Pennsylvania v. Johnson (majority)
Annotate this CaseIn 2002, Walter Smith told police that Clinton Robinson killed Margaret Thomas. Later that year, Smith himself was killed when he was shot twelve times outside a Philadelphia bar. Based on ballistics evidence, the police concluded that multiple individuals had acted in concert to kill Smith. Police recovered a red baseball cap approximately nine feet from Smith’s body. The case remained unsolved until 2005, when a jailhouse informant told police he had overheard Appellant Kareem Johnson make statements implicating himself in Smith’s murder. The informant admittedly supplied this information solely in hopes of obtaining leniency when he was sentenced in federal court. DNA testing revealed that Appellant was a contributor to the DNA in the sweatband of the red cap. The Commonwealth proceeded on the understanding that there was only one baseball cap involved, and that it contained both Smith’s blood and Appellant’s DNA. A jury would convict Appellant on all counts, and sentenced him to death. Appellant moved for post-conviction relief, and was eventually granted a new trial. Appellant called as witnesses several individuals who were involved with the Commonwealth’s case at the 2007 trial or who had represented the Commonwealth in post-conviction proceedings. In questioning these witnesses, Appellant was able to uncover in some detail the extent of the Commonwealth’s mishandling of physical and DNA evidence during his trial; from this he moved to bar retrial. Appellant argued that, whether errors reflected an intentional subversion of the truth-determining process, or mere recklessness, they led to Appellant being confined on death row based on a trial the Commonwealth later conceded was constitutionally inadequate. The Pennsylvania Supreme Court found that although Commonwealth's acts and omissions were not made intentionally or with specific purpose to deprive Appellant of his rights, the record was consistent with the trial court's characterization that such mistakes were "unimaginable." As such, the Supreme Court found the Pennsylvania Constitution immunized Appellant from being put in jeopardy a second time.
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