Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia's case at critical stage
On October 15, 1999, attorneys for the wrongfully convicted US political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal filed legal papers in Federal District Court asking that he be given a new trial.
The next legal step – which could happen any time now – will take place when Federal District Court Judge William Yohn sets a date for an initial hearing in the case.
At that hearing he will listen to oral arguments from lawyers on both sides to support written briefs which have already been filed. Mumia will be present in the court and plans are underway to mobilise large numbers of his supporters to be both inside and outside the courtroom.
Mumia Abu-Jamal was originally convicted in 1982 of killing a police officer, Daniel Faulkner, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Since his conviction, in a trial marked by blatant police, judicial, and prosecutorial misconduct, he has spent the last 18 years on Pennsylvania’s death row, under the most brutal and dehumanizing conditions.
Meanwhile a world-wide campaign of protest has developed, as evidence mounts that Mumia was the victim of a police and government frame-up against him, and as more and more people find out about it.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation had been spying on Mumia since he was 14 years old and a member of the Black Panther Party.
Before his arrest he was the president of Philadelphia’s Association of Black Journalists, and had earned a considerable reputation as an eloquent spokesperson for Philadelphia’s Black community and for other poor and oppressed peoples. This gained him the enmity of the Philadelphia establishment.
He has continued his journalistic work while in prison, achieving fame worldwide as the "voice of the voiceless."
Many of the facts which have convinced people across the globe that Mumia’s trial and conviction were a travesty emerged in the years after it took place.
Witnesses have come forward to say that they testified falsely, or refused to testify at all, because they had been coerced by the police.
Ballistics
Ballistics experts (not hired by the defence during the original trial for lack of money) have stated that the scientific evidence precludes any possibility that the shooting took place as the prosecution claimed.
But none of this new evidence is part of the official legal record at the present time, and therefore can’t be used.
Mumia’s attorneys attem-pted to introduce it during hearings that took place in 1995 – before the same judge, Albert Sabo, who presided at the original trial.
Sabo ruled that none of this testimony was credible, and so excluded it from the written transcript.
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, the last state court to rule in the case, then upheld Sabo’s findings. But the Pennsylvania Supreme Court is an elected body, and the majority of its justices ran campaigns with support from the Fraternal Order of Police – the main group which has been crusading for Mumia’s execution.
Any vote in favour of Mumia’s appeal, then, by any of the court’s nine justices, would have constituted a guarantee that they would lose their next bid for reelection.
So one of the key issues which Judge Yohn must decide is whether he will allow new evidence to be introduced into the record as part of the Federal appeals process.
He is not legally required to do so, but may at his discretion. (He could simply decide to review the written transcripts of state proceedings.)
Mumia is requesting an evidentiary hearing, and Judge Yohn’s courtroom is the last place where this could happen.
If he says "no" to such a hearing, none of the new evidence will be introduced, and it therefore will not be considered even when the case is appealed further to the two higher levels of federal courts: the Federal Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court.
Transcript
The justices of these tribunals will rule strictly on the written transcript that is placed before them, which is why Yohn’s decision on this issue is so crucial.
It is no exaggeration, then, to say that the fate of Mumia Abu-Jamal may well depend on the public outcry that is raised in the time before Yohn makes this determination.
If he is reminded of how many people around the world are watching to see the way the federal courts handle Mumia’s case it can be a substantial factor in influencing his ruling.
One new development in the case revolves around four Amicus Curiae ("friend of the court") briefs which were filed with Yohn during the year 2000.
The groups which requested Yohn to consider additional legal arguments, based on a substantial material interest in what decision is made on Mumia’s request for a new trial, were the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the American Civil Liberties Union, 22 members of the British Parliament, and the Chicana/ Chicano Studies Foundation.
However, Yohn decided that he would not read or consider these additional briefs, asserting that they did not contribute anything new of substance, and that to take up time with them would merely delay the appeals process.
The British MPs and the Chicana/Chicano Studies Foundation, however, ref-used to take "no" for an answer, and appealed Yohn’s decision to the Federal Court of Appeals, asking that Judge Yohn be directed to take their briefs into account.
Delay
The Court of Appeals upheld Yohn’s decision, but the process of appeal was at least one factor which has further delayed proceedings in Yohn’s court.
More significantly, the entire process has begun to focus attention on the information contained in these two briefs, which cover some previously unpublicised aspects of the original trial.
Through rereading the transcripts and looking into other legal material they document additional evidence of a conscious frame-up against Mumia.
For example, statements by Mumia’s own (court appointed) attorney indicate that he attempted to collaborate with the judge and prosecutor to make sure any conviction would not be overturned on appeal.
Judge Sabo claimed in court to have checked with a higher court on the propriety of a decision denying Mumia the right to have a non-attorney (John Africa of the MOVE organization in Philadelphia) present as a consultant at the defence table.
However, there is no record whatsoever of the legal process which he claims took place. (The texts of these Amicus briefs are available online. Go to www.freemumia.com , the website of the New York Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition.)
Supporters around the world are being urged to continue organising political activities around Mumia’s case, and it was one of the prominent themes raised by thousands of protesters who lined the route of President George W. Bush’s inaugural parade in Washington D.C. on January 20.
Conference
In addition, a major national activists’ conference is projected, also in Washington, for March 30-31, to discuss the next steps in Mumia’s defence.
In a related development, one of the leaders of the national campaign around Mumia, Clark Kissinger from the organisation Refuse and Resist, was sentenced to 90 days in jail by a Federal Judge in Pennsylvania – for the "crime" of making a speech.
The jail term stems from a probationary sentence handed down to Kissinger as a result of the sit-in for Mumia at the Liberty Bell in Philadelphia on July 3, 1998.
Most of the activists arrested that day pleaded guilty to misdemeanor charges and paid a fine. Kissinger and a handful of others pleaded not-guilty and demanded a trial.
As a result, after they were found guilty, they were given extremely punitive conditions of probation, which include being forbidden to leave their home jurisdiction (New York in Kissinger’s case) without permission, and being required to hand over information about their personal finances and political associations.
Speech
Kissinger defied these provisions by travelling to Philadelphia to give a speech during demonstrations at the Republican National Convention last August.
At a hearing on December 6, Federal Judge Arnold C. Rapoport ordered him to serve the time in jail, after which the restrictive terms of his original probation will be reinstated.
Kissinger is appealing, on the grounds that the original probation was illegal and a violation of his constitutional rights.
Steve Bloom is a member of the national committee of the U.S. Socialist organization Solidarity and on the steering committee of the New York Free Mumia Abu-Jamal coalition.