Caso Ejecución Abandonado contra Abu-Jamal

Prosecutors in Philadelphia announced Wednesday that they had halted the state’s effort to execute Mumia Abu-Jamal, the death row inmate convicted of killing a police officer 30 Hace años, whose subsequent legal case based on claims of innocence has received international attention.

El Sr.. Abu-Jamal will spend the rest of his life in prison without the possibility of parole, dijo Seth Williams, the district attorney for Philadelphia.

“This has been a very, very difficult decision,"Sr.. Williams said at a news conference, adding that he believed Mr. Abu-Jamal was guilty of the murder and should be executed. “The sentence was appropriate. That would have been the just sentence for this defendant.”

En abril, un tribunal federal de apelaciones ordenó una nueva audiencia de sentencia para el Sr.. Abu-Jamal, ya los miembros del jurado habían recibido instrucciones potencialmente engañosas durante su 1982 ensayo. En octubre, la Corte Suprema de Estados Unidos se negó a escuchar el caso.

El Sr.. Williams dijo el miércoles que la decisión del tribunal de apelación - y otros que no han escatimado Sr.. La vida de Abu-Jamal en los últimos años - le había llevado a abandonar su búsqueda de la pena de muerte, en parte, porque los testigos ya no están disponibles. Dijo que tomó la decisión después de discutirlo con Maureen Faulkner, la viuda de Daniel Faulkner, el oficial de policía asesinado.

Durante su larga estancia en el corredor de la muerte, El Sr.. Abu-Jamal, 57, un ex reportero Negro Panther y radio, se convirtió en una vocal y - abogar para convencer de su propio movimiento "Free Mumia" - hasta cierto. Esa causa se hizo particularmente prominente alrededor de los campus universitarios, donde los estudiantes recolectaron donaciones para su fondo de defensa legal y botones y carteles que llevan imágenes de su rostro pensativo y rastas largas bajo esa consigna vendidos. Los Beastie Boys y Rage Against the Machine realiza en un concierto benéfico en su nombre en 1999, y un suburbio de París le dedicó una calle en él 2006.

El caso se ha jugado varias veces en los tribunales y los medios de comunicación, y encontró un lugar en la cultura popular que se ha extendido en la era de Internet en blogs y páginas de Facebook. El juicio se dice que es o bien un aborto involuntario de la justicia basada en el racismo, or a cut-and-dried murder of a law enforcement officer in which the issue of race prevented justice from being carried out. El Sr.. Abu-Jamal survived at least two execution dates — in August 1995 and December 1999.

El miércoles, Ms. Faulkner, who appeared at the news conference with Mr. Williams and other city officials, said she had agreed to give up her advocacy for Mr. Abu-Jamal’s execution because the case had dragged on for too long.

At times, she employed stinging language to express her vexation at Mr. Abu-Jamal’s ability to avoid execution, calling the judges who overturned Mr. Abu-Jamal’s death sentence “dishonest cowards.”

“Rest assured I will now fight with every ounce of energy I have to see that Mumia Abu-Jamal receives absolutely no special treatment when he is removed from death row,"Dijo. “I will not stand by and see him coddled as he had been in the past. And I am heartened by the thought that he will finally be taken from the protected cloister he has been living in all these years and begin living among his own kind — the thugs and common criminals that infest our prisons.”

Pero Christina Swarns, director of the criminal justice practice at the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, which is representing Mr. Abu-Jamal, said that she was “delighted” by the decision — and that the Free Mumia movement had some influence.

“We’re at a time in this country when support of the death penalty is at an all-time low, and that reflects some of the concerns expressed by Mumia’s supporters in terms of the fairness of the process,"Dijo.

El Sr.. Abu-Jamal, que es negro, was convicted of fatally shooting Officer Faulkner, who was white, on Dec. 9, 1981, after the officer pulled over Mr. Abu-Jamal’s brother for driving the wrong way on a one-way street. A jury found that Mr. Abu-Jamal had shot Officer Faulkner in the back and then, as the officer lay bleeding, shot him four more times. El Sr.. Abu-Jamal had been shot in the chest by the officer.

El Sr.. Abu-Jamal ha dicho que él estaba en la escena, pero que alguien - a quien no ha identificado - era el asesino.

Fuente: N.Y.. Tiempos