PHILADELPHIA - Authorities say a man who is being sought in connection to a recent deadly shooting was exonerated last year from a 2012 murder conviction.Police on Thursday shared a mugshot of 32-year-old Jahmir Harris who is linked to a deadly shooting that happened Sept.
5 on the 1700 block of North 56th Street. Prosecutors say Harris was identified by security footage as the driver of a vehicle that two gunman exited before shooting 50-year-old Charles Gossett in the back of the head around 2 a.m.Harris was previously convicted in the shooting death of 45-year-old Louis Porter just two days before Christmas 2012 in the parking lot of a Walgreens on Oregon Avenue.Porter's son was in the backseat of the car when investigators say more than a dozen shot were fired, but the 5-year-old was not injured.
Harris was later arrested and convicted in the murder of Porter.Harris' lawyer appealed to Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner to re-examine the case, which lead to his sentence being vacated.
In a statement to FOX 29 News, the DA's Office said it found "Harris' constitutional rights had been violated at the time of his prosecution because information implicating another individual as the likely shooter had not been turned over to the defense council."Court transcripts from last year's combative hearing show Judge Rose Marie de Fino Nastasi was highly critical of the way the DA's Conviction Integrity Unit handled the case and was not confident in their investigation."This court wonders how the commonwealth felt confident in releasing a murder suspect from prison when the commonwealth said one page earlier that the criminal investigation in this matter was still ongoing," Judge de Fino Nastasi said.MORE LOCAL.