PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — After 44 years, a Philadelphia man will go free from prison. A judge vacated his murder conviction last week, and now the District Attorney’s Office must decide whether or not to retry the man.
Family members of William Franklin waited for hours outside the Curran-Fromhold Correctional Facility in Holmesburg to greet the 77-year-old.
Franklin told NBC10 he felt “fine” and “glad” to be out and with his family. “But there is more work to be done,” he said, “because we got a lot more brothers and sisters still behind those walls. That's where I am with that. But I'm all right.”
For decades, Franklin has maintained his innocence of the 1980 murder. His lawyers say jailhouse informants — who said they were provided drugs and sex in exchange for testimony — incorrectly identified Franklin as a prime suspect in the case.
“We found out this case was part of an ongoing scandal in Philadelphia, called the ‘Sex for Lie’ scandal, where there were a lot of bad detectives out there that would coerce witnesses to lie in exchange for sexual favors,” lawyer Joseph Marrone told NBC10. “This was at the core of it.”
Franklin was granted a new trial, but the murder charge stands for now.
District Attorney Larry Krasner will ultimately decide whether to retry the man or drop the charges altogether. That hearing is scheduled for Thursday. Franklin will remain under house arrest until then.