Mumia Abu-Jamal: On the Road to Freedom?

By Jeff Mackler

It is difficult to imagine that the systematic race and class bias that permeate America's criminal "justice" system could be set aside and that the nation's most famed and innocent death row inmate and political prisoner of 25 years, Mumia Abu-Jamal, could win a new trial and freedom.

But that is precisely what appeared to be unfolding on May 17 in the packed Ceremonial Courtroom of the Federal Courthouse in Philadelphia as a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, in full view of 200 riveted Mumia supporters and others from across the country and around the world, mercilessly queried Pennsylvania's lead prosecutor and persecutor, Hugh Burns.

In contrast, Mumia's three-person legal team of Robert R. Bryan, Judith Ritter, and NAACP Legal Defense Fund amicus curiae (friend of the court) counsel Christina Swarns appeared to have the rapt, if not sympathetic, attention of the three judges during most the two-and-a-half-hour proceeding.

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