[News] Ex-Black Panther who wouldn't testify ordered freed by top court

[Anti-Imperialist News]

<http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/23//cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2005/09/23/BAGCVESMK41.DTL>SAN 
FRANCISCO
Ex-Black Panther who wouldn't testify ordered freed by top court
- <mailto:begelko at sfchronicle.com>Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, September 23, 2005

A former Black Panther who was jailed for contempt of court after refusing 
to testify last month to a grand jury investigating the killings of two 
police officers in San Francisco in the early 1970s was ordered released 
Thursday, after the state Supreme Court ruled that the judge who ordered 
him held failed to follow proper procedures.

But Superior Court Judge Robert Dondero told Ray Michael Boudreaux of 
Pasadena to return to the grand jury next Tuesday for a new round of 
questioning that could result in another jail sentence if Boudreaux again 
remains silent.

The grand jury was convened by local prosecutors this summer to reopen an 
investigation that had been largely dormant for 30 years.

Sgt. Brian McDonnell, 44, was killed and eight other officers were injured 
by a bomb at Park Station on Waller Street on Feb. 16, 1971. On Aug. 29, 
1971, Sgt. John V. Young, 45, was killed, and a civilian clerk was wounded, 
when two men burst into Ingleside station and fired a shotgun through a 
hole in a bulletproof window.

Two men were arrested in New Orleans in connection with the Ingleside 
attack. But a court dismissed the charges in 1974, ruling that police in 
San Francisco had engaged in what amounted to torture to extract a 
confession from one of the men.

Boudreaux joined the Black Panthers after returning from Vietnam War 
service in 1968 and worked at a breakfast program in the Oakland schools, 
his attorney said. He and at least a dozen other people, some of them 
former members of black radical groups, have been subpoenaed by the grand 
jury and offered limited immunity from prosecution.

Appearing before the grand jury last month, Boudreaux was asked if he knew 
any of a long list of people and if he had any connections with the Black 
Panther Party or the Black Liberation Army, according to papers filed by 
his attorney, Michael Burt. Burt said in the papers that state prosecutors 
had previously told him that Boudreaux was suspected of aiding in the 1971 
killing.

Burt said Thursday that Boudreaux declined to answer for two reasons: The 
questions about his associations and political activities violated his 
constitutional rights, and the immunity he was offered by prosecutors was 
legally inadequate.

That immunity would have protected Boudreaux from prosecution based on his 
testimony, but it would have allowed him to be charged with the crimes if 
prosecutors obtained independent evidence. Burt contended the limited 
immunity, authorized by a 1996 state law, did not apply to crimes committed 
before 1996, when the only grant of immunity recognized in the law was 
complete protection from prosecution in exchange for testimony.

Dondero, presiding over the grand jury, ruled last month that the immunity 
was legally adequate and jailed Boudreaux on Aug. 29 when he refused to 
testify. On Wednesday, the state Supreme Court, without discussing other 
issues, said the contempt-of-court ruling was legally defective because 
Dondero did not actually order Boudreaux to answer the questions before 
holding him in contempt.

Dondero, in response, ordered Boudreaux released Thursday but told him he 
could be held in contempt again if he refused to answer questions next 
Tuesday.

E-mail Bob Egelko at <mailto:begelko at sfchronicle.com>begelko at sfchronicle.com.

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