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Mumia Abu-Jamal tried,
convicted without cause
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Cartoon by Jonathan White
Simpson verdict sparked
racist backlash nationwide
By Kimathi Lewis
Editor -In-Chief
Hurled by judicial decree into this
netherworld of despair, forcefully
separated from relationships, overcome
by the dual shame of their station and the
circumstances of the crime that led them to
death ’s door, a few succumb to the shady
release of suicide. Some fight Sisyphian
battles, struggling to prove their innocence
and reverse unjust convictions. Others live
as they are treated- as “shadows of [their]
former selves, inapantomineoflife, human
husks. ”
To such men and women, the actual
execution is a fait accompli, a formality
already accomplished in spirit, where the
state concludes its premeditated drama by
putting the “dead ” to death a second time.
— Mumia Abu-Jamal’s “Live From Death
Row”
Former Black Panther member and
Philadephia radio journalist Mumia Abu-
Jamal has been on death row for 12 years.
He was convicted in 1982 of killing
Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner
despite glaring discrepancies in the case.
Jamal was scheduled to be executed this
past Aug. 17, by a death warrant signed by
Pennsylvania Republican Governor
Thomas Ridge. But, a staggering swell of
public protest halted the deadline .
temporarily.
According to a report by Equal Justice
USA, Jamal, on the night of the shooting,
was working as a cab driver when he came
upon a Philadelphia officer allegedly
beating his brother. His brother was stopped
for making a wrong turn onto a one-way
street. Jamal rushed to the scene to stop
the beating.
What occurred next is unclear except,
in the end, Faulkner shot Jamal and he
himself was dead.
Jamal’s case highligthed several ways
in which racial, economic and political
biases dominate America’s criminal
justice system.
With $150 for pre-trial investigation
and a court apointed attorney who could
care less about the case, Jamal’s trial was
a mockery of justice. The state also
ensured a conviction in its selection of the
jury, which consisted of 10 whites and
two Blacks despite the fact that 40% of
Philadelphia’s residents were Black.
Criticized for not taking a stand, the
National Association of Black Journalists,
NABJ, held a judicial review, which
consisted of a verbal show down between
Jamal’s Defense Attorney Leonard
Weinglass and the prosector of the 1982
case Joseph McGill.
According to defense attorneys, the
prosecution team “bribed the witnesses.”
Weinglass argued all the witnesses
initially said they saw the assailant running
away [Jamal of course couldn’t have run
because of his gun shot wound]. However,
two of the witnesses later admitted to
being bribed into withdrawing their
statement. One, a prostitute, was
questioned for five hours and when it was
over, the police promised to allow her to
cover her beat unharrassed.
The second witness, a cab driver, was
By Kimathi Lewis
Editor-in-Chief
For eight months, the O. J. Simpson case
was a soap box for those interested in
blood, sex and scandal and when it was
over, it further separated an already severed
nation.
On Oct. 3, a jury of eight black women,
one black man, two white women and one
Latino man declared Simpson not guilty of
the murder of his ex-wife, Nicole Brown,
and her friend, Ronald Goldman. The
Simpson case was one of the most talked
about and analyzed criminal trials in history
and when it was over, what followed was a
distinct division of the color line.
While many Black people cheered, just
as many whites were outraged at the jury’s
decision. It cuts too deep that a Black man
could have possibly gotten away with killing
a white woman, when a mere 40 years ago
he would have been lynched for smiling at
her.
But the decision was final and white
people were left with the realization that
his guilt was mostly obvious to them.
Interesting how two groups of people can
look at the same thing and come away with
opposing conclusions —then again, maybe
not.
The diverse reactions of the two groups
made it all too evident that, in the
fundamental sense, Black and White people
really do live in separate worlds.
Also interesting was how, in a seemingly
odd twist of fate, the jury ended up being
majority Black and, to compound matters,
one of the prosecution’s key witnesses
Mark Fuhrman turned out to be racist.
These two factors made it all too easy for
whites to accuse Johnnie Cochran of
playing the “race card.”
“Soon, the race card will be an issue in
everything in this country," Joe D. Whitley
said in his article ‘Iron Chains Freed O.J.:
That Ain’t Right’ .in the Oct. 14 issue of
Creative Loafing.
He accused Cochran of using the race
card to get through the system, and if he
could do that, what’s to stop other Blacks
from doing it.
“A white O.J. Simpson would likely
have been convicted despite the talent of
the “Dream Team,” Whitley said. “Our
goal must be to refortify and build a system
that is fair and is seen as fair to all
Americans. The race card must be removed
from the deck.”
Makes you wonder if the Simpson case
wasn’t engineered to establish a certain
political agenda. Sure Fuhrman lost his
job and Simpson was acquitted, but in the
the long run Black people may be the
biggest losers.
While some whites only voiced their
anger, some took it a step further.
In the Oct. 23 issue of The New Yorker,
Henry Louis Gates Jr. referred to Thelma
Golden, the curator of the Whitney’s
“Black Male” show, who pointed out that
on the very day the verdict was announced,
Continued on P7
Continued on P7
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