Costs
,Innocence
,Nov 14, 2023
Death-row exoneree Walter Ogrod’s federal lawsuit against the City of Philadelphia and members of the Philadelphia Police Department was settled for $9.1 million on November 3, 2023. Mr. Ogrod, who was exonerated in 2020 after 23 years on death ro…
Innocence
,Race
,Nov 18, 2005
Harold Wilson is the 6th Person Exonerated in Pennsylvania More than 16 years after a Pennsylvania jury returned three death sentences against Harold Wilson, new DNA evidence has led to his acquittal. During Wilson’s 1989 capital …
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Jan 23, 2020
In a case prosecutors now describe as a “perfect storm” of injustice, Pennsylvania death-row prisoner Christopher Williams (pictured) and his co-defen…
Innocence
,May 01, 2017
Walter Ogrod was convicted and sentenced to death in Philadelphia in 1996 for the 1988 murder of a 4‑year-old girl, whose body was found in a discarded television box. Ogrod, who is developmentally disabled, has long maintained his innocence, but …
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Race
,Sentencing Data
,Executions Overview
,Jun 06, 2020
NEWS (6/5/20) — North Carolina: The North Carolina Supreme Court has struck down the state legislature’s attempted retroactive repeal of the state’s Racial Justice Act, restoring the rights of approximately 130 death-row prisoners to seek …
Innocence
,Mar 01, 2024
On February 27, 2024, Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara A. McDermott approved a motion from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office to dismiss first-degree murd…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Aug 06, 2021
A Death Penalty Information Center analysis of data from the National Registry of Exonerations has found that law enforcement use or threat of capital prosecution against suspects or witnesses contributed to the w…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Race
,Aug 26, 2022
A Death Penalty Information Center review of data from the National Registry of Exonerations has found that the pursuit or threatened use of the death penalty by police or prosecutors in nine different states led …
Costs
,Race
,Sentencing Data
,Nov 16, 2018
During his election campaign, Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner described the economic wastefulness of city prosecutors’ pursuit of the death penalty as “lighting money on fire.” A DPIC analysis of the outcomes of the more than 200 deat…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Representation
,Dec 29, 2016
On December 22, 2016, Pennsylvania prosecutors dropped first-degree murder charges against two former Pennsylvania death row prisoners who have asserted their innocence for decades. In courtrooms 100 miles apart, Tyrone Mo…
Costs
,Innocence
,Jul 15, 2021
Studies have consistently found that a system of criminal law in which the death penalty is available as a punishment is far more expensive than a system …
Public Opinion
,May 20, 2021
In a primary election widely considered a referendum on reform prosecutors, incumbent Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner easily secured a victory against former Philadelphia homicide prosecutor Carlos Vega
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Jul 06, 2020
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 Phila…
Innocence
,Aug 16, 2021
NBC’s true crime series, Dateline, featured an episode on August 13, 2021 on the wrongful conviction and eventual exoneration of former Philadelphia death-row prisoner Walter Ogrod (pictured). The episode, entitled “The I…
Arbitrariness
,Representation
,Jul 07, 2021
“The more people know about how the system of capital punishment really works, the less support they will have for that policy,” says Marc Bookman, the author of A Descending Spiral: Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Es…
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Representation
,Jan 27, 2021
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 d…
Innocence
,Jan 09, 2023
Less than two years after being exonerated in two different cases, Philadelphia death-row exoneree Christopher Williams (pictured) has been murdered. Williams, who spent nearly three decades in prison, including …
Arbitrariness
,Race
,Representation
,New Voices
,Jul 18, 2019
Citing race disparities, ineffective representation by court-appointed lawyers, and arbitrary case outcomes, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office has asked the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to strike down the …
Innocence
,Prosecutorial Accountability
,Jun 09, 2020
Twenty-eight years after Philadelphia prosecutors first sought to take his life for the murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn, Walter Ogrod (pictured, second from right, with members of his defense team) has b…
