[Pnews] Douglas County prosecutor can look for new evidence in his office files in Edward Poindexter case

[Prisoner News]

https://richardsonreports.wordpress.com/2019/10/19/douglas-county-prosecutor-can-look-for-new-evidence-in-his-office-files-in-edward-poindexter-case/ 



  Douglas County prosecutor can look for new evidence in his office
  files in Edward Poindexter case

Michael Richardson - October 19, 2019
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Don Kleine 
<https://www.omaha.com/news/metro/author-asks-don-kleine-gov-ricketts-to-reopen-probe-of/article_59ca1b74-de3d-5396-a6cf-3a21c5b92f88.html>, 
the Douglas County Attorney in Omaha, Nebraska, has said he would reopen 
the Edward Poindexter 
<https://richardsonreports.wordpress.com/2018/11/01/nebraskas-most-controversial-prisoner-ed-poindexter-marks-forty-eight-birthdays-behind-bars/> 
case if presented new evidence. Poindexter, chairman of the National 
Committee to Combat Fascism, a Black Panther affiliate group, was 
convicted in 1971 for the bomb murder of Patrolman Larry Minard 
<https://richardsonreports.wordpress.com/2019/08/17/policemans-murder-on-august-17-1970-triggered-clandestine-cointelpro-operation-against-the-omaha-two/> 
on August 17, 1970. One reason Kleine should review the files of his 
predecessor Donald Knowles 
<https://richardsonreports.wordpress.com/2019/09/20/omaha-two-alibi-not-disclosed-by-prosecutor-is-new-evidence-to-reopen-1971-black-panther-case/>, 
who prosecuted Poindexter and co-defendant David Rice 
<https://richardsonreports.wordpress.com/2018/12/17/growing-up-black-in-omaha-included-loitering-arrest-for-poet-activist-david-rice/>, 
for new evidence in the case is because both men were targets of a 
clandestine counterintelligence operation of the Federal Bureau of 
Investigation code-named COINTELPRO 
<https://richardsonreports.wordpress.com/2018/11/12/fbi-leaders-led-conspiracy-to-frame-black-panthers-in-omaha-for-policemans-murder/>.

Kleine was hired by Knowles but did not work as a prosecutor at the time 
of the Minard murder trial. Duane Peak 
<https://richardsonreports.wordpress.com/2018/09/28/the-day-the-story-changed-about-the-black-panthers-and-an-omaha-policemans-murder/>, 
the confessed teen bomber, was Knowles’ star witness and made a deal 
that kept him out of prison. Although Knowles trusted Peak enough to 
seek the electric chair for Poindexter and Rice, who Peak said put him 
up to the crime, he did not follow Peak’s testimony about the supplier 
of the suitcase and stolen dynamite. Peak claimed that Raleigh House, an 
officer in the NCCF, provided both the suitcase and explosives used to 
kill Minard.

During a week-long police dragnet in Omaha after the bombing, sixty 
black residents were arrested on a variety of suspicion charges and 
minor infractions and most spent several days in jail. Raleigh House was 
only held overnight and then released by Deputy County Attorney Arthur 
O’Leary on a signature bond, suggesting that House was somebody’s 
informant. The Near-Northside was laced with informers for the Omaha 
Police Department intelligence unit, paid informants of the FBI, and 
informants for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division.

House testified for the defense at the April 1971 murder trial and was 
given hands-off treatment during cross-examination by Knowles. If House 
was a FBI informant he may have also been a provocateur saboteur under 
COINTELPRO direction putting in motion the deadly ambush bombing. 
Informants were known to commit crimes with FBI knowledge. It was no 
holds barred against the Black Panthers under FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.

Arthur O’Leary, who infamously told Duane Peak the truth did not matter 
during a recorded interrogation, let House enjoy a get-out-of-jail card 
while Knowles soft-balled House on the witness stand. Both men would 
have known who House was working for if he was indeed an informant and 
there may be existing files that document the matter Arthur O’Leary 
testified in post-trial proceedings that his personal files on the case 
filled a four-drawer filing cabinet. Knowles admitted to holding a large 
box of files in his office closet.

At the time of the trial Knowles did not know about COINTELPRO 
manipulation in the case and did not entertain the idea of intentional 
wrongful conviction, one of the FBI modus operandi of COINTELPRO 
operations. If House had instigated the crime while prosecutors looked 
the other way with FBI encouragement, the possibility of wrongful 
conviction needs to be considered by Kleine.

Only Kleine has access to the old files of his boss and thus if any new 
evidence is to be found out about Raleigh House and the murder of Larry 
Minard it must be Kleine who makes the discovery. House’s name wanders 
in and out of the story beginning in October 1969 when he authored the 
feature article of the /By Any Means/ newsletter and promised to “serve 
the people of this community in every manner to bring about the 
self-determination and liberation of black people.”

House showed up again in December 1969 when he was hauled in with both 
Poindexter and Rice and three others to testify to a federal grand jury 
about the Vivian Strong Liberation School. The /Omaha World-Herald 
/called House a “onetime Panther lieutenant in Omaha.”

After the bombing, Raleigh House made it on the police intelligence 
unit’s list of thirty-eight suspects wanted for questioning. House was 
arrested and held one night before being released by prosecutor Arthur 
O’Leary. Jailers listened in on House’s one phone call from jail.

“HOUSE asked the female party if she would call Oakland and get some of 
the RANGERS out here, and she replied, yes she would. HOUSE then said, 
“you can call You Know Who, in Chicago, and get some of them too. The 
female voice then replied O.K. HOUSE then told the female voice to get 
in touch with Huey Newton, and she replied, well he is in New Hampton 
now and I don’t think it would do any good. HOUSE then told the female 
voice to call a party by the name of HILLIARD, in Kansas City, and get 
him up here, and the female voice replied O.K.”

“HOUSE then told the female voice that she should contact the Black 
Panther Mamma, who would carry on while he was in jail.”

Raleigh House surfaced again in Omaha police testimony to a U.S. House 
Committee on Internal Affairs subcommittee in October 1970. Captain 
Murdock Platner was asked if he knew of House by Representative William 
Scherle of Council Bluffs, Iowa. Platner replied affirmatively.

“Yes, sir; he is the treasurer, the original treasurer of the Black 
Panther Party, and he is the minister of finance in this National 
Committee to Combat Fascism at this time.” Platner failed to mention 
that Duane Peak had identified House as the supplier of the dynamite and 
suitcase for the bomb that killed a policeman.

Raleigh House also showed up on a twenty-two member list of bombing 
suspects compiled by the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Division. 
Although the Omaha ATF office wanted federal prosecution the United 
States Attorney, Richard Dier, declined to prosecute anyone.

Finally, House testified at the trial that sent Ed Poindexter and David 
Rice to prison for life. Curiously, House escaped serious questioning by 
the prosecution during cross-examination. The only question House was 
asked about the bomb was from defense lawyer Thomas Kenney, who merely 
asked if House remembered giving a suitcase to Duane Peak, to which 
House said, “No.”

House said after his arrest his hands were not tested for traces of 
dynamite. The decision to not test House’s hands, a critical decision, 
may be recorded in files hidden in the depths of Knowles files on the case.

If Don Kleine cannot explain why Raleigh House was not charged for 
supplying the bomb-making supplies that killed Minard then he should do 
a little snooping for new evidence in the old files. The FBI was 
actively engaged in COINTELPRO actions against both Poindexter and Rice 
at the time of the murder investigation, Kleine should not ignore that 
reality.

Ed Poindexter and David Rice were convicted and sentenced to life 
without parole. Rice changed his name in prison to Wopashitwe Mondo Eyen 
we Langa 
<https://richardsonreports.wordpress.com/2019/01/11/prison-wisdom-of-wopashitwe-mondo-eyen-we-langa/> 
and died March 2016 at the Nebraska State Penitentiary. Poindexter, in 
poor health, remains imprisoned at the maximum-security prison where he 
continues to proclaim his innocence.

/This article contains excerpts from /FRAMED: J. Edgar Hoover, 
COINTELPRO & the Omaha Two story 
<https://richardsonreports.wordpress.com/2018/08/30/new-book-on-fbis-war-against-the-black-panthers-gets-five-star-review/>,/in 
print edition at /Amazon 
<https://www.amazon.com/FRAMED-Edgar-Hoover-COINTELPRO-Omaha/dp/1985021994/ref=sr_1_43?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1530637788&sr=1-43&keywords=framed>/and 
in /ebook 
<https://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_noss?url=node%3D154606011&field-keywords=FRAMED%3A+J.+Edgar+Hoover%2C+COINTELPRO+%26+the+Omaha+Two+story>/. 
Portions of the book may be read free online at /NorthOmahaHistory.com 
<https://northomahahistory.com/2017/07/07/framed-series-summary-by-michael-richardson/>. 
/The book is also available to patrons of the Omaha Public Library./


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863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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