Ominous ruling by Nebraska Supreme Court against Black Panther in COINTELPRO case

June 15, 2008 Opednews

by Michael Richardson   

Ed Poindexter

The Nebraska Supreme Court denied a pro se parole
bid by Ed Poindexter in a decision many expected
was a foregone conclusion.  However, in denying a
request for parole eligibility the state high
court signaled the difficulty Poindexter faces
later this year when his request for a new trial
is argued by Lincoln attorney Robert Bartle.

Poindexter was convicted in 1971 for the bombing
murder of an Omaha policeman, Larry Minard, in a
controversial trial marred by conflicting police
testimony, withheld evidence, and tainted
assistance by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation.  Poindexter and co-defendant Mondo
we Langa (formerly David Rice) both deny any
involvement in the crime and were both targets of
FBI director J. Edgar Hoover under the infamous
Operation COINTELPRO which targeted the Black
Panthers for "no holds barred" treatment.

Poindexter's request for a new trial comes after
sophisticated vocal analysis by voice analyst Tom
Owen in 2006 revealed that the confessed bomber,
15 year-old Duane Peak, did not make the
emergency call that lured Minard to his
death.  Peak implicated Poindexter and Mondo we
Langa making his credibility critical…and leaving an unknown caller at large.

Retired Omaha detective Robert Pheffer also
contradicted his own trial testimony about
finding dynamite that was allegedly used in the
fatal bomb in a dramatic and emotion-charged
hearing in Douglas County District Court last year before Judge Russell
Bowie.

At the time of the trial Omaha was gripped by
racial tension.  Former Nebraska governor Frank
Morrison was Poindexter's court-appointed public
defender.  Morrison described Omaha in a 2003 deposition.

"There was tremendous racial feeling.  North
Omaha was one of the hottest spots in the whole
United States for racial violence.  In fact, when
in 1966 we had to call out the National Guard,
they set fire to North Omaha and we had to bring
in the National Guard and take over to preserve
order.  There was terrible racial feeling….I
don't have words to describe it, but there was
terrible discrimination and hatred of African-Americans, terrible."

The "terrible racial feeling" Morrison described
was fueled in part by COINTELPRO dirty tricks
initiated by the FBI to disrupt the Black
Panthers.  Both Ed Pointdexter and Mondo we Langa
had been secret targets of Hoover's clandestine
operation but the compromised role of the FBI was
unknown by Omaha police who were assisted by the
federal agents in the search for Minard's killers
and unknown by jurors who convicted Poindexter
unaware of Hoover's secret directives against the Black Panthers.

The FBI, in cooperation with Omaha Assistant
Chief of Police Glenn Gates, kept the recording
of the emergency call from defense attorneys
while the jurors who decided the fate of the two
Black Panther leaders never heard the voice of
the anonymous caller. A secret COINTELPRO memo
obtained after the 1971 trial under the Freedom
of Information Act revealed that release of the
emergency tape recording would be "prejudicial to
the police murder trial" case against Poindexter and Langa.

The jurors also never knew that Peak, the
confessed bomber, brokered a deal where he served
33 months of juvenile detention and then walked
free in exchange for his testimony against
Poindexter and Langa.  Nor did the jurors know
that Raleigh House, the supplier of the dynamite,
would never be formally charged and only spent
one night in jail before being released on his
own signature because the police wanted to claim
Langa supplied the dynamite.  In fact, Omaha
Police Captain Murdock Platner did indeed make
such a claim in sworn testimony to a
Congressional committee contradicting actual
trial testimony about the dynamite.

Details about the compromised FBI role in the
case did not come until years after the trial and
only judges, not jurors, have since been told
about the withheld evidence, conflicting and
contradictory police testimony, about the deal
with Peak, and about the voice analysis that
contradicts the story of the state's chief
murderous witness against Poindexter.

The Nebraska Supreme Court ruled that
Poindexter's bid for parole must fail because the
Board of Pardons has not commuted his life
sentence to a term of years thus depriving the
Board of Parole the ability to grant a parole
request.  In responding to Poindexter's arguments
that numerous other prisoners serving life
sentences have been released on parole after
serving less time than he has the court said that
a commutation of sentence was a "discretionary
state privilege" and that even if "granted
generously in the past" Poindexter had no legal
entitlement to similar consideration.

While the expected ruling against parole for
Poindexter does not presage the outcome of his
pending new trial request some of the language in
the decision does suggest that attorney Robert
Bartle will have his work cut out for him during
oral arguments scheduled for this fall.

In the ten-page decision there were three
references to the underlying crime, the murder of
Larry Minard.  In the opening summary of the
decision the Nebraska Supreme Court properly
noted, "In 1971, a jury convicted Edward Poindexter of first degree murder."

However, two later references were less neutral
and potentially betray a bias of the court to the
prosecution case.  The court discussed sentencing
statutes, "in 1970 when Poindexter committed his
offense."  In the conclusion of the decision the
court repeated the bias and used the statement
"when Poindexter committed his crime" to describe the killing of Minard.

Nebraska newspapers, which have not reported on
the COINTELPRO manipulation of the case against
Poindexter, brandished headlines about Cop-Killer
Poindexter Denied Parole following the language of the court decision.

Meanwhile, Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa
remain imprisoned at the maximum security
Nebraska State Penitentiary serving life
sentences while three of Minard's killers, Duane
Peak, the confessed bomber; Raleigh House, the
supplier of the dynamite; and the unknown emergency line caller walk free.

Last week in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, federal
Magistrate Christine Nolan recommended that Black
Panther Albert Woodfox, serving a life sentence
at Angola State Prison, should be granted a new
trial.  U.S. District Judge James Brady has yet
to rule on Nolan's recommendation.  The new trial
recommendation followed a state court denial of a
new trial request last month for co-defendant
Herman Wallace.  Wallace and Woodfox were held in
solitary confinement for 36 years and only
recently have been moved to regular maximum
security cells.  The two men, leaders in a prison
chapter of the Black Panthers, were convicted for
the murder of a prison guard during a riot at the
prison in 1972 on the testimony of another
prisoner released in exchange for testimony against the Panthers.

In Nebraska, a decision on Poindexter's request
for a new trial is expected later this year.

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