Court action has potential to re-open Mumia's criminal conviction! On August 7, 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’s 5th Amendment due process rights when he refused to remove himself [...]
[col. writ. 6/10/16] © by Mumia Abu-Jamal In legal theory there is something known as ëthe -fruit-of-the-poisonous-treeí doctrine, which holds that an illegal search, arrest or interrogation poisons -or taints - all that follows, and as such, it may not be used in a prosecution. If that is so, what of America's failed and corrupt so-called Drug War, as poisoned a fruit as possible, born, as it was, from political lies meant [...]
[col. writ. 3/9/16] ©16 Mumia Abu-Jamal An election is occurring tonight. It's a primary, one of dozens to come. It matters not where -- or, for the most part, even who. Elections are public expressions of emotion, as in who do you like? Who do you feel like voting for? Millions of dollars are spent on massive advertising campaigns, built to bend your emotions, play to your fears, or evoke your deepest [...]
by Mumia Abu-Jamal https://www.counterpunch.org/2015/10/16/if-this-is-a-war-then-black-lives-matter-is-losing/ Plus Ca change, say the French; or The more things change, of course, the more they stay the same. That thought, with all its despair and wisdom, resonates with particular power when we look at the Black Freedom Struggle, which, despite its ebbs and flows, has a sameness that seems to suspend it in its own time, akin to a Biblical narrative that exists in its own realm, [...]
[Col. Writ 9/9/15] © 2015 by Mumia Abu-Jamal It is impossible to look at the current crop of political presidential aspirants and not be struck by their level of subservience to the wants and needs of the owner class. Like Puppies panting in the presence of their masters, the politicians, emboldened by the unconscionable Citizens United decision, are at the feet of the billionaires for scraps to better serve their betters. Now, [...]
by Mumia Abu-Jamal A young white man, barely at the age of his majority, walks into Charleston's most storied Black church, and before he leaves, a new history is written. Attending a Wednesday night bible study, he sits for nearly an hour, but his mind isn't on the life of Jesus nor his disciples; it's on murder, mass murder. When the door shuts behind him, nine Black souls, elders mostly, have been [...]
[col. writ. 3/5/15] © 2015 Mumia Abu-Jamal With breathless news reports, the U.S. Dept. of Justice's Pattern and Practice Study paints a damning picture of a long, cruel and bitter train of maltreatment, mass profiling, police targeting and brutality against Black people in the Missouri town of Ferguson. What may be even worse, however, is how the townís police, judges and political leaders conspired to loot the community, by fining them into [...]
(column written 8/11/14) © 2014 Mumia Abu-Jamal Once again, a Black unarmed youth has been killed by a cop. And while the facts surrounding the shooting are presently unclear, what is clear is that a cop shot 18-year-old Michael Brown 8 times. According to at least one eyewitness, Brown was shot as he stood with his hands up in the air. To anyone who knows American history, this is not a rarity. It [...]
