Winning Release for A Man Wrongfully Convicted of Murder

Working with the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, a Morgan Lewis team secured the release of Pennsylvanian Andrew Swainson, who spent more than 30 years in prison for a murder he did not commit. The victory for our client culminated more than seven years of work. A few months after release, Mr. Swainson wed his fiancé of 34 years.

Mr. Swainson had been serving a sentence of life in prison with no possibility of parole when Morgan Lewis teamed with the nonprofit Innocence Project to reverse the miscarriage of justice. Ultimately, a court vacated Mr. Swainson’s conviction for the 1988 murder.

The court’s decision was handed down after the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office and the Philadelphia Conviction Integrity Unit agreed, based on evidence and arguments by our team, that numerous problems had tainted the conviction. These included false eyewitness testimony, undisclosed incentives made to a witness, and constitutional due-process violations. During a virtual hearing, our client’s charges were downgraded to third-degree murder.

Later that day, Mr. Swainson was released from the State Correctional Institution at Dallas in Pennsylvania, spending his first night as a free man in more than three decades. The DA’s office subsequently filed a motion to dismiss the charges against him.

A few months later, the lead Morgan Lewis partner in the case, Nate Andrisani, served as the best man in Mr. Swainson’s wedding as he married Maxine Loban, who had waited 34 years for that moment. Morgan Lewis also helped to raise more than $14,000 in gift-card donations to help the couple get started on their new life together.

Nate received the Pennsylvania Innocence Project’s Nathan Edward D. Ohlbaum Volunteer Award.

To read more about this matter, see reporting in the Philadelphia Inquirer and Law360.