|
SUMMARY OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL'S LEGAL CASE Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award-winning journalist who, in the years leading up to his December 9, 1981 arrest, had aggressively exposed police corruption, racism, and violence against Black and other people of colour. On Pennsylvania's death row since 1982, he was denied a fair trial and wrongfully sentenced for the shooting of a police officer. New evidence, including the recantation of a key eyewitness and new ballistic and forensic evidence points to his innocence. Mumia had no criminal record before this conviction. For the last 23 years, Mumia has been locked up in a small cell on death row for all but one hour a day. He has been denied contact visits with his family and legal counsel, for years his confidential legal mail was illegally opened and copied by prison authorities, and was put into punitive detention for writing the first of five books while in prison, Live From Death Row. Since then he has published other books including most recently: We Want Freedom: a Life in the Black Panther Party (2004). The case is currently on appeal before the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit in Philadelphia. The issues currently certified for appeal include prosecutorial use of racism in jury selection, and the death penalty. His lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan of San Francisco, also is litigating a habeas corpus petition before the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas. It concerns fraudulent evidence procured by the police and presented at trial. Mumia's fight for a new and fair trial has won the support of tens of thousands of people around the world including Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, the European Parliament, Alice Walker, Paul Newman, Maya Angelou, Sister Helen Prejean, Danny Glover, Rage Against The Machine, the Detroit and San Francisco City Councils, Amnesty International, and many others. Various cities have bestowed on him honorary citizenship including Paris in 2003. Mumia's fate rests with those people who believe in every person's right to justice and therefore a fair trial. "I remain innocent. A court cannot make an innocent man guilty. Any ruling founded on injustice is not justice. The righteous fight for life, liberty, and for jus-tice can only continue." Mumia Abu-Jamal, 31 October 1998 Some facts about Mr Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial: The policeman was killed with a 44 calibre gun. Abu-Jamal's gun which he was licensed to carry as a night-time taxi driver, was a 38 calibre. The police never tested Mr Abu-Jamal's gun to see if it had been recently fired. They did not even examine his hands to see if he had fired a gun. It was claimed at trial that Mr Abu-Jamal stated, at the hospital shortly after the shooting, that he fired the fatal shots. Yet, that was contradicted in a written po-lice report by the officer who was with Mr Abu-Jamal from the moment he was placed in the paddy wagon at the homicide scene until he went into surgery for removal of the bullet lodged near his spine. When asked about the long time spent guarding the defendant, the police office reported: "The negro male made no comment." A week later he was asked by the chief detective on the case if there was anything he wished to add to his statement, to which the officer re-plied: "Nothing I can think of now." He was hidden from the defense at the 1982 trial so did not testify in contradiction to what other police witnesses claimed was said. Incredibly, 13 years later officer's memory "improved" and the he claimed to have heard Mr Abu-Jamal state while lying on the floor at the hospital: "I shot him. I hope the motherfucker dies." The treating doctor said that Mr Abu-Jamal, who was unconscious, said nothing. He reported that a nurse found police with loaded guns pointed at the suspect as he lay virtually lifeless in his hospital bed. William Singletary, a Vietnam veteran and local businessman, saw the whole incident and said that Abu-Jamal was not the shooter. However, the police forced him to change his story and intimidated him into leaving Philadelphia. Over a decade alter he testified at an evidentiary hearing that Mr Abu-Jamal did not shoot the cop and was innocent. The police had put pressure on him to corroborate their version of events. Other key witnesses, such as Veronica Jones who at the 1995 hearing testified in support of Mr Abu-Jamal, were harassed into initially giving false testimony. Two prosecution witnesses were given special favors, including exemption from criminal prosecution, for their testimony against him. Elements in an unfair trial: It was recently learned through a court stenographer, that the trial judge, Albert Sabo, stated during said during the trial in reference to Mr Abu-Jamal: "Yeah, and I'm going to help 'em fry the nigger." Interestingly, Judge Sabo sentenced more people to death than any other sitting judge in the US and was known as an avowed racist. The defense lawyer did not interview a single witness in preparation for the 1982 trial, and lacked adequate funds for defending a capital case. Mr Abu-Jamal was poor and thus lacked the money to retain competent counsel, an investigator, or needed experts in such fields as pathology and ballistics. The prosecutor systematically removed qualified African Americans from the jury. He also argued for the death penalty because of Mr Abu-Jamal's member-ship in the Black Panther Party, a practice later condemned as unconstitutional by the US Supreme Court. The racism of Philadelphia's courts has resulted in 120 people being placed on death row, all but 13 non-white. Robert R. Bryan, Mr Abu-Jamal's lead attorney, recently summed up the desperate situation: "Mumia's case is now moving forward. He is in extremely grave danger. The authorities want to silence his voice and pen. They thought this could be accomplished by convicting this innocent man and placing him on death row. However, his voice against injustice and oppression is now stronger then ever, and is heard and read throughout the world. The government knows that the only way to stop Mumia is to murder him in the name of the law, to execute him. In over three decades of litigating death-penalty cases, I have not seen one in which the government wants so badly to kill a client. We must not rest until Mumia is free!" Meet the lead attorney for Mumia Abu-Jamal |