Noel Montalvo Exonerated Twenty Years After Pennsylvania Sent Him to Death Row

On December 18, Pennsylvania dropped all homi­cide charges against Noel Montalvo, twen­ty years after he was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in York County. Mr. Montalvo (pic­tured) pled guilty to one count of tam­per­ing with evi­dence in exchange for release and one year on pro­ba­tion. The Death Penalty Information Center has deter­mined that Mr. Montalvo meets the cri­te­ria for inclu­sion on our exon­er­a­tion list because the charges that placed him on death row have been dismissed. 

Mr. Montalvo’s broth­er Milton was con­vict­ed and sen­tenced to death in 2000 for the 1998 mur­ders of his estranged com­mon-law wife, Miriam Ascencio, and her new boyfriend, Nelson Lugo. A neigh­bor found Ms. Ascencio and Mr. Lugo stabbed to death the morn­ing after the cou­ple had gone out togeth­er to a local bar. DNA test­ing of over 70 items at the scene matched blood and hair to Milton but found no trace of Noel. Another neigh­bor saw Milton alone at Ms. Ascencio’s door that night and heard him shout­ing. Nonetheless, pros­e­cu­tors lat­er tried Noel for the mur­ders and he was sen­tenced to death in 2003. Only one wit­ness linked Noel to the crime, tes­ti­fy­ing that he had told her he mur­dered Ms. Ascencio, but the wit­ness admit­ted on cross-exam­i­na­tion that a detec­tive had threat­ened her with jail time if she didn’t implicate Noel. 

In 2019, a judge over­turned Noel’s con­vic­tion and sen­tence based on his attorney’s inef­fec­tive­ness in sev­er­al respects, includ­ing fail­ing to present key mit­i­ga­tion evi­dence and chal­lenge the tri­al judge’s error in jury instruc­tions. That deci­sion was upheld on appeal by the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in 2021. Milton also received relief when a court grant­ed a new penal­ty phase in 2017 based on inef­fec­tive assis­tance of coun­sel, but he died in 2021 before resen­tenc­ing. Instead of pur­su­ing a new tri­al for Noel, the par­ties even­tu­al­ly reached the plea agree­ment for his release. Under the agree­ment, Noel admit­ted only to leav­ing the state with his broth­er on the night of the mur­ders. The phys­i­cal evi­dence has been retest­ed mul­ti­ple times over the years and experts have defin­i­tive­ly excluded Noel. 

“That he was award­ed a new tri­al and ulti­mate­ly had homi­cide charges dis­missed is no sur­prise,” said Marshall Dayan, Chairman of the Board of Directors of Pennsylvanians for Alternatives to the Death Penalty and for­mer attor­ney for Noel Montalvo. ​“The shock­ing real­i­ty is that he was con­vict­ed in the first place when the Commonwealth had vir­tu­al­ly no evi­dence against him. His orig­i­nal con­vic­tion evi­dences the arbi­trari­ness, if not the dis­crim­i­na­tion, inher­ent in our crim­i­nal legal sys­tem, and in par­tic­u­lar in our cap­i­tal crim­i­nal legal system.” 

Noel main­tained his inno­cence for his entire incar­cer­a­tion, and Milton him­self said that his broth­er was not involved. Interviewed out­side of York County Prison after his release, Noel said that the carcer­al sys­tem need­ed to change because ​“too many peo­ple are real­ly inno­cent” and ​“proof has sus­tained the innocence.” 

Noel Montalvo is the 196^th per­son exon­er­at­ed, and the 12^th in Pennsylvania, of those sen­tenced to death since 1973. Pennsylvania is now tied with North Carolina and Louisiana for fourth-most exon­er­a­tions from death row, after Florida (30), Illinois (22), and Texas (16). Noel Montalvo is the fourth per­son exon­er­at­ed in 2023 after John Huffington, Jesse Johnson, and Glynn Simmons.