Former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal cannot be executed for murdering a Philadelphia police officer unless a new penalty hearing is held, a federal appeals court said Thursday. The 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld Abu-Jamal's conviction but said he should get a new sentencing hearing because of flawed jury instructions. If prosecutors don't want to give him a new death penalty hearing, Abu-Jamal would be sentenced automatically to life in prison. Prosecutors are weighing their options, Assistant District Attorney Hugh Burns Jr. said Thursday.

Abu-Jamal's lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan, said he was glad the judges did not reinstate the death sentence but added that he wants the full court to hear the case and grant his client a new trial.

"I've never seen a case as permeated and riddled with racism as this one," Bryan said Thursday. "I want a new trial and I want him free. His conviction was a travesty of justice."

Abu-Jamal, 53, once a radio reporter, has attracted a legion of artists and activists to his cause during his quarter-century on death row. A Philadelphia jury convicted him in 1982 of killing Officer Daniel Faulkner, 25, after the patrolman pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother in an overnight traffic stop. Abu-Jamal is black; Faulkner was white.

Abu-Jamal had appealed, arguing that racism by the judge and prosecutors corrupted his conviction at the hands of a mostly white jury. Prosecutors, meanwhile, had appealed a federal judge's 2001 decision to grant Abu-Jamal a new sentencing hearing because of the jury instructions.

Hundreds of people protested outside the federal building in Philadelphia where arguments were heard in May and an overflow crowd - including legal scholars, students, lawyers, the policeman's widow and Abu-Jamal's brother - filled the courtroom.

Abu-Jamal's writings and taped speeches on the justice system have made him a popular figure among activists who believe he was the victim of racism.

District Attorney Lynne Abraham said the ruling should dispel some myths about Abu-Jamal.

"For all those here who believe that the system might have went awry, the 3rd Circuit has finally decided ... that Mr. Jamal is guilty when he was convicted and he's still guilty today," she said. "So don't shed any tears for Mr. Jamal; he's where he ought to be, at least in prison for the rest of his life."

The jury instructions were misleading on whether unanimity was needed when circumstances that might have kept Abu-Jamal off death row, the court said. Under the law, jurors did not have to unanimously agree on a mitigating circumstance.

Arguments before the 3rd Circuit focused on several constitutional issues, including whether prosecutors improperly eliminated black jurors.

Ten whites and two blacks served on the jury. Prosecutors struck 10 blacks and five whites from the pool, while accepting four blacks and 20 whites, according to Bryan, who argued that prosecutors of the day fostered "a culture of discrimination."

However, the court dismissed the claims of bias, noting there is no record of the makeup of the approximately 150-person jury pool, making it impossible to determine the total percentage of blacks excluded.

The court also noted that Abu-Jamal did not allege improper exclusions until an appeal that was rejected in 1989.

The officer's widow, Maureen Faulkner, recently co-wrote a book about the case. The book, "Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain and Injustice," written with radio talk-show host Michael Smerconish, came out in December.

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Associated Press writer Maryclaire Dale contributed to this report.

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On the Net:

Free Mumia site: http://www.mumia.org

Daniel Faulkner site: http://www.danielfaulkner.com