On September 10, 2024, the Pennsylvania Superior Court affirmed a Philadelphia court’s dismissal of Mumia Abu-Jamal’s sixth petition for postconviction relief. Abu-Jamal was convicted in 1982 of the murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. His death sentence was later vacated, and he is serving a life sentence.
What the petition raised
Abu-Jamal’s lawyers pointed to prosecution records disclosed decades after trial. Those records included a letter in which a prosecution witness asked the trial prosecutor about money and jury-selection notes that recorded the race of prospective jurors. The defense argued that the letter supported a claim that prosecutors withheld favorable evidence and that the notes supported a claim of racial discrimination in jury selection.
What the panel decided
The panel found the letter insufficient to establish that the prosecution had promised the witness a benefit. On the jury-selection claim, it held that Abu-Jamal had failed to exercise due diligence, pointing to a 1995 hearing at which the defense could have questioned the prosecutor. The panel also concluded that the notes did not show that the prosecutor struck prospective jurors because of race. It upheld dismissal without an evidentiary hearing in a nonprecedential decision.
Read the Pennsylvania Superior Court memorandum.
