Second Justice Can Give You A Second Chance
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The Justice System Fails Our Citizens – Every Day
Our mission is to provide a glimmer of hope and legal resources to those who need it the most. As we work with communities to reform the legal system as a whole, we conduct charitable activities to ease the burden on the government and protect human and civil rights.This includes but isn’t limited to:
- Research, advocacy, and investigation
- Pre-litigation preparation
- Litigation support for post-conviction relief (including financial support for:
- Post-conviction relief
- Habeas Corpus relief of and for convicted felons, particularly indigent and underprivileged, wrongfully convicted individuals
Exonerations, in the Numbers
80%
54%
30%
35%
72%
(Government Misconduct and Convicting the Innocent, The Roles of Prosecutors, Police and Other Law Enforcement, National Registry of Exonerations, 2020)
Incarceration by the Numbers
(Narratives of Adjustment and Adaptation of Older Males with Life Sentences, Walden University ProQuest Dissertation Publishing, 2022)
The Cost of Incarceration
(Following the Money of Mass Incarceration, Prison Policy Initiative, 2017)
You’ve Got the Rights. Don’t Give Them Up
Are you or a loved one serving a life sentence in a case where you believe there was misconduct? Pennsylvania’s Post-Conviction Relief Act (PCRA) lets you challenge your conviction if you meet certain requirements and time bounds.
Join the Fight for a More Equitable World
Explore Our Cases
Walter Ogrod
Time Served: 28 Years
Twenty-eight years after Philadelphia prosecutors first sought to take his life for the murder of four-year-old Barbara Jean Horn, Walter Ogrod has been exonerated from Pennsylvania’s death row.
Michael White
Time Served: 46 Years
In June of 1977 Michael White was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility for parole. He had been convicted of robbing and murdering Georgell Jones earlier that year. Sixteen years after his conviction he learned that the prosecutor at his trial had deliberately mislead the Court and jury about the victim, the crime scene, and the Commonwealth’s star witness. In 1992, this newly discovered evidence came within a hair’s breath of causing Michael White’s release from prison, but the Pennsylvania Superior Court sided with the prosecutor and White spent another 31 years behind bars.
Many attorneys worked on White’s post-conviction case over the years without success. In 2021 the Third Circuit’s decision in Bracey v. Superintendent SCI Rockview, 875 F.3d 274 (3d. Cir. 2021) opened a window of opportunity that allowed Second Justice to bring the prosecutorial misconduct back before the Court. In December of 2022, the Honorable John R. Padova issued a Writ of Habeas Corpus overturning the 1977 conviction of Michael White. In April of 2023, after a forty-six-year sentence for a crime he did not commit, Michael White walked out of prison as a free man.
William Franklin
Time Served: 44 Years
William Franklin is coming home after 44 Years behind bars due to a wrongful conviction, as part of the “Sex for Lies” scandal in Philadelphia. His family and his attorney, Joseph Marrone speak to NBC10.
Howard White
Time Served: 40 Years