Death Row In California: No Mo’
Everything new, it used to be said, comes from California. Perhaps not everything, but a federal district court has just ruled that the death penalty as practiced in the Golden State is unconstitutional in light of the long, dreadful wait between sentencing and executions. Judges have hinted around this theme for years, but this is the first time I’ve heard an American judge actually grant such a claim. In the legal literature this is known as the death row phenomenon, or how extended stays on death row causes severe mental illness, debilitating physical impairments, and for some, the desire to commit suicide to end such horrible conditions. I, like very few reporters today, know a little something about death row. I spent almost 30 years on it.
Certainly, under international law, this symptom is recognized and has, for decades, been the basis of relief and the removal of the death sentence. Now, an American judge has decided that such extended delays on death row constitutes a violation of the Eighth Amendment: forbidding cruel and unusual punishments. Soon it will make its way to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and thereafter we shall see what we shall see. From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
It Came Without Warning
I was talking to my wife, and all of a sudden these alarms start going off. This was, or was supposed to be, the smoke alarm. And I had assumed, wrongly as it turned out, that someone had activated the sensor of the alarm by smoking in their cell. I heard something but you kind of — I discounted it. I saw people running and it was like a lot of noise cause these alarms are very very loud.
Low and behold, after I finished talking to Wadiya, I, you know, walked back to the back of the block [ambient noise] and I heard this rushing sound. Guys began explaining and screaming and banging on their doors because water starts falling through the sprinkler system. And before long, it was coming out of the light circuits. It was coming from everywhere, especially in a area called the dorm, where about seven or eight guys, you know, sleep in a confined area. They were banging to open the door, and before you knew it, water was just everywhere, everywhere.
Every cell on the lower half of this block got some degree of water damage. I mean, it’s just, you know, people were rushing to pick up their papers off the floor. I got some, but I didn’t get all, and a good amount of mail and stuff like that got simply destroyed. It was exciting [chuckles], but it wasn’t that in a good way. It was something to experience.
It was so much water, in fact, that water was running out of the front door of the entire block. Some guys had about four inches deep. Some more. Some people lost typewriters because they were locked in their cell and pushing the button, and the guy at the desk was a rookie, and he was kind of afraid of opening people’s doors. And it was, it was, well, it was interesting, and as I said, not in a good way. I apologize for anyone if I don’t answer their mail right quickly, because I’m still trying to sort through stuff. But it was, it was the great flood of 2014.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
Execution in Oklahoma
He tossed, he turned, he moaned, he burned. Clayton Lockett, on the death gurney of Oklahoma’s DOC, spoke words, struggled and reportedly kicked his legs for 43 minutes after a toxic cocktail was administered to him to kill him. That cocktail: an experimental mix of chemicals designed to stop his respiration, still his heart, and do so relatively painlessly, failed to do so, as he apparently never lost consciousness. Some 10 minutes after the execution was called off, Lockett’s heart went into arrest. A heart attack, and he left this life.
American death states are experimenting with various mixes because international chemical companies are now refusing to service the U.S. death penalty machine. Left to their own resources, they’re literally experimenting, and as the Lockett execution has demonstrated, they are doing it badly. The American way of death is sloppy. Their way, bears an uncanny resemblance to torture, for in Locket’s case, his veins reportedly burst from the pressure of the lethal IV.
The U.S. death penalty system is torture; the psychological torture of sustained isolation in solitary confinement, and then after the soul is dead, the poisening of the body – the American way of death. From prison nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
Chained As Children
In 2012 the U.S. Supreme Court decided that mandatory life sentences for juveniles was a violation of the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibition against “cruel and unusual punishments.” Ever since then almost a dozen states have resolved how their states should address retroactivity issues, or whether this new constitutional rule applied to older cases. Six states have decided yes ‑- including, for example, Texas and Mississippi; and three states, among them Pennsylvania, have ruled no, meaning the new rule doesn’t apply to earlier cases.
That’s significant because Pennsylvania has more juvenile lifers than any other state in the United States — some 462, at last count. And, not surprisingly, Philadelphia leads the state’s other counties in the number of jailed juvenile lifers: 265. And recently, the U.S. Supreme Court decided that it would not hear appeals on the issue of juvenile retroactivity. So, thousands of people, many of whom have been imprisoned for decades, with mandatory life sentences, remain in prison without chance or hope of parole. In that Miller v. Alabama case from 2012, the court majority reminded other members of the court that “children are still children”. That lesson has not yet reached Pennsylvania. From in prison nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
No Escape
Recently, a group of human rights researchers, responding to letters from Fayette prisoners, found a slew of environmental dangers and threats to the lives, health and well-being of hundreds of prisoners, guards and other staff members at the prison in Western Pennsylvania. The Abolitionist Law Center and the Human Rights Coalition, with the help of the Center for Coalfield Justice, sent questionnaires into the prison, and visited prisoners willing to talk
They found that the prison, built in the midst of a massive coal waste dump filled to the brim with toxic fly ash, caused or was a significant contributor to nearly a dozen cancer deaths, and serious life-threatening diseases and disorders.
The Abolitionist Law Center [ALC] and Human Rights Coalition [HRC] investigated the claims, researched the science, and came up with a damning 25-page report. The report, entitled “No Escape: Exposure to Toxic Coal Waste at State Correctional Institution Fayette,” reads like a horror story of medical neglect, callousness and human suffering.
In addition to the 11 fatal cases of cancer, half a dozen others have been diagnosed with cancer, others suffering from respiratory ailments, and 68% of respondents claimed undiagnosed ailments, including boils, cysts and both internal and external swellings throughout their bodies. One Fayette prisoner, Marcus Santos, experienced swelling of his throat, on his face, arms and legs. He was afraid he would choke to death. Santos wrote to investigators, “I suffered almost every day of the 15 months I was at that prison. I almost died due to throat swelling several times, given tums for throat swelling and told that if I start choking there is nothing that he can do for me. At that point it became clear to me that I am being left for dead. With no other course to take, or relief in sight, I called my brother and told him that ‘I don’t believe I’m going to make it through the rest of my time’ and to please take care of my son.”
The ALC/HRC report, “No Escape,” is full of such heart-rending comments and events. The culprit here is the wide array of chemicals on the surrounding dump site from the fly ash and coal waste, which includes: mercury, lead, arsenic, hexavalent chromium, cadmium, boron, and thallium. The other culprit? The PA Department of Corrections, which chose to build a prison in the midst of a toxic waste dump. In Pennsylvania, every prison sentence can be a death sentence. From in prison nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
The Meaning of Ferguson
Before recent days, the place name of Ferguson, Missouri, was unknown to most of us, because of what happened there; the brief but intense experience of state repression. Its name will be transmitted by millions of Black mouths to millions of Black ears, and it will become a watchword for resistance like Watts, Newark, Harlem and LA. But Ferguson wasn’t 50 years ago. It’s today, and for young Blacks from Ferguson and beyond, it was a stark, vivid history lesson and also a reality lesson. When they dared protest the state murder of one of theirs, the government responded with the tools and weapons of war. They assaulted them with gas. They attacked them as if Ferguson were Fallujah in Iraq. The police attacked them as if they were an occupying army from another country for that, in fact, is what they were. And these young folks learned viscerally face to face, what the white nation thought of them; their claimed constitutional rights, their so called freedoms, and their lives. They learned the wages of Black protest: repression, repression and more repression.
They also learned the limits of their so-called leaders, who called for peace and calm while armed troops trained some machine guns and sniper rifles on unarmed men, women and children. Russian revolutionary leader V.I. Lenin once said, “There are decades when nothing happens. There are weeks when decades happen.” For the youth, excluded from the American economy by inferior substandard education, targeted by the malevolence of the fake drug war and mass incarceration, stopped and frisked for walking while Black, were given front row seats to the national security state at Ferguson, after a friend was murdered by police in their streets. Ferguson may prove a wake -up call. A call for youth to build social radical and yes, revolutionary movements for change. From imprisoned nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio
Operation Restore Trust?
The flames of Ferguson have eaten their fill, and its eerie glow has cast light on how impotent are the Black political class, who cannot solve a problem that is a bane of Black existence. Usually, when they speak, they seem to be ventriloquists, who mouth the words of white politicians, drowning the deep concerns of their constituents in an ocean of empty words. Now, a collection of prominent officials have announced their intention to seriously tackle the issue of police abuse in Black communities, from the U.S. president on down. Politicians, police officials, clergy, and community organizers are part of a coterie of people who have come together to “restore trust” between cops and the African-American community. When I saw this reference, my head swiveled. “Restore trust?” We wonder when was there ever trust in the first place? The cruel, painful history of relations between police and the people is one of predation – not trust. Notably, Black police officers are part of this discussion, but are we to make note of the fact that, throughout many communities, for many, many years, they were forbidden to arrest white people?
Police are stationed in Black neighborhoods not to ‘serve and protect’ Black people, nor their property. They are there to control Black mobility, and to discipline Blacks, for fear they’ll pose a threat to white wealth, life or property. Period. That’s real talk – not these phony fairy tale discussions about ‘restoring trust.’ For what trust can exist between the oppressors and the oppressed? Nor can body-cams be the great solution that its supporters propose. Recall that cameras caught, with crystal clarity, the brutal cop beatings of Rodney King in LA, and before him, Delbert Africa in Philadelphia. Despite these captures on camera, both cases were thrown out; one by a jury, another by a judge. So much for cameras, huh?
Who can trust a force that killed Black Panther leader, Fred Hampton, in his sleep? Who can trust an agency that bombed babies – Black MOVE babies – in Philadelphia in 1985?How can you restore something that has never existed? Until systems change, until cops aren’t the only ones who face grand juries, until they too, can be sent to death row for killing children, talk about “restoring trust” is just that, talk. From in prison nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
The Not So Grand Jury
In Ferguson, tensions are tighter than a drum in morbid anticipation of the decision of the grand jury in the fatal police shooting of Mike Brown, a local Black teenager. We have said “the decision of the grand jury,” but in truth, it isn’t the grand jury which really decides anything – it’s the prosecutor. As the saying goes, a prosecutor can use a grand jury to indict a ham sandwich if he wants to. Unless I miss my guess, he doesn’t want to. It goes against too much grain. Most people never see a grand jury. They’re traditionally done in secret, although the Ferguson grand jury has more holes than a tennis net. It has leaked lakes of information, seemingly to set the stage for a vote of no indictment; no true bill.
Years ago, in Philadelphia, a grand jury was empaneled to decide on whether cops who dropped a bomb on a house, killing 11 men, women and children, the MOVE house, burning several blocks down to the ground, should be charged with anything. Months and months passed, and one day the announcement came. No true bill. No charges. The DA who ran the show would, years later, become the Chief Justice of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, retiring judge Ron Castillo, because a grand jury can indict a ham sandwich, if it wants to. From in prison nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noel Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
Death For A Cigarette
The name Eric Garner is now enshrined in the grim annals of history.It joins Mike Brown, Ramarley Graham, Alan Blueford, Dontre Hamilton, Tamir Rice, and thousands of others, who were murdered by those their taxes have helped pay for – cops.
In many ways, Garner’s case is even more egregious than Brown’s, for it was videotaped, and one sees his take down, his incessant choking, his unconsciousness, and shortly thereafter, his death. Now, the words “I can’t breathe,” have become joined with the cry, “Hands Up!” –reminders of the Garner and Brown killings at the hands of police. Both cases are also noted for the behavior of grand juries, which now appear reckless beyond belief, in their inability to return indictments against cops.
The grand jury emigrated here from England, where, as it was then called, ‘grand assizes’, a body of about a dozen knights, under the direction of a baron, or some other noble, would investigate cases and charge people. Later, they became tools of the king. Today, they are instruments of the prosecutors, and used just as under kings, to target whom they wish, and to clear whom they wish.
Outrage stems from the long history of its use to protect cops – yes – even killer cops. This, while the nation is awash in mass incarceration, the majority of whom have never had a grand jury indictment, unlike the average cop. The System is constructed to protect cops, no matter how outrageous their behavior. That’s just a fact. And as the nation now celebrates historic events from the civil rights movement of a half-century ago, the grim and ugly present of Black life, and Black death, in America, makes that glowing history feel hollow indeed. From in prison nation, this is Mumia Abu-Jamal.
These commentaries are recorded by Noelle Hanrahan of Prison Radio.
