Philadelphia man who spent 27 years behind bars after wrongful conviction cleared of murder charges: 'You're a free man'
CENTER CITY, PHILADELPHIA: A Philadelphia man who was tried and convicted for a murder he insisted he did not commit has finally walked out a free man, 27 years after he was put behind bars for what he thought was the rest of his life.
Willie Veasy, now 54, walked out of the Center City courthouse just before 4 pm on October 7, with his mother and sister by his side, after a judge vacated his conviction in the 1992 death of John Lewis on a north Philadelphia street corner, according to the Philadelphia Enquirer.
Authorities said at the time that Veasy and several other men approached Lewis, as well as another man named Efrain Gonzalez, on a corner of the 700 Block of West Russell Street, and shot them during a robbery attempt.
During the trial, his lawyers presented witnesses and records that showed he had been working at a restaurant in Jenkintown at the time of the killing. Prosecutors, however, tried to discredit that alibi by bringing up evidence of their own.
And while Veasy maintained his innocence throughout, in the years that followed, an alleged confession that he gave to two detectives following his arrest proved key in his conviction.
Another turning point was an eyewitness who said she apparently saw him participating in the killing, even though she admitted her eyesight was poor.
After four days of deliberation, the jury convicted him of second-degree murder and related counts, and Veasy was automatically sentenced to life without parole. No one else was charged in connection to the incident.
Over the years, he filed numerous appeals, with the latest arguing that his trial attorneys in 1992 were unaware that two of the cops involved in the case, Martin Devlin and Paul Worrell, had a "pattern and practice" of coercing confessions out of other defendants arrested around the same time.
They pointed to the case of Anthony Wright, who was convicted in 1993 but acquitted in a retrial in 2016 after DNA evidence pointed to a different man. Wright said Devlin assaulted him before forcing him to falsely confess to raping and killing a neighbor in Nicetown.
In their motion calling for Veasy to be exonerated, they said prosecutors now themselves agreed that the confession was coerced and that they no longer believed it.
The courtroom erupted into applause as Common Pleas Court Judge Leon W Tucker announced he would be dropping the case, before addressing Veasy and saying, "Patience is a virtue. Patience is a skill. You’re a free man."
Prosecutors said they would be dropping all charges against him, and that they would be seeking to retry him as they believed he was likely innocent.
"I get to walk out of here the same way I walked in," Veasy said as he left the courtroom: "An innocent man."