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<font face="Verdana" size=2><b>June 15, 2008 at 11:30:45<br><br>
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<a href="http://www.opednews.com/articles/Omininus-ruling-by-Nebrask-by-Michael-Richardson-080615-185.html">
Ominous ruling by Nebraska Supreme Court against Black Panther in
COINTELPRO case puts new trial request in doubt</a><br><br>
<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2><i>by
<a href="http://www.opednews.com/author/author3874.html">Michael
Richardson</a> Page 1 of 2
page(s)</i></font><font size=3> <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=1><a href="http://www.opednews.com">
http://www.opednews.com<br><br>
</a></font>
<img src="http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/uploaded/edpoindexter-20080615-483.jpg" width=235 height=320 alt="[]">
<font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3><br>
Ed Poindexter<br><br>
The Nebraska Supreme Court denied a <i>pro se</i> parole bid by Ed
Poindexter in a decision many expected was a foregone conclusion.
However, in denying a request for parole eligibility the state high court
signaled the difficulty Poindexter faces later this year when his request
for a new trial is argued by Lincoln attorney Robert Bartle.<br><br>
Poindexter was convicted in 1971 for the bombing murder of an Omaha
policeman, Larry Minard, in a controversial trial marred by conflicting
police testimony, withheld evidence, and tainted assistance by the
Federal Bureau of Investigation. Poindexter and co-defendant Mondo
we Langa (formerly David Rice) both deny any involvement in the crime and
were both targets of FBI director J. Edgar Hoover under the infamous
Operation COINTELPRO which targeted the Black Panthers for "no holds
barred" treatment.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Poindexter's request
for a new trial comes after sophisticated vocal analysis by voice analyst
Tom Owen in 2006 revealed that the confessed bomber, 15 year-old Duane
Peak, did not make the emergency call that lured Minard to his
death. Peak implicated Poindexter and Mondo we Langa making his
credibility critical…and leaving an unknown caller at large.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Retired Omaha detective
Robert Pheffer also contradicted his own trial testimony about finding
dynamite that was allegedly used in the fatal bomb in a dramatic and
emotion-charged hearing in Douglas County District Court last year before
Judge Russell Bowie.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>At the time of the
trial Omaha was gripped by racial tension. Former Nebraska governor
Frank Morrison was Poindexter's court-appointed public defender.
Morrison described Omaha in a 2003 deposition.<br><br>
"There was tremendous racial feeling. North Omaha was one of
the hottest spots in the whole United States for racial violence.
In fact, when in 1966 we had to call out the National Guard, they set
fire to North Omaha and we had to bring in the National Guard and take
over to preserve order. There was terrible racial feeling….I don't
have words to describe it, but there was terrible discrimination and
hatred of African-Americans, terrible."<br><br>
The "terrible racial feeling" Morrison described was fueled in
part by COINTELPRO dirty tricks initiated by the FBI to disrupt the Black
Panthers. Both Ed Pointdexter and Mondo we Langa had been secret
targets of Hoover's clandestine operation but the compromised role of the
FBI was unknown by Omaha police who were assisted by the federal agents
in the search for Minard's killers and unknown by jurors who convicted
Poindexter unaware of Hoover's secret directives against the Black
Panthers.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>The FBI, in cooperation
with Omaha Assistant Chief of Police Glenn Gates, kept the recording of
the emergency call from defense attorneys while the jurors who decided
the fate of the two Black Panther leaders never heard the voice of the
anonymous caller. A secret COINTELPRO memo obtained after the 1971 trial
under the Freedom of Information Act revealed that release of the
emergency tape recording would be "prejudicial to the police murder
trial" case against Poindexter and Langa.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>The jurors also never
knew that Peak, the confessed bomber, brokered a deal where he served 33
months of juvenile detention and then walked free in exchange for his
testimony against Poindexter and Langa. Nor did the jurors know
that Raleigh House, the supplier of the dynamite, would never be formally
charged and only spent one night in jail before being released on his own
signature because the police wanted to claim Langa supplied the
dynamite. In fact, Omaha Police Captain Murdock Platner did indeed
make such a claim in sworn testimony to a Congressional committee
contradicting actual trial testimony about the dynamite.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Details about the
compromised FBI role in the case did not come until years after the trial
and only judges, not jurors, have since been told about the withheld
evidence, conflicting and contradictory police testimony, about the deal
with Peak, and about the voice analysis that contradicts the story of the
state's chief murderous witness against Poindexter.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>The Nebraska Supreme
Court ruled that Poindexter's bid for parole must fail because the Board
of Pardons has not commuted his life sentence to a term of years thus
depriving the Board of Parole the ability to grant a parole
request. In responding to Poindexter's arguments that numerous
other prisoners serving life sentences have been released on parole after
serving less time than he has the court said that a commutation of
sentence was a "discretionary state privilege" and that even if
"granted generously in the past" Poindexter had no legal
entitlement to similar consideration.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>While the expected
ruling against parole for Poindexter does not presage the outcome of his
pending new trial request some of the language in the decision does
suggest that attorney Robert Bartle will have his work cut out for him
during oral arguments scheduled for this fall.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>In the ten-page
decision there were three references to the underlying crime, the murder
of Larry Minard. In the opening summary of the decision the
Nebraska Supreme Court properly noted, "In 1971, a jury convicted
Edward Poindexter of first degree murder." <br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>However, two later
references were less neutral and potentially betray a bias of the court
to the prosecution case. The court discussed sentencing statutes,
"in 1970 when Poindexter committed his offense." In the
conclusion of the decision the court repeated the bias and used the
statement "when Poindexter committed his crime" to describe the
killing of Minard.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Nebraska newspapers,
which have not reported on the COINTELPRO manipulation of the case
against Poindexter, brandished headlines about Cop-Killer Poindexter
Denied Parole following the language of the court decision.<br><br>
Meanwhile, Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa remain imprisoned at the
maximum security Nebraska State Penitentiary serving life sentences while
three of Minard's killers, Duane Peak, the confessed bomber; Raleigh
House, the supplier of the dynamite; and the unknown emergency line
caller walk free.<br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2> <br>
</font><font face="Times New Roman, Times" size=3>Last week in Baton
Rouge, Louisiana, federal Magistrate Christine Nolan recommended that
Black Panther Albert Woodfox, serving a life sentence at Angola State
Prison, should be granted a new trial. U.S. District Judge James
Brady has yet to rule on Nolan's recommendation. The new trial
recommendation followed a state court denial of a new trial request last
month for co-defendant Herman Wallace. Wallace and Woodfox were
held in solitary confinement for 36 years and only recently have been
moved to regular maximum security cells. The two men, leaders in a
prison chapter of the Black Panthers, were convicted for the murder of a
prison guard during a riot at the prison in 1972 on the testimony of
another prisoner released in exchange for testimony against the
Panthers.<br><br>
In Nebraska, a decision on Poindexter's request for a new trial is
expected later this year.<br><br>
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