[Deathpenalty] death penalty news----PENN., ILL., N.Y., TENN.

[Rick Halperin]

July 10


PENNSYLVANIA:

4th of July protest stands up for Mumia


As tourists lined up to visit the Liberty Bell here, chants of "Brick by
brick, wall by wall; we're gonna free Mumia Abu-Jamal echoed across
Independence Plaza. It was the annual gathering to demand justice for an
innocent political prisoner who has spent 26 years on Pennsylvania's death
row.

On July 1, 1982, Judge Albert Sabo, known as the "hanging judge,"
encouraged jurors in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal to return a verdict
"quickly," in time to "enjoy your 4th of July holiday." On July 2, a
guilty verdict came in. On July 3, Abu-Jamal was sentenced to death.

By July 4, the jurists were home to celebrate with their families. While
evidence of Mumia Abu-Jamal's innocence clearly exists, jurors were never
shown it, nor has any court of law agreed to hear it to this day.

26 years later the people are still demanding justice, vowing that the 4th
of July will never be celebrated in Philadelphia without protest until
Mumia is free.

Children of members of the MOVE organization drove home this point by
carrying signs reading "9,491 days since Mumia Abu-Jamal was illegally
sentenced to death." 9-year-old Chad Africa told the crowd, "Police
murdered my family and they are still murdering political activists."

Pam Africa of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia
Abu-Jamal addressed the crowd on the links between struggles for political
prisoners like Mumia and the MOVE 9 and the war in Iraq. "Today the
government uses bombs and planes against innocent people in Iraq, while 40
years ago the Philadelphia police used hand grenades and thousands of
pounds of ammunition in Powelton Village against the MOVE family.

"Just like with Mumia, there is evidence that MOVE members are innocent,
but the court won't parole them if they don't admit 'remorse.' They're not
guiltywhat do they have to apologize for? In 1978 the state was waging a
war on the Black community. Today our sons and daughters are sent overseas
to fight for these same forces."

Several hip-hop artists provided edutainment for the participants. They
included Taina Asili, Rebel Diaz and Tha Truth.

Attorneys for Abu-Jamal are currently appealing recent rulings by the
Federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals. The rulings upheld a 2000 decision
by Judge William Yohn to lift the death sentence, yet denied Abu-Jamal's
appeals for a new trial based on racism in jury selection and
prosecutorial misconduct in his 1982 hearing and 1995 appeal.

(source: Workers World)

****************

Abu-Jamal seeks new trial in Phila. officer's slaying


Pennsylvania death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal has asked a federal appeals
court to reconsider the decision that denied him a new trial in the 1981
slaying of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.

In late March, a 3-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third
Circuit left intact Abu-Jamal's conviction but said a new jury should
decide whether he deserved death or should be sentenced to life behind
bars.

In court papers docketed today, Robert R. Bryan, the San Francisco lawyer
representing Abu-Jamal with Widener University law professor Judith
Ritter, asked the 3-judge panel and the full Third Circuit court to take
another look.

They contended that the panel should have ordered a hearing on Abu-Jamal's
contention that prosecutors intentionally excluded blacks from his jury in
violation of a later 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision.

They noted that one of the panel members, Judge Thomas Ambro, wanted a
hearing held on that issue, and said the majority "has backed away from
this Circuit's historical commitment to equal justice for all."

The 3-judge panel affirmed the December 2001 ruling by U.S. District Judge
William H. Yohn Jr., who had thrown out the death sentence after
concluding that the jury might have been confused by the trial judge's
instructions and wording on the verdict form filled out when the jury
decided on death.

Yohn found that the jury might have mistakenly believed it had to agree
unanimously on any mitigating circumstances - factors that might have
persuaded jurors to decide on a life sentence, rather than death.

Abu-Jamal, 54, has been on death row since his 1982 conviction in the
killing of Faulkner, who was shot to death near 13th and Locust Streets
early in the morning of Dec. 9, 1981.

While Abu-Jamal is appealing because he wants a new trial, the
Philadelphia District Attorney's Office could ask the U.S. Supreme Court
to reinstate the death sentence. Assistant District Attorney Hugh Burns
said last month that no decision had been made on whether to ask the high
court to consider the matter.

Abu-Jamal has written books and given taped speeches from death row, and
his case has been followed in many parts of the world.

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court upheld his conviction and death sentence in
1989, and also rejected three other appeals - including one earlier this
year.

(source: Philadelphia Inquirer, July 7)

**********************

Mumia Abu-Jamal's Long-Shot Appeal for Reversal of Last Year's Disastrous
Third Circuit Ruling


Mumia Abu-Jamal and his attorney Robert R. Bryan yesterday filed a formal
petition seeking a full en banc reconsideration of last springs decision
by a three-member panel of the Third Circuit Federal Court of Appeals
rejecting his claim of a constitutional violation in the selection of
jurors at his 1982 murder trial in the shooting death of Philadelphia
police officer Daniel Faulkner.

The 3-judge panel, in a 2-1 ruling, rejected Abu-Jamals claim of a
so-called Batson violationnamely that the city prosecutor trying his case
had denied him a fair trial by improperly barring qualified African
Americans from sitting on his jury. The 2 judges in the majority--both
appointed to their posts by President Ronald Reagan--stated that Abu-Jamal
had failed to raise the issue at the time of his trial, and that he had
failed to make a prima facie case of racial discrimination.

In their majority opinion rejecting Abu-Jamals Batson claim, Judge Anthony
Scirica and Judge Robert Cowan had argued that even though it was
demonstrably true that Assistant DA Joseph McGill had used 10 of his 15
peremptory challenges to reject two-thirds of the potential black jurors
who had agreed that they could vote for a death penalty in the case, it
could not be seen as a prima facie case of impermissible racial
discrimination, because no one had established the racial make-up of the
total jury pool. In other words, as 1 of the 2 judges actually stated
during the hearing, perhaps the jury pool itself was 2/3 black. The
majority also ruled that because Abu-Jamal had not formally raised the
objection about the number of racial jury strikes at the time they
occurred, his claim was denied.

As attorney Bryan pointed out in his request for a re-examination of the
ruling by the full Third Circuit panel of 12 judges, however, both these
arguments fly in the face of both US Supreme Court and Third Circuit
precedents. Under Batson, a defendant, in order to obtain a full hearing
into the issue of race discrimination in jury selection, need only
demonstrate that one single juror was improperly rejected by the
prosecution on the basis of race. Furthermore, both those courts have also
established that all relevant issues must be taken into consideration, not
just the juror strike (dismissal) rate. Bryan noted, for example, that the
case was racially charged, given that the defendant was black and the
victim was white, and that it was especially charged, given that the
defendant had been a Black Panther and had been associated with the MOVE
organization, while the victim had been a police officer. Both the Supreme
Court and the Third Circuit Court of Appeals have held that such issues
can contribute to making a prima facie case of discrimination, yet neither
was considered by the 3-judge panel in its ruling in this case. Bryan also
noted that at the time of the trial, there was no Batson standard to raise
an objection to (the US Supreme Courts Batson standard was established in
1986, but was made retroactive for all cases). Indeed, in 1982, at the
time of Abu-Jamal's trial, it was technically legal for prosecutors to
reject jurors on the basis of race, so he and his trial attorney would
have been making a pointless objection at trial had they formally
complained back then.

All these points, Bryan argues in his petition for a re-consideration of
his client's Batson claim, were also powerfully made in a dissent by the
third appellate judge, Thomas Ambro (a Clinton appointee), who charged
that his 2 senior colleagues on the bench were making "a newly created
contemporaneous objection rule for habeas petitions," which he warned
would conflict with all the court's prior decisions.

Judge Ambro, Bryan points out, also was dismissive in his dissent of his 2
colleagues' claim that they needed to know the composition of the jury
pool before they could say the prosecutors dismissal of 2/3 of the
qualified black jurors might constitute improper discrimination in jury
selection. "It is my belief," he wrote, "that this strike rate without
reference to total venire (jury pool) can stand on its own for the purpose
of raising an inference of discrimination."

In any event, Bryan went on to demonstrate, using the trial transcript
record and some simple math, that in fact the racial composition of the
original jury pool can be established: it was 14 blacks and 31 whites, or
in other words, 31 % black. Since it has been stipulated by the district
attorneys office, and accepted as fact by the state courts, that the
prosecutor used his ability to dismiss jurors peremptorily (without cause)
to eliminate 10 black jurors already considered acceptable by the court,
that gives the prosecution a strike rate of 66.67 %, or more than double
the actual percentage of available black jurors in the pool. Admittedly it
would have been better had the defense been able to make that damning
point at the Third Circuit hearing last year, when the 2 Republican judges
on the bench were demanding it, properly or not. That said, it is still a
point that the full Third Circuit bench should consider carefully, in
examining lst year's bizarre ruling by the three-judge panel of Scirica,
Cowen and Ambro.

The challenge faced by Abu-Jamal in this bid for a reconsideration of his
Batson claim ruling is that the three judges who already ruled, including
Judge Cowen, could be part of any en banc reconsideration. Judge Marjorie
Rendell, one of the 12 active members of the Third Circuit, has recused
herself from the hearing because her husband, Gov. Ed Rendell, was
district attorney and as such was boss of the prosecutor, Joe McGill, when
the case was tried. Another judge, Clinton appointee Theodore McKee, also
recused himself, as did Bush appointee D. Michael Fisher. Ordinarily, en
banc deliberations are limited to active judges, but Judge Cowen, though
retired, might be able to participate, since he was one of the judges who
issued the ruling in question. If Judge Cowan did not participate in an en
banc session, that would mean four additional judges would have to side
with Judge Ambro, for a reversal and an order for a hearing on Abu-Jamal's
Batson claim. If Cowan were to join the bench, however, that would mean a
total of 10 judges, and thus a majority of 6--or 5 in addition to
Ambro--would be needed for a reversal.

Without Cowan, the odds would be daunting enough. Even if the other two
Clinton appointees to the Third Circuit Court and one remaining Carter
appointee were to side with Ambro, Abu-Jamal would need one Bush appointee
to come over to get five votes for a reversal. With Cowan voting, 5 votes
would just give a tie, leaving last year's ruling standing. For a
reversal, a second Bush appointee would have to be swayed to Abu-Jamals
side.

That is quite a hurdle. Then again, stranger things have happened: One of
the key Third Circuit rulings establishing the precedent that it should be
relatively easy for a death row prisoner to establish prima facie evidence
of race-based jury selection (to which Judge Ambro referred when he said
his colleagues were ignoring the precedents of their own circuit) and gain
a full hearing of the evidence, was written by a recent member of the
Third Circuit Court of Appeals, Samuel Alito. Alito, recall, left the
Third Circuit when he was appointed last year to the Supreme Court by
Bush.

Technically, what Abu-Jamal is seeking at this point is an order from the
Third Circuit Court of Appeals for a full Batson hearing, at which all
evidence could be presented, and the prosecution questioned, about the
prevailing practice by the district attorney's office in 1982 of excluding
blacks from juries in Philadelphia (academic research shows that under
Rendell's direction, prosecutors struck blacks from capital-case juries 58
percent of the time, compared to only 22 % for whites), the record of
prosecutor Joe McGill (who records show struck black jurors from the
capital cases he tried 74 % of the time, vs. 25 % of the time for whites),
and about what actually happened during jury selection process at
Abu-Jamal's own trial, when two-thirds of black jurors were struck by the
prosecutor.

If a judge were to establish after such a hearing that there was a racial
motive behind McGill's actions during jury selection, or during the
removal of one seated black juror early in the trial, or that even one
juror was removed for racial reasons, under Batson rules, it would result
automatically in Abu-Jamal's getting a new trial before a new, fairly
selected jury.

The Third Circuit drama over Abu-Jamal's Batson claim plays out as
evidence continues to mount that his trial was a sham and a travestry.
Among these are new photographs showing: 1) police manipulation of the
evidence at the crime scene, 2) a lack of any bullet holes in the sidewalk
surrounding the spot where officer Faulkner was lying when he was
allegedly shot by Abu-Jamal, and 3) no indication of a taxi cab parked
where cab driver Robert Chobert, a key prosecution eye-witness, claimed he
had been located during the shooting incident. Other credible witnesses
are also surfacing with evidence that there was never a shouted out
"confession" in Jefferson Hospital's emergency room, and that witness
Chobert was actually not a witness to the shooting, but was rather parked
on another street, facing away from the incident

The District Attorney's office is expected to file a counter petition
opposing an en banc review of last year's Third Circuit ruling.

(source: Dave Lindorff, a columnist for Counterpunch, is author of several
recent books ("This Can't Be Happening! Resisting the Disintegration of
American Democracy" and "Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death
Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal"). His latest book, coauthored with
Barbara Olshanshky, is "The Case for Impeachment: The Legal Argument for
Removing President George W. Bush from Office (St. Martin's Press, May
2006); Op-Ed News, July 7)






ILLINOIS:

Prosecutors seek death penalty in burning case


In Wheaton, DuPage County prosecutors say they'll seek the death penalty
against a suburban Chicago man accused of killing his 2 sons by dousing
them with gasoline and setting them on fire.

Kaushik Patel has pleaded not guilty to ten counts of 1st-degree murder
and 2 counts of aggravated battery of a child in the deaths of 7-year-old
Vishv Patel and 4-year-old Om Patel.

Kaushik Patel showed no emotion in court Wednesday when he was informed
that prosecutors would seek the death penalty in the case.

Patel has told reporters he meant to kill himself, not his children. Both
boys survived for months after the November fire before dying earlier this
year.

A trial isn't expected to begin for at least a year.

(source: Associated Press)






NEW YORK:

New York should never have a death penalty


A judge this month is expected to close the books on the case of Martin
Tankleff, who served 17 years in prison for the 1988 murder of his
parents. While lawyers working for Attorney General Andrew Cuomo stopped
short of saying that Tankleff was innocent of the crime, it is clear that
his conviction on shaky, contradictory evidence - including an apparently
coerced confession - is not an aberration in our state.

As Tankleff said in an interview with the news channel New York 1: "I
wouldn't be here if New York had a death penalty in 1988."

You have to wonder why anyone would support the death penalty knowing that
innocent people could be convicted and put to death. But that is exactly
what the State Senate, now led by Sen. Dean Skelos (R-Rockville Centre),
insists on trying to do.

Last month, senators voted again to reimpose the death penalty, knowing
full well the measure had no chance of passing the Assembly or being
signed into law by Gov. David Paterson.

And what the senators did before voting to restore capital punishment
demonstrates just what an empty gesture they were making: They voted down
an amendment that would have created a commission to study the kinds of
commonsense reforms to the criminal justice system that would minimize the
plague of wrongful convictions.

A report released late last year by the Innocence Project found that New
York leads the nation in murder convictions overturned by DNA evidence
since 2000. Since then, seven New Yorkers have walked free after doing
hard time for murders that were committed by other people.

One of those cases freed Jeffrey Deskovic, who served 16 years in prison
for a Peekskill murder he did not commit. Deskovic was convicted after he
gave a false confession to police investigators who had pressed him for
hours without a lawyer present - even though DNA evidence presented at
trial pointed to another perpetrator, who eventually confessed to the
murder after Deskovic's release.

DNA evidence is present in less than 15 percent of homicides, according
the Innocence Project. One of the proposed reforms that the Senate
rejected would have required the videotaping of custodial interrogations,
which would have allowed juries to pass judgment after seeing the precise
conditions under which defendants like Deskovic and Tankleff were
questioned.

Wrongful convictions result from a variety of causes, including eyewitness
mistakes and inadequate defense. Jose Garcia, for example, spent 15 years
in prison after being convicted of a Bronx homicide based on an eyewitness
identification, even though the murder was committed a day after he had
been arrested in the Dominican Republic - a seemingly ironclad alibi that
his lawyer did not check out.

Thanks to DNA, we know that the criminal justice system is fallible.
Although the proposed reforms would help, even the best reforms cannot
create a foolproof system as long as human beings are in charge. Unlike
the death penalty, a sentence of life imprisonment without parole - which
is favored by a majority of New Yorkers - can always be corrected once a
mistake has been uncovered.

Capital punishment is a system that buries its worst mistakes. That's why
Skelos and his colleagues should turn their attention to the kind of
reforms that would reduce the number wrongful convictions.

And as a first step toward reform, they should let the death penalty rest
in peace.

(source: David Kaczynski, executive director of New Yorkers Against the
Death penalty; Newsday)






TENNESSEE:

DNA could stop Paul House retrial----Prosecutor awaits FBI test results


The prosecutor who put Paul House on death row once and planned a 2nd
trial to try to keep him imprisoned for life now says he might drop the
case if the evidence doesn't back him up.

Eighth Judicial District Attorney William Paul Phillips, who is
prosecuting House for the 1985 killing of Carolyn Muncey, told The
Associated Press on Wednesday that he might drop the charges if House's
DNA is not found on evidence in the case. He said he would ask a judge to
allow the FBI to test a hair found on the victim's hand.

"If it's not his (House's) and not hers and (belongs to) some third party,
then we would have to evaluate that along with all the other evidence, and
we would determine if that raised a reasonable doubt," Phillips told the
AP. "If at any time that (hair) or any other evidence raised a reasonable
doubt, then we would not prosecute."

DNA evidence was what got House released from prison after nearly 23 years
behind bars.

The U.S. Supreme Court in 2006 concluded that House would not have been
convicted based on the DNA evidence that emerged years after his trial. A
federal judge ordered prosecutors to retry House within 180 days or free
him. House was released last week pending an October retrial.

House's mother, Joyce House, does not see Phillips' announcement as a sign
that he has changed his mind about her son's guilt.

"I don't trust the guy. He's got something up his sleeve," she said in a
telephone interview from her home in Crossville, Tenn., where her son is
staying. "I don't think he's ever going to give up  he's got his teeth
sunk so deep into it."

As for Phillips' declaration that he would not prosecute without DNA
evidence, she said, "Well, I would hope not."

Phillips, who prosecuted the original case against House, began making
plans for a new trial before House had even been released from jail.

"I'm looking forward to giving him a new trial," he told TheTennessean in
May. "I am confident we will be ready within 180 days."

Stacy Rector, executive director of the Tennessee Coalition to Abolish
State Killing, believes the high court's ruling should have ended
Phillips' role in the case.

"I think that would be the just and responsible thing to do, to not waste
any more time or taxpayer money on a trial. The U.S. Supreme Court has
already said no reasonable juror would lack reasonable doubt in this case,
given the evidence," she said. "This trial completely flies in the face of
that. There is, to my knowledge, no new evidence the prosecution would
provide."

Rape Ruled Out

DNA testing has already proved that House did not rape Muncey, and the
blood found on his jeans came from samples spilled on them afterward
during the investigation.

"I continue to be baffled why the prosecutor wants to continue to pursue
this, given the court rulings and the evidence," Rector said. "This has
gone on far, far too long for everybody. It needs to be concluded. The
evidence is on the side of Paul House that he didn't commit this crime.
That's not just my opinion, but that of the Supreme Court, the highest
court in the land."

Lawyer Prepares

House's assistant public defender, Dale Potter, told the AP he is
proceeding with House's case as if it will begin in the fall as planned.

"If he (Phillips) decides to drop the charges, I don't think there will be
anybody screaming 'don't do it,' " Potter said. "If you're a DA and you
send off things to the crime lab and you're needing certain test results
and they don't come back showing what you need, it's a whole lot less you
have in your hands for proof, and this case is already short on proof."

Phillips said the FBI is testing fingernail clippings from the victim and
cigarette butts submitted in House's 1st trial in 1985 to determine if any
DNA can be obtained.

Phillips said there was no scientific analysis available to be performed
on the items at the time of the original trial.

Phillips said he doesn't know when he will get DNA results back from the
FBI for the cigarette butts and fingernail clippings, but he thinks they
could get the hair results in a matter of weeks.

"We're getting ready for trial actively now, and this (DNA testing) is
part of it. We're trying to be very thorough. If the team of our staff
members determines at any time that in their professional judgment there's
reasonable doubt then we would not go forward."

Meanwhile, Joyce House said her son continues to enjoy his 1st summer of
freedom in 2 decades.

"He's doing great, he's just fine," she said. "We're both taking this one
day at a time."

(source: Associated Press)