By Staff Reports
March 26, 1996
Mumia Abu-Jamal, a nationally-known journalist serving a death sentence for the murder of a Philadelphia police officer, says National Public Radio violated his First Amendment rights.
In a civil lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court in Washington, the former radio journalist contends that NPR decided not to run a recorded broadcast of his death-row commentary for the show "All Things Considered" in 1994 because of political pressure from the Fraternal Order of Police and U.S. Sen. Robert Dole.
The lawsuit seeks $1.5 million in punitive damages from NPR and the airing of Abu-Jamal's recordings.
Abu-Jamal contends that NPR canceled the program after Sen. Dole threatened its funding.
In May 1994, Senator Dole denounced NPR and threatened closer Congressional oversight and reduction of NPR's funding because of NPR's initial decision to broadcast Mr. Jamal's commentaries, according to the lawsuit.
In a 1995 speech delivered on the Senate floor, Senator Dole asserted that NPR's abrupt reversal of its decision to air Mr. Jamal's commentaries was due to pressure brought to bear by members of Congress, including himself, the lawsuit alleges.
The suit contends that NPR has also failed to honor repeated requests from Abu-Jamal that his recordings be released to him and the project.
In a public statement, NPR officials said the decision not to air the commentaries was editorial discretion, not censorship.
Abu-Jamal, convicted in 1982 of killing Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner, has become a prison author and celebrity whose case has drawn international attention.
Earlier this year, his lawyers asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to overturn his conviction. Abu-Jamal's defense team contends that his original lawyer botched his defense in 1982; that the trial judge was biased against the defendant; and that new evidence suggested someone else killed Faulkner in 1981. The court is expected to issue a ruling sometime this summer.
