Convicted With No Evidence by an All-White Jury, Black Community Leader Rev. Edward Pinkney Faces Li
Convicted With No Evidence by an All-White Jury, Black Community Leader Rev. Edward Pinkney Faces Life in Prison
Friday, 12 December 2014 12:12
By Victoria Collier and Ben-Zion Ptashnik, Truthout | News Analysis
The fight in Benton Harbor is a war, its not a conflict. Its a war over whether America will have prosperity and democracy, or live in poverty under the heel of open corporate rule. - Rev. Edward Pinkney
As reports escalate of police assaults and murder of unarmed black men for "suspected" crimes, a jury trial certainly sounds like welcome justice.
Not so for many in Michigan, where a 66-year-old black activist, Rev. Edward Pinkney, convicted of felony election fraud by an all-white jury, faces a life sentence, amid accusations of trumped-up charges and no direct evidence of wrongdoing.
When an all-white jury is chosen to try a prominent black community leader of an impoverished city with a 90 percent black population, when the powers that be have numerous reasons to want him discredited, when the evidence is entirely lacking and the punishment is draconian, there is ample cause to suspect another egregious breach of justice - one as blatant as refusing to indict the police who killed an unarmed teenager in Ferguson, and choked a father of six to death in Staten Island.
To be clear, there is nothing illegal about trying a black man with an all-white jury in the United States. In the 1986 Supreme Court ruling, Batson v. Kentucky, the court held that a defendant is not entitled to a jury containing or lacking members of any particular race. But in this case of activist, Reverend Edward Pinkney, his supporters believe it is equivalent to a white mob lynching an "upstart negro."
More:
http://truth-out.org/news/item/27974-all-white-jury-convicts-black-community-leader-with-no-evidence-reverend-edward-pinkney-faces-life-in-prison
hack89
(39,171 posts)They make him a "habitual offender" and significantly increase the penalties for any subsequent convictions.
He has a previous conviction for election fraud as well as convictions for theft and embezzlement.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)When the prosecutor's office is throwing around terms like "life sentence" for an alleged bit of petition fudging (which if true would place Pinkney in the top 40-45% of petition organizers), I've got some serious questions about their sense of judicial perspective...
I haven't been able to locate the trial documents yet (guess they haven't been uploaded)...But if it's true about the state not producing one witness who saw Pinkney fudging signatures, the mayor appearing as a witness for the prosecution, AND a juror being buddy-buddy with the state's star witness, then this case was beyond rotten...
http://courts.mi.gov/opinions_orders/case_search/pages/default.aspx?SearchType=2&PartyName=Pinkney+Ed&CourtType_PartyName=3&PageIndex=0&PartyOpenOnly=0
http://www.abc57.com/story/27258212/verdict-in-rev-edward-pinkney-election-fraud-trial
http://www.abc57.com/story/27619069/rev-edward-pinkney-speaks-out-before-sentencing
http://www.blackagendareport.com/node/14507
http://www.counterpunch.org/2014/11/11/legacy-of-racism-and-national-oppression-in-berrien-county/