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| Pa. Inmate's Fate Rests in Gov.'s Hands |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 03/10/2003 |
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It took a jury just three hours to find Louis Mickens-Thomas guilty of raping and murdering a 12-year-old girl. But nearly 40 years later, prosecutors, defense attorneys, and two former governors have disagreed about whether the Philadelphia cobbler, now 74, deserves to be behind bars. For decades, Thomas has insisted he is innocent of the 1964 murder of Edith Connor, whose battered body was found in an alley behind the row house where Thomas lived and ran a shoe-repair business. Questions about his guilt were enough to persuade Gov. Robert Casey to commute Thomas' life sentence and order him released in 1996. But in a first for Pennsylvania, Casey's successor, Tom Ridge, refused to let him go. Now, after years of legal appeals, Thomas' fate may be in the hands of a third governor. By the end of next week, newly inaugurated Gov. Ed Rendell must decide whether to appeal a federal court's ruling that Thomas has been held improperly and should be given a new parole hearing within 45 days. If Rendell decides to let the state's Board of Probation and Parole hear the case, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ordered the board to do so under pre-1996 standards, which would favor Thomas' release. Rendell spokesman Ken Snyder declined to say what the governor, a former Philadelphia district attorney, thought of the case. 'We are taking a look at it,' he said. Activists who have fought for more than a decade to prove that faulty science and outright fraud led to the conviction say they are optimistic a fair hearing would lead to his freedom. 'This is a guy who has been in prison for almost 40 years for something he did not do,' said Jim McCloskey, founder of Centurion Ministries, a New Jersey-based group that fights for the release of prisoners it believes are innocent. Prosecutors are enraged a man they consider to be among the city's worst killers could be set free. 'That little girl suffered before she died, and I have no doubt that the defendant murdered her,' said Philadelphia Assistant District Attorney Joseph Casey. |
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