Johanna Faust, a mixed race Jew, prefers to publish pseudonymously. She is committed: first, to preventing war, ecological disaster, and nuclear apocalypse; last to not only fighting for personal privacy & the freedom of information, but, by representing herself as a soldier in that fight, to exhorting others to do the same. She is a poet, always. All these efforts find representation here: "ah, Mephistophelis" is so named after the last line of Christopher Marlowe's Dr. Faustus, whose heretical success flouted the censor for a time.

Mumia's Death Senternce Declared Unconstitutional (again)




On April 26 the US Court of Appeals, 3d circuit, unanimously concluded that Mumia Abu Jamal's death sentence was unconstitutional!  

The finding hinges on the how the jury was advised to consider evidence; as they did in 2008, the court found that the jury was not told that evidence in favor of a liffe verdict did not have to be agreed upon unanimously.  The jurors felt obligated to disregard evidence upon which they did not agree.  Evidence supporting a life verdict would have thus remained unconsidered, a process which is fundamentally unfair. From the article in the Bay View:

This decision marks an important step forward in the struggle to correct the mistakes of an unfortunate chapter in Pennsylvania history,” said John Payton, director-counsel of LDF. “Again acknowledging the existence of clear constitutional error in Mr. Abu-Jamal’s trial, the Court of Appeals’ decision enhances confidence in the criminal justice system and helps to relegate the kind of unfairness on which this death sentence rested to the distant past.”

Professor Ritter noted: “Pennsylvania long ago abandoned the confusing and misleading instructions and verdict slip that were relied on in Mr. Abu-Jamal’s trial in order to prevent unfair and unjust death sentences. Courts now use clear and unambiguous language to advise sentencing juries about their ability to consider evidence that favors a life verdict. Mr. Abu-Jamal is entitled to no less constitutional protection.”

Excerpts from his work:

From "String of berayal" (converning Mumia's being told that his dreadlocked hair did not fit within the 'image' of the radio station at which he worked, in response to which he wrote:

Are we talking about a radio station or a TV station? In the past three years, my hair has grown long, in a form some people call dreadlocks. Also in that time, I have worked in white radio, producing pieces good enough to garner a 1980 Major Armstrong Award (first place for news) along with other staffers at WUHYs 91 Report. Why are so-called dreadlocks so objectionable at a so-called BLACK radio station when it was a non-issue at a white one? When a Black man stops combing his OWN hair, which grows out of his OWN head, in the form of his fathers, and PROJECTS HIS OWN IMAGE, one as African as the African seed that produced him, ANOTHER BLACK MAN OBJECTS!

from "the Dirty Game  (POLITICS)" written on Hallowe'en, 2010:

If ever there was an election drama that revealed the sheer contempt that Democrats have for their most loyal voting bloc  Blacks  this was the clearest, for the nominee was a Black man running for a seat in one of the whitest clubs in America  the U.S. Senate. In the last half-century, only four Blacks have served in the Senate: Edward Brooks of Massachusetts, Carol Moseley-Braun and Barack H. Obama of Illinois, and the gubernatorially-appointed Sen. Roland Burris from Illinois. Democrats want to keep the Senate as the most exclusive country club in the nation. 
Both articles, written in 2010, can be found here.  both © Copyright 2010 Mumia Abu-Jamal. Read Mumia’s new book, “Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A.,” available from City Lights Publishing, www.citylights.com or (415) 362-8193. Keep updated atwww.freemumia.com. For Mumia’s commentaries, visit www.prisonradio.org. For recent interviews with Mumia, visit www.blockreportradio.com. Encourage the media to publish and broadcast Mumia’s commentaries and interviews. 

Mumia may be contacted at: Mumia Abu-Jamal, AM 8335, SCI-Greene, 175 Progress Dr., Waynesburg PA 15370.


Hopefully this marks a turning point for a principled and far seeing individual; hopefully this marks the beginning of the end of Mumia's 29 years on Death Row.

Odious as they may be, comparisons come to mind, comparisons that I cannot in good conscience make as I am in no position to judge. Neither, apparantly, are those to whom redounds the responsibiliy of making such comparisons.  George Bush the Elder and the Younger, and tgheir cohorts, have not spent so much as one day behind bars; neither have evecutives at BP, and both are responsible for far more deaths.  It is easy to posit a policeman  among them.  It would have made little difference had that in fact been verified to be the case -- as in fact it was with the Plame affair (See 2 CIA deaths in Afghanistan linked to the outing of Valerie Plame ...). Of course I am hesitant to argue that the perceived presence or absence of virtue should be enough to decide such a case -- the question of who is doing the deciding is too important -- but we are already putting frail humans in charge.  The least nod we could make in the general direction of The Good  would be to ensure that any mistakes would not be so unequivocably final.

                                                                                                                  
Be seeing you.

7 comments:

  1. Thanks for reminding me of Mumia. I am very glad that he is inching closer to seeing justice performed. It was such a biased/bogus trial.

    And, how ironic is it that a federal penitentiary is located on Progress Drive. My government shows me how it thinks. But once we're all in prison, who are they going to tax to pay their salaries?
    -Chip

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  2. The comment below reminds me of the police at WTO in Seattle in 1999 asking the anarchists to remove their masks to prove they were unafraid. (Greetings, Anonymous! A name of some sort is useful. If there is to be a conversation.)
    Tell me have you ever heard of COINTELPRO or are you blind as to what goes on in a Police State as in Bahrain where there is no justice but punishment for those who stand up against the tyrants.
    People are anonymous for good reason, I for one am the one who talked to David Icke in Vancouver after WTO and told him of the "shapeshifting reptilian" at the King Couty Jail in Seattle (see Icke on the reptilian shapeshifters on youtube). Look it up on youtube and remember the bible quote about "you do not war against flesh and blood but against principalities and powers in high places".
    Also look up the "1954 Greada Treaty" about the secret agreement with the aliens allowing them to have bases here on earth and allowing them to abduct people in exchange for technology. Remember that forming an alliance with a foreign power without the knowledge or consent of the american people is TREASON. Also know that the penalty for TREASON is hanging.
    Also you should know that the police were created to capture run away slaves just as the CORPORATE FASCIST POLICE STATE in america is now doing. The HOMELAND SECURITY with their 100 mile Constitution exclusion zone created by the "FALSE FLAG 911 inside job attack". We are at war and any fool that thinks otherwise well I have a great deal on a bridge to sell you.
    This conflict is not going away as Mumia and Peltier and many others alive and dead can tell you. Check out Bill Cooper and Phil Schneider as two patriots who lost their lives in this struggle. We have met the enemy and they are us and you need to know the truth to effectively fight the battle.---Mike

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  3. Meh. How much evidence does it take to convict a popular black man? Have we become so politically correct?

    Here's a simply thought experiment. Mumia isn't a black man accused of killing a police office. He's a white, racist, anti-semetic skinhead.

    Now, how many people here would be rushing to his defense? How many celebrities would speak on behalf of this "innocent" man? Think Sting would still put on a benefit concert?

    Nope. Mumia's defense has nothing to do with truth and everything to do with politics. Would this post on this site even exist, if he were white?

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  4. chip -- if only they could make robots that consumed and paid for it --

    also progress drive reminds me of the motto of the State Department: "We engage the world" ...

    Mike -- thank you for your cautionary advice -- please remember that i did say "a name of some sort is useful" when the goal one seeks -- that the group seeks -- is learning something in conversation. even the political entity known collectively as Anonymous overwhelmingly favors handles, or nicknames, to better effect successful organization.....

    anonymous: it is a very cogent point that you make -- in general. it is a trend -- or rather, a force -- in this society that i think we have to consciously counteract, and it is hard to know whether one's counter-actions are not in fact produced, rather than balanced, by the societal phenomena by which they were occasioned.... (cont'...)

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  5. if one seeks to avoid this behavior, how does one do it? seeking to counteract the dominant biases creates an atmosphere in which it is far too tempting , not to mention easy, to begin to prefer certain details over others, to begin to become completely and willingly blind to the evidence of one's political reality in all the fullness of its detail.

    that is something that IMHO is to be avoided at all costs. and so while i agree that it is a safe bet when it is 'an average blog' [whatever that is] that Mumia would be Featured Political Prisoner and our hypothetical Nazi under the Bus of the Disregarded (SS Transit Co., Longnives Route, Night Owl bus)....

    but i don't think that would be the case at this blog. I certainly did not report on Mumia because he is black. I reported on him because he may be innocent. I would want to do so no matter his color.

    I know I can't report on everything -- certainly not original posts -- but i do not report only when it is politically correct to do so. May all that is held sacred within the Web keep me from such a fate.

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  6. Learn how to spell you dumb bint, it's sentence, not senternce.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Did you know that you can make cash by locking premium sections of your blog / website?
    All you need to do is to open an account with AdWorkMedia and embed their content locking tool.

    ReplyDelete