---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Mark Lance <treslances@xxxxxxx>
Date: Wed, Apr 17, 2019 at 6:46 PM
Subject: Fwd: Philadelphia DA Drops Opposition to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Appeal
for Freedom
To: <jannorden@xxxxxxx>, <marjoriestamberg@xxxxxxxxx>, <S_an@xxxxxxx>, <
cbrover@xxxxxxxxx>
Sent from my iPhone
Begin forwarded message:
*From:* Noelle Hanrahan <prisonradio@xxxxxxxxx>
*Date:* April 17, 2019 at 2:50:59 PM EDT
*To:* <treslances@xxxxxxx>
*Subject:* *Philadelphia DA Drops Opposition to Mumia Abu-Jamal's Appeal
for Freedom*
*Reply-To:* <prisonradio@xxxxxxxxx>
When We Fight We Win!
Mark-
"This is a people's victory" Pam Africa.
Who would ever think that we would see this headline, in our lifetime.
This is the press release up on the Philadelphia District Attorney's
website posted minutes ago.
The path to freedom is going to be hard and long, but we are on it. When
We Fight, We Win,
Noelle Hanrahan, P.I. Prison Radio
*See below: * Statement: Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office withdraws
appeal in Mumia Abu-Jamal case
*PHILADELPHIA DISTRICT ATTORNEY’S OFFICE*
April 17, 2019 FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Ben Waxman
PHILADELPHIA (April 17th, 2019) — Today the Philadelphia District
Attorney’s Office withdrew its recent appeal of an opinion granting a
re-hearing of some previously decided issues in the case of Mumia
Abu-Jamal. We withdrew the appeal because the opinion we appealed has been
modified consistent with our primary concern — -that ruling’s effect on
many other cases.
By way of background, Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of the murder of a
young police officer, Daniel Faulkner, that occurred on December 9, 1981.
Even after Maureen Faulkner, the wife of the victim, chose not to continue
seeking the death penalty several years ago in hopes of closure, the case
has evoked polarizing rhetoric and continues to assume a symbolic
importance for many that is distinct from the factual and often technical
legal issues involved in the case.
The technical issue at stake here is simply whether or not some decided
issues need to be re-heard by a Pennsylvania appellate court due to one
former judge’s having worn two hats — -the hat of an apparently impartial
appellate judge deciding Abu-Jamal’s case after he earlier wore the hat of
a chief prosecutor in the same case. Although the issue is technical, it is
also an important cautionary tale on the systemic problems that flow from a
judge’s failing to recuse where there is an appearance of bias.
Justice Castille did not recuse himself before deciding appeals in the
Abu-Jamal case and several others, including the Williams case. In the
Williams case, the United States Supreme Court decided that Castille should
have recused himself because of the role he took as a chief prosecutor in
Mr. Williams’s matter. The U.S. Supreme Court ordered that Mr. Williams’s
appeal be re-heard by the Pennsylvania appeals judges, without the taint of
Castille’s participation.
A similar question of Castille’s role exists in the Abu-Jamal case. In
order to help resolve it, our Office exhaustively searched hundreds of file
boxes in relation to the Mumia Abu-Jamal matter, including six previously
undisclosed boxes (now turned over to the defense, as required by law).
While we did not find any document establishing the same level of
involvement by Castille in the Abu-Jamal case as in the Williams case, we
did find (and turned over) a June, 1990 letter from then-District Attorney
Castille to then-Governor Robert Casey, urging that the Governor issue
death warrants, especially in cases involving people who have killed
police, in order to “send a clear and dramatic message to all police
killers that the death penalty actually means something.” Although the
letter does not mention Mr. Abu-Jamal or his case by name, at the time
Justice Castille wrote to Governor Casey, there were only three cases
involving people who had been convicted of killing police that were
pending. One was Mr. Abu-Jamal’s.
In the end, the trial-level judge considering this issue wrote an opinion
that agreed with us that these indications of strong feelings on the part
of Justice Castille did not rise to the level of the direct and active
involvement Justice Castille took in the Williams case but went further,
deciding there should be a re-hearing of Abu-Jamal’s decided issues anyway,
based on more general principles of judges needing to recuse to avoid the
appearance of bias.
We appealed, making it extremely clear in our court papers that our primary
concern was with the overly broad language of the opinion and its
potentially devastating effect on hundreds of long settled cases, decades
after their cases were resolved, including its hurtful effect on victims
and survivors. We highlighted our concern with the overly broad language of
that opinion in five specific respects and specifically noted that we would
re-consider appealing if the trial-level court issued another decision
addressing the concerns we raised.
Although the judge was not required to do so, on March 27 he issued another
decision that addressed the concerns we raised. The judge made clear that
his opinion should not be read to mean that several hundreds of cases were
disturbed — -it should be applied only to people convicted of killing
police officers whose cases were in the District Attorney’s Office while
Castille was District Attorney (the category of cases Castille highlighted
in his June 1990 letter to Casey). Given that the trial-level court has now
addressed the concerns that led us to appeal in the first place, we have
withdrawn the appeal.
Our decision to withdraw the appeal does not mean Mr. Abu-Jamal will be
freed or get a new trial. It means that he will have the appeals that
Justice Castille participated in deciding reconsidered by a new group of
appellate court judges, untainted by former Chief Justice Castille
participating in their decision. The trial-level judge has ordered the
Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and the defense to re-submit the
legal briefs done in the past (which were written under prior
administrations), effectively setting the clock back to where it was in the
past.
The result will be that long-settled convictions in other cases will not be
disturbed and that decisions made by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court on the
legal issues raised decades ago in the Abu-Jamal matter will no longer be
tainted by the appearance of bias. ===========end press
release====================
*Cuando luchamos, ganamos. When We fight*, we win.
Noelle Hanrahan
Director, Prison Radio
*To give by check: *
PO Box 411074
San Francisco, CA
94141
*Stock or legacy gifts:*
Noelle Hanrahan
(415) 706 - 5222
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