[Ppnews] Supreme Court blow to Mumia Abu-Jamal

[Political Prisoner News]

A Supreme Court blow to anti-death penalty icon Mumia Abu-Jamal

http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/content/view/print/274655

The Supreme Court on Tuesday reversed an appeals 
court ruling that would have given Mumia 
Abu-Jamal a chance to avoid the dealth penalty. 
Some opponents of capital punishment have championed Abu-Jamal's case.

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By 
<http://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/print/About/Contact/Staff-Writers/Warren-Richey>Warren 
Richey Staff writer
posted January 19, 2010 at 2:05 pm EST
Washington ­

Mumia Abu-Jamal, whose death sentence for killing 
a Philadelphia police officer in 1981 has become 
an international cause célèbre for opponents of 
capital punishment, has suffered a significant 
setback at the US Supreme Court.

In a summary order issued on Tuesday, the high 
court reversed a 2008 federal appeals court 
ruling that had required a new sentencing hearing for Mr. Abu-Jamal.

The Supreme Court action sends the case back to 
the Third US Circuit Court of Appeals in 
Philadelphia to reconsider the issue in light of 
a similar decision handed down last week by the 
high court. In that case, with similar facts, the 
justices voted 9 to 0 to reverse an order that struck down the death sentence.

Tuesday’s action by the Supreme Court likely 
moves Abu-Jamal significantly closer to execution.

Abu-Jamal’s writings about his legal plight have 
attracted widespread attention among human rights 
activists and capital punishment opponents in the 
US and Europe. He has maintained that the police 
coerced witnesses to testify against him and that 
racial prejudice and discrimination played a role in his death sentence.

This week, supporters began circulating a 
petition to President Obama and Attorney General 
Eric Holder calling for an investigation into the 
“long history of civil rights and constitutional violations in this case.”


The case against Abu-Jamal

The case stems from a December 1981 traffic stop 
in which Philadelphia police officer Daniel 
Faulkner pulled over a car driven by Abu-Jamal’s 
brother, William Cook. Abu-Jamal was a passenger 
in the car. A struggle broke out between Mr. Cook and Officer Faulkner.

According to witnesses, as the struggle continued 
Abu-Jamal ran back toward the car from a parking 
lot across the street and shot Faulkner in the 
back. The officer fell to the ground and returned 
fire, striking Abu-Jamal in the chest. Abu-Jamal 
then allegedly walked toward the officer, stood 
over him, and fired four more shots at close 
range. One shot struck Faulkner between the eyes.

He was convicted and sentenced to death. The jury 
found one aggravating factor – killing a police 
officer who was acting in the line of duty. The 
jury considered one mitigating factor, 
Abu-Jamal’s lack of a significant criminal record.

It is the sentencing phase of the trial that was 
under consideration in the appeal to the Supreme Court.


Confusion in sentencing?

Both a federal judge and a federal appeals court 
had ruled that the jury that sentenced Abu-Jamal 
to death might have been confused over how to 
properly assess mitigating evidence during the penalty phase of the trial.

At issue was whether jurors might have thought 
that they had to unanimously agree on each piece 
of mitigating evidence being weighed against the 
aggravating circumstances justifying a death sentence.

There is no unanimity requirement for jurors 
considering mitigating circumstances. They are 
free to consider anything that might weigh against a death sentence.

In contrast, all jurors must agree on any 
aggravating factors. In addition, jurors must 
unanimously decide that the prosecution has 
proved beyond a reasonable doubt that those 
aggravating factors outweigh any mitigating circumstances.


The 'Mills standard'

In some cases jurors have been given faulty 
instructions by the trial judge that jurors must 
unanimously agree on the mitigating factors. Such 
instructions are inaccurate and unconstitutional 
under a 1988 Supreme Court decision called Mills v. Maryland.

In the Mills case the high court ruled that a 
defendant must receive a new sentencing hearing 
whenever there is a “substantial possibility that 
reasonable jurors 
 well may have thought they 
were precluded from considering any mitigating 
evidence unless all 12 jurors agreed.”

In the Abu-Jamal case, the federal appeals court 
ruled that Abu-Jamal should either receive a new 
sentencing hearing or have his death sentence be changed to a life sentence.

Last Tuesday, the high court decided a similar 
case, Smith v. Spisak. The case was like 
Abu-Jamal’s in that a state court had upheld the 
jury instructions and verdict form, but a federal 
appeals court overturned that ruling after 
concluding that there was a violation of the Mills standard.


Supreme Court's decision

In the Spisak case, the high court reversed the 
federal appeals court in a decision that will 
make it harder in future cases to argue possible 
juror confusion short of a judge actually giving 
the wrong instructions to the jury.

“The instructions did not say that the jury must 
determine the existence of each individual 
mitigating factor unanimously,” Justice Stephen 
Breyer wrote in the majority opinion last week. 
“Neither the instructions nor the forms said 
anything about how – or even whether – the jury 
should make individual determinations that each 
particular mitigating circumstance existed.”

Justice Breyer added: “In our view the 
instructions and verdict forms did not clearly 
bring about, either through what they said or 
what they implied, the circumstances that Mills found critical.”

It will now be up to the Third Circuit to apply 
this new, tougher test to the facts of Abu-Jamal’s case.

The case is 
<http://origin.www.supremecourtus.gov/docket/08-652.htm>Beard v. Abu-Jamal.




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