Tracy Jordan was exonerated on October 31, 2024, after spending nearly 20 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. He was convicted on the basis of a fingerprint on a plastic bag, found amongst other garbage at a crime scene. The case was so weak that shortly before trial the prosecutor admitted in an email that he did not think he could win a conviction. Mr. Jordan was freed after the Conviction Integrity Unit of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office revealed that police had hidden clear evidence pointing to other perpetrators. Mr. Jordan is a former law enforcement officer, a marine, and a father of three. He had no criminal record and had never been arrested prior to the false case against him. His children have waited decades to be reunited with their father.
David Taylor was exonerated on October 16, 2024, after spending over 20 years in prison for a crime that he did not commit.
Though the majority of the witnesses said that there were only three perpetrators, police arrested and the District Attorney prosecuted a fourth. With no evidence placing Mr. Taylor at the scene, the prosecutor argued that he was guilty by association with his brother, who confessed to the crime. Two decades later, Mr. Taylor and his co-defendant, Keith Graves (who was convicted on the basis of cross-racial voice identification evidence) were finally cleared after another individual confessed to the attorneys from the District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit. Police had uncovered evidence about that individual, but had failed to turn it over prior to trial. The Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas has now vacated their convictions and dismissed all charges against them. David and his family have never wavered on his innocence, and are finally vindicated.
Mumin Slaughter was exonerated June 17, 2024 after the District Attorney’s Office admitted that it had withheld critical evidence.
The trial prosecutor withheld letters from an eye witness that police had threatened her and that the trial prosecutor gave her money and paid for dental work in exchange for her testimony. In the words of the court: “the magnitude of that indiscretion was so obvious.”
Mr. Slaughter returns to his wife, children and grandchildren after nearly two decades away from them.
RONALD JOHNSON
Ronald Johnson was exonerated and released from prison on March 4, 2024. He spent 34 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit.
For over three decades, Mr. Johnson and three generations of his family have fought tirelessly to prove his innocence. When his attorneys at Phillips Black were finally allowed to review police and prosecution files, it confirmed what his supporters have always known: Mr. Johnson is innocent. At trial, police and prosecutors hid an abundance of evidence completely discrediting the only two witnesses in the case.
CURTIS KINGWOOD
Curtis Kingwood was exonerated and released on November 2, 2023. He spent over a decade behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit.
Mr. Kingwood’s wrongful conviction was based on evidence that was fabricated by disgraced Philadelphia Homicide Detective Phillip Nordo. Two eye-witnesses changed their initial descriptions to match Mr. Kingwood and his co-defendant after Detective Nordo promised each of them $20,000 in exchange for their testimony. One of those witnesses cooperated in other cases for Nordo, including testifying as an eye-witness in anotherhomicide trial on the same day that he testified against Mr. Kingwood. Years later Detective Nordo was charged and convicted for sexually assaulting several people during police interrogations. He is currently serving a 50-year prison sentence for sexual assault.
StePHen Lazar
Stephen Lazar was exonerated and released on March 23, 2023. He spent 15 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit.
The case against Mr. Lazar was based on three discredited sources of evidence: a suitcase found unweathered in the victim’s backyard three and a half months after the crime, the statements of several individuals with substance addictions and pending criminal cases, all of whom the district court noted had “severe credibility problems,” and a purported confession given after over 30 hours of questioning while Mr. Lazar was in acute withdrawal from methadone. Lazar v. A.G., et al., CV 14-6907, 2023 WL 2382812, at 25 (E.D. Pa. Mar. 6, 2023). Each prong of the case has been thoroughly undermined by newly disclosed evidence.
THEOPHALIS BILAAL WILSON
“No words can express what we have put these people through; what we have put Mr. Wilson through; what we have put his family through; what we have put the victims in this case through, and what we have put our community through”. - Patricia Cummings, Assistant District Attorney
On January 21, 2020 the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, after tireless work by Phillips Black Project, Greenberg Traurig, LLP and the Philadelphia Conviction Integrity Unit, vacated the conviction and ordered immediate release of Theophalis Bilaal Wilson, who served nearly three decades in prison for murders he did not commit as a result of prosecutorial misconduct. In the words of the Conviction Integrity Unity of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office: “Wilson's trial was infected by serious prosecutorial misconduct, Brady violations, a critical witness who supplied false testimony, and ineffective assistance of counsel. As a result, he was wrongfully convicted of three homicides and sentenced to an unconstitutional mandatory life sentence.” (Commonwealth’s Answer to Petition for Post-Conviction Relief). Background about the case appears below.
JUVENILE JUSTICE
Phillips Black is at the forefront of compiling and analyzing the transformation of juvenile life without parole sentencing (JLWOP) resulting from the seminal Eighth Amendment decisions of Graham v. Florida, 560 U.S. 48 (2010), and Miller v. Alabama, 132 S. Ct. 2455 (2012). Phillips Black is a leading producer of JLWOP legal scholarship examining the rapid changes across the country, identifying the jurisdictions that have already abandoned or are decidedly moving away from this sentence, and explicating the law and actual practices in counties and states that continue to countenance sentencing individuals to die in prison for crimes they committed before reaching age eighteen.
PHILLIPS BLACK JLWOP REPORTS
In recent years, Phillips Black has produced two studies covering this area.
Juvenile Life Without Parole After Miller
No Hope: Re-examining Lifetime Sentences for Juvenile Offenders
The first provides a comprehensive accounting of each U.S. jurisdiction’s response to Miller. It catalogues the judicial and legislative responses in all fifty states, and serves as a resource to practitioners litigating JLWOP cases.
The second, released on September 22, 2015, analyzes JLWOP in practice. Drawing on a data set from each state’s department of corrections, the report establishes that JLWOP arose in the midst of hysteria over the race-based myth of a coming wave of the Superpredator, a pseudo-scientific theory propagated in articles such as My Black Crime Problem, And Ours. Superpredator youth never arrived, but, as we report, the overwhelming majority of JLWOP sentences are premised on that myth and are disproportionately imposed on non-whites.
Additional SELECTED SCHOLARSHIP
Death By Dehumanization: Prosecutorial Narratives of Death-Sentenced Women and LGBTQ Prisoners
Mandating Discretion: Juvenile Sentencing Schemes after Miller v. Alabama
No Room for Redemption: Clemency in Missouri
Capital Punishment in Missouri
Juvenile Life Without Parole in Law and Practice: The End of Superpredator Era Sentencing
media
Mumin Slaughter released after nearly 20 years of wrongful incarceration.
Philadelphia Inquirer: Ronald Johnson released after 34 years of wrongful incarceration.
NYTimes: Ronald Johnson poses with his family outside of prison on the night of his release.
Washington Post: Judge vacates Ronald Johnson’s 1990 murder conviction and life sentence.
Philadelphia District Attorney Press Release announcing Mr. Kingwood’s exoneration and release.
NBC10 story about Mr. Kingwood’s exoneration
Curtis Kingwood has been added to the National Registry of Exonerations.
Stephen Lazar released from prison after murder conviction overturned by federal judge
Stephen Lazar embraces his brother after his release from prison.
Stephen Lazar hugs his mother outside of the county jail, moments after his release.
Theophalis Wilson, with his mother Kim Wilson outside the Criminal Justice Center after he was exonerated after 28 years in prison for a triple murder that took place when he was 17 years old.
Notes from the District Attorney's file suggest the sole eyewitness, James White, would not have been able to identify the victims in a triple murder without first being shown their photos.
