Peace be unto you...

    Greetings, I'm Sahara, a capital case in Pennsylvania, from Philadelphia.

    I seek to correspond with good people who are advocates for justice, spiritually adept and if at all possible I would like to meet those from abroad (Japan) who can help me with locating my mother's family registry, which is called a koseki... without help this task is daunting.

    Furthermore, I seek to reach those who are understanding of the way of the American justice system and the system it operates on... why? Here's a crucial portion of the many wrongs with my case; perhaps the name Albert F. Sabo is familiar to you? I had heard of him, he was known in Philadelphia as a virtual prosecutor in black robes that district attorneys loved to get before, and, unknown to me then, district attorneys were scared to oppose him. But hen I was brought before him, I had a feeling of foreboding... there was a look and feeling I couldn't explain but felt nonetheless. It is because of his work that I was sent to this place of death... in his courtroom it was not only allowed but encouraged.

    Alone and on trial, beside an inept attorney, I learned from the district attorney that the perpetrator as identified as having blood type A... yet, on trial alone, I was later discovered to be of blood type O because withheld from my defense and inept attorney was the fact that the district attorney possessed this exculpatory evidence more than three months prior to trial, yet never disclosed this evidence until my defense had completely rested its case in complete, meaning we closed our defense. This withholding of evidence is known as a Brady violation (Brady v. Maryland), but what was unbelievable was the conversation that took place between the prosecutor, Judge Sabo and counsel:


Notes of Testimony (NTT)
(NTT #1480-1481)

Prosecutor (Mr. Shotzbarger): Bill, do you know your client's blood type?

Counsel (Mr. Meehan): No, if I did, if I had it, if it had been tested, then I'd have to have turned it over to you, and I would. I don't know the guy's blood type.
 
Prosecutor: Well, let the record reflect that I do, all right. Knowing that we're winding up the defense case and now having heard the private investigator, that in my estimation would conclude the defense evidence unless the defendant testified... He was of course already in the evidence, as we know, admitted for treatment at Einstein Hospital Northern Division on 1/25/86 after allegedly he was shot by Richard Campbell... they did a battery of tests on him, including a blood test. It shows that the blood type for Saharris Rollins is O positive. That is O, not A... which is the blood for recovered from the wall of the Campbell household and also the blood group substance from the sweatband of the hat (perpetrator) in the Cintron residence on Orkney Street. I had presumed--

Counsel: I thought that was A. (emphasis added)

Prosecutor: No. I had presumed that Counsel knew his client's own blood type.

    At this point is where the D.A. commented further on Mr. Meehan's ineptitude as well as to cover up his on secreting of the evidence of my innocence:

Prosecutor: Defense counsel should have subpoenaed [the medical records], and even the public defenders knew that Mr. Rollins' blood type was O+.

NTT #1485:

Judge Sabo: Well, you're still on. (emphasis added)

Counsel: Oh hell that's [PCHA stuff there] I know it's not over. [Note: the PCHA reference is a defendant's collateral attack on counsel/court's error. It stands for Post Conviction Relief Act.]

Prosecutor: Bill, I've got enough of my own work to do. I'm not going to do your work too. Apparently it never even occurred to you that you could prove up in his own case his blood type. Now I thought that you would try to do that in testimony?

Judge Sabo: Well, he [the prosecutor] told me what he's gonna do, so I'm gonna let him do it.

    The bias that Judge Sabo exhibited was further evident when he knew there'd be reviews of my claims of innocence by appeals. The statement he spoke was even more shocking and condoned:
 
Judge Sabo: Look, five, ten, fifteen, twenty, twenty-five years don the line we'll all be dead so let somebody else handle the problem.

    The embarrassment and ridicule of being exposed as an inept attorney when death could come to his client as such that rather than fight for my rights, my counsel inexplicably conceded to a stipulation; simply put, a tradeoff in which the prosecutor and judge knew he'd not challenge. This prosecutors being allowed to overreach and  judicial bias are why prosecutors love Judge Sabo... it's a win!
    Beside the unbelievable blood-type evidence, there too was that of the one-on-one interviews with the witnesses by Detective Ballantine of Philadelphia's notorious homicide unit. At the very scene of the crime, mugshots of me were produced and not one of them were identified then... how can this be? Yet armed with such, the detectives at that time were told by the head district attorney (now Judge Ronald Castille) that he would not allow or authorize an arrest warrant with that lack of identification. Lo and behold, they undeterred showed the same photos to the witnesses again... now they see the man! What?!
    Still, my last safeguard was of the jury sitting and hearing all... Yet how could the jury disregard all of this? How can it be? you may ask. It is so, and in the context with which a death sentence can be sought and rendered by the use of oratorical flair beyond the bounds permissible by prosecutors, and the prosecutor in black robes... it is not unbelievable in Pennsylvania. (See Exhibit A: Jurors David Quinn and Rosalie Harrison affidavits.)
    My beliefs in justice were always within my heart and mind, yet they all went out the window because unbelievable was the fact that my attorney (who is now a judge?!) never even investigated one aspect of my case matter. But astounding was that he didn't want to pay an investigator his required pay from the court of $150.00 (all Judge Sabo allowed for a death penalty case!) so he paid him $95.00 and kept the balance for himself. The court-appointed lawyers system in the city of so-called brotherly love (Philadelphia) is for certain attorneys to ingratiate themselves with the judges who appoint them... simply put, what price is justice?
    Sahara's one and only aid and efforts came from a woman believing in truth and through this truth her undying love for me. The name I call her is Mama-San... she is my daughter's grandmother. To her Mama-San is the greatest of honors, for it says “mom”. It was this mother who I know longer have who went out and wouldn't accept the answer no. Though in her golden years she walked and rode until someone listened, she had herself armed with nothing more than some gift-wrapped cupcakes, krimpets and twinkies... it was this showing of love that made one sit and listen.
[See Exhibit D: Marie Ballard affidavit.]
    Today at the very least this miscarriage of justice has been exposed, because unknown to me then was that the many facts the jurors/jury believed as truth were simply lies. The blood test evidence and later assertion that he could have been a secretor or non-secretor yet no one had tested for such? Testimony that the victim was shot, then picked up and shot pointblank 3-4 more times? The perpetrator's hat was found to be blood type A? Yet, the most telling of all as the fact that this man as lefthanded, whereas I am righthanded! Later I discovered my own clothes were tested for gun powder residue. The results ere negative, and the only way I learned this was  through Mama-San's efforts. Why couldn't the jury see all of this?
[See Exhibit B: Dale Nute, Criminologist and Reports and Exhibit C: Bonnie Carter, PH.D.]
    For 16+ years I have been stuck on Pennsylvania's Death Row, an unwilling resident and forced to see my daughters and son through plexiglass. Their hugs, their smells and their very touch is a fading memory. As a father and a man whose memories are of the smiles and laughter of children, it appears as though I may be the one who loses all life had to offer. This picture is further clouded because as a single man (now by choice and circumstance), the laughter of life is becoming a distant memory... for isn't it said if you truly love someone (my then wife), you'd allow them to be happy? This is the sacrifice I have made for the sake of life... while I have been living under the spectre of death.
    It is so hard to believe that this nightmare began in the depths of a hospital here I laid seriously injured. There I waited, night after night, and tired and timid stranger in a strange and sterile environment. being treated coldly by a doctor, the last chilling link to someone you love, treated brusquely by nurses who appear indifferent to the suffering of one you treasure... that was the day that led to this drama. That said, a fair trial wasn't even an illusion for me in the cold marble halls of Philadelphia's City Hall. If you thought that Mumia Abu-Jamal (my friend here) didn't receive a fair trial, then how could I when we were both given death under the same hanging judge?
    My hopes for redress and justice were dashed due to the fact I had to go back before the very same judger for redress. It was very simple: Judge Sabo gives  no redress or relief!
    At present I am on the last leg of my appeals, where I look forward to meeting and hearing from good and fair-minded people who are advocates for justice and understanding of one's fight for life. So I look forward to hearing from you through the printed word as we share this mystery of life, on the edge of death. This has been a brush-stroke of who I am... so who are you? 
 
Footnotes:
    All of the exhibits and affidavits referenced in this document are all of Sahara's defense papers.
     At the time of this writing, Philadelphia's notorious Judge Sabo has died. This is an ironic twist to his pledge of being around to see his death sentences carried out. As for Sahara's fight? It will be neverending... because of the death of justice itself!

Update:
On August 2nd, 2005, Sahara was afforded partial relief from the Federal Court, meaning that his death sentence as reversed, but his conviction on murder as affirmed. Sahara must fight on. We pray that funding and monetary aid can be had for legal assistance, as Sahara must not only still fight his conviction, but must also fight against the re-sentencing the state will no doubt seek... since they hate to lose. 

Direct Replies:
Saharris Rollins AY-8832
Box 244
Graterford, PA 19426 USA

Email Replies:
freesaharanow@yahoo.com

    Sahara can be reached via email and/or his support person, Lexy Isaac, at freesaharanow@yahoo.com

 Donations to the Sahara Rollins Legal Defense Fund can be sent to the address:

Sahara Rollins Legal Defense Fund
ABA #243073593
c/o Dwelling House Savings and Loan Association
501 Herron Avenue
Pittsburgh, PA 15219 USA

    (Donations must be made out to the Sahara Rollins Legal Defense Fund. Acceptable forms are certified bank checks, personal checks, and money orders. For those outside the USA, any money orders sent must be international money orders only.)

                                                     
                   Bro.Sahara Rollins (AY-8832)
                               175 Progress Drive. (L-Block)
                    Waynesburg, Pennsylvania
                            15370-8090  USA

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