PHILADELPHIA (CN) — A man convicted of the 2011 attempted murder of a South Philadelphia family and imprisoned for over a decade is now free after a federal judge on Monday found him innocent of all charges.
Judge James Eisenhower Monday morning granted the district attorney's motion to drop all charges against C.J. Rice, who was sentenced in 2013 to a prison term of 30 to 60 years on four counts of attempted murder for a shooting he has adamantly denied doing — or even being physically capable of doing.
“We are thrilled at today’s outcome,” Rice’s counsel said in a statement. “This ends a lengthy ordeal for C.J., who was forced to grow up in prison, incarcerated for a crime he did not commit. Today’s decision is an acknowledgment from the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and the court of that wrong.”
In September 2011 Rice, then 17 years old, was shot while riding his bike. The ensuing surgery left him in excruciating pain and barely able to walk for weeks after, according to his pediatrician, Dr. Theodore Tapper.
Six days after Rice visited Tapper, a family was shot in South Philadelphia, causing the victims minor injuries. Witnesses described one or two men who fired and ran away, but no suspects were identified that night.
A day later, police re-interviewed the victims, after an anonymous tip. During this second interview, one of the victims picked out Rice as one of the shooters from a photo lineup.
The court appointed attorney Sandjai Weaver to represent Rice. Subsequent investigations by CNN and the Eastern District of Pennsylvania found that Weaver made a litany of mistakes in her defense of Rice, including failing to request medical records that showed how significantly his gunshot wounds limited his mobility.
"We really saw a lot of red flags,” said Nilam Sanghvi, legal director for the Pennsylvania Innocence Project and one of Rice’s attorneys. “There was very little evidence, eyewitness issues, poor representation by defense counsel, as well as the likely physical impossibility of C.J. committing this crime.”
Rice repeatedly tried to appeal his 2013 conviction. His case stalled until October 2022, when CNN journalist Jake Tapper — the son of Rice’s pediatrician — wrote an article on Rice's case for The Atlantic.
With the nation’s eyes on Rice, a breakthrough emerged. Last December a federal judge granted Rice a writ of habeas corpus, a legal motion where a prisoner argues they’ve been wrongfully held, and ordered the state either to retry Rice or to free him within 180 days.
District Attorney Larry Krasner filed the motion to drop the charges, and in granting it Monday Judge Eisenhower ended more than 12 years of wrongful imprisonment.
However, while Rice is now a free man, concerns remain over wrongful convictions at a systemic, city-wide level.
Since 1973, only Chicago has exonerated more death row inmates than Philadelphia, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a national nonprofit organization.
And according to the National Registry of Exonerations, one-tenth of all U.S. homicide exonerations between 2019 and 2021 came from Philadelphia — a rate 25 times higher than the national average.
There have been positive changes in recent history, though.
District Attorney Krasner's established a Conviction Integrity Unit and a more robust post-conviction review system, and has opened up access to police and D.A. files, which Sanghvi told Courthouse News has helped to even the playing field for defendants, even if it publicizes a darker side of the city.
"We're finally really starting to peel back that onion of how bad things have been in Philadelphia," Sanghvi said. "We're finding exculpatory materials and files that should have been turned over in almost every file that we look at."
Additionally, Pennsylvania this year became the 49th state to provide funding for indigent defense, a bill that previously received funding from county governments alone.
"I think it's a step in the right direction, because the better the pre-trial representation is, the less likely a wrongful conviction is going to be," she said. "But these are real baby steps toward true systemic statewide reform."
“Keep in mind that for everyone that comes home, given how harsh Pennsylvania’s post-conviction laws are, there’s many, many, many more folks who are innocent in prison and still fighting — trying to keep sight of [the fact] that on a great day like today, there’s a lot more work to do," she added.
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