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Socialist Action /July 2001
As Mumia Activists Gear Up Efforts,
New Court Decision May Help Defense
By JEFF MACKLER
Efforts to win the freedom of death-row political
prisoner and award-winning journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal have intensified over
the past months. Imprisoned for the past 20 years following a racist frame-up
trial for a murder he did not commit, Jamal and his new legal team are preparing
critical new documents to present in state and federal courts.
Central to their efforts is the winning of a second
Pennsylvania post-conviction relief act hearing to present testimony from
Arnold Beverly, the man who now formally admits that he, not Jamal, was
the killer of police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. (See the June 2001
Socialist Action for a full account of the five new affidavits submitted
by the legal team.)
To this end, Jamal's attorneys have filed a 270-page
brief before the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas.
If Jamal is successful, a second post-conviction
state hearing will be the occasion for a worldwide mobilization in Philadelphia
in support of Mumia's court appearance, in which he will testify on his
own behalf for the first time. Jamal has requested a stay in current federal
court proceedings until a decision is rendered in the state courts.
In a separate but related decision, in June the
Federal District Court, Eastern District, struck down a Pennsylvania Supreme
Court ruling that had upheld the exclusion of 12 of 14 potential Black jurors
in the case of Hardcastle v. Horn.
The federal court ordered a new trial for Hardcastle,
who was convicted of murder by a jury that the court held had been selected
by the prosecution by using preemptory challenges that were not "race
neutral." Mumia's legal team had been awaiting a decision in this case
decided by the same court that is currently considering Mumia's appeal,
although with a different judge presiding.
The racist exclusion of 11 Black jurors has been
a central point in Mumia's 29-point habeas corpus (appeal) to the Federal
Court. The application of the court's Hardcastle decision to Mumia's case
would result in a new trial.
But "justice" in the racist and classist
U.S. judiciary does not flow from court precedent or constitutional protections.
Indeed, the fight for Mumia's freedom, although bolstered by the Hardcastle
decision, will be the product of a mass movement making the price of Mumia's
continued incarceration and murder too high to pay in regard to a massive
loss of public confidence in the criminal "justice system."
With this always in mind, leaders of Mumia's political
defense, including the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia
Abu-Jamal; the National Coordinators of Mumia's; and the Mobilization to
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal have scheduled the following activities for the coming
months:
- An international campaign aimed at compelling
UN Secretary General Kofi Anan to bring Mumia's Abu-Jamal's case before
the United Nations. This effort will begin with a prominent international
Mumia delegation attending the Durban, South Africa, UN-sponsored conference
on racism. It will continue with efforts to win passage of a resolution
in the UN's High Commission on Human Rights and then proceed to the General
Assembly.
- Last month, Sam Jordan, a Washington, D.C.-based
Mumia National Coordinator, presented Mumia's case in Strassbourg, France,
during an international conference against the death penalty initiated
by the French government. The conference was in part organized to compel
U.S. adherence to the anti-death penalty positions of most every nation
on earth. The U.S. currently has 3500 people on death row, the largest
number in the world.
- Local and national Mumia defense leaders and
activists will assist in the building of the Nov. 8-10, "Tear Down
the Walls," international conference on U.S. political prisoners,
hosted by the Organization for Solidarity with the Peoples of Africa, Asia
and Latin America (OSPAAAL) in Havana, Cuba.
- On Saturday, Sept. 15, the Northern California-based
Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal will collaborate with spoken word
artist Michael Franti in the organization of the third annual Dolores Park,
San Francisco, concert/anti-prisoner-industrial-complex rally.
- The internationally touring "Torture:
An Exhibition of European Instruments of Torture and Capital Punishment
from the Middle Ages to the Present" will be exhibited at San Francisco's
Herbst International Exhibition Hall, July 7 through, Oct. 14. The organizers
have asked the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal to present an evening
public forum on Mumia's case on Tuesday, Sept. 25, at 7:30 p.m.
- The National Coordinators of Mumia's defense
have set Saturday, Dec. 8 as a worldwide day of coordinated locally organized
protests, including rallies, teach-ins, picket lines, and cultural events.
In San Francisco, the Mobilization to Free Mumia is planning a major funding
raising concert for the legal defense.
For further information contact, on the West Coast:
The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, (415 ) 695-7745. East Coast: The
International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, (215) 476-8812.
Socialist Action /July 2001 |