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Lawton Frame-Up Continues: Jury Tampering

By VVAW

Evidence of jury tampering was revealed in early February during jury selection proceedings in the trial of Gary Lawton. Gary, an activist in the Black community of Riverside, California and a member of VVAW/WSO, is being tried for the third time on frame-up charges or murdering two white Riverside policemen. Both previous trials ended with hung juries with the majority of jurors voting for acquittal.

In the first two trial, the prosecution resorted to just about every vicious tactic in the book trying to railroad Gary into prison: phoned up "jailhouse" testimony from heroin addicts, sexual deviants and other police stooges were all used in this context. At one point, the prosecution's goons physically attacked members of the defense committee inside the courthouse itself in hopes of "proving" what violent people they are. Now, as the third trial gets under way, the racism and repression department of the Riverside DA's office is at it again.

The latest incident occurred when a prospective juror admitted under examination that she was afraid to sit on the jury because "the Lawton defense committee had threatened the lives of the families of the previous jurors unless they voted for acquittal!" This led to a special hearing where it was revealed that numerous members or the panel of jurors had heard this rumor and had been passing it around among themselves for a number of days: naturally, the entire panel was thereby biased against Gary as a result.

While pretending to be "very upset" with such a clear-cut case of jury tampering, the DA was quick to refuse to do anything about it. The last thing the DA wanted to bring to light was the original source of the rumor. As was shown in the first tow trial, the DA's office has made it clear they will try to get a conviction no matter how much evidence they have to manufacture or how many juries they have to rig: this latest incident is a stark case in point.

Overall, the racism that has surrounded the jury selection procedures in this latest trial has been absolutely gross. The jury system itself insures that poor and third world people are excluded from jury duty by a number of bureaucratic tactics and the simple economic hardship of serving on a jury and not being able to work. Al of the panels of prospective jurors in the Lawton case have had only a handful of third world people on them: out of a total of 219 prospective jurors in this third trial, only 4 have been Black. Those that did manage to make it into the jury box were then kicked off, one by one, by the DA in preemptory challenges. In the latest jury panel, there were only 3 Black people to make it into the jury box. The DA then tried to frighten one of these prospective Black jurors into disqualifying herself by implying that her son had been involved in the murder Gary is charged with and that a shotgun her husband owns was the murder weapon. When this failed, the DA kicked off her and the only other 2 Blacks on the panel on preemptory challenges.

As it stands now, jury selection is expected to last through March before the actual presentation of evidence begins.

LAWTON DEFENSE WORK

VVAW/WSO has been working on the defense of Gary Lawton for over 3 years with the understanding that the court system can never be relied on to set him free: the people are the only ones that are going to do that. Through this work, VVAW/WSO has learned the necessity of tying in the defense work around Lawton with the ongoing work it is doing in the community and with the struggles of other political prisoners. Until recently, a failure to concretely understand this led to a number of errors in VVAW/WSOs work around the case that prevented building as much mass support as should have been built.

Now, was VVAW/WSO is trying to put an end to this hit-or-miss approach, the result has been a slow but steady increase in its effectiveness.

The key to this progress is in bringing the issue of Gary's trial into the on-going day-to-day work in the community. Gary's case does not stand in isolation from the innumerable other political prisoners. Rather, it is a perfect example of how the system of political repression works in the US: an example that can be linked up with support work around other political prisoners. Thus, in Buffalo, VVAW/WSO's work around Lawton is organized in conjunction with the struggles to free the Attica Brothers and Martin Sostre, while in Chicago, the chapter has been able to bring Gary's case to the work it is doing around Antowyn Cauley (see p. 5).

In addition, some VVAW/WSO chapters are trying to bring the Lawton case to other areas of their work with vets and GIs; setting up speaking tours in their areas, organizing letter writing campaigns, holding picket lines at regional federal buildings, and initiating petition campaigns at the VA, on college campuses or with active-duty GIs. In Milwaukee, the chapter will be conducting a door-to-door campaign against police repression and around the Gary Lawton struggle

By linking up these struggles and showing how they are all the result of the same system of exploitation and repression, the work is able to take on a broader, more significant character. There is a long way to go towards improving the work of building a people's movement that will free Gary Lawton and all political prisoners. But by constantly tying the Lawton work in with the struggles of other political prisoners and with the overall people's movement, ever larger numbers of people can be united against the common enemy to do just that.