Mumia Abu-Jamal supporters Pam Africa and Julia Wright in France. Mumia's lawyer, Robert Bryan, pictured at right. A street was named in Mumia's honor in Saint-Denis earlier in 2006.
Originally uploaded by Pan-African News Wire Photo File
MAUREEN FAULKNER AND MICHAEL SMERCONISH
How Not to Build One's Case for Justice
A Review of Maureen Faulkner and Michael A. Smerconish, Murdered By Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain, and Injustice. Guilford, CT: The Lyons Press, 2007, 349 pp.
by Mark Lewis Taylor
Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal (EMAJ)
December 19, 2007
Maureen Faulkner, widow of slain Philadelphia Police Officer, Daniel Faulkner, and conservative Philly radio talk-show host, Michael Smerconish, released their new book in early December 2007. It is their take on the decades-long debate about perhaps the most contested death penalty case today, one that dates back to the 1982 conviction and death sentence of Mumia Abu-Jamal for the officer's murder. The book's chapters are organized roughly in terms of what Maureen Faulkner sees as her emotional ups and downs relating to her public relations victories and defeats, in her struggle to see Abu-Jamal executed.
The battle lines have firmed up over the years as prosecutors continue to argue they have "slam dunk" evidence of Abu-Jamal's guilt, even while ever more analysts and human rights organizations – Amnesty International, for example – call for a new trial.
In their book, Faulkner and Smerconish definitely embrace the slam-dunk view of evidence for Abu-Jamal's guilt and are out to explain to readers, as Maureen Faulkner puts it, "why I and my family need to see Jamal executed" (300).
As this quote from the book shows, the prose is all in Maureen Faulkner's first person voice. Smerconish merely aims "to play scribe for her," as she sits in his study satisfying his request for all the details of her struggle to see Abu-Jamal executed for the murder of her husband (xvi-xv).
The result is a blend-in that takes a woman's and her family's very real loss and pain and mixes it with the political agendas that are familiar to anyone who knows Smerconish's several books and radio screeds against "the disease of political correctness." Being politically correct is Smerconish's negative term for anyone who voices political criticism of social and political structures, especially if this means not sharing Smerconish's "instincts" (his term) to support law enforcement and to have "always respected the uniform."
Precisely here, in this foregrounding of respect for the uniform, is what I will call the book's first "rhetorical strategy of persuasion," its way of inviting readers into sympathy and agreement. In this review, I suggest that these strategies are as problematic and flawed, if not more so, than are its misreadings of the facts of the case.
Other reviewers of this book have already treated the inaccuracies in the facts as rendered in Murdered By Mumia. [1] There are also some glaring omissions in the book of key problems, such as a court stenographer Terri Maurer-Carter's affidavit holding that she overheard trial judge Albert Sabo saying during a break from Abu-Jamal's trial, "Yeah, and I'm going to help 'em fry the n------ ." Nor is there treatment of testimony revealing that a third man at the scene in all likelihood had been riding in the VW of Abu-Jamal's brother, Billy Cook. [2] There are some notable inaccuracies, too, such as getting wrong the name of that third man, writing as they do of "Howard Freeman" (140), not Kenneth Freeman.
These inadequacies are compounded by the rhetorical strategies used by the book, and it is these on which I concentrate in this review. Let us begin with this first strategy of "respecting the uniform." It leads up to four other strategies that are also flawed.
Recall, these rhetorical strategies concern the book's approach to trying to persuade readers to accept the authors' reading of the case. By looking at these strategies we not only have one way of evaluating the book's claims, but also of understanding to whom this book makes its appeal.
Rhetorical Strategy No.1 – Assume Instinctive Allegiance to the Uniform
Faulkner's and Smerconish's respect for the uniform is not limited to just a respect for the man or woman in a police uniform who works the street. It is extended to mean respect for all elements of the political order that may be linked with such men and women: the Fraternal Order of Police, local judges and Supreme Court justices, District Attorneys, and any supportive politicians who stand with these groups.
Faulkner expresses throughout her book a near unqualified devotion to these institutional backers of the uniform. Twenty-some years after the trial, she still receives police escort and transport in police vans, to and from court hearings (144-5). She celebrates perceived public relations gains at offices and establishments frequented by Philadelphia police.
She thrills to the roar of thousands of bikers on a memorial run for her slain husband, 12,000 of whom once received special escort from the Philadelphia Highway Patrol with Police Commissioner John Timoney leading the caravan (258). The bikers she celebrates would later organize themselves into B.A.C.U.P., Bikers Allied to Commemorate Uniformed Police, Inc.
One early book-signing event displayed respect for the uniform with a full-fledged cultural event at Geno's Steaks, a Philly establishment renown for its unqualified support for police "This is very pro-cop. We believe in justice," said Geno's owner Jerry Vento at the signing event, also explaining why any Abu-Jamal supporters would find the place to be "…a little bad territory for them to come in here." The signing included a ceremony complete with prayer, taps, and "Amazing Grace" on bagpipes played by the Philadelphia Police and Fire Pipes and Drum Corp. [3]
Faulkner, Smerconish and their supporters surely have every right to celebrate their freedom of speech and their publications, and to gather with their friends as they may wish. But the fact that they abound with respect and rituals for the uniform is not grounds for the integrity of claims they make about Abu-Jamal's guilt or innocence.
Not only does such claimed allegiance to the uniform beg all the questions that have been debated in this case, it also overlooks the failure and corruption, the doing of injustice, which has been performed by those in police uniform in Philadelphia.
Maureen Faulkner's support, personally and professionally, for the Fraternal Order of Police, the District Attorneys Office, Police Commissioners, and the police generally, includes her frequent words of praise for those who officiated at Abu-Jamal's original trial and appellate process, first Judge Albert Sabo and prosecutor Joseph McGill, and also Hugh Burns who overseas the case today for the D.A.'s Office.
There is no mention of the historical background of police corruption in Philadelphia. [4] Also unmentioned is the "2003 study by a state supreme court-appointed committee which confirmed that the entire Philadelphia legal system, along with the Pennsylvania appellate courts that review that system are rife with racism, and that death penalty prosecutions, especially in Philadelphia are poisoned by prejudice."[5] Faulkner and Smerconish go out of their way to intentionally praise Judge Sabo (31-33, 132), even though both the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Daily News, hardly Abu-Jamal supporters, called for Sabo's removal during the 1990s PCRA hearings.
Indeed, this book's rhetorical strategy, rooting itself in "instincts" of pervasive respect for the uniform, may be, in Philadelphia at least, actually to sabotage the book's persuasive appeal. With no mention of the history of corruption by uniformed authorities in Philadelphia the authors' instincts become suspect.
Rhetorical Strategy No. 2 – Define Truth in Narrow Terms
The authors take some pains to tell us what they mean by "truth," especially in the matter of determining the truth of Abu-Jamal's guilt or innocence. "Truth," they say, is "that which is testified to while under oath by an individual in the courtroom and is deemed credible by the court" (215).
Now no one would deny – and the supporters of Abu-Jamal's claims to innocence or to have a new trial do not deny it either – that it is unimportant to take what has been testified to "under oath" and "deemed credible by the court" with utter seriousness. And so the Abu-Jamal supporters have been just as committed to reading the transcripts as Faulkner and Smerconish claim to be. But this book's definition of truth as simply what is in the court transcripts is too narrow.
Debates, even at the appellate court levels, always meant looking also at the conditions under which the testimony and transcripts were produced: who was allowed to testify and who not, who may have been vulnerable to pressure from authority and who not, who may have been biased in presiding over the case and who not? Abu-Jamal's advocates have pressed questions in all these areas, arguing, for example, that opportunities to testify before a jury in court are being denied to Veronica Jones who claims that she was pressured by police to not testify for Abu-Jamal, and still denied also to Terri Maurer-Carter who claims to have heard Judge Albert Sabo say during a break from the original trial, "Yeah, and I'm going to help 'em fry the n-----." They have argued that Judge Sabo's bias limited and shaped the ways testimony was taken and what went into the transcripts.
There are many other examples of these ways of questioning the conditions under which testimony was taken and given. No argument is settled simply by the fact of what the transcripts say, but rather by careful reflection on the conditions that generated those transcripts, i.e. the social, political and procedural conditions that have enabled and limited those transcripts. That is the domain of "truth" not really explored by Smerconish and Faulkner.
Indeed, their very definition of what truth is turns readers away from bothering with those important questions. Truth is not guaranteed by what's in a transcript record, but by assuring due process in constructing that record.
Rhetorical Strategy No. 3 – Caricature Advocates for Abu-Jamal's New Trial
Faulkner and Smerconish sustain a caricature of the movement for Abu-Jamal, a depiction that uses distortion and exaggeration. Let us admit that at times individuals in support of Abu-Jamal have dished out distortion and exaggeration of Faulkner and Smerconish, or of their supporters. With regard to this book's view of the Abu-Jamal supporters, though, the caricature is most severe. Consider three ways in which this is so.
First, those working for Abu-Jamal are often characterized as out to cause Maureen pain. Even unrelated claims for Abu-Jamal are often seen by the authors as callous attacks on Faulkner, to cause her emotional pain and suffering. It is almost impossible to formulate any defensive proposition for Abu-Jamal, without Maureen Faulkner claiming that those propositions are out to hurt her and her family. Again, her emotions and pain are legitimate. She doesn't need any of us to tell her or her supporters that. But those emotions and pain cannot be allowed, as they tend to become in this book, an arbiter of what justice is for Abu-Jamal.
Second, the book characterizes the movement as completely ignorant of the facts, as made up of people unable to weigh arguments. Mumia Abu-Jamal's defenders are just "Mumidiots" (47). In fact, the commitment to weigh arguments, to follow the evidence, to get more of the evidence heard, has been the continuous concern of Abu-Jamal's attorneys, of International Concerned Family and Friends of Mumia Abu-Jamal, of various authors writing on the case, and of scholar advocates from schools, colleges and universities.
It is telling in this regard that the Faulkner/Smerconish book makes no mention at all of two of the most measured and reasoned studies, the 2000 study by Amnesty International which called for a new trial, and the 2003 book by Dave Lindorff which remains one of the most exacting and thorough treatments of the case. I stress, there is not one attempt by Smerconish and Faulkner even to mention these works.
Nor do Faulkner and Smerconish make a single reference to the organization on Abu-Jamal's behalf, of hundreds of educators from all levels of education, especially from colleges and universities. Through their organization of "Educators for Mumia Abu-Jamal," these educators from the 1990s mobilized many press conferences, press releases, and also financed a full-page ad in the New York Times on May 5, 2000, to call for a new trial. [6] Faulkner and Smerconish repeatedly circulate the myth that only uninformed "Hollywood celebrities" have stepped forward to speak in Abu-Jamal's defense.
The third mode of caricature of the movement involves saying that the movement only thrives outside Philadelphia. Smerconish repeats the mantra: "what's notable about Abu-Jamal's support is that it grows in strength the farther one gets from Philadelphia" (x). In response, let me refrain, here, from commenting on what historians establish as Philadelphia authorities' heavy repression of community supporters of black dissidents, of dissidents in general, and also of black communities in the city, especially from the time of Mayor Frank Rizzo. [7]
In spite of that repressive history, which can account for why dissent over the years in Philadelphia has often been beaten down, there has been resistance. As a coordinator of EMAJ, I can easily point to one way in which this caricature is wrong. The educators who spoke out for a new trial and for the removal of Judge Sabo from Abu-Jamal's case during the 1990s PCRA hearings, were not only from around the nation and the world, they were also from Philadelphia. Faculty signed their first ad in support of Abu-Jamal in 1995, and it was in the Philadelphia Daily News – not abroad, not outside of Philadelphia.
They represented many of Philadelphia's schools: Temple University, the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia University of the Sciences, Philadelphia Community College, Drexel University, Swarthmore College, and various secondary schools. In 1995, faculty from these schools, some eight in number, in fact, held a press conference in Philadelphia, to call for Sabo's removal and for a new trial. The event was barely covered in the Philadelphia press.
Faulkner and Smerconish are as silent about all this work of local educators in their own city, as they are about the reputable and careful studies of the case by Amnesty International and Lindorff. Instead, they circulate a caricature of a misinformed and ignorant movement of non-thinkers, duped people in Paris, France, for example, or the "Mumidiots" everywhere, as they prefer to write (49).
No wonder these authors have shown themselves inept in responding to recent radio debates with Dave Lindorff, or with Pam Africa of International Concerned Family and Friends, or in showing themselves to have even a basic familiarity with the important recent studies by Michael Schiffmann concerning the repressed photos of Daniel Faulkner's crime scene, taken by Pedro Polakoff. [8]
Rhetorical Strategy No. 4 – Demonize Mumia Abu-Jamal
Having set up an approach to the book in the ways described above, it will not be surprising that Faulkner and Smerconish demonize Mumia in various simplistic ways.
At times, readers will find Faulkner and Smerconish guilty of shameless hyperbole, as when they characterize Abu-Jamal's court protest actions as those of a "latter-day Charles Manson" (35), or summarize the graduation ceremony at Antioch College, which featured Mumia as commencement speaker by way of audio-tape, as "like one of the rallies the Nazis staged in Nuremburg" (262).
Beyond this hyperbole, there is a continual demonization of Abu-Jamal as ominous specter. He is not simply guilty of a crime of murder, he is also "heartless executioner" (57), an "evil man" (82) with a "haunting grimace" of face (262) and an "unmistakable snarl" of voice (85), who bought the gun he was carrying as a Taxi driver "fully resolved," say the authors, "to shoot and seriously injure or kill someone," intending "the execution of anyone who crossed his path" (87).
As is usually the case with such a demonization of others, there is also a near complete idealization of one's own group and life. I will not here seek to list off any flaws in the character of Daniel Faulkner, his family or supporters. In fact, I can imagine and see some virtues. But as this book recounts Faulkner's life there is not one down-side, not one complex ambiguity mentioned by the authors. In the chapter, "Danny and Me," the dominant story-line is about how Mumia cut short the life of Daniel Faulkner, a hard-driving, adventurous, goal-setting, blue-eyed Irish achiever in army life, then as prison guard, and later as a police officer frequently-awarded for "aggressive patrol procedures" (57-8).
The reference to Mumia as "heartless executioner" occurs at the end of a paragraph in this chapter where Daniel and the Faulkner family are presented as "good people…They went to church. They loved one another and looked out for one another. They worked hard. Nothing was handed to them. They stayed out of other people's business and kept within the law. They were 'good people'" (56)
I am not here proposing any reverse demonization of Faulkner, just some ambiguity, some freedom from the book's all-too-easy polarization of hero-Faulkner versus demon-Mumia. The book does not give that complexity and thus sews some suspicion about its other claims, too.
Rhetorical Strategy No. 5 – Avoid Serious Reflection on Substantial Issues
I have in mind here the way the Faulkner/Smerconish book, while being about the desire of the Faulkner family to see the execution of an African-American man, avoids serious reflection either on the merits of the death penalty, or on the problem of structural racism.
Concerning the death penalty, there is no weighing of the arguments for capital punishment, not even a concern to cite the theorists who have developed some strong arguments for the death penalty. [9] Usually, in the context of the rhetoric summarized above, and with reference to Maureen Faulkner's grief and pain, the book makes do with statements like this one from Faulkner on the penultimate page of her book: "I firmly believe that a person who knowingly and violently takes the life of another person, especially a police officer, should forfeit their own life" (300).
Mumia's citation of Albert Camus on the problems with the death penalty in his Yale Law Journal essay is not even taken up by the authors. They just quote Abu-Jamal citing Camus and then plunge on to bemoan that he was given a chance to write for this Ivy-League publication (72). There is one place later in the book where the authors do pause to mention - though without citation - a "criminology study at Wayne State University" that "emboldened" Michael Smerconish, by claiming that in the wake of an execution "there are fewer murders committed on the third day thereafter" (165). This rather bizarre fragment from an uncited source is taken as grounds for Smerconish's "fervor and conviction" that the death penalty is a deterrent. In fact, law enforcement studies themselves question the deterrence value of the death penalty, especially for deterring the killing of police officers. [10]
The other issue that haunts the book and is never seriously reflected upon is racism and the criminal justice system. The writers tend to block serious reflection on this theme by accusing supporters of Abu-Jamal of "playing the race card" (73, 75, 156) or simply denying that the issue is relevant to this case (see pages 296-7 for original prosecutor Joe McGill's position about recent charges of racism in jury selection). This is a most obvious evasion of issues with which a serious book would have to wrestle.
Nearly every reputable history of criminal justice and policing in Philadelphia, and of its economic and political life generally, has found it necessary to look at the effects of structural racism in city structures. [11] There exists, too, the studies that beginning in 1998 have found Philadelphia and Pennsylvania courts and review systems "rife with racism." [12] Moreover, U.S. Third Circuit Court judges now weighing Abu-Jamal's legal arguments are grappling with legal precedent's long-established concern that racial bias not be operative at all in a legal proceeding. [13]
Given the confirmation we now have that the Philadelphia DA's Office had used a video tape for training members of its Office in the "art" of reducing black representation on juries, and had done so near the time of Abu-Jamal's prosecution, [14] Faulkner's and Smerconish's crude dismissal of the issue as "playing the race card" is yet another reinforcement of Philadelphia's tradition of structural racism, and another severe failing of this book's rhetorical strategy.
A Closing Image – "Convicts Waiting for Trial"
For a closing image I suggest a passage from Maureen Faulkner's description of her experiences during PCRA Hearings in Philadelphia's new Criminal Justice Center. She and her partner, Paul Palkovic, traveled to the hearings one day, transported by a police van that delivered them and the family to the back of the courthouse, so that they might avoid the "lengthy line" of others trying to get in, the "huge backup of people" and the "hundreds of Abu-Jamal people trying to get into the courtroom" (144-5). She then says that as they disembarked from the van, "there was a busload of convicts waiting for trial next to us" (144).
Now, perhaps these "convicts waiting for trial" were previously convicted inmates being sent to trial for further deliberation on alleged new crimes. That, though, would be an all-too-charitable reading of the expression chosen by Faulkner here. It is more likely - and all evidence from Faulkner's and Smerconish's rhetoric in the book suggests this – that she is instead presuming that if one has been apprehended for trial , or is "waiting for trial," one is already a "convict," at least a bad person, not of the "good people." It is another assumption of ill repute that she projects on those who are not clearly part of the system that continues to serve her in so many ways.
In this same passage, Faulkner also says that the "convicts" "boisterously jeered as we solemnly walked in," not bothering to tell readers how they would know to jeer at her and for what. It is enough that she is one who sees them jeering. She goes on to allege that "very angry pro-Abu-Jamal protestors" chased her and about ten others, including attorneys and two cops (145).
Her spirits were soothed that day only by "pleasant conversation" with Ed Rendell, who "has always been a strong supporter of mine." Then Mayor Rendell arranged for her and Paul to make a trip to the top of City Hall where they enjoyed, as she puts it, "the pristine perfection of our temporary solitude – perched high atop the city where the madness raged below us" (146).
Clearly, as this book makes clear, Maureen Faulkner and her family have had the ups and downs suffered by nearly all victims of violent crimes, and she's had still more highs and lows born of her relentless struggle alongside Philadelphia authorities to see Abu-Jamal executed. She also has had what many murder victims families have not had, [15] years of supportive police culture, police van escorting and mayoral sponsorship for visits to the high places (literally and metaphorically)of city government.
In spite of all this official support, Faulkner and Smerconish have not offered in this book a convincing discourse that seriously reflects upon what justice might be in the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Let us hope that the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals, now considering Abu-Jamal's case, can offer a more discerning wisdom.
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[1] See, for example, Dave Lindorff, "Maureen Faulkner and Mumia: Vengeance Isn't Sweet," OpEdNews http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_dave_lin_071202_maureen_faulkner_and.htm (accessed December 13, 2007).
[2] For information on both of these matters, see the English manuscript of the German publication, Race Against Death: The Struggle for the Life and Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, pages 200-202, and 219-22, respectively.
[3] "Book signing and rally to remember Danny Faulkner," posted by Derek Bargeld on December 10, 2007 http://www.newsnet14.com/?p=7689&print=1 (accessed December 13, 2007).
[4] Peter F. Vaira, Philadelphia Inquirer, August 27, 1995, and "Trampling the Public Trust: Philadelphia Police Abuses Reveal Systemic Injustice, Action Update, October 1995 (Hyattsville, MD: Equal Justice USA, 1995), 3-5.
[5] Quoted in Dave Lindorff, "Maureen Faulkner and Mumia: Vengeance Isn't Sweet," see above footnote no. 1; and "Was Philadelphia Officer Daniel Faulkner 'Murdered By Mumia?", Journalists for Mumia web site, http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/flyerMBM.pdf (accessed December 11, 2007).
[6] Educators for Mumia Abu Jamal web site, at http://www.emajonline.com. For the New York Times ad by educators in 2000, see http://www.jca.apc.org/mumia/source/NYTad.pdf (accessed December 13, 2007).
[7] Robert Justin Goldstein, Political Repression in Modern America (Cambridge and New York: Schenkman Publishing Co., 1978), 523-9, and Schiffmann, 56-7.
[8] Journalists for Mumia, at http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/ , and Educators for Mumia, at http://www.emajonline.com/files/PressRelease.Polakoff.Photos.EMAJ.pdf .
[9] I do not believe the arguments of death penalty advocates hold good, but see Hugo Adam Bedau and Paul G. Cassell, Debating the Death Penalty: Should America Have Capital Punishment. The Experts on Both Sides Make Their Case (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
[10] "Law Enforcement and the Death Penalty," at The Death Penalty Information Center, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?&did=1705#lawenforcement (accessed December 13, 2007).
[11] On histories about racism in Philadelphia, see Julie Winch, Philadelphia's Black Elite: Activism, Accommodation and the Struggle for Autonomy, 1787-1848 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), and Charles Banner-Haley To Do Good and To Do Well: Middle-Class Blacks and the Depression, Philadelphia, 1929-1941 (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1993). Compare Samuel Bass Warner, The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987).
[12] Robert Dunham, "Death Penalty and Race: Partners in Injustice," CounterPunch, December 10, 2001 http://www.counterpunch.org/dunham1.html (accessed December 11, 2007).
[13] A summary of the legal precedent for considering racism in legal proceedings is eloquently summarized by Christina Swarns in the NAACP Amicus Brief for Abu-Jamal's appearance before the U.S. Third Circuit Court, at http://www.naacpldf.org/content/pdf/jury/Abu-Jamal_v_Horn_amicus_brief.pdf (accessed December 13, 2007).
[14] Dunham, see above footnote, no. 10.
[15] For other life-journeys by family members who have lost loved ones to murder, see the web site at Murder Victims Families for Reconciliation at http://ww [15] See, for example, Dave Lindorff, "Maureen Faulkner and Mumia: Vengeance Isn't Sweet," OpEdNews http://www.opednews.com/articles/opedne_dave_lin_071202_maureen_faulkner_and.htm (accessed December 13, 2007).
[15] For information on both of these matters, see the English manuscript of the German publication, Race Against Death: The Struggle for the Life and Freedom of Mumia Abu-Jamal, pages 200-202, and 219-22, respectively.
[15] "Book signing and rally to remember Danny Faulkner," posted by Derek Bargeld on December 10, 2007 http://www.newsnet14.com/?p=7689&print=1 (accessed December 13, 2007).
[15] Peter F. Vaira, Philadelphia Inquirer, August 27, 1995, and "Trampling the Public Trust: Philadelphia Police Abuses Reveal Systemic Injustice, Action Update, October 1995 (Hyattsville, MD: Equal Justice USA, 1995), 3-5.
[15] Quoted in Dave Lindorff, "Maureen Faulkner and Mumia: Vengeance Isn't Sweet," see above footnote no. 1; and "Was Philadelphia Officer Daniel Faulkner 'Murdered By Mumia?", Journalists for Mumia web site, http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/flyerMBM.pdf (accessed December 11, 2007).
[15] Educators for Mumia Abu Jamal web site, at http://www.emajonline.com. For the New York Times ad by educators in 2000, see http://www.jca.apc.org/mumia/source/NYTad.pdf (accessed December 13, 2007).
[15] Robert Justin Goldstein, Political Repression in Modern America (Cambridge and New York: Schenkman Publishing Co., 1978), 523-9, and Schiffmann, 56-7.
[15] Journalists for Mumia, at http://www.abu-jamal-news.com/ , and Educators for Mumia, at http://www.emajonline.com/files/PressRelease.Polakoff.Photos.EMAJ.pdf .
[15] I do not believe the arguments of death penalty advocates hold good, but see Hugo Adam Bedau and Paul G. Cassell, Debating the Death Penalty: Should America Have Capital Punishment. The Experts on Both Sides Make Their Case (New York: Oxford University Press, 2005).
[15] "Law Enforcement and the Death Penalty," at The Death Penalty Information Center, http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/article.php?&did=1705#lawenforcement (accessed December 13, 2007).
[15] On histories about racism in Philadelphia, see Julie Winch, Philadelphia's Black Elite: Activism, Accommodation and the Struggle for Autonomy, 1787-1848 (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1988), and Charles Banner-Haley To Do Good and To Do Well: Middle-Class Blacks and the Depression, Philadelphia, 1929-1941 (New York: Garland Publishing, Inc. 1993). Compare Samuel Bass Warner, The Private City: Philadelphia in Three Periods of Its Growth (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1987).
[15] Robert Dunham, "Death Penalty and Race: Partners in Injustice," CounterPunch, December 10, 2001 http://www.counterpunch.org/dunham1.html (accessed December 11, 2007).
[15] A summary of the legal precedent for considering racism in legal proceedings is eloquently summarized by Christina Swarns in the NAACP Amicus Brief for Abu-Jamal's appearance before the U.S. Third Circuit Court, at http://www.naacpldf.org/content/pdf/jury/Abu-Jamal_v_Horn_amicus_brief.pdf (accessed December 13, 2007).
[15] Dunham, see above footnote, no. 10.
[15] For other life-journeys by family members who have lost loved ones to murder, see the web site at Murder Victims Families for Re w.mvfr.org/ . (accessed December 13, 2007).
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