.The Eleventh Hour
by Nancy Nevers
"A man just naturally can't take the law into his own hands and hang people without hurtin' everybody in the world, 'cause then he's just not breaking one law but all laws. Law is a lot more than words you put in a book, or judges or lawyers or sheriffs you hire to carry it out. It's everything people ever have found out about justice and what's right and wrong. It's the very conscience of humanity. There can't be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience, because if people touch God anywhere, where is it except through their conscience? And what is anybody's conscience except a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived?" - Gil Carter (Henry Fonda) reading Donald Martin (Dana Andrews) 's letter in THE OX-BOW INCIDENT, 1943
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This is a new experience for me, Web-Site chat. I’d like to immediately get to the meat of what happened in the eleventh hour up in the Michigan Supreme Court, with regard to Larry Nevers, since there is just so much to say.
Our very liberty depends on the integrity of our judges. Judges must be unbiased in their interpretation of the Rule of Law. This court was completely dishonest and dishonorable with this ruling. Their jobs were to find and correct TRIAL ERROR. Nothing more, nothing less. We will get into any "overwhelming evidence" that they referred to in their Syllabus, but retrying this case was not their job, and that is not my intent. Again, their jobs were to find and correct TRIAL ERROR nothing more, nothing less. (I will re-visit the issue of "overwhelming evidence" toward the end of this letter ... you can count on that.)
The Supreme Court judges agreed to hear Larry Nevers’ case because they ruled it had merit. When you consider that the court hears fewer than 3% of the cases presented to them, and those same judges wanted to hear oral arguments on all 12 issues (not just one or two), that was extremely significant. I repeat ... they wanted to hear oral arguments on all 12 issues.
A further caveat, everyone has a right to go to the State Supreme Court on appeal, however, nobody has a right to be heard. A person must earn that right by having meritorious issues. That’s Michigan Court Rules in case you did not know that.
About five months ago, I was called by several media types. The media had heard rumors that the court’s ruling was good news for us, and both men would be receiving new trials. The media wanted to know if I could confirm the rumor. Nothing formal had been issued by the court, so we started playing the waiting game.
I was further told by an excellent well-connected source, that Chief Judge Conrad Mallett had written a scathing letter to the other justices regarding their decision to grant both men new trials. Conrad Mallett is the only black judge in the court and the newly elected Chief Judge. Mallett was going to be the only dissenting vote. His prejudice/racism wouldn’t allow him to rule strictly on the law in this case. I’m sure he wouldn’t want it known that he was a racist, especially since he had the ultimate power over Larry Nevers.
Days, weeks, months passed. I received another call from my well-connected source about seven weeks before the actual ruling was announced. I was told that there would be a split decision and only one man would be getting a new trial. I didn’t believe it, because I was told it was Larry who was the man to get the new trial. I thought how ridiculous, because Larry was the person who had been so vocal in this case. He had gone on radio and TV to expose the railroading by the City of Detroit during his trial, while Walter was always silent. It just didn’t make any sense to me. If anything, the blacks would reward Walter and further punish Larry. We now know they did just that.
Then there is the "funding" for Recorder's Court. That funding has been taken away as of October 1, 1997. The legislators in Lansing felt that it was unconstitutional for all Michigan residents to pay $9M a year to fund a court where only Detroit residents were allowed to serve on trials. Years ago, Mayor Coleman Young, along with former Governor James Blanchard, saw to it that the City of Detroit had their own little "power" court. The black power base in Detroit is irate over the loss of Recorder's Court funding, and took that anger out on Larry Nevers! (That power base includes Myron Wahls, lower appeals’ court judge, and Conrad Mallett, chief judge in the Michigan Supreme Court.)
I want you to know just how egregious this ruling was. This quote is right from the Supreme Court’s Syllabus. "The defendants have demonstrated that their juries were exposed to extrinsic influences that created a real and substantial possibility of prejudice depriving them of their constitutional rights under the Sixth Amendment. These errors, however, were harmless beyond a reasonable doubt with regard to defendant Larry Nevers. With regard to defendant Walter Budzyn, the extrinsic influences were not harmless beyond a reasonable doubt."
That says it all! ... Larry and Walt demonstrated that their juries were prejudice and deprived them of their constitutional rights under the Sixth Amendment. Just what part of the Sixth Amendment to our Constitution don’t the Supreme Court judges understand? Overwhelming evidence of guilt was not the issue ... it was about due process.
Are you aware that Supreme Court Justices Levin (now retired) and Michael Cavanagh each voted to grant Larry Nevers and Walter Budzyn bond pending their appeal? How could Judge Cavanagh possibly vote for bond on one hand, then deny Larry his constitutional right to a fair trial on the other, without some deal having been struck? I know, positively, that some dirty little deal had to be struck by that Court. Someone threatened, paid, black-mailed, or called in a favor, because there is just no other explanation to this travesty ... not when you know all the facts and can piece everything together. I hope one day to get my hands on that letter from Conrad Mallett written to the other justices. Then the entire world will know him for what he is, a racist through and through. Mallett was absolutely derelict in his duty on that court and should be removed. He has let his bias and prejudice RULE his judgment on the most important rule of law "due process," and for a lawyer/judge, that is unforgivable!!
Conrad Mallett, James Brickley, Michael Cavanagh, Patricia Boyle, Dorothy Comstock Riley, and Elizabeth Weaver must be held accountable for their ruling against Larry. Somehow I WILL EXORCIZE THE LEGAL LAWLESSNESS THIS COURT HAS UNLEASHED!!!
"JUSTICE IN THIS COUNTRY IS UNRAVELING!"
At this time, I want to remind all of you of a recent Michigan Supreme Court ruling. Robert Harrington went on a rampage in his attorney’s office in the Buhl Building in downtown Detroit, leaving a young law student dead, a man paralyzed, and 30 others wounded. He was found "guilty but mentally ill."
The Michigan Supreme Court reversed the conviction, saying that he was denied a fair trial to prove he was not guilty by reason of insanity when Judge Beverly Anne Jasper used the word "and" instead of "or" when giving the jury instruction on the cognition and control prongs of the insanity plea.
The first degree murder conviction was reversed even though the instruction made not a whit of difference. Does anyone believe that the jury appreciated the difference between the disjunctive "and" and the conjunctive "or?" On his retrial last year, Harrington was again found "guilty but mentally ill."
Compare that, if you will, with our decision (the same Michigan Supreme Court bending way over backwards to show fairness to a black man). This is proof positive that our ruling "reeks of political expediency." In other words, the same Michigan Supreme Court was the fact-finder in our case, depriving Larry Nevers of a trial by an unbiased jury under the Sixth Amendment to our Constitution. This truly is madness!!
I remember reading a recent hate-filled article by Cliff Russell of the Detroit Free Press where he said that "blacks couldn’t be racist because blacks have no power." Please!!! What about the ultimate power Judge Myron Wahls (black) and Judge Conrad Mallet (black) had over Larry Nevers in their respective courts. (Let’s not even speak of the Detroit jury!)
You and I both know what goes on in juries these days. When Mr. Russell speaks the "PARTY LINE" in print, he is not fooling anyone, not for one minute. Yes, I am saying that when blacks sit in judgment of whites, they have an agenda. I know there are exceptions, but for the most part, blacks cannot, I repeat, cannot be unbiased. It’s called vengeance and paybacks ... you know it, and I know it!!! The world saw it in the O. J. Simpson trial.
Blacks these days see "jury duty" in a far different light. From the words of Randall Kennedy, "no other setting in our political culture opens the door so widely to blacks for the exercise of power." The American jury system is their form of "extreme democracy." Racial polarization played a huge role in the jury process in the trials of Walter Budzyn and Larry Nevers. With their juries (11 blacks & 1 white in the Budzyn jury, and 10 blacks & 2 whites in the Nevers jury), a specter haunted the trials of Nevers and Budzyn ... that specter is the sabotage of justice. That group of saboteurs voted to convict without evidence of guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That is why so very many people disagree with the verdicts of "guilty - murder in the second degree." Justice done without the appearance of legitimacy will not be accepted as justice, no matter what the end result may be. That’s why when I hear blacks continually whining about respect, and the fact that they never get any respect, I say respect is something you must earn. You can’t demand something you haven’t earned. I want you to know that I am not painting all blacks with the same broad brush, because many blacks have come to me and said that they know Larry Nevers did not kill Malice Green, and that Green’s life style and aberrant behavior (drugs, alcohol, etc.) took his life. They have also spoken of that "Black Code" out there, and that most blacks will not speak up, because to do so means "real trouble." So they shut up and just go along to get along, much the same as whites. Maybe that is why so many police officers, black and white, who Larry trained, worked and socialized with, haven’t spoken out on his behalf ... I guess that’s why.
Let me leave all of you with one parting comment from a columnist with the Detroit News, George Cantor. A comment that says it all:
"The dominant theme of these trials was not justice, but payback - it was not about individual guilt, but racial guilt. Larry Nevers’ due process rights were trampled and this court’s final decision reeks of political expediency and adds a fresh layer of STINK to the affair.
By Nancy Nevers
P.S. Take the next link for my answer to the Supreme Court’s so-called "overwhelming evidence."
The next link in consecutive order is Overwhelming Evidence?