Samantha Melamed

David Sparks, convicted of the 2006 murder of Gary Hall, was cleared Monday after the DA’s Office and the Pennsylvania Innocence Project used previously undisclosed police files to show his innocence.

The Defender Association of Philadelphia alleged that Common Pleas Court Judge Anne Marie B. Coyle violated judicial rules mandating impartiality and the avoidance of improper conduct.

The lawsuit alleges that the Pennsylvania Department of Corrections unconstitutionally “isolates people with serious mental illnesses in permanent solitary confinement.”

The situation exemplifies how culture-war battles previously playing out across the country in school board meetings have found a new front line: the public library.

How ABC Capital, an alleged Ponzi scheme fueled by foreign cash, left a legacy of blight across Philly.

Philadelphia courts have for years run a brisk marketplace, trading leniency for testimony. But “courts are famously poor at assessing the credibility” of those compensated informants, experts warn.

Staffers, prisoners, and outside observers say the situation at Philly jails has deteriorated during the pandemic to a full-blown crisis.

Hundreds of parents in Philadelphia have had to patch together alternative visit and custody-exchange plans — a situation that advocates say puts both children and parents in jeopardy.

It is the highest mortality rate in recent memory at jails that have been beset, over the past year, by violence, riots, severe staff shortages, a federal lawsuit and a grand jury investigation.

Liam King, 11, woke up his mother and one brother and urged them to get out of the house. He, another brother, Patrick, 8, and their father, Eric, 41, didn’t make it out, a family member said.