From: "A.C.Slater" <mothman@ezwv.com>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 03:31:59 -0500
We are donating all of the money to Mumias legal defense fund
The show is FRIDAY Dec 10
doors open @ 6:00
all ages show
its @
Gyrationz
1318 4th Ave.
Huntington , WV
The band list is as follows:
The Connie Dungs
The Vacants
Orangemens Day Parade
CHON
It is a punk rock show.
Sincerely,
Todd Duncan
mothman@ezwv.com
============================>
UPDATE From: "Bushard, Andrew J" <Andrew.J.Bushard@uwsp.edu>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 10:43:13 -0600
Currently, I am on my 3rd day of fasting, and so far, so good.
-----Original Message-----
From: Bushard, Andrew J
Sent: Friday, November 19, 1999 2:51 PM
Hello ya'll
This is just tell ya'll that this coming starting on Monday I will be
doing a fast for not less than 3 days and not more than about 12 days
to call attention to the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
"My Panther, my brother, we are at war until you're free!"
Zack De La Rocha "Voice of the Voiceless"
"Justice is the Only Worship
Love is the only Priest
Ignorance is the only Slavery
Happiness is the only good"
Robert Ingersoll
All things are connected.......
==========================================>
From: "C. Clark Kissinger" <cck1@earthlink.net>
Date: Wed, 24 Nov 1999 17:34:53 -0500
Report on National Planning Meeting, November 20
by C. Clark Kissinger
In response to a call from the national coordinating committee,
approximately 50 people met in Philadelphia on November 20. The agenda was
in three parts: First was a report on Mumia’s current legal situation and
the importance of the upcoming hearing in federal court. Second, was a
proposal for a national mobilizing conference this winter. Third was status
reports on a number of activities that will happening before the winter
conference.
Before the formal agenda began, Pam Africa gave a short report on a number
of recent attacks against supporters of Mumia and the need to respond
quickly to such attacks. These included recent threats to boycott Sting, the
continuing attack on the Black United Fund, and the refusal of the city to
allow a documentary film maker to shoot a recreation of the 1981 shooting
incident at the actual site of 13th and Locust (20/20 received the full
cooperation of the city to film at the site).
I. The first part began with a report from Len Weinglass. Len’s report was
in two parts. First he spoke about the political climate in which the legal
battle continues. Len has now received over 10,000 letters addressed to the
judge that are now being categorized and filed. The plan is to present them
in court, with certain ones selected for the judge to read. Other positive
developments have been the major articles on support for Mumia by Rage
Against the Machine or on Mumia’s case in such publications as the Village
Voice, Rolling Stone, George and the Nation.
Other positive developments include the argument against the death penalty
in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin (the first
anti-death penalty speech in the Senate in two decades), the United Nations
resolution sponsored by Italy calling for a worldwide moratorium on the
death penalty (which is expected to pass in the General Assembly in
December), and the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court will outlaw
electrocution as a method of execution during the current session. The
importance of this last point is that the court has consistently upheld the
idea of “evolving standards” in relation to the death penalty.
On the negative side, the U.S. State Department had produced a statement on
Mumia’s case to be given out by U.S. embassies having to deal with protests
concerning Mumia. This statement contains outrageous and false statements
(for example, it claims that Mumia fired on arresting officers as they
arrived at the scene). The statement signifies the direct involvement of the
U.S. government in the campaign to execute Mumia. Also a rightwing funded
group in Washington calling itself “Accuracy In Academia” has published a
pamphlet attacking Mumia and the support movement for him.
Len went on to call attention to the context in which in which Mumia’s case
is coming to a head. This year over 90 people will be executed in the U.S.
Given the impact of the 1996 Effective Death Penalty Act on restricting
federal appeals by death row inmates, the rate of execution will now begin
to rise sharply. By the year 2001, which is when an execution of Mumia
would likely occur if we lose in all the appeals, the United States will be
in a “killing frenzy” with executions occurring almost daily.
After this discussion of the context, Len went into some of the details of
what we can expect to have happen in the courts, which cannot all be
reported here. The basic point he made, however, is that Mumia cannot win in
the courts if the factual rulings made by Judge Sabo, and endorsed by the
Pennsylvania Supreme Court, are allowed to stand. These 154 rulings hold
(among other things) that all the testimony by all the defense witnesses was
not credible, and all the testimony by all the prosecution witnesses was
credible. The new 1996 federal law instructs the federal courts to give a
“presumption of correctness” to such findings by state courts. Thus the
legal strategy has to take on, in some manner, this way of proceeding
because it is totally stacked against bringing out the truth in Mumia’s
case.
Changing the factual record can only occur at the district court level
(higher federal courts will only review the record of what happens in the
federal district court). Thus what happens in the next months is decisive to
the entire appeals process. As Len put it, what happens at the district
court level is going to leave the factual record “set in cement” for the
rest of the appeals.
Further, the issue of whether the factual record is going to be changed is
scheduled to be decided at the first court appearance before Judge Yohn,
which is currently expected to be in March. At this time Judge Yohn will
rule on motions and arguments submitted in writing to have an evidentiary
hearing that would allow witnesses and evidence to be presented that was
suppressed by the Pennsylvania courts. This could include some of the 32
witnesses Judge Sabo did not allow, and written evidence on racial bias in
the application of the death penalty in Pennsylvania.
While an exact date for this hearing and these rulings has not been set, it
is in the period leading up to March that the judge and the government are
going to be deciding whether to grant a new hearing. Thus this is the key
period in which to influence the entire federal appeals process.
As to the timing of the entire process, the first hearing, with its ruling
on vital procedural questions like whether new evidence will be heard, is
likely to be in March (but could be as late as May or June, depending on how
the judge responds to written arguments that will be submitted, and when the
judge has time on his calendar). After the ruling on the procedural motions,
there will hopefully be another court session to hear evidence. But in any
event there will be a final court session to hear oral arguments on the
basic question: should Mumia’s conviction be overturned because his
constitutional rights were violated?
Thus the whole process could easily go to August or even October before
there is a ruling by Judge Yohn. (The Republican National Convention will be
in Philadelphia, July 29-August 4.) However, Len pointed out that Mumia is
being subjected to a very tight schedule here. On the other hand, Len
pointed out that every time he has laid out a time line for events in this
case, those events have always ended up taking longer than predicted. With
regard to “worst case” timing, he did not believe there could be a negative
ruling before May, at which time the governor could sign another death
warrant, but the defense would appeal to the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals
which is expected to grant another stay.
In response to questions, Len laid out some of the possible outcomes from
the federal district court. Of course, we would prefer an evidentiary
hearing followed by the judge overturning Mumia’s conviction. But other
outcomes are possible. For example, the judge could deny an evidentiary
hearing and rule against Mumia. Or, the judge could overturn only the
sentencing phase of the trial, letting the guilty verdict stand and sending
the case back to the Pennsylvania courts for a new decision between death
and life imprisonment. This would be a very bad outcome. Or, the judge could
deny an evidentiary hearing and rule in Mumia’s favor, holding that he did
not have to hear any new evidence to find Mumia’s conviction
unconstitutional. While this would be a victory, the state would appeal this
decision and we would be at the court of appeals without having been able to
change the factual record in the case.
All this points once again to the decisiveness of the upcoming court
appearance in which the judge will rule on whether Judge Sabo’s record is
going to be allowed to stand, or whether new evidence will be admitted.
Again this is expected in March or shortly thereafter.
After hearing this report, the meeting resolved to have the national
coordinators prepare a “letter to the movement” that clearly sets forth the
legal situation and the decisiveness of bringing public pressure to bare
during the run-up to the first court appearance before Judge Yohn.
II. The meeting next considered a proposal from the national coordinating
committee for a national mobilizing conference this winter as part of
building for the critical showdown in the federal district court. The first
national conference of the Mumia defense movement was held last January in
New York. It brought together for the first time all the key forces then
working on the case. This was a meeting of invited organizers and was not
publicly announced. Because of the enormous growth of the movement over
1999, and because of the need to develop mass public pressure before the
crucial federal court decision in March, what is needed now is mass
conference involving thousands and with maximum publicity.
The meeting supported this concept, and expressed the goals of the
conference as follows:
1) to express the breadth of the movement and give expression to new forces
2) to express the urgency of the timeline we are facing in the federal court
3) to give information that will arm people
4) to approve various scenarios for on-going activities (such a spring
mobilization and mobilization at the court appearances).
The meeting generally favored a conference of at least two days that
includes a public rally or program and some special forms for youth
participation.
There was a lot of discussion over the timing and the location of the
conference. The contradiction on timing is that we are now going into the
holidays, and the later the conference the more time we will be have to
prepare for it. But on the other hand, given the need to build mass pressure
to influence the first and crucial court ruling which could be in March, it
is important to hold the conference as soon as possible.
Since it was not possible to set an exact date without knowledge of the
availability of sites, it was recommended to the coordinating committee that
they go for a date between the last weekend in January and mid February.
On the question of location, there were positive reasons for holding the
conference in three different cities. New York has the best capability to
put it on in terms of experienced organizations with staff and offices and
available sites. Philadelphia is the scene of the battle and will be the
location of the federal district court hearings. Washington holds out the
potential to more easily involve the CBC and representatives of many
progressive national organizations who have their headquarters located
there.
Again, without knowledge of availability of sites, it was not possible to
make a final decision, but it was recommended to the coordinators that
Philadelphia was the first choice, Washington was the second choice, and New
York was the third choice.
Among the topics considered for the conference were: “Mumia
Awareness”—getting out his story, image and writings; what sections of
society is it crucial to concentrate on?; mass mobilizations; direct action;
creating new literature and media work; the fight against the death penalty;
and converging on Philadelphia for court hearings.
There was some discussion on the timing for a spring mobilization. Since we
do not know the exact dates of the court appearances (and we may not know
until shortly before them), it was decided to proceed in two ways: First, we
will call for an emergency national mobilization to Philadelphia on the day
of the first court appearance (Mumia will be present in court that day).
Second, we will set a date for Spring mobilizations timed to impact the
critical first court decision. And the call for the mobilization will appear
with the call for the national conference.
III. The final part of the planning meeting heard reports from a number of
ongoing projects:
We received updates on the planned December 11 demonstrations in various
parts of the country.
The planned civil disobedience action in Washington, DC, has been pushed
back to February 28.
The current tour by Rage Against the Machine (November 19-December 20) is
raising Mumia’s case throughout the country.
On January 12 a union delegation from Europe will hold a press conference in
Washington, DC, and present the U.S. government with a letter containing
several hundred thousand signatures calling for justice for Mumia.
We heard a proposal that people build on the recent example in Los Angeles
and disrupt Pa. Governor Ridge wherever he appears.
We heard a proposal that various organizations and local coalitions take
advantage of school programs and church services around the Martin Luther
King, Jr., holiday to raise the issue of Mumia in the context of the issues
championed by Dr. King.
We heard a proposal for an on-going vigil for Mumia at Constitution Hall in
Philadelphia.
There was an announcement of a new pamphlet on the Mumia case by Amnesty
International that should be available in January.
=======================================>
(end)