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Mumia Abu-Jamal
Suppose a man has been proven guilty of killing two average, hard-working US citizens. An decent estimation for his sentence, assuming the murder was not unusual in anyway, would be about forty to fifty years in prison. Now, take this same case and analyze the details more carefully. Assume that the murderer is a black male and instead of killing two people, he killed one white police officer. Just by introducing the backgrounds of the people involved, the sentence will most likely be elevated from imprisonment to death. A very debatable incident which confirms this favoritism is the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Mumia had been driving in Philadelphia one night in 1981, when he noticed the beating of his brother by a local police officer. From this point, Mumia's story contrasts with that of the police. Mumia has been found guilty of shooting the police officer twice in the head, but a lack of evidence has yet to prove the story. Two witnesses were bribed by the police to testify that Mumia shot the police officer, but they had given obvious, incorrect information about his physical features and changed their descriptions several times. Other than the witnesses and the fact that Mumia was at the scene of the crime with a weapon in his car, there is no definite evidence that he actually shot a police officer. However, after examining the strong political views of Mumia, prosecutors concluded that he had "wanted to kill a cop all his life," and should be sentenced to death. Even if he had murdered the police officer, Mumia's case has no premeditated incentive and does not deserve such harsh penalties. Today, Mumia is still awaiting execution. ("Mumia Abu-Jamal", http://MediaFilter.org/MMF/Mumia.html)
Written by Jeff Camelio on 10/20/97
