December 25-31, 2003

city beat

Fumble Recovery

Free Expression: Acquitted of murder, Azairah Padgett walked out of jail after 18 months. Photo By: Michael T. Regan

One of the Daily News' faux fugitives goes free.

by Deborah Bolling

Last week, Azairah Padgett appeared calm and at peace standing in the rain outside the Criminal Justice Center. On the corner of Filbert Street, he looked a lot smaller and less intimidating than he appeared in the mug shot that ran on the front page of the Daily News 15 months earlier. At that time, Padgett was labeled a murderer and a fugitive. A few days ago, Padgett beat a murder rap that carried with it the death penalty. Now vindicated, he is soft-spoken and reserved.

"I was acquitted of all charges," Padgett says. "There was no evidence that I had done anything. The verdict was not guilty."

A year ago, Padgett was at the center of a media controversy when he was wrongly featured in the Daily News under the ominous headline, "Fugitives Among Us." Padgett's mother, Etta Fabian, contacted City Paper to draw attention to the mistake.

"He was already in there," she said at the time. "Why'd they have to put him on that cover?"

Charged as the sole suspect in the murder of a Southwest Philadelphia man, Padgett was imprisoned at Philadelphia Industrial Corrections Center for nearly 18 months. Despite his incarceration, Padgett was one of 17 men whose faces were splashed across the cover of the Aug. 22, 2002 edition of the newspaper. The story focused on 41 men -- all non-white -- identified by Philadelphia police as murder suspects on the lam. CP discovered that like Padgett, three others were already behind bars: Two had been mistakenly featured in the body of the story; Padgett and another had landed on the cover in error. Further, one man's face appeared in three different places on that same page.

The sensationalized spread was preceded two days earlier by a front-page story with a pictorial layout highlighting a cheerful white family. That headline read, "Just Like Us." The two covers, so starkly opposed, seemed to send an unmistakable racial message.

For weeks, the DN weathered the harangue that accompanied what some thought was yet another story that unjustly marginalized men of color. Within a month, a group of African-American business, clergy and political leaders, under the moniker Coalition for Fair News Coverage, mounted a boycott against the tabloid, citing repeated offenses lobbed against the city's black and Hispanic male population.

Soon after the story ran, the DN offered a terse apology to its black readership in its pages.

"The front page photos from last Thursday sent the message to some readers that only black men commit murder," it read. "That was a mistake."

Padgett's murder trial came to a close after two and half days of testimony and a 90-minute jury deliberation.

David Mischak, Padgett's Center City lawyer, says that initially police indicated that they had a strong case against Padgett, but none of the key witnesses appeared in court. A witness who did show up, whom police had identified as a friend of Padgett's, offered conflicting testimony under both direct and cross-examination.

"The jury had a problem with the witness who implicated [Padgett]," Mischak

says. "They didn’t believe him. In addition, there was no gun, no fingerprints and no physical evidence of any kind. The District Attorney’s office had collected statements from witnesses. But they clearly didn’t analyze the statements to check the veracity of what the witnesses had said. This kind of thing happens more than a lot of people would expect. But, now it’s over and done with. This case is in the history books."

The DA’s office says the wheels of justice seemed to have spun in Padgett’s favor.

"We prosecute cases and sometimes witnesses who were good going in don’t testify and the cases go south," says Cathie Abookire, spokesperson for District Attorney Lynne Abraham. "It doesn’t mean that someone was falsely arrested. It means that they were found not guilty on the evidence that’s available. There is no finding of innocence in our justice system. You’re either guilty or not guilty. That’s it."

But Padgett’s mother, Etta Fabian, is deeply concerned that her son was the victim of a double-barreled assault. In jail for a crime she was certain he hadn’t committed, she’s still angry that her oldest son was cast in another ugly spotlight when his photograph erroneously showed up on the cover of the tabloid. Fabian says the union between the criminal justice system and the media exacerbated an already painful situation. Although Fabian admits that Padgett has had a few prior brushes with the law on misdemeanor drug charges, she says he has never been prone to violence. She insists that none of this should have ever happened.

"I feel as though this is something [the criminal justice system] does all the time. They took 18 months out of my son’s life for nothing," Fabian says. "They accused him of something he didn’t do and then the Daily News slandered him by putting his picture all over the paper. They acted like he was guilty. And they judged him wrong. This is not justice."

Ellen Foley, the managing editor who oversaw the controversial DN editorial spread featuring Padgett, reacted coolly to his release.

"Justice has been served," she said tersely. "Our mission is to encourage truth and justice in the community."

Last week, Bruce Crawley, chairman of the African-American Chamber of Commerce and president of his own public relations firm, and a member of Coalition for Fair News Coverage, the organization that spearheaded what amounted to an unsuccessful boycott of the DN, was back on the mount.

While Crawley offered polite accolades regarding Padgett’s release, he was more focused on reinvigorated charges against the DN for its "continued biased coverage of African Americans." This time, though, the group feels Mayor John Street is in the crosshairs. Crawley and his organization held a press conference Dec. 19 to rail against what they say is excessive and unfair scrutiny of the Street administration following the mysterious FBI probe discovered just before the politician’s handy re-election. They charge that other blacks in business are also being unfairly targeted as a result.

"The Inquirer and the Daily News are caught in a legitimate effort to cover the probe, but they’re focusing exclusively on African Americans," Crawley says. "As journalists, they should look beyond the narrow racial channel they’re looking at."

When Padgett’s face appeared on the cover of the DN, Fabian says she reached out to Crawley for help. He offered none and says he has no record of the mother’s request. These days Crawley is apparently still more concerned with other things.

"Did you see yesterday’s Daily News?" he asks. "That headline, "Free at Last’ [referring to Essie Mae Washington-Williams, the black daughter of white segregationist Strom Thurmond who announced her secret lineage the day before]. It was horrible. Here’s a woman who’s the result of the rape of a 16-year-old and they’re quoting Dr. Martin Luther King. They never learn. They’re incorrigible."

Padgett has his own challenges. He says that during his incarceration his life was put on hold, leaving him unable to support his son. Adding to his woes, his new girlfriend left him.

"I was worried because I had a lot on the line," he says. "Even though I was acquitted, the arrest will stay on my rap sheet and my picture will always be on the cover of that newspaper. I can’t really explain how I feel right now. I’m just happy to be out."