The Discordant Opposition Journal Issue 9 - File 14
Dr. Klep Speaks
By: Kleptic - kleptic@grex.org
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal
This is a special Dr. Klep Speaks. I haven't written one of these in a while, so im taking it easy and staying on one subject. and It's about Mumia Abu-Jamal. Read up. He needs all the help he can get!
==============
Mumia Abu-Jamal was a radio journalist in Philadelphia, known as "the voice of the voiceless" during the years of Mayor Frank Rizo. He was the recipient of a Major Armstrong Award for radio Journalism, and was named one of Philadelphia's "people to watch" in 1981 by Philadelphia magazine. He was president of the Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia, and he had no prior criminal record.
Jamal was a member of the Black Panther Party, and later a supporter of the MOVE organization. He was a leading critic of police violence against the minority communities of Philadelphia, practices that led to an unprecedented suit filed by the United States Department of Justice seeking to end the notorious brutality of the Philadelphia police. The FBI and Philadelphia police amassed hundreds of pages of surveillance files on Jamal, beginning when he was 15 years old, for his outspoken opposition to racism and police brutality.
In 1982 Jamal was convicted for the killing a white Philadelphia police officer, and was sentenced to death.
For the last 17 years Jamal has been locked alone in a cell 23 hours a day, denied contact visits with his family. His confidential legal mail has been open and reproduced by prison authorities. He was put into punitive detention for writing his book, Live From Death Row, which is in its sixth printing by Addison-Wesley. Recently the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of appeals found this punishment to be unconstitutional and that prison officials had yielded to pressure from the Fraternal Order of Police. However journalists are still prohibited from filming or recording interviews with him. As Jamal has put it, "They don't just want my death, they want my silence."
Will he ever receive a fair trial?
On October 29th, 1998, the Philadelphia Supreme Court rejected Mumia's appeal for a new trial. Recent court hearings had raised very serious questions about his trial and the evidence used against him. The appeal addressed 26 of these issues. In the PSC ruling on the appeal they found that every single defense witness was not credible, including all the witnesses who testified either that a different person was the shooter or that another man was seen running from the scene. The PSC also found that every single witness presented by the prosecution and the police was completely credible, including those who changed their stories to implicate Mumia and who received favors from the police. However, the courts choice to deny a fair trial is not surprising. Considering the PSC is elected in partisan political elections, in which some of justices received the endorsement of the Fraternal Order of Police which has campaigned for Jamal's execution.
Facts of the case.
The Judge had sentenced more people to death than any other sitting judge in the United States. Six former Philadelphia prosecutors have sworn in court documents that no accused could receive a fair trial in the court of Judge Albert Sabo.
The Defense Investigator quit the case before the trial began because the meager court allocated funds were exhausted. Neither a ballistics expert nor a pathologist were hired because of insufficient funds.
The Racial Bias of Philadelphia's courts now has 120 people on death row - all but thirteen of them non-white.
The Jury was empanelled only after eleven qualified African-Americans were removed by peremptory challenges from the prosecution, a practice that was recently revealed as having been taught to prosecutors in a special training video tape.
The Defense Attorney testified that he didn't interview a single witness in preparation for the 1982 trial and he informed the court in advance that he was not prepared. Jamal was also denied the right to act as his own attorney.
The Prosecutor used the fact that 12 years earlier Jamal had been a member of the Black Panther Party as an argument for imposing the death penalty, a practice later condemned as unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in another case.
The question of the "evidence":
The prosecution claimed that Jamal loudly confessed at the hospital where he was taken after being shot by the slain officer and beaten by the police. But the jury never heard from police officer Gary Wakshul who was guarding Jamal at the hospital and reported "the Negro Male made no comments." When called as a defense witness, the prosecution contended that he was on vacation and unavailable. The judge refused a continuance so he could be brought in, when in fact he was home and available.
Today we know that no police officers present claimed to have heard this "confession" until two months after it allegedly occurred, and after Jamal had filed police brutality charges. The attending physician also denies that Jamal said anything.
The prosecution claimed that ballistics evidence proved that Jamal was the shooter. BUT THE JURY NEVER HEARD the written findings of the medical examiner which contradicted other prosecution testimony by stating "shot w/ 44 cal" (Jamal's gun was .38 caliber). Jamal's court appointed attorney said he didn't see that portion of the report, so he never raised it. TODAY WE KNOW that the police never tested Jamal's gun to see if it had bee recently fired, never tested Jamal's hands to see if he had fired a gun, have never shown Jamal's gun to be the fatal weapon, and have lost a bullet fragment removed by the medical examiner.
The prosecution claimed that eye-witnesses identified Jamal as the shooter. BUT THE JURY NEVER HEARD from a key eye-witnesses, William Singletary, who saw the whole incident and has testified that Jamal was not the shooter. Singletary, a local businessman, was intimidated by police when he reported this, and he subsequently fled the city. TODAY WE KNOW why the key eye-witnesses Veronica Jones, Cynthia White, and Robert Chobert testified as they did in 1982. Jones, who now testifies in support of Jamal, was threatened with the loss of her children if she did not support the police story. Chobert, a white cab driver, first told the arriving police that the shooter ran away. White backed the whole police story, but none of the other witnesses can remember seeing her at the immediate scene. Both Chobert and White received very special treatment, including exemptions from criminal prosecutions. By contrast, when Veronica Jones testified in Jamal's support, she was arrested in the courtroom.
What's Next?
Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge has long vowed to sign a new death warrant as soon as the state Supreme Court ruling was announced. We expect it to be signed soon. When it is signed the execution would occur with in the following 30 days.
When this occurs we will be mobilizing. Demonstrations will occur in Philadelphia and other major cities the day after the death warrant is signed. The following Saturday will be a giant protest in Philadelphia.
What you can do.
East Lansing ARA is organizing to protest this injustice. Send us your telephone number or email address and we will let you know about upcoming actions.
Educate yourself, watch the HBO movie A CASE FOR REASONABLE DOUBT and visit www.mumia.org to find out more about the case.
Write letters to local newspapers, or Gov. Thomas Ridge (Main Capitol Bldg., Rm 225 Harrisburg, PA 17120) express your outrage, and demand a new trial.
Contribute to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Legal Defense Fund. Send a check or money order payable to: Black United Fund of PA/Mumia Abu-Jamal, earmarked Legal Defense, and send to
Black United Fund
2227 N. Broad St.
Philadelphia, PA 19132-4502
We can't let them kill this brother!
Anti Racist Action East Lansing
Post Office Box 6746 East Lansing MI 48826
Email: lansingara@hotmail.com
