I was sitting in the student union at the University of Chicago last week when a student came by putting “Free Mumia” leaflets on the tables.
I have never paid much attention to the Mumia Abu-Jamal case. On the one hand, I know enough about police, the criminal justice system, and racism to believe that an innocent black man could be framed. On the other hand, it makes me nervous when people like Mike Farrell, Oliver Stone, Sting, and Jacques Derrida suddenly become legal experts and publicly proclaim the innocence of someone on death row.
Whatever else you might think of Abu-Jamal, one has to congratulate him on an incredibly effective media campaign over the last 15 years.
It started in 1991 when Yale Law Journal published an article by Abu-Jamal entitled “Teetering on the Brink Between Life and Death” and was fueled by his book Live From Death Row. (I’m pretty sure I own that book; I’m more sure that I never read very far into it.) Somehow, Abu-Jamal and his supporters have managed to keep Hollywood celebrities and cohort after cohort of college students convinced of his innocence and willing to work on his behalf.
He has been somewhat less successful in the court room.
His death sentence has been turned over on a technicality, but I believe he still faces life in prison without parole. Even while on death row he was pretty safe: there are more than 200 people currently sentenced to death in Pennsylvania, and there have been three executions in that state in the last forty years. As in most states, death row in Pennsylvania is a lot safer than the streets if you are a criminal.
To anyone interested in the Mumia Abu-Jamal case, I highly recommend a book entitled, Murdered by Mumia written by Maureen Faulkner and Michael Smerconish. Maureen Faulkner is the widow of Danny Faulkner, the police officer who Abu-Jamal was convicted of killing. Michael Smerconish is an outspoken (but extremely intelligent) writer and radio host in Philadelphia.
Having just finished the book in a single sitting, I can’t say I feel too sympathetic to Abu-Jamal. It’s easy to be swayed when you only hear one side of the story, but I have to say that the facts (at least as presented here) don’t look so good for him.
If you are a college student, or a Hollywood celebrity, thinking about publicly proclaiming Abu-Jamal’s innocence, I strongly recommend that you read this book first. One of my favorite passages from the book will give you a little extra incentive. In this (slightly condensed) excerpt, Maureen Faulkner describes a chance encounter with a college student 15 years and 3,000 miles away from where her husband died:
As I pumped gas, a young man, a white kid who looked college age, pulled up behind me. He was wearing a T-shirt that read “Free Mumia Abu-Jamal,” and it immediately caught my eye.
I walked up and asked him where he got the T-shirt. He said he was a student at U.C.L.A. and they had recently held a rally for Abu-Jamal. I asked him if he knew anything about the case in which Abu-Jamal was involved.
He said, “Well, I know that this guy was a Black Panther who was railroaded. Someone else shot a police officer and he was framed for it.” I cringed when he went on with the usual recitation of misinformation being spun by the Abu-Jamal defenders: a peaceful black activist, a social dissident, hostile white police force, F.B.I. surveillance, conned eyewitness accounts, phony ballistics, etc.
I heard him out and offered to provide him with the actual facts of the case. He politely declined my offer. Before I left, I suggested that when he wore a political statement on his chest he would be well served if he knew his facts, because you never know when you might run into the widow of the officer. I left him in stunned silence.
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. You can also watch it on 
I’m not sure why Mumia deserves all the attention he’s gotten. Almost EVERY criminal in EVERY prison claims he was “framed” by “the Man.” Like Levitt, I realize that sometimes people ARE framed, but this does NOT logically mean that EVERYONE who claims to have been framed, actually was. The percentage of “framing-claimants” who actually were framed, is probably very small.
Which means that, odds are, no matter how fervently he makes the claim of having been framed — and no matter how many famous people defend him — it’s VERY likely that Mumia is guilty as charged and belongs right where he is.
Taking something that “might possibly be” and assuming that it “actually must be,” is a very common perceptive error. We need to be doing less of it, not more.
For all the money and effort that Hollywood types have expended on Mumia’s appeals, just think how effectively it might have been used, had it been applied to other, less-well-known prisoners, who ARE, in fact, not guilty of what they’re accused of.
Jim Lennon’s right. Philly named US-1 the Officer Daniel Faulkner Memorial Highway, and open shows of support for him and his family are quite common. For instance, the famous Geno’s Cheesesteaks has a very large picture of Faulkner posted right next to their “order in English” sign.
Sometimes it’s nice when people remember who the actual victim is.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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oh? right next to the “order in English sign”?
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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So we should think twice about supporting this guy because you read a different book? A book by the widow of the cop he is alleged to have murdered?
I don’t support Mumia. I just wonder what the legal system would look like if it was based on the books written by widows, radio show hosts, and even the people imprisoned themselves.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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“So we should think twice about supporting this guy because you read a different book? A book by the widow of the cop he is alleged to have murdered?”
Wesley Cook (alias Mumia Abu-Jamal) is not alleged to have murdered Officer Danny Faulkner.
Wesley Cook (alias Mumia Abu-Jamal) was convicted by several juries jury of his peers of the callously, cowardly murder of Officer Danny Faulkner.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Mumia was chosen as the graduation speaker at my undergraduate college the year before I graduated. I never read his whole book, but we did spend some time studying the case in one of my courses. We watched a very pro-Mumia documentary, but the evidence presented in it was very inconclusive. In fact, it made me lean more in favor of his guilt. That wasn’t the case for most of my classmates who went on to hold rallies and, ultimately, elect him as graduation speaker. Personally, I don’t know enough about the case to make a call of guilt or innocence, but I think the most interesting aspect of it is how people are swayed and what causes them to take action.
Well-loved. Like or Dislike:
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I feel the same way about people who wear those Che Guevara t-shirts.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Eloquence counts for a lot. Writing a book counts for more. Combine them, and you have a cause celebre. After all, someone who is not only eloquent but an author can’t be guilty.
It may be that death row inmates, instead of lifting weights, should bone up on The Elements of Style and Wariner’s.
Great insight, Caleb.
Caleb, Ben, et al
I have talked to dozens of survivors of the Khmer Rouge regime. Many have offered detailed accounts of the horrors they suffered and of the family members who died, often right in front of their eyes.
Would you disregard their testimony because they were “too emotionally involved” in the incidents?
I suppose you are also skeptical of Jewish and Gypsy claims that millions were murdered in WWII, after all the Nazis said they had no idea what was going on — and why would find upstanding people like Hitler, Saloth Sar and Abu-Jamal lie?
Hot debate. What do you think?
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