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A Philadelphia Third Circuit Court of Appeals will hear arguments today in the ongoing Mumia Abu-Jamal case. Abu-Jamal was convicted in 1982 for the murder of a police officer, and sentenced to death. For the past 28 years Abu-Jamal and an international coalition of lawyers and supporters have maintained that he was not afforded a fair trial due to racism and political prejudice. A break-through moment for Abu-Jamal’s defense came on January 19th, 2008 when the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia ruled in its favor. The defense successfully argued that their client had been sentenced to death by a jury working under misleading instructions regarding the consideration of mitigating circumstances in applying the death penalty. In their arguments the defense cited a 1988 Supreme Court case, Mills v. Maryland, wherein the Court vacated the death sentence for the defendant “Mills” due to misleading jury instructions. Prosecutors appealed the decision to grant a re-sentencing hearing for Abu-Jamal to the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court’s decision, announced in January, disagreed with the lower court’s ruling. Only days before, in the separate case of Smith v. Spisak, the Supreme Court had ruled that a Neo Nazi did not deserve to have his death sentence reconsidered using “Mills” as precedent, saying the courts were interpreting the Mills case too broadly. The Supreme Court sent Abu-Jamal’s case back to the lower court, saying it must reconsider its decision to grant a new sentencing hearing using a narrower interpretation of Mills. The hearing will be held today at 2pm Eastern in Philadelphia, and argued by Attorney and Law Professor Judith Ritter. In Philadelphia a rally of supporters is gathering in front of the Federal Courthouse at noon today.

GUEST: Heidi Bogosian, Executive Director of the National Lawyers Guild & Committee to Save Mumia Abu-Jamal

Find out more at www.nlg.org and www.mumialegal.org.