--Pam Africa, Coordinator of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal

--Vincent Southerland, Assistant counsel at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund

On Monday, April 4, the US Supreme Court Mumia Abu-Jamal's appeal for a new guilt phase trial (in official legal terms, they rejected his petition for a "writ of certiorari").   Abu-Jamal's appeal was based primarily on the US Supreme Court's 1986 "Batson v Kentucky" ruling which stated that a defendant deserves a new trial if it can be shown that the prosecutor used peremptory strikes to remove otherwise qualified jurors simply because of their race. At Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial, prosecutor Joseph McGill used 10 or 11 of his 15 strikes to remove otherwise acceptable black jurors.

The US Supreme Court has not yet decided whether it will further consider the Philadelphia DA's appeal of the 2001/2008 rulings of two lower courts, which ruled that Abu-Jamal deserves a new sentencing hearing if the death penalty is to be re-instated. Therefore, if the US Supreme Court rules in favor of the DA, Abu-Jamal can then be executed WITHOUT a new sentencing hearing!

For more information on the Supreme Court ruling here.

Mumia's New Book On Jailhouse Lawyers

"More Than A Book Party" events to be held around US, marking the March release

Purchase Jailhouse Lawyers: Prisoners Defending Prisoners v. the U.S.A., directly from City Lights Books. Read the foreword by former political prisoner Angela Y. Davis and an interview with Mumia about his new book. In Mumia's words, "This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multi-billion-dollar endowed universities, but in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America."

Freedom Week Flyer

April 24 event flyer

Featured speakers at the April 24 event in Philadelphia will include:

-- Paul Wright, editor of Prison Legal News

-- Amin, formerly "Harold Wilson," the 122nd person freed from death row in the US.

-- Ramona Africa, Minister of Communication for the MOVE Organization.

--Steven Hawkins, Executive Vice President of the NAACP, formerly with the National Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty, and the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

--Linn Washington Jr., Philadelphia Tribune Columnist, Temple University Professor of Journalism, author of Black Judges on Justice: Perspectives from the Bench

--I Abdul Jon, longtime supporter of MOVE and Mumia, featured in "Prison Lawyers."

--Sonia Sanchez, poet and poltiical activist.

--Fred Hampton Jr,, Chairman of the Prisoners of Conscience Committee, and son of assassinated Chicago Black Panther leader Fred Hampton Sr.