Trampling the Public Trust
Philadelphia Police Abuses Reveal Systemic Injustice

August 1995 will no doubt be remembered as a month rocked by police corruption scandals. As Mark Fuhrman's tales of racist exploits shocked the nation, a long-brewing scandal of police corruption and brutality erupted in Philadelphia.

Six police officers from Philadelphia's 39th District have pled guilty to lying in order to obtain search warrants, framing defendants, stealing money, assault and other civil rights violations. Scores more of the Philadelphia police are expected to face criminal charges. Revelations of corruption have thus far led to 42 criminal convictions being overturned. Meanwhile, federal investigators have expanded their probe, subpoenaing over 100,000 arrest records over the last decade from six of Philadelphia's police districts and it's elite Highway Patrol. This shameful saga of police running roughshod over primarily poor, black Philadelphians is still unfolding.

Crack in the Wall

The 1991 case credited with cracking Philadelphia's protective wall of police silence involved two of the 39rd District officers who have been indicted - Officer John Baird and his partner, Thomas Ryan. Among other abuses, Baird has admitted to putting a gun to the head of black Temple University student Arthur Colbert in an attempt to coerce a confession. Colbert's was the 23rd misconduct allegation to be filed against the 20 year veteran. Had public outrage over the videotaped beating of Rodney King not forced the U.S. Justice Department to review allegations of police brutality, Colbert's complaint would have been dismissed along with the previous 22 - with the officer's word being taken over that of a black man.

But the Justice Department order came down the day that the local Internal Affairs Division began checking out Colbert's complaint, prompting a closer look than usual. When it became clear that facts supported Colbert's story, an officer involved in the cover-up changed his story. Baird, Ryan and their supervisor, Sergeant Thomas DeGovanni, were suspended in April 1991. Two years later, DeGovanni was back on the job and had received $19,000 in back pay. It looked like Baird would get his job back also.

However, the F.B.I was watching and waiting for them to get caught in their own web of lies. They did. Ryan, the only witness to Baird's assault on Colbert, confessed first. He alerted the F.B.I. that Baird was paying Pamela Jenkins - a prostitute who originally claimed to have identified Colbert as a drug dealer - to lie for him at his arbitration hearing. When Jenkins' testimony went badly, Baird paid her not to show up at a subsequent hearing. But the F.B.I. tracked her down, and on November 3, 1994, she testified against Baird, admitting that he and Ryan had frequently paid her to perjure herself to secure criminal convictions.

Finally caught by the F.B.I., Baird used the only advantage he had to avoid a long sentence: he cooperated with the government, providing information that widened the now joint federal and city investigation.

Not Just a "Few Rogue Cops"

Corruption in the Philadelphia police department is certainly nothing new. Police have brutalized with impunity for years. According to Temple University Criminology Professor James Fyfe, only two of 575 allegations of police abuse made over the last five years have resulted in disciplinary action.

Mayor Ed Rendell insists the corruption is limited to a small number of individuals, while repeated headlines in the Philadelphia Inquirer frame the scandal as about few a "Rogue Cops." Speaking for many Philadelphians, the late State Representative David Richardson concluded: "If anybody believes that there is not a conspiracy within the police department, they are crazy. This happens every single day."

Indeed, the sheer number of convictions tainted by the current scandal points to a systemic problem. "This [current] wave of corruption is appearing to dwarf the last one," wrote Peter F. Vaira in the Philadelphia Inquirer on August 27. A former U.S. Attorney, Vaira had prosecuted corrupt police in 1981.

D.A.'s Complicity

No player in Philadelphia's legal system has rubber stamped police corruption like the office of District Attorney Lynne Abraham. Greedy for convictions, her office has been quick to prosecute criminal cases without questioning the testimony of the police and police witnesses.

After Pamela Jenkin's 1988 testimony resulted in Raymond Carter being convicted of murder - testimony for which Baird and Ryan paid her $500 - the prosecuting Assistant District Attorney, Edward Cameron, publicly praised her as the "only person willing to come into court and say what happened." Such conduct represents a broader pattern. Former Assistant D.A. and Homicide Chief Barbara Christie frequently had her convictions reversed for withholding evidence that demonstrated the defendant's innocence.

Abraham recently promised to see overturned any convictions involving indicted officers, "even if it's a one percent taint." But at the same time, the D.A.'s office successfully petitioned the Federal District Court to stay all civil actions related to current police corruption cases.

"The Deadliest D.A."

The New York Times Magazine has described Abraham as "the deadliest D.A." No other prosecutor seeks the death penalty more often. Abraham's pursues the death penalty as often as Pennsylvania's broadly-drawn statute allows - translating into 85% of all murder indictments.

While the juries in most of these cases ultimately do not consider a death sentence, the pursuit of it serves as a powerful prosecutorial weapon. As former Philadelphia prosecutor Mike McGovern explains, "You can hold the defendant . . . without bail, and it gives you leverage in negotiating guilty pleas." Prosecutors in capital cases get an extra 13 opportunities to strike jurors without cause. In Philadelphia, such strikes are routinely used by prosecutors to exclude black jurors. Further, threatening a death sentence insures that the jury will be "death qualified," meaning that every potential juror who opposes the death penalty is excluded. A death qualified jury is widely understood to be more likely to return a guilty verdict.

With 107 people now on death row, Philadelphia County ranks third in death penalty convictions behind Los Angeles County and Houston's Harris County, jurisdictions with much larger populations and higher murder rates. More than half of all capital convictions in the Pennsylvania originate in Philadelphia.

Abraham is not concerned that the death penalty costs more than life in prison without parole. "Please don't tell me about costs when talking about the rights of victims," she said recently, revealing her thirst for vengeance. "Whatever it costs is worth it."

Up South Philadelphia

Philadelphia spends an estimated $3 million to prosecute and litigate a single capital case. Meanwhile, the vast majority of capital defendants in Philadelphia are indigent. Court-appointed attorneys get paid an average of $3,500 for each case. $300 is allocated for investigation while additional funds for experts are seldom forthcoming. In stark contrast, Columbus, OH, spends up to $40,000 for similar cases; Los Angeles allocates up to $60,000.

Not surprisingly, few lawyers are willing to represent capital defendants in Philadelphia. Only after the attorney pool dropped below 50 did the court contract the Defender's Association to handle 20% of all murder cases. Since the agency came on board in April 1993, not one of their clients has received a death sentence. But, with the D.A. pursuing death sentences in 85% of all murder cases, the majority of indigent defendants continue to rely on court-appointed attorneys, too often assigned because of who they know, not what they know about defending the capitally-charged.

The unusual structure of Philadelphia's courts also fuels convictions and death sentences. Since the mid-1970s, the Court has had a subgroup of judges assigned only to homicide cases. In virtually every other jurisdiction, judges hear a random mix of cases because, as Duquesne University legal scholar Bruce Ledewitz concludes, "It's too easy to become . . . a rubber stamp for the prosecution."

The DA.'s office has effectively lobbied the assignment judge to direct the grisliest and most controversial of cases to judges most sympathetic to their side. And the friendliest courtroom is no doubt that of former Philadelphia County Under-Sheriff, Judge Albert Sabo. Sabo has sent more than twice as many people to death (32 total) than any other judge in the U.S. - all but two of whom are people of color.

The Framing of Mumia Abu-Jamal

Such is the backdrop for Judge Sabo's denial of the appeal of celebrated death row journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was wrongfully convicted of the shooting death of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner and sentenced to death in 1982..

In rejecting Mumia's appeal, Sabo dismissed substantiated claims of police and prosecutorial misconduct, including the intimidation and silencing of witnesses whose testimony would have exonerated Mumia and the coercion of other witnesses to finger Mumia as the killer.

The prosecution's primary witness, Cynthia White, had 38 previous arrests for prostitution and three open cases awaiting trial when she testified at Mumia's trial. She had given five conflicting statements to the police prior to the trial and no other witness could place her at the scene. Her testimony at the trial - which described Mumia as deliberately shooting the officer - matched her third statement, made immediately after being arrested on another charge.

White's credibility was completely destroyed by defense witness Veronica Jones, who also worked as a prostitute. Mirroring recent revelations about the Philadelphia police, Jones said under oath that 6th District officers offered her and White immunity from arrest in exchange for perjured testimony that would implicate Mumia. Unbelievably, Sabo ordered Jone's testimony to be stricken from the record.

Further, the appeal raises new evidence that the police protected White as she worked the streets, demonstrating, as lead attorney Leonard Weinglass put it, "an unholy relationship between the 6th District, where this crime occurred, and the street prostitutes."

Jones was one of four witnesses who, the night of the shooting, told the police that she saw someone flee the scene. (Mumia was shot and unable to flee.) The police not only failed to investigate these leads but actually coerced witnesses to retract their testimony. Dessie Hightower, at the hearing before Judge Sabo this summer, testified that the police destroyed a polygraph test which he passed, and in which he attested to Mumia's innocence.

The initial statement of Robert Chobert, the prosecution's other key witness, also described someone fleeing the scene. On probation for an arson conviction, police pressure likely explains why he changed his story on the stand, implicating Mumia. Testifying at the recent hearing, Chobert admitted that, in exchange for his testimony, there was talk about the police helping him get his chauffeur's licence, which had been revoked because of drunk driving convictions.

William Singletary testified at the same hearing that, on the night of the shooting, the police ripped up three statements he had written - each describing someone other than Mumia shoot the officer and flee. Finally, under police threats against his person and his business, he signed another statement, where he claimed to have seen nothing. Afterward, the police repeatedly harassed his tow truck drivers and the windows at his gas station were repeatedly broken. By February 1992, just two months after the shooting, he was forced to close his business. He fled the city by summer 1982. Only after international attention focused a media spotlight on Mumia's case, did Singletary feel it was safe to come forward.

The prosecutor in Mumia's case, Joseph McGill, has been criticized by appellate courts for knowingly prosecuting and convicting an innocent man. In Mumia's case, defense attorney Dan Williams notes, "McGill used evidence of a confession that any rational person would know smacks of bad faith."

Officer Gary Wakshul's written report from the night of the shooting specifically said that Mumia made no comment. At the time of the trial he was "on vacation" and thus unable to testify, yet Sabo refused to postpone the proceedings until his return. Finally taking the stand at this summer's hearing, the officer claimed that mental stress caused by the death of a fellow officer made him forget about the alleged confession for 64 days. He only remembered, supposedly, after Mumia filed a formal police brutality complaint and prosecutor McGill asked at a police meeting - called to develop strategy to answer Mumia's charges - if Mumia might have confessed. While rejecting all of Mumia's claims of police impropriety, Sabo accepted Wakshul's explanation without question.

Other testimony at the summer hearing revealed that the prosecution knowingly withheld important details of their investigation from the defense. Arnold Howard said under oath that, immediately after the shooting, he was held in police custody for 72 hours because, he was told, his driver's license was found in Faulkner's hand.

While at the police station, Arnold saw in custody Kenneth Freeman - to whom he had loaned his license. Freeman told Howard that he had been at the scene and that Mumia had not shot the officer. Both men were photographed and put in a police lineup. Arnold's hands were tested for powder burns. Despite prosecution claims that Mumia was always the prime suspect, police reports have no record of this basic test ever having been conducted on Mumia, and Mumia's requests to be put into a police lineup were refused.

The defense was never informed of any of the occurrences Howard described. Yet his testimony reveals that even back in 1981, the police had working knowledge that a person other than Mumia and his brother was present at the scene and may well have fled before the police arrived.

Mumia's brother Bill Cook, who also witnessed the shooting, faced such extreme threats and harassment from the police that he was driven into hiding. After two years without contact with family or friends, Bill came forward in August, indicating that he could testify to Mumia's innocence.

The police immediately unearthed two outstanding warrants for his arrest, meaning that once he appeared in court, he would be remanded to police custody. Deathly afraid of the police, he failed to appear in Sabo's court as scheduled on September 12. Instead, he sent a message attesting to Mumia's innocence via attorneys. Should a higher court recognize the need to hold another evidentiary hearing free from the current climate of police intimidation, we will finally hear Bill's vital testimony.

Summary of Philadelphia police abuses

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