Pennsylvania - Abdul-Salaam's mental health raised in appeal

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Abdul-Salaam's mental health raised in appeal

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By John Beauge | Special to PennLive 
on March 29, 2013 at 5:16 PM, updated March 29, 2013 at 10:09 PM

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Seifullah Abdul-Salaam, 41, of Harrisburg, was sentenced to death for the shooting death of New Cumberland police Officer Willis Cole. Abdul-Salaam was trying to escape after a 1994 coin shop robbery. Cole had detained Abdul-Salaam's getaway driver.

 The lawyer for the Harrisburg man awaiting execution for killing a New Cumberland police officer in 1984 disputes the prosecution’s position that  the evidence supports the conviction.
Michel Wiseman Friday filed a 40-page brief in U.S. Middle District Court in his continuing effort to have the conviction of Seifullah Abdul-Salaam overturned.
Wiseman accuses Abdul-Salaam’s trial counsel of failing to investigate mitigating evidence about his client’s traumatic life history and mental disturbances. Wiseman contends his client has organic brain damage.
Records confirm Abdul-Salaam was referred for mental health services starting when he was six and he was labeled as socially emotionally disturbed throughout his school years, he wrote.
The prosecution has argued trial counsel made “an educated decision” concerning the use of a mental health defense but Wiseman argues it was a deficient performance.
Wiseman also contends Abdul-Salaam’s due process rights were violated because he was convicted on the basis of false blood evidence and the prosecution suppressed the existence of additional which would have exposed the fabrication.
Cumberland County First Assistant District Attorney Jamie Keating has maintained Wiseman ignores testimony of eye witnesses and evidence that includes bloody clothes found at Abdul-Salaam’s house, his fingerprints in the getaway vehicle and his attempt to blame co-defendant Lynwood Scott Anderson.
In one of its rulings, the state Supreme Court found there was overwhelming evidence to conclude Abdul-Salaam killed Willis J. Cole on Aug. 19, 1994, as the officer was attempting to subdue Anderson following a coin shop robbery.
Anderson was convicted of second-degree murder and is serving a life prison sentence.
Editor's note: This story was altered to correct the name of the police officer killed and the date on which it occurred.