Benton Harbor: Mistrial Declared in Racist
Frame-up of Rev. Pinkney
PANW
Editor's Note: The jury hearing the case against Rev. Edward Pinkney in
Berrien County became deadlocked during the deliberations forcing trial
Judge Alfred Butzbaugh to declare a mistrial. This is a tremendous
victory for the people of Benton Harbor, Benton Township and Berrien
County. Pinkney had been targeted for his efforts in mobilizing a
successful recall campaign against Commissioner Glenn Yarbrough.
The
prosecution will decide by the end of the week on whether to reinstate
the charges against Pinkney. In the meantime he remains free of all
charges filed against him last year.
Pinkney had gained support from several organizations in the state of
Michigan and throughout the country.
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Mistrial
Jury can't reach verdict in Pinkney case
By SARAH Mc EVILLY
By JULIE SWIDWA
H-PStaff Writer
ST.
JOSEPH — The election fraud trial of Edward Pinkney ended in a mistrial
when the jury, after 20 hours of deliberations spanning three days,
told the judge Monday that it could not reach a unanimous verdict.
The prosecution said it would decide by the end of the week whether it
would retry the case.
Berrien
County Trial Court Judge Alfred Butzbaugh declared a mistrial around
1:30 p.m. after the jury foreman sent the judge a note saying the panel
remained deadlocked.
After deliberating two days, the jury
told the judge on Friday that it was unable to reach a verdict. The
judge told the 12 jurors to report back to court Monday morning to try
again.
“The jury remains deadlocked,” the note said. “We
followed your directions and we are clearly at an impasse. We are
convinced that future deliberations are useless.” Pinkney’s lawyer, Tat
Parish, was in favor of the mistrial, and there was no objection from
Berrien County Assistant Prosecutor Gerald Vigansky.
Following
a mistrial, the case can be retried. Parish said he and his client
agreed that forcing the jury to continue deliberating would present a
greater risk of acompromise verdict. After the judge declared the
mistrial, Berrien County Prosecutor Jim Cherry told reporters he will
decide by the end of the week whether his office will retry the case.
Pinkney
hugged his supporters outside the courtroom. He declined to talk to
reporters but he sang a victory song as he walked to his car outside
the courthouse.
Pinkney, 57, of Benton Township, was charged
with four felonies and a misdemeanor in connection with the Feb. 22,
2005, recall of City Commissioner Glenn Yarbrough.
Contacted by telephone Monday afternoon,Yarbrough was shocked to learn
of the mistrial.
“I
can’t believe it. I’m highly disappointed in the court system and the
citizens of Berrien County,” Yarbrough said. “This shows that you can
go do what you want to do, and you’ll get away with it.” Speculating
that jurors might have been from out of the immediate area, Yarbrough
said, “This decision doesn’t affect their area. Now the man will think
he can do anything he wants to do. I think it’s a sad day for the
citizens of Berrien County.” Yarbrough said he hopes Cherry will decide
to retry the case.
After the recall election that stripped
Yarbrough of his seat, Cherry brought a civil lawsuit against the city
of Benton Harbor and N. Jean Nesbitt, the city clerk at the time.
Cherry’s suit alleged voter fraud and sought to void the election.
Paul
Maloney, Berrien County Trial Court’s chief judge, ruled after hearing
the civil case that the election was tainted with fraud and another
election should be held. In the second recall election, voters kept
Yarbrough in office.
After the civil suit ended, Nesbitt was
fired by the City Commission and Pinkney was arrested. Nesbitt has
maintained she did nothing wrong and is suing the city in federal
court.
During the civil case and- Pinkney’s criminal trial
this month, witnesses testified they were told absentee voter ballot
applications were job applications, were told to vote “yes” to bring
jobs to Benton Harbor, and handed their absentee ballot envelopes over
to Pinkney rather than mailing them.
Brenda Fox of Benton
Harbor testified that Pinkney paid her to gather people to vote by
absentee ballot at the clerk’s office the day before the election and
that Pinkney paid them to vote.
In cross-examination, Parish
tried to discredit the prosecutor’s witnesses, asking them if they were
paid, threatened or otherwise coerced to testify against Pinkney.
One
prosecution witness, Tommie Travis, had told police last year that
Pinkney paid people to vote. But on the witness stand under oath last
week, Travis told the court he lied to police because he was mad at
Pinkney for not visiting him in jail, and that Pinkney never paid
anyone to vote.
Parish said the case was full of “conflicting
testimony from people with so many conflicting motives,” and the jury
probably had trouble sorting out the truth.
Pinkney was
charged with three five-year felony counts of improper possession of
absentee ballots, one five-year felony count of influencing voters
while they were voting, and a 90-day misdemeanor count of influencing
voters with money.
Parish said if the jury was forced to
continue deliberating, his client stood the risk of a compromise
verdict, finding him guilty on some counts and not others. Parish said
that would have been particularly dangerous to his client because, to
the average person, the more serious counts might seem to be the least
serious. Jurors are not supposed to know the possible penalties for the
alleged crimes in a case.
“My client does not want to risk
that compromise,” Parish told Judge Butzbaugh after Butzbaugh read the
note from the jury Monday afternoon. “We’re not willing to take that
risk after the jury has made an honest effort. Half justice is no
justice.” Cherry said that before deciding whether to retry to case, he
will try to talk with one or more jurors to find out what the split was
and what evidence was not clear to the panel of six white men, four
white women and two black women.
“We’ll find out if we could
have presented the evidence differently. A free and untainted election
is a basic right,” Cherry said.
Parish said he believes there was plenty of “reasonable doubt” in the
minds of the jurors.
“I’m
thankful that the jury was able to overcome what I view as a widespread
presumption that Rev. Pinkney was guilty,” Parish said. “There is
reasonable doubt.That is the standard of the law, and the jury applied
that.” Citing “significant public and private resources” spent on the
two-week trial, Parish said he hopes the prosecutor does not retry the
case.
He called the case “a political nightmare” and said,
“They ought to allow us to put this behind us.” During the trial,
Parish said it is no secret Pinkney is known to be a “gadfly.” “His
views may not be popular. I would hope this will not deter him in the
future. Sometimes there’s a strong price tag in exercising First
Amendment rights and values. I would hope he doesn’t give that up, but
this (trial) certainly would have an impact on most people.”
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