Showing posts with label MUMIA ABU JAMAL. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MUMIA ABU JAMAL. Show all posts
Sunday, September 01, 2019
Friday, February 08, 2019
Mumia Wins Right to Appeal Frame-Up Conviction Mumia Abu-Jamal Is Innocent—Free Him Now!
Workers Vanguard No. 1147
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18 January 2019
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Mumia Wins Right to Appeal Frame-Up Conviction
Mumia Abu-Jamal Is Innocent—Free Him Now!
After 37 years behind bars—30 of them on death row—class-war prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal has won the right to challenge his frame-up conviction for the killing of Police Officer Daniel Faulkner. On December 27, Judge Leon Tucker of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas threw out the Pennsylvania Supreme Court decisions from 1998 to 2012 that rubber-stamped Mumia’s frame-up on the basis that one of its justices, Ronald Castille, refused to recuse himself. Castille had been Philly district attorney during Mumia’s first appeal of his conviction and death sentence in the late 1980s.
Judge Tucker was ruling on Mumia’s appeal based on the 2016 U.S. Supreme Court decision Williams v. Pennsylvania. In the Williams case, Castille as D.A. authorized his prosecutors to seek the death penalty. When Terrance Williams later appealed, Castille was among the judges on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court who affirmed the conviction and sentence. The U.S. Supreme Court held that Castille’s “significant, personal involvement as a prosecutor in a critical decision in the defendant’s case” raised “the risk of actual bias in the judicial proceeding.”
In his decision, Tucker cites Castille’s boasting of being a “law and order” prosecutor who put 45 men on death row and his efforts to expedite execution of convicted “police killers,” including Mumia. Tucker also alludes to Castille’s endorsement by the Fraternal Order of Police. Nonetheless, Tucker rejected Mumia’s claim that Castille had “significant personal involvement” in his appeal, not only inviting an appeal by the D.A.’s office but also gift- wrapping the core legal argument.
As Tucker notes, Mumia’s case “has become one of the most polarizing criminal cases in Philadelphia history, the nation, and perhaps worldwide.” Mumia has been in the crosshairs of the capitalist state since he was a teenage Black Panther Party spokesman in the 1960s. The Philly cops’ venom toward Mumia only grew in the 1970s when, as an award-winning journalist known as the “voice of the voiceless,” he exposed the racist Philly police vendetta against MOVE, the largely black back-to-nature group he came to support. His trial and conviction were a textbook frame-up involving close collaboration of cops, lying prosecutors and hanging judges; racist jury-rigging; terrorization of witnesses; concealment of evidence; phony ballistics and other manufactured “evidence”; and a “confession” concocted by cops and prosecutors.
At his 1982 trial, Mumia was sentenced to death explicitly for his political views. In December 2011, following a federal court decision rescinding the death penalty and ordering a new sentencing hearing, state authorities contented themselves with condemning him to the “living death” of life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Tucker states that “justice would best be served” by allowing Mumia to re-argue his four prior applications under Pennsylvania’s Post Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) in the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. The judge is concerned that “the slightest appearance of bias or lack of impartiality undermines the entire judiciary.” The whole capitalist state is irrevocably biased against the working class and the oppressed, and the racist attacks faced by Mumia in the courts are legion.
Presiding over Mumia’s trial was Judge Albert Sabo, a retired member of the Fraternal Order of Police that has led a frenzied campaign for Mumia’s execution. Sabo was known to Philadelphia attorneys as a “prosecutor in robes” and the “king of death row.” He ejected Mumia from critical portions of the trial, assisted the prosecution in excluding all but one black person from the jury and was overheard by a court reporter vowing to help the prosecution “fry the n----r.” Even before Castille ascended to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, that tribunal endorsed Sabo’s open bias, as have the federal courts, which turned down Mumia’s petitions for habeas corpus relief.
Mumia’s PCRA appeals, which are up for review, document the overwhelming evidence of his innocence. This includes not only physical evidence but the confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, shot and killed Faulkner. Beverly explained that he “was hired, along with another guy, and paid to shoot and kill Faulkner.” He added: “I had heard that Faulkner was a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen.” At the time, virtually the entire chain of command for the “investigation” of Faulkner’s death was under suspicion in federal corruption probes.
As we go to press, current Philadelphia D.A. Larry Krasner has not yet announced whether he will appeal Tucker’s ruling. Krasner has been embraced by liberals and reformists like the International Socialist Organization, Socialist Alternative and Workers World Party as a “progressive” prosecutor. There can be no such thing. Following his election in 2017, Krasner tapped Castille for his transition team and, like his adviser, has been fighting to keep Mumia incarcerated. On December 28 and again a few days later, Mumia’s supporters rallied outside Krasner’s office, calling on him to “do the right thing.” From the Confederacy-loving former attorney general Jefferson Sessions to liberals like Krasner, prosecutors are an arm of the racist capitalist state for whom doing “the right thing” is repressing those deemed to pose a threat to capitalist law and order.
Whether or not Krasner appeals, Tucker’s ruling opens up what will likely be years of litigation, including a return to the federal courts. While we welcome Mumia’s opportunity to once again challenge his frame-up conviction, we have no illusion that the courts today will be any less biased against him than they have been in the past decades.
Mumia was recently deprived of access to phone and mail under the pretext of his having too much mail and newspapers in his cell. The vendetta against Mumia exemplifies the racist rulers’ determination to silence through state terror those fighting for black freedom. In this society built and maintained on black oppression, the first line of repression is directed at the besieged black population, with the ultimate aim of dividing the working class along racial and ethnic lines to prevent joint struggle against the capitalist oppressors.
The Partisan Defense Committee took up Mumia’s case in 1987 at a time when it was little known. The PDC and SL publicized his case, raised critically important funds for his legal defense and fought to mobilize the social power of the multiracial labor movement in his defense, including through labor-centered united-front protests demanding Mumia’s freedom and abolition of the racist death penalty. These efforts brought his case to trade unions representing millions around the world, from the U.S. to South Africa.
We urge our readers to donate to Mumia’s legal defense. Checks payable to the National Lawyers Guild should be sent to the Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal, Johanna Fernandez, 158-18 Riverside Drive W., Apt. 6C-50, New York, NY 10032, earmarked “For Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Legal Defense.”
Friday, August 19, 2016
*For Sacco And Vanzetti The Struggle Against The Death Penalty- A Link To The Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty (MCADP)
Click On Title To Link To "Massachusetts Citizens Against The Death Penalty" (MCADP) Website.
Commentary
Over the years I have worked with a number of different people and groups on the fight to abolish the insidious death penalty. And that is my main point in this commentary. This demand for death penalty abolition in order to deny the state the right to say who is to live and to die here in this capitalist “justice system” is something that communists, anarchists, socialists, progressives, liberals, religious people and, hell, even the occasional thoughtful conservative can unite around in the name of an “evolving standard of decency”. Only current members of the august United States Supreme Court, some (too many) state supreme courts and assorted right-wing loonies and their hangers-on appear to have missed the tide.
I will go further, though, and argue that this anti-death penalty position holds true not only for the capitalist justice system we live under but for non-capitalist states as well. We, whatever our positions of support (or non-support) for the few remaining non-capitalist states, are as much against the Chinese state executing its citizens as we are of the state of Texas. That understanding forms the basis for my inclusion of a link to the website of the Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty (MCADP). I would also urge readers to read, if possible, “A Progress Report” from their summer 2009 “MCADP News” that gives a nice thumbnail sketch of the current state of the struggle against the death penalty in America.
Probably one of the first petitions that I put my signature to back in my youthful liberal days was one to keep Massachusetts death penalty free. No execution had taken place here since 1947 and the MCADP and I wanted to keep it that way against the periodic attempts by pro-death penalty forces to reintroduce this barbaric practice. This, at the time and since, has been doubly important to me personally as Massachusetts is the site of the infamous executions of the martyred anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti (part of Ben Shahn’s famous mural print of the pair form the head to the MCADP newsletter).
Since then there have been a number of campaigns at the state level as this issue has reared its ugly head in the legislative process (most recently during the furor over a particularly heinous crime committed against an innocent child several years ago and during the unlamented gubernatorial administration of one 2008 Republican presidential contender, Mitt Romney, in his “hard against crime” minute). We have been able to hold the line here and not much has been heard from those dark forces recently. But, they are out there waiting for that next heinous crime to reach the headlines in order to stoke their fires.
To finish up, let me be clear. My central focus on the death penalty question has centered on the case of death row journalist Mumia Abu Jamal that the organization that I support, The Partisan Defense Committee (PDC, see link at right), has publicized for many years. Moreover, I share their perspective that the international labor movement take up the demand for Mumia's freedom (and that of others) and that the forces must be mobilized in the streets and workplaces in order to bring that freedom. A victory in that case (and, again, others) would put the state on notice that we will not put with the continuance of judicial murder. That is quite different from the perspective of MCADP, which has a central focus of “buttonholing” legislators, raising funds, and doing research and propaganda work on the question. In short, a parliamentary strategy. But that said, this is what the whole idea of the united front is about on this issue-everybody fights like hell to get rid of the evil in front of us and raises their individual perspectives as part of that commitment. When the “deal goes down” the PDC and MCADP are one on this issue. Fair enough, right?
Commentary
Over the years I have worked with a number of different people and groups on the fight to abolish the insidious death penalty. And that is my main point in this commentary. This demand for death penalty abolition in order to deny the state the right to say who is to live and to die here in this capitalist “justice system” is something that communists, anarchists, socialists, progressives, liberals, religious people and, hell, even the occasional thoughtful conservative can unite around in the name of an “evolving standard of decency”. Only current members of the august United States Supreme Court, some (too many) state supreme courts and assorted right-wing loonies and their hangers-on appear to have missed the tide.
I will go further, though, and argue that this anti-death penalty position holds true not only for the capitalist justice system we live under but for non-capitalist states as well. We, whatever our positions of support (or non-support) for the few remaining non-capitalist states, are as much against the Chinese state executing its citizens as we are of the state of Texas. That understanding forms the basis for my inclusion of a link to the website of the Massachusetts Citizens Against the Death Penalty (MCADP). I would also urge readers to read, if possible, “A Progress Report” from their summer 2009 “MCADP News” that gives a nice thumbnail sketch of the current state of the struggle against the death penalty in America.
Probably one of the first petitions that I put my signature to back in my youthful liberal days was one to keep Massachusetts death penalty free. No execution had taken place here since 1947 and the MCADP and I wanted to keep it that way against the periodic attempts by pro-death penalty forces to reintroduce this barbaric practice. This, at the time and since, has been doubly important to me personally as Massachusetts is the site of the infamous executions of the martyred anarchists Sacco and Vanzetti (part of Ben Shahn’s famous mural print of the pair form the head to the MCADP newsletter).
Since then there have been a number of campaigns at the state level as this issue has reared its ugly head in the legislative process (most recently during the furor over a particularly heinous crime committed against an innocent child several years ago and during the unlamented gubernatorial administration of one 2008 Republican presidential contender, Mitt Romney, in his “hard against crime” minute). We have been able to hold the line here and not much has been heard from those dark forces recently. But, they are out there waiting for that next heinous crime to reach the headlines in order to stoke their fires.
To finish up, let me be clear. My central focus on the death penalty question has centered on the case of death row journalist Mumia Abu Jamal that the organization that I support, The Partisan Defense Committee (PDC, see link at right), has publicized for many years. Moreover, I share their perspective that the international labor movement take up the demand for Mumia's freedom (and that of others) and that the forces must be mobilized in the streets and workplaces in order to bring that freedom. A victory in that case (and, again, others) would put the state on notice that we will not put with the continuance of judicial murder. That is quite different from the perspective of MCADP, which has a central focus of “buttonholing” legislators, raising funds, and doing research and propaganda work on the question. In short, a parliamentary strategy. But that said, this is what the whole idea of the united front is about on this issue-everybody fights like hell to get rid of the evil in front of us and raises their individual perspectives as part of that commitment. When the “deal goes down” the PDC and MCADP are one on this issue. Fair enough, right?
Friday, September 25, 2015
*AN INSIDE LOOK AT THE BLACK PANTHERS BY THE 'VOICE OF THE VOICELESS' (2007)
Click on title to link to Wikipedia's entry for Mumia Abu Jamal. This source was selected merely for informational purposes about his early life and other germane points. For details of his legal case over the years Google an organization that I support, the Partisan Defense Committee, that has done a lot of work and provided funds to his defense over many years (as have other organizations).
BOOK REVIEW
WE WANT FREEDOM: A LIFE IN THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY, MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, NEW YORK, 2005
BLACK LIBERATION THROUGH SOCIALIST REVOLUTION
FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Readers of this space may have noticed in my profile that I am a supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, an organization committed to the defense of and freedom for class war prisoners. The author of the book under review death row inmate, former Black Panther and a ‘voice for the voiceless’ Mumia Abu Jamal is currently the most publicized case of that organization as he faces continued threats to his life by the American justice system. Here he has written a lively and informative account of his ‘original sin’, joining the Black Panthers as a teenager, that has since then put him in the crosshairs of the government and its courts. While one can honestly disagree, as this writer does, about the politics of the Panthers (see the February 2007 archives for other Panther-related reviews) and about Mumia’s current political perspective this book demonstrates why there is an extremely good reason why he is called "the voice of the voiceless".
Apparently, when the government gets you in its sights you are there forever, especially if you are black. Mumia is not the only former Black Panther still in prison, only the most prominent (see Partisan Defense Committee website for others supported by this organization). Although his politics have changed their focus since his Panther youth one of the most inflammatory statements made by the prosecution in his Pennsylvania murder trial in 1982- supposedly to support a so-called ‘motive’ for his crime was his youthful membership in the Panthers. Accordingly, that made him some kind of 'kill-crazy' cop hater for life.
No, this characterization will not do. Like many black youth at the time the Panthers brought Mumia to political life at a time when thoughtful black militants were looking for a way forward in the black liberation struggle. That the Panthers could not succeed for various reasons described in the book does not negate their political, not criminal influence. One has to look to the government’s reaction to the Panthers if one wants to find serious life-threatening criminal activity.
Along with several other books I have been reading lately this book has made me think back to the days when we of the white left were head over heels in love with the Black Panthers as the epitome of revolutionary manhood (and it was mainly men although Mumia highlights some of the women influencial in the organization) and of revolutionary struggle. Well, as we are all painfully aware, those days are long gone although the goals fought for in those days are still desperately in need of completion. Thus, some thoughts about the ups and downs of the Black Panther experience, the most militant and subjectively revolutionary part of the black liberation movement of the 1960’s, and its role in the history of black liberation is in order. Mumia provides much anecdotal information, particularly about the rank and file and the effect that the Panther experience had on turning around some very tough lifestyle situations.
As any photograph taken of the Panthers from the period would demonstrate the Panthers and particularly the central leadership, Huey Newton, Bobby Searle, Eldridge Cleaver among others were not adverse to little provocative demonstrations or shock-value publicity. The FBI, however, early on had other plans for them and they were not pretty. If J. Edgar Hoover saw the placid Martin Luther King-led branch of the civil rights movement as some kind of communist conspiracy then he turned apoplectic at the thought of armed black men asserting their right to bear arms.
Since early slavery times that possibility of an armed uprising had always been the fear of whites and the response was no different this time. Over a very short period the Hoover-orchestrated federal and state drive against the Panthers left most of the key leaders and cadre dead, in jail, on bail or in hiding, This was not the first time a perceived leftist threat had been deal with this in this way. One can think of the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies) in the World War I period, the Communist and Anarchist ‘red scare’ raids and deportations after that war and more recently the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950’s. With this difference, however, in the case of the Panthers there was a concerted effort to kill off every one the government could get their hands on. Read here if you want to learn more about what that did to the organization, particularly as it, in self-defense, had to turn into a de facto legal defense organization. Read and re-read this book.
Click below to listen to Stanley Nelson speak
about his latest documentary –The Black
Panthers: Vanguard Of The Revolution on the Terry Gross show Fresh Air on NPR (Sept 24, 2015)
BOOK REVIEW
WE WANT FREEDOM: A LIFE IN THE BLACK PANTHER PARTY, MUMIA ABU-JAMAL, NEW YORK, 2005
BLACK LIBERATION THROUGH SOCIALIST REVOLUTION
FEBRUARY IS BLACK HISTORY MONTH
Readers of this space may have noticed in my profile that I am a supporter of the Partisan Defense Committee, an organization committed to the defense of and freedom for class war prisoners. The author of the book under review death row inmate, former Black Panther and a ‘voice for the voiceless’ Mumia Abu Jamal is currently the most publicized case of that organization as he faces continued threats to his life by the American justice system. Here he has written a lively and informative account of his ‘original sin’, joining the Black Panthers as a teenager, that has since then put him in the crosshairs of the government and its courts. While one can honestly disagree, as this writer does, about the politics of the Panthers (see the February 2007 archives for other Panther-related reviews) and about Mumia’s current political perspective this book demonstrates why there is an extremely good reason why he is called "the voice of the voiceless".
Apparently, when the government gets you in its sights you are there forever, especially if you are black. Mumia is not the only former Black Panther still in prison, only the most prominent (see Partisan Defense Committee website for others supported by this organization). Although his politics have changed their focus since his Panther youth one of the most inflammatory statements made by the prosecution in his Pennsylvania murder trial in 1982- supposedly to support a so-called ‘motive’ for his crime was his youthful membership in the Panthers. Accordingly, that made him some kind of 'kill-crazy' cop hater for life.
No, this characterization will not do. Like many black youth at the time the Panthers brought Mumia to political life at a time when thoughtful black militants were looking for a way forward in the black liberation struggle. That the Panthers could not succeed for various reasons described in the book does not negate their political, not criminal influence. One has to look to the government’s reaction to the Panthers if one wants to find serious life-threatening criminal activity.
Along with several other books I have been reading lately this book has made me think back to the days when we of the white left were head over heels in love with the Black Panthers as the epitome of revolutionary manhood (and it was mainly men although Mumia highlights some of the women influencial in the organization) and of revolutionary struggle. Well, as we are all painfully aware, those days are long gone although the goals fought for in those days are still desperately in need of completion. Thus, some thoughts about the ups and downs of the Black Panther experience, the most militant and subjectively revolutionary part of the black liberation movement of the 1960’s, and its role in the history of black liberation is in order. Mumia provides much anecdotal information, particularly about the rank and file and the effect that the Panther experience had on turning around some very tough lifestyle situations.
As any photograph taken of the Panthers from the period would demonstrate the Panthers and particularly the central leadership, Huey Newton, Bobby Searle, Eldridge Cleaver among others were not adverse to little provocative demonstrations or shock-value publicity. The FBI, however, early on had other plans for them and they were not pretty. If J. Edgar Hoover saw the placid Martin Luther King-led branch of the civil rights movement as some kind of communist conspiracy then he turned apoplectic at the thought of armed black men asserting their right to bear arms.
Since early slavery times that possibility of an armed uprising had always been the fear of whites and the response was no different this time. Over a very short period the Hoover-orchestrated federal and state drive against the Panthers left most of the key leaders and cadre dead, in jail, on bail or in hiding, This was not the first time a perceived leftist threat had been deal with this in this way. One can think of the Industrial Workers of the World (Wobblies) in the World War I period, the Communist and Anarchist ‘red scare’ raids and deportations after that war and more recently the anti-communist witch hunts of the 1950’s. With this difference, however, in the case of the Panthers there was a concerted effort to kill off every one the government could get their hands on. Read here if you want to learn more about what that did to the organization, particularly as it, in self-defense, had to turn into a de facto legal defense organization. Read and re-read this book.
Thursday, February 02, 2012
William Singletary, 65, Courageous Witness of Mumia's Innocence -Free Mumia Now!
William Singletary, 65, Courageous Witness of Mumia's Innocence
by Steven Argue
(
No verified email address) 12 Jan 2012
Modified: 03:22:51 PM
"I learned from William Singletary's wife, Jeannette, that he died this morning. Bill was a courageous man who lived fighting to make the truth known that Mumia is innocent in the shooting death of police officer Daniel Faulkner. For that Bill suffered severe personal and financial consequences. I've known Bill since June 1990 when he came forward with his eyewitness testimony for Mumia and as a witness at the PCRA hearing in 1995, when I was co-counsel for Mumia." -Rachel Wolkenstein
Click on image for a larger version
William Singletary, 65, Courageous Witness of Mumia's Innocence
Mumia is Innocent, Free Him Now!
By Steven Argue
William Singletary died on December 31, 2011 at 65 years of age. His wife, Jeannette, passed on this this final message to Mumia Abu-Jamal and all his supporters:
"I didn't know Mumia personally, but love him like a brother. I know what he's gone through and he is innocent. I would give up everything for Mumia to be free."
Mumia Abu-Jamal was framed and sentenced to death in 1981 for the murder of Officer Faulkner in Philadelphia. In 2011 the prosecution announced they would not seek to reinstate Mumia’s overturned death penalty, but Mumia continues to sit in prison for a murder he did not do. William Singletary, at great personal cost, helped reveal the truth of Mumia’s innocence.
William Singletary gave an eyewitness account of Mumia Abu-Jamal not being the shooter. He also gave an eyewitness account, one of many, of police threats and intimidation to obtain false testimony against Mumia Abu-Jamal. While William Singletary did sign a statement saying that Mumia did it on the night of the murder, he immediately stated after that he signed that statement under the duress of police threats. Of that statement he says, “That's what they made me say, I stayed in there [in a police interrogation room] from 4:30 to 9:30 a.m. and when I left, I felt like I had been raped.”
That night, while trying to intimidate William Singletary for refusing to lie about what he had seen, the police told William Singletary that they would beat him up in the elevator and destroy his business if he didn’t sign. He came out immediately after saying that what they forced him to sign was a lie. Cops with guns drawn then showed-up at his business, trashing his work place and hassling the drivers working for him. This police intimidation and harassment caused William Singletary to close his business. He then fled Philadelphia fearing for his life and the safety of his family.
William Singletary said he saw another man shoot Officer Faulkner, and it was not Mumia Abu-Jamal. He was in fact the only credible eyewitness to actually see who shot Officer Faulkner. He said that a man in a green army jacket got out of the VW stopped by police, shot Faulkner, and ran. This account was corroborated by other eyewitnesses as well as by physical evidence. Mumia Abu-Jamal was not wearing an army jacket that night and not riding in the VW. Nor did Mumia run away, he was shot and ran nowhere. The jacket Mumia was wearing is in evidence and it is a red quilted ski jacket with a couple blue stripes. Nor was William Cook, the driver of the VW, wearing a green army jacket.
The prosecution’s star witness, Cynthia White, gave two extremely different versions of events at two different trials. One version was given at William Cook’s trial, and a differing version at Mumia’s trial. At Cook’s trial she said there was a passenger in Cook’s VW. At Mumia’s trial she claimed there was no passenger.
In the case of Mumia, eyewitnesses have said that the passenger in Cook’s VW was one of the actual killers. Yet Mumia was not riding in the VW and the prosecution claims that Mumia was the lone killer. So in Mumia’s trial, it was useful for the prosecution to disappear the passenger from the testimony, despite White’s other testimony that there was a passenger. These two differing versions, obviously including perjured testimony, were cynically used by prosecutors to fit differing prosecutions.
There is also physical evidence of a passenger in the VW, evidence that was illegally suppressed by the prosecution for 13 years. That evidence was an ID found on the body of Officer Faulkner. It was in the name of Arnold Howard. At the time of the shooting, as a result of this evidence, Arnold Howard was arrested by the police and tested to see if he had fired a gun the night of the shooting (something interestingly enough never done to Mumia Abu-Jamal). Arnold Howard told the police that he had loaned his ID to Kenneth Freeman. (Transcript for August 11, 1995, pp. 130-131.)
Along with physical evidence, the VW driver, William Cook, also placed Kenneth Freeman as the passenger in the VW. In Cook’s signed declaration of what happened he also says Freeman was carrying a .38 that night. Cook went on to say, in that declaration, that after the shooting,
“Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] talked about a plan to kill Faulkner. He told me that he was armed on that night and participated in the shooting. He was connected and knew all kinds of people. I used to ask him about it but he talked but never said much. He wasn't a talker. I didn't see Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] for a while after that. Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] had been in Germany in the army. That night he was wearing his green army jacket.”
On May 14, 1985, according to the testimony of Arnold Howard, Kenneth Freeman’s naked corpse was found outside in the cold handcuffed. No investigation was carried out on Freeman’s death and the coroner reported the cause of death to be a heart attack. This has the appearance of an extra-judicial police murder of an actual killer of Officer Faulkner, but has not been investigated.
The prosecution’s version of events denies anyone on the scene wearing a green army jacket. Besides Singletary and Cook, five other eyewitnesses also put a man in a green army jacket on the scene. These were stake out Officer Forbes (the putative first officer to arrive), Officer Stephen Trembetta, Robert Magiltan, Michael Scanlan, and Arnold Beverly, who has confessed to being one of two people who killed Faulkner. Beverly states in his confession that he was also wearing a green army jacket that night as well.
In addition, the prosecution’s version of events denies anyone running from the scene. Six eyewitnesses contradict this by saying they saw men running from the scene. These would have been the real shooter or shooters. Those eyewitnesses are Dessie Hightower, William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, Arnold Beverly, and William Cook.
Before the trial, Veronica Jones changed her story before she testified. In her original version of events, contained in a report she gave to police, Veronica Jones said she saw two men running from the scene. Yet at the trial the two men running were missing from her testimony. This came as a complete surprise to the defense because Mumia’s supposed attorney, Anthony Jackson, did not even bother to interview witnesses before the trial. Earlier in the trial Mumia was denied his legal rights when his attempt to fire Anthony Jackson was denied by Judge Sabo.
Jones retracted her 1982 court testimony in 1996, saying that her original police report was the truth, and that she was coerced by the police into saying she didn’t see anybody running from the scene. She gave this testimony despite being forcefully reminded by Judge Sabo that her testimony could be seen as an admission of perjury and could land her seven years in prison. She was in fact arrested from the witness stand, but for a bounced check from a different state, being served with an insufficient warrant by out of state New Jersey State Troopers.
Despite the police harassment, and a review of her entire criminal history on the witness stand, including her life as a prostitute, Jones brought her children to court to learn from her mistakes. She explained that she was relieved to be setting things straight because what she did to Mumia with her false testimony had been eating her up inside over all those years.
On the stand, admitting to perjury, Jones explained that she was awaiting trial for an unrelated robbery charge in 1982 when police detectives approached her in her cell offering to give her a deal by changing her story as a witness in Mumia’s case. She had originally stated that she heard two shots, looked around the corner, and saw two men running from the scene. The two men running fit the version of William Singletary where he saw someone else shoot Mumia and run, but it didn’t fit the police/prosecution story being woven against Mumia.
She explained that the deal offered by the police was that she could go to prison for five to ten years and lose custody of her two young children or she could get out of the predicament by lying for the police saying that nobody was running from the scene.
Despite the importance of the testimony of Veronica Jones in Mumia’s case, both in corroborating eyewitnesses who say the actual killer or killers ran from the scene, and as another witness testifying to a clear pattern of police intimidation to acquire falsified testimony, Judge Sabo ruled in 1996 against her testimony being heard by a new jury trial.
Likewise, in the original trial, Sabo ruled in favor of prosecution objections when Veronica Jones was already admitting to being the target of the police in their attempts at gaining false testimony:
"I had got locked up [together with other prostitutes] I think it was in January [1982]. […] I think sometime after that incident. They were getting on me telling me I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do it, intentionally. They were trying to get me to say something that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I couldn’t do that."
As Jackson continued this questioning, Veronica Jones said, “we had brought up Cynthia [White]’s name and they told us we can work the area [as prostitutes] if we tell them [what the police wanted to hear].” At this point Judge Sabo ruled in favor of prosecutor McGill’s objections and would only allow further questions of Veronica Jones on what she saw the night of the shooting. As from the beginning of the trial, ruling after ruling has declared police misconduct is not open to scrutiny and a court of law is no place for evidence of Mumia’s innocence.
So it is established, with her contradictory stories, that Cynthia White was not telling the truth. This would be bad enough. But, in fact, none of the nine eyewitnesses who testified at the trial and subsequent hearings can remember seeing Cynthia White at the immediate scene at all. None, this includes the other prosecution witnesses.
William Singletary states that he saw her earlier down the street. When he saw her she said, “Hey, how you doing? It's cold out here.” Then noticing his car she said “a brand-new Cadillac Eldorado, 1982 model, wow, that's a great car! You ain't that bad-looking either. But I don't date black guys.” To which Singletary says he responded, “And I don't date prostitutes.” Singletary says that she then walked down the street and didn’t actually see the shooting. ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)
In fact, Cynthia White confessed to both Pamela Jenkins and Yvette Williams that she did not see the shooting and that the police put the screws to her to lie. In addition, a mountain of testimony shows a clear pattern by the police to try to get similar perjured testimony from other people.
In a hearing after the trial, Pamela Jenkins testified, “I know that Cynthia White worked as a prostitute in the Center City area, specifically at Locust and 13th Street, during 1980 and 1981, and that she was a prostitute, police informant, and turned tricks for the police officers in the district.”
If in fact Cynthia White was a police informant, and this information was withheld from the defense by the prosecution, that alone would be legal grounds for a new trial, but it gets much worse.
Jenkins testified at hearings in 1997 that Police Officer Thomas Ryan tried to make her testify that she saw Mumia shoot Officer Faulkner at the original trial, even though she was not at the scene of the shooting. Jenkins, 15 and a prostitute, was the girlfriend of Officer Ryan at that time. She also testified that she worked both as a prostitute for the police and as a police informant for the corrupt Center City Police.
Jenkins also testified that Cynthia White told her in late 1981 that she was also being pressured to testify against Mumia, and that White was afraid for her life. In a signed affidavit Jenkins states,
“Tom Ryan, Richard Ryan and other police officers pressured me and asked me if I had seen the shooting of the police officer and whether I had been in the area of the shooting that night. When I said 'no' they pressured (me) some more and asked me was I really sure that I hadn't been on the street that night and seen the shooting. It was clear to me that Tom Ryan and Richard Ryan wanted me to perjure myself and say that I had seen Jamal shoot the police officer."
Despite showing a clear intention by the police to frame Mumia, no jury has been allowed to hear Jenkins’ testimony in Mumia’s case. Not only is Pamela Jenkin's testimony essential evidence of a deliberate police conspiracy to frame Mumia by manufacturing perjured evidence, it also helps to destroy the testimony of the prosecution’s star witness, Cynthia White.
Jenkins' credibility has, however, been bolstered by the fact that she was a key witness used to unravel the massive police corruption in Center City District. Her testimony was instrumental in reversing the decisions of hundreds of cases of people thrown in prison through corrupt tactics and helped lead to the removal of the entire team of cops that led the “investigation” of Mumia’s case due to their corruption and mob connections. Unfortunately, what has overturned many other convictions is not being applied to the case of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Other eyewitnesses have said the same thing as Jenkins. In a signed affidavit Yvette Williams has stated,
“I was in jail with Cynthia White in December of 1981 after Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed. Cynthia White told me the police were making her lie and say she saw Mr. Jamal shoot Officer Faulkner when she really did not see who did it.”
Later in the Affidavit Yvette Williams states,
“When Lucky [Cynthia White] told me she didn’t even see who shot Officer Faulkner, I asked her why she was “lying on that man” [Mumia Abu-Jamal]. She told me it was because for the police and vice threatened her life. Additionally, the police were giving her money for tricks. “The way she talked, we were talking “G’s” [$1,000.00]. She also said she was terrified of what the police would do to her if she didn’t say that Mumia shot Officer Faulkner. According to Lucky, the police told her they would consolidate all her cases and send her “up” (Muncy), a women’s prison, for a long time if she didn’t testify to what they told her to say. Lucky told me she had a lot of open cases and out-of-state warrants and was scared of going to Muncy. She was scared that her pimp “would get pissed off” at all the money he was losing when she was locked up, and off the street. She was afraid that when she got out he would beat her up or kill her.”
According to legal papers filed by the defense,
“in the days after the shooting, [White] was arrested at least twice for prostitution. Her picture was posted in the 6th District with instructions for arresting officers to 'Contact Homicide'. Each time police picked White up and took her statement, she revised her story [on Faulkner's shooting]. Without explanation, bench warrants against her were not prosecuted.”
Pamela Jenkins has publicly asked Cynthia White to tell the truth stating:
“We know we can bring this down to a nutshell if you just come forward. We've all lost a lot by coming forward, I've lost somebody I love dearly... Just do it this one time, one favor, that's not asking a lot. Then maybe you can clean up your past, like the rest of us are doing.”
The prosecution does seem to be afraid of Cynthia White coming forward to tell the truth, and have presented false testimony of evidence that she is dead. In a hearing in Judge Sabo’s court, a Philadelphia police detective testified that the FBI had "authenticated" that a corpse had the same fingerprints as White. Yet the DA withheld the fingerprints at that time. When they finally produced them for the now cremated corpse, they didn’t match the fingerprints of Cynthia White.
Cynthia White’s own mother stated that the same corpse was not Cynthia White. Other eyewitnesses, that the defense attempted to have testify, testimony denied by Judge Sabo, had seen Cynthia White alive and walking around during the time she was supposed to be dead. Yet instead of hearing defense witnesses that stated that Cynthia White was alive, the only testimony Sabo would allow was the false testimony of the Philadelphia detective claiming “authenticated” fingerprints. Sabo snapped, “As far as I’m concerned she’s dead. I’m making a ruling. We’re finished.” Evidence has never meant much in Judge Sabo’s court, if the prosecution says she’s dead, she’s dead.
Judge Sabo was in fact heard by court reporter, Terri Maurer-Carter, telling another person during the time of Mumia’s trial saying, “I’ll help you fry the nigger”.
Besides Cynthia White, the only other “eyewitness” who said he saw Mumia kill Officer Faulkner was Robert Chobert.
Robert Chobert, a convicted arsonist who was driving on a suspended license and was on felony probation at the time of the shooting, has also recanted his testimony according to a sworn statement by prize winning investigator Mark Newman.
At the time of Mumia’s trial, Chobert was on felony probation for the firebombing of a school. Revocation of that probation could have meant over 20 years in prison. Chobert was in fact violating that probation by unlawfully driving his taxi on a suspended license that night. Thus, Chobert would have been easily manipulated by the police and/or by the prosecution.
Under penalty of perjury, Mike Newman stated in a signed affidavit that, “Chobert told me that he did not see anyone standing over a prone Officer Faulkner, firing shots at the officer. Chobert said that what actually happened was that he was sitting in his taxi when he heard gunfire.” And that he did not actually see the shooting.
According to that signed affidavit of Mike Newman, Chobert didn't see Mumia shoot Faulkner, wasn't parked behind Faulkner as he said he was at the trial, and that Chobert gave the police the false testimony they wanted in order to avoid having his parole revoked.
Physical evidence, as well as eyewitness testimony, proves that Chobert's cab was not parked behind Faulkner's as Chobert claimed in court. This evidence includes 31 photos taken by photojournalist Pedro Polakoff just minutes after the shooting. These photos clearly show that Chobert's cab was not parked behind Faulkner’s police car as Chobert had claimed in court.
That new evidence corroborated the testimony of Mike Newman when he stated, "Chobert told me that on December 9, 1981, he had actually been parked, in his taxi, on 13th Street, north of Locust (contradicting his trial testimony that he was parked behind Officer Faulkner's police car on Locust St., east of 13th Street.)" This is also relevant to Chobert not having the vantage for seeing the shooting.
Newman’s testimony is also corroborated by Chobert’s legal troubles and a clear pattern by the police to offer similar deals to other witnesses including three eyewitnesses, Pamela Jenkins, William Singletary, and Veronica Jones, stating publicly, and Cynthia White also stating privately, that they were coerced, threatened, or otherwise offered deals by the cops to give false testimony.
In fact Robert Chobert revealed at a 1995 PCRA hearing that Prosecutor McGill, while recognizing that Chobert had been driving on a suspended license at the time of the killing, had indicated that rather than prosecuting for the violation, he had promised to "look into" how Chobert could get his license reinstated. This would allow Chobert to continue his job as a taxi driver and kept him out of trouble for a parole violation. On the stand Chobert admitted that he believed McGill was intending to assist him. Yet information of a deal was not only wrongfully withheld from the jury, McGill mislead the jury further by asking, "What motivation would Robert Chobert have to make up a story?" So the jury was never allowed to hear that a deal was made with Chobert and Prosecutor McGill felt free to lie.
The police officer who got the “identification” of Mumia from Robert Chobert was Alfonzo Giordano. In the original police report Robert Chobert is said by Giordano to say it was the guy from MOVE that did it. Giordano was removed from the force and prosecuted for corruption related to the mob, a corruption probe that turned over many other police/prosecution convictions. In addition, Giordano had been involved in political operations against Philadelphia MOVE and the Black Panther Party. As such, Giordano would have instantly recognized Mumia, a former Black Panther and an independent journalist who had exposed police wrong doing against MOVE.
In a revealing set of moves, Giordano was never called as a witness at Mumia’s trial. This despite Giordano providing testimony at Mumia’s preliminary hearing of a “confession” in the van, despite his being the senior officer at the scene, despite his supposed firsthand identification of a witness, and despite his testimony of finding the “murder weapon”. During the trial Giordano was removed from active duty and assigned to a desk. The first working day after the trial was over Giordano resigned from the Philadelphia police force. In 1986 Giordano copped a plea on federal charges based on receiving tens of thousands of dollars in illegal payoffs during the 1979-80 period but didn’t spend any time in jail.
In addition to Giordono’s corruption, under racist Police Chief Frank Rizzo, Giordono was in charge of the Stake Out Unit of the Philadelphia Police that carried out repression against the Black Panther Party from 1968 –1970. Giordono also played a supervisory role in the 1977-78 police barricade and attack on the MOVE organization under Mayor Frank Rizzo. That police attack had followed earlier murders by the Philadelphia police of MOVE members and followed a long starvation blockade by the Philadelphia Police against the MOVE headquarters. In the police attack two MOVE members were shot, nine MOVE members were framed by the Philadelphia Police, MOVE children were stolen, and, as film footage shows, Delbert Africa was kicked and stomped by the police as he lay on the ground. In addition, Officer Ramp was shot and killed.
While nine MOVE members were railroaded to prison for the death of Officer Ramp, the evidence does not fit. The one bullet that killed Ramp came from behind and had a downward trajectory. Yet Ramp was facing the MOVE headquarters where MOVE members were in the basement and any bullets would have had an upward trajectory and hit him from in front.
Presiding over the kangaroo court that convicted the MOVE 9 was Judge Malmed. Shortly after the trial and conviction of the MOVE 9, Mumia, as an independent journalist, called in to a talk radio show where he asked Judge Malmed, “Who shot James Ramp?” Judge Malmed honestly answered, “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
In the attack on MOVE the police and Mayor Rizzo claimed that the first shots came from the MOVE headquarters, but the independent eyewitnesses including a number of journalists present, confirm what MOVE members and the physical evidence says, that the first shot came from across the street and not from the MOVE headquarters.
At Mayor Frank Rizzo’s victory press conference on the 1978 police attack, Frank Rizzo directly threatened Mumia Abu-Jamal when Mumia asked him a question. Mumia was present as a freelance journalist and asked the gloating Rizzo, “What about the brutality?” Instead of answering Mumia’s question Rizzo responded angrily with a threat: “They believe what you write, and what you say, and it's got to stop. And one day, and I hope it's in my career, that you're going to have to be held responsible and accountable for what you do.”
In addition to commanding this attack against MOVE, Giordono, earlier, then under Police Chief Rizzo, carried out surveillance of leftists including the Black Panther Party.
With Mumia having been a former member of the Black Panther Party and a high profile critic of police actions against MOVE, there is no question that officer Giordono would have instantly recognized Mumia at the crime scene. This would be one of the motives for Giordono to want to falsify testimony and other evidence to pin the murder on Mumia.
Giordono rode with Officer Trombetta with Mumia in the van to the hospital after Mumia had been shot and beaten by the police. Inspector Alfonso Giordano, this senior officer on the scene in charge of the Mumia “investigation”, reported that on that van ride Mumia had confessed to shooting Faulkner. Yet, Officer Trembetta was with Mumia during that entire van ride and, in direct contradiction to Giordano’s claim of a confession, reported that Mumia made no comment. With the van confession discredited, the prosecution manufactured new accounts of a confession at the hospital which were used during the trial. Those accounts have been thoroughly discredited by a number of eyewitnesses, yet the courts have refused to put that evidence in front of a jury as well. Giordano was removed from the Philadelphia Police and prosecuted for corruption immediately after Mumia’s trial.
A number of other well-known political frame-ups have occurred in the United States. The prosecution of Mumia fits the pattern of the FBI’s COINTELPRO program against the Black Panther Party (BPP), where local law enforcement worked with the FBI in murdering some BPP leaders in cold blood, such as Fred Hampton in Chicago, and knowingly framed and prosecuted other innocent BPP members, such as Geronimo ji Jagga in LA who spent 30 years in prison before he was exonerated of the false charges against him and freed.
A possible additional possible double motive for framing Mumia can be found in the confession of Arnold Beverly. Beverly stated, “I was hired, along with another guy, and paid to shoot and kill Faulkner. I had heard that Faulkner was a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity including prostitution, gambling, drugs without prosecution in the center city area.”
Beverly’s testimony is corroborated by, among other things, police corruption, three separate FBI investigations of police corruption in the Center City area at the time, evidence of fear that Faulkner was an FBI informant, evidence that Faulkner was an FBI informant, and the murder of other witnesses involved in cases against the Center City Police at that time. One of those murders was of Bertram Schlein, an eyewitness who testified against Central Division Chief John DeBenedetto. A suspect in that murder was Kenneth Schwartz, a former police officer and reported associate of Inspector Alfonzo Giordono.
A former Philadelphia Police Officer turned mob hit man, Ronald Previte, has testified as a government informant on mob killings. Previte stated that during his ten years as a Philadelphia cop he “learned more about being a crook” than any other time in his life.
If the police were in fact involved in the murder of Police Officer Faulkner, this would mean that they would not be interested in finding the actual killer. They would want to pin the murder on someone else, and who better in the eyes of Giordano than his journalistic critic, Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Whatever the exact motive or motives, the mountain of police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct in this case proves that the criminal “justice” system both had (and has) no interest in finding the real killer or killers while at the same time desiring to imprison and execute an innocent man.
Despite great personal cost, William Singletary stuck to his story and told the truth. He stands as an exemplary fighter in the struggle for justice.
The Revolutionary Tendency of the Socialist Party (RT-SP) demands: Freedom for all political prisoners including Mumia Abu-Jamal! And we call for an end to the corrupt, repressive, and brutal police occupations of communities of color throughout the United States through the abolition of all current police forces and the building of new ones controlled by the people through a new revolutionary proletarian democracy. Join the RT-SP.
For more information on the RT-SP see:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/01/07/18704314.php
For more information on what you can work for Mumia’s freedom, see:
http://www.laboractionmumia.org/index.html
This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
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by Steven Argue
(
No verified email address) 12 Jan 2012
Modified: 03:22:51 PM
"I learned from William Singletary's wife, Jeannette, that he died this morning. Bill was a courageous man who lived fighting to make the truth known that Mumia is innocent in the shooting death of police officer Daniel Faulkner. For that Bill suffered severe personal and financial consequences. I've known Bill since June 1990 when he came forward with his eyewitness testimony for Mumia and as a witness at the PCRA hearing in 1995, when I was co-counsel for Mumia." -Rachel Wolkenstein
Click on image for a larger version
William Singletary, 65, Courageous Witness of Mumia's Innocence
Mumia is Innocent, Free Him Now!
By Steven Argue
William Singletary died on December 31, 2011 at 65 years of age. His wife, Jeannette, passed on this this final message to Mumia Abu-Jamal and all his supporters:
"I didn't know Mumia personally, but love him like a brother. I know what he's gone through and he is innocent. I would give up everything for Mumia to be free."
Mumia Abu-Jamal was framed and sentenced to death in 1981 for the murder of Officer Faulkner in Philadelphia. In 2011 the prosecution announced they would not seek to reinstate Mumia’s overturned death penalty, but Mumia continues to sit in prison for a murder he did not do. William Singletary, at great personal cost, helped reveal the truth of Mumia’s innocence.
William Singletary gave an eyewitness account of Mumia Abu-Jamal not being the shooter. He also gave an eyewitness account, one of many, of police threats and intimidation to obtain false testimony against Mumia Abu-Jamal. While William Singletary did sign a statement saying that Mumia did it on the night of the murder, he immediately stated after that he signed that statement under the duress of police threats. Of that statement he says, “That's what they made me say, I stayed in there [in a police interrogation room] from 4:30 to 9:30 a.m. and when I left, I felt like I had been raped.”
That night, while trying to intimidate William Singletary for refusing to lie about what he had seen, the police told William Singletary that they would beat him up in the elevator and destroy his business if he didn’t sign. He came out immediately after saying that what they forced him to sign was a lie. Cops with guns drawn then showed-up at his business, trashing his work place and hassling the drivers working for him. This police intimidation and harassment caused William Singletary to close his business. He then fled Philadelphia fearing for his life and the safety of his family.
William Singletary said he saw another man shoot Officer Faulkner, and it was not Mumia Abu-Jamal. He was in fact the only credible eyewitness to actually see who shot Officer Faulkner. He said that a man in a green army jacket got out of the VW stopped by police, shot Faulkner, and ran. This account was corroborated by other eyewitnesses as well as by physical evidence. Mumia Abu-Jamal was not wearing an army jacket that night and not riding in the VW. Nor did Mumia run away, he was shot and ran nowhere. The jacket Mumia was wearing is in evidence and it is a red quilted ski jacket with a couple blue stripes. Nor was William Cook, the driver of the VW, wearing a green army jacket.
The prosecution’s star witness, Cynthia White, gave two extremely different versions of events at two different trials. One version was given at William Cook’s trial, and a differing version at Mumia’s trial. At Cook’s trial she said there was a passenger in Cook’s VW. At Mumia’s trial she claimed there was no passenger.
In the case of Mumia, eyewitnesses have said that the passenger in Cook’s VW was one of the actual killers. Yet Mumia was not riding in the VW and the prosecution claims that Mumia was the lone killer. So in Mumia’s trial, it was useful for the prosecution to disappear the passenger from the testimony, despite White’s other testimony that there was a passenger. These two differing versions, obviously including perjured testimony, were cynically used by prosecutors to fit differing prosecutions.
There is also physical evidence of a passenger in the VW, evidence that was illegally suppressed by the prosecution for 13 years. That evidence was an ID found on the body of Officer Faulkner. It was in the name of Arnold Howard. At the time of the shooting, as a result of this evidence, Arnold Howard was arrested by the police and tested to see if he had fired a gun the night of the shooting (something interestingly enough never done to Mumia Abu-Jamal). Arnold Howard told the police that he had loaned his ID to Kenneth Freeman. (Transcript for August 11, 1995, pp. 130-131.)
Along with physical evidence, the VW driver, William Cook, also placed Kenneth Freeman as the passenger in the VW. In Cook’s signed declaration of what happened he also says Freeman was carrying a .38 that night. Cook went on to say, in that declaration, that after the shooting,
“Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] talked about a plan to kill Faulkner. He told me that he was armed on that night and participated in the shooting. He was connected and knew all kinds of people. I used to ask him about it but he talked but never said much. He wasn't a talker. I didn't see Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] for a while after that. Poppi [Kenneth Freeman] had been in Germany in the army. That night he was wearing his green army jacket.”
On May 14, 1985, according to the testimony of Arnold Howard, Kenneth Freeman’s naked corpse was found outside in the cold handcuffed. No investigation was carried out on Freeman’s death and the coroner reported the cause of death to be a heart attack. This has the appearance of an extra-judicial police murder of an actual killer of Officer Faulkner, but has not been investigated.
The prosecution’s version of events denies anyone on the scene wearing a green army jacket. Besides Singletary and Cook, five other eyewitnesses also put a man in a green army jacket on the scene. These were stake out Officer Forbes (the putative first officer to arrive), Officer Stephen Trembetta, Robert Magiltan, Michael Scanlan, and Arnold Beverly, who has confessed to being one of two people who killed Faulkner. Beverly states in his confession that he was also wearing a green army jacket that night as well.
In addition, the prosecution’s version of events denies anyone running from the scene. Six eyewitnesses contradict this by saying they saw men running from the scene. These would have been the real shooter or shooters. Those eyewitnesses are Dessie Hightower, William Singletary, Veronica Jones, Robert Chobert, Arnold Beverly, and William Cook.
Before the trial, Veronica Jones changed her story before she testified. In her original version of events, contained in a report she gave to police, Veronica Jones said she saw two men running from the scene. Yet at the trial the two men running were missing from her testimony. This came as a complete surprise to the defense because Mumia’s supposed attorney, Anthony Jackson, did not even bother to interview witnesses before the trial. Earlier in the trial Mumia was denied his legal rights when his attempt to fire Anthony Jackson was denied by Judge Sabo.
Jones retracted her 1982 court testimony in 1996, saying that her original police report was the truth, and that she was coerced by the police into saying she didn’t see anybody running from the scene. She gave this testimony despite being forcefully reminded by Judge Sabo that her testimony could be seen as an admission of perjury and could land her seven years in prison. She was in fact arrested from the witness stand, but for a bounced check from a different state, being served with an insufficient warrant by out of state New Jersey State Troopers.
Despite the police harassment, and a review of her entire criminal history on the witness stand, including her life as a prostitute, Jones brought her children to court to learn from her mistakes. She explained that she was relieved to be setting things straight because what she did to Mumia with her false testimony had been eating her up inside over all those years.
On the stand, admitting to perjury, Jones explained that she was awaiting trial for an unrelated robbery charge in 1982 when police detectives approached her in her cell offering to give her a deal by changing her story as a witness in Mumia’s case. She had originally stated that she heard two shots, looked around the corner, and saw two men running from the scene. The two men running fit the version of William Singletary where he saw someone else shoot Mumia and run, but it didn’t fit the police/prosecution story being woven against Mumia.
She explained that the deal offered by the police was that she could go to prison for five to ten years and lose custody of her two young children or she could get out of the predicament by lying for the police saying that nobody was running from the scene.
Despite the importance of the testimony of Veronica Jones in Mumia’s case, both in corroborating eyewitnesses who say the actual killer or killers ran from the scene, and as another witness testifying to a clear pattern of police intimidation to acquire falsified testimony, Judge Sabo ruled in 1996 against her testimony being heard by a new jury trial.
Likewise, in the original trial, Sabo ruled in favor of prosecution objections when Veronica Jones was already admitting to being the target of the police in their attempts at gaining false testimony:
"I had got locked up [together with other prostitutes] I think it was in January [1982]. […] I think sometime after that incident. They were getting on me telling me I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do it, intentionally. They were trying to get me to say something that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I couldn’t do that."
As Jackson continued this questioning, Veronica Jones said, “we had brought up Cynthia [White]’s name and they told us we can work the area [as prostitutes] if we tell them [what the police wanted to hear].” At this point Judge Sabo ruled in favor of prosecutor McGill’s objections and would only allow further questions of Veronica Jones on what she saw the night of the shooting. As from the beginning of the trial, ruling after ruling has declared police misconduct is not open to scrutiny and a court of law is no place for evidence of Mumia’s innocence.
So it is established, with her contradictory stories, that Cynthia White was not telling the truth. This would be bad enough. But, in fact, none of the nine eyewitnesses who testified at the trial and subsequent hearings can remember seeing Cynthia White at the immediate scene at all. None, this includes the other prosecution witnesses.
William Singletary states that he saw her earlier down the street. When he saw her she said, “Hey, how you doing? It's cold out here.” Then noticing his car she said “a brand-new Cadillac Eldorado, 1982 model, wow, that's a great car! You ain't that bad-looking either. But I don't date black guys.” To which Singletary says he responded, “And I don't date prostitutes.” Singletary says that she then walked down the street and didn’t actually see the shooting. ("Witness: Abu-Jamal didn't do it" Philadelphia Daily News Dec. 8, 2006)
In fact, Cynthia White confessed to both Pamela Jenkins and Yvette Williams that she did not see the shooting and that the police put the screws to her to lie. In addition, a mountain of testimony shows a clear pattern by the police to try to get similar perjured testimony from other people.
In a hearing after the trial, Pamela Jenkins testified, “I know that Cynthia White worked as a prostitute in the Center City area, specifically at Locust and 13th Street, during 1980 and 1981, and that she was a prostitute, police informant, and turned tricks for the police officers in the district.”
If in fact Cynthia White was a police informant, and this information was withheld from the defense by the prosecution, that alone would be legal grounds for a new trial, but it gets much worse.
Jenkins testified at hearings in 1997 that Police Officer Thomas Ryan tried to make her testify that she saw Mumia shoot Officer Faulkner at the original trial, even though she was not at the scene of the shooting. Jenkins, 15 and a prostitute, was the girlfriend of Officer Ryan at that time. She also testified that she worked both as a prostitute for the police and as a police informant for the corrupt Center City Police.
Jenkins also testified that Cynthia White told her in late 1981 that she was also being pressured to testify against Mumia, and that White was afraid for her life. In a signed affidavit Jenkins states,
“Tom Ryan, Richard Ryan and other police officers pressured me and asked me if I had seen the shooting of the police officer and whether I had been in the area of the shooting that night. When I said 'no' they pressured (me) some more and asked me was I really sure that I hadn't been on the street that night and seen the shooting. It was clear to me that Tom Ryan and Richard Ryan wanted me to perjure myself and say that I had seen Jamal shoot the police officer."
Despite showing a clear intention by the police to frame Mumia, no jury has been allowed to hear Jenkins’ testimony in Mumia’s case. Not only is Pamela Jenkin's testimony essential evidence of a deliberate police conspiracy to frame Mumia by manufacturing perjured evidence, it also helps to destroy the testimony of the prosecution’s star witness, Cynthia White.
Jenkins' credibility has, however, been bolstered by the fact that she was a key witness used to unravel the massive police corruption in Center City District. Her testimony was instrumental in reversing the decisions of hundreds of cases of people thrown in prison through corrupt tactics and helped lead to the removal of the entire team of cops that led the “investigation” of Mumia’s case due to their corruption and mob connections. Unfortunately, what has overturned many other convictions is not being applied to the case of political prisoner Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Other eyewitnesses have said the same thing as Jenkins. In a signed affidavit Yvette Williams has stated,
“I was in jail with Cynthia White in December of 1981 after Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed. Cynthia White told me the police were making her lie and say she saw Mr. Jamal shoot Officer Faulkner when she really did not see who did it.”
Later in the Affidavit Yvette Williams states,
“When Lucky [Cynthia White] told me she didn’t even see who shot Officer Faulkner, I asked her why she was “lying on that man” [Mumia Abu-Jamal]. She told me it was because for the police and vice threatened her life. Additionally, the police were giving her money for tricks. “The way she talked, we were talking “G’s” [$1,000.00]. She also said she was terrified of what the police would do to her if she didn’t say that Mumia shot Officer Faulkner. According to Lucky, the police told her they would consolidate all her cases and send her “up” (Muncy), a women’s prison, for a long time if she didn’t testify to what they told her to say. Lucky told me she had a lot of open cases and out-of-state warrants and was scared of going to Muncy. She was scared that her pimp “would get pissed off” at all the money he was losing when she was locked up, and off the street. She was afraid that when she got out he would beat her up or kill her.”
According to legal papers filed by the defense,
“in the days after the shooting, [White] was arrested at least twice for prostitution. Her picture was posted in the 6th District with instructions for arresting officers to 'Contact Homicide'. Each time police picked White up and took her statement, she revised her story [on Faulkner's shooting]. Without explanation, bench warrants against her were not prosecuted.”
Pamela Jenkins has publicly asked Cynthia White to tell the truth stating:
“We know we can bring this down to a nutshell if you just come forward. We've all lost a lot by coming forward, I've lost somebody I love dearly... Just do it this one time, one favor, that's not asking a lot. Then maybe you can clean up your past, like the rest of us are doing.”
The prosecution does seem to be afraid of Cynthia White coming forward to tell the truth, and have presented false testimony of evidence that she is dead. In a hearing in Judge Sabo’s court, a Philadelphia police detective testified that the FBI had "authenticated" that a corpse had the same fingerprints as White. Yet the DA withheld the fingerprints at that time. When they finally produced them for the now cremated corpse, they didn’t match the fingerprints of Cynthia White.
Cynthia White’s own mother stated that the same corpse was not Cynthia White. Other eyewitnesses, that the defense attempted to have testify, testimony denied by Judge Sabo, had seen Cynthia White alive and walking around during the time she was supposed to be dead. Yet instead of hearing defense witnesses that stated that Cynthia White was alive, the only testimony Sabo would allow was the false testimony of the Philadelphia detective claiming “authenticated” fingerprints. Sabo snapped, “As far as I’m concerned she’s dead. I’m making a ruling. We’re finished.” Evidence has never meant much in Judge Sabo’s court, if the prosecution says she’s dead, she’s dead.
Judge Sabo was in fact heard by court reporter, Terri Maurer-Carter, telling another person during the time of Mumia’s trial saying, “I’ll help you fry the nigger”.
Besides Cynthia White, the only other “eyewitness” who said he saw Mumia kill Officer Faulkner was Robert Chobert.
Robert Chobert, a convicted arsonist who was driving on a suspended license and was on felony probation at the time of the shooting, has also recanted his testimony according to a sworn statement by prize winning investigator Mark Newman.
At the time of Mumia’s trial, Chobert was on felony probation for the firebombing of a school. Revocation of that probation could have meant over 20 years in prison. Chobert was in fact violating that probation by unlawfully driving his taxi on a suspended license that night. Thus, Chobert would have been easily manipulated by the police and/or by the prosecution.
Under penalty of perjury, Mike Newman stated in a signed affidavit that, “Chobert told me that he did not see anyone standing over a prone Officer Faulkner, firing shots at the officer. Chobert said that what actually happened was that he was sitting in his taxi when he heard gunfire.” And that he did not actually see the shooting.
According to that signed affidavit of Mike Newman, Chobert didn't see Mumia shoot Faulkner, wasn't parked behind Faulkner as he said he was at the trial, and that Chobert gave the police the false testimony they wanted in order to avoid having his parole revoked.
Physical evidence, as well as eyewitness testimony, proves that Chobert's cab was not parked behind Faulkner's as Chobert claimed in court. This evidence includes 31 photos taken by photojournalist Pedro Polakoff just minutes after the shooting. These photos clearly show that Chobert's cab was not parked behind Faulkner’s police car as Chobert had claimed in court.
That new evidence corroborated the testimony of Mike Newman when he stated, "Chobert told me that on December 9, 1981, he had actually been parked, in his taxi, on 13th Street, north of Locust (contradicting his trial testimony that he was parked behind Officer Faulkner's police car on Locust St., east of 13th Street.)" This is also relevant to Chobert not having the vantage for seeing the shooting.
Newman’s testimony is also corroborated by Chobert’s legal troubles and a clear pattern by the police to offer similar deals to other witnesses including three eyewitnesses, Pamela Jenkins, William Singletary, and Veronica Jones, stating publicly, and Cynthia White also stating privately, that they were coerced, threatened, or otherwise offered deals by the cops to give false testimony.
In fact Robert Chobert revealed at a 1995 PCRA hearing that Prosecutor McGill, while recognizing that Chobert had been driving on a suspended license at the time of the killing, had indicated that rather than prosecuting for the violation, he had promised to "look into" how Chobert could get his license reinstated. This would allow Chobert to continue his job as a taxi driver and kept him out of trouble for a parole violation. On the stand Chobert admitted that he believed McGill was intending to assist him. Yet information of a deal was not only wrongfully withheld from the jury, McGill mislead the jury further by asking, "What motivation would Robert Chobert have to make up a story?" So the jury was never allowed to hear that a deal was made with Chobert and Prosecutor McGill felt free to lie.
The police officer who got the “identification” of Mumia from Robert Chobert was Alfonzo Giordano. In the original police report Robert Chobert is said by Giordano to say it was the guy from MOVE that did it. Giordano was removed from the force and prosecuted for corruption related to the mob, a corruption probe that turned over many other police/prosecution convictions. In addition, Giordano had been involved in political operations against Philadelphia MOVE and the Black Panther Party. As such, Giordano would have instantly recognized Mumia, a former Black Panther and an independent journalist who had exposed police wrong doing against MOVE.
In a revealing set of moves, Giordano was never called as a witness at Mumia’s trial. This despite Giordano providing testimony at Mumia’s preliminary hearing of a “confession” in the van, despite his being the senior officer at the scene, despite his supposed firsthand identification of a witness, and despite his testimony of finding the “murder weapon”. During the trial Giordano was removed from active duty and assigned to a desk. The first working day after the trial was over Giordano resigned from the Philadelphia police force. In 1986 Giordano copped a plea on federal charges based on receiving tens of thousands of dollars in illegal payoffs during the 1979-80 period but didn’t spend any time in jail.
In addition to Giordono’s corruption, under racist Police Chief Frank Rizzo, Giordono was in charge of the Stake Out Unit of the Philadelphia Police that carried out repression against the Black Panther Party from 1968 –1970. Giordono also played a supervisory role in the 1977-78 police barricade and attack on the MOVE organization under Mayor Frank Rizzo. That police attack had followed earlier murders by the Philadelphia police of MOVE members and followed a long starvation blockade by the Philadelphia Police against the MOVE headquarters. In the police attack two MOVE members were shot, nine MOVE members were framed by the Philadelphia Police, MOVE children were stolen, and, as film footage shows, Delbert Africa was kicked and stomped by the police as he lay on the ground. In addition, Officer Ramp was shot and killed.
While nine MOVE members were railroaded to prison for the death of Officer Ramp, the evidence does not fit. The one bullet that killed Ramp came from behind and had a downward trajectory. Yet Ramp was facing the MOVE headquarters where MOVE members were in the basement and any bullets would have had an upward trajectory and hit him from in front.
Presiding over the kangaroo court that convicted the MOVE 9 was Judge Malmed. Shortly after the trial and conviction of the MOVE 9, Mumia, as an independent journalist, called in to a talk radio show where he asked Judge Malmed, “Who shot James Ramp?” Judge Malmed honestly answered, “I haven’t the faintest idea.”
In the attack on MOVE the police and Mayor Rizzo claimed that the first shots came from the MOVE headquarters, but the independent eyewitnesses including a number of journalists present, confirm what MOVE members and the physical evidence says, that the first shot came from across the street and not from the MOVE headquarters.
At Mayor Frank Rizzo’s victory press conference on the 1978 police attack, Frank Rizzo directly threatened Mumia Abu-Jamal when Mumia asked him a question. Mumia was present as a freelance journalist and asked the gloating Rizzo, “What about the brutality?” Instead of answering Mumia’s question Rizzo responded angrily with a threat: “They believe what you write, and what you say, and it's got to stop. And one day, and I hope it's in my career, that you're going to have to be held responsible and accountable for what you do.”
In addition to commanding this attack against MOVE, Giordono, earlier, then under Police Chief Rizzo, carried out surveillance of leftists including the Black Panther Party.
With Mumia having been a former member of the Black Panther Party and a high profile critic of police actions against MOVE, there is no question that officer Giordono would have instantly recognized Mumia at the crime scene. This would be one of the motives for Giordono to want to falsify testimony and other evidence to pin the murder on Mumia.
Giordono rode with Officer Trombetta with Mumia in the van to the hospital after Mumia had been shot and beaten by the police. Inspector Alfonso Giordano, this senior officer on the scene in charge of the Mumia “investigation”, reported that on that van ride Mumia had confessed to shooting Faulkner. Yet, Officer Trembetta was with Mumia during that entire van ride and, in direct contradiction to Giordano’s claim of a confession, reported that Mumia made no comment. With the van confession discredited, the prosecution manufactured new accounts of a confession at the hospital which were used during the trial. Those accounts have been thoroughly discredited by a number of eyewitnesses, yet the courts have refused to put that evidence in front of a jury as well. Giordano was removed from the Philadelphia Police and prosecuted for corruption immediately after Mumia’s trial.
A number of other well-known political frame-ups have occurred in the United States. The prosecution of Mumia fits the pattern of the FBI’s COINTELPRO program against the Black Panther Party (BPP), where local law enforcement worked with the FBI in murdering some BPP leaders in cold blood, such as Fred Hampton in Chicago, and knowingly framed and prosecuted other innocent BPP members, such as Geronimo ji Jagga in LA who spent 30 years in prison before he was exonerated of the false charges against him and freed.
A possible additional possible double motive for framing Mumia can be found in the confession of Arnold Beverly. Beverly stated, “I was hired, along with another guy, and paid to shoot and kill Faulkner. I had heard that Faulkner was a problem for the mob and corrupt policemen because he interfered with the graft and payoffs made to allow illegal activity including prostitution, gambling, drugs without prosecution in the center city area.”
Beverly’s testimony is corroborated by, among other things, police corruption, three separate FBI investigations of police corruption in the Center City area at the time, evidence of fear that Faulkner was an FBI informant, evidence that Faulkner was an FBI informant, and the murder of other witnesses involved in cases against the Center City Police at that time. One of those murders was of Bertram Schlein, an eyewitness who testified against Central Division Chief John DeBenedetto. A suspect in that murder was Kenneth Schwartz, a former police officer and reported associate of Inspector Alfonzo Giordono.
A former Philadelphia Police Officer turned mob hit man, Ronald Previte, has testified as a government informant on mob killings. Previte stated that during his ten years as a Philadelphia cop he “learned more about being a crook” than any other time in his life.
If the police were in fact involved in the murder of Police Officer Faulkner, this would mean that they would not be interested in finding the actual killer. They would want to pin the murder on someone else, and who better in the eyes of Giordano than his journalistic critic, Mumia Abu-Jamal.
Whatever the exact motive or motives, the mountain of police, prosecutorial, and judicial misconduct in this case proves that the criminal “justice” system both had (and has) no interest in finding the real killer or killers while at the same time desiring to imprison and execute an innocent man.
Despite great personal cost, William Singletary stuck to his story and told the truth. He stands as an exemplary fighter in the struggle for justice.
The Revolutionary Tendency of the Socialist Party (RT-SP) demands: Freedom for all political prisoners including Mumia Abu-Jamal! And we call for an end to the corrupt, repressive, and brutal police occupations of communities of color throughout the United States through the abolition of all current police forces and the building of new ones controlled by the people through a new revolutionary proletarian democracy. Join the RT-SP.
For more information on the RT-SP see:
http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2012/01/07/18704314.php
For more information on what you can work for Mumia’s freedom, see:
http://www.laboractionmumia.org/index.html
This is an article of Liberation News, subscribe free:
https://lists.riseup.net/www/info/liberation_news
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Wednesday, December 07, 2011
From The AP-DA dropping death penalty against Mumia Abu-Jamal
Markin comment:
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man. Free Mumia!
**********
DA dropping death penalty against Mumia Abu-Jamal
KATHY MATHESON, AP
32 minutes ago
PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors have called off their 30-year battle to execute former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal for murdering a white police officer, putting to an end the racially charged case that became a major battleground in the fight over the death penalty.
Flanked by the police Officer Daniel Faulkner's widow, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced his decision Wednesday, just two days short of the 30th anniversary of the killing. He said continuing to seek death penalty would open the case to "an unknowable number of years" of appeals.
"There's never been any doubt in my mind that Mumia Abu-Jamal shot and killed Officer Faulkner. I believe that the appropriate sentence was handed down by a jury of his peers in 1982," said Williams, the city's first black district attorney. "While Abu-Jamal will no longer be facing the death penalty, he will remain behind bars for the rest of his life, and that is where he belongs."
Abu-Jamal was convicted of fatally shooting Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981. He was sentenced to death after his trial the following year.
Abu-Jamal, who has been incarcerated in a western Pennsylvania prison, has garnered worldwide support from those who believe he was the victim of a racially biased justice system.
The conviction was upheld through years of legal appeals. But a federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing after ruling the instructions given to the jury were potentially misleading.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to weigh in on the case in October. That forced prosecutors to decide if they wanted to again pursue the death penalty through a new sentencing hearing or accept a life sentence.
Williams said he reached the decision to drop the death penalty bid with the blessing of Maureen Faulkner, who said another sentencing hearing would undoubtedly be just the beginning of another long, arduous appeals process.
"Another penalty proceeding would open the case to the repetition of the state appeals process and an unknowable number of years of federal review again, even if we were successful," Williams said. He also said that after nearly three decades, some witnesses have died or are otherwise unreliable.
Widener University law professor Judith Ritter, who represented Abu-Jamal in recent appeals, applauded the decision.
"There is no question that justice is served when a death sentence from a misinformed jury is overturned," Ritter said. "Thirty years later, the district attorney's decision not to seek a new death sentence also furthers the interests of justice."
According to trial testimony, Abu-Jamal saw his brother scuffle with the young patrolman during a 4 a.m. traffic stop in 1981 and ran toward the scene. Police found Abu-Jamal wounded by a round from Faulkner's gun. Faulkner, shot several times, was killed. A .38-caliber revolver registered to Abu-Jamal was found at the scene with five spent shell casings.
The officer's widow, Maureen Faulkner, has tried to remain visible over the years to ensure that her husband is not forgotten. They were 25-year-old newlyweds when he died.
"My family and I have endured a three-decade ordeal at the hands of Mumia Abu-Jamal, his attorneys and his supporters, who in many cases never even took the time to educate themselves about the case before lending their names, giving their support and advocating for his freedom," Maureen Faulkner said Wednesday. "All of this has taken an unimaginable physical, emotional and financial toll on each of us."
Abu-Jamal, born Wesley Cook, turned 58 earlier this year.
His writings and radio broadcasts from death row made him a cause celebre and the subject of numerous books and movies. His own 1995 book, "Live From Death Row," describes prison life and calls the justice system racist and ruled by political expediency.
Abu-Jamal, a one-time journalist, garnered worldwide support from the "Free Mumia" movement. Hundreds of vocal supporters and death-penalty opponents regularly turn out for court hearings in his case, even though Abu-Jamal is rarely entitled to attend.
His message resonated particularly on college campuses and in the movie and music industries — actors Mike Farrell and Tim Robbins were among dozens of luminaries who used a New York Times ad to advocate for a new trial, and the Beastie Boys played a concert to raise money for Abu-Jamal's defense fund.
Over the years, Abu-Jamal has challenged the predominantly white makeup of the jury, instructions given to jurors and the statements of eyewitnesses. He has also alleged ineffective counsel, racism by the trial judge and that another man confessed to the crime.
Maureen Faulkner railed against what she called the justice system's "dirty little secret" — the difficulty of putting condemned killers to death. Pennsylvania has put to death three people since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, and all three had willingly given up on their appeals.
Faulkner lashed out at the judges who overturned Abu-Jamal's death sentence, calling them "dishonest cowards" who, she said, oppose the death penalty.
"The disgusting reality with the death penalty in Pennsylvania is that the fix is in before the hearing even begins," she said.
Faulkner also vowed to fight anyone who tries to extract special treatment for Abu-Jamal, advocating instead that he be moved to the general population after being taken off death row.
"I will not stand by and see him coddled, as he has been in the past," Faulkner said. "And I am heartened that he will be taken from the protective cloister he has been living in all these years and begin living among his own kind — the thugs and common criminals that infest our prisons."
Both sides have events planned to mark the anniversary of Faulkner's death and Abu-Jamal's subsequent arrest.
Supporters of Abu-Jamal, including Princeton professor Cornel West, have a symposium planned Friday at the National Constitution Center for the man they call an "innocent revolutionary and celebrated journalist."
Maureen Faulkner, Williams and others involved in the prosecution will gather in suburban Philadelphia to mark the anniversary this week for a screening of the anti-Mumia documentary by Philadelphia filmmaker Tigre Hill.
___
Associated Press writer Maryclaire Dale contributed to this story.
Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man. Free Mumia!
**********
DA dropping death penalty against Mumia Abu-Jamal
KATHY MATHESON, AP
32 minutes ago
PHILADELPHIA — Prosecutors have called off their 30-year battle to execute former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal for murdering a white police officer, putting to an end the racially charged case that became a major battleground in the fight over the death penalty.
Flanked by the police Officer Daniel Faulkner's widow, Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced his decision Wednesday, just two days short of the 30th anniversary of the killing. He said continuing to seek death penalty would open the case to "an unknowable number of years" of appeals.
"There's never been any doubt in my mind that Mumia Abu-Jamal shot and killed Officer Faulkner. I believe that the appropriate sentence was handed down by a jury of his peers in 1982," said Williams, the city's first black district attorney. "While Abu-Jamal will no longer be facing the death penalty, he will remain behind bars for the rest of his life, and that is where he belongs."
Abu-Jamal was convicted of fatally shooting Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981. He was sentenced to death after his trial the following year.
Abu-Jamal, who has been incarcerated in a western Pennsylvania prison, has garnered worldwide support from those who believe he was the victim of a racially biased justice system.
The conviction was upheld through years of legal appeals. But a federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing after ruling the instructions given to the jury were potentially misleading.
The U.S. Supreme Court declined to weigh in on the case in October. That forced prosecutors to decide if they wanted to again pursue the death penalty through a new sentencing hearing or accept a life sentence.
Williams said he reached the decision to drop the death penalty bid with the blessing of Maureen Faulkner, who said another sentencing hearing would undoubtedly be just the beginning of another long, arduous appeals process.
"Another penalty proceeding would open the case to the repetition of the state appeals process and an unknowable number of years of federal review again, even if we were successful," Williams said. He also said that after nearly three decades, some witnesses have died or are otherwise unreliable.
Widener University law professor Judith Ritter, who represented Abu-Jamal in recent appeals, applauded the decision.
"There is no question that justice is served when a death sentence from a misinformed jury is overturned," Ritter said. "Thirty years later, the district attorney's decision not to seek a new death sentence also furthers the interests of justice."
According to trial testimony, Abu-Jamal saw his brother scuffle with the young patrolman during a 4 a.m. traffic stop in 1981 and ran toward the scene. Police found Abu-Jamal wounded by a round from Faulkner's gun. Faulkner, shot several times, was killed. A .38-caliber revolver registered to Abu-Jamal was found at the scene with five spent shell casings.
The officer's widow, Maureen Faulkner, has tried to remain visible over the years to ensure that her husband is not forgotten. They were 25-year-old newlyweds when he died.
"My family and I have endured a three-decade ordeal at the hands of Mumia Abu-Jamal, his attorneys and his supporters, who in many cases never even took the time to educate themselves about the case before lending their names, giving their support and advocating for his freedom," Maureen Faulkner said Wednesday. "All of this has taken an unimaginable physical, emotional and financial toll on each of us."
Abu-Jamal, born Wesley Cook, turned 58 earlier this year.
His writings and radio broadcasts from death row made him a cause celebre and the subject of numerous books and movies. His own 1995 book, "Live From Death Row," describes prison life and calls the justice system racist and ruled by political expediency.
Abu-Jamal, a one-time journalist, garnered worldwide support from the "Free Mumia" movement. Hundreds of vocal supporters and death-penalty opponents regularly turn out for court hearings in his case, even though Abu-Jamal is rarely entitled to attend.
His message resonated particularly on college campuses and in the movie and music industries — actors Mike Farrell and Tim Robbins were among dozens of luminaries who used a New York Times ad to advocate for a new trial, and the Beastie Boys played a concert to raise money for Abu-Jamal's defense fund.
Over the years, Abu-Jamal has challenged the predominantly white makeup of the jury, instructions given to jurors and the statements of eyewitnesses. He has also alleged ineffective counsel, racism by the trial judge and that another man confessed to the crime.
Maureen Faulkner railed against what she called the justice system's "dirty little secret" — the difficulty of putting condemned killers to death. Pennsylvania has put to death three people since the U.S. Supreme Court restored the death penalty in 1976, and all three had willingly given up on their appeals.
Faulkner lashed out at the judges who overturned Abu-Jamal's death sentence, calling them "dishonest cowards" who, she said, oppose the death penalty.
"The disgusting reality with the death penalty in Pennsylvania is that the fix is in before the hearing even begins," she said.
Faulkner also vowed to fight anyone who tries to extract special treatment for Abu-Jamal, advocating instead that he be moved to the general population after being taken off death row.
"I will not stand by and see him coddled, as he has been in the past," Faulkner said. "And I am heartened that he will be taken from the protective cloister he has been living in all these years and begin living among his own kind — the thugs and common criminals that infest our prisons."
Both sides have events planned to mark the anniversary of Faulkner's death and Abu-Jamal's subsequent arrest.
Supporters of Abu-Jamal, including Princeton professor Cornel West, have a symposium planned Friday at the National Constitution Center for the man they call an "innocent revolutionary and celebrated journalist."
Maureen Faulkner, Williams and others involved in the prosecution will gather in suburban Philadelphia to mark the anniversary this week for a screening of the anti-Mumia documentary by Philadelphia filmmaker Tigre Hill.
___
Associated Press writer Maryclaire Dale contributed to this story.
Saturday, May 12, 2007
*JOIN PDC CONTINGENTS ON MAY 17TH TO FREE MUMIA NOW!
Click on the title to link to the Partisan Defense Committee Web site
THIS INFORMATION IS PASSED ON FROM THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE. MUMIA'S CASE IS AT A CRITICAL POINT. ALL ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS SHOULD REDOUBLE THEIR EFFORTS TO FREE THIS INNOCENT MAN. BE AT THE LOCATIONS INDICATED, IF YOU CAN. DOWN WITH THE DEATH PENALTY!
Join PDC Contingents—Philadelphia and San Francisco, May 17!
For Class-Struggle Defense to Free Mumia Now!
On May 17 in Philadelphia the Third Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in what could well be the final legal appeal in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Shot and arrested on 9 December 1981, Mumia Abu-Jamal—a talented journalist known as the "voice of the voiceless," a former Black Panther, a supporter of the MOVE organization and an outspoken opponent of racist oppression—was framed and falsely convicted for the mur¬der of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Any ruling by the Third Circuit, which could come within weeks or months, will likely be appealed to the reactionary U.S. Supreme Court.
Mumia is the victim of the forces of racist capitalist "law and order," who see in him a voice of defiant opposition to the oppression of black people that is a cornerstone of American capitalism. In the last week, the Fraternal Order of Police (F.O.P.) harassed and made threats of terror that forced a change of venue for a birthday celebration for Mumia in Philadelphia on April 24, as well as of a hip-hop event for Mumia in New York City on April 15. The state's determination to carry out his execution is a warning to ail who challenge cop repression, to workers who stand up for their rights on picket lines, to those who protest U.S. imperialist depredations in Iraq and elsewhere around the world.
From the unions to the campuses, all out to support Mumia's fight on the day of oral arguments! The kind of pressure that will have an impact on the courts is the social power of the multiracial labor movement demanding that this innocent man be freed now. It is with this understanding that we are mobilizing Partisan Defense Committee contingents for the May 17 rallies which are called by Mumia supporters, including, in Philadelphia, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the New York Coalition to Free Mumia and, in San Francisco, the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. Join the PDC's contingent under the slogans: "Mumia Abu-Jamal Is Innocent—For Class-Struggle Defense to Free Him Now! There Is No Justice in the Capitalist Courts! Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!"
In August of 1995, Mumia won a stay of execution based on worldwide protests, crucially involving the labor movement. From 1995 through 1999, new evidence was revealed in his case that further blew the state's frame-up to bits. All the evidence proving Mumia's innocence, including the testimony of William Singletary and Veronica Jones who saw the shooter run away, was rejected by the courts. Around this same time a number of reformist socialist organizations such as Workers World Party, Socialist Action, the International Socialist Organization and the Revolutionary Communist Party (and their front groups), raised the call for a "new trial" for Mumia. Instead of mobilizing to free Mumia as an innocent man and victim of a political and racist frame-up, these groups mobilized on the basis that Mumia could get a new and fair hearing in federal court, leading to a new and fair trial in the same Philadelphia courts that sent him to death row. These fake socialists promote illusions that Mumia can get justice from the same capitalist state that killed some 38 Panthers under its murderous COINTELPRO operations, and that massacred eleven black people, including women and children, in the 1985 fire-bombing of MOVE's Osage Avenue home in Philadelphia.
Many of these so-called socialist organizations now raise "freedom for Mumia" in conjunction with calls for a "new trial." However, their politics remain in the framework of reliance on the bourgeois state. Behind the attempts to misdirect the struggle for Mumia to a call for a "new trial" is a political program premised on reliance on the capitalist state—a program directly counterposed to a mobilization of working-class power for his freedom. This political program of tying the masses to their class enemies and pushing faith in the capitalist state demobilized millions who once filled the streets in support of Mumia.
Mumia's case lays bare the workings of the capitalist state. His frame-up conviction was not the act of one "rogue" cop or prosecutor or judge, but that of an entire system that cannot be reformed. Mumia's innocence has been attested to by mountains of evidence, including the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, killed Faulkner. Arnold Beverly stated that he was hired to kill Faulkner, whose interference with prostitution, gambling and payoffs made him a problem for the mob and corrupt cops. More than five years ago, Mumia's attorney submitted this confession to the courts, but to the racists in black robes, a court of law is no place for evidence of the innocence of this fighter for the oppressed.
The frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal symbolizes what the racist death penalty in the U.S. is all about: a legacy of chattel slavery, the lynch rope made legal. We oppose the death penalty on principle—we do not accord the state the right to say who lives and who dies. With the execution in December 2005 of Stanley Tookie Williams, over substantial popular opposition, the ruling class sent a signal that they are deadly serious that Mumia will soon be another victim of the barbaric death penalty.
In the international fight to save Sacco and Vanzetti, James P. Cannon of the International Labor Defense pointed out, as the rulers geared up in 1927 for the legal lynching of the two anarchist workers: "It is, of course, absolutely right to exhaust every legal possibility and technicality in the fight, provided—that the workers have no illusions." He emphasized: "We must appeal at the same time to the laboring masses of America and the whole world who are the highest court of all." This is the class-struggle defense strategy that the Partisan Defense Committee stands on.
The worldwide movement for Mumia must be revived on the basis that Mumia is an innocent man who must be freed now, that his conviction is a racist, political frame-up, that there is no justice in the capitalist courts. The capitalist state and its courts are not neutral institutions but organs of repression against the working class and the oppressed. Mumia's freedom will not be won through reliance on the rigged "justice" system or on capitalist politicians, whether Democratic, Republican or Green.
The PDC, a class-struggle legal and social defense organization associated with the Marxist Spartacist League, fights to mobilize the social power of the multiracial labor movement— those who create the wealth of this society and who can shut it down. That is why our contingents in Philadelphia and the Bay Area on May 17 are based on the need for class-struggle defense to free Mumia and the understanding that the capitalist state serves the interests of the racist ruling class. Labor must be mobilized independently of the very forces of the capitalist state that framed up this innocent man! The road to victory in Mumia's case begins with the understanding that the class enemy is determined to carry out his execution. The multiracial working class has every interest in fighting against that outcome, which would further bolster the machinery of capitalist state violence whose ultimate target is the working class.
We are building contingents in Philadelphia and the Bay Area as a step toward the labor-centered, mass united-front mobilizations needed to free Mumia. Such mobilizations must send the court the message: We will not let Mumia die or rot another day in prison! Free Mumia Now!
—Partisan Defense Committee, 26 April 2007
THIS INFORMATION IS PASSED ON FROM THE PARTISAN DEFENSE COMMITTEE. MUMIA'S CASE IS AT A CRITICAL POINT. ALL ORGANIZATIONS AND INDIVIDUALS SHOULD REDOUBLE THEIR EFFORTS TO FREE THIS INNOCENT MAN. BE AT THE LOCATIONS INDICATED, IF YOU CAN. DOWN WITH THE DEATH PENALTY!
Join PDC Contingents—Philadelphia and San Francisco, May 17!
For Class-Struggle Defense to Free Mumia Now!
On May 17 in Philadelphia the Third Circuit Court of Appeals will hear oral arguments in what could well be the final legal appeal in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Shot and arrested on 9 December 1981, Mumia Abu-Jamal—a talented journalist known as the "voice of the voiceless," a former Black Panther, a supporter of the MOVE organization and an outspoken opponent of racist oppression—was framed and falsely convicted for the mur¬der of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Any ruling by the Third Circuit, which could come within weeks or months, will likely be appealed to the reactionary U.S. Supreme Court.
Mumia is the victim of the forces of racist capitalist "law and order," who see in him a voice of defiant opposition to the oppression of black people that is a cornerstone of American capitalism. In the last week, the Fraternal Order of Police (F.O.P.) harassed and made threats of terror that forced a change of venue for a birthday celebration for Mumia in Philadelphia on April 24, as well as of a hip-hop event for Mumia in New York City on April 15. The state's determination to carry out his execution is a warning to ail who challenge cop repression, to workers who stand up for their rights on picket lines, to those who protest U.S. imperialist depredations in Iraq and elsewhere around the world.
From the unions to the campuses, all out to support Mumia's fight on the day of oral arguments! The kind of pressure that will have an impact on the courts is the social power of the multiracial labor movement demanding that this innocent man be freed now. It is with this understanding that we are mobilizing Partisan Defense Committee contingents for the May 17 rallies which are called by Mumia supporters, including, in Philadelphia, International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal and the New York Coalition to Free Mumia and, in San Francisco, the Mobilization to Free Mumia Abu-Jamal. Join the PDC's contingent under the slogans: "Mumia Abu-Jamal Is Innocent—For Class-Struggle Defense to Free Him Now! There Is No Justice in the Capitalist Courts! Abolish the Racist Death Penalty!"
In August of 1995, Mumia won a stay of execution based on worldwide protests, crucially involving the labor movement. From 1995 through 1999, new evidence was revealed in his case that further blew the state's frame-up to bits. All the evidence proving Mumia's innocence, including the testimony of William Singletary and Veronica Jones who saw the shooter run away, was rejected by the courts. Around this same time a number of reformist socialist organizations such as Workers World Party, Socialist Action, the International Socialist Organization and the Revolutionary Communist Party (and their front groups), raised the call for a "new trial" for Mumia. Instead of mobilizing to free Mumia as an innocent man and victim of a political and racist frame-up, these groups mobilized on the basis that Mumia could get a new and fair hearing in federal court, leading to a new and fair trial in the same Philadelphia courts that sent him to death row. These fake socialists promote illusions that Mumia can get justice from the same capitalist state that killed some 38 Panthers under its murderous COINTELPRO operations, and that massacred eleven black people, including women and children, in the 1985 fire-bombing of MOVE's Osage Avenue home in Philadelphia.
Many of these so-called socialist organizations now raise "freedom for Mumia" in conjunction with calls for a "new trial." However, their politics remain in the framework of reliance on the bourgeois state. Behind the attempts to misdirect the struggle for Mumia to a call for a "new trial" is a political program premised on reliance on the capitalist state—a program directly counterposed to a mobilization of working-class power for his freedom. This political program of tying the masses to their class enemies and pushing faith in the capitalist state demobilized millions who once filled the streets in support of Mumia.
Mumia's case lays bare the workings of the capitalist state. His frame-up conviction was not the act of one "rogue" cop or prosecutor or judge, but that of an entire system that cannot be reformed. Mumia's innocence has been attested to by mountains of evidence, including the sworn confession of Arnold Beverly that he, not Mumia, killed Faulkner. Arnold Beverly stated that he was hired to kill Faulkner, whose interference with prostitution, gambling and payoffs made him a problem for the mob and corrupt cops. More than five years ago, Mumia's attorney submitted this confession to the courts, but to the racists in black robes, a court of law is no place for evidence of the innocence of this fighter for the oppressed.
The frame-up of Mumia Abu-Jamal symbolizes what the racist death penalty in the U.S. is all about: a legacy of chattel slavery, the lynch rope made legal. We oppose the death penalty on principle—we do not accord the state the right to say who lives and who dies. With the execution in December 2005 of Stanley Tookie Williams, over substantial popular opposition, the ruling class sent a signal that they are deadly serious that Mumia will soon be another victim of the barbaric death penalty.
In the international fight to save Sacco and Vanzetti, James P. Cannon of the International Labor Defense pointed out, as the rulers geared up in 1927 for the legal lynching of the two anarchist workers: "It is, of course, absolutely right to exhaust every legal possibility and technicality in the fight, provided—that the workers have no illusions." He emphasized: "We must appeal at the same time to the laboring masses of America and the whole world who are the highest court of all." This is the class-struggle defense strategy that the Partisan Defense Committee stands on.
The worldwide movement for Mumia must be revived on the basis that Mumia is an innocent man who must be freed now, that his conviction is a racist, political frame-up, that there is no justice in the capitalist courts. The capitalist state and its courts are not neutral institutions but organs of repression against the working class and the oppressed. Mumia's freedom will not be won through reliance on the rigged "justice" system or on capitalist politicians, whether Democratic, Republican or Green.
The PDC, a class-struggle legal and social defense organization associated with the Marxist Spartacist League, fights to mobilize the social power of the multiracial labor movement— those who create the wealth of this society and who can shut it down. That is why our contingents in Philadelphia and the Bay Area on May 17 are based on the need for class-struggle defense to free Mumia and the understanding that the capitalist state serves the interests of the racist ruling class. Labor must be mobilized independently of the very forces of the capitalist state that framed up this innocent man! The road to victory in Mumia's case begins with the understanding that the class enemy is determined to carry out his execution. The multiracial working class has every interest in fighting against that outcome, which would further bolster the machinery of capitalist state violence whose ultimate target is the working class.
We are building contingents in Philadelphia and the Bay Area as a step toward the labor-centered, mass united-front mobilizations needed to free Mumia. Such mobilizations must send the court the message: We will not let Mumia die or rot another day in prison! Free Mumia Now!
—Partisan Defense Committee, 26 April 2007
Wednesday, February 21, 2007
*Listen Up- Hear Mumia Abu Jamal- 'The Voice Of Voiceless' Is In The House
Click on title to listen to (or read)the essays of the 'voice of the voiceless',Mumia Abu Jamal, journalist and commentator. Free Mumia Now!
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