<html>
<body>
<h1><font size=4><b>3rd Circuit Appeal Ruling Favoring Abu-Jamal Smacks
Down US Supreme Court</b></font></h1><font size=3>Tue, 04/26/2011<br>
Linn Washington Jr. <br>
<a href="http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/579" eudora="autourl">
http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/579<br>
</a> <br><br>
The federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, in a stunning
smack at the U.S. Supreme Court, has issued a ruling upholding its
earlier decision backing a new sentencing hearing in the controversial
case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the convicted killer of Philadelphia Police
Officer Daniel Faulkner.<br><br>
The latest ruling, issued on Tuesday April 26, 2011, upholds a ruling the
Third Circuit issued over two years ago siding with a federal district
court judge who, back in 2001, had set aside Abu-Jamal’s death penalty
after determining that death penalty instructions provided to the jury,
and a flawed jury ballot document used during Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial, had
been unclear.<br><br>
The U.S. Supreme Court had ordered the Third Circuit to re-examine its
2009 ruling upholding the lifting of Abu-Jamal’s death sentence.
<br><br>
The nation’s top court had cited a new legal precedent in that directive
to the Third Circuit, a strange order given the fact that the Supreme
Court had earlier consistently declined to apply its own precedents to
Abu-Jamal’s case. <br><br>
The Associated Press was the first to report the Third Circuit’s latest
dramatic ruling and in fact, as of the morning of the ruling’s release,
the decision had still not been posted on the appeals court’s
website.<br><br>
Abu-Jamal’s current lead attorney, Prof Judith Ritter of the Widener Law
School, could not be reached for comment.<br><br>
The Third Circuit’s ruling, if left standing, requires Philadelphia
prosecutors to call for a whole new sentencing hearing if they want to
try and reinstate the death penalty. That would require the impaneling of
a whole new jury, to hear and consider evidence regarding mitigating
circumstances and aggravating circumstances in the case, and then to
decide for either execution of life-without-possibility of parole--the
only two options legally available. Abu-Jamal has exhausted his avenues
of appeal of his conviction, absent new evidence in the case.<br><br>
If prosecutors opted against holding new hearing then Abu-Jamal’s
sentence would be converted automatically to a life sentence, which in
Pennsylvania means no chance of parole. Abu-Jamal would have to spending
the remainder of his life behind bars, though not on death row.<br><br>
Experts contend a new sentencing hearing would be problematic for
prosecutors. Although the issue of guilt or innocence would not be on
trial, the defense could bring in witnesses to explain exactly what they
saw happen the night of the shooting--witnesses whose testimony could
ultimately raise new questions about the validity of the underlying
conviction.<br><br>
It is almost a certainty that prosecutors will appeal the Third Circuit’s
latest ruling back up to the Supreme Court. Furthermore, prosecutors
concede that current and yet unresolved legal issues in this case, which
continues to attract unprecedented international scrutiny, will keep it
in courts for years. For example, there are several avenues of appeal of
Abu-Jamal's death sentence which were never adjudicated by the Federal
District court, which mooted them after the Judge, William Yohn, found in
favor of one argument and tossed out the death sentence.<br><br>
In early April 2011 the NAACP Legal Defense Fund publicly announced it
was joining the Abu-Jamal defense team and working with Professor Ritter.
NAACP lawyers had joined Ritter last fall during the hearing where she
argued the legal point just upheld by the Third Circuit in its latest
ruling.<br><br>
Recently Abu-Jamal recorded yet another birthday (4/24) inside a death
row isolation cell. Abu-Jamal and the 222 other Pennsylvania death row
inmates spend 23-hours per day every day isolated inside minimalist
cells.<br><br>
Since 1983 Abu-Jamal has languished in the confinement of death row,
following his controversial July 1982 conviction for the murder of
Officerl Faulkner.<br><br>
Now 57, Abu-Jamal has spent nearly 29 years of his life in prison for a
crime he has consistently denied committing--a crime that ample evidence
conclusively proves could not have occurred as police and prosecutors
have proclaimed.<br><br>
Authorities, for example, claim Abu-Jamal fired four shots at the
policeman, while straddling the officer as he lay defenseless on a
sidewalk, striking him only once with a fatal shot in the face.<br><br>
However, police crime scene photos and police reports make no reference
of any bullet marks in that sidewalk around the fallen officer--marks
that should have been clearly visible if Abu-Jamal fired three shots at
almost point-blank range into the sidewalk as witnesses and the
prosecutor claimed.<br><br>
As detailed in an thorough investigative ballistic test released in
September 2010 by This Can’t Be Happening! (See our film at the bottom of
the home page), it is impossible to fire high-velocity bullets into a
sidewalk without leaving any marks. TCBH! test-fired each kind of
.38-caliber bullets referenced in police reports about the 1981 crime
scene into a slab of old city sidewalk, and each of those bullets left
easily visible marks…marks totally contradicting claims by authorities
that Abu-Jamal wildly fired into the sidewalk without leaving bullet
marks.<br><br>
Rulings by federal and state courts denying Abu-Jamal the legal relief
routinely granted other inmates who had raised the same appeals claims
are the least-examined element of this internationally-condemned
injustice.<br><br>
The same Philadelphia and Pennsylvania courts that found major flaws by
either defense attorneys, police, prosecutors and/or trial judges in 86
Philadelphia death penalty convictions during a 28-year period after
Abu-Jamal’s December 1981 arrest declare no errors exist anywhere in the
Abu-Jamal case – an assertion critics call statistically
improbable.<br><br>
The federal Third Circuit, for example, declined to grant Abu-Jamal a new
trial based on solid legal issues from racial discrimination by
prosecutors in jury selection to documented errors by trial judge Albert
Sabo, the late jurist who relished his infamous reputation for
pro-prosecution bias.<br><br>
The Third Circuit’s 2008 ruling faulting Sabo for his inability to
provide the jury with simple death penalty deliberation instructions
included the contradictory conclusion that Sabo had adequately provided
the jury with instructions about a highly complicated legal issue
involving misconduct by the trial prosecutor.<br><br>
Faulting Sabo for that flawed instruction on prosecutorial misconduct
would have required the Third Circuit to give Abu-Jamal a whole new
trial. Unwilling to do that, the court sidestepped its duty to ensure
justice, by deciding to just eliminate Abu-Jamal’s death sentence,
instead.<br><br>
Pennsylvania state courts have released three Philadelphians from death
row (half of Pa’s death row exonerations to date) citing misconduct by
police and prosecutors…misconduct that was less egregious than that
documented in the Abu-Jamal case. One of those Philadelphia exonerations
involved a man framed by police for a mob-related killing, who was
arrested six months before Abu-Jamal.<br><br>
While many people in Philadelphia may feel Abu-Jamal is guilty as
charged, millions around the world question every aspect of this
conviction, citing facts that proponents of Abu-Jamal’s conviction
deliberately dismiss as irrelevant.<br><br>
This widespread questioning of Abu-Jamal’s guilt is the reason why
pro-Abu-Jamal activities occurred around the world commemorating
Abu-Jamal’s 4/24 birthday, including people in San Francisco attending a
screening of the “Justice on Trial” movie examining ignored aspects in
the case, and people marching for Abu-Jamal’s freedom in the Brixton
section of London.<br><br>
Officials in the French city of Saint-Denis will stage a ceremony
rededicating a street they named for Abu-Jamal during the last weekend in
April.<br><br>
The ire erupting over Abu-Jamal’s prominence on the part of advocates of
his execution contains contradictions that are as clear as the proverbial
black-&-white.<br><br>
The U.S. Congress engaged in color-coded contradiction approving a May
2006 resolution condemning far off Saint-Denis for its honoring Abu-Jamal
by placing his name on a small one block long street.<br><br>
Over a decade before that anti-Saint-Denis outrage, over 100 members of
Congress had battled to block the U.S. government from deporting a white
fugitive convicted of killing a British Army officer in Belfast, Northern
Ireland.<br><br>
That officer’s killing had occurred during an investigation into the
murder of another Belfast policeman. <br><br>
Incidentally, the U.S. Congress did not erupt angrily when the City
Council of New York City voted to place the name of that fugitive –
Joseph Doherty – on the street corner outside the federal detention
center then housing him.<br><br>
In 1988 – six years after Abu-Jamal’s conviction – more than 3,000
Philadelphians signed petitions asking federal authorities to grant
Doherty special permission to leave his federal detention cell for one
day to allow Doherty to serve as Grand Marshall of Philadelphia’s St
Patrick’s Day Parade. <br><br>
One Philly supporter of suspected convicted cop killer Doherty was the
then-President Judge of Philadelphia’s trial courts, Edward J.
Bradley.<br><br>
Judge Bradley told a reporter in 1988 that he had no problems as a jurist
reconciling his support for a convicted felon because he questioned the
“fair treatment” Irish nationals received in English courts.<br><br>
Judge Bradley’s concern about fairness for IRA fighters in English courts
is not paralleled by any concern about fairness in Philadelphia courts
with regard to the case of former Black Panther Party member Abu-Jamal.
Judge Bradley's double standard highlights the gross unfairness of
Philadelphia and Pennsylvania state court judges.<br><br>
Critics who castigate those who contribute to Abu-Jamal’s defense fund,
especially by Hollywood stars, did not object to fund-raising on behalf
of one of the white Los Angeles policemen convicted in federal court for
the 1991 beating of Rodney King. That criminal cop was allowed to keep
nearly $10-million in sales from his book and from a fund-raising
campaign on his behalf – monies generated mainly after that the former
police sergeant's imprisonment following a civil rights violation
conviction.<br><br>
One reason the decades-old Abu-Jamal case continues to generate support
and rage is Abu-Jamal himself.<br><br>
A charismatic figure who is articulate, with a level of education and
intelligence atypical of the mainly illiterate denizens of death row,
Abu-Jamal is able to explain his case, as well as to expose the horrors
of the nation's prison system and its death rows.<br><br>
While on death row Abu-Jamal has written six critically acclaimed books
(including one on jailhouse lawyers), produced thousands of commentaries,
learned two foreign languages, earned two college degrees, including a
masters, and developed a loyal support network comprising millions
worldwide.<br><br>
Even the prosecutor at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial – Joseph McGill – described
him during that trial as the most “intelligent” defendant he'd ever
faced. <br><br>
And another prosecutor, during Abu-Jamal’s tainted 1995 appeals hearing,
said he didn’t think “the shooting of Officer Faulkner is characteristic
of this defendant.” (Abu-Jamal had no record of violence or criminal acts
before his 1981 arrest.) <br><br>
Supporters applaud Abu-Jamal’s defense of the downtrodden, particularly
his poignant criticisms of America’s prison-industrial complex, that
incarcerates more people per capita than any other country on earth.
<br><br>
Abu-Jamal’s stance highlighting the deprivations of the have-nots,
predated his arrest, and had earned him the title of “Voice of the
Voiceless” during his professional broadcast reporting career, which ran
from 1975 till his December 1981 arrest.<br><br>
Abu-Jamal rarely uses his world-wide platform to speak about his own
plight, preferring to focus instead on the injustices endured by
others.<br><br>
<br><br>
</font><x-sigsep><p></x-sigsep>
<font size=3 color="#FF0000">Freedom Archives<br>
522 Valencia Street<br>
San Francisco, CA 94110<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#008000">415 863-9977<br><br>
</font><font size=3 color="#0000FF">
<a href="http://www.freedomarchives.org/" eudora="autourl">
www.Freedomarchives.org</a></font><font size=3> </font></body>
</html>