The Ballistics
At the PCRA hearings, defense ballistics expert George Fassnacht testified that he declined a request to assist Mumia’s defense in 1982 because the court-allocated $150 was insufficient. Subsequently the defense never presented their own specialist. While testifying that the fatal bullet was probably the same caliber as Mumia's gun (legally purchased after his Taxi was repeatedly robbed), Fassnacht challenged the prosecution's 1982 evidence in two key ways.
Fassnacht defined “particular” and “general” rifling characteristics. “Particular” traits are “the small stria or scratches which identify a particular bullet” as coming from one specific gun. In contrast, “general” traits can only link a bullet to a particular type of gun.
Police experts have always said that the fatal bullet was too damaged to link the “particular” traits to Mumia's 38 caliber Charter Arms revolver.
Fassnacht noted an unexplainable contradiction in police ballistic expert Anthony Paul's original report. Paul first describes the bullet's “general” traits as “indeterminable.” Contradicting himself in the same report, Paul later identified a general trait: a “right-hand direction of twist.” Paul's 1982 testimony went further by identifying another general trait never mentioned in his written report “8 lands and 8 grooves.”
After deeming the general traits “indeterminable,” Paul then alleged two general traits that conveniently implicated Mumia's gun type. However, even if these “general” traits existed on the bullet, it was not a reliable link to Mumia’s gun. Paul was asked by the defense in 1982, “approximately, how many millions of guns have eight lands and grooves and how many would provide this bullet?” He acknowledged that it could have come from “multiples of millions,” including many millions of guns not manufactured by Charter Arms.
Police did not officially perform two basic forensics tests—the “smell” and “wipe” tests. It is standard to “smell” the gun's barrel for gunpowder (which can be smelled up to 4 or 5 hours after discharge). The “wipe test” checks for gunshot residue on suspects' hands and clothing.
When challenged by the DA, Fassnacht insisted that these tests were reliable and routinely used.
Quoting Amnesty International, “the failure of the police to test Abu-Jamal’s gun, hands, and clothing is deeply troubling.” Most likely, police did perform the tests, but hid this when the results did not implicate Mumia. This obvious ballistics manipulation seriously challenges the credibility of other evidence, such as the police allegation that Mumia’s gun was at his side with five spent cartridges when police arrived.
A third challenge of the prosecution’s ballistics was raised by medical examiner John Hayes. In 1982, prosecutor McGill argued that Mumia had been shot in the chest from below by a falling Faulkner. Recognizing the bullet's downward trajectory McGill claimed that the bullet ricocheted off bone within Mumia’s torso and then tumbled in a downward direction.
Challenging this far-fetched theory, Hayes testified in 1995 that X rays proved the bullet traveled without any deflection. Easily disproving the official scenario, Mumia was probably shot while running across the street towards Faulkner and his brother.
Veronica Jones Exposes Coerced Testimony
Veronica Jones' 1996 PCRA testimony exposed police coercion of witnesses and further discredited the 1982 testimony of the DA's star witness: prostitute Cynthia White (the only one to actually testify to seeing Abu-Jamal pull the trigger).
The story begins on Dec.15, 1981 when Jones (a prostitute who was working nearby on Dec.9) first told police that she had seen two men “jogging” away from the crime scene before police arrived. Testifying in 1982, Jones recanted and denied ever making the statement. However, when asked if she had talked to the police since her first statement, Jones testified that police had visited her in jail the next month:
“They were getting on me telling me I was in the area and I seen Mumia, you know, do it...They were trying to get me to say something that the other girl [Cynthia White] said. I couldn't do that.” Jones reported that police offered to let her and White “work the area if we tell them.”
Calling her testimony “absolutely irrelevant,” the DA moved to block the line of questioning and strike the previous statements. Because Sabo happily complied, the jury was ordered to disregard Jones' statement regarding White and a police offer of freedom to “work the area” in return for testimony that Abu-Jamal shot Faulkner.
