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.

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

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

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.

A Leader in a Struggling City Bled by U.S. Trade Schemes is Cast into State Prison

Thou Shalt Not Write About Judges

By Mark Anderson (originally from Berrien County)

http://www.americanfreepress.net/

ST. JOSEPH, Mich. -- In what many see as a shocking miscarriage of justice and denial of free speech, a black minister from southwest Michigan was sentenced on June 26 to up to 10 years in state prison for writing an opinion article in a Chicago newspaper about a judge.
The Rev. Edward Pinkney's sentence was handed down by Berrien County Trial Court Judge Dennis Wiley, a former prosecutor who took the case after Chief Judge Alfred Butzbaugh recused himself because Pinkney's article was partly about him. Judge Butzbaugh felt that the article, steeped in biblical references about God smiting this judge for his official actions but devoid of any personal threats, still somehow threatened him and his family, but he passed the matter on to Wiley.
"Wiley found that Pinkney had threatened ... Judge Butzbaugh and used demeaning language, violations of a probation sentence Butzbaugh imposed in May 2007 for election fraud charges," reported The Herald Palladium, a stenographic daily newspaper notorious for its unflinching belief in the official version of events. All relevant judicial edicts, the operations of the sheriff's department and other official policies and procedures have been taken at face value by the Palladium and other conventional media. No meaningful questions have been asked by the area's docile print and broadcast reporters.
So, because Judge Wiley "found" the article threatening without any apparent independent review of the entire article by an impartial party, he sent Pinkney, now 59, up the river to the state pen in Jackson for "violating" a probation sentence that sought to squelch Pinkney's free speech rights by imposing a gag order, according to noted civil rights attorney Hugh "Buck" Davis, who donated his services to Pinkney.
Davis told AFP during this reporter's July 8 "When Worlds Collide" radio show on the Republic Broadcasting Network, that this case is much more significant than many people realize.
"As far as I know he's the first preacher in America to get put into prison for quoting the Bible," Davis said.
The local media did not reprint Pinkney's "threatening" article in its entirety, nor any reasonably substantial excerpts, so there has not been a way for local citizens to objectively decide whether Butzbaugh was genuinely threatened; and even if the article could be construed as threatening, the question remains: Should judges be allowed to impose sweeping gag orders to prevent free speech, and cast people into prison when they speak out anyway? It's not as if Pinkney was a killer, rapist or other dangerous offender.
Judge Butzbaugh first imposed probation after a March 2007 jury trial in which Pinkney was deemed guilty of election fraud. Pinkney had launched a successful recall election in February 2005, removing Benton Harbor City Commission Glen Yarbrough from office by 54 votes after the commissioner had supported the Harbor Shores condos-golf development that some locals saw as an elite 500-acre land-grab that would annex some of the property that now makes up Jean Klock Park along Lake Michigan (a proposal for Harbor Shores to lease 22 acres of the park from the city was later floated). The father of Jean Klock named it after her when she died during childhood; the park was a gift to the city several decades ago. But since a few holes of a Jack Nicklaus "Signature" Golf Course that is part of Harbor Shores encroached upon this land in the city's only beachside park, Pinkey took issue with this and started a recall that succeeded. This, perhaps, was his real "crime." He was too effective.
"You've got free speech in this country until you start making a difference," Davis commented to AFP. "At first, he was just an 'eccentric' ... but later they saw him as a threat."
Yarbrough went to the county clerk and complained about being recalled. He was directed to the prosecutor's office. That office sued Benton Harbor's city clerk over the recall, and eventually another judge invalidated that election and set the stage for another one. And since, according to Davis, local authorities had been questioning and intimidating city residents in their effort to get some "dirt" on Pinkney to counter his rising effectiveness as a community leader and judicial system critic, the voter turnout at a second recall election was suppressed and Yarbrough was reinstated to his City Commission seat.
You would think his reinstatement would suffice, but the "machine" was not done with Pinkney. The testimony of a local prostitute in the March 2007 trial was considered good enough to "prove" that Pinkney had mishandled three absentee ballots during the first recall election. Although he was accused of skirting Michigan's questionable "gotcha" law --in which merely possessing absentee ballots that do not belong to a relative or resident of the same household is actually a felony -- Pinkney conceded that he gave three voters stamps and address labels with which to mail their ballots, but insisted he did not mishandle or deliver them to the local clerk himself.
The defense pointed out that if Pinkney planned on improperly handling or delivering other people's ballots, then why give those voters postage so they could mail in their own completed ballots?
Pinkney also was accused of buying votes when he paid some activists $5 each to hand out fliers before the first recall election. However, authorities claimed he paid people the same sum to sway them into voting in favor of recalling Yarbrough. However, Mancel Williams, a local resident, whom Yarbrough reportedly located himself, changed his story after first alleging that the vote-buying was true. However, Williams later alleged that Yarbrough paid him $10 to get him to say that Pinkney paid him $5 to directly influence votes. This is indeed odd in an age when local, state and federal officials routinely dole out funds from the public treasury, or give zoning breaks, regulatory favors and other perks to varied interests in exchange for votes and campaign contributions.

Pinkney was a well-known figure long before his election fraud trial. He was one of the most outspoken activists in Benton Harbor who worked to bring sanity back to town and seek justice in the wake of limited riots that erupted there in the summer of 2003. He often picketed the courthouse and took issue with the judicial system in general. He protested the police-state tactics imposed to stop the rioting. Virtual military-level forces were sent into this former industrial town along Lake Michigan [see AFP, # 1 & 2, January 2004, Inside the Rise & Fall of an American Town,], even though Pinkney insists the rioting was more limited than the conventional TV reporters, print journalists and their allies in law enforcement claimed it was.
This AFP reporter, having often reported on the various ways in which the North American Free Trade Agreement has seriously injured towns like Benton Harbor, grew up in the area. Benton Harbor was once a booming town, teeming with industry that supported a thrifty middle class -- the crucial ingredient for genuine economic prosperity. The current perpetual Congressman, wealthy Republican Fred Upton, a Whirlpool Corp. heir, has always supported NAFTA and other trade pacts that largely have brought disaster upon the working class in southwest and southeast Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and other areas across the nation that once thrived with the vital production jobs whose absence explains most of the serious economic downturn that has most people "on the ropes." The Congressman rarely if ever discusses the trade issues that are his Achilles heel, and local media give him a free pass on this and other crucial issues, portraying him as the "golden boy" of the area who can do no wrong.
Indeed, supplier Modern Plastics, among the few remaining local industries, was just closed by owners who directly blamed trade policy with China as the major culprit. "We could not pass on price increases to customers because they're struggling, too," said Robert Orlaske, executive vice president. "One big customer just pulled out and took its business to Mexico, China and Ohio. We're competing against China for every job. We can't compete with them, unfortunately."
Against this back drop of a once-thriving city that has been sharply declining for too long, save for some promising downtown businesses that are working hard to survive and prosper, AFP interviewed Pinkney in the fall of 2007. While concerned about Benton Harbor's status and future, he seemed sincere and credible as he explained the situation. He was under house arrest -- a prisoner in his own Union Street home -- at the time, due to his sentence from the 2007 trial. Amazingly, he was first tried in March 2006 but there was a hung jury. Yet officialdom kept him on a long leash until they could try him again a year later.
By December 2007 he was locked in the county jail for an anticipated one-year sentence as part of his original punishment. His wife, Dorothy, later told AFP that he perhaps would have been released for good by August 2008. However, the judicial system stepped in and tossed him in the dungeon, so to speak, making sure freedom would not come. His prison sentence in Jackson was reported as "3-10 years."
Dorothy is shaken that her husband has been taken away after believing that his former house arrest and his anticipated one year in the county jail were easily enough punishment for a flimsy election fraud conviction. "It was not about law at all," she told AFP. "My husband was a 'threat' and had too much influence on the public, so they had to confine him."
In her view: "They don't want him free."
Could any one of us end up in Pinkney's shoes someday if we decide to stop watching sports, drinking suds and fix our society instead? Time will tell.

Write to Rev. Pinkney at: JACKSON STATE PRISON RECEPTION CENTER
Rev. Edward Pinkney # 294671-22-4, 3855 Cooper Street, Jackson, Michigan 49201

THE TRUTH BEHIND THE PARK STRUGGLE

Mrs. Pinkney's mail is not being delivered to her husband. This is harassment by Sheriff Paul Bailey.

* *

THE TRUTH BEHIND THE PARK STRUGGLE
By Pastor Mary Gault

http://www.peoplestribune.org/PT.2008.06/PT.2008.06.12.html

The opinions written by citizens of Berrien County in the local newspaper reveal how few understand the real issues at stake in the Jean Klock Park struggle. They don't see the larger picture -- that the take over of the park is but one issue surrounding the Harbor Shores project. Do these citizens realize what was the first thing to happen when Rev. Edward Pinkney was accused of tampering with the votes for the recall of City Commissioner Glenn Yarbough? It was the invalidation of the whole election when there were still enough valid votes for the recall.
This dangerous precedent set by Judge Maloney (now a Federal Judge) opens the door for any judge anywhere to throw out any election they desire regardless of the votes of the people. It is about a system that allows the rich to get anything they want even if at the expense of the majority. This is a story of the system continually bulldozing over the rights of the citizens in the name of progress and jobs. The hundreds of jobs for Benton Harbor citizens highlighted as a reason to support the project by our Gov. Granholm has now been narrowed down to nine seasonal jobs that fall in the minimum wage category.
The high priced condos will only benefit the rich by increasing their property values (this includes U.S. Representative Fred Upton, Whirlpool CEO Jeff Fettig, and Judge Butzbaugh) while the poor will be forced out by high taxes and increased expectations on upkeep of their property -- expectations that can lead to condemned property and loss of homes.
Rev. Pinkney was right about the negative impact the Harbor Shores project will have on the citizens of Benton Harbor and the United States. He has paid the ultimate price for trying to stop the rich from taking over Benton Harbor through organizing the recall election of Glen Yarbough. He now sits in one of the filthiest, most inhumane county jails in the country, a jail where Berrien County prisoners are harassed, where the food is substandard, and contracting a lethal staph infection is highly possible.
This is all for the crime of seeing Whirlpool's land grab coming, and speaking truth to power. Rev. Edward Pinkney has repeatedly stated that Harbor Shores will provide few jobs or benefits for Benton Harbor residents. He said that fascism is the merging of the corporations (business interests) with government. No starker example than Berrien County can be found.

* *

Re: Harbor Shores: "Perhaps some of you do not own a foot of ground.
Remember then, that this is your park, it belongs to you," said John Klock,
a local newspaper publisher, when he gave the land to the city of Benton Harbor
in 1917 in honor of his daughter.

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.This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it 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.

Whirlpool/Upton Land

The Yarbrough family is in favor of the takeover of Benton Harbor, and have for many years been in a "special status" position with Whirlpool. The following is a short report just received from a Benton Harbor resident:

"Two weeks ago a friend of mine heard on his scanner (who he believed to be) a Benton Harbor police officer who had pulled over (who he believed was) Charles Yarbrough for drunk driving. When the officer called (who he believed was) Chief Al Mingo and asked him what to do, Mingo said, "Let him go". The officer said to Mingo, "But he is very drunk and unable to drive." Mingo got angry, yelled at the officer, and said to let him go. Now, had this been any of us regular citizens, we would have been thrown in jail! But here in Berrien County the authorities play favorites. This is so wrong and so messed up. There is NO JUSTICE in Berrien County!"

(Charles Y. is ex-mayor of BH and brother of Glenn Y., former city commissioner who Rev. Pinkney initiated the recall of. Judge Paul Maloney, who George Bush recently appointed to the W. Michigan federal bench, reversed that election. Charles' wife, Mamie, is on the board of county commissioners.)

Three Voices from Benton Harbor

Jail or Concentration Camp?

In a waiting room for prisoner's 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 prisoner's 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.

The concentration camp conditions in American jails await not only the victims of poverty, but also anyone who dares to speak out against injustice. We are slipping rapidly into a Nazi-type America. The stakes are high. Capitalism, a system based on the exploitation of human labor, no longer has any use for workers now that computers and robots are taking the jobs. Are jails and concentration camps our future? No. Our hope is in building a massive movement for a just society, but it has to be fought for.

- The People's Tribune Editors

________________________________

Jail Visitor Speaks Out

By Patricia Johnson

"On our first visit, my son and I got to the Berrien County jail at 12:30 p.m. There was a long line of people waiting in the cold. One-half hour later the door opened and the people rushed in to get warm. It took almost an hour to sign in at one window. There were limited seats in the waiting area and many people stood for as long as two hours waiting to visit. We were told to go to the first floor and we had to wait about 20 more minutes for the previous group to leave. The telephones were filthy and there were interruptions on the phone lines. This is an unforgettable experience."

________________________________


It's Not the Messenger who is a Liar

By Dorothy Pinkney

In America, we were given the right to free speech. That right is protected by law and the enforcers of the law. If someone should take away those rights, the government is to provide protection.
Not so with my husband, Rev. Edward Pinkney. His freedom of speech was violated on December 14, 2007 by his probation officer, James B. Pjesk and by Berrien Country government, which is run by the dominant corporation in the area, Whirlpool.

Remember, my husband is a Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, a strong leader and well-known activist in Berrien County since 2000. His message was against injustice, corporate power, racism, and a call to Repentance. Berrien County Government says his message was a threat and he therefore remains in the Berrien County Jail.

I ask, why did Berrien County allow the KKK the right to organize a rally in 1998? Why were they given the right to free speech? Why were they protected by law enforcement? And yet Berrien County can tell my husband that he has no rights to free speech or to organize citizens for a successful recall election against former commissioner Glen Yarbrough. One step further - they are saying that the citizens have no rights therefore we're discarding your votes. The message is that they have the right to take your rights, lock you up in inhumane jail conditions, serve cold food, put you on lock-down, take away visitation rights, block your phone calls, charge you $150 for a GED, $150 for medical fees, or $25 for a doctor fee. Judge Butzbaugh took a prophetic Biblical warning given in a newspaper article as a threat, therefore establishing his own law, sentencing my husband to a year. When a prophetic warning is given by God and it's rejected, when given by His messenger - it's not the messenger who is a liar. You're saying God is a liar. What Judge, government officials or anyone else can come against God's truth - the Bible? The Judge erred when he stated the article was intimidating and threatening, but the subjected of a listener can't create a threat where none exists.

We cannot allow the court system to take away our rights. We must stand together on Biblical Truth. We stand on the truth of the polygraph test proving my husband's innocence of all charges and that he's in jai for a crime he never committed.

The purpose of the speech-press clauses is to protect parties in the free publication of matters of public concern and to secure their rights to a free discussion of public concern, public events, public measure and to enable every citizen to bring the government to the bar of public opinion by any just criticism upon their conduct in the exercise of the authority, which the people have conferred upon them.

FREE PINKNEY!!

Write or send donations to:
BANCO (tax deductible)
1940 Union St.
Benton Harbor, MI 49022

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The King, the Knave and the Knight

By Philip A. Bassett

A friend tells me there is “no documented evidence” of the KKK in St. Joseph, MI, right across the river from Benton Harbor, a city that is almost entirely populated by black people. But 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 so separate. If you consider some out-of-place actions from the government such as overturning a legitimate recall election, firing a competent city clerk, and jailing an activist church leader, then things get even more strange. In the hope of shedding some light, I offer this musing on the King, the Knave and the Knight.
The King in this scenario, Judge Alfred Butzbaugh, is probably not a bad fellow, as far as that goes. If you had seen him, as I have, wandering the halls of justice wearing a lost look and a soft yellow sweater, you might think he was just another sweet old man running late for his checker game. He’s not that much more imposing in his courtly robes, and his manner in court is quiet and seemingly rational. But I’m afraid old Alfred is slaying the truth, not necessarily by what he says or does, but what he leaves out.
To give an example, a company I’m with filmed the entire (first) trial accusing Rev. Edward Pinkney of voter fraud in March of 2006, which ended in a hung jury. We filmed other hearings and eventually ended up making a documentary. After one of the hearings, Judge Butzbaugh called me up before him, as if I were a defendant in the case, and told me my camera was no longer welcome in the courtroom. The reason, he said, was that we had showed some of the jurors in our documentary. Now technically, what the judge said was correct. What he failed to say was that they were shots of the backs of jurors’ heads, with virtually no chance of identification. The judge had kicked me out on a technicality, and I could only come up with on conclusion: He wanted my camera out of there because I had just filmed some hours of testimony detailing how Berrien County systematically excludes black and/or poor people from jury selection pools. Don’t believe me? I’ve got four Sony mini-DV tapes to prove it. And Al Butzbaugh knows it.
He knows other things too, like there are already laws on the books to prevent tampering with mail, and that absentee ballot laws tend to discourage absentee voting and to target citizens who use absentee ballots in their election strategy. He knows there is no hard evidence against the Reverend; that the piles of phone records and absentee ballots mean nothing, and that differences in writing on applications is not illegal. He knows that the prosecution has no case beyond the conflicting testimony of questionable witnesses, with some witnesses’ stories even conflicting with their own testimony from an earlier, civil trial that was to result in the firing of that impeccable city clerk, Jean Nesbitt. But most of all, he knows the only reason for this phony trial, and one to follow, was to legitimize the illegally overturned election recalling City Commissioner Glen Yarbrough.
And the election couldn’t be allowed to stand, since point man Yarbrough would then be gone and the whole deal would fall through: the Jack Nicklaus golf course, the fabulous multi-million dollar resort and control of the water treatment plant, all included in the sweetest land grab since Manhattan Island. Obviously, Butzbaugh and his corporate pals at Whirlpool, Cornerstone Alliance and Harbor Shores weren’t going to let some loud-mouthed preacher with an eye on justice get in the way of all that fun. Pinkney had to go, or it would all crumble apart.
There are other things that Judge Butzbaugh is not telling, like the fact that he and his real estate company likely stand to profit handsomely from the development that Pinkney is fighting, Harbor Shores. It smells like a conflict of interest, something judges are supposed to stay away from. But like most kings in the political sphere, Al Butzbaugh is really a pawn for a larger entity, containing more kings and queens thirsty for entertainment and baubles, and he doesn’t have time to worry about that now.
Knaves typically get forgotten in history, and ours will probably fare no differently. His main role here is to be the second “K” in the title, and thus produce the clever reference to a national group of racist clowns. Gerald Vigansky is a young prosecutor, not yet practiced in the lawyerly art of looking at the defendant with disgust and maintaining an attitude of righteous indignation. His voice doesn’t carry much conviction as he stutters and stumbles over his arguments. He muddles along though, producing piles of phone records and piles of applications that were all filled out correctly, designed to bore the jury to stupefaction so that they failed to notice he had no case, and that his star witness was a crackhead. (Sorry, it’s true.) It’s amazing that he got ten out of twelve people to believe him at the trial I attended, and all twelve jurors on the second go-round. My gut feeling is that part of the reason he was able to obtain a conviction the second time is that Rev. Pinkney is African-American, and all twelve members of the jury were palefaces like me. But how do you prove something like that?
Rev. Edward Pinkney, a Knight in every sense of the word, is my friend and personal hero. He calls me his “covenant brother”, and I’m completely, unabashedly proud of that. These days I feel like I’m never doing enough because my covenant brother is sitting in the Berrien County Jail in a cell with five other men, on a gym floor with just a blanket, or in “the hole”, depending on which story you believe. (I myself have not called the jail, even though I know the number. I’m sorry to tell you that, but I’m afraid of those kinds of places. Thinking of people in cages makes me feel like God has died.)
Edward Pinkney, like most of us, doesn’t have a perfect past. He says he got in a fight once when he was younger and went to jail for it, even though there were two guys on the other side. He also went to prison for a year and a half over an insurance fraud case, but says that he was set up because of his civil rights activities. He claims he was always a top salesman with no need for tricks. With what I’m seeing in his current case, I could easily believe that Berrien County would jail someone for being politically active.
Pinkney has other problems as well; he tends to get under the skin of public officials. He has continually spoken out against the seemingly constant corruption and police brutality in the city. He organized picketers when Belinda Brown’s niece almost got raped at gun point by that store-owner, and led the march after Terrence Shurn was run into a building on his motorcycle by police. Perhaps most frustratingly, he has sat in on court hearings on a daily basis, advising young men that they have rights and that they don’t have to plead guilty just because the lawyers tell them to. But his biggest crime of all was organizing a successful recall election against a city commissioner and his corporate backers which was handily overturned, a week or so later, by the opinion of one Judge Paul Maloney.
Some have called the Reverend a “provocateur” but, from what I gather, all that means is that he tells the truth loudly and often. My guess is the real reason Butzbaugh and Co. want him off the scene is because he has a remarkable way of exposing inequities.
What makes the Reverend’s fight even more courageous is the Goliath he faces. Whirlpool Corp. is a pioneer in designing new ways to rip people off. In 1999, according to the Multinational Monitor, a jury levied a $581 million judgment against the company for bilking unsuspecting poor people in Alabama by selling dish systems for five times their actual worth. Executives at Whirlpool expressed no remorse, of course. Nor do they now, as they lift their corporate claw to pounce on a Lake Michigan dune area known as Jean Klock Park, which was supposedly left to the residents of Benton Harbor forever. What makes the deal really stink is that Benton Harbor has to pay for the infrastructure for the golf course/development and then in twenty years, it all becomes the property of the city of St. Joseph. This is just another swat in a long series of slaps in the face for the residents of Benton Harbor, who have more than borne the brunt of the “benefits” of globalization.
Rev. Pinkney, being the man that he is, chooses to fight these manipulations at whatever level he can. As an activist, he is tireless; as a speaker, he is inspirational; as a human being, 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 knows people change slowly and institutions even more so, but he is willing to put in the time to catch others’ attention, and hopefully, make them think. He tolerates the countless impositions on his time and health, including intimidation by police, two lengthy trials, and now sitting in jail. I believe the man would even give his life, if he thought it would change some of the awful things going on in Benton Harbor.
As it is, Pinkney and other residents remain heavily outgunned and outmaneuvered by their corporate overlords. Other alliances may be developing, though. One group in the Benton Harbor area has sent a letter with over 1500 signatures on it to the DNR, protesting the lack of a citizen comment period and other irregularities in the takeover of Jean Klock Park. Another citizens alliance from southwestern Michigan has begun to uncover and compile evidence of numerous conflicts of interest on the part of Judge Alfred Butzbaugh and other Berrien County dignitaries. Disgusted with the apparent corruption in this case, they are planning to hold press conferences across the state in the next few months. Meanwhile, Rev. Pinkney awaits his March 5th & 7th trial dates, and the chance of shedding some light on events in the land of the King, the Knave and the Knight.

Reverend Pinkney's Fight Against Racism, Gangsterism and Land Stealing - Color of Law - David A. Love, BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board

12/13/07

In Benton Harbor, Michigan, the injustice against Rev. Edward Pinkney continues

An outspoken leader in the fight against racial injustice, poverty, corruption and corporate greed, Rev. Pinkney was sentenced to jail by an all White jury for voter fraud. His crime was leading a successful effort to unseat a city powerbroker, and resisting corporate development of his poor Black community. In a May 10, 2007 commentary, Benton Harbor 2007: A Case Study of State Sanctioned Suppression of Voting Rights, Black Commentator editorial board member Larry Pinkney (no relation) sets the stage by providing an insightful analysis of the situation in Benton Harbor.

Benton Harbor is a mostly poor (90 percent), mostly unemployed (70 percent) and mostly Black (94 percent) town of 11,000 people, located 100 miles east of Chicago. In fact, it is the poorest place in Michigan, and was called "the worst place to live in the nation" by Money magazine in 1989. Today, foreclosures abound and families are being decimated in Benton Harbor, while its residents are intimidated by police brutality and controlled by an unfair criminal justice system.

At the same time, Benton Harbor rests on prime waterfront property on Lake Michigan, adjacent to the predominantly White and affluent town of St. Joseph, home of the Whirlpool Corporation, the largest company in the area. Both communities are located in Berrien County, Michigan, which is less than 16 percent Black and has transitioned from an industrial economy to a tourist, service and real estate economy. Whirlpool has had machinations regarding its poor, isolated and economically depressed Black neighbor. It bought 465 acres of Benton Harbor's prime real estate for $1 million - a modern-day equivalent of beads and trinkets - in order to pave the way for a $750 million to $1 billion private development project called Harbor Shores. The resort development will include two hotels, 880 luxury housing units, a marina and a Jack Nicklaus golf course. The project is of no benefit to the predominantly Black Benton Harbor residents. Pinkney and his organization, BANCO (Black Autonomy Network Community Organization) waged a recall election battle in 2005 to unseat Glen Yarborough, the powerful City Commissioner who was instrumental in making the land steal, or rather, land deal, happen.

Yarborough lost by 54 votes. A local judge, Hon. Paul Maloney, said there was fraud, threw out the election and ordered a new one, in which Yarborough won by 40 votes and was reinstated.

Maloney, who, as an election commissioner had voted against authorizing the language in BANCO's recall petition, and had alleged ties to the Harbor Shores project, should have recused himself. But President Bush rewarded Maloney with a seat on the federal bench in the Western District of Michigan. This makes sense, given the energy spent by the Bush Justice Department on the manufactured issue of voter fraud - a pretext for the elimination of voting rights for Black, Brown and poor people, in order to facilitate Republican electoral victories across the nation.

Meanwhile, Yarborough sought payback. Pinkney was arrested and charged with voter fraud, amid sketchy allegations that Pinkney paid voters to vote against Yarborough, and that Pinkney handled absentee ballots. The prosecutor made use of a 1995 state law that makes it a felony to handle an absentee ballot of a person not a family member, even without evidence of ballot tampering or criminal intent. Pinkney provided poor Benton Harbor residents with address labels and postage stamps, but asserted that he did not handle the ballots.

Pinkney's first trial in March, 2006, had two Black jurors. Witnesses were allegedly intimidated. There was a hung jury on all five counts against him. The prosecution called for another trial. This time, the National Lawyers Guild provided Pinkney's defense. The second jury was all White, not surprising, given the county's history of excluding African Americans from juries, a condition Rev. Pinkney spoke against for years. On March 21, 2007, the jury found him guilty, and he was sentenced to a year in jail and five years probation. He was placed under house arrest.

The selective prosecution of Black men is nothing new in America. Nor is the targeting of truth tellers and change agents. As hate crimes go unpunished, and as politicians and lawmakers commit criminal offenses against humanity, with impunity and without penalty, and pay no price for making deceitful decisions that cost thousands of lives, the Reverend Edward Pinkneys among us are fair game for prosecutors with lots of spare time, warped priorities, secrets to hide and interests to protect.

And surely, they believe that a community leader who fights against poverty and racial injustice, exposes corruption and unseats the powerful, poses a great threat to the status quo and must be silenced. This gives the impression, firmly grounded in reality, that this is not our justice system. "There is a problem here," says Rev. Pinkney. "They are like gangsters here. They're pushing them out of the community."

Although it is easy to conclude that hicktown justice is limited to the deep South, one could say that Benton Harbor and Berrien County, Michigan are little more than Jena, Louisiana North. The case of Rev. Pinkney is proof that these things still happen, and the struggle continues. His fight is everyone's fight, and how the story ends is up to ordinary, everyday people. Rev. Pinkney deserves clemency from the Governor of Michigan, and must be made whole for the injustices perpetrated against him. And Whirlpool products--including Maytag, KitchenAid, Magic Chef, Amana, Jenn-Air, Gladiator, GarageWorks, Inglis, Estate, Roper, Acros, Supermatic, Bauknecht, Brastemp, Consul, and Eslabon de Lujo - deserve a boycott by the public.

BlackCommentator.com Editorial Board member David A. Love, JD is a lawyer and prisoners' rights advocate based in Philadelphia, and a contributor to the Progressive Media Project, McClatchy-Tribune News Service and In These Times. He contributed to the book, States of Confinement: Policing, Detention, and Prisons. (St. Martin's Press, 2000). Love is a former Amnesty International UK spokesperson, organized the first national police brutality conference as a staff member with the Center for Constitutional Rights, and served as a law clerk to two Black federal judges. His blog is davidalove.com. Click here to contact Mr. Love.

Benton Harbor struggle update

ACTION ALERT: Please mark your calendars and stand with Rev. Pinkney in his heroic struggle against racism and oppression in Benton Harbor - July 19, 2008: Mass Demonstration in support of justice for the earth and it's people.

UPDATE: Pinkney is still on House Arrest wearing an electronic tether. Despite lack of evidence or credible witnesses for the prosecution, on March 21, 2007 an all-white jury found Rev. Pinkney guilty of election fraud. One of the jurors lied and stated that Rev. Pinkney's attorney was in the parking lot making a drug deal. She was not removed. On May 14, 2007 six motions for retrial were put forward. On August 24, 2007 all were denied. The reason? Rev. Pinkney failed to object on ALL the motions--corruption just keeps rollin'.

On Nov. 21, 2007 Pinkney filed in the State Appeal Court for a new trial demanding justice. Rev. Pinkney is bankrupt and funds are urgently needed. He must reimburse Berrien County for the first transcript of $2800., court costs of $6,405.00, probation fee of $4,000., and transcript fee of $5,000.

Fascism is Rule by Corporation

As this truism becomes more and more applicable to our nation we see the silent drama of this reshaping of governing institutions to suit corporate power being played out in our own small communities, townships and moderate sized cities all across the country.
Nowhere is the gut wrenching human cost of these practices more palpable than in Benton Harbor, a once thriving community of African American businesses and vibrant neighborhoods. Whirlpool, the corporate giant whose headquarters are located here, is relentlessly engaged in grinding the residents here into the dirt with no regard to their legal rights, the historical integrity of the community, or for modern ethics of any sort.
This gigantic corporation has, through blatantly fraudulent means, placed their pawns into key positions to ensure procurement of the public land held in trust for the Benton Harbor citizens. They plan to use this land to establish exclusive private parks, fenced golf courses and gated compounds for their highly paid executives and management personnel.
After devouring all the valuable park and lakefront realty here for a pittance of their true value, Whirlpool then plans to "give back to the community" in the form of the most menial and hopeless employment opportunities--janitorial and landscape maintenance. This "new jobs success story" will then allow Whirlpool to take the poverty stricken state of Michigan's tax breaks as a reward for having "created" the new jobs. The tax payers in Michigan will thus supply corporate welfare to an entity that is destroying their communities, usurping their treasured public lands and parks, and racially oppressing the people in them.
Racism, fascism and corporate greed have traditionally gone hand in hand worldwide.
Nowhere is this more evident than here in our very own state of Michigan in Berrien County.
Let the horrifying statistics speak for themselves:

Race breakdown
Benton Harbor 94% black
St. Joseph 99% white

Average income
Benton Harbor $8,000
St. Joseph $65,000

Unemployment rate
Benton Harbor 70%
St. Joseph 3%


These two communities are adjacent to opposite sides of the same river; the stark numbers tell a story and the story includes the grinding poverty, the systematic dehumanization most often associated with the world's most notorious fascist dictatorships such as Nazi Germany, with its walled compounds, economic enslavement and ultimately -- death camps.
How is this happening here in our United States, the onetime beacon of freedom and liberty to a weary world?

Ask Rev. Pinkney this question -- a man who has waged a David and Goliath struggle against the giant Whirlpool for years here in Benton Harbor--and you will hear a tale of-out-of-control law officers and the senseless killing of a young black man, ensuing riots and the beginning of an intense monitoring of courtroom proceedings at the Berrien County Courthouse. Pinkney and his loyal band, BANCO among them, also picketed the local papers (including The Herald Palladium owned by a wealthy Paxton, KY family) demanding that they supply objective news reporting and coverage of those involved in these racist and corrupt proceedings.
BANCO and Pinkney were successful in obtaining the recall of a corrupt city commissioner named Glen Yarbrough who was in the pay of Whirlpool. This recall was overturned by the power elite and they attempted retribution against Pinkney in the form of charges of election fraud and vote tampering, saying that Pinkney paid for votes and had absentee ballots in his pocket, both of which charges were completely unfounded.
The first trial, with a jury which included two blacks, resulted in a hung jury. A new trial was ordered and the residents of Benton Harbor came out in support of Pinkney both inside the courthouse and in the surrounding parking area.
The residents of Benton Harbor are united in their opposition to the usurpation of their community by Whirlpool and they are demanding a full investigation into this affair by the Senate Judiciary Committee.

By attacking and criminalizing Rev. Pinkney--who has done nothing but demand fair court proceedings and truthful news coverage for his community--the power elite hope to stop any further initiatives among the oppressed community to stand up to racism, economic exploitation and the passing of public land and funds into corporate hands.
We can't wait for others to defend us. Corporate fascism and racism MUST STOP. Will our communities and loved ones be the next in line for corporate take over?
Your support is urgently needed both in Rev. Pinkney's heroic struggle for justice and fair courtroom proceedings and the ongoing battle to stop the corporate takeover of public land and community assets.
We must all demand the resignation of corrupt Judge Alfred Butzbaugh and his dishonest prosecutor Gerald Vigansky.

All individuals and organizations are urged to immediately sign up, write letters, etc., in favor of clemency. We already have hundreds and hundreds of letters that we obtained for sentencing. We need updated letters. Benton Harbor and Pinkney need many letters (5000 would be fantastic) sent to:

ATTORNEY

Hugh Davis Constitutional litigation
450 West Fort St.
Detroit, MI 48226

Gov. Granholm has the ability to pardon Pinkney or commute his sentence.

Governor Jennifer Granholm
P. O. BOX 30013
LANSING, MICHIGAN 48909
517-335-7858 (correct)

to email the gov: www.michigan.gov/gov
(click Contact Gov., then click Share Your Opinion)

Legal Fee Donations (non-profit so it's tax-deductible):
BANCO
1940 Union St.
Benton Harbor, MI 49022

Herald Palladium Newspaper (letters to the editor)
P.O. Box 128
St. Joseph, Michigan 49085
800-356-4262

Whirlpool Corp. (World Headquarters and N. America Region)
2000 N. M-63
Benton Harbor, Michigan 49022-2692
269-923-5000

Support Rev. Pinkney and Sign Petition:
http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/624471377

Boycott Whirlpool and it's subsidiaries: Maytag, KitchenAid, Jenn-Air, Amana, Gladiator, GarageWorks, Inglis, Estate, Roper, Magic Chef, Acros, Supermatic. ABROAD - Bauknecht, Brastemp, Consul, Eslabon de Lujo.

Buy NON-Whirlpool brands! - Frigidaire, General Electric, LG, Samsung, Viking, Subzero, Dacor, some Kenmore, etc.

Analysis of Pinkney Trial and the Movement Ahead

On March 21, 2007 (when day and night are equal), justice in Berrien County, Michigan took a big step backwards into the darkness of fear and bigotry when an all-white jury convicted a black community activist, Reverend Edward Pinkney, of five counts of improprieties in connection with a 2005 recall election involving the City of Benton Harbor’s most powerful commissioner.


The facts and the history are stark. Benton Harbor is ninety-four percent (94%) black, ninety percent (90%) poor and seventy percent (70%) unemployed. It is directly across the river from affluent and practically all-white St. Joseph, Michigan, the world headquarters of the Whirlpool Corporation. Benton Harbor is still the largest city in the county and was once the site of most of the county’s governmental functions, including the Federal building. But, as industrial stagnation and flight increasingly gripped the area and the St. Joseph/Lake Michigan coastline was increasingly dominated by the tourist economy, Benton Harbor has been systematically drained of any economic vitality. Its citizens are unwelcome in other parts of the county and the criminal justice system operates to arrest, imprison, intimidate, control and marginalize them. Benton Harbor’s governmental and educational institutions are characterized by infighting and petty corruption.


The City festered in that condition until the summer of 2003, when the police killing of a young black man erupted into a short and destructive outburst of rebellious anger. Pinkney helped keep the peace. Public officials poured in to deplore Benton Harbor’s conditions and promised that something would be done. Nothing was. Progressive and radical organizations also went to Benton Harbor and linked up with the local community.


The Reverend Edward Pinkney, working in cooperation with his wife, Dorothy, had affiliated with BANCO (Black Autonomy Network of Community Organizations) and had meetings in Benton Harbor. By the time of the 2003 rebellion, Pinkney was publicly identified as the leader of the disadvantaged and dissident community in Benton Harbor, based in large part on his daily presence at the Berrien County courthouse. He exposed what he saw as the inherent racism of the criminal justice system and the willful inadequacy of the defense provided to the poor (mostly) black defendants. Pinkney picketed the courthouse and the local newspaper, openly naming individuals he believed to be involved in corrupt and racist practices.


In the fall of 2003, in a notorious incident, the Benton Harbor Chief of Police (who was not a certified law enforcement officer or licensed to carry a gun), fired into the air in order to disperse a group of black youths who had gathered on a corner. Despite the fact that both the possession and the use of the gun were illegal under state and local law, nothing was done. Pinkney led protests. The primary protector of the Police Chief was a City Commissioner named Glen Yarbrough, who was and is the most powerful political figure in Benton Harbor.


Although the transition of Berrien County from an industrial to a tourist, real estate and service-based economy increasingly isolated Benton Harbor, it sits on some very valuable real estate on the St. Joseph River. In 2003-2004, the former CEO of Whirlpool began advocating a development plan for what was projected to become a five hundred million dollar ($500,000,000) marina/residential/golf course complex, which would take four hundred sixty five (465) acres of Benton Harbor. It would take the City’s only beach and the City would be paid less than a million dollars ($1,000,000) for the property. Ultimately, it is projected that the land will be detached from the City and put in the more-white adjoining township. BANCO and Pinkney opposed this development because it would do nothing for the poor and permanently deprive the City of some of its potentially greatest assets. Commissioner Yarbrough was the key local politician supporting the plan.


In the fall of 2004, Pinkney and BANCO circulated recall petitions for Yarbrough, using his failure to discipline the Police Chief as the reason. Once the recall election was put on the ballot for February 2005, Pinkney used his grassroots and BANCO network to get out the absentee vote. He knew that, with his limited resources, he could never hope to compete with the Yarbrough “machine” on Election Day.


Pinkney was successful. There was a forty-two percent (42%) absentee voter rate and Yarbrough lost the recall by fifty-four (54) votes.


Yarbrough immediately swung into action. He went to the County Clerk complaining about the absentee votes. She referred him to the Prosecutor, who personally called the Sheriff to have an investigation opened. Within days, Yarbrough had “found” a young man named Mancel Williams, who alleged that Pinkney paid him $5.00 to vote for the recall. A week later the same Mancel Williams went to City Commissioner Etta Harper and made a tape recording, indicating that Yarbrough had paid him $10.00 to claim that Pinkney had paid him $5.00. The tape was turned over to Mayor Wilce Cook, who turned it over to the Benton Harbor Police. Nothing happened. The County Sheriff’s investigation did not mention it. Mancel Williams is in prison on another charge and has refused to testify for either side, fearing retaliation by the police and prosecutor.


Brenda Fox, a drug-user and prostitute whom Pinkney had helped in the past, was interviewed by the police, who were working off the absentee voter list. The day before the election, she had volunteered to go to the local soup kitchen and recruit 10-15 people for $5.00 each to pass out leaflets about the election the next day. It turned out that a number of the clients of the soup kitchen were registered to vote and wanted to do so. They went to the Clerk’s Office, got absentee ballots and voted. Brenda Fox, under pressure, claimed that Pinkney had told her to pay them $5.00 to vote against Yarbrough and make sure that they did so. She was given immunity from prosecution. None of the people who supposedly got paid to vote admitted it or testified against Pinkney. A number of witnesses denied the $5-a-vote claim by Brenda Fox, supporting Pinkney. They passed out fliers.


But Brenda Fox’s most important task was to testify in the lawsuit filed by the Prosecutor against the City Clerk to set aside the recall. The City refused to defend her. Although there was not enough evidence to invalidate 54 votes, a local judge, now nominated by George Bush to the Federal bench in Western Michigan, ordered a new election.


The clerk lost her job. The next day the Prosecutor arrested Pinkney for voter fraud and hit him with a $100,000 bond. Although Pinkney’s bond was reduced and he was later released, Yarbrough was reinstated to the Commission in the second recall election. Obviously Pinkney, facing charges and with his supporters intimidated, still campaigned valiantly but was unable to overcome the resources poured in by the local establishment. The vote was down and Yarbrough won by 40.


For three days after she testified in the election lawsuit, Brenda Fox holed up in her apartment sending people out for drugs and alcohol, indicating that the money came from testifying against Pinkney. She told one witness, Douglas Bragg, that he was the only one not getting paid to testify against Pinkney. A year later, Bragg saw her get picked up for prostitution by the Benton Harbor Police and then dropped off 20 minutes later. She said that she did not have to worry about the police as long as she was testifying against Pinkney. The Judge refused to let most of that evidence into the trial.


In Pinkney’s most recent trial, Brenda Fox, under questioning by one of Pinkney’s lawyers, Elliott Hall (former counsel to the Detroit NAACP, Vice-President of Ford Motor Company and Chief Assistant of Wayne County Prosecutor), broke down completely on the stand, began crying and could not go on. She was described by Hugh [Buck] Davis (a veteran civil rights lawyer) as incredible as any witness he had seen in 38 years. Davis told the jury in closing argument “You couldn’t send a dog to the pound on the testimony of Brenda Fox.”


Nevertheless, the all white jury convicted Pinkney of paying for and influencing votes through Brenda Fox, shocking the audience and arguably surprising even the Prosecutor. When the jury convicted Pinkney on the false vote counts based on the testimony of Brenda Fox, Davis commented that the willingness of the jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt relying on her testimony was an indication that they violated the sanctity of their oath and were motivated by something other than the pursuit of truth and justice.


But the most dangerous charges against Pinkney did not concern corruptly buying or influencing votes, but simply inadvertently having possession of an absentee ballot (voted or unvoted) of a person who was not a family member or a member of his immediate household. The Michigan Legislature passed that new law in 1995. In essence, it is a “gotcha” law. The mere allegation that an individual handled an absentee ballot (even with no bad intent or evidence of tampering) is a five (5) year felony. The Prosecutor brought three (3) such charges against Pinkney, giving the jury the option of eight (8) different voters who claimed they turned their ballots over to Pinkney.


Pinkney admitted that he gave those voters stamps and address labels to mail their ballots, but did not handle them. He knew that they were so poor that they might not have postage. The Prosecutor admitted that Pinkney gave them the stamps. The defense asked, “If Pinkney was going to take the ballots, why give them stamps?”


In the first trial in March 2006, Tat Parish (an able and progressive Berrien County attorney) represented Pinkney. There were two (2) blacks on the jury. The jury hung on all five (5) counts.


Given the fact that the Prosecutor had already set aside the election, gotten Yarbrough back in office and gotten rid of a City Clerk believed to be friendly to Pinkney, they might have been satisfied. But Pinkney’s militance and outspoken opposition to the administration in Benton Harbor and to the proposed “Harbor Shores” development required that he be distracted by having to continue to defend himself and, if possible, removed as a leader.


Defense attorneys, Hall and Davis, long associates in civil rights cases in Detroit, volunteered for the second trial as a National Lawyers Guild project. Pinkney inspired substantial publicity and support, particularly in Michigan, but also nationally. Timothy Holloway (an appellate specialist) also volunteered and wrote a motion and brief attacking the “possession of an absentee ballot” statue on the grounds that it is unconstitutional to create a strict liability felony where the act itself is only handling someone’s ballot without tampering and without knowledge or bad intent. The Judge denied the motion. Pinkney attempted to appeal before trial. The Court of Appeals would not hear the case. It is now one of the major issues on appeal.


Secondarily, Pinkney had complained for years about the systematic exclusion and under-representation of black jurors in the Berrien County court system. Pinkney, several of his courthouse observers and his original attorney filed affidavits indicating that out of an average panel of potential jurors, rarely were more than 2 or 3 minorities among them (3-5%). Frequently, there were none.


Berrien County is 15.5% black. The statistical disparity is constitutionally significant and presents a case for systematic racial exclusion, whether intentional or not. Wayne Bentley, a Jury Commissioner in Kent County (Grand Rapids, Michigan) who has helped reform the jury system there, agreed to act as an expert. Approximately 100,000 jury questionnaires from the last three years were obtained and an evidentiary hearing was held the week before the trial. There, Bentley explained the ways in which the jury system resulted in the systematic under representation of minorities:


1. Failure to use up-to-date address lists (statistically, poor and black people in Benton Harbor move more);
2. Failure to send follow-up letters for undelivered or unreturned questionnaires;
3. Failure to follow-up on summonses to appear for jury duty;
4. Treating anyone with a temporary medical problem or with a handicap as permanently disqualified (the medical problem/ handicap rate in Benton Harbor is 47%);
5. Treating one-time absentee voters as permanent exemptions.


The Clerk testified without any documentation, that approximately 6 out of every 45 potential jurors in the pools were black, bringing the percentage to a constitutionally permissible 12-13 percent. In fact, she testified that there were 6 blacks in the jury pool called for that very day, March 6, 2007. Unfortunately for the Clerk, Pinkney’s court-watchers were in the hall when that panel was escorted to another courtroom. There were indeed 45 potential jurors, but only 2 of them were black (4%). Their affidavits were filed with Pinkney’s Judge, alleging perjury by the Clerk. He ignored them. He denied the jury challenge on the first day of the trial, but by the end of the trial had not issued a written opinion. That will be another basis for the appeal.


When Pinkney’s second jury turned out to be all white, there was some hope that the liberal sentiments of the white community to defend the rights of minorities could be aroused. But the jury was clearly intimidated by the large numbers of Pinkney supporters in the courtroom and around the courthouse, most of them obviously poor. A posting to the BANCO website from a supporter was monitored by the authorities. The e-mailer regretted that he had been out of town during the first part of the trial and commented that the white judge and prosecutor would eventually “go down.” It was treated as a threat and turned over to the police.


Midway through the trial, the Judge locked the courtroom to spectators, who could only come in before the session began or on break. A juror reported that she thought she had seen an illegal transaction take place in the parking lot between one of Pinkney’s lawyers and one of his witnesses and supporters (the lawyer gave him a cigarette). Security was increasingly beefed up. The jury wanted to make sure that Pinkney’s lawyers did not have their jury questionnaires. They were returned before the verdict.


The effect of all of the above was to make the jury even more afraid and suspicious of blacks in Benton Harbor in general and of Pinkney and his supporters in particular. Their reaction was to retreat into the sort of blind desire to uphold the system as in the South, where a black man’s word meant nothing, regardless of how obviously false and fabricated the evidence against him.


But it should also be pointed out that these jurors were ordinary working class and middle class whites, themselves on the edge of economic insecurity. As the economy of Berrien County continues to decline, they needed to believe that what has happened to Benton Harbor will not happen to them. They needed to believe that what is good for Whirlpool is good for them. They needed to believe that somehow the “Harbor Shores” development for rich people from somewhere else will be good for them. They failed to understand that they are one layoff, one injury or one illness from needing the same social services as the people in Benton Harbor. They failed to understand that the campaign for universal health care, education, productive jobs, limited development, protection of the environment, etc., can only be achieved when they unite around the protection of the poorest and most dispossessed, as opposed to running away from the obvious horror of life in Benton Harbor.


Pinkney’s sentencing is May 14, 2007 at 1:30 p.m. Between now and then, all fair-minded individuals, particularly those who have had the privilege to meet Reverend Pinkney or follow his work, should write letters of support. THEY SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO: The Honorable Alfred M. Butzbaugh, Berrien County Circuit Court, 811 Port Street, St. Joseph, Michigan, 49085-1187, regarding the case of People v. Reverend Edward Pinkney.


BUT THEY SHOULD BE SENT TO: Hugh M. Davis, Constitutional Litigation Associates, P.C., 450 West Fort Street, Suite 450, Detroit, Michigan, 48226. Phone: 313-961-2255; Fax: 313-961-5999; email: conlitpc@sbcglobal.net .


The purpose of the letter is not to accuse the Judge, the Prosecutor or even the jury of being racist, but rather to point out how distressing and suspicious it is that an all white jury would sit in judgment of a black community activist, 50 years after the high point of the civil rights movement. Also, emphasize the nature of Reverend Pinkney’s work, how important it is that we have dissident voices in every community and that free speech must be protected. The letters should also indicate that, no matter what view one takes of the evidence against Pinkney, the worst that he did was innocently handle some ballots and become the victim of the testimony of some very shady characters, particularly including Brenda Fox. Tell the Judge that prison is NOT the place for a person like Pinkney, but that he is needed in the community, whether one agrees with him or not. Tell the Judge that the prisons are already filled up with too many black men and are already too much of a drain on the state and local economies. Tell the Judge that prison should be reserved for only dangerous and violent individuals who have to be removed from society. That is clearly not Reverend Pinkney.


Finally, everyone should personalize their letter and, if you have any direct experience with Reverend Pinkney, describe it – what he did, how he helped, what you saw and whether he got any personal gain out of it.


The last important issue is bond pending appeal. Pinkney’s attorneys intend to push hard on the validity of the statute and on the denial of the jury challenge. Those efforts could take years. Let the Judge know that you believe that Reverend Pinkney should not be required to serve a sentence, even a short one, when these serious issues are still undecided on appeal. Since it is the Judge himself whose decisions are being challenged, he should not presume the outcome by refusing Pinkney bond.