Just to emphasize this Mumia's defense attorney told the judge at the time of the trial that he was not prepared
> That still leaves the small matter of whether or not he killed
Officer Faulkner. I know a lot of you would like to sweep that itsy,
bitsy concern under the rug, but it's bound to come up at the second
trial.
I thought some of the evidence I posted cast pretty strong doubt on Mumia's guilt. A witness who saw a third person was driven out of town by the police. Mumia's supposed confession seems pretty clearly to have been made up. One of the witnesses to this is a doctor. The dead officer was not killed by Mumia's gun.
> And some explanation will be made of why Mumia was found with a
dead cop's bullet in him and a gun in his hand. The jurors will want
to
know why he got out of his cab and approached a soon dead policeman.
He had a gun because he was a Philly cab driver in a rough neighborhood. He saw a copy beating up his brother, and got out of the car to protest. How the cop ended up dead we may never know -- but it was not from the gun Mumia had in his hand.
> It's probable that after all these years there will still be enough evidence left from the original investigation and enough witnesses who were not lying eyewitnesses for the prosecution to make the case that Mumia actually shot the cop.
I doubt it. There are a lot of witnesses for the defense who the
prosecution managed (quite deliberately) to conceal last time. Some of
them are fairly credible as they include a doctor and a small
businessman. I would hope that the fact that several of the witnesses
in Mumia's favor are white would make no difference to a jury, but as
someone who once lived briefly in Philly, I suspect it will.
> The defense will have their chance to remain silence or to offer
some explanation.
> If I were defending Mumia, I'd want to know what that explanation
was going to be, so that I wasn't putting in a lot of energy getting a
new trial for someone who was just going to be found guilty again.
If I were in Mumia's shoes (assume innocence just for this paragraph) no way in hell I'd reveal my story before the trial. Give the police chance to fool with the evidence more than they alreay have or may still do?
> There's no chance of a plea bargain. The District Attourney just
won't plead this case, especially not now.
> I guess what Mumia's defenders have to look forward to-- the most
probable pro-Mumia outcome-- is that after 16 years, some of the
evidence will have been lost and some of the witnesses will have died
and some of the evidence may even be ruled inadmissable.
And I suspect that the result of a trial will be a clear finding of innocence. We may both be wrong. In case you hadn't notice that is what a fair trial is for. Mumia did not have one.
> Of course, the headline in the newspapers will be something like
"Copkiller Goes Free on Technicality" or some such and then because
most
everyone who's looked at this case in detail believes there was enough
evidence to convict originally, this will lead to more politicians
looking for some way to weaken the exclusionary rule...
You can count on the media to do this no matter what happens. If Mumia is executed the headlines will say someothing like "Cold-blooded cop killer gets what he deserves". News headlines are nothing compared to cop shows for encouraging the lock em up mentality.
> Wait, maybe you guys are on the right track after all. Mumia
probably wouldn't shoot another cop and even if he did...yeah you guys
go ahead with your cause and plenty of luck, too.
James in Philly
Yeah, I know how you feel. We have more of our population locked up than any industrialized nation and that is not enough for you. For a guy who claims to be interested in facts you sure manage to ignore a lot of them.