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<div class="header reader-header" style="display: block;"> <font
size="-2"><a class="domain reader-domain"
href="http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/commentary/mumia-abu-jamal-daniel-faulkner-district-attorney-larry-krasner-philadelphia-20180430.html">http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/commentary/mumia-abu-jamal-daniel-faulkner-district-attorney-larry-krasner-philadelphia-20180430.html</a></font>
<h1 class="reader-title">Why my brother, Mumia Abu-Jamal, should
be set free<br>
</h1>
<div class="credits reader-credits">by Keith Cook - April 30,
2018<br>
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<p>I was stationed in Europe 37 years ago when I received
the call that all black families dread. My little
brother, Mumia Abu-Jamal, had been shot by the police
and was fighting for his life.</p>
<p>Mumia was the kindest and gentlest of my five siblings.
At the time, he had been working two jobs to support his
wife and children and honing his distinctive voice as a
radio journalist. He was a rising star, and the pride
of our family.</p>
<p>Dedicated to truth, Mumia used his radio show to expose
police brutality, housing discrimination, and City Hall
corruption. Philadelphia magazine had just heralded him
as one of “81 People to Watch” and Columbia University
had given him the prestigious Major Armstrong Award for
his radio editorial on the pope’s visit to Philadelphia.</p>
<p>Contemplating the painful reality of black life in
America, I flew home immediately.</p>
<p>I arrived to a bad situation. My brother lay
unconscious, handcuffed to a hospital bed, and accused
of killing Daniel Faulkner.</p>
<p>Faulkner was a white police officer; my brother a black
man on the scene. It seemed that nothing else mattered.</p>
<p>The police labeled him a cop killer. Journalists and
politicians buried his humanity. And Judge Albert F.
Salbo — who, according to a 1992 Inquirer report,
presided over 31 cases that resulted in the imposition
of the death penalty — convicted and sentenced him to
death in the absence of material evidence.</p>
<p>The conflicting and recanted testimonies and absence of
a motive didn’t matter.</p>
<p>It didn’t matter that four witnesses told police that
the shooter fled the scene.</p>
<p>Nor did it matter that a Justice Department
investigation had just concluded that the level of
police corruption “shocks the conscience.”</p>
<p>Still, Mumia maintained his innocence.</p>
<p>In 1995, an international movement stopped his state
execution. In 2011, his death sentence was declared
unconstitutional; and now a pending court order
demanding that the DA release all the files in his case
could open the path to his freedom.</p>
<p>In opposition, the officer’s widow, Maureen Faulkner,
has asserted that the police are victims of the legal
system and that the appellate process is a gravy train
for criminals.</p>
<p>Yet, the incestuous nature of the District Attorney’s
Office and appellate judges tells a different story. In
Philly, prosecutors who convict defendants often become
the judges who deny their appeals.</p>
<p>This miscarriage of justice brings Mumia to court
Monday. He seeks relief on <a
href="http://www.scotusblog.com/case-files/cases/williams-v-pennsylvania/"
target="_blank">the basis of Williams v. Pennsylvania</a>,
where the Supreme Court ruled that one person, Ron
Castille, should not be both prosecutor and judge in the
same case.</p>
<p>I believe <a
href="http://philadelphia.cbslocal.com/2018/01/17/mumia-abu-jamal-court-case/"
target="_blank">Castille double-dipped in Mumia’s case</a>.
Before he became a Pennsylvania Supreme Court justice,
he was Philly’s district attorney. As such, Castille
helped prosecute Mumia in the city’s most famous case.
Later, as a judge, he denied Mumia’s appeal. In the
1990s, Mumia’s lawyers asked for Castille’s recusal. The
judge had been funded and named Man of the Year by the
Fraternal Order of Police (FOP), an organization
invested in Mumia’s conviction and execution. He refused
to recuse himself.</p>
<p>Despite these violations, <a
href="http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/commentary/mumia-abu-jamal-daniel-faulkner-larry-krasner-maureen-faulkner-opinion-20180426.html"
target="_blank">Mrs. Faulkner is calling on elected
officials to turn their backs on the constitution and
block Mumia’s due process.</a></p>
<p>Our family empathizes with Mrs. Faulkner’s pain. But we
regret that the police have manipulated her thirst for
vengeance all these years in order to conceal the truth
about who killed Officer Faulkner.</p>
<p>Photos taken by a freelance photographer, Pedro
Polakoff, appear to show police cooking up the crime
scene in Mumia’s case. In the photos, Officer James
Forbes, who testified in court that he properly handled
the two guns allegedly retrieved at the scene, is seen
holding the weapons with bare hands.</p>
<p>In 1995, amidst another scandal of police corruption,
then-District Attorney Lynne Abraham told the Legal
Intelligencer that her office would “discard any cases
where evidence surfaces that even <em>one</em> of the
officers involved in an investigation lied in court or
in written reports.”</p>
<p>We call on District Attorney Larry Krasner to honor his
predecessors’ promise and stay true to his own pledge to
right the wrongs of his office: Do your part to help
free my brother, Mumia.</p>
<p><em>Keith Cook served 26 years in the Army and retired
as a command sergeant major.</em></p>
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<p id="timestamp-published"> <strong>Published:</strong>
<time datetime="Mon Apr 30 00:01:00 PDT 2018"
pubdate=""> April 30, 2018 </time><time
datetime="Mon Apr 30 12:15:00 PDT 2018" pubdate=""></time><br>
<strong> </strong> </p>
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