Fight for Mumia Abu-Jamal at Brandenburg Gate

Mumia's lead atourney, San Francisco based Robert R. Bryan issued a new legal update some days ago. In it he summarized Mumia's situation as the most dangerous since his arrest in 1981.
The complete text with all legal information is in the PDF above.

Anyone interested of receiving legal updates by Mumia's defense regulary can write an e-mail to Robert R. Bryan:  RobertRBryan@aol.com

Lots of activities in support of Mumia Abu-Jamal took place last week in Mexico. Some are described in this report by Amig@s de Mumia on Philadelphia's indymedia. Most speeches etc. are avaible in either spanish or english. There are many pictures and a good video in spanish, as well.

 http://phillyimc.org/en/mexico-citys-week-solidarity-mumia-abu-jamal

Hans Bennett, himself co-founder of "Journalists for Mumia" in 2007 was interviewed by the Philadelphia news-website GEO.CLAN

It is a very complex and wide ranging interview on different aspects regarding the campaign to FREE MUMIA.

Monday: All out for Rodney Reed, a Texas death row prisoner
It is an outrage that Rodney Reed, a Texas death row prisoner, has been denied a new trial! Below is a press release for the protest for Rodney being organized by the Austin Chapter of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. And below it an article in the Statesman, that unfortunately leaves out important facts of the case that show why Rodney has been denied justice.


Let's push for the justice Rodney deserves.





Dear Friends,

For anyone following the case of Rodney Reed, I’m sure you were as outraged as we were by the CCA’s complete disregard for any of the important evidence provided by the defense that could prove Rodney’s innocence in a new trial. Their opinion released yesterday denies him a new trial. The Austin CEDP will be protesting this Monday for Rodney and to express ourselves about the ruling. Below is a press release from us, with protest details at the top.
Please spread the news and join us if you can!




Contact Lily Hughes, (512) 417-2241
 cedpaustin@gmail.com

--------------- For Immediate Release – December 18, 2008 ---------------
"A Great Injustice" in the Rodney Reed Case
Court of Criminal Appeals Denies Relief;
Reed’s Supporters Plan Protest for Monday, December 22, 2008. At 5:30 pm at the Capitol, 11th and Congress.


THE TEXAS Court of Criminal Appeals yesterday denied relief in the case of Texas death row prisoner Rodney Reed, as his family members and supporters decried the ruling.


Sandra Reed, Reed’s mother, responded to the court's decision by saying, "A great injustice has been done today. I looked to the Court to consider all the new developments.
And with all these developments how could they deny my son?"

Reed was accused of raping and murdering of Stacey Stites in 1996, and was convicted and sentenced to death on 1998. Reed is an African-American man, Stites a white woman. A number of witnesses have corroborated Reed’s claim that he and Stites were having a consensual sexual relationship, although these witnesses were not called to the stand during his trial.


Much of the evidence presented by the defense, both new and old, points toward another suspect: former Georgetown police officer Jimmy Fennell. Fennell’s recent conviction on sexual assault and kidnapping charges further substantiates the defense's theory.


Fennell was engaged to Stites at the time of her death. He failed two lie detector tests when asked "Did you strangle Stacey Stites?" Fennell's truck, which Stites was driving at the time, contained only her and Fennell's fingerprints.


This and a vast array of other forensic evidence, eyewitness testimony, alibi witnesses, etc. is outlined in the court's decision. However the Court deemed the evidence presented by the defense as unreliable, while considering most the evidence presented by the prosecution as wholly reliable.


The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA), recently the subject of much public criticism, acted on the recommendation of Judge Reva Towslee-Corbett, who presided over 2006 hearings in Bastrop on the case and is the daughter of the judge in Reed’s original trial. Many observers of the hearings, which were mandated by the CCA, noted a bias towards the State and the original conviction.


“This is one-sided justice at its worst,” said Lily Hughes of the Campaign to End the Death Penalty. “Rodney deserves a new trial.
”

The Campaign to End the Death Penalty and the family of Rodney Reed plans to continue our grassroots campaign for justice for Rodney Reed, including protests, petitions and more. We will continue to pressure any and all courts and public officials involved in this case to grant a new trial where evidence of Reed’s innocence can be presented.

###
Rodney Reed still claims innocence 10 years after murder of Stacey Stites, 19.

By Isadora Vail , Steven Kreytak
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF

Thursday, December 18, 2008
The state's highest criminal court on Wednesday denied the most recent bid for a new trial by death row inmate Rodney Reed, convicted a decade ago in the brutal Bastrop County strangling and sexual assault of 19-year-old Stacey Stites.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, in the most robust review to date of the controversial case, issued a 100-page opinion that evaluates in painstaking detail much of the evidence presented at Reed's 1998 trial and raised by his lawyers in the years since the guilty verdict.


The opinion also evaluates some of the claims made by Reed's lawyers that Stites' fiance when she was killed, Jimmy Fennell, could be the real murderer. Fennell was a Giddings police officer at the time and went on to become a Georgetown police officer. He is serving 10 years in prison after pleading guilty in September to kidnapping and improper sexual activity with a person in custody.


Wednesday's court opinion noted some of the evidence that Reed's lawyers say suggests Fennell's involvement — including that he gave deceptive answers in a polygraph test during the investigation — "arouse a healthy suspicion that Fennell had some involvement in Stacey's death.
"

But, the opinion said, "we are not convinced that Reed has shown by a preponderance of the evidence that no reasonable juror, confronted with this evidence, would have found (Fennell) guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.
"
Fennell's lawyer, Bob Phillips, said Wednesday, "Jimmy Fennell took responsibility, pled guilty and went to prison for what he did. It would be nice if Rodney Reed was manly enough to do the same and admit he killed Jimmy's fiance.
"
Stites was abducted, raped and strangled. After she failed to show up at her 3:30 a.m. shift at a Bastrop H..u2011E..u2011B, her body was found on the side of rural Bluebonnet Drive , off FM 1441.


Investigators ruled that she had been raped. When Reed's DNA matched the semen found on Stites, he was charged with capital murder. Reed initially denied knowing Stites but at trial said the two were having a consensual sexual relationship, according to court filings.


Reached on Wednesday, Stacey Stites' mother, Carol Stites, said: "I am glad that it is finally coming to an end and I can get on with the rest of my life. Justice is slow, but the system does work. I was impatient the first year after she died, but I've learned patience.
"

In fact, it still could take years before Reed is executed. He is eligible to appeal in federal District Court, to the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in New Orleans and the U.S. Supreme Court.

First, though, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals must consider several appeals that were not addressed in Wednesday's opinion, said Bryce Benjet, one of Reed's lawyers.


Those include requests for a new trial based on Fennell's conviction in the recent Williamson County case, Benjet said.

One filing references the corrupt administration of former Bastrop County Sheriff Richard Hernandez, whose office participated in the investigation of Stites' death, Benjet said.


This year, Hernandez was sentenced to 90 days in jail and 10 years of probation for six felony counts, including theft by a public servant and abuse of official capacity. Among other offenses, Hernandez admitted using inmate labor and county materials to build barbecue pits he sold for profit.

"None of this evidence is ever mentioned in the 100-page opinion by the court," Benjet said at a new conference outside the Court of Criminal Appeals, near the Capitol. "It doesn't make sense to do it piecemeal.
"
"We are certain that if a jury would consider all of the issues in this case" at a retrial, they would acquit Reed, Benjet said.

The Texas high criminal court affirmed Reed's conviction in 2000 and two years later rejected his request for a new hearing and sent the case to federal court. U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel sent the case back to the state for review, citing a federal law that requires new evidence to be considered in state court before a federal judge weighs in.

In 2006, state District Judge Reva Towslee Corbett in Bastrop held a two-day hearing on the testimony of two witnesses:

€ Martha Barnett, who said she saw Stites and fiance Jimmy Fennell Jr. together almost two hours after Reed was said to have killed her.


€ Mary Blackwell, who said Fennell bragged that he would strangle his girlfriend, using a belt to prevent fingerprints, if he learned she had cheated on him.


Corbett ruled that the evidence would not have changed the outcome of Reed's trial and sent her findings to the Court of Criminal Appeals, which held oral arguments this year.


Wednesday's opinion was the first time the judges considered the importance of those witnesses and of a claim by Reed's lawyers that some empty Busch Light Beer cans found near Stites' body could link Fennell to the crime scene. The state's DNA analysis of those cans could not exclude fellow Giddings police officer David Hall, a friend of Fennell's, according to court documents.


The court's opinion was written by Judge Michael Keasler and joined by five other judges. The other judges agreed with the conclusion of that opinion but signed on to concurring opinions.


Ultimately, Keasler wrote, the decision to deny a new trial was based on all of the evidence, presented both at trial and after. The evidence, he wrote, "does not compel the conclusion that it is more likely than not that no reasonable juror would have voted to convict Reed.
"

The opinion disputed Reed's stance that he had consensual sex with Stites, noting that her pants were unzipped, the zipper was broken and her underwear was bunched around her hips.

It also pointed to evidence that Reed used to walk at night near Bastrop High School, where the truck that Stites was driving to work that day was found.


Also, the opinion noted that Stites had been eagerly anticipating her marriage to Fennell, scheduled for 18 days after her death. The day before her death, according to the opinion, she told her mother: "I love Jimmy, and I am going to marry him.
"

 ivail@statesman.com; 246-0053

... as supporters mobilize globally

On Friday, December 19, 2008, death-row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal filed his appeal to the US Supreme Court, asking it to consider his case for a new guilt-phase trial. One month before, the Philadelphia District Attorney filed its separate appeal to the US Supreme Court asking to have Abu-Jamal executed without a new sentencing-phase trial.



At this critical stage in Abu-Jamal’s case, supporters organized a week of global solidarity actions that began on December 6, the day of the large protest in Philadelphia, almost 27 years after Abu-Jamal was arrested for the December 9, 1981 shooting death of white police officer Daniel Faulkner, and later convicted in a 1982 trial that Amnesty International has declared a "violation of minimum international standards that govern fair trial procedures and the use of the death penalty".

There were solidarity actions inside the US and around the world, including Mexico, Venezuela, Germany, France, England, Switzerland. Several US events screened the new DVD video titled Fighting for Mumia's Freedom: a report from Philadelphia.

In Philadelphia, over 200 protesters gathered outside the District Attorney’s office across the street from City Hall. Journalists for Mumia’s new video report from the demonstration features an interview with persecuted Civil Rights Lawyer Lynne Stewart, and footage of Pam Africa speaking outside the DA’s office about the newly discovered crime scene photos taken by press photographer Pedro Polakoff, and the DA’s role in hiding them from the defense. The coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Pam Africa cited Polakoff’s statements today that he approached the DA’s office with the photos in 1981/82 and 1995, but was completely ignored by them. Subsequently, Polakoff’s photos were never seen by the 1982 jury, or by the defense. Africa presented the evidence to Philadelphia PD Civil Affairs Captain William Fisher to deliver to DA Lynne Abraham.

Protesters marched from the DA’s office to the FederalCourtBuilding where Abu-Jamal had oral arguments on May 17, 2007. The march stopped at the 13th and Locust crime scene where Journalists for Mumia gave a presentation focusing on the photo by Polakoff that shows a blank space where key prosecution witness Robert Chobert testified to being parked in his taxi as he allegedly observed Abu-Jamal shoot Faulkner. An online video of the presentation is available alongside the special presentation flyer.

That week, Journalists for Mumia was featured by Philadelphia’s independent news website GeoClan.com. I argued in the interview that “those advocating Mumia’s execution show a disturbing lack of concern about the undeniable problems of racism (and all documented police / DA / judicial misconduct) throughout. At the most fundamental level, the ‘Fry Mumia’ campaign’s lack of concern is racist….The FOP is appealing to a racist lynch mob mentality that has long infected the US, so calling this a ‘legal lynching’ is no exaggeration.”

In Mexico City, Mexico, supporters organized a week of actions, including a protest rally outside the US Embassy. Linking Mumia’s case to repression and political prisoners in Mexico, speakers at the US Embassy included ex-Atenco prisoners Edith Rosales and César del Valle, as well as a guitar performance by Atenco survivor Jorge Salinas, whose arms were temporarily paralyzed and hands fractured when he was almost killed by police at Atenco. Survivors Mariana, Edith y Norma who courageously told their story of being raped at Atenco. Solidarity statements were read from Mexican political prisoners Gloria Arenas Agis and her husband Jacobo Silva Nogales, and from the Atenco political prisoners in the Molino de Flores prison at Texcoco, México.

Braulio Alvarez, a member of the Venezuelan parliament and leader of the farmers struggle in Venezuela said in his message written for the week, that Venezuelan supporters had decided “to go the American embassy in Caracas to hand to the ambassador a letter to the governor of Pennsylvania, demanding that he immediately liberate Mumia Abu-Jamal.”

Berlin, Germany’s, week of solidarity culminated in a demonstration where hundreds marched to the US Embassy with slogans like "Freiheit für Mumia Abu-Jamal - Weg mit der Todesstrafe überall" ("Freedom for Mumia Abu-Jamal - Abolish the death penalty everywhere").

Also demonstrating the international interest in this case, the new British documentary film about Abu-Jamal, titled In Prison My Whole Life, premiered December 8 on the Sundance Channel. Previous interviews with William Francome, and Livia Giuggioli Firth, revealed that In Prison features an interview with Abu-Jamal’s brother Billy Cook, and the newly discovered crime scene photos. Officially endorsed by Amnesty International, Amnesty UK Director Kate Allen said: "We hope that the film's viewers will back our call for a fair retrial for Mumia Abu-Jamal--and also support our work opposing the death penalty in the US and around the world."



Appealing to the US Supreme Court

Both the DA and Abu-Jamal are asking the US Supreme Court to consider their appeals of the March 27, 2008 rulings by the US Third Circuit Court, when the court denied Abu-Jamal a new guilt-phase trial but ruled that there must be a new sentencing- phase trial if the DA still wants the death penalty. Therefore, Abu-Jamal is appealing for a new guilt-phase trial, while the DA is appealing to execute him without a new sentencing-phase trial. On October 6, 2008, the US Supreme Court rejected an unrelated appeal from Abu-Jamal.

On March 27, 2008 the US Third Circuit Court's three-judge panel of Thomas Ambro, Anthony Scirica, and Robert Cowen ruled against three different appeal issues, refusing to grant either a new guilt-phase trial or a preliminary hearing that could have led to a new guilt-phase trial for Abu-Jamal. However, on the issue of racist jury selection, also known as the Batson claim, the three judge panel of split 2-1, with Ambro dissenting.
Abu-Jamal filed his appeal of this ruling with the US Supreme Court today, Dec. 19. Arguably the key issue will be the 1986 Batson v. Kentucky ruling established the right to a new trial if jurors were excluded on the basis of race. At the 1982 trial Prosecutor McGill used 10-11 of his 15 peremptory strikes to remove otherwise acceptable black jurors, yet the court ruled that there was not even the appearance of discrimination. In his dissenting opinion, Judge Ambro wrote that the denial of a preliminary Batson hearing "goes against the grain of our prior actions…I see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our precedents."
Separately, the DA is appealing to execute without a new sentencing-phase trial, having filed their brief on November 14, 2008. Abu-Jamal’s deadline to respond to this is January 21, 2009.
On March 27, the three-judge panel unanimously affirmed Federal District Court Judge William Yohn's 2001 decision "overturning" the death sentence. Citing the 1988 Mills v. Maryland precedent, Yohn had ruled that sentencing forms used by jurors and Judge Sabo's instructions to the jury were potentially confusing, and jurors could have mistakenly believed that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstances in order to consider them as weighing against a death sentence.
According to this ruling, if the DA wants to re-instate the death sentence, the DA must call for a new penalty-phase jury trial where new evidence of Mumia's innocence can be presented. However, the jury can only choose between a sentence of life in prison without parole or a death sentence.
The DA is appealing this 2001/2008 ruling to the US Supreme Court, so if the court agrees to consider the DA’s appeal and rules in their favor, Mumia can then be executed without benefit of the new sentencing trial. However, if the court upholds the 2001 and 2008 rulings, then the DA will either request a new sentencing trial or accept life in prison without the chance of parole.
Notably, at the DA's request, during the post-2001 appeals, Mumia has never left his death row cell or been given general population "privileges" such as contact visits with family.





Reacting to the DA’s Appeal

Following news that the DA was appealing to execute without a new sentencing trial, I spoke with Dave Lindorff, J. Patrick O'Connor, and William Francome.

Dave Lindorff is the author of Killing Time: An investigation into the death row case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. He says that “the obsession of a string of Philadelphia district attorneys, beginning with current Governor Ed Rendell and ending with current DA Lynn Abraham with killing Mumia Abu-Jamal, despite his now having spent 26 years in the living hell of Pennsylvania's death row, is truly repulsive and inhuman. It has ruined the live of Daniel Faulkner's widow whose life has become a pathetic campaign of vengeance. It has cost the taxpayers of Philadelphia and of the state of Pennsylvania untold millions of dollars. And meanwhile, there is every reason to believe that Abu-Jamal was wrongly convicted of first degree murder and should never have been sentenced to death in the first place. The obsession to kill him, which began from the moment police first arrived on the scene in December, 1981, has led to a decades long travesty of and insult to the principles of justice, which is continuing to this day.”

William Francome, from the British film In Prison My Whole Life says that this “shows again the political nature of this case. It is my opinion that their office would not like to have to go through with another sentencing phase of the trial, with the attention that it would receive. They wish that this case would just disappear and that Mumia would be quiet, yet they do not want to face the Fraternal Order of Police who would be outraged if the DA wasn't pushing for a death sentence…The sad thing is that amongst the political battles, a man’s life is at stake and I find the attempt at reinstating the death sentence (which is a completely irreversible and inhumane practice), to be abhorrent.”

J. Patrick O’Connor is the author of “The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal.” Despite several book tours and an important NY Times article when Framing was released in May 2008, it has been virtually ignored by the mainstream media. O’Connor argues that the DA’s appeal is “without merit and represents pure gamesmanship by outgoing D.A. Lynne Abraham…The last thing the Philadelphia DA's Office wants to conduct is a new sentencing hearing, an event it continues to put off by filing this latest appeal. That's really what this latest appeal is all about.”



The Power of the People

At the December 6 protest, Pam Africa stressed that the DA is trying to execute Abu-Jamal despite the strong evidence of both an unfair trial and innocence. Not having any faith in the court system, she argued that justice will only come from popular pressure, and made an urgent plea for supporters to do all they can at this critical hour. In his message recorded for the international week of solidarity, Abu-Jamal thanked his supporters and decried the recent denial of a new guilt-phase trial: “As you’ve seen, the law is but politics by other means, and the judges but politicians in judges’ robes. It doesn’t matter what the cases say. It doesn’t matter what the so-called rules say. They’ve never followed them from day one. What matters is what you say. What matters is what you do. So I thank you all for being there, for fighting for what’s right, for fighting for life, for fighting for liberty. I thank you all and I love you all.”