MUMIA ABU-JAMAL ILLEGALLY SENTENCED TO

LIFE IMPRISONMENT WITHOUT PAROLE!

FREE MUMIA NOW!

On
August 13, 2012, without any notice and in violation of his
constitutional rights and state law, Mumia Abu-Jamal was formally
sentenced by Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe to
life imprisonment without parole. The impact of this illegal sentencing is to prevent a possible challenge to the slow death of life imprisonment.
All sentences, including "mandatory" sentences, require a formal
proceeding allowing the person to be sentenced the right to be heard and
to challenge his sentence.

Mumia
confirmed to his son Jamal and to attorney Rachel Wolkenstein during a
visit with him on Sunday, August 19, 2012, that he had no prior knowledge
of the re-sentencing. The record of this re-sentencing is contained in
the official Court of Common Pleas Docket Sheet. In attempting to find
out more details, Wolkenstein searched for the court file on August 20.
But there is no file containing
a record of this sentencing with the Criminal Division Court of Common
Pleas Clerk. The information released so far by Elaine Rattliff, Deputy
Clerk of Courts is that the sentencing followed a call from the
Department of Corrections and further explanation awaits a call back
from Court of Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe.

Notably
Judge Dembe is same judge who refused in 2001 to consider a legal
challenge to "hanging judge" Albert Sabo's self-confessed racism and
bias against Mumia during his trial and post-conviction appeals from
1995-1998. Court reporter Terri Mauer-Carter heard Sabo declare before
the start of the trial, "I'm going to help them fry the n-----."

For thirty
years Mumia was kept in solitary confinement on death row under a death
sentence that was illegally and unconstitutionally imposed. Federal
district court Judge William Yohn ruled in December 2001 that Judge
Albert Sabo incorrectly and unconstitutionally instructed the jury in
deciding on life or death. Despite this decision, Mumia was kept on
death row, in solitary confinement for the next ten years, while the
prosecution pursued two appeals in the Federal Court of Appeals and two
attempts at U.S. Supreme Court rulings to uphold the death sentence. All
that time, Mumia sat in solitary confinement. According to Juan Mendez,
the United Nations Special Rappatour on Torture, solitary confinement
for longer than 15 days is a form of torture! Mumia should be freed from prison, now!

This latest
legal outrage comes nine months after the state conceded defeat in
obtaining its desired "legal lynching" of Mumia. On December 8, 2011,
Philadelphia District Attorney, Seth Williams—with the support of
Maureen Faulkner, the Fraternal Order of Police and former District
Attorney, Philadelphia Mayor and PA governor, Edward Rendell—announced
that they were no longer seeking a death sentence for Mumia. This was
their recognition that it was neither legally possible nor politically
advantageous to hold a new sentencing hearing.

Mumia's 1982 trial contained violations of every single element of due process and a fair trial. But it began with framing an innocent man.
Mumia was framed for a crime he did not commit. His crime in the eyes
of the state is that he was and continues to be "the voice of the
voiceless," a former spokesman for the Black Panther Party and
continuing supporter of the MOVE organization.

In his first phone call from general population on January 28, 2012, Mumia relayed the following message to his wife, Wadiya Jamal: "My
dear friends, brothers and sisters – I want to thank you for your real
hard work and support. I am no longer on death row, no longer in the
hole, I'm in population. This is only Part One and I thank you for the
work you've done. But the struggle is for freedom!"

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--Mumia is Innocent! Stop the Frame Up! Free Mumia!--

Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, NYC

www.FreeMumia.com