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LET HIM GO !

If it was anyone else, since another confessed to the crime that Mumi`a Abu Jamal is on death row for, he would have been released. But since he was the minister of information for the Black Panther Party, and now a revolutionary reporter, he is still being held on death row in a Pennsylvannia prison, threatned with execution.
OnaMOVE!
There has been an urgent developement in Mumia's case which could lead to execution if we don't take this very seriously and unite to fight this gross injustice. Recently the stay was lifted from Mumia's case which means that Mumia's life is in grave danger. Below is a description of our important action on Sunday, July 11th along with a legal update which explains the situation. Please join us on the 11th to continue to build the movement to save the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal.
OnaMOVE!

This year the energy that we usually spend on a July 4th demonstration will be used on Sunday, July 11th. That weekend is the national conference of the NAACP and we will be meeting at 3pm at the Pennsylvania convention center at 1101 Arch St. to hold banners, pass out leaflets, educate people of the grave injustice in Mumia's case and sign folks up to work. Please spread the word and join us to demand freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal, an end to the racist death penalty and freedom for all political prisoners.
OnaMOVE,
International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
July 5, 2004

On June 29, 2004, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit lifted its stay in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and ordered briefing. At issue is whether the death judgment should stand. Also pending is the prosecution’s unconstitutional use of racism in jury selection.

Robert R. Bryan, Mumia’s lead attorney, has summed up the impact of the latest developments:

“Mumia's case is now moving forward. He is in extremely grave danger. The authorities want to silence his voice and pen. They thought this could be accomplished by convicting this innocent man and placing him on death row. However, his voice against injustice and oppression is now stronger then ever, and is heard and read throughout the world. The government knows that the only way to stop Mumia is to murder him in the name of the law, to execute him. In over three decades of litigating death-penalty cases, I have not seen one in which the government wants so badly to kill a client. We must not rest until Mumia is free!”

The Court of Appeals briefing order came on the heels of a U.S. Supreme Court decision in Beard v. Banks, ___ U.S. ___, 2004 WL 1402567 (June 24, 2004). The issue is whether this ruling should apply to the case of Mumia. The prosecution is contending that the order for Mumia’s execution must remain and be carried out. However, it is the view of Mr. Bryan that “this tragically unfair decision in the Banks case should not have an effect on Mumia.”

Mr. Bryan explained that Beard v. Banks is a complicated case. The Supreme Court ruled on the appeal by Pennsylvania stemming from a Court of Appeals decision that invalidated the death sentence of George Banks, who has been on death row over 20 years for multiple murder. Mr. Banks' death sentence had been overturned on the grounds that the jury instructions violated a Supreme Court ruling which held that jurors did not have to agree unanimously on the existence of mitigating circumstances in order to vote against death. The issue in the Banks appeal was whether Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367 (1988) could be applied retroactively, as the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit had held.

On June 24 the Supreme Court reversed in a 5-4 decision written by Justice Clarence Thomas. He concluded that the Mills case, which held unconstitutional capital sentencing schemes that require juries to disregard mitigating factors not found unanimously, did not apply retroactively. It was determined that the Banks conviction became final in 1987, thus the 1988 Mills decision did not affect his case even though what had occurred was unconstitutional. Hence, Mr. Banks and others similarly situated could not benefit from the Mills decision and his death judgment will stand. It is understood that about 30 other Pennsylvania death sentences are at stake for similar concerns.

Mr. Bryan pointed out that Justice Stevens, joined by Justices Souter, Ginsburg, and Breyer, strongly dissented. Justice Stevens said that the “use of such a procedure is unquestionably unconstitutional today, and I believe it was equally so in 1987 when respondent’s death sentence became final.” He further explained that “Mills simply represented a straightforward application of our longstanding view that ‘the Eighth and Fourteenth Amendments cannot tolerate the infliction of a sentence of death under [a] legal syste[m] that permit[s] the unique penalty to be . . . wantonly and . . . freakishly imposed.’” Justice Souter said that “a death sentence based upon a verdict of 11 jurors who would have relied on a given mitigating circumstance to spare a defendant’s life, and a single holdout who blocked them from doing so, would surely be an egregious failure to express the public conscience accurately.” He found that too much importance is given “to the finality of capital sentences and not enough to their accuracy.”

There are other legal developments concerning the legal fight to free Mumia. Robert Bryan is awaiting a ruling on a petition he filed in the trial court, the Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia, concerning new evidence of innocence and prosecutorial fraud. He will also be attempting to go back into the U.S. District Court regarding the statement by the trial judge, who said during the trial in reference to Mumia:

"Yeah, and I'm going to help'em fry the nigger.”
 
 

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