Evidence exonerates Pa. man after 34 years

Information was withheld from lawyers in 1987 Philly shooting

Decades ago, two witnesses linked Curtis Crosland to the killing of South Philadelphia grocery store owner Il Man Heo during a nighttime robbery.

No physical evidence connected Mr. Crosland to the scene, according to court documents. He was convicted and sentenced to life in prison based entirely on the witnesses’ statements, the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office said.

Mr. Crosland spent 34 years — more than half his life — in prison for the crime, but the state said investigators may not have handed over “troubling” information that would have undermined the witnesses’ credibility decades ago — and pointed to another suspect.

The case that left Mr. Crosland behind bars for decades was recently unraveled by the district attorney’s office. After the office’s conviction integrity unit (CIU) — created to examine assertions of innocence and wrongful conviction — launched an investigation into the case, the 60-year-old was exonerated and released from prison in late June.

Mr. Crosland’s legal team at Philadelphia’s Federal Community Defender Office laid the groundwork for the exoneration, federal defender Arianna Freeman said in an email. Led by attorney Claudia Flores, the team investigated Mr. Crosland’s case for months, discovered evidence that had been overlooked for decades and presented the case to the CIU.

“I feel exceedingly joyful, happy, that finally, you know ... after 30 or more years, after constantly knocking on the door for somebody to please hear me, that day finally came,” Mr. Crosland told CNN.

The saga that landed Mr. Crosland in prison also began with a door knock.

Police rapped on his door in 1987, he told CNN, three years after the robbery during which Heo was fatally shot. The case had languished unsolved.

“I remember telling my wife and son, ‘I’ll be back’ because I didn’t do anything,” Mr. Crosland said.

But he didn’t come back. The then-23-year-old went to trial and was convicted of second-degree murder and two lesser charges. Those convictions were overturned, and he went to trial for a second time in 1991. He was convicted again.

After decades of Mr. Crosland trying to prove his innocence, the CIU in 2020 launched an investigation into his case.

Assistant District Attorney Patricia Cummings, head of the CIU, told The Washington Post that Mr. Crosland’s case had a telltale sign of a wrongful conviction: It was weak from the beginning.

Cases like his often start with inadequate investigation from the police department, she said, and snowball from there.

The investigation unearthed many relevant documents Mr. Crosland’s defense was not privy to, the CIU said, and found the prosecution’s nondisclosure of critical information violated Mr. Crosland’s constitutional rights.

Both key prosecution witnesses from Mr. Crosland’s trial had been unreliable for decades, the investigation found. During the second trial, one retracted his initial assertion Mr. Crosland had admitted to killing Heo, court documents show. The other admitted in 1988 to falsely accusing Mr. Crosland’s cousin of murder in a separate case.

During the grand jury proceedings in which the woman testified against Mr. Crosland’s cousin, she mentioned overhearing Mr. Crosland talking about Heo’s killing and said Mr. Crosland was “afraid someone would tell because there was a reward out.”

A few weeks later, she recanted her testimony from the day. The defense in Mr. Crosland’s case was provided a seven-page transcript of what she told the grand jury, the CIU said, but the documents did not explain she had withdrawn that testimony.

Unknown to Mr. Crosland’s defense, the state had planned to prosecute her for false reporting.

Within about a year of Mr. Crosland’s initial conviction, according to the CIU, both key witnesses had withdrawn their testimony about his involvement in Heo’s killing. It’s unclear why this information wasn’t given to the defense.

Ms. Cummings said there has long been a lack of understanding of what the prosecution needs to pass on to the defense and what investigators need to give the prosecution.

“Oftentimes, the information is not passed, and it calls into question the validity of the conviction,” she said.