A new Supreme Court ruling has brought African American leader and political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal one step closer to execution.
 Mumia Abu-Jamal |
The Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Mumia’s conviction in 2008, but ruled that Mumia deserved a new sentencing hearing because the jury had been given flawed instructions. The Supreme Court’s Jan. 19 ruling reverses that decision, sending the case back to the Third Circuit. The lower court can either let the death sentence stand or order a new trial to hear other claims brought by Mumia.
Mumia was wrongly convicted in 1983 of the 1981 murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner. His trial was marred by the coercion of witnesses and the vilification of his political activism. Ten of the 12 jurors were white. Judge Albert Sabo was a well-known racist, and was overheard by a court stenographer saying he would “help them fry the n—-r.”
Mumia had been a well-known local activist and investigative journalist known in Philadelphia as the “Voice of the Voiceless.” He had been a member of the Black Panther Party in Philadelphia and later the MOVE organization. Both groups faced intense persecution by the Philadelphia police.
Inconsistencies in the prosecution’s case, the surfacing of new witness testimony and recantation of testimony by prosecution witnesses led to the building of a movement determined to free Mumia. Original and new evidence overwhelmingly pointed to his innocence.
The struggle to gain freedom for Mumia became the principal death penalty issue of the 1990s. Mass demonstrations around the world in 1995 and 1999 brought the case to worldwide prominence. In 1999, dockworkers in the San Francisco Bay Area shut down the port for one day demanding Mumia’s freedom. In 2006, a street in Saint Denis, a suburb of Paris, was named in his honor.
Despite the worldwide outcry for his freedom, however, the state of Pennsylvania has vigorously worked to block justice and execute Mumia.
A political ruling
A week prior to its Jan. 19 ruling on Mumia’s case, the Supreme Court ruled on Smith v. Spisak. That case differed from Mumia’s in legal and political aspects. Spisak was a neo-Nazi who killed three people and bragged about it in court. His lawyers appealed based on the Supreme Court 1988 ruling in Mills v. Maryland, in which the Supreme Court ruled that a new sentence hearing was in order because the judge had incorrectly instructed the jury that unanimity—instead of a simple majority—was required to consider mitigating circumstances that might yield a sentence less harsh than the death penalty.
Spisak’s conviction had been overturned by the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals based on Mills, but the Supreme Court decided the standard did not apply to Spisak’s case, foreshadowing their upcoming ruling against Mumia.
Mumia’s case met the Mills standard, yet the Supreme Court refused to apply it. “What occurred in Mumia’s case is different both procedurally and factually from the jury instructions in Spisak,” Mumia’s attorney Robert R. Bryan stated. (AFP, Jan. 19)
The ruling, however, was not a legal decision; it was a political decision reaffirming the commitment of every arm of the state to permanently silence a prominent Black leader who has dedicated his life to challenging racism and oppression.
The Third Circuit must now revisit its decision to grant a new hearing, but must do so in light of the Supreme Court ruling on Spisak.
The legal battle over the death sentence will continue, but the inherently racist courts have shifted the focus away from justice. Commuting a death sentence to a life sentence for an innocent man is hardly justice. Mumia must be set free.
The Party for Socialism and Liberation joins with Mumia’s supporters around the world in denouncing this latest decision by the Supreme Court, and in demanding freedom for Mumia and all other political prisoners. Free Mumia!
