WASHINGTON — Former Black Panther and convicted cop
killer Mumia Abu-Jamal will be spared the death penalty, the
Philadelphia district attorney announced Wednesday, bringing a quiet end
to a racially charged case that spanned 30 years.
Seth
Williams, the city’s top prosecutor, said Abu-Jamal will spend the rest
of his life in prison. He said the “decision to end this fight (over a
death sentence) was not an easy one to make,” and that he remained
convinced that Abu-Jamal was guilty as charged and deserved to die for
his crimes.
But he said he also had concluded
that prosecutors could not likely win another death sentence for the now
57-year-old convicted murderer in the face of steady opposition from
the federal courts. And he said he did not want to put the widow of
slain officer Daniel Faulkner through the ordeal of another sentencing
hearing.
“The survivors of Officer Faulkner have
suffered enough, and the best remaining option is to allow his murderer
to die in prison,” the district attorney said in a statement.
On
Dec. 9, 1981, Faulkner stopped a car driven by William Cook,
Abu-Jamal’s young brother. Seated in a taxi nearby, Abu-Jamal saw what
happened and ran to the scene. Witnesses said he exchanged gunfire with
the officer, who was hit multiple times and died at a hospital.
Abu-Jamal was arrested at the scene, and his revolver was found next to
him.
A radio reporter and a black activist,
Abu-Jamal had been a fierce critic of the police, and his trial,
conviction and death sentence turned his case into an international
cause celebre. Supporters asserted he had been framed by the police.
But
over many years and multiple appeals, state and federal courts upheld
his guilt for the murder. Federal judges, however, questioned the
process that led to his death sentence. Ten years ago, a federal judge
said the jury may have been confused over whether it could grant
leniency, and the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia affirmed that
decision in several rulings.
In October, the U.S.
Supreme Court refused to hear the district attorney’s appeal, leaving
Williams the option of convening a new jury to weigh a death sentence or
accepting the lesser sentence of life in prison without parole for
Abu-Jamal. Williams said he had decided on the latter.
“While
Abu-Jamal will no longer be facing the death penalty, he will remain
behind bars for the rest of his life, and that is exactly where he
belongs,” he said.
Maureen Faulkner said she accepted the decision reluctantly.
“My
family and I have endured a three-decade ordeal at the hands of Mumia
Abu-Jamal, his attorneys and his supporters,” she said. “After 30 years
of waiting, the time remaining before Abu-Jamal stands before his
ultimate judge doesn’t quite seem so far off as it once did when I was
younger. I look forward to that day.”
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