- Von: „MUMIA ABU-JAMAL“ <>
Betreff: !*State Supreme Court
Rejects Mumia Abu-Jamal
- Datum: Mittwoch, 20. Februar 2008 20:41
- From Hans Bennett/Sis. Fatirah
- ======================
- This is NOT the decision from the 3rd
Circuit Court. It is a separate appeal
with the State Supreme Court.
- http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5i…Wha9gD8UTLLAG0
- < http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iu7PTDiKqmVlPwnGH1mYVrTWha9gD8UTLLAG0 >
- Mumia Abu-Jamal Loses Bid for Hearing
- HARRISBURG, Pa.
- (AP) — Pennsylvania’s
- highest appeals court has rejected a request by convicted killer Mumia
- Abu-Jamal (moo-MEE‘-ah AH‘-boo jah-MAHL‘) for a hearing into his claims that
- witnesses in his case perjured themselves.
- The state Supreme Court on Tuesday issued a unanimous ruling saying the
- former Black Panther and radio reporter waited too long to file a
- post-conviction appeal in the matter.
- Abu-Jamal was convicted of shooting to death Philadelphia Police Officer
- Daniel Faulkner in 1981. A federal judge in 2001 overturned Abu-Jamal’s
- death sentence but upheld his conviction.
- His case has attracted international notoriety. A separate appeal in the
- case, regarding claims of racial bias and faulty jury instructions, is
- pending before the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
- —FROM: Associated Press, Tues, Feb. 19
- For background on this appeal, see these 2 previous articles from
- Betsy Piette: http://www.workers.org/2007/us/mumia-appeal-0719/
- Michael Schiffmann: http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=8603
- ==============
- http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=6184
- PA Supreme Court rejects Mumia Abu-Jamal’s PCRA appeal
- –Critics say the ruling is unjust
- By Hans Bennett (Abu-Jamal-News.com)
- On Tuesday, February 19, in a ruling unrelated to the pending US Third
- Circuit Court decision <http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/temp/May17Audio.html>,
- The Pennsylvania Supreme Court rejected death row journalist Mumia
- Abu-Jamal’s appeal of a 2005 ruling by Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas
- Judge Pamela Dembe, which denied Abu-Jamal’s Post Conviction Relief Act
- (PCRA) petition, on grounds that it was not „timely.“ (See reports by
- The Associated
- Press< http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iu7PTDiKqmVlPwnGH1mYVrTWha9gD8UTLLAG0 >and
- Philadelphia
- Inquirer< http://www.philly.com/inquirer/local/pa/20080220_Pa__court_rebuffs_Abu-Jamal_on_bid_for_perjury_hearing.html >
- )
- This recent PCRA petition was based on
- affidavits< http://phillyimc.org/en/2008/02/44668.shtml >by two
- witnesses that did not testify at the original 1982 trial: Yvette
- Williams and Kenneth Pate. Yvette Williams states that key prosecution
- witness Cynthia White told her that she had been coerced by police into
- giving false testimony against Abu-Jamal. Defense witnesses Veronica Jones
- and Pamela Jenkins have given similar accounts of Cynthia White’s coerced
- testimony against Abu-Jamal. As *Amnesty International* has documented,
- White’s alleged eye-witness account was altered, as each subsequent account
- given to police further served to support the prosecution scenario used to
- convict Abu-Jamal. Kenneth Pate says that prosecution witness Priscilla
- Durham confided to him that she had also lied in court when she stated that
- she’s heard Abu-Jamal confess at the hospital. Even before Pate’s affidavit,
- Durham’s account was very suspicious.
- The alleged „hospital confession,“ where Abu-Jamal reportedly declared, „I
- shot the motherf***er and I hope the motherf***er dies,“ was first
- officially reported to police over two months later, by hospital guards
- Priscilla Durham and James LeGrand (Feb. 9, 1982), P.O. Gary Wakshul
- (Feb.11),
- P.O. Gary Bell (Feb.25), and P.O. Thomas M. Bray (March 1). Only 2 of these
- five witnesses were called by the DA: Gary Bell (Faulkner’s partner and
- „best friend“) and Priscilla Durham.
- At trial, Gary Bell testified that the 2 month lapse resulted from him being
- so upset over the death of Faulkner. Priscilla Durham testified, and added
- for the first time, that she had reported the confession to her supervisor
- the next day. Neither her supervisor, nor the alleged handwritten statement
- were presented in court. The DA sent an officer to the hospital, returning
- with a suspicious typed version. Sabo accepted the paper (not signed)
- despite both Durham’s disavowal, and the defense’s protest that authorship
- and authenticity were unproven.
- For more on Kenneth Pate and Yvette Williams, please see German author
- Michael Schiffmann’s 2005 analysis
- < http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=8603 > of Judge Pamela
- Dembe’s ruling.
- RESPONSES TO THE COURT’S DECISION Immediately following Tuesday’s news, I
- asked several people to respond to the court’s decision: Pam Africa, Robert
- R. Bryan, Dave Lindorff, Michael Schiffmann, and Linn Washington Jr.
- *PAM AFRICA
- **—Coordinator of The International Concerned Family and Friends of
- Mumia Abu-Jamal*
- I am not shocked by this decision. The PA Supreme Court has never ruled
- fairly in Mumia’s case, especially with former Philadelphia DA Ron
- Castille’s participation.
- This should wake people up to see the injustice in Mumia’s case. Why can
- the media report so quickly on this decision, but not report on the newly
- discovered crime scene photos? These photos are serious evidence, but the
- media has ignored them.
- The media and courts are complicit in the railroading of Mumia.
- I urge readers to please help fight the media bias by going to
- Abu-Jamal-News.com to see the new photo evidence, downloading the
- information, and spreading the word, at this urgent time in Mumia’s case.
- *ROBERT R. BRYAN*
- *—San Francisco, Lead Counsel for Mumia Abu-Jamal*
- Mumia and I had a long conference this afternoon, shortly after the
- Pennsylvania Supreme Court made its ruling. We were not surprised since
- that court has a history of not addressing the racism and fraud that has
- dominated the prosecution since its inception over a quarter of a century
- ago. By dismissing the appeal on procedural grounds, the court avoided
- dealing with the compelling facts establishing that the prosecution of my
- client was based upon lies, half-truths, and bigotry. It is sad that the
- state court used possible mistakes of the previous lawyers in the case as an
- excuse to dodge the truth.
- This state ruling has no bearing on the the proceedings pending in the U.S.
- Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit. If the federal decision is
- favorable, then the Pennsylvania Supreme Court judgment will be moot.
- Otherwise, I plan to seek relief in the U.S. Supreme Court. I will not rest
- until Mumia is free.
- LINN WASHINGTON JR.
- –Philadelphia Tribune Columnist, Temple University Professor of
- Journalism, and graduate of the Yale Law Journalism Fellowship Program
- This ruling is sad but not surprising. It continues the infamous
- Pennsylvania Supreme Court tradition in the Abu-Jamal case of abusing law to
- block justice. Until this Court grants a new trial to Abu-Jamal where both
- sides can fairly present evidence, any ruling it issues is legally corrupt.
- DAVE LINDORFF
- –
- Author of „Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia
- Abu-Jamal“< http://www.commoncouragepress.com/index.cfm?action=book&bookid=228 >(Common
- Courage Press, 2003)
- It comes as no surprise to hear that the Pennsylvania State Supreme Court
- has rejected yet another appeal by Mumia Abu-Jamal, the state’s
- longest-surviving death row prisoner. The court, which is led by former
- Philadelphia D.A. Ron Castille (who helped fight Abu-Jamal’s appeals in his
- role as DA and has yet to recuse himself from decisions involving this
- case), has never issued a ruling favorable to Abu-Jamal.
- That said, it is clear that the prosecution’s case was rampant with examples
- of suborned perjury, from the belated and choreographed lies by police about
- having heard a shouted out confession in the hospital–an event no nurse or
- attending physician heard, and which police at the time curiously failed to
- note in their reports on the evening’s events, to „eye-witness“ testimony
- from a taxi driver whose taxi nobody remembers seeing where he said it
- was–parked directly behind Officer Daniel Faulkner’s car. And of course
- more recently we have the newly discovered news photos showing police
- tampering with the evidence at the very scene of the crime.
- In a fair world, this case would have been tossed out long ago, but as the
- PA Supreme Court has demonstrated yet again, we do not live in a fair world.
- DR. MICHAEL SCHIFFMANN
- –-German
- Linguist at The University of Heidelberg, co-founder of Journalists for
- Mumia, and the author of „Race Against Death; Mumia Abu-Jamal: a Black
- Revolutionary in White America“
- The original decision in May/June 2005 by Court of Common Pleas Judge Pamela
- Dembe to dismiss Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 3rd PCRA petition was already a travesty
- of justice. Everything in that decision was tailored to deny Abu-Jamal
- relief. After sitting on the case for almost four years, the judge deciding
- it evidently didn’t have a clue about the most elementary facts.
- That was not necessary, though; all that was needed was to twist the law in
- such a way that Abu-Jamal wound never have a chance, regardless of what he
- presented.
- Abu-Jamal’s 3rd PCRA petition presented testimony by two witnesses that
- attacked the arguably two single-most important prosecution witnesses at the
- June/July 1982 Abu-Jamal trial, prostitute Cynthia White and hospital
- security guard Priscilla Durham. As discussed extensively in work on our
- website www.abu-jamal-news.com < http://www.abu-jamal-news.com > and
- elsewhere, not least in many, many
- defense briefs, these witnesses were highly incredible even without that new
- testimony.
- All the same, it was crucially important: New witness Yvette Williams
- testified that Cynthia White had been blackmailed into fingering Abu-Jamal
- as the murderer by death threats on the part of the police, and new witness
- Kenneth Pate testified that Durham had been peer-pressured by the police
- into falsely accusing Abu-Jamal of having boasted about having „shot the
- motherfucker“ Daniel Faulkner and hoping he would die.
- If proven in court, these two new claims in themselves would be enough to
- prove that the case against Abu-Jamal was hopelessly contaminated right from
- the start and to explode it once and for all.
- By bending even the reactionary new Clinton-era laws to expedite the
- application of the death penalty out of shape, Judge Dembe at the time
- concluded that the new evidence was not presented in a „timely“ fashion. The
- Pennsylvania Supreme Court now does the same, inventing yet other and
- different reasons why the evidence is „untimely.“
- It’s not worth going again into the „legal“ forks and angles of that new
- decision. It’s a repeat performance of the 2005 Dembe decision which I
- analyzed at the time and which got a worthy response by the defense, as we
- now see without avail. What simmers through in every line of those decisions
- is that one thing always left unsaid: „WE ARE AFRAID OF THE FACTS.“
- But those facts won’t go away, if we fight to disseminate them, to get them
- out into the public sphere, and to have them finally heard on court. That is
- the most urgent task in the weeks and months to come.
- *JOURNALISTS FOR MUMIA* RELEASES NEW VIDEO:
- „This government, using corporate media, is laying the groundwork for a murder.“
- The „Murdered by Mumia?“ press conference has just been made into a short
- video. (VIEW PARTS ONE < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gwi8VTtJAjA >
- AND TWO< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vo0YJX5AKik >
- )
- This is also available UNEDITED in two parts on Google Video
- (1/2< http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4368831604559244212 >,
- 2/2 < http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3134016139770868283 >) and in
- 11 parts on You Tube: Hans
- Bennett< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1RHikvGyaOM >,
- David A. Love < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7ZwKUIX2Jg >,
- Dave Lindorff (1/2 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWsmTF4-KzA >,
- 2/2< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kllkPM1lVwU >),
- Linn Washington, Jr. (1/2
- < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iE4LzVPCtLI >,
- 2/2< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1jVgySr6aw >),
- Pam Africa (1/2 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bKjM_EIVh0s >,
- 2/2< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSxECZ_j1AI >),
- and questions about The Polakoff Photos
- (1/2< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_V_1aQNUsok >,
- 2/2 < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Y6Mm9ZKLlY >), Media
- Bias< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FkuMhZZx0Jk >,
- and The May 17 Oral Arguments < http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3iBfYcfRiXI >.
- Our recent slideshow presentation of the Polakoff photos is now also
- available separately on You
- Tube< http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oi_tCg_QwGQ >and Google
- Video < http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1821904687596622694 >.
- Along with The SF Bay
- View< http://www.sfbayview.com/News/Main/Color_of_law_Photos_bolster_claims_of_Mumia_s_innocence_and_unfair_trial.html >,
- the photos have now been spotlighted by
- Reuters< http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0454988720071204 >,
- NBC’s Today Show
- < http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=5100 >, National
- Public Radio < http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=5165 >,
- Indymedia.org < http://www.indymedia.org/en/2007/12/897904.shtml >,
- Counterpunch < http://www.counterpunch.org/washington12082007.html >, The
- Philadelphia Tribune < http://phillyimc.org/en/2007/12/43698.shtml >, The
- Black
- Commentator< http://www.blackcommentator.com/256/256_cover_color_of_law_mumia.html >,
- Dissident
- Voice< http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2007/12/nbcs-today-show-spotlights-new-mumia-abu-jamal-crime-scene-photos >,
- Media
- Channel< http://www.mediachannel.org/wordpress/2007/12/07/media-bias-in-the-case-of-mumia-abu-jamal /> ,
- Workers World < http://www.workers.org/2007/us/mumia-1220/ >, and The
- Philadelphia Weekly < http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/articles/16027 >.
- —For more information, please visit the new Journalists for Mumia
- Abu-Jamal website: * http://Abu-Jamal-News.com
- Also visit: FreeMumia.com < http://freemumia.com/ > (NYC Coalition to Free
- Mumia), FreeMumia.org < http://freemumia.org/ > (San Francisco Mobilization to
- Free Mumia), EmajOnline.com < http://emajonline.com/ > (Educators for Mumia),
- PrisonRadio.org http://prisonradio.org /> (Mumia’s Radio Essays), or
- contact:
- 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 *