife habitat, riparian corridor, wetlands, woodlands and meadows, stream flow and adjacent habitat, benthos — all got down arrows, while fish, stormwater management and water quality for aquatic life got sideways — no progress — arrows.

I’ve heard from people involved in the Report Card progress that there would have been more down arrows but for political meddling. They didn’t want to make it look TOO bad.

I’d like to know more about the interference, and just how the judgment calls were made.

Seems like Friends of the Rouge should want to help me understand that process. They are a friendly group, are they not? If they’re true friends of the river, seems like they’d want to put all their cards on the table.

Anyway, I sent them a request under the Michigan Freedom of Information Act asking for help understanding what exactly they coordinated with that Report Card back in 2005.

Here is my September 24, 2009 FOIA request:

Re: Rouge River Report Cards 1999 & 2005

Dear FOIA Coordinator:
This is a request pursuant to the Michigan Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), MCL 15.321 et seq., for copies of any and all documents and background materials originating from or received by the Friends of the Rouge, including but not limited to data, records, reports, logs, minutes, memoranda, notes of telephone conversations, journal entries, e-mails, faxes, or any other documentation of any kind, pertaining to the following publications of the Rouge Remedial Action Plan Advisory Council:

Rouge River Report Card December 1999
Rouge River Report Card December 2005

Now, I know that the Friends group is a private, nonprofit organization. But I figured since they are dependent on taxpayer infusions of money to stay afloat, from Wayne County and the Alliance of Rouge Communities, they ought to be willing to let a taxpayer see their records.

Guess I was naive.

Here’s the response I received from Friends of the Rouge dated September 29 and received on October 10, 2009:

The Friends of the Rouge (FOTR) is a private, non-profit corporation and as such does not meet the definition of a “public body” as defined in Michigan Compiled Laws (MCL) 15.232, section 2 (d) and is not subject to the provision of the FOIA (P.A. 442 of 1976, as amended).

We therefore respectfully decline your request for the production and copying of the cited records.

The letter is signed by Heidi McKenzie, FOTR board president and Michael Darga, FOTR board vice-president.

Guess I’m out of luck.

For the time being.

Have YOU tried to get information from this “friends” group?

Do YOU have information about Friends of the Rouge?

And please tell me — just who is this group friends with, really?

Drop me a line at joelthurtell@gmail.com

Posted in Adventures on the Rouge | Tagged Adventures on the Rouge, environment, Freedom of Information, Friends of the Rouge, pollution | Leave a comment

Michael Johnson case

Posted on October 9, 2009 by hro50ta1

The following article gives context to my JOTR column. “Michael Johnson: He had his chance.” Re-published with permission of the Benton Harbor Herald-Palladium

Published 5/24/09 in Benton Harbor Herald-Palladium

By SCOTT AIKEN
H-P Staff Writer

ST. JOSEPH — Michael Jeffrey Johnson claims that a judge’s misunderstanding of how long the Lincoln Township man would be in prison and a secret deal are grounds to free him from a life sentence for murder.

His request has ignited controversy about a family’s forgiveness and a murderer’s possible rehabilitation in prison. It also has brought the 1980 murder of Sue Ellen Machemer back to public consciousness.

One voice publicized for the first time in this story is that of the woman he raped several months before he killed Machemer. She has written to the Berrien County prosecutor asking that he do everything he can to keep Johnson in prison.

The 46-year-old Johnson and his lawyer made their points for his freedom during a May 1 evidentiary hearing in Berrien County Trial Court on a motion to cancel the sentence and release him with credit for serving nearly 29 years.

But a review of records shows that the late Circuit Court Judge Julian Hughes clearly expressed his intent for Johnson to remain in prison for second-degree murder in the April 3, 1980, slaying of Machemer, a Lakeshore High School classmate.

Hughes said at sentencing in 1980 that the life term did not “slam the door” on release, but it would require commutation by the governor with input from the judge or his successor.

During a 1983 hearing, a year after Johnson’s conviction had been upheld by the Michigan Court of Appeals, Hughes rejected a motion to declare what his intentions were at sentencing, according to Herald-Palladium archives.

Hughes, who died in 2003, said the declaration was unnecessary because his intention was already clear – Johnson was to remain in prison unless his sentence was commuted by the governor or parole was granted after a favorable recommendation from the judge or his successor.

Johnson’s lawyer had sought the 1983 hearing to clarify the sentence in light of the state’s mandatory minimum law, which then said parole was not possible for people serving life sentences.

In 1985, the Michigan Supreme Court upheld Johnson’s conviction and used the case to rule that a state ban on “good time” sentence reductions for inmates convicted of certain violent crimes doesn’t apply to those serving fixed terms or life sentences.

The ruling meant Johnson became eligible for parole in 1993. Since then the parole board has shown no interest in releasing him.

Berrien County Prosecutor Arthur Cotter said his office was not aware of the 1983 hearing but that it appears to be important to the motion now before the court and will be investigated. A check of court records shows there is no transcript of proceedings from that court session.

Despite a request by Machemer’s parents that Johnson be paroled, many people want him to stay in prison, and the case has generated a large amount of interest in the community.

Judge John Donahue is not expected to rule for several weeks following the May 1 evidentiary hearing on Johnson’s motion for release.

The prosecutor’s office contends the court has no legal basis to resentence Johnson because the original sentence has not been ruled invalid.

“He wants to make an end run around the parole board’s decision to not parole him,” Assistant Prosecutor Aaron Mead said in pleadings.

Deal denied

Bruce Conybeare of St. Joseph, now retired, the lawyer who defended Johnson in the murder case, said there was no closed-door meeting with the judge to discuss sentencing, a claim his former client made in the recent testimony.

Conybeare said it would have been highly improper for him to confer with Hughes about the case without the prosecutor present. Johnson, who was 17 at the time and under a lot of stress, may not recall events correctly, he said.

“Whatever he remembers, there were no deals made,” Conybeare said.

Testifying in the May 1 evidentiary hearing, Johnson claimed that Conybeare told him that he met privately with the judge, who agreed Johnson would serve about 15 years if he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder.

A life sentence would be better than a term of years, Johnson said he was told, because the judge would construct a sentence that would free him in as little as 10 years. Johnson said he was told not to admit that anything was promised to him.

According to a transcript of Johnson’s guilty plea on Aug. 12, 1980, the prosecutor’s office agreed to drop a charge of first-degree premeditated murder in exchange for the plea to second-degree murder.

The sentence for first-degree murder is mandatory life without parole. For second-degree murder the sentence is any term of years up to life. A person could be paroled at the time after serving 10 years, which was increased to 15 years in 1992.

In response to questions from Hughes, Johnson said he understood he would give up the right to trial and other rights by pleading guilty. Other than the plea agreement stated, he said, nobody had promised him anything.

Girl drowned in ditch

Johnson admitted he rolled the 16-year-old Machemer from a car and into a water-filled ditch along an abandoned railroad right of way in Lincoln Township because she would not stop screaming as he tried to sexually assault her.

Johnson told the court he watched the girl for several minutes while her head was under water and intended to kill her.

Johnson had stopped to help Machemer when her car ran out of gas. She then agreed to give him a ride home, and he had her turn onto the old railroad bed, telling her it was a shortcut.

The car got stuck, and Johnson tied her hands behind her and attempted a sexual assault but panicked when the girl resisted, according to his testimony.

Machemer drowned in the ditch, according to an autopsy report. Johnson was arrested April 7, 1980, the same day as her funeral, attended by more than 600 people.

At the time of the murder, Johnson, the son of affluent parents, had been on juvenile court probation for two months for the Nov. 4, 1979, knife point rape of a woman in Benton Township. He was 16 at the time, and the rape charge in juvenile court was reduced to assault with a dangerous weapon.

Because the juvenile court proceedings and records were not open to the public at the time, the news media did not connect Johnson to the rape, which was reported by police, until after he killed Machemer.

Joel Thurtell, then editor of the Berrien Springs Journal-Era, quoted unnamed court workers who said Probate Court Judge Ronald Lange released Johnson from the juvenile center to his parents after a one-month stay and later sentenced him to probation, though professionals recommended incarceration.

Probate court officials asked the prosecutor’s office to investigate the possibility that publishing the story violated laws on the release of information about juveniles. No charges were filed against Thurtell and the matter was dropped.

Such cases eventually led to changes in the law to open public criminal files involving juveniles after June 1, 1988, with certain exceptions.

How long is life?

In pleadings filed in trial court to support Johnson’s pending motion, his lawyer, Carl Marlinga of Sterling Heights, contends that a life sentence imposed for second-degree murder in 1980 had a different meaning than today in terms of time to be served.

In 1992, the state changed the parole board members from civil service employees to political appointees, and sentences that meant one thing prior to the change came to mean something else, the defense contends.

Life terms after the change were “shockingly out of proportion” to the sentences from 1942 through 1984, when lifers whose offenses made them eligible for parole were released at the rate of 5-15 percent a year after serving an average of 15-18 years, the defense pleadings state.

From 1995 through 2004, the percentage dropped to 0.15 percent a year.

Marlinga also referred to a 2007 U.S. District Court decision in Detroit resulting from a lawsuit by inmates that says Michigan violated the ex post facto clause of the Constitution when it changed parole rules in 1992. The Constitution prohibits the government from increasing sentences retroactively.

The ruling applies to the parole board, and Berrien County authorities agree that the board, not the trial court, ought to be dealing with Johnson’s case.

Marlinga did not return phone calls seeking comment for this story.

Russ Marlan, spokesman for the Michigan Department of Corrections, said the state’s argument in the federal case is that trial judges are not required to impose a life sentence when that is an option for a offense for which parole is possible.

“We’ve looked at life max people, and 85 percent of the time the judge sentences to a term of years,” he said.

If a judge means for a prisoner to serve 10 years, Marlan said, he or she can fashion a sentence accordingly.

“Our position is that life is the maximum,” he said, and judges do not have to impose that sentence.

The parole board interviews 400 to 500 lifers a year but paroles only about 10 annually. About 4,500 prisoners are serving life sentences in the state, and 40 percent can become eligible for parole.

A majority of the parole board, which recently increased from 10 members to 15, must vote to parole a person serving life. For sentences in terms of years, a vote of the majority of a three-member panel is required.

Marlan said several votes and a public hearing are required in considering parole for a life sentence offender.

In light of the federal ruling and order, the parole board is interviewing groups of inmates serving parolable life terms for non-drug offenses and the results are being sent to the court.

“Every decision the board reviews is with one thing in mind,” Marlan said. “They shall not release anybody they think will be a menace to society or threat to the public.”

Prison life

Johnson’s lawyer and his family say he quickly adjusted to prison life, has a long list of accomplishments to his credit, no misconduct tickets for more than 20 years and would not be a threat if released.

His sisters, Jackie Huie and Dawn Williams, said he earned a GED, obtained an associate degree at Montcalm Community College, earned a paralegal degree and learned a vocational trade. He has become an accomplished painter, served as editor of prison newspapers and completed a group psychotherapy program.

In addition to the support of his own family, the parents of Sue Ellen Machemer, Mel and Ellen Machemer, also forgave Johnson and supported his release.

Johnson’s case has been reviewed by the parole board five times but the board has not granted him an interview, a required step toward release from prison.

His family expresses exasperation with the board’s unwillingness to interview Johnson.

In describing the 1980 plea agreement in court pleadings, Marlinga said Johnson at the time was an “emotionally immature, unsophisticated young man with a sex drive typical of 17-year-olds.”

A 2006 report by Stephen Harris, a licensed psychologist, said Johnson shows “no evidence of psychopathy,” no indications of anti-social personality disorder and that his prognosis is “extremely good.”

An analysis of the level of danger posed by Johnson “continues to place him in a very low category,” the report said.

Mental health professionals, however, have been wrong about Johnson in the past.

After he was charged with rape in 1979, several months before Johnson murdered Machemer, psychologists reported to the juvenile court that the sex crime could likely be attributed to his immaturity and that he was unlikely to commit similar crimes.

A Nov. 26, 1979, letter from lawyer Conybeare to Joseph Sura, a court employee, refers to an assessment by medical doctor Charles Payne. He determined that Johnson knew right from wrong on the night of the rape in Benton Township but because of his immaturity was unable to act with better judgment, according to the letter obtained under the Freedom of Information Act.

W.R. King, a psychologist, concluded that the attack was not a planned sexual transgression and that Johnson believed the victim acquiesced and “enjoyed her part,” the letter said.

King strongly recommended that Johnson not be considered for waiver into adult court or committed to the state and assigned to a juvenile facility because that would be more likely to hurt than help his social conduct.

State police reports of the Benton Township attack tell a very different story.

The 25-year-old victim told police she was walking near a business off Michigan 139 on her way home in the early morning hours when someone approached and put a knife against her ribs.

The man, later found to be Johnson, forced her into a car and drove down a dirt road where he bound her hands behind her, stripped off
her clothing and raped her at knife point over a two-hour period.

During the assault, Johnson forced the woman to say degrading things about herself, she told police, and would alternate between being highly tense and threatening or relaxed.

Eventually he wrapped the woman’s dress around her head, dragged her out of the car and threatened to kill her if she moved before he was gone, according to reports.

Johnson threw more of her clothes out of the car, and after she got dressed she found a phone booth and called police.

While she was waiting for the police, Johnson returned. The woman told Johnson she had called the police, and as he was driving away troopers pulled up. Johnson’s car was stopped nearby and he was arrested.

Today, the woman, who lives in another state, said she believes the timely arrival of the police saved her life.

“I know in my heart of hearts that he had wavered on the decision to kill me, dumped me out of the car, then reconsidered and came back to kill me,” she said in a letter to Cotter, the prosecutor.

The woman said she strongly opposes Johnson’s petition to release him on the claim that the sentence for Machemer’s murder was “invalid.”

“He does not deny that he killed Sue Ellen Machemer. Let’s stay focused on reality,” she said in the letter.

“Mr. Cotter, please do whatever it takes to keep him where he is,” the woman wrote.

The murder and prior rape “clearly shows an escalation in the violent actions he was willing to carry out, possibly bolstered by the relative slap on the wrist he had received as a result of the attack on me,” the woman wrote.

The forgiveness extended by the murder victim’s parents are “admirable,” she said, but the judge should decide what to do for society.

Cotter, who apologized to the rape victim for the way the case was handled in 1979, said things would be done differently today.

“It was an absolute travesty of justice,” he said.

Posted in Bad government, Joel's J School, Michael Johnson | Tagged criminal justice, Juvenile justice, Michael Jeffrey Johnosn, Michael Johnson, murder. rape, parole | 2 Comments

Those Free Press pumpkins

Posted on October 8, 2009 by hro50ta1

By Joel Thurtell

During the McCarthy period, spy-hunting journalist Whittaker Chambers hid rolls of film in a pumpkin.

In the most amazing Detroit Free Press story I’ve ever read, I learned today, October 8, 2009, how the two top sleuths at the Free Press, each owning a quarter of a Pulitzer Prize, got their big scoop that ousted Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick and sent him to prison.

They were pumpkins!

In the weird Free Press story by M.L. Elrick and Jim Schaefer, we learn that attorney Mike Stefani gave the text messages that wound up making political mincemeat of Kwame to the two Freepsters writing today’s very story!

Like Chambers putting film in the pumpkin, apparently Stefani thought the two Freepsters were a sort of journalistic safe deposit box.

In spycraft, it’s called a “dead-drop” — a place where contraband can be put so giver and taker don’t have to be in the same place at the same time.

Stefani, defending his law license before the Michigan Attorney Discipline Board, said he gave the papers to the reporters for “safekeeping.”

So Stefani was the Free Press “deep throat.”

And the paper was his dead-drop.

Maybe the Freepsters were supposed to hold the text messages for somebody else. Stefani gives the text messages to Elrick/Schaefer to keep safe for…

Well, for what?

Did Stefani have some third party for whom the Freepsters were acting as a pipeline?

Not very journalistic of them, if so.

Did Stefani know his partners in subterfuge were going to put the messages on newsprint?

What kind of promises did they make in return for “safekeeping” those lurid texts?

Elrick, covering the hearing, declined to answer reporters’ questions, even though he was a subject of the hearing. Cute.

I’ve known people who honestly trusted media people with confidential information. That’s because there are reporters who are willing to keep such things to themselves. Others will out the facts.

Ethics?

As I say, depends partly on what the agreement was between Stefani and the Pulitzer-totin’ reporters.

Depends also on how forthcoming they are about how they got their Pulitzer-making transcripts.

I’m telling you, it does matter how they got this story.

Isn’t this interesting?

A couple times on JOTR I wondered how the Free Press got those text messages and I suggested it would make interesting reading. I found it hypocritical of the newspaper to go into court — and into print — claiming to be this great representative of the public good, insisting that courts and lawyers and public officials open their records to the Free Press, even while the newspaper contends it’s not subject to the same kind of scrutiny.

Why, the Free Press claims its employees don’t even enjoy First Amendment rights!

Now with this Discipline Board hearing, we’re starting to get somewhere.

But there’s more to know.

Problem is, the demi-Pulitzers have been entrusted by their editors with reporting their own story.

Note that the questions I’ve raised were not even mentioned by the reporters in their Free Press story.

Isn’t it curious that there was no comment from the bosses?

And isn’t it weird that the the Kwame-beaters are the ones asking their editors to comment on a story that has the Free Press and its two award-bedecked heroes as central characters, all of whom are keeping mum?

Doubly cute.

Time was when covering a story about yourself would have been a big no-no.

But now we know that what underlay the Free Press’s deflated Pulitzer was not gumshoe work, just a lucky connection.

And yet, maybe not. Maybe there was more to it.

If so, let’s hear about it!

Come on, you palladins of the people, tell us the whole story.

What’s this about editors having no comment?

Actually, that’s just what the reporter did, isn’t it?

But hey, drag those editors out of their holes!

Let’s hear from those creatures.

There has to be more to this yarn.

Has it occurred to anyone that these reporters might be called as witnesses?

Would they still cover themselves?

Time to yank those pumpkins off the story.

Drop me a line at joelthurtelL@gmail.com

Posted in Bad government, future of newspapers, Joel's J School, Kwamegate | Tagged Detroit Free Press, ethics in journalism, Kwamegate | Leave a comment

More layoffs for Detroit “dailies”

Posted on October 7, 2009 by hro50ta1

Gannett honchos: 2009 ads down 30 %, worse to come

This just received — note to Detroit Newspaper Guild members from administrative officer Lou Mleczko after meeting with bosses:

Dear folks:

Union officers representing the Guild and all other unions that have

contracts with the DMP and the News, met for several hours this morning with

Company representatives, who requested the meeting.

I was there representing Guild News, Free Press and Maintenance Units as

was the Guild attorney Duane Ice. There were no editorial supervisors from

the News or Free Press in attendance. Company representatives included:

Robert Verycruysse,DMP attorney; Kristi Bowden, DMP V.P. Human Resources;

Joyce Jenereaux, Exec. V.P. DMP; Kirstin Starkey, Human Resources; Ed

Murphy, benefits administrator.

The News also had attorney Joseph A. Ritok, of Dykema law firm,

attending the mtg.

The Company said layoffs are forthcoming for all union-represented

jurisdictions including the three Guild units. The Company lost money in

2009 despite the fact that it made all of its goals and targets following

the switch to the digital home newspaper and street sales format implemented

last March.

Advertising revenues were down 30% and projections are for more red ink

in 2010.

The Company did say that some health care concessions, which would

increase employee deductibles and co-payments, would be sought in exchange

for some reductions in the number of layoffs. They made it clear, however,

that layoffs were going to happen irregardless of any health care

concessions. They also emphasized that there could be further layoffs before

the contracts expire in 2010, depending on overall newspaper revenues.

There were no details provided on how many layoffs would occur in each

of the respective union jurisdictions. The unions unanimously rejected the

offer to reopen the contracts. The unions said any discussions involving

health care concessions must include dropping the open shop provisions in

their contracts. We also indicated that more financial details would be

needed before the unions could respond to any Company proposal. The Company

said that was a “non-starter” and they ended the meeting.

Meanwhile, the Guild said it had no objection to the News offering a

voluntary resignation to staffers in the Guild jurisdiction. The Company

said it will offer the same severance pay to voluntary quits as in the Guild

contract: 2 weeks for every year of service to a maximum of 26 weeks. They

will posting a notice regarding this voluntary resignation offer soon.

Lou Mleczko

President, Local 34022