By Betsey Piette
April 23, 2025
Rally marking the 43rd anniversary of the unjust and illegal incarceration of Pennsylvania political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal, Philadelphia, Dec. 9, 2024.
Philadelphia
On March 26, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court denied political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal permission to appeal a September 2024 Pennsylvania Superior Court denial of his latest petition to reverse his 1982 conviction. The Supreme Court ruling ends Mumia’s state court challenge at this time.
Mumia’s sixth petition was based on credible new evidence of prosecutorial misconduct — including Brady violations based on incentives given to the state’s key witnesses Cynthia White and Robert Chobert to give false testimony.
The new evidence, found buried in storage boxes in a remote area of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office and turned over to Mumia’s lawyers in December 2021 also included evidence of racial bias in jury selection, a Batson violation.
The evidence included handwritten jury selection notes from Assistant District Attorney Joseph McGill, at the time of Mumia’s original 1982 trial, detailing the impermissible strike pattern targeting eligible Black jurors over white jurors. It contained a handwritten note by alleged “eyewitness” Robert Chobert to ADA McGill after the trial demanding “his money” that Chobert said was promised to him.
There were also detailed memos tracking “eyewitness” Cynthia White’s other unrelated and future cases with notice from McGill requesting to be consulted if these cases came to court.
Other evidence disclosed since the initial trial but not allowed into court included several photographs taken by freelance photographer Pedro Polakoff the night of the shooting of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981. The photos, finally disclosed to the defense in 2007, proved Chobert was lying when he testified that his taxi was parked behind the police car driven by Faulkner. Another picture showed a policeman mishandling the alleged murder weapon. Without the opportunity for a new hearing, these are considered “inadmissible”.
Mumia’s petition was brought before Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Lucretia Clemons in December 2022. In her “dismissal” on April 23, 2023, Clemons called Chobert’s request, hidden from Mumia’s defense for 37 years, “not material” — claiming that it would not have altered the jury verdict. But in this case a key witness was demanding money from the prosecutor after the trial ended for something done during the trial.
A Brady disclosure is a legal rule requiring prosecutors to turn over evidence to the defense that might have exonerated them. Under Brady, the appellant court was obliged to have conducted an evidentiary hearing, subpoenaing Chobert and McGill to testify under oath.
Batson violation – racist bias in jury selection
McGill’s handwritten notes dismissing Black jurors in favor of white ones constituted a clear-cut violation of Batson, which established that the right to sit on a jury was compromised if even one person was removed because of their race. The notes should have been turned over to defense lawyers 37 years ago. Instead, Clemons’ ruling, upheld by the appellate courts, claimed that Mumia’s petition was untimely, because his lawyers somehow should have known about McGill’s notes.
Given that the strong evidence of police, prosecutorial and judicial misconduct has been repeatedly ignored by the Pennsylvania courts — their Mumia exception — the recent ruling was not unexpected. It nevertheless is a blow.
What comes next for Mumia?
Mumia’s supporters have never relied on the bourgeois courts to uphold justice — especially when courts are heavily influenced by the Fraternal Order of Police, which is determined to keep Mumia incarcerated. Each stage in Mumia’s case — from winning his release from death row to securing necessary treatments for hepatitis C and care for other health issues — has relied on his supporters taking his struggle to the streets through historic international mobilizations.
A major focus of this movement recently is to raise awareness of Mumia and his struggle for exoneration among young activists, particularly those engaged in the movement against U.S./Israeli genocide in Gaza.
In April 2024 Mumia was able to address historic student encampments for Gaza at several universities, including Columbia and City College in New York City and the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia. As a result, the students have continued to link their struggle for Gaza with the fight to win Mumia’s freedom.
This April 24, in celebration of Mumia’s 71st birthday, a webinar entitled “Twisted Laws: Mumia, Universities & Palestine” will take on the systemic issues that create and perpetuate a cycle of political prisoners worldwide. It will feature law students and activists who will share their perspectives on how “constitutional law in the land of the free” is increasingly weaponized to repress dissent and create political prisoners.
