PHILADELPHIA (AP) - Prosecutors in Philadelphia have dropped charges against a man who spent more than a decade behind bars in a shooting that paralyzed a 6-year-old boy.
Twenty-nine-year-old Donte Rollins smiled Wednesday as he was released and said he was happy to be free after a decade that he called “pure hell.”
Rollins and two other men were convicted in 2007 in the January 2006 shooting in the Strawberry Mansion neighborhood. A fourth defendant was acquitted.
Defense attorneys and the Pennsylvania Innocence Project had argued for a new trial, saying Rollins wasn’t at the shooting scene.
A judge declined his bid for a new trial but an appeals court Tuesday reversed that decision and ordered Rollins’ release from prison pending a new trial, which prosecutors said Wednesday they would not pursue.
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