The U.S. Supreme Court opened its Fall Term on Monday, October 4, by announcing a list of petitions it is rejecting. Among these was a petition for a "writ of certiorari" by Mumia Abu-Jamal.
On April 22, lawyers for Mumia had filed this petition with the United States Supreme Court. This is a request that the court use its discretionary power to examine important legal issues in Mumia's case, without waiting for his case to work its way up to the Supreme Court through normal appeals.
The issues raised in this petition concerned Mumia's Sixth Amendment rights to a fair trail. These rights were abridged when the Pennsylvania trial court refused to let Mumia function as his own attorney, when it held a meeting in the judge's chambers to remove a juror without Mumia being present, and when Mumia was removed from the courtroom without provisions for him to follow the proceedings in which his life was at stake.
The refusal of the court to consider these issue is consistent with its recent trend to "federalism," which is just a fancy word for states rights. The doctrine of states rights was promoted by the white supremacist Southern states between the Civil War and the Civil Rights movement. It opposed review by the federal government of state government functions -- even where extreme injustices were being committee.
The next legal step by Mumia will be to petition for a writ of habeas corpus in the federal district court in Philadelphia, which will begin the normal federal appeals process. Under the restrictive measures of the 1996 Effective Death Penalty Act, the federal courts are now supposed to give a "presumption of correctness" to finding by the state courts. In Mumia s case, these means accepting finding by Judge Sabo and the FOP-supported Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
As further information becomes available we will pass it on.
[posted 10/4/99]
Mumia Index | Mumia Events | R&R Main Page
Join Refuse
& Resist!
305 Madison Ave., Suite 1166, New York, NY 10165
Phone: 212-713-5657
email: info@refuseandresist.org