from the diaries of the tennessee dude...he has been incarcerated on pennsylvania's death row for the past 24 years...his death sentence was overturned by a federal judge in 2001, prosecutors now want to have the capital sentence reinstated...
his name is mumia abu-jamal...and love him or hate him his case has generated more controversy and received more attention, both national and international, than that of any other inmate currently under sentence of death in the united states...
his lawyer robert bryan, has said he will challenge the fairness of the original hearing and seek a new trial...human rights activists say the original trial was marked by racial prejudice and legal inconsistencies...coming out of the philadelphia jurisdiction it should be on the shoulder's of prosecutors to prove otherwise...while the death penalty is clearly racially biased based on the color of the victim in philadelphia the system is bona-fide pure racist any which way you look at it...
people who have closely studied the case assert that he was denied the right to due process of law and a fair trial, alleging that the trial judge was a racist and that the prosecution made sure that there were no black jurors in the case...at the time, judge albert sabo, the trial judge in the 1982 hearing, is alleged to have told three people in his chambers:
"I'm going to help 'em fry the nigger."
court stenographer terri maurer-carter made the charged allegation in a 2001 affidavit...judge sabo died in 2002...pretty hard to get a fair trial in a courtroom like that...
bryan said he was hoping to win a new and fair trial for his client:
"The goal is for our client to be free. Nevertheless, he remains in great danger. If all is lost, he will be executed,"...
in february 2000 amnesty international outlined the case in the report a life in the balance: the case of mumia abu-jamal...in light of the contradictory and incomplete evidence in this case, amnesty international took then and takes now no position on the guilt or innocence of mumia abu-jamal however the organization expressed its concern that political statements attributed to him as a teenager were improperly used by the prosecution in its efforts to obtain a death sentence against him...
the case has a life and symbolism beyond its own narrow legal confines and that in and of itself makes it a case worth your continued eye...
peace out <3
1 comment:
I was just over at Highbrid Nation and they have been doing some interesting coverage of the Mumia case. Like them I also have mixed feeling on the case. I don't to see any man executed but just becuase he should not be executed does that mean that he wasnt wrong. I don't know.
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