Lydia Barashango Reception

From Noelle Hanrahan:
Lydia Barashango  Reception

October 22  -- noon to 4:00 pm
at
H and H Catering
2036 E. Haines Street
Philadelphia, PA 19138
215.424.2703

Listen to Mumia's tribute to his sister at www.prisonradio.org:
Lydia Barashango - Presente!
http://www.prisonradio.org/10-9-11LydiaBarashangoPresente.html

Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial
Lydia Barashango, 64; nurse, sister of Mumia Abu Jamal

September 29, 2011

Lydia Barashango, 64, a nurse and social worker who was the sister of Mumia Abu Jamal, died Wednesday, Sept. 29, in Maryland after a long battle with breast cancer.
Mrs. Barashango was a strong defender of her younger brother, Mumia Abu-Jamal, 57. The former Philadelphia radio reporter and Black Panther who was born, Wesley Cook, was convicted and sentenced to death by a jury in 1982 for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

On Dec. 9, 1981, Officer Faulkner was conducting a traffic stop on a vehicle belonging to William Cook, Abu-Jamal's younger brother. During the traffic stop, Abu-Jamal's taxi was parked across the street. Shots were fired and both Abu-Jamal and Faulkner were wounded. Faulkner died. Police arrived on the scene and arrested Abu-Jamal, who was found with a shoulder holster, a revolver and spent cartridges in his revolver. He was later charged with first degree murder.

Supporters and opponents disagree on the appropriateness of the death penalty, whether Abu-Jamal was guilty or whether he received a fair trial.

Mrs. Barashango was interviewed in 2000 for an A&E documentary about the case. She said the day after the shooting she didn't recognize Abu-Jamal at the hospital because he had been "brutalized" by police. When she him if he was all right, he told her, "I'm innocent. I'm innocent."

In 1999, Mrs. Barashango participated in a march around City Hall in Philadelphia with 10,000 of her brother's supporters, many waving "Free Mumia" signs.

She told the crowd, "This rally takes our struggle to a whole new level." We aren't playing anymore. We are demanding a new trial."

Mrs. Barashango was married to Ishakamusa Barashango, a minister and African American scholar. He died in 2004.

According to friends, she had recently been living in Baltimore. Arrangements for services in Baltimore and Philadelphia are pending.

Video of Linn Washington/Judith Ritter on Mumia's recent appeals court ruling

DemocracyNow.org video of Linn Washington and Judith Ritter on appeals court decision on Mumia Abu-Jamal at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Odt7EZ8y7UM



The case of Pennsylvania death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal took a surprising turn Tuesday when the Third U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals unanimously declared his death sentence unconstitutional—it is the second time the court has agreed with a lower judge who set aside Abu-Jamal's death sentence after finding jurors were given confusing instructions that encouraged them to choose death rather than a life sentence. Now Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther and journalist, could get a new sentencing hearing in court. Democracy Now! interviews Abu-Jamal's co-counsel, Judith Ritter, and Linn Washington, an award-winning journalist with the Philadelphia Tribune who has followed Abu-Jamal's case for almost three decades.

For the video/audio podcast, transcript, to sign up for the daily news digest, and for today's entire show, visit http://www.democracynow.org/2011/4/27/court_rules_mumia_abu_jamals_death

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

From Educators For Mumia Abu-Jamal:


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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Join us at

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

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

In Struggle,

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

No New Penalty Trial Likely: Dave Lindorff article

From the Free Mumia Coalition, NYC:  Michael Schiffman of Heidelberg, Germany, Pam Africa, and the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition all agree that this is an excellent article.   For more discussion and building toward December 9th in Philadelphia, come to a meeting this Friday night, October 14,  7 pm at St. Mary's Church, 521 West 126 Street in Harlem

No New Penalty Trial Likely: 
US Supreme Court Confirms 3rd Circuit Ruling Lifting Mumia Abu-Jamal's Death Penalty

by: Dave Lindorff
10/11/2011

Here's a prediction: Seth Williams, the district attorney of Philadelphia, will decide not to seek to reimpose the death penalty on Mumia Abu-Jamal, the world-famous journalist, former Black Panther and condemned prisoner who has spent the last almost 30 years of his life on Pennsylvania's overcrowded death row.

The choice belongs to Williams, now that the U.S. Supreme Court has decided, on its second time dealing with the issue, not to overturn the decision of a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which had, on orders of the Supreme Court, reheard, reconsidered and reaffirmed its earlier decision upholding the tossing out of Abu-Jamal's death sentence by a lower federal district court.

For years since the dramatic 2001 decision by Federal District Judge William Yohn overturning Abu-Jamal's death sentence on grounds that the trial judge's instructions to the jury had been faulty and that the jury verdict form was dangerously misleading, Abu-Jamal has remained in brutal solitary confinement at SCI-Green. That's the super-max facility that houses Pennsylvania's condemned prisoners, where Abu-Jamal and the others who are actually facing death are denied any human contact either with each other or with close relatives and friends (visits are conducted through heavy bullet-proof plexiglass, with the inmate in chains, for no good reason beyond simple gratuitous cruelty, since escape is impossible). He was kept there for the last decade through the machinations
of a vindictive DA's office, which argued that as long as the lifting of his death sentence was on appeal, he should have to stay put as if he were facing imminent death.

Now there is no reason or excuse to keep him in that hell hole.

The only way he could face a death penalty at this point would be if the DA were to order up a new trial on the penalty phase of his case, with a new jury hearing arguments for and against sentencing Abu-Jamal to death all over again for the crime he was convicted of back in 1982: the shooting death of white Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. (There is no easy avenue for appeal of Abu-
Jamal's conviction at this point, as all his habeas claims of constitutional violations and trial errors have been rejected by the highest federal courts.)

Already, the wheels are turning against a penalty retrial.


Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Daniel Faulkner, who has been a tireless campaigner for Abu-Jamal's execution, has reportedly told a reporter from Associated Press, following word of the Supreme Court's decision, that she "wondered whether it was time to end the long-running drama." She is quoted as saying she worries about the cost of a rehearing of the penalty issue to the city of Philadelphia, and notes that "many of the relevant witnesses are dead." Plus she doesn't want to afford Abu-Jamal any more publicity, she says.

What she doesn't say, but what DA Williams surely knows, is that if there were a re-hearing of the penalty phase of this sorry case, there is virtually no way that a modern Philadelphia jury would vote to execute Abu-Jamal. First of all, it would not be possible for the DA, who in any case is himself an African-American for the first time in the city's history, to pack the jury with white people the way the prosecutor did in 1982 (and the way the DA's office routinely did in felony and especially murder trials until 1986, when the despicable practice, tantamount to lynching, was outlawed by the Supreme Court). Furthermore, Abu-Jamal has been a model prisoner for 30 years, earning a Bachelor's and a Master's degree while on death row, writing a number of highly-regarded books, including Live from
Death Row, exposing the horrors of a life waiting for death, and of the nation's whole prison industrial complex. And of course, he has served those 30 years in prison, and still faces a future of life without possibility of parole even if he doesn't face execution. That is bound to seem punishment enough to at least one juror in a panel of 12 honestly selected individuals of the city of Philadelphia, making a unanimous death penalty sentence almost impossible to imagine.

But there is another reason I seriously doubt Williams will not retry Abu-Jamal to get the death penalty reimposed: the fear that such a court hearing could lead to a new trial on the conviction itself, which was the result of a trial process which was even more of a travesty, if that is possible, than the portion that led to his death penalty.

This is because in a penalty phase hearing, in order to refute prosecution claims to a jury that Abu-Jamal didn't just kill Officer Faulkner, but killed him in a way that was wanton and deliberate and even pre-meditated, Abu-Jamal's defense attorneys would certainly bring in witnesses, some from the original trial, and some discovered since that trial, who would raise serious questions about the veracity of the original trial's prosecution witnesses. They could do this because those witnesses were used at the trial to describe not just the supposed shooting, but the vicious manner in which it was supposedly carried out.

Just take the matter of the prosecution's depiction of an "execution-style" slaying of Faulkner, with witnesses describing Abu-Jamal standing astride the prone Faulkner, who was supposedly lying "on his back," and firing four shots downward almost point blank, hitting the officer once between the eyes.

As my colleague Linn Washington and I prove convincingly in a gun test we ran last year (see the film of our test by scanning down to the bottom of our homepage or go to: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hedfNPt6UQQ&feature=player_embedded [1]), this story had to have been a fabrication, because three of those shots missed Faulkner, and there is no sign of bullet impacts anywhere in the concrete sidewalk around the bloodstained spot where Faulkner's body was lying. That lack of evidence would raise questions about whether the prime witness describing that certainly brutal slaying story could actually have seen what he said he saw.

The witness in question, a young white taxi driver named Robert Chobert, claimed at the trial that he  had parked his taxi directly behind Faulkner's parked squad car. The shooting was said to have occurred on the sidewalk two cars forward of Chobert's taxi, meaning he would have been viewing it from his seat at the wheel, through both the parked squad car and a parked VW Beetle belonging to Abu-Jamal's brother Billie Cook -- this at night and with Faulkner's dome lights and tail lights flashing in his eyes. But on top of this, there is no crime scene photo showing Chobert's taxi cab parked behind Faulkner at all, and the likelihood is that he was not even a witness.

It would also certainly be presented by the defense at any penalty hearing that contrary to the trial  prosecutor's assertion to the jury that "this man" (Chobert) had "no reason to lie," he actually had  plenty of reason to do so. The original jury, thanks to a biased and clearly ludicrous decision by the  trial judge, Albert Sabo, never was informed that Chobert at the time he allegedly parked behind  Faulkner's vehicle, and at the time of the trial, was driving on a drivers and a hack license suspended for a DWI conviction, and that he was on probation for felony arson, for the fire-bombing of an elementary school! Furthermore, it only became known to the defense in 1995 that Chobert had also asked the prosecutor if he might be able to "fix" his driver's license problem (a request that the prosecutor should by law have immediately made known to the defense, and to the court, since even if he did nothing to help Chobert, it meant that Chobert was likely to have been hoping for a reward for testifying favorably for the prosecution).

Of course, this is only one example of the peril posed to the state's case against Abu-Jamal by any public rehearing on his death penalty. There are many, many more such perils, too.

While on the one hand, it is surely a relief that this atrocity of a case will almost certainly not result in Abu-Jamal's execution, thanks to the Supreme Court's decision to stay out of it, in a perverse way it is unfortunate. This is because once Abu-Jamal is sentenced to life without parole rather than to death, and is transferred to a general prison population, where he will have freer access to his loved ones and to the public, as well as to the state's huge prison population, the national and global movement to free him will likely weaken, for he will no longer be the icon of the anti-death penalty movement that he has been.

He will of course be able to combat this thanks to his journalistic skills, which will be easier to apply once he's sprung from SCI-Green and has at least occasional access to a computer and to a library. But let's face it: remaining a leading symbol of the nation's death penalty madness will be harder once the threat of execution is finally lifted.

This means that those of us who believe that Abu-Jamal's original trial was a scandal of the worse  proportions, and that his guilt was never proven thanks to the epic misconduct by the prosecution, the lying by prosecution witnesses, the clear pro-prosecution bias of the judge, the ineptness of the defense attorney, the packing of the jury, the lack of funding for any defense experts, and myriad other flaws, will have to work all the harder at trying to win this long-suffering victim of the American injustice system a new trial, not on the penalty, but on his original conviction.

DAVE LINDORFF is the author of  Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal [2] (Common Courage Press, 2006).
Source URL: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/827

Links:
[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hedfNPt6UQQ&feature=player_embedded
[2] http://www.powells.com/biblio/1-9781567512281-6

US Supreme Court Affirms That Mumia's Death Sentence is Unconstitutional

PRESS RELEASE

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Media Contact: Mel Gagarin; (212) 965-2783 mgagarin@naacpldf.org

October 11, 2011


United States Supreme Court Rejects Appeal from Philadelphia DA's Office
Mumia Abu-Jamal's Death Sentence is Unconstitutional


(New York, NY) --  Today the United States Supreme Court rejected a request from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office to overturn the most recent federal appeals court decision declaring Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence unconstitutional.  The Court's decision brings to an end nearly thirty years of litigation over the fairness of the sentencing hearing that resulted in Mr. Abu-Jamal's being condemned to death.  Mr. Abu-Jamal will be automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole unless the District Attorney elects to seek another death sentence from a new jury.

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) and Professor Judith Ritter of Widener Law School represent Mr. Abu-Jamal in the appeal of his conviction and death sentence for the 1981 murder of a police officer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.  The Supreme Court's decision marks the fourth time that the federal courts have found that Mr. Abu-Jamal's sentencing jury was misled about the constitutionally mandated process for considering evidence supporting a life sentence.

"At long last, the profoundly troubling prospect of Mr. Abu-Jamal facing an execution that was produced by an unfair and unreliable penalty phase has been eliminated," said John Payton, Director-Counsel of LDF.  "Like all Americans, Mr. Abu-Jamal was entitled to a proper proceeding that takes into account the many substantial reasons why death was an inappropriate sentence."  Professor Ritter stated, "Our system should never condone an execution that stems from a trial in which the jury was improperly instructed on the law."

Mr. Abu-Jamal's case will now return to the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas for final sentencing.

Mumia Stamp Published by French Postal Service

Mumia's Lawyers' Statement on the DA's Appeal to the US Supreme Court

From
International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
and
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition

"Four federal judges have reviewed Mr. Abu-Jamal's case and found his death sentence to be unconstitutional. The Third Circuit's recent opinion reflects a detailed analysis demonstrating that their unanimous decision is well-supported by Supreme Court precedent. LDF believes that this carefully reasoned analysis will stand."

Judy Ritter
Christina Swarns
(Mumia's lead attorneys)

Philadelphia DA asks for US Supreme Court to review issue of death penalty v. life

from Suzanne Ross at www.freemumia.com:

Attorney Judy Ritter, who has argued the issue of Mills (whether Mumia should be given life in prison v. death) before the Third Circuit twice, just informed us that the Philadelphia DA is appealing to the US Supreme Court to review the Third Circuit's recent decision supporting Judge William Yohn 2001. The Yohn ruling was that the judge's instructions to the jury on the sentencing were incorrect and therefore could not allow the death sentence to stand.

We will put the appeals document on our website as soon as possible.
www.freemumia.com

Interview w/Suzanne Ross: For the Liberation of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Following is an interview with Suzanne Ross, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, William E. Bachmann, US Labor activist involved in Mumia's defense, and Omowale Rupert-em-Hru, of the Pan-Afrikan Society, which is part of the Free Mumia Abu- Jamal campaign in Great Britain. The interview was published in the International Liaison Committee of Workers and Peoples (ILC) Newsletter, Issue No. 36 (No. 405 Old Series) on May 27, 2011.

In November the ILC, a broad regroupment of political and trade union organizations, came together in Algiers for the Open World Conference Against War and Exploitation. Fifty-two countries, including the United States, were represented at the conference. Suzanne Ross, representing the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, addressed the plenary on the case of Mumia.

The interview below was conducted in Paris on May 2, 2011, almost six months after the conference. It is a follow up of the report that Suzanne Ross presented in Algiers. It accompanied a meeting the three Mumia activists had with Daniel Gluckstein, Co-coordinator of the International Liaison Committee, and Gerard Bauvert, Director, International Committee Against Repression.

We Absolutely Will Not Stop Until Mumia Is Free!

Question: The Mumia question was one of the cases at the center of our conference against war and exploitation in Algiers. The comrades who came to the conference in Algiers in November would like to know about the important recent developments in Mumia's case in these past almost six months. Could you give these comrades as well as all the other labor activists who are concerned about this issue some concrete and precise information about what these developments are?

Suzanne Ross: Okay. But first I want to communicate to our dear, dear comrades around the world who in Algiers showed such love and solidarity for Mumia. I was quite overwhelmed by the strong feelings for Mumia that people expressed. "We're so happy to hear about Mumia after these years where we haven't heard much", "How is he?" "Please give him my love". It was very moving and also very encouraging to experience that.

I reported on that to my comrades in the US and also to Mumia. So we owe all those people the opportunity to have up-to-date information of what has transpired since the conference.

The comrades will recall that that we were very concerned at the time about the possible execution of Mumia since the prosecutor and the State of Pennsylvania, where Mumia comes from and where he is situated on Death Row, were aggressively demanding that the question of Mumia's execution be reconsidered more seriously. That had not happened since 2001, when a federal judge ruled that Mumia should be sentenced to life in prison without any chance of parole rather than to an execution because of faulty instructions to the jury in the original trial.

We immediately became very concerned given the move toward the right in the United States, and especially with a right wing Supreme Court. We took it extremely seriously and spent from January 2010 until just this last month fighting this process, both in the courts and in the streets.

I am happy to report that there we had something like a legal victory in the sense that the courts had to admit that there was no new basis for reinstating the death penalty; that, in fact, the 2001 decision of life in prison without parole was affirmed. The original 2001 decision was made on a very technical basis and not given out of any humane consideration, or any consideration for a profound sense of justice. And still where it now stands legally, even if this decision is not overturned on appeal, is that Mumia will never get out.

So, it's not a decision that we ever wanted, in the sense of a final decision. The final decision has to be Mumia's freedom. And I repeat that: the final solution of the struggle - we do not stop, let me repeat this, we absolutely will not stop until Mumia is free, in fact until all political prisoners are free.

But the struggle for Mumia does not end once they remove the immediate threat of execution, and we want friends of Mumia around the world to know that, that we will fight to the very end on this issue. Mumia has never fought for life imprisonment without parole; that's not what he is fighting for. In fact, just to report, the lawyer who called him, to give him the news, -- you know, the lawyer of course was very happy. She said Mumia didn't react that strongly. She heard him, she spoke to him and he said very little. Okay, how could Mumia be happy after thirty years? "Oh, yes, life in prison without parole? That's great."

No, Mumia was not ecstatically happy, we're not ecstatically happy. We are glad the enemy was defeated and had a set-back; they could not move ahead with execution. That doesn't mean they won't try again. They have the legal possibility of trying again. But this was definitely a set back for them. This defeat for the enemy means that Mumia no longer has an immediate threat of execution.

The other big thing I want people around the world to know is Mumia's legal is now under the leadership of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. The two keys lawyers, Christina Swarns and Judith Ritter, were both involved before but they are now in charge. This is the organization (now completely separate from the NAACP, a more centrist organization not focused primarily on the legal front) that led the struggle for racial justice in the courts in the 1950's during the Civil Rights Movement. It won the landmark decision of Brown v. Board of Education that desegregated (officially at least) the schools. The Legal Defense Fund specializes in legal struggles on the issue of race.

They have taken on this case precisely because they feel it is very much defined by race and racial issues. I don't mean personal prejudice alone but rather powerful racial institutional forces in the legal system. In Mumia's case, this included the original judge who is known infamously for having said, outside his own courtroom but in an adjacent courtroom, "I'm going to help them fry the nigger" -- to the selection of a jury that was extremely biased, and selected purposefully to be disproportionately white -- to a police force that is known for its racism which has fought tooth and nail for Mumia's execution.

The NAACP Legal and Educational Defense Fund's moving into this case is wonderful. It's a big victory for Mumia. After nearly 30 years of this case, the most prestigious and most effective civil rights legal institute takes on his case in a major way, not just participating, but leading the team.

Those are the two major things that have happened since the conference, the Third Circuit ruling and the new legal team.

Question: You spoke about cruel and inhumane treatment in the prisons at the very moment when we hear about the US government speaking about democracy and human rights all over the world. Can you explain to our readers, even after the end of the immediate threat of execution, what are the conditions of Mumia's imprisonment?

SR: Mumia has been in prison and on Death Row for almost thirty years. He was twenty-seven years old when his case came up. He was a widely respected radio journalist, known as a radical critic of the corruption, racism, and brutality of city officials and government, brilliant, a peace-maker with children, a very involved and loving father. He was even known outside of Philadelphia because he was head of communications for the Black Panther Party in Philadelphia and as an emerging leader traveled for the Party. He wrote, he spoke. He has the kind of voice that actors have; people stop to listen to him. Also, he is a very clear thinker.

The prosecutor's office and the police took a charismatic young Black leader like that and presented him as a monster. They created a monster, a cop- killer, someone who wanting nothing more than to kill a cop. In a recent film the prosecution, police, and even the mayor of Philadelphia supported, Mumia was portrayed as someone who dreamed of killing cops, who was obsessed with fantasies of killing cops, almost from his mother's womb, someone who was born that way.

And that is how they justify denying Mumia all human rights. He's been living in this isolated cell that is the size of a small bathroom, he can make maybe two phone calls a week, and he is allowed out of his cell for an hour a day on weekdays, when it's not raining or snowing, to exercise within a small caged area with one other prisoner. He can never touch another human being, his wife, his children, his grandchildren: he sees them all behind the plexiglas barrier.

Until recently, every visit he went to, he had to undergo not only a strip search, but also to come in shackles, his legs shackled, his hands hand-cuffed. It was not until Archbishop Tutu came to visit him and protested that this man is no threat behind glass and that this is just too degrading to a human being, that the shackles were removed and he comes to his visits now without the shackles and the handcuffs.

But the lack of freedom and the intrusiveness is impossible for us to imagine. And this man, in the face of all that indignity, in the face of that brutality, maintains a spirit of humanity. He shows respect for all human beings and remains concerned about others, whether in the prison or death row area he is at or 7,000 miles away from where he is. I mean, you know from his articles and when people visit him, the first thing he asks is "How are you?", and he wants to know how you are. He asks about all the conditions people he knows or knows about are facing.

So this inhumane capitalist society, talking about human rights, trying to justify isolating or invading any country in the world it needs to defeat, in the name of defending the people's "human rights". Please! There is nothing that any country could do that would match - I mean, I should never say "never", but I can't imagine any country that would violate the human rights of people all over the world more than the United States.

I can't imagine any country whose violation of human rights -- and not that there aren't violations of human rights in too many other parts of the world -- would ever, ever justify the US having the right to say something about it. The US has no right to speak on the issue of human rights when it does what it does to its own citizens like Mumia Abu Jamal, the other political prisoners, and all those in prison -- and to people around the world with its invasions, occupations, wars, and the constant stealing of the world's resources.

As far as I'm concerned there is no reason to ever take seriously what Hillary Clinton, Bill Clinton or Obama say about human rights anywhere in the world. The US hasn't earned the right to be taken seriously about its supposed concern for human rights. It has stood for the very opposite, the denial and trampling of human rights whenever US economic, political, or military concerns are at stake.

Question: You explained in Algiers that Mumia is still alive today because of international solidarity. Maybe you could develop this question?

SR: Yes, Mumia is still alive today because of international solidarity, because of millions of people around the world, including in the US of course, who have cared about what he represents, who he is, and how much is at stake in his survival and liberation from prison. Those people have fought for him to be alive and free and have succeeded in keeping alive, though not yet free.

The US government wanted to and still wants to kill him. Every arm of the government has participated in this conspiracy: the police hierarchy in Philadelphia, the courts all the way to the Supreme Court, and the Department of Justice and President of the US in refusing to review the case. Additionally, the media has played a very large role in propagating the lies created by the police and prosecution. This despite the fact that it is obvious to millions of people that there has been a conspiracy to kill Mumia so as to silence him.

Yes, the only reason Mumia is alive today and they haven't been able to kill him is because people around the world have made it clear that they will not accept that. And the US government and the powers know that they are being watched by the whole world. This last time, when they had the hearing in the Pennsylvania court, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, the courtroom was packed with supporters, including representatives from Germany and France.

The streets outside the court room were covered with loud and determined supporters, even in the face of dozens of police and dogs in the area, especially at the entrance to the court, meant to intimidate and discourage people from attending the hearing. And almost three decades after this case began there were demonstrations in many parts of the world. Messages came in saying,"We're with you", "We stand with you". "Free Mumia".

Immediately after that was the strong solidarity the Algiers Conference represented by providing the opportunity for the body to hear about Mumia's situation, and thus reinvigorating the support of those present. That kind of international solidarity has kept Mumia alive.

We end by calling on the world progressive forces to continue to be vigilant and watchful about Mumia, the other political prisoners in the US dungeons, and the 2.3 million person prison population in the "land of the free". We extend our reciprocal solidarity for the critical people's struggles going on in so many different parts of the world at this moment, but perhaps most dramatically in North Africa.

Mumia's Message to the 6/11 Venezuelan Conference of African Descendants

This was an International Conference of African Descendants hosted by Venezuela in June in the 2011 UN International Year for People of African Descent.  Hundreds of delegates gathered in Caracas, including Sabrina Green, representing the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal.  Sabrina addressed the conference on Mumia.  Mumia's message was read at the conference.

To Our Friends in Venezuela

Hola, mis hermanos y hermanas de Venezuela Afro descendencias!

Congratulations on the official and national celebrations of the month of May for the Venezuelan Afro-descendant community.

The struggle for Black liberty, dignity and power is a global struggle, one which runs through almost every country on earth.

That's because, of course, the world's first globalist system was the international slave industry, where millions of Africans were transferred to the America, north and south, as well as to North Africa, and throughout the Middle East, to enrich others.

We, therefore, are part of each other, and have been for centuries; and hopefully will be for centuries to come!

We celebrate, with you, the advances of the Bolivarian Revolution, which has expanded the areas of public and civil life for many Afro-Descendents, and furthers the struggle against racism, and marginalism.

We know , from our study of history, that many Latin countries have centuries of racism and negrophobia in its past, and some have tried to create a new future for all their people, whether white, African or Indian.

We look at Venezuela and see it taking significant strides in that direction, not just in word, but in deed as well.

We therefore stand with and salute our brothers and sisters in Venezuela, as they try to build a space of freedom, dignity, independence, and progress outside of the U.S. Empire!

Ona Move!
With my best wishes,

Mumia Abu-Jamal
(Death Row/USA)

signed Ona MOVE! Mumia

[speech 5/31/11] ® Mumia Abu-Jamal

Mumia's book, Jailhouse Lawyer, launch event on June 30 in UK House of Lords

From death row in Pennsylvania, the launch of a new book in the UK

JAILHOUSE LAWYERS
Prisoners Defending Prisoners v the USA
By Mumia Abu-Jamal
Foreword by
Angela Y. Davis,

Introduction by
Selma James

Published by
Crossroads Books



30 June 2011
4:00 - 5:00 pm
House of Lords, Committee Room 4

Hosted by Lord Ramsbotham
Former HM Chief Inspector of Prisons

Speakers:

• Selma James, Crossroads Books editor, Introduction to Jailhouse Lawyers
  
• John Hirst, Ex-prisoner, won European Court decision for prisoners’ right to vote.
  
• Flo Krause, Barrister who represented John Hirst in the European Court
  
• Ian Macdonald, QC Wrote letter to US court on racism in Abu-Jamal’s trial, signed by over 100 UK lawyers
  
• Emmanuel De Silva, Jailhouse lawyer
   
• Benjamin Zephaniah, Poet, ex-prisoner
  
• Niki Adams, Legal Action for Women
  

New Play on Mumia in Philly

The Free Mumia Coalition is joining Pam and will be driving down to Philadelphia together.  If you want to travel with us, please call our hotline -- 212.330.8029 -- by Wednesday, June 12, and leave your home number.  Please state it clearly and say it twice.  Also, contact Pam to let her know you want her to save you a ticket (for which you'll pay her on the 12th).

The Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition

From Sis. Pam Africa:

Ona Move!  Concerning the play "In a Daughter's Eyes" -- the first preview was on Friday May 27th.  When I heard about it I went to the first preview nite.  From what I read I wanted to be sure that this was not a sneaky hit pieces on our brother Mumia Abu Jamal and the Panther organization.  I will not tell you anything about the play other than that I stood and gave it a standing ovation.  I met the playwrite, a young 24 year old Black man and all who were involved with the play -- the two young women in the play, one who played the daughter of Mumia Abu Jamal and the other who played the part of copy Daniel Faulkner's daughter.  This is, as described, a truly intense drama inspired by the true story of Mumia Abu Jamal.  Oh, yes -- I was seated by a journalist from the Philadelphia Tribune who, after the play, did a short interview with me, asking me what I thought of the play.  I said I was the first to stand and give a long standing ovation.  I had come to see whether I will tell family and friends to demonstrate or tell them to come see this play for themselves.

Since that viewing, on Sunday May 29th I accomanied Mumia's daughter Goldi and a friend.  At the end of the play we decided, after taking pictures with the director, producer and playwrite, the two outstanding actresses Lynette R. Freeman and Krista Apple, whose dramatization of this play ket us intense as it took you on an emotional roller coaster ride.  The third time I saw the play I accompanied Mumia's wife, Wadiya Jamal, one of Mumia's former attorneys and  truly good friend of the family, Rachael Wolkinstein, and one of Mumia's former investigators.  Rachael had her granddaughter with her.  Also present was two trusted members of the original Black Panthers (this is important because we are serious about our movements and organizations).  The 2 Panthers were Barbara Easley Cox, wife of D.C. Cox, and our sister Gladys from Chicago, now in Philadelphia -- two serious sistas, dat's right, and Professor Robert Zeller and a friend, both long time fighters for justice.  And a very good friend, a serious activist for human rights and justice, Sister Omi Rahim.  At the end of the play we all stood for a well-deserved standing ovation and to do one on one with everyone involved in the play, and I also want to thank the Inter Act Theater Comapny who treated us all with the utmost respect and saw to it that all who came for the play were treated with respect...

Now I will be going back on Thursday June 9th with other activists coming from out of town, with Professor Sandra Jones, human rights activist and anti-death penalty advocate, to attend an academic conference.  If you want to join us, please email me before you get your tickets so we can get the cheaper tickets available with the group rate.  We also will be having a Family and Friends day on June 12 at 2 pm.

So contact me soon.  When we went on Wednesday June 1st it was sold out!!!!  So if you plan on going, get with me ASAP. You will not be disappointed.  On the 12th, following the play, there will be time for discussion.

Thank you for your continued support.

Pam Africa
(icffmaj@aol.com)
Minister of Confrontation for the MOVE Organization and
Chairwoman of the Uncompromising
International Concerned Family and Friend of Mumia Abu Jamal


This play is 1 hour and a half long, so we should be finished by 3:30 or 4 pm.  Then join us at the African celebration odunde, a few blocks away, at the Main Stage at 23rd and South, and several blocks of vendors starting at 16th and South to 23rd and 23rd to 25th and Grays Ferry.  Odunde is another event you do not want to miss, so join us for a full day of conscious upliftment and edutainment!

Rise up, everybody and get ready to work!!!!!

The National Conference of Black Lawyers Calls on Obama Administration to Free All U.S. Political Prisoners

The National Conference of Black Lawyers (NCBL) urges the U.S. to apply international human rights standards to protect, and ensure the rights of political prisoners. NCBL presented the plight of the political prisoners in the United States to the United Nations' Human Rights Council in a cluster report as well as an individual report documenting the human rights violations related to U.S. political prisoners. NCBL welcomed the U.S. participation in the Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process as an important step toward protecting human rights at home. In addition to human rights violations of the political prisoners, there are many areas that need significant improvement in the U.S. As part of the UPR process, dozens of human rights groups submitted reports documenting the scale and extent of human rights violations in the U.S. In preparation for a November meeting before the HRC, the U.S. submitted a report in August to the Human Rights Council ("HRC") on its efforts to strengthen human rights commitments and to comply with international human rights standards. The U.S. failed to mention the plight of political prisoners who have languished in U.S. prisons for decades. In the compilation of civil society reports submitted to the HRC in October, the U.S. was urged to free its political prisoners.

On November 5, 2010, the U.S. appeared before the HRC and engaged in an interactive dialogue with other countries of the HRC, as well as other member states in a review of the United States' human rights compliance. During this interactive review the political prisoner issue was raised by member states. After the review the HRC adopted a report with 228 recommendations, including recommendations concerning political prisoners, for the U.S. government to improve the status of human rights in the country. On November 9, 2010, the U.S. published its "Response to Recommendations" of the HRC. Again, the U.S. neglected to address the human rights violations committed by its FBI that resulted in the wrongful imprisonment of dozens of African-American political activists and others.

While the United States consistently denies the existence of political prisoners, these individuals were ensnared in the grips of the United States' repressive Counter-intelligence Program (COINTELPRO) operation as activists who dared to challenge the status quo of America's harsh treatment of black people. Many of these activists were members of organizations such as the Black Panther Party, and were not content to remain silent in a system of de facto slavery, but demanded human rights in many areas, including quality education, healthcare, and an end to rampant police violence against black people. Groups such as the Black Panther Party were targets of government surveillance under COINTELPRO and members were harassed, beaten,
falsely arrested and prosecuted in a system bloated with contempt for them and their righteous causes. They were sentenced to unreasonably lengthy prison terms. In cases where death sentences were not imposed, the parole boards, through their actions in repeatedly denying parole, are making certain that they will die in prison. Hence this well-oiled machine continues to operate against political prisoners in America.

A Congressional subcommittee, popularly known as the "Church Committee", was formed to investigate and study the FBI's covert action programs. In its report, the Church Committee concluded that the FBI had "conducted a sophisticated vigilante operation aimed squarely at preventing the exercise of First Amendment rights of speech and association, on the theory that preventing the growth of dangerous groups and the propagation of dangerous ideas would protect the national security and deter violence."

Even if one were to grant credibility to the FBI's stated reason for its violations of these prisoners' constitutional and human rights, there exists no justification for their continued incarceration.

These political prisoners are now elderly. There is overwhelming statistical support for the fact that the rate of recidivism for elderly prisoners is virtually nonexistent. Also, several have died while incarcerated due to lack of health care. Governors across this country are unwilling to grant clemency to political prisoners. Parole boards reserve "special treatment" for them, no matter how exemplary their institutional adjustment and impressive the evidence is for successful re-entry into society once released. The United States' failure to recognize them does not make their existence any less real. The United States' continued refusal to acknowledge the evidence of their existence is itself a violation of their human rights. These prisoners' human rights were not only violated by the operations of COINTELPRO and their subsequent arrests and convictions. Their human rights continue to be violated as prisoners with convictions for crimes of the same or less seriousness are released on parole. Given this evidence coupled with their exemplary records while incarcerated, it is absolutely beyond dispute that their treatment stems from the fact of their past political association. This treatment of political prisoners is prohibited by the Convention to End All Forms of Racism and Discrimination (CERD).

The United States has no moral authority to chastise other governments for human rights violations until it addresses its human rights violations including the atrocious treatment of political prisoners. In March, 2011, the HRC will hold its regular session for the formal adoption of the U.S. outcome document. Thus, the U.S. still has an opportunity to address this critical issue.

The National Conference of Black Lawyers in coalition with other organizations will continue to expose this national shame until the United States acknowledges it and takes steps to address it.

5/13 & 14 Take Action to Free the MOVE 9 - Events in Philadelphia & London

Ona MOVE for the MOVE Organization

“...it is time to put what I have learned into practice; freedom will only be won by the sweat on our brows” —Safiya Bukhari

Four years ago, as a junior in college in Virginia, I met this Elder named Leroy who was the janitor at the school library. After about five minutes of conversation, he asked of my origins. I replied “home of the moonshine, Franklin, Virginia”. After turning the question back on him, he responded―”I am from Philly, home of a Black mayor throwing a bomb on some Black folks house.”

That was my first piece of information about MOVE.

Three Years ago, I moved to Philly and I was surprised to see the light being dimmed on the MOVE 9’s case. It was one of the biggest cases of injustice in Philadelphia, and people had seem to forget that not only one, but nine of their own political prisoners were doing a 30-100 year bid in prison.

I remember watching the gritty, Black and White, documentary, “MOVE: Confrontation in Philadelphia” and feeling the outrage of the community after the August 8, 1978 incident. People were in the streets cursing and exposing the corruption of Philadelphia police and rallying together for the MOVE 9. Fast Forward thirty years later and while engaging in dialogue with people around the MOVE 9 case, I hear time and time again, ―”they are still incarcerated?”, “Hold up, you mean to tell me there are people in prison right now who are apart of MOVE?”

This type of brain drain is very devastating to an important case such as this one that needs support in the form of people power in demanding the MOVE 9’s freedom!


Everyday, I am making more of a personal commitment to the MOVE 9, while working towards enlightening my community about this case and putting out the information in order to ensure that our brothers and sisters of the MOVE 9 will make it back to us as well.

Even if you do not agree with the principles of the MOVE organization, or support their stance, we can agree on as a community that our political prisoners must come home! We must take the initiative to enlighten one another about the MOVE 9 and strategize on how we can get Chuck, Mike, Janet, Janine, Debbie, Delbert, Phil, and Eddie home (and justice for Sis Merle as well). Along the way, hopefully we can enlighten others to find it in their conscience to make a MOVE for the MOVE 9!

Ona MOVE,

Iresha Picot, MOVE Supporter


Never forget 1985! Now is the time to free the MOVE 9!

PHILADELPHIA

Friday May 13

Watch “August 8, 1978” to understand the unjust incarceration of the MOVE 9 and how the battle for their release lead to the bombing of MOVE in 1985.

6:00 - 9:00 pm
L-13 Gladfelter Hall, Temple University
1115 W. Berks Street, Philadelphia

Saturday May 14

Join us for a rally
at Broad & Chestnut Street, Philadelphia
12:00 - 3:00 pm


From Ramona Africa:

To this day no official has been held accountable for the murder of our MOVE family which the whole world witnessed. Meanwhile,the MOVE 9 still sit in prison 33 years after being falsely accused of a murder officials know they didn't commit and nobody can say they saw anyone of them commit. In fact, at the end of the trial the trial judge stated publicly that he didn't have the faintest idea who killed Officer Ramp on August 8,1978. Officials can't give us back our family that they murdered on May 13th 26 years ago but they can give us back our innocent family members that they have behind their prison walls despite their innocence.

Ona MOVE!
LONG LIVE JOHN AFRICA!




LONDON

Friday 13 May

MOVE Demo Outside London US Embassy
5:00 - 7:00 pm

From Emma Lewis:

Demonstrate Outside the US Embassy
Grosvenor Square, London

For Justice for the MOVE family

Murdered by the criminal US state by bombing their commune and killing 11 people including five children

CELEBRATE THE LIVES OF OUR MARTYRS

Down with US Imperialism
Justice for the MOVE 9

FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS
FREE MUMIA

3rd Circuit Court Appeal Ruling Declairs Mumia's Sentending Unconstitutional

3rd Circuit Appeal Ruling Favoring Abu-Jamal Smacks Down US Supreme Court
Tue, 04/26/2011
Linn Washington Jr.
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/579
 

The federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, in a stunning smack at the U.S. Supreme Court, has issued a ruling upholding its earlier decision backing a new sentencing hearing in the controversial case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted killer of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.

The latest ruling, issued on Tuesday April 26, 2011, upholds a ruling the Third Circuit issued over two years ago siding with a federal district court judge who, back in 2001, had set aside Abu-Jamal’s death penalty after determining that death penalty instructions provided to the jury, and a flawed jury ballot document used during Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial, had been unclear.

The U.S. Supreme Court had ordered the Third Circuit to re-examine its 2009 ruling upholding the lifting of Abu-Jamal’s death sentence.

The nation’s top court had cited a new legal precedent in that directive to the Third Circuit, a strange order given the fact that the Supreme Court had earlier consistently declined to apply its own precedents to Abu-Jamal’s case.

The Associated Press was the first to report the Third Circuit’s latest dramatic ruling and in fact, as of the morning of the ruling’s release, the decision had still not been posted on the appeals court’s website.

Abu-Jamal’s current lead attorney, Prof Judith Ritter of the Widener Law School, could not be reached for comment.

The Third Circuit’s ruling, if left standing, requires Philadelphia prosecutors to call for a whole new sentencing hearing if they want to try and reinstate the death penalty. That would require the impaneling of a whole new jury, to hear and consider evidence regarding mitigating circumstances and aggravating circumstances in the case, and then to decide for either execution of life-without-possibility of parole--the only two options legally available. Abu-Jamal has exhausted his avenues of appeal of his conviction, absent new evidence in the case.

If prosecutors opted against holding new hearing then Abu-Jamal’s sentence would be converted automatically to a life sentence, which in Pennsylvania means no chance of parole. Abu-Jamal would have to spending the remainder of his life behind bars, though not on death row.

Experts contend a new sentencing hearing would be problematic for prosecutors. Although the issue of guilt or innocence would not be on trial, the defense could bring in witnesses to explain exactly what they saw happen the night of the shooting--witnesses whose testimony could ultimately raise new questions about the validity of the underlying conviction.

It is almost a certainty that prosecutors will appeal the Third Circuit’s latest ruling back up to the Supreme Court. Furthermore, prosecutors concede that current and yet unresolved legal issues in this case, which continues to attract unprecedented international scrutiny, will keep it in courts for years. For example, there are several avenues of appeal of Abu-Jamal's death sentence which were never adjudicated by the Federal District court, which mooted them after the Judge, William Yohn, found in favor of one argument and tossed out the death sentence.

In early April 2011 the NAACP Legal Defense Fund publicly announced it was joining the Abu-Jamal defense team and working with Professor Ritter. NAACP lawyers had joined Ritter last fall during the hearing where she argued the legal point just upheld by the Third Circuit in its latest ruling.

Recently Abu-Jamal recorded yet another birthday (4/24) inside a death row isolation cell. Abu-Jamal and the 222 other Pennsylvania death row inmates spend 23-hours per day every day isolated inside minimalist cells.

Since 1983 Abu-Jamal has languished in the confinement of death row, following his controversial July 1982 conviction for the murder of Officerl Faulkner.

Now 57, Abu-Jamal has spent nearly 29 years of his life in prison for a crime he has consistently denied committing--a crime that ample evidence conclusively proves could not have occurred as police and prosecutors have proclaimed.

Authorities, for example, claim Abu-Jamal fired four shots at the policeman, while straddling the officer as he lay defenseless on a sidewalk, striking him only once with a fatal shot in the face.

However, police crime scene photos and police reports make no reference of any bullet marks in that sidewalk around the fallen officer--marks that should have been clearly visible if Abu-Jamal fired three shots at almost point-blank range into the sidewalk as witnesses and the prosecutor claimed.

As detailed in an thorough investigative ballistic test released in September 2010 by This Can’t Be Happening! (See our film at the bottom of the home page), it is impossible to fire high-velocity bullets into a sidewalk without leaving any marks. TCBH! test-fired each kind of .38-caliber bullets referenced in police reports about the 1981 crime scene into a slab of old city sidewalk, and each of those bullets left easily visible marks…marks totally contradicting claims by authorities that Abu-Jamal wildly fired into the sidewalk without leaving bullet marks.

Rulings by federal and state courts denying Abu-Jamal the legal relief routinely granted other inmates who had raised the same appeals claims are the least-examined element of this internationally-condemned injustice.

The same Philadelphia and Pennsylvania courts that found major flaws by either defense attorneys, police, prosecutors and/or trial judges in 86 Philadelphia death penalty convictions during a 28-year period after Abu-Jamal’s December 1981 arrest declare no errors exist anywhere in the Abu-Jamal case – an assertion critics call statistically improbable.

The federal Third Circuit, for example, declined to grant Abu-Jamal a new trial based on solid legal issues from racial discrimination by prosecutors in jury selection to documented errors by trial judge Albert Sabo, the late jurist who relished his infamous reputation for pro-prosecution bias.

The Third Circuit’s 2008 ruling faulting Sabo for his inability to provide the jury with simple death penalty deliberation instructions included the contradictory conclusion that Sabo had adequately provided the jury with instructions about a highly complicated legal issue involving misconduct by the trial prosecutor.

Faulting Sabo for that flawed instruction on prosecutorial misconduct would have required the Third Circuit to give Abu-Jamal a whole new trial. Unwilling to do that, the court sidestepped its duty to ensure justice, by deciding to just eliminate Abu-Jamal’s death sentence, instead.

Pennsylvania state courts have released three Philadelphians from death row (half of Pa’s death row exonerations to date) citing misconduct by police and prosecutors…misconduct that was less egregious than that documented in the Abu-Jamal case. One of those Philadelphia exonerations involved a man framed by police for a mob-related killing, who was arrested six months before Abu-Jamal.

While many people in Philadelphia may feel Abu-Jamal is guilty as charged, millions around the world question every aspect of this conviction, citing facts that proponents of Abu-Jamal’s conviction deliberately dismiss as irrelevant.

This widespread questioning of Abu-Jamal’s guilt is the reason why pro-Abu-Jamal activities occurred around the world commemorating Abu-Jamal’s 4/24 birthday, including people in San Francisco attending a screening of the “Justice on Trial” movie examining ignored aspects in the case, and people marching for Abu-Jamal’s freedom in the Brixton section of London.

Officials in the French city of Saint-Denis will stage a ceremony rededicating a street they named for Abu-Jamal during the last weekend in April.

The ire erupting over Abu-Jamal’s prominence on the part of advocates of his execution contains contradictions that are as clear as the proverbial black-&-white.

The U.S. Congress engaged in color-coded contradiction approving a May 2006 resolution condemning far off Saint-Denis for its honoring Abu-Jamal by placing his name on a small one block long street.

Over a decade before that anti-Saint-Denis outrage, over 100 members of Congress had battled to block the U.S. government from deporting a white fugitive convicted of killing a British Army officer in Belfast, Northern Ireland.

That officer’s killing had occurred during an investigation into the murder of another Belfast policeman.

Incidentally, the U.S. Congress did not erupt angrily when the City Council of New York City voted to place the name of that fugitive – Joseph Doherty – on the street corner outside the federal detention center then housing him.

In 1988 – six years after Abu-Jamal’s conviction – more than 3,000 Philadelphians signed petitions asking federal authorities to grant Doherty special permission to leave his federal detention cell for one day to allow Doherty to serve as Grand Marshall of Philadelphia’s St Patrick’s Day Parade.

One Philly supporter of suspected convicted cop killer Doherty was the then-President Judge of Philadelphia’s trial courts, Edward J. Bradley.

Judge Bradley told a reporter in 1988 that he had no problems as a jurist reconciling his support for a convicted felon because he questioned the “fair treatment” Irish nationals received in English courts.

Judge Bradley’s concern about fairness for IRA fighters in English courts is not paralleled by any concern about fairness in Philadelphia courts with regard to the case of former Black Panther Party member Abu-Jamal. Judge Bradley's double standard highlights the gross unfairness of Philadelphia and Pennsylvania state court judges.

Critics who castigate those who contribute to Abu-Jamal’s defense fund, especially by Hollywood stars, did not object to fund-raising on behalf of one of the white Los Angeles policemen convicted in federal court for the 1991 beating of Rodney King. That criminal cop was allowed to keep nearly $10-million in sales from his book and from a fund-raising campaign on his behalf – monies generated mainly after that the former police sergeant's imprisonment following a civil rights violation conviction.

One reason the decades-old Abu-Jamal case continues to generate support and rage is Abu-Jamal himself.

A charismatic figure who is articulate, with a level of education and intelligence atypical of the mainly illiterate denizens of death row, Abu-Jamal is able to explain his case, as well as to expose the horrors of the nation's prison system and its death rows.

While on death row Abu-Jamal has written six critically acclaimed books (including one on jailhouse lawyers), produced thousands of commentaries, learned two foreign languages, earned two college degrees, including a masters, and developed a loyal support network comprising millions worldwide.

Even the prosecutor at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial – Joseph McGill – described him during that trial as the most “intelligent” defendant he'd ever faced.

And another prosecutor, during Abu-Jamal’s tainted 1995 appeals hearing, said he didn’t think “the shooting of Officer Faulkner is characteristic of this defendant.” (Abu-Jamal had no record of violence or criminal acts before his 1981 arrest.)

Supporters applaud Abu-Jamal’s defense of the downtrodden, particularly his poignant criticisms of America’s prison-industrial complex, that incarcerates more people per capita than any other country on earth.

Abu-Jamal’s stance highlighting the deprivations of the have-nots, predated his arrest, and had earned him the title of “Voice of the Voiceless” during his professional broadcast reporting career, which ran from 1975 till his December 1981 arrest.

Abu-Jamal rarely uses his world-wide platform to speak about his own plight, preferring to focus instead on the injustices endured by others.

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Download the full text of the court's ruling:
http://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/019014p2.pdfhttp://www.ca3.uscourts.gov/opinarch/019014p2.pdf

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From Journalists for Mumia on the Court's Decision
http://www.abu-jamal-news.com

On April 26, 2011 the US Third Circuit Court upheld earlier rulings from 2001 (by US District Court Judge William Yohn) and 2008 (by the same 3rd Circuit panel of three judges) that 'overturned'* the death sentence and stated that if the DA wants to re-instate the death penalty, then Mumia must first be given a new sentencing phase jury trial where Mumia can present evidence of innocence but the jury can only decide between execution or life in prison without parole. (View full ruling)

According to the ruling, the DA has 180 days to decide whether or not to have a new sentencing trial. However, the DA is now appealing this ruling to the US Supreme Court, further postponing the 180 day deadline.

*The word 'overturned' must be qualified because following the 2001 ruling, at the DA's request, Mumia has never left his death row cell or been given general population 'privileges' such as contact visits with family.

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NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund Press Release on 3rd Circuit Court Decision

NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc.

For Immediate Release

April 26, 2011
Contact: Melquiades Gagarin, mgagarin@naacpldf.org, 212-965-2783

Mumia Abu-Jamal's 1982 Death Sentence is Again Declared Unconstitutional
The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has unanimously declared that Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence is unconstitutional. In today's decision, the Court of Appeals reaffirmed its 2008 finding that Mr. Abu-Jamal's sentencing jury was misled about the process for considering evidence supporting a life sentence. The Court found that, in violation of the United States Supreme Court's 1988 decision in Mills v. Maryland, the jury was improperly led to believe that that it could only consider unanimously agreed upon evidence favoring a life verdict. This mistake rendered Mr. Abu-Jamal's death sentence fundamentally unfair. The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF) and Professor Judy Ritter of Widener Law School represent Mr. Abu-Jamal in this appeal of his 1982 conviction and death sentence for the murder of a police officer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

"This decision marks an important step forward in the struggle to correct the mistakes of an unfortunate chapter in Pennsylvania history," said John Payton, Director-Counsel of LDF. "Again acknowledging the existence of clear constitutional error in Mr. Abu-Jamal's trial, the Court of Appeals' decision enhances confidence in the criminal justice system and helps to relegate the kind of unfairness on which this death sentence rested to the distant past."

Prof. Ritter noted that, "Pennsylvania long ago abandoned the confusing and misleading instructions and verdict slip that were relied on in Mr. Abu-Jamal's trial in order to prevent unfair and unjust death sentences. Courts now use clear and unambiguous language to advise sentencing juries about their ability to consider evidence that favors a life verdict. Mr. Abu-Jamal is entitled to no less constitutional protection."

Mr. Abu-Jamal he has been on death row in Pennsylvania for 29 years.
To speak with counsel for Mr. Abu-Jamal, please contact Melquiades Gagarin, mgagarin@naacpldf.org, 212-965-2783.

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http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2011/apr/27/mumia-abujamal-capital-punishment

Capital punishment: America's worst crime

Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on death row for 29 years. Now, a court rules his sentencing unconstitutional. When will we learn?

Wednesday, April 27 2011 Amy Goodman

Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther party member, has spent 29 years on death row, convicted for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner
The death penalty case of Mumia Abu-Jamal took a surprising turn this week, as a federal appeals court declared, for the second time, that Abu-Jamal's death sentence was unconstitutional. The third US circuit court of appeals, in Philadelphia, found that the sentencing instructions the jury received, and the verdict form they had to use in the sentencing, were unclear. While the disputes surrounding Abu-Jamal's guilt or innocence were not addressed, the case highlights inherent problems with the death penalty and the criminal justice system, especially the role played by race.

Early on 9 December 1981, Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner pulled over a car driven by William Cook, Abu-Jamal's brother. What happened next is in dispute. Shots were fired, and both Officer Faulkner and Abu-Jamal were shot. Faulkner died, and Abu-Jamal was found guilty of his murder in a court case presided over by Judge Albert Sabo, who was widely considered to be a racist. In just one of too many painful examples, a court stenographer said in an affidavit that she heard Sabo say, in the courtroom antechamber, "I'm going to help them fry the n****r."

This latest decision by the court of appeals relates directly to Sabo's conduct of the sentencing phase of Abu-Jamal's court case. The Pennsylvania supreme court is considering separate arguments surrounding whether or not Abu-Jamal received a fair trial at all. What the court of appeals unanimously found this week is that he did not receive a fair sentencing. Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams has decided to appeal the decision to the US supreme court, saying:

"The right thing for us to do is to ask the US supreme court to hear this and to make a ruling on it."

As a result of this ruling, Abu-Jamal could get a new, full sentencing hearing, in court, before a jury. In such a hearing, the jury would be given clear instructions on how to decide between applying a sentence of life in prison as opposed to the death penalty – something the court found he did not receive back in 1982. At best, Abu-Jamal would be removed from the cruel confines of solitary confinement on Pennsylvania's death row at SCI Greene. John Payton, director counsel of the NAACP legal defence fund, which is representing Abu-Jamal in court, said:

"This decision marks an important step forward in the struggle to correct the mistakes of an unfortunate chapter in Pennsylvania history ... and helps to relegate the kind of unfairness on which this death sentence rested to the distant past."

His other attorney, Judith Ritter, a law professor at Widener University school of law, told me: "This is extremely significant. It's a life or death decision." I asked her if she had spoken to Abu-Jamal yet, and she told me that the prison failed to approve her request for an emergency legal phone call. I was not surprised, given my many years of covering his case.

He has faced multiple obstacles as he has tried to have his voice heard. On 12 August 1999, as I was hosting Democracy Now!, Abu-Jamal called into our news hour, mid-broadcast, to be interviewed. As he began to speak, a prison guard yanked the phone out of the wall. Abu-Jamal called back a month later and recounted that:

"Another guard appeared at the cell hollering at the top of his lungs, 'This call is terminated!' I immediately called to the sergeant standing by and looking on and said, 'Sergeant, where did this order come from?' He shrugged his shoulders and said: 'I don't know. We just got a call to cut you off.'"

Abu-Jamal sued over the violation of his rights, and won.

Despite his solitary confinement, Abu-Jamal has continued his work as a journalist. His weekly radio commentaries are broadcast from coast to coast. He is the author of six books. He was recently invited to present to a conference on racial imprisonment at Princeton University. He said (through a cellphone held up to a microphone):

"Vast numbers of men, women and juveniles … populate the prison industrial complex here in America. As many of you know, the US, with barely 5% of the world's population, imprisons 25% of the world's prisoners … the numbers of imprisoned blacks here rivals and exceeds South Africa's hated apartheid system during its height."

The United States clings to the death penalty, alone in the industrialised world. In fact, it stands with China, Iran, North Korea, Saudi Arabia and Yemen as the world's most frequent executioners. This week's decision in Mumia Abu-Jamal's case stands as one more clear reason why the death penalty should be abolished.

• Denis Moynihan contributed research to this column.

Berlin report: Mumia's "Message For Anti-War Rallies"

Dear all in the USA Free Mumia Movement,

Today appr. 4000 people took to the streets in Berlin, Germany to protest war and nuclear power. 25 years after the desaster of Tschernobyl, a few weeks after Fukushima and in the light of the latest war on Libya as well as Irak and Afghanistan people demanded a stop to all of this.

All major energy corporations as well as the British, French, European and US Embassies were visited by a loud march in the city center of Berlin.

At the closing rally on the central Potsdamer Place Mumia's message was played and people were asked to write prepared birthday cards to him, as has his 57th birthday the following day - Mumia will get a lot of post soon.

You can listen to Mumia's original message at Prison Radio:
http://www.prisonradio.org/4-10-11MessageForAntiWarRallies.htm

[ed. you can also sign up for the podcast of Mumia's commentaries at http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com.  The direct link to this message is http://mumiapodcast.libsyn.com/the-method-of-their-madness.  To sign up at iTunes, go to http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/mumia-abu-jamals-radio-essays/id197112445]

You can listen to a german recording of Mumia's speech in translation and the audience's response at:
"Berlin, Ostermarsch 2011: Redebeitrag von Mumia Abu-Jamal" http://www.freie-radios.net/40611

The Berlin demonstration was part of a nationwide mobilisation against the wars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. For the last 50 years the peace movement has been mobilizing against nuclear arms and wars around weekend of eastern. This year there are rallies in 83 cities and regions in Germany.

Mumia's message was played on other rallies, e.g. in Hamburg, where several hundred listened to Mumia's message on the same afternoon, too.

In solidarity

AMSTERDAM NEWS.........MUMIA ABU-JAMAL CELEBRATES 58YRS

Mumia's supporters call his birthday a day of resurrection

By Saeed Shabazz
Special to the AmNews, April 21, 2011

On Sunday, April 24, political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal celebrates his 58th birthday. Suzanne Ross, co-chair of the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC), told the AmNews that "this is a day of resurrection for Mumia's case," referring to the fact that April 24 of this year is also being celebrated as Easter Sunday.

Before getting any deeper into the details surrounding the Philadelphia activist's case, the AmNews must share an exclusive email from Julia Wright, daughter of famed writer Richard Wright, who lives in Paris, France. Five years ago, a small town called Saint-Denis defied the Fraternal Order of Police and a U.S. Congressional Resolution by naming a street after Mumia, known as rue Mumia Abu-Jamal. Julia Wright recalled a phone call she received:

"Five years ago, on a premature spring afternoon, I received a phone call in my Paris apartment (my family and I have continued to live in exile after Richard Wright's death in 1960). An official-sounding voice asked me if I was the spokesperson in France for International Concerned Family and Friends for Mumia Abu Jamal.

"Puzzled, I concurred," Wright said.

"The voice then identified itself as speaking for the cultural Department of the City Hall of the town of Saint-Denis, better known for its church, where all the kings and queens of France are buried—some beheaded. `Would you kindly get in touch with Mr. Jamal on death row and ask him for his written permission to enable our municipality to name a street for him?'

"I blinked in amazement and finally managed to say, `I was under the impression streets could only be named after dead people.'"

She continued, "The official voice softened as it answered: `That is just why we want to name a street after him; so that we can keep him alive.'

"Today, five years later, Mumia is still alive and rue Mumia Abu-Jamal is still alive and kicking."

According to Ross, what is really significant is that he still is alive some 30 years after being sent to a Pennsylvania death row cell. Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death row in 1983, after his 1982 conviction in the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. The man known as "the voice of the people" has always maintained his innocence.

Abu-Jamal was a radio journalist, activist with the Black Panther Party and part-time cab driver at the time of Faulkner's murder. He was also active in defending MOVE, the naturalist organization residing in the West Philadelphia section of the "City of Brotherly Love."

In 2001, a federal judge in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania upheld the original conviction but voided the death sentence, citing irregularities in the original sentencing procedure, according to Wikipedia.

In December of 2005, the Third Circuit Court allowed for an appeal of the ruling of the District Court on four issues: that the jury form had been flawed, that there had potentially been a racial bias in jury selection, that the prosecutor's instructions to the jury were misleading and that the presiding judge demonstrated unacceptable bias.

According to reports, the presiding judge stated at the time, "Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the nigger."

On March 27, 2008, a three-judge panel issued a majority 2-1 opinion that upheld the 2001 opinion but rejected the bias issue. They said that if the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania chose not to hold a new hearing, Abu-Jamal would automatically be sentenced to life in prison.

In July of 2008, Abu-Jamal's petition seeking a reconsideration of the decision by the full Third Circuit panel of 12 judges was denied. On April 6, 2010, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear his appeal, and on Jan. 19, 2010, the Supreme Court ordered the appeals court to reconsider the decision to rescind the death penalty, also ordering them to hear submissions for that purpose. That is where the case stands now.

Abu-Jamal addressed a standing-room only gathering of his supporters at Riverside Church on April 3. When a questioner asked him what has kept him going for the past 30 years, he said, "It has been a long, hard struggle. I have been blessed with a loving family. I am inspired when I see people organize against neo-colonial imperialism."

So, one might ask, what does Ross mean by a resurrection? The purpose for the gathering at Riverside Church was to introduce Abu-Jamal's new legal team to his supporters: attorney Christine Swarms, director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund's Criminal Justice Project, and attorney Judith Ritter, professor at Widener Law School in Wilmington, Del.

"No question, the criminal justice system has failed him and that has everything to do with race," Swarms said, adding, "That is why the LDF is in this case."

The spirit in the room on April 3 showed the significance of the "Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Movement" 30 years later, said Ross. In her exclusive interview with the AmNews she noted that the support for Abu-Jamal in France was very significant moment.

Ross said that the two attorneys are going for the April 30 street-renaming celebration along with Bill Bachmann, a union activist with the American Postal Workers Union and member of the NYC Free Mumia Coalition; a two-member delegation from Germany's "Free Mumia Movement"; and a 12-member delegation from the Pan-African Society in London, England.

Last but not least, Ramona Africa and Pam Africa from the International Coalition out of Philadelphia will be in attendance. "We have to agitate and make people stay on the move," Pam Africa said. "The fact of it is we are all on death row."

Chokwe Lumumba, the Scott Sisters, and more Sat April 23

 Mississippi, Goddam! The Scott Sisters Speak in Brooklyn 

A community forum regarding the case of the Scott Sisters (see background note below). Attorney Chokwe Lumumba will give updates about the current state of affairs of this case and will provide information about the campaign for their full release. Jamie and Gladys Scott will be teleconferenced in live to share their experiences as well as their ongoing commitment to help others with similar cases. This forum is free and open to the public.

April 23 from 1:00 pm – 3:00 pmat Restoration Plaza
Restoration Plaza, First Floor – Multi-Purpose Room
Located at 1368 Fulton St Brooklyn, NY 11216

Featured Guests: Jamie and Gladys Scott (aka the Scott Sisters) will be featured guests via teleconference.

Panelists: Chokwe Lumumba (legal counsel to the Scott Sisters); Michael Tarif Warren (lawyer activist), Marc Lamont Hill (activist, author, scholar), and Rukia Lumumba (activist); April R. Silver (activist, writer), moderator.

Organized by The Malcolm X Grassroots Movement and the National Conference of Black Lawyers.

For more information, contact Lalit Clarkson at 917.468.7348 or info@mxgm.org

freethescottsisters.blogspot.com


BACKGROUND

In 1993 in Mississippi two young Black women, Jamie and Gladys Scott were each sentenced to double life sentences for an $11 robbery. The trail and conviction of the then 19 and 22 year old women wreaks of the blatant race, gender and class oppression that is rampant throughout the criminal justice system in America. Their defense attorney, who was later disbarred for unrelated incompetency, never called a single witness in the sister's defense. One of the witnesses who testified against them has since recanted his testimony saying he was threatened by police. Ultimately, two of the three men who indeed committed the robbery served 2 years in prison in exchange for testifying against the Scott sisters. Jamie and Gladys maintain their innocence

While in prison, Jamie and Gladys suffered all of the usually physical and psychological abuses of incarceration. The lack of decent health care and nutrition put Jamie Scott in critical need of a kidney transplant. Support for their release grew over the decade and a half of their incarceration, ultimately leading to a suspension of sentence in January of this year - conditional on Gladys donating a kidney to her ailing sister.

Today, the Scott family and their supports urge the governor of Mississippi for a full pardon. Under the suspended sentence they must pay $52 a month for parole, abide by a strict curfew, and live with the constant fear of a parole violation - which would land them back in prison to serve their double-life sentences. Furthermore, without a full pardon, they still live with the stigma of being convicted felons. As felons, they are unable to get jobs, decent housing, and other critical services.

New lawyers committed to new trial for Mumia Abu Jamal

By Saeed Shabazz -Staff Writer
April 19, 2011
http://www.finalcall.com/artman/publish/National_News_2/article_7741.shtml

NEW YORK (FinalCall.com) - Mumia Abu-Jamal, 58, often called the “world's most famous death-row prisoner” penned a letter from his cell in Pennsylvania's SCI Greene prison last November telling supporters about changes to his legal team.

“They are experienced intelligent and well-motivated lawyers, who know what they are doing,” he wrote.

On April 3, his supporters, grassroots activists representing anti-death penalty organizations, Pan-Africanists, nationalists, organized labor activists, the Million Worker March and anti-war organizations gathered on the ninth floor in Riverside Church to meet the two lead co-counselors.

Attorney Christine Swarms, director of the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund's Criminal Justice Project, and Judith Ritter, professor at Widener Law School in Wilmington, Del., were greeted with a rousing ovation from the standing-room only crowd. The applause came with the announcement from event moderator Suzzanne Ross, chairperson of the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition of New York City, that the Legal Defense Fund had taken on Mr. Abu Jamal's case. “Mumia is very relieved that his case is in the hands of the new team,” Ms. Ross said, before turning the podium over to the two attorneys.

The event co-sponsors were the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Riverside Church Prison Ministry.

The journalist, former Black Panther and supporter of the police-targeted back to the earth MOVE organization was sentenced to death in 1982 after being found guilty of the Dec. 9, 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Mr. Abu-Jamal has always maintained his innocence.

During his 30-year imprisonment, Mr. Abu-Jamal has published several books, the most notable being “Letters from Death Row” (1995), written newspaper columns and created commentary for radio airplay.

In 2001, the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Pa. found constitutional error in the jury instruction and verdict form used in the 1982 penalty phase of his case. The finding was affirmed by the U.S. Court of Appeals in 2008, but was sent back to the Third Circuit Court by the U.S. Supreme Court last year for further review.

Mr. Abu-Jamal's appeal is still pending before the Third Circuit Court. “We do not know when the decision will be made,” Ms. Ritter told the gathering. The legal team's ultimate goal remains a new trial, which has been rejected by many courts, she said.

Ms. Ritter, who has represented the man called the “voice of the people” since 2002, noted Philadelphia's first Black district attorney, Seth Williams, may seek a new penalty trial with a new jury. Ms. Ritter has argued questions over instructions given to the jury before Mr. Abu-Jamal was sentenced to the death penalty in appeals before federal courts in 2007 and 2010.

“It is absolutely an honor to represent Mumia Abu-Jamal,” said Ms. Swarms. “No question the criminal justice system has failed him and that has everything to do with race. That is why the LDF is in this case.”

The activist attorney said the Legal Defense Fund is committed to eliminating racism in the criminal justice system nationally.

“The death penalty is the child of this country, which is a direct descendant of slavery, a violent way of controlling and maintaining slavery,” Attorney Swarms said.

The death sentence became a form of legal lynching by 1930 and 89 percent of those in America sentenced to death for rape between 1930 and 1972 were Black, she noted.

“So you can see that race is the most significant factor in giving the death penalty as a sentence,” Ms. Swarms concluded.

The gathering at Riverside Church received a surprise when Mr. Abu-Jamal called. He thanked everyone for coming out, saying there are so many problems in the country it would seem difficult to get people motivated to deal with his 30-year-old case.

Several people lined up to ask the popular political prisoner questions via telephone. “What has kept your spirit up?” asked one questioner.

“It has been a long, hard struggle. I have been blessed with a loving family. I am inspired when I see people organize against neo-colonial imperialism,” Mr. Abu-Jamal.

Ms. Ross told The Final Call, “The spirit in that room showed the significance of this movement 30 years later. Having the LDF is a major turning point, a lot of lawyers would not touch this case LDF wants to win,” she said.

Pam Africa, the tireless driver of the International Coalition out of Philadelphia, told The Final Call her job is “to agitate and make people stay on the move. The fact of it is we are all on death-row.”

“Support is again growing for Mumia. It's good seeing people come out asking what can collectively be done to free him,” said Ralph Poynter, husband of jailed activist attorney Lynne Stewart. “Lynne says that Mumia is the point person.  His life is on the line now her life is on the line tomorrow,” Mr. Poynter added.

4/23 Philly -- Political Prisoners on War Resisters & Honoring Mumia's Birthday

Saturday, April 23 · 7:30pm - 10:30pm
at
Sanctuary Wholistic Arts
2737 Cambridge Street
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Created By: Iresha Picot

More Info: April 23rd, at 7:30pm, the "Questioning Incarceration Coalition" would like to invite everyone to join us for a cultural event, with art, music, and poetry, that will focus on solidarity between US Political Prisoners, and War Resistors.

Statements will be read from the writings of political prisoners and former political prisoners such as:
Marshall Eddie Conway
Maroon Shoatz
David Gilbert
Mumia Abu Jamal
Safiya Bukhari
Lynne Stewart
Women of the MOVE 9

Special Guests: Pam Africa from the ICFFMAJ and the MOVE organization, and Russell Maroon Shoatz III, speaking about his father, Political Prisoner Russell Maroon Shoatz

Also, Performances by Kevin Price, Bohiti, I Abdul Jon, Joseph Xavier Mack

**We will be honoring the birthday of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal. Mumia is on deathrow facing imminent execution and continues to report on international social justice issues. Mumia has been been writing in opposition to US led wars and occupations throughout and prior to his 1981 conviction.

Saturday April 23rd
Sanctuary Wholistic Arts
2737 Cambridge Street
Philadelphia, PA

donations will be collected to help pay for the venue

Presented by: Questioning Incarceration - 215-687-1147, icffmaj@aol.com