UPDATE ON THE CASE OF ZOLO AGONA AZANIA
February 18, 2003 E-Mail
Last week the chief prosecutor of Lake County, Indiana (Gary, Indiana), Bernard Carter, announced his intention again, for the third time, to seek the death penalty for Zolo. Two prior death sentences had been vacated by the Indiana Supreme Court for government misconduct which denied Zolo a fair sentencing trial. In 1993 the Indiana high court found that the prosecution had withheld exculpatory evidence which negated the State's claim that Zolo had fired a weapon, and in 2002, the Supreme Court found that the jury system in Alien County, the venue that Zolo's case was moved to from Lake County, had a "fatally flawed" jury system which excluded one-half of the prospective Black jurors of the county.
In a further startling development, the Lake County prosecutor filed an opposition to Zolo's motion to return his sentencing trial to Lake County from Alien County. Zolo had requested that in the event of another death sentencing trial it should be held in Lake County, the place of the bank robbery and death of the police officer. Since the offense occurred in Lake County, the victim was from Lake County, the defendant resided in Lake County and almost all the witnesses would come from Lake County as well as the prosecutors, Zolo asserted that the jury, which decides his fate, should be chosen from Lake County. The original reason for the change of venue in 1981, prejudicial publicity, is no longer an issue, and in fact, the publicity is now greater in Alien County than in Lake County.
The opposition of the Lake County prosecutor to a jury from his own county is the height of hypocrisy and is a continuation of the 22 years of government misconduct and politically motivated prosecutions of Zolo. The only reason that the Lake County prosecutor opposes the return of Zolo's case is because Lake County has an African-American population three times greater than Alien County. In a cynical use of the legal system, Prosecutor Bernard Carter, an African-American, is trying to minimize, if not eliminate, any possibility that the there will be Black jurors who will decide whether or not Zolo gets the death penalty.
We cannot allow this racist manipulation of the legal system to go unchallenged. We urge you to write letters or call Bernard Carter urging him to withdraw his opposition to returning Zolo's case to Lake County and to write Judge Kenneth Scheibenberger, the judge who will decide the motion to return the case to Lake County. It is only through public concern and pressure that Zolo will have any possibility for a jury composed of some Black people to decide whether he lives or dies.
Bernard Carter, Office of the Lake County Prosecutor, 2293 North Main St, Crown Point, Indiana 46307, Tel 219-755-3720, Fax-219-755-3642
Judge Kenneth Scheibenberger, Alien County Courthouse, 715 Calhoun St, Ft. Wayne Indiana, 46802
