Philly DA appeals judge's decision to overturn man's murder conviction

The Philadelphia District Attorney's Office is appealing a judge's decision to overturn a man's 1982 murder conviction.

William Franklin, 77, was 33-years-old when he was convicted for murder in Philadelphia in 1980.

Franklin's defense attorney claimed jailhouse informants incorrectly identified him as a murder suspect after detectives provided them drugs and sex in exchange for testimony.

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The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that homicide detectives told Emmanuel “Manny” Claitt – who was charged in multiple criminal cases -- that he could avoid serious jail time if he testified that Franklin killed Joseph Hollis in the city’s Brewerytown neighborhood in 1976.

The Inquirer also reported that Claitt claimed detectives offered to sweeten the deal by allowing him access to sex with one of his girlfriends in a police interrogation room.

After Claitt accepted the deal, Franklin was convicted of murder.

Franklin spent 44 years in prison while maintaining his innocence.

On Wednesday, Feb. 28, Judge Tracy Brandeis-Roman of the Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas vacated his conviction and granted him a new trial.

The Inquirer reported that a large factor in the decision to vacate the conviction was because Claitt recanted his testimony before he died in 2020.

NBC10 was there on Tuesday, March 5, when Franklin was released outside the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility on State Road in Philadelphia and met with his family members.

When asked how he felt about seeing his family members for the first time in decades, Franklin said he felt "fine" while also acknowledging the work that still needed to be done.

"Fine, lovely, glad to be here," he said. "But it's more work to be done because we got a lot of brothers and sisters behind them walls. That's where I'm at with that."

Despite Franklin's release and vacated conviction, his murder charge remained. He was placed on house arrest pending a scheduled hearing on Thursday, March 7, in which the District Attorney's Office would decide to retry him or drop the murder charge.

On Wednesday, March 6, however, the District Attorney's Appeals Unit filed a notice of appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court in response to Judge Brandeis-Roman's decision to vacate Franklin's murder conviction.

A spokesperson for the District Attorney's Office wrote in a statement that there was "misreporting" of Franklin's Post Conviction Relief Act. The spokesperson said that Claitt never recanted his testimony against Franklin under oath or in court.

"The claim that Mr. Claitt falsely testified against Mr. Franklin out of fear of prosecution does not make sense because 1) the statute of limitations for perjury for his 1980 testimony had expired, 2) Claitt never recanted his testimony under oath, and 3) he failed to appear in court when given an opportunity to testify. In other words, Mr. Claitt never faced new perjury charges because he never recanted in court," the spokesperson wrote.

The spokesperson also said the district attorney's Law Division Appeals Unit -- which reviewed Franklin's Post Conviction Relief Act -- determined Claitt's recantation was unreliable in part "because his statement was written by the attorney of Franklin's co-defendant, Major Tillery, and read verbatim (Mr. Tillery is also pursuing PCRA relief)."

"The Court never had an opportunity to assess Mr. Claitt's credibility, and Mr. Claitt passed away without electing to testify when given opportunities to do so," the spokesperson wrote.

Thursday's scheduled hearing will be continued on another date pending the resolution of the District Attorney's office's appeal, according to the spokesperson.

The District Attorney's Office also shared the Appeals Unit's response to Franklin's PCRA petition. You can read the responses below: