Huey p. newton shot2/28/2024 “This really is the first time that the jurors have talked about the trial in any significant way. “David Harper made a pact with the other jurors not to speak about the trial in public for 20 years,” Abrahams says. The original trial changed the way jury selection is conducted across America. In 1970 the conviction was tossed out and two retrials resulted in hung juries. In the end, the jury led by Harper returned a verdict of not guilty of first-degree murder, but found Newton guilty of voluntary manslaughter. For instance, it came out that the initial bullet that hit officer Frey was fired by his fellow officer. Testimony in the trial mitigated the perception some people held that Newton had acted in cold blood. ![]() “The sketch artwork, even though it was quite a bit of money, it was less than what it would have cost. ![]() A memorial for Huey Newton at de Fremery Park in Oakland, California on August 25, 1990. “To do recreations or, as we originally were thinking, to do animation was expensive, and without the funding that comes to independent producers, budget is an issue,” Ferrette says. The window shot out at the Black Panthers headquarters by Oakland police officers on September 10, 1968. team the first-ever use of such a police unit in U.S. Expecting resistance, police deployed hundreds of officers during the operation and introduced its newly-created S.W.A.T. 8, 1969, raid on the Black Panthers’ headquarters in Los Angeles by the L.A.P.D. Cameras were not permitted in court at the time with no courtroom footage available, Abrahams and Ferrette hired a sketch artist to render scenes. Amazingly, this was just the prelude to an infamous Dec. The directors retained voice actors to bring the court transcripts to life. ”Īfrican American banker David Harper was chosen for the jury – the only person of color on the panel – and he became its foreman.Ī courtroom sketch from ‘American Justice on Trial’ Sketch by Christine Cornell “It was bringing out into the open the issue of racism in terms of implicit biases and unconscious biases on the part of juries, the fact that there was little diversity on juries, the fact that it was much more difficult for Black jurors. What he did was bold and brave and also came with a lot of risk.”ĭuring jury selection, Garry “was attacking potential jurors for their implicit biases, something that also hadn’t been done,” Abrahams adds. And that really had not been challenged up until the time. “We were used to a jury of 12 white men, basically. “What the defense team led by Charles Garry did was basically challenge the systemic racism that was present in the court system and especially in the jury selection process,” Abrahams explains. Above all, he aimed to seat a panel of open-minded jurors. The trial’s outcome would hinge on the strategy of defense attorney Charles Garry. Struggling with drug and alcohol addiction in his later years, he was killed in 1989 in Oakland. In 1989, Huey Newton was brutally shot in Oakland by the drug dealer Tyrone Robinson (who was part of the Black Guerrilla Family). Times researcher Norma Kaufman contributed to this story.Defendant Huey Newton meets in jail with his defense attorney, Charles Garry Courtesy of Associated Press He was found guilty of the same charge in 1979 as well, and finally was sentenced in 1981 after lengthy appeals.Įven during these difficulties, Newton, the son of a Louisiana preacher, pursued an education. Newton of voluntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a California police officer. He returned in 1977 to face the charges two trials ended in hung juries.Ī year later, he was found guilty of being an ex-felon in possession of a handgun. The Superior Court of Alameda County convicted defendant Huey P. ![]() In 1974, after being accused of killing a 17-year-old prostitute and pistol-whipping his tailor, Newton fled to Cuba and claimed political asylum. He was released in 1970, after serving 22 months in prison, when a state appeals court ruled that the jury in the case had received improper deliberation instructions from the trial judge. Newton was convicted in 1968 of voluntary manslaughter and sentenced to spend from two to 15 years in prison. One year after organizing the Panthers, Newton was shot and wounded during a furious gun battle with Oakland police that left an officer dead. That case, settled last March, and the drug charge were the latest in a long series of Newton confrontations with the law. He was sentenced to six months in jail and 18 months probation. Most of those charges, however, eventually were dropped and Newton pleaded no contest to a single allegation of cashing a $15,000 state check for his own use. Newton disbanded the group in 1982 after he was accused of embezzling $600,000 in state aid to the Panther-run Oakland Community School. Later, the Panthers concentrated on programs to feed the hungry, teach the young and battle drug abuse and the pushers who encouraged it.
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