Mumia NYC: Die Ermordung Frances Newton’s signalisiert Gefahren für Mumia Abu-Jamal!

– 11. November 2005Eingestellt unter: Infos über Mumia und die Solibewegung von 1999 bis 7. Dezember 2011
Von: „Steve Bloom“ < …………………..>
Betreff: FW: [MumiaNYC] LEGAL UPDATE ON THE CASE OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Datum: Samstag, 12. November 2005
 
—–Original Message—–
From: MumiaNYC@yahoogroups.com
 On Behalf Of mumianyc
Sent: Friday, November 11, 2005 5:37 PM
Subject: [MumiaNYC] LEGAL UPDATE ON THE CASE OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
 
Sisters and Brothers,
 
We have been meaning to get this out to you so that you can have a
picture of where the legal case stands now. We urge you to call Judge
Massiah-Jackson ASAP as she still has the power to reject Judge Dembe’s
rulings, and that would be great news!
 
Phone: (215) 686-2523
 
Fax: (215) 567 7328
   
The recent killing of Frances Newton is a reminder that the death
penalty is still intact and with the appointment of a pro-death penalty
Chief Justice of the Supreme Court a major threat to Mumia.
 
In February of this year the Pennsylvania state courts continued their
refusal to consider any evidence of Mumia’s innocence, or the extensive
documentation of police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct
regarding what happened on December 9 th 1981. Court of Common Pleas
Judge Pamela Pryor Dembe ruled against hearing affidavits by Yvette
Williams and Kenneth Pate. Williams had sworn that star prosecution
witness Cynthia White had told her she had lied at Mumia’s trial. Pate
had sworn that his sister-in-law, Priscilla Durham, a hospital security
guard, had told him that she also had lied at Mumia’s trial when she
corroborated the cops‘ two-months-delayed story about Mumia confessing
while lying on the hospital floor.
 
Dembe had previously excluded the affidavit of Terri Maurer-Carter from
the legal record. Maurer-Carter, a long-time court reporter, had sworn
that she had overheard trial judge Albert Sabo vow outside the courtroom
that he was going to help the prosecution `fry the nigger‘. Dembe ruled
that even if true, she found no evidence that such a sentiment had
affected Sabo’s trial rulings! Significantly, the sworn confession of
Arnold Beverly that it was he, and NOT Mumia, who had killed Officer
Faulkner, along with several other affidavits including a former FBI
agent who supported Beverly’s version of what was behind this killing,
were also excluded from the record. Besides Sabo’s alleged stated
determination to convict and execute Mumia, referring to him as a
„nigger“, he still holds the dubious distinction of having sentenced
more people to death than any other judge in modern times, and of those
31 only two were of European ancestry. Though Sabo died four years ago,
it is his extremely unfair and racist record, severely criticized by
Amnesty International and dozens of legal bodies in this country and
around the world that has been rubberstamped by Judge Dembe.
 
Almost simultaneously with Dembe’s last denial of a hearing, some major
death penalty decisions in other courts provided hope as important
precedents and decisions that were potentially applicable to Mumia’s
case came down. The hopes in Mumia’s situation had been based on three
cases. Two involved Thomas Miller-El, who was sentenced to death for a
1985 murder in Texas . The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in these cases that:
(1) Miller-El’s constitutional rights had been violated when prosecutors
used peremptory challenges to strike 10 of 11 prospective Black jurors;
(2) that the courts–the federal Fifth Circuit in particular–have
unreasonably interpreted the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty
Act (AEDPA) of 1996 to make it virtually impossible for a death row
prisoner to pursue an appeal in the federal courts.
 
Both of Miller-El’s cases apply directly to Mumia’s, in which the
District Attorney’s office used peremptory challenges to eliminate 11 of
14 prospective Black jurors in a city which at that time was 40% Black.
Moreover, the federal judge who considered Mumia’s habeas corpus appeal
threw out 28 of 29 constitutional claims based on the now-discredited
interpretations of the AEDPA. In the third case, House v. Bell, the
Supreme Court agreed in June to reconsider its almost impossibly high
standard for reopening death penalty cases based on claims of innocence.
This was a major challenge to the Herrera decision which ruled out
innocence as a justification for a new trial in cases where due process
was supposedly adhered to. Only last week, in the Senate’s hearings
about his nomination to become Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, John
Roberts, supported the Herrera decision as being a reasonable one. The
decision also challenged the AEDPA which has been the law of the land on
the limited right to appeal death penalty cases. There seemed to be a
real opening for the possibility of a new trial for Mumia based on these
decisions alone.
 
But now with the recent, court-approved legal lynching of Frances Newton
by the state of Texas a flood of ice-water has dashed these hopes, once
again swinging the pendulum in the other direction. Despite compelling
new evidence pointing to her innocence, despite appeals by a former U.S.
Attorney General, the current president of the American Bar Association,
the Texas Publishers Association and the principal newspaper in the
state capital, among others, no court deemed it necessary to stay her
execution.
 
For us the lesson should be clear: it doesn’t matter to the authorities
what the truth is–they killed Frances Newton to assert their supposed
right to execute whomever they want and, by extension, to terrorize all
of us into accepting their control. Yet the truth is that they are far
more vulnerable than they seem, and far less powerful too. Their
catastrophic failures in both Gulfs have revealed their callousness,
racism, and incompetence to millions around the world and in this
country. Similarly, their inability for 23 years to execute Mumia,
despite their absolute commitment to doing so and their repeated
statements that they would succeed, all reveal that, in the end, they
cannot ignore the will of the people. We refuse to accept this
government’s attempt to discourage, frighten, and intimidate us. We must
watch every move they make in the courts, take advantage of every window
of opportunity and, at the same time, build a movement still stronger .
to fight the US occupations, the injustice, AND TO FREE MUMIA AND ALL
OUR POLITICAL PRISONERS!
 
Written by the Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition (NYC), October 2005
 
JOIN THE STRUGGLE TO FREE MUMIA AND ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!
 
NEW YORK FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL COALITION
(212) 330-8029 (Hotline)
Website: www.freemumia.com
 
 
INTERNATIONAL CONCERNED FAMILY AND FRIENDS OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
(215) 476-8812
Website: www.mumia.org
  
To make much needed contributions, please call these numbers or check
the websites.
  
Call Judge Frederica A. Massiah-Jackson, Pamela Dembe’s supervisor, to
let her know you are outraged by Judge Dembe’s decisions.
 
(215) 686-2523
 
OR FAX HER:
(215) 567 7328
  
 
–Mumia is Innocent! Stop the Frame Up! Free Mumia!–
 
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC, P.O. Box 16, College Station, NY,
NY 10030 212-330-8029, www.FreeMumia.com info@FreeMumia.com
 
YC, P.O. Box 16, College Station, NY, NY 10030
212-330-8029, www.FreeMumia.com , info@FreeMumia.com