Defense Decision
One of Abu-Jamal's attorneys, Partisan Defense Committee member Rachel Wolkenstein, found Beverly in 1999 and presented him and his affidavit to Abu-Jamal and the rest of the legal team. Lead attorney Leonard Weinglass and legal strategist Daniel Williams advised Abu-Jamal that Beverly was neither credible nor an asset to his case while Wolkenstein and her colleague Jon Piper argued in favor of Beverly's testimony. Abu-Jamal decided to take the advice of his more senior attorneys and not present Beverly in the appeal process, leading Wolkenstein and Piper to resign in protest.
In 2001, Williams published Executing Justice: An Inside Account of the Case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, in which he says he "wasn't about to embarrass myself by running with such a patently outrageous story on the most visible death-penalty case in the world." He also says that Abu-Jamal decided not to use Beverly because Abu-Jamal was "far too honorable to propagate a lie upon which to build a case for his freedom." Although largely favorable to Abu-Jamal, the book resulted in Mumia firing both Williams and Weinglass from the defense team.
Read more about this topic: Arnold Beverly
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