A European scratched his head and said in a memory searching tone, “What was that about a Black man getting shot 50 times by police?”
I felt he was treating the Sean Bell situation lightly. Even here, the coverage of a young man being killed in a November, 2006 barrage of New York City police bullets was on corporate airwaves.
This “aware” person was fuzzy, he said, on whether the police violence against African people in the US was actually that bad.
On occasions like this I mention to listeners (and many of all nationalities and races turn off their attention antennas) that the most obvious of Human Rights violations are not addressed in the USA. And that the most egregious of all are those concerning Black Brown and Red impoverished people.
Although two wounded witnesses survived in the murder of Sean Bell, a 23 year old man on the eve of his marriage the case has not found the police killers guilty and sentenced to prison.
Yet anyone who is impoverished and who is accused of taking the life of a police person can expect an existence in America that neither Kafka or Dostoevsky could create.
The gauntlet Zolo Agona Azania, now in his 50s, has run is not unusual.
“The judges (all of them so far) allowed the police to cover up their official misconduct and false reporting, after it was revealed to the public that they intimidated people to lie on me. The prosecutors used innuendo, veiled references and out-and-out lies to bolster their weak case. Two all-white jury trials were rigged against me in Allen County.”
Zolo has been in a box like prison cell in Indiana since a skinny guard named Michael Jordan dropped a jumper in the NCAA championship game in ‘82. Zolo was charged with a police death and given the penalty of death. Twice, in the intervening years, he has been tried and the walk to the death house door stopped.
Last month, 2 Indiana supreme court judges ruled for him getting free from the date with death. The problem is 3 others said he didn’t deserve this. He has to face the fact that Indiana wants him dead, again.
J. Boehm, one judge, no doubt White like all Indiana colleagues at this level, said:
“Ultimately, as I see it, this case presents an issue of cruel and unusual punishment.”
The other dissenting judge, agreed, saying:
“…Azania’s constitutional rights to a speedy trial and due process would be violated if the State continues to seek a death sentence. A part of the due process violation includes Azania’s Eighth Amendment right to present meaningful evidence in mitigation. His inability to do so is of itself sufficient to preclude the State from seeking the death penalty. Therefore I dissent.”
Zolo himself has said in the past:
“The torture revelations perpetrated against people in Iraq is common place in US jails and prisons. It’s business as usual.”
America and it’s burden of proof-is it clear?
You be the judge. There are many Zolos in trouble with US law.
In numerous states the US penalty of death has been temporarily halted.
The real story is yet to be told, but there is always the first hand option.
Write:
Zolo Agona Azania
#4969
P.O. Box 41
Indiana State Prison
Michigan City, IN 46361 USA
10 June 2007
From Exile,
Bankole
- www.zoloazania.org/
- www.geocities.com/exiledone2002
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June 11th, 2007 at 10:46 pm
Genarlow Wilson
Zolo Azania’s case brings to mind the case of Genarlow_Wilson. Genarlow’s conviction was based on an amateur video tape showing Wilson engaging in sex with a 17-year-old girl during a private party, and later receiving oral sex from from a 15-year-old girl.
Genarlow Wilson — a good son, a good athlete and high school student with a 3.2 GPA, had never had any criminal trouble before. On the day he was to sit for the SAT, his life changed forever.
A jury acquitted him of the allegation of Rape but convicted him of Aggravated Child Molestation for a voluntary act of oral sex with another teenager. He was 17, and she was 15. More Details Here
Attorney General
Today June 11, 2007 — a judge in Georgia voided Genarlow’s excessive 10 year sentence, but that did not STOP Georgia’s attorney general [a black man] from launching an appeal, on behalf of the state, despite “unanimous outrage” all over the country.
Thurbert E. Baker
1. Why Is Genarlow Wilson in Prison? — atlantamagazine.com
2. Free Genarlow Wilson Now — New York Times
3. Teen’s 10-Year-Term for Consensual Sex Draws Attention to Georgia Law — blackamericaweb.com
4. Outrageous Injustice — ESPN.com
5. Perverted Justice: Updating the Genarlow Wilson Tragedy - WashingtonPost.com
6. Ignorance of the Law is No Excuse! — my5th.org
7. Other Web Stories on Genarlow Wilson
November 17th, 2007 at 10:47 am
UPDATE ON ZOLO AZANIA
From The Indianapolis Star
Man convicted in officer’s slaying faces 3rd sentencing
By Jon Murray
November 14, 2007
An Indianapolis judge will oversee the new sentencing for a man who killed a Gary police officer and now faces the death penalty for the third time.
The protracted case of Zolo Agona Azania has drawn wide attention since his conviction 25 years ago. Two death sentences in his case have been overturned by the Indiana Supreme Court, most recently in 2002 because of flaws in jury selection that activists called an example of racial bias in the justice system.
Now the case has been handed to Marion Superior Court Judge Robert Altice.
He accepted an appointment as special judge last week from the state high court. He will oversee the selection of a new jury in Allen Superior Court in Fort Wayne, where the case was moved before the original trial because of publicity.
The jury will hear evidence of aggravating and mitigating factors from prosecutors and defense attorneys before deciding on the death sentence.
Azania was convicted of killing George Yaros, a 57-year-old Gary police lieutenant, during a 1981 bank robbery.
The Indiana Supreme Court has never overturned the conviction of Azania, 52, now one of the longest-serving inmates on Indiana’s Death Row.
But it ruled that he deserved a third sentencing because programming flaws in Allen County’s computerized jury selection system inadvertently excluded inner-city residents in 1996, resulting in a jury with no black members.
Azania, known as Rufus Lee Averhart at the time of the killing, is black.
In 2005, Special Judge Steve David of Boone County ruled that Lake County prosecutors could no longer seek the death penalty because it would violate Azania’s rights to due process and a speedy trial.
The state Supreme Court overturned that ruling in May with a 3-2 decision. David now is serving on active duty in the military, so the court turned to Altice.
In another opinion last week, the justices ruled jurors cannot consider giving Azania a life sentence without parole, since the General Assembly created that option after the slaying occurred.
Much will be at stake for Azania. If the jury decides against death, the maximum sentence possible could make him eligible for release as early as 2011.
November 18th, 2007 at 5:46 am
Many Thanks to Mr Opiko for the update.
Brother Zolo remains strong.
The political tendrils in this and all capital cases are astounding-yet simple.
It is no coincidence that the judge David mentioned in the article is an Iraq occupation commander and ‘out of his robes’ for the moment.
For the facts, the chair of the Supreme Court of the USA is a hometown boy (Michigan City, Indiana) where Zolo and others sit imprisoned.
Is there a time and money limit that the system will spend to hold a man near the death house doors?
2.5 million people, most impoverished are in USA prisons. Upwards of 7 million are under court supervision and parole guidelines.
There are, despite this machine, Zolo Agona Azanias, Leonard Peltiers, Janet Africas and Larry ‘Key’ Mitchells.
An empire is being torn apart by time and effort of the people.
Keep Well,
Bankole