WASHINGTON, April 7 (UPI) -- The U.S. Supreme Court has rejected a bid for a new trial by Mumia Abu-Jamal, a former radio reporter convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer.
The high court must still decide whether to reinstate the death sentence, The Philadelphia Inquirer reported. A federal appeals court ruled last year that prosecutors at Abu-Jamal's 1982 trial did not unfairly exclude blacks from the jury but the court threw out the death sentence.
Abu-Jamal, then working as a cab driver after losing his job with an NPR station, was arrested in 1981 after police found him wounded near the body of Officer Daniel Faulkner. Prosecutors said he shot Faulkner after the officer pulled over his brother.
Maureen Faulkner, the officer's widow, lives in California. She told the Inquirer she wept when she heard about Monday's decision.
"To think that he will never get a new trial is such a relief for the family and I after 27 years and everything we've gone through," Faulkner said.
Abu-Jamal's lawyer, Robert Bryan of San Francisco said the "options are obviously being narrowed."
The case has become a cause celebre among death penalty opponents, especially in Europe.
