Alex Prud'homme

The Tenth Appeal

This is a true-crime story that Alex wrote for The New Yorker in 1993, but that was never published. Most writers have a story or two that “got away,” and this is one of those that Alex thinks holds up over time.

“The Tenth Appeal” is about the once-famous, emotionally-fraught case of the New York Three — three members of the Black Panther Party who had been convicted of murdering of two police officers in Harlem in 1971 — and their appeal for a retrial based on newly-discovered evidence. The case, known as NEWKILL (for New York Killing), involved President Nixon and J. Edgar Hoover, and was the subject of a controversial book (written by the prosecutor, Robert Tannenbaum, later the mayor of Beverly Hills) and a movie (starring James Woods and Yaphet Kotto), both of which were called “Badge of the Assassin.”

The case remains well-known in law-enforcement circles, and, as the accompanying clips and links show, it is still capable of raising strong emotions from both sides — more than thirty years after the fact.

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This article is available for you to read a PDF file.
Here is the working galley of “The Tenth Appeal” from March 1993. The pages are set in the distinctive New Yorker font, and include the editor’s queries; most, though not all, of the story’s facts have been checked.

Download PDF file. 2.3 Mb download

New York Times of May 13, 1993.
James Woods editorial, NY Post, January 19, 2004
NY Post op-ed, January 19, 2004
Herman Bell denied parole, February 2004

Related Articles:

Ex-panthers Lose Retrial Motion
May 13, 1993
Download PDF file. 401 Kb download

Let This Vermon Rot
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The Battle of Herman Bell
Download PDF file. 124 Kb download

Two views:

Fraternal Order of Police:
http://www.grandlodgefop.org/newsinfo/bell_denied.html

Herman Bell’s supporters:
http://www.thejerichomovement.com/bell.html