Philadelphia Boxer Sent to Death Row by Unrebutted False Medical Testimony Released After 28 Years

Former light­weight and junior wel­ter­weight box­ing con­tender Anthony Fletcher (pic­tured) has been released from prison, 28 years after he was wrong­ful­ly con­vict­ed of first-degree mur­der and sent to Pennsylvania​’s death row by false medical testimony. 

In a vir­tu­al hear­ing in the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas on January 21, 2021, Fletcher entered a plea of no con­test to charges of third-degree mur­der, and Judge Lillian Ransom resen­tenced him to 12½ – 25 years. Because he had already served more than the max­i­mum term, the court ordered Fletcher’s immediate release.

Fletcher was con­vict­ed in January 1993 and sen­tenced to death for what pros­e­cu­tors claimed had been the exe­cu­tion-style shoot­ing of Vaughn Christopher over a sup­posed drug debt. Fletcher claimed the shoot­ing had been in self-defense, after the two strug­gled over a gun Christopher had pulled on Fletcher. Dr. Hydow Park, the assis­tant med­ical exam­in­er who con­duct­ed the autop­sy, had con­clud­ed that the phys­i­cal evi­dence was con­sis­tent with Fletcher’s ver­sion of the shoot­ing. However, instead of pre­sent­ing Dr. Park, homi­cide pros­e­cu­tor Marc Costanzo sub­sti­tut­ed the tes­ti­mo­ny of Philadelphia deputy med­ical exam­in­er Dr. Ian Hood, who told the jury there was no evi­dence of a strug­gle. Costanzo then told the jury in his clos­ing argu­ment that Hood’s tes­ti­mo­ny ​“is absolute­ly impor­tant to this case, because it refutes the defendant’s ver­sion of what happened.”

The tri­al court over­turned Fletcher’s con­vic­tion in 2004, hold­ing that tri­al coun­sel had been inef­fec­tive for fail­ing to inter­view Park and present his tes­ti­mo­ny in sup­port of Fletcher’s self-defense claim. In April 2006, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court reversed, say­ing that counsel’s fail­ure had not been prej­u­di­cial. Litigating the remain­ing issues in the case in Pennsylvania’s state courts took anoth­er six years. On December 11, 2020, the fed­er­al dis­trict court accept­ed a joint stip­u­la­tion filed by the par­ties over­turn­ing Fletcher’s con­vic­tion because of tri­al counsel’s fail­ure to inter­view Dr. Park or hire an expert to review the autop­sy report and to present expert tes­ti­mo­ny in sup­port of his claim of self-defense. 

One month lat­er, Anthony Fletcher was freed.

The False Testimony and Counsel’s Ineffective Representation

Fletcher, who earned the nick­name ​“Two Guns” because of his box­ing prowess with both hands, won the Pennsylvania light­weight box­ing cham­pi­onship in March 1989. Later that year, he was shot by drug deal­ers five times as he was sit­ting in his car near a South Philadelphia play­ground. A friend who was with him in the car was killed in the shoot­ing. After suc­cess­ful­ly defend­ing his state cham­pi­onship in February 1990, Fletcher’s box­ing career end­ed one year lat­er with two con­sec­u­tive knock­out loss­es. Struggling finan­cial­ly, Fletcher began sell­ing drugs for rent money. 

In 1992, he shot Vaughn Christopher twice in the side in what Fletcher con­sis­tent­ly main­tained had been a strug­gle over Christopher’s gun. Christopher died 12 hours lat­er. Police report­ed that three peo­ple claimed to have seen Fletcher walk up to Christopher and shoot him. Two lat­er admit­ted that they did not see the shoot­ing and said that the state­ments attrib­uted to them in the police reports were false. The third pur­port­ed eye­wit­ness, Natalie Grant, was a fugi­tive who had six out­stand­ing bench war­rants against her when, more than three weeks after the shoot­ing, she impli­cat­ed Fletcher. Her state­ment to police and her tes­ti­mo­ny to the jury was con­tra­dict­ed by the phys­i­cal evi­dence as to how the shoot­ing occurred. The oth­er wit­ness called to tes­ti­fy, Ronald ​“Skeet” Williams, told the jury he hadn’t seen the shoot­ing and denied hav­ing pro­vid­ed police with a state­ment impli­cat­ing Fletcher. Costanzo then intro­duced the state­ment police attrib­uted to Williams as evi­dence against Fletcher. 

Police claimed to have lost Christopher’s cloth­ing, which would have shown where in his body he had been shot. And, despite hav­ing received the autop­sy report, Fletcher’s court-appoint­ed coun­sel nev­er inter­viewed Park or secured his tes­ti­mo­ny at tri­al and pre­sent­ed no med­ical tes­ti­mo­ny to con­tra­dict Grant’s tes­ti­mo­ny. When post-con­vic­tion coun­sel lat­er inter­viewed Hood, the assis­tant med­ical exam­in­er recant­ed his tri­al tes­ti­mo­ny. After the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had reversed the tri­al court rul­ing grant­i­ng Fletcher a new tri­al, pros­e­cu­tor Costanzo deflect­ed a ques­tion about what had real­ly hap­pened in the case. Quoted in a March 2007 sto­ry in the Philadelphia Inquirer, Costanzo said: ​“There was no evi­dence of any strug­gle giv­en by any of the eye­wit­ness­es that observed the shoot­ing. … The eye­wit­ness­es described the shoot­ing more like an exe­cu­tion than a strug­gle for a gun.” 

Police and Prosecutorial Misconduct in Philadelphia Murder Cases

Fletcher’s case is one of a grow­ing num­ber of Philadelphia wrong­ful mur­der con­vic­tions in which police or pros­e­cu­tors pre­sent­ed a ver­sion of the mur­der that was con­tra­dict­ed by the autop­sy evi­dence; pre­sent­ed false eye­wit­ness or infor­mant tes­ti­mo­ny; mis­han­dled, lost, or plant­ed a victim’s or the defendant’s cloth­ing; made false argu­ment to the jury; coerced false con­fes­sions; and/​or with­held poten­tial­ly excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence. The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit has helped to exon­er­ate 17 peo­ple since its cre­ation in January 2018, most involv­ing sig­nif­i­cant police or pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct. All six Philadelphia death-row exonerees — Neil Ferber, William Nieves, Harold Wilson, Christopher Williams, Walter Ogrod, and Kareem Johnson — were vic­tims of offi­cial mis­con­duct, as were Frederick Thomas, who died on death row while Philadelphia pros­e­cu­tors appealed a court rul­ing that would have exon­er­at­ed him, and Jimmy Dennis, who like Fletcher entered a no-con­test plea to obtain his release. 

Fletcher is from a famed Philadelphia box­ing fam­i­ly. He won his first 18 fights and went 22 bouts before absorb­ing his first loss. His 11-year career end­ed with 24 wins, four loss­es, and one draw. Fletcher was induct­ed into the Pennsylvania Boxing Hall of Fame in 2018 while still on death row. His broth­ers Frank and Troy Fletcher and his uncle Dick Turner have also been elect­ed to the Pennsylvania boxing hall.