PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Prosecutors on Wednesday
abandoned their 30-year push to execute convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal,
the former Black Panther whose claim that he was the victim of a racist legal
system made him an international cause celebre.
Abu-Jamal, 58, will instead spend the rest of his
life in prison.
Flanked by police Officer Daniel Faulkner's widow,
Philadelphia District Attorney Seth Williams announced his decision two days
short of the 30th anniversary of the white patrolman's killing.
He said that continuing to seek the death penalty
could lead to "an unknowable number of years" of appeals, and that
some witnesses have died or are unavailable after nearly three decades.
"There's never been any doubt in my mind that
Mumia Abu-Jamal shot and killed Officer Faulkner. I believe that the
appropriate sentence was handed down by a jury of his peers in 1982," said
Williams, the city's first black district attorney. "While Abu-Jamal will
no longer be facing the death penalty, he will remain behind bars for the rest
of his life, and that is where he belongs."
Abu-Jamal was originally sentenced to death. His
murder conviction was upheld through years of appeals. But in 2008, a federal
appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing on the grounds that the
instructions given to the jury were potentially misleading.
After the U.S. Supreme Court declined to weigh in
two months ago, prosecutors were forced to decide whether to pursue the death
penalty again or accept a life sentence without parole.
Williams said he reached the decision with the
blessing of Faulkner's widow, Maureen.
"Another penalty proceeding would open the
case to the repetition of the state appeals process and an unknowable number of
years of federal review again, even if we were successful," the district
attorney said.
Widener University law professor Judith Ritter, who
represented Abu-Jamal in recent appeals, welcomed the move.
"There is no question that justice is served
when a death sentence from a misinformed jury is overturned," Ritter said.
"Thirty years later, the district attorney's decision not to seek a new
death sentence also furthers the interests of justice."
According to trial testimony, Abu-Jamal saw his
brother scuffle with the 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.
Over the years, Abu-Jamal challenged the
predominantly white makeup of the jury, the instructions given to the jurors
and the accounts of eyewitnesses. He also complained that his lawyer was
ineffective, that the judge was racist and that another man confessed to the
crime.
His writings and radio broadcasts from death row
put him at the center of an international debate over capital punishment and
made him the subject of books and movies. The one-time journalist's own 1995
book, "Live From Death Row," depicts prison life and calls the
justice system racist.
He garnered worldwide support from the "Free
Mumia" movement, with hundreds of vocal supporters and death-penalty
opponents regularly turning out for court hearings in his case.
His message resonated on college campuses and in
Hollywood. Actors Mike Farrell and Tim Robbins were among dozens of luminaries
who used a New York Times ad to call for a new trial, and the Beastie Boys
played a concert to raise money for Abu-Jamal's defense.
Faulkner's widow labored to ensure her husband was
not forgotten.
"My family and I have endured a three-decade
ordeal at the hands of Mumia Abu-Jamal, his attorneys and his supporters, who
in many cases never even took the time to educate themselves about the case
before lending their names, giving their support and advocating for his
freedom," she said Wednesday. "All of this has taken an unimaginable
physical, emotional and financial toll on each of us."
Amnesty International, which maintains that
Abu-Jamal's trial was "manifestly unfair and failed to meet international
fair trial standards," said the district attorney's decision does not go
far enough. Abu-Jamal still has an appeal pending before the Pennsylvania
Supreme Court over the validity of ballistics evidence.
"Amnesty International continues to believe
that justice would best be served by granting Mumia Abu-Jamal a new
trial," said Laura Moye, director of the human rights group's Campaign to
Abolish the Death Penalty.
Members of Philadelphia's police community stood
with Williams and Maureen Faulkner as the decision was announced. Former police
union president Rich Costello blasted the courts for ordering a new sentencing
hearing.
"Where do Maureen and the Faulkner family go
for a reduction in their sentence?" Costello said. "For 30 years now,
they have been forced to suffer grief, anguish, abuse, insults, intimidation,
threats and every other sort of indignity that can be visited on a family
already in grief."
Faulkner lashed out at the judges who overturned
the death sentence, calling them "dishonest cowards" who, she said,
oppose the death penalty. The widow also vowed to fight any special treatment
for Abu-Jamal behind bars, saying he should be moved to the general population
after being taken off death row.
"I will not stand by and see him coddled, as
he has been in the past," Faulkner said. "And I am heartened that he
will be taken from the protective cloister he has been living in all these
years and begin living among his own kind — the thugs and common criminals that
infest our prisons."
Associated Press writer Maryclaire Dale contributed
to this story.
Copyright
2011 The Associated Press.
Photo
Caption: In this
July 12, 1995 file photo, Mumia Abu-Jamal leaves Philadelphia's City Hall after
a hearing. District Attorney Seth Williams announced Wednesday, Dec. 7, 2011
that prosecutors will no longer pursue the death penalty against the former
Black Panther, meaning he will spend the rest of his life in prison for gunning
down a white police officer nearly 30 years ago. Abu-Jamal, who has been
incarcerated in a western Pennsylvania prison, has garnered worldwide support
from those who believe he was the victim of a biased justice system. (AP
Photo/Chris Gardner, File)
