The following remarks were delivered by Jim Lafferty, the Executive Director of the L.A. Chapter of the National Lawyers Guild, at a Forum at Track 16 Gallery, Santa Monica, California, on March 31, 2001. Entitled: Live From Death Row: A Discussion About the Death Penalty and the Culture of Punishment. Other presenters included Mike Farrell, President of Death Penalty Focus and Monica Zemsky, of Newman, Aaronson & Vanaman.

I'm frequently asked this question: "Jim, there are about 3,500 people on death row in this country, why has the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal been the one that's inspired a world-wide movement opposing his execution?"

It's a fair question. It's a fair question because, as Mumia Abu-Jamal himself would be quick to say, his life is certainly no more important than the lives of those other 3,500 death row inmates.

But the fact remains that an unprecedented--at least in modern times-- world-wide movement has come together to defend this one man's life and I thought it might be instructive tonight to try and answer that question, "why?". And I thought it might also be useful to discuss what this movement means for the movement to end the death penalty in our nation, and for the broader struggles for justice in America today.

First, I think the case and cause of Mumia Abu-Jamal has generated such great interest and passionate debate, in large part, because it is a case and cause that concentrates in one movement so many of the cutting edge political and social issues confronting our nation today.

For Example, Abu-Jamal is African-American and we all know that Black men in this country are the most likely to find themselvels behind prison walls and to find themselves on the death rows of our prisons. Furthermore, the over-whelming majority of those sitting in prison and sitting on death row were, like Mumia, too poor to hire the "dream team" for their trials. Mumia's lawyer had never handled a capital case before and by his own admission, he didn't know how to do so. He never called a single witness on Mumia's behalf, hadn't a clue as to how to cross examine the prosecution's witnesses, or to challenge the racism of the judge and prosecutor. He was subsequently barred from the practice of law.

Also, like so many behind our prison walls, Mumia was targeted by the police in the first place. Of course, in Mumia's case, it wasn't simply the fact that he was Black--often a sufficient reason to be arrested in this country--it was also the fact that Mumia was one of those "uppity Blacks". After all, Mumia was an award-winning journalist who, on his radio show and through his writings, devoted himself to exposing the practices of the brutal and corrupt Philadelphia police department, the same police department who I believe framed him for murdering one of their own.

Of course, many of our country's poor prisoners of color also ended up in prison as the result of brutal and lying cops. (Anyone who's followed the LAPD scandal knows what I'm talking about.) Mumia was no exception. He was shot and nearly killed the night of his arrest. And police officers later perjured themselves at his trial.

Not content with lying themselves, the police and prosecutors did what police and prosecutors often do to such defendants: they threatened witnesses on Mumia's behalf if they didn't change their story to fit the police version of what happened that night. In one case they threatened a mother with the loss of her children if she didn't lie under oath about what she saw. And she did lie and then, later, guilt-ridden by what she'd done, she came forward and, again under oath, told of the police threats. 

Also, like most people on death row, Mumia didn't have forensic experts to help him out at trial, and exculpatory ballistics evidence was hidden from Mumia at the time of his trial and has only surfaced since.

As with so many death row cases, the prosecution in Mumia's case purposely kept Blacks--his peers--off the jury. We know this because the prosecutor at the time is the same fellow who got caught on video tape teaching his subordinates how to do just that... keep Blacks off the Philadelphia juries. By the way, that prosecutor, by the time of the Democratic Party convention in Los Angeles last summer, was the Chair of the Democratic Party National Committee.

Well, I could go on and on. Indeed, the papers Mumia has now filed in federal court seeking a new trial cite 30 constitutional violations during his state court trial. But what happened to Mumia in the judicial system, and the fact that it mirrors what happens to so many poor, Black men in our judicial system, certainly does not fully explain why Mumia's case is front-and-center on the world stage and the cases of others on death row are not.

In the final analysis, I think what sets Mumia's case apart from the rest is the man himself. I've never had the privilege of meeting Mumia Abu-Jamal, but people who have, all report the same reaction. They go to prison, they go through the ordeal of being searched, they get led into the dingy visiting room and finally Mumia appears. And when he appears, to their utter amazement, he's full of life, he's energized, he's fully informed on what's going on in the world around him even though he's been locked away in virtual solitude for over 18 years now.

Another difference between Mumia and most other death row inmates is the fact that he has written books while on death row that have been published and well-received. In fact, and this is critical to an understanding of why it is Mumia's case and not the case of some one of those other 3,500 people on death row that has inspired a movement, Mumia has, as a consequence of what has happened to him and how he has overcome it, become a recognized and revered leader in the African-American community, and among progressive forces in this country and around the world, in general.

Visit, as I frequently do, high schools in our inner cities and you will see young men and women of color wearing "free-Mumia!" T-shirts and buttons. Mumia is a hero to many inner-city youth because he has not been broken by the system. He has not caved in, in the face of racism and injustice he's suffered. He has stood his ground, and more. He continues, even from his prison cell to speak out for his people and for oppressed peoples everywhere, both here and abroad. He regularly issues statements from his prison cell that are carried around the world. Statements about the recent Presidential election, or the sanctions that have already murdered over 1.5 million Iraqis, or statements about the crisis at Pacifica Radio. Maybe that helps to explain why over 1.5 million people in Europe have already signed petitions on Mumia's behalf, or why hundreds of labor unions have demanded he be given a new trial, or why poets and entertainers perform for his benefit, or why statesmen like Nelson Madela, and religious leaders like Bishop Tutu, and organizations like the California Nurses Association, and the Congressional Black Caucus, have joined the battle to save his life. Because somehow, despite all he's been through, despite the isolation, despite the constant threat of death that hangs over his head, despite the most repressive efforts of the Pennsylvania prison authorities and the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police, Mumia's spirit burns brightly and its light is seen around the world. 

Yes, Mumia Abu-Jamal is more engaged in the actions and passions of his times than 99% of the rest of us who are supposedly "free" men and women. No wonder I wasn't surprised last Sunday, while shopping at the farmer's market in Studio City, two different white farm boys from up north, behind two different fruit stands, called out to me, "free Mumia!", when they saw the Mumia button on my cap.

This, in turn, no doubt explains why the authorities are so determined to kill him. Because, as Mumia says, "they don't just want my death, they want my silence." After all, anyone who has studied their history and who remembers what happened to Malcolm X and Martin Luther King, Jr., knows that this nation will not tolerate Black leaders who not only address this nation's racism at home, but also dare to address its exploitation and repression of peoples all around the world.

Well, let me start to wrap up. I believe that everyone on death row deserves to have the kind of world-wide movement to save their lives that Mumia has. That's why I so admire folks like Mike Farrell and groups like Death Penalty Focus. And I also believe that the movement to save the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal is a movement to save the lives of those other 3,500 residents of death row. Indeed countless thousands of people, including especially young people, who have not previously given much thought to the death penalty, now do so because of the movement around Mumia. More than that, I believe that the movement to save the life of Mumia Avu-Jamal aids other movements for social, economic and political justice, both because fo the breadth of Mumia's own expansive political reach and the breadth of the concerns of those who have come to his defense. I believe it is a movement that is good for the young men and women of this country, especially those who are poor and forced by circumstances to the meanest margins of our society and who have, in all too many cases, given up hope of ever getting a fair deal in their lifetimes. Because Mumia, by his example, and by the example of the movement to save his life, is teaching those young people how to hope again and, more importantly, how to fight back again and how to fight back effectively.

Of course, as Mumia knows better than anyone, there's no guarranty of success where the life of any one person is at stake. That thought haunts all of us in the L.A. Coalition to Stop the Execution of Mumia Abu-Jamal. My colleagues often say, "Jim, we simply can't lose this battle. It will be devastating to the millions of supporters around the world who've worked so hard to save Mumia's life". Well, I agree that we must not lose this battle, and I don't think we will lose. But even if we did lose the battle to save Mumia's life, the broader struggle that this movement is really all about will go on and it will be all the stronger for having taken up the just cause of defending the life of Mumia Abu-Jamal. In this sense there really is no way that we can lose.

Mumia, of course, has already won because he's already freed his spirit from those prison walls and in the process he's helped to inspire a generation of young men and women who will be the better for having taken part in the struggle, no matter what Mumia's own future turns out to be.

In the end, what I'm trying to say was said so much better by a man with far less schooling than I've had and he said it over 70 years ago. His name was Bartolomeo Vanzetti, and along with his friend Nicola Sacco, he was executed in August of 1927, as police broke up marches and picket lines of their supporters with arrests and beatings, and while troops surrounded the prison. Shortly before his death he gave a final press interview. What he said during that interview later became the focus of a work of art by Ben Shawn. Vencetti said, in his tortured English: "if it had not been for these thing, I might have live out my life talking at street corners to scorning men. I might have die, unmarked, unknown, a failure. Now we are not a failure. This is our career and our triumph. Never in our full life could we hope to do such work for tolerance, for joostice, for man's understanding of man as now we do by accident. Our words, our lives, our pains, nothing? The taking of our lives, lives of a good shoemaker and a poor fish peddler, all? that last moment belongs to us. That agony is our triumph."

Thank you, and good luck to us all as we struggle on for justice for Mumia Abu-Jamal and for an end to the death penalty for all!