[5][6] The Faulkner family, politicians,[7] and other groups involved with law enforcement, state and city governments[8] argue that Abu-Jamal's trial was fair, his guilt beyond question, and his death sentence justified.

During this period, he was subject to illegal surveillance as part of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's COINTELPRO program, with which the Philadelphia police cooperated.

[18] He led unsuccessful protests to change the school name to Malcolm X High, to honor the major African-American leader who had been killed in New York by political opponents.

[26] As a radio journalist, Abu-Jamal was renowned for identifying with and covering the MOVE anarcho-primitivist commune in West Philadelphia's Powelton Village neighborhood.

Michael Scanlan, a motorist, testified that from two car lengths away he saw a man matching Abu-Jamal's description run across the street from a parking lot and shoot Faulkner.

Anthony Paul, the Supervisor of the Philadelphia Police Department's firearms identification unit, testified at trial that the cartridge cases and rifling characteristics of the weapon were consistent with bullet fragments taken from Faulkner's body.

The defense presented nine character witnesses, including poet Sonia Sanchez, who testified that Abu-Jamal was "viewed by the black community as a creative, articulate, peaceful, genial man".

He claimed that his rights had been "deceitfully stolen" from him by Sabo, particularly focusing on the denial of his request to receive defense assistance from John Africa, who was not an attorney, and being prevented from proceeding pro se.

It also protested the politicization of the trial, noting that there was documented recent history in Philadelphia of police abuse and corruption, including fabricated evidence and use of excessive force.

[41] The six judges of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled unanimously that all issues raised by Abu-Jamal, including the claim of ineffective assistance of counsel, were without merit.

[48] In 2008, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania rejected a further request from Abu-Jamal for a hearing into claims that the trial witnesses perjured themselves, on the grounds that he had waited too long before filing the appeal.

[52] On April 30, 2018, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court ruled that Abu-Jamal would not be immediately granted another appeal and that the proceedings had to continue until August 30 of that year.

This letter, demanding Casey send "a clear and dramatic message to all cop killers," was claimed as one of many reasons to suspect Castille's bias in the case.

The charge and verdict form created a reasonable likelihood that the jury believed it was precluded from considering any mitigating circumstance that had not been found unanimously to exist.

[60] Eliot Grossman and Marlene Kamish, attorneys for Abu-Jamal, criticized the ruling on the grounds that it denied the possibility of a trial de novo, at which they could introduce evidence that their client had been framed.

Officer Faulkner's widow Maureen said the judgment would allow Abu-Jamal, whom she described as a "remorseless, hate-filled killer", to "be permitted to enjoy the pleasures that come from simply being alive".

[64][65] Terri Maurer-Carter, a former Philadelphia court stenographer, stated in a 2001 affidavit that she overheard Judge Sabo say "Yeah, and I'm going to help them fry the nigger," in the course of a conversation with three people present regarding Abu-Jamal's case.

[72][non-primary source needed] On April 26, 2011, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals reaffirmed its prior decision to vacate the death sentence on the grounds that the jury instructions and verdict form were ambiguous and confusing.

[74] On December 7, 2011, District Attorney of Philadelphia R. Seth Williams announced that prosecutors, with the support of the victim's family, would no longer seek the death penalty for Abu-Jamal and would accept a sentence of life imprisonment without parole.

[80] In May 1994, Abu-Jamal was engaged by NPR's All Things Considered program to deliver a series of monthly three-minute commentaries on crime and punishment.

[81] The broadcast plans and commercial arrangement were canceled following condemnations from, among others, the Fraternal Order of Police[82] and Senate Minority Leader Bob Dole.

Subsequent to the airing of the 1996 HBO documentary Mumia Abu-Jamal: A Case For Reasonable Doubt?, which included footage from visitation interviews conducted with him, the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections banned outsiders from using any recording equipment in state prisons.

At the end of January 2012, he was shifted from the isolation of death row into the general prison population at State Correctional Institution – Mahanoy.

[98] In 2022, Brown University's John Hay Library acquired Abu-Jamal's personal papers as part of its Voices of Mass Incarceration collecting initiative.

[4] The family of Daniel Faulkner, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the City of Philadelphia,[8] politicians,[8][7] and the Fraternal Order of Police have continued to support the original trial and sentencing of the journalist.

Congressman Michael Fitzpatrick and Senator Rick Santorum, both members of the Republican Party of Pennsylvania, introduced resolutions in both Houses of Congress condemning the decision.

[8][7] In 2007, the widow of Officer Faulkner co-authored a book with Philadelphia radio journalist Michael Smerconish titled Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Pain, Loss, and Injustice.

[119] In early 2014, President Barack Obama nominated Debo Adegbile, a former lawyer for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund, to head the civil rights division of the Justice Department.

[120] After Goddard College invited Abu-Jamal to give a recorded commencement speech in 2014 and an outcry by the police union against this, the Revictimization Relief Act was introduced, passed and signed into Pennsylvania law.

[124] Scholars and educators nationwide, including Noam Chomsky, Chris Hedges and Cornel West among others, signed a letter calling for her immediate reinstatement.