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 policemans 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
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