PHILADELPHIA -- Mumia Abu-Jamal, arguably the world's best-known death-row inmate, has been saved from the gallows, but not from a life in prison.After mulling the habeas corpus appeal of the incarcerated journalist and former Black Panther for over two years, U.S. District Judge William Yohn on Monday issued a carefully worded decision overturning the penalty-phase verdict of the jury that sentenced Abu-Jamal to death in July 1982 for the slaying of Daniel Faulkner, a white, 25-year-old Philadelphia police officer.
Yohn overturned the death verdict on the narrow grounds that the jury had been wrongly instructed about the rules of mitigating circumstances that might apply to Abu-Jamal.
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The one remaining avenue left for Abu-Jamal to pursue his claim of innocence would be if a judge in any new penalty-phase hearing permitted him to introduce new witnesses or evidence aimed at mitigating the charge, or raising doubts in the minds of jurors about his guilt -- what is known legally as "residual doubt."
Has he been RE-SENTENCED to death?
Ping to one familiar with the legal ropes and possibly this case.