Kareem Johnson Becomes Nation’s 170^th Death-Row Exoneree Since 1973

Former Pennsylvania death-row pris­on­er Kareem Johnson has been exon­er­at­ed, thir­teen years after being wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death by a Philadelphia jury. On July 1, 2020, the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas com­plet­ed his exon­er­a­tion, for­mal­ly enter­ing an order dis­miss­ing all charges against him in his cap­i­tal case. On May 19, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had barred his repros­e­cu­tion because of pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct that exhib­it­ed a con­scious and reck­less dis­re­gard for his right to a fair trial .

Johnson is the third death-row exon­er­a­tion in 2020 and the 170^th death-row exon­er­a­tion DPIC has con­firmed in the United States since 1973. He is the third for­mer Philadelphia death-row pris­on­er exon­er­at­ed in the last six-and-one-half months. Walter Ogrod was exon­er­at­ed in June 2020 and Christopher Williams was exon­er­at­ed in December 2019.

Johnson’s wrong­ful con­vic­tion and death sen­tence were a prod­uct of offi­cial mis­con­duct, false foren­sic evi­dence, and inef­fec­tive rep­re­sen­ta­tion. He was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2007 based upon evi­dence and argu­ment false­ly inform­ing the jury that DNA evi­dence had linked him to the mur­der. The pros­e­cu­tion, police, and a pros­e­cu­tion foren­sic ana­lyst told the jury that Johnson had shot the vic­tim, Walter Smith, at such close range that Smith’s blood spat­tered onto a red base­ball cap Johnson was wear­ing that sup­pos­ed­ly had been recov­ered at the mur­der scene. Philadelphia homi­cide pros­e­cu­tor Michael Barry false­ly linked Johnson to the mur­der through the hat, telling jurors in his open­ing state­ment that it ​“was left at th[e] scene in the mid­dle of the street [and] has Kareem Johnson’s sweat on it and has Walter Smith’s blood on it.”

Officer William Trenwith then tes­ti­fied that he had found the hat lay­ing 8 – 10 feet from Smith’s body. He fur­ther told the jury that, in his years of inves­ti­gat­ing homi­cide, he had nev­er seen blood trav­el that far a dis­tance from a victim’s body. Based on that tes­ti­mo­ny, Barry told jurors: ​“We know that he [Kareem Johnson] got in real close, with­in 2½ feet, close enough so that Walter Smith’s blood could splash up onto the bill of the cap he was wear­ing.” Barry argued: ​“Do you know who says the killer wore the hat? Walter Smith says the killer wore the hat. He says it with his blood.”

In fact, there was no blood on the red hat, nor did the police prop­er­ty receipt for the hat con­tain any indi­ca­tion of blood. Smith’s blood was actu­al­ly on a sec­ond hat — a black hat he was wear­ing at the time he was shot in the head. The DNA reports for the red hat also raised ques­tions about the sweat stain attrib­uted to Johnson. The ini­tial DNA report on the sweat stain — which was sup­ple­ment­ed twice with­out expla­na­tion — did not link the hat to Johnson.

When post-con­vic­tion coun­sel for Johnson dis­cov­ered the dis­crep­an­cies in the evi­dence, police and pros­e­cu­tors claimed to have mixed up the hats. The Philadelphia DA’s office agreed that Johnson’s con­vic­tion should be over­turned but stip­u­lat­ed to its rever­sal in April 2015 based only ​“on inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel at the guilty-inno­cence phase of tri­al.” Prosecutors insist­ed at the time of the stip­u­la­tion that Johnson ​“agree[ ] to with­draw all oth­er claims … includ­ing claims alleg­ing pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct of District Attorney Michael Barry.”

After obtain­ing addi­tion­al dis­cov­ery in prepa­ra­tion for retri­al, Johnson moved to bar his retri­al on dou­ble jeop­ardy grounds. Although the low­er courts described the prosecution’s mis­han­dling of the evi­dence in the case as ​“extreme­ly neg­li­gent, per­haps even reck­less” and called Johnson’s tri­al a ​“farce,” they allowed the retri­al to proceed.

On May 19, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed, find­ing that the mis­con­duct — even if not deemed inten­tion­al — was so severe that retry­ing Johnson would vio­late his con­sti­tu­tion­al rights. ​“Under Article I, Section 10 of the Pennsylvania Constitution,” it wrote, ​“pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al over­reach­ing suf­fi­cient to invoke dou­ble jeop­ardy pro­tec­tions includes mis­con­duct which not only deprives the defen­dant of his right to a fair tri­al, but is under­tak­en reck­less­ly, that is, with a con­scious dis­re­gard for a sub­stan­tial risk that such will be the result.” The rul­ing expand­ed Pennsylvania’s dou­ble jeop­ardy pro­tec­tions to include cas­es not only of inten­tion­al mis­con­duct, but also reck­less dis­re­gard for the defendant’s right to a fair tri­al. Two jus­tices dis­sent­ed, say­ing that grant­i­ng Johnson a retri­al was a suf­fi­cient rem­e­dy for the prosecution’s actions.

The court returned the case to the tri­al court with direc­tions to enter an order grant­i­ng Johnson’s motion to bar retri­al. The Philadelphia courts for­mal­ly dis­missed the charges on July 1.

Johnson is Pennsylvania’s ninth death-row exon­er­a­tion and the sixth from Philadelphia. All six Philadelphia exon­er­a­tions have involved offi­cial mis­con­duct. Johnson remains incar­cer­at­ed on unre­lat­ed mur­der charges. His inno­cence claim on those charges is pend­ing in the Pennsylvania state courts.