Critical Time For Mumia Abu-Jamal

author : Marco Rosaire Rossi topic : executions | Mumia Abu-Jamal | prisons

by Marco Rosaire Rossi

Since 1982, journalist and political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal has been incarcerated for the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Abu-Jamal has claimed his innocence, and a massive mountain of evidence has accumulated to support this claim - including the testimony of Arnold Beverly. In 2001, Beverly signed a sworn affidavit claiming that he was the true murderer of Daniel Faulkner and was hired as a hit man to get rid of Faulkner for his meddling in affairs between the mob and a particularly crooked clique of the Philadelphia Police Department. Despite this compelling evidence, officials have ignored Beverly's statement and Abu-Jamal remains locked-up.

The global effort to free Mumia Abu-Jamal is about to enter it's 25th and quite possibly its final year. Mumia's legal team, headed by Robert R. Bryan, has until July 13th to file a petition with the U.S. Court of Appeals Third Circuit that rejects a move by the prosecution to put Mumia back on death row. The Pennsylvania prosecutor's office has been seeking to void the decision by a lower court a few years ago that took Abu-Jamal off of death row. The governor of Pennsylvania, Edward Rendell, has made public statements confirming that he will sign a death warrant if the prosecution is successful. If that happens, then - aside from an unlikely intervention from the United States Supreme Court - Mumia Abu-Jamal will only have 90 days before he is executed by the state of Pennsylvania.

At the same time the defense is seeking to squash the prosecution's petition, it is requesting a new trial. The request for a new trial focuses on three major constitutional issues: 1) that there was a racist and illegal exclusion of 11 of the 14 black jurors; 2) that comments made by prosecutor Joseph McGill to the jury, including a statement that they need not concern themselves with the strict standard of beyond a reasonable doubt because Abu-Jamal would receive "appeal after appeal," were a violation of Caldwell v. Mississippi; and 3) that there was extreme judicial bias during Abu-Jamal's 1995 Post Conviction Relief Act hearing by "the hanging" Judge Albert Sabo. Sabo, who also presided over Mumia's trial in 1982 and essentially reviewed his own conduct during the 1995 Post Conviction Relief Act hearing, was overheard saying "Yeah, and I'm going to help 'em fry the nigger" to another judge by a court reporter.

Bryan feels confident that the Third Circuit will grant a new trial on arguments in the brief and that the prosecution's effort to get Abu-Jamal back on death row will fail, but has cautioned supporters against thinking that this means that the fight for Mumia's freedom is coming to an end. Bryan told reporters at a press conference early this month that nothing is certain in this present political climate. The choices now before the Third Circuit are literally freedom or death for Mumia Abu-Jamal, and its difficult to know which way they will sway.

The appeals come at a time when Mumia Abu-Jamal's case has again received international attention. In October 2003, Mumia Abu-Jamal was awarded the status of honorary citizen of Paris for his work toward social justice and the abolishment of the death penalty. In France, the death penalty has been abolished since 1981. Recently another city in France, the city of Saint-Denis, named a major street leading to the Nelson Mandela Stadium, Mumia Abu-Jamal Street. Frustrated by the fact that "freedom fries" hasn't caught on like they hoped, conservatives in the U.S. are looking to condemn France again for its support for Mumia Abu-Jamal. In May, two Pennsylvania members of the U.S. Congress, Democrat Allyson Schwartz and Republican Michael Fitzpatrick, appeared at a Fraternal Order of Police press conference to announce their introduction of Congressional Resolution #407: a resolution that denounces Saint-Denis for its decision.

This is a critical time for Mumia Abu-Jamal. Over the years, his case has amassed support from all over the world including Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, the NAACP, the National Lawyers Guild, the Japanese Diet, the European Parliament, several U.S. trade union federations, many churches and religious orders, and many more. All these organizations believe that Mumia's first trial was a farce, and have struggled to get him another. Even though much attention is on the Third Circuit, in the end, the decision of whether or not Mumia Abu-Jamal will be set free or is executed is with the people of the world. If they can continue to create enough consciousness about the injustices in Mumia Abu-Jamal's case the courts will be forced to comply.