
Justin Wolfe
Photo courtesy of Terri Steinberg
On July 7, 2025, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of former Virginia death-sentenced prisoner Justin Wolfe, vacating a lower court dismissal of his most recent habeas petition, and paving the way for a new hearing where Mr. Wolfe will have the opportunity to provide new evidence in support of his innocence. Mr. Wolfe was convicted and sentenced to death in 2002 for the 2001 murder-for-hire of his cannabis supplier in Northern Virginia. In his most recent petition, counsel for Mr. Wolfe argue that a 2023 signed declaration from the individual responsible for carrying out the murder, exonerates him and proves his actual innocence. Attorneys for the Commonwealth previously argued that this declaration was not new evidence, and in 2023, a federal judge agreed with them. However, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals panel disagreed, citing the misconduct of prosecutors, and finding Owen Barber’s 2023 declaration “constitutes new evidence” that was not previously available.
“Twenty-four years ago, the Commonwealth decided that appellant was a guilty man. From that moment, the Commonwealth has done everything in its power to ensure Appellant dies in prison, eschewing the Constitution, ethical strictures, and Appellant’s own repeated and consistent assertions of actual innocence.”
Ultimately, the Fourth Circuit found that the 2023 declaration from Mr. Barber exonerating Mr. Wolfe constitutes new evidence “because it rendered Barber available to [Mr. Wolfe] as an exculpatory witness when Barber had previously been unavailable pursuant to his invocation of his Fifth Amendment privilege.”
In 2011, a federal judge halted a scheduled execution date for Mr. Wolfe and dismissed all of the charges against him, finding that prosecutors had ignored evidence that contradicted their theory of the crime. The judge ordered the Commonwealth to release Mr. Wolfe and barred a retrial. In 2012, the Fourth Circuit reversed this decision and just days later, local prosecutors approached Mr. Barber in prison, where investigators, on the record, threatened Mr. Barber with the death penalty if he exonerated Mr. Wolfe during the retrial. Because of this threat, Mr. Barber invoked his Fifth Amendment right and refused to testify for Mr. Wolfe. Facing the threat of another possible death sentence, in 2016, Mr. Wolfe agreed to plead guilty to new charges and he was sentenced to 41 years in prison.
Mr. Wolfe later appealed his conviction, arguing that he made the plea involuntarily because prosecutors engaged in an unconstitutional and vindictive prosecution after federal courts found his conviction and death sentence had been initially obtained through prosecutorial misconduct.
The Fourth Circuit panel found that Mr. Barber’s 2023 sworn declaration is indeed new evidence, and that he is a credible witness. The panel wrote that Mr. Barber “is an imprisoned man who has struggled for decades between telling the truth and preserving his own life. We cannot condone the Commonwealth’s conduct in creating this dichotomy.” Citing the threatening behavior of prosecutors in this case, the panel acknowledged that Mr. Wolfe’s “case is a textbook example of the conduct we have recognized renders a plea involuntary.”
Joe Dodson, Fourth Circuit scolds Virginia over handling of 2001 murder-for-hire case, Courthouse News Service, July 7, 2025; Joe Dodson, Drug dealer claims innocence in decades-old murder-for-hire, Courthouse News Service, May 6, 2025.