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ACLU Participates in Press Conference Held by the Los Angeles Coalition to Stop the Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Wednesday, April 21, 1999

A new coalition, calling for a new trial for African-American activist and author, Mumia Abu-Jamal, held a press conference announcing plans for massive nationwide support rallies to be held on April 24th in Philadelphia and San Francisco. At the press conference were Ed Asner, actor and activist, Ramona Ripston, Executive Director, ACLU of Southern California, James Lafferty, Director, National Lawyers Guild, Los Angeles, Peggy Kidwell, Death Penalty Focus, Mario Tafur, Amnesty International, Los Angeles, The Rev. Waymon Baker, Pastor, Pleasant Hills Baptist Church. Abu-Jamal is currently on death row in Pennsylvania.

In October, Pennsylvania's Supreme Court denied Abu-Jamal's bid for a new trial. The journalist and former member of the Black Panther Party, was convicted in 1981 of the shooting death of a Philadelphia police officer in a trial tainted by a fragrantly biased judge, the deliberate exclusion of 11 black jurors, and a court-appointed lawyer who, by his own admission, was inexperienced in criminal trials. In addition, witnesses came forward during the 1995 post conviction appeal hearings saying they were coerced by the police to lie, suppress, or change their initial account of the December 9, 1981 shooting incident.

April 24th was chosen as a day of nationwide protests because that day is the deadline for Abu-Jamal's lawyers to file a Writ of Certiorari asking the U.S. Supreme Court to review violations of his Sixth Amendment rights.

Abu-Jamals's case and efforts to win him a new trial, have attracted world-wide attention and support. Among those urging a new trial are Archibishop Desmond Tutu, the San Francisco Labor Council, E.L. Doctorow, Alice Walker, The Rev. Jesse Jackson, the California Nurses Association, California State Senator John Burton, Los Angeles City Council member Jackie Goldberg, and Stanley Sheinbaum, former head of the Los Angeles Police Commission.

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