Frame up? or cop killer?
Darn it, I was getting to like your Zampolit-like exhortations in the other thread! 
Let us look at the facts:
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Mumia was found at the site of the murder with a .38 revolver.
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The revolver that he was carrying was registered to him.
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Ballistic evidence showed that the bullets in the body were from the revolver that he was carrying that was registered to him.
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Forensic evidence showed that Mumia had indeed recently discharged a firearm.
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The French love him.
True justice would have seen him put down a long time ago.
Free Mumia!
Free Mumia with purchase of a large “Fight the Power” combo meal.
Guilty.
Yeah, it always looked from here like he did it.
I found this to be a pretty even-handed treatment of the evidence at hand.
That was just brilliant.
Back to topic, I couldn’t figure out why the Greens were so behind him.
How long ago did this happen anyway?
Pretty much guilty.
I believe it happened in the late 70s/early 80s.
The following website is hosted by the slain cop’s family, but it is very informative, and gives blatant forensic facts:
I believe that Mumia is guilty.
Yes, the police often concentrate too hard on black men. Yes, having been a Black Panther in the past does not mean you yourself are always violent. Yes, Mumia is handsome and has some potential as a writer.
None of which means he’s not guilty. He is.
Most likely guilty, from what info I have been able to look at in the past years. Which, as Cecil wrote, still leaves the death penalty issue as a separate debate.
It’s actually worse. The city council of Paris made him an honorary citizen.
I actually was going to open a thread about this when it happened, but never quite got to it. The insult implicit (or explicit) in this action is beyond belief. I almost never support “boycott country x” movements, but this is something that would get me on board.
Cecil said:
It’s likely the death sentence didn’t arise from premeditation, but rather from the killing of a police officer. This is speculation on my part, but many jurisdictions make the death of a police officer a capital crime.
- Rick
And even by Cecil’s remarks, it sounds like Mumia fired first and then fired last, quite deliberately. Now, maybe the officer was about to beat Mumia’s brother. That does not ordinarily allow one to kill anybody.
I don’t believe in the DP, but he does deserve it.
“Fact #3” is false according to cecil.
Here’s the link: http://www.straightdope.com/columns/950721.html
That’s all you need to know. And perhaps that a veteran court reporter overheard the trial judge say he was going to “help [the prosecution] fry the nigger”.
“True justice” indeed.
Crook Dope If the quote from the judge is accurate what does that have to do with whether Mumia is guilty or not?
puddleglum, it demonstrates partiality on the part of the judge, who’s supposed to be a neutral arbiter during a trial. Even when the trial is a jury trial, the judge has control over what’s allowable as evidence, what’s allowable in questioning, and whose objections are sustained. An impartial judge can definitely throw a trial into either the prosecutor’s or the defendant’s court.
Personally, I’m not sure where I stand on Mumia. There’s evidence both ways. And I’ll admit that the whole “kill a civilian without premeditation=2nd or 3rd degree, kill a cop no matter what the circumstances=1st degree” snookers my internal sense of justice. A police officer is worth more than a regular citizen?
No that’s not “all you need to know”. The bullet found in Faulkner’s body was the same brand, unique type, and caliber as the spent shells in Mumia’s gun. because the bullet shattered they couldn’t run ballistics tests on it to conclusively prove that it had been fired from his gun, but the jury deemed that unnecessary.