Death-Sentenced Philadelphia Prisoner Daniel Gwynn Exonerated After Nearly 30 Years

On February 27, 2024, Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara A. McDermott approved a motion from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to dis­miss first-degree mur­der, arson, and aggra­vat­ed assault charges against 54-year-old death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Daniel Gwynn. Mr. Gwynn is the 197^th per­son exon­er­at­ed after being sen­tenced to death since 1973, accord­ing to DPIC’s Innocence Database. ​“Today is most­ly for us a day of tremen­dous relief and sad­ness, a guy like him, an inno­cent soul spent that amount of time wait­ing for his exe­cu­tion lan­guish­ing in jail,” said Mr. Gwynn’s defense attor­ney Karl Schwartz to CBS News Philadelphia. Pennsylvania is now the fourth state with 13 exon­er­a­tions and Philadelphia is now the sec­ond coun­ty to lead U.S. death-row exon­er­a­tions since 1973. 

“[T]he exon­er­a­tion of Daniel Gwynn today frees a man who is like­ly inno­cent. Sadly, it also exem­pli­fies an era of inex­act and, at times cor­rupt, polic­ing and pros­e­cu­tion that has bro­ken trust with our com­mu­ni­ties to this day,” said District Attorney Larry Krasner, whose office has sup­port­ed the exon­er­a­tion of 41 wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed peo­ple. ​“The pub­lic expects the right con­se­quences for those who com­mit vio­lent crimes, and wants the inno­cent to be free. When law enforce­ment wrong­ly arrests, pros­e­cutes, and impris­ons the inno­cent, the guilty go free and are embold­ened to do more harm.”

Mr. Gwynn’s wrong­ful 1994 con­vic­tion for the death of Marsha Smith was based on false con­fes­sion and mis­tak­en eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. Assistant District Attorney David Napiorski, who led the fed­er­al habeas relief inves­ti­ga­tion, explains that key details of Mr. Gwynn’s con­fes­sion con­tra­dict­ed phys­i­cal evi­dence, includ­ing how and where the fire start­ed and which exit of the house was used. Mr. Gwynn has also explained that his con­fes­sion was coerced, writ­ing on Art for Justice that ​“During the inter­ro­ga­tion, as I was with­draw­ing from cocaine, the Detectives took advan­tage of my addled brain. They lied, manip­u­lat­ed infor­ma­tion and made ges­tured threats to hurt me. Beaten by the police in the past, I felt their threats were real.” The pho­to array police showed to wit­ness­es did not include a pho­to of Mr. Gwynn, accord­ing to the DA’s office, and were nev­er dis­closed to defense coun­sel. Prosecution also failed to dis­close addi­tion­al evi­dence point­ing to a different suspect. 

“This is a pret­ty crazy case. Mr. Gwynn has been in prison for 30 years for some­thing we don’t have any con­fi­dence that he did. There was a lot of evi­dence that was undis­closed acci­den­tal­ly we believe that points to a com­pelling alter­na­tive sus­pect for this crime – a man who is him­self is con­vict­ed of mur­der and serv­ing a life sen­tence,” told ADA Napiorski to CBS News Philadelphia. In the DA’s office’s state­ment, ADA Napiorski iden­ti­fies Mr. Gwynn’s wrong­ful con­vic­tion and ​“unjust impris­on­ment” as ​“a cau­tion­ary tale of tun­nel vision in polic­ing and prosecution.”