He recalled reading a book that included the axiom, "The end of a society is when the evil cannot be punished, nor the good rewarded."
"That's the situation that sums it up for me right now," he told me. "This has been almost 30-some years and the whole system to me is being totally inept and manipulated."
That manipulation has benefited the man Ewalt believes carried out "an assassination, or execution."
When I told him that slain police Officer Daniel Faulkner's widow, Maureen, was back in court on Tuesday on what was the anniversary of her departure for her honeymoon with Daniel in Hawaii 31 years ago, he made it clear that his prayers are with her.
"I just feel sorry for her," he said. "It's been almost 30 years, and she's being dragged through this over and over and over again. And it's not encouraging for her or her family. And it's not encouraging for Officer Faulkner's family, the survivors or the police either, because it's just hung up in the air."
Ewalt is understandably disapproving of the celebrity status that Abu-Jamal has achieved while on death row and the worldwide notoriety, including the renaming of a street for him near Paris.
"To name a street in honor of a convicted felon is totally ludicrous. You usually would normally name a street or a statue to honor a fallen officer. Everything is backwards in this society."
And he means not just over there, but here, too.
"It's just unbelievable that his case has been permitted by the system to drag on for all these years with no resolution in it for the officer's family, and him, too."
I asked if it had been difficult for him to serve in the high-profile case.
"I went in and did my duty. I was called and I served," is all he would say.
