Legal Question in Appeals and Writs in Pennsylvania

Our Cry for Help,

Hello My Name is Lottie Ellison; I am writing this letter on the behalf of my brother Alonzo Ellison, that is 22 of age, and his two Co-Defendants Ferock Smith age 20, and Khidhar Broker age 19, who all has been locked up for almost 5 years now. On July 16, 2012, the three young males were found Guilty of 1st Degree Murder in Philadelphia, Pa for a crime they did not commit. They were arrested back in 2008, and were just trailed this year. All three families were not able to come up with enough money to hire the boy�s outside lawyers, so they all had to go with court appointed attorneys. While Alonzo lawyer did tried to get it thrown out due to the extensive time frame unfortunately it was unsuccessful. During their entire trail period there were NO Physical Evidence found, No Gun, No Finger Prints, No Video was not found linking them to this victim�s death, nor did they have any credible witness to ID them at the scene of the crime at the time of death. Out of the three witnesses that took the stand, one was an ATF Informant that had nothing to do with this case and he has a criminal record, an in his written statement he said he was looking out his window the night the shooting took place and that he thought he saw the defendants and heard other people that were not arrested outside his window. Once he took the stand in (hand cuffs) because he�s back in jail, said that the detectives already had the papers written up and told him that if he sign it he would get more time off his already serving sentence. The 2nd witness is an known drug addict and prostitute with open bench warrants, she said in her statement that she was present at the time of death in saw the 3 defendants, but on the stand she states that she doesn�t remember anything that happen that night because she was always getting high and couldn�t remember anything or couldn�t ID who the defendants were in court, they let her walk out the courtroom still with open warrants till this day. The 3rd witness also a known drug addict which has active warrant out for her arrest said that Alonzo was Sleep in her house all night during the shooting that took place and thought she overheard the Ferock and Khidhar say something about the shooting and then left her house. There is much more to this and the only evidence they had was 3 different statements saying 3 different things. There were so many holes in this case and I believe that the jury made an unjust bias decision. These 3 young men were charged for something that they did not do and in our eyes treated very unfairly by the Philadelphia Court System. They have their whole life ahead of them, I am not saying that they were all saints and they did have their flaws but they are going to jail for something they did not do. They never got a chance to finish school, Alonzo wanted to become a professional Basketball player, Ferock wanted to become a professional Barber and Khidhar wanted to become an Accounting, and they will never reach their dream because we could not come up with enough money for a good Lawyer. So I am writing this letter asking for any help from anyone that is willing to hear about this case or how to get this appealed or what legal rights do they have or any lawyer that is willing to take on this case to undo a wrong an help out these innocent boys. If anyone can help if anyone has information that can be helpful if anyone can help at all, I pray that you contact me and my family, we don�t know what we should do next we cannot sit back in watch our love one�s suffer for an unfair verdict, Thank you for your time.

Sincerely, Lottie Ellison

Lottie Ellison [email protected]


Asked on 7/19/12, 2:50 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Edward Hoffman Law Offices of Edward A. Hoffman

These young men are entitled to appeal their convictions. They should qualify for count-appointed attorneys in the appellate court, just as they did in the trial court.

I can't say whether they have a good chance on appeal. Your argument is basically that the evidence was weak and the jury shouldn't have accepted it. Such arguments never work on appeal. Unless the evidence was so weak that no reasonable juror could have been persuaded beyond a reasonable doubt, the appellate court will not reverse on that basis.

There may be other arguments available to these men, and some of those arguments may be quite strong. Their appellate attorneys will be able to tell them more.

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Answered on 7/19/12, 4:38 pm


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