The 2003 State Supreme Court ruling was an affirmation of lower-level Judge Patricia Dembe's argument that even if Maurer-Carter is correct about Sabo's stated intent to use his position as Judge to throw the trial and help the prosecution "fry the n-word," it doesn't matter. According to Dembe, since it "was a jury trial, as long as the presiding Judge's rulings were legally correct, claims as to what might have motivated or animated those rulings are not relevant."
As attorney Robert R. Bryan explains during his interview in this issue of Abu-Jamal News (see cover story), Mauer-Carter’s affidavit is part of the current appeal at the Third Circuit, in regards to the fairness of Judge Sabo.
Grounds For a New Trial
Also supporting a new trial is respected Philadelphia journalist Linn Washington, who has been covering the Abu-Jamal case since the morning of Dec. 9, 1981 when he arrived at the suspiciously unguarded 13th and Locust crime scene while working for The Philadelphia Daily News. In a 2001 affidavit (not part of the current Third Circuit appeal), Washington states that when he arrived “around 8:30 AM,” there were no police officers in sight guarding the scene. “As a veteran of much police beat reporting,” he “found it highly unusual” and “feared that the lack of police presence…would have an adverse effect on the sufficiency of the police investigation.”
In a recent interview, Washington argues that “Abu-Jamal deserves a new trial because he never received a fair trial or a fair hearing from any Pennsylvania state appellate court. It is obvious to non-partisan observers that the trial judge was less than impartial, the prosecutor engaged in improper conduct, police made errors in their investigation and the trial attorney was ineffective.” These are “text book definitions for an unfair trial.”
“When the Abu-Jamal case is placed in context with other cases where the state courts have overturned death and/or life sentences, it is amazing that over a long list of inmates have received relief on claims of injustice far less onerous than those in the Abu-Jamal case. Amnesty International is accurate in its conclusion that state courts have deliberately mishandled this case and those inappropriate actions by courts are part of what fuels international claims that Abu-Jamal did not receive a fair trial.”
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