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In late October 2008 the Philadelphia District
Attorney’s office announced that it would again appeal the 2001 Federal
District Court decision by William H. Yohn that invalidated the death
sentence imposed at Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 1982 frame-up trial presided over
by "hanging judge" Albert Sabo.
Yohn ruled at that time that Judge Sabo had
improperly instructed the jury by informing them that they had to be
unanimous on each and every
mitigating circumstance in order to impose a sentence of life in
prison rather than execution by lethal injection. Sabo had sentenced
more defendants to execution, the vast majority Black, than any other
sitting judge in the country.
Yohn ordered Philadelphia officials to
conduct a new sentencing hearing with the proper jury instructions
within 180 days. That order has been delayed for the past eight years
pending the outcome of the city’s appeal.
While akin to a new trial, including the
right of the defendant to introduce evidence of innocence, the
procedure only allows the jury to impose a sentence of life in prison
or execution. A verdict of innocence and freedom is excluded since
Mumia’s frame-up 1982 trial resulted in a guilty verdict.
Jamal is an awarding-winning journalist,
leading critic of the racist Philadelphia Police Department, and
perhaps the world’s most well-known innocent political prisoner. He was
falsely convicted in 1982 of the murder of police Officer Daniel
Faulkner. Massive evidence of Mumia’s innocence has been systematically
excluded from the legal proceedings that have marked this racist persecution
for the past 26 years.
Having failed in its first effort to reverse
Yohn’s ruling before the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit,
Philadelphia officials announced that they would meet the Nov. 19
deadline and ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the two previous
court federal decisions and order Mumia’s execution.
While many legal specialists as well as Third
Circuit precedents indicate that a re-imposition of the death sentence
by the Supreme Court is highly unlikely, the experience of the past 26
years teaches that the "law of the land" is subordinate to
the single-minded institutional hatred of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a leading
revolutionary critic of capitalist society. The desire to demonstrate
that the criminal "justice" system has acted properly at all
junctures of the case weighs heavily on the system’s most ardent
defenders.
A case in point is the recent interview with
Barack Obama by right-wing Philadelphia talk-show host Michael
Smerconish—co-author of the new book, "Murdered by Mumia" and
a major advocate for executing Mumia. Smerconish asked Obama where he
stood. Obama responded that while he didn’t know much about the case,
"let just me lay out a very clear principle: In my mind if someone
killed a police officer, they deserve the death penalty or life in
prison" (Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 10, 2008).
It is curious that the diplomatic Obama did
not respond to Smerconish, a former Republican recently turned Obama
supporter, "if someone is innocent, they should be freed."
Obama might even have pointed out,
"There is significant evidence of his innocence and even more
evidence that the court’s own precedents have been violated." But
this would be too much to expect from a candidate wedded to a system in
which institutional racism is the norm.
If the past record of misapplication of the
law to Mumia’s case continues as it has during the past 26 years, a
Supreme Court decision ordering his execution cannot be excluded,
however unlikely it might be from a "legal" point of view.
In his dissenting opinion before the Third
Circuit, Judge Thomas Ambro, for example, expressed his annoyance with
his colleagues’ blind eye to their own previous rulings when he wrote,
"I see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy
of our precedents." Ambro’s dissent referred to the court’s
application of the historic 1986 Batson v. Kentucky ruling, which held
that the exclusion of Black jurors based on race was unconstitutional.
Out-voted by 2-1 in the Third Circuit, Ambro stated that the majority’s
decision, "goes against the grain of our prior actions."
Indeed, the Third Circuit’s anti-Batson
ruling violates the most recent Supreme Court decision on the same
issue, which held that the exclusion of a single Black juror on account
of race necessitates a new trial. In Mumia’s case 11 Blacks were
excluded! Nothing can be taken for granted today. Mumia’s life is still
very much on the line.
Mumia’s legal team is now seeking to reverse
the Third Circuit decision denying him a new trial. His lead counsel,
Robert R. Bryan, was recently successful in extending the deadline for
the filing of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to Dec. 19.
The Supreme Court has no legal obligation to
certify that it will even hear Mumia’s final appeal. Indeed, it rejects
some 95 percent of the 2500 petitions it receives in death penalty
cases every year.
This "killing machine" is driven
forward by a series of laws and court decisions that severely restrict
appeal rights in the federal courts, with the infamous 1996 Clinton-signed
Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) being first on
the list. This heinous legislation requires federal courts to grant a
"presumption of correctness" to state court findings of
fact—in this case, the findings of the overtly racist Judge Albert
Sabo. It was designed to make state level decisions
"effective," that is, virtually totally immune to federal
appeal.
Similar court decisions, applied to Mumia in
the past and to Troy Davis today, include the 1993 Supreme Court decision
in Herrera v. Collins, holding that "innocence is no defense"
and that it is trumped by "timeliness." Both laws were
designed to facilitate the execution of innocent people, mostly
oppressed nationalities.
According to Herrera, evidence of innocence that
is presented beyond whatever state statutory deadlines have been put
into place is inadmissible. In the case of Troy Davis, whose life now
hangs in the balance, seven of the nine so-called witnesses who
testified against him have recanted their testimony and stated that it
was originally given under police pressure.
The Davis case is among the most blatant
applications of capitalist law today. Eight years ago, Gary Graham was
executed in Texas, although his post-deadline evidence of innocence
included several extremely credible eyewitnesses proving that he was
nowhere near the murder scene and a county sheriff who demolished the
prosecution’s murder-weapon theory with irrefutable evidence.
Mumia is alive today only because a broad and
unrelenting national and international movement has been constructed in
his defense.
While Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell has
pledged to sign a third warrant for Mumia’s execution (if the Supreme
Court reverses its previous legal precedents), Mumia’s supporters are
pressing forward with a public campaign that has captured the
imagination of millions who cherish human rights and freedom.
The recent publication of J. Patrick
O’Connor’s book, "The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal," has been
acclaimed across the country and cited in The New York Times, a
publication that has previously failed to publish any favorable
material on Mumia’s case. In late October, O’Connor spoke at 13 public
meetings and radio and television appearances in California organized
by the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. These will be followed
this month by meetings organized in Connecticut and in New York.
Also, a new award-winning documentary,
"In Prison My Whole Life," recently purchased by the Sundance
Channel, is to be premiered on HBO-TV in the coming months and then
scheduled for local distribution across the country.
Mumia’s national defense network, led by the
International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, has set
Saturday, Dec. 6, for local protests across the country.
A victory for Mumia and his freedom would be
a victory for democratic rights for everyone. A free Mumia will
contribute immensely to the power of the mass movements that will
inevitably arise to challenge the foundations of the present system of
war, racism, poverty, and corruption.
For further information contact, (West Coast)
The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal: (510) 268-9429,
freemumia.org, alerts@freemumia.org. (East Coast) ICFFMAJ, (215)
476-8812, www.freemumia.org or www.Abu-Jamal-News.com.
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