Monday, September 7, 2009

Will California Execute An Innocent Man?

(The embedded video above is part one of three. Be sure to watch parts two and three at our YouTube page.)

An interview with author J. Patrick O’Connor about death row prisoner Kevin Cooper

By Angola 3 News

http://www.savekevincooper.org/images/KevinCooper1.jpg

(Photo: Kevin Cooper)

“The State of California may be about to execute an innocent man,” wrote Judge William A. Fletcher of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, in San Francisco. Judge Fletcher was writing about death-row prisoner Kevin Cooper, whose recent appeal to stop his execution was rejected by the Ninth Circuit on May 11, 2009.

One of the 11 out of 27 Circuit judges that dissented against the ruling to deny Cooper relief, Judge Fletcher wrote in the 101 page dissenting opinion that Cooper was “probably innocent,” of the 1983 murders for which he was convicted, and “if he is innocent, the real killers have escaped…They may kill again. They may already have done so…We owe it to the victims of this horrible crime, to Kevin Cooper, and to ourselves, to get this one right.”

Judge Fletcher’s dissent was recently featured in a front page New York Times article by John Schwartz, titled “Judges’ Dissents for Death Row Inmates Are Rising.” Schwartz writes that Fletcher “argued that the evidence had been tainted by bumbling and misconduct and suggested that blood linking Mr. Cooper to the crime had been planted by overzealous investigators. And while the Ninth Circuit in 2004 ordered new DNA tests, Judge Fletcher wrote that the lower court had set conditions rendering the results useless. ‘There is no way to say this politely,’ he wrote. ‘The district court failed to provide Cooper a fair hearing and flouted our direction to perform the two tests.’”

On May 18, 2009 Kevin Cooper was interviewed by Flashpoints/KPFA radio, where Cooper compared his current situation with that in 2004, when he came less than 4 hours from being executed before a stay was granted: “I was able to survive this madness. And now I seem to be right back, right in it.”

J. Patrick O’Connor is the editor of www.crimemagazine.com and the author of The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal (Lawrence Hill, 2008). He has previously worked as a reporter for UPI, editor of Cincinnati Magazine, associate editor of TV Guide, and editor and publisher of the Kansas City New Times. This newly released video-interview with O’Connor was conducted in June, 2009 in San Francisco, at the law office of Orrick, Herrington, and Sutcliffe, which is the law firm representing Kevin Cooper. O’Connor is currently researching and beginning to write a new book about Cooper’s story.

Kevin Cooper’s lawyers are expected to file an appeal with the US Supreme Court later this fall, which will be Cooper’s last chance to avoid execution. The Kevin Cooper Defense Committee, based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is planning a major event for December 13, for which some details are still forthcoming. To learn more about the Dec. 13 event and about Kevin Cooper, please visit www.savekevincooper.org or contact Rebecca Doran of the Kevin Cooper Defense Committee directly by phone (415-264-6622) or email (rebecca_doran@yahoo.com).

--This new video-interview and written report was made by Angola 3 News, which is a new project of the International Coalition to Free the Angola 3. At our website www.angola3news.com, we are collecting news stories and creating our own media projects about the Angola 3, and other cases like Kevin Cooper’s, which are part of a larger picture of multi-faceted injustice within the ‘criminal justice’ system. Please stay tuned for upcoming releases from Angola 3 News!

**Angola Prison was in the news today when the Shreveport Times published an article titled “Louisiana death penalty: an eye for an eye or ineffective?”

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Angola 3 Basics

(Download a flyer version of this fact sheet here.)

In 1972, deep in rural Louisiana, three young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000 acre former slave plantation called Angola.

Peaceful, non-violent protest in the form of hunger and work strikes organized by inmates caught the attention of Louisiana’s elected leaders and local media in the early 1970s. They soon called for investigations into a host of unconstitutional and extraordinarily inhumane practices commonplace in what was then the “bloodiest prison in the South.” Eager to put an end to outside scrutiny, prison officials began punishing inmates they saw as troublemakers.

At the height of this unprecedented institutional chaos, Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King were charged with murders they did not commit and thrown into 6x9 foot solitary cells where they remained for decades.

Their struggle for justice continued until Robert was released in 2001, Herman in 2013, and Albert in 2016.

Despite a number of reforms achieved in the mid-70s, many officials repeatedly ignored both evidence of misconduct, and of innocence.

The State’s case was riddled with inconsistencies, obfuscations, and missteps. A bloody print at the murder scene did not match Herman, Albert or anyone charged with the crime and was never compared with the limited number of other prisoners who had access to the dormitory on the day of the murder. In 2008, NPR asked Louisiana Attorney General Buddy Caldwell why the state refused to test the print. "A fingerprint can come from anywhere," Caldwell explained. "We're not going to be fooled by that."

Potentially exculpatory DNA evidence was “lost” by prison officials—including fingernail scrapings from the victim and barely visible “specks” of blood on clothing alleged to have been worn by Albert.

Both Herman and Albert had multiple alibi witnesses with nothing to gain who testified they were far away from the scene when the murder occurred.

In contrast, several State witnesses lied under oath about rewards for their testimony. The prosecution’s star witness Hezekiah Brown told the jury: “Nobody promised me nothing.” But new evidence showed Hezekiah, a convicted serial rapist serving life, agreed to testify only in exchange for a pardon, a weekly carton of cigarettes, TV, birthday cakes, and other luxuries.

“Hezekiah was one you could put words in his mouth,” the Warden reminisced chillingly in an interview about the case years later.

Notably, Teenie Rogers, the widow of the victim, prison guard Brent Miller, after reviewing the evidence believed Herman and Albert’s trials were unfair, expressed grave doubts about their guilt, and called upon officials to find the real killer. "“Each time I look at the evidence in this case, I remember there is no proof that the men charged with Brent’s death are the ones who actually killed him. It’s easy to get caught up in vengeance and anger, but when I look at the facts, they just do not add up,” said Rogers in 2013.

Herman’s conviction was finally overturned in October 2013 by a Federal Judge. Although his trial was riddled with evidence of prosecutorial misconduct and other constitutional violations, it was the systematic exclusion of women from his jury in violation of the 14th Amendment that freed him. Unfortunately he was released in the late stages of advanced liver cancer and only experienced 3 days of freedom. Sadly for Herman, justice delayed was justice denied.

Albert’s conviction was overturned three times by judges citing racial discrimination, prosecutorial misconduct, inadequate defense, and suppression of exculpatory evidence. While the case worked its way through endless appeals, Louisiana officials refused to release Albert from solitary, even when no longer convicted of the crime, because “there’s been no rehabilitation” from “practicing Black Pantherism.”4

In June 2015, a Federal Judge courageously ordered Albert's immediate release and barred a retrial stressing the “Court's lack of confidence in the State to provide a fair third trial." This extraordinary remedy was also frozen pending yet another series of appeals.

Finally, Albert was released in February of 2016, 43 years and 10 months after first being put in isolation for a crime he didn’t commit.

Louisiana today has the highest incarceration rate in the US—thus the highest in the world.

Three-fourths of the 5,000+ prisoners at Angola are African American. And due to some of the harshest sentencing practices in the nation, 97% will die there.

Reminiscent of a bygone era, inmates still harvest cotton, corn and wheat for 4 to 20 cents an hour under the watchful eye of armed guards on horseback.

We believe that only by openly examining the failures and inequities of the criminal justice system in America can we restore integrity to that system.

We must not wait.

We can make a difference.

As the A3 did years before, now is the time to challenge injustice and demand that the innocent and wrongfully incarcerated be freed.

Cruel and Unusual Punishment

In 2000, Herman, Albert and Robert filed a civil lawsuit challenging the inhumane and increasingly pervasive practice of long-term solitary confinement. Magistrate Judge Dalby described their decades of isolation as “so far beyond the pale” she could not find “anything even remotely comparable in the annals of American jurisprudence.” Over the course of 16 years, this seminal case detailed unconstitutionally cruel and unusual treatment and systematic due process violations at the hands of Louisiana officials and inspired worldwide action to end long term solitary.