heresy2007

Look, you're entitled to your opinion, like everyone else. I disagree with it. Having rehashed this a billion times with people who tend to live far from here, I don't want to do it again.

My father owns a law firm (Princeton/Penn law, over 40 years of experience including criminal defence and trial law) , my neighbor growing up was and is a (very liberal) Federal judge, my other neighbor was a federal prosecutor.

I have discussed this case at length with all of them, (pro and con) and that is how I arrived at my conclusion.

Thus, I don't care a bit about the man's opinion on anything. As I said before, feel free to disagree, but don't label me as ignorant simply because I disagree with your opinion.

That's cool, no problem. As far as the case goes, these discussions were years ago and I couldn't do justice to them now, without digging through copious notes I took back then which are in storage.

All prosecutions have problems of varying degrees. Mumia's unwillingness to aid in his own courtroom defence hurt his case. Most innocent people loudly and consistently proclaim their innocence to anyone who stands still long enough to hear it... it was far from a textbook case and mistakes were made by both sides - but in the end, the prosecution satisfied their burden and the defense did not.

My mother has made a career out of following controversial Philly court cases where she feels people were wrongly convicted (Gray's Ferry hate-crimes, the center city jogger murder, etc etc.). Her book is coming out in the next few months. She's no stooge of the Philly PD, nor am I, having been arrested by them on bogus charges myself some years ago (no, I wasn't convicted of anything nor did I do anything wrong).She thinks Mumia is guilty as well, and she's managed to poke lots of holes in both of those other sucessful prosecutions.



[Edited on Oct 08, 2004 12:20AM]