THE HANDSTAND

JULY 2004




Death Penalty Again Looms Over Mumia's Head
July 5, 2004

On June 29, 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit lifted its stay in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and ordered briefing.  At issue is whether the death judgment should stand.  Also pending is the prosecution¹s unconstitutional use of racism in jury selection.

Robert R. Bryan, Mumia¹s lead attorney, has summed up the impact of the latest developments:

 ³Mumia's case is now moving forward.  He is in extremely grave danger. The authorities want to silence his voice and pen.  They thought this could be accomplished by convicting this innocent man and placing him on death row.  However, his voice against injustice and oppression is now stronger then ever, and is heard and read throughout the world.  The government knows that the only way to stop Mumia is to murder him in the name of the law, to execute him.  In over three decades of litigating death-penalty cases, I have not seen one in which the government wants so badly to kill a client.  We must not rest until Mumia is free!²

The Court of Appeals briefing order came on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Beard v. Banks, ___ U.S. ___, 2004 WL 1402567 (June 24, 2004).  The issue is whether this ruling should apply to the case of Mumia.  The prosecution is contending that the order for Mumia¹s execution must remain and be carried out.  However, it is the view of Mr. Bryan that ³this tragically unfair decision in the Banks case should not have an effect on Mumia.²

Mr. Bryan explained that Beard v. Banks is a complicated case.  The Supreme Court ruled on the appeal by Pennsylvania stemming from a Court of Appeals decision that invalidated the death sentence of George Banks, who has been on death row over 20 years for multiple murder.  Mr. Banks' death sentence had been overturned on the grounds that the jury instructions violated a Supreme Court ruling which held that jurors did not have to agree unanimously on the existence of mitigating circumstances in order to vote against death.  The issue in the Banks appeal was whether Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367 (1988) could be applied retroactively, as the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had held.

On June 24 the Supreme Court reversed in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas.  He concluded that the Mills case, which held unconstitutional capital sentencing schemes that require juries to disregard mitigating factors not found unanimously, did not apply retroactively.  It was determined that the Banks conviction became final in 1987, thus the 1988 Mills decision did not affect his case even though what had occurred was unconstitutional.  Hence, Mr. Banks and others similarly situated could not benefit from the Mills decision and his death judgment will stand.  It is understood that about 30 other Pennsylvania death sentences are at stake for similar concerns.

Mr. Bryan pointed out that Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, strongly dissented.  Justice Stevens said that the ³use of such a procedure is unquestionably unconstitutional today, and I believe it was equally so in 1987 when respondent¹s death sentence became final.²  He further explained that ³Mills simply represented a straightforward application of our longstanding view that Othe Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments cannot tolerate the infliction of a sentence of death under [a] legal syste[m] that permit[s] the unique penalty to be . . . wantonly and . . . freakishly imposed.¹²  Justice Souter said that ³a death sentence based upon a verdict of 11 jurors who would have relied on a given mitigating circumstance to spare a defendant¹s life, and a single holdout who blocked them from doing so, would surely be an egregious failure to express the public conscience accurately.²  He found that too much importance is given ³to the finality of capital sentences and not enough to their accuracy.²

There are other legal developments concerning the legal fight to free Mumia.  Robert Bryan is awaiting a ruling on a petition he filed in the trial court, the Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia, concerning new evidence of innocence and prosecutorial fraud.  He will also be attempting to go back into the U.S. District Court regarding the statement by the trial judge, who said during the trial in reference to Mumia:

"Yeah, and I'm going to help'em fry the nigger.²

Mumia Abu-Jamal is an award winning author and broadcast journalist. He has been languishing on Pennsylvania¹s death row for over 23 yrs. Writing from a solitary confinement cell, his essays have reached a worldwide audience.  Mumia is the author of five books including "Live From Death Row", "Death Blossoms", "All Things Censored", ³Faith of Our Fathers² and the recently released ³We Want Freedom.²  They have sold over 150,000 copies and been translated into seven languages.  His 1982 murder trial and subsequent conviction have been the subject of great
debate.

Mumia's insightful essays and melodic baritone breathe life into the numbing statistic -- 5.1 million people under correctional control. Whether Mumia Abu-Jamal's voice will reach the airwaves, and ultimately whether he lives or dies, will be a true test of the strength of our struggle.  It will also depend on our independence, the depth of our courage, and our will to organize.

Legal Overview: ³The government¹s quest to murder in the name of the law is based upon its desire to silence Mumia¹s voice and pen.  This case has been riddled with racism and fraud since his arrest 1981.  The trial was a travesty of justice.  Mumia is innocent.²  Robert R. Bryan, Esq.

A decision in Mumia¹s first and only federal habeas corpus appeal was issued on Dec. 18, 2001 by Judge William Yohn, U.S. District Court. In that ruling, Mumia¹s death sentence was reversed, but his conviction was upheld.  Both the Philadelphia DA and Mumia¹s lawyers appealed. The Court granted the DA¹s motion to keep Mumia on death row.  If the appeal panel grants relief on Mumia¹s death sentence, the case will go back for a re-trial on whether Mumia is again sentenced to death, or is to spend the remainder of his life in prison.   Mumia's attorneys are seeking a completely new trial, and have issues pending in both state and federal courts.  In order for Mumia to be released from prison he must first have a new trial.  For legal updates and to see an excellent summary of the case visit:
www.freemumia.org/Petition.Mar.8.pdf

Health Crisis Update: In the past year Mumia has had two serious bouts of inflammation of his ankle and leg with discoloration, caused by his many years on death row.  Mumia needs to be seen by an outside doctor for a diagnosis and a health care plan.  He is housed in isolation at a supermax security control unit on death row.

www.prisonradio.org to join our mailing list send $35 to Prison
Radio/RJF PO Box 411074, SF, CA 94141

----------------------

³I have never seen a case where the government wanted so desperately to kill one of my clients.  Mumia Abu-Jamal is in grave danger." Robert R. Bryan, Esq., Lead Attorney

"I killed Jamal cop" - new evidence suggests Mob and police involvement in Police murder in 1981
Seán Mac Mathúna

"I never confessed to anything because I had nothing to confess to. I never said I shot the policeman. I did not shoot the policeman. I never said I hoped he died. I would never say something like that" Mumia Abu-Jamal












According to a report in Journalist (June 2001), the UK magazine of the National Union of Journalists (NUJ) has reported that a man has confessed to killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in December 1981 - a crime that Mumia Abu-Jamal always claimed he had been framed for and sentenced to death. What is sensational about this news is that the man, Arnold Beverley has claimed he shot Faulkner as a favour for the Mob and other corrupt policemen in Pennsylvania as he was "interfering" with their illegal activity.

The political activist and journalist has been on death row in Pennsylvania for 19 years. The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal is currently pending a habeas corpus action before Judge William H Yohn in the District Court. According to the Journalist, Abu-Jamal has for the first time produced a complete statement of the facts surrounding his case - he had stayed silent at his original trial.

In a report not even mentioned in the mainstream Irish and British media, the man, Arnold Beverly, has given a statement to Mumia Abu-Jamal's defence team that he shot the police officer in 1981. Results of the lie detector test have corroborated the confession of Beverly, and his statement has added credibility because the test was taken by a leading US polygraph expert, Charles Honts of Boise State University. In a statement, Beverley says:

"I was hired, along with another guy, and paid to shoot and kill Faulkner. I had heard that Faulkner was a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity including prostitution, gambling, drugs without prosecution in the Center City area".

In his original statement Abu-Jamal says he came across the scene in which his brother, William-Cook, had apparently been shot:

"I recognized my brother standing in the street staggering and dizzy. I immediately exited the cab and ran to his scream. As I came across the street I saw a uniformed cop turn toward me gun in hand, saw a flash and went down to my knees. "I closed my eyes and sat still trying to breath. The next thing that I remember I felt myself being kicked, hit and being brought out of a stupor. When I opened my eyes, I saw cops all around me."

Here is the full statement by Beverley:

I, ARNOLD R.. BEVERLY, state that the following facts are true and correct: I was present when police officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed in the early morning hours of December 9, 1981 near the corner of Locust and 13th Streets. 'have personal knowledge that Mumia Abu-Jamal did not shoot police officer Faulkner,

I was hired, along with another guy, and paid to shoot and kill Faulkner. I had heard that Faulkner was a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity including prostitution, gambling, drugs without prosecution in the center city area.

Faulkner was shot in the back and then in the the head before Jamal came on the scene. Jamal had nothing to do with the shooting. Before the shooting, I was shown a picture of Faulkner and told that Faulkner was supposed to check something at Johnny Os (at 13th and Locust) sometime in the early morning hours of December 9. Two of us were hired for the shooting so that either of us could take the opportunity to make the hit, get the job done, and leave. The other guy gave Inc a .38 caliber policeman‚s special and I was also carrying my own .22 caliber revolver.

I waited at the speedline entrance at the north east of corner of Locust and 13th at the parking lot, I was wearing a green (camouflage) army jacket. The other guy waited on the south side of Locust street east of 13th Street towards Camac Street.

While I was waiting at the speedline entrance for Faulkner to arrive at the location, I saw police officers in the area. Two undercover policemen were standing on the west side of 13th north of Locust. Also a uniformed police officer was sitting in a car in the corner of the parking lot, They were there while the shooting of Faulkner took place. I was not worried about the police, being there since I believed that since I was hired by the mob to shoot and kill Faulkner, any police Officers on the scene would be there to help me.

After a while I saw Faulkner get out of a small police car parked behind a VW parked on Locust Street, east of 13th ~ Faulkner was alone. He got out of the police car end went up to the VW, I heard a shot ring out coming from east on Locust Street, Faulkner fell on his knee on the sidewalk next to the VW, I heard another shot and it must have grazed my left shoulder. I felt something hard on my left shoulder. I grabbed at my shoulder and got blood on my hand.

I ran across Locust Street and stood over Faulkner, who had fallen backwards on the sidewalk, I shot Faulkner in the face at close range. Jamal was shot shortly after that by a uniformed police officer who arrived on the scene.

Cop Cars came from all directions. Foot patrol also arrived. I saw a white shirt getting out of a car in the middle of the 13th & Locust intersection just as I was going down to the speedline Steps. I left the area underground through the speedline system and by pro-arrangement met a police officer who assisted me, exited the speedline underground about three blocks away. A car was waiting for me and I left the center city area.

The foregoing is stated subject to the penalties of 15 Pa.C.S. Section 4904 relating to unsworn falsification to authorities.

ARNOLD E. BEVERLY

This is the best news for Abu-Jamal and his defence team - if all this is true, then it means that Abu-Jamal has been fitted up for a crime committed on behalf of the Mob and corrupt police, which of course opens a whole can of worms about police corruption and the fact that this has led to a totally innocent facing the death penalty rather than the full facts being investigated. It also suggests that Faulkner was a honest cop trying to work against Mafia and police corruption in Philadelphia - something that he has paid for with his life.

www.fantompowa.net/ Flame/heathcote_nixon.htm



Things you Can Do to Help Free Mumia

1. Get involved.  Contact International Concerned Friends and Family of Mumia Abu-Jamal, P.O. Box 19709, Philadelphia, PA 19143, (Tel (215) 476-8812)
www.Mumia.org.

2. Contribute to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Legal Defense Fund. Write a check to the National Lawyers Guild Foundation/Mumia.  Make sure to write Mumia on the memo line, and mail to: Friends of MAJ, 130 Morningside Drive, Suite 6C, NY, NY 10027.

3. Call, write or fax Ed Rendell, Governor, to demand a new trial for Mumia: 225 Main Capitol Building, Harrisburg, PA 17120, 717-787-2500 ph 717-783-1198 fax.

4. Organize a speaking engagement in your town or at a college with Mumia Abu-Jamal¹s lead attorney Robert R. Bryan (
Bryanlawsf@aol.com).

5. Call your local community radio station and ask them to play Mumia's insightful commentaries, hear the commentaries at
www.prisonradio.org.

6. Contact Pennsylvania Department of Corrections Director Jeffrey A. Beard and ask that inhumane conditions, isolation, and torture of death-row inmates be immediately addressed. (717) 975-4918 PA Dept of Corrections, 2520 Lisburn Road P.O. Box 598 Camp Hill,
PA 17001-0598

 7. Write to Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, 175 Progress Dr., Waynesburg, PA 15370.

8. Call 1-800-VISIT-PA to say you will only vacation in Pennsylvania when Mumia is granted a new trial, a moratorium on executions is enacted, and the MOVE 9 are free.

9. Buy his new book ³We Want Freedom² (
www.southendpress.org).  Ask your local bookstore to carry Mumia¹s books.

10. Join your local Mumia organizing group, or start a new one. For more information about the death penalty and the pennsylvania prison system contact 
www.prisonsociety.org;



Subject: DEATH PENALTY AGAIN LOOMS OVER MUMIA'S HEAD
NEW AFRIKAN MILLENNIUM
6 JULY 2004


³To hear Black folks carrying on about this movie, [Fahrenheit 9/11] you would think that there were no Black scholars and researchers and we were all just sitting around in a dark cave eating raw chicken wings waiting for Michael Moore to show us how to make fire.² ---excerpted from ³Michael Moore: The Hip Hop John Brown,² 1 July 2004, by Minister Paul Scott, reprinted from
TheBlackList@topica.com 


I believe that Michael Moore, producer of the film ³Fahrenheit 911,² & author of the book, ³Dude, Where¹s My Country?² should retract the unsubstantiated & life-threatening statements that he made in the above mentioned book, which indicted Mumia Abu-Jamal as being guilty & stated that OMumia probably killed that guy.¹

Moore¹s precise words regarding Mumia Abu-Jamal are excerpted as follows:

"Mumia [the campaigning Pennsylvania journalist who was sentenced for the
shooting of a police officer and has been on death row since 1982] probably killed that guy. There, I said it. That does not mean he because we don't want to see him or anyone executed, the efforts to defend him may have overlooked the fact that he did indeed kill that cop. This takes nothing away from the eloquence of his writings or commentary, or the important place he now holds on the international political stage. But he probably did kill that guy."

Michael Moore did indeed write that..¹ He said it twice in the same paragraph,
in fact.


The damage has been done.

Meanwhile, Michael Moore¹s forked tongue is showing. His books have reached millions & have amassed a fortune for him. His movie is riding an unprecedented wave of popularity upon the backs of those who are most at risk of lethal contact with the system of an alleged 'government'
that has gone mad.

The power of money, the money of power & the political constituencies which
have been bought & sold to consolidate world dominion of a 'nation' that
would not exist without the blood of melanin.

& now we have Michael.

Michael Moore has not responded via public or any other forum to those critical of his statements.
It is past time that he did so. Fahrenheit 9/11 is not the answer, for Mumia Abu-Jamal is not free & the prisons are not empty.
* Retract your statements Michael. Do this in audio, news print, book, public forum, & web media.
* Utilize the proceeds from your movie & your books to finance the defense & Freedom of the many voices your $ystem seeks to kill.

Follow the lead of your countryman, former governor George Ryan of Illinois. He opened the prison doors of a death camp.

See that you do not slam them $hut tighter, Michael - while collecting 60% & throwing away the key.




MICHAEL MOORE: SUBSTANTIATE YOUR CLAIMS! by The International Concerned
Family & Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, 16 October, 2003,
http://archives.econ.utah.edu/archives/marxism/2003w41/msg00137.htm

BLACK AUGUST - 2004
===================
Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal
[spec. for K. Nyasha, 7/17/04]

        Among these large bodies, the little community of Haiti, anchored in the Caribbean Sea, has had her mission in the world, and a mission which  the world had much need to learn.  She has       taught the world the danger of slavery and the value of liberty.  In this respect she has been  the greatest of all our modern teachers. -- Hon. Frederick Douglass, former US Minister to Haiti *Lecture on Haiti*
       (Jan. 2, 1893) (Quinn Chapel, Chi.)

    It was a sweaty, steaming night in August, when a group of African captives gathered in the forests of Marne Rouge, in Le Cap, San Domingue.  It was August, 1791.

    Among these men was a Voodoo priest, Papaloi Boukman, who preached to his brethren about the need for revolution against the cruel slavedrivers and torturers who made the lives of the African
captives a living hell.  His words, spoken in the common tongue of Creole, would echo down the
annals of history, and cannot fail but move us today, 213 years later:

       The god who created the sun which gives us
       light, who rouses the waves and rules the
       storm, though hidden in the clouds, he
       watches us.  He sees all that the white man
       does.  The god of the white man inspires him
       with crime, but our god calls upon us to do
       good works.  Our god who is good to us
       orders us to revenge our wrongs.  He will
       direct our arms and aid us.  Throw away the
       symbol of the god of the whites who has so
       often caused us to weep, and listen to the
       voice of liberty, which speaks in the hearts
       of us all.

    The Rebellion of August 1791 would eventually ripen into the full-fledged Haitian Revolution, lead to the liberation of the African Haitian people, to the establishment of the Haiti Republic, and the end of the dreams of Napoleon for a French- American Empire in the West.

    Two centuries before the Revolution, when the island was called Santo Domingo by the Spanish
Empire, historian Antonio de Herrera would say of the place, "There is so many Negroes in this island, as a result of the sugar factories, that the land seems an effigy or an image of Ethiopia itself."  [From Paul Farmer, *The Uses of Haiti* (Monroe, Me.: Common Courage Press, 1994), p. 61].  Haiti was the principal source of wealth for the French bourgeoisie.  In the decade before the Boukman Rebellion, an estimated 29,000 African captives were imported to the island annually.    Conditions were so brutal, and the work was so back-breaking, that the average African survived only 7 years in the horrific sugar factories.

    In 1804, Haiti declared Independence, after defeating what was the most powerful army of
the day: the Grand Army of France.     Haiti's Founding Father, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, at the Haitian Declaration of Independence, proclaimed, "I have given the French cannibals blood for blood.  I have avenged America."

    With their liberation, Haitians changed history, for among their accomplishments:

    a) It was the first independent nation in Latin America;
    b) It became the second independent nation in the Western hemisphere;
    c) It was the first Black republic in the modern world;
    d) It was the *only*incidence in world history of an enslaved people breaking their chains and
defeating a powerful colonial force using military might.

    What did 'Independence' bring?  It brought the enmity, and anger of the Americans, who
refused to recognize their southern neighbor for 58 years.  In the words of South Carolina Senator
Robert Hayne, the reasons for US non-recognition were clear: "Our policy with regard to Hayti is
plain.  We never can acknowledge her independence... The peace and safety of a large portion of our Union forbids us *even to discuss* [it]." [Farmer,
p. 79].

    In many ways, Black August (at least in the West) begins in Haiti.  It is the blackest August possible -- Revolution, and resultant Liberation from bondage. For many years, Haiti tried to pass the torch of liberty to all of her neighbors, providing support for Simon Bolivar in his nationalist movements against Spain.  Indeed, from its earliest days, Haiti was declared an asylum for escaped slaves, and a place of refuge for any person of African or American Indian descent.

    On January 1st, 1804, President Dessalines would proclaim: "Never again shall colonist or European set foot on this soil as master or landowner.  This shall henceforward be the foundation of our Constitution."

    It would be US, not European, imperialism that would consign the Haitian people to the cruel reign of dictators.  The US, would occupy Haiti, and impose their own rules and dictates.  After their long and hated occupation, Haitian anthropologist Ralph Trouillot would say, "[it] improved nothing and complicated almost everything."

    Yet, that imperial occupation does not wipe out the historical accomplishments of Haiti.

    During the darkest nights of American bondage, millions of Africans, in America, in Brazil, in
Cuba, and beyond, could look to Haiti, and dream.

Copyright 2004 Mumia Abu-Jamal

nattyreb@comcast.net>Sista Marpessa <nattyreb@comcast.net>
Subject: "Black August -2004" by Mumia Abu-Jamal

Sista Marpessa <nattyreb@comcast.net>
Subject: "Black August -2004" by Mumia Abu-Jamal