Is Mumia Abu Jamal Off Death Row???
Top Cat | 19.12.2001 10:13
News is emerging that Mumia Abu Jamal, on death row for nearly 20 years, may have had a sentence reprieve. If this news is correct its an amazing development, considering the fallout from September 11 and the opportunity this affords the US state to repress acts of defiance. If anything we would have expected Mumia's fate to be sealed after S11. This article comes from Associated Press
PHILADELPHIA (AP) - A federal judge threw out Mumia Abu-Jamal's death sentence on Tuesday, ruling that the former journalist and Black Panther is entitled to a new sentencing hearing for killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981.
U.S. District Judge William Yohn ordered the state of Pennsylvania to conduct the hearing within 180 days.
"Should the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania not have conducted a new sentencing hearing ... the Commonwealth shall sentence petitioner to life imprisonment," the judge said in his 272-page ruling.
Yohn cited problems with the jury charge and verdict form, writing they "created a reasonable likelihood that the jury believed it was precluded from considering any mitigating circumstance that had not been found unanimously to exist."
Yohn denied all of Abu-Jamal's other claims, finding no "constitutional defects" in his post-trial proceedings and refusing his request for a new trial.
The ruling could be appealed to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.
Abu-Jamal was convicted of shooting Daniel Faulkner, 25, during the early-morning hours of Dec. 9, 1981, after the officer pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother in a downtown traffic stop.
Celebrities, death-penalty opponents and foreign politicians have since rallied to Abu-Jamal's cause, calling him a political prisoner and saying he was railroaded by a racist justice system.
Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe ruled Nov. 21 that she did not have jurisdiction over Abu-Jamal's petition for a new trial, scuttling his hopes for another round of state-court appeals.
Abu-Jamal exhausted the state appeals process two years ago, but a petition filed in September argued that the defense had new evidence to clear him, including a confession by a man named Arnold Beverly.
In a 1999 affidavit, Beverly claimed he was hired by the mob to kill Faulkner because the 25-year-old officer had interfered with mob payoffs to police.
Abu-Jamal's former lawyers, Leonard Weinglass and Daniel R. Williams, said they thought the confession was not credible and Yohn refused to order Beverly to testify on Abu-Jamal's behalf
U.S. District Judge William Yohn ordered the state of Pennsylvania to conduct the hearing within 180 days.
"Should the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania not have conducted a new sentencing hearing ... the Commonwealth shall sentence petitioner to life imprisonment," the judge said in his 272-page ruling.
Yohn cited problems with the jury charge and verdict form, writing they "created a reasonable likelihood that the jury believed it was precluded from considering any mitigating circumstance that had not been found unanimously to exist."
Yohn denied all of Abu-Jamal's other claims, finding no "constitutional defects" in his post-trial proceedings and refusing his request for a new trial.
The ruling could be appealed to the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals.
Abu-Jamal was convicted of shooting Daniel Faulkner, 25, during the early-morning hours of Dec. 9, 1981, after the officer pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother in a downtown traffic stop.
Celebrities, death-penalty opponents and foreign politicians have since rallied to Abu-Jamal's cause, calling him a political prisoner and saying he was railroaded by a racist justice system.
Philadelphia Common Pleas Judge Pamela Dembe ruled Nov. 21 that she did not have jurisdiction over Abu-Jamal's petition for a new trial, scuttling his hopes for another round of state-court appeals.
Abu-Jamal exhausted the state appeals process two years ago, but a petition filed in September argued that the defense had new evidence to clear him, including a confession by a man named Arnold Beverly.
In a 1999 affidavit, Beverly claimed he was hired by the mob to kill Faulkner because the 25-year-old officer had interfered with mob payoffs to police.
Abu-Jamal's former lawyers, Leonard Weinglass and Daniel R. Williams, said they thought the confession was not credible and Yohn refused to order Beverly to testify on Abu-Jamal's behalf
Top Cat
Comments
Display the following 3 comments