Supreme Court lets Mumia Abu-Jamal’s conviction stand

By Bill Mears
CNN Supreme Court Producer

WASHINGTON (CNN) — The Supreme Court has let stand the conviction of former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal, who was sent to death row for gunning down a Philadelphia police officer 28 years ago.

Mimia Abu-Jamal was convicted of the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police Officer Daniel Faulkner.

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He contends blacks were unfairly excluded from the jury, and has been an outspoken activist from behind bars.

The justices made their announcement Monday.

A separate appeal over whether Abu-Jamal deserves a new sentencing hearing has not been taken up by the high court.

Prosecutors are appealing a federal appeals court ruling in Abu-Jamal’s favor last year on the sentencing issue. The case has attracted international attention amid charges of prosecutorial misconduct and the inmate’s outspoken personality.

Abu-Jamal, a former radio reporter and cab driver has been a divisive figure, with many prominent supporters arguing that racism pervaded his trial. Others countered Abu-Jamal is using his skin color to escape responsibility for his actions. They say he has divided the community for years with his provocative writing and activism.

He was convicted for the December 9, 1981, murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner, 25, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Faulkner had pulled over Abu-Jamal’s brother in a late-night traffic stop. Witnesses said Abu-Jamal, who was nearby, ran over and shot the policeman in the back and in the head.

Abu-Jamal, once known as Wesley Cook, was also wounded in the encounter and later confessed to the killing, according to other witnesses testimony.

Abu-Jamal is black and the police officer was white.

Incarcerated for nearly three decades, Abu-Jamal has been an active critic of the criminal justice system.

Don’t Miss

• Daniel Faulkner site
• Free Mumia Abu-Jamal site

On a Web site created by friends to promote the release this month of his new book, the prisoner-turned-author writes about his fight. “This is the story of law learned, not in the ivory towers of multi-billion dollar endowed universities but in the bowels of the slave-ship, in the hidden, dank dungeons of America.”

His chief defense attorney, Robert Bryan, had urged the justices to grant a new criminal trial, but the high court offered no explanation for its refusal to intervene.

“The central issue in this case is racism in jury selection,” Bryan wrote to supporters last month. Ten whites and two blacks made up the original jury panel that sentenced Abu-Jamal to death.

A three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals a year ago kept the murder conviction in place, but ordered a new capital sentencing hearing. That court ultimately concluded the jury was improperly instructed on how to weigh “mitigating factors” offered by the defense that might have kept Abu-Jamal off death row.

Pennsylvania law at the time said jurors did not have to unanimously agree on a mitigating circumstance, such as the fact that Abu-Jamal had no prior criminal record.

Months before that ruling, oral arguments on the issue were contentious. Faulkner’s widow and Abu-Jamal’s brother attended, and demonstrations on both sides were held outside the courtroom in downtown Philadelphia.

Many prominent groups and individuals, including singer Harry Belafonte, the NAACP and the European Parliament, are cited on his Web site as supporters. Prosecutors have insisted Abu-Jamal pay the price for his crimes, and have aggressively resisted efforts to take him of death row for Faulkner’s murder.

“This assassination has been made a circus by those people in the world and this city who believe falsely that Mumia Abu-Jamal is some kind of a folk hero,” said Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham last year, when the federal appeals court upheld the conviction. “He is nothing short of an assassin.”

Supreme court to decide case on school strip search

By James Vicini – Fri Jan 16, 3:08 pm ET

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether a public school violated the constitutional rights of a 13-year-old student by conducting a strip search of her for ibuprofen.

The school argued in its appeal that the Constitution allowed a strip search of a student suspected of having prescription-strength ibuprofen in violation of its policy that prohibited medications on campus without permission.

School officials in Safford, Arizona, ordered the search in 2003 of Savana Redding, who was in the eighth grade. Following an assistant principal’s orders, a school nurse had Redding remove her clothes, including her bra, and shake her underwear to see if she was hiding ibuprofen, a common painkiller.

School officials did not find ibuprofen, which is found in over-the-counter medications like Advil and Motrin. Higher doses require a prescription.

The strip search had been prompted by an unverified tip from another girl who had Redding‘s school planner and some ibuprofen pills. She claimed Redding had given her the pills.

Redding denied it and an initial search of her backpack and pockets did not turn up any ibuprofen. The assistant principal then ordered the strip search to be done in front of the nurse and his administrative assistant, both women.

Redding said she was embarrassed, scared and about to cry. She said she felt humiliated and violated by the strip search.

A federal appeals court ruled the school and school officials violated the U.S. Constitution‘s Fourth Amendment right that protects against unreasonable searches and seizures.

It said alleged ibuprofen possession was “an infraction that poses an imminent danger to no one.” Instead of forcing Redding to disrobe, school officials could have kept her in the principal’s office until a parent arrived or could have sent her home.

The appeals court also ruled the assistant principal may be held liable for damages for the search.

In its appeal to the Supreme Court, the school argued that the ruling has alarmed administrators and teachers around the country.

The decision “places student safety and school order at risk by impairing the ability of school officials to effectively carry out their custodial responsibility,” it said.

Redding’s lawyers opposed the appeal.

“A school official simply cannot order a strip search any time a frightened student points an accusatory finger at another student,” they said.

If the school wins, strip searches could become as prevalent as “the common practice of students tattling on each other,” her lawyers from the American Civil Liberties Union said.

The case could he heard by the justices in April, with a decision likely by the end of June, a court spokeswoman said.

(Editing by Vicki Allen)

 

Court Reinstates Washington Murder Conviction

The Associated Press, Wednesday January 21, 2009

WASHINGTON – The Supreme Court has reinstated the murder conviction of the driver in a gang-related, drive-by shooting that horrified Seattle in 1994.

By a 6-3 vote, the court on Wednesday reversed a federal appeals court that had thrown out the second-degree murder conviction of Cesar Sarausad II.

The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco overturned the conviction because of unclear jury instructions. But the high court, in a majority opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas, said there was “no evidence of ultimate juror confusion.”

“Rather, the jury simply reached a unanimous decision that the state had proved Sarausad’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” Thomas wrote.

In a dissenting opinion, Justice David Souter said an uncertain instruction from the trial judge merged with a “confounding prosecutorial argument” that included a “clearly erroneous statement of law.”

“In these circumstances, jury confusion is all but inevitable and jury error the reasonable likelihood,” wrote Souter, who was joined in his opinion by Justices John Paul Stevens and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Sarausad was convicted for his role as the driver in the shooting that killed a teenage girl outside a Seattle high school.

Sarausad was a 19-year-old freshman at the University of Washington at the time of the shooting. He drove the car from which Brian Ronquillo shot and killed 16-year-old Melissa Fernandes. She had nothing to do with the gang rivalry that led to the shooting.

Ronquillo was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to 52 years in prison. Sarausad got a 27-year sentence.

Sarausad admitted being the driver but denied knowing that Ronquillo had a gun, much less that he was planning to kill anyone.

The jury instructions at issue concerned whether, to be convicted of second-degree murder, Sarausad had to know that Ronquillo intended to use a gun and that someone could die as a result.

The case is Waddington v. Sarausad, 07-772.