Party, has just been convicted of framed-up charges of burglary and sexual abuse (see IV147)
The sentence will be pronounced on October
21. Meanwhile, having been beaten up after his arrest, Curtis also faces a further trial as we go to press on charges of assaulting the police.
The following abridged article from the September
23 issue of The Militant explains the events leading up to the arrest and what happened at the first trial.
M ORE THAN 70 people gathered
at the Mark Curtis Defense Committee office here tonight to protest today's conviction of Curtis.... Those present vowed to expand the international campaign to get out the truth about this defense effort, led by the Des Moines-based defense committee.
Rally speakers charged that Curtis didn't get a fair trial. He was presumed guilty from the beginning despite the overwhelming evidence of his innocence, he was unable to introduce the key evidence that could further discredit the prosecution's case, the judge rejected the jury's request to have trial testimony read to it during its deliberations, and the composition of the jury precluded the possibility that the verdict was decided by a jury of Curtis' peers.
The three-day trial began on September 7 at the Polk County Courthouse in downtown Des Moines. The prosecution's story is that on March 4, 1988, Mark Curtis went to the Des Moines home of Demetria Mor6 tis, a Black woman who was 15 years old at the time, and beat and raped her. Police of-
How you can help
• Contact the Mark Curtis Defense
Committee for information and materials at P.O. Box 1048, Des
Telephone (515) 246-1695.
• Funds are urgently needed to cover legal expenses and to the campaign contributions can be sent to the
• Write to Mark Curtis. His address is Marion County Jail, Knoxville, lowa 50138, USA. Copies of letters should be sent to the Defense
Committee. * ficer Joseph Gonzalez testified that he was dispatched to the Morris house that evening and found Curtis on the enclosed front porch, with his pants down.
Mark Curtis, a union militant and political activist, testified that he was on the porch that night — more than 40 minutes after Demetria Morris claimed she was assaulted - at the request of a different woman who had flagged him down on a street corner. That woman said a man was after her. She asked Curtis to bring her home and wait for her on the porch until she checked the house.
Moments later, the cops came running up to the porch, grabbed Curtis, shoved him into a back bedroom, pulled down his pants, opened his car — which was full of protest literature - and turned him over to two other cops who drove him to the county jail, where they beat him, shattering his
Curtis faces charges of assaulting the cops who beat him. That trial is scheduled
The prosecution, through its expert witnesses, actually proved that Curtis could not have been down on the floor of the porch as detailed by Morris. Also, laboratory tests on his underwear did not produce
Mark Curtis after being beaten up by the cops on March 4 (DR) one shred of physical evidence that Mark Curtis raped Demetria Morris. Testimony by eye-witnesses proved that Curtis was in Los Compadres, a bar and restaurant, with dozens of co-workers from the Swift meatpacking plant at the time Morris says she was assaulted
Prior to the trial, court rulings had prevented the defense from introducing into evidence the beating Curtis received at the hands of two cops or their taunts of him as a "Mexican-lover" and someone who loves "coloreds"; the record of violence and lying under oath of the arresting officer, Joseph Gonzalez; and FBI spy files on Curtis developed as part of the federal government's campaign against the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador.
The 12-person jury began its deliberations on Monday morning, September 12. It met all day Monday and Tuesday, without reaching a verdict, which must be unanimous. On the morning of September 14, Curtis' attorney, Mark Pennington, moved in court that a mis-trial be declared. Pennington argued that the jury had been meeting for two days and had not been able to make up its mind, which suggested that it was deadlocked, unable to reach agreement. A verdict under those circumstances, warned Pennington, would be the product of undue pressure on the jurors to reach a
Judge Harry Perkins overruled Pennington's motion....An hour later, the jury reached its verdict. The defense has until September 30 to put forward post-trial motions, including the call for a new trial... Curtis' sentencing is scheduled for October 21. The burglary charge carries a mandatory sentence of 25 years; the sexual abuse charge, a mandatory sentence of 10 years. It's up to the judge's discretion whether they run concurrently or consecutively, and therefore whether he's sentenced to 25 or 35 years. *