July, 2006

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If We Don't Hang Together, We'll Hang Separately

By Rev. Edward Pinkney

Rev. Edward Pinkney PHOTO/DAYMONJHARTLEY.COM

A jurist stated that I, Rev. Edward Pinkney, was down seven votes before any evidence was presented in my April 2006 "vote fraud" trial. The jury was tainted from the start. The Whirlpool gang and the County Clerk's cousin were in control. Prosecutors and officers attempted to influence the jury, offering bribes, coercing, making threats or asking acquaintances to intercede with the jury.

The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that jury pools must represent a fair cross-section of the county. Yet District Attorney James Cherry has an unwritten policy excluding Blacks and Jews from juries in criminal cases. This extreme corruption of the U.S. Judiciary system is a well-kept secret.

Jurors are supposed to be selected at random -- not so in Berrien County. While one in five adults in the county is Black, fewer than one in seventy in the jury room is Black. An all-white jury is unfair to Black defendants. Presiding over the trials are white judges. These imbalances cast doubt on the promise of the courts to provide a fair trial.

While Blacks don't get the same chance to judge, there is no shortage of them being judged. Benton Harbor has more Black Americans in prison per capita than any other city and now the state wants the death penalty.

There is a war going on, the haves against the have-nots, rich against poor, class against class. If we do not hang together, we will surely hang separately.