BY CHESTER WILSON
BALTIMORE-Fifty persons gathered outside the Maryland State Penitentiary and the Maryland Correctional Adjustment Center, or "Supermax," June 1 to protest the death penalty and the ordered execution of Flint Gregory Hunt. Hunt, who had been convicted in 1985 for the shooting death of a police officer, was scheduled for the gas chamber the week of June 10 but on May 31 received a stay of execution.

Several speakers condemned the disproportionate use of the death penalty against Blacks. Fourteen of the 16 Maryland death row inmates are Black.

In 1995 a racial justice amendment was withdrawn from the state senate after a promise by Governor Glendening to establish a task force to study racial discrimination in the state's application of the death penalty. The governor has not commissioned the task force and refused to discuss the Hunt case. He declined to meet with Jesse Jackson, who spoke with Hunt and supports a commutation of his sentence.

The Hunt case demonstrates several other aspects of racism and prejudice against working people in the judicial system: he was denied competent counsel and an adequate defense; the prosecution tampered with witnesses; and the judge improperly instructed the jury.

In Maryland the barbaric conditions in special prisons like the "Supermax" have been condemned by a department of justice report.

After the speak out, the crowd marched around the "Supermax", chanting to those inside, "Keep the faith! Be Strong!" Afterwards the activists present agreed again to meet about the Hunt case and others, like that of Marshall Eddie Conway, a former Black Panther member. Conway has been jailed since 1970 on a frame-up stemming from the U.S. government's COINTELPRO operation carried out against a range of political groups. A demonstration to support Conway is planned on June 8 in Baltimore.

Chester Wilson is a member of United Auto Workers Local 239.  
 
 
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