Monday, July 22, 2013

Lumumba withdraws from case for health reasons. (Updated)

Updated with response from Mayor

Alex Holloway reported Saturday in the Starkville Daily News that Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba withdrew from a case due to health reasons. Mr. Holloway stated:

"Archie Quinn's 2008 capital murder case will face another dealy after a Mississippi 16th circuit judge granted a motion by the defense to allow his attorneys to withdraw.

Judge Lee Howard allowed Chokwe Lumumba and Imhotep Alkebu-lan to withdraw from Quinn's defense, citing health concerns Lumumba presented to him.

"I believe the documents support the health issues and medical regimen and issues would require that the court sustain his (Lumumba's) motion to withdraw," Howard said.

Lumumba presented medical documentation- which Howard placed under seal- and noted he needed to have a "serious medical examination" in Jackson during the week of the trial."



Quinn's trial was scheduled to start today. So the question must be asked: What exactly is wrong with the Mayor? What is his duty to disclose his medical condition or problems to the people he serves? The Mayor has a responsibility to tell the voters if he is indeed seriously ill or assure them he is well.  Period.

Update:
Mayor Lumumba’s Office releases a statement in response to questions regarding his health that were raised in the Archie Quinn case:

Mayor Lumumba is healthy and while he dispelled any questions or concerns regarding his health, he, as anyone, has routine medical examinations, check-ups and consultations which are private. There is nothing that was stated during the Archie Quinn case that would indicate that he is nothing short of healthy and fit to serve the people of Jackson.

Of course, the Mayor can always release some or all of the records he filed under seal.

41 comments:

Nurses' Station said...

Nobody has a *duty* to release private health information, regardless of what you think, who employs them or what role they serve in the community.

That said, Lumumba needed to distance himself from yet another losing cause and found a convenient escape route.

Anonymous said...

You'd be unhealthy too after overseeing the City's budget woes for 3 weeks.

Anonymous said...

I would imagine that Edwin has a permanent doctors note from the state hospital.

Anonymous said...

Uh, Nurses' Station, if a physician is suffering from a contagious condition, he has a moral and a legal obligation to disclose that to his employers and his patients. There's one for you.

If Jokeway is too sick to try a case, he's too sick to govern a city. I call BS on the health issue. I think he just wants to get out of an obligation. How many times will he claim illness when things get tough at city hall.

Anonymous said...

A democrat telling a TALL TALE??? Well I never! Man just got into office and he is already lying his ass off! but he has always been a liar his whole life....just like he had NO knowledge of the killing of that cop years ago by that black militant group here in Jackson he was an officer in....good luck jackson...

Anonymous said...

Once Chokwe starts shopping at Whole Foods then everything will be okay. Expect property values to go up, way up!

Anonymous said...

Probably not an issue for the city to worry about nor the state health board, but the state bar association should really scrutinize this for sure. Its simply unethical to bail out on a client like that.

Kingfish said...

That was your one whole foods comment. No more today. You've beaten that when into the ground all the way to China.

Anonymous said...

The judge is not Judge Lee, its Judge Lee Howard. I can assure you the medical information is very serious for this Judge to grant a withdrawal on such short notice to the Court and the State. I fully expected his motion to be overruled if it was simply on the basis of now being mayor.

Anonymous said...

If only you would enforce moratoriums Kingfish on some of the coarse language used by some here.

Anonymous said...

My employee was in the courtroom on Friday. Judge Howard initially denied his motion to withdraw when Lumumba used the excuse of being too busy now that he is Mayor of Jackson. He then played the "too ill" card. The word cancer was used, along with dialysis, and he showed the Judge his swollen ankles. He also refused to return any money already paid to him by the Quinn family.

Anonymous said...

Wrong 8:47 a.m. Rule 1.16(a) of the Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers says that a lawyer SHALL withdraw from representing a client if his or her physical condition materially impairs the lawyer's aility to represent a client. There is no ethical violation. Rather, he is in total compliance ethically.

Another case of opinion before fact.

Side note: Lee Howard does not have the reputation of coddling anybody. If Lumumba can't represent his client due to illness, chances are he is really sick

Anonymous said...

He is 10:17, he is.

Fooled You! said...

What? How can this be? Only in Jackson. Lumumba actually ran and stood for mayor knowing he was so sick he couldn't serve? Elections are not silly little popularity contests to serve one man's vanity!

For how long will he serve? One year? Only a few months? Doesn't he realize that he has a duty to do what he was elected to do? Sounds like he doesn't care.

Anonymous said...

Wonder if this tidbit will appear on the CL???

Anonymous said...

If he is that sick, he should resign as mayor. If he is healthy enough to be mayor, then I stick to my statement that its an ethical violation.

Anonymous said...

Very interesting revelation Kingfish in light of the power play that changed the interim Mayor succession path from the overly ambitious Yarber to Tillman.

Anonymous said...

The question now is what circumstance will arise for Jokeway to bail on the city? Good luck Jackson, good luck.

Anonymous said...

Probably just sick of this case...

Anonymous said...

Why do you comment 4:25? What could you possibly wish to really say, and why would you say it?

Anonymous said...

Why do you comment 4:35? What could you possibly wish to really say, and why would you say it?

Anonymous said...

Chuckie's move to seal speaks much louder than his CYA words.

Anonymous said...

Do we really need to scroll throught he entire damned Starkville newspaper?

Anonymous said...

WLBT's 6pm report had Lumumba speaking, more than once, to his "prostrate" cancer. You can't make this stuff up...

Anonymous said...

Multiple myeloma. Book it.

Kingfish Got Punked said...

At 9:01am, KF said no more comments about a certain establishment.

Read the first letter of each sentence in 10:57's post.

Pugnacious said...

Side note: Lee Howard does not have the reputation of coddling anybody.

That's certainly the case with Byron Weeks of Noxubee county, Mississippi. Judge Howard sent an innocent man, Byron Weeks, to prison in a frameup case by the Noxubee County Sheriff's office for the charge that weeks bought a stolen window air conditioner from a black thief. Weeks' black court appointed lawyer told Weeks that "a white man could never get a fair trial in Noxubee County," and that Judge Howard would agree to sentence Weeks to five-years with sentence suspended upon completion of a five-year probation period.

Released from jail, Weeks went back to work at his Weeksville Trading Post on HiWay 388 near the Alabama state line, only to be taken back into custody by a SWAT Team upon the false claim that he was in possession of a "sawed-off shotgun." There was no sawed-off shotgun and Judge Lee Howard knows that it was frame. Lee Howard revoked Weeks' probation, sending Weeks to the Rankin County Facility where he spent four years. If I trusted the MIB, I would approach them about this travesty of justice by Judge Lee Howard.

Kingfish said...

Pretty funny actually.

Anonymous said...

10:57 AM = 8:36 PM

Anonymous said...

@843
You have crossed the line!!!!

Judge Howard is NOT and alien. Besides, I don't think you could get Will Smith and the Men in Black (MIB) down to Mississippi.

Anonymous said...

4:35--What I'm saying is that when something doesn't work to his favor, he does not benefit from making the decision the city will suffer. Like all politicians of the day, he is in it for himself and no one else.

Sideliner said...

Pugnacious doesn't make complete sense. Nobody is arrested and jailed for possession of an illegal item (sawed off shotguns are not always illegal) without that object being presented as evidence. If he had it, he had it. If he didn't have it, he would not have had his probation revoked.

Kingfish said...

You're talking about someone who tries to post Holocaust denial videos.

Pugnacious said...

If he had it, he had it. If he didn't have it, he would not have had his probation revoked....

You are right! Byron and Alice Weeks tell me that what was reported as a sawed-off shotgun was in fact an air rifle that sat in a corner behind the counter. Byron and Alice lived in their small "Weeksville Trading Post." Since Byron's "crime" was a felony, he was barred from carrying the holsterred pistol that he had a permit to legally carry before his conviction. Prior to the Frame by Deputy Eichelburger of the NCSD, Judge Howard had entered Byron's small store and pointing to his pistol said,"Someday I'm going to take that away from you." Byron said that the "man" appeared to have been drinking and he just sloughed it off, but asked a bystander who that man was. They told him that it was Judge Howard. It was after that threat that a six-foot Totem Pole icon--carved out of heart cedar by Byron-mounted seven feet from the ground and surrounded by barbed wire was lifted from its mourings. Byron told me that he observed a boom truck , owned by a Laurel firm that was contracted to Four-County Electric to do ROW maintenance, backed up to the Totem pole, but he thought nothing of it. Days later it was stolen sometime after 11.00 p.m.

As for the SWAT team that descended upon his small shop, he was handcuffed hauled off to West Point and put on suicide watch, his heart medicine confiscated. He was then sent to Parchman where he was stripped naked and put in solitary confinement and slept on a concrete floor.I can provide Byron's telephone number to anyone interested in this miscarriage of justice by Judge Howard and Deputy Eichelburger. He and Alice now live outside of Columbus.

Anonymous said...

7:39

First off, I’m pretty damn sure you don’t know Judge Howard as well is I do.
Second, he would never enter that establishment, much less being drunk and speaking with a defendant.
Third, the assistant district attorney and the defendants’ counsel reached the plea deal entered in the case. The Judge was hesitant to except it but after talking to both the prosecuting and defense attorneys, agreed to the plea offer.
Finally, it is a violation of a convicted felony’s probation to posses ANY weapon.
You are an idiot and have know idea what you are talking about.

Anonymous said...

First off, I’m pretty damn sure you don’t know Judge Howard as well is I do.

Well, since you are anonymous I'm pretty damn sure your boast is only that ... a boast.

Anonymous said...

It is shameful that Lumumba withdraws the day before a capital murder trail is set to start. First, he tries to withdraw because he is the mayor; that doesn't fly. Then he decides he is too sick; that works after presenting evidence. If I'm the family of the defendant, I would be really pissed and file an ethics complaint.

Apparently someone in the dialysis room with Lumumba told people a while back about his receiving treatment at St. Dominics. Which brings us to a point to ponder: Who decides when the mayor is too sick to represent the city??????

Pugnacious said...

Byron Weeks was NOT a defendant when Judge Howard entered Weeks' store! Byron Weeks did not know the identity of Judge Howard. Byron Weeks never said that Judge Howard was intoxicated, just that this stranger enters his store acting in an aberrant and threating manner. He never claimed that the Judge was high on ethyl alcohol.

Yes, Richard Burdine advised a plea deal, telling Weeks that he could spend twenty-years in prison if found guilty on the trumpted-up charges of buying a stolen window air conditoner. Deputy Eichelberger tells Byron that he has serial numbers of the stolen air conditioner and that the numbers match those on one stolen from a black church. He also tells Weeks that a white man cannot get a fair trial in Noxubee county. and I know a lot about the political corruption in Noxubee county! Byron Weeks never saw the so called evidence against him. At fifty-four years of age his only run-in with the law was a speeding citation for driving 80 mph on HiWay 388 in an old 1960s Pontiac.

You know Judge Howard...I know Byron Weeks, his wife Alice and his three sons, having followed Byron's saga from a short time after Judge Howard's threat, through Weeks' time in prison.I met with him the day after his completing the four-year prison term. Isn't it ironic that just across HiWay 388, a stone's throw from the decaying rubble of the former Weeksville Trading Post, is a new business that serves Byron's former customers;it is owned by a close friend of the Judge.

You know Judge Howard? Show me that "sawed-off" shotgun" It is true that when the SWAT team searched Byron's quarters, they found a few rounds of small caliber ammunition and a bottle of ceremonial liquor in the dresser drawer. I never knew him to take a drink. He did sell beer at the establishment.

Byron Weeks was a target! Someone is lying?

Anonymous said...

The entire city of Jackson has been scammed. Lumumba was seriously ill and nothing was said in the debates or in the media even though the information was on the street. To what end. Elect a racist and let himuse his new powerbase to dictate a similar replacement. Coleman Young all over again.

Anonymous said...

8:35 is correct. Melvin Priester has been hand picked by Bennie to carry on. Write it down. Keep this post.

Anonymous said...

I've known Melvin for over twenty years, if he somehow finds his way into the Mayor's office, the city will be better for it.


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