Abu-Jamal Seeks New Trial in Phila. Officer’s Slaying
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Emilie Lounsberry, Philadelphia Inquirer, July 8, 2008
Pennsylvania death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal has asked a federal appeals court to reconsider the decision that denied him a new trial in the 1981 slaying of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.
In late March, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit left intact Abu-Jamal’s conviction but said a new jury should decide whether he deserved death or should be sentenced to life behind bars.
{snip}
[Robert R. Bryan, the San Francisco lawyer representing Abu-Jamal with Widener University law professor Judith Ritter] contended that the panel should have ordered a hearing on Abu-Jamal’s contention that prosecutors intentionally excluded blacks from his jury in violation of a later 1986 U.S. Supreme Court decision.
They noted that one of the panel members, Judge Thomas Ambro, wanted a hearing held on that issue, and said the majority “has backed away from this Circuit’s historical commitment to equal justice for all.”
The three-judge panel affirmed the December 2001 ruling by U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr., who had thrown out the death sentence after concluding that the jury might have been confused by the trial judge’s instructions and wording on the verdict form filled out when the jury decided on death.
Yohn found that the jury might have mistakenly believed it had to agree unanimously on any mitigating circumstances—factors that might have persuaded jurors to decide on a life sentence, rather than death.
{snip}
While Abu-Jamal is appealing because he wants a new trial, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office could ask the U.S. Supreme Court to reinstate the death sentence. Assistant District Attorney Hugh Burns said last month that no decision had been made on whether to ask the high court to consider the matter.
{snip}
Email Emilie Lounsberry at elounsberry@phillynews.com.
(Posted on July 10, 2008)
Comments
This has to be one of the most disgraceful miscarriages and delays of justice in American history. Mumia Abu-Jamal should have been stoking the furnace for Satan years ago; instead he’s celebrated as a hero by lunkheads around the world.
If you want to learn about this case in all its disgusting, exasperating detail, read the book published early this year by Daniel Faulkner’s widow. I’m sorry but I can’t remember the name of the book now and am not in a position to look it up, but if you google Faulkner’s name the title of the book should turn up.
Posted by Wayne Engle at 10:53 PM on July 10
Here’s a fun fact most people are unaware of: while the cop-killer Jamal has long demanded a new trial due to the fact that there were “only” 2 blacks on the jury that convicted him in ‘82, there were originally 4 black jurors but Jamal, acting as his own lawyer, had 2 of them removed!
He tossed one because he was a law-and-order conservative Republican and the other because she was an eccentric who broke sequestration to care for her sick cat at home.
Posted by Madison Grant at 12:20 AM on July 11
“IF you want to learn about this case in all its disgusting, exasperating detail, read the book published early this year by Daniel Faulkner’s widow. I’m sorry but I can’t remember the name of the book now and am not in a position to look it up, but if you google Faulkner’s name the title of the book should turn up.”
Posted by Wayne Engle at 10:53 PM on July 10
Wayne,
The title is “Murdered by Mumiya” by Maureen Faulkner and coauthored with Michael Smerconish.
Posted by at 10:11 AM on July 11
Jamal acted as his own lawyer at trial? No wonder he got convicted! I’m going to take a wild guess and say that in addition to being a murdering street thug, he’s also not very bright.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 10:26 AM on July 11
What does it say about blacks when a black defendant feels he or she has good chance to get off if blacks are on the jury?
Posted by at 11:07 AM on July 11
I cannot believe this murderer is still garnering headlines. You have to hand it to him, though-he’s a con who has managed to “con” liberals, including celebrities, from so-called civilized countries. Not so dumb after all, is he?
Posted by Minerva at 12:16 PM on July 11
He was also made an honorary citizen of Paris and a street in one of the “banlieues” surrounding Paris was renamed for him.
Gee I wonder if Paris has any other openings for honorary citizens like maybe the Carr bruvahs or the beasts who murdered Eve Carson and Lauren Burk.
Posted by Taurus689 at 11:52 PM on July 11
If the French like murderers so much, perhaps they should rename Paris “Theodore Bundybourg”. We snuffed him for murder, too. He needed it, and nobody here is sorry.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 11:16 AM on July 12
“If the French like murderers so much, perhaps they should rename Paris “Theodore Bundybourg”. We snuffed him for murder, too. He needed it, and nobody here is sorry.”
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 11:16 AM on July 12
Michael,
I would guess that they like only murderers “de couleur”.
Posted by at 1:26 PM on July 13
Rue de Mumia Abu Jemal sounds revolting. Why not a “Reinhard Heydrich Strasse”, while they are at it? Taking an innocent person’s life away has been the worst crime people can imagine since we climbed down out of the trees and stopped being monkeys.
Does anyone really imagine that policeman was Jemal’s first victim? Officer Faulkner (“Falconer”) was probably only his first cop.
The French naming a street after this creep is an insult to the man’s poor wife.
Posted by Michael C. Scott at 8:59 PM on July 13
The US gov’t could learn alot from the Chinese on this point. In the case of the death penalty, people get one hearing, the facts are evaluated, and if they are found guilty, that’s it. No decade in jail wasting millions of taxpayer dollars, no endless series of appeals trying to weasel out through loopholes or technicalities, no rubbing injustice in the faces of the victim’s family. The death penalty is carried out swiftly and that’s that.
Posted by Student at 11:45 AM on July 14
I wish that the idiots who make a hero out this cop killer would do something more constructive, like fight to legalize marijuana or save the rain forests! It would wonderful if I could walk into a smokeshop, buy marijuana legally, take it home and smoke it!
When I was 14 in 1971, my hero was Abbie Hoffman and my favorite book was “Steal this Book”, written by this famous radical. But at least, Abbie did not kill anyone, like Wesley Cook a.k.a Mumia Abu-Jamal.
As resident of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, myself, I wish would the State of PA would just carry out the execution and get it over with!
Posted by Harry at 6:06 PM on July 14