MLK Rememberance

In honor of today’s holiday, I read some of Dr. King’s speeches and am humbly inspired to say a few words.

In the “Beyond Vietnam” speech, I felt an affinity by the following words:


A time comes when silence is betrayal. A true call to action is in those words. Silence is betrayal when that silence results in harm to any other person or people. That was the accord Dr. King must have felt. Those words ought to convict every person’s soul when they are read. Are we not all guilty of letting our silence betray another person?



POWERFUL WORDS! While the conflict mentioned is Vietnam and it is a horrific and confusing conflict at that, inwardly, we are all heart broken with the conflict around us.

Those that know me know that I have been re-investigating the Billings Case because something never seemed right to me about how that was said to have happened. I also knew Patrick Poff or as most know him Leonard “Patrick” Gonzalez Jr. I have made no secret of the fact, I had nothing but contempt for this man, but my conscience told me there was something wrong here. Then came the inevitable question, is Patrick worth saving? Many said, NO and justified it by saying “if he didn’t do this, he probably would have done something this bad in the future” or “if he didn’t do this, what hasn’t he been caught for that he IS guilty of?”.

Both of these justifications are flawed. Our justice system runs on the premise that the guilty should pay for the crimes they have been charged with. The crimes for which no one was “caught” are moot as are the crimes not committed yet. And in looking at this case, Pat was not the only one who was wronged, many of the others were too. I have no way of knowing for absolute sure if Pat is guilty, but I tell you that the one thing he didn’t get was a fair trial. Based on the evidence used to convict him, we should all be afraid for our own safety, because he is on Death Row and there is NO physical evidence, no legitimate eye witness; he didn’t own the gun used nor the vehicle seen in the famous video the ECSO destroyed.

None of these things happened to people who could defend themselves. All the people jailed had history of crimes, drug issues, were minorities, or were brain damaged, and all were indigent with the exception of Donnie Stallworth’s first 2 trials. But in the final trial, after being driven into indigency, he was convicted. That alone should be noted. Wayne Coldiron, a serial criminal and Pam Long are the only ones not in the racial minority. This case is a cookie cutter example of what is wrong with the justice system. Rush to judgment followed by stereotypical victimization of people who cannot defend themselves.

It is the biggest anathema among us—taking advantage of those who are marginalized (minorities, lower class, victims, people weakened by life for one reason or another). Wrongful conviction is ultimately the most consummate act because it takes the only thing broken people have left—freedom. In all exonerations, there are people who were aware of the misinformation that led to such convictions. Silence, indeed, betrayed the exonerees. Isn’t it likely that Dr. King would be advocating for those who have been convicted due their socio-economic status or race, rather than actual guilt?

Leave a Reply


You are commenting using your account. Log Out /  Change )

Google photo


Twitter picture


Facebook photo


Connecting to %s
