Ex-Panther says racism put him on death row
Ex-Panther says racism put him on death row
- Story Highlights
- Mumia Abu-Jamal’s case has become an international cause
- He has two appeals before the U.S. Supreme Court
- Racism responsible for his conviction, death sentence, appeal says
- Abu-Jamal convicted in 1981 killing of Philadelphia police officer
CNN Supreme Court Producer
WASHINGTON (CNN) — Mumia Abu-Jamal sits on Pennsylvania’s death row, perhaps the most recognized of the 228 condemned inmates at the Greene Correctional Facility, an hour south of Pittsburgh.
Abu-Jamal, inmate AM8335, awaits three milestones. His new book, “Jailhouse Lawyers,” will be released next month. He’s also awaiting a pair of Supreme Court decisions, which could come in the next two weeks.
The former Black Panther was sentenced to die for gunning down a Philadelphia police officer 28 years ago. The high court will decide whether he deserves a new hearing to determine whether his execution should go forward.
The state is appealing a federal appeals court ruling on the sentencing question that went in Abu-Jamal’s favor last year.
The case has attracted international attention.
Abu-Jamal’s lawyers filed a separate appeal claiming that racism led to his 1982 conviction. That petition is scheduled for consideration by the Supreme Court on April 3. If either case is accepted by the justices for review, oral arguments would be held in the fall.
The former radio reporter and cab driver has been divisive figure, with many prominent supporters arguing that racism pervaded his trial.
Others counter that Abu-Jamal is using his skin color to escape responsibility for his actions. They say he has divided the community for years with his provocative writing and activism.
He was convicted for the December 9, 1981, murder of officer Daniel Faulkner, 25, in Philadelphia.
Faulkner had pulled over Abu-Jamal’s brother in a late-night traffic stop. Witnesses said Abu-Jamal, who was nearby, ran over and shot the police officer in the back and in the head.
Abu-Jamal, once known as Wesley Cook, was also wounded in the confrontation and later admitted to the killing, according to other witnesses’ testimony.
Abu-Jamal is black, and the police officer was white.
Incarcerated for nearly three decades, Abu-Jamal has been an active critic of the criminal justice system.
On a Web site created by friends to promote his release, the prisoner-turned-author writes about his fight. “This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multi-billion dollar endowed universities but in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America.”
His chief defense attorney, Robert Bryan, has filed appeals asking for a new criminal trial.
“The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection,” he wrote to supporters last month.
“We are in an epic struggle in which his life hangs in the balance. What occurs now in the Supreme Court will determine whether Mumia will have a new jury trial or die at the hands of the executioner,” Bryan said. Ten whites and two blacks made up the original jury panel that sentenced him to death.
A three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals kept the murder conviction in place a year ago but ordered a new capital sentencing hearing.
“The jury instructions and the verdict form created a reasonable likelihood that the jury believed it was precluded from finding a mitigating circumstance that had not been unanimously agreed upon,” Chief Judge Anthony J. Scirica wrote in the 77-page opinion.
The federal appeals court ultimately concluded that the jury was improperly instructed on how to weigh “mitigating factors” offered by the defense that might have kept Abu-Jamal off death row. Pennsylvania law at the time said jurors did not have to unanimously agree on a mitigating circumstance, such as the fact that Abu-Jamal had no prior criminal record.
Months before that ruling, oral arguments on the issue were contentious. Faulkner’s widow and Abu-Jamal’s brother attended, and demonstrations on both sides were held outside the courtroom in downtown Philadelphia.
If the Supreme Court refuses now to intervene on the sentencing issue, the city’s prosecutor would have to decide within six months whether to conduct a new death penalty sentencing hearing or allow Abu-Jamal to spend the rest of his life in state prison.
Many prominent groups and individuals, including singer Harry Belafonte, the NAACP and the European Parliament, are cited on his Web site as supporters.
Prosecutors have insisted that Abu-Jamal pay the price for his crimes and have aggressively resisted efforts to take him off death row for Faulkner’s murder.
“This assassination has been made a circus by those people in the world and this city who believe falsely that Mumia Abu-Jamal is some kind of a folk hero,” Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham said last year, when the federal appeals court upheld the conviction. “He is nothing short of an assassin.”
The city has honored the fallen police officer with a street designation and a commemorative plaque placed at the spot where he was shot and killed.
The officer’s widow, Maureen Faulkner, wrote a book two years ago about her husband and the case: “Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain and Injustice.” She writes that she was trying to “definitively lay out the case against Mumia Abu-Jamal and those who’ve elevated him to the status of political prisoner.”
All AboutMumia Abu-Jamal • U.S. Supreme Court
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My response by the title was here we go again, another using your race as an excuse case. I was right too when I read it fully. No matter what he assumed made him go on death row, he deserved the verdict. Killing a police officer randomly is no laughing matter and the act is pretty low. I’d give the man another trial and I bet you it will end up the same way, death. I simply would state that this case as being “eye for an eye”. In the end, this ex-panther should learn killing shoudn’t be let off easily and the concept of racial discrimination in court is just outrageous.
Extra Blog:
Sounds to me like he might have a decent case based on these things.
1. He was an Ex-Black Panther and we all know how much our countries leaders loved them.
2. The officer that was killed was white.
3.The susperct is a writer who has “provocative writing and (involved)activism.”
4.Ten whites and two blacks made up the original jury panel that sentenced him to death.
I can say for sure because the article doesnt mention enough information about the actual day of the killing. But this seems like some compelling arguments for racial discrimination.
I believe that if a white man had comitted the same act of murdering a police officer he would be sentenced to death row as well. The supporting circumstances provide plenty of evidence as to why this man is where he is today and it does not have anything to do with his race. This crime deserves a harsh punishment and the same would be give to anyone no matter their skin color. A murder is not to be taken lightly and this man needs to understand that what he did was wrong.
They should put this guy to death. He is exploiting the concept and the lawful defense of racism. This claim is quite significant due to the fact that this man is saying that the high court was racist toward him during his 1982 conviction. This man shot a police officer in the back of the head while the officer was conducting a traffic stop. Now all of a sudden this guy is a marter? No, he is a coward and deserves no mercy from the judicial system.
My initial reaction by the title was that the panther would bash the criminal justice system and all its entities due to the prejudice towards him because he’s black. I do think they should open up the case again. It is obvious that he feels very strongly towards this and he really does believe he has been treated unfairly due to the color of his skin and it needs to be taken seriously.
As far as him being released, I’ve never known a cop killer to go free. He deliberately shot the man and killed him. Whether he meant to kill him is irrelevant, although he did shoot him 2 different times and that is open to several variables. I don’t know whether or not he should be released because I feel that he needs a new trial first. I do feel that he should not get the death sentence because I do not believe in capital punishment.
This case can be looked at from the Social-Process school of criminology in particular the issue of labeling. In this case there is both positive and negative labeling. Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of murdering a police officer and because of this he is given the negative label of a murder. However he was a member of the black panthers which gave him the positive label of a human rights activist. In this situation the negative label will most likely out weight the positive one although he has many supporters who believe he was convicted because of racism.
By reading the article and some of the previous comments I can only agree, Mumia Abu-Jamal should be put to death. Racism or not, the killing of a police officer can not be ignored, and the way Mumia Abu-Jamal committed the murder was also cowardly.
Over the years, there has been plenty of questionable methods conducted by police officers where racism might have been influential, but in this case I do not see how Mumia Abu-Jamal could be removed from death row, considering he once admitted to the killing.
There is no proof that Mumbia murdered that police officer because of a hate crime, he was probably just trying to help his brother. However, being that he was in the Black Panthers, and that the police officer was white, there is certainly room to question it. As for mumbia arguing that he was sentenced to death because of racism, that is insane. He ran up to a police officer that was doing his ob, and shot him into the back, and in the head! If he would have been a white person to do that, he would have still been sentenced to death.
I believe that this is the problem with things today. Many people see crimes committed against them in black and white, and then they argue the system in black and white. If the jury would have been nothing but African American men, it would have been a tragedy for the same result would have not come from the trial. If he would have not been in the Black Panthers, not had a gun in the first place, and not killed that police officer; he would not have to worry about getting the death penalty because of racism. He killed in cold blood, and that is the only thing that people should see!
This was an interesting article to read because it did make me think about how the death penalty is distributed in this country. Statistics prove that there are more minority men on death row and more men than women. It made me wonder if the death penalty is handed out fairly in this country, because people of all sexes and races are committing violent crimes. Obviously some more than other, but consider this, for example, Casey Anthony is now facing the death penalty. There is a chance that jurors may hesitate to sentence her to death because she is a women, would that be the same situation for man? It is an interesting question to think about.
In terms of this story I found it wrong to use race as the reason for the death penalty, especially when the man in this article shot a police officer. In my book there are not too many crimes worse than that and I believe the death penalty is a justifiable sentence. A message for him is your race has nothing to do with you getting the death penalty; you got the death penalty because you shot a police officer.