-------- Original Message -------- Subject: (en) ACTION ALERT FOR THE CHATTANOOGA 3 (pt. 1) Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2001 13:41:36 -0500 (EST) From: "Lorenzo Ervin" <komboa at hotmail.com> Reply-To: a-infos-d at ainfos.ca To: a-infos-en at ainfos.ca
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A - I N F O S N E W S S E R V I C E
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THE RACIST FRAME-UP OF THE CHATTANOOGA THREE CONTINUES by Lorenzo Komboa Ervin
On Tuesday, January 9th, the trial of the Chattanooga 3 began in Chattanooga, Tennessee, my original hometown. For years, because of my and other grassroots activism against racist vigilantism (KKK) and police murder and brutality, I have been a target of police harrassment and attempted frameups. This includes FBI and other agencies false charges of bombing, shootings, and even soliticitation of assault of a federal informer. None of these fake case have been successful, I have defeated all of the major attempts at felony charges up to this point, including the original attempts by local prosecutors in this case to charge me with "inciting a riot" at City Hall in 1998 in order to railroad me under the infamous "three strikes" sentencing enhancement laws which allows life imprisonment without possibility of parole.
We defeated this attempt to charge me with a felony when we were indicted for the lesser charge of "disruption of a meeting." But even that charge was seen by us as both unconsitutional and designed to punish us for our political activity, so we would not cooperate with authorities, and "plead guilty". ( NOTE: in the days before the trial, both Damon McGee and Makail Musa Muhammad's attorney's were contacted to offer them "deals" if they would enter guilty pleas and testify against me, but they refused).
The trial began before the same cxlearly biased judge, Rebecca J. Stern, who denounced me openly in court as a "Red Anarchist", "Terrorist" and a "racist in reverse" (since I hate the Klan and other white fascist groups). This is also the judge who alleged a conspiracy by the Black Autonomy International, Anarchist Black Cross, and a variety of other radical groups to terrorize the city through bombings, "violent" anti-police brutality/KKK protests, and then lectured me on why a law like the "disruption" law was needed to get to "political criminals" like me who used legal demonstrations to "slander policemen and government officials." Finally, this is the same judge, (who at this same court session) demanded to know about my (then-recent) trip to Europe, which she claimed was financed by "international terrorists". This was the same judge who heard the case, and postured as being"neutral", that is "fair" to the State of Tennessee and ourselves as Defendants. This, of course, was untrue, but I could not remove her even when I tried to make a court motion to do so. She wanted to hear the case, and toss our convictions as a bone to the DA and city officials!
>From the beginning, it was clear that this whole trial was rigged. Our
attorneys were told that they could not mention a word about the First
Amendment or Free Speech in their court presentation or as a defense to
the
charge. This cut the heart out of the defense, and my court-appointed
lawyer
then asked Judge Stern how he was supposed to conduct a defense at all,
and
she just smiled. That was the idea. It was 1994 all over again, when
Judge
Stephen Bevil did the same thing in the Chattanooga 8 case, where we
were
charged under the same statute. The judicial railroad was pulling out of
the
station!
Next, when I asked to defend myself, she took away that right even though it is clearly within the Tennesee and federal constitutions. She did not want to hear any objects from me during the trial, and told me that we could only speak through our lawyers, who shivering like whipped puppy dogs. I honestly believe that if we had out of town legal counsel or a "radical' lawyer, this would have been challenged on the spot with an appeal to the higher court. But these guys were part of the frameup, so they knew better than to fight.
On the other hand, the prosecution was allowed to do anything it wanted to, and in fact even made arguments against the statut's unconsitutuionality, and that we had no right to free speech! Our attorneys just sat there and moaned, even when we demanded that they object! There was no question that we had no way to defend ourselves, and that this was the very idea.
(NEXT) KANGAROO KOURT IN CHOKE-A-NIGGA, TENNASEE!
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