Philadelphia Weekly

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Three decades into his life sentence, inmate Tyrone Werts says he’s a changed man.

Tyrone Werts isn’t one of those know-it-alls who resist taking your word that Pennsylvania is one of only a handful of states in which lifers remain behind bars forever. He’s not the sort to strongheadedly insist that even convicted murderers “get out after, like, 20 years.”


Werts, who grew up around 25th and Allegheny in North Philly, knows better. Convicted of second-degree murder for serving as the getaway driver in a mid-1970s holdup during which one of his accomplices shot and killed a young man, Werts has been doing life at the State Correctional Institution at Graterford since June 18, 1976.


Doing life without the possibility of parole—life and a day, as some call it—is Pennsylvania’s compulsory sentence for anyone convicted of first- or second-
degree murder (unless the commonwealth obtains a death sentence for a first-degree murderer). 


“A moronic sentence,” says longtime local defense attorney A. Charles Peruto Jr. “A moronic sentence and a moronic law that fails to take into account the fact that some cases fall into gray areas, and that people can and frequently do change over time.” 


Werts, a grandfather who’ll turn 59 on Sept. 30, appears to have changed dramatically since May 6, 1975. On that evening, he was a 24-year-old criminal who along with four other thugs cruised the streets of North Philly in a white Ford Falcon before deciding to rob a speakeasy near 31st and Arizona. Werts’ accomplice Bruce Norris (also a Graterford lifer) fatally shot 26-year-old William Bridgeman during the stickup. Although Werts never entered the speakeasy, a jury convicted him of second-degree murder after he spurned a prosecutor’s offer of a 10-year sentence in exchange for a guilty plea. And he’s been “down”—jail-speak for walking off state time—ever since. 


Except that he hasn’t stayed down, at least not emotionally. Moreover, he’s done much to lift other prisoners’ spirits and even to make society safer.


In a 2004 PW cover story, Werts and others, including some corrections officials, discussed his transformation from street hood into a man who has repeatedly expressed remorse for his past, earned a bachelor’s degree behind bars, helped other inmates become literate and even led anticrime and antiviolence initiatives, including a 2003 Graterford summit attended by then-Philadelphia Police Commissioner Sylvester Johnson and other notables.


Wearing a brown prison jumpsuit and sitting at a table inside Graterford’s visitor’s center five years ago, Werts told me, “I haven’t just gotten older here, I’ve grown up here. Whether or not I ever receive my freedom, I’ll always continue to try to prove to society that I’m not the same person who committed that crime.”


William DiMascio, Pennsylvania Prison Society executive director and a longtime Werts supporter says, “He’s a force for good inside that prison, and if he were on the street today, the areas he passed through would be safer because of him.”
 


Pennsylvania’s “life-means-life” statute notwithstanding, Werts actually could emerge from Graterford a free man one day, since governors can commute lifers’ sentences, an option Gov. Ed Rendell has exercised twice, most recently on June 2 of this year, when he commuted George Gregory Orlowski’s life sentence. But before Rendell can decide on Werts’ plea, the five-member state Board of Pardons must give it a thumbs-up. And that’s become a huge sticking point.


The pardons board forwarded Orlowski’s commutation plea (and that of Michael Anderson, whose life sentence Rendell commuted in February 2007) to the governor in 2004 and 2003, respectively, before Attorney General Tom Corbett, perceived by many to oppose the commutation of life sentences, joined the board upon his January 2005 election.


The board hasn’t forwarded a commutation plea to the governor since Corbett’s election, although a Corbett spokesperson told PW three years ago that the attorney general (who on Sept. 14 announced his candidacy for governor) doesn’t categorically oppose the commutation of life sentences. 


Nonetheless, by continually appealing rulings issued by a federal judge hearing a 12-year-old lawsuit filed on behalf of Pennsylvania lifers, Corbett has placed Werts and other hopefuls in no-man’s land. The lawsuit challenges a 1997 state referendum requiring unanimous, rather than majority, board approval for lifers’ pleas to reach the governor’s desk.


Citing the still-in-the-air status of Corbett’s appeals, the board on Sept. 3 opted to “hold under advisement” Werts’ commutation plea (and that of William Fultz, another longtime Graterford lifer). It was the second time since February 2006 the board granted Werts a now-rare lifer’s commutation hearing only to opt not to vote.


“I was stunned,” says DiMascio, who, among others—including Sylvester Johnson and Upper Moreland Police Chief Thomas Nestel III—testified for Werts. “That they called his case up again only to do the same thing they did three and a half years ago was just stunning to me.”


Rev. Paul Werts, a West Philadelphia minister who also spoke before the board says: “I was crushed, man. Nobody seems to have a clue as to when Tyrone’s case might come up again. It’s devastating to get your hopes up and then they don’t even vote.”


Paul Werts visited his brother at Graterford on Sept. 13 and reports that although Tyrone is disappointed, he isn’t becoming jaded.


“Not at all,” Paul Werts says. “He’s still reaching out to new inmates, younger guys, encouraging them to turn their lives around. His whole thing is that even behind bars, you can do something positive with your life. That’s what he’s been about for years.” ■