Murder Convictions Tossed for Three Pennsylvania Prisoners After 28 Years
by Chuck Sharman
A Pennsylvania judge vacated the murder convictions of Jermal Shuler, Marc Brittingham and Rasheed Smith on May 26, 2026, after they spent 28 years in state prisons for the brutal 1997 killing of Essie Thomas, 73, in her Philadelphia home.
The Conviction Integrity Unit (CIU) of Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krazner found significant problems with both the testimony of the sole eyewitness—who identified the three men as those she saw leaving Thomas’ home after the murder—and the coroner’s estimated time of death, which corroborated the testimony.
Thomas’ corpse was found in her home by her great-nephew, Eric Palmer, in November 1997. There was no physical evidence found to connect any of the three men to the crime. In fact, as the state Supreme Court later recalled in post-conviction proceedings, “Palmer was the initial suspect, until the police learned that a neighbor, Wadia Brown, claimed to have witnessed three [other] men leaving the victim’s house on the night of the murder.” Crucially, Palmer’s suspected accomplice in the killing was Brown’s boyfriend, Michael Tuck.
At trial, the three Defendants pounced on this convenient coincidence, challenging “inconsistencies and fabrications” in Brown’s testimony. But jurors felt compelled to give it credit when a Philadelphia assistant medical examiner, whose report did not specify a date or time of death, testified that it fell within the window that Brown claimed to have seen them leaving the murder scene. Based on that, they were convicted of second-degree murder in November 1998 and sentenced to life in prison in 1999; the conviction was upheld on direct appeal the following year.
All three prisoners filed unsuccessful petitions under the state’s Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) between 2002 and 2004, the Supreme Court also recalled, after which they “went unrepresented by counsel for the … next decade.” Then a 2012 PCRA request for DNA testing of the evidence was granted on the grounds that it wasn’t available at the time of their trials. That was the trial court decision that the state Supreme Court affirmed on July 28, 2014. See: Commonwealth v. Shuler, 2014 Pa. Super. Unpub. LEXIS 2839.
However, no conclusive evidence was found that was sufficient to exonerate the prisoners. That didn’t happen until the CIU got involved and joined in filing a successive PCRA petition in 2022. The next year, when Illinois-based forensic pathologist Dr. James Filkins was hired to review the coroner’s work, he estimated the time of Thomas’ death was nearly 24 hours after Brown claimed to see the three men leaving the victim’s home. Since the earlier time of death was the key evidence supporting the flawed testimony of the sole eyewitness, the case against the three prisoners quickly crumbled, leading state Court of Common Pleas Judge Jennifer Schultz to toss the convictions.
Shuler, 46, and Smith, 47, were released the same day from State Correctional Institution (SCI) Phoenix in Skippack; Brittingham, 47, was released the day after from SCI-Chester. In its press release after the exonerations, Krasner’s office did not name the coroner who botched his testimony, but Judge Schultz’s opinion cited disciplinary actions against him, the Philadelphia Tribune reported. He was identified by the Philly Voice as Bennett Preston, who currently works in neighboring Delaware County.
It was the CIU’s 59th exoneration since Krasner took office in 2018. Shuler and Brittingham were represented by Innocence Project attorneys Angie Louie and Nilam A. Sanghvi, along with Exoneration Project attorneys Tara Thompson and Amelia Maxfied. Smith was represented by attorney Brian M. Robinson of DLA Piper in Philadelphia.
Additional sources: Innocence Project, Philly Voice, Philadelphia Tribune
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