From: Families of Wrongfully Convicted
Contact: Lonnie Soury, (212) 414-5857, (917) 519-4521, Lonnie@Soury.com

For Immediate Release

Exonerated Call on Mayor DeBlasio: Stop Wrongful Convictions Now

Recording of Interrogations and Conducting Live Double Blind Lineups Can Prevent False Confessions and Witness Misidentification

(New York, NY –Thursday, September 24, 2015) Victims of infamous Brooklyn detective Louis Scarcella, including some men who have been recently released after decades in prison, joined families of the wrongfully convicted at a news conference on the steps of City Hall to ask Mayor Bill de Blasio to immediately institute reforms that could help prevent wrongful convictions in New York City. They were joined by NYC councilmembers Laurie Cumbo and Ruben Wills. Henry McCollum, who was recently exonerated in North Carolina after 30 years on death row also joined the families.

NYPD Should Record All Interrogations and Conduct “Double Blind” Lineups

They called on the NYPD to institute universally accepted methods to help prevent wrongful convictions by recording all interrogations and conduct “double blind” procedures in live police lineups and photo arrays. These practices have been endorsed by the International Association of Police Chiefs. It is the law in 22 states including New Jersey and Connecticut. The New York State Senate passed reforms in last session for the first time in years, but the State Assembly failed to act.

Oversight Of District Attorneys Offices Needed

Families also asked the City Council and State Legislature to establish an independent Innocence Commission, provide oversight of the five District Attorneys offices by establishing disciplinary procedures for ADA’s and police who engage in obtaining coerced confessions, withholding evidence and falsely identifying suspects. These practices were employed by notorious Brooklyn detective Louis Scarcella who, with the complicity of former DA Charles Hynes, engaged in actions that led to wrongful convictions and the imprisonment of scores of men for decades. Dozens of cases are still under review in Brooklyn while many remain incarcerated. As a result of Scacella and other cases, New York City has recently paid in excess of $100 million to wrongfully convicted victims.

They also highlight recent “conviction reviews” that were deeply flawed and resulted in maintaining the wrongful convictions including Manhattan DA Cy Vance’s 18-month review of Jon-Adrian Velazquez’s case, John Giuca’s case in Brooklyn and former Nassau DA Kathleen Rice’s three year review of Jesse Friedman’s case, made famous by the film, Capturing the Friedmans. In all of these cases, the conviction reviews were rejected by prosecutors with little or no transparency.

According to the Innocence Project:

In NYC, 11 real perpetrators identified went on to commit five murders and three rapes
52% of New York’s DNA exonerations involved eyewitness misidentification.
48% of New York’s DNA exonerations involved a false confession.
Of the 330 DNA exonerations, 150 actual perpetrators were identified and went on to commit 70 sexual assaults, 30 murders and 25 other violent crimes.

Families of the Wrongfully Convicted was started by a group of men serving life sentences at Auburn correctional Facility. Working in the law library, some of them noticed one thing in common in some of their cases: Brooklyn Detective Louis Scarcella. Derrick Hamilton (21 yrs.) and Shabaka Shakur (27 yrs.) were victims of detective Scarcella, who have since been exonerated, but Kevin Smith (27 yrs.) and Sundhe Moses (18 yrs.), who organized today’s event, still await exoneration.

Derrick Hamilton was sentenced to life in prison after Detective Scarcella coerced an eyewitness to change her testimony to implicate him in a murder. Hamilton won a landmark appellate ruling on actual innocence and was exonerated in 2015. Hamilton said, “There is tremendous frustration among those wrongfully convicted. While some of us have been exonerated, most remain imprisoned, while others are on parole and continue to suffer as we begin to rebuild our lives. Prosecutorial and police misconduct is not only a serious problem in Brooklyn, it happen in every district attorney’s office in the city.”

Council Member Ruben Wills said: “Great injustices have been done to these men and their families. They will attest that an untold number of innocents continue to suffer in prison without the hope of reprieve. We should take heed to their advocacy for reforms to the witness identification and interrogation process. I also urge the Council to adopt my resolution, 698, calling on the State to establish an Innocence Inquiry Commission to investigate credible wrongful conviction claims. Flawed investigations and overzealous investigators have compromised our sense of fairness and equity in the criminal justice system. Adopting these proposals would help to restore that lost faith.”

“Communities of color – across this city, state, and nation – have too often been subjected to the miscarriage of justice,” said Council Member Laurie A. Cumbo, Chair of the Committee on Women’s Issues. “Wrongful convictions have placed an unfair burden on the families of the incarcerated, particularly women who must become single parents and the head of household. Our communities can no longer continue to bear the financial, emotional, and physical strain of the criminal justice system. We must call for reforms to ensure that everyone has equal protection of the law and justice is for all.”

Lonnie Soury, Falseconfessions.org, said, “We ask Mayor de Blasio and Commissioner Bill Bratton to adopt these universally recognized procedures that can help prevent wrongful convictions. If interrogations were recorded and double blind witness identification procedures were in place, it is likely that many of the men here today, and those imprisoned for decades, would never have been wrongfully convicted. Their lives, the lives of their families and the victims of the real perpetrators would not have been forever damaged.”