Talk:Trial of Mumia Abu-Jamal

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[edit] Major split from Mumia Abu-Jamal

As discussed on the Talk page of the main article (see Talk:Mumia Abu-Jamal), I've moved all of the explicitly controversial stuff to this article. The idea is that the other article should contain only non-controversial facts about MAJ and related issues, and that the controversies (and rebuttals etc.) are to be moved to here. This is common on some of the more controversial articles (see Terry Schiavo or Tom Delay for precedents) for two good reasons: first, the MAJ article was extremely long and unwieldly so a split makes sense, and second, this keeps the more stable material all in one place, and the stuff which will be pushed around a lot in the future in the other place.

And it stands, both articles still need a lot of work and documenting, but what I did was make the move of the material, with only formatting changes, so that the edits can be followed more easily. I plan on coming in here and making a lot of changes, as there is a lot of unsourced and contradictory stuff here. --Deville (Talk) 01:46, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removed some info from Witness criticism

I refactored a lot of this stuff. Some of it was really bloated and meandering. I tried not to remove any content. However, a lot of what I did remove was stuff like "Well, MAJ's supporters claim this isn't possible, but then the prosecutors' supporters counter this with the claim that . . ." which is unencyclopedic and POV. We aren't here to put forward claims of partisans, even if we put both sides in; we're here to record verifiable information and let the reader draw their own conclusions. So I did remove a lot of stuff of that nature. I also removed the section on Abu-Jamal's brother; there was really no reason for this to be in there, essentially what was there was a conspiracy-theory-type argument as to why he might have decided not to testify and contained not one fact, or even an assertion. The fact that a co-defendant in a murder trial does not testify is not remarkable in the least. --Deville (Talk) 03:09, 5 April 2006 (UTC)

I deleted the following passage: "It is to be noted, however, that it is common in criminal cases that eyewitnesses give testimony which is not always identical in every detail." from the introduction of the Witness section. This seems unnecessarily editorial. One could just as easily justify a notation that eyewitness testimony has been found to be frequently unreliable, and is the number one reason for wrongful convictions in death penalty cases. If you really want to get into this, you might want to add a section specifically on the reliability of eyewitness testimony, and discuss the complications. Short of that, I think it is better to leave out the editorializing and just report what the criticism and responses are. Gogh 17:55, 2 May 2006 (UTC)

Oh, ok, we must have passed each other; I was editing the article whne you were writing this. In any case, I've added a link to another Wikipedia page which describes many of the problems with eyewitness testimony. I think this will help.--Deville (Talk) 18:42, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
It did help - but only a little. Your note still introduces the notion that conflicts in eyewitness testimony do not weaken its credibility, without appropriately balancing that with the well-documented unreliability of such testimony. The page you link to gives a very weak and abbreviated summary of this issue. I still think you are better off leaving out the attempted clarifying notation, but if you really want one, I think it should be more balanced and accurate. I have made changes in an attempt at this.Gogh 20:18, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I'm ok with the latest changes and in fact I agree that this could use more work. Essentially, what I think needs to be there is a caveat that eyewitness testimony is frequently contradictory and often unreliable, and thus the readers should not take contradictions in eyewitness testimony as a priori evidence that Abu-Jamal is innocent, because it happens all the time. If you have any more ideas on how to achieve this, please be bold.--Deville (Talk) 21:24, 2 May 2006 (UTC)
I am satisfied with the current state. I agree with your caveat - but just think you also need (perhaps the need for this is even greater) a caveat that readers should not take consistency in eyewitness testimony as "a priori" evidence that Abu-Jamal or any other defendant is guilty. What I really should try to find time to do is work on the page you link to about eyewitness testimony.Gogh 03:21, 5 May 2006 (UTC)
This is a good point. Eyewitness testimony can be and frequently is just plain wrong. As I understand it, most prosecutors are much happier to have physical evidence than just eyewitness testimony. I think it is fair to label the eyewitness testimony in this case as controversial. Of course, as we know, as it pertains to this case, there seems to be a pretty big chunk of physical evidence pointing towards Abu-Jamal's guilt as well, but this is a different story.--Deville (Talk) 03:38, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rename to "Trial of Mumia Abu-Jamal"?

How about renaming this article to Trial of Mumia Abu-Jamal, or something like that? After all, it is mainly about the trial itself, not the controversies in the media, etc. Not to mention that it makes the article easier to link to. What do you think? flammifertalk 02:29, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

I'm ok with this. I originally named it this way since almost all of the material here was about the controversies, and my suspicion is that this article will always contain most controversies (as this is the reason the trial is notable in the first place). But in any case, I'm ok with a renaming. -- Deville (Talk) 02:57, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
yup, I think this article will always contain most controversies, it's just that the trial itself is a better target (in my mind) than the controversies. Anyway, I renamed the article. A bit more flesh should be added here and there :P since as you say, most of the material is about the controversies. flammifertalk 03:15, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Agreed, and as I said over at the other article my plan is to add some of this flesh. Incidentally, I was thinking about the renaming, and it occurs to me that the content of this article will contain not only information about the trial, but also information about the appeals and subsequent reversal of the death penalty. So technically the name should reflect this, but on the other hand this will make the title more complicated and not add much content. Thoughts? -- Deville (Talk) 14:45, 25 May 2006 (UTC)
Fleshing out: same here, I've been looking quickly through a few of the trial transcripts, getting rid of the "X says the prosecution said Y, but Z says the prosecution also said Z'!" would definitely improve the article. Plus, apparently the trial archives can be linked pretty well, there are often anchors in mid text to find the witnesses more easily.
As for the renaming: Yes, maybe "Trials of Mumia ..." (though I'm not sure an appeal could be technically called a trial) or "Trial and appeals of Mumia ..." would be more accurate. Or "Prosecution of Mumia ...". But since apparently most of the noise is around the 1982 trial itself, it makes sense like this. After all, the appeals are also related to the trial, it's not as if he'd been retried afterwards for drunk driving or anything. Anyway, it'll always be possible to rename later, it depends on how the content evolves. flammifertalk 15:06, 25 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Most death sentences EVAR

It was claimed in the article that Amnesty International claimed that Sabo sent more defendants to death than any other judge in Pennsylvania. Here are my problems with this statement:

  • First, just do this gsearch. One notes that many people claim this 31 death sentences is a record of some kind, although perusing the first ten links, you'll find that this is "more than any judge in Philadephia", "more than any judge in Pennslyvania", and "more than any judge in the U.S.". This is suspicious on its face.
  • The only thing I could find from Amnesty International was this, and the key sentence is "Over a period of 14 years, he presided over trials in which 31 defendants were sentenced to death, more than any other US judge as far as Amnesty International is aware." AI is quite careful not to make the claim.
  • Several sources claim no such statistical reporting exists. Sure, a claim of the nonexistence of a statistic does not prove anything. But note that there is no source which actually claims these statistics were collected, and the strange wording of AI in the last bullet point also points to the fact that if such statistics exist, even Amnesty International doesn't know where to find them.
  • At the end of the day, all of these convictions were as a result of a jury trial. So the sentence I removed is quite false, in that a judge doesn't sentence anyone to anything in a jury trial, a jury does that. One could argue that his court somehow biased the juries toward conviction, but this is another story. -- Deville (Talk) 03:20, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I'd be in favour of leaving the bit about the number of death sentences, even if not under that form. It would at least prevent it from reappearing. You removed:
(Mumia supporters claim)
  • Sabo had a reputation as a judge with a bias toward convictions. Amnesty International claims he has sentenced more men to die (31 total, only 2 of them white) than any other sitting judge in Pennsylvania. A review of the court records by '’The Philadelphia Inquirer showed "that most of the homicide judges in Philadelphia hear more murder cases than Judge Sabo with fewer death sentences."
and:
(Mumia citics claim:)
  • The claim that Sabo has given more death sentences than anyone else is fabricated: no such statistics are collected, and so there is no way Abu-Jamal's supporters could know this.
... having a unified paragraph about this would be nice, at least to prevent the same claim from reappearing on the page in the future. It's not urgent though, so I'll just leave those paragraphs here so they can be easily found again :) flammifertalk 10:02, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
(My reply here also applies to the section below) So you think it's better to keep the claims of MAJ's supporters with debunkings? I was thinking it was better to take them out, earlier, but I could come around to your point of view. What I guess you're saying is that even though the claims are false, the fact that his defenders are making false claims is in itself of interest. This is true. Also, as you say, it will stop it from getting reinserted in the future.
How about a section entitled something like "Claims and rebuttals" and then we could put these sorts of things here. As it stands now, we have sections entitled "Criticisms" and "Responses" and they are actually both quite short, and most of the descriptive section of the trial (currently section #2) contains most of the criticisms and rebuttals.
So how about the following: we make the factual section (currently Section 2) short and to the point, containing only uncontested facts about the trial. We take Sections 3 & 4 and combine them into one section entitled "Criticisms of trial and rebuttals" where we list each of the criticisms separately (perhaps each in its own subsection) and then list the facts for and against each of these criticisms. I have no doubt some of the criticisms made by MAJ's defenders are valid, and as we see in this section above and below it's clear some of them are false. It would be interesting to have a section separating the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. -- Deville (Talk) 14:28, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
I don't know if all the "MAJ supporter" claims should be left or removed; ideally, they should be investigated like the disbarring thing below. I'd be in favour of leaving some common claims with debunking, such as the "he had a pulitzer prize" bit.
Overall, I'd favour leaving a good chunk of the criticism close to where the subject of the criticism is; a "debunking" session might be useful but I think that for now, replacing "critics say" and "supporters say" bits with verifiable facts as much as possible is the most important. But then, feel fre to reorganize as you wish, I think the sections could definitely be organized diffently.flammifertalk 15:21, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Attorney competence and public defenders

I removed a paragraph claiming that Jackson was a public defender thrust on an indigent defendant. This directly contradicts other information in the text. For example, it is well documented that Jackson was chosen by MAJ and that Jackson had previously had much experience in murder trials. -- Deville (Talk) 03:33, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

As above, I think that paragraph may be worth keeping or salvaging, so I'll leave a copy here:
Abu-Jamal's supporters often describe this as a case where a poorly qualified public defender is thrust upon an indigent defendant (as happens in many cases), claiming that he was picked by Sabo without Abu-Jamal's consent, specifically because he was not a very good lawyer. Abu-Jamal supporters claim that Jackson was later disbarred for incompetence. Supporters of Sabo, on the other hand, claim that Jackson had served in twenty murder cases, with only six convictions and no executions prior to the Abu-Jamal case.
Some references for the "disbarred" bit would be useful. I looked around, and I found this: "Mumia, who wanted to represent himself in court, was forced to turn over his defense to Anthony Jackson, an incompetent who was "no longer practicing law in Pennsylvania" at that time, and was subsequently disbarred (Commonwealth II, 4n1; Bisson)", though i haven't found any other references to "(Commonwealth II, 4n1; Bisson)". At least, it's a starter. flammifertalk 10:13, 26 May 2006 (UTC)
Taking a closer look to the refeences of the above, I see that "Commonwealth II" most likely refers to the appeal hearing, and "Bisson" refers to this 1995 article, which doesn't present any references. I don't know what "4n1" stands for, probably a specific part of the appeal transcripts, but I don't know which :P Any experts out there? Anyway, see below.
This list from the PCRA (it seems) includes a bit about disbarment, though I couldn't find a reference to it while searching the transcripts. Not sure of what that list is, the previous page has some mroe info. flammifertalk 10:25, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

Aha! Found this:

552. It is alleged on information and belief that Chief Counsel Leonard Weinglass and Chief Legal Strategist knew that defense attorney Jackson had been suspended from the practice of law in 1990 and disbarred in 1992 for commingling of client funds and drug abuse; that attorneys Weinglass and Williams were ineffective as counsel and/or subjected Petitioner to a constructive denial of counsel in failing to subpoena Jackson's disciplinary records from the Pennsylvania disciplinary authority regulating attorneys practicing in that state and otherwise failed to investigate or initiate any other discovery with regard to Jackson's history of drug abuse.

So apparently he was disbarred in 92, but not for incompetence; for drug abuse. I've read through a bit of the appeal transcripts; this drug thing isn't mentioned at all, but the defence does question Jackson's competence and use of the funds. It seems one of the reasons Jackson gives is that he didn't prepare the trial that much since at the beginning, Abu-Jamal was defending himself, and Jackson was just counsel. He also does make a refference to the fact that Abu-Jamal seemed to have been doing a good job during his defense, but curiously the page about that is missing :P flammifertalk 15:12, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] William Pate or Kenneth Pate?

It seems that there's a guy called Kenneth Pate (Priscilla thingy's half-brother), who's sometimes (mistakenly) called William Pate. In this PDF both names are used, but it seems it's the same person. I assumed it was a mistake, and corrected. flammifertalk 17:29, 26 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Unsupported statements and actual facts

It is my opinion that a lot of the unsupported statements should be removed if they cannot be cited from a respectable source. In addition, the article could benefit from a "convoluted he-said she-said"-ectomy. By this I mean that in cases where the facts are clearly available we should rely on the facts and not what third parties claim the facts are. Case in point: the section that deals with the bullet trajectory states that supporters claim that the prosecution claimed that the bullet was fired at a certain point in the incident. Well, did the prosecution claim that or didn't they? It can't be both, and the facts of the prosecution's case theory are clearly available in the trial transcript. The same goes for other sections that suffer from this affliction. TheKaplan 04:10, 19 July 2006 (UTC)

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