Roger King, Former Philadelphia Prosecutor Who Once Held Record For Most Death Penalty Convictions, Dies

Roger King, a for­mer pros­e­cu­tor in Philadelphia who at one point was respon­si­ble for 20% of all the death sen­tences imposed in Pennsylvania, died of kid­ney can­cer on August 24. When King retired in 2008, he held the record for most death sen­tences obtained by a sin­gle Pennsylvania pros­e­cu­tor. None of the men he sent to death row has ever been executed. 

While King’s aggres­sive pur­suit of death sen­tences con­tributed to his ​“larg­er than life” rep­u­ta­tion, it also involved charges of mis­con­duct that includ­ed the pur­suit of the death penal­ty against at least sev­en men who may have been innocent.

William Nieves was pros­e­cut­ed by King in 1994 and con­vict­ed based upon ques­tion­able eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny. He was exon­er­at­ed from death row in 2000 after his new attor­ney pre­sent­ed evi­dence that his first jury nev­er heard that an eye­wit­ness had orig­i­nal­ly iden­ti­fied the per­pe­tra­tor as a short black man, not the tall, light-skinned Nieves. 

King also with­held excul­pa­to­ry evi­dence in the tri­al of James Dennis (pic­tured) who was grant­ed a new tri­al on August 23, 2016. The Pennsylvania fed­er­al appeals court found that King had sup­pressed ​“a receipt cor­rob­o­rat­ing Dennis’ ali­bi, an incon­sis­tent state­ment by the Commonwealth’s key eye­wit­ness, and doc­u­ments indi­cat­ing that anoth­er indi­vid­ual com­mit­ted the mur­der,” which, the court said, ​“effec­tive­ly gut­ted” the prosecution’s case. 

A Philadelphia judge over­turned the 1993 con­vic­tion of a third death row pris­on­er pros­e­cut­ed by King, Frederick Thomas, who — as with Nieves and Dennis — were con­vict­ed on shaky eye­wit­ness tes­ti­mo­ny and with­out any phys­i­cal evi­dence against them. Before Thomas was grant­ed a new tri­al in 2002, the state’s two eye­wit­ness­es recant­ed their tes­ti­mo­ny and police offi­cer James Ryan — whom the defense said had framed Thomas — was con­vict­ed on cor­rup­tion charges aris­ing out of his con­duct in oth­er cas­es, includ­ing fal­si­fy­ing police reports and mak­ing false arrests. 

King also pros­e­cut­ed four inno­cent men in Philadelphia’s ​“Lex Street Massacre,” the worst mass mur­der in Philadelphia his­to­ry. No phys­i­cal evi­dence linked any of the men to the killings, but King pro­ceed­ed with one ques­tion­able wit­ness and the coerced con­fes­sion of one of the defen­dants. After 18 months in prison with­out being tried, the court dis­missed all charges against the men. The four sued for their wrong­ful incar­cer­a­tion and obtained a $1.9 mil­lion set­tle­ment from the city.