Mumia again: "Justice On Trial'

This past week saw the screening of not one but two new documentaries about Mumia Abu-Jamal. One, Tigre Hill's The Barrel of a Gun, was the subject of no fewer than three feature commentaries in the Inquirer, including a thumbs-up by Michael Smerconish. The other, Johanna Fernandez's Justice on Trial, got second if any billing at all.

I'd liked to have seen them both, but they screened only on a single day, and scheduling issues forced me to choose between them. I was pretty sure Hill's film would get attention. So I went to see Justice on Trial.

The facts not in dispute about Mumia's conviction in the shooting death of Officer Daniel Faulkner in Center City Philadelphia 1981 are these: Faulkner stopped Mumia's brother, Billy Cook, late at night. Mumia, who had a licensed gun, arrived on the scene. An altercation ensued. Both Mumia and Faulkner were shot, Faulkner fatally.

These facts admit one of three possibilities: (1) Mumia fatally shot Faulkner, after being wounded himself; (2) Billy Cook fired the fatal shot; (3) a third party was present and did the shooting.

A Philadelphia jury found Mumia guilty. The prosecution alleged that, as Faulkner lay on the ground after absorbing a first gunshot wound, Mumia straddled him and fired four bullets at him, execution-style. This is possible, although medically dubious. Mumia's wound was a serious one, and it's hard to imagine him balancing himself in the way described by prosecutor Joseph McGill.

Billy Cook was never a suspect, although between the two brothers he was the likelier shooter. Mumia had no criminal record, and Billy was a drifter in trouble with the law. Mumia was wounded, and Billy was not.

The third man

Eyewitnesses came forward later to say that a third man had fled the scene of the shooting before police arrived. They were not heard at trial, and their evidence was not admitted during subsequent appeals. The most probable candidate for the third man, if there was one, was Kenneth Freeman, a confederate of Cook's who frequently accompanied him. Freeman is dead, a murder victim himself in a case never solved.

A reasonable man would, I think, be entitled to doubt if presented with these facts and no others. Reasonable doubt acquits.

The prosecution offered Mumia's gun in evidence. But there were no usable prints on it, and it was never even tested to see if it had been fired. That's Rule One in a shooting investigation.

Dispositive prints couldn't be recovered because the gun was handled without gloves by police at the scene. We know that now, because an amateur photographer took more than two dozen shots at the crime scene, one of which clearly shows an officer handling Mumia's purported gun. These photographs were offered to the police at the time, but were refused. The defense never heard about them, and they surfaced only a quarter of a century later.

Tainted fingerprints

Of course, we don't know whether the gun the officer was holding was Mumia's own. Mumia carried one for protection in the cab he drove. We don't know that the gun "recovered" at the crime scene was brought there by Mumia himself, or by someone else. We don't know whose prints might have been on it, or whether it was used at all. More doubt.

We do know that the prosecution employed suborned and perjured testimony. Its two chief civilian witnesses, Robert Chobert and Veronica Jones, both faced criminal charges of their own that could have put them away for decades. Jones, who tearfully recants her testimony in Justice on Trial, describes her coercion. More bad news.

Particularly compelling testimony was given by two police officers who came forward (two months after the fact) to state that Mumia bragged about the shooting after being taken into custody. But another officer, who attended Mumia constantly, affirmed that he had said nothing at all to anyone. When the defense belatedly learned of this third officer, he was described as being "unavailable" to testify, although he was actually present in the city.

New photographs

Much of this recitation will be familiar to those who have followed Mumia's case. What will be new to some are the photographs, which not only show the alleged murder weapon being dangled in the officer's hand but also undermine part of Chobert's testimony, as well as an extensive interview with Mumia's sister, who saw him in the hospital after his arrest and says he explicitly denied shooting Faulkner.

Many more circumstances in Mumia's trial have made it a textbook case of American injustice. The trial judge, Albert Sabo, was overheard by a court stenographer to say that he meant to help "fry the nigger," but that testimony was kept out of court. The jury was systematically purged of African-Americans as part of what was subsequently revealed to be deliberate policy in the District Attorney's Office.

In the penalty phase of the trial, McGill unconstitutionally invoked Mumia's youthful background as a Black Panther, while his own hapless attorney, Anthony Jackson, failed to plead a single mitigating circumstance on his behalf.

Rizzo's police brutality

The point of Justice on Trial, however, is not how exceptional Mumia's trial was, but how typical. The film details the runaway corruption and brutality of Philadelphia's police force under Mayor Frank Rizzo in the 1970s, and the hand-in-glove collaboration of the District Attorney's Office with it. For all the outrageousness of Mumia's trial, the only thing that distinguished it from hundreds of others was the notoriety of the defendant, who had been publicly targeted by Rizzo.

Nor, as the film points out, is the system much improved today. Every few years brings renewed scandal. The Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) remains as resistant to reform as ever, and no mayor, police commissioner, or D.A. has dared to confront its culture of impunity.

The consequences of this situation extend far beyond Philadelphia. As Justice On Trial points out, five of the seven judges who rejected Mumia's appeal for a new trial in 1995 had taken campaign contributions from the FOP, which turned out again in force at the showing of The Barrel of a Gun. For the FOP, Mumia's execution has become a crusade, and the commitment of politicians and judges to it the touchstone of the police union's favor or wrath.

Also on Death Row…

Mumia's case was and remains an international cynosure. But his rights are those of all Philadelphians. By reminding us of how many defendants victimized by the twin stigmas of American life— color and poverty— have been similarly if anonymously deprived of their liberties, Justice on Trial puts Philadelphia itself in the dock. This is so regardless of Mumia's factual guilt or innocence, something only a fair trial can establish.

In the meantime, we are left to wonder how many of Mumia's fellow Death Row inmates may be there courtesy of stacked juries, improperly handled or manufactured evidence, perjured testimony, and ineffective counsel; indeed, how many in the general prison population itself. As long as Mumia's case is alive— and that will be as long as Mumia himself lives— it will shine a bright light into the shadows of our jurisprudence.

Maybe that's why the D.A.'s office and the FOP want him dead so badly. When Mumia's currently vacated death sentence goes back to circuit court in November, they'll have their crack again.♦


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