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<a href="http://phillyimc.org/en/node/66348" eudora="autourl">
http://phillyimc.org/en/node/66348</a> (Philadelphia Independent Media
Center)<br><br>
THE DEMONSTRATION IN PHILADELPHIA WILL BE ON APRIL 19! (NOT ON APRIL 26,
AS WAS ORGINALLY ANNOUNCED)<br>
--The reason we moved it is to maximize on the publicity in Philadelphia
leading up to the PA democratic primaries. The primaries will be
the following week, so by holding our demonstration on the 19th we may be
able to make use of the press. Thank you for your understanding,
and please help us clarify this matter by spreading the word.<br><br>
**************************************<br>
STATEMENT FROM PAM AFRICA, Coordinator of the International Concerned
Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal (March 29, 2008):<br><br>
Last week's court decision was not a victory. While we obviously
prefer to have Mumia alive, instead of executed, life in prison without
parole is an unacceptable sentence for an innocent man that was convicted
with a blatantly unfair trial. Further, there is still no guarantee
that he will not be executed. Also, even if the overturning of the
death penalty is eventually finalized, there is no guarantee that he will
be moved into the general prison population, because the government has
always found ways to make "exceptions" for political prisoners
like Mumia.<br><br>
Once again the courts have held Mumia's case to different standards than
other cases. At the 1982 trial Prosecutor McGill used 10 of his 15
peremptory strikes to remove otherwise acceptable black jurors, yet the
court ruled that there was not even the appearance of discrimination
against just one of these black jurors!<br><br>
Judge Thomas Ambro has noted this blatant double-standard with the
court's rejection of the "Batson" claim regarding racist jury
selection, and he states in his dissenting opinion that the court's
ruling "goes against the grain of our prior actionsŠI see no reason
why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our
precedents."<br><br>
We have absolutely no faith in the judicial system, but if Mumia does
have a court proceeding, we will continue to mobilize to pack the
courtroom and the streets in support of Mumia, just like we have always
done whenever there was a courtroom proceeding for Mumia, whether he was
present or not. However, we know that if Mumia gets justice, it will not
come from the courts, but only from the pressure generated by the people.
<br><br>
Therefore, we will take to the streets with a mass-demonstration in
Philadelphia on April 19 demanding Mumia's release based on the evidence
of both innocence and judicial misconduct from the City of Philadelphia
all the way up to the federal level. In response to the recent court
decision, numerous demonstrations have already been organized
internationally and inside the US. On April 19, with the media spotlight
on Pennsylvania's Presidential Primary Election, supporters from around
the world will gather in Philadelphia to take a constitutional stand and
show our outrage with this unjust court decision.<br>
***************************************************<br>
LINN WASHINGTON ON 3RD CIRCUIT DECISION ON MUMIA<br><br>
<b>IMPORTANT AND POWERFUL ARTICLE BY LINN WASHINGTON<br>
<br>
</b>The following article analyzing the recent decision by the Third
Circuit to deny Mumia a new trial, is written by Philadelphia journalist
and long time friend of Mumia, Linn Washington. It is an excellent piece,
asserting straight up<u> that there is NO victory in this decision</u> as
Mumia is not even granted life in prison without parole, horrific and
unacceptable as that alternative is. The prosecution still has the
right to fight for and potentially win the execution of Mumia.
Also, in describing all the violations of their own precedents that the
Third Circuit committed in making this decision, based on the minority
position (remember it was a 2-1 decision), Linn provides us, through that
dissenting voice, a means for challenging the legitimacy, if not the
legality, of this whole process. We must publicize this information
while asserting the total unacceptability and viciousness of this
decision. Read this article. And let's together fight like
crazy to defeat all those forces that are determined to silence, execute,
and forever imprison our Brother Mumia. ONTO PHILADELPHIA ON
APRIL 19TH!!! FREE MUMIA AND ALL OUR POLITICAL PRISONERS.<br>
<br>
Suzanne Ross, for the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition<br><br>
*********************<br>
<b>Observations and analysis of Linn Washington Jr. on the federal Third
Circuit ruling in the Mumia Abu-Jamal case issued on March 27, 2008.
Washington, is a journalist and university professor in Philadelphia who
has written extensively about the contentious case since Abu-Jamal's
arrest in December
1981.</b>
<br><br>
<u>OVERVIEW<br>
</u>The long awaited ruling by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in the
Mumia Abu-Jamal case released on March 27, 2008 again displays the
dismaying pattern of US courts ignoring precedent to deny relief to this
death row journalist whose plight generates international
support.<br><br>
Precedent in American law means courts following previous court rulings
when determining specific legal issues.<br><br>
Precedent is the bedrock of American law.<br><br>
America law requires courts to follow precedent unless significant
evidence and/or compelling rationales necessitate changing
precedent.<br><br>
This Third Circuit ruling changes precedent. This ruling changes
precedent by applying legal procedures in a highly questionable manner to
dismiss compelling evidence of injustice against Abu-Jamal.<br><br>
The Third Circuit did uphold the elimination of Abu-Jamal's death
sentence. This is no victory because the ruling upheld his conviction
thus condemning Abu-Jamal to life in prison.<br><br>
This ruling refused to grant Abu-Jamal a new hearing or new trial on
three compelling issues: prosecutors using racism to exclude African
Americans from the jury during Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial; the prosecutor
making improper comments to that '82 jury at the end of the trial; and
pro-prosecution bias by the '82 trial judge during a 1995 appeals
hearing.<br><br>
The Third Circuit previously granted relief to persons convicted of
murder in Philadelphia after ruling that Philadelphia prosecutors had
illegally excluded African Americans from juries.<br><br>
However, in this Abu-Jamal case ruling, the court found no fault in
evidence of exclusion of African Americans from the jury in his 1982
trial.<br><br>
Curiously, the evidence of exclusion at Abu-Jamal's trial is of equal or
greater magnitude than proof of exclusion previously found acceptable for
relief by the Third Circuit.<br><br>
These previous rulings on jury discrimination formed the precedent on
that issue for the Third Circuit.<br><br>
That precedent stated it is wrong for prosecutors to discriminate against
even one black potential juror. Additionally, that precedent stated
defendants did not have to object to jury selection discrimination by
prosecutors immediately when it occurred.<br><br>
Yet, this ruling reversed precedent on those two points of legal
procedure.<br><br>
A week before this Abu-Jamal ruling, the US Supreme Court granted relief
to a death row inmate in Louisiana because of a discriminatory jury
selection process. That Supreme Court ruling was written by a Justice on
that court who formerly served on the Third Circuit.<br><br>
That Justice, Samuel Alito, had approved relief to Philadelphia murder
defendants due to discriminatory jury selection practices by prosecutors.
Alito, in a February 2005 Third Circuit ruling, stated prosecutors commit
a violation by removing "any black juror because" of their race
- a position similar to the position contained in that recent US Supreme
Court ruling he authored.<br><br>
<u>THIRD CIRCUIT RULING<br>
</u>The Third Circuit's ruling rested on a procedural finding by two of
the three judges on this appeal's court panel. This finding stated that
lawyers for Abu-Jamal during the 1982 trial and the 1995 appeal hearing
failed to follow the procedures legally required to properly raise the
issue of prosecutors improperly using racism during the jury selection
process.<br><br>
The panel's majority asserted that "Abu-Jamal has forfeited his
Batson claim by failing to make a timely objection" to improper
procedures by prosecutors referencing the US Supreme Court's 1986 Batson
ruling that outlaws the exclusion of black jurors for reasons rooted in
racism.<br><br>
Philadelphia area author and investigative reporter Dave Lindorff notes
the absurdity of holding Abu-Jamal's lawyer responsible for not strictly
following procedures during the 1982 trial that the US Supreme Court did
not create until four years later in that 1986 Batson case.<br><br>
No lawyer (or judge) in the United States could predicted what procedure
the US Supreme Court would order four years in the future observes
Lindorff, author of the seminal 2003 book on the Abu-Jamal case:
"Killing TimeŠ"<br><br>
In reaching this conclusion against Abu-Jamal's jury discrimination
claim, that Third Circuit panel's majority created a new standard for
persons raising Batson claims in that court.<br><br>
This standard requires that a Batson violation claim must be raised at
the time of jury selection -- a contemporaneous objection.<br><br>
Interestingly, in reaching this conclusion of procedural errors by
Abu-Jamal's attorney, the panel's majority failed to note that this
lawyer at 1982 trial was unfairly thrust into the jury selection process
after that process was underway without the opportunity to do any
preparation.<br><br>
The trial judge granted the prosecutor's request to remove Abu-Jamal from
selecting his own jury, a decision without merit that unfairly benefited
the prosecutor and stripped Abu-Jamal of his right to represent himself.
Plus, this action aggravated tensions between Abu-Jamal and his
attorney.<br><br>
Further, the panel's majority faulted an Abu-Jamal lawyer for not
properly raising the jury selection racism issue during Abu-Jamal's first
appeal in the late 1989s to the Pa Supreme Court without acknowledging a
major error committed by the lawyer who filed that appeal.<br><br>
That attorney prepared that appeal without ever reviewing the trial
transcript.<br><br>
There is no way that attorney could have prepared a legally valid appeal
without knowing what specifically had happened at trial. (That appeal
attorney was also suffering from what proved to be a fatal brain tumor, a
medical condition that impaired that attorney's cognitive
abilities.)<br><br>
In creating this new standard, the panel's majority makes it harder to
prove Batson violations. Plus, this standard changes that court's
precedent on procedures needed to raise Batson claims.<br><br>
The judge who dissented from his two colleagues faulted them for creating
this new standard, a standard not ordered by the US Supreme
Court.<br><br>
"This case's newly created contemporaneous objection ruleŠgoes
against the grain of our prior actions, as our Court has addressed Batson
challenges on the merits without requiring that an objection be made
during jury selection in order to preserve" future appellate review,
the dissenter said.<br><br>
This judge, speaking specifically to changing precedent, said since Third
Circuit precedent did "Šnot have a federal contemporaneous objection
ruleŠI see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of
our precedents."<br><br>
Additionally, this dissenter stated that jury discrimination practices
displayed in a now infamous video-taped training session at the
Philadelphia DAs Office gave "a view of the culture" of that
office during the 1980s when Abu-Jamal was tried.<br><br>
This dissenter criticized his two colleagues for failing to make the
obvious connection between the discrimination instruction given at the
taped session and discriminatory practices used by Philadelphia
prosecutors before, during and after the 1980s.<br><br>
"Indeed, given that Abu-Jamal's trial preceded Batson, it is not
far-fetched to argue that the culture of discrimination was even
worse," the dissenter declared.<br><br>
Previously, the Third Circuit ordered new federal trial court hearings to
collect more evidence to enable full and fair determinations on jury
discrimination claims.<br><br>
The Third Circuit's ruling rejected that procedure for
Abu-Jamal.<br><br>
<u>MAJOR FLAWS IN COURT RULINGS<br>
</u>This practice of creating new court standards to only apply to
Abu-Jamal was criticized in an Amnesty International report of the
Abu-Jamal case controversy released in 2001.<br><br>
AI criticized the Pa Supreme Court for altering its prior rulings -
precedents - to reach results against Abu-Jamal.<br><br>
In 1986, for example, the Pa Supreme Court overturned a Philadelphia
death sentence after ruling that a prosecutor named Joseph McGill made
improper comments to the jury during a trail presided over by Judge
Albert Sabo.<br><br>
McGill prosecuted Abu-Jamal in a 1982 trial presided over by Judge
Sabo.<br><br>
Abu-Jamal's attorneys had alleged that McGill engaged in jury selection
discrimination - a claim documented by evidence but a claim that the
Third Circuit panel's majority rejected. Sabo's rulings during that 1982
trail aided this documentable discrimination.<br><br>
During Abu-Jamal's '82 trial, McGill made the same comments to the jury
that the Pa high court faulted in its 1986 ruling. But when the Court
upheld Abu-Jamal's conviction in 1989 it refused to find any fault with
McGill making the same comments it had faulted him for in its ruling
three years before.<br><br>
Then, in 1990, the Pa Supreme Court reinstated its 1986 standard
regarding prosecutors making improper comments like McGill made.<br><br>
The Pa Supreme Court's flip-flopping on this form of prosecutorial
misconduct led Amnesty International to state in its 2001 report that:
"This contradictory series of precedents leaves the disturbing
impression that the Court invented a new standard of procedure to apply
it to one case only: that of Mumia Abu-Jamal."<br><br>
McGill's improper comments to the jury faulted by the Pa Supreme Court in
1986 were an appeal issue before the Third Circuit Court. That federal
court panel found no fault in McGill's comments, denying Abu-Jamal relief
he should have received if those federal appeals judges fairly followed
established law.<br><br>
The Third Circuit panel also rejected allegations that Judge Sabo was
biased during a major 1995 appeals hearing.<br><br>
Sabo's biased antics during that 1995 proceeding were so outrageous this
misconduct provoked strong, caustic criticisms from even Philadelphia's
normally anti-Abu-Jamal media. An August 1995 editorial in the
Philadelphia Inquirer blasted Sabo's "injudicious conduct" that
included verbally badgering Abu-Jamal's attorneys and even briefly
jailing one of those attorneys for objecting to one of his improper
rulings.<br><br>
Scores of newspaper articles from the New York Times to the
ultra-conservative/law-&-order Washington Times reported on Sabo's
pro-prosecution bias at that '95 appeal hearing.<br><br>
The Pa Supreme Court curtly dismissed this widespread journalistic
criticism by contending that the "view of a handful of
journalists" did not convince that Court of Sabo's bias.<br><br>
Five of the seven Pa Supreme Court justices that upheld Abu-Jamal's
conviction in 1998 received campaign contributions from the lead group
seeking Abu-Jamal's execution, Philadelphia's police union, the Fraternal
Order of Police (FOP). One of those '98 justices was the ex-DA of
Philadelphia who as DA fought to execute Abu-Jamal.<br><br>
The Third Circuit agreed with the Pa Supreme Court's 1998 ruling that no
evidence exists showing a "settled bias" by Sabo against
Abu-Jamal. The Third Circuit panel made this assertion despite noting
Sabo making a series of "intemperate remarks" against Abu-Jamal
and his defense attorneys during that 1995 appeal hearing.<br><br>
In another flip-flop ruling, the Pa Supreme Court in March 1988 found
that a single statement uttered by the judge during the murder trial of a
former Pa State Trooper "was extremely prejudicial" to this
Trooper who killed a woman inside a judge's office.<br><br>
Where the Pa Supreme Court granted a new trial to that killer cop because
of that judge's one improper comment, one year later the same Court found
no fault in numerous opinion laden statements Judge Sabo made during the
Abu-Jamal trial.<br><br>
Sabo rejected requests to remove himself from hearing that '95 appeal
made by Abu-Jamal attorneys citing his pro-prosecution during the 1982
trial. News articles, editorials and commentaries all faulted Sabo for
not removing himself stating his failure recuse himself graphically
displayed unfairness in a proceeding where fairness was desperately
needed.<br><br>
Journalistic watch-dogs normally hostile to Abu-Jamal sought the face of
fairness in that '95 proceeding both to follow established law and to
quell critics claiming Sabo's unfairness against Abu-Jamal undermined
fairness.<br><br>
The federal panel's majority employed a legal procedure to sidestep
Sabo's clear and illegal bias - an Achilles Heel of that federal ruling
and this entire case.<br><br>
It is incredible to contend that the widely condemned Judge Sabo who
presided during most trial court proceedings in the Abu-Jamal's case did
not violate any of Abu-Jamal's rights at any time - despite his history
of violating rights in this case and other cases.<br><br>
Judge Sabo handled 32 murder trials that ended in death sentences before
his retirement. But 24 of those sentences in Sabo's courtroom had been
vacated for errors as of June 2007 according to the American Civil
Liberties Union (ACLU). Some of those death sentences were reverse due to
misconduct and/or mistakes by Sabo.<br><br>
Sabo had once ordered prosecutors to pursue a death penalty when the
death penalty had been ruled illegal in Pennsylvania. Sabo's ordering
that illegal procedure led to overturning that death sentence.<br><br>
<u>WHAT NEXT?<br>
</u>This March 2008 Third Circuit ruling leaves Abu-Jamal with few legal
options to challenge his conviction.<br><br>
Abu-Jamal can appeal the panel's ruling to the entire Third Circuit Court
hoping for that full Court to overturn the panel's ruling. Further, he
can appeal any Third Circuit ruling to the US Supreme Court.<br><br>
There is a slight prospect of new action in Pa state courts.<br><br>
The Third Circuit issued an order stating Abu-Jamal will receive a
life-sentence unless Philadelphia prosecutors hold a new penalty phase
hearing seeking to reinstate his death sentence within six
months.<br><br>
This mini-trial style hearing would allow Abu-Jamal to present evidence,
including new evidence of innocence that has emerged like a flood since
his first trial.<br><br>
But it is unclear if prosecutors will pursue this route that could create
evidence and procedure that could secure a new round of federal appeals
for Abu-Jamal.<br><br>
<u>OVERLOOKED CRUX OF CASE<br>
</u>Sadly, the federal judges at the trial and appellate court levels,
like judges in Pa state courts, have refused to uphold the most
fundamental issue in the contentious Abu-Jamal case: the right to a fair
trial.<br><br>
Critics of Abu-Jamal's conviction from Philadelphia's Francisville
section to France all feel he was denied a fair trial.<br><br>
Police and prosecutors blatantly engaging in misconduct to secure a
conviction destroys fair trial rights. A trial judge openly biased
towards police and prosecutors destroys fair trial rights. Court applying
the law in the Abu-Jamal case differently from applied in other cases
destroys equal justice rights.<br><br>
The Pa Supreme Court declared in a 1959 ruling involving a Philadelphia
murder case that every defendant is entitled "to all the safeguards
of a fair trialŠeven if evidence of guilt piles as high a Mt
EverestŠ"<br><br>
Abu-Jamal was four-years-old when the Pa Supreme Court issued that 1959
ruling against judges and prosecutors cutting-corners during a
trial.<br><br>
Abundant evidence documents that corners-cut by the prosecutor and judge
during Abu-Jamal's trial and by judges during his appeals corrupted his
rights to a fair trial and equal justice - rights guaranteed by the US
Constitution.<br><br>
In June 2007, state courts in Pennsylvania overturned the 200th death
penalty case since 1978 when that state reinstated executions, the ACLU
stated.<br><br>
It is incredible to contend that 200 death penalty cases contained errors
egregious enough to be vacated but not a single element in the Abu-Jamal
case warrants either a new hearing or a new trial.<br><br>
<br><br>
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