It was cold in downtown Philly at four a.m. on Dec. 9, 1981. In the joints near the intersection of Locust and 13th streets, bartenders rang last call and customers angled toward their cars. If you didn't know it was closing time, it would seem strange that so many people were on the street when it happened.

 
 

Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner, 25, had just made a traffic stop on Billy Cook's battered Volkswagen at the intersection's southeast corner, which was lit only by the pulse of Faulkner's red rooflights. At 3:51 a.m., by the police dispatcher's clock, the officer called in for backup.

                 

United Cab driver Robert Chobert eased through the intersection and paused right behind the cop's cruiser to let out his fare, a woman who turned and walked west. Mark Scanlan had had a few drinks with a friend. He was sitting in his Ford Thunderbird waiting for the light to change. Cynthia White, a prostitute who frequently worked that corner, told police later that she was standing on the sidewalk a few feet from Chobert's cab talking to a guy, but Veronica Jones would say she saw Cindy on the stroll a block east. Up in the old St. James Hotel, Debbie Kordansky was watching TV.

                   
                   

Mumia Abu-Jamal, an unemployed, locally known radio journalist and former Black Panther, wheeled through the intersection in his own cab. He had been robbed twice, and so he was carrying a legally purchased but unlicensed .38-caliber revolver. He noticed the VW parked in front of the police car and spotted Faulkner and--in a fateful coincidence--his brother, Billy Cook. The two men were arguing and may have exchanged blows. Abu-Jamal stopped his cab at a parking lot on the north side of Locust, got out and ran across the street.

A few seconds later, Faulkner was lying on the sidewalk in a widening pool of blood, shot in the face and back. He would die an hour later at Jefferson University Hospital. Police found Abu-Jamal sitting on the curb at Locust Street, with a bullet in his chest. He would be charged with the murder and sent to death row.

What happened in those few critical seconds? Fourteen years later, that question is still without a satisfying answer.

The Philadelphia district attorney convicted Abu-Jamal with this account of the shooting:

As three witnesses have testified, a man in dreadlocks (two identified him as Abu-Jamal), ran across the street from a parking lot on the north of Locust and shot the officer in the back. As he fell, Faulkner turned and shot Abu-Jamal, striking him in the chest. Then, Abu-Jamal placed one foot on each side of the officer's head and fire four more shots at him. One bullet pierced the officer's brain.

It is undisputed that Abu-Jamal's .38-caliber revolver lay nearby with five spent shell casings. But the prosecution also claims he confessed to the crime with a statement that seemed tailor-made to get him the death penalty: "I shot the motherfucker and I hope the motherfucker dies."

In a 300-page brief filed June 5, 1995 in Philadelphia's Court of Common Pleas and excerpted here, and in a recently released book called "Race To Justice," Jamal's attorney, Leonard Weinglass, demanded a new trial and raised serious questions about the alleged confession, ballistics evidence, witness statements, the police investigation and the conduct of prosecutors and the judge who presided over the trial and 14 years of appeals: Judge Albert Sabo--who has reportedly sent more men to death row than any other judge in the country.

Although the defense team has identified no other suspect, the attorneys have suggested that there may have been another man in the Volkswagen with Cook and that he may have shot Faulkner. Several witnesses say they saw a man running east after the shooting.

On Aug. 7 of this year, ten days before Abu-Jamal's scheduled execution, Judge Sabo granted an indefinite stay to give himself time to review the issues raised in this summer's hearings and to allow for subsequent appeals in federal court. Sabo rejected Abu-Jamal's appeal on September 15th. Defense attorneys will now appeal the ruling to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, and if necessary to the Federal Courts. Abu-Jamal is still on death row.

Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was 27 at the time of the shooting, has spent much of the past 14 years writing commentaries on prison life. In his recent book, Live From Death Row, he discloses one of his favorite sayings: "Law is simply politics by other means." He has used the line to describe the experiences of other prisoners in the United States, but he believes it fits his own case equally well. He says laws were bent and rules were broken to win his conviction and sentence of death--largely because of police bias and authorities' distaste for his political views.

There will be no understanding the broader issues of the Mumia Abu-Jamal case without returning to the cold, early morning of December 9, 1981, 4 a.m., red lights blinking, gunshots shattering the quiet at the intersection of Locust and 13th streets.

"Abu-Jamal v. Pennsylvania" was designed for WORD.COM by Clay Shirky and Matt Burton, written by Graham Rayman and edited by Sally Chew.
Sources include interviews, defense documents, witness statements, government reports, newspaper accounts of trial proceedings, and the book, Live From Death Row, published by Addison Wesley. Photos courtesy of Chris Bratton, from his video, Death Row Notebook.


Scene of the Crime