Interview w/Linn Washington/Transcript of MUMIA Audio

[nattyreb]

via: Hans Bennett
=============

I have just added my new interview with Linn Washington to this link below.

Also featured is the transcript of Prison Radio's interview with Mumia from yesterday morning.

Please help spread the word!


US Supreme Court Rejects Mumia Abu-Jamal's Appeal For a New Guilt Phase Trial | Philadelphia Independent Media Center


Linn Washington Jr., is a columnist for the Philadelphia Tribune and Temple University professor of journalism (full quote below):

"This Supreme Court decision again underscores the 'Mumia Exception' where courts ignore or radically alter existing precedent to reject granting this inmate the same legal relief given to others raising the same legal points."

"Ample evidence exists documenting improprieties by the prosecutor during jury selection at Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial — the same pattern of improprieties that state and federal courts have cited in overturning over a dozen murder convictions in Philadelphia occurring before, during and after the trial of Abu-Jamal. Exposing the political underpinnings of Abu-Jamal's decades long persecution, none of those overturned convictions involved a noted black man charged with killing a white police officer whose case has become an embarrassment for America in the eyes of millions around the world."

"If the current members of this Supreme Court simply applied the motto that is chiseled in stone above the entrance of their court building -- equal justice under law -- they would have voted to grant Abu-Jamal a new hearing on the mound of legal violations in this case instead of sidestepping their duty to ensure justice."

"However, this Court, in the early 1990s, sidestepped that duty to justice when it denied Abu-Jamal relief on a First Amendment related issue while granting relief on the same legal issue to a white racist prison gang member facing execution for a murder during a prison escape and a white devil worshipper facing execution for killing his grandparents."

"The continuing refusal of US courts to equally apply the law in the Abu-Jamal case constitutes a stain on America's image internationally." **(END OF QUOTE)
~~~~~~~~~~~

Transcript of Interview 4-6-09
(Prison Radio)

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.

--
Free All Political Prisoners!
nycjericho@gmail.com • NYC Jericho Movement | Home Page