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Socialist Action /January 1999
Former Death Row Prisoners:
Mumia's struggle has resonated in every quarter of U.S. society. A dramatic
letter calling for his freedom was signed by 15 innocent people who had
lived on death row for periods ranging from two to 12 years.
They had been convicted and freed when the racist and classist frame-up
against them was finally brought to light. The letter was circulated and
released on Nov. 13 at the National Conference on Wrongful Convictions and
the Death Penalty in Chicago. Excerpts from the former death row inmates'
letter follow:
"We know Mumia's struggle, because no one knows it better than we
of the lengths to which the criminal 'justice' system will go in its relentless
quest to take a life. Many of us are intimately familiar with the daily
degradation of Mumia's 17 years on death row: locked in a cell for 23 hours
each day, forbidden to embrace or even see his family members, prohibited
from being filmed or audio-taped by reporters, slapped into punitive detention
for writing and publishing his views, refused the right to confidentially
communicate with his attorneys.
"We were sustained in our struggle for justice, as Mumia is, by
the tireless support of our families, friends, and people of principle who
organized to liberate us from the machine that tried to slay us. And, above
all else, we were sustained, as Mumia is, by the only real certainty we
were allowed on death row-the knowledge that we were innocent."
Socialist Action /January 1999 |