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It is the role of the prosecution to persuade the jury that the defendant is guilty; in capital cases, the prosecution must also convince jurors that the defendant is so irredeemable as to merit the harshest penalty which the law can impose. In their zeal to obtain death sentences, some prosecutors have resorted to tactics intended to trigger latent prejudices and racial stereotypes in the minds of jurors.
Emmitt Foster, black, was executed in Missouri on 3 May 1995. During the penalty phase of his trial, the all-white jury heard witnesses from the local African Methodist Episcopal Church testify that Foster was active in the church on a regular basis. While cross-examining one of these witnesses, the prosecution produced a picture of a black man sitting between an US flag and a Muslim flag and wearing a (Muslim) fez. The prosecutor then asked the witness if he knew that Foster was a Muslim. (It was never proved that the man in the picture was actually Foster, nor was the picture dated). This line of questioning was clearly designed to inflame any possible prejudices of jury members against other religions and to discredit members of the local church. The prosecutor then went on to refer to Foster as "that" on numerous occasions.
Mumia Abu-Jamal, black, was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of a white Philadelphia police officer. He was tried before Judge Albert Sabo; a judge responsible for imposing 31 death sentences - the highest total for any US judge since the reintroduction of the death penalty in the USA. The jury that convicted and sentenced Abu-Jamal to death did not ethnically represent the local community as it consisted of 10 whites and two blacks, in a city that had a 40 per cent African American population at the time. The prosecution used 11 of its peremptory challenges to exclude potential black jurors.
During the sentencing phase, Judge Sabo permitted the prosecution to cross-examine Abu-Jamal with respect to a 12-year-old Philadelphia Inquirer article about the Philadelphia Chapter of the Black Panther Party (a radical political party which espoused revolutionary methods to obtain "black liberation"). The article identified Abu-Jamal as the 16-year-old communications secretary for the chapter. The prosecutor cross-examined him about his membership in the Black Panther Party and certain views he expressed in an interview included in the article.
Later, in closing arguments to the jury, the prosecutor again made reference to quotations from the newspaper article, suggesting that Abu-Jamal had demonstrated a rebellious attitude towards law and order. In fact, he had no previous criminal convictions. The prosecutor appears to have overtly used the defendant's past political beliefs and his previous affiliation with a black radical organization to persuade the jury to impose the death penalty
Abu-Jamal's trial took place against a backdrop of tension and animosity between the predominately white authorities and many in the African American community. At the first pre-trial hearing, the judge commented: "I know there are certain cases that have explosive tendencies in this community, and this is one of them."
The pervasive atmosphere of hostility by many of those in authority towards Mumia Abu-Jamal continues to this day. Since the trial, the President of the Philadelphia Fraternal Order of Police Officers has made numerous statements calling for Abu-Jamal's execution, including: "We want him burned and we want it done soon."
Amnesty International is concerned that the level of hatred of Mumia Abu-Jamal by the law enforcement community and the lack of independent and impartial arbiters in Pennsylvania's appeal court system mean Mumia Abu-Jamal may be preventing him from receiving a fair and impartial hearing for the legal claims he has made concerning his original trial.
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