[Pnews] Mumia Abu Jamal Legal Update

Prisoner News ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Sat Mar 20 11:26:14 EDT 2021


https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2021/03/20/18840917.php 
<https://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2021/03/20/18840917.php>

Reprinted below is a short legal update from Judy Ritter and Sam Spital, 
the attorneys who are litigating Mumia Abu-Jamal's conviction. On March 
17th, they filed a response to DA Larry Krasner's position on the issues 
that are being re-litigated, following Tucker's ruling to reopen all 
appeals filed by Mumia's attorneys between 1998 - 2012. Maureen Faulkner 
also filed a motion yesterday. Both filings are at the link above.

*--Reprinted below is a statement released by attorneys Judith Ritter 
and Sam Spital on March 18, 2021:*

Yesterday we filed our reply brief in Superior Court in support of 
Mumia’s claims in the re-opened appeals. We focused on four arguments:

(a) the Court’s jurisdiction to hear this case notwithstanding the 
Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Reid that most petitioners 
seeking to re-open their cases post Williams v. Pennsylvania cannot do 
so because their claims are not timely;

(b) trial counsel’s ineffectiveness in failing to present evidence that 
Robert Chobert was on probation at the time of his trial testimony;

(c) the admissibility of Yvette Williams’s declaration reporting what 
Cynthia White said to hear about lying against Mumia; and

(d) racial discrimination in jury selection in violation of Batson.

Also yesterday, Maureen Faulkner sought permission, again, to intervene 
in the Superior Court. Essentially her argument is that the DA is not in 
her view raising—or at least not vigorously raising—a 
jurisdictional/timeliness argument, which she says reflects ongoing bias 
and the need for disqualification.
http://www.jamaljournal.com <http://www.jamaljournal.com/>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/ppnews_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20210320/d568ca83/attachment.htm>


More information about the PPnews mailing list