Report on National Planning Meeting, November 20, 1999

by C. Clark Kissinger

In response to a call from the national coordinating committee, approximately 50 people met in Philadelphia on November 20. The agenda was in three parts: First was a report on Mumia’s current legal situation and the importance of the upcoming hearing in federal court. Second, was a proposal for a national mobilizing conference this winter. Third was status reports on a number of activities that will happening before the winter conference.

Before the formal agenda began, Pam Africa gave a short report on a number of recent attacks against supporters of Mumia and the need to respond quickly to such attacks. These included recent threats to boycott Sting, the continuing attack on the Black United Fund, and the refusal of the city to allow a documentary film maker to shoot a recreation of the 1981 shooting incident at the actual site of 13^th and Locust (20/20 received the full cooperation of the city to film at the site).

I. The first part began with a report from Len Weinglass. Len’s report was in two parts. First he spoke about the political climate in which the legal battle continues. Len has now received over 10,000 letters addressed to the judge that are now being categorized and filed. The plan is to present them in court, with certain ones selected for the judge to read. Other positive developments have been the major articles on support for Mumia by Rage Against the Machine or on Mumia’s case in such publications as the Village Voice, Rolling Stone, George and the Nation.

Other positive developments include the argument against the death penalty in the U.S. Senate by Sen. Russell Feingold of Wisconsin (the first anti-death penalty speech in the Senate in two decades), the United Nations resolution sponsored by Italy calling for a worldwide moratorium on the death penalty (which is expected to pass in the General Assembly in December), and the likelihood that the U.S. Supreme Court will outlaw electrocution as a method of execution during the current session. The importance of this last point is that the court has consistently upheld the idea of "evolving standards" in relation to the death penalty.

On the negative side, the U.S. State Department had produced a statement on Mumia’s case to be given out by U.S. embassies having to deal with protests concerning Mumia. This statement contains outrageous and false statements (for example, it claims that Mumia fired on arresting officers as they arrived at the scene). The statement signifies the direct involvement of the U.S. government in the campaign to execute Mumia. Also a rightwing funded group in Washington calling itself "Accuracy In Academia" has published a pamphlet attacking Mumia and the support movement for him.

Len went on to call attention to the context in which in which Mumia’s case is coming to a head. This year over 90 people will be executed in the U.S. Given the impact of the 1996 Effective Death Penalty Act on restricting federal appeals by death row inmates, the rate of execution will now begin to rise sharply. By the year 2001, which is when an execution of Mumia would likely occur if we lose in all the appeals, the United States will be in a "killing frenzy" with executions occurring almost daily.

After this discussion of the context, Len went into some of the details of what we can expect to have happen in the courts, which cannot all be reported here. The basic point he made, however, is that Mumia cannot win in the courts if the factual rulings made by Judge Sabo, and endorsed by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, are allowed to stand. These 154 rulings hold (among other things) that all the testimony by all the defense witnesses was not credible, and all the testimony by all the prosecution witnesses was credible. The new 1996 federal law instructs the federal courts to give a "presumption of correctness" to such findings by state courts. Thus the legal strategy has to take on, in some manner, this way of proceeding because it is totally stacked against bringing out the truth in Mumia’s case.

Changing the factual record can only occur at the district court level (higher federal courts will only review the record of what happens in the federal district court). Thus what happens in the next months is decisive to the entire appeals process. As Len put it, what happens at the district court level is going to leave the factual record "set in cement" for the rest of the appeals.

Further, the issue of whether the factual record is going to be changed is scheduled to be decided at the first court appearance before Judge Yohn, which is currently expected to be in March. At this time Judge Yohn will rule on motions and arguments submitted in writing to have an evidentiary hearing that would allow witnesses and evidence to be presented that was suppressed by the Pennsylvania courts. This could include some of the 32 witnesses Judge Sabo did not allow, and written evidence on racial bias in the application of the death penalty in Pennsylvania.

While an exact date for this hearing and these rulings has not been set, it is in the period leading up to March that the judge and the government are going to be deciding whether to grant a new hearing. Thus this is the key period in which to influence the entire federal appeals process.

As to the timing of the entire process, the first hearing, with its ruling on vital procedural questions like whether new evidence will be heard, is likely to be in March (but could be as late as May or June, depending on how the judge responds to written arguments that will be submitted, and when the judge has time on his calendar). After the ruling on the procedural motions, there will hopefully be another court session to hear evidence. But in any event there will be a final court session to hear oral arguments on the basic question: should Mumia’s conviction be overturned because his constitutional rights were violated?

Thus the whole process could easily go to August or even October before there is a ruling by Judge Yohn. (The Republican National Convention will be in Philadelphia, July 29-August 4.) However, Len pointed out that Mumia is being subjected to a very tight schedule here. On the other hand, Len pointed out that every time he has laid out a time line for events in this case, those events have always ended up taking longer than predicted. With regard to "worst case" timing, he did not believe there could be a negative ruling before May, at which time the governor could sign another death warrant, but the defense would appeal to the 3^rd Circuit Court of Appeals which is expected to grant another stay.

In response to questions, Len laid out some of the possible outcomes from the federal district court. Of course, we would prefer an evidentiary hearing followed by the judge overturning Mumia’s conviction. But other outcomes are possible. For example, the judge could deny an evidentiary hearing and rule against Mumia. Or, the judge could overturn only the sentencing phase of the trial, letting the guilty verdict stand and sending the case back to the Pennsylvania courts for a new decision between death and life imprisonment. This would be a very bad outcome. Or, the judge could deny an evidentiary hearing and rule in Mumia’s favor, holding that he did not have to hear any new evidence to find Mumia’s conviction unconstitutional. While this would be a victory, the state would appeal this decision and we would be at the court of appeals without having been able to change the factual record in the case.

All this points once again to the decisiveness of the upcoming court appearance in which the judge will rule on whether Judge Sabo’s record is going to be allowed to stand, or whether new evidence will be admitted. Again this is expected in March or shortly thereafter.

After hearing this report, the meeting resolved to have the national coordinators prepare a "letter to the movement" that clearly sets forth the legal situation and the decisiveness of bringing public pressure to bare during the run-up to the first court appearance before Judge Yohn.

II. The meeting next considered a proposal from the national coordinating committee for a national mobilizing conference this winter as part of building for the critical showdown in the federal district court. The first national conference of the Mumia defense movement was held last January in New York. It brought together for the first time all the key forces then working on the case. This was a meeting of invited organizers and was not publicly announced. Because of the enormous growth of the movement over 1999, and because of the need to develop mass public pressure before the crucial federal court decision in March, what is needed now is mass conference involving thousands and with maximum publicity.

The meeting supported this concept, and expressed the goals of the conference as follows:

1) to express the breadth of the movement and give expression to new forces 2) to express the urgency of the timeline we are facing in the federal court 3) to give information that will arm people 4) to approve various scenarios for on-going activities (such a spring mobilization and mobilization at the court appearances).

The meeting generally favored a conference of at least two days that includes a public rally or program and some special forms for youth participation.

There was a lot of discussion over the timing and the location of the conference. The contradiction on timing is that we are now going into the holidays, and the later the conference the more time we will be have to prepare for it. But on the other hand, given the need to build mass pressure to influence the first and crucial court ruling which could be in March, it is important to hold the conference as soon as possible.

Since it was not possible to set an exact date without knowledge of the availability of sites, it was recommended to the coordinating committee that they go for a date between the last weekend in January and mid February.

On the question of location, there were positive reasons for holding the conference in three different cities. New York has the best capability to put it on in terms of experienced organizations with staff and offices and available sites. Philadelphia is the scene of the battle and will be the location of the federal district court hearings. Washington holds out the potential to more easily involve the CBC and representatives of many progressive national organizations who have their headquarters located there.

Again, without knowledge of availability of sites, it was not possible to make a final decision, but it was recommended to the coordinators that Philadelphia was the first choice, Washington was the second choice, and New York was the third choice.

Among the topics considered for the conference were: "Mumia Awareness"—getting out his story, image and writings; what sections of society is it crucial to concentrate on?; mass mobilizations; direct action; creating new literature and media work; the fight against the death penalty; and converging on Philadelphia for court hearings.

There was some discussion on the timing for a spring mobilization. Since we do not know the exact dates of the court appearances (and we may not know until shortly before them), it was decided to proceed in two ways:

First, we will call for an emergency national mobilization to Philadelphia on the day of the first court appearance (Mumia will be present in court that day). Second, we will set a date for Spring mobilizations timed to impact the critical first court decision. And the call for the mobilization will appear with the call for the national conference.

III. The final part of the planning meeting heard reports from a number of ongoing projects:

We received updates on the planned December 11 demonstrations in various parts of the country.

The planned civil disobedience action in Washington, DC, has been pushed back to February 28.

The current tour by Rage Against the Machine (November 19-December 20) is raising Mumia’s case throughout the country.

On January 12 a union delegation from Europe will hold a press conference in Washington, DC, and present the U.S. government with a letter containing several hundred thousand signatures calling for justice for Mumia.

We heard a proposal that people build on the recent example in Los Angeles and disrupt Pa. Governor Ridge wherever he appears.

We heard a proposal that various organizations and local coalitions take advantage of school programs and church services around the Martin Luther King, Jr., holiday to raise the issue of Mumia in the context of the issues championed by Dr. King.

We heard a proposal for an on-going vigil for Mumia at Constitution Hall in Philadelphia.

There was an announcement of a new pamphlet on the Mumia case by Amnesty International that should be available in January.