High court ruling in Mumia case

The U.S. Supreme Court yesterday tossed out a 2008 ruling by the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals that death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal deserved a new sentencing hearing.

Abu-Jamal, 55, has been on Pennsylvania's death row since his 1982 conviction in the killing of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner on Dec. 9, 1981.

The high court said in a one-paragraph order that they were sending the case back to the appeals court "for further consideration" in light of a ruling last week in an Ohio death-penalty case.

That case - which involved convicted murderer and neo-Nazi Frank Spisak - raised similar sentencing issues that were cited by the appeals court in the Abu-Jamal case in 2008.

Spisak claimed that jury instructions at his sentencing unconstitutionally required jurors to consider mitigating factors - factors that might have kept him off death row - only if each factor was found unanimously.

But the high court, in reversing a decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, said a new sentencing hearing on that issue was not merited.

Lawyers for both the District Attorney's Office here and Abu-Jamal said they weren't surprised by the Supreme Court's decision once it decided Spisak.

"We had asked the Supreme Court to take a look at [Abu-Jamal]," said Deputy District Attorney Ronald E. Eisenberg.

"They have agreed that the Court of Appeals' decision needs to be reconsidered. Whatever happens at that point, though, will not be the end of the case. There will be further appeals."

Robert R. Bryan, of San Francisco, Abu-Jamal's lead appellate attorney, said that although the issue in Spisak was the same, the facts of his case were different from Abu Jamal's.

However, if the Third Circuit were to find that Abu Jamal's circumstances are the same as Spisak's, it could reinstate the death penalty for Abu-Jamal.

"We have another very extensive round of litigation in the Court of Appeals," Bryan said, adding, "we all have our work cut out for us."

Faulkner's widow, Maureen, could not be reached for comment.

The appeals court's March 2008 decision had affirmed a lower court ruling in Dec. 2001 that upheld Abu-Jamal's murder conviction, but threw out his death sentence.

U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr. concluded that Abu-Jamal's jury might have been confused by the trial judge's instructions and wording on the verdict form when they decided on death.

Yohn concluded that jurors might have mistakenly believed they had to agree unanimously on any mitigating circumstances, factors that might have persuaded the jury to decide on a life sentence, rather than death.