Maureen Faulkner, widow of slain Philly police officer, wants Krasner off potential Mumia retrial

• Tom MacDonald/WHYY
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  WHYY reporter Tom MacDonald is a lifelong Philadelphia area resident who has worked in the region since the mid-1980s. Tom started in commercial radio covering the MOVE standoff with police for WFIL-AM. He was also City Hall Bureau Chief covering government and politics for more than a decade for WWDB-FM.
  Tom has been heard on numerous stations in the region during the decade he worked for Metro Traffic, doing news, traffic and weather.
  Tom has also been heard nationally, doing reports for NPR, ABC News Radio, NBC Radio, and CBS Radio.
  He has won the Associated Press award for his coverage of the protests of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and a Religious Communicators award for a post-9/11 documentary he did with the late Peter Jennings.
  
  Tom MacDonald is a lifelong Philadelphia area resident who has worked in the area since the mid 1980s. Tom started in commercial radio covering the MOVE standoff with police for WFIL-AM. He was also City Hall Bureau Chief covering government and politics for more than a decade for WWDB-FM.
  
  Tom has been heard on numerous stations in the region during the decade he worked for Metro Traffic, doing news, traffic and weather.
  
  Tom has also been heard nationally, doing reports for NPR ,ABC News Radio, NBC Radio, and CBS Radio.
  
  He has won the Associated Press award for his coverage of the protests of the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia and a Religious Communicators award for a post 9-11 documentary he did with the late Peter Jennings.

 Tom MacDonald / WHYY

Maureen Faulkner expresses her feelings outside of the Philadelphia District Attorney's office.

(Philadelphia) — The wife of a slain Philadelphia police officer wants the district attorney removed from a possible retrial of her husband’s killer, Mumia Abu Jamal.

Maureen Faulkner and more than 100 protesters came to the Philadelphia DA’s office to make the demand.

“Mr. Krasner, I am asking you to voluntarily recuse yourself and anyone else in the District Attorney’s office from my husband’s case immediately,” Faulkner said.

Philadelphia Police officer Daniel Faulkner was shot and killed in 1981 during a traffic stop. Abu Jamal was sentenced to death in his conviction, but prosecutors dropped the penalty for a life imprisonment sentence in 2011.

Faulkner held up a sign accusing DA Larry Krasner of being a liar. She alleges that Krasner lied when about knowing nothing more about the case than what he’s read in the media, even though his wife, Lisa Rau, used to be a partner in a law firm that defended Abu Jamal. Rau is now a judge.

Faulkner doesn’t want the office to be involved in the case as Abu Jamal pushes for a new trial. Back in December, a Philadelphia judge granted Abu Jamal a chance at a new appeal because a judge who heard his initial appeal had a passing involvement in the case as Philadelphia district attorney.

As a progressive defense attorney, Faulkner argues that he never should have been elected. Faulkner also said she thinks Krasner can’t be objective because a top deputy in his office once represented Abu Jamal, and because of his close ties to public supporters of Abu Jamal.

“You personally decided to have people who publicly advocated for the release of my husband’s killer on your transition team,” she said.

A spokesperson for Krasner declined to comment.

WHYY is the leading public media station serving the Philadelphia region, including Delaware, South Jersey and Pennsylvania. This story originally appeared on WHYY.org. (edited)

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