Unsatisfiable judicial manipulators siege another victory

Innocent prison terms to continue?

Theft of van by brother is to forfeit innocent man's freedom

By Thomas Michael, The International Free Mark Lankford Campaign (IFMLC)

STUTTGART (Germany), Thursday 14th February 2008. - An innocent Texan man who has 24 years of life in prison - mostly in Idaho Death Row and Solitary Confinement - behind him was reconvicted yesterday after a retrial demanded as a consequence of judicial misconduct in the original 1984 murder trial. Mark Henry Lankford, now 51, was claimed guilty of the 1983 slaying of a married couple in the Idaho wilderness although all evidence showed that he was innocent. It is long proved that he has not even been at the scene of the crime when it happened.

The real murderer was Mark's brother Bryan who, jailed himself for the same crime, confessed back in 2003 claiming Mark innocent. After committing the crimes and stealing his victims' van, Bryan had recontacted Mark (who was on his way back to their camping site) and told him what had happened. Bryan gave Mark a lift to the scene afterwards. Mark found the bodies and, according to his testimony on Tuesday, tried to take their pulse, only to find that they were indeed dead. Mark helped Bryan to bury the bodies - an offence for which, had he been charged, he would have done his sentence long ago - in other words, most of his prison terms are to be regarded unreasoned.

The Idaho jury hooked their decision on Bryan's offence of stealing his victims' van which, according to Idaho law as quoted by the prosecutors, can obviously be twisted to make it a murder committed by a passenger of a subsequent trip. The thief was Bryan, the passenger Mark. Mark "was involved in the robbery of the van not necessarily the murder, however being there was a murder involved, he is guilty according to Idaho law", the jury was quoted by local IFMLC members. The final sentencing will be in April, and IFMLC members hope that "the judges' sentencing is considerate [rücksichtsvoll/tahdikas/hooliv]".

The Lewiston Tribune reported on the trial but cannot be relied upon as there is a risk of evil-willing censorship.

Among the prosecutors, there was one of the original trial, Dennis Albers, who was found with a case of misconduct already back in 1982 for which he was admonished [abgemahnt/varoitettu/hoiatatud]. In 1983, the Idaho judicial bodies were "a total mayhem [Durcheinander/sekasotku/segadus]" as a consequence of a new Sheriff coming, most trained deputies leaving and the new ones being unfamiliar with case and area, so proper justice in due time was impossible. Also, Kirk McGregor turned up again. The qualified defenders, lead by Charles Kovis and J D Hallin and assisted by local jurors, had a good start but were at the end overruled by the prosecutors.

The prosecutors were assisted, apart from new false testimony by Bryan, by another brother of the two, Robert, who started evil-willing propaganda involving the press. Robert had never turned up with charges against Mark any earlier, not even in recent times when there were earlier hopes of Mark to come free.

The IFMLC will attempt to give the story a spread among Community Radio stations of which there are a few hundreds in the western world except the US. Most of them are in Germany and neighbouring countries. Their German headquarters are in Hamburg, the European ones in Sheffield (UK) and the world HQ in Montreal (Canada).

US judicial manipulation is world-known, and it is a fact that the US have the highest prisoner percentage of the entire world - according to data received in early 2003 0.701 per cent or 7010 prisoners per millon residents. In Pennsylvania, Mumia Abu-Jamal, a black Afro-American journalist, is on Death Row for his skin colour since 1982 charged for murdering a policeman. Mumia only happened to drive his taxi within eyesight of the scene of the crime when it happened.

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[...] = translations of rare vocabulary into German, Finnish and Estonian by the author