Entries tagged with “Philadelphia, PA”

Issues

Mar 01, 2024

Death-Sentenced Philadelphia Prisoner Daniel Gwynn Exonerated After Nearly 30 Years

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 mur­der, arson, and aggra­vat­ed assault charges against 54-year-old death-sen­tenced pris­on­er Daniel Gwynn. Mr. Gwynn is the 197th per­son exon­er­at­ed after being sen­tenced to death since 1973, accord­ing to DPIC’s Innocence Database. ​“Today is most­ly for us a day of tremen­dous relief and sad­ness, a guy like him, an inno­cent soul spent that…

Issues

Nov 14, 2023

$9.1 mil­lion wrong­ful con­vic­tion set­tle­ment for Pennsylvania death row exoneree Walter Ogrod

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 row, was ini­tial­ly con­vict­ed in 1996 based on a coerced con­fes­sion and false tes­ti­mo­ny from jail­house infor­mants in a case fur­ther taint­ed by police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct and inad­e­quate legal rep­re­sen­ta­tion at tri­al. In a statement confirming…

Issues

Jan 09, 2023

Philadelphia Death-Row Survivor Christopher Williams Shot to Death at Funeral Less Than Two Years After Double Exoneration

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 25 years on death row, for sep­a­rate wrong­ful mur­der con­vic­tions, was fatal­ly shot after attend­ing the funer­al of Tyree Little, anoth­er for­mer­ly incar­cer­at­ed man, in North Philadelphia on December 16,…

Issues

Aug 16, 2021

NBC’s ​‘Dateline’ Investigates the Wrongful Capital Conviction of Death-Row Exoneree Walter Ogrod

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 Investigation,” is part of an NBC News series called ​“Justice for All” that reports on wrong­ful con­vic­tions and the U.S. criminal legal…

Issues

Aug 06, 2021

DPIC Analysis: 13 Exonerated in 2020 From Convictions Obtained by Wrongful Threat or Pursuit of the Death Penalty

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 wrong­ful con­vic­tions of 10% of the peo­ple exon­er­at­ed in the United States and more than one-fifth of all mur­der exonerations in…

Issues

Jul 15, 2021

Hidden Costs: Liability Judgments for Wrongful Capital Prosecutions Cost Taxpayers in Death-Penalty States Hundreds of Millions of Dollars

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 in which the most severe pun­ish­ment is life with­out parole or a long prison term. Now, as the num­ber of mur­der exon­er­a­tions mounts across the United States, a pre­vi­ous­ly hid­den cost is emerg­ing: the cost of lia­bil­i­ty for police and pros­e­cu­to­r­i­al mis­con­duct asso­ci­at­ed with the wrong­ful use or threat­ened use of the death…

Issues

Jul 07, 2021

NEW BOOK — Marc Bookman’s A Descending Spiral: Exposing the Death Penalty in 12 Essays

“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 Essays. Bookman’s crit­i­cal­ly acclaimed col­lec­tion of essays — described by Publishers Weekly as ​“a cogent and har­row­ing primer on what’s wrong with cap­i­tal pun­ish­ment” — chan­nels his decades of cap­i­tal lit­i­ga­tion experience into…

Research

May 20, 2021

In Election Seen as Referendum on Reform Prosecutors, Larry Krasner Renominated for Second Term as Philadelphia District Attorney

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. Krasner won the May 18, 2021 elec­tion on a plat­form of con­tin­u­ing the reform he began four years ago when he was first elect­ed: eschew­ing use of the death penal­ty, ini­ti­at­ing sys­temic crim­i­nal jus­tice reforms, and end­ing mass incarceration.

Issues

Jul 06, 2020

Kareem Johnson Becomes Nation’s 170th Death-Row Exoneree Since 1973

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 Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas com­plet­ed his exon­er­a­tion, for­mal­ly enter­ing an order dis­miss­ing all charges against him in his cap­i­tal case. On May 19, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court had barred his repros­e­cu­tion because of prosecutorial misconduct…

Issues

Jun 09, 2020

Walter Ogrod Exonerated After 23 Years on Pennsylvania’s Death Row

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 been exon­er­at­ed from Pennsylvania​’s death…

Issues

Executions Overview

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Jun 06, 2020

Capital Case Roundup — Death Penalty Court Decisions the Week of June 1, 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 redress of death sen­tences that they had claimed were sub­stan­tial­ly affect­ed by racial…

Issues

New Voices

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Jul 18, 2019

Philadelphia District Attorney Asks Pennsylvania Supreme Court to Strike Down State’s Death Penalty

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 state’s death penal­ty. In a brief filed on July 15, 2019 in the con­sol­i­dat­ed appeals of Philadelphia death-row pris­on­er Jermont Cox and Northumberland County​’s Kevin Marinelli, the District…

Issues

Nov 16, 2018

DPIC Analysis: The Decline of the Death Penalty in Philadelphia

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 death sen­tences imposed in the city since 1978 (click here to enlarge image) and the last sev­en years of cap­i­tal pros­e­cu­tion out­comes pro­vides strong sup­port for Krasner’s…

Issues

May 01, 2017

BOOKS: ​“The Trials of Walter Ogrod” Chronicles Pennsylvania Possible Innocence Case

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 despite sig­nif­i­cant irreg­u­lar­i­ties in the case and amidst alle­ga­tions of offi­cial mis­con­duct, local pros­e­cu­tors have fought efforts to obtain DNA test­ing of the phys­i­cal evi­dence and to inves­ti­gate the role a dis­cred­it­ed prison infor­mant played in…

Issues

Dec 29, 2016

First-Degree Murder Charges Dropped Against Two Former Pennsylvania Death Row Prisoners With Innocence Claims

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 Moore and James Dennis entered no-con­test pleas to charges of third-degree mur­der, avoid­ing retri­als on the charges that had ini­tial­ly sent the men to death row and paving the way for their…

Issues

Nov 18, 2005

122nd Inmate Freed From Death Row

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 tri­al, the pros­e­cu­tion used racial­ly dis­crim­i­na­to­ry prac­tices in select­ing the jury. In 1999, Wilson’s death sen­tence was over­turned when a court deter­mined that his defense coun­sel had failed to inves­ti­gate and present mit­i­gat­ing evi­dence dur­ing his original…