On December 27, Judge Leon Tucker, surprised and pleased Mumia supporters by ruling that Mumia was entitled to a new appeal of his case because a Supreme Court Judge, Ronald Castille, who had worked in the District Attorney’s Office prior to becoming a Pennsylvania Supreme Court Judge, should have recused himself from the case when it came before him at the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Mumia was thus granted an opportunity for a review of his whole appeals process review, a major breakthrough in opening up the possibility of his release. Regardless of this very significant and unusual ruling, Mumia should have course been released long ago, in fact, never even been arrested since he is an innocent political prisoner, clearly framed by the police (the Fraternal Order of Police playing a major role), the prosecutors, and the judiciary, with the cooperation of other significant players because of his effectiveness as a political activist and well-known writer and journalist.
To the surprise and extreme disappointment of some, who had expected “progressive District Attorney” Krasner to play a positive role in this case, as he had promised during his campaign to do with all cases of miscarriage of “justice”, Krasner appealed the judge’s ruling, thus closing off the possibility of a quick process potentially leading to Mumia’s release.
As word, and organizing to pressure Krasner to change his position, spread, a group of students at Yale Law School took a dramatic position in “disinviting” Krasner as a keynote speaker at a conference at Yale on “rebellious lawyers”. See letter below where the students ask Krasner to withdraw his appeal of Judge Tucker’s ruling if he wishes to speak at the conference. Mumia Abu-Jamal was invited to replace Krasner as speaker at the conference.
Additionally, on December 28, Krasner announced that he found six boxes of Mumia materials marked with Mumia’s name, that had not been discovered before and were therefore not reviewed in the court proceedings of the past two years! He passed that information on to Judge Tucker on January 3, 2019 and released it to the public on January 9th, 2019. On January 25, 2019 District Attorney Krasner gave notice of his appeal of Judge Tucker’s ruling!
Because of Krasner’s appeal, the boxes will now not be reviewed until AFTER Krasner’s appeal. Though the six boxes were reviewed by Mumia’s attorneys, neither the original six nor the subsequent 100 will not be evaluated in court until the Krasner’s appeal is completed. That could be another year or so. But all these boxes are very significant and likely to hold information that could point to the frameup we’ve been charging.
Suzanne Ross, International Spokesperson, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal
Below is the statement from the Yale Law students.
UNDER PRESSURE, YALE REBLAW CONF RESCINDS KEYNOTE OFFER TO PHILLY D.A. LARRY KRASNER: Instead Invites Political Prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal
Organizers of the Rebellious Lawyering (RebLaw) conference at Yale Law School rescinded a speaking invitation to Philadelphia DA Larry Krasner (see attached). The celebrated “progressive” DA was scheduled be one of the keynote speakers at the 25 year-old conference on the weekend of Feb. 15-16, 2019. But earlier this week a coalition of Harvard law students and lawyers wrote to conference organizers saying that Philadelphia prosecutors could not be counted in the tradition of rebellious lawyers. Their impassioned letter condemned DA Krasner’s decision to appeal a recent court order that granted Mumia Abu-Jamal the right to re-appeal his conviction. The letter also challenged the notion that a prosecutor could hold that title.
In their letter to RebLaw, they said,
“The so-called progressive Larry Krasner is hell-bent on keeping [Mumia’s case] out of the appellate process. Larry Krasner was voted into office by the Black, working-class people of Philadelphia, but in the hour of truth he has upheld the rulings of racist judges [in this case] and is doing the bidding of one of the country’s most corrupt and homicidal police forces.”
The signers added:
“Prosecutors, those managers of the oppressive state, regardless of the rhetoric they may espouse during a campaign, should not be invited to speak at a conference for Rebellious Lawyering.”
Harvard Law student signator Anneke Dunbar-Gronke noted
“Krasner will go down in history as the well-meaning, “progressive” DA who opposed justice in the case of the Nelson Mandela of our time.”
Another Harvard Law student signator Felipe Hernández concluded,
“The lesson here is that in the mind of a progressive DA, justice is doled out selectively and only when there is no real political risk involved. Thankfully the conference participants will hear from Mumia, an actual jailhouse lawyer—and pinnacle of rebellious lawyering.”
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