MUMIA ON THEIR MIND

By Jill Smolowe

Like rival clans thrust together at gunpoint, the two halves of a Philadelphia courtroom audience watched each other warily last week, begrudging good behavior. Then a convict with cascading dreadlocks entered, and the people to the right of the aisle erupted. "Free Mumia!" they screamed. "Mumia, we love you!" Women blew kisses. Men punched the air with salutes. To the left of the aisle, the other half watched, silently enraged that the defendant might get another chance.

The catalyst of these emotions is Mumia Abu-Jamal, 41, a prizewinning journalist. He is scheduled to die by lethal injection at 10 p.m. on Aug. 17 for a crime he insists he did not commit: the 1981 slaying of police officer Daniel Faulkner. Sympathizers around the globe from Dublin to Soweto hail him as a political prisoner punished for taking journalistic aim at politicians, police and the prison system (most recently in a book entitled Live from Death Row). If he is put to death, they argue, he will be the first American since Ethel and Julius Rosenberg to be executed for his political beliefs. Detractors, on the other hand, have sought to silence him temporarily--and permanently. After his book came out, Faulkner's widow hired a plane to fly a banner proclaiming that publisher "Addison-Wesley supports convicted cop killer." The Fraternal Order of Police, meanwhile, has lobbied actively for Abu-Jamal's death.

The hearing last week in Philadelphia was convened to determine whether Abu-Jamal will get a second trial. A high-powered defense team is not only raising constitutional questions about the first trial but also challenging the investigation and evidence that led to Abu-Jamal's conviction. But Joseph McGill, the former assistant district attorney who prosecuted Abu-Jamal in June 1982, declares that it was "by far one of the strongest cases against a defendant that I've ever had." At the time, the jury seemed to agree: the panel deliberated only four hours.

The prosecution's case, both then and now, begins with a traffic violation. Just before 4 a.m. on Dec. 9, 1981, Faulkner stopped a Volkswagen going the wrong way on a one-way street. The driver was William Cook, Abu-Jamal's brother. The prosecution contends that when Faulkner tried to handcuff Cook, Abu-Jamal, who was moonlighting in the vicinity as a taxi driver, jumped from his cab and ran to his brother's defense. By this account, Abu-Jamal shot Faulkner in the back. When the policeman returned fire, hitting Abu-Jamal in the chest, the journalist straddled the officer's body and fired four more shots. At the 1982 trial, prosecutors produced three eyewitnesses, ballistics evidence and two witnesses, including police officer Gary Bell, Faulkner's best friend, who testified that at the hospital after the shooting, they heard Abu-Jamal say, "I shot the motherf____, and I hope he dies."

The defense team, headed by Leonard Weinglass, disputes virtually every aspect of that account. The team notes that one of the three eyewitnesses who identified Abu-Jamal as the gunman was a prostitute with three pending felony charges--and thus had cause to cooperate with the police. Another witness, cabdriver Robert Chobert, told police on the night of the shooting that a man much larger than Abu-Jamal had stood over Faulkner and fired shots, then "ran away." Abu-Jamal's lawyers say other witnesses who did not testify also reported seeing a heavyset man shoot Faulkner and flee. As for Bell's testimony, defense lawyers question why the officer waited more than two months to report the alleged confession.

The defense believes, however, that the judge, Albert Sabo, may be an obstacle. Sabo conducted the original trial and is presiding over the hearing to determine whether there will be a second trial, despite appeals that he recuse himself. Sabo holds the national record for sending the most people to death row: 31. Back in 1982, he refused to let Abu-Jamal represent himself, and appointed an attorney. The defense team cites several flaws in that attorney's performance. He assented to a jury made up of 10 whites and two blacks, hardly representative of the Philadelphia population, which was 40% black. And he failed to point out in court that the medical examiner's report identified the fatal bullet as .44 caliber, while the registered gun owned by Abu-Jamal and found at the scene was .38 caliber. Moreover, Abu-Jamal was allotted just $800 for investigators and expert witnesses. Says Weinglass: "You cannot put on a death case for $800."

This time, Abu-Jamal has larger sums at his disposal. A committee has raised $100,000 from the likes of actors Ed Asner and Whoopi Goldberg and academician Cornel West. That might be enough money to buy three more years' worth of appeals. No one expects Abu-Jamal to die on Aug. 17.

--Reported by Adam Cohen and Mubarak Dahir/Philadelphia

With reporting by ADAM COHEN AND MUBARAK DAHIR/PHILADELPHIA