A man serving life in prison for a 2010 first-degree murder conviction will be released from prison after pleading no contest to lesser crimes for his role in a fatal North Philadelphia shooting.
Rasheem Hall, 42, was granted the right to a new trial in April after a judge agreed with his defense attorney that prosecutors had withheld evidence that could have aided Hall’s ongoing effort to appeal his conviction.
They said prosecutors’ main witness had been an unreliable jailhouse informant who had recanted statements he’d made about Hall’s involvement in the 2007 shooting that left 34-year-old Ronald Kennel dead.
Rather than retry the case, however, prosecutors agreed to conditions Friday that allowed Hall to plead no contest to aggravated assault and a firearms violation. During the hearing, Common Pleas Court Judge Diana L. Anhalt approved a sentence of nine to 18 years in prison in exchange for Hall’s plea.
Because he had already served that time in custody, he could be released as early as Friday afternoon, she said.
Hall’s family members reacted to the news with a mixture of smiles and tears.
“I’m just happy for Rasheem, I’m just happy for his family,” Hall’s defense attorney, Robert Gamburg, said after the hearing.
The development comes as District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office faces scrutiny of its handling of post-conviction cases. Last week, a federal judge said actions city prosecutors took in another case could amount to perjury, conspiracy, or obstruction of justice.
Friday’s hearing ended a yearslong campaign by Hall to appeal his conviction.
That effort centered on issues with Deric Williams, an informant who was recorded on a jailhouse phone line telling his mother he had wrongfully implicated Hall in the crime and that he had tried, unsuccessfully, to recant his statements to detectives.
Earlier this year, Gamburg told a judge prosecutors had failed to hand over that recording of Williams to Hall in 2013 during his appeal, though prosecutors contended that jurors had heard similar remarks from Williams at Hall’s 2010 trial.
Judge Rose Marie DeFino-Nastasi sided with Hall, saying that in addition to the phone recording, emails between prosecutors with details of their relationship with Williams should have been turned over to his defense team.
On Friday, Assistant District Attorney Trey Flynn told Anhault that while prosecutors accepted Hall’s plea, they stood by their earlier assertions about the case.
He said prosecutors would have told jurors that Hall and another man, David Satchell, only fired guns during the May 20, 2007, incident after being shot at by another person first.
Hall’s gunfire struck a bystander, Charlene MacDonald, in the leg, Flynn said.
“It was individuals firing at Hall who actually struck Ronald Kennel, who was standing behind them,” Flynn said.
Still, prosecutors would have argued that Hall was responsible for Kennel’s death via transferred intent, Flynn said. The legal theory holds a defendant responsible for injury or death based on their intent to harm, regardless of who was actually affected.
Flynn said he had spoken with Kennel’s brother “at length” about prosecutors’ decision to accept Hall’s plea. And he said District Attorney Larry Krasner agreed with the decision as well.
Outside the courtroom, Hall’s family members were moved to tears by his imminent release and return home for the first time since his early 20s.
“It’s been almost 19 years,” said Hall’s father, Ronald. “He’s got a daughter, he’s got nieces, nephews. People that passed away. It’s a lot of time lost, time you can’t get back.”
Ronald Hall said his son only learned of the opportunity to plea to lesser charges last week, and that the gravity of the news is still fresh.
Naturally, Hall said of his son, “he’s ecstatic.”
