COPS OUT OF CONTROL! Sign the new e-petition to free Mumia

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[icffmaj] COPS OUT OF CONTROL! Sign the new e-petition to free Mumia (reformatted)!




RootsAction.Connect.Act.Grow.

Earlier this month, the Senate rejected President Obama's nomination of Debo Adegbile to lead the civil rights division of the Justice Department. By linking Adegbile with the killing of a police officer, for which Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted three decades earlier, the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) steamrolled over the constitutional right to counsel. The FOP demonized Abu-Jamal with inflammatory and racially-coded language like "thug" and "notorious cop-killer." [1] In the end, seven Democratic senators from predominantly white states voted against Adegbile to avoid being associated with Abu-Jamal's case in the upcoming elections. [2] The profuse evidence of judicial and prosecutorial misconduct and the worldwide activism on behalf of Abu-Jamal have all made his case a global symbol of U.S. justice gone wrong. In 2000, Amnesty International found that the case "was irredeemably tainted by politics and race and failed to meet international fair trial standards." [3] Click here to join in calling for release of Mumia Abu-Jamal. (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=5LSNS2O55xlx3jao7CQtJZ3M02kGqFv4) Ever since his arrest in 1981, Abu-Jamal has been targeted by the Fraternal Order of Police, "the world's largest organization of sworn law enforcement officers." With strong ties to allied politicians and news media, the FOP's lobbying power -- comparable to the NRA's influence on Congress -- reflects the enormous leverage that police power wields over our entire judicial system and society at large. The FOP fears that if the U.S. Department of Justice were given real teeth for change, it would investigate systematic police abuse and brutality in many communities across the country. One-third of the officers involved in collecting evidence in Abu-Jamal's case were subsequently convicted of extortion, corruption and evidence-tampering. [4] For over 20 years, the Free Mumia movement has called for a civil rights investigation of this case. Such a review could ignite a firestorm of pressure for a thorough investigation of Philadelphia's police force. A recent case of brutality involves a police assault during a stop-and-frisk that resulted in the ruptured testicle of 16-year-old Darrin Manning. [5] Clearly, a basic change of direction is essential. Please take a minute now to send a clear message to top officials in Pennsylvania and Washington -- letting them know that you want an end to the injustice in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ehAq5ePQ1qbfO4yOKetnO53M02kGqFv4) Also, you will serve the interests of justice if you forward this message to friends. Thank you! --- The RootsAction.org Team P.S. RootsAction is an independent online force endorsed by Jim Hightower, Barbara Ehrenreich, Cornel West, Daniel Ellsberg, Glenn Greenwald, Naomi Klein, Bill Fletcher Jr., Laura Flanders, former U.S. Senator James Abourezk, Coleen Rowley, Frances Fox Piven, and many others. P.P.S. This work is only possible with your financial support. Please donate. (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=kvi5bJ8ryHpxHIlUBJWcaZ3M02kGqFv4)

Footnotes: [1] The Fraternal Order of Police: Letter to President Obama; (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=gvs2r3dClLwAzeoyeJl7A53M02kGqFv4) Wall Street Journal: The Justice Nominee and The Cop Killer (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Asi5JurxXv6o7WEJXrAdip3M02kGqFv4) [2] ThinkProgress: Meet the 7 Democrats Who Just Voted Down a Nominee (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Xmj2N5IWDtm6lIfGkof3MdJNFZBvop02) [3] Amnesty International: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=UySba4YcoJ0l2Smzo11Zvp3M02kGqFv4) [4] Johanna Fernandez: Justice on Trial: The Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal; (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ET93ksz6NG1ivACMXi%2BoD53M02kGqFv4) Dave Lindorff: "Killing Time: An Investigation into Death Row Case of Mumia" (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=okd0%2FYgBhh5GIz3kRFdcXfo%2FWAiU2myF) [5] Linn Washington Jr.: Sexual Assault, Other Philadelphia Police Scandals (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=7maKWmW3CuFYpU%2Bg%2BXhn3%2Fo%2FWAiU2myF) Background: Presidential Statement on Senate's Failure to Confirm Debo Adegbile (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=0GmQcrJ3pfUVq8mPA7nFN53M02kGqFv4) Human Rights Watch: The Fraternal Order of Police (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=Q97708VFv5XCGlgMY0wjzp3M02kGqFv4) New York Times: Book Asserts Black Reporter Didn't Kill White Officer (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=pDAGbnioQO8JnJ3r9mNcmZ3M02kGqFv4) New York Times: U.S. Files Its Rights Suit Charging Philadelphia Police (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=KxxGnSR6AE03uDF8Prz31Z3M02kGqFv4) J. Patrick O'Connor: "The Mumia Exception" (http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=ROWNNRfAGePVB9%2BuSjtJSJ3M02kGqFv4)

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[icffmaj] Ms Faulkner, Toomey Make Up Story





Published on This Can't Be Happening! (http://thiscantbehappening.net)

Home > Senator and Police Union Use a Widow's False Memory to Stir Up Hatred for Imprisoned Man and for Obama Nominee


Senator and Police Union Use a Widow's False Memory to Stir Up Hatred for Imprisoned Man and for Obama Nominee


Wed, 03/05/2014 - 18:44

Powerful story, but not a true one
by:
Dave Lindorff

Maureen Faulkner, widowed as a young wife by the shooting death of her husband, Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, has spent the over 32 years since his death on a crusade, first to have the man convicted of his death, Mumia Abu-Jamal, executed, and then, since the overturning of his death sentence on Constitutional grounds, trying to ensure that he remains a pariah in prison.

She has been assisted in her quest by a labor organization and political lobby, the Fraternal Order of Police, which has helped her to widely publicize her claims, often factually challenged, that Abu-Jamal was fairly tried and found guilty of murder, and that he is, moreover, a monster deserving the worst that the US penal system can dish out.

One of the FOP's favorite claims in that campaign of vilification is a story that the widow Faulkner also tells at every opportunity, namely that during the early days of the 1982 murder trial, when the prosecutor held up the slain officer's bloody shirt to display the bullet holes in it, Abu-Jamal, seated at the defense table, turned around and "smiled at me."

It is, to be sure, a disturbing image.

It is also not possible to have occurred.

http://thiscantbehappening.net/sites/default/files/images/ToomeyAdigbileFaulknerCasey.preview.jpg
Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), rejected Civil Right Division nominee Debo Adegbile,Maureen Faulkner and Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA)Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), rejected Civil Right Division nominee Debo Adegbile,Maureen Faulkner and Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA)

As I discovered in reviewing the trial transcripts of that day (Commonwealth of PA v. Mumia Abu Jamal, June 26, 1982), and later reported in my book on the case (Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Penalty Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, Common Courage Press, 2003), Abu-Jamal had been removed by Judge Albert Sabo from the courtroom at the start of the day before the presentation of evidence, and was not returned to the courtroom until well after the shirt had been displayed to the jury.

The first time Faulkner told that story portraying a cruel and uncaring killer smiling at her pain was during an interview by a reporter writing a feature on the case in the Washington Post, titled "Condemned to Silence? Does a Man Lose His Right to Write if he Kills a Cop? A Widow Says Yes," which ran on May 18, 1995.

Now it's possible that Faulkner, 13 years after the trial and 13 years into her campaign of vengeance for her loss, may have imagined the scene. Such things are common. As Jerry Lembcke has documented in his book Spitting Image, although there is not one newspaper photo showing Anti-Vietnam War protesters spitting on a returning soldier from that decade-long conflict, thousands of veterans of the Indochina War claim they were spat on, often in situations that could not have occurred, such as returning to a civilian airfield (soldiers were flown home in military transports, and landed at military airfields, where no protesters could have been present to expectorate on them).

Whether she genuinely believes that this impossible "smile" incident actually happened, or is making it up though, Sen. Pat Toomey, who doesn't have any excuse, made full use of the false story in a speech on the Senate Floor condemning Obama's nominee Debo Adegbile to head the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division -- even embellishing on it by saying Abu-Jamal had "smirked" at Faulkner, when her original newspaper account had her saying he had "smiled."

But then, why should a senator ruin a good yarn by sticking to the actual quote?

Toomey repeated this bogus story, again using his embellishment of "smirk," in an op-ed article that ran this past Monday in the Philadelphia Inquirer,calling -- successfully as it turns out -- for his Senate colleagues to reject Adegbile's nomination.

Although the Inquirer favorably reviewed my book in 2004, with the book critic Steven Weinberg calling it "the most thorough book yet by an author without direct involvement in the murder case,” the paper's editors didn't bother to even minimally fact-check the Senator by verifying his claims. Instead, they let his lie about the shirt run, along with a number of other falsehoods he added in, such as that Abu-Jamal had shot the officer on the ground four times. The truth is that whoever shot Faulkner, he was only hit by two bullets, one to the lower back, and one to the forehead. This is a critical fact which, as I and my colleague Linn Washington show -- in a video (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hedfNPt6UQQ) [1] which can be viewed at the bottom of this page -- fatally undermines the veracity of the prosecution's only purported "eye witnesses" to the shooting, who are caught describing a scene that, like this one of Faulkner's, could not have happened either.

Worse than Toomey, who clearly is simply playing the political role his party expects of him, namely to try and embarrass and further undermine the weakened and increasingly unpopular President Obama by getting his nominee rejected, and who probably couldn't care less about Faulkner's pain, is Sen. Bob Casey, a Democrat and the state's senior Senator, who cited her story as the reason for his voting with Senate Republicans to reject the eminently worthy Adegbile for the Justice Department post. Casey's abject fawning before his state's rabid FOP lobby is simply a pathetic embarrassment. Unlike businessman Toomey, Casey is a lawyer, and as such well knows that it is the duty of a lawyer to defend those who may have been denied a fair trial or appeal. As a lawyer, he also well knows that, as my colleague Linn Washington writes above, Adegbile had no role in developing the argument that led three levels of the federal courts to find Abu-Jamal's death sentence to have been unconstitutional and properly overturned.

Senator Toomey, in this sordid sabatoging of a (for Obama!) surprisingly excellent nomination for a Justice Department post, is just playing the expected role of a smarmy low-wattage political hack. Sen. Casey is displaying something worse -- a spineless lack of principle.

Source URL: http://thiscantbehappening.net/node/2177

Links:

[1] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hedfNPt6UQQ

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[icffmaj] Let's Keep The Pressure On The PA Parole Board.




Ona Move Everybody!

In the next couple of months at least four of The Move 9 will be having upcoming parole hearings. Now is the time to keep the pressure on the parole board with Move 9 Monday's.
So don't forget to make your calls this Monday for The Move 9 and let's keep the pressure on The Pa Parole Board on the issue of The Move. 9.

You can reach the Pa Parole Board at (717) 772-4343
Here are some key talking points people can make and questions they can ask.


(1) Despite having nothing to do with the prosecution of The Move 9
And having no knowledge of the case Philadelphia District Attorney
Seth Williams gives a negative recommendation for parole to the board
Asking that The Move 9 not be given parole.
(1a) How can a man have such an impact on a case that he has no knowledge of ?

(2) At least seven of The eight remaining Move Members in prison have been given positive recommendations for parole by the respective wardens and superintendents
Of their institutions. At 99 percent of inmates that are given recommendations from the warden and superintendents of their institutions are given parole.
(2a) Why is this different for The Move 9 ?

(3) All of The Move 9 have employment and housing set up for them if paroled.
(3a) Why is the parole board overlooking this?

Whenever we bring up the issue of the outright murder of MOVE PEOPLE on MAY 13Th 1985 by this system and it's officials we are told its time to move past this yet the parole board has not gotten past the issue of James Ramp being murdered that's why they keep pushing the issue of nature of the crime when Move People are denied parole.
The Move 9 are innocent and the parole board knows it these legalized terrorists known as the parole board know it too they are following the orders of The Fraternal Order of Police and other police unions and The Philadelphia District Attorney to keep The Move 9 in prison. If they will sit back and think we are gonna allow this then they are stupid. So please don't forget to make your calls this Monday .

Ona Move
Orie, Mona, Ann, Margie, and Illy

Don't forget to check out The Move 9 Chronicles running all through march on Free The Move 9 Parole Blogspot.com