WASHINGTON — Death-row inmate Mumia Abu-Jamal lost his bid for a new trial in the killing of a police officer after the Supreme Court said it would not take up the case.
Abu-Jamal, a former Black Panther and radio reporter, had claimed prosecutors improperly excluded blacks from the jury that convicted him of killing a Philadelphia officer in 1981.
In other Supreme Court action Monday:
• The court will not hear the appeal of a woman who ran a drug ring out of a house in Pine Ridge, S.D., donated to her after a 1999 visit by former President Bill Clinton. Geraldine Blue Bird, 53, was sentenced in April 2007 to 34 years in prison after she was found guilty of hosting a conspiracy that trafficked an estimated $2 million worth of cocaine from Denver to Nebraska and South Dakota over three years.
• Chinese Muslim detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, asked the court Monday to order their release into the United States. The Uighurs say the court should overrule a federal panel that has blocked their release. Federal judges have said they should be freed because they are no longer listed as enemy combatants.
• The court ruled against the Navajo Nation for a second time in its battle with the federal government over whether the tribe should have gotten more money for coal on its land. The reservation covers parts of New Mexico, Arizona and Utah. The Peabody Coal Co. has mined coal on tribal lands for decades, paying the tribe taxes and royalties. In 1985, the tribe alleged Peabody conspired with Interior Secretary Donald Hodel to get the tribe to accept a lower royalty than some officials believed should be paid.
