The State - News from May 8, 1989

With his client facing extradition later this month, the lawyer for Tuscarora Indian activist Eddie Hatcher said in San Francisco that he will appeal to Gov. George Deukmejian’s “compassionate side” and “Armenian sense of justice” to halt Hatcher’s return to North Carolina. Attorney Charles Garry, who once defended Black Panthers Bobby Seale and Huey Newton, said Hatcher’s life wouldn’t “be worth a tinker’s damn” if Hatcher, 31, is forced to return to Lumberton, N.C., to face charges of holding 14 hostages for 10 hours in the offices of a local newspaper. Hatcher and fellow Tuscarora Indian Timothy Jacobs claim they took hostages in February, 1988, to dramatize their charge that local law enforcement officers were involved in drug trafficking.