[NYTr] MUMIA: 21 FAX - re new evidence of photoes
All the News That Doesn't Fit
nytr at blythe-systems.com
Fri Dec 28 14:17:09 EST 2007
[sorry about all the asterisks and other digitaljunk. You might want to
go to the originals... NYTr]
sent by Joan Malerich
[Two Excellent sites for information on Mumia Abu Jamal are *
*
Eduators for Mumia Abu Jamal http://www.emajonline.com/
Journalists for Mumia Abu Jamal
OpEdNewshttp://www.abu-jamal-news.com/
The following 21 FAQs answer many questions that the general public has
regarding Mumia's case, especially regarding the photos recently
discovered. - JM ]
*http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302
*
*December 24, 2007*
*21 FAQs: The New Mumia Crime Scene Photos*
/By Hans Bennett/
This new FAQ compilation about the newly discovered Mumia Abu-Jamal /
Daniel Faulkner crime scene photos was written jointly by Educators for
Mumia and Journalists for Mumia
::::::::
Download Word file here.
<http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/docs/Polakoff-FAQ.doc>
*_THE POLAKOFF PHOTOS_*
*New Photos of the Crime Scene of the Shooting Death of *
*Police Officer Daniel Faulkner*
* *
*_21 FAQs -- FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS_*
* *
* *
/by Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal and Journalists for Mumia Abu-Jamal,/
/ in consultation with Dr. Michael Schiffmann/
* *
Mumia Abu-Jamal has been on Pennsylvania's death row for over a quarter
of a century. His 1982 conviction for the shooting death of
Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, has been contested by
jurists, human rights organizations, and peoples of conscience the
world over. Even though he is arguably the most famous political
prisoner in the United States, his case and struggle for justice
distill many of the issues that racially stigmatized groups and others
have faced in the United States for decades: police brutality and
violence, racist applications of the death penalty, prosecutorial
misconduct, suborning of witnesses, and the use of wealth and political
privilege in criminal justice systems to service the ideological
interests of groups and classes in power.
Within the last year, some 26 photos have been discovered by researcher
Dr. Michael Schiffmann of the University of Heidelberg, showing the
crime scene where Officer Faulkner was killed. These photos were
offered to police and prosecutors from the beginning, but were never
considered at Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial, or in any judicial phase of his
struggle for justice thereafter. Indeed, they were unknown even to
Abu-Jamal's defense team, until very recently. To widen public
knowledge about these photos and to answer many of the basic questions
about them, Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal and Journalists for Mumia
Abu-Jamal have collaborated to produce this document of "21 FAQs about
the Polakoff Photos." We stress that while it is important for the
public to have knowledge about these photos, and to debate them in the
media and public forum, the most important and necessary move is for
the court system to give Abu-Jamal a new trial and deliberate
officially on this evidence and all evidence that is potentially
exculpatory for Abu-Jamal.
For more information, please see previous press-releases from May
<http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/temp/press%20release.html>, October
<http://phillyimc.org/en/2007/10/42653.shtml>, and December
<http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=277814902&blogID=334987309>
(4 photos can be viewed at _Abu-Jamal-News.com
<http://abu-jamal-news.com/>_). Video footage is now available of the
Dec.4 Journalists for Mumia press conference addressing the photos
(Parts One
<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4368831604559244212> and Two
<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3134016139770868283>), as
well as the Dec. 8 slide show presentation
<http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=1821904687596622694> of the
photos, which were recently spotlighted by Reuters
<http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSN0454988720071204>,
NBC's Today Show
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=5100>, National
Public Radio <http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/diarypage.php?did=5165>,
Counterpunch <http://www.counterpunch.org/washington12082007.html>, The
SF Bay View Newspaper
<http://www.sfbayview.com/News/Main/Color_of_law_Photos_bolster_claims_of_Mumia_s_innocence_and_unfair_trial.html>,
The Black Commentator
<http://www.blackcommentator.com/256/256_cover_color_of_law_mumia.html>,
The Philadelphia Weekly
<http://www.philadelphiaweekly.com/articles/16027>, and others.
More extensive information on the case can be found at the following
websites: FreeMumia.com <http://freemumia.com/> (New York City),
FreeMumia.org <http://freemumia.org/> (San Francisco), EmajOnline.com
<http://emajonline.com/> (Educators for Mumia), _Abu-Jamal-News.com
<http://abu-jamal-news.com/>_ (Journalists for Mumia), or by
contacting: The International Concerned Family & Friends of Mumia
Abu-Jamal, P.O. Box 19709, Philadelphia, PA 19143, (215) 476-8812,
_icffmaj at aol.com <mailto:icffmaj at aol.com>_ .
* *
* I. Facts*
*1. Why are these photos coming out just now, and how were they
discovered?*
# The photos were discovered by University of Heidelberg linguist and
translator, Michael Schiffmann, during an unrelated internet search in
late May 2006. Schiffmann first found two photos taken by a freelance
photographer, Pedro Polakoff. Later he would have access to over 26 of
Polakoff's photos of the crime scene. Previous researchers and those
debating the Mumia case, in court or outside of court, seem to have had
no knowledge of these photos until this discovery, and until
Schiffmann's later discussion of the photos in his 2006 book, /Race
Against Death: The Struggle for the Life and Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal
/(published only in Germany, with an English manuscript presently
available). Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal (EMAJ) and Journalists for
Mumia Abu-Jamal (J4M) have been instrumental in circulating knowledge
of Schiffmann's discovery.
*2. Is there any chance these Polakoff photos could be fake or
doctored?*
* *
* Schiffmann has responded to this query directly: "Polakoff has
preserved the original negatives, from which the images viewed on
the internet were directly scanned, with a negative scanner. As
the negatives show, Daniel Faulkner's hat started on the top of
the VW, and only later showed up on the sidewalk, where it would
then remain for the official police photo. There isn't a scintilla
of a doubt about its authenticity, [...] and there isn't the
slightest doubt about the time sequence of the photographs, a
question that I've gone through with photographer Pedro Polakoff
again and again and again."[1]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn1>
* *
*3. Who is this photographer?*
* *
* Pedro P. Polakoff was a freelance photographer in Philadelphia who
got to the crime scene just 12 minutes after the shooting was
first reported on police radio, and apparently at least 10 minutes
before the Philadelphia Police Mobile Crime Detection (MCD) Unit
that handles crime scene forensics and photographs.
*4. How could Polakoff get access to the crime scene for these photos?*
* *
* Polakoff was himself surprised about how he could move and
photograph freely everywhere at the crime scene, even after the
PPD Mobile Crime Unit arrived. Polakoff told Schiffmann that it
was the "most messed up crime scene I have ever seen." It was
completely unsecured, a fact testified to also by Philadelphia
journalist, Linn Washington, Jr.[2]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn2>
*5. How did Schiffmann get his information from Polakoff?*
* *
* After the first contact, first by telephone, and then by email
with Polakoff, Schiffmann amassed over 60 pages of email notes
from questioning Polakoff. He also had over six weeks of other
contacts with Polakoff, "without ever revealing more to him,"
writes Schiffmann, "than the fact that I was working on a book on
the case."* *Only relatively later in the conversations with
Polakoff did Schiffmann reveal his own views and suspicions about
the prosecutors' version of the case. Schiffmann also has studied
Polakoff's many responses at different points during his contacts,
and Schiffmann finds that Polakoff is both detailed and consistent
each time.
*6. What is most important about the 26 Polakoff photos?*
* *
* This question must be approached both as a procedural question and
as a substantive question. /Procedurally/, there is the fact that
Polakoff offered the 26 photos to the police and DA's Office, and
they showed no interest in them. The photos surely never entered
the court record of Abu-Jamal's case to be set before a jury's
deliberation. Let us grant that photos can enter as evidence in
many ways, and a photo which very clearly shows one thing to one
person can show something very different to another person, often
depending on context (of other evidence, knowledge, personal
experience and ideological interests, and so on). Nevertheless,
the key procedural point is that the Polakoff photos, which were
available and offered to police and prosecutors in both 1981/1982,
and in the 1990s, never even made it into the evidentiary record
of this case. They were omitted, left out, of all procedures for
investigating Officer Faulkner's death.
* /Substantively/, the Polakoff photos enable defense attorneys, and
by extension the court, to raise significant reasonable doubt
about the basic scenario of Officer Faulkner's death -- a scenario
that prosecutors constructed to argue for Abu-Jamal's guilt. In
light of the Polakoff photos, that scenario could be completely
destroyed by attorneys. In particular, testimony for the
prosecution about that scenario, provided by Cynthia White, Robert
Chobert and Michael Scanlon, becomes incredible.[3]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn3>
* ----- At the 1982 trial of Abu-Jamal, they all testified that the
killer stood over the officer who was lying defenselessly on the
sidewalk and fired several .38 caliber bullets down at him, one of
which hit him between the eyes and killed him instantaneously,
whereas the other shots missed.
* ----- These missing shots would have produced traces in the
sidewalk that it would have been impossible to overlook, since
bullets of that caliber would have left large divots, or even
holes with concrete broken away, in the sidewalk.
* ----- Neither the one police photo of where Faulkner allegedly
lay, nor a full nine other Polakoff photos taken of the same area
from various angles, show any traces of such shots into the
sidewalk.
* ----- Even if we grant that interpreting photographs can at times
be a complex endeavor, the apparent absence of any such divots
renders the prosecution witnesses' testimony highly problematic,
to say the least.
*7. Couldn't the other shots have glanced off the sidewalk or hit at
such an angle that they might not have left any trace?*
* *
* This is highly unlikely. In the first place, the prosecution
witnesses and prosecutors' summary of the crime claim that a
killer stood directly above Faulkner, straddling him even, and
fired downward. From that angle any missing shots are most likely
discharged in a downward direction that would leave divots. In the
second place, a highly qualified ballistics expert who was
consulted by Schiffmann has informed him that firing .38 caliber
bullets in this way would "inevitably" produce divots in the
sidewalk.[4]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn4>
The same point is made in the specialized literature on the
subject. Again, this is a new matter that was never heard, or
deliberated on, by a jury.
*8. Are there other significant problems for the prosecution case
raised by the Polakoff photos?*
* *
* Yes, many, but two more should be noted, especially. First, the
testimony of taxi driver Robert Chobert is further discredited. He
claims to have been parked just behind the slain police officer's
squad car, with a direct view of the killing. * *The Polakoff
photos show the space behind the officer's car and there is no
sign of Chobert's taxi, giving fuller support to the conjecture
that Chobert's probationary status for a past act of throwing a
Molotov cocktail into a grammar schoolyard, and the fact that he
was driving his cab without a license on account of repeated DUI
violations, might have made him vulnerable to police pressure to
say he saw what he didn't see.
Second, the photos raise further questions about police contamination
or manipulation of evidence at the crime scene. One Polakoff photo
shows police officer Faulkner's hat on the top of the VW he had pulled
over, whereas the official police photo, taken later and used at the
trial has the hat on the sidewalk where prosecutors say Faulkner was
slain (and a later Polakoff photo has it moved to the ground also,
which corresponds with the official police photo). Several Polakoff
photos show police officer Steve Forbes at the crime scene holding the
recovered weapon in his bare hand, even changing the guns from one hand
to another, whereas at trial Forbes had denied touching the guns metal
parts for the full one-and-a-half hours he held them. Again, these
matters were not heard by a jury.
*9. Wouldn't the police and prosecutors be interested in such early
photos of the crime scene?*
* *
* One would think so. Polakoff reports, however, that the police
showed no interest. After Polakoff's photographic work had been so
obvious to police at the crime scene in 1981, he expected to be
contacted by the police or by the D.A. He was not. Polakoff also
phoned the DA's office in 1982. Then, in the 1990s, Polakoff says,
"when there was this big fuss about a new trial for Abu-Jamal, I
contacted them myself and asked them to get back to me. They
didn't even answer me."[5]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn5>
He was offering them the photos and what he had to say about them.
The interest that police and the DA's Office should have shown was
suspiciously absent.
*10. In spite of their failure to respond to Polakoff, is there any
evidence that the police and prosecutors /did/ know about his photos?*
* *
* As noted above, the police were very much aware that he was
shooting these photos during the early moments at the crime scene
in 1981. There is no way they would not be aware of that basic
fact. Moreover, according to Schiffmann, three of Polakoff's
photos did appear in different Philadelphia newspapers during the
days just after the shooting.* *Schiffmann summarizes: "It is a
breathtaking lack of investigative zeal that they didn't get back
to him all by themselves despite the fact that the cops knew him
well and his name was clearly visible on the photos, at least in
the editions of them I came across on the internet in May
2006."[6]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn6>
*11. Were any of the photos used in the trial of 1982?*
* *
* No, they were not used at the 1982 trial where Abu-Jamal was
convicted, nor at any of his later appellate hearings, nor at the
PCRA Hearings of the 1990s.
* *
*12. If these photos are potentially helpful to Abu-Jamal's case, why
didn't Abu-Jamal's several teams of attorneys make use of them?*
* *
* The answer to this query is simple: the Abu-Jamal attorneys did
not know then that the Polakoff photos existed. Now that they do
know, it's a different story. Present attorney, Robert Bryan, has
said he "could have a field day in court with those photos" --
provided, of course, that Abu-Jamal gets a new trial.
*13. Why didn't Polakoff contact Abu-Jamal's defense team about his
photos, after he had not received any responses from the police or
prosecutors?*
* *
* In the period of the shooting, and right up to the recent present,
Polakoff was very supportive of the police view of the case,
having, according to Schiffmann, "not the slightest doubt that
Mumia was the murderer."[7]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn7>
Polakoff wanted to help the prosecution and was surprised when
they were totally uninterested in his photos. He had no motivation
to contact the defense team.
*II. Implications*
*14. Why was Polakoff so sure Mumia was the shooter? After all, even
though he was an early arrival to the crime scene, he wasn't early
enough to see the shooting.*
* *
* Polakoff simply believed the police who told him that a fellow cop
had been shot and that they "had the motherfucker who did it."[8]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn8>
When he offered the photos to them he just wanted to try to help
them confirm that argument with the material available to him.
*15. Was Polakoff told anything else by the police about the killing of
Daniel Faulkner?*
* *
* Yes. In fact, Polakoff says, "all the officers present expressed
the firm conviction that Abu-Jamal had been the passenger in Billy
Cook's VW and had fired and killed Faulkner by a single shot fired
/from the passenger seat of the car/."[9]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn9>
For all the years after the case, since Polakoff had read almost
nothing else about the details and debates about what happened, he
"held the firm opinion that this was indeed what had taken place,"
i.e. that Mumia -- contrary to actual fact - had been riding in
his brother's VW and emerged from there to shoot Faulkner.[10]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn10>
* *
*16. At Abu-Jamal's trial, police, prosecutors, and defense were all
agreed that Mumia approached the scene from his own cab through a
parking lot across the street. So, where did the police get this early
version of the crime that the shooter emerged from the passenger seat
of Billy Cook's VW?*
* *
* Polakoff told Schiffmann that the early police opinion was the
result of interviewing three other witnesses who were still
present at the crime scene (a parking lot attendant, a drug
addicted woman, and another woman) -- none of whom, however, seem
to have "appeared in any report presented by the police or the
prosecution."[11]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn11>
Polakoff concluded this from statements made by the police to him
directly, and from his overhearing of their conversations.
*17. Has anyone else ever claimed that there was someone else riding
with Abu-Jamal's brother that night in the passenger seat?*
* *
* One person to indicate that a passenger was riding in Billy Cook's
car was one of the prosecution's own witnesses, Cynthia White. She
testified in the trial of Billy Cook himself, where Abu-Jamal
prosecutor Joseph McGill functioned in the same role as in the
Abu-Jamal trial. One of her remarks was highly problematic for the
prosecution, whose murder case against Abu-Jamal had always been
based on the presupposition that only three persons were present
at the scene: Faulkner, Abu-Jamal, and Cook:[12]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn12>
* /----- White/: And the police got out of the police car and walked
over to the Volkswagen. And he didn't get all the way to the
Volkswagen, and the driver of the Volkswagen was passing some
words. He had walked around between the two doors, walked up to
the sidewalk.
/McGill/: Who walked?
/White/: The passenger -- the driver. The driver and the police officer.
/McGill/: When the officer went up to the car, which side of the car
did the officer go up to?
/White/: A. The driver side.
/McGill/: The driver side?
/White/: Yes.
/McGill/: What did the passenger do?
/White/: He had got out.
/McGill/: What did the driver do?
/White/: He got out of the car.
/McGill/: He got out of the car?
/White/: Yes.[13]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn13>
* The language of this dialogue seems to point pretty clearly to the
presence of another person at the scene, namely, a passenger in
Billy Cook's VW. The /driver/ of a car and the /passenger/ of a
car are notions that are hard to confuse, but moreover, White also
says that the driver "got out of the car," while the passenger
"/had/ got out of the car," which once again points to the driver
and the passenger as being two distinct persons. The prosecution
never clarified this question.
* ----- That other man, who would have been a third man at the crime
scene (in addition to Billy Cook and Abu-Jamal), was never
acknowledged by prosecutors or police at Abu-Jamal's trial.
* ----- Even though it is almost certain that Cynthia White didn't
observe the shooting itself, she may very well have seen the
beginning of the events, since in her testimony regarding
Abu-Jamal, she mentioned a fact that was both true /and/
inconvenient for the prosecution, namely, the beating of Billy
Cook by Officer Faulkner.
*18. Why would Abu-Jamal and his brother, Billy Cook, not themselves
emphasize the presence of the third man, Kenneth Freeman, at the crime
scene and thus a potential suspect?*
* *
* Schiffmann argues that the identity of the third man, Kenneth
Freeman, means that if Abu-Jamal and his brother fingered him as
the killer they would have been pinning blame not only on a friend
of theirs, but on a friend of their family. Freeman would then
have had to face the same fate that Abu-Jamal did -- for an action
that might have been considered as legitimate self-defense and the
defense of others on the part of Abu-Jamal and Billy Cook.[14]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn14>
* The background to this is that according to Schiffmann, all the
available evidence points to the conclusion that the December 9,
1981 shootout was triggered by the life-threatening shot that
Officer Faulkner fired into Abu-Jamal's chest. With Mumia
Abu-Jamal already incapacitated, most likely the third man on the
scene, Kenneth Freeman then sprang into action and began firing at
the officer, in what he probably conceived as defense of
Abu-Jamal, his brother, and not least himself. But of course there
was no guarantee, to put it mildly, that the Philadelphia courts
would interpret this as self-defense. So Freeman ended up being
left out of the picture by the two other men involved, Mumia
Abu-Jamal and Billy Cook.
*19. Is there any evidence that Kenneth Freeman was the kind of person
who could be considered a threat to a police officer?*
* *
* In a deposition by Philadelphia journalist Linn Washington, Jr.,
he stated that Kenneth Freeman frequently reported his experiences
of police brutality to the /Philadelphia Tribune /where Washington
worked. Washington knew Freeman as a frequent victim of police
abuse.[15]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn15>
Washington has also stated repeatedly that, on account of this
background, Freeman harbored "an enormous anger at the
police."[16]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn16>
* *
*20. Is there any evidence that Officer Faulkner that night had any
interchange with a third person such as Kenneth Freeman?*
* *
* Yes, in the shirt pocket of Officer Faulkner was a driver's
license application in the name of Arnold Howard, which Howard
later testified was paperwork he had given to Kenneth Freeman. We
don't know quite why Freeman was given the paper work or what
Freeman would do with it, but the fact that he was known to have
it, and that it ended up in Officer Faulkner's shirt pocket,
suggests that Faulkner and Freeman had some interchange on the
night of the shooting.
* Six people, Robert Chobert, Dessie Hightower, Veronica Jones,
Deborah Kordansky, William Singletary, and Marcus Cannon, reported
at various times that they saw one or more men run away from the
scene, in the direction of a nearby alleyway which would have been
a very suggestive escape route for anyone who would want to avoid
being caught by the police.
* ----- One of these people was prosecution witness Robert Chobert.
There is every indication -- see for this, /inter alia/, question
8 -- that Chobert did not observe the shooting itself and was not
where he claimed to have been, behind Police Officer Faulkner's
car, but he may very well have observed the person that fled the
scene after the shooting. Chobert first simply said that the
shooter had run away. Shortly after this, after he had identified
Abu-Jamal, he said the shooter had run away but did not get very
far -- 30 to 35 steps and was then caught. At the trial, Chobert
said the shooter made it no further than ten feet. Actually,
Abu-Jamal was right next to the dead officer and thus fit neither
of the accounts given by Chobert. Interestingly, in his first
descriptions after the shooting, Chobert described the shooter as
large, stocky, weighing 220 to 225 pounds and wearing dreadlocks
-- a description that fits Kenneth Freeman as he is remembered by
acquaintances almost perfectly.
*21.* *Where is Kenneth Freeman himself now?*
* *
* He was found dead on the night of May 13/14, 1985, the night of
the firebombing of the MOVE house. Freeman was found "handcuffed
and shot up with drugs and dumped on a Grink's lot on Roosevelt
Boulevard, buck naked."[17]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftn17>
Again, no jury ever heard or deliberated on Kenneth Freeman's
fate, or on his possible connections to the crime for which Mumia
Abu-Jamal was convicted and sentenced to death.
* Given the actual flimsiness of the case against Abu-Jamal -- lying
eyewitnesses, a phony confession, distorted or non-existent
ballistic evidence -- the police at the scene had to suspect that
someone else was involved and probably the actual shooter. Since
they were aware of the Howard license in Faulkner's shirt, an
immediate trail led to none other than Kenneth Freeman. Given the
revengefulness and propensity of the Philadelphia police for
deadly violence, as well as the date and extremely suspicious
circumstances under which the dead Freeman was found, the
conclusion that he was killed by the police as part of a general
vendetta against its perceived "enemies" (remember that 11 MOVE
members were killed the same night) doesn't seem far-fetched.
* *
------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref1>
J4M communiqué, December 12, 2007.
[2]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref2>
Linn Washington, Jr., in sworn declaration, May 14, 2001, sections 18
and 19.
[3]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref3>
Michael Schiffmann, personal communication to Mark Taylor, October 9,
2007.
[4]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref4>
Schiffmann, personal communication to Taylor, October 9, 2007.
[5]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref5>
Personal communication to Schiffmann, June 19, 2006.
[6]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref6>
Personal communication to Mark Taylor, EMAJ, October 9, 2007.
[7]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref7>
Schiffmann, personal communication to EMAJ, October 9, 2007.
[8]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref8>
Michael Schiffmann, /Race Against Death,/ 234.
[9]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref9>
Ibid.
[10]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref10>
Ibid. 235.
[11]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref11>
Ibid.
[12]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref12>
E.g., in his guilt phase summation at the Abu-Jamal trial, prosecutor
McGill attacked defense witness Dessie Hightower, the only witness at
the Abu-Jamal trial who testified to a person running away from the
scene, primarily from angles that had nothing to do with that
particular point, but these attacks were clearly meant to demonstrate
that no other person had been at the crime scene apart from Cook,
Abu-Jamal, and Faulkner. See /TP/, July 1, 1982, p. 165-168.
[13]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref13>
/William Cook Trial Protocol/, p. 33.
[14]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref14>
Schiffmann, /Race Against Death/, 220.
[15]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref15>
Linn Washington, Jr., sworn declaration, May 14, 2001, sects. 13, 14,
15.
[16]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref16>
Conversations with Schiffmann, February 2006, May 2006, August 2006,
May 2007.
[17]
<http://www.opednews.com/maxwrite/print_friendly.php?p=5302#_ftnref17>
Testimony by Arnold Howard at the PCRA Hearing, August 9, 1995, p. 21.
Authors Website: insubordination.blogspot.com
Authors Bio: Hans Bennett is a Philadelphia photojournalist mostly
focusing on the movement to free Mumia Abu-Jamal and all political
prisoners. An archive of his work is available at
insubordination.blogspot.com and he is also co-founder of "Journalists
for Mumia," created to challenge the long history of corporate media
bias, whose website is: Abu-Jamal-News.com
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