Help Cetewayo: 51 Years of Wrongful Conviction
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No amount of money could ever repay five decades of life lost behind bars for a murder committed by someone else. Arthur Cetewayo Johnson was arrested as an 18-year-old child and returned home as a 69-year-old man last year. He will never be able to get those 51 years back, and the Abolitionist Law Center is turning to the people to rally together to gather a small piece of the justice he deserves. We are raising $1,000 for every year that Cetewayo spent in prison under a wrongful conviction. Please help us reach $51,000 to help Cetewayo rebuild his life.
Arthur Cetewayo Johnson served 51 years in Pennsylvania prisons for a crime that he did not commit. In 1970, the Philadelphia Police Department interrogated 15-year-old Alexander Payne for 30 hours, physically beating him and coercing him into lying that 18-year-old Cetewayo committed a murder in which he had no involvement. At that time, Cetewayo only had a fourth grade education and was illiterate. Yet, the police forced him to sign a confession that he could not read. This was the evidence used to convict Cetewayo to Death by Incarceration as a teenager.
[Left]: Cetewayo (middle of back row) and his family in a prison visiting room.
[Right]: Cetewayo (center) on August 21, 2021, the day he was released from prison.
The cops who arrested Cetewayo and interrogated Payne worked for the notoriously racist Philadelphia police commissioner Frank Rizzo, known for perpetrating police brutality and promoting torturous interrogations to convict innocent Black people. In 2020, Gary Brame signed a statement admitting that he committed the murder and recanting his testimony that Cetewayo had any involvement in it.
For five decades, the evidence of the coerced testimonies remained locked in the police administration building, suppressed from both the District Attorney’s office and the defense attorney. This directly and blatantly violated Brady vs. Maryland, which mandates all exculpatory evidence be provided to the defense. Judge DeClaudio described Brame’s coerced testimony as “serious misrepresentation to the jury…that went unchecked.”
Johnson said those 51 years were “a dehumanizing process. [In prison], they make you feel like an animal, sometimes even worse.” This miscarriage of justice not only took five decades of Cetewayo’s life, but it left him subjected to the torture of solitary confinement for 44 of those years. Part of that time Cetewayo spent in the “glass cage”: a concrete box with no toilet, no bed, and no lights. “They ain’t never clean the cell,” Cetewayo said. “They had feces, urine all over. You can’t see so you step in it and you can’t even tell. They had a hole in the bottom of the joint that they put your food through there. So now, the cell is stinking, you can’t see what’s on the tray because it’s dark all the time. You don’t know where to stand. You’re cold ‘cause you only wear a pair of boxers. You had no shoes, no socks, no undershirt, none of that stuff…That was part of the torture.”
(From Left to Right) Kempis 'Ghani' Songster, Eric Riddick, Arthur 'Cetewayo' Johnson, and Robert 'Saleem' Holbrook, shortly after Cetewayo was released. Cetewayo mentored all of them while in prison.
On August 11, 2021, Cetewayo won his freedom. But his release did not come with exoneration, despite his undeniable innocence. Instead, the court had Cetewayo sign a 3rd degree murder plea, which reduced his sentence to 10-20 years but denied him from receiving any compensation from the state for the time they stole. Cetewayo has now returned to a society that cut him off for half a century. He still has a conviction on his record and employers, landlords, and banks do not know or care that his conviction was fabricated. Cetewayo needs money to live, and since the state refuses to pay for their criminality, we are asking you to donate to help Cetewayo rebuild his life.
To hear directly from Cetewayo, watch the following interview, conducted by Cynthia Alvarado soon after his release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3jzYBBz3z0
Arthur Cetewayo Johnson served 51 years in Pennsylvania prisons for a crime that he did not commit. In 1970, the Philadelphia Police Department interrogated 15-year-old Alexander Payne for 30 hours, physically beating him and coercing him into lying that 18-year-old Cetewayo committed a murder in which he had no involvement. At that time, Cetewayo only had a fourth grade education and was illiterate. Yet, the police forced him to sign a confession that he could not read. This was the evidence used to convict Cetewayo to Death by Incarceration as a teenager.
[Left]: Cetewayo (middle of back row) and his family in a prison visiting room.[Right]: Cetewayo (center) on August 21, 2021, the day he was released from prison.
The cops who arrested Cetewayo and interrogated Payne worked for the notoriously racist Philadelphia police commissioner Frank Rizzo, known for perpetrating police brutality and promoting torturous interrogations to convict innocent Black people. In 2020, Gary Brame signed a statement admitting that he committed the murder and recanting his testimony that Cetewayo had any involvement in it.
For five decades, the evidence of the coerced testimonies remained locked in the police administration building, suppressed from both the District Attorney’s office and the defense attorney. This directly and blatantly violated Brady vs. Maryland, which mandates all exculpatory evidence be provided to the defense. Judge DeClaudio described Brame’s coerced testimony as “serious misrepresentation to the jury…that went unchecked.”
Johnson said those 51 years were “a dehumanizing process. [In prison], they make you feel like an animal, sometimes even worse.” This miscarriage of justice not only took five decades of Cetewayo’s life, but it left him subjected to the torture of solitary confinement for 44 of those years. Part of that time Cetewayo spent in the “glass cage”: a concrete box with no toilet, no bed, and no lights. “They ain’t never clean the cell,” Cetewayo said. “They had feces, urine all over. You can’t see so you step in it and you can’t even tell. They had a hole in the bottom of the joint that they put your food through there. So now, the cell is stinking, you can’t see what’s on the tray because it’s dark all the time. You don’t know where to stand. You’re cold ‘cause you only wear a pair of boxers. You had no shoes, no socks, no undershirt, none of that stuff…That was part of the torture.”
(From Left to Right) Kempis 'Ghani' Songster, Eric Riddick, Arthur 'Cetewayo' Johnson, and Robert 'Saleem' Holbrook, shortly after Cetewayo was released. Cetewayo mentored all of them while in prison.On August 11, 2021, Cetewayo won his freedom. But his release did not come with exoneration, despite his undeniable innocence. Instead, the court had Cetewayo sign a 3rd degree murder plea, which reduced his sentence to 10-20 years but denied him from receiving any compensation from the state for the time they stole. Cetewayo has now returned to a society that cut him off for half a century. He still has a conviction on his record and employers, landlords, and banks do not know or care that his conviction was fabricated. Cetewayo needs money to live, and since the state refuses to pay for their criminality, we are asking you to donate to help Cetewayo rebuild his life.
To hear directly from Cetewayo, watch the following interview, conducted by Cynthia Alvarado soon after his release: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3jzYBBz3z0
Organizer and beneficiary
Abolitionist Law Center
Organizer
Philadelphia, PA
Arthur Johnson
Beneficiary