◆ SpookStack

Nos. 77-1698, 77-1210 & 77-1370 111 Cannot agree that there was a basis for reasonable in- ferences that there was any kind of an agreement among them, express or implicit, to cause a raid to be made with the object of killing or wounding various Black Panther Party members. It is true that at the time in question, the federal authorities thought it would be in the public good to neutralize the Black Panther Party so that it could not carry out its avowed purpose, among others, of killing policemen. Indeed, the idea perhaps could have been entertained by some, if not all, of those defendants who were engaged in law enforce- ment work that the community would be a safer place for law-abiding citizens to live and work in if Fred ampton and his cohorts were not on the scene. This human feeling is far removed from a basis for an inference that they deliberately set a course to ac- complish that by violence. In our jurisprudence a person cannot be convicted of a traffic offense unless proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Even though the present case is of the civil varie- ty, I cannot believe that the law should permit a deter- mination that any person has deliberately planned a homicide on nothing more than speculative conjecture or mere suspicion. The hard basic reasonable inference- creating facts just did not exist in this case, What I have said about the conspiracy-raid is also applicable to the non-conspiracy counts concerning the planning and participation in the raid by the federal defendants and the state defendants. The shooters, as I ave previously indicated, remain in the case not because they planned a raid with the objective of attempted homicide, but because of the excessive force question. As I have stated previously I do not regard the carrying of the firearms or the time and manner of the raid as being the basis of an inference of a plan to use excessive force. An aspect that is directly involved in the result of the decision in this appeal is, in my opinion, a potentially disastrous curtailment on necessary exchanges of infor- mation between law enforcement and agencies. The ris- Ing need for effective law enforcement cannot but be-