Recently, Linn Washington wrote a paper regarding the unfairness of the Abu-Jamal murder case. I found it at Schiffmann’s site (http://againstthecrimeofsilence.de/News/Abu-Jamal-Facts.doc). Washington reaches a few incredible conclusions.

Of course, first of all a true Mumiac has to claim that Abu-Jamal’s trial was not fair. Like so many commentators before him he uses the Amnesty International report A Life In The Balance to underline his allegations. AI claims that their review of the trial transcript showed some basic problems with the fairness of the trial. What they did not say is that they did not review the trial transcript. AI got their information from Abu-Jamal’s lawyers and not from the original documents. Let’s look at a prime example for a mistake by AI. On page 22 they write “At trial, the Medical Examiner testified that the bullet was consistent with the those [sic] fired by Abu-Jamal's gun but that test were inconclusive as to whether it actually came from his firearm. The court accepted the medical examiner as a ballistics expert.” That’s pure nonsense. Dr. Hoyer did not make that statement (it came from the ballistics expert Anthony Paul) and he has not been accepted as ballistics expert (his expertise was about the wounds created by +P ammunition). If someone at AI really would have read the trial transcript they would not have made such a mistake. And this was not their only mistake. AI even claims to read the mind of Abu-Jamal, because they came to the result “Abu-Jamal had come to the conclusion that he would be denied a fair trial by the court.” AI did some good work but that report is extremely biased and it’s based on lies. It's telling that Washington uses this report as source.

Not only AI seems to be able to read someone’s mind. Linn Washington also mastered that art. Former Assistant District Attorney Joseph McGill told a reporter in 2006 that Abu-Jamal never had a “true defense”. Linn Washington claims - without reasonable explanation - that McGill referred to the ineffectiveness of Abu-Jamal’s trial lawyer Jackson. McGill never claimed that his remark referred to Jackson’s performance. Dave Lindorff (at counterpunch) gave a much more reasonable statement: “Now I know McGill claims that this is because Abu-Jamal himself screwed up by insisting on being able to defend himself...” I would like to add that Abu-Jamal screwed up his defense by being arrogant and by insulting judge, jury, and his own lawyer. During the trial he requested that Anthony Jackson doesn’t do anything. Now he complains that Jackson did too less.

Washington cites other cases where fairness obviously has not been applied and innocent people suffered great injustice. But he fails to show that the same thing happened to Abu-Jamal. He tries to show that the prosecution has withheld evidence, thus creating an unfair situation. Suddenly all the nonsense regarding a running man reappears. He claims “both of the prosecution’s star witnesses reversed their initial statements to later claim Abu-Jamal shot the officer.” (Chobert and White accused Abu-Jamal from the beginning and gave their written statements within 30 minutes after the crime.) And according to Washington the page bearing the “44 cal” notation has not been forwarded to the defense. Since years Abu-Jamal's lawyers claimed that Jackson overlooked that notation and, therefore, he was an ineffective counsel. Suddenly he did not even see that page. Finally, the old Freeman story appears. Maybe Freeman was in the VW, maybe not. There is no conclusive evidence regarding this question. Howard claimed in 1995 that he has borrowed his driver license to Freeman but in 1981 he said that he lost it. He said a lot of things happened to him during 72 hours in the police building but the logbook showed that he was there for only two hours. Don’t tell me the police faked all these documents in order to discredit an unimportant witness like Howard. Additionally, Washington claims that Freeman fits to the descriptions of the fleeing shooter. Which descriptions? Chobert identified Abu-Jamal at the scene and Hightower described a person with the same clothes, appearance and hairstyle as Abu-Jamal (see Charles Grant's cross-examination of 3 August 1995, p.103-107). No one else provided credible testimony about a “fleeing man”. Neither Kordansky, Jones, Singletary, Harmon, nor anyone else.

Washington cites other cases like Ferber and McMillian, where police and prosecutors failed. Obviously, police work in Philadelphia was not always correct but this does not diminish the weight of the evidence against Abu-Jamal. No matter in which way the case of Neil Ferber has been mishandled (I don’t know), this is no evidence that the Abu-Jamal case has been mishandled, as well. Abu-Jamal’s conviction is not based on manipulated eyewitnesses but on strong evidence against him. That evidence never has been refuted. The 44-fairy tale does not count as evidence. Singletary’s fairy tale does not count as evidence. Harmon’s fairy tale does not count as evidence. Beverly’s fairy tale does not count as evidence and, by the way, not even the defense talks about Beverly anymore.

One assertion by Washington which repeats throughout his entire paper is the double standard used by courts when dealing with Abu-Jamal’s claims. That’s nonsense. Of course, there are some similarities between Abu-Jamal and other cases. For instance, McGill talked about Abu-Jamal’s membership with the Black Panthers. Courts constantly refused to accept the claim that this was improper. In another case, Dawson vs. Delaware, the US Supreme Court ruled against the conviction because it was improper to use his membership in a racist prison gang. Now supporters of Abu-Jamal claim this was racist. It was not. When looking at the details these two cases are not the same. Therefore, Abu-Jamal’s claims have been rejected. There is no double standard. Washington does not like these rulings but they are still fair.

After Linn Washington is so careless about facts, I would like to know from him what he thinks about his own sworn statement from 2001. Why he waited 20 years? Why he did not contact Abu-Jamal’s lawyers in the years before? Weinglass was so desperate that he even tried to put Ward Churchill as expert witness on the stand. He would not have rejected Washington as “eyewitness” at the scene. Washington was a journalist long before 2001 but he never wrote an article about the things he has described within his sworn declaration. He wrote comments about the Abu-Jamal case (see his infamous and insulting letter to Maureen Faulkner) but he never mentioned what he described in 2001. Beside the fact that his declaration was based on hearsay and that he slandered the Philadelphia Police Department for things that happened in the 1970s and had nothing to do with Abu-Jamal, he gave a few unique items of information. He wrote that he has reached the crime scene in the morning hours after the shooting and he did not see any police guarding the scene. He was able to search Billy Cook’s VW and he saw blood in front of the back seat. However, news reports at television tell a different story. At the very early morning before sunrise Billy Cook’s VW has been removed already (see a short sequence in A Case For Reasonable Doubt during the interview with Singletary). Where did he find the VW? Another news report shows the crime scene after sunrise around the time of Washington’s alleged visit (From Death Row, Mumia Abu Jamal by the PDC) and - surprise - there are two police cars and wooden barriers protecting the scene but still no VW. Screen shots of these two videos can be found in a comment about Abu-Jamal’s lawyers. Additionally, police searched the VW and they did not see any blood. These drops of blood were important to support William Cook’s stupid declaration. Ironically, nowadays Cook’s claim that he has been in the car during the shooting seems to be forgotten. Without Cook being in the car it cannot be explained why there should have been blood inside. As a result, Washington did not see the police that were there, searched a car which was not there, and found blood which has not been found by the police because Cook did not bleed inside the car. I would love to hear an explanation.

Finally, I would like to give a summary: Linn Washington writes nonsense.