Current Events > Man wrongly imprisoned for 4-year-old girl's murder freed after 28 years

(+) Yeah! (+)

A man who spent 28 years behind bars was released from prison Friday after a Pennsylvania judge vacated his 1996 conviction in the murder of a 4-year-old girl.
"I was glad to get out," Walter Ogrod, 55, said.
He was freed with the help of the same Philadelphia District Attorney's Office that prosecuted him back in 1988. This time, the office's Conviction Integrity Unit, created in 2014, worked to disprove the case.
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner welcomed the judge's order, saying in a statement Friday, "On behalf of this office, I apologize to Walter Ogrod and his family. I hope he will soon be officially declared innocent of this horrendous crime."
Judge Shelley Robins New ordered a new trial, and prosecutors have filed a motion to quell a retrial. If that motion is granted, Ogrod's case will be closed. For now he's out on bail.
Prosecutors now believe that Ogrod was coerced into a false confession after 4-year-old Barbara Jean Horn was found dead in a cardboard television box near his north Philadelphia home.
Witnesses said they saw a man near the box, but he didn't look like Ogrod. Jurors in his first trial voted 11-1 to acquit, but a second trial included the testimony of jailhouse informants, and Ogrod was convicted.
His lawyers said earlier this year that DNA found at the crime scene did not match his.
In an interview with NBC News' Lester Holt in May, Ogrod said he believed he contracted COVID-19 and recovered while serving time in Pennsylvania's State Correctional Institution Phoenix. But he was not tested.
"Its remarkable that this occurred today, during a time when our country is experiencing so much unrest and so many questions about our criminal justice system and whether or not it is so demonstrably broke that you cant get just results," Assistant District Attorney Patricia Cummings said Friday.
Prosecutors vowed to put whoever killed Horn behind bars.
"To know that an innocent man has been in prison and the person that did this has been out, it's just horrible," said the girl's mother, Sharon Fahy.

Walter Ogrod - Innocent
https://imgur.com/tPQvQeO

Barbara Jean Horn - Victim, killer still unknown
https://imgur.com/Jt3U396

https://www.yahoo.com/news/man-wrongly-imprisoned-4-old-215414598.html

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and people claim the justice system isn't corrupt....

America
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Had CE been around at the time of his conviction there would be people demanding his execution.

This is why you don't execute people.

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Christ, those eyes look like they've seen some shit during those wasted years being incarcerated.



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Vicious_Dios posted...

Christ, those eyes look like they've seen some shit during those wasted years being incarcerated.

Well they basically ruined the best years of his life.

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Tyranthraxus posted...

Well they basically ruined the best years of his life.

I know.

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It's incredible how many convictions are based on the testimony of jailhouse informants. As if people in jail just confess the details of their crimes to each other all the time. What's really amazing is juries are told that the jailhouse informant is not getting anything in exchange for their testimony, which is always wrong. It's just that the informant gets their reward (reduced charges or whatever) after they testify.

GodIsImaginary posted...

It's incredible how many convictions are based on the testimony of jailhouse informants. As if people in jail just confess the details of their crimes to each other all the time. What's really amazing is juries are told that the jailhouse informant is not getting anything in exchange for their testimony, which is always wrong. It's just that the informant gets their reward (reduced charges or whatever) after they testify.

Check out Just Mercy, the new Jamie Foxx movie. That's how his character ends up getting charged for a murder he didn't commit. I believe WB is offering it free to everyone right now through Playstation, Xbox, Youtube, etc.

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Feel bad for the parents too. Spend 30 years being told by the police and DA that they got the guy who killed their baby and now it's just "Oops, we lied and your daughter's killer is still free".

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Exeggcute posted...

He was freed with the help of the same Philadelphia District Attorney's Office that prosecuted him back in 1988.

@KamalaHarris

Why was he given a second trial if he was acquitted in the first?
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Is he getting any kind of payment out of this? I know nothing can really pay for taking away your late 20s and all of your 30s and 40s, but the least that could be done for cases like this is give the person a decent lump sum to make up for basicallg ruining his life
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I hope so, he won't be able to get any sort of job after they robbed him of the best years of his life.

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That's awful.
The worst part is there's never any compensation for this kind of thing. It's always just a "whoops, my bad. You were never guilty. Well....see you later"

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He deserves payment

was he black

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He should sue

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deoxxys posted...

was he black

no. which is actually shocking. 9 times out of 10 these guys in prison for decades unjustly are black men

Turbam posted...

That's awful.
The worst part is there's never any compensation for this kind of thing. It's always just a "whoops, my bad. You were never guilty. Well....see you later"

also no justice against those responsible. usually by the time these guys get out, the cops, lawyers and judges who put them in prison are retired or even dead.

WaterLink posted...

Is he getting any kind of payment out of this? I know nothing can really pay for taking away your late 20s and all of your 30s and 40s, but the least that could be done for cases like this is give the person a decent lump sum to make up for basicallg ruining his life

This.

It would absolutely be deplorable if they basically squandered this guy's life for absolutely no reason and they didn't do anything to even ATTEMPT to do something to re compensate him in some way.

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That sucks. Imagine that being you. Sucks bad. Really no more eloquent way to put it. It just plain ol sucks big donkeys.

They should give people wrongfully incarcerated 1 million for every year spent.

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Zikten posted...

no. which is actually shocking. 9 times out of 10 these guys in prison for decades unjustly are black men

Do you have statistics to back up this claim? That seems like a random number.

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it is a random number i put out there after just noticing that this might be the first white guy actually I have ever heard of being in prison for decades for a crime he didn't commit. I'm sure it happens but every time (until now) that I see these stories it's a black guy.

First trial voted 11-1 to acquit, but then the second trial he was convicted? I'm guessing the coerced confession happened somewhere in between

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DeadBankerDream posted...

Why was he given a second trial if he was acquitted in the first?

He wasn't acquitted, criminal trials require unanimous jury verdicts. Since the Jury couldn't agree it was a mistrial and a new trial would have been ordered.

sounds like just another day in the u.s. criminal justice system

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