Mumia Abu-Jamal: Meaning (information, definition, explanation, facts)

Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook April 24, 1954) is a black journalist and political activist. He is most famous for his 1982 conviction and death sentence on charges of murder, and for the large subsequent campaigns for and against him.

Career, arrest and trial

Before his conviction, Abu-Jamal was a Philadelphia journalist. He began his career, at the age of fourteen, as the lieutenant minister of information with the Philadelphia Black Panther Party. He was also a prominent supporter of the group MOVE, and president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists.

On December 9, 1981, white Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother, William Cook, for driving the wrong way on a one-way street with his lights out. Abu-Jamal, who was driving a cab at the time, happened on the scene. In an ensuing struggle, both Abu-Jamal and Faulkner were shot, Faulkner in the back and in the face; Faulkner died and Abu-Jamal was wounded. Abu-Jamal was arrested at 4 a.m. with a pistol registered in his name at his side.

On July 3, 1982, Abu-Jamal was convicted of Faulkner's murder and sentenced to death. In addition to a conventional criminal defense, Abu-Jamal raised many political issues in his trial, and asked the court repeatedly to allow MOVE leader John Africa to represent him.

Abu-Jamal's case has become a popular cause among many, particularly on the political left, including the black nationalist movement, the anti-globalization movement and anti-death penalty activists. Saving Mumia Abu-Jamal from the death penalty is a popular cause among people and organizations who insist he is innocent. Others, without concern for whether he is factually innocent, still believe that he received an unfair trial. A third group of supporters simply oppose the death penalty in general. A fourth group object to harsher penalties for killing a police officer than for killing an ordinary citizen. Many supporters have called for a new trial, his release from prison, or the commutation of his sentence to life in prison.

Daniel Faulkner's family and the Fraternal Order of Police believe that Abu-Jamal killed Faulkner while Faulkner was engaged in a legal, justified arrest. In August 1999, the FOP's national biennial general meeting passed a resolution calling for an economic boycott of all individuals and businesses that had expressed support for freeing Abu-Jamal.

Even among many of those convinced of Abu-Jamal's guilt, there is a strong belief that he did not receive a fair trial in the courtroom proceeding that produced his first-degree murder conviction. Points asserted in Jamal's appeals or by his supporters include:

• Incompetent representation by a lawyer who was later disbarred and was allowed only $150 to interview witnesses.
• Of the twelve sitting jurors, only two were black. Abu-Jamal's supporters claim that the prosecution requested the removal of many black potential jurors specifically because they were black.
• The presiding judge, Albert F. Sabo, had a reputation as a judge with a bias toward convictions. Amnesty International claims he has sentenced more men to die (31 total, only 2 of them white) than any other sitting judge in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. A review of the court records by the Philadelphia Inquirer showed "that most of the homicide judges in Philadelphia hear more murder cases than Judge Sabo with fewer death sentences." A white court stenographer alleged she and her boss, a Philadelphia judge, overheard Sabo saying he was going to "help them fry the nigger" shortly before the start of Abu-Jamal's trial.
• When the Pennsylvania Supreme Court first upheld Abu-Jamal's conviction in 1989, that ruling found no impropriety in the prosecutor using Abu-Jamal's teenage membership in the Black Panther Party to claim he harbored a desire to kill a cop for over a decade...despite Abu-Jamal having no criminal record.
• Although all five bullets in Abu-Jamal's gun were spent, the police failed to conduct tests to ascertain whether the weapon had been fired in the immediate past.
• The Medical Examiner first wrote in his notes that the bullet removed from Faulkner's body was ".44 cal". Abu-Jamal's gun was a .38 calibre weapon and could not possibly have fired such a bullet. This discrepancy, which was never made known to the jury, was later explained by the Medical Examiner as "part of the paper work but not an official finding." At trial, the Medical Examiner testified that the bullet was consistent with those fired by Abu-Jamal's gun but that tests were inconclusive as to whether it actually came from his firearm. The court accepted the medical examiner as a ballistics expert. However, during the 1995 hearing, Judge Sabo contended that the medical examiner was "not a ballistics expert".
• The prosecution maintained that Officer Faulkner turned and fired at Abu-Jamal as he fell to the ground after being shot. Therefore, the entry of the bullet into Abu-Jamal should have been on a level or upward trajectory. However, according to the medical records, the overall pathway of the bullet was downwards.
• Several of the witnesses, such as Pamela Jenkins, report being forced to tear up their witness statements and instead sign statements incriminating Abu-Jamal at the scene. Jenkins was the lover and informant of Philadelphia police officer Tom Ryan. In her statement, Jenkins claimed that Ryan "wanted me to perjure myself and say that I had seen Jamal shoot the police officer." In 1996, Tom Ryan and five other officers from the same district went to prison after being convicted of charges of planting evidence, stealing money from suspects and making false reports. Their convictions resulted in the release of numerous prisoners implicated by the officers. Veronica Jones witnessed the killing and testified for the defence. She claimed she had been offered inducements by the police to testify that she saw Abu-Jamal kill Faulkner, stating that "they [the police] were trying to get me to say something the other girl [White] said. I couldn't do that." Jones went on to testify that "they [the police] told us we could work the area [as prostitutes] if we tell them [that Abu-Jamal was the shooter]." However, Judge Sabo had the jury removed for this testimony and then ruled that Jones' statements were inadmissible evidence.
• One man, Arnold Beverley, has actually confessed to the murder of Daniel Faulkner.
• Conflicting testimony and missing witnesses: Abu-Jamal's attorneys contend that a number of witnesses changed their original statements regarding what they saw on the night of the crime after being coerced, threatened or offered inducements by the police.
  • According to Robert Chobert's testimony and statements, he was writing in his logbook when he heard the first shot and looked up. He had to look over or past Faulkner's car, with its flashing red dome light, to see the incident and saw the shooter only in profile. Chobert testified at trial that when he looked up, he saw Faulkner fall and then saw Abu-Jamal "standing over him and firing some more shots into him. "Under cross-examination by Jackson, he stated: "I know who shot the cop, and I ain't going to forget it." But Chobert's first recorded statement to police -- about which the jury was not told -- was that the shooter "apparently ran away", according to a report written on 10 December 1981 by Inspector Giordano. Giordano encountered Chobert upon reaching the scene about five minutes after the shooting. Giordano wrote: "[A] white male from the crowd stated that he saw the shooting and that a black MOVE member had done it and apparently ran away. When asked what he meant by a MOVE member, the white male stated, 'His hair, his hair,' apparently referring to dreadlocks."
  • There are also discrepancies between Chobert's description of the shooter's clothes and weight and that of Abu-Jamal. William Cook, Abu-Jamal's brother and an obvious eyewitness to the killing, did not testify for either side at trial. He was convicted in separate proceedings of assaulting Faulkner. Cook made a statement to the police on the night of the shooting, and another to Abu-Jamal's legal team in 1995. However, neither of these statements have been seen by Amnesty International. Abu-Jamal's supporters have alleged that in 1982, Cook was being intimidated by the police and feared being charged in connection with the killing and was therefore too frightened to testify. Cook was scheduled to testify during the 1995 hearing but failed to appear. Again it was alleged that this was due to fear of the police and of being arrested on unrelated charges in court. In his written denial of the 1995 appeal, Judge Sabo made negative assumptions regarding Cook's unwillingness to testify. Since 1995, the defense team has been unable to locate Cook despite numerous attempts.

Abu-Jamal's detractors respond that:

• Abu-Jamal's lawyer (Anthony Jackson) was in fact highly experienced, having served in twenty murder cases, with only six convictions and no executions prior to the Abu-Jamal case. Furthermore, he was chosen by Abu-Jamal after specific recommendation by his friends at the Black Journalists Association. Receipts indicate his defense spent $13,000, not $150.
• The racial composition of the jury was never recorded, making most such assertions speculative, but it is known at least two jurors were black, as was a third accepted by the prosecution who was later dismissed for violating sequestration. Both prosecution and defense were allowed up to twenty peremptory challenges, and the prosecution used fifteen of these, giving specific, relevant reasons for each. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court reviewed the case twice for evidence of racial bias and found none.
• The claim that Sabo has given more death sentences than anyone else is fabricated: no such statistics are collected, and so there is no way Abu-Jamal's supporters could know this. At any rate, it is the jury, not the judge, which convicts and gives death sentences. (However, see below regarding an error in the judge's sentencing instructions.) Also, Sabo presided over a heavily non-white district, which accounts for the racial make-up of his defendants (whom he did not choose).
• Faulkner was shot with a .38. The claim he was shot with a .44 is based entirely on a handwritten note on a piece of scrap paper written by Dr. Paul Hoyer, who performed the autopsy; however, he testified that this was merely a guess he made before actually performing the autopsy, and this guess was not included in the autopsy report, as he had no ballistics training. This incorrect guess may be explained by the fact that the bullet was a +P type, which leaves a larger wound. The bullet was later extracted and tests showed the bullet was fired from the same type of gun as Abu-Jamal's.
• There was not at the time of the murder, nor is there now, any conclusive test to determine if a gun has been fired recently. The "sniff" test on a gun is not considered forensic evidence, being subjective. The only forensic tests available are the nitrate tests, which only show that someone might have been near a gun while it was fired. Since Abu-Jamal had been shot at close range himself, a nitrate test would have provided no useful information.
• Arnold Beverley's account of the killing is at odds with the known facts on numerous points. Furthermore, it is common in high-profile murder cases for false confessions to be made to police.
• Abu-Jamal's brother has declined to testify on his brother's behalf.

Abu-Jamal's conviction has been upheld in both state and federal courts. In December 2001, a federal judge affirmed his murder conviction but ordered that Abu-Jamal should either receive a new sentencing hearing or have his sentence commuted to life in prison because of an error by the trial judge in presenting rules of sentencing to the jury.

In October, 2003, Mumia Abu-Jamal was awarded the status of honorary citizen of Paris in a ceremony attended by former Black Panther Angela Davis. The Socialist mayor of Paris, Bertrand Delanoë, said in a press release that the award was meant to be a reminder of the continuing fight against the death penalty, which was abolished in France in 1981. The Communist-sponsored proposal to make Abu-Jamal an honorary citizen was approved by the city's council in 2001.

Human Rights Watch noted serious concerns about the fairness of his trial, particularly the heavy reliance during the sentencing phase on information regarding his political beliefs and associations. According to Amnesty International's website, while they are "not in a position to say whether Mumia Abu-Jamal is innocent or guilty", they have concluded that the proceedings used to convict and sentence Mumia Abu-Jamal to death were in violation of minimum international standards that govern fair trial procedures and the use of the death penalty." Amnesty is against the death penalty in all cases.

Since his imprisonment, Abu-Jamal has continued his political activism, publishing Live from Death Row, a book on life inside prisons, as well as making frequent commentaries on left-wing radio shows.

While in prison, Abu-Jamal completed his BA from Goddard College, and earned an MA from California State University, Dominguez Hills, both by distance education.