On December 9, 1981, around 3:51 a.m. near the intersection of 13th and
Locust Streets in
Philadelphia,
Philadelphia Police Department officer
Daniel Faulkner was conducting a traffic stop of William Cook, Abu-Jamal's younger brother. Faulkner and Cook became engaged in a physical confrontation. Abu-Jamal's taxi was parked across the street, from which he ran towards Cook's car and shot Faulkner in the back and then in the face. During the encounter, Faulkner shot Abu-Jamal in the stomach. Faulkner died at the scene from the head shot. Police arrived and arrested Abu-Jamal, who was wearing a shoulder holster. His revolver was beside him and had five spent cartridges. Abu-Jamal was taken directly from the scene of the shooting to
Thomas Jefferson University Hospital, where he received treatment for his wound. He was charged with the
first-degree murder of Daniel Faulkner, and Anthony Jackson, Esquire was court appointed as his representation. The case went to trial in June 1982 at
Philadelphia's City Hall. Judge Paul Ribner, the judge overseeing pre-trial hearings, initially granted to Abu-Jamal's request to represent himself, appointing Jackson as backup counsel. During
cross-examination, Chobert admitted that he had originally told the police that the shooter had moved 30 rather than 10 ft away from Faulkner and had been 30-to-50 pounds heavier than Abu-Jamal. He explained, "I'm not good at weight. Do you think I'm going to stand there for a couple of minutes and ask him how much he weighs?" Chobert was a disqualified/unlicensed cab driver on parole for
arson. He had two prior arrests for drunk-driving, and admitted in 1995 to having sought the advice of the trial prosecutor as to how he could reclaim his driving privileges. Cynthia White testified to witnessing the shootings from a nearby corner. She said: "[Abu-Jamal] was running out of the parking lot ... he shot two times at the police officer ... he came on top of the police officer and shot some more times. After that he went over and he slouched down and he sat on the curb." Dessie Hightower stated that he observed her to be at least half a block further away. Prostitute Veronica Jones said later that she had been offered favorable treatment by police on condition that she corroborate Cynthia White. Police informant
Pamela Jenkins testified at a post-conviction relief hearing in 1997, that she had been pressured by Philadelphia police to falsely state that she had witnessed the killing of Faulkner and identify Abu-Jamal as the murderer. She also testified that she thought White was in fear of her life from police after the shooting of Faulkner, and that she had seen Ms White in the company of Philadelphia police as recently as March 1997. However, the prosecution produced a death certificate in the name of Cynthia Williams, whose fingerprints a prosecution expert witness testified were a match to Cynthia White, showing that she had died in 1992. According to Amnesty International, the fingerprint records of White and Williams do not match, and so this death certificate is not conclusive evidence that White died. Magilton testified to witnessing Faulkner pull over Cook's car but, at the point of seeing Abu-Jamal start to cross the street toward them from the parking lot, he turned away and lost sight of what happened next until he heard gunshots. He did not see any shooting, or Chobert's vehicle parked behind Faulkner's.
Hospital confession Two witnesses, security officer Priscilla Durham and Police Officer Garry Bell, testified that while Abu-Jamal was at hospital, he acknowledged that he had shot Faulkner by proclaiming, "I shot the motherfucker, and I hope the motherfucker dies." Durham reported this to hospital officials and a written report of what Durham overhead was submitted into evidence. The hospital doctors have claimed that Abu-Jamal did not make that statement. The original report of Gary Wakshul, a police officer who accompanied Abu-Jamal to and at the hospital, relates that "the negro male made no comments". Tests performed with the physical evidence verify that Faulkner was killed by a .38 caliber bullet. The extracted slugs were identified as
Federal brand .38 Special +P bullets with hollow bases, which matched the shell casings in Abu-Jamal's handgun retrieved at the scene. Rifling characteristics evident on the bullet fragments extracted from Faulkner's body matched those of the handgun. Anthony L. Paul, supervisor of the Firearms Identification Unit, testified that the type of bullet was rare at the time, with only one manufacturer, though he could name two other manufacturers which produced weapons bearing the same
rifling characteristics. Experts testified that the bullet taken from Abu-Jamal was fired from Faulkner's service weapon. George Fassnacht, the defense's ballistics expert, did not dispute the findings of the prosecution's experts.
Amnesty International, with reference to the physical evidence, has expressed the view that "the police failed to conduct tests to ascertain whether the weapon had been fired in the immediate past ... Compounding this error, the police also failed to conduct chemical tests on Abu-Jamal's hands to find out if he had fired a gun recently." A note written by coroner Dr. Paul Hoyer, who
autopsied Daniel Faulkner, states that he extracted a
.44 caliber bullet from Faulkner. This has led to claims that Faulkner was shot by a .44 caliber rather than a .38 caliber weapon. Hoyer admitted in 1995 that this was an "intermediate note" that was not supposed to be published, and that the note had been a "lay guess" based on his own observations, that he was not a firearms expert and that he had not received any training in weapons ballistics.
Defense case Defense witness Dessie Hightower described a man running along the street shortly after the shooting. This became known as the "running man theory", based on the possibility that a "running man" may have been the actual shooter. Another witness, Veronica Jones, said "All I seen was two men and a policeman on the ground and what else can I say? I was kind of intoxicated." In reply to the question, "Did you see anyone running away from the scene?" She replied, "I didn't see anyone do nothing. No one moved." The defense claimed to have a third witness, Deborah Kordansky, but she refused to appear in court. The defense presented
character witnesses including poet
Sonia Sanchez. Sanchez testified that Abu-Jamal was "viewed by the black community as a creative, articulate, peaceful, genial man". During cross examination the prosecution raised her association with convicted felon and Black Panther activist
Joanne Chesimard; Sanchez was also asked over defense objections whether she supported other blacks who had killed police, to which she replied she had.
Witnesses speaking after the trial Abu-Jamal did not state his version of the events during the initial police investigation nor did he testify in his own defense at trial. Nearly 20 years later, a man named
Arnold Beverly submitted an affidavit stating that he was the person who killed Officer Faulkner. Beverly wrote that while "wearing a green (camouflage) army jacket", he had run across the street and shot Daniel Faulkner as part of a
contract killing because Faulkner was interfering with graft and payoff to corrupt police. Abu-Jamal subsequently provided his own statement in which he said he had been sitting in his cab across the street when he heard shouting, then saw a police vehicle, then heard the sound of gunshots. Upon seeing his brother appearing disoriented across the street, Abu-Jamal ran to him and was shot by a police officer. He maintains to have no memory of the events between being shot and the arrival of officers at the scene. He also claims to have been abused by the police while he was still in need of medical assistance for his wound. He explained, "At my trial I was denied the right to defend myself. I had no confidence in my court-appointed attorney, who never even asked me what happened the night I was shot and the police officer was killed; and I was excluded from at least half the trial ... Since I was denied all my rights at my trial I did not testify. I would not be used to make it look like I had a fair trial ... I never said I shot the policeman. I did not shoot the policeman ... I never said I hoped he died. I would never say something like that." For a similar period, William Cook also did not testify at the trial or make any statement about events that night other than saying to police at the crime scene repeatedly: "I ain't got nothing to do with this!" In 2001, Cook belatedly declared that he would be willing to testify and that both he and his brother "had nothing do with shooting or killing the policeman". He stated that another man, Kenneth Freeman, was in his car at the time. According to Cook, Freeman was sitting in the front passenger seat, armed with a .38, wearing a green army jacket, knowing of a plan to kill Faulkner, and participating in the shooting. Freeman's handcuffed and naked corpse was discovered in North Philadelphia on the night of
the police bombing of the MOVE communal residence in 1985 and neither his name nor the fact of his presence at the crime scene was raised at any stage during the course of the trial and sentencing in 1982. At the time of his death, Daniel Faulkner was in possession of the replacement temporary driver license of
Arnold Howard which the latter had recently "loaned" to Freeman for unspecified purposes. Several others have made statements in support of Abu-Jamal. At a post-conviction review hearing in 1995, William "Dales" Singletary testified that he witnessed the shooting and that the gunman was the passenger in Cook's car wearing an army overcoat. Singletary said that police tore up his written statements and that he was prevailed upon to sign a different statement which they dictated. Singletary's account was deemed "not credible" and "medically impossible" (he claimed that Faulkner spoke after being shot in the eye at point blank range, which would have been instantaneously lethal, and that a police helicopter was in attendance, which no other witnesses described). William Harmon, who had convictions for forgery, fraud and theft by deception, testified that he had seen a man other than Abu-Jamal kill Faulkner and flee in a car which pulled up at the crime scene. Court stenographer Terri Maurer-Carter stated in a 2001 affidavit that the presiding Judge had exclaimed, "Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the nigger", in the course of a conversation regarding Abu-Jamal's case. Judge Sabo denied making such a comment. Kenneth Pate, a stepbrother of Priscilla Durham with a history of imprisonment, swore a declaration that he asked her in a telephone conversation whether she had heard Abu-Jamal confess and that she had answered, "All I heard him say was: 'Get off me, get off me, they're trying to kill me'". Pate reported the conversation to Abu-Jamal while they were serving in the same prison. In media coverage, a volunteer named Phillip Bloch claimed that he visited Abu-Jamal in prison in 1992 and asked him whether he regretted killing Faulkner, to which Abu-Jamal replied, "Yes". Bloch, otherwise a supporter of Abu-Jamal's case, stated he came forward after he grew concerned about the vilification of Daniel Faulkner. ==Verdict, death sentence, and reactions==