Philly man exonerated after spending decades in prison for murder he did not commit

A Philadelphia man who spent nearly three decades behind bars for a murder that officials say he did not commit will be freed from prison a month after his conviction was vacated.

On Thursday, the Court of Common Pleas granted the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office's motion to dismiss all charges against 47-year-old Eddie Ramirez.

The decision came nearly a month after District Attorney Larry Krasner's office said the court "agreed that Eddie Ramirez’s conviction for a brutal 1995 robbery-murder in a Northeast Philadelphia laundromat should be vacated."

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In 1998, Ramirez and co-defendant William Weihe were convicted in the February 1995 killing of Joyce Dennis, the DA's office said. Dennis "was found viciously beaten to death late at night, after the laundromat had been robbed of approximately $1,100 in paper currency."

Despite a lack of physical evidence tying him to the crime, Ramirez was "sentenced to life imprisonment on the strength of statements from friends implicating him, including testimony from co-defendant Weihe," the DA's office said.

Weihe pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and served five years in exchange for his testimony implicating Ramirez, Krasner's office said.

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"Nearly all statements implicating Ramirez from fellow teenagers in his friend group – several of which were obtained after questioning by a police detective without a partner, guardian, or attorney present – have since been recanted," the DA's office said. "Several of the witnesses have since independently alleged that they were threatened and coerced by police into implicating Ramirez in the murder."

Paul Worrell was one of the detectives involved in getting the confessions, the DA's office said. He "is known to the court for a pattern and practice of eliciting false confessions dating back to at least 1992." Several of his other convictions have also been vacated, according to officials.

“For more than 25 years, however, the Commonwealth withheld substantial evidence that supported Ramirez’s trial defense. Despite the existence of this evidence, prior DA administrations presented argument to the trial court as well as various post-conviction courts that was either directly refuted or called into question by the withheld evidence. It was not until District Attorney Larry Krasner took office that withheld evidence was provided to Ramirez as part of his Post Conviction Relief Act litigation," a spokesperson for Krasner wrote.

Krasner's office launched a Post Conviction Relief Act review and then officially let the court know in August that it appeared Ramirez's constitutional rights were violated and that he should "get relief."

"The relief granted today is an acknowledgement that Mr. Ramirez’s rights were violated, that he did not receive a fair trial, and that had certain information not been suppressed by police and prosecutors at the time, that the jury might well have reached a different conclusion," Krasner said in a news release. "We must also acknowledge the pain and trauma that Joyce Dennis’s loved ones have endured these many years. The criminal legal system also badly failed the victim of a horrendous violent crime and their loved ones."

The DA's office had 30 days to review Ramirez's case and ultimately decided to not pursue the vacated charges.

“The failure by prior DAs to disclose this evidence to Ramirez – which he had always been entitled to under the U.S. Constitution – was unacceptable and outrageous," a DA's office spokesperson wrote on Thursday. "As a representative of the institution, I believe the Philadelphia DA’s Office should be accountable for its errors and misconduct, including that of long-gone prosecutors and prior elected DAs. On behalf of the DAO, I apologize to the Court, to the victim’s family, and to Mr. Ramirez and his family for the effect that past violations of his rights had on this case and on everyone involved."