Lewis pleads guilty to killing Officer Cassidy

John "Jordan" Lewis pleaded guilty this morning to shooting and fatally wounding Philadelphia Police Officer Chuck Cassidy during a robbery on Oct. 31, 2007.

The plea came just as Lewis' trial was set begin at the Criminal Justice Center and stunned the Cassidy family as well as Lewis'.

But the immediate interpretation of events as a plea bargain to escape the death penalty ended quickly when it became clear there was no plea agreement in place.

Instead, Lewis' decision appeared to be an unusual defense gambit to focus what was expected to be a three-week trial on the central issue in the case: the death penalty or life in prison.

The jury will now hear evidence about the Oct. 31, 2007, killing of the veteran police officer and decide if it was a case of premeditated, malicious first-degree murder, or second-degree murder: a killing that occurs during the commission of another crime, in this case an armed robbery.

If the jury finds Lewis guilty of first-degree murder, it will then have to decide if Lewis should be put to death or sentenced to life in prison without chance of parole.

Second-degree murder carries an automatic sentence of life without parole.

In her opening statement to the jury, Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Selber discounted Lewis' last-minute plea, saying he did so because he was "buried under a mountain of evidence."

"He is only taking responsibility for the parts that he has to," Selber said.

Selber said the video of Cassidy's death in the robbery of a North Philadelphia donut shop will prove that Lewis made a deliberate decision to kill the officer, shooting him in the head after taking several steps and raising his gun from a distance of about three feet.

"He didn't just happen to die in the commission of a robbery," Selber said.

Defense attorney Michael Coard urged the jury to follow the law, as they promised they would to Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart.

Coard described Cassidy as a "hero who died at the hand of John Lewis."

But he also told the jury the evidence will not prove that Lewis planned and premeditated the killing of a police officer: "It involved a panicky reaction during a robbery that led to a tragic death of a heroic police officer."

Lewis, 23, of North Philadelphia, pleaded guilty to a general charge of murder in Cassidy's death as well as charges involving six armed robberies. The last robbery - at a Dunkin' Donuts on North Broad Street near 66th Avenue - was interrupted when Cassidy walked through the door.

Cassidy, 54, a police veteran of 25 years who was married and the father of three, was shot in the head and died the next day.

On the day before Cassidy was shot, Solomon Montgomery received such a plea deal in the killing in 2006 of Officer Gary Skerski, 46. Skerski's family accepted the agreement sparing Montgomery the death penalty to avoid the pain of a trial.

Lewis had admitted shooting Cassidy after he was arrested in Florida.

Lewis fled there on a Greyhound Bus from Wilmington on Nov. 3, 2007, after he was publicly identified as a suspect in Cassidy's shooting,

After wandering the streets of Miami for a few days, Lewis checked into a homeless shelter under an alias on Nov. 6. But his allegedly evasive and nervous behavior and his photo on a news broadcast led a shelter employee to call police. Lewis was arrested the same day.

That night, as Miami police led him from headquarters to go to a courthouse jail cell, Lewis, a high-school dropout with a history of drug arrests, was besieged by reporters and TV crews.

He told reporters he had confessed to shooting Cassidy to police, then faced the cameras and said: "I apologize to his family. I never meant anything to happen like this."

Cassidy is survived by his wife, Judy, three children, and a large extended family.