PRESS RELEASE
Criminal Defense Lawyer Barry P. Wilson will be imprisoned on Tuesday, May 15, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. in courtroom 704 at the Suffolk Superior Court.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT:
(Boston) May 10, 2012 Kazi Toure 857-204-0072
On Thursday May 3, 2012, the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court denied Attorney Wilson’s motion for further appellate review, thus upholding the Court of Appeal’s March 20, 2012 decision denying Attorney Wilson’s appeal. Attorney Wilson was held in contempt last May by Superior Court Judge Patrick Brady. On May 19, 2011, Attorney Wilson was sentenced to 90 days in jail while representing a twenty-two year old African-American male charged with first degree murder. Attorney Wilson’s sentence will be executed on May 15, 2012 at 2:00 p.m. in courtroom 704 of the Suffolk Superior Court.
Supporters of Attorney Wilson will be gathering in front of the Suffolk Superior Court at 1:15 p.m. on May 15, 2012 to oppose Attorney Wilson’s imprisonment and the racist jury selection practice Attorney Wilson was objecting to when he was found in contempt for what Judge Brady describes as “atrocious behavior.”
Attorney Wilson was attempting to ensure that his client, a 22-year-old African-American man on trial for his life, had a jury of his peers in a first degree murder trial. Attorney Wilson protested the court’s findings and the government’s use of preemptory challenges when the prosecutor struck off all young people and people of African-American descent from serving on the jury.
Judge Brady sided with the prosecutor who had been challenged by Attorney Wilson after striking an African-American woman from the jury. The judge accepted the prosecutors’ reason that she might be biased against the police because her two (2) sons as juveniles had been in trouble with the law – one for driving without a license, and the other for possession of a small amount of marijuana. Neither juvenile did any jail time, and neither has been in trouble since.
Judge Brady did not agree with Attorney Wilson that the next prospective juror – a white man who had worked for 14 years for homeland security – might be biased for the police. When Mr. Wilson strongly objected to the seating of a jury without a single African-American juror, the judge found him in contempt. The Judge then stayed the sentence until completion of the trial and ordered Attorney Wilson to proceed. Two (2) days after the jury found the defendant guilty of first degree murder, and two (2) weeks after his finding of contempt, Judge Brady sentenced Attorney Wilson to ninety (90) days in jail, the maximum sentence for a contempt charge.
On June 28, 2011, Attorney Wilson’s sentence was stayed pending his appeal of Judge Brady’s finding. On March 20, 2012, three (3) justices of the Massachusetts Court of Appeals affirmed Attorney Wilson’s sentence. On May 3, 2012, the Supreme Judicial Court denied Attorney Wilson’s petition for further appellate review.
Attorney Wilson has made it his life work to represent the oppressed, expose the oppressors, and to hold those who routinely hide behind the guise that they are “just doing their job” accountable. As many would say:
“The man has the intestinal fortitude to go into court on a daily basis and say what many of us think without regard for his personal well being,” Attorney Joe Krowski Jr.
We ask that all of those who support Attorney Wilson, and his 37 years of thankless work, join us on May 15, 2012, at 1:15 p.m. in front of the Suffolk Superior courthouse to protest this decision and sentence.
Kazi Toure/Trial Consultant
Does anyone know if this judge, Judge Brady, has a history of this kind of racist decision-making on trial issues?