MUMIA ABU-JAMAL is an African-American writer and journalist who has spent the last 24 years on Pennsylvania’s death row. His demand for justice and a new trial is supported by heads of state from France to South Africa, by Nobel Laureates, the European Parliament, city governments from Detroit to San Francisco to Paris, France, scholars, religious leaders, artists, scientists, the Congressional Black Caucus and other members of U.S. Congress, and by countless thousands who cherish democratic and human rights the world over.
Since the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon on September 11, 2001, Jamal’s journalistic skills, historical analysis and eloquent pen have only confirmed his reputation as “voice of the voiceless.” With judicious historical insight and pointed probing of the issues, he continues to question and enlighten his readers through scores of columns, illuminating such issues as U.S. empire, terrorism, poverty, the U.S. support of Pakistan during the war in Afghanistan, the U.S. war and occupation of Iraq, and so much more. (See the “
Mumia Index” on this site.) His columns and essays continue to find place in scholarly books as well as in the street newspapers of the homeless.
Working people have expressed their support for Jamal through their leading regional, national and international trade union bodies. The International Longshore and Warehouse Union closed down West coast ports for the day of April 24, 1999, to support Mumia’s bid for a new trial.
Jamal’s books and over 500 published columns have been adopted as resource material for the teaching and inspiration of a growing number of students, youth, and educators who have come to see their futures as intimately tied to the outcome of this case. The 1982 trial that convicted Jamal of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner has been challenged by leading legal analysts and scholars, from Stuart Taylor writing in the prestigious American Lawyer magazine, to Per Walsoe of the Supreme Court of Denmark, to Amnesty International which issued a special report in February 2000, claiming that “justice would best be served by the granting of a new trial…” to Jamal.
While Jamal has worked while confined as an advocate for so many others, he has maintained his own innocence from the beginning, and does so in ever clearer and more emphatic tones to the present day. His attorneys have presented compelling evidence that key witnesses were intimidated or coerced to provide false testimony, that a purported “confession” by Mumia was likely fabricated by police, and that vital evidence pointing to his innocence was withheld from the defense. A key eyewitness has now recanted critical court testimony she gave under police intimidation and which was used against Jamal.
The confused and flagrantly-biased character of the prosecutors’ case against Mumia has only mushroomed over the years: yet another affidavit has been offered that casts doubt on the original witnesses’ claims that Mumia had confessed to the murder; another man now has even stepped forward to claim that he is the one who killed the officer Mumia was convicted of killing; and a court stenographer swears in another affidavit that she heard Mumia’s original judge, Albert Sabo, say during a court recess, “Yeah, and I’m gonna help ’em fry the nigger.” (Up to the time of his death just a few years ago, Judge Sabo maintained he had been racially unbiased throughout Mumia’s trial.)
Jamal was forced to appeal his conviction before this same judge who had sentenced him to death in 1982. Judge Sabo was notorious for presiding over capital cases resulting in 33 people being sentenced to death (all but two, people of color), more than twice the number of any sitting judge in the United States.
So confused and biased is the case against Mumia that a U.S. District Judge finally had to acknowledge just one of the problems of Mumia’s conviction, and in 1999 he thus vacated the death sentence against Mumia. The prosecution, however, with the help of police unions like the Fraternal Order of Police, are still working tirelessly and vigorously to see that he is executed. Mumia remains on death row while the prosecution appeals the suspension of a death sentence. Meanwhile, Mumia’s attorneys press on to gain an overturning of the judgment of guilt against Mumia toward the end of achieving his freedom. His life still hangs in the balance, with death just a few callous and cruel decisions away.
WE EDUCATORS ARE UNITED IN SAYING NO TO JAMAL’S EXECUTION. We invite you to study this web site, explore the case and the issues – for Mumia’s sake and that of so many others on U.S. death row.
■ Jamal has long been a POLITICAL TARGET as a prominent journalist critic of police brutality and racism in Philadelphia since the days of Mayor Frank Rizzo.
■ Jamal is made more vulnerable by sweeping JUDGMENTS AGAINST DISSENTERS as “terrorists,” and he has become less protected today, as many progressive activists in post-9/11 USA turn more of their attention and energy toward the war in Iraq, tensions in the Middle East and general surveillance issues in the U.S.
■ Jamal’s life is increasingly put at risk because even in post-9/11 USA he remains a vigorous critic of POLICE REPRESSION AND LAW ENFORCEMENT USE OF EXCESSIVE FORCE. Whether writing about the outrage of torture at the Guantánamo Base detention center, or in the jails and lockups of Brooklyn, New York, and Austin, Texas, Mumia’s as “voice for the voiceless” puts him at ever greater risk.
■ Jamal has challenged the present political priorities of SPENDING MORE FOR WAR AND PRISONS THAN FOR EDUCATION. The youth who increasingly rally to Mumia’s cause in the name of justice and fair play know that we build jailhouse cell blocks more rapidly than schoolhouse classrooms.
AS EDUCATORS, IN PENNSYLVANIA, ACROSS THE UNITED STATES AND THE WORLD, WE STRONGLY OPPOSE THE EXECUTION OF MUMIA ABU-JAMAL. While there are those who believe Mumia is innocent and should be FREED NOW, and others who have no opinion about his innocence, we are all united in viewing Mumia’s 1982 trial as a travesty of justice, and affirm that he MUST have a NEW TRIAL!
Last Update: Jun 15, 2009
MUMIA: More Lies Fuel Movement for Freedom - by Linn Washington
By Linn
Washington Jr.
A vivid example of abject stupidity is the outraged reactions of some local, state and federal officials to the April 2006 naming of a street in a suburb of
Paris, in honor of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
This volcanic outrage centers on anger that this small suburb with a history of naming streets in honor of those they consider opponents of injustice recognized Abu-Jamal – a Pa death row inmate convicted of killing a
Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981.
Interestingly, major errors riddle the legislative actions taken by these angered officials – condemning the city of
St. Denis for its street naming.
Ironically, errors by police, prosecutors, jurists and other authorities during the arrest and conviction of Abu-Jamal fuel the worldwide belief that Abu-Jamal did not receive a fair trial and is thus unjustly convicted.
The anti-St. Denis Resolution approved by
Philadelphia ’s City Council at the end of May, for example, contains the erroneous declaration that “Mumia Abu-Jamal has exhausted all legal appeals…”
Since the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals, headquartered in Philadelphia, approved Abu-Jamal’s request for an appeal late last year, it is factually incorrect to contend that Abu-Jamal “has exhausted” all of his appeals.
Not only did the 3rd Circuit agree to hear the appeal claim of that prosecutors used racial discrimination while selecting the jury for Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial, the Circuit Court also took the unusual step in granting appeal on other items like allegations of judicial bias during a 1995 appeals hearing for Abu-Jamal.
The intensity of the bias exhibited by Judge Albert Sabo during that 1995 hearing offended even Philly’s normally anti-Mumia mainstream news media to the point of publishing editorials condemning Sabo for both making a mockery of justice and providing Abu-Jamal supporters with additional ammunition to back their claims of gross injustice.
That Philadelphia City Council Resolution supported a congressional Resolution introduced in mid-May by two Philly area Congresspersons, Republican Michael Fitzpatrick and Democrat Allyson Schwartz.
This congressional Resolution contains fundamental errors.
The Fitzpatrick/Schwartz Resolution, in recounting facts of the case, makes the erroneous claim that “Mumia Abu-Jamal struck Officer Faulkner four times in the back with his gun…”.
The official Justice for Daniel Faulkner web site contains no claim of Abu-Jamal striking Faulkner four times in the back with his gun. This web site, according to its founders, exists to provide “an accurate source of information…”.
The “Evidence” section of the Faulkner web site states that Abu-Jamal shot Faulkner while Faulkner was in the process of arresting Abu-Jamal’s younger brother.
According to “The Evidence” section, Abu-Jamal ran toward Faulkner with a drawn gun and “from less than two feet away, Jamal fired a shot; which hit Officer Faulkner in the back.”
This Faulkner web site includes the transcripts from Abu-Jamal’s 1982 murder trial containing the account of the crime delivered during the June 19, 1982 opening statement to the jury by prosecutor Joseph McGill referencing nothing about Abu-Jamal striking Faulkner four times.
McGill tells the jury during his opening statement that “Mr. Jamal…shoots Officer Faulkner right in the back.”
McGill says nothing about Abu-Jamal battering Faulkner with his pistol before firing that pistol at Faulkner.
Now, perhaps there is a misunderstanding in word usage in the Fitzpatrick/Schwartz Resolution.
Perhaps this Resolution is not literally saying that Abu-Jamal struck Faulkner as in pistol whipping the policeman but is using the word struck in the form of striking Faulkner four times in the back with bullets fired from his gun.
Small problem with this interpretation!
Police and prosecutors contend that Abu-Jamal shot Faulkner in the back and after the policeman collapsed to the sidewalk on his back, Abu-Jamal straddled the wounded Faulkner and fired ‘several’ more shots – one striking Faulkner between the eyes “blowing his brains out” as McGill told the jury.
Since Abu-Jamal carried a five-shot revolver, how can the Fitzpatrick/Schwartz Resolution reconcile the contradiction between their contention that Abu-Jamal fired four shots into Faulkner’s back with the police/prosecution account that after shooting Faulkner in the back Abu-Jamal fired ‘several’ more shots at Faulkner as he laid on the ground?
No witnesses ever testified that Abu-Jamal reloaded his weapon…so it is impossible for a person with a five shot weapon to fire four shots and then fire ‘several’ more shots without reloading.
The Fitzpatrick/Schwartz Resolution contention that Abu-Jamal either fired four shots at Faulkner’s back or pistol-whipped him four times before firing is factually incorrect…inconsistent with the facts police and prosecutors have asserted since the day of Faulkner’s December 9, 1981 murder.
“No one ever claimed Mumia struck Faulkner’s back four times. While this may evoke the image of a heroic officer striking back against all odds, it is sheer fantasy,” writes Dr. Michael Schiffmann, author of a new book on the Abu-Jamal case.
“One might say such “details” are unimportant, but if they are so unimportant, why bring them up?” Schiffmann wondered in a recent communication about the Fitzpatrick/Schwartz Resolution.
Answering his rhetorical question, Schiffmann says this erroneous information makes “something these law and order representatives know nothing about seem more real.”
St. Denis officials did not complain in 2001 when local and state officials renamed most of Roosevelt Blvd. "Daniel Faulkner Memorial Highway.”
Pushing false facts is the type of stupidity that solidifies international claims that Abu-Jamal is falsely incarcerated.
Linn Washington Jr. is an award-winning writer who teaches journalism at
Temple
University.
