>Hi Steve:
>
>>Thanks Yoshie. Yeah, i see where it mentions Graham's bragging, but it
>>isn't the author stating that, it's the victim of his rape stating that he
>>had bragged about it to her. The article seemed to give pretty fair play
>>to the supporters of a new trial.
>
>Yes, fairer than Wojtek, Kelley, Marc Cooper, etc.!
Speaking of fairness, Cooper believes no one, guilty or innocent, should be executed, and that Mumia deserves a new trial - though we may be dealing with The Higher Truth (the one beyond factchecking) here. Quotes from his NY Press article:
>It's madness because the death penalty and its copious application
>in modern America is a barbaric outrage. It's also one of the
>toughest political nuts to crack, given its approval by about 80
>percent of the population.
>
>Let's be clear. When it comes to Mumia there are three separate
>issues at play. Is he innocent? Did he get a fair trial? Is the
>death penalty ever appropriate? If you answer the third question in
>the negative-as I do-the first two questions become irrelevant. We
>oppose the death penalty. Even for the guilty. Period.
>
>As to the second question-did Mumia get a fair trial?-the answer
>seems to be probably no. Mumia should get another trial. As Debra
>Dickerson-no admirer of Mumia-recently pointed out in Salon, Mumia's
>supporters have a good case to make when they argue that his trial
>was tainted by concocted confessions, unreliable eyewitnesses and a
>biased judge.
[...]
>The tragic element in the Mumia craze is that while his supporters
>swoon over his dredlocks and his empty political posturing, some
>3500 other nameless souls are wasting away on America's death
>rows-forgotten and abandoned. And while Mumia is being ably
>represented by the admirable legal talents of Leonard Weinglass, a
>staggering number of these other condemned men and women have no
>legal counsel whatsoever. Here in California, almost a full third of
>the 556 death row inmates are lawyer-less.