PHILADELPHIA - (AP) An appeals court Thursday upheld Mumia Abu-Jamal's conviction for murdering a police officer 27 years ago but rejected prosecutors' request to reinstate the death penalty for the former Black Panther.

A three-judge panel of the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said that because the jury that sentenced Abu-Jamal to die was given flawed instructions in the penalty phase, he must either get a new sentencing hearing or be sentenced to life in prison.

Abu-Jamal's lead attorney, Robert R. Bryan of San Francisco, said he was glad the judges did not reinstate the death sentence, but added that he will continue fighting to get his client a new trial.

"I've never seen a case as permeated and riddled with racism as this one," Bryan said Thursday. "I want a new trial and I want him free. His conviction was a travesty of justice."

Prosecutors are weighing their options, but said they were expecting Abu-Jamal to request a hearing before the full appeals court.

A Philadelphia jury convicted Abu-Jamal, who is black, of killing white Philadelphia police Officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981 after the patrolman pulled over Abu-Jamal's brother in an overnight traffic stop.

Prosecutors say Faulkner, 25, managed to shoot Abu-Jamal during the confrontation. A wounded Abu-Jamal, his own gun lying nearby, was still at the scene when police arrived, and authorities consider the evidence against him overwhelming.

Since Abu-Jamal's 1982 conviction, activists in the United States and Europe have rallied in support of his claims that he was the victim of a racist justice system. Abu-Jamal, 53, has kept his case in the spotlight through books and radio broadcasts.

District Attorney Lynne Abraham said she was pleased Abu-Jamal's conviction had been upheld and believes the ruling should dispel some myths about him.

"For all those here who believe that the system might have went awry, the 3rd Circuit has finally decided ... that Mr. Jamal is guilty when he was convicted and he's still guilty today," she said. "So don't shed any tears for Mr. Jamal; he's where he ought to be, at least in prison for the rest of his life."

Abu-Jamal, born Wesley Cook, has argued in numerous appeals that racism by the judge and prosecutors corrupted his conviction at the hands of a mostly white jury. Prosecutors, meanwhile, had appealed a federal judge's 2001 decision to grant Abu-Jamal a new sentencing hearing because of the jury instructions.

The issue over the instructions relates to whether jurors understood how to weigh mitigating circumstances that might have kept Abu-Jamal, 53, off death row. Under the law, jurors did not have to unanimously agree on a mitigating circumstance.

"The verdict form together with the jury instructions were misleading as to whether unanimity was required in consideration of mitigating circumstances," the appeals court wrote.

Faulkner's widow, Maureen Faulkner, said she was gratified that the court upheld Abu-Jamal's conviction, but noted that the case's long odyssey is still not over.

"In a way I do feel a victory," she said. "In another way ... it's like a thorn in my side that is still there that cannot be pulled out."

Faulkner has kept her husband's memory alive through public appearances, a foundation and a recent book, "Murdered by Mumia: A Life Sentence of Loss, Pain and Injustice."

The appeals court heard arguments in May that focused on several constitutional issues, including whether prosecutors improperly eliminated black jurors in the 1982 trial.

Ten whites and two blacks served on the jury. Prosecutors struck 10 blacks and five whites from the pool, while accepting four blacks and 20 whites, according to Bryan, who argued that prosecutors at the time fostered "a culture of discrimination."

However, the court indicated there is no record of the makeup of the approximately 150-person jury pool, making it impossible to determine the total percentage of blacks excluded.

In dismissing the bias claims Thursday, the court also noted Abu-Jamal did not allege improper exclusions until an appeal that was rejected in 1989.

Assistant District Attorney Hugh Burns Jr. said the dismissal fell in line with other federal court decisions that maintain such claims need to be raised in a more timely fashion.

But in a partially dissenting opinion Thursday, Judge Thomas Ambro disputed the timeliness standard and said that Abu-Jamal presented enough evidence to warrant further investigation of the exclusion claims.

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Associated Press writers Maryclaire Dale and JoAnn Loviglio contributed to this report.