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Some while ago, in order to concretize what the Bush administration's DOJ emphasis on "voter fraud" meant -- the illegal disenfranchisement of the opposition in the service of continued rule -- I posted an account of Reverend Edward Pinkney's judicial frame-up on the Election Integrity listserve. Rev. Pinkney has now been sentenced. Pinkney was framed in response to his grass-roots efforts to mobilize voters to eject from office a corrupt local official who was selling off Benton Harbor, Michigan, to Westinghouse in a purely judicial version of the mass displacement of poor blacks (and poor whites) in New Orleans documented by Greg Palast.
Especially telling is Palast's video, "Big Easy to Big Empty" that captures an essential part of his book, Armed Madhouse. The Bush administration gave IEM (Innovative Emergency Management) the contract to prepare evacuation plans for New Orleans. IEM not only had no experience in emergency preparedness except cronyism, but also failed to prepare plans to evacuate people without cars, and rejected an offer from the local university expert to use the university plan that evacuated poor people without their own transportation -- years in the making -- for free. After the disaster and the devastating loss of life and displacement of the poor, more millions of dollars were invested in an investigation of what went wrong; the firm that won that contract was IEM.
The video has an especially poignant scene of a black woman trying to return to her low-cost high-quality housing that was entirely undamaged because that poor people's housing project was built on prime real estate wanted by developers. A guard from Blackwater told the woman that if she tried to enter her home she would be arrested. Temperamental pessimists like myself find this caring Christian [Dominionist Reconstructionist & Theocon colleagues] response from Blackwater to be meaningful, suggesting that not all our problems lay in deciding amongst ourselves what is the best course of action to take. That black woman thought it obvious that the best course of action was to return to her intact home.
As described in Jeremy Scahill's book, Blackwater, the company promotes itself as a pro-social organization "that tries to help people solve their problems." The "people" in question whose problems Blackwater solves are not the people that you and I would think of as people. Sober minds, especially those familiar with even more details of the New Orleans tragedy, may reasonably conclude that the intent of the Bush administration was to kill or displace the New Orleans poor on behalf of its favored real estate developers. Malcolm X used to speak with passion and clarity of US colonialism abroad and at home until he was silenced. He could not wish for plainer examples of the latter.
Sent: Monday, June 11, 2007 2:51 PM (from Global Women's Strike/LA)
Mrs. Pinkney Speaks Out
To begin, let me say that my husband, Rev. Edward Pinkney, is now being followed by a special investigator when he leaves home. The financial xpenditure to hold all the hearings and trials, and now to hire this person to follow Edward, could be spent in ways that might begin to lift our community out of poverty.
On April 15, 2005 justice in Berrien County took a giant step backwards into the darkness of Oxford, Mississippi. I, Dorothy Pinkney, the wife of Rev. Pinkney, am ashamed to claim Berrien County, Michigan as my home - a county that is known for police beating and killing of Blacks.
As of April 15, 2005 Berrien County will forever beknown as the county where Judge Paul Maloney stole an election from the people of Benton Harbor. Judge Paul Maloney is a well-known racist; the people of Benton Harbor believe it was all about race. I, however, believe it was all about the "haves": Whirlpool, Cornerstone Alliance, and Gov. Granholm.
I attended my husband's "voter fraud" recall trial everyday, and trust me, it was not about justice. There were only three votes that could have been thrown out. The election was won by over fifty votes. The number of alleged fraudulent ballots did not reach the mathematical total to affect the election outcome.
On April 18, 2005, my husband was arrested and charged with four felonies and one misdemeanor, crimes that were created by Berrien County justice system. There was no voter fraud. Berrien County judgment was woefully unsupported by the facts in the case.
My husband went through two trials that were unsupported by any facts. In March 2006 the trial ended in a mistrial, the jury hung on all five counts. There were two Blacks on the jury. My husband had complained for five years about the systematic exclusion and under-representation of Black jurors in the Berrien County court system. When his second trial had an all-white jury in our city which is 96% Black, I knew this would be a problem. The jury was rigged to find my husband guilty. The willingness of the jury to find guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and relying on Brenda Fox's testimony [a prostitute vulnerable to police pressure] was an indication that they had violated the sanctity of their oath and were motivated by something other than truth and justice.
Midway through the trial the judge locked the courtroom to spectators who could only come in before the session began or on a break. Security was increased well beyond what is normal in this courthouse. The white jury wanted to make sure that Rev. Pinkney's lawyers did not have their jury questionnaires. The jury reaction was to retreat into the sort of blind desire to uphold the system as in the south where a Black man's word meant nothing, regardless of how obviously false and fabricated the evidence against him. The polygraph examination my husband passed proved the prosecutor was a liar.
The prosecutor Gerald Vignansky's poisonous behavior had the obnoxious odor of a racist. This man fabricated and falsified evidence, bribed witnesses, and then threatened his own witness because he would not perjure himself. Tommie Travis refused to lie for the prosecutor because he was paid only five dollars.
Berrien County has always preyed on the Black people who live in Benton Harbor. We must stand up and defend democracy.
Where is the justice?
Rev. Pinkney’s sentence is 5 years probation and 1 year jail, time as yet to be determined.
His probation restrictions:
1. Not allowed to participate in any campaign or election
2. May not own a cell phone
3. 400 hours of community service
4. Must comply with Berrien County jail and electronic monitoring program
5. Must consent to assignment of wages until court ordered assessments are paid in full
6. Must pay Berrien County for reimbursement of first trial transcript ($2800.00)
Dorothy Pinkney
