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  • The Root: New Sentencing for Mumia Abu-Jamal?

    10/12/11
    Source: 
    The Root.com

    The Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from the Philadelphia district attorney's office in the racially charged case of Mumia Abu-Jamal, bringing an end to nearly 30 years of litigation over the fairness of the sentencing hearing that resulted in his death sentence for the 1981 shooting of a police officer, the Washington Post reports.

    While his case has been famous among anti-death penalty activists and social-justice advocates for decades, this new development is no doubt even more poignant for many in light of the recent execution of Troy Davis.

  • NAACP Legal Defense Fund Applauds Introduction of Bipartisan Bill to Reform Approaches to School Discipline

    10/12/11
    Related Case or Issue: 
    School to Prison Pipeline

    Washington, D.C. – Today, the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, Inc. (“LDF”) joined other civil rights and education groups in supporting introduction of the Positive Behavior for Safe and Effective Schools Act (PBSESA) - a bill to fund positive, preventative approaches to discipline in U.S. schools. The bipartisan bill, sponsored by U.S.

  • United States Supreme Court Rejects Appeal from Philadelphia DA’s Office Mumia Abu-Jamal’s Death Sentence is Unconstitutional

    10/11/11
    Related Case or Issue: 
    Abu-Jamal v. Beard

    (New York, NY) --     Today the United States Supreme Court rejected a request from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to overturn the most recent federal appeals court decision declaring Mumia Abu-Jamal’s death sentence unconstitutional.  The Court’s decision brings to an end nearly thirty years of litigation over the fairness of the sentencing hearing that resulted in Mr. Abu-Jamal’s being condemned to death.  Mr.

  • CNN: High court ruling means execution unlikely in 1981 cop-killing

    10/11/11
    Source: 
    CNN.com

    Philadelphia (CNN) -- The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the way for death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal to get a new sentencing hearing for the killing of a Philadelphia police officer 30 years ago.

    The high court rejected a request from the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office to overturn the federal appeals court decision declaring the death sentence unconstitutional for Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther who was convicted in 1982 of gunning down a Philadelphia police officer.

  • Remembering Derrick Bell

    10/10/11
    Source: 
    The Root

    Lani Guinier, Bennett Boskey Professor of Law, Harvard Law School

    You would always get straight talk from professor Derrick Bell.