I hope he gets the death penalty!!
[url]www.nytimes.com/2002/03/10/national/10PANT.html?todaysheadlines[/url]
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March 10, 2002
Former Black-Power Activist Guilty in Slaying
By DAVID FIRESTONE
Reuters
ATLANTA, March 9 — Two days after his lawyers finished presenting a quick, lackluster defense, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, the fiery black radical known in the 1960's as H. Rap Brown, was found guilty today of murdering a sheriff's deputy two years ago.
A Fulton County jury convicted Mr. Al-Amin, now a Muslim cleric, of all 13 charges against him stemming from a shootout with two deputies across the street from his mosque in an impoverished section of Atlanta west of downtown.
Because prosecutors are seeking the death penalty against him, the jury must decide whether Mr. Al- Amin, 58, should be executed or should spend the rest of his life in prison. That phase of the trial, in which his lawyers are expected to present character witnesses on his behalf, will begin Monday and probably last a week.
The jury, made up of nine blacks, two whites and one Hispanic, began deliberating late Friday and took only 10 hours to reach its verdict.
The decision essentially concludes a case that might have proved divisive in the days when Rap Brown was urging street violence and Atlanta was dominated by a white establishment. Instead, it revealed how much the city has changed: the two deputies who were shot that night were black, as is the county sheriff, the mayor, the district attorney and most of the city.
As a result, there has been little sympathy here for Mr. Al-Amin among black residents except for his closest supporters.
Mr. Al-Amin, who did not testify in his defense, tried to look stoic as the verdict was read by Superior Court Judge Stephanie B. Manis, but could be seen shaking his head slightly as the long string of "guilties" continued. His red beard contrasted sharply with his white clerical garb, and he seemed infinitely more tired than in the famous angry photos of him from the 1960's. A few of his supporters and relatives slumped in their seats, and one woman had to be removed from the courtroom after an outburst.
The crucial testimony in the three- week trial came from Deputy Aldranon English, who stood up in court and identified Mr. Al-Amin as the man who shot him and his partner, Deputy Ricky Kinchen. Mr. English said he was attempting to serve an old arrest warrant on Mr. Al- Amin on the night of March 16, 2000, when Mr. English asked to see the cleric's obscured right hand.
"He said, `Yeah,' frowned, and swung up an assault rifle and started shooting," Mr. English said in court. One of the rounds went under Mr. Kinchen's bulletproof vest into his abdomen, and he died the next day.
Defense lawyers presented evidence of some inconsistencies in Mr. English's early statements after the incident, such as a mistake he made in describing the defendant's eye color. They pointed out that Mr. English had said he had fired back at Mr. Al- Amin and shot him, though Mr. Al- Amin was not wounded.
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