24 December 2020 :
Berks County Judge Eleni Dimitriou Geishauser ruled that Roderick Johnson cannot be tried a second time. Johnson, now 44, Black, was sentenced to death in Berks County on November 16, 1997 for the drug-related December 8, 1996 murders of two cousins, Damon Banks and Gregory Banks. Shawnfatee Bridges was also sentenced to death in the case, but was later resentenced to 23 to 80 years. The key witness was an informant whose past criminal misconduct was not disclosed to the defense. In 2013, after years of habeas litigation headed by the Philadelphia Federal Community Defender Office, a Berks County judge overturned Johnson’s conviction and granted him new trials based on the government’s knowing failure to disclose to the defense its key witness’s criminal past. The defense team filed a motion to dismiss both indictments on the grounds that Pennsylvania's double jeopardy clause bars retrial where the basis for reversal of the initial conviction (here, the government’s multiple Brady violations) is based on intentional prosecutorial misconduct. Judge Eleni Dimitriou Geishauser agreed, finding that the prosecution engaged in "conscious" and "egregious" misconduct, and that the commonwealth was therefore barred by Pennsylvania's double jeopardy clause from trying Mr. Johnson a second time. Following the ruling, Mr. Johnson, who has spent 23 years in total confinement, nine of those years on death row, is expected to be released from prison.
