In Pennsylvania, death-row pris­on­ers whose con­vic­tions or death sen­tences are over­turned in state or fed­er­al post-con­vic­tion appeals are almost nev­er resen­tenced to death, a new Death Penalty Information Center study has revealed. Since Pennsylvania adopt­ed its cur­rent death-penal­ty statute in September 1978, post-con­vic­tion courts have reversed pris­on­ers’ cap­i­tal con­vic­tions or death sen­tences in 170 cas­es. Defendants have faced cap­i­tal retri­als or resen­tenc­ings in 137 of those cas­es, and 133 times — in more than 97% of the cas­es — they received non-cap­i­tal dis­po­si­tions rang­ing from life with­out parole to exon­er­a­tion. Only four pris­on­ers whose death sen­tences were reversed in post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings remain on death row. 

Philadelphia cas­es account­ed for more than half of the post-con­vic­tion rever­sals (86 cas­es) and 54% of the non-cap­i­tal case dis­po­si­tions (72 cas­es). DPIC reviewed all of the cas­es in which Pennsylvania death-row pris­on­ers have won post-con­vic­tion relief. Contrary to the often-expressed per­cep­tion that most death-penal­ty rever­sals occur in fed­er­al courts, state courts reversed twice as many Pennsylvania cap­i­tal con­vic­tions or death sen­tences as did their fed­er­al coun­ter­parts. Pennsylvania death-row pris­on­ers obtained state post-con­vic­tion relief from their con­vic­tions or death sen­tences — and, in some instances, both — in 116 cas­es. State courts grant­ed 18 post-con­vic­tion peti­tion­ers new tri­als and vacat­ed 108 death sen­tences. Of the vacat­ed sen­tences, the state courts grant­ed 91 new sen­tenc­ing hear­ings, and declared pris­on­ers con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly inel­i­gi­ble for the death penal­ty in 17 cas­es. Life sen­tences were imposed in fif­teen cas­es as a result of a pris­on­er’s intel­lec­tu­al dis­abil­i­ty and in two cas­es because the pris­on­er had been younger than age 18 at the time of the offense. 

Federal courts grant­ed Pennsylvania cap­i­tal habeas cor­pus peti­tion­ers relief from their con­vic­tions and/​or death sen­tences in 58 cas­es, award­ing new tri­als in 24 cas­es and new sen­tenc­ing hear­ings in 44. Three death-row pris­on­ers who were grant­ed penal­ty-phase relief in state court lat­er over­turned their con­vic­tions in fed­er­al court. One pris­on­er who was grant­ed a new penal­ty-phase tri­al by the fed­er­al courts also over­turned his con­vic­tion after the case was remand­ed back to the state courts. 

The DPIC study found that 86% of the reversed death-penal­ty cas­es con­clud­ed with a non-cap­i­tal resen­tenc­ing to life with­out parole. Those includ­ed 89 cas­es result­ing from sen­tenc­ing pleas or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al deci­sions to drop the death penal­ty, 12 cap­i­tal sen­tenc­ing retri­als that result­ed in life sen­tences, and the 17 cas­es in which defen­dants were declared con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly inel­i­gi­ble to face the death penal­ty. Two for­mer­ly death-sen­tenced pris­on­ers—Nicholas Yarris and Harold Wilson—were exon­er­at­ed, and a third, Frederick Thomas, died on death row while Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors appealed a tri­al judges’ rul­ing that new evi­dence pre­sent­ed in the post-con­vic­tion pro­ceed­ings estab­lished that no jury would have con­vict­ed him. Thirteen pris­on­ers — includ­ing sev­er­al wide­ly con­sid­ered to be inno­cent — pled guilty or no con­test to less­er mur­der charges and were sen­tenced to time served or to terms of years. Six have com­plet­ed their sen­tences and two oth­ers have been released on parole. 

The DPIC study found that the odds were 33.25 to 1 against a pris­on­er who won post-con­vic­tion relief remain­ing on death row. Six defen­dants were resen­tenced to death, but two of those death sen­tences were lat­er over­turned and the defen­dant resen­tenced to life with­out parole. The remain­ing four death sen­tences are still on appeal. Calling Pennsylvania’s death-penal­ty sys­tem ​“rid­dled with flaws, …error prone, expen­sive, and any­thing but infal­li­ble,” Govenor Tom Wolf in February 2015 imposed a mora­to­ri­um on exe­cu­tions in the Commonwealth. The state has not car­ried out an exe­cu­tion since 1999.

(Robert Brett Dunham, Pennsylvania Post-Conviction Reversals and Subsequent Dispositions, Death Penalty Information Center, April 23, 2018.) Read Governor Wolf’s Moratorium Declaration. See Pennsylvania, Sentencing, and Life Without Parole.

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