Well, the story wasnt thought up on the 11th hour, he’s been saying all along that someone else did it. Now someone else confessed. Does this cast reasonable doubt? I think maybe. I think he should at least get a new trial, to settle things anyway.
I don’t know if he did it or not, if did shoot the cop, then he deserves what he gets, but there seems to be a few who think that he didnt get a fair trial. http://www.ratm.com/new2/benefits/main.html http://www.freemumia.org/intro.html
IIRC, the man whom Daniel Faulkner was beating up that night was Mumia’s brother, and they have only recently been successful in locating him (he’d been harassed out of town shortly after everything went down) and getting his testimony about the incident, which matches Mumia’s statements - another man committed the murder.
I think the argument is quite strong that Mumia did not get a fair trial the first time around, and I strongly support giving him a new one.
Is anyone really surprised that now that most of his appeals have failed and he is closer to death than before, he fires his original legal team, gets new attorneys, and has the revelation of the century? An affidavit signed 7 years after the murder by someone else saying he committed the murder that Mumia is on death row for? Makes nice headlines, and rallies the fundraising troups… The fact is that his prior legal team had the affidavit since 1999, and never presented it because they, HIS OWN LEGAL TEAM, gave the “confession” absolutely no credence. Hell, the guy who signed it, Arnold Beverly, said he committed the murder in front of 3 cops who saw him do it, and that there was a grand conspiracy among cops, city hall, and the DA to try and have Daniel Faulkner killed, and have Mumia framed. He did it in front of 3 cops and they didn’t do anything? This is a stretch even for Mumia. Don’t buy the hype.
I also found Mumia’s lawyers and supporters response to the recent denial by the Federal Court of thier motion to depose was the typical response to expect from them. Judge Yohn writes, what appears to be a intelligent, well-reasoned, and legally accurate opinion, and is lambasted as a racist and protrayed as corrupt. Look through the rhetoric and determine the facts.
Mumia’s brother has always been around and has recieved no harassment beyond his short sentence for attacking Officer Faulkner.
Mumia’s brother has had ample opporunity to tell the tale of what happened that night, but has remained silent until very recently. The reason for this is that he knows any tale he tells won’t hold up under scrutiny. Mumia’s lawyers have now made two efforts to get ‘testimony’ from him without any possibility for cross examination.
Why has he remained silent for almost 20 years, only to come up with this now?
Mumia got a fair trail. That he made mockery of it does not make it unfair.
Actually, he has been saying very little except for his empty rhetoric. In all of the trial testimonies and his writings he has only denied the crime once. His lawyers have painted odd scenarios, but have never come up with a conherent tale of events that night.
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Another person on death row with abosultely nothing to lose and would love a chacne to fuck with the system. Not impressive
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I think not. It fails to account for any of a hundred other factors. Like how this ‘hit-man’ got Mumia’s gun with its characteristic ammunition next to Mumia, like how this guy was invisisble to all the witnesses. Like how his brother or Mumia didn’t mention the other guy at all when the other police showed up.
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First of all, he got a fair trial. All imporprieties are alleged and baseless. The supremem court, normally divisive, vote unanimously that Mumia got a fair trial during the appeal. That was the time to shine, but Mumia’s lawyers scarcely
But lets say for the sake of arguement we give him a new one:
Is it going to be fair? No, because one witness is dead. Shall her testimony go on without any further cross-examination? Is that fair
What about the other witnesses? You’ve added 20 years onto their recollection. That ain’t fair.
Does Mumia get a new plea? What if he surprises you and declares “Self Defense”, and gets enough consternation to go free after killing a cop? That is actually the most likely outcome.
He had his trial, he had his appeals. Many of them. THey were fair. His lawuers tried to win in the court of public opinion, because they have nothing but fairy tales for the courts.
Looking at some of the posts linked to by Hamlet, I think there is a lot of argument for him not having gotten a fair trial. I think the outcome may very well be the same, but maybe it would put things to rest a bit. Amnesty International seems to think that he got screwed. http://www.danielfaulkner.com says that he got a fair trial, but thats hardly an un-biased site. I would tend to be believe AI before I would believe this one. Our esteemed mod Arnold Winkelried linked to thier report in the other thread http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/reports/mumia/
Given the info in that report on the state of affairs at the time in that city, it is not to far fetched to believe that the police intimdated witnesses etc…
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While I don’t think this proves anything beyond a doubt, it is something.
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It was never proved that Mumia’s gun killed him. No tests were done on his hands to see if he had fired a gun. My roomate shot himself in the head, and they still did a chemical test on my hands to see if I had fired a gun recently. Its standard procedure. The bullet was too fragmented to be identified as having been fired from his gun. No test was done on his gun to see if it had been fired.
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Actually, I seem to remember a witness saying initially that he saw someone running from the scene, who later changed his story
[QUOTE]
*Originally posted by bdgr *
**Looking at some of the posts linked to by Hamlet, I think there is a lot of argument for him not having gotten a fair trial. I think the outcome may very well be the same, but maybe it would put things to rest a bit. Amnesty International seems to think that he got screwed. http://www.danielfaulkner.com says that he got a fair trial, but thats hardly an un-biased site. I would tend to be believe AI before I would believe this one. Our esteemed mod Arnold Winkelried linked to thier report in the other thread http://www.amnestyusa.org/abolish/reports/mumia/
Given the info in that report on the state of affairs at the time in that city, it is not to far fetched to believe that the police intimdated witnesses etc…
This quite accurately notes that this is hardly Amnesty International’s best work by any stretch. They claim to be impartial, yet never conacted one whole side of the arguement for comments. That ain’t fair or impartial.
I don’t blame you for being wary, but Danielfaulkner.com won my respect by answering my questions, and having the guits to put raw informaiton out there in the first place. By comparison, my quesiotns to freemumia were answered with rhetoric and vaugaries.You can’t find the whole trial transcript on any Mumia website. All Mumia supporters can do is mutter that the DF site has a doctored version. That doesn’t add up.
I do not. The story is fantastic beyond all beleif. The man claims he did in front of three police and Mumia & brother claim to to have not seen anything?
You do realize their is a fantasy prone element of modern society that likes to confess to popularized crimes? Mumia is taking advantage of this…that does not make for reasonable doubt.
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Your roommate was dead, and did not struggle with the police, go to the hospital for crticial treatment, etc. In other words, your roommate had no contaminating elements. The chemical test you describe is useless the moment and officer touched him to arrest him, in fact its pretty useless the moment the suspect’s hands touch anything else. It is not ‘standard procedure’ except maybe in suicide cases or when police have no other evidence linking the person to the gun (even then it is weak evidence for the police at best.) Police do not need to run every test known to man just to satisfy later cravings for “they didn’t do this test” of the hysterical.
As for Mumia’s gun, the bullet (there was more than one) match the rifling and (rare) ammunition characteristics of Mumia’s gun and the 5 spent shells within it. The gun was found right next to Mumia, and it was registered in his name. A complete ballsitcs match could not be made since this was a very common weapon.
This might have made an impact had Jamal (or his brother) not been the only one capable of committing the crime, as well as all the eyewitness testimony.
Nope. A couple of off-scene witnesses say they saw someone running from the scene. Not relevant.
If you are referring to some of the confusion surrounding Robert Chobert’s inital statements to the police, then you should realize that he identified Mumia as the shooter at the scene of the crime. Defense attorney’s tried to sieze on partial quotees some of his statements to the police as proof that the ‘real shooter’ fled. But his identification of Mumia at the scene discounts that.
Several other witnesses testified the same thing. All from different walks of life, are they all part of some conspiracy to hide a real ‘hitman’?
I confess. I killed Faulkner. From the many websites and
the books on the case, I’m sure I can get all the details I
need to be convincing. Having worked as tech support for a company that sold medical sensors, I know that polygraphs are worthless for determing falsehood. I also know plenty of ways to beat them. Give me some time and I can get a 10-year-old to give a convincing confession and pass a polygraph.
The confession is meaningless.
I've been convinced for some time that Mumia is guilty. As stated above, a new trial is not possible at this point. Though, any truly fair trial would convict Mumia again.
Interesting Fact-Here in Philadelphia Mumia's supporters are called "Mumidiots".
**what does that have to do with them testing me, and he did live for a couple of hours after they rushed him to the hospital, but the contents of his head were still on my kitchen floor, so nobody had any delusions about what was going to happen.
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Nah…They can and do that test anytime there is a shooting, to anyone who could possibly be a suspect. They tested me, and I handled the body(actually, he was still breathing…sort of), and had all sorts of contact with people. According to every cop I talked to, this test is standard, if nothing else to elemenate or confirm suspects even when they know what happened. And they can run the test no matter what you touch, even quite a bit afterwards.
Hey, its likely that he did do it, and deserves to fry, but I think he should get a new trial.
Was this a new test? One that had been developed since Mumia’s crime?
In his 1995 PCRA testimony, Jamal’s own ballistics expert, agreed that a neutron activation test would have been “very difficult to perform” on Jamal’s hands, given his struggle with police. It was not a “mistake” not to test Jamal’s hands.
Why?
There’s nothing to indicate that Mumia got an unfair trial…hysterical claims aside. Giving himn a trial just because of the fuss caused by a few Mumidiots is essentially mob rule.
There’s no reason for him to get a second chance to plea and avoid the punishment he was asigned by our system of law. He played the game thinking he could disrupt the court and get a mistrial. He lost. He got his appeals, more than most folks get. He lost. He and his lawyers failed to prove anything was wrong. His lawyers tried to win in the court of the media, but in the real courts their claims were shown to be lies.
“Fair” means fair for both sides. Cythia White is dead, will her testimony from the first trial be allowed? How will the defense cross examine her? Will it be removed? That’s hardly fair.
What about the other witnesses? Some have left town. Why should they be inconvienced with this matter when they already performed their duty?
What about the widow? Why should Maureen Faulkner have to go through another trial where Mumia can give another toothy grin at her when her husbands bloody shirt is shown as evidence? If there was a good reason for a new trial it would need to be done. But there is no good reason.
Nothing, including the lame-ass fantasy filled “confession” has given me any pause about this trial.