Philadelphia, PA: In 1987, Dawud “David” Turner was wrongly convicted and given a life sentence for a crime that he has always maintained he did not commit, the shooting death of Mario Martinez.
No physical evidence ever implicated Mr. Turner. His arrest hinged solely on the identification of one eyewitness as well as the investigation led by Philadelphia Police Detective Jeffrey Piree who has since been found to have engaged in a pattern and practice of misconduct including fabricating witness statements.
Decades later, post-conviction investigation revealed that trial prosecutors hid exculpatory evidence from the defense about the unreliability of the key eyewitness that was used to secure Turner’s conviction.
In a written response filed on December 8th, the Commonwealth agreed Turner’s constitutional rights were violated at trial stating “the Commonwealth now believes that Turner’s conviction is unworthy of confidence and can no longer defend it.”
On December 10th the Court granted Turner’s petition to vacate his conviction and the Commonwealth subsequently dropped all charges exonerating David Turner who walked out of prison on December 11 after nearly 40 years wrongly incarcerated.
David Turner is represented by Attorneys Amelia Maxfield of The Exoneration Project, Nilam A. Sanghvi of The Pennsylvania Innocence Project, and Thomas W. Hazlett of Ballard Spahr LLP.
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