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Rainbow Nation News

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Parent Issue
Day
4
Month
February
Year
1972
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RAINBOW NATION NEWS

Angela's Trial Starts

After 15 months of confinement under the most rigorous security precautions the state of California could muster, and with no bond set after 12 appeals for bond in 12 months, sister Angela Davis started pretrial hearings January 31 on charges of aiding and abetting Jonathan Jackson in the MarĂ­n County Civic Center kidnapping/murder of Judge Harold J. Haley, and also conspiracy to commit said act.

Earlier this month Angela argued her own appeal for bond before U.S. District Judge William Sweigert on the grounds that she could not adequately act as co-attorney in her case and question witnesses while being confined to a jail cell because potential witnesses were intimidated by visiting her in the cell and because that many people who could be very helpful in her case were afraid to pass through strict police security to talk with her. This application, as the 11 previous, was denied.

In preparation for the trial, the Santa Clara County Board of Supervisors authorized $700,000 to tighten already high security measures in the jail and courtroom. County workers built a special high-security cell complex for sister Angela that will keep her n the building at all times, routing her from her jail cell to a special elevator to take her to another floor, along a high security tunnel to another elevator which will take her directly to the door of the courtroom. In addition to this James Bond infatuation, a new alarm system was installed and 35 ectra members were added to the County Sheriff's Dept. only for the duration of the trial.

The pre-trial motions presented on the 31st challenged the jury selection in San Jose and requested a change of venue because of the heavy publicity the case has been given in that area. Another motion requested that the state of California pay the sister's attorny's fees because of the long and costly trial brought on by the state.

The jury selection process was challenged because San Jose is predominatly middle-aged, white people who make more that 10,000 dollars per year. There are only 2% of the population that are not white, and these people make under $5,000 a year. Defense Attornies argue that to select such a jury would be to deny Angela her right of a "fair and impartial trial by a jury of her peers." Juries are selected from voters' registration lists of the previous election, leaving out the possibility of a poor, young black jury - sister Angela's peer group. The attornies will obviously try to show that such a jury of business executives and aeronautics engineers would be totally prejudiced against a black, militant, member of the Communist Party, because this state's very existence depends upon progressive people such as the beautiful, black sister, being confined or killed. The penalty for the alleged crimes of sister Angela is death.

The motion for change of venue (relocation of the trial in another county) is needed to insure that a jury such as this does not try the case. Moore had the trial changed once already from Marin County, where the shootout took place but instead of the case going to San Francisco where he had requested it ended up in Santa Clara where chance of even one black person on the jury is slim. This is crucial as it takes all 12 jurers to either convict or acquit a person of a crime, with even one holding out, there would be a hung jury, and the prosecutor would have to decide whether or not to retry the case. As the SUN goes to press there has been no news of the result of the January 31st hearing, but because of political persecution by the state of sister Angela, unless the change of venue is granted there will be little chance of any kind of impartial trial. The only witness the state has in support of their claim that the weapons (owned by Angela) were used by Jon Jackson in the shoot-out were willing given to him for that specific use is Peter D. Fleming, an attendant at the gas station across from the civic center. The defense will concentrate on shaking his identification of the sister and his credibility.

"I stand before the court as the target of a political frameup which, far from pointing to my culpability, implicates the state of California as an agent of political repression," Angela said in an early court appearance. She bought the guns for protection after it became known that she was a member of the Communist Party, because of the resulting threats on her life and the continual harassment she is still receiving.

"As a black I feel an urgent need to find radical solutions to the problems of racial and national minorities in white capitalist United States. I feel that my membership in the Communist Party has widened my horizons and expanded my opportunities for perceiving such solutions and working for their effectuation," the sister said in the fall of 1969. This is the reason she wasn't rehired at UCLA and the reason she now is on trial for her very life.

The SUN will closely follow the trial of our beautiful sister in the coming months and we urge people to sign the people's petitions for sister Angela's bail.

FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!