BY PETER SEIDMAN
PHILADELPHIA - "For Mumia... Best Comes Last." That's
how the August 12 front-page headline on the Philadelphia
Daily News summarized the final days of Mumia Abu-Jamal's
appeal for a new trial.
Abu-Jamal is a well-known Black activist who has spent the last 13 years on death row for the 1981 shooting of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. The shooting allegedly took place after Abu-Jamal, who was working as a cab driver, discovered Faulkner beating Abu-Jamal's brother, William Cook.
William Singletary was one of the final witnesses presented by Abu-Jamal's attorneys. Singletary, the owner and manager of a Sunoco gas station, told the court he had been at the scene of the shooting to visit a nightclub. The Philadelphia Daily News gave this account of his testimony:
"Singletary said he heard the officer arguing with Cook and using `a lot of obscenities.' In response to Faulkner's approach, Singletary said, a passenger got out of the car and said to Cook, `We don't have to take that, Billy.'
"Singletary said he heard one popping sound before he saw the passenger shoot the officer....
"The shooter, described as a tall man with dreadlocks, tossed the gun to the side of the Volkswagen and ran east...as both Abu-Jamal and Singletary came on the scene."
Cops tore up statements
Singletary, the Daily News reported, "said he drove to
the Police Administration Building to give a witness
statement minutes after the 4 a.m. shooting, but police
officials either `tore up' or `balled up and threw in the
trash' several statements he wrote of what had occurred.
"A `Detective Green,' he said, told him he could not leave until he wrote what police wanted. `He told me to write what he wanted me to write [or] they would take me in the elevator and beat me up,' he said.
"Finally, Singletary said, the fourth statement that he wrote was `dictated' by the detective at about 9 a.m."
Singletary charged that "after he complained about police treatment, cops with guns drawn began to harass him at his shop, breaking windows and hassling his tow-truck drivers," the paper added. He had to go out of business in February and he moved out of the state the following summer.
Singletary's account of events seemed to jibe with that of another defense witness, Arnold Howard, who testified August 9. Howard reported that police took him in - handcuffed and still in his "drawers" - the night of the shooting. They told him they had found his driver's license at the scene of the crime. Howard explained that he had lent the license to Kenneth Freeman, a partner of William Cook at the time and now deceased.
The cops finally released Howard when he was able to prove with a time- and date-stamped grocery store receipt that he could not have been present at the shooting. Prosecutors never told the defense during the 1982 trial that they had brought in someone other than Abu-Jamal as possibly also being involved in the shooting.
A third witness, William Harmon, testified August 10 after Judge Albert Sabo overruled defense objections. Harmon, who is serving a 33-month term on drug-related charges, told the court he was working as a pimp the night Faulkner was shot. He said he saw two different men, one in dreadlocks, who each shot the officer and then escaped in a red car. He said he never came forward before because he had promised his mother he wouldn't get involved. But after learning of Abu-Jamal's scheduled August 17 execution, he thought, "Uh-oh, this can't be done."
He says fellow inmates advised him that since his mother now was dead, "If you can help the brother, help him." Assistant District Attorney Arlene Fisk attempted to discredit Harmon, pointing out his long criminal record. In response, defense attorney Leonard Weinglass noted that Harmon had nothing to gain by his testimony. In fact, authorities could "make the rest of your stay in prison miserable," he said.
Sabo move backfires
The defense had objected to Harmon being called on the
grounds it did "not want to put on an unprepared,
unconfirmed witness."
Harmon had only come to its attention 10 days before when he wrote from Mercer County Prison in western Pennsylvania. Weinglass asked for more time to interview him. "Well, let's just see what he has to say," Sabo ruled.
After a few days of prosecution testimony, the court will adjourn until September 11, when each side will present its final arguments.
Throughout the hearing, Sabo's biased conduct has only confirmed Mumia Abu-Jamal's charges that he did not receive a fair trial.
On August 9 the judge insisted on correcting a statement by attorney Weinglass on the Larry King Live show the previous night. "I told you at the outset, Mr. Weinglass, that this little old judge in this little old courtroom will not buckle under pressure, national or international," Sabo declared. Two days later, Sabo cited Weinglass with contempt and fined him $1,000 for not returning some autopsy pictures as quickly as demanded.
Sabo's conduct provoked yet another editorial in the Philadelphia Inquirer August 13. Titled, "L'affaire Mumia - In Court, Judge Sabo is his own worst enemy," the big-business daily concluded, "The proceedings last week were to determine whether there is sufficient reason to have a new trial....
"They produced little compelling evidence on that count except the behavior of Judge Sabo himself, the man who was supposed to ensure that justice was done."