Abu-Jamal Seeks New Trial in Phila. Officer’s Slaying

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.

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[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.

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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.

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