Mumia Abu-Jamal (born 1954) is an American convict, serving a life sentence for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. He was sentenced to death at his first trial in July 1982, and his case became an international cause célèbre. Before his arrest, he was an activist and radio journalist who became President of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists. He was a member of the Black Panther Party until October 1970. Supporters and opponents disagreed on the appropriateness of the death penalty, his guilt, and whether he received a fair trial. He was described as "perhaps the world's best known death-row inmate". During his imprisonment he has published several books and other commentaries, notably Live from Death Row (1995). In 2008, a three-judge panel of t