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Mark · Site Admin Joined: 13 Nov 2007 Posts: 1052

Jury of Peers? (Mumia's message to CR10)

http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=9688

Excerpt:

Judge Thomas Ambro’s Dissent

In his dissenting opinion, he wrote that the denial of a preliminary Batson hearing “goes against the grain of our prior actions…I see no reason why we should not afford Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our precedents.”

Mumia will be filing an appeal with the US Supreme Court by the deadline of Oct. 20, unless he applies for a 60 day extension.

Mumia can still be executed!

On March 27, the three-judge panel unanimously affirmed Federal District Court Judge William Yohn’s 2001 decision overturning the death sentence. Citing the 1988 Mills v. Maryland precedent, Yohn had ruled that sentencing forms used by jurors and Judge Sabo’s instructions to the jury were potentially confusing, and jurors could have mistakenly believed that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstances in order to consider them as weighing against a death sentence.

(It looks like Hans tried to embed the videos but it didn't work. However the "click here" links do work and the videos are well worth watching. Enjoy! --Mark)