[Ppnews] Mumia - Hans Bennett Interview with Robert Bryan

[Political Prisoner News]

Greetings!

I am writing to share my new interview with Robert R. Bryan, lead attorney
for Mumia Abu-Jamal.  In this interview he responds to the recent move
from the Philadelphia DA requesting that the entire Third Circuit Court
recuse itself from Mumia's case.

While this move is quite "over the top," it strongly suggests that the DA
is afraid the Third Circuit will be fair in considering the issues
regarding a new trial.  So, this is very exciting and gives us reason for
hope, but at the same time, if the DA's request is successful, Mumia's
case could be moved to a more conservative court where he'll have less
chance of getting a new trial.

Clearly, the time for action is now, and I hope you enjoy my new interview
that I just conducted on Monday.  Please spread this interview around as
much as possible.

Sincerely,
Hans Bennett
Insubordination.blogspot.com
http://hbjournalist1.googlepages.com/ms


http://phillyimc.org/en/2007/04/38699.shtml

Abu-Jamal Attorney Responds to Philly DA
----Is the DA afraid the Third Circuit will grant a new trial?

Hans Bennett interviews Abu-Jamal attorney Robert R. Bryan

As reported in two recent Associated Press articles,
(http://cbs3.com/topstories/local_story_096132154.html)
(http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/04/16/america/NA-GEN-US-Mumia-Abu-Jamal.php)
the Philadelphia District Attorney has filed a motion asking the entire
3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to recuse itself from Black death-row
journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal's case on grounds that Gov. Ed Rendell, whose
wife serves on the court, was district attorney during Abu-Jamal's 1982
trial.  The DA argues that if the court rules unfavorably for Abu-Jamal,
the defendant could then argue that the ruling was a result of bias from
the court, and as the Associated Press wrote, the DA allegedly "wants to
leave Abu-Jamal no grounds for any future appeal."

Assistant District Attorney Hugh J. Burns Jr. wrote in his motion that
since "Mr. Rendell was the elected district attorney at the time in
question, and so would have been responsible for the supposed 'routine'
racially discriminatory practices of Philadelphia prosecutors, Abu-Jamal's
accusations necessarily implicate Mr. Rendell personally,"

This request followed the March 22 announcement that Abu-Jamal would have
oral arguments in Philadelphia on May 17, where the court will consider
four different issues that have already been certified for appeal.
Supporters have already begun organizing a mass-demonstration in
Philadelphia on May 17, and many feel that the DA's request is actually
designed 1) to delay the oral arguments and 2) to move Abu-Jamal's case to
a more conservative circuit that will be less sympathetic to the issues
being presented for a new trial.

Abu-Jamal's attorney, Robert R, Bryan, strongly opposed this move by the
District Attorney and filed his response with the court on April 13.

In this interview (conducted on April 16), Bryan responds to this recent
move from the DA and provides background on the issues being considered on
May 17.

San Francisco attorney Robert R. Bryan has appeared as chief counsel in
numerous murder cases and specializes in death-penalty litigation. He is a
member of the bar of the United States Supreme Court, California, New
York, Alabama, various federal courts, and is the former Chair of the
National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, Washington, DC.

Mumia Abu-Jamal first began writing Mr. Bryan in 1986 and in 1991 formally
asked him to take his case. The attorney had to decline at that time due
to a full schedule of other capital case commitments. In 2003 Mr. Bryan
was again approached, and finally agreed to become lead counsel for Mr.
Abu-Jamal. He can be contacted via email:
RobertRBryan at aol.com


Hans Bennett: Last week, you filed a response to the DA's request to have
the 3rd Circuit Court recuse itself?  What's this all about?

Robert R. Bryan: I was surprised that the Philadelphia District Attorney
actually asked for the disqualification of every judge on the U.S. Court
of Appeals for the Third Circuit.  This seems really over the top.  On
Friday, April 13, I filed a response aggressively opposing this effort by
the DA. One of my concerns is that the prosecution not be allowed to use
this ploy to delay oral argument which is set for May 17.

Mumia has been locked up for over a quarter of a century and on death row
for 24.  This day for oral arguments has been a long time coming and we do
not want justice delayed.  That is the bottom line.  Also, I feel that
this court can be fair.  The grounds presented by the DA for
disqualification of every judge are baseless and absurd.

I have been doing death penalty work for three decades and this is a novel
approach.  Of course, in some cases a judge might not be fair and must be
disqualified.  An example would be when I reopened in New Jersey the
Hauptmann-Lindbergh Trial of the Century on behalf of Anna Hauptmann, the
widow of Richard Hauptmann.  He was executed in 1936 for the kidnap-murder
of Charles A. Lindbergh, Jr.; that was long before I was born.  In the
1980s I uncovered evidence suppressed by the government establishing that
Mr. Hauptmann was in fact innocent.  We were litigating the case in the
U.S. District Court, Newark.  I asked for the recusal of the judge
assigned to the case in the belief he could not be fair because his father
had been involved in the initial 1932 Lindbergh kidnap investigation as a
police chief.

Recusal is statutorily required where a judge has a personal bias or
prejudice concerning a party, or personal knowledge of disputed facts, or
where there is the appearance of impropriety.  However, I do not see those
conditions in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, where the DA wants to
disqualify not just one judge, but rather the entire court.

Bennett: Has the three-judge panel even been selected yet?

Bryan: No.  We do not at this point know whom the three judges will be to
hear and decide the case.  For the District Attorney to be asking for
disqualification under the circumstances seems absurd.

Bennett: In December 2005, the U.S. Court of Appeals shocked many by
agreeing to consider two claims not "certified for appeal" by Judge Yohn
in 2001.  Do you think the DA is threatened by the 3rd Circuit because
they may fairly consider the issues and grant your client a new trial?

Bryan: The prosecution seems intent on doing just about anything to avoid
that result: a new trial not riddled with racism.  The DA's effort seems
not only for the purpose of delaying the May 17 oral argument, but is also
a transparent attempt to maneuver the case into being heard by really
conservative judges from other circuits.  This court, the Third Circuit,
has a reputation for being fair and evenhanded, much more than some of the
other courts.  That is all Mumia and I want—fairness.

The United States is divided into different circuits.  This particular
circuit is known for being just, particularly when there have been
constitutional abuses and has been willing to grant relief.  It is clear
what the DA is trying to do.  The prosecution wants Mumia's case out of
the Third Circuit and heard instead by judges from elsewhere who are more
conservative and less concerned about constitutional violations,
particularly with death penalty cases such as this.

A word of caution.  Being in the Third Circuit certainly does not
guarantee a favorable outcome.  What Mumia and I want is that his case be
fairly heard and adjudged.  If that occurs then we have a good chance of
being granted a new trial, since the constitutional violations are so
egregious.  Racism and unfairness are threads that have run through this
case since the beginning.

Bennett: In 2003 a state court ruled against considering court
stenographer Terry Maurer-Carter's affidavit. Since this time, have you
been able to include her affidavit in the current federal appeal, despite
the state ruling?

Bryan: Ms. Maurer-Carter came forward in August, 2001 with startling new
evidence.  She revealed that during the 1982 trial she overheard Judge
Albert Sabo state, in reference to Mumia, that he was going to help "fry
the n----r."  Her sworn declaration was immediately filed in the U.S.
District Court.  Three weeks later on September 17, 2001, a motion was
filed federally in an effort to expand the judicial bias claim, contending
that the newly discovered evidence established the judge "was racially
prejudiced" against Mumia.  The evidence also was submitted to the state
court, and then as part of a petition I filed March 8, 2004 in the United
States Supreme Court.  The issue we presented was whether it is
permissible under the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments for a judge
to preside over a capital murder trial in which he was overheard stating
in reference to the accused that he was going to help "fry the n----r."
Just quoting those horrible words of Judge Sabo sends chills down my
spine.

Bennett: You have included her statement in your current 3rd Circuit
appeal, in particular regarding the fourth issue being considered:  Judge
Sabo's unfairness at the 1995 PCRA evidentiary hearings.

Bryan: Yes.  We have four issues in this case and this one concerns Judge
Sabo's bias, not at the 1982 trial, but during the 1995 post-conviction
(PCRA) evidentiary hearing.  I am stuck with that limitation since the
lawyers previously on the case did not as a matter of law accuse Judge
Sabo of bias at the trial.  The judge who was deciding whether or not to
grant a new trial in 1995 was the same person who presided over the 1982
trial in which my client was convicted and sentenced to death.  Judge Yohn
assumed as part of his federal rulings in 2001, that in denying relief
Judge Sabo was impartial and fair.  Now we know that was not true.  When
it came to Mumia Abu-Jamal, Judge Sabo made a bigoted remark that he was
intent on seeing my client "fry", to be executed.  The constitutional
principles of due process, fundamental fairness, and equal protection of
the law had taken a holiday from his courtroom.  As you know, Mumia has
been on death row ever since the trial.

Aside from the numerous violations of my client's constitutional rights
detailed in our briefs, we also have this evidence that Judge Sabo said he
was going to help the prosecution kill my client, referring to him in the
most racist and despicable manner imaginable.

Sabo's "fry the n----r" comment is interrelated with what we are arguing
on May 17, but it is not the sole basis of the argument that Judge Sabo
was unfair at the 1995 hearing.  But it is now part of it and we put it in
because it was raised shortly following discovery, and was presented to
the U.S. District Court.  So I feel it is legitimately there before the
Court of Appeals.

As you know, I have litigated numerous death penalty cases around the
country for three decades.  Back when I was trying many cases in the
South, I went before some very racist judges.  One even jailed me three
days for contempt of court for challenging his racism and bias.
Incidentally, my client was cleared—acquitted of murder and all related
charges.  With all the racism I have witnessed, never have I been before
someone who was so arrogant about his or her racism as to just openly talk
about it.  Mumia's case occurred not in the South, but in Philadelphia,
which, aside from the police department,  is a sophisticated city.  Yet,
in this case Judge Sabo refers to Mumia as a "n----r" and boasts about
helping the prosecution ensure that he is executed.  This is the big
gorilla in the room that must be addressed; it cannot be ignored.

Hans:  It's remarkable that Judge Pamela Dembe ruled in 2001 that even if
Maurer-Carter was correct, it simply does not matter.  She said that 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."

Bryan:  I feel that as a matter of law Judge Dembe was wrong, and of
course rejecting that she employed faulty judgment.  The subsequent ruling
by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which I took to the United State
Supreme Court, was likewise based upon illogical reasoning.  Nevertheless,
as I mentioned earlier, this issue was also presented during the same
period in the U.S. District Court.  The sworn declaration of Terri
Maurer-Carter was promptly filed federally.

It is interesting that Ms. Maurer-Carter's husband was a police officer
and she an official court stenographer who has received awards for the
excellence for her court-reporting work.  She is just a normal person, not
political, but what Ms. Maurer-Carter overheard really bothered her.  I
have great respect for her, that she had the courage to come forward with
this information.  Ms. Maurer-Carter could have remained silent and stayed
out of this, and she and her family would certainly feel safer at night.

Bennett: Do you have an estimate of you how long it will take for the 3rd
Circuit Court to make the ruling on a new trial?

Bryan: It is difficult to say.  The court has a goal of having an internal
draft decision within 60 days following assignment or all supplemental
briefing.  Yet, if a judge on the panel wishes to concur or dissent, he or
she should submit the opinion within 45 days after a second judge's
approval of the majority decision.  These are only targets the court sets
for itself so it could reach a decision much quicker, or longer.  I hope
to have a ruling before the end of the summer, but that depends upon what
happens internally with the court; it could be sometime in the fall.  I do
not think it will sit on this case for a long time.  This is a court not
known to procrastinate and hold up the wheels of justice.

Bennett: What rulings could the court make?

Bryan: I will give you the two extremes of what might happen: (1) If the
court decides that Mumia deserves a new trial, the judges might order a
retrial. (2)  If the court rules against us on everything, it we would be
looking down the barrel of an execution and need to petition the United
States Supreme Court.  Of course, there are various rulings the court
could make between these two extremes, such as sending the case back to a
lower court for further hearings, only ordering a retrial on the issues of
life or death, etc.

The issues in this case are of great constitutional importance.  In
addition to the work by associate counsel Professor Judith L. Ritter and
me, there has been support from highly respected legal organizations.  The
NAACP Legal Defense Fund has written a friend of the court brief on the
"racism-in-jury-selection" issue.  There was also a brief filed by the
National Lawyers Guild, which has been joined by the National Conference
of Black Lawyers, International Association of Democratic Lawyers, Charles
Hamilton Houston Institute of Race and Justice at Harvard Law School, the
Southern Center for Human Rights, and the National Jury Project.  That is
quite a list of human rights-oriented organizations arguing that this case
cries for a new and fair trial not riddled with racism, as it was
initially.

Bennett: What can supporters around the world do to best aid your battle
in the courts?

Bryan: People need to openly express their concern for human rights,
opposition to the death penalty, and demand what we are after in this
case: a completely new trial, at the conclusion of that trial, my client
could go home to his family.  That is the bottom line, and that is what's
driving me and the legal team:  Mumia's ultimate freedom.

That being said, I consider it very important that people's voices are
heard in many ways, like peacefully demonstrating, writing letters to
newspaper editors, op-ed pieces, news articles.  It is really like what
you, Hans, are doing:  just getting the word out publicly about the
injustices that have occurred in this case—letting the facts speak for
themselves. That is what people can do.  Of course we need financial
support for the legal effort, and there is a fund strictly for the legal
defense, the Committee To Save Mumia Abu-Jamal (see below).

The big thing is that people's voices are heard.  I was in Berlin,
Germany, in January and spoke to an audience of well over two thousand
people.  The audience's boisterous reaction to my remarks was
overwhelming—they recognized the importance of Mumia to the cause of
people's basic rights.  There is also much activism in many other
countries, such as France, England, Spain, Italy.  Mumia Abu-Jamal has
become a worldwide symbol in the struggle against the death penalty, and
against human rights abuses.

When arrested Mumia was a prominent journalist who was known as the Voice
of the Voiceless, because he spoke out against governmental abuses and
corruption.  The authorities thought when they prosecuted and put him on
death row, they would silence him.  Ironically he is heard by more people
today through radio and print than he was when free.  Mumia does not write
about himself, but rather about big issues like women's rights, racism,
wrongs committed by the U.S. and other governments in Iraq, how we treat
prisoners at places like Guantanamo, the education of young people, and
poverty.

The Philadelphia District Attorney's goal is to kill Mumia, to see him put
in the death chamber, strapped down, and murdered in the name of the law.
The hope of the state is to silence Mumia once and for all.

We all need to understand that the racism and unfairness continues through
the present and we are trying to change that.

Bennett: Anything else to add?

Bryan: The Batson issue, which concerns racism in jury selection, is very
important.  It was not just in my client's case, but it was actually the
modus operandi of lawyers in the District Attorney's Office to remove
people from the jury who were black and poor.  This rendered the trial
unfair.  The U.S. Supreme Court as well as the U.S. Circuit Court of
Appeals have spoken on this issue, ruling that this type of behavior by
prosecutors is constitutionally unacceptable.

Bennett: How long have you and Mumia known each other?

Bryan: Mumia started writing me in 1986 and we eventually got to know each
other, but I had to turn down the case because I was too busy with other
death penalty work.  When he came back to me just over four years ago, I
could not say no, because it was too important and he needed help.

Mumia has reminded me that what we are all doing is far bigger that just
his case.  It relates to everyone on death row, and is about people
everywhere who are unfairly treated, political prisoners around the globe.
  We need to bear in mind that a victory for Mumia Abu-Jamal will help
other people.  That is Mumia's concern.  He hopes that what we are doing
in his case will help other death row inmates, and put a spotlight on the
things wrong with legal systems everywhere.  The racism needs to be
exposed, brought out to the light of day, and changed.  We are about
making change for a lot of people.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------

To contribute to the legal defense of Mumia, checks should be made payable
to the "National Lawyers Guild Foundation."  The NLG Foundation is a
tax-exempt, nonprofit charitable organization under Internal Revenue Code
Section 501(c)(3).  Donations should be mailed to: Committee To Save Mumia
Abu-Jamal, P.O. Box 2012, New York, NY 10159.

The four issues being considered are:

#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 grounds for Yohn's overturning the death sentence in 2001
and is now being appealed by the DA.  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.

#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 DA, 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 Mumia 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."

#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 
 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.

For more information, visit www.mumia.org. 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



The Freedom Archives
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