Philadelphia man freed after 34 years in prison

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Mr Ronald Johnson, who had spent more than three decades behind bars, was freed on March 4 after a Philadelphia judge vacated his sentence and reversed his conviction, officials said.

Judge Scott DiClaudio granted Mr Johnson’s bid for post-conviction relief by doing so. Prosecutors informed the court that they would not pursue a new trial and moved to dismiss all charges, which the judge granted.

Mr Johnson’s lawyer, Ms Jennifer Merrigan, said that meant he was a free man.

“There’s no way that they could retry him because there is absolutely no evidence against him,” Ms Merrigan said in an interview on March 5.

Mr Johnson, 61, had served 34 years after he was convicted of the 1990 murder of Mr Joseph Goldsby. The conviction had been based “solely on the false testimony of two witnesses”, the non-profit public interest law firm Phillips Black, which advises incarcerated individuals, said in a statement.

The police had hidden evidence showing that Mr Johnson did not participate in the crime, Ms Merrigan said. She pointed to two witnesses who had given statements to the police after being interviewed multiple times, in which they said Mr Johnson was not present, and “actually identified a different person”.

“The police then hid that evidence, and so when he went to trial, the jury heard from two witnesses who said that he was there. But he and his lawyers did not know that these witnesses had given many other statements,” she said.

Ms Merrigan said “this kind of police misconduct has happened a lot in Philadelphia, and a lot around the country”.

“It is really unfair both to the people who get convicted and lose many years of their lives, but also to the victims, who don’t learn what really happened to their loved one,” she said.

Mr Johnson, who maintained his innocence throughout his years behind bars, said he had spent the first 24 hours of his new-found freedom taking a bath, shopping for clothes and getting a driver’s licence. He enjoyed a big meal with his family, with rib-eye steak, shrimp and steak fries.

“I’m starting a new chapter, and I’m not rushing in,” he said in an interview on March 5, noting that “these long years, they’ve been rough.”

“You might just cry at night,” he said, but “the next day you just got to pick yourself back up”.

Mr Johnson, who will turn 62 this summer, said he thinks he’s “going to have two birthdays now”.

“The day I got out, and my regular birthday,” he said. “I think I’m going to celebrate them two days the rest of my life.” NYTIMES