Facts of Jamal Murder Case Are in Dispute

To the editors:

Readers of Noah D. Oppenheim's frightening editorial "The Cop Killer Should Fry" (Opinion, Feb. 5) should know that the facts of the case are in wide dispute. It is a little suspect that the award-winning president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists, long an outspoken critic of the Philadelphia police and government, just happened to drive by a cop beating his brother. The Philadelphia police at the time were so corrupt and brutal that the U.S. Justice Department eventually filed a suit against them based on numerous accounts of police misconduct, including the framing of innocent citizens and the widespread fabrication of evidence.

In Mumia Abu Jamal's case specifically, the police never tested his gun to see if it was fired. The prosecution witnesses have since come forward to testify that they were threatened and coerced by the police. Like the vast majority of other death row inmates, Jamal's state-appointed defense counsel was so incompetent that he has admitted that he failed Jamal and has testified to his many mistakes, including not interviewing witnesses until the day the trial began.

Further, it is crucial to understand the context in which the trial took place. Because of Jamal's long involvement in the struggle for African-American liberation, the racist Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) had compiled an 800-page file on him by the time of his arrest. It appears the government had an interest in silencing this eloquent spokesperson for justice, like it silenced so many other freedom fighters, including former Black Panther Geronimo Ji Jaga, whose wrongful murder conviction was recently overturned after he spent 25 years in jail because it became clear that he was framed by the FBI.

Two articles printed the same morning of Oppenheim's editorial are especially ironic. The first was about an African-American man, Anthony Porter, who had been on death row for 16 years and came within two days of being executed. Last week, journalism students at Northwestern University found the real murderer and recorded his confession. When released, Porter will be the 76th wrongfully convicted American freed from the hell of death row. How many innocent people have already been murdered by the state, whose administration of justice has been proven to be discriminatory on the basis of both race and class?

The violent and vengeful rhetoric of Oppenheim's article calling for the frying of another human shows complete disrespect for the sanctity of human life. The racist death penalty is the final end in a legal system perpetuating injustice.

Maybe Oppenheim and others should direct their ire towards a government that is killing people through racism and poverty, that tolerates and likely even encourages racist police violence, racial segregation, patriarchy and homophobia instead of against Jamal. JUSTIN P. STEIL '00   February 9, 1999