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After 24 years in prison, including 13 years on death row, Chantilly High School graduate Justin Wolfe has won another chance to argue that he is innocent of the 2001 murder-for-hire case that led to his incarceration.

In a July 7 decision, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit overturned a lower court ruling that had rejected Wolfe’s latest legal challenge. Judges Robert King, Stephanie Thacker and Nicole Berner ordered a new hearing on his substantive claims, finding that a recent declaration from the admitted killer qualifies as new and reliable evidence.

Thacker, who wrote the opinion, sharply criticized Virginia’s handling of the case. She described the commonwealth’s conduct as spanning decades and involving actions previously deemed “abhorrent to the judicial process.”

“Twenty-four years ago, the Commonwealth decided [Wolfe] was a guilty man,” Thacker wrote, adding that authorities had since worked to ensure he remained imprisoned despite constitutional obligations, ethical rules and Wolfe’s repeated claims of innocence.

The ruling vacates a May decision from the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. That court had concluded Wolfe failed to present new, reliable evidence supporting an actual-innocence claim under the standard established in the 1995 Supreme Court case Schlup v. Delo.

The Fourth Circuit reached the opposite conclusion.

Killer’s declaration becomes crucial new evidence

Wolfe was accused of hiring Owen Barber to kill Danny Petrole in Centreville in 2001. Barber admitted killing Petrole but testified during Wolfe’s 2002 trial that Wolfe had hired him.

Barber later reversed himself. At a 2010 federal hearing in Norfolk, he testified under oath that Wolfe had not been involved. Before Wolfe’s planned retrial in 2016, however, Barber invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination after authorities warned that he could again face the death penalty.

On April 12, 2023, Barber signed another declaration stating that Wolfe had nothing to do with the killing. Barber said the statement offered him no personal benefit, but Wolfe had spent years imprisoned for a crime he did not commit. He also said he would have testified for Wolfe at the retrial if he had been free to do so.

The district court dismissed the declaration as unreliable and found that it contained no new information about Petrole’s death. The appeals court ruled that the declaration was new for a different reason: It transformed Barber from a witness who was unavailable because he had invoked the Fifth Amendment into one willing to provide evidence supporting Wolfe’s innocence.

The panel also found the declaration reliable because it was consistent with Barber’s earlier testimony exonerating Wolfe.

Barber, Thacker wrote, has spent decades caught between telling the truth and protecting his own life. She said the court could not assess his reliability without considering the government pressure that created that conflict.

Death sentence followed the original trial

A jury convicted Wolfe in January 2002 of murder for hire, drug dealing and a firearms offense. He received a death sentence plus 33 years in prison.

Wolfe sought a stay of execution that July and filed a habeas corpus petition in November. He later obtained an affidavit in which Barber repudiated his trial testimony and denied that Wolfe had arranged the killing.

Two people who had lived with Barber also provided affidavits. Jason Coleman of Centreville said he told prosecutors that Barber had confessed to acting alone. Former cellmate Carl Huff said Barber admitted Wolfe had no role in the shooting and that Barber’s testimony at trial was false.

According to Barber’s affidavit, officers threatened him with capital punishment after his arrest unless he cooperated against Wolfe. During a flight from California to Virginia, officers allegedly told Barber they already knew Wolfe had hired him and suggested that one of the two men would tell that story while the other faced a capital murder charge.

Barber said Detective Sam Newsome and Detective Brenda Walburn continued applying pressure in jail, telling him investigators had connected his gun to the crime and would seek the death penalty against either him or Wolfe. His attorney also warned that prosecutors would ensure he received a death sentence if he refused to implicate Wolfe.

Barber said he invented the murder-for-hire account because authorities made him believe his choice was to cooperate or die. He later said Wolfe should not face execution for something he had not done.

Undisclosed evidence emerged years later

Wolfe raised a Schlup innocence claim in December 2005 using the new affidavits. He also alleged that prosecutors worked with another witness, J.R. Martin, to put false or misleading evidence before the jury.

Martin, a close friend of Barber, supplied the car Barber used on the night Petrole was killed. At Wolfe’s trial, Martin supported Barber’s account of private conversations between Wolfe and Barber before and after the shooting. He also testified that it was obvious Barber had acted on Wolfe’s instructions.

According to the appeals court, prosecutors coordinated Martin’s testimony during a joint meeting with Martin and Barber but did not disclose that meeting to Wolfe’s trial attorneys. The defense was also unaware of an off-the-record agreement protecting Martin from prosecution for his possible role in the case if he cooperated.

A federal district court dismissed Wolfe’s petition in February 2008. The Fourth Circuit later vacated that decision because the lower court had not adequately considered Wolfe’s innocence claim. It instructed the district court to determine whether he was entitled to an evidentiary hearing and additional discovery.

That process forced the commonwealth to disclose a large amount of previously withheld evidence. The material included evidence that Barber may have had his own reasons to kill Petrole, reports suggesting conflict within Petrole’s drug business, claims that Petrole was rumored to be a government informant and statements from three witnesses who reported seeing a second vehicle near the crime scene shortly after the shooting.

Thacker called those disclosures only a small portion of the misconduct surrounding Wolfe’s prosecution.

Following an evidentiary hearing at which Barber credibly recanted his trial testimony, the district court ordered Virginia on Sept. 7, 2012, to retry Wolfe within 120 days or release him without conditions.

Death penalty threat silenced Barber again

Four days after that order, Newsome and Prince William County prosecutors Richard Conway and Paul Ebert visited Barber in prison.

According to the appellate opinion, they warned that Barber could face a capital murder charge if he changed his original account at Wolfe’s new trial. Ebert directly told Barber that authorities would bring the charge against him. Barber’s lawyer consequently advised him to invoke the Fifth Amendment, preventing him from testifying for Wolfe.

Conway and Ebert later withdrew from the case. Fairfax County Commonwealth’s Attorney Ray Morrogh took over the Prince William County prosecution and filed additional charges, including felony murder and engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise. Wolfe again faced the possibility of execution while maintaining his innocence.

Years of pretrial litigation followed, along with changes in Wolfe’s defense team and an unsuccessful effort to obtain a Supreme Court hearing.

On March 19, 2016, Wolfe wrote a letter that appeared to confess to arranging Petrole’s murder. His lawyers negotiated a plea agreement that removed the death penalty. Wolfe pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, using a firearm during a felony and conspiring to distribute marijuana.

He was sentenced on July 20, 2016, to 41 years in prison. Wolfe’s relatives and supporters have long argued that the prolonged legal battle and renewed threat of execution drove him to accept the deal so he would have a chance of eventually leaving prison.

Appeals court finds a viable innocence claim

The Fourth Circuit said prosecutors’ actions during the retrial amounted to vindictive prosecution, pointing to the six new charges, the renewed capital murder case and the threats that prevented Barber from testifying for Wolfe.

Thacker wrote that if jurors had known the full history, including the suppressed evidence and pressure placed on Barber, no reasonable juror would have found Wolfe guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.

The panel concluded that Wolfe had presented a meritorious Schlup claim of actual innocence. Its decision sends the case back to the district court for consideration of his underlying legal claims, potentially moving him closer to a new trial or release.

Wolfe’s mother, Terri Steinberg, said the family was profoundly grateful for a ruling that recognized what it had maintained from the beginning: that Wolfe is innocent. She said the family remained hopeful but cautious that he was finally closer to coming home.

Family friend Bob Lessemun also blamed prosecutors for Wolfe’s prolonged imprisonment, criticizing their deals and suppression of evidence and calling for the full truth to emerge.