On October 13, Governor Tom Ridge signed an execution...

On October 13, Governor Tom Ridge signed an execution warrant for Mumia Abu-Jamal, 45, a former Black Panther and radio journalist convicted of murder in the 1981 shooting of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner. Less than two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected his request for a new trial, Ridge ordered that Abu-Jamal be executed by lethal injection on December 2. It was the second death warrant Ridge has signed for Abu-Jamal, whose case has become a worldwide cause for opponents of capital punishment. But the warrant was stayed by a Philadelphia court.