Philadelphia officials said Wednesday that the city will be paying out $9.8 million in one of the largest wrongful-conviction settlements in the city’s history to a Black man who spent 28 years in prison for a murder the district attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit now says it was “near impossible” that he committed.
According to the Inquirer, Hollman’s attorneys said he was targeted by police only because he was a Black man driving a white SUV that matched the description of the one seen fleeing the scene of a shooting that killed Penn student Tae-Jung Ho in August 1991. There was no evidence linking Hollman to the shooting and the two witnesses who identified him later recanted and said they were coerced by police to give their false testimonies. One witness was threatened with arrest and the other was promised help on his own pending criminal case in exchange for falsely implicating Hollman.
“There are no words to express what was taken from me,” Hollman said in a statement after the settlement was announced. “But this settlement closes out a difficult chapter in my life as my family and I now embark on a new one.”
Earlier this month,
The Root reported that another Black man, 45-year-old Termaine Hicks was exonerated of rape after spending 19 years in a Philadelphia prison. An officer—who along with his complicit partner is still currently on the force—first shot Hicks three times while he was pulling out a cell phone to call for help for the rape victim. Hicks was then charged with the rape and later exonerated after the Conviction Integrity Unit found that the case was “built on lies” possibly to cover up the unjustified shooting and that forensic evidence easily cleared Hicks who should never have been arrested let alone convicted of the rape.
According to the Inquirer, since 2018,
17 defendants have been exonerated in cases involving many of the same officers who led the investigations into Hollman’s and Wright’s cases. Most of those officers have since retired—as opposed to firing, charges or any semblance of actual accountability—but some, like those involved in Hicks’ case, remain on the force and have even been promoted.
www.theroot.com
