Prosecutors in North Carolina on December 11 dropped all charges against Jonathon Hoffman, who had been con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death for the 1995 mur­der of a jew­el­ry store own­er. Hoffman won a new tri­al in 2004 because infor­ma­tion favor­able to Hoffman was with­held from the defense. During Hoffman’s first tri­al, the state’s key wit­ness, Johnell Porter, had received immu­ni­ty from fed­er­al charges for tes­ti­fy­ing against his cousin. The defense attor­neys, jury, and the judge did not know of the deal. Porter has since recant­ed his tes­ti­mo­ny, stat­ing that he lied in order to get back at his cousin for steal­ing mon­ey from him.

Defense attor­ney Joseph Cheshire stat­ed, ​“I think in the last five to six years, there’s a fair­ly well-demon­strat­ed pat­tern of wrong­ful con­vic­tions in North Carolina that are only now com­ing to light because of our new open dis­cov­ery law.”

(“Prosecutor Drops Charges Against Former Death Row Inmate,” by Martha Waggoner, Associated Press, December 11, 2007). See also Innocence.

Hoffman is the sixth North Carolina per­son to be exon­er­at­ed of cap­i­tal charges and the 126th in the nation since 1973. He is the third per­son exon­er­at­ed in 2007, and the sec­ond in December. Earlier in December, Michael McCormick was acquit­ted by a jury at his retri­al in Tennessee. All charges were dis­missed against Curtis McCarty in Oklahoma ear­li­er this year.

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