LAST CHANCE?

Ex-Black Panther Appeals Cop Killing Conviction After New Evidence Found

Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted of murdering white officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981.

A former Black Panther who spent decades on death row for the murder of a white police officer will petition for a new trial in a Pennsylvania court Wednesday after new evidence relating to his case was discovered. Mumia Abu-Jamal has spent 40 years in prison for the Dec. 9, 1981 fatal shooting of Daniel Faulkner in Philadelphia. Abu-Jamal was convicted of murder in 1982 and sentenced to death, though he was moved off death row in 2011 and has since been incarcerated on life without parole. His supporters have long maintained that he was framed. Boxes were discovered in the Philadelphia district attorney’s office in 2018 that contained previously undisclosed evidence which may cast doubt on Abu-Jamal’s conviction, his lawyers claim, including a handwritten letter from the trial’s key witness to the prosecutor asking “how long will it take to get” money owed to him. During a debate Tuesday night, Republican Senate candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz identified Faulkner’s widow, Maureen Faulkner, as his guest at the studio.