Justin Wolfe, Former Virginia Death Row Prisoner, Released on Plea Deal After Federal Court Found Significant Prosecutorial Misconduct

Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorney Amy Ashworth agreed to the plea deal, which she called “a just and appropriate outcome under the circumstances,” after the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit issued a scathing opinion in 2025 regarding her predecessor’s “egregious” misconduct. In that ruling, the Fourth Circuit found that a 2023 sworn declaration by Mr. Barber qualified as “new evidence,” reversing a lower court’s decision and allowing Mr. Wolfe’s habeas corpus appeal to proceed. Ms. Ashworth said in a statement, “The handling of this case has also been deeply troubling. Significant information was not disclosed during the first trial, and allegations of witness intimidation arose during the retrial. The result has been decades of litigation and uncertainty for everyone involved.” 

Mr. Petrole’s family issued a statement in response to the plea deal, saying, in part, “Nothing that happens in a courtroom can bring Danny back or undo what was taken from our family. We recognize the rationale underlying the Commonwealth’s decision. We are grateful to the current Prince William County Commonwealth’s Attorneys team for listening to our family, treating our concerns seriously, and working toward a resolution that we can accept.” Terri Steinberg, Mr. Wolfe’s mother, expressed her sympathy for the Petrole family, telling the Washington Post that the misconduct in the case “only compounded the pain and suffering of all involved.” 

Mr. Wolfe’s death sentence was vacated in 2011 on grounds of prosecutorial misconduct. A federal judge ordered the Commonwealth to release Mr. Wolfe and barred a retrial. In 2012, the Fourth Circuit reversed this decision and just days later, Prince William County 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. The Fourth Circuit’s 2025 decision allowed Mr. Wolfe to pursue an appeal that alleged his 2016 plea was “involuntary” due to prosecutors’ coercion of Mr. Barber. 

Mr. Wolfe was 19 years old at the time of Mr. Petrole’s murder. In the decades since his trial, death sentences of late adolescents have become extremely rare. DPI’s 2025 report, “Immature Minds in a Maturing Society,” found that just five defendants ages 18 – 20 were sentenced to death between 2020 and 2024. At the time of Mr. Wolfe’s 2002 trial, Virginia allowed death sentences for people as young as 16. Now, it has abolished the death penalty altogether. 

Because Mr. Wolfe’s plea agreement includes charges related to the original crime that resulted in his death sentence, he does not meet the criteria for inclusion on DPI’s Exoneration List. Like several others who have been released from death row, he maintains his innocence, and has been cleared of all murder charges, but made a plea agreement that secures his freedom without fully legally exonerating him.