Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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State appeals
Direct appeal of his conviction was considered and denied by the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania on March 6, 1989,[48] subsequently denying rehearing.[49] The Supreme Court of the United States denied his petition for writ of certiorari on October 1, 1990,[50] and denied his petition for rehearing twice up to June 10, 1991.[51][52]
On June 1, 1995, his death warrant was signed by Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge.[52] Its execution was suspended while Abu-Jamal pursued state post-conviction review. At the post-conviction review hearings, new witnesses were called. William "Dales" Singletary testified that he saw the shooting and that the gunman was the passenger in Cook's car.[53] Singletary's account contained discrepancies which rendered it "not credible" in the opinion of the court.[52][54] William Harmon, a convicted fraudster, testified that Faulkner's murderer fled in a car which pulled up at the crime scene, and could not have been Abu-Jamal.[55] However, Robert Harkins testified that he had witnessed a man stand over Faulkner as the latter lay wounded on the ground, who shot him point-blank in the face and then "walked and sat down on the curb".[56][57]
The six judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled unanimously that all issues raised by Abu-Jamal, including the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, were without merit.[58] The Supreme Court of the United States denied a petition for certiorari against that decision on October 4, 1999, enabling Ridge to sign a second death warrant on October 13, 1999. Its execution in turn was stayed as Abu-Jamal commenced his pursuit of federal habeas corpus review.[52]
In 1999, Arnold Beverly claimed that he and an unnamed assailant, not Mumia Abu-Jamal, shot Daniel Faulkner as part of a contract killing because Faulkner was interfering with graft and payoff to corrupt police.[59] The Beverly affidavit became an item of division for Mumia's defense team, as some thought it usable and others rejected Beverly's story as "not credible".[60]
Private investigator George Newman claimed in 2001 that Chobert had recanted his testimony.[61] Commentators also noted that police and news photographs of the crime scene did not show Chobert's taxi, and that Cynthia White, the only witness at the trial to testify to seeing the taxi, had previously provided crime scene descriptions that omitted it.[62] Cynthia White was declared to be dead by the state of New Jersey in 1992 although Pamela Jenkins claimed that she saw White alive as late as 1997.[63] Mumia supporters often claim that White was a police informant and that she falsified her testimony against Abu-Jamal.[64] Priscilla Durham's step-brother, Kenneth Pate, who was imprisoned with Abu-Jamal on other charges, has since claimed that Durham admitted to not hearing the hospital confession.[65] The hospital doctors stated that Abu-Jamal was "on the verge of fainting" when brought in and they did not overhear a confession.[66] In 2008, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania rejected a further request from Abu-Jamal for a hearing into claims that the trial witnesses perjured themselves on the grounds that he had waited too long before filing the appeal.[67]
On March 26, 2012 the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania rejected his most recent appeal for retrial asserted on the basis that a 2009 report by the National Academy of Science demonstrated that forensic evidence put by the prosecution and accepted into evidence in the original trial was unreliable.[68][69] It was reported to be the former death row inmate's last legal appeal.[70]
Federal ruling directing resentencing
Abu-Jamal did not make any public statements about Faulkner's murder until May 2001. In his version of events, he claimed that he was sitting in his cab across the street when he heard shouting, then saw a police vehicle, then heard the sound of gunshots. Upon seeing his brother appearing disoriented across the street, Abu-Jamal ran to him from the parking lot and was shot by a police officer.[71] The driver originally stopped by police officer Faulkner, Abu-Jamal's brother William Cook, did not testify or make any statement until April 29, 2001, when he claimed that he had not seen who had shot Faulkner.[72]
Judge William H. Yohn Jr. of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania upheld the conviction but vacated the sentence of death on December 18, 2001, citing irregularities in the original process of sentencing.[52] Particularly,
... the jury instructions and verdict sheet in this case involved an unreasonable application of federal law. The charge and verdict form created a reasonable likelihood that the jury believed it was precluded from considering any mitigating circumstance that had not been found unanimously to exist.[52]
He ordered the State of Pennsylvania to commence new sentencing proceedings within 180 days[73] and ruled that it was unconstitutional to require that a jury's finding of circumstances mitigating against determining a sentence of death be unanimous.[74] Eliot Grossman and Marlene Kamish, attorneys for Abu-Jamal, criticized the ruling on the grounds that it denied the possibility of a trial de novo at which they could introduce evidence that their client had been framed.[75] Prosecutors also criticized the ruling; Officer Faulkner's widow Maureen described Abu-Jamal as a "remorseless, hate-filled killer" who would "be permitted to enjoy the pleasures that come from simply being alive" on the basis of the judgment.[76] Both parties appealed.
Federal appeal
On December 6, 2005, the Third Circuit Court admitted four issues for appeal of the ruling of the District Court:[77]
in relation to sentencing, whether the jury verdict form had been flawed and the judge's instructions to the jury had been confusing;
in relation to conviction and sentencing, whether racial bias in jury selection existed to an extent tending to produce an inherently biased jury and therefore an unfair trial (the Batson claim);
in relation to conviction, whether the prosecutor improperly attempted to reduce jurors' sense of responsibility by telling them that a guilty verdict would be subsequently vetted and subject to appeal; and
in relation to post-conviction review hearings in 1995–6, whether the presiding judge, who had also presided at the trial, demonstrated unacceptable bias in his conduct.
The Third Circuit Court heard oral arguments in the appeals on May 17, 2007, at the United States Courthouse in Philadelphia. The appeal panel consisted of Chief Judge Anthony Joseph Scirica, Judge Thomas Ambro, and Judge Robert Cowen. The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania sought to reinstate the sentence of death, on the basis that Yohn's ruling was flawed, as he should have deferred to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court which had already ruled on the issue of sentencing, and the Batson claim was invalid because Abu-Jamal made no complaints during the original jury selection. Abu-Jamal's counsel told the Third Circuit Court that Abu-Jamal did not get a fair trial because the jury was both racially-biased and misinformed, and the judge was a racist.[78] The last of those claims was made based on the statement by a Philadelphia court stenographer named Terri Maurer-Carter who, in a 2001 affidavit, stated that Judge Sabo had said "Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the ******" in the course of a conversation regarding Abu-Jamal's case.[79] Sabo denied having made any such comment.[80]
On March 27, 2008, the three-judge panel issued a majority 2–1 opinion upholding Yohn's 2001 opinion but rejecting the bias and Batson claims, with Judge Ambro dissenting on the Batson issue. On July 22, 2008, Abu-Jamal's formal petition seeking reconsideration of the decision by the full Third Circuit panel of 12 judges was denied.[81] On April 6, 2009, the United States Supreme Court also refused to hear Abu-Jamal's appeal.[8] On January 19, 2010, the Supreme Court ordered the appeals court to reconsider its decision to rescind the death penalty,[9][82] with the same three-judge panel convening in Philadelphia on November 9, 2010, to hear oral argument.[83][84] On April 26, 2011, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed its prior decision to vacate the death sentence on the grounds that the jury instructions and verdict form were ambiguous and confusing.
Death penalty dropped
On December 7, 2011, Philadelphia District Attorney R. Seth Williams announced that prosecutors would no longer seek the death penalty for Abu-Jamal.[11] Williams said that Abu-Jamal will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole,[85] a sentence that was duly reaffirmed by the Superior Court of Pennsylvania on July 9, 2013.[86]
At the end of January 2012 he was released into general prison population at State Correctional Institution – Mahanoy.[98]
Mumia Abu-Jamal - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
I hate Wiki but it is a lot better than anything coming out of Judicial Watch. So, no. It does not mean that he is an avid supporter.
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