Defendants (original) (raw)

PCRA HABEAS Petition 7 16 2001 Mumia Abu Jamal

Court of Common Pleas Record, 2001

This Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) and/or Habeas Petition, filed in the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas on behalf of prize-winning radio journalist and ex-Black Panther and MOVE supporter Mumia Abu-Jamal on July 16, 2001, begins as follows: "1. Petitioner Mumia Abu-Jamal is innocent. Exculpatory evidence discovered by his new attorneys, which had been suppressed by his previous lawyers, Chief Counsel Leonard Weinglass and Chief Legal Strategist Daniel Williams, including a signed confession by Arnold Beverly (the man who shot and killed Police Officer Daniel Faulkner after Faulkner was shot in the back by another assailant , probably Kenneth Freeman, the passenger in William Cook's car), proves that Petitioner Jamal is innocent and had nothing to do with the shooting. "2. Arnold Beverly states in his confession under penalty of perjury that he and an accomplice were hired by corrupt elements in the Philadelphia Police Department and organized crime to kill Officer Faulkner because he was getting in the way of their protection racket in the Center City area. Petitioner Jamal was in the wrong place at the wrong time, was himself shot down and gravely wounded, and fell victim to a frame-up which has served for 20 years to conceal the identities of those responsible for planning the murder of Officer Faulkner and hiring those who carried it out ...."

Schneckloth v. Bustamonte: History's Unspoken Fourth Amendment Anomaly

Tenn. L. Rev., 2011

The officer walking the beat has numerous tools at her disposal to effectuate a warrantless search, the most popular of which is the consent search. Academics, courts, and the public appear skeptical of current consent search practices; so, how did we get here? Step back to 1969 when President Nixon appointed Warren Burger to replace Earl Warren as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. At that time, many believed Burger’s “law and order” background foretold Miranda’s overruling. That never happened; a handful of commentators and historians therefore view the Burger Court’s criminal procedure decisions as anticlimactic. That view overlooks the Burger Court’s crowning anti-Miranda achievement: Schneckloth v. Bustamonte. Schneckloth made clear that warning citizens of their constitutional rights had no place outside the context of custodial interrogation. No article has asked an important and fundamental question about the Schneckloth opinion: what set of circumstances led the Court to conclude that the Fourth Amendment does not require that citizens be informed of their right to refuse consent? This Article argues that Schneckloth is the product of a truly unique confluence of social, political, and judicial circumstances. By properly understanding Schneckloth in its broader historical context, the Article reveals its truly anomalous nature and similarly reveals why the Court should reconsider whether the Fourth Amendment requires officers to inform citizens of their right to refuse consent.