How to Survive a Kitchen Remodel

This was published in the New Mexico Breeze, June 5,2009

HOW TO SURVIVE A KITCHEN REMODEL
By
Joan Saks Berman

This is a project that always takes a lot of planning. Of course, this depends on how extensive your remodel will be. Expect that you'll be without your kitchen for at least two months. This may also vary, depending on the nature and disposition of your contractor as well as how much work needs to be done. You may want to replace all the cabinets, counters, and appliances as well as the floor covering, or you may want only to replace the counter tops and the floor covering, and have the cabinets and walls painted. You should also decide well in advance whether the utility room will be done over at the same time. The cost, of course, will vary with how much will be done and the specific items chosen for replacement. The contractor may provide all the new materials and new equipment, or he may prefer that you go with him to his suppliers and pay for the counters and cabinets, for example, at the time of purchase. If some time has gone by since the cost estimate, be prepared for increased costs on materials.
It is important to get a written estimate of when the project will be finished. Some contractors are infamous for disappearing for various periods of time, in the middle of an unfinished job, when they take on additional jobs. (However, some particularly eccentric contractors are not willing to be pinned down.) It is also a good idea to get the labor costs in writing as well. Otherwise the contractor may say that he underestimated some costs, and needs several hundred more dollars, or that he needs to hire more helpers and must have more money to pay them. You will be vulnerable to contractor manipulations when your kitchen is torn apart and your house is in chaos. You'll want to do whatever it takes to get the job done and return your life to normal.
Set up an area in another room, for example the dining room, that will hold basic kitchen necessities. Use your buffet or a card table, but not the table you will use for eating. Your refrigerator will be moved into your dining room or family room and you will have to do without your automatic icemaker unless you have running water available. On the card table and/or buffet will go your toaster and/or toaster oven, microwave, electric coffeemaker, electric can-opener, coffee grinder, and whatever other electric appliances are indispensable for you . These may also include a hot plate, electric frying pan, and a crockpot or slow-cooker.
You'll also need some laundry detergent for trips to the laundromat if your washing machine will be disconnected and moved. When someone helps you pack up the kitchen, label each box so that you will know which box contains what when you have to put it away again. Before the workers arrive, you can prepare a box or drawer so you'll have what you need to use during your temporary displacement in a convenient place. Some items to consider are a few plates, cups, bowls, forks, knives, and spoons. In fact, if you can think of this as "camping" out and have camping equipment, you might want to use that. If you plan to use a hotplate or a camping stove, you'll need a saucepan and a skillet, a lid and a spatula, and maybe a teakettle. Of course, you'll need potholders
On the other hand, you may want to consider getting a supply of paper plates, cups, bowls, and disposable knives, forks and spoons. If that offends your environmental or gastronomic sensibilities, be prepared to wash what you use in the bathtub or bathroom sink, and put some dishwashing liquid there. Lots of paper towels, napkins, coffee filters and aluminum foil will be helpful. Some Ziploc bags will be useful, as all your Rubbermaid, Tupperware or Gladware will be packed up. (This is a good time, by the way, to recycle the empty bottles, jars, and bags that may have accumulated, if you're the kind of person who can't throw out anything which might be used again. Ground coffee or coffee beans and tea containers should be accessible. Keep some batteries handy in several sizes, because you might need them. And don't forget the garbage bags and recycle bags. If you are using disposables, you'll need them even more.
Your companion animals need to be considered, too, so don't forget to put their bowls in a convenient place, along with supplies of their food, treats, and toys. If you usually keep their leashes in the kitchen find a new place for them.
Depending on the layout of your house, you may want to protect your carpet from the dusty footprints of the workmen, and your own (if you'll be passing through the work area). Scraps and remnants of old carpeting or runners can be used, and be sure to keep your vacuum cleaner handy as well as a feather duster or a few dust cloths.
You might want to keep a bottle of wine handy to help smooth out the wrinkles of frustration and anxiety, so keep a corkscrew among your utensils. In any case, you'll need some bottled drinking water and/or soda.
Even with all this preparation, you'll probably want to eat out more than usual, so include this in your budget. You may also want to bring home prepared food from your favorite restaurant, fast food drive-thru, or supermarket. Think of the new salads available at Wendy's or Costco. Certainly this is a good time use microwavable frozen foods.
If you store boxes of dishes and other kitchen cabinet contents on the porch or patio, cover them with tarps as protection from wind and rain. And don't forget to tell neighbors if workmen will be going in and out when you're not home.
Now that you've read my simple suggestions, you may want to reconsider the whole project. A friend of mine was so traumatized after going through a kitchen remodel that she said she would rather move than do it again. Other people I know have avoided doing anything else to improve their homes after the nightmare of the kitchen remodel experience.

Cathryn McGill

This was published in the New Mexico Breeze June 19, 2009

Cathryn McGill

If you attended the Women's Voices concerts presented by the New Mexico Jazz Workshop (NMJW) at the Albuquerque Museum on June 12 and 13, you would have seen and heard Cathryn McGill, with her braided hair, belting out her songs. She was the producer of those concerts and the Women's Voices concerts for the past five years, and has decided that now is the time to pass on the job to someone else. Every year the concert had a different concept, but it was always about creating a chemistry between the musical participants. This year it was especially about creating community. Both the audience and the musicians felt it. This has become a signature event for the NMJW, and attendance exceeded the break-even point, financially.

If you didn't see her at Women's Voices, you might have encountered Cathryn when she was an Albuquerque city government employee. She graduated in 1983 from the University of Southern California with a major in Public Administration, and came to Albuquerque the next year. She worked for the city in the Risk Management Department and Parks and Recreation. At the Convention Center she was in charge of entertainment events.

Later, Cathryn was Development Director (fundraising) at the Albuquerque Rape Crisis Center. She produced another New Mexico Diva concert, the SaVi Fair (Sisters Against Violence Initiative) as a benefit in 2004. A compilation CD featuring the Divas was sold at the concert.

During this time Cathryn was always acting and singing. She was president of the Vortex Theater. Then "actress who sang" became a vocalist—she hasn't done live theater in a while. Recently, she made a decision to quit her "day job," and make music primary in her life.

Cathryn released two CDs this year, performing a multi-media concert on April 10 to celebrate. The CDs, "From the Inside" and "I'm On My Way," were many years in the making, but her mother's death was the impetus for finally getting them out to the public. She wanted to honor her mother's legacy as well as her own art.

Cathryn grew up in Muskogee, Oklahoma, the fourth of five children. After her father left the family, her mother returned to school and became a teacher, so she would be able to raise her children as a single mother. During the time that mom was in school, the grandparents stepped in to take care of the kids.

The two influences that inspired Cathryn as she was growing up were the importance of education and spirituality. Her CD, "I'm On My Way," draws on this in order to be inspirational and express her philosophy of life. It's composed of songs that she sings in her appearances around the country at non-denominational New Thought churches, that is, churches that teach that if you change your thinking, you can change your life. She had been raised a Baptist, but found that she couldn't conform to the norms dealing with scripture because her performing often took her to bars and nightclubs. She feels that now she is a better Christian. In the Albuquerque Center for Spiritual Living she an completely be who she is. She traces every good experience back to being part of this church, which is a social group as well as a spiritual center.

"From The Inside" is a collection of songs she wrote about her life experiences, songs about relationships, both good and bad. One specifically honors her mother.

Cathryn has been working closely with guitarist Larry Mitchell, who won a Grammy in 2007 for his producing talents. But still she didn't finish her CDs. Then she met John Rangel, jazz pianist. They understood each other musically. John encouraged her do she could finish her CD. He posed the question about what would she want to do about music? Does she want to be the kind of musician she envisioned? John and Larry co-produced her second CD.

The CD was part of Cathryn's long range plan is to start traveling again with church appearances for her music ministry. She had booked dates for Seattle and Portland, so she needed a new product to go with her performances. That gave her a sense of urgency and a deadline. She goal is to combine music and motivational messages about a sense of personal responsibility. As she explains her philosophy, she readily quotes from John Milton, Eleanor Roosevelt, and the Bible. She hopes to be able to counter the message that we get from mainstream media that everything is horrible with the message that we still have everything we need, and incorporated that thought into a song she wrote with Stu McAskie, pianist.

Before concluding the interview, I asked Cathryn if there was anything special in her home that she'd like to show me. She walked over to the piano and took up a worn LP record album by Harry Belafonte, proudly showing me the inscription and autograph he wrote for her. She had spent an afternoon with him a few years ago, interviewing him for the Perspective. She thinks of him as her ideal man, describing him as sexy, a social activist, spiritual, intelligent, talented, drop-dead gorgeous even in his golden years, and rich, using his money to help others.

I knew that Cathryn has pages on Facebook and MySpace, so I asked her what her thoughts were about these forms of social media. She's very much in favor of them because of the immediacy of communication, speaking of viral marketing and guerilla marketing, that is, a free form of marketing useful for when you don't have a lot of money. It's based on who you know. She uses Facebook to let people know where she's performing. Again quoting the Bible, "Wherever two or three are gathered, I will be in their midst," she said that Facebook is a place where there are six degrees of separation between people.

Cathryn can be seen performing with some of the New Mexico musicians at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-lFMZNWCHc. Another video is at www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhLzAExxCu8. The same videos, plus some song tracks, can be found on her MySpace page, http://www.myspace.com/cathrynmcgill.

Cathryn's New Mexico appearances this summer include Taos Plaza July 2, NMJW's Jazz Under the Stars at the Albuquerque Museum on July 18 (with Larry Mitchell on guitar), the New Mexico Jazz Festival in Old Town on July 24, and Santa Fe Stages on August 3. In September, she'll be singing at the Aid and Comfort Gala to benefit AIDS services. She'll also be performing at private parties. Appearances in Seattle and Los Angeles are also planned this summer.

Joan is a freelance writer as well as a prize-winning photographer, and has a degree in
psychology, with a private psychotherapy practice. Her writing includes professional
publications, memoir, and essays. She has an idea for a novel, that she is just starting. She volunteers with the New Mexico Jazz Workshop, which allows her to see concerts for free.

A Visit with Patty Stephens

This was published in the New Mexico Breeze on June 12, 2009.

A Visit with Patty Stephens

By Joan Saks Berman

On Friday, June 12 and Saturday, June 13, the New Mexico Jazz Workshop will present the annual Women's Voices concerts. Women's Voices, a festival which began in 1993, continues as an annual tribute to the outstanding women vocalists in New Mexico. The concerts are at the Albuquerque Museum Amphitheater. One of the performers on both days is Patty Stephens. She's been part of the festival for 6 or 7 years.

I interviewed Patty Stephens in her home in the North Valley, near Los Duranes School. She had just returned from the High Desert Center for Spiritual Living (formerly High Desert Church of Religious Science), church on the West Side where she is music director and sings with the gospel choir on Sundays. She's been a member there for 27 years. She said that she likes the church because it honors diversity and works to make the world a place worth living in. In her role there, she tries to unite and develop the community.

As we sat at the kitchen table sipping iced tea, I looked around admiring the eclectic décor and her collection of interesting odds and ends filling the built-in hutch on one wall. Outside the back door was a garden of corn and four kinds of squash, and a hammock strung between two old cottonwoods.

Patty Stephens was born into singing. Her mother was a musician and a dancer. It was a large family, eight girls and three boys, and there was always singing into the home. Patty never took lessons; she must have inherited her beautiful voice. Some families talk about having enough members to form a baseball team. Patty said that in her family, there were always enough to create a play, and they put on a series based on Greek tragedies.

The family lived as a lay family at the Holy Cross Abbey in Cañon City, Colorado. She recalled that her first stage performance was around three years old and it revolved around Catholic ritual.

In high school, Patty sang in the choir and joined a rock and roll band. Later, she toured with the Abbey Glee Club. She had a group named Double Entendre with her sister Teresa, singing jazz, blues and country music as they toured around Colorado. In her late teens and early 20's she worked as a farm worker, and learned mariachi music from her Mexican co-workers. In the early '70's she lived in Cuernavaca, Mexico, teaching theater and learning Spanish.

In 1985, Patty moved to Albuquerque with her husband and her son Gabriel, determined to devote her time to nothing but music and theater. Only one of her sisters, Wendy Fabian, an artist, lives here. Patty broke into the local scene by singing in jams at El Madrid when that bar was a center of local music. Then she found the First Church of Religious Science (now called the
Albuquerque Center for Spiritual Living, located on Louisiana). She started singing at services every Sunday, and began to meet other musicians and make connections for getting jobs, such as singing in the lounge at the Hyatt Hotel. She has sung in such places as Café Miche and at the Mykonos Restaurant.

Admiring her voice, aspiring singers started asking Patty to give them singing lessons. She had to figure out how to teach, since she had never taken lessons herself. Now, teaching is her greatest passion. It's fulfilling on a deeper level than performing. The singing lessons she gives become a means of personal empowerment for her students. Working with the breath often leads to an unexpected release of trauma.

Patty teaches private lessons and also through the education program of the New Mexico Jazz Workshop. She is especially enthusiastic about her work with Music Together®, a research-based international program for families, designed to enhance children's acquisition of basic musical competence, based on the belief that all children are musical. It's not about performing but about integrating movement and music into family activity, and is aimed at children from birth to six years old. The FamJam events bring the community in.

Patty's current work includes the Brazil Project, with pianist Bert Dalton, percussionist Frank Leto, drummer John Bartlit, and Milo Jaramillo on bass. She feels more rapport with this group than she has with other bands. She's learning Portuguese for the songs. Upcoming performances for the group include Zinc on June 20. They will be at the New Mexico Jazz Festival at 6:40pm on July 18, in an auxiliary tent near Civic Plaza. Later that evening, at 8p.m. they will be at Seasons upstairs deck.

In her "free" time, Patty loves to garden and cook. Her friends are fellow singers, who often gather to sing mariachi songs together in her backyard.

Patty's website is under construction, but you can find out more about Music Together® at www.famjam.net.

Macbeth, it's not

I went to see the latest (earliest) Star Trek movie tonight. Briefly, it has way too much testosterone, as manifested in noise and things crashing and falling apart, way too little logic, and no social message, as in the Gene Roddenberry tradition. As Shakespeare said, "It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing."

A Christmastime memory

Once upon a time, a long time ago, long before VCR's were invented, even before television sets were found in every home (it may have been invented, but wasn't commercially available), my father devised his own family entertainment. He owned both eight and 16 millimeter movie projectors. From time to time he would rent a newsreel and a bunch of cartoons, and set up a theater in our basement. He set the silvered screen in the front, and pulled it up like a windowshade, hooking it at the top of the extended pole for that purpose. The folding chairs were set in rows, and corn was popped in the kitchen upstairs, in a pot with a rotating lever in the cover that stirred the corn to keep it from burning. The neighbors, especially the kids, poured in and took their places, the lights were extinguished, and the whirring of the projector began.

At Christmastime, the featured movie was a black and white enactment, before computerized animation (for that matter before most of us had ever heard of computers) of " 'Twas the night before Christmas." We delighted in the poetry, and in seeing the sugar plums dancing in their heads, and the jolly old Santa with his reindeer on the roof. The movie was played over and over, and every year, and before long I could recite the poem from memory, like a chorus with the narrator of the movie.

So, even though this Jewish family didn't officially celebrate Christmas, we soaked in the holiday atmosphere. Maybe it didn't start as early as the day after Halloween, but Christmas was everywhere in the stores and on the air waves. A favorite of the season was the serial story, "The Cinnamon Bear," broadcast for 15 minutes every day, around 5p.m. And Santa didn't pass over our house. We didn't have a fireplace, so my sister and I hung our stockings (the longest ones we could find) from the doors of the "entertainment center," a Stromberg-Carlson console with an am-fm radio and a phonograph inside. We would hang the stocking over the dark wood door and then close it, so that it fit snuggly but was still open waiting for the treats. We would wake up on Christmas morning with oranges and various kinds of candy bulging in the fabric, and toys piled on the floor. I never wondered how Santa got in, even without a chimney to slide down.

Our extended family had our own tradition for celebrating Chanukah. All the aunts, uncles, and cousins would gather at one of our houses, rotating each year, along with Grandpa Jacob and Grandma Sarah. At the appropriate time, all the cousins would gather eagerly in a large space in front of Grandpa and he would throw a handful of coins, nickels, dimes and quarters, into the air. Then all of us cousins would scramble for them as they fell to the ground and rolled to the corners. Grandpa repeated this several times, until his rolls of coins were gone. Because my sister and I were the two smallest, and easily pushed out of the way by our eager older cousins, he would slip us a little extra to make up for our losses. Then we would all adjourn to the dining room for potato latkes, topped with applesauce or sugar.

This Week at Bookworks

This past week I went to three events at Bookworks, one of Albuquerque's remaining independent bookstores. The first was at 11:00 a.m. last Sunday--I don't usually go there on Sunday morning. It was Valerie Raleigh Yow speaking. She's the author of a biography of Betty Smith, who herself was the author of A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. I remember reading the book when I was a teenager, maybe younger, and loving it, as well as the movie in black and white. I still have some of those images in my mind. The film came out in 1945, when I was four years old, so I must have seen it later on television. It was the first directorial effort of Elia Kazan, and starred Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, Peggy Ann Garner as the young protagonist, and James Dunn. As for Betty Smith, I never knew she wrote anything by A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, but she wrote three other novels, none as successful, and many plays. She's one of those women who was creative and prolific and well-known in her time, but has been moved to the backrooms of obscurity, so no one knows her name when some sexist asks, why have there never been any great women writers, or playwrights?

The next event at Bookworks was on Tuesday evening, a celebration of Tony Hillerman. About a half dozen writers who had been close friends of Hillerman's told anecdotes about their friendship with him. Included were Jim Belshaw, columnist at the Albuquerque Journal, Max Evans, Judith Van Giesen, a local mystery novelist, and Luther Wilson, director of the UNM Press. Several of them were weekly poker buddies of Hillerman. The event was videotaped (is that still the word to use when it's actually digital?) and will be put on the Bookworks website eventually, but it's not there yet.

Then, skipping over Wednesday because I wasn't interested in that event, and besides I had a party to go to at Pingo Studio and Gallery, on Thursday it was Luci Tapahonso reading her poetry. I always love to hear her, because she reads with such humor, and I recorded the talk on my little digital recorder. However, afterward I bought her latest book, A Radiant Curve (University of Arizona Press, $35 hardback, $17.95 paperback) and discovered that she has included, at the back of the book, a CD of her reading a selection of her poems, not just from the new book. So, that will be a delight to listen to. I have a recording of an earlier talk, about two-and-a-half years ago, she gave at the University of New Mexico, when I bought some other of her recent books. Sad to say, although I greatly enjoyed hearing her read them, I haven't read through all the books yet myself. I did give one as a gift when I went to France that year.

The Adventures of Las Tres Locas (The Three Crazy Ladies)

Part 2 of What I did this summer (this post is limited by the word restrictions of the contest I entered):

The conference was over. Now it was time to play. We had made arrangements for a self-guided tour, with car rental and hotel reservations in the cities of our choice. We were to start from Madrid and head for Leon. Our itinerary included the prehistoric Altamira caves near Santillana del Mar, the famous Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, and the international water expo in Zaragoza. Then Judith and Susan would drive back to Madrid to return to the United States and I would continue by train to see Barcelona before flying home first class.

We could have ordered a GPS (Global Positioning System) with the rental car, for more than $191 extra. We declined it; it was too much for such a short time. Besides, we had driving instructions from Google Maps. Later I wondered if the reduced stress and frustration might have been worth the extra cost, that is, if it could be set to speak English.

We arrived in Leon without much trouble, but then we had to find our hotel, and it was difficult to follow the Google directions. We headed to the Plaza Mayor. We could see the spires of the Cathedral, which it was near, but were soon running afoul of narrow winding one-way streets and driving in circles. Finally, we made a cell phone call to the hotel, and were told to park in the garage under the Plaza Mayor and take the elevator up to the Plaza level. Vehicles were prohibited from driving on the Plaza except for delivery trucks in the early morning. There, at the front desk was a packet of maps and driving directions sent by the Spanish travel agency.

Even with maps, we continued to get lost on the way to every city on our itinerary, each time adding about an hour to our travel time. En route to Santillana del Mar, we were to leave the highway at an exit that wasn't there. We made U-turns at toll booths to retrace our steps. The day we toured the caves, we ignored the part of the directions which said they were a 30-minute drive from our hotel, and then got lost when the signs ran out. In Bilbao, I was navigating, but failed to check the map for which fork to take when the road split to go around a large convention center. In the hills above the city, we repeatedly had to ask directions, usually in Spanish, to our hotel. In Zaragoza, we circled around on one-way streets at rush hour until we could cross the river to our hotel.

In the long run, I wondered, could we have saved the money we paid for comprehensive insurance and put it to better use for a GPS? If only we had been able to find a guided tour that matched our choice of dates and destinations.

What I did this summer

I never got back to writing about my trip to Spain in July. Then came the SouthWest Writers monthly context in September, so I wrote this, and hung on to it until now. I was notified yesterday that I received an honorable mention for my submission, so I publish it here, now. Part 2, also submitted will follow in a separate post.

What I did this summer

In July, I traveled to Madrid, Spain for Women's Worlds 2008, an international, interdisciplinary conference that was held at the Universidad Complutense. The conference was divided into 13 themes or tracks and I spent much of my time attending presentations in the Human Rights theme. Among the most eye-opening were several panels on the "Coerced Sterilisation of Romani (Gypsy) Women." Lawyers and women victims of this policy in Hungary and the Czech Republic reported on the social exclusion and discrimination against Romani women and on coercive sterilization as a violation of basic human rights.
The personal stories of the women who were coerced or deceived into signing consent forms were heart-wrenching. I remembered similar abuses that had gone on in the United States in the 1970's directed against Native American and other poor and minority women, and the efforts of reproductive rights groups to prohibit such practices. It was like time-travel, taking a step back into the past. In one example discussed on the panel, a woman was taken by ambulance to a hospital following a miscarriage and sterilized during the caesarian section which followed. On the operating table in a state of shock due to the loss of her child, she was given a consent form to sign for the caesarian, to which the doctor had added by hand a statement that the patient requested the sterilization. It was all accomplished in 17 minutes. Ms. A.S. didn't even know the meaning of the word, and didn't know what had been done to her until she asked the doctor when she could try to have another baby.
In another example, a 22-year-old pregnant woman continually resisted signing the consent form, in spite of being threatened by a social worker that her child would be taken away from her, and that she would have to pay for all of her medical treatment for the pregnancy. Finally, the authorities called in her mother to sign the papers, disregarding the fact the woman was an adult.
The conference happens every three years in a different country and on different continents, and draws women from a wide variety of countries. Papers, panels and workshops were presented under the themes of Economics, Feminisms and Social Movements, History, Political and Legal Action, Sexuality, Human Rights, Territories and Environment, Communication and the Media, Science and Technology, and Culture, Creativity and Art. Dislocations and Frontiers included Trafficking of People, Inter-culturality, and War/ Conflict. In addition, cultural events such as movies and concerts are presented.
The most interesting and exciting part of the conference is meeting women from different countries around the world, and hearing about the program and projects that they work in, to improve the lives of women. This year, I befriended two women from Brasilia, and later spent time with them in Barcelona.
At the end of the conference, I took off for an adventure with two friends, touring the north of Spain by car.

Knowingly Killing an Innocent Man

This is from David Swanson's blog. There is also a video there: http://www.democrats.com/node/18022.
If you are in Albuquerque, there is still time this weekend to see the play, "The Exhonerated," at The Filling Station on 4th Street SW. It deals with 6 other cases of the judicial system being corrupted, sending people to death row. Although the six were saved from the death penalty, it came too late for the husband of one of them, who was executed.


Knowingly Killing an Innocent Man
Submitted by davidswanson on October 15, 2008 - 11:09am.

The U.S. Supreme Court has refused to halt the execution of an innocent man. That doesn't mean the struggle to save him is over. For next steps go to: http://freetroydavis.com

Deirdre O’Connor, an attorney licensed in California and Georgia, is the director of Innocence Matters. She wrote an amicus brief in support of Troy Davis's Petition for Certiorari. She explains the case thus:

“They’re either lying now or they were lying then” is a logical reaction to any recantation; indeed, an unassailable one. However, as illustrated in the multiple recantation case of Troy Davis pending before the U.S. Supreme Court, determining which version represents the truth cannot be addressed, let alone reliably resolved, absent a new trial.

It is not the function of the Chatham County trial judge, the Georgia Supreme Court, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles, or the U.S. Supreme Court to make that determination. Our justice system reserves that job for twelve impartial jurors. Rather, the court’s role, when presented with seven recantations (and other evidence of innocence), is limited to this question: Is the new evidence reliable enough to undermine our confidence in the guilty verdict?

The court can, and should, consider the reliability of the trial evidence as part of its assessment. If the evidence received at trial is determined to be irrefutable proof of guilt, then the recantations do little to undermine the verdict. If, however, the evidence used to convict Mr. Davis is reasonably called into question, then a new trial must be granted.

If the U.S. Supreme Court were to examine the reliability of the five stranger eyewitness identifications – Dorothy Ferrell, Stephen Sanders, Antione Williams, Larry Young, and Harriet Murray – it would find ample reason to doubt Mr. Davis’ guilt.

Decades of scientific studies confirm that distance, lighting, duration of crime, weapon-focus, other race effect, etc. can impede ability to encode sufficient detail to make an accurate identification later. Moreover, a witness’ memory of the assailant’s face is malleable. Even unintentional suggestions – let alone the overt pressure alleged here – can contaminate memory and lead the witness to confidently identify the wrong person. In the absence of expert testimony explaining that there is no significant correlation between accuracy and confidence, jurors typically put great weight on eyewitness certainty. Davis’ trial attorneys did not call an expert; the jurors were instructed they could consider certainty when judging the reliability of these identifications. Dorothy Ferrell was standing at least 160 feet away from the scene. It is impossible to observe sufficient facial detail at that distance. What explains her selection of Davis? The detectives showed Ferrell a single photo of Davis prior to the official identification and told her that he was the shooter. When later asked if she recognized the shooter from a group of five photos, she selected the photo previously shown to her. What about the witnesses in the dimly-lit parking lot? What did the witnesses in the line of fire observe in the few seconds that transpired from Sylvester “Redd” Coles’ threat to shoot Larry Young to the shooting death of Officer MacPhail?

Stephen Sanders – one of eight passengers in a van ordering food at the drive-thru window after a night of drinking – was unable to identify the shooter that night. A month later, Sanders still could not identify the shooter. Neither could any of his companions. Yet, two years later, Sanders identified Troy Davis at trial. Memory does not improve over time.

Antione Williams saw an armed man arguing with Larry Young as the two faced off. Williams saw that same man pistol-whip Young and shoot Officer MacPhail. (Redd testified that he was the only one hassling Young. Redd conceded, as did the other witnesses, that Troy Davis never said a word to Young.) Over the next ten days, Williams viewed the wanted poster prominently displayed at his place of employment, with the same photo of Davis shown Ferrell and used in the photo array. After repeated exposure, Williams was 60% sure that Davis was the shooter. Harriet Murray was in the parking lot waiting for Young to return. She saw one man (later identified as Redd) hassling Young for his beer as he walked back to the lot. She heard that man threaten Young, “You don’t know me. I’ll shoot you.” (Redd admitted that he – and only he - made this threat.) She saw that man pull a gun out of his waistband. At that point, she ran for cover.

Larry Young told the police, as he bled from his untreated head injury, that he was not sure who hit him because “everything happened so fast.” Do we have any reason to feel confident that these eyewitnesses were accurately identifying Officer MacPhail’s killer? It is not even a close question. Justice and our commitment to protect the innocent require that Mr. Davis be given a new trial.

Amanda Cross novel

I recently started reading "The Players Come Again" by Amanda Cross, a.k.a. Carolyn Heilbrun. I had a copy of the book sitting on a stack ever since the Birdsong Bookstore had a fire many years ago, when I bought a shopping bag fill of mystery and science fiction books in the fire sale. I was interested to find out that there is an online study guide for the book (available for a price). The novel contains within its story a fictional book and fictional author. Looking up Heilbrun in Wikipedia, I was dismayed to find that she committed suicide in 2003 because she felt that her life had been completed.

The Beginning of the Journey

I'm working on an idea for a novel, based on the Mapa de Cuauhtinchan No. 2 (MC2). Here is the upper left corner of the image:


The Tepilhuan Chichimecs led by Itzpapalotl are about to exit the mother cave, the sacred womb, of the Chicomoztoc to begin their migration to the Great Tollan (Cholula). Itzpapalotl (Obsidian Butterful), like the goddes Chimalman (lady Sheild), was an autochthonous woman warrior who both led and protected warriors in battle.