What are you talking about? Is Workman supposed to be a "poor shmuck" because the cop was black? Killing a cop is killing a cop, and it's long past time that Workman be punished for it.
Of course, Hildy and Walter Burns of The Morning Post expose the lousy low politics and corruption behind his execution and have his sentence commuted to life in prison. The politics is schmatzly, the characters kinda cute. Best line (by Walter Burns): "The last man that said that to me was Archie Leach, just a week before I cut his throat"