Daniel Medwed Co-Authors Amicus Brief in Pennsylvania Supreme Court Death Penalty Case
10.31.2024 —Professor Daniel Medwed has co-authored an amicus brief in a Pennsylvania Supreme Court death penalty case in which the state attorney general has intervened in an attempt to stop the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office from conceding error in the trial of Lavar Brown, who was convicted of a 2003 murder. Medwed and co-authors John A. Freedman and Jeremy Karpatkin of Arnold & Porter argue that the current leadership of the Philadelphia District Attorney Office “acted according to its constitutional and ethical obligations in seeking to vacate the conviction, which was fatally infected by Brady violations and false testimony.”
“Prosecutors are supposed to be ministers of justice. The Philadelphia DAO is trying to realize the minister-of-justice ideal by conceding error in a shaky case and the AG’s Office, inexplicably, views this as an abdication of the office’s law enforcement responsibility,” said Medwed, a criminal law expert and the author of BARRED: Why the Innocent Can’t Get Out of Prison (Basic Books/Hachette Book Group, 2022), in which he reveals how convoluted legal procedures — essentially technicalities — make exonerations nearly impossible.
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