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2008

• Fight for Mumia Abu-Jamal at Brandenburg Gate
• Philadelphia Officials Again Seek Mumia's Execution
• Video from Philly
• Geo.Clan Interview with Hand Bettet (Video)
• Robert R. Bryan at the Humboldt Uni 3th nov. 2008 (film)
• Interview with Robert R. Bryan (film)
• DA wants to Execute Mumia Abu-Jamal
• FREE MUMIA: global week of action, December 6th until 13th, 2008
• Letter from Mumia's lead atourney on Supreme Court
• Mumia Abu-Jamal Faces US Supreme Court as New Book and Film Expose Injustice
• New review of "the Framing Of Mumia Abu-Jamal"
• The Suppression of Dissent in America, by Linn Washington
• An interview with Livia Giuggioli Firth, co-producer of "In Prison My Whole Life"
• RIGHTS-US: Death Row Activist Prepares New Appeal
• International Day of Solidarity With Mumia
• The criminal "justice" system and the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Abu-Jamal loses latest appeal for new trial (from Philaldephia Inquirer)
• Paris: News from the worldwide Movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Write to Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Free Mumia rally in Philadelphia on July 4, 2008
• Book Asserts Black Reporter Didn't Kill White Officer in '81 (NY Times)
• The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal: An interview with author J. Patrick O'Connor By Hans Bennett
• The New York City Coalition to free Mumia Abu-Jamal
• Mumia press conference at the Federal Courthouse in Philadelphia
• Mumia Exception's' ugly head again   by Dave Lindorff
• Abu-Jamal supporters protest ruling, Philadelphia Inquirer, April 1, 2008
• Robert R.Bryan on Democrcy Now Radio - Transkription
• Observations and analysis of Linn Washington
• Justice Denied: A Political Decision that Cannot Be Allowed to Stand by Michael Schiffmann
• Amnesty's statement
• Mumia Film "In Prison My Whole Life"
• 21 frequently asked questions about the Polakoff photos
• Mumia Abu-Jamal - NBC\'s "Today Show"; pending decision - from from Robert R. Bryan

2007

• U.S. executions at a 13-year low (L.A. Times, Dec, 19, 2007)
• TAKE ACTION! Big Media Must Not Ignore New Mumia Abu-Jamal Crime Scene Photos
• The Guardian on Mumia Abu-Jamal, oct. 2007
• Interview with Mumia's daughter Goldii, May 2007
• There is a brand new Film about Mumia Abu-Jamal
• In Prison my whole live. Interview mit William Francome
• Amnesty Internationals on the launch of the new Mumia Abu-Jamal film at the London Film Festival
• "We're Fighting for a New Trial" - July 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal Interview with Margaret Prescod for Her KPFK Program "Sojourner Truth"
• From the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia and the NYC Coalition - DAY AFTER DEMONSTRATIONS
• Two Audio of the Court Hearings on the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal in Philadelphia, May 17, 2007
• Hans Bennet berichtet über Solidarität mit politischen Gefangennen in den USA
• COURTROOM AUDIO: Mumia Abu-Jamal's May 17 Oral Arguments
• Leserbrief von Dave Lindorff aus dem "Philadelphia Inquirer" beleuchtet die in der Anhörung zur Sprache gekommene Frage des Jury-Pools in den 80ern
• Artikel von Dave Lindorff zur Anhörung
• Artikel aus Workers World
• Abu-Jamal News
• Interview with Linn Washington
• Interview with Piers Bannister
• What Happened on December 9, 1981: A Timeline

Victor Grossman, Berlin

The plain-looking US Embassy, close to Berlin's famous Brandenburg Gate, was left empty when Bush's ambassador and buddy went home. The tourists looked elsewhere - at the famous structure, the newly-built banks partially framing it, the French and British Embassies or, not far away, the contrary symbols of the famous Reichstag Building and the Soviet Memorial which commemorates the liberation of Berlin from fascism and racism.

Then, coming down the famous Unter den Linden boulevard, several hundred demonstrators moved up as close to the Embassy as the strong police guard permitted. And although Hitler poisoned himself near here 63 years ago, racism was still a burning issue. The group demanded freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, the African-American journalist still in a tiny death cell after 27 years - without once in all those years receiving his constitutional right of a fair, just trial. The charge was murder of a policeman, but the trial in 1982 was conducted by a racist judge and a racist prosecutor using racist methods, and the hatred toward this progressive journalist with the stirring voice and amazing will power had only increased with the years. That is why these Berliners took sides and took part.

This march for Mumia's freedom and for the worldwide abolishment of the death penalty started in Kreuzberg, Berlin's most international borough after a week of activities by the Berlin coalition for Mumia, joined by Amnesty International and PEN (with the support of many writers including Christa Wolf und Günter Grass). On Monday there was a showing of the stirring British documentary film, "In Prison My Whole Life", on Tuesday, in CLASH, a traditional meeting-place of leftwing young people in Kreuzberg, a meeting was held with speeches, songs and a telephone conversation with Robert R. Bryan, Mumia's lead counsel. On Wednesday a fundraiser to raise money featured popular Berlin bands, and the march topped it off on Saturday.

It has not been easy to maintain interest and activity for so many years, and many of the original activists are gone, often taken up with other activities, and it was not possible to come close to the level of the late 1990's, when 8000 marched to the US Embassy in protest. But things are moving again and along the route, while many people heard of Mumia for the first time, a surprising number reacted with V-signs or friendly militant fists to show they knew about the fight and approved the action. Only a tiny handful of tourists reacted in a hostile way.

During the same week there was news of meetings or demonstrations in Hamburg, in the college town of Greifswald, in Vienna, in Berne, Switzerland, in Mexico City and in various US cities.

Thus, despite the long years and the distance to that tiny, lonely cell in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, some people are actively working on ways to spread news of the imminent danger. In his telephone message Robert R. Bryan explained that he must now prove to the US Supreme Court that racism was involved in choosing the jury in Mumia's trial, and that the prosecutor purposely misled the jurors into believing that Mumia's life was not really threatened by a death penalty, since he would soon have an appeal. But no appeal was ever permitted, the Pennsylvania state prosecutors now want to reinstate the death sentence, previously put in question by one judge, and Mumia's life may depend in the end on the vote of the nine Supreme Court judges. Or on protests around the world but especially in the USA which could now make such a decision politically unwise. But that takes lots of mobilization. This past week hopefully marked the beginnings of a new campaign.

Anyone wishing to help, with their efforts or with money needed so desperately for the extremely expensive legal work, should contact

Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117
December 16, 2008

by Jeff Mackler / November 2008

In late October 2008 the Philadelphia District Attorney's office announced that it would again appeal the 2001 Federal District Court decision by William H. Yohn that invalidated the death sentence imposed at Mumia Abu-Jamal's 1982 frame-up trial presided over by "hanging judge" Albert Sabo.

Yohn ruled at that time that Judge Sabo had improperly instructed the jury by informing them that they had to be unanimous on each and every mitigating circumstance in order to impose a sentence of life in prison rather than execution by lethal injection. Sabo had sentenced more defendants to execution, the vast majority Black, than any other sitting judge in the country.

Yohn ordered Philadelphia officials to conduct a new sentencing hearing with the proper jury instructions within 180 days. That order has been delayed for the past eight years pending the outcome of the city's appeal.

While akin to a new trial, including the right of the defendant to introduce evidence of innocence, the procedure only allows the jury to impose a sentence of life in prison or execution. A verdict of innocence and freedom is excluded since Mumia's frame-up 1982 trial resulted in a guilty verdict.

Jamal is an awarding-winning journalist, leading critic of the racist Philadelphia Police Department, and perhaps the world's most well-known innocent political prisoner. He was falsely convicted in 1982 of the murder of police Officer Daniel Faulkner. Massive evidence of Mumia's innocence has been systematically excluded from the legal proceedings that have marked this racist persecution for the past 26 years.

Having failed in its first effort to reverse Yohn's ruling before the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, Philadelphia officials announced that they would meet the Nov. 19 deadline and ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reverse the two previous court federal decisions and order Mumia's execution.

While many legal specialists as well as Third Circuit precedents indicate that a re-imposition of the death sentence by the Supreme Court is highly unlikely, the experience of the past 26 years teaches that the "law of the land" is subordinate to the single-minded institutional hatred of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a leading revolutionary critic of capitalist society. The desire to demonstrate that the criminal "justice" system has acted properly at all junctures of the case weighs heavily on the system's most ardent defenders.

A case in point is the recent interview with Barack Obama by right-wing Philadelphia talk-show host Michael Smerconish - co-author of the new book, "Murdered by Mumia" and a major advocate for executing Mumia. Smerconish asked Obama where he stood. Obama responded that while he didn't know much about the case, "let just me lay out a very clear principle: In my mind if someone killed a police officer, they deserve the death penalty or life in prison" (Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 10, 2008).

It is curious that the diplomatic Obama did not respond to Smerconish, a former Republican recently turned Obama supporter, "if someone is innocent, they should be freed."

Obama might even have pointed out, "There is significant evidence of his innocence and even more evidence that the court's own precedents have been violated." But this would be too much to expect from a candidate wedded to a system in which institutional racism is the norm.

If the past record of misapplication of the law to Mumia's case continues as it has during the past 26 years, a Supreme Court decision ordering his execution cannot be excluded, however unlikely it might be from a "legal" point of view.

In his dissenting opinion before the Third Circuit, Judge Thomas Ambro, for example, expressed his annoyance with his colleagues' blind eye to their own previous rulings when he wrote, "I see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our precedents." Ambro's dissent referred to the court's application of the historic 1986 Batson v. Kentucky ruling, which held that the exclusion of Black jurors based on race was unconstitutional. Out-voted by 2-1 in the Third Circuit, Ambro stated that the majority's decision, "goes against the grain of our prior actions."

Indeed, the Third Circuit's anti-Batson ruling violates the most recent Supreme Court decision on the same issue, which held that the exclusion of a single Black juror on account of race necessitates a new trial. In Mumia's case 11 Blacks were excluded! Nothing can be taken for granted today. Mumia's life is still very much on the line.

Mumia's legal team is now seeking to reverse the Third Circuit decision denying him a new trial. His lead counsel, Robert R. Bryan, was recently successful in extending the deadline for the filing of an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court to Dec. 19.

The Supreme Court has no legal obligation to certify that it will even hear Mumia's final appeal. Indeed, it rejects some 95 percent of the 2500 petitions it receives in death penalty cases every year.

This "killing machine" is driven forward by a series of laws and court decisions that severely restrict appeal rights in the federal courts, with the infamous 1996 Clinton-signed Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) being first on the list. This heinous legislation requires federal courts to grant a "presumption of correctness" to state court findings of fact - in this case, the findings of the overtly racist Judge Albert Sabo. It was designed to make state level decisions "effective," that is, virtually totally immune to federal appeal.

Similar court decisions, applied to Mumia in the past and to Troy Davis today, include the 1993 Supreme Court decision in Herrera v. Collins, holding that "innocence is no defense" and that it is trumped by "timeliness." Both laws were designed to facilitate the execution of innocent people, mostly oppressed nationalities.

According to Herrera, evidence of innocence that is presented beyond whatever state statutory deadlines have been put into place is inadmissible. In the case of Troy Davis, whose life now hangs in the balance, seven of the nine so-called witnesses who testified against him have recanted their testimony and stated that it was originally given under police pressure.

The Davis case is among the most blatant applications of capitalist law today. Eight years ago, Gary Graham was executed in Texas, although his post-deadline evidence of innocence included several extremely credible eyewitnesses proving that he was nowhere near the murder scene and a county sheriff who demolished the prosecution's murder-weapon theory with irrefutable evidence.

Mumia is alive today only because a broad and unrelenting national and international movement has been constructed in his defense.

While Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell has pledged to sign a third warrant for Mumia's execution (if the Supreme Court reverses its previous legal precedents), Mumia's supporters are pressing forward with a public campaign that has captured the imagination of millions who cherish human rights and freedom.

The recent publication of J. Patrick O'Connor's book, "The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal," has been acclaimed across the country and cited in The New York Times, a publication that has previously failed to publish any favorable material on Mumia's case. In late October, O'Connor spoke at 13 public meetings and radio and television appearances in California organized by the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. These will be followed this month by meetings organized in Connecticut and in New York.

Also, a new award-winning documentary, "In Prison My Whole Life," recently purchased by the Sundance Channel, is to be premiered on HBO-TV in the coming months and then scheduled for local distribution across the country.

Mumia's national defense network, led by the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, has set Saturday, Dec. 6, for local protests across the country.

A victory for Mumia and his freedom would be a victory for democratic rights for everyone. A free Mumia will contribute immensely to the power of the mass movements that will inevitably arise to challenge the foundations of the present system of war, racism, poverty, and corruption.

For further information contact, (West Coast) The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal: (510) 268-9429, freemumia.org alerts@freemumia.org (East Coast) ICFFMAJ, (215) 476-8812, or www.Abu-Jamal-News.com.

Hier ein Videodownloadlink aus Philadelphia von den Journalists for Mumia. Das Video beschreibt FREE MUMIA Aktivitäten in Philly über 2008 und ist bereits vor dem 6.12. erschienen. Verschiedene Aktivist_innen kommen zu Wort, es geht häufig um ihre ganz pers&oauml;nlichen Motivationen, sich für Mumias Freilassung einzusetzen.

Philadelphia News Website Geo.Clan interveiwed Hans Bennett, co-founder of "JOURNALISTS FOR MUMIA" in early December 2008. This interesting interview covers a wide range of aspects reagrding the campaign to free Mumia.

here it comes...

here you find the film

here you find the film interview

The Philadlephia DA has just anounced that it will be appealing to the Supreme Court, so that Mumia could be executed without a new penalty phase trial. The DA will file their appeal by the deadline of Nov. 19th, 2008.

read more here from "Journalists for Mumia"

Dates in Berlin, Germany:

Mo. Dec. 08, 2008, doors open 8pm

"In Prison My Whole Life" (UK 2007, with german subtitles) - Film on Mumia Abu-Jamal

Guests for discussion afterwards: Annette Schiffmann (Network for Mumia Abu-Jamal, Germany), Holger Schamberg (Amnesty International Germany) Entrance 6,50 EUR, 50% go towards the campaign/defense of Mumia Mumia Abu-Jamal

Cinema Babylon Mitte, Rosa-Luxemburg-Str. 30, 10178 Berlin, Metro U2 Rosa-Luxemburg-Platz

Tu. Dec. 9, 2008, doors open 7.30 pm

Evening of culture and discussion on the 27th anniversary of Mumia's incarceration

Host: Heike Kleffner (journalist), guests for discussion: Georg Pumphrey, VVN/BDA (Antifascists), Berlin Coalition to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal reading from Mumias books: Victor Grossmann and Jutta Kausch (actress)
acoustic live music afterwards

Clash im Mehringhof, Gneisenaustr. 2a, 10961 Berlin, Metro U6/7 Mehringdamm, no entrance fee

We. Dec. 10, 2008, doors open 8pm

Solidarity Concert for the FREE MUMIA campaign in Germany on the International Day Of Human Rights

Berlin Boom Orchestra (Ska), DeTrend.City.Rockers (Soundsystem), Marycones (Chanson, Ska, Rock), RotFront Soundsystem + Big Surprise Appearance, Host: MC Rebell der Welt
(we might organize an internet live streaming of the event, details soon)
entrance fee between 8-10 Euros, all for the Campaign to FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!

SO36, Oranienstr. 190, 10999 Berlin, Metro U1/8 Kottbusser Tor

Sa. Dec. 13, 2008, 1.30pm

Demonstration FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL! Abolish the death penalty everywhere!

Start: Oranienplatz, 10999 Berlin, Metro U1/8 Kottbusser Tor
Finish: New US Embassy, Pariser Platz

For more details about the international day of Solidarity look at Termine

Dear All:

We are in France on Mumia for meetings and the Lyon film festival.

Today, as expected, the U.S. Supreme Court denied the Petition for Writ of Certiorari which I filed some time ago on behalf of Mumia. As reported in my recent Legal Update, this concerned suppressed evidence of prosecutorial and police fraud. Even though I now have proof that the 1982 trial was literally a trial by fraud, there were procedural problems caused by the previous lawyers not presenting the new evidence in a timely and proper manner. As you know, I took over the case six years ago (Mumia first began seeking my representation in 1985; I was too busy at the time to accept).

Please understand that this is unrelated to the petition I will file later in the year in the Supreme Court. That will relate to the 2-1 decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia, concerning racism-jury-selection, and material misrepresentations made by the prosecutor at the guilt-phase argument.

With best wishes,
Robert
Eaux-Puiseaux, France
---------------
[Robert R. Bryan
Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, CA 94109-4117]

On Monday, Oct.6, in a ruling unrelated to death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal's upcoming appeal of the recent Third Circuit decision denying a new guilt-phase trial, the US Supreme Court rejected his Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) appeal, which was asking the courts to hear newly discovered testimony from Kenneth Pate and Yvette Williams (read the affidavits here). The appeal had been filed in July, after it was rejected by the PA Supreme Court in Feb, 2008, and in 2005 by Philadelphia Judge Pamela Dembe.

read more here

Opponents of Abu-Jamal always say that his supporters should just "read the transcripts" of the trial for evidence of his guilt. Supporters can now reply: Read The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal. here more about this book...

By LINN WASHINGTON, Jr.

In presenting a compelling examination of the plight of death row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal the documentary "In Prison My Whole Life" also probes one of the deeper contradictions of America: persistent suppression of dissent.

For a nation that extols the provisions of the First Amendment, politicians and police have histories of running roughshod over the rights of citizens to exercise their constitutional freedoms of speech, assembly and presenting grievances to government.

The recent actions against peaceful demonstrators and non-mainstream journalists by federal and local law enforcement personnel during the Republican National Convention in St Paul, Minnesota is yet another example of suppression of dissent.

Amnesty International is among the organizations condemning the assaults and arrests at the Republican Convention, terming that use of force and mass arrests excessive.

Amnesty International has officially endorsed "In Prison My Whole Life" - the first time this respected human rights organization ever placed its imprimatur on a film.

This well received documentary that premiered simultaneously last October 25th at the London and Rome Film Festivals focuses on the journey of one young man - William Francome - to discover more about the death row inmate arrested on the day he was born.

Francome's birthday is December 9, 1981 - the day Abu-Jamal was arrested for murdering of a Philadelphia policeman. Francome's American-born mother followed the Abu-Jamal case, reminding her son on each of his birthdays about the man languishing on death-row for a conviction based on what the AI report determined was a grossly unfair trial.

The film follows Francome across America from New York City to California's Bay Area in his journey to discover more about the Abu-Jamal case and related issues like racism, class prejudice and suppression of dissent.

"In Prison My Whole Life" will have two screening in New York City at the Urbanworld Film Festival - on Thursday 9/11 and Saturday 9/13. Additionally, a screening is set for 9/26 at the CR10 Conference in Oakland, California.

The only previous US screening of this documentary occurred this past January during the Sundance Film Festival.

In 2000, Amnesty International authored the comprehensive yet concise report on the Abu-Jamal case that presented a unique examination of unethical and suspect conduct by the Pa Supreme Court in this controversial case - newsworthy material that the US news media buried.

Only two American daily newspapers carried articles on that news-laden AI report according to the NEXUS newspaper database and both of those articles were 'news briefs.' The news brief on the AI report published by the Philadelphia Inquirer in Abu-Jamal's hometown was the fifth of six items in the B Section, listed below reporting on two non-fatal shootings, a small nightclub fire and a proposal to ban cell phone use while driving.

The Abu-Jamal case is fraught with suppression of dissent.

Incidents of suppression include the well publicized 1994 action by police and politicians forcing NPR to cancel airing prison commentaries by the award-winning journalist, the little known 2000 federal imprisonment of a leading Abu-Jamal activist for speaking at an anti-death penalty rally during the GOP national convention held that year in Philadelphia and 2007 strong-arming by Philadelphia's police union to block a pro-Abu-Jamal program.

Francome's "In Prison My Whole Life" interviews include Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, Mos Def, Snoop Dog and Alice Walker - famed persons who've endured violations of their First Amendment rights.

This documentary also presents the first film interview with Abu-Jamal's brother, Billy Cook. The slain officer's beating of Cook during a traffic stop allegedly triggered the shooting. Cook shows a head scar he still carries from that beating. Cook also confirms the presence of his close friend long suspected by some as the person who fatally shot the officer.

Producers for the documentary are acclaimed British actor Colin Firth and his wife Livia Giuggioli who enlisted renowned director Marc Evans.

Producer Livia Giuggioli, during a recent interview with Hans Bennett, said intense passions displayed by advocates and enemies of Abu-Jamal is one of the things that interested them about pursuing this project.

"This is what really fascinated us all when we started to approach the subject and research," said Giuggioli who lives in London.

"If you detach everything from this "figure" you just find a man who has been a victim of politics more than anything else," Giuggioli noted echoing a conclusion of the 2000 AI report that politics had polluted judicial rulings in the Abu-Jamal case.

"In Prison" presents extraordinary evidence pointing to Abu-Jamal's innocence inclusive of crime scene photographs discovered in 2006 that contradict core elements of the prosecution's case against the man whose written five books while on death row.

The photos, for example, show no bullet marks in the sidewalk where prosecutors declared Abu-Jamal shot into the sidewalk around the fallen officer three times before shooting him once in the face. The photos show no cab behind the officer's squad car where prosecutors told jurors a cab driver observed the murder. Additionally, the photos show police tampering with evidence at the crime scene.

A consultant for the documentary, German professor Dr. Michael Schiffmann, located these photos shot by a Philadelphia news photographer who arrived at the shooting scene minutes after the crime.

Schiffmann published the 2006 book "Race Against Death" one of the two most thorough examinations of the Abu-Jamal case. The other book is "Killing Time" by Philadelphia-area investigative reporter Dave Lindorff. Both Schiffmann and Lindorff have "In Prison" appearances, walking Francome through various aspects of the Abu-Jamal case in Philadelphia.

"Hopefully the film will help people to think and realize that maybe there is more to the story," Giuggioli said. "Until there is a proper new trial - Mumia is just a man who has been sitting in solitary confinement for 27-years and it is a disgrace."

The Abu-Jamal case is presently heading for an appeal to the US Supreme Court after the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals earlier this year rejected a request for a new hearing, principally on the issue of racial discrimination during the selection of the jury at Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial.

That Third Circuit ruling created new standards for jury discrimination appeals that are more stringent than standards established by the US Supreme Court. That 2000 Amnesty International report faulted courts for improperly creating new legal standards to deny justice to Abu-Jamal.

--Linn Washington Jr. is a Philadelphia journalist who's followed the Abu-Jamal case since 1981. Washington appears briefly in the "n Prison" documentary talking about police brutality in Philadelphia.

source...

New British Film About Mumia Abu-Jamal Showing in NYC this week

By Hans Bennett

estival last January, "In Prison My Whole Life" will be shown to a US audience. This new film about the internationally renowned death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal will be shown this week at the Urbanworld Film Festival in New York City. The film has two different screenings, both at the AMC Loews 34th Street Theatre: Thursday, Sept 11, 1:45pm, at Theatre # 11 and on Saturday, For the first time since the film's US Premiere at the Sundance Film Sept 13, 6:15pm, at Theatre # 9. In Prison is also being shown at the CR10 Conference in Oakland, CA, on September 26.

This new British documentary premiered at the prestigious London Film Festival and at Rome's International Film Festivals on October 25, 2007, at which point I interviewed William Francome, who is a central character in the film. The film's trailer begins with Francome, explaining that he's "been aware of Mumia for as long as I can remember. That's because he was arrested on the night I was born, for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer. As my mom would often remind me, every birthday I had, has been another year that Mumia has spent in prison.... I am going on a journey to find out about the man who has been in prison my whole life."

With the acclaimed British actor Colin Firth as an executive producer, "In Prison My Whole Life" is directed by Marc Evans and produced by Livia Giuggioli Firth and Nick Goodwin Self. The film has interviews with such figures as Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman, Ramona Africa, and musicians Mos Def, Snoop Dogg and Steve Earle. Amnesty International concluded in a previous report that Abu-Jamal's original 1982 trial was unfair, where he was convicted of fatally shooting Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death. Amnesty International is supporting In Prison as part of its international campaign to abolish the death penalty. Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen says: "It's shocking that the US justice system has repeatedly failed to address the appalling violation of Mumia Abu-Jamal's fundamental fair trial rights."

In the 2007 interview, Francome disclosed that the film will prominently feature the startling Dec. 9, 1981 crime scene photos that were recently discovered by German author Michael Schiffmann, and are published in his new book.

The July 4, 2008 issue of Abu-Jamal-News revealed that In Prison also features an interview with Abu-Jamal's brother Billy Cook, who was at the scene on Dec. 9, 1981, after Officer Faulkner pulled his car over. The first time he has ever been interviewed on camera, Cook denies the accusation that he struck Faulkner in this face, from which he allegedly instigated the undisputed beating given to him by Faulkner, from which Cooks shows In Prison's interviewers the scars he still has on his head today. Cook says: "They arrested me for assaulting him, but I never laid a hand on him. I was only trying to protect myself. I never hit him. I never hit him."Cook says that right before he was beaten bloody with the police flashlight, Faulkner" was kind of vulgar and nasty. And if I remember correctly he threw a slur in.... Nigger get back in the car."

Regarding the assault charges against Cook, and his subsequent trial, Michael Schiffmann defends Cook's account in his recent essay, arguing that there was never any credible evidence that Cook ever struck Faulkner, and also that the prosecution's two alleged eyewitnesses gave unbelievable accounts of how Abu-Jamal approached Faulkner and allegedly shot him in the back.

In this new interview with co-producer Livia Giuggioli Firth, she talks about when she first learned about Mumia Abu-Jamal, making the film, the new appeal to the US Supreme Court, and more. "I hope Mumia will have a new trial, because has been sitting in solitary confinement for 27 years, and it is a disgrace. We will never know the truth about Dec. 9, 1981 until then," says Firth.

Hans Bennett: When did you first hear of Mumia Abu-Jamal?

Livia Giuggioli Firth: A couple of years ago, at a dinner party at some friends' house, I met William Francome and we started to chat (as you do at parties!). He told me he just finished college and wanted to make a documentary about Mumia. I'd never heard of him so he explained me who he was. When I got home and googled him... it was like opening Pandora's vase! That was enough to say: we need to dig into this!

HB: What was it like making the film? What role did you play as a producer?

HB: Marc Evans, the director, is the one who did the film. I produced it - which means my role has been the ball-breaker! But it was very interesting to start the "Mumia quest" from scratch and with folks who had never heard of him. Apart from William, none of us (Marc the director, Colin, Nick and I who produced it, Mags the editor and so on for the whole crew) had any idea of the implications in Mumia's case.
If you detach everything from this "figure" constructed by both Mumia's supporters and detractors, you just find a man who has been victim of politics more than anything else. This was what really fascinated us all when we approached the subject, and this is why Marc Evans wanted to contextualize Mumia's case within the African American political story. If you do not put Mumia in context - you can not understand this story.
Because the whole scenario around Dec. 9, 1981 was so complicated, distorted, and messed up, we decided to go to Amnesty International--an organization recognized worldwide for being completely objective and impartial--and asked for their guidance. They published a book in 2000 about Mumia's case and concluded that it is impossible to know whether this man is guilty or not because the trail was in violation of international law--a completely unfair trail.

HB: After researching this case, what are 3 facts that you consider most striking regarding the need for a new trial?

HB: There are so many compelling things about this case that overcome any & all assaults from those who refuse to accept that the core issue here is an unfair trial. Having said this, some examples are:
First, there was no real forensic evidence presented in court. They never officially tested Mumia's hands for traces of gun powder, never officially found the bullet shot through Faulkner's back, and more. With the discovery of Pedro Polakoff's crime scene photographs, you can clearly see how messed up the crime scene was that night!
Second, the testimonies supporting the prosecution scenario were false - all of them!
Third, the presiding judge, Albert Sabo was heard saying, on the FIRST DAY of the trail, "I am going to help them fry that nigger." Then, shocking us even more, Mumia's 1995-97 PCRA appeal was before this same judge. Are you joking?

HB: Mumia's current appeal to the Supreme Court will be citing 3rd Circuit Judge Thomas Ambro's dissenting opinion, which declared that the court had actually created new standards for a Batson claim, when it denied Mumia's claim. Do you think this strong statement has received adequate coverage in the mainstream media?

HB: Not really, but again, there are so many awful cases in America like Mumia's. So many innocent people are sentenced after unfair trails. Look at Troy Davis! That is another horrible case.
Hopefully the film will help people to think and realize that maybe there is more to the story. And hopefully it will help other cases too.
You can't dismiss Mumia as a "cop killer". Also, until there is a new trial, you will never know if he really is a "cold blooded monster" as they call him.

HB: Do you think the Supreme Court will now consider Mumia's case?

HB: This is a very difficult question. I do not know. It is not very likely, but you never know! If I did not have hope, I would never have produced this movie!

HB: Your film features a new interview with Billy Cook. What do you think is the significance of this interview?

HB: Well, first of all Billy has never spoken since the night of the shooting. He was not called to testify and "disappeared" after that. So this is the first time he gets to talk about what happened that night. He will not tell the whole story until there is a new trial but he confirmed a few interesting things. You must see the movie!

HB: Anything else to add?

HB: I hope Mumia will have a new trial, because has been sitting in solitary confinement for 27 years, and it is a disgrace. We will never know the truth about Dec. 9, 1981 until then.

Original...

Article...

by Jeff Mackler

Monday Aug 4th, 2008 9:42 AM

This is a new article by Jeff Mackler of Socialist Action and the SF Bay Area Coalition to Free Mumia. Mackler argues that problems in Mumia's case are much bigger than just him. Indeed it is the system itself that is the problem.

The criminal "justice" system and the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal U.S. Court of Appeals Rejects Mumia's Petition for a re-hearing

By Jeff Mackler

When I learned that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had on July 22, 2008, denied Mumia Abu-Jamal a re-hearing - thus leaving Mumia's fight for justice and freedom in the hands of the court of last resort, the U.S. Supreme Court - my immediate thought was that we were once again witnessing the operation of the racist "Mumia Exception."

This is the notion that regardless of previous decisions and precedents of the U.S. judicial system - from the Third Circuit to the U.S. Supreme Court - when it comes to their application to Mumia's case, the "law" means nothing.

A close look at Mumia's case lends some credence to the "Mumia Exception," or "Mumia Law" concept, as it is sometimes called. In virtually the exact same circumstances, bound by the important U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Batson v. Kentucky, the Third Circuit had previously thrown out convictions in capital cases when Blacks were excluded from juries.

In Mumia's case, 11 of 14 Black jurors were excluded by preemptory challenges of the prosecution. One might have concluded that the three-judge panel of the Third Circuit that decided this issue four months ago in March 2008, might apply the same precedent and grant a new trial. They didn't.

That's why Mumia asked for a re-hearing before the whole panel, or nine judges of the Third Circuit. Maybe the entire court would remember that they themselves had previously decided this issue in several cases before them. Maybe they would remember that one of their own, Justice Alito, now sitting on the U.S. Supreme Court, had written the decision and had sharply noted that the exclusion of even one juror on account of race, voided the trial result. And maybe the Third Circuit would take into account that the U.S. Supreme Court, in a powerful decision in the Snyder case, only months before, had affirmed, if not strengthened its Batson ruling.

But this did not to come to pass. The Third Circuit, with nine judges participating, without comment, rejected the en banc (entire court) re-hearing that Mumia had requested.

Mumia's attorney, Robert R. Bryan, commented: "Simply put, we did not receive the needed majority vote from the nine sitting judges; at least five votes for a rehearing were necessary. However, Justice Thomas L. Ambro continues to urge the granting of relief on the issue of racism in jury selection. That position, as detailed in his brilliant dissenting opinion of March 27, 2008, will continue to serve as a beacon of hope as we press on for a new trial and Mumia's freedom.

"Judge Ambro said that the 'core guarantee of equal protection, ensuring citizens that their State will not discriminate on account of race, would be meaningless were we to approve the exclusion of jurors on the basis of ... race.... I respectfully dissent...'"

Bryan's report continued: "Mumia and I had a legal conference this afternoon (July 22). He, as I, was stunned by the federal court's refusal to grant relief since it flies in the face of established legal precedent in both the U.S. Court of Appeals and the U.S. Supreme Court. I am furious because racism continues to raise its ugly head in this country, and should have no place in our legal system.

"The indisputable facts are that the prosecutor engaged in racism in selecting the jury in this case, and that bigotry lingers today in Philadelphia. It would be naive not to realize that this case continues to reek of politics and injustice."

Bryan told Socialist Action that he would file a petition for a writ of certiorari with the U.S. Supreme Court within 90 days or by Oct. 20, 2008. This is a request that the U.S. Supreme Court certify that they will hear the case. The court has no legal obligation to do so. Indeed it routinely rejects 90 percent of such petitions in death penalty cases.

If the Court denies the petition, Mumia's legal options are finished. He will either remain in prison for the rest of his life with no possibility of parole, or will have to defend against renewed efforts by the state to seek his execution.

Bryan will also appeal the Third Circuit's rejection of another critical issue raised in his defense. This is the fact that Pennsylvania prosecutor Joseph McGill told the jury in his summary remarks at Mumia's 1982 trial that they need not concern themselves if they were not certain about Mumia's guilt or innocence. McGill explained that this was because Mumia would have "appeal after appeal," and therefore any errors that might have occurred could be corrected.

McGill's "appeal after appeal" formulation had been the subject of appeals in several cases prior to Mumia's, with the result that the convictions obtained was struck down and new trials ordered. In Mumia's case the Third Circuit, apparently "forgot" its own precedent - that is, a reassertion of the fundamental principles that juries must find guilt "beyond a reasonable doubt," that juries must begin with the presumption of innocence," and that juries and only juries have the responsibility of determining guilt or innocence.

McGill's assertion to the jury that they could effectively suspend any reasonable doubt they might have - and by implication, leave it to higher courts to determine guilt or innocence - was not challenged at trial by the presiding "Hanging Judge" Albert Sabo or by the Third Circuit.

"The Mumia Exception:" another look

A closer examination reveals that the "Mumia Exception" really doesn't exist. The vast majority of capital cases, if not all cases, that come before the courts in capitalist America are riddled with race and class bias.

The ruling class itself is well aware of this fact, as is any student who embarks on the study of law in the U.S., not to mention the millions who are victims of this supposed system of "blind justice." Capitalist law is the product of capitalist power - that is, it reflects the needs and interests of the corporate elite who rule America today. The U.S. has the highest incarceration rate in the world and the largest percentage of its population on death row.

This is not a statistical aberration. The United Nations recently issued a report condemning the U.S. for its race bias in what passes for its criminal "justice" system.

Today's "prison industrial complex" serves multiple purposes. It provides a cheap source of labor, a few cents an hour, for hundreds of major capitalist industries and the increasingly privatized prison "industry" provides a ready source of capital paid to corporate outfits who profit handsomely from prison construction and administration.

Prior to 1996, when the U.S. Congress passed the infamous Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), signed by then President Bill Clinton, a full 40 percent of all state court convictions in capital cases were reversed on appeal to the federal courts. The reason? An important study found that police intimidation of witnesses, planting and falsification of evidence and incompetent counsel were rampant in the system.

But rather than correct the racist and classist "system," an impossible task in the framework of capitalism, the government sought to intensify it by "effectively" eliminating appeals to the federal courts.

The AEDPA was in fact designed to abolish habeas corpus, the right to appeal to the federal courts. It accomplished this by replacing the historic "presumption of innocence" with a new requirement that federal courts were required to grant a "presumption of correctness" to the findings of what are essentially racist and classist state courts.

The implementation of this new criteria, essentially the barbaric imposition of a presumption of guilt, has produced an explosion of death-row inmates, a killing field of the oppressed who are awaiting execution, a phenomenon condemned throughout the world as the U.S. remains among the two or three nations to retain the death penalty.

It is therefore fair to say that the bias in Mumia Abu-Jamal's case is symptomatic of the racism that permeates the criminal justice system in the U.S. rather than an exception to it. At the same time, it is also accurate to conclude that the entire court system - in the face of the power of the international movement that for 26 years has worked to challenge Mumia's frame-up and prevent his execution - has geared up to justify its existence in the eyes of millions who still have illusions that they live in a democratic society.

The "appearance" of justice is important to the ruling rich, as they find it increasingly difficult to maintain this illusion. Hence the passage of the AEDPA, the Patriot Act, and the associated and massive infringements of civil and democratic rights that are justified in the name of pursuing the government's "war on terrorism."

The July 22 decision to reject Mumia's appeal is but the tip of the iceberg in regard to the legal atrocities that have been committed to keep this innocent man on death row. His is a case study in the use of lying witnesses, falsification of evidence, manipulation of the crime scene, witness intimidation, police lying, exclusion of evidence proving innocence. His case also contains a myriad of constitutional violations, including rejection of Mumia's right to act as his own counsel, his physical exclusion from a majority of trial proceedings against him, the racist exclusion of Black jurors, and a racist judge who ruled against more than 100 motions presented by Mumia's defense team.

Indeed, Mumia's original federal appeal included 29 instances of constitutional violations based on the facts of the case, 28 of which were rejected on the grounds that the AEDPA today requires federal courts to presume that the "facts" found by the racist court of Judge Sabo must be presumed to be correct. After 26 years, they have all been proven to be fabrications, a fact that has zero weight in today's criminal justice system.

This is no exaggeration. A low point in Mumia's legal battle came in the statement of Federal District Court Judge William H. Yohn Jr., who cited a Supreme Court ruling that "innocence is no defense."

Yohn's citation was in response to clear evidence produced by Mumia that he had not been and could not have been the person who murdered Police Officer Daniel Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981. Yohn's logic held that innocence is trumped by timeliness - that is, if the evidence is submitted beyond a statutory deadline, even if conclusive, it is irrelevant. The legal process must embody "finality," says the "law of the land" today, even if the final result is the execution of an innocent man.

Mumia's legal appeal must be accompanied by a reinvigorated and massive expansion of the movement that has fought so hard and long for his freedom. As we go to press, the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, and several other defense groups across the country are preparing coordinated plans to challenge the latest court decision and to make the political price of Mumia's continued incarceration too high to pay. They seek a new trial and Mumia's freedom.

At the same time, the state of Pennsylvania is evaluating whether it will proceed with their efforts to reverse a previous federal district court decision that ruled that the death penalty had been improperly imposed. Pending the outcome of the state's decision, Mumia remains on death row. The threat of execution by lethal injection remains on the table.

For further information contact ICFFMAJ, (215) 476-8812 or the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, (510) 268-9429,

freemumia.org

from Philaldephia Inquirer

The Paris-based National United Collective In Solidarity with Mumia Abu-Jamal joined in the annual Die-In against the reinstatement of the U.S. Death Penalty and for the release of Mumia on Wednesday evening, July 2, 2008.  The Collective acted in solidarity with the U.S. actions to mark the 26th anniversary of Mumia's unjust conviction and death sentence.  The dramatic Die-In on Place de la Concorde is in full view of the tourist attraction of the Eiffel Tower and directly in front of the U.S. Embassy, where the Collective has held weekly vigils in solidarity with Mumia for many years.  This is the 13th annual Die-In, performed in coalition with anti-Death Penalty groups, and attracts hundred who die-iin and bear silent witness.  France abolished the Death Penalty in 1981.

Mumia's Lead attourney Robert R. Bryan told us several times that it would be a great support to write to Mumia in his prison cell.

Mumia's adress:
Mumia Abu-Jamal
AM 8335
SCI Greene Prison
175 Progress Drive
Waynesburg, PA 15370
USA

First of all Mumia really enjoys receiving post in his 6 square metres of cell in the death row. He can't answer most but it means a huge moral support for him - to see he is not forgotten despite his isolation.

Furthermore post means protection for him. The censors and the court see that they are under international observation. This can have an effect on actual decisions.

You could use the postcards provided by the Berlin Coalition To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. If you didn't get one with this flyer contact us on

Please keep in mind that every letter or postcard needs a sender's adress. Without that post will not be delivered to Mumia.

Video by the "Abu-Jamal-News" on recent protest to demand Mumia Abu-Jamal's freedom on Independance Day 2008

Film...

to the NY Times...

On March 27, the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against granting a new guilt-phase trial to world-famous journalist and death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. While ruling against the three issues that could have led to a new guilt-phase trial, the court affirmed US District Court Judge Yohn's2001 decision overturning the death sentence. If the District Attorney wants to re-instate the death sentence, the DA must call for a new penalty-phase jury trial that would be limited to the question of life in prison without a chance of parole or a re-instatement of the deathsentence.

Outraged by this decision, Abu-Jamal's supporters around the world held "day after" protests, and are now organizing a mass demonstration in Philadelphia on April 19, just days before the PA Presidential Primary Election. Simultaneously, Abu-Jamal is appealing the court ruling "en banc" to the entire Third Circuit, and if unsuccessful there, he will appeal to the US Supreme Court, in an effort to be granted a new guilt-phase trial.

At this critical juncture in Abu-Jamal's case, an explosive new book is set for release in May, titled "The Framing of MumiaAbu-Jamal," by J. Patrick O'Connor, and published by Lawrence HillBooks. O'Connor explains that he "was an associate editor for TV Guide at its headquarters in nearby Radnor, Pennsylvania during the time Officer Faulkner was killed and Abu-Jamal was put on trial and convicted of murdering him... . Sometime in the mid-1990s I began hearing and seeing the "Free Mumia" slogan. In 1996, when HBO premiered the one-hour documentary "Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case for Reasonable Doubt?", I developed some questions about the verdict and certainly the fairnessof his trial." Soon, O'Connor had "read all the trial transcripts as well as all of the transcripts from Abu-Jamal's Post Conviction Relief Act hearings that were held in 1995, and continued in 1996 and 1997. I also read all the contemporaneous newspaper articles from ThePhiladelphia Inquirer and Philadelphia Daily News, as well as all the books published about the case."

In his new book, O'Connor argues that Abu-Jamal was clearly framed by police, and that the actual shooter was a man named Kenneth Freeman. O'Connor criticizes the local media, who, he says "bought into the prosecution's story line early on and has never been able to see this case for what it is: a framing of an innocent and peace lovingman."

In his review of the recent book "Murdered by Mumia," O'Connorwrites that "there's a great deal to admire about Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner," but concludes that her "obsessive hate for Abu-Jamal has blinded her to the prosecutorial misconduct and judicial bias that plagued his trial and justifiably fueled his rise to a world stage. The real villains in her life were the police and prosecutors who framed Abu-Jamal for Officer Faulkner's killing. They are the ones, not the long drawn out appellate process that has kept Abu-Jamal alive, who have denied her the closure she was due more than twenty-five years ago."

For more background on "The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal" and J. Patrick O'Connor, Abu-Jamal-News.com is featuring an excerpt from the new book, a previous interview with the author, and O'Connor's review of"Murdered By Mumia." This new interview was conducted on April 11,2008, and will be featured in the "Journalists for Mumia" newspaper, tobe released days before the April 19 demonstration in Philadelphia.

Hans Bennett: Advocates of Abu-Jamal's conviction and execution always say that a police frame-up of Abu-Jamal is a lunatic, far-fetched 'conspiracy theory' that should be dismissed by any sane observer. What do you mean when you say he was 'framed'? How was this done?

J. Patrick O'Connor: Mumia's early association with the Philadelphia branch of the Black Panther Party marked him as a subversive to George Fencl, the chief inspector of the Philadelphia Police Department's Civil Defense Bureau. His subsequent sympathetic coverage of MOVE while reporting for the local public radio station made him an avowed enemy of Mayor Frank Rizzo. Minutes after OfficerFaulkner was shot at 3:55 a.m., Inspector Alfonzo Giordano - who reported directly to Fencl - took command of the crime scene and personally set in motion the framing of Abu-Jamal. It would be Giordano who claimed that Mumia told him in the paddy wagon that he dropped his gun after he shot Faulkner; it would be Giordano who arranged for prostitute Cynthia White and felon Robert Chobert to identify Abu-Jamalas the shooter. Giordano and White would be the D.A. Office's only witnesses at the preliminary hearing to hold Abu-Jamal over for trial where Giordano repeated this "confession."

Giordano is as corrupt a police officer as one can imagine. For years he had been extorting kickbacks - personally averaging $3,000per month - from Center City prostitutes, pimps and bar owners, which explains his early arrival at the crime scene. He knew Cynthia White and her pimp. He coerced her at the scene to identify Abu-Jamal as the shooter. She would be the only witness the D.A. had to claim to see Abu-Jamal holding a gun over Faulkner. In her original statement to the police - given within an hour of the shooting - she had Abu-Jamal running from the parking lot and from as far away as 10-yards firing off "four or five shots" at Faulkner before the officer fell. In her third interview with police detectives, given on December 17, she fine-tuned her statement to comport with the actual evidence in the case that Faulkner was shot at close range. (In one of the most sinister aspects of Abu-Jamal's case, the police department waited until the Monday after Abu-Jamal's conviction to "relieve" Giordano of his duties on what would prove to be well-founded "suspicions of corruption." Four years after Abu-Jamal's trial, Giordano pled guilty to tax evasion in connection with those payouts and was sent to prison.)

Incredibly, the police arriving at the crime scene would later claim not to have conducted any tests to determine if Abu-Jamal had recently fired a gun by checking for powder residue on his hands or clothing, nor did they claim to even feel or smell his gun to determine if it had been recently fired. Tests such as these are so routine at murder scenes that it is almost inconceivable the police did not run them. It is more likely that they did not like the results of the tests.

From the outset, the investigation into the shooting death ofOfficer Faulkner was conducted with one goal in mind: to hang the crime on Mumia Abu-Jamal. There was no search for the truth, no attempt at providing the slain officer with the justice he deserved. Giordano handed Abu-Jamal to the D.A.'s Office with his own lie about Abu-Jamal confessing to him and packing off Cynthia White in a squad car to tell her concocted account of the shooting. When the D.A.'s Office was forced to back away from the corrupt Giordano, Assistant D.A. Joseph McGill elicited a new "confession" to replace Giordano's in February when security guard Priscilla Durham and Officer Garry Bell, Faulkner's best friend on the police force, responded to his promptings by saying they heard Abu-Jamal blurt out at the hospital, "I shot the mother-fucker and I hope the mother-fucker dies." Not one of the dozens of other officers present at the hospital would make such a claim. Infact, the two officers who accompanied Abu-Jamal from the time he was placed in the paddy wagon until he went into surgery, reported that he made no comments in signed statements given to detectives assigned to the case that morning.

The prosecution knew that its new "confession" could be skewered if Abu-Jamal's defense attorney, Anthony Jackson, called the two officers who accompanied Abu-Jamal to the stand, so all the prosecution really had was Cynthia White. With White saying she saw it all from beginning to end, and willing to testify that she saw Abu-Jamal blow the helpless Faulkner's brains out in ruthless coldblood, McGill had his case made, providing White's credibility could survive Jackson's cross-examination. McGill bet the entire case that it could, and despite the utter web of lies she told the jury, was right.

Bennett: Why do you think that Kenneth Freeman was the actual shooter of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner?

O'Connor: Kenneth Freeman was Billy Cook's street vendor partner and was riding with him in the VW when Faulkner pulled the VW over. Freeman got out of the VW and subsequently handed Faulkner a phony driver's license application bearing the name of Arnold Howard, which Howard had recently loaned to him. Howard's papers were found in Faulkner's shirt pocket. Police rounded up both Howard and Freeman in the early morning hours of December 9 and brought them in for questioning. At the Post-Conviction Relief Act hearing in 1995, Howard testified that on several occasions, Cynthia White picked Freeman out of a line up.

At Billy Cook's March 29 trial for assaulting Officer Faulkner, with McGill as the prosecutor, White told McGill in direct testimony that the passenger in the VW "had got out." McGill said, "He got of the car"? White responded, "Yes." (At Abu-Jamal's trial, McGill got White to testify that only Abu-Jamal, Cook, and Faulkner were at the scene.)

Various witnesses said they saw a black man running from the scene right after the shooting. Some of the eyewitnesses said this man had an Afro and wore a green army jacket. Freeman did have an Afro and he perpetually wore a green army jacket. Freeman was tall and burly, weighing about 225 pounds at the time.

Cab driver Robert Harkins was driving right by the parked police car and the VW when he saw a police officer grab a man. The man "then spun around and the officer went to the ground," falling facedown backwards, landing on his hands and knees. The assailant shot the officer in the back, causing him to roll over on his back, and then executed him with a shot to his forehead.

Harkins described the shooter as a little taller and heavier than the 6-foot, 200-pound Faulkner. Robert Chobert told police in his first statement that the shooter had an Afro and weighed about 225pounds. (Abu-Jamal, also about 6-foot, wore in his hair in dreadlocks and weighed 170 pounds at the time.)

In Billy Cook's April 29, 2001, affidavit he declared thatFreeman was with him the night of the shooting, was armed, and fled the scene after Faulkner was shot. Cook said he did not see who shot Faulkner.

Freeman would meet an ignominious death hours after Philadelphia police firebombed the MOVE house on Osage Avenue in 1985,killing 11 MOVE members, including John Africa, whose corpse had been beheaded. Freeman's dead body was found bound, gagged and naked in avacant lot. There would be no police investigation into this obviousmurder. The coroner listed his cause of death as a heart attack. The timing and modus operandi of the abduction and killing alone suggest an extreme act of police vengeance.

Bennett: In your book, you were very optimistic about theThird Circuit granting Abu-Jamal a new guilt-phase trial. Were you surprised by the March 27 ruling? If so, how do you account for such asurprising ruling?

O'Connor: I was incredulous. I thought the oral argumentson May 17 had gone extremely well for Abu-Jamal and that he would get a new trial. The 2-1 majority ruling demonstrated anew just how politicized this case always has been from the beginning and continues to be still. The two Republican-appointed judges on the panel formed the majority and the lone Democrat-appointed judge dissented. I hate to make it sound that simple, but the U.S. Supreme Court itself is not above making decisions based on party or ideological lines, and all too frequently does.

In its ruling, the majority stated it believed Abu-Jamal had "forfeited his Batson claim by failing to make a timely objection. But even assuming Abu-Jamal's failure to object is not fatal to his claim, Abu-Jamal has failed to meet his burden in providing a prima facie case." The majority stated that he failed because his attorneys at his PCRA evidentiary hearing neglected to elicit the prosecutor's reasons for removing 10 otherwise qualified blacks by means of peremptory strikes during jury selection.

"Abu-Jamal had the opportunity to develop this evidence at the PCRA evidentiary hearing, but failed to do so. There may be instances where a prima facie case can be made without evidence of the strike rate and exclusion rate. But in this case, we cannot find the Pennsylvania Supreme Court's ruling [denying Abu-Jamal's Batson claim] unreasonable based on this incomplete record," the majority wrote. In a nutshell, the majority denied Abu-Jamal's Batson claim on a technicality of its own invention, not on its merits.

Judge Ambro's dissent was sharp: "...I do not agree with them [the majority] that Mumia Abu-Jamal fails to meet the low bar for making a prima facie case under Batson. In holding otherwise, they raise the standard necessary to make out a prima facie case beyond what Batson calls for."

In other words, the majority, in this case alone, has upped the ante required for making a Batson claim beyond what the United StatesSupreme Court stipulated. When ruling in Batson in 1986, the U.S.Supreme Court imposed no timeliness restrictions as to when a Batson claim may be raised, nor has the court done so in the intervening 22years. Neither did it require that the racial composition of the entirejury pool be known before a Batson claim could be raised. (In fact, theSupreme Court recently added heft to its Batson ruling, ruling in Synder that the purging of only one black juror on the basis of racial discrimination was grounds for a new trial.) In addition, the SupremeCourt ruled in 1986 that to establish a prima facie case for a Batsonclaim, the defendant must show only "an inference" of prosecutorial discrimination in purging even one black from a jury. Even the ThirdCircuit has never previously allowed the timing of a Batson claim to be material, nor had it ever ruled previously that not knowing the racial composition of the entire jury pool was a fatal flaw in lodging a Batson claim.

The fact that the prosecutor in Abu-Jamal's case used 10 of the15 peremptory challenges to exclude blacks from the jury - a strike rate of 66 percent against potential black jurors - is in itself an inference of discrimination. The result was that only three of the 12 jurors impaneled were black.

The Third Circuit should have remanded the case back to Federal District Court Judge Yohn - the judge who ruled on Abu-Jamal's habeascorpus petition in 2001 - to hold an evidentiary hearing to determinethe prosecutors' reasons for excluding the 10 potential black jurors hestruck. If that hearing revealed racial discrimination on the part ofthe prosecutor during jury selection, Judge Yohn would be compelled toorder a new trial for Abu-Jamal.

Abu-Jamal is left with only two remedies to correct the flawedThird Circuit ruling. His first option is to request the Third Circuit to review its decision en banc where the entire panel of judges sitting on the Third Circuit would conduct oral arguments anew. There is some likelihood that the Third Circuit might agree to meet en banc because the panel's decision to deny Abu-Jamal's Batson claim went against that court's own well-established precedents in granting similar Batson claims in the past. However, the barrier to en banc deliberations is a high one: a majority of the sitting judges must vote to reexamine the case. On the Third Circuit Court, there are 12 judges eligible to vote,but four have already recused themselves from this particular case,meaning five of the remaining eight judges would be needed to go forward en banc. Abu-Jamal has most probably had his one day before theThird Circuit.

Barring a reversal by the Third Circuit, Abu-Jamal's final option is to appeal the Third Circuit's ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court, which has on three previous occasions denied to take up his case. This time, though, there is a remote possibility that the highcourt may take the case up because the Third Circuit's ruling created new law by placing new restrictions on a defendant's ability to file a Batson claim.

Bennett: With the media spotlight on the PA Primary Elections, and the major demonstrations supporting Abu-Jamal on April19, what would you like the world to know about this famous death-row case? How far has the city of Philadelphia come since the days ofPolice Commissioner and Mayor Frank Rizzo, a notorious racist and public advocate of police brutality?

O'Connor: In a real sense, D.A. Lynn Abraham, just as Frank Rizzo before her, embodies the worst of Philadelphia. Known as "the Queen of Death" for her zeal in seeking the death penalty, she was depicted as the nation's "deadliest D.A." in a New York Times Magazine article in 1995. Her personal vendetta against Abu-Jamal equals that ofOfficer Faulkner's widow. The day Federal District Court Judge Yohn overturned Abu-Jamal's death sentence in 2001, Abraham put her antipathy for Abu-Jamal this way: "Today, Mumia Abu-Jamal is what he has always been: a convicted, remorseless, cold-blooded killer."

The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal represents an enormous miscarriage of justice, representing an extreme example of prosecutorial abuse and judicial bias. What makes getting to the truth about this case so difficult for people, particularly people in Philadelphia, is that the prosecution built its case on perjured testimony with a calculated disregard for what the actual evidence established. The local media bought into the prosecution's story line early on and has never been able to see this case for what it is: a framing of an innocent and peace loving man.

Two things account for the unprecedented national and international interest in this case. First and foremost is the man himself. Despite more than 25 years of the bleakest existence possiblein isolation on death row, Mumia Abu-Jamal remains what he has always been: an articulate, compassionate righter of wrongs. The second thing that makes this case so compelling to such a wide audience is that histrial represents such a monumental abuse of government power to railroad one man that it really says no citizen is truly free until this wrong has been undone.

--Hans Bennett is a Philadelphia journalist and co-founder of Journalists for Mumia, whose website is Abu-Jamal-News.com.

WE ARE ASKING MUMIA SUPPORTERS TO PLEASE CALL THESE NUMBERS AND WRITE THE CONGRESSIONAL BLACK CAUCUS AS TO WHY ARE THEY ARE NOT RESPONDING TO THE THIRD CIRCUIT'S RECENT DENIAL OF A NEW TRIAL FOR MUMIA. WE ARE ASKING PEOPLE TO ASK THEM TO WHY THEY ARE NOT CALLING CALLING PRESS CONFERENCES, OR MAKING A COLLECTIVE OR INDIVIDUAL COMMENT ABOUT THE RECENT COURT DECISION.

CALL THE CBC, THE NATIONAL CAUCUS OF BLAKC LEGISLATORS AND THE NATIONAL NAACP WHO PASSED A RESOLUTION IN 2004 AT THEIR NATIONAL CONVENTION SUPPORTING MUMIA. THESE ORGANIZATIONS SHOULD BE COMING TO MUMIA'S SUPPORT AT THIS TIME!

-----------------

Chairwoman of congressional black caucus
Rep Carolyn cheeks Kilpatrick
      001 202 225 5006
Dr Joe Leonord, Exec director of CBC
      001 202 225 4356
National NAACP
      001 410 580 5777

here...

here...

Philadelphia Inquirer, April 1, 2008

By Emilie Lounsberry
Inquirer Staff Writer
Posted on Tue, Apr. 1, 2008

Carrying signs and chanting "Free Mumia," about two dozen supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal turned out yesterday at the federal courthouse to protest last week's appeals court decision that gave him a reprieve from death, at least for now, but let stand his murder conviction. "What they came up with was wrong," Pam Africa, a member of MOVE, said of Thursday's ruling by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit.

Africa and other supporters said they wanted a new trial for Abu-Jamal or at least a hearing on his legal claim that black people had been intentionally excluded from the jury in his trial for the 1981 killing of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.

"If you objectively examine the evidence, there are major flaws, at least flaws enough to justify a new hearing or a new trial," said Linn Washington, a Temple University journalism professor who has followed the case and attended the protest yesterday.

Abu-Jamal, 53, a former Black Panther and radio reporter, has been appealing his conviction since a Philadelphia jury sentenced him to death in 1982 for murdering Faulkner near 13th and Locust Streets.

The Third Circuit panel upheld the 2001 decision of Judge William H. Yohn Jr., who ruled that Abu-Jamal must be sentenced to life in prison or given a chance to persuade a new jury that he deserves a life sentence instead of death. The judges agreed with Yohn that the jury might have mistakenly believed it had to be unanimous in considering any mitigating circumstances, factors that might have caused jurors to opt for a life sentence.

Oom Harrison, 59, a truck driver from Germantown, started following the case in 1995 after watching a documentary about Abu-Jamal's trial. "Too many questions" remained, he said, for the conviction to stand. "He already spent his life in prison," said Harrison, pausing to respond to a passing motorist's angry shout at the protesters.

The brief exchange illustrated the strong emotions the case has triggered in those who believe Abu-Jamal should be put to death and those who believe he did not receive a fair trial and may be innocent. "Read the facts about the case!" Harrison called back to the driver.

Original

Democracy Now!
March 28, 2008 democracynow.org

Following Mixed Court Ruling, Mumia Abu-Jamal's Lead Attorney Maintains Hope for Overturning Conviction

A federal appeals court Thursday refused to overturn the conviction of imprisoned journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal and rejected his call for a new trial. However, the long-awaited ruling said Abu-Jamal, who has been on death row for twenty-six years, deserves a new sentencing hearing because of flawed jury instructions. If he is re-sentenced, he will face either death or life in prison without parole. We speak to Abu-Jamal's lead attorney, Robert Bryan. [includes rush transcript]

Guest: Robert Bryan, Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal.

JUAN GONZALEZ: A federal appeals court Thursday refused to overturn the conviction of imprisoned journalist and former Black Panther, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and rejected his call for a new trial. However, the long-awaited ruling said that Abu-Jamal, who has been on death row for twenty-six years, deserves a new sentencing hearing because of flawed jury instructions. That's if he is not sentenced purely just to life in prison without parole. If he is re-sentenced, he will face either death or life in prison without parole.

Abu-Jamal was convicted for killing a white police officer in 1982 following a controversial trial before a predominantly white jury. Protests are scheduled for today in New York and San Francisco.

AMY GOODMAN: We're joined now in San Francisco by Robert Bryan, the lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Welcome.

Pam Africa has said this certainly is no victory. Can you explain exactly what the court ruled?

ROBERT BRYAN: Well, good morning, Amy. And the decision in this case yesterday is really a mixed bag. On the one hand, the death penalty - the court threw out the death penalty in this case, even though Mumia remains on death row today, and if the state appeals or seeks further relief, nothing will change, at least for the present. The court did order a new jury trial on the issue of whether he should be on death row. In effect, what they did, as I said, was throw out the death penalty. So that's the good part of the decision. And having done this type of work defending people facing the death penalty for over three decades, I can tell you any time the death penalty gets thrown out is a real victory.

On the negative side, as Juan just pointed out, the jury - the court ruled against granting a new jury trial on the issue of guilt and innocence. And we were rather astounded that the court made that ruling. The silver lining to that ruling, to that dark cloud, is that it was a split court. We were before three judges. Two judges ruled against us; a third judge, Judge Ambro, rendered a forty-one-page dissent in which he strongly criticized the majority and said that racism was a work in this case, that racism - that the prosecution engaged in removing people of color, African Americans, from sitting on the jury of Mumia Abu-Jamal. So that really gives us a road map or, if you will, a very bright light in the darkness of where we go from here, because my goal is to achieve a new trial for Mumia. I want him acquitted by a jury. My intent, as I've done in so many other cases, is to see him go home to his family, and that's the bottom line.

JUAN GONZALEZ: So now, with this, since this was a decision, a split decision, of a panel of the Third Circuit, is it possible then to appeal to the entire Third Circuit on this decision?

ROBERT BRYAN: Well, Juan, you've actually - you've certainly been doing your homework. That's exactly what we will be doing within the next few weeks. And that is, this was a decision by three judges, two-to-one; now we will be going before the entire court, all the judges, asking them to review this issue.

And, of course, the biggie, the big - the gorilla in the room, the elephant in the room, is the racism in jury selection. The District Attorney's office in Pennsylvania - in Philadelphia, back during - particularly during that period in the early '80s, late '70s and mid- to late '80s, engaged in a pattern - this is judicially recognized - of removing people from sitting on juries because of race, because of the color of their skin. And when we argued this case before the three-judge panel last May 17, I completed the argument by asking the rhetorical question: are we to believe that the District Attorney did not engage in racism in jury selection in this case, when it's judicially recognized it did in case after case, both before and after the trial of Mumia Abu-Jamal?

And, of course, the trial of Mumia Abu-Jamal was the biggest trial in the history of the city of Pennsylvania. And Mumia Abu-Jamal, as people certainly know, is a very activist writer, journalist - he's written five books on death row - and he's the person who's always bringing the authorities, the establishment, to task. He's very critical of abuse of government, people abusing power, of racism, that type of thing. And so, racism was certainly at work in this case.

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about how the original jury was chosen, Robert Bryan, lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal?

ROBERT BRYAN: Well, it's interesting. Judge Ambro, in his dissent, in the first paragraph, cited a case that I presented to the court just Monday: Snyder v. Louisiana, decided last week, March 19. And the US Supreme Court, in a seven-to-two decision, reaffirmed that the removal of even one person from sitting on a jury because of his or her race is constitutionally intolerable, unacceptable. And that is exactly what happened in this case, but not just one. The prosecution in this case engaged in a pattern of 67, 66 percent, nearly 70 percent of their strikes, of removing people who could be on the jury, were people who were African American, while the defense engaged in only - removed only like 20 percent. So there weren't that many people, African American, available to sit on the jury in the first place, and yet the prosecution struck nearly every one of them, not all, but nearly every one. And as I said, the court said only one is enough, if one person is removed because of his or her race. And certainly there was just a pattern in this case and in other cases by that office of removing people because of their race.

JUAN GONZALEZ: And, of course, Philadelphia back then, as now, had about a 40, 45 percent African American population, right?

ROBERT BRYAN: Yes, that's true, but a far less percentage wound up being eligible to be selected, what we call on the jury venire, on the panel. And there's no question of the racism being at work in this case. What's interesting about this decision yesterday, and Judge Ambro raised this question twice in his forty-one-page dissent, and that is, why is this case being treated differently from other cases? Why is the majority, the other two judges, treating this case differently? It's what we often think of as the Mumia exception. And that is, the law is one thing for everyone else, but the courts seem to strive to carve out an exception for Mumia Abu-Jamal, because obviously he's outspoken, he's very critical of the establishment. And I might say that the big issue lingering over all of this is that he is absolutely not guilty of murder.

AMY GOODMAN: Robert Bryan, again, to clarify, because I don't think any of these articles made clear, this three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ruled that Mumia Abu-Jamal must be sentenced to life in prison for killing Daniel Faulkner or get a chance with a new Philadelphia jury that would decide only whether he should be sentenced to life or get the death penalty; is that right? And who makes this decision?

ROBERT BRYAN: That's exactly right. And the three judges were at least unanimous on this. And as I said, this is the good side of the decision. And Mumia and I talked yesterday twice, and I broke it to him about this decision during our first conference. And we both recognized - he recognized that this was a real victory, that at least we won on the death penalty, because it not only affects him, but certainly would help other people sitting on death rows. And what the court found was that the death penalty, as applied in this case, back at the 1982 trial by a very bigoted, very racist judge, was not applied properly, that it violated very clear standards of the US Constitution. And the court said that he is - my client is entitled to a new trial on the question of the death penalty in this case. So that was a win. I mean, that is not what we wanted, but it's a giant step.

AMY GOODMAN: Again, if you could clarify, but still, just to understand, he either could be sentenced to life in prison or a sentencing jury would decide whether he gets life or the death penalty. Who decides -

ROBERT BRYAN: That's exactly right.

AMY GOODMAN: - whether there's a sentencing jury or whether he's sentenced to life in prison?

ROBERT BRYAN: That's decided by the jury, unless the District Attorney's office hollered uncle, threw in the towel and said, "Well, we're not going to re-prosecute this case." Then, automatically, the sentence - the re-sentence would be without - a jury would not be necessary, would be less than death; it would be life. But assuming the prosecution continues with its zeal to try to snuff the life out of my client, we would go before a new jury of twelve men and women in Philadelphia, and that jury would decide whether it should be life or death. And I can assure you that even though the issue, if that's what we had to do, even though the issue would be penalty, we are entitled to bring in evidence of innocence, that he's not guilty of murder.

JUAN GONZALEZ: But Robert, again, just for our listeners and viewers to be clear on this, the decision as to whether to go to a jury again is made by the District Attorney of Philadelphia, Lynne Abraham? Would that be the person who would make the decision?

ROBERT BRYAN: Yes, Juan. If -

JUAN GONZALEZ: Because she's - I think she's already indicated, at least in some of the reports, that she still believes that he - that she wants the death penalty for him, which would - the only recourse she would have would be to go to a jury. So it's most likely that they will go to a jury again, to a jury trial over life in prison or the death penalty.

ROBERT BRYAN: That is absolutely correct, Juan, that if - unless they give up, we will have a new jury trial, at least on the issue of a penalty, a death penalty or life. But again, I need to emphasize that our goal is an entirely new trial. We're pursuing that with great diligence. My - I have known Mumia since 1986, and the bottom line in all of this is an entirely new trial and acquittal by a new jury so he can go home to his family. He has written five books from death row. I suspect if I can free him, which is what I plan to do, we will see many more books coming from the pen of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

AMY GOODMAN: Robert Bryan, I want to thank you for being with us, lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal, speaking to us from San Francisco. There will be protests today in New York and San Francisco around this issue.

Democracynow.org

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.

link

On Thursday, March 27, the 3rd U.S. Court of Appeals decided to lift the death sentence against Mumia Abu-Jamal and deny him a new trial.

The lifting of the death sentence is a big victory for the movement against the death penalty and for the life and freedom of Mumia.

That the court denied Mumia a new trial is a bitter defeat.

The defense will now seek a decision by the full court instead of the three judge panel that handed down the March 27 decision.

So all is not lost and the struggle continues.

A hopeful sign was that one of the three judges dissented and wrote a 41-page commentary in which he criticized the decision of his colleagues.

In its decision, the 3rd Court of Appeals has followed the precedent of other courts from the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia to the U.S. Supreme Court in deciding one way in a host of cases, and another way in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

The clearest such case was in the early 1990s when the U.S. Supreme Court granted a neo-Nazi prisoner a new sentencing hearing since the prosecutor had used the defendant's membership in the ultra-violent, racist prison gang Aryan Brotherhood to argue for the death penalty, but denied such relief to Mumia even though the prosecutor in his case had argued for Mumia's execution merely because he had been a member of the Black Panther Party - 12 years before the trial!

There are multiple other examples of this sort where the courts singled Mumia out for special treatment - and always to his disadvantage.

In the present stage of Mumia's case, the court once again did so with regard to Mumia's claim of racism in the jury selection. Generally, to be granted at least a hearing on this issue, the defendant must make a so-called "prima facie" case that the prosecutor excluded jurors because of their race.

Generally, the threshold for such a prima facie case is quite low, and mere statistics - black potential jurors were statistically at least 10 times as likely to be excluded by the prosecutor than white potential jurors - and a whole array of other evidence should certainly have been enough to make such a prima facie case for Mumia.

Not so for the 3rd Circuit Court majority. It does not even discuss the possibility that it might not have been a good idea to exclude blacks with a ten times greater likelihood than whites. Rather, it points to all sorts of data that Mumia allegedly did not supply, citing the resulting lack of information as the reason to deny an evidentiary hearing - as if such an evidentiary hearing were not supposed to supply exactly information of this sort!

In other words, the two majority judges do not seem overly concerned that an evidentiary hearing might reveal information that would convince even them that racism prevailed during the selection of Mumia's jury. Once more, Mumia is singled out for "special treatment" and denied relief.

The court also denied Mumia's other two claims for a new trial or post-conviction hearing, citing similar allegedly purely formal grounds.

The myriads of formalism in which this decision drowns elementary considerations of justice cannot hide the fact that it was not these formalisms that produced the decision. It was a political decision, a decision designed to please the powers that be, in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania.

If the court's decision is allowed to stand, the consequences for other prisoners will also be severe.

The court will then have sent a message that 1) racism in jury selection is so harmless and tolerable that you need an unachievable mountain of evidence to get relief, 2) that prosecutors can deceive the jury at will about its responsibility, as Mumia's prosecutor Joseph McGill did when he asked the jury to convict the defendant since in that case he will have "appeal after appeal" anyway, whereas if acquitted he will be able to simply "walk out," and finally, that 3) a behavior as blatantly unfair as original trial judge Albert F. Sabo's behavior during the 1995-97 post-conviction hearings is also tolerable since it is not in the domain of federal courts to review it (this is the reason given in the decision to deny relief in that particular point).

The March 27 decision by the 3rd Circuit Court marks a sad day not only in the struggle for Mumia, but also in the general struggle for the rights of defendants in court and for civil and human rights.

But this is not the final word. As I said above, the struggle goes on, in the legal as well as in the political arena. This is not the moment to give up, but rather, to intensify our fight, for truth, justice, and the life and freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Michael Schiffmann for the
German Network Against the Death Penalty and to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
March 27, 2008

We concluded after a painstaking review of the case eight years ago that justice would best be served by granting a new trial to Mumia Abu-Jamal. Nothing since then has caused us to change our minds. Serious questions about the fairness of the original trial, including the prosecution's use of peremptory strikes to dismiss African American jurors, a concern raised by the Third Circuit dissent, remain unanswered.

While Amnesty International does not take a position on Mumia Abu-Jamal's guilt or innocence, we believe that his original trial was manifestly unfair and failed to meet international fair trial standards. We regret that factors chronicled in our February 2000 report continue to remain unaddressed. The authorities would be in clear contravention of international legal safeguards if they were to continue to pursue the death penalty in these circumstances. A new trial, at which the death penalty should not be an option, continues to be the most appropriate way forward.

Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn
Director - Death Penalty Abolition Campaign
Amnesty International USA

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New Photos of the Crime Scene of the Shooting Death of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner

by Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal and Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal, in consultation with Dr. Michael Schiffmann

Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on Pennsylvania's death row for over a quarter of a century. His 1982 conviction for the shooting death of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, has been contested by jurists, human rights organizations, and peoples of conscience the world over. Even though he is arguably the most famous political prisoner in the United States, his case and struggle for justice distills many of the issues that racially stigmatized groups and others have faced in the United States for decades: police brutality and violence, racist applications of the death penalty, prosecutorial misconduct, suborning of witnesses, and the use of wealth and political privilege in criminal justice systems to service the ideological interests of groups and classes in power.

Within the last year, some 26 photos have been discovered by researcher Dr. Michael Schiffmann of the University of Heidelberg, showing the crime scene where Officer Faulkner was killed. These photos were offered to police and prosecutors from the beginning, but were never considered at Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial, or in any judicial phase of his struggle for justice thereafter. Indeed, they were unknown even to Abu-Jamal's defense team, until very recently. To widen public knowledge about these photos and to answer many of the basic questions about them, Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal and Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal have collaborated to produce this document of "21 FAQs about the Polakoff Photos." We stress that while it is important for the public to have knowledge about these photos, and to debate them in the media and public forum, the most important and necessary move is for the court system to give Abu-Jamal a new trial and deliberate officially on this evidence and all evidence that is potentially exculpatory for Abu-Jamal.

For more information, please see previous press-releases from May, October, and December (4 photos can be viewed at Abu-Jamal-News.com). Video footage is now available of the Dec. 4 Journalists for Mumia press conference addressing the photos (Parts One and Two), as well as the Dec. 8 slide show presentation of the photos, which were recently spotlighted by Reuters, NBC's Today Show, National Public Radio, Counterpunch, The SF Bay View Newspaper, The Black Commentator, The Philadelphia Weekly, and others.

More extensive information on the case can be found at the following websites:
FreeMumia.com (New York City), FreeMumia.org (San Francisco), EmajOnline.com (Educators for Mumia), Abu-Jamal-News.com (Journalists for Mumia), or by contacting: The International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, P.O. Box 19709, Philadelphia, PA 19143, (215) 476-8812, icffmaj@aol.com.

I. Facts

1. Why are these photos coming out just now, and how were they discovered?
   The photos were discovered by University of Heidelberg linguist and translator, Michael Schiffmann, during an unrelated internet search in late May 2006. Schiffmann first found two photos taken by a freelance photographer, Pedro Polakoff. Later he would have access to over 26 of Polakoff's photos of the crime scene. Previous researchers and those debating the Mumia case, in court or outside of court, seem to have had no knowledge of these photos until this discovery, and until Schiffmann's later discussion of the photos in his 2006 book, Race Against Death: The Struggle for the Life and Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal (published only in Germany, with an English manuscript presently available). Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal (EMAJ) and Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal (J4M) have been instrumental in circulating knowledge of Schiffmann's discovery.

2. Is there any chance these Polakoff photos could be fake or doctored?
   Schiffmann has responded to this query directly: "Polakoff has preserved the original negatives, from which the images viewed on the internet were directly scanned, with a negative scanner. As the negatives show, Daniel Faulkner's hat started on the top of the VW, and only later showed up on the sidewalk, where it would then remain for the official police photo. There isn't a scintilla of a doubt about its authenticity, [...] and there isn't the slightest doubt about the time sequence of the photographs, a question that I've gone through with photographer Pedro Polakoff again and again and again."(1)

3. Who is this photographer?
   Pedro P. Polakoff was a freelance photographer in Philadelphia who got to the crime scene just 12 minutes after the shooting was first reported on police radio, and apparently at least 10 minutes before the Philadelphia Police Mobile Crime Detection (MCD) Unit that handles crime scene forensics and photographs.

4. How could Polakoff get access to the crime scene for these photos?
   Polakoff was himself surprised about how he could move and photograph freely everywhere at the crime scene, even after the PPD Mobile Crime Unit arrived. Polakoff told Schiffmann that it was the "most messed up crime scene I have ever seen." It was completely unsecured, a fact testified to also by Philadelphia journalist, Linn Washington, Jr.(2)

5. How did Schiffmann get his information from Polakoff?
   After the first contact, first by telephone, and then by email with Polakoff, Schiffmann amassed over 60 pages of email notes from questioning Polakoff. He also had over six weeks of other contacts with Polakoff, "without ever revealing more to him," writes Schiffmann, "than the fact that I was working on a book on the case." Only relatively later in the conversations with Polakoff did Schiffmann reveal his own views and suspicions about the prosecutors' version of the case. Schiffmann also has studied Polakoff's many responses at different points during his contacts, and Schiffmann finds that Polakoff is both detailed and consistent each time.

6. What is most important about the 26 Polakoff photos?
   This question must be approached both as a procedural question and as a substantive question. Procedurally, there is the fact that Polakoff offered the 26 photos to the police and DA's Office, and they showed no interest in them. The photos surely never entered the court record of Abu-Jamal's case to be set before a jury's deliberation. Let us grant that photos can enter as evidence in many ways, and a photo which very clearly shows one thing to one person can show something very different to another person, often depending on context (of other evidence, knowledge, personal experience and ideological interests, and so on). Nevertheless, the key procedural point is that the Polakoff photos, which were available and offered to police and prosecutors in both 1981/1982, and in the 1990s, never even made it into the evidentiary record of this case. They were omitted, left out, of all procedures for investigating Officer Faulkner's death.

   Substantively, the Polakoff photos enable defense attorneys, and by extension the court, to raise significant reasonable doubt about the basic scenario of Officer Faulkner's death - a scenario that prosecutors constructed to argue for Abu-Jamal's guilt. In light of the Polakoff photos, that scenario could be completely destroyed by attorneys. In particular, testimony for the prosecution about that scenario, provided by Cynthia White, Robert Chobert and Michael Scanlon, becomes incredible.(3)

   ----- At the 1982 trial of Abu-Jamal, they all testified that the killer stood over the officer who was lying defenselessly on the sidewalk and fired several .38 caliber bullets down at him, one of which hit him between the eyes and killed him instantaneously, whereas the other shots missed.

   ----- These missing shots would have produced traces in the sidewalk that it would have been impossible to overlook, since bullets of that caliber would have left large divots, or even holes with concrete broken away, in the sidewalk.

   ----- Neither the one police photo of where Faulkner allegedly lay, nor a full nine other Polakoff photos taken of the same area from various angles, show any traces of such shots into the sidewalk.

   ----- Even if we grant that interpreting photographs can at times be a complex endeavor, the apparent absence of any such divots renders the prosecution witnesses' testimony highly problematic, to say the least.

7. Couldn't the other shots have glanced off the sidewalk or hit at such an angle that they might not have left any trace?
   This is highly unlikely. In the first place, the prosecution witnesses and prosecutors' summary of the crime claim that a killer stood directly above Jamal, straddling him even, and fired downward. From that angle any missing shots are most likely discharged in a downward direction that would leave divots. In the second place, a highly qualified ballistics expert who was consulted by Schiffmann has informed him that firing .38 caliber bullets in this way would "inevitably" produce divots in the sidewalk.(4) The same point is made in the specialized literature on the subject. Again, this is a new matter that was never heard, or deliberated on, by a jury.

8. Are there other significant problems for the prosecution case raised by the Polakoff photos?
   Yes, many, but two more should be noted, especially. First, the testimony of taxi driver Robert Chobert is further discredited. He claims to have been parked just behind the slain police officer's squad car, with a direct view of the killing. The Polakoff photos show the space behind the officer's car and there is no sign of Chobert's taxi, giving fuller support to the conjecture that Chobert's probationary status for a past act of throwing a Molotov cocktail into a grammar schoolyard, and the fact that he was driving his cab without a license on account of repeated DUI violations, might have made him vulnerable to police pressure to say he saw what he didn't see.
   Second, the photos raise further questions about police contamination or manipulation of evidence at the crime scene. One Polakoff photo shows police officer Faulkner's hat on the top of the VW he had pulled over, whereas the official police photo, taken later and used at the trial has the hat on the sidewalk where prosecutors say Faulkner was slain (and a later Polakoff photo has it moved to the ground also, which corresponds with the official police photo). Several Polakoff photos show police officer Steve Forbes at the crime scene holding the recovered weapon in his bare hand, even changing the guns from one hand to another, whereas at trial Forbes had denied touching the guns metal parts for the full one-and-a-half hours he held them. Again, these matters were not heard by a jury.

9. Wouldn't the police and prosecutors be interested in such early photos of the crime scene?
   One would think so. Polakoff reports, however, that the police showed no interest. After Polakoff's photographic work had been so obvious to police at the crime scene in 1981, he expected to be contacted by the police or by the D.A. He was not. Polakoff also phoned the DA's office in 1982. Then, in the 1990s, Polakoff says, "when there was this big fuss about a new trial for Abu-Jamal, I contacted them myself and asked them to get back to me. They didn't even answer me."(5) He was offering them the photos and what he had to say about them. The interest that police and the DA's Office should have shown was suspiciously absent.

10. In spite of their failure to respond to Polakoff, is there any evidence that the police and prosecutors did know about his photos?
    As noted above, the police were very much aware that he was shooting these photos during the early moments at the crime scene in 1981. There is no way they would not be aware of that basic fact. Moreover, according to Schiffmann, three of Polakoff's photos did appear in different Philadelphia newspapers during the days just after the shooting. Schiffmann summarizes: "It is a breathtaking lack of investigative zeal that they didn't get back to him all by themselves despite the fact that the cops knew him well and his name was clearly visible on the photos, at least in the editions of them I came across on the internet in May 2006."(6)

11. Were any of the photos used in the trial of 1982?
    No, they were not used at the 1982 trial where Abu-Jamal was convicted, nor at any of his later appellate hearings, nor at the PCRA Hearings of the 1990s.

12. If these photos are potentially helpful to Abu-Jamal's case, why didn't Abu-Jamal's several teams of attorneys make use of them?
    The answer to this query is simple: the Abu-Jamal attorneys did not know then that the Polakoff photos existed. Now that they do know, it's a different story. Present attorney, Robert Bryan, has said he "could have a field day in court with those photos" - provided, of course, that Abu-Jamal gets a new trial.

13. Why didn't Polakoff contact Abu-Jamal's defense team about his photos, after he had not received any responses from the police or prosecutors?
    In the period of the shooting, and right up to the recent present, Polakoff was very supportive of the police view of the case, having, according to Schiffmann, "not the slightest doubt that Mumia was the murderer."(7) Polakoff wanted to help the prosecution and was surprised when they were totally uninterested in his photos. He had no motivation to contact the defense team.

II. Implications

14. Why was Polakoff so sure Mumia was the shooter? After all, even though he was an early arrival to the crime scene, he wasn't early enough to see the shooting.
    Polakoff simply believed the police who told him that a fellow cop had been shot and that they "had the motherfucker who did it."(8) When he offered the photos to them he just wanted to try to help them confirm that argument with the material available to him.

15. Was Polakoff told anything else by the police about the killing of Daniel Faulkner?
    Yes. In fact, Polakoff says, "all the officers present expressed the firm conviction that Abu-Jamal had been the passenger in Billy Cook's VW and had fired and killed Faulkner by a single shot fired from the passenger seat of the car."(9) For all the years after the case, since Polakoff had read almost nothing else about the details and debates about what happened, he "held the firm opinion that this was indeed what had taken place," i.e. that Mumia - contrary to actual fact - had been riding in his brother's VW and emerged from there to shoot Faulkner.(10)

16. At Abu-Jamal's trial, police, prosecutors, and defense were all agreed that Mumia approached the scene from his own cab through a parking lot across the street. So, where did the police get this early version of the crime that the shooter emerged from the passenger seat of Billy Cook's VW?
    Polakoff told Schiffmann that the early police opinion was the result of interviewing three other witnesses who were still present at the crime scene (a parking lot attendant, a drug addicted woman, and another woman) - none of whom, however, seem to have "appeared in any report presented by the police or the prosecution."(11) Polakoff concluded this from statements made by the police to him directly, and from his overhearing of their conversations.

17. Has anyone else ever claimed that there was someone else riding with Abu-Jamal's brother that night in the passenger seat?
    One person to indicate that a passenger was riding in Billy Cook's car was one of the prosecution's own witnesses, Cynthia White. She testified in the trial of Billy Cook himself, where Abu-Jamal prosecutor Joseph McGill functioned in the same role as in the Abu-Jamal trial. One of her remarks was highly problematic for the prosecution, whose murder case against Abu-Jamal had always been based on the presupposition that only three persons were present at the scene: Faulkner, Abu-Jamal, and Cook:(12)

    ----- White: And the police got out of the police car and walked over to the Volkswagen. And he didn't get all the way to the Volkswagen, and the driver of the Volkswagen was passing some words. He had walked around between the two doors, walked up to the sidewalk. McGill: Who walked?
    White: The passenger - the driver. The driver and the police officer.
    McGill: When the officer went up to the car, which side of the car did the officer go up to?
    White: A. The driver side.
    McGill: The driver side?
    White: Yes.
    McGill: What did the passenger do?
    White: He had got out.
    McGill: What did the driver do?
    White: He got out of the car.
    McGill: He got out of the car?
    White: Yes.(13)

    The language of this dialogue seems to point pretty clearly to the presence of another person at the scene, namely, a passenger in Billy Cook's VW. The driver of a car and the passenger of a car are notions that are hard to confuse, but moreover, White also says that the driver "got out of the car," while the passenger "had got out of the car," which once again points to the driver and the passenger as being two distinct persons. The prosecution never clarified this question.

    ----- That other man, who would have been a third man at the crime scene (in addition to Billy Cook and Abu-Jamal), was never acknowledged by prosecutors or police at Abu-Jamal's trial.

    ----- Even though it is almost certain that Cynthia White didn't observe the shooting itself, she may very well have seen the beginning of the events, since in her testimony regarding Abu-Jamal, she mentioned a fact that was both true and inconvenient for the prosecution, namely, the beating of Billy Cook by Officer Faulkner.

18. Why would Abu-Jamal and his brother, Billy Cook, not themselves emphasize the presence of the third man, Kenneth Freeman, at the crime scene and thus a potential suspect?
    Schiffmann argues that the identity of the third man, Kenneth Freeman, means that if Abu-Jamal and his brother fingered him as the killer they would have been pinning blame not only on a friend of theirs, but on a friend of their family. Freeman would then have had to face the same fate that Abu-Jamal did - for an action that might have been considered as legitimate self-defense and the defense of others on the part of Abu-Jamal and Billy Cook.(14)

    The background to this is that according to Schiffmann, all the available evidence points to the conclusion that the December 9, 1981 shootout was triggered by the life-threatening shot that Officer Faulkner fired into Abu-Jamal's chest. With Mumia Abu-Jamal already incapacitated, most likely the third man on the scene, Kenneth Freeman then sprang into action and began firing at the officer, in what he probably conceived as defense of Abu-Jamal, his brother, and not least himself. But of course there was no guarantee, to put it mildly, that the Philadelphia courts would interpret this as self-defense. So Freeman ended up being left out of the picture by the two other men involved, Mumia Abu-Jamal and Billy Cook. -

19. Is there any evidence that Kenneth Freeman was the kind of person who could be considered a threat to a police officer?
    In a deposition by Philadelphia journalist Linn Washington, Jr., he stated that Kenneth Freeman frequently reported his experiences of police brutality to the Philadelphia Tribune where Washington worked. Washington knew Freeman as a frequent victim of police abuse.(15) Washington has also stated repeatedly that, on account of this background, Freeman harbored "an enormous anger at the police."(16)

20. Is there any evidence that Officer Faulkner that night had any interchange with a third person such as Kenneth Freeman?
    Yes, in the shirt pocket of Officer Faulkner was a driver's license application in the name of Arnold Howard, which Howard later testified was paperwork he had given to Kenneth Freeman. We don't know quite why Freeman was given the paper work or what Freeman would do with it, but the fact that he was known to have it, and that it ended up in Officer Faulkner's shirt pocket, suggests that Faulkner and Freeman had some interchange on the night of the shooting.

    Six people, Robert Chobert, Dessie Hightower, Veronica Jones, Deborah Kordansky, William Singletary, and Marcus Cannon, reported at various times that they saw one or more men run away from the scene, in the direction of a nearby alleyway which would have been a very suggestive escape route for anyone who would want to avoid being caught by the police.

    ----- One of these people was prosecution witness Robert Chobert. There is every indication - see for this, inter alia, question 8 - that Chobert did not observe the shooting itself and was not where he claimed to have been, behind Police Officer Faulkner's car, but he may very well have observed the person that fled the scene after the shooting. Chobert first simply said that the shooter had run away. Shortly after this, after he had identified Abu-Jamal, he said the shooter had run away but did not get very far - 30 to 35 steps and was then caught. At the trial, Chobert said the shooter made it no further than ten feet. Actually, Abu-Jamal was right next to the dead officer and thus fit neither of the accounts given by Chobert. Interestingly, in his first descriptions after the shooting, Chobert described the shooter as large, stocky, weighing 220 to 225 pounds and wearing dreadlocks - a description that fits Kenneth Freeman as he is remembered by acquaintances almost perfectly.

21. Where is Kenneth Freeman himself now?
    He was found dead on the night of May 13/14, 1985, the night of the firebombing of the MOVE house. Freeman was found "handcuffed and shot up with drugs and dumped on a Grink's lot on Roosevelt Boulevard, buck naked."(17) Again, no jury ever heard or deliberated on Kenneth Freeman's fate, or on his possible connections to the crime for which Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted and sentenced to death.

    Given the actual flimsiness of the case against Abu-Jamal - lying eyewitnesses, a phony confession, distorted or non-existent ballistic evidence - the police at the scene had to suspect that someone else was involved and probably the actual shooter. Since they were aware of the Howard license in Faulkner's shirt, an immediate trail led to none other than Kenneth Freeman. Given the revengefulness and propensity of the Philadelphia police for deadly violence, as well as the date and extremely suspicious circumstances under which the dead Freeman was found, the conclusion that he was killed by the police as part of a general vendetta against its perceived "enemies" (remember that 11 MOVE members were killed the same night) doesn't seem far-fetched.

----------------------------------------------

(1) J4M communiqué, December 12, 2007
(2) Linn Washington, Jr., in sworn declaration, May 14, 2001, sections 18 and 19.
(3) Michael Schiffmann, personal communication to Mark Taylor, October 9, 2007.
(4) Schiffmann, personal communication to Taylor, October 9, 2007.
(5) Personal communication to Schiffmann, June 19, 2006.
(6) Personal communication to Mark Taylor, EMAJ, October 9, 2007.
(7) Schiffmann, personal communication to EMAJ, October 9, 2007.
(8) Michael Schiffmann, Race Against Death, 234.
(9) Ibid.
(10) Ibid. 235.
(11) Ibid.
(12) E.g., in his guilt phase summation at the Abu-Jamal trial, prosecutor McGill attacked defense witness Dessie Hightower, the only witness at the Abu-Jamal trial who testified to a person running away from the scene, primarily from angles that had nothing to do with that particular point, but these attacks were clearly meant to demonstrate that no other person had been at the crime scene apart from Cook, Abu-Jamal, and Faulkner. See TP, July 1, 1982, p. 165-168.
(13) William Cook Trial Protocol, p. 33.
(14) Schiffmann, Race Against Death, 220.
(15) Linn Washington, Jr., sworn declaration, May 14, 2001, sects. 13, 14, 15.
(16) Conversations with Schiffmann, February 2006, May 2006, August 2006, May 2007.
(17) Testimony by Arnold Howard at the PCRA Hearing, August 9, 1995, p. 21.

Dear Friends:

Many people have contacted my office asking about the reaction of my client, Mumia Abu-Jamal, to the NBC "Today Show" segment on the case that was broadcast throughout the United States on December 6. The program has great credibility. Recently in a legal conference Mumia summed up his feelings to me: "For once the treatment was fair and balanced." I fully agree, for all that we have ever asked by the media is to be treated fairly. The transcript of the program is below.

There has still been no decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, Philadelphia, even though we presented oral argument over seven months ago. It is impossible to know how the court will rule, even though the hearing went exceptionally well. If the court follows the mandate of the U.S. Constitution, based upon my experience in handling many capital murder cases, the ruling will be favorable. However, courts are unpredictable and do not always do what is right. Mumia thus remains in great danger.

The scenarios of how the federal court might rule, include: (1) grant an entirely new jury trial; (2) order a new jury trial limited to the issue of life or death; (3) remand the case back to the U.S. District Court for further proceedings; or (4) deny all relief. Racism, fraud, and politics are threads that have run through this case since his 1981 arrest. The issues concern the right to a fair trial, the struggle against the death penalty, and the political repression of a courageous writer and journalist.

My goal remains a new jury trial in which Mumia will be found "not guilty" so that he can return home to his family.

The ongoing concern by so many people for human rights is appreciated.

Yours very truly,

Robert R. Bryan
Frankfurt Airport, Germany
---------------------------------------
[Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123]

Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal

(L.A. Times, Dec, 19, 2007)

zu dem Artikel

Ein guter Artikel im Englischen Guardian über Mumia:

zu dem Artikel

To the interview

here is a brand new Film about Mumia Abu-Jamal who has been on death row in the USA for the last 25 years.
In prison my whole life

Interview mit William Francome

British documentary about US death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal presents shocking new evidence

By Hans Bennett
(from Abu-Jamal-News)

The trailer for the new British documentary about US death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, titled "In Prison My Whole Life," begins with the film's central character, William Francome, explaining that he's "been aware of Mumia for as long as I can remember. That's because he was arrested on the night I was born, for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer. As my mom would often remind me, every birthday I had, has been another year that Mumia has spent in prison.... I am going on a journey to find out about the man who has been in prison my whole life."

The 90-minute film premieres on October 25 at both The Times BFI 51st London Film Festival and Rome's International Film Festival. With the acclaimed British actor Colin Firth as an executive producer, "In Prison My Whole Life" is directed by Marc Evans and produced by Livia Firth and Nick Goodwin Self. The film has interviews with such figures as Alice Walker, Angela Davis, Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman, Ramona Africa, and musicians Mos Def, Snoop Dogg and Steve Earle. Amnesty International, who concluded in a previous report that Abu-Jamal's original 1982 trial was unfair, is supporting "In Prison" as part as part of its international campaign to abolish the death penalty. Amnesty International UK Director Kate Allen says: "It's shocking that the US justice system has repeatedly failed to address the appalling violation of Mumia Abu-Jamal's fundamental fair trial rights."

In this exclusive interview on the eve of the film's premiere, Francome discloses for the very first time, one of the movies biggest surprises: The film will prominently feature the startling Dec. 9, 1981 crime scene photos that were recently discovered by German author Michael Schiffmann, and are published in his new book. Never presented to the 1982 jury, these new photos (taken by press-photographer Pedro Polakoff) "bolster claims of Mumia's innocence and unfair trial," according to Black Commentator columnist David A. Love.

Polakoff's photos have been shown on the Journalists for Mumia website since Dr. Schiffmann unveiled the photos in May, the same week that The US Third Circuit Court of Appeals heard oral arguments regarding the fairness of Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial (listen to courtroom audio). While waiting for this important court ruling (expected any week), Abu-Jamal's international support network has initiated a media-activist campaign demanding that the major media outlets acknowledge the new crime scene photos. One of Polakoff's photos will be published for the first time in the US, in this week's issue of The San Francisco Bay View National Black Newspaper, which has previously reported on Abu-Jamal's case.

Francome cannot reveal any more of the film's big surprises, but he does say that "for the first time ever, the film interviews people who have never told their story of the events of that night, and offers new insight and theories as to what happened on Locust Street in 1981. To learn more about this, people ought to go and watch the film."

On October 25, "In Prison" was reviewed by ScreenDaily.com and the UK newspaper The Guardian published an article on Mumia, based on a recent visit/interview with him: I Spend My Days Preparing For Life, Not Death.

Hans Bennett: What can you tell us about the new crime scene photos discovered by German author Michael Schiffmann, and how they appear in your film?

William Francome: The photos of press photographer Pedro Polakoff feature in the film as well as an interview with him and Michael Schiffmann, the German author who found them.

We had been in contact with Michael from the beginning of this project as he is one of the most knowledgeable people on the case. He had been working on his book 'Race Against Death' when he found a photo online that he realized was not taken by the police at the scene. Somehow (Michael is an amazing investigator) he found Pedro who was a press photographer at the time of the shootings in December of 1981. Pedro had arrived on the scene within minutes and captured much of the initial chaos of the scene.

They are quite amazing photographs as they show the complete lack of professionalism by the police who were faced with the task of preserving the crime scene and any forensic evidence that might be inherent within it. There are pictures of a police officer holding both of the weapons at the scene in one hand without gloves, which would therefore completely contaminate any fingerprints or gun powder residue. They also show the police walking in and out of the scene and show that Officer Faulkner's hat was moved from photo to photo. I may just be a layman in terms of crime scene maintenance but it seems to me that these are grave and almost criminally negligent mistakes to make. There is also the issue of bullet holes or the lack thereof in the pavement. The photos should show where bullet fragments would have been found in the surrounding cement according to the prosecution witnesses' account, but this is not the case.

Whether or not these acts were made on purpose remains to be seen, but the photos could have helped clear this case up from the very beginning. Now we are 25 years down the line and we are still asking basic questions of the initial evidence that should not have been left for so long unanswered. Meanwhile, a man is on death row who claims he's innocent and it's been a quarter of a century since a policeman was killed and many feel the killing hasn't been sufficiently solved.

What makes the issue of the photos even more important is that they were purposefully ignored by the prosecution and the District Attorney's Office. Pedro says that he rang them and told them of his photographs and offered them for use in the trial, but that the office never got back to him. It is obvious that the prosecution knew that the photographs of the crime scene could have done their case some damage in court and therefore outright ignored them.

Hans Bennett: Where does the movie go from here? When can people in the US view it?

William Francome: The film is about to premiere at the London and Rome film festivals and I'm very happy to say that it's sold out all of its screenings. We are still at the early stages and we have to wait and see if and when it gets taken on by a distributor, what happens next. I'm sure at some point in the near future we'll be screening the film in the US. The film was shot in America and mostly deals with American issues so I look forward to seeing the reaction it gets there. I myself am half American, and spent my teenage years in New York, so I have enjoyed making a film about the country I grew up in as well as having been able to look at it as an outsider.

Hans Bennett: Why is Mumia's case still so important after 25 years?

William Francome: I think the fact that Mumia's case is still being debated after twenty five years is an issue in itself. It seems unbelievable to me that you could keep someone in solitary confinement for a quarter of a century as well as having a death sentence hanging over him that whole time. The starting point of this film is that it's been my whole life, and considering all the things that I have done and all the memories I have really helps to put the whole thing in perspective. Try thinking back to what you were doing in 1981 and it might have the same effect. In that time, there have been hundreds of people executed and there are still over 3,000 currently sitting on death row in America. However, despite evidence that people innocent of the crimes they were convicted for have been executed and over 100 people who have been exonerated and released from death row because of new evidence, the death penalty system in America still grinds forward.

After 25 years, the questions of race, cost and inadequate legal representation have yet to be fully and honestly addressed and the issues that caused it to be declared unconstitutional in the 70's persist. In short, as long as there is a death penalty in the United States, Mumia's case and the case of all death row inmates will remain vital and important. People should see this movie because they too seek for answers and honesty from the criminal justice system, and they too, want to gain a greater understanding of the inherent flaws in the death penalty system in the U.S.

Even if people can't relate to the story of Mumia Abu-Jamal or are not affected by it, they might still be able to relate to my story. I think for many people, the journey that I'm going on is enough on its own. This is the story of two lives coming together in a sense, and hopefully it will allow many who have previously been uninterested in the issues surrounding the case to sit up, take notice and find out more on their own. In a ninety minute film, it is hard to comprehensively look into any subject, but you hope that it gives the audience enough to go away and delve further.

Death Penalty: Hard Hitting Mumia Abu-Jamal Film Launched

July 2007 Mumia Abu-Jamal Interview with Margaret Prescod for Her KPFK Program "Sojourner Truth"

Margaret Prescod: On behalf of Pacifica Radio Network, Mumia Abu-Jamal, thank you so much for joining us.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: Thank you for the invitation, Margaret.

MP: Mumia, people argue over how you should be defined: as a taxi driver, as an investigative journalist, Black Panther, black militant, jailhouse lawyer - how do you see yourself?

MAJ: Well, in a way, all of those things and more. I mean, when people argue, sometimes people argue for simplicity, when life is rarely that simple. Life is complex. All of those things, many other things, an herbalist, a jailhouse lawyer, a writer, a poet - not a great one, but I try -, a father, a grandfather, a husband; you know, all of those things are correct.

MP: Can you say how you manage to get the information and the focus to do the weekly commentaries that are played on more than 100 radio stations around the country?

MAJ: I read, quite a bit, good, interesting books on political subjects, sometimes history books, I try to read several newspapers, and also try to keep my eye on what's happening here, around me, so you know sometimes a local story is better than, say, a commentary on the war [laughs]. So you don't loose your journalist's eye. This is just, I guess, another beat, so to speak.

MP: How do you structure your day? About how many hours a day you have outside, and how do you use that time?

MAJ: Death row is what is actually in many states comparable to what's called solitary confinement. By that I mean you're in a cell by yourself, solitary. And with the exception of two hours a day, when you're in a cage; some people call it yard, but I think the proper reference is, cage, you're either alone or with one other person. So, for 22 hours a day, that's a lot of time to think, to read, to write, and so, while it may astound a lot of people, I actually have probably more time [laughs] than the average reporter or the average commentator working on a radio station or for a general publication.

MP: So in terms of structuring the 22 hours you're spending reading, writing, and thinking etc. and then the two hours you have some time for some exercise, perhaps...

MAJ: Yes, yeah. Well, exercise in a cage really means, sometimes jogging around, doing pushups and what have you. For me, I've become an aficionado of handball. That's like tennis without rackets. [Both laugh] And it's very vigorous, it's a good workout, and usually three days a week, I'm able to get a good game, and I got a very, very good set-up game early this morning.

MP: How has prison life changed in the last quarter of a century?

MAJ: In ways that were not conceivable certainly over 30 years ago. It was unthinkable then that several decades later, we would be looking at, let's say, roughly three million people, you know, that there are more people in the prison system in the state where you're at, in California, right now than in the whole country of France. It's crazy, I mean, it's un - you couldn't even conceive of those kinds of numbers. So in the last quarter of a century, what we're really looking at is what many people have come to call the prison-industrial complex. There is a great deal of money, there's a great deal of business, there's a great deal of social power to be gained by the prison industry, in this sense, that many of the people who people the prisons, who populate the prisons, come from the urban core, the cities, and they're transported to the rural districts, where population has traditionally been very sparse. But what a lot of people don't know is that everybody in prison is counted as part not just of the census, but of political districts, and if you want to talk about a cause of revolution being taxation without representation, or at least counting without representation - we're counted in congressional districts, but obviously, you know, our voices, our concerns, our livelihood - none of our interests are counted when it comes to those people whose numbers help get them elected, so to speak.

MP: When you are inside, Mumia, and your major supporters are outside, there's a real problem. How do you give direction to their support work?

MAJ: Usually in personal ways, and that is writing letters to people and just calling people up and talk to them, and usually also through supporters, who are able to communicate at a deeper, more intense level with younger supporters. We work people to people, you know, person to person, that's the only real effective way I think to really arm someone to do this very arduous task of being an anti-prison activist.

MP: What about how you see your case in influencing that of other prisoners?

MAJ: That's difficult to assess because it's difficult to communicate farther than people on your block. It's difficult also for people outside of prison to understand how truly isolated people are in some prison systems because of the differences in terms of construction with new prisons as opposed to old prisons. In the old prisons, people were able to communicate and move around far better and easier than they are now. The new prisons have been built and constructed with an eye towards isolating people. So there might be a guy on the next block, but you may not see that person for six months, a year, I mean it's really quite that isolated, so it's difficult to communicate beyond what you can see on your own part of your own block.

MP: What are the older prisoners like in contrast to the younger prisoners? I mean, is there a difference that you have noted between those who have been inside for a long time, and the newer prisoners coming in? How do the younger prisoners compare with what you are like, for example?

MAJ: Well, when I came in, I was considerably older than many of the young people who are coming in now. I was 27, 28 years old, which sounds like a kid to me now, but when you consider that many of the guys coming in now are in their late teens or 20, 21, this means that there's a profound difference between then and now. Many of the older guys tend to be - ah, I have to say many, not all - but many tend to be more settled, more sober, and I think more patient, more conscious - that I think is a safe assessment. Many of the younger guys, especially in more recent years, it isn't just that they're younger, but that they come from a situation that is far more dire, far more provocative than those of the ones who came maybe 20 years from now. By that I mean, the situation in many communities, especially, let us say in Philadelphia, is far more dangerous, far more economically unstable, far more socially disastrous frankly, than it has been 20 years ago. You can see that when you meet young people who really, I think, are in a constant state of rage, in a constant state of an inability, an unwillingness to listen to older people.

MP: Now, turning to your situation... I'd like you to tell us a little bit about this push for a new trial. Your legal team and your supporters are pressing for a new trial. Why a new trial, and why now?

MAJ: Why now? Well, of course, it didn't begin now. We've been fighting for that for many years, in many places across the state, and many courtrooms. We've only been in the federal courts for the last, almost the last decade, but certainly since 2001, since the ruling came down. We're now, of course, in the Court of Appeals. We're fighting for a new trial, and I am reminded when I think of our new trial of what a former attorney who was on the case used to say: We're fighting for, not just a new trial, but a true trial, because in front of the former judge, Albert F. Sabo, who was a life member of the Fraternal Order of Police, who was referred to by many people who've practiced in front of him as a "prosecutor in black robes," it cannot be said that that was a true, reasonable, fair, just trial by any standard.

MP: If you are granted a new trial, can we expect to hear anything new?

MAJ: I think we will hear a great deal that is new. I said, many years ago, that the jury didn't hear a great many things, and heard things that were, frankly, quite unfair, untrue, and not representative. I said that in 1982 to the jury. I think if we have a new trial, we can prove that.

MP: And if you're denied your right to a new trial?

MAJ: I am not a negative person. I don't think in negative terms. That's simply not my nature; I can honestly say that I'm not a person who is pollyannaish - but I think that we have made a good, strong case! And I think the results will be good.

MP: How do you keep yourself together, Mumia? I mean, it's been 25 years, you've been through all of this miscarriage of justice, the overwhelming racism in the first trial - and now here you are on the battle front again, struggling for a new trial. How do you keep yourself together?

MAJ: I guess I can best be described as a busy person. It's not a new thing, but it's a true thing; I've always been the kind of person who feels like there is not enough hours in the day, 24 hours certainly isn't not enough. I always have projects unfinished, requests that cannot be met, letters that have not been [laughs] written frankly that I thought were written, art that I want to draft or draw or paint, pieces that I want to write - so, there are many hours in the day, and I try to use them well, but I've always been busy, and I think that's helpful. Also, I've been surrounded by extraordinary people. I've met extraordinary people. From my first day, many years ago, down in Philadelphia, in the county, all across the state. Extraordinary men, on death row. And I have also met people from many walks of life, who are remarkable, men and women, writers, activists, you name it. So that has been helpful - that has been very helpful.

MP: Are you hopeful?

MAJ: I'm always hopeful, believe that. [Both laugh.] You know, people can't escape their essential nature. Well I said I'm not pollyannaish, but I've always been hopeful, and that's just how I look at the world.

MP: Certainly that comes across. Anything else you would like to say to those who are listening around the country and online indeed around the world?

MAJ: I just wish people would understand that I am very, very appreciative and thankful for the many expressions of love and support that I've seen from people for many years. Every day I get letters; unfortunately, I can't answer them all, but I try to read them all. I've had a problem in the last weeks because about seven times a week at least I get letters from friends in Germany, but I, I am not quite able to read German yet! [Both laugh.] So I can't say I've read it all! But I wish I could tell those people, you know, one on one, thank you! Thank you for taking the time to write to me, thank you for your thoughts, thank you for the good wishes, and thank you for the love and support. That I appreciate it, that I feel it, and I'm immensely grateful.

MP: Mumia Abu-Jamal, thank you so very much for joining us.

MAJ: Thank you, Margaret.

Transcript & design: Michael Schiffmann

DAY AFTER DEMONSTRATIONS ORGANIZED FOR MUMIA'S LIFE AND FREEDOM!

Dear Friends,

We join the celebration of the wonderful people's victory in Texas supported by an international movement based in Italy, England, France, Australia, South Africa and other countries in the struggle to save Kenneth Foster/Haramia KiNassor's life. May the movement continue until it frees Haramia altogether and abolishes the death penalty and the prison industrial complex.

On the heels of this important challenge to the death machine in Texas, which has been perfected in that state with an incredible number of executions, we await the Third Circuit Court of Appeals decision on Mumia. As the decision could come down any day, we are making a tentative plan for the DAY AFTER should the decision not be a positive one.

We will immediately take to the streets if the decision is unfavorable. Mumia should be released immediately based on his innocence and his so-called trial. But we demand, at the very least, that he be granted a new trial.

In an inter-city consultation, we have decided on three steps in our response: an immediate press conference in Philadelphia upon announcement of the decision (that day, if possible, or at the latest the following morning), LOCAL ACTIONS AROUND THE COUNTRY THE DAY AFTER and, finally, a NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION on the third Saturday after the decision in Philadelphia.

SCHEDULE OF ACTIONS

Day of decision: Press Conference in Philadelphia

Day after decision: Local actions around the country

Three Saturdays after the decision: NATIONAL DEMONSTRATION IN PHILADELPHIA!

"Day after" activities have already been planned in several cities. In Philadelphia there will be a march from 13th and Locust, the scene of the original confrontation on December 9, 1981, to the Federal Building. Call (267) 760-7344 if you need more information about that.

In San Francisco, the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal has announced a demonstration at the Federal Building. Pittsburgh and other cities have also planned demonstrations.

IN NEW YORK CITY the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition and the Harlem Campaign to Name a Street in Honor of Mumia Abu-Jamal are calling for people to gather at the Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. State Office Building on 125th Street on the "day after" from 5 PM to 8 PM if a weekday or 1 to 4 PM if a Saturday to let the community know what happened, to mobilize for greater support for the street naming, and to organize people to join us in Philadelphia for the national demonstration in that city planned for three weeks later. The Partisan Defense Committee has called for a "day after" demonstration at the Federal Building in Lower Manhattan from 5 to 7 PM on a weekday or 1 to 4 PM on a Saturday.

ABOVE IS THE FLYER WHICH IS AVAILABLE FOR DOWNLOAD. ALSO, SEE www.freemumia.com FOR THE FLYER AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION.

For more information, please visit the new Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal website: http://Abu-Jamal-News.com

International Concerned Family & Friends of MAJ
P.O. Box 19709
Philadelphia, PA 19143
Phone - 215-476-8812/ Fax - 215-476-6180
E-mail - icffmaj@aol.com

The NYC flyer can be downloaded at Freemumia.com

Posted on July 30, 2007. After the May 17 Philadelphia court hearing for Mumia Abu-Jamal, Abu-Jamal's lead lawyer Robert R. Bryan was asked by the court to have the court office produce an audio file and transcript of the hearings. It was possible to secure a two-part copy of the audio. Listening to it reveals that constitutional issues of great significance were debated with great seriousness. It is posted here to enable people to better analyze what transpired at the hearing and get a grasp of what may lie ahead.
Against The Crime of Silcence/News

Free Leonard Peltier, Mumia, The Cuban Five, The SF8, The MOVE 9, and All Political Prisoners!

Presented by Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal
(Abu-Jamal-News.com)

On May 17, 2007, a three-judge panel from the United States Third Circuit Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit heard oral arguments in Philadelphia on four different issues regarding the fairness of Mumia Abu-Jamal's original 1982 trial. Robert R. Bryan, lead counsel for Abu-Jamal, joined by his associate, Professor Judith L Ritter, and Christina Swarns of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, argued that Abu-Jamal's trial was tainted with racist jury selection, confusing and wrong jury instructions on the death penalty, prosecutorial misconduct regarding a false argument to the jury at the guilt phase, and the bias of the trial judge at a 1995 hearing whom a court stenographer overheard boasting in 1982 that he was going to help the prosecution "fry the nigger." The National Lawyers Guild also submitted amicus curiae (friend of the court) briefing on the issues of judicial bias and false prosecutorial argument.

Because of the limited time, not all of the issues were discussed, even though they were thoroughly covered in briefing filed by Bryan and Ritter on behalf of Abu-Jamal. At the outset of oral argument, Deputy District Attorney Hugh Burns addressed three issues: 1) He argued for reinstating the death penalty, in his appeal of Judge Yohn's 2001 decision regarding the death penalty. 2) He argued in defense of prosecutor Joseph McGill's false argument to the jury: "If you find the Defendant guilty of course there would be appeal after appeal and perhaps there could be a reversal of the case, or whatever, so that may not be final," implying the trial was not final. 3) Addressing the Batson racism-in-jury-selection claim, Burns argued in defense of McGill's use of 10 of 15 peremptory challenges to strike black jurors.

For the defense, Ritter addressed the issue of the death penalty, which is based on the Mills v. Maryland precedent. In December, 2001, U.S. District Court Judge William Yohn ruled that sentencing forms used by jurors and Judge Sabo's instructions to the jury were confusing and contrary to the law. Jurors were mistakenly led to believe that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstance in order to consider it as weighing against a death verdict.

Lead attorney Robert R. Bryan and Christina Swarns of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund focused on the racial discrimination in jury selection issue. In 1986, the US Supreme Court ruled in Batson v. Kentucky that a defendant deserves a new trial if it can be proved that jurors were excluded on the grounds of race. Most importantly, Batson significantly lowered the defendant's burden of proof.

Dave Schraeger Manchester in the May 18 article "Another day in court for Mumia Abu-Jamal" referred to him as "Philadelphia's most-notorious death-row inmate." Philadelphia has had some notorious people, but Mumia Abu-Jamal is not one of them. The truly notorious ones have been people like Judge Albert Sabo, who presided over Mumia's trial and, according to a court stenographer's records, said he was going to "going to help 'em fry the n-."Then there was the racist former police chief and mayor, Frank Rizzo. Blacks were almost all excluded from Mumia's jury. The evidence against Mumia was not strong enough to convict him on the facts. It was a political witch hunt because he was a former Black Panther and he continued to expose police brutality against the black community. Another person confessed to the crime in 2001, but Mumia continues to wait in prison for justice. He has spent 25 years in jail for a crime he did not commit. Free Mumia Abu-Jamal and all political prisoners!

During the May 17 hearing, federal Judge Robert Cowan speculated that perhaps prosecutor Joseph McGill used peremptory challenges to bar 10 of 14 qualified black jurors from Mumia Abu-Jamal's trial because he had been confronted with a large number of African Americans in that trial's initial pool of 150 prospective jurors. While no one at the hearing challenged this idle speculation, the reality is that the notion of a large number of black potential jurors in any Philadelphia jury pool back in 1982 is preposterous. In 1982, the city's courts were obtaining their jurors by sending summonses to registered voters (a methodology no longer in use), which systematically underrepresented blacks. Today, when the city is 50 percent black, and when much more representative methods are used to call in jurors, one might expect to find a jury pool that at least approaches reflecting the city's ethnic population mix. But back in 1982, this literally couldn't happen.

Dave Lindorff

By Dave Lindorff

Mumia Case on Hold as Appellate Judges Deliberate

Momentous decisions are ahead in the 25-year-long case of Philadelphia death row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, following a hearing before a three-judge panel of the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia Thursday.

Burns, who has been the lead attorney for the Philadelphia DA on this case since at least 1995, and who heads the appeals unit, went up against San Francisco death penalty appellate attorney Robert R. Bryan, who assumed the role of lead attorney for Abu-Jamal in 2003.

Abu-Jamal, who was not present at the packed hearing in the ceremonial courtroom of the Federal Courthouse across from the Liberty Bell museum in Philadelphia, had three claims before the Appellate Court, all challenging his conviction for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. Judith Ritter, Abu-Jamal's local counsel, argued argued against a claim by the District Attorney to overturn a 2001 decision by a lower federal court which threw out his death sentence. Christina Swarns, a counsel with the NAACP Legal defense Fund, argued in support of Abu-Jamal's appeal as a "friend of the court."

The two-and-a-half-hour hearing began with prosecutor Burns tryng to make the case that Federal District Judge William Yohn had erred in vacating Abu-Jamal's death sentence. Judge Yohn had ruled in 2001 that an ambiguous and poorly worded jury verdict form, and an even more ambiguous instruction from the judge in the case, Albert Sabo, had left jurors believing, wrongly, that they had to all agree on any mitigating circumstances before weighing them in their decision as to the death penalty. In fact, any one juror can find a mitigating circumstance, while a death penalty decision must be unanimous. Burns claimed that Yohn's basis for his ruling was flawed. But all three of the judges---Chief Judge Anthony Scirica and Judge Robert Cowen, both Reagan appointees, and Thomas Ambro, a Clinton appointee---seemed to take a dim view of Burns' arguments. Judging from their challenging questions to Burns, and their generally favorable questions to Abu-Jamal's attorneys, it seemed likely that they would, in the end, uphold Yohn's decision.

If they do, Abu-Jamal's death sentence would be lifted once and for all. At that point, the DA would have 180 days to decide whether to seek a retrial on just his sentence (not guilt). Several years ago, in an interview with this reporter, Joseph McGill, the original prosecutor at Abu-Jamal's trial, said the DA's office had apparently not decided whether it would seek a retrial on the death penalty if Yohn was upheld on appeal, as this would require impaneling a new jury, and essentially retrying the case, since a new jury would not know the issues leading to conviction. The DA has to realize that a death sentence would be much harder to win in today's Philadelphia, where it would be much harder for the prosecution to obtain a jury of 10 whites and two blacks, as it managed to do for the trial in 1982. Also, in 1982, Jamal had an attorney who had never handled a death penalty case before, and he didn't even attempt to bring in witnesses to offer mitigating evidence against a death sentence.

A definitive end to Abu-Jamal's death sentence, even if his conviction remained in place or on appeal, would mean a major change in his status. For one thing, the DA's office would no longer be able, as it has done since 2001, be able to pressure the courts into keeping him locked away in solitary confinement on the state's super-max death row outside Pittsburgh.

On the conviction issues, the court and Abu-Jamal's attorneys focused on a claim that his jury had been unconstitutionally purged of African Americans by a prosecutor who had a history of removing blacks from capital juries---a so-called Batson claim (after the US Supreme Court decision in 1986). The main presentation of the case by attorney Bryan was hampered by frequent questions from the judges, who kept asking for more evidence than just the undisputed fact that prosecutor McGill had used peremptory challenges to remove 10 otherwise qualified black jurors from the jury, compared with only five whites.

Bryan told the court that in the course of questioning potential jurors, McGill had asked different questions of black and white candidates for the jury, for example quizzing blacks in the jury pool on whether they had listened to Abu-Jamal on the radio. He also excused black jurors who were unemployed or who had been barred from a jury before, while allowing white jurors with the same experiences to serve. Bryan also pointed out that McGill had made his concerns about black jurors clear when, during the trial, he raised an alarm that a black judge had entered the courtroom and sat near Abu-Jamal's supporters in the spectators' gallery. Reading from the court transcript, Bryan noted that McGill had said, "If the court pleases, the two black jurors may know him." (Of course, as Abu-Jamal's then attorney Anthony Jackson noted, there was an equal chance any of the white jurors might have known the judge, but McGill didn't seem to care about them.) In his written brief to the court, Bryan also notes that McGill, over the course of six capital trials including Abu-Jamal's, used peremptory challenges to strike 74 percent of qualified black jurors, compared to only 25 percent of white jurors. That brief also notes that over Ed Rendell's two terms as Philadelphia district attorney, when the man who is now Pennsylvania's governor was McGill's boss, the DA's office struck black jurors in capital cases 58 percent of the time, compared to only 22 percent of the time for whites. (Indeed, in 1982, and until the high court's Batson ruling in 1986, the Philadelphia DA actually followed a state supreme court decision called Henderson, which ruled that it was permissible for prosecutors to strike blacks from a jury if they thought they might tend to favor a defendant of the same race.)

DA prosecutor Burns, for his part, focused on an argument that Abu-Jamal's jury bias claim had been forfeited on procedural grounds because he allegedly had not made it soon enough---either during his trial or in the early stages of his state court appeal. This argument was weakened by the fact that the Supreme Court only made race-based jury selection clearly illegal in 1986, well after Abu-Jamal's trial, and by the fact that documentary scientific evidence of the Philadelphia prosecutor's systematic rejection of black jurors did not come to light until after 1997, after Abu-Jamal's state appeal had been exhausted.

At least one judge, Ambro, seemed clearly sympathetic with Abu-Jamal's Batson claim. The other two judges were harder to read, as they asked tough questions of both Bryan and Burns. One judge, Cowen, on several occasions suggested the improbable possibility that since nobody knew the racial mix of the Abu-Jamal jury pool, it "might have been" majority African-American, "in which case the prosecutor's peremptory challenges might be seen as having been biased against whites." This view is clearly preposterous in a city where the court system had been--and to some extent still is--struggling to obtain an appropriate representation of African Americans on juries. Indeed, back in 1982, the city was still using only voter registration lists to call people to jury duty, and blacks at that time, while constituting 40 percent of the city's population, were notoriously under-represented on the voter rolls. Years later, following a federal lawsuit, the city has changed its method for compiling jury pools, but a lawyer long familiary with the issue says it would have been "almost inconceivable" for there to have been a majority black jury pool in 1982 under the old system.

If at least two of the three judges on the Third Circuit panel were to find prima facie evidence of a Batson violation in Abu-Jamal's trial, they would likely send the case back to the Federal District Court, where Judge Yohn would be ordered to hold a full evidentiary hearing on the issue. In general, courts have held that the threshold for proving a prima facie case of a Batson violation--and thus winning an evidentiary hearing--is fairly low, while proving an actual case of bias--and winning a new trial--can be much harder.

The second appeal claim by Abu-Jamal--that his trial had been unconstitutionally tainted by a summation statement to the jury by prosecutor McGill in which he told jurors their guilty verdict would "not be final" because Abu-Jamal would have "appeal after appeal," was given relatively short shrift at the hearing, because of the time spent on the Batson issue. Nonetheless it won support from a surprising quarter.

Prosecutor Burns argued to the court that they should not even be considering the issue, since the US Supreme Court has never ruled that such clearly improper language by a prosecutor should undo a conviction--only a death sentence. But Judge Cowen, looking incredulous, asked Burns, "Isn't saying that undermining a defendant's right to a fair trial?"

If Cowen took that question seriously--and feels that telling jurors that their judgment isn't really final, could undermine the concept of "proof beyond a reasonable doubt"---then he could be considering overturning the guilty verdict. If a second judge went along with his view, that would mean a new trial for Abu-Jamal--except for the fact that the DA would certainly appeal such a decision to the US Supreme Court, (which would be bound to consider it, because of such a ruling's far-reaching implications).

There was no discussion of Abu-Jamal's third claim, which was that his post-conviction hearing had been constitutionally flawed because of a pro-prosecution bias on the part of Judge Albert Sabo, the same judge who had presided over his trial. The fact that there was no argument on this claim by either side doesn't matter much, since both sides have filed detail briefs with the court, as they also did on the other claims. Apparently, the three judges had no major questions for either side regarding their respective arguments.

There is no specific timetable for the court to decide on the four claims before it, though some attorneys predict a decision can probably be expected in one or two months.

Outside the courtroom, in the plaza in front of the courthouse, and along 6th Street, several hundred pro-Abu-Jamal demonstrators, many carrying "Free Mumia" signs, staged a spirited demonstration. Inside the courtroom, Abu-Jamal supporters filled most of the seats reserved for spectators. Near the front sat Officer Faulkner's widow, Maureen, and several family members and supporters, who were allowed to enter the courtroom via a private entrance while other spectators had to go through security gates and line up at the courthouse's main entrance.

Prosecutor McGill was also in attendance.

DAVE LINDORFF, a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist, is author of "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal" (Common Courage Press, 2004). His latest book, co-authored with Barbara Olshansky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office" (St. Martin's Press, 2006, and due out in paperback later this month). His work is available at Authors Website

"We stood fast, for our intentions were good..." (Eric Burdon)

'Free Mumia' rally overcomes police intimidation

By Betsey Piette
Philadelphia
Published May 3, 2007 1:43 AM

Try as they might, intimidation and terror tactics by the Philadelphia police, including death threats, could not stop an important solidarity and informational rally for Mumia Abu-Jamal on April 24. Hundreds came out to demand justice, due process and freedom for this political prisoner and death row resident.

Each year at this time has seen a rally marking Abu-Jamal's birthday. The one this year was particularly significant, however, because his case is finally going to be taken up by the U.S. Third District Court of Appeals on May 17. As a result, police intensified their campaign to frighten supporters away. But they did not succeed.

Police first targeted the Clef Club - an African-American jazz club that receives public funding - and forced it to cancel its contract to host the Mumia event. However, the Third World Coalition at the American Friends Service Center stepped up and provided an alternative meeting space.

The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) put pressure on invited speakers, including actor/activist Danny Glover and Delacy Davis, founder of Black Cops Against Police Brutality, who told the rally he had received over 20 death threats from Philadelphia police officers in the last few weeks. Glover and Davis also spoke at a press conference prior to the evening rally.

Pam Africa, head of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, says that when all this couldn't stop the rally from taking place, she was informed by the head of the police Civil Affairs Unit that "400 plain-clothed police carrying weapons" would march on the Friends Center to "confront" the rally.

Africa then called on the progressive community to unite and stand against what Michael Coard, an attorney for Abu-Jamal, aptly described to the rally as "creeping fascism." The movement answered her call in one of the most united and spirited rallies Philadelphia has seen for some time.

Meanwhile, outside the hall the police mob - which turned out to be a little more than 100 nearly all-white, all-male cops - met a strong showing of Mumia supporters, including Delacy Davis. The police were unable to disrupt the event.

The place to be

Danny Glover opened the press conference with a quote from the late Ossie Davis who, when asked why he was at an event for righting an injustice said, "This is where I am supposed to be.

"Glover continued: "This is a critical moment in the fight for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Every moment has been critical, but at some place we have to let due process take its course.

"Over the past 25 years that process has been subverted, not only in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, but wherever people are not empowered. The basic intent of denying people their rights has been tocreate a climate of fear. They don't want us to ask the right questions. How do we define the truth that's been denied in this case and consistently denied to people of color?

"Later, at the solidarity rally, Glover challenged the police to take responsibility for their brutality against oppressed communities. "When I walk outside, I see a fraternity of policemen gather to attempt to desecrate what we do here to hold up justice. When will these same police walk out to the community and apologize for what they have done to African Americans? When will they confess to all that they have done?

"Mumia talked about education. We need to know the history of this movement. People who stood up around justice, civil rights, we saw it dismantled through the murder of our leaders; then through the drugs when the system decided it would no longer provide the bread to sustain our communities. We saw our brothers be turned around by the viciousness of this profit system. We've watched it happen. I am a child of the civil rights movement. We know the history of lies, of torture. Now we demand a new history - that we make our own history - you are a testament to that. Free Mumia!

Death threats

Delacy Davis of the Black police organization described the climate of racism, sexism and homophobia within the police force that led him to retire after 20 years of service in New Jersey: "I had to stand up and say to white America, 'No, we don't accept this.' We know everything about the workings of this system to see the writing on the wall in Mumia's case. We call for his right to a new trial.

"I had to show up today. They can try to kill me if that's what they want - it's a climate of intimidation. It is so painful for me to return to Philadelphia today with this case because of what our staff has gone through in the past four weeks with threats like 'We're going to pinch him tonight if they show up.' But we are the police; we will shoot back. If I must die, I will stand up as a man. If dissenting voices are not going to be allowed, you can't call yourself a democracy.

"I witnessed the Ku Klux Klan in the South growing up and what I just saw was reminiscent. The few black police out there tonight 'go along to get along,' but I challenge my colleagues. We are not going to go along with Black people who support white supremacy.

"Temple professor and journalist Linn Washington Jr. addressed the climate of racism that is a key factor in the FOP's efforts to deny justice and due process to Abu-Jamal. Washington compared the virulent nature of the police intimidation campaign against the Clef Club to the racist commentary that got shock-jock Don Imus fired.

"The struggle today around Mumia is not new. In the 1850s Frederick Douglass said that tyrants hate free speech. We are here today in this venue because there are those who tried to suppress free speech. But the question that needs to be asked is, if Mumia is as guilty as they claim him to be, if the evidence is so overwhelming, if it's 'an open-and-shut case,' why are they protesting outside? Officers involved in the arrest of Mumia in 1981 were later fired and indicted for corruption in cases involving suppression of evidence.

"Abu-Jamal was charged with the killing of a white police officer named Daniel Faulkner. Washington asked why there have been no similar FOP campaigns around the murders of Black police officers in 1981, the year Mumia was arrested. "In May 1981 a drug dealer ripped off the car of an off-duty police officer, shot him in the head and went joy riding. If anyone deserved the death penalty for premeditated murder, this one did, but he had a competent attorney. That officer was Black - that's why you don't hear about it. "

They have fought to keep Mumia from having a fair trial, an impartial jury," Washington concluded. "The jury has never heard the evidence because the prosecutor suppressed the evidence.

"Other speakers included Ramona Africa, survivor of the May 13, 1985, State Police fire bombing of a house belonging to the MOVE organization; Harold Wilson, the 123rd death row resident to be exonerated; and attorney/activist Lynne Stewart, who described the upcoming appeal as "Mumia's last, best shot." Stewart noted that Mumia's chances before the U.S. Supreme Court, given last week's abortion ruling, would be nil. "As a lawyer I know that what happens outside the courtroom is as important as what happens inside. Because Mumia was an outspoken critic of the corrupt Philadelphia police department, when they got him near a murder, boy their cups overflowed.

"Let's get him a new trial, but let's never forget that Mumia is innocent," she concluded.

Sundiata Sadiq, leader of the Ossining, N.Y., NAACP, noted that Philadelphia area radio host Michael Smerconish is scheduled to be simulcast on MSNBC in place of Don Imus. Smerconish served as a lawyer and fund raiser for the FOP and has been a leader in its public campaigns against Abu-Jamal.

Appeals to be heard May 17

Michael Coard, a Philadelphia-based attorney for the case, reviewed key pieces of evidence that point to Abu-Jamal's innocence: inconclusive ballistics tests; Abu-Jamal's weapon was a 38-caliber gun but a 44-caliber bullet was found in Faulkner [Note by M.S.: Unfortunately, I must object to this, since it is almost certainly false. I don't know what exactly Michael Coard said, but the fact is that even though the Medical Examiner at the time concluded this was a .44 bullet, in fact, it could not have been one; it was later, and apparently more accurately, measured as 0.40, yielding the conclusion that it was probably originally a .38 that mushroomed upon impact. All the same, the bullet that killed Faulkner could never be traced toMumia's gun, with the prosecution expert at the trial explicitly conceding that it could have come out of any of "multiple millions of guns" in circulation in the U.S. The other points mentioned here are right on target, though.]; claims by the police that Abu-Jamal confessed right after the shooting were made months later and contradicted statements from witnesses that he never said anything; and the state's failure to provide evidence of a paraffin test. "Police and the district attorney claimed they did not do this test," Coard said. "They did it, but it came back negative. That's why they never introduced it as evidence."

Coard also reviewed key issues to be raised in the May 17 appeal regarding prosecutorial misconduct and racism in the case. One involves the use of peremptory challenges in jury selection. Coard explained that while both the defense and prosecution are allowed to challenge 15 prospective jury members without explanation, race cannot be a factor. However, in Abu-Jamal's case 11 of the prosecution's 15 challenges were used to get rid of Black jurists.

Another issue is the legality of the prosecutor's instructions to the jury minimizing the seriousness of a guilty verdict by stating that Abu-Jamal would have "appeal after appeal." The Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled against this same prosecutor in a similar case in 1986. A third appeal concerns racist statements made by Judge Albert Sabo during hearings after Abu-Jamal's conviction.

The meeting concluded with a standing ovation and a round of applause for the AFSC's Third World Coalition members, whose courageous stand against police terror made this meeting possible.

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Interview with Linn Washington, Paris, place Denfert Rochereau, February 2, 2007

MS: Hi Linn, I have at least three questions here in that Café in beautiful Paris right at the place Denfert Rochereau. You were a speaker at the panel yesterday on Mumia Abu-Jamal at the 3rd World Congress Against the Death Penalty.

Yesterday, you told me you are working on a book that's putting together all the stuff you wrote on Mumia in the course of the last 25 years. But on the panel, you also said that you've known him for 34 years. That would be my first question: What can you tell me ; well obviously not everything in the space of three or four minutes, but all the same - what can you tell me about when exactly did you get to know him, Mumia, and what are some of the things you actually did together?

LW: I first met Mumia when I was a student at Temple University, and Mumia worked at the university's radio station, which is WRTI/FM. It was a very progressive, all-jazz station with a very progressive community format at the time. And as it turned out, we had several common interests like politics, black empowerment and utilizing the media to improve information to and information about black people.

MS: At the time, Mumia must have just come back from college in Vermont, right?

LW: Yes, probably so. This would have been 1972, '73; I was a DJ, I was a jazz DJ on WRTI, and I was also doing some news casts at the station.

MS: Are you still doing this from time to time?

LW: No, not DJ-ing, but I'm still with jazz, I still love it.

As for Mumia, he was doing a community talk show program. But it was primarily news-based - things were different then; people were more news-orientated in terms of their radio presentations. Now, most talk radio is just chit-chat, yelling and shouting at each other, but back then it was more substantive. So that's how I met him.

At first, he was very quiet, kind of withdrawn, and the distinction with regard to that is that everybody else at WRTI, all the other on-air personalities, were very flamboyant. They were self-promoting type of people. Mumia was a very stark contrast to that: quiet, very humble, and very progressive. So it wasn't like he was trying to build himself up as a personality like most of the other on-air personnel.

MS: What do you mean by progressive?

LW: What I mean by progressive is that he had a political orientation; he cared about the community, he was into Black Power in a real sense, not just the rhetorical one; because Black Power was the tenor of the times among most young blacks although some were more sincere than others in their commitment to Black Power. We started talking just being friends, it wasn't that all of a sudden or automatically that we were instant buddies, but we just started slowly to develop a friendship.

He continued with what he was doing at the WRTI and then he started going to other stations, I was seeing him from time to time, and it was pretty much a hi-and-bye sort of situation because at that point I would say we were pretty much professional acquaintances.

Around '76, '77, at this point I'm reporting for the Philadelphia Tribune, I'm a bona fide newspaper reporter and photojournalist, and Mumia is now a bona fide radio reporter. So we would begin seeing each other on news assignments and one of the vulgarities about news reporting is that there is a lot of down time. You go to cover an event, it's supposed to start at nine o'clock but it really doesn't start until ten, so, as a consequence of that, we ended up talking a lot, and that's when our personal friendship began to develop.

So that's how I met him. And watching him work, I got a tremendous appreciation for his professionalism and his attentiveness to the craft; because I started in the news business from many different sides, from photo journalism, from radio, from audio, and my college training was video, television directing specifically. I kind of had an affinity for what other people did, and I looked at what they did, so from that vantage, one of the things that really impressed me about Mumia was the fact that he was really into sound.

I often give the following example, which would probably have been in 1977 or 1978. I saw him at the scene of a police brutality incident. The police came and shot and killed some guy, who actually was breaking up a fight. This is showing the type of racism that was going on. This guy was a Black Muslim; he was a street vendor outside of a bar, there was a fight, he interceded; this vendor and his Muslim partner broke up the fight, and when the police came and responded to the fight, the fight was over, but they saw these Black Muslims, and they started hassling them. And of course they were not going to back down, they didn't do anything wrong, and this guy ended up getting murdered by the police, shot in the stomach while his hands were cuffed behind his back! Police claimed the guy, Winston Hood, tried to grab a cops gun but his hands were cuffed and witnesses said he was not resisting.

And of course, typical of Philadelphia, nobody was ever indicted or prosecuted. In fact, the guy who was with Hood was actually arrested and charged with attacking the police and ended up staying in jail for two weeks before he was released. But while in the aftermath of this I came to the scene, to do a follow-up story, Mumia was there, and I saw him with his microphone just pointing up in the air, even though he had already finished his interviewing work. I walked up to him and I said, Hey, man, what are you doing? I mean, there is nobody here you're interviewing; why do you have your microphone on? He said, Listen man, I'm just trying to get some sound. I need to have the sound of the scene. You know, you could write about it, you can take pictures of it, but I have to have sound! I just said to myself, man, this guy is really into it!

So that's how I knew him, and then '76 became '77, '77 became '78, '78 became '79, and at that point, we were really close, we were friends; we would see each other a lot and we had very extensive conversations about politics and life and women and, you know, certain other things we liked to do together. And one of the things, and I have to make this distinction now in my response to this question: a lot is said about Mumia being a Black Panther, and of course at his trial that was bootstrapped to make a motive for killing the officer.

MS: Yes, it was highlighted by prosecutor McGill.

LW: Mumia and I had extensive conversations over a five-year period and he never once, never once, mentioned his membership in the Black Panther Party. And we were talking about topics where that would have been germane, and his BPP membership didn't even enter into the conversations in a substantive sort of way. He wasn't boasting about his membership or even pushing the historic importance of the Party.

Now in the aftermath after his arrest, there were all these articles about he was a Black Panther and how he cultivated that philosophy and ideology and everything, and those news accounts weren't accurate to the Mumia I knew.

MS: Did you and did he cover the big MOVE trial?

LW: He covered the MOVE trial. And by that time, he was pretty much enamored with MOVE, very close to them, and he had really crossed the line from just being a traditional journalist, traditional in the sense of arms-length reporting.

MS: Is it true that he sold the organizations newspaper?

LW: Let me put it like this: I never saw him do it, but I wouldn't doubt it. MOVE had a column in the Philadelphia Tribune for a number of years, but then the column was canceled.

So that's when they started to produce their own publication. It was quite similar to the publications that you see now being handed out by the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal. So, yeah, I could imagine him passing that out, while covering the trial.

But an important part of his coverage of the trial is that he saw the injustices committed there. If you think his trial was a farce, that trial was a farce with a bucket full of absurdities added. So that had a really profound effect on him. But even more profound in terms of the starkness of the injustice was the trial for the police officers who were caught on news film beating Delbert Africa, after the August 8, 1978 shootout, and that was a trial that took place in 1981, where they brought a special jury from outside the city to ensure fairness to these officers. And after the defense presented its case, after the prosecution presented its case

MS: A jury from the super-suburbs, but finally, it was the judge who took the decision, wasn't it?

LW: Yes, the judge filed a 'Not Guilty,' and he issued what was called a directed verdict of acquittal, and that's a mechanism in the law where the defense attorney can say, listen, the prosecution has not made its case, it has not proven that my client is guilty. The judge then has the power to say yes or no. Here, the judge issued a directed verdict of acquittal that caught both prosecution and defense by surprise, since usually a directed verdict of acquittal follows a request from the defense ' what made this one highly unusual is that the defense didn't ask for it, and of course the prosecution didn't ask for it! Rarely does a judge inject themselves that way into a trial.

MS: It was just like the judge was somehow struck by lightning from heaven.

LW: In that connection it is certainly nice to know that that particular judge was a political ally of the now ex-mayor of the Philadelphia, Frank Rizzo. So when Rizzo was elected in the early seventies, a lot of people ran on his ticket. Because he was so popular, anybody who ran with him at the time was all but guaranteed his election. I think that's how Sabo got into his judgeship! So here we actually have somebody who like ' Sabo was not bright, OK. Mumia writes that he was crafty, but he wasn't intellectually brilliant. That was not his reputation in the legal community. Judges are supposed to be smart' well, they're supposed to be well versed in the law and I say: supposed to be...

MS: He was just a bully.

LW: He was a bully and he was a dummy. And that's one of the things that I think were really unusual about his opinion that was issued right after Mumia's 1995 appeals hearing. After an appeals hearing that stretched out for weeks, he issued a hundred-and-fifty-three-page opinion within four days. So what he did in fact was take what the D.A. offered: The prosecution says we think the opinion should go this way, and the defense says, we think the opinion should go this way

MS: Had he had it in a computer, he would just have copied and pasted it...

LW: Well, in effect that's what it was. It was copied and pasted from the prosecutions submission and Sabo's copying of the prosecutions version even included substantive factual errors, some of which the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had to correct in footnotes in their 1998 opinion.

So the judge in the Delbert Africa beating trial was an ally of Rizzo. From there, it was not surprising that he would well, it's not surprising that he would acquit them, because that was just the modus operandi at the time the M.O. was to do all that was necessary to keep brutal police out of jail for their crimes.

MS: Let's now hop on to the post-1981 period. What were some of your earlier articles on the whole case? Of course you were also at the scene a couple of hours after the incident.

LW: Well, it is accurate for me to say that I covered the Mumia case from the day of his arrest. But I really didn't start writing a lot about the case until the early nineties. Now, when this incident happened I was covering City Council for the Philadelphia Daily News. I was assigned to the Daily News City Hall bureau.

MS: Did you cover the trial?

LW: No, I didn't cover the trial, for two reasons. Number one, I was assigned to cover City Council, so that was my beat, I wasn't covering courts. Two, from an ethical perspective, because I knew him, it would not have been ethically appropriate to cover the trial. And, number three, I wasn't a favorite in the news room, so the big stories got assigned to the favorite reporters. And number four, not quite mitigating number three, was the fact that I was the head of the black employees organization at the paper, and so, from '82 to about '86, I was pushed further and further and further to the periphery of the news room, as retaliation for my role in urging management to hire more minorities and give better coverage to the minority communities. So I didn't have the opportunity to write.

MS: So you were kind of a union guy?

LW: Not really a union guy; I was a member of the union, and I participated in union activities, but we, the few black employees, and the one Puerto Rican that was there, we had our own group, and we ended up fighting not only management but the union, because the union was racist. So I got the double wham.

MS: You mean that was in the sense of a pressure group for certain minorities.

LW: Not only certain ones. Our group was called the Third World Caucus; we were going to call it the Black Caucus, but the one Hispanic guy said, listen, I'd go along with this, but I'm Puerto Rican, and I'm proud of it, so I can't go with 'Black' I wouldn't mind being black, but I'm Puerto Rican. This guy is Juan Gonzales.

MS: who is now with Democracy Now!, so you had wonderful company! What papers were you writing for at the time, in the eighties?

LW: In the eighties, I was writing for the Philadelphia Daily News; I worked for the Philadelphia Daily News from '79 to '89. I also did freelance writing for other publications around the country.

MS: Do you see a change in the outlook of the Daily News from the time back then to today?

LW: No, the paper has made moves, has made changes, but in terms of the substance of the coverage, it was more style than substance, it never was the 'paper of record,' meaning that there are some papers that have a higher rated perception. You know, the Inquirer is perceived as the 'paper of record.' That's the official paper for Philadelphia. And the Daily News is just that crazy paper that's out there, and it's still that crazy paper that's out there.

MS: Does that also mean that the Daily News from time to time is more open than the 'Inky'?

LW: Well, it is more open, and it has a more liberal bent, in a conservative way. If we could put it on a political spectrum, the Daily News is about 25 degrees left of center, whereas the Inquirer varies from 5 to 2 degrees left of center to 30 degrees to the right. The Daily News, though, despite it being a recurring target of charges of racism, and despite my personal problems for about a two-to-four-year period with the Daily News management they were always open and receptive to all of the enterprising and suggestions I came to them with. I was one of the most productive reporters in the paper. On average, I was in the paper five days out of their six-day publishing schedule, and 95 percent of the stories that I had in the paper were stories that I brought to them.

You know, because I wasn't a favored guy, I never got assigned to do a lot of stuff. I thus had to come up with my own things. But that's what I do! So not being given 'assignments' by editors was really no big deal. So the only coverage that I was actually involved in for the Daily News regarding the Mumia case was the articles in the first two days after his arrest, and after that, I dropped out. I monitored it and followed everything, and as things went on, I just became that consumed with the case. So I was reading all the legal pleadings, you know, from the defense and the prosecution, and was aware of this all.

After I came back from law school and I had a deeper understanding of the law, then I started writing more about the case, primarily from a legal perspective.

MS: That was in the early nineties then?

LW: I was in law school from '88 to '89, so from '89 on out, that's when I really started writing about the Mumia case, both under my byline, Linn Washington, and other pen names, because at one point, I was writing about the Mumia case, when I was working for the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court! So of course I couldn't say, Linn Washington! So I had a lot of pen names, like Cindy Smith -

MS: Like Mumia had.

LW: Yes, he had his air names and once when I was visiting Mumia and we were talking, right when we were breaking up, he looked over at me and said: 'Hey, say hi to Cindy for me! And we both started chuckling! Well, he's smart, and he knows my style of writing, and he knows that I'm the only one who would know the type of minutiae about his case Mumia would apply the law to.

MS: When I write to him, I should say, hello William Wellington Cole.

LW: Well, do that, and tell him again about Cindy Smith.

MS: And my third question now would be, now you're investigating what happened in 1981 with the murder of other police officers. The treatment, as you told me yesterday, is quite differential from what happened with Mumia, both in terms of the media and in terms of the courts.

LW: In preparing to come to Paris and deliver remarks, and especially write a more academic examination, I started some more investigation, and I discovered that three police officers were shot and killed in 1981. The thing that I find very intriguing is the media treatment of it.

The second of the two police officers other than Faulkner that were shot and killed - one was on duty, one was off duty, the off duty shooting, was a horrific murder where the police officer was shot and killed by a drug dealer who was intent on stealing his car. The first police officer that was killed was a sniper attack. Both of those police officers were black. Both of the suspected assailants in these incidents were black. The news coverage on these incidents lasted one day. One day. There were two arrests in those killings but there wasn't extensive news coverage like when a white officer is slain.

MS: What was the background to the sniper attack?

LW: The police officer was patrolling a housing project. This officer and his partner had just spent time taking care of a domestic incident, a husband and wife argument, they're sitting in their patrol car, a bullet comes into the patrol car, blows the police officer's head off. Two days later, they arrest an eighteen-year-old, who lived in the housing project. According to the news accounts, he confessed, they put him on trial the following a year, but a jury acquits him!

So this notion that police and prosecutors and public officials in Philadelphia always propagate that evidence of guilt is overwhelming, that the crime is an open and shut case, you know, we have a confession so its open and shut, well there are problems with that!

So the sniper shooting led to an acquittal, and no one else was ever arrested. And I don't think there was any further investigation. The FOP, the police union, doesn't jump up and down about it or anything, they do have this man's picture on their website but there isn't and there wasn't a big public ruckus to find this officer's killer.

MS: I go to this web site from time to time, but I never heard about the case...

LW: By now, the have a listing of all the police officers that were shot in the line of duty, including police officers that were killed in car accidents while on duty.

MS: Yes, but these two cases must have been added quite recently, because I know the website on all the fallen officers and all that.

LW: But the one who was killed in the sniper attack is on the website. And they probably put it up just before you looked it up, so you didn't see it, they probably just put it up. The police officer who was murdered by the drug dealer is not on the website, because his murder was officially considered off duty. That particular person was arrested, tried, convicted but sentenced to life in prison!

Now, the legal distinction here is that this drug dealer planned to kill this police officer for at least a week, including contacting confederates, trying to elicit support of his confederates, his friends, to get him a gun, and then also to help him pull off the murder, and one of them actually was involved in helping him to dispose of the body! So if there was ever a clear case of premeditation, which should justify a conviction of murder in the 1st degree, but even more importantly, the death penalty, because of the heinousness of the crime, it would have been that.

In Mumia's case, even in the worst case scenario, where we would say, he did it, it was an act, a spontaneous act, not premeditated, and one that could be possibly mitigated by the fact that he saw his brother being beaten. Now, when people make that argument, the counter-argument from the police and the prosecutors is that he was only beating him with his flashlight, so how did that justify Mumia's shooting him?

The context is the core the context of the times and the levels of police brutality historically in Philadelphia.

We have Philadelphia where two years before the shooting of Faulkner, the federal government came in and sued all these top city officials, 21 top city officials including the mayor, for aiding and abetting police brutality. In the 1970s, Philadelphia police shot and killed more citizens than the police in New York City, and New York City was six times larger than Philadelphia in terms of population at the time.

Ironically, two weeks ago, what was the front page article on the Sunday Philadelphia Inquirer: Philadelphia police shoot and kill more people than police in New York City.

MS: So some things never seem to change.

LW: Some things never change, or patterns just keep recurring.

MS: So keep me posted about the book since I might try to find some German publisher.

LW: Once I'm back home, I'm going to start working on it; I'll send you a proposal!

Interviewer: Michael Schiffmann

Interview with Piers Bannister, Paris, Opera Bastille, February 3, 2007

MS: This is for a brochure we are going to make about the World Congress, which should appear soon.

I'm talking to Piers Bannister from Amnesty International, and maybe, Piers, you just introduce yourself in terms of what you've been doing for Amnesty, and what you are doing now.

PB: My role in Amnesty is and has been to provide a global overview of the death penalty, and thus I have a little knowledge about a lot of countries. But I also have knowledge about global trends in executions and knowledge of various legal systems, as well as knowledge about the United Nations and various other human rights apparatuses, and Amnesty's campaign against the death penalty.

MS: Well, I understand that the day before yesterday, you also gave a summary of what's transpiring at the World Congress Against the Death Penalty. Could you give a short overview over what was the focus of these three days which are now ending with a demonstration in Paris against the death penalty?

PB: I think what we have achieved at the World Congress is to remind ourselves of several things: that the death penalty is a failure of justice; that it is administered in a discriminatory and unsatisfactory way; by that, I mean by grossly unfair trials, of which, sadly, there are many examples in the United States. We have also heard of others in Uganda, in Singapore etcetera, where the death penalty is also administered in violation of international standards regarding fair trials. We've reminded ourselves of the successes and the fact that many countries have abolished the death penalty and that many are on the verge of abolition.

And we've swapped information and unified our struggle, which I think is very important. Death penalty work can often be lonely in many countries; you can sometimes be a sole voice. Reminding ourselves that we are part and parcel of a global movement to see and end of capital punishment is an important message to send to the outside world and ourselves.

MS: Yes, and there is also something coming up at the United Nations, and I think in your speech you stressed the importance of that.

PB: We, the Italian government, and other governments are keen to see the United Nations General Assembly pass a resolution that says, we are calling for a moratorium on executions worldwide. If that is achieved, I thing it will be a major intermediate goal in achieving the end of capital punishment. It isn't the sole answer, but it will be a milestone, it will be a significant stepping stone in achieving our aims.

MS: And there is also a flip side, I understand: A defeat would be also a big defeat.

PB: A defeat would also set us back. There are many nations, Singapore, Indonesia, Egypt, who say that there is no world consensus on the death penalty: it's not a violation of international human rights standards, and it is acceptable for sovereign states to carry it out. If we loose at the United Nations, we embolden those that make those arguments, we give them confidence. So a loss is not a free loss; it will hurt our movement. We have to make sure we win it, we have to be strategic to make sure we do it at the right time.

MS: When will the decision at the United Nations be taken?

PB: Well, that's up to the member states. Here, it is important to remember that the abolitionist movement isn't a member of the United Nations. That body is controlled by the world's governments. And so we have only the influence of campaigning. It will be up to the Italians, the European Union, the African countries that are behind this initiative, to decide when it is brought forward.

MS: Yes, and of course the population in these states, respectively. Let's now talk about something you've been involved in as an author. You are the author of the February 2000 Amnesty report on Mumia Abu-Jamal, A Life in the Balance. Can you talk a bit about how it came that you wrote that report, and what did you do in the process of writing it?

PB: At that point I was responsible for Amnesty International's research on the death penalty in the United States, and I decided that Mumia Abu-Jamal's case was one of the key cases in the U.S. that was worthy of examination as an illustration of all that is wrong with the system.

I read the entire trial transcript, I read many of the briefs put in by the defense and the prosecution, and it's very important to listen to what the prosecution had to say. And then I did an analysis using international law about whether that trial was fair, and I found that it was fundamentally unfair and failed to meet international standards governing and pertaining to the administration of capital punishment.

MS: Yes. Why in particular do you think that trial was unfair?

PB: Well, the report is more than 30 pages long, and I can give you just some highlights. I think that one of the most shocking thinks, one of the things that spoke to me very soon in the trial about the bias of the judge, was the removal of Mumia Abu-Jamal from his right to legally represent himself. The judge said things such as that he was intimidating the jurors, that he was taking too long to question them. In the trial transcript, there is absolutely no evidence to support that. His language is polite, it is appropriate for a courtroom, he asks pertinent questions, there is no indication that it is taking too long, and no point where the judge is asking him to hurry up as far as I can remember.

So that was the first thing that showed me bias. I was shocked by his defense lawyer's, who was appointed to him, lack of ability to cross-examine adequately witnesses. He would get up, he would ask a few questions that I didn't really feel advanced the case of the defense, and then would sit down, and I was left wondering as I read the trial transcript what strategy did this lawyer have to save the client and prove the innocence of his client? There seemed to be nothing in place.

MS: There was also, I understand, a rift between the lawyer and his client, a rift that was basically generated by the court and the prosecution.

PB: I can't really speak to that because my memory has faded a bit. I did this eight years ago now, so detailed questions like this are hard for me to answer without looking at the report. For that you would have to turn to that report itself.

MS: So let me just wind up by asking you: Have you been following up the issue since February 2000, and can you comment on the present state of the case?

PB: Yes, it's one of the cases I invested my time in, and there are several key cases around the world, the case of the Grenada 17 and Abu-Jamal's case and several others that I continue to monitor, as is the case of the state of the death penalty in those countries. My understanding is that he now has the chance of getting an adequate hearing to examine the troubling issues in that case. Amnesty's position has always been crystal-clear: We believe that the original trial is so fundamentally flawed so as to be an inadequate fact-finding mechanism.

So we take no position on his guilt or innocence, but we can say that that original trial is not sufficient to establish his guilt. Therefore, the answer to that is a new trial. So we will continue calling for a new trial, and we hope that the judicial system of the United States grants him a new trial at its earliest possible convenience.

MS: There is a hearing for Mumia Abu-Jamal coming up now, and maybe the hearing will result in Abu-Jamal being given a new trial. Will Amnesty be monitoring the hearing, and will it be monitoring the trial?

PB: For both the hearing and trial, of course it will!

MS: Thanks a lot, Piers.

PB: You're welcome.

A Preliminary (May 5, 2007) Analysis by Michael Schiffmann