Judy Clark was a 1960s American radical activist against the Vietnam War and racism. She is currently in prison for her participation in the 1981 failed robbery of a Brinks truck, in which a guard and two police officers were killed [1].
Clark was born November 23, 1949. She grew up in a Jewish family with her older brother and parents Ruth Clark and Joe Clark[2]. Her parents were member of the American Communist Party for many years. As an infant Clark lived in the Soviet Union from 1950 to 1953. After the family returned home to the U.S, her parents withdrew from the Communist Party
In 1965 Judith Clark joined Students for a Democratic Society, (SDS) in New York. She later joined the staff of the SDS official publication the New Left Notes. In late 1960s SDS divided into several factions and Weatherman was born. Clark was a Weather member and took part in the 1969 "Days of Rage" in Chicago and the preceding organizational actions, for which she was arrested in December, 1970 and convicted of felonious mob actions[3]. After her release she continued to work as an above ground ally of the movement.
Clark, along with former Weather members David Gilbert and Kathy Boudin, formed the May 19 Communist Organization (M-19CO), which joined forces with the remnants of the Black Liberation Army (BLA), a radical and violent group that was an offshoot of the Black Panthers. On October 20, 1981 Clark took part in a Brinks armored truck robbery in Nyack, New York. During the robbery Peter Paige, a Brink's guard, was killed. The group escaped from the scene with 1.6 million, but a witness saw the group change cars and notified the police. Waverly Brown and Edward O'Grady, both police officers, were killed when a gun battle broke out. Clark was arrested and accused of being the get-away driver. Gilbert and Boudin were also arrested.
When tried for her involvement in this robbery, Clark was not represented by counsel; she instead chose to represent herself. She refused to participate in the proceedings, absenting herself from the courtroom for almost the entire trial. Both Gilbert and Clark were convicted of three counts of murder and sentenced to three consecutive 25-year-to-life sentences. Clark was transferred to Bedford Hills Correctional Facility for Women (Bedford)[2].
At the time of her arrest, Clark was thirty-one years old, and a mother of an eleven month old baby girl. A friend, who was facing a three year prison sentence, for refusing to testify before the grand jury, assumed responsibility for Clark's daughter's care. Clark's parents sued her in Surrogate Court for custody of the little girl, and won. Ruth and Joe Clark brought Clark's daughter to visit her in prison.
In September 1985, letters implicating Clark in a possible escape plan were found. She was charged with conspiracy to escape and sentenced to two years in solitary confinement in the Special Housing Unit (SHU)[2].
After returning to Bedford Hills, Clark went back to college at Mercy College Bedford. She began doing AIDS-related work. Kathy Boudin and Clark developed an AIDS Counseling and Education (ACE) program in prison[2]. Both women have published articles on ACE in Social Justice and The Columbia Journal of Gender and Law (1991). The articles have also been cited in a 1990 U.S Department of Justice Report on AIDS in prison.
Clark earned her Bachelor's degree in 1990 from Mercy Bedford College and gave the valedictorian address. In 1993 Clark earned her master's of Psychology from a graduate program of Vermont College of Norwich University. She began working at Bedford Hills Children's center facilitating pre-natal and parenting classes. She was later removed from that role because of security concerns[2].
Clark has published work in many literacy journals including The New Yorker, The Prison Journal and in an anthology of prison writing, Doing Time. She has also won several awards for her poetry in the annual PEN prison writing contest[2].
Clark petitioned for a writ of habeas corpus, claiming that she should be granted a new trial because the judge in her original trial granted her requests to dismiss her attorney. This writ was initially granted by the district court on September, 2006, but on January 3, 2008 the United Stated Court of Appeals for the second circuit, in a unanimous decision, reversed the district court’s judgment granting a new trial. The panel noted that she chose to represent herself and defaulted any claim by failing to appeal until after the time for appeals had expired. Clark will be eligible for parole in 2056[1].
Footnotes
edit1. http://www.judithclark.org/about.functions.php?view=about
2. http://www.judithclark.org/pdf/JC_Affidavit_12-11-02.pdf
3. United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws. “The Weather Underground Report of the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate Ninety-Fourth Congress First Session”, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975)
External links
edit- http://www.judithclark.org
- Jacobs, Ron. The Way The Wind Blew - A History Of The Weather Underground. Verso, 1997 (ISBN 1-85984-167-8)
- What I Want My Words To Do To You, PBS, premeried December 16, 2003
- ^ a b http://www.judithclark.org/about.functions.php?view=about
- ^ a b c d e f http://www.judithclark.org/pdf/JC_Affidavit_12-11-02.pdf
- ^ United States. Congress. Senate. Committee on the Judiciary. Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Act and Other Internal Security Laws. “The Weather Underground Report of the Subcommittee to Investigate the Administration of the Internal Security Laws of the Committee on the Judiciary United States Senate Ninety-Fourth Congress First Session”, (Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1975)