Judge grants C.J. Rice petition to challenge sentence

C.J. Rice could soon be a free man.

Rice, whose case and ineffective representation in court we told you about on CNN
and in a cover story in The Atlantic in October 2022, was granted a petition for writ of habeas corpus on Monday by Judge Nitza I. Quiñones Alejandro, United States District judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Alejandro found that Rice’s “trial counsel rendered ineffective assistance” and ordered that Pennsylvania decide whether to retry him or free him within 180 days.

The decision will be made by the Philadelphia district attorney within the next six months. Rice has already been in prison for more than 11 years.

The case first received national attention because of a cover story in The Atlantic written by this reporter, titled, “This Is Not Justice: A Philadelphia teenager and the empty promise of the Sixth Amendment,” which noted many ways Rice did not have effective counsel when the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania sent him to prison for 30 to 60 years for a 2011 shooting.

This reporter was first alerted to the Rice case by his father, Dr. Theodore S. Tapper, who was Rice’s pediatrician and testified that he did not believe Rice would have been physically capable of carrying out the 2011 shooting given that he was recovering from a separate shooting at the time. The story also noted that attorney Karl Schwartz, thought to be hired by this reporter’s father, was working on a habeas petition to free Rice. Habeas corpus is a legal principle that allows people who believe they are being held unlawfully in prison or detention to challenge it.

In December of 2022, Schwartz filed the habeas petition, which specifically argued that Rice’s attorney incompetently stipulated to evidence that provided a motive for the charged shootings. Subsequently, attorneys Nilam Sanghvi and Amelia Maxfield of the…