PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia prosecutors will
have to pursue a second death-penalty sentence for convicted police killer
Mumia Abu-Jamal or accept a life sentence after the U.S. Supreme Court declined
Tuesday to review the racially charged case.
Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther, has spent nearly
30 years on death row after his 1982 conviction for killing white officer
Daniel Faulkner.
A federal appeals court this year upheld his
conviction, but agreed the death-penalty instructions were potentially
misleading and ordered a new sentencing hearing.
City prosecutors appealed that order, but must now
decide whether to pursue the death penalty for a second time. Only three people
have been executed in Pennsylvania since 1976, and none since 1999.
The officer's widow, Maureen Faulkner, had
supported the city's appeal, but wondered Tuesday whether it was time to end
the long-running drama. A re-hearing would cost the city millions, and keep
Abu-Jamal in the media spotlight, she said. And many of the relevant witnesses
are dead.
"He does get in the spotlight, and you just
don't know which way it's going to go," the 54-year-old Faulkner said from
her home in southern California. "I have to think of the city of
Philadelphia and the costs it would incur to open a new hearing. Any logical
person would, after 30 years."
Abu-Jamal's writings and radio broadcasts from
death row have made him a cause celebre and the subject of numerous books,
movies and death-penalty protests. Other books, one by Maureen Faulkner, have
supported her point of view.
Prosecutors plan to take some time before deciding
their next move, District Attorney Seth Williams said in a statement.
Widener University law professor Judith Ritter and
the NAACP Legal Defense & Educational Fund represented Abu-Jamal in the
latest appeal.
"At long last, the profoundly troubling
prospect of Mr. Abu-Jamal facing an execution that was produced by an unfair
and unreliable penalty phase has been eliminated," said John Payton,
president of the fund. "Our system should never condone an execution that
stems from a trial in which the jury was improperly instructed on the
law."
According to trial testimony, Abu-Jamal saw his
brother scuffle with the 25-year-old patrolman during a 4 a.m. traffic stop in
1981 and ran toward the scene. Police found Abu-Jamal wounded by a round from
Faulkner's gun. Faulkner, shot several times, was killed. A .38-caliber
revolver registered to Abu-Jamal was found at the scene with five spent shell casings.
Tuesday's decision upholds a 2001 ruling by U.S.
District Judge William H. Yohn Jr., who first ruled that Abu-Jamal deserved a
new sentencing hearing because of flawed jury instructions on aggravating and
mitigating factors.
Philadelphia prosecutors fought the decision, but
the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled against them in 2008.
The U.S. Supreme Court heard an Ohio case involving
similar sentencing issues last year, but rejected the inmate's claim — and
ordered the 3rd Circuit to revisit its Abu-Jamal decision.
However, the Philadelphia-based court stood its
ground in April, insisting the two cases were different.
Under Pennsylvania law, Abu-Jamal should have
received a life sentence if a single juror found the mitigating circumstances
outweighed the aggravating factors in Faulkner's slaying. The 3rd Circuit found
the verdict form confusing, given its repeated use of the word
"unanimous," even in the section on mitigating circumstances.
Williams has conceded that courts in Philadelphia
and the U.S. "have had a history of problems and racism," while
adding of the Faulkner case, "This is not a whodunit."
Abu-Jamal, a radio journalist and cab driver born
Wesley Cook, is now 57.
Maureen Faulkner wants him mixed into the general
prison population if she and prosecutors agree to a term of life without
parole. She believes he now has an enviable setup as a world-famous inmate,
with access to a law library and computer.
"I think he's got his nice little cottage
industry going from prison," she said. "He lives each and every day
like he's going to work."
Copyright
2011 The Associated Press.
