Gotcha!!!

A little respite for The Thin Blue Line!

Abu Jamal Denied A New Trial

US Supreme Court Affirms Prior Ruling
By MICHAEL P. TREMOGLIE, The Bulletin
Tuesday, April 07, 2009

The United States Supreme Court yesterday rejected convicted cop killer Mumia Abu Jamal’s petition for a new trial.

Mr. Abu Jamal was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982 for the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in December 1981.

Mr. Abu Jamal’s attorneys sought to obtain a new trial for their client on the grounds that black jurors had been unfairly excluded from his trial. In March 2008, a three-judge panel of the federal Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia upheld Mr. Abu Jamal’s conviction and refused to order a new trial; however, it voided his death sentence. The court overturned his death sentence after it found the jury received flawed instructions during his trial’s penalty phase.

Since his conviction, there has been a campaign both in the United States and Europe to have Mr. Abu Jamal freed.

Marxist groups such as the International People’s Democratic Uhuru Movement, which recently issued held a rally supporting the killer of four Oakland, Calif., police officers, has supported Mr. Abu Jamal, as has the Communist Workers World Party. Actor Ed Asner has been among the more famous of Mr. Abu Jamal’s supporters.

Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne M. Abraham expressed relief yesterday after she learned about the Supreme Court decision.

“This means that Mumia Abu Jamal’s murder conviction stands, and he lost his appeal. The Third Circuit’s opinion that he received a fair trial is affirmed,” Ms. Abraham said in a statement. “It is a pity that Maureen Faulkner had to go through the last 26 years to hear what she knew from the beginning: that Jamal murdered her husband, Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, in cold blood.”

Joey Vento, owner of Geno’s Steaks, who has been at the forefront of a campaign to ensure that Mr. Abu Jamal serves his original sentence, expressed mixed emotions after hearing of the decision.

“ It’s good, but now the guy should be executed. He should have been executed before,” he said. “I’m glad that he lost his appeal, but now he will just write some more books, make more speeches and have more streets named after him.”

The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania is seeking to reimpose the death penalty, and its petition asking the United States Supreme Court restore Mr. Abu Jamal’s death sentence is still pending.

Michael P. Tremoglie can be contacted at mtremoglie@thebulletin.us