(Taylor Media Services) Charles Allen Chapman became a free man last week – after spending 27 years in prison for a rape which DNA testing proved he could not have committed. Chapman had been sentenced to a 99-year prison term after he was convicted in the 1981 rape of a Dallas woman. He is believed to have served more time in prison that any other Dallas County inmate who was later exonerated. </p>
<p>However, Chapman is just the latest of dozens of inmates, most of them Black, to be freed from prison by DNA evidence in the past few years. Interestingly, Dallas County, Texas has been forced to free more wrongly convicted men than any other county in the nation. Chapman was the 15th person freed in the county since 2001. Most of those freed have benefited from the work of a group known as the Innocence Project – a legal organization which has worked throughout the country to free wrongly convicted persons. During an interview, Chapman said he was “somewhat bitter” about losing 27 years of freedom but added that with the help of family he wanted to get on with his life. He is now 47 years old.

(Taylor Media Services) Prosecutors last week were forced to drop conspiracy charges against five members of an aging group of former members of the Black Panther Party charged last year in connection with the 35-year-old murder of a police officer. The decision came in response to a defense motion asserting the charges had to be dismissed because the statute of limitations had expired.
The conspiracy charge fell but the men must still stand trial for the  1971 murder of a San Francisco police officer. Ray Boudreaux, Richard Brown, Hank Johnson and Harold Taylor  had the conspiracy charge against them dropped. Meanwhile, the entire case against Richard O’Neal will now be dismissed because he was only charged with conspiracy not murder.
Prosecutors are arguing that the statute of limitations does not apply to Herman Bell, Jalil Muntagim and Francisco Torres because they were not residents of California during the past 35 years. The middle aged Black men were all Black Panther Party members during the turbulent 1960s and early 1970s. The Party was one of the most militant Black organizations during the period. The eight were arrested for the murder in January of last year and dubbed by the media “The San Francisco Eight.”

 (Taylor Media Services)
Last week’s employment report from the labor Department showed the nation’s overall jobless rate reaching 5 percent – the highest in two years. For African Americans, unemployment surged to 9 percent in December – the highest level in 15 months. Meanwhile, joblessness for Hispanics jumped to 6.3 percent – the highest in more than two years.
Overall, the economy in December added only 18,000 new jobs. Economists generally believe the U.S. economy must add around 100,000 new jobs each month in order to keep pace with the number of new people entering the labor market. Definitions of recession vary; but several months of rising unemployment is usually the most concrete sign that the nation has entered a recessionary cycle.
Meanwhile, the most recent figures from the Census Bureau suggest 24.4 percent of Blacks live in poverty compared to 10.5 percent of whites.

We Need a Strong Leader Dear Editor

I believe Rudy Giuliani is the only person running for the office of President that will give our country the security we need to survive. Mayor Giuliani’s goal will be to kill or capture the al-Qaeda leadership, destroy the capabilities of the group, and discredit its radical ideology. The main fronts against Al Qaeda are in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. We need someone that will take a strong stance against those that would destroy us and our way of life. He is the only candidate that will remain on offense against the Terrorists. America needs expanded security capabilities and a credible deterrent to stop an attack on U.S. soil.