An article by Staughton Lynd
On: http://georgeskatzes.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=geo&action=display&thread=67 (uploaded 2007)
(date of writing unknown)
From April 11 to 21, 1993, what appears to have been the longest
prison rebellion in United States history took place at the maximum
security prison in Lucasville, in southern Ohio.(note 1) More than four
hundred prisoners were involved. Nine prisoners and a guard were
killed. After a negotiated surrender, five prisoners in the rebellion
were sentenced to death.
The five prisoners from the
rebellion on death row—the "Lucasville Five"—are a microcosm of the
rebellion's united front. Three are black, two are white. Two of the
blacks are Sunni Muslims. Both of the whites were, at the time of the
rebellion, members of the Aryan Brotherhood.
My wife and I know
the Lucasville Five and are assisting with the appeal of one of the
white men, who has since repented his affiliation with the Aryan
Brotherhood. What we have learned should give pause to anyone inclined
to dismiss all members of a group like the Aryan Brotherhood as
incurably racist. Let me give you a synopsis of the childhood of George
Skatzes (pronounced "skates"), his experiences during the 1993
rebellion, and the way that his actions ran out ahead of his
organizational affiliation and political vocabulary.
In Marion,
Ohio, where George grew up, whites lived on one side of the tracks and
blacks on the other. George and his sister, Jackie, were the children
of their mother's third marriage. Their parents were divorced when
George was an infant and he grew up in his mother's home, where a
succession of her boyfriends passed through. The house was in perpetual
disorder; George and Jackie were embarrassed by the clothes they wore
to school and never invited school friends to their house. George was
often beaten by his mother or one of his two older stepbrothers. When he
became a young adult, he often tried to help his mother, once working
overtime for five weeks and saving all his pay to buy her a freezer and
refrigerator. But the gift was unappreciated.
George became
aware that the neighbors considered his family to be "white trash." He
felt more welcome on the black side of town than by the people next
door. One of his best friends was the child of an interracial couple.
"I might as well have been biracial myself," he recalls.
How
could a person with these views have joined the Aryan Brotherhood at
Lucasville? According to George, it was not because of an attitude of
racial superiority. "You won't find anyone at Lucasville I judged
because of the color of his skin," he insists, and the testimony of many
black prisoners, both at trial and in private conversation with my
wife and myself, supports this. "One race should not have to die for
another to live," George Skatzes says. "We are all people."
Difficult as it may be for someone outside the walls to understand,
George Skatzes states that he joined the Aryan Brotherhood because he
perceived whites at Lucasville as a minority who needed to band together
for self-protection. A majority of prisoners were black. The deputy
warden, the warden, and the head of the statewide Department of
Rehabilitation and Correction were black as well. On the one hand, all
prisoners at Lucasville were oppressed. Conditions in the cell block
used for administrative segregation were such that a petition was sent
to Amnesty International and several prisoners cut off their pinky
fingers and mailed them to the federal government. On the other hand, in
Skatzes' experience, white prisoners like himself were punished for
conduct that was condoned when committed by blacks.
Still
insistent that these were the facts, Skatzes now says that joining the
Aryan Brotherhood was "the biggest mistake of my life." In the course
of responding to the day-by-day events of the rebellion, he found
himself speaking not for white prisoners or for those white prisoners
who belonged to the Aryan Brotherhood, but for the entire inmate body.
The disturbance at Lucasville was triggered by an attempt to force
prisoners to submit to tuberculosis testing, by means of a substance
containing alcohol injected under the skin. A number of Muslims said
that receiving the injection was contrary to their religious beliefs,
and suggested alternative means of testing. The warden responded that he
was running the prison. He made plans to lock down the prison on the
day after Easter and, if necessary, to force all prisoners to be
injected. These plans became common knowledge. Accordingly, on the
afternoon of Easter Sunday, prisoners returning from recreation on the
yard overpowered a number of guards and took them hostage, occupying the
L block of the prison.
During the next several hours, black
prisoners killed five white prisoners believed to be snitches. A race
war, like the one during the Santa Fe prison riot a few years earlier,
seemed imminent.
At this point, two Muslims approached George
Skatzes. George had not taken part in planning the rebellion. He celled
in L block and had stayed there when the riot began, in order to
protect his property and to look after his friends. The black men who
spoke to Skatzes were aware that, as a physically imposing older
convict (in his late forties), "Big George" had often been asked to
mediate disputes among prisoners. Siddique Abdullah Hasan and Cecil
Allen told Skatzes that whites and blacks had gathered on different
sides of the gymnasium and the atmosphere was very tense. They asked
"Big George" to help them ensure that the protest would be directed
against the prison administration, their common oppressor.
Skatzes agreed. He went to the gym and spoke to both the blacks and
whites. He put his arm around the shoulders of a black man and said, "If
they come in here, they're going to kill us no matter what color we
are." He appealed to members of each group to mix with members of the
other group.
The next day, April 12, George Skatzes (with a
megaphone) and Cecil Allen (carrying a huge white flag of truce) went
out on the yard to try to start negotiations. On Tuesday, Wednesday,
and Thursday, April 13 through 15, Skatzes was the principal telephone
negotiator for the prisoners. He took part in meetings of a leadership
council representing the three main organized groups in L block: the
Muslims, members of the Aryan Brotherhood (ABs), and the Black Gangster
Disciples. On the afternoon and evening of Thursday, April 15, he
negotiated the release of a hostage guard who was experiencing extreme
emotional trauma, accompanied Officer Clark into the yard, and released
him to the authorities. He made a radio address in which he said: "We
are a unit here. They try to make this a racial issue [but] it is not a
racial issue. Black and white alike have joined hands at [Lucasville]
and have become one strong unit."
You see the point. The
things that Skatzes did, in calming racial antagonisms, in working
cooperatively with blacks, in characterizing the rebellion publicly as
the work of "one strong unit," both black and white, hardly expressed
the worldview of the Aryan Brotherhood. In part, Skatzes' actions
expressed his personal decency; they also responded to a practical
situation that called for racial cooperation. Experience ran ahead of
ideology. Actions spoke louder than organizational labels.
George Skatzes and the black prisoners among the Lucasville Five stand
in solidarity publicly and struggle privately to understand each other.
During a fast that they undertook together, their list of demands,
drafted by one of the blacks in the group, began with a concern for
proper medical treatment for Skatzes. At the super-maximum-security
prison in Youngstown where the Five are now housed, a number of
prisoners began another fast. After about a week, only Skatzes and
Siddique Abdullah Hasan were still going without food. The prison
approached each one with assurances that their complaints would be
addressed. Each refused to break his fast until told directly by the
other that he was ready to eat again. Hasan wrote to me: "I chose to
stay on the fast to let them know that I was down with George's
struggle, too, and I would not sit quiet and allow the system to mess
over him . . . [T]hey got the message and know that we are one."
From Prison Resistance to Class Struggle
How, if at all, can this experience of prisoners overcoming racism be
extrapolated? What is the relationship of prison resistance to the
wider movement for social change?
A good deal of the recent
writing about racism calls on white workers to give up "white-skin
privilege" voluntarily in order to become legitimate participants in
the class struggle. Such a voluntaristic approach to racism is
unsatisfactory for exactly the same reason that Marx and Engels found
Utopian Socialism to be inadequate. Workers do not become socialists
because agitators have gone house to house preaching the virtues of
common ownership. Workers become socialists in action, through
experience. Thus, Eugene Debs first recognized the need for the
broadest possible unity of the working class in economic struggle and
founded the American Railway Union to take the place of the separate
unions of the railway crafts. Then, after the Pullman strike, Debs came
to understand that in a capitalist society, government will always
intervene in the economic class struggle on behalf of the capitalist
class, and helped to organize the Socialist Party.
Racism, too,
will be transformed through experience and struggle. We should
anticipate that the objective contradictions of capitalism will again
and again call on workers somehow to set aside their antagonisms toward
one another, so that they can effectively act together against the
common oppressor. As workers'actions change in response to the need for
a solidarity in which the survival of each depends on the survival of
all, attitudes will change also.
There are at least two obvious
differences between resistance in prisons and forms of struggle
outside the walls. First, a prison is a total environment. Black and
white workers in the larger society typically leave behind the
integrated workplace setting when they punch out, returning to
segregated living situations in the community. Inside a prison, blacks
and whites must survive in one another's company twenty-four hours a
day.
Second, anything good inside a prison must ordinarily be
brought about by the prisoners themselves, from below, through
self-organization. In this respect, prisons differ from the military.
Like prisons, the military is a total institution, but in the military,
desirable social change can come from above, and did come from above,
when the Armed Forces were integrated after the Second World War.
I know another George—George Sullivan, a truck driver from Gary,
Indiana—whose experience illustrates the effectiveness of the equal
status contract imposed from above in the Armed Forces. George Sullivan
grew up in southern Illinois, the same racist setting recalled by David
Roediger in the opening pages of The Wages of Whiteness.2
George Sullivan describes the racism he absorbed as a child:
There never was any question in my mind that black persons weren't any
good. I knew that, but it didn't necessarily mean they were bad people
because everyone knew that a black person's a coward and he won't
cause you any trouble. There weren't any around where I lived.
One did come to the house one time, scared me to death. I saw him at
the door, there he was, and I didn't know what to do. Any time we would
be doing something wrong, one of the comments my mother would make was,
"I'll have some big black person come and get you if you don't stop
that." So I went to the door and there was this big black person. I just
knew that he had come after me. But that's the only association I had.
I wasn't taught to hate them. It was like the feeling about animals.
Their place is not in the house or it's not where you are. Animals live
in the woods. black persons live somewhere else.3
George
Sullivan's relationship with blacks changed when he went into the
military. The new policy of integration had just gone into effect.
George reported to a barracks where he found that he was the only white.
After informing the sergeant that there had been a mistake, he was
told, "No, we've been having some problems about not integrating enough.
As new white guys come on the base they're going to be put in there.
You just happen to be the first." Then this happened:
I was a
meat-cutter and I got a bit careless. I cut three or four of my
fingers. I had them all bandaged up. I had just been promoted to
sergeant but I still had my corporal stripes. I was sitting out in front
of the barracks and the sergeant came by and he said, "Sullivan, get
your stripes on." "I can't sew with one hand," I said, "and I don't have
any money to take them over to the PX." He said, "You'll have stripes
on your uniform by tomorrow or we'll take the stripes away from you."
I was sitting there by myself just wondering what to do. One of the
guys in the barracks who'd heard it, he came out and said, "Have you
already got your stripes?" I said, "Yeah, I bought them already." He
said, "Well, if you'll go get them I'll sew them on for you." So that
was the first thing that really broke the ice. He sat and sewed those
stripes on my uniform while we got to know each other.4
Neither
George Skatzes nor George Sullivan were, or are, ideological radicals.
But they are white workers who have substantially overcome the racism
that surrounded them. Both learned through their experience to deal
with people as individuals rather than to judge them by the color of
their skin.
We need a synthesis of the pressure for social
change illustrated by the military policy of integration, with
working-class self-emancipation. Prison resistance begins to suggest
such a synthesis. There, the common need to survive creates the
pressure to cooperate. But prison administrators will not organize that
cooperation from above. In fact, prison administrators do all that
they can to forbid and break up self-organization by prisoners.
Therefore, black and white prisoners must depend on themselves to build
solidarity with each other.
In the 1960s and early 1970s, the
self-organized protest movement of blacks created a model for
students, women, workers, and eventually, soldiers. In the same way,
the self-organized resistance of black and white prisoners can become a
model for the rest of us in overcoming racism. Life will continue to
ask of working people that they find their way to solidarity. Surely,
there are sufficient instances of deep attitudinal change on the part
of white workers to persuade us that a multi-ethnic class consciousness
is not only necessary, but also possible.
NOTES
The single most remarkable thing
about the Lucasville rebellion is that white and black prisoners formed
a common front against the authorities. When the State Highway Patrol
came into the occupied cell block after the surrender, they found
slogans written on the walls of the corridor and in the gymnasium that
read: "Convict unity," "Convict race," "Black and whites together,"
"Blacks and whites, whites and blacks, unity," "Whites and blacks
together," "Black and white unity."
1. I have
written about the Lucasville rebellion in "Black and White and Dead All Over: The Lucasville Insurrection," Race Traitor, no. 8 (Winter 1998); "Lessons from Lucasville," The Catholic Worker, vol. LXV, no. 7 (December 1998) (republ. 2010); "The Lucasville Trials," Prison Legal News, vol. 10, no. 6 (June 1999). I have also written a docudrama entitled "Big
George," a play about the rebellion in two acts and twelve scenes, in
which the dialogue is drawn entirely from words actually spoken. Those
who would like a copy can send a check for $7.50, made out to me, to
1694 Timbers Court, Niles, OH 44446.
2. David R. Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class
(London: Verso, 1991), pp. 3-5.
3. George Sullivan, "Working for Survival," in Rank and File: Personal Histories by Working-Class Organizers (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1998), p. 202.
4. Ibid, pp. 202-203.
Thursday, June 21, 2007
Explanation of the Innocence of George Skatzes Regarding the Lucasville Prison Riot in 1993 (2007)
Taken over from: http://georgeskatzes.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=geoisinn&action=display&thread=73 (added 2007)
Date: unknown
NOTE: The following is intended both as a contribution to Defendant Skatzes' forthcoming pleading in response to the State's "Motion to Dismiss Defendant's Petition to Vacate," and as a free-standing explanation of Skatzes' innocence of the two charges for which he was sentenced to death: the aggravated murder of Earl Elder, and the aggravated murder of David Sommers [during the Lucasville Uprising in 1993].
The Elder Killing
Prisoner Earl Elder was killed by other prisoners on the first day of the uprising, April 11, in pod L-6 of the occupied cell block.
The State concedes that there were three separate assaults on Earl Elder.
First, "Elder was beaten severely by inmates when he was removed from the L-2 safe well, where he had locked himself with Corrections Officer Ratcliff." Motion to Dismiss at 15.
Second, after Elder had been taken to cell L-6-60, prisoner Rodger Snodgrass "repeatedly stabbed him."
Third, other prisoners --the State names only prisoner Johnny Roper -- "inflicted further damage.”
However, the State's summary omits crucial details which demonstrate that the wounds inflicted by Snodgrass were not fatal and that the fatal wounds were inflicted in the third assault, with which Skatzes had no connection whatever.
Rodger Snodgrass testified that he went into L-6-60 and stabbed Elder repeatedly with a very thin, long, icepick type shank. Tr. at 4395-96, 4590. He repeated this description of his weapon in State v. Robb, Tr. at 3757, and State v. Sanders, Tr. at 2623. In State v. Skatzes, prosecution witness Tim Williams corroborated Snodgrass on this point, testifying that Snodgrass was able to slide his four fingers through and make a fist out of his hand with the point of the weapon protruding. Tr. at 3072.
The coroner, Dr. Larry Tate, testified that the icepick type instrument made only superficial, non-lethal wounds. He described the difference in appearance between the puncture wounds made by an icepick, and the wounds made by a broad-edged weapon like a knife. Tr. at 4840-44. The lethal injuries to Elder were made by a weapon with a "large edge" like a knife. Tr. at 4837, 4843, 4845.
Snodgrass also testified that, after his assault on Elder, Elder was "still alive." Tr. at 4395. Williams testified that after Snodgrass left L block, Roper went back into L-6-60 and stabbed Elder about four times with a different weapon, which Williams agreed was a "homemade knife." Tr. at 3072, 3076-77.
It is unclear whether the fatal wounds to Elder were inflicted by Roper, as prosecution witnesses testified at trial, or by other prisoners, using a piece of broken glass, Post- Conviction Petition, Exhibit 19. The State's chief investigator agrees that Dr.Tate, the coroner, found a "small fragment of silver metal along with a chard of glass" in Elder's body.
Motion to Dismiss, Affidavit of Howard W. Hudson, para. 11.
What is crystal clear is that even if Defendant were to [accept] as true all the testimony of Rodger Snodgrass, Tim Williams. and Dr. Tate, Defendant had no connection with the third assault that actually killed Earl Elder. At most he should have been charged with attempted murder or felonious assault.
The Sommers Killinq
Prisoner David Sommers was killed by other prisoners on the last day of the Lucasville uprising, April 21,1993, in pod L-7 within the occupied cell block.
After the initial post-conviction pleadings were filed by Defendant Skatzes and by the State, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, on April 28, 2004, reversed the conviction of John David Stumpf in State v. Stumpf, 56 Ohio St.3d 712, 565 N.E.2d 835, 1990, 1990 Ohio LEXIS 1839 (1990). This Court of Appeals decision is at 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 8332*, 2004 FED App. 0124P (6th Cir.)
The State argues in its Motion to Dismiss Skatzes' petition at 4 that "post conviction actions are limited to constitutional issues only." Stumpf requires reversal of the conviction of George Skatzes for the murder of David Sommers as a violation of his constitutional right to due process.
Stumpf was convicted as the "actual shooter" of Mary Jane Stout. "At a later trial of Stumpf's accomplice Wesley, however, the state presented the testimony of a jailhouse informant to establish that Wesley was the shooter." 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 8332 at *3. Stumpf was sentenced to death and Wesley to Life imprisonment for the same act: firing the fatal bullets that killed Ms. Stout.
Citing decisions of the 8th, 9th and 11th Federal Appeals Courts, the sixth circuit panel concluded in Stumpf:
The convictions of both Stumpf and Wesley must be set aside, the Court held. Accordingly, the panel reversed the decision below in State v. Stumpf, and remanded the case "with instructions to issue the Writ of Habeas Corpus in the petitioner's favor, unless the state elects to retry him within 90 days of the date of entry of the conditional writ." Tr. at *70-71.
Understandably, since Stumpf had not yet been decided, the parties in this case have not previously brought before the Court the fact that, in separate trials, Georqe Skatzes and Aaron Jefferson were convicted of striking the same fatal blow that killed David Sommers. Just as in the cases of the two men convicted of firing the same bullets that killed Mary Jane Stout, the convictions of both Skatzes and Jefferson violated their constitutional right to due process and must be reversed.
In State v. Skatzes and again in State v. Jefferson, Coroner Leo Burger testified that the cause of death was one massive blow to the head. He said that the injury could well have been inflicted by a baseball bat. He described "a single injury with a blunt instrument, extremely forceful, not only fracturing the bone, shattering [it] in pieces, but also, separating the natural bone, suture lines." State v. Skatzes, Tr. at 3292-94.
Dr.Burger was explicit that this single blow was the cause of death:
Q. Doctor, do you have an opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty as to the cause of death of David Sommers?
A. Yes, cause of death is massive single injury to the head.
Tr. at 3295.
The obvious next question is, Who struck the single, fatal blow?
Addressing the jury both at the beginning and at the end of the trial of Defendant Skatzes, prosecutor Hogan said that it was Skatzes In opening argument in State v. Skatzes, Prosecutor Hogan stated:
Tr. at 1542 (emphasis added). In closing argument, prosecutor Hogan repeated:
Tr. at 6108 (emphasis added).
However, in State v. Jefferson another prosecutor told another jury that the principal offender was not Skatzes, but Jefferson. Prosecutor Crowe said in closing argument that in 1994 Jefferson had told the Highway Patrol:
This is a reasonably accurate summary of what Jefferson did in fact tell Trooper J. W. Fleming of the Ohio State Highway Patrol in Interview #1264 on June 23, 1994. On that occasion Jefferson told Trooper Fleming: A. So I went to L-7, matter of fact I had a baseball bat with me.
Q. Was it an aluminum bat again?
A. Yeah, it was a Louisville Slugger. Steel bat.
Q. Okay, you're down --he's standing at the bottom of the steps? In front of the showers.
A. Standing at the bottom of the steps between 41 and the shower. I come downstairs, I didn't even ask no questions. I busted him in the back of the head with that old Louisville Slugger.
Q. In the back of the head? A. Back of the head.
Q. Now, right side or left side?
Q. I just swung. I know it hit the back of his head. I tell you what I know that the brain was leaking.
Interview #1264 at 16-20.
Prosecutor Crowe told the Jefferson jury to believe what Jefferson had told Trooper Fleming.
Tr. at 657 (emphasis added).
The prosecution's conduct in convicting Skatzes and then Jefferson for the same offense (a single massive blow to the head that killed David Sommers) precisely parallels the prosecution's conduct in convicting Stumpf and then Wesley for the same offense (firing the bullets that killed Mary Jane Stout) .If the due process rights of Stumpf and Wesley to a fair trial were thereby violated, requiring reversal of their sentences 'and convictions, so were the due process rights of Skatzes and Jefferson.
Because this is a "constitutional issue," Motion to Dismiss at 4, the verdicts and sentences against Skatzes and Jefferson must be vacated.
Conclusion
George Skatzes was found guilty of the aggravated murder of Officer Vallandingham but was not given a death sentence. He is on Death Row solely in connection with his conviction for the aggravated murder of prisoners Elder and Sommers. Both these convictions having been shown to be invalid, Skatzes' death sentences must be set aside.
Date: unknown
NOTE: The following is intended both as a contribution to Defendant Skatzes' forthcoming pleading in response to the State's "Motion to Dismiss Defendant's Petition to Vacate," and as a free-standing explanation of Skatzes' innocence of the two charges for which he was sentenced to death: the aggravated murder of Earl Elder, and the aggravated murder of David Sommers [during the Lucasville Uprising in 1993].
The Elder Killing
Prisoner Earl Elder was killed by other prisoners on the first day of the uprising, April 11, in pod L-6 of the occupied cell block.
The State concedes that there were three separate assaults on Earl Elder.
First, "Elder was beaten severely by inmates when he was removed from the L-2 safe well, where he had locked himself with Corrections Officer Ratcliff." Motion to Dismiss at 15.
Second, after Elder had been taken to cell L-6-60, prisoner Rodger Snodgrass "repeatedly stabbed him."
Third, other prisoners --the State names only prisoner Johnny Roper -- "inflicted further damage.”
However, the State's summary omits crucial details which demonstrate that the wounds inflicted by Snodgrass were not fatal and that the fatal wounds were inflicted in the third assault, with which Skatzes had no connection whatever.
Rodger Snodgrass testified that he went into L-6-60 and stabbed Elder repeatedly with a very thin, long, icepick type shank. Tr. at 4395-96, 4590. He repeated this description of his weapon in State v. Robb, Tr. at 3757, and State v. Sanders, Tr. at 2623. In State v. Skatzes, prosecution witness Tim Williams corroborated Snodgrass on this point, testifying that Snodgrass was able to slide his four fingers through and make a fist out of his hand with the point of the weapon protruding. Tr. at 3072.
The coroner, Dr. Larry Tate, testified that the icepick type instrument made only superficial, non-lethal wounds. He described the difference in appearance between the puncture wounds made by an icepick, and the wounds made by a broad-edged weapon like a knife. Tr. at 4840-44. The lethal injuries to Elder were made by a weapon with a "large edge" like a knife. Tr. at 4837, 4843, 4845.
Snodgrass also testified that, after his assault on Elder, Elder was "still alive." Tr. at 4395. Williams testified that after Snodgrass left L block, Roper went back into L-6-60 and stabbed Elder about four times with a different weapon, which Williams agreed was a "homemade knife." Tr. at 3072, 3076-77.
It is unclear whether the fatal wounds to Elder were inflicted by Roper, as prosecution witnesses testified at trial, or by other prisoners, using a piece of broken glass, Post- Conviction Petition, Exhibit 19. The State's chief investigator agrees that Dr.Tate, the coroner, found a "small fragment of silver metal along with a chard of glass" in Elder's body.
Motion to Dismiss, Affidavit of Howard W. Hudson, para. 11.
What is crystal clear is that even if Defendant were to [accept] as true all the testimony of Rodger Snodgrass, Tim Williams. and Dr. Tate, Defendant had no connection with the third assault that actually killed Earl Elder. At most he should have been charged with attempted murder or felonious assault.
The Sommers Killinq
Prisoner David Sommers was killed by other prisoners on the last day of the Lucasville uprising, April 21,1993, in pod L-7 within the occupied cell block.
After the initial post-conviction pleadings were filed by Defendant Skatzes and by the State, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, on April 28, 2004, reversed the conviction of John David Stumpf in State v. Stumpf, 56 Ohio St.3d 712, 565 N.E.2d 835, 1990, 1990 Ohio LEXIS 1839 (1990). This Court of Appeals decision is at 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 8332*, 2004 FED App. 0124P (6th Cir.)
The State argues in its Motion to Dismiss Skatzes' petition at 4 that "post conviction actions are limited to constitutional issues only." Stumpf requires reversal of the conviction of George Skatzes for the murder of David Sommers as a violation of his constitutional right to due process.
Stumpf was convicted as the "actual shooter" of Mary Jane Stout. "At a later trial of Stumpf's accomplice Wesley, however, the state presented the testimony of a jailhouse informant to establish that Wesley was the shooter." 2004 U.S. App. LEXIS 8332 at *3. Stumpf was sentenced to death and Wesley to Life imprisonment for the same act: firing the fatal bullets that killed Ms. Stout.
Citing decisions of the 8th, 9th and 11th Federal Appeals Courts, the sixth circuit panel concluded in Stumpf:
"We now join our sister circuits in concluding that the use of inconsistent, irreconcilable theories to convict two defendants for the same crime is a due process violation." Tr. at *49.
The convictions of both Stumpf and Wesley must be set aside, the Court held. Accordingly, the panel reversed the decision below in State v. Stumpf, and remanded the case "with instructions to issue the Writ of Habeas Corpus in the petitioner's favor, unless the state elects to retry him within 90 days of the date of entry of the conditional writ." Tr. at *70-71.
Understandably, since Stumpf had not yet been decided, the parties in this case have not previously brought before the Court the fact that, in separate trials, Georqe Skatzes and Aaron Jefferson were convicted of striking the same fatal blow that killed David Sommers. Just as in the cases of the two men convicted of firing the same bullets that killed Mary Jane Stout, the convictions of both Skatzes and Jefferson violated their constitutional right to due process and must be reversed.
In State v. Skatzes and again in State v. Jefferson, Coroner Leo Burger testified that the cause of death was one massive blow to the head. He said that the injury could well have been inflicted by a baseball bat. He described "a single injury with a blunt instrument, extremely forceful, not only fracturing the bone, shattering [it] in pieces, but also, separating the natural bone, suture lines." State v. Skatzes, Tr. at 3292-94.
Dr.Burger was explicit that this single blow was the cause of death:
Q. Doctor, do you have an opinion to a reasonable degree of medical certainty as to the cause of death of David Sommers?
A. Yes, cause of death is massive single injury to the head.
Tr. at 3295.
The obvious next question is, Who struck the single, fatal blow?
Addressing the jury both at the beginning and at the end of the trial of Defendant Skatzes, prosecutor Hogan said that it was Skatzes In opening argument in State v. Skatzes, Prosecutor Hogan stated:
“On the third killing of David Summers ["Sommers"] at the very end of the riot, you will hear evidence that Mr. Skatzes wielded the ball bat, smashed Mr. Summers' skull into a number of pieces. He didn't act alone. There were a number of people involved in the beating and stabbing and strangling, but he was the principal offender in that particular killing.”
Tr. at 1542 (emphasis added). In closing argument, prosecutor Hogan repeated:
“[T]hink about David Sommers, the third, the last of the three killings, the one where he [Skatzes] wielded a bat and literallv beat the brains out of this man's head.”
Tr. at 6108 (emphasis added).
However, in State v. Jefferson another prosecutor told another jury that the principal offender was not Skatzes, but Jefferson. Prosecutor Crowe said in closing argument that in 1994 Jefferson had told the Highway Patrol:
"I know that first lick I hit on him [Sommers] did damage. It leaked. I saw the brains leak. I got the blood all over me." Tr. at 656.
This is a reasonably accurate summary of what Jefferson did in fact tell Trooper J. W. Fleming of the Ohio State Highway Patrol in Interview #1264 on June 23, 1994. On that occasion Jefferson told Trooper Fleming: A. So I went to L-7, matter of fact I had a baseball bat with me.
Q. Was it an aluminum bat again?
A. Yeah, it was a Louisville Slugger. Steel bat.
Q. Okay, you're down --he's standing at the bottom of the steps? In front of the showers.
A. Standing at the bottom of the steps between 41 and the shower. I come downstairs, I didn't even ask no questions. I busted him in the back of the head with that old Louisville Slugger.
Q. In the back of the head? A. Back of the head.
Q. Now, right side or left side?
Q. I just swung. I know it hit the back of his head. I tell you what I know that the brain was leaking.
Interview #1264 at 16-20.
Prosecutor Crowe told the Jefferson jury to believe what Jefferson had told Trooper Fleming.
“If there was only one blow to the head of David Sommers, the strongest evidence you have [is that] this is the individual --I won't call him a human --this is the individual that administered that blow. Out of his own mouth. If there was only one blow, he's the one that gave it. He's the one that hit him like a steer going through the stockyard, the executioner with the pick axe, trying to put the pick through the brain. That put that baseball bat into the brain of David Sommers.”
Tr. at 657 (emphasis added).
The prosecution's conduct in convicting Skatzes and then Jefferson for the same offense (a single massive blow to the head that killed David Sommers) precisely parallels the prosecution's conduct in convicting Stumpf and then Wesley for the same offense (firing the bullets that killed Mary Jane Stout) .If the due process rights of Stumpf and Wesley to a fair trial were thereby violated, requiring reversal of their sentences 'and convictions, so were the due process rights of Skatzes and Jefferson.
Because this is a "constitutional issue," Motion to Dismiss at 4, the verdicts and sentences against Skatzes and Jefferson must be vacated.
Conclusion
George Skatzes was found guilty of the aggravated murder of Officer Vallandingham but was not given a death sentence. He is on Death Row solely in connection with his conviction for the aggravated murder of prisoners Elder and Sommers. Both these convictions having been shown to be invalid, Skatzes' death sentences must be set aside.
Wednesday, June 20, 2007
A Rude Awakening as to How the Justice System Really Works (2007)
I was convicted of three murders during the eleven-day rebellion at
the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville, Ohio in April
1993. When I tell people I was not guilty of any of them, they say: But
weren't you at SOCF because you were already found to be guilty of a
murder? So let me begin with that earlier conviction.
In the city of Bellefontaine, Ohio, in October of 1979, the manager of Rinks Department store was murdered. It would appear that this may have been an armed robbery gone bad. There is more than one theory as to what really happened in this case.
This case went unsolved for nearly three (3) years. Then in mid to late 1982 some inmates wanted to cut a deal to get out of the trouble they were in.
In the summer of 1982 a good snitching inmate doing time in London Ohio Correctional Institution called the Bellefontaine authorities and told them he had information concerning the murder that happened in their town in 1979.
The price for this information would be his freedom, which he gained. Plus other perks.
The next thing that happened, in October 1982 I was indicted for this robbery/murder.
There was no physical evidence whatsoever to link me to this crime.
Mr. Prosecutor used this inmate, one that was doing 37 to 130 years in Lucasville, Ohio's maximum security prison, and his wife to convict me.
Both of these people were indicted for this murder and
several other crimes, but they cut a deal. They received immunity for
all their crimes for testifying against me. The following questions and
answers when Mr. Rogers testified against me are reported on page 1366
of the transcript:
Q. What would you do to keep from going to jail? Would you lie under oath? A. To --
Q. To prevent yourself from being convicted, punished, going to prison, would you lie under oath?
A. I certainly would. I have before.
Of course this is only a very short version of the deals, the injustice in my original conviction. My case is by no means unique or rare. The system is full of cases like mine.
To sum it up, I started out doing a life sentence, convicted of murder on the word of two (2) lying snitches! A good, honest review of the record of case number 83-CR-3, Logan County, Ohio would prove I am telling the truth!
In my opinion these convictions should not be able to stand. Inmate testimony alone put me on Death Row. These convictions were obtained by the use of bribery and intimidation of the inmate witnesses. A review of the record will prove this.
Inmate Lavelle turned state's evidence and testified against other convicts. Mr. Prosecutor told Lavelle, "You are either going to be my witness, or I'm going to try to kill you" (Transcript, p. 4047).
How can this type of testimony be enough to convict anybody?
The prosecutor also told the jury that if I had agreed to snitch, I would have been the witness and Lavelle would have been the defendant. These were his words:
Ohio Revised Code 2923.03(D) states in part that:
One would think the above statement makes good common sense, but that is not so. When an inmate testifies for Mr. Prosecutor his word becomes the gospel.
Think about it: Should snitch testimony, uncorroborated by any physical evidence, be strong enough to send a person to his death?
Even before I was indicted for the murder of Earl Elder, statements were made as to who really murdered this man. The powers that be very well know I had nothing to do with the murder of Earl Elder, but since I would not snitch, I got charged and convicted, and sentenced to death.
One of the inmates who was involved in the Elder murder came to my trial and testified against me. This man is walking the streets free now.
Another inmate who was involved in the Elder murder was man enough to step up and confess to his crime. He got a life sentence this past June 6, 2006. Still I sit on Death Row as if this confession never took place.
I was also tried, convicted and sentenced to death for the alleged murder of inmate David Sommers. The cause of death, according to the coroner, was one (1) massive blow to the head.
In my trial I was the one who dealt the one massive blow that killed Mr. Sommers.
In another convict's trial for the murder of Mr. Sommers,
the prosecutor told the jury that he was the one who dealt that fatal blow.
The State's own evidence proves that I am not responsible for the murder of Mr.Sommers.
There is just so much to all this. I don't want to go overboard in trying to explain everything. All I can ask is that you please read about this case.
If you feel the evidence is there to convict and sentence me to death, so be it.
On the other hand, if you believe I am innocent, please help me. These courts will not do their job unless they are made to do so. People power, you getting behind me and making some noise, is the only way justice will be served.
I need the State of Ohio to look at my case with honesty and justice.
Please help me to achieve this.
With utmost Respect
George Skatzes
----
Published here and here.
In the city of Bellefontaine, Ohio, in October of 1979, the manager of Rinks Department store was murdered. It would appear that this may have been an armed robbery gone bad. There is more than one theory as to what really happened in this case.
This case went unsolved for nearly three (3) years. Then in mid to late 1982 some inmates wanted to cut a deal to get out of the trouble they were in.
In the summer of 1982 a good snitching inmate doing time in London Ohio Correctional Institution called the Bellefontaine authorities and told them he had information concerning the murder that happened in their town in 1979.
The price for this information would be his freedom, which he gained. Plus other perks.
The next thing that happened, in October 1982 I was indicted for this robbery/murder.
There was no physical evidence whatsoever to link me to this crime.
Mr. Prosecutor used this inmate, one that was doing 37 to 130 years in Lucasville, Ohio's maximum security prison, and his wife to convict me.
Q. What would you do to keep from going to jail? Would you lie under oath? A. To --
Q. To prevent yourself from being convicted, punished, going to prison, would you lie under oath?
A. I certainly would. I have before.
Of course this is only a very short version of the deals, the injustice in my original conviction. My case is by no means unique or rare. The system is full of cases like mine.
To sum it up, I started out doing a life sentence, convicted of murder on the word of two (2) lying snitches! A good, honest review of the record of case number 83-CR-3, Logan County, Ohio would prove I am telling the truth!
In my opinion these convictions should not be able to stand. Inmate testimony alone put me on Death Row. These convictions were obtained by the use of bribery and intimidation of the inmate witnesses. A review of the record will prove this.
Inmate Lavelle turned state's evidence and testified against other convicts. Mr. Prosecutor told Lavelle, "You are either going to be my witness, or I'm going to try to kill you" (Transcript, p. 4047).
Transcript, p. 4047 |
How can this type of testimony be enough to convict anybody?
The prosecutor also told the jury that if I had agreed to snitch, I would have been the witness and Lavelle would have been the defendant. These were his words:
Transcript, p. 5751. |
"Mr.Skatzes had his opportunity and he chose not to take it. Had Mr. Skatzes taken it, they're right. Mr.Skatzes, assuming he would tell us the truth, would be up there on the witness stand testifying and Mr.Lavelle could be sitting over there. I make no apologies for that." Transcript, p. 5751.
Ohio Revised Code 2923.03(D) states in part that:
"...the admitted or claimed complicity of a witness may affect his credibility and make his testimony subject to grave suspicion, and require that it be weighed with great caution."
One would think the above statement makes good common sense, but that is not so. When an inmate testifies for Mr. Prosecutor his word becomes the gospel.
Think about it: Should snitch testimony, uncorroborated by any physical evidence, be strong enough to send a person to his death?
Even before I was indicted for the murder of Earl Elder, statements were made as to who really murdered this man. The powers that be very well know I had nothing to do with the murder of Earl Elder, but since I would not snitch, I got charged and convicted, and sentenced to death.
One of the inmates who was involved in the Elder murder came to my trial and testified against me. This man is walking the streets free now.
Another inmate who was involved in the Elder murder was man enough to step up and confess to his crime. He got a life sentence this past June 6, 2006. Still I sit on Death Row as if this confession never took place.
I was also tried, convicted and sentenced to death for the alleged murder of inmate David Sommers. The cause of death, according to the coroner, was one (1) massive blow to the head.
In my trial I was the one who dealt the one massive blow that killed Mr. Sommers.
In another convict's trial for the murder of Mr. Sommers,
the prosecutor told the jury that he was the one who dealt that fatal blow.
The State's own evidence proves that I am not responsible for the murder of Mr.Sommers.
There is just so much to all this. I don't want to go overboard in trying to explain everything. All I can ask is that you please read about this case.
If you feel the evidence is there to convict and sentence me to death, so be it.
On the other hand, if you believe I am innocent, please help me. These courts will not do their job unless they are made to do so. People power, you getting behind me and making some noise, is the only way justice will be served.
I need the State of Ohio to look at my case with honesty and justice.
Please help me to achieve this.
With utmost Respect
George Skatzes
----
Published here and here.
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