One of Martin Tankleff's Making an Exoneree students, Megan Robertson, worked on the case of Damien Phillips while a student, and upon graduating she continued the work she started at Georgetown.
She recently approached her professor, Mr. Tankleff, about working with her on an amicus brief in support of Mr. Phillips.
Take a look at the summary of Damien’s case and the amicus brief as filed here for more information about the case, and next steps --->
"On February 28, 1994, a Chinese restaurant in Philadelphia was robbed, and the three employees present were murdered. Eight months later, Damien Phillips was brought in for questioning about several unrelated robberies, one of which he confessed to being involved with. This led to an interrogation about the murders that took place at the Chinese restaurant. Detectives based their lead that Mr. Phillips was the man who robbed and shot the employees on the statement of Antonio Hudson, Mr. Phillips co-defendant, who was facing the death penalty for the same crimes. Hudson told detectives that it was Phillips, not him, who shot the three employees. Mr. Phillips denied any involvement in the murders. After several hours of interrogation, Mr. Phillips was told that if he signed the statement they prepared, he “could go home.” Mr. Phillips signed the statement. He found out later that this signed statement included a confession to three robberies, instead of one, as well as a confession to robbing and shooting the three employees at the Chinese restaurant.
Mr. Phillips’ signed statement was used to seal his fate at his trial, when the detective who interrogated him testified to the statement’s reliability. This detective has since been found to have testified in support of several other statements which were later found to be false, leading to the individual’s exoneration. The statement of Hudson, along with the testimony to its reliability, by a different detective who has since been discovered to knowingly provide false statements to prosecutors, was an additional piece of evidence that led to the conviction of Mr. Phillips.
Mr. Phillips has been incarcerated for the past 31 years, for crimes he has always maintained his innocence of. He has pursued eight Post-Conviction Relief petitions in the Philadelphia courts and is now awaiting a hearing for post-conviction relief or a new trial. The signed statement of Mr. Phillips is littered with inconsistencies that highlight the likeliness it was falsified by detectives, such as inaccurate details of the crime scene and confessions to robberies that witnesses stated Mr. Phillips was not involved in. New evidence has also emerged and is now being used in Mr. Phillips PCRA case, that shows it is the “pattern and practice” of the Philadelphia Police Department and District Attorney’s Office to not document all interrogations unless it is deemed “credible” by the detectives. This has provided further support that what went on in the interrogation room between Mr. Phillips and the detectives is not all documented in the signed statement being used against Mr. Phillips. This new evidence, along with verified statements by others who testified against Mr. Phillips, are being used to make additional arguments that a large portion of the testimony against Mr. Phillips was false, coerced, and unreliable."
Click here for Amicus Brief
