Click on the title to link to the Partisan Defense Committee Web site. This information concerning Mumia is passed on from the Partisan Defense Committee. As always, free Mumia!
30 November 2009
Dear Friend,
We are now preparing for our annual Holiday Appeal for class-war prisoners. This year marks the 24th year of sending monthly stipends as an expression of solidarity to those imprisoned for standing up to racist capitalist repression and imperialist depredation. All proceeds from the Holiday Appeals go to the Class-War prisoners Stipend Fund enabling US to send stipends to 16 class-war prisoners and extra gifts to them and their families around the Holiday. Please phone us or go to our PDC website, www.partisandefense. org, and look under upcoming events for the time and location of Holiday Appeal benefits in Chicago, Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Toronto.
Support for class-war prisoners is not an act of charity, but the duty of those on the outside toward those inside prison walls. We ask at this time for all of our friends to consider becoming monthly sustainers to the PDC so we can continue our important work and ask that our loyal sustainers consider increasing their monthly donation.
At the Holiday Appeal benefits we will continue to highlight the case of death-row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. As you may know the Supreme Court summarily refused to consider the documented racist jury-rigging in turning down Mumia's appeal, while considering the prosecutors' efforts to reinstate the death sentence. In 2001, federal district court judge Yohn overturned the death sentence on the basis of faulty jury instructions, under the authority of the 1988 Supreme Court Mills decision. Upon doing so Yohn deferred ruling on Mumia's other challenges to the death sentence. This means that if his ruling on the Mills issue is ultimately reversed, Mumia's case would go back to Yohn to rule on these other issues.
Ominously, while the Court sits on the prosecutor's appeal in Mumia's case, it recently held oral argument in the case of Ohio neo-Nazi Frank Spisak, in which the prosecution sought to reverse a lower court decision overturning the death sentence on the same Mills grounds. Eighteen state attorney generals, including from Pennsylvania and California have filed an amicus brief urging the court to rule against Spisak explicitly citing Mumia as another case where they, in effect, want an execution. We don't know when or how the Supreme Court will decide. The Supreme Court could decide the Spisak appeal without addressing the jury instructions issue. But, should they restore Spisak's death sentence by overturning the lower court on the Mills issue this would represent an ominous legal development for Mumia. Should that happen, Mumia would be a step closer to the death chamber, although it would probably take at least a year for this issue to wend its way through the courts. If at the end of that round of litigation, the court ultimately reverses Yohn and restores the death penalty, the case would again go back to Yohn to rule on Mumia's other challenges to the death sentence.
You may be aware, black Republican documentary film maker from Philadelphia, Tigre Hill, is preparing a movie against Mumia entitled The Barrel of a Gun. Its disgusting premise is that Mumia was itching to kill a cop since his teenage days in the Black Panthers and that he got his chance on December 9, 1981. The trailer features shots of Bobby Scale calling to "off the pig" and BPP cartoons interspersed with shots of Mumia and Faulkner. It was scheduled to be release on December 9 this year, but has been postponed so that Hill can document some important "new development."
One of the talking heads in this movie is Seth Williams, the newly elected District Attorney in Philadelphia. While it is hardly news that the Philadelphia DA's office is gung-ho to execute Mumia, Lynne Abraham, the Queen of Death, is stepping down and a black Democrat, Williams, will now replace her. Like all the other Philly DA candidates he was approached by (Obama's pal) Michael Smerconish as to what they would do if Mumia's case comes before him. Williams campaigned on the promise that he will seek to reinstate Mumia's death penalty. You will recall that if Yohn's decision stands, the DA has six months in which to go for a new sentencing or let his decision stand which gives Mumia life in prison without parole. So even if the Supreme Court does not rule against Mumia, he could be subjected to a new sentencing phase trial where prosecutors will try to get him killed.
Mumia is Innocent! Free Him Now!
As WV No. 941 said, "The stakes are high and the situation is grim, but any real fight for Mumia's freedom must be based on a class-struggle opposition to the capitalist rulers, who have entombed this innocent black man in prison for more than half his life."
30 November 2009
Dear Friend,
We are now preparing for our annual Holiday Appeal for class-war prisoners. This year marks the 24th year of sending monthly stipends as an expression of solidarity to those imprisoned for standing up to racist capitalist repression and imperialist depredation. All proceeds from the Holiday Appeals go to the Class-War prisoners Stipend Fund enabling US to send stipends to 16 class-war prisoners and extra gifts to them and their families around the Holiday. Please phone us or go to our PDC website, www.partisandefense. org, and look under upcoming events for the time and location of Holiday Appeal benefits in Chicago, Bay Area, Los Angeles, and Toronto.
Support for class-war prisoners is not an act of charity, but the duty of those on the outside toward those inside prison walls. We ask at this time for all of our friends to consider becoming monthly sustainers to the PDC so we can continue our important work and ask that our loyal sustainers consider increasing their monthly donation.
At the Holiday Appeal benefits we will continue to highlight the case of death-row prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal. As you may know the Supreme Court summarily refused to consider the documented racist jury-rigging in turning down Mumia's appeal, while considering the prosecutors' efforts to reinstate the death sentence. In 2001, federal district court judge Yohn overturned the death sentence on the basis of faulty jury instructions, under the authority of the 1988 Supreme Court Mills decision. Upon doing so Yohn deferred ruling on Mumia's other challenges to the death sentence. This means that if his ruling on the Mills issue is ultimately reversed, Mumia's case would go back to Yohn to rule on these other issues.
Ominously, while the Court sits on the prosecutor's appeal in Mumia's case, it recently held oral argument in the case of Ohio neo-Nazi Frank Spisak, in which the prosecution sought to reverse a lower court decision overturning the death sentence on the same Mills grounds. Eighteen state attorney generals, including from Pennsylvania and California have filed an amicus brief urging the court to rule against Spisak explicitly citing Mumia as another case where they, in effect, want an execution. We don't know when or how the Supreme Court will decide. The Supreme Court could decide the Spisak appeal without addressing the jury instructions issue. But, should they restore Spisak's death sentence by overturning the lower court on the Mills issue this would represent an ominous legal development for Mumia. Should that happen, Mumia would be a step closer to the death chamber, although it would probably take at least a year for this issue to wend its way through the courts. If at the end of that round of litigation, the court ultimately reverses Yohn and restores the death penalty, the case would again go back to Yohn to rule on Mumia's other challenges to the death sentence.
You may be aware, black Republican documentary film maker from Philadelphia, Tigre Hill, is preparing a movie against Mumia entitled The Barrel of a Gun. Its disgusting premise is that Mumia was itching to kill a cop since his teenage days in the Black Panthers and that he got his chance on December 9, 1981. The trailer features shots of Bobby Scale calling to "off the pig" and BPP cartoons interspersed with shots of Mumia and Faulkner. It was scheduled to be release on December 9 this year, but has been postponed so that Hill can document some important "new development."
One of the talking heads in this movie is Seth Williams, the newly elected District Attorney in Philadelphia. While it is hardly news that the Philadelphia DA's office is gung-ho to execute Mumia, Lynne Abraham, the Queen of Death, is stepping down and a black Democrat, Williams, will now replace her. Like all the other Philly DA candidates he was approached by (Obama's pal) Michael Smerconish as to what they would do if Mumia's case comes before him. Williams campaigned on the promise that he will seek to reinstate Mumia's death penalty. You will recall that if Yohn's decision stands, the DA has six months in which to go for a new sentencing or let his decision stand which gives Mumia life in prison without parole. So even if the Supreme Court does not rule against Mumia, he could be subjected to a new sentencing phase trial where prosecutors will try to get him killed.
Mumia is Innocent! Free Him Now!
As WV No. 941 said, "The stakes are high and the situation is grim, but any real fight for Mumia's freedom must be based on a class-struggle opposition to the capitalist rulers, who have entombed this innocent black man in prison for more than half his life."
No comments:
Post a Comment