Rev Pinkney: "I am paying a debt to society which I do not owe"

Reposted from http://www.bhbanco.org/2015/01/i-am-paying-debt-to-society-which-i-do.html



The following statement is from Rev. Edward Pinkney, January 18, 2015:

The Berrien County Court system has undermined the respect and confidence of the community in its application of the law and the takeover of the city of Benton Harbor, Michigan.

The court system has stolen time from me.  I am paying time with my life, family life, and community.  I’m required to serve a sentence while several issues are being decided in the court — and paying a debt to society that I do not owe.

I have already raised substantial issues.  I am entitled to a directed verdict of Not Guilty based on constitutionally insufficient evidence under the Beyond a Reasonable Doubt standard.  I also assert that I am entitled to a directed verdict based on the issue that was resolved in favor of the defendant in People v. Hall (10/23/14).  

Under MCL 168.937 and based on due process, statutory construction, and the rule of lenity, a petition circulator cannot be subjected to a felony conviction and penalty when notice and warnings on the petition form, provided by the government, indicate that one may only be subject to a misdemeanor conviction and penalty.  

A misdemeanor conviction and penalty may only be imposed under a specific statue, MCL 168.544, specifically proscribed acts of falsifying election petitions.  For this reason, the convictions under MCL 168.937 must be vacated.  Due process also requires this result, as the rule of lenity is mandated by due process. 

This result is also required by the issue that the jury was not constitutionally adequate, based on the arguments raised in my motion for a new trial relating to juror Gail Freehling concealing information during the jury selection.

I am a political prisoner being held in Marquette Prison and I remain in great spirits despite the racist injustice that has landed me here.  This attack on me and on democracy in Benton Harbor shows that Whirlpool is determined to crush anyone who stands in its way.  It is part of a process underway across the US in various forms. Let’s confront the corporations that are destroying this country.

For more information about the miscarriage of justice against Rev. Edward Pinkney of BANCO, please read: http://sfbayview.com/2014/12/national-defense-campaign-building-for-rev-edward-pinkney/

Mrs Pinkney Speaks Out Against Michigan Corrections

An open letter from Mrs. Dorothy Pinkney, wife of Rev. Edward Pinkney, BANCO activist and former political prisoner (Benton Harbor, MI).

"HIT MAN FROM OJIBWAY"

"On June 26, 2008, Judge Dennis Wiley ruled on whether the GOD of one man can be invoked to harm another man. Judge Dennis Wiley, a racist, sentenced my husband to 3 to 10 years in prison for quoting the Bible. He was sent to the Michigan Department of Corrections and the governor sent him over six hundred miles from his home.

When he arrived at the Ojibway Correctional Facility a hit had been placed on my husband. On Nov. 1, 2008, Correctional Officer R. Axley told my husband the control center had ordered a shakedown of his control area. On Friday Oct. 31, 2008, my husband found a homemade knife (which Correctional Officer Axley had planted) in his control area. My husband threw the knife away and on Nov. 1, 2008 Correctional Officer Axley proceeded to destroy my husband’s control area looking for the knife.

Correctional Officer Axley did the following: he threw his clean clothes all over the floor with his dirty clothes, he threw the entire contents of his locker including food on the floor, he read his legal mail, legal briefs and all legal notes. My husband was forced to put his hands up in the air. He was searched and told to pack because he was going to the hold to be locked down. Then Correctional Officer Axley started to read his legal notes, legal briefs and the legal mail he had in his personal folder right in front of him.

Correctional Officer Axley was looking for the knife he had planted. He broke my husband’s am/fm radio cassette player and threatened his life. Correctional Officer Axley stated, “We are going to get you!” The Correctional Officer’s actions were malicious, sadistic and designed to intimidate and harass my husband. This was humiliating, degrading mistreatment and oppression, including discrimination by the Department of Correction. What happened in prison is nothing like what the people on the outside think or believe.

We do not know who ordered this attack. We do not know whether U.S. Rep. Fred Upton, Governor Granholm, Warden Michael Curley, Judge Wiley, or Judge Butzbaugh were responsible. My husband had requested the warden, Michael Curley, to call the state police and the Warden refused. As I said, we do not know who put the hit on my husband but I want everybody to call the governor. We need your help! Dorothy Pinkney"

Governor Granholm 517-373-3400
Patricia Caruso 517-335-1426

Go to the BANCO blog to learn more about MWRO comrade, Rev. Pinkney's imprisonment for quoting the Bible and fight for justice in Benton Harbor.

Video from YouTube by DaymonJHartley

For profit chain gangs in Michigan?

Having family and friends in prison teaches you a lot about what things are like from "the inside." MWRO's comrade and Benton Harbor political prisoner, Rev. Edward Pinkney, has been moved around to at least half a dozen Michigan prisons since he was sentenced a few months ago for quoting the Bible. Doing time is a difficult experience for all involved and the guilty should be punished. But punishment should be fair and not exploit an already marginalized group.

In Michigan, incarcerated men and women in many prisons work for Michigan State Industries (MSI)--a 1980 Dept of Corrections program that assigns jobs to all able-bodied prisoners. Fundamentally, MSI goals sound like a good idea, i.e., they provide "an opportunity for prisoners to learn marketable skills and to acquire sound work experience" while attempting "to address the problem of crime and the tension and idleness in prison resulting from overcrowding...." MSI has a map of all prison production locations where they sell and bid out items such as furniture, bed sheets, and outdoor banners online or through its Lansing showroom.

However, Rev. Pinkney's experience has given him and us some insights into prison conditions and prison work. Last week he wrote:

Prison officials can control virtually every aspect of a prisoner's life. They can decide her/his actions - when (s)he will awake and when (s)he sleeps, how much is spent on food, who can visit prisoners and for how long, whether to force a prisoner to sleep on a metal grating without a mattress, how long a prisoner waits for medical treatment, whether a prisoner spends 24 hours a day in a cell or 12 hours a day at back-breaking labor, and what arbitrary (useless) rules will be followed. How and when to punish prisoners in many different ways, including depriving them of all food except "nutri-loaf" (tasteless ground-up leftovers pressed into a loaf). It is all up to the Dept. of Corrections.

In many states there is a move to remove gov. administration of prisons and privatize them for corporate profit. The labor of the prisoners belongs to the state but when the state transfers their interest to a private corporation, the labor of prisoners belong to the corporation. A corporation will run the lives of prisoners and decide how they shall labor and what they shall labor at. Do you see chances for profit here?

Prison labor is not new. It's been used for centuries to help contain incarceration costs and keep prisoners disciplined and busy. But in recent times, it's being increasingly used in for profit ventures. MWRO opposes the slave labor practice of requiring incarcerated human beings to make or build products for the highest bidder. Not only do these conditions prevent a worker from demanding a fair price for his or her labor, it contributes to abusive and inhumane conditions beyond typical institutional incarceration.

(Image courtesy of Flickr)

Being incarcerated in Michigan

MWRO just learned that Rev. Edward Pinkney of BANCO in Benton Harbor has been moved again, this time to Muskegon Correctional Facility. After nearly a year of incarceration on trumped up charges and the irrational Deuteronomy fears of a presiding judge, Rev. Pinkney has been shuttled around to eight different jails and prisons.

This Thursday, another MWRO friend from Battle Creek, Efrén Paredes, Jr., is seeking commutation, i.e., release from prison in Jackson by Gov. Jennifer Granholm, while his family and friends gather after 18 years of hope and pleas. (BTW, your calls to her will help 517-373-3400.)

Fellow water activist Marie Mason is currently in Clinton County Jail and will be sentenced for an environmentally-motivated crime early next year.

MWRO has many friends with more friends and family who are serving time in Michigan prisons. All of this has us wondering again about the Michigan prison industrial complex. One recent report states:

...Michigan's incarceration rate is about 40 percent higher than the average rates of its Great Lakes neighbors. And the cost of all this has shot through the roof: The number of Corrections employees has more than tripled since 1980, to the point that today over 30 percent of all state Civil Service employees are in the Department of Corrections. With an appropriation of over $2.2 billion in 2008, the Department of Corrections spent over 20 percent of Michigan’s General Fund budget.

Michigan spends more today to hold criminals in jail than we do to educate our kids in public colleges and universities; according to the Pew Center for the States, we’re one of only one of four to share that dubious distinction. And, according to the Citizens Research Council, we spend around 30 percent more per inmate per year than our neighboring states. CRC also estimates that if our spending on prisons just matched our neighboring states, we'd save around $500 million each year.

In addition to this, Michigan incarcerates too many non-violent offenders like our noted friends. These millions in annual savings could help our state and local economies, and stabilize thousands of families--freeing them from excess stress, financial strain, and broken up homes.

Write Gov. Granholm and ask her to grant clemency, commutations, and pardons to the thousands of non-violent incarcerated men, women, and juveniles in Michigan (like our friends above) who we need behind garden picket fences, not prison fences.

Honorable Jennifer Granholm
Michigan Department of Corrections
Office of the Parole Board
Pardons and Commutations Coordinator
P.O. Box 30003
Lansing, Michigan, 48909

(Image courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons)

The Death Of Youth?

By Maureen D. Taylor
State Chair, MWRO

Little “Daniel” was eleven years old when he wondered into the thick brush near his home. Among the unkempt shrubs and trees, he found a discarded .22 caliber pistol. To his delight, after several tries, the gun discharged so he shot it several times into the air. One of the bullets found and killed “Mr. Bean” who was an innocent twenty-one year old walking down the street.

The Michigan courts decided after reviewing the background of “Daniel” that he was unsupervised and unaccounted for, especially since his mother was away from home at her job. Uncles and other relatives were asked to attend him, so sometimes they did, and other times, they didn’t.

Since no one cared, he was tried as an adult, found guilty, and sentenced to ten years in “kid” jail. When he was twenty-one, he was released. To the delight of the press, they photographed him as he walked away, wearing a fake-fur coat, a “zoot-suit,” a “pimp hat,” and red shoes someone had purchased for him.

Howls went up when it was suggested that the Governor had arranged for a job. “Why should this jail-bird get work when my kid can’t find a job?” The job vanished along with the apartment that he had been promised, and the educational spot that was arranged also went away.

Some months later after several minor offenses, he was stopped again by local authorities, and they found 232 “ecstasy” pills in his possession. He was charged with another crime of intending to sell drugs. Wonder where he got 232 pills from? Probably from the same person who bought those clothes and those red shoes.

Anyway, rather than go through another court case, this 22 year old shocked the court by telling his attorney that he was pleading guilty. He was sentenced to 4 years in an adult jail, and that was that. He will come back to us again in 2012, and I wonder how old will he be then?

Daniel was eleven when this terrible tragedy happened to him and to the young man who he shot. He was twenty-one when released, going on thirteen, and will be twenty-six when he is released again in 2012, going on fourteen. How could mothers and fathers let this happen? Oh well, just another “Bronx tail” about the death of youth.

(Image courtesy of Flickr Creative Commons)