Officer Daniel Faulkner was murdered while on duty on Dec 9, 1981.
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There are three things you don´t wear in Philadelphia unless you want to get your ass kicked: a Dallas Cowboys jersey, anything with the New York Mets logo on it, and a "Free Mumia" t-shirt.
On Dec 9, 1981, Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner pulled over driver William Cook. A short time later, Faulkner was shot to death. Cook´s brother Mumia Abu-Jamal (né Wesley Cook) was tried an convicted of Faulkner´s murder, and sentenced to death. More than 25 years later, and after a series of appeals, Abu-Jamal remains on death row.
Abu-Jamal was a journalist who moonlighted as a taxi driver at the time of his arrest, and he is both an eloquent speaker and writer. He has been able to leverage these abilities to become a minor celebrity behind bars, and his case slowly gained national attention. Activists claimed that he had been unjustly convicted and armies of protestors began wearing "Free Mumia" t-shirts, though it´s safe to say a large portion of them had no idea why, except that their friends were doing the same thing.
The mantra in Philadelphia usually goes "If Mumia didn´t want to get convicted, he shouldn´t have shot a cop." However, it´s fair to say that both Mumia´s supporters and detractors can´t claim to know with certainty whether or not the man is guilty, only that he is a convicted murderer. The case against Abu-Jamal is strong but not airtight. His gun was found at the scene and had been fired five times. Several eye-witnesses identified him as being at the scene. A witness at the hospital claims to have heard him confess to the crimes.
Director John Edginton, in turns, argues that some question remain. No tests were done to confirm that Abu-Jamal had fired a gun recently. Some eye witnesses not present at the trial offer conflicting accounts of the incident. And Judge Alfred Sabo, who presided over both the initial trial and a later appeal, was one of the most ardently pro-death penalty judges in the country.
I will spare you the rest of the details. Edginton´s focus is one the specifics of the case, but I believe he has missed the bigger picture here. Abu-Jamal has been tried and convicted, and his appeals have been rejected. Nonetheless, without DNA evidence, the only incontrovertible proof we can ever really have in a trial, some room for doubt, no matter how small, remains. What this case shows is how utterly absurd, not to mention profoundly immoral, the death penalty is. Hundreds of death-row prisoners have been exonerated by DNA evidence in recent years: people who had been convicted and whose appeals had been rejected. Without such evidence, there is simply no justification for sending a man to his death: it´s the kind of mistake you can´t make up for. I am, in no way, claiming that Mumia Abu-Jamal is an innocent man. I tend to agree with the "He shouldn´t have shot a cop" crowd, but I have to admit I don´t really know, not any more than some of the jokers who wear their trendy little "Free Mumia" shirts. But sentencing him to death is an outrage without the DNA evidence. Eye witness testimony simply is not reliable, and the ballistics tests were not definitive.
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