PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal lost his bid for a new trial in the killing of a city police officer after the U.S. Supreme Court said Monday that it will not take up the case.
Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther and one-time radio reporter, had claimed prosecutors improperly excluded blacks from the jury that convicted him of murdering white Philadelphia police Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981.
Abu-Jamal's attorney, Robert R. Bryan of San Francisco, called his client's trial "a mockery of justice" and said Monday he would seek a rehearing by the high court.
But prosecutor Hugh Burns said that "for practical purposes, this was the last remotely realistic chance for getting a new trial."
Abu-Jamal's death sentence remains in limbo. The Supreme Court has not yet acted on the state's request to reinstate his capital punishment, said Burns, chief of the appeals unit for the Philadelphia district attorney's office.
A Philadelphia jury convicted Abu-Jamal in 1982.
Twenty-seven years on death row is long enough. It's time to end all the crapola and for some justice for the murdered cop and his family.
It's time to free Mumia...from his body.
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