Post by bluepride on Dec 9, 2011 16:24:45 GMT -5
Execution Case Dropped Against Abu-Jamal
POLICE OFFICER DANIEL FAULKNER
Prosecutors in Philadelphia announced Wednesday that they had halted the state’s effort to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal, the death row inmate convicted of killing a police officer 30 years ago, whose subsequent legal case based on claims of innocence has received international attention.
Mr. Abu-Jamal will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole, said Seth Williams, the district attorney for Philadelphia.
“This has been a very, very difficult decision,” Mr. Williams said at a news conference, adding that he believed Mr. Abu-Jamal was guilty of the murder and should be executed. “The sentence was appropriate. That would have been the just sentence for this defendant.”
In April, a federal appeals court ordered a new sentencing hearing for Mr. Abu-Jamal because jurors had received potentially misleading instructions during his 1982 trial. In October, the United States Supreme Court declined to hear the case.
Mr. Williams said Wednesday that the appeals court ruling — and others that have spared Mr. Abu-Jamal’s life over the years — had led him to drop his pursuit of the death penalty, in part because witnesses are no longer available. He said he made the decision after discussing it with Maureen Faulkner, the widow of Daniel Faulkner, the slain police officer.
During his long stay on death row, Mr. Abu-Jamal, 57, a former Black Panther and radio reporter, became a vocal and — to some — convincing advocate of his own “Free Mumia” movement. That cause became particularly prominent around college campuses, where students collected donations for his legal defense fund and sold buttons and posters carrying images of his pensive face and long dreadlocks beneath that slogan. The Beastie Boys and Rage Against the Machine performed at a benefit concert on his behalf in 1999, and a suburb of Paris named a street after him in 2006.
The case has been played out repeatedly in court and the news media, and found a place in popular culture that has extended into the Internet age on blogs and Facebook pages. The trial was said to be either a miscarriage of justice based on racism, or a cut-and-dried murder of a law enforcement officer in which the issue of race prevented justice from being carried out. Mr. Abu-Jamal survived at least two execution dates — in August 1995 and December 1999.
On Wednesday, Ms. Faulkner, who appeared at the news conference with Mr. Williams and other city officials, said she had agreed to give up her advocacy for Mr. Abu-Jamal’s execution because the case had dragged on for too long.
At times, she employed stinging language to express her vexation at Mr. Abu-Jamal’s ability to avoid execution, calling the judges who overturned Mr. Abu-Jamal’s death sentence “dishonest cowards.”
Read article: Execution Case Dropped Against Abu-Jamal
It has been 30 years since Police Officer Daniel Faulkner was murdered by Wesley Cook (aka Mumia Abu Jamal) in Philadelphia. The story is well known to anyone in law enforcement. After being shot in the back by Cook, he (Cook) stood over the mortally wounded Police Officer Faulkner and shot him point blank in the face.
I urge everyone to read the real story of this case, "Murdered By Mumia" by Michael Smerconish and Maureen Faulkner. Maureen is the widow of Police Officer Faulkner.
I urge everyone to read the real story of this case, "Murdered By Mumia" by Michael Smerconish and Maureen Faulkner. Maureen is the widow of Police Officer Faulkner.
