Are the "MOVE 9" Political Prisoners? A political prisoner is anyone held in prison or otherwise detained, because their ideas or image either challenge or pose a real or potential threat to the state. In many cases, a facade of legality is used to disguise the fact that someone is a political prisoner. Trumped-up criminal charges may have been used to imprison the political prisoner, or he or she may have been denied bail unfairly, denied parole when it would reasonably have been given to another prisoner, or special powers may be invoked by the judiciary. Based upon this definition the surviving eight members of the so-called MOVE 9 should not be considered political prisoners, as it is quite clear that they were guilty of the killing of James Ramp and that their prosecution and subsequent convictions were not motivated by politics, but by a desire to do justice. The MOVE 9 were convicted and sentenced to 30-100 year jail sentences in 1981 for the murder of police officer James Ramp and for the attempted murder of seven other police officers and firefighters during a MOVE instigated 1978 shoot-out in Powelton Village in West Philadelphia. The trial of the nine MOVE members lasted 19 weeks and cost the taxpayers of Philadelphia in excess of $400,000, reportedly the longest and costliest in Philadelphia history At sentencing, Judge Malmed said that he found the notion of rehabilitation for MOVE members to be " absurd" and that each must share equally the guilt for the killing and attempted murders. Despite MOVE members and their supporters' claims to the contrary, the case against the MOVE 9 could not have been clearer. MOVE started the confrontation that ended with the death of Ramp and the maiming of other police officers and firefighters. They denied entrance to a city health inspection and threw an eight-foot barricade around the house, covered its windows with slats, and equipped its walls with floodlights and bullhorns. A half-dozen members also staged a show of force there, brandishing rifles and handguns one spring day in 1977. In 1978, police finally surrounded the place with 675 officers and erected a blockade in an effort to force MOVE to leave their home without bloodshed. The police officers were met with threats of violence. "You better call home and make sure your insurance policy is paid up," one MOVE member said over their battery powered loudspeaker. Prosecutors, citing eyewitness testimony and videos, contended during the trial that MOVE members fired first at officers who had surrounded the MOVE house and were attempting to tear down the barricades that MOVE had erected . The defense presented a smaller number of rebuttal witnesses, including a handful of journalists, who said the first shots seemed to come from outside the compound, although the witnesses disagreed about precisely where. Probably the most damaging prosecution testimony came from a police ballistics expert, civilian Anthony L. Paul, who said that tests showed that a semiautomatic, clip-loading rifle found inside the MOVE house was the weapon used to shoot Ramp and two other officers. That weapon a .223 Ruger had been observed in the possession of at least one MOVE member in the basement that day. Prosecutors also said a "palm print" on a federal firearms purchase form demonstrated that the rifle, as well as two others, had been bought by MOVE member Phil Africa before the shoot-out with police. In all, police seized 11 rifles and handguns from the compound and 2,000 rounds of ammunition. Police and firefighters also testified that they saw all five male defendants with guns shortly before the shooting. For its part, MOVE claimed it had fired no shots at all that day. And if shots were fired, the defense lawyers pointed to the testimony suggesting that police had fired first - and said MOVE had only shot back in self- defense. Now it is claimed by MOVE that neither the police nor MOVE shot first. They claim that the first shot came from the upstairs window of a house half a block away on Bering Street. This claim is countered by the testimony of MOVE’s own children. Three of the MOVE children who were present in the MOVE basement during the confrontation were interviewed by investigators. One would tell the police that "all" of the MOVE adults had "guns" and that he saw five of them actually firing their weapons. Two of the children would also claim that it was MOVE members who had fired the first shots that day. Asked why, one of the children responded "Cause cops ain't wanna shoot." MOVE has also long contended that James Ramp was killed not by a member of MOVE, but was instead killed by “friendly fire.” To support this contention they cite a very preliminary ballistics report that Ramp was shot in the “base of the neck, with the bullet traveling downward.” According to MOVE, it would have been physically impossible for MOVE members in the basement of their home in Powelton Village to have shot Ramp. In reality, Ramp was felled by a bullet from MOVE after he had ran to aid another officer who had himself just been hit by gunfire from MOVE members firing from the basement It was proven quite conclusively in court that the bullets trajectory that killed Ramp could have only come from one location, the basement that MOVE members were shooting. MOVE members made the claim that the destruction of the house immediately after the confrontation violated their right to a fair trial and was nothing but an attempt to destroy the evidence that would exonerate them. Prosecutors countered that the plan to bulldoze the house was in fact in place before the shootout and was done to keep MOVE members not involved in the confrontation from entering the still fortified home to continue the assault against the police. According to Judge Malmed the city, "understandably had no wish to permit the site to re-emerge in the fashion of the Hydra or the Phoenix." and ruled against MOVE’s motion for dismissal on these grounds, as has every appellate court since. This lack of relief from the courts have all but ensured that the MOVE members imprisoned will not have a chance to be released until 2008 when they will be first eligible for parole. |
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