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To: JohnPaulJones
The endless repostings might be more bearable if the story were true. Certainly, Paul Harvey never broadcast it, and snopes.com pegs it as an urban legend.
14 posted on 11/03/2001 6:24:33 AM PST by Ratatoskr
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To: Ratatoskr
Interesting. Thanks for posting that link. Looks like this thread is a non-story.
22 posted on 11/03/2001 6:30:47 AM PST by oldvike
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To: Ratatoskr
Yes, Snopes lists it as an Urban Legend.

If you read Horowitz, though, you find out that Snopes is echoing the Liberal spin on it from the time. Don't know about Paul Harvey's report on it, but the story is true.

33 posted on 11/03/2001 6:35:16 AM PST by FrogMom
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To: Ratatoskr
Substantial portions of the story are true:

Hillary Clinton Once Supported Black Panthers on Trial For Murder-Truth!

Summary of eRumor:    In the late 1960's, two Black Panthers were tried for murder in the death of a fellow Black Panther, Alex Rackley.  Rackley was tortured before being killed.  The Panthers who were tried, Warren Kimbro and Erica Huggins, escaped prosecution thanks, in part, to the defense of Hillary Clinton.  Warren Kimbro went on to Harvard and became Assistant Dean of Eastern Connecticut State College.  Erica Huggins was elected to a school board.
The Truth:  The story is an authentic one, but the email has some factual problems.

According to published accounts, Alex Rackley was a Panther recruit from New York who was tortured and killed in New Haven, Connecticut because he was suspected of being a police informant.  Twelve Panthers were indicted including Kimbro, Huggins, and Panther leader Bobby Seale.  Contrary to the email, Kimbro was not the "shooter" and did not stand trial, but pleaded guilty to second degree murder.  He was later released from prison, admitted to Harvard, and became the Connecticut college dean.  The actual shooter, another Panther, was sentenced to life in prison.  Huggins and Seale were tried together, but the jury deadlocked and their cases were dismissed.

The Bobby Seales trial drew protests, not because the protestors approved of murder, but they felt that the Panthers were being treated unfairly by the authorities and that Seales, who was not personally involved in the killing, should not have been tried.  Hillary was not an attorney at that time (which is what some of the versions of this email seem to suggest), but a student at Yale and, according to Roger Morris, author of PARTNERS IN POWER, helped organize shifts of students to monitor the courtroom.  Commentator Joseph Farah says she also assisted Seales' lawyer, Charles Garry.
A real example of the story as it has been circulated:

Forgotten Facts

 Back in 1969 a group of Black Panthers decided that a fellow black panther named Alex Rackley needed to die. Rackley was suspected of disloyalty.

Rackley was first tied to a chair. Once safely immobilized, his "friends"  tortured him for hours by, among other things, pouring boiling water on him.

 When they got tired of torturing Rackley, Black Panther member Warren Kimbo  took Rackley outside and put a bullet in his head. Rackley's body was later found floating in a river about 25 miles north of New Haven, Conn.

 Perhaps at this point you're curious as to what happened to these Black Panthers.  In 1977, that's only eight years later, only one of the killers was still in jail. The shooter, Warren Kimbro, managed to get a
scholarship to Harvard. He later became an assistant dean at Eastern Connecticut State College.

Isn't that something? As a '60s radical you can pump a bullet into someone's head, and a few years later, in the same state, you can become an assistant college dean! Only in America!

Erica Huggins was the lady who served the Panthers by boiling the water for Mr. Rackley's torture. Some years later Ms. Huggins was elected to a California School Board.

How in the world do you think these killers got off so easy? Maybe it was in some part due to the efforts of two people who [incredibly] came to the defense of the Panthers. These two people actually went so far as to shut down Yale University with demonstrations in defense of the accused Black Panthers during their trial.

 One of these people was none other than Bill Lan Lee. Mr. Lee, or Mr. Lan Lee, as the case may be, isn't a college dean. He isn't a member of a California School Board. He is now head of the U.S. Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

 O.K., so who was the other Panther defender? Is this other notable Panther defender now a school board member? Is this other Panther apologist now an assistant college dean? No, Neither! The other Panther defender was, like Lee, a radical law student at Yale University at the time.

She is now known as The "smartest woman in the world." She is none other  than the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from the state of New York----our lovely First Lady, the incredible Hillary Rodham Clinton.

And now; as Paul Harvey says; you know (the rest of the story).
Pass this on! Especially to New Yorkers
 

36 posted on 11/03/2001 6:38:56 AM PST by aruanan
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