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Mumia's Oral Arguments set for May 17
On May 17, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in the case of internationally renowned black death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal. The court will consider four different issues that it has already certified for appeal. It will then decide to either grant a new trial, affirm the life sentence, or re-instate the death sentence.
Mumia Abu-Jamal Oral Arguments Set For May 17
--Pam Africa calls for mass-demonstration in Philadelphia, and challenging mainstream media bias
by Hans Bennett
On May 17, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in the case of internationally renowned black death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal. The court will consider four different issues that it has already certified for appeal. It will then decide to either grant a new trial, affirm the life sentence, or re-instate the death sentence.
Immediately after this date was announced last week, supporters of Abu-Jamal around the world began mobilizing to support Abu-Jamal at the hearings. Explaining the urgency, Pam Africa (coordinator of Abu-Jamal’s support network) says that “Mumia can still be executed. Further, since the Supreme Court is unlikely to hear Mumia's case, this is realistically his last chance to get a new trial. As the history of his case shows, we need public pressure to ensure the court's fairness.”
“We’re asking people to come to Philadelphia and show that the whole world is watching these oral arguments,” said Africa. “I believe Mumia is innocent and am personally calling for his immediate release,” Africa said. “However, I'll work with anyone supporting a fair trial. By demanding a new trial, we can work with those who know the trial was rotten but are unsure of Mumia's innocence.”
Abu-Jamal’s attorney, Robert R. Bryan doubts that his client will appear in court because of a rule that the defendant is not brought in for oral arguments. Africa is upset about this rule because she feels that Abu-Jamal’s presence will help to ensure fairness. She asks, “these people are arguing about his life, and he’s not allowed to be there to make sure everything is done right?”
Africa is also concerned about the limited time given for the presentation of oral arguments. While the 3rd Circuit Court has granted 45 minutes total, Abu-Jamal’s attorney is arguing for at least an hour. Africa argues that “in order to argue this case, you need much more time than that.”
A New Trial?
In 1982, Abu-Jamal was convicted of killing white Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in a trial that Amnesty International has declared a "violation of minimum international standards that govern fair trial procedures and the use of the death penalty,"
Calling for a new trial, supporters around the world feel that the original one was tainted by racism, prosecutorial & judicial misconduct, coerced witnesses, suppressed evidence, and a denial of Mumia's constitutional right to represent himself.
His case has attracted activists around the world organizing against racism, poverty, corporate media censorship, mass incarceration, political repression, and the death penalty.
Activist Noam Chomsky argues that “Mumia's case is symbolic of something much broader...The US prison system is simply class and race war...Mumia and other prisoners are the kind of people that get assassinated by what's called 'social cleansing' in US client states like Colombia.”
Still on Death Row
In December, 2001 Federal District Court Judge William Yohn affirmed Abu-Jamal's guilt but overturned the death sentence. Citing the 1988 Mills v. Maryland precedent, Yohn ruled that sentencing forms used by jurors and Judge Sabo's instructions to the jury were confusing. Subsequently, jurors mistakenly believed that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstances in order to be considered as weighing against a death sentence.
Mumia's case is now in the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals. DA Lynne Abraham is appealing the death penalty ruling while Mumia is appealing the guilty verdict.
If the penalty ruling is overturned, a new execution date will be set for Mumia. If his ruling is upheld, the DA can still impanel a new jury to rehear the penalty phase, which could then sentence Mumia to death—regardless of the 3rd Circuit ruling.
Because the DA appealed Yohn's death penalty decision, Mumia has never left death row, and is still unable to have such “privileges” as full-contact visits with his family.
The Four Issues Being Considered
In December, 2005, the 3rd Circuit announced the beginning of deliberations and shocked many by agreeing to consider two claims not “certified for appeal” by Yohn in 2001.
Mumia's attorney Robert R. Bryan declared it to be “the most important decision affecting my client since his 1981 arrest, for it was the first time there was a ruling that could lead to a new trial and his freedom.” The courts are now considering the following four issues:
#1. Whether the penalty phase of Mumia's trial violated the legal precedent set by the US Supreme Court's 1988 Mills v. Maryland ruling. This issue was Yohn's grounds for overturning the death sentence and is now being appealed by the DA.
#2. “Certified for appeal” by Yohn in 2001, the Batson claim, addresses the prosecution's use of peremptory challenges to exclude Blacks from Mumia's jury. In 1986, the US Supreme Court ruled in Batson v. Kentucky that a defendant deserves a new trial if it can be proved that jurors were excluded on the grounds of race.
At Mumia's trial, Prosecutor McGill used 11 of his 15 peremptory challenges to remove black jurors that were otherwise acceptable. While Philadelphia is 44% black, Abu-Jamal's jury was composed of ten whites and only two blacks. From 1977-1986 when current Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell was Philadelphia's District Attorney, the evidence of racism is striking: from 1977-86, the Philadelphia DA struck 58% of black jurors, but only 22% of white jurors.
#3. The legality of McGill's statement to the jury minimizing the seriousness of a verdict of guilt: “if you find the Defendant guilty of course there would be appeal after appeal and perhaps there could be a reversal of the case, or whatever, so that may not be final.”
In 1986 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against McGill in another case (Commonwealth v. Baker) on the same grounds. When Abu-Jamal addressed this same issue in his 1989 appeal with the State Supreme Court, the court reversed its decision on the legality of such a statement—ruling against the claim for a mistrial.
Incredibly, just one year later, in the very next case involving this issue (Commonwealth v. Beasley), the State Supreme Court flip-flopped and restored the precedent. However, this would not affect the ruling against Mumia, because the court ruled that this precedent would only apply in “future trials.” This suggests that the rulings were designed to specifically exclude Mumia's case from its precedent.
#4. The fairness of Mumia's 1995-97 PCRA hearings when the retired, 74-year-old Judge Sabo was called back specifically for the hearing. Besides the obvious unfairness of recalling the exact same judge to rule on his fairness in the original 1982 trial, his actual PCRA bias has been extensively documented.
During the 1995 hearings, the mainstream Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that the “behavior of the judge in the case was disturbing the first time around—and in hearings last week he did not give the impression to those in the courtroom of fair mindedness. Instead, he gave the impression, damaging in the extreme, of undue haste and hostility toward the defense's case.”
Concluding the PCRA hearing, Sabo rejected all evidence and every witness presented by the defense as not being credible. Therefore, Sabo upheld all of the facts and procedures of the original trial as being correct.
“I'm Going To Help Them Fry The Nigger”
In 2001 another witness—Terri Mauer-Carter—challenged Sabo's integrity, but the State Supreme Court ruled against the defense's right to include her affidavit in their current federal appeal. Mauer-Carter was working as a stenographer in the Philadelphia Court system on the eve of Mumia's 1982 trail when she states that she overheard Judge Sabo say in reference to Mumia's case that he was going to help the prosecution “fry the nigger.”
Journalist Dave Lindorff recently interviewed Mauer-Carter's former boss, Richard Klein, who was with Mauer-Carter when she states she overheard Sabo. A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge at the time, who now sits on PA's Superior Court, Klein told Lindorff: "I won't say it did happen, and I won't say it didn't. That was a long time ago." Lindorff considers Klein's refusal to firmly reject Mauer-Carter's claim to be an affirmation of her statement.
The State Supreme Court ruling was an affirmation of lower-level Judge Patricia Dembe's argument that even if Maurer-Carter is correct about Sabo's stated intent to use his position as Judge to throw the trial and help the prosecution "fry the nigger," it doesn't matter. According to Dembe, since it "was a jury trial, as long as the presiding Judge's rulings were legally correct, claims as to what might have motivated or animated those rulings are not relevant."
Organizing for May 17
Before the May 17 date had been set, Abu-Jamal supporters had already been organizing events for April 24—Mumia’s birthday. The event in Philadelphia will show the film Framing an Execution (narrated by Danny Glover), which analyzes the biased presentation of Abu-Jamal’s case by Sam Donaldson on ABC’s 20/20 in 1999. Afterwards, the forum will discuss new evidence of innocence.
On the same day in France, Abu-Jamal’s international supporters will be joined by a US delegation defending last April’s naming of a street for Abu-Jamal in the Paris suburb of St. Denis.
“In 2001, when Judge Yohn affirmed Mumia’s conviction, he said there was no evidence to show that Mumia is innocent. That is absolutely not true, but Yohn could get away with saying this because the mainstream media did not hold him accountable.” Pam Africa argues that independent journalism and aggressive media-activism are urgently needed to challenge the mainstream media to report accurately about the upcoming oral arguments. “Deceitful mainstream media coverage since November has not presented the extensive evidence of Mumia’s innocence, and this dishonest coverage makes Mumia seem like a cold blooded killer. Only independent media has been putting the truth out about Mumia.”
Among the many stories about Abu-Jamal in the independent press, Africa highly recommends reading about the important new evidence presented in German author Michael Schiffmann’s new book on the case—especially the new discovery of crime-scene photos that expose police manipulation of evidence at the scene.
If supporters are unable to travel to Philadelphia on May 17, Africa encourages people do something in their hometown to publicize the oral arguments and hold the mainstream media accountable in their coverage of the case. “Mumia's case represents all that is wrong with this system. We must take action now before its too late.”
NOTE FROM AUTHOR:
When I spoke with Pam this weekend, she told me about the importance of indymedia in getting out the word. She wanted me to cite her and please encourage folks to check out and distribute these two particular pieces:
German author Michael Schiffmann’s new book reviewed. Pam is really impressed with this book, the new evidence presented and wants it distributed as much as possible. Since the book has not been released in the US, this is the only english language source:
http://insubordination.blogspot.com/2006/11/freiheit-fr-mumia-abu-jamal_24.html
and then also my interview with him giving more depth than just the book review:
http://hbjournalist1.googlepages.com/schiff
Last, but not least, my November essay in Z Magazine just got released to the public (not just subscribers to Z) and is now ready to be spread around:
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Nov2006/bennett1106.html
An archive of all my articles on Mumia (plus many other articles I have collected by other writers) is available here:
http://hbjournalist1.googlepages.com/ms
For more information, check out mumia.org (Philadelphia), freemumia.com (New York City), freemumia.org (San Francisco), or emajonline.com (Educators for Mumia). For the latest on Abu-Jamal from the independent media, check out Bennett’s new “Voice of the Voiceless” series on Abu-Jamal being published in the months leading up to the oral arguments at: http://hbjournalist1.googlepages.com/ms
Hans Bennett (insubordination.blogspot.com) is a Philadelphia-based photojournalist who has been documenting the movement to free Mumia and all political prisoners for more than 5 years
--Pam Africa calls for mass-demonstration in Philadelphia, and challenging mainstream media bias
by Hans Bennett
On May 17, the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in the case of internationally renowned black death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal. The court will consider four different issues that it has already certified for appeal. It will then decide to either grant a new trial, affirm the life sentence, or re-instate the death sentence.
Immediately after this date was announced last week, supporters of Abu-Jamal around the world began mobilizing to support Abu-Jamal at the hearings. Explaining the urgency, Pam Africa (coordinator of Abu-Jamal’s support network) says that “Mumia can still be executed. Further, since the Supreme Court is unlikely to hear Mumia's case, this is realistically his last chance to get a new trial. As the history of his case shows, we need public pressure to ensure the court's fairness.”
“We’re asking people to come to Philadelphia and show that the whole world is watching these oral arguments,” said Africa. “I believe Mumia is innocent and am personally calling for his immediate release,” Africa said. “However, I'll work with anyone supporting a fair trial. By demanding a new trial, we can work with those who know the trial was rotten but are unsure of Mumia's innocence.”
Abu-Jamal’s attorney, Robert R. Bryan doubts that his client will appear in court because of a rule that the defendant is not brought in for oral arguments. Africa is upset about this rule because she feels that Abu-Jamal’s presence will help to ensure fairness. She asks, “these people are arguing about his life, and he’s not allowed to be there to make sure everything is done right?”
Africa is also concerned about the limited time given for the presentation of oral arguments. While the 3rd Circuit Court has granted 45 minutes total, Abu-Jamal’s attorney is arguing for at least an hour. Africa argues that “in order to argue this case, you need much more time than that.”
A New Trial?
In 1982, Abu-Jamal was convicted of killing white Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in a trial that Amnesty International has declared a "violation of minimum international standards that govern fair trial procedures and the use of the death penalty,"
Calling for a new trial, supporters around the world feel that the original one was tainted by racism, prosecutorial & judicial misconduct, coerced witnesses, suppressed evidence, and a denial of Mumia's constitutional right to represent himself.
His case has attracted activists around the world organizing against racism, poverty, corporate media censorship, mass incarceration, political repression, and the death penalty.
Activist Noam Chomsky argues that “Mumia's case is symbolic of something much broader...The US prison system is simply class and race war...Mumia and other prisoners are the kind of people that get assassinated by what's called 'social cleansing' in US client states like Colombia.”
Still on Death Row
In December, 2001 Federal District Court Judge William Yohn affirmed Abu-Jamal's guilt but overturned the death sentence. Citing the 1988 Mills v. Maryland precedent, Yohn ruled that sentencing forms used by jurors and Judge Sabo's instructions to the jury were confusing. Subsequently, jurors mistakenly believed that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstances in order to be considered as weighing against a death sentence.
Mumia's case is now in the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals. DA Lynne Abraham is appealing the death penalty ruling while Mumia is appealing the guilty verdict.
If the penalty ruling is overturned, a new execution date will be set for Mumia. If his ruling is upheld, the DA can still impanel a new jury to rehear the penalty phase, which could then sentence Mumia to death—regardless of the 3rd Circuit ruling.
Because the DA appealed Yohn's death penalty decision, Mumia has never left death row, and is still unable to have such “privileges” as full-contact visits with his family.
The Four Issues Being Considered
In December, 2005, the 3rd Circuit announced the beginning of deliberations and shocked many by agreeing to consider two claims not “certified for appeal” by Yohn in 2001.
Mumia's attorney Robert R. Bryan declared it to be “the most important decision affecting my client since his 1981 arrest, for it was the first time there was a ruling that could lead to a new trial and his freedom.” The courts are now considering the following four issues:
#1. Whether the penalty phase of Mumia's trial violated the legal precedent set by the US Supreme Court's 1988 Mills v. Maryland ruling. This issue was Yohn's grounds for overturning the death sentence and is now being appealed by the DA.
#2. “Certified for appeal” by Yohn in 2001, the Batson claim, addresses the prosecution's use of peremptory challenges to exclude Blacks from Mumia's jury. In 1986, the US Supreme Court ruled in Batson v. Kentucky that a defendant deserves a new trial if it can be proved that jurors were excluded on the grounds of race.
At Mumia's trial, Prosecutor McGill used 11 of his 15 peremptory challenges to remove black jurors that were otherwise acceptable. While Philadelphia is 44% black, Abu-Jamal's jury was composed of ten whites and only two blacks. From 1977-1986 when current Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell was Philadelphia's District Attorney, the evidence of racism is striking: from 1977-86, the Philadelphia DA struck 58% of black jurors, but only 22% of white jurors.
#3. The legality of McGill's statement to the jury minimizing the seriousness of a verdict of guilt: “if you find the Defendant guilty of course there would be appeal after appeal and perhaps there could be a reversal of the case, or whatever, so that may not be final.”
In 1986 the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against McGill in another case (Commonwealth v. Baker) on the same grounds. When Abu-Jamal addressed this same issue in his 1989 appeal with the State Supreme Court, the court reversed its decision on the legality of such a statement—ruling against the claim for a mistrial.
Incredibly, just one year later, in the very next case involving this issue (Commonwealth v. Beasley), the State Supreme Court flip-flopped and restored the precedent. However, this would not affect the ruling against Mumia, because the court ruled that this precedent would only apply in “future trials.” This suggests that the rulings were designed to specifically exclude Mumia's case from its precedent.
#4. The fairness of Mumia's 1995-97 PCRA hearings when the retired, 74-year-old Judge Sabo was called back specifically for the hearing. Besides the obvious unfairness of recalling the exact same judge to rule on his fairness in the original 1982 trial, his actual PCRA bias has been extensively documented.
During the 1995 hearings, the mainstream Philadelphia Inquirer wrote that the “behavior of the judge in the case was disturbing the first time around—and in hearings last week he did not give the impression to those in the courtroom of fair mindedness. Instead, he gave the impression, damaging in the extreme, of undue haste and hostility toward the defense's case.”
Concluding the PCRA hearing, Sabo rejected all evidence and every witness presented by the defense as not being credible. Therefore, Sabo upheld all of the facts and procedures of the original trial as being correct.
“I'm Going To Help Them Fry The Nigger”
In 2001 another witness—Terri Mauer-Carter—challenged Sabo's integrity, but the State Supreme Court ruled against the defense's right to include her affidavit in their current federal appeal. Mauer-Carter was working as a stenographer in the Philadelphia Court system on the eve of Mumia's 1982 trail when she states that she overheard Judge Sabo say in reference to Mumia's case that he was going to help the prosecution “fry the nigger.”
Journalist Dave Lindorff recently interviewed Mauer-Carter's former boss, Richard Klein, who was with Mauer-Carter when she states she overheard Sabo. A Philadelphia Common Pleas Court judge at the time, who now sits on PA's Superior Court, Klein told Lindorff: "I won't say it did happen, and I won't say it didn't. That was a long time ago." Lindorff considers Klein's refusal to firmly reject Mauer-Carter's claim to be an affirmation of her statement.
The State Supreme Court ruling was an affirmation of lower-level Judge Patricia Dembe's argument that even if Maurer-Carter is correct about Sabo's stated intent to use his position as Judge to throw the trial and help the prosecution "fry the nigger," it doesn't matter. According to Dembe, since it "was a jury trial, as long as the presiding Judge's rulings were legally correct, claims as to what might have motivated or animated those rulings are not relevant."
Organizing for May 17
Before the May 17 date had been set, Abu-Jamal supporters had already been organizing events for April 24—Mumia’s birthday. The event in Philadelphia will show the film Framing an Execution (narrated by Danny Glover), which analyzes the biased presentation of Abu-Jamal’s case by Sam Donaldson on ABC’s 20/20 in 1999. Afterwards, the forum will discuss new evidence of innocence.
On the same day in France, Abu-Jamal’s international supporters will be joined by a US delegation defending last April’s naming of a street for Abu-Jamal in the Paris suburb of St. Denis.
“In 2001, when Judge Yohn affirmed Mumia’s conviction, he said there was no evidence to show that Mumia is innocent. That is absolutely not true, but Yohn could get away with saying this because the mainstream media did not hold him accountable.” Pam Africa argues that independent journalism and aggressive media-activism are urgently needed to challenge the mainstream media to report accurately about the upcoming oral arguments. “Deceitful mainstream media coverage since November has not presented the extensive evidence of Mumia’s innocence, and this dishonest coverage makes Mumia seem like a cold blooded killer. Only independent media has been putting the truth out about Mumia.”
Among the many stories about Abu-Jamal in the independent press, Africa highly recommends reading about the important new evidence presented in German author Michael Schiffmann’s new book on the case—especially the new discovery of crime-scene photos that expose police manipulation of evidence at the scene.
If supporters are unable to travel to Philadelphia on May 17, Africa encourages people do something in their hometown to publicize the oral arguments and hold the mainstream media accountable in their coverage of the case. “Mumia's case represents all that is wrong with this system. We must take action now before its too late.”
NOTE FROM AUTHOR:
When I spoke with Pam this weekend, she told me about the importance of indymedia in getting out the word. She wanted me to cite her and please encourage folks to check out and distribute these two particular pieces:
German author Michael Schiffmann’s new book reviewed. Pam is really impressed with this book, the new evidence presented and wants it distributed as much as possible. Since the book has not been released in the US, this is the only english language source:
http://insubordination.blogspot.com/2006/11/freiheit-fr-mumia-abu-jamal_24.html
and then also my interview with him giving more depth than just the book review:
http://hbjournalist1.googlepages.com/schiff
Last, but not least, my November essay in Z Magazine just got released to the public (not just subscribers to Z) and is now ready to be spread around:
http://zmagsite.zmag.org/Nov2006/bennett1106.html
An archive of all my articles on Mumia (plus many other articles I have collected by other writers) is available here:
http://hbjournalist1.googlepages.com/ms
For more information, check out mumia.org (Philadelphia), freemumia.com (New York City), freemumia.org (San Francisco), or emajonline.com (Educators for Mumia). For the latest on Abu-Jamal from the independent media, check out Bennett’s new “Voice of the Voiceless” series on Abu-Jamal being published in the months leading up to the oral arguments at: http://hbjournalist1.googlepages.com/ms
Hans Bennett (insubordination.blogspot.com) is a Philadelphia-based photojournalist who has been documenting the movement to free Mumia and all political prisoners for more than 5 years
For more information:
http://insubordination.blogspot.com
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The United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit has informed attorneys for deat row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal that it will hear oral argument on Mumia’s habeas corpus appeal on May 17 in Philadelphia. In a letter to supporters announcing the hearing, Mumia’s attorney Robert Bryan pointed out that Mumia “remains in great danger. If all is lost, he will be executed.” Mumia’s case has reached a critical juncture. Any decision by the Third Circuit will likely be appealed to the reactionary U.S. Supreme Court.
Both Mumia’s defense team and prosecutors are appealing decisions made in 2001 by U.S. District Court judge William Yohn, who overturned Mumia’s death sentence but upheld every aspect of his 1982 frame-up conviction. A Black Panther Party spokesman in his youth and later a MOVE supporter and renowned journalist, Mumia has been on death row for over 24 years, falsely convicted of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death specifically for political views he expressed as a Black Panther. There are mountains of evidence of Mumia’s innocence, including the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, killed Faulkner. Beverly’s confession was submitted to the courts in 2001. But to the racists in black robes, a court of law is no place for evidence of the innocence of Mumia, a fighter for the oppressed.
The Partisan Defense Committee is a class-struggle legal and social defense organization that champions cases and causes in the interests of the whole of the working people. This purpose is in accordance with the political views of the Spartacist League. As PDC Labor Coordinator Gene Herson said, “We have long fought to mobilize fighters against racist injustice, opponents of U.S. imperialist depredations and, crucially, the labor movement, in the U.S. and internationally, to demand: Free Mumia! Abolish the racist death penalty! As Mumia faced a death warrant in 1995, an outpouring of international protest, crucially involving trade unions internationally, helped stay the executioner’s hand. But that movement was politically demobilized by liberals and reformist left organizations that for years subordinated the demand for Mumia’s freedom to the call for a new trial, peddling illusions in the ‘justice’ of the capitalist courts.”
Herson continued, “With Mumia’s case in its final legal stages, the need for mass, labor-centered protest is more urgent than ever.” PDC counsel Rachel Wolkenstein, who was on Mumia’s legal team from 1995 to 1999 and led the investigation that turned up the Beverly confession and other evidence of Mumia’s innocence, remarked, “It is good that the court is having oral argument and hearing these claims. But we cannot rely on the courts that have railroaded Mumia to give him justice. We must redouble efforts to stop the state from executing Mumia or keeping him entombed for life in prison.” Wolkenstein continued, “There is no way that Mumia can be freed short of a mobilization that recognizes the depth of the hatred the state has for him.”
Wolkenstein resigned from the legal team when Mumia’s then-lead attorney Leonard Weinglass suppressed the Beverly confession. In an affidavit printed in the PDC pamphlet The Fight to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal—Mumia Is Innocent!, Beverly states that he was hired to kill Faulkner, who was reportedly interfering with prostitution, gambling, drugs and police payoffs. The Beverly evidence demonstrates that the injustice done to Mumia was not the work of one rogue cop, prosecutor or judge but the workings of a legal system whose purpose is to repress the working class, minorities and the poor on behalf of the capitalist ruling class. As Wolkenstein stated, “the case against Mumia was a transparent fake from start to finish: faked evidence, perjured witnesses, prejudiced judges, newspaper lies and misrepresentations.”
Wolkenstein continued, “The capitalist rulers know Mumia is innocent of the killing of Officer Faulkner. And they know that from the age of 15, he has been a voice of defiant opposition to the system of racist oppression that is a cornerstone of American capitalism. That is a capital crime in their eyes. That is what they will not forgive.” The forces of racist “law and order” make no secret of their determination to push through Mumia’s legal lynching. This was seen in the decision of the Fraternal Order of Police to boycott the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Newark, New Jersey, which honored black Democratic Congressman Donald Payne. Payne was one of only 31 Congressmen to vote against a December House resolution condemning the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis for naming a street after Mumia.
The potential to mobilize mass protest on the basis that Mumia is innocent and that he is the victim of a racist and political frame-up is seen in the broad range of signatories to a PDC statement, titled “We Demand the Immediate Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an Innocent Man,” that highlights the Beverly confession and other evidence. The statement appeared last fall in the Nation, NYC’s Amsterdam News, the Chicago Defender and the San Francisco Bay View and was subsequently printed in the French Communist Party newspaper l’Humanité, the Morning Star in Britain and other papers in Germany and Canada.
Labor organizations in Italy, Canada, Britain, Germany, Mexico, South Africa and Australia have signed the statement, as have Nobel Prize winners Nadine Gordimer of South Africa and Dario Fo of Italy and Subcomandante Marcos, leader of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Mexico. In the U.S., the New York chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, various Amalgamated Transit Union and International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) locals and NYC’s 1199 SEIU East have signed on. Recent additional signatories include former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, prominent black academic Cornel West, South African poet Dennis Brutus and hip-hop artist Chuck D. In a statement received today by the PDC, Darryl “Mike D.” Payne, vice president and business agent of ILA Local 1526 in Fort Lauderdale, noted that “Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man and should never have spent a single day in jail.” Payne declared, “We must all stand in SOLIDARITY and fight to free him now!”
If successful, a labor-centered fight for Mumia’s freedom would strike a blow against the U.S. rulers’ wholesale attacks on our rights and give labor a sense of its enormous potential social power. The fight for Mumia is a crucial part of the fight for black liberation, which will be achieved only through a proletarian socialist revolution that destroys the entire machinery of racist capitalist injustice. Free Mumia! Abolish the racist death penalty!
* * * * *
The PDC is a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which champions cases and causes in the interest of the whole of the working people. This purpose is in accordance with the political views of the Spartacist League.
Both Mumia’s defense team and prosecutors are appealing decisions made in 2001 by U.S. District Court judge William Yohn, who overturned Mumia’s death sentence but upheld every aspect of his 1982 frame-up conviction. A Black Panther Party spokesman in his youth and later a MOVE supporter and renowned journalist, Mumia has been on death row for over 24 years, falsely convicted of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death specifically for political views he expressed as a Black Panther. There are mountains of evidence of Mumia’s innocence, including the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, killed Faulkner. Beverly’s confession was submitted to the courts in 2001. But to the racists in black robes, a court of law is no place for evidence of the innocence of Mumia, a fighter for the oppressed.
The Partisan Defense Committee is a class-struggle legal and social defense organization that champions cases and causes in the interests of the whole of the working people. This purpose is in accordance with the political views of the Spartacist League. As PDC Labor Coordinator Gene Herson said, “We have long fought to mobilize fighters against racist injustice, opponents of U.S. imperialist depredations and, crucially, the labor movement, in the U.S. and internationally, to demand: Free Mumia! Abolish the racist death penalty! As Mumia faced a death warrant in 1995, an outpouring of international protest, crucially involving trade unions internationally, helped stay the executioner’s hand. But that movement was politically demobilized by liberals and reformist left organizations that for years subordinated the demand for Mumia’s freedom to the call for a new trial, peddling illusions in the ‘justice’ of the capitalist courts.”
Herson continued, “With Mumia’s case in its final legal stages, the need for mass, labor-centered protest is more urgent than ever.” PDC counsel Rachel Wolkenstein, who was on Mumia’s legal team from 1995 to 1999 and led the investigation that turned up the Beverly confession and other evidence of Mumia’s innocence, remarked, “It is good that the court is having oral argument and hearing these claims. But we cannot rely on the courts that have railroaded Mumia to give him justice. We must redouble efforts to stop the state from executing Mumia or keeping him entombed for life in prison.” Wolkenstein continued, “There is no way that Mumia can be freed short of a mobilization that recognizes the depth of the hatred the state has for him.”
Wolkenstein resigned from the legal team when Mumia’s then-lead attorney Leonard Weinglass suppressed the Beverly confession. In an affidavit printed in the PDC pamphlet The Fight to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal—Mumia Is Innocent!, Beverly states that he was hired to kill Faulkner, who was reportedly interfering with prostitution, gambling, drugs and police payoffs. The Beverly evidence demonstrates that the injustice done to Mumia was not the work of one rogue cop, prosecutor or judge but the workings of a legal system whose purpose is to repress the working class, minorities and the poor on behalf of the capitalist ruling class. As Wolkenstein stated, “the case against Mumia was a transparent fake from start to finish: faked evidence, perjured witnesses, prejudiced judges, newspaper lies and misrepresentations.”
Wolkenstein continued, “The capitalist rulers know Mumia is innocent of the killing of Officer Faulkner. And they know that from the age of 15, he has been a voice of defiant opposition to the system of racist oppression that is a cornerstone of American capitalism. That is a capital crime in their eyes. That is what they will not forgive.” The forces of racist “law and order” make no secret of their determination to push through Mumia’s legal lynching. This was seen in the decision of the Fraternal Order of Police to boycott the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Newark, New Jersey, which honored black Democratic Congressman Donald Payne. Payne was one of only 31 Congressmen to vote against a December House resolution condemning the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis for naming a street after Mumia.
The potential to mobilize mass protest on the basis that Mumia is innocent and that he is the victim of a racist and political frame-up is seen in the broad range of signatories to a PDC statement, titled “We Demand the Immediate Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, an Innocent Man,” that highlights the Beverly confession and other evidence. The statement appeared last fall in the Nation, NYC’s Amsterdam News, the Chicago Defender and the San Francisco Bay View and was subsequently printed in the French Communist Party newspaper l’Humanité, the Morning Star in Britain and other papers in Germany and Canada.
Labor organizations in Italy, Canada, Britain, Germany, Mexico, South Africa and Australia have signed the statement, as have Nobel Prize winners Nadine Gordimer of South Africa and Dario Fo of Italy and Subcomandante Marcos, leader of the Zapatista Army of National Liberation in Mexico. In the U.S., the New York chapter of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, various Amalgamated Transit Union and International Longshoremen’s Association (ILA) locals and NYC’s 1199 SEIU East have signed on. Recent additional signatories include former Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, prominent black academic Cornel West, South African poet Dennis Brutus and hip-hop artist Chuck D. In a statement received today by the PDC, Darryl “Mike D.” Payne, vice president and business agent of ILA Local 1526 in Fort Lauderdale, noted that “Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man and should never have spent a single day in jail.” Payne declared, “We must all stand in SOLIDARITY and fight to free him now!”
If successful, a labor-centered fight for Mumia’s freedom would strike a blow against the U.S. rulers’ wholesale attacks on our rights and give labor a sense of its enormous potential social power. The fight for Mumia is a crucial part of the fight for black liberation, which will be achieved only through a proletarian socialist revolution that destroys the entire machinery of racist capitalist injustice. Free Mumia! Abolish the racist death penalty!
* * * * *
The PDC is a class-struggle, non-sectarian legal and social defense organization which champions cases and causes in the interest of the whole of the working people. This purpose is in accordance with the political views of the Spartacist League.
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