For whose crimes?
In talking about the whole Katrina tragedy, I came across a number of black elders who likened what happened to black people in the hurricane’s aftermath to slavery. Families being separated. Loved ones scattered to the four winds.
The so-called judicial system has been reverting as well to a time we of African descent would like to forget. The time when black men – and occasionally black women and children – were arbitrarily selected to be punished.
For the most part, blacks were lynched as part of the strategy of terror and control. But there were participants in the beating, maiming, lynching and murdering of blacks who felt that “someone” had to pay.
Pay for what? Allegations and rumors that something happened to a white person. Something was alleged to be stolen. Somebody was alleged to have looked at a white person the wrong way. On a mere implied suggestion, a black man could be rounded up – snatched from his family, summoned from the fields or lifted from the church pew – and subjected to immediate, arbitrary and racist law.
In contemporary times, the cloak of civility thinly veils an arbitrariness and racism just as brutal and open as they were in the 19th and 20th centuries.
The Chain of Rocks murders of Robin and Julie Kerry are a saddening example. Three young black men were rounded up despite an initial confession from the Kerrys’ cousin, Tom Cummins and despite their continued claims on innocence. Three young black men were given the death penalty based upon no physical evidence but on the basis of the twisted testimony of two white men.
Daniel Winfrey, who was with the group, turned state’s evidence to save his own hide. Cummins not only got to walk, he got to walk with $150,000 because he successfully sued the St. Louis Police Department.
From all indications, Saddam Hussein will get a fairer trial than the Chain of Rocks black defendants did. International human rights watchdogs will be observing Hussein’s trial. Who is observing U.S. citizens – black, brown, poor and immigrant – and their interaction with the U.S. judicial system?
Marlin Gray is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday, October 26 for criminal charges that have never been proven let alone proven beyond a reasonable doubt. His case has been put on a fast track by Attorney General Jay Nixon and others who would like to suppress the fact that it is highly likely they killed an innocent man, Larry Griffin, a decade ago.
Since the word of that travesty hit the streets a couple of months ago, there’s not been a peep more about it. Nor has there been acknowledgment that perhaps we need to proceed more cautiously in subsequent death penalty cases to make sure there’s no repeat permanent error.
What’s always so interesting is when and how we get used. Black men who have been criminalized have become the fuel that propels ambitions. The more you lock up or kill, the greater the reward. People go on to get promotions or get elected to public office. Just like Nels Moss tried to use the Chain of Rocks in 1991 to win the coveted position of circuit attorney, Jay Nixon seems to think he can do the same thing as he sets his sights on a higher office.
I believe we can stop the execution of Marlin Gray. You must call Governor Blunt at (573) 751-3222, fax him at (573) 751-1495 or email him at mogov@mail.state.mo.us. You can sign an online petition at www.petitiononline.com/alive205/petition/html. You should have others do so as well.
We must create a justice-seeking atmosphere that will calm the troubled waters of truth. Marlin and his family demand it. The Kerry family deserves it.