One less body for the execution machine
From the time I first moved to New York City, I knew about Mumia Abu-Jamal, a Philadelphia journalist accused of the shooting death of a Philadelphia police officer during a traffic stop. I've signed petitions and written letters asking that his execution be stopped. Now, after two previously canceled execution dates, at long last the legal system has dropped the execution portion of his judgment. He will be in prison for life without parole. He still claims he did not shoot the officer.
Those who opposed his execution, me among them, point to the poisonous racial atmosphere in Philadelphia then and now. Mr. Abu-Jamal was not liked by Philadelphia's legal system before his arrest. If you read the article I linked to and what the prosecutor has to say, you can see that he still is hated. If you read deeper about the case, there is enough confusion about whether Abu-Jamal was prosecuted because he was a hated black journalist in the wrong place at the wrong time, or whether there was actual evidence against him, to cause reasonable doubt, certainly about the death penalty.
Coming on top of the ludicrous method used, but still wonderful, in the release of the West Memphis Three seems like there might be hope for an end to the death penalty in this country. I would like to see that so very much. Life without parole is certainly punishment enough, and there is more than enough proof that the death penalty is levied against those who don't have the resources to fight it. If Mumia Abu-Jamal had not been an articulate speaker and writer with friends in the journalism community who could spread his work, if celebrities had not picked up the case of the Three, they would all be dead now. Others without those resources die every week, and that goes twice for Texas.
If we're going to go around killing people, why don't we do it like the Saudis, and then televise it? Why be such hypocrites as to hide it behind prison walls and do it in the small hours, where the "good people" can pretend to be asleep?
Those who opposed his execution, me among them, point to the poisonous racial atmosphere in Philadelphia then and now. Mr. Abu-Jamal was not liked by Philadelphia's legal system before his arrest. If you read the article I linked to and what the prosecutor has to say, you can see that he still is hated. If you read deeper about the case, there is enough confusion about whether Abu-Jamal was prosecuted because he was a hated black journalist in the wrong place at the wrong time, or whether there was actual evidence against him, to cause reasonable doubt, certainly about the death penalty.
Coming on top of the ludicrous method used, but still wonderful, in the release of the West Memphis Three seems like there might be hope for an end to the death penalty in this country. I would like to see that so very much. Life without parole is certainly punishment enough, and there is more than enough proof that the death penalty is levied against those who don't have the resources to fight it. If Mumia Abu-Jamal had not been an articulate speaker and writer with friends in the journalism community who could spread his work, if celebrities had not picked up the case of the Three, they would all be dead now. Others without those resources die every week, and that goes twice for Texas.
If we're going to go around killing people, why don't we do it like the Saudis, and then televise it? Why be such hypocrites as to hide it behind prison walls and do it in the small hours, where the "good people" can pretend to be asleep?
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