Correctional officer Schretter continually discriminates against black prisoners

The Marquette Branch Prison, over 500 miles from Benton Harbor, is known as the “great concentration camp” of the US.  No action is taken to correct inappropriate behavior by prison officers.  No discipline for rule violations, no counseling, no service rating for performance problems.  Everyday officers violate rules.

Correctional officer Schretter continually discriminates against black prisoners.

Instead of providing good behavioral examples for criminal offenders, officers are one step from prison themselves.  Most have no morals.  The MDOC no longer forces officers to be good citizens.

Here at Marquette, we live in total fear.  Officers do not protect prisoners;  I had to break up a fight two nights ago.  Fights occur everyday;  tension is so thick you could cut it with a knife.  The mental strain, the intensity, is far too much for the average prisoner.  The writing of false misconduct tickets and the everyday threatening, intimdating, and harassing is just too much.  Warden Rob’t. Napel does nothing to protect the prisoners.

Lakeland Prison (level 2 facility) had not a single incident in over 8 months - here at Marquette (level 1 facility) there are 2 to 3 assaults per day.

Marquette officers are untrained, unskilled, unprofessional, and uneducated  =  out-of-control.  They are allowed to break MDOC rules.  It’s tantamount to stealing from taxpayers.

My biggest fear is that officers will plant a weapon in my locker or control area.

Noel Night Demonstration in Detroit

Free Rev. Pinkney demonstrators at Noel Night in Detroit

On December 5, supporters demonstrated for "Free Rev. Pinkney" at the Noel Night event in Detroit. They also sang Christmas songs with new lyrics written by supporter Martha G., like this one (to the tune of "Away in the Manger").

Away in a jail cell, without a soft bed,
They’ve jailed Edward Pinkney for things that he said

For telling the truth the state locked him away,
for false frameup charges he’s caged night and day

In the town Benton Harbor where Whirlpool rules
It’s a company town but the people aren’t fools.

They stood up to injustice, said their park must be saved
Led by Reverend Pinkney with his spirit so brave.

To recall the mayor and take the town back
Petitions were signed against big money’s hack

Then the state said they found that there were some false dates
With no case against Pinkney they sealed his sad fate

30 months to ten years, just how cruel can they be?
No right to make phone calls, in solidarity

Without decent clothes, decent food or health care
Way, way up north in the middle of nowhere

With his life ever threatened, it’s worse every day
So the people united must stand up and say

Free Reverend Pinkney, we will save his life
And let him spend Christmas in the arms of his wife!

Close Marquette Branch Prison Now!

The difference between Marquette Branch Prison Level 1 and Lakeland Correctional Facility Level 2 is the warden. The conditions at Lakeland are 1,000 times more humane. I was at Lakeland for over eight months and did not have a single ticket. Since arriving here in Marquette Branch Prison, the worst-operating prison in the state, I have received 6 misconduct tickets on a false basis.

The correctional officers here make up offences. One officer wrote 39 misconduct tickets in one hour. Another wrote a little 18-year-old kid 13 misconducts in a two-week period, and another wrote 8 or 9 for one individual. The officers in N dorm write tickets mostly on Black prisoners.

At Lakeland in over 8 months there was not a single attack on anyone in the unit. There is only one officer in the unit and you feel safe. Here in Marquette every single day there is an attack. A fight broke out right in front of my bed and the correctional officer could not beak up the fight. These officers cannot protect anyone. I broke up a fight in the bathroom myself, but this officer could not so he pepper-sprayed the entire room, including me and everyone else. A week earlier a young man was attacked in his cell and half his face was burned off. Every single day a person's locker is broken into; at Lakeland you could leave your locker unlocked and not worry about your possessions.

At Marquette the warden does not mind all the sexual assaults by officers on prisoners. He does not mind officers gambling, every single day. He does not mind prisoners fighting prisoners. At Marquette Prison they do not follow their own rules, but if you are a law-abiding person and try to do the right thing, the warden will send his boys after you. They will lie, cheat, steal, or even plant a weapon in your locker. They all work together against the prisoners.

The Michigan Department of Corrections is a fraud stealing taxpayers' money. The people must stand up and say no more! Close Marquette Branch Prison now!

-Rev. Pinkney

Violation of Rev. Pinkney's First Amendment Rights at Trial

Rev. Pinkney was denied a fair trial because his First Amendment rights were violated. The law is settled that as a general matter the First Amendment prohibits government officials from subjecting an individual to retaliatory action, including criminal prosecutions, for speaking out.

When considering these factors, it is indisputable that Rev. Pinkney's statements to the media, participation in political campaigns, public speeches, authorship of newspaper articles, and similar activities were all protected by the First Amendment and criminal prosecution can certainly deter political and civil engagement by most citizens.

The improper use of irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial evidence about Rev. Pinkney's constitutionally protected political activity suggests that such activity was a motivating factor behind his prosecution. Implicit in the prosecutor's closing arguments are disdain for Rev. Pinkney's political activities and associations and a sarcastic wink and nod to jurors, who he presumed to share his sentiment because he is also white.

The prosecutor repeatedly notes there was nothing wrong with the litany of First Amendment activities he recited. There was no reason to raise them during a criminal trial. The Michigan Rules of Evidence should have been the basis for excluding unrelated constitutionally protected activities. The trial court erred in allowing it.
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...the bare facts regarding Rev. Pinkney's political and civic activism cannot alone be regarded as a basis for establishing that he had a motive for election fraud. If, as alleged, he like hundreds of other citizens spoke out against Mayor Hightower and engaged in election activities, then such does not demonstrate that he was motivated to commit crimes. In fact, there are millions of politically active citizens across the country who cannot be presumed to be predisposed to election fraud.

More important still is the fact that treating a politically engaged citizen in this way chills the type of political involvement that is so important to the democratic process.

First Amendment freedoms need breathing space to survive and when government overreach has a chilling effect on the exercise of such freedom, society as a whole is the lower. For this reason, using evidence of political involvement as the sole basis for alleging motive is improper.
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Evidence does not lie, but Judge Sterling Schrock, Prosecutor Mike Sepic, and the all-white jury do!

Marquette Branch Prison and MDOC Are a Fraud on All Taxpayers

The mission statement of the Michigan Department of Corrections (MDOC) is a complete fraud. You have to fail the polygraph test to become a staff member of the MDOC. You must be willing to lie, cheat, and steal from the taxpayers--not all staff, but the ones I have had contact with. One of the functions of the criminal justice system is supposedly to enhance public safety, but they cannot protect the prisoners behind their own fence--another lie.

The MDOC is a complete fraud on the taxpayers. There are five people over 90 years of age in the Michigan prison system, over 45 people over 80 years of age, 414 over 70 years of age, and over 4,000 prisoners over 60 years of age. The MDOC mission statement claims to provide meaningful opportunities for offenders to help themselves to improve their behaviors and become law abiding and productive citizens through academics, vocational work, recreational activities, etc. Yet the untrained, unskilled, uneducated, unprofessional, and out of control correctional officers are just one step from being incarcerated themselves.

Allow me to give you an example. A prisoner's wife came to visit. A correctional officer saw her and told other officers that he was going to sleep with the prisoner's wife. He went to the prisoner's file, wrote down the home number, and started calling the prisoner's wife and making sexual advances toward her. She told her husband who told the Warden. Instead of disciplining the correctional officer, MDOC transferred the prisoner and the prisoner was disciplined. This is how MDOC operates. There are correctional officers engaging in or attempting to engage in sexual assault on prisoners, but who can the prisoners tell? They all work together against the prisoners.

The MDOC states that one of the major objectives of the MDOC is to influence criminal offenders to become law abiding citizens and that both on duty and off duty conduct of department personnel must serve as an example of proper conducct for offenders. This is a huge lie. The whole department is a complete fraud on the taxpayers. We must close down Marquette Branch Prison to protect the public.
-Rev. Pinkney