Coard noted that manslaughter is as different from murder as burglary is from robbery. Dawson's mother, Cynthia Dawson, praised Bright's ruling. It's important because there are corrupt cops out there. Many experts fault Abraham's handling of the DiPasquale prosecution that resulted only after mass protests by civil rights groups. Abraham's prosecutors conducted mini-trials during DiPasquale's two preliminary hearings, presenting nearly a dozen police witnesses, all but one of backing DiPasquale.
Prosecutors normally present one or two witnesses during preliminary hearings.
Another curious element in the DiPasquale hearings was the decision by prosecutors not to use a police report critical of the officer's actions. A Police Department Internal Affairs investigation ruled the Dawson shooting unjustified. Last summer another Philadelphia judge, Teresa Sarmina, ordered DA Abraham to file murder charges against two state parole board agents for their controversial 1997 shooting death of an unarmed parole violator. Abraham refused to file charges against the parole agents despite major discrepancies in their accounts of the fatal shooting inside a basement bedroom in front of the victim's wife and two small children. One agent shielded himself behind the wife when he fired at the surrendering man.