Now that Circuit Judge Jimmie Edwards has been named the new director of Public Safety for St. Louis, effective November 6, will the protests of the Jason Stockley verdict lessen the cries of “No Justice – No Peace”?
Protestors have been demonstrating on the streets in the St. Louis metropolitan area for weeks, following the acquittal of white former police officer Jason Stockley who shot and killed a black suspect Anthony Lamar Smith in 2011. Judge Timothy Wilson ruled that Stockley was not-guilty of first-degree murder.
A lot has been written about the Stockley verdict, but how much attention was paid to the judicial process that led to the ruling? The public anticipated Circuit Judge Timothy J. Wilson’s decision for a number of reasons, but I wonder how many knew that Wilson will retire in December 2017, when he reaches the compulsory retirement age of 70, so what does he have to lose?
Judge Edwards is our ray of hope. St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson said, “His experience, temperament and focus will bring new perspective, energy and leadership to our police, firefighters, correction employees, our Building Division and the Civil Service Bureau.”
After the chaos that erupts when a white police officer kills a black man, maybe we should take a closer look at our judges, especially on election days.
The Archbishop of Canterbury once said, “The trouble with justice is that too often, almost invariably, it is the justice of the powerful, which is not justice at all: courts operate, judges decided; but they decided for class and money, not for truth and the common good.”
Do you know which judicial candidates you will vote for in the next election? It matters who serves as judges. They preside over state civil and criminal cases. Whether it is a murder trial or a divorce case, judges make hundreds of important decisions each day.
Malcolm X said that African Americans were becoming “politically mature” and recognizing that, through unity and nonalignment, they could be the swing vote in the coming elections and elect candidates who would be attentive to their concerns, and that include judges.
We have a long list of judges who have shown love, mercy and compassion to every community, for example Frankie Freeman, Theodore McMillian, Ronnie White, Angela Quigless, Clyde S. Cahill Jr., Nathan Young, Judy Draper, Justice George Draper, Carol Jackson, Shirley Padmore-Mensah, and of course Jimmie Edwards.
When you get to the voting booth the next time judges are on the ballot, I hope you have done your homework.
Malcolm anticipated the Black Lives Matter movement. He said, “And now you’re facing a situation where the young Negro’s coming up. They don’t want to hear that ‘turn the-other-cheek’ stuff, no. In Jacksonville, those were teenagers, they were throwing Molotov cocktails. Negroes have never done that before. But it shows you there’s a new deal coming in. There’s new thinking coming in. There’s new strategy coming in. It’ll be Molotov cocktails this month, hand grenades next month and something else next month. It’ll be ballots, or it’ll be bullets. It’ll be liberty, or it will be death.”
I also hope it will be the ballot.
Please watch the Bernie Hayes TV program Saturday at 10 p.m. and Sunday at 5:30 p.m. on KNLC-TV Ch. 24. I can be reached by fax at (314) 837-3369 or e-mail at: berhay@swbell.net. Or on Twitter @berhay.
