‘UNCONSCIONABLE’

Judge Orders ‘Likely Innocent’ Death Row Inmate to Take Coronavirus Test

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office determined last month that Walter Ogrod is “likely innocent” in the 1988 murder of a four-year-old girl.

On Saturday, a Philadelphia judge ordered a death row inmate named Walter Ogrod, whom the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office determined to be “likely innocent,” to be tested for the novel coronavirus. Ogrod, 55, has spent 23 years in prison for the murder of a four-year-old named Barbara Jean Horn in 1988. Ogrod’s lawyers and the District Attorney called for his release and treatment in an emergency motion after he began exhibiting symptoms of the coronavirus, including a cough and fever. Following his release from the hospital, Ogrod will return to prison. “To leave him on death row showing symptoms of COVID-19 without adequate medical treatment would be unconscionable,” James Rollins, an attorney for Ogrod, said in a statement on Saturday. “All interested parties, including the Conviction Integrity Unit of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, have agreed that he was convicted based on unreliable scientific evidence, prosecutorial misconduct, due process violations, and false testimony.”