1987
Charged with rape and murder
The client was convicted of the 1973 murder of an eighteen-year-old man and the rape his teenage girlfriend. The client served more than nine years in prison. In 1983, Peter Bowers secured a new trial after the District
Attorney announced that evidence was originally withheld from the defense, which could have indicated that the client was not at the scene of the crime. Attorney Bowers represented the client in his new trial and in
1987, the client was acquitted after the jury found him not guilty.
1996
Charged with First Degree Murder
In 1994, the client was arrested for first degree murder. The case was a death penalty case. The client was charged with shooting and killing a 36-year- old woman in an incident of road rage between the shooter and
her fiancé on the Schuylkill Expressway. A college security guard claimed to have seen the client driving erratically on the Expressway shortly before the shooting and recorded his license plate. Attorney Bowers was able to show the jury through four witnesses that the client was not on the expressway at the time in question. He was also able to show that the prosecution’s witness could not have been on the expressway at the time he alleged, and therefore he could not have seen the client. The client was acquitted in one hour and ten minutes.
2004
Charged with Murder
The client was tried and sentenced to life in prison for a 1983 murder at a Chinatown restaurant after beingidentified by an eyewitness. For more than a decade Attorney Bowers worked to win a new trial for the client,
claiming that he was the victim of a mistaken identity, and that important evidence was never disclosed by the prosecution supporting this claim. In 2004, Peter Bowers won a new trial, and the client was released from
prison after the prosecutors decided to drop all charges against him. Peter Bowers, as co-counsel, assisted the client in filing a civil suit against the City of Philadelphia and the District Attorney’s Office for the misconduct that led to his wrongful conviction. This case was settled for a substantial sum.
2011
Filed for coram nobis relief
The client was charged with failing to disclose a conflict of interest for his involvement in a fraud scheme with a state senator. The client was convicted and lost his license to practice law. He was unable to find work or win reinstatement of his license as a result of the conviction. Several years after the client served his sentence, the United States Supreme Court held that the conduct he was convicted of was not a crime. Peter Bowers
filed a petition for a writ of error coram nobis to vacate his conviction. The court held that the client’s case warranted coram nobis relief, and more than a decade after his conviction, the court vacated the judgment and conviction in the case.
In February 2015, the client was accused of killing his girlfriend, a freshman at Millersville University, by beating and strangling her during a drunken argument. Peter Bowers represented the client in the case, which
went to trial in Lancaster County. Peter Bowers was able to show the jury that the prosecution’s alleged cause of death was incorrect, and the deceased was not strangled to death. The jury found the client not guilty of first-degree murder, which carries a mandatory life in prison sentence.
2016
Charged with First Degree murder