On Thursday, a Pennsylvania judge overturned the convictions of three men imprisoned for decades in the 1997 slaying of a 70-year-old woman even though their DNA never matched that found at the scene, but they will stay in prison while a prosecutor considers whether to file an appeal.
Derrick Chappell, 41, Morton Johnson, 44, and Samuel Grasty, 47, were each given a life term in prison for the 1997 death of Henrietta Nickens, 70, in Chester, Pennsylvania, after being found guilty in separate trials in 2000 and 2001 of second-degree murder and other crimes.
Pennsylvania Judge Overturns 3 Men Slaying Conviction
On Thursday, the Delaware County judge ruled that Chappell, who was 15 when he was arrested, and first cousins Johnson and Grasty.
Paul Casteleiro, Grasty's lawyer and legal director of the nonprofit Centurion, said on Friday that this case should never have been prosecuted and the three men should never have been charged as the evidence always was that they were innocent.
He added that the prosecutors "just ran roughshod" over the defendants.
The three were found guilty of the murder of Nickens of Chester, who had informed her daughter during her last known phone conversation that she was going to watch the 11 pm news. Afterward, she was found badly beaten, her home looted, her underwear removed, and blood was all over the walls and mattress.
According to DNA testing at the time that led to their conviction, the semen found in the victim's body and on a jacket at the scene did not match any of the three defendants, who were all young people from the neighborhood.
He called the prosecution's ideas about the case "preposterous." In an attempt to explain the lack of a DNA match, they suggested that the deceased may have had consensual intercourse before the murder or that one or more of the three defendants may have brought a used condom to the scene.
Furthermore, he continued Nickens had no known male companions and was a chronically unwell man.
"They just ran this absurd story and got juries to buy it," Casteleiro said.
At a hearing on Thursday, Common Pleas Court Judge Mary Alice Brennan overturned the convictions and scheduled a bail hearing for May 23 to decide if county prosecutors will request a new trial.
A spokesperson said on Friday that district attorney Jack Stollsteimer will evaluate the case next week before making a judgment.
Johnson and Chappell's attorneys did not immediately return calls on Friday. The Pennsylvania Innocence Project also worked on the case.
The men are now in their 40s. Over the years, the three filed pro se petitions in federal court, claiming their convictions were erroneous, but the petitions were rejected.
Furthermore, the three men were represented by nonprofit groups that seek the release of wrongfully convicted individuals: Grasty by Centurion, Johnson by the Innocence Project, and Chappell by the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. Chappell also received for bono legal assistance from Shook, Hardy & Bacon.
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Philadelphia Man Freed After Decades in Prison
On Monday morning, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania formally regarded C.J. Rice as legally innocent of the offense for which he was found guilty in 2013.
Judge James Eisenhower granted the move made by District Attorney Larry Krasner in room 805 of the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia. Rice was sentenced to more than a dozen years in prison for a shooting incident in 2011 that he insists he did not and could not have physically committed.
Rice's defense attorneys, Karl Schwartz and Amelia Maxfield, are now able to work toward having the attempted murder charges against him removed from his criminal record. Rice and Maxfield successfully filed the habeas corpus to get Rice out of prison and overturn his conviction.
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