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Ashby Leach In Cleveland Courtroom: Court Speeds Through Trial

By VVAW

The following report was written by a VVAW member who is attending the Ashby Leach trial in Cleveland. After two full weeks--the first week being taken up with various motions--the trial is already near its conclusion. In the week of March 21st, an entire jury (including alternates) was seated in two days, there were opening statements on the third day, and by Friday, there had been 13 witnesses (ten of the hostages and three police). It's clear that Chessie and the courts are trying to sweep this trial under the rug as quickly as they think they can possibly get away with.

You better not blink while sitting in on the Ashby Leach trial--you're liable to miss a couple of prosecution witnesses and well rehearsed ones at that. The court system, judge, and prosecution want to get this one out of the way as fast as possible.

For sure they want to skip the fact that Ashby is fighting back.

But it comes out anyway. It comes out when Ashby Leach acting as his own attorney--a "right" people had to fight to get--cross examines witnesses. And it comes out when we talk to people in the streets where the campaign to Free Ashby Leach is being built.

A lot comes out when Chessie witnesses testify also; they can remember every fact that fits the prosecution's case but they have a strange memory lapse when it comes to remembering statements from Ashby like, "I don't want to hurt anybody." Or the fact that no one was hurt.

One prosecution witness was a professional killer in cops uniform. He is a "professional" sniper for the Cleveland Police Department. His job is "to protect government officials and other high personages." He testified that he kept Ashby in the sights of his 6-inch long barreled .357 Magnum for 7 hours. He didn't use it, he testified, because it would probably have gone through Ashby and "hit some of the other hostages." When asked to compare his cannon with Ashby's .25 caliber pea shooter, this expert testified that the .25 was "more dangerous to be hit by."

Chessie is so afraid of the facts of the case that one of the Vice President's of the system sent a letter out to all employees telling witnesses that in effect they must perjure themselves because, in his words, the truth would be "the kiss of death."

The Chessie System has a fulltime journalist stationed in the courtroom to insure that Chessie's "facts" will get out. And the owners of the press are having a sensationalist heyday. They will take one sentence in a whole day's testimony and blow it up into a scare headline. Despite accurate reporting by some rank-and-file reporters, the media is filling its usual role of fronting for the system.

We don't dispute the fact that Ashby took over the 36th floor of the Terminal Tower--we never have disputed that.

But that doesn't make him a criminal. It's not wrong to fight back. And it's the Chessie system's owners and their corporate cronies who are in fact the criminals.

"What kind of trial is this?" Ashby asked in court. "I don't care anything about legal niceties or trial procedures--I'm just trying to get at the truth here."