Letter to Eric Holder

July 25, 2009

Warren Gamaliel Lilly, Jr.
DOC #447655
DCI, P. O. Box 700
Waupun, WI 53963-0700

Eric Holder
U. S. Attorney General
USDOJ, Civil Rights Division
950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W.
Washington, DC 20530

Re:

Previous letter of April 14, 2009

Dear Mr. Holder:

By this letter I am, again, asking you to direct the U. S. DOJ to bring, for Black Americans and other minorities imprisoned within Wisconsin, a civil rights suit charging the state of Wisconsin with racial profiling. It is only through such a suit that the holocaust of imprisonment of Black Americans can be ended.

I suggest that the basis of such a suit be the irrefutable statistics generated by the U. S. justice and Wisconsin prison systems. Consider that the U. S. is roughly 5% of the world's population yet it holds more than 25% of the world's prisoners. More than 50% of those prisoners are Black Americans which implies that more than 12% of the world's prisoners is American Blacks who make up less than 0.6% of the world's population! If any other country produced such stats against one of its minority populations we'd drag it before the U. N. and charge it with human rights violations.

Specifically, in Wisconsin Blacks are less than 6% of the state's population but more than 50% of its prisoners, while whites, who are 90% of the population, are only 45% of the prisoners. This yields a stunning ratio of 50% / 6% : 45% / 90% or 16:1. The shocking and false implication being that Blacks in Wisconsin are 16 times more criminal than whites!

Though my research is limited by my circumstances I can find in the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) data no other state more egregious in its violations of the civil rights of Black Americans than is Wisconsin. Among the world's rogue states Wisconsin's imprisonment statistics makes it the number one violator of the civil rights of its minority citizens. Its politicians have, without blanching, remorse, or remedy, admitted to the racial bias of its justice system then built more prisons in support of that bias.

Though I implore the U. S. DOJ to bring suit against the state of Wisconsin I know it will be joined, in support of Wisconsin, by almost every state in America. A victory by the DOJ would have the effect of cleansing the American justice system of what may be the last institutionalized vestiges of racism in America.

The BJS produced statistics of bias and abuse of Blacks in the American justice system should of themselves shame this nation into making the needed reforms. However, reform will only come from challenge through a court confrontation which exposes what's hidden behind the walls of imprisonment. The failures of justice in this nation must be exposed to the world thereby embarrassing us into change.

In the name of Black, and in truth all, prisoners I beg you to bring this suit to save and restore the lives of millions of Americans. I ask you if not now then when and if not you then who?

The President has stood up against America's violations of justice and human rights at Guantanamo in Cuba and Abu Ghraib in Iraq, will you do the same for Americans here at home?

Sincerely,


Warren G. Lilly, Jr.