The report, 426 Years: An Examination of Wrongful Convictions in Brooklyn, NY by the Kings County District Attorney Office, the Innocence Project and Law firm of Wilmer Hale, is an important review of 25 wrongful convictions. It confirms what Families of the Wrongfully Convicted, (wrongfullyconvicted.info) and criminal justice reformers’ know: Prosecutor and police misconduct are the overwhelming contributing factors in wrongful convictions: 84% and 72% respectively.
While commendable that the Kings County DA opened their records, Families of the Wrongfully Convicted asks DA Eric Gonzalez to stand behind his report and address the failures of the Brooklyn DA to deal with the backlog of cases, and continue to let the actions of former NYPD Detective Louis Scarcella, resulting in scores of wrongful convictions, go without review and criticism. We ask DA Gonzalez to take a stronger hand supervising the appellate ADA’s who run rampant in the Kings County DA’s office, almost always opposing motions to overturn wrongful convictions. It is where wrongful conviction cases go to die.
Given the demonstrated rampant prosecutorial misconduct connected to this small universe of cases, the need to ensure the creation of a Commission on Prosecutor Conduct (CPC) could not be made clearer. NYS created a CPC , but it has been mired in legal challenges. The legislature should move to address existing issues with the CPC as drafted to ensure it is made a reality.
The Report also highlights a series of needed reforms in the area of false confessions. None of the confessions in these cases had been assessed for reliability. Law enforcement’s use of deception led to a series of coerced confessions of the actually innocent. Senator Myrie has introduced legislation that would ban police deception and ensure the courts assess the reliability of confession evidence before it is admitted. This bill should be made law immediately.
We call on NYPD Commissioner Dermot Shea and First Deputy Ben Tucker to follow suit and review cases of wrongful convictions, review the role of Detective Louis Scarcella in these terrible tragedies and meet to discuss reforms that can help prevent wrongful convictions. Especially, NYPD policies on interrogations that lead to false confessions, which were cited in 36% of these cases.
We ask that the NY State Court of Appeals review the role of the judiciary in wrongful convictions, in which judges have allowed tainted, blatantly false testimony from police and prosecutors go before jury after jury after jury.