<html>
<body>
<h1><font size=4><b>Nebraska Supreme Court ignores COINTELPRO and
conflicting police testimony in 'Omaha Two'
case</b></font></h1><font size=3>June 19, 2:39 PM<br><br>
The Nebraska Supreme Court has denied Edward Poindexter a new trial for
the 1970 bombing murder of Omaha police officer Larry Minard. Poindexter
and co-defendant Mondo we Langa (formerly David Rice) were convicted in
an April 1971 trial for the ambush murder of Minard.<br><br>
Unknown to the jury hearing the case, a secret operation of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation code-named Operation COINTELPO had targeted Ed
Poindexter and Mondo we Langa because of their role as leaders of Omaha's
chapter of the Black Panthers.<br><br>
When news of the Omaha bombing reached FBI headquarters the director, J.
Edgar Hoover, gave orders to withhold a laboratory report of the 911
hotline recording which captured the voice of Minard's killer who lured
police to a vacant house where a bomb waited.<br><br>
A 15 year-old, Duane Peak, would confess to planting the bomb and making
the 911 call. However, COINTELRO agents, led by Asst. FBI director
William Sullivan, were under orders from Hoover to be
"imaginative" in getting the two Panther leaders.<br><br>
Threats of execution, a lenient sentence, and special conditions in
custody brought Peak around to claiming the 'Omaha Two' leaders of the
Black Panthers were behind the crime. Dynamite was purportedly found in
Mondo's basement and the two men were convicted and sentenced to life
imprisonment.<br><br>
The jury would never hear the 911 call and did not know the voice on the
recording would one day be tested with sophisticated equipment that ruled
out Peak as the caller leaving an unidentified accomplice on the
loose.<br><br>
The 911 recording, kept from the jury, and conflicting dynamite testimony
by Omaha Police detectives were key elements of Poindexter's request for
a new trial. After deliberating on the request for half a year the
Nebraska Supreme Court issued a 22-page decision denying the request
without once mentioning COINTELPRO and J. Edgar Hoover's secret order to
not issue a lab report.<br><br>
The Nebraska chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union submitted an
amicus brief outlining COINTELPRO and the rigging of other trials against
Black Panther members around the nation. The appellate record also
contained COINTELPRO documents detailing the targeting of both Poindexter
and Mondo we Langa as well as the secret memos to withhold the laboratory
report on the 911 recording.<br><br>
The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that "even assuming" the voice
of the killer making the 911 call was not that of Duane Peak a new trial
was not justified.<br><br>
"Lt. James Perry, the head of the investigation for the Minard
slaying, testified in a 1980 deposition that he was unaware of any
request to have the tape tested but that he recalled discussion of the
possibility before the police department knew who had made the call.
Perry testified that once Peak admitted to making the 911 call, the
department considered the tape of that call a relatively worthless piece
of evidence."<br><br>
The conflicting trial and post-trial testimony of detectives Jack Swanson
and Robert Pheffer, where they each took turns claiming discovery of
dynamite in Mondo we Langa's basement, was dismissed by the Nebraska
Supreme Court.<br><br>
Swanson, who had custody of unaccounted for dynamite in an unrelated
case, purportedly found dynamite in the basement, first in a coal bin and
later near the furnace. Pheffer, who at trial said he never even went
into the basement, would tell an Omaha judge in 2007 that he was the
first person down and he found the dynamite not Swanson.<br><br>
The Nebraska Supreme Court dismissed this crucial conflicting testimony
about dynamite with one paragraph out of the 22 page decision and did not
mention Pheffer's post-trial version of the dynamite discovery at
all.<br><br>
"At trial, Swanson testified that he found dynamite in Rice's
basement and that Pfeffer was also in the basement when the dynamite was
found. Pheffer, on the other hand, testified at trial that he never went
to the basement and that he did not see the dynamite until Swanson
carried it up from the basement. Trial counsel did not spend time
exploring who was really in the basement when the dynamite was found, and
this was reasonable given that the particulars of who found the dynamite
and who was with that person at the time are relatively
insignificant."<br><br>
An appeal to the federal court system is expected. Meanwhile Ed
Poindexter and Mondo we Langa continue to remain in maximum-security
cells, imprisoned for a crime they continue to deny any guilt. Duane
Peak, the confessed killer, got his deal and served 33 months in juvenile
detention before walking free. The unknown 911 caller, who lured Minard
to his death, has never been identified and was never charged for the
murder.<br><br>
<br>
<b>For more info:
<a href="http://www.examiner.com/x-1969-Boston-Progressive-Examiner%7Etopic102074-Omaha-Two?selstate=topcat#breadcrumb">
www.examiner.com/x-1969-Boston-Progressive-Examiner~topic102074-Omaha-Two</a>
<br><br>
<br><br>
</b></font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
</html>