Mumia Abu-Jamal
Mumia Abu-Jamal (born Wesley Cook April 24, 1954) is an American former activist and journalist who was convicted and sentenced to death on July 3, 1982, for the December 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. His sentence was commuted to life imprisonment without parole in December 2011 after District Attorney Seth Williams decided to end the pursuit of the death penalty with the support of the victim's family. Activists, celebrities, and political organizations have criticized the fairness of his trial or opposed his death penalty. The Faulkner family, public authorities, and police organizations maintain that he was properly convicted and appropriately sentenced to death. Once described as "perhaps the world's best known death-row inmate" by The New York Times, during his imprisonment he has published books and commentaries on social and political issues, including Live from Death Row (1995). Abu-Jamal became involved in black nationalism in his youth and was a member of the Black Panther Party until October 1970. While a self described "lieutenant of Information" for the party, he quoted Mao Zedong during one of his interviews, saying that "political power grows out of the barrel of a gun". He was closely involved with the leftist organization MOVE that protested police brutality and was involved in several incidents that included conflict with the police, violence, and homicide. After leaving the party, he became a radio journalist – eventually becoming president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. On December 9, 1981, Officer Faulkner was shot dead in Philadelphia while he was conducting a traffic stop on Abu-Jamal's brother, William Cook. Faulkner was shot in the back and then again while lying on the pavement. Abu-Jamal was injured by a shot from Faulkner and was taken to Thomas Jefferson University Hospital where two police officers and a black security guard, Priscilla Durham, reportedly heard Abu-Jamal shout out, "I shot the Mother Fucker, and I hope the Mother Fucker dies." Abu-Jamal was arrested and charged with first degree murder. Abu-Jamal attempted to represent himself at his 1982 trial but was repeatedly reprimanded for disruptive behavior and given a court-appointed lawyer. Three witnesses testified that they had witnessed Abu-Jamal commit the murder, and he was unanimously convicted by the racially mixed jury (2 blacks and 10 non-blacks) and sentenced to death. He spent the next 30 years on death row. In 2008, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Third Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the murder conviction but ordered a new capital sentencing hearing because the jury was improperly instructed. Subsequently, the United States Supreme Court also allowed his conviction to stand, but ordered the appeals court to reconsider its decision as to the sentence. In 2011, the Third Circuit again affirmed the conviction, as well as its decision to vacate the death sentence, and the District Attorney of Philadelphia announced that prosecutors would no longer seek the death penalty. He was removed from death row in January 2012, and in March 2012 the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled that all claims of new evidence put on his behalf did not warrant conducting a retrial.