Forwarded message:
From: John Young <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Date: Sun, 30 Jul 1995 10:30:03 -0400
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: NYT on Mumia Hearing
The New York Times, July 30, 1995, p. 24.
A Fight for Life Is Waged in an Angry Courtroom
[Photos] "Live from Death Row," a collection of
commentaries about prison life written by Mumia
Abu-Jamal. Mumia Abu-Jamal, a black radio journalist who
was convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer,
is scheduled to be executed on Aug. 17.
By Don Terry
Philadelphia, July 29 -- Darkness still gripped the City of
Brotherly Love in the early morning hours of Dec. 9, 1981,
when Daniel Faulkner, a white police officer, was shot to
death after making a routine traffic stop.
A few months later, Mumia Abu-Jamal, a well-known black
radio journalist who was also active in political causes
here, was convicted of the officer's murder and condemned
to die, a sentence that is scheduled to be carried out on
Aug. 17.
To the young officer's comrades and widow, it was a just
verdict; a brutal cop killer would pay for his sins with
his life. To Mr. Abu-Jamal's family and friends, his trial
was a racist sham that railroaded an innocent and
politically outspoken man straight past justice to Death
Row.
In the nearly 14 years since, the case has become an
international cause celebre and, for some, a battleground
in the political and cultural wars stretching from the
1960's to the 1990's.
Mr. Abu-Jamal's face, framed in long dread locks, peers out
in stores across the country from the front of his book,
"Live from Death Row," a collection of sharply written
commentaries about life in prison. He had planned on
reading them on National Public Radio before the Fraternal
Order of Police in Philadelphia successfully lobbied to
keep him off the air.
Now that same group is lobbying to make sure he dies. For
the last few days, both sides have filled a heavily guarded
courtroom here as Mr. Abu-Jamal's lawyers seek a new trial
for their client, citing, among other reasons, police
intimidation and prosecution witnesses with checkered
pasts, including a prostitute with numerous arrests. They
also cite a false confession, shoddy work by Mr.
Abu-Jamal's original lawyer and suppressed evidence.
Judge Albert F. Sabo of Common Pleas Court, who conducted
Mr. Abu-Jamal's first contentious trial, is presiding over
his hearing for a new trial, and defense lawyers contend
that not much has changed.
Judge Sabo, a retired member of the Fraternal Order of
Police, has sent more people to death row than any judge in
the state. In the current hearing he has been openly
contemptuous of the defense.
"Objection is over-ruled, whatever it was," the judge told
Mr. Abu-Jamal's lead lawyer, Leonard I. Weinglass, a
veteran of some of the most politically charged trials of
recent decades, including that of the Chicago Eight after
the 1968 Democratic Convention.
Judge Sabo has sustained virtually every prosecution
objection while shooting down almost every defense
objection. At one point, when Mr. Weinglass asked for a
four-minute recess to locate a crucial witness, Judge Sabo,
looking at his watch, said, "It's ten-twenty-eight-and-a-
half. You have until 10:30."
On Wednesday, the first day of the hearing, Judge Sabo
turned his back and walked out of the courtroom as another
defense lawyer, Rachel H. Wolkenstein, was addressing him
about a legal issue. He came back a few minutes later,
saying that he could not hear because of the noise coming
from the street, where a large group of Mr. Abu-Jamal's
supporters were chanting, "Free Mumia now."
Richard B. Costello, the president of the Philadelphia
Fraternal Order of Police, said he did not understand why
Mr. Abu-Jamal's plight had drawn so much attention and big-
league legal help.
"He has more lawyers than Snow White had dwarfs," Mr.
Costello said. "There's nothing special about this guy.
He's a cop killer. We've had cop killers before, and,
unfortunately, we'll have them again."
Although Judge Sabo has frequently urged the defense to
hurry, he interrupted the proceedings for several minutes
to argue and reminisce with a baffled witness about the
location of a swimming pool in his old neighborhood
sometime around "1926 or '28."
As he talked about the pool, a woman in the audience jumped
to her feet and shouted, "Aren't we here to talk about a
man's life?" She was escorted from the courtroom. Minutes
later, the judge asked another question about the pool.
Several of Mr. Abu-Jamal's supporters were removed for
refusing to stand when Judge Sabo entered and another was
taken outside for giving the judge a Nazi-style salute.
Mr. Abu-Jamal, now 41, was a co-founder, at age 15, of the
Black Panther Party here, which marked the beginning of
years of surveillance by the Federal Bureau of
Investigation that eventually filled at least 700 pages in
his F.B.I. file.
As an adult, he served as president of the Philadelphia
chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists.
The N.A.B.J., which is to open its annual convention here
one day before the scheduled execution has been deeply
divided over Mr. Abu-Jamal's case. Despite emotional
appeals from some of the group's 2,500 members, its
18-member board has maintained a neutral position on the
case, saying Mr. Abu-Jamal's troubles were a criminal
matter, not a journalistic issue.
As a radio reporter and commentator, Mr. Abu-Jamal spoke
out against police brutality and became a strong supporter
of MOVE, the radical black group whose standoff with the
Philadelphia police ended with a disastrous fire after the
authorities bombed the group's house in 1985. Some called
him, "the voice of the voiceless."
By Dec. 9, 1981, Mr. Abu-Jamal was moonlighting as a cab
driver. Having been robbed twice on the job he was carrying
a revolver on the morning he and Officer Faulkner crossed
paths. Though the gun had been legally purchased, he was
not licensed to carry it.
Shortly before 4 A.M. Officer Faulkner stopped a Volkswagen
Beetle driving the wrong way on a one-way sireet a few
blocks from City Hall. The officer arrested the driver,
William Cook, Mr. Abu-Jamal's younger brother.
The authorities say Mr. Cook hit the officer in the face
and the two men struggled. Mr. Abu-Jamal said later that he
happened to drive by in his cab and saw the officer beating
his brother. He jumped out and ran to his brother's aid.
Minutes later, when more officers arrived, they found
Officer Faulkner lying in a pool of blood in the street. He
had been shot in the back and the face. A few feet away,
with a bullet wound to the chest, lay Mr. Abu-Jamal. His
.38-caliber revolver held five spent shells.
At his 1982 trial, the prosecution said Mr. Abu-Jamal had
shot Officer Faulkner in the back and then stood over him
and shot him in the face. The officer got off one shot
before he died. Officer Faulkner's partner and a security
guard said Mr. Abu-Jamal shouted out a confession as he was
carried into the hospital.
But defense lawyers say that is a lie, and the officer who
was escorting Mr. Abu-Jamal at the time wrote in his report
that the "negro male" had said nothing. The officer was on
vacation during Mr. Abu-Jamal's first trial and did not
testify. The defense plans to call him for Mr. Abu-Jamal's
hearing, which could last another week or more.
One of the most important disputes over the truth of that
bloody morning involves the caliber of the fatal bullet
that was removed from Officer Faulkner's head. A
preliminary autopsy report recorded it as a .44-caliber,
but police ballistic experts later said it was "consistent"
with a .38, the same kind that Mr. Abu-Jamal carried in his
gun.
Mr. Weinglass said that the jury was never informed about
the autopsy report and that the police also never tested
the .38-caliber pistol found at the scene to determine if
it had been recently fired.
The defense says Officer Faulkner shot Mr. Abu-Jamal as he
approached the scene and that "a third black male then shot
Officer Faulkner and fled the scene." Mr. Weinglass said
there are at least four witnesses who saw a man run away
and one of them identified the man as the gunman.
Anthony E. Jackson was Mr. AbuJamal's original
court-appointed lawyer. And the other day, he testified
that he had failed to call important witnesses and had been
given too little money by the court to conduct an adequate
investigation.
He said he was given less than $2,000 for an investigator,
ballistics expert, a pathologist and a photographer, adding
the ballistics expert did no tests on the weapons because,
"I did not have enough funds for him to do tests or appear
in court."
As he fights for his life, Mr. Abu-Jamal has attracted
supporters from around the nation and the world. In this
country, his supporters include the actor Ed Asner, the
scholar Cornel West, the writer E. L. Doctorow, trade
unionists, members of Congress and a religious group of
white Christians, the Bruderhofers.
"We are heaviiy involved in trying to free Mumia," said
Christopher Arnold, the Bruderhofers' elder minister,
"because we strongly feel he did not get a fair trial and
because we are against all violence, like going to war,
abortion and especially the death Penalty."
A few yards away, two off-duty police officers waited for
the courtroom doors to open for the day.
"There are too many liberal sympathizers," one of the
officers said. "I think it's disgusting. For all police
officers in general, this is a slap in the face."
But Pam Africa, who is assisting the defense, said of the
hearing: "This is not just about Mumia. This is bigger than
one person. We can't stand by and let them commit
coldblooded murder. We got to draw a line."
[End]
--
Michael Golden
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Department of Biology
Grossmont College
8800 Grossmont College Drive
El Cajon, CA 92020
619-465-1700 x332
