B A N C O: BANCO

Showing posts with label BANCO. Show all posts

Monday, April 13, 2009

Berrien County Judge Butzbaugh Steals from Benton Harbor Residents, Part I by Dorothy Pinkney

The story starts with my husband, Rev. Edward Pinkney, attempting to stop forty years of corruption in the Berrien County, Michigan courthouse from 2000 to 2007. His court observation was even recognized by the court during a hearing. He was in every courtroom monitoring the proceedings more than 1800 times during those seven years. The Black Autonomy Network Community Organization(BANCO) picketed the courthouse every Tuesday for six years. Berrien County sends the highest number of people to prison per capita - more than any other county in the US. My husband wanted to find out why.

What makes the fight difficult and courageous is that the Goliaths we in Berrien
are facing are Whirlpool Corporation, U.S.Rep Fred Upton (who hates blacks), Mich.
Gov. Jennifer Granholm, former Pres. Bush, and the 500 million dollar Harbor Shores developers.

My husband will fight these manipulators on whatever level he can. As an activist
he is tireless, as a speaker he is inspirational, as a man he is honorable. He has mastered the art of tough love in his dealings at the courthouse and has a smile and a joke for everyone. He tolerates the countless impositions on his time and health including intimidation and numerous attacks by police, numerous hearings, two lengthy trials, and recently, a hellish year in prison. He was sent to prison for quoting the bible - the very first pastor to be sent to prison for quoting the bible in the history of the United States.

We may be heavily out-gunned and out-maneuvered by the Whirlpool Corporation and
overlords, but as my husband says, we have just begun to fight. After his March 2006 trial he learned something about the presiding judge, Alfred Butzbaugh: his law firm, his partners, and a trust of which he is a beneficiary have been deeply involved in the promotion of Harbor Shores and other development projects in and around the
city of Benton Harbor which my husband and others opposed - leading to the recall election of a corrupt city commissioner. When the corrupt commissioner lost the election, Judge Paul Maloney set aside the election without enough votes to do so when the underlying criminal charges were brought against my husband. Maloney and Butzbaugh are two of the most corrupt judges in the history of the US. Allow me to offer you proof, in this case, concerning Butzbaugh.

My husband was denied due process and the right under state law to an impartial decision maker because the trial judge, Alfred Butzbaugh, had a financial interest in the development of Harbor Shores. This huge development project is what motivated my husband to seek the recall of the corrupt Benton Harbor city commissioner Glen Yarbrough.

The trial court financial interest in the Harbor Shores project was not known to my husband until after the trial. The Harbor Shores project which has been primarily pressed by Cornerstone Alliance on behalf of Whirlpool Corporation began in 1988 when the community economic development corporation was formed by John Dewane of the law firm Butzbaugh and Ryan. (yes, that's Judge Butzbaugh)

-To Be Continued-

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Future Hope column, April 11, 2009

Rev. Wright and Rev. Pinkney By Ted Glick

On this Easter weekend, it is appropriate to write about Rev. Jeremiah Wright and Rev. Edward Pinkney, two African American ministers in the upper Midwest who have made a good faith effort to live their lives as Jesus of Nazareth lived his, and who have suffered for it as a result.

Rev. Wright, of course, is much more well known. He was Barack Obama’s minister for 20 years at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. In his book, “Dreams From My Father,” Obama describes the personal impact of attending a Sunday morning church service in the mid-80’s presided over by Rev. Wright:

“I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion’s den, Ezekiel’s field of dry bones. Those stories—of survival, and freedom, and hope—become our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black. . . I felt for the first time how that spirit carried within it, nascent, incomplete, the possibility of moving beyond our narrow dreams.”

Last year, however, right around this time, Barack and Michelle Obama decided that they would leave this church that, unquestionably, had been a major influence on their lives. They did so, it is very clear, because they felt that there was no chance Barack would ever become President if he didn’t. The corporate and right-wing media had distorted comments made years before by Rev. Wright, and the media frenzy forced Obama into choosing between his Presidential ambitions and loyalty to a man who had been a friend, a mentor, an inspiration and more.

Wright understood what was going on. He said at the time, “I do what pastors do. He does what politicians do. I am not running for office.” He also said, presciently, referring to Obama, “November 5th, I’m coming after you, because you’ll be representing a government whose policies grind under people.”

He hasn’t changed those views. In an Associated Press interview on March 5th, 2009, Wright was quoted as saying in Selma, Alabama, that “he’s like any other president. He’s a politician and he’s got to do what politicians do.” During a speech that day in Selma, he is quoted as saying, “Barack’s name ain’t Jesus. There are things we’ve got to do on our own.”

To his credit, Rev. Wright seems to have handled well the tremendously negative, essentially racist attacks on his character and credibility. He retired last year as minister of Trinity church, but he has been traveling the country speaking, letting people see and hear for themselves. He continues his life of prophetic witness on behalf of the least of these, the victims of imperialism, a word he doesn’t hesitate to use, in opposition to oppressors and on behalf of the oppressed.

So has Rev. Edward Pinkney of Benton Harbor, Michigan, doing so effectively, and as a result he has been under indictment, under house arrest, in prison, and/or fighting ridiculous charges for over three years.

Benton Harbor is a town of about 11,000 people on the southwestern side of Michigan , 90% black and overwhelmingly poor. It burst onto the national scene in 2003 when its young people rose up in response to a series of local police killings and beatings.

Rev. Pinkney and a local community organization, BANCO, have been involved for years working to change the conditions of life for Benton Harbor’s residents. In 2005 he helped lead a successful recall election of a notoriously racist and abusive city commissioner. The local white-dominated power structure had that result overturned and then went after Rev. Pinkney with false charges of paying people to vote the right way. They failed to gain a conviction in their first trial in 2006, so in their second trial they made sure that there were no blacks on the jury, and in March of 2007 an all-white jury convicted him. He was sentenced to one year in prison and five years on probation. From May to December of that year he was kept under house arrest on an electronically monitored tether.

In December of 2007 Rev. Pinkney wrote an article in the People’s Tribune newspaper in which he quoted a part of the Bible in reference to the judge, Berrien County Chief Judge Alfred Butzbaugh, who had presided over Pinkney’s trial. The Bible quotation said, in part, “The Lord shall smite thee with consumption and with a fever and with an inflammation and with extreme burning.”

For writing this article, Butzbaugh revoked Pinkney’s probation and sent him to jail, and in June of 2008 another Berrien County judge added a three to ten year sentence for Pinkney’s literary “crime.”

After a year in jail, and after his case was taken up by the American Civil Liberties Union, he was released on bail just before Christmas, 2008, once again confined under house arrest. Just recently, a June 9th date was set for a hearing on his case before the Michigan Court of Appeals in Grand Rapids.

Just prior to that hearing, ex-President George Bush will make what may be his first domestic post-presidency speech to the Economic Development Club of Southwestern Michigan in Benton Harbor on May 28th. The primary corporation of this “club” is the Whirlpool Corporation, headquartered in the Benton Harbor area and a major force behind plans to build a private golf course in the city’s lakefront park. In the words of The Michigan Messenger, “Last year, after heavy lobbying from local Republican congressman Fred Upton, the National Park Service approved a plan to swap public lakefront and dune property for a series of inland parcels that are contaminated with industrial waste. In an ongoing federal suit locals are suing to reverse federal and state approval of the project.”

Rev. Pinkney is not keeping quiet about this land grab. He and BANCO are calling for a world-wide boycott of Whirlpool. In a letter sent out recently, he explains:

“We must stop Whirlpool, Rep. Upton, and Harbor Shores developers. We are calling for an International Boycott of all Whirlpool Products to begin May 1, and all stores which sell Whirlpool products.

“We appreciate any effort you can make to spread the word: BOYCOTT WHIRLPOOL AND ALL SUBSIDIARIES, MAY DAY, 2009”

On this weekend when hundreds of millions of people worldwide celebrate the continued inspiration of a man who, 2,000 years ago, threw the corrupt money-changers out of the Jerusalem temple, we would do well to remember and appreciate our present-day prophets, people like Reverends Wright and Pinkney.

More information on the boycott and the Benton Harbor struggle can be found at http://www.bhbanco.org. Rev. Pinkney can be contacted directly at 269-925-0001 or banco9342@sbcglobal.net.

Ted Glick has been a progressive social change organizer since 1968. More information and past writings can be found at http://www.tedglick.com.

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Herald Palladium WATCH/Berrien County Court WATCH
One woman propaganda machine: Wendy-Dant Chesser, Herald Palladium board, Cornerstone Alliance President, Harbor Shores Trustee, Alliance for World-Class Communities officer, self-appointed BH commissioner. (H-P sold in 2000 to Paxton Media Group, Paducah, Ky. Whirlpool VP Jeff Noel from Ky.)

Herald Palladium WATCH/Berrien County Court WATCH
[One woman propaganda machine: Wendy-Dant Chesser - Herald Palladium board,
Cornerstone Alliance President, Harbor Shores Trustee, Alliance for World-Class
Communities officer, self-appointed Benton Harbor commissioner.
(H-P sold in 2000 to Paxton Media Group, Paducah, Ky; Whirlpool VP Jeff Noel from Ky.)]

Below is a typical HP article on police/court activity in Benton Harbor. If you
regularly read bhbanco.org, you will have noticed the HP's use of hot button terms
(raid, drug trafficking, intent to deliver, drug house, two week investigations...) and the seriousness in reporting stories so small that most papers wouldn't bother. $200 worth of pot is tiny - less than a quarter of a cup. The cops ALWAYS take whatever money is lying around. BANCO gets reports about the disrespect with which residents are treated.

There is virtually no crime in BH except these supposed drug related activities.
Why would anyone behave in such a way as to attract ultra-scary cops into their homes?
(After this post, we may read of a new crime...) It's becoming clear that all "drug" stories could be the result of police drug planting. Also clear is that the style of reporting is designed to scare people literally out of town. Cop/sheriff quotas seem to be 2-3 BH drug arrests per week. If people aren't scared out of town, they'll be incarcerated through drug planting. There can be no barriers to building Whirlpool's Harbor Shores resort for the white and wealthy. These constant fear-instilling HP articles are published to make BH look like a town full of criminals. With this propaganda in place, the media can justify law enforcement action as good, and nobody will look back after HS is built. Those black "criminals" simply HAD to go!

There is a Berrien County group who collude in life-wrecking: Whirlpool execs., judges,prosecutors, defense attys., media, county admin., etc. They would do well to remember: Newton's Third Law - "For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." "There is no religion without love, and people may talk as much as they like about their religion, but if it does not teach them to be good and kind to other
humans, it is all a sham." -Anna Sewell, writer (1820-1878) "This country will
not be a permanently good place for any of us to live in unless we make it a
reasonably good place for all of us to live in." -Theodore Roosevelt, 26th US
President (1858-1919) "What we are doing to the forests of the world is but
a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another."
-Mohandas Gandhi (1869-1948)

It is a mystery how those in collusion can be so inhumanly cruel. This may become one
of America's most well-known tragedies. It is a complex, multi-level story which could make movies like Erin Brokovich and The Insider look like minor incidences.
The backdrop of greed, of course, being ever present.

Two adults, teenager arrested in drug raids

By Julie Swidwa H-P 2/28/09

Two adults and a teenager were arrested after raids that resulted from investigations into suspected drug trafficking at houses in Benton Harbor and Coloma.
The Berrien County Sheriff's Department Narcotics Unit, along with county road patrol, went to ********* in Benton Harbor around 8:15 a.m. Friday and found $150 worth of suspected marijuana and other evidence of drug trafficking, according to a sheriff's department news release.
Police arrested ***************, 24, of the ********** Street address for investigation on charges of possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and maintaining a drug house, both second offenses. Under civil forfeiture law, police seized $92. A 31-year-old woman in the house at the time was not charged. Two juveniles were also in the house, police said. They were turned over to family members.
Later Friday, at 10:10 a.m., county narcotics officers and road patrolmen went to ********** in Coloma where they reported finding $200 worth of suspected marijuana, miscellaneous drug paraphernalia and other evidence of drug trafficking.
Police said they arrested ****************, 26, of the ******** Street address for investigation on charges of possession of marijuana and maintaining a drug house. Police also arrested a 16-year-old boy for investigation on charges of possession of marijuana with intent to deliver and maintaining a drug house.
He was released to the custody of his mother and will be petitioned into juvenile court. ****** was taken to the Berrien County Jail. In both cases, police said they acted on warrants that resulted from investigations lasting two weeks.

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Google "Berrien County Corruption"

If you do the above google search, you'll find thousands of entries. We've heard through the grapevine that there are people interested in writing books on the Berrien County "legal" system. Here are a few websites to get you started:

http://english.pravda.ru/mailbox/22/98/387/11188_justice.html

http://arrowofthelord.blogspot.com/

http://www.ripoffreport.com/reports/0/014/RipOff0014994.htm

http://www.chlorophyll.us/node/469

http://www.j12.org/ps/carter.htm

http://www.i2k.com/~freecaldwell/Documents/MDOC/mdoc.htm

Friday, January 30, 2009

Herald Palladium WATCH
One woman propaganda machine: Wendy-Dant Chesser, Herald Palladium board, Cornerstone Alliance President, Harbor Shores Trustee, Alliance for World-Class Communities officer. (H-P sold in 2000 to Paxton Media Group, Paducah, Ky. Whirlpool VP Jeff Noel from Ky.)

Herald Palladium reports what it wants, how it wants (or how Whirlpool wants)
- truth be damned. Always keep this in mind when reading this "paper."
Example: City Editor reports below that Rev. Pinkney is still in prison (he's been at home since 12/24)

Commentary in CAPS.

Berrien County, MI Cops Plant Drugs and Steal Cars, Money, Etc.

Collins cases could lead to string of lawsuits

Several (several?) arrested for drug crimes by ex-cop hope to have charges dismissed
By Jim Dalgleish - H-P City Editor (no less) Wed., Jan. 28, 2009
BENTON HARBOR - Marlon Sanders admits to satisfaction in knowing that former policeman Andrews Collins is likely headed to prison.

"I'd say what goes around comes around," said the 23-year-old Benton Harbor man, interviewed Tuesday at his father's house.

Sanders is one of 24 people whose drug convictions Berrien County Prosecutor Arthur Cotter said should not stand. Cotter, noting Collins' criminal behavior as a Benton Harbor Police Department narcotics officer, is seeking dismissals of the convictions.

However, Cotter's efforts are almost academic for Sanders, who completed a 16-month prison term last April for possession of narcotics less than 50 grams. BANCO AND BH RESIDENTS WOULD LIKE TO SEE SANDERS AND MANY, MANY OTHERS SUE BERRIEN COUNTY AND BHPD FOR 10 MILLION EACH]

"One of the things I'm mad about is I spent time in prison for no good reason," said the slender, softspoken Sanders. He said "scary" isn't a powerful enough word for prison life in Jackson. He can't get back the time spent in prison, but he said he would like redress. He said he wants to sue and is looking for a lawyer.

He said it's improbable that Collins' supervisors didn't know the young detective was skirting the rules. [CHIEF MINGO, AL COTTER, PETE MITCHELL, AND ON UP KNEW ALL ABOUT COLLIN'S AND OTHERS' ILLEGAL ACTIVITIES. THIS OF COURSE HAS NEVER BEEN REPORTED.]

He said it was known on the street that Collins was dirty. "People'd run if they saw Collins," he said.

Sanders said he filed a harassment complaint with the department against Collins in July 2006.
[CHIEF MINGO DID NOTHING] He said Collins had stopped him and searched him four times in previous weeks for walking through areas known for drug sales. [COLLINS AND OTHER COPS WHO DO THIS HAVE NO RIGHT]

Sanders said his arrest came the day after he filed the harassment complaint.
[THIS SAYS EVERYTHING ABOUT MINGO]

Deputy Chief Randel Pompey said he couldn't respond to Sanders' claims because all department records pertaining to Collins had been turned over the FBI.

Sanders was arrested along with Quacy Roberts as they walked along High Street on a hot July afternoon. Roberts and Sanders said in separate interviews that Collins was working with another city narcotics officer, who had to have known how Collins operated.

Roberts, 32, athletically built and more animated than Sanders, said the two officers during the course of the arrest and processing at the police department produced three rocks of crack cocaine no larger than rice kernels. Furthermore, Roberts said the officers used the state's civil forfeiture law to seize from him $1,500 in cash - which Roberts said his mother gave him so he could buy siding for her house.

But he said the civil forfeiture paperwork listed the take at $15. He said he wonders what happened to the other $1,485. [CRIME ROLLS ON IN THE BHPD. COPS HAVE BEEN STEALING MONEY FOR YEARS FROM BH RESIDENTS. NEVER REPORTED.]

The Benton Harbor Police Department, like many police departments, uses civil forfeiture seizures to supplement their budgets. [AGAIN, COPS STEALING MONEY AND, AS USUAL, GETTING ORDERS TO DO SO FROM ABOVE - WAAAY ABOVE]

Among the questions surrounding the reversed convictions is whether the city will have to reimburse those who lost cash, cars and other items - some of which were sold with the money supporting the department. [NOTHING WAS "LOST" - IT WAS STOLEN - AND SHOULD ALL BE RETURNED: CASH, CARS, AND OTHER ITEMS. FULL REPARATIONS ARE REQUIRED. H-P EDITOR SHOULD SUPPORT THIS.]

City Manager Richard Marsh said he is studying the question. [MARSH SHOULD BE FIRED]

Cotter is seeking to have Roberts' conviction for narcotics possession less than 25 grams dismissed. Like Sanders, Roberts had already served his time, one year in the Berrien County jail. He was released in November. He said he talked to one lawyer about suing the city.

Prosecutors offered him plea bargains after the arrest, but he said was certain he could beat the charge at trial because there was no physical evidence linking him to the drugs. [UNTIL COLLINS PLANTED THE DRUGS]

It didn't work out that way.

He said his jury was all white and unwilling to believe police officers were capable of concocting evidence. [AT LEAST THE TRUTH IS COMING OUT: POLICE & THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM ARE DISHONEST & OPERATE OUTSIDE OF THE LAW. HONEST REPORTING COULD HAVE CHANGED ALL OF THIS.]

Sanders said he accepted a plea deal, bucking advice from Edward Pinkney, the outspoken critic of Berrien County's court system who is now in prison for threats issued against a Berrien judge. (what?) [REV. EDWARD PINKNEY KNEW THAT COLLINS WAS PLANTING DRUGS ON PEOPLE AND HE SPOKE ABOUT IT SEVERAL TIMES AT CITY COMMISSION MTGS. NOTHING WAS EVER DONE. DEFENSE ATTY. BRIAN BERGER WAS WORKING WITH PROSECUTOR COTTER - PINKNEY SPOKE TO BERGER ABOUT 3 PLANTINGS ON A. GIBBS, C. MCKINNEY, Q. ROBERTS - BERGER AIDED AND ABETTED PROSECTOR COTTER TO GET THEM ALL CONVICTED. AGAIN, WHERE WERE THE OBJECTIVE REPORTS?]

"I was scared of what they would do to me if I took it to trial and I lost," Sanders said.
[ANYONE IN COURT IN BERRIEN HAS REASON TO BE SCARED. EVEN THE MEDIA WILL SUPPORT THEIR ARRESTS, CONVICTIONS, IMPRISONMENT.]

Word of Collins' ways had reached at least two defense lawyers. Scott Sanford, on the Berrien drug court roster of court-appointed lawyers, said Collins' arrest "didn't come as a shock to me and a lot of other defense attorneys. ... Where there's smoke, there is fire." [HE DID NOTHING MAKING HIM AS GUILTY AS COLLINS]

Sanford, based in St. Joseph, called the Collins situation "sickening because we have to rely on those police reports. And I'm sure the law enforcement community feels the same way."
[SANFORD HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO CORRECT THIS AND FAILED]

St. Joseph lawyer Brian Berger, also on that roster, said he heard of the problems.
[REV. PINKNEY TOLD BERGER POSSIBLY 20 TIMES THAT DRUGS WERE BEING PLANTED.]

"Defendants at times claimed there was some wrongdoing on Officer Collins' part, but that was never proven," he said.

Berger said prosecutors, judges, juries and even defense lawyers rely on police reports and testimony as the most reliable building blocks in criminal cases. [IN BERRIEN COUNTY, THEY DO NOT WANT PROOF - ONLY CONVICTIONS]

"I don't believe police officers up and down the line are lying," Berger said.
[NOT ONLY ARE THEY LYING, BUT SO IS BERGER, SINCE HE KNEW THE TRUTH]

"I think (Collins) is an isolated case. At least I hope it's an isolated case."
[COLLINS MAY BE ARRESTED, BUT DRUG PLANTING AND ALL THE REST GOES ON TODAY IN BERRIEN COUNTY - BERGER KNOWS ALL ABOUT IT AS DOES THE ENTIRE COURTHOUSE & THE MEDIA.]

Berrien County, MI legal system & law enforcement corrupt from top to bottom

Article with commentary in CAPS

Collins pleads guilty to drug trafficking

Former BHPD narcotics officer could serve up to 40 years for contraband frameups
By David Warfield H-P Wed., Jan. 28, 2009
GRAND RAPIDS - Former Benton Harbor Police officer Andrew Collins pleaded guilty Monday to one count of possession with intent to distribute more than 5 grams of crack cocaine, federal authorities announced Tuesday.

For the felony conviction, Collins faces a minimum sentence of five years in prison and a maximum 40 years and up to a $2 million fine.
[BANCO AND CITIZENS OF BH BELIEVE HE DESERVES 40 YEARS/20M]

Collins, 26, was indicted in December by a U.S. District Court grand jury in December.
[SHOULD HAVE BEEN INDICTED AT LEAST TWO YEARS SOONER]

The charge stemmed from a February 2008 police department investigation that turned up a large stash of drugs in Collins' police locker. [POLICE CHIEF MINGO'S LOCKER SHOULD BE CHECKED]

The drugs, including about nine grams of cocaine, some marijuana, and heroin, should have been recorded and stored as evidence, but Collins instead kept them for his own gain.

In his plea, Collins admitted to keeping drugs seized during arrests, then reporting false and fictitious purchases and using the drugs he held to improperly secure warrants and make arrests in other cases. [WE HOPE HE DECIDES TO BE HONEST TO STOP THE SUFFERING. TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT MINGO, PETE MITCHELL, BERNARD HALL, ART COTTER, AND ON AND ON]

Collins quit the Benton Harbor force Feb. 20, 2008 - two days after the drugs were found in his locker. Two days later Collins was convicted in the Berrien County Trial Court on an assault charge stemming from a bar fight in November 2007. He was later put on probation for the assault conviction.

Collins was free on bond before pleading guilty Monday to the drug charges. He is now back in custody and will be sent to a federal prison after sentencing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Brian Delaney said Tuesday. [AFTER 100'S OF FAMILIES HAVE BEEN RUINED BY DRUG PLANTING (FRAMING), BANCO HOPES HE GETS 40 YEARS]

In a press release, Delaney said the U.S. Attorney's office in Grand Rapids is working with authorities to "seek out and remedy" wrongful convictions resulting from Collins' misconduct.
[U.S. ATTYS. IN GR ARE FORCING BERRIEN COUTNY PROSECUTOR ART COTTER TO SEEK OUT AND REMEDY WRONGFUL CONVICTIONS]
In December, Berrien County Prosecutor Arthur Cotter asked courts to reverse convictions against 24 people convicted of drug charges based on evidence obtained by Collins.
[THERE SHOULD BE WELL OVER 100 REVERSED CONVICTIONS PROSECUTED BY COTTER BASED ON EVIDENCE OBTAINED BY COLLINS]
Cotter said last month he sought court orders to release those in prison for the offenses, and that he is seeking a retrial for two of the 24 improperly convicted. [COTTER NEEDS TO BE TRIED!]

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Preacher appeals conviction for criticizing Benton Harbor officials

Rev. Edward Pinkney, the 60-year-old a Baptist preacher from Benton Harbor who has been in jail for nearly a year for criticizing Berrien County officials in an article that ran in a Chicago newspaper, is appealing his three- to 10-year sentence with the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan.

Pinkney is a well known political figure in Benton Harbor, one of Michigan’s poorest and most racially segregated towns. He has been a prominent critic of the county’s criminal justice system and of efforts by the locally based Whirlpool corporation to build a golf course on the town’s lakefront park.

In May 2007 Pinkney was sentenced to a term of probation by Berrien County Chief Judge Alfred Butzbaugh following his conviction of election law violations in connection with a campaign to recall one of Benton Harbor’s most prominent politicians. Continue reading:
http://michiganmessenger.com/8567/preacher-appeals-conviction-for-criticizing-benton-harbor-officials-2

Rev. Pinkney Transferred to Jackson Prison

On Thursday, 11/20/07, Rev. Pinkney was moved from Ojibway Correctional Facility (CF) across the Michigan Upper Peninsula to Kinross CF. The following Tuesday, 11/25/08, he was moved again to Cooper Street CF in Jackson.

Rev. Pinkney has received much attention in recent weeks--at the frustration of prison officials--due to: media attention on his Green Party candidacy (BTW he received 3500 votes!), the recent press ban by prison authorities against interviews, the ACLU motion filing with the Michigan Court of Appeals, and the on-going clemency letter drive and online petition.

We're hopeful that this latest move to a facility closer to Benton Harbor means that he is on track for a decision by the courts. In the meantime, please continue to send letters for clemency to Gov. Granholm. According to Attorney Buck Davis, Rev. Pinkney's clemency petition has been transferred from the corrections dept committee to the Governor's office. She can decide whether or not to hold public hearings for clemency. Please push the Gov. Granholm to hold a hearing for Rev. Pinkney!

Please send your letters of clemency to:
Honorable Jennifer Granholm
Michigan Department of Corrections
Office of the Parole Board
Pardons and Commutations Coordinator
P.O. Box 30003
Lansing, Michigan, 48909
Include your name and address.

Read more about the ACLU Michigan motion and brief. Listen to Atty Davis, Mrs Pinkney, and BANCO member Belinda Brown speak about Rev. Pinkney and Benton Harbor on KPFK Pacifica Radio in SoCal.

(For the KPFK interview, go to show "Sojourner Truth with Margaret Prescod," Tuesday, 11/25/08. After the introduction, Davis begins at 5:30 min, Mrs. Pinkney at 22:00 min, and Brown at 38:30 min)

Friday, October 10, 2008

10 REASONS TO DONATE $10 TO BANCO'S LEGAL DEFENSE FUND

We still need 100 good people to donate $10 each to BANCO's Legal Defense Fund. In December 2014, Rev. Edward Pinkney was sentenced to prison in Michigan from a Berrien County Court that was judiciously biased in its verdict and extreme in its sentencing. Rev. Pinkney's attorney and the ACLU have filed an appeal on this decision. In the meantime, Rev. Pinkney and BANCO truly need local, national, and international support.

You can help rectify the injustices in Benton Harbor and, particularly, against BANCO leader Rev. Pinkney as they fight alongside local and statewide residents to promote economic and social justice in this community. Please make a contribution to the BANCO Legal Defense Fund so we can "Free Rev. Pinkney!"

Use the "Make a Donation" button on the BANCO homepage for PayPal, or mail your check or money order to:
BANCO, 1940 Union St, Benton Harbor, MI 49022

Your $10 will help:

1) Support the right of Benton Harbor citizens to take a stand against a corrupt political and judicial system;

2) Free Rev. Pinkney from Marquette Branch Prison as a political prisoner living in horrible conditions!;

3) Defend our friend and colleague Rev. Pinkney who was imprisoned after an unjust trial on trumped-up charges;

4) Fund the appeal to have Rev. Pinkney's erroneous conviction heard before a higher court;

5) Defend the right of Benton Harbor residents to speak out against injustice without intimidation and reprisals;

6) Stop the disenfranchisement of Benton Harbor voters (a valid recall election was overturned);

7) Support BANCO's fight against brutality and sexual harassment by police;

8) Improve the conditions in a community with 90% unemployment and under-employment (material aid is needed);

9) Challenge economic and racial apartheid in the U.S. today;

10) Spread the word as we join with others worldwide--like Danny Glover, Ed Asner, Howard Zinn, Rachel Maddow--calling for justice in Benton Harbor. Together we can make a difference!

Thank you!

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Library to Archive BANCO Papers

University of Michigan's Bentley Historical Library in Ann Arbor has initiated a new collection. The library will be permanently preserving all records, materials, articles, and papers of and relating to BANCO and Rev. Pinkney. These archives will be for the use of students, researchers, and historians. The ever increasing awareness of the human rights and environmental crises occurring in Berrien County is at least partially what is motivating this collection.

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Pinkney on video & prison visit report

Hear Rev. Pinkney speak in two videos (1-2 min. each) at this link:

http://terryhowcott.com/closeup.asp?cid=9&pid=1018&offset=50 (scroll down about halfway)

* A report from Pastor Wylie-Kellermann who visited Rev. Pinkney recently -

Friends:
I was camping with friends north of Alpena when I learned that Rev. Pinkney had been moved to Kincheloe in the UP, so made quick arrangements to visit him as a pastor last Saturday.
Edward's been up there now two weeks already. I was able to spend a couple hours with him. He seems in remarkably good spirits and utterly hopeful given what he's been through. He sent greetings and expressed gratitude for everything that people are doing on hs behalf and on behalf of the continuing struggle in Berrien County. Needless to say, he's eager to see the appeal move forward.
I was able to report on the meeting here in Detroit and some of the press that had been generated. Acknowledging the pall of fear that hangs over Benton Harbor, he urged organizing and media work in a larger circle around the state. We also talked some about strategies for getting the word out in the wider religious community.
He has a low security classification which would ordinarily make him eligible for movement to a camp (or even downstate I would think), but he had seen paperwork with sentencing designations from the judge which urged no special programs or privileges. He estimated that about thirty percent of the Hiawatha prison is African American, but he was the only black person in the visiting area when I was there - some indication of the geographical patterns at work. He has been able to talk regularly with his wife Dorothy.
I was really grateful for the time with him and all the providences involved.
I pass along his love and thanks and prayers.
Bill

Bill Wylie-Kellermann, Pastor, St. Peter's Episcopal Church - Detroit, 313-841-7554, 313-433-1967
http://stpeterscorktown.edomi.org/
http://www.thewitness.org/author.php?id=40
http://www.scupe.com

* *

Lawlessness - Hallmark of Whirlpool and Berrien County
Rev. Pinkney, political prisoner and whistleblower, worked 24/7 raising awareness about Whirlpool's takeover of Benton Harbor. The corporation needed to silence him, and their gratuitous cruelty is obvious in the report above (plus the fact that they felt the need to imprison him AND send him to the UP where friends and family would have the most difficult time visiting and his voice would be as distant as possible.) One man stirred up a lot of trouble for a multi-national corporation, and they felt the pressure, so he was banished under illegal and unconstitutional circumstances. This lawlessness is what Berrien County and Whirlpool will go down in history for. For the latest news on the takeover go to http://www.protectjkp.com/
and http://www.savejeanklockpark.org/NewsReports.html

* *

Please send letters or postcards supporting Rev. Pinkney's application to the Parole Board.
Text can be as simple as: "I support Rev. Pinkney's application for pardon."
Michigan Department of Corrections
Office of the Parole Board
Pardons and Commutations Coordinator
Post Office Box 30003
Lansing, Michigan 48909

Gov. Granholm, PO Box 30013, Lansing, MI 48909 517-373-3400

Checks to BANCO for Pinkney's legal fees (tax-deductible):
BANCO
1940 Union St.
Benton Harbor, MI 49022

BOYCOTT WHIRLPOOL & SUBSIDIARIES (Amana, Estate, Gladiator Garage Works, Insperience, Jenn-Air, KitchenAid, Magic Chef, Maytag, Roper, Acros, Inglis, Bauknecht, Brastemp, Admiral, IKEA appliances, some Kenmore)

Hiawatha Correctional Facility
Rev. Edward Pinkney #294671
4533 Industrial Park Dr.
Kincheloe, MI 49786-0001

Thursday, August 14, 2008

A "True Threat:" Rev. Pinkney and the Book of Deuteronomy

http://www.the-record.org/versiclearchives.html and in many other publications

Pastor Bill Wylie-Kellermann

Rev. Edward Pinkney, a Missionary Baptist assistant pastor in Benton Harbor, was sentenced June 26 in a Berrien County court to 3-10 years on a probation violation for quoting, in King James, several curses from the Book of Deuteronomy in an opinion piece for The People's Tribune. Judge Dennis Wiley ruled that it was a "true threat." Until then I had thought the bizarre event of the day was that I was at the hearing as an "expert witness" in Scripture.

Here's the background of the case: Benton Harbor these days is a black city (94% with 70% unemployment) while across the river, St Joseph, world headquarters to the Whirlpool Corp, is virtually all white. (See Alex Kotlowitz, The Other Side of the River for one account of the racial apartheid represented here). Several years ago a former CEO of Whirlpool began advocating for a major development ($500 million worth) of condominiums and golf course on the Benton Harbor side which would take the river and lake front, including the city's only public beach park. It was planned that the project would be separated from Benton Harbor and become part of an adjoining, largely white, township. Certain City Commissioners were facilitating the project.

Rev. Pinkney and his wife Dorothy had previously joined BANCO (Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizations) and been involved in Berrien County courtwatching, exposing publicly what they saw as racist and corrupt practices of the court - including measurable concerns about the racial composition of juries. Now they became lead activists and community voices against the project. Predicated on a police incident, they initiated a recall campaign against Glen Yarbrough, perhaps the most powerful politico in Benton Harbor. Using a strategy of grassroots organizing which employed substantial absentee balloting, the Pinkneys prevailed. Yarbrough was recalled by a margin of 54 votes.

Whereupon the county prosecutor's office launched an investigation into the absentee balloting and brought suit against the Clerk to invalidate the election. The City refused to provide her legal defense. Without physical evidence and largely on the testimony a young woman (a drug user and sex worker regularly in trouble) who was given immunity, a small number of absentee ballots were declared invalid. Although the number was far less that the 54 differential, the judge ordered a new election.

Meanwhile, based on the election case, warrants were brought against Pinkney not for tampering, but for "handling" absentee ballots and for buying votes (he had admittedly paid people $5 to pass out fliers, not uncommon). A racially mixed jury was hung on all charges. Mistrial. While he was under indictment and with substantial funding coming in under Yarborough, the election was reversed, though by only 40 votes, and he was reinstated.

Not content, the prosecutor brought the charges again, and this time Rev. Pinkney was convicted by an all-white jury. Judge Alfred Butzbaugh sentenced him to a year in jail and initially placed him on house arrest pending appeal. Conditions of his probation included being electronically tethered with strictures against participating in electoral politics or publishing material that demeans or defames public officials.

Which bring us to the People's Tribune article. Something of a rant, the article includes the following paragraph:

Judge Butzbaugh, it shall come to pass; if thou continue not to hearken unto the voice of the Lord thy God to observe to do all that is right; which I command thee this day, that all these Curses shall come upon you and your family, curses shalt be in the City of St. Joseph and Cursed shalt thou be in the field, cursed shall come upon you and your family and over take thee; cursed shall be the fruit of thy body. The Lord shall smite thee with consumption and with a fever and with an inflammation and with extreme burning. They the demons shall Pursue thee until thou persist.

On that basis Judge Butbaugh violated him on his probation and Pinkney had been in jail for more than six months awaiting this June 26 hearing.

The text in question is edited and adapted from Deuteronomy 28:15-22 (KJV). Which also brings us to my debut as an expert witness in Scripture - and a little bit here about the book of Deuteronomy on which I was asked under oath to comment. The book itself is cast as a long discourse by Moses delivered just before the people crossed over the Jordon into Canaan. The bulk of it is legislative material coming from the tribes of the northern kingdom. It is actually an interesting choice for curse citation, because in addition to a version of the Ten Commandments, and covering such matters as marriage and divorce and tithing and instruction for Passover celebration, it includes a number economic and political provisions worth noting. It is a body of law which defends and advocates for the poor.

Perhaps best known these days are the provisions of the Sabbatical Year in chapter15 which mandate every seven years, the release of debts so there be "no poor among you," and for setting free all slaves (since most were "indentured" debt-slaves, these were much the same thing), and with a stake of livestock and crops - not unlike the idea of "forty acres and a mule." Also included is the first "constitutional" limitation on royal power in history: chapter 17. Kings are not to multiply their horses (the military) nor wives, nor silver and gold. The king is to write out a copy of the law for himself to read it all the days of his life. This includes the provisions for gleaning - a remainder of wheat and olives and grapes left for the alien, the orphan, and the widow. "You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt; therefore I am commanding you to do this thing."

The whole of the book is framed as a covenantal document which is how the blessings and curses of chapters 27 and 28 come into play. They are the binding element, the curses that those who say Amen to the covenant call down upon themselves as the power of enforcement. Perhaps the most interesting thing in this regard is that the list of actions cursed, most of which are from the Ten Commandments, include one reserved for anyone who "moves a neighbor's boundary marker" (!) and another for the one who "deprives the alien, the orphan, and the widow, of justice." (27:17, 19)

Moreover, these chapters (from which Rev Pinkney has drawn) actually function as a convent renewal ceremony, in which the book is read aloud and the people voice their affirmation on perhaps an annual basis, so it is full of present tense urgency in which the people hear themselves named: I call upon you; this day; now; today.

Perhaps the most famous choice-putting comes from chapter 30:15-20:

"See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, and death and adversity;
in that I command you today to love the LORD your God, to walk in God's ways and to keep these commandments and statutes and judgments, that you may live and multiply, and that the LORD your God may bless you in the land where you are entering to possess it.I call heaven and earth to witness against you today, that I have set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants, by loving the LORD, by obeying God's voice, and by holding fast to God."

Of course the big question for the expert witness was: Are these to be carried out by human agency or divine? My response was twofold. One, Moses, who speaks, is dead and buried four chapters later and does not follow them into the Promised Land. He seems an unlikely enforcer. When the book of Deuteronomy is "rediscovered" during a rehabilitation of the temple in 622 BCE, the book is taken to the prophetess Hulda for authentification (2Kings 22: 15-20). She specifically speaks in the voice of the Lord:

'Tell the one who sent you to me, thus says the LORD, "Behold, I bring evil on this place and on its inhabitants, even all the words of the book which the king of Judah has read.. ."But to the king of Judah who sent you... "Regarding the words which you have heard, because your heart was tender and you humbled yourself before the LORD when you heard what I spoke against this place and against its inhabitants that they should become a desolation and a curse, and you have torn your clothes and wept before Me, I truly have heard you," declares the LORD.

My biblical scholarship did not, however, carry the day. For sentencing the room filled up with three kinds of cops. Rev. Pinkney had been in handcuffs the entire hearing. (That I suppose was the visible presumption of "threat.") After weighing through the legal arguments and case law citations which will come into play on the appeals, His Honor began what seemed to me the real demeaning and defaming of the day, calling Edward Pinkney a fraud who had denied people their right to vote, for whatever interest of his own - the right, Judge Wiley averred, for which so many in the civil rights movement had spent their lives. Indeed. On the biblical question, the Judge seemed to determine that Pinkney was using his reverendness to call on God for the enforcement, but in any event determined for the record that this was a "true threat."

I'm not aware of any past behavior on his part which would be the basis imagining a physical threat from Rev Pinkney. But it must truly be that he is threatening to their plans and project. A voice which has not yet been silenced. But 3 to 10 years for quoting Deuteronomy?

And I thought being an expert witness in Scripture at a probation hearing was bizarre.

Bill Wylie-Kellermann is a United Methodist pastor serving St Peter's Episcopal Church in Detroit. He is faculty for the Seminary Consortium for Urban Pastoral Education in Chicago and adjunct at Ecumenical Theological Seminary of Detroit. Contributions may be sent to the Rev. Edward Pinkney Defense Fund, 1940 Union Street, Benton Harbor, MI 49022; visit the BANCO website at www.bhbanco.blogspot.com ;an online petition may be found at http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/624471377

Bill Wylie-Kellermann
Pastor, St. Peter's Episcopal Church - Detroit
313-841-7554
313-433-1967
http://stpeterscorktown.edomi.org/
http://www.thewitness.org/author.php?id=40
http://www.scupe.com
http://www.wordandworld.org

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

PINKNEY IMPRISONED FOR QUOTING THE BIBLE

By Hugh “Buck” Davis

The campaign of the power structure in St. Joseph/Berrien County, Michigan against the poorest city in the state, Benton Harbor (94% black, 70% unemployed) and the leader of the resistance, the Reverend Edward Pinkney, took a dangerous and destructive turn on July 26, 2008, when Pinkney was found to be in violation of the terms of his probation for “threatening” the trial judge by paraphrasing Chapter 30 of Deuteronomy to the effect that God will punish those who persist in the path of injustice.

To recap, Reverend Pinkney proved in 2005 that you have a right to free speech until you start to make a difference. He successfully engineered the recall campaign of the corrupt political boss of Benton Harbor who was collaborating with the power structure (Whirlpool Corporation and the Cornerstone Alliance) to take some of the most valuable property owned by Benton Harbor and turn it into a luxury residential/resort/condominium/marina/Jack Nicklaus golf course, depriving the once proud industrial city of its “in perpetuity” park on Lake Michigan and other valuable riverfront property.

Immediately thereafter, the recalled supervisor and the county sheriff swept through the community, threatening absentee voters and their families in order to obtain evidence that the recall election was tainted by fraud and that Pinkney, the leader of the recall, bought votes. By threats and bribery, the authorities ultimately came up with a few vulnerable citizens (e.g.- drug addicts, prisoners, probationers, prostitutes, those with loved ones in jeopardy) to claim that Pinkney either paid a few people from a soup kitchen $5.00 to vote absentee ballots or that Pinkney improperly handled otherwise valid absentee ballots by delivering them from the voter to the city clerk. Interestingly, buying votes is a misdemeanor. But having possession of an absentee ballot without any criminal intent is a felony.

The prosecutor sued the Benton Harbor City Clerk to set aside the election and the City refused to defend its own clerk. The local judge, who sat on the election commission and had opposed the recall petition, ruled that the election was invalid because it seemed bad, even though the prosecutor could not show enough “fraudulent” ballots to change the results. That judge, the Honorable Paul Maloney, has since been appointed by Bush to the federal bench in the Western District of Michigan.

After the election was set aside, the prosecutor brought criminal charges against Pinkney, intimidating his supporters while the establishment put money into the new election and the recall was reversed.

In his first trial, Pinkney had two black jurors and got a mistrial. In his second trial, despite a jury challenge, Pinkney had an all white jury, which convicted him on all counts.

Prior to sentencing, Pinkney took a polygraph test which exonerated him on every single element of every charge against him, but the prosecutor refused to run an official polygraph, presumably because they already knew that they had framed an innocent man. The trial judge, Alfred Butzbaugh, former President of the Michigan State Bar and the most progressive judge on the bench, refused the prosecutor and probation department’s request to put Pinkney in prison, giving him a year in jail and leaving him out on tether during the post-trial proceedings.

That was May 2007. In December 2007, the probation department, which had been monitoring Pinkney minutely on his probation and tether, apparently expanded its interest in Pinkney’s political activities to reading a story that Pinkney wrote in the November 2007 issue of The People’s Tribune, a leftist paper published by the League of Revolutionaries for a New America, published in Chicago. In it, Pinkney, as he has for years, called the criminal justice system in Berrien County racist, corrupt and ignorant.

Without consulting Judge Butzbaugh, the probation department went to the allegedly worst racist on the Berrien County Bench (Dennis Wiley). He signed a probation violation warrant against Pinkney based on the premise that Pinkney was forbidden to defame or harass anyone as a condition of his probation. At the original violation hearing before Butzbaugh, he agreed that it was protected speech and refused to find a violation.

Judge Butzbaugh then sua sponte pointed to another portion of the same article in which Pinkney, naming Butzbaugh specifically, as well as the court and the power structure of St. Joseph/Berrien County generaly, warned them if they continued in the ways of injustice, then they, their families and the community would suffer consequences at the hand of God. Judge Butzbaugh adjourned the hearing to consider whether this constituted a “threat” against him in violation of Pinkney’s probation. He later entered an order finding it to be a probable violation, but disqualifying himself from the hearing, which he transferred to Judge Wiley.

Pinkney challenged Judge Wiley as biased, since Pinkney had for years directly accused Wiley of being among “Benton Harbor’s most wanted for crimes against humanity” wearing t-shirts to that effect at rallies, demonstrations, in the courthouse and in Wiley’s courtroom. Wiley had Pinkney removed from his courtroom because of the t-shirt at least twice and had forced Pinkney to take off the t-shirt when he was brought in for the arraignment on the probation violation. Judge Wiley held a hearing and determined that he was not biased. Pinkney appealed to the Chief Judge, Butzbaugh, to disqualify Wiley and the entire Berrien County bench. Butzbaugh denied the motion and sent the hearing back to Wiley.

During this entire time, the prosecutor, being confident, never filed a substantive memorandum or paper, put on any witnesses or otherwise attempted to justify their position. The ACLU filed an amicus brief clearly indicating that making a statement in a publication paraphrasing the biblical prophecies and calling on divine intervention in the iniquitous affairs of society has been found not to be a “true threat” outside the First Amendment. At the hearing, the prosecution did nothing more than present the newspaper article.

Pinkney testified that it was not intended as a threat to any person in particular, but reflected his belief that injustice would bring about divine retribution. A prominent pastor, educated at Union Theological Seminary in New York, testified to the history and nature of those portions of the book of Deuteronomy in the Old Testament and that they did not contemplate any human action, either directly or indirectly, against the objects of the prophecy.

Judge Wiley summoned up a full load of righteous indignation that anyone should make such statements and found them to be true threats, rejecting the ACLU amicus. He then proceeded to revoke Pinkney’s probation and sentenced him to 3 to 10 years in prison, twice what had been asked by the Probation Department and the Prosecutor.

The appeal of this horrendous decision, making Pinkney the only known preacher in the history of America to be imprisoned for quoting the Bible, is a joint ACLU-NLG project in which the ACLU will handle the First Amendment substantive claim and Guild attorneys will handle the disqualification/sentencing issues.

In addition, Pinkney’s direct appeal is pending and a petition for clemency has been submitted to Michigan Governor Granholm and the Parole Board.

Those wishing to keep up with developments or lend support can:

1. Monitor the BANCO (Black Autonomous Network of Community Organizations) blogspot (bhbanco.blogspot.com);
2. Send money to the Reverend Edward Pinkney Defense Fund, 1940 Union Street, Benton Harbor, Michigan, 49022; and/or
3. Send letters to the Honorable Jennifer Granholm in support of clemency at the Michigan Department of Corrections, Office of the Parole Board, Pardons and Commutations Coordinator, P.O. Box 30003, Lansing, Michigan, 48909

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Pinkney nominated

Michigan Greens Nominate Rev. Pinkney at State Convention
============================================
Benton Harbor Activist, Jailed for Quoting Bible at Judge,
Among 10 Congressional Candidates Picked in Marshall July 26-27

First Office for McKinney-Clemente Campaign to Be in Detroit

The Green Party of Michigan (GPMI) evoked the memory of
Eugene V. Debs by nominating jailed Benton Harbor community
activist Rev. Edward Pinkney for Congress at the party's
2008 Nominating Convention last weekend in Marshall.

Pinkney is one of ten GPMI candidates so far who will run
for Congress, and seventeen in total nominated at the
convention. They will all join the Green Presidential
ticket of former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney and Rosa
Clemente, founder of the National Hip-Hop Convention, on
the November 4 general-election ballot. And more Green
candidates will be nominated at local caucuses this weekend.

McKinney has met with Pinkney and the Black Autonomy Network
Community Organization (BANCO) in Benton Harbor in the past.
And she mentioned Pinkney and Benton Harbor in her Chicago
acceptance speech July 12.

Pinkney Paying a Heavy Price for His Beliefs;
Will Now Get to Express Them by Running for Office
--------------------------------------------------
Pinkney will run for the 6th District seat now held by Fred
Upton, scion of the family that founded Whirlpool. Pinkney
has opposed the corporation's influence on local government
and the plans of Whirlpool-led institutions to take Jean Klock
Park away from the people of Benton Harbor for a golf course
priced for the wealthy.

He is now sitting in state prison in Jackson awaiting appeal
on a 3- to 10-year sentence for alleged mishandling of four
absent-voter ballots in a 2005 recall election of a city
commissioner who supported Whirlpool's plans. That verdict
came after one mistrial with a deadlocked jury, and despite
an affidavit by one former prosecution witness saying the
recalled commissioner had offered him $10 to say Pinkney had
paid $5 for his vote.

The Berrien County courts also overturned the recall, even
though it had passed by over 50 votes.

Pinkney's sentence was imposed last month, and a pre-sentence
probation order which came with an elaborate set of prohibitions
(including bans on any kind of political involvement -- and
making him pay the rental on his own electronic tether) was
revoked last month, because of an article he wrote last fall.

In the article, he used a slightly paraphrased quote from
Deuteronomy that a Berrien County judge ruled was not
protected by the First Amendment because it constituted a
believable threat of the wrath of God against a fellow
judge and the judge's family.

The article appeared last November in _The People's Tribune_,
a political newspaper published in Chicago.

For the latest information on Green Party of Michigan candidates,
issues, and values, please visit the GPMI Web site:

http://www.MIGreens.org

Monday, July 28, 2008

Preacher gets prison for quoting Bible

Rev. Ed Pinkney PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE PHOTO

ACLU to represent Pinkney
By Teresa Kelly, Monday, July 28, 2008
The Michigan Citizen

BENTON HARBOR — Quoting Deuteronomy 28:14-22 to a Berrien County Judge will bring down the wrath of the judicial system.

Rev. Edward Pinkney learned that lesson the hard way. The Benton Harbor Assistant pastor has gone from the bowels of the Berrien County jail to Jackson prison to serve 3-10 years for quoting Deuteronomy to Berrien Chief Judge Alfred M. Butzbaugh.

“I didn’t feel threatened by Pinkney but his connection to God,” the judge said at the June 26 sentencing, according to attorneys and supporters.

Pinkney’s trial attorneys, Hugh “Buck” Davis and Elliott Hall, the first African American Vice President of Ford Motor Company, have filed a 115-page appeals brief raising 13 arguments why Pinkney’s conviction is invalid and unconstitutional, Davis said. Although the limit is 65-pages for an appeal, the Appeals Court agreed to accept the excess with the free speech and freedom of religion issues in the case.

“As far as I know he’s the first preacher in America to get put into prison for quoting the Bible,” Davis said on a radio show.

Now, the ACLU has formally taken up Pinkney’s case, a case likely to rise from current obscurity to national interest.

Pinkney’s conviction for quoting Scripture was an “execution,” said Marian Kramer, Welfare Rights Organization and organizer of a meeting at Hannah House in Detroit, July 25 to plan a strategy for freeing Pinckney.

Dorothy Pinkney, the Reverend’s wife, provided an update on the case which begins back in 2004.

“It’s a KKK county, a group of organized crime, a criminal ring,” she said describing the Berrien Court system, county government and the control Whirlpool Corp. exercises over all.

She reminded listeners that Rev. Pinkney had been fighting injustices of the Berrien court system for years. For example, every Tuesday, wearing a t-shirt listing each Berrien County judge under the headline of Berrien County’s “Most Wanted,” Rev. Pinkney organized a picket in front of the courthouse located on the St. Joseph side of the river.

SUCCESSFUL RECALL LED TO ARREST

Pinkney’s legal problems date to 2005 when BANCO (Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizations), which he heads, successfully recalled Benton Harbor City Commissioner Glen Yarbrough.

Yarbrough, part of a historic Black family with close ties to Berrien County government but with cloudy reputations in the community—including persistent reports of substance abuse, rumors of drug dealing to minors, and known physical attacks on others—survived the recall despite rejection by voters 297-246.

He was saved because county authorities challenged the results of the recall election, raided the Benton Harbor city clerk’s office and seized the voting records at the county clerk’s office. A month later Berrien Judge Paul Maloney threw out the election as tainted by fraud.

The city council fired city clerk Jean Nesbitt who was responsible for the election.

Because Nesbitt had communicated with Rev. Pinkney during the election about the election and because he had handled absentee ballots through her office, county authorities arrested him April 18, charging him with vote fraud.

Pinkney’s first trial on voter fraud charges March 2006 was declared a mistrial when the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.

A year later, March 2007, Berrien County retried Pinckeny on the same three felony charges of improper possession of absentee ballots, one felony count of influencing voters while they were voting and a misdemeanor charge of influencing voters with money.

An all white jury—Benton Harbor is 93 percent Black, Berrien County, 20 percent—found him guilty on all counts.

The local newpaper, the Herald-Palladium said, “justice was served” and concluded, “and now he’ll pay for it.”

Two months later, May 15, Judge Butzbaugh sentenced Pinkney to one year in jail as part of a five-year probation, but suspended the actual jail time, ordering him to stay home, on a tether and observe certain conditions of probation. He was required to refrain from political campaigning, to avoid threatening and intimating behavior, to not use a cell phone and to not associate with any person known to have a criminal conviction.

JAILED FOR CALLING JUDGE RACIST

Pinkney remained on house arrest until Dec. 21, 2007, when Butzbaugh issued a warrant for his arrest. A sentence that appeared in an article in the November 2007 issue of The People’s Tribune, a Chicago-based monthly infuriated the judge.

“We must fight for justice for all any time you have a judge like Alfred Butzbaugh, who is a racist,” Pinkney wrote and added that he had been denied due process “by the dumb judge and prosecutor....I support the constitution of the United States and the State of Michigan; we are still waiting on this racist corrupt judge to do the same.”

Butzbaugh ruled the writing violated the terms of the probation and contained threats not protected by the constitution. He ordered Pinkney serve the jail term that had been held in abeyance for almost a year.

From Berrien County jail, Pinkney waged a new campaign for justice revealing the inhumane conditions of the jail. Outraged at the conditions the inmates—overwhelmingly Black and from Benton Harbor—had to endure in the jail, Pinkney turned to scripture and wrote a letter to the judge quoting Deuteronomy 28:14-22. The passage recites the evils God will measure out to those in high places and who have great responsibility if they mistreat the people they are chosen to serve.

Butzbaugh recused himself from the June hearing on Pinkney’s parole violations saying he and his family were the target of Pinkney’s biblical threats and the case was heard by former Prosecutor Dennis Wiley.

Wiley is known for his own racism in Benton Harbor.

The night 16-year old African American Eric McGinnis disappeared in all-white St. Joseph over a decade ago only to be pulled from the river days later, Wiley was one of the three men—all Berrien County officials—to last see McGinnis alive. The three men said they watched the youth run down a street as they entered a bar on Main Street in St. Joseph.

For Pinkney, Wiley ruled the parole violation did occur and imposed a prison sentence from three to 10 years since Pinkney two prior felony convictions over a decade ago.

NEXT WEEK: Whirlpool Corp.’s beach front land grab that is the basis of Rev. Edward Pinkney’s legal issues.

Detroit Pastor, Union Theological Seminary graduate and Biblical scholar Rev. Bill Wylie-Kellerman testifies to Biblical meaning of Deuteronomy 28.

Deuteronomy 28:14-22:
“But if you do not hearken to the voice of the LORD, your God, and are not careful to observe all his commandments which I enjoin on you today, all these curses shall come upon you and overwhelm you:

“May you be cursed in the city, and cursed in the country!

“Cursed be your grain bin and your kneading bowl!

“Cursed be the fruit of your womb, the produce of your soil and the offspring of your livestock, the issue of your herds and the young of your flocks!

“May you be cursed in your coming in, and cursed in your going out!

“The LORD will put a curse on you, defeat and frustration in every enterprise you undertake, until you are speedily destroyed and perish for the evil you have done in forsaking me.

The LORD will bring a pestilence upon you that will persist until he has exterminated you from the land you are entering to occupy.

The LORD will strike you with wasting and fever, with scorching, fiery drought, with blight and searing wind, that will plague you until you perish.

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Voices from Benton Harbor

These articles are published in the July 2008 edition of the People's Tribune. Visit http://www.peoplestribune.org. Call 800-691-6888 or email info@peoplestribune.org for more information.

PINKNEY SENT TO PRISON

In a miscarriage of justice the likes of which many of us have never observed in any courtroom, Rev. Edward Pinkney's probation violation hearing ended with the judge sentencing him to a minimum of 36 months to 120 months. A more detailed report will follow on our next step in the ongoing battle for democracy and against corporate power in Benton Harbor. Funds are urgently needed. Please send to: BANCO, 1940 Union St., Benton Harbor, MI 49022 -- Pinkney Defense Committee

MORE LIQUIDATION OF RIGHTS

By Pastor Mary Gault
Thursday, June 26, 2008, corporate power raised it's ugly head again in the Berrien County Courthouse at the probation violation hearing of Rev. Edward Pinkney. The contrived violation was on the grounds that an article he wrote quoting Deuteronomy 28 was a threat to the life of the trial judge, Judge Butzbaugh. While on the stand, Rev. Pinkney's probation agent, when asked how he knew about the article, said that a colleague not assigned to the case brought him the article. Then he, as probation agent, his supervisor, and the prosecutor brought the probation violation against Rev. Pinkney. No testimony was given that the Judge Butzbaugh brought forth the complaint as a threat on his life. They also took offense at his calling the judge a racist and for being corrupt. Isn't it interesting that for years Rev. Pinkney showed up in the courtrooms in the Berrien County Courthouse wearing t-shirts calling the judges and prosecutors "Benton Harbor's Most Wanted," without interference?
More interesting is that Rev. Pinkney had reported to his probation agent an hour before he was arrested yet no mention was made to him of a violation nor did they detain him at that time. Rev. Pinkney's arrest came on the coattails of a very successful rally in Benton Harbor whose guest speaker was former congresswoman Cynthia McKinney. One can only make the deduction that corporate and governmental powers saw this as too big a threat and decided to remove Rev. Pinkney farther from the community by sending him to prison.
The presiding judge assigned more power to Rev. Pinkney than Moses by saying he was able to call upon God to carry out this so-called threat and God would obey. As a pastor, I look at this as government ignoring the constitution by breaching our right to religious belief and ability to freely preach the word of God. This court also trampled over the constitutionally protected freedom of speech.

Sunday, June 08, 2008

My husband, the Rev. Edward Pinkney, is still sitting in the Berrien County Jail

San Fransisco Bay View Wednesday, 21 May 2008

Dorothy Pinkney points to where her husband, Rev. Edward Pinkney, is jailed as Maureen Taylor and Marian Kramer of the Michigan Welfare Rights Organization look on during a demonstration outside the Berrien County Jail.

I want to personally thank the Bay View for the many articles you have published in reference to my husband, Rev. Edward Pinkney, who is truly a man of God and who has made the supreme sacrifice, not for himself, but for the people. We share the Bay View with many residents in Benton Harbor. Once again, we need your help to get the word out.

What makes my husband’s fight so courageous is the Goliath he faces. Whirlpool, the world’s largest producer of home appliances and the economic force here in Benton Harbor, is a pioneer in designing new ways to rip off the poor.

The takeover of Jean Klock Park and the city of Benton Harbor

Jean Klock Beach Park, located on the shore of Lake Michigan, was left to the residents of Benton Harbor, Michigan, which is 96 percent Black. Whirlpool is attempting to steal all the beautiful lakefront valuable land in the city for a whites-only $1 billion project called Harbor Shores.

This project does not include Blacks. My husband, being the man he is, chose to fight this manipulation at whatever cost or level he could.

There is no documented evidence of the KKK in St. Joseph, Michigan, where most of the judges and prosecutors live, but it is a fact that the KKK is there, right across the river from Benton Harbor, a city that is almost entirely populated by Black people. Looking at the perfect, sterile beauty of St. Joseph and the boarded-up broken promises of Benton Harbor, it’s hard not to wonder what force keeps them separated. If you consider some out of place actions by the government, such as overturning a legitimate recall election, firing a competent city clerk and jailing my husband, the Rev. Edward Pinkney, activist church leader, then things get even more strange.

Judge Alfred Butzbaugh, the racist and corrupt judge who sentenced my husband to a year in jail, stands to make a huge profit from the development of Harbor Shores. He and Judge Paul Maloney knew the only reason for the phony recall election trial and my husband’s criminal trial was to legitimize the illegal overturning of the election recalling Benton Harbor City Commissioner Glen Yarbrough.

The recall couldn’t be allowed to stand, since point man Glen Yarbrough would then be gone and the whole Harbor Shores deal would fall through: the Jack Nicholas signature golf course, the fabulous multi-million dollar resort, condominiums and control of the water treatment plant. All that is included in the sweetest land grab since Manhattan Island, the complete takeover of the City of Benton Harbor by Whirlpool.

Judge Butzbaugh is the president and major shareholder of a large real estate brokerage firm that owns land in a planned development. He has a partner in this business who is a member of the family that controls the largest business in town, Whirlpool, which is owned by the Upton family, led by U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, a right-wing Republican.

David E. Upton is vice president and Judge Butzbaugh is president and director of the Law and Title Realty LLC, which has numerous aliases, including Ship Street Realty, Counselors Ship Street Realty in St. Joseph and Benton Harbor, the All American Group LLC and four or five others.

When judges abuse their authority, we are all victims

Judges operate with greater power and independence than any other public official. When judges engage in improper conduct or abuse their authority, citizens suffer. The offending judge or corrupt judge does not.

My husband, the Rev. Edward Pinkney, was charged with four felonies and a misdemeanor after a witness was pressured to say he’d been paid $5 for his vote. Rev. Pinkney was also charged with “attempting to influence absentee voters” and helping voters who couldn’t read to fill out their ballots.

He never received a fair trial. The trial was riddled with corruption, before a judge who is notorious for his pro-prosecution leaning. The all-white jury was motivated by something other than the truth. Rev. Pinkney is a victim of a frame-up by Berrien County Court and Sheriff Department, which has a national reputation for police brutality and racism.

On March 21, 2008, as my husband, the Rev. Edward Pinkney, sat in jail for a crime that was never committed, there was a shakedown of his cell by 10 to 20 sheriff deputies when only one deputy was needed. The sheriff of the county was there. He took legal documents, papers, briefs and notes prepared by my attorney and papers about the horrible conditions of the jail and my husband’s treatment.

The sheriff violated Rev. Pinkney’s constitutional right to the First Amendment. Consequently, no matter what writing the sheriff finds in my husband’s papers and so long as they do nothing more than express his opinion about corrupt police and judges and conditions of the jail, even in terms most offensive to the judges, they are protected expressions and cannot be subject to penalty or confiscation.

The Fourth Amendment protects against unreasonable seizures of persons or property. Although constitutional rights are diminished during incarceration, they are not completely abrogated. Under the First and Fourth Amendments, the sheriff has a right to look through my husband’s papers for contraband but not to read them for content. To seize some of them because of the beliefs they express, on the grounds they contain improper content, was a violation of the Fourth as well as the First Amendment.

The sheriff copied the notes and delivered them to Judge Wiley, who gave them to the corrupt Judge Butzbaugh. My husband, Rev. Pinkney, had made notes on his thoughts before, during and after his hearing. These communications are privileged and either reading them or seizing them violates the Sixth Amendment attorney-client privilege and right to counsel. Under no circumstances should those papers be submitted to the court without my husband’s permission for any reason.

I believe the decision to attack and harass my husband, the Rev. Edward Pinkney, came from Judge Alfred Butzbaugh to attempt to intimidate and harass him. My husband is a true warrior, a knight in every sense of the word. He is my friend and personal hero. He calls me the force on his side. I am completely, unabashedly proud of that.

These days I feel like I am never doing enough, because my husband, the Rev. Edward Pinkney, has been sitting in the Berrien County Jail since December. My husband and I want people to know: YOU BETTER KEEP YOUR MIND ON YOUR FREEDOM AND FREEDOM ON YOUR MIND. You can write to my husband: Rev. Edward Pinkney, 919 Post St., St. Joseph, MI 49085.

Berrien County Jail

A supporter of Rev. Pinkney writes: “Mrs. Pinkney took three white t-shirts and six bars of soap to the jail for her husband. He was given one of each.”

Recently, at 3 a.m., Deputy Thompson “awoke Rev. Pinkney for the second time. He asked why the soap was placed in a certain position.” He had awakened the reverend an hour earlier to write him up for an empty potato chip bag set out for trash pickup. “Dep. T. keeps trying and failing to get Rev. P. into a fight.

“Deputies are now using the N word in the jail. It seems that Sheriff Bailey has authorized this word usage. Inmates live with continual personal humiliation, intimidation, no tissue, cold and tasteless food, sour and lumpy milk, bugs crawling on the wall, dirty uniforms, no soap, and soiled sheets and towels.”

The People’s Tribune writes: “In a waiting room for prisoners’ families and friends at the Berrien County Jail in St. Joseph, Michigan, visitors discuss the condition of the jail – the MRSA virus and the filth. Most disgusting, families say little black worms come out of the prisoners’ shower-head, the shower drain and around the toilet. They say it’s like sewage that was never cleansed.

“Everything inside the overcrowded jail is dirty, with poor air ventilation and inmates sleeping on the gym floor, meaning there is no daily exercise for the prisoners. GED degrees and even doctor visits are too costly for the poor who make up the jail population.”

How you can help

Boycott Whirlpool and all its brands: Maytag, KitchenAid, Jenn-Air, Amana, Gladiator, GarageWorks, Inglis, Estate, Roper, Magic Chef, Acros and Supermatic in the U.S. and Bauknecht, Brastemp, Consul and Eslabon de Lujo abroad. Let Whirlpool know that’s what you’re doing: Whirlpool Corp., 2000 N. M-63, Benton Harbor, MI 49022-2692, (269) 923-5000.

Make a donation for Rev. Pinkney’s Legal Defense Fund at http://bhbanco.blogspot.com or send a check payable to BANCO, 1940 Union St., Benton Harbor MI 49022. Donations are tax deductible.

Call Berrien County Sheriff Paul Bailey and inquire about Rev. Pinkney’s well-being at (269) 983-7141 or email him at Pbailey@berriencounty.org.

Demand that the governor pardon Rev. Pinkney or commute his sentence: Gov. Jennifer Granholm, P. O. Box 30013, Lansing MI 48909, (517) 335-7858.

Demand an immediate investigation into this injustice: Congressional Black Caucus, 2264 Rayburn House Office Bldg, Washington DC 20515, (202) 226-9776.

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Why Reverend Edward Pinkney is so Important to Black America

Keeping it Real by Larry Pinkney (no relation)
June 5, 2008, BlackCommentator.com

It has been said that nothing worth having comes easy. The ongoing struggle of Black Americans in this nation for real vs. fake democracy and justice attests to this fact. Indeed, the struggle for economic, judicial, political, and social justice and justice has intensified in the 21st Century. The year of 2008, is a year of hypocrisies and increasing injustices for oppressed Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and White peoples in the United States of America.

Nevertheless, we still have our unabashed warriors. One such warrior is the Reverend Edward Pinkney (no relation) of Benton Harbor, Michigan. The words of the courageous former Congresswoman and current U.S. Presidential Candidate Cynthia McKinney in her June 2, 2008, communiqué are exactly correct. She wrote regarding Reverend Pinkney: “I’ve met some wonderful folks along this journey…rallied with Reverend Pinkney of Benton Harbor who is in jail because he fights to protect that city from the greedy clutches of gentrifiers bent on stealing the people’s land.” Indeed.

On December 14, 2007, Reverend Pinkney was wrongfully jailed for having dared to exercise his human right to free speech when he explicitly, boldly, and correctly referred to Judge Alfred Butzbaugh as a “racist and corrupt Judge.” Reverend Pinkney had already been falsely prosecuted in retaliation for having dared to have led a successful effort to unseat one of the City of Benton Harbor’s influential power brokers who supported the selling out of the economic and land rights of the majority Black residents of Benton Harbor, Michigan. Yet, this was not enough for the racist white power structure and their negrodian surrogates. No. Pinkney had to be discredited and silenced! Reverend Pinkney had “led the fight against official corruption and corporate greed in his impoverished and predominantly Black community of Benton Harbor, Michigan.” This was, and continues to be, all about “the giveaway of Benton Harbor’s prime waterfront property to Whirlpool Corporation.” The majority of Black and other poor people in Benton Harbor, be damned, or so the story goes and has gone thus far.

The nefarious business dealings of Judge Alfred Butzbaugh have been repeatedly exposed by the BANCO blog and West Michigan News Company (wmnc.biz) from Michigan. Moreover, the conflict of interests, coupled with white racism, equals the U.S. in the 21st Century, notwithstanding the (so-called people-of-color) collaborators with the U.S. Empire in this nation.

This is absolutely unacceptable.

Why does Reverend Pinkney matter? Why does any of this matter? It matters because it demonstrates the wanton disregard of this nation for human rights and justice. It matters because even as a certain negrodian surrogate seeks to head the U.S. Empire, the vast majority of Black, Brown, Red, Yellow, and White peoples of conscience and consciousness are having to struggle against sustained efforts to utterly eliminate them / us. It matters because we are about the building of a NEW PERSON. It matters because Reverend Pinkney’s struggle is our struggle. [Reference: Reverend Pinkney Arrested For Exercising Free Speech, BlackCommentator.com, Issue #258.]

Every single day that Reverend Edward Pinkney languishes in jail is a scourge upon each and every one of us. Where is U.S. Congressman John Conyers of the State of Michigan? Reverend is after all in Michigan. Oh yes, and where is Senator “Respect the Judge” (re the Sean Bell case) Barack Obama? Finally, where is the U.S. Congressional Black Caucus? The answer is that these people and entities are nowhere. They are playing opportunistic and crass political games with the lives of the majority of our peoples, and most importantly with the lives of our freedom fighters.

Time to tell the collaborators to stop pimping the people.

Virtually every form of physical and/or emotional harassment is and continues to be utilized by the state and jail authorities against Reverend Pinkney in an effort to break his spirit. Yet, this is not merely the spirit of Reverend Pinkney that is being sought to be broken. It is the spirit of all justice and freedom loving peoples. We will not allow this to take place. Reverend Pinkney is one of our true freedom fighters.

We must not and cannot turn a blind eye to the struggle of Reverend Edward Pinkney; for, like Assata Shakur, Leonard Peltier, Mumia Abul-Jamal, and so very many others; this brother represents our very essence in opposition to the mental and physical chains of the corporate / military / and prison of this nation.

As we organize for a better and more humane world outside of the decadent and politically bankrupt Democratic and Republican Parties [i.e. the Republicrats], let us remember our brothers and sisters. Let us remember Reverend Edward Pinkney, for he represents a part of our heart and soul in this struggle.

Onward…“Forward Ever. Backwards Never!”

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Jailed Benton Harbor activist's notes were illegally seized, lawyer charges

Eartha Jane Melzer, Michigan Messenger

Thursday (04/17)

A lawyer for an imprisoned Benton Harbor community activist, the Rev. Edward Pinkney, claims the Berrien County sheriff authorized a raid of Pinkney's jail cell last month, confiscated his legal notes and sent copies of them to the judge scheduled to hear his probation violation case.

Pinkney, an associate pastor at Hopewell Missionary Baptist Church in Benton Harbor, is well-known locally as executive director of the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO) and a critic of the police and court system. He has also actively opposed Whirlpool Corp. plans to build a privately owned golf course on the city's Jean Klock Park along Lake Michigan.

He was convicted of election fraud last year for his role in organizing a successful recall campaign against a Benton Harbor city commissioner. The court found him guilty of influencing voters with money, attempting to influence absent voters and three counts of possessing absentee ballots. He was placed on probation with terms that include he "not participate in any capacity in a campaign for any public election" and "not engage in any assaultative, abusive, defamatory, demeaning, harassing, violent, threatening, or intimidating behavior."

Pinkney was arrested on Dec. 14 after a Benton Harbor parole officer claimed he had violated his probation by calling the Benton Harbor criminal justice system "racist," "corrupt" and "dumb" in the November/December issue of The Chicago People's Tribune.

On Dec. 20, Chief Judge Alfred Butzbaugh of Berrien County Circuit Court ruled that Pinkney's "racist," "corrupt" and "dumb" statements were constitutionally protected, but he denied bail after ruling that other Pinkney statements -- referencing Deuteronomy on the plagues that fall upon the houses of the wicked -- might constitute a breach of probation and also might constitute a threat against the judge. Butzbaugh disqualified himself from hearing the case because he was specifically referenced in Pinkney's statements.

"Pinkney is in danger of being the first preacher, that I know of, in America to go to jail for quoting the Bible," said his attorney, Hugh Davis.

Pinkney's notes were seized on March 21 in what prison officials described as "a routine shakedown," according to Davis.

In a letter to the Berrien County sheriff, Davis said that confiscating Pinkney's notes and forwarding them to the judge is illegal and "smacks of obstruction of justice and improper unilateral communications with the Court."

Davis has argued that all of the judges in Berrien County Circuit Court should be disqualified from hearing Pinkney's probation violation case because all of the judges have been directly and personally criticized by Pinkney for years. Judge Butzbaugh is considering the motion to disqualify the judges and has denied Pinkney bond.

Pinkney's wife, Dorothy, added commas said that police have also seized the jail-issued medicine her 59-year-old husband had been using to treat the back pain he's developed as a result of sleeping on a thin mattress on the concrete floor. She said jail staff have also confiscated Pinkney's notes detailing the mistreatment of inmates.

In a phone interview with Michigan Messenger, Sheriff L. Paul Bailey acknowledged that papers had been removed from Pinkney's cell but denied that Pinkney is being abused.

B A N C O

Monday, April 13, 2009

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Google "Berrien County Corruption"

Friday, January 30, 2009

Berrien County, MI legal system & law enforcement corrupt from top to bottom

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Preacher appeals conviction for criticizing Benton Harbor officials

Rev. Pinkney Transferred to Jackson Prison

Friday, October 10, 2008

10 REASONS TO DONATE $10 TO BANCO'S LEGAL DEFENSE FUND

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Library to Archive BANCO Papers

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Pinkney on video & prison visit report

Thursday, August 14, 2008

A "True Threat:" Rev. Pinkney and the Book of Deuteronomy

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

PINKNEY IMPRISONED FOR QUOTING THE BIBLE

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Pinkney nominated

Monday, July 28, 2008

Preacher gets prison for quoting Bible

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Voices from Benton Harbor

Sunday, June 08, 2008

My husband, the Rev. Edward Pinkney, is still sitting in the Berrien County Jail

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Why Reverend Edward Pinkney is so Important to Black America

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Jailed Benton Harbor activist's notes were illegally seized, lawyer charges

Eartha Jane Melzer, Michigan Messenger

Thursday (04/17)

BANCO online archive

Rev. Edward Pinkney - How BANCO Started:

Monday, April 13, 2009

Sunday, April 12, 2009

Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Sunday, February 22, 2009

Saturday, February 21, 2009

Friday, January 30, 2009

Sunday, November 30, 2008

Friday, October 10, 2008

Tuesday, September 02, 2008

Tuesday, August 19, 2008

Thursday, August 14, 2008

Wednesday, August 13, 2008

Saturday, August 02, 2008

Monday, July 28, 2008

Sunday, July 06, 2008

Sunday, June 08, 2008

Thursday, June 05, 2008

Thursday, April 17, 2008

Thursday (04/17)

BANCO online archive

Rev. Edward Pinkney - How BANCO Started:

Updates: