Subject: FW: No Death Penalty for Zolo Agona Azania!
greetings,
i am sending you this information regarding a prisoner on death row in
Indiana named Zolo Agona Azania. His sentencing hearing is scheduled
to begin October 20th in Ft. Wayne, Indiana. We are sending you this
information with the hope that you will help to generate support for
this brother and help us to have observers at his trial from the
community there in Ft. Wayne. Please see the attached documents and
distribute widely to others.
Thank you for you support,
hondo
for the No Death Penalty for Zolo Committee
No Death Penalty for Zolo Agona Azania!
The Indiana courts have set a new date for a trial before a jury on
the sole issue of a sentence for Zolo Azania, which could be the death penalty,
on October 20, 2008.
Since 1981, for more than 25 years, he has been imprisoned by the state of
Indiana Zolo did not receive a fair trial and has always maintained his total
innocence of any involvement in the crime for which he is imprisoned.
Zolo is a prolific writer and an accomplished artist whose work has been
exhibited in many places around the country. His writing and his art
reflect who he is: A man who lives his political convictions. At the time
of his arrest for the shooting death of a policeman, Zolo was a well known
activist in his hometown of Gary, Indiana. He was an ex-con who had grown
up in extreme poverty, but he was also the valedictorian of his CETA federal
job training class and had received a scholarship to Purdue University just
prior to his arrest. He was involved in the campaign to make Martin
Luther King's birthday a national holiday and had designed a button used by
campaigners in Gary. Since his arrest Zolo has fought the charges against
him from his prison cell, often on death row. His tireless efforts have
exposed the unfair and racist way his case has been handled by the
authorities. He has defended his own rights and the rights of other
prisoners winning the respect of fellow prisoners and jailers alike. His
victories, overturning his death sentence twice, have set precedents cited by
other prisoners.
As Indiana Circuit Court Judge Steve David wrote in a May, 2005 decision:
"fundamental principles of fairness, due process, and speedy justice"
were violated in Zolo's case. Judge David also pointed out that "the
State bears most of the responsibility for the delay between the defendant's
1982 conviction and the currently pending penalty proceeding." In 1993,
the Indiana Supreme Court overturned Zolo's original death sentence because the
prosecution had failed to turn over a gunshot residue test. In 2002, the
Indiana Supreme Court overturned Zolo's second death sentence because "the
jury pool selection process was fundamentally flawed," including the
unconstitutional exclusion of Blacks.
Judge Steve David ruled that prosecutors could no longer seek the death penalty
because Zolo's constitutional rights to a speedy trial and due process would be
violated. But prosecutors appealed and two years later, the court ruled
that "neither the delay nor any prejudice that Azania may suffer from it
violates his constitutional rights…the State may continue to seek the death
penalty." The Court then appointed Marion Superior Court Judge
Robert Altice as special judge to preside over Zolo's new penalty phase,
because Judge Steven David was called to active military duty.
Now the Indiana courts have set a new date for a trial before a jury on the
sole issue of Zolo's sentence on October 20, 2008. The proceeding will
probably be in Fort Wayne, however Zolo and his lawyers, Jesse A. Cook of Terre
Haute, Indiana and Michael E. Deutsch of the National Lawyers Guild and the
People's Law Office in Chicago are fighting for a change of venue to Gary,
Indiana or Indianapolis, both cities with a more diverse jury pool. Zolo
hopes that progressive activists will again pack the courtroom to show their
opposition to the death penalty as they have in the past.
The Indiana courts have also held that Zolo's new sentencing proceeding will be
conducted pursuant to the current Indiana death penalty statute enacted in
2002, which means that when the trial court judge receives a sentencing
recommendation from the jury, the judge is to sentence the defendant
"accordingly" – whether the jury recommends the death penalty, or a
term of years.
The jury will thus be presented with the stark choice of the death penalty or
Zolo's release within a short time, and the danger is that the jurors will
choose the death penalty because they may succumb to media hysteria and believe
that a person convicted of killing a police officer is too dangerous to let out
of prison. The Indiana Supreme Court has written that "In Azania's
case, the specter of an unconstitutional sentence particularly arises where the
jury might consider Azania's future dangerousness. We held that future
dangerousness was not a concern in Azania's re-sentencing, because the trial
judge would have the final say in applying the death penalty and because the
jury system requires that we trust juries to follow the law in their
deliberations. With the trial judge's sentencing discretion limited by the 2002
death penalty statute amendment, we emphasize again…that a trial judge is not
expected, and indeed not permitted, to enter a sentence where the sentence, or
the manner of arriving at it, is illegal."
The stakes are high for this next step in Zolo's more than a quarter century of
fighting for justice, for his freedom and for his very life. Those who oppose
the death penalty need to continue to get the word out that Zolo is a wonderful
person who contributed much to the lives of others and still has much to
contribute, and that the government should not be allowed to put him to death.
You can support Zolo by:
asserting that plans for a third death penalty trial for
Zolo be dropped. It is inhumane and wasteful of Indiana's resources. The
address is: Prosecutor
Bernard A. Carter
Building 'B' 1st Floor, 2239 Main St., Crown Point, IN 46307
Gary Post-Tribune
1433 East 83rd Avenue
Merrillville, IN 46410-6307
Email: editor@post-trib.com
Indianapolis Star
P.O. Box 145
307 N. Pennsylvania St.
Indianapolis, IN 46206-0145
Fort-Wayne Journal Gazette
P.O. Box 100
600 W. Main St.
Fort Wayne, IN 4680-0088
· Writing to Zolo:
Zolo Agona Azania, #4969
Indiana State Prison, P.O. Box 41, Michigan City, Indiana 46361-0041
P.O. Box 478314
Chicago IL 60647
www.zoloazania.org
Email: zoloazania@gmail.com
Phone: 773-318-3079
For more info see: http://www.zoloazania.org/
http://www.prairiefire.org/Zolo/Zolo_0505_judge_orderB.pdf
http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/05100701fsj.pdf
http://www.in.gov/judiciary/opinions/pdf/11070701fsj.pdf
http://www.in.gov/judiciary/center/pubs/caseclips/2007/cc31.html#azania
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
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Free All Political Prisoners!
nycjericho@gmail.com • www.jerichony.org
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