Category Archives: Legal Updates

OUTRAGE: Judge Proposes DENIAL of Treatment for Mumia!

The following message is from MumiaNYC:

Late in the day on Friday September 18th, United States Magistrate Judge for the Middle District of Pennsylvania Karoline Mehalchick issued a proposed order denying Mumia Abu-Jamal’s  motion for preliminary injunction and his  1st Amended complaint seeking immediate treatment for active Hepatitis C.

In a calculated attempt to deny lifesaving health care and effective arguments on Mumia’s behalf, Judge Mehalchick preemptively issued this “proposed order” before Mumia’s lawyers had the opportunity to respond (as allowed by court local rules) to the  Pennsylvania Department of Correction’s (DOC) opposition.

Bret Grote (Abolitionist Law Center) and co-counsel Bob Boyle (NYC) are expected to quickly file in court with 3rd Circuit Federal District Court Judge Robert Mariani to oppose this proposed order on procedural and substantive grounds.

[See below for information on helping Mumia fight back!]

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Prosecutors Throw in the Towel – Mumia’s Death Sentence Averted!

February 2012. It was a victory in a world of few victories. Philadelphia prosecutors decided not to take a chance on the outcome of a new trial on the sentencing of Mumia Abu-Jamal, which could have exposed police corruption and racism. Mumia’s death sentence was off the table!

They chickened out.

After 30 years of relentlessly trying to get this innocent man legally murdered, and while elements in the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) are still frothing at the mouth for Mumia’s death, the Philadelphia establishment called it a day.

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Free Mumia from the Hell Hole of Prison!

By Rachel Wolkenstein
February 1, 2012

Fifty days after the Philadelphia District Attorney conceded defeat in its attempt to legally lynch Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections (DOC) was compelled to abandon its efforts to keep Mumia in the tortuous conditions of Administrative Custody (AC) (more commonly known as solitary or “the hole”). In the face of an ever-growing international protest campaign, the threat of legal action and Mumia’s courage and political integrity, on Friday morning, January 27, 2012, Mumia was moved into general population at SCI Mahanoy.

For weeks the DOC insisted that Mumia would be held in AC until it received the “paper work” stating he is resentenced to life imprisonment. This bogus rationale isrepresentative of the arbitrariness and abuse of power exercised by the DOC, since its own documents state that the District Attorney agreed Mumia no longer had a death sentence. When Philadelphia District Attorney, Seth Williams, with the backing of the FOP, agreed to life imprisonment rather than trying again for an execution, they threatened to make Mumia’s life imprisonment as restrictive and difficult as possible.

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Mumia Wins Decision Against Re-Imposition Of Death Sentence, But…

It was a small victory in a very big war. The Third Circuit Court of Appeals decided for the second time on April 26th to uphold a 2001 federal court decision to set aside the death sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal, a journalist, former Black Panther, and the world’s best-known political prisoner. The court had already ruled in 2008 that, due to improper instructions to the jury in Mumia’s 1982 kangaroo-court trial, his death sentence is to be replaced by life without the possibility of parole, unless the State of Pennsylvania holds a new jury trial on sentencing within 180 days. If the state fails to hold such a hearing within the time limit, the sentence automatically becomes life without the possibility of parole. Now, acting under orders from the US Supreme Court to reconsider, the Third Circuit panel reached the same decision once again.

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Mumia’s Life is in Danger!

MUMIA ABU-JAMAL faces his likely last court hearing on November 9th, 2010, at the Third Circuit Federal Court of Appeals, in Philadelphia. This hearing is about sentencing only.

Why is this happening?

Targeted by the FBI’s infamous COINTELPRO counter-intelligence and disruption program since the age of 15, and now by the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), Mumia Abu-Jamal is seen as an enemy of the state. His innocence is considered irrelevant, and in US courts, following recent rulings, innocence is no defense.

The US Supreme Court has already thrown out, without comment, Mumia’s last appeal against his frame-up conviction before a racist judge in a blatantly unfair trial in 1982. This rejection meant the Supreme Court had to ignore mountains of evidence of Mumia’s innocence, as well as precedents such as its own ruling in Batson v Kentucky, which was supposed to prevent racism in jury selection.

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