Report on Mumia Abu Jamal’s Post-Conviction Appeal Act Hearing | Moorbey'z Blog

27.4.17

Report on Mumia Abu Jamal’s Post-Conviction Appeal Act Hearing | Moorbey'z Blog: Yesterday, April 24, 2017, Mumia Abu-Jamal’s 63rd birthday was the first court hearing on the PCRA (Post-Conviction Appeal Act) petitition that was filed on August 7, 2016 by attorneys Judith Ritter and Christina Swarns. Last June the U.S. Supreme Court issued a precedent-setting decision, Williams v. Pennsylvania, 136 S.Ct. 1989 (2016), holding it is a violation of the due process right to an impartial tribunal free of judicial bias if a judge participating in a criminal appeal had “a significant personal involvement as a prosecutor in a critical decision” in a defendant’s case.

Castille was the elected District Attorney during the preparation, argument and appeal of the 1982 conviction of Mumia for murder and the death sentence to the PA Supreme Court in 1988 and to the U.S. Supreme Court in 2000. The legal remedy for this due process violation is to vacate all the denials of the Mumia’s appeals from 1998-2008, and allow Mumia a new appeal of all his legal claims of innocence, the frame-up conviction and denials of his right to trial judge who is not a self-declared racist, an unbiased jury, his right to representation of his choice and his right to self-representation and all other violations of his right to a fair trial.