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<a href="http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/2008/0918cortesuprema.htm" eudora="autourl">
http://www.cubanews.ain.cu/2008/0918cortesuprema.htm<br><br>
</a></font><font face="Arial, Helvetica" size=4 color="#003578"><b>Mumia
Abu-Jamal Appeals to US Supreme Court <br><br>
</b></font><font face="Verdana" size=3>HAVANA, Cuba, Sept 18 (acn)
African American journalist and activist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who is on death
row since 1982, will urge the US Supreme Court to establish if his life
sentence for murder was motivated by racial prejudices. <br><br>
</font><font face="Verdana" size=2>Last July, a Philadelphia Federal
Appeals Court rejected a petition for a new trial on Jamal’s guilt or
innocence. Another court had already rejected the petition in March.
<br><br>
The decision to appeal to the Supreme Court was revealed to the
Inter-American Press Service by the head of Jamal’s defense team, Robert
R. Bryan, an article on Granma newspaper reads.<br><br>
The African American journalist was given a 26-year prison sentence after
he was found guilty for the death of a white police officer. Human
Rights activists in the United States, who also oppose the death penalty,
cast doubt on the evidence presented to condemn Abu-Jamal, who always
vindicated his innocence. <br><br>
Racism still prevails in the United States and it should not have room in
the US legal system, said Bryan when the appeals court rejected the
petition for a new trial last July. <br><br>
Bryan added that the people are frequently executed in the United States
due to the incompetence of their defense attorneys. The prosecutor at the
1982 trial practiced racism when he picked the jury he said and noted
that they will not rest until Mumia is freed.<br><br>
The appeal at the Supreme Court will focus on a series of aspects,
including the fact that black citizens were excluded from the jury in the
first trial. Several investigations reveal that white juries are <br>
more likely to support the death penalty. <br><br>
However, the Supreme Court might not consider the case; the nine judges
at that instance only consider between 1 and 2 percent of all the appeals
presented each year. The chance that the Supreme Court could consider
Jamal’s case lies on the verdict issued by the previous court, which was
a divided decision as to the issue of racism; therefore, the Supreme
Court could assume the case to solve such a difference. <br><br>
If the Supreme Court takes the case and issues a favorable verdict, the
appeals court would have to reconsider a petition for a new trial on the
guilt or innocence of Abu-Jamal.<br><br>
However, the judges who rejected the petition considered that Abu-Jamal
deserved a new trial, at least to consider if the death sentence should
be commuted to life imprisonment, without the benefit of parole. Although
that fact put aside the threat of an immediate execution, it still is a
verdict that can be revoked. <br><br>
The prosecution is not pleased with the decision either and it could ask
the Supreme Court to favour the upholding of the death sentence for
Abu-Jamal; though the head of the Philadelphia prosecutors, Hugh Burns,
said that he had not taken a decision to act in that respect yet.
<br><br>
Burns also said that he does not think that racial prejudices existed
during the first trial and that “it is not possible” that significant
mistakes may have been committed on that occasion.<br><br>
If the Supreme Court does not take the case of Abu-Jamal and favors the
petition by the prosecutors of upholding the death penalty, the countdown
for the execution will be resumed.<br><br>
Mark Taylor, a Theology professor at the Princeton University and
coordinator of the Educators Group for Mumia Abu-Jamal, said that the
case is potentially embarrassing for many top government officials in
Pennsylvania. <br><br>
Pennsylvania’s governor Ed Rendell, who could order the execution of the
African American journalist, was the head prosecutor when Mumia’s case
was processed. <br><br>
Meanwhile, Ronald Castille, president of Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court,
tried to keep Abu-Jamal in prison while he acted as a prosecutor when
that court issued its verdict on the case. <br><br>
Professor Taylor stressed the need to keep educating the US people about
the details of the case and its significance for issues like the death
penalty in the United States, racism, police brutality and the situation
of the US prisons. <br><br>
Last week, thousands of citizens staged a demonstration in Denver to
demand the release of all US political prisoners. Gathered across from
the building that hosted the national convention of the Democratic Party,
demonstrators listened to a message in the voice of Abu-Jamal from his
prison cell, in which he blasted Washington’s foreign policy and its
protection of foreign tyrants. <br><br>
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