[Ppnews] Omaha Two story: (Part 28) - Omaha Two convicted in Cointelpro trial 40 years ago

[Political Prisoner News]

<http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/omaha-two-convicted-cointelpro-tainted-trial-40-years-ago-nebraska>http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/omaha-two-convicted-cointelpro-tainted-trial-40-years-ago-nebraska


Omaha Two convicted in COINTELPRO tainted trial 40 years ago in Nebraska

    * By <http://www.examiner.com/user-richardsonreports>Michael 
Richardson, COINTELPRO Examiner
    * April 17th, 2011 12:15 pm ET
Omaha Two story:  April 17, 1971

After three weeks of trial and four days of deliberation, the jury of 
one black` and eleven white jurors returned a guilty verdict against 
<http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/prison-interview-with-ed-poindexter-on-cointelpro-and-the-omaha-police>Edward 
Poindexter and 
<http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/prison-interview-with-mondo-we-langa-on-cointelpro-and-omaha-two-case>Mondo 
we Langa, then David Rice, for the August 17, 1970 bombing murder of 
Omaha police officer 
<http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/omaha-patrolman-larry-minard-killed-ambush-bombing-after-911-call>Larry 
Minard, Sr.

The two men were leaders of Omaha's affiliate chapter of the Black 
Panther Party known as the National Committee to Combat 
Fascism.  Unknown to the jury, Mondo and Poindexter were personal 
targets of 
<http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/fbi-s-director-hoover-let-killer-of-omaha-policeman-get-away-with-murder-40-years-ago>J. 
Edgar Hoover, the director of the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation.  As part of his clandestine 
<http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/crimes-of-cointelpro-heard-at-northeastern-law-school-seminar>COINTELPRO 
operation against the Black Panthers, Hoover had ordered the 
withholding of evidence from the FBI crime laboratory on the identity 
of Minard's killer.

After 
<http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/j-edgar-hoover-gave-order-to-let-policeman-s-killer-get-away-with-murder>Hoover's 
order to cancel a lab report on the recording of the 911 caller that 
lured Minard and seven other officers to the deadly trap in a vacant 
house, the Douglas County jury never got to hear the voice of 
Minard's killer captured on the newly installed 911 phone system.

After 25 hours of deliberations the verdict was returned on Saturday 
when the courthouse was locked up.  On short notice, District Judge 
Donald Hamilton reconvened court to the smallest audience of the 
entire trial, composed primarily of court personnel with few outside 
spectators.

The Omaha World-Herald was tipped off by a sheriff's deputy and was 
on hand to report the scene:

"The press, barred from the Courthouse Saturday on orders from 
Sheriff Theodore Janing, was notified through telephone calls by 
deputies to individual reporters.  The door of the Courthouse never 
was opened to the public.  Spectators had to sign in to enter the 
building and only a few of them--mostly persons connected with the 
government or the courts--were in the fifth floor courtroom when the 
jurors entered about noon."

Judge Hamilton asked the jury if a verdict had been reached and was 
told a decision had been made.  The verdict was handed to a court 
clerk to read out loud.

Mondo we Langa was brightly dressed in a yellow shirt and green 
pants.  Mondo sat quietly without expression.

Ed Poindexter was wearing blue denim clothes and looked straight ahead.

"Guilty" was the verdict, first for Poindexter and then for 
Mondo.  The jury spared their lives and did not opt for execution in 
Nebraska's electric chair.
Advertisement

Defense attorneys Thomas Kenney and David Herzog asked that each 
juror acknowledge the decision.  All jurors did although most spoke 
very quietly in the near empty courtroom.

Judge Hamilton ordered the two Black Panthers taken to the Nebraska 
State Penitentiary to serve their sentences "at hard labor."

The jury foreman, Myron J. Widger, Jr. from Millard, was asked by the 
Omaha World-Herald what took the jury so long.  "There were a lot of 
little things," Widger stated.

Widger said the nine women and three men on the jury agreed they 
would not discuss details of their deliberations.

Several theories circulated as to the reason for life sentences 
rather than execution as sought by the prosecutors.  One theory 
attributed the life sentences to Public Defender Frank 
<http://www.examiner.com/cointelpro-in-national/closing-arguments-larry-minard-case-put-american-system-of-justice-on-trial>Morrison's 
eloquent closing argument.  Another theory was that the lone black 
juror insisted on life sentences or would not agree to a unanimous 
verdict.  A third theory was simply that there was doubt in the jury, 
despite the verdict, about the involvement of the two Black Panther 
leaders in the crime.

Judge Hamilton gave the Omaha World Herald a post-trial interview and 
said the trial was "in some ways anticlimactic" after his ruling that 
evidence seized from a search of Mondo's house could be admitted.

Poindexter cursed when he was asked if he wished to be interviewed 
and he was led to jail in handcuffs without making a statement.

Mondo told an impromptu courthouse news conference on Saturday after 
the verdict, the prosecution "systematically excluded" young persons 
and minority groups from the jury and that he did not get a fair trial.

"I'm not going down to the state pen and say everything is 
beautiful.  I'm going to fight it and I'm going to go back onto the 
streets and do the same things, speaking out against the evils of the 
system which got me convicted,' declared Mondo we Langa.  "I will 
continue to organize people to bring about a reconstruction of the 
government of the United States."

Mondo said the case against him was a "maze of conjectures."  Mondo 
criticized the Omaha World Herald and also local radio and TV 
stations for leaning "towards the prosecution" during the trial.  The 
newspaper coverage was the "most ridiculous".

Not covered by any media was the secret manipulation of the trial by 
J. Edgar Hoover who had kept evidence from the jury--the voice of 
Larry Minard's killer.

Within an hour of the reading of the verdict, Ed Poindexter and Mondo 
we Langa were transported to the maximum-security state prison in 
Lincoln.   Four decades later, both men remain imprisoned and 
continue to deny any involvement in Minard's death.

To view all of the Omaha Two story articles click 
<http://www.examiner.com/omaha-two-story-in-national>HERE

Permission granted to reprint

Michael Richardson
COINTELPRO Examiner
Examiner.com



Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110

415 863-9977

www.Freedomarchives.org  
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20110417/707bd907/attachment.htm>