Wednesday, October 12, 2011

EMAJ: US Supreme Court Rejects D.A.’s Appeal in Mumia Case

From Educators For Mumia Abu-Jamal:


US Supreme Court Rejects D.A.’s Appeal in Mumia Case


For the news freshly announced, consult the report from the Legal Defense Fund here. An excellent analysis of the meaning of this is provided in Dave Lindorff’s new column.

In addition, Johanna Fernandez, EMAJ Co-Coordinator and historian at Baruch College/CUNY, sent in these words, reminding us all of the December 9 event at Constitution Center:

Today, the Supreme Court refused to hear arguments presented by the Philadelphia DA’s Office that would have challenged the Mills claim in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. That the Supreme Court refused to hear the DA’s arguments means that the high court has upheld Mumia’s Mills claim, a claim that was twice upheld previously by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. What is important about the Mills claim is that it calls for a new penalty-phase trial if defendants can prove that at trial jurors were poorly instructed on the rules governing the weighing of evidence mitigating against the death penalty, as in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

What this all means for the Abu-Jamal case is that the Philadelphia DA’s office has a limited amount of time to either call for a new penalty-phase trial or place Mumia, who is currently on death row, in general population to serve a life sentence of imprisonment without parole.

While this is confirmation on the part of the Supreme Court that Mumia’s trial was corrupt to the core and riddled with constitutional rights violations, the possibility of serving life in prison without parole is no victory for Mumia.

DECEMBER 9, 2011 is the next step in the struggle to release Mumia Abu-Jamal.

December 9th marks the 30th year-to-the-day of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s incarceration.

An innocent man, and an important humanist and revolutionary voice of our time, has been wrongfully imprisoned for 30 YEARS! 

So in the words of Joe Hill, let us “raise less corn and more hell;”  and let us take Occupy Wall Street and the struggle against the New Jim Crow to the City of Brotherly Love.

Join us at

The National Constitution Center, Philadelphia
December 9th at 7 pm


Speakers:
Cornel West
Arandhati Roy (via Video)
Michelle Alexander (via Video)
Ramona Africa
Vijay Prashad
Immortal Technique
Michael Coard
IMPACT YOUTH THEATRE OF HARLEM
and many others.

In Struggle,

Johanna Fernandez, Ph.D.
Department of History
Baruch College, City University of New York
Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Writer/Producer, Justice on Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal

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