Sen. Pat Toomey says signing a legal brief in Mumia's appeal is the same as being besties with him

The first thing that strikes you about the speech Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) recently gave before the Senate, in opposition to Justice Department nominee Debo Adegbile, is the sizable visual aid — a black-and-white wedding photo of a smiling young couple. The second thing: Toomey either does not know or does not care how to pronounce Debo Adegbile’s name. For the record: It’s “DAY-bo uh-DEG-buh-lay.”

“I rise to speak on the nomination of DEE-boo ah-dig-BELL-a,” Toomey begins, seriously, “to serve as an assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. (Before we go any further, please mentally append “who was not available to speak with City Paper for this piece but provided a written statement” to the name of every Pennsylvania politician mentioned.)

“Some Americans may vaguely recall Mumia Abu-Jamal from the Free Mumia T-shirts,” Toomey continues. He gestures at the photograph. “Maureen Faulkner will forever remember him as a cold-blooded cop killer who left her as a widow at age 24.” Faulkner, he says, has spent 32 years reliving the anguish of her husband’s murder every time Abu-Jamal appeals his sentence. The lawyers who help him do this, Toomey says, are part of the “dishonest international campaign to turn her husband’s killer into a celebrated icon.” 

“Now, one of the lawyers who helped to promote that campaign — DEE-boo ah-dig-BELL-a — has been nominated to lead the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. This cannot stand.”  Toomey pauses. “Let’s review the facts. 3:15 a.m. on December 9, 1981 …”

What follows is a several-minute narration of the story of Officer Daniel Faulkner and Mumia Abu-Jamal, which you almost certainly already know. A traffic stop turns violent. A grieving widow. A media circus. A death sentence. Three decades of appeals that in 2011 converted Abu-Jamal’s sentence to life imprisonment. 

If you’re wincing every time Toomey says “DEE-boo,” it sticks out that he doesn’t mention Adegbile again for quite a while.

President Obama declared in a statement that the narrow Senate vote March 5 blocking Adegbile’s nomination was “a travesty based on wildly unfair character attacks against a good and qualified public servant.” Opponents praised Adegbile’s abilities as an attorney — he’s a specialist in voting rights — but expressed doubts about anyone who would “choose” or “volunteer” to represent a cop killer. 

An angry-looking Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Ia.) stood afterward to declare the vote “about the lowest point that I think this Senate has descended into in my 30 years here. 

“The chief justice of the Supreme Court defended a mass murderer in Florida who committed eight murders,” said Harkin, referring to pro bono work done by Justice John Roberts. “Did we hear one peep from the Republican side? From anyone?”  They had not. “And rightfully so!” Harkin continued. “He was fulfilling his legal obligations. That’s his moral duty, aside from his legal duty.” 

“Debo Adegbile … wasn’t even asked to defend a murderer! He was just asked to sign an appeal on a technicality.” The 74-year-old Harkin was nearly shouting. “And because of that, and only because of that, he was excoriated here on the Senate floor.”

A quick primer in the facts: During the Abu-Jamal appeals, Adegbile was director of litigation for the nonprofit NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund (LDF). He was not the boss, and did not make the decision to get involved with Abu-Jamal’s appeal. When that man, John Payton, passed away in 2012, the LDF’s Christina Swarns read a note of appreciation from Abu-Jamal that he “was off death row, and, thanks to John, represented by one of the most respected civil rights litigation agencies in America.” Other accusations appear to be based on things Swarns said or did as lead attorney on the appeal, based on the idea that bosses are culpable for their subordinates’ behavior. 

As director of litigation and, after Payton’s death, interim director, Adegbile signed three briefs having to do with Abu-Jamal. They dealt with details that could have unfairly influenced the jury to choose the death sentence, not Abu-Jamal’s guilt or innocence. Adegbile never met Abu-Jamal, never represented Abu-Jamal in a courtroom, and did not write any part of the three briefs he signed.

But getting too into the weeds on whether the details are true, says Heidi Boghosian, executive director of the National Lawyers Guild and a graduate of Temple Law, distracts from the larger point. All attorneys, she says, have “an ethical duty to zealously represent [their] clients — to make sure that in a court of law they get the best defense the attorney is capable of giving.”  

The vote punishing Adegbile for the Abu-Jamal case, says Boghosian, “sends a strong message that attorneys must refrain from taking cases that law-enforcement officials deem controversial if they have any aspiration to hold public office. It’s insulting to the best tradition of the legal profession.” 

Adegbile’s nomination had seemed sure to pass the Senate a couple of weeks ago — Majority Leader Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.) only had to wrangle 50 votes (with Vice President Joe Biden on deck to break a tie) out of the 55 Democrats. Even planning for the defection of a few senators with tough races in November or from conservative districts, the votes would be there. But they forgot about Philly. 

Any Philadelphian could have told the Democrats why Sens. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) and Chris Coons (D-Del.) refused to vote in favor of Adegbile, thus leaving them unexpectedly short on votes. Three little words,“ties to Mumia,” still have power even when the connection is tenuous: In 2012, a Bucks County challenger to incumbent U.S. Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick found herself accused of having “ties to Mumia” because her husband had represented his literary agent once a decade ago. 

Fitzpatrick retained his seat, and he and Sen. Toomey led the coalition of Philadelphia-area politicians and law-enforcement officials, which included D.A. Seth Williams and Maureen Faulkner herself, that loudly opposed Adegbile’s nomination. Last week, Toomey told the Inquirer that his office had located the ammunition to sink Adegbile; according to the Inquirer, his staff had “scoured legal briefs, court opinions, YouTube videos, and obscure news reports to unearth statements by Adegbile’s associates that they tied to the nominee and then used to pressure Democrats to oppose him.”

Even if The West Wing is the extent of your knowledge of Washington, you know that Friday afternoon is traditionally when you dump news you’re not particularly proud of. (“Because nobody reads the paper on Saturday,” according to the show’s Josh Lyman.) 

Given that, we note that Casey, not up for reelection until 2018, dropped the news that he would be opposing Adegbile’s nomination late on the Friday afternoon before the vote. His statement concludes that it would be impossible to vote for him because of the “open wounds for Maureen Faulkner and her family as well as the City of Philadelphia.” The other local to switch sides unexpectedly, Coons, also cited “tremendous pain” to Faulkner’s widow.

Perhaps more insight can be found in something Casey said on the Senate floor on the day of the vote: “For many of my constituents, a vote for this nominee would have validated the actions of the supporters of Mr. Abu-Jamal.” Whatever the consequences are for Casey and Coons, who have undoubtedly pissed off both their caucus leadership and the White House something royal, they were probably correct in assuming that they won’t be as bad as a whiff of “ties to Mumia” come next election.