Under Lock and Key RAIL Radio Program for April 2, 1999

The struggle for freedom for Black Panther Party prisoner 
Geronimo jiJaga (Pratt) wins victory;
but Mumia Abu-Jamal gets another defeat in Pennsylvania courts

Welcome to Under Lock and Key, news and commentary about 
prisons from the Revolutionary Anti-Imperialist League. The U.$. 
incarcerates a greater percentage of its population than any other 
country, sending more Blacks to prison than college. The purpose of 
this program is to educate about, and inspire activism against, the 
Amerikan lockdown. 

Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt) won a big victory on February 17, with the 
announcement by Los Angeles District Attorney Gil Garcetti that he 
will not be retrying Geronimo.  Geronimo was framed and convicted 
in the early 70s for a murder he did not commit. He spent 27 years 
in prison before the Orange County Superior Court overturned his 
conviction in May 1997. The next month he was let go on $25,000 
bail. District Attorney Garcetti was aggressively persuing a retrial so 
this announcement is a major victory.  Of course Garcetti still won't 
admit that Geronimo is innocent of the charges.

Over the decades, mountains of evidence were presented of 
Geronimo's innocence. In the end however, the final straw was when 
the court had to admit that a key witness against Geronimo lied about 
being a police informan, thereby forcing a new trial was declared.  
The real credit goes to all of the revolutionary nationalists in the 
streets who have build a strong movement for Geronimo's freedom.

Several years ago fellow incarcerated former Black Panther Mumia 
Abu-Jamal recorded a commentary about Geronimo's case. We will 
present this commentary shortly.

[Justice Bruce Wright, 37 seconds track 27 mumia cd

[Play Mumia commentary on Geronimo 5:20.

On February 17, the struggle to keep Geronimo ji Jaga (Pratt) out of 
prison won its final battle.  The commentary we just played can also 
serve as a general introduction to the case of Mumia Abu Jamal. 
Mumia has spent 18 years on death row in Pennslyvania for a crime 
he did not committ. Like Geronimo, Mumia was targetted for 
persecution and prosecution by the police because of his 
revolutionary Black nationalist politics.

Speaking of political repression, the Mumia commentaries never 
aired on National Public Radio, because the network backed down in 
the face of the Fraternal Order of Police.  

Mumia is an outspoken advocate and leader of the Black Nation. He was a 
Minister of Information for the Black Panther Party, and later a radio 
journalist. Mumia was hated by the Philly police and government for his 
work exposing police brutality. Years ago, the major of Philadelphia 
singled Mumia out at a press conference for this ominous warning: 

"Someday you'll pay for what you've done."

What Mumia Abu Jamal did do, was raise the consciousness of the Black 
nation about their colonization by white Amerika.  For this, Mumia and his case is 
demonized in the press, including by the recent 20/20 documentary. 

[Cornel West, 41 seconds track 5 mumia CD]

In a January 23rd speech Mumia's chief lawyer Leonard Weinglass 
laid out the legal side of the struggle including new evidence 
uncovered by defense investigation.

The new evidence must be aired:

Many opponents of the Amerikan death penalty are familar with the 
Baldus study which shows that Blacks are more likely to be executed 
if their victim was white.  Baldus has recently conducted a study of 
Philadelphia district attorneys, showing that Blacks are 5.2 times 
more likely than whites to be thrown off juries. In Mumia's case, 11 
Black jurors were removed, thereby denying Mumia a true jury of 
his peers.

Internationally reknown ballistics expert Peter De Forrest reports 
evidence that the bullet that killed the officer may have been 
switched. A former Philly police officer has told the defense that 
bullet switching was common.

The pig's defense to charges of politically persecutting Mumia is to 
argue that the officers at the scene didn't know him, so they couldn't 
have been biased. That has been proven false. It's already known that 
the highest ranking officer at the scene knew Mumia.

The defense can now prove that the officer who found Mumia's gun 
at the scene also knew Mumia.  The police admit to having huge files 
on Mumia, but refuse to turn them over. This new evidence could 
force the courts to require the police to share these records with the 
defense.

Attorney Weinglass also reported evidence on the police suppression 
of another suspect who was later found to be in possession of a 
weapon capable of firing a copper-jacketed bullet. Neither Mumia's 
gun nor the officer's were capable of firing such a bullet, but one 
was found at the scene.  The illegal police suppression of this 
evidence should be grounds for a new trial.

RAIL is not argueing for the prosecution of this other individual, or 
whoever actually did kill the cop.  When the killing happened, the 
cop was engaged in an act of police brutality against Mumia's 
brother. Somebody stopped this illegal violence with other violence 
designed to stop it. That's a far cry from murder.

[Sr. Helen Prejean MAJ CD track 9 36seconds]

Weinglass reported in January that the legal team would be filing an 
appeal before the Supreme Court specifically to deal with the issues 
of Mumia's physical exclusion from the initial trial and the Judge's 
denial of Mumia's right to represent himself. Attorney Weinglass 
doesn't expect the Supreme Court to side with Mumia on this 
question, and he expects a decision by April 1999.

This negative ruling will likely trigger a death warrant signing by 
Pennslyvania Governor Thomas Ridge.  This would not give the 
defense much time to bring an appeal of the October 1998 
Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruling to Federal District Court. This 
Court could rule by Summer of Fall 1999.

Making matters much more difficult for Mumia and justice, is the 
1996 "Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act." This law 
restricts the Federal Courts from examining the findings of fact made by the State 
Courts. Unfortunately for Mumia, the findings of fact and other State Court actions 
are precisely the issue. 

The judge at Mumia's original trial and his appeals was Albert Sabo. 
Known as the "Hanging Judge", Sabo has earned the label "judge beyond reason" 
from American Lawyer Magazine, and his bias at Mumia's trial was severe 
enough to merit criticism from the prosecution! Since Sabo declared himself 
"unbiased" during the initial appeals, the Federal Courts are restricted 
to maintaining that assumption.  

RAIL urges listeners to learn about Mumia Abu-Jamal's case, and to take action to 
stop the murderous  execution. With the Effective Death Penalty Act and the 
transition into the much quicker federal court system, Mumia's case has an 
exceptional urgency. We agree with Attorney Weinglass that the real power to free 
Mumia exists not in the courtroom but in our ability to build a movement in the 
streets.

We also urges listeners to see this case as a  symbol of the repressive injustice 
system, which itself  is a tool for imperialist oppression in the USA and all over the 
world. 

This has been Under Lock and Key, a weekly Revolutionary Anti-
Imperialist League program about prisons. For more information, 
contact: RAIL PO Box 712 Amherst MA 01004, or email 
RAILRadio@mim.org.

Note:
Jamal_News Service on 2/06/99 on 
pan.afrikan.net/dcforum97n/forum2/93.html