Framing a Legal Paradigm for the Prosecution
Framing a Legal Paradigm for the Prosecution
of Police Terrorism
During The early 1980’s, I was the Director of the NCBL Legal Defense Project. It was during this period that I met and represented Chokwe Lumumba. I also had an opportunity to represent members of the BLA and the RNA. I hired Michael Warren as the Project’s associate director. C. Vernon Mason was NCBL’s General Counsel.
It was during this period that each case of a police shooting and each case of a racially-motivated murder required a specific legal paradigm. Today, a money settlement is a synonym for justice. Protests are used to inflate the settlements. Ambulance chasers are the prime beneficiaries. Police terrorism is still intact.
I also recognized that the Black community needed access to previously unavailable legal tools like a special prosecutor. In American jurisprudence, in 1986, no special prosecutor had ever been appointed in a racially-motivated murder. Today, no one has the courage to demand a special prosecutor. My demands always included “or else.” This was novel.
When eleven, white transit cops had beaten Michael Stewart into a coma after he was observed kissing a white female, Louis Clayton Jones and Warren were law partners. Warren persuaded Jones to make me a member of the team in light of an earlier dispute in the Schomburg Coalition.
I was its pro bono general counsel. The mission was to stop the hiring of a white archivist. I initiated a lawsuit against the New York Public Library on behalf of the Schomburg Coalition which was chaired by Charles Barron.
When I convinced a white justice of the Manhattan Supreme Court, that Blacks had a right to have a Black archivist define, catalogue and store its history, this argument shocked the legal establishment. The case would end up in the state’s highest court.
A legal paradigm had to be established for the Stewart case. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau had never indicted a cop for murdering a Black person. He was beyond political pressure from either the governor or the state attorney general.
Eliot Gross, the city’s chief medical examiner was classifying the manner of death through pseudo-science. We also had to initiate a legal assault on the grand jury process. Police terrorism is institutional with municipal agencies acting in concert.
After a legal paradigm was established, Clayton demanded a special prosecutor. I gave Clayton the legal rationale. Cuomo responded by claiming that no legal basis existed in the law for a special prosecutor. We would win that debate in Howard Beach but Morgenthau was not yielding any turf.
This was not the end of the story. I was arrested and charged with felonious assault on two court officers and obstruction of justice which, upon conviction, means automatic disbarment. There is a reason why a criminal court was once called a “police court.”
After Michael Griffith was murdered in Howard Beach, Black leaders initiated traditional methods of protest without a specific demand being put on the table. This is part of a pacification program. Economic sanctions and happy feet are mutually exclusive.
When I went to a Queens precinct and stopped a line-up because Cedric Sandiford had been blinded by the attack, I was standing alone. The media, Mayor Ed Koch and Police Commissioner Ben Ward took turns attacking me. Activism in New York means making noises but not stepping on white toes.
This attack was bad enough but it escalated when I appeared in Queens Supreme Court amid a kangaroo proceeding and announced that the star witness, Cedric Sandiford, would not participate in a judicial cover-up. The city, including Black leaders and judges, went ballistics. Cuomo attacked me as having “zero credibility” in the Black community.
State Attorney General Robert Abrams started preparing an ambush against me in a future case. They predicted that the Black community would force me to take on a future case of white terrorism. The trap would be set to end my legal career.
I had escaped the noose in 1985 against all odds. White people do not act spontaneously. It is all calculating. Blacks are unable to connect the dots because we refuse to fund an intelligence organization.
Given my reputation as the leading, legal authority on combating white terrorism, a reasonable person would have concluded that at least one Black elected official or leading Black or a Black-oriented media outlet would have contacted me especially on the question of whether the Queens district attorney’s office is pro-police and should be supplanted.
In this city, white supremacists have instructed gullible Blacks that I have the Bubonic plague. Blacks in New York are behaving like trained seals. “There will be no “Montgomery Bus Boycott.” Heads are buried in the sand to avoid undermining the schemes of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Although the appointment of a well-meaning special prosecutor would be an upgrade over Queens County District Attorney Richard Brown, a special prosecutor is not the solution because of the New York Penal Law and the New York Criminal Procedure Law.
This shooting in Queens, like the execution of Amadou Diallo is a crime against humanity. The doctrine of respondeat superior must apply to the prosecution. Nonetheless, neither police-styled, execution warrants an identical paradigm. There was no legal paradigm in Diallo.
Crimes against humanity are not punishable under New York law. This is particularly important with respect to accessorial liability. Any effective prosecution must recognize a chain of command of police criminality.
This was a concern in the Nuremberg prosecutions. The architects and engineers of genocide would usually escape criminal liability. Thus, these crimes continue to repeat themselves. There must be a deterrent. The mayor and the police commissioner must feel the heat.
Many nations recognized the impotency of local laws to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Thus, those nations signed a treaty establishing the International Criminal Court. The United Nations rather than the Queens County district attorney’s office is properly equipped to investigate human rights violations.
This kind of discussion is not being demanded in New York because the Black community prefers white, ambulance chasers over Black, legal warriors. As trained seals, the Black community will not support a legal warrior once white politicians make false accusations against the warrior.
The fate of the Black community is now in the hands of white ambulance chasers and their Black runners who are masquerading as leaders. We have become a joke and the wild goose chase will start on Sunday, December 3, 2006.
Misleaders will populate the airwaves. They will not call for economic sanctions, however. At this time, gullible Blacks will get their instructions for the week. It will be a clarion call to massage their feet and gargle their throats. The “revolution” will be televised.
of Police Terrorism
During The early 1980’s, I was the Director of the NCBL Legal Defense Project. It was during this period that I met and represented Chokwe Lumumba. I also had an opportunity to represent members of the BLA and the RNA. I hired Michael Warren as the Project’s associate director. C. Vernon Mason was NCBL’s General Counsel.
It was during this period that each case of a police shooting and each case of a racially-motivated murder required a specific legal paradigm. Today, a money settlement is a synonym for justice. Protests are used to inflate the settlements. Ambulance chasers are the prime beneficiaries. Police terrorism is still intact.
I also recognized that the Black community needed access to previously unavailable legal tools like a special prosecutor. In American jurisprudence, in 1986, no special prosecutor had ever been appointed in a racially-motivated murder. Today, no one has the courage to demand a special prosecutor. My demands always included “or else.” This was novel.
When eleven, white transit cops had beaten Michael Stewart into a coma after he was observed kissing a white female, Louis Clayton Jones and Warren were law partners. Warren persuaded Jones to make me a member of the team in light of an earlier dispute in the Schomburg Coalition.
I was its pro bono general counsel. The mission was to stop the hiring of a white archivist. I initiated a lawsuit against the New York Public Library on behalf of the Schomburg Coalition which was chaired by Charles Barron.
When I convinced a white justice of the Manhattan Supreme Court, that Blacks had a right to have a Black archivist define, catalogue and store its history, this argument shocked the legal establishment. The case would end up in the state’s highest court.
A legal paradigm had to be established for the Stewart case. Manhattan District Attorney Robert Morgenthau had never indicted a cop for murdering a Black person. He was beyond political pressure from either the governor or the state attorney general.
Eliot Gross, the city’s chief medical examiner was classifying the manner of death through pseudo-science. We also had to initiate a legal assault on the grand jury process. Police terrorism is institutional with municipal agencies acting in concert.
After a legal paradigm was established, Clayton demanded a special prosecutor. I gave Clayton the legal rationale. Cuomo responded by claiming that no legal basis existed in the law for a special prosecutor. We would win that debate in Howard Beach but Morgenthau was not yielding any turf.
This was not the end of the story. I was arrested and charged with felonious assault on two court officers and obstruction of justice which, upon conviction, means automatic disbarment. There is a reason why a criminal court was once called a “police court.”
After Michael Griffith was murdered in Howard Beach, Black leaders initiated traditional methods of protest without a specific demand being put on the table. This is part of a pacification program. Economic sanctions and happy feet are mutually exclusive.
When I went to a Queens precinct and stopped a line-up because Cedric Sandiford had been blinded by the attack, I was standing alone. The media, Mayor Ed Koch and Police Commissioner Ben Ward took turns attacking me. Activism in New York means making noises but not stepping on white toes.
This attack was bad enough but it escalated when I appeared in Queens Supreme Court amid a kangaroo proceeding and announced that the star witness, Cedric Sandiford, would not participate in a judicial cover-up. The city, including Black leaders and judges, went ballistics. Cuomo attacked me as having “zero credibility” in the Black community.
State Attorney General Robert Abrams started preparing an ambush against me in a future case. They predicted that the Black community would force me to take on a future case of white terrorism. The trap would be set to end my legal career.
I had escaped the noose in 1985 against all odds. White people do not act spontaneously. It is all calculating. Blacks are unable to connect the dots because we refuse to fund an intelligence organization.
Given my reputation as the leading, legal authority on combating white terrorism, a reasonable person would have concluded that at least one Black elected official or leading Black or a Black-oriented media outlet would have contacted me especially on the question of whether the Queens district attorney’s office is pro-police and should be supplanted.
In this city, white supremacists have instructed gullible Blacks that I have the Bubonic plague. Blacks in New York are behaving like trained seals. “There will be no “Montgomery Bus Boycott.” Heads are buried in the sand to avoid undermining the schemes of Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly.
Although the appointment of a well-meaning special prosecutor would be an upgrade over Queens County District Attorney Richard Brown, a special prosecutor is not the solution because of the New York Penal Law and the New York Criminal Procedure Law.
This shooting in Queens, like the execution of Amadou Diallo is a crime against humanity. The doctrine of respondeat superior must apply to the prosecution. Nonetheless, neither police-styled, execution warrants an identical paradigm. There was no legal paradigm in Diallo.
Crimes against humanity are not punishable under New York law. This is particularly important with respect to accessorial liability. Any effective prosecution must recognize a chain of command of police criminality.
This was a concern in the Nuremberg prosecutions. The architects and engineers of genocide would usually escape criminal liability. Thus, these crimes continue to repeat themselves. There must be a deterrent. The mayor and the police commissioner must feel the heat.
Many nations recognized the impotency of local laws to prosecute war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity. Thus, those nations signed a treaty establishing the International Criminal Court. The United Nations rather than the Queens County district attorney’s office is properly equipped to investigate human rights violations.
This kind of discussion is not being demanded in New York because the Black community prefers white, ambulance chasers over Black, legal warriors. As trained seals, the Black community will not support a legal warrior once white politicians make false accusations against the warrior.
The fate of the Black community is now in the hands of white ambulance chasers and their Black runners who are masquerading as leaders. We have become a joke and the wild goose chase will start on Sunday, December 3, 2006.
Misleaders will populate the airwaves. They will not call for economic sanctions, however. At this time, gullible Blacks will get their instructions for the week. It will be a clarion call to massage their feet and gargle their throats. The “revolution” will be televised.
posted by Attorney Alton Maddox at 3:56 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home