Prison Legal News Vol: Fill & Download for Free

These are the actual numbers for keeping a federal prisoner locked in a cage for one year:“COST OF INCARCERATION INCREASE: Between 2011 and 2017, the cost of incarcerating a federal prisoner rose from $79.16 to $99.45 per day or $28,893.40 to $36,299.25 per year. Federal Register, Vol. 78, No. 52 (03/18/13), and Vol. 83, No. 83 (04/30/18).”[source: BREAKING NEWS]Those numbers vary due to multiple factors; for instance, a prisoner’s age and associated medical costs (costlier to keep the elderly), security level (more expensive to provide security to keep a prisoner in a high-security prison than in a low-security prison).Though I do not have the numbers, I suspect the average cost of incarceration for a state prisoners is lower than it is for a federal prisoner, the reason being that the Federal government maintains more security in general than the states, which is why the Feds often take into custody state prisoners if requested by the Governors of the state. (I am assuming the governor makes the legal request. He or she would have to authorize it.)

On 28 September 1977, during a banquet reception in Beijing, the capital of People’s Republic of China, Mr. Pol Pot - the supreme leader of Democratic Kampuchea - delivered his famous speech, in which he strongly emphasized about what was the “most precious Chinese aid” to Cambodia:“We have creatively and successfully applied Mao Tse-tung's thought to the realities of Kampuchea…For Kampuchea, the most precious Chinese aid has been the thought of Mao Tse-tung.”(Genocide in Cambodia: Documents from the Trial of Pol Pot and Ieng Sary, Howard J. De Nike, John Quigley, Kenneth J. Robinson, Penn Press, 2000, p. 545)Pol Pot and the Chinese delegation led by Wang Dongxing, during their visit to Democratic Kampuchea on 05 November 1978.Nowadays, his words were fully recognized in documents of the Khmer Rouge Tribunal (or the ECCC), which has been established since 1997 to investigate the genocidal crimes of Pol Pot and his “comrades”. Actually, China was indeed the main supporter as well as the “best ally” of the Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia during the period of 1975–1990.Under the rule of “Comrade Pol Pot” and his “Angkar”, around 1.7 million Cambodian lost their lives (or equivalent to 21% country population) in just 4 years (1975–1979) and it “was one of the worst human tragedies of the last century”.How did China aid Pol Pot’s regime? I would say that China aided Pol Pot and his regime in terms of everything, from ideological to military and diplomatic supports.I. IDEOLOGICAL SUPPORTIn term of ideological support, both China and Khmer Rouge had the same ideology: Maoism or “Mao Tse-tung’s thought”. In June 1975, Pol Pot even personally met Mao Tse-tung, the Chairman and the “Great Helmsman” of the People’s Republic of China.According to Nayan Chanda, the author of the famous book Brother Enemy: The war after the war (Colliers book, 1986), the meeting was described as follows:“Mao fully endorsed Pol Pot’s revolutionary plans for Cambodia and his policy of steering a course independent of Vietnam. The meeting was not reported until two years later, when Pol Pot shed his cloak of anonymity to acknowledge his role as the party secretary. The Vietnamese, of course, were fully aware of the deep admiration in which Mao held the Khmer Rouge. In 1975, Mao advised a Vietnamese leader to “learn from the Khmer Rouge how to carry out a revolution.” (page 17)Original caption from Getty Images: Mao Zedong with Khmer Rouge leaders Pol Pot (middle) and Ieng Sary in June 1975 in Beijing, China (Khmer Rouge leaders have admitted inspiration from the Chinese cultural revolution). (Photo by API/Gamma-Rapho).With the Maoists in Beijing behind their backs, the Khmer Rouge regime successfully transformed the whole country of Cambodia into a great “labor camp” (actually a great “people’s commune”), where people were forced to separate from their families and worked until their last breath.Furthermore, the Khmer Rouge also contributed a new and notorious word into the English vocabulary. It was the “Killing Field”, where victims were clubbed to death and buried there, such as the notorious one at Choeung Ek. According to the The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable (Oxford University Press, 2006):“The term is particularly associated with Cambodia under the rule of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge in the late 1970s, where the mass deportations from the towns to the countryside were followed by mass executions in what became known as the killing fields.”Original caption from Getty Images: CAMBODIA - OCTOBER 10, 1981: An exhumed mass grave reveals the skeletons of the executed (Photo by David A. Harvey/National Geographic/Getty Images).II. MILITARY SUPPORTFor sure, China did give huge amounts of military hardware to consolidate the rule of Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia, from ordinary infantry weapons to aircraft, artillery and armored vehicles. With Chinese weapons on their hands, the Khmer Rouge regime intensified the border conflicts and massacres along the Cambodian - Vietnamese border, which subsequently led to the deaths of tens of thousands Vietnamese civilian from 1975–1979.Ieng Sary, Deputy Prime Minister of Khmer Rouge regime, during his visit with Chinese advisers.As it was described by Andrew Mertha in his book Brothers in Arms: Chinese Aid to the Khmer Rouge, 1975–1979 (Cornell University Press, 2014), the Chinese military support to Khmer Rouge regime was remarkable, from AK-47s, B-40s to T-54 and T-63 main battle tanks:“Mai Oeun was a soldier based in Takeo who managed to survive the entire DK period unscathed, serving in the 270th Division along the Cambodia-Vietnam border. In addition to his division, divisions 210 and 230 also had Chinese advisers. These three units all operated along the border and were the only ones, he says, that had PRC advisers. Twenty Chinese advisers, in light green uniforms, worked with his division from 1976 through 1978. He recalls that the Chinese were the only foreigners who interacted with his division, and that they provided medical and “moral” support, military equipment and training.Equipment provided by the Chinese included T-54 and T-63 tanks and VPBE patrol boats. The tanks started arriving in 1977. Most of the other equipment started coming in 1975. The Khmer Rouge forces had used M-16s and other American weapons during the civil war, but after 1975, only Chinese weapons were used. These included AK-47s, B-40s, 12-mm guns as well as many other types of artillery. Three DK divisions - 132, 136 and 128 - possessed anti-aircraft guns, all imported from China.”Original caption from Getty Images: Khmer Rouge guerrillas armed with a Chinese-made 75mm recoilless rifle in the jungle of western Cambodia, north of Pailin in the Cardamom Mountains region, 14th February 1981. (Photo by Alex Bowie/Getty Images).III. DIPLOMATIC SUPPORTNot only provided the Khmer Rouge with arms and ammunition, China at that time also made some great diplomatic efforts in supporting the Pol Pot’s regime, first by a huge military invasion to “teach Vietnam a lesson” in 1979 and second by distortions and denials of the genocide in Cambodia.On 14 January 1979, when Phnom Penh was fallen into the hands of Kampuchean People's Revolutionary Armed Forces and Vietnamese People’s Army, the Khmer Rouge regime was on the verge of a total collapse, the Chinese government officially issued their Statement about the situation as follows:“The Chinese Government and people solemnly reiterate that they will, as always, firmly stand by the Kampuchean people and do their utmost to support and aid the Kampuchean people in every way. The Government of Democratic Kampuchea headed by Prime Minister Pol Pot is the Kampuchean people’s genuine representative and sole legal government [sic].”Chinese Government Statement on 14 January 1979, Peking Review, Vol. 22, No. 3, January 19, 1979.“Firmly stand”, “do their utmost”, “support and aid”, what do these words mean for? It definitely means for a war which was shortly occurred after the issue of the Statement, first to punish Vietnam and second to protect the Pol Pot’s regime - the “people’s genuine representative and sole legal government” of Cambodia: The Sino-Vietnamese War of 1979.On the other hand, during the 1980s, when the genocidal crimes of Khmer Rouge regime were partially exposed to the light and the many countries knew it well, China however instigated a massive propaganda campaign to distort and deny their ally’s crimes in Cambodia. They even went so far as to ridiculously blame Vietnam for its genocidal crimes against Cambodia (!?).The article below was a typical example, which was quoted from the Beijing Review (北京周報), a Chinese national news magazine in English owned by the Communist Party of China:“With Soviet support, the Vietnamese authorities have invaded and occupied Kampuchea, unscrupulously trampling on its independence, sovereignty and territorial integrity. As a result, the Kampuchean people are faced with genocide [sic].”A short paragraph originally quoted from the Beijing Review, Vol. 25, No. 27, July 5, 1982.IV. SOME COMMENTSTime flies like an arrow, today is 24 April 2019 and there has been 40 years since the downfall of Pol Pot and his genocidal regime in Cambodia. A lot of things have happened throughout these years.Pol Pot died of his sickness in a forest in Western Cambodia on 15 April 1998. Nowadays, his “best comrades” such as Khieu Samphan and Nuon Chea finally served their life in prison for their genocidal crimes against Cambodian and Vietnamese people.However, under foreign political pressures, the role of China in supporting this regime has been quite a sensitive topic during Khmer Rouge Tribunal.In the future, surely there will be more sensitive documents be declassified and brought to light for investigations about the relationships between People’s Republic of China and its “best ally”, the Khmer Rouge, who together achieved an “Ideological Victory” but a “Strategic Failure” in 1970s, as a recent research material has pointed out [1].Cheers.

Thanks for the mention, Kyle (Kyler Murray)!Throughout the Middle Ages, once a king came of age, he commanded his armies in person unless he was prevented from doing so by health, captivity or being engaged elsewhere. Medieval monarchs came of age at remarkably young ages. For example, although I can find no absolute rule, Edward III was 17 when he deposed his mother’s lover Mortimer and took the reins of government into his own hands. In the Holy Roman Empire youths legally came of age at 14, and it was at this age that Frederick II insisted on ruling in his own right. In the Kingdom of Jerusalem, youths came of age at 15.Baldwin IV was born in the summer of 1161, his father died in 1174, when Baldwin was just 13, and after two years under the regency of his kinsman Raymond of Tripoli, Baldwin assumed full powers in 1176 — one year before Saladin’s first invasion of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. Baldwin was thus just 16, when he defeated Saladin at the Battle of Montgisard. The story of that battle follows.(Below: the Hollywood Baldwin, a snapshot from the film “The Kingdom of Heaven”)In early August 1177, Count Philip of Flanders reached Acre with a large force of Western knights. On the advice of the High Court, Baldwin IV, who was already suffering from leprosy, offered Philip of Flanders the regency of his kingdom, whose armies were preparing yet another invasion of Egypt aided by a large Byzantine fleet. Flanders, however, insisted on being made king of any territories the joint Christian forces conquered. The idea did not sit well with either the King of Jerusalem or the Emperor of the Eastern Roman Empire, both of whom were footing the bill and providing the bulk of the troops for the expedition. The result was that the entire expedition was called off, the Byzantine fleet withdrew and Philip of Flanders took his knights and half the barons of Jerusalem north to attack the Seljuk strongholds of Hama and Harim instead.A Medieval depiction of a Crusading HostSaladin, who had gathered his forces in Egypt to repel the impending attack from Jerusalem, rapidly learned that the invasion of Egypt been called off and that the bulk of Frankish fighting forces had moved north. It was a splendid opportunity to strike at his enemies and the Sultan seized the opportunity with a force estimated at 26,000 light horse — which leaves open the question of whether infantry was with him or not. The force also allegedly included some 1,000 mamluks of the Sultan’s personal bodyguard.According to an anonymous Christian chronicler from northern Syria, the news of Saladin’s invasion plunged Jerusalem into despair. The king was just 16 years old, had no battle experience of his own, and his most experienced commanders (or many of them) were besieging Hama. The Constable of the Kingdom, the competent and wise Humphrey de Toron II, was gravely ill. But according to Archbishop William of Tyre, Baldwin’s former tutor now his chancellor and our best contemporary source, Baldwin rallied his forces and with just 376 knights made a dash to Ascalon, the southern-most stronghold of his kingdom.Note: Baldwin personally led his knights to Ascalon and he did so on horseback — not in a litter as some novelists and hobby historians suggest. At this stage, Baldwin’s leprosy manifested itself only in an inability to use his right arm. Despite this handicap he had benefited from special riding instruction as a youth. His biographer, Professor Bernard Hamilton, writes:Baldwin, who was effectively one-handed, needed to learn special skills if he intended to fight, because he would have to control his mount in battle with his knees alone. The training he received was clearly first-rate because he remained an excellent rider until he became too ill to mount.William of Tyre, who had been Baldwin’s tutor before he became king and served him later as his chancellor writes even more compellingly:He…was more skilled than men who were older than himself in controlling horses and in riding them at a gallop.Arriving there only shortly before Saladin himself on November 22, King Baldwin took control of the city, but then hesitated to risk open battle with the Saracens because of the imbalance of forces. Thus, while King Baldwin's dash to Ascalon had been heroic, it appeared to have been less than wise strategically. Saladin had effectively trapped the King and his knights inside Ascalon, and nothing lay between Saladin and Jerusalem except scattered garrisons.Rather than wasting time besieging a fortified city with a strong defending force, Saladin left a enough of his army behind to maintain the siege of Ascalon and moved off with the bulk of his troops. Indeed, the Sultan and his emirs were so confident of victory that they took time to plunder the rich cities of the coastal plain, notably Ramla and Lydda. In Jerusalem, the terrified population sought refuge in the Citadel of David.The Citadel of David as it appears today.But Baldwin IV was not yet defeated. With the number of Saracen troops surrounding Ascalon dramatically reduced, he risked a sortie. He also got word to the Templars in the fortress of Gaza, and they sortied out to rendezvous with the King. Together this mounted force started to shadow Saladin’s now dispersed and no longer disciplined army. Frankish tactics, however, required a combination of cavalry and infantry, so King Baldwin could not engage the enemy until he had infantry as well. He therefore issued the arrière ban, a general call to arms that obligated every Christian to rally to the royal standard in defense of the realm. The armed burgesses started streaming to join him.What happened next is usually depicted as a "miracle" or just "dumb luck." However, Michael Erhlich in a reassessment of the Battle of Montgisard published in Medieval Military History [Vol. XI, 2013, pp. 95-105] argues convincingly that the Franks, in fact, very cleverly lured Saladin into marshy ground, where his superiority of numbers could not come into play. He writes:The Franks knew the terrain much better than Saladin. Fearing his numerical superiority, they certainly discarded the option to attack him in Ramla because in this case the topography of the area presented many difficulties for them. Their move towards Ibelin indicated that they wanted to fight the Muslim army. Otherwise, they could have taken the safe road to Jerusalem, such as the route via Hebron. Therefore, the fact that they followed Saladin clearly indicated that the Frankish king believed that he could win a battle.He continues the story:Baldwin passed near enough to Saladin’s camp in Ramla to persuade Saladin to follow him, but also very near to the mountains where he could escape in case he lost the day…An interesting maneuver was that the Frankish army … did not use the main road [to Jerusalem] but a parallel path which was barely known to strangers.Finally:Baldwin…succeeded in maneuvering Saladin to the place he wanted: a marshy area…[where] numerical superiority became a burden rather than an advantage. It demanded additional efforts to maneuver the trapped army, which fell into total chaos. Led by a local lord, who certainly knew the terrain better than any body else on the battlefield, the Frankish army managed to defeat the Muslim army, in spite of its initial superiority.A modern portrayal of the Battle of Montgisard by Mariusz KozikAlthough the battle was hard-fought and there were Christian casualties, the Sultan’s forces were routed. Not only that, Saladin himself came very close to being killed or captured and allegedly escaped on the back of a pack-camel. Yet for the bulk of his army there was no escape. Those who were not slaughtered immediately on the field, found themselves scattered and virtually defenseless in enemy territory. Although they abandoned their plunder, it was still a long way home — and the rains had set in. Cold, wet, slowed down by the mud, no longer benefiting from the strength of numbers, they were easy prey for the residents and settlers of the Kingdom of Jerusalem. The latter, after the sack of Lydda, Ramla and other lesser places, had good reason to crave revenge. Furthermore, even after escaping Christian territory, the Sultan’s troops still found no refuge because once in the desert the Bedouins took advantage of the situation to enslave as many men as they could catch in order to enrich themselves. Very few men of the Sultan’s army made it home to safety in Egypt.But to what extend was this really King Baldwin’s victory?A number of modern historians, basing their assessment on Arab sources, claim that the real commander at Montgisard was Reynald de Chatillon, the Lord of Transjordan. In fact, this is a red herring. Arab sources had absolutely no insight into the Frankish command structure. The most prominent fighter on the battlefield is not necessarily (indeed rarely) the actual commander. Furthermore, because Chatillon was a familiar figure to the Arabs, he was readily recognized; not so the other lords. Most important, Arab chroniclers were at pains to justify Saladin's summary execution of Chatillon ten years later after the Battle of Hattin by making Chatillon into a particularly dangerous enemy of Islam. Making him the mastermind of Montgisard fit this agenda, but it proves nothing about who actually devised the strategy and led the Frankish army to victory at Montgisard.Ehrlich furthermore stresses that the victory depended on superior knowledge and effective use of the terrain. This, he rightly contends could only have come from local lord — someone who knew not just the main roads but the by-roads and all the little swamps, creeks, forests and hillocks along the way. That was most certainly not Reynald de Chatillon, a Frenchman who had been Prince of Antioch, a prisoner of the Saracens for 15 years, and then became Lord of Transjordan far from this little piece of the kingdom. It was also not King Baldwin. It was undoubtedly the Ibelin brothers. They were fighting near their birthplace and, in Baldwin’s case, within his lordship. In accordance with custom, Baldwin claimed — and received — the right to lead the vanguard in the battle.Another modern depiction of the battle, (showing a man in Ibelin arms in the foreground c. Talento.Yet, in the end, that does not take away from Baldwin’s right to claim this victory as his own. It was King Baldwin who made the decision to ride to Ascalon with less than 400 knights. It was Baldwin who sortied out of Ascalon to start shadowing Saladin’s army. And it was Baldwin who agreed to the plan of attack proposed by the Lord of Ramla and/or his brother.As Professor Hamilton stresses, given his incurable and debilitating disease, it would have been legitimate for Baldwin to abdicate all command to a constable, the royal official responsible for commanding the feudal army in the absence of the king. Instead, Baldwin “led his armies in person and took part in the fighting even though he was effectively one-handed, using the skills which his Arab riding-master had taught him.” [Bernard Hamilton, The Leper King and his Heirs: Baldwin IV and the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem, Cambridge University Press, 2000, 108.]The Battle of Montgisard is an important event in Knight of Jerusalem.