Man exonerated in Philly murder case files federal lawsuit alleging misconduct by police
David Sparks was 16 in 2006 when he was charged with the fatal shooting of Gary Hall. Sparks spent 17 years behind bars before his conviction was overturned in 2023.
A 35-year-old Philadelphia man has filed a lawsuit in federal court alleging misconduct by police that led to him being convicted as a teenager of a 2006 murder — a conviction that was overturned in 2023 after he spent 17 years behind bars.
David Sparks was 16 when he was charged with the shooting death of 19-year-old Gary Hall at the end of a Labor Day block party in the city’s Nicetown section. He was found guilty by Common Pleas Court Judge Sheila Woods-Skipper in a 2008 bench trial and sentenced to life in prison without parole.
In 2013, the Pennsylvania Innocence Project began investigating the case. In 2018, The Inquirer published an investigation of the shooting. In 2022, the District Attorney’s Office Conviction Integrity Unit began producing files that, along with prior known evidence, pointed to the shooting being committed by another man and the police allegedly engaging in a cover-up.
On Nov. 6, 2023, Common Pleas Court Judge Scott DiClaudio vacated Sparks’ conviction and granted the prosecution’s request to dismiss all the charges, explaining that “the court is convinced that the verdict should be overturned.”
Lawyers for Sparks wrote in his 51-page complaint filed last Thursday: “Sparks’s conviction for a crime he did not commit was the direct result of the defendant detectives’ fabrication of evidence, malicious prosecution, and suppression of exculpatory information.”
The lawsuit was first reported on Tuesday by Axios.
“As seen in multiple other cases involving exonerations of people convicted of murders they did not commit, these actions were the natural product of the City of Philadelphia’s long historic practice of failing to train, supervise, and discipline detectives in the PPD Homicide Division to comply with clearly established constitutional obligations and the City’s acquiescence to established customs of improper police practices,” the complaint said.
Citing the pending litigation, a spokesperson for the city declined to comment Tuesday evening.
When Hall was shot, Sparks actually called 911, which The Inquirer reported in 2018.
“Somebody got shot. Somebody’s possibly dying,” Sparks told the 911 operator. “Please, could you hurry up, please.”
After police arrived, Sparks was taken into custody for a curfew violation, and then quickly became the prime suspect.
In 2008, he was convicted largely based on the inconsistent testimony of two sisters, ages 14 and 12 at the time of the shooting. A third person had implicated Sparks, but then claimed that his statement to homicide detectives was fabricated.
Evidence not presented in the case, however, pointed to the shooter being Ivan Simmons, whose brother had been seen arguing with Hall minutes before the shooting.
Simmons was killed a few months later in what Hall’s friends told police was an act of revenge for Hall’s death. A friend of Simmons’ later shot Hall’s cousin.
An eyewitness to Hall’s killing — later arrested for one of the retaliatory shootings — told police that the back and forth violence started after Simmons shot Hall.
Ballistic evidence in the police files indicated that the gun used to kill Hall was used in another killing that police believed Simmons had committed days earlier.
The lawsuit for Sparks said that he is “seeking accountability for the violation of his constitutional rights and substantial harms and losses he suffered.”
The complaint names as defendants the city and 14 people who were involved in the criminal case as members of the Philadelphia Police Department.
No monetary amount was specified in the complaint.