Tennessee Supreme Court Will Not Review Disruption Statute

<a href="lke.php3">Lorenzo Komboa Ervin<br>
The Tennessee Supreme Court this
past week refused to rule on the case of a Black
activist, Lorenzo Komboa Ervin, who was arrested under the state "disruption" statute, that allows arrests based on the verbal utterance or picketing against the government. Ervin was one of eight activists, the majority Black, who were arrested outside the Hamilton County courthouse in April 1993 for protesting the refusal of the Hamilton County grand jury to indict 8 white police officers for the beating death of 28-year-old Black truck driver, Larry Powell, in March of 1993.
<Br><br>Powell was brutally beaten and kicked by county sheriff's deputies, then had his windpipe crushed by an officer pressing his baton to the man's throat, literally standing upon it. After his arrest and killing, police falsely accused Powell of "resisting arrest". And when the county grand jury refused to prosecute, there was widespread outrage against the verdict. Ervin led a rally at the courthouse, and then confronted a police "ceremony" down the block in front of a proposed plaque for dead police officers.<Br><br>Ervin challenged the consitutitionality of the
disruption statute in his appeal brief, but in a March 2000 decision, the State Court of Criminal Appeals denied his case, saying the state and the police could silence whom they wished [or allow freedom of speech] as they saw fit, and held that the statute was indeed constititutional. <br><br>
Ervin then went to the state Supreme Court, but says that because of organized pressure by the Policemen's Benevolent Association and the Fraternal Order of Police, the court was intimidated into not making a decision. He says that throughout this legal matter, it was pressure by police unions (including a PBA letter-writing campaign), and the local county politicians, which resulted in his conviction in the local court and stifled his ability to raise his case in the appeal courts. He also says that the ACLU, and major legal associations in the state have taken a "hands-off" approach because of political pressure.<br><br>
For instance, the Lyndhurst Foundation, one of the
biggest corporate foundations and contributors to the ACLU, is based in Chattanooga, and Ervin believes that the foundation has threatened to cut off funding if the ACLU gets involved in these cases. Ervin calls this a "conspiracy of silence" and obstruction of justice. <br><br>This case is important because it has a direct impact
on a current case Ervin and two other Black activists are part of, the Chattanooga 3 case. Ervin, Damon McGee and Mikail Musa Muhammad (Ralph P. Mitchell) were arrested at Chattanooga City Hall on May 19,1998 after they and 150 other persons protested the refusal of the City Council to hear a pre-approved presentation at City Hall for a police control commission.
<br><br>They were not put on trial in that case until January 2001, but then convicted in a prosecution highly criticized as unfair and widely seen as politically motivated. They face six months in prison, while Muhammad faces an additional 11 months and 29 days for "resisting arrest", and are due for sentencing on February 26, 2001.
<br><br>Ervin has said that as soon as possible, he intends to appeal his 1994 conviction to the federal district courts or the U.S. Supreme Court because be believes the disruption statute is unconstitutional and also because the eight activists were singled out for arrest and prosecution, in order to silence political dissent in Chattanooga, Tennessee, where over 40 persons were killed in police custody in recent years.