Mumia Abu-Jamal Loses Bid for New Trial
Email this page Print April 6, 2009
Supreme Court Acts; Death Sentence Still in Dispute
Mumia Abu-Jamal, the radio journalist and death-row inmate whose case has become an international rallying point against the death penalty, lost his case for a new trial on Monday when the Supreme Court let stand his conviction for gunning down a Philadelphia police officer 28 years ago.
Mumia Abu Jamal
The case of Abu-Jamal, president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists at the time of his arrest, has drawn heated passions over the years, but many who were unwilling to declare him innocent did support granting him a new trial.
"The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection," his chief defense attorney, Robert Bryan, wrote to supporters last month. Ten whites and two blacks made up the original jury panel that sentenced Abu-Jamal to death, CNN reported.
"This is another terribly dark day for justice in this country!" Hans Bennett, a co-founder of the group Journalists for Mumia told supporters.
"This Supreme Court decision again underscores the 'Mumia Exception' where courts reject granting this inmate the same legal relief given to others raising the same legal points," Linn Washington, a longtime Philadelphia journalist and Abu-Jamal supporter, told Journal-isms.
"Ample evidence exists documenting improprities by the prosecutor during jury selection at Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial — the same pattern of improprities that state and federal courts have cited in overturning over a dozen murder convictions in Philadelphia occuring before, during and after the trial of Abu-Jamal . . . none of which [involve] a black charged with killing a white police officer," said Washington, author of a book on African American judges.
Abu-Jamal himself agreed. In a prison interview posted by supporters, he said, "The law is politics by other means. The Constitution means nothing."
The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia upheld Abu-Jamal's conviction but held his death sentence invalid. The appeals court said it would not second-guess state court rulings rejecting Abu-Jamal's claims of bias in the composition of the jury, the Associated Press said.
"The high court considered only the conviction. The state has separately asked the court to reinstate the death sentence, but the justices have not acted on that request."
A Philadelphia jury convicted Abu-Jamal of killing Daniel Faulkner, who was white, in 1981 after the patrolman pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother during an overnight traffic stop. Abu-Jamal was working as a cab driver at the time.
"Prosecutors say Faulkner, 25, managed to shoot Abu-Jamal during the confrontation. A wounded Abu-Jamal, his own gun lying nearby, was still at the scene when police arrived, and authorities considered the evidence against him overwhelming," the AP said.
While in prison, Abu-Jamal has remained active writing and speaking. So have his supporters. In 2004, the NAACP reaffirmed previous stances against the death penalty and passed its first-ever convention-approved support "of the international movement for a new and fair trial for Mumia Abu- Jamal."
Activists had taken the issue of Abu-Jamal to the National Association of Black Journalists convention in Philadelphia in 1995, shortly before Abu-Jamal was scheduled to be executed.
Then-president Dorothy Gilliam supported a new trial for Abu-Jamal in her Washington Post column, as did several black newspapers, but NABJ was reluctant to take a position on Abu-Jamal's guilt or innocence, not only because its members are journalists and believed they should keep their distance from that kind of activism, but because members noted other cases around the country they thought deserved the same level of attention.
In the end, NABJ decried violations of Abu-Jamal's First Amendment rights, filed a friend-of-the-court brief to that effect and urged "a full an accurate review by the judicial system of the state of Pennsylvania" of new information that might have developed.
It also decried actions by the activists. "Instead of developing a winning partnership with us, NABJ has been targeted by various groups and individuals for ridicule and scorn," the board said in a statement. "Instead of working side-by-side with a powerful ally such as the nation's news media, we have been used as the scapegoat."
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