DA Will Not Seek Retrial in Mumia's case

From freemumia.com

PRESS RELEASE

RESPONSE TO DA SETH WILLIAMS DECISION ON THE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL CASE

For Interview Contact
Dr. Johanna Fernandez, 917.930.0804
Dr. Suzanne Ross, 917.584.2135
Dr. Mark Taylor, 609.638.0806

Archbishop Desmond Tutu Calls for Mumia Abu-Jamal's Release
"Now that it is clear that Mumia should never have been on death row in the first place, justice will not be served by relegating him to prison for the rest of his lifeâ€"yet another form of death sentence. Based on even a minimal following of international human rights standards, Mumia must now be released. I therefore join the call, and ask others to follow, asking District Attorney Seth Williams to rise to the challenge of reconciliation, human rights, and justice: drop this case now, and allow Mumia Abu-Jamal to be immediately released, with full time served."

The news that the DA's Office of Philadelphia is no longer seeking the death penalty for Mumia is no news to supporters of the nearly 30 year Pennsylvania Death Row prisoner. However, because Mumia has for thirty years been subjected to torture on death row and because he is innocent, justice for Mumia will not be served by life imprisonment, but by his release from prison.

Mumia's case is like thousands of other cases in Philadelphia in which the prosecutor, the judge, and the police conspired to obtain a conviction. One of the most important and least known facts of this case is the existence of a fourth person at the crime scene, Kenneth Freeman. Within hours of the shooting, a driver's license application found in Officer Faulkner's shirt pocket led the police to Freeman, who was identified as the shooter in a line-up. Yet Freeman's presence at the scene was concealed, first by Inspector Alfonso Giordano and later, at trial, by Prosecutor Joe McGill. Recently, the U.S. Department of Justice asserted that withholding evidence of innocence by the prosecutor warrants the overturning of a conviction.

The police investigation that led to Mumia's conviction was also riddled with corruption and tampering with evidence. The recently discovered Polokoff photographs that were taken at the crime scene, reveal that officer James Forbes, who testified in court that he had properly handled the guns allegedly retrieved at the crime scene, appears holding the guns with his bare hands. The photos also discredit cabdriver Robert Chobert as a witness; his taxi, contrary to his testimony, is pictured facing away from the fallen officer's car. This evidence hasn't been reviewed by any court.

Our call to Seth Williams is that he honor DA Lynn Abraham's 1995 promise to the city of Philadelphia that she would discard any cases where evidence surfaces that even one of the officers involved in an investigation lied in court or in written reports.

The D.A. may think that the case can be laid to rest by sending Mumia off to life in prison. But an aroused public, with the Supreme Court ruling the death sentence to be unconstitutional, is ready to challenge anew the entire trial. The same judge, jury, and DA that were involved in the unlawful sentencing process committed equally egregious violations in the conviction. This is not an ending, it is a new beginning for the movement supporting Abu-Jamal's quest for release.

The December 9 forum at the National Constitutional Center, featuring Prof. Cornel West, will be preceded by an 11:30 a.m. Press Conference, at the American Friends Service Committee building, 1501 Cherry Street.  Then the following day there will be a full-day of organizing and fundraising activities, Saturday December 10, at the Germantown Event Center, 5245 Germantown Avenue, beginning at 12 Noon.


From NAACP Legal Defense Fund

(New York, NY) -- Today, the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office announced that it will not seek another death sentence for Mumia Abu-Jamal.  Pennsylvania law now requires Mr. Abu-Jamal to be sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole for his controversial 1982 murder conviction in the shooting death of a police officer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

The NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund, Inc. (LDF), along with Widener Law Professor Judith Ritter, represents Mr. Abu-Jamal in his appeals of the murder conviction and death sentence.  John Payton, Director-Counsel of LDF stated, "The District Attorney did the right thing.  After three long decades, it was time to bring the quest for a death sentence for Mr. Abu-Jamal to an end."  Prof. Ritter added, "There is no question that justice is served when a death sentence from a misinformed jury is overturned.  Thirty years later, the District Attorney' s decision not to seek a new death sentence also furthers the interests of justice."

Mr. Abu-Jamal will be formally resentenced to life without parole in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas.  The final sentencing hearing has not been scheduled.

An Important Message from International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)

Sisters and Brothers,

We're sure you were relieved on October 11, 2011, as were we, when the US Supreme Court affirmed several lower court rulings since 2001 that Mumia should never have been sentenced to death. That decision is a tribute to the amazing international movement that has fought all these years for justice for Mumia. But we write to you now calling on you to help in this critical next stage of the struggle to gain Mumia's final release from prison.

Instructions given to the jury, in violation of US law, that biased the jury toward a death sentence provided the basis for both the lower court and US Supreme Court rulings. Mumia has, in other words, spent the last 30 years on Death Row despite the fact that he should never have even been there for one day! The Philadelphia DA's office has been relentless in pursuing the death sentence, insisting that Mumia remain on Death Row these last 10 years despite the lower court ruling in 2001 that he should not have been sentenced to death, filing appeal after appeal to overturn that lower court decision. It appears that they will now stop fighting this consistent judgment of the courts, because that battle at this point would require a new sentencing hearing that might expose the rampant police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct in this case. And this might possibly open the door for a new trial on the issue of guilt and innocence, potentially leading to Mumia's release. The forces that have fought for Mumia's execution, "Fry Mumia" they screamed, with such viciousness for 30 years are seemingly resigned to cutting their losses and having Mumia remain in prison for the rest of his life.

NEEDLESS TO SAY, FOR US, AND WE'RE SURE FOR YOU AS WELL, HAVING MUMIA ROT IN PRISON FOR THE REST OF HIS LIFE IS TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE.

Mumia has been subjected to torture, as defined by international law, for these past 30 years by being kept in isolation in a small, bathroom-sized, windowless cell and not being able to touch his mother, wife, children, or grandchildren, let alone anyone else other than the guards who handcuff and shackle him. The UN Special Rapporteur on Torture recently asserted that solitary confinement beyond 15 days (!) constitutes torture. This on top of the fact that Mumia's imprisonment on Death Row was unconstitutional.

Given this picture, Mumia should not have to spend any more time in prison. Putting Mumia in general population can hardly be considered compensation for what he has had to endure all these years. He should be released. In most countries, even if he were guilty of the crime for which he was convicted, and he is innocent, he would have been released by now given his outstanding record of accomplishments and service to the community while in prison. Our campaign must now be to demand that Mumia serve no more time in prison, having been subjected to 30 years of unjust placement on Death Row and having been a victim of torture as defined by international standards of human rights.

December 9, 2011, marks the beginning of a campaign to finally free Mumia. We must now wage a much-reinvigorated battle for justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal. On the eve of International Human Rights Day, a major event marking the 30th year of Mumia's incarceration and his subsequent unconstitutional sentence to Death Row for almost three decades, will be taking place at Philadelphia's National Constitution Center. Speakers and performers will include: CORNEL WEST, IMMORTAL TECHNIQUE, VIJAY PRASHAD, RAMONA AFRICA, MICHELLE ALEXANDER (by video), AMINA AND AMIRI BARAKA, ATTORNEYS MICHAEL COARD AND LENNOX HINDS, THE IMPACT REPERTORY THEATRE AND THE AFRICAN DANCE AND DRUM ENSEMBLE.

To make this high-profile event – well-known personalities in a very prestigious government venue – a success and to launch the campaign that is essential in its aftermath, WE NEED YOUR HELP NOW. We need significant financial help for NYC to Philly buses to provide reduced rate seats for those who cannot afford to pay (and today that includes a very large number of people); for transporting speakers and performers to Philadelphia; for flyers and palm cards; for producing educational literature for the event; and for so many unexpected costs. We know these are hard times and that most of us are struggling simply to survive. But for those of you who can help, we would truly appreciate as large a contribution as you can make. 

Tax-deductible checks should be made out to: FMAJC/IFCO, PO Box 16, College Station, New York, NY 10030.  Or go to www.freemumia.com, click the "Donate" link at the top of the home page.  That will lead you to a paypal section where you can contribute with a credit card.

Join us in making December 9th at the Constitution Center a success so that we can effectively launch this final stage of the struggle. Mumia has touched the hearts of millions of people around the world. His case represents so much of what we the 99% stand for versus what the 1% stand for. Get your bus ticket! Come to Philadelphia! Send your contributions in TODAY!

With the deepest appreciation for your past support and help, and in solidarity in our common struggle for justice, let us free Mumia and all our political prisoners!

Pam Africa, Chairperson, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Suzanne Ross, Co-chair, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC)

Greetings from Mexico for December 9th

From sis Carolina in Mexico

Hi all,

I'm sending a poster for our event in Mexico City to demand immediate freedom for Mumia this coming December 9. We will be out in front of the US Embassy for about 8 hours with a lot of music, street theatre and messages of support for Mumia and other political prisoners, especially MOVE 9, Leonard Peltier, Angola 3, Sundiata Acoli, Mutulu Shakur, Jalil Muntaqim and more in the US and Alberto Patishtán in México; calls for the abolition of the US criminal justice / prison system and its implementation in Mexico; and support for the demands of recent prison hunger strikes in California, Chiapas, Chile and occupied Palestine.

We are also calling for an end to the militarization of Mexico and the adoption of ever more fascist national security laws, the US training of Mexican military and police forces, and the overall war against the Mexican people (supposedly a war on drugs) unleashed by the Mexican government and directed and backed by the US government through the Merida Initiative and other programs, which has resulted in 40,000 people killed, 60,000 disappeared and 120,000 displaced during the Calderón administration. Furthermore, we will be denouncing the recent murders of university student activist Carlos Cuevas and one of the leaders of the recovery and defense of Nahua lands in Xayakalan, Ostula, Michoacán --Pedro Leyva.

We hope it will be a great day.

OnaMOVE,

Carolina
Amig@s de Mumia de México

Message from Germany

Dear all,
On Saturday, December 10 will be a demonstration for the freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the abolition of the death penalty in Nüremberg, Germany (start 4pm).

The night before - Dec. 9. - will be numerous info events on Mumia all around the country, eg. in Berlin, Heidelberg, Dresden, Kaiserslautern among others. In December is an info-tour including ten dates on Mumia in Switzerland, too.

There is a new german website to coordinate activities in support of Mumia in Germany: http://www.freiheit-fuer-mumia.de

For the last 2 months there have been events around the the country on a weekly basis: http://www.freiheit-fuer-mumia.de/termine.htm

Here is a video from a recent "Act In" infront of the International Bookfair in Frankfurt: http://www.freiheit-fuer-mumia.de/actin.htm

We wish you a huge success on Dec. 9 in Philadelphia!

International Solidarity - FREE MUMIA!

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Now: 30 Unconstitutional Years on Death Row are Enough!

From thiscantbehappening.net
Sun, 10/23/2011
by: Dave Lindorff and Linn Washington, Jr.

With Mumia Abu-Jamal’s sentence of death now formally vacated, thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision last week not to consider an appeal by the Philadelphia District Attorney of a Third Circuit Court panel’s ruling that that sentence had been unconstitutional thanks to flawed jury instructions from the trial judge and a flawed jury ballot form, many of those who have long called for his execution are now saying, fine, let him rot in prison for the rest of his life.

The Philadelphia Inquirer, the leading newspaper in his hometown of Philadelphia, in more genteel language, said essentially the same thing in an unsigned October 13 editorial, opining that with the death penalty vacated, the default sentence of life in prison without parole was “appropriate” and “in the best interest of justice.”

The editorial urged DA Seth Williams not to exercise his right within the next 180 days to seek to obtain a new death sentence by asking for a new jury trial on the penalty only. The paper made this plea not because the editors felt such an effort to re-sentence him would be unseemly, but because of the cost to the struggling city of Philadelphia.

But hold on here. Putting aside for a moment the matter of whether Abu-Jamal was even fairly convicted in a trial that was viewed as a shameful farce at the time in 1982 even by the editors of the Inquirer, is it really “in the best interest of justice” or in any way “appropriate” for Abu-Jamal to simply be switched over from a death sentence to a sentence of life in prison without parole, now that, as the Inquirer correctly noted in its editorial, “four federal judges have ruled that Abu-Jamal’s 1982 death sentence was unconstitutional,” and that “he was denied a fair sentencing at his original trial.”

No. It is manifestly not just or appropriate!
Abu-Jamal no longer has a death sentence, but remains on solitary on death row thanks to a vengeful or gutless DAAbu-Jamal no longer has a death sentence, but remains in solitary on death row thanks to a vengeful, or gutless, DA and supine judges

The unconstitutional sentence of death voted out by confused jurors back in 1982 has meant that Abu-Jamal, for nearly 30 years, has been held in a Super Max death row prison called SCI-Greene in western Pennsylvania, where he is confined in a tiny windowless cell in solitary confinement, separated at all times form even other inmates. It means that unlike other prisoners, as a death row inmate he has for all those years been unable to have any physical contact with friends and loved ones -- even his little grandchildren, or his late mother, whose funeral he was barred from attending. Death row prisoners, on the rare occasions when they are allowed to see visitors, are brought, cuffed and manacled dispite the impossibility of escape, to a “visiting room,” and must communicate through a thick plexiglass window. Abu-Jamal was even kept in this hellish condition during the last 10 years, after Federal District Judge William Yohn, in December 2001, initially overturned his death sentence, because the vindictive and sadistic then DA Lynn Abraham asked the court to keep him there for the duration of the appeal process on that issue. Yohn’s decision was never overturned in all that time, yet even now that Yohn’s ruling has been finally confirmed by the Supreme Court and can no longer be challenged, Abu-Jamal remains in that death row cell, thanks to the continued vindictiveness or political cowardice of Abraham’s successor.

But Abu-Jamal should never have been there in the first place! The federal courts, since 2001, have established, over and over, and now with finality, that the jury back in 1982 was misinformed by trial Judge Albert Sabo about the absoluteness of the “life without possibility of parole” alternative to death. They were further confused by the jury ballot form he gave them, which a series of federal courts has established likely confused them about the rules on “mitigating circumstances” that they might consider would argue against voting for a death sentence.

In order for someone to be sentenced to death, it is not enough that someone simply kills another person. Rather, a jury must unanimously find at least one “aggravating circumstance” in the commission of that murder. But for there to be at least that one “aggravating” factor, the law says all 12 jurors must agree to it. They cannot say it exists if there is a single dissenting vote. But in the case of mitigating factors, which might lead a juror to decide against death and for life without parole, the rule is that any single juror can find one, and can then apply it to his or her own decision. The jury form, the courts found, improperly made it sound like they had to also agree unanimously about the existence of any mitigating circumstance before any one of them could consider it. The likelihood is that at least one of those 12 jurors could have felt there was a mitigating circumstance, such as that Abu-Jamal had no prior convictions, or that witnesses testified that he was a good father to his small children, etc. But thanks to the flawed jury form, and flawed instructions from Sabo, they did not feel they could legally take any of that into consideration because others didn’t agree.

So because of these unconstitutional flaws in the penalty phase of his trial, Abu-Jamal spent not a month, not a year, not two years, but 30 years on death row, all the time waiting for the state to kill him. That is a heavy punishment for any man.

It might be one thing if this error had been corrected in a short time following his trial, but instead, the D.A.’s office has fought tooth and nail every step of the way over three decades and right up to the Supreme Court against the finding of error, and has even fought to keep him on death row after a federal judge had rendered his decision overturning the sentence.

It’s not “appropriate” at this point, now that the error has been confirmed, to just say, “So what?” and to convert the sentence to life in an ordinary prison without the possibility of parole, as though nothing worse had happened.

Justice demands that there be some kind of recognition of the fact that Abu-Jamal has been put through 30 years of a true hell that he did not deserve, and that, moreover, his death sentence was unconstitutional.

Many convicted murderers in the United States have been released after far less than 30 years in jail. It would be appropriate at this point for the D.A. to admit that this particular prisoner has suffered not just enough, but more than was constitutionally appropriate, and to ask the court to release him on time served.

Meanwhile, if he is not released and is instead “left to rot” in jail for life, his new legal team, headed up by Christina Swarns of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, would have to discover new avenues for further challenges to his conviction. The difficulty for Abu-Jamal is that all the constitutional challenges to his original trial, and to the corrupted appeals process to which he was subjected, have already been rejected by the federal courts. In order to win a new trial at this point, then, he and his legal team would have to discover evidence of innocence which he “could not reasonably have been expected to have discovered earlier through due diligence.” Such evidence might include recanting witnesses, newly discovered witnesses, or perhaps more crime scene photos that raise questions about the original evidence. But they all would face that high hurdle of being either new, or not earlier discoverable, if they are to be grounds for a possible new trial.

On the other hand, as I wrote earlier, if D.A. Williams is brash enough or pressured enought by groups like the Fraternal Order of Police to attempt to retry the penalty phase, there is a much easier route for Abu-Jamal to bring in new evidence of innocence. Since many of the alleged witnesses to the shooting incident that led to Faulkner’s death were also used by the prosecution to portray the crime as a kind of a cold-blooded execution, those witnesses -- at least the ones who are still alive -- could be subpoenaed to appear at a penalty hearing by the defense, where their veracity could be challenged. At that point evidence such as ballistics tests to show that it would have been impossible for Abu-Jamal to have fired directly downward four times at Officer Daniel Faulkner while straddling him, hitting him only once, without there being any bullet marks in the surrounding sidewalk. Or evidence--photographic and otherwise--that there was never any taxi cab parked directly behind Faulkner’s squad car, where purported eye-witness Robert Chobert said he was parked when the shooting occurred. Or perhaps a new witness decisively claiming that there was never a confession shouted out by Abu-Jamal in the Jefferson Hospital ER, or that the prosecutor hid exculpatory evidence at trial.

Should any of these things happen during a new penalty phase trial it could be a whole new ballgame in terms of the conviction itself.

That would be the best outcome at this point. It is what Amnesty International, in a Feb. 17, 2000 report on the case which only merited a one-paragraph notice in the Inquirer at the time, concluded when it called for a new trial, saying that the first one has been “in violation of minimum international standards that govern fair trial procedures.” Clearly the Inquirer’s current editorial writers don’t bother to check their paper’s own morgue. If they had, they’d have seen that back on July 16, 1995, their predecessors had editorialized during a Post Conviction Relief Act hearing on the case that was being held before the original trial judge Albert Sabo, that the “whole truth” of the case may “never be found.” Those same editorial writers wrote back then that the behavior of the Judge Sabo at the 1982 trial was “disturbing,” and in the 1995 fact-finding PCRA appeal Sabo “did not give the impression to those in the courtroom of fair-mindedness.” How one gets from there to saying his current fate is in any way “appropriate” or “in the best interest of justice” we cannot fathom.

If DA Williams wants to do the right thing here, but does not have the political courage to just release Abu-Jamal on time served, given the huge political power of the FOP, which has been unethically lobbying for, and even bribing judges to execute him for years, he could short-circuit all of this, as Linn Washington wrote earlier in ThisCantBeHappening!, by offering Abu-Jamal an Alford Plea deal.

Under the terms of an Alford Plea, a convicted person may continue to claim her or his innocence, while conceding that the prosecutor probably has the evidence to convict. Upon being freed, the individual remains a convicted murderer, but both sides can claim to have won on some level.

It would be a messy end to a very messy case, but it would be far more “appropriate” and would be far more “in the interest of justice,” than just throwing Abu-Jamal into Graterford Prison for life without possibility for parole after he has already unconstitutionally endured 30 agonizing years on death row.

http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/866

December 9: All Out For Mumia at Philly Constitution Center

No Life in Prison!
 
Free Mumia Now!

On the 30th anniversary of Mumia Abu Jamal's incarceration and on the eve of International Human Rights Day, we say NO to life in prison for this innocent, revolutionary, and celebrated journalist.

Honor Troy Davis
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal


December 9, 2011
7:30-10:30 pm
Constitution Center,
Philadelphia



SPEAKERS:
Cornel West
Michelle Alexander (by video)
Ramona Africa
Michael Coard
Vijay Prashad
Louisa Hanoune
Mark Lamont Hill
Immortal Technique
And more

INVITED GUEST:
Arundhati Roy

• No to the racist death penalty!
• Stop the massive incarceration of the poor and oppressed!
• End torture and police terrorism!
• Free all political prisoners!
• Free Mumia!

PERFORMERS:
IMPACT Youth Repertory Theatre, African Dance Ensemble, others T.B.A.

Info and bus reservations:
PHILA: 267-760-7344
NYC: 212 -330-8029.

www.freemumia.com
www.emajonline

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