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Mumia Artikel Englisch

• Harlem Supporters Protest Supreme Court Ruling On Mumia!
• Supreme Court opens door to Mumia's execution
• Rally for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal outside the most hated embassy in México
• Free Mumia: events on Dec 9 in Philadelphia
• Press Release: Delivery of Mumia Petition to US Department of Justice
• SF Bay Area Expressing Solidarity With Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Counterpunch: Glen Beck's Mumia Obsession / Fox Finds a New Black Boogeyman
• Mumia Abu-Jamal faces new execution threat
• Get Ready for the Emergency Protests!
• The Fantasies of Joe McGill
• From the National Writers Union, United Auto Workers Local
• J. Patrick O'Connor: Civil Rights Investigation for Mumia Abu-Jamal
• campaign resources
• Citing Withheld Evidence, Supporters Of Mumia Abu-Jamal Call For Civil Rights Investigation
• Philadelphia Tribune Columnist Linn Washington Jr. speaks about Mumia Abu-Jamal (Videos)
• Mumia and the D.A. candidates
• Happy Birthday to Mumia Abu-Jamal: We are all prisoners
• Angela Y. Davis Speaks in Support of Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Interview with Angela Davis by JR Valrey on Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Amy Goodman / Democracy Now - Interview mit Mumia Abu-Jamal
• New Book: Kiilu Nyasha - Mumia's Jailhouse Lawyers
• NAACP Legal Defense Fund Files Brief in Supreme Court in Mumia Abu-Jamal Case

Mumia supporters rally in NYC around the January 19th 2010 US Supreme court ruling granting appeal by prosecutors. The ruling brings Mumia closer to execution. Hip Hop Artist Immortal Techinque, a Baruch College professor as well as Danny Meyers of the National Guild of Lawyers are shown in this clip.

BY JEFF MACKLER

In a dangerous decision and a break with its own precedent, the U.S. Supreme Court, on Jan. 19, opened the door wide to Pennsylvania prosecutors' efforts to execute the innocent political prisoner, murder frame-up victim, award-winning journalist, and world-renowned "Voice of the Voiceless," Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Six months earlier, on April 6, the Supreme Court all but shut the door on Mumia's 28-year fight for justice and freedom when it refused to grant a hearing (writ of certiorari) despite its own decision in the 1986 case of Batson v. Kentucky that the systematic and racist exclusion of Blacks from juries voids all guilty verdicts and mandates a new trial.

In Mumia's 1982 trial, presided over by the infamous "hanging judge," Albert Sabo, Philadelphia prosecutor Joseph McGill, in explicit violation of Batson, used 10 of his 15 peremptory challenges to exclude Blacks from the jury panel. But as with virtually all Mumia court decisions over the past decades, the "Mumia Exception," a consistent and contorted interpretation of the "law," or abject blindness to it, has been employed to reach a predetermined result. Mumia's frame-up murder conviction was allowed to stand.

In contrast, on Jan. 19, 2010, Pennsylvania prosecutors, twice rejected in their efforts to impose the death penalty on Mumia (in 2001 and 2008), were given yet another opportunity to do so when the Supreme Court remanded the sentencing issue of life imprisonment versus execution to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. The latter was instructed to take into consideration the High Court's new ruling in the Ohio case of Smith v. Spisak.

Frank Spisak was a neo-Nazi who wore a Hitler mustache to his trial, denounced Jews and Blacks, and confessed in court to three hate-crime murders in Ohio. Spisak saw his jury-imposed death sentence reversed in the federal courts when his attorneys, like Mumia's, successfully invoked a critical 1988 Supreme Court decision in the famous Mills v. Maryland case.

The Mills decision required, with regard to sentencing procedures, that both the judge's instructions and the jury forms make clear that any juror who believes that one or more mitigating circumstance exists (sufficient to impose a sentence of life imprisonment as opposed to the death penalty) should have the right to have that issue(s) considered by the jury as a whole. Prior to Mills, Maryland jurors were effectively led to believe that they had to be unanimous on any possible mitigating circumstance for it to be considered in the deliberation process.

Mills explicitly rejected the idea of unanimity; it rejected the notion that a single juror could block from consideration the mitigating circumstances hypothetically found by another juror or even by 11 of the 12 jurors.

Before Mills, the "unanimity" requirement in the way it was presented to juries essentially eliminated the vast majority of mitigating circumstances, and therefore juries had little or no alternative but to impose the death penalty. Under Mills, once all mitigating circumstances were set before the jury, it was then their responsibility to determine whether they were sufficient to impose a sentence of life as opposed to death.

In both Spisak's and Mumia's cases the trial court judge violated the Mills principle and in essence instructed the juries that unanimity on each mitigating circumstance was required for consideration of the jury as a whole. As a consequence, Federal District Courts in both Ohio and in Pennsylvania (in the case of Mumia), later backed by decisions of the U.S. Courts of Appeals, invoked Mills to overrule the jury-imposed death sentence verdicts. They ordered a new sentencing hearing and trial with the proper instructions to the jury and where new evidence of innocence could be presented. The jury remained bound, however, by the previous jury's guilty finding.

Even so, the long-suppressed mountain of evidence proving Mumia's innocence drives Mumia's prosecutors to avoid a new trial at all costs. A new trial of any sort could only expose, with unpredictable consequences, the base corruption of a criminal "justice" system permeated by race and class bias. Executing innocent people does not sit well with the American people. In the courts of the elite, as in life itself, nothing is written in stone. The "law" has more than once been "adjusted" in the interests of the poor and oppressed when the price to pay by insisting on its immutability is too costly in terms of doing greater damage to the system as a whole.

The effect of the 1988 Mills decision was to make it harder for prosecutors to obtain death sentences in capital cases; the effect of Spisak is to make it easier. Armed with this new Supreme Court weapon and order to reconsider the application of Mills, Pennsylvania prosecutors will once again seek Mumia's execution before the Third Circuit.

"States' rights" logic of Spisak decision

Prior to this unexpected turn of events and for the past 22 years, the broad U.S. legal community appeared to agree that Mills applied to all states. That is, if a jury were orally mis-instructed and/or received faulty or unclear verdict forms that implied it needed to be unanimous with regard to mitigating circumstances that would be considered to weigh in against the death penalty, the death penalty would be set aside and a new sentencing hearing ordered.

That is what happened in Mumia's case when Federal District Court Judge William H. Yohn in 2001 employed Mills to set aside the jury's death penalty decision. Yohn gave the state of Pennsylvania 180 days to decide whether or not to retry Mumia or to accept a sentence of life imprisonment.

Since then, Pennsylvania officials have effectively stayed Yohn's order by appealing to the higher federal courts. The Supreme Court gave them the victory they sought.

In deciding to hear Ohio prosecutors' arguments in the Spisak case with regard to Mills the Supreme Court implied that a new interpretation of the concept of federalism was in the making. The political pendulum has swung back and forth on this issue. In past decades, a "states' rights" interpretation was employed to justify racist state laws that denied Blacks access to public institutions and facilities. With the rise of the civil rights movement, federal power was used to compel the elimination of the same racist laws.

Justice is far from blind in America. It is applied to the advantage of the working class and the oppressed only to the extent that the relationship of forces - that is, the struggles of the masses - demand it.

Since Mills was decided based on the facts in the state of Maryland only, Ohio and Pennsylvania prosecutors argued, Mills cannot be automatically applied to other states where a different set of jury instructions and jury forms were involved. Indeed, Ohio prosecutors argued before the Supreme Court on Oct. 13 that Ohio and Pennsylvania were the exception and not the rule and that the norm in other states was to essentially reject a strict interpretation of Mills in favor of various state guidelines regarding jury instructions. It was not by accident that Mumia's Pennsylvania prosecutors filed a friend of the court brief (amicus curiae) in support of the Ohio Spisak appeal.

Undoubtedly, the U.S. Supreme Court found some delight in rendering their Spisak decision. They changed the law in order to allow Ohio to execute a likely deranged Nazi and instructed Pennsylvania prosecutors to use this law to try to execute a revolutionary - that is, Mumia Abu-Jamal.

In every sense Mumia's life is on the line as never before. Pennsylvania Governor Ed Rendell is pledged to sign what could be the third and final warrant for Mumia's execution. Opinions vary as to the timeline for a final decision of the Third Circuit. Indeed, the Third Circuit could in turn remand the Mills issue back to Judge Yohn's Federal District Court, and any decision made therein might well be appealed by either side back to the Court of Appeals and then to the U.S. Supreme Court. The process could take months or years, but the deliberations will be based on new turf that leads closer to the death penalty for Mumia than ever before.

Mumia's supporters around the world and Mumia himself have long noted that the battle for his life and freedom largely resides in our collective capacity to build a massive movement capable of making the political price of Mumia's incarceration and execution too high to pay. Mumia is alive and fighting today because of that movement. Those dedicated to his freedom and who stand opposed to the death penalty more generally are urged get involved. Free Mumia!

Contact the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal in California, (510) 268-9429, or the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal in Pennsylvania, (215) 476-8812.

Jeff Mackler is the director of the Northern California-based Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. This article was originally published in Socialist Action newspaper, February, 2010.

by Amig@s de Mumia, México

Read the Spanish-language version here.

To the sound of drums, a little over a hundred of us demanded freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal outside the United States Embassy in Mexico City on December 9, 2009, as well as for Leonard Peltier, the men and women of MOVE, the Angola 3, Sundiata Acoli, Los Cinco, Francisco Torres, Hugo Pinell, Ruchell Magee, Marilyn Buck, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, the Puerto Rican Independentistas, David Gilbert, Ramsey Muñiz, the environmental prisoners and all the social activists that this government intends to bury alive. We also demanded freedom for the 11,000 Palestinian political prisoners resisting torture and imprisonment in Israeli jails.

We accuse the United States government of kidnapping Mumia Abu-Jamal and holding him in conditions of torture for 28 years and of making an ongoing attempt on his life. In spite of all the evidence of racial discrimination in his trial, the Supreme Court of the United States the highest court in the land has denied him justice and, in so doing, has become party to these crimes. Despite photographic evidence that completely destroys the ridiculous scenario put forward by the Philadelphia District Attorney's office of the shooting death of policemen Daniel Faulkner in 1981, the managers of the national security state are now redoubling their efforts to execute this revolutionary journalist. If they're not able to apply the death penalty, which is nothing but premeditated murder, they plan to hold him captive in silence for the rest of his life. We support the demand for a federal civil rights investigation and all actions necessary to win his freedom.

We also accuse the United States government of fostering political prison and the extermination of the social struggle here in Mexico by training and equipping military and police forces to repress the social movements. We demand freedom for Ignacio del Valle, Felipe Álvarez, and Héctor Galindo, now held with long vengeful sentences which amount to life in prison, and freedom for the prisoners in Molino de Flores, the recently arrested comrades Victor Herrera Govea and Emmanuel Hernández Hernández, and all political prisoners in Oaxaca, Campeche, Guerrero and the entire country. We say NO to Plan México and NO to the construction of more prisons.

Our moderator Armando spoke of Mumia Abu-Jamal as a comrade we've supported for a long time, condemned to death or life in prison for "being a critic of the highly racist society of the United States, whose own Declaration of Independence refers to indigenous people as "merciless Indian savages' and which is built on the slave labor of people brought there from Africa. The history of the United States has been one of slavery, imperialism, and the robbery of the wealth of other peoples, all of which we have experienced in Mexico. And since Mumia is a good critic, he brings out these things. That's why he's in prison".

After reading Mumia's essay on Oscar Grant, whose murder by a BART policeman sparked a rebellion in the streets of Oakland at the first of the year, one of our members, Hilda, commented that although Mumia Abu-Jamal is now officially condemned to life in prison, there is a big effort to execute him and that his life is in grave danger. She explained that this essay is one of many things he has written on different issues, including Atenco, Oaxaca, the war in Iraq, from his small cell on death row where he has no physical contact whatsoever with his family or friends. She mentioned that it's a paradox to speak of this situation on the eve of the celebration of International Human Rights Day, and she also denounced the numerous human rights violations in Mexico by the Army, a body that has no business patrolling the streets.

It gave us great pleasure to have ex political prisoner Jacobo Silva Nogales with us at this rally. He and Gloria Arenas Agis, recently won their freedom after spending ten years in prison for guerrilla activity with Jacobo arguing their right to rebellion. He said: "And who is Mumia Abu-Jamal? The first time I heard that name I was in prison, and I learned that he was also in prison. I learned that he was a political prisoner, and I was also a political prisoner". Mumia is a mirror that we're proud to look at because what we see is admired and respected; it's what the rest of us are, if only slightly and in exceptional moments. But he's also a mirror that's feared because it shows what can happen when self and duty become one and the same thing. The mirror admired and respected; that's Mumia an admirable struggle and a death sentence. So it also reflects those who have sentenced him. It reflects their fear of a better world for the many. That's why they want him dead; that's why we want him alive". It may seem hard, at times, to win freedom when you're in a prison where they try to ban your very dreams, but it's possible to get out of there if the dreams from the outside come together with those on the inside". I know this, because not long ago I was in a place like that, and I was able to get out, and so I'd like to tell him that I think he can get out, too that he can, that we can, win out over those bars that are blocking the freedom of his body, like he's been able to win out over those that block his freedom of spirit. By defending Mumia, we're defending our own selves!"

Also present were family members and comrades of Víctor Herrera Govea, recently arrested in the annual October 2nd march in commemoration of the Tlatelolco Massacre, simply for being young and protesting in the streets of Mexico City. His sisters invited everyone to participate in the activities in his support and read a letter that he sent to the rally, which says in part: "Today it's not only in México that we're experiencing the oppression of the prison system. This is also the case in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was once a reporter for the Black Panthers, has been in jail for 28 years, sentenced to death or life imprisonment".The way his trials have been conducted reflects the nature of the ghetto experienced in the United States, a country where 42% of the prison population is made up of African-Americans".Once again, we find ourselves under attack by the neoliberal prison system. As lovers of freedom and anarchists who defend life lived in collectivity, we are not exempt from government espionage and measures of repression and oppression".The only thing left to do is keep on struggling for our prisoners in Mexico and those outside the country like Mumia Abu-Jamal, who's been incriminated for a murder he did not commit".There's no evidence whatsoever against us, either".To Mumia, our heartfelt desire to see him free. To the government, the worst of all possible downfalls".

We read a letter recently published in La Jornada by political prisoner Felipe Álvarez of the Peoples' Front in Defense of the Land (FPDT) of San Salvador Atenco: "Eight years after we launched a resistance struggle against an invasive, oppressive, murderous system, I ask you to keep on struggling. There's no torture that will ever make us give up our ideals; they can chain my body but never my consciousness. Neither can they chain the dignity and spirit of our peoples who are fighting for what belongs to them. The government still intends to dispossess us of what is ours and put it at the service of empire, taking our lands, water, oil, light, and the little wealth we have left".It's only those of us who struggle for land, natural resources and freedom who can gain the independence, sovereignty, and homeland that those who are looting our country talk so much about. Brothers and sisters, you live in my heart! Not one step backwards! Zapata lives! The Front continues!"

Doña Fili spoke: "Mumia, there are a lot of young people here who hadn't even been born when you went to jail. We, as mothers, see you as our son and demand your freedom. We will never tire of demanding your freedom. You live in a highly advanced country. Advanced, yes, but in death"You've resisted a country that has killed our peoples"In our countries, they impose tyrants, but we'll bring them down"You are part of our people, Mumia. You've marked our history. That's why we're here, Mumia. Your spirit lives in each one of us."

We appreciated the presence of the Federation of the Socialist Campesino Students of Mexico (FECSM), which has been in a struggle against government plans to convert rural teacher training schools into mere technical schools in places such as Tiripetío, Michoacán and Ayotzinapa, Guerrero. Their representative Isaías sent his greetings to Mumia, and said: "Comrades, as a Federation, we've had prisoners; as a Federation, we've been beaten; as a Federation, we've been tortured by the federal government, so we lend our solidarity to all those who struggle from below".We've seen how the imperialists have increasingly taken over our freedom and our resources. We have the same enemy and we'll struggle with you against this common enemy."

Daniel, speaking for the collective Shouts of Street Rage (GRC), said: "28 years have gone by. Those numbers may be easy to say. 28 años. But I've reached the conclusion that my mother was a child when a person, a thinker, a journalist was taken prisoner. Why? Because, as we know, the State is afraid of people who, with their words, their gaze, their actions, generate actions that destroy the system we talked about. You mothers walking by in the street, I ask you: What if Mumia Abu-Jamal were your son? What if they had taken away his freedom and what if he were locked up on death row thinking, "Damn! They could shoot me up with drugs tomorrow and end my life!? This comrade, in spite of being behind bars, not being able to see the light of day, not being able to hug his family, has stayed active and is still present in the social processes from inside, yes, but he's part of things. Is it right to just stand by when we see a life in danger right before our eyes? When we see false evidence, a new trial denied, the death penalty, a life sentence, total injustice and impunity? And now the question is what are we going to do?

From Chiapas, we received greetings from the poet Xmal Ton, adherent to the Sixth Declaration of the EZLN: "This song is dedicated to all our comrade political prisoners in Abya Yala, which is America, in all the continents of the world. Thank you for your bravery and your force, which are the breath of life to us. Thank you for your spirit of struggle, which is the road we take every day. For the liberation of all of us who struggle for our great, sacred mother, which is the Earth." We read her poem "Four words," dedicated to all political prisoners and especially to the grandfather Leonard Peltier: "Four words fall from the sky. Do not be sad. Four words fall from the sky. They will heal you. Four words fall from the sky. The morning is ready for you. Four words fall from the sky. The fire will warm your heart. Four words fall from the sky. The air will pray for you""

After reading the poem, our comrade Bisharú commented: "I feel very close to Mumia because of his words, because of the way he talks about the social movements. Sometimes I feel ashamed when I think that somebody in his conditions can be much freer than the rest of us. He has shown us that freedom is not only seen in actions, but also comes through in Mumia's words that have brought life and liberty to many of us."

We denounced the attacks against the Zapatista communities and read a recent letter from the Gómez Saragos brothers, of Bachajón, Chiapas, to all the national and international organizations, where they say: ""we belong to the organization of adherents to the other campaign of the EZLN, and we're here for defending our territory while the government wants the PRI party members to have it, but we"don't want them to take away our land because that's where we work to support our children. That's why we're prisoners. But we thank you for your valuable support and hope that you'll continue to support us in reaching our goals."

Yazmín of the Chanti Ollin spoke of the recent effort by the city government to take this occupied space away from us, and then she read the text written this past November 25 by Nzingha Shakur-Ali, daughter of political prisoner, Dr. Mutulu Shakur: "My dad goes before the parole board December 2nd. Thinking about my family and the families of other political prisoners and freedom fighters around the world" i am SO truly blessed to come from the family i do, from the Hearne clan, from the Shakur clan. It's a different way of life in many ways, being children of revolutionaries. Our parents fought, were imprisoned, were exiled, and died fighting for basic human equality; and all the while growing up in discipline and knowledge, love and respect for not only our people, but for all people. we think differently; we see the world differently". now Mutulu is in Florence, Colorado, the #1 maximum security prison in the united states also known as the ADMAX, Supermax, or The Alcatraz of the Rockies, ADX houses the prisoners who are deemed the most dangerous and in need of the tightest control. It is the highest level security federal prison in the united states, and generally considered the most secure prison in the world. Individuals are kept for at least 23 hours each day in solitary confinement." That means he gets 1 hour, by himself, outside his cell in heavily guarded area. All of our visits are behind glass and he often handcuffed". these things come to mind as his parole hearing draws near. They have and continue to do everything they possibly can to keep him in prison" i am humbled by those who, like mutulu, saw their difficult path before them and even still chose to stand and fight, rather than lay down and continue to be enslaved".i give thanks for the people who fought and are still fighting for freedom and equality". My blood? is a million stories. FREE "EM ALL. Peace."

Victor of the Popular Kitchen of the Che Guevara Auditorium talked about the way prisons exemplify capitalism, commenting that for Mumia Abu-Jamal, "the American dream, for whites only, was just a prison and the Black Panther Party was his road to freedom." He quoted from Mumia's book, We Want Freedom: A Life in the Black Panther Party: "I went to jail". I was here for defending my people. I was here because I was a member of the Black Panther Party. Within a few weeks I was back, no worse for the wear. I was out of jail and back in the swing of things. I was working on the paper, selling them, and editing stuff"The days were long. The risks were substantial. The rewards were few. Yet the freedom was hypnotic. We could think freely, write freely, and act freely in the world. We knew that we were working for our people's freedom, and we loved it. It was the one place in the world that it seemed right to be." In speaking of Mumia Abu-Jamal's relationship to the MOVE organization, Victor said: "Mumia rediscovered people bent on freedom and an organization that was an alternative to the logic of the coercion and degradation of human beings by the panoptic prison. But the prison system still existed along with its forms of repression and sabotage. In the face of the genocidal attacks by the North American system against the MOVE movement, Mumia could not remain silent; he denounced the massacre." Victor concluded his presentation, citing Mumia's essay "Absence of Power": "The police are agents of white, ruling-class, capitalist willperiod. Neither black managers nor black politicians can change that reality. The people themselves must organize for their own defense, or it won't get done."

Pachón of Mexico City Anarchist Black Cross read the following text: "Mumia's case is not isolated; it's part of a strategy of social control by governments to try to break the righteous social movements and silence people who make them uncomfortable. The United States is the country with the highest percentage of its population imprisoned, the majority of whom are Black or Latinos. More and more people in jail. That's what the goverments and private industry want so they can build more and more prisons".Mumia's example should give us the strength to redouble our efforts to win his freedom. IN conclusion, we want to call attention to the cases of other political prisoners in the United States and name some of them: Abdul Azeez, Abdul Majid, Alvaro Luna Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Avelino González Claudio, Bill Dunne, Byron Shane Chubbuck, Carlos Alberto Torres, Chuck Sims Africa, Daniel Mcgowan, David Gilbert, Debbie Sims Africa, Delbert Orr Africa, Ed Poindexter, Edward Goodman Africa, Erik Oseland, Eryn Trimmer, Francisco Torres, Fred "Muhammad" Burton, Garret Fitzgerald, Gerardo Hernandez, Hanif S. Bey (B. Gereau), Herman Bell, Jaan K. Laaman, Jamil Abdullah Al-Amin, Jalil Muntaqim, Janet Holloway Africa, Janine Phillips Africa, Jeffery "Free" Luers, Joseph "Joe-Joe" Bowen, Leonard Peltier, Luce Guillen-Givens, Luis Medina, Malik Smith, Maliki Latine, Marilyn Buck, Marshall Eddie Conway, Matthew Depalpma, Max Specktor, Michael Davis Africa, Mondo We Langa (D. Rice), Monica Bicking, Dr. Mutulu Shakur, Nathanael Secor, Oscar Lopez Rivera, Rene Gonzalez, Robert Seth Hayes, Romaine Chip Fitzgerald, Ronald Reed, Ruben Campa, Russell Maroon Shoats, Sekou Kambui (W. Turk), Sekou Odinga, Sundiata Acoli (C. Squire), Thomas Manning, Tsutomu Shirosaki, Veronza Bowers Jr., William Phillips Africa, William "Lefty' Gilday, Zolo Agona Azania".

Despite sound problems, the comrades of The Other Culture closed the rally with their original song dedicated to Mumia as a gesture of solidarity, and also brought copies of their new CD highlighting the song. Several images of Mumia were left behind on the ground and the concrete barriers around the Embassy, along with the ashes of the stars and stripes.

On Wednesday, December 9, 2009, join International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Free Mumia Coalition NYC, as we gather to protest the 28-yearconspiracy to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal for a crime that an enormous amount of evidence proves he did not commit.

Lynne Abraham, the outgoing District Attorney, and Seth Williams, the newly elected black DA, want to bury the truth and silence Mumia forever.

THE PROTEST BEGINS AT 4 PM IN FRONT OF THE GOVERNOR'S REGIONAL OFFICE, 200 SOUTH BROAD STREET, NEAR MARKET STREET, IN PHILADELPHIA.

There will be an indoor meeting following the protest at 7PM at the American Friends Center, 1515 Cherry Street. To reserve a seat on the bus, call 212 330-8029. For information on our work visit www.freemumia.com

For Immediate Release: November 10, 2009

Contact: Suzanne Ross (917) 584-2135 - Pam Africa (215) 476-8812

International Representatives Join US Activists in Delivering to Attorney General Eric Holder Thousands of Letters Demanding a Civil Rights Investigation of the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal

PRESS CONFERENCE:

New York Avenue Presbyterian Church

1313 New York Avenue

Washington, DC, 11:30 A.M.

MARCH TO JUSTICE DEPARTMENT AND PRESENTATION OF LETTERS FOLLOWS, ARRIVING AT DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE 1:30 PM

Supporters of Pennsylvania death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal will march to the US Department of Justice in Washington, DC, on November 12 to deliver thousands of petitions to Attorney General Eric Holder demanding that the department open an investigation into the multitude of violations of Abu-Jamal's civil rights over the past 28 years.

A press conference at 11:30 AM at the New York Avenue Presbyterian Church will be followed by a march to the Department of Justice where the letters demanding such an investigation will be brought.

Among the speakers at the press conference will be Laura Moye, Director, Amnesty International's Death Penalty Abolition Campaign; Steven Hawkins, Vice President, National NAACP; Marvin "Doc" Cheatham, Sr., President, Baltimore NAACP; Pam Africa, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal; Fignolé Saint-Cyr, President of Autonomous Unions of Haiti; Berlin Coalition to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal; El-Hajj Mauri' Saalakhan, Washington, DC, Director of Operations, Peace and Justice Foundation; Thomas Ruffin, attorney; Joseph "Jazz" Hayden, Riverside Church Prison Ministry; Panama Alba, National Congress of Puerto Rican Rights, Campaign to End the Death Penalty, and others.

Many Muslim organizations are supporting the call for a civil rights investigation of Abu-Jamal's case. Representatives of these groups will be present both at the press conference and the subsequent rally at the Justice Department to express support for Mumia Abu-Jamal while pointing out similarities between the due process and human rights violations in his case and those that are perpetrated daily against the Muslim political prisoners and prisoners of war.

This past July the NAACP passed an emergency resolution at its 100th anniversary convention in New York, asking Mr. Holder to conduct a civil rights investigation. "We're going to ask Attorney General Holder to look into this," said NAACP Chairman Julian Bond, during a broadcast of Pacifica Radio's "Democracy Now" on July 20. "As anyone who's followed this case for a number of years knows, similar doubts have been raised about him as were raised about Troy Davis." Later, Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington office, told The Final Call, "We had a meeting with the attorney general, and the subject of Mumia Abu Jamal did surface. The attorney general said he was aware of the case and would look into it and get back to us."

Pam Africa, long-time Chair of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, has announced that, "We are not coming to the Department of Justice looking for justice. We are bringing justice to the Department of Justice!" Dr. Suzanne Ross of the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition adds, "At this critical moment in Mumia's case, a civil rights investigation could mean the difference between life and death for Mumia. It could also open the door for his release."

The call for a civil rights investigation follows the April 2009 U.S. Supreme Court acceptance of the Third Circuit's decision that closed all doors for a new trial or the consideration of Abu-Jamal's innocence. Meanwhile, the Supreme Court is still considering an appeal by the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office to immediately reinstate Abu-Jamal's death sentence.

International legal bodies such as Amnesty International, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, the European Parliament, and city councils and national governments around the world have argued for decades that Abu-Jamal was wrongfully convicted in a widely denounced trial and appeals process for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer. They point to suppressed evidence, witness intimidation and consequent witness perjury, a very specious confession, an admittedly biased judge and a long string of twisted appellate court rulings as evidence of a continuing conspiracy by the state of Pennsylvania to execute him. Additionally, and this is a critical basis for a civil rights investigation as occurred during the overturning of the conviction of Senator Ted Stevens of Alaska, there is extensive evidence of consistent withholding of evidence from the defense that could have led to Mumia's acquittal – photographs challenging the prosecution's version of what happened on December 9, 1981, and evidence that another person other than Mumia, his brother, and Faulkner were at the crime scene at the time Office Faulkner was shot.

The march to the Justice Department will follow the press conference and is being co-sponsored by International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, National Lawyers Guild, (NYC Chapter), WESPAC, Riverside Justice Prison Ministry, Iglesia San Romero (UCC), Campaign to End the Death Penalty, International Action Center, Peace and Justice Foundation, Families United for Justice in America, Nat Turner Rebellion, Black August Planning Committee, National Jericho Movement, , and ANSWER, among others.

The delivery of the petitions is expected to take place at 1:30 pm. The campaign has been endorsed by a broad range of individuals including Angela Davis, Ruby Dee, Charles Rangel, Cynthia McKinney, Noam Chomsky, Cornel West, and Tariq Ali.

In 1982 Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of murdering a Philadelphia police officer and sentenced to death. His case is one of the most contested in U.S. history. Prosecutors, the Fraternal Order of Police and their supporters, and even the judges involved, have always claimed to possess a watertight case justifying Abu-Jamal's conviction and sentence.

Yet Abu-Jamal's trial, conviction, and death sentence have prompted jurists and human rights organizations worldwide to denounce the trial and death sentence as a travesty of justice. They cite the open bias of the original judge, who was overheard to have said outside his courtroom, "I'm going to help them fry the n - - -- -".

Not only is this a strong indication of racial bias, a reality minimized by the judge who took over the case, but it clearly identified the absence of the requisite "judicial neutrality" expected of a judge.

The racially skewed process of jury selection, furthermore, yielded a disproportionately white jury, the disappearance of key ballistics evidence, and police intimidation of witnesses leading to perjured statements. Amnesty International, in its 2000 report called "A Life in the Balance: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal" stated that, "numerous aspects of this case clearly failed to meet minimum international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings" and strongly recommended a new trial.

Abu-Jamal's defense team identified 29 claims of violation of his constitutional rights, but Abu-Jamal has been repeatedly denied the opportunity to have evidence of his innocence and of police and prosecutorial efforts to frame and convict him seriously considered.

Abu- Jamal has always asserted his innocence and his affidavit on this is included in the press packet.

Clearly Mumia Abu-Jamal's race and his political views, as well as his widely recognized enormous talent in communicating those views, have played a key role in his being the object of a 28 year conspiracy to forever silence his voice.

We Demand A Civil Rights Investigation For Mumia Abu-Jamal!

New Videos of November 8 Event in San Francisco Expressing Solidarity With the November 12 Washington DC Action for Mumia at the Justice Department

On November 8, 2009, the SF Bay Area Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal organized an event at Centro Del Pueblo in San Francisco. The event focused on three innocent men who may soon be executed soon, depending on upcoming court rulings: Troy Davis, Kevin Cooper, and Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Read more here...

by Linn Washingtio, Jr.

here...

by Jeff Mackler

After almost 28 years on Pennsylvania’s death row and innumerable battles in the U.S. criminal injustice system, innocent political prisoner, journalist and world renowned "Voice of the Voiceless" Mumia Abu-Jamal lost his final appeal on April 6, 2009. Ignoring it’s own precedents and those of the Third Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals below it, the U.S. Supreme Court declined to affirm what had been the "law of the land" for decades, that the systematic and racist exclusion of Blacks from juries voids all guilty verdicts and mandates a new trial.

In Mumia’s 1982 trial presided over by the notorious "hanging judge" Albert Sabo, the prosecutor Joseph McGill used 10 or perhaps 11 of his 15 peremptory strikes against Black jurors. But as with virtually all court decisions over the past decades in Mumia’s case, the "Mumia Exception," the contorted interpretation of the "law" to reach a predetermined result, was once again applied, with the high court refusing to review the twisted logic of its subordinate bodies thereby allowing Mumia’s frame-up murder conviction to stand.

But what has caught the attention of both legal observers and human rights activists even more is the fact that the same court, while refusing to hear Mumia’s appeal, chose to delay a ruling on a cross appeal filed by the State of Pennsylvania that seeks Mumia’s execution. Pennsylvania prosecutors, twice rejected in their efforts to impose the death penalty on Mumia (in 2001 and 2008), may have found new support in the U.S. Supreme Court.

It appears that the court’s delay in ruling on the validity of Mumia’s original execution sentence was due to its decision to grant oral arguments in the Ohio case of Smith v. Spisak, a case that might re-write or reinterpret the nation’s laws to make it easier to obtain jury verdicts calling for execution. The Court heard Ohio prosecutor’s arguments for Spisak’s execution on October 13, 2009. A ruling is expected in the year ahead.

Frank Spisak, a neo-Nazis who wore a Hitler mustache to his trial, denounced Jews, and Blacks and confessed in court to three hate crime murders in Ohio, saw his jury-imposed death sentence reversed in the federal courts when his attorney’s successfully invoked a 1988 Supreme Court decision in the famous Mills v. Maryland case. Mills requires that in order to find mitigating circumstances sufficient to impose a sentence of life imprisonment without parole, as opposed to the death penalty, the jury’s majority decision (as opposed to unanimous decision) on each mitigating circumstance is sufficient. In both Spisak and Mumia’s case the presiding trial court judge violated Mills and in essence instructed the juries that unanimity, not a majority vote on each mitigating circumstance was required. In both cases the prosecution’s appeal was rejected and Mills was upheld, thus staying the imposed death sentences and ordering a new trial or sentencing hearing with the proper jury instructions. In both cases the prosecution, seeking to avoid a new trial in any form, appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court demanding execution.

An April 7, 2009 article in the Legal Intelligencer, the oldest law journal in the country, had this to say about the Supreme Court’s decision to delay a ruling on Pennsylvania’s request to re-impose the death penalty on Mumia.

"In both cases, [Spisak and Abu-Jamal] the federal courts' decisions to overturn the death sentences hinged on Mills v. Maryland -- a 1988 U.S. Supreme Court decision that governs how juries should deliberate during the penalty phase of a capital trial.

"The Mills ruling struck down a Maryland statute that said juries in capital cases must be unanimous on any aggravating or mitigating factor. [Emphasis added].

"The justices declared that unanimity was properly required for any aggravating factor, but that mitigating factors -- those that weigh against imposing a death sentence -- must be handled more liberally, with each juror free to find on his or her own."

The effect of Mills was to make it harder for prosecutors to obtain death sentences in capital cases. The Intelligencer concludes, "The question now before the courts is whether Mills requires that death sentences in other states be overturned if the juries in those states are misled by faulty instructions or sufficiently vague verdict forms to believe that mitigating factors require unanimity." [Emphasis added].

I emphasize the words "other states" because prior to this unexpected turn of events the legal community appeared to agree that Mills applied to all states. That is, if a jury was orally mis-instructed and/or received faulty or unclear verdict forms that implied it needed to be unanimous with regard to mitigating circumstances sufficient to not impose the death penalty, the death penalty was set aside and a new sentencing hearing was ordered.

This is what happened in Mumia’s case when Federal District Court Judge William H. Yohn in 2001 employed Mills to set aside the jury’s death penalty decision. Yohn gave the State of Pennsylvania 180 days to decide whether or not to retry Mumia at a new sentencing hearing where new evidence of innocence can be presented by Mumia, but where the jury can only decide between execution and life in prison without parole. At this hearing, the jury cannot make a decision regarding guilt. Since then, Pennsylvania officials have effectively stayed Yohn’s order by appealing to the higher federal courts.

In deciding to hear Ohio prosecutors’ arguments in the Spisak case with regard to Mills the Supreme Court has implied that one of the key issues they will consider centers on the interpretation of the concept of federalism, that is, that the exercise of power in the U.S. is shared in some measure between the federal government and the states. The political pendulum has swung back and forth on this issue. In past decades, the "states’ rights" interpretation was employed to justify racist state laws that denied Blacks access to public institutions and facilities. With the rise of the Civil Rights movement federal power was used to compel the elimination of the same racist laws. Justice has been far from blind in racist America. It is applied to the advantage of the working class and the oppressed only to the extent that the relationship of forces, that is, the struggles of the masses, demand it.

Since Mills was decided in the State of Maryland, the would-be Ohio and Pennsylvania executioners argue that based on the laws of their states, Mills cannot be automatically applied to the situation in Ohio where a different set of jury instructions and therefore jury deliberations were involved. Indeed, Ohio prosecutors argued before the Supreme Court on October 13 that Ohio and Pennsylvania were the exception and not the rule and that the norm in other states was to essentially reject a strict interpretation of Mills in favor of various state guidelines regarding jury instructions.

Should this "states’ rights" argument be accepted and Mills be effectively constricted, the Supreme Court could then uphold Spisak’s death sentence and, with a mere citation to Spisak and the new interpretation of Mills, uphold the Pennsylvania’s appeal seeking Mumia’s execution.

While most legal observers previously considered a Supreme Court Mills re-interpretation a virtual impossibility, the stage has now been set for such an outcome. The state’s longstanding effort o execute Mumia has been given new legal avenues for success with the top court’s decision to re-consider the Spisak case.

What the Supreme Court will do, however, is far from clear. It will also consider Spisak’s new attorney’s argument that his jury trial lawyers were incompetent in essentially arguing during their trial summation that Spisak was essentially an extreme and horrific nut case who barely understood what he was doing. Should the Supreme Court chose to ignore or side-step Pennsylvania’s Mills arguments and rule only on the issue of ineffective assistance of counsel, the chances of Mumia’s execution recede considerably. The court could also chose to remand the case back to the lower courts to reconsider their previous Mills interpretation in light of the Supreme Court’s possible new instructions on this issue. Second guessing the courts in Mumia’s 28-year legal sojourn has stumped virtually the entire legal community, or at least those who believe that the laws of the land should be implemented without prejudice to the individual concerned. In virtually every instance, however, this has not been the case; an unending series of legal atrocities have been perpetrated against Mumia that expose the criminal "justice" system for the fraud it is in racist and classist America.

Mumia is far from out of danger, especially when his very life, in legal terms, presently hinges on the whims of the Supreme Court, the institution that has already denied his request for a hearing before them on another issue, the systematic and racist exclusion of Black jurors. Such exclusion is explicitly prohibited in the historic 1986 Supreme Court ruling in the case of Batson v. Kentucky. But the court once again ignored its own rulings, and even decisions that strengthened Batson claims, to hasten Mumia's demise. In every sense Mumia’s life is on the line as never before. Pennsylvania’s Governor Ed Rendell is pledged to sign what could be the third and final warrant for Mumia’s execution, a warrant that would likely order that his life be taken by lethal injection.

Mumia's supporters around the world and Mumia himself have long known that the battle for his life and freedom would be qualitatively more advanced by the construction of a powerful mass movement in the streets that won the hearts and minds of millions and more than reliance on a court system permeated by its very nature with class and race bias.

The state power's march for Mumia’s execution has not been limited to the courts. The 2007 "Murdered by Mumia" book co-authored by Maureen Faulkner, the wife of police officer Daniel Faulkner, who Mumia was falsely convicted of murdering, and rightwing talk radio host, Michael Smerconish, presents an outrageous account of Faulkner’s murder. While having little or no basis in the facts of the case the book has nevertheless been used to advance the Fraternal Order of Police’s longstanding campaign to execute the "cop killer."

More recently, filmmaker Tigre Hill has produced a work scheduled for a debut in Philadelphia in December and later international distribution entitled, "The Barrel of a Gun," wherein ex-Black Panther leader Bobby Seal’s rhetoric about "offing the pig," is coupled with rightwinger David Horowitz’s assertions that Mumia was merely carrying out Panther policy. The three-minute preview or trailer to "The Barrel of a Gun" theorizes, without a shred of evidence, that Mumia and his brother Billy Cook, literally planned the Faulkner murder, ambush style.

Those unfamiliar with Mumia’s background and the facts of the case could only conclude that Mumia was guilty without question. That Mumia had left the disintegrating Panthers more than a decade before his frame-up trial, that he was an award-winning journalist and president of the Association of Black Journalists, a leading reporter/critic of the Philadelphia Police Department, dozens of whose officers were indicted and convicted on Justice Department charges of involvement in drug-running, prostitution, planting and falsification evidence and intimidation of witnesses, was not mentioned.

Today, having exhausted most all legal remedies, Mumia’s supporters are engaged in an important campaign to demand a Justice Department civil rights investigation into charges presented by his supporters that demonstrate illegal collusion between Pennsylvania prosecutors and the judiciary. A delegation of Mumia’s defenders across the country has planned a November 12 visit to Washington, D.C. where a meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder will be sought for this purpose. Thousands of petitions demanding Mumia’s freedom obtained across the world will also be presented Holder and to officials of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Similarly, a mass antiwar protest in Washington, D.C.’s Malcolm X Park is set for Saturday, November 7. In addition to the immediate withdrawal of all U.S. troops from the Middle East the sponsoring Black is Back Coalition is demanding Mumia’s freedom.

In the San Francisco Bay Area the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal is sponsoring a tour with Amnesty International’s Death Penalty Abolition Campaign leader Laura Moye. Entitled "Innocent but Facing Execution," the tour will focus on the cases of Mumia, Troy Davis and Kevin Cooper, three innocent frame-up victims of America's racist criminal "justice" system.

For information in Philadelphia call: 215-476-8812. In San Francisco: 510-268-9429.

They Want to Kill Mumia Abu-Jamal - But Joint Action by Us All Can Prevent This!

Click here...

Recently the lynch mob around M. Smerconish started activities to get the US-public warmed up to the idea of murdering Mumia Abu-Jamal by the state of Pennsylvania. They published articles all over the US and in Europe, too. E.g. the German weekly SPIEGEL fell to their propaganda and published Smerconish influenced lies on almost 5 pages this summer. Now Smerconish paid a filmmaker, Tigre Hill to produce a new vicious attack on reality. They will publish a film about Mumia Abu-jamal and Daniel Faulkner in December 2009. The german author Michael Schiffmann had a look at various press releases and wrote the following article with the title "The Fantasies of Joe McGill"

More here...

From the New York City FREE MUMIA Coalition:

Sisters and Brothers,

We are very happy to announce that the National Writers Union, United Auto Workers Local 1981, has passed a resolution supporting the Civil Rights Investigation of the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Take note, union organizers, community group activists, and church/mosque/synagogue attendees – your group, too, can pass such a resolution!

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Whereas award-winning, prolific writer and broadcast journalist Mumia Abu Jamal was accorded honorary membership in the National Writers Union in 1995 and he thereafter worked actively with the Philadelphia Chapter for many years;

Whereas the principle of a fair trial is a constitutional right;

Whereas those who support Mumia believe that he did not receive a fair trial in 1982 based on more than 20 well-documented legal issues;

Whereas extensive evidence of prosecutorial and judicial misconduct in Mumia's trial has surfaced that could have led to Mumia's acquittal (which was the basis on which Attorney General Holder used to overturn the conviction this spring of former Senator Stevens of Alaska);

Whereas Mumia is still on death row in Pennsylvania after 27 years and the Supreme Court this spring turned down a petition to review his request for a new trial;

Whereas the NAACP adopted a resolution at its 2009 convention to press Attorney General Holder to conduct a civil rights investigation of his case;

Hereby be it resolved that the NWU in solidarity with our honorary member Mumia Abu-Jamal endorse the NAACP resolution and sign the petition for a civil rights investigation of Mumia's case.

(Deutsche Übersetzung)

Very interesting video Interview on the question of what really happened on Dec. 9, 1981 when Mumia was shot and arrested fpor a murder of an police officer.

Journalists for Mumia has been working closely with the folks organizing the campaign for a federal civil rights investigation, and we are now releasing two new resources to be used for this campaign. Please help spread the word, and if you have access to photo-copying resources, please help by printing what you can!

• First, is a new, double-sided, 8.5 x 11, ballistics flyer detailing the many different problems with the ballistics evidence that was used to convict Mumia. This flyer explicitly shows why the prosecution's scenario of the shooting is ballistically impossible:
  here...


• Second, there is the 6,000 word article I wrote for the SF Bay View Newspaper, spotlighting the civil rights campaign, and detailing 5 key pieces of evidence that were withheld. This article is now available as a four page, 8.5 x 11, pdf file, that can also be made into one double sided, 11X17 booklet/pamphlet:
  here...


• Right now, organizing efforts are being focused on mobilizing for the July 13 press conference at the NAACP National Convention in New York City, the day that Attorney General Eric Holder is speaking. If you don't live close enough to New York City, there are still many ways to help support this campaign. Please check out the campaign's new web page for more information:
  here...

On April 6, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal from death-row journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of white Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in a 1982 trial deemed unfair by Amnesty International, the European Parliament, the Japanese Diet, Nelson Mandela and numerous others. Citing the Supreme Court denial and several instances of withheld evidence, Abu-Jamal’s international support network is now calling for a federal civil rights investigation into Abu-Jamal's case.

for more read here...

This article by Milton McGriff from May 6, 2009 deals with Philadelphia's D.A.s and their twist of trial notes in order to reach the death penalty against Mumia Abu-Jamal.

here...

here...

The Liberator Magazine BlogFRIDAY, APRIL 24, 2009
In Her Own Words: An interview wit' Angela Davis
Source: The Liberator Magazine
here...

[2-day liberatormagazine.com featured story]

JR Valrey is the Minister of Information for the Prisoners Of Conscience Committee, an Oakland based organization founded by Fred Hampton, Jr. with the mission to liberate the minds and hearts of African and colonized people. The POCC takes the stand that all prisoners are political. JR is a regular contributor to The Liberator.

In Her Own Words. An interview wit' Angela Davis: Angela Davis is a legendary political activist professor in the U.C. System who has a history of resistance. She is a former political prisoner who has done work with the Communist Party, and she is also author of 8 books analyzing race, class, and gender. She also is a cofounder of the prison abolitionist group, Critical Resistance. She recently wrote a foreword to political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal's new book "Jailhouse Lawyers", in which the Block Report did an interview with her to help promote.

I was first taught about Angela Davis being a political prisoner, later on the first jailhouse lawyer that I met through the mail was her codefendant who is still locked up, Ruchell Magee, whom I used to write occasionally. So this book gave me a better insight into what life as a jailhouse lawyer really is like. I dug the fact that Mumia picked a subject that is rarely discussed on this side of the walls. I learned a lot and it wet my appetite to wanting to learn more about these legal warriors. Check out Angela Davis as she talks about her foreword in Mumia's new book, in her own words...

M.O.I. JR: I want to talk to you today about your foreword in Mumia Abu Jamal's new book, "Jailhouse Lawyers". Since I know a lot of readers do not have the book, I want to start off with reading a few quotes, and I will ask you questions in relation to the quotes. You say in your foreword, "Mumia points to me what was for me a startling revelation. Jailhouse lawyers comprised the group most likely to be punished by the prison administration, more so than political prisoners, Black people, gang members, and gay prisoners whereas jailhouse layers are punished by what Mumia calls 'cover charges'. Historically they could be charged with internal violations for no other reason that they used the law to challenge prison guards, prison regimes, and prison conditions. In your opinion what is the importance of Mumia choosing jailhouse lawyers to be the subject for his new book?

Angela: Well first of all, this is an amazing book. Everyone should read this book. And I was extremely excited to learn that he was working on a book on jailhouse lawyers because the story of jailhouse lawyers is a hidden story. Most people in this country are not aware of the extent to which resistance to the regimes of prisons, state prisons, federal prisons all over the country, has been shaped through the work of jailhouse lawyers. There is a long tradition of resistance. And Mumia, himself, is a jailhouse lawyer. And if one thinks about how many men and women have used the law in order to challenge the prison regimes, one gets a sense of what a powerful legacy that resistance is.

M.O.I. JR: In another quote in your foreword you say, "Mumia argues that the passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act is a violation of the Convention Against Torture for in ruling out psychological or mental injury as a basis to recover damages such sexual coercion that was represented in the Abu Ghraib photographs if perpetrated inside of a U.S. prison, would not have constituted evidence for a lawsuit. Why did you point this out in your foreword?

Angela: Many people assume that the the P.L.R.A., the Prison Litigation Reform Act, as I tried to point out in the foreword, simply prevents prisoners from engaging in frivolous lawsuits. But as Mumia points out, it is a pointed attack on the capacity of prisoners to use the law itself. It is not about frivolity at all, it is about taking away from prisoners one of the only instruments that they've been able to develop to challenge the whole system. So we can't assume that under the Clinton administration the P.L.R.A. was passed, and that put prison lawsuits to rest. It's important for those of us on the outside to support the rights of prisoners to use the law to resist the violence of the state.

M.O.I. JR: Again to quote you, you say in the foreword of "Jailhouse Lawyer", "The way he situates the P.L.R.A. historically as an inheritance of the Black Codes, which were themselves descended from the Slave Codes, allows to recognize the extent to which historical memories of slavery and racism are prescribed in the very structures of the prison system, and have helped to produce the Prison Industrial Complex." Can you discuss the importance of Mumia making this connection in "Jailhouse Lawyers"?

Angela: Well this is one of the things that I really loved about Mumia, he knows how to make these historical connections. He makes connections with what might appear to be very dispirit and different kinds of phenomenon, for example he points out that the P.L.R.A. was passed at the same time as the disestablishment of the welfare system, and that there is a connection between preventing women primarily from having access to safety nets for their families, and this assault on prisoners being able to defend themselves. So I really like the way that he makes those connections with slavery. I think of the prison system today in this country, and especially the system of capital punishment, I think of it as a historical memory of slavery, as a palpable inheritance of slavery. And as a matter of fact, the existence of those systems provide us with real evidence of the fact that slavery was not fully abolished. So I like the way in which he can show us the similarities between the Black Codes, that were produced in the aftermath of slavery to basically replicate the system of slavery after slavery was allegedly abolished. And the P.R.L.A. serves a similar contemporary purpose.

M.O.I. JR: Again, you write in "Jailhouse Lawyers", in the last sentence, "He (Mumia), allows us to reflect on the fact that transformational possibilities often emerge where we least expect them." Why did you end your foreword with that statement in this book?

Angela: Well you know because people don't usually think of prisoners in general as defending democracy. They think of the prison as the underside, the underbelly, of democracy; as the place where you send people who no longer have the right to be citizens. But I think that what Mumia does, he manages to portray jailhouse lawyers in such a ways as to persuade us regardless of what our political persuasions might be, the jailhouse lawyers have been, in a sense, on the front line of the defense of democracy. I'm not talking about capitalists democracy. I'm not talking about neo-liberal democracy. I'm talking about the kind of democracy that would also tend to not only political equality, but racial equality, economic equality, and sexual equality as well.

M.O.I. JR: What is the importance of us recognizing that Mumia is facing deathrow right at this second, right when he released such an eloquent book on jailhouse lawyers? You also pointed out in this foreword that he rarely speaks of himself, so in the midst of this being a time of the first Black president of America, what does Mumia's imprisonment, with all the flaws in his case, say about the real political climate in America?

Angela: Well, first of all, Mumia's case is so important for us to get involved in. We have to save his life. We have to free Mumia. And yeah, as many people acknowledge he rarely uses his amazing talent and capacities to advocate for himself. He's always advocating for others, and that is all the more reason to be passionate advocates for him. I have traveled in other parts of the world a great deal, and there are movements to free Mumia all over the world. Sometimes I feel very embarrassed that we have not managed to overcome the power of the Fraternal Order of Police for example and the other conservative forces that are determined to put Mumia to death. But this book is yet another reason why we need to defend him, and why we need to use whatever is available to us, whatever knowledge, whatever instruments are available to us to guarantee that his life is saved and that he is eventually set free.

Excerpts from Mumia's book Jailhouse Lawyer's, including Angela Y. Davis's complete foreword can be downloaded as a PDF for free from the City Lights Web site.

FREE MUMIA!

We are pleased to announce a very important new development regarding Mumia's December 19, 2008 appeal to the US Supreme Court: On Thursday March 5, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (NAACPLDF) filed an amicus brief (a friend of the court brief) in support of Mumia's claim of racial discrimination in the selection of the jury for his 1981 death penalty trial. Those who have followed Mumia's legal case, will recall that a decision acknowledging such a bias in Mumia's case, that is the granting of the "Batson issue", would mean that Mumia would get a completely new trial on the issue of guilt not just on the issue of the sentence given him (life in prison or execution).

The NAACPLDF's brief supports Mumia's request for a US Supreme Court review of his appeal urging enforcement of the laws that require courts to promptly investigate evidence of discrimination against African American prospective jurors. It objects to the Third Circuit's use of a restrictive interpretation of Batson v. Kentucky that denied Mumia the affirmation of his claim. This very narrow interpretation of "Batson", which many legal observers were surprised by and saw it as violating numerous precedents set by the Third Circuit itself (!), was originally put forward by the three judge panel that many of us saw in Court in Philadelphia in 2007, and was later sustained by the entire Third Circuit on July 3, 2008.

March 5th, 2009

NAACP Legal Defense Fund Files Brief in Supreme Court in Mumia Abu-Jamal Case (New York, NY)

Today the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) filed a friend of the court brief in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal's claim of racial discrimination in the selection of the jury for his 1981 death penalty trial. LDF's brief supports Mr. Abu-Jamal's request for United States Supreme Court review of his appeal urging enforcement of the laws that require courts to promptly investigate evidence of discrimination against African American prospective jurors. Specifically, LDF objects to the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit's use of a restrictive interpretation of Batson v. Kentucky, a Supreme Court decision prohibiting prosecutors from excluding prospective jurors on the basis of race, to conclude that Mr. Abu-Jamal failed to present sufficient evidence to support his claim of racial discrimination in jury selection. LDF's brief explains that the Third Circuit's conclusion that the only way to prove that racial discrimination infected the jury selection process is to document the race of all members from the panel of prospective jurors and the race of all stricken jurors ignores other significant indicators of discrimination in jury selection and contradicts the Supreme Court's command that courts examine a wide array of evidence to properly ferret out discrimination in jury selection.

As applied to Mr. Abu-Jamal's case, the Third Circuit decision means that the trial prosecutor's pattern of strikes against African-American prospective jurors, a culture of discrimination in the prosecutor's office (including a videotaped training advocating the exclusion of prospective jurors of color), a comprehensive statistical study documenting a pattern of exclusion of prospective jurors of color by the prosecutor's office and other such evidence is insufficient to suggest discrimination. LDF's brief explains that turning a blind eye to such credible evidence of discrimination not only conflicts with the law but also undermines public confidence in integrity of the courts. "We believe that the Third Circuit's interpretation of the law will have the effect of shielding discrimination and undermining the rights of criminal and capital defendants to a fair trial. It is our hope that the Supreme Court will accept and review Mr. Abu-Jamal's case to mak e sure that courts respond promptly and appropriately when confronted with real questions about the existence of racial discrimination in jury selection ," said John Payton, LDF President and Director-Counsel. # # #

ABOUT LDF
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF) is America's legal counsel on issues of race. Through advocacy and litigation, LDF focuses on issues of education, voter protection, economic justice and criminal justice. We encourage students to embark on careers in the public interest through scholarships and internship programs. LDF pursues racial justice to move our nation toward a society that fulfills the promise of equality for all. Mel Gagarin, Media Manager (212) 965-2783 or mgagarin@naacpldf.org