Black Agenda Report
Black Agenda Report
News, commentary and analysis from the black left.

  • Home
  • Africa
  • African America
  • Education
  • Environment
  • International
  • Media and Culture
  • Political Economy
  • Radio
  • US Politics
  • War and Empire
  • omnibus

New Legal Filing in Mumia’s Case
Johanna Fernández
12 Jan 2022
New Legal Filing in Mumia’s Case
Photo credit: Joe Piette

2022 may be the year that new evidence is released in the case of political prisoner Mumia Abu Jamal.

This article was originally published in Hood Communist.

In her novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, Zora Neale Hurston wrote, “There are years that ask questions, and years that answer.”

With continued pressure from below, 2022 will be the year that forces the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and the Philly Police Department to answer questions about why they framed imprisoned radio journalist and veteran Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal. Abu-Jamal’s attorneys have filed a PCRA petition focused entirely on the six boxes of case files that were found in a storage room of the DA’s office in late December 2018, after the case being heard before Judge Leon Tucker in the Court of Common Pleas concluded. (tinyurl.com/zkyva464)

The new evidence contained in the boxes is damning, and we need to expose it. It reveals a pattern of misconduct and abuse of authority by the prosecution, including bribery of the state’s two key witnesses, as well as racist exclusion in jury selection — a violation of the landmark Supreme Court decision Batson v. Kentucky. The remedy for each or any of the claims in the petition is a new trial. The court may order a hearing on factual issues raised in the claims. If so, we won’t know for at least a month. 

The new evidence includes a handwritten letter penned by Robert Chobert, the prosecution’s star witness. In it, Chobert demands to be paid money promised him by then-Prosecutor Joseph McGill. Other evidence includes notes written by McGill, prominently tracking the race of potential jurors for the purposes of excluding Black people from the jury, and letters and memoranda which reveal that the DA’s office sought to monitor, direct and intervene in the outstanding prostitution charges against its other key witness Cynthia White.

Mumia Abu-Jamal was framed and convicted 40 years ago in 1982, during one of the most corrupt and racist periods in Philadelphia’s history — the era of cop-turned-mayor Frank Rizzo. It was a moment when the city’s police department, which worked intimately with the DA’s office, routinely engaged in homicidal violence against Black and Latinx detainees, corruption, bribery and tampering with evidence to obtain convictions. 

In 1979, under pressure from civil rights activists, the Department of Justice filed an unprecedented lawsuit against the Philadelphia police department and detailed a culture of racist violence, widespread corruption and intimidation that targeted outspoken people like Mumia. Despite concurrent investigations by the FBI and Pennsylvania’s Attorney General and dozens of police convictions, the power and influence of the country’s largest police association, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) prevailed. 

Now, more than 40 years later, we’re still living with the failure to uproot these abuses. Philadelphia continues to fear the powerful FOP, even though it endorses cruelty, racism and multiple injustices. A culture of fear permeates the “city of brotherly love.”

The contents of these boxes shine light on decades of white supremacy and rampant lawlessness in U.S. courts and prisons. They also hold enormous promise for Mumia’s freedom and challenge us to choose Love, Not PHEAR. (lovenotphear.com/) Stay tuned. 

Johanna Fernández is Associate Professor of History at Baruch College of the City University of New York and editor of Writing on the Wall: Selected Prison Writings of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

Mumia Abu Jamal
Political Prisoner

Do you need and appreciate Black Agenda Report articles. Please click on the DONATE icon, and help us out, if you can.


Related Stories

Mumia Health update
Julia Wright
How to Resist the Deliberate Medical Neglect of Our Political Prisoners
28 February 2024
The state uses tactics such as medical neglect to slowly assassinate political prisoners like Mumia Abu-Jamal. 
Sekou Odinga
​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist
Sekou Odinga Has Joined the Ancestors But the Spirit of the Black Liberation Army And African Resistance Lives On!
17 January 2024
A commemoration of the life of comrade Sekou Odinga, a lifelong New African revolutionary, former political prisoner, and unstoppable force in
Mutulu Shakur
Akinyele Umoja
Mutulu Shakur
12 July 2023
Mutulu Shakur passed away just seven months after being paroled.
Black Agenda Report Book Forum: An Interview with Garrett Felber
Garrett Felber , Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
Black Agenda Report Book Forum: An Interview with Garrett Felber
15 February 2023
To commemorate 100 years since the birth of former political prisoner Martin Sostre, the Black Agenda Report Book Forum interviews Garrett Felb
BAR Book Forum: Interview with Akinyele Umoja
Roberto Sirvent, BAR Book Forum Editor
BAR Book Forum: Interview with Akinyele Umoja
08 June 2022
As part of the Black Agenda Report Book Forum, we interview scholars about a recent article they’ve written for either an academic journal or p
If Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Case Is a ‘Non-Issue,’ Why Have Media Gone to Such Lengths to Silence Him?
Janine Jackson 
If Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Case Is a ‘Non-Issue,’ Why Have Media Gone to Such Lengths to Silence Him?
12 May 2021
The corporate media is second only to the police in spreading falsehoods about the nation’s best known political prisoner.
Mumia Abu-Jamal: State Running Scared, Trying to Make Sure He Dies in Prison 
An Interview with Johanna Fernandez
Mumia Abu-Jamal: State Running Scared, Trying to Make Sure He Dies in Prison 
29 April 2021
Mumia’s case always raises larger questions about the barbarism of the criminal justice system.
Mumia Abu-Jamal's Health Emergency: The Only Treatment is Freedom
The Jamal Journal staff
Mumia Abu-Jamal's Health Emergency: The Only Treatment is Freedom
17 March 2021
An interview with Ricardo Alvarez, Mumia’s “movement” doctor.

More Stories


  • BAR Radio Logo
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Black Agenda Radio May 16, 2025
    16 May 2025
    In this week’s segment, we discuss the modern history of Black politics in the city of Newark, New Jersey, after the death of a long-serving former mayor and the arrest and brief detention of the…
  • Craig Mokhiber
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Craig Mokhiber on the Need to Enforce International Human Rights Law
    16 May 2025
    Our guest is Craig Mokhiber. He is an international human rights lawyer and former director of the New York Office of the United Nation’s High Commissioner for Human Rights. He stepped down from that…
  • Ras Baraka
    Black Agenda Radio with Margaret Kimberley
    Ken Gibson, Sharpe James, Cory Booker, Ras Baraka, and Black Politics in Newark
    16 May 2025
    Lawrence Hamm, of the People’s Organization for Progress (POP), joins us from Newark, New Jersey, to talk about Black politics in that city. The late Sharpe James was mayor for a record-setting 20…
  • Garland Ajamu
    ​​​​​​​ Ajamu Baraka, BAR editor and columnist , Garland Nixon
    Ajamu Baraka - Opposing the U.S. Empire in Africa and the Middle East
    15 May 2025
    Ajamu Baraka spoke with Garland Nixon about the need to oppose U.S. foreign policy in Africa and in the Middle East.
  • Trump and Harris
    Margaret Kimberley, BAR Executive Editor and Senior Columnist
    Corruption, Lies, Biden's Health and Trump's Victory
    14 May 2025
    The same corporate media talking heads who told us to ignore Biden’s failing health are now cashing in with books revealing political cover ups while also covering up their own role in facilitating…
  • Load More
Subscribe
connect with us
about us
contact us