Author Dave Lindorff Analyzes The PA Supreme Court's Denial of Maureen Faulkner's King's Bench Appeal

--Please sign our Color of Change petition to Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner: Stop Defending Mumia Abu-Jamal's Unjust Conviction

(Note from Jamal Journal: Dave Lindorff is the author of “Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal.” This article by Dave Lindorff was first published at ThisCantBeHappening on Dec. 22, 2020 with the title: "A new chance to challenge murder conviction: State Supreme Court rejects Faulkner Widow’s ‘Evidence-Free’ Effort to Block Mumia Appeal.")

Mumia Abu-Jamal, the prison journalist long known as the “voice of the voiceless” for his compelling writings and short audio tapes about life behind bars, moved a step closer to getting a chance for a reconsideration of his earliest appeal of his conviction — an allegedly flawed Post-Conviction Relief Act hearing in 1995, as well as three other later PCRA appeals of aspects his case, all ignored and their findings rejected by Pennsylvania’s appellate courts under spurious conditions.

The opening comes in the form of dismissal by the state’s Supreme Court of an attempt by Maureen Faulkner, widow of slain Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, to use an obscure legal gambit called a King’s Bench petition, to have DA Larry Krasner’s office removed as the legal entity defending against Abu-Jamal’s appeals. That effort, filed last February had blocked any forward action on those appeals.

Abu-Jamal’s attorneys had filed an appeal several years ago in Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas, claiming that the handling of those four PCRA hearings, all of which were rejected by the State Supreme Court, were all constitutionally flawed because one of the judges reviewing them, Justice and eventually Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille (now retired), had refused Abu-Jamal’s  requests that he recuse himself, despite his having been Philadelphia’s district attorney and the man overseeing the DA Office’s legal effort to oppose Abu-Jamal’s appeals of his sentence and conviction. (That appeal was filed following the discovery of two notes — a draft letter and a final letter by then DA Castille to then Gov. Tom Ridge in 1990 calling on Ridge to speed up the signing of execution warrants for convicted “police killers” in which Castille said such a measure would “send a message” to would be police killers. 

Sign the Color of Change Petition to Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner: Stop Defending Mumia Abu-Jamal's Unjust Conviction and Release Him As Soon As You Possibly Can!

--Please sign our Color of Change petition to Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner: Stop Defending Mumia Abu-Jamal's Unjust Conviction

(UPDATE: On March 11, our petition was changed to add information about Mumia's new health emergency. The original petition was released only a few days before we first learned about Mumia's health crisis. The call for Mumia's release stays the same but it is now even more urgent.)

(This is one segment of the original artwork created by Seth Tobocman to support our petition campaign. It is the centerpiece of our newspaper and can be viewed on the website here. Special thanks to longtime Mumia supporter Seth Tobocman!)

Dear Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner,

We, the signers of this petition declare:

Mumia Abu-Jamal is currently suffering from COVID-19, congestive heart disease, liver damage, and a worsening of a severe and debilitating chronic skin condition. The cirrhosis of the liver and increased likelihood of liver cancer resulted from his untreated Hepatitis C in spring 2014. His Hep C went untreated for nearly two years until attorneys secured a preliminary injunction that forced the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to meet basic national treatment guidelines and give him the fast acting anti viral Hep C cure. In addition, Mumia was treated with topical steroids for his skin condition, which caused a diabetic reaction. Prison medical staff neglected to monitor and follow up on their own chart notations for three weeks! His unmonitored glucose levels resulted in a severely high glucose level resulting in ketoacidosis, requiring Mumia to be rushed to the ICU. Mumia Abu-Jamal now relies upon that very same prison healthcare system, the prison infirmary, for treatment during his current health crisis. Our collective call for Abu-Jamal’s release could not be more urgent. As Abu-Jamal’s physician Dr. Ricardo Alvarez says: The Only Treatment is Freedom.

Even without the current health emergency, Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 1982 conviction was already a travesty of justice, obtained through a combination of police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct, as documented by Amnesty International. Abu-Jamal has suffered from extreme injustice at all levels of the criminal justice system. These numerous improprieties have tainted Abu-Jamal’s conviction beyond repair.

Before her death, Mumia’s sister, Lydia Barashango said that she and her family suspected Kenneth Freeman was the actual shooter of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner --An interview with Johanna Fernández

--Please sign our Color of Change petition to Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner: Stop Defending Mumia Abu-Jamal's Unjust Conviction

(This is one segment of the original artwork created by Seth Tobocman to support our petition campaign. It is the centerpiece of our newspaper and can be viewed on the website here.)

The Jamal Journal interviews Johanna Fernández, co-director of the 2009 film Justice onTrial and the founder of the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home

Jamal Journal:  How did you become interested in Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case and ultimately decide to co-direct your 2009 film Justice on Trial?

Johanna Fernández:  Although I was not a filmmaker, a moment in the classroom inspired the project. In 2005, I’d started visiting Mumia on death row at SCI Greene in Western, PA’s the Supermax prison, an hour away from Pittsburgh. I was teaching at Carnegie Mellon University, and I started visiting him on the suggestion of Professor Emeritus David Demarest.

In 2009, my work on the film Justice on Trial, accelerated. It was at Carnegie Mellon in 2009 that Mumia first spoke live from Death Row to my civil rights movement seminar. Waiting for the call was a nail-biting experience. And this was Mumia’s second attempt to call into a college classroom, ever. A few weeks earlier, the first scheduled conversation coincided with an unannounced shutdown of the prison’s telephone system. But this time the call came through.

The students’ exchange with Mumia was chilling. And his answer to the final question one of them posed hit us all in the gut. The students asked Mumia to reflect on the significance of his political impact from death row, in light of the travesty of his case. Mumia responded by saying  “I don’t believe in Martyrdom.” This statement still lingers with me today and it strongly influenced the movie we went on to make. 

Linn Washington on the Significance of the Six File Boxes Discovered by DA Larry Krasner: The trial testimony of supposed 'eye-witness' Robert Chobert is now further discredited

--Please sign our Color of Change petition to Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner: Stop Defending Mumia Abu-Jamal's Unjust Conviction

(Note from Jamal Journal: This December 9, 2020 article by veteran Philadelphia journalist Linn Washington Jr. was first published at www.thiscantbehappening.net with the title: "Supreme corruption in Pennsylvania: Watching Injustice Fester For 341,880 Hours.")

(PHOTO: Pam Africa at a street press conference in West Philadelphia on December 9, 2020. The event marked 39 years since Mumia Abu-Jamal's arrest and also the release of his new book Murder Incorporated, Volume 3. Photo by Joe Piette. View more of Jamal Journal staff photographer Joe Piette's photos from the Dec. 9 event here.)

The murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner is a crime I’ve reported on, researched and monitored since its occurrence in the pre-dawn hours of Wednesday December 9, 1981.

Thirty-seven years after Faulkner’s murder, in December 2018, Philadelphia prosecutors stumbled across six boxes stashed in a forgotten area in their office complex that contained startling evidence related to the man convicted of Faulkner’s murder.

From The Archives: In 2009, Author J. Patrick O'Connor Wrote That Not Even The US Supreme Court Was Immune To "The Mumia Exception"

--Please sign our Color of Change petition to Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner: Stop Defending Mumia Abu-Jamal's Unjust Conviction

(Note from Jamal Journal: On April 6, 2009 the US Supreme Court denied Mumia’s request for a Writ of Certiorari, thereby affirming an unjust 2008 ruling by the US Third Circuit Court of Appeals. This lengthy May 1, 2009 article was written in response to the US Supreme Court decision by J. Patrick O'Connor, author of "The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal." In this article, O'Connor contextualized the Supreme Court denial with an explanation of why O'Connor believes Mumia is innocent and that the actual shooter was Kenneth Freeman. 

(This article was first published at Crime Magazine as "The Mumia Exception.")

Since his conviction in 1982 for the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, Mumia Abu-Jamal, through his numerous books, essays and radio commentaries, has become the face of the anti-death penalty movement in the United States and an international cause célèbre. Paris, for example, made him an honorary citizen in 2003, bestowing the honor for the first time since Pablo Picasso received it in 1971. The “Free Mumia” slogan is seen and heard around the world. Over the last 27 years he has become the most visible of the invisible 3,600 Death Row inmates in the United States.

The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal cries out for justice not because he is famous but because he is innocent. Kenneth Freeman, the street-vendor partner of Abu-Jamal’s younger brother, Billy Cook, killed Officer Faulkner moments after Faulkner shot Abu-Jamal in the chest as he approached the scene where Faulkner had pulled over the car Cook was driving. When Faulkner began beating Cook with an 18-inch long flashlight, Abu-Jamal ran from his nearby taxi to come to his brother’s aid. After Abu-Jamal was shot and collapsed to the street, Freeman emerged from Cook’s car, wrestled Faulkner to the sidewalk and then shot him to death. Freeman fled the scene on foot. Numerous witnesses told police they saw one or more black men fleeing right after the officer was shot. A driver’s license application found in Faulkner’s shirt pocket led the police directly to Freeman’s home within hours of the shooting.

But the police did not want Freeman for this killing, releasing him without him even having to call his attorney. The police, led by the corrupt Inspector Alfonzo Giordano who took charge of the crime scene within minutes of the shooting, wanted to pin Faulkner’s death on the blacked-out, police-bashing radio reporter at the scene. Freeman they would deal with later, meting out their own brand of street justice in the dead of night.