Dolores Michelsen
LAW OFFICES OF HANLON & RIEF
179 11th Street, 2nd Floor
San Francisco, CA 94103
The government, through an informant, originally alleged that Mr. Bell was the shooter of Sgt Young. However, it is difficult to believe that the Attorney General of California, who prosecuted this case, would have allowed Mr. Bell to plead to a lesser charge with a sentence of only informal probation if there was credible evidence he had shot Sgt. Young.
Bell and his co-defendants have always maintained that, because of the torture used by the New Orleans Police Department to gain alleged confessions and the lack of new evidence, these charges should never have been brought.
The government tortured him for two and a half years to get this guilty plea. Justice?
SF County Jail’s cruel and unusual punishment of Herman Bell of the San Francisco 8
by Nancy Jacot-Bell, Bay View, 24 October 2008
Herman Bell could hold his granddaughters Simone, 6, Sage, 3, before he was transferred in May ‘07 from a New York prison to the San Francisco County Jail. Now baby Simone tries to “tear away the glass” that separates them “with her little fingers.”
Herman Bell arrived in the Bay Area from New York in late May 2007 to face this extremely unjust prosecution of eight former Black Panthers and community activists from the late 1960s forward.
This prosecution is based on revenge and intimidation of anyone who attempts to change things for the better in this steadily devolving society – not to mention throwing California and San Francisco taxpayers’ resources down the toilet in a very big way.
Every day since May ‘07 has been a complete nightmare for Herman and our family. Confinement in the San Francisco County Jail has been devastating to what little quality of life Herman – as well as Jalil Muntaqim, who is also confined there – has experienced in New York prisons for three decades.
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