The Free McGee Movement

I went to an event last week, part of my effort to getting back to being more politically active. I used to go to political events daily, but my attendance has been falling off for some time. The event was a fundraiser for the defense of the imprisoned 6th district Milwaukee alderman, Michael McGee, Jr. (whose real name may or may not be Michael Imani Jackson).


Background.

McGee is interesting. I've met him a couple of times and from our limited interaction he seemed progressive and hardworking. Some of my friends who have dealt with him are not sympathetic. They see him, and I have no reason to doubt this, either, as being more successful in terms of his own notoriety than for his constituents, and ideologically sullied by a homophobic and sexist mindset that is all too well established in the community, which tends to get blamed on rap music but really is propagated just as strongly by traditionalists in the black church. On the common council and in the community, I sense a deep ambivalence toward him as an imperfect model who embarasses them and causes them trouble, but also represents some positive things, deserves respect, and has been unjustly treated. Some of the people I've talked to paint him as loving to project a kind of capo image, natty in a suit, king of the city, dropping asides regarding who might deserve a comuppance. His worldview appeared to be informed by that of the black power movement (his father, after all, revived a version of the Panthers little more than a decade ago) but was perhaps a bit indiscriminate. He seemed to sense conspiracies everywhere when I talked to him, which given the politics of City Hall and the dirty tricks against him is certainly understandable, whether or not it is factually justified.

McGee has been regularly attacked legally and rhetorically on private matters, and the local media has not been kind to him. It is sometimes hard to tell whether the news you see about him represents a struggle to be fair to him despite a lack of sympathy and the persuasiveness of his detractors, or whether the media have only barely gone through the motions of formal objectivity, actively seeking to embarass him. In either case, there has certainly been a very negative portrait that has shown through, and at many places, the coverage has been willingly or unwillingly slanted. Until recently, the news has focused on matters such as accusations regarding a woman whose child he fathered, questions about the name on his driver's license, and his use of intemperate name-calling against a fellow official, the types of news that he would get if he were Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan, not anything related to policy or central to issues of aldermanic service. This alone is a black mark on the media, which waits to be fed these kinds of celebrity news rather than digging into policy issues and reporting on where council members stand.

The current plight of McGee relates to state and federal investigations into his official conduct which have landed him in jail. His state trial is scheduled for March. The first charge announced to the public was an alleged consipracy to commit murder, which is not anywhere among the current charges. A phone tap revealed McGee issuing directives to an associate to apparently intimidate an enemy. This was originally portrayed as the hiring of an assassin and is currently viewed by the prosecution as paying for a beatdown, resulting in two counts of felony conspiracy to commit battery. This is an I Felony, the least serious level, just enough to remove McGee from office and take away his pension. The authorities arrested McGee claiming that they needed to act quickly to stop the assault. The two codefendants on this matter have apparently decided to take deals and testify against McGee. Otherwise, I suspect the case would be difficult, since McGee could simply argue (and probably still will) that the expression he used did not imply violence, but some milder form of rough persuasion.

The state charges now number 12 and include several unclassified misdemeanors for criminal contempt for attempting to pressure witnesses from jail. The remaining charges are all for one or another variation of electioneering, bribery, or lying to election officials, mostly in the course of surviving a recall election initiated by conservative enemies outside the city. I was an election observer and deputy registrar, and observed unlawful election practices by his opponents, despite which McGee easily won the recall. The federal charges are related to corrupt use of aldermanic licensing powers, from what I gather. (More in a little bit about information gaps...) All told the state charges are about half felonies, all of the smallest caliber.


The Movement's Issues.

The event I attended had about 100 or so people. (The estimate of 200, given from the podium, was clearly inflated.) A petition for McGee has 148 signatures, but I'd estimate that about 2o of these were repititious or at least partially anonymous. Not many lawyers seem to be in his corner. His own lawyer on the state charges has twice asked to withdraw. The billing for the event drew me by suggesting that there would be some kind of legal briefing, and defense brainstorming, but what I encountered was essentially a sermon or revival meeting, which addressed the injustice to McGee only in generalities, except for a brief address by his federal defender. The main point to be made was that we could raise money if we all worked together, and that a conspiracy of evil had robbed McGee of his civil and human rights by denying him a trial, denying him bail, and had forced his constituents to endure taxation without representation. The goals of the movement seemed to be several: to actually free McGee by proving him innocent, to redress perceived injustices regarding his mistreatment in prison and denial of rights, and to assure his reelection.

Since this meeting was mainly preaching to the converted, there was not much substance to the cries of injustice. The Free McGee website is a bit better, but still not very robust. It does not link to any documents, like the criminal complaints in the case, and too many basic facts are missing for it to convince even a sympathetic skeptic.His defenders compare McGee's treatment to that of white aldermen and state officials accused of corruption (but not witness tampering or conspiracy to batter) and to that of violent criminals, who at least received bail and trial. As an attorney, I did not find the arguments very compelling, but I nevertheless believe there is some truth to them.

The denial of bail was based on a sound principle, at least superficially, and I actually worked for a while with the AUSA who argued for bail to be denied. McGee could make an argument, perhaps a strong one, that he was screwed over in the bail proceedings and that they were unfair throughout, but this is a detail-intensive argument I cannot personnally make with the information I have. I seem to recall state bail was originally requested and set at a very high amount, but that may have been because of the whiff of murder and an overestimation of McGee's wherewithal. It was subsequently reduced, which is proper; his community ties make him unlikely to flee. The federal bail proceedings all took place after the completion of a sisyphusian ritual of arguing, assembling and posting the state bail, which was all rendered moot by a federal hold. In the federal cases, bail was first granted by the magistrate, but this was reversed by the district judge. The ultimate result of denying bail impedes McGee's representation of his district. McGee's supporters don't really appear to address the state's argument that his release on bail would have facilitated his intimidation of witnesses and the frustration of justice, and that this was a factor not existing in the cases of white officials. Nor do they take into account that the context of the bail originally being set high would have been influenced by the allegations of a murder for hire. State Senator Chuck Chvala might have done some bad things, but no one ever accused him of planning the assassination of his political enemies.

As for his being denied a trial, this is simply not so. He has a trial scheduled. Trial delays usually help the defendant, and in this case, deferring the trial would assure that his pension will vest and that he will have time to prepare a defense.

Nor are his constituents completely without representation, although obviously the quality of that representation is affected gravely by McGee's inability to attend meetings, hearings, and votes. If McGee is guilty, then one might argue that this is what you get when you decide to elect a felon. If McGee wanted to assure his consituents had a representative able to fulfill these functions, he could turn over his seat. On the other hand, releasing McGee for votes and meetings (under appropriate restrictions to prevent any risk that he would undermine the legal process against him) would have been far preferable from the perspective of the legitimacy of local government. If Milwaukee were a province of ancient Rome, the people could cash a get-off-the-cross free card, as those of Palestine did Biblically for Barabbas. There's something to be said for such a policy. As inappropriate as it might be to literally allow the release of a criminal based on local popularity, it would be good to see the law recognize some viable mechanism where a community's support of an accused could be better heard. In this case, the federal authorites and the state and even local prosecutions are not seen as fully legitimate in the eyes of the local community, because Milwaukee is so racially segrgated and all of these guys that I've seen have been very much white. They are part of an establishment that seemed to selectively go after McGee, bug his conversations, push for a recall against him, pressure him with bad press and civil actions, and then characterize his responses to these very pressures as criminal.

I don't know anything specific about alleged mistreatment of McGee, but there is the matter, which I would agree is an outrage, is that while McGee's peer officials appeared in court wearing suits, McGee appeared in a prison jumpsuit and shackles. The image of McGee in shackles was used as recycled stock footage in subsequent newscasts which is an indignity to him and his constituents which evokes images of slavery. Whether this happened because of specific dislike for McGee as an alderman, or because of overt or more subtle racism is something that can only be guessed at, but there it is.

The McGee website does identify some acheivements of the alderman in office, but the descriptions are very slight and give no links.


What is to be done?

Back to the movement, the real question is, what should be done about all this? The obvious persons with the power to help McGee are the judges and juries in his trials, who are supposed to be insulated from influence and follow the law. Nevertheless, it is reasonable to raise money for legal fees and expenses like investigators that might legitimately help move a jury. This all supposes that McGee is innocent or at least has a viable defense that can be supported by these means. Beyond that, the Governor could issue a preemptive pardon, generally a bad practice, and politically unimaginable. The DA and US Attorney have a great deal of power and these really are appropriate parties to address if the goal is freedom for McGee. The problem is that the Milwaukee DA does not need McGee supporters to remain in office, and his federal counterpart is appointed. Winning support for McGee among Milwaukee residents might have some effect on getting the DA to moderate his attack, but not if the evidence is compelling, and the public has not really been exposed to the full scope of this evidence. Pressuring the media for fairness is something that might produce better coverage which is a good in itself and will have a secindary effect of making it easier to win others to the cause. To the extent the goal is McGee's reelection, then the focus should be on the voters, with an awareness of how legal developments will play in the campaign.

There are two big problems I see in all of this, however. The first is contingency. Many of the goals espoused by the McGee movement assume he is innocent. Maybe he is. But if he is not, then all of this will fall apart when the evidence against him proves to be overwhelming.

The other problem is possible misdirection. it sometimes seems like two thirds of all the political activity on behalf of minority and disenfranchised groups is wasted on purely symbolic campaigns. The effort to free McGee is not entirely symbolic, because the community is at risk of more than symbolic losses if it loses either the candidate it elected, or a vote in he common council which that candidate failed to influence because of his incarceration. I also understand there is a principle of standing behind one of your own who comes under attack for sharing your beliefs. In part this is the Niemoeller principle, which was further invigorated by the divide and conquer strategy of the red scare: all must stand together or all will be vulnerable.

However, there is a large portion of the energy in this campaign that appears directed to the offense or indignity in principle that their individual champion should be injured. To that extent, the community is responding to a symbolic injury, much as it would to the airing of a racial slur on talk radio. Campaigns around these kinds of issues, like third party presidential runs, can operate for or against more important concrete issues.

A recent example is the campaign by local Latinos to get Mark Belling fired from a local radio station for an offensive comment about “wetback” voters. Two groups pressed the issue. One called off the attacks when the radio station inaugurated new programming directed at Latinos and contributed money to the local community for beneficial projects. The other group pressed for the firing of Belling and as far as I know, won nothing but a sneering phony apology. The first group arguably sold out for too little, or for benefits that went too much to themselves and not enough to the broader community, but they did well in considering that the remedy they sought was flexible.

One can treat a symbolic issue as either complementary with broader issues, or as a competitive substitute. For example, if the media treatment of McGee is regarded as part of a broader phenomenon, then the media can respond by improving coverage of the inner city and the views of African American community leaders, and drawing attention to the effects of inadequate city services, inadequate state staffing of community corrections and child welfare offices, failure to deal with the housing crisis, predatory lending institutions like rent-to-own and payday loan stores, police brutality, employment discrimination, and on and on. Alternatively, the media could be pressured to devote less resources to all these items, by diverting the fixed share of attention it gives to inner city concerns to more balanced attention to the sixth district alderman.

Likewise, the McGee movement can draw connections to other issues, and use support for the imprisoned alderman as a way to press those issues using the celebrity of the situation, channeling outrage at one case into broader solutions affecting the whole community, or the whole criminal justice system. Or it can compete with other movements, diverting energy, attention, and resources from community benefits to the benefit of one man.

A crucial issue here is McGee’s keeping his seat. If McGee is a leader, his position should be that he (1) will serve as long as that is the will of his constituents, and not abandon them, but (2) counsels his supporters that they should let him resign rather than see the community suffer because of his circumstances, by his being unable to cast crucial votes for their welfare, or otherwise unable to provide them the leadership they need. The question is the same as above: can McGee use his imprisonment to rally support for broader causes, or will those causes end up taking a back seat to McGee?

It bears reiterating that McGee’s cause may well be quite just, and that it is not purely symbolic. But his movement should be strategically aware that the causes McGee represents could be either served or disserved by how this is played.