Three Black Men FREED After 28 YEARS Behind Bars

Añadido: 2026-06-02

[00:00:00]Three innocent black men are now free.

[00:00:03]Uh but they had to give the uh they had to give the government about 13 years of their time.

[00:00:12]Awful mess.

[00:00:17]Three black men have been exonerated after spending nearly three decades in prison for a murder they never committed. This murder took place uh in 1997 of a woman in Philadelphia.

[00:00:41]Was the un- was the unfortunate victim.

[00:00:45]You're looking at Mark Ridingham, Jermaine Shoemaker, and Rashid Smith.

[00:00:56]The men had been found guilty of killing Miss Essie May Thomas.

[00:01:07]She was discovered stabbed to death in her home following an attempted burglary in 1997. This was November 1997.

[00:01:20]What made the difference here? How did these men get out of jail for a murder after 28 years?

[00:01:30]Local political leadership. Come on.

[00:01:37]The DA, the district attorney, Larry Krasner, said the original case relied on a single eyewitness who claimed she saw the man on Thomas's porch porch the night before or the night, excuse me, prosecutors believe the murder occurred a Saturday night.

[00:01:57]She was found dead by her grandnephew that Monday who was concerned when she didn't answer his phone calls and came to check on her.

[00:02:09]The eyewitness testimony supported the medical examiner's determination that the victim's time of death was also a Saturday night. No physical evidence, no forensic evidence.

[00:02:22]Nothing connected these men to that murder. Nothing.

[00:02:27]They just happened to be black.

[00:02:30]You have a jury not of their peers.

[00:02:33]You have overzealous and likely corrupt prosecutorial standards and police officers willing to allow a real killer or killers to go free putting your community in much more actual danger while pinning the crime on a random black man so that their statistics of solved crime data can be padded.

[00:03:08]Sadistic.

[00:03:10]Uh quote, "They were robbed of a fair trial."

[00:03:15]"Their conviction has no integrity." the DA said.

[00:03:20]The only witness in the case who actually put these men close to this woman uh who was murdered is a known liar, credibility issue.

[00:03:32]Years after the trial, both the eyewitness account and the medical examiner's determination of the time of death were challenged. Independent forensic pathologist hired by both sides concluded the victim likely died at least 24 hours later than originally stated. They came to the same conclusion.

[00:03:53]Quote, we have a time of death that's completely wrong, we believe.

[00:03:57]And we have a witness who's a liar.

[00:04:00]And that's the whole case.

[00:04:02]Do we know with certainty whether they they're innocent or not?

[00:04:07]No, Krasner said. The issue is whether or not what we have here is a conviction that still has integrity. I want you to put up the DA again because I don't want to miss this moment. Keep him up.

[00:04:23]What is his actual argument? It is a moral and ethical indictment on the system.

[00:04:31]On the system, not the circumstance, not the story, not the microcosm, but the macrocosm of the system.

[00:04:44]The system says, you are innocent.

[00:04:49]Not until you're proven guilty, unless you're proven guilty, unless you're proven guilty. You are in fact legally innocent.

[00:05:01]And the state has a requirement to prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

[00:05:08]There's a reasonable doubt that a known liar will lie.

[00:05:16]And you being convicted on that known liar's testimony without considering is reasonable to doubt their testimony is insanity.

[00:05:35]No other No other evidence. Now, uh prosecutors have to do their job.

[00:05:41]According to the DA, the medical examiner involved in this testimony had a uh disciplinary record after testifying in multiple cases in Philadelphia. The DA also said the medical examiner now works as an expert in Delaware County.

[00:06:01]According to the Philly Voice, the identity of the medical examiner is Bennett Preston.

[00:06:09]That's the saddest damn thing in the world, isn't it?

[00:06:14]Additionally, legal director of the uh Innocence Project in Pennsylvania, Nilam Sanghai, who represents Bredingham told Action News, quote, 100% we believe all three men are innocent.

[00:06:39]Mark didn't do this, she said.

[00:06:43]There was really zero evidence at the time of the trial.

[00:06:48]And now we know that the Commonwealth's entire case was built on a false premise.

[00:06:54]End quote.

[00:06:56]Regarding the witness testimony, the legal director said, quote, Eyewitness identifications are a known cause of wrongful convictions.

[00:07:07]Caveat, especially with black males.

[00:07:09]But on top of that, this particular witness was given incentives in exchange for cooperation.

[00:07:18]She was relocated to a different residence residence, so we were skeptical about what her motives might have been.

[00:07:30]The witness also allegedly admitted she was um she was on crack cocaine at the night of the the night of the crime.

[00:07:39]All right, your brother thoughts here.

[00:07:42]>> I I think one of the absolute worst things that can happen to a human being in this life is being falsely imprisoned, particularly for long periods of time. I mean, this is on par with, you know, maybe losing a child. Maybe a different type of pain, but things that you can't really erase or necessarily move on from completely.

[00:08:03]I mean, 30 years gone, that's a whole lifetime for some people. So many things, so many stages that you just can't get back. There's really no amount of money that you can give to somebody to make up for that. All the trauma, all of the things that you didn't get to learn and didn't get to experience or tap into because you were in the penitentiary. Um and then you see cases like this and I think it's clear that often times um well, maybe not often, but too often you see prosecutors or the system just kind of wiping its hands clean like, "Oh, well, we got it. Let's just get this over with. Move on to the next one." Three black kids, whatever, who cares? Nobody cares. What difference does it make? Um but again, you know, what can you really do to to make amends for something like this? It's just, again, I think one of the worst things that a person can go through in this life.

[00:08:57]>> Yeah. Uh and this one happened to be damn near 30 years. All right. All right, we'll bring you updates as they come.