Mumia Abu-Jamal was convicted in the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County in July 1982 of first-degree murder and of an offense under section 907 of the Pennsylvania criminal code, in connection with the death of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner on December 9, 1981. A jury returned a death sentence on July 3, 1982. The conviction has remained in place through direct appeal, post-conviction proceedings and federal habeas review. The death sentence did not: a federal appeals court vacated it, and since December 2011 he has served a sentence of life imprisonment.
He is a journalist and political activist. Throughout the proceedings his supporters, including his own legal team, have argued that the trial and the appeals that followed were unfair. Courts at every level have rejected those arguments as grounds for a new trial.
Philadelphia police arrested Abu-Jamal on December 9, 1981, the day of the officer's death. He was charged with first-degree murder, under section 2502(a) of Title 18 of the Pennsylvania Consolidated Statutes, and with an offense under section 907 of the same title. Counsel was appointed for him on December 15, 1981.
Before trial, defense counsel moved on March 18, 1982 to distribute questionnaires to prospective jurors. The court also granted Abu-Jamal's request to represent himself, with the appointed lawyer remaining as standby counsel.
Jury trial began in the Court of Common Pleas on June 7, 1982. Abu-Jamal's conduct led the court to end his self-representation, and he was removed from the courtroom at times; his appointed lawyer then resumed as the principal defense counsel.
The prosecution used 15 of its 20 peremptory challenges during jury selection, ten of them against Black prospective jurors. Defense counsel made no objection to this during jury selection or at trial. The final jury had ten white members and two Black members. These figures became the basis of a later claim.
On July 2, 1982 the jury found him guilty of first-degree murder and of the offense under section 907. After a separate penalty hearing, the jury returned a death sentence on July 3, 1982. The trial court denied post-trial motions and imposed the death sentence on May 25, 1983.
Death sentences in Pennsylvania are reviewed directly by the state's highest court. On March 6, 1989 the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed both the conviction and the sentence. The claims raised there included jury selection, the conduct of the prosecutor and the question of self-representation. The jury-selection claim under Batson v. Kentucky was raised for the first time on this appeal.
The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania denied rehearing in 1990. The Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari on October 1, 1990, denied rehearing on November 26, 1990, and denied a second request for rehearing on June 10, 1991.
On June 1, 1995 the Governor signed a death warrant setting an execution date of August 17, 1995. Four days later new counsel filed a stay petition, a recusal petition, a discovery petition and a petition under Pennsylvania's Post Conviction Relief Act. The post-conviction court denied recusal on June 12, 1995, granted an evidentiary hearing and denied discovery on June 14. It granted a stay of execution on August 7, 1995.
The evidentiary hearing ran from July 26 to August 15, 1995, after the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania stayed a first scheduled start. On September 15, 1995 the post-conviction court denied relief. Two later remands produced further rulings: on November 1, 1996 the court declined to supplement the record with the testimony of one witness, and on July 24, 1997 it denied relief based on the testimony of another.
On October 29, 1998 the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania unanimously affirmed the denial of post-conviction relief. In a separate opinion issued the same day, the court ruled on a motion asking one of its justices to step aside from the case. The Supreme Court of the United States denied certiorari on October 4, 1999, and a second death warrant was signed, setting an execution date of December 2, 1999.
Abu-Jamal filed a federal habeas corpus petition on October 15, 1999 in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, raising 29 claims. The court stayed the execution on October 26, 1999.
On December 18, 2001 the District Court denied relief on every claim concerning guilt and refused a new trial. It granted relief on a claim about the penalty phase, holding that the jury instructions and verdict form had been unconstitutional under the Supreme Court's decision in Mills v. Maryland. It ordered the Commonwealth either to hold a new sentencing hearing or to impose a sentence of life imprisonment. The Commonwealth appealed on December 20, 2001, and Abu-Jamal cross-appealed on January 16, 2002.
The appeal was paused while a second post-conviction appeal ran its course in the state courts. The Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the denial of relief in that appeal on October 8, 2003, and the Supreme Court of the United States denied another certiorari petition on May 17, 2004. The Third Circuit widened the issues to include the prosecutor's closing argument and a claim of judicial bias on October 19, 2005, and heard argument on May 17, 2007.
On March 27, 2008 the Third Circuit issued a precedential opinion that affirmed the District Court's judgment. On the four issues before it, the court held that:
The jury-selection claim had been forfeited because no timely objection was made at trial. As an alternative ground, it held that he had not established a prima facie case of discrimination, and that the state court's ruling was not an unreasonable application of federal law. The claim about the prosecutor's closing argument failed because the comments did not deny due process. The claim of judicial bias in the state post-conviction proceedings was held not to be a basis for federal habeas relief. The ruling on the jury charge and verdict form, which had led to the relief on the penalty phase, was affirmed.
The Supreme Court of the United States vacated the 2008 decision in 2010 and sent the case back to the Third Circuit for reconsideration. On April 26, 2011 the Third Circuit, on remand, again held that the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania had unreasonably applied Mills v. Maryland. It found a substantial probability that jurors believed they could not consider a mitigating circumstance unless all of them agreed on it, and it held that the death sentence must be vacated. The conviction was not disturbed. The District Court's order allowed the Commonwealth to hold a new sentencing hearing within 180 days or to sentence him to life imprisonment.
On October 11, 2011 the Supreme Court of the United States declined to review the Commonwealth's appeal from the 2008 ruling. On December 7, 2011 the Philadelphia District Attorney announced that his office would no longer seek the death penalty, and that Abu-Jamal would remain in custody for the rest of his life.
In 2016 the Supreme Court of the United States ruled in another case that a former Philadelphia District Attorney, who later sat as a justice of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, had faced an unconstitutional risk of bias when he heard a case he had earlier been involved in as a prosecutor. Abu-Jamal's lawyers argued that the same reasoning applied to the justice's earlier role in the appeals decided in the 1990s, and they filed a new petition in 2016.
In December 2018 a judge of the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County granted him the opportunity to argue his earlier appeals again, on that ground. The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office first opposed the order, and on April 17, 2019 it dropped its opposition after the judge issued a revised order that narrowed the scope of the original ruling. The office stated that the withdrawal did not mean he would be freed or receive a new trial.
Documents located in the District Attorney's Office in 2019 became the basis of further claims. Abu-Jamal's lawyers have said that the files suggest a prosecution witness was paid, that another witness was promised leniency in her own pending cases, and that notes kept by the prosecutor show that the race of prospective jurors was tracked.
Related proceedings went to the Superior Court of Pennsylvania. On September 23, 2019 that court deferred his motion to remand the case to the post-conviction court to the merits panel. On October 10, 2019 it denied a petition for intervention that asked it to replace the District Attorney's Office with the Attorney General's Office. A petition with the same aim reached the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in November 2019, and on December 17, 2020 that court rejected the request to bar the District Attorney's Office from handling his appeals, by a vote of four to three.
On May 20, 2021 the Superior Court ruled that it lacked jurisdiction over a related challenge and transferred it to the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania. On October 26, 2021 it decided the main appeal. It held that the appeal from the 2018 order was untimely and that the lower court should not have reinstated any part of it, because that court lacked jurisdiction. It also found that the former District Attorney's 1990 letter on death-penalty appeals did not show a personal interest in the outcome of his case, since the direct appeal was then pending before the Supreme Court of the United States. The court said it was not ruling on the new evidence the Commonwealth had disclosed.
In April 2023 the Court of Common Pleas of Philadelphia County dismissed his sixth petition under the Post Conviction Relief Act.
On September 10, 2024 the Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirmed the dismissal. On March 26, 2025 the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania entered an unsigned order of the court, which reads: "AND NOW, this 26th day of March, 2025, the Petition for Allowance of Appeal is DENIED."
On July 28, 2026 his legal team, led by the Abolitionist Law Center and joined by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Center for Constitutional Rights, filed a petition with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention. The team states that he has exhausted the remedies available in the state and federal courts, and it asks the Working Group to take a position on his case. The petition is a request to an international body and is not a ruling of any court. He is held in Pennsylvania under a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.
Abu-Jamal has maintained that he is innocent. The conviction itself has not been set aside by any court, and the death sentence is the only part of the judgment that has been vacated.
His legal team's July 2026 petition to the United Nations states that he was subject to arbitrary detention for a crime he did not commit. It alleges racial discrimination in jury selection, denial of his right to represent himself, inadequate time and facilities for his defense, and political interference. The Center for Constitutional Rights, one of the groups behind the petition, cites the view of Amnesty International that the 1982 trial did not meet minimum international standards for fair proceedings. These are the positions of the groups that hold them.
The courts have addressed several of the same points. The Third Circuit held the jury-selection claim forfeited in 2008 and, alternatively, unproven; it found that the prosecutor's closing argument did not deny due process; and it held that a claim of bias in the state post-conviction proceedings could not support federal relief. The Superior Court said in October 2021 that it was not ruling on the new evidence at all, because the appeal was untimely.
December 9, 1981: a Philadelphia police officer dies in Philadelphia; Abu-Jamal is arrested the same day.
December 15, 1981: counsel appointed.
June 7, 1982: jury trial begins in the Court of Common Pleas, Philadelphia County.
July 2, 1982: jury returns verdicts of guilty of first-degree murder and of an offense under section 907 of the state criminal code.
July 3, 1982: jury returns a death sentence.
May 25, 1983: post-trial motions denied; death sentence imposed.
March 6, 1989: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirms conviction and sentence.
October 1, 1990: Supreme Court of the United States denies certiorari.
June 1, 1995: first death warrant signed; execution date of August 17, 1995 set and later stayed.
September 15, 1995: post-conviction court denies relief.
October 29, 1998: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania affirms denial of post-conviction relief.
October 15, 1999: federal habeas petition filed; execution stayed October 26, 1999.
December 18, 2001: District Court denies relief on guilt claims, grants relief on the death sentence.
March 27, 2008: Third Circuit affirms.
April 26, 2011: Third Circuit, on remand, holds the death sentence must be vacated.
October 11, 2011: Supreme Court of the United States declines review.
December 7, 2011: District Attorney announces no new death sentence will be sought; life imprisonment.
December 2018: Court of Common Pleas reinstates a right to argue earlier appeals.
October 26, 2021: Superior Court of Pennsylvania rules the appeal untimely.
April 2023: Court of Common Pleas dismisses his sixth post-conviction petition.
September 10, 2024: Superior Court of Pennsylvania affirms.
March 26, 2025: Supreme Court of Pennsylvania denies allowance of appeal.
July 28, 2026: petition filed with the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.