Philadelphia Death-Row Exoneree Harold Wilson Dies at 61

Harold Wilson, exon­er­at­ed in 2005 six­teen years after his wrong­ful con­vic­tion and death sen­tence for a triple mur­der in a Philadelphia crack house, has died. He had recent­ly suf­fered a series of strokes that were fur­ther com­pli­cat­ed by pneu­mo­nia. His risk of stroke and the com­pli­ca­tions that fol­lowed had been wors­ened by the Posttraumatic Stress Disorder he devel­oped as a result of the 17 years he faced the death penal­ty, most spent in soli­tary con­fine­ment on death row. He died on May 18, 2019. He was 61 years old.

After his exon­er­a­tion, Mr. Wilson became a vocal advo­cate for the abo­li­tion of cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment, work­ing with the death-row exoneree group Witness to Innocence and speak­ing at events across the coun­try. Kirk Bloodsworth, the nation’s first death-row DNA exoneree and now exec­u­tive direc­tor of Witness to Innocence, called the 6’4” Wilson ​“a moun­tain of a man, not just in stature. That was his heart. The way he’d speak and the pas­sion he had in his heart made him twice the size he was.”

In June 1996, Wilson came with­in eight days of exe­cu­tion when Pennsylvania Governor Thomas Ridge sched­uled his exe­cu­tion for July 11. DPIC exec­u­tive direc­tor Robert Dunham, then direc­tor of the Pennsylvania Capital Case Resource Center, obtained a stay of exe­cu­tion and recruit­ed coun­sel to rep­re­sent Wilson in his chal­lenge to his con­vic­tion and death sen­tence. At the time Wilson was tried, the Philadelphia pub­lic defend­ers were not autho­rized to rep­re­sent defen­dants in homi­cide cas­es and defen­dants were rep­re­sent­ed by noto­ri­ous­ly under­fund­ed and unpre­pared court-appoint­ed lawyers, Dunham said. A Philadelphia court over­turned Wilson’s death sen­tence in August 1999, find­ing that his appoint­ed lawyer had failed to inves­ti­gate and present avail­able mitigating evidence.

While Wilson’s appeal was pend­ing, District Attorney Lynne Abraham released a jury selec­tion train­ing video­tape in which Jack McMahon — Wilson’s tri­al pros­e­cu­tor and then a can­di­date for D.A. against Abraham — taught Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors tech­niques to exclude African Americans from jury ser­vice. Wilson became the first Philadelphia death-row pris­on­er to chal­lenge his con­vic­tion based on the evi­dence in the train­ing tape. The tri­al court refused to con­sid­er that chal­lenge because he had pre­sent­ed a jury dis­crim­i­na­tion claim (before the tape was known to exist) in his direct appeal. However, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court returned the case to the tri­al court for a hear­ing on the issue, and on January 17, 2003 the court grant­ed Wilson a new trial.

By then, the Defender Association of Philadelphia was han­dling cap­i­tal cas­es and its homi­cide unit rep­re­sent­ed Wilson on his retri­al. DNA test­ing of the killer’s jack­et revealed blood from four peo­ple — the three vic­tims and an uniden­ti­fied per­son who was not Wilson. Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors retried him any­way. The first retri­al end­ed in a mis­tri­al when pros­e­cu­tors left inflam­ma­to­ry crime scene pho­tos on the bar of the jury box in clear view of the jurors. The sec­ond tri­al end­ed in an acquit­tal on November 15, 2005.

Wilson began advo­cat­ing for crim­i­nal jus­tice reform and the abo­li­tion of the death penal­ty. ​“The crim­i­nal jus­tice sys­tem has a lot of prob­lems, and Harold knew that,” Bloodsworth said, ​“and [he] knew there were many oth­ers left behind.” ​“The death of this won­der­ful, gen­tle man is anoth­er reminder of the life­times that have been lost and the lives that have been destroyed by a bro­ken pol­i­cy that, as cur­rent­ly admin­is­tered, has proven itself inca­pable of reli­ably dis­tin­guish­ing between the inno­cent and the guilty or of elim­i­nat­ing arbi­trary fac­tors such as race, geog­ra­phy, and pover­ty from the cal­cu­lus of who lives and who is sen­tenced to die,” said Dunham in a state­ment. Wilson, Dunham said, ​“believed [the death penal­ty] was fatal­ly flawed, irre­deemably unfair, and immoral. He brought that mes­sage pow­er­ful­ly to the world and it is a mes­sage he told me he want­ed oth­ers to con­tin­ue to shout from the rooftops.”