3149. Mumia Abu-Jamal Wins Major Court Victory

By Jeff Mackler, Socialist Action, January 2, 2019

A group of two dozen activists briefly block traffic during a rally outside the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office on Friday. The group called on DA Larry Krasner to not challenge a Common Pleas court ruling that allows Mumia Abu-Jamal to file an appeal. (Bastiaan Slabbers for WHYY)

On Dec. 27, Philadelphia Superior Court Judge Leon Tucker ruled in favor of Mumia Abu-Jamal, holding that the actions of former Pennsylvania Supreme Court Judge Ronald Castille had demonstrated a “lack of impartiality” and “the appearance of bias.”

Tucker’s decision represents a major victory for Abu-Jamal, which opens the door to a new trial—or dismissal of the murder charges against him—after an appeal to the Pennsylvania courts.

Mumia was incarcerated in 1981 in a racist frame-up murder trial of police officer Daniel Faulkner and on death row for most of the past 37 years. He is a prize-winning journalist and the author of 10 books on various aspects of the freedom struggle. His latest book, “Murder Incorporated: Empire, Genocide, Manifest Destiny,” co-authored in 2017 by filmmaker Stephen Victoria (“Long Distance Revolutionary,” 2014) with a forward by Chris Hedges, is invaluable reading for revolutionary activists who seek the truth about capitalist imperialism’s centuries of horrors and the historic resistance against them.

Mumia’s freedom struggle has been supported by scores of trade unions across the U.S. and in Europe as well as by Amnesty International, the NAACP, the European Parliament and numerous city council resolutions from San Francisco to Detroit.

Tucker’s 27-page ruling was in two parts. He held in Part Two that, with regard to all of Mumia’s numerous denied Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) appeals between 1998 and 2014, Supreme Court Judge Ronald Castille’s actions in campaigning for the Pennsylvania governor to sign death-penalty warrants for all “convicted cop killers” and other biased acts had violated Mumia’s fundamental constitutional rights.

Castille had participated in Pennsylvania Supreme Court decisions that denied all of Mumia’s appeals, including a request from Mumia’s attorneys that he recuse himself from deciding the case he had helped to prosecute and another decision in which the same Castille court refused to consider documented evidence submitted by court stenographer Terri Maurer Carter that Mumia’s trial judge, Albert “the hanging judge” Sabo, had stated in his antechambers before entering the courtroom to adjudicate Mumia’s case, “Yeah, I’m going to help ‘em fry the nigger.

Mumia’s decades-long sojourn through the racist U.S. “criminal justice system” is replete with what has become infamously known as “the Mumia exception,” that is, contorted applications of the “law” aimed at denying its applicability to the facts in Mumia’s case. These include systematic exclusion of eyewitness testimony proving his innocence, intimidation of witnesses, falsification of exonerating ballistics findings, fabrication of testimony that Mumia admitted to the killing of police officer Daniel Faulkner, and Mumia’s physical exclusion from a majority of his trial proceedings—to name a few of the legal atrocities attendant to his trial and subsequent proceedings.

Judge Tucker’s ruling opens the door for Mumia to appeal all of Castille’s decisions over a 17-years period and for renewed massive and united national and international campaigns in the streets to demand Mumia’s freedom now.

Tucker denied Part One of Mumia’s appeal, which pertained to whether or not Castille had been significantly or personally involved in Mumia’s prosecution, in order to qualify under the provisions of the Williams v. Pennsylvania ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2016. Mumia’s attorneys may appeal this decision in order to fight on both legal fronts.

Meanwhile, Philadelphia’s “liberal” district attorney, Larry Krasner, whose actions to date have largely conformed to the reactionary positions of the Fraternal Order of Police, may well appeal Tucker’s amazing and unexpected decision. This would inevitably lead to years of further litigation.

Mumia’s supporters are campaigning to tell Krasner: Do not appeal Judge Tucker’s decision granting new rights of appeal to Mumia Abu-Jamal. A rally is planned to take place in front of the D.A.’s office on South Penn Square (across from City Hall) in Philadelphia, starting at noon on Saturday, Jan. 5.

Send protests to Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner: Phone: (215) 686-8000; E-mail: DA_Central@phila.gov; Tweet: @philaDAO; Mail: Phila. DA Larry Krasner, Three South Penn Square, Philadelphia, PA 19107 Tell D.A. Krasner: Do Not Appeal Judge Tucker’s Decision Reinstating Appeal Rights for Mumia Abu-Jamal!

From Mumia: Answers to questions posed by Professor Jennifer Black

What’s your reaction to the news of that your appeals have been reinstated?

My reaction?  It reminded me of when Nixon went to China, and a US diplomat asked China’s #2, Chou En-Lai what he thought about the French Revolves. He mused about it and replied, “It’s too soon to tell”. I felt the same way. But it was a pleasant surprise.

Why now?

I think we can’t underestimate the impact of the recent rulings from the US Supreme Court. (Williams v. Pa.); judges and lawyers are sensitive to such things.

How are you?

I’m ok, all things considered; better than I was few years ago; but I often forget my age….

What new projects are you thinking about?

I’m awaiting the birth of vol. II of _Murder, Inc. America’—that’s pretty exciting!

Any hopes and dreams for 2019?

My big dreams have never changed: freedom, with my family. May it be so! Ashe! And, of course freedom for all the MOVE 9!

New Years resolutions for the Left?

For ’19, build the Freedom Movement, ‘cuz guess what? It’s gonna be needed!

Do you have a message for your supporters?

; border: 0px; margin-bottom: 1.5em; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> I’m always—always—impressed with our supporters/people! I hope they feel my vibration of deep appreciation and love for Alla them! We’re Ona Move! NEXT! ;)>. alla best, mu♪.

2581. Lynne Stewart: People's Attorney and Former Political Prisoner Dies at 77

By Amy Goodman, Democracy Now!, March 8, 2017

Lynn Stewart on civil liberties (2002)

Radical civil rights attorney Lynne Stewart died Tuesday at her home in Brooklyn from complications of cancer and a recent series of strokes. She was 77 years old.

A former teacher and librarian, Stewart was known as a people’s lawyer who represented the poor and revolutionaries. Many considered her a political prisoner herself when she was given a 10-year sentence for distributing press releases on behalf of one of her clients, Omar Abdel-Rahman, an Egyptian cleric known as the "blind Sheikh," who was convicted of conspiring to blow up the United Nations and other New York City landmarks.

Democracy Now! first interviewed Stewart about the case in 2002.

We were also at the courthouse in 2006 when Stewart was first sentenced.

In 2009, Stewart spoke to Democracy Now! in her last broadcast interview before beginning her prison sentence, explaining the background to the case and why she had been charged.

“We found out later that the Clinton administration, under Janet Reno, had the option to prosecute me, and they declined to do so, based on the notion that without lawyers like me or the late Bill Kunstler or many that I could name, the cause of justice is not well served. They need the gadflies.
So, at any rate, they made me sign onto the agreement again not to do this. They did not stop me from representing him. I continued to represent him.
And it was only after 9/11, in April of 2002, that John Ashcroft came to New York, announced the indictment of me, my paralegal and the interpreter for the case, on grounds of materially aiding a terrorist organization. One of the footnotes to the case, of course, is that Ashcroft also appeared on nationwide television with Letterman that night ballyhooing the great work of Bush’s Justice Department in indicting.

In 2010, Stewart was re-sentenced to a 10-year term, nearly five times her original sentence, after an appeals court ruled her original punishment was too light.

Attorney Leonard Weinglass said Stewart’s sentence would "mark this era as the era of the war on terrorists, which includes the war on lawyers who defend those who are accused of terrorism. To put her behind bars when no one was injured, no one was harmed, when those who produced the torture memos, those who produced the war are going free and even prospering is really the irony of our time."

While held in federal prison for nearly four years, Stewart suffered from stage IV breast cancer that metastasized, spreading to her lymph nodes, shoulder, bones, and lungs. She was given 18 months to live.

Calls to grant her compassionate release came at a time when the Federal Bureau of Prisons faced increasing criticism for refusing to release terminally ill prisoners. In 2013, we spoke to former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark and Democracy Now! producer Renée Feltz, who went to Texas to interview Lynne Stewart in federal prison, the first face-to-face interview granted to a reporter.

We also interviewed Stewart’s husband, Ralph Poynter, and her daughter, Dr. Zenobia Brown, who is a hospice and palliative care specialist with a master’s in public health. Poynter cleared up a common misconception about Stewart’s comments after her original sentencing.

RALPH POYNTER: What she had said, "As many of my clients have said to me when they received a sentence that was less than possible—possibly expected, 'I can do that standing on my head.'" Now that’s a big difference than saying, "I can do that standing on my head." And if you go back and review the tapes, it is very clear what she said. And she began by thanking the judge. And all of this has been skipped by the media, who has lied about what Lynne said.

After months of campaigning, a judge granted Stewart’s release, and on New Year’s Day, 2014, Democracy Now! was at the airport when she triumphantly returned to New York, and was met by her family and friends.

CROWD: We love Lynne! We love Lynne!
AMY GOODMAN: Lynne, how do you feel?
LYNNE STEWART: Beyond joy. Beyond joy.
AMY GOODMAN: Lynne, did you think this day would come?
LYNNE STEWART: Well, somehow or other, yes, but not as wonderful as it has come—
AMY GOODMAN: And how are you—
LYNNE STEWART: —or as suddenly. It’s like bursting on me, you know? I mean, yesterday at this time, I was deep in the dungeons, and here I am in my beloved New York. It’s just wonderful. I can’t tell you.

Watch all of our interviews with Lynne Stewart.