http://www.examiner.com/article/new-effort-to-free-omaha-two-from-nebraska-prison-gains-momentum
Linda Kennedy
October 31, 2013
At a conference in Omaha, Nebraska, in August, an all-star
panel of scholars and activists announced concurrent efforts to
gain freedom for Ed
Poindexter and Mondo
we Langa (formerly David Rice). The two men have been jailed since
August 1970 for the bombing murder of an Omaha policeman.
The gathering was held at the Malcolm X Memorial Center but was
largely ignored by local news media. However, the San Francisco Bay View published an
account of the conference where several different strategies to obtain
the release from prison for the two former Black Panther leaders were
announced.
Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa were convicted in April 1971 for
the murder of Larry Minard, Sr. who was killed by a booby-trap bomb in
a vacant house. Officer Minard was answering a 911 call about a woman
screaming but only found a suitcase full of dynamite. The two Panther
leaders were targets of J. Edgar Hoover’s illegal counterintelligence
war on the Black Panthers,
code-named COINTELPRO.
Hoover gave a secret order to withhold a FBI Laboratory report on the
identity of the 911 caller who lured Minard to his death. Instead of
seeking Minard’s killer, Hoover wanted Ed Poindexter and Mondo we Langa
convicted for the crime but this was unknown until years after their
trial. Serving life sentences at the maximum-security Nebraska State
Penitentiary, both men continue to deny any role in Minard’s death and
have repeatedly sought a new trial.
Lennox Hinds, former counsel for the African National Congress, who
also teaches Criminal Justice at Rutgers University, told the audience
he would be filing an affidavit in support of Mondo we Langa’s request
to be heard by the Nebraska Supreme Court in a petition filed by Omaha
attorney Tim Ashford. The appeal challenges the de facto life without
parole sentences being served by the two prisoners. Hinds said the men
are serving “illegal” sentences.
State Senator Ernie Chambers, who represents Omaha’s Near-Northside,
has been a long-time supporter of the Omaha Two and was
with Mondo we Langa when he turned himself in to police in 1970.
Senator Chambers, who also attended the trial and other court
proceedings, announced he would introduce legislation mandating parole
for the Omaha Two. Although such legislation would be difficult to
pass, if Chambers could get legislative hearings on the case the public
would likely be shocked
at all the revelations about prosecution misconduct that have
emerged over the years but never got a thorough public airing.
Charles E. Jones was the keynote speaker at the Malcolm X Memorial
Center event. Jones is University of Cincinnati professor of Africana
Studies and editor of The Black Panther Party Reconsidered,
who spoke of government and police
efforts to crush and exterminate the Black Panthers “across the country
and here in Omaha.” Professor Jones is presently working on a book
about the Omaha Two case to be titled Forgotten Comrades.
In 1975, U.S. District Judge Warren Urbom, and later a three-judge
panel of the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, ordered a new trial
for Mondo we Langa. However, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to the hear
the merits of Mondo’s appeal and sent the case back to the Nebraska
Supreme Court on procedural grounds during Chief Justice Warren
Burger’s effort to undo rulings of his predecessor, Earl Warren. The
Nebraska Supreme Court denied a new trial request despite the rulings
of the four federal judges.
Former Nebraska Governor Frank Morrison, who defended Ed Poindexter
at trial, made a public apology to Poindexter in 1994 for failing to
adequately defend his client. Morrison said both he and the system let
Ed Poindexter down.
Permission granted to reprint
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