PHILADELPHIA - A Philadelphia man who served 37 years in prison in a case tainted by perjured testimony was cleared of the murder on Thursday and then sued the city over his 1984 conviction.Willie Stokes left prison earlier this month, after a federal judge found prosecutors never disclosed that they had charged his chief accuser with perjury after the trial.
The witness has said he was offered sex and drugs at police headquarters to frame Stokes in an unsolved 1980 dice-game slaying."I’m not bitter.
I’m just excited to move forward," Stokes, 60, told The Associated Press after the brief morning court hearing, when prosecutors announced they would not seek to retry the case.More than 100 people have been exonerated and released from prison in recent years in Pennsylvania, according to Marissa Boyers Bluestine of the University of Pennsylvania law school, the former executive director of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project.
None served more prison time than Stokes.The trial witness who identified him as the killer at a preliminary hearing recanted at the murder trial, in what he later called a fit of conscience.