CNN’s Jake Tapper answers questions about C.J. Rice, the Philadelphia man freed from prison after ‘unjust’ conviction

After his 12 years of incarceration, advocates for C.J. Rice said that justice was delivered Monday when Philadelphia prosecutors declined to retry Rice on attempted murder charges, calling his 2013 conviction “unjust.”

On his journey through the legal system, Rice had one outsized supporter: CNN’s Jake Tapper.

The television anchor and Philadelphia native has long been interested in Rice, beginning after his father, a local pediatrician who treated Rice for previous gunshot injuries, testified that the then-teenaged Rice couldn’t have walked — let alone run and flee the scene — that September 2011 day when four people were shot and injured in South Philadelphia.

» READ MORE: Prosecutors drop case against C.J. Rice, subject of Jake Tapper cover story in The Atlantic

Tapper published an article in The Atlantic in 2022 asserting Rice’s innocence, and on Monday, attended Rice’s hearing in Common Pleas court to celebrate the decision of the District Attorney’s Office alongside his doctor father and criminal justice advocates who worked for Rice’s release.

In an interview with The Inquirer, lightly edited for clarity, Tapper elaborated on his relationship with Rice, details about the attorney who mishandled Rice’s case, and being one of the biggest Eagles fans in Washington, D.C.

It’s just great to see justice finally done in this case. I know the District Attorney gets criticized for all sorts of things, but having an office that is willing to listen to reason and evidence, even if that means reversing a conviction, is no small thing.

So much of what I've learned in this journalistic experience has been how much the system exists to protect itself, and that’s not healthy. So it was great to see justice finally done. C.J. Rice, since September 2011, has been dealing with the legal system in Philadelphia and Pennsylvania, and it’s only recently that he’s been able to get the justice he deserves.

Of course I did. It’s funny, the young man I worked on the story with for The Atlantic, Andrew [Aoyama], this is his first story. When I pitched it to Jeff Goldberg, the editor, I said “You know, this needs to be a deeply reported piece, and I’m gonna need help, because I have a day job and I’m going to need a really good assistant to help me.” Andrew was great. I said to him today, “Don’t think this is how criminal justice stories all end — they typically don’t end this way, with a District Attorney and two judges willing to listen to reason and a successful exoneration. They usually don’t.”

» READ MORE: Jake Tapper’s Atlantic cover story deals with a South Philly man’s conviction for attempted murder

But after The Atlantic story, there was a willingness of people in power to listen to C.J.’s explanation and Karl Schwartz’s defense. There were two tracks to help [Rice] — one was Karl and Amelia [Maxfield] and the legal team pursuing the habeas petition, and then there was another track pursued by some other attorneys to try to get his sentence commuted. And I think that the case was compelling enough that [for] C.J., there was not sufficient evidence to charge him with this crime, and that he had an incompetent attorney. I think he would have been freed by commutation if the habeas thing hadn’t happened, but who knows.

I’ve learned so much about the system through reporting this out. One of the things I’ve learned is that there is a tremendous difference between defense attorneys who are public defenders and public defenders who are court appointed, and the court-appointed attorneys in Philadelphia are paid very little.

There is little incentive for somebody to really dive in and get their hands dirty and try to figure out if the client is not guilty, and if so, the best way to prove that in a court of law. And there are those who say that that low compensation is not a coincidence, it’s a feature, not a bug. That they don’t want a system where people who can’t afford good attorneys are able to have adequate counsel.

Sandjai Weaver, look, I’m not a lawyer and I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead, but she did a bad job. She was not a good attorney. [Weaver] not only messed up on decision after decision, but introduced [Rice’s] alibi witnesses in such a way that they looked like they were making it up at the last minute. Normally an attorney will have alibi witnesses go to the police, present their testimony, so it’s not the first time anybody’s ever heard of it. And because Sandjai did not know what she was doing when she put the alibi witnesses on stand, they made [Rice] seem even guiltier.

He’s overjoyed, and he’s glad that a wrong has been righted. Once you see how the system can be so unjust, you can’t unsee it, it’s that times a million for him now he has lived it. The way he talks now about what he wants to do — and this is his story to be told, not mine — but I would not be surprised if he ended up as a paralegal, or an attorney, or an advocate, trying to help other people like him. People who didn’t have the benefit of having a pediatrician advocate like my dad in their lives.

All I care about is that they exonerated him, and argued that they don’t have a case against him. That’s really all that matters, everything else is just people being careful in their remarks. At the end of the day, he’s a free man, he’s exonerated, his lawyers can now file a petition to have his record expunged. He’s breathing the air and feeling the sunlight on his face.

Like anyone else, I want safe streets and criminals behind bars, but locking up innocent people is not that, so Krasner’s office is to be commended. Some of the attorneys that helped with this case — Don Verrilli, who was Obama’s former solicitor general — I ran into him after The Atlantic piece came out. I see him at our neighborhood restaurant all the time. And I said, “You should read the story that I just wrote, I think you would find it interesting,” and he read it and wanted to get involved.

[Verrilli] volunteered to get involved with the habeas petitions, and one of the things he said, you know, he’s been all over the country trying to help various defendants whether get off death row or whatever, and he has never had an encounter with prosecutors who were more committed to the sense of justice — as opposed to just keeping people locked up whether they’re guilty or innocent — then the situation he had when he met the attorneys who worked for Krasner. So that’s something that’s important.

Absolutely. My brother and I grew up with parents who were deeply committed to social justice. At the time, it was civil rights and the Vietnam War, but it has evolved since then, and the idea of doing the right thing — regardless of how popular it is — or advocating for those who need help was just instilled in us from a very early age.

My dad was a pediatrician in South Philly for four decades, my mom a pediatric nurse and then a psych nurse at the VA. They have always been committed to helping people, and you know, my brother and I are different. We’re not doctors or nurses — we didn’t get the math-science gene — but we’re doing what we can in our own little ways.

I’ve done a lot of journalism in my day, and I can say there’s a handful of stories that I’m just super proud of, and my covering of this case is one of the most fulfilling. I got to do it while advocating for a young Philadelphian. Working with my Dad made it even more meaningful.

I’m always telling my staff we need to be stepping out of Washington D.C. and doing more stories, whether it’s from Philly or from Michigan or from a small town in Idaho, whatever we can do to get out of the Beltway.

I think the gun violence going on in Philly is horrifying. We’ve already interviewed Mayor Parker at least once, if not twice. I interviewed her when she was Councilwoman Parker, and I’ve also interviewed her as Mayor Parker. So Philly is always close to my heart.

I’m very excited about Barkley. When Tiki Barber was attacking him, it took all of my control not to respond. I’m raising my son to be an Eagles fan. Sadly, we lost my daughter when Taylor Swift started dating a Chief.