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Philadelphia man cleared after 37 years in prison, sues city

Willie Stokes walks from a state prison in Chester, Pa., on, Jan. 4, 2022, after his 1984 murder conviction was overturned because of perjured witness testimony. Stokes, whose murder case officially dismissed at a court hearing Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022, said he was not bitter but "just excited to move forward" in life. He was also filing a lawsuit Thursday against the city over the nearly four decades he spent in prison. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
Willie Stokes walks from a state prison in Chester, Pa., on, Jan. 4, 2022, after his 1984 murder conviction was overturned because of perjured witness testimony. Stokes, whose murder case officially dismissed at a court hearing Thursday, Jan. 27, 2022, said he was not bitter but "just excited to move forward" in life. He was also filing a lawsuit Thursday against the city over the nearly four decades he spent in prison. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

By MARYCLAIRE DALE / Associated Press 3 min read

PHILADELPHIA (AP) – A Philadelphia man freed after 37 years in prison in a case tainted by perjured testimony accused the city of “outrageous police misconduct” in a lawsuit filed Thursday, the same day his 1984 murder case was dismissed.

Willie Stokes left prison earlier this month, after a federal judge found prosecutors never disclosed that they had charged his chief accuser with perjury after the trial. The witness has said he was offered sex and drugs at police headquarters to frame Stokes in an unsolved 1980 dice-game slaying.

“I’m not bitter. I’m just excited to move forward,” Stokes, 60, told The Associated Press after the brief morning court hearing, when prosecutors announced they would not seek to retry the case.

More than 100 people have been exonerated in recent years in Pennsylvania, according to Marissa Boyers Bluestine of the University of Pennsylvania law school, the former executive director of the Pennsylvania Innocence Project. None served more prison time than Stokes.

The trial witness who identified him as the killer at a preliminary hearing recanted at the murder trial, in what he later called a fit of conscience. Stokes was nonetheless convicted. Prosecutors then charged the witness, Franklin Lee, with perjury over his pretrial testimony, and Lee went to prison for it. Stokes never knew that until 2015.