MUMIA ABU JAMAL SUPPORTERS MOBILIZE FOR SATURDAY, DECEMBER 8TH DEMONSTRATION AT PHILADELPHIA'S CITY HALL AFTER JUDGE PAMELA DEMBE REFUSES TO REOPEN STATE APPEAL AND HEAR NEW EVIDENCE IN THE CASE, INCLUDING THE CONFESSION OF ARNOLD BEVERLY
INTERNATIONAL JURISTS' LETTER DECLARES U.S. COURTS MUST HEAR THE NEW EVIDENCE OR BE IN VIOLATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW
On Saturday, December 8th, at 12 noon, a delegation of French elected officials and anti-death penalty supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal will gather at City Hall in Philadelphia, on Market Street, one day before the 20th anniversary of Police Officer William Faulkner's death by shooting, which resulted in the frame-up and conviction of internationally renowned death-row inmate, Mumia Abu Jamal.
The rally and march in support of Jamal's decades long fight for his freedom will focus on the injustice of Judge Dembe's recent decision, and the judicial system's arbitrary adherence to time limitations set by the Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA) of 1996. Dembe, in her refusal to hear the confession of Arnold Beverly, who has sworn that it was he and not Jamal who killed Officer Faulkner, cites the statutes of limitations set by the AEDPA. Organizers say that the argument, that powerful new evidence pointing to Mumia's innocence should be rejected because it is being filed too late, flies in the face of common-sense morality.
On the day before Thanksgiving, Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas Judge Dembe turned down an appeal by Jamal's lawyers requesting the reopening of the state Post Conviction Relief Act hearings so that exculpatory new evidence be entered into the court record. Jamal's request was based on the confession of Arnold Beverly and numerous substantiating affidavits, as well as a sworn statement by court stenographer Terri Maurer-Carter stating that she had overheard Trial Judge Albert Sabo say, in a private courtroom conversation in 1982, "I'm gonna help them fry that N--r". In rejecting the confession, Judge Dembe cites strictly procedural and time technicalities for her decision.
Regarding Terri-Maurer's affidavit, however, in a peculiar line of thinking, Dembe says that even if Judge Sabo did make the racist remark attributed to him, there is no evidence that his views prejudiced his rulings! Noted attorneys from Japan, Europe, and the US among others, including Amnesty International representatives, who attended the trial in 1982 and the Post Conviction Relief Act hearing in 1995 and 1996 consistently criticized Judge Sabo for his prejudiced rulings and manner in favor of the prosecution and to the detriment of Jamal.
In a letter Dembe received before her ruling, the International Association of Democratic Lawyers, a prominent legal organization which, since 1946, has been involved in human rights investigations on every continent, stated:
In the face of this new, never previously available evidence, any refusal by the Pennsylvania Courts to review Abu Jamal's conviction, will constitute a gross violation of internationally recognized standards of due process including Article (14) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. To condone the execution of an innocent man by excluding newly found exculpatory evidence because of alleged procedural technicalities would violate.Article (6) of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights; Article (4) of American Convention on Human Rights; the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The signatories to the letter are: President, Jitendra Sharma, India; Secretary General, Beinusz Szmukler, Argentina; Treasurer, Jeanne Mirer, USA; Vice President, Farouk Abu Eissa, Sudan; Vice President, Professor Lennox Hinds, USA; Vice President, Roland Weyl, France.
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