Omaha 2's Poindexter denied parole

[Moorbey]

By: Leslie Reed, Midlands News Service
06/13/2008

LINCOLN - Edward Poindexter, sentenced to life in prison for the 1971 slaying of an Omaha police officer, is not a candidate for parole, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled today.

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The high court said inmates who are serving life sentences for first-degree murder must have their sentences commuted before they can be considered for parole.

Only the Nebraska Board of Pardons - composed of the governor, attorney general and secretary of state - has authority to commute a prison sentence. The board has not commuted a life sentence for first-degree murder in nearly two decades.

Poindexter, 63, was convicted in the 1970 booby-trap bombing death of Officer Larry Minard. Poindexter twice has asked for a Pardons Board hearing, in 1987 and 1993, and twice been denied.

Poindexter had no attorney when he filed his lawsuit and subsequent Supreme Court appeal.

Under state sentencing laws, prison inmates are considered eligible for parole after they have served their minimum sentence minus credits for good behavior while in prison.

The Parole Board, a five-member body appointed by the governor, decides, after a public hearing, whether the inmate should be released.

However, Nebraska authorities long have considered those convicted of first-degree murder not eligible for parole because they won't complete the minimum life sentence before they die.

Poindexter, however, argued that the law in place when he was sentenced allowed him to be considered for parole "at any time."

The Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision, disagreed with Poindexter.

Judge William Connolly wrote that neither 1970 law nor current law allows first-degree murderers to be considered for parole without first obtaining a sentence commutation.

The high court also rejected Poindexter's arguments that he should have been released from prison by 1988 because other inmates sentenced to life for first-degree murder were granted sentence commutations and paroled from prison within 17 to 18 years.

The court said Pardons Board decisions to commute other inmates' sentences did not mean Poindexter had a right to a sentence commutation.

"The Board of Pardons has the unfettered discretion to grant or deny a commutation of a lawfully imposed sentence for any reason or for no reason at all," Connolly wrote.


©Suburban Newspapers 2008

[nattyreb]

NOTE: i was looking for a campaign website for the Omaha 2, which i'm pretty sure exists but couldn't find, and instead found the documentary on YouTube about their case in 3 parts. It may already be up here somewhere but i only viewed part 2 for right now. i'm not sure who put this documentary out, but it does include Ed and Mongo and the complete video begins with part 1 at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wi0luaq0eyM.
=================

June 15, 2008 at 11:30:45

Ominous ruling by Nebraska Supreme Court against Black Panther in
COINTELPRO case puts new trial request in doubt

by Michael Richardson
http://www. opednews. com

Ed Poindexter

The Nebraska Supreme Court denied a pro se parole bid by Ed Poindexter in
a decision many expected was a foregone conclusion.

However, in denying a request for parole eligibility, the state high court signaled the difficulty Poindexter faces later this year when his request for a new trial is argued by Lincoln attorney Robert Bartle.


Poindexter was convicted in 1971 for the bombing murder of an Omaha
policeman, Larry Minard, in a controversial trial marred by conflicting
police testimony, withheld evidence, and tainted assistance by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation.


Poindexter and co-defendant Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice) both deny any involvement in the crime and were both targets of FBI director J.
Edgar Hoover under the infamous Operation COINTELPRO which targeted the Black Panthers for "no holds barred" treatment.

Poindexter's request for a new trial comes after sophisticated vocal
analysis by voice analyst Tom Owen in 2006 revealed that the confessed
bomber, 15 year-old Duane Peak, did not make the emergency call that lured Minard to his death.


Peak implicated Poindexter and Mondo we Langa, making
his credibility critical, and leaving an unknown caller at large.


Retired Omaha detective Robert Pheffer also contradicted his own trial
testimony about finding dynamite that was allegedly used in the fatal bomb
in a dramatic and emotion-charged hearing in Douglas County District Court
last year before Judge Russell Bowie.


At the time of the trial Omaha was gripped by racial tension.

Former Nebraska governor Frank Morrison was Poindexter's court-appointed public defender. Morrison described Omaha in a 2003 deposition.


There was tremendous racial feeling.

North Omaha was one of the hottest spots in the whole United States for racial violence.

In fact, when in 1966 we had to call out the National Guard, they set fire to North Omaha and we had to bring in the National Guard and take over to preserve order.

There was terrible racial feeling.

I don't have words to describe it, but there was terrible discrimination and hatred of African-Americans, terrible.

"The "terrible racial feeling" Morrison described was fueled in part by
COINTELPRO dirty tricks initiated by the FBI to disrupt the Black
Panthers.


Both Ed Pointdexter and Mondo we Langa had been secret targets
of Hoover's clandestine operation, but the compromised role of the FBI was
unknown by Omaha police who were assisted by the federal agents in the
search for Minard's killers and unknown by jurors who convicted Poindexter
unaware of Hoover's secret directives against the Black Panthers.


The FBI, in cooperation with Omaha Assistant Chief of Police Glenn Gates,
kept the recording of the emergency call from defense attorneys while the
jurors who decided the fate of the two Black Panther leaders never heard
the voice of the anonymous caller.


A secret COINTELPRO memo obtained after the 1971 trial under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that release of the emergency tape recording would be "prejudicial to the police murder trial" case against Poindexter and Langa.


The jurors also never knew that Peak, the confessed bomber, brokered a
deal where he served 33 months of juvenile detention and then walked free
in exchange for his testimony against Poindexter and Langa.

Nor did the jurors know that Raleigh House, the supplier of the dynamite, would never be formally charged and only spent one night in jail before being released on his own signature because the police wanted to claim Langa supplied the dynamite.


In fact, Omaha Police Captain Murdock Platner did indeed make
such a claim in sworn testimony to a Congressional committee contradicting
actual trial testimony about the dynamite.

Details about the compromised FBI role in the case did not come until
years after the trial and only judges, not jurors, have since been told
about the withheld evidence, conflicting and contradictory police
testimony, about the deal with Peak, and about the voice analysis that
contradicts the story of the state's chief murderous witness against
Poindexter.


The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that Poindexter's bid for parole must
fail because the Board of Pardons has not commuted his life sentence to a
term of years, thus depriving the Board of Parole the ability to grant a
parole request.


In responding to Poindexter's arguments that numerous
other prisoners serving life sentences have been released on parole after
serving less time than he has, the court said that a commutation of
sentence was a "discretionary state privilege" and that even if "granted
generously in the past" Poindexter had no legal entitlement to similar
consideration.


While the expected ruling against parole for Poindexter does not presage
the outcome of his pending new trial request, some of the language in the
decision does suggest that attorney Robert Bartle will have his work cut
out for him during oral arguments scheduled for this fall.


In the ten-page decision there were three references to the underlying
crime, the murder of Larry Minard.


In the opening summary of the decision
the Nebraska Supreme Court properly noted, "In 1971, a jury convicted
Edward Poindexter of first degree murder.


However, two later references were less neutral and potentially betray a
bias of the court toward the prosecution case.

The court discussed sentencing statutes, "in 1970 when Poindexter committed his offense." In the conclusion of the decision the court repeated the bias and used the statement "when Poindexter committed his crime" to describe the killing of Minard.


Nebraska newspapers, which have not reported on the COINTELPRO
manipulation of the case against Poindexter, brandished headlines about
Cop-Killer Poindexter Denied Parole following the language of the court
decision.


Meanwhile, Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa remain imprisoned at the
maximum security Nebraska State Penitentiary serving life sentences while
three of Minard's killers, Duane Peak, the confessed bomber; Raleigh
House, the supplier of the dynamite; and the unknown emergency line caller
walk free.


Last week in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, federal Magistrate Christine Nolan
recommended that Black Panther Albert Woodfox, serving a life sentence at
Angola State Prison, should be granted a new trial. U.S.


District Judge James Brady has yet to rule on Nolan's recommendation.


The new trial recommendation followed a state court denial of a new trial request last month for co-defendant Herman Wallace.


Wallace and Woodfox were held in solitary confinement for 36 years and only recently have been moved to regular maximum security cells.


The two men, leaders in a prison chapter of the Black Panthers, were convicted for the murder of a prison guard during a riot at the prison in 1972 on the testimony of another prisoner released in exchange for testimony against the Panthers.


In Nebraska, a decision on Poindexter's request for a new trial is
expected later this year.