Clown Show: Judge Tosses D.A.'s Faulty Murder Case Against Cop

The clown show that is the Philadelphia District Attorney's office was fully exposed this afternoon in the courtroom of Common Pleas Court Judge Barbara McDermott.

At the end of a more than two-hour hearing, McDermott ruled that the D.A.'s Aug. 23, 2018 grand jury indictment of former police officer Ryan Pownall for murder was riddled with so many legal errors that she was quashing the grand jury's report, known as a presentment, because it was "no good" and it's "conclusions cannot be relied on."

What was wrong with the grand jury presentment that charged Pownall for murder in the racially-charged 2017 shooting death of dirt biker David Jones?

For starters, the grand jury was run by former Assistant District Attorney Tracy Tripp, who, depending on your viewpoint, was either [a] totally incompetent or [b] corrupt, or [c] both totally incompetent and corrupt.  

In the Pownall case, Krasner, who had just taken office in January 2018, was looking for the first cop he could string up for murder. And that happened to be Ryan Pownall, who fatally shot Jones, who was armed and on the run, after he attempted to escape arrest.

For Krasner, it was a perfect case for headlines because Pownall was white and Jones was black. But the problem was that Krasner's office is so incompetent and/or corrupt that Krasner relied on Tripp to do the job. And the rookie prosecutor did a complete face plant.

For Tripp, a former public defender who joined Krasner's office in February, 2018, running the Pownall grand jury was [a] her first grand jury investigation and [b] her first murder case.

The only qualification that Tripp the novice prosecutor had to be a running a grand jury investigation of a former cop for murder was that she was a true believer like Krasner, the progressive reformer who hates cops, and wanted to nail one of them for murder.

The problem was that when Tripp ran the grand jury, she failed to, as she was required by law, to tell the grand jury the elements that constituted the various charges that it was considering indicting Pownall for, such as murder, or voluntary or involuntary manslaughter.

Tripp, according to the judge, also failed to educate the grand jurors on the key difference in the law that separates murder from manslaughter -- namely whether Pownall was acting with malice or not when he fatally shot Jones. 

Tripp also didn't inform the grand jury of the section of the law involving a police officer's justifiable use of force, which would have given Pownall a complete defense against any murder charge.

Today's hearing began when former Assistant D.A. Sybil Murphy was called to the witness stand to testify about her role back in 2018 as a supervisor of the Pownall jury.

Murphy, now a deputy attorney general under A.G. Josh Shapiro, talked about how the prosecutor's manual in the D.A.'s office requires a prosecutor in a grand jury investigation to not only inform grand jurors of the relevant case law by reading it to them, but also by giving the grand jurors a personal copy of the relevant case law, so they could refer to it during deliberations.

"So the process was to read 'em [the law] and leave 'em" [a copy of the law]," Judge McDermott asked.

"Yes," Murphy replied.

"And the notes of testimony should reflect that?" the judge asked.

"Yes," Murphy replied. 

But in the Pownall case, as the note of the grand jury revealed, the prosecutors did neither.

When the judge asked former ADA Murphy whether copies of the relevant case law were left behind in the grand jury room for jurors to review, she replied, "I don't know."

"I did not give them anything," she added.

The grand jury transcripts not only confirm that, but they also show that former ADA Tripp forgot to bring the exhibits to the grand jurors before they deliberated for a full 12 minutes and indicted Pownall for murder.

"We should have stoped the deliberations," former ADA Murphy admitted.

The next witness was former ADA Tracy Tripp, the former criminal justice reformer is no longer employed in the D.A.'s office.

Tripp attempted to tell the judge that even though the grand jury transcripts contain no mention of this, she distinctly remembered printing out copies of the relevant case law for the grand jurors and leaving those copies on the table in the grand jury room, where they were deliberating, so they could read and review them.

When it came time for cross examination, Brian McMonagle, one of the defense lawyers for Pownall, asked Tripp to read through the 50-page transcript of the grand jury minutes on the day they deliberated for 12 minutes before indicting Pownall for murder, to find a mention of Tripp reading the relevant case law to grand jurors, and giving them copies of the relevant case law.

"Take your time," McMonagle advised her.

After Tripp read through the notes, she had to admit that there wasn't any mention of her doing either duty in the record.

"It looks to be that way," she lamely admitted.

But she continued to claim that she did give grand jurors copies of the law.

"My recollection is we put that on the table," she said.

During the cross-examination of Tripp, Judge McDermott interrupted to admonish Tripp that in not giving the grand jurors the legal elements that constituted murder or manslaughter, "You're not giving them the tools to say which one" applied in the Pownall case. 

"You didn't explain malice or intentional killing," the judge continued to admonish Tripp.

The problem was compounded when it came time to draw up an affidavit of probable cause that would indict Pownall for murder, the D.A.'s office relied on the faulty grand jury presentment.

When it came time for closing statements, Fred Perri, arguing on behalf of Pownall, said that "his [rights to] due process has been violated by someone's negligence."

That someone was clearly Tripp, who had just left the witness stand.

While Tripp claimed she had sought out senior prosecutors for advice, Perri sneered to the judge, "You know who's calling the shots over there," he said, referring to D.A. Krasner. 

"The presentment must be quashed," Perri concluded. 

When ADA Vince Corrigan was giving his closing argument, he made the mistake of saying if the defendant didn't like getting indicted for murder, he could always file an appeal the D.A.'s decision.

That's when Judge McDermott brought up another outrageous act by the D.A.'s office during the Pownall case, denying Pownall the former cop a preliminary hearing, where he would have had the chance to hear the evidence against him and confront his accusers.

"You didn't give them a preliminary hearing," the judge reminded ADA Corrigan. "How could they appeal?"

"He was entitled to a preliminary hearing," the judge said.

She also reminded Corrigan that the D.A.'s officer never informed the grand jurors of the law regarding justifiable use of force by a police officer.

"How could the grand jury do their job without knowing that?" she asked Corrigan.

McDermott was so disgusted with the D.A.'s office that she said if they were defense lawyers, "I would have declared them incompetent."

After the judge quashed the grand jury presentment, I asked Corrigan if it was time to give up on the Pownall case.

"Nope," he said.

At the close of the hearing, Corrigan and ADA Lyandra Retacco were talking about rearresting Pownall, only this time, the judge said, they'd better give him a preliminary hearing.

As they filed out of the courtroom, I asked Corrigan and Retacco about Pownall's right to a speedy trial, and if they had any idea how bad the D.A.'s office looked in Judge McDermott's courtroom.

Both Corrigan and Retacco replied by saying no comment. 

That's when Dustin Slaughter, a spokesperson for the D.A.'s office who never talks to me, became enraged, charged toward me, while loudly criticizing my work as a reporter. 

Slaughter, who had to be restrained and told to shut up by Corrigan and Rittacco, declined to elaborate on any of his criticisms of Big Trial's Krasner coverage.

Outside the courtroom, McMonagle and Perri described the Pownall case as a "travesty of justice" where the D.A.'s office under Krasner had used a corrupt grand jury process to "destroy a young man's life."

When told the D.A.'s was not prepared to throw in the towel on the case, Perri replied, "neither are we."