World Courant
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A Pennsylvania decide has overturned the convictions of three males imprisoned for many years within the 1997 slaying of a 70-year-old girl regardless that their DNA by no means matched that discovered on the scene, however they’ll stay in jail whereas a prosecutor decides whether or not to enchantment.
The Delaware County decide on Thursday ordered new trials for Derrick Chappell — who was 15 when he was arrested — and first cousins Morton Johnson and Sam Grasty.
PENNSYLVANIA MAN IN ‘SCREAM’ COSTUME SLAUGHTERED NEIGHBOR WITH CHAINSAW, KNIFE: POLICE
“This case by no means ought to have been prosecuted. These guys by no means ought to have been charged. The proof at all times was that they have been harmless,” Paul Casteleiro, Grasty’s lawyer and authorized director of the nonprofit Centurion, mentioned Friday. The prosecutors, he mentioned, “simply ran roughshod” over the defendants.
A PA decide overturned the convictions of three males imprisoned within the 1997 slaying of a 70-year-old girl. (FOX Information)
The three have been charged and convicted within the dying of Henrietta Nickens of Chester, who advised her daughter in her final recognized cellphone name that she was about to look at the 11 p.m. information. She was later discovered badly crushed, together with her underwear eliminated, and her residence ransacked, with blood on the partitions and bedding.
The three defendants — all younger individuals from the neighborhood — have been convicted regardless that DNA testing on the time confirmed that semen discovered within the sufferer’s physique and on a jacket on the scene didn’t match any of them, Casteleiro mentioned.
He known as the prosecution’s numerous theories of the case “preposterous.” To elucidate the shortage of a DNA match, he mentioned, they argued that the sufferer maybe had consensual intercourse earlier than the slaying, or that the three defendants introduced a used condom to the scene, he mentioned. But Nickens was chronically in poor health and had no recognized male companions, he continued.
“They only ran this absurd story and obtained juries to purchase it,” Casteleiro mentioned.
Frequent Pleas Court docket Choose Mary Alice Brennan at a listening to Thursday threw out the convictions and set a Could 23 bail listening to to find out if county prosecutors will search a brand new trial.
District Lawyer Jack Stollsteimer plans to evaluate the case subsequent week earlier than making a choice, a spokesperson mentioned Friday.
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Calls to legal professionals for Johnson and Chappell weren’t instantly returned Friday. The Pennsylvania Innocence Venture additionally labored on the case.
The lads at the moment are of their 40s. All three filed professional se petitions in federal court docket through the years saying they have been wrongly convicted, however the petitions have been denied.
3 Pennsylvania males have convictions overturned after many years behind bars in girl’s 1997 killing
World Information,Subsequent Large Factor in Public Knowledg
