Philly's "Execution Queen" Lynne Abraham has rushed in to do damage control following the international explosion of support for Mumia Abu-Jamal. She was given an op-ed slot in the New York Times to defend the government's clumsy attempt to frame Mumia, but only succeeded in digging herself in deeper. On each point she raises a minor issue in order to dodge the major issue that exposes the government's case as false.
Abraham's first point is on the defense contention that Officer Faulkner was shot by another man who fled the scene, as now testified to by a number of witnesses. "The reality is that after years of empty assertions, the defense only recently presented testimony from these 'witnesses,'" she writes.
That's true! Because only recently has Mumia been able to force a hearing to argue for a new trial, because only recently has Mumia been defended by a competent and dedicated legal team, and because only recently have some of the eyewitnesses defied years of police intimidation to come forward with their testimony. As we now know, quite a number of people were present at the scene, including at least one other individual from whom Officer Faulkner had taken a driver's license. But the addresses and phone numbers of potential defense witnesses were withheld from the defense in the original trial, a point Abraham conveniently omits.
Her second point concerns the inconsistencies in official reports on the caliber of the bullet that killed Officer Faulkner. Here again Abraham raises the minor point to draw attention away from the major issue, which is, who fired the fatal shot? Was it the grievously wounded Mumia? Was it someone who picked up Mumia's gun? Or was it a third party with their own gun? What is astounding is that other suspects were tested to determine if they had fired a gun, but Mumia was not tested.
Abraham's third point is her assertion that Mumia "was represented by an experienced former prosecutor" and that "the jury was composed of blacks and whites chosen with Mr. Abu-Jamal's participation."
Both of these assertions are false, and are designed to cover up the real issue: the fact that Mumia was denied his constitutional right to choice of counsel. In his 1982 Kangaroo Court trial, the court appointed Mr. Anthony Jackson to defend Mumia over both Jackson's and Mumia's objections. Mr. Jackson, by his own admission, was not prepared to conduct such a trial, and was subsequently disbarred for unrelated reasons.
On the question of the jury, Mumia was barred from questioning jurors after the first few jurors were examined, and the only juror which he had accepted was subsequently removed from the jury by Judge Sabo. The prosecution used most of its preemptory challenges to knock Blacks off the jury - a practice that was subsequently outlawed by the Supreme Court.
Finally, Abraham declares as "ludicrous" the idea that the Philadelphia police would conspire to frame up Mr. Jamal and allow the real killer to escape. Ludicrous? Hello, has anybody been reading the Philadelphia newspapers recently? Is this not the city where scores of people are now being released from jail because cops have confessed to making false arrests, planting drugs on suspects, filing bogus reports, and robbing victims? One can only ask, if this how ordinary suspects are treated, how would the Philly cops treat a revolutionary Black journalist and prominent critic of the police, who is found wounded at the site where a police officer was shot?
Abraham's apologia is most notable for what it does not contain. Quietly dropped is the truly ludicrous story that Mumia loudly "confessed" the night of the shooting, but all the cops who heard it forgot to report it until two months later when Mumia filed police brutality charges for being beaten at the scene and at the hospital. Abraham also omits her personal role in the case as the judge who conducted Mumia's arraignment.
SOURCES: New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, and notes taken during the hearing for post conviction relief.
Arm yourself with the truth. Get the full set of Mumia Fact Sheets from your local Free Mumia Coalition or from Refuse & Resist!
Download a 120K PDF file of this Fact Sheet use Adobe Acrobat to print a 300 dpi repro quality version to a PostScript printer.
Mumia Index | Mumia Events | R&R Main Page
Contact Refuse
& Resist!
305 Madison Ave., Suite 1166, New York, NY 10165
Phone: 212-713-5657
email: info@refuseandresist.org