Giving Up on Justice

-On the morning of 9 December 1981, Philadelphia police officer and Army veteran Daniel Faulkner was murdered by a man known as Mumia Abu-Jamal, who shot him five times, once in the back and four times in his front at close range. Abu-Jamal was arrested and convicted five months later, sentenced to death. After lengthy attempts to appeal, first to the commonwealth's Supreme Court and then to the Supreme Court of the United States, then-Governor Tom Ridge signed the death warrant ordering the execution be carried out in 1995.

-It never was.

-Yesterday, almost thirty years to the day after Officer Faulkner was gunned down in the line of duty, the District Attorney in Philadelphia announced that he was formally dropping the pursuit of the death penalty against Abu-Jamal, which means he will now spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole.

-In other words, the DA in the City of Brotherly Love gave up.

-Much has been made of Mumia Abu-Jamal; the man most definitely can be described as a cause celebre. To this day, countless movements and celebrities have stepped forward as part of a "Free Mumia" movement. A suburb of Paris named a street after him. But why?

-While one can discuss the details of the case, including allegations of perjured testimony, the fact of the matter is that Mumia Abu-Jamal was also something a favorite child to the prominent Left. He was a militant black radical and was also a radio journalist. He was accused of killing a white police officer. It isn't very difficult to put two and two together.

-I'm in an odd position when it comes to the death penalty. Officially, I support it, but I don't imagine I'd make a big fuss if it went away. However, I also have no sympathy whatsoever for cop killers. None at all. And that's exactly what Mumia is. He is not a noble political prisoner who was being oppressed by a rigged system controlled by the "pigs". He murdered a defender of the peace. He shot the man five times. Officer Faulkner was lucky he was able to fire back at him at all.

-If Mumia Abu-Jamal was the rational and intelligent man his legions of idiot supporters make him out to be, he would have never shot Danny Faulkner (the odds suggest he wouldn't be a member of the Black Panthers, either; they've done more harm than good). He would have gone down and bailed out his brother, who happened to be the man Faulkner pulled over that December morning. But Abu-Jamal's brother decided to panic. And Abu-Jamal decided to be violent. He killed a man sworn to protect and serve attempting to do his job. He took away a husband, a father, and a son. And for this, he does not deserve the accolades and public appeals and the book deals and the adulation of countless celebrities, liberals, race-baiters, and idiots that he does get. He deserves to be in a pine box with six feet of Pennsylvania soil above him and potassium chloride in his veins. He deserves to die for his crime; Daniel Faulkner's family deserves the justice they have been pursuing for thirty years. And thanks to the District Attorney's unwillingness to give further effort, neither party will get what they deserve.