For Immed Release: City Doesn't Want To Pay - Forces Innocent Man Who Spent 25 Years On Death Row Back Into Court To Relive Trauma

For Immed Release: City Doesn't Want To Pay - Forces Innocent Man Who Spent 25 Years On Death Row Back Into Court To Relive?Trauma

Philadelphia, PA; April 13, 2024

On Monday, Jimmy Dennis will be on the stand - forced to relieve terrible memories.? ?Family and friends are worried about him - he shouldn't have to go through it all again - but if he doesn't, he won't get a single penny of the money the City owes him.

So Jimmy Dennis will be there, in court, once again. This time,? he'll be testifying about twenty five years of trauma that he lived as an innocent man on Pennsylvania's death row - and about the 7 years of trauma the City of Philadelphia continues to put him through.

Lawyers for the City have been doing their best to block the justice that Jimmy is asking for - compensation for spending a quarter of a century behind bars as an innocent man.

The Background: In 1991, Jimmy Dennis was 21 years old, and the singer and principal member of an up and coming R&B band called Sensation. Rising stars in their home town of Philadelphia, they had won several professional competitions and were literally on the cusp of stardom, in talks with several labels about a record deal. Before the band could sign, Jimmy was wrongfully arrested, learned he was being charged with the murder of a stranger, and entered into a living nightmare that would include approaching execution dates, and 23 lonely hours, every day, alone in a cell.?

He spent nearly three decades as an innocent man in that Pennsylvania death row cell, surviving two execution dates.? In all that time there were only three things on his mind : his family, clearing his name and - just as importantly - what he would share with the world when he finally got out - as he always knew he would. He thought of the words he would say and the songs he would sing - they played through his head a thousand times. For twenty five years he never lost focus. He was determined that his story - his life - would not end this way. He had a family to get back to, dreams to realize - music to make....but first, he had to clear his name.

It wasn't until 2013, when U.S. District Judge Anita Brody, threw out Jimmy's conviction, writing in her history making decision that the state had "committed a grave miscarriage of justice" and that Dennis was "in all probability" innocent," that the world learned what his supporters had been saying all along.?In 2017, he was finally released from that death row cell, to the relief and celebration of his family, friends, lawyers, and supporters around the world.Since then his case has become precedent setting - setting the stage for other innocent and wrongly convicted people to be sent home.? In many cases those people, released after Dennis, have already received financial compensation - while he is being forced to relieve his nightmare, having to fight for the? same courtesy.?

There is no way to fully pay a human being for 25 years of his life lost, no amount of money can ever replace those lost years - but it is incumbent?on Philadelphia to make compensation in financial terms so that Dennis and his family do not continue to suffer, and can begin to rebuild the lives that were stolen from them.

It is?unconscionable that the City of Philadelphia is forcing Jimmy Dennis to go to trial to get what is legally, ethically and morally owed to him.?

Jimmy is available for media interviews.

Jimmy Dennis is available for media interviews.?

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