Mumia
Ethel Tobach (tobach who-is-at amnh.org)
Mon, 20 Jul 1998 11:11:58 -0700
>From: DennisNFD who-is-at aol.com
>Date: Fri, 17 Jul 1998 15:25:54 EDT
>To: tobach who-is-at amnh.org
>Subject: Mumia
>X-Mailer: AOL 3.0 16-bit for Windows sub 38
>
>Edith;
> The form is at the bottom of this post...I also don't control the
>technology as I don't the way in which this call went out. All I did was pass
>it along...Dennis
>
>Dear friend,
>
>We ask you to join us in signing the enclosed full-page ad in the New
>York
>Times to win a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Philadelphia
>African-American journalist on death row. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court
>will soon rule on his final appeal at the state level, and the governor
>has
>promised to sign an immediate death warrant if his appeal is denied.
>
>The ad speaks for itself. It has been approved by Mumia's attorney and is
>based on the actual court records in this amazing case. Mumia's plight
>has
>now provoked worldwide attention, and has focused attention on the need
>for
>the most careful review.
>
>Mumia's request for a new trial has been supported by forces as diverse
>as
>the European Parliament, the San Francisco city council, and the head of
>Amnesty International. In signing this ad you will be joining with:
>
>Philip Berrigan
>Owen Chamberlain (Nobel laureate)
>Ossie Davis
>E.L. Doctorow
>Mike Farrell
>Bishop Thomas Gumbleton
>Adam Hochschild (founder of Mother Jones magazine)
>Rev. Jesse Jackson
>Maxine Hong Kingston
>Jonathan Kozol
>Alice Walker
>Per Walsoe (Judge of the Supreme Court of Denmark)
>Cornel West
>
>It is a call to save both a life and the "voice of the voiceless."
>
>* * * *
>[text of the ad]
>
>Award winning journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal was
>convicted in 1982 of killing a Philadelphia police officer, and was
>sentenced to death. Recent court hearings have raised very serious
>questions
>about his trial and the evidence used against him. The Pennsylvania
>Supreme
>Court is now set to rule on the 26 issues raised in his appeal for a new
>trial. Throughout this process there has been an orchestrated campaign to
>obscure the facts and expedite his execution, including a recent
>full-page
>advertisement in the New York Times.
>
>Should Mumia Abu-Jamal be executed . . .
>Or should he receive a new trial?
>YOU BE THE JUDGE
>
>* The prosecution claimed that Jamal loudly confessed at the hospital
>where
>he was taken after being shot by the slain officer and beaten by police.
>
>BUT THE JURY NEVER HEARD from police officer Gary Wakshul who was
>guarding
>Jamal at the hospital and reported "the Negro male made no comments."(1)
>When called as a defense witness, the prosecution contended that he was
>on
>vacation and unavailable. The judge refused a continuance so he could be
>brought in, when in fact he was home and available.
>
>TODAY WE KNOW that no police officers claimed to have heard this
>"confession" until two months after it allegedly occurred, and after
>Jamal
>had filed police brutality charges.(2) The attending physician also
>denies
>that Jamal said anything.
>
>* The prosecution claimed that ballistics evidence proved that Jamal was
>the
>shooter.
>
>BUT THE JURY NEVER HEARD the written Findings of the Medical Examiner
>which
>contradicted other prosecution testimony by stating "shot w/ 44 cal"
>(Jamal's gun was .38 caliber). Jamal's court appointed attorney said he
>didn't see that portion of the report, so he never raised it.
>
>TODAY WE KNOW that the police never tested Jamal's gun to see if it had
>been
>recently fired, never tested Jamal's hands to see if he had fired a gun,
>have never shown Jamal's gun to be the fatal weapon, and have lost a
>bullet
>fragment removed by the medical examiner.
>
>* The prosecution claimed that eye-witnesses identified Jamal as the
>shooter.
>
>BUT THE JURY NEVER HEARD from a key eye-witness, William Singletary, who
>saw
>the whole incident and has testified that Jamal was not the shooter.
>Singletary, a local businessman, was harassed by police when he reported
>this, and he subsequently fled the city.(3)
>
>TODAY WE KNOW that the key witnesses Veronica Jones, Cynthia White, and
>Robert Chobert testified falsely in 1982, and we know why. Jones, who now
>testifies in support of Jamal, was threatened with the loss of her
>children
>if she did not support the police story.(4) Chobert, a white cab driver,
>first told the arriving police that the shooter ran away.(5) Later he
>told
>police that the shooter was 225 pounds and six feet tall.(6) Jamal, who
>weighed 170 pounds, was found a few feet from Chobert, sitting on the
>curb,
>critically wounded. In court, Chobert changed his story to say that the
>shooter ran only a few steps and collapsed. White backed the whole police
>story, but none of the other witnesses can remember seeing her at the
>immediate scene. Both Chobert and White received very special treatment,
>including exemptions from criminal prosecutions.(7) By contrast, when
>Veronica Jones testified in Jamal's support, she was arrested before
>leaving
>the courtroom.
>
>* The prosecution denies any political motives in targeting Jamal for the
>death of a police officer.
>
>WHAT THE JURY DID HEAR was that 12 years earlier Jamal had been a member
>of
>the Black Panther Party. This was raised by the prosecution as an
>argument
>for imposing the death penalty, a practice later condemned as
>unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court in another case.
>
>TODAY WE KNOW the FBI and Philadelphia police had amassed hundreds of
>pages
>of surveillance files on Jamal, beginning when he was 15 years old, for
>his
>outspoken opposition to racism and police brutality.
>
>Not only the "evidence," but the process itself made a sham out of
>Jamal's
>right to a fair trial.
>
>THE JUDGE was blatantly biased, even according to Philadelphia
>newspapers.
>Six former Philadelphia prosecutors have sworn in court documents that no
>accused could receive a fair trial in the court of Judge Albert Sabo.
>
>THE JURY was empanelled only after eleven qualified African-Americans
>were
>removed by peremptory challenges from the prosecution, a practice that
>was
>recently revealed as having been taught to prosecutors in a special
>training
>video tape.
>
>THE DEFENSE ATTORNEY testified that he didn't interview a single witness
>in
>preparation for the trial and he informed the court in advance that he
>was
>not prepared. Jamal was also denied the right to act as his own attorney.
>
>THE DEFENSE INVESTIGATOR quit the case before the trial began because the
>meager court allocated funds were exhausted. Neither a ballistics expert
>or
>pathologist could be hired because the court refused to allocate
>sufficient
>funds.
>
>Should this sort of procedure take away someone's life?
>
>Recently, an anonymous advertisement appeared in the New York Times. It
>reflected the views of the Fraternal Order of Police who have campaigned
>relentlessly for Jamal's execution. It used selective snippets from the
>1982
>trial transcript and did not dare quote the transcripts from the 1995 and
>1996 hearings that impeached this 1982 testimony. It attacked the
>hundreds
>of legal scholars, clergy, artists, writers, unions, Amnesty
>International,
>business men and women, and government officials from around the world
>who
>have called for a new and fair trail for Jamal, calling them "uninformed
>Hollywood celebrities and California legislators."
>
>Will executions now be decided by mass advertising campaigns funded by
>anonymous political action committees?
>
>Unless Mumia Abu-Jamal gets a new trial, justice will not be done.
>
>(List of Signatures)
>
>Footnotes:
>1) Hearing transcript, August 1, 1995, page 38.
>2) Hearing transcript, August 1, 1995, pp.78-79
>3) William Singletary's testimony began on August 11, 1995, at page 204
>of
>the transcript. He describes how police tore up his written statement,
>and
>forced him to sign a different statement which they dictated.
>4) Hearing transcript for October 1, 1996, page 20.
>5) Trial transcript for June 1, 1982, page 70.
>6) Trial transcript for June 19, 1982, pp. 241-242.
>7) For example, when Cynthia White was arrested in 1987 (five years after
>the trial) on armed robbery charges, Philadelphia homicide detective
>Douglas
>Culbreth appeared in court and asked that White be released without
>posting
>money because she was "a Commonwealth witness in a very high profile
>case."
>White subsequently failed to show up for her court date and was never
>apprehended. See hearing transcript for June 30, 1997, pp. 99-100.
>
>
>(caption for picture of young Mumia sitting at typewriter)
>Mumia Abu-Jamal was a radio journalist in Philadelphia, known as "the
>voice
>of the voiceless" during the years of Mayor Frank Rizzo. He was the
>recipient of a Major Armstrong Award for radio journalism, and was named
>one
>of Philadelphia's "people to watch" in 1981 by Philadelphia magazine. He
>was
>also president of the Association of Black Journalists in Philadelphia.
>
>Jamal was a member of the Black Panther party, and later a supporter of
>the
>MOVE organization. He was a leading critic of police violence against the
>minority communities of Philadelphia, practices that led to an
>unprecedented
>suit file by the United States Department of Justice seeking to end the
>notorious brutality of the Philadelphia police.
>
>For the last 17 years Jamal has been locked alone in a cell 23 hours a
>day,
>denied contact visits with his family. His confidential legal mail has
>been
>opened and reproduced by prison authorities. He was put into punitive
>detention for writing his book Live From Death Row, which is in its sixth
>printing by Addison-Wesley. Journalists are now prohibited from filming
>or
>recording interviews with him. As Jamal has put it, "They don't just want
>my
>death, they want my silence."
>_______________________
>
>Bottom of the ad will have information on how to send tax-deductible
>contributions to the Bill of Rights Foundation and the Black United Fund
>for
>legal defense, info about Mumia's web site, how to get involved, and a
>clip-off reply form.
>
>* * * * *
>[reply form]
>
>Signature Form for YOU BE THE JUDGE
>
>Please include my name as a signer of the You Be the Judge ad to appear
>in
>the New York Times.
>
>Name (please print)
>______________________________________________________________________
>
>One-phrase
>description______________________________________________________________
>
>(it will be indicated that organizations are for identification only)
>
>Mailing
>address__________________________________________________Phone__________
>
>City, State, ZIP__________________________________________________
>
>Fax_______________________
>
>Depending on placement and editions, this ad will cost between $26,000
>and
>$78,000. It is being funded by its signatories. It will both popularize
>Mumia's case and solicit funds for Mumia's legal defense. We need a
>minimum
>contribution of $250 per signatory. Contributions for this ad are tax
>deductible. Checks should be made out to Black United Fund/Mumia
>Abu-Jamal
>and in the memo field please write New York Times ad, and this form
>returned to Black United Fund, 2227 N. Broad St., Philadelphia, PA
>19132-4502.
>
>Enclosed is my check for [ ] $250 [ ] $350 [ ] $500 [ ] $750 [ ]
>$1000
>[ ] $2000 [ ] other______________
>[ ] I do not wish to be listed as a signatory, but I am enclosing a
>contribution to help publish the ad.
>
>
>___________________________
>
>