http://www.workers.org/2009/us/mumia_0813/
By Mumia Abu-Jamal on death row
Published Aug 8, 2009
Taken from a July 15 audio column heard at www.prison radio. org. Go
to www.millions4mumia.org to read updates on Mumia's case.
--
It's been two and a half years since the San Francisco 8 eight
former members of the Black Panther Partywere cast into California
jails and threatened with life sentences stemming from the 1971
shooting of a cop.
Perhaps the State figured the post-9/11 paranoia and mania would make
this an easy case. Perhaps the government thought that because many
of the accused were men of advancing age, decades away from their
prime organizing and activist days, it would be a cake walk.
The eight men fought with dignity, principle and unity and, several
days ago, charges for four of them were dismissed altogether: Ray
Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Hank Jones and Harold Taylor.
New York's Jalil Muntaqim pled no contest to conspiracy and got time
served in San Francisco County Jailalmost two and a half yearswith
three years' probation.
Herman Bellanother New York former Panthertook a similar deal
earlier in July.
One ex-Panther, Francisco Torres, faces a hearing next month where
most observers expect all charges to be dropped. Another, John
Bowman, died before trial. The last, Richard O'Neal, was cleared pre-trial.
From the very beginning, back in the 1970s, several of the men were
brutally tortured by police in Louisiana to elicit false confessions;
thus we see that Abu Ghraib really was nothing new.
The cases were dismissed decades ago on that basis alone.
That the prosecutions were reinstated at all is due more to the
politicized Justice Department under John Ashcroft and George
Bushwhere torture was a tool of statethan anything else. Also
implicated? The political ambitions of California Attorney General
Jerry Brown seeking the governorship.
No charges should have been brought in the first placeor, if
contemplated, dismissed under double jeopardy principles.
As it is, even the state admits, dismissal is valid due to
insufficient evidence.
These results are due, in large part, to the solidarity of the men
themselves, and some excellent, aggressive lawyering by assorted
defense counsel, among them J. Soffiyah Elijah of Harvard Law School.
Several years ago, in a statement calling for support for the San
Francisco 8, I implored supporters to fight for them now, before they
fell into the clutches of the state containment system, instead of after.
Many took up that fight, leading to many of the most recent results.
--
Order Mumia's latest book, "Jailhouse Lawyers," at leftbooks.com.
.
0 comments:
Post a Comment