http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/ en Sat, 21 Nov 2009 03:54:09 GMT vBulletin 60 http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/images/misc_2/rss.jpg http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/ http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40428-new-leonard-peltier-campaign.html Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:49:29 GMT * Zoom In: Focus on Executive Review * A new campaign sponsored by the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee (LP-DOC) with Friends of Peltier and the International Peltier Forum The United States courts have acknowledged that Leonard Peltier was the victim of official misconduct and... * Zoom In: Focus on Executive Review *

A new campaign sponsored by the Leonard Peltier Defense Offense
Committee (LP-DOC) with Friends of Peltier and the International
Peltier Forum


The United States courts have acknowledged that Leonard Peltier
was the victim of official misconduct and convicted on the
basis of fabricated and suppressed evidence, as well as coerced
testimony. However, the courts have not granted Leonard a new trial.

Attorney General Eric Holder can conduct an Executive Review of
the Peltier case and provide a remedy. In fact, he has said that
in the face of misconduct by Department of Justice officials, it's
his job to do the right thing. That's why we've renewed the call
for an Executive Review of the Peltier case.

Join us in our new campaign to demand equal justice for Leonard
Peltier.

The Campaign

People often ask... "Who are those Peltier supporters, anyway?" We're
all just ordinary folks from all around the world. We're a diverse
group, representative of all races/ethnicities, religions, social
classes, political beliefs, etc. Yet, we have at least one thing in
common. We know a grave injustice has been done to Leonard Peltier.

The campaign concept is simple: (1) Send a message to AG Holder--We
want justice... equal justice... and we want it NOW and (2) Put a
face to the message.

The campaign has two components:

Action #1: Personal Response--Where you'll provide a photographic
image of yourself holding a campaign sign, as well as your name,
address and e-mail address.

Action #2: Community Response--Where you'll go out into your
community and get others to participate in the campaign.

A box filled to the brim with campaign flyers, including all our
faces, will be delivered to AG Holder's office on or around February
6, 2010 - the 34th anniversary of Leonard Peltier's arrest.

For details and instructions, see Free Leonard Peltier.

We also ask that you contribute $1 to help us with expenses
associated with the campaign. That's right--ONE U.S. dollar! You
can, of course, donate more if you wish. Checks and money orders
should be made out to "LPDOC". If you prefer, you may donate online
at Free Leonard Peltier.

Contrary to what some say, the Committee has limited resources and,
like any other grassroots organization, struggles financially. Your
dollars are needed to make this and other campaigns successful
and so that more events--like those held in Boulder, Lewisburg,
and Washington, DC, this year--can be planned and successfully
implemented in the months ahead. Please give what you can.

Deadline

All photos should be received NO LATER THAN JANUARY 31, 2010 (but
please don't wait until then to send us your photo).

Again, for instructions, see Free Leonard Peltier. Download
the campaign kit and review all of the materials provided. The
campaign e-mail address is zoom@whoisleonardpeltier.info.
Don't hesitate to ask questions or request assistance.

Note to our local support group coordinators: Please let us know
you're on board with this new campaign by sending an e-mail to
zoom@whoisleonardpeltier.info. We'll work closely with you to
help you succeed. To assist us with the planning of branch-specific
special communications (which may be state, regional or international
in scope) please provide your name and location in the body of
your e-mail.

Thanks to all of you for the work you do. With your help, Leonard
WILL see freedom soon.


Kari Ann Cowan, Assistant Coordinator
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
Free Leonard Peltier
Time to set him free... Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.

Friends of Peltier
Friends of Leonard Peltier


Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

Freedom Archives Home Questions and comments may be sent to claude@freedomarchives.org ]]> Political Prisoners Freedom Campaign (PPFC) nattyreb http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40428-new-leonard-peltier-campaign.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40379-move-9-parole-update.html Fri, 13 Nov 2009 19:33:52 GMT From: onamovellja@aol.com November 13, 2009 PAROLE UPDATE/ MOVE 9 ONA MOVE, everybody! I want to update you on the parole status of The MOVE 9. At this point everybody but Chuck Africa has seen the parole board. Chuck should see the board sometime this month or early next month. ... From: onamovellja@aol.com
November 13, 2009

PAROLE UPDATE/ MOVE 9

ONA MOVE, everybody! I want to update you on the parole status of The MOVE 9. At this point everybody but Chuck Africa has seen the parole board. Chuck should see the board sometime this month or early next month. Everybody has been denied parole except Phil Africa who hasn’t received his formal response as of yet. Everybody so far has gotten a 1 year setback except Eddie who got a 2 year setback for some unexplainable reason. Everybody that has been interviewed by the parole board was denied with the same excuse that they won’t say they’re guilty (because they’re not) and we expect nothing different with Phil and Chuck. As we explained before, what they’re doing is clearly illegal and cannot be explained. This, alone, should tell people that the government has no valid reason to deny MOVE people parole or they would cite that reason instead of some illegal unreasonable nonsense about them not saying they’re guilty. These parole boards across the country cannot be allowed to continue to trample on peoples lives and freedom like this. It has to stop and we can make it stop thru pressure, thru the power of the people, if we take a serious unrelenting stand. MOVE is in the process of contacting as many media contacts as possible (local, national and international) to urge them to request interviews with the chairwoman of the Pennsylvania board and question her about the board denying people parole because they won’t say they’re guilty. Having the media from all over calling her and questioning this procedure will put pressure on the parole board. If you know of any media people with a backbone that would be interested in getting involved in this activity, let us know so we can follow up on it. In the meantime, keep the letters and phone calls going the parole board. Thanks for all of your support and remember, this issue affects inmates all over the USA, not just MOVE.


LONG LIVE REVOLUTION!!!!

THE MOVE ORGANIZATION


Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

Freedom Archives Home ]]> Political Prisoners Freedom Campaign (PPFC) Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40379-move-9-parole-update.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40263-tragedy-leonard-peltier-vs-us.html Tue, 03 Nov 2009 21:20:57 GMT The Tragedy of Leonard Peltier vs. the US Matthiessen - Tragedy of Leonard Peltier vs. he US - Friends of Leonard Peltier (http://www.freepeltiernow.org/matthiessen20091119.htm) Blogspot: Friends of Peltier: The Tragedy of Leonard Peltier vs. the US... The Tragedy of Leonard Peltier vs. the US
Matthiessen - Tragedy of Leonard Peltier vs. he US - Friends of Leonard Peltier
Blogspot: Friends of Peltier: The Tragedy of Leonard Peltier vs. the US
By Peter Matthiessen
On July 27, 2009, I drove west from New York to the old riverside town of Lewisburg in central Pennsylvania, the site of the federal penitentiary where early the next morning I would make an appeal to the parole board on behalf of the American Indian Movement (AIM) activist Leonard Peltier in his first parole hearing in fifteen years. On this soft summer evening, a quiet gathering of Peltier supporters from all over the country had convened in a small park near the Susquehanna River. Despite his long history of defeats in court, these Indians and whites sharing a makeshift picnic at wood tables under the trees were optimistic about a favorable outcome. Surely a new era of justice for minorities and poor people had begun with the Obama administration, and anyway, wasn't Leonard's freedom all but assured by the Parole Act of 2005, which mandated release for inmates who had spent thirty or more years in prison?

Leonard Peltier, an Ojibwa-Lakota from Turtle Mountain, North Dakota, was one of the three young Indians who were among the participants in a shoot-out with the FBI at Oglala on South Dakota's Pine Ridge Reservation on a hot dusty day in June 1975. They were later charged with the deaths of FBI agents Jack Coler and Ron Williams. Ostensibly searching for a suspect in a recent robbery case, the agents had been warned by tribal police not to enter the property where the AIM Indians had their camp. Their intrusion apparently provoked a warning that led to an exchange of gunfire. Understandably outraged by the deaths of Coler and Williams and in particular by the fact that an unknown "shooter" had finished off both wounded men at point-blank range, their fellow agents would also suffer intense frustration and embarrassment when a dozen or more of the Indians involved, using a brushy culvert under a side road, escaped a tight cordon of hundreds of agents, Indian and state police, national guardsmen, and vigilantes who had the area surrounded.

More galling still, Bob Robideau and Dino Butler, two of the three AIM suspects in the killings arrested during the FBI's huge "ResMurs" (Reservation Murders) investigation, were acquitted a year later in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, on a plea of self-defense, as the third and last suspect, Leonard Peltier, would certainly have been as well, had he not fled to Canada. He was arrested there in February 1976, extradited back to the US, and tried separately. Though originally indicted with the others on identical evidence, he was barred by a hostile new judge, Paul Benson, from presenting the same argument based on self-defense that had led to Robideau and Butler's acquittal. Furiously prosecuted as the lone killer and convicted for both deaths on disputed evidence, Peltier was sentenced in February 1977 in Fargo, North Dakota, to two consecutive life terms in federal prison.

The following year, when Peltier's conviction was appealed, 8th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Donald Ross denounced the coercion of witnesses and manipulation of evidence in his case as "a clear abuse of the investigative process by the FBI"; the US Attorney's Office, too, would be sharply criticized for withholding exculpatory evidence. In October 1984, in an evidentiary hearing in Bismarck, North Dakota, ordered by the appellate court to review the possibility of a new trial, the prosecutor, US Attorney Lynn Crooks, had to concede that the FBI's own laboratory had failed to verify the claimed ballistics link between Peltier and the murder weapon that was used to nail down his conviction—a shell casing of disputed provenance that Crooks had called "perhaps the most important piece of evidence in this case." Even so, Judge Benson refused to reconsider the conviction.

The following year when the decision was appealed again, Crooks finally admitted that the identity of "the shooter" had never been proven and was in fact unknown to the prosecution even when it was twisting the evidence to ensure Peltier's conviction and make certain that its third and last suspect—by its own description, "the only one we got"—was imprisoned for life. Yet the appellate court, while noting that so much tainted evidence had deprived the defendant of his constitutional right to due process of law, found "no compelling legal justification" for ordering a new trial.

In a TV interview after his retirement in 1989, Judge Gerald Heaney, who had signed that astonishing decision, called it "the most difficult I had to make in twenty-two years on the bench." The following year, in the National Law Journal, this troubled jurist held the FBI "equally responsible" for the deaths of its two agents; in a letter to Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii, he urged commutation of Peltier's sentence. Questioned on the same 1989 TV show about the perjured affidavits extracted by FBI agents from a frightened alcoholic, US Attorney Crooks declared: "I don't really know and I don't really care if they were false. I don't agree that we did anything wrong, but I can tell you, it don't bother my conscience one whit if we did." Properly outraged by this arrogant refusal to repudiate US government use of fabricated evidence, Senator Inouye, as a former US attorney, called Crooks "a disgrace to the profession."

I first interviewed Leonard Peltier in Marion Penitentiary in 1981, and that same year, with his original codefendant Bob Robideau, I inspected the Jumping Bull Ranch at Oglala where the shoot-out had taken place. Later, after reading many if not most of the pertinent documents, including the FBI field reports and the transcripts of both trials, I returned to Oglala to interview local people and study the scene again. Like the FBI, I would hear all sorts of rumors about the many young Indians involved without learning which one had fired the fatal shots; however there seemed to me no doubt whatever that Leonard Peltier had been railroaded into prison.

Unfortunately my long book making that case[*] was quickly suppressed by libel suits brought by South Dakota's attorney general, William Janklow, and an FBI agent named David Price. Eight years would pass before both suits were summarily dismissed and the book was back in circulation. Meanwhile Peltier's long fight for a fair trial had won his endorsement as a political prisoner by Amnesty International, and his thousands of supporters throughout the world included the Dalai Lama, Nelson Mandela, Desmond Tutu, and the great majority of his own people in the more than 250 Indian nations that had formally demanded his release.

In Peltier's first parole hearing in 1996, the examiner filed an internal recommendation in Peltier's favor. (The US Parole Commission, like the US Attorney's Office and the FBI, is under the aegis of the Justice Department: its examiner informs himself about the case, questions both sides, and appraises the new evidence, if any.) Yet in actions so belated and irregular as to raise suspicion of undue influence, the commission replaced that first examiner with one more to its liking and denied parole.

By then, the few bold lawmakers who had called for investigations had retreated or retired, and Peltier's best hope was executive clemency. To that end, I wangled my way into the Oval Office and pressed my book about the case into President Clinton's hands. In January 2001, during Clinton's last week in office, as FBI lobbyists—the Association of Retired FBI Agents and No Parole for Peltier—marched in front of the White House, I joined attorney Bruce Ellison and filmmaker Jon Kilik in a long meeting with the presidential and White House counsels in which we argued that granting clemency to an American Indian who could offer nothing in return was a bold symbolic step that could only enhance the President's last-minute efforts to prop up his legacy.

The lawyers seemed impressed and hopes were high, but when the clemency list appeared on the Saturday morning of Inauguration Day, Peltier's name was missing. The phone call I dreaded was put through from Leavenworth Prison in early afternoon. "They didn't give it to me," mumbled a stunned voice I scarcely recognized—the first time in twenty years of visits, letters, and telephone conversations that Leonard Peltier's strong spirit sounded broken. With all court appeals exhausted and no hope of mercy from the incoming Republican administration, this aging prisoner was condemned to wait for his next parole hearing in 2009.

In the park in Lewisburg, people agreed that had the shoot-out victims not been "FBIs," Leonard might never have been convicted; at the very least, he would have been paroled many years before. Someone in the park recalled the fear and disruption on the reservations caused by the FBI's huge ResMurs investigation (which was widely perceived as the latest chapter in the long history of oppression and revenge against "the redskins who killed Custer" that had led up to the shoot-out). The killing that day in June 1975 of a young member of the AIM by a marksman's bullet in the forehead had gone all but unmentioned, someone said, let alone investigated by "the Injustice Department," doubtless because "Injuns don't count." How about Bob Robideau's statement to an FBI man that he had been "the shooter"? Would the Parole Commission take that into account? And was it suspicious that Robideau had been found dead last February in Barcelona? (The official autopsy concluded that he had struck his head in a fall while suffering a seizure.)

With Peltier's attorney Eric Seitz and the two other parole advocates —Dr. Thom White Wolf Fassett, a Seneca elder and United Methodist adviser to Congress on Indian affairs, and an Ojibwa woman named Cindy Maleterre representing Peltier's Turtle Mountain Reservation—I went early the next morning to the prison, passing supporters waving "Free Peltier" signs at the entrance road.

In the hearing room the first to speak were the two sons of the late agent Jack Coler. After testifying to their family's great loss, they suggested that if this man facing them today were to take responsibility and express remorse for those brutal murders he so stubbornly denies having committed, the Coler family might not protest his parole. But the three FBI spokesmen and the assistant US attorney who spoke next were content to repeat the same vilifications and distortions of the facts that won a conviction back in 1977. Locked long ago into their ResMurs myth, they insisted that Peltier was still a danger to the public and cited those provisions in the Parole Act specifying that parole may be denied if the subject's release might "depreciate the seriousness of the offense" or "promote disrespect for the law."

In response to the charge that Peltier has evaded his responsibility for those murders, Eric Seitz countered that the FBI and the US Attorney's Office have evaded responsibility for their own illegal tactics in his prosecution. Otherwise Seitz made no attempt to retry a long historic case in a few minutes, emphasizing instead the prisoner's exemplary behavior record, serious health problems, and other strong qualifications for parole under the commission's geriatric and medical criteria. He reminded Examiner Scott Kubic that in a few weeks, on September 12, when Peltier would turn sixty-five, he would also become eligible for home detention under the new Second Chance program for elderly inmates designed to ease overcrowding in the US prisons.

Thom White Wolf testified that Peltier's incarceration for nearly thirty-three years has been viewed both nationally and internationally as a gross injustice and a major embarrassment to our country, with a negative effect on the world's view of how the US government treats its native population. When my turn came, I spoke to the points made in this article, adding how much this inmate had matured over the three decades of our acquaintance, not only as an articulate spokesman for his people but as an artist, self-taught in the prisons, whose work is admired throughout the US. And Cindy Maleterre assured the examiner that the prisoner's Ojibwa-Dakota people at Turtle Mountain—including grandchildren he has never seen—had already taken care of the parole requirements of social support, adequate housing, and steady employment (as an arts-and-crafts teacher and alcoholism counselor on the reservation), and were planning to welcome him home with a great feast.

That afternoon we left the prison with the feeling that Examiner Kubic had listened carefully and would recommend parole—a guarded optimism we conveyed to the flag-waving supporters awaiting our report on the public road. But no one forgot how the examiner's finding in Peltier's favor fifteen years before had been aborted; in the next weeks, as so often in the past, the prisoner would have to suffer the suspense of desperate hope.

On Friday, August 20, federal inmate #89637-132 received terse notice that his petition for parole had been denied: not until his "15-year Reconsideration Hearing in July 2024," he was informed, would he become eligible to be turned down again. In the unlikely event that he lives long enough to attend that hearing, Inmate Peltier will be eighty years old.

In his angry response, Attorney Seitz accused the commission of "adopting the position of the FBI that anyone who may be implicated in the killings of its agents should never be paroled and should be left to die in prison." I entirely agree with Seitz and share his anger. For the prisoner and his supporters, the Lewisburg hearing had been hollow, with a predetermined outcome: The United States v. Leonard Peltier had always been a matter less of justice than of retribution.

Americans—those in public office especially—should inform themselves about this painful case and demand an unbiased investigation that might start with one simple question: If, in the thirty-three years since his trial, reputable evidence has ever emerged that Leonard Peltier was the lone killer and deserves to be in prison for life, why hasn't the Justice Department produced it?

Without public protest, Peltier will not be granted a fair hearing since his prosecutors know that in the absence of honest evidence, "the only one we got" would be set free. Instead, this man's life leaks away behind grim concrete walls for the unworthy purpose of saving face for the FBI and a US Attorney's Office that together botched the famous ResMurs case and mean to see somebody pay. And who better for this fate than a "radical" AIM Indian who dared stand up to "legally constituted authority" in defense of his humiliated people, as he was doing with such tragic consequences on that long-ago June day?

In reviewing this case with an open mind, as surely he must in fulfilling his oath of office, Attorney General Eric Holder (the assistant attorney general in 2001) might reflect on his own role in the clemency bestowed by Clinton on Marc Rich, the notorious "fugitive felon." He might consider, too, Rich's consequent evasion of even a single day in prison in the harsh light of the eleven thousand days already served by a penniless American Indian who remains innocent before the law, having never been proven guilty.

Notes[*]In the Spirit of Crazy Horse (Viking, 1983).


Freedom Archives
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415 863-9977

Freedom Archives Home ]]> Political Prisoners Freedom Campaign (PPFC) Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40263-tragedy-leonard-peltier-vs-us.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40234-germany-passes-resolution-demanding-new-trial-mumia.html Sun, 01 Nov 2009 10:20:46 GMT CITY OF MUNICH, GERMANY PASSES A RESOLUTION DEMANDING A NEW TRIAL FOR MUMIA! INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT AT THIS KEY MOMENT PD (Social-Democratic Party) – Parliamentary Group Alliance 90/The Greens/Pink List – Parliamentary Group FDP (Liberal-Democratic Party) – Parliamentary Group Die LINKE (Left... CITY OF MUNICH, GERMANY PASSES A RESOLUTION DEMANDING A NEW TRIAL FOR MUMIA!

INTERNATIONAL SUPPORT AT THIS KEY MOMENT
PD (Social-Democratic Party) – Parliamentary Group
Alliance 90/The Greens/Pink List – Parliamentary Group
FDP (Liberal-Democratic Party) – Parliamentary Group
Die LINKE (Left Party) – Parliamentary Group

Resolution on the Occasion of the Full Meeting of the Munich City Council

– October 28, 2009 –

As a municipality which considerately follows constitutional principles and is committed to just and sustainable ways of development, Munich regards it as its duty to be actively engaged in the worldwide protection of human rights and to not look the other way when governmental abuse infringes on human dignity. In accord with this, the Capital of the State of Bavaria, Munich, has repeatedly taken a stance for the worldwide abolition of the death penalty, particularly in the context of the initiative "Cities for Life – Cities against the Death Penalty," in which several hundred major cities on all continents have participated.

The death penalty is a barbaric act of state violence that constitutes an affront against human dignity. It becomes outright murder whenever the question of guilt has not been unequivocally resolved, such as in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. This African American journalist and civil rights activist has been on death row in the United States for 27 years, accused of having allegedly killed a white police officer. Ever since then, Abu-Jamal has insisted on his innocence, and human rights organizations have pointed to egregious procedural mistakes in Abu-Jamal's original trial, which were obviously rooted in a background of prevalent racism.

For these reasons, we join the world-wide solidarity campaign for Mumia Abu-Jamal and demand a new, fair trial for him. The United States of America are rightfully proud of the oldest democratic constitution of the world with its guarantee of equal rights for all. However, this role model function also obliges the state in question to an extremely careful and humane evaluation of each individual case. As a matter of course, the legal principle in dubio pro reo (or "the benefit of the doubt") is of particular, increased importance in all cases that involve the death penalty.

Beyond this particular case, the Munich City Council of course continues to demand the complete abolition of the death penalty. Particularly in friendly states such as the U.S.A., the decision to do away with it is long overdue.


--Mumia is Innocent! Stop the Frame Up! Free Mumia!--

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC
P.O. Box 16, College Station, NY, NY 10030
212-330-8029, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC, info@FreeMumia.com ]]> Political Prisoners Freedom Campaign (PPFC) Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40234-germany-passes-resolution-demanding-new-trial-mumia.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40227-clemency-demand-leonard-peltier-november-5-a.html Sat, 31 Oct 2009 15:45:52 GMT Peltier supporters to seek clemency during White House meeting Originally printed at http://www.indianco untrytoday. com/national/ 67580927. html WASHINGTON – Leonard Peltier supporters will seek clemency for the imprisoned American Indian Movement activist during a historic meeting between... Peltier supporters to seek clemency during White House meeting
Originally printed at http://www.indianco untrytoday. com/national/ 67580927. html

WASHINGTON – Leonard Peltier supporters will seek clemency for the imprisoned American Indian Movement activist during a historic meeting between President Barack Obama and hundreds of tribal leaders of federally recognized nations.

The Circle for Clemency for Leonard Peltier is organizing a peaceful and prayerful act of solidarity "to bring attention to Mr. Peltier's continued unjust imprisonment as a Native American political prisoner," according to Rob Fife, one of the organizers.

The event will take place in conjunction with the first-of-its- kind White House Tribal Nations Conference on Nov. 5 from 9 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. at the Interior Department building in Washington, D.C.

Fife, a Nez Perce Cayuse Indian, and Ben Carns, a member of the Choctaw Nation, fasted and offered prayers for seven days in September in front of the White House in the hope of having an audience with Obama and asking him to consider issuing an executive order of clemency for Peltier. The meeting did not occur, but the gesture gave rise to a renewed focus on Peltier's plight in the indigenous community.

The Circle for Clemency was founded in October by Fife, Carns, and indigenous rights activists Wanbli Tate, Larry Monterrey and Barbara Low.

Peltier has been in prison for more than 33 years. He was convicted in 1977 and given two consecutive life sentences for the murder of FBI Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams, who were killed during a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota June 26, 1975.

Although Peltier has served more than the minimum sentence required for the crime, he was denied parole Aug. 21. Parole officials said granting parole would diminish the seriousness of the crime.

The 64-year-old Peltier has maintained his innocence, but controversy over whether he committed the murders, and over the fairness of his trial persist. Those convinced of his guilt say he shot the two agents in cold blood and deserves to stay in prison for the rest of his life.

Peltier's supporters, which include a huge international component and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, say he is America's most famous and longest serving political prisoner.

Fife, a horse-trainer, said he has never met Peltier, but he has signed petitions and written letters in support of him. The decision to deny Peltier parole was devastating both to Peltier and his supporters, Fife said.

"I wouldn't really describe myself as an activist, but I want to do the right thing by my mother's side of the family and more than anything I want my country to do the right things as they promised, but they're making up the laws as we go along."

Fife said Peltier's innocence or guilt is no longer relevant.

"There are people who have committed much more heinous crimes. Leonard has served his time. There are people who can argue Leonard's innocence or guilt much better than I can. But I do know the guilt of this nation in dealing with Leonard and with indigenous people and doing it in a way that's different from the way they deal with people of European ancestry."

The White House Tribal Nations Conference seemed like the logical next step to take in pushing forward Peltier's cause, Fife said.

"We wanted to find a spiritual connection to this so it wasn't just a protest or demonstration, but something that is unifying and would bring attention to Leonard's imprisonment again, bring it back into the public eye."

The Circle for Clemency and supporters will gather at Lafayette Park in front of the White House for sunrise prayers conducted by traditional spiritual leaders at 6 a.m. Nov. 5. Then they will walk to the Interior Department building "to respectfully greet their tribal representatives, welcome them to the conference and ask that each of them include within their individual nation's agenda a simple request for clemency regarding Leonard Peltier," Fife said.

The participants will spend the rest of the day in a prayer vigil for Peltier's release at the Interior Department. ]]> Political Prisoners Freedom Campaign (PPFC) Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40227-clemency-demand-leonard-peltier-november-5-a.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40215-peltier-supporters-seek-clemency-during-white-house-meeting.html Fri, 30 Oct 2009 14:48:32 GMT Peltier supporters to seek clemency during White House meeting
Originally printed at Peltier supporters to seek clemency during White House meeting | Indian Country Today | National & World News

WASHINGTON – Leonard Peltier supporters will seek clemency for the imprisoned American Indian Movement activist during a historic meeting between President Barack Obama and hundreds of tribal leaders of federally recognized nations.

The Circle for Clemency for Leonard Peltier is organizing a peaceful and prayerful act of solidarity “to bring attention to Mr. Peltier’s continued unjust imprisonment as a Native American political prisoner,” according to Rob Fife, one of the organizers.

The event will take place in conjunction with the first-of-its-kind White House Tribal Nations Conference on Nov. 5 from 9 a.m. – 5:30 p.m. at the Interior Department building in Washington, D.C.

Fife, a Nez Perce Cayuse Indian, and Ben Carns, a member of the Choctaw Nation, fasted and offered prayers for seven days in September in front of the White House in the hope of having an audience with Obama and asking him to consider issuing an executive order of clemency for Peltier. The meeting did not occur, but the gesture gave rise to a renewed focus on Peltier’s plight in the indigenous community.

The Circle for Clemency was founded in October by Fife, Carns, and indigenous rights activists Wanbli Tate, Larry Monterrey and Barbara Low.

Peltier has been in prison for more than 33 years. He was convicted in 1977 and given two consecutive life sentences for the murder of FBI Special Agents Jack R. Coler and Ronald A. Williams, who were killed during a shootout on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota June 26, 1975.

Although Peltier has served more than the minimum sentence required for the crime, he was denied parole Aug. 21. Parole officials said granting parole would diminish the seriousness of the crime.

The 64-year-old Peltier has maintained his innocence, but controversy over whether he committed the murders, and over the fairness of his trial persist. Those convinced of his guilt say he shot the two agents in cold blood and deserves to stay in prison for the rest of his life.

Peltier’s supporters, which include a huge international component and human rights organizations such as Amnesty International, say he is America’s most famous and longest serving political prisoner.

Fife, a horse-trainer, said he has never met Peltier, but he has signed petitions and written letters in support of him. The decision to deny Peltier parole was devastating both to Peltier and his supporters, Fife said.

“I wouldn’t really describe myself as an activist, but I want to do the right thing by my mother’s side of the family and more than anything I want my country to do the right things as they promised, but they’re making up the laws as we go along.”

Fife said Peltier’s innocence or guilt is no longer relevant.

“There are people who have committed much more heinous crimes. Leonard has served his time. There are people who can argue Leonard’s innocence or guilt much better than I can. But I do know the guilt of this nation in dealing with Leonard and with indigenous people and doing it in a way that’s different from the way they deal with people of European ancestry.”

The White House Tribal Nations Conference seemed like the logical next step to take in pushing forward Peltier’s cause, Fife said.

“We wanted to find a spiritual connection to this so it wasn’t just a protest or demonstration, but something that is unifying and would bring attention to Leonard’s imprisonment again, bring it back into the public eye.”

The Circle for Clemency and supporters will gather at Lafayette Park in front of the White House for sunrise prayers conducted by traditional spiritual leaders at 6 a.m. Nov. 5. Then they will walk to the Interior Department building “to respectfully greet their tribal representatives, welcome them to the conference and ask that each of them include within their individual nation’s agenda a simple request for clemency regarding Leonard Peltier,” Fife said.

The participants will spend the rest of the day in a prayer vigil for Peltier’s release at the Interior Department.



Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

Freedom Archives Home ]]> Political Prisoners Freedom Campaign (PPFC) Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40215-peltier-supporters-seek-clemency-during-white-house-meeting.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40041-keep-up-momentum-call-pa-parole-board-move-9-a.html Wed, 21 Oct 2009 12:47:55 GMT The campaign for the release of the MOVE 9s is still in full force! Each Wednesday call the PA Parole board at (717) 787-5699 to state your DEMAND for their parole and release! Also, write your letters to the parole board in conjunction with this action. We still have not received a decision on... The campaign for the release of the MOVE 9s is still in full force! Each Wednesday call the PA Parole board at (717) 787-5699 to state your DEMAND for their parole and release!

Also, write your letters to the parole board in conjunction with this action. We still have not received a decision on Chuck, and everyone else is eligible for parole again next year (except Eddie who got a two year hit, meaning he's eligible in 2011). We need to keep the pressure ON!

Pennsylvania Board of Parole and Probation
Office of Board Secretary
1100 Front Street, Suite #1500
Harrisburg, PA 17104 ]]> Political Prisoners Freedom Campaign (PPFC) Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/40041-keep-up-momentum-call-pa-parole-board-move-9-a.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/39966-antonio-guerrero-resentencing-hearing.html Sat, 17 Oct 2009 16:23:05 GMT International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban adan Antonio Guerrero Sentenced to 21 Years and 10 Months Declaration of the US Movement in Solidarity with the Cuban Five to the rest of the International Movement for the Freedom of the Cuban Five THE following organizations have... International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban adan

Antonio Guerrero Sentenced to 21 Years and 10 Months

Declaration of the US Movement in Solidarity with the Cuban Five to the rest of the International Movement for the Freedom of the Cuban Five

THE following organizations have issued this declaration: The National Committee to Free the Cuban Five; the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five; and the organizations of the Cuban Immigration in Miami that together comprise the Alianza Martiana (Marti Alliance): the Antonio Maceo Brigade, the Alianza Martiana as an individual organization, the Alliance of Workers of the Cuban Community (ATC), the José Martí Association, and political parties of the United States who are part of the Cuban Five solidarity movement.

With our declaration we reaffirm our unwavering commitment to maintain and strengthen our efforts to demand the immediate freedom of our five brothers: Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González, as they are innocent of the charges that the U.S. government has convicted them of.

Today, Tuesday, Oct. 13, 2009, in Miami's United States Federal District Court for the Southern District of Florida, a hearing was held to reduce the sentence of one of our five brothers, Antonio Guerrero. It is one of three re-sentencing hearings ordered by the full panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals in September 2008. The U.S. Federal District Court has not yet set the date or dates of the other two re-sentencing hearings of our brothers Ramón Labañino and Fernando González.

In September 2008 the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals vacated the trial court's previous life sentence imposed on Antonio Guerrero and Ramon Labañino, and the 19-year sentence imposed on Fernando González in December 2001. The Five were convicted in June 2001.

Today the Court imposed a prison sentence of 21 years and 10 months on Antonio Guerrero for his unjust conviction of conspiracy to commit espionage.
Independently of the court process and the decisions that are issued by the court, we maintain our steadfast demand for the immediate freedom of the Cuban Five.

The judicial case prosecuted against our five brothers has nothing to do with justice. This is, and always has been, a political case.

Since the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in 1959, every administration of the U.S. government has maintained a policy of permanent aggression against the Cuban people. A fundamental part of this policy of aggression has been the use of violence against the Cuban people. For decades the U.S. administrations have been directly or indirectly involved -- through terrorist organizations of the Cuban-American extreme right wing in the United States -- in countless terrorist attacks against the Cuban people, causing the deaths of 3,478 Cuban men, women and children, and injuring 2,099 Cubans. The peace, security and well-being of the Cuban people have been tragically affected.

In the interest of defending its people -- as any other responsible government would do -- the government of Cuba assigned to the Five the task of infiltrating the terrorist organizations of the Cuban-American extreme right wing. Everyone in this city knows full well that the terrorist organizations have carried out campaigns of death and terror against the Cuban people for decades. Stopping terrorism was the mission of the Cuban Five.

Instead of arresting the terrorists and prosecuting them for their crimes, the U.S. government, a participant in these nefarious campaigns of death and terror, arrested the Five 11 years ago this past September. Since then it has kept them arbitrarily imprisoned.

It is for these reasons that today in Miami we reaffirm and make known to our Five brothers, to their families and all our sisters and brothers in the U.S. and the international movement to Free the Five, as well as the Cuban people, our unalterable decision to continue and strengthen our struggle for their immediate freedom.

Miami, October 13, 2009

The New York Times: Judge Reduces Sentence for One of Cuban Five
By Ian Urbina
10/14/2009

A federal judge in Miami approved a lighter sentence Tuesday for one of five Cubans convicted in 2001 of spying on anti-Castro Cuban exiles.

The case of the men, commonly known as the Cuban Five, has strained relations between the United States and Cuba for more than a decade.

An appeals court last year threw out sentences for three of them, finding the punishment too harsh because the government had never proved that they had traded in "top secret" intelligence.

In the late 1990s, the men infiltrated Cuban-American exile organizations that opposed the Castro government, including some of the more activist groups like Brothers to the Rescue, which regularly made unauthorized flights over Cuba to drop leaflets.

In Cuba, the five are considered political prisoners, and the Cuban government has lobbied for their release, arguing that they were not spying on the United States so much as trying to ferret out right-wing anti-Castro terrorists determined to hurt Cuba.

On Tuesday, Judge Joan A. Lenard of Federal District Court replaced the life sentence for one of the men, Antonio Guerrero, with a sentence of 262 months, or almost 22 years, which means he will be out of prison in about seven years, counting time served since his 1998 arrest and time off for good behavior. Prosecutors and Mr. Guerrero's lawyers had asked for the sentence to be reduced to 240 months.

"It was odd," said Leonard Weinglass, Mr. Guerrero's lawyer. "You have a man who was on a military base but who didn't take a single classified document and no one testified that he injured U.S. national security, but the judge still rejects the prosecutors' request to lighten the sentence."

Mr. Guerrero, a United States citizen, was convicted of spying for Cuba while working at the Naval Air Station in Key West.

In May 2005, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights ruled that the men's trial fell below international standards for due process and that the United States should either retry or release them.

All five men were arrested in 1998 and convicted of acting as unregistered foreign agents and conspiracy to commit crimes against the United States.

A sentencing hearing for two of the others has been postponed.

Robert A. Pastor, a professor of international relations at American University, said the case still raised concerns. "Holding a trial for five Cuban intelligence agents in Miami is about as fair as a trial for an Israeli intelligence agent in Tehran," said Dr. Pastor, who was President Jimmy Carter's national security adviser for Latin America. "You'd need a lot more than a good lawyer to be taken seriously."

New Sentence for Cuban Antiterrorist Jailed in the USA

A US judge today resentenced Antonio Guerrero, one of the five Cuban antiterrorist unjustly incarcerated in the United States, to 21 years plus 10 month in jail, two more years than what was agreed by the defense and the prosecution teams at the re-sentencing hearing.

Judge Joan Lenard didn't pay heed to the suggestion by the government and attorneys about a reduction to 20 years of the previous life sentence plus 10 years given to Antonio Guerrero, Alicia Jrapko, member of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Five, told Prensa Latina news agency.

Jrapko, who attended this Tuesday the re-sentencing hearing, held in Miami, explained that the government acknowledged that the Cuban Five case caused diverse reactions all over the world, where many voices demand their release.

Guerrero's hearing precedes those of Fernando Gonzalez and Ramón Labañino, which were postponed after the judge issued an order in response to a request by the defense.

The three antiterrorists were scheduled for re-sentencing after the 11th Circuit of Atlanta's Court of Appeals overturned the previous sentences for having considered them wrong and resulting from a murky trial.

Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labañino and Fernando Gonzalez, along Gerardo Hernandez and René Gonzalez, have been serving sentences that range from 15 years to double life term, for reporting to their country on terrorist actions planned by ultra-right and anti-Cuba groups based in the US state of Florida. Those sentences were also imposed by Judge Lenard in 2001. (ACN)
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5
The Cuban 5 - Home Page
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 | P.O. Box 22455 | Oakland | CA | 94609


Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

Freedom Archives Home ]]> Political Prisoners Freedom Campaign (PPFC) Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/39966-antonio-guerrero-resentencing-hearing.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/39926-call-pa-parole-board-release-move-9-a.html Thu, 15 Oct 2009 18:21:24 GMT Call the PA Parole Board for release of the MOVE 9!
Posted by: "icffmaj@aol.com" icffmaj@aol.com
Wed Oct 14, 2009 4:32 am (PDT)


The campaign for the release of the MOVE 9s is still in full force! Each Wednesday call the PA Parole board at (717) 787-5699 to state your DEMAND for their parole and release!

Also, write your letters to the parole board in conjunction with this action. We still have not received a decision on Chuck, and everyone else is eligible for parole again next year (except Eddie who got a two year hit, meaning he's eligible in 2011). We need to keep the pressure ON!

Pennsylvania Board of Parole and Probation
Office of Board Secretary
1100 Front Street, Suite #1500
Harrisburg, PA 17104 ]]> Political Prisoners Freedom Campaign (PPFC) Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/39926-call-pa-parole-board-release-move-9-a.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/39855-letters-support-needed-immediately-jalil-muntaqim-s-parole-hearing.html Sun, 11 Oct 2009 03:41:06 GMT by NYC Jericho Jalil is asking that we write letters supporting his 2009 parole, which has been postponed for 30 to 90 days for lack of records. This means the hearing could occur as early as Oct. 22 and as late as the end of December. It is believed that they want a new victim impact statement... by NYC Jericho

Jalil is asking that we write letters supporting his 2009 parole, which has been postponed for 30 to 90 days for lack of records. This means the hearing could occur as early as Oct. 22 and as late as the end of December. It is believed that they want a new victim impact statement and the sentencing minutes from California.

In the interim he said we need to continue efforts to build support. Please write a letter and urge others to do so, addressing the letters to the Parole Commissioners (Re: Parole application of Anthony Jalil Bottom #77A4283) but send to:

NYC Jericho, P.O. Box 1272, New York, NY 10013.

The more personal and individual your letter is, the better. You can write about visiting or communicating with Jalil or, if you haven’t been in direct touch with him, you can write about the articles you’ve read by him or any other knowledge you have of his activities while in prison.

Please say that you are aware of the case for which he is serving his sentence. You can also talk about your own perspective – for example, if you are a teacher, you know how valuable it is that Jalil has counseled young prisoners. Any particular slant you can give to your assertion that he will be an excellent candidate for release can give the letter more force.
Some of Jalil’s achievements while incarcerated

In 1986, Mr. Anthony Bottom (aka Jalil Muntaqim) drafted a legislative bill for New York State prisoners to obtain good time off their sentence. The bill was submitted and introduced into the New York State Assembly Committee on Corrections by former Assemblyman Arthur O. Eve.

In 1994, while incarcerated at Shawangunk Correctional Facility, Mr. Bottom established the first Men’s Council in the United States prison. His efforts were featured on television in Japan and written about in the New York Times. During this period, he also graduated from SUNY New Paltz with a B.S. in Psychology and a B.A. in Sociology. Instead of resting on his success, he taught African Studies to a group of prisoners.

On two occasions, he received commendations from prison officials for quelling potential prison riots, one in the mess hall at Great Meadow Correctional Facility and another time in the auditorium at Greenhaven Correctional Facility.

From 1996 to 1999, Mr. Bottom was the office manager of the prison computer lab at Eastern Correctional Facility. His duties consisted of teaching prisoners keyboarding skills and how to use computer software programs. Despite his busy schedule, he found the time to raise money from inmate accounts to support the charitable Children’s Funds.

In 1999, in Auburn Correctional Facility, Mr. Bottom established sociology, poetry and legal research and discussion classes under the auspices of the Lifers’ Committee that he chaired.

Mr. Bottom co-sponsored the Victory Gardens Project, a program in which farmers in Maine grew tons of fresh produce for distribution to poor urban communities in New York, New Jersey and Boston, Massachusetts. In the four years of its existence, the project distributed nearly 10,000 pounds of fresh produce in urban centers.

In response to the tragedy of Sept. 11, 2001, while in Auburn Correctional Facility, Mr. Bottom proposed raising funds from inmates to donate to the American Red Cross. Former Deputy Superintendent of Programs R. Nelson acknowledged Anthony’s efforts in a memorandum.

While in Auburn Correctional Facility, he worked as a Pre-GED Teacher’s Assistant and earned a vocational certificate for Architectural Drafting. Mr. Bottom has proposed and gained the approval for a Life Skills Program for inmates.

Mr. Bottom is a published poet and essayist; his writings are found in several university sponsored books of compilations of prison writers. He has also written an unpublished novel and teleplay.
Parole release plans
Some of the family waiting to welcome Jalil home are his grandson Selmar Jalil, his granddaughter Shacari, his son-in-law Selmar in back, his daughter Antoinette and his great-granddaughter Aminah Jasmin. This photo was taken in 2007.
Some of the family waiting to welcome Jalil home are his grandson Selmar Jalil, his granddaughter Shacari, his son-in-law Selmar in back, his daughter Antoinette and his great-granddaughter Aminah Jasmin. This photo was taken in 2007.
In the event that Anthony Bottom’s Application for Parole is approved and he is released on bail pending the resolution of present (California) charges, he would live in either Syracuse, New York, or Austell, Georgia. In Syracuse, he would apply for the Master’s program at Maxwell School, Syracuse University, to obtain a degree in Public Administration and a certificate in Health Services Management. In Austell, Georgia, he has an offer of employment in the construction field and a home that is to be provided by his mother.

Anthony Bottom has a 37-year-old daughter, two grandchildren and one great grandchild. Over the decades of imprisonment, he has maintained a strong family relationship, although they reside in California and Georgia. Throughout his years of imprisonment, there have been continuous family visits when they were able, including family trailer visits.

As an example, in the November 2000, issue of Essence Magazine, Anthony Bottom, his daughter and granddaughter were featured in an article titled “Daddy Says,” discussing father and daughter relationships. Mr. Bottom will continue to be involved in community service, particularly in regards to AIDS education. He once initiated a campaign to provide school supplies to AIDS orphans in Africa.

“Remember,” says Jalil, “we are our own liberators!”

Learn more at FREE JALIL: Jalil Muntaqim Political Prisoner. Send our brother some love and light. Write to him at his new address: Jalil Muntaqim/ A. Bottom, 77A4283, Auburn CF, P.O. Box 618, Auburn, NY 13021. If you want to help Jalil/A. Bottom with commissary, send a postal money order to the same address. ]]> Political Prisoners Freedom Campaign (PPFC) Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/39855-letters-support-needed-immediately-jalil-muntaqim-s-parole-hearing.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/39852-rally-held-sf-8-court-dates-set-francisco-torres.html Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:55:23 GMT A Spirited Rally and Packed Courtroom for Francisco Torres Some one hundred supporters rallied on October 9 for the court appearance of Francisco Torres, the last of the SF 8 defendants to face charges. San Francisco Supervisors John Avalos and Eric Mar joined the rally. Five of the SF 8 were... A Spirited Rally and Packed Courtroom for Francisco Torres

Some one hundred supporters rallied on October 9 for the court appearance of Francisco Torres, the last of the SF 8 defendants to face charges. San Francisco Supervisors John Avalos and Eric Mar joined the rally. Five of the SF 8 were present – in addition to Francisco Torres, Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Hank Jones, and Richard O'Neal participated in the enthusiastic picket line.

Status Conference December 3

In a brief hearing before a packed courtroom, Judge Philip Moscone set a status conference for December 3 to pick a date for oral argument on the motion to dismiss the charges. The judge’s decision was welcomed by the defense, as until now Moscone had indicated that he would not hear a motion to dismiss until the preliminary hearing had been completed.

Preliminary Hearing in February, Maybe

The judge also tentatively set February 18 for the start of the preliminary hearing, in case he does not rule in favor of the motion to dismiss. Such a hearing would be expected to last two to three weeks.

The motion to dismiss might be heard in January, although delays and changing dates are common, so please check the SF 8 blog and web site as those dates approach.

Support Continues Strong

Organizers were upbeat about today’s developments, stating that in the last week alone the publication of the new Open Letter in the SF Bay Guardian signed by hundreds, the fax and phone campaign on October 5 that resulted in the Attorney General's fax machine and phone closing down – as well as the tireless work of outreach and calling – are examples of the pressure that we have to keep on building.
Photos of the rally will be posted on the SF 8 blog over the next few days.
Inline Attachment Follows: 552268859.txt
_______________________________________________
Please support these brothers by sending a donation. Make checks payable to CDHR/Agape and mail to the address below or donate on line:

Donate to Free the SF8

Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR)
PO Box 90221
Pasadena, CA 91109
(415) 226-1120
FreetheSF8@riseup.net

Free the SF8 - Committee for the Defense of Human Rights ]]> Political Prisoners Freedom Campaign (PPFC) Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/39852-rally-held-sf-8-court-dates-set-francisco-torres.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/39849-angola-3-appeal-denied.html Sat, 10 Oct 2009 18:17:45 GMT Mother Jones Angola 3 Appeal Denied * By James Ridgeway | Fri October 9, 2009 7:25 PM PST The Louisiana State Supreme Court Friday denied an appeal from Herman Wallace, who has been held in solitary confinement for more than 37 years. Wallace and Albert Woodfox are members of what has become... Mother Jones

Angola 3 Appeal Denied
* By James Ridgeway | Fri October 9, 2009 7:25 PM PST

The Louisiana State Supreme Court Friday denied an appeal from Herman Wallace, who has been held in solitary confinement for more than 37 years. Wallace and Albert Woodfox are members of what has become known as the Angola 3, whose story has been covered extensively by Mother Jones. Convicted of the 1972 murder of a prison guard at the notorious Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, both men maintain their innocence; they believe they were targeted for the crime and relegated to permanent lockdown because of their organizing work with the prison chapter of the Black Panthers. Wallace, who is now 68 years old, was recently transferred from Angola to the Hunt Correctional Center near Baton Rouge, where he continues to be held in solitary. Two days ago, Wallace descended even deeper into the hole, placed in a disciplinary unit called Beaver 5 for unknown violations of prison policy.

Herman Wallace launched the appeal of his conviction nearly a decade ago. His lawyers have introduced substantial evidence showing that the state’s star witness, a fellow prisoner named Hezekiah Brown, was offered special treatment and an eventual pardon in exchange for his testimony against Wallace and Woodfox. In 2006, a judicial commissioner assigned to study the case found that there were grounds for overturning the conviction, but Wallace’s application was subsequently denied--by the state district court, court of appeals, and now by the Louisiana Supreme Court.

While every setback comes as a blow to a man nearing 70 who has spent nearly four decades in lockdown, one of Wallace’s attorneys said tonight that this denial by the state’s highest court came as no surprise, since it has a reputation for refusing to overturn the decisions of lower courts. Today’s ruling opens the doors to a federal habeas corpus challenge, beginning with the Federal District Court for the Middle District of Louisiana at Baton Rouge. Here, if Wallace is lucky, his case will be reviewed by a fact-finding federal magistrate, and his conviction overturned by a federal judge. This is what happened to Albert Woodfox last year. Yet Woodfox, too, remains in prison--and in solitary confinement--as the state appeals the judge’s decision.

Louisiana’s Attorney General, James “Buddy” Caldwell, has stated that he opposes releasing the two men “with every fiber of my being,” while the Warden of Angola and Hunt prisons, Burl Cain, has more than once suggested that the two men must be held in solitary because they ascribe to “Black Pantherism.” In addition to their criminal appeals, Wallace and Woodfox (along with Robert King, who was released in 2001), have a case pending on constitutional grounds. They argue that the conditions and duration of their time in solitary confinement constitute cruel and unusual punishment in violation of the Eighth Amendment, and that they are being held there for their political beliefs, in violation of the First Amendment.




Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

Freedom Archives Home ]]> Political Prisoners Freedom Campaign (PPFC) Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/39849-angola-3-appeal-denied.html http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/39812-fri-oct-9-rally-press-conference-drop-charges-against-francisco-torres.html Wed, 07 Oct 2009 19:01:50 GMT Rally and Press Conference to Drop Charges Against Francisco Torres of the SF8
by The Committee for the Defense of Human Rights

Wednesday Oct 7th, 2009 1:28 AM

Press conference on Oct. 9th at 8am, prior to Francisco Torres' 9am court hearing at 850 Bryant Street.

San Francisco Supervisors Eric Mar and John Avalos, and Reverend Amos Brown, President of the SF NAACP, will join supporters of the San Francisco Eight at 8AM Friday, October 9th, at 850 Bryant Street, to call on Attorney General Jerry Brown to drop charges against Francisco Torres. A court hearing for Torres is scheduled for 9 AM.

Mr. Torres is the only remaining defendant of the SF 8, elders formerly associated with the Black Panther Party, who were arrested two and a half years ago in connection with the 1971 shooting of SF policeman John Young.

In July 2009, Attorney General Jerry Brown dropped all charges against Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Hank Jones and Harold Taylor for “insufficient evidence”. Charges were dropped against Richard O’Neal in 2008. Two other defendants, Jalil Muntaqim and Herman Bell, were offered and accepted pleas to greatly reduced charges, receiving probation and time served. Mr. Torres was offered a plea as well, but turned it down and maintains his innocence.

Last week an open letter calling on Jerry Brown to drop the last charges was published in the Guardian, signed by international and local leaders including Rev. Dr. Desmond Tutu, former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, actor Danny Glover, San Francisco Supervisors Eric Mar, John Avalos and Chris Daley, SF Board of Education President Kim-Shree Maufus and VP Jane Kim, Archbishop Franzo King, Minister Christopher Muhammad, and Rev. Amos Brown, as well as labor leaders, educators, organizers and activists across the state and nation.

Soffiyah Elijah, Deputy Director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, said “The original charges in this case were thrown out of court in the mid 70’s when the issue of torture was exposed. Our Constitution requires that this prosecution be ended. The attorney general must drop the charges against Francisco Torres and begin the process of healing for everyone concerned.”

SF Supervisor Eric Mar, Supervisor John Avalos, Rev. Amos Brown, Attorney Chuck Bourdon, and former SF 8 defendant Richard Brown will be available to speak to the press.
Free the SF8 - Committee for the Defense of Human Rights

Inline Attachment Follows: 2493886828.txt
_______________________________________________
Please support these brothers by sending a donation. Make checks payable to CDHR/Agape and mail to the address below or donate on line:

Donate to Free the SF8

Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR)
PO Box 90221
Pasadena, CA 91109
(415) 226-1120
FreetheSF8@riseup.net

www.freethesf8.orgRally and Press Conference to Drop Charges Against Francisco Torres of the SF8
by The Committee for the Defense of Human Rights

Wednesday Oct 7th, 2009 1:28 AM

Press conference on Oct. 9th at 8am, prior to Francisco Torres' 9am court hearing at 850 Bryant Street.

San Francisco Supervisors Eric Mar and John Avalos, and Reverend Amos Brown, President of the SF NAACP, will join supporters of the San Francisco Eight at 8AM Friday, October 9th, at 850 Bryant Street, to call on Attorney General Jerry Brown to drop charges against Francisco Torres. A court hearing for Torres is scheduled for 9 AM.

Mr. Torres is the only remaining defendant of the SF 8, elders formerly associated with the Black Panther Party, who were arrested two and a half years ago in connection with the 1971 shooting of SF policeman John Young.

In July 2009, Attorney General Jerry Brown dropped all charges against Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Hank Jones and Harold Taylor for “insufficient evidence”. Charges were dropped against Richard O’Neal in 2008. Two other defendants, Jalil Muntaqim and Herman Bell, were offered and accepted pleas to greatly reduced charges, receiving probation and time served. Mr. Torres was offered a plea as well, but turned it down and maintains his innocence.

Last week an open letter calling on Jerry Brown to drop the last charges was published in the Guardian, signed by international and local leaders including Rev. Dr. Desmond Tutu, former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, actor Danny Glover, San Francisco Supervisors Eric Mar, John Avalos and Chris Daley, SF Board of Education President Kim-Shree Maufus and VP Jane Kim, Archbishop Franzo King, Minister Christopher Muhammad, and Rev. Amos Brown, as well as labor leaders, educators, organizers and activists across the state and nation.

Soffiyah Elijah, Deputy Director of the Criminal Justice Institute at Harvard Law School, said “The original charges in this case were thrown out of court in the mid 70’s when the issue of torture was exposed. Our Constitution requires that this prosecution be ended. The attorney general must drop the charges against Francisco Torres and begin the process of healing for everyone concerned.”

SF Supervisor Eric Mar, Supervisor John Avalos, Rev. Amos Brown, Attorney Chuck Bourdon, and former SF 8 defendant Richard Brown will be available to speak to the press.
Free the SF8 - Committee for the Defense of Human Rights

Inline Attachment Follows: 2493886828.txt
_______________________________________________
Please support these brothers by sending a donation. Make checks payable to CDHR/Agape and mail to the address below or donate on line:

Donate to Free the SF8

Committee for the Defense of Human Rights (CDHR)
PO Box 90221
Pasadena, CA 91109
(415) 226-1120
FreetheSF8@riseup.net

Free the SF8 - Committee for the Defense of Human Rights ]]> Political Prisoners Freedom Campaign (PPFC) Moorbey http://www.assatashakur.org/forum/political-prisoners-freedom-campaign-ppfc/39812-fri-oct-9-rally-press-conference-drop-charges-against-francisco-torres.html