-Mumia was brought to trial in June 1982, and was sentenced to death on July 3rd, 1982. The judge, Albert Sabo, had sentenced more people to death than any other sitting judge in the United States. In an unrelated case, six Philadelphia lawyers, some former prosecutors, offered to testify that no accused could receive a fair trial in his court.
-The defense attorney testified that he didn't interview a single witness in preparation for the 1982 trial, and he informed the court in advance that he was not prepared.
-The defense investigator quit before the trial began because the funds given by the court were exhausted. Neither a ballistics expert nor a pathologist were hired because of insufficient funds.
-Philadelphia has been so notorious in the application of the death penalty that it is the subject of a recent academic study on the issue.
-The prosecution claimed that Mumia loudly confessed at the hospital where he was taken after being shot by the slain officer, Daniel Faulkner, and beaten by police. But the jury never heard from police officer Gary Wakshul who was guarding Mumia at the hospital and who wrote in his report that "the Negro male made no comments." When called as a defense witness, the prosecution contended that Wakshul was on vacation and unavailable. The judge refused a continuance so that Wakshul could be brought in. Today we know where Gary Wakshul really was: AT HOME!!!
-Today we know that none of the police officers or hospital guards who now claim to have heard this "confession" reported it to investigators until two months after it allegedly occurred, and only AFTER Mumia had filed police brutality charges. The attending physician and nurses on duty also confirmed that Mumia didn't say anything.
-The prosecution claimed that ballistics evidence proved that Mumia was the shooter. But the jury never saw the written report of the Medical Examiner which contradicted other prosecution testimony by writing "shot with .44 caliber" in his report. Mumia's gun (which was legally registered and that he carried with him on his job as a late night cab driver because he had been robbed several times) was .38 caliber!!! Mumia's court appointed attorney said he didn't see that portion of the report so therefore he never raised it to the jury.
-Today we know that the police never tested Mumia's gun to see if it had been recently fired, never tested his hands to see if he had fired a gun, have no proof that his gun was the fatal weapon and have lost a bullet fragment removed by the medical examiner.
-The prosecution claimed that eye-witnesses identified Mumia as the shooter. But the jury never heard from the key eye-witness, William Singletary, who saw the whole incident and has said that Mumia was NOT the shooter. Singletary, a local businessman, was intimidated by police when he reported this and he subsequently fled the city.
-The witnesses were confused and unclear about the height of the shooter, what clothes he was wearing, in which hand he held the gun, and whether he ran away from the scene.
-Today we know why the key witnesses Veronica Jones, Cynthia White and Robert Chobert testified as they did in 1982. Jones, who now testifies in support of Mumia, was threatened with the loss of her children if she did not support the police story. Chobert, a white cab driver, first told the arriving police that the shooter ran away. White backed up the whole police story, but none of the other witnesses can remember seeing her at the immediate scene. Why? Probably because she wasn't even there!!! White was a prostitute back then with 38 arrests and two pending cases. She was offered police protection and exemptions from criminal prosecutions! 5 years after the trial in 1987, she was arrested on armed robbery charges.
-LATEST NEWS-
Apparently, one of the real killers confessed to the murder of police officer Daniel Faulkner but Mumia is still sitting in jail?!? Read Arnold R. Beverly's deposition signed on 06/08/99.