A 54-year-old Philadelphia man, Daniel Gwynn has been who was convicted and later sentenced to death for a 1994 arson murder in West Philadelphia has been freed after 30years.
According to CBS news, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office had the case thrown out and charges dropped against Gwynn.
Gwynn was accused of starting a fire at an abandoned building that killed Marsha Smith in the 4500 block of Chester Street.
In 1994, the prosecution in Gwynn’s case relied on unreliable witness testimony and a faulty confession made by Gwynn, according to the DA’s office.
Furthermore, the witnesses told police he started the fire. Police also told the prosecutor that the witnesses picked Gwynn out of a photo lineup, but the photo lineup was never admitted as evidence during Gwynn’s trial, the DA’s office said.
In addition to that, Gwynn’s photo was never in the lineup shown to witnesses.
Also, it turned out that the confession Gwynn gave to the police was factually inconsistent with how the fire started.
The DA’s office said the prosecution also suppressed evidence about an alternate suspect who the DA believes was the person responsible for Smith’s death.
“We think it was the right result,” David Napiorski, with the DA’s office, said. “This is a pretty crazy case. Mr. Gwynn has been in prison for 30 years for something we don’t have any confidence that he did. There was a lot of evidence that was undisclosed accidentally we believe that points to a compelling alternative suspect for this crime — a man who is himself is convicted of murder and serving a life sentence.”
Gwynn was released from prison shortly after 5:00 p.m. on Wednesday with his attorneys standing by his side.
“Today is mostly for us a day of tremendous relief and sadness, a guy like him, an innocent soul spent that amount of time waiting for his execution languishing in jail,” Gwynn’s defense attorney Karl Schwartz said.
