About Chanel Miller June 2016 & Michael Ayele (a.k.a) W May 2014 - #Race & Wrongful Convictions in the USA

3. THE ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF CIVIL LIBERTIES (AACL) FILES A REQUEST FOR RECORDS ABOUT THE NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS SEPTEMBER 23RD 2022 REPORT ON RACE AND WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. BE WELL. TAKE CARE. KEEP YOURSELVES AT ARMS DISTANCE. #W (AACL) # MICHAEL A. AYELE # ANTI-RACIST HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST # AUDIO-VISUAL MEDIA ANALYST # ANTI-PROPAGANDA JOURNALIST

4. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 W (AACL) Michael A. Ayele P.O.Box 20438 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia E-mail: waacl13@gmail.com ; waacl1313@gmail.com ; waacl42913@gmail.com Request for Records Hello, This is Michael A. Ayele sending this message though I now go by W. You may call me W. I am writing this letter to file a request for records with your office.i The bases for this records request are [1] the September 23rd 2022 report published by the National Registry of Exonerations on the subject of Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States 2022;ii[2] the statements made by the World Coalition Against the Death Penalty on the occasion of the 20th World Day Against the Death Penalty. iii I) Requested Records What I am requesting for prompt disclosure are records in your possession detailing [1] the formal/informal ties that exist between your office and the National Registry of Exonerations; [2] your discussions about the September 23rd 2022 report published by the National Registry of Exoneration as a “project of the University of California, Irvine with the University of Michigan Law School as well as Michigan State University College of Law and the Newkirk Center for Science & Society;” [3] your discussions about the National Registry of Exonerations as an “ongoing online archive that includes all known exonerations in the United States since 1989,” which amount to 3,248 (three thousand two hundred and forty eight) exonerations as of August 08th 2022; [4] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “Black people were 13.6% of the American population but accounted for 53% of the 3,200 exonerations;” [5] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “innocent Black Americans are seven times more likely than white Americans to be falsely convicted of serious crimes;”iv [6] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “innocent Black people are (…) seven-and-a-half times more likely to be convicted of murder than innocent white people;” [7] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “Black people, who are convicted of murder are about 80% more likely to be innocent than other convicted murderers;” [8] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “defendants who are charged with killing white victims, regardless of their own race, are more likely to be sentenced to death than those charged with killing Black victims;” [9] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “innocent defendants who are charged with killing white victims are more likely to be sentenced to death, and sometimes no doubt executed, Date.: October 07th 2022 W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 1

5. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 than those charged with killing Black victims;” [10] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “fifty eight percent of non-capital murder exonerees who were convicted of killing white victims were sentenced to life imprisonment (262/448), compared to 46% (forty six percent) of those who were convicted of killing Black victims (206/444);”[11] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that the “pattern of harsh sentencing for murder convictions with white victims and lighter sentencing for those with Black victims is not restricted to death sentences;” [12] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “innocent murder defendants in white-victim cases are (…) more likely to be sentenced to life in prison than those charged with killing Black victims;” [13] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “seventy two percent of the murder prosecutions that led to exoneration included official misconduct;” [14] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that there was a malicious effort to conceal exculpatory evidence in 63% (sixty three percent) of “murder prosecutions that led to exonerations;” [15] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “murder exonerations with Black defendants were almost 50% more likely to include misconduct by police officers than those with white defendants;” [16] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “the rate of official misconduct is considerably higher among murder exonerations with Black defendants than those with white defendants, 78% (seventy eight percent) compared to 64% (sixty four percent);”[17] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “85% (eight five percent) of Black exonerees who were sentenced to death were victims of official misconduct, compared to 70% of white death-row exonerees;” [18] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “the rate of misconduct by prosecutors is about the same for all murder exonerations regardless of race, 48% (forty eight percent) for Black defendants and 45% (forty five percent) for white;” [19] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that there is a “slightly larger difference in prosecutorial misconduct among capital exonerations, 65% (sixty five percent) for Black defendant and 59% (fifty nine percent) of whites;” [20] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “there is a substantial difference in the rate of misconduct by police: 58% (fifty eight percent) for Black murder exonerees compared to 38% (thirty eight percent) for whites;”[21] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that police officers perjured themselves in “21% (twenty one percent) of murder exonerations with Black defendants and 14% (fourteen percent) of those with white defendants;” [22] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exoneration, which concluded that there was witness tampering and perjury in 35% (thirty five percent) of “murder prosecutions that led to exonerations;” [23] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that police officers tampered “in 42% of murder exonerations with Black defendants but only 25% (twenty five percent) of those with white defendants;” [24] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 2

6. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 that “official misconduct in criminal cases is under-reported because, by its very nature, most misconduct is deliberately concealed – and much if not most remains hidden;”[25] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “wrongful murder convictions (…) are more likely to include undiscovered misconduct when the defendant is Black;” [26] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “murder exonerations with known misconduct (…) take longer than those without, 17.7 years (seventeen years and eight months) to 12.2 years (twelve years and two months) on average;” [27] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “the higher rate of misconduct in cases with Black exonerees may cause some of the longer average time they wait to be exonerated, perhaps because the authorities resist exoneration more strenuously in cases with government misconduct;” [28] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “Black murder exonerees spend longer before release than white murder exonerees, about 16 years (sixteen years) on average compared to about 13 years (thirteen years);” [29] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “Black murder exonerees spent three years longer in prison before release than white murder exonerees” (on average); v [30] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that nearly 60% of rape exonerations involve Black people, who are defendants in less than a quarter of rape convictions; [31] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that nearly “fifty nine percent of sexual assault exonerees are Black, four-and-a-half time the proportion in the population, 33% (thirty three percent) are white;” [32] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “innocent Black people are almost eight times more likely than white people to be falsely convicted of rape;” [33] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “most innocent Black defendants who were exonerated for sexual assault had been convicted of raping white women (128/207);” [34] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “in 44% (forty four percent) of all sexual assault exonerations with eyewitness misidentifications, Black men were convicted of raping white women, a racial combination that appears in less than 11% (eleven percent) of sexual assaults in the United States;” [35] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “70% (seventy percent) of white sexual assault victims were attacked by white men and only about 13% (thirteen percent) by Black men;” [36] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “52% (fifty two percent) of sexual assault exonerees with white female victims are Black (129/249), and 43% (forty three percent) are white (106/249) – which suggests that Black defendants convicted of raping white women are more than six times more likely to be innocent than white men convicted of raping women of their own race;” [37] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “21% (twenty one percent) of those serving time in state prisons for sexual assault were Black, 39% (thirty nine percent) were white, and 25% (twenty five percent) Hispanic;” [38] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “a prisoner serving time W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 3

7. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 for sexual assault is more than three times more likely to be innocent if he is Black than if he is white;” [39] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “Black sexual assault exonerees spent more than four years longer in prison than white sexual assault exonerees, 13.5 years compared to 9.4 years;” [40] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “racism in rape prosecutions can become a self-fulfilling prophecy – and an excuse for misconduct;” vi [41] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “sixty nine percent of drug crime exonerees are Black and 16% are white;” [42] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “innocent Black people are 19 times more likely to be convicted of drug crimes than innocent whites – a much larger disparity than (…) for murder and rape – despite the fact that white and Black Americans use illegal drugs at similar rates;” [43] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that “almost all the erroneous drug convictions (they) know about are in a single cluster in Harris County, Texas (Houston), where a unique practice of testing alleged drugs after defendants pled guilty led to 157 (one hundred and fifty seven) exonerations;” [44] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that 62% (sixty two percent) of the people who were exonerated in Harris County, Texas (Houston) were Black even though the Black population in that county made up only 20% (twenty percent) of total residents; [45] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that white and Black Americans used “illegal drugs (…) at comparable rates, 12% (twelve percent) and 13.7% (thirteen point seven) percent;” [46] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that Black people in America were disproportionately being arrested and prosecuted for non-violent drug offenses even though they used “illegal drugs (…) at comparable rates” to white Americans; [47] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that post-secondary academic institutions such as Northwestern University (among others) have a hierarchy for the pain and suffering endured by people wrongfully arrested by the police; [48] your discussions about the finding of the National Registry of Exonerations, which concluded that post-secondary academic institutions such as Northwestern University (among others) have a hierarchy for the pain and suffering endured by people wrongfully incarcerated in prisons, jails or elsewhere; vii [49] your discussions about the decision of the National Registry of Exonerations to note that some county governments (in the United States of America) have established a “Conviction Integrity Unit (…) to prevent, identify and correct false convictions;” [50] your discussions about the decision of the National Registry of Exonerations to note that the Conviction Integrity Unit established by some county governments (in the United States of America) have a hierarchy for the pain and suffering endured by people wrongfully incarcerated in prisons, jails or elsewhere; [51] the formal/informal opinions held by your local/state/federal government about the decision of some post-secondary academic institutions (such as Northwestern University among others) to have a hierarchy for the pain and suffering endured by people wrongfully incarcerated in prison; [52] the formal/informal opinions held by your local/state/federal government about the decision of some county governments to have a hierarchy for the pain and suffering endured by people W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 4

8. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 wrongfully incarcerated in prison;viii [53] the extent of your knowledge on whether your local/state/federal government recognizes October 10th as World Day Against the Death Penalty; [54] the information provided by your local/state/federal government on October 10th for the occasion of World Day Against the Death Penalty; [55] the academic backgrounds, the professional responsibilities and the annual salaries of Samuel R. Gross, Maurice J. Possley, Ken Otterbourg, Klara Huber Stephens, Jessica Weinstock Paredes and Barbara O’Brien. II) Request for a Fee Waiver and Expedited Processing The requested records do/will demonstrate that [1] the September 23rd 2022 report published by the National Registry of Exonerations was a “project of the University of California, Irvine with the University of Michigan Law School as well as Michigan State University and the Newkirk Center for Science & Society;” [2] the National Registry of Exoneration is an “ongoing online archive that includes all known exonerations in the United States since 1989,” which amount to 3,248 exonerations as of August 08th2022; [3] “murder in America is overwhelmingly intra- racial: 84% (eighty four percent) of white murder victims and 93% of Black murder victims are killed by members of their own race;” [4] even though murder in America is overwhelmingly intra-racial, “defendants who are charged with killing white victims, regardless of their own race are more likely to be sentenced to death than those charged with killing Black victims;” [5] even though murder in America is overwhelmingly intra-racial, “innocent defendants who are charged with killing white victims are more likely to be sentenced to death, and sometimes no doubt executed than those charged with killing Black victims;” [6] even though murder in America is overwhelmingly intra-racial, “58% of non-capital murder exonerees who were convicted of killing white victims were sentenced to life imprisonment, compared to 46% of those who were convicted of killing Black victims;” [7] even though murder in America is overwhelmingly intra- racial, the “pattern of harsh sentencing for murder convictions with white victims and lighter sentencing for those with Black victims is not restricted to death sentences;” [8] even though murder in America is overwhelmingly intra-racial, “innocent murder defendants in white-victim cases are (…) more likely to be sentenced to life in prison than those charged with killing Black victims;” [9] seventy two percent (72%) of the murder prosecutions that led to exoneration included official misconduct; [10] “murder exonerations with Black defendants were almost 50% more likely to include misconduct by police officers than those with white defendants;” [11] “the rate of official misconduct is considerably higher among murder exonerations with Black defendants than those with white defendants;” [12] “the higher rate of misconduct in cases with Black exonerees may cause some of the longer average time they wait to be exonerated, perhaps because the authorities resist exoneration more strenuously in cases with government misconduct;” [13] “Black murder exonerees spend longer before release than white murder exonerees, about 16 years on average compared to about 13 years;” [14] “70% of white sexual assault victims were attacked by white men and only about 13% by Black men;” [15] sexual violence committed against white women in America is to a very large extent intra-racial; [16] even though sexual violence committed in America (against white women) is to a very large extent intra-racial, “52% of sexual assault exonerees with white female victims are Black, and W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 5

9. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 43% are white – which suggests that Black defendants convicted of raping white women were more than six times more likely to be innocent than white men convicted of raping women of their own race;” [17] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who came to the United States of America (U.S.A) on an F-1 Visa granted to him by the Department of State (DOS) in 2009; [18] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who came to the U.S.A for the purpose of obtaining a Bachelor of Arts (B.A) Degree from Westminster College (located in Fulton, Missouri); [19] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who has earned a B.A Degree from Westminster College (Fulton, Missouri) on December 31st 2016; [20] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who has been in on and off contact with the Department of Justice (DOJ) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) about the rape and murder of Jeanne Ann Clery; [21] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who had informed the DOJ (FBI) that he was told what constituted “affirmative and effective consent” at Westminster College (Fulton, Missouri) in January 2010 (shortly after his arrival on U.S territory in the month of December 2009); [22] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who had informed the DOJ (FBI) that he was told what constituted “affirmative and effective consent” after he was told about the rape and murder of Jeanne Ann Clery (in January 2010); [23] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who had informed the DOJ (FBI) that he was told what constituted “affirmative and effective” after he was told about the rape and murder of a Caucasian woman by a Black/African American man (in January 2010); [24] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who had previously asked for the Department of Justice (DOJ) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to disclose (to him) responsive information they had on the rape and murder of Jeanne Ann Clery; [25] the DOJ (FBI) is a federal agency, which has informed Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W that they have had contact with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) about the rape and murder of Jeanne Ann Clery; [26] the DOJ (FBI) is a federal agency, which has informed Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W that they had transferred the case of Jeanne Ann Clery to the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) on June 11th 1992; [27] the DOJ (FBI) is a federal agency, which has informed Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W that they were contacted by his alma mater Westminster College (Fulton, Missouri) on August 29th 1986 (approximately five months following the rape and murder of Jeanne Ann Clery); [28] the DOJ (FBI) is a federal agency, which has informed Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W that they were contacted by his alma mater (Westminster College on August 29th 1986) because they had extended an invitation to their then-Director William Webster to “deliver the 1987 Commencement Address on Sunday, May 17th 1987 at 2:30 P.M;”ix [29] William Webster is a Caucasian man, who has previously worked as Director of the FBI (from 1978 to 1987) and Director of the CIA (from 1987 to 1991); [30] the CIA have informed Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W that they were never transferred the case of Jeanne Ann Clery rape and murder by the FBI on June 11th 1992; [31] the CIA have informed Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W that they have no information about the rape and murder of Jeanne Ann Clery and that he should contact the FBI and the Department of Education (DoED);x [32] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who has previously corresponded with Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and the University of California – Irvine about the Annual Security Report (ASR) they publish on a yearly basis pursuant to the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act; [33] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who has very W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 6

10. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 much encouraged Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and the University of California – Irvine to take responsibility for the deficient and superficial nature of their ASR published pursuant to the Jeanne Clery Act; [34] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who has very much encouraged Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and the University of California –Irvine to refrain from educating their students about “affirmative and effective consent” after telling them about the April 1986 rape and murder of Jeanne Ann Clery (for the purpose of not exacerbating harmful stereotypes); [35] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who has very much encouraged Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and the University of California -Irvine to refrain from educating their students about “affirmative and effective consent” after telling them about the rape and murder of a Caucasian woman by a Black/African American man (for the purpose of not exacerbating harmful stereotypes); [36] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who’s very much displeased with the way that Michigan State University and the University of Michigan have gone about to describe his correspondence with them (even if they have not mischaracterized it); [37] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who’s very much displeased with the way that Michigan State University and the University of Michigan have gone about to describe his correspondence with them (particularly given the report they have published in September 2022, which is now the subject of this records request);xi [38] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who was in January 2015 informed about the sexual assault of Chanel Miller on the campus of Stanford University; [39] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who was in the month of June 2016 informed that Brock Turner was convicted of sexually assaulting Chanel Miller on the campus of Stanford University;xii [40] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who was (for what seems to him very obvious reasons) shocked upon learning in June 2016 that Brock Turner will be spending 90 (ninety) days in prison for the sexual assault of Chanel Miller on the campus of Stanford University;xiii [41] Michael A. Ayele (a.k.a) W is a Black man, who has previously corresponded with the San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) about their efforts to bring to national attention the memoir written by Chanel Miller.xiv In my judgment, the facts presented in this records request are not the sort to bolster public confidence in the activities of the U.S government overall. As a Black man with a U.S college degree (who has previously corresponded with Michigan State University, the University of Michigan and the University of California – Irvine about their ASR published pursuant to the Jeanne Clery Act), I would like to take this opportunity to [1] denounce violence committed against women irrespective of their racial backgrounds, their sexual orientations, their national origins, their religious affiliations and/or their disability status; [2] denounce the sexual assault Chanel Miller was subjected to on the campus of Stanford University in January 2015; [3] denounce the racism in sexual assault/rape prosecutions (I have been witness to and others have suffered from); [4] express the outrage I felt in June 2016 upon learning that Brock Turner would be serving 90 days in prison for the sexual assault of Chanel Miller on the campus of Stanford University; [5] denounce the unmerited pain and suffering endured by people wrongfully arrested for crimes they have not committed (irrespective of the time they have spent behind prison bars); [6] denounce the unmerited pain and suffering endured by people wrongfully W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 7

11. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 incarcerated as a direct consequence of official misconduct and arrogance (irrespective of the time they have spent behind prison bars); [7] denounce the unmerited pain and suffering endured by people wrongfully incarcerated as a direct consequence of the systemic chauvinism, discrimination, misogyny, racism and sexism plaguing American society (irrespective of the time they have spent behind prison bars); [8] call upon a moratorium of the death penalty in places, where it’s still in practice; [9] call upon the decriminalization and legalization of drugs because of the very negative impact their “illegal” status has on the lives of racial minorities in America. The core issues presented in this records request are as follows. 1) What formal/informal ties exist between your office and the National Registry of Exonerations? 2) Have you had conversations about the September 23rd 2022 report published by the National Registry of Exonerations on the subject of “Race and Wrongful Convictions?” If yes, will you promptly disclose those records? 3) Have you had conversations about murder in America being overwhelmingly intra-racial? If yes, will you disclose those records? 4) Have you had conversations about the reasons why “innocent defendants who are charged with killing white victims are more likely to be sentenced to death and sometimes no doubt executed than those who are charged with killing Black victims?” If yes, will you disclose those records? 5) Have you had conversations about the reasons why “58% of non-capital murder exonerees who were convicted of killing white victims were sentenced to life imprisonment, compared to 46% of those who were convicted of killing Black victims?” If yes, will you disclose those records? 6) Have you had conversations about the sexual violence that is committed against white women being to a very large extent intra-racial? If yes, will you disclose those records? 7) Have you had conversations about the reasons why “Black defendants convicted of raping white women were more than six times more likely to be innocent than white men convicted of raping women of their own race?” If yes, will you disclose those records? 8) What is the formal/informal opinion of your local/state/federal government about the decision of some post-secondary academic institutions (such as Northwestern University) to have a ranking for the pain and suffering endured by people wrongfully incarcerated in prison for crimes they haven’t committed? What is the formal/informal opinion of your local government about the decision of some county governments (with a Conviction Integrity Unit/Conviction Review Unit) to have a ranking for the pain and suffering endured by people wrongfully incarcerated in prison for crimes they haven’t committed? This records request should be expedited because it puts into question the government’s integrity about the way that people are treated in the U.S.A on account of their gender, their racial backgrounds, their national origins and their disability status. My request for a fee waiver should be granted because [1] I have identified operations and activities of the federal government in concert with U.S local/state government as well as non-profit and for-profit organizations; [2] the issues presented are meaningfully informative about government operations or activities in order to be ‘likely to contribute’ to and increase public understanding of those operations or activities. Under penalty of perjury, I hereby declare all the statements I have made to be true and accurate. Be well. Take care. Keep yourselves at arms distance. W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 8

12. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 W (AACL) Michael A. Ayele Anti-Racist Human Rights Activist Audio-Visual Media Analyst Anti-Propaganda Journalist W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 9

13. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 Work Cited i Please be advised that I have previously disseminated a vast number of documents obtained through records request via Archive.org, Scribd.com, Medium.com and YouTube.com. These documents have been made available to the public at no financial expense to them. As a member of the media, I would like to take this opportunity to inform you that the records you disclose to me could be made available to the general public through the means I have mentioned above or other ones. On December 10th 2021, I have launched a website on Wordpress.com for the purpose of making the records previously disclosed to me by the U.S government further accessible to members of the general public interested in the activities of their elected and non- elected representatives. You can find out more about the recent publications of the Association for the Advancement of Civil Liberties (AACL) here.: https://michaelayeleaacl.wordpress.com/ iiRace is central to every aspect of criminal justice in the United States. The conviction of innocent defendants is no exception. Thousands of exonerations across dozens of years demonstrate that Black people are far more likely than white people to convicted of crimes they did not commit. As of August, 08th 2022, the National Registry of Exoneration listed 3,2000 defendants who were convicted of crimes in the United States and later exonerated because they were innocent. 53% of them were Black, nearly four times their proportion of the population, which is now about 13.6%. Judging from exonerations, innocent Black Americans are seven times more likely than white Americans to be falsely convicted of crimes. Black people are over- represented to a greater or lesser extent among exonerations for all major crime categories listed in the Registry, except white collar crime. (…) What explains this stark racial disparity? (…) There is no one explanation for the heavy concentration of Black defendants among those convicted of crimes they did not commit. The causes we have identified run from inevitable consequences of patterns in crime and punishment to deliberate acts of racism, with many steps in between. They differ sharply from one type of crime to another. Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States 2022. University of Michigan Law School.: https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race%20Report%20Preview.pdf iiiObserved every 10 October, the World Day Against the Death Penalty unifies the global abolitionist movement and mobilizes civil society, political leaders, lawyers, public opinion and more to support the call for universal abolition of capital punishment. The day encourages and consolidates the political and general awareness of the world-wide movement against the death penalty. As the 20th World Day Against the Death Penalty is marked around the world, now is a time to consider and celebrate the gains the abolitionist movement has made over the past 20 years. Now, more than ever, abolitionist actors need to continue working towards the complete abolition of the death penalty worldwide, for all crimes. On 10 October 2022, the World Day W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 10

14. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 will be dedicated to reflecting on the relationship between the use of the death penalty andtorture or other cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment. The types of torture and other ill-treatment experienced during the long death penalty road are varied and numerous: physical or psychological torture has been applied in many cases during questioning to force confessions to capital crimes; death row phenomenon contributes to the long-term psychological decline of a person’s health ; harsh death row living conditions contribute to physical deterioration ; mental anguish of anticipating execution ; methods of execution that cause exceptional pain, and the suffering experienced by family members and those with a close relationship with the executed person. Discriminations based on sex, gender, poverty, age, sexual orientation, religious and ethnic minority status and others can compound cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment of individuals sentenced to death.(…) Wherever you are… in Africa, America, Asia, Oceania or Europe, Whoever you are… NGOs, teachers, lawyers, local representatives, parliamentarians, artists, reporters, religious leaders, citizens, Whatever your plans are… debates, concerts, press conferences, demonstrations, petitions, educational and cultural activities…. TAKE ACTION AGAINST THE DEATH PENALTY, ON 10 OCTOBER 2022! 20th World Day Against the Death Penalty – Death Penalty: a road paved with torture. World Coalition Against the Death Penalty.: https://worldcoalition.org/campagne/20th-world-day- against-the-death-penalty/ ivBlack people are 13.6% of the American population but 53% of the 3,200 exonerations listed in the National Registry of Exonerations. Judging from exonerations, innocent Black Americans are seven times more likely than white Americans to be falsely convicted of serious crimes. Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States 2022. University of Michigan Law School.: https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race%20Report%20Preview.pdf v Innocent Black people are about seven-and-a-half times more likely to be convicted of murder than innocent white people. That applies equally to those who are sentenced to death and those who are not. (…) A major cause of this disparity is the high homicide rate in the Black community, a tragedy that kills many Black people and sends many others to prison. (…) In addition, Black people who are convicted of murder are about 80% more likely to be innocent than other convicted murderers. (…) Part of that disparity is tied to the race of the victims. About 13% of murders by Black people have white victims, but twice as many—26% of innocent Black murder exonerees—were convicted of killing white people. (…) The convictions that led to murder exonerations with Black defendants were almost 50% more likely to include W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 11

15. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 misconduct by police officers than those with white defendants. (…) In addition, on average Black murder exonerees spent three years longer in prison before release than white murder exonerees. (…) Many of the convictions of Black murder exonerees were influenced by racial discrimination, from unconscious bias and institutional discrimination to explicit racism. (…) Most innocent defendants who are convicted of crimes are not exonerated. Judging from the rate of false conviction among death sentences, at least several thousand defendants have been falsely convicted of murder in America in the past 40 years. Judging from the exonerations that have occurred, more than half of them were Black. (…) About 38% of murder victims in the United States are white. (…) Many studies in at least 15 states have shown that defendants who are charged with killing white victims, regardless of their own race, are more likely to be sentenced to death than those charged with killing Black victims. The disparities we see in our data suggest that innocent defendants who are charged with killing white victims are more likely to be sentenced to death, and sometimes no doubt executed, than those charged with killing Black victims. There are also sentencing disparities among murder exonerees who avoided death sentences. More than half of non-capital murder exonerees were sentenced to life imprisonment or to life without the possibility of parole (535/1,033), and the rest were sentenced to prison for terms shorter than life. Fifty-eight percent of non-capital murder exonerees who were convicted of killing white victims were sentenced to life imprisonment (262/448), compared to 46% of those who were convicted of killing Black victims (206/444). In other words, judging from exonerations, the pattern of harsh sentencing for murder convictions with white victims and lighter sentencing for those with Black victims is not restricted to death sentences. If they avoid the death penalty, innocent murder defendants in white-victim cases are also more likely to be sentenced to life in prison than those charged with killing Black victims. (…) Seventy two percent of the murder prosecutions that led to exoneration included official misconduct that we know about (845/1,167). We have identified many different types of misconduct. The most common is concealing exculpatory evidence –often called “Brady violations” after the landmark 1963 Supreme Court case Brady v Maryland – which occurred in 63% of the cases (736/1,167). The next most common type is witness tampering – everything from misleading a witness at a lineup, to threatening a witness, to suborning perjury – which occurred in 35% of murder exoneration cases (416/1,167); followed by perjury by a state official, which happened in 20% of the cases (230/1,167). The rate of official misconduct is considerably higher among murder exonerations with Black defendants than those with white defendants, 78% (500/638) compared to 64% (236/369). The overall rate of misconduct is a bit higher in capital cases – up from 73% to 78% (105/134) – but the difference by race is similar: 85% (63/74) of Black exonerees who were sentenced to death were victims of official misconduct, compared to 70% (32/46) of white death-row exonerees. Most of these differences by race are due to misconduct by police officers. The rate of misconduct by prosecutors is about all the same for all murder exonerations regardless of race, 48% for Black defendants (308/638) and 45% for white (167/369). (There is a slightly larger difference in prosecutorial misconduct among capital exonerations, 65% for Black defendants (48/74) and 59% of whites (27/46).) On the other hand, there is a substantial difference in the rate of misconduct by police: 58% for Black murder exonerees (370/638) compared to 38% for whites (142/369). The high rate of misconduct by police in murder cases with Black defendants is reflected in the nature of the W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 12

16. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 misconduct that occurs. Eighty four percent of perjury by government officials is committed by police officers. It happened in 21% of murder exonerations with Black defendants (136/638) and 14% of those with white defendants (51/369). Witness tampering is also committed primarily by police officers. It happened in 42% of murder exonerations with Black defendants (271/638) but only 25% of those with white defendants (91/369). In 17% of Black defendant murder exonerations the witness tampering included violence or threats to the witness (106/638), compared to 7% for white defendant cases (24/369). For example: Kendrick Scott and Justly Johnson were arrested and charged with murder within hours after Lisa Kindred was shot and killed in Detroit on May 09th 1999, and convicted in 2000. Antonio Burnette and Raymond Jackson had been arrested hours earlier as part of the same investigation, and they told the police – and later testified in court – that Scott and Johnson told them that they had committed the murder. Scott and Johnson were exonerated in 2018 after the victim’s son – who witness the killing at close range when he was eight, but was never questioned by anyone before trial – testified that he was certain that neither Scott nor Johnson was the gunman. In addition, Burnette testified that the police “whooped” him during his interrogation and that he was afraid he would be charged with the murder himself if he did not day what they wanted to hear, and a cousin of Jackson’s testified that before he died in 2008, Jackson told her that he had lied because he was afraid of the police and the prosecution. Tainted identification procedures are a particularly dangerous form of misconduct. They occurred in 10% of murder exonerations, that we know (112/1,167): 5% of cases with white defendants (18/369), and more than twice as often – 12% - of those with Black defendants (75/368). Their purpose, often successful, is to produce false evidence that an eyewitness to the crime identified the defendant based on their memory of what they saw. These are cases in which police (and, rarely, prosecutors) tell witnesses, in one form or another, who to identify in a lineup or other identification procedure. Sometimes they use visual cues (…) and sometimes they use threats. (…) Police used threats in 52% of tainted identification procedures that produced false identification of Black murder exonerees (29/75), compared to 11% of those that produced false identifications of white exonerees (2/18). We only know about misconduct that is reported in documents we can obtain. Official misconduct in criminal cases is under-reported because, by its very nature, most misconduct is deliberately concealed – and much if not most remains hidden. That means that wrongful murder convictions are also more likely to include undiscovered misconduct when the defendant is Black: in exonerations for which some misconduct already is known, in those with no known misconduct, and among false murder convictions that have not resulted in exoneration. Black murder exonerees spend longer before release than white murder exonerees, about 16 years on average compared to about 13, whether or not they were sentenced to death. Three additional years in prison is a severe penalty. For reference, the average total time spent in prison for drugs crime exonerees is about one year; excluding those who served no time because they got probation, it’s still under two years. This longer pipeline to exoneration also means that, at any given time, a larger proportion of Black murder defendants who will eventually be exonerated are still in prison. Murder exonerations with known misconduct do take longer than those without, 17.7 years to 12.2 years, on average, The higher rate of misconduct in cases with Black exonerees may cause some of the longer average time they wait to be exonerated, perhaps because the authorities resist exoneration more strenuously in cases with government misconduct. The longer time to exoneration for Black W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 13

17. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 exonerees may also contribute to the higher rate of known misconduct because it provides a better opportunity for misconduct that occurred to be discovered. In any event, differences in time to exoneration by race persist even after controlling for government misconduct. Among murder exonerations with official misconduct, the average time to exoneration is 19.1 years for Black exonerees and 16.6 years for white exonerees; among murder exonerations without misconduct, it’s 13.3 years for Black exonerees and 11.3 for whites. It seems that innocent Black people who are convicted of murder are at a disadvantage not only because their convictions were more likely to have been influenced by official misconduct, but also simply because of their race. Consider this case: In 1984, 19-year-old Henry McCollum and his 15-year-old half-brother, Leon Brown, were sentenced to death for the rape and murder of 11-year-old Sabrina Buie in Robeson County, North Carolina. McCollum and Brown were from New Jersey; they were visiting relatives in North Carolina. Both were intellectually disabled, and both false confessed under pressure from police. No physical evidence connected them to the crime. In 2010, after decades of unsuccessful efforts to prove their innocence through the courts, the North Carolina Inquiry Commission agreed to investigate the case. It determined that DNS from a cigarette butt found at the scene of the crime came from Roscoe Artis, a proven serial murderer and rapist who was himself sentenced to death for raping and killing an 18-year old woman in the same county about a month after McCollum and Brown had confessed. Artis had been a suspect in the Sabrina Buie rape-murder. In 1984, the police had asked the North Carolina State Bureau of Investigations to compare the fingerprints on beer cans at the crime those of Artis – but they hid that request from the defense. The authorities also concealed the fact that a witness who testified at trial that McCollum and Brown had admitted to the murder, had not only previously denied knowing anything about the case, but had taken a lie detector test that confirmed his denial. McCollum and Brown were exonerated in 2014, after nearly 31 years in prison. They were pardoned by the Governor of North Carolina in 2015 and received $750,000 each in compensation from the state. Even so, after their release the prosecutor who sent them to death row told The New York Times: “No question about it, absolutely they are guilty.” Certainly, there was misconduct that contributed to the conviction of McCollum and Brown, and that may have contributed to the decades of resistance to reopening the case. Did it also matter that the defendants were Black – as well as strangers to the community and intellectually disabled? Did their race contribute to authorities unjustified and apparently unexamined confidence in their guilt even as evidence of innocence mounted? That would fit the data we see across cases. McCollum and Brown are two of 75 innocent death-row defendants who spent 30 years or longer in prison before they were exonerated, 67% of whom are Black (50/75). The racial pattern is similar for all murder exonerees, regardless of sentence. Of the 181 exonerees who spent 25 years or longer in prison before release, 68% are Black; among the ten who lost 40 or more years to prison, it’s 80%. (…) We don’t know the number of false criminal convictions, for murder or any other crime. Most by far remain hidden – false convictions far outnumber exonerations – and we have too little information to estimate that hidden figure. Except in one context: death sentences. Death sentences have a far higher rate of exoneration than other criminal convictions, and we have far more detailed data on them than any other category of criminal sentences. A study published in W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 14

18. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences made use of these unique characteristics to calculate “a conservative estimate of the proportion of false convictions among death sentences in the United States” – 4.1%. As the study is careful to point out, this estimate is for death sentences only. It cannot be applied to all crimes, or even to all murders. Still, it’s a starting point; it suggests that the rate of miscarriages of justice for murders in general is somewhere in the general vicinity of the rate for capital murders. Assume for a moment that the proportion of innocent defendants among all murder convictions is half the rate for death sentences, 2%. That would mean there would be about 3,300 innocent defendants among the estimated 165,000 inmates who are in American prisons for murder convictions plus thousands more among the comparable number of defendants who were convicted of murder in the past 40 years but are not now in prison because they were released or have died. In short, it’s likely that at least several thousand defendants have been falsely convicted of murder in the time period covered by the Registry, and judging from the exonerations we have seen – more than half of them were Black. (…) Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States 2022. University of Michigan Law School.: https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race%20Report%20Preview.pdf viInnocent Black people are almost eight times more likely than white people to be falsely convicted of rape. A prisoner serving time for sexual assault is more than three times more likely to be innocent if he is Black than if he is white. (…) The major cause of this huge racial disparity is the high danger of misidentification of Black suspects by white victims of violent crimes. (…) Assaults on white women by Black men are a small minority of all sexual assaults in the United States, but nearly half of sexual assaults with eyewitness misidentifications that led to exoneration. (…) Eyewitness misidentifications do not completely explain the racial disparity in rape exonerations. Some of the misidentifications were obtained by deliberately tainted identification procedures, and Black men are also overrepresented in rape exonerations without misidentifications. (…) A substantial number of the convictions that led to rape exonerations of Black defendants were marred by implicit biases, racially tainted official misconduct and, in some cases, explicit racism. (…) Black sexual assault exonerees received much longer prison sentences than white sexual assault exonerees, and spent, on average, more than four years longer in prison before exoneration. (…) Exonerations of misidentified rape defendants are much less common than they used to be. There have been only two from rape convictions in the last 12 years. That’s because DNA testing is now routinely used to determine the identity of rapists before trial. This technology has prevented convictions of hundreds or thousands of innocent rape suspects, mostly Black men who were accused of raping white women. (…) Most innocent Black defendants who were exonerated for sexual assault had been convicted of raping white women (128/207). The leading cause of these false convictions was mistaken eyewitness identification (101/128) – a notorious error prone process when white Americans are asked to identify Black strangers. (…) Nearly 60% of rape exonerations involve Black people, who are the defendants in less than a quarter of rape convictions. (…) Fifty-nine percent of sexual assault exonerees are Black, four-and-a-half times the proportion in the population; 33% are white. That suggests that innocent Black people are almost eight times more likely than white people to be falsely convicted of rape. Unlike murder, these numbers are way out of line with the W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 15

19. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 racial composition of sexual assault convictions. As of the end of 2019, 21% of those serving time in state prisons for sexual assault were Black, 39% were white, and 25% Hispanic. Judging from known erroneous convictions, a prisoner serving time for sexual assault is more than three times more likely to be innocent if he is Black than if he is white. (…) In 44% of all sexual assault exonerations with eyewitness misidentifications, Black men were convicted of raping white women, a racial combination that appears in less than 11% of sexual assaults in the United States. According to surveys of crime victims, about 70% of white sexual assault victims were attacked by white men and only about 13% by Black men. But 52% of sexual assault exonerees with white female victims are Black (129/249), and 43% are white (106/249) – which suggests that Black defendants convicted of raping white women are more than six times more likely to be innocent than white men convicted of raping women of their own race. There are many possible explanations for this disturbing pattern, but the simplest is probably the most powerful: the perils of cross-racial identification. One of the oldest and most consistent findings of systemic studies of eyewitness identification is that white Americans are much more likely to mistake one Black person for another than to mistakenly identify members of their own race. The problem of cross-racial identification in rape prosecutions in America is asymmetrical. It poses a greater risk of misidentification for Black sexual assault defendants than for white defendants, for two reasons. First, a lower proportion of sexual assaults by white perpetrators are cross-racial. Most sexual assault victims are friends, family members or acquaintances of the attackers, who are likely to be of the same race – and if the victim is a stranger, she is likely to be white regardless of the race of the attacker simply because white are the great majority of the population. Second, in experimental studies, white subjects show stronger “own race bias” than Black subjects – they tend to be worse at identifying members of other races. This is not surprising. As members of the majority group, many white Americans have little contact with Black people, but almost all Black people have regular dealing with white people. (…) Eyewitness misidentifications do not occur in a vacuum. Some are the products of misconduct and racial bias. For example: Marvin Anderson was suspected of rape in Virginia because the real rapist told his victims that he “had a white girl,” and Anderson was the only Black man known to the local police who lived with a white woman. Anderson had no criminal record, so an officer showed his color employment identification photo to the victim together with half a dozen black and white mug shots of other men, and asked her to pick the perpetrator. Naturally, she chose Anderson, who spent 15 years in prison before he was exonerated by DNA. Anderson’s false conviction was the product of a tainted identification, a dangerous form of misconduct in which police, directly or (as in this case) indirectly, tell an eyewitness who to pick in a formal identification procedure. Tainted identifications occurred in 10% of the investigations of defendants who were convicted of rape and later exonerated (35/350). That’s about the same rate we saw for murder exonerations (112/1,167), but the process was quite different. (…) In sexual assault exonerations the victims always survive the crimes, by definition, because if a victim is killed, the case becomes a murder. Unlike murder prosecutions, the critical eyewitness in a sexual assault case is almost always the victim. Perhaps for that reason, none of the tainted identifications in sexual assault exonerations include threats by the police. Instead, as in the case of Marvin Anderson’s case, they may draw attention to the person they suspect without saying so. (…) W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 16

20. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 In a third of rape exonerations there were no mistaken eyewitness identifications (117/350). Nonetheless, 45% of the exonerees in those cases are Black – less than the rate for the rape exonerations with misidentifications (69%) but more than twice the proportion of Black people among those imprisoned for rape and about three and a half times their proportion of the population. In three quarters of rape exonerations without misidentifications, no rape was committed (87/117). Most often, the complainants lied and accused the defendants of rape after consensual sex; in a few they said they’d been rape to avoid admitting to consensual sex with someone else; and in a couple of cases the complainants were delusional. In the remaining quarter of these cases, the victims were raped but for one reason or another could not identify the rapists, who were convicted by other means (30/177). In most, (16/30) the conviction depended on a confession from the defendants, or from a co-defendant (guilty or innocent) who implicated the exoneree as well as himself. Some of these confessions were obtained by misconduct in racially tainted investigations. (…) Racism in rape prosecutions can become a self-fulfilling prophecy – and an excuse for misconduct. In some cases, the critical players are defense attorneys, judges or jurors, rather than prosecutors or police officers. (…) In some cases, the presence of racism is unmistakable. (…) In others, the impact of race is a shade less explicit. (…) Of all the problems that plague the American criminal justice, few if any are as incendiary as the relationship between rape and race. From the Reconstruction through the first half of the twentieth century, claims that Black men raped white women triggered countless lynchings, riots and sometimes massacres of Black people. Those horrors have stopped, but the fears and biases that fed them have not disappeared. It should be no surprise that racial bias and outright racism also play a role in wrongful convictions for sexual assault. (…) On average, Black sexual assault exonerees spent more than four years longer in prison than white sexual assault exonerees, 13.5 years compared to 9.4 years. Much of this disparity is caused by a comparatively small number of exonerees who were imprisoned for decades. Thirty five sexual assault exonerees also received harsher sentences than whites: 27% were sentenced to life imprisonment (55/207) compared to 17% for white sexual assault exonerees (20/116); of the rest, 17% of Black rape exonerees were sentenced to 45 years or longer (36/207), compared to 7% of whites (8/116); and the average minimum term for those who were not sentenced to life was 26 years for Black defendants and 18 years for white defendants. These are extremely severe sentences, by any measure, for white and Black sexual assault exonerees alike. In 2000, for example, only 1.6% of all sexual assault defendants convicted in state courts were sentenced to life imprisonment, the average maximum term of incarceration was 7 years, and 16% received probation (as did three of 349 sexual assault exonerees, less than 1%). Part of the explanation is the process that produced these sentences. Eighty-eight percent of sexual assault convictions in state courts in 2000 were based on guilty pleas, almost all pursuant to plea bargains, but 92% of sexual assault exonerees went to trial (321/349). From the look of it, they paid heavily for their day in court – especially the Blacks. Very likely, many innocent defendants who have not been exonerated decided not to take that risk. Our data are limited. We have only sketchy information on racial patterns in sentencing for sexual assault convictions in general, none for those with innocent defendants who were not exonerated, and incomplete data on the details of the crimes and process of obtaining exonerations even for the cases we know best, those that we list in the Registry. We cannot say for sure why so many Black sexual assault exonerees received such extreme sentences, even by comparison to the draconian sentences meted out to white sexual W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 17

21. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 assault defendants who were later exonerated. Differences in criminal history cannot explain the gap: among sexual assault exonerees who had no prior criminal convictions, the only four who received life sentences were Black. The average term for the rest was 24 years for Black exonerees and 11 years for white exonerees. Our best guess is that Black sexual assault defendants who insisted on their innocence and refused to plead guilty were punished more harshly for doing so than innocent white defendants who followed the same course. Sentence length has an obvious impact on the time exonerated defendants spend in prison: the longer the sentence, the longer the time it is possible for the defendant to spend in prison before exoneration. That explains some of the racial difference in prison time before exoneration for sexual assault but not all. Controlling for length of sentence, Black sexual assault exonerees served on average about three years longer before release than white exonerees. In short, we don’t know why Black sexual assault exonerees spent so much more time in prison before release than white sexual assault exonerees, but there are two simple, plausible and compatible explanations: they received longer sentences when convicted, and they faced greater resistance to exoneration, even in cases in which they were ultimately released. (…) Rape exonerations are decreasing. Across the time span of the Registry, murder exonerations increased by a factor of five, from 14 a year in 1989 – 1992 to almost 72 a year in 2018 – 2021. (…) Rape exonerations also rose in the first dozen years of the Registry, from a few a year in 1989 – 1990 to a peak of 23 in 2002 – but then fell back to an average of about 13 a year through 2017, before dropping to less than ten a year in the last few years. (…) The comparison is equally telling when we examine exonerations by the year of the conviction of the innocent defendants instead of the year in which the exoneration occurred. The peak in murder exonerations is for convictions in 1995, directly following the all-time record in murders in the United States, after which the murder declines more or less steadily as the convictions approach the present. (…) The cause of this pattern is no mystery. Two thirds of rape exonerations are for convictions from 1973 through 1994 (237/350); 80% of them were based on post-conviction DNA testing (189/237). After that, DNA rape exonerations declined for convictions through 2007, and then disappeared entirely. Non-DNA rape exonerations, by contrast, have occurred at a reasonably steady low rate for convictions since 1982, averaging about three a year. (…) DNA testing is extremely effective at identifying a person who left testable biological evidence at a particular location. Because rapists usually leave semen or other biological material in on or near their bodies of their victims. DNA evidence can be uniquely effective for determining whether a defendant who was convicted of rape was in fact the rapist. That’s the main reason for the surge of rape exonerations after post-convictions DNA testing became available in the United States, starting in 1989 – 225 exonerations to date, 85% of which included eyewitness misidentifications. DNA testing is no help in determining guilt or innocent in a rape case when the identity of the person who had sex with the complainant is not an issue, usually because the only dispute is whether the sex was consensual. In 1989, when DNA exonerations started, there was a large backlog of erroneous rape convictions from earlier years, when pre-trial DNA testing was not available. It has produced 132 DNA rape exonerations so far – almost 60% of the total – and new ones from this era continue to trickle in. After 1989, pre-trial DNA testing became available over time. In the early 1990s, it often was not done, and quite a few innocent rape defendants who might have been cleared by DNA were convicted – 57 that produced exonerations for convictions from 1990 through 1994, about 11 a year. That rate declined to about three per year from 1995 through 2007, and none at all for rape convictions since 2008. W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 18

22. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 Judging from exonerations, it appears that for the last 14 years, all (or nearly all) innocent rape subjects in the United States who might benefit from DNA testing were never convicted because the DNA evidence cleared them before trial. Unfortunately, a minority of misidentified rape suspects do not benefit from DNA testing because, for one reason or another, there is no biological material to test. There have been 136 exonerations of misidentified rape defendants who were convicted from 1980 through 1989, about 14 a year, but only 12 who were convicted in the ten years from 2000 through 2019 – and just two in the twelve years since. It seems that, now that pre-trial DNA testing is well established in the United States, the number of false rape convictions based on misidentifications has plummeted. More than 70% of the innocent rape defendants who were misidentified and convicted in the 1980s were Black men (98/136) – 70% of whom were convicted of raping white women (68/98). Of the handful who were misidentified in the 21 years since 2000, only about a third were Black (5/14), and just two were convicted of assaulting white victims. By preventing most false convictions of misidentified rape defendants, DNA testing has eliminated the bulk of the disproportionate, often discriminatory, and sometimes racist convictions of innocent Black men who were accused of raping white women. We know that a dozen or more exonerations a year no longer happen. We don’t know the total number of convictions of innocent Black rape defendants that are now prevented, but it must be hundreds a year. Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States 2022. University of Michigan Law School.: https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race%20Report%20Preview.pdf vii Sixty-nine percent of drug crime exonerees are Black and 16% are white. That means that innocent Black people are 19 times more likely to be convicted of drug crimes than innocent whites—a much larger disparity than we see for murder and rape—despite the fact that white and Black Americans use illegal drugs at similar rates. (…) Because drug crimes are almost never reported to police, the police choose who to pursue for drug offenses—and they choose to stop, search and arrest Black people several times more often than whites. That’s racial profiling. One of its deplorable consequences is drug crime convictions of innocent Black defendants. (…) Most false drug crime convictions involve comparatively low-level charges and sentences that rarely attract the effort necessary to obtain exonerations. Almost all the erroneous drug convictions we know about are in a single cluster in Harris County, Texas (Houston), where a unique practice of testing alleged drugs after defendants pled guilty led to 157 exonerations; 62% of the exonerees are Black in a county with 20% Black residents. (…) These convictions are errors—mostly caused by defective field drug tests—but most are not innocent errors. Most Black exonerees were stopped and searched—and subjected to the risk of these errors—because of their race. (…) We also know of dozens of groups of innocent defendants who were deliberately framed by police officers who planted drugs on them. Almost all are Black people or other racial or ethnic minorities. So far, we list 259 individual exonerees who were convicted of these fabricated drug crimes, primarily in three group exonerations; 87% of them are Black. (…) There are many more such cases in dozens of groups across the country. These numbers will rise as we are able to add them to our lists. (…) It’s no mystery why these outrageous programs of framing innocent drug defendants target Black people. Guilty or innocent, drug law enforcement always focuses disproportionately on Black people. Of the many costs that the war on drugs inflicts on the Black community, the practice of deliberately charging W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 19

23. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 innocent defendants with fabricated crimes may be the most shameful. (…) Prosecution for drug offenses are very different from murder and rape cases. A murder or rape investigation is initiated when a violent crime is reported to the police. Drug transactions and drug possession have no immediate victims and are almost never reported. Instead, police have essentially unlimited discretion to choose how and where to enforce drug laws – and against whom, which opens the door to pervasive discrimination. We see the effects in two settings. Because of racial profiling, Black people are more likely to be stopped, searched, arrested and prosecuted in routing drug possession cases; as a result, they are also more likely to convicted by factual mistakes. Many false drug convictions, however, are not mistakes. Black people are also the main targets in a shocking series of scandals in which police officers systematically framed innocent defendants for drug crimes that never occurred. (…) How do police find those unreported drugs crimes that do produce arrests? More than 85% of drug arrests are for possession of illegal drugs (virtually all the rest are for the sale or manufacture of drugs). In most possession cases, the police find the drugs by searching suspects – or their possession cases, or vehicles, or homes. Almost all of these searches are conducted without warrants, often without specific reasons to believe that illegal drugs might be found. Since the crime is possession, once drugs are found on a suspect or in their control there’s usually nothing left to prove. In short, police search people for drugs, and arrest them when they happen to find what they’re looking for. But who do they choose to search? Spoiler alert: It’s usually Black people or other people of color. (…) The best systematic data on illicit drug use in the United States come from anonymous annual surveys by the federal Department of Health and Human Services. The most recent survey to include data on race was in 2018. It found that about 11.7% of the population over 12 years of age had used illegal drugs in the previous year, and that white and Black Americans did so at comparable rates, 12.0% and 13.7% respectively – and similar patterns for earlier years. Drug arrests and convictions are another matter. A study by Human Rights Watch found that from 1980 to 2007 (a period that includes almost three quarters of the convictions that led to exonerations in the Registry), Black people were arrested for drug crimes at 2.8 to 5.5 times the rate for white people, depending on the year. Data from the FBI show similar patterns in the years since. Convictions follow suit, as best we know. A study by the Sentencing Project in 2009 found that from 1995 to 2005, Black people constitutes about 13% of drug users, but 36% of drug arrests and 46% of those convicted of felony drug offenses. Over that ten-year period, a Black drug user was about two-and-a-half to three times more likely to be convicted of a drug felony than a white drug user. Thirty percent of those serving prison terms for drug offenses are Black, more than twice their proportion of the population and about four times the rate for whites. Most drug crime convictions, however, are misdemeanors. There are no systematic national data on misdemeanor drug convictions, but there’s every reason to believe that they exhibit the same sort of racial disparities we see in every other part of drug law enforcement in America. (…) Most defendants who are convicted of drug crimes get light sentences, by American standards. Among the minority who are convicted of felonies, fewer than 40% go to prison, and the average sentence for those who are incarcerated is two-and-a-half years, about a quarter as long as for defendants imprisoned for rape, and an eighth as long as for those imprisoned for murder. But the great majority of drug convictions are for misdemeanors, for which the worst possible sentences are months in local jails rather than years in state prisons. In practice, many if not W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 20

24. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 most convicted misdemeanor drug defendants get no time in custody. Excluding drug cases, very few defendants with such comparatively light penalties are ever exonerated, regardless of innocence. Most of the effort that goes into addressing wrongful convictions is devoted to defendants with extremely severe sentences. As a result, the distribution of exonerations is heavily lopsided. At the top of the range, defendants who are sentenced to death are about six as a likely to be exonerated as those convicted of murder but not sentenced to death, and hundreds of times more likely than defendants convicted of robbery. And so on down the line. Excluding drug cases, non-violent crimes make up more than 60% of felony convictions but only 14% of exonerations (326/2,320). There are for example, about three times as many felony convictions for theft as for robbery but one-eighth the number of exonerations (20/151). Misdemeanor convictions outnumber felonies by at least four to one, but account for less than two percent of non-drug exonerations (44/2,646). Clearly, only a tiny fraction of innocent defendants who are convicted of misdemeanors or non-violent felonies are ever exonerated. Most innocent defendant with relatively light sentences probably never try to clear their names. They serve their time and do what they can to put the past behind them. If they do seek justice, they are unlikely to find help. For example, the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University School of Law – one of the organizations that founded the Registry – used to limit its intake to cases of prisoners who had at least ten years remaining on their sentences, because it was overloaded with innocence cases in which the stakes were that high or higher. In addition, minor crimes are generally more difficult to reinvestigate than violent felonies because the initial investigations – and the record keeping –are usually more limited, so there’s less to go on. Most exonerations are from convictions at trial, which generate and preserve much more information than guilty pleas, and trials are vanishingly rare in drug cases. In 2000, for example, only 4% of felony drug crime convictions were obtained at trial, and an unknown but small share of misdemeanor drug convictions. By contrast, 19% of rape convictions and 42% of murder convictions were obtained at trial, and those trials produced 93% and 96% of the exonerations for rape and for murder, respectively. Whatever the reasons, there are too few exonerations for misdemeanors and other relatively minor crimes to say much about racial patterns or most other aspects of those cases, in general. Drug crimes are a unique and important exception. Drug crimes are the second largest crime category for exonerations, after murder. They account for 17% of all exonerations but include a majority of misdemeanor exonerations, and they have by far the lightest penalties for any of the of the major crimes. Almost a third of exonerees in non-drug cases in the Registry were sentenced to death (134/2,648) or to life imprisonment (711/2,648); the median sentence for the remainder was 20 years in prison. Only eight of the 554 drug crime exonerees were sentenced to life in prison, less than 2%, and the median sentence for the rest was a year in jail. Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States 2022. University of Michigan Law School.: https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race%20Report%20Preview.pdf viiiThe rate of exonerating innocent murder defendants has picked up steam in spurts since 1989, rising from about 16 a year through 1993, to 69 murder exonerations a year for the more recent five-year period. (…) Along the way, it seems that many of those who worked on these exonerations – innocence organizations, defense attorneys, prosecutors, judges – began to focus attention on innocent murder defendants who remained in prison and had been there the longest. This process would have occurred at different times in different offices, courts and counties. In W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 21

25. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 many, probably most, it will happen – if ever – in years to come. But whenever it happens, in most large American counties, the great majority of the innocent murder defendants who are identified will be Black prisoners who’ve been ignored for 10, 20, 30 years or longer. As they are exonerated, the proportion of Black murder exonerees will rise – as will the average time from conviction to exoneration. How could it be otherwise? Innocent Black defendants are not only more likely to be convicted of murder than innocent white defendants, they also receive harsher sentences and were less likely to be exonerated in early years after conviction. Many of the innocent Black murder defendants who spent decades in prison were exonerated by Conviction Integrity Units (CIUs), divisions of prosecutorial offices whose mission is to prevent, identify, and correct false convictions. The first CIU was founded in 2002 and did little. As of 2007, there were two CIUs in the country; they had been involved in three exonerations. And then the numbers began to climb exponentially – literally – doubling every few years. By the end of 2012 there were 9 CIUs across the country; in 2015 there were 24; in 2018, 44; at the end of 2021, 93. The number of CIU exonerations has followed a similar pattern. From 2008 through 2013, there were 42 CIU exonerations, an average of 7 a year. In 2014 alone there 51 CIU exonerations. From 2015 through 2021, there were 441 CIU exonerations, an average of 63 a year, 37% of all exonerations in that period (442/1,200). Since the beginning of 2014, when CIU exonerations became common, CIUs have been involved in about a third of all murder exonerations (170/538). Sixty three percent of all murder exonerees in this period are Black (337/538), compared to 52% for the eight years from 2006 through 2013 (141/270). (…) But only 54% of non-CIU murder exonerations since 2014 had Black defendants (199/368), compared to 81% of CIU murder exonerations (138/170). In other words, almost all of the increase in the proportion of Black murder exonerees in the last eight years is due to the extraordinary concentration of Black exonerees in CIU murder exonerations. The CIU murder exonerees in this period spent more time in prison before exoneration, about 21 years on average, compared to 17 for non-CIU murder exonerees. (…) The 138 Black CIU murder exonerees since 2014 are spread across 26 different CIUs, but not evenly. Almost four-fifths (108/138) – including a third of all Black murder exonerees in the United States in this period – come from CIUs in eight counties, all in large East Coast or Midwestern cities: Philadelphia (23), Brooklyn (19), Detroit (19), Chicago (17), Baltimore (13), Boston (7), Queens (6) and the Bronx (4). There’s no reason to think this trend will slow down in those cities, and as more CIUs become active the pace may accelerate. In sum: We know how many exonerated murder defendants are Black – 55% - but we don’t know the percentage of Black people among all falsely convicted murder defendants. We also know that Black murder exonerees spend longer in prison before exoneration than whites, which means that when the rate of exonerations is rising, as it has been since 1989, innocent Black defendants may be underrepresented among those who have been exonerated. Since the beginning of 2014, the number of murder exonerees who spent 20, 30 or even 40 years in prison has grown, and the proportion of murder of murder exonerees who are Black has increased substantially. A handful of big-city CIUs are responsible for most of that increase. Without them, 56% of murder exonerees since the beginning of 2014 would have been Black; with them, it’s 64%. Race and Wrongful Convictions in the United States 2022. University of Michigan Law School.: https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Documents/Race%20Report%20Preview.pdf W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 22

26. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 ixThe Department of Justice (DOJ) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have disclosed limited records of Westminster College (Fulton, Missouri) August 29th 1986 invitation to then- Director William Webster. These records were disclosed by the FBI following a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request submitted by the Association for the Advancement of Civil Liberties (AACL) on or around October 12th2021. It’s the 2nd (second) time the Department of Justice (DOJ) have referred the AACL to the National Archives Records Administration (NARA) on issues not unrelated to the rape and murder of Jeanne Ann Clery. The recent FBI disclosure show that Westminster College had extended an invitation to William Webster to “deliver the 1987 Commencement Address on Sunday, May 17, 1987 at 2:30 P.M.” The August 29th 1986 letter was signed by Westminster College former President J. Harvey Saunders. On October 31st 1986, William Webster accepted the invitation of Westminster College, acknowledging his formal and informal ties to Westminster College as well as Callaway County. The rape and murder of Jeanne Ann Clery continues to leave several key questions about Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 unaddressed. These questions include but are not limited to the following. 1) What are/were colleges/universities in the U.S.A obligations pursuant to Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972? Were colleges/universities throughout the U.S.A required by law to denounce violence committed against women irrespective of their racial backgrounds, their sexual orientations, their religious affiliations and their national origins following the enactment of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972? If yes, were colleges/universities required to inform their students about what constitute appropriate sexual boundaries pursuant to Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972? 2) Did colleges/universities throughout the U.S.A begin informing their students about what constitute “affirmative and effective consent” following the enactment of Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972? If not, when did colleges/universities begin to inform their incoming freshmen/transfer students about the concepts of “affirmative and effective consent?” Did colleges/universities throughout the U.S.A begin teaching the concepts of “affirmative and effective consent” to their incoming freshmen/transfer students following the rape and murder of Jeanne Ann Clery (dated April 05th 1986)? If yes, why have colleges/universities throughout the U.S.A fixated on the rape and murder of this Caucasian woman by a Black/African American man to inform their incoming freshmen/transfer students about what constitutes “affirmative and effective consent?” 3) Are colleges/universities discussions pertaining to what constitutes “affirmative and effective consent” consistent with Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 if they are first informing their incoming/freshmen students about the rape and murder of Jeanne Ann Clery? Are colleges/universities discussions pertaining to what constitutes “affirmative and effective consent” consistent with their academic integrity policy if they are first informing their incoming freshmen/transfer students about the rape and murder of Jeanne Ann Clery? The Department of Justice (DOJ) Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Disclose Limited Records of Westminster College (Fulton, MO) August 29th 1986 Invitation of Former Director William Webster. W (AACL), Michael A. Ayele Official Website.: https://michaelayeleaacl.wordpress.com/2021/12/10/jeanne-clery-april-1986-and-michael-ayele- aacl-january-2010-in-review-affirtmative-and-effective-consent-in-question-title-ix-doj-fbi-cia- dhs-westminster-college-fulton-missouri-index/ W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 23

27. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 xThe Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Denied Being in Possession of Records Pertaining to the Rape and Murder of Jeanne Ann Clery, Thereby Contradicting Previous Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Disclosures Made to the Association for the Advancement of Civil Liberties (AACL). W (AACL), Michael A. Ayele on Archive.: https://archive.org/details/the-cia-deny- being-in-possession-of-records-pertaining-to-jeanne-ann-clery-contr xi The Association for the Advancement of Civil Liberties (AACL) Obtains Limited & Disconcerting Responses to Records Request Submitted About the 2021 Annual Security Reports (ASR) Published by the University of Michigan (Dearborn, Michigan) and Henry Ford College (Dearborn, Michigan). W (AACL), Michael Ayele Official Website.: https://michaelayeleaacl.wordpress.com/2022/10/06/affirmative-and-effective-consent-in- dearborn-michigan-by-michael-ayele-jeanne-cleary-index/ Michigan State University (MSU) Acknowledges Records Request Concerning the Consequences of Jeanne Ann Clery’s Death on American Society and Post-Secondary Education. W (AACL), Michael Ayele on Archive.: https://archive.org/details/michigan-state- university-acknowledges-foia-request-concerning-consequences-of-j xiiIn a sentencing hearing on Thursday morning, Brock Turner was sentenced to six months in county jail followed by three years of formal probation. He must also register as a sex offender and participate in a sex offender rehabilitation program. (…) Turner was arrested on January 18th 2015 after two graduate students found him on top of an unconscious woman outside Kappa Alpha fraternity at approximately 1 a.m. Turner subsequently withdrew from Stanford. (…) Prior to hearing the terms, the victim, a 23-year old Palo Alto resident who did not attend Stanford, spoke to the courtroom. Citing the deeply damaging impact the assault has had on her and Turner’s lack of remorse she called for a prison sentence of no less than one year. She described how she found herself on a gurney early on the morning of January 18th 2015, facing injuries, rushed treatments and photo documentation of her wounds. In the aftermath of the assault, she said she has struggled with extreme depression. She eventually had to quit her job, and she said it took eight months for her to begin talking about it. Brock Turner sentenced to six months in county jail, three years’ probation; The Stanford Daily.: https://www.stanforddaily.com/2016/06/02/brock-turner-sentenced-to-six-months-in-county-jail- three-years-probation/ Excerpt of Conversation Held Between Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian on June 07th 2016 About Brock Turner 6 (six) months sentence for sexual assault of Chanel Miller W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 24

28. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 Cenk Uyghur(CU): Let me tell you the reality. The low sentence is because he was a successful white man going to Stanford. Ana Kasparian (AK): That’s right. 20 years old. Was part of the swim team. He was expected to be an Olympian and so, you have an entire community of people behind him, supporting him and trying to make excuses for him. He’s a rapist! No one asked him or forced him to do what he did. He did it on his own accord and the fact that he’s not suffering the real consequences for it is ridiculous. (…) CU: Imagine if they found a 20-year-old Black guy not going to Stanford (…) raping a white girl behind a dumpster. (…) Do you think the judge would say: ‘Well, he’s young. He lacks a criminal history. The prison sentence might have a severe impact on him.’ (…) AK: Look, this is a heinous crime. (…) I do believe there’s a two-tier justice system and we’re not applying sentencing equally among people of all different backgrounds, whether it be their socioeconomic status or their race. Stanford Rapist Barely Punished, The Young Turks.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Oz5ceckK6DM xiiiExcerpt of Conversation Held Between Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian on June 10th 2016 About the Letter of “Apology” Submitted by Brock Allen Turner AK: Brock Allen Turner had to write a letter to the judge right before the judge had to give him a tiny sentence after he was convicted of raping an unconscious girl behind a dumpster. Now, Brock Allen Turner got six months in jail for raping someone, but the character letter that he sent to the judge basically did not really real blame for his actions in (…) raping a woman. In fact, he seemed to blame everything on the fact that he was drinking alcohol. (…) It seems as though he does not see himself as someone who is a convicted rapist or a criminal. (…) He sees himself as an innocent individual, who just happened to drink too much and as a result of that did what he did. But it’s not the alcohol, it’s not because the victim got drunk, it’s not because of college campus culture or college party culture. It’s because you raped someone and you have got to take responsibility if you genuinely want people to see that you’re remorseful. CU: There is one other thing in there that bothered me a little bit. He said he shouldn’t have drunk that night, and as you said let alone interact with the victim. Now you can take that in a positive light and say: “I wish I hadn’t done anything against her” although “interact” is a funny word. You can also take that in a negative light and look at it as victim blaming: “Ah, if I hadn’t run into her, everything would have been fine.” (…) If I’m the judge and I look at this in its totality and go: “Boy, this kid still doesn’t get it.” He says: “Oh no, I’m really hurt and it hurt the core of who I am and I can’t drink anymore.” I’m not sure you get the severity of what you did to the other person. (…) AK: He says: “I’ve lost two jobs solely based on the reporting of my case. I wish I never was W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 25

29. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 good at swimming or had the opportunity to attend Stanford, so maybe these newspapers wouldn’t want to write stories about me.” CU: That’s it right there. Brock, you’re not getting it. You’re not unlucky because you’re going to Stanford and that’s why they are writing about you and otherwise you would have gotten a very light sentence and no one would have “bothered you” for raping some. No, you’re super lucky for going to Stanford and having all these privileges. (…) You are going to get a slap on the wrist for rape, but he still thinks he’s the victim. Rapist Brock Turner’s Pathetic Letter to Judge Released. The Young Turks.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUnrfMxXY88 Excerpt of June 17th 2016 Conversation Between Ana Kasparian, Grace Baldridge and Hasan Piker About Coercive Behavior at Stanford University A.K: The female swim team at Stanford University is coming forward and talking about what they personally experienced with Brock Turner. Now, Brock Turner was the former Stanford swimmer, who was caught raping an unconscious woman behind the dumpster. He was sentenced to a measly six months in jail, not prison and as a result that story made international headlines. Now, the women of the swim team feel comfortable coming forward and talking about their own experiences. (…) One of the swimmer said: “Brock’s arrest wasn’t surprising to anyone on the team. From the beginning, the women swimmers had found him to be very, very odd. Brock would make comments to the women such as ‘I can see your t*ts in that swimsuit.’” (…) Some members of the women’s swim team considered writing letters to the judge describing their unease with Turner – but those statements were never filed. (…) And they’re saying the reasons no letters were filed is because the university encouraged them not to do so. (…) So, the letters we are talking about are character letters people write to the judge before the sentence. (…) Dozens of friends and family of Brock Turner wrote those letters but these female swimmers were discouraged from doing so. (…) There were rumbling that the women were pressured by Stanford officials to not do it since they hadn’t witnessed any crime that Brock had committed. Hasan Piker (HP): 39 (thirty nine)! 39 is the number of people who came out and spoke on behalf of Brock Turner. 39 different letters were reviewed by the judge before he gave that lenient sentence. AK: I don’t think there’s this weird epidemic of female college students lying about getting raped on campus. (…) If we genuinely care about creating a safe environment for students on college campuses throughout the country, we need to take these allegations seriously. Now I’m not saying that just because someone accuses someone of rape, you immediately take that for what it’s worth and then you go ahead and kick someone out of school. (…) I don’t want knee jerk reactions. (…) I’m saying that there needs to be a system in place that fully investigates allegations and then figures out what really went on. Again, I’m not saying that someone is guilty as soon as they are accused, but the fact that these schools refuse to do proper investigations and they even go further: they deter students and discourage students from coming forward. It’s crazy to me. Stanford Silenced Women Who Warned About Brock Turner. The Young Turks.: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JRCFoTzbZnc W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 26

30. REQUEST FOR RECORDS 10/07/2022 xivThe San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) have disclosed documents they have compiled detailing their institutional support for Chanel Miller’s book entitled Know My Name. Published in 2019, the book is a memoir of Chanel Miller, who recounted the traumatizing incident she experienced on January 17th 2015 (on the campus of Stanford University), when she was raped by Brock Turner. Even though Brock Turner was found guilty of [1] assaulting with the intent to rape Chanel Miller and [2] sexually penetrating Chanel Miller; he was only sentenced to six months in county jail. Furthermore, he ended up serving only 90 days of the 180 days he was sentenced for. The Association for the Advancement of Civil Liberties (AACL) regrets that the consequences for Brock Turner (sexually assaulting a woman of color) ended up equating the maximum sentence he would have served in the State of Maryland had he been arrested and charged for the petty offense of Trespass. The AACL also regrets the dangerous precedent set by the judicial branch of the California government. The AACL is not of the opinion that the rape of a woman of color by a white man should in real and concrete terms constitute a misdemeanor in the amount of time served behind bars. The San Francisco Public Library (SFPL) Disclose Records They Have Compiled Documenting Their Institutional Support for Chanel Miller’s Book Entitled: “Know My Name.” W (AACL), Michael Ayele on Archive.: https://archive.org/details/the-sfpl-disclose-records-they-have-compiled-documenting-their- institutional-sup W (AACL) – MICHAEL A. AYELE 27

31. EXHIBIT 1.

32. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION OFFICE OF THE SECRETARY FOIA Service Center September 12, 2022 Mr. Michael Ayele P.O. Box 20438 Addis Ababa Ethiopia RE: FOIA Request No. 21-02190-F Dear Michael Ayele: This letter is a final response to your request for information pursuant to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), 5 U.S.C. § 552, dated July 13, 2021, and received in the FOIA Service Center (FSC) on July 13, 2021. Your request was forwarded to the Office for Civil Rights (OCR) and the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA) to search for documents that may be responsive to your request. You requested the following: (1) formal and informal ties existing between your offices, the Department of Education (DoED), the Department of Justice (DOJ); (2) Your communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence about the complaint I had filed with the DoED against California State University (Fullerton), which had been assigned Case No.: 09 – 21 – 2124; (2) your communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence about the DoED and the DOJ obligations pursuant to Title IX of the Education Amedments Act of 1972 and Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964; (3) your communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence about the bad-faith of California State University (Fullerton) for having published false, libelous, slanderous and misleading information on their websites about my records request submitted pursuant to the requirements of the Jeanne Ann Clery Disclosure of Campus Security Policy and Campus Crime Statistics Act; (4) your communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence about California State University (Fullerton) having published false, libelous, slanderous and misleading information on their website without having contacted the DoED and the DOJ to inquire about their obligations to records request (submitted via e-mail) pursuant to the requirements of the Jeanne Clery Disclosure of Campus Security and Campus Crime Statistics Act if they were sincerely convinced it contained malware; (5) your communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence about California State University having engaged in fraud and racketeering by failing to contact the DoED and the DOJ of my records request submitted pursuant to the requirements of the Jeanne Ann Clery Disclosure of Campus Security and Campus Crime Statistics Act; (6) your communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence about the rape of Chanel Miller (dated January 17th 2015) on the campus of Stanford University; (7) your communications in the form of e- mails and postal correspondence about the judicial branch of the California government having found Brock Tuner guilty of (i) assaulting with the intent to rape an intoxicated or unconscious

33. Page 2 - Michael Ayele 21-02190-F person, (ii) sexually penetrating an intoxicated person and (iii) sexually penetrating an unconscious person; (8) your communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence Stanford University having discouraged female students attending the school not to file complaints of sexual harassment (against Brock Turner) pursuant to Title IX of the Education Amendments Act of 1972 and/or Title VII of the 1964 and 1991 Civil Rights Act; (9) your communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence about Brock Turner having been sentenced to six months in county jail for the rape of Chanel Miller on June 02nd 2016. OCR attempted to clarify your request by email on December 14, 2021, December 28, 2021, February 2, 2022, and April 20, 2022. Staff from OCR and FSA informed the FSC that after a search of their files, they were unable to locate any documents that were responsive to your request. You have the right to seek assistance and/or dispute resolution services from the Department’s FOIA Public Liaison or the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS). The FOIA Public Liaison is responsible, among other duties, for assisting in the resolution of FOIA disputes. OGIS, which is outside the Department of Education, offers mediation services to resolve disputes between FOIA requesters and Federal agencies as a non-exclusive alternative to litigation. Contact information follows: Mail FOIA Public Liaison Office of the Secretary U.S. Department of Education 400 Maryland Ave., SW, LBJ 7C132 Washington, DC 20202-4500 E-mail robert.wehausen@ed.gov Phone 202-205-0733 Fax 202-401-0920 Lastly, you have the right to appeal this determination. You must submit any appeal within 90 calendar days after the date of this letter. Using the services described above does not affect your right, or the deadline, to pursue an appeal. An appeal must be in writing and must include a detailed statement of all legal and factual bases for the appeal; it should be accompanied by a copy of this letter, the initial letter of request, and any documentation that serves as evidence or supports the argument you wish the Department to consider in resolving your appeal. Appeals may be submitted using the on-line form available at www.ed.gov/policy/gen/leg/foia/foia-appeal-form.pdf. Appeals can also be submitted by: E-mail: EDFOIAappeals@ed.gov Fax: 202-401-0920 Mail: Appeals Office Office of the Secretary U.S. Department of Education Office of Government Information Services National Archives and Records Administration 8601 Adelphi Road, Room 2510 College Park, MD 20740-6001 OGIS@nara.gov 202-741-5770; toll free at 1-877-684-6448 202-741-5769

34. Page 3 - Michael Ayele 21-02190-F 400 Maryland Avenue, SW, LBJ 7W106A Washington, DC 20202-4500 If you have any questions, please contact the FSC at (202) 401-8365 or via email at EDFOIAMANAGER@ed.gov. Sincerely, DeShawn Middleton DeShawn Middleton Government Information Specialist Office of the Secretary

37. UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION OFFICE OF SECRETARY FOIA Service Center October 18, 2022 Mr. Michael Ayele P.O.Box 20438 Addis Ababa, N/A Ethiopia RE: Appeal – FOIA Request No. 21-02190-F/ Appeal – 23-00005-A Dear Michael Ayele: This is to acknowledge receipt of your October 18, 2022 letter appealing the Department’s September 12, 2022 decision to your request for records under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA),5 U.S.C. § 552, which was received by this office on July 13, 2021. An administrative review of our response is underway, and the Department’s Chief FOIA Officer will issue a determination on the appeal once it is completed. Please refer to the appeal tracking number to check the status of your appeal at the link provided below: https://foiaxpress.pal.ed.gov/app/CheckStatus.aspx If you have a question or concern, please contact the FOIA Office at (202) 401-8365 or EDFOIAManager@ed.gov. Sincerely, Art Caliguiran Art Caliguiran FOIA Appeals Coordinator Office of the Secretary

38. EXHIBIT 2.

39. National Council on Disability An independent federal agency making recommendations to the President and Congress to enhance the quality of life for all Americans with disabilities and their families. December 8, 2020 W (AACL) Michael A. Ayele PO Box 20438 Addis Ababa, Ethiopia Re: FOIA Request NCD-2021-05 Dear W: This letter is in response to your Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, dated December 7, 2020, in which you requested: “My request for records are the following. 1) What formal and informal ties exist between the Department of Education (DoED), the Department of Justice (DOJ), the National Council on Disability (NCD) and Lehigh University? 2) Will you join me in moving to call upon all communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence which were exchanged between employees and legal representatives of Lehigh University, the DoED, the DOJ and the NCD pertaining to Jeanne Clery’s time as a student of Lehigh University to be promptly disclosed either to my e-mail or in the alternative my mailing address? Will you join me in moving to call upon all communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence exchanged between the DoED, the DOJ, the NCD and the legislative branch of government in the State of Pennsylvania about Jeanne Clery since April 07th 1986 to be promptly disclosed either to my e-mail or in the alternative my mailing address? 3) Were you ever in receipt of concerns and/or complaints about Donald Trump having been invited to speak at Lehigh University in 1988 two years after the brutal rape and murder of Jeanne Clery by Josoph Henry? Were you ever in receipt of concerns and/or complaints about Donald Trump being awarded an honorary degree 15 years after the Department of Justice (DOJ) charged his real estate business of maliciously excluding blacks and African Americans as customers? If yes, will you join me in moving to call upon all concerns and complaints which were filed with your offices since April 01st 1988 to be promptly disclosed either to my e-mail or in the alternative my mailing address? 4) Were you ever in receipt of concerns and/or complaints that were filed with your offices about Donald Trump advocating in the State of New York in 1989/1990 for the reinstatement of the death penalty following the much-publicized incident at Central Park mentioned above? If yes, will you join me in moving to call upon all concerns and complaints that were filed by residents of the State of Pennsylvania, New York and elsewhere about Donald Trump advocating for the return of the death penalty since August 1989 to be promptly disclosed either to my e-mail or in the alternative my mailing address? 5) Have you ever had communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence with students, 1331 F Street, NW ■ Suite 850 ■ Washington, DC 20004 202-272-2004 Voice ■ 202-272-2022 Fax ■ www.ncd.gov

40. faculty and staff of Lehigh University about Donald Trump having advocated for the reinstatement of the death penalty in 1989 following the much-publicized incident at Central Park in the State of New York? Have you ever had communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence with employees and legal representatives of Lehigh University about Donald Trump having failed to be respectful of affirmative and effective consent in his sexual relationships with females? If yes, will you join me in moving to call upon the prompt disclosure of all your communications in the form of e- mails and postal correspondence with students, faculty and staff of Lehigh University dealing with (a) Donald Trump having called for the reinstatement of the death penalty in the State of New York following the much-publicized incident at Central Park in the Spring of 1989 and (b) Donald Trump’s failure to be respectful of affirmative and effective consent in his sexual relationships with females to my e-mail or in the alternative my mailing address? 6) Have you ever had communications in the form of e- mails and postal correspondence with students, faculty, staff and Board of Trustees members of Lehigh University about Kelly McCoy petition on Change.org calling for the honorary degree awarded to Donald Trump to be rescinded? Have you ever had communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence with students, faculty and staff of Lehigh University about the faculty of Lehigh University having put forward a motion to rescind Donald Trump’s honorary degree awarded to him in 1988? If yes, will you join me in moving to call upon the prompt disclosure of all your communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence with students, faculty staff and Board of Trustee members of Lehigh University dealing with (a) Kelly McCoy petition on Change.org calling for the honorary degree awarded to Donald Trump at Lehigh University to be rescinded and (b) the motion put forward by faculty members of Lehigh University calling upon the honorary degree awarded to Donald Trump to be rescinded either to my e-mail or in the alternative my mailing address? What I am requesting for prompt disclosure are all documents detailing (1) formal and informal ties existing between the DoED, the DOJ, the NCD and Lehigh University; (2) all communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence exchanged between employees and legal representatives of the DoED, the DOJ, and the NCD with Lehigh University about Jeanne Clery’s time as a student of Lehigh University; (3) all communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence between the DoED, the DOJ, the NCD and the legislative branch of government in the State of Pennsylvania about Jeanne Clery since April 07th 1986; (4) receipt of all concerns and complaints that were filed with your offices pertaining to Donald Trump having been invited to speak at the graduation ceremony of Lehigh University Class of 1988 two years after the brutal rape and murder of Jeanne Clery; (5) receipt of all concerns and complaints that were filed with the DoED, the DOJ and the NCD about Donald Trump having been invited to speak at the graduation ceremony of Lehigh University Class of 1988 fifteen years after the DOJ charged his real estate company of maliciously excluding blacks and African Americans as customers; (6) receipt of all concerns and complaints that were filed by people of the United States of America with the DoED, the DOJ and the NCD about Donald Trump having advocated for the reinstatement of the death penalty in the state of New York following the much-publicized incident at Central Park in the Spring of 1989; (7) all communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence exchanged between the DoED, the DOJ, the NCD and students, faculty, staff, Board of Trustees members at 2

41. Lehigh University about Donald Trump having endorsed the reinstatement of the death penalty in the State of New York following the much publicized incident at Central Park in the Spring of 1989; (8) all communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence exchanged between the DoED, the DOJ, the NCD, and students, faculty, staff and Board of Trustees members of Lehigh University about Donald Trump failure to be respectful of affirmative and effective consent in his sexual relationships with females; (9) all communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence exchanged between employees and legal representatives of the DoED, the DOJ, the NCD, and students, faculty, staff and Board of Trustee members at Lehigh University about Kelly McCoy petition on Change.org calling for Donald Trump honorary degree to be rescinded and (10) all communications in the form of e-mails and postal correspondence between employees and legal representatives of the DoED, the DOJ, the State of New York and students, faculty, staff and Board of Trustee members at Lehigh University about the motion put forward by faculty members of Lehigh University calling upon the honorary degree awarded to Donald Trump to be rescinded.” NCD does not have any records responsive to your request. For tracking purposes, your tracking number is NCD-2021-05. If you need further assistance you may contact Amy Nicholas, NCD’s FOIA Public Liaison at 202-272-2008 or anicholas@ncd.gov. Please include your tracking number with any correspondence. If needed, it is your right to seek dispute resolution services from NCD’s Public Liaison or the Office of Government Information Services (OGIS). OGIS may be reached at: Office of Government Information Services (OGIS) National Archives and Records Administration 8601 Adelphi Road College Park, MD 20740-6001 OGIS@Nara.gov 202-741-5770 fax 202-741-5769 NCD’s appeal process allows you to appeal withheld information or the adequacy of NCD’s search by writing within 90 days of your receipt of this letter to: Lisa Grubb, Executive Director National Council on Disability 1331 F St. NW. Suite 850 Washington DC 20004 Your appeal must be in writing and should contain a brief statement of the reasons why you believe the requested information should be released. Enclose a copy of your 3

42. initial request, request number and a copy of this letter. Both the appeal letter and envelope should be prominently marked “Freedom of Information Act Appeal.” After processing, actual fees must be equal to or exceed $25 for the Council to require payment of fees. See 5 CFR §10,00010k. The fulfillment of your request did not exceed $25, therefore there is no billable fee for the processing of this request. Respectfully, Amy Nicholas FOIA Officer cc: Joan Durocher 4