Peter Jackson and the West Memphis 3 – Part 2
So what is Paradise Lost?
A series of 3 documentaries by HBO directed by Joe Berlinger and Bruce Sinofsky
- Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills
- Paradise Lost 2: Revelations.
- Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory
A film crew first visited West Memphis in Arkansas in 1993 – looking to tell the story of how three teenagers could so brutally torture and murder three small kids. What they found was a terrifying witch hunt that would not look out of place in the middle ages: ignorance, religious fundamentalism, and a truly incompetent and corrupt police force and justice system. The documentary became about the court case, and the conviction of the three accused – focusing on the tactics of the prosecutors and the scary behavior of the townsfolk.
It is not an easy watch.
Graphic crime photos are shown – and if you think we have become immune to seeing such things after years of crime drama on TV -I can tell you we haven’t. Seeing what was done to the three boys – in real photos – not some computer generated mock up or pixelated photo – is nauseating. As is watching the parents of the murdered boys realise for the first time what was done to their children. It shocks me that they were not prepared by the police for that.
But it is unlikely that after watching the first documentary – you would not be equally horrified at what passed for justice. The release of Paradise Lost in 1996 had a massive effect. It highlighted huge issues with the case – and brought international exposure to a local town crime and trial. It led to the setup of a support group of people trying to raise money to help fund a legal defense for the three – who had no funds to help them at the time of the original trial. It also garnered the attention & support of several big names – including Peter Jackson.
The second part screened here last week – and was shot 5 years after the trial, focusing on an appeal to quash Damien Echols Conviction on the basis of ineffective legal counsel and new evidence.. The judge who oversaw the original trial gets to decide if a retrial is allowed. How any system can claim to be just when the original trial judge, thought by many to have been biased and corrupt in the original trial, is the one who gets to decide of they got it wrong I just can’t fathom. Despite the fact that dental evidence not presented to the defense at the original trial was re-investigated by the defense, and that all three convicted were found to not be matches – he refused a retrial. (The Trial judge is now a state senator – make of that what you will).
Part 3 airs next week, and was supposed to be focusing on a retrial and new DNA evidence – which shows that none of the three convicted were at the crime scene – in the end focused not on a retrial – but on their release.
One of the things I found interesting is that with the money they now have available – efforts are not just focused on proving that Echols, Baldwin and Misskelley did not murder the three children – but on actively trying to find out who did. Something the police never seem to have been too interested in: they maintain they had the right people – even though there was never any evidence to support that, and now there is evidence that proves otherwise.
Why do I care?
To be honest, like many people, until I saw the Paradise Lost Doco I really didn’t – I didn’t even know about it. At the time this occurred, even when it was shown on UK news, I was just out of Uni and wouldn’t have been paying attention to much. And I have to say I never really paid attention to the couple of articles about Jackson and his own Documentary about the case, West Of Memphis, and didn’t even really pay attention to the whole “a convicted killer got into New Zealand” aspect.
But watching the insane blood lust of some of the locals (and to be fair the Families of the murdered boys who at least had a reason to be mad with grief and anger), and the terrifying prejudice against the three boys did grab me. It’s hard not to feel angry and dismayed that 3 teenagers were railroaded into life or death sentences because they didn’t fit in to the ridged (and shockingly hypocritical) Christian community. One in which people pray and worship in church, believe god is on their side, and then go home and beat the crap out of their kids. Hell – I wouldn’t fit into that either – for which I am eternally grateful!
Peter Jackson and the West Memphis 3 – Part1
SoHo is screening a series of Documentaries (Paradise Lost) about the West Memphis murders of three 8 year old children: Christopher Byers, Stevie Branch and Michael Moore in 1993. Three teenagers were accused, tried and convicted of the murders, on the basis of no physical evidence, no witnesses, and the fact the they were trouble makers, wore black, listened to heavy metal and were “Satanists”. Which they weren’t. Jessie Misskelley was sentenced to Life plus 40 years. Jason Baldwin to life without parole, and Damien Echols (the supposed ring leader and Satanist – actually a Wiccan at the time) was sentenced to death.
Why am I blogging about this?
Well, it’s been in the news here over the last year or so, even though this is clearly a US story, simply because Peter Jackson has been involved in funding investigation and legal support for the West Memphis Three. Last year they were released from prison after taking what is known as an Alford Plea. This basically means that they plead guilty while maintaining their innocence. In doing so they accept that the state was right to convict them (and cannot therefore claim for wrongful incarceration and compensation). It also meant their sentences were reduced and they were allowed out of prison (and for Damien that means no execution) on the basis that they had served enough time.
The West Memphis Three were released on August 19th 2011.
Damien Echols was also allowed through immigration to travel to New Zealand (despite the criminal record of a murder conviction which would disallow someone from ever entering the country) after Jackson appears to have asked for a Special Direction. (This is a Section 61 Visa from what I can tell – which I blogged about a while back.)
I happened to catch the first of the Documentaries last week. I had it on the background and wasn’t actually paying that much attention to be honest- but as the lurid testimony from suited grey haired men about “Satanic cults and rituals” spewed out – it grabbed me. Not in a good way. It took a while before I realised it was actually about the same people that Jackson was trying to help. I hit record and started paying attention.
I’ll be blogging in parts as it’s a bit complex.
Can you emigrate to New Zealand with a criminal record?
YES
NO
Are INZ actually trying to implode spectacularly???
Kim Dotcom. How did he get residency? Its a question a lot of people have asked – primarily because of his criminal history and convictions. Some of us want to know how someone who is clearly morbidly obese passed the medical assessments.
Now before I go into today’s developments, I feel it’s worth making one thing clear: the only reason this has come up at all is because this guy was arrested by New Zealand Police on behalf of the US FBI / Entertainment industry for alleged piracy. I don’t hold much truck with that to be honest: both the fact that NZ is playing the good doggy for the FBI / Hollywood. He should not be arrested unless he has broken NZ law, and I am actually pretty much on the side of hoping he gives them all a bloody nose.
That being said – it’s pretty damn clear that Mr “Dotcom” should not have gained residency in New Zealand on either good character or health grounds. Now unless he failed to disclose his history or lied on his form – then that is actually no fault of his – but of INZ for blatantly ignoring the rules and guidelines that the rest of us are forced to chow down with such humiliation.
Now, bless ‘em, the Dom Post has slapped INZ with an Official Information Act Request for the file – and it’s illuminating – but I think for many of us – not exactly surprising.
Immigration officials were concerned billionaire Kim Dotcom’s residence application would attract ”buying residence” criticism and tried to keep it a secret, new papers show.
Immigration New Zealand last night released hundreds of documents about Dotcom’s application requested by Fairfax Media under the Official Information Act.
The papers show concern about Dotcom ”buying residence” was flagged by officials.
”We are requesting that this application be kept as confidential as possible to avoid further media speculation or attention.”
Officials noted that Dotcom was of interest to the media but was ”actively seeking to avoid such attention”.
And they were so concerned about bad press, Immigration’s communications team developed a strategy to deal with the media.
It involved stressing that full consideration had been given to his declared convictions and that his potential as an investor outweighed the risk those convictions posed.
So basically – they knew if this ever came to light that there would be trouble, so they developed a strategy to cover their arses??? Here’s a thought – maybe if they followed the basics of the immigration act and treated all applications on merit – not just the wealth of the applicant – they wouldn’t have anything to stategise for. The simple test here is – would you allow a skilled migrant to gain residency in New Zealand if they had a good job offer, a similar criminal conviction that long ago, diabetes and hypertension and obvious obesity? If the answer is no – then Mr Dotcom should similarly have not been granted residency.
He can (and has) cost New Zealand just as much if not a whole lot more than many immigrants have. (Unless of course the US is covering all our costs in this matter). Because no matter how wealthy he is – he is entitled to public healthcare the same as the rest of us. The wealth of our parents in not taken into account when INZ get all Anally Retentive over healthcare issues.
Good character requirements were waived because Dotcom: invested $10 million, was a high net worth individual, his conviction was more than 16 years earlier and didn’t involve harming anyone, wanted to buy New Zealand’s most expensive home which no one else wanted, and would contribute to New Zealand through investment, consumption and philanthropic activities.
Dotcom gave $50,000 to the Christchurch mayoral fund following the earthquake, another $50,000 to a rugby player who was left in a wheelchair after an on-field injury and forked out $600,000 for a fireworks display in Auckland harbour.
Interesting / Boring numbers bit coming up here:
- According to TheRichest (totally estimated numbers and I wouldn’t want to bet on this). Kim is worth $200,000,000 US$.
- Which is currently $242m NZ.
- He gave $50k to the Earthquake fund, proving philanthropist credentials and giving INZ the warm fuzzies.
- That donation is actually 0.02% of his wealth.
- Last year we had a net worth of $382k.
- We gave what we could manage at the time to the earthquake fund. Just $260.
- Which is 0.068% of our wealth.
- Do INZ consider us as Philanthropists and worthy of not be treated like a pile of crap? Hell no.
- Maybe we should have set off $3,000 worth of fireworks down on the waterfront.
In May 2010 Dotcom deferred his application because of media interest in his presence and investments in New Zealand but his immigration agent told Immigration he remained committed to gaining residence and his actions were helping the county.
Hmm Mr Adviser – how’s that working out for New Zealand? Playing lapdog to the US over this? Looking silly in the international media?
The papers also show Dotcom was convicted on eight business charges in Hong Kong in December 2010 just a month after being granted conditional residency in New Zealand.
The ”relatively minor” charges related to the purchase of shares on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange and resulted in a HK$8000 (NZ$1250) fine, but added to his German convictions for insider trading and computer hacking.
I have to wonder what he would have to do for INZ to have the guts to admit that he didn’t actually meet Good Character Requirements, let alone health requirements. Surely the fact that he was under investigation or had been charged with these offenses should have shown up during INZ investigations into the application? Or did they do the same as they did with the health issues – ignore it?
The important thing to remember here is that even in the Investor Plus Category – which is always going to be little more than a bribe to the NZ government for residency – applicants do still have to pass both Good Character and Health requirements. If INZ were supposed to ignore those issues – they would not be in the requirements in the first place. They are there for the same reason as they are for the rest of us – to protect New Zealand.
Funnily enough, the requirements specifically states that:
Investment funds and/or assets
The funds and/or assets you nominate in your residence application must be equivalent to at least NZ$10 million. You will have to provide evidence to show that these funds and/or assets:
- have been earned or acquired legally
Which given the fact that the FBI wants to take back most of the $200m as Ill Gotten Gains is kinda funny.
Are more than a third of all Immigrants being sponsored under the Family Sponsorship System?
According to the media storm whipped up over changes to NZ Immigration Policy:
Last year, 36 per cent (or 14,826) of all New Zealand residence approvals were family-sponsored migrants.
Of these, 4036 were approved under the parent policy and 1186 under the sibling and adult child category
This was repeated this morning on tv3 news – so it must be right? Well, I am just sad enough to check!
- Yes – last year (2010/2011 Immigration) there were 48,015 immigrants granted residency in New Zealand.
- Of that there were actually 17,038 people who came in under Family Sponsorship Categories.
- That’s 35.5%.
- However, the bulk of those (9,189) are actually partnership applications – so possibly a large number of those are Kiwi’s apply for partners.
So – is that the whole picture?
Well – err – no not quite. Unsurprisingly, Immigration is a hot potato when you need to try and make a political fuss. It’s the same in any country, so this is certainly not an NZ issue, and its the same whichever party is in power vs whichever party is in opposition. Truth gets massaged to try and fit what you want to claim.
So what is the big picture?
The fact is that right now there are not many skilled migrants applying to come to New Zealand. This is probably for 2 main reasons: there’s still a recession in most countries making it hard to sell property and move on, and the even if you manage that, the exchange rate is so bad it make moving here VERY expensive.
So it is quite likely that the proportion of family applications that get accepted is going to rise simply because the number of skilled/business applications is falling.
Here are the numbers since 1997.
So what does this mean?
Well, for the past 14 years, the average percentage of all people approved which have come from the Family Sponsored Categories is 33%. And while last year the percentage was higher than the previous 10 years, it certainly wasn’t the highest. In 97-2000 the average was 41.5% coming in under family sponsorship.
It’s also clear from looking at the real numbers, that the NUMBER of PEOPLE coming in under family schemes isn’t really changing. Which makes sense as Parent and Adult Sibling Sponsorship is capped. I.e. They only let so many in every year anyway. And the bulk of the uncapped family applications is for Partners.
So the upshot is perhaps that while less skilled migrants can afford to emigrate, more Kiwis are looking abroad for wives / husbands??? Partnership applicants make up nearly 20% of the total number immigrants in the last year.
Either way – it’s really nothing new that around a third of all immigrants come in as family.
Are immigration New Zealand Categories and rules about to change?
The news is full today of “leaked” (turns out “released under the Official Information Act”) government plans to make it substantially harder for people to immigrate to New Zealand. (Second article here with some different information).
So, reading through a lot of emotional guff about this, this is what I am pretty sure it’s all about:
- Immigration categories may be changed to try and stop immigrants coming to New Zealand and being unable to get a job.
- In the last EOI selection for the Skilled Migrant Category, 80 applications were selected without Job Offers.
- This was the whole point of Labours massive change to the Immigration system back in 2004 – no immigrant was supposed to be able to come here without a job in hand.
- Parent Sponsorship applications will be placed into different streams depending on the income of the sponsors.
- At the moment you only need to be able to prove an income of around $27,000 in order to sponsor parents, and bearing in mind that you sigh to say you will support them for 2 years – that is frankly a joke.
- You will now have to support your parents for 10 years before they would be eligible for any benefits. This is quoted as being up from 5 years – it’s actually 2 years at the moment.
- The new rule, if it comes in, will give priority to the parents of high income earners.
- Top Tier applicants would not have to meet Centre Of Gravity requirements
- Second tier applicants would not be able to immigrate if they had a second child in their home country.
Something that is being ignored is that back in May 2010, the government already introduced a 2-teir system for Parent Sponsorship – with the Parent Retirement Category – parents with $1m to invest, $60k a year income, and $500k in settlement funds catapulted to the front of the queue, and not having to wait or their children to have spent 3 years as New Zealand residents.
- Parents would no longer be able bring in Dependent Children.
- Now I am going to assume that this should be written as ADULT dependent children. I just cant see New Zealand telling parents they can have a visa, but you cant bring your kids.
- Essentially, if you have an adult child, they need to be able to work and/or support themselves.
- The sibling and adult child category (which my brother came in on) is to be scrapped.
- Applicants who can’t speak English will have to pre-pay for courses.
- Which as far as I know they already have to – so this isn’t going to make the slightest bit of difference.
- No mention of whether they actually have to attend, complete or even pass the course!
- Besides, there are plenty of Kiwis who are barely able to be understood – speaking or writing!
The article also states:
Last year, 36 per cent (or 14,826) of all New Zealand residence approvals were family-sponsored migrants.
Of these, 4036 were approved under the parent policy and 1186 under the sibling and adult child category
Bizarrely enough – the INZ website is “unavailable” so I can’t do a check on numbers, but will do as soon as it miraculously starts working again. Because that doesn’t quite make sense to me.
Do you need to worry?
Hmm. Honestly don’t know. Nathan Guy is MIA on the issue today, but I think it’s worth noting that this is a discussion document only at this stage. However – you need to be prepared. This is very bad news for people who, like me, can only really contemplate the move if it involves the whole family. If all these changes were in fact made, they would stop me coming here if I was still in the UK. That is a frankly appalling thought, and I imagine there are plenty of people who are going to be devastated if this does go through.
As always, comments on the articles are worth a read – you can find out more about life in New Zealand and what Kiwi’s are like via the comments on news sites than you ever will from the Official line of INZ.
INZ to be given new secrecy powers – WTF?
This was actually hidden away on the stuff website back on the 17th February, Somewhere where most people would never see it. Which I personally believe was done entirely on purpose.
The reason I have not published this blog until now is that I knew we had one more visa application to go – my brother’s IRRV / Permanent Residency application, and I wanted to post nothing that could possibly compromise that visa. Yes – I am that paranoid when it comes to dealing with INZ. Now that we have the visa – I feel safe to publish.
So what is going on?
Well, INZ staff have been given the power to keep secret the reason for denying discretionary visas.
Immigration officers have been instructed to hide their reasons for refusing discretionary visas for fear they will be open to legal action.
Section 61 of the Immigration Act allows officers to grant visitor, work, student, residential or limited visas in special cases.
The provision gives officers absolute discretion and is used in cases such as where someone has inadvertently overstayed or made an error on their immigration documents.
The section was reviewed last year and in November an internal circular was sent to staff saying: ”the rationale and reasons for the decision should not be recorded, either on the template, in the notes or in the communication with the client.”
Correspondence between officials who redrafted the section, released under the Official Information Act, show the Immigration Service wanted the requirement for including rationale removed.
”They strongly feel that including rationale just opens us up to the risk of judicial review and Ombudsman complaints.”
There was also concern making it mandatory to include rationales was ”likely to generate more work and complaints for the branches”.
So lets get this clear. Immigration New Zealand – who already have extraordinary levels of power to abuse the system they work with, want MORE power to hide behind, because too many people are making complaints. I cant help but wonder if that is the reason they have once again hidden the complaints process. I am damn sure it is.
Perhaps if they did their jobs properly, and stopped making the rules up as they go along, and ignoring the rules they don’t like – there would be less complaints. Its a staggering thought – but one that appears to elude many people.
However, not all staff were happy about removing rationale.
One official wrote: ”I’m not convinced Visa Services are completely comfortable with dropping it entirely”.”If everyone is happy for it to disappear, I’ll take it out entirely, but I’m not sure we want to go in that direction yet.”
Labour’s immigration spokeswoman Darien Fenton said decisions under section 61 could not be appealed but people had the right to complain to the Ombudsman.
”That right is essentially being removed because there will be no reason that can be traced or checked by the Ombudsman.
But the ombudsman doesn’t check anything anyway. They merely act as a secretarial service for INZ and pass on whatever information INZ tell them too. And besides, the Ombudsman, even if they did their job properly, can only “Investigate” procedural issues with your application. They cannot actually investigate the outcome of the application – I.e. if you get turned down for a Visa, they have no power to make INZ overturn the decision.
Decisions by the Immigration Service had been criticised in the past so it was important the integrity of officers could be guaranteed, she said.
”This is a matter of convenience and covering up of what needs to be a very transparent process for their own protection.”
Its not very often I agree with Darian Fenton – but she makes the point perfectly. Its a cover up. Pure and simple – and it stinks.
The Department of Labour’s general counsel George Mason said yesterday the Law Society’s immigration group had raised concerns about the decision to remove rationale.
”It’s a matter the department is currently discussing with the Ombudsman.,” he told Parliament’s transport and industrial relations select committee.
There was no legal requirement for immigration officers to record their reasons.
”But the points that have been raised… are being worked through in a couple of forums.”
Immigration Minister Nathan Guy said hiding rationale was not inappropriate for an agency charged with protecting New Zealand’s borders.
”Persons who are unlawfully in New Zealand can’t expect to be treated in the same way as those who lodge proper immigration applications.”
The Immigration Service was ”highly transparent”, he said.
Bollocks.
What would Nathan Guy know about how transparent INZ is or isn’t? (It’s not by the way – which is why we are plowing $95million into a new computer system to help them get with the 20th Century!) He hasn’t had to deal with the abusive behavior of some of the staff their, and their undying refusal to be open and transparent about a/ what they doing, b/ what information they want, and c/ what they are doing about it. They are so lacking in transparency that staff can tell you any old crap, and another member of staff can turn round and tell you that you shouldn’t believe everything you are told by INZ staff.
You couldn’t make it up – really!
I agree – people here unlawfully are different from those trying to wade through the system lawfully – except that many people are here unlawfully because INZ staff are incompetent, and force people to be illegal over-stayers because they do not know how to do their jobs.
It does not take skill to get a job at INZ. It does not take a great deal of training, and clearly it does not take a huge amount of intelligence, as many people can attest. To give people like that MORE power is absurd.
If INZ are so crap at their jobs they need a law change to give them the power to hide their decisions and thus cut complaints – Nathan Guy should be asking why. Not giving them more power when they clearly can’t handle the power they already have. Moreover – articles like this, while they are being written, are getting harder to find. Changes to Immigration Policy are being pushed through with barely a whisper of it making it into the papers.
We NEVER have to deal with Immigration New Zealand again.
On 2nd February 2004, we had our first correspondence from Immigration New Zealand (Then NZIS). That was a letter verifying an application had been received by my parents for a Long Term Business Visa. Mine and Hubby’s application wasn’t accepted till later that year, due to the changeover from the old General Skills List system to the current Skilled Migrant Category.
Today, 8 (very) long yrs and 25 days later, we finally the last Visa we ever need from Immigration New Zealand, the Permanent Residence Permit (IRRV) for my brother.
Other than getting visas transferred to new passports – which is purely a rubber stamp exercise (in return for some $$$ of course), we never have to apply to INZ again for anything. Once my Parents and Brother have been here another 3 years – they can of course apply for passports, but that has nothing to do with INZ.
Out of interest – the IRRV / Permanent Permit can actually be processed while you wait.
So I guess, finally, it’s over for us. It does seem a bit odd to be honest. After so long, and so much aggro, it seems strange that we will never have to deal with the nightmare bureaucracy again.
I don’t think it’s sunk in yet to be honest.
Picture Credit: James Hance – source of much awesomeness.
Report time – INZ Permanent & Long Term migration pt1
Filed under: Getting to New Zealand, Hubby's Views, Life in New Zealand, NZIS & Immigration issues
The Dept of Labour have come out with their annual PLT report covering 2011. You can find the original report here.
The funny thing is that I came across two news articles about this before I read the report .
1. Off to Oz Exodus at 11 year high @ the Herald
2. Aussie Drain Brain myth exposed also @ the Herald
Now at first glance I thought that the two different headlines can’t be right..
What the report is actually saying is that those leaving for Australia or elsewhere are broadly representative of all kiwis. Although when you delve into things, DoL/INZ didn’t do that part of research, it came from Kea – a Kiwi’s abroad group trying to encourage kiwi’s to return home or tub thump for kiwi companies while they are overseas.
So brain drain myth exposed!? I don’t think so. People are leaving – its just a broad cross section of Kiwis that are going, not just the brainiacs.
Where the wiggle room comes in is that DoL want us all to focus on the fact that the relative number of Kiwi’s going to Aus is smaller as a percentage of the overall population than in 1970. Our population has risen by 50% – despite INZ’s lacklustre (ie utterly pathetic) performance in really encouraging net migration as we’ve said before, yet the proportion of Kiwi’s going to Aus has dropped from 1.4% to 1%. So lets all focus on that it’s only 1% please.
And lets forget that 1% of 4.5m is 45,000 – while 1.4% of 3m is 42,000.
Oh dear.
And lets ignore the part of the official report that also says that Kiwi’s in Australia have a higher level of employment than the Aussie national average. And that Kiwi’s in the lower paid jobs earn over 20% more than their friends who stay in NZ. While the ‘average’ is that Kiwi’s in Australia earn 19% more than their friends at home in the same job. Business Week has a good summary of the salary aspects in quite plain $$ numbers.
There may not be a ‘brain drain’, there sure is a people drain though!
Did we say $75 Million???
Silly us, we meant $90.5 million.
There is no explanation as to why there is a difference.
Although I have to be honest – no matter whether this is scope creep or just a more honest number, it is probably money well worth spending. They cannot continue as they are with an antiquated system. But I doubt the increase in budget will actually end at 90.5 million.
Avalon’s Guide On Facebook
-
