New York City Jericho Movement View this email in your browser From: Mobilization for Mumia <mobilization4mumia@gmail.com>



Date: May 11, 2018 at 5:20:45 AM PDT

To: undisclosed-recipients:;

Subject: Update to the movement to Free Mumia



DA LARRY KRASNER OPPOSES

REOPENING MUMIA ABU-JAMAL’S APPEALS -

MOBILIZE TO FREE MUMIA! ALL OUT AUGUST 30!



On April 30, Judge Leon Tucker’s Philadelphia courtroom was packed with Mumia’s supporters and a row of Fraternal Order of Police accompanying Maureen Faulkner, in expectation of District Attorney Larry Krasner’s position on Mumia Abu-Jamal’s pending Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) petition. Abu-Jamal’s challenge to the judicial conflict of interest and bias of former PA Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald Castille in denying every appeal filed by Abu-Jamal from 1998-2012 has been in the court for over a year.



In January 2018, DA Krasner’s office promised a “policy statement” and a decision on whether to vacate Abu-Jamal’s appeal denials after its review of prosecution files. Their office delayed their response until the April 30 hearing.



DA Krasner’s assistants announced in court that evidence of Castille’ bias was not found, additional discovery was asked for by Mumia’s attorneys, new legal filings were scheduled and the next court date for formal argument in front of Judge Tucker is set for August 30.



Bret Grote, Esq. Abolitionist Law Center Legal Director, said "In its failure to recognize that Ronald Castille played an active role in pursuing the execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal the new District Attorney's office headed by Larry Krasner, is failing to do what justice requires. It is continuing the position of his predecessors, to the satisfaction of the Fraternal Order of Police."



The Mobilization 4 Mumia and its participating organizations are calling for an ALL OUT MOBILIZATION to FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!



Hundreds of people, youth and decades-long Mumia activists from prisoner rights, community and political organizations turned out at the Filbert and 13th street Courthouse on April 30, to call for freedom for Mumia, then rallied and marched in opposition to the Krasner’s decision.



Thousands of people, including labor activists, have signed petitions initiated by the Fondation Franz Fanon and the French Collective Libérons Mumia and held rallies in cities around the world. In Philadelphia meetings, showings of decades of films on Mumia were part of the international offensive of the last few months calling on Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner to free Mumia Abu-Jamal and release DA and police files relevant to Abu-Jamal’s case. The former Philly Black Panther Party spokesperson, MOVE supporter and award winning journalist is now in poor health after 36 years in prison. Abu-Jamal is innocent and should immediately be released.



After the court hearing, Kavanagh told the press, “We haven’t found any evidence so far that Judge Castille played any role as DA in Abu-Jamal’s appeal of his conviction. It was just a run-of-the-mill appeals process.” There is nothing “run-of-the-mill” about an appeal on a capital offense case and Mumia’s was far from “run-of-the-mill” to Castille.



In 1986, while DA, Castille was voted "Man of the Year" by Lodge No. 6 of the Fraternal Order of Police. This organization has campaigned longest and hardest for Mumia's execution. The FOP supported Castille for re-election in 1989, and went on to endorse him in his campaign for the Supreme Court in 1993. In 1992, after Castille resigned as District Attorney and before his run for the PA Supreme Court, he was an attorney for the FOP. Castille was also District Attorney when the now-infamous training tape was made 1986, which instructed new prosecutors on how to exclude Black people from juries.



In the days before the April 30 court proceeding, Maureen Faulkner (the widow of police officer Daniel Faulkner) was given prominent editorial page space in the Philadelphia Inquirer to urge Krasn e r to keep Abu-Jamal in prison for life. Faulkner seemed to be covered around the clock by every TV news station. Keith Cook, Abu-Jamal’s eldest brother, wrote a response but it was only published the day after the hearing. The Fraternal Order of Police threatened to intimidate Free Mumia supporters outside court on April 30 by holding a police line at the same time.



Maureen Faulkner and the FOP had nothing to worry about.



The majority of Philadelphia’s voters elected Larry Krasner as the District Attorney to put an end to mass incarceration. But Larry Krasner’s appointment of Ronald Castille to serve on his transition team was an ominous signal that Krasner would not change the core of racial and class bias inherent in the criminal justice system. Krasner was well-aware of Castille’s pro-death penalty, pro-cop and anti-defense positions taken as both a former DA and judge. Castille’s actions as prosecutor and then judge were the focus of the legal challenges made in the pending cases of Mumia Abu-Jamal and over a dozen other petitioners.



After months of promised policy review and the particulars of Abu-Jamal’s case, during the weekend before the April 30 hearing, the District Attorney’s PCRA Unit Supervisor Tracey Kavanagh issued a letter to Judge Tucker claiming that their “exhaustive search” had not found the missing Castille memo. It concluded: “Although Mr. Castille was the District Attorney when defendant’s (Abu-Jamal’s) direct appeal was pending and then presided as the Justice/Chief Justice over defendant’s PCRA appeals in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, it is the Commonwealth’s position that he did not have the requisite ‘significant, personal involvement’ in a ‘critical decision’ in this case to give rise to a substantive due process violation as set forth in Williams.”



Longtime Mumia supporter Rachel Wolkenstein said “the hearing was a continuation “of the outrage of keeping Mumia, who is innocent and framed, in prison.”



Abu-Jamal’s petition before Common Pleas Court Judge Tucker is based on a 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision, Williams vs. Pennsylvania, that found it unconstitutional for Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Ronald Castille to rule on an appeal case in which he had played a significant personal role when he was the Philadelphia DA. That constituted bias and conflict of interest; in effect, Castille would have ruled on his own earlier conduct.



The court proceedings for Abu-Jamal, if successful, would overturn Abu-Jamal’s PA Supreme Court appeal denials from 1998-2012. Those appeals argued that his conviction should be vacated on the grounds that due process was denied, trial evidence of guilt was manufactured and evidence of innocence was suppressed. One appeal argued that trial and post-conviction judge Albert Sabo was biased and racist when he pronounced, “I’m going to help them fry the n----r.”



The evidence of Castille’s personal involvement, denied by the DA’s office, is proven by the very documents already released in response to Abu-Jamal’s demand for discovery. Abu-Jamal’s attorneys, Judith Ritter and Sam Spital of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, made this argument to Judge Tucker October 19, 2017, and again in court during the April 30 oral argument.



Specifically DA Castille wrote a June 15, 1990 letter to then-governor Robert Casey, asking the governor to issue death warrants in 16 Philadelphia capital cases where the appeals process was completed. DA Castille’s letter states: “I urge you to send a clear and dramatic message to all police killers that the death penalty actually means something.”



This letter was disclosed by the former DA Seth William’s office months ago with the caveat that it does not apply to Mumia because he is not specifically named. But Mumia’s appeals were still pending in the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990, so a death warrant could not be requested for him. Spital argued in court that “all police killers” was an unmistakable reference to Abu-Jamal. Krasner’s office is unnecessarily limiting proof of Castille’s personal involvement by requiring Abu-Jamal’s name to specifically appear in the letter.

In January 2018, prior to the first court date after Krasner became the District Attorney, the Mobilization 4 Mumia, a letter to Krasner signed by Pam Africa and Joe Piette, made this very argument to DA Krasner: the first thing his office could do for justice for Abu-Jamal was to support the pending petition and agree that he should have new appeals.



The January 17 hearing for Abu-Jamal’s appeal was initially intended to include testimony on a 1990 memo from Castile’s former Deputy DA Gaele McLaughlin Barthold. Krasner’s office stalled, seeking months to search their files, and now claims that the underlying letter from Castille could not be found.

In response, Abu-Jamal’s lawyers challenged the prosecution’s claims of a full search for the memo, noting there was no indication that the DA’s search had reviewed Castille’s personal file on the case. Spital raised that the Commonwealth’s failure to produce the relevant memo favorable to the defense should warrant a finding of “adverse inference” in favor of Abu-Jamal.



Judge Tucker granted the defense the right to depose Barthold regarding the missing memo and to file an amendment to their original petition. The next in-court hearing is scheduled for Aug. 30.

The people’s movement forced the courts to take Abu-Jamal off death row in 2011 but his freedom was not won. Despite his innocence he was re-sentenced to life in prison without possibility of parole.



Mumia’s freedom depends on all of us. On Thursday, August 30, our presence is needed more than ever in Philadelphia to fill the streets. Free Mumia!



Mobilization4Mumia@gmail.com



https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LonImsMkEvp

29BVIOFplu1H6T1L9GX_NLHqe_gWakbI/edit?usp=sharing



_______________________________________________

Mumia-alerts mailing list

Mumia-alerts@mailman.lmi.net

http://mailman.lmi.net/mailman/listinfo/mumia-alerts



To unsubscribe from The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal list, please email mumia-alerts-request@free-mumia.org and type "unsubscribe" in the subject line. Thanks



_______________________________________________

Rnb-local-pp mailing list



Post: Rnb-local-pp@lists.mayfirst.org

List info: https://lists.mayfirst.org/mailman/listinfo/rnb-local-pp

