Supreme Court Refuses to Grant Mumia New Trial

 Just a day or so before we go to press, the US Supreme Court announced that they will not give further consideration to Mumia's appeal for a new guilt-phase trial (in legalese, they won't grant his "Petition for a Writ of Certiorari")
    
However, it also says that the US Supreme Court may still consider the DA's appeal to re-instate the death penalty without a new sentencing hearing!
 

Though many calls have come and gone in the last years of this struggle, this really needs to be a time to step it up. We should remember that courts and officials will always try to make their law sound like the final verdict, but powerful social movements have more often than not pushed a racist decision on the part of power into retreat. So let's get over empty threats and start organizing your affinity groups to take action now!

Post Supreme Court Interview with Mumia

Transcript of Interview 4-6-09

Noelle Hanrahan Prison Radio:  Mumia, what’s your reaction?
 
Mumia Abu-Jamal:   Well all I know is, you know, what Christina told me. So there’s nothing. There’s nothing to read. There is no order, other than my name is on a list of Cert denied.

Noelle Hanrahan: That’s right.

Mumia Abu-Jamal: So we don't know anything.  And you know, if it is the Batson issue, then it just shows you that precedent means nothing, that the law is politics by other means and that the constitution means nothing. That a fair jury means nothing.

Noelle Hanrahan: You said when I just first talked to you something about that it’s another day and how many days?

Mumia Abu-Jamal: Another day? Three decades.

Noelle Hanrahan: When did you stop being surprised?

Mumia Abu-Jamal: When I was at pretrial hearing before Judge Sabo,and he denied the motion. I knew then that he wasn’t working with the constitution. It did surprise me, and it really shocked me because, I’d read the cases. I knew what the law was. I knew what the law books said the law was. I learned then that they’re not going by that kind of law, and apparently they’re not going by that kind of law now. If you read Batson and you read my case then it’s almost as if you’re in two different universes. And in fact you are. You are.

Noelle Hanrahan: Are there different rules for what type of people? 

Mumia Abu-Jamal: Well there’s always been different rules for Black people, you know. If you read Batson, whatwill surprise people who have never done so, it has nothing to do with the accused, the defendant, the person on trial. Batson, in its own terms, says it protects the rights of those people who are allegedly American citizens, who are denied the right to serve as jurors. That’s what it says, that’s what it says. But in fact, how does it do that when it allows people to be removed, after Batson became law, for spurious reasons? Batson can be bested and beaten by exactly the way the DA's office said it could be beaten: by lying, and by getting up and saying, "Well no, we didn’t have any racist reasons, and ah we just ah, we’re not…” Listen, listen to the video tape. YOU HAVE SIXTY SECONDS REMAINING Listen to the video tape and if that doesn't tell you all you need to know then you are deaf dumb or blind.

Noelle Hanrahan: Whose video tape?

Mumia Abu-Jamal: The video tape of the DA, the training videotape of Jack McMahon of the Philadelphia's DA office from 1986.

The Power of Truth is Final -- Free Mumia!

Listen to audio of this interview at
prisonradio.org

Be sure to check the back cover for this month's Political Prisoner Freedom Week events!