Davis: ‘Victim of frame-up’

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32498, 7 January 1971, Page 11

Davis: ‘Victim of frame-up’

(N Z. Press Association—Copyright)

SAN RAFAEL (California), Jan. 6.

The black militant Communist, Angela Davis, who is charged with murder, kidnapping and conspiracy in a courthouse shooting that took four lives, yesterday, on arraignment, gave a Black Power salute and declared her innocence.

Entering the courtroom next to one where three Negro convicts made a fatal escape attempt last Augus». Davis raised a clenched fist and facing Judge Joseph Wilson of the Superior Court, she said: “I want to declare publicly before the Court and the people of this country that I am innocent of al! charges brought against me by the state of California. 1 am the victim of a political frame-up.” Davis, a former teacher of philosophy at the University of California, is accused of furnishing the four guns with which the convicts attempted to make their break, leading to the deaths of Judge Harold Haley, of the Superior Court, two of the convicts, and an accomplice. A third convict, Ruchell Magee, aged 31, who was wounded, is arraigned with Davis. Heavily shackled, he challenged the Court’s right of jurisdiction.

Magee was chained to a chair after violently disrupting the proceedings, and, hav ing been warned by Judge Wilson, he was finally carried from the courtroom. During the proceedings, 300 young demonstrators outside the courthouse chanted demands for the defendants’ freedom. Mr Allan Brotsky, of San Francisco, acting as chief lawyer for Davis, moved that she be named her own counsel: that she be granted bail: and that the indictments be dismissed on the grounds of insufficient evidence and inability to hold a fair trial. Judge Wilson told Mr Brotsky to file the motions in writing by February 5, and gave the state until February) 22 to reply. After that, Judge) Wilson said he would set a trial date, having consulted f’e state Supreme Court

about assigning an outside trial judge. All the Marin County Judges are disqualified because of their friendship with the late Judge Haley. After a nation-wide hunt, during which her name was placed on the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s “10 most wanted” list, Davis was apprehended in October in a New York hotel room with a Negro millionaire, David Poindexter, aged 36, of Chicago. Poindexter was released after posting SUSIOO,OOO bail, but Davis was unable to raise the $U5250,000 bond set for her, and afterwards she was held without bail during extradition proceedings.