Mumia Abu-Jamal in Final Round of Appeals

Governor Ridge signs death warrant. Federal judge grants stay. Thousands protest as execution looms.

by John Olafson

On October 13th Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge signed for the second time a death warrant against famed Black journalist and revolutionary Mumia Abu-Jamal. Governor Ridge did this in the full knowledge that Mumia and his lawyers have been preparing to file a habeas corpus appeal in federal district court. This is merely the latest in a years-long campaign by the powers that be to put this freedom fighter to death.

Who is Mumia Abu-Jamal?

Mumia has been active in promoting the interests of the Black community and all oppressed people since his youth. In 1968 when he was 14, Mumia was, as he puts it, beaten straight into the Black Panther Party by the police when he protested an appearance in Philadelphia by white supremacist Alabama Governor George Wallace.
Mumia later became a freelance journalist and radio talk show host on Philadelphia's WUHY, covering particularly events in the Black community. It is during this period that he became known as the "Voice of the Voiceless."

Mumia was elected chair of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. He won a Peabody Award for outstanding journalism. In 1981 the Philadelphia Inquirer profiled him as "Jamal: An eloquent activist not afraid to raise his voice."
And Mumia became more and more hated by Philly's notoriously racist, brutal, and powerful police establishment.

The incident

In the early hours of December 8, 1981, Mumia was driving a cab in downtown Philadelphia, to supplement his income as a journalist. The bars were just letting out and the streets were full of people. Suddenly Mumia spotted a police officer beating a young Black man spread-eagled against his car. When he went to investigate, he discovered that it was his own younger brother, Bill Cook, who was being beaten.

The subsequent events are under dispute, but within minutes Mumia was sitting slumped on the curbstone, critically injured by a gunshot. The police officer, Daniel Faulkner, lay dead. Other police arrived and waited 45 minutes to take Mumia to the hospital. Mumia was charged with murder.

Justice denied

Mumia was railroaded to a murder conviction in a trial which has been condemned around the world as being utterly unfair. Amongst the many outrages:
• Mumia was tried before Judge Albert Sabo, who has handed down 31 death sentences-more than any other judge in the country. All but two have been people of color.
• Eleven qualified African-American prospective jurors were removed by peremptory challenge, leaving only two on the jury in a city which is 40% Black. A recent scandal revealed that the practice of deliberately removing qualified Blacks from jury pools was taught to Philadelphia prosecutors through a special video training tape!
• Judge Sabo approved only a few hundred dollars for the defense. The defense investigator quit the case before the trial began because the meager funds were exhausted.
• A medical examiner's written findings reported that officer Faulkner was shot by a .44 caliber bullet; Mumia carried a licensed .38 caliber handgun. Mumia's lawyer (who was subsequently disbarred) said he didn't see that portion of the report, so he never raised it.
• The police never tested Mumia's gun to determine if it had recently been fired, never tested his hands to see if he had fired a gun, and "lost" a bullet fragment removed by the medical examiner.
• Witnesses gave contradictory accounts of the incident; several reported seeing the shooter flee. Yet there was no investigation into these statements, and the jury didn't hear these accounts.
• A number of prosecution witnesses have subsequently come forward and admitted that their testimony at the trial was false, including the key prosecution witness Veronica Jones. In 1996 she went to court to admit that she had given false testimony because she herself had been in serious trouble with the police at the time and was threatened by them with ten years in prison unless she cooperated. As soon as she was sworn in to recant her testimony by Judge Sabo, he threatened her with seven years in prison for perjury. When she finished testifying, she was immediately arrested for violating a two-year-old bench warrant listed under someone else's name.
• A police officer, Gary Wakshul, who was guarding Mumia in the emergency room noted in his report, "The Negro male made no statement." Two months later officers suddenly claimed that they heard Mumia brag in the emergency room about shooting Faulkner.
• The list goes on; there are far more injustices and violations of Mumia's rights around his case than there is space here to list out.

The movement grows

Thousands of activists have been working for years to save Mumia. Now as his case winds to its conclusion and the struggle comes to a head, Mumia's case is finally creeping into the country's corporate media. Millions of people are now beginning to become familiar with the case.

Even more important, many tens of thousands are willing to step out and take a stand. On April 24th of this year the largest demonstration yet in support of Mumia took place in Philadelphia. More than 15,000, probably half from the Black community, marched down the street to demand a new trial.

Then on July 3rd almost 100 activists were arrested at the Liberty Bell in the largest single civil disobedience in support of a political prisoner in U.S. history. An even bigger one is being planned for January in front of the Supreme Court.

On October 25th, after almost two weeks of agonizing waiting, a federal judge finally got around to issuing a stay of execution allowing Mumia to work through his final round of appeals in federal court. Mumia has exhausted all his state appeals (most of them directly involving the same judge Sabo, who came back out of retirement to handle the appeals). He now faces the federal appeals process.

The upcoming months are the final phase in the battle to save Mumia's life and win him a new trial. During this time we will likely see the largest demonstrations yet across the U.S. and around the world in his support. Over about the next six months and we will find out whether Mumia is granted a new trial. Now is the time to get involved, before it is too late!