So the prosecution has to prove that the alleged murder of Faulkner was worse than the simple definition of first degree murder, plus they have to counterbalance the mitigating evidence presented by the defense.
Between those two kinds of evidence, a lot of issues that the Mumia defense wants to address will get presented to the jury, if only indirectly.
-- Nathan Newman
----- Original Message ----- From: "virgil tibbs" <sheik_of_encino at yahoo.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Sent: Wednesday, December 19, 2001 1:23 PM Subject: Re: woah! Mumia!
I do not think any of that gets replayed if he is up for sentencing only. He gets to put on mitigation about his life and his works before and, most importantly, after his conviction. The biggest problem he is going to have, I think, is that he will not take the stand and be contrite and apologize to avoid the death penalty...this, of course, is consistent with the fact that he claims actual innocence. I believe that is all he gets to do. Then, the state gets to say all sorts of bad things about him and good things about the victim. Given that the State can strike people that would never impose the death penalty, the jury will comprise people that do believe in the appropriateness of the death penalty.
just a few thoughts.
--- Nathan Newman <nathan at newman.org> wrote:
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Matthew Snyder" <matthew at pobox.com>
>
>
> >What mitigating circumstances can be offered short
> of the alleged
> >fight going on between Mumia's brother and Ofc.
> Faulkner? The
> >prosecution has already established premeditation;
> I don't know
> >how much of a mitigating circumstance this fight
> could be.
>
> Forget what they proved in the abstract and take it
> to the new jury--
> premeditation may be formally proved in a fight
> between Mumia and a cop where
> the prosecution itself argues that Mumia had just
> come upon Faulkner fighting
> with his brother, but it fails in the broader sense
> of pre-planned action or
> brutality that usually is required for a death
> penalty. The reason Mumia has
> been a poster child for the death penalty movement,
> aside from his own
> politics, is that almost no one else on death row
> has this kind of profile.
>
> > The fact that the cop was
> > apparently wailing on Mumia's brother would bring
> up all sorts of "heat of
> > passion" mitigating issues.
>
> -But wouldn't Mumia's brother have to testify that
> he was in fact
> -being wailed on in order for this to be considered
> by the jury?
> -Plus, Mumia shot Faulkner in the back from a
> distance, before he
> -would have been able to determine what was going on
> in the fight.
> -Wouldn't Mumia have to have been involved in the
> altercation
> -before being able to claim any kind of ``heat of
> passion''?
>
> All of these supposed facts get replayed out in the
> new jury and all the
> weaknesses of the prosecution case get presented to
> the new jury, something
> that never happened in the first trial.
>
> This is all probably a long way off, since there
> will no doubt be many
> appeals before this gets sorted out . The main
> effect of this decision is to
> restop the clock on the execution for an indefinite
> period of time.
>
> -- Nathan Newman
>
>
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