A Pennsylvania Supreme Court has denied Mumia Abu-Jamal’s latest appeal petition
source: San Francisco Bay View
published: 26 February 2024
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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”.
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