The Politics of Death: Throwing Mumia Abu-Jamal Under the Bus

Created 06/29/2010
By Dave Lindorff

"I would unite with anybody to do right and with nobody to do wrong."
--Frederick Douglass

On the evening of February 25, participants at the Fourth World Congress Against the Death Penalty in Geneva, Switzerland had assembled from all over the globe for a dramatic Voices of Victims evening. It got more dramatic than they had anticipated though, when suddenly a cell phone rang and Robert R. Bryan, lead defense attorney for Mumia Abu-Jamal, jumped up on the stage to announce that his client had called him from death row in Pennsylvania.

The audience sat in rapt silence as the emcee held the phone up to the microphone. Abu-Jamal, on death row for 28 years after a widely disputed conviction for the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, greeted the delegates and then, as he has done on many occasions before, described to them the horrors of life in prison for the 20,000 people around the world who are awaiting execution.

Partisan Defense Committee Statement                        24 January 2010

Mumia Is Innocent—Free Him Now!

Supreme Court of Death Rules Against Mumia Abu-Jamal

Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!

On January 19, the U.S. Supreme Court took a clear step toward the legal lynching of Mumia Abu-Jamal. The Court vacated a 2001 decision by federal district court judge William Yohn overturning Mumia’s death sentence. Yohn’s decision had been previously upheld by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The new ruling by the Supreme Court underscores our insistence that fighters for Mumia’s freedom must place no faith in the courts, which, at every level, have colluded with the police and prosecutors to see through the execution of this innocent man.

Top US Court Sends Mumia Abu-Jamal Closer to Execution
 Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man on death row.  In two recent decisions, the US Supreme Court has ignored both evidence of his innocence and it's own precedents to deny Mumia's appeal and bring him closer to execution.  In this statement, the Labor Action Committee To Free Mumia Abu-Jamal lays bare the truth behind these actions, and proposes a course of workers' and mass action to free Mumia.

Cops, Courts and Politicians To Mumia:

Pam Africa on the Supreme Court ruling against Mumia

On Tuesday, Jan. 19, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal and granted the Philadelphia DA's petition for a writ of certiorari. Basically, the Supreme Court went against the lower federal circuit court's 2001 and 2008 rulings, which granted a new sentencing phase jury trial if the death penalty was to be reinstated in Jamal's case. Now the case goes back down to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals, who will decide whether they will re-impose the death penalty without the jury trial. 

Hans Bennett wrote:

Yesterday there was a huge development in Mumia's case.

According to a posting yesterday on the US Supreme Court's website, the Court has scheduled a conference for this Friday, January 15, to discuss Mumia's case. Specifically, they are looking at the Philadelphia DA's request to have Mumia executed without a new sentencing hearing.

People in the Humboldt area and wherever you are!  Please mobilize rallies, media, strikes, shut downs, walk outs, etc to save Mumia Abu Jamal.  If you've never spread the word before, spread it NOW!!  Pass this email on to all of your lists.  AT LEAST SIGN THE PETITIONS!!  Listen to Mumia's radio commentaries from Death Row, and fight for his life!!  There are many links at the bottom of this message.

And put MUMIA messages on your MYSPACE, FACEBOOK, etc!!