BY AL DUNCAN AND HATTIE McCUTCHEON
PHILADELPHIA - Supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal and backers
of the police campaign to execute him jammed into the
courtroom of Judge Albert Sabo for hearings here July 12
and 14. Lawyers for the framed-up activist had demanded the
removal of Sabo from the case and a stay of execution. Sabo
postponed any decision on a stay of execution and rejected
the attorneys request that he remove himself from hearing
the appeal. Instead, the judge instructed Abu-Jamal's
lawyers to present witnesses and other evidence July 18 to
support their petition for a new trial.
Lead defense attorney Leonard Weinglass said that by neither granting nor denying the stay Sabo was "effectively blocking" the defense from seeking a stay from the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Furthermore, he noted, the July 18 hearing date does not give adequate preparation time. Usually lawyers have about 60 days to prepare for such a hearing. On July 18, Sabo issued a one-week delay on the proceedings.
Abu-Jamal faces the death penalty as a result of a frame up conviction of killing Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981. The journalist, who was shot and beaten by the cops in the incident, has maintained his innocence.
At the July 12 hearing, Weinglass cited statistics that Sabo had presided over more murder trials that resulted in the death penalty, mostly involving Black men, than any other judge in the United States.
He also pointed to Sabo's long-standing relationship with the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), which is leading a campaign nationally for the immediate execution of Abu- Jamal. With this record, Weinglass said, "Judge Sabo should not sit on the appeal of an African-American man convicted of killing a white police officer."
In response to these charges Sabo stated, "I feel that I was fair to him during his trial and I could be fair to him now." Some FOP supporters at the second hearing sported T- shirts that read, "The Jury Said Death-Do It."
Five hundred demonstrators marched on city hall before the July 12 hearing demanding a stay of execution for Abu Jamal. More than 100 supporters were inside the courtroom for the July 14 hearing, and another 100 who couldn't get in chanted in the corridor outside.
"We are not asking Judge Sabo to release Mumia. We are not asking the governor to pardon Mumia. We are asking for a trial, a fair trial, and if we get that, then there is no question in my mind that Mumia will be, as he should have been in 1982, acquitted of these charges," concluded Weinglass.
Al Duncan is a member of United Transportation Union Local 1445 in New Jersey.