Mumia: Still Guilty After All These Years

The U.S. Supreme Court said yesterday that it will not take up cop killer Mumia Abu-Jamal's bid for a new trial.

Lawyers for Abu-Jamal, who killed Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner in cold blood in 1981, claimed that prosecutors improperly excluded blacks from the jury, and while there was some prosecutorial misconduct, as I have argued repeatedly there is no question that Abu-Jamal is guilty as sin.

The 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia earlier upheld Abu-Jamal's conviction but held his death sentence invalid. The appeals court said it would not second-guess state court rulings rejecting Abu-Jamal's claims of bias in the composition of the jury, while the high court considered only the conviction. The state has separately asked the court to reinstate the death sentence, but the justices have not acted on that request.

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Meanwhile, killing cops just isn't what it used to be as the triple homicide in Pittsburgh suggests. Hard to figure who is the bigger nut: The perp or the kind of person who is urging red-blooded Americans to stockpile guns because Barack Obama is going to ban them.