"The judge then handed down three sentences of death -- one for each of the victims," Harold Wilson said during a recent speech at Homewood Campus. "After he said it, I was wondering, how are they going to kill me three times? I was transferred to the death row facility. When I arrived at the facility, I was housed in isolation from the general population. I was in shock. I was in a different world."
Wilson -- a death row prisoner for more than 16 years who was acquitted of all charges last November -- was invited to speak at Hopkins on April 5 by the Hopkins chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) as part of its Death Penalty Awareness Week.
"It's an annual week that we hold just to increase awareness and encourage discussion of the death penalty on our campus," Claire Edington, president of the Hopkins ACLU, said.
He became the 122nd person in the nation to be freed from death row and the sixth Pennsylvanian death row inmate released since 1982, according to the Death Penalty Information Center (DPIC).
He said an inexperienced attorney represented him during the 1989 trial that led to his conviction.
"I realized that the court-appointed lawyer I had did not have the experience to handle my situation," he said in his speech. "I started to go to the law library in the county jail. I sat in the library from sunup to sundown. My head would hurt so [badly] because I read everything I thought would help me with the case."
"It was like reading another language," he added. "I knew I had to understand the language because it was the key to my survival and my freedom."
Among those attending the event was Kurt Rosenberg, director of Witness to Innocence, a project of The Moratorium Campaign that seeks a suspension of all executions nationwide, and he understands why it took so long for Wilson to be freed.
"Once a person is wrongfully convicted and sentenced to death, there is [sic] enormous obstacles they face in turning that around," Rosenberg said. "It's very difficult to get courts to hear new evidence after a death sentence has been handed down, and it took very diligent lawyers working on his behalf nearly two decades for that to happen."
"The system is set up so that once you're sentenced to death and on death row for any period of time, it's very difficult to get your issues heard," he added.
On Nov. 15, 2005, a new jury acquitted Wilson of all charges "after new DNA evidence revealed blood from the crime scene that did not come from Wilson or any of the victims, a finding suggesting the involvement of another assailant," according to DPIC.
Rosenberg believes Wilson can help change "an unjust system."
"I think he is very committed to this issue and he's very passionate about improving the criminal justice system, as he spoke about [during the event]," Rosenberg said. "I believe he feels that it's critical, and given his experience, I think he can play a role in helping to change what is an unjust system."
Rosenberg also mentioned Wilson's "exoneration."
"There [were] serious questions about his innocence, certainly from way back," Rosenberg said. "Finally, he was able to get this evidence heard in court, which led to his exoneration."
But while Wilson and his supporters call his release an "exoneration," Cathie Abookire, a representative of the Philadelphia District Attorney's Office, views his newfound freedom in a different light.
"There's a very big difference between being found not guilty and being exonerated," she said. "Exonerated means you're innocent. There is no finding of innocence in a court of law. The evidence either proves you guilty or not guilty. There are people who have been found not guilty but who really did it, so the term `exonerated' is not a term that is used in a court of law."
She also discussed the prosecutor's difficulties at the trial that led to his acquittal, with the available evidence "a far cry from what the first jury was presented."
"Years had gone by, witnesses were dead, physical evidence had been used up," she said. "So the jury at the second trial was at a tremendous disadvantage compared to the first jury. We don't criticize that jury -- you can only make your decision based on what was presented."
Gina Smith, the prosecutor in last November's case, outlined the evidence that points towards Wilson's guilt.
"The defendant admittedly was on a three- or four-day crack frenzy in the home where three of the victims lived," she said. "After three or four days of smoking crack, the facts show that the defendant was the last person with these three people."
"Moreover, the victims were hatched to death through their skulls to their brains. ... The hatchet that we believe was used was found in a sewer between the crime scene and his house."
According to Smith, the victims' blood was also found on Wilson's sneakers, pants and jacket -- although he now contends that the bloody jacket was not his, but rather was planted by police during a search of his mother's basement.
"They needed to find a person who they could target and convict, and he was the person that they manufactured this around," Rosenberg said.
Smith disagrees, citing a lack of evidence.
"There was no suggestion that the police planted that jacket at the first trial," she said. "There was no evidence of that."
She also discussed a piece of testimony during the penalty phase of the first trial that suggests Wilson changed his story in the intervening years.
"One other piece of evidence that could not come in at the second trial was his testimony ... that the jacket with the blood on it was actually the jacket he was wearing," said Smith.
She continued: "His explanation was that he came upon the victims after they were killed and that one of the victims reached up and grabbed him, and that was ... how blood got on his shoes, pants and jacket."
"That was his own testimony at the penalty phase after the first trial. There was a legal ruling that excluded that testimony in the [latest] trial."
While not faulting the recent jury's decision, Smith stresses that Wilson isn't an "innocent man exonerated."
"That jury did not have the benefit of the same evidence that the first jury did... and we don't fault them in any way," she said.
"He was found not guilty -- not exonerated in any way -- and if you're looking for the case of the innocent man exonerated, this isn't it. Find another poster boy," she continued.
Edington commented that, despite the District Attorney's allegations, Wilson was eventually "acquitted of all charges."
"He's been through the court system several times on appeals in his trial and he was found by a jury of his peers to be innocent and acquitted of all charges," she said.
"As far as our government is concerned, he is innocent," she continued.
Wilson was also dubious about the lapse of time between the trials.
"Why'd the District Attorney takes so long to get a new trial?" he asked.
Wilson continued: "It's only because of the District Attorney's lack of due diligence and errors and violations of the Constitution that I was granted a new trial."
While in prison, Wilson was known as a problem prisoner because he constantly fought for his "basic rights."
"Guards would put things in your food or refuse to give you meals on time," he said during his speech.
"Prisoners had to go on hunger strikes just to protest for better conditions of confinement. We had to file numerous lawsuits and complaints for the basic rights that others enjoy that were to be afforded to death row inmates."
"I gained my reputation as a troublemaker because I would stand up for the rights of myself and others," he added.
Also at last week's event was Vicki Schieber, who spoke of her daughter's brutal rape and murder as a grad student at the University of Pennsylvania, and she shared with the audience her decision to forgive and let the perpetrator escape the death penalty.
She now works with Murder Victims' Families for Human Rights, trying to put an end to the death penalty.
Schieber, who was "incredibly touched" by Harold's experiences, wants to think this sort of thing doesn't happen often.
"I would like to believe that this was a really rare and unusual circumstance," she said, "but the stories I have read and the people I have encountered -- I know it isn't."
