National Task Force Established to Free Mumia

National Task Force Established to Free Mumia

By Jeff Mackler

Twenty-five prominent leaders of a broad range of human and civil rights
organizations and other progressive groups met in New York City on Oct. 2
to establish the National Task Force to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. Jamal, the
victim of a racist Philadelphia police/prosecution frame-up trial in 1982,
has been on Pennsylvania's death row for 22 years.

The meeting, held at the Center for Constitutional Rights, saw a
reunification of activists who had worked for Mumia's freedom over the past
decade and longer. It also included new forces critical to building a
powerful social movement capable of making the political price of Mumia's
continued incarceration too high to pay.

Robert Bryan, Mumia's lead counsel, accompanied by co-counsel Steven
Hawkins, outlined for the meeting the legal status of the case. Currently
before the U.S. Court of Appeals, Third Circuit, at the time of the meeting
a stay of proceedings was in place as two lower court jurisdictions had yet
to complete various appeals filed by the defense. The Third Circuit had
also been awaiting a decision in a critical case before the U.S. Supreme
Court, Banks v. Beard.

Since the Oct. 2 meeting, in light of the recent resolution of the Banks
case, the Third Circuit has lifted the stay of proceedings, once again
putting Mumia's appeal process on the "fast track." While Mumia's attorneys
clearly interpret the Banks decision as making it impossible to execute
Mumia, the state of Pennsylvania has adopted the opposite view and has
filed papers with the court insisting that the Banks decision opens the way
for Mumia's execution.

The complicated set of legal procedures includes at the highest level, the
Third Circuit, Mumia's challenge to a Federal District Court ruling that
upheld the racist exclusion of Black jurors from Mumia's original trial.
The defense will also request that the Third Circuit grant "certificates of
appealability" in regard to more than a dozen critical issues that the
Federal District Court had rejected. With a recent U.S. Supreme Court
decision in the Miller El case liberalizing aspects of the reactionary 1996
Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act, Mumia's chances of
broadening the issues that the court must consider has improved. These
include many of the 29 points raised in the original federal habeas corpus
brief.

Pending before the lower courts is Mumia's challenge to the original trial
itself. This is based on the affidavit filed on his behalf by court
stenographer Terri Maurer Carter, who overheard the "hanging" judge who
presided over his trial, Albert Sabo, state in the court's antechambers in
reference to Mumia. "Yeah, and I'm going to help 'em fry the n***er."

The legal update at the New York meeting was followed by a series of
reports and discussion designed to bring Mumia's case before ever
broadening audiences and to raise funds for the legal and political defense
efforts.

A number of national speaking tours were set in motion as well as the
expansion of the present national fundraising list for legal defense from
its present outreach of 2000 to over twice that number. Plans were also
made to raise funds for the political defense of Mumia, headed by the
International Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

A team of Internet specialists was established to bring the national
communications effort to tens of thousands of people across the country.

The meeting initiated a campaign to generate newspaper and magazine ads
detailing the history of Mumia's case, as well as a major effort to secure
resolutions of support from hundreds of national and local political,
humans rights, and labor organizations, and from city and state governments.

The resolution approved at last summer's NAACP national convention
demonstrated to participants that the myriad of organizations that had
previously supported Mumia's struggle for justice and freedom must be
recontacted and re-engaged in the struggle. The NAACP had urged that all of
its affiliate chapters become engaged in Mumia's defense.

The Task Force was designed to accomplish specific organizational tasks
requiring the common efforts of a broad range of groups and individuals.
While it will work in close collaboration with Mumia's formal defense
committee, the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia
Abu-Jamal (ICFFMAJ), it was not seen as a replacement for this committee.
The latter works in direct collaboration with Mumia and his legal team and
determines the strategic line of Mumia's defense effort.

The Task Force will meet regularly in light of the likelihood that the case
will now proceed through the courts at an increasingly rapid pace.

Task force participants include ICFFMAJ leader Pam Africa; Robert Meeropol,
Rosenberg Fund for Children; Sundiata Sadiq, past president, Ossining, N.Y.
NAACP, Robert R. Bryan and Steven Hawkins, part of Mumia's legal team;
Jeremy Syrop, Free Mumia Coalition NYC youth coordinator; Iyaluua Ferguson,
Malcolm X Commemoration Comm.; Heidi Beghosian, Dir., National Lawyers
Guild; Linda M. Thurston, social justice activist; Monica Moorehead,
Millions for Mumia; Suzanne Ross & Gwen Debrow, N.Y. Free Mumia Coalition;
Herman Ferguson, Jericho Amnesty Movement; Anne Lamb, Peoples Video
Network; Frank Velgara, Latinos por Mumia, Pam; Suzanne Ross & Gwen Debrow,
co-chairs, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC; Clark Kissinger & Debra
Sweet, Refuse and Resist; Michael Tariq Warren, former member Mumia's legal
team; Mark Taylor, Educators for Mumia & Princeton Theological Seminary,
Iglesia San Romero de las Américas-UCC, NYC; Frances Goldin, social
activist and Mumia's literary agent; Cleo Silvers, Labor for Mumia;
attorney Leslie Jones & Jason Corwin, upstate New York reps., ICFFMAJ &
Native Youth Movement; and Jeff Mackler, representing the Northern
California-based Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal.


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