A ​‘Perfect Storm’ of Injustice — Death-Row Prisoner Christopher Williams Exonerated in Philadelphia Murder Case

In a case pros­e­cu­tors now describe as a ​“per­fect storm” of injus­tice, Pennsylvania death-row pris­on­er Christopher Williams (pic­tured) and his co-defen­dant Theophalis Wilson have been exon­er­at­ed of a 1989 triple mur­der in North Philadelphia. 

On December 23, 2019, con­ced­ing that lat­er-fired pros­e­cu­tors had with­held ​“a pletho­ra of sig­nif­i­cant mate­r­i­al, excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence,” the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office dropped the charges against Williams. Less than a month lat­er, on January 21, 2020, pros­e­cu­tors told a Philadelphia tri­al court that Wilson had been uncon­sti­tu­tion­al­ly con­vict­ed and with­drew all charges against him. Wilson, who was 17 years old at the time of the mur­ders, had been sen­tenced to life without parole.

Both men had been wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed based on the per­jured tes­ti­mo­ny of a Commonwealth infor­mant and the delib­er­ate sup­pres­sion of excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence by for­mer Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors. The state’s key wit­ness was James White, a con­fessed mur­der­er who tes­ti­fied pur­suant to a deal that spared him cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion for six sep­a­rate mur­ders. White lat­er recant­ed his tes­ti­mo­ny, say­ing that pros­e­cu­tors had met with him sev­er­al times before Williams’ and Wilson’s tri­als and pro­vid­ed him with fab­ri­cat­ed infor­ma­tion for his testimony. 

The tri­al court reversed Williams’ con­vic­tion in December 2013, find­ing that his tri­al lawyer had failed to inves­ti­gate the crime scene and chal­lenge White’s ​“eye­wit­ness” account of the crime. The tri­al court said expert foren­sic and med­ical tes­ti­mo­ny would have shown that White’s ver­sion of how the mur­der occurred was false and phys­i­cal­ly impos­si­ble. On appeal, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court wrote that “[t]his tes­ti­mo­ny, if believed by the jury, cou­pled with the oth­er evi­dence impeach­ing White’s cred­i­bil­i­ty, would like­ly have changed the jury’s mind and result­ed in Williams’ acquit­tal of the three murders.”

While Williams’ case was await­ing retri­al, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) began inves­ti­gat­ing Wilson’s case, lat­er expand­ing its review to include Williams’ tri­al. In 2019, the CIU pro­vid­ed defense lawyers more than 40,000 pages of doc­u­ments in the case. In its motion to drop the charges against Williams, the CIU wrote that its file review ​“dis­closed evi­dence that con­tra­dict­ed White’s account; impeached oth­er wit­ness­es; incul­pat­ed oth­er spe­cif­ic indi­vid­u­als; and indi­cat­ed that the vic­tims in this case were caught in an ongo­ing dis­pute between two extreme­ly vio­lent gangs, either of which may have been respon­si­ble for their deaths.” 

In ear­ly December 2019, Patricia Cummings, chief of the CIU, per­son­al­ly inter­viewed White, who, she said, con­tin­ued to dis­avow his tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny. Her motion to drop the case against Williams said that ​“the Commonwealth no longer cred­its White’s tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny and account of the mur­ders with which Williams is charged.” Because of that, she wrote, ​“it can­not and will not offer White’s pri­or tes­ti­mo­ny and state­ments as evi­dence in any future pro­ceed­ings against Williams.” With ​“no oth­er com­pe­tent evi­dence of Williams’ guilt,” there was no basis to con­tin­ue to pros­e­cute him, the motion said. 

Court fil­ing by the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office in Wilson’s case called the mur­der pros­e­cu­tions a ​“per­fect storm” of injus­tice involv­ing ​“decades” or mis­con­duct. At Wilson’s court hear­ing on January 21, Cummings told the court, ​“It is time for Mr. Wilson be allowed to go home — that he go home a free man, and that he go home with an apol­o­gy. No words can express what we put these peo­ple through. What we put Mr. Wilson through. What we put his family through.” 

Christopher Williams is the 167^th per­son exon­er­at­ed from death row in the United States since 1973, and the sev­enth in Pennsylvania. He has not been released because he is still chal­leng­ing a sep­a­rate mur­der con­vic­tion that was pros­e­cut­ed by the same homi­cide pros­e­cu­tor using tes­ti­mo­ny from the same infor­mants. DPIC research has found more than two dozen Philadelphia death-penal­ty cas­es that have been over­turned as a result of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and offi­cial mis­con­duct has been a major fac­tor in all four death-row exon­er­a­tions to date.