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Articles "Yeah, and I'm going to help 'em fry the N-----r." (Judge Albert Sabo, Court of Common Pleas judge in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal) By Jeff Mackler, Co-Coordinator The Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal, SF One year ago, the attorneys representing Mumia Abu-Jamal filed a sworn declaration by award-winning Philadelphia Court Reporter Terri Maurer-Carter stating that at the time of Mumia's 1982 trial, in the anteroom to Judge Albert Sabo's courtroom, she overheard the judge state in relation to Mumia's case, "Yeah, and I'm going to help 'em fry the nigger." This evidence, again demonstrating the racist frame-up of the innocent Pennsylvania death row inmate, Mumia Abu-Jamal, was filed on August 28, 2001 in the Court of Common Pleas before Judge Pamela Dembe who responded by rejecting Mumia's claim for relief. Dembe wrote: The question before this court is not what attitudes and opinions the trial judge may have held.... Since this was a jury trial, as long as the presiding Judge's rulings were legally correct, claims as to what might have motivated or animated those rulings are not relevant. On August 27, 2002 Mumia's attorneys formally appealed Dembe's ruling as well as her refusal to even consider the affidavit of Arnold Beverly stating that he, not Mumia Abu-Jamal, killed police officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9, 1981. Speaking at a Philadelphia courthouse press conference, attorneys Marlene Kamish, Eliot Grossman and Michael Farrell noted that the Dembe decision was akin to the infamous 1857 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in the case of Dred Scott v Stanford. Chief Justice Roger Brooke Taney's decision in that historic case is seen as a critical incident leading to the commencement of the Civil War. Taney wrote: The question is simply this, can a Negro, whose ancestors were imported to this country and sold as slaves, become a member of the political community formed and brought into existence by the Constitution of the United States, and as such become entitled to all the rights and privileges and immunities guaranteed by that instrument to the citizen...? We think they are not... included under the word "citizen" ... and can therefore claim none of the rights and privileges which that instrument provides for... They had for more than a century been regarded as beings of an inferior order, and altogether unfit to associate with the white race ... and so far inferior that they had no rights which the white man was bound to respect ... The analogy between the Dred Scott decision and the ruling of Judge Dembe is indeed apt. What rights could a Black man have in a U.S. court today where the presiding judge (Dembe) rules that even an explicit racist statement by Judge Sabo that he would be complicit in Mumia's murder, is deemed irrelevant? Judge Dembe rejected calling Terri Maurer-Carter to the courtroom to ascertain the validity of her statement. It is likely that such a decision would have opened the floodgate to others who knew from direct experience that "hanging judge" Sabo, who had sentenced more people to death row, the vast majority Black, than any sitting judge in the U.S., was racist to the core. It is astonishing that anyone could believe for a moment that Judge Sabo could state that he was "going to help 'em fry the nigger" in one instant and enter the courtroom as an unbiased judge the next. Indeed, Sabo's bias was outrageous. It included rejecting Mumia's right to serve as his own counsel, removing a Black juror that Mumia himself had selected before he was physically removed from the courtroom, allowing the prosecution to use preemptory challenges to remove 11 of 15 Blacks jurors, and refusing to allow a critical witness to appear who had a produced signed statement repudiating the alleged Mumia murder confession. Mumia's trial was so fundamentally flawed that organizations ranging from Amnesty International, the European Parliament, the Japanese Diet to several national U.S. trade union federations (ILWU, AFSCME, SEIU, the national postal union) and the 1.8 million member California Labor Federation have rejected it in total and demand a new trial and/or Mumia's freedom. At every level of the judicial farce a new judge or public official comes forward to expound on the majesty of the law and the unbiased nature of the proceedings thus far conducted in Mumia's case. A few examples are instructive: * Judge Sabo excluded Mumia from a majority of his own murder trial making no provision for Mumia to hear the proceedings against him. Sabo conspired to literally remove the single Black juror Mumia had selected before he was removed. *Pennsylvania Supreme Court Judge Ronald Castille, who has twice ruled to sustain Mumia's lower court frame-up was the Philadelphia District Attorney who ordered state officials to produce a training video designed to instruct state prosecutors on how to exclude Blacks from juries. Castille's name and the state's imprimatur appears on the new now discredited video. * Federal District Court Judge William H. Yohn Jr. cited chapter and verse to demonstrate that in U.S. courts "innocence is no defense." Yohn wrote that "even if the [Arnold] Beverly confession was credible" it was submitted too late for consideration! Simultaneous Philadelphia and Oakland press conferences organized by Mumia supporters were held to announce the submission of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court appeal brief. Mumia's life still in danger Pennsylvania state officials have appealed last year's Federal District Court ruling by Judge Yohn that reversed Judge Sabo's improper instructions to the jury and thereby voided the Sabo court's imposition of the death penalty. After 20 years, this was the first decision wrenched from the courts proving that Judge Sabo had committed fundamental errors. Yohn was no doubt also moved by political considerations, that is, undercutting Mumia's support by appearing to eliminate the threat of execution and thereby disengage a section Mumia's anti-death penalty supporters. But Mumia's life is still in jeopardy as the death penalty may well be reinstated. Mumia's attorneys, of course, have also appealed Yohn's ruling upholding Mumia's murder conviction and Yohn's rejection of 28 of the 29 points in Mumia's habeas corpus brief. Yohn granted a "certificate of appealability" with regard to only a single point in Mumia's brief, the exclusion of Black jurors. He utilized the reactionary provisions of the 1996 Anti-terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act to prevent what had previously been an automatic right to appeal his entire decision. Whether or not to hear Mumia's full appeal today, is therefore in the "discretion" of the next court but not mandatory. For the moment, however, the Court of Appeals, Third Circuit has refused consideration of both appeals until all outstanding matters are decided by the Pennsylvania state courts, including Mumia's August 27, 2002 appeal. It is clear however, that Mumia's freedom and very life will not be won by reliance on the U.S. criminal "justice" system. The capacity of his supporters and all those who cherish civil liberties and democratic rights to build a massive national and international movement that makes the price of Mumia's "legal" murder to high to pay, will be decisive. Join the fight for Mumia's life! Build the November 15 and 16, 2002 National Conference on Civil Liberties, Democratic Rights & the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal! Call 415-695-7745 if you would like to work on planning the conference, volunteer that weekend, and/or contribute financially.