(from EMAJ, Mark Taylor). On August 13, 2012, Judge Pamela Dembe, without notifying Mumia or his attorneys, simply filed an Order to sentence Mumia to life in prison without parole. This was a clandestine act, discovered by attorney Rachel Wolkenstein going through the dockets of the court (an unusual act of scrutiny). It is a clear violation of Mumia’s rights. See Linn Washington, Jr.’s commentary on the Order as the latest in a series of outrages in Mumia’s case. You can also listen here to a video online of Rachel Wolkenstein and Pam Africa commenting on this recent development. A brief statement of Wolkenstein follows immediately below, about the Post-Sentencing Motion filed by Mumia pro se, August 23, 2012.:
“ I filed it in the Court of Common Pleas, Criminal Division at approximately 4pm after Mumia edited a draft motion during my visit with him earlier. It was filed on an emergency basis to meet the 10-day jurisdictional time requirements for filing the challenge. This will be supplemented by a fuller statement of facts and a Memorandum of Law.
The first issue of this motion is to reverse and declare null and void the clandestine sentencing of Mumia to life imprisonment, which was an attempt to deprive of him of his right to challenge this sentence. Mumia’s motion not only attacks his own sentence to “slow death row,” but makes the constitutional challenge to life imprisonment without parole, solitary confinement for death row inmates and solitary confinement in general. Mumia is fighting with and for the entirety of “incarceration nation.”
Notably, Mumia’s motion concludes with the statement, “This motion does not waive any issues of arguable merit of innocence or any governmental misconduct in the underlying case.”
In the fight for Mumia’s freedom,
Rachel Wolkenstein
August 24, 2012 “
