ACTION ALERT!
Jamil Pirant is requesting to be transferred to Michigan City, (ISP) Indiana State Prison from his current placement at Wabash Valley Correctional Facility. Sentenced to a long prison term as a kid, Jamil has been suffering medical neglect and retaliation and needs to be closer to his home and family.
In the interest of his health and well-being, he must be transferred immediately. Call, email, and send letters to Michael Osburn, Southern Regional Director for Indiana’s Department of Corrections—ask him to honor Jamil’s civil and human rights and transfer him to Michigan City (ISP) as soon as possible!
MAIL:
Michael Osburn
Southern Regional Director
Indiana Department of Corrections
302 W. Washington Street, Room E-334
Indianapolis, IN 46204
CALL:
317-232-5766
317-232-5723
EMAIL:
slightfoot@idoc.in.gov
Ombud@idoa.in.gov
Write to Jamil directly at:
Jamil Pirant #197138
Wabash Valley Level 3 Facility
6908 S Old US Highway 41
Carlisle, Indiana 47838
JAMIL’S HISTORY:
Jamil Pirant's proceedings began in juvenile court, as his alleged crimes occurred when he was 15. The state moved them to adult court, where he was charged. Pirant initially accepted a plea deal in adult court that required him to testify at others' trials, but when the time came he refused to testify, and motioned to back out of his plea deal. The court denied the motion and sentenced him.
A few years later, he filed a petition for post-conviction relief, arguing that his counsel was ineffective during his proceedings in adult court (especially when he was attempting to withdraw his guilty plea). The court dismissed the petition.
Last year, he filed another petition, arguing that adult court did not have subject matter jurisdiction, because he had ineffective counsel during the waiver process that moved his case from juvenile court to adult court. The court dismissed the petition. Pirant is appealing these rulings.
FROM JAMIL:
“My nights are exciting
Ones i dnt mind walking thru
1) despite its darkness &
2) not knowing wats ahead
But the lifting of the sun& entry of a new day
Is worth every part of the moons company
I've become one and at peace wit the process
1) dark b4 dawn
2) strength after training
3) scab after wound &
4) test b4 graduation; no student elevate without confronting a series of exames
We're only strengthen by our struggles.
So embrace the burden u bear...the weight on ur back nd lift.
P.s. new muscle is admired by those that look but respected by those who understand.
-Jamil ibn ja'boo”
For more from Jamil, visit the link below:
https://www.prisonradio.org/media/audio/jamil-pirant
September 12, 2019
Game Changing Evidence Found: A New Trial on the Horizon for MUMIA ABU-JAMAL
Freedom is now in sight. New evidence, recently found, and surpressed for decades, could be the key to relief for Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Joe McGill and Ed Rendell, trial prosecutor and DA, respectively, manipulated evidence and framed Mumia Abu-Jamal for first degree murder in 1982.
Six boxes of undisclosed case files labeled “Mumia Abu-Jamal” were found in a furniture closet last December by new DA Larry Krasner. Here is the exculpatory “Brady” evidence that was inside:
- A letter from awitness demanding his money.
- Memo after memo to and from Joe McGill tracking the open cases of another key witness.
- Handwritten notes on original files, closely tracking the race of jurors.
Now we know that for 37 years the District Attorney’s office actively lied. They scrubbed clean every single document production, during multiple appeals, for years. It is cliché and almost predictable: evidence "lost" in a storage closet for 37 years by evil, absent-minded hoarders.
Make no mistake-- this evidence would have directly challenged the only “witnesses” at trial who identified Mumia Abu-Jamal as the shooter of officer Daniel Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981.
The testimony of these two witnesses was compromised, something the jury was kept from knowing. One witness had as many as 35 prior convictions and 4-5 open cases. Now we know the DA was monitoring those cases very closely and asking to be advised when they were in court. The other witness to the shooting was driving a cab on a suspended license and was on probation for throwing a Molotov cocktail into a school for pay. The jury never heard this. This information certainly would have challenged prosecutor Joe McGill's statement to the jury that they had nothing to gain from lying. Remember, this is a jury who asked for re-instruction on the charges and were wavering on a finding of 1stDegree Murder. Remember Albert “I am going to help them they fry the nigger” Sabo, was the judge. And Alfonso “I retired with full pay and was indicted” Giordano, a commander, was the highest ranking officer on the scene that night.
On July 3rd, 1982, this was not an open and shut case. The petition to the Superior Court also raises the reinstated appeal issues from the Castille decision handed down by Judge Tucker. These include claims of improper jury selection (Batson Claims), Ineffective assistance of counsel, and errors of law made by the court in previous appeals.
Every time you see Joe McGill in the courtroom or at an FOP event, or you see Ed Rendell at a party or a campaign event, remember this- they were stepping on the scales of justice from the beginning.
Mumia came within 10 days of being executed because of this misconduct. I was there. I got that call from the strip cell. Mumia had nothing but an orange jump suit, a half a sheet of paper and the cartridge of a pen (so he could send another prisoner as a proxy to the law library). Before and after his two death warrants he was held in solitary confinement on death row for decades!
Fast forward to 2017: Common Pleas Court Judge Leon Tucker admonishes the District Attorney to produce all of the requested material from their files. Finally, having no faith in their review, he demands that they deliver all of their files to his chambers. There he found documents revealing the bias of PA Supreme Court Judge Castille that the DA had somehow “missed” - or willfully suppressed. After all of that, in 2018, newly elected DA Larry Krasner comes across six boxes of original trial material labeled “Mumia Abu-Jamal” in a storage closet. A week later they find hundreds of more boxes in that “storage cavern.”
Please know that the road ahead may still be rough. But there is hope.
Freedom is more possible than it has ever been before.
Join us. Join Judith Ritter & Sam Spital, of the NAACP Legal Defense & Education Fund, his criminal defense team. Join Bret Grote of the Abolitionist Law Center and Robert Boyle the legal team on his medical treatment case.
September 5, 2019
Prisoners Making Real Change
We are delighted to announce that Mumia Abu-Jamal has won and gotten his first round of cataract surgery! He still needs the same procedure done on his second eye, but now he can finally see well enough to finish book three of his trilogy, Murder Inc.
Help us publish it!!!
Hullo, Noelle; I hope someone answers the call! *
Now, cataracts: Do you know what cataracts are? Imagine you're wearing a very dark pair of sunglasses; now smear the lenses with thick swabs of Vaseline. That's cataracts--from the inside. But it doesn't end, for there is no pair of glasses to remove.
It's... your eyes. They don't work anymore like they used to.
There's a man here, an "Old Head" who is functionally blind (although he has some vision in one eye). One of his eyes is as blue as a robin's egg, but it's dead. He has no vision in it. Imagine that; a Black man with a blue eye! That's what prison eye care can get you! alla best, maj♪"
* Mumia was speaking of the Prison Radio telephone, but he may as well have been talking about taking action and demanding treatment.
Last June we asked you to support his call for health care to restore his vision—you did—and it worked. Because we all stepped up and followed Mumia’s lead to demand he receive this necessary surgery, he can see now. And that means he can finish the final volume of his trilogy: Murder Incorporated: Perfecting Tyranny.
We are trying to raise the money for this printing and distribution—and we need your help. Will you make a gift today to ensure that prisoners’ voices are heard in the media and that we get this book published?
If you give a gift of $100 or more you will receive a gift of Murder Incorporated, Volume 2: America’s Favorite Pastime by Mumia-Abu Jamal and Stephen Vittoria. A gift of $1,000 or more brings you into the Freedom Circle and earns you a complete set of Mumia’s books.
We have been able to keep going because of our community, our friends and those who care about us. Make no mistake, with each and every act of solidarity, and each gift, together we create the future.
"Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
--Frederick Douglass
AgitArte mural recognizing the potential of those inside prison.