February 03, 2007 -- Detroit Greens: Benton Harbor's Rev. Pinkney Hearing: Summary & Report
January 25, 2007 -- Michigan Peace Network: Justice for Rev. Pinkney! Jan. 25
January 3, 2007 -- Media Mouse - Grand Rapids Independent Media: Court Support needed in Rev. Pinkney's Struggle against Whirlpool in Benton Harbor
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
Benton Harbor article in 'The Michigan Citizen'
Pinkney: 'Victory shall be mine'
By William X Akbar & Mary Gault
The Michigan Citizen, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2007
(Follow the title link to read the full article.)
By William X Akbar & Mary Gault
The Michigan Citizen, Tuesday, Feb. 6, 2007
(Follow the title link to read the full article.)
Friday, February 02, 2007
Report on 1/25/07 Hearing: 'We gave them a spanking!'
SUMMARY:
Benton Harbor is the poorest city in Michigan. Ninety (90%) percent of the people live below the poverty level and seventy (70%) percent are unemployed. Almost all of the citizens are black. The land is very valuable real estate. Whirlpool, already dominant in the area, wanted much of this land for a small price. It needed approval of six (6) of its commissioners. BANCO (the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization), led by Rev. Pinkney , succeeded in a recall election of a key commissioner. A suit was brought to set aside the election alleging fraud. Without sufficient evidence Judge Paul Maloney (who has been nominated by President Bush to the federal bench in the Western District) set aside the recall election and scheduled a new one. With serious money from local political forces the recall was defeated and the commissioner retained. Thus, the sale went through. Whirlpool detached the property from the City of Benton Harbor and attached it to mostly white Benton Township. It plans to build a $100,000,000 gated community, marina and Jack Nicklaus – designed golf course. Seeing Pinkney as a danger, corrupt politicians cooperated with the Prosecutor to produce bribed and coerced witnesses to say that Pinkney had improperly handled absentee ballots and had bought votes (people were paid $10 to say Pinkney paid them $5). Pinkney went to trial in the spring of 2006. There were two minorities on that jury. The trial ended in a hung jury. He is to be tried again.
REPORT:
January 25, 2007, you could feel the tension in the Berrien County Courtroom of Judge Alfred Butzbaugh as friends and activists of Rev. Edward Pinkney from across the nation gathered for a hearing in his support. The hearing was to argue two motions. One motion to argue the constitutionality of the Michigan Absentee Voter statute, which makes it a 5 year felony to possess without knowledge or bad intent, an absentee ballot, but only a misdemeanor to actually buy a vote. The second motion was to challenge the racial composition of the juries in Berrien County where, although blacks are 15.5% of the population, rarely is more than 1 in 30 potential jurors black.
Rev. Pinkney's legal counsel, Attorney Timothy Holloway presented argument for the first motion. He argued that statutes that involve a malum prohibitum crime were not criminal at common law. The person had to have knowledge that it was illegal to handle the absentee ballots. The prosecution, Aaron J. Mead and Gerald L. Vigansky, argued back that one only had to have knowledge that they possessed an absentee ballot belonging to someone else. They argued that the Legislature wanted criminal intent to be an element of a criminal offense. They compared the handling of an absentee ballot and being charged with a felony as the same as someone that drove their pick-up truck across state line with possession of a gun, who is stopped and prosecuted for carrying a concealed weapon. The prosecution argued that everyone knows it is illegal to possess a concealed weapon without a permit and argued that possession of an absentee ballot falls under the same interpretation. Attorney Holloway cited the Michigan Supreme Court case People v Osborn (1912) as well as several other cases that ruled a guilty mind was necessary in order to prosecute. Judge Butzbaugh said he would try to have a ruling within two weeks.
Attorney Elliot Hall came to present argument for the motion challenging jury composition. In the motion, he asked that the court move to discovery in the selection of juries for the circuit court in Berrien County and striking the selection procedure as discriminatory and exclusionary with regard to minority jurors and delay Rev. Pinkney's trial until the system can be reformed and provide him with a non-discriminatory list of jurors called to serve. The prosecution, however, did not respond to this motion in writing before the hearing telling the judge that he thought that discovery would be done while the attorneys were present. The judge then told Attorney Hall to gather the material from the clerk and ordered a continuance. Then Judge Butzbaugh called for both the prosecution and defense attorneys to join him in his chambers. While in chambers it is my understanding that the judge informed the parties that going through the discovery process on jury selection would not delay the trial. Attorney Elliot Hall responded that – we would see about that.
Afterward, Rev. Pinkney said "We gave them a spanking today!" He was confident of his attorneys handling of the motions, stating that we will go to Federal court if we have to appeal these motions. The prosecution presented arguments to the malum prohibitum issue that didn't hold water for the audience in attendance. Many felt it was ridiculous to compare the handling of guns with the handling of ballots. It was an eye opening experience of a judges going through with a hearing when the prosecution hadn't followed through with a written response to the defense. Those who have continued to observe the court in operation felt that the judge was trying to appear to be listening to both sides by asking for further clarification. However, information about Judge Butzbaugh's comment about the jury composition motion not having to be answered before trial blew that perception out of the water.
Benton Harbor is the poorest city in Michigan. Ninety (90%) percent of the people live below the poverty level and seventy (70%) percent are unemployed. Almost all of the citizens are black. The land is very valuable real estate. Whirlpool, already dominant in the area, wanted much of this land for a small price. It needed approval of six (6) of its commissioners. BANCO (the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization), led by Rev. Pinkney , succeeded in a recall election of a key commissioner. A suit was brought to set aside the election alleging fraud. Without sufficient evidence Judge Paul Maloney (who has been nominated by President Bush to the federal bench in the Western District) set aside the recall election and scheduled a new one. With serious money from local political forces the recall was defeated and the commissioner retained. Thus, the sale went through. Whirlpool detached the property from the City of Benton Harbor and attached it to mostly white Benton Township. It plans to build a $100,000,000 gated community, marina and Jack Nicklaus – designed golf course. Seeing Pinkney as a danger, corrupt politicians cooperated with the Prosecutor to produce bribed and coerced witnesses to say that Pinkney had improperly handled absentee ballots and had bought votes (people were paid $10 to say Pinkney paid them $5). Pinkney went to trial in the spring of 2006. There were two minorities on that jury. The trial ended in a hung jury. He is to be tried again.
REPORT:
January 25, 2007, you could feel the tension in the Berrien County Courtroom of Judge Alfred Butzbaugh as friends and activists of Rev. Edward Pinkney from across the nation gathered for a hearing in his support. The hearing was to argue two motions. One motion to argue the constitutionality of the Michigan Absentee Voter statute, which makes it a 5 year felony to possess without knowledge or bad intent, an absentee ballot, but only a misdemeanor to actually buy a vote. The second motion was to challenge the racial composition of the juries in Berrien County where, although blacks are 15.5% of the population, rarely is more than 1 in 30 potential jurors black.
Rev. Pinkney's legal counsel, Attorney Timothy Holloway presented argument for the first motion. He argued that statutes that involve a malum prohibitum crime were not criminal at common law. The person had to have knowledge that it was illegal to handle the absentee ballots. The prosecution, Aaron J. Mead and Gerald L. Vigansky, argued back that one only had to have knowledge that they possessed an absentee ballot belonging to someone else. They argued that the Legislature wanted criminal intent to be an element of a criminal offense. They compared the handling of an absentee ballot and being charged with a felony as the same as someone that drove their pick-up truck across state line with possession of a gun, who is stopped and prosecuted for carrying a concealed weapon. The prosecution argued that everyone knows it is illegal to possess a concealed weapon without a permit and argued that possession of an absentee ballot falls under the same interpretation. Attorney Holloway cited the Michigan Supreme Court case People v Osborn (1912) as well as several other cases that ruled a guilty mind was necessary in order to prosecute. Judge Butzbaugh said he would try to have a ruling within two weeks.
Attorney Elliot Hall came to present argument for the motion challenging jury composition. In the motion, he asked that the court move to discovery in the selection of juries for the circuit court in Berrien County and striking the selection procedure as discriminatory and exclusionary with regard to minority jurors and delay Rev. Pinkney's trial until the system can be reformed and provide him with a non-discriminatory list of jurors called to serve. The prosecution, however, did not respond to this motion in writing before the hearing telling the judge that he thought that discovery would be done while the attorneys were present. The judge then told Attorney Hall to gather the material from the clerk and ordered a continuance. Then Judge Butzbaugh called for both the prosecution and defense attorneys to join him in his chambers. While in chambers it is my understanding that the judge informed the parties that going through the discovery process on jury selection would not delay the trial. Attorney Elliot Hall responded that – we would see about that.
Afterward, Rev. Pinkney said "We gave them a spanking today!" He was confident of his attorneys handling of the motions, stating that we will go to Federal court if we have to appeal these motions. The prosecution presented arguments to the malum prohibitum issue that didn't hold water for the audience in attendance. Many felt it was ridiculous to compare the handling of guns with the handling of ballots. It was an eye opening experience of a judges going through with a hearing when the prosecution hadn't followed through with a written response to the defense. Those who have continued to observe the court in operation felt that the judge was trying to appear to be listening to both sides by asking for further clarification. However, information about Judge Butzbaugh's comment about the jury composition motion not having to be answered before trial blew that perception out of the water.
Tuesday, January 23, 2007
Injecting Newborn Babies with Radioactive Iodide in Memphis
During 1953 and 1954, seven newborn babies--six of whom were black--were injected with radioactive iodide at the John Gaston Hospital, a now defunct public hospital in Memphis, TN. The study was conducted by Lester Van Middlesworth, now professor emeritus of physiology, biophysics and medicine at the University of Tennessee's College of Medicine. Middlesworth claims race was not a factor, telling the Albuquerque Tribune, "It [Gaston Hospital] was primarily a charity hospital and a large percentage of the charity internees were Black." Yet Middlesworth wrote in a 1954 report that the "use of radiation in the very young organisms is open to question." And in an interview with Tribune staff writer Eileen Welsome he says, "Naturally we hoped there was no damage." But he also reveals that he lost track of the babies and never did any follow-up on their health.
John Gofman, a leading scientist on the effects of low-level radiation and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley put it plainly by saying the children would have an increased risk of getting cancer and "To do nothing is criminal..." To date officials have located the names of the babies involved (they would be in their late 30s now) and are in the process of contacting them, but DOE official Mike Gauldin admitted last December that his agency didn't "have any information about these specific experiments and don't know anything about them." Equally ominous is that five other similar experiments were carried out in Detroit, Michigan; Omaha, Nebraska; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Iowa City, Iowa, with a total of 235 newborns and older infants experimented on.
John Gofman, a leading scientist on the effects of low-level radiation and professor emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley put it plainly by saying the children would have an increased risk of getting cancer and "To do nothing is criminal..." To date officials have located the names of the babies involved (they would be in their late 30s now) and are in the process of contacting them, but DOE official Mike Gauldin admitted last December that his agency didn't "have any information about these specific experiments and don't know anything about them." Equally ominous is that five other similar experiments were carried out in Detroit, Michigan; Omaha, Nebraska; Little Rock, Arkansas; and Iowa City, Iowa, with a total of 235 newborns and older infants experimented on.
Sunday, January 21, 2007
The Oakridge Experiment
On March 24, 1945, a 55-year-old black truck driver, Ebb Cade, was admitted to the U.S. Army Manhattan Engineer District Hospital in Oakridge, Tennessee for treatment of bodily injuries resulting from a car accident. The extent of his injuries were so severe that he was not expected to live. On April 10, 1945, documents show that he was injected with a significant amount of plutonium. Cade was the first patient out of 18--all of which the DOE has still not completely identified--to be injected with plutonium. He received 0.29 microcuries of plutonium 239, a dose equal to 1,030 rems or 41.2 times what the average person receives in a lifetime.
Dr. Karl Morgan, a physicist from the University of Chicago, who came to Oakridge in 1943 to work on the Manhattan Project, described in a letter to The Oakridger newspaper how Dr. Robert S. Stone--the doctor who injected the plutonium--discussed Cade's unsuspecting involvement and eventual disappearance from the hospital a few days later. Morgan writes: "Dr. Stone was particularly concerned because, as he said, this man was part of an experiment to determine the risk to man from exposure to plutonium. This poor `expected casualty' had suddenly gotten up out of his bed at the hospital and disappeared. I was upset and concerned when I heard about this human experiment because as described to me this black man was unconscious and not expected to live when he was injected with plutonium. I was disturbed for two reasons: One, the poor man could not possibly have given his consent to be a guinea pig and two, I was afraid he was selected for this experiment in part because he was black and it was unlikely any of his family would learn of the plutonium injection... "
Dr. Karl Morgan, a physicist from the University of Chicago, who came to Oakridge in 1943 to work on the Manhattan Project, described in a letter to The Oakridger newspaper how Dr. Robert S. Stone--the doctor who injected the plutonium--discussed Cade's unsuspecting involvement and eventual disappearance from the hospital a few days later. Morgan writes: "Dr. Stone was particularly concerned because, as he said, this man was part of an experiment to determine the risk to man from exposure to plutonium. This poor `expected casualty' had suddenly gotten up out of his bed at the hospital and disappeared. I was upset and concerned when I heard about this human experiment because as described to me this black man was unconscious and not expected to live when he was injected with plutonium. I was disturbed for two reasons: One, the poor man could not possibly have given his consent to be a guinea pig and two, I was afraid he was selected for this experiment in part because he was black and it was unlikely any of his family would learn of the plutonium injection... "
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)