Attorneys: Ex-Black Panther's trial was biased / LJWorld.com

Archive for Saturday, May 19, 2007

The Associated Press

May 19, 2007

Philadelphia — Attorneys for former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal argued to an appeals court Thursday that racism by a judge and prosecutors corrupted the 1982 trial at which he was condemned for killing a white police officer.

Abu-Jamal, 53, once a radio reporter, has attracted a legion of artists and activists to his cause in a quarter-century on death row.

A federal judge overturned Abu-Jamal's death sentence in 2001 but upheld his conviction. Both sides are appealing that order.

The appeals panel is weighing three issues: whether the trial judge was racially biased, whether the judge erred in instructing jurors on the death penalty and whether the prosecution improperly eliminated black jurors.

Ten whites and two blacks served on the jury that convicted Abu-Jamal. Prosecutors struck 10 blacks and five whites from the pool, while accepting four blacks and 20 whites, Bryan said.

But the judges suggested they needed to know the racial makeup of the approximately 150-person jury pool before they could determine whether the selection had been biased.

The jury convicted Abu-Jamal of killing Officer Daniel Faulkner, 25, after the patrolman pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother, William Cook, in an overnight traffic stop. Prosecutors call the evidence against Abu-Jamal overwhelming. Most important, Abu-Jamal was shot - by Faulkner, prosecutors say - and still at the scene when police arrived.