A San Francisco treat
http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/cms/story/detail/a_san_francisco_treat/7492/
Two local members of the San Francisco 8 are cleared of nearly
40-year-old cop killing
By André Coleman
07/16/2009
After reaching a plea agreement with two men suspected in the killing
of a San Francisco police officer nearly 40 years ago, prosecutors
last week were forced to drop all charges against four other men
accused in the murder two of them residents of Altadena.
Due to insufficient evidence, homicide charges against Hank Jones,
70, and Ray Boudreaux, 66, both of Altadena, and Richard Brown, 65,
and Harold Taylor, 58, were dropped on July 8.
The plea agreement came after Herman Bell, 59, and Jalil Muntaqim, 55
both men already doing life terms in New York on unrelated murder
convictions agreed to plead guilty to voluntary manslaughter in
connection with the 1971 murder of San Francisco Police Sgt. John V. Young.
For almost four decades, detectives have claimed that Jones,
Boudreaux, Brown, Taylor, Bell, and Muntaqim, along with Francisco
Torres of New York and Bay Area resident Richard O'Neal dubbed the
San Francisco 8 played roles in the shooting.
Young was killed on Aug. 29, 1971, when two men walked into the
Ingleside District police station, placed a 12-gauge shotgun in an
opening in the bulletproof glass and fired at least eight times,
killing him and wounding a civilian clerk.
Police arrested six of the eight men some are now retired
grandfathers on Jan. 24, 2007, in various parts of the country,
including Altadena, where Jones and Boudreaux were picked up.
Conspiracy charges against O'Neal were dropped after San Francisco
Superior Court Judge Philip J. Moscone in January 2008 ruled that the
statute of limitations on those charges had long since expired,
completely exonerating O'Neal, the only one of the eight not facing
murder charges.
Only Torres, 58, continues to face charges in connection with Young's
death. Free on bond, Torres, a Puerto Rico-born Vietnam veteran who
worked with troubled youth in New York before his 2007 arrest, is set
to appear in a state court in San Francisco Aug. 10.
Prosecutors may think they have a stronger case against Torres, whose
fingerprints, police say, were found on a lighter at the police station.
"This is finally the disposition of a case that should never have
been brought in the first place," said Soffiyah Elijah, defense
attorney for the five whose charges were dropped.
Muntaqim and Bell, Elijah said, raised their fists into the air
much as Olympic athletes Tommy Smith and John Carlos did to protest
racism in America when getting medals in Mexico City in 1968 as
they stood in the packed courtroom in San Francisco and accepted the
plea bargains.
The two were already serving life sentences in New York when they
agreed to the deal, which has each man receiving what amounts to a
time-served sentence probation and credit for one year of jail
time. Prosecutors will dismiss first-degree murder charges against
them in the Young case.
After the deal was reached, prosecutors admitted they lacked enough
evidence to convict four of the five remaining defendants. In
statements released on their Web sites, Bell and Muntaqim said they
accepted the offers as a tactical decision, after prosecutors
successfully argued they not be allowed to attend parole hearings in
New York while the Young case continued. If they had been convicted,
the men could have been sentenced to life without the possibility of
parole in California; with this plea bargain they have a chance of
release from the New York system.
"For me, removing the possibility of going to trial when a proposal
(though unpalatable) is offered that would leave open a future chance
at parole in another jurisdiction was something I could not pass up,"
Bell wrote in his statement.
"While I would have liked to have continued the legal fight to what I
believe would have resulted in complete exoneration of all charges, I
know the jury system is fickle," Muntaqim wrote. "I have seen too
many innocent men in prison who fought with the conviction of being
innocent after a reasonable plea bargain was offered, and they
ultimately lost due to prosecutorial misconduct, defense attorney
errors, improper jury instructions by a judge, and/or a fickle jury.
Unfortunately, their loss results in spending decades in prison
fighting for a reversal or waiting to be released on parole, or in
the worst cases, death row DNA exonerations."
Over the past few years, the case of the San Francisco 8 has captured
international attention. Nobel Peace Prize winner Archbishop Desmond
Tutu along with several members of the San Francisco Board of
Supervisors, actor Danny Glover and members of the San Francisco
Labor Council signed a resolution demanding that the men be freed.
Shortly after the 1971 shooting, Detectives Frank McCoy and Ed
Erdelatz began investigating activist groups, including the Black
Panthers, the Black Liberation Army and the Weathermen. The officers
allegedly showed up in New Orleans in 1973 after Taylor was arrested
there on an unrelated burglary complaint. While in custody, Taylor
was beaten with blackjacks and shocked with cattle prods until he
confessed to Young's murder.
Two years later, San Francisco Judge Edward Cragen ruled that the
confession was obtained illegally and charges against Taylor were dismissed.
Soon after Sept. 11, McCoy and Erdelatz signed up with the Department
of Homeland Security and the murder case was reopened.
In 2005, Brown, Boudreaux, Taylor and Jones were jailed for about 10
weeks for contempt after refusing to cooperate with the San Francisco
grand jury investigating the Young killing.
Members of the San Francisco 8 detailed their ongoing legal battles
in the documentary "Legacy of Torture," which premiered at the Pan
African Film Festival in 2007.
"Something similar could happen to anyone, given the climate of fear,
paranoia, and abuse of authority that is rampant in our country
today," Jones said.
--------
On the SF8
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/on-the-sf8/
by Herman Bell
July 13, 2009
It has been said, though unmaliciously, that I pled in the SF8 case
because I am ill and have to get out of the county jail and back to
New York for medical treatment. Although I've been confined in a tank
with psychotic individuals more often than not, who often yell and
scream 24/7 for days without stopping (oh yeah!), and I've not been
in fresh air and sunshine the whole two-plus years I've been here, I
still can say unequivocally that my health is reasonably OK.
Let there be absolutely no misunderstanding about this plea I took.
The SF8 case was complex, and not everyone in the case had the same
legal issues. Because of this, I took a plea because I believed it
was the right thing to do for me and the case itself. And this could
well make my parole chances in New York even more difficult. Still,
the plea was well worth taking because it led to Jalil Muntaqim's
plea, which resulted in charges being dismissed against Hank Jones,
Ray Boudreaux, Harold Taylor and Richard Brown but, unfortunately,
not Francisco Torres. There is hope still that charges against Cisco
will be dismissed, and if he should go to trial, we support him. The
SF8 comradeship remains unbreakable. I say unequivocally that,
individually or collectively, we would never dishonor ourselves or
you by doing something so unconscionable as to undermine the
interests of our historic struggle.
Thus, I regard the outcome of this case as a People's victory, as one
made all the sweeter by the hard work our supporters and legal team
put in to make it so. So we thank our lawyers and investigators for
the excellent work and dedication that they devoted to our defense:
Soffiyah Elijah, Heather Hardwick, Rai Sue Sussman, Julie de Almeida,
Jenny Kang, Mark Rosenbush, Lori Flowers and our investigators, Adam
Raskin, Nancy Pemberton, Patricia de Larios and Keith MacArthur you
guys are pros.
Special thanks and gratitude to my lawyer, Stuart Hanlon, for the
sleepless nights and long hours he devoted to this case (lest you all
have forgotten, Stuart also fought for over 20 years to free Geronimo
Pratt); we were fortunate to have Stuart on our legal team. In
addition to my excellent representation, initially in 2005 when this
case was at the beginning grand jury stages, Stuart assembled the
very finest criminal defense lawyers in the Bay Area to represent the
SF8 on a volunteer basis before the grand jury. These lawyers then
went on to represent us once a grand jury indictment failed and the
Attorney General filed the criminal complaint against us. I think
Stuart is one of the finest lawyers in the country. Yet, my praise
and appreciation is in no way to disparage the quality of service and
dedicated commitment the other lawyers on our team devoted to our
defense: Daro Inouye, Mark Goldrosen, Chuck Bourdon, Mike Burt, Randy
Montesano, John Philipsborn and Richard Mazer big ups to you all.
Also, very big thanks to Dennis Cunningham, Che Hashim and Kelly
Metters for volunteering to facilitate Jalil's and my weekly Saturday
legal visits for the past two years when our legal team was unavailable.
Finally, my profound gratitude to all our friends and supporters.
Herman
.
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