Judge Sabo grants stay of execution in Abu-Jamal case

When Mumia Abu-Jamal was granted a stay of execution Tuesday, his supporters were astonished by their victory. The "Free Mumia" Campaign that has swept from Philadelphia to Hollywood was at last seeing its first glimmer of hope. But not everyone was surprised by Common Pleas Court Judge Albert Sabo's ruling, which allows Abu-Jamal more time to pursue state and federal appeals. Law School Lecturer David Rudovsky has served as Abu-Jamal's local counsel during his post-conviction hearing in front of Sabo -- the same judge who originally sentenced Abu-Jamal to death in 1982 for killing Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner at 13th and Locust streets. Pennsylvania Governor Tom Ridge signed Abu-Jamal's death warrant earlier this summer. Rudovsky said he always expected Sabo to grant Abu-Jamal the stay of execution. He only wonders why the ruling took so long. "Nobody in the history of capital punishment has been executed this early," he said. "In any case involving the death penalty, everyone ought to be convinced that there was a fair trial." Many observers have indeed questioned whether justice prevailed at the 1982 murder trial. Demographics Professor Antonio McDaniel said it would have been a "miscarriage of justice" if Abu-Jamal had not been granted the stay of execution because Sabo had been biased by racial bigotry when he originally convicted Abu-Jamal. Sabo allowed Abu-Jamal's involvement in the Black Panthers Movement in the 1970's to be used as evidence of his guilt, McDaniel said, yet he found irrelevant the fact that the trajectory of the murder weapon did not match that of Abu-Jamal's gun. Many of Abu-Jamal's followers have also questioned Sabo's objectivity, as Sabo has sentenced more African Americans to death than any other judge in the country. "This case was fundamentally unfair," Rudovsky said. As Abu-Jamal's local counsel, Rudovsky will not be involved in appeals to higher courts. He added that Abu-Jamal is "very early in his appeals process." Rudovsky said Abu-Jamal's case has not been that different from other cases he has worked on during his career -- although it has been the most high-profile. Celebrities such as Whoopi Goldberg have come out in support of Abu-Jamal, and his book Live From Death Row has sold more than 35,000 copies. But at the core, Rudovsky said Abu-Jamal's case is merely one of many demonstrating problems with the capital punishment system. "When you strip it down to its essentials, there are the same serious questions of the fairness of the original trial [and] the effectiveness of the appointed counsel," he said. "I found the proficiency of the [appointed] defense counsel to be very weak." "These issues themselves point to the fact that the criminal justice system as a whole is unfair," he added. Rudovsky said the legislatures recent vote to slash all funding to legal resource centers aimed at those that cannot afford their own attorneys will only exacerbate matters. "Congress is running one way on the crime issue in order to appear that they are tough on crime," he said, "But their approach is dead wrong."

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