Mumia was framed for the 1981 killing of police officer Daniel Faulkner, despite massive evidence he had nothing to do with it

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tion of the original U.S. legal system.

Prior to AEDPA some 40 percent of state court convictions in capital cases had been reversed on appeal, usually based on findings of police corruption, planting of evidence, intimidation of witnesses, and incompetent counsel—all of which were grossly operative in Mumia’s 1982 frame-up trial. Under AEDPA, they were effectively excluded from consideration on appeal, and the findings of Judge Albert Sabo (“I’m going to help ‘em fry the n----r”), aided by the AEDPA, were allowed to stand unchallenged.

When the above-quoted statement (made by Sabo immediately prior to entering the courtroom to preside over Mumia’s case) was introduced in court as evidence of bias, the assigned Judge Pamela Dembe crudely ruled that however reprehensible such a statement might be, “there was no evidence” of Sabo’s bias “during Mumia’s trial!” This in the face of more than 100 rulings against motions presented by Mumia’s legal team and virtually none against the prosecution! This in the face of Mumia’s being physically excluded from the courtroom for a majority of his own trial! And this in the face of key prosecution witnesses being threatened with imprisonment unless they falsely testified against Mumia!

The court’s April 26 decision, reaffirming its previous 2008 decision on the exact same issue, was a product of the U.S. Supreme Court’s intervention at the request of Pennsylvania prosecutors. The High Court, composed of essentially reactionary jurists selected by the representatives of the ruling rich, cited their earlier ruling in the infamous January 2010 case of Smith v. Spisak, where the Court ruled against a self-confessed Nazis triple murderer, who had sought relief by citing the improper jury instructions of an Ohio trial judge.

Using this ruling the Supreme Court remanded Mumia’s case to the Third Circuit with instructions to reconsider its previous ruling in light of its new Spisak decision—the latter, in the tradition of reactionary “states’ rights” rulings, aimed at opening the door to Mumia’s execution. The refusal of the Third Circuit to do so on April 26 sets the stage for yet another appeal by Pennsylvania prosecutors to the U.S. Supreme Court, a decision that Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams has pledged to mount.

In truth, however, the resort to the Supreme Court