On November 20th, 1994, there was an arson at a West Philadelphia building where Marcia Smith died. In November 1995, Daniel Gwynn was convicted and sentenced to be executed based on a false confession and faulty identification. The conviction relied upon (1) a coerced confession that didn’t match the crime scene evidence, and (2) the witnesses’ description which didn’t match Daniel but instead matched an alternative suspect.

Daniel spent decades litigating in State and Federal Courts professing innocence. After extensive investigations, court-ordered and voluntary discovery in 2016 and 2020, respectively, it was discovered that the police and trial prosecutor withheld the following:

1. There had been an “unrelated homicide” as the Trial Prosecutor referred to it, (the Lupton-Taylor Case), that involved a man (Mr. X) who was convicted of beating another squatter to death in the same building one year earlier. This case produced a photo array that was also used in Daniel’s case. Two witnesses who testified against Daniel Gwynn also testified against Mr. X and told the court that they knew Mr. X as “Rick”; fitting the very same description they gave to ID Daniel for this arson. Their testimony against Mr. X was given three days before the fatal fire was set in this case, and they told the courts and police that Mr. X had threatened to kill them or have his associates kill them if they cooperated against him.
2. Another squatter who testified against Mr. X was similarly targeted in a separate arson set in the very same manner a few months later, after Daniel was in custody.
3. A fellow inmate of Mr. X told the police that Mr. X tried to hire him to kill a witness  and provided information on where to find this witness.
4. In addition to being known as “Rick”, Mr. X matched other descriptors used by the  witnesses from the arson case to describe the man that threatened them the  day before the fire.
5. The photo array from the “unrelated homicide” case that the trial prosecutor told the court no longer existed and was claimed to have been used to identify Daniel was actually in the District Attorney Office’s file the whole time and does not include a photo of Daniel.

Daniel filed a Writ of Habeas Petition in federal court incorporating this evidence as exhibits. The federal Petition was stayed while Daniel sought habeas relief through the State Courts.

Judge Benjamin Lerner of the Philadelphia County Court of Common Pleas denied Daniel’s motion on March 27th, 2012. He said the State did not commit any disclosure violations and that the Lupton-Taylor case had been discussed during pre-trial hearings, and defense attorney could have obtained this information with due diligence.

In addition, Judge Lerner wrote, “this new evidence wasn’t particularly helpful, considering the weight of the evidence against Gwynn. The fact that the witnesses in his case all had identified another individual they knew as ‘Rick” during an unrelated criminal prosecution is of no import. Shamefully, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed the lower court ruling on June 17th, 2013.

In December 2020, Daniel’s attorneys and the District Attorney’s Office filed joint stipulations in Federal Court agreeing that Daniel was entitled to sentencing relief, which the court accepted.

In 2022, Daniel filed a Memorandum of Law expounding upon his guilt-phase claims of actual innocence, including claims that the trial prosecutor failed to disclose the above-described evidence. After exhaustive review, the Commonwealth agreed that Daniel was due relief based on the trial prosecutor’s failure to disclose evidence, including all of the above-described suppressed evidence, when considered collectively, critically undermined the confidence in the conviction of Daniel and points to a more compelling suspect. Magistrate Judge Carol Sandra Moore Wells issued a Report and Recommendation recommending that relief be granted, which District Court Judge Karen Marston accepted on June 8, 2023. (see attached judge’s opinion)

The matter was then remanded to the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas. The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, headed by Lawrence Krasner, by and through his representative David Napriorski, Assistant District Attorney from the Conviction Integrity Unit, submitted a Motion For Nolle Prosequi.

“A nolle prosequi is a voluntary withdrawal by the prosecuting attorney of present  proceedings on a particular bill of indictment.”