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Michigan Black Activist Goes to Trial Jan 25

by JoNina M. Abron (jonina1 [at] yahoo.com)
Michigan black anti-police brutality activist Robert Mitchell will go on trial Jan. 25.
robertmitchell.jpg
Michigan Black Activist To Go On Trial Jan. 25
by JoNina M. Abron

(Battle Creek, Mich.) -- Jury selection will begin Jan. 25 in the trial of black anti-police brutality activist Robert C. Mitchell, who is charged with assaulting and kidnapping a white woman here 18 months ago.

Mitchell, 42, founder of the National Police Misconduct Project, is accused of assaulting Deborah Sparks Gordon at her apartment on July 12, 2000. According to police, Mitchell and Gordon, 46, argued after she threatened to tell the black woman with whom Mitchell was living that he and Gordon were having an affair.

The black woman, who has asked not to be identified, secured a personal protection order against Gordon on July 11, the day before the alleged assault. According to the order, Gordon, armed with a gun, came to the black woman's home and threatened to kill her.

Mitchell served a prior prison sentence for practicing law without a license. If convicted of assaulting Gordon, he faces life in prison under Michigan's "three strikes and you're out" law.

According to a report by a forensic scientist in the Michigan State Police Laboratory, Mitchell's fingerprints were not found on a glass that Gordon said he touched during the alleged assault. The report, by Sgt. Gregoire P. Michaud, said that the six fingerprints on the glass belonged to Gordon.

An outspoken critic of the Battle Creek Police Department, Mitchell was instrumental in bringing public attention to several cases of brutality and other misconduct by police when he was legal redress chairman of the local NAACP chapter. In 1999, Mitchell and the Rev. Mary Gault won a federal civil rights lawsuit against former Mayor Ted Dearing and other city officials, who would not allow Mitchell and Gault to criticize the performance of former police Chief Jeffrey Kruithoff during meetings of the Battle Creek City Commission.

Mitchell organized a local march against police brutality and racial profiling less than a month before he was charged with assaulting Gordon. He was a fugitive from justice for over seven months before he was arrested by state police in Lansing on March 18, 2001. He said he feared for his life if arrested by police.

Mitchell, a trained paralegal, did the primary research for a federal lawsuit now pending by several black and white Battle Creek firefighters, who allege that the fire department discriminates against black and female fire fighters.

His supporters say Mitchell is being framed for assaulting Gordon because of his work organizing against police brutality and racism.

Shortly after his arrest, several Cuban refugees at the Calhoun County Jail, where Mitchell is a prisoner, asked him for legal advice. Jail officials said that because the Cuban prisoners had attorneys, Mitchell could not help them. The officials denied Mitchell use of the jail's law library and also removed him from the main population of the jail.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 1969 that prisoners have the right to act as "jailhouse lawyers" for other prisoners.

Since August, Mitchell has suffered a series of heart attacks and strokes. He has accused Calhoun County Sheriff Allen Byam of disregarding the wishes of doctors, whom Mitchell says want him to be hospitalized for long-term treatment.
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