If Gov. John Kasich does not grant this woman an immediate FULL PARDON, and if he allows her to...

[Faryn Balyncd]

...become permanently disenfranchised and intentionally marginalized by the "justice" system of the state of Ohio, for the act of demanding equal educational access/opportunity for her children.... then Gov. John Kasich will deserve an honorary membership in the Ku Klux Klan.

"Because of the felony conviction, you will not be allowed to get your teaching degree under Ohio law as it stands today," the judge said. "The court's taking into consideration that is also a punishment that you will have to serve."



Black Mother Jailed For Sending Kids to White School District
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=269707&mesg_id=269707






http://drboycespeaks.blogspot.com/2011/01/mother-jailed...


An Ohio mother of two was sentenced to 10 days in jail and placed on three years probation after sending her kids to a school district in which they did not live. Kelly Williams-Bolar was sentenced by Judge Patricia Cosgrove on Tuesday and will begin serving her sentence immediately.

The jury deliberated for seven hours and the courtroom was packed as the sentence was handed down. She was convicted on two counts of tampering with court records after registering her two girls as living with Williams Bolar's father when they actually lived with her. The family lived in the housing projects in Akron, Ohio, and the father’s address was in nearby Copley Township.

Additionally, Williams-Bolar’s father, Edward L. Williams, was charged with a fourth-degree felony of grand theft, in which he and his daughter are charged with defrauding the school system for two years of educational services for their girls. The court determined that sending their children to the wrong school was worth $30,500 in tuition.



http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=269707&mesg_id=269707

For Gov. John Kasich's information:

Governors are part of the justice system.

A governor is given the power to grant pardons under state constitutions because of knowledge that sometimes miscarriages of justice occur, and the power to pardon is a constitutional process designed for just such purposes.




The ball is in your court, Governor Kasich.






:kick:

[elleng]

1. Kafka

;(


There are undoubtedly hundreds if not thousands of similarly situated families in Ohio.

[pscot]

2. Certainly makes me proud

to be an Amerikan.

[ChoppinBroccoli]

3. Something Tells Me John Kasich Not Only WON'T Do Anything To Help This Woman.................

.................but he wouldn't SPIT on this woman if she was on fire. That's just the kind of "great guy" he is. Pray for us here in Ohio, because with 4 years of Kasich on the horizon, things are going to be getting awfully bleak.

One question keeps popping up over and over in my mind: How did California get a recall election a few years ago, and how can we get one here in Ohio?

[we can do it]

19. [phone] I've Been Thinking Recall. Did Anyone Vote For Him?

really, how can some one have under 30% approval in 2 weeks?
no first-term Ohio Governor has had such a low approval or as high disapproval rating as Kasich.

http://www.plunderbund.com/2011/01/19/quinnipiac-kasich-at-historical-low-approval-ratings-wide-opposition-to-his-agenda/
http://www.clevelandleader.com/node/15730

[digitaln3rd]

4. And why does she deserve to be pardoned?

I don't see any wrong doing in the verdict? Is it just because of the colour of her skin?

She committed a crime and she is being punished.

[Faryn Balyncd]

5. Do you think the punishment fits the "offence"?

Do you believe that her actions were, in fact, criminal actions?

Do you think they should be?

If so, do you believe the law has been equally applied?

Should her actions be a felony?

Does she deserve to be denied the vote? or to enter a licensed profession?

If someone cheats on an entrance exam and gets into a magnate school, should the DA charge them with the felonious theft of $30K tuition?

Is the legal definition of where someone "lives" sufficiently clear to justify felony theft charges?

When was the last time that a coach or superintendent was charged with felony theft after they fraudulently registered a star athlete as "living" in a school district other than the one in which he went to bed most nights?



Do you think outrage is appropriate if injustice is achieved through means of unjust law, or capricious application of law?



Personally, to answer to you second question, I don't think the issue is skin color, but the tragedy of a person in difficult situation attempting to better herself and her family through education and hard work, fighting a system which unjustly denies her children equal access, and being struck down by laws which are whimsically applied. That seems to be what has people so outraged.

[Lance_Boyle]

9. Her actions were fraud. Fraud is a felony.

She got caught at her fraud and that's that. She will have to prove that she did not defraud the school district where she illegally sent her kids in order for the sentence to be invalid.

[hfojvt]

16. she can vote in Kansas

and perhaps teach in other states as well.

[Faryn Balyncd]

6. .

[justiceischeap]

10. So, does that mean the school district is going to comb its records

And find others who may be doing the same damn thing? This kind of shit happens all the time in this country and you can't help but wonder if she's getting harsher treatment because she has the audacity to be a black woman who wanted a better education for her kids.

[blondeatlast]

12. Good question, but I doubt the answer would please either one of us.

Of course they won't unless the public spotlight gets too intense for them.

[brooklynite]

15. I also can't help but wonder if...

...the township which provided the educational services is hurting financially like many other communities, and is going after people who take services without paying taxes for them.

This is far more likely to be an economic differential between towns, than it is a racial issue.

[liberalhistorian]

13. I totally agree and it's disturbing that more people here

don't see the real issue. It's not that she sent her children to a better school, it's that she committed fraud, deception and tampering with records in order to do it. Especially since she was training to be in education herself and knew better. While I agree that the punishment is certainly excessive, I don't see where a pardon is merited.

[LiberalEsto]

7. When I was a newspaper reporter in New Jersey

we had similar cases of what was called "tuition rustling". It wasn't a racial thing, it was a financial issue. This was 25-30 years ago.

East Brunswick school officials said they were having problems with people living in the neighboring New Brunswick school district sneaking their kids into the highly-rated East Brunswick schools. NJ school systems are generally municipal in structure. Nearly every town and city has its own school system, funded largely by local property taxes. In some jurisdictions people pay huge amounts of property tax in order to have first-rate schools.

I don't remember what it cost per year to educate a kid in East Brunswick, but the point was that the families from New Brunswick were not paying property taxes to East Brunswick to help the township schools accommodate the extra students. So each out-of-district child was costing East Brunswick - let's say a theoretical amount like $3,000.

East Brunswick said people could send kids to their schools IF they paid equivalent cost-per-student tuition and if there was space for extra kids in the classrooms. I believe the New Brunswick parents in this case could or would not pay the tuition. I surveyed school districts around the area and found that towns with very good school systems said they had problems with out-of-district students being smuggled into their schools.

Why should East Brunswick or Highland Park be forced to hire extra teachers, buy extra textbooks and build extra classrooms to accommodate kids whose families don't pay property taxes to sustain those school systems? It's not a matter of race - it's more a matter of economics. I suspect this is the issue in the Ohio case.

I'm not saying that New Jersey's town-by-town system of funding schools is fair - it isn't.

Kids in New Brunswick certainly don't have the kind of schools that East Brunswick residents pay through the nose for. Maryland, where I live now, has county school districts, which distributes the funding more fairly, keeps property taxes much lower, and keeps city schools from becoming dumping grounds for the children of poor families. It isn't perfect, but it's way better than New Jersey's system.

There's one glaring exception in Maryland - Baltimore, which has its own school system. It's in terrible shape, poorly funded,and the students aren't getting the educations they deserve. If Baltimore schools were merged with neighboring Baltimore County (and they won't be, because the people in Baltimore County don't want inner city kids in their schools. It is definitely a racial thing) it would vastly improve educational opportunities for city kids, while also making it more attractive for middle class families to move to the city of Baltimore.

[justiceischeap]

11. Race and economics never have something to do with the other?

It seems to me that it's always those that aren't white that get the shaft when it comes to education because they live in economically depressed areas.

Our entire education system needs an overhaul if a woman has to commit a felony to better educate her kids. I mean, people are using complaining that people don't do ENOUGH to educate their kids.

[LiberalEsto]

14. Race certainly has something to do with it

but so does economics.

I don't see quite why strapped taxpayers in one community have to bear the costs of incoming students from another place, whose families don't pay a penny into the school system. If everyone in New Brunswick put their kids in East Brunswick schools without paying the cost per student, East Brunswick would have to build many additional schools, hire many additional teachers, buy many more textbooks, and do all this without any additional money to pay for it.

Suppose you set up a food co-op and members have to pay a certain amount and put in a certain amount of work hours to belong. Is it right for another person to demand the co-op's benefits without paying a fee or putting in the required work? It does not matter whether this person is white, black, Asian, Latino, etc.

I do feel that school funding needs to be overhauled everywhere, so that all kids can get a decent education.

[blondeatlast]

8. Shine a spotlight on this, America--this is the class and racial struggle

that remains to be fought.

[Faryn Balyncd]

17. Since any false statement on a public record warrants "tampering" charges, is there a politician in

....existence who isn't, by this definition, an (un-indicted) felon?




Shouldn't we question the practice of prosecutors of constantly inflating charges, constantly expanding the definitions?

It is obvious that "tampering with records" laws were originally written to find an appropriate penalty for the fraudulent alteration of records, a more severe offense than that of making a false statement that becomes part of a public record.

But we have become so tolerant of prosecutors that charge suspected offenders, as a matter of routine prosecutorial strategy, with offenses more egregious than that which they have done, that we accept this practice as normal.

By this definition, any individual who has knowingly filed a tax return that he/she knows is inaccurate by 1 cent is guilty of the felony charge of "tampering with a public record", because the tax form becomes part of a public record, and prosecutors and judges have expanded the definition of "tampering" to include not only alteration of an existing record, but making any statement in writing that becomes part of a public record.

And it makes NO DIFFERENCE if the underlying offense is a misdemeanor, or significant at all.

We have come to believe that it is right and just to arm our prosecutors with ill-defined, vague, elastic felony crimes (such as "tampering with records", "money laundering", vagrancy, etc), so that they can use such crimes to throw the book at anyone they think appropriate, sparing them the difficult job of proving the underlying offense, and surrending the ideal of having punishment that is some way fitting for the crime.

So if prosecutors, judges, and juries are to discard any use of judgment in assessing appropriate charges, convictions, and penalties, then its high time to use a fine tooth comb so we can convict and make felons of a majority of the nation's citizens, hopefully starting with a close examination of prosecutors and judges (starting with a close examination of ever piece of writing each and every one of these individuals have done on every piece of paper that is owned by a public entity.)

"The law is the law." You know. :sarcasm:

[we can do it]

18. You Are Kidding Aren't You? Kasich with His All-white Cabinet?