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Thread: Daniel William Gwynn - Pennsylvania

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    Daniel William Gwynn - Pennsylvania




    Summary of Offense:

    Daniel Gwynn of Philadelphia received a death sentence in Philadelphia County on November 6, 1995 for setting fire to a building in Philadelphia, killing Marsha Smith, who was trapped inside.

  2. #2
    Administrator Moh's Avatar
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    On October 22, 2008, Gwynn filed a habeas petition in Federal District Court.

    http://dockets.justia.com/docket/pen...v05061/286615/

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    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    May 23, 2019

    Under Krasner, these inmates have received or may get the DA’s nod to be removed from death row

    By Julie Shaw
    The Enquirer

    According to court filings, District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office has said it is agreeing to life in prison or may agree to life in prison or a lesser sentence for these death-row inmates:

    • Kenneth Brown, who raped and murdered his girlfriend’s 3-year-old son and stuffed the body in an air shaft at an abandoned high-rise building at the Raymond Rosen housing project in North Philadelphia in 1993.
    • Lavar Brown, for the December 2003 shooting death of Robert Crawford, 33, in a gas station parking lot in North Philadelphia. Evidence showed that, without provocation, Brown fired multiple shots into Crawford’s back as he walked away.
    • Russell Cox, who was 18 when he raped 17-year-old Tina Brown, and with a codefendant was convicted of fatally stabbing Brown and her mother, Evelyn, in 1986 in the victims’ North Philadelphia apartment.
    • Henry Daniels, guilty of the 1988 kidnapping and fatal shooting of Alexander Porter, 16. Daniels and a coconspirator drove the car around, then placed Porter’s stiff body in a wooded area in Chestnut Hill and shot him four times.
    • Anthony Fletcher, a former professional boxer convicted in the 1992 shooting death of Vaughn Christopher, 26, in Southwest Philadelphia.
    • Ronald Gibson, who fatally shot off-duty Police Officer Frederick Dukes and another patron, Vernae Nixon, during a botched robbery of a Southwest Philadelphia bar on Christmas Eve 1990.
    • Daniel Gwynn, who started a fire in 1994 in a vacant West Philadelphia building that killed another squatter, Marsha Smith.
    • Antoine Ligons, who in 1998 robbed and fatally shot pizza deliveryman Clarence Johnson, 31, in West Philadelphia.
    • Tam Minh Le, convicted in the August 2014 beatings and stabbings of two brothers, Vu “Kevin” Huynh, 31, and Viet Huynh, 28, over a drug debt, and dumping their bodies into the Schuylkill and weighting them down by tying buckets of tar to their legs.
    • Jerome Marshall, sentenced to die for the 1983 slayings of Myndie McKoy, 20, and Karima Saunders, 2. In November, a federal judge vacated his two death sentences; Marshall is awaiting resentencing in Common Pleas Court.
    • Lenwood Mason, who fatally stabbed his girlfriend, Iona Jefferies, in front of her 3-year-old son, in her North Philadelphia home in 1994. U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone in October agreed to vacate his death sentence after an agreement between the DA’s Office and defense attorney Michael Wiseman. In a petition last year, Wiseman noted that Mason suffered from significant mental illnesses.
    • Craig Murphy, sentenced for the 1981 drug-related shooting death of Raymond Gambrell.
    • William Rivera, convicted in the 1995 shooting death of Tae Hun Kang, a Korean jeweler, during a robbery and carjacking in Crescentville.
    • Larry Rush, a.k.a. Leroy Thomas, for the 1987 stabbing murder of his cousin Veranica Hands, 23, who was eight months pregnant, in her South Philadelphia apartment.
    • Robert Wharton, for the 1984 strangulation and drowning deaths of Bradley Hart, 26, and his wife, Ferne, 31, in their East Mount Airy home.
    • Roy L. Williams, who in 1988 told friends he was going to kill the first white man he saw, then fatally shot James McDonnell in a random killing on a Philadelphia street.

    These former death-row inmates already have received sentencing relief:

    • Joseph Kindler, guilty in the 1982 death of David Bernstein, 18, who was thrown into the Delaware River with a concrete block tied around his neck, and was found with head wounds from a baseball bat. He was resentenced to life in prison.
    • Christopher Kennedy, who in January 2003 fatally shot Rite Aid manager Michael Richardson, 35, execution-style during a robbery. He was resentenced to life in prison.
    • Orlando Maisonet, convicted in the 1982 murder of a witness, Jorge Figueroa. In February, a Common Pleas Court judge vacated his conviction, citing prosecutorial misconduct and ineffective counsel. This month, Maisonet agreed to a plea deal to third-degree murder and was released from prison.

    https://www.inquirer.com/news/philad...-20190523.html
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    Moderator Bobsicles's Avatar
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    Gwynn’s death sentence was vacated by the federal district court and remanded back to the trial court for resentencing.

    https://www.cor.pa.gov/About%20Us/In...on%20list.xlsx
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    Death row inmate exonerated 30 years after deadly Philadelphia fire

    By Leah Sarnoff
    ABC News

    A Philadelphia man who was convicted and sentenced to death in connection with the 1994 arson murder of a woman is now exonerated 30 years later, the District Attorney's Office announced.

    On Wednesday, Daniel Gwynn, 54, was exonerated and released from state prison in Pennsylvania after the DA's office said they found flaws in the 1994 first-degree murder investigation.

    "The exoneration of Daniel Gwynn today frees a man who is likely innocent," Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner said in a press release. "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."

    On November 20, 1994, an unhoused woman named Marsha Smith was killed after a fire broke out in a vacant building on the 4500 block of Chestnut Street in West Philadelphia, according to the press release.

    The DA's office said Smith, Gwynn and three other individuals were squatting in the vacant building at the time of the fire.

    A jury trial relied on faulty testimony from two witnesses and a confession from Gwynn, which he recounted and was found inconsistent with how the fire started, according to the release.

    The DA's office also said Gwynn was never read his Miranda Rights.

    Information about an alternate suspect -- who was identified by witnesses to police -- was never turned over to Gwynn or presented during his prosecution, which violated his constitutional rights, according to the release.

    The DA's office says witnesses identified Gwynn to police as "Rick" from photo arrays used in a separate murder investigation that took place in the same building three days before the fire.

    The photo arrays in the police files did not include Gwynn's photo and were never turned over to his defense counsel, according to the release.

    The witnesses who testified in the first murder investigation were threatened by the defendant before the fire broke out, which the DA's office deemed "critical" information.

    "Critically, the defendant in the other murder had threatened to have his associates kill the witnesses if they cooperated against him in the other trial," the DA's office said.

    This information was never disclosed to the defense during Gwynn's prosecution, according to the release.

    The defendant in the other case was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison, which he is currently serving, the DA's office said.

    "The wrongful conviction of Daniel Gwynn, and his unjust imprisonment for nearly three decades, is a cautionary tale of tunnel vision in policing and prosecution," David Napiorski, assistant supervisor of Federal Litigation said in the release. "Not only were Mr. Gwynn's rights violated at trial, but his conviction and sentence to death row likely allowed the person actually responsible to escape accountability."

    Napiorski apologized to Marsha Smith's family "for the retraumatization they have likely experienced."

    "They were deprived of justice in 1994 and are deserving of justice now," Napiorski said.

    During his time in prison, Gwynn used painting as an outlet "to heal and survive" and shared his work via the website, Art For Justice, which exhibits prisoners' artwork.

    "Painting has been my therapy, a form of meditation that helps me work through my issues," Gwynn wrote alongside his paintings.

    Gwynn said art allowed him to not only work on himself but also his legal case.

    "My transformation came about after I was forced to sit still and take a real hard look at myself," Gwynn wrote. "After I worked through the garbage in my head, I finally woke up and began to work on myself and my case."

    https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/death-...y?id=107681529
    Thank you for the adventure - Axol

    Tried so hard and got so far, but in the end it doesn’t even matter - Linkin Park

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