Monday, November 02, 2015

Petition to Attorney General Loretta Lynch: Rev. Pinkney Needs Justice! Jailed For Defending Democracy And Challenging Corporate Power

From Justice4Pinkney.com, please click to sign this new petition!

"We the signers of this petition call for the immediate release and dropping of all charges against Rev. Edward Pinkney.  Rev. Pinkney, has been unjustly convicted and sentenced  to 2.5 - 10 years on trumped up charges of changing dates on a mayoral recall petition.  Rev. Pinkney needs to be freed from a Michigan prison because he has been and continues to be denied justice, like so many other Americans who have become irritants in the eyes of those in power, even though they have broken no laws:

• Justice is denied when phony, trumped-up charges of recall petition fraud are filed against a 67-year-old community activist in an attempt to silence him.

• Justice is denied when a jury convicts without a shred of evidence.

• Justice is denied when a jury ignores the testimony of eyewitnesses that someone else committed the crime without Rev. Pinkney’s knowledge.

• Justice is denied when evidence that a juror lied to get on the jury is ignored.

• Justice is denied when a crime defined by the law as a misdemeanor is prosecuted as a felony to guarantee draconian punishment.

• Justice is denied when a jury violates the required minimum standards of evidence laid out in the Michigan Constitution.

• Justice is denied when an all-white jury is chosen to try a prominent black community leader of an embattled, impoverished city with a 90% black population. This is not a jury of his peers.

• Justice is denied when timely consideration of appeals is delayed.

• Justice is denied when this is the second time Michigan authorities have illegally imprisoned Rev. Pinkney. In 2008 an illegal conviction was overturned on appeal after a year of illegal imprisonment.

• Justice is denied when Rev. Pinkney is the victim of official harasment because he has been leading a 20-year fight to keep the Whirlpool Corp. from gentrifying Benton Harbor, from turning an economically devastated poor community into a private playground for the wealthy.

• Justice is denied as Corporations expand their control over our democracy and threaten all our freedoms.

• Justice will continue to be denied to innocent persons out-of-favor with the power structure as long as they can get away with persecuting innocent, law-abiding, upstanding community activists like Rev. Edward Pinkney."