As director of litigation for the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund, Debo Adegbile put himself at the center of a public campaign on behalf of convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal. Now President Obama has nominated this man to head the civil-rights division at the Justice Department.
And all that stands between Adegbile and his appointment is a Senate confirmation.
Let’s start at the beginning. In 1981, Abu-Jamal murdered Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. The evidence against him was overwhelming. He was convicted and sentenced to death.
The facts have never really been in doubt. But the left painted Abu-Jamal as the victim of a racist justice system, and over the course of three decades of appeals he became a cause célèbre. He delivered (via a recording) a commencement address for Antioch College. National Public Radio enlisted him for commentaries on crime. Paris declared him an honorary citizen.
In 2009, the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund decided to get in on the act. This meant more than simply legal representation (which Abu-Jamal already had). It meant orchestrating a public campaign impugning the justice system.
We suspect even the Democrats on the Judiciary Committee who voted for Adebgile’s nomination to proceed are uncomfortable with this record. Why else would they have prevented the widow of the slain police officer, Maureen Faulkner, from testifying before the committee?
Let’s hope the Senate does not compound one injustice with another by confirming this man to head a division touted as “the conscience of the federal government.”