Fwd: Press release regarding Mumia Abu-Jamal (fwd)
Abdul Salau
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Date: Mon, 16 Dec 1996 18:53:55 -0500
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Subject: Fwd: Press release regarding Mumia Abu-Jamal
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From: 75057...@CompuServe.COM (PDC)
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(Straight Facts), jma...@artswire.org (Judy Malloy, Editor),
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Thompson))
Date: 96-12-16 15:35:32 EST
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE PRESS CONTACT
December 16, 1996 Janet John (212) 406-4252
As New Appeal Is Filed Against "Hanging Judge" Sabo
Mumia Abu-Jamal Wins Ruling Against Prison Authorities
Death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal has won a legal
victory against Pennsylvania prison authorities in U.S. Federal
District Court in Pittsburgh. On December 4, U.S. District Judge
Donetta Ambrose ruled that prison officials who intercepted,
opened and read Jamal's correspondence with his attorneys "inter-
fered entirely" with the ability of Mumia's lawyers to represent
him--just as Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge was preparing to
sign the June 1995 warrant for Jamal's execution.
This ruling stems from a civil suit brought last year by
Jamal against the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections for
punishing him for his powerful prison writings by blocking his
access to media interviews. The suit also charged the authorities
with obstructing Jamal's access to legal counsel by intercepting
privileged correspondence between him and his attorneys and
forwarding copies to the office of Governor Ridge. In June, a
court magistrate found that prison officials had violated Jamal's
rights to free speech and to legal counsel. At the same time, the
magistrate allowed that such actions were justifiable if the
authorities could claim "a reasonable suspicion" that Jamal was
violating prison rules.
Judge Ambrose concluded her December 4 decision by ruling
that the state violated Jamal's basic constitutional rights:
"The claim made here is one founded not only on the right to
access to the courts but also upon plaintiff's right to
maintain confidential communications with his attorney, a
right that is founded upon the common law, upon the Sixth
Amendment and upon the Fourteenth Amendment."
Partisan Defense Committee staff counsel Rachel Wolkenstein,
a member of Jamal's legal team, noted that "Judge Ambrose's
ruling also gives the lie to Judge Sabo's repeated claims that
Mumia deliberately waited until the warrant was signed in June
1995 before filing his petition for 'post-conviction relief'
(PCRA) to overturn his 1982 frame-up conviction and death sen-
tence" on false charges of killing Philadelphia policeman Daniel
Faulkner in 1981. Not surprisingly, Sabo ruled against the PCRA
petition.
In her order, Judge Ambrose states that the prison
authorities' actions led to a delay in filing the PCRA because of
"the unwillingness of counsel and of Plaintiff [Jamal] to com-
municate freely by mail after having been informed that legal
mail had been opened by prison officials." Jamal's defense team
will submit Ambrose's ruling to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in
support of their appeal of Sabo's ruling last summer denying
Mumia's PCRA petition.
Five days after the Pittsburgh ruling, on December 9,
Jamal's attorneys submitted an appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme
Court in Philadelphia seeking to overturn the latest atrocity in
Sabo's court. On November 1, concluding a hearing ordered by the
state Supreme Court, Sabo dismissed dramatic new evidence both of
Jamal's innocence and of the long, sordid record of police coer-
cion of witnesses and suppression of evidence in the case. The
new evidence was provided by the powerful testimony of eyewitness
Veronica Jones, who told the court how she saw two men run from
the scene of the shooting, corroborating her initial account to
the police in 1981 and that of four other eyewitnesses.
These accounts proved that Jamal, who was sitting on the
ground bleeding severely from a near-fatal gunshot wound in-
flicted by Faulkner when police arrived on the scene, could not
have been the killer. Jones also revealed that she was coerced
into changing her initial true account by the time of the 1982
trial after two police detectives threatened her with a long
prison term on gun possession charges.
For courageously coming forward to tell the truth, Jones was
punished by being dragged off the stand in Sabo's court and taken
to jail. Sabo then arrogantly ruled that Jones' testimony was "of
no moment" and "incredible." But as Jamal's new appeal states:
"Jones' uncoerced testimony would have profoundly changed the mix
of evidence at the trial." The appeal points out:
"Had Jamal been provided a true opportunity to present a de-
fense at the 1982 trial, the evidence thus would have shown
that:
"(1) the only two eyewitnesses to identify Jamal as the
'shooter' both received undisclosed favors from police and
the prosecution in return for their testimony;
"(2) five eyewitnesses saw someone flee the scene, and two
of these witnesses initially said the fleeing person was the
shooter."
The appeal also restates other key evidence documenting the
frame-up of Mumia, from the cops' contrived story of Mumia's
"confession" to the lack of any ballistic evidence linking Mumia
to Faulkner's shooting.
Wolkenstein concluded, "The gross interference by prison
officials and the governor's office in Mumia's defense efforts--even as Jamal
was attempting to challenge the death sentence
hanging over him--is only one of countless examples of how the
racist 'justice' system has targeted Mumia for death." From the
time he was a young leader of the Philadelphia Black Panther
Party in the 1960s, Mumia was subjected to daily cop surveillance
as part of the FBI's "Counter-Intelligence Program" (COINTELPRO),
which sought to "neutralize" the Panthers and other radical
activists. The state's vendetta continued when Jamal was a widely
known journalist who exposed the racist reality of daily life in
Philly, and later when he became a supporter of the MOVE organi-
zation. It culminated in Mumia's being falsely charged and sent
to death row in 1982.
The same day as Jamal's lawyers filed the new appeal in
Philadelphia, some 500 people joined in a protest, centered on
the call for a new trial, on Wall Street in New York City to mark
the 15th anniversary of Mumia's arrest. Concerning the demand for
a new trial for Mumia, Gene Herson, PDC labor coordinator,
pointed out that "the entire history of Mumia's frame-up argues
against reliance on the capitalist courts. Even the recent ruling
by Judge Ambrose shows that the courts, the prison authorities,
the governor and the prosecution are joined by a thousand ties in
a system of racist injustice. As a sign we carried at the protest
read, 'No Illusions in Capitalist "Justice"--Free Mumia Now!'"
PDC secretary Richard Genova explained, "As Marxists, we
place our confidence in the power of the working class. The wave
of international protests for Mumia in the summer of 1995, which
helped stay the executioner's hand at the time, gave a taste of
the kind of militant struggle that must take place to free Mumia.
As part of our fight to sweep away this capitalist system of
racist repression and injustice, we demand: Free Mumia Abu-Jamal!
Abolish the racist death penalty!"
Funds are urgently needed! Tax-deductible contributions for
Jamal's defense should be made payable to the Bill of Rights
Foundation, earmarked "Mumia Abu-Jamal Legal Defense," and sent
to the Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal, 163 Amsterdam Avenue,
No. 115, New York, NY 10023-5001. For more information on the
campaign to free Jamal, contact the PDC at P.O. Box 99, Canal
Street Station, New York, NY 10013, (212) 406-4252.
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