!*The State Against the Law 3/11/98 Mumia Abu-Jamal
Marpessa Kupendua
>From: Mumia <Mu...@aol.com>
>Date: Tue, 17 Mar 1998 18:59:50 EST
>Subject: The State Against the Law 3/11/98 Mumia Abu-Jamal
The State Against the 'Law'
Column Written 3/11/98
© 1998 Mumia Abu-Jamal
All Rights Reserved
The jailer is another kind of captive - is the jailer envious of his
prisoner's dreams?
Gérard de Nerval (1808 - 1855)
Fragments de Faust
Prisons are, by nature, political institutions erected to serve political
interests of those in power. They are instruments designed to protect, not
the people, but the status quo, and its historical usages against Africans,
Indians, workers and radicals certainly supports that notion. 'Law' is
similarly but a political expression and as such, usually a tool against the
poor, the powerless and the unpopular. Rich men don't come to prison; and
when they break laws they leave room for loopholes.
For prison administrators, there is one kind of prisoner that they hate
above all others: the jailhouse lawyer. For them, they are the
modern-day equivalent of what once stirred the ire of their linear
ancestors ' the hated 'smart nigger' that dared question the slavers.
On March 5, 1998, the state, angered at being beaten by a small group of
jailhouse lawyers, attacked the Death Row unit at SCI Greene ' not the
prisoners, but their property ' books, pens, legal material, etc.
In late Jan. '98, the US District Court in Pittsburgh, through its
Magistrate- Judge, ruled that the SCI Greene legal visitation
procedures were unconstitutional as they were non-confidential.
Similarly, actions were pending for years that the state violated the
Equal Protection Clause of the Constitution.
The state, embarrassed at its recent losses, hit back, stripping Death
Row of its legal, educational, recreational and personal property, in
stark retaliation for the vigorous advocacy of its jailhouse lawyers
and supportive street counsel. Indeed, one SCI Greene administrator,
present during the raid, admitted as much:
"Is this behind that thing we talked about a few months ago ina law library?"
"Yeah, that's it."
"Where does it come from?"
"I don't have nothing to do with it! It came from Central Office."
"So, Harrisburg ordered it, huh?"
"Yep - - I learned about it when y'all did."
"So, that's the Committee up in Central Office that was dealing with the
Equal Protection claims?"
"Yeah, that's it."
In a fit of bureaucratic pique, the prisoncrats ordered that all
property be boxed, shipped or destroyed.
In one fell swoop the state cut visiting, limited property, cut
educational programs, all in response to prisoner's legal and
constitutional activities. What does a constitutional right mean, if
when one exercises it, one is punished?
Clearly, such a "right," is no right at all.
It goes without saying, however, that a suit that proves the state
violated its own heralded constitution can never be deemed "frivolous,"
yet the polluted air of the corporate media never tires of telling
tales of the courts swimming in a deluge of jailhouse junk suits, while
the Pittsburgh ruling merited nary a peep (nor did the state's
retaliation).
Why support a media enterprise that never supports you? Why patronize
a paper that treats you as trash?
In my book Live from Death Row (1995) I wrote of the state's attack on
the life of the mind. That attack did come on hundreds of men in the
state's holes, but Death Row was largely exempted. For daring to
practice their alleged constitutional rights (and proving the state's
violations!) the men on Death Row had that exemption nullified. They
violated no prison rules save the unwritten one: Don't sue, and if you
do ' don't win.
©MAJ