Mumia Execution Blocked, Pending New Hearing

Hundreds of people protested outside the federal building in Philadelphia in May and an overflow crowd — including legal scholars, students, lawyers, the policeman’s widow and Abu-Jamal’s brother — filled the courtroom when the appeals court heard arguments about the case.

[National News]

A federal appeals court on Thursday said former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal cannot be executed for murdering a Philadelphia police officer without a new penalty hearing.

The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Abu-Jamal’s conviction should stand, but that he should get a new sentencing hearing because of flawed jury instructions. If prosecutors don’t want to give him a new death penalty hearing, Abu-Jamal would be sentenced automatically to life in prison.

Abu-Jamal, 53, once a radio reporter, has attracted a legion of artists and activists to his cause in a quarter-century on death row. A Philadelphia jury convicted him in 1982 of killing Officer Daniel Faulkner, 25, after the patrolman pulled over Abu-Jamal’s brother in an overnight traffic stop.

He had appealed, arguing that racism by the judge and prosecutors corrupted his conviction at the hands of a mostly white jury. Prosecutors, meanwhile, had appealed a federal judge’s 2001 decision to grant Abu-Jamal a new sentencing hearing because of the jury instructions.

Hundreds of people protested outside the federal building in Philadelphia in May and an overflow crowd — including legal scholars, students, lawyers, the policeman’s widow and Abu-Jamal’s brother — filled the courtroom when the appeals court heard arguments about the case.

The officer’s widow, Maureen Faulkner, has kept her husband’s memory alive over the years, and recently co-wrote a book about the case. The book, “Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain and Injustice,” written with radio talk-show host Michael Smerconish, came out in December.


(The Associated Press)

 

Note: “Journalists for Mumia” organization is extremely disappointed by this decision because Mumia should have been granted a new trial. Protest actions are planned for Friday (3/28), including in New York City at The Adam Clayton Powell State Office Building (125th St. and Adam Clayton Powell Jr. Blvd.) at 5pm. For the latest updates, go to www.freemumia.com

To comment, to subscribe to or advertise in New York’s leading Pan African weekly investigative newspaper, please call (212) 481-7745 or send a note to

[email protected]

Also visit out sister publications Harlem Business News

www.harlembusinessnews.com publications and The Groove Music magazine www.thegroovemag.com

“Speaking Truth To Power.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *