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It's been 25 years now since Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was shot dead in a Center City, Philadelphia red-light district. Since then, Faulkner has become a rallying point for the nation's death penalty advocates. It's been 25 years, too, since the man convicted of killing Faulkner, Philadelphia radio journalist and former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, was arrested for the crime at the scene. Since July 1982, Abu-Jamal has been in solitary confinement on Philadelphia's death row, from which lonely spot he has become a world-famous prison journalist, and a rallying point for those opposed to capital punishment.

The debates over Abu-Jamal's guilt or innocence have raged now for an astonishing quarter of a century, through the presidencies of Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush. Battles have raged, too, within the loose-knit group of people who have backed Abu-Jamal, between those who argue that he is an innocent man, a political prisoner condemned for his politics, and those who simply argue that he never received a fair trial. Politicians at the local, state and even federal level, many without any real knowledge about this complex case, have prostituted themselves by pressing for Abu-Jamal's execution, while others, sometimes equally ignorant of the facts, have lionized him and honored him with honorary citizenships and street names.

Whatever one's views on this case, however, the reality is that it for the first time in 25 years, Abu-Jamal is finally going to get a chance in the second highest court in the land to make the case that his 1982 trial was fatally tainted by unconstitutional error, judicial bias, race-based jury selection and prosecutorial misconduct. The reality also is that the Third Circuit Court of Appeals, which will be hearing arguments on Abu-Jamal's appeal early next year (barring any unanticipated delays), could conceivably end up ordering a new trial for Abu-Jamal--a trial that, because of better defense counsel, a changed political climate, shifting demographics, the deaths of some witnesses, and the likelihood of new defense witnesses, would most likely end up setting him free, or having him released for time served.

At the same time, the same three-judge panel hearing this appeal will also be considering a counter appeal by the Philadelphia District Attorney's office, which seeks to overturn a lower Federal District Court decision which five years ago tossed out Abu-Jamal's death sentence. So at the same time that the Third Circuit could end up giving Abu-Jamal a new chance to prove his innocence, or at least to leave prison a free man, it could ironically also end up sending him back onto death row and to a date with the needle.

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Originally posted by M. Spector:
As far as I can tell, we've never had a thread about this notorious death penalty case, which has been going on for more than two decades.

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Find a tree and get a rope.

He's a very eloquent manfv, but I don't feel sympathy for him. I save that for the family of the man he murdered.

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Originally posted by Lavite:
Find a tree and get a rope.

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Find a tree and get a rope.

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N.R.KISSED, thank you for your kind gentle words. Truly you are an enlightened soul with an open mind to the opinions of others.

Remember Daniel Faulkner, the man Abu-Jamal murdered? If you wish to condone murder, go for it. I could not care less what race a murderer is, they deserve no sympathy.

And I don't believe the death penalty is a deterent. If you look at the number of people of death row and divide it by the number executed each year, there is already over a hundred year back log.

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Originally posted by Lavite:
M. Spector, no in Georgia we use lethal injection to criminals if they get the death sentence.

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Welcome to babble, Lavite, it's always good to hear from our southern cousins.

We Canadians are still using the old-style non-lethal injections for things like disease prevention.

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Even if this guy Jamal did kill a cop, well what about the Rodney King case? Some people would consider Jamal not a murderer but a freedom fighter if he really killed the cop.

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Either you can say he didn't commit the murder and should be released on that basis or you can
say he did commit the murder and that there are extenuating circumstances. You can't use both arguments at once.

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It's kind of notable that people bring issues like this up when things like Israel are in the news. It deflects quite nicely, if you are a brainwashed neocon.

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Either you can say he didn't commit the murder and should be released on that basis or you can
say he did commit the murder and that there are extenuating circumstances. You can't use both arguments at once.

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Given the status Mumia's case has it is bound that there are some people that will say silly things about it.

In recent years evidence has come forward that would prove that Mumia was completely innocent. However, there's been no opportunity to present this evidence in a trial proceeding.

There's debate in the movement over whether we should demand a new trial for brother Mumia or demand his simple release. I believe that in a fair trial he would easily be found innocent.

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Keep digging.

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This does make your feigned outrage hard to swallow when you defend killing cops in one of your posts in this thread.

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Originally posted by Nanuq:
I've read pro- and anti-Mumia articles and I couldn't help wondering if they were even discussing the same case considering how the presentation of facts seemed to diverge.

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At that time I was a politically aware but somewhat conspiracy-minded university student. I thought back then that O.J. Simpson had been framed as well -- now I just don't know, although I think the LAPD and the prosecution bungled things badly in their over-eagerness to convict him, and the jury acquitted him not so much because they believed in his innocence, but more because the trial process had been irredeemably tainted.

Quite possibly Abu-Jamal's trial was tainted in the same way by a police force, prosecution, and judge (I recall the judge was a former cop) all out to get Abu-Jamal because a cop was dead and they wanted vengeance.