[Ppnews] Former Black Panther jailed for not testifying

[Political Prisoner News]

SAN FRANCISCO
Former Black Panther jailed for not testifying
Jaxon Van Derbeken, Chronicle Staff Writer

Thursday, September 1, 2005

A judge has jailed a former member of the Black Panther Party for 
refusing 
to testify before a grand jury investigating the killings of two San 
Francisco police officers in the early 1970s.

Ray Michael Boudreaux, 62, who has worked for 23 years as an 
electrician for 
Los Angeles County, is being held indefinitely at San Francisco County 
Jail 
on the order of Superior Court Judge Robert Dondero.

Prosecutors contend Boudreaux is an important witness in their 
investigation 
into who carried out the attacks. That investigation was largely 
dormant for 
30 years but was revived earlier this summer when state prosecutors 
convened 
a grand jury in San Francisco.

The first attack happened Feb. 16, 1970, when a bomb that had been 
planted 
at Park Station on Waller Street exploded. Sgt. Brian McDonnell, 44 , 
was 
killed, and eight other officers were injured.

On Aug. 29, 1971, two men burst into Ingleside Police Station and fired 
a 
shotgun through a hole in a bulletproof glass window. Sgt. John V. 
Young, 
45, was killed, and a civilian clerk was wounded. The street on which 
the 
police station is located was later renamed in Young's honor.

No one took responsibility for either attack, but authorities have 
always 
assumed that radical groups were involved and that the two incidents 
were 
related.

Boudreaux served in the Vietnam War, returned home in 1968 and soon 
joined 
up with the Black Panthers in Oakland, his attorney said, working at a 
breakfast program in the schools. He now lives in Pasadena.

In 1971, Boudreaux was arrested on assault charges in Los Angeles with 
two 
other men who authorities suspected were tied to the Ingleside Station 
attack. Boudreaux was cleared of the assault charges, but the two men 
he was 
with were later rearrested in New Orleans in connection with the 1971 
shooting.

In 1974, a court ruled that San Francisco and New Orleans police had 
engaged 
in what amounted to torture to extract a confession from one of the men 
and 
threw out the charges.

The grand jury convened in San Francisco is looking into both killings. 
Boudreaux and at least a dozen other people, some of them former 
members of 
black radical groups, were subpoenaed and offered limited immunity from 
prosecution in exchange for their testimony.

Boudreaux, however, refused to testify. Dondero, who is presiding over 
the 
grand jury proceedings, jailed Boudreaux on contempt charges Monday and 
ordered that he be held until he accepts the immunity deal.

It is unclear what Boudreaux's possible connection to the investigation 
is. 
David Druliner, special assistant attorney general who is bringing the 
case 
before the grand jury, did not return calls seeking comment Wednesday.

But in a contempt hearing in court Monday, he told Dondero that 
Boudreaux is 
"a bright individual. He knows what is going on, and he's choosing, 
clearly, 
not to answer lawful questions."

Boudreaux's attorney challenged the legal validity of the limited 
immunity 
offered by prosecutors, saying it failed to protect his client's Fifth 
Amendment rights.

"The privilege against self-incrimination seems to be meaningless to 
them, 
'' attorney Michael Burt said. "They figure, 'We want your testimony. 
Testify against yourself -- you are just going to have to trust us that 
we 
are not going to make improper use of that.' It's a little scary."

He argued that under the legal standard in effect at the time of the 
killings, Boudreaux would have been granted immunity from all 
prosecution if 
he testified. The current offer would shield Boudreaux only from 
prosecution 
about matters he brings up in his testimony, Burt said.

Dondero ruled that the terms of immunity could be dealt with after 
Boudreaux 
testified.

Burt then argued that Boudreaux had reason to be skeptical of any 
government 
deal. He called to the stand Jill Elijah, a Harvard Law School 
professor, 
who testified that given the FBI's history of civil rights violations 
against the Black Panthers, "Mr. Boudreaux would have no reason to 
trust any 
representations made to him by the government with respect to his 
immunity, 
his safety or his protection from prosecution.''

Elijah testified that "it's been well-documented that well over 30 
members 
of the Black Panther Party across the United States were assassinated 
by the 
FBI, or in tandem with the FBI and local police force operatives.''

Dondero told Burt that his client would be jailed until the grand 
jury's 
investigation was over or a new grand jury was impaneled.

"He has the key to the jail cell in his possession if he testifies,'' 
Dondero said.

Other former radicals are also supposed to appear before the grand 
jury. 
Among them is John Bowman, one of the two men arrested in 1971 in 
connection 
with the Ingleside Station attack.

His attorney, Arthur Wachtel, said San Francisco and New Orleans police 
had 
used cattle prods and wet blankets on his client to try to force a 
confession. Like Burt, he said prosecutors should be granting full 
immunity 
to anyone who testifies before the grand jury.

"What this all suggests is that they are playing games and misusing the 
grand jury process,'' Wachtel said.

E-mail Jaxon Van Derbeken at jvanderbeken at sfchronicle.com.

Page B - 1



Claude Marks
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia St
San Francisco, CA 94110
(415) 863-9977

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: chronicle_logo.gif
Type: image/gif
Size: 1013 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20050901/2ad54d7b/attachment.gif>