Monday, February 24, 2020

PA Supreme Court Takes Jurisdiction of Mumia Abu-Jamal Case

 Four Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justices just donned their true colors: Black and Blue.
(Click on the image to increase its size.)

In a blatant attempt to try and stand on the scales of justice, these judges sided with the Fraternal Order of Police’s (FOP) King’s Bench Petition requesting that the court take jurisdiction from Philadelphia’s District Attorney to investigate a charge of bias in favor of  Mumia!

Really, “a special master” to investigate charges of bias in anti-corruption crusader Larry Krasner’s DA office? 

You have fnnn got to be kidding me. It is the old guard of the racist Philadelphia prosecutorial regime - Frank Rizzo, Ed Rendell, Joe McGill, and Lynne Abraham - who were biased and corrupt.

Philadelphia’s progressive DA, Larry Krasner, had stated that a new evidentiary hearing should be held in Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case because of exculpatory evidence suppressed by the earlier prosecutorial team.  The Judge Leon Tucker of the Common Pleas Court had excoriated the former prosecutors for literally burying evidence.

Wonder who the special master will be?  A FOP official?  A former DA?

This move undermines the movement for accountability that elected Krasner. In that move, the people rejected the business-as-usual police corruption. This is for sure an end run around local democracy.

This petition calls for something called “Extraordinary Relief” -  claiming that Krasner’s choice to allow Mumia’s call for a new trial to proceed is somehow corrupt. “Extraordinary  Relief” is supposed to be reserved for moments when the Pennsylvania Supreme Court needs to ensure that justice is done. But this decision is all about thwarting justice.  This “intervention” reeks of a coverup - until Krasner and Tucker, every step of Mumia’s criminal conviction and appeals process has been saturated with racist corruption. If they cared about justice they would have done this long before, when Sabo, Rizzo, and Rendell were running the show.

Now they suggest that  Krasner might be biased in favor of Mumia because he turned over newly discovered evidence that the former prosecutor buried! Kafka would be proud.

When Mumia - and all those other Black and Brown men and women were being harassed and swept into the brutal prison industrial complex - where was all this oversight?

We must always remember how deeply they want to keep Mumia Abu-Jamal in prison. The stronger we get, the nearer to freedom, the more they have to lose.  Accountability is looming. We will soon know how thick the corruption is that stands between us and freedom.

No comments: