Former Pennsylvania Death Row Prisoner Christopher Williams Released From Prison After Being Cleared of Another Murder

Pennsylvania death-row exoneree Christopher Williams (pic­tured) was released from prison on February 9, 2021, after being exon­er­at­ed in a sec­ond mur­der case. The sec­ond wrong­ful mur­der con­vic­tion had kept Williams incar­cer­at­ed after he was cleared of the mur­der for which he was wrong­ful­ly con­demned to die.

Williams was exon­er­at­ed with the assis­tance of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit. Unit chief Patricia Cummings admit­ted that “[t]here was some cyn­i­cism in me as a human being that one indi­vid­ual could be wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed more than once.” But, she ulti­mate­ly acknowl­edged, in Williams’ case, ​“light­ning did strike twice.”

Williams was exon­er­at­ed on December 23, 2019 of a 1989 triple mur­der in North Philadelphia. He and his co-defen­dant, Theophalis Wilson, were wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed on the basis of false tes­ti­mo­ny from James White and David Lee. White was fac­ing pos­si­ble death sen­tences for six mur­ders, but he struck a deal with pros­e­cu­tors to name his accom­plices in exchange for help apply­ing for a reduced sen­tence after 15 years. He false­ly iden­ti­fied Williams and Wilson. Lee was grant­ed lenien­cy for his tes­ti­mo­ny in two unre­lat­ed cas­es, and pros­e­cu­tors delib­er­ate­ly with­held infor­ma­tion about his his­to­ry as an infor­mant and coop­er­at­ing prosecution witness.

Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors charged Williams with six killings. Juries acquit­ted him of two of the mur­ders and he has now been exon­er­at­ed of the oth­er four. ​“Williams’ con­vic­tion was built on a house of cards that began to col­lapse in 2019 when the Commonwealth opened up its files to the defense,” the District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit wrote in its fil­ings. ​“Once the light was allowed to shine, the Commonwealth was forced to see that the basic struc­ture under­pin­ning the con­vic­tion was built on the unscrupu­lous behav­ior of sev­er­al bad actors.”

Philadelphia Common Pleas Court Judge Tracy Brandeis-Roman called Williams’ expe­ri­ence ​“mind-bog­gling.” She offered an apol­o­gy to the fam­i­ly of Michael Haynesworth, the 19-year-old mur­der vic­tim in the case. Victor Abreu of the Philadelphia Federal Community Defender Office, which has rep­re­sent­ed Williams since 1998, also offered his apolo­gies to Haynesworth’s fam­i­ly ​“that 31 years lat­er, we still don’t have the answer to who killed their loved one.”

Upon his exon­er­a­tion, Williams not­ed the unique nature of his case. ​“Never in the his­to­ry of the Pennsylvania judi­cial sys­tem has some­one been charged with six mur­ders, acquit­ted of two and now exon­er­at­ed of four,” he said. He went on to offer a warn­ing about wrong­ful con­vic­tions. ​“If this was done to me,” he said, ​“the ques­tion remains: Who else was it done to?” 

In the three years since Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner estab­lished the Conviction Integrity Unit, it has been instru­men­tal in 18 exon­er­a­tions, includ­ing Williams and for­mer death-row pris­on­er William Ogrod. Philadelphia’s six death-row exon­er­a­tions since Pennsylvania reen­act­ed the death penal­ty in the 1970s is tied for the sec­ond most of any coun­ty in the U.S. All six cas­es involved police or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. A sev­enth like­ly death-row exoneree, Fred Thomas, died before he could be released, while the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office, know­ing Thomas had ter­mi­nal can­cer, fought defense efforts to expe­dite the pros­e­cu­tors’ appeal of the court order that had grant­ed Thomas a new trial.