The plot by Pennsylvania prison authorities to hold Mumia Abu-Jamal in isolation from both journalists and his own attorneys was exposed and dealt a serious set-back in recent hearings in federal court in Pittsburgh.
The hearings revealed that prison officials opened confidential mail from Mumia's attorneys and sent xerox copies to the governor's office in total violation of lawyer - client privilege. Thus when Pennsylvania governor Tom Ridge sat down to sign Mumia's death warrant, his office had copies of confidential letters from Mumia's attorney that outlined the defense's legaI strategy.
Prison officials also deliberately barred journalists from interviewing Mumia while the Fraternal Order of Police orchestrated numerous media events to tell the police version of Mumia's case. This permitted a one-sided media campaign to be conducted by the Philadelphia papers, featuring the tearful widow of Officer Faulkner, while Mumia's voice was gagged.
Finally, prison officials also barred paralegaIs representing Mumia's attorneys from visiting him in violation of the prison system's own rules.
The federal court forced Pennsylvania to produce their internal records and compelled prison authorities to testify under oath - something that made them quite nervous. What immediately stood out was that Mumia was subjected to "special treatment" because he is a political prisoner - an opponent of the system.
Prison records demonstrated that although 18 requests for media interviews with Mumia were received by the prison early in 1995, only one was granted.
Correspondence between prison officials showed that the clamp down on Mumia was initiated by demands of police mouthpiece Rep. Michael McGeehan that Mumia's writings be suppressed.
In their defense, prison officials claimed that they were only enforcing a rule prohibiting prisoners from operating a business or profession from the prison. But this lame excuse was blown out of the water when Mumia's attorneys produced evidence that another Pennsylvania prisoner had similarly written a book on prison, and not only did prison authorities not punish him, they even assisted him to appear on talk shows by phone to promote the book!
As the plaintiff, Mumia was present throughout the hearings. He was forced to sit in leg shackles throughout the proceedings, and was accompanied in and out of the courtroom by six guards!
On the stand Mumia defended his writing of Live from Death Row as both a constitutionally protected right and a political necessity for his defense. He pointed out how the system sought to reduce death row inmates to "faceless, nameless beings who exist in the headlines of yesterday's newspapers." What he sought to do through his writing was to show what prison is really like, not how it is reported in the establishment press.
Mumia also defended using proceeds from his book to help pay his legal expenses. The government has virtually unlimited resources to prosecute him into the death chamber, so where is a death row inmate supposed to get the funds to compete with that?? As the O.J. Simpson trial demonstrated, having a defense with resources matching the prosecution makes quite a difference.
The state wasn't eager to cross examine, and basically wanted him off the stand as soon a possible.
Only the determined action of hundreds forced this high-level conspiracy against justice into the open. Mumia's suit was supported with amicus briefs from the ACLU, seven professional journalists associations, and individual attorneys. But it is the thousands in the streets worldwide that have busted down the attempted isolation of Mumia Abu-Jamal!
SOURCES: Courtroom notes and legal briefs.
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