[Ppnews] US Supreme Court rejects Mumia's PCRA petition!

[Political Prisoner News]

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=9907

Hi folks. Bad News!

This is not the appeal of the Third Circuit Decision, but a separate appeal.

AFP news service just announced that the US 
Supreme Court has rejected Mumia’s PCRA appeal 
based on the affidavits of Kenneth Pate and 
Yvette Williams. The appeal had been filed in 
July, after it was rejected by the PA Supreme 
Court in Feb, 2008, and in 2005 by Philadelphia 
judge Pamela Dembe. You can read the AFP article here:

<http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hsu73yNR0dA7hULMzlXdAnL1K1rw>http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5hsu73yNR0dA7hULMzlXdAnL1K1rw

This is completely separate from the appeal to 
the US Supreme Court re the recent Third Circuit 
decision that denied a new guilt phase trial. The 
deadline for Mumia and the DA to appeal this to 
the US Supreme Court is October 20, unless 
Mumia’s lawyer applies for a 60 day extension.

I just received this quote from lead attorney 
Robert R. Bryan re. today’s news. Last night he 
arrived in France for a film festival showing of 
the film "In Prison My Whole Life", and to do a 
related press conference.  Today, following the 
news, he told me: “Today, as expected, the U.S. 
Supreme Court denied the Petition for Writ of 
Certiorari which I filed some time ago on behalf 
of Mumia. As reported in my recent Legal Update, 
this concerned uncovered evidence of 
prosecutorial and police fraud. Even though I now 
have proof that the 1982 trial was literally a 
trial by fraud, there were procedural problems 
caused by the previous lawyers not presenting the 
new evidence in a timely and proper manner. As 
you know, I took over the case in nearly six 
years ago (Mumia first began seeking my 
representation in 1985; I was too busy at the time).”

”Please understand that as you pointed out, this 
is unrelated to the petition I will file later in 
the year in the Supreme Court. That will relate 
to the 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals 
for the Third Circuit, concerning 
racism-jury-selection, and material 
misrepresentations made by the prosecutor at the 
guilt-phase argument.”—said Bryan.

Below here I have compiled info regarding the 
affidavits of Kenneth Pate and Yvette Williams, 
and other overall frame-up and police corruption that their stories’s expose.

Kenneth Pate's Affidavit and the Fraudulent Hospital Confession

Kenneth Pate is the step-brother of hospital 
security guard Priscilla Durham, who testified at 
the 1982 trial to hearing Abu-Jamal confess at 
the hospital, to shooting Officer Daniel 
Faulkner. Pate now states in an April 18, 2003 
affidavit that Durham confided to him during a 
telephone conversation "around the end of 1983 or 
the beginning of 1984" that she had actually lied 
about hearing the alleged hospital confession.

Pate states that Durham told him on the telephone 
that "Mumia was all bloody and the police were 
interfering with his treatment, saying 'let him 
die.' Priscilla said that the police told her 
that she was part of the 'brotherhood' of police 
since she was a security guard and that she had 
to stick with them and say that she heard Mumia 
say that he killed the police officer, when they 
brought Mumia in on a stretcher.''

Even before Pate's affidavit, Durham's account was very suspicious.

The alleged "hospital confession," where Mumia 
reportedly declared, "I shot the motherf***er and 
I hope the motherf***er dies," was first 
officially reported to police over two months 
later, by hospital guards Priscilla Durham and 
James LeGrand (Feb. 9, 1982), PO Gary Wakshul 
(Feb.11), PO Gary Bell (Feb.25), and PO Thomas M. Bray (March1).

Only two of these five witnesses were called by 
the DA: Priscilla Durham and Gary Bell (Faulkner's partner and "best friend").

Priscilla Durham

Durham testified in 1982, and added for the very 
first time (not reported to the police on Feb.9), 
that she had reported the confession to her 
supervisor the next day, making a hand-written 
report. Neither her supervisor, nor the alleged 
handwritten statement were presented in court.

Instead, the DA sent an officer to the hospital, 
returning with a suspicious typed version. Sabo 
accepted the unsigned and unauthenticated paper 
despite both Durham's disavowal (because it was 
not hand-written), and the defense's protest that 
authorship and authenticity were unproven.

Gary Bell

Bell testified that his two month memory lapse 
resulted from him being so upset over the death 
of Faulkner, that he forgot to report it to police.

Gary Wakshul: 'the negro male made no comment.'

Police Officer Gary Wakshul was not a prosecution 
witness, and on the final day of testimony in 
1982, Mumia's lawyer discovered Wakshul's 
statement from Dec. 9, 1981 (Mumia's supporters 
cite this late discovery as another example of 
incompetent representation--to which defense 
attorney Anthony Jackson testified about at the 1995 PCRA hearings).

After riding with Abu-Jamal to the hospital and 
guarding him until his treatment, Wakshul 
reported: "the negro male made no comment."

When the defense immediately sought to call 
Wakshul as a witness, the DA reported that he was 
on vacation. On grounds that it was too late in 
the trial, Sabo denied the defense request to locate him for testimony.

Subsequently, the jury never heard from Wakshul 
or about his contradictory written report. When 
an outraged Abu-Jamal protested, Judge Sabo 
cruelly declared to him: "You and your attorney goofed."

At the 1995 PCRA Hearings, Wakshul testified that 
both his contradictory Dec. 9 "the negro male 
made no comment" report and the two month delay 
were simply bad mistakes. He repeated his earlier 
February 11, 1982 statement given to the police 
IAB investigator that he "didn't realize it had 
any importance until that day."  Wakshul also 
testified to being home for his 1982 vacation—in 
accordance with explicit instructions to stay in 
town for the trial so that he could testify if called.

Mysteriously, just days before his PCRA 
testimony, Wakshul was savagely beaten by 
undercover police officers in front of a Judge in 
the Common Pleas Courtroom, where Wakshul worked 
as a court crier.The two attackers were later 
suspended without pay, as punishment. With the 
motive still unexplained, the beating was 
possibly used to intimidate Wakshul into 
maintaining his "confession" story at the PCRA hearings.

Regarding the alleged confession, Amnesty 
International concluded: "The likelihood of two 
police officers and a security guard forgetting 
or neglecting to report the confession of a 
suspect in the killing of another police officer 
for more than two months strains credulity."


Yvette Williams' Affidavit and the Police Coercion of Cynthia White

Yvette Williams' July 8, 2002 affidavit, is the 
just latest evidence discrediting the 
prosecution's star witness at the 1982 trial: Cynthia White.

Suspiciously, no official eyewitness even 
reported seeing White at the scene, and White is 
the only "witness" to report seeing alleged 
eyewitness Robert Chobert's taxi cab parked behind PO Faulkner's car.

Amnesty International documents that key DA 
witnesses Chobert (an arsonist on probation, 
driving his cab without a license) and White (a 
prostitute facing multiple charges) "altered 
their descriptions of what they saw, in ways that 
supported the prosecution's version of events."

Importantly, Williams' account of 1) White being 
coerced by police to give false testimony, and 2) 
Police seeking out even more false testimony, is 
strongly supported by the testimony of Veronica 
Jones (at the 1982 trial and the 1996 PCRA) and 
Pamela Jenkins (at the 1997 PCRA).

The New Affidavit

Yvette Williams declares: "I was in jail with 
Cynthia White in December of 1981 after Police 
Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed. 
Cynthia ['Lucky'] White told me the police were 
making her lie and say she saw Mr. Jamal shoot 
Officer Faulkner when she really did not see who 
did it....Whenever she talked about testifying 
against Mumia Abu-Jamal, and how the police were 
making her lie, she was nervous and very excited 
and I could tell how scared she was from the way she was talking and crying."

Explaining why she is just now coming out with 
her affidavit, Williams says "I feel like I've 
almost had a nervous breakdown over keeping quiet 
about this all these years. I didn't say anything 
because I was afraid. I was afraid of the police. They're dangerous."

Pamela Jenkins' 1997 PCRA Testimony

At the 1997 PCRA hearing, former prostitute 
Pamela Jenkins testified that 1) Police tried 
pressuring her to falsely testify that she saw 
Abu-Jamal shoot Faulkner, and 2) In late 1981, 
Cynthia White (who Jenkins knew as a fellow 
police informant) told Jenkins that she was also 
being pressured to testify against Mumia, and that she was afraid for her life.

As part of a 1995 federal probe of Philadelphia 
police corruption,  Officers Thomas F. Ryan and 
John D. Baird were convicted of paying Jenkins to 
falsely testify that she had bought drugs from a 
Temple University student named Arthur Colbert. 
Jenkins' 1995 testimony about Colbert and others 
she falsely testified against, helped to convict 
Ryan, Baird, and other officers and to dismiss several dozen drug convictions.

At the 1997 PCRA, Jenkins testified that this 
same Thomas F. Ryan was one of the officers who 
attempted to have her lie about Mumia!

The Attempts to Silence Veronica Jones

Veronica Jones (a prostitute working at the 
scene) first told police that she had seen two 
men "jogging" away from the scene before police 
arrived. Then, as a defense witness at the 1982 
trial, Jones denied making the statement, but 
started to describe a pre-trial visit from 
police, where "They were getting on me telling me 
I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do 
it..They were trying to get me to say something 
that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I 
couldn't do that." Jones then explicitly 
testified that police offered to let her and 
White "work the area if we tell them" what they 
wanted to hear regarding Mumia's guilt.

The DA moved to block her account, calling her 
testimony "absolutely irrelevant." Judge Sabo 
agreed to block the line of questioning, strike 
the testimony, and then ordered the jury to disregard Jones' statement.

Later, at the 1996 PCRA, Jones testified that in 
1982 she had been coerced by police to recant 
seeing the two men jogging away, but resisted 
police pressure to falsely testify that she saw Abu-Jamal shoot Faulkner.

Intimidation of Jones continued at the PCRA. 
Before she testified, Judge Sabo threatened her 
with 5-10 yrs imprisonment for admitting perjury. 
After testifying, he allowed NJ police to 
handcuff and arrest her for an outstanding arrest 
warrant on charges of writing a bad check.

Outraged by Jones' treatment, even the normally 
'anti-Mumia' Philadelphia Daily News reported 
that: "Such heavy-handed tactics can only confirm 
suspicions that the court is incapable of giving 
Abu-Jamal a fair hearing. Sabo has long since 
abandoned any pretense of fairness."





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