The injustice of the trial

By Atty. Lennex Hinds,Covert Action Quarterly, [26 October 1998]

Assata was convicted in New Jersey as an accomplice to the murderof State Trooper Werner Foerster and of atrocious assault on JamesHarper with the intent to kill. Under NJ law, if a person's presenceat the scene can be construed as "aiding and abetting" the crime,that person can be convicted of the substantive crime itself.

The state of NJ convicted Sundiata Acoli for these same murdersafter Assata was severed from the proceedings because of herpregnancy. The jury at Assata's trial for the same offences waspermitted to speculate that her "mere presence" at a scene ofviolence, with weapons in the vehicle, was sufficient to sustain aconviction -even though three neurologists testified at the trialthat her median nerve had been severed by gunshot wounds, renderingher unable to pull a trigger, and that her clavicle had beenshattered by a shot that could only have been made while she wasseated in the car with her hands raised.

Other experts testified that a neutron activation analysisadminstered by the police right after the shootout showed no gunresidue on her fingers, meaning she had not shot a weapon.

She was also convicted of possession of weapons -none of whichcould be identified as having been handled by her -and of theattempted murder of state trooper Harper, who had sustained a minorinjury at the shootout.

It had been and is in my view that it was the racism in MiddlesexCounty, fueled by biased inflammatory publicity in the local pressbefore and throughout the trial, fanned by the documented governmentlawlessness, that made it possible for the white jury to convictAssata on the uncorroborated, contradictory, and generally incredibletestimony of trooper Harper, the only other witness to the events onthe Turnpike.

Harper's testimony as well as that of all the other state'switnesses was riddled with inconsistencies and discrepancies. Onthree separate official reports, including his grand jury testimony,Harper said that he saw Assata take a gun from her pocketbook, whilein the car, and shoot him. He admitted on cross-examination duringboth Sundiata's and Assata's trial, that he never saw Assata with agun and did not see her shoot him -that, in fact, he lied.