Ruling near on Abu-Jamal jury

Source: Philly Inquirer



Read more: http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/news_update/20080127_Ruling_near_on_Abu-Jamal_jury.html

We've never heard from his mouth an account of what actually happened. He stayed silent on the events of that night at the time, and has done for 26 years. That has never sat well with me. He could help to clear up all the conflicting accounts of what happened, but he has chosen not to. He seems to want to preserve the mystery.

What really happened that night, and why, has nothing to do with knotty constitutional questions.

Although one Jamal supporter claims Mumia admitted in prison to him that he regretted shooting Officer Daniel Faulkner.

I've read a lot on this trial through the years and I'm of the opinion Mumia did the crime. I also think he got a fair trial and jury and he did quite a bit himself to sabotage his own trial.

He wanted the trial to be a spectacle and it was. This city was still in the mode of not knowing how to handle MOVE, and MOVE was able to manipulate city officials to react badly—and boy, did they, big time. I started out sympathetic to him. His fellow journalists liked & respected him (I was hanging out with reporters at the time, and was at the press bar that night when a reporter came in to say Mumia had been shot), and the police force here did have a history of brutality, but he seemed more interested in making the trial pure theater than in clearing his name. I know he wasn't legally obligated to testify in his own defense, but I just couldn't get past how, if it had been me, I would've been dying to tell my side of the story. He never seemed to want to do that. It's not that I buy the police's story either, they obviously bungled things (in true Philadelphia fashion), but Mumia does not have my full sympathy. I think he's where he wants to be, a symbol and a martyr to a movement. All those Hollywood actors and international supporters should've been here for the whole thing, I think they might have a different take on Mumia as martyr.

for brutality. I could've understood that Mumia went to the defense of his brother being beaten by the cop since it was in the testimony of the witnesses that his brother struck Faulkner and Faulkner swung back with either his flashlight or baton. Now that didn't excuse Mumia shooting Faulkner.

But instead Mumia and MOVE made a spectacle of the trial and neither he nor his brother ever explained what happened that night. The silence of the brother is what has always puzzled me.

IMHO the celebrities who picked this case picked the wrong one for racial injustice and as protest against the death penalty.

I can't say whether Faulkner was a good or a bad cop but I've always felt bad for his widow Maureen who has endured a lot of crap from many of the Mumia supporters.

What showboating.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Move_bombing

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/MOVE-Alice-Walker1988.htm

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

Mumia's affidavit describes exactly what he did and didn't see. The linked pamphlet also includes the affidavit of Arnold Beverly, whose confession has not been admitted into evidence by the courts. There's a great fact sheet on Mumia which goes through what happened that evening in detail, along with citations to all the appropriate legal documents.

Now I'm wondering why he waited 20 years to make it. Understand, I'm not without sympathy for him, I'm just yearning to see the facts of the original story stressed, rather than being told that I must automatically support him because the system is racist. What interests me in having read the fact sheet you link to is the assertion that Officer Faulkner was targeted by the mob. That would've been a GREAT story, but I don't remember any reporters following that down at the time—and the early 80s was a time of great Mafia upheaval in Philadelphia, and reporters were all over it, after Angelo Bruno was murdered in 1980. There would have been reporters who'd have loved to write an exposé like that.

not the least of which is that it involves fair trial issues at a time when our civil rights are threatened. At least two of the issues the appeals court is going to consider, were the jury instructions confusing and did the prosecutor downplay the likelihood of a captial sentence, may possibly affect defendants in the future regardless of race. As the article states, the issue in this hearing is not Muima's guilt or innocence.

Faulkner's bullet in his chest. Mumia's revolver which was proven to be his empty and with a shoulder holster on? And why did it take till 1999 for him and his brother to start declaring his innocence?

Sorry but I think the Mumia puts out a lot of conspiracy crap that they cherry-pick like the 9-11 conspiracies of explosives in the WTC towers and a plane didn't hit the Pentagon.