21 ... News Room; A Report on the Attica Prison Riot Trial

From the Public Broadcasting Center - News Room - Friday, March 21st. Tonight on News Room - Karen Stone, Dan Tasciotti, and George Anderson report on the Attica Prison Riot murder trial including interviews with co-defendants. A look at the Attica Legal Defense Fund organization and conversations with the prosecution and defense attorneys. Also tonight on News Room, media critics Tom Proietti and Dennis O'Brian talk about daytime TV. Plus the business day with Jeanne Calment. Good evening, and welcome to this special News Room report on the Attica Murder Trial. At the trial in Buffalo today, state Supreme Court justice Gilbert King ruled that Vice President Rockefeller will not have to testify at the trial. Defense lawyers wanted to question Rockefeller about the statements he made regarding his handling of the uprising during his vice presidential confirmation hearings. The Attica Murder Trial is now four weeks old. The trial of 21 year old defendants John Hill and Charles Pernasilice charged with beating to death corrections officer William Quinn during the first stages of the Attica Uprising on September 17th, 1971. Aside from the

short day-to-day accounts we hear and read about the trial, we get very little feeling for the atmosphere surrounding the celebrated trial. So today we sent three News Room reporters, artist Jane Olson, and two photographers to try to capture what is going on inside and outside the Erie County courtroom. First reporter Dan Tasciotti. Security outside the courtroom was tight. A metal fence with a locked door stretched across the whole width of the corridor leading to the courtroom. Spectators started gathering at the fence about an hour before the trial started. The courtroom was small and there were only about 30 seats for spectators. As spectators entered their coats were searched and their bodies were searched with metal detectors. Then came the trial principals: defense attorneys Ramsey Clark and William Kunstler,

prosecutor Louis Adela, and the defendants John Hill and Charles Pernasilice. Soon everyone was assembled inside the courtroom. Everyone that is except the jury. Defense attorney Ramsey Clark called a witness, and he was challenged by prosecutor Adela. Adela asked that Clark offer proof that the testimony of the witness be admitted as evidence. The witness was Dr. Robert Buckout. He's a psychologist from Brooklyn College who was experimenting, and has written extensively, on human perception and recollection. Clark questioned the witness for about 30 minutes before Judge Gilbert King interrupted. King suggested that the witness' testimony was not needed since he, in charging the jury, would present the same information. Clark responded that Buckout's scientific data would be of great assistance to the jury. Then, attorney Kunstler sprang up. He said the defense was not asking the judge to be a pioneer. He said "Such testimony has been allowed in

many courts. You should at least hear the witness through so you can be better able to charge the jury." Kunstler said "There are criteria that you and the jury are not aware of." Then King accused Kunstler of attacking the judge personally in a radio interview the day before. Kunstler said he wasn't attacking the judge, but the whole system of justice in the state of New York. There was a lull, and prosecutor Adela stood up. Adela: "The fact that an expert is in a better position to judge than the jury is not valid. The expert is not on the jury." By that time it was noon and Judge King had to deny the defense request to allow the witnesses to be heard by the jury. After the morning session, I talked with attorneys for both the prosecution and the defense. Prosecutor Adela explained the prosecution's position. "To introduce this wa... As I expressed in court, the, uh, purpose that the defense sought to introduce this witness was to point out different factors that the jury should take into consideration in evaluating a witness's testimony. That's something that the judge points

out to the jurors during the course of his charge of the jury. It's something that's argued to the jurors by the attorneys in the case. And it is not something which is uh, expert testimony such as uh, testimony of a doctor or an individual - maybe an engineer. The jurors don't need a psychologist to point out to them that they should take into account various factors uh, in evaluating person's testimony. Good common sense tells you that. And the judge and the attorneys pointed out." Then I spoke to Kunstler, and he explained the defense position. "The judge was wrong in not admitting the testimony of the expert witness on eyewitness identification. And then he apparently turned that into an attack on me and was apparently well armed with the statement I had made on the radio which I thought he misquoted. And, as you know, I've told him in open court that I think that there's been a sort of a um, plan on his part to, to try to

humiliate or embarrass or intimidate defense counsel. And that I thought that he was using it then and had used it before in the past on Professor Schwartz. And that it was unfortunate and wrong that he do it. And as you know that road led us into a sort of a donnybrook in which he said I had attacked him personally and I said I had not attacked him personally but the entire system of justice which was far bigger than either he or I. We weren't able to stay for the afternoon session, but NPR reporter Rob San George talked to us this afternoon on the phone and told us what happened this afternoon. "A much awaited ruling was made this afternoon on the controversy over subpoenaing U.S. Vice President Nelson Rockefeller to testify in the major Attica Prison rebellion trial. Late this afternoon Judge Gilbert King denied a motion by defense attorneys William Kunstler and Ramsey Clark to compel the vice president to testify in the trial of former Attica inmates John Hill and Charles Pernasalice. Now the two face charges of murdering guard William Quinn in the first

chaotic moments of the September, 1971 uprising. The defense team wanted the former New York governor to testify about statements made during his Vice Presidential confirmation hearings. Mr. Rockefeller is quoted as having said, "One guard died from a beating and being thrown out the window." The indictment claims the defendants clubbed officer Quinn in the head, causing fatal injury. He was the only one of 11 hostages to die during the uprising who was not killed by state police bullets when the prison was retaken. In a five page decision Judge King noted that since Vice President Rockefeller never went to Attica, his information came entirely from subordinates - that is, second or third hand information. The judge ruled that to admit this would be the rankest form of hearsay testimony. Judge King soundly rejected the defense team's argument that oral reports to a state chief executive, in this case Governor Rockefeller by his official aide, is an exception to the hearsay rule. The Hill-Pernasalice trial completed its fourth week today and the defense is expected to continue with the presentation of the case

for about another two weeks." While William Kunstler and Ramsey Clark, along with other lawyers, argue the defense's position in court, other crucial work for the defense continues outside the courtroom. On the eighth floor of a nearby building, the defense work is done, largely by volunteers at the Attica Brothers Trial Office. Defense supporters dig up evidence and solicit funding. One defense attorney is Michael Deutsch. We talked with him this afternoon about the trials. You say that regardless of whether cases are won or cases are lost people are going to lose what did you mean? Well I think the people of the state of New York State whose state when they prosecute in the name of they prosecuting the people who stay in New York are losing whether the Attica brothers win or lose there's already been millions of dollars have been spent. There's been a total waste of time and effort focusing on what so called crimes occurred by the inmates

not by the state at Attica. And all this energy and all of this money should be put into meaningful changes in the prison system. The prisons are as bad as they were in '71 and that there's rumors and talk that there's going to be another Attica in one of the prisons they're very tense. There isn't. You know concern people going in and using the money to try and make programs meaningful programs for people that are just trying to vindicate you know what happened in '71 and it's just a mentality that the people are going to lose because they're going to be another Attica unless people understand that the real problem is not prosecuting the victims of the Attica massacre. The real problem is trying to make meaningful change in the prisons. And that's a difficult process and you can't just do it you know without real thinking- thought involved. What has been your personal feeling over the last three and a half years? Well I would say my personal feeling is twofold - One is that I've met some really beautiful people and sense of the Attica brothers and people that have really shown me some deep

strength and being able to resist some of the most inhumane treatment and unjust treatment that I've ever experienced or seen. I've also experienced revulsion at the state of New York or I should say the attorney generals and the people who are prosecuting these cases that they could be so callous and so indifferent that they would see a massacre of 43 people and then go ahead and indict the very people that were the victims of that massacre and then expect to go into court and talk about justice and talk about the people of the state of New York. It's beyond belief that these trials are still going on three and a half years later, and that the people the real people of the state of New York it hasn't stopped them. And what I believe it's my own personal theory is the only reason that these trials are continuing is because the people who are prosecuting these cases the individual attorney generals are making 35 to 40 thousand dollars a year and it's their own personal gravy train. It's their own lick in the system. They've got a job and they don't want to

give it up. If there was any independent you could take anybody a straight lawyer from Wall Street if he reviewed the work that the attorney general staff had done over the last three years he would fire every one of them for being incompetent for bringing cases that had no business to be brought and for wasting millions of dollars. We have to figure out what deals are the most necessary to pay and pay them. I spend a lot of time with the telephone company on the phone with a telephone company they're probably the the company that gets the most money from us on the regular basis and recently insisted on a deposit for most of an outrageous sum which we then negotiated with them about and convince them that this was not necessary for us to pay but for a time they were telling us that we couldn't have any phones at all in our new office locations because they insisted on having a deposit. We managed to talk them out of that. Convincing them that the state of New York owed us a lot of money and that if nothing else

we had to have phones in order to operate and so we would continue to pay our bills. And so we managed to work that out. Johnstone Thorpe was a volunteer and has been working with the office for about a year. He records and files all the evidence and he feels the trials are politically motivated. All the work has been done from a perspective of seeing the trials as as basically frame ups which which is seeking to take away the responsibility from Rockefeller and from the state of New York, which killed the people at Attica and to put it onto individual defendants who who were the prisoners at Attica. And I mean our work and the information that we have the legal work is trying to get across that this is an injustice that that the prisoners who are being charged with crimes are scapegoats and that you know this is

a kind of continuation of the massacre at Attica on September the 13th. You know that then people were killed in D yard that now people are being tried in the courts. And you know. In a large number of cases the sentences if the people are found guilty are enormous. You know for instance the number one I mean it's a it's a mandatory life sentence, if the people are found guilty. It's...it's another kind of attempt to take away the lives of people and to take away people's freedom and...and to deny the validity of the rebellion at Attica to make it out as as being a riot rather than what it was which was a well organized, uh, rebellion and something which was conducted with a lot of humanity, uh, with a lot of concern for the lives of hostages and lives of the prisoners who were in

Dion and the trials in it or an attempt to turn this around and to put the blame where it isn't. Whenever you want to take it away now that the defense team's work. The defense team rather works out of this office at the Statler-Hilton in Buffalo. The defendants Charles Pernasalice and John Hill also stay in the hotel. We talked to them this afternoon as well. I don't think so. I think there are - there has been individual efforts to by certain media groups to try to put as clear of an image as they thought they could out there. But on the whole media in this country. is economically politically controlled. And especially in the Buffalo area I think that the media has been slanted toward the right about this case, about Attica from the beginning up until now. Mr. Hill do you agree? Yes I agree to

which I just said. I think one other aspect of it that the press generally plays up in this county here, in this county area is that they don't deal with the real facts and the issues ?of? the political situations which come out you know the facts which are released to the trial itself, but they tend to deal with the sensationalism the trial aspect. Like this and the shock of photographic shock they tend to the case - they tend to pick up on the case in the sense that they do not deal with the real issues. The case itself has been stagnant to the morning of September 9th of the rebellion the day of the rebellion erupted. They get stagnant with the September 9th and they don't want to deal with the September 13th. Yet they only want to deal with the sensationalisms of let's say 1/4 of an hour then the times square area. Now we know that at the same time they haven't now anytime they mention September 13th the judge and the courtroom freaks out. The judge and the prosecution work right in tune - the prosecution and the state. In the court

you know. I asked both of them what their personal feelings have been over the last three and a half years. John Hill revealed some very personal intimate kinds of reflections about his childhood. I would say it's been very it's been very good for me in the sense it's been very hard trying to stay on top. You know trying to look at it but it just gives you an insight. It gives you a real heavy insight as to something you know that you really haven't got any clarity on it. You know, they give me a lot of clarification as to things that I believed in prior to that. What have you've gone through? What kind of personal struggle have you lived through in the last three and a half years?

people. We're all struggling with this indictment and trying to keep, uh, alive and free on the streets. You know? I mean once they once they put us on this indictment it became very hard to survive. You know physically and financially and every which way. And, uh, in a lot of ways I feel that, uh, that the state the government has been able to to handicap the political consciousness and movement in this country with these kind of trials by taking masses of people and forcing us to put our energies into defending ourselves. You know and we exploit that. You know as much as possible by exposing you know. Their misconduct you know and their oppression and exploitation, you know. In terms of Attica it's it's been real educational because.

You know you learn you know you learn a lot about the law. You learn a lot about the way that they set people up, you know. In a way that they... I think they've got their masterplan, you know? Down pretty well and you know when that we're will when you see that they're that you know they do their stuff is falling apart. I believe another aspect of the last three and a half years has been that it's given me a chance. You know I think Charlie Joe too it's giving me a chance too especially since you know since time I've been out you know it's given me a chance to relate. And every day. The happening to the people in a sense and experience to the people in such a way which this experience begins to really become focused and emphasized because the truth or the truth that comes out it's exposed and people are very vulnerable to the truth they can feel the truth when it's being spoken you know.

Do you have support from your friends and family? Yes, I it's a good family come to the courtroom every day. Most of the time like I said when I was in another situation I just...since I've been out it's really since I first met my family. I've been on a pretty long, let's say let's put it this way, I've like been bounced around by the state. You know since year since I've been four since I was four years old. In other words since my father died in 1952 You know the state welfare department you know just kidnapped us and you know we've been in many different foster homes institutions and prisons only because of the fact you know you didn't have a man who committed a crime to which it didn't have no family. You know this is I've I've been bounce around quite a few times by the state you know in the last 23 years which would be a total of seven foster homes 15 or situations in seven prisons you know and I've just seen my family now you know begin to really get to my see my family because they're all grown up and my

little sister over there. She's grown up now you know and they were confined the same way into foster homes and things. Not because of any crime. Because you know no family is just someone you know bounce around. It's been very...it's another experience standing on your own two feet you know starts fires being strong and setting examples to other people you know may feel really weak amongst the whole government all system itself. We're just traveling life, you know? Just living; just existing. You know? You know. We have uh many political pressures on people and I think it's I think it's a part of the plan or it's a part of a let's say fate that's Situations like this has happened and they can set examples to other people's moods in their life. My spiritual beliefs. You know

the beliefs of the Creator the beliefs of the mother and in reference to my Indian heritage you know which is very deep spirituality and I believe the creator and I believe the mother it was intended this way. You know? You mean your destiny was planned? In a sense yes, I think I was forced to see many things in to the date to right now. True you know the hard times of coming up strictly by myself you know alone in this world with no family no relatives no no no really no real friends just people I meet through my travels you know through institutions are mostly institutions which is why I've been able to really been able to expose that so deeply because I've been confined at least 15 years of my life. Tonight we're not going to present a temporary Dennis O'Brian media criticism report we'll have it on Monday running along in the attic a report we want to talk among ourselves a little bit about what the reporter saw today in Buffalo. First of all Karen I think maybe it's good to point out that

this is just one of a number of trials where do we stand now in terms of number of trials actually involved in related to Attica. John this is the third trial that has resulted in the aftermath of the of the Attica situation. The number of other trials will be upcoming next month in April. A number of other murder trials that set up what happened to the first two the first one was thrown out before it even got to the jury. The second was thrown out after it did get to the jury they're very deliberate about trial. I was just I was interested. John Hill seem to be saying that this is mostly a political kind of thing. Did you get any kind of reaction from the prosecutor? Is it a political motivated trial? Jack the prosecutor refused to talk to us about anything other than what he talked about in the courtroom this morning. We had him for the cameras we tried to ask him some other things but he said only would he speak in reference to the arguments that he made in the court room that morning and that was it. And John if I'm getting from my seat one more thing here I think it's important to bring out a story like

this a couple impressions that I think all of us or at least I had this morning. In relation to the defendants especially I know before I went there John Hill and Charles Parnassus to me were just two names in newspaper stories and I think a lot of people just looked at them as names as inanimate things. And after being there today I at least I get a much different feeling for these people and saw them as people not saying anything about their goal their innocence or Absolutely not them as an individual the first time in the whole Atticus history in three years I thought I had an opportunity to see defendants as real people not just names it was you know one thing interesting I don't think a lot of people realize are Native Americans and that's right. That's right we really do want to point in the courtroom that the chief prosecutor referred to them as white men and not Mr. Counselor stood up and said no these men are American Indians Native Americans. George you talk a lot about the etiquette Defense Fund was there any discussion at all about some of the money that disappeared from the Attica defense fund that's been a rather embarrassing issue for them is right and because it probably is embarrassing it wasn't brought up at least we didn't bring it up.

One thing that I'd like to throw into about the two defendants and that is that I think if I was in their place maybe if I didn't have the understanding and the kind of perseverance that they have I think I tend to be a little more bitter toward toward the system toward toward justice knowing that so many of these so-called witnesses for the state have been contrived. Well that's a judgment it's a judgment on my part. You know I don't really think you know you know what has that has come out and they have admitted that they have lied on the stand. But aside from that I don't think we should be getting into that. I think you know it may be a little embarrassing about the Attica Defense Fund thing but but not all is sweetness and light in that organization obviously either. And throughout this trial I would agree we were running out of time any last quick comment. I just wanted to well reemphasize the point that this was really one day in a trial and we came back with just really one one piece of the of the picture the story. Thank you very much again those very fine sketches were done by Jane Olson. Time now

for the business day report with Jeanne Collins. An Account Executive with Merrill Lynch Pierce Fenner and Smith. Thank you, John. This morning the Commerce Department announced that the orders for durable goods had increased in February which was a pleasant surprise after January's decline and after the decline that we've had in durable goods over the previous five months. The market however was not going to listen to this news it declined over four points in the first hour of active trading however trading tapered off during the day and the market did rally on the close. The Dow Jones industrial average now stands at seven sixty three point six down point ninety four. The transportation index at one sixty two point ninety eight was down a point seventy eight. And the utility index at seventy six point ninety seven was down a .29 The New York Stock Exchange volume was moderate today and 5 million shares lighter than yesterday was 15 million nine hundred fifty thousand shares. Five hundred thirty nine stocks advanced 819 stocks declined

with 419 remaining unchanged for the day. Among the most active stocks for the day included Warner Communications up three quarters RCA down 5 8s. National Semiconductor up 1. And American Tele Intel down one quarter. Among stocks of local interest Bausch and loam twenty six and seven eights down one eighth Burroughs Corp. eighty nine and a half down one and one quarter Canandaigua line four and three quarters bid five and one half assed Curtis Burns twelve and one half bid thirteen in one quarter asked Eastman Kodak ninety two and one quarter down three eighths, Gannett thirty three up five eighths. Garlock lock. No trades today. General Motors forty three up one eighth general signal thirty five down one quarter and works six and seven eights unchanged for the day IBM 2 0 9 in one eighth down three eights Lincoln first Banks 18 and one eighth bid eighteen and five eights asked Marine Medland 17 and 3 quarters down 1 8. Merrill Lynch 16 down one eighth. Rochester Gas and

Electric 14 in one quarter up 1 1/2. Rochester telephone twelve and one quarter up 1 8 security New York Corp. 11 and one half bid twelve and one half assed side run Corp. 18 1 1/2 down 1 1/2. Taylor wind 18 bit 18 in one half asked and Xerox Corporation 73 in one quarter down seven eights. The weather forecast for the Rochester area. Periods of mixed rain and snow throughout this evening. Below 32 the probability of precipitation on Saturday is 50 percent. Tomorrow windy with occasional rain turning to showers late tomorrow night high in the low 50s. An 80 percent probability precipitation tomorrow night. The current temperature is 39 degrees humidity is 47 percent the winds are out of the east at 9 miles per hour. The barometer is thirty point 0-2 and falling for our entire newsroom staff. I'm John Owen. Good night Closing music.