The Trial of Mumia-Abu Jamal

Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted and sentenced to death for the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9, 1981 at the intersection of Locust and 13^th Streets. He is often considered to be the most famous death row inmate in the world today and his case is surrounded by speculation, controversy, doubt, and hate. Around the world you can almost find a split between those who believe Mumia is innocent and should be freed from death row and those who believe he is nothing but a common criminal and hatred filled cop killer. Either side a person lands on, the debate always seems to stem from the trial, in which injustices led to Mumia's conviction and sentence or that the trial was fair and just and Mumia got what he deserved. Through reading both books, Murdered by Mumia and Executing Justice and through careful and extensive research on the topic, this paper will show that Mumia was given a fair trial and the decision handed down by twelve of his peers was just.

Mumia Abu-Jamal is the focal point of the debate on the death penalty and many people feel that the fate of the death penalty in the United States hinges on his case. In April 2009 the Supreme Court of the United States rejected an appeal by Mumia for a new trial which all but guarantees that he will never be set free.[1] He reacted with vigor and disappointment when he heard the news in his jail cell, saying that the Supreme Court passed on a chance to rule on the right to fair trial with an impartial jury and that the ruling subject the Constitution to nothing because a fair and just jury mean nothing.¹ To this day he makes recordings for radio broadcasts and writes his thoughts whenever he gets the chance to urge young people to fight for equal justice and understand that racism is at large in the United States.

The original trial is the battle ground for all those that want to become involved in the Mumia case. Some facts cannot be disputed, while others are up for interpretation. Seemingly the only undisputed evidence is that Daniel Faulkner pulled over Mumia's brother for a traffic stop and from then on the rest is shrouded in mystery, shaky eye-witness testimony, controversy, and questions compounded by more questions. The main argument for Mumia's supporters is that he did not receive a fair trial from an impartial and fair jury, while the prosecution and those that are against Mumia claim that the trial was just and Mumia was his own worst enemy.

Mumia claims that the prosecution, mainly Prosecutor Joseph McGill, unfairly barred fit and willing black jury members by using eleven of his fifteen peremptory challenges. The final count on the jury was nine whites, three blacks, and four white alternates.[2] When a black juror dropped out, he was replaced by a white alternate which left the jury count at ten whites and two blacks.² When Mumia made appealed to the Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit claiming racial bias in his case, Judge William Yohn dismissed defense studies about the dismissal of black jurors from Pennsylvania's courtrooms because he thought they did not encompass the time Mumia was tried.² However, the statistics do in fact encompass Mumia's case as they were taken from the period of 1977-1986 and concluded that local prosecutors used their peremptory challenges to disqualify 61 percent of black jurors from their juries and another study showed that McGill himself removed 74 percent of capable black jurors.²

These studies do show that prosecutors, including McGill, did make decisions that might be considered racially biased, but the cases do not show the percentage of whites they barred from their juries. Also, who is to say that if Mumia and the prosecutor agreed on an all black jury that the outcome would have been different? Are we as a society supposed to bend to the will of an accused killer so he can have an advantage in the trial by packing the jury with people he thinks will find him innocent because of his skin color? In fact, Mumia himself removed a black juror from the pool, which shows that he did not want a jury filled with African-American's, he wanted a jury filled with people who would find him innocent because of his race. This is an injustice and an abuse of the court system. The prosecution was simply doing their job and legally removed who they thought would rule in favor of Mumia for reasons other than the facts of the case.

The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal is not sustained only in the United States, but rather it is a worldwide phenomenon that has caught the attention of people who seek equal justice and those who vehemently oppose the death penalty. Countries such as France and the United Kingdom have all chimed in their thoughts on the case and have offered opinions as to why they believe Mumia was not given a fair and just trial and should be retired. These sources, along with numerous others in the United States, make more claims than just that the prosecutor was racially biased in his voir dire, but that the judge in the case was a racist and the actions by the Philadelphia police officers were both racist and intimidating at the arrest and throughout the case.

There are claims that since deceased Judge Albert Sabo was both blatantly and subtlety racist and that the way he conducted and led the trial could have only ended up in the way it did, the jury finding Mumia guilty. Not only was his actions in the court room suspect to Mumia supporters, but his track record of being both bias and partial led him to putting more people on death row than any other judge in the United States.[3] Mr. Robert Bryan, one of Mumia's lead counsel, has done interviews with those that were present in the courtroom during the trial and he claims that all of them were aware and noticed the racism of Judge Sabo.³ In fact, one stenographer even over heard Jude Sabo say he was going to help the prosecution "fry the nigger.³" While the majority of the people who are opposed to Mumia and believe he did murder Daniel Faulkner, including his widow Maureen, contend that Judge Sabo was both honorable and just. Obviously in a case of such political importance and public attention the arguments on each side will be strong and skewed towards the position in which that person tends to support, but even if Judge Sabo was blatantly racist and helped the prosecution along the way, Mumia was still convicted by twelve of his peers, not the Judge. A person can concede that a judge has a huge outcome on the case in which they preside over, but in the end an accused is still judged before a jury in our common law system.

One of the biggest contentions made by the supporters of Mumia Abu-Jamal is that he consistently asked to represent him self, or pro se, or to be represented by the counsel of his choosing, which would have been John Africa, the leader of the Philadelphia organization MOVE that advocated a back to nature lifestyle free from technology. John Africa was Mumia's mentor, but he had no legal experience and in reality the use of him as counsel would have probably hurt Mumia more than helped him. Mumia contended that the court appointed attorney was ill-equipped and not prepared enough to conduct a proper investigation and therefore his rights were not being recognized and he was being put at a disadvantage. [4] In fact, originally Judge Sabo allowed Mumia to be his own counsel with public defender Anthony Jackson acting as a legal advisor. When Mumia became disruptive in the court room and proved to the Judge that he could not handle this case as a pro se defendant, he was relieved of his pro se status and Jackson was appointed his legal counsel. Defenders of Mumia say that when he protested to the assignment of Jackson as his legal aide, Sabo had him removed from the court room for causing a disturbance, which seems like a major punishment for a minor infraction.⁴ Mumia essentially became his own worst enemy in the court room, being removed form it for outbursts around nine times, presenting himself to the jury as a volatile person with anger issues, which probably helped in their decision process.

In reading pages and pages of case transcript it is impossible to determine whether or not Judge Sabo was indeed biased in the way he conducted his courtroom. Both opposing sides will hold fast to their opinions of the Judge and only those that were there can truly say if he was indeed helping the prosecution, but even then it is all opinion and speculation. This may by one of the weakest points brought up by the defenders of Mumia Abu-Jamal, and one that probably should not be revisited that would tarnish the name of Honorable Judge Sabo.

Another contention by Mumia's supporters is that the police involved in the case and that were observing the case were racist and helped intimidate jurors by showing up to court in their full uniforms.[5] Supporters say that the police that arrived on the murder scene were abusive towards Mumia, grounding his head into a post and making sure Mumia suffered the most pain possible.⁵ People in the courtroom observed that during the trial, they tended to pack the court room as much as they could with uniformed officers which in way was an intimidating factor for the jury.⁵ Some people might refer to this as police racism, while others say it was just fighting fair.

Police justice is as common place in Philadelphia as it is anywhere in the United States and around the world. If Mumia was a white man who just had murdered a police officer in cold blood, police officers would have given out a little of their own justice to him as well, it is a practice that was not distinct only to Mumia and only because he was African-American. Yes, when allegations of such actions are heard about they are often looked down upon by the public, but there is not a person in the world that would not exact some type of small revenge on a person that had just killed a friend, family member, or close co-worker. This should have no place in the court room and did not in anyway affect the outcome of the case against Mumia Abu-Jamal.

When you read about how police tried to pack the court with uniform officers during this high profile case, the person telling the account is not giving the whole story. Police officers were not the only people that were in attendance during the trial, in fact a plethora of MOVE members came dressed in their garb to show their support for Mumia. Indeed the officers showing up in full uniform would have been a form of intimidation if they were the only ones in the court room, however with the audience also having a fair share of MOVE members who were both inconsiderate and disrespectful to Judge Sabo, one cannot call this police intimidation and be serious about their inclination.

An article entitled "Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Social Wage of Whiteness" written by Van Gosse and Kavita Philip contained an excerpt from a speech by Sam Jordan, the former director for Amnesty International's Program to Abolish the Death Penalty, that claimed that the case against Mumia is one that is shrouded with reasonable doubt.[6] In the speech he contends that there were falsely reported confessions, a mishandling and destruction of evidence from the crime scene, judicial bias, too many peremptory challenges barring fit African-American prospective jurors, misconduct on the part of the prosecution, snitch testimony, and misidentification of people at the scene by eyewitnesses.⁶ All are reasons he says, that the case should be retried because the amount of reasonable doubt that is involved in the case is enormous. All of these facts are an opinion by one side that would be reneged by other and all the facts pointing towards a fair trial by those who oppose Mumia would be reneged by those who support him. In fact bringing up testimony and opinions on how the case was handled just creates a carousel of lies and guesses. There is no way to distinctively prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the allegations made by Jordan are true.

The final and possibly strongest argument supporters for Mumia lean on is a statement made by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which said that it was possible that the jury was confused by Judge Sabo's instructions and wording on the verdict form that they had to fill out.[7] The Third Circuit Court said that the jury could have possibly been mistaken in the idea that they had to unanimously agree on any mitigating circumstances or factors that might have lead jurors to decide that Mumia should be given life instead of the death penalty.[8] The Supreme Court is set to decide a case coming out of Ohio this upcoming session on a similar case that could grant Mumia a new trial on such a claim.⁸ However, former prosecutor Joseph McGill says it is very unlikely that Mumia will ever get a new trial.⁸

In conclusion Mumia Abu-Jamal was given a fair trial and the decision handed down by twelve of his peers was fair and just. Opinions on barring competent black jurors during the voir dire by the prosecution are simply bogus in the fact that Mumia wanted to pack the jury with people who would find him innocent based on the same fact he accused the prosecution of packing the jury of finding him guilty. Opinions about the racism and bias of Judge Sabo can never be truly identified expect by the man himself who is now deceased. The fact that Mumia was represented by an incompetent defense attorney is false, Anthony Jackson handled plenty of death penalty cases, and the idea that he was not give a fair trial because he was not able to represent himself holds no water unless Mumia himself would have testified, which he did not do. Police justice makes no difference in the outcome of this case and when they came to court dressed in their uniforms they were simply fighting fire with fire. Everything that is brought up in defense of Mumia is speculative and is not grounded in actual evidence or fact. Mumia Abu-Jamal was given a fair trial and convicted of murdering a police officer in cold blood by his peers, yet he still gets to record for radio shows and college speeches, and eat dinner and lunch and get full night sleep. Daniel Faulkner does not and the right man was found guilty.

[1] Lounsberry, Emilie. "High court rejects Abu-Jamal's bid for new trial." The Philadelphia Inquirer City-D Edition (April 7, 2009): p. B01.

[2] Lindorff, Dave. "Mumia's Appeal." The Nation Vol. 275 (December 2002): p.24.

[3] Macdonald, Ian. "The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal." Index on Censorship Vol. 36 (2007): p.6-11.

[4] Macdonald, Ian. "The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal." Index on Censorship Vol. 36 (2007): p.6-11.

[5] Macdonald, Ian. "The case of Mumia Abu-Jamal." Index on Censorship Vol. 36 (2007): p.6-11.

[6] Gosse, Van and Kavita Philip. "Mumia Abu-Jamal and the Social Wage of Whiteness." Radical History Review Issue 81 (Fall 2001): p. 5-14.

[7] Lounsberry, Emilie. "High court rejects Abu-Jamal's bid for new trial." The Philadelphia Inquirer City-D Edition (April 7, 2009): p. B01.

[8] Lounsberry, Emilie. "High court rejects Abu-Jamal's bid for new trial." The Philadelphia Inquirer City-D Edition (April 7, 2009): p. B01.