On Friday, September 12, the Georgia Board of Pardon and Paroles voted to deny clemency for Troy Anthony Davis. Troy Davis is still scheduled to be executed by the state of Georgia on September 23, even though his serious claims of innocence have never been heard in court.

Urge the board to reconsider its decision today!

Troy Davis was convicted of murder solely on the basis of witness testimony, and seven of the nine non-police witnesses have since recanted or changed their testimony, several citing police coercion. Others have signed affidavits implicating one of the remaining two witnesses as the actual killer. But due to an increasingly restrictive appeals process, none of this new evidence has ever been heard in court.

Take action and then forward this action to ten friends!

The Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles gave no reason for its denial of Troy Davis’ clemency petition, yet Board members do have the authority to reconsider their decision. On July 16, 2007, the Board did stay Troy Davis’ execution, stating that it would “not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused” (emphasis added).

The failure of courts to hear the compelling evidence of innocence in this case means that massive doubts about Troy Davis’ guilt will remain unresolved.

Urge the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to reconsider its decision and prevent this execution from proceeding!

In solidarity,

Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn
Director, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign
Amnesty International USA

Troy Davis is scheduled to be executed by the state of Georgia on September 23, even though his serious claims of innocence have never been heard in court.

Take action right now to stop this execution!

Troy Davis was convicted of murder solely on the basis of witness testimony, and seven of the nine non-police witnesses have since recanted or changed their testimony, several citing police coercion. Others have signed affidavits implicating one of the remaining two witnesses as the actual killer. But due to an increasingly restrictive appeals process, none of this new evidence has ever been heard in court.

Take action and then forward this action to ten friends!

On July 16, 2007, the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles stayed Troy Davis’ execution, stating that it would “not allow an execution to proceed in this State unless and until its members are convinced that there is no doubt as to the guilt of the accused” (emphasis added). The failure of courts to hear the compelling evidence of innocence in this case means that massive doubts about Troy Davis’ guilt will remain unresolved.

Urge the Georgia Board of Pardons and Paroles to be true to its words and prevent this execution from proceeding!

In solidarity,

Sue Gunawardena-Vaughn
Director, Death Penalty Abolition Campaign
Amnesty International USA

Mumia breaks down his take on Barack’s campaign and raises questions about its future.

It should surprise no one the candidacy of Illinois senator Barack Obama has evoked fascination, not least because of his presumed outsider status as a man at least partial African descent. It is this racial inheritance that accounts, to a considerable degree, for the fascination among both Blacks and whites posed by his candidacy. But as ever in America, race often hides as much as it reveals. For if Barack is an outsider to the American body politic because of his Blackness, he is too an outsider to much of Black America precisely because of his direct East African heritage, one unleavened and unmitigated by the 500 years of Black bondage, resistance, repression and rebellion that is at the heart of the African American experience and identity. In this sense Obama is a double outsider and has had to work out his own way into what being Black in America means.

Listen to the full commentary here.

More from  Mumia

Urgent!  Leonard needs a diabetes test kit now!

You may recall that Leonard suffers from diabetes.  To date,
his diabetes has been managed by diet but this is difficult to do
when the prison won’t give Leonard a test kit by which to monitor
his blood glucose level.  Two weeks ago, I wrote to the warden at
Lewisburg asking that Leonard be given a diabetes test kit. I even
offered to purchase an approved kit if the prison cannot provide
one. I haven’t received a response from the warden.

Yesterday, Leonard called–later than the norm. He’s suffering with
a severe headache and other symptoms and is in a bad way. When he
was finally able to get tested at the prison infirmary, his blood
sugar measured 300. The highest blood glucose reading should be
less than 180 mg/dL (and that only one to two hours after eating).

We have to see to it that Leonard gets a diabetes test kit so that
he can control his diabetes.  All supporters are urgently requested
to contact:

Warden
USP Lewisburg
US Penitentiary
2400 Robert F. Miller Drive
Lewisburg, PA  17837
Phone:  570-523-1251
Fax:  570-522-7745
E-mail: LEW/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV

Also contact:

D. Scott Dodrill, Regional Director
Northeast Regional Office
US Custom House
2nd & Chesnut Street
Philadephia, PA  19106
Phone: 215-521-7301
E-mail: NERO/EXECASSISTANT@BOP.GOV

Harley G. Lappin, Director
Federal Bureau of Prisons
320 First Street., NW
Washington, DC 20534
Telephone: 202-307-3198

Be respectful, but firm.  The situation is life threatening.  After
many years of high blood sugar, Leonard is at serious risk for kidney
failure and the need for dialysis, blood vessel damage in the eyes
that can lead to blindness, and nerve damage in the feet that could
lead to the need for amputation. Supporters should also remember
that Leonard already suffers from a heart condition. Heart disease
is, in fact, the number one cause of death in people with diabetes.

Leonard needs our help.  Act now.  Write or fax a letter.  Make a
call. Send an e-mail.  Keep doing it until Leonard gets a diabetes
test kit.

Thank you.

Betty Ann Peltier Solano
Coordinator
Leonard Peltier Defense Offense Committee
PO Box 7488, Fargo, ND  58106
Phone: 701/235-2206
E-mail: contact@whoisleonardpeltier.info
Web: www.whoisleonardpeltier.info

Time to set him free… Because it is the RIGHT thing to do.

Friends of Peltier
http://www.FreePeltierNow.org

Peltier Statement for the 2008 Oglala Commemoration

June 26, 2008

Greetings my relatives,

I say relatives because you are all my family.  I am honored,
greatly honored today that you would listen to my words and come
together in this way so that our future generations’ will not forget
what happened here in this land.
Read the rest of this entry »

From Black Agenda Report

Having expressed deep and sincere remorse for the acts he was convicted of so long ago, and posing no threat to anyone, Chip Fitzgerald now awaits a July 2 parole hearing.
We respectfully request that our readers sign the petition at the end of the article which will be presented to the parole board prior to the hearing.

Sign online petition. For more information: www.freechip.org

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Last year, California State Senator George Runner fought against a plan to provide every Californian with health coverage — legislation that threatened the profits of his wealthy allies in the insurance industry.¹

Now his friends, including the California Association of Health Underwriters (CAHU), are bankrolling Runner’s push for a disastrous new ballot initiative that moves money from public schools and hospitals to build more prisons. Runner’s plan singles out poor people and people of color for increased scrutiny and punishment, while pushing the state’s already strained budget closer to bankruptcy.

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More than two decades after President Ronald Reagan escalated the war on drugs, arrests for drug sales or, more often, drug possession are still rising. And despite public debate and limited efforts to reduce them, large disparities persist in the rate at which blacks and whites are arrested and imprisoned for drug offenses, even though the two races use illegal drugs at roughly equal rates.

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Thousands of prisoners languish in jail for months, even years, before they are tried.

On Sept. 4, 21-year-old Joshua Pomier will have served nearly four years in a detention center near San Bernardino, Calif. Pomier is charged with multiple counts of car theft and robbery. There are two deeply troubling problems with the amount of time he has spent behind bars. One, he has not been convicted of any of the crimes he’s charged with. He had barely turned 18 years old when he and another juvenile were arrested for the crimes in September 2004. Pomier and family members vehemently protest his innocence. The even more tormenting problem is not Pomier’s guilt or innocence, but the absurdly long length of time that he has been jailed awaiting disposition, any disposition, of the charges leveled against him.

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PHILADELPHIA - A federal appeals court on Thursday said former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal cannot be executed for murdering a Philadelphia police officer without a new penalty hearing.

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Color of Change has initiated an email campaign addressing the incarceration rate of Black men. Click the link to show your support and while you’re at it, get on their email list to stay up to date on their campaigns on our behalf. They are holdin’ it down for real.

The so-called “war on drugs” has created a national disaster: 1 in 9 young Black men in America are now behind bars.¹ It’s not because they commit more crime but largely because of unfair sentencing rules that treat 5 grams of crack cocaine, the kind found in poor Black communities, the same as 500 grams of powder cocaine², the kind found in White and wealthier communities.

These sentencing laws are destroying communities across the country and have done almost nothing to reduce the level of drug use and crime.

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If racism is truly in the past as the current political climate asks us to believe, then it should be no problem to start correcting past acts of racism.

Via Color of Change

Call on the Dept. of Justice & Louisiana Governor to Investigate

Herman Wallace and Albert Woodfox have have endured 35 years of solitary confinement after being framed in a murder that everyone now knows they didn’t commit—locked up for daring to speak out against inhumane conditions in Angola, Louisiana State Penitentiary. They now spend every day in a 6×9 foot cell on the site of a former plantation.As with the Jena 6, we’re seeing another example of Louisiana’s sense of justice—unfair and unaccountable—and funded by our tax dollars. Please join us in demanding a full and fair investigation into the case of the Angola 3 and the Louisiana Prison system.

Take Action

The growth in prison population is largely because of tougher state and federal sentencing imposed since the mid-1980s. Minorities have been particularly affected: One in nine black men ages 20 to 34 is behind bars. For black women ages 35 to 39, the figure is one in 100, compared with one in 355 for white women in the same age group.

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Angela Davis, one of the iconic faces of black politics in 1970s America, talks to the Guardian about Barack Obama, the black middle class, and how it feels to be remembered as a hairdo.

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The Supreme Court on Monday said judges may impose shorter prison terms for crack cocaine crimes, enhancing judicial discretion to reduce the disparity between sentences for crack and cocaine powder.

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The U.S. Sentencing Commission voted unanimously Tuesday to allow some 19,500 federal prison inmates, most of them black, to seek reductions in their crack cocaine sentences.

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