Date: Fri, 11 Nov 2005 22:37:20 -0000
From: "mumianyc" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Subject: LEGAL UPDATE ON THE CASE OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Sisters and Brothers,
We have been meaning to get this out to you so that you can have a
picture of where the legal case stands now. We urge you to call Judge
Massiah-Jackson ASAP as she still has the power to reject Judge
Dembe's rulings, and that would be great news!
Phone: (215) 686-2523
Fax: (215) 567 7328
THE MURDER OF FRANCES NEWTON SIGNALS DANGER FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
(to download this in a word file, please visit
http://www.freemumia.com/legalupdateoct2005.doc)
The recent killing of Frances Newton is a reminder that the death
penalty is still intact and with the appointment of a pro-death
penalty Chief Justice of the Supreme Court a major threat to Mumia.
In February of this year the Pennsylvania state courts continued their
refusal to consider any evidence of Mumia's innocence, or the
extensive documentation of police, prosecutorial, and judicial
misconduct regarding what happened on December 9 th 1981. Court of
Common Pleas Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe ruled against hearing affidavits
by Yvette Williams and Kenneth Pate. Williams had sworn that star
prosecution witness Cynthia White had told her she had lied at Mumia's
trial. Pate had sworn that his sister-in-law, Priscilla Durham, a
hospital security guard, had told him that she also had lied at
Mumia's trial when she corroborated the cops' two-months-delayed story
about Mumia confessing while lying on the hospital floor.
Dembe had previously excluded the affidavit of Terri Maurer-Carter
from the legal record. Maurer-Carter, a long-time court reporter, had
sworn that she had overheard trial judge Albert Sabo vow outside the
courtroom that he was going to help the prosecution `fry the nigger'.
Dembe ruled that even if true, she found no evidence that such a
sentiment had affected Sabo's trial rulings! Significantly, the sworn
confession of Arnold Beverly that it was he, and NOT Mumia, who had
killed Officer Faulkner, along with several other affidavits including
a former FBI agent who supported Beverly's version of what was behind
this killing, were also excluded from the record. Besides Sabo's
alleged stated determination to convict and execute Mumia, referring
to him as a "nigger", he still holds the dubious distinction of having
sentenced more people to death than any other judge in modern times,
and of those 31 only two were of European ancestry. Though Sabo died
four years ago, it is his extremely unfair and racist record, severely
criticized by Amnesty International and dozens of legal bodies in this
country and around the world that has been rubberstamped by Judge Dembe.
Almost simultaneously with Dembe's last denial of a hearing, some
major death penalty decisions in other courts provided hope as
important precedents and decisions that were potentially applicable to
Mumia's case came down. The hopes in Mumia's situation had been based
on three cases. Two involved Thomas Miller-El, who was sentenced to
death for a 1985 murder in Texas . The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in
these cases that: (1) Miller-El's constitutional rights had been
violated when prosecutors used peremptory challenges to strike 10 of
11 prospective Black jurors; (2) that the courts--the federal Fifth
Circuit in particular--have unreasonably interpreted the
Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996 to make
it virtually impossible for a death row prisoner to pursue an appeal
in the federal courts.
Both of Miller-El's cases apply directly to Mumia's, in which the
District Attorney's office used peremptory challenges to eliminate 11
of 14 prospective Black jurors in a city which at that time was 40%
Black. Moreover, the federal judge who considered Mumia's habeas
corpus appeal threw out 28 of 29 constitutional claims based on the
now-discredited interpretations of the AEDPA. In the third case, House
v. Bell, the Supreme Court agreed in June to reconsider its almost
impossibly high standard for reopening death penalty cases based on
claims of innocence. This was a major challenge to the Herrera
decision which ruled out innocence as a justification for a new trial
in cases where due process was supposedly adhered to. Only last week,
in the Senate's hearings about his nomination to become Chief Justice
of the Supreme Court, John Roberts, supported the Herrera decision as
being a reasonable one. The decision also challenged the AEDPA which
has been the law of the land on the limited right to appeal death
penalty cases. There seemed to be a real opening for the possibility
of a new trial for Mumia based on these decisions alone.
But now with the recent, court-approved legal lynching of Frances
Newton by the state of Texas a flood of ice-water has dashed these
hopes, once again swinging the pendulum in the other direction.
Despite compelling new evidence pointing to her innocence, despite
appeals by a former U.S. Attorney General, the current president of
the American Bar Association, the Texas Publishers Association and the
principal newspaper in the state capital, among others, no court
deemed it necessary to stay her execution.
For us the lesson should be clear: it doesn't matter to the
authorities what the truth is--they killed Frances Newton to assert
their supposed right to execute whomever they want and, by extension,
to terrorize all of us into accepting their control. Yet the truth is
that they are far more vulnerable than they seem, and far less
powerful too. Their catastrophic failures in both Gulfs have revealed
their callousness, racism, and incompetence to millions around the
world and in this country. Similarly, their inability for 23 years to
execute Mumia, despite their absolute commitment to doing so and their
repeated statements that they would succeed, all reveal that, in the
end, they cannot ignore the will of the people. We refuse to accept
this government's attempt to discourage, frighten, and intimidate us.
We must watch every move they make in the courts, take advantage of
every window of opportunity and, at the same time, build a movement
still stronger
to fight the US occupations, the injustice, AND TO
FREE MUMIA AND ALL OUR POLITICAL PRISONERS!
Written by the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC), October 2005
JOIN THE STRUGGLE TO FREE MUMIA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!
NEW YORK FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION
(212) 330-8029 (Hotline)
Website: www.freemumia.com
INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
(215) 476-8812
Website: www.mumia.org
To make much needed contributions, please call these numbers or check
the websites.
Call Judge Frederica A. Massiah-Jackson, Pamela Dembe's supervisor, to
let her know you are outraged by Judge Dembe's decisions.
(215) 686-2523
OR FAX HER:
(215) 567 7328
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________
--Mumia is Innocent! Stop the Frame Up! Free Mumia!--
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC, P.O. Box 16, College Station, NY, NY 10030
212-330-8029, www.FreeMumia.com, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
YC, P.O. Box 16, College Station, NY, NY 10030
212-330-8029, www.FreeMumia.com, [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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