by Dan Flynn

A decade ago Mumia Abu-Jamal was languishing in obscurity on death row. Today he is the cause celebre of the campus left, activist rock stars, and Hollywood actors. His meteoric rise can be traced to the point at which Leonard Weinglass and Dan Williams, veteran attorneys for numerous politically charged causes, took over his case. Since then, Abu-Jamal has released numerous books and spoken word CDs, delivered commencement addresses, issued a steady stream of commentaries on Pacifica Radio, and written syndicated columns and articles for The Yale Law Journal and The Nation. These were but pyrrhic victories. This public relations success has been matched with complete failure inside the courtroom. Since his 1982 conviction for gunning down Philadelphia Policeman Daniel Faulkner, Abu-Jamal's case has been reviewed by more than a dozen judges. Not one has found any merit in the defense's arguments.

Undeterred, a phalanx of supporters assembled in Philadelphia on August 17. Inside the city's Criminal Justice Center, Jesse Jackson, poet Sonia Sanchez, and actor Ossie Davis looked on as Judge Pamela Dembe heard arguments petitioning her to grant a new trial based upon evidence that was allegedly suppressed during the now exhausted state appeals process. Outside the courthouse, activists played bongo drums, performed street theater, and stopped traffic. The scene is by now a familiar one to anybody who has observed any of the dozens of other courthouse protests that have surrounded the case. There was, however, one difference between the latest courtroom drama and those before it. Dan Williams, an attorney for the embattled death row inmate since 1992, was nowhere to be found.

The reason for Williams's conspicuous absence is his recent book, Executing Justice: An Inside Account of the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal. Published in May of 2001, Executing Justice was a little too much "inside account" for Williams's client's liking. Charging his attorney with ethical violations for profiting off his case-as it is still being heard-through the revelation of confidential information, Abu-Jamal fired Williams, along with co-counsel Leonard Weinglass.

Williams made the mistake of exercising a modicum of candor in addressing some of the longstanding conspiracy theories championed by partisans of Abu-Jamal. His honesty cost him his job.

The idea that a .44 caliber bullet killed Daniel Faulkner, for instance (Abu-Jamal carried a .38), is an article of faith amongst the Mumiacs. Like Leonard Weinglass and the defense's ballistics expert, Williams reluctantly admits that a .38 caliber bullet did indeed kill Daniel Faulkner.

Williams also rejects a second conspiracy theory championed by the Mumiacs that prosecution eyewitness Cynthia White's death was faked by the police to prevent her from reversing her testimony. In 1997, Pamela Jenkins, who, like White, was a prostitute, came forward to report that White had confided in her that she lied when she testified that Abu-Jamal was the killer. White made her first confessions in 1995, Jenkins reported, and continued to detail her story all the way up until a few months before Jenkins testified. One major problem arose for Williams and his fellow defense lawyers. Cynthia White died in 1992, three years before she supposedly "confessed" to Pamela Jenkins. Looking back Williams admits, "I felt that the defense team took a major hit in the credibility department with Pamela Jenkins."

Executing Justice is similarly dismissive of the testimony of William Singletary, the only witness put forward by the defense who has claimed in court to have seen someone other than Abu-Jamal kill Officer Faulkner. Singletary strangely insisted that Abu-Jamal wore a "safari suit like the Arabs wear" at the crime scene. He stated that he observed a police helicopter "circling overhead" (Philadelphia's police department did not own one) that escaped the notice of everyone else in the area. Important parts of his story have changed several times over the years-like the fact that he originally told police that he didn't witness the murder. Most incredibly, Singletary maintains that Officer Faulkner shot Mumia Abu-Jamal, whom he terms an innocent bystander, after the policeman had been shot in the face-a medical impossibility since dead people can neither aim, nor fire a gun. These and other bizarre aspects of Singletary's story led Williams to label the witness' story "beyond the pale" and "a preposterous version of events."

Despite knowing how ridiculous Singletary's testimony was, Williams acquiesced in putting him on the stand. He knew that Cynthia White had died in a Camden, New Jersey crack-house in 1992, yet his defense team introduced a witness who claimed to have had ongoing conversations with this woman long after she was dead! He promoted the theory that a .44 caliber bullet killed Daniel Faulkner. Now, Williams claims he knows better. It's nice that he has finally come clean about these lies, but it's too little, too late.

Although Williams is able to discard some of the more bizarre fables peddled by Abu-Jamal's followers, he hangs on to quite a few outright lies.

Williams ominously notes that "from mid-December 1981 to the start of Mumia's trial, [prosecution witness Cynthia] White went arrest free, even though she admitted to continuing to ply her trade during that six-month period. That paper trail strongly suggested she was receiving favorable treatment by the police." What Williams curiously omits is that White had left Philadelphia months prior to testifying. There is nothing mysterious about a criminal not being arrested in a particular city when that criminal is residing in another city. What's more, during the trial White was serving an 18-month sentence for practicing her trade in Boston. Serving jail time in Massachusetts, not an immunity deal from the cops, explains White's lack of arrest record in the months leading up to her testimony.

"Regrettably, even Maureen Faulkner has joined in the demonization effort," Executing Justice alleges, by "claiming that Mumia flashed a smile at her during the 1982 trial when her husband's bloody shirt was unfurled from the evidence bag. The court transcripts reveal that Mumia had been banished from the courtroom when that supposedly occurred." What is regrettable about this whole affair is that what Williams says is false. The trial transcript shows that Faulkner's bloody shirt was shown in court twice. On one of these occasions, Abu-Jamal was indeed absent from the courtroom. On the other occasion, he was present. When the shirt was shown, he looked at Maureen Faulkner and smiled. Local media outlets noted the widow's exasperation and hospital records show that the policeman's widow was treated for several hours as a result of the whole ordeal. Williams knows full well that the bloodied shirt was displayed twice, yet he publicly claims that the day that his client was removed from the courtroom was the only day that the shirt was displayed.

Abu-Jamal refused to enter a plea or stand when court was called into session. The defendant demanded that an incarcerated member of the back-to-nature cult MOVE be let out of prison to serve as his legal runner. He asked the court to allow spectators to question witnesses. Five times during the trial itself, and numerous other times during various hearings, Abu-Jamal was ejected from the proceedings, with one of his outbursts sparking a mini-riot within the courtroom. By far the most adamant of his bizarre demands was his incessant calls for John Africa, the leader of MOVE who had successfully defended himself on weapons charges, to serve as his lawyer. Pennsylvania prohibits non-lawyers from representing defendants in capital cases (unless the non-lawyer is representing himself), so Abu-Jamal's request was denied. This did not stop the accused murderer from invoking Africa's name on more than 100 occasions throughout the trial. Despite the clarity of the trial record, Williams denies that Abu-Jamal ever asked for John Africa to serve as his attorney. "Mumia wasn't demanding that John Africa represent him as a lawyer," Williams maintains. Williams's statement is incongruous with numerous statements by his former client. "I'm attempting get the counsel of my choice. I'm attempting to get John Africa," Abu-Jamal yelled during the first day of trial. Nine days later Abu-Jamal was beating the same horse. "I want you to tell me why, why you have imposed an inadequate, so-called defense on me and denied me John Africa, who is the defense of my choice," he demanded.

Two unsettling possibilities arise from Williams's attempt at re-writing the history of the case. Either the Harvard Law graduate didn't thoroughly review the trial transcript or he knowingly peddles falsehood.

Executing Justice does its best to shed doubt on Abu-Jamal's guilt. Unfortunately for Williams, the facts of the case do not cooperate. Abu-Jamal, wounded from a shot from his victim's service revolver, was found wearing an empty shoulder holster a few feet from a dead policeman. His own gun, which contained five shell casings, was found feet from where he sat. Both Abu-Jamal and his brother, William Cook, have foregone their right to give their version of events in court. The testimony of five people-three of whom identified Abu-Jamal as the killer on the scene-points to Mumia as the gunman. Six additional people report that he confessed.

These facts strongly suggest that Abu-Jamal will remain in prison for a long time. Efforts on his behalf, however, will likely continue unabated for just as long. Although Dan Williams was absent from Judge Dembe's courtroom on August 17, he still occupied center stage. The new legal team sought to re-open state appeals based on the supposition that their predecessors-Williams and Weinglass-suppressed evidence. The "suppressed" evidence centers on a wild 1999 affidavit by one Arnold Beverley, who claims that he was hired to kill Faulkner by the mafia and the police. In his book, Williams discusses an anonymous man who offered a colorful tale involving a plot to kill Faulkner by the mob and the cops. The man's poor performance on a lie detector, as well as his outlandish story, squashed any hope of placing him on the stand. Following Executing Justice's release, Beverley's affidavit was released to the press and Williams was forced to admit publicly that Beverly and the man he describes in his book were the same person. Arnold Beverley's conspiracy theory contradicts earlier ones in that the perpetrator is white, and not William Singletary's black killer; the weapons used in the assault are a .38 and a .22, not a .44; and Faulkner, who had been heretofore vilified by Abu-Jamal partisans, is now portrayed as a hero who was gunned down because he stood athwart police corruption and vice. Amazingly, many supporters of Abu-Jamal simultaneously cling to these contradictory conspiracy theories.

Facts, as the saying goes, are stubborn things. So when the facts of the case do not conform to the defense's version of events, Mumia Abu-Jamal's followers demand new facts. Executing Justice proves that Dan Williams is capable of this offense as well.