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Faith Strong in Man Freed After 22 Years for Wrongful Conviction by Andrew Scot Bolsinger

Feb. 10, 2014

Editors Note: Editors/Publishers, we realize this story is unusually long, but we believe worthy of the topic. Please feel free to edit for space if necessary. - Hazel Trice Edney

Faith Strong in Man Freed After 22 Years for Wrongful Conviction
Antonio Yarbough was wrongly convicted of triple murder, but many more remain under investigation
By Andrew Scot Bolsinger

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Anthony Yarbough and his lawyer, Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma, after he was exonerated by DNA evidence Feb. 6. Yarbough had served 22 years in prison.
PHOTO: Andrew Scot Bolsinger/Trice Edney News Wire


(TriceEdneyWire.com) - Antonio Yarbough spent the first two days of freedom largely at a loss for words. But the three words he said quietly over the phone in the hours immediately following his exoneration for the 1992 murder of his mother, his sister and a family friend, spoke volumes about the man’s character and faith.

“God is just,” he said.

“Just” is the root of the word of justice, which arrived for 39-year-old Yarbough 22 years late on Feb. 6. That’s when a Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice found Yarbough and his co-defendant, Sharrif Wilson, 37, innocent.

Once freed and the injustice reversed, Yarbough was repeatedly asked how it felt. Leaving the courtroom the first day; then facing TV cameras the next day, he remained pretty much at a loss for words.

By the third day he still struggled to grasp the changes in his life. But, it was the first day he said he could relax, hanging out with his closest friend, Eric Barden.

“I’m just trying to figure it all out. I was 17 when this happened. Everything is so big out here,” Yarbough said. “I’m still finding my bearings, you know what I’m saying? I didn’t think about it until I got out. I have no place to stay. I have no bank account. It’s extremely weird.”

“But I got him,” Barden said, who helped Yarbough find a temporary place to stay with his own family.

While bitterness at the injustice would be normal, Yarbough has steadfastly clung to his faith over the last several years through the emotional ups and downs of hope rising and falling and the courts dragging on despite significant evidence that pointed to both men’s innocence.

In September, Yarbough wrote a few friends that he hoped he’d be released any day, admitting fear that he had nowhere to go. As Christmas approached another trial date loomed. Another missed opportunity passed. Yarbough spent another Christmas in Attica. He wrote friends about a Jan. 7 hearing, asking for prayers.

“God is good,” he wrote.

The court again refused his release.  Then finally, the day of justice arrived.

“Tony is a great client because he is honest with me and communicative and was always realistic despite horrendous circumstances,” defense attorney Zachary Margulis-Ohnuma said in an interview following the court decision.

An era under scrutiny

Police conduct in Brooklyn during the precise time of Yarbough and Wilson’s conviction has come under intense scrutiny in the past year. Yarbough is not the first to win long-awaited freedom. In March 2013, David Ranta, 58, was freed after serving 22 years for a murder he steadfastly claimed he did not commit.

In May the Brooklyn district attorney’s office ordered a review of more than 50 murder cases, all assigned to retired Det. Louis Scarcella. By reopening the case court officials recognized the growing suspicion of the detective’s tactics during the time of the 1980s and 1990s when Scarcella was a celebrated homicide detective. But as Yarbough’s case shows, spurious convictions were rampant in the department and went far beyond one rogue detective.

Yarbough and Wilson had been unjustly convicted when they were teens, caught in the grist of a police machine with a reputation of acting with impunity. Exactly how many innocent people remain unjustly incarcerated is unclear. The investigation continues.

On June 18, 1992 Yarbough, then 18, and Wilson went to the West Village in Manhattan. They returned home to Coney Island in the morning. Yarbough entered his house and saw a grisly murder scene. All three victims had been stabbed multiple times and strangled with an electrical cord. Yarbough said he ran screaming from the house yelling, “They’re all dead.”

He found his uncle. Together they called the police.

The conviction of Yarbough, who had no criminal record, was based entirely on the forced confession of the then 15-year-old Wilson, a confession Wilson later recanted in writing.

“Right now I don’t know where to start. Cuz I’m confused. Let me clear your mind. We are innocent. We never did anything,” Wilson wrote in 2005, recanting his testimony against Yarbough. “Yes I did turn state’s evidence on (Yarbough) not to hurt him. But for one I was 15 years old and scared… My lawyer kept telling me that if I didn’t do (it), Tony would do it for me.”

The officers sought no other suspects or no other clues. They hammered the teens for a confession.

“They solved a triple murder in one day,” Yarbough said, reflecting back. “They didn’t have a motive. They still can’t say why they only wanted us.”

“I was tired as was Tony. The police told me that if I said Tony did it they would let me go. Stupid me, I said OK,” Wilson wrote.

Yarbough’s first trial ended in a mistrial. The second trial he lost after Wilson’s taped confession was shown.

Yarbough was sentenced to 75-years-to-life and sent to the notorious Super Max prison at Attica. Yarbough’s faint hope for exoneration languished for nearly 20 years until Margulis-Ohnuma agreed to take on his case pro bono. Margulis-Ohnuma is a prominent New York defense attorney.  As a member of the Criminal Justice Act he volunteered his services for those who can’t afford an attorney. Yarbough was one of these cases.

“I got involved in the case when Tony's Attica bunkmate, Eric Barden, came to see me in 2008 and told me about it. I was moved to take it on because the circumstances overwhelmingly suggested innocence and there was no proof of guilt except the confessions,” Margulis-Ohnuma said.

Initial attempts to reopen Yarbough’s case in 2010 failed, but the district attorney’s office agreed to test DNA evidence. DNA discovered under the nails of Yarbough’s mother linked to an unsolved murder case committed in 1999 when Yarbough was already in custody.

The legal process for exoneration ramped up but dragged on for Yarbough, who repeatedly went back to court, each day hoping for his freedom. Finally, the day of justice arrived.

“The day they were released was the culmination of five years of work that was, until recently, pretty thankless,” Margulis-Ohnuma said. “But I happen to love law and legal analysis, so it would always be worth doing no matter what the outcome. I have gotten five years’ worth of thanks and compliments in the last 48 hours, and I could not be happier.”

After a celebration with Margulis-Ohnuma and friends, Yarbough went with his friend Barden to get some basic supplies.

“I’m buying me some sneakers right now,” he said over the phone. “But I’ll have a phone tomorrow.”

It would be the first phone number he could call his own. Later that night he went on CNN with Piers Morgan still at a loss for words.

“What was the first thing you wanted when you got out,” Morgan asked him.

“New York air,” he said.

Rediscovering life among the living

Over the last two years as Yarbough’s hopes for exoneration grew, he began to prepare for life on the outside. He worked toward his GED and wrote letters to several people who had heard about his case and offered support.

Among those was Al Sloan a California man in his 80s who had heard about Yarbough through a friend of a friend. Sloan sends postcards of encouragement to a dozen or so people every week. He began writing Yarbough in 2011. Yarbough wrote him back. The pair grew close. Sloan encouraged Yarbough to prepare for his release.

When Sloan heard Yarbough was free, he breathed a sigh of relief. Still, his concern remains.

“That young man has so many obstacles ahead of him. The state of New York put him in prison. They need to ensure he gets on his feet now,” Sloan said.

Yarbough left prison with about $80 and his meager belongings.

“Right now he needs housing and a job,” Margulis-Ohnuma said in an email.

The attorney has been taking donations for Yarbough through his personal Paypal account. The obstacles facing the man who turns 40 on Valentine’s Day are tremendous, his attorney said. Most programs in New York are geared to offenders, not innocent men.

Eventually, Margulis-Ohnuma believes, both men will be compensated by the state of New York.

“In the meantime they desperately need moral, spiritual and financial support to recover from the 7,903 days that were taken from them and, in Tony’s case, from the vicious massacre of his family,” Margulis-Ohnuma said.

Yarbough said he still hasn’t been allowed to grieve the death of his family. He didn’t know where his mother and sister were buried.

All in good time, he said. Still it was prominent on his mind to be grateful: “Tell everyone I said thanks man. I’m blessed.”

Andrew Scot Bolsinger is an award-winning editor and columnist. He operates a website dedicated to prison reform. He can be contacted at www.criminalu.co or email him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

Jobless Rate Rises in January for Black Men by Frederick H. Lowe

Feb. 9, 2014

Jobless Rate Rises in January for Black Men
By Frederick H. Lowe

chart-unemployment

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from TheNorthStarNews.com

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The seasonally adjusted unemployment rate for Black men rose in January as the nation’s nonfarm businesses added 113,000 jobs, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported this morning.

The overall Black unemployment rate in January was 12.1 percent compared to 11.9 percent in December. 

The jobless rate for Black men 20 years old and older was 12.0 percent in January compared to 11.5 percent in December. The unemployment rate for African-American women 20 years old and older was 10.4 percent in January, the same as in December, BLS reported.

The jobless rate for African-Americans is the highest among major worker groups except for teenagers, which was a seasonally adjusted 20.7 percent in January.

The unemployment rate for White men 20 years old and older was 5.4 percent, and the jobless rate for White women 20 years old and older was 5.2 percent. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the unemployment rate for Hispanics was 8.4 percent. The Asian unemployment rate was 4.8 percent, but it was not seasonally adjusted.

The nation’s overall seasonally adjusted unemployment rate was 6.6 percent. Employment grew in construction, manufacturing, wholesale trade and mining.

Pioneering Black Judge to Preside Over Gubernatorial Corruption Case By Jeremy M. Lazarus

Feb. 9, 2014

Pioneering Black Judge to Preside Over Gubernatorial Corruption Case 

By Jeremy M. Lazarus

judge spencer
Judge Spencer

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Gov. McDonnell

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Richmond Free Press

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - U.S. Judge James R. Spencer has landed one of the biggest cases in Virginia history less than two months before he is to semi-retire after more than 27 years as an active jurist.

Spencer is scheduled to preside over the high-stakes trial of former Gov. Bob McDonnell and his wife, Maureen, according to the clerk’s office at the U.S. District Court for Eastern Virginia in Richmond.The nationally high-profile couple is facing 14 counts of taking $165,000 in loans and gifts from a millionaire businessman in exchange for using their influence to advance his diet supplement company. Both have denied any wrongdoing.

Judge Spencer has not publicly said whether he will keep the case after he takes senior status March 25. The South Carolina native could not be reached, and there was only a repeated “no comment,” from his law clerks. However, Judge Spencer, a Harvard-educated lawyer who made history in 1986 as the first African-American federal judge in Virginia after his appointment by President Ronald Reagan, will be able to hear the cases he wants as a senior judge. He is expected to keep this attention-getting case now scheduled for trial July 28 at the U.S. courthouse in Downtown.

The case itself is history making. It is the first time any governor, even a former one, has been indicted on criminal charges. And it has triggered quite a buzz in legal circles where speculation is rife is about whether the government can make the charges stick. Veteran attorney David P. Baugh, who has been both a prosecutor and defense attorney, believes the government could face an uphill climb to convince a jury to convict.

“I’ve read the indictment,” said Baugh, who practices in Richmond, and found it “very legally slim.” He said unlike other corruption cases, he said the indictment does not include any information about McDonnell, while in office, either soliciting something from businessman Jonnie R. Williams or receiving consideration in exchange for some overt, official act. And his wife was not a public official. In Baugh’s view, the government will need to show that while in office, the former governor did something more for Williams, former CEO of the dietary supplement maker Star Scientific, than provide the kind of access and introductions that any corporate lobbyist might receive.

However, Sa’ad El-Amin, who was involved in the defenseof former Washington Mayor Marion Barry and three others who have faced charges of corruption in office, thinks the defense will have a hard time overcoming thegovernment’s case.In El-Amin’s view, the businessman got what he wanted — association with the state’s top official, which lent credibility and made it easier to attract potential investors for the money-losing company.

“Why else would he need to buy the governor?” said El-Amin. He agrees with Baugh that the government’s indictment includes little that shows McDonnell did anything official as governor to advance Star Scientific. However, El-Amin believes it “would blow a huge holein the law” if politicians could “deliver their office for sale” so long as they did it without involving the government. He thinks the government could well stress that point at trial.

‘Titans’ of the Civil Rights Movement Pass Down Valuable Lessons by Edna Kane-Williams

‘Titans’ of the Civil Rights Movement Pass Down Valuable Lessons
By Edna Kane-Williams

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Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from AARP

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - When Nolan Rollins was fresh out of law school in the late 1990s he was introduced to Howard Henderson, president/CEO of the Baltimore Urban League. Returning to his home town of Baltimore, Nolan had no idea what was about to happen.

But, in a matter of just a few years, with a lot of humility, listening and good mentoring, he had zoomed into the civil rights and economic justice career of a lifetime.

“I was one of the younger folks who was really fortunate to be surrounded by really seasoned civil rights leaders. And, really, that’s what pulled me into this,” says Rollins. Being groomed by Henderson, he went on to found the now 7,000-member National Urban League Young Professionals program. Then, at 34, he rebuilt the New Orleans Urban League as its president/CEO for five years after Hurricane Katrina. And last year, he became the new president/CEO of the Los Angeles Urban League. With these accomplishments, Nolan seems to have shocked himself.

“Quite frankly, when I came back to Baltimore from law school in Florida, my intention was to go into the legal profession, which I did. I was in the State’s Attorney’s Office,” he said. But once he was introduced to Henderson, who had worked at the Baltimore-based National NAACP office under the leadership of Benjamin Hooks for 15 years before going to the Urban League, Nolin was hooked on a whole new career.

It’s a phenomenal civil rights culture that appears to repeat itself: Older, seasoned generations of civil rights leaders duplicating themselves to continue the work for years to come - generation after generation - assuring that the quest for civil rights and economic justice continues.

“All the time, I’m surrounded by these Titans in the Urban League movement who really brought me into the room, sat me down and I actually got a great chance to learn from them,” he said, crediting names such as Henderson and NUL President/CEO Marc Morial.

“They were ready to support a younger generation of civil rights and economic rights individuals.”
This strategy of simply identifying people with talent and commitment and then grooming them appears to be working among the nation’s civil rights groups.

Sammie Dow, 27, current director of the Youth & College Division of the NAACP, has a similar story. His first role models were his parents, who were active in the local NAACP in High Point, N.C., where he grew up.

“I started by volunteering as a youth usher for my local unit’s annual Freedom Fund Banquet,” he said. “And it was for me an eye-opening experience. In the eighth grade, I was awarded our local unit’s Outstanding Youth of the Year Award.
Now with a master’s degree in social work, Sammie spends long hours at the NAACP engulfed in the search for new ways to engage young people in the business of voting rights, stopping gun violence and other civil rights issues. He treasures the lessons he has learned from elder civil rights leaders.

“One of the most dangerous things that our community can do is to create this battle of us against them - old against the young. I think it’s extremely divisive and it’s dangerous to the community because it creates an opportunity for infighting and we’re not focused on what our real target should be.”

He described how the Youth & College Division and the youth councils and college chapters work directly with the adult branches; “so, that structuring really allows an opportunity for young people to be at the decision-making tables, even helping to shape the work of the adult branches. Not to mention that we have dedicated seats on our national board of directors.”

Like, Rollins, Dow sees the civil rights movement being transferred through the generations simply by partnerships between seasoned workers being willing to teach and younger workers being willing to learn.

“The view that I bring to civil rights is that there’s enough room at the table for everyone. And if we all do a little, no one has to do a lot. And I think that encouraging young people to work alongside adults, that’s the model we have to get to. Some things are not taught. Some things are caught. When young people have an opportunity to work alongside adults, they catch really valuable lessons.”

Edna Kane-Williams is Vice President, Multicultural Markets, AARP. This article is the first in a series of four Black History Month features by AARP.

CBC Hosts National Day of Prayer to End Poverty by Zenitha Prince

CBC Hosts National Day of Prayer to End Poverty
“We cannot hope to win the fight against poverty without tackling inequality….”
By Zenitha Prince
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Former CBC Chairman Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.) was among members
who lead prayers to end poverty. PHOTO: Courtesy/CBC

Special to the Trice Edney News Wire from the Afro American Newspaper

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - As interfaith and government leaders from across the United States gathered in Washington, D.C., for the 61st National Prayer Breakfast on Feb. 6, members of the Congressional Black Caucus hosted the first National Day of Prayer to End Poverty and Income Inequality.

“In my faith tradition, we are called to treat the least among us as we would like to be treated,” Rep. Emanuel Cleaver II (D-Mo.) chair emeritus of the caucus, said in an e-mail to the Afro-American Newspaper. “We have a long, hard road ahead of us before we can say we are doing well by the poor.”

Reducing poverty and closing the income gap has long been a top concern of Black lawmakers on Capitol Hill, whose communities are often among the most vulnerable and among those worst hit by the recession.

The specter of poverty has long haunted communities of color. Nearly 10 million African-Americans, including four in 10 Black children, live in poverty and almost 12 percent of African Americans are unemployed. The latter number does not take into consideration those persons who have been so exhausted and disillusioned by their employment search that they are no longer looking for jobs.

Even as the economic outlook for the nation’s poorest is turning bleaker, amid congressional attempts to cut back on food stamps and to deny jobless benefits to more than a million Americans who have been unemployed long-term, the pockets of the very rich are getting fatter.

According to a recent report released by Oxfam International, the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans captured 95 percent of post-recession growth since 2009, while the bottom 90 percent became poorer. The situation is the same across the world as the 85 richest people own the wealth of half of the world’s population.

According to the World Economic Forum’s “Outlook on the Global Agenda 2014,” published in November, this widening wealth disparity is among the top global risks that is “impacting social stability within countries and threatening security on a global scale.”

Only by tackling this income disparity can poverty truly be mitigated, Oxfam Executive Director Winnie Byanyima said in a statement.

“We cannot hope to win the fight against poverty without tackling inequality. Widening inequality is creating a vicious circle where wealth and power are increasingly concentrated in the hands of a few, leaving the rest of us to fight over crumbs from the top table,” she said.

“Without a concerted effort to tackle inequality, the cascade of privilege and of disadvantage will continue down the generations [and] we will soon live in a world where equality of opportunity is just a dream,” she added. “In too many countries economic growth already amounts to little more than a ‘winner takes all’ windfall for the richest.”

As part of the Congressional Black Caucus’ ongoing “War on Poverty” in this Congress, the group will continue to advocate for an increased federal minimum wage, or living wage. It will also continue to garner support for the Half in Ten Act, which would create and implement a plan to cut poverty in half within 10 years, and it will continue to lobby for bills that create more high-earning jobs.

The caucus also plans to push for the “10-20-30” initiative, which would require that at least 10 percent of federally appropriated money be spent in those communities where 20 percent or more the population has been locked below the poverty level for at least 30 years.

The issues of poverty and income inequality are not merely political, said Cleaver, who is also a pastor. It is also moral, he says, and the day of prayer was meant to “awaken” the American consciousness and stir support for the cause.

“While we will always have the poor with us, we are in a pitiful and perilous state if we do not do more to end poverty and income inequality,” Cleaver said. “Only the most perverse reading of the gospels would lead one to believe that the 1 [percent] is where Jesus would have used his unbridled Holy Ghost power. A good question for our Congress is this: the big oil companies receive billions of dollars in federal subsidies while the poor cannot even receive a living wage. So, whose side do you think Jesus would take?”

Other CBC Members plan to host similar prayer events in the near future in their districts with members of their local communities.

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