Discover the best of the web!
Learn more about Digg by taking the tour.
Photos Bolster Claim of Mumia's Innocence and Unfair Trial
news.newamericamedia.org — A group of journalists is determined to seek a fair retrial of death row prisoner, noted journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, and they point to evidence they say provides further proof of his innocence: photos from the crime scene that the jury never had the chance to see.
jonmlm- 26 diggs
- digg it
- notque, on 11/01/2007, -3/+9Crooked cops plus crooked judges, don't equal justice
Free all political prisoners
Racist cops plus racist judges, don't equal justice
Free all political prisoners
Brick by brick - wall by wall
Wont sit back - let our brothers and sisters fall
The unjust justice system
Our voice will overthrow
Brick by brick, wall by wall...
We're gonna free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Brick by brick, wall by wall...
We're gonna free Mumia Abu-Jamal
Brick by brick, wall by wall...
FREE MUMIA ABU-JAMAL!!!
No justice, No peace, No racist police - natedouglas, on 11/01/2007, -2/+3Could someone find an article a little more slanted? Like one that calls Mumia the reincarnation of Jesus or says that all cops are the Illuminati?
I guess I'm one of the irrational bastards who looks at this case and honestly thinks that Mumia killed a cop. I don't believe in the death penalty, but I sure believe that people should rot in prison or rot somewhere else if they kill without reason, and Mumia hasn't convinced me that a) he didn't kill or b) he killed with reason. Of course, I haven't read anything about the case in six or seven years, so I was thinking this might change my mind.
I went into reading this article with an open mind, but the slant was so bald and disingenuous that I ended up dismissing the case out-of-hand. One paragraph in particular bugged me. The author mentions the Jena 6, but not what they are actually facing prison for. He mentions the Scottsboro boys all being sentenced to death, but doesn't mention that all of them were eventually freed. I don't like that sort of *****, no matter whose side you're supposedly "on." I want facts and evidence, not a disingenuous rant.
Then I look down at the bottom of the page and find he's a scum-sucking lawyer. No wonder.- notque, on 11/01/2007, -2/+6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumia_Abu-Jamal
http://www.freemumia.org/
http://www.freemumia.com/
http://www.prisonradio.org/mumia.htm
Consider it yourself. I'm not going to digg you down, because I can see how one would come to your conclusions, but I'd look into the case, listen to him speak, his articles, the facts, listen to the counter arguments and make a decision. - notque, on 11/01/2007, -2/+4* Mumia was excluded from a majority of the proceeding of his own trial. He was excluded because he repeatedly requested permission to exercise his constitutional right to represent himself. He was denied this right.
* In violation of Supreme Court rulings in the Batson case, 11 of the 14 Black jurors available were excluded in a trial presided over by the notorious Judge Albert Sabo, who had sentenced more people to execution, 31, than any judge in the U.S. Twenty-nine of the 31 executed were Black.
* Philadelphia District Attorney Ronald Castille authorized a training tape for prosecutors, instructing them on how to exclude Black jurors, which they did. Castille, subsequently promoted to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, refused to recuse himself when Mumia's case was appealed to his court. He thus assumed the role of prosecutor and judge.
* Terri Maurer Carter, an award-winning court stenographer, overheard Judge Sabo state in his courtroom antechambers in reference to Mumia's case, "Yeah, and I'm going to help 'em fry the *****." Carter's testimony was excluded by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on the spurious grounds that Sabo's "alleged" racism was litigated and rejected in proceeding that took place six years BEFORE, Carter's affidavit was submitted.
* The testimony of Cynthia White, the chief police witness against Mumia, has been thoroughly repudiated. None of the several witnesses on the murder scene ever saw White. White admitted to Evette Williams, according to Williams sworn affidavit, that White was not on the murder scene, did not see Mumia and was forced, via police threats of a long-term prison sentence, to implicate Mumia. William's testimony was excluded from court consideration. Police informant Pamela Jenkins testified that Philadelphia police pressured her to falsely state that Mumia was the killer. Jenkins refused to do so. Veronica Jones, a prostitute vulnerable to police intimidation, testified in 1995 at Mumia's Post Conviction Relief Act hearing that her 1982 court testimony that helped convict Mumia, was a lie, the direct result of police intimidation.
* The testimony of taxicab driver Robert Chobert, the prosecution's other supposed eyewitness, was repudiated by a defense investigator whose affidavit affirmed that Chobert admitted he had lied when he stated in court that he was present at the murder scene. Other witnesses present refute Chobert's claim that his cab was on the murder scene. No other witness saw the cab. Chobert, an arsonist, had been previously convicted of throwing a Molotov cocktail onto a schoolyard. He was allowed by Philadelphia police to continue driving his cab, even though his license had been revoked
* The alleged confession of Mumia has been proven to be false, refuted by a series of witnesses and other evidence excluded from jury consideration.
* And finally, Arnold Beverly, a mob hitman and police collaborator, confessed that he, not Mumia, killed police officer Faulkner. Beverly's testimony and his request to appear in court, have been rejected on the grounds that they were submitted too late for consideration!- natedouglas, on 11/01/2007, -3/+4It's fired me up and I've read some more about it. The Wikipedia page, at least, which is prone to the usual caveats... but I'll give a point-by-point response to what you've posted.
* Abu-Jamal did not testify in his own defense. Regarding this he has explained:[36]
"At my trial I was denied the right to defend myself. I had no confidence in my court-appointed attorney, who never even asked me what happened the night I was shot and the police officer was killed; and I was excluded from at least half the trial. Since I was denied all my rights at my trial I did not testify. I would not be used to make it look like I had a fair trial."
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumia_Abu-Jamal
It should be mentioned that, acting as his own attorney, Abu-Jamal apparently disrupted the court and had to be removed thirteen times, and never testified in his own defense -- in fact, apparently, he never gave his side of the story for over twenty years, and never called William Cook to testify or give his side of the story either.
* "The Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which reviewed the case twice, declined to find that racial bias in jury selection either existed or was sufficiently problematic as to necessitate the ordering of a retrial. The same issue was raised in higher appeal, again unsuccessfully, to the United States District Court." -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1982_trial_of_Mumia_A ...
* After seeing the O.J. Simpson trial, I have to say I don't blame them. You can call a black jury refusing to find an obviously-guilty black man a case of jury nullification, but I don't believe it would apply in this case. Growing pot, sure. Killing a guy who raped your 12-year-old daughter, sure. But killing a person who wasn't accused of any particular brutality?
* I won't debate your next four points. I agree and think they're grounds for a new trial... even though I still think Mumia killed the cop.
* Abu-Jamal's next legal team revived the Beverly affidavit. Claiming it had been hidden from them, on 4 May 2001 they petitioned a federal court to have Arnold Beverly deposed as a witness. However, under US law, a capital case defendant cannot introduce evidence during an appeal which he has known about and rejected more than a year earlier, and on 19 July 2001, Judge William Yohn denied the petition.[2][4] {In December of that year Judge Yohn overturned Abu-Jamal's death sentence but upheld the conviction for murder.)[5] A further petition to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to hear from Beverly, based on the claim of ineffective counsel by Weinglass and Williams, was denied on 8 October 2003 by Justices Eakin and Nigro.[6]
-- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arnold_Beverly
Apparently Abu-Jamal's own counsel believed that Beverly was too shaky of a witness.
Again, I think there's probably grounds for a new trial... but given things like the ballistics tests that seem to confirm that the bullets in Faulkner came from Abu-Jamal's gun, and the bullet in Abu-Jamal came from Faulkner's gun, and the odd behavior from him during and since the trial... it seems pretty open and shut to me.- notque, on 10/26/2007, -1/+4A new trial would certainly be a welcome development. I am not willing to say it's open and shut.
If a new trial were to convict him, I would drop the issue as I don't believe I know any more than any number of people. A lot of people have brought up counters to some of the points in the wikipedia article, but I don't believe this is an issue that I am prepared to discuss indepth.
And if you've seen any of my comments, I'm pretty indepth. A new trial is needed, and we agree.
- notque, on 10/26/2007, -1/+4A new trial would certainly be a welcome development. I am not willing to say it's open and shut.
- natedouglas, on 11/01/2007, -3/+4It's fired me up and I've read some more about it. The Wikipedia page, at least, which is prone to the usual caveats... but I'll give a point-by-point response to what you've posted.
- notque, on 11/01/2007, -2/+6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mumia_Abu-Jamal
Digg is coming to a city (and computer) near you! Check out all the details on our 
© Digg Inc. 2008 —
Content posted by