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12 Nov 09 - 01:17 AM (#2764570) Subject: Lyr Add: ELLA ELLISON (Joanna Cazden) From: Joe Offer Somebody sang this song at our song circle Sunday, and I found it very powerful, albeit perhaps a bit strident. Anyhow, I found the song and the story behind it very interesting. I don't know who Joanna Cazden is/was, but I'll bet she was/is related to Norm Cazden. SIDE I BAND 5 ELLA ELLISON Words and Music by Joanna Cazden. Copyright 1976 by Joanna Cazden. Ella Ellison is a young, black woman, mother of four, who is presently serving a "natural life" sentence in Framingham (Mass.) Women's Prison. She was convicted in November 1974 of murder due to her alleged participation in a robbery in which a Boston policeman was killed. Ella Ellison, like many others, is a victim of a "justice" system which allows the state to plea bargain, offering reduced sentences to people who give testimony to implicate others. Even though the two men of whom this song tells have now recanted their testimony which incriminated Ms. Ellison, the judge has not permitted a retrial. The next step for Ella Ellison (as this booklet goes to press) is an appeal to the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. For more information contact: The Ella Ellison Support Committee 1151 Massachusetts Ave. Cambridge, Ma. 02138 (617) 491-1575 Joanna Cazden, creator of this song, is a Boston- based singer-songwriter who can be heard on two of her own albums, 'The Greatest Illusion of All" and "Hatching". ELLA ELLISON (Joanna Cazden) 1. It began when two young robbers Got a bargain for their plea: It they would only name an accomplice, They'd get away with "second degree." And the vengeance for a dead policeman On someone was bound to fall, But even their tortured description Doesn't fit this prisoner at all. CHORUS "I cannot live without my children," she cried. "It breaks my heart to see them through the bars." The system is cracking, cracking, in desperation hacking, And the poor, and the black, and the women wear the scars. 2. Ella Ellison sat in the courtroom Her innocence always maintained While the prosecutor called her a cop-killer And monkey, and many other names Her accusers bought years of freedom With evidence so full of holes And Ellison found guilty of murder Sentenced for life, with no parole 3. Now the two young desperados May have had their reasons for the plan And the cop who died at that jewelry store May have been a brave and loyal man But if for mercy you would argue It with compassion you would care Then how about some consideration For a woman who wasn't even there? CHORUS 4. Now this country's s'posed to have ideals for export And liberty enough to spare But when I heard about Ella Ellison For the first time I got really scared I confess I believed in the protection Of my light hair, my college degree But now you know I just can't shake the feeling That they could just as well come after me 5. And I dream that I deserve it My innocence forever lost That of all the little mistakes in my life This would finally be the cost. Oh my sisters may know of this disease Always afraid, always feeling in the wrong But I'm waking up to see now that the victims Are just the ones who keep their silence too long! CHORUS Copied from the liner notes, ...And Ain't I a Woman? New Harmony Sisterhood Band PAR01038 Available from Smithsonian Folkways I take it from this Website that Joanna Cazden is the daughter of folklorist Norm Cazden. Here's what she says:
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12 Nov 09 - 01:25 AM (#2764573) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Ella Ellison (Joanna Cazden) From: Joe Offer Here's more on Ella Ellison: Ella Mae Ellison - convicted: 1974 In 1973, Boston Police Detective John Schroeder was murdered in the commission of a robbery. The three youths who committed the crime were apprehended within a day. In the course of plea-bargaining, two of the defendants agreed to testify against an accomplice named "Sue." Ella Mae Ellison was eventually arrested as being "Sue." While she knew the defendants, the only evidence against her was their testimony. As part of their agreement with prosecutors, the two plead guilty to second-degree murder. Ellison was convicted of first-degree murder and armed robbery and sentenced to two life terms. In 1976, the two defendants who had testified against Ellison admitted that there had been no fourth participant in the crime; they had invented "Sue." The Supreme Judicial Court subsequently reversed Ellison's conviction and all charges were dropped. Released: 1978 Source: nodp.org (No Death Penalty)
March 26, 1980 By Globe Staff Terrell Walker, 24, formerly of Dorchester, was sentenced to 18 to 20 years in prison yesterday after he pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the slaying of a Boston detective during a Roxbury holdup on Nov. 30, 1973. Judge Andrew R. Linscott in Suffolk Superior Court imposed the term on Walker after the defendant admitted killing Detective John D. Schroeder during a robbery of the Suffolk Loan Co. on Washington Street. Walker also was given four concurrent 15 to 20 year terms for four armed robbery indictments. He will be eligible for parole in six years, having already served six years. Walker was convicted on a first degree murder charge by an Essex Superior Court jury in August 1974. After an appeal process, his conviction was reversed and remanded for a new trial by the US Court of Appeals. The manslaughter plea was negotiated between Suffolk Dist. Atty. Newman Flanagan and Walker's lawyer, Norman Salkind. Schroeder was in the Suffolk Loan office when three young men, all armed with handguns, burst into the pawnshop and began scooping jewelry from the display cases. Detective Sgt. Robert Hudson told Linscott that Schroeder got into a struggle with Walker and was fatally wounded. "He (Schroeder) fell to the floor and the defendant went through his clothes, removed his badge, his wallet and his service revolver." Besides Walker, Anthony J. Irving, 18, Nathaniel Williams, 21, and Ella Mae Ellison, 27, were arrested and charged with being involved in the robbery. All lived in the Columbia Point Housing Project. Irving and Williams pleaded guilty to second degree murder and armed robbery charges and testified against both Ellison and Walker in their trials. Irving and Williams are serving life sentences. Ellison's first degree murder conviction was later reversed by the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court and the indictments against her were dismissed when Irving and Williams recanted their testimony naming her as the driver of the escape car. Due to the recantation of Irving's and Williams' testimony and the deaths of two other prosecution witnesses, Flanagan said he "regrettably had to enter into a plea bargain with defendant's counsel." Flanagan added that "a jury of (Walker's) peers found him guilty and the Supreme Judicial Court upheld the conviction as did a judge of the US District Court. "Unfortunately, a circuit court of appeals made new law to the benefit of the defendant and to the detriment of the public, a law prosecutors must live with but with which I do not agree," Flanagan said. "Nevertheless, I am satisfied the ends of justice, as far as the public is concerned, were met, taking all of the circumstances under consideration." Schroeder's brother, Walter, a Boston Police patrolman, was shot and killed in a holdup of a Brighton bank on Sept. 23, 1970. |
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13 Nov 09 - 03:31 PM (#2765498) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Ella Ellison (Joanna Cazden) From: Jim Dixon There is also information about this case in In Spite of Innocence: Erroneous Convictions in Capital Cases by Michael L. Radelet, Hugo Adam Bedau, Constance E. Putnam (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1994, ©1992), page 72-73. It also contains the interesting statement: "One of the many curiosities of the death penalty is that although there seems considerable doubt whether it deters would-be criminals, there is little doubt that fear of the harsher penalty often deters even the innocent from pleading not guilty." |
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27 Feb 11 - 08:43 AM (#3103523) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Ella Ellison (Joanna Cazden) From: GUEST How is it no one has written information on the effects of the wrongful conviction on the children? Why has no one asked how Ella Ellison fared upon her release? No everyone receives a million bucks and lives happily ever after.There is a bio that should be written. mrsglosaddler@yahoo.com |
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10 Feb 12 - 10:53 PM (#3305758) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Ella Ellison (Joanna Cazden) From: GUEST Could this be the "L.L. Ellison" referred to in Benita Roth's SEPARATE ROADS TO FEMINISM? Roth writes about a Black woman, "L.L. Ellison" in Framingham State Prison who killed a prison guard in self-defense against sexual assault. Given the similarity in some of the details of the cases, Roth could have confused the wrongful conviction of Ella Ellison on the police murder charge. (I beleive Roth is drawing on a 1999 article by Duchess Harris in WOMANIST THEORY AND RESEARCH where the original error may have occurred -- unless there was a separate "L.L. Ellison." |
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11 Feb 12 - 03:37 PM (#3306153) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Ella Ellison (Joanna Cazden) From: Elmore Re Joanna Cazden. She sang in concerts and coffee houses in the Cambridge Ma. area in the Early seventies, I believe. Had a pretty voice.I think she did some topical songs. Sounds like she has a good day job there days |
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11 Feb 12 - 04:30 PM (#3306181) Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Ella Ellison (Joanna Cazden) From: Elmore Oops. Just noticed this thread concerns a topical song Joanna wrote. Also, in my entry above I typed "there days".Meant these days. Fading fast. |