jks:
>I'm unclear about this, there was a shell found a car
>hood that was supposed to have remained there while
>the car was driving on the freeway?
Yeah, on Al-Amin's car, after a three hour drive to Alabama. Just because they planted evidence doesn't mean he didn't do it, but it does sort of make you wonder. The police car, unfortunately, was crushed long before the trial. Standard procedure, they said. Bummer.
>> and the guns 'found' in the woods ('he dropped
>> the guns--sorta--right in front of me').
>
>Would you say the same about the guns found in the car
>with the DC snipers?
They found the guns a day later in the woods where Al-Amin was apprehended, so it's not the same as finding the guns with the suspect. The FBI agent who found them just happened to have shot a young black Muslim man in the back of the head at close range in Baltimore in '95, but I'm sure it was just a coincidence he was assigned to the manhunt.
>> English said the assailant fired first, while two witnesses testified they
>> heard pistol fire before the assault rifle (nobody argued that the
assailant used
>> the small gun at first.)
>
>That's nothing, anyone might be confused in the
>circumstances, much less someone who had been wounded.
Well, it does sort of matter if the cops shot first. The cop said the assailant shot first and they responded in self defense. The two witnesses who testified said they heard pistol fire first--which would've been the police guns. That's not a matter of confusion for the police, though what happened after might be.
>> I think they successfully made the case that he had something to do with
it,
>> and may have known who did it, but *not* that he was the shooter.
>
>As I say, you know more than I do. But depending on
>how much of something he had to do with it, it might
>not matter if he was the shooter. You can bve guilty
>of a crime under accompliance liability, e.g.,
>conspiracy, aiding and abetting, felony murder (not
>applicable here, maybe), though not for just knowing
>who did it.
He was being tried as the shooter. Tell me if this is right--I understood that he is under no obligation legally to say what he knows. That is, you can't be charged with a *crime* for refusing to tell what you know, though I suppose you could be locked up, say, for the term of a Grand Jury or held in contempt of court. Conspiracy means you can be convicted for having known something--for example, for knowing about a bank robbery before it happens--but not for refusing to say it. Is that roughly right?
>> He denied it in the press before the trial.
>
>That's not evidence, as you know.
I wasn't trying to prove anything there, just an FYI for anyone who didn't follow the case.
>> It was implied that he didn't take the stand because he didn't want to give
>> information that might lead to the prosecution of another person. Which
would be a
>> pretty strong moral-political stand, if you're the victim of a frame-up,
to not reward
>> the frame-up machine that's doing you.
>
>I don't understand your point.
If he didn't do it, but knew something about who did, and refused to give that information, even if it would exonerate him, in a capital trial, that means he put principle before his own survival. Whether the principle there is honor among thieves, or the principle is 'I don't recognize the state's power, only God's', or the principle is 'this system is so evil it's framing me, I will not collaborate with it in any way' it's still principle over (narrow) self-interest. Unless he thought naming someone else would result in their friends coming to kill him later.
>> If it was Al-Amin, or Al-Amin and someone else, in
>> my view it had to be the product of some kind of provocation, such as he
was
>> told someone was coming to kill him. Or, as the two witnesses said they
>> heard, the cops fired first.
>
>Well, the latter would be self-defense, not provocation. As for the first,
>being told that someone is coming to kill you isn't provocation, and outside
>the wild west, isn't an excusze for killing them first.
I was addressing the question you raised of this incident being so out of character for Al-Amin. For provocation, there's a context, which is that this guy was shot by the cops in '67 in Cambridge, MD (when he was not armed), then he was shot by the cops in '71 in NY (when he was). I meant provocation in the sense that they weren't innocently serving a warrant, there was some set-up, some idea that they could induce him to react in a way which would result in his death or incarceration. Or at least come armed.
In that instance I'd think a 'battered wife' defense (only in this case a 'battered radical') would be appropriate. 'The cops harassed me for 35 years and I finally snapped.' You can see why I'm not a lawyer : )
Jenny Brown