Appeals court affirms federal death sentence for Kaboni Savage, notorious Philly drug kingpin

by Jeremy Roebuck

A federal appeals court has affirmed the death sentence of notorious North Philadelphia drug lord Kaboni Savage this week, bringing the unrepentant killer responsible for the deaths of four children and two women in a 2004 firebombing attack one step closer to execution.

In its ruling, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit acknowledged that Savage’s case was the first time in nearly a century the Philadelphia-based court had been called upon to review a rarely imposed federal death sentence on direct appeal and that, since then, public debate over the punishment has shifted substantially.

Still, Chief Judge D. Brooks Smith, writing for the Philadelphia-based panel in a 201-page opinion issued Thursday, said that the court discerned “no grounds entitling Savage to relief on any of the issues he raises.”

Rest is here

Kaboni Savage is also discussed in Black Brothers, Inc.: The Violent Rise and Fall of Philadelphia’s Black Mafia (Milo, 2007).