>From: "C. Clark Kissinger" <cck1@earthlink.net>
>Date: Sat, 23 Oct 1999 18:32:47 -0400
>
>**************************
>Urgent. The following is the latest information, with important corrections
>on our course of action, from International Concerned Family and Friends of
>Mumia Abu-Jamal.
>**************************
>
>Use this information to EDUCATE. Continue to DEMONSTRATE.
>
>STAY OF EXECUTION HAS YET TO BE GRANTED -- WE NEED TO ACT NOW!!!
>
>Judge Yohn’s law clerk Bill has stated that we should write letters to Judge
>Yohn and send them to Mumia’s lawyer who will submit them to the judge. (We
>found out that this was said as early as yes-terday -- Oct. 19). Mumia’s
>attorney Leonard Weinglass has agreed to accept letters to submit to the
>judge. The clerk also said that you can send letters directly to the judge.
>However, if you do this, please send a copy to Weinglass as well. We know
>that the FOP has been doing this, so it is critical that Mumia’s supporters
>act soon. The stay of execution has yet to be granted.
>
>Send the letters to Judge William Yohn, Jr. c/o Leonard Weinglass, 6 West
>20th St., Suite 10A, New York, NY 10011
>
>Honorable William H. Yohn, Jr., United States District Court, 2609 US Court
>House, 601 Market St., Philadelphia, PA 19106 Phone: 215-579-4361 Fax:
>215-597-6390
>
>URGENT! Mumia wants ALL letters to Judge Yohn on his behalf sent directly
>to Leonard Weinglass so that ALL the letters can be handed over to the Judge
>when Mumia goes to court. Mumia and Leo-nard Weinglass have asked that we
>do NOT demonstrate on Judge Yohn. Wait for further instruc-tions from
>Mumia! But we MUST continue to eductate and demonstrate in our communities
>while gearing up for a MASSIVE demonstration on Philadelphia!
>
>Pam Africa 215-476-8812
>
>We can be sure that the FOP is sending letters to put pressure on Yohn NOT
>to lift the death warrant. He has yet to make this ruling, even though
>Weinglass filed the appeals on October 15. It is impor-tant that Yohn hears
>from Mumia supporters now.
>
>While legal experts say that if the stay is granted, the appeal could take
>several years, the process could also move much faster. Much depends on
>Yohn’s rulings in these crucial early days of the ap-peal. Yohn can deny a
>hearing and decide the case on the trial records, appellate briefs and
>lawyers’ arguments. Denying a stay of execution could mean that the judge
>believes the appeal can be dis-posed of before Dec. 2.
>
>Suggested points to include:
>1) We want the judge to grant a stay of execution on the death warrant set
>for Dec. 2, 1999 signed by Governor Ridge on October 13, 1999.
>
>2) We want Yohn to grant an evidentiary hearing to examine the substantial
>evidence of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s innocence, i.e. witnesses who have testified
>in PCRA hearings that they were coerced by po-lice to change their
>testimony; that his trial lawyer failed to aggressively defend the case, did
>not in-vestigate, or obtain crucial experts in pathology or ballistics; that
>police planted evidence and intimi-dated witnesses; and that Common :leas
>Judge Albert Sabo displayed bias and hostility toward Abu-Jamal and should
>have recused himself.
>
>3) Misconduct on the part of the city prosecutor who impermissibly
>challenged the seating of 11 of 15 prospective African American jurors
>because they were African American.
>
>4) That there have been 29 purported violations of Abu-Jamal’s
>constitutional rights.
>
>5) That Abu-Jamal has maintained his innocence and has been denied the
>right to a fair trial.
>
>STAY IN THE STREETS!
>
>Use this information to EDUCATE. Continue to DEMONSTRATE. Wait for Mumia
>to administrate our next action!
>
>THE DEATH WARRANT
>On Wednesday. October 13, Governor Thomas Ridge signed a new death warrant
>for Mumia, setting December 2 for his execution. Ridge did this knowing
>full well that Mumia was about to file his major appeal in the federal
>courts in a matter of days. This is the same stunt that Ridge pulled in
>1995, when he rushed to sign a death warrant on the last business day before
>Mumia was to file his motion for a new trial in the state court. So we will
>not be intimidated by this publicity stunt.
>
>Ridge has now signed 176 death warrants, and he is the first U.S. governor
>to sign death warrants for 100 African -Americans. The new state motto
>ought to read: “You have an Executioner in Pennsyl-vania.” The record in
>Philadelphia is even worse: 49 of the last 51 death sentences in Philly have
>been given to people of color.
>
>THE STAY?
>Although Mumia has filed his new appeal in federal court, he has yet to
>receive a stay of execution. Another prisoner, who just got his death
>warrant, filed his federal appeal and got a stay the same day. A stay is
>supposed to be standard procedure, but nothing in Mumia’s case has been
>standard proce-dure. When Mumia filed his appeal in the state courts, he
>was not given a stay like other prisoners with similar appeals. Instead,
>Judge Sabo let his death order stand until 10 days before his execution
>date, and then relented only because of a world wide outcry. So people have
>to remain vigilant, and stay in the streets until there is a stay.
>
>Until Mumia is granted a stay, he is kept in “Phase II” where his cell is
>stripped, lights are kept on 24 hours a day, and regular visitors and phone
>calls are denied.
>
>THE NEW APPEAL
>On Friday morning, October 15, Mumia’s legal team filed a petition for a
>“writ of habeas corpus.” This is the standard way to begin an appeal in the
>federal court system. This document is dynamite! It is over 160 pages, 675
>paragraphs, documenting 29 violations of Mumia’s constitutional rights (the
>full text will be available on the Internet for all to read). These
>violations include the suppression of evi-dence by the police and
>prosecutors, the coercing of witnesses, the fabricated “confession” story,
>the suppression of documents about police surveillance of Mumia, the
>ineffective defense lawyer in Mumia’s first “trial,” how Mumia was not
>allowed to represent himself, how Mumia was barred from the courtroom in his
>own trial, the state using 11 peremptory challenges to knock
>African-Americans off the jury, no real money for defense experts, how Sabo
>would not allow embarrassing questions to prosecution witnesses, how the
>court was told that a key witness was unavailable on vacation when in fact
>he was sitting at home, and how the prosecutor used Mumia’s revolutionary
>political writings as an argument to the jury that he should be executed.
>
>No system of real justice could tolerate taking a man’s life with procedures
>like this!
>
>THE DEMAND FOR A HEARING
>Mumia’s new petition to the federal court asks for a hearing in the federal
>court to bring in the wit-nesses and evidence that were denied to Mumia in
>the Pennsylvania courts. Getting this hearing is critical, because it will
>be both the first time that Mumia can bring out this evidence, AND it will
>be the last chance to do so. If Mumia is denied a hearing in federal
>district court, that would mean that all future appeals will be based on the
>“evidence” as allowed and interpreted by Judge Sabo! Only a new hearing can
>get the real facts on the record. But the 1996 Effective Death Penalty Act
>was de-signed precisely to make it hard for federal judges to grant new
>hearings. This is a virtual repeal of the right of habeas corpus and a
>throw back to the days of white-supremacist “states rights.”
>
>THE F.O.P.
>From Day One, the Fraternal Order of Police has tried to interfere in the
>judicial process. This began with the F.O.P. writing to a judge in 1982 to
>oppose bail for Mumia, through the Pennsylvania Su-preme Court on which five
>of the seven justices are endorsed by the FOP and brag on their web site
>about how many FOP awards they have received. The FOP has tried to coerce
>supporters of Mumia such as the Rage Against the Machine concert, the
>graduation ceremony at Evergreen State College, and the Black United Fund.
>Today, Mumia is the only death row prisoner in the U.S. who is the target of
>a nationwide campaign to demand his execution, and the FOP has now announced
>that they are organizing a boycott of eve4ry performer and business that
>supports justice for Mumia.
>
>BUILD THE MOVEMENT
>The movement is continuing to grow! In response to Ridge’s outrageous death
>warrant, statements have poured in from all over the country, including
>already protest statements from Amnesty Interna-tional, Rev. Jesse Jackson,
>and the Congressional Black Caucus.
>
>We have know reached a new stage in the movement. Hopefully, in a few weeks
>Mumia will be pre-sent in court in Philadelphia for a hearing on this new
>appeal. This should be the occasion for a mass demonstration in
>Philadelphia, bringing people from all over the country. Then, on December
>11, re-gional demonstrations in Philadelphia, Chicago, and San Francisco.
>
>
>All financial contributions should now be made out to: “National Black
>United Fund/Mumia” and mailed to the National Black United Fund, 40 Clinton
>Street, 5th Floor, Newark, NJ 07102 (Indicate whether contribution is for
>“legal” or for “organizing.”)
>
>--International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, phone:
>215-724-1618, fax: 215-476-7551