the many different problems with the ballistics evidence that was used
to convict Mumia. This flyer explicitly shows why the prosecution's
scenario of the shooting is ballistically impossible:
http://abu-jamal-news.com/docs/ballistics.pdf
--Second, there is the 6,000 word article I wrote for the SF Bay View
Newspaper, spotlighting the civil rights campaign, and detailing 5 key
pieces of evidence that were withheld. This article is now available as
a four page, 8.5 x 11, pdf file, that can also be made into one double
sided, 11X17 booklet/pamphlet:
http://abu-jamal-news.com/docs/sfbv.pdf
Right now, organizing efforts are being focused on mobilizing for the
July 13 press conference at the NAACP National Convention in New York
City, the day that Attorney General Eric Holder is speaking. If you
don't live close enough to New York City, there are still many ways to
help support this campaign. Please check out the campaign's new web
page for more information:
http://freemumia.com/civilrights.html
Below is the full article from the SF Bay View Newspaper:
http://www.sfbayview.com/2009/citing-withheld-evidence-supporters-of-mumia-abu-jamal-call-for-civil-rights-investigation/
Citing Withheld Evidence, Supporters Of Mumia Abu-Jamal Call For Civil Rights Investigation
By Hans Bennett
(San Francisco Bay View Newspaper)
On April 6, 2009, the US Supreme Court refused to consider an appeal
from death-row journalist and former Black Panther, Mumia Abu-Jamal,
who was convicted of first-degree murder in the shooting death of white
Philadelphia Police Officer, Daniel Faulkner, at a 1982 trial deemed
unfair by Amnesty International, the European Parliament, the Japanese
Diet, Nelson Mandela, and numerous others. Citing the Supreme Court
denial and several instances of withheld evidence, Abu-Jamal's
international support network is now calling for a federal civil rights
investigation into Abu-Jamal's case.
The facts of
the Abu-Jamal/Faulkner case are highly contested, but all sides agree
on certain key points: Abu-Jamal was moonlighting as a taxi-driver on
December 9, 1981, when, shortly before 4:00 a.m., he saw his brother,
William "Billy" Cook, in an altercation with Officer Faulkner after
Faulkner had pulled over Cook's car at the corner of 13th and Locust
Streets, downtown Philadelphia. Abu-Jamal approached the scene. Minutes
later when police arrived, Faulkner had been shot dead, and Abu-Jamal
had been shot in the chest. The bullet removed from Faulkner,
reportedly a .38, was officially too damaged to match it to the legally
registered .38 caliber gun that Abu-Jamal says he carried as a taxi
driver, after he was robbed several times on the job. Further, Amnesty
International has criticized the official "failure of the police to
test Abu-Jamal's gun, hands, and clothing" for gunshot residue, as
"deeply troubling." Abu-Jamal has always maintained his innocence, and
today still fights the conviction from his death-row cell in
Waynesburg, PA, where he also records weekly radio commentaries, and
has now written six books.
Recently, Abu-Jamal had
petitioned the US Supreme Court to review the US Third Circuit Court
ruling of March, 27 2008, which rejected his bid, based on three
issues, for a new guilt-phase trial. One issue was that of racially
discriminatory jury selection, based on the 1986 case Batson v.
Kentucky, on which the three-judge panel split 2-1, with Judge Thomas
Ambro dissenting. Ambro argued that prosecutor Joseph McGill's use of
10 out of his 15 peremptory strikes to remove otherwise acceptable
African-American jurors, was itself enough evidence of racial
discrimination to grant Abu-Jamal a preliminary hearing that could have
led to a new trial. In denying Abu-Jamal this preliminary hearing,
Ambro argued that the Court was creating new rules that were being
exclusively applied to Abu-Jamal's case. The denial "goes against the
grain of our prior actions...I see no reason why we should not afford
Abu-Jamal the courtesy of our precedents," wrote Ambro.
In his new essay titled "The Mumia Exception," author J. Patrick
O'Connor argues that the Third Circuit Court's rejection of the Batson
claim and of the other two issues presented is only the latest example
of the courts' longstanding practice of altering existing precedent to
deny Abu-Jamal legal relief. O'Connor cites many other problems,
including the 2001 affidavit by a former court stenographer, who says
that on the eve of Abu-Jamal's trial, she overheard Judge Albert Sabo
say to someone at the courthouse that he was going to "help" the
prosecution "fry the n-word," referring to Abu-Jamal. Common Pleas
Judge Pamela Dembe rejected this affidavit on grounds that even if Sabo
had made the comment, it was irrelevant as long as his "rulings were
legally correct."
The phrase "Mumia Exception" was
first coined by Linn Washington, Jr., a Philadelphia Tribune columnist
and professor of journalism at Temple University, who has covered this
story since the day of Abu-Jamal's 1981 arrest. Washington criticizes
the Third Circuit's ruling against Abu-Jamal's claim that Judge Sabo
had treated him unfairly at the 1995-97 Post-Conviction Relief Act
(PCRA) hearings, which was another issue the Circuit Court had
considered. Citing "the mound of legal violations in this case,"
Washington says "the continuing refusal of U.S. courts to equally apply
the law in the Abu-Jamal case constitutes a stain on America's image
internationally."
Launched Campaign Cites Withheld Evidence
The Philadelphia Inquirer has reported that supporters of Mumia
Abu-Jamal are responding to the April 2009 US Supreme Court ruling by
launching a campaign calling for a federal civil rights investigation
into Abu-Jamal's case. The campaign's supporters include the Riverside
Church's Prison Ministry, actress Ruby Dee, professor Cornel West, and
US Congressman Charles Rangel, who is Chairman of the House Committee
on Ways and Means. In 2004, the NAACP passed a resolution supporting a
new trial for Abu-Jamal, and campaign supporters will be gathering to
publicize the civil rights campaign at the upcoming NAACP National
Convention in New York City, July 11-16, and to pressure the NAACP to
honor their earlier resolutions by actively supporting the current
campaign seeking an investigation. Supporters will then be in
Washington, DC on July 22 to lobby their elected officials, and in
mid-September, they'll return to Washington, DC for a major press
conference.
Thousands of signatures have been
collected for a public letter to US Attorney General Eric Holder, which
reads: "Inasmuch as there is no other court to which Abu-Jamal can
appeal for justice, we turn to you for remedy of a 27-year history of
gross violations of US constitutional law and international standards
of justice." The letter cites Holder's recent investigation into the
case of former Senator Ted Stevens, which led to all charges against
him being dropped: "You were specifically outraged by the fact that the
prosecution withheld information critical to the defense's argument for
acquittal, a violation clearly committed by the prosecution in
Abu-Jamal's case. Mumia Abu-Jamal, though not a US Senator of great
wealth and power, is a Black man revered around the world for his
courage, clarity, and commitment, and deserves no less than Senator
Stevens."
Several campaigns seeking a civil right
investigation into the Abu-Jamal case have been launched since 1995, at
which time, the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) was one of many groups
that publicly supported an investigation. In a 1995 letter written
independently of the CBC, Representatives Chaka Fattah, Ron Dellums,
Cynthia McKinney, Maxine Waters, and John Conyers (now Chairman of the
House Judiciary Committee) stated, "There is ample evidence that Mr.
Abu-Jamal's constitutional rights were violated, that he did not
receive a fair trial, and that he is, in fact, innocent." Assistant
Attorney General Andrew Fois responded to the CBC's request, and in a
September 1995 rejection letter written to Congressman Ron Dellums,
Fois conceded that even though there is a 5-year statute of limitations
for a civil rights investigation, the statute does not apply if "there
is significant evidence of an ongoing conspiracy."
One of the
2009 campaign's organizers is Dr. Suzanne Ross, a spokesperson for the
Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition of New York City. Citing Andrew Fois'
letter, Ross argues that the "continued denial of justice to Mumia in
the federal courts, as documented by dissenting Judge Thomas Ambro," is
evidence of an "ongoing conspiracy," and thus merits an investigation.
"Throughout the history of this case, we were always told 'Wait until
we get to the federal courts. They will surely overturn the racism and
gross misconduct of Judge Sabo,' but we never got even a preliminary
hearing on the issue considered most winnable: racial bias in jury
selection, the so called Batson issue." Ross also criticizes the Third
Circuit's denial of Abu-Jamal's claim that Judge Sabo was unfair at the
1995-97 PCRA hearings, and considers this denial to be further evidence
of an "ongoing conspiracy." Ross argues that the courts' continued
affirmation of Sabo's rulings during the PCRA hearings, and Sabo's
ultimate ruling that nothing presented at the PCRA hearings was
significant enough to merit a new trial, serves to legitimize numerous
injustices throughout Abu-Jamal's case.
Specifically
referring to the issue of withheld evidence, that was central to the
case of former Senator Ted Stevens, organizer Suzanne Ross identifies
five key instances in Abu-Jamal's case, where "evidence was withheld
that could have led to Mumia's acquittal." The DA's office withheld two
items from Abu-Jamal's defense: the actual location of the driver's
license application found in Officer Faulkner's pocket; and Pedro
Polakoff's crime scene photos. Then, at the request of prosecutor
McGill, Judge Sabo ruled to block three items from the jury:
prosecution eyewitness Robert Chobert's probation status and criminal
history; testimony from defense eyewitness Veronica Jones about police
attempts to solicit false testimony; and testimony from Police Officer
Gary Waskshul.
DA Suppresses Evidence About Kenneth Freeman
In their recent books, Michael Schiffmann (Race Against Death: The
Struggle for the Life and Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, 2006) and J.
Patrick O'Connor (The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal, 2008) argue that the
actual shooter of Officer Faulkner was a man named Kenneth Freeman.
Schiffmann and O'Connor argue that Freeman was an occupant of Billy
Cook's car, who shot Faulkner in response to Faulkner having shot
Abu-Jamal first, and then fled the scene before police arrived.
Central to Schiffmann and O'Connor's argument was the presence of a
driver's license application for one Arnold Howard, which was found in
the front pocket of Officer Faulkner's shirt. Abu-Jamal's defense would
not learn about this until 13 years later, because the Police and DA's
office had failed to notify them about the application's crucial
location. Journalist Linn Washington argues that this failure was "a
critical and deliberate omission," and "a major violation of fair trial
rights and procedures. If the appeals process had any semblance of
fairness, this misconduct alone should have won a new trial for
Abu-Jamal." More importantly, Washington says "this evidence provides
strong proof of a third person at the scene along with Faulkner and
Billy Cook. The prosecution case against Abu-Jamal rests on the
assertion that Faulkner encountered a lone Cook minutes before
Abu-Jamal's arrival on the scene, but Faulkner got that application
from somebody other than Cook, who had his own license."
At the 1995 PCRA hearing, Arnold Howard testified that he had loaned
his temporary, non-photo license to Kenneth Freeman, who was Billy
Cook's business partner and close friend. Further, Howard stated that
police came to his house early in the morning on Dec. 9, 1981, and
brought him to the police station for questioning because he was
suspected of being "the person who had run away" from the scene, but he
was released after producing a 4:00 a.m. receipt from a drugstore
across town (which provided an alibi) and telling them that he had
loaned the application to Freeman (who Howard reports was also at the
police station that morning).
Also pointing to
Freeman's presence in the car with Cook, O'Connor and Schiffmann cite
prosecution witness Cynthia White's testimony at Cook's separate trial
for charges of assaulting Faulkner, where White describes both a
"driver" and a "passenger" in Cook's VW. Also notable, investigative
journalist Dave Lindorff's book (Killing Time: An Investigation into
the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, 2003) features an interview with
Cook's lawyer Daniel Alva, in which Alva says that Cook had confided to
him within days of the shooting that Freeman had been with him that
morning.
Linn Washington argues that "this third
person at the crime scene is consistent with eyewitness accounts of the
shooter fleeing the scene. Remember that accounts from both prosecution
and defense witnesses confirm the existence of a fleeing shooter.
Abu-Jamal was arrested at the scene, critically wounded. He did not run
away and return in a matter of seconds." Eyewitnesses Robert Chobert,
Dessie Hightower, Veronica Jones, Deborah Kordansky, William
Singletary, and Marcus Cannon all reported, at various times, that they
saw one or more men run away from the scene. O'Connor writes that "some
of the eyewitnesses said this man had an Afro and wore a green army
jacket. Freeman did have an Afro and he perpetually wore a green army
jacket. Freeman was tall and burly, weighing about 225 pounds at the
time." Then there's eyewitness Robert Harkins, whom prosecutor McGill
did not call as a witness. O'Connor postulates that the prosecutor's
decision was because Harkins' account of a struggle between Faulkner
and the shooter that caused Faulkner to fall on his hands and knees
before Faulkner was shot "demolished the version of the shooting that
the state's other witnesses rendered at trial." O'Connor writes further
that "Harkins described the shooter as a little taller and heavier than
the 6-foot, 200-pound Faulkner," which excludes the 6'1", 170-lb
Abu-Jamal.
Linn Washington's 2001 affidavit states
that he knew Freeman to be a "close friend of Cook's," and that "Cook
and Freeman were constantly together." Washington first met Freeman
when Freeman reported his experience of police brutality to the
Philadelphia Tribune, where Washington worked. Washington says today
that "Kenny did not harbor any illusions about police being
unquestioned heroes due to his experiences with being beaten a few
times by police and police incessantly harassing him for his street
vending."
Regarding the police harassment and
intimidation of Freeman, which continued after the arrest of Abu-Jamal,
Washington adds: "It is significant to note that the night after the
Faulkner shooting, the newsstand that Freeman built and operated at
16th and Chestnut Streets in Center City burned to the ground. In news
media accounts of this arson, police sources openly boasted to
reporters that the arsonist was probably a police officer. Witnesses
claimed to see officers fleeing the scene right before the fire was
noticed. Needless to say, that arson resulted in no arrests." Dave
Lindorff argues that the police clearly "had their eye on Freeman,"
because "only two months after Faulkner's shooting, Freeman was
arrested in his home, where he was found hiding in his attic armed with
a .22 caliber pistol, explosives and a supply of ammunition. At that
time, he was not charged with anything." O'Connor and Schiffmann argue
that police intimidation ultimately escalated to the point where police
themselves murdered Freeman.
The morning of May
14, 1985, Freeman's body was found: naked, bound, and with a drug
needle in his arm. His cause of death was officially declared a "heart
attack." The date of Freeman's death is significant because the night
before his body was found, the police had orchestrated a military-style
siege on the MOVE organization's West Philadelphia home. Police had
fired over 10,000 rounds of ammunition in 90 minutes and used a State
Police helicopter to drop a C-4 bomb (illegally supplied by the FBI) on
MOVE's roof, which started a fire that destroyed the entire city block.
The MOVE Commission later documented that police had shot at MOVE
family members when they tried to escape the fire: in all, six adults
and five children were killed.
As a local
journalist, Abu-Jamal had criticized the city government's conflicts
with MOVE, and after his 1981 arrest, MOVE began to publicly support
him. Through this mutual advocacy, which continues today, Abu-Jamal and
MOVE's contentious relationship with the Philadelphia authorities have
always been closely linked. Seen in this context, Schiffmann argues
that "if Freeman was indeed killed by cops, the killing probably was
part of a general vendetta of the Philadelphia cops against their
'enemies' and the cops killed him because they knew or suspected he had
something to do with the killing of Faulkner." O'Connor concurs,
arguing that "the timing and modus operandi of the abduction and
killing alone suggest an extreme act of police vengeance."
DA Suppresses Pedro Polakoff's Crime Scene Photos
On December 6, 2008, several hundred protesters gathered outside the
Philadelphia District Attorney's office, where Pam Africa, coordinator
of the International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal,
spoke about the newly discovered crime scene photos taken by press
photographer Pedro Polakoff. Africa cited Polakoff's statements today
that he approached the DA's office with the photos in 1981, 1982, and
1995, but that the DA had completely ignored him. Polakoff states that
because he had believed Abu-Jamal was guilty, he had no interest in
approaching the defense, and never did. Consequently, neither the 1982
jury nor the defense ever saw Polakoff's photos. "The DA deliberately
kept evidence out," declared Africa: "someone should be arrested for
withholding evidence in a murder trial."
Advocacy
groups called Educators for Mumia and Journalists for Mumia explain in
their fact sheet, "21 FAQs," that Polakoff's photos were first
discovered by German author Michael Schiffmann in May 2006, and
published that Fall in his book, Race Against Death. One of Polakoff's
photos was first published in the US by The SF Bay View Newspaper on
Oct. 24, 2007. Reuters followed with a Dec. 4, 2007 article, after
which the photos made their television debut on NBC's Dec. 6, 2007
Today Show. They have since been spotlighted by National Public Radio,
Indymedia.org, Counterpunch, The Philadelphia Weekly and the new
British documentary "In Prison My Whole Life," which features an
interview with Polakoff.
Since May, 2007, http://www.Abu-Jamal-News.com has displayed four of Polakoff's photos, making the following points:
Photo 1: Mishandling the Guns - Officer James Forbes holds both
Abu-Jamal's and Faulkner's guns in his bare hand and touches the metal
parts. This contradicts his later court testimony that he had preserved
the ballistics evidence by not touching the metal parts.
Photos 2 & 3: The Moving Hat - Faulkner's hat is moved from the top
of Billy Cook's VW, and placed on the sidewalk for the official police
photo.
Photo 4: The Missing Taxi - Prosecution witness Robert
Chobert testified that he was parked directly behind Faulkner's car,
but the space is empty in the photo.
The Missing Divots - In
all of Polakoff's photos of the sidewalk where Faulkner was found,
there are no large bullet divots, or destroyed chunks of cement, which
should be visible in the pavement if the prosecution scenario was
accurate, according to which Abu-Jamal shot down at Faulkner - and
allegedly missed several times - while Faulkner was on his back. Also
citing the official police photo, Michael Schiffmann writes: "It is
thus no question any more whether the scenario presented by the
prosecution at Abu-Jamal's trial is true, because it is physically
impossible."
Pedro P. Polakoff was a Philadelphia freelance
photographer who reports having arrived at the crime scene about 12
minutes after the shooting was first reported on police radio, and at
least 10 minutes before the Mobile Crime Detection Unit that handles
crime scene forensics and photographs. In Schiffmann's interview with
him, Polakoff recounted that "all the officers present expressed the
firm conviction that Abu-Jamal had been the passenger in Billy Cook's
VW and had fired and killed Faulkner by a single shot fired from the
passenger seat of the car." Polakoff bases this on police statements
made to him directly, and from his having overheard their
conversations. Polakoff states that this early police opinion was
apparently the result of their interviews of three other witnesses who
were still present at the crime scene: a parking lot attendant, a
drug-addicted woman, and another woman. None of those eyewitnesses,
however, have appeared in any report presented to the courts by the
police or the prosecution.
It is undisputed that
Abu-Jamal approached from across the street, and was not the passenger
in Billy Cook's car. Schiffmann argues that Polakoff's personal account
strengthens the argument that the actual shooter was Billy Cook's
passenger Kenneth Freeman, who Schiffmann postulates, fled the scene
before police arrived.
Robert Chobert's Legal Status Withheld From Jury
At prosecutor Joseph McGill's request, Judge Albert Sabo blocked
Abu-Jamal's defense from telling the 1982 jury that key prosecution
eyewitness, taxi driver Robert Chobert, was on probation for throwing a
molotov cocktail into a school yard, for pay. Sabo justified this by
ruling that Chobert's offense was not crimen falsi, i.e., a crime of
deception. Consequently, the jury never heard about this, nor that on
the night of Abu-Jamal's arrest, Chobert had been illegally driving on
a suspended license (revoked for a DWI). This probation violation could
have given him up to 30 years in prison, so he was extremely vulnerable
to pressure from the police. Notably, at the later 1995 PCRA hearing,
Chobert testified that his probation had never been revoked, even
though he continued to drive his taxi illegally through 1995.
At the 1982 trial, Chobert testified that he was in his taxi, which he
had parked directly behind Faulkner's police car, and was writing in
his log book when he heard the first gunshot and looked up. Chobert
alleged that while he did not see a gun in Abu-Jamal's hand, nor a
muzzle flash, he did see Abu-Jamal standing over Faulkner, saw
Abu-Jamal's hand "jerk back" several times, and heard shots after each
"jerk." After the shooting, Chobert stated that he got out and
approached the scene.
Damaging Chobert's credibility,
however, is evidence suggesting that Chobert may have lied about his
location at the time of Faulkner's death. As noted earlier, the newly
discovered Polakoff crime scene photos show that the space where
Chobert testified to being parked directly behind Officer Faulkner's
car, was actually empty. Yet, even more evidence suggests he lied about
his location. While prosecution eyewitness Cynthia White is the only
witness to testify seeing Chobert's taxi parked behind Faulkner's
police car, no official eyewitness reported seeing White at the scene.
Furthermore, Chobert's taxi is missing both from White's first sketch
of the crime scene given to police (Defense Exhibit D-12), and from a
later one (Prosecution Exhibit C-35). In a 2001 affidavit, private
investigator George Michael Newman says that in a 1995 interview,
Chobert told Newman that Chobert was actually parked around the corner,
on 13th Street, north of Locust Street, and did not even see the
shooting.
Amnesty International documents that both Chobert
and White "altered their descriptions of what they saw, in ways that
supported the prosecution's version of events." Chobert first told
police that the shooter simply "ran away," but after he had identified
Abu-Jamal at the scene, he said the shooter had run away 30 to 35
"steps" before he was caught. At trial, Chobert changed this distance
to 10 "feet," which was closer to the official police account that
Abu-Jamal was found just a few feet away from Officer Faulkner.
Nevertheless, Chobert did stick to a few statements in his trial
testimony that contradicted the prosecution's scenario. For example,
Chobert declared that he did not see the apparently unrelated Ford car
that, according to official reports, was parked in front of Billy
Cook's VW. Chobert also claimed that the altercation happened behind
Cook's VW (it officially happened in front of Cook's VW), that Chobert
did not see Abu-Jamal get shot or see Officer Faulkner fire his gun,
and that the shooter was "heavyset"-estimating 200-225 lbs (Abu-Jamal
weighed 170 lbs).
In his 2003 book Killing Time, Dave
Lindorff wrote about two other problems with Chobert's account. While
being so legally vulnerable, why would Chobert have parked directly
behind a police car? Why would he have left his car and approached the
scene, if in fact, the shooter were still there? Lindorff suggests that
"at the time of the incident, Chobert might not have thought that the
man slumped on the curb was the shooter," because "in his initial Dec.
9 statement to police investigators, Chobert had said that he saw
'another man' who 'ran away'...He claimed in his statement that police
stopped that man, but that he didn't see him later." Therefore, "if
Chobert did think he saw the shooter run away, it might well explain
why he would have felt safe walking up to the scene of the shooting as
he said he did, before the arrival of police."
The Attempts to Silence Veronica Jones
Veronica Jones was working as a prostitute at the crime scene on
December 9, 1981. She first told police on December 15, 1981 that she
had seen two men "jogging" away from the scene before police arrived.
As a defense witness at the 1982 trial, Jones denied having made that
statement; however, later in her testimony she started to describe a
pre-trial visit from police, where "They were getting on me telling me
I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do it. They were trying
to get me to say something that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I
couldn't do that." Jones then explicitly testified that police had
offered to let her and White "work the area if we tell them" what they
wanted to hear regarding Abu-Jamal's guilt.
At this point,
Prosecutor McGill interrupted Jones and moved to block her account,
calling her testimony "absolutely irrelevant." Judge Sabo agreed to
block the line of questioning, strike the testimony, and then ordered
the jury to disregard Jones' statement.
The DA and Sabo's
efforts to silence Jones continued through to the later PCRA hearings
that started in 1995. Having been unable to locate Jones earlier, the
defense found Jones in 1996, and (over the DA's protests) obtained
permission from the State Supreme Court to extend the PCRA hearings for
Jones' testimony. Sabo vehemently resisted-arguing that there was not
sufficient proof of her unavailability in 1995. However, in 1995 Sabo
had refused to order disclosure of Jones' home address to the defense
team.
Over Sabo's objections, the defense returned to the
State Supreme Court, which ordered Sabo to conduct a full evidentiary
hearing. Sabo's attempts to silence Jones continued as she took the
stand. He immediately threatened her with 5-10 years imprisonment if
she testified to having perjured herself in 1982. In defiance, Jones
persisted with her testimony that she had in fact lied in 1982, when
she had denied her original account to police that she had seen two men
"leave the scene."
Jones testified that she had changed her
version of events after being visited by two detectives in prison,
where she was being held on charges of robbery and assault. Urging her
to both finger Abu-Jamal as the shooter and to retract her statement
about seeing two men "run away," the detectives stressed that she faced
up to 10 years in prison and the loss of her children if convicted.
Jones testified in 1996 that in 1982, afraid of losing her children,
she had decided to meet the police halfway: she did not actually finger
Abu-Jamal, but she did lie about not seeing two men running from the
scene. Accordingly, following the 1982 trial, Jones only received
probation and was never imprisoned for the charges against her.
During the 1996 cross-examination, the DA announced that there was an
outstanding arrest warrant for Jones on charges of writing a bad check,
and that she would be arrested after concluding her testimony. With
tears pouring down her face, Jones declared: "This is not going to
change my testimony!" Despite objections from the defense, Sabo allowed
New Jersey police to handcuff and arrest Jones in the courtroom. While
the DA attempted to use this arrest to discredit Jones, her
determination in the face of intimidation may, arguably, have made her
testimony more credible. Outraged by Jones' treatment, even the
Philadelphia Daily News, certainly no fan of Abu-Jamal, reported: "Such
heavy-handed tactics can only confirm suspicions that the court is
incapable of giving Abu-Jamal a fair hearing. Sabo has long since
abandoned any pretense of fairness."
Jones' account was given
further credibility a year later. At the 1997 PCRA hearing, former
prostitute Pamela Jenkins testified that police had tried pressuring
her to falsely testify that she saw Abu-Jamal shoot Faulkner. In
addition, Jenkins testified that in late 1981, Cynthia White (whom
Jenkins knew as a fellow police informant) told Jenkins that she was
also being pressured to testify against Abu-Jamal, and that she was
afraid for her life.
As part of a 1995 federal probe of
Philadelphia police corruption, Officers Thomas F. Ryan and John D.
Baird were convicted of paying Jenkins to falsely testify that she had
bought drugs from a Temple University student. Jenkins' 1995 testimony
in this probe, helped to convict Ryan, Baird, and other officers, and
also to dismiss several dozen drug convictions. At the 1997 PCRA
hearing, Jenkins testified that this same Thomas F. Ryan was one of the
officers who attempted to have her lie about Abu-Jamal.
More
recently, a 2002 affidavit by former prostitute Yvette Williams
described police coercion of Cynthia White. The affidavit reads: "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...Whenever she talked about
testifying against Mumia Abu-Jamal, and how the police were making her
lie, she was nervous and very excited and I could tell how scared she
was from the way she was talking and crying." Explaining why she is
just now coming out with her affidavit, Williams says "I feel like I've
almost had a nervous breakdown over keeping quiet about this all these
years. I didn't say anything because I was afraid. I was afraid of the
police. They're dangerous." Williams' affidavit was rejected by
Philadelphia Judge Pamela Dembe in 2005, the PA Supreme Court in
February 2008, and in October 2008, by the US Supreme Court.
Further supporting the contention that police had made a deal with
White, author J. Patrick O'Connor writes, "Prior to her becoming a
prosecution witness in Abu-Jamal's case, White had been arrested 38
times for prostitution...After she gave her third statement to the
police, on December 17, 1981, she would not be arrested for
prostitution in Philadelphia ever again even though she admitted at
Billy Cook's trial that she continued to be 'actively working.'"
Amnesty International reports that later, in 1987, White was facing
charges of armed robbery, aggravated assault, and possession of illegal
weapons. A judge granted White the right to sign her own bail and she
was released after a special request was made by Philadelphia Police
Officer Douglas Culbreth (where Culbreth cited her involvement in
Abu-Jamal's trial). After White's release, she skipped bail and has
never, officially, been seen again.
At the 1997 PCRA hearing,
the DA announced that Cynthia White was dead, and presented a death
certificate for a "Cynthia Williams" who died in New Jersey in 1992.
However, Amnesty International reports, "an examination of the
fingerprint records of White and Williams showed no match and the
evidence that White is dead is far from conclusive." Journalist C.
Clark Kissinger writes, a Philadelphia police detective "testified that
the FBI had 'authenticated' that Williams had the same fingerprints as
White." However, Kissinger continues, "the DA's office refused to
produce the actual fingerprints," and "the body of Williams was
cremated so that no one could ever check the facts! Finally, the Ruth
Ray listed on the death certificate as the mother of the deceased
Cynthia Williams has given a sworn statement to the defense that she is
not the mother of either Cynthia White or Cynthia Williams." Dave
Lindorff reports further that the listing of deaths by social security
number for 1992 and later years does not include White's number.
Gary Wakshul's Testimony Blocked
On the final day of testimony, Abu-Jamal's lawyer discovered Police
Officer Gary Wakshul's official statement in the police report from the
morning of Dec. 9, 1981. After riding with Abu-Jamal to the hospital
and guarding him until treatment for his gunshot wound, Wakshul
reported: "the negro male made no comment." This statement contradicted
the trial testimony of prosecution witnesses Gary Bell (a police
officer) and Priscilla Durham (a hospital security guard), who
testified that they had heard Abu-Jamal confess to the shooting, while
Abu-Jamal was awaiting treatment at the hospital.
When the
defense immediately sought to call Wakshul as a witness, the DA
reported that he was on vacation. Judge Sabo denied the defense request
to locate him for testimony, on grounds that it was too late in the
trial to even take a short recess so that the defense could attempt to
locate Wakshul. Consequently, the jury never heard from Wakshul, nor
about his contradictory written report. When an outraged Abu-Jamal
protested, Judge Sabo replied: "You and your attorney goofed."
Wakshul's report from December 9, 1981 is just one of the many reasons
cited by Amnesty International for their conclusion that Bell's and
Durham's trial testimonies were not credible. There are many other
problems that merit a closer look if we are to determine how important
Wakshul's 1982 trial testimony could have been.
The alleged
"hospital confession," in which Abu-Jamal reportedly shouted, "I shot
the motherf***er and I hope he dies," was first officially reported to
police over two months after the shooting, by hospital guards Priscilla
Durham and James LeGrand (February 9, 1982), police officer Gary
Wakshul (February 11), officer Gary Bell (February 25), and officer
Thomas M. Bray (March1). Of these five, only Bell and Durham were
called as prosecution witnesses.
When Durham testified at the
trial, she added something new to her story which she had not reported
to the police on February 9. She now claimed that she had reported the
confession to her supervisor the next day, on December 10, making a
hand-written report. Neither her supervisor, nor the alleged
handwritten statement were ever presented in court. Instead, the DA
sent an officer to the hospital, returning with a suspicious typed
version of the alleged December 10 report. Sabo accepted the unsigned
and unauthenticated paper despite both Durham's disavowal (because it
was typed and not hand-written), and the defense's protest that its
authorship and authenticity were unproven.
Gary Bell
(Faulkner's partner and self-described "best friend") testified that
his two month memory lapse had resulted from his having been so upset
over Faulkner's death that he had forgotten to report it to police.
Later, at the 1995 PCRA hearings, Wakshul testified that both his
contradictory report made on December 9, 1981 ("the negro male made no
comment") and the two month delay were simply bad mistakes. He repeated
his earlier statement given to police on February 11, 1982 that he
"didn't realize it [Abu-Jamal's alleged confession] had any importance
until that day." Contradicting the DA's assertion of Wakshul's
unavailability in 1982, Wakshul also testified in 1995 that he had in
fact been home for his 1982 vacation, and available for trial
testimony, in accordance with explicit instructions to stay in town for
the trial so that he could testify if called.
Just days
before his PCRA testimony, undercover police officers savagely beat
Wakshul in front of a sitting Judge, in the Common Pleas Courtroom
where Wakshul worked as a court crier. The two attackers, Kenneth
Fleming and Jean Langen, were later suspended without pay, as
punishment. With the motive still unexplained, Dave Lindorff and J.
Patrick O'Connor speculate that the beating may have been used to
intimidate Wakshul into maintaining his "confession" story at the PCRA
hearings.
Regarding Abu-Jamal's alleged confession, Amnesty
International concluded: "The likelihood of two police officers and a
security guard forgetting or neglecting to report the confession of a
suspect in the killing of another police officer for more than two
months strains credulity."
Conclusion: the DA Still Wants to Execute
"The urgent need for a civil rights investigation is heightened because
the DA is still trying to execute Mumia," emphasizes Dr. Suzanne Ross,
an organizer of the campaign seeking an investigation. This past April,
the US Supreme Court declined to hear Abu-Jamal's appeal for a new
guilt-phase trial, but the Court has yet to rule on whether to hear the
appeal made simultaneously by the Philadelphia District Attorney's
office, which seeks to execute Abu-Jamal without granting him a new
penalty-phase trial.
In March, 2008, the Third
Circuit Court affirmed Federal District Court Judge William Yohn's 2001
decision "overturning" the death sentence. Citing the 1988 Mills v.
Maryland precedent, Yohn had ruled that sentencing forms used by jurors
and Judge Albert Sabo's instructions to the jury were potentially
confusing, and that therefore jurors could have mistakenly believed
that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstances in
order to consider them as weighing against a death sentence. According
to the 2001 ruling, affirmed in 2008, if the DA wants to re-instate the
death sentence, the DA must call for a new penalty-phase jury trial. In
such a penalty hearing, new evidence of Abu-Jamal's innocence could be
presented, but the jury could only choose between execution and a life
sentence without parole.
The DA is appealing to the US
Supreme Court against this 2008 affirmation of Yohn's ruling. If the
court rules in the DA's favor, Abu-Jamal can be executed without
benefit of a new sentencing hearing. If the US Supreme Court rules
against the DA's appeal, the DA must either accept the life sentence
for Abu-Jamal, or call for the new sentencing hearing. Meanwhile, Mumia
Abu-Jamal has never left his death row cell.
How You Can Help
Actions are being organized throughout the summer to support the
campaign for a federal civil rights investigation, including at the
upcoming NAACP convention in New York City, July 11-16. Organizers are
focusing particularly on July 13, the day that Attorney General Holder
will address the convention. Supporters will then be in Washington,
D.C., on July 22 to lobby their elected officials and, in
mid-September, they'll return to Washington, D.C., for a major press
conference.
For more information on how you can support the
campaign for a federal civil rights investigation, and to sign the
online letter and petition to Attorney General Holder, please visit: http://freemumia.com/civilrights.html.
--This article was first published by the SF Bay View Newspaper on June 16, 2009.
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