[Pnews] Clemons cops out - Lucretia And The Law Of Lawlessness - Mumia Abu Jamal

[Prisoner News]

thiscantbehappening.net
<https://thiscantbehappening.net/lucretia-and-the-law-of-lawlessness/>
Lucretia And The Law Of Lawlessness - This Can't Be Happening!
Linn Washington - April 4, 2023
------------------------------

When Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Lucretia Clemons released an
inmate from prison in May 2021, she clearly saw how prosecutors illegally
withholding evidence of innocence caused that Philadelphia man to languish
in prison for nearly 30-years on a wrongful murder conviction.

As Clemons released Eric Riddick
<https://prisonsandjustice.georgetown.edu/news/eric-riddick-released-from-prison-29-years-after-wrongful-conviction/>
from prison on May 28, 2021, she declared that misconduct by Philadelphia
prosecutors against Riddick constituted a “constitutional violation.”

Yet, 96-weeks later, Clemons refused to see gross constitutional violations
by Philadelphia prosecutors in the controversial case of Mumia Abu-Jamal,
the Philadelphian whose murder conviction 41-years ago is condemned as
wrongful by millions around the world
<https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2012/11/8/justice-on-trial-the-case-of-mumia-abu-jamal>
.

On March 31, 2023, Judge Clemons issued a ruling
<https://popularresistance.org/judge-clemons-denies-a-new-trial-for-mumia-abu-jamal/>
on the latest appeal filed by Abu-Jamal where she rejected claims that
materials in six boxes on the Abu-Jamal case withheld by prosecutors for
36-years did not constitute a constitutional violation like the violation
she acknowledged in the Riddick case.

This recent ruling by Clemons dismissed the core issue in Abu-Jamal’s
appeal: fundamental damage done to Abu-Jamal’s defense by prosecutors lying
to judges for decades with claims that they released all information to
Abu-Jamal’s lawyers.

The evidence withheld by prosecutors that Judge Clemons refused to fault
involved constitutional violations that judges in Pennsylvania (and across
America) have a sworn duty to correct to ensure justice. The introduction
(Preamble) to Pennsylvania’s Code of Judicial Conduct
<https://casetext.com/regulation/pennsylvania-code-rules-and-regulations/title-207-judicial-conduct/part-ii-conduct-standards/chapter-33-code-of-judicial-conduct/subchapter-a-canons/preamble>
states judges serve, “a fundamental role in ensuring the principles of
justice.” Clemons’ Abu-Jamal ruling evidenced an abdication of her role to
ensure justice.

*Sophisticated lawlessness*

Judge Clemons’ studious suffocation of Abu-Jamal’s appeal involved her
failure to fully embrace the correct-injustice intent underlying two famous
U.S. Supreme Court rulings, known widely as *Batson *and *Brady.*

The *Batson *ruling, issued by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1986
<https://www.uscourts.gov/educational-resources/educational-activities/facts-and-case-summary-batson-v-kentucky#:~:text=Reasoning%3A,jury%20because%20of%20their%20race.>,
essentially bars prosecutors from excluding jurors based solely on their
race.

A document in those six withheld boxes revealed the prosecutor at
Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial tracked the race of potential jurors. For decades,
Philadelphia prosecutors denied such tracking took place during Abu-Jamal’s
trial.

Abu-Jamal was tried before an overwhelmingly white jury despite
Philadelphia having a 40 percent African American population at the time of
his 1982 trial.

Clemons termed Abu-Jamal’s claims of damage from the withholding of the
trial prosecutor’s jury selection notes “baseless.” Additionally, Clemons
stated Abu-Jamal had “no right” to that prosecutor’s notes, according to
court rules.

The *Brady *ruling – issued by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1963
<https://www.oyez.org/cases/1962/490#:~:text=7%E2%80%932%20decision%20for%20Brady&text=The%20Supreme%20Court%20held%20that,reconsidering%20his%20punishment%20was%20proper.>
— requires prosecutors to provide defendants with all evidence of innocence
and guilt in their possession. *Brady *requires prosecutors to disclose
this evidence in a timely manner. The nearly forty-year time span that
Philadelphia prosecutors withheld those six boxes of material from
Abu-Jamal’s attorneys is far beyond even the most elastic deference to
*Brady’s* ‘timely disclosure’ requirements.

The *Brady *evidence in those six boxes further tainted the already
questionable testimony of the two prime witnesses against Abu-Jamal at his
1982 trial.

*Legal sophistry*

The correct-wrongful-conviction requirements of the *Batson* and *Brady*
rulings are baked into Pennsylvania criminal law procedure. Judges across
Pennsylvania have granted new trials based on *Batson *and Brady
violations. Those violations led to releases from prison, including
directly from death row.

*Brady *requirements, for example, are found in rulings by the Supreme
Court of Pennsylvania, rules for prosecutors established by the state’s
Supreme Court and requirements for lawyers in the Pennsylvania Code that
lists all rules, regulations, and documents from the Government of
Pennsylvania.

The Pennsylvania Rules of Professional Conduct for lawyers contains a
section entitled “Special Responsibilities of a Prosecutor.” That section (3.8d
of the Rules
<https://casetext.com/rule/pennsylvania-local-court-rules/pennsylvania-rules-of-professional-conduct/advocate/rule-38-special-responsibilities-of-a-prosecutor#:~:text=(1)%20A%20prosecutor%20has%20the,the%20basis%20of%20sufficient%20evidence.>)
requires prosecutors to “make timely disclosure to the defense of all
evidence or information known to the prosecutor that tends to negate the
guilt of the accused or mitigates the offense.”

The appeal documentation Clemons rejected included meticulous details of
requests from Abu-Jamal’s lawyers over the decades for *Brady *material,
material prosecutors persistently failed to release. Prosecutors claimed in
court that they released that requested information only to have
prosecutors release that information months, years and decades later. It’s
unclear today if prosecutors have released all Abu-Jamal information in
their possession.

Judge Clemons claimed with crystal-ball clarity that *Brady* evidence
withheld for 36-years, would not have convinced the trial jury to find
Abu-Jamal not guilty. Further, Clemons claimed that withheld evidence of
*Batson* issues by the trial prosecutor was not a violation that she could
address.

*Rules run amuck*

Clemons deftly used court rules to eviscerate the relief Abu-Jamal is
lawfully entitled to receive throughout her rejection.

Clemons’ rejection repeatedly referenced rulings by the Supreme Court of
Pennsylvania against Abu-Jamal as authority with no reference to that
court’s record of bias against Abu-Jamal. The February 2000 report on the
Abu-Jamal case by the respected Amnesty International contained concerns
about entanglements between Pennsylvania’s highest court and anti-Abu-Jamal
forces within law enforcement, particularly Philadelphia’s police union.

That AI report
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/amr510012000en.pdf>
noted, “the Court’s own rulings on Abu-Jamal’s appeals have left the
unfortunate impression that the state Supreme Court may have been unable to
impartially adjudicate this controversial case.”

The December 2022 submission to Clemons from the United Nations Working
Group of Experts on People of African Descent reminded this judge of the
necessity to examine “racially discriminatory effects and biased
decision-making.” That submission declared examination was relevant
irrespective of courts often being “hesitant to disturb prior decisions.”
Clemons rejected that reminder.

*Prosecutorial hypocrisy *

Compounding the travesty of Clemons’ abdication of her judicial duty to
correct injustice is the persecutive posture of Philadelphia’s
‘progressive’ District Attorney, Larry Krasner. He is the person who
personally found those six boxes of evidence withheld by previous
prosecutors for 36-years. Krasner stumbled on those boxes, stashed in a
closet, during a walk-about of the DA’s multi-floor office space in 2018.

Krasner is a harsh critic of prosecutorial misconduct inclusive of
prosecutors illegally withholding evidence. In June 2021 Krasner’s
Office released
a report
<https://github.com/phillydao/phillydao-public-data/blob/main/docs/reports/Philadelphia%20CIU%20Report%202018%20-%202021.pdf>
on prosecutorial misconduct by his predecessors. In the “By The Numbers”
section of that report, it stated in the 21 exonerations secured by
Krasner’s staff between January 2018 through June 2021, 20 those 21 cases
involved prosecutors withholding “exculpatory evidence” – evidence of
innocence. Fifteen of those 21 cases included misconduct by police.
Misconduct by prosecutors and police are pivotal issues in the Abu-Jamal
injustice.

Although Krasner in that 2021 report stated prosecutors have a “sworn
oath…to seek justice unconditionally, with no limit as to time” Krasner’s
Office vigorously opposed Abu-Jamal’s latest appeal. Krasner’s prosecutors
utilized the same fact-fudging, anti-Abu-Jamal postures of his predecessors.

Arguments against Abu-Jamal’s appeal by Krasner’s Office included claims
that some of the evidence in those six boxes could not be used in court
because that material was ‘time barred.’ Krasner’s prosecutors argued that
Abu-Jamal raised issues about that evidence too late for use in court even
though Abu-Jamal did not know that evidence existed because it was withheld
by prosecutors.

Krasner failed to follow his stated position that prosecutors must seek
justice with “not limit as to time.”

*Obvious wrong overlooked*

One of the documents withheld from Abu-Jamal’s attorneys for
three-plus-decades is a letter sent to the prosecutor at Abu-Jamal’s 1982
trail from that prosecutor’s prime witness against Abu-Jamal. In the
letter, that witness demanded the “money” he said the prosecutor – Joseph
McGill – owed him. Abu-Jamal argued
<https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/oct/26/ex-black-panther-mumia-abu-jamal-fresh-trial-amid-new-evidence>
that demand for money referenced an improper promised payment to that
witness for his trial testimony.

Weeks before sending that letter, this witness – Robert Chobert – told
jurors that he saw Abu-Jamal kill a Philadelphia policeman on 12/9/81. That
key testimony helped produce Abu-Jamal’s conviction and initial sentence to
death row.

Under the *Brady *doctrine, the indisputable fact that prosecutors withheld
this evidence of arguable impropriety gave Clemons the authority to release
Abu-Jamal directly from prison, grant him a new trial or at least order an
evidentiary hearing.

During an evidentiary hearing, McGill and Chobert would testify under oath
about the true meaning of that money-demand letter. The ruling by Clemons
rejected both an evidentiary hearing and a new trial, thus continuing
Abu-Jamal’s unjust imprisonment.

An odious aspect of Clemons’ ruling is she embraced a written statement
from McGill where he endorsed the honesty of Chobert yet admitted he misled
Chobert.

Clemons, in her ruling, gave weight to McGill’s affidavit where that now
former prosecutor claimed the money demand from Chobert concerned a request
for wages the cab driver said he lost while participating in Abu-Jamal’s
trail.

McGill, according to Clemons’ ruling, told Chobert he would inquire about
providing the claimed lost wages. But McGill quickly declared in his
affidavit that he “had no intention of looking into the compensation
issue.” McGill’s affidavit stated DA Office policy barred compensating
witnesses for “lost wages.”

Since Chobert’s money demand supposedly did not involve payment for
testimony, it raises questions as to why McGill didn’t simply tell Chobert
that such compensation was against DA Office policy instead of stringing
Chobert along with stating he’d inquire about lost wages.

Incredibly, Clemons declared the non-disclosure of that money-demand letter
did not harm Abu-Jamal’s legal rights. Clemons claimed that even if Chobert
confirmed a payment for testimony scheme “that admission would not be
sufficient to” help Abu-Jamal. “Therefore, the Defendant’s *Brady *claim
about Chobert lacks merit,” Clemons stated in her rejection.

*Defending the indefensible*

While Clemons quoted heavily from Chobert’s testimony against Abu-Jamal,
she curiously did not reference critical context
<https://fighting-words.net/2022/01/08/take-a-walk-at-the-crime-scene/>
about Chobert.

Clemons omitted facts that Chobert was on probation for firebombing a
school and he was illegally driving a cab because of suspension of his
license for DUI. Clemons also ignored another damning aspect about Chobert.
Photographic evidence shows Chobert was not where he claimed he saw the
fatal shooting. A policeman’s report about Chobert, in those six boxes,
also confirms that lack of photographic evidence.

The 1982 jury never heard those damning facts about Chobert due largely to
rulings by the trial judge – the late Albert Sabo.

Sabo, days before Abu-Jamal’s trial,  declared his intent to help
prosecutors “fry the nigger.” That was clear evidence of racial and
pro-prosecution bias, but that statement was ruled harmless by Pa state and
federal court judges.

The jury never heard that Chobert thought during the 1982 trail that McGill
would help get his driver’s license reinstated. This is another fact
Clemons noted in her ruling but found unpersuasive. Clemons gave added
credence to Chobert because he testified against Abu-Jamal during a 1995
proceeding despite not having his license restored.

Clemons never referenced the fact that Chobert told investigators for
Abu-Jamal in the early 1990s and others over a decade later that he was not
where he claimed he was during his court testimony in 1982.

*Justice Denied Again*

The fact that DA Krasner fought to free many falsely imprisoned persons due
to prosecutorial misconduct yet fought to block freedom for Abu-Jamal
evidences the institutional animus against Abu-Jamal exhibited by police,
prosecutors, and judges since Abu-Jamal’s arrest on December 9, 1981.

This ruling by Clemons perpetuates the pattern of willful participation in
the institutional animus against Abu-Jamal by judges.

Rule 2.3 of Pa’s Judicial Conduct Code declares that “A judge shall perform
the duties of judicial office…without bias or prejudice.”

For many, this ruling by Clemons is contrary to the judicial duty to ensure
justice.

Where Clemons saw wrong in the case of Eric Riddick, she refused to see
what was right, lawful, and required in the Mumia Abu-Jamal case.
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