NAACP calls for new trial for collapse demolition contractor
Citing Tuesday's verdicts in the civil trial resulting from the deadly 2013 Center City building collapse, the head of the Philadelphia branch of the NAACP has renewed his call for a new trial for imprisoned demolition contractor Griffin Campbell.
"After four months of testimony, they found [Campbell] to be only 1 percent liable," president Minister Rodney Muhammad said, referring to the civil verdict. "They found him negligent but not reckless. ... We are here demanding that there be a new trial for Griffin Campbell that will allow for a just due process of law, not this limited testimony that has landed him in prison for nearly 30 years."
Muhammad spoke to reporters Thursday outside City Council chambers, accompanied by Campbell's wife, Kim Lee Campbell.
Campbell, wiping tears from her eyes, said her husband, who recently missed the birth of his grandchild, took some solace in the civil verdict: "He just praised God. He's just so happy it's finally coming out -- what we weren't allowed to say in court [in the criminal trial] is finally coming out."
Campbell said her husband was just following orders, having limited experience in demolition, in the days leading up to the collapse: "He was ultimately depending on the help of L&I, the architect [Plato A. Marinakos Jr.], and the city to help him get it down."
Campbell and his defense lawyer, William D. Hobson, argued that the criminal prosecution of Campbell and his excavator operator, Sean Benschop, 45, was racially biased and that both were made scapegoats for white professionals and wealthy property owners.
Campbell and Benschop, both black, were the only two criminally charged after a two-year grand jury probe.
Marinakos, 50, of Center City, was hired by New York real estate speculator Richard Basciano to monitor demolition of his vacant Hoagie City building. The architect, who recommended Campbell for the project, obtained an agreement from the District Attorney's Office giving him immunity from prosecution in exchange for his testimony before the grand jury and against Campbell at trial.
District Attorney Seth Williams, who also is black, has said race played no role in charging Campbell and Benschop, and prosecutors said there was not enough evidence against anyone else to obtain a criminal conviction "beyond a reasonable doubt."
Hobson attended Thursday's news conference but said he could not comment because he is under a gag order imposed by the judge in the civil case.
Campbell, 52, of North Philadelphia, was sentenced in January 2016 to 15 to 30 years in prison after being convicted of involuntary manslaughter and related charges in the June 5, 2013, building collapse that crushed a Salvation Army thrift store. He is in the state prison in Somerset, in Western Pennsylvania.
Benschop pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and related counts and testified against Campbell at his 2015 criminal trial. Benschop was sentenced to 7½ to 15 years in prison.
The collapse of Basciano's four-story building crushed the adjacent Salvation Army thrift store at 22nd and Market Streets. The disaster instantly killed six people and injured 13; one of the injured died 23 days later.
On Tuesday, a Common Pleas Court civil jury that heard 15 weeks of testimony about the collapse and how it happened found the Salvation Army, Basciano and his STB Investments Corp., and Marinakos bore the most responsibility for the disaster. The jury assigned Campbell and Benschop each just 1 percent of the responsibility for the collapse.
On Friday, the jury returns to City Hall's Courtroom 653 to begin hearing testimony before deciding the amounts of damages each defendant must pay for the deaths and injuries.
At Thursday's news conference, Muhammad said he hopes some of the evidence that came out in the civil trial will persuade Superior Court to order a new trial for Campbell.
"He was willing to go to trial because he believed in this justice system, and he was double-crossed by the DA's Office and he was double-crossed by people who should have been in that courtroom testifying," he said.