tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11746071284957095392024-02-06T23:33:25.505-08:00Lynching Then, Lynching NowThe Roots of Racism and the Death Penalty in AmericaThe Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.comBlogger17125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-7315056027781322682010-05-20T14:15:00.000-07:002010-05-20T14:19:29.082-07:00Video from Tour stop at John Jay College in NY100 people turned out to the Tour stop in New York at John Jay College on April 22nd. The event was videotaped and features some great speeches! Check it out:<br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/6mmDlb6Sz-s&hl=en_US&fs=1&"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/6mmDlb6Sz-s&hl=en_US&fs=1&" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object>The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-59715794002606362942010-04-26T14:29:00.000-07:002010-04-26T14:30:54.495-07:00Mumia addresses Tour Stop in CA!Here is a reprint from the Bay View of the recent powerful taped address that Pennsylvania prisoner, activist and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal gave at a San Francisco Bay area stop of the CEDP's national speaking tour, "Lynching Then, Lynching Now". <br /><br />http://www.sfbayview.com/2010/mumia-on-the-death-penalty-–-and-in-conversation-with-cornel-west/<br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">From trees to needles: an address to the ‘Lynching Then, Lynching Now, The Roots of Racism and the Death Penalty in America’ national tour<br /><br />by Mumia Abu-Jamal<br /><br />Friends, brothers, sisters: Ona Move!<br /><br />The anti-death penalty movement is an offshoot of the global human rights movement as expressed by private associations and later by a variety of governments.<br /><br />It is noteworthy, then, for us to cite the state abolition of the death penalty in Kenya in 2009.<br /><br />We should also note the fact that the rate of juries meting out death sentences has fallen to its lowest in 30 years.<br /><br />And finally, several months ago, the group that was perhaps most instrumental in fashioning the present death penalty, the American Law Institute, announced it would no longer participate in formulating laws governing the death penalty. The ALI, a distinguished group of 4,000 judges, law professors and lawyers, were the people who initially proposed the aggravating and mitigating circumstances that the U.S. Supreme Court adopted in 1976 when it reinstated the death penalty.<br /><br />And yet, despite this, the death penalty is alive and well in America. Why?<br /><br />It makes no economic sense, but politicians are wedded to it.<br /><br />That’s because at its core, the death penalty derives from, and thus replaces, lynch law. Is it mere coincidence that the states which are most active in capital punishment are Southern ones?<br /><br />This is also generally true when we examine the establishment and expansion of the American prison system. After the Civil War, when slavery was abolished by law, states in the former confederacy established the convict lease system, where prisoners worked, without pay, for the state. One man, observing the dreadful loss of life and health for such people, called it “worse than slavery.”<br /><br />In essence, these states made a private institution a public one – and both Black men and women became “slaves of the state.”<br /><br />The U.S. death penalty system performs a similar function. It socialized, or made public, that which had been heretofore the province of individuals – lynchings.</span><br /><br />Above is the very well-received message from Mumia Abu-Jamal to the “Lynching Then, Lynching Now, The Roots of Racism and the Death Penalty in America” national tour about the historic link between the death penalty and lynching in the United States.<br /><br />The message was first played at the Bay Area tour stop, March 24, at Laney College in Oakland, California, where speakers with personal links to the death penalty spoke. Lawrence Hayes, a former death row prisoner himself, in New York, and founding member of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, spoke powerfully about his own case.<br /><br />Kevin Cooper, an innocent man on San Quentin’s death row, called in to CEDP (Campaign to End the Death Penalty) leader Crystal Bybee’s telephone with his message of encouragement to those in attendance. His answers to questions posed by audience members were relayed by phone and microphone to the audience.<br /><br />Jack Bryson, the father of two young men who were with Oscar Grant the night he was murdered in cold blood by the Bay Area Rapid Transit police, spoke about how his consciousness was jolted awake by that brutal murder, and how his life has become more meaningful through his connection with Kevin Cooper and the prisoners and activists in the death penalty abolition movement.<br /><br />Jabari Shaw of the Laney College Black Student Union spoke of his personal experience incarcerated in San Quentin and how prisoners are treated there and how the prison industrial complex serves the rich and the capitalist system.<br /><br />Barbara Becnel, founder of the Stanley Tookie Williams Legacy Network, spoke of her recent trip to the Senegal port through which slaves from all over Africa were shipped out to the Americas. She compared the “door of no return” there with the door to the death chamber of San Quentin. She had witnessed the torture and slow death of Stanley Tookie Williams on Dec. 13, 2005.<br /><br />The purpose of the tour is to educate and recruit new activists to the movement to end the death penalty and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty organization. From all appearances, that will certainly be one result of the Bay Area tour.The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-54467446285724058722010-04-26T14:25:00.000-07:002010-04-26T14:26:16.422-07:00Tour Stops in Houston and NY!<span style="font-weight:bold;">FIRST EVER CEDP TOUR STOP IN HOUSTON!</span><br /><br />We are proud to have put Houston, located in Harris County - the death penalty capital of the US - on the map by being part of this year’s CEDP tour. Harris County accounts for about 1 percent of the U.S. population but has carried out nearly 10 percent of the country's executions since 1976, when the death penalty was reinstated. This event was co-sponsored by the International Socialist Organization (ISO) as well as a local anti-death penalty group called the Texas Death Penalty Abolition Movement or TDPAM.<br /><br />A diverse crowd of approximately 30 people came to hear and see a multi-racial panel on April 14th at the University of Houston – Main Campus, located right in the belly of the beast. After a brief welcome and introduction, Lily Hughes, a longstanding anti-death penalty activist from Austin and CEDP board member, kicked off the discussion by giving a brief overview of the history of racism and the death penalty in this country. She was followed by Njeri Shakur, a lead organizer for TDPAM, who was delighted to see so many young people in the crowd and warned that we have to be alert and continue to fight this insane punishment. She also highlighted not only the racist, but also the classist nature of the death penalty, which predominantly targets people of color as well as poor working-class people in general.<br /><br />Next up was Mark Clements, a recent exoneree from Illinois, who was sentenced to life without parole as a juvenile for a crime he did not commit. His testimony of police torture was shocking and more reminiscent of say the Argentinean and Chilean dictatorships of the 1970s as opposed to a supposedly modern democracy. Even more powerful, however, was his unbroken spirit and his will to fight. He made it clear that he was not going to bow down in front of politicians or any other form of authority if he felt he was misrepresented. He rightly reminded us that the job of these elected officials was to serve us not vice versa. Finally, Marisol Ramirez, wife of Juan Ramirez, a current death row inmate in Texas, took the stage. Juan has been sentenced under the infamous “law of parties”. Part of the law reads as follows: "If, in the attempt to carry out a conspiracy to commit one felony, another felony is committed by one of the conspirators, all conspirators are guilty of the felony actually committed." This basically boils down to: if you hang out with the wrong crowd at the wrong time, you can be sentenced to death. After briefly laying out Juan’s case, Marisol urged us to sign petitions, not only on behalf of Juan, but other death row inmates as well. <br /><br />The talks were followed by a lively discussion. Lily Hughes came back and wrapped up the event by outlining how folks can get and stay involved in the struggle in the future. <br /><br /><span style="font-weight:bold;">John Jay College/CUNY:</span><br /><br />I thought the tour stop was a great success for the CEDP...the room was packed, and I thought that Marvin Reeves was particularly riveting. What a tragic story, but his strength shines through. <br />Congrats!<br /><br />Colleen Eren, New Yorkers for Alternatives to the Death PenaltyThe Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-66586292666074066752010-04-13T07:49:00.001-07:002010-04-13T07:50:40.184-07:00Another article about North Carolina Tour stops, this one at Wake Forest University:<br /><br />http://www2.journalnow.com/content/2010/mar/31/wfu-forum-to-examine-race-relative-to-sentences-by/news/<br /><br />WFU forum to examine race relative to sentences<br /><br />Murder, Race, Justice: Read the original series<br /><br />By Michael Hewlett<br /><br />JOURNAL REPORTER<br /><br />Published: March 31, 2010<br /><br />Of the 157 people on death row in North Carolina, 86 -- or 55 percent -- are black.<br /><br />And according to several studies, defendants accused of killing whites are more likely to get the death penalty than those accused of killing blacks.<br /><br />For some people, those statistics confirm their view that race plays a part in who is sentenced to death and who isn't, and it's one reason that supporters of the state's Racial Justice Act pushed for its passage last year.<br /><br />Those issues will be discussed today at Wake Forest University School of Law during a forum on "Race, Wrongful Convictions and the Death Penalty."<br /><br />Carol Turowski, a co-director of the law school's Innocence and Justice Clinic, said that the issues are closely linked.<br /><br />"I think these three issues intersect on a variety of different levels," Turowski said. "It's important to have a presentation to have them all discussed in an open forum with people who have experience with the Racial Justice Act."<br /><br />Wake Forest is the first of four schools that will hold forums over the next month as part of a national tour. Today's forum is sponsored by the Innocence and Justice Clinic, the N.C. Coalition for a Moratorium and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, which is organizing the tour. The other three schools are UNC Chapel Hill, Fayetteville State University and N.C. A&T State University.<br /><br />Death-penalty opponents have long argued that there is a racial disparity when it comes to the punishment. In 2001, a major study by two UNC professors found that defendants whose victims were white were 31/2 times more likely to be sentenced to death than defendants whose victims were black.<br /><br />In Winston-Salem, Darryl Hunt, who faced the death penalty in his first trial but was sentenced to life, spent nearly 19 years in prison for murder before being exonerated in 2003 after DNA evidence pointed to another man. Hunt was accused of killing Deborah Sykes, a white copy editor for The Sentinel, a now-closed afternoon newspaper, in a case that was racially charged.<br /><br />"Darryl was only a vote away from the death sentence," Turowski said. "You realize how closely linked he could have been to the death penalty."<br /><br />Hunt will be one of the speakers at Wake Forest. He will be joined by the keynote speaker, Stephen Bright, the president and senior counsel for the Southern Center for Human Rights, and Mark Rabil, who was Hunt's attorney and is now a co-director of the Innocence and Justice Clinic.<br /><br />State Reps. Larry Womble and Earline Parmon will also speak. They pushed for passage of the Racial Justice Act.<br /><br />The new law, which Gov. Bev Perdue signed in August, allows defendants facing the death penalty or who are already on death row to use statistics and other evidence to prove racial bias in how the death penalty is applied.<br /><br />"The passage of this reform was incredibly historically significant," said Tarrah Callahan-Ledford, the campaign coordinator for the N.C. Coalition for a Moratorium. "Our intent on this tour is to continue public education on the Racial Justice Act."<br /><br />The law was hotly debated last year, with prosecutors from across the state largely opposed to it. They argued that capital cases should be decided on facts and not historical patterns and statistics. And they argued that the new law was a way to end the death penalty.<br /><br />The state hasn't conducted any executions since August 2006 because of several legal challenges that have mostly been resolved by recent court rulings.<br /><br />It isn't clear how the Racial Justice Act will play out in courtrooms throughout North Carolina. In Forsyth County, all capital cases have been put on hold until a study comes out this summer that looks at race and the death penalty.<br /><br />Turowski said that while executions are on hold, this is the perfect time to closely examine the issue of race and how it affects wrongful convictions and the death penalty.<br /><br />"Keeping it at the forefront is a critical thing for us to do as a culture, as a country, as a community," she said.<br /><br />mhewlett@wsjournal.com<br /><br />727-7326<br /><br />For more information, go to http://law.wfu.edu/news/release/2010.03.23.1.phpThe Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-65845638671348167432010-04-13T07:46:00.000-07:002010-04-13T07:48:17.363-07:00Here's a great article about the Tour stop at Fayetteville state University.<br /><br />http://www.fayobserver.com/Articles/2010/04/09/989837<br /><br />Death penalty panel says reform is saving lives<br />By Drew Brooks<br />Staff writer<br /><br /><br />Darryl Hunt was one juror away from the death penalty when he was convicted of rape and first-degree murder in 1985.<br /><br />Nearly two decades later, Hunt was exonerated after DNA evidence linked another man to the crime.<br /><br />On Thursday, Hunt was part of a panel at Fayetteville State University that praised the state's Racial Justice Act as a "huge step" in reforming the death penalty in North Carolina.<br /><br />The panel discussion was sponsored by FSU's Department of Criminal Justice and the N.C. Coalition for a Moratorium.<br /><br />Hunt, who is black, was among a group of exonerated men who advocated for the passage of the act in August. He was joined on the panel by state Rep. Rick Glazier and Mary Ann Tally, a judicial candidate and death penalty lawyer.<br /><br />Glazier and Tally have represented clients in capital cases in the past.<br /><br />Tally said the act, which provides an avenue for defendants to negate death sentences if they can prove racism played a part in either the decision to seek the death penalty or the decision to apply the death penalty, "doesn't solve all the problems, but is a huge first step."<br /><br />The act lays out three circumstances in which, if racism is suspected of playing a role, a defendant may be eligible to have a sentence commuted to life in prison.<br /><br />Those circumstances are when the race of either the defendant or the victim affects the decision to choose the death penalty, or when racism plays a role during jury selection.<br /><br />Glazier said he hopes the act would lead to the state's criminal justice system earning more trust. He said wrongful convictions, especially those caused by racism, create more victims.<br /><br />Hunt was an example of one of those victims.<br /><br />He was convicted of raping and killing a white woman. He said he was the only black man outside of the audience in his court room.<br /><br />He said DNA evidence proved that he was innocent in 1994, but he had to wait nearly 10 more years before a court overturned his conviction.<br /><br />Hunt said he knows the Racial Justice Act won't completely remove racism from the justice system.<br /><br />"We have to change that by treating others as we want to be treated," he said. "Until we get to that state, it doesn't matter what kind of laws we make."<br /><br />Tally agreed.<br /><br />"Our system is us. We have our biases. We have our prejudices. We have our misconceptions," she said. "And we all make mistakes."<br /><br />Staff writer Drew Brooks can be reached at brooksd@fayobserver.com or 486-3567.The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-40251713521124729072010-04-13T07:43:00.001-07:002010-04-13T07:45:51.722-07:00Here's a great article about the UNC - Chapel Hill Tour stop!<div><br /></div><div>http://www.dailytarheel.com/content/man-exonerated-death-row-speaks-out</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 12px; line-height: 15px; "><h3 style="margin-top: 0.5em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0.5em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; font-size: 1.3em; font-weight: bold; color: rgb(51, 51, 51); font-family: 'Lucida Bright', Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; ">Event advocates against death penalty</h3><div class="content" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div style="text-align: right;"><br /></div><div class="field field-type-text field-field-subheadline " style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div class="field-items" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div class="field-item" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></div></div></div><div class="field field-type-date field-field-published-date" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: left; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); float: left; font-size: 0.9em; "><div class="field-items" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div class="field-item" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></div><div class="field-item" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><span class="date-display-single" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">April 9, 2010</span></div></div></div><div class="field field-type-text field-field-comp-byline" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: left; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); float: left; font-size: 0.9em; "><div class="field-items" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div class="field-item" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><a href="http://www.dailytarheel.com/author/Jessica%20Marker" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; color: rgb(20, 84, 130); text-decoration: none; ">Jessica Marker</a></div></div></div><div class="field field-type-text field-field-author-position" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: left; color: rgb(102, 102, 102); float: left; font-size: 0.9em; "><div class="field-items" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><div class="field-item" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Staff Writer</div></div></div><div class="clear-floats" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "></div><div class="the-body" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 10px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; clear: left; "><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Due to a reporting error, this story incorrectly states that the state will reimburse Edward Chapman for his 15 years in prison. He must be granted a proclamation of innocence by the governor to receive the reparations funds.The Daily Tar Heel apologizes for the error.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Facing the charge of first-degree murder, Edward Chapman was exonerated from North Carolina’s death row in 2007.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Three years later, Chapman can be found advocating against the death penalty along with the North Carolina Coalition for a Moratorium and the Campaign to End the Death Penalty.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">On Wednesday night, several activists and scholars against the death penalty gathered in the Sonja Haynes Stone Center for Black Culture and History for a panel discussion exploring the role of race in the death penalty and North Carolina’s passage of the Racial Justice Act.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">The act’s purpose is to make justice colorblind and was passed due to findings that the death penalty is given at a disproportionately high rate to black males in the South, especially when the victims are white females.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Speakers included UNC professors Frank Baumgartner and Isaac Unah. Edward Chapman was present to share his story as an innocent man on death row for 15 years.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Jennifer Thompson spoke of her experience as a rape victim who falsely accused Ronald Cotton for the rape, which she later turned into a book with Cotton called “Picking Cotton.” Thompson said she and Cotton, who served about 11 years in prison after being falsely accused, are both victims of a flawed system.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">“Picking Cotton” is the true story of the friendship that developed between Thompson and Cotton and will be the 2010 summer reading book for incoming UNC students.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Jeremy Collins, director of the North Carolina Coalition for a Moratorium, said the purpose of the event was to make people aware of the Racial Justice Act in hopes that they will get involved in such legislation and remain engaged. The next cause the coalition is pursuing is prohibiting the execution of the mentally ill, Collins said.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Thompson said 75 percent of all wrongful convictions are due to false eyewitness identification claims.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">In her case, DNA evidence was able to exonerate Cotton and identify the culprit, but she said most falsely accused persons are not as lucky, as DNA evidence is not always available.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Chapman said the state is reimbursing him for his imprisonment by paying him $50,000 for each of the 15 years he was incarcerated.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">Although he refers to some of the inmates he spent time with as family, Chapman said no amount of money can make up for time lost.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; ">“You can’t give back 15 years of life,” he said.</p><p style="margin-top: 1em; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; "><br /></p></div></div></span></div>The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-66554749390195339402010-03-29T14:11:00.000-07:002010-03-29T14:14:29.661-07:00Tour Stop at Baylor U in Waco, TX!Read <a href="http://www.baylor.edu/lariat/news.php?action=story&story=71469">this article </a>in the Baylor University newspaper, The Lariat, about the recent tour stop on that campus featuring Alan Bean and Mark Osler!The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-32222546693466571322010-03-29T14:02:00.000-07:002010-03-29T14:15:47.985-07:00Bay Area tour stop a great success!<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjSZBtamG64Nv41obebZOQn3DXB_tDldKnTisG7G-egzlS22ZlL5xXzPNt7YmeJrAIzx9VspxsxlHQsvSoSktbGDQMG4ClG2r3tazID8owB-_z6CXx7MyFp_8hd8RE-3Y_lRgobUA-8Hk/s1600/tour_panel.jpg"><img style="float:left; margin:0 10px 10px 0;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 200px; height: 150px;" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjSZBtamG64Nv41obebZOQn3DXB_tDldKnTisG7G-egzlS22ZlL5xXzPNt7YmeJrAIzx9VspxsxlHQsvSoSktbGDQMG4ClG2r3tazID8owB-_z6CXx7MyFp_8hd8RE-3Y_lRgobUA-8Hk/s200/tour_panel.jpg" border="0" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5454165930646715138" /></a><br />The Bay Area tour stop of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty national speaking tour, "Lynching Then, Lynching Now," was a great success! We were honored to have Lawrence Hayes join us from New York. We kicked off his trip to the Bay Area by having Jack Bryson and Lawrence on the KPFA Flashpoints show (you can listen here: http://kpfa.org/archive/id/59610 - the last 20 minutes of the show). They also stopped by a meeting of All of Us Or None, discussing the "gang injunctions" and met up with great activists, including Sister Beatrice.<br /><br />On Wednesday, March 24th, Lawrence spoke at two classes at Merritt College, where the Black Panthers started, and was able to have an engaging discussion with the students and with chair of African-American studies, Dr. Siri Brown. That evening, our main tour stop event, drew 50 people at Laney College, another community college in Oakland. The speakers were: Lawrence Hayes, Barbara Becnel, Kevin Cooper (calling in live, from death row), Jack Bryson and Jabari Shaw of the Laney College Black Student Union, moderated by Michelle Simon of the CEDP. The speakers used the theme of the tour to analyze and discuss the history of racism and of fighting racism, and racism today/struggles against racism, the death penalty and the criminal (in)justice system.<br /><br />Lawrence Hayes spoke about the history of lynching in this country, and the audience heard his peronal and powerful story.<br />Barbara Becnel spoke about what it is to be "on the front line" of this struggle, how coming to the event and learning about these issues is the first step to being on the front line. Jack Bryson picked up on this theme and talked about how CEDP joined with him in his fight for justice for Oscar Grant so how could he not be on the front line against the death penalty and for freedom for Kevin Cooper. Kevin called in from San Quentin, and made connections between his struggle, the fight against education cuts, and many other issues. The audience got to ask great questions to Kevin. One audience member, after the event came to a close, asked us to deliver a message to Kevin: she said to tell him "he is beautiful, innocent and must be freed." Jabari Shaw gave a passionate speech about racism, fighting racism and bringing our social justice movements togethers. We were also fortunate to have a recorded message from Mumia Abu Jamal. If you are interested in having a copy of the recorded message to play at a tour stop event, contact Crystal at crystal@nodeathpenalty.org.<br /><br />The CEDP worked with the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee, the Laney International Socialist Organization, the Laney Black Student Union, and the Labor Action Committee to Free Mumia Abu Jamal. We met a lot of great activists, community members, and students. We hope to build on the success of the tour and continue our fights for justice for Kevin Cooper and the other issues we are working on today.The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-50280049043507006672010-03-09T09:56:00.000-08:002010-03-09T10:00:05.340-08:00Report from Champaign-Urbana Tour Stop.A multi-racial standing-room only crowd of 70 people packed a classroom in Gregory Hall at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign on Feb. 24 to hear from Marvin Reeves and Mark Clements, two victims of Chicago police frame-ups who were both released last summer after nearly 50 combined years behind bars for crimes they did not commit. Marvin spoke of being snatched away from his several children in the middle of the night more than 21 years ago based on testimony from a jailhouse snitch, while Mark spoke of his severe beating and subsequent confession at the hands of Chicago police, which at age 16 led to a life without parole sentence. “Speaking here to you all is like therapy,” Marvin said. “When I see all of you here, I know there are a lot of people out there who care. When you’re in prison, you forget that.”<br /><br /> Brian Dolinar, an organizer from Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice, and Marlene Martin, with the Campaign to End the Death Penalty, rounded out the panel. Brian spoke of the Champaign police’s murder of unarmed 15-year-old Kiwane Carrington, the struggle to win justice for Kiwane’s family, and the campaign to get charges dropped against Kiwane’s friend, Jeshaun Manning, who was at the scene. As Brian said, “There’s the lynching of Kiwane Carrington. But now there’s the legal lynching of Jeshaun Manning that we’re fighting to stop too.”<br /><br /> Marlene spoke of the racism at the root of all of these cases of injustice. “We may no longer hang people from trees. But now, those who do the lynching have traded in white robes for black ones”, she said.<br /><br /> During the discussion, many people asked about what they could do to fight for justice. Activists circulated petitions to drop the charges against Jeshaun Manning, and many people stayed well after the meeting was over to talk to the panelists and network with each other. The Champaign-Urbana tour stop was sponsored by Champaign-Urbana Citizens for Peace and Justice, the International Socialist Organization and the Prairie Greens.<br /><br />Contributed by Julien Ball at University of Illinois.The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-6482309141884069542010-03-05T14:42:00.000-08:002010-03-05T14:43:29.604-08:00Howard Zinn and Sandra ReedSandra Reed is the mother of Texas death row prisoner Rodney Reed, a case the CEDP in Austin and nationally has worked on for years. Sandra recently spoke at the Lynching Then, Lynching Now Tour stop in Austin, Texas about how racism played a part in the wrongful conviction of her son.<br /><br />Sandra Reed sits on the CEDP's national board and has attended our annual convention in Chicago for many years, always as a featured speaker. The way she conveys her family's story with such power and emotion never fails to affect people profoundly.<br /><br />This year Sandra had the pleasure of sharing the stage with renowned left historian Howard Zinn on the Saturday night of the CEDP convention. Before the big evening event, Sandra and a few other speakers went to dinner with Howard. Sandra sat next to Howard and they spoke of her son's case, and the justice system in general.<br /><br />When she asked him to sign her copy of the New Abolitionist, he obliged, but told her he'd like to send her a book he wrote that he thought she would enjoy. Being a pretty modest person, Sandra couldn't believe he would do that for her, but she gave him her address right there at dinner.<br /><br />Just one week after she returned from Chicago, Sandra received a package from Howard. In it was a slim volume he wrote called Uncommon Sense - a collection of writings and speeches over the decades that reveal his philosophy about history, politics, law, culture, activism and the fight for a better world.<br /><br />The book Sandra received was inscribed: <br /><br />For Sandra Reed, and Rodney too<br />People of Courage –-<br />Howard Zinn, Nov. 2009<br /><br />Sandra was so surprised and touched by this thoughtful act! She reciprocated with a Christmas card in December, and was so happy that she had because just a few months later, she heard of Howard's death. Her son Rodney wrote from prison to tell her of Howard's passing. <br /><br />Though the news brought her to tears, Sandra said that she was so grateful to have met Howard when she did, to share in dinner, to share the speakers platform and to share her story and have him remember her and her son's fight. <br /><br />As far as Rodney's case goes, racism played a huge role in his conviction. You can read a little about his case here:<br /><br />http://nodeathpenalty.org/content/factsheets.php?category=cedp&factsheet_id=10<br /><br />Also check out auschron.com and search Rodney Reed for extensive coverage of this case over the years.The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-84082983790489720112010-02-26T13:23:00.000-08:002010-02-26T13:38:23.323-08:00Austin's Tour Stop went great!The Lynching Then, Lynching Now Tour came to Austin, Texas on February 20th. The event featured Alan Bean from Friends of Justice, a civil rights organization active in Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi. University of Texas Associate Professor Edmund Gordon participated as well. Dr. Gordon has been active in getting a new Department for African and African Diaspora Studies at UT. We also had Sandra Reed, mother of Texas death row prisoner Rodney Reed. And the event was rounded out by a live call in from Stanley Howard, a member of the Death Row 10 in Illinois, who is still in prison, despite his death sentence having been commuted.<br /><br />Our event began with a workshop in the late afternoon, featuring Alan Bean and Lily Hughes of the CEDP. Over 40 people attended this workshop, which laid out in depth the history of racism, lynching and the death penalty in the US, and talked about the role racism still plays in the (in)justice system today. This session had a good amount of time for question and answer from the audience.<br /><br />The evening panel featured all the speakers mentioned above. The speakers were very moving, especially Stanley Howard, who mesmerized the crowd during his live phone call. Dr. Bean also has many incredible stories of injustice to share. For anyone looking for a tour speaker, consider Alan Bean, because the work he is doing speaks directly to this issue and his way of sharing these stories and giving a call to action is powerful and persuasive.<br /><br />After the event, many people commented that it was really different to hear race discussed so in depth and tied so concretely to the justice system - as one attendee said "you never hear frank discussions of racism these days". Both Dr. Bean and Dr. Gordon commented on how President Obama has had to avoid overt discussion of racial problems, especially with the use of the death penalty and in the justice system. So folks really appreciated being able to talk at length about this issue.<br /><br />Especially now, with the death penalty in Texas under constant fire, it is important for abolitionists to take on all aspects of what is wrong with our system and expose politicians, like our current governor Rick Perry, for their role in the continued shameful practice of death penalty, and in hiding the truth about who the justice system is targeting and why.<br /><br />A great success in the "belly of the beast", and we thank Alan Bean and all the speakers for participating in this important event.The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-52528423902121963942010-02-23T07:50:00.000-08:002010-02-23T07:55:44.353-08:00What students at Rowan University are saying about the Feb. 12th Tour stop!Rowan College in New Jersey held a Tour stop on February 12th. Here's what students were saying about it:<br /><br />"I felt that the 'Lynching Then, Lynching Now' program offered great insight into a very important, yet often ignored issue; the roots of the modern death penalty, and their connection to the racist institution of lynching.<br />This forum went a long way towards helping us as a society understand capital punishment in 21st century America." - Drew Howard, student, Rowan University.<br /><br />“There is a contradiction in our society that killing is ok when the law does it. The Campaign to End the Death Penalty is putting ‘the eye for an eye’ mentality to an end. The event has awakened me to the reality that today’s capital punishment is no different then the Lynching between1882-1968.” - Ashley Fiore, Junior, Journalism, Rowan University .The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-70876308497187366642009-12-16T14:28:00.000-08:002009-12-16T14:29:13.308-08:00Report from Tour stop at American University.On Nov. 11th the "Lynching Then, Lynching Now" tour stopped at American University. Guest speakers were Mike Stark, Lawrence Hayes, and Yusef Salaam. All three gave speakers gave accounts of their experiences with death row and urged the attendees to take action to help abolish prohibition. At the end of the workshop they engaged students in a brief question-and-answer session. The event was very successful with a large turnout. Many students stayed after it ended to speak individually with the speakers.The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-25736995517611221272009-12-12T09:07:00.001-08:002009-12-12T09:07:34.266-08:00CAMPAIGN TO END THE DEATH PENALTY SPEAKING TOUR CIRCULAR<!--StartFragment--> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia"><b>CEDP TOUR OFF TO A GREAT START!<o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia">The CEDP 2009-2010 national Tour, <b>Lynching Then, Lynching Now: Roots of Racism and the Death Penalty in the US</b></span><span style="font-family:Georgia">, is off to a great start, and shaping up to being a very exciting spring.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia">The Tour was designed to be a forum to delve into the injustices of the death penalty today and how inextricably race is bound up with it. But the Tour also aims to draw out the historical roots of capital punishment and its close ties to lynching in the US. Activists have much to learn from looking closely at the history of racism and how vigilante racist violence was used as a means to subjugate African-Americans through a reign of terror in the South. The Tour hopes to be a vehicle to turn opposition to death penalty into action based on the view that struggle will be more effective with a deeper understanding of what has come before.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia">To date, we’ve held stops at Cornell University, American University and Fordham University, featuring longtime civil rights activist Alan Bean from Texas’ Friends of Justice speaking on the case of Mississippi prisoner Curtis Flowers, Jena 6 and the Southern “injustice system.” Other speakers included Yusef Salaam, CEDP Board member and exoneree in the Central Park case, who spoke on the parallels between his case and that of Emmett Till and the Scottsboro Boys, and Lawrence Hayes, former death row prisoner and CEDP Board member, on the legacy of repression against the Black Panthers and those who fought against racism.<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia"><b>HOST YOUR OWN TOUR STOP<o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia">CEDP Chapters and other groups are strongly encouraged to host a Tour stop of their own. This year’s Tour is designed with a teach-in format in mind, where hosts are encouraged to hold workshops and discussions in conjunction with a panel or forum. The aim of the teach-in structure is to facilitate more in-depth discussion of the historical material and its relevance to racism, prisons and the death penalty today. <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia">For questions or to set up an event, contact the Tour organizer, Lee Wengraf, at nyc@nodeathpenalty.org<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia"><b>SUGGESTED READINGS<o:p></o:p></b></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia">And to help brainstorm and prepare for Tour events, including discussion topics and themes, following is a suggested reading list:<o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia"> <o:p></o:p></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia">Bill Carrigan, <i>The Making of a Lynching Culture: Violence and Vigilantism in Central Texas, 1836-1916<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia">Dan T. Carter, <i>Scottsboro<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia"><i>Philip Dray, At the Hands of Persons Unknown: The Lynching of Black America<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia">Jackie Goldsby, <i>A Spectacular Secret: Lynching in American Life and Literature<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia">Charles Ogletree and Austin Sarat, <i>From Lynch Mobs to the Killing State: Race and the Death Penalty in America<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height:14.0pt;mso-pagination:none;mso-layout-grid-align:none;text-autospace:none"><span style="font-family:Georgia">Ida B. Wells, <i>Southern Horrors and Other Writings; The Anti-Lynching Campaign of Ida B. Wells, 1892-1900<o:p></o:p></i></span></p> <!--EndFragment-->The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-74707054377883995962009-09-22T12:15:00.001-07:002009-09-22T12:19:57.519-07:00We Dare Not Bury the Past - Another powerful piece by Tour speaker Alan Bean.<div>We Dare Not Bury the Past.</div><div><br /></div>http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/2009/09/08/curtis-flowers-and-the-cruel-legacy-of-montgomery-county/<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style=" line-height: 15px; color: rgb(75, 93, 103); font-family:Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;font-size:11px;"><p style="text-align: left; margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><em style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">We dare not bury the past while the past buries the innocent.</span></span></span></em></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In July, 1996, four people were killed execution style at a Montgomery County furniture store: owner Bertha Tardy, bookkeeper Carmen Rigby, and two hired men, Bobo Stewart and Robert Golden. Golden was black, the other three victims were white. Six months later, Curtis Flowers, a young black Winona resident who had worked three days for Bertha Tardy, was arrested and charged with the brutal murder of four innocent people. Thirteen years, $300,000 and five trials later, Mr. Flowers remains behind bars and the state has been unable to obtain a final conviction.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">No capital defendant in American history has ever gone to trial six times on the same facts. Curtis Flowers of Winona, Mississippi will soon be the first. </span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Winona is county seat of Montgomery County, a section of Mississippi that periodically produces startling narratives.</span></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;"><span id="more-1851" style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "></span></span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In 1937, two black Montgomery County bootleggers, Roosevelt Townes and Bootjack McDaniels, were accused of murdering and robbing a local merchant. The two men entered not guilty pleas at their arraignment and were being escorted back to the county jail in Winona when they were released into the custody of a large white mob. Townes and McDaniels were driven up the road to a field near Duck Hill where they were tied to trees and surrounded by brushwood. As a crowd of 500 looked on, the two men were tortured with blowtorches. Ears and fingers melted under the intense heat before the victims relented. They were then shot to death and their bodies burned. Loved ones were not allowed to remove the charred remains for weeks after the event.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The Duck Hill lynchings were reported by the Associated Press and featured in TIME magazine. After a particularly grisly account was read from the floor of Congress, the House passed the first anti-lynching law in American history. A few weeks later, passions having cooled, southern senators used the filibuster to kill the anti-lynching bill.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In 1960, Montgomery County was back in the news when Sheriff Lawrence King was accused of hiring two black men to murder his deputy, William L. Kelly. King had reportedly been sleeping with his deputy’s wife. When all three defendants were charged with murder, former Mississippi governor James P. Coleman stepped forward to represent the white defendant. All three defendants received life sentences and eventually died in Parchman prison.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Although Montgomery County is 45% black, not a single African American was registered to vote in 1963. The civil rights movement arrived in the county in June of that year, when Fannie Lou Hamer, Annell Ponder and several other black women were refused service at the white restaurant at the Winona bus station. Arrested by Sheriff Earl Wayne Patridge, his deputies, and a state trooper, the four women were beaten and sexually humiliated at the county jail. Fannie Lou Hamer was pummeled with a blackjack wielded by two black inmates who had been threatened with additional charges if they didn’t cooperate and rewarded with corn whiskey when they did.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">When Fannie Lou Hamer was finally released from the Montgomery County Jail she had to be hospitalized for a full month and never fully recovered. A year later, Hamer related the story of her brutal encounter with Montgomery County law enforcement before the credentials committee at the 1964 Democratic Conviction in Atlantic City. Her testimony aired on all three national television stations and sparked outrage.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">The men responsible for torturing Fannie Lou Hamer and her friends had to be tried in federal court when every prosecutor in the State of Mississippi refused to seek an indictment. After a cursory federal trial in which the judge referred to the victims as socialist agitators and praised the defendants as upstanding public servants, a jury returned not guilty verdicts.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">But isn’t there a statute of limitations on stigma? With the dawning of the 21</span></span></span><sup style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 0px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">st</span></span></span></sup><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">century, hadn’t Montgomery County outlived its reputation for racial injustice?</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">So it appeared. Then a federal census revealed that African Americans comprised over 50% of the voting population of the Montgomery County town of Kilmichael. The political grapevine suggested that a strong black candidate was running for mayor and at least three black candidates were eyeing seats on the city council. The white mayor and all-white council resolved the problem by cancelling the 2001 election.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Kilmichael’s cancelled election was vetoed by the Department of Justice. Five years later, when the Voting Rights Act of 1965 came up for ratification, Senator Ted Kennedy used Kilmichael’s election-that-wasn’t to argue that Mississippi still needed federal elections oversight.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In 1996 and 1997, Curtis Flowers was convicted of murder by juries in Tupelo and Gulfport, but the convictions were vacated by the Mississippi Supreme Court because of blatant prosecutorial misconduct.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In 2004, Flowers went to trial before an all-white jury at the Montgomery County courthouse in Winona. The conviction was overturned when the Supreme Court ruled that prosecutor Doug Evans had removed blacks from the jury for reasons that were not race-neutral.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In 2007, at the conclusion of Curtis Flowers’ fourth trial, a jury of five blacks and seven whites retired to deliberate. All seven white jurors voted to convict; all five black jurors voted to acquit.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">There were three black and nine white jurors when Curtis Flowers went to trial for the fifth time in September of 2008. According to post-trial interviews, two of the black jurors were willing to vote guilty if the white jurors settled for a life sentence. Convinced that Flowers was innocent, a retired school teacher named James Bibbs hung the jury.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">At the conclusion of the fifth trial, Judge Joseph Loper had two requests for District Attorney Doug Evans: he wanted James Bibbs tried for perjury and he wanted the Mississippi legislature to pass a law allowing Doug Evans to choose a jury from an expanded seven-county judicial district.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">In the spring of 2009, Senator Lydia Chassaniol successfully guided this bill through the Mississippi Senate, but the House bill, sponsored by Representative Bobby Howell of Kilmichael, was essentially vetoed by the black chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. </span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">As DA Doug Evans prepared to take Flowers to trial for an unprecedented sixth time, Montgomery County danced back into the media spotlight. State Senator Lydia Chassaniol gave a spirited pep talk to 2009 annual conference of the radically racist Council of Conservative Citizens, (the successor to the White Citizen’s Councils). Chassaniol admitted that she belonged to the CCC but didn’t see why that made her a racist. She appeared to be sincere.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Representative Bobby Howell, the Montgomery County Republican who carried the “Flowers Bill” in the state house, is one of the Council of Conservative Citizen’s best friends in the Mississippi Legislature.</span></span></span></p><p style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 18px; margin-left: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-right: 24px; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-left: 0px; line-height: 1.4em; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color:#000000;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family:georgia;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: small;">Is an innocent man being framed in Montgomery County Mississippi; or has the strength of the prosecution’s case rendered history irrelevant?</span></span></span></p></span></div>The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-15691130491942259192009-09-10T07:44:00.000-07:002009-09-10T08:09:45.634-07:00A piece by Tour Speaker Alan Bean on the case of Curtis Flowers.http://friendsofjustice.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/a-brief-primer-in-wrongful-conviction-the-case-of-curtis-flowers/<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; ">A brief primer in wrongful conviction: the case of Curtis Flowers</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; ">Why are we so convinced that Curtis Flowers is innocent? Two reasons: the state’s theory of the crime doesn’t fit the actual evidence, and the state manufactured phoney evidence by manipulating, badgering and bribing witnesses</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><i><br /></i></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">All are agreed that the gun that ended the lives of Bertha Tardy, Carmen Rigby, Bobo Stewart and Robert Golden was stolen from the car of Doyle Simpson while he worked at Winona’s Angelica garment factory. Simpson made two visits to his car on the morning of the crime and reported that his gun had been stolen from a locked glove compartment shortly before the crime was committed. Catherine Snow, one of Simpson’s co-workers, claims she saw Curtis Flowers leaning against Simpson’s car at 7:30 that morning.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Prosecutors argue that Curtis Flowers murdered Bertha Tardy because she had docked $82 from his pay to cover the cost of damaged lawn mower batteries. Flowers worked at the furniture store for three days just prior to the July 4th weekend in 1996. When Curtis didn’t return to work after the holiday and when he eventually contacted Ms. Tardy he was informed that he had been replaced. Prosecutor Doug Evans claims this provided Flowers with a sufficient motive for the most vicious murder in Winona history.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Finally, Curtis Flowers can’t provide an iron clad alibi for the morning of the murder. He maintains that, apart from a brief visit to his sister’s home, he spent most of the fateful morning alone at home.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">This sounds like a weak circumstantial case until you start asking hard questions. Then it falls apart altogether.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Everyone agrees that Bertha Tardy was the killer’s primary target and that the other three victims were murdered in an attempt to eliminate witnesses. All four victims were killed execution style with a bullet to the back of the head fired at relatively short range. Three of the victims were found lying side-by-side.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">If Ms. Tardy was killed first, how could a single gunman keep the witnesses from fleeing? The evidence suggests the work of two gunmen: a single shooter and an accomplice.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">The murders were methodical and horribly efficient: three of the victims died from a single shot. The Tardy murders (as they are now called) were not the fruit of blind rage. For practical and psychological reasons, only an experienced professional with a callous disregard for human life could pull off a crime like this, and no one in Winona (certainly not Curtis Flowers) fits that profile.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">No employer-employee disagreement in Winona history ever spiraled into murder; what made July 16th, 1996 any different? If Curtis Flowers entered the store engulfed in homicidal rage how could he work with such frightful efficiency?</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">There is general agreement that the murder weapon was stolen from Doyle Simpson’s glove compartment. But the state has never been able to explain how Curtis Flowers could have known there was a gun in his uncle’s locked glove compartment unless Doyle told him? Simpson usually kept the gun at his mother’s home.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Questioned the day of the murder, Catherine Snow reported seeing a stranger leaning against Doyle’s car two hours before the likely time of the Tardy murders. Once it was common knowledge in the community that Flowers was the prime suspect, Ms. Snow was suddenly able to put a face to the man by the car. This is particularly odd considering that Snow knew Curtis Flowers from having seen him singing with a gospel group at her church.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">No one could have known there was a gun in Doyle Simpson’s glove compartment unless Doyle himself told them were to look. A local gun points to a local killer, and an experienced killer from outside Winona would have valued such a weapon. A streetwise hustler with addiction issues, Doyle Simpson had friends in low places.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Why then did a test reveal a single micron of gun powder residue on the defendant’s right thumb? Gun powder residue is ubiquitous in police cars and police stations and Flowers had been in both environments immediately prior to the test. Doyle Simpson was interviewed as soon as Flowers left the building but neither he nor any other suspect was tested for gunpowder residue. This suggests that investigators had marked Flowers as the killer three hours after the crime and were studiously ignoring evidence pointing in any other direction.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">A single micron of residue is the tiniest fragment that exists in nature. If Flowers had washed his hands before the interview no residue could have survived—the stuff is that ephemeral. But if Flowers was the killer, his entire body would have been bathed in residue. A single micron of residue suggests the kind of incidental contact that is inevitable in a police car or a police station.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">The police have a bloody footprint at the crime scene, but no bloody shoe. They recovered a shoebox full of Christmas ribbons from a girlfriend’s closet. Like the footprint, the box was for size 10.5 shoe, America’s most popular men’s shoe size. There would have been nothing remarkable about Curtis Flowers owning a pair of Grant Hill Fila running shoes, of course; they were the hottest selling shoe in the nation at the time. But his girlfriend, Connie Moore, insists she bought the shoes for an adolescent son and the son has confirmed her story.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Speculation on the subject of Grant Hill sneakers is of academic interest. The footprint discovered at the Tardy Furniture store wasn’t left by the killers. The state suggests that approximately $300 was taken from the cash register near where three of the bodies were discovered. If so, one of the victims was probably forced to hand over the money before being killed. The killers didn’t step in the blood because, while they were at the scene of the crime, there was little blood to step in.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Sam Jones, an elderly black gentleman who occasionally helped out at Tardy Furniture, was the first person to arrive at the crime scene. Sam is now dead, but at the first trial he testified that he saw no trail of bloody footprints when he first observed the crime scene—and he was in the building between five and eight minutes. Jones then hurried off to a hardware store where he called 911 and waited for a police car to arrive at the scene.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Porky Collins testified at two trials prior to his death. Collins had a Wal-Mart receipt showing that he left the store at 9:43, about the same time Sam Jones arrived at Tardy’s Furniture. Collins then drove three miles to a mechanics shop, made a brief stop at home, then drove by Tardy’s Furniture on his way to the cleaners. By this time, Sam Jones had left the furniture store and was still waiting for the police to arrive.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">As Collins passed Tardy’s he saw two black men engaged in a passionate argument. One man had his hands on the hood of a brown car; the other was standing beside the car making dramatic hand gestures. Collins only got the brief glimpse of one man’s eyes as he passed.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Concerned by what he had seen, Porky Collins made the block and when he returned to the scene the two men were crossing the street on foot. Collins testified that he didn’t know where the men went next.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">For the most part, Porky Collins makes a convincing witness. Any mistakes he made can be laid at the feet of law enforcement. Although he shared his story with the police on the day of the crime, Collins wasn’t shown a photo array for five weeks. He was showing an interest in one of first six pictures he was shown when an officer asked, “Do you know Doyle Simpson?” This comment cued Collins that he had the wrong man. Shown a second array of pictures, Collins’ finger wandered to a photo where the person’s head was much bigger than the heads in the other pictures. “Do you know Curtis Flowers?” an officer asked. This told Collins he had the right man. By August 24th it was common knowledge in Winona that Flowers was the state’s prime suspect.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Although Collins’ identification of Flowers can’t be taken seriously, the central thrust of his testimony should be taken seriously. Collins saw two men arguing in front of Tardy’s just after Sam Jones had left the building. If either man was involved in the crime it is unlikely that they would be ostentatiously drawing attention to themselves. It is more likely that they arrived at Tardy’s Furniture store just after Sam Jones disappeared into the hardware store. The lights inside Tardy’s were on, the door was unlocked, and Jones’ truck was parked on the street outside—the store appeared open for business. If the two men wandered inside they could easily have stepped in the steadily-growing pool of blood on the floor.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">The fact that Sam Jones saw no blood track when he first entered the store and that he and Police Chief Johnny Hargrove immediately spied bloody footprints shortly after 10:21 makes this scenario probable.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">This explains the dispute Collins witnessed. One man, believing they were the first to encounter a crime scene, wanted to file a report with the police. The second man protested that a black man with the slightest connection to the scene would immediately become a suspect. This argument prevailed and the two men left the scene.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">This reconstruction is hypothetical, of course, but it is the only scenario that fits all the known facts. The state’s theory, by comparison, can’t account for any of the facts I have noted.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Prosecutor Doug Evans has a love-hate relationship with Porky Collins’ testimony. With considerable coaching from law enforcement, Collins placed Curtis Flowers at the scene of the crime even though the events he witnessed transpired at least half an hour (and as much as an hour) after the killings took place and involved a second person the state can’t account for.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">As an ex-employee, Curtis Flowers knew that Tardy Furniture has a back entrance. If he were the murderer he certainly wouldn’t have made a spectacle of himself at the murder scene.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">There has never been any room in the state’s theory of the crime for an accomplice. The state has an impressive stable of eyewitnesses, but they all report seeing Curtis Flowers walking alone.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Although Sam Jones, Porky Collins and Catherine Snow talked to the police the day of the murder, none of the other witnesses didn’t recall seeing Curtis Flowers on the morning of the murder until a $30,000 reward appeared on the black side of town.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Few of the states witnesses came forward voluntarily even then. I have interviewed several people who were picked up by police officers, taken to police stations in Winona or nearby Greenwood and enticed with the $30,000 reward. They were also threatened with dire legal consequences if they refused to cooperate with the investigation. This carrot and stick approach, applied over the six-month period between Flowers initial interview and his arrest in early 1997, produced a string of “weak-minded black folk” (as one local pastor described them) who can’t get their story straight.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Curtis Flowers walked to work at Tardy’s on three occasions two weeks before the crime and some or all of the witnesses may have seen him pass on his way to work. But could they remember, weeks and even months later, that they had seen Curtis on the morning of the Tardy murders?</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">This explains why the physical descriptions presented by the various witnesses fail to overlap at a single point. Memory is fragile of course, and we should expect some discrepancies in testimony. But when one witness has Curtis wearing blue jeans and a T-shirt, the next has him in dress clothes, and a third has him decked out in a jogging outfit the state has a problem. Either these folks are describing actual sightings that took place on different days or they are lying. The evidence suggests we are dealing with a bit of both.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Mary Fleming, the woman who says she saw Curtis walking in the direction of Tardy’s, gave her statement seven months after the crime. Her Curtis was wearing a gray jacket, white shirt and brown pants. Mary Fleming is the aunt of Clemmie Fleming, a young woman who claims she saw Curtis Flowers running away from Tardy furniture on the morning of the crime. Clemmie has admitted to friends and family members (one of whom has an audio tape) that her testimony is a complete fabrication. The elderly man who was driving Clemmie around town that morning grudgingly corroborated her story at the first trial. But he surprised the state at the second trial by telling the jury he had been bullied into false testimony at the first trial and wanted to set the record straight. In his amended testimony he saw a man (who looked nothing like Curtis Flowers) running before picking Clemmie up at her home and never drove by Tardy’s.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">And then there is Patricia Hallmon Sullivan, the woman who says she saw Curtis Flowers leaving his home at 7:30 the morning of July 16th. Ms. Sullivan’s brother, Odell Hallmon, says he talked Patricia into concocting a Curtis Flowers story so they could split the $30,000 reward. Odell Hallmon put this admission in letter to Lola Flowers (the mother of the defendant) and defense attorney Andre de Gruy—two people who had nothing to give him in exchange. Then, realizing how unwise it is for prisoners doing hard labor at the notorious Parchman prison plantation to get on the wrong side of the prosecution, Hallmon changed his story. He only wrote the letters, he now says, because Curtis Flowers promised to supply him with free cigarettes. What kind of prosecutor would use the testimony of a witness who had publicly surrendered the last shred of credibility?</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">A prosecutor who is rapidly running out of options.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">At the first trial, the state produced two jailhouse snitches who testified that they had heard Curtis Flowers confess to the Tardy murders. These witnesses didn’t appear at subsequent trials. Since Doug Evans uses dubious witnesses like Odell Hallmon, the disappearance of the jailhouse snitches remains a mystery.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Under enormous pressure to produce an indictment, Doug Evans and investigator John Johnson latched onto the first suspect who lacked an airtight alibi. Unable to build a solid case against this man, Evans and Johnson used threats, bribes and flagrant manipulation to shape testimony around Flowers. The Winona newspaper reveals that Evans and Johnson were the targets of harsh criticism when Curtis Flowers was finally arrested in early 1997.</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">A dispassionate review of the available evidence suggests the following conclusions:</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">• Bertha Tardy was the victim of a professional hit</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">• Two assailants were involved</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">• Neither man was from Winona</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">• Doyle Simpson made his gun available to the killers</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">• Simpson knows who took his gun but may not know the identity of the killers</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">• The bloody footprint wasn’t left by the killers</span></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size:100%;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 19px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 13px; font-style: italic; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal; ">Therefore, the state of Mississippi should release Curtis Flowers to the free world and appoint an independent investigator to conduct a fresh and unbiased investigation.</span></span></span></div>The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1174607128495709539.post-87930983289027980612009-08-17T13:05:00.001-07:002009-08-17T13:26:08.692-07:00Really excited for this year's Tour!Hi Folks,<div><br /></div><div>The Campaign to End the Death Penalty hosts a National Speaking Tour every year. Last year's tour was called Live From Death Row and went all over the country. Many different prisoners called in and spoke via live speakerphone, including Mumia Abu-Jamal from Pennsylvania, Stanley Howard from Illinois, and Kevin Cooper from California (to name just a few).</div><div><br /></div><div>The Tour stops were held in a variety of places, at schools like Howard University and the University of Texas, at progressive conferences like Critical Resistance, and in communities nationwide. Many of these places did not have a CEDP, and worked with our national tour organizer to build and promote these events within their communities.</div><div><br /></div><div>We hope to match that success with our tour events this year. The tour this year is designed for folks to get an in-depth look at the effects of racism historically in the US, and the impact racism has currently on our criminal "injustice" system. With the election of Barack Obama comes a new opportunity to discuss the continuing impact of systemic racist ideas and policies in America. </div><div><br /></div><div>We'd like these events to be a place where folks can come and hear an amazing array of speakers with a wide diversity of experiences and expertise. From discussions of historical movements against slavery, lynching, and jim crow laws, to ideas for challenging racism today, the Anti-Lynching Tour is a key event for anti-racist activists to attend in the coming months.</div><div><br /></div><div>This blog will include reports from Tour Stops all over as well as news reports on the events (and whatever else we think of). We hope the blog can help people all over feel part of a bigger project and give inspiration to those who are organizing or would like to organize one of these events!</div>The Campaign to End the Death Penaltyhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15791303390851005029noreply@blogger.com0