Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal by J. Patrick O'Connor
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(Paperback)
- Pub. Date: May 2008
- 256pp
- Sales Rank: 748,032
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Product Details
- Pub. Date: May 2008
- Publisher: Chicago Review Press, Incorporated
- Format: Paperback, 256pp
- Sales Rank: 748,032
- ISBN-13: 9781556527449
- ISBN: 1556527446
Synopsis
Sentenced to death in 1982 for allegedly killing a police officer named Daniel Faulkner, Mumia Abu-Jamal is the most famous death row inmate in the United States, if not the world. This book is the first to convincingly show how the Philadelphia Police Department and District Attorney’s Office efficiently and methodically framed him. It takes you step-by-step through what actually transpired on the night Faulkner was shot, including positioning each of the witnesses at the scene and revealing the identity of the killer. It also details the entire trial and fully covers the tortuous appeals process. The author, a seasoned crime reporter, writes in the language of hard facts, without hyperbole or exaggeration, unfounded accusation or finger-pointing, to reveal the truth about one of the most hotly debated cases of the twentieth century.
Publishers Weekly
In this account of the trial of controversial death row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal, O'Connor, editor and publisher of crimemagazine.com, clearly lays out his case that Abu-Jamal should receive at least a new trial, if not complete exoneration. O'Connor asserts that Abu-Jamal was framed for the 1981 murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner because of a vendetta by Philadelphia mayor Frank Rizzo and the police due to Abu-Jamal's defense, as a journalist, of the cultish countercultural group MOVE. Relying heavily on court transcripts and prior books on the case, O'Connor shows what he sees as the judge's bias, troubled relations between Abu-Jamal and his defense lawyer and dubious statements by various witnesses. Abu-Jamal was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death; later overturned, the sentence could still be reinstated pending a decision by the Third Circuit Court of Appeals. In the wake of Faulkner's widow's recent book alleging Abu-Jamal's guilt, it's difficult to be swayed entirely by O'Connor's arguments, but he makes a strong case that the investigation into Faulkner's murder deserves another look. (May)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. More Reviews and RecommendationsBiography
J. Patrick O’Connor is the editor and publisher of Crime Magazine. He has worked as a reporter for UPI, editor of Cincinnati Magazine, associate editor of TV Guide, and editor and publisher of the Kansas City New Times.
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again & again, same ol songby Anonymous
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April 03, 2009: When will mumia tell what happen that night. He was there and has only said "I'm not guilty of the crimes for which I am charged." Is he saying his brother is guilty and he is not. SPEAK UP and say something different and stop attacking everyone else. Waste of a book, same ol' sob story
A reviewerby Anonymous
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May 06, 2008: The continued denial of a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal, just recently conformed by a very high court in Philadelphia, is one of the major scandals of our time. The police investigation into the 1981 killing of a police officer 'a killing Abu-Jamal was convicted for in 1982' and the ensuing trial were a bad joke, as were Abu-Jamal's post-conviction hearings in 1995-97. There is no question that the police, the prosecution, and in this case even the judge deliberately framed Abu-Jamal for murder. The famous transcripts of his trial, often referred to, but rarely actually read, reveal this beyond a resonable doubt. This is so clear that in 1995 even a reviewer of the case who thought that Abu-Jamal was guilty came to the conclusion that he was undeniably framed and deserved a new trial to determine the answer to the question 'guilty of exactly what,' and what the punishment should be. Writing years later, J. Patrick O'Connor starkly corroborates 1995 author Stuart Taylor Jr.'s picture of the 'framing' part in Taylor's article 'Guilty and Framed,' but takes equally strong ecxeption to the assumption that Abu-Jamal is guilty. In the 13 years between 1995 and now, an enormous amount of information has accumulated that bolsters O'Connor's view that Abu-Jamal had nothing to do with the killing of Police Officer Faulkner, and that the actual killer was a third man at the scene who ran away and who was killed three years later by the police themselves, who suspected him to be the killer right from the start but framed Abu-Jamal nevertheless. In the convincing story O'Connor narrates, all the pieces fit together really well: A radical black journalist highly cr?tical of the police, Mumia Abu-Jamal, is found severely wounded at the scene of the murder of a cop. The process of framing him begins as soon as high-ranking officers who know exactly who he is arrive at the scene. The most important 'eyewitnesses' to the killing, a prostitute with a record of going in and out of jail for practicing her trade and a cab driver who is a felon on probation but drives without a licence, are putty in their hands. Inconvenient witnesses are dumped or silenced, forensic evidence is manipulated. Add to this a racist prosecutor who systematically kicks blacks off the jury and a racist judge later quoted with the words, 'yeah, and I'mm going to help them fry the nigger,' and a picture emerges, where Abu-Jamal never had a chance to be acquitted. O'Connor shows that al the real - as opposed to manufactured - evidence points to Abu-Jamal's innocence and to the third man as the real killer. The fact that that third man was killed under suspicious circumstances three years after the death of the police officer, apparently a police killing, only adds to the credibility of that hypothesis. For those who want to understand the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal and its implications for the American system of criminal justice, J. Patrick O'Connor's 'The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal' is must reading. The conclusion at which it arrives is credible and convincing: Mumia Abu-Jamal is innocent and framed. The struggle for a new trial for Mumia Abu-Jamal must continue. The author of this review is co-founder of Journalists for Mumia and author of the German book 'Wettlauf gegen den Tod. Mumia Abu-Jamal: ein schwarzer Revolution?r im wei?en Amerika' ''Race Against Death. Mumia Abu-Jamal: a Black Revolutionary in White America''. The most...
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