by ALTON H. MADDOX JR.

Originally posted 11/30/2006 in The Amsterdam News

The Supreme Court watered down the Fourth Amendment, in 1967, to keep a tight lid on urban Blacks. Hell-o racial profiling and stop and frisk. The Second Circuit Court of Appeals has, since, ruled that racial profiling is constitutional. This ruling applies to New York.

Police Commissioner Ray Kelly has taken it a step further. He has created the language police, who struck again in Queens on November 25. Can you connect the dots – Rev. Butts? The mere fact that a person mentions “gun” gives the police no legal basis for a police confrontation.

Police terrorism will increase in New York only because it is profitable for media ratings, activists and attorneys, and it “undergirds” the slave code. Neither of them is seeking justice. White money has destroyed the Black church, Black politics and, now, Black activism.

The PBA can legally bribe Black elected officials. If an attorney pursues justice, rather than chase dollars, a grievance committee goes on a witch-hunt. The mission of the law is to maintain the status quo. Activists and attorneys, therefore, are able to ride around town in limousines and on blood money.

I have no confidence that Black leadership’s response to the pre-dawn shooting in Queens on November 25 will yield any semblance of justice. At least fifty bullets were pumped into the defenseless bodies of Sean Bell, Joseph Guzman and Trent Benefield in Queens. This was a racially motivated shooting. Crimes against humanity are a question for the United Nations and the World Court. On the theory of respondent superior, the lead suspect is Mayor Michael Bloomberg. This theory of liability is unavailable in a state prosecution. Locally, only the governor can remove him from office.

There are two survivors, so far. Bell was tying the knot with his high school sweetheart on November 25. A city-sponsored death squad had other plans for him. The police not only destroyed the life of a young man but also a young family with two young children. The damage is immeasurable.

To secure justice, a petitioner must raise the right question. From the outset, Rev. Al Sharpton announced that he was seeking “answers” from the New York Police Department. Wrong question. What about solutions? Where are our problem solvers?

Anyone who appreciates critical thinking knows that if you ask the wrong questions, you will reach the wrong conclusions. No room exists in American jurisprudence for the accused to provide “answers.” French law, on the other hand, may stimulate an accused to provide answers.

Three legal concepts militate against the accused providing “answers.” First, the proponent of the question has the burden of proof. Secondly, the accused enjoys the privilege against self-incrimination. Thirdly, any statement made by an accused, other than an admission or confession, is a self-serving statement and, therefore, naked and unreliable hearsay.

The apparatus in this country’s criminal justice system to secure “answers” is the grand jury. Since a prosecutor can get a grand jury “to indict a ham sandwich,” it is unlikely that a prosecutor will seek an indictment against a police officer, a member of the prosecutor’s team.

An obvious conflict of interest exists. Moreover, a prosecutor is turf-oriented and is always acting in concert with the police. At best, a prosecutor will secure a sham indictment, which will yield a mock trial. See, for example, Amadou Diallo.

The New York Legislature has enacted an escape hatch under the Executive Law. A governor or a state attorney general may relieve a local district attorney from a case to avoid a conflict of interest. This may be the best option since a grand jury witness, in New York, enjoys transactional immunity.

Although law enforcement agents were not official targets in the death of Michael Griffith in Howard Beach, I was, nonetheless, able to successfully demand that the governor trigger the Executive Law. Of course, the governor would retaliate against me later for raising the right question and securing the right result.

I also have personal concerns about the efficacy of the Queens County district attorney’s office to zealously and impartially investigate this present police shooting. No history exists of this prosecutor’s office sending police murderers to prison.

The present district attorney, Richard Brown, was once a jurist in the Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department in Brooklyn. This intermediate appellate court has oversight responsibilities over attorneys and seeks to weed out attorneys who doggedly fight for truth and justice for the oppressed.

As a panelist, Brown ruled that I should have been indefinitely and summarily suspended from the practice of law for refusing to violate the attorney-client privilege amid my representation of Sharpton in the trial of a 67-count indictment. The panel’s ruling could have caused a conviction.

Moreover, John Ryan is Brown’s top lieutenant. Ryan was once Abram’s top lieutenant in the state attorney general’s office when it was purportedly investigating the kidnapping and rape of Tawana Brawley. I have always opposed Ryan’s involvement in any police-motivated, criminal investigation.

Sharpton, in 1988, called for a citizen’s arrest of Ryan for viciously kicking Cooleridge Miller, an elderly, blind, Black man who was protesting, in Poughkeepsie, against the formation of a bogus grand jury in the Brawley investigation.

Ryan also testified, in 1988, for Steven Pagones, a former Dutchess County prosecutor, in his defamation trial in Dutchess County Supreme Court against C. Vernon Mason, Sharpton and myself. At the start of the defamation trial, in 1997, Pagones had positioned himself in the state attorney general’s office, which had custody of the Brawley file.

During the trial, I asked Ryan if the Abrams-created, grand jury report, a hearsay document, which was virtually the only evidence that Pagones introduced at the trial, was authentic. This unreliable document failed to fall within any exception to the hearsay rule.

Justice S. Barrett Hickman immediately ordered Ryan not to answer my question. The legal system is supposed to be adversarial. This was a relevant, foundational question for the introduction of a document at a defamation trial governed by New York Times v. Sullivan.

My antennas were raised immediately. The identity of any grand juror is secret. It would take me two years after the trial to locate a grand juror. I had to travel to Idaho. I found out that Abrams, and not the grand jury, wrote the grand jury report that Abrams claimed accused Tawana of perpetrating a “hoax.”

A district attorney is only an advisor to the grand jury and may not author a grand jury report. This is a specific violation of Article 190 of the Criminal Procedure Law. Irrefutable evidence also exists to prove that Abrams used the grand jury to cover-up the crimes against Tawana and also the murder of Harry Crist, Jr. Ryan had an ethical obligation to report illegal conduct.

Case law has repeatedly asserted that a grand jury report, authored by a prosecutor, must be suppressed. When I presented an unchallenged affidavit from a grand juror showing that Abrams had broken the law, the Appellate Division, Second Judicial Department ruled that it had no jurisdiction over my claim of prosecutorial misconduct.

This was a marked departure from the Court’s prior rulings. This ruling contradicted its own case law. The only other option for the Court would have been to suppress the grand jury report and order my immediate reinstatement to practice law in New York. It would have been proof positive that Cuomo and Abrams had framed me.

When Justice Hickman spoke out-of-turn at the defamation trial, he obviously knew the consequences of permitting Ryan to answer the question. Justice Hickman was from Putnam County. The judges in Dutchess County showed no signs of racial hostility. This was a bad sign for Pagones.

Although Abrams was the special prosecutor, it was widely known that Ryan did all the handiwork. Originally, Cuomo wanted to appoint Ryan as the special prosecutor in the Brawley investigation. When Mason, Sharpton and I strenuously objected to Ryan’s appointment, Cuomo named Abrams.

To secure justice in this police shooting, in Queens, it will take legal warriors, and not attorneys chasing dollars, to combat the prosecutor’s office. Unfortunately, legal warriors, in New York, are in short supply. Louis Clayton Jones had to go into exile, before his death, and I have been permanently barred from practicing law.

Andrew Cuomo, the next state attorney general, was nominated and elected by the Democratic Party to keep the lid on the Brawley file. Justice Hickman allowed the parties, during the defamation trial, to view the file for a moment. When he realized that its contents would expose New York, he took it all back forthwith.

If Tawana Brawley’s claims of kidnapping and rape are a “hoax,” what is New York hiding? Why is her confidential file still in the state attorney general’s vault? Black elected officials and leading Blacks are afraid to demand the release of those files. They are also afraid to demand justice for Sean Bell, et al. Juanita Brawley Strong, who once had care and custody of Tawana in upstate New York, made her transition on November 22 in North Carolina. Juanita was entitled to know that her niece was the victim of state-sponsored defamation.

“Advanced Critical Thinking and Legal Reasoning,” an all-day seminar, will start on December 9, 2006 at 9:30 a.m. at the NAC Building of City College in Harlem. Thinking is like shooting a weapon. Everyone can think. Similarly, most adults can shoot weapons but most adults are not sharpshooters. It takes skills to be a critical thinker. Call 718-834-9034 to register.

UAM’ weekly forum will continue December 6, 2006 at the Elks Plaza, 1068 Fulton Street (nr. Classon Ave.) in Brooklyn, with a legal analysis of police shootings in New York and the likelihood of success of the prosecution of a police execution by Alton Maddox. On December 13, Pam Africa will appear to discuss “The Legal Status of Mumia Abu-Jamal.” Take the “C” train to Franklin. For more information call UAM 718-834-9034.