The Associated Press reported:
"President Obama's pick to be the government's chief civil rights attorney formerly withdrew his nomination for the post Monday.
"Obama tapped Debo Adegbile for the Justice Department job last year. But a bipartisan group of senators blocked his nomination earlier this year because he had sought to get the sentence of a convicted cop killer overturned."
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From the AP, I learned that the 52 U.S. senators who voted against this nomination included all 44 Republicans plus eight Democrats.
The AP also reported:
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"The White House argued at the time that the decision to reject Adegbile's nomination set a troubling precedent that could dissuade lawyers with aspirations to serve in government from taking on unpopular clients of causes.
"Adegbile spent much of his career at the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, where he argued before the Supreme Court that Mumia Abu-Jamal's conviction for killing a Philadelphia police officer should be overturned because of discrimination in jury selection."
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Mumia Abu-Jamal was born Wesley Cook on April 24, 1954.
He became a radio journalist and president of the Philadelphia Association of Black Journalists.
In December 1981, he was arrested and charged with the murder of Philadelphia Police Officer Daniel Faulkner.
On Dec. 9 of that year, Officer Faulkner was shot dead while conducting a traffic stop on Abu's brother, William Cook.
There were three witnesses to this murder.
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Abu-Jamal was unanimously found guilty of first-degree murder.
The United States Supreme Court allowed this conviction to stand.
In March of 2012, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania ruled that all claims of new evidence put forward on his behalf did not warrant conducting a new trial.
That President Obama's Senate-rejected nominee would have sought possible release for Mumia is another appalling development in this presidency – especially in view of Officer Faulkner's widow's 2007 writing, entitled:
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"Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Pain, Loss, and Injustice."
Media wishing to interview Les Kinsolving, please contact [email protected].
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