Maureen Faulkner and Mumia: Vengeance Isn't Sweet

____________________

Street and Mumia

While we're on the topic of this article in the Inquirer, I should note that besides devoting a full page, with photos, to Faulkner's and Smerconish's new book (something they sure didn't do with my book, which didn't even get a review on its own, only a paired review with a book written by one of Abu-Jamal's attorneys), the paper also gave up another quarter page to a "news" article based upon a supposedly startling revelation in the book that outgoing Mayor John Street, back in June of 1982 just before the start of Abu-Jamal's trial, at a time when Street was a new city council member, had visited prosecution witness Cynthia White, who at the time was in jail.

The article quotes the book as claiming the Street offered to represent White, and implies that there was something nefarious or improper, or at least embarrassing about this.

What neither the book nor the Inquirer article fail to note is that White was regularly being arrested (on prostitution charges) by Center City police in the months following the Abu-Jamal/Faulkner shootings, and each time was being brought to the homicide division, where she was questioned again and again about her story regarding what she allegedly "saw." If one looks at her accounts, they shift from having seen nothing and having heard only one shot, to having seen multiple shots fired by Abu-Jamal at Faulkner. That is, she seems to have gradually figured out that if she told the police investigators what they wanted to hear--that she was an eyewitness to a cold-blooded murder of a policeman--they'd stop picking her up.

In fact, the Inquirer article might have also noted that during the 1995 PCRA hearing there was more testimony from other prostitutes from that area that they too were subjected to that kind of improper pressure to alter their testimony, and were actually told that if they said the right thing, they'd be protected on the street by the local police.

There's a word for what the police were doing: suborning perjury. And it's a crime.

If John Street did offer his legal services to White (now deceased), he would have been doing what a lawyer should do--offer an incarcerated and harassed defendant legal protection. Since there is no mention of whether he was asking for a fee (and the likelihood that White could have paid him is low), the matter of "ambulance chasing" is not at issue. The truth is, the way she was being pressured by the police and prosecution, Cynthia White was badly in need of a good lawyer back in those days.

If this is the biggest "scoop" Faulkner and Smerconish could come up with to promote their new book in advance of its going on sale, it is going to be a pretty dull read.

__________________
Dave Lindorff, a Philadelphia-based investigative journalist and columnist, is author of “Killing Time: An Investigation into the Death Row Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal” (Common Courage Press, 2003). His latest book, co-authored by Barbara Olshansky, is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

 1  |  2