SF8 "Drop the Charges" Resolution to Full Board

[nattyreb]

via: Free the SF 8!
6/11/09
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Supervisors Sophie Maxwell and Eric Mar of the Government Audit and Oversight Committee heard public comment on the San Francisco Board of Supervisors' resolution to "Drop the Charges" against the San Francisco 8 today.

The Committee passed the resolution on to the whole Board which will vote on it Tuesday, June 16th.

A diverse group of SF 8 supporters including educators, religious leaders, prison justice organizers, organized labor, legal advocates and others attended and supported the courage of the board members. The community and the board is asking California Attorney General to halt this 38-year old case based on torture.

The SF Police also mobilized an overwhelmingly white and male contingent that on one hand spoke to the memory of Sgt. John Young who was killed in 1971 in the Ingleside Station, but also made it clear that they didn't care about acts of torture when it came to defending their own. All police officers present left the hearing as a group before its conclusion as a sign of disrespect for supervisors Maxwell and Mar and their support for constitutional and human rights.

The resolution follows:

Resolution urging Attorney General Jerry Brown to not use evidence gained through the use of torture and to drop the charges against the “San Francisco 8” defendants.

WHEREAS, The San Francisco Board of Supervisors passed resolution No. 050259 in 2005 stating that they are adamantly opposed to torture and condemned the use or threat of torture by the United States government as a barbarous violation of human rights; and

WHEREAS; The use of torture violates the US Constitution in (a) the Fourth Amendment right to be free of unreasonable search or seizure (which encompasses the right not be abused by the police), (b) the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination (which encompasses the right to remain silent during interrogations), (c) the Fifth and the Fourteenth Amendments’ guarantees of due process (ensuring fundamental fairness in the criminal justice system) and (d) the Eighth Amendment right to be free of cruel or unusual punishment; and

WHEREAS, The United Nations Declaration of Human Rights, Article 5, defines torture as a human rights violation; and

WHEREAS, The Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions specifically bar the use of torture during interrogations; and

WHEREAS, The United Nations Convention Against the Use of Torture has been ratified by 145 countries; and
WHEREAS, The Bush Administration justified the use of torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram detention centers, leading to worldwide condemnation of torture; and

Whereas, Herman Bell, Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Henry (Hank) Jones, Jalil Muntaqim (Anthony Bottom), Harold Taylor and Francisco Torres, are seven men collectively known as the San Francisco 8 defendants [charges having been dropped against Richard O’Neal]; and

WHEREAS, All of these men were members or associates of the Black Panther Party for Self-Defense (BPP), a primary target of the FBI’s unconstitutional COINTELPRO program in the late 1960s and early ‘70’s designed to disrupt and destroy progressive and community based organizations; and

WHEREAS, In 1973, three Black activists, including one of the defendants, were arrested in New Orleans, tortured by local police, and interrogated by two San Francisco police detectives at intervals between the torture, which lasted several days; and

WHEREAS, During this torture, the three men were separated from each other, stripped naked, covered with wool blankets soaked in boiling water, beaten with slapjacks, suffocated with plastic bags tied over their heads, sleep deprived, kicked, beaten, shocked with electric cattle prods on their genitals, in the anus, and under the neck; and

WHEREAS, Statements resulting from the New Orleans torture were used to bring charges in the mid-1970s in several jurisdictions including charges for the 1971 killing of Sergeant John Young, a San Francisco police officer; and

WHEREAS, The San Francisco charges were dismissed in 1975 after Superior Court Judge Edward Cragen learned that these ‘confessions’ had been coerced under torture; and

WHEREAS, In 2007, after 36 years, the prosecution re-filed the charges against the San Francisco 8 based on the same tortured ‘confessions’ illegally obtained in 1973; and

WHEREAS, By September 2007, six of the eight who were eligible for bail were released thanks to the determined efforts of their communities, their families and supporters, who saw the case as an attack on respected and valued community elders and a continuation of the COINTELPRO attack on the Black freedom movement; and

WHEREAS, This case was reopened based on questionable claims of "new" evidence; and

WHEREAS, Thousands of individuals and many organizations such as the San Francisco Labor Council and the Center for Constitutional Rights have signed an open letter or passed resolutions urging Attorney General Jerry Brown to drop the charges against the SF8; and

WHEREAS, Among those individuals include three Nobel Peace Laureates: Reverend Dr. Desmond Tutu, Mairead Corrigan Maguire and Betty Williams (Community of Peace People, Northern Ireland); Darryl Jordan, Director, American Friends Service Committee Third World Coalition, Danny Glover, Cindy Sheehan, Cynthia McKinney, William Wardlaw, Executive Director’s Leadership Council, Amnesty International, Marjorie Cohn, Esq., President, National Lawyers Guild; and

WHEREAS, During this time of economic hardships and cutbacks in services for the people of San Francisco, the jail and court costs to the City of San Francisco and its taxpayers have mounted to millions of dollars; now, therefore, be it

RESOLVED, That in the name of fairness, justice and human rights, The Board of Supervisors of the City and County of San Francisco urges California Attorney General Jerry Brown to drop all charges against the San Francisco 8 defendants; and, be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Board of Supervisors strongly opposes the use of torture against suspects; and, be it

FURTHER RESOLVED, That the Clerk of the Board forward this resolution to Attorney General Jerry Brown.



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