January 20, 2010
by Minister of Information JR
Pam Africa, chairwoman of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, was a key organizer of the large demonstration outside the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals when Mumia’s case was heard there on May 17, 2007. Now the Supreme Court has ordered the case back to that court. –
On Tuesday, Jan. 19, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal and granted the Philadelphia DA’s petition for a writ of certiorari. Basically, the Supreme Court went against the lower federal circuit court’s 2001 and 2008 rulings, which granted a new sentencing phase jury trial if the death penalty was to be reinstated in Jamal’s case. Now the case goes back down to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, who will decide whether they will re-impose the death penalty without the jury trial.
In a recent interview with the Block Report, Mumia spoke about the Spisak case, in which the death penalty has since been reinstated for the white supremacist murderer Frank Spisak. The question is how this will affect Mumia’s case since they both dealt with the Mills issue, which addresses confusing jury instructions.
We are now at the highest level of Code Red in the case of Mumia Abu Jamal. The people must come to this tireless souljah’s defense.
I interviewed Pam Africa, the chairwoman of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal, about the direction of the “Free Mumia” movement at this critical time …
M.O.I. JR: Now that we have this information on how the Supreme Court wants to move on Mumia’s case, how is the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu Jamal moving? And what do they need from the people?
Pam Africa: One thing that people need to understand is that this is a very crucial time. What we’re doing today, we’re having a press conference in front of the District Attorney’s Office here in Philadelphia.
This is the first Black DA in the city of Philadelphia. His name is Seth Williams, who ran on the platform that when he became district attorney, he would execute Mumia. That’s why we’re having the demonstration there, because it eventually will end up in the hands of the district attorney.
The district attorney are the ones that are applying for this death sentence on Mumia. I know that they are battling Mills (the case concerning jury instructions) and everything else, but people must stay focused. The time is very short in dealing with the case of Mumia.
People must organize around the world. There are two petitions that are happening: One is by a group of people over in Germany with Mumia’s attorney, Robert Bryan, calling on President Obama to get involved in the case and get Mumia a new case, because he never had a trial, really.
But we’re calling on the attorney general. When I say we, I’m saying there are several groups and organizations that is spearheaded by the New York (Free Mumia Abu-Jamal) Coalition that is calling on the attorney general, because what we’re pointing out is that Mumia cannot get any fairness whatsoever.
Brewing right here is another example of what it is we’re talking about. Mumia cannot get any fairness in this court system, so we’re calling on the U.S. attorney general to do a civil rights investigation into this case, because Mumia’s civil rights from the beginning to the end, and our civil rights as citizens of this United States who have pointed out the evidence very clearly (are threatened). That nobody can get around: Mumia is innocent. He is factually innocent.
And what we’re asking people to do is to sign both of the petitions on behalf of Mumia. The one that the attorney is putting out there, because when he petitions and all, Obama, Obama’s next move is that he has to go to the U.S. attorney general. And when he comes to the U.S. attorney general, he will fully know that our last person who signed the petition for the civil rights investigation was Skip Gates, who sat down and had a beer after he was beat up by the police, you know, at the White House. I’m saying, he signed the petition. We have people that are right in the ear of Obama and the attorney general.
And I want to point out very clearly, we have no hope whatsoever in the system. Our faith, Mumia’s faith, is in the people. Will the people rise up and do what is right? Shaka Sankofa is dead because the people didn’t consistently stay on top of these people when they did wrong.
Tookie Williams, when they executed him, when they murdered him in cold-blood when the movement was moving, it should’ve continued to move that way. There are magnificent things that are happening in California around the death penalty, but everybody must unite together and move as one up against this government for the sake of Brotha (Troy) Davis, for the sake of all the brothas that’s on death row right now.
Again there is Academics for Mumia, who are at Princeton University, who is having a meeting pulling academics together, and we’re asking the academics to sign both of these petitions while they educate people. I’m telling you people, we are not without the evidence. If you go to the website at Journalists for Mumia, if you go into the Bay View, you will find all of the evidence that you need to bring the system down to its knees.
Once again, do not be duped by time; time is running out. And I know that when this next step is made, as I understand, things might be like six months and then it will go to the DA. The time might be a little bit off, but we don’t have much time. It’s time for them people to get into them churches, make them ministers get up, make these politicians get up, you know, make the people rise up, as they did in 1999, when we did Millions for Mumia. The time is now for organizing, organizing with all of the strength that you have.
And I just want to thank people like the Partisan Defense Committee, Labor for Mumia, the Mobilization for Mumia, Millions for Mumia. These people have stayed steadfast, and if I haven’t mentioned the names of other people, there is a lot of individuals – JR and the Bay View – for keeping this issue up front in the people’s eye.
The time is now for organizing, organizing with all of the strength that you have. People must pull together to abolish the death penalty. Save this brotha who has been on the front lines, from deathrow, on every issue of social justice that there is.
And I will be down (in the Bay) on Feb. 18. I’ll be in California, from the 18th to the 23rd. I’m coming down there for the brotha of the San Francisco 8 (Francisco Torres’) hearing. I’m coming down there for Brotha JR’s hearing, and I wish I could be in LA when they bring this murderous cop (who murdered) Oscar Grant there, but I’m going to be pushing for people to get there – everybody who can.
This death sentence that was handed out to this brotha; we can’t allow it, people. And I’m saying y’all have been an example to all of the people around the world of resistance (of what can be done) when people be consistent at what they do. Y’all have had something done here when y’all had that murderous monster arrested. It must continue. This dude must sit on deathrow. That is where he needs to sit with all of the other people. And let people fight to get his behind off of deathrow.
You know, it can’t be enough said: People must pull together. You must abolish the death penalty because it is wrong, all the way across the board. We must support JR and all of the brothas and sistas that was arrested. This is what Mumia is pushing for; this is what we’re pushing for.
When we come to California, we’ll be having more information about Mumia. The movement is moving real fast, so please while you are organizing for everything, tell people that they must get into the streets in order to save this brotha who has been on the front lines, from deathrow, on every issue of social justice that there is.
Email POCC Minister of Information JR, Bay View associate editor, at blockreportradio@gmail.com and visit www.blockreportradio.com .
http://www.sfbayview.com/2010/pam-africa-on-the-supreme-court-ruling-against-mumia/
Thursday, January 21, 2010
Wednesday, January 20, 2010
A Supreme Court blow to anti-death penalty icon Mumia Abu-Jamal
http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/content/view/print/274655
The Supreme Court on Tuesday reversed an appeals court ruling that would have given Mumia Abu-Jamal a chance to avoid the dealth penalty. Some opponents of capital punishment have championed Abu-Jamal's case.
By Warren Richey Staff writer
posted January 19, 2010 at 2:05 pm EST
Washington
Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose death sentence for killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981 has become an international cause célèbre for opponents of capital punishment, has suffered a significant setback at the US Supreme Court.
In a summary order issued on Tuesday, the high court reversed a 2008 federal appeals court ruling that had required a new sentencing hearing for Mr. Abu-Jamal.
The Supreme Court action sends the case back to the Third US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to reconsider the issue in light of a similar decision handed down last week by the high court. In that case, with similar facts, the justices voted 9 to 0 to reverse an order that struck down the death sentence.
Tuesday’s action by the Supreme Court likely moves Abu-Jamal significantly closer to execution.
Abu-Jamal’s writings about his legal plight have attracted widespread attention among human rights activists and capital punishment opponents in the US and Europe. He has maintained that the police coerced witnesses to testify against him and that racial prejudice and discrimination played a role in his death sentence.
This week, supporters began circulating a petition to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder calling for an investigation into the “long history of civil rights and constitutional violations in this case.”
The case against Abu-Jamal
The case stems from a December 1981 traffic stop in which Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner pulled over a car driven by Abu-Jamal’s brother, William Cook. Abu-Jamal was a passenger in the car. A struggle broke out between Mr. Cook and Officer Faulkner.
According to witnesses, as the struggle continued Abu-Jamal ran back toward the car from a parking lot across the street and shot Faulkner in the back. The officer fell to the ground and returned fire, striking Abu-Jamal in the chest. Abu-Jamal then allegedly walked toward the officer, stood over him, and fired four more shots at close range. One shot struck Faulkner between the eyes.
He was convicted and sentenced to death. The jury found one aggravating factor – killing a police officer who was acting in the line of duty. The jury considered one mitigating factor, Abu-Jamal’s lack of a significant criminal record.
It is the sentencing phase of the trial that was under consideration in the appeal to the Supreme Court.
Confusion in sentencing?
Both a federal judge and a federal appeals court had ruled that the jury that sentenced Abu-Jamal to death might have been confused over how to properly assess mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of the trial.
At issue was whether jurors might have thought that they had to unanimously agree on each piece of mitigating evidence being weighed against the aggravating circumstances justifying a death sentence.
There is no unanimity requirement for jurors considering mitigating circumstances. They are free to consider anything that might weigh against a death sentence.
In contrast, all jurors must agree on any aggravating factors. In addition, jurors must unanimously decide that the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that those aggravating factors outweigh any mitigating circumstances.
The 'Mills standard'
In some cases jurors have been given faulty instructions by the trial judge that jurors must unanimously agree on the mitigating factors. Such instructions are inaccurate and unconstitutional under a 1988 Supreme Court decision called Mills v. Maryland.
In the Mills case the high court ruled that a defendant must receive a new sentencing hearing whenever there is a “substantial possibility that reasonable jurors … well may have thought they were precluded from considering any mitigating evidence unless all 12 jurors agreed.”
In the Abu-Jamal case, the federal appeals court ruled that Abu-Jamal should either receive a new sentencing hearing or have his death sentence be changed to a life sentence.
Last Tuesday, the high court decided a similar case, Smith v. Spisak. The case was like Abu-Jamal’s in that a state court had upheld the jury instructions and verdict form, but a federal appeals court overturned that ruling after concluding that there was a violation of the Mills standard.
Supreme Court's decision
In the Spisak case, the high court reversed the federal appeals court in a decision that will make it harder in future cases to argue possible juror confusion short of a judge actually giving the wrong instructions to the jury.
“The instructions did not say that the jury must determine the existence of each individual mitigating factor unanimously,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the majority opinion last week. “Neither the instructions nor the forms said anything about how – or even whether – the jury should make individual determinations that each particular mitigating circumstance existed.”
Justice Breyer added: “In our view the instructions and verdict forms did not clearly bring about, either through what they said or what they implied, the circumstances that Mills found critical.”
It will now be up to the Third Circuit to apply this new, tougher test to the facts of Abu-Jamal’s case.
The case is Beard v. Abu-Jamal.
The Supreme Court on Tuesday reversed an appeals court ruling that would have given Mumia Abu-Jamal a chance to avoid the dealth penalty. Some opponents of capital punishment have championed Abu-Jamal's case.
By Warren Richey Staff writer
posted January 19, 2010 at 2:05 pm EST
Washington
Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose death sentence for killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981 has become an international cause célèbre for opponents of capital punishment, has suffered a significant setback at the US Supreme Court.
In a summary order issued on Tuesday, the high court reversed a 2008 federal appeals court ruling that had required a new sentencing hearing for Mr. Abu-Jamal.
The Supreme Court action sends the case back to the Third US Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia to reconsider the issue in light of a similar decision handed down last week by the high court. In that case, with similar facts, the justices voted 9 to 0 to reverse an order that struck down the death sentence.
Tuesday’s action by the Supreme Court likely moves Abu-Jamal significantly closer to execution.
Abu-Jamal’s writings about his legal plight have attracted widespread attention among human rights activists and capital punishment opponents in the US and Europe. He has maintained that the police coerced witnesses to testify against him and that racial prejudice and discrimination played a role in his death sentence.
This week, supporters began circulating a petition to President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder calling for an investigation into the “long history of civil rights and constitutional violations in this case.”
The case against Abu-Jamal
The case stems from a December 1981 traffic stop in which Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner pulled over a car driven by Abu-Jamal’s brother, William Cook. Abu-Jamal was a passenger in the car. A struggle broke out between Mr. Cook and Officer Faulkner.
According to witnesses, as the struggle continued Abu-Jamal ran back toward the car from a parking lot across the street and shot Faulkner in the back. The officer fell to the ground and returned fire, striking Abu-Jamal in the chest. Abu-Jamal then allegedly walked toward the officer, stood over him, and fired four more shots at close range. One shot struck Faulkner between the eyes.
He was convicted and sentenced to death. The jury found one aggravating factor – killing a police officer who was acting in the line of duty. The jury considered one mitigating factor, Abu-Jamal’s lack of a significant criminal record.
It is the sentencing phase of the trial that was under consideration in the appeal to the Supreme Court.
Confusion in sentencing?
Both a federal judge and a federal appeals court had ruled that the jury that sentenced Abu-Jamal to death might have been confused over how to properly assess mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of the trial.
At issue was whether jurors might have thought that they had to unanimously agree on each piece of mitigating evidence being weighed against the aggravating circumstances justifying a death sentence.
There is no unanimity requirement for jurors considering mitigating circumstances. They are free to consider anything that might weigh against a death sentence.
In contrast, all jurors must agree on any aggravating factors. In addition, jurors must unanimously decide that the prosecution has proved beyond a reasonable doubt that those aggravating factors outweigh any mitigating circumstances.
The 'Mills standard'
In some cases jurors have been given faulty instructions by the trial judge that jurors must unanimously agree on the mitigating factors. Such instructions are inaccurate and unconstitutional under a 1988 Supreme Court decision called Mills v. Maryland.
In the Mills case the high court ruled that a defendant must receive a new sentencing hearing whenever there is a “substantial possibility that reasonable jurors … well may have thought they were precluded from considering any mitigating evidence unless all 12 jurors agreed.”
In the Abu-Jamal case, the federal appeals court ruled that Abu-Jamal should either receive a new sentencing hearing or have his death sentence be changed to a life sentence.
Last Tuesday, the high court decided a similar case, Smith v. Spisak. The case was like Abu-Jamal’s in that a state court had upheld the jury instructions and verdict form, but a federal appeals court overturned that ruling after concluding that there was a violation of the Mills standard.
Supreme Court's decision
In the Spisak case, the high court reversed the federal appeals court in a decision that will make it harder in future cases to argue possible juror confusion short of a judge actually giving the wrong instructions to the jury.
“The instructions did not say that the jury must determine the existence of each individual mitigating factor unanimously,” Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in the majority opinion last week. “Neither the instructions nor the forms said anything about how – or even whether – the jury should make individual determinations that each particular mitigating circumstance existed.”
Justice Breyer added: “In our view the instructions and verdict forms did not clearly bring about, either through what they said or what they implied, the circumstances that Mills found critical.”
It will now be up to the Third Circuit to apply this new, tougher test to the facts of Abu-Jamal’s case.
The case is Beard v. Abu-Jamal.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Supreme Court ruling due on Tuesday
Supreme Court to rule on famed death penalty case
9:09am EST
By Jon Hurdle
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court is expected on Tuesday to issue its latest decision on the fate of Mumia Abu-Jamal, arguably America's most famous death-row inmate, convicted of slaying a Philadelphia policeman, a crime he denies committing.
The court is due to rule on an appeal by the Philadelphia district attorney who is seeking to have Abu-Jamal executed and bring an end to a decades-long legal saga the inmate, a former journalist, wrote about while in prison.
Abu-Jamal, now 55, was convicted in 1982 of killing officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9, 1981. He has become an international cause celebre for the anti-death penalty movement whose supporters argue strenuously he did not receive a fair trial.
His backers say he was framed by police, that prosecution witnesses were coerced into false testimony and that ballistics evidence shows Abu-Jamal did not shoot Faulkner but that the murder was committed by another man who fled the scene.
Supporters also claim that Abu-Jamal, who is black, was the victim of a racist and notoriously pro-prosecution trial judge, the now-deceased Albert Sabo, who was overheard to say, "Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the nigger," according to an affidavit by a court stenographer.
Faulkner's widow, Maureen, and Philadelphia's Fraternal Order of Police oppose any clemency for Abu-Jamal, arguing his conviction has been upheld repeatedly by numerous courts, including the Supreme Court, over three decades.
They note that bullet fragments taken from Faulkner's body match the ammunition from the gun carried by Abu-Jamal who was earning his living as a taxi driver at the time of the killing.
If the Supreme Court rules in his favor, Abu-Jamal would get a new jury trial on the sentencing, but not his conviction.
But a defeat is likely to send the case back to an appeals court, whose ruling would be based on a new Supreme Court decision on jury instructions in another case, said his attorney, Robert R. Bryan.
Abu-Jamal has been in solitary confinement on death row since the conviction, and has been held since 1995 in a western Pennsylvania prison where he has written books and contributed to international journals and radio shows.
Outside the United States, Abu-Jamal's backers include the human rights group Amnesty International, which in 2000 called for a new trial, arguing his conviction and sentence followed "contradictory and incomplete evidence" in a trial that failed to meet minimum international standards of justice.
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
9:09am EST
By Jon Hurdle
PHILADELPHIA (Reuters) - The U.S. Supreme Court is expected on Tuesday to issue its latest decision on the fate of Mumia Abu-Jamal, arguably America's most famous death-row inmate, convicted of slaying a Philadelphia policeman, a crime he denies committing.
The court is due to rule on an appeal by the Philadelphia district attorney who is seeking to have Abu-Jamal executed and bring an end to a decades-long legal saga the inmate, a former journalist, wrote about while in prison.
Abu-Jamal, now 55, was convicted in 1982 of killing officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9, 1981. He has become an international cause celebre for the anti-death penalty movement whose supporters argue strenuously he did not receive a fair trial.
His backers say he was framed by police, that prosecution witnesses were coerced into false testimony and that ballistics evidence shows Abu-Jamal did not shoot Faulkner but that the murder was committed by another man who fled the scene.
Supporters also claim that Abu-Jamal, who is black, was the victim of a racist and notoriously pro-prosecution trial judge, the now-deceased Albert Sabo, who was overheard to say, "Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the nigger," according to an affidavit by a court stenographer.
Faulkner's widow, Maureen, and Philadelphia's Fraternal Order of Police oppose any clemency for Abu-Jamal, arguing his conviction has been upheld repeatedly by numerous courts, including the Supreme Court, over three decades.
They note that bullet fragments taken from Faulkner's body match the ammunition from the gun carried by Abu-Jamal who was earning his living as a taxi driver at the time of the killing.
If the Supreme Court rules in his favor, Abu-Jamal would get a new jury trial on the sentencing, but not his conviction.
But a defeat is likely to send the case back to an appeals court, whose ruling would be based on a new Supreme Court decision on jury instructions in another case, said his attorney, Robert R. Bryan.
Abu-Jamal has been in solitary confinement on death row since the conviction, and has been held since 1995 in a western Pennsylvania prison where he has written books and contributed to international journals and radio shows.
Outside the United States, Abu-Jamal's backers include the human rights group Amnesty International, which in 2000 called for a new trial, arguing his conviction and sentence followed "contradictory and incomplete evidence" in a trial that failed to meet minimum international standards of justice.
(Editing by Philip Barbara)
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
US Supreme Court will hold Friday conference about Mumia's case
Yesterday there was a huge development in Mumia's case.
According to a posting yesterday on the US Supreme Court's website, the Court has scheduled a conference for this Friday, January 15, to discuss Mumia's case. Specifically, they are looking at the Philadelphia DA's request to have Mumia executed without a new sentencing hearing.
The Supreme Court has apparently been waiting for the ruling on the Spisak case, which was also released yesterday. In Spisak, the court ruled to reinstate Spisak's death sentence, but it is still unclear what impact this ruling will have. The common thread between Mumia and Spisak is the "Mills" precedent, and the Court yesterday ruled that Spisak's case did not meet the standards of Mills.
This is the link to the Supreme Court posting:
http://origin.www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/08-652.htm
Here is a recent article by Jeff Mackler, explaining the importance of the Spisak case:
http://www.phillyimc.org/en/mumia-abu-jamal-faces-new-execution-threat
According to a posting yesterday on the US Supreme Court's website, the Court has scheduled a conference for this Friday, January 15, to discuss Mumia's case. Specifically, they are looking at the Philadelphia DA's request to have Mumia executed without a new sentencing hearing.
The Supreme Court has apparently been waiting for the ruling on the Spisak case, which was also released yesterday. In Spisak, the court ruled to reinstate Spisak's death sentence, but it is still unclear what impact this ruling will have. The common thread between Mumia and Spisak is the "Mills" precedent, and the Court yesterday ruled that Spisak's case did not meet the standards of Mills.
This is the link to the Supreme Court posting:
http://origin.www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/08-652.htm
Here is a recent article by Jeff Mackler, explaining the importance of the Spisak case:
http://www.phillyimc.org/en/mumia-abu-jamal-faces-new-execution-threat
Rosa Luxemburg Weekend in Berlin
by Victor Grossman
It was the Rosa Luxemburg weekend again in Berlin, like every January, this time with an unusual highlight. Despite the transportation delays caused by big snowstorms, two conferences and the traditional memorial march kept leftists from all over Germany and guests from other countries very busy.
The emotional peak occurred during the main conferenceon Saturday, organized by the newspaper junge Welt("Young World"), with speakers from Honduras, Cuba, France, and Canada and discussions on the recession, the role of unions in fighting back, and the campaign to withdraw German troops from Afghanistan, recently strengthened by a courageous statement by the woman who heads the Lutheran Church in Germany.
But it was lawyer Robert Bryanwho warmed the hearts of the audience in the big hall, or rather his client Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose fight for life, recalling fights of previous generations for Sacco and Vanzetti or Angela Davis, was clearly known to the over a thousand people present. A voice tape with Mumia has been featured at these annual conferences for many years. But this time Bryan had arranged for Mumia to use his 15 minutes of telephone time to speak directly to the conference. One journalist, Birgit Gaertner, described it this way:
Robert held his mobile to the microphone so that we all could hear him, and he could hear us. Immediately there was tumultuous applause, minute after minute. It was a breathtaking moment of overpowering feeling. Robert told us that Mumia was in tears. So was I. And we realized that solidarity was not only important for legal or political battles but also, very personally, for him.
Mumia was allowed to speak with Robert for fifteen minutes. Since he knew that so many were listening, he spoke of his daily life in prison and thanked everyone for the great support from Germany. His fifteen minutes were soon used up, just a brief connection with the outside world, a small link with life, and then he had to plod back into his cell, shackled and handcuffed, alone again with the chaotic feelings undoubtedly stirred by the telephone call with Berlin. Thinking about it brought new tears to my eyes.
A smaller conference on the same day brought together anti-fascist groups from all over the country to discuss how best to combat neo-Nazis who march every weekend through dozens of German cities and continue violent attacks on people who look foreign or look like leftists. A big Nazi march is planned again for February 13th in Dresden, the 65th anniversary of the destruction of that city in World War Two. In an attempt to win popular support based on this still emotionally charged event, they try to misuse it as a balance, "Dresden's Auschwitz." The city police are again expected to protect the Nazi march as "legally permitted," but the anti-fascists decided to try again to block its route under the slogan "non pasaran," "They shall not pass," recalled from the Spanish Civil War. The Nazis expect up to 10,000 in a region where they are particularly strong. The anti-fascists are intent on outnumbering them.
On Sunday, after the conferences, the participants in the march were certainly more numerous. The goal was the big memorial stone dedicated to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the great, very beloved socialists who fought to end World War One and then helped found a Communist Party just two weeks before they were murdered. Between 3,000 and 10,000, depending on who was counting, chose the longer route through the wide Karl Marx Allee, defying bitter cold and snow-filled streets. They formed a colorful bouquet of leftist groups, some from Die Linke(The Left) party, others from the Communist Party or others of many views and directions, mostly ultra-left, Maoists, groups still waving flags of the German Democratic Republic and its youth organization, one Turkish group with a banner showing Luxemburg, Liebknecht, and Lenin as well as Stalin and Mao. There were also Greek Communists, Basque supporters, Kurdish groups. The banners competed in color and size, but all the very varied groups walked peacefully together through the snow. Six blocks before the Cemetery of Socialists, their final goal, they mingled with the big crowds which had preferred to take the subway this far. After passing the many booths with their books, manifestos, petitions, or simply sausages or soup, they walked around the big stone monument with the words "The dead call to us" and placed red carnations there in the snow. The estimated number, all told, was about 40,000, less than the previous year, due to the weather, but enough to impress greatly the American and Norwegian participants I spoke to. It was a big crowd who defied snow and ice; the "old faithful" were there as ever, but there were even more young people.
For those in Die Linke, undoubtedly a majority of the main "subway" crowd, it was a crucial for showing their feelings. The party, which won a big victory in the September elections, has been upset by charges and countercharges involving various leading personalities, made possible by the absence due to illness of the key leader Oskar Lafontaine. The major media have been busy trying to heat up a quarrel between small but growing party organizations in Western Germany, most of them close to Lafontaine, and party leaders in Eastern Germany, whose support by 20 to 30 percent of the population has made it possible to join coalition governments in Berlin, Brandenburg, with good chances next year for two more. This strategy is one of the controversial issues involved. A party meeting on the Monday after the demonstration featured an attempt to sort out the differences, a vital need if the party is to make headway in the May elections in North Rhine/Westphalia, the largest state in Germany in terms of population, and a key in political directions for both the government and the opposition.
The demonstration of 40,000 left-wingers on Sunday, still devoted to the hopes and dreams of Karl and Rosa, should and may perhaps have acted as a signal. Nearly everyone expects the right-wing central government of Angela Merkel, once the May elections are over, to tear gaping new holes in the raggedy German "social net," and to expand abroad wherever possible. Strong opposition by all on the left will then be desperately urgent.
___________________________________
Victor Grossman, American journalist and author, is a resident of East Berlin for many years. He is the author of Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany(University of Massachusetts Press, 2003).
___________________________________
URL: mrzine.monthlyreview.org/grossman120110.html
It was the Rosa Luxemburg weekend again in Berlin, like every January, this time with an unusual highlight. Despite the transportation delays caused by big snowstorms, two conferences and the traditional memorial march kept leftists from all over Germany and guests from other countries very busy.
The emotional peak occurred during the main conferenceon Saturday, organized by the newspaper junge Welt("Young World"), with speakers from Honduras, Cuba, France, and Canada and discussions on the recession, the role of unions in fighting back, and the campaign to withdraw German troops from Afghanistan, recently strengthened by a courageous statement by the woman who heads the Lutheran Church in Germany.
But it was lawyer Robert Bryanwho warmed the hearts of the audience in the big hall, or rather his client Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose fight for life, recalling fights of previous generations for Sacco and Vanzetti or Angela Davis, was clearly known to the over a thousand people present. A voice tape with Mumia has been featured at these annual conferences for many years. But this time Bryan had arranged for Mumia to use his 15 minutes of telephone time to speak directly to the conference. One journalist, Birgit Gaertner, described it this way:
Robert held his mobile to the microphone so that we all could hear him, and he could hear us. Immediately there was tumultuous applause, minute after minute. It was a breathtaking moment of overpowering feeling. Robert told us that Mumia was in tears. So was I. And we realized that solidarity was not only important for legal or political battles but also, very personally, for him.
Mumia was allowed to speak with Robert for fifteen minutes. Since he knew that so many were listening, he spoke of his daily life in prison and thanked everyone for the great support from Germany. His fifteen minutes were soon used up, just a brief connection with the outside world, a small link with life, and then he had to plod back into his cell, shackled and handcuffed, alone again with the chaotic feelings undoubtedly stirred by the telephone call with Berlin. Thinking about it brought new tears to my eyes.
A smaller conference on the same day brought together anti-fascist groups from all over the country to discuss how best to combat neo-Nazis who march every weekend through dozens of German cities and continue violent attacks on people who look foreign or look like leftists. A big Nazi march is planned again for February 13th in Dresden, the 65th anniversary of the destruction of that city in World War Two. In an attempt to win popular support based on this still emotionally charged event, they try to misuse it as a balance, "Dresden's Auschwitz." The city police are again expected to protect the Nazi march as "legally permitted," but the anti-fascists decided to try again to block its route under the slogan "non pasaran," "They shall not pass," recalled from the Spanish Civil War. The Nazis expect up to 10,000 in a region where they are particularly strong. The anti-fascists are intent on outnumbering them.
On Sunday, after the conferences, the participants in the march were certainly more numerous. The goal was the big memorial stone dedicated to Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, the great, very beloved socialists who fought to end World War One and then helped found a Communist Party just two weeks before they were murdered. Between 3,000 and 10,000, depending on who was counting, chose the longer route through the wide Karl Marx Allee, defying bitter cold and snow-filled streets. They formed a colorful bouquet of leftist groups, some from Die Linke(The Left) party, others from the Communist Party or others of many views and directions, mostly ultra-left, Maoists, groups still waving flags of the German Democratic Republic and its youth organization, one Turkish group with a banner showing Luxemburg, Liebknecht, and Lenin as well as Stalin and Mao. There were also Greek Communists, Basque supporters, Kurdish groups. The banners competed in color and size, but all the very varied groups walked peacefully together through the snow. Six blocks before the Cemetery of Socialists, their final goal, they mingled with the big crowds which had preferred to take the subway this far. After passing the many booths with their books, manifestos, petitions, or simply sausages or soup, they walked around the big stone monument with the words "The dead call to us" and placed red carnations there in the snow. The estimated number, all told, was about 40,000, less than the previous year, due to the weather, but enough to impress greatly the American and Norwegian participants I spoke to. It was a big crowd who defied snow and ice; the "old faithful" were there as ever, but there were even more young people.
For those in Die Linke, undoubtedly a majority of the main "subway" crowd, it was a crucial for showing their feelings. The party, which won a big victory in the September elections, has been upset by charges and countercharges involving various leading personalities, made possible by the absence due to illness of the key leader Oskar Lafontaine. The major media have been busy trying to heat up a quarrel between small but growing party organizations in Western Germany, most of them close to Lafontaine, and party leaders in Eastern Germany, whose support by 20 to 30 percent of the population has made it possible to join coalition governments in Berlin, Brandenburg, with good chances next year for two more. This strategy is one of the controversial issues involved. A party meeting on the Monday after the demonstration featured an attempt to sort out the differences, a vital need if the party is to make headway in the May elections in North Rhine/Westphalia, the largest state in Germany in terms of population, and a key in political directions for both the government and the opposition.
The demonstration of 40,000 left-wingers on Sunday, still devoted to the hopes and dreams of Karl and Rosa, should and may perhaps have acted as a signal. Nearly everyone expects the right-wing central government of Angela Merkel, once the May elections are over, to tear gaping new holes in the raggedy German "social net," and to expand abroad wherever possible. Strong opposition by all on the left will then be desperately urgent.
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Victor Grossman, American journalist and author, is a resident of East Berlin for many years. He is the author of Crossing the River: A Memoir of the American Left, the Cold War, and Life in East Germany(University of Massachusetts Press, 2003).
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URL: mrzine.monthlyreview.org/grossman120110.html
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
Wednesday, January 06, 2010
American Justice is Blind, But the Scales are Rigged
By Dave Lindorff
When it comes to justice in America, the scales definitely badly need a visit by an inspector from the Department of Weights and Standards.
Consider the recent decision by Federal Judge Ricardo Urbina tossing out the federal indictment of five Blackwater (Now Xe) mercenaries for the 2007 slaughter of 14 innocent Iraqis in Baghdad. The judge found that federal prosecutors had improperly used incriminating statements which he said had been "compelled" from the Blackwater personnel under "threat of job loss."
Let's compare that to how the courts have handled other cases. We might start with John Walker Lindh, the young American captured in the first days of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Indicted on charges of conspiring to kill Americans, Lindh, currently serving a 20 year sentence after a plea agreement reached with the government, never had his case thrown out, though the government's main evidence was a statement allegedly made by him (this on the word of an FBI agent) that he had been a member of the Taliban and Al Qaeda--a statement that even if actually made, had come at a time that Lindh was being kept duct-taped to a gurney and held in an unheated, unlit metal shipping container, with an untreated bullet wound in his leg, and denied access to an attorney. Surely the coercion behind this "confession"--Lindh's military captors allegedly were threatening him that he would die in Afghanistan--was at least as severe as the threat to Blackwater guards that they could lose their jobs if they didn't tell what had happened at the bloody shooting in Baghdad. Yet Lindh's charges were allowed to stand.
Or compare the Blackwater case to the case of Philadelphia journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has been on Pennsylvania's death row now for 27 years for the 1981 killing of a white Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner. Abu-Jamal was convicted largely on the basis of testimony by two alleged "eye-witnesses": an African-American prostitute named Cynthia White and a white taxi driver named Robert Chobert. White gave wildly different accounts of what she had "seen" from her position on the sidewalk several car lengths away from the shooting. In her first statement to police, on Dec. 9, 1981, the day of the shooting, she claimed the shooter of officer Faulkner had "fired the gun at the police officer four or five times" after which "the police officer fell to the ground, started screaming." But after that initial interview, White kept being picked up again and again by police, who would bring her to homicide where she would be re-interviewed. Each time, her version of what she had seen would change, and the number of shots fired at the officer while he was standing would get lower, from "four or five shots" on Dec. 12, to "one or two shots" on Dec. 17, to just one shot on Jan. 8. Asked at trial by Abu-Jamal's attorney why her account of what she had seen kept changing, White replied, "They were asking me questions, and they asked me in a different way to explain it." Was White being coerced by police investigators into making perjured testimony? White was a prostitute. Police kept arresting her on the street and asking her the same questions over and over. At least one fellow prostitute, Veronica Jones, later testified that she had been similarly pressured by police, with the offer allegedly being made that if she said what police investigators wanted, she would be left alone and would even be protected in her street-walking activity.
Chobert, meanwhile, the taxi driver, claimed to have been parked in his taxi behind Officer Faulkner's squad car, when he witnessed the shooting two cars ahead of him. There has always been a question as to whether Chobert was really parked where he said he was. White, in two drawings of the scene done for police investigators, showed Faulkner's car, Abu-Jamal's brother's car, and a Ford that was not involved in the incident at all, but she did not show any taxi. Nor did any other witness report seeing Chobert or his cab. In any event, while Joseph McGill, the assistant DA prosecuting the case, assured the jury of Chobert's integrity ("Do you think anybody could get him to say anything that wasn't the truth?" he asked them rhetorically in his summation.), in fact, he had worked assiduously to prevent them from knowing that this witness actually was a convicted arsonist (he had thrown a molotov cocktail into an elementary school for money and was currently on out on probation for a five year sentence). McGill also convinced the judge to keep from the jury the information that Chobert was driving his cab on a license that had been suspended for a DWI conviction--something that could have been used to revoke his probation and send him to jail to serve his term. Further, McGill failed to tell either the jury or the judge or the defense that Chobert had asked him if the prosecutor could help him "fix" his license problem. Clearly, Chobert was also testifying in this controversial case under considerable coercion.
Yet through years of appeals, though the evidence of coerced testimony is clear in this case, no judge has seen fit to toss out Abu-Jamal's conviction and order a new trial.
Although it is clearly anathema to any kind of fair trial, coercion is commonplace in American "justice." Whether a judge will decide that the coercion of confessions or of witnesses requires the tossing out of an indictment, or the overturning of a conviction, though, appears to have more to do with the political connections of the defendant than with the merits of the case.
John Walker Lindh was portrayed in the months before his trial as "the American Taliban" by no less than the Attorney General of the United States, John Ashcroft. He was widely portrayed in the media at the time as a traitor to America, though he had actually joined up with Taliban fighters in August of 2001, a month before the 9-11 attacks at a time that the US had no troops in Afghanistan, and was actually holding governmental meetings with the Taliban government over a pipeline deal, and over efforts to attack opium growing in the country.
Abu-Jamal, since the shooting of Officer Faulkner, has been the target of a nationwide campaign by the police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, to have him convicted and executed.
There is really no doubt that Blackwater "security guards" working for the US military and State Department, perhaps fearing they were under attack, went on a shooting rampage in a Baghdad intersection, mowing down 14 civilians, including women and children, and wounding many more. One of the group initially charged even confessed and is currently serving jail time for his actions. But in the view of a federal judge, the fear on the part of his colleagues that they might lose their jobs if they didn't tell investigators what had happened makes their initial confessions "coerced," and since those statements were used by federal prosecutors as a basis for their indictment of the men, the indictment was flawed and had to be tossed out.
American justice at work.
The scales are not balanced.
DAVE LINDORFF, a Philadelphia-area journalist, is the author of "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal" (Common Courage Press, 2003). His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
When it comes to justice in America, the scales definitely badly need a visit by an inspector from the Department of Weights and Standards.
Consider the recent decision by Federal Judge Ricardo Urbina tossing out the federal indictment of five Blackwater (Now Xe) mercenaries for the 2007 slaughter of 14 innocent Iraqis in Baghdad. The judge found that federal prosecutors had improperly used incriminating statements which he said had been "compelled" from the Blackwater personnel under "threat of job loss."
Let's compare that to how the courts have handled other cases. We might start with John Walker Lindh, the young American captured in the first days of the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. Indicted on charges of conspiring to kill Americans, Lindh, currently serving a 20 year sentence after a plea agreement reached with the government, never had his case thrown out, though the government's main evidence was a statement allegedly made by him (this on the word of an FBI agent) that he had been a member of the Taliban and Al Qaeda--a statement that even if actually made, had come at a time that Lindh was being kept duct-taped to a gurney and held in an unheated, unlit metal shipping container, with an untreated bullet wound in his leg, and denied access to an attorney. Surely the coercion behind this "confession"--Lindh's military captors allegedly were threatening him that he would die in Afghanistan--was at least as severe as the threat to Blackwater guards that they could lose their jobs if they didn't tell what had happened at the bloody shooting in Baghdad. Yet Lindh's charges were allowed to stand.
Or compare the Blackwater case to the case of Philadelphia journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who has been on Pennsylvania's death row now for 27 years for the 1981 killing of a white Philadelphia police officer, Daniel Faulkner. Abu-Jamal was convicted largely on the basis of testimony by two alleged "eye-witnesses": an African-American prostitute named Cynthia White and a white taxi driver named Robert Chobert. White gave wildly different accounts of what she had "seen" from her position on the sidewalk several car lengths away from the shooting. In her first statement to police, on Dec. 9, 1981, the day of the shooting, she claimed the shooter of officer Faulkner had "fired the gun at the police officer four or five times" after which "the police officer fell to the ground, started screaming." But after that initial interview, White kept being picked up again and again by police, who would bring her to homicide where she would be re-interviewed. Each time, her version of what she had seen would change, and the number of shots fired at the officer while he was standing would get lower, from "four or five shots" on Dec. 12, to "one or two shots" on Dec. 17, to just one shot on Jan. 8. Asked at trial by Abu-Jamal's attorney why her account of what she had seen kept changing, White replied, "They were asking me questions, and they asked me in a different way to explain it." Was White being coerced by police investigators into making perjured testimony? White was a prostitute. Police kept arresting her on the street and asking her the same questions over and over. At least one fellow prostitute, Veronica Jones, later testified that she had been similarly pressured by police, with the offer allegedly being made that if she said what police investigators wanted, she would be left alone and would even be protected in her street-walking activity.
Chobert, meanwhile, the taxi driver, claimed to have been parked in his taxi behind Officer Faulkner's squad car, when he witnessed the shooting two cars ahead of him. There has always been a question as to whether Chobert was really parked where he said he was. White, in two drawings of the scene done for police investigators, showed Faulkner's car, Abu-Jamal's brother's car, and a Ford that was not involved in the incident at all, but she did not show any taxi. Nor did any other witness report seeing Chobert or his cab. In any event, while Joseph McGill, the assistant DA prosecuting the case, assured the jury of Chobert's integrity ("Do you think anybody could get him to say anything that wasn't the truth?" he asked them rhetorically in his summation.), in fact, he had worked assiduously to prevent them from knowing that this witness actually was a convicted arsonist (he had thrown a molotov cocktail into an elementary school for money and was currently on out on probation for a five year sentence). McGill also convinced the judge to keep from the jury the information that Chobert was driving his cab on a license that had been suspended for a DWI conviction--something that could have been used to revoke his probation and send him to jail to serve his term. Further, McGill failed to tell either the jury or the judge or the defense that Chobert had asked him if the prosecutor could help him "fix" his license problem. Clearly, Chobert was also testifying in this controversial case under considerable coercion.
Yet through years of appeals, though the evidence of coerced testimony is clear in this case, no judge has seen fit to toss out Abu-Jamal's conviction and order a new trial.
Although it is clearly anathema to any kind of fair trial, coercion is commonplace in American "justice." Whether a judge will decide that the coercion of confessions or of witnesses requires the tossing out of an indictment, or the overturning of a conviction, though, appears to have more to do with the political connections of the defendant than with the merits of the case.
John Walker Lindh was portrayed in the months before his trial as "the American Taliban" by no less than the Attorney General of the United States, John Ashcroft. He was widely portrayed in the media at the time as a traitor to America, though he had actually joined up with Taliban fighters in August of 2001, a month before the 9-11 attacks at a time that the US had no troops in Afghanistan, and was actually holding governmental meetings with the Taliban government over a pipeline deal, and over efforts to attack opium growing in the country.
Abu-Jamal, since the shooting of Officer Faulkner, has been the target of a nationwide campaign by the police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, to have him convicted and executed.
There is really no doubt that Blackwater "security guards" working for the US military and State Department, perhaps fearing they were under attack, went on a shooting rampage in a Baghdad intersection, mowing down 14 civilians, including women and children, and wounding many more. One of the group initially charged even confessed and is currently serving jail time for his actions. But in the view of a federal judge, the fear on the part of his colleagues that they might lose their jobs if they didn't tell investigators what had happened makes their initial confessions "coerced," and since those statements were used by federal prosecutors as a basis for their indictment of the men, the indictment was flawed and had to be tossed out.
American justice at work.
The scales are not balanced.
DAVE LINDORFF, a Philadelphia-area journalist, is the author of "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal" (Common Courage Press, 2003). His latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net
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