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lite.cnn.com - on gopher - inofficial | |
ARTICLE VIEW: | |
District attorney plans to appeal decision to overturn murder | |
convictions of ‘Chester Trio’ | |
By Danny Freeman and Eric Levenson, CNN | |
Updated: | |
4:26 PM EDT, Tue April 30, 2024 | |
Source: CNN | |
A Pennsylvania district attorney intends to appeal a judge’s decision | |
last month to overturn the – three men who have spent nearly 25 years | |
in prison for a crime they say they did not commit. | |
Derrick Chappell, 41; Morton Johnson, 44; and Samuel Grasty, 47, were | |
each convicted in separate trials in 2000 and 2001 of second-degree | |
murder and other charges and sentenced to life in prison for the 1997 | |
killing of Henrietta Nickens, 70, in Chester, Pennsylvania, just | |
outside of Philadelphia. | |
They’ve maintained their innocence in the more than two decades | |
since, and asked a judge last year to throw out their convictions and | |
order new trials, they say points to an unknown man as the killer. In | |
late March – over the objections of prosecutors who fought to have | |
the convictions upheld – Delaware County Judge Mary Alice Brennan | |
vacated the trio’s convictions and granted their request for a new | |
trial. | |
Still, Chappell, Johnson and Grasty remained behind bars: Prosecutors | |
had up to 30 days to decide whether to appeal the ruling, and a bail | |
hearing was scheduled to take place on May 23. | |
On Tuesday, Delaware County District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said he | |
had, in fact, decided to appeal. In a statement to CNN, Stollsteimer | |
said doing so would be “in the interest of justice.” | |
“While I have great respect for Judge Brennan,” Stollsteimer said, | |
“I do not believe the DNA evidence recently submitted to the court, | |
which matches the DNA already entered into evidence at each of the | |
three defendants’ individual trials, constitutes new evidence under | |
Pennsylvania law, and certainly does not exonerate these defendants.” | |
A notice of appeal was filed with the court on Friday, according to the | |
district attorney’s office. | |
Attorneys for at least two of the men said the district attorney’s | |
announcement was disappointing. | |
“There could be nothing further than justice than the decision to | |
appeal the judge’s order,” said Vanessa Potkin of the Innocence | |
Project, who represents Johnson. “The DA’s decision is | |
perpetrating a two decade long injustice and demonstrates profound | |
confusion about both the science of DNA and the law.” | |
That sentiment was echoed by Nilam Sanghvi of the Pennsylvania | |
Innocence Project, which represents Chappell, saying the appeal would | |
“prolong the unjust incarceration of our clients.” | |
“The new DNA evidence conclusively shows that none of them was | |
involved in this horrific crime and that, instead, an unknown male was | |
the perpetrator,” Sanghvi said. “We plan to seek bail pending | |
appeal and look forward to the bail hearing the Court has scheduled for | |
May 23rd.” | |
Grasty’s attorney, Paul Casteleiro, said Stollsteimer “refused to | |
meet with the attorneys for the three innocent men to discuss the | |
case,” and called the appeal “an insult to the citizens of | |
Pennsylvania and all who believe in a justice system based on truthful | |
evidence.” | |
Nickens died in her Chester home on October 10, 1997. She had been | |
beaten, and investigators found semen in her rectum that testing at the | |
time indicated was from a male who remains unknown to this day, | |
according to court filings. | |
The trio’s petition for a new trial followed new DNA testing in 2021 | |
that further linked evidence from the crime scene to the unknown male | |
– and excluded the three defendants, according to Chappell’s | |
attorneys. | |
The prosecution, however, argued in part that the initial trials did | |
not connect the semen to the defendants, so the results of the new DNA | |
testing did not change the evidence. | |
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