[Ppnews] The Latest Twist in the Mumia Case

[Political Prisoner News]

A NEW PETITION FOLLOWS

http://www.counterpunch.org/washington03202009.html

March 20-22, 2009


The Latest Twist in the Mumia Case


Supreme Test

By LINN WASHINGTON, Jr.

During a jailhouse interview in 1978 a 
Philadelphia radical awaiting trial for a 
policeman’s death advanced a salient observation 
about a fundamental flaw in America’s legal system.

The “System just make and break laws as it see 
fit!” noted this radical who for years had 
battled Philadelphia authorities arbitrarily 
bending and breaking laws to brutally assault his organization.

This observation by a member of Philadelphia’s 
MOVE organization would prove both prophetic and 
profound for the journalist conducting that 
jailhouse interview – Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Four years after that 1978 interview, Abu-Jamal 
stood trial for murdering a Philadelphia 
policeman. That trial produced a conviction so 
mired in controversy that today millions around 
the globe support Abu-Jamal as the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Abu-Jamal cites that radical’s observation in his 
new book 
“<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0872864693/counterpunchmaga>Jailhouse 
Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners vs. the 
U.S.A.” (City Lights Books 2009).

This is the sixth book written by Abu-Jamal 
during his twenty-five-plus years on 
Pennsylvania’s death row. This book examines 
inmates who’ve learned law through self-study to 
challenge criminal convictions and conditions inside prisons.

Abu-Jamal, in Chapter 2 of his new book, provides 
his assessment of American law terming it an 
“instrument of the powerful, mortality be damned. 
For the weak, the powerless, the oppressed, the 
law is more often a hindrance than a help.”

That radical’s observation about arbitrary 
operation in the justice system accurately 
describes the Abu-Jamal case where courts – state 
and federal – have repeatedly altered and/or 
abrogated established law to block Abu-Jamal 
receiving relief granted to other inmates raising the same legal challenges.

The latest example of this 
alter-law-to-undermine-Abu-Jamal dynamic drives 
his appeal currently pending before the US 
Supreme Court. This appeal attacks the 2008 
ruling by a federal 3rd Circuit Appeals Court 
panel that created a new legal standard for 
persons challenging racist jury selection practices by prosecutors.

That newly created legal standard advanced by two 
3rd Circuit judges to reject voluminous evidence 
documenting racist jury selection practices by 
the prosecutor during Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial 
erects courtroom procedures far in excess of 
procedures required by existing US Supreme Court and 3rd Circuit rulings.

The third member of that three-judge 3rd Circuit 
panel issued a 41-page dissent that repeatedly 
upbraided his panel colleagues for radically 
changing the established jury discrimination 
standards applied by their Circuit and the US Supreme Court.

“Why we pick this case to depart from [3rd 
Circuit precedent] I do not know,” Judge Thomas 
Ambro noted in his 2008 dissent.

Incredibly, that panel’s ruling – later backed by 
the full 3rd Circuit – faults Abu-Jamal’s 1982 
trial attorney for not strictly following 
procedures the US Supreme Court didn’t adopt 
until 1986
four years after Abu-Jamal’s trial.

An internet based petition campaign requesting 
the US Supreme Court to overturn the 3rd Circuit 
ruling and grant Abu-Jamal a court hearing on the 
jury selection discrimination issue amassed over 
1,200 signatures in just a few days.

This petition campaign initiated by a coalition 
of anti-death penalty groups in Germany has 
gained signatures from persons in Germany, 
Austria, Brazil and Turkey despite it not being 
formally launched internationally. So far, 
petition signers include noted German actors, 
actresses, activists, academics, civic leaders 
and one member of the German parliament.

The prosecutor during Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial used 
10 of 15 preemptory challenges to purge potential 
black jurors – more than twice the exclusion rate 
expected with race-neutral procedures.

Abu-Jamal’s richly detailed appeal to the US 
Supreme Court, prepared by lead defense lawyer 
Robert R. Bryan, includes an examination of the 
“culture of discrimination” operative among Philadelphia prosecutors.

Bryan’s appeal highlights 11 separate rulings 
where federal and Pa state courts specifically 
faulted Philadelphia prosecutors for engaging in 
intentional discrimination during jury selection. 
Six of those 11 rulings cited in Bryan’s appeal came from the 3rd Circuit.

Further, Bryan’s appeal, referencing dozens of 
court rulings nationwide, cites a US Supreme 
Court ruling where one Justice utilized a 
scholarly statistical study documenting 
Philadelphia prosecutors purging potential black 
jurors at twice the rate of whites during death 
penalty trials between 1981 and 1997.

Interestingly, just days before that 2008 3rd 
Circuit ruling, the US Supreme Court granted a 
Louisiana death row inmate a new hearing after 
finding race tainted jury selection practices during his trial.

This Supreme Court ruling applied standards less 
stringent than those the 3rd Circuit created in the Abu-Jamal ruling.

The author of that Supreme Court ruling, Justice 
Samuel Alito, formerly served on the 3rd Circuit 
where he participated in rulings granting relief 
to inmates victimized by prosecutorial jury 
selection improprieties less onerous than those in the Abu-Jamal case.

The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund’s 
legal brief filed on behalf of Abu-Jamal’s US 
Supreme Court appeal criticizes the 3rd Circuit 
panel’s “departure from controlling precedent” – 
faulting that ruling for improperly increasing 
the evidentiary burden on defendants raising jury discrimination claims.

The NAACP Defense Fund’s brief warns that the 3rd 
Circuit’s ruling “threatens to dramatically 
reduce the pool of cases eligible for judicial 
review
” because it “directly contradicts” repeated US Supreme Court rulings.

Philadelphia prosecutors are asking the US 
Supreme Court to reinstate Abu-Jamal’s death 
sentence and reject his request for relief 
regarding jury selection discrimination.

That 2008 3rd Circuit ruling upheld a federal 
District Court judge’s elimination of Abu-Jamal’s 
death sentence after finding flaws in forms used 
by the jury that condemned him to death.

The push by Philadelphia prosecutors to execute 
Abu-Jamal comes at a time when states around the 
nation are backing away from the death penalty.

This week, New Mexico became the 15th state to 
repeal the death penalty. NM Governor Bill 
Richardson, when signing the repeal legislation, 
noted the exonerations of four death row inmates in that state.

Six of the 130 death row exonerations nationwide come from Pennsylvania.

The judge presiding at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial, 
Albert Sabo, has the dubious judicial distinction 
of handling the largest number of death penalty 
convictions in America. Courts have overturned 
two-thirds of those capital convictions in Sabo’s 
court citing faults by prosecutors, defense attorneys and Sabo himself.

Philadelphia’s District Attorneys Office is 
currently resisting actions by Philadelphia’s 
Mayor to sharply reduce spending by all city 
government departments due to a billion dollar budget deficit.

Philadelphia prosecutors have spent hundreds of 
thousands of dollars battling Abu-Jamal’s appeals in state and federal court.

Critics of Philadelphia’s DAs Office constantly 
cite fiscally wasteful procedures like 
relentlessly resisting legal relief to inmates 
granted by courts upon findings of faults by police and prosecutors.

Philadelphia District Attorney “Lynne Abraham is 
costing the City a ‘ton’ fighting police 
corruption cases,” said Robert “Sugar Bear” Lark, 
an inmate still sitting on Pa’s death row because 
Philadelphia prosecutors are battling a 2007 
federal court ruling overturning his conviction.

Linn Washington Jr. is an Associate Professor of 
Journalism at Temple University in Philadelphia 
and a weekly columnist for The Philadelphia 
Tribune – America’s oldest black owned newspaper.
*************************************************************************
Dear co-strugglers for Mumia,
please find attached the call for action - to 
sign an online-petition to the justices of the US Supreme Court.
We launched it two weeks ago in Germany and 
Austria - and it is mushrooming now.

<http://www.PetitionOnline.com/supreme/petition.html>http://www.PetitionOnline.com/supreme/petition.html

It could be a wonderful tool to gain more 
awareness and public support in this critical state of Mumia's life.
Please spread it as far as you can! Post it, send 
it around, use all your powerful means of creating news and attention.
Please feel free to change the pre-text in all 
ways you see fit - and sign it with your own name or organisation!
The greatest thing of course would be if Amnesty 
could support it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*****************************************************************
German Network Against the Death Penalty and to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal

<http://www.inprisonmywholelife.com/>www.inprisonmywholelife.com 
- www.mumia-hoerbuch.de - www.mumia.org
Phone: 0049-6221-889 49 55 - 
<mailto:anna.schiff at t-online.de>anna.schiff at t-online.de





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