PHOTO/SANDY REID, PEOPLE’S TRIBUNE
Editor’s note: The following are excerpts from a statement that Rev. Pinkney made in the courtroom to the judge right before he was sentenced.
“I’ve committed no crime. In fact, if I was anyone else, I would not be here. I can’t say if anyone changed the dates on the petitions. The prosecutor knows I haven’t committed any crime. I minister to people in this courtroom. I’ve been fighting to bring about a change in our community. Nowhere in the history of mankind can a person be convicted of a crime with no evidence. The jury was motivated by something other than the truth. I am very disappointed in the system itself. The jury took an oath that justice would be served. They failed the people of Benton Harbor and Berrien County. I know there was a jurist who lied to be on the jury. Still, I’m standing here. I could not believe the jury would find me guilty if they followed the instructions. We have to take a stand against some of the things that have happened in Benton Harbor. I can’t say if someone changed the dates but the prosecutor knows I didn’t do it. My wife and children are hurt. I will continue to fight. Over 90% of the people of Benton Harbor stand with me and understand there’s no evidence. I’m hurt. I can’t see how something like this can happen.” — Rev. Edward Pinkney
Reference: Reverend Pinkney
To Whom It May Concern:
Subject: Conviction and Sentencing
A successful attorney I call my friend intimated that a trial is not a place for open investigation and enquiry. It is the place for swift judgment on the merit of the legal proceedings that have taken place prior to the date of trial. The “ducks”, she explained, would have been carefully lined up well in advance of a trial so that there is little, if any, chance for an unanticipated outcome.
Reverend Pinkney’s conviction for election fraud is one such stunning example of the full faith and credit of the State of Michigan deployed to ensure a guilty verdict. Reverend Pinkney is very much a people’s advocate in the style of the late Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., driven by moral outrage on behalf of those too stunned to even speak.
I have no doubt the choreographed proceedings leading up to the trial were effortless for the State as a front for the Corporate interests that have perversely corrupted government activity. I believe Reverend Pinkney has been marked for punishment for his bold advocacy of the poor and rapidly disenfranchised majority of citizens of this country. Or perhaps more specifically, for his genius in coalescing consensus on wildly popular issues from the most disparate groups imaginable. This represents perhaps the greatest threat to the continued, mutually-satisfying and escalating relationship the Corporations and State enjoy.
Shame on the State of Michigan. You can martyr the good Reverend, but I expect there will be the inevitable blowback for the ugly transparency of the Corporate State’s self-serving behavior.
Sincerely,
Ellen Beverley Pascal
Is there an appeal process? If so what strategies are being planned and structured, by those who support the Rev. What is being done to mount a front against the egregious but mounting concerns and affronts to a justice system that is both blind, bought and delivered to the powerful interests in MI.
How many will continue to watch as good-people are sacrificed and forced into silence. Who stands now that Rev Pinkey no longer speaks against the injustice??
The Masses must be heard, not singularly but in unison, they must cry out against those who stand in the path of freedom, justice, democracy… their ‘inalienable’ RIGHTS.