A Philly man’s murder conviction was overturned after 29 years in prison. Now he is suing the city for allegedly withholding evidence from his lawyers.
The North Philadelphia man was convicted of a 1993 murder and maintained his innocence throughout nearly three decades in state prison.
A North Philadelphia man whose 1996 murder conviction was vacated by a judge this summer sued the city of Philadelphia in federal court on Tuesday, alleging that officials involved in the case illegally withheld evidence from his attorneys that could have undermined the credibility of key trial witnesses.
Following a six-day trial that his lawyer said mainly hinged on two witnesses’ testimony, James Kelly, 68, was sentenced to life in prison in 1996 after he was convicted of first-degree murder for the killing of Travis Houghston. Houghston was shot and killed on New Years’ Day in 1993 in North Philadelphia. Kelly, a former Marine who worked as a sanitation worker at the time, was arrested for the murder in 1995.
Nearly three decades later, a judge overturned the conviction after Kelly and his attorneys were given access to the investigative files of the case from the District Attorney’s Office that Kelly’s lawyers say included evidence undermining the case prosecutors presented at the trial.
The complaint, filed in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, seeks damages from the city and detectives who worked on the case for violating Kelly’s constitutional rights leading to his wrongful conviction.
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The lawsuit is the latest filed by a wrongfully convicted person against the city. Forty-nine people have had their past convictions overturned since District Attorney Larry Krasner took office, according to his office’s data. Civil lawsuits have followed — and so have large jury verdicts and settlements. In April, a jury handed the largest payout to an exoneree in city history, awarding $16 million to James Dennis, who spent 25 years on death row. Philadelphia settled three unrelated wrongful conviction cases in 2023 for a combined $25 million.
Joseph Marrone, an attorney with Marrone Law who represents Kelly, said that only a large verdict or settlement can send a message and drive change.
“This has to be cleaned up,” Marrone said. “If not it’s going to cost you money. It’s going to cost you a lot of money.”
The city declined to comment on the litigation.
New information, nearly three decades later
Kelly was home with his children at the time Houghston was killed, his lawyers said in a news conference Tuesday. The case against him was based largely on the testimony of one unreliable witness, they said, and the prosecutor’s theory that Houghston’s killing was related to drug trade conflicts never made sense.
“You don’t see drug kingpins working at the Department of Sanitation for the city 9 to 5,” said Keir-Bradford Grey, a Marrone Law attorney working on the case who was Philadelphia’s former chief public defender.
Kelly previously attempted to appeal his conviction, but lost. While incarcerated, he met others who stood by their innocence, but Kelly’s story was the most egregious his peers in prison heard. Some even donated from their commissary funds for his legal defense and wrote letters on his behalf.
Two years ago Kelly’s odds changed when the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office handed him the investigation files in his case.
Kelly and his attorneys were stunned by what they learned.
Before Kelly’s arrest, police looked into another suspect with known ties to the drug trade, who was later convicted of another murder in the neighborhood, according to the lawsuit.
The prosecution’s key witness lived in a house the suspect owned, according to the complaint. The state relocated the witness to a more affluent area in 1996 and placed her in drug rehab ahead of her testimony. But the defense attorneys for Kelly at the time never received information.
“Counsel had been deprived of an obvious explanation for why [the witness] might have come to falsely accuse Kelly,” the complaint said.
The files also showed that the other witness who put Kelly at the scene of the crime was unable to identify him from an array of photos when questioned by police. At some point before the trial, he identified the other suspect instead, the lawsuit said.
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Armed with new information, Kelly filed a new petition asking the court to reconsider his case. In June, Philadelphia Court of Commons Pleas Judge Glenn Bronson vacated his conviction and Krasner’s office declined to re-try him. Kelly walked out of prison a free man on July 18.
The hardest part of his nearly-three decades in prison was the impact his wrongful conviction had on his family, Kelly said.
“My loved ones, everybody that has a connection to me, done 29 years,” he said.