mumia abu jamal | Abolition Law Center

MEDIA RELEASE: Lawsuit seeks to invalidate outgoing Governor’s censorship statute

Posted on November 10, 2014 by abolitionist

Prisoners, human rights advocates, scholars, and media sue to prevent enforcement of “Silence Mumia Law”

November 10, 2014: Pittsburgh, PA – A lawsuit challenging a Pennsylvania censorship law intended to silence Mumia Abu-Jamal and others convicted of personal injury crimes was filed today, less than one month after outgoing Governor Corbett signed the bill into law as part of his failed re-election campaign.

Download the Complaint: Abu-Jamal v. Kane

The Abolitionist Law Center, Amistad Law Project, and the Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center are representing Mumia Abu-Jamal, Prison Radio, Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal, Kerry “Shakaboona” Marshall, Robert L. Holbrook, and Human Rights Coalition in a lawsuit against Attorney General Kathleen Kane and Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams that was filed today in the Middle District of Pennsylvania.

Senate Bill 508 allows the Attorney General, county District Attorneys, and victims of personal injury crimes to bring a lawsuit in civil court against the person convicted of the personal injury crime to enjoin conduct that “perpetuates the continuing effect of the crime on the victim”. The actions that could prompt a lawsuit include “conduct which causes a temporary or permanent state of mental anguish.”

“This law is clearly unconstitutional. The Pennsylvania legislature and Governor Corbett wanted to use Mumia Abu-Jamal to score political points and passed a law that can’t pass constitutional muster. We’re suing Attorney General Kane and Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams before they can sue to keep Mumia from speaking publicly,” said Bret Grote, Legal Director of the Abolitionist Law Center.

On October 16th, days after Mumia Abu-Jamal’s prerecorded commencement speech was played for graduates at Goddard College in Vermont, the Pennsylvania House passed Senate Bill 508. The bill was passed in the Pennsylvania Senate the next day and Governor Corbett signed it into law on October 21st, 16 days after Abu-Jamal’s commencement speech.

Abu-Jamal has spent 33 years in prison, 30 of which were in solitary confinement on death row after being convicted at a 1982 trial that Amnesty International said “failed to meet minimum international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings.”

Abu-Jamal has given three commencement addresses in the past: another for Goddard College in 2008; one for Antioch College in Ohio in 2000; and one for Evergreen College in Washington state in 1999. He has recorded more than 3,000 essays, published seven books in nine languages, with two more books set for publication in 2015, and has been the subject of three major broadcast and theatrical movies. The latest film, Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary, is currently airing on the Starz network, sold out theatres coast to coast, and has sold more than 20,000 DVDs.

“This is not the first time Pennsylvania has tried to silence Mumia,” said Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio. “The Department of Corrections has punished Mumia for speaking publicly and eliminated in-person broadcast media visits with all prisoners in response pressure from the Fraternal Order of Police.” In November 1996, the DOC responded to FOP pressure by eliminating in-person broadcast media visits with all prisoners.

In May 1994, a regular series of commentaries by Abu-Jamal were planned for broadcast by National Public Radio program All Things Considered. NPR fired Abu-Jamal after having its funding threatened on the floor of the U.S. Senate. The Department of Corrections punished Abu-Jamal for violating a prison rule that forbade prisoners from conducting a business or profession. The Third Circuit found that enforcing the rule against Abu-Jamal would cause him irreparable harm under the First Amendment.

“The Pennsylvania legislature has targeted Mumia Abu-Jamal and in the process swept up a whole host of people in prison and people who have come home,” said Nikki Grant, Policy Director of Amistad Law Project. “The fact that this bill is even on the books makes it less likely that people who have been convicted of personal injury crimes will speak out publicly. These are the people who are already most marginalized in our society.”

The Human Rights Coalition, another plaintiff to the lawsuit, is consistently critical of human rights violations within the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections and is comprised of prisoners, prisoners’ family members, formerly incarcerated people, and community activists. “Human Rights Coalition utilizes the voices, input, and leadership of people in prison in all of our work,” said Patricia Vickers of Human Rights Coalition. “We also document prison abuse and are concerned that this law will make people fearful of reporting abuse.”

“People who have been harmed by violence need relief–counseling, healing, restoration. Stifling speech doesn’t provide any of that,” said Amistad Law Project Legal Director Ashley Henderson.

“How can the state’s legislators pass and politicians sign the recent law described as the ‘Muzzle Mumia Act’?” said Mumia Abu-Jamal. “They can’t. At least not constitutionally. In order to do so they had to knowingly and willingly violate both the U.S. and state constitutions and their very oaths of office.”

Contact:

Ashley Henderson ashley@amistadlaw.org 215-310-0424

Noelle Hanrahan globalaudiopi@gmail.com 415-706-5222

Bret Grote bretgrote@abolitionistlawcenter.org 412-654-9070

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ALC Legal Director Interviewed on Law and Disorder Radio Program re: “Silence Mumia Law”

Posted on October 28, 2014 by abolitionist

ALC Legal Director, Bret Grote, was recently interviewed on Law and Disorder Radio about the passage and signing of the “Silence Mumia Law.” More from the producers of Law and Disorder Radio:

Last Thursay, the Pennsylvania State Senate in a bi-partisan 37-11 vote, approved The Revictimization Release Act. This last minute controversial law was ignited by Mumia Abu Jamal’s commencement address delivered at Goddard College in Vermont. The law would grant crime victims or prosecutors acting on their behalf to file a civil action against an offender to seek injunctive relief to stop offenders or former inmates from engaging in conduct that would cause “temporary or permanent state of mental anguish” to the victim.

Mumia Abu Jamal is 60 years old. He’s in the general population at Mahanoy State Correctional Institution in Frackville. He has also given speeches at Evergreen State College in Washington and Antioch College in Ohio.

You can listen to the interview here, beginning at 15:11, or you can download the program at this link.

MEDIA RELEASE: “Silence Mumia Law” targets ALC clients Mumia Abu-Jamal and Prison Radio for political repression in violation of the U.S. Constitution

Posted on October 21, 2014 by abolitionist

October 21, 2014: Pittsburgh, PA – Prison Radio and imprisoned intellectual and journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal have retained the Abolitionist Law Center (ALC) to provide legal representation for them in response to Pennsylvania General Assembly’s passage of a bill intended to subvert the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and repress their free speech rights. The Abolitionist Law Center is working with the attorneys Kris Henderson and Nikki Grant of the Philadelphia-based Amistad Law Project on this matter as well. Amistad Law Project is a public interest law center that advocates for the human rights of all people and currently focuses its work on those inside Pennsylvania’s prisons. ALC, along with the Amistad Law Project, are representing Robert Saleem Holbrook, an imprisoned activist, writer, and member of the Human Rights Coalition.

Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett’s scheduled signing of what the Harrisburg Patriot referred to as the “Muzzle Mumia Law” today allows those who have been victims of a personal-injury crime to sue an offender for conduct that causes the victim “mental anguish.” The statute is so devoid of definition or standards that the Harrisburg Patriot wrote: “Some victims of terrible crimes will be in a ‘state of mental anguish’ as long as the person who did it to them is alive and breathing. Does ‘breathing’ qualify as ‘conduct’ that’s now subject to court action?”

The law was passed in response to Mumia Abu-Jamal’s selection as a commencement speaker to Goddard College students at his alma mater in Vermont. Leading up to and in the wake of this speech, the Fraternal Order of Police, Governor Corbett, Department of Corrections Secretary John Wetzel, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams, and a number of legislators staged a media campaign designed to whip up a frenzy of support for depriving Abu-Jamal, and any other person convicted of a crime, of their constitutional right to free speech. The law also permits the District Attorney where the criminal conviction was obtained, or the state’s Attorney General, to use their public offices and taxpayer funds to file the lawsuit, raising the possibility that Mumia will be sued for his speech by politicians and government officials who have made a habit of attacking him in order to win the support of the FOP for their election campaigns.

On October 17, Mumia Abu-Jamal issued a statement (broadcast at Prison Radio) from the State Correctional Institution (SCI) Mahanoy where he is serving a sentence of life-without-parole after being framed for the killing of a Philadelphia police officer:

I welcome Governor Corbett’s signature on an unconstitutional bill that proves that the government of Pennsylvania, the executive and the legislature, don’t give one wit about their own constitution of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, nor the United States Constitution. I welcome that because it proves that they are the outlaws.

Abu-Jamal has spent 33 years in prison, 30 of which were in solitary confinement on death row, after being convicted at a 1982 trial that, according to Amnesty International, “failed to meet minimum international standards safeguarding the fairness of legal proceedings.” (see Manufacturing Guilt to learn more about the case) By continuing his journalism as well as maintaining his innocence and attracting a massive international movement of supporters, Mumia has long been targeted by the Fraternal Order of Police and their political counterparts. “Having failed to kill Mumia on the street in 1981, and having failed to execute him during his over 30 years on death row, the FOP and the government of Pennsylvania continues to try to silence him, this time by extinguishing his speech,” said Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.

Abu-Jamal has given three other commencement addresses in the past: Goddard in 2008, Antioch College in 2000, and Evergreen College in 1999. He has recorded more than 3,000 essays, published seven books in nine languages, with two more books set for publication in 2015, and has been the subject of three major broadcast and theatrical movies. The latest film, Mumia: Long Distance Revolutionary, is currently airing on the Starz network, sold out theatres coast to coast, and has sold more than 20,000 DVDs.

“The ‘Silence Mumia Law’ should be understood as part of a reaction against recent criticisms of the prison and criminal legal systems. In the wake of the Ferguson rebellion, race and class-based mass incarceration, and the role of police in enforcing it with arbitrary arrests, frame-ups, and extrajudicial killings, is being questioned more than ever. The Fraternal Order of Police and the government are scrambling to silence those questions, disingenuously using the language of ‘victims rights’ to re-establish the lie that police forces and other institutions of state violence are righteous protectors of public safety that are beyond question. This illegal attack on our clients’ constitutional and human rights will be fiercely challenged in the streets and the courts,” said ALC Legal Director Bret Grote.

Contact: Noelle Hanrahan globalaudiopi@gmail.com 415-706-5222

Bret Grote bretgrote@abolitionistlawcenter.org 412-654-9070

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