Re-posted from the previous blog:
Howard's retrial is set for January 29, 2007! Judge Hill appointed Tyrone Moncriffe as lead attorney to assist Loretta Muldrow. Howard was not beaten or humiliated by the SWAT team before court today, though the cops did ask his attorney whether or not he "needed" to be in court. Are they too lazy to do their job? Or were they actually paying attention to us last friday?
Rightly posted on Wednesday!
posted by Liz and Njeri on 7/26/06Sister Njeri and I just got back from court (and a loooong walk in the rain). Today, after almost an hour of waiting for the cops to bring in Howard ("Does he need to be in court for this?"), Howard went before Judge Belinda Hill to be appointed his new attorney, Tyrone Moncriffe. This time, he had his glasses, shoes, underwear, and an understhirt! Imagine that. After he walked into the courtroom, he smiled at me and Njeri and winked at us, clearly happy both to see us and also not to have just gotten sat on, while naked, by four crazy white men with guns and riot gear. As my brother in Brooklyn commented, "Those Houston cops just love sitting on naked black men, don't they?"
Judge Belinda Hill reviewed the events of last Monday's motion hearing. Visiting Judge Doug Shaver denied a motion to drop the charges and also denied a motion to suppress evidence, thus obligating Alvin Nunnery, Howard's lead attorney, to step down as his attorney in order to be a witness. After a quick review, Judge Hill said that since the federal courts had ordered that Howard be released or retried within 180 days, the trial would start on September 29, 2006. Loretta Muldrow, his second attorney, argued that since Howard had just been appointed a new lead attorney (who, coincidentally is already scheduled this fall to defend another man charged with capital offenses), it was not feasible (or legal) to start the trial by the end of September.
The prosecuting attorney, Ms. Kelly Siegler, of straddling fame, said: "Let the record show that the prosecution was prepared to go to trial on July 17." Howard's attorney, Muldrow, also noted that the defense was prepared to go to trial then as well. Last week, after Nunnery stepped down as Howard's lead attorney, Loretta said, shaking her head, "I just lost my right arm."
When given the opportunity to speak, Howard asked to waive the 180 days in order to give Moncriffe and Muldrow adequate time to prepare for his trial date. The judge agreed, and set the trial date for January 29, 2006. While being escorted out by the officers, Howard smiled our way and whispered, "Yes!"
For now, Howard will remain in Harris County jail while his attorneys prepare. That is to say, as soon as Moncriffe's other capital case is finished with, he will join Muldrow in preparing for Howard Guidry's second trial.
No one, it should be noted, said anything about the release option in the retry or release order.
Should have been posted last Monday!!!
posted by Liz on 7/26/06I went to visit Howard today. When I finally got in to see Howard, he said that many of the guards confronted him about last Friday's protest. Some of the black guards said things like, "It's really fucked up what they did to you," but when Howard told me, he laughed at the idea that the black cops and the white cops are somehow not united against prisoners, black and white, and joked, "They?"
Below is the following exchange Howard and a white guard had, to the best of my memory:
White guard: Guidry? There a Guidry here?
Howard Guidry: The one and only.
WG: Why you got all those people out front?
Howard was in good spirits, as always. At that time, we thought that he would be going to court on Tuesday, so when he asked me if I was going to be there or not, I joked with him and said, "It doesn't matter. You won't be able to see me because they won't give you your glasses." He laughed and said something like, "Well, alright, but then you better have another protest for me."
I told Howard that I was reading a book of Malcom's speeches and he spit out a verse from a poem that he and several of the other brothers on Death Row had written responding to one of Malcom's speeches called 'The Ballot or the Bullet?' (check it out here http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/065.html) Hopefully, we'll get that poem up on the web soon...
Should have been posted last Friday!
posted on 7/26/06Today's protest was a total success. We stood outside the Harris County jail for almost two hours. We chanted (No Justice, No Peace! 5 White Cops/ Black Man/Equals Zero Justice! Harris County HPD, Stop Your Brutality!, and others), we held signs, and activists Gloria Rubac and Njeri Shakur got on the bullhorn and shamed all police officers within earshot.
We demanded accountability for criminal police and an immediate end to police brutality and inhumane treatment of the men and women incarcerated in Harris County. We reminded those present that those incarcerated in a county jail are awaiting trial, and thus "innocent until proven guilty" and should be treated accordingly. Though we were ostensibly out to protest what happened to Howard, we were also protesting the degrading and inhumane treatment that so many of our sisters and brothers behind similar walls are forced to go through.
Supporters of Howard Guidry and other sisters and brothers who have experienced police brutality were not afraid to raise their voices and shame the police. We were surrounded by pigs on horses, sqads of secret agents, cop cars, and glaring officers, but we stood outside of that jail and we told them that we will not allow them to continue beating and degrading our brothers and sisters without having to face the consequences
Many family members and friends expressed their solidarity with us, by honking horns, thanking us for being there, throwing peace signs (and raised fists!) out of their car windows, and stopping by to talk more with us. One woman, after telling me that her husband had been beaten by cops when he was arrested, got on the bullhorn. She told the crowd about her husband's experience, added, "My husband is black. The cops were white," and then handed back the bullhorn.
Check out the article posted on Indymedia for more information: http://houston.indymedia.org/news/2006/07/50601.php
Reflecting on yesterday's motion hearing
After coming home from the motion hearing at which both motions were denied and howard's lead attorney had to step down in order to become a witness, i couldn't write about the day's events without getting up from my computer and yelling, so i ended up writing this:
"monster"
this monster has got me punching my knuckles and biting my lips, i'm pissed off and angry, can't turn my words into fire to burn down these walls, can't turn my anger into guns to point straight in the face of what goes for justice in this plantation state.
last night and this morning, i'm dreaming at home, peaceful and ignorant between my clean cotton sheets, while in downtown houston, center of the beast, pigs in riot gear escort my brother's face into the concrete floor.
stop resisting, they tell him, your back's up too straight, don't you know you're supposed to be broken and stupid and down? i ain't resistin', he tells them, you're beatin' me up. you got guns and clubs and shackles for me and you tellin' me my refusal to bow down before thee is resistance?
they play barbie with him, pushing the arms of a soldier into the clothes of a beast, shackling one footprint-leaving foot onto one footprint-leaving foot so tight he needs a wheelchair to leave. they don't give him his glasses so my brother can't see, cos, you see, they can't beat him enough to make him stare down at their feet.
now pigs in all corners with guns at their hips throw open the gates for this monster to roar into court, but he just...shuffles. too tired and mad and blind to see all of these shining and beautiful eyes upon him, loving him, feeling him, powering him. we breathe in their hatred and blow freedom his way.
but the judge walks in. old like the bible and white like a corpse. your honor. too proud to say the d.a. is lying, too proud to say the monster is a man. he takes out the hourglass and says: that thing can't read time, so i'll just stretch it out, instead of letting that go. and he leaves, wise and all-knowing, temperate and meek, the real monster, in the belly of this beast.