Fifty-four-year-old Daniel Gwynn was freed from Pennsylvania’s death row on February 29, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s office announced. He served nearly 30 years for a crime he didn’t commit.
Gwynn was convicted of the 1994 arson murder of Marsha Smith based on false witness identification, Gwynn’s false confession, and withheld evidence. Police testified that witnesses identified Gwynn in a photo lineup, but the photos were never turned over to defense attorneys. And the DA’s office said that during the recent federal habeas proceedings, when Gwynn’s entire file was turned over, Gwynn’s photo was not even in the lineup.
“The exoneration of Daniel Gwynn today frees a man who is likely innocent. Sadly, it also exemplifies an era of inexact and, at times corrupt, policing and prosecution that has broken trust with our communities to this day,” Philadelphia District Larry Krasner stated in a news release. “When law enforcement wrongly arrests, prosecutes, and imprisons the innocent, the guilty go free and are emboldened to do more harm.”
The Pennsylvania Supreme Court affirmed Gwynn’s conviction and death sentence in 1998. In 2020, the DA’s office agreed that he should be resentenced to life without parole, and the Federal Litigation Unit and Gwynn’s counsel engaged in voluntary discovery, according to the DA’s news release. At that time, “Gwynn was finally provided all of the exculpatory information to which he’d always been entitled, leading him to raise new claims for habeas relief.
Gwynn is the 197th person to be exonerated after being sentenced to death since 1973, the Death Penalty Information Center reported. https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/news/death-sentenced-philadelphia-prisoner-daniel-gwynn-exonerated-after-nearly-30-years. DPIC noted that Gwynn is Philadelphia County’s 13th exoneration since 1973. Philadelphia is tied with Oklahoma and Cuyahoga Counties for the second-most death row exonerations in the country. Illinois’ Cook County has the highest number of exonerations.
