DECEMBER 2001
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December 18, 2001
Judge strikes down Mumia's CURRENT death sentence, but not conviction
FORWARDED MESSAGE From: "stoptheexecution ..." <lostgenera@hotmail.com>
This morning, Judge William Yohn struck down Mumia Abu-Jamal's current death sentence but left the possibility open for a new death sentence. Yohn announced that a re-sentencing hearing, should be held within 180 days. The District Attorney can ask for a new death sentence to be applied, or the sentence may be converted to life imprisonment. Yohn's decision was based on flawed instructions to the 1982 jury during the original sentencing procedure, in which information was withheld from them that could have prompted them to seek a different sentence.
The
decision did *not* overturn Mumia's conviction for first-degree murder.
Mumia supporters point to 20 years of evidence which has yet to be
put on the record in the case; including Arnold Beverly's confession,
and numerous testimonies from witnesses who describe having been coerced
by police to lie in favor of the prosecution. The decision follows a December
8th police attack on a permitted demonstration, which resulted in serious
injuries, and multiple felonycharges for 6 activists. (click on link
above or below and see "updates & news" link)
Just
remember: People seeking justice for Mumia should understand that
A) Mumia could be sentenced AGAIN to death;
B) Since this decision does not allow for an actual new trial, Mumia could
be left to live the rest of his days in prison without any of this evidence
being opened in court. That means for us that rather than sitting back
with relief, this is an incredibly important time to stay involved
and take it higher. JUSTICE FOR MUMIA ABU-JAMAL! FREE ALL POLITICAL PRISONERS!
December 13, 2001
COMMUNITY LEADERS CALL FOR INDEPENDENT INVESTIGATION OF POLICE RIOT ON DECEMBER 8TH, 2001. (see December 8th below with photo)
Community activists are calling for an independent investigation of the brutal and unprovoked attack by Philadelphia police on the December 8th thousand-plus march in support of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. A press conference was held on Friday, December 14, to demand that charges against six people arrested on Saturday immediately be dropped.
The police ambush attack on peaceful protesters in a permitted demonstration is viewed as part of the state's ongoing effort to suppress the mounting evidence in Abu-Jamal's case pointing to his innocence. Rally organizers expressed concern that the national attacks on civil liberties seem to have emboldened the police.
Saturday's demonstration stopped at the intersection of 13th and Locust Streets to view a video taped confession by Arnold Beverly that he, not Abu-Jamal, had shot Daniel Faulkner on December 9, 1981.
Shortly after as marchers made their way up Walnut Street, according to eyewitness accounts, on behalf of a heckler of the rally, bicycle cops toward the back of the march charged into the middle of the crowd, dismounted their bikes and drew a gun on one protester whom they pinned to the ground. Police then began ramming people with their bicycles, and indiscriminately beating demonstrators with batons, pepper-spraying them, and arresting people.
It is the contention of supportive organizations of Abu-Jamal that this was in fact, a deliberate staged attack. There are reports that a very large number of police were seen massed on side streets behind the march just before the attack. Civil Affairs officers who have co-operated with rally organizers in the past to keep order, were difficult to find when the attack occurred.
Each of the six demonstrators were given felony charges, including felony assault and felony riot, as well as conspiracy, assault and conspiracy to riot. Bails were set from $8,000 to $100,000. Three of the protesters were hospitalized with injuries including unconsciousness, concussion, a fractured tailbone, dislocated jaw, internal bleeding, and severe abrasions. Police also beat other demonstrators, and attacked a freelance reporter for the Amsterdam News who was covering the event.
International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
December
10, 2001
Mumia
Abu-Jamal's attorneys sent an open letter to the Mayor of Philadelphia
(see below) today protesting a vicious attack by Philadelphia Police on
a peaceful and legal march December 8 commemorating the 20th anniversary
of the frame-up of Mumia for the death of a police officer on December
9, 1981.
The police attack sent three demonstrators to the hospital with serious
injuries and resulted in bogus felony riot charges being filed against
eight
marchers to intimidate and silence the victims of the attack. During the
incident, one Philadelphia police officer apparently went berserk, drew
his
gun, and waved it wildly about with his finger on the trigger, endangering
the lives of peaceful marchers, innocent by-standers, and his fellow officers.
The open letter to Philadelphia Mayor John Street accuses the Philadelphia
Police of having intentionally pre-planned the attack and blasts District
Attorney Lynne Abraham for vindictively filing felony charges and demanding
excessive bail for the innocent victims of police violence.
Mumia's attorneys point out that, while the Philadelphia Inquirer Newspaper
has dramatically demanded a moratorium on the death penalty in Pennsylvania,
Philadelphia Police have imposed their own moratorium on the First Amendment.
According to Mumia's attorneys, this unprovoked attack on peaceful
demonstrators lawfully exercising their First Amendment rights shows that
"not only is there no justice or peace" in Philadelphia, "there
is no law and order either."
According to Mumia's attorneys, the police riot began shortly after marchers
had rallied at 13th & Locust Streets, the scene of the incident 20
years ago which resulted in the frame-up of award-winning Black journalist
Mumia Abu-Jamal and the death of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. The marchers
had just watched a videotaped confession of the real killer, Arnold Beverly,
which the courts have thus far refused to consider although it is corroborated
by a lie detector test and a mass of other evidence. According to Beverly,
he was hired by corrupt police and the mob to murder Faulkner because
the officer was an obstacle to the protection and pay-offs racket they
were running in center city Philadelphia in the 1980's.
Mumia's attorneys urge the Mayor to speak out publicly and to exercise
the powers of his office to see that the charges against the marchers
are dropped and Mumia is freed.
December 10, 2001
Letter to Mayor Street From Mumia's Attorneys
Hon. John
Street
Mayor of the City of Philadelphia
City Hall, Room 215
Philadelphia, PA 19107-3295
RE: Police
Attack on Peaceful Mumia March, December 8, 2001
Dear Mayor Street:
On December 8, 2001, the First Amendment was mugged by Philadelphia Police who viciously attacked a legal march of 1,000 people of all ages and races who were peacefully commemorating the 20th anniversary of the frame-up of award-winning Black journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal who is still on death row although the real killer has confessed and exonerated him.
Ironically, the marchers had just left 13th & Locust, the scene of the December 9, 1981 incident which resulted in Mumia‚s frame-up and the death of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. The marchers had just watched the videotaped confession of mob hit-man Arnold Beverly, who explains how he was hired by corrupt police and the mob to murder Faulkner because he was an obstacle to the "protection and pay-offs"racket they were running in center city in the 1980's. Beverly‚s confession makes it clear that Mumia had nothing to do with the shooting and arrived on the scene after the police officer was shot. According to eyewitnesses, the police riot began when a white by-stander screamed racist epithets at the marchers, a marcher replied, and the by-stander grabbed the marcher and yelled for police to arrest him. A group of officers broke ranks and waded into the march, billy clubs flying, sending three marchers to the hospital with serious injuries (among them a petite Asian woman with a broken coccyx and possible perforated colon) and causing a Buddhist priest to suffer a heart attack.
One berserk officer pulled a gun and waved it wildly about with his finger on the trigger, endangering the lives of marchers, innocent by-standers, and his fellow officers, before putting the gun to the head of the marcher who dared to verbally reply to the racist provocateur who initiated the incident. See enclosed photograph of one of "Philadelphia's finest" on the verge of accidentally shooting who knows how many innocent people. Any firearms instructor, whether police, military or civilian, will tell you that the first rule of safe firearms handling is not to let the muzzle cover anything that you do not want to destroy and never to place your finger on the trigger until you have made the decision to shoot.
Not only could this wild man have shot and killed someone, he could have caused a mass panic by other officers who, hearing a shot and thinking they were under attack, might have drawn and fired their weapons, causing a veritable bloodbath of dead and wounded. This is precisely what happened to Taisha Brawley, an innocent young Black woman asleep in her car who was riddled with gunfire by panicky Riverside, California police.
What makes this "cop riot" even more ominous is that it bears all the signs of a pre-planned provocation which failed to turn into a full-scale melee and massacre only because the marchers kept their cool and did not reply in kind to police violence. Plainclothes police "liaison officers," who had been functioning as a "buffer" between uniformed police and the marchers, suspiciously disappeared from the scene shortly before the unprovoked police attack. It should also be noted that while a small group of officers literally ran amuck, many of their fellows showed visible signs of shock at their behavior and were heard exclaiming under their breath, "this isn't right, this isn‚t right."
Meanwhile,
"tough cookie" Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham,
whose blood lust to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal, despite his innocence, has
apparently set her into a feeding frenzy on his hapless supporters, has
now filed felony riot charges and demanded outrageously high bails for
the innocent victims of the police riot. This shameful attempt to intimidate
and silence those whose only crime is to exercise their constitutional
right to freedom of speech and assembly, coming as it does in the context
of the continuing frame-up of an innocent man for a murder that he did
not commit, is a troubling sign that in the „City of Brotherly Love,‰
not only is there no justice or peace, there is no „law and order‰
either. While the Philadelphia Inquirer dramatically demanded a moratorium
on the death penalty in Pennsylvania in an editorial on November 12, Philadelphia
Police declared their own moratorium on the First Amendment in Philadelphia
on December 8. This vicious display of contempt for the laws and Constitution
which these police officers are supposedly sworn to uphold and protect
not only disrupted a peaceful and legal march in support of justice for
Mumia Abu-Jamal, it marred the 20th anniversary of the tragic death of
Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, for whom there will never be justice so
long as the frame-up of an innocent man continues to cover-up the trail
which might otherwise lead to the door of those who planned the officer‚s
murder and hired the triggermen to carry it out.
We urge you
to speak out publicly and exercise the powers of your office to have the
charges against the marchers dropped immediately and to free Mumia.
Very truly
yours,
MARLENE KAMISH, ESQ.
NICK BROWN, ESQ.
ELIOT LEE GROSSMAN, ESQ.
J. MICHAEL FARRELL, ESQ.
By:
ELIOT LEE GROSSMAN
Attorneys for Mumia Abu-Jamal
Enc. (photo
see above) cc w/enc:
Philadelphia Inquirer
Philadelphia Tribune
Philadelphia New Observer
News Wire, Inc.
Governor Mark Schweiker
Pam Africa, ICFFMAJ
Mumia Abu-Jamal
December 9, 2001
Letter to the Philadelphia Inquirer:
From:
Professor Mark Taylor
Subject: Mumia Melee or Police Riot?
Your story
on the "Mumia Melee" was inaccurate and left out what I saw.
I
drove in from Princeton, New Jersey, for this peaceful rally. And it was
peaceful, symbolized for me by the many parents guiding their children
through the streets in a 2-hour act of solidarity for Mumia.
I did not
see how the conflict with police started, but by the time I got
to the scene I saw police rioting, charging into the crowd of people
simply to terrorize. I saw one burly officer rush a small, young woman,
pick her up, shake her until she was terrorized, then push her back into
the crowd. I saw others with faces twitching, eager to swing their clubs,
both physically and emotionally out of control. Most distressing, I saw
police supervisors on the sidewalks seeing their officers improper
actions, and doing nothing.
I returned
to Princeton leaving one of my friends among those jailed by
the police. He was doing nothing but shouting out to the police to calm
down. And he's now charged with "felony riot?" Something's wrong
in
Philadelphia. I am ready to testify against the police for their riotous
ways.
Mark Taylor
mark.taylor@ptsem.edu
December 9, 2001
The Philadelphia International Action Center joins our national office in
condemnation of the Philadelphia police's unprovoked and brutal attack on the December 8th thousand-plus march in support of death row political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
In the aftermath of September 11th, and the national attacks on civil liberties, the police seemed emboldened to carry out an ambush attack of peaceful protestors in a permitted demonstration. Their actions threaten all of us, and we need to respond.
Saturday's repression followed the harassment of a high-level delegationfrom France (including a French Senator, two mayors, a union president, a member of the European Parliament and the daughter of Franz Fannon) at the prison where Mumia Abu-Jamal is being held. Besides being verbally abused, cameras and video equipment were seized and film destroyed.
Saturday's protest called for freedom for Abu-Jamal, entering his 20th year on death row for the alleged murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. The demonstration stopped at the intersection of 13th and Locust Streets to view a video taped confession by Arnold Beverly that he, not Abu-Jamal, had shot Faulkner on December 9th, 1981.
Shortly after, as the marchers made their way up Walnut Street, according to one eyewitness account, on behalf of a right-wing heckler of the rally, bicycle cops toward the back of the march charged into the middle of the crowd, dismounted their bikes, and drew a gun on one protestor whom they had pinned to the ground. Police began ramming people with their bicycles, and indiscriminately beating demonstrators with batons, pepper-spraying them, and arresting people. An army of cops descended on the protest, some wearing camouflage and black berets. Some were transit cops. The Civil Affairs cops who were supposed to be the intermediary between the police and the demonstrators were nowhere to be found during the ambush.
At this time we have been able to confirm seven arrests, including two activists from Philadelphia. (The Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting that all those arrested were from out of town since they never want to admit to the sizeable and growing support for Mumia in Philadelphia).One of the sisters arrested from Philadelphia, who weighs less than 100 lbs, was surrounded by several cops. She ended up hospitalized with a broken tailbone, although video cameras show her walking as she was lead away. Another woman arrested was also hospitalized with a broken jaw-bone from being violently dragged on the ground by the police. A third man was also hospitalized but since released. Those arrested are being charged with felony assault on a police officer, and felony inciting to riot, and face high bails.
Those who saw today's Inquirer account of this event need to respond to the lies and distortions in that coverage. Mumia has stated his innocence on more than one occasion, including in a sworn affidavit filed last summer by his new attorneys. His attorneys have been fighting to get the affidavit by Arnold Beverly confessing to the murder entered into the court records -- but the district attorney and both federal Judge William Yohn and Pennsylvania Judge Pamela Dembe have refused to allow the confession into evidence -- claiming it is "not timely". Since when is there a statue of limitations on murder, especially when an innocent man sits on death row accused of the crime?
Many activists
and civil libertarians have expressed concern in recent weeks over the
Bush Administration's attempts to curtail civil liberties in the aftermath
of September 11th. We ask all who are concerned with the shredding of
constitutional rights, to join in a struggle to demand freedom for Mumia,
whose constitutional rights to a fair trial, to have counsel of his choice,
and more have been denied for 20 years.
Those arrested
on Saturday are in need of support, both vocal and financial.
To find out
how you can help, please contact the offices of International
Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal at 215-476-8812 or
icffmaj@aol.com ; or e-mail the IAC at philnpc@op.net.
Call to protest
these arrests and the brutality of the police:
-- Deputy Commissioner Sylvester Johnson 215-686-3358; 686-3359
-- The 9th Precinct 215-686-3007
-- Mayor John Street 215-686-2181
December 8, 2001
Peaceful Mumia Demonstration in Philadelphia Attacked by Police
December 8th, was a demonstration in Philadelphia to mark the 20 years our brother Mumia has lived, locked down, under threat of death by the government. There was a rally at City Hall, speeches at 13th and Locust and then a march to The Ethical Culture Center for an indoor rally.
A few blocks from the Center, people in the middle of the march were attacked by the police. Some were thrown to the ground. Cops used their batons to beat people. People were maced. A gun was put to the head of a demonstrator and waved at the crowd. Another demonstrator dragged away by the neck and suffered a broken jawbone. All of this was videotaped and some of it was witnessed by people who went to Philly on the Chicago bus. This was a legally permitted demonstration and march and the kind of police vilolence exhibited was highly unusual for marches for Mumia in Philadelphia.
December 7, 2001
Mumia Abu-jamal’s Attorneys File Response to Judge Dembe
On Friday, December 7, amid demonstrations slated to draw thousands of protesters to the streets of Philadelphia, death row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal’s attorneys will file their final legal brief with Judge Pamela Dembe to demand a hearing in state court to present professional hit man Arnold Beverly’s testimony that he – and not Mumia – shot and killed Police Officer Daniel Faulkner because the officer was an obstacle to the “pay-off” racket that corrupt police and organized crime were running in downtown Philadelphia in the 1980's. Beverly’s written and videotaped confessions have previously been filed in state and federal court with a mass of corroborating evidence including a lie detector test that Beverly passed.
Quoting the Philadelphia Inquirer’s dramatic November 12 editorial demanding a moratorium on all executions in Pennsylvania because they “disproportionately condemn[s] minorities and the poor, and sometimes even the innocent,” Mumia’s attorneys remind Judge Dembe that a Federal Judge has just overturned the conviction and death sentence in the very case she relies on to claim that she has no jurisdiction to hear their petition – the case of Otis Peterkin. In that case, because Peterkin had missed recently-enacted filing deadlines, the state supreme court refused to hear his claims that he was denied a fair trial, was the victim of prosecutorial misconduct, and there was insufficient evidence to convict him.
According to Mumia’s attorneys, “what the Pennsylvania Supreme Court achieved in Peterkin was to conceal a grave and flagrant miscarriage of justice which it was its very task to remedy.” Mumia’s attorneys argue that, in following the Peterkin decision, Judge Dembe “achieves precisely the same with ... [her] refusal to hear Petitioner Jamal’s claims that he is innocent; that the real killer has confessed and exonerated him; [and] that his prior attorneys, [Leonard] Weinglass and [Daniel] Williams, suppressed this and other evidence of his innocence ... because they themselves were the victims of death threats.”
Mumia’s attorneys also draw Judge Dembe’s attention to Court Reporter Terri Carter’s testimony that, at the time of Mumia’s trial, she overheard Judge Albert Sabo say, referring to Mumia that, “Yeah, and I’m going to help ‘em fry the n****r.” Their legal brief disagrees with Dembe’s “surprising and unsustainable position that an openly racist judge who expresses the specific intention to contrive with the prosecution to procure the conviction and death sentence of a defendant [because of his race] does not deprive the defendant of his constitutional right to a fair trial.” Mumia’s lawyers argue that “any exercise of discretion by a judge whose expressed purpose in making his rulings was to ‘help ‘em fry the n****r’ must necessarily be an abuse of discretion.”
Sunday, December
9, will mark the 20th anniversary of the incident in which Mumia Abu-Jamal
was shot and Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was killed. Prominent civil
rights leaders and a delegation of French human rights activists, including
a representative of the Mayor of Paris, who recently named Mumia an “honorary
citizen of Paris,” are expected to join protest demonstrations to
demand that Mumia be freed.
For copies of the legal briefs, including the December 7 Response, Arnold Beverly’s videotaped confession, and other information, contact howardkeylor@attbi.com
For more information call (626) 943-1945 or contact innjustice@aol.com
• Download Legal Document, December 7, 2001 (Filed in State Court) PETITIONER MUMIA ABU-JAMAL’S RESPONSE TO COURT’S NOTICE OF INTENT TO DISMISS PETITION FOR POST-CONVICTION RELIEF AND/OR WRIT OF HABEAS CORPUS (Pdf 75k)
•
See
the document filed in state court that she denied:
Dowload PCRA 2001 & Read! (condensed
and reformatted to 68 pages, pdf file, opens with Acrobat Reader Software
473k)