Friday, October 26, 2007
Film: IN PRISON MY WHOLE LIFE
Trailer for the upcoming film, IN PRISON MY WHOLE LIFE, about the journey of Will Francome to look into the case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was arrested for the murder of a police officer, Daniel Faulkner on the day Will was born.
The film was Directed by Marc Evans and features interviews with Noam Chomsky, Alice Walker, Mos Def, Snoop Dogg, Angela Davis and many others.
FREE MUMIA
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3 comments:
It's late. I'll try to catch this tomorrow, unless it's thunder and lightning out.
I don't think I've heard of this case before. When I heard the first line of the trailer "Imagine a minute on death row" the first thing I thought was "Dostoevsky" who was once assembled with others to be shot and then had his sentence commuted. Other than that, I don't know how closely Abu-Jamal parallels Dostoevsky.
I wikipedia'd Abu-Jamal and Daniel Faulkner. There's a lot of conflicting stuff about witnesses and confessions, which I immediately discount (as a CSI watcher) as the most unreliable evidence. The physical evidence seems to support that Abu-Jamal shot Officer Faulkner in the back, that Faulkner returned fire, wounding Abu-Jamal, and then Abu-Jamal shot Faulkner repeatedly as he lay prone. After that, it appears Abu-Jamal disrupted the process of the court, and is now complaining that he didn't receive due process.
I understand that the physical evidence is in dispute. I'm no legal expert, and I won't have time to fully investigate this issue. I understand that all cops are not angels, and that neither are all activists. I'm not comfortable with the death penalty being exercised in cases where substantive doubt remains, though a person shouldn't be found guilty unless the evidence proves guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. If there was incontrovertible evidence that Abu-Jamal killed Faulker in the manner officially described, I'd accept his execution.
In the trailer, it appeared that Chomsky said that whether he's guilty or innocent isn't relevant. Since it was a sound bite, I don't know to which point his guilt or innocence would be irrelevant. But it certainly has relevancy somewhere, just as the death of another human being has relevancy.
Chomsky is pro-human rights and anti-death penalty. His comment was most likely in reference to abolishing the death penalty.
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