Wednesday, August 9, 2000	Go to: S M T W T F S
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U.S. judge deals a setback to Abu-Jamal supporters

Ten legal and political groups wanted to intervene in an appeal. The judge called it "unnecessary and unhelpful."

By Joseph A. Slobodzian
INQUIRER STAFF WRITER

Saying that he feared being buried by filings from groups on every side of the controversy, a federal judge yesterday denied requests from 10 groups asking to be heard in the federal death-penalty appeal of Mumia Abu-Jamal.

U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr. wrote that he did not doubt the sincerity of the groups' interest in the case, which has received worldwide interest. But Yohn added that Abu-Jamal, convicted and sentenced to death in the 1981 shooting of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, already is represented by a skilled legal team of "privately retained counsel of his choice" and that participation by others would be "unnecessary and unhelpful."

The ruling was a setback for the legal and political groups - ranging from the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP to 22 members of Britain's Parliament. The groups had asked Yohn for permission to lend their expertise on the complex legal issues in Abu-Jamal's final federal appeal.

The law lets such groups ask a judge to intervene as amici curiae, or "friends of the court." But the decision is up to the judge, and there is no appeal.

"I'm quite surprised and disappointed at this ruling," said Karl Baker, a lawyer with the city public defender's association who filed one of the four amici petitions, for the ACLU and NAACP.

"The ACLU of Pennsylvania and the NAACP's Philadelphia chapter have both been involved in this case for years," Baker added. "We're not Johnny-come-latelies to this matter, and we are concerned about a number of complex issues in this case that have only been touched upon by the papers filed by Mumia's attorneys."

Yohn, however, wrote that none of the proposed amici briefs argued that Abu-Jamal's lawyers were either inexperienced in death-penalty cases or had missed a potential appellate issue.

"To permit amicus filings in this matter would present the real possibility of a plethora of filings, each offered by a particular group with a particular interest in this case," Yohn wrote.

"I fear that once trespassed, the slippery slope of permissiveness regarding amicus filings may become inescapable," Yohn added. "The delay occasioned by substantial additional filings will work to the detriment of [Abu-Jamal] and the just and speedy administration of this action by the court."

Since Abu-Jamal's federal habeas corpus appeal was filed last October, Yohn has tried to rein in the lawyers and keep them focused on the relatively narrow federal appeal issues.

Nevertheless, Yohn noted, the lawyers for Abu-Jamal, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office already have submitted "11 substantive filings exceeding 750 pages, addressing the factual and legal bases of 29 claims for relief."

Yohn has stayed Abu-Jamal's execution while he decides whether to conduct new evidentiary hearings or decide the appeal based on the voluminous records of Abu-Jamal's trial and appeals in the Pennsylvania courts.

The last scheduled date of execution had been Dec. 2, 1999.