by KYW's Steve Tawa

A federal appeals court in Philadelphia has upheld Mumia Abu-Jamal's conviction for murdering a Philadelphia police officer in 1981, but agreed with a lower court that he cannot be executed without a new penalty hearing.
      
The 3rd US Circuit Court of Appeals says Abu-Jamal's conviction for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner should stand, but it says he should get a new sentencing hearing because of flawed jury instructions.

Officer Faulkner was gunned down during an overnight traffic stop in December of 1981 near 13th and Locust Streets in center city, and Abu-Jamal was convicted and sentenced to death in 1982.

Following denial of appeals in state court, he filed petitions in federal court. By 2001, a federal judge ordered a new sentencing hearing because the verdict sheets may have been flawed (see previous story). He ruled that the jury may have mistakenly believed it had to agree unanimously on mitigating circumstances in the case that may have led to a life, rather than death, sentence. But the district attorney's office asked the appeals court to reinstate the death penalty.
    
In its 118-page decision, the US Court of Appeals considered whether Abu-Jamal was denied due process when the prosecution summed up the case, and during post-conviction proceedings.
 
A three-judge panel has ruled that a new Philadelphia jury must, within the next 180 days, revisit whether Abu-Jamal should get life in prison, or be sentenced again to death. If a new death sentence isn't agreed to, or if prosecutors don't want to give him a new death penalty hearing, Abu-Jamal, now 53 (in file photo above), would be sentenced automatically to life in prison.

An appeal from the district attorney's office was expected almost immediately.

At the same time, the federal judges upheld the first-degree murder conviction, rejecting Abu-Jamal's claim that he deserves an entirely new trial.