Jahmir Harris, a Philadelphia man who was released from prison last year after being exonerated for a 2012 murder, was arrested on Friday over his alleged involvement in a different murder last month.
Harris was exonerated and released last year by Philadelphia’s “Conviction Integrity Unit” under progressive district attorney Larry Krasner after Harris served eight years in prison for first-degree murder.
The unit, which Democratic Pennsylvania Senate candidate John Fetterman has lauded as “crucial” and “truly groundbreaking,” said Harris’s constitutional rights had been violated at the time of his prosecution because information that implicated another person as the likely shooter had not been provided to the defense counsel.
The unit suggested that forensic cellphone evidence implicated another suspect and supported Harris’s likely innocence in the murder of 45-year-old Louis Porter in a Walgreens parking lot in December 2012.
Now authorities say the 32-year-old was the getaway driver for two suspects in a fatal shooting in the city’s Parkside neighborhood on September 5, according to the local ABC affiliate. Police are still searching for the other two suspects.
The district attorney’s office released a statement on Friday in response to Harris’s new charges: “Wrongful convictions warrant correction by the criminal justice system because they undermine confidence in the system, and because the actual persons responsible for serious and violent crime are not held accountable. The facts alleged in the new arrest warrant for Harris have no bearing on the overturning of Harris’ 2012 conviction.”
The arrest comes less than a month after Philadelphia residents who have been impacted by violent crime in the city testified before a Pennsylvania House committee. The hearing was part of lawmakers’ efforts to gather evidence to impeach the liberal district attorney.
Several mothers who lost their children to homicide testified before the committee in person and through pre-recorded video, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported.
One mother testified about her anger over her daughter’s killer being released on bail and her frustration over having not been given updates on the case by the prosecutor.
Several people who offered testimony suggested the district attorney’s office’s falling conviction rate for some crimes, including gun-possession charges, has meant that offenders do not fear consequences.