From Political Prisoner News
http://www.phillyimc.org/en/speaking-truth-power-review-jailhouse-lawyers-prisoners-defending-prisoners-v-usa
Speaking Truth to Power
by J. Patrick O'Connor
CrimeMagazine.com, April 5, 2009
Mumia Abu-Jamal's 27 years on Death Row for a murder he did not commit would have turned almost anyone else into an embittered, defeated man. Instead, he has remained what he always was, "the voice of the voiceless," as he demonstrates yet again in his most recent book, Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A. (City Lights Books, 2009.)
Through hundreds of essays, radio commentaries and now six well-written, meticulously researched books, he has defied the walls that encase him to speak out against oppression. His voice his heard weekly throughout the United States on Pacifica Radio and his writings are read and admired throughout much of the world. From the bowels of Death Row, where 3,600 others languish in the United States, Abu-Jamal presses on for justice, day after day, year after year.
Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A. opens a tightly shut door into the operations of the U.S. penal system by chronicling the exploits of dozens of jailhouse lawyers – both men and women – who have fought the injustices the courts and the prisons have dealt them and their fellow prisoners. Their accomplishments, against all odds, have been incredible. Their story is a story never before told.
For the vast majority of the 2.3 million prisoners in the United States and for Abu-Jamal himself, the overriding, inescapable reality about the U.S. justice system is that the law is only what a judge says it is.
As Abu-Jamal has found out through his long and tortuous appeal process, "What published opinions claim, in all their legal niceties, matters little." Although he does not reference his own case in this or any other book he has written, valid constitutional legal claims that have won others new trials have done nothing for him. It did not matter to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, a federal district court, or a U.S. court of appeals that the prosecutor at his 1982 violated his constitutional right to a fair trial by using peremptory challenges to purge 10 otherwise qualified blacks from sitting on his jury. It didn't matter even though the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Batson in 1986 that racial discrimination in jury selection was grounds for a new trial. (Abu-Jamal currently has a request for a Writ of Certiorari before the U.S. Supreme Court on his Batson claim, a request that marks his final legal recourse. If Cert is denied, he will remain in prison for life barring clemency by a future governor of Pennsylvania.)
Abu-Jamal himself is a jailhouse lawyer, who wryly notes that it is "the bane" of the vast majority of jailhouse lawyers "to be able to help everybody but themselves." He references a Pennsylvania case where he and another jailhouse lawyer won a new trial for an inmate sentenced to death. Given this new chance, the inmate copped a plea and had his sentence reduced to life, a reduction that got him off Death Row into the general prison population.
Becoming a jailhouse lawyer has long been met with retaliation by prison guards and prison administrators. Even to this day, jailhouse lawyers are the most discriminated against and punished by prison authorities. Abu-Jamal cites a 1991 nationwide study led by scholar Mark S. Hamm entitled "The Myth of Humane Imprisonment" that "found that no segment of the modern prison population – not blacks nor gays nor AIDS patients nor gang members – outweighed jailhouse lawyers when it came to prisoners who were targeted by the prison administration for punishment."
The report noted that guards and administrators "had a standard practice of singling out jailhouse lawyers for discipline and retaliation for challenging the status quo." Abu-Jamal finds it telling "that those who, for the most part, are most apt to use pen and paper – rather than, say, a 'lock in a sock' – to address and resolve grievances, are the most targeted of all prison populations." To this day, in every "hole" in every prison, Abu-Jamal writes, "you will find some jailhouse lawyers who are there on pretextual – and frequently false – disciplinary reports," even though since 1969 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled it was unconstitutional to discipline prisoners for representing themselves or other prisoners.
In that case, Johnson v. Avery, the high court rejected Tennessee's punishment against an inmate for assisting a fellow prisoner with his legal work.
No nation in the world incarcerates as many of its citizens as does the United States. Right now one in every 99 people in the country is behind bars. More staggering is that one in every nine black men between the ages of 20 and 34 is in prison. Because blacks are so overrepresented in U.S. prisons, Abu-Jamal sees the prison system as nothing more than a modern day extension of the Slave Codes that prevailed before the Civil War and the Black Codes that took their place in the South right after it. For the newly emancipated blacks living below the Mason-Dixon Line, the Black Codes criminalized various behaviors for which only blacks could be "duly convicted." Black Codes made crimes of vagrancy, breach of job contracts, absence from work, the possession of firearms, and insulting gestures or acts.
President Clinton, a former constitutional law professor, signed into law in 1996 two draconian measures that undermined what little recourse prisoners have to post-conviction justice. One was the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act that made it far more onerous and difficult for prisoners to file wrongful convictions claims in Federal Courts; the other was the Prison Litigation Reform Act which limited the number of suits prisoners could file in federal courts and flat out barred suits against the state for mental or emotional injury. No longer could a prisoner seek redress or compensation for psychological damages inflicted by sociopathic guards who make sport of demeaning prisoners. Ironically, the ringleader of the Abu Ghraib guards in Iraq was a former guard at SCI-Greene in Pennsylvania where Abu-Jamal is incarcerated. "Long before U.S. Army Reserve Corporal Charles Graner brought pain, humiliation, and torture to Iraqi people detailed in Abu-Ghraib outside Bagdad, he was giving the blues to prisoners in Pennsylvania, where he was known as a brutal, sadistic, racist guard," Abu-Jamal writes.
Under the Prison Litigation Reform Act, the acts of mental torture committed at Abu Ghraib, if committed in U.S. prisons, would have no standing.
"Is it surprising," Abu-Jamal asks, "that a nation that began its existence with Slave Codes, then continued for a century with an equally repressive set of Black Codes, would institute, by hook or crook, Prisoner Codes?"
Despite the Prison Litigation Reform Act, Abu-Jamal estimates there are tens of thousands jailhouse lawyers practicing pro se for themselves and their fellow inmates. They do this out of need, particularly when it comes to challenging unfair prison conditions, and because the great majority of prisoners are not entitled to court-appointed counsel post-conviction. In the first instance, real lawyers are banned from representing inmates in suits against prisons and prison authorities in every state but Arizona. In the second instance, court-appointed attorneys – for a myriad of reason, but mostly relating to money – have failed miserably in representing the legal and constitutional rights of indigent defendants at their original trials.
As Clarence Darrow stated over a hundred years ago, "…the courts are not instruments of justice. When your case gets into court it will make little difference whether you are guilty or innocent, but it's better if you have a smart lawyer. And you cannot have a smart lawyer unless you have money. First and last it's a question of money…We have no system for doing justice, not the slightest in the world."
Darrow said that if the courts were organized to promote justice "the people would elect somebody to defend all these criminals, somebody as smart as the prosecutor – and give him as many detectives and as many assistants to help, and pay as much money to defend you as to prosecute you."
Because the justice system in the United States has become so politicized around "law and order" and has erected an entire industry to house those convicted, the United States – which represents 5 percent of the world's population – now incarcerates 25 percent of the world's prison population. That would go a long way in explaining why there are tens of thousands of jailhouse lawyers working pro se for themselves and other inmates and why Abu-Jamal's latest book is such an important one.
--J. Patrick O’Connor is the editor of Crime Magazine (www.crimemagazine.com) and the author of 'The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal', published by Lawrence Hill Books in 2008.
Solidarity events will be held in the US around April 24, to mark Mumia's birthday and the release of Jailhouse Lawyers. Read more about events in: Philadelphia,
NYC, Oakland, Boston, Portland, Washington, DC, and Baltimore.
Read reviews by: Linn Washington, Jr. and Kiilu Nyasha
Read the foreword by former political prisoner Angela Y. Davis and an interview with Mumia about his new book. Also read the previous PhillyIMC feature.
Thursday, April 09, 2009
Monday, April 06, 2009
Supreme Court lets Mumia Abu-Jamal's conviction stand
http://www.cnn.com/2009/CRIME/04/06/mumia.supreme.court/
By Bill Mears
CNN Supreme Court Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court has let stand the conviction of former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was sent to death row for gunning down a Philadelphia police officer 28 years ago.
He contends blacks were unfairly excluded from the jury, and has been an outspoken activist from behind bars.
The justices made their announcement Monday.
A separate appeal over whether Abu-Jamal deserves a new sentencing hearing has not been taken up by the high court.
Prosecutors are appealing a federal appeals court ruling in Abu-Jamal's favor last year on the sentencing issue. The case has attracted international attention amid charges of prosecutorial misconduct and the inmate's outspoken personality.
Abu-Jamal, a former radio reporter and cab driver has been a divisive figure, with many prominent supporters arguing that racism pervaded his trial. Others countered Abu-Jamal is using his skin color to escape responsibility for his actions. They say he has divided the community for years with his provocative writing and activism.
He was convicted for the December 9, 1981, murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner, 25, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Faulkner had pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother in a late-night traffic stop. Witnesses said Abu-Jamal, who was nearby, ran over and shot the policeman in the back and in the head.
Abu-Jamal, once known as Wesley Cook, was also wounded in the encounter and later confessed to the killing, according to other witnesses testimony.
Abu-Jamal is black and the police officer was white.
Incarcerated for nearly three decades, Abu-Jamal has been an active critic of the criminal justice system.
On a Web site created by friends to promote the release this month of his new book, the prisoner-turned-author writes about his fight. "This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multi-billion dollar endowed universities but in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America."
His chief defense attorney, Robert Bryan, had urged the justices to grant a new criminal trial, but the high court offered no explanation for its refusal to intervene.
"The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection," Bryan wrote to supporters last month. Ten whites and two blacks made up the original jury panel that sentenced Abu-Jamal to death.
A three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals a year ago kept the murder conviction in place, but ordered a new capital sentencing hearing. That court ultimately concluded the jury was improperly instructed on how to weigh "mitigating factors" offered by the defense that might have kept Abu-Jamal off death row.
Pennsylvania law at the time said jurors did not have to unanimously agree on a mitigating circumstance, such as the fact that Abu-Jamal had no prior criminal record.
Months before that ruling, oral arguments on the issue were contentious. Faulkner's widow and Abu-Jamal's brother attended, and demonstrations on both sides were held outside the courtroom in downtown Philadelphia.
Many prominent groups and individuals, including singer Harry Belafonte, the NAACP and the European Parliament, are cited on his Web site as supporters. Prosecutors have insisted Abu-Jamal pay the price for his crimes, and have aggressively resisted efforts to take him of death row for Faulkner's murder.
"This assassination has been made a circus by those people in the world and this city who believe falsely that Mumia Abu-Jamal is some kind of a folk hero," said Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham last year, when the federal appeals court upheld the conviction. "He is nothing short of an assassin."
By Bill Mears
CNN Supreme Court Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Supreme Court has let stand the conviction of former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was sent to death row for gunning down a Philadelphia police officer 28 years ago.
He contends blacks were unfairly excluded from the jury, and has been an outspoken activist from behind bars.
The justices made their announcement Monday.
A separate appeal over whether Abu-Jamal deserves a new sentencing hearing has not been taken up by the high court.
Prosecutors are appealing a federal appeals court ruling in Abu-Jamal's favor last year on the sentencing issue. The case has attracted international attention amid charges of prosecutorial misconduct and the inmate's outspoken personality.
Abu-Jamal, a former radio reporter and cab driver has been a divisive figure, with many prominent supporters arguing that racism pervaded his trial. Others countered Abu-Jamal is using his skin color to escape responsibility for his actions. They say he has divided the community for years with his provocative writing and activism.
He was convicted for the December 9, 1981, murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner, 25, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Faulkner had pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother in a late-night traffic stop. Witnesses said Abu-Jamal, who was nearby, ran over and shot the policeman in the back and in the head.
Abu-Jamal, once known as Wesley Cook, was also wounded in the encounter and later confessed to the killing, according to other witnesses testimony.
Abu-Jamal is black and the police officer was white.
Incarcerated for nearly three decades, Abu-Jamal has been an active critic of the criminal justice system.
On a Web site created by friends to promote the release this month of his new book, the prisoner-turned-author writes about his fight. "This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multi-billion dollar endowed universities but in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America."
His chief defense attorney, Robert Bryan, had urged the justices to grant a new criminal trial, but the high court offered no explanation for its refusal to intervene.
"The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection," Bryan wrote to supporters last month. Ten whites and two blacks made up the original jury panel that sentenced Abu-Jamal to death.
A three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals a year ago kept the murder conviction in place, but ordered a new capital sentencing hearing. That court ultimately concluded the jury was improperly instructed on how to weigh "mitigating factors" offered by the defense that might have kept Abu-Jamal off death row.
Pennsylvania law at the time said jurors did not have to unanimously agree on a mitigating circumstance, such as the fact that Abu-Jamal had no prior criminal record.
Months before that ruling, oral arguments on the issue were contentious. Faulkner's widow and Abu-Jamal's brother attended, and demonstrations on both sides were held outside the courtroom in downtown Philadelphia.
Many prominent groups and individuals, including singer Harry Belafonte, the NAACP and the European Parliament, are cited on his Web site as supporters. Prosecutors have insisted Abu-Jamal pay the price for his crimes, and have aggressively resisted efforts to take him of death row for Faulkner's murder.
"This assassination has been made a circus by those people in the world and this city who believe falsely that Mumia Abu-Jamal is some kind of a folk hero," said Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham last year, when the federal appeals court upheld the conviction. "He is nothing short of an assassin."
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Jericho 4th Annual Day in Solidarity with Palestinian Political Prisoners
Links between the Struggle for Black Liberation in the U.S. and the Struggle for Palestine
With
Lamis Deek of Al-Awda
Al-Awda Youth
Palestinian Dance Troupe
Keynote Speaker:
Robert Hillary King of the Angola 3
Robert Hillary King spent 32 years at Angola Prison, 29 of them in solitary confinement
Sunday, April 19, 2009 - 3 to 7 p.m.
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th Street, 5th Floor
$5 Donation (nobody turned away)
Light Refreshments Provided
Special thanks to the IAC for opening their doors to us on a Sunday!
Sponsors:
NYC Jericho Movement, NYC ABCF, NYC Free Mumia Coalition
For more information: nycjericho@gmail.com • www.jerichony.org • 718-853-0893
With
Lamis Deek of Al-Awda
Al-Awda Youth
Palestinian Dance Troupe
Keynote Speaker:
Robert Hillary King of the Angola 3
Robert Hillary King spent 32 years at Angola Prison, 29 of them in solitary confinement
Sunday, April 19, 2009 - 3 to 7 p.m.
Solidarity Center
55 W. 17th Street, 5th Floor
$5 Donation (nobody turned away)
Light Refreshments Provided
Special thanks to the IAC for opening their doors to us on a Sunday!
Sponsors:
NYC Jericho Movement, NYC ABCF, NYC Free Mumia Coalition
For more information: nycjericho@gmail.com • www.jerichony.org • 718-853-0893
CNN Article on Mumia
Ex-Panther says racism put him on death row
By Bill Mears
CNN Supreme Court Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Mumia Abu-Jamal sits on Pennsylvania's death row, perhaps the most recognized of the 228 condemned inmates at the Greene Correctional Facility, an hour south of Pittsburgh.
Abu-Jamal, inmate AM8335, awaits three milestones. His new book, "Jailhouse Lawyers," will be released next month. He's also awaiting a pair of Supreme Court decisions, which could come in the next two weeks.
The former Black Panther was sentenced to die for gunning down a Philadelphia police officer 28 years ago. The high court will decide whether he deserves a new hearing to determine whether his execution should go forward.
The state is appealing a federal appeals court ruling on the sentencing question that went in Abu-Jamal's favor last year. The case has attracted international attention.
Abu-Jamal's lawyers filed a separate appeal claiming that racism led to his 1982 conviction. That petition is scheduled for consideration by the Supreme Court on April 3. If either case is accepted by the justices for review, oral arguments would be held in the fall.
The former radio reporter and cab driver has been a divisive figure, with many prominent supporters arguing that racism pervaded his trial.
Others counter that Abu-Jamal is using his skin color to escape responsibility for his actions. They say he has divided the community for years with his provocative writing and activism.
He was convicted for the December 9, 1981, murder of officer Daniel Faulkner, 25, in Philadelphia.
Faulkner had pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother in a late-night traffic stop. Witnesses said Abu-Jamal, who was nearby, ran over and shot the police officer in the back and in the head.
Abu-Jamal, once known as Wesley Cook, was also wounded in the confrontation and later admitted to the killing, according to other witnesses' testimony.
Abu-Jamal is black, and the police officer was white.
Incarcerated for nearly three decades, Abu-Jamal has been an active critic of the criminal justice system.
On a Web site created by friends to promote his release, the prisoner-turned-author writes about his fight. "This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multi-billion dollar endowed universities but in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America."
His chief defense attorney, Robert Bryan, has filed appeals asking for a new criminal trial.
"The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection," he wrote to supporters last month.
"We are in an epic struggle in which his life hangs in the balance. What occurs now in the Supreme Court will determine whether Mumia will have a new jury trial or die at the hands of the executioner," Bryan said. Ten whites and two blacks made up the original jury panel that sentenced him to death.
A three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals kept the murder conviction in place a year ago but ordered a new capital sentencing hearing.
"The jury instructions and the verdict form created a reasonable likelihood that the jury believed it was precluded from finding a mitigating circumstance that had not been unanimously agreed upon," Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica wrote in the 77-page opinion.
The federal appeals court ultimately concluded that the jury was improperly instructed on how to weigh "mitigating factors" offered by the defense that might have kept Abu-Jamal off death row. Pennsylvania law at the time said jurors did not have to unanimously agree on a mitigating circumstance, such as the fact that Abu-Jamal had no prior criminal record.
Months before that ruling, oral arguments on the issue were contentious. Faulkner's widow and Abu-Jamal's brother attended, and demonstrations on both sides were held outside the courtroom in downtown Philadelphia.
If the Supreme Court refuses now to intervene on the sentencing issue, the city's prosecutor would have to decide within six months whether to conduct a new death penalty sentencing hearing or allow Abu-Jamal to spend the rest of his life in state prison.
Many prominent groups and individuals, including singer Harry Belafonte, the NAACP and the European Parliament, are cited on his Web site as supporters.
Prosecutors have insisted that Abu-Jamal pay the price for his crimes and have aggressively resisted efforts to take him off death row for Faulkner's murder.
"This assassination has been made a circus by those people in the world and this city who believe falsely that Mumia Abu-Jamal is some kind of a folk hero," Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham said last year, when the federal appeals court upheld the conviction. "He is nothing short of an assassin."
The city has honored the fallen police officer with a street designation and a commemorative plaque placed at the spot where he was shot and killed.
The officer's widow, Maureen Faulkner, wrote a book two years ago about her husband and the case: "Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain and Injustice." She writes that she was trying to "definitively lay out the case against Mumia Abu-Jamal and those who've elevated him to the status of political prisoner."
By Bill Mears
CNN Supreme Court Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Mumia Abu-Jamal sits on Pennsylvania's death row, perhaps the most recognized of the 228 condemned inmates at the Greene Correctional Facility, an hour south of Pittsburgh.
Abu-Jamal, inmate AM8335, awaits three milestones. His new book, "Jailhouse Lawyers," will be released next month. He's also awaiting a pair of Supreme Court decisions, which could come in the next two weeks.
The former Black Panther was sentenced to die for gunning down a Philadelphia police officer 28 years ago. The high court will decide whether he deserves a new hearing to determine whether his execution should go forward.
The state is appealing a federal appeals court ruling on the sentencing question that went in Abu-Jamal's favor last year. The case has attracted international attention.
Abu-Jamal's lawyers filed a separate appeal claiming that racism led to his 1982 conviction. That petition is scheduled for consideration by the Supreme Court on April 3. If either case is accepted by the justices for review, oral arguments would be held in the fall.
The former radio reporter and cab driver has been a divisive figure, with many prominent supporters arguing that racism pervaded his trial.
Others counter that Abu-Jamal is using his skin color to escape responsibility for his actions. They say he has divided the community for years with his provocative writing and activism.
He was convicted for the December 9, 1981, murder of officer Daniel Faulkner, 25, in Philadelphia.
Faulkner had pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother in a late-night traffic stop. Witnesses said Abu-Jamal, who was nearby, ran over and shot the police officer in the back and in the head.
Abu-Jamal, once known as Wesley Cook, was also wounded in the confrontation and later admitted to the killing, according to other witnesses' testimony.
Abu-Jamal is black, and the police officer was white.
Incarcerated for nearly three decades, Abu-Jamal has been an active critic of the criminal justice system.
On a Web site created by friends to promote his release, the prisoner-turned-author writes about his fight. "This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multi-billion dollar endowed universities but in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America."
His chief defense attorney, Robert Bryan, has filed appeals asking for a new criminal trial.
"The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection," he wrote to supporters last month.
"We are in an epic struggle in which his life hangs in the balance. What occurs now in the Supreme Court will determine whether Mumia will have a new jury trial or die at the hands of the executioner," Bryan said. Ten whites and two blacks made up the original jury panel that sentenced him to death.
A three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals kept the murder conviction in place a year ago but ordered a new capital sentencing hearing.
"The jury instructions and the verdict form created a reasonable likelihood that the jury believed it was precluded from finding a mitigating circumstance that had not been unanimously agreed upon," Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica wrote in the 77-page opinion.
The federal appeals court ultimately concluded that the jury was improperly instructed on how to weigh "mitigating factors" offered by the defense that might have kept Abu-Jamal off death row. Pennsylvania law at the time said jurors did not have to unanimously agree on a mitigating circumstance, such as the fact that Abu-Jamal had no prior criminal record.
Months before that ruling, oral arguments on the issue were contentious. Faulkner's widow and Abu-Jamal's brother attended, and demonstrations on both sides were held outside the courtroom in downtown Philadelphia.
If the Supreme Court refuses now to intervene on the sentencing issue, the city's prosecutor would have to decide within six months whether to conduct a new death penalty sentencing hearing or allow Abu-Jamal to spend the rest of his life in state prison.
Many prominent groups and individuals, including singer Harry Belafonte, the NAACP and the European Parliament, are cited on his Web site as supporters.
Prosecutors have insisted that Abu-Jamal pay the price for his crimes and have aggressively resisted efforts to take him off death row for Faulkner's murder.
"This assassination has been made a circus by those people in the world and this city who believe falsely that Mumia Abu-Jamal is some kind of a folk hero," Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham said last year, when the federal appeals court upheld the conviction. "He is nothing short of an assassin."
The city has honored the fallen police officer with a street designation and a commemorative plaque placed at the spot where he was shot and killed.
The officer's widow, Maureen Faulkner, wrote a book two years ago about her husband and the case: "Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain and Injustice." She writes that she was trying to "definitively lay out the case against Mumia Abu-Jamal and those who've elevated him to the status of political prisoner."
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
New Petition for Mumia
Dear co-strugglers for Mumia,
Please find attached the call for action - to sign an online-petition to the justices of the US Supreme Court.
We launched it two weeks ago in Germany and Austria - and it is mushrooming now.
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/supreme/petition.html
It could be a wonderful tool to gain more awareness and public support in this critical state of Mumia's life.
Please spread it as far as you can! Post it, send it around, use all your powerful means of creating news and attention.
Please feel free to change the pre-text in all ways you see fit - and sign it with your own name or organisation!
German Network Against the Death Penalty and to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
www.inprisonmywholelife.com
www.mumia-hoerbuch.de
Please find attached the call for action - to sign an online-petition to the justices of the US Supreme Court.
We launched it two weeks ago in Germany and Austria - and it is mushrooming now.
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/supreme/petition.html
It could be a wonderful tool to gain more awareness and public support in this critical state of Mumia's life.
Please spread it as far as you can! Post it, send it around, use all your powerful means of creating news and attention.
Please feel free to change the pre-text in all ways you see fit - and sign it with your own name or organisation!
German Network Against the Death Penalty and to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
www.inprisonmywholelife.com
www.mumia-hoerbuch.de
The Latest Twist in the Mumia Case
http://www.counterpunch.org/washington03202009.html
March 20-22, 2009
Supreme Test
By Linn Washington, Jr.
During a jailhouse interview in 1978 a Philadelphia radical awaiting trial for a policeman’s death advanced a salient observation about a fundamental flaw in America’s legal system.
The “System just make and break laws as it see fit!” noted this radical who for years had battled Philadelphia authorities arbitrarily bending and breaking laws to brutally assault his organization.
This observation by a member of Philadelphia’s MOVE organization would prove both prophetic and profound for the journalist conducting that jailhouse interview – Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Four years after that 1978 interview, Abu-Jamal stood trial for murdering a Philadelphia policeman. That trial produced a conviction so mired in controversy that today millions around the globe support Abu-Jamal as the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
Abu-Jamal cites that radical’s observation in his new book “ Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners vs. the U.S.A.” (City Lights Books 2009).
This is the sixth book written by Abu-Jamal during his twenty-five-plus years on Pennsylvania’s death row. This book examines inmates who’ve learned law through self-study to challenge criminal convictions and conditions inside prisons.
Abu-Jamal, in Chapter 2 of his new book, provides his assessment of American law terming it an “instrument of the powerful, mortality be damned. For the weak, the powerless, the oppressed, the law is more often a hindrance than a help.”
That radical’s observation about arbitrary operation in the justice system accurately describes the Abu-Jamal case where courts – state and federal – have repeatedly altered and/or abrogated established law to block Abu-Jamal receiving relief granted to other inmates raising the same legal challenges.
The latest example of this alter-law-to-undermine-Abu-Jamal dynamic drives his appeal currently pending before the US Supreme Court. This appeal attacks the 2008 ruling by a federal 3rd Circuit Appeals Court panel that created a new legal standard for persons challenging racist jury selection practices by prosecutors.
That newly created legal standard advanced by two 3rd Circuit judges to reject voluminous evidence documenting racist jury selection practices by the prosecutor during Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial erects courtroom procedures far in excess of procedures required by existing US Supreme Court and 3rd Circuit rulings.
The third member of that three-judge 3rd Circuit panel issued a 41-page dissent that repeatedly upbraided his panel colleagues for radically changing the established jury discrimination standards applied by their Circuit and the US Supreme Court.
“Why we pick this case to depart from [3rd Circuit precedent] I do not know,” Judge Thomas Ambro noted in his 2008 dissent.
Incredibly, that panel’s ruling – later backed by the full 3rd Circuit – faults Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial attorney for not strictly following procedures the US Supreme Court didn’t adopt until 1986…four years after Abu-Jamal’s trial.
An internet based petition campaign requesting the US Supreme Court to overturn the 3rd Circuit ruling and grant Abu-Jamal a court hearing on the jury selection discrimination issue amassed over 1,200 signatures in just a few days.
This petition campaign initiated by a coalition of anti-death penalty groups in Germany has gained signatures from persons in Germany, Austria, Brazil and Turkey despite it not being formally launched internationally. So far, petition signers include noted German actors, actresses, activists, academics, civic leaders and one member of the German parliament.
The prosecutor during Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial used 10 of 15 preemptory challenges to purge potential black jurors – more than twice the exclusion rate expected with race-neutral procedures.
Abu-Jamal’s richly detailed appeal to the US Supreme Court, prepared by lead defense lawyer Robert R. Bryan, includes an examination of the “culture of discrimination” operative among Philadelphia prosecutors.
Bryan’s appeal highlights 11 separate rulings where federal and Pa state courts specifically faulted Philadelphia prosecutors for engaging in intentional discrimination during jury selection. Six of those 11 rulings cited in Bryan’s appeal came from the 3rd Circuit.
Further, Bryan’s appeal, referencing dozens of court rulings nationwide, cites a US Supreme Court ruling where one Justice utilized a scholarly statistical study documenting Philadelphia prosecutors purging potential black jurors at twice the rate of whites during death penalty trials between 1981 and 1997.
Interestingly, just days before that 2008 3rd Circuit ruling, the US Supreme Court granted a Louisiana death row inmate a new hearing after finding race tainted jury selection practices during his trial.
This Supreme Court ruling applied standards less stringent than those the 3rd Circuit created in the Abu-Jamal ruling.
The author of that Supreme Court ruling, Justice Samuel Alito, formerly served on the 3rd Circuit where he participated in rulings granting relief to inmates victimized by prosecutorial jury selection improprieties less onerous than those in the Abu-Jamal case.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s legal brief filed on behalf of Abu-Jamal’s US Supreme Court appeal criticizes the 3rd Circuit panel’s “departure from controlling precedent” – faulting that ruling for improperly increasing the evidentiary burden on defendants raising jury discrimination claims.
The NAACP Defense Fund’s brief warns that the 3rd Circuit’s ruling “threatens to dramatically reduce the pool of cases eligible for judicial review…” because it “directly contradicts” repeated US Supreme Court rulings.
Philadelphia prosecutors are asking the US Supreme Court to reinstate Abu-Jamal’s death sentence and reject his request for relief regarding jury selection discrimination.
That 2008 3rd Circuit ruling upheld a federal District Court judge’s elimination of Abu-Jamal’s death sentence after finding flaws in forms used by the jury that condemned him to death.
The push by Philadelphia prosecutors to execute Abu-Jamal comes at a time when states around the nation are backing away from the death penalty.
This week, New Mexico became the 15th state to repeal the death penalty. NM Governor Bill Richardson, when signing the repeal legislation, noted the exonerations of four death row inmates in that state.
Six of the 130 death row exonerations nationwide come from Pennsylvania.
The judge presiding at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial, Albert Sabo, has the dubious judicial distinction of handling the largest number of death penalty convictions in America. Courts have overturned two-thirds of those capital convictions in Sabo’s court citing faults by prosecutors, defense attorneys and Sabo himself.
Philadelphia’s District Attorneys Office is currently resisting actions by Philadelphia’s Mayor to sharply reduce spending by all city government departments due to a billion dollar budget deficit.
Philadelphia prosecutors have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars battling Abu-Jamal’s appeals in state and federal court.
Critics of Philadelphia’s DAs Office constantly cite fiscally wasteful procedures like relentlessly resisting legal relief to inmates granted by courts upon findings of faults by police and prosecutors.
Philadelphia District Attorney “Lynne Abraham is costing the City a ‘ton’ fighting police corruption cases,” said Robert “Sugar Bear” Lark, an inmate still sitting on Pa’s death row because Philadelphia prosecutors are battling a 2007 federal court ruling overturning his conviction.
Linn Washington Jr. is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Temple University in Philadelphia and a weekly columnist for The Philadelphia Tribune – America’s oldest black owned newspaper.
March 20-22, 2009
Supreme Test
By Linn Washington, Jr.
During a jailhouse interview in 1978 a Philadelphia radical awaiting trial for a policeman’s death advanced a salient observation about a fundamental flaw in America’s legal system.
The “System just make and break laws as it see fit!” noted this radical who for years had battled Philadelphia authorities arbitrarily bending and breaking laws to brutally assault his organization.
This observation by a member of Philadelphia’s MOVE organization would prove both prophetic and profound for the journalist conducting that jailhouse interview – Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Four years after that 1978 interview, Abu-Jamal stood trial for murdering a Philadelphia policeman. That trial produced a conviction so mired in controversy that today millions around the globe support Abu-Jamal as the victim of a miscarriage of justice.
Abu-Jamal cites that radical’s observation in his new book “ Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners vs. the U.S.A.” (City Lights Books 2009).
This is the sixth book written by Abu-Jamal during his twenty-five-plus years on Pennsylvania’s death row. This book examines inmates who’ve learned law through self-study to challenge criminal convictions and conditions inside prisons.
Abu-Jamal, in Chapter 2 of his new book, provides his assessment of American law terming it an “instrument of the powerful, mortality be damned. For the weak, the powerless, the oppressed, the law is more often a hindrance than a help.”
That radical’s observation about arbitrary operation in the justice system accurately describes the Abu-Jamal case where courts – state and federal – have repeatedly altered and/or abrogated established law to block Abu-Jamal receiving relief granted to other inmates raising the same legal challenges.
The latest example of this alter-law-to-undermine-Abu-Jamal dynamic drives his appeal currently pending before the US Supreme Court. This appeal attacks the 2008 ruling by a federal 3rd Circuit Appeals Court panel that created a new legal standard for persons challenging racist jury selection practices by prosecutors.
That newly created legal standard advanced by two 3rd Circuit judges to reject voluminous evidence documenting racist jury selection practices by the prosecutor during Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial erects courtroom procedures far in excess of procedures required by existing US Supreme Court and 3rd Circuit rulings.
The third member of that three-judge 3rd Circuit panel issued a 41-page dissent that repeatedly upbraided his panel colleagues for radically changing the established jury discrimination standards applied by their Circuit and the US Supreme Court.
“Why we pick this case to depart from [3rd Circuit precedent] I do not know,” Judge Thomas Ambro noted in his 2008 dissent.
Incredibly, that panel’s ruling – later backed by the full 3rd Circuit – faults Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial attorney for not strictly following procedures the US Supreme Court didn’t adopt until 1986…four years after Abu-Jamal’s trial.
An internet based petition campaign requesting the US Supreme Court to overturn the 3rd Circuit ruling and grant Abu-Jamal a court hearing on the jury selection discrimination issue amassed over 1,200 signatures in just a few days.
This petition campaign initiated by a coalition of anti-death penalty groups in Germany has gained signatures from persons in Germany, Austria, Brazil and Turkey despite it not being formally launched internationally. So far, petition signers include noted German actors, actresses, activists, academics, civic leaders and one member of the German parliament.
The prosecutor during Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial used 10 of 15 preemptory challenges to purge potential black jurors – more than twice the exclusion rate expected with race-neutral procedures.
Abu-Jamal’s richly detailed appeal to the US Supreme Court, prepared by lead defense lawyer Robert R. Bryan, includes an examination of the “culture of discrimination” operative among Philadelphia prosecutors.
Bryan’s appeal highlights 11 separate rulings where federal and Pa state courts specifically faulted Philadelphia prosecutors for engaging in intentional discrimination during jury selection. Six of those 11 rulings cited in Bryan’s appeal came from the 3rd Circuit.
Further, Bryan’s appeal, referencing dozens of court rulings nationwide, cites a US Supreme Court ruling where one Justice utilized a scholarly statistical study documenting Philadelphia prosecutors purging potential black jurors at twice the rate of whites during death penalty trials between 1981 and 1997.
Interestingly, just days before that 2008 3rd Circuit ruling, the US Supreme Court granted a Louisiana death row inmate a new hearing after finding race tainted jury selection practices during his trial.
This Supreme Court ruling applied standards less stringent than those the 3rd Circuit created in the Abu-Jamal ruling.
The author of that Supreme Court ruling, Justice Samuel Alito, formerly served on the 3rd Circuit where he participated in rulings granting relief to inmates victimized by prosecutorial jury selection improprieties less onerous than those in the Abu-Jamal case.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s legal brief filed on behalf of Abu-Jamal’s US Supreme Court appeal criticizes the 3rd Circuit panel’s “departure from controlling precedent” – faulting that ruling for improperly increasing the evidentiary burden on defendants raising jury discrimination claims.
The NAACP Defense Fund’s brief warns that the 3rd Circuit’s ruling “threatens to dramatically reduce the pool of cases eligible for judicial review…” because it “directly contradicts” repeated US Supreme Court rulings.
Philadelphia prosecutors are asking the US Supreme Court to reinstate Abu-Jamal’s death sentence and reject his request for relief regarding jury selection discrimination.
That 2008 3rd Circuit ruling upheld a federal District Court judge’s elimination of Abu-Jamal’s death sentence after finding flaws in forms used by the jury that condemned him to death.
The push by Philadelphia prosecutors to execute Abu-Jamal comes at a time when states around the nation are backing away from the death penalty.
This week, New Mexico became the 15th state to repeal the death penalty. NM Governor Bill Richardson, when signing the repeal legislation, noted the exonerations of four death row inmates in that state.
Six of the 130 death row exonerations nationwide come from Pennsylvania.
The judge presiding at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial, Albert Sabo, has the dubious judicial distinction of handling the largest number of death penalty convictions in America. Courts have overturned two-thirds of those capital convictions in Sabo’s court citing faults by prosecutors, defense attorneys and Sabo himself.
Philadelphia’s District Attorneys Office is currently resisting actions by Philadelphia’s Mayor to sharply reduce spending by all city government departments due to a billion dollar budget deficit.
Philadelphia prosecutors have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars battling Abu-Jamal’s appeals in state and federal court.
Critics of Philadelphia’s DAs Office constantly cite fiscally wasteful procedures like relentlessly resisting legal relief to inmates granted by courts upon findings of faults by police and prosecutors.
Philadelphia District Attorney “Lynne Abraham is costing the City a ‘ton’ fighting police corruption cases,” said Robert “Sugar Bear” Lark, an inmate still sitting on Pa’s death row because Philadelphia prosecutors are battling a 2007 federal court ruling overturning his conviction.
Linn Washington Jr. is an Associate Professor of Journalism at Temple University in Philadelphia and a weekly columnist for The Philadelphia Tribune – America’s oldest black owned newspaper.
Saturday, March 07, 2009
NAACP Legal Defense Fund Files Brief in Supreme Court in Mumia Abu-Jamal Case
March 5th, 2009
(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 make 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.
(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 make 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.
Monday, March 02, 2009
Introduction to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Jailhouse Lawyers
March 02, 2009 By Angela Davis
Jailhouse Lawyers:
Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. The USA by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Foreword by Angela Y. Davis
288 pages | $16.95
ISBN: 9780872864696
Published by City Lights Books | www.citylights.com
One of the most important public intellectuals of our time, Mumia Abu-Jamal has spent more than twenty-five years behind bars, the majority of that time on death row. He is supported by millions all over the planet, not only because of the egregious repression he has suffered at the hands of the state of Pennsylvania, but because he has used his abundant talents as a thinker and writer to expand our knowledge of the hidden world of jails, prisons, and death houses in which he has spent the last decades of his life. As a transformative thinker, he has always taken care to emphasize the connections between incarcerated lives and lives that unfold in the putative arenas of freedom.
As Mumia has repeatedly pointed out, those of us who live in the "free world" are not unaffected by the system of state violence that relies on imprisonment and capital punishment as pivotal strategies for ordering society. While those behind bars suffer the most direct effects of this system, its raced, gendered, and sexualized modes of violence bolster the institutions and ideologies that inform our lives on the outside. In all of his previous books, Mumia has urged us to reflect on this dialectic of freedom and unfreedom. He has asked us to think deeply about the racial and class disproportions in the application of capital punishment, rarely taking advantage of the opportunity to call upon people to save his own life, but rather using his writing to speak for the more than 3,000 people who inhabit the state and federal death rows. Over the years, I have been especially impressed by the way his ideas have helped to link critiques of the death penalty with broader challenges to the expanding prison-industrial-complex. He has been particularly helpful to those of us activists and scholars alike who seek to associate death penalty abolitionism with prison abolitionism.
In this book, Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A., Mumia Abu-Jamal introduces us to the valuable but exceedingly underappreciated contributions of prisoners who have learned how to use the law in defense of human rights. Jailhouse lawyers have challenged inhumane prison conditions, and even when they themselves have been unaware of this connection, they have implicitly followed the standards of such human rights instruments as the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (1955), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984). Mumia argues that the passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) is a violation of the Convention Against Torture, for in ruling out psychological or mental injury as a basis through which to recover damages, such sexual coercion as that represented in the Abu Ghraib photographs, if perpetrated inside a U.S. prison, would not have constituted evidence for a lawsuit. If jailhouse lawyers are concerned with broader human rights issues, they also defend their fellow prisoners who face the wrath of the federal and state governments and the administrative apparatus of the prison. Mumia Abu-Jamal's reach in this remarkable book is broadly historical and analytical on the one hand and intimate and specific on the other.
We are fortunate to be offered this history of jailhouse lawyers and this analysis of their legacies by one who can count himself among their ranks. Mumia's words in the opening section of the book about the general conditions that create trajectories leading prisoners to jailhouse law are compelling. He writes of a "deep, abiding disenchantment with lawyers that forces some people to become their own, and also to assist others. In every penitentiary, in every state of the U.S., there are men and women who have learned, through study and experience, and trial and error, the principles of the law." See note.
Many of the jailhouse lawyers evoked in the pages of this book including the author himself were well educated before they entered prison. Studying the law was more a question of focusing their intellectual skills on a different object than of familiarizing themselves and becoming comfortable with the discipline of learning. But there are also those jailhouse lawyers who literally had to teach themselves to read and write before they set about learning the law. Mumia points to what was for me a startling revelation: jailhouse lawyers comprise 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 lawyers are now punished by what Mumia calls "cover charges," historically they could be charged with internal violations for no other reason than that they used the law to challenge prison guards, prison regimes, and prison conditions.
The passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) understood by many to have saved the court from frivolous lawsuits by prisoners was a pointed attack on the jailhouse lawyers Mumia sets out to defend in these pages. He successfully argues that many significant reforms in the prison system resulted directly from the intervention of jailhouse lawyers. Some readers may remember the scandals surrounding conditions in the Texas prison system. But they will not have known that the first decisive challenges to those conditions came from jailhouse lawyers. Mumia refers, for example, to David Ruiz, whose 1971 handwritten civil rights complaint against Texas prison conditions was initially thrown away by the prison administrator charged with having it notarized. As we learn, Ruiz rewrote the complaint and bypassed the prison administration by giving it to a lawyer, who handed it over to a federal judge. This case, Ruiz v. Estelle, was eventually merged with seven other cases originating with prisoners. They challenged double- and triple-celling and work regimes that incorporated the violence of plantation slavery.
Moreover, Texas, along with other southern prison systems, relied on what were known as "building tenders," i.e., armed prisoners acting as assistants to guards, for the governance of the institution. The largely white guards and building tenders poised against the majority Mexican- and African-American prisoners led to "abuse, corruption and officially sanctioned injustice." For those who assume that charitable legal organizations in the "free world" were always responsible for the prison lawsuits that led to significant change, Mumia reminds us that what is now known as "prison law" was pioneered by prisoners themselves. These lawyers behind bars practiced at the risk of punishment and even death. Ruiz himself was placed in the hole after filing this lawsuit against the warden. But, as Mumia points out, the state of Texas was eventually compelled to disestablish the building tender system and to curtail its overcrowding and the overt violence of its regimes. Such contemporary suits as the recent one brought in part by the Prison Law Office against the State of California, which focuses on overcrowded conditions and the lack of health care in California prisons, have been precisely enabled by the work of jailhouse lawyers those who risked violence and even death in order to make their voices heard.
In light of the major transformations that have historically resulted from the work of jailhouse lawyers, it is not surprising that Mumia argues strenuously against the Prison Litigation Reform Act, whose proponents largely relied on the notion that litigation by prisoners needed to be curtailed because of their proclivity to submit frivolous lawsuits. One of the cases most often evoked as justification for the passage of the PLRA was mischaracterized as claiming cruel and unusual punishment because the prisoners received creamy instead of chunky peanut butter. This was not the entire story, which Mumia offers us as a powerful refutation of the underlying logic of the PLRA. Popular representations of prisoners as intrinsically litigious were linked, he points out, to representations of poor people as more eager to receive welfare payments than they were to work. Thus he connects the 1996 passage of the PRLA under the Clinton administration to the disestablishment of the welfare system, locating both of these developments within the context of rising neoliberalism.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's Jailhouse Lawyers is a persuasive refutation of the ideological underpinnings of the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The way he situates the PLRA historically as an inheritance of the Black Codes, which were themselves descended from the slave codes allows us to recognize the extent to which historical memories of slavery and racism are inscribed in the very structures of the prison system and have helped to produce the prison-industrial-complex. If slavery denied African and African-descended people the right to full legal personality and the practices of racialized second-tier citizenship institutionalized the inheritance of slavery, so in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, prisoners find that the curtailment of their capacity to seek redress through the legal system preserves and reaffirms that inheritance.
Mumia's profiles include both men and women, both people of color and white people, with disparate motivations and often very different ways of identifying or not identifying themselves as jailhouse lawyers. Prisoners have challenged the law on its own terms in ways that recapitulate the grassroots organizing by ordinary people in the South that led eventually to the overturning of laws authorizing racial inferiority.
As Mumia points out, if there is increasing respect for the religious rights and practices of people behind bars, then it is largely due to the work of jailhouse lawyers. In the state of Pennsylvania, where Mumia himself is imprisoned, one extremely active jailhouse lawyer profiled in the book is Richard Mayberry, who initiated many important lawsuits, including the case known as I.C.U. (Imprisoned Citizens' Union) v. Shapp, which broadly addressed health, overcrowding, and other conditions of confinement in Pennsylvania prisons.
The I.C.U. case ended in a settlement, which required an agreement by all parties. Mayberry served as class representative and signed on behalf of thousands of state prisoners, and a court-agreed settlement went into force, creating new rules that covered the entire state system. The I.C.U. provisions became the foundation for every subsequent regulation that governed the entire state, and they lasted for decades, until the passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act. (82)
Mumia not only offers accounts of cases and profiles of prison litigators who have had a lasting impact on the prison system in the United States, he also reveals the extent to which jailhouse lawyers provide legal assistance to their peers, both with respect to their cases and with respect to institution violations. In relation to the latter, outside lawyers are often actually prohibited from representing prisoners, whereas jailhouse lawyers are permitted to assist prisoners in their defense of institutional charges.
Whether the lawsuits generated by jailhouse lawyers are expansive in their reach, potentially affecting the lives of large numbers of prisoners, or whether they are specifically focused on the case of a single individual, they have indeed made an enormous difference. Mumia Abu-Jamal has once more enlightened us, he has once more offered us new ways of thinking about law, democracy, and power. He allows us to reflect upon the fact that transformational possibilities often emerge where we least expect them.
Free Mumia!
ANGELA YVONNE DAVIS is Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness at the University of California and author of eight books. In recent years a persistent theme of her work has been the range of social problems associated with incarceration and the generalized criminalization of those communities that are most affected by poverty and racial discrimination. She draws upon her own experiences in the early 1970s as a person who spent eighteen months in jail and on trial, after being placed on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted List." She has also conducted extensive research on numerous issues related to race, gender and imprisonment. She is a member of the executive board of the Women of Color Resource Center, a San Francisco Bay Area organization that emphasizes popular education of and about women who live in conditions of poverty. Having helped to popularize the notion of a "prison industrial complex," she now urges her audiences to think seriously about the future possibility of a world without prisons and to help forge a twenty-first century abolitionist movement. Her most recent books are Abolition Democracy and Are Prisons Obsolete?, both published in the Open Media Series. Her forthcoming books, The Meaning of Freedom and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself: A New Critical Edition will also be in the Open Media Series, published by City Lights Books.
Jailhouse Lawyers:
Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. The USA by Mumia Abu-Jamal
Foreword by Angela Y. Davis
288 pages | $16.95
ISBN: 9780872864696
Published by City Lights Books | www.citylights.com
One of the most important public intellectuals of our time, Mumia Abu-Jamal has spent more than twenty-five years behind bars, the majority of that time on death row. He is supported by millions all over the planet, not only because of the egregious repression he has suffered at the hands of the state of Pennsylvania, but because he has used his abundant talents as a thinker and writer to expand our knowledge of the hidden world of jails, prisons, and death houses in which he has spent the last decades of his life. As a transformative thinker, he has always taken care to emphasize the connections between incarcerated lives and lives that unfold in the putative arenas of freedom.
As Mumia has repeatedly pointed out, those of us who live in the "free world" are not unaffected by the system of state violence that relies on imprisonment and capital punishment as pivotal strategies for ordering society. While those behind bars suffer the most direct effects of this system, its raced, gendered, and sexualized modes of violence bolster the institutions and ideologies that inform our lives on the outside. In all of his previous books, Mumia has urged us to reflect on this dialectic of freedom and unfreedom. He has asked us to think deeply about the racial and class disproportions in the application of capital punishment, rarely taking advantage of the opportunity to call upon people to save his own life, but rather using his writing to speak for the more than 3,000 people who inhabit the state and federal death rows. Over the years, I have been especially impressed by the way his ideas have helped to link critiques of the death penalty with broader challenges to the expanding prison-industrial-complex. He has been particularly helpful to those of us activists and scholars alike who seek to associate death penalty abolitionism with prison abolitionism.
In this book, Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A., Mumia Abu-Jamal introduces us to the valuable but exceedingly underappreciated contributions of prisoners who have learned how to use the law in defense of human rights. Jailhouse lawyers have challenged inhumane prison conditions, and even when they themselves have been unaware of this connection, they have implicitly followed the standards of such human rights instruments as the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners (1955), the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966), and the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (1984). Mumia argues that the passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) is a violation of the Convention Against Torture, for in ruling out psychological or mental injury as a basis through which to recover damages, such sexual coercion as that represented in the Abu Ghraib photographs, if perpetrated inside a U.S. prison, would not have constituted evidence for a lawsuit. If jailhouse lawyers are concerned with broader human rights issues, they also defend their fellow prisoners who face the wrath of the federal and state governments and the administrative apparatus of the prison. Mumia Abu-Jamal's reach in this remarkable book is broadly historical and analytical on the one hand and intimate and specific on the other.
We are fortunate to be offered this history of jailhouse lawyers and this analysis of their legacies by one who can count himself among their ranks. Mumia's words in the opening section of the book about the general conditions that create trajectories leading prisoners to jailhouse law are compelling. He writes of a "deep, abiding disenchantment with lawyers that forces some people to become their own, and also to assist others. In every penitentiary, in every state of the U.S., there are men and women who have learned, through study and experience, and trial and error, the principles of the law." See note.
Many of the jailhouse lawyers evoked in the pages of this book including the author himself were well educated before they entered prison. Studying the law was more a question of focusing their intellectual skills on a different object than of familiarizing themselves and becoming comfortable with the discipline of learning. But there are also those jailhouse lawyers who literally had to teach themselves to read and write before they set about learning the law. Mumia points to what was for me a startling revelation: jailhouse lawyers comprise 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 lawyers are now punished by what Mumia calls "cover charges," historically they could be charged with internal violations for no other reason than that they used the law to challenge prison guards, prison regimes, and prison conditions.
The passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act (PLRA) understood by many to have saved the court from frivolous lawsuits by prisoners was a pointed attack on the jailhouse lawyers Mumia sets out to defend in these pages. He successfully argues that many significant reforms in the prison system resulted directly from the intervention of jailhouse lawyers. Some readers may remember the scandals surrounding conditions in the Texas prison system. But they will not have known that the first decisive challenges to those conditions came from jailhouse lawyers. Mumia refers, for example, to David Ruiz, whose 1971 handwritten civil rights complaint against Texas prison conditions was initially thrown away by the prison administrator charged with having it notarized. As we learn, Ruiz rewrote the complaint and bypassed the prison administration by giving it to a lawyer, who handed it over to a federal judge. This case, Ruiz v. Estelle, was eventually merged with seven other cases originating with prisoners. They challenged double- and triple-celling and work regimes that incorporated the violence of plantation slavery.
Moreover, Texas, along with other southern prison systems, relied on what were known as "building tenders," i.e., armed prisoners acting as assistants to guards, for the governance of the institution. The largely white guards and building tenders poised against the majority Mexican- and African-American prisoners led to "abuse, corruption and officially sanctioned injustice." For those who assume that charitable legal organizations in the "free world" were always responsible for the prison lawsuits that led to significant change, Mumia reminds us that what is now known as "prison law" was pioneered by prisoners themselves. These lawyers behind bars practiced at the risk of punishment and even death. Ruiz himself was placed in the hole after filing this lawsuit against the warden. But, as Mumia points out, the state of Texas was eventually compelled to disestablish the building tender system and to curtail its overcrowding and the overt violence of its regimes. Such contemporary suits as the recent one brought in part by the Prison Law Office against the State of California, which focuses on overcrowded conditions and the lack of health care in California prisons, have been precisely enabled by the work of jailhouse lawyers those who risked violence and even death in order to make their voices heard.
In light of the major transformations that have historically resulted from the work of jailhouse lawyers, it is not surprising that Mumia argues strenuously against the Prison Litigation Reform Act, whose proponents largely relied on the notion that litigation by prisoners needed to be curtailed because of their proclivity to submit frivolous lawsuits. One of the cases most often evoked as justification for the passage of the PLRA was mischaracterized as claiming cruel and unusual punishment because the prisoners received creamy instead of chunky peanut butter. This was not the entire story, which Mumia offers us as a powerful refutation of the underlying logic of the PLRA. Popular representations of prisoners as intrinsically litigious were linked, he points out, to representations of poor people as more eager to receive welfare payments than they were to work. Thus he connects the 1996 passage of the PRLA under the Clinton administration to the disestablishment of the welfare system, locating both of these developments within the context of rising neoliberalism.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's Jailhouse Lawyers is a persuasive refutation of the ideological underpinnings of the Prison Litigation Reform Act. The way he situates the PLRA historically as an inheritance of the Black Codes, which were themselves descended from the slave codes allows us to recognize the extent to which historical memories of slavery and racism are inscribed in the very structures of the prison system and have helped to produce the prison-industrial-complex. If slavery denied African and African-descended people the right to full legal personality and the practices of racialized second-tier citizenship institutionalized the inheritance of slavery, so in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, prisoners find that the curtailment of their capacity to seek redress through the legal system preserves and reaffirms that inheritance.
Mumia's profiles include both men and women, both people of color and white people, with disparate motivations and often very different ways of identifying or not identifying themselves as jailhouse lawyers. Prisoners have challenged the law on its own terms in ways that recapitulate the grassroots organizing by ordinary people in the South that led eventually to the overturning of laws authorizing racial inferiority.
As Mumia points out, if there is increasing respect for the religious rights and practices of people behind bars, then it is largely due to the work of jailhouse lawyers. In the state of Pennsylvania, where Mumia himself is imprisoned, one extremely active jailhouse lawyer profiled in the book is Richard Mayberry, who initiated many important lawsuits, including the case known as I.C.U. (Imprisoned Citizens' Union) v. Shapp, which broadly addressed health, overcrowding, and other conditions of confinement in Pennsylvania prisons.
The I.C.U. case ended in a settlement, which required an agreement by all parties. Mayberry served as class representative and signed on behalf of thousands of state prisoners, and a court-agreed settlement went into force, creating new rules that covered the entire state system. The I.C.U. provisions became the foundation for every subsequent regulation that governed the entire state, and they lasted for decades, until the passage of the Prison Litigation Reform Act. (82)
Mumia not only offers accounts of cases and profiles of prison litigators who have had a lasting impact on the prison system in the United States, he also reveals the extent to which jailhouse lawyers provide legal assistance to their peers, both with respect to their cases and with respect to institution violations. In relation to the latter, outside lawyers are often actually prohibited from representing prisoners, whereas jailhouse lawyers are permitted to assist prisoners in their defense of institutional charges.
Whether the lawsuits generated by jailhouse lawyers are expansive in their reach, potentially affecting the lives of large numbers of prisoners, or whether they are specifically focused on the case of a single individual, they have indeed made an enormous difference. Mumia Abu-Jamal has once more enlightened us, he has once more offered us new ways of thinking about law, democracy, and power. He allows us to reflect upon the fact that transformational possibilities often emerge where we least expect them.
Free Mumia!
ANGELA YVONNE DAVIS is Professor Emerita of History of Consciousness at the University of California and author of eight books. In recent years a persistent theme of her work has been the range of social problems associated with incarceration and the generalized criminalization of those communities that are most affected by poverty and racial discrimination. She draws upon her own experiences in the early 1970s as a person who spent eighteen months in jail and on trial, after being placed on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted List." She has also conducted extensive research on numerous issues related to race, gender and imprisonment. She is a member of the executive board of the Women of Color Resource Center, a San Francisco Bay Area organization that emphasizes popular education of and about women who live in conditions of poverty. Having helped to popularize the notion of a "prison industrial complex," she now urges her audiences to think seriously about the future possibility of a world without prisons and to help forge a twenty-first century abolitionist movement. Her most recent books are Abolition Democracy and Are Prisons Obsolete?, both published in the Open Media Series. Her forthcoming books, The Meaning of Freedom and Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself: A New Critical Edition will also be in the Open Media Series, published by City Lights Books.
Saturday, February 28, 2009
NEW Interview with MUMIA! SAVE APRIL 25!
For an interview with Mumia about his new book, check out the Z Magazine article.
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/20677
http://www.zmag.org/znet/viewArticle/20677
MORE THAN A BOOK PARTY!
Save Saturday April 25th!
The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC) in conjunction with the Prisoners' Ministry of the Riverside Church will be hosting a "MORE THAN A BOOK PARTY" for Mumia's new book:
Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners: v. the U.S.A.
PLACE: RIVERSIDE CHURCH (ROOM AND TIME TO BE ANNOUNCED)
THE EVENING WILL BE A TRIBUTE TO JAILHOUSE LAWYERS
AND IN HONOR OF MUMIA'S BIRTHDAY!
SOME OF THE SPEAKERS:
EDDIE ELLIS, former prisoner, host of WBAI's weekly show "On the Count"
RAMONA AFRICA, former jailhouse lawyer, sole adult survivor of 1985 bombing of MOVE
HAROLD WILSON, former death row prisoner at SCI Greene with Mumia, jailhouse lawyer, exonerated after 16 years in prison
PAUL WRIGHT, Editor, Prison Legal News
book signing, food, music, and much more ....
FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: 212-330-8029
OR CHECK www.freemumia.com
The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC) in conjunction with the Prisoners' Ministry of the Riverside Church will be hosting a "MORE THAN A BOOK PARTY" for Mumia's new book:
Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners: v. the U.S.A.
PLACE: RIVERSIDE CHURCH (ROOM AND TIME TO BE ANNOUNCED)
THE EVENING WILL BE A TRIBUTE TO JAILHOUSE LAWYERS
AND IN HONOR OF MUMIA'S BIRTHDAY!
SOME OF THE SPEAKERS:
EDDIE ELLIS, former prisoner, host of WBAI's weekly show "On the Count"
RAMONA AFRICA, former jailhouse lawyer, sole adult survivor of 1985 bombing of MOVE
HAROLD WILSON, former death row prisoner at SCI Greene with Mumia, jailhouse lawyer, exonerated after 16 years in prison
PAUL WRIGHT, Editor, Prison Legal News
book signing, food, music, and much more ....
FOR MORE INFORMATION CALL: 212-330-8029
OR CHECK www.freemumia.com
FREE THE ANGOLA 3!! BRING PP'S WOODFOX AND WALLACE HOME NOW!!
Sign the petition http://colorofchange.org/angola3/
Lets make the Angola 3 household names!
Albert Woodfox, political prisoner of the Angola 3, needs your support. In July 2008 a Federal Judge (Brady) overturned Albert Woodfox's conviction after a State Judicial Magistrate found his trial was unfair due to inadequate representation, prosecutorial misconduct, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and racial discrimination in the grand jury selection process. The State appealed this decision to the 5th Circuit Court of appeals and March 3rd are the oral arguments for that appeal.
36 years ago, deep in rural Louisiana, three young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000-acre former slave plantation called Angola.
Peaceful, non-violent protest in the form of hunger and work strikes organized by inmates, caught the attention of Louisiana's first black elected legislators and local media in the early 1970s. State legislative leaders, along with the administration of a newly-elected, reform-minded governor, called for investigations into a host of unconstitutional practices and the extraordinarily cruel and unusual treatment commonplace in the prison. In 1972 and 1973 prison officials, determined to put an end to outside scrutiny, charged Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King with murders they did not commit and threw them into 6x9 foot cells in solitary confinement, for nearly 36 years. Robert was freed in 2001, but Herman and Albert remain behind bars.
The oral arguments on March 3 are a very short and formal process. Albert's attorneys will explain to the court why Judge Brady did the right thing, and the State will try to argue he made a mistake in overturning the conviction. Each side will argue for 20 min and then the court will take anywhere from 1-6 months to issue their decision. If the 5th Circuit agrees with Albert's attorneys and upholds Judge Brady's ruling, then the State has 120 days to either retry or release Albert. They have already vowed to retry him. If the 5th Circuit agrees with the State, then the conviction is reinstated and Albert would have to start the appeals process all over again with a different claim if he wants to try to gain his freedom.
For more info:
www.angola3action.org
www.angola3.org
Lets make the Angola 3 household names!
Albert Woodfox, political prisoner of the Angola 3, needs your support. In July 2008 a Federal Judge (Brady) overturned Albert Woodfox's conviction after a State Judicial Magistrate found his trial was unfair due to inadequate representation, prosecutorial misconduct, suppression of exculpatory evidence, and racial discrimination in the grand jury selection process. The State appealed this decision to the 5th Circuit Court of appeals and March 3rd are the oral arguments for that appeal.
36 years ago, deep in rural Louisiana, three young black men were silenced for trying to expose continued segregation, systematic corruption, and horrific abuse in the biggest prison in the US, an 18,000-acre former slave plantation called Angola.
Peaceful, non-violent protest in the form of hunger and work strikes organized by inmates, caught the attention of Louisiana's first black elected legislators and local media in the early 1970s. State legislative leaders, along with the administration of a newly-elected, reform-minded governor, called for investigations into a host of unconstitutional practices and the extraordinarily cruel and unusual treatment commonplace in the prison. In 1972 and 1973 prison officials, determined to put an end to outside scrutiny, charged Herman Wallace, Albert Woodfox, and Robert King with murders they did not commit and threw them into 6x9 foot cells in solitary confinement, for nearly 36 years. Robert was freed in 2001, but Herman and Albert remain behind bars.
The oral arguments on March 3 are a very short and formal process. Albert's attorneys will explain to the court why Judge Brady did the right thing, and the State will try to argue he made a mistake in overturning the conviction. Each side will argue for 20 min and then the court will take anywhere from 1-6 months to issue their decision. If the 5th Circuit agrees with Albert's attorneys and upholds Judge Brady's ruling, then the State has 120 days to either retry or release Albert. They have already vowed to retry him. If the 5th Circuit agrees with the State, then the conviction is reinstated and Albert would have to start the appeals process all over again with a different claim if he wants to try to gain his freedom.
For more info:
www.angola3action.org
www.angola3.org
LIVE FROM DEATH ROW! with PAM AFRICA, Intern'l Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Tuesday, March 10 - 7 PM
at
City College - 137th St. & Amsterdam - NAC Ballroom
These are America's condemned, who bear a stigma far worse than "prisoner." These are America's death row residents: men and women who walk the razor's edge between half-life and certain death.--Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pennsylvania death row prisoner, from his book 'Live from Death Row'
Over 3,500 men and women sit on death row across this country. This national tour will bring you their voices and their struggles.
The tour features death row prisoners speaking live via speakerphone. Including:
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Pennsylvania death row prisoner, author of Live from Death Row, We Want Freedom and numerous other books
KEVIN COOPER
California death row prisoner who came within 3 1/2 hours of being executed before he won a stay of execution
TROY DAVIS
On death row in Georgia and came within hours of execution in 2007 before he won a stay
STANLEY HOWARD
Former death row prisoner and torture victim still imprisoned in Illinois; contributing writer to the New Abolitionist
...and more!
Also speaking at City College:
Lawrence Hayes, former NYS death row prisoner
Yusef Salaam, exonerated in the Central Park jogger case
www.nodeathpenalty.org
nyc@nodeathpenalty.orgSponsored by: Campaign to End the Death Penalty & the Free Mumia Coalition-NYC
at
City College - 137th St. & Amsterdam - NAC Ballroom
These are America's condemned, who bear a stigma far worse than "prisoner." These are America's death row residents: men and women who walk the razor's edge between half-life and certain death.--Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pennsylvania death row prisoner, from his book 'Live from Death Row'
Over 3,500 men and women sit on death row across this country. This national tour will bring you their voices and their struggles.
The tour features death row prisoners speaking live via speakerphone. Including:
MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Pennsylvania death row prisoner, author of Live from Death Row, We Want Freedom and numerous other books
KEVIN COOPER
California death row prisoner who came within 3 1/2 hours of being executed before he won a stay of execution
TROY DAVIS
On death row in Georgia and came within hours of execution in 2007 before he won a stay
STANLEY HOWARD
Former death row prisoner and torture victim still imprisoned in Illinois; contributing writer to the New Abolitionist
...and more!
Also speaking at City College:
Lawrence Hayes, former NYS death row prisoner
Yusef Salaam, exonerated in the Central Park jogger case
www.nodeathpenalty.org
nyc@nodeathpenalty.orgSponsored by: Campaign to End the Death Penalty & the Free Mumia Coalition-NYC
Sunday, February 22, 2009
MUMIA Releases NEW BOOK!/Events Planned Nationally on his Birthday!
NEW BOOK!
Jailhouse Lawyers:
Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A.
Authored by MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Foreword by Angela Y. Davis
APRIL 24 MUMIA'S BIRTHDAY NATIONALLY COORDINATED
"MORE THAN A BOOK PARTY" EVENTS
Mumia writes:
"This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multi-billion-dollar endowed universities but in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America .. It is law learned in a stew of bitterness, under the constant threat of violence, in places where millions of people live, buy millions of others wish to ignore or forget"
Let's use the opportunity of the publication of this brilliant and moving, vintage Mumia book to build the momentum for his case, to raise the money we desperately need in these challenging economic times, to get the word out – to produce literature, flyers, posters, videos, DVD's; to send organizers out to help build new chapters and strengthen old ones, TO GET THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE STREETS … all the work that we must do in order to FREE MUMIA as he faces LIFE IN PRISON WITHOUT PAROLE OR EXECUTION!
In the spirit of Mumia's book, we dedicate these "More Than a Book Party" events to the thousands and thousands of jailhouse lawyers who practice their craft in their own and their brothers' (and sisters') struggle for justice, against all odds and with the high risk of being subjected to the venom, punishment, and brutality of the prison system that is directed against them more than to any other sector of the prison population. THESE ARE THE HEROES AND SHEROES WE WILL HONOR. INVITE SOME OF THEM WHO ARE FORMER PRISONERS TO PARTICIPATE IN YOUR "MORE THAN A BOOK PARTY EVENTS!!!
MUMIA BIRTHDAY "MORE THAN A BOOK PARTY" APRIL 24TH EVENTS ALREADY SCHEDULED IN:
-PHILADELPHIA
-NEW YORK (NOTE: Scheculed for Saturday April 25th by the Free Mumia Coalition to avoid conflict with other events)
-SAN FRANCISCO
-PITTSBURGH
-PORTLAND
-BOSTON
-WOODSTOCK
AND OTHERS !
FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:
215 476-8812
212-330-8029
TO ORDER BOOKS CONTACT:
STACEY@CITYLIGHTS.COM
OR CALL (415) 362-1901
FOR CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE GRASSROOTS WORK:
(Funds will go to both International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)
ONLINE GO TO:
www.freemumia.com
OR MAIL CHECKS TO:
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition
P.O. Box 16
New York, NY 10030
(Checks for both organizations payable to: FMAJC/IFCO)
Sunday, February 08, 2009
Update from Mumia's Legal Team
Date: February 8, 2009
From: Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel
Subject: Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row - U.S. Supreme Court
Download the document HERE.
New case filing in Supreme Court
On February 4, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court docketed and accepted for filing the Petition for Writ of Certiorari, with supporting Appendix, that I had submitted December 19, 2008 on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal. (AbuJamal v. Beard, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08-8483.) A copy of the petition is attached. The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection. The prosecution systematically removed people from sitting on the trial jury purely because of the color of their skin, that is, being black. The bigotry that killed Martin Luther King, Jr., so many years ago, has been rampant in the case of my client and is a central part of the state's quest to murder him in the name of the law.
Prosecution's separate Supreme Court petition
In an entirely separate case (Beard v. Abu-Jamal, Sup. Ct. No. 08-652), the prosecution is seeking to overturn the victory we achieved last year in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. (Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d 272 (3rd Cir. 2008).) In that ruling the court ordered a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty. Our Brief In Opposition will be filed in the Supreme Court on February 13, 2009.
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense
The legal defense for Mumia needs help. The costs for our litigation in two case before the Supreme Court are substantial. To help, please make your checks payable to the "National Lawyers Guild Foundation" (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). The donations are tax deductible, and should be mailed to:
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
Conclusion
Mumia remains on Pennsylvania's death row. We are in an epic struggle in which his life hangs in the balance. What occurs now in the Supreme Court will determine whether Mumia will have a new jury trial, or die at the hands of the executioner.
As I have previously pointed out, Mumia is in greater danger than at any time since his 1981 arrest. Your support and activism is needed. This great journalist and author does not belong on death row or in prison. We must not rest until he is free.
Yours very truly,
Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
RobertRBryan@aol.com
From: Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel
Subject: Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row - U.S. Supreme Court
Download the document HERE.
New case filing in Supreme Court
On February 4, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court docketed and accepted for filing the Petition for Writ of Certiorari, with supporting Appendix, that I had submitted December 19, 2008 on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal. (AbuJamal v. Beard, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08-8483.) A copy of the petition is attached. The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection. The prosecution systematically removed people from sitting on the trial jury purely because of the color of their skin, that is, being black. The bigotry that killed Martin Luther King, Jr., so many years ago, has been rampant in the case of my client and is a central part of the state's quest to murder him in the name of the law.
Prosecution's separate Supreme Court petition
In an entirely separate case (Beard v. Abu-Jamal, Sup. Ct. No. 08-652), the prosecution is seeking to overturn the victory we achieved last year in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. (Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d 272 (3rd Cir. 2008).) In that ruling the court ordered a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty. Our Brief In Opposition will be filed in the Supreme Court on February 13, 2009.
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense
The legal defense for Mumia needs help. The costs for our litigation in two case before the Supreme Court are substantial. To help, please make your checks payable to the "National Lawyers Guild Foundation" (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). The donations are tax deductible, and should be mailed to:
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
Conclusion
Mumia remains on Pennsylvania's death row. We are in an epic struggle in which his life hangs in the balance. What occurs now in the Supreme Court will determine whether Mumia will have a new jury trial, or die at the hands of the executioner.
As I have previously pointed out, Mumia is in greater danger than at any time since his 1981 arrest. Your support and activism is needed. This great journalist and author does not belong on death row or in prison. We must not rest until he is free.
Yours very truly,
Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
RobertRBryan@aol.com
Update from Mumia's Legal Team
Date: February 8, 2009
From: Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel
Subject: Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row - U.S. Supreme Court
Download the document HERE.
New case filing in Supreme Court
On February 4, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court docketed and accepted for filing the Petition for Writ of Certiorari, with supporting Appendix, that I had submitted December 19, 2008 on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal. (AbuJamal v. Beard, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08-8483.) A copy of the petition is attached. The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection. The prosecution systematically removed people from sitting on the trial jury purely because of the color of their skin, that is, being black. The bigotry that killed Martin Luther King, Jr., so many years ago, has been rampant in the case of my client and is a central part of the state's quest to murder him in the name of the law.
Prosecution's separate Supreme Court petition
In an entirely separate case (Beard v. Abu-Jamal, Sup. Ct. No. 08-652), the prosecution is seeking to overturn the victory we achieved last year in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. (Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d 272 (3rd Cir. 2008).) In that ruling the court ordered a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty. Our Brief In Opposition will be filed in the Supreme Court on February 13, 2009.
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense
The legal defense for Mumia needs help. The costs for our litigation in two case before the Supreme Court are substantial. To help, please make your checks payable to the "National Lawyers Guild Foundation" (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). The donations are tax deductible, and should be mailed to:
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
Conclusion
Mumia remains on Pennsylvania's death row. We are in an epic struggle in which his life hangs in the balance. What occurs now in the Supreme Court will determine whether Mumia will have a new jury trial, or die at the hands of the executioner.
As I have previously pointed out, Mumia is in greater danger than at any time since his 1981 arrest. Your support and activism is needed. This great journalist and author does not belong on death row or in prison. We must not rest until he is free.
Yours very truly,
Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
RobertRBryan@aol.com
From: Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel
Subject: Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row - U.S. Supreme Court
Download the document HERE.
New case filing in Supreme Court
On February 4, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court docketed and accepted for filing the Petition for Writ of Certiorari, with supporting Appendix, that I had submitted December 19, 2008 on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal. (AbuJamal v. Beard, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08-8483.) A copy of the petition is attached. The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection. The prosecution systematically removed people from sitting on the trial jury purely because of the color of their skin, that is, being black. The bigotry that killed Martin Luther King, Jr., so many years ago, has been rampant in the case of my client and is a central part of the state's quest to murder him in the name of the law.
Prosecution's separate Supreme Court petition
In an entirely separate case (Beard v. Abu-Jamal, Sup. Ct. No. 08-652), the prosecution is seeking to overturn the victory we achieved last year in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. (Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d 272 (3rd Cir. 2008).) In that ruling the court ordered a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty. Our Brief In Opposition will be filed in the Supreme Court on February 13, 2009.
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense
The legal defense for Mumia needs help. The costs for our litigation in two case before the Supreme Court are substantial. To help, please make your checks payable to the "National Lawyers Guild Foundation" (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). The donations are tax deductible, and should be mailed to:
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
Conclusion
Mumia remains on Pennsylvania's death row. We are in an epic struggle in which his life hangs in the balance. What occurs now in the Supreme Court will determine whether Mumia will have a new jury trial, or die at the hands of the executioner.
As I have previously pointed out, Mumia is in greater danger than at any time since his 1981 arrest. Your support and activism is needed. This great journalist and author does not belong on death row or in prison. We must not rest until he is free.
Yours very truly,
Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
RobertRBryan@aol.com
Update from Mumia's Legal Team
Date: February 8, 2009
From: Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel
Subject: Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row - U.S. Supreme Court
Download the document HERE.
New case filing in Supreme Court On February 4, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court docketed and accepted for filing the Petition for Writ of Certiorari, with supporting Appendix, that I had submitted December 19, 2008 on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal. (AbuJamal v. Beard, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08-8483.) A copy of the petition is attached. The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection. The prosecution systematically removed people from sitting on the trial jury purely because of the color of their skin, that is, being black. The bigotry that killed Martin Luther King, Jr., so many years ago, has been rampant in the case of my client and is a central part of the state's quest to murder him in the name of the law.
Prosecution's separate Supreme Court petition In an entirely separate case (Beard v. Abu-Jamal, Sup. Ct. No. 08-652), the prosecution is seeking to overturn the victory we achieved last year in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit. (Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d 272 (3rd Cir. 2008).) In that ruling the court ordered a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty. Our Brief In Opposition will be filed in the Supreme Court on February 13, 2009.
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense The legal defense for Mumia needs help. The costs for our litigation in two case before the Supreme Court are substantial. To help, please make your checks payable to the "National Lawyers Guild Foundation" (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). The donations are tax deductible, and should be mailed to:
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
Conclusion Mumia remains on Pennsylvania's death row. We are in an epic struggle in which his life hangs in the balance. What occurs now in the Supreme Court will determine whether Mumia will have a new jury trial, or die at the hands of the executioner.
As I have previously pointed out, Mumia is in greater danger than at any time since his 1981 arrest. Your support and activism is needed. This great journalist and author does not belong on death row or in prison. We must not rest until he is free.
Yours very truly,
Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
RobertRBryan@aol.com
From: Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel
Subject: Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row - U.S. Supreme Court
Download the document HERE.
New case filing in Supreme Court On February 4, 2009, the U.S. Supreme Court docketed and accepted for filing the Petition for Writ of Certiorari, with supporting Appendix, that I had submitted December 19, 2008 on behalf of Mumia Abu-Jamal. (AbuJamal v. Beard, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08-8483.) A copy of the petition is attached. The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection. The prosecution systematically removed people from sitting on the trial jury purely because of the color of their skin, that is, being black. The bigotry that killed Martin Luther King, Jr., so many years ago, has been rampant in the case of my client and is a central part of the state's quest to murder him in the name of the law.
Prosecution's separate Supreme Court petition In an entirely separate case (Beard v. Abu-Jamal, Sup. Ct. No. 08-652), the prosecution is seeking to overturn the victory we achieved last year in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Third Circuit. (Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d 272 (3rd Cir. 2008).) In that ruling the court ordered a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty. Our Brief In Opposition will be filed in the Supreme Court on February 13, 2009.
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense The legal defense for Mumia needs help. The costs for our litigation in two case before the Supreme Court are substantial. To help, please make your checks payable to the "National Lawyers Guild Foundation" (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). The donations are tax deductible, and should be mailed to:
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
Conclusion Mumia remains on Pennsylvania's death row. We are in an epic struggle in which his life hangs in the balance. What occurs now in the Supreme Court will determine whether Mumia will have a new jury trial, or die at the hands of the executioner.
As I have previously pointed out, Mumia is in greater danger than at any time since his 1981 arrest. Your support and activism is needed. This great journalist and author does not belong on death row or in prison. We must not rest until he is free.
Yours very truly,
Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
RobertRBryan@aol.com
Saturday, December 20, 2008
New Appeal - Mumia Abu-Jamal faces US Supreme Court
http://phillyimc.org/en/mumia-abu-jamal-faces-us-supreme-court-supporters-mobilize-globally
Mumia Abu-Jamal faces US Supreme Court, as supporters mobilize globally
By Hans Bennett
On Friday, December 19, 2008, death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal filed his appeal to the US Supreme Court, asking it to consider his case for a new guilt-phase trial. One month before, the Philadelphia District Attorney filed its separate appeal to the US Supreme Court asking to have Abu-Jamal executed without a new sentencing-phase trial.
At this critical stage in Abu-Jamal’s case, supporters organized a week of global solidarity actions that began on December 6, the day of the large protest in Philadelphia, almost 27 years after Abu-Jamal was arrested for the December 9, 1981 shooting death of white police officer Daniel Faulkner, and later convicted in a 1982 trial that Amnesty International has declared a "violation of minimum international standards that govern fair trial procedures and the use of the death penalty".
There were solidarity actions inside the US and around the world, including Mexico, Venezuela, Germany, France, England, Switzerland. Several US events screened the new DVD video titled Fighting for Mumia's Freedom: a report from Philadelphia.
In Philadelphia, over 200 protesters gathered outside the District Attorney’s office across the street from City Hall. Journalists for Mumia’s new video report from the demonstration features an interview with persecuted Civil Rights Lawyer Lynne Stewart, and footage of Pam Africa speaking outside the DA’s office about the newly discovered crime scene photos taken by press photographer Pedro Polakoff, and the DA’s role in hiding them from the defense. The coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pam Africa cited Polakoff’s statements today that he approached the DA’s office with the photos in 1981/82 and 1995, but was completely ignored by them. Subsequently, Polakoff’s photos were never seen by the 1982 jury, or by the defense. Africa presented the evidence to Philadelphia PD Civil Affairs Captain William Fisher to deliver to DA Lynne Abraham.
Protesters marched from the DA’s office to the Federal Court Building where Abu-Jamal had oral arguments on May 17, 2007. The march stopped at the 13th and Locust crime scene where Journalists for Mumia gave a presentation focusing on the photo by Polakoff that shows a blank space where key prosecution witness Robert Chobert testified to being parked in his taxi as he allegedly observed Abu-Jamal shoot Faulkner. An online video of the presentation is available alongside the special presentation flyer.
That week, Journalists for Mumia was featured by Philadelphia’s independent news website GeoClan.com. I argued in the interview that “those advocating Mumia’s execution show a disturbing lack of concern about the undeniable problems of racism (and all documented police / DA / judicial misconduct) throughout. At the most fundamental level, the ‘Fry Mumia’ campaign’s lack of concern is racist….The FOP is appealing to a racist lynch mob mentality that has long infected the US, so calling this a ‘legal lynching’ is no exaggeration.”
In Mexico City, Mexico, supporters organized a week of actions, including a protest rally outside the US Embassy. Linking Mumia’s case to repression and political prisoners in Mexico, speakers at the US Embassy included ex-Atenco prisoners Edith Rosales and César del Valle, as well as a guitar performance by Atenco survivor Jorge Salinas, whose arms were temporarily paralyzed and hands fractured when he was almost killed by police at Atenco. Survivors Mariana, Edith y Norma who courageously told their story of being raped at Atenco. Solidarity statements were read from Mexican political prisoners Gloria Arenas Agis and her husband Jacobo Silva Nogales, and from the Atenco political prisoners in the Molino de Flores prison at Texcoco, México.
Braulio Alvarez, a member of the Venezuelan parliament and leader of the farmers struggle in Venezuela said in his message written for the week, that Venezuelan supporters had decided “to go the American embassy in Caracas to hand to the ambassador a letter to the governor of Pennsylvania, demanding that he immediately liberate Mumia Abu-Jamal.”
Berlin, Germany’s, week of solidarity culminated in a demonstration where hundreds marched to the US Embassy with slogans like "Freiheit für Mumia Abu-Jamal - Weg mit der Todesstrafe überall" ("Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal - Abolish the death penalty everywhere").
Also demonstrating the international interest in this case, the new British documentary film about Abu-Jamal, titled In Prison My Whole Life, premiered December 8 on the Sundance Channel. Previous interviews with William Francome, and Livia Giuggioli Firth, revealed that In Prison features an interview with Abu-Jamal’s brother Billy Cook, and the newly discovered crime scene photos. Officially endorsed by Amnesty International, Amnesty UK Director Kate Allen said: "We hope that the film's viewers will back our call for a fair retrial for Mumia Abu-Jamal--and also support our work opposing the death penalty in the US and around the world."
Appealing to the US Supreme Court
Both the DA and Abu-Jamal are asking the US Supreme Court to consider their appeals of the March 27, 2008 rulings by the US Third Circuit Court, when the court denied Abu-Jamal a new guilt-phase trial but ruled that there must be a new sentencing- phase trial if the DA still wants the death penalty. Therefore, Abu-Jamal is appealing for a new guilt-phase trial, while the DA is appealing to execute him without a new sentencing-phase trial. On October 6, 2008, the US Supreme Court rejected an unrelated appeal from Abu-Jamal.
On March 27, 2008 the US Third Circuit Court's three-judge panel of Thomas Ambro, Anthony Scirica, and Robert Cowen ruled against three different appeal issues, refusing to grant either a new guilt-phase trial or a preliminary hearing that could have led to a new guilt-phase trial for Abu-Jamal. However, on the issue of racist jury selection, also known as the Batson claim, the three judge panel of split 2-1, with Ambro dissenting.
Abu-Jamal filed his appeal of this ruling with the US Supreme Court today, Dec. 19. Arguably the key issue will be the 1986 Batson v. Kentucky ruling established the right to a new trial if jurors were excluded on the basis of race. At the 1982 trial Prosecutor McGill used 10-11 of his 15 peremptory strikes to remove otherwise acceptable black jurors, yet the court ruled that there was not even the appearance of discrimination. In his dissenting opinion, Judge Ambro wrote that the denial of a preliminary Batson hearing "goes against the grain of our prior actions…I see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our precedents."
Separately, the DA is appealing to execute without a new sentencing-phase trial, having filed their brief on November 14, 2008. Abu-Jamal’s deadline to respond to this is January 21, 2009.
On March 27, the three-judge panel unanimously affirmed Federal District Court Judge William Yohn's 2001 decision "overturning" the death sentence. Citing the 1988 Mills v. Maryland precedent, Yohn had ruled that sentencing forms used by jurors and Judge Sabo's instructions to the jury were potentially confusing, and jurors could have mistakenly believed that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstances in order to consider them as weighing against a death sentence.
According to this ruling, if the DA wants to re-instate the death sentence, the DA must call for a new penalty-phase jury trial where new evidence of Mumia's innocence can be presented. However, the jury can only choose between a sentence of life in prison without parole or a death sentence.
The DA is appealing this 2001/2008 ruling to the US Supreme Court, so if the court agrees to consider the DA’s appeal and rules in their favor, Mumia can then be executed without benefit of the new sentencing trial. However, if the court upholds the 2001 and 2008 rulings, then the DA will either request a new sentencing trial or accept life in prison without the chance of parole.
Notably, at the DA's request, during the post-2001 appeals, Mumia has never left his death row cell or been given general population "privileges" such as contact visits with family.
Reacting to the DA’s Appeal
Following news that the DA was appealing to execute without a new sentencing trial, I spoke with Dave Lindorff, J. Patrick O'Connor, and William Francome.
Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: An investigation into the death row case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. He says that “the obsession of a string of Philadelphia district attorneys, beginning with current Governor Ed Rendell and ending with current DA Lynn Abraham with killing Mumia Abu-Jamal, despite his now having spent 26 years in the living hell of Pennsylvania's death row, is truly repulsive and inhuman. It has ruined the live of Daniel Faulkner's widow whose life has become a pathetic campaign of vengeance. It has cost the taxpayers of Philadelphia and of the state of Pennsylvania untold millions of dollars. And meanwhile, there is every reason to believe that Abu-Jamal was wrongly convicted of first degree murder and should never have been sentenced to death in the first place. The obsession to kill him, which began from the moment police first arrived on the scene in December, 1981, has led to a decades long travesty of and insult to the principles of justice, which is continuing to this day.”
William Francome, from the British film In Prison My Whole Life says that this “shows again the political nature of this case. It is my opinion that their office would not like to have to go through with another sentencing phase of the trial, with the attention that it would receive. They wish that this case would just disappear and that Mumia would be quiet, yet they do not want to face the Fraternal Order of Police who would be outraged if the DA wasn't pushing for a death sentence… The sad thing is that amongst the political battles, a man’s life is at stake and I find the attempt at reinstating the death sentence (which is a completely irreversible and inhumane practice), to be abhorrent.”
J. Patrick O’Connor is the author of “The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal.” Despite several book tours and an important NY Times article when Framing was released in May 2008, it has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media. O’Connor argues that the DA’s appeal is “without merit and represents pure gamesmanship by outgoing D.A. Lynne Abraham…The last thing the Philadelphia DA's Office wants to conduct is a new sentencing hearing, an event it continues to put off by filing this latest appeal. That's really what this latest appeal is all about.”
The Power of the People
At the December 6 protest, Pam Africa stressed that the DA is trying to execute Abu-Jamal despite the strong evidence of both an unfair trial and innocence. Not having any faith in the court system, she argued that justice will only come from popular pressure, and made an urgent plea for supporters to do all they can at this critical hour. In his message recorded for the international week of solidarity, Abu-Jamal thanked his supporters and decried the recent denial of a new guilt-phase trial:
“As you’ve seen, the law is but politics by other means, and the judges but politicians in judges’ robes. It doesn’t matter what the cases say. It doesn’t matter what the so-called rules say. They’ve never followed them from day one. What matters is what you say. What matters is what you do. So I thank you all for being there, for fighting for what’s right, for fighting for life, for fighting for liberty. I thank you all and I love you all.”
Mumia Abu-Jamal faces US Supreme Court, as supporters mobilize globally
By Hans Bennett
On Friday, December 19, 2008, death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal filed his appeal to the US Supreme Court, asking it to consider his case for a new guilt-phase trial. One month before, the Philadelphia District Attorney filed its separate appeal to the US Supreme Court asking to have Abu-Jamal executed without a new sentencing-phase trial.
At this critical stage in Abu-Jamal’s case, supporters organized a week of global solidarity actions that began on December 6, the day of the large protest in Philadelphia, almost 27 years after Abu-Jamal was arrested for the December 9, 1981 shooting death of white police officer Daniel Faulkner, and later convicted in a 1982 trial that Amnesty International has declared a "violation of minimum international standards that govern fair trial procedures and the use of the death penalty".
There were solidarity actions inside the US and around the world, including Mexico, Venezuela, Germany, France, England, Switzerland. Several US events screened the new DVD video titled Fighting for Mumia's Freedom: a report from Philadelphia.
In Philadelphia, over 200 protesters gathered outside the District Attorney’s office across the street from City Hall. Journalists for Mumia’s new video report from the demonstration features an interview with persecuted Civil Rights Lawyer Lynne Stewart, and footage of Pam Africa speaking outside the DA’s office about the newly discovered crime scene photos taken by press photographer Pedro Polakoff, and the DA’s role in hiding them from the defense. The coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pam Africa cited Polakoff’s statements today that he approached the DA’s office with the photos in 1981/82 and 1995, but was completely ignored by them. Subsequently, Polakoff’s photos were never seen by the 1982 jury, or by the defense. Africa presented the evidence to Philadelphia PD Civil Affairs Captain William Fisher to deliver to DA Lynne Abraham.
Protesters marched from the DA’s office to the Federal Court Building where Abu-Jamal had oral arguments on May 17, 2007. The march stopped at the 13th and Locust crime scene where Journalists for Mumia gave a presentation focusing on the photo by Polakoff that shows a blank space where key prosecution witness Robert Chobert testified to being parked in his taxi as he allegedly observed Abu-Jamal shoot Faulkner. An online video of the presentation is available alongside the special presentation flyer.
That week, Journalists for Mumia was featured by Philadelphia’s independent news website GeoClan.com. I argued in the interview that “those advocating Mumia’s execution show a disturbing lack of concern about the undeniable problems of racism (and all documented police / DA / judicial misconduct) throughout. At the most fundamental level, the ‘Fry Mumia’ campaign’s lack of concern is racist….The FOP is appealing to a racist lynch mob mentality that has long infected the US, so calling this a ‘legal lynching’ is no exaggeration.”
In Mexico City, Mexico, supporters organized a week of actions, including a protest rally outside the US Embassy. Linking Mumia’s case to repression and political prisoners in Mexico, speakers at the US Embassy included ex-Atenco prisoners Edith Rosales and César del Valle, as well as a guitar performance by Atenco survivor Jorge Salinas, whose arms were temporarily paralyzed and hands fractured when he was almost killed by police at Atenco. Survivors Mariana, Edith y Norma who courageously told their story of being raped at Atenco. Solidarity statements were read from Mexican political prisoners Gloria Arenas Agis and her husband Jacobo Silva Nogales, and from the Atenco political prisoners in the Molino de Flores prison at Texcoco, México.
Braulio Alvarez, a member of the Venezuelan parliament and leader of the farmers struggle in Venezuela said in his message written for the week, that Venezuelan supporters had decided “to go the American embassy in Caracas to hand to the ambassador a letter to the governor of Pennsylvania, demanding that he immediately liberate Mumia Abu-Jamal.”
Berlin, Germany’s, week of solidarity culminated in a demonstration where hundreds marched to the US Embassy with slogans like "Freiheit für Mumia Abu-Jamal - Weg mit der Todesstrafe überall" ("Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal - Abolish the death penalty everywhere").
Also demonstrating the international interest in this case, the new British documentary film about Abu-Jamal, titled In Prison My Whole Life, premiered December 8 on the Sundance Channel. Previous interviews with William Francome, and Livia Giuggioli Firth, revealed that In Prison features an interview with Abu-Jamal’s brother Billy Cook, and the newly discovered crime scene photos. Officially endorsed by Amnesty International, Amnesty UK Director Kate Allen said: "We hope that the film's viewers will back our call for a fair retrial for Mumia Abu-Jamal--and also support our work opposing the death penalty in the US and around the world."
Appealing to the US Supreme Court
Both the DA and Abu-Jamal are asking the US Supreme Court to consider their appeals of the March 27, 2008 rulings by the US Third Circuit Court, when the court denied Abu-Jamal a new guilt-phase trial but ruled that there must be a new sentencing- phase trial if the DA still wants the death penalty. Therefore, Abu-Jamal is appealing for a new guilt-phase trial, while the DA is appealing to execute him without a new sentencing-phase trial. On October 6, 2008, the US Supreme Court rejected an unrelated appeal from Abu-Jamal.
On March 27, 2008 the US Third Circuit Court's three-judge panel of Thomas Ambro, Anthony Scirica, and Robert Cowen ruled against three different appeal issues, refusing to grant either a new guilt-phase trial or a preliminary hearing that could have led to a new guilt-phase trial for Abu-Jamal. However, on the issue of racist jury selection, also known as the Batson claim, the three judge panel of split 2-1, with Ambro dissenting.
Abu-Jamal filed his appeal of this ruling with the US Supreme Court today, Dec. 19. Arguably the key issue will be the 1986 Batson v. Kentucky ruling established the right to a new trial if jurors were excluded on the basis of race. At the 1982 trial Prosecutor McGill used 10-11 of his 15 peremptory strikes to remove otherwise acceptable black jurors, yet the court ruled that there was not even the appearance of discrimination. In his dissenting opinion, Judge Ambro wrote that the denial of a preliminary Batson hearing "goes against the grain of our prior actions…I see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our precedents."
Separately, the DA is appealing to execute without a new sentencing-phase trial, having filed their brief on November 14, 2008. Abu-Jamal’s deadline to respond to this is January 21, 2009.
On March 27, the three-judge panel unanimously affirmed Federal District Court Judge William Yohn's 2001 decision "overturning" the death sentence. Citing the 1988 Mills v. Maryland precedent, Yohn had ruled that sentencing forms used by jurors and Judge Sabo's instructions to the jury were potentially confusing, and jurors could have mistakenly believed that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstances in order to consider them as weighing against a death sentence.
According to this ruling, if the DA wants to re-instate the death sentence, the DA must call for a new penalty-phase jury trial where new evidence of Mumia's innocence can be presented. However, the jury can only choose between a sentence of life in prison without parole or a death sentence.
The DA is appealing this 2001/2008 ruling to the US Supreme Court, so if the court agrees to consider the DA’s appeal and rules in their favor, Mumia can then be executed without benefit of the new sentencing trial. However, if the court upholds the 2001 and 2008 rulings, then the DA will either request a new sentencing trial or accept life in prison without the chance of parole.
Notably, at the DA's request, during the post-2001 appeals, Mumia has never left his death row cell or been given general population "privileges" such as contact visits with family.
Reacting to the DA’s Appeal
Following news that the DA was appealing to execute without a new sentencing trial, I spoke with Dave Lindorff, J. Patrick O'Connor, and William Francome.
Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: An investigation into the death row case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. He says that “the obsession of a string of Philadelphia district attorneys, beginning with current Governor Ed Rendell and ending with current DA Lynn Abraham with killing Mumia Abu-Jamal, despite his now having spent 26 years in the living hell of Pennsylvania's death row, is truly repulsive and inhuman. It has ruined the live of Daniel Faulkner's widow whose life has become a pathetic campaign of vengeance. It has cost the taxpayers of Philadelphia and of the state of Pennsylvania untold millions of dollars. And meanwhile, there is every reason to believe that Abu-Jamal was wrongly convicted of first degree murder and should never have been sentenced to death in the first place. The obsession to kill him, which began from the moment police first arrived on the scene in December, 1981, has led to a decades long travesty of and insult to the principles of justice, which is continuing to this day.”
William Francome, from the British film In Prison My Whole Life says that this “shows again the political nature of this case. It is my opinion that their office would not like to have to go through with another sentencing phase of the trial, with the attention that it would receive. They wish that this case would just disappear and that Mumia would be quiet, yet they do not want to face the Fraternal Order of Police who would be outraged if the DA wasn't pushing for a death sentence… The sad thing is that amongst the political battles, a man’s life is at stake and I find the attempt at reinstating the death sentence (which is a completely irreversible and inhumane practice), to be abhorrent.”
J. Patrick O’Connor is the author of “The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal.” Despite several book tours and an important NY Times article when Framing was released in May 2008, it has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media. O’Connor argues that the DA’s appeal is “without merit and represents pure gamesmanship by outgoing D.A. Lynne Abraham…The last thing the Philadelphia DA's Office wants to conduct is a new sentencing hearing, an event it continues to put off by filing this latest appeal. That's really what this latest appeal is all about.”
The Power of the People
At the December 6 protest, Pam Africa stressed that the DA is trying to execute Abu-Jamal despite the strong evidence of both an unfair trial and innocence. Not having any faith in the court system, she argued that justice will only come from popular pressure, and made an urgent plea for supporters to do all they can at this critical hour. In his message recorded for the international week of solidarity, Abu-Jamal thanked his supporters and decried the recent denial of a new guilt-phase trial:
“As you’ve seen, the law is but politics by other means, and the judges but politicians in judges’ robes. It doesn’t matter what the cases say. It doesn’t matter what the so-called rules say. They’ve never followed them from day one. What matters is what you say. What matters is what you do. So I thank you all for being there, for fighting for what’s right, for fighting for life, for fighting for liberty. I thank you all and I love you all.”
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Legal Update
Date: December 15, 2008
From: Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel
Subject: U.S. Supreme Court developments regarding Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row
Introduction
Mumia Abu-Jamal remains on Pennsylvania's death row. Last week marked the 27th anniversary of his unjust imprisonment. Racism, fraud and politics have been threads that have run through the case since its inception, and continue today.
We are in extensive litigation on two fronts before the United States Supreme Court. The prosecution is continuing it quest for the execution of my client. In a separate case before the court, I am seeking an entirely new trial and Mumia's freedom. Based upon my experience in having successfully represented numerous people in murder cases involving the death penalty, I am convinced that we can win if I can just get it back before a jury.
U.S. Supreme Court
The following is a brief overview of recent developments and filing deadlines:
Beard v. Abu-Jamal, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08-652 On November 14, 2008, the Philadelphia District Attorney filed in the U.S. Supreme Court a petition seeking to overturn the victory we achieved earlier this year in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d 272 (3rd Cir. 2008). In that ruling court ordered a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty. Our Brief In Opposition is scheduled to be filed on January 21, 2009.
Abu-Jamal v. Beard, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08A299. The Petition for Writ of Certiorari will be filed on December 19, 2008. The issues concern the prosecution's use of racism in jury selection. Relief was denied last spring by a sharply divided federal court. This is of great constitutional significance as reflected by the extraordinary dissenting opinion of Justice Thomas L. Ambro.
Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d at 304-320. He reaffirmed the bedrock principle that everyone is entitled to a fair and impartial trial by a jury of his or her peers, and that excluding even a single person from a jury because of race violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment.
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense
The legal defense for Mumia needs substantial funds. The legal costs for our litigation in the Supreme Court are considerable and will likely reach six figures. To help, please make your checks payable to the "National Lawyers Guild Foundation" (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). The donations are tax deductible, and should be mailed to:
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
Conclusion This is a life and death struggle to save Mumia. He is in greater danger than at any time since being arrested. Your support and activism is needed. That Mumia remains in prison and on death row is an affront to basic human rights. We must aggressively continue this struggle until he is free.
Yours very truly,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
RobertRBryan@aol.com
From: Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel
Subject: U.S. Supreme Court developments regarding Mumia Abu-Jamal, death row
Introduction
Mumia Abu-Jamal remains on Pennsylvania's death row. Last week marked the 27th anniversary of his unjust imprisonment. Racism, fraud and politics have been threads that have run through the case since its inception, and continue today.
We are in extensive litigation on two fronts before the United States Supreme Court. The prosecution is continuing it quest for the execution of my client. In a separate case before the court, I am seeking an entirely new trial and Mumia's freedom. Based upon my experience in having successfully represented numerous people in murder cases involving the death penalty, I am convinced that we can win if I can just get it back before a jury.
U.S. Supreme Court
The following is a brief overview of recent developments and filing deadlines:
Beard v. Abu-Jamal, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08-652 On November 14, 2008, the Philadelphia District Attorney filed in the U.S. Supreme Court a petition seeking to overturn the victory we achieved earlier this year in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d 272 (3rd Cir. 2008). In that ruling court ordered a new jury trial on the question of the death penalty. Our Brief In Opposition is scheduled to be filed on January 21, 2009.
Abu-Jamal v. Beard, U.S. Sup. Ct. No. 08A299. The Petition for Writ of Certiorari will be filed on December 19, 2008. The issues concern the prosecution's use of racism in jury selection. Relief was denied last spring by a sharply divided federal court. This is of great constitutional significance as reflected by the extraordinary dissenting opinion of Justice Thomas L. Ambro.
Abu-Jamal v. Horn, 520 F.3d at 304-320. He reaffirmed the bedrock principle that everyone is entitled to a fair and impartial trial by a jury of his or her peers, and that excluding even a single person from a jury because of race violates the Equal Protection Clause of the U.S. Constitution's Fourteenth Amendment.
Donations for Mumia's Legal Defense
The legal defense for Mumia needs substantial funds. The legal costs for our litigation in the Supreme Court are considerable and will likely reach six figures. To help, please make your checks payable to the "National Lawyers Guild Foundation" (indicate "Mumia" on the bottom left). The donations are tax deductible, and should be mailed to:
Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal
P.O. Box 2012
New York, NY 10159-2012
Conclusion This is a life and death struggle to save Mumia. He is in greater danger than at any time since being arrested. Your support and activism is needed. That Mumia remains in prison and on death row is an affront to basic human rights. We must aggressively continue this struggle until he is free.
Yours very truly,
Robert R. Bryan
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
RobertRBryan@aol.com
Week of Mumia Solidarity Actions in Mexico City
http://phillyimc.org/en/mexico-citys-week-solidarity-mumia-abu-jamal
by Amig@s de Mumia, Mexico | 12.15.2008
Below is a written report and photos from Amig@s de Mumia, MX, who organized a week of actions (Dec. 6-13) in Mexico City, in solidarity with US journalist and death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Solidarity statements were read from Mexican political prisoners Gloria Arenas Agis and her husband Jacobo Silva Nogales (in english or spanish). Eugenia Gutiérrez, of Women and the Sixth of the Zapatista Other Campaign read an open letter outside the US Embassy (in either english or spanish).
Free All Political Prisoners!
Free Leonard Peltier!
With drums, songs, rap, performance, and a lot of leafleting, the friends of Mumia in Mexico demanded his freedom in the zocalo on Saturday, December 6, in solidarity with the march in Philadelphia. There were also actions and events, starting that day, in San Francisco, New York, San Diego, Baltimore, Portland, Detroit, Cleveland, Missoula, Buffalo, Caracas, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris, St. Denis, Marseilles, Bern, Monterrey and San Cristobal de las Casas.
We listened to this message from Mumia:
"My brothers and sisters, onaMOVE! I want you to know that the battle continues. It goes on because it must and it's the right thing to do. As you've seen, the law is but politics by other means, and the judges but politicians in judges' robes. It doesn't matter what the cases say. It doesn't matter what the so-called rules say. They've never followed them from day one. What matters is what you say. What matters is what you do. So I thank you all for being there, for fighting for what's right, for fighting for life, for fighting for liberty. I thank you all and I love you all. OnaMOVE! Long live John Africa! From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal".
On Monday, December 8, the Autonomous Magonista Collective (CAMA) organized a night of film and discussion about the Black Panthers and MOVE to give a context for Mumia's incrimination.
On Tuesday, December 9, 27 years after Mumia's arrest, we held a rally outside the US Embassy. Among us were comrades who have paid high prices for their resistance along with a lot of young, energetic anarchists who are barely beginning to fight.
Mexican political prisoners Jacobo Silva Nogales and Gloria Arenas sent solidarity messages showing their identification with Mumia in the goals of the struggle and their understanding of what it means to spend 27 years in prison. Elizabeth Silva, Jacobo's sister, who visits him every week in the maximum security Altiplano prison (formerly Almoloya) despite all the mistreatment and humiliation designed to keep family members away, summed up a long letter written by Jacobo to Mumia and spoke of the cruel conditions in Altiplano.
There was a common theme between Mumia's life and those of former and current Mexican political prisoners who participated in the rally: In spite of all the physical and psychological torture used to break their spirit and will and suffocate resistance, they are unrepentant for having struggled and have been able to heal themselves and keep on going with force, commitment, and vitality.
The police almost killed Mumia the night Daniel Faulker was shot to death. The state is still trying to kill him, quickly or slowly. The deadly D.A. from Philadelphia, Lynne Abraham, is now petitioning the federal Supreme Court to execute him without so much as a hearing, but Mumia Abu-Jamal keeps on struggling from his cell on death row, with words as his weapon. The police almost killed Jorge Salinas in Atenco, but last Saturday and last Tuesday he was with us, singing Zapatista corridos and songs to Che Guevara and Puerto Rican freedom fighters, holding his guitar in arms once paralyzed and playing with hands once fractured in Atenco.
Mumia endures torture every day of his life, in each and every body search, each and every visit where he can't hold or even touch his loved ones, yet every person who visits him finds him with a smile on his face, a free spirit eager to know how people are doing, how the struggle's doing, and what's happening in different places in the world. Three women who were with us at the rally—Mariana, Edith y Norma—were raped at Atenco but have the courage to speak of their sexual torture and denounce it publicly. You can tell by their smiles, their voices, and the way they walk that, far from feeling humiliated or defeated, they're stronger than ever. They'll go anywhere, to any city, any country, to denounce the crimes of their torturers and get them indicted in international courts.
If the State can't execute Mumia Abu-Jamal, it intends to keep him caged for the rest of his life. It doesn't have the slightest intention of letting him out alive. And the State doesn't intend to let Ignacio del Valle, Felipe Álvarez, and Héctor Galindo out of their cages either. On Tuesday, Ignacio's son, César del Valle, was with us in solidarity with Mumia, also speaking of his father, the other Atenco prisoners in Altiplano and Molino de Flores, and those who are hunted by the State and have not been able to return home since May of 2006. César read Ignacio's powerful message "Never Surrender," a message emphasized in lines sent to us by the MOVE 9 political prisoner, Phil África.
Several people at the rally also marched in supported of Mumia to the Embassy in '99 and some went to jail because of it. They still admire him and see the relevance of his freedom to that of the political prisoners of Mexico.
The freedom songs and poetry of Vicky and Carlos lifted our spirits, and Performákrata dramatized our struggle to free all political prisoners.
From the state of Guerrero, the Collective against Torture and Impunity demanded justice for Mumia from the government of the United States, "where the death penalty and life sentences are evidence of a legal-political-social backwardness and a violation of human rights in the international sphere (Inter-American Convention), where the death penalty is prohibited, but now taken up by Mexican politicians who insist on copying and allowing U.S. impositions."
Eugenia Gutiérrez, of Women and the Sixth of the Zapatista Other Campaign read an open letter to Mumia, speaking of the death penalty as a form of torture and of plans to reinstate it in Mexico. She insisted: "We were born to live and be free." Compañera Fili from the Santo Domingo neighborhood spoke about Mumia's presence here in Mexico, and members of the Anarquist Federation, Radiokupa, CAMA, Anarchist Black Cross, Chanti Ollin and CCH Oriente read Mumia's commentaries and abolitionist and solidarity messages for him. There were also denunciations against the repression in Tiripetío and Oaxaca and against the sentences of the October 2 prisoners. There was a brief blockade on Reforma Avenue and some stayed on the street divider for quite a while with red and black flags, leafleting and chanting.
On Saturday night, December 13, we closed the week with a concert-dance, with the announced groups Al Intifadah, Natty Dread Fyah Attack, Zona Norte Colektivo, Santocho Antifa and Radiokupa, plus several other musicians who showed up to play, including Tiempo y Azeta, el Poeta, Vicky and Carlos, Tambores Rumberos, hip hop sound-maker Carlos, and Machetearte performance troupe who sang out and energized us to gain freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal and all political prisoners.
by Amig@s de Mumia, Mexico | 12.15.2008
Below is a written report and photos from Amig@s de Mumia, MX, who organized a week of actions (Dec. 6-13) in Mexico City, in solidarity with US journalist and death-row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Solidarity statements were read from Mexican political prisoners Gloria Arenas Agis and her husband Jacobo Silva Nogales (in english or spanish). Eugenia Gutiérrez, of Women and the Sixth of the Zapatista Other Campaign read an open letter outside the US Embassy (in either english or spanish).
Free All Political Prisoners!
Free Leonard Peltier!
With drums, songs, rap, performance, and a lot of leafleting, the friends of Mumia in Mexico demanded his freedom in the zocalo on Saturday, December 6, in solidarity with the march in Philadelphia. There were also actions and events, starting that day, in San Francisco, New York, San Diego, Baltimore, Portland, Detroit, Cleveland, Missoula, Buffalo, Caracas, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris, St. Denis, Marseilles, Bern, Monterrey and San Cristobal de las Casas.
We listened to this message from Mumia:
"My brothers and sisters, onaMOVE! I want you to know that the battle continues. It goes on because it must and it's the right thing to do. As you've seen, the law is but politics by other means, and the judges but politicians in judges' robes. It doesn't matter what the cases say. It doesn't matter what the so-called rules say. They've never followed them from day one. What matters is what you say. What matters is what you do. So I thank you all for being there, for fighting for what's right, for fighting for life, for fighting for liberty. I thank you all and I love you all. OnaMOVE! Long live John Africa! From death row, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal".
On Monday, December 8, the Autonomous Magonista Collective (CAMA) organized a night of film and discussion about the Black Panthers and MOVE to give a context for Mumia's incrimination.
On Tuesday, December 9, 27 years after Mumia's arrest, we held a rally outside the US Embassy. Among us were comrades who have paid high prices for their resistance along with a lot of young, energetic anarchists who are barely beginning to fight.
Mexican political prisoners Jacobo Silva Nogales and Gloria Arenas sent solidarity messages showing their identification with Mumia in the goals of the struggle and their understanding of what it means to spend 27 years in prison. Elizabeth Silva, Jacobo's sister, who visits him every week in the maximum security Altiplano prison (formerly Almoloya) despite all the mistreatment and humiliation designed to keep family members away, summed up a long letter written by Jacobo to Mumia and spoke of the cruel conditions in Altiplano.
There was a common theme between Mumia's life and those of former and current Mexican political prisoners who participated in the rally: In spite of all the physical and psychological torture used to break their spirit and will and suffocate resistance, they are unrepentant for having struggled and have been able to heal themselves and keep on going with force, commitment, and vitality.
The police almost killed Mumia the night Daniel Faulker was shot to death. The state is still trying to kill him, quickly or slowly. The deadly D.A. from Philadelphia, Lynne Abraham, is now petitioning the federal Supreme Court to execute him without so much as a hearing, but Mumia Abu-Jamal keeps on struggling from his cell on death row, with words as his weapon. The police almost killed Jorge Salinas in Atenco, but last Saturday and last Tuesday he was with us, singing Zapatista corridos and songs to Che Guevara and Puerto Rican freedom fighters, holding his guitar in arms once paralyzed and playing with hands once fractured in Atenco.
Mumia endures torture every day of his life, in each and every body search, each and every visit where he can't hold or even touch his loved ones, yet every person who visits him finds him with a smile on his face, a free spirit eager to know how people are doing, how the struggle's doing, and what's happening in different places in the world. Three women who were with us at the rally—Mariana, Edith y Norma—were raped at Atenco but have the courage to speak of their sexual torture and denounce it publicly. You can tell by their smiles, their voices, and the way they walk that, far from feeling humiliated or defeated, they're stronger than ever. They'll go anywhere, to any city, any country, to denounce the crimes of their torturers and get them indicted in international courts.
If the State can't execute Mumia Abu-Jamal, it intends to keep him caged for the rest of his life. It doesn't have the slightest intention of letting him out alive. And the State doesn't intend to let Ignacio del Valle, Felipe Álvarez, and Héctor Galindo out of their cages either. On Tuesday, Ignacio's son, César del Valle, was with us in solidarity with Mumia, also speaking of his father, the other Atenco prisoners in Altiplano and Molino de Flores, and those who are hunted by the State and have not been able to return home since May of 2006. César read Ignacio's powerful message "Never Surrender," a message emphasized in lines sent to us by the MOVE 9 political prisoner, Phil África.
Several people at the rally also marched in supported of Mumia to the Embassy in '99 and some went to jail because of it. They still admire him and see the relevance of his freedom to that of the political prisoners of Mexico.
The freedom songs and poetry of Vicky and Carlos lifted our spirits, and Performákrata dramatized our struggle to free all political prisoners.
From the state of Guerrero, the Collective against Torture and Impunity demanded justice for Mumia from the government of the United States, "where the death penalty and life sentences are evidence of a legal-political-social backwardness and a violation of human rights in the international sphere (Inter-American Convention), where the death penalty is prohibited, but now taken up by Mexican politicians who insist on copying and allowing U.S. impositions."
Eugenia Gutiérrez, of Women and the Sixth of the Zapatista Other Campaign read an open letter to Mumia, speaking of the death penalty as a form of torture and of plans to reinstate it in Mexico. She insisted: "We were born to live and be free." Compañera Fili from the Santo Domingo neighborhood spoke about Mumia's presence here in Mexico, and members of the Anarquist Federation, Radiokupa, CAMA, Anarchist Black Cross, Chanti Ollin and CCH Oriente read Mumia's commentaries and abolitionist and solidarity messages for him. There were also denunciations against the repression in Tiripetío and Oaxaca and against the sentences of the October 2 prisoners. There was a brief blockade on Reforma Avenue and some stayed on the street divider for quite a while with red and black flags, leafleting and chanting.
On Saturday night, December 13, we closed the week with a concert-dance, with the announced groups Al Intifadah, Natty Dread Fyah Attack, Zona Norte Colektivo, Santocho Antifa and Radiokupa, plus several other musicians who showed up to play, including Tiempo y Azeta, el Poeta, Vicky and Carlos, Tambores Rumberos, hip hop sound-maker Carlos, and Machetearte performance troupe who sang out and energized us to gain freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal and all political prisoners.
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