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United States Supreme Court rejects appeal from Philadelphia DA’s Office, concedes Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence is unconstitutional
New York, N.Y. – Today the United States Supreme Court rejected a request from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to overturn the most recent federal appeals court decision declaring Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence unconstitutional. The Court’s decision brings to an end nearly 30 years of litigation over the fairness of the sentencing hearing that resulted in Mr. Abu-Jamal’s being condemned to death. Mr. Abu-Jamal will be automatically sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole unless the district attorney elects to seek another death sentence from a new jury.
The NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc., and Professor Judith Ritter of Widener Law School represent Mr. Abu-Jamal in the appeal of his conviction and death sentence for the 1981 murder of a police officer in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The Supreme Court’s decision marks the fourth time that the federal courts have found that Mr. Abu-Jamal’s sentencing jury was misled about the constitutionally mandated process for considering evidence supporting a life sentence.
“At long last, the profoundly troubling prospect of Mr. Abu-Jamal facing an execution that was produced by an unfair and unreliable penalty phase has been eliminated,” said John Payton, director-counsel of LDF. “Like all Americans, Mr. Abu-Jamal was entitled to a proper proceeding that takes into account the many substantial reasons why death was an inappropriate sentence.” Professor Ritter stated, “Our system should never condone an execution that stems from a trial in which the jury was improperly instructed on the law.”
Mr. Abu-Jamal’s case will now return to the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas for final sentencing. [Details Here]
Meanwhile, (speaking of Mexico and drug gangs) 'House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) has subpoenaed Attorney General Eric Holder and the Department of Justice for documents related to the "Fast and Furious" gun tracking operation' that never bothered to keep track of the guns they allowed to be shipped to Mexico, apparently by friends of the Sinaloa cartel, the Zeta drug gang named in the above story on the "Iranian terror" plot's competition. "Issa argues Holder either knew more about the failed operation than he has told Congress, or has run his department incompetently if he did not know of the gun program." More @ The Hill.The alleged Iranian assassination plot sounds a little like an actual 1980s Batman storyline, when the Joker became the Iranian ambassador to the UN (in order to kill other diplomats). Paul Mutter at Focal Points...Is Iran's Alleged Cash-for-Assassinations Plot Too Implausible to Be True?
By Paul Mutter, October 12, 2011
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Purportedly undertaken in the spring with the blessing of high-level Iranian officials, an Iranian-American naturalized citizen named Mansour Arbabsiar approached a DEA informant (referred to only as "CS-1") masquerading as a member of "Drug Cartel #1," which ABC reports is probably the Mexican-based Los Zetas Cartel. As to why Mansour approached cartels, he is said to have been ordered to by his superiors "because people in that business are willing to undertake criminal activity in exchange for money."
US media reports that Mansour also promised CS-1 to supply his/her cartel with "tons of opium" as part of their deal, though this has not been mentioned in any of the papers made public by the Justice Department.
CS-1 is described as "a paid confidential source" who, in exchange for having unspecified State Department charges dropped against him/her, agreed to become a mole for the DEA. The report discloses that CS-1 is on federal payrolls and is regarded as a "reliable" source of intelligence, and that some of the exchanges between Mansour took place in Mexico. The DEA's informant policies are extremely well-kept secrets, and also very expensive and controversial. And like the FBI's informant programs that have exposed numerous alleged terrorist plots, this plot was, apparently, held together by the informant, who presented himself as an explosives expert and promised to deliver C-4 for the operation.
Working through Mansour, the group in Iran was said to have sent US$100,000 (obtained from the Iranian government) to CS-1 as a "down payment" on a US$1.5 million assassination contract. When CS-1 suggested that an attack on the ambassador in a restaurant would also kill US civilians, Mansour replied that "sometime [sic], you know, you have no choice," a point that US officials have (somewhat hypocritically, as Glenn Greenwald points out, given our "collateral damage" record overseas) reiterated time and again to try and demonstrate that the Iranians are somehow unbalanced psychopaths.
Regarding this portrayal, one is reminded of how in the late 1980s Batman comic series "A Death in the Family," [Read On]
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