Prison Told to Stop Reading Man’s Mail

Prison officials must stop reading the legal mail of condemned journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal and allow him to write professionally while he is on death row, a federal appeals court ruled. Officials at the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections violated Abu-Jamal’s rights by punishing him for writing a book and articles while behind bars that were critical of the prison system, and by rifling through correspondence with his attorneys, the U.S. 3rd Circuit Court of Appeals said. Abu-Jamal is on death row for the 1981 murder of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.