Sept. 13, 2015

By  Zenitha Prince 

Judge Barry Williams 

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

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - The Freddie Gray saga has moved from the streets to the courtroom, turning a world-sized spotlight on Associate Judge Barry Williams, the Baltimore City Circuit Court jurist who is overseeing the criminal cases of the police officers charged in Gray’s death. But the 53-year-old is unlikely to wilt under the public scrutiny, observers say.

“That’s not a problem for him. He won’t be worried about public pressure and all of that. He’s just going to do his job,” said Ronald Richardson, a civil attorney with the Law Offices of Peter Angelos who knows Williams from the courtroom and their shared membership in at least one professional organization. In fact, several professionals in Maryland’s legal community said Judge Williams may have been just the person needed to oversee a case of such complexity and gravity. “No question he’s a good fit,” said veteran criminal attorney A. Dwight Pettit.

“He has a fundamental academic understanding of not only the procedural issues but also the substantive issues in this case.” Williams was born April 4, 1962, in Neptune, N.J. In 1984, he graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in history. 

Three years later, he graduated from the University of Maryland School of Law. After graduation, Williams served as a law clerk to then-Baltimore Circuit Court Judge Arrie W. Davis then Judge Robert M. Bell, then of the Maryland Court of Special Appeals. For eight years, 1989 to 1997, Williams did a stint as a Baltimore

City prosecutor before going federal, serving as a trial attorney and special litigation counsel in the Civil Rights Division of the U.S. Department of Justice until 2005. From December of that year to the present, Judge Williams has served in Maryland’s 8th Judicial Circuit Court. And, in all those positions, Williams has served with distinction, legal experts said.

“When he was a prosecutor he was known to be thorough and ethical. There was very little controversy over how he did his job,” said Jose Anderson, professor, University of Baltimore School of Law. “And, as a judge, his reputation is that he is very careful about how he rules on issues…[and] of being very balanced.”

In December 2011, Judge Williams was appointed as the judge-in-charge of the Baltimore Circuit Court’s Criminal Division, a position he held until January of this year. In that position, Williams was responsible for assigning judges, managing the criminal docket and serving as chair of the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council. “I believe that Judge Williams will continue the tradition of strong, excellent leadership in this, the most demanding division of our court,” said Administrative Judge Marcella Holland at the time of the appointment.

The appointment suggested that though Williams had been named to the bench relatively young, he has earned his stripes among his peers, Anderson said. “To be given the responsibility of running this division in such a large city suggests that he’s earned the respect of his colleagues.” Fellow legal scholar Larry Gibson, a professor in the University of Maryland School of Law, echoed those sentiments.

“It would be difficult to imagine a judge with more relevant experience to oversee this case—eight years as a prosecutor, eight years as a civil rights lawyer in the Department of Justice, [nine] years as a judge. And in all of those positions, he’s been a leader,” Gibson said, before adding, “In addition to that experience, he’s extremely bright, level-headed and energetic.” Attorneys who have appeared before him also had overwhelmingly positive views of the jurist. “He’s an excellent judge…very stern and no-nonsense and he moves things along,” said Pettit, who has defended cases before Williams before, including a murder case last year. “He goes directly to the facts of the case,” Pettit added. “He allows the lawyers to try the case. A lot of judges will take over and try to interject his or her opinion and try to sway the jury.” That commitment—to ensuring everyone has their day in court—may have been the basis of Williams’ decision to sever the cases of the police officers charged in Freddie Gray’s death into six separate cases during a pretrial hearing Sept. 2, experts said. Williams denied the state’s motion to try three of the officers as a group, saying it was “not in the interest of justice.”

But Williams also denied several defense motions, including one seeking the recusal of Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby for alleged conflicts of interest. That evenhandedness will likely be the hallmark of Williams’ performance over the course of those trials, experts said. “As you saw in his admonishment of both the state and the defense lawyers last week,” Pettit said, “he’s very fair and he doesn’t take any mess.”

Sept. 13, 2015

Emmett Till Archives Being Created at Florida State University
By Zenitha Prince

Emmett Till

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

(TriceEdneyWire.com) -  It was a death that shocked the world and ignited a movement, and Florida State University is building what it hopes to be the premiere repository of historical material surrounding the life and death of Emmett Till. The 14-year-old Chicago teenager was brutally kidnapped, tortured and murdered for allegedly whistling at a White woman while visiting relatives in Mississippi in August 1955.

An all-White jury acquitted two White men who were charged with the slaying, but those men later boasted in interviews that they had committed the crime. The injustice galvanized protests across the South and became one of the lightning rods that jumpstarted the Civil Rights Movement.

David Houck, a faculty member in FSU’s College of Communication and Information, is working with the university libraries’ Special Collections and Archives Division to create the nation’s foremost research collection of materials surrounding the Till case.

“We’re very excited for this project because there is just simply nothing like it,” said Houck in a statement. “We’ve spent 20 years accumulating this material, most of which involved travel to Mississippi and archives around the South. It’s long past due that we had a ‘one-stop-archive’ for all things Emmett Till, and with this collection, we’ll finally have that.” The collection will include newspaper clippings, court records, interview transcripts and FBI investigation reports from the trial.

The archives will also include research material garnered by authors, including Houck, who co-wrote Emmett Till and the Mississippi Press; Devery Anderson, who authored Emmett Till: The Murder that Shocked the World and Propelled the Civil Rights Movement and oral histories and interviews collected by filmmaker Keith Beauchamp for his documentary The Untold Story of Emmett Louis Till. The latter’s research was a key factor in convincing the FBI to reopen the Till case in 2004, garnering more than 8,000 new documents.

“These materials from some of the nation’s foremost Emmett Till researchers will be a great addition to our archives and an outstanding resource for students, researchers and civil rights historians worldwide,” said Katie McCormick, associate dean for Special Collections and Archives, in a statement. The collection will be available beginning in 2016 at the Special Collections Research Center at Strozier Library.

For updates on the Till collection, visit www.lib.fsu.edu/specialcollections. 

Sept. 13, 2015

Many Black Households Go Hungry
By Frederick H. Lowe

Sept. 13, 2015

Notorious 'Blood Diamond' Trafficker Nabbed En Route to U. S.

(TriceEdneyWire.com) - A U.S.-based businessman whose dealings in ‘blood diamonds’ replicated scenes from the 2006 movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio was pulled him off an aircraft by police in Malaga, Spain. He was said to have a ticket for New York.

The arrest was based on a complaint filed against Michel Desaedeleer in 2001 by five former diamond mine slaves.

“This is the very first time that a businessman has been arrested for his alleged involvement in the international crimes of both pillage of blood diamonds and enslavement of civilians,” said Civitas Maxima, a Geneva-based organization that helped build a case against Desaedeleer.

According to media accounts, Desaedeleer collaborated with rebel leader Foday Sankoh who gave him a monopoly on all gold and diamond mining in the rebel-controlled areas of Sierra Leone. With his offshore company BECA, Desaedeleer forced enslaved civilians to mine for diamonds in Sierra Leone's eastern district of Kono between 1999 and 2001. Later, he is alleged to have tried to sell the territory back to Sierra Leone for $10 million.

The diamond trade, according to U.N. estimates, was valued at between $25 and $125 million each year, most of which was spent on weapons and war material.

According to Civitas Maxima, working with the Center for Accountability and Rule of Law in Freetown, preparing the case against Desaedeleer took several years.

Desaedeleer's name was mentioned in a United Nations report in 2000. He denies any wrongdoing, telling Newsweek magazine in 2000 that he had a legitimate contract for exclusive mining and development of diamonds in areas of Sierra Leone controlled by the Revolutionary United Front and saying all his actions were above board.

"This is a landmark case, the first of its kind, and it will help to raise awareness of the pivotal role played by financial actors in the trade of mineral resources that fuel armed conflcits in Africa and elsewhere," said Civitas Maxima director Alain Werner.

Unregulated mining came up again this week when torrential rains over the past weekend submerged several bridges and highways, stranding thousands of traders. Significantly, the bridge linking the eastern Kenema district to the capital is out of service. Local traditional leader says many villages in the surrounding area may also have been submerged. Seventy houses have been washed away, according to Umaru Fofana, a local reporter.