PENNSYLVANIA — Convicted police killer and death-row activist Mumia Abu-Jamal was ordered a new sentencing hearing by a federal appeals court on Tuesday.

The federal appeals court found for a second time that the death-penalty instructions given to the jury at Abu-Jamal’s 1982 trial were unclear. Last year the U. S. Supreme Court ordered the Third Circuit to review that decision.

Abu-Jamal’s conviction ruling of first-degree murder for killing officer Daniel Faulkner in 1981 still stands.

But a new sentencing could mean a lesser punishment for Abu-Jamal, who has been fighting to have his sentence overturned for years.