Skip to content

Mumia Abu-Jamal

Philly Prosecutors Discover Mysterious ‘Six Boxes’ Connected To Mumia Abu-Jamal In Storage Room

January 12, 2019 By BobAllyn, Whyy.org , ,
Days after Christmas, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and some of his assistants went rummaging around an out-of-the-way storage room in the office looking for some pieces of furniture. What they stumbled upon was a surprising find: six boxes stuffed of files connected to the case of convicted cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Five of the six boxes were marked “McCann,” a reference to the former head of the office’s homicide unit, Ed McCann. Some of the boxes were also marked “Mumia,” or the former Black Panther’s full name, “Mumia Abu-Jamal.” It is unknown what exactly the files say and whether or not the box’s contents will shed new light on a case that for decades has garnered worldwide attention.

Major Court Victory For Mumia

December 28, 2018 Kevin Zeese, Popular Resistance , ,
There was a major court victory for Mumia Abu-Jamal, on December 27, 2018. In a  ruling on an appeals petition for Mumia Common Pleas Court, Judge Leon Tucker found that former Justice Ronald Castille should have recused himself because of statements he made as a prosecutor about police killers that suggested a potential bias. The Philadelphia judge re-instated Mumia's post-conviction appellate rights, more than 35 years after he convicted of killing Philadelphia Police Officer Danny Faulkner in Center City.

Mumia Abu Jamal And Stephen Vittoria: Murder Incorporated

June 20, 2018 David Swanson, Davidswanson.org , ,
Book One, “Dreaming of Empire,” is a critique of U.S. imperialism, a debunking of U.S. nationalist myths, a corrective or alternative history of the U.S. nation. Politically, a book like this would never be permitted in U.S. schools, and it’s clearly not aimed at clearing that hurdle. It uses curse words, which would provide a handy excuse for keeping it out. It’s also not straight history. It’s part chronological, part theme-based. It mixes historical accounts with pop-culture, with quotations from scholars, historical sources, and analysts interviewed by the authors. Dreaming of Empire also does not try to leave the past in the past. Instead it proposes to explain current wars, the weaponization of outer space, and the rhetoric of contemporary U.S. politics through a myth-busting hard look at the past.

Mumia Seeks To Show Top State Judge Doubled As Prosecutor And Jurist Reviewing His Appeals

May 7, 2018 Dave Lindorff, Counterpunch.org ,
Following a brief hearing in Philadelphia on Monday, Court of Common Pleas Judge Leon Tucker, learning that the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office had thus far failed find and turn over, in response to his earlier order, any documents showing a role by former District Attorney Ron Castille regarding the department’s handling of an appeal by then death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, adjourned the hearing until Aug. 30. The judge acted to give Abu-Jamal’s attorneys time to depose a former DA employee about a still unlocated memo apparently composed by her for then DA Castile concerning Abu-Jamal’s case. Later, an attorney from the DA’s office stood outside on the sidewalk amidst a scrum of TV cameras and said, “We haven’t found any evidence so far that Judge Castille played any role as DA in Abu-Jamal’s appeal of his conviction. It was just a run-of-the-mill appeals process.”

Philadelphia DA’s Office Stonewalls At Hearing For Mumia Abu-Jamal

May 5, 2018 John Leslie, Socialistaction.org ,
The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office continues to stonewall in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. At a court hearing on April 30, prosecutors failed, once again, to produce a memorandum allegedly signed by former Philadelphia District Attorney and retired Pennsylvania Supreme Court Chief Justice Ronald D. Castille. Under the 2016 Williams v. Pennsylvania decision, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that a defendant’s right to due process is violated if a DA, who played a role in their prosecution, is later a judge in the same case. At issue is Castille’s refusal to recuse himself from hearing appeals in Mumia’s case before the state Supreme Court. At the April 30 hearing, presiding Judge Leon Tucker ordered the defense and prosecution to exchange documents on July 9 and Aug. 7. Oral arguments will be heard by Judge Tucker on Aug. 30.

New Legal Action Is A Path To Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Freedom

March 1, 2018 Rachel Wolkenstein, Counterpunch.org ,
For over three decades thousands of organizations and hundreds of thousands of individuals around the globe have mobilized to save Mumia Abu-Jamal from execution, to overturn his conviction, to demand his freedom. Without these international mobilizations, crucially including the organized labor movement, we would not have saved Mumia from two warrants of execution and compelled the state to concede defeat in trying to execute him. Mumia is now off death row and out of solitary confinement in prison general population. Mumia remains on “slow death row,” life imprisonment without parole. During the past two years an international campaign of call-ins, protests at the prison and at the Pa. Department of Corrections (DOC), and letters including labor resolutions won medical treatment for his hepatitis-C.

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Attorney Talks Of New Movement In Case

August 17, 2017 Emily Wells, www.truthdig.com , ,
By Emily Wells for Truth Dig - A new front may be emerging in the fight to free African-American political activist and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was convicted in 1982 of the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. The fatal shooting of Faulkner happened in the early hours of Dec. 9, 1981, during a confrontation, witnessed by Abu-Jamal, between his younger brother, William Cook, and the officer at a traffic stop. Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death and kept in isolation on death row for the next three decades; his death sentence was overturned in 2001, and he remains in prison serving a life sentence without parole. In an interview posted last weekend, Rachel Wolkenstein, a lawyer for Abu-Jamal, tells Consortium News’ Dennis Bernstein about the potential she now sees in pursuing the argument that judicial bias in Abu-Jamal’s case should undermine the legitimacy of his conviction: Well, about a year ago, a very important case was decided by the United States Supreme Court. It involved the fact that one of the justices who became the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, Ronald Castille, had been the prosecutor in Philadelphia, following [Ed] Rendell as the chief [district attorney].

Mumia Abu-Jamal Speaks About Black Lives Matter And Police Violence

July 20, 2017 Tasasha Henderson, www.truth-out.org , ,
By Tasasha Henderson for Truthout - In his new book Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?, author and activist Mumia Abu-Jamal explores this question over 75 essays, spanning from the late 1990s to 2017. Each essay explores the violence of policing and the criminal legal system, whether from a historical perspective or through the stories of people who have died by the hands of police. In the first essay, "Hate Crimes," Abu-Jamal questions the legitimacy of the idea of hate crimes, pointing out that police are never charged with a hate crime when they brutalize and kill Black and Brown people. Abu-Jamal's essays discuss the murder of Trayvon Martin by George Zimmerman, the killing of Tamir Rice by Cleveland, Ohio, police officer Timothy Loehmann, and what the aftermath of these slayings reveals about how the United States views Black people. His conclusion is perfectly summed up in the first two lines of his October 2015 essay titled, "Tamir Rice of Cleveland" -- "Question: When is a child not a child? Answer: When it's a Black child." Abu-Jamal spoke with Truthout about some of the issues he engages with in Have Black Lives Ever Mattered?, including police violence and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement.

Mumia Abu-Jamal Fights For New Trial And Freedom

April 30, 2017 Jeff Mackler, www.counterpunch.org , , ,
By Jeff Mackler for Counter Punch. Pennsylvania - On Mumia Abu-Jamal’s birthday, April 24, about 125 demonstrators mobilized outside Philadelphia’s Court of Common Pleas in solidarity with Mumia’s effort to reverse his 1982 frame-up murder conviction and win a new trial that could lead to his freedom. Mumia Abu-Jamal is perhaps the world’s best known political prisoner. He has been imprisoned for 36 years, and was on death row for 30 of those years. His fight for a new trial and freedom has been supported by organizations ranging from Amnesty International and the NAACP to the European Parliament and scores of national and local trade unions and city governments in the U.S. and abroad. Represented by Judy Ritter, Mumia’s Philadelphia-based attorney, and Christina Swarms, of the NAACP’s Legal Defense and Education Fund, Mumia petitioned the court for a new Post Conviction Relief Act hearing based on last year’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in the case of Williams v. Pennsylvania.

Mumia To Finally Receive Hep C Treatment

April 2, 2017 Staff, www.bringmumiahome.com , , , ,
By Staff for the Campaign to Bring Mumia Home. On March 31, 2017, Mumia Abu-Jamal received a cruel mix of bad and good news from a prison doctor. The doctor shared the results of his recent lab test, which showed clear signs of cirrhosis, an irreversible scarring of the liver caused by his untreated Hep C. The doctor also informed Mumia that he would be treated with the Hep C cure within a week. The impending victory was bittersweet. Mumia shared his feelings with those he called that morning. His rare expression of emotion was also captured in an interview that evening in which he stated: “My first reaction was really shock, anger, disbelief. If I had been treated in 2015, if I had been treated in 2012 when they say they first diagnosed it, I wouldn’t be this far advanced.…For a lot of guys and a lot of gals inside the Pennsylvania prisons, I think it is a step forward and a great day, but I assure you I don’t feel that way right now.”

Court Orders Life-Saving Treatment For Mumia Abu Jamal

January 4, 2017 Staff, www.http://www.prisonradio.org/ ,
By Staff of Prison Radio - Late yesterday, Federal Judge Robert Mariani ordered the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections to immediately give Mumia Abu-Jamal the life-saving latest direct-acting antiviral medications that have a 95% cure rate! After a year and a half of constant legal battling, near death hospitalization, and agonizing chronic sickness, Bret Grote of the Abolitionist Law Center and attorney Robert Boyle, and thousands of activists, on behalf of Mumia, have prevailed. It took two lawsuits hundreds of hours of motions and your calls, letters and demands. Winning a preliminary injunction is a tall order and requires proving there will be irreversible harm in delaying the order.

Mumia Abu-Jamal Denied Hepatitis C Treatment

September 3, 2016 Renée Feltz, www.theguardian.com , ,
By Renée Feltz for The Guardian - The internationally known imprisoned former Black Panther and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal has had his request for a life-saving hepatitis C treatment denied by a federal judge. Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death for the 1981 killing of a Philadelphia police officer, but maintained his innocence and Amnesty International says he was denied a fair trial. After 30 years on death row, his sentence was overturned on constitutional grounds.

An Update From Mumia’s Lawyers

August 18, 2016 Staff, www.prisonradio.org
By Staff of Prison Radio - On August 7th, Mumia Abu-Jamal filed an appeal based on a U.S. Supreme Court case decided in June. In a startling 5-3 decision (Williams v. the Commonwealth of PA), the U.S. Supreme Court held that former DA and retired Pennsylvania Chief Justice, Ronald D. Castille violated death row inmate Terence "Butter" Williams' 5th Amendment due process rights when he refused to remove himself from Williams' appeal. This Supreme Court precedential ruling calls into direct question the validity of Mumia Abu-Jamal criminal conviction, and the denial of his appeals.

Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Fourth of July

July 5, 2016 Chris Hedges, www.truthdig.com , ,
By Chris Hedges for Truth Dig - FRACKVILLE, Pa.—Tens or even hundreds of thousands of Americans, like those in the visiting room of the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy, drove often for hours on the Fourth of July weekend to visit relatives or friends who are locked in cages. Millions suffered the painful absence this weekend of a father, a mother, a brother, a sister, a son, a daughter or a friend. These people, mostly poor people of color, understand a dark truth about the cruelty and ultimate intentions of the corporate state. They know that “freedom,” “justice” and “liberty,” especially if you are poor, are empty slogans.

History Teacher And Mumia Abu-Jamal Inspire Political Coming Of Age

April 11, 2016 Walidah Imarisha, www.truth-out.org , ,
By Walidah Imarisha for Truth Out - There were a total of seven Black people in my high school of over a thousand. Some, like Floyd with his skateboard cool and laid back attitude, hung out with the group of slackers, punks, metal heads, and weirdos I ran with. There was Angela, a star athlete. Her lean frame ate up the track like a prairie fire. Rather than feeling pride in her accomplishments, she made me feel even chunkier and clumsier than I was. Others, like Troy, were part of the Blacks and Browns, Black and Latino hip hop kids, classified by the school as a gang because they wore baggy jeans and hard faces, and because they chose not to associate too closely with white students.
«12345»

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here

Urgent End Of Year Fundraising Campaign

Online donations are back! 

Keep independent media alive. 

Due to the attacks on our fiscal sponsor, we were unable to raise funds online for nearly two years.  As the bills pile up, your help is needed now to cover the monthly costs of operating Popular Resistance.

Donate Here
Sign Up To Our Daily Digest

Independent media outlets are being suppressed and dropped by corporations like Google, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for our daily email digest before it’s too late so you don’t miss the latest movement news.