|
Mumia: One Legal Decision Away From Execution – Or
a New Trial & Freedom
by Jeff Mackler / June 2006 issue Socialist Action
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the world’s most
well-known political prisoner, has been on Pennsylvania’s death row for 25
years. An award-winning journalist and advocate for the rights of the
oppressed everywhere, his fight for a new trial and freedom has won the support
of millions across the globe.
Mumia’s legal team, headed by Robert R.
Bryan, is preparing critical briefs for the final stages of the court
battle to win Mumia’s freedom. The stakes are high. Mumia’s very life is
being sought by Pennsylvania prosecutors, who have petitioned the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit to void a lower court order and
reinstate the death penalty.
Mumia was a victim of an infamous 1982
Philadelphia frame-up trial replete with prosecution-intimidated and lying
“eyewitnesses,” falsified and manufactured “evidence,” exclusion of all
evidence of innocence, and the racist exclusion of Black jurors. He was
convicted in a trial presided over by “hanging judge” Albert Sabo—who has
sent more people, the vast majority Black, to their death than any other
sitting U.S. judge—of the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel
Faulkner.
If prosecution efforts are successful and
Mumia’s appeals are denied, Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, Philadelphia district
attorney at the time of Mumia’s trial, has pledged to sign a third warrant
for execution. Barring the unlikely intervention of the U.S. Supreme Court,
after 90 days, Mumia would likely be executed by lethal injection.
Bryan has until July 13 to challenge
Pennsylvania’s brief seeking Mumia’s execution. His legal brief will
simultaneously demand that the court grant Mumia a new trial based on the
three major issues that presently constitute Mumia’s appeal:
a) The racist and illegal exclusion of 11 of 14 Black
jurors by Pennsylvania state prosecutors during Mumia’s 1982 trial.
b) The constitutionally flawed trial summation of
Pennsylvania state prosecutor Joseph McGill, who essentially told the jury
that they need not concern themselves with critical standards like
reasonable doubt because Mumia would have “appeal after appeal” if mistakes
were made.
c) Judicial bias evidenced during Mumia’s 1995 Post
Conviction Relief Act hearing conducted by the original 1982 trial judge,
Albert Sabo. This is the Judge Sabo who, prior to entering the courtroom to
judge the case in 1982, stated to another judge, in the presence of court
reporter Terri Maurer Carter, “Yeah, and I’m going to help ‘em fry the
nigger.”
Pennsylvania prosecutors will then reply to
Bryan’s brief. This will be followed by a final response from the defense,
after which the court will announce a three-judge panel to hear oral
arguments. The entire process is expected to end with a decision within a
year.
Bryan has expressed confidence that Mumia's
appeal on one or more of the three central issues before the court will be
successful and that the prosecutor’s effort to reverse the Federal District
Court, reinstate the death penalty, and execute Mumia will fail. He warns,
however, that nothing is certain in these matters. “In the present
climate,” Bryan told Socialist Action, “a decision to reinstate and act on
the death penalty cannot be excluded.”
If Mumia prevails with his appeal, there
are several possible options the court can consider. These include either
sending the case back to the previous court for further deliberation based
on the upholding of Mumia’s central contentions, or granting a new
trial—where all the evidence of innocence previously excluded from the 1981
trial will be for the first time presented before a new jury.
Mumia’s would-be executioners are well
aware that the case is now on the fast track and that a victory for Mumia
would represent a major blow to the racist and classist U.S. criminal
“justice” system. In recent weeks they have gone to great lengths to poison
the public debate.
Two Pennsylvania members of the U.S.
Congress, Democrat Allyson Schwartz and Republican Michael Fitzpatrick,
appeared at a Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) press conference on May 22 to
announce their introduction of Congressional Resolution #407. The
resolution demands that the city government of Saint Denis, a Paris suburb
of mostly Arab and Black people, reverse a decision made several months ago
to name a street Rue Mumia Abu-Jamal. The street leads to Europe’s largest
sports arena, the Nelson Mandela Stadium.
The formal French ceremonies to name the
street and commemorate Mumia’s fight for justice took place in late April.
An international delegation was assembled, including U.S. civil rights
activist and author Angela Davis, attorney Robert R. Bryan, and Pam Africa,
the chief spokesperson for the International Concerned Family and Friends
of Mumia Abu-Jamal (ICFFMAJ). Fitzpatrick’s bill demands that Mumia
Abu-Jamal Street be renamed, and if Saint Denis refuses, the U.S. Congress
be empowered to demand that the government of France intervene to change
the name. The Philadelphia City Council will consider a similar resolution.
The well-attended FOP press conference evoked a blaze of
hate in articles and editorials from the Philadelphia media, which had
ignored a call to a May 18 press conference issued by the ICFFMAJ to
announce the Saint Denis decision. The ICFFMAJ boldly responded by
calling a noon press conference on May 25 in front of the Fraternal Order
of Police headquarters, where Pam Africa presented a statement by the Saint
Denis mayor explaining his city’s decision. Africa asked the media: “Where
is the objectivity, the fairness that the media boasts so much about? Are
you interested in obtaining information or only spewing hate?”
The end of Mumia’s long and grueling legal and political
struggle is in sight. The next several months will decide his fate. He will
either join us as a free man and leading participant in the struggle for
human freedom or he will be executed. In large part, the decision resides
in the collective capacity of Mumia’s supporters and all those who cherish
justice and freedom to mobilize in unprecedented numbers.
June 9 has been set for 4 p.m. Federal
Building protests in Philadelphia, San Francisco, and elsewhere to begin
this mobilization. Call the ICFFMAJ, (215) 476-8812 in Philadelphia or the
Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal in San Francisco, (415) 255-1085, for
information.
|
