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Still Guilty After All These Years

Mar 27, 2008
By .
Law

France's favorite cop-killer Mumia Abu Jamal will receive a new hearing on whether he deserves to dance with the Big Needle, but will not receive a new trial. His conviction has been left standing by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. As a practical matter this was Jamal's last go-round with habeas corpus (unless his death sentence is reinstated). The best he can hope for is to rot his way through a life sentence.

While waaaaay back in college and law school, attending "Free Mumia" events was a great way to meet earnest, cat-glasses wearing indie rock chicks, the enthusiasm for Jamal has precipitously declined in recent years, perhaps most people who've studied the case now conclude that, yeah, he is a murderer. Only in Ezra-land does rage spring eternal.

Here's a link to a site maintained by Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Mumia's victim Daniel Faulkner. Though obviously Mrs. Faulkner has an opinion, her site contains meticulous demolitions of every claim that Mumia Abu Jamal is an innocent man.

Last 5 posts by Patrick

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4 Comments

  1. Ezra  •  Mar 27, 2008 @2:28 pm

    I don't think I've ever been a free Mumia guy. He did commit a crime, and he should be punished. Now, I have protested the death penalty (and the really sick racial divide in death penalty sentences) in general and also in response to this case. The death penalty is wrong, and has no place in any sort of justice system.

  2. Patrick  •  Mar 27, 2008 @2:38 pm

    Ezra we're on the same side. While I appreciate the justice of the death penalty (as in, an eye for an eye is truly just) I oppose it because it's permanent, it's final, and man, unlike the Popehat, is fallible. I can't accept the potential of infinite injustice that the death penalty wreaks on the wrongly accused.

    As a lawyer, I'm quite conscious of the fallibility of jurors (and still prefer them to judges as ultimate deciders). As a southerner, I'm just as conscious of where human fallibility can lead.

    In Mumia's case, I have not a doubt, so I'm glad he'll rot. But I'm with you on the death penalty.

  3. Ken  •  Mar 27, 2008 @5:55 pm

    I thought the French bit was a rhetorical flourish until I saw that those asswipes in Paris named a street after him. Good Lord.

    Hmmm. I'm not current enough on the state-conviction provisions of the AEDPA to answer this question: if they determine to retry him, and get the DP again, does that reset the process from scratch, at least as far as the penalty phase goes? That would push off the reaper a good 20 years, I'd think.

  4. Patrick  •  Mar 27, 2008 @7:16 pm

    As I understand it Ken, it would restart the chain, and Jamal would of course also have his state appellate rights for the penalty hearing. So he'll likely just rot, even with the accelerated habeas process under AEDPA.