A well-prepared railroading

Police and prosecutors prepared Jamal’s frame-up well: they threatened witnesses into changing their stories, and suppressed evidence that could prove Jamal’s innocence.

The most important prosecution witnesses, Cynthia White and Robert Chobert, later admitted privately, or to investigators, that they had lied under pressure. Neither one of them actually saw the shooting they had claimed to witness! Defense witness Veronica Jones--one of those who saw two men hastily leave the scene right after the shooting--later testified in an appeal hearing that she changed her story and lied at the trial under police threats of jail (which would have meant losing her children).

Police and prosecutors also manufactured a so-called “confession,” which one cop claimed to “remember” weeks after the fact. William Singletary refused to lie for police, and promptly became the victim of a police terror campaign. The cops trashed his businesses, and drove him out of town with a warning: don’t be here when the trial started! With Singletary out of the way, the prosecutor, Joe McGill, then hid the presence on the scene of shooter Kenneth Freeman (the man identified by Singletary) from jurors, even though his presence had been acknowledged by McGill in the earlier trial of Mumia’s brother for allegedly assaulting the slain officer.

The appeals process was more of the same. Prosecutors read Mumia’s private correspondence with his lawyers, where they learned of a planned appeal by the lawyers. As a result of this illegally-obtained covert knowledge, Governor Tom Ridge issued a death warrant for Mumia in 1995, just prior to the planned appeal--a sneak attack on the ability of the defense to prepare.

Meanwhile, Albert Sabo was brought out of virtual retirement to preside over the appeal, where he continued his own earlier hatchet job on Mumia’s case! Despite widespread condemnation for rampant unfair practices, including by Philadelphia’s usually conservative press, Sabo got away with denying Jamal a new trial.

Massive International Support

Over the years, Mumia Abu-Jamal has gained massive international support. The European Parliament and the city of Paris, France have joined politicians such as Nelson Mandela and the US Congressional Black Caucus, as well as numerous individuals, unions and Hollywood actors to denounce the blatant unfairness of the case against him. And for a time, Mumia was represented in court by famed civil rights attorney, Leonard Weinglass.

But Weinglass was reluctant to take the police frame-up head-on, and assert Mumia’s innocence. He kept under wraps the confession of Arnold Beverly, a former hit-man who said that he “and another guy” (possibly Kenneth Freeman) were hired by corrupt cops to kill Faulkner, because Faulkner “interfered” with their payoffs in Philadelphia’s red light district.