Jeff Deskovic.
Georgetown University Law School Conference
Supports William Osbourne, Part 2
Monday, March 2, The Innocence Project argued the case of William Osbourne before the United States Supreme Court. The central issue in the Osbourne case is whether or not defendants have a Constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing which can prove innocence. In order to raise public awareness of the profound implications of this case, an event was held a few days earlier, on February 26, at Georgetown University’s Law School.
Shawn Amherst, the executive director of The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, was the Moderator. One of the goals of the project is to prevent and correct wrongful convictions in Maryland and the District of Columbia.
She said that her organization was very excited to be there, co-sponsoring the event, along with the Georgetown Office of Public Service
and Community Service as well as e Innocence Project. Rickie Johnson stated that he had been wrongly convicted of rape in Louisiana, and that he served 25 years in prison in Angola before DNA cleared him. e facts of his case according to e Innocence Project’s website are:
“In the early morning hours of July 12, 1982, a 22-year-old woman awoke in her northwest Louisiana home to find a man holding a gun to
her head. The man raped the woman twice and stayed at her house for four hours. He told her his name was Marcus Johnson and mentioned several details, claiming they were about his life. He claimed to be looking for an ex-girlfriend of his from Many, Louisiana.
He said he was he was on probation; he was from Leesville, Louisiana, and had relatives in the towns of Natchitoches and Monroe. The victim reported the rape the next morning, at which point she told police her attacker was an African-American man between 5’6” and 5’8”,
weighing about 140 pounds, with facial hair and a scarf tied around his head.
A detective from the Sabine Parish Sheriff’s Department contacted the Leesville Sheriff’s Department to ask if they had a man named Marcus Johnson on file. There was no record of Marcus Johnson, but Leesville officers told the detectives about Rickie Johnson, who was on probation for a misdemeanor traffic violation. Rickie Johnson matched some of the details provided by the perpetrator – he is from Leesville, has a child with a woman in Many and had relatives in Natchitoches and Monroe – and he became a suspect.
Police showed the victim a photo lineup consisting of just three photos; Johnson’s photo, which was in the center, was eight years old. The victim told police that she had ample time to see the perpetrator’s face, and she identified Johnson as the perpetrator, even though he had a prominent gold tooth which was never part of her description of her attacker.
He was arrested two days after the crime, and no other suspect would ever be investigated. From the time of his arrest, Johnson asserted his innocence. Six days later, police conducted an in-person lineup with five individuals. Again, Johnson was in the center, and again the victim identified him as the assailant. This lineup was not presented at Johnson’s trial because it was ruled inadmissible in court since Johnson did not have an attorney present at the lineup. Tests at the Shreveport Crime Lab determined that evidence collected from the victim at the hospital included sperm from the perpetrator, and serological testing showed that Johnson – and 35% of the African-American population – could have been the contributor. Johnson was charged with aggravated sexual assault and tried before a jury in Sabine Parish, Louisiana.
The victim identified him at trial, saying she was “positive” that he was the perpetrator and there was ‘no question in [(her]) mind.’ She said
the apartment was dark until about 15 minutes before the perpetrator left. Prosecutors also presented the victim’s photo identification of Johnson and the serological evidence that his blood type matched the blood type of the perpetrator – as determined from the sperm cells from the perpetrator.
Johnson’s defense attorney presented evidence that he was with family members and at the dentist on the day of the crime. Johnson did not testify. He was convicted by the jury and sentenced to life without parole. In January 2008, the profile was checked against the Louisiana DNA database, and implicated another man, John McNeal, who is serving life in prison for a rape committed in 1983 in the same apartment complex as the crime for which Johnson was convicted.
In the 1983 rape – committed three months after Johnson was convicted – the perpetrator, later determined to be McNeal, broke into the home of a 19-year-old woman, claimed to be looking for a girlfriend, threatened her with a knife and raped the victim.”
Johnson moved from the facts of his case, to sharing various shocking things about his case that to those in the know, are all too common. He
wondered out loud how it was that the police “got Rickie Johnson from Marcus Johnson.” He said that his court-appointed lawyer had met with him only twice before the trial. He stated that his trial only lasted three days, and from the first day he could tell that the prosecutor ran the courtroom. Perhaps addressing how the jury overlooked his above-mentioned alibi, he stated that once the jury heard that the blood type fit within 40% of the population. A final ironic thing about his case is that the real perpetrator was right there in the same prison with him for approximately two decades.
Speaking to his fighting spirit, he stated that there were many times when he very nearly gave up. Changing gears, Ms. Amherst then invited Michele Mallin to speak. Mallin had been the rape victim in the Timothy Cole case, discussed in a previous column. Cole had been wrongfully convicted of rape in 1985, based upon Mallin’s misidentification. Although her misidentidentification caused the wrongful convictions, she now realizes that the police engaged in a lot of misconduct, in the absence of which the wrongful conviction might not have occurred.
Looking back on her misidentification, she said that Cole’s picture was the only color photo in the photo array whereas the other photos were black and white mug shots. She later identified Cole at a lineup. She never realized that the only evidence they had against Cole was her identification, and this bolstered her confidence that the right person had been convicted. She thought that the police had compared the fingerprint that the rapist had left on her car’s cigarette lighter; in fact the cops threw them away.
She thought that they had tested the smoked cigarettes that the rapist left in her car, they had not. After Cole was convicted, she underwent
counseling, got married, and moved on with her life. Nine years later she got a call from the police stating that Cole had died in prison from
asthma, [which as stated in Part 1 was exacerbated by prison conditions].
When she asked them why they were suddenly contacting her, they replied that a DNA test had been performed and that Cole had been innocent. She later learned that in 1995, after the statute of limitations for rape had run out, that the real rapist began confessing, but no one would listen.
A judge who had received the letter from him threw it out. Since learning about all of this, Mallin has felt horrible about what happened and now understands the fallibility of identifications. Mallin recognizes the accuracy of DNA, and accepts that Cole was innocent.
She joined with the Cole family in order to get the judge to recommend that he posthumously be exonerated. That recommendation is currently awaiting approval by the Texas Court Of Appeals. Mallin believes that everybody deserves theright to DNA testing.
Replying to arguments that are made on behalf of victims as to why testing should notbe done, to wit, that it reopens old wounds: Yes, she conceded, it does reopen old wounds, but the need to be certain that the right person is imprisoned as opposed to an innocent person far outweighs that concern.
Commenting on stories of the long years that it often takes for wrongfully convicted people to get testing, she stated that it shouldn’t take years to get testing; that’s ridiculous.Detective Jim Trainum works in the Washington, D.C., Metropolitan Police Department. He learned about the world of wrongful convictions as a result of his obtaining a false confession and very nearly sending an innocent person to prison for life.
That happened, he said, without his yelling at the suspect or using violence. While staying within the law, he simply utilized the interrogation tactics that are taught across the country. The problem, he said, was that those tactics not only yield confessions, but also false confessions. He realizes now that false confessions are more frequent than what most people, himself included, believe.
Often the person being questioned simply wants the interrogation to end and will say anything just to get out of that situation, as opposed to thinking about long term consequences. As a result of that experience, he now works within the system to try to prevent wrongful convictions.
He noted that while courts require proof beyond a reasonable doubt, honest police officers and prosecutors need to go beyond that:they need to go beyond all doubt. He further stated that law enforcement officers should never stand in the way of DNA testing, whether before trial or post conviction.
There were other exonerees in attendance, who were present to show their support. Ms. Amherst invited all of them to come on stage, state where they were from, the year of their conviction, the year of their exoneration, and a bit about their lives now. The first person who spoke was Dennis Fritz, who recited an abbreviated version of his case.
This time headded that Oklahoma still does not have a statute permitting DNA testing as a matter of right, even though to date there have been 10 DNA exonerations in that state. He stated that he tries to bring about greater awareness of wrongful convictions, and that in connection with that he has worked with various innocence projects and law schools across the country.
Next was Julius Earl Ruffin. He said that he had been wrongfully convicted of rape, burglary, and sodomy in 1982 and was sentenced to five life terms in prison. His accuser had said that she was 100% sure.
DNA testing freed him. He said that he went about obtaining the DNA testing himself, with the assistance of some of the other prisoners. He was exonerated in 2003. He stated that he now lives in Portsmith, Virginia. He then mentioned his book in which he documented a little bit about his childhood, his wrongful conviction, what he went through during his wrongful conviction, and how he fought the system that he went through. Rickie Johnson spoke again.
He again stated that in 1983 he was wrongfully convicted of aggravate drape in Louisiana. He stated that the victim said that she was 100% sure that it was him, and that he spent 25 years in prison in Angola, one of Louisiana’s bloodiest prisons, before being cleared by DNA on Jan. 14, 2009.
He stated that he hoped that no one else had to go through what he did, even though he realized that there would indeed be wrongful convictions in the future. Perhaps underscoring the importance of the United States Supreme Court hopefully ruling that all citizens have the right to DNA testing to prove innocence, he said “Thank God for DNA.”Next it was my turn.
I mentioned that I had been wrongfully convicted of murder and rape in 1990. I mentioned that I had been convicted based upon a coerced, false confession extracted from me when I was16 years old, the fabrication of other evidence, and prosecutorial misconduct. In addition, my public defender was not very good.
I stated that I had been exonerated in 2006 after serving 16 years. In order to secure my freedom, I had to go beyond simply proving my own innocence, I wound up proving the guilt of the real perpetrator through DNA testing. I added that presently I give lectures on the subject across the country, am currently in a Masters Degree Program in Criminal Justice, and that I hoped to become a lawyer in the future. At the conclusion of the event, Marvin Ruffin shook my hand, and he gave me a complimentary copy of the book that he had written about his wrongful conviction and how it affected his life.
The title of the book is a brilliant play on words, to underscore the devastating impact the wrongful convictions have on not just the exoneree’s life, but also that of their family, an aspect that typically gets overshadowed. It also alludes to the danger that wrongful convictions pose to us all, in as much as it can happen to anyone at anytime.
The book’s name is Why Me? When It Could’ve Been You! Here is the Epilogue of the book, which I found to be very touching: “I want the world to know that I was innocent. And just like I served time for a crime that I did not commit, there are thousands of men and women who are experiencing what I went through for all those years.
Therefore, you are encouraged to listen when a loved one or friend tells you that he or she is innocent and support them in their efforts to pursue justice. It isn’t easy being in prison for something you didn’t do.
I, Julius Earl Ruffin, know because:For 21 years, I was incarcerated and treated as a criminal, identified by a number, counted each day, unable to come and go as I pleased, told when I could see and call my family, locked in a cell, and much, much more, for a crime that I did not commit, would not commit, and am incapable of committing. For 21 years, I had to inhale the body odor and waste of people I did not know, including those who shared cells with me as I was moved from institution to institution.
For 21 years, I was subjected to violent crimes and was threatened by those who desired to do bodily harm to me. For 21 years, I had to work for little pay, one dollar a day, or no pay.For 21 years, I had to get permission to do things that free men do without permission. For 21 years, I missed family reunions, weddings, birthdays, Christmases, Thanksgivings, and the freedom to shop and do things that people do for those they love on those special holidays. For 21 years, I suffered like no free man could ever imagine.
For 21 years, my family was humiliated and labeled. They were emotionally torn apart by my incarceration. My children grew up without me in their lives, and I did not have the opportunity to a part of their lives and the birth of my grandchildren. I was unable to be at my mother’s side during her illness and death, and the mental impact of having to attend my mother’s funeral in handcuffs was more than I could bear. I loved my mother very much. It pains me when I think about my mama going to her grave knowing that I was an innocent man in jail.
Her belief in my innocence helped me get through the 21 years of not having the freedom to live my life, come and go as I please and pursue my dreams. My mother isn’t here to see me as a free man. However, I thank God that my father of 84 years at the time of my release was blessed with the opportunity to see me liberated after 21years.”
Thursday, March 19, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Westchester Guardian/The Advocate/Westchester County Government.
Thursday, March 12, 2009.
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
Enthusiastic Crowd Of More Than 300
Converge On Royal Regency Hotel, Yonkers;
Plan Strategy To Abolish County Government
Son Of Andy Spano Says, “I Love My Father, But He’s Doing A Bad Job”
Last Wednesday, in part motivated by the commercials calling for the abolishment of County Government being run on their station and other cable channels by Guardian publisher Sam Zherka, accompanied by David Spano, the 49-year-old son of Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano, News12 decided to make the issue the question of the day by polling their viewers. Viewers responses fell into three categories: those
wanting to abolish County Government, those wanting to keep it, and those who felt it didn’t matter much either way.
The results, announced Thursday morning, were rather definitive and unambiguous. Those wishing to put an end to County Government were 60 percent; those wishing to keep it were 22 percent; and those who felt it didn’t matter much either way, 18 percent. We believe, even given the unscientific nature of the poll and a probable standard deviation of error of about four percent, viewers, those who took the time to participate,
made a strong statement.
We credit News12 for taking the public’s temperature on the subject, though we suspect had Janine Rose anticipated the very strong outcome,
she might not have run the poll given her usual protectionist treatment of Andrew Spano, and, some of her comments earlier, with respect to his son David’s participation in the campaign to eliminate County Government.
Much as Mike Edelman, Rose’s comments seemed to suggest that it was inappropriate, or somehow not right or fair, for David, a man 49 years old, to have, and express, his own opinion with respect to County Government so long as his father was County Executive.
Nevertheless, the results of the poll spoke very clearly about the sentiments of most Westchester residents. Our bloated, disconnected County Government is a luxury we can no longer afford, and has been for some time. It has created a socio-economic divide that has made Westchester both unaffordable and uncomfortable for working families.
Thursday night, on the heels of the poll, more than 300 residents, homeowners, and business people from all over the County, from as far away as Peekskill and Ossining and Bedford and Somers, converged on the Royal Regency Hotel in Yonkers to share their concerns and ideas with each other, and with White Plains City Councilman Glen Hockley, Independence Party Chair Dr. Giulio Cavallo, David Spano, and publisher Sam Zherka.
The purpose of the gathering was to give taxpayers the opportunity to learn more about the upcoming April 25th Westchester Tea Party, scheduled to be held outside the County Office Building at 148 Martine Avenue in White Plains, and to send them off with palm cards and lawn signs for distribution to their neighbors and friends.
White Plains Councilman Hockley explained the workings of the Democratic and Republican Parties, and how their committeepersons primarily
function to perpetuate their continued existence with little or no concern about community needs. He explained that he recently voluntarily took a 10 percent pay cut in an effort to set an example and to encourage public servants, at all levels in Westchester, to do the same.
David Spano, son of County Executive Andrew Spano, received a warm round of applause when he addressed the crowd, telling them that he believes his father’s expansion of County Government, and taxes, was wrong and needed to be reversed.
Guardian publisher Sam Zherka told the crowd, “We must force Andy Spano into retirement.” He said the people need to vote the 17 County Legislators out of office, and that the County could be broken up into five legislative districts requiring but five legislators and five assistants, thus eliminating 12 current legislators and 47 legislative assistants, bringing about, at a minimum, a $3 million reduction in salaries in that area alone.
Dr. Cavallo, Chair of the Westchester Independence Party, explained the workings of both the Democratic and Republican Parties in Westchester,
and how they conspire to enrich themselves at taxpayer expense.
A businessman from Sleepy Hollow rose to express the need for a “watchdog”, someone to keep an eye on corruption. Publisher Zherka responded, “The watchdog should be your district attorney. To have a watchdog we need to get rid of Janet DiFiore.” That comment was greeted with strong applause. Throughout the gathering, more han 20 people rose to their feet to express their own concerns and to relate their individual experiences
with County Government. Each account, almost without exception, spoke of an unresponsive, basically aloof and disconnected County Government, too preoccupied with lining their own pockets to help their needy constituents.
As the gathering drew to a close, Sam Zherka explained, “We’re not going to change things overnight; it will take three, four years, maybe more, but we will succeed.” He went on to say, “Alone we will not accomplish, but if we show up with 5,000, 10,000 people, we’ll not only get their attention, we’ll get the governor’s attention. They’ll know we mean business.”
The majority of the more than 300 attendees registered to do volunteer work for upcoming events, and most took stacks of palm cards and five or more lawn signs for their friends and neighbors. There was unmistakeable enthusiasm and resolve to fight County Government excesses and waste throughout the crowd.
The Advocate
Richard Blassberg
Enthusiastic Crowd Of More Than 300
Converge On Royal Regency Hotel, Yonkers;
Plan Strategy To Abolish County Government
Son Of Andy Spano Says, “I Love My Father, But He’s Doing A Bad Job”
Last Wednesday, in part motivated by the commercials calling for the abolishment of County Government being run on their station and other cable channels by Guardian publisher Sam Zherka, accompanied by David Spano, the 49-year-old son of Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano, News12 decided to make the issue the question of the day by polling their viewers. Viewers responses fell into three categories: those
wanting to abolish County Government, those wanting to keep it, and those who felt it didn’t matter much either way.
The results, announced Thursday morning, were rather definitive and unambiguous. Those wishing to put an end to County Government were 60 percent; those wishing to keep it were 22 percent; and those who felt it didn’t matter much either way, 18 percent. We believe, even given the unscientific nature of the poll and a probable standard deviation of error of about four percent, viewers, those who took the time to participate,
made a strong statement.
We credit News12 for taking the public’s temperature on the subject, though we suspect had Janine Rose anticipated the very strong outcome,
she might not have run the poll given her usual protectionist treatment of Andrew Spano, and, some of her comments earlier, with respect to his son David’s participation in the campaign to eliminate County Government.
Much as Mike Edelman, Rose’s comments seemed to suggest that it was inappropriate, or somehow not right or fair, for David, a man 49 years old, to have, and express, his own opinion with respect to County Government so long as his father was County Executive.
Nevertheless, the results of the poll spoke very clearly about the sentiments of most Westchester residents. Our bloated, disconnected County Government is a luxury we can no longer afford, and has been for some time. It has created a socio-economic divide that has made Westchester both unaffordable and uncomfortable for working families.
Thursday night, on the heels of the poll, more than 300 residents, homeowners, and business people from all over the County, from as far away as Peekskill and Ossining and Bedford and Somers, converged on the Royal Regency Hotel in Yonkers to share their concerns and ideas with each other, and with White Plains City Councilman Glen Hockley, Independence Party Chair Dr. Giulio Cavallo, David Spano, and publisher Sam Zherka.
The purpose of the gathering was to give taxpayers the opportunity to learn more about the upcoming April 25th Westchester Tea Party, scheduled to be held outside the County Office Building at 148 Martine Avenue in White Plains, and to send them off with palm cards and lawn signs for distribution to their neighbors and friends.
White Plains Councilman Hockley explained the workings of the Democratic and Republican Parties, and how their committeepersons primarily
function to perpetuate their continued existence with little or no concern about community needs. He explained that he recently voluntarily took a 10 percent pay cut in an effort to set an example and to encourage public servants, at all levels in Westchester, to do the same.
David Spano, son of County Executive Andrew Spano, received a warm round of applause when he addressed the crowd, telling them that he believes his father’s expansion of County Government, and taxes, was wrong and needed to be reversed.
Guardian publisher Sam Zherka told the crowd, “We must force Andy Spano into retirement.” He said the people need to vote the 17 County Legislators out of office, and that the County could be broken up into five legislative districts requiring but five legislators and five assistants, thus eliminating 12 current legislators and 47 legislative assistants, bringing about, at a minimum, a $3 million reduction in salaries in that area alone.
Dr. Cavallo, Chair of the Westchester Independence Party, explained the workings of both the Democratic and Republican Parties in Westchester,
and how they conspire to enrich themselves at taxpayer expense.
A businessman from Sleepy Hollow rose to express the need for a “watchdog”, someone to keep an eye on corruption. Publisher Zherka responded, “The watchdog should be your district attorney. To have a watchdog we need to get rid of Janet DiFiore.” That comment was greeted with strong applause. Throughout the gathering, more han 20 people rose to their feet to express their own concerns and to relate their individual experiences
with County Government. Each account, almost without exception, spoke of an unresponsive, basically aloof and disconnected County Government, too preoccupied with lining their own pockets to help their needy constituents.
As the gathering drew to a close, Sam Zherka explained, “We’re not going to change things overnight; it will take three, four years, maybe more, but we will succeed.” He went on to say, “Alone we will not accomplish, but if we show up with 5,000, 10,000 people, we’ll not only get their attention, we’ll get the governor’s attention. They’ll know we mean business.”
The majority of the more than 300 attendees registered to do volunteer work for upcoming events, and most took stacks of palm cards and five or more lawn signs for their friends and neighbors. There was unmistakeable enthusiasm and resolve to fight County Government excesses and waste throughout the crowd.
Westchester Guardian/In Our Opinion/Our Readers Respond.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
In Our Opinion...
It’s Time To Reverse Lawlessness By Starting At The Top
The often-cited Pew Center last week issued a report confirming what most in law enforcement already suspected, that the number of adults on probation, or parole, in the United States, had virtually doubled in the 25 years between 1982 and 2007, swelling to more than five million individuals, which when added to some 2.3 million in prisons and jails, represents roughly one out of every 31 men and women in the country. And, while there are great disparities from state to state, with bordering states often exhibiting wide differences, still the national trend is alarming.
We believe that dramatically increased lawlessness in the United States, to a significant extent, is the product of a loss of respect for state and federal law enforcement authority. Those who would enforce the law must live by it. However, that has not been the case, particularly over the last eight years, under the Bush/Cheney Justice Department, with warrantless wiretaps, warrantless searches and seizures, detention and/or incarceration for years without the lodging of charges, exportation for torturous interrogation, not to mention the use of United States Attorneys to bring
down political enemies and potential opponents. The example at the federal level has been Constitutionally unrecognizable.
Instance after instance of prosecutorial misconduct by self-promoting state and federal prosecutors acting under color of law, using our tax dollars to repeatedly violate our Constitutional protections, has gone a long way to erode the respect of knowledgeable, well-intentioned citizens, for the integrity and equity of the judicial process.
Westchester has certainly been no exception in this regard, particularly over the past 15 years, under two district attorneys, each of whom have engaged in unlawful, personal and professional practices while puffing up their false images. Interestingly, Janet DiFiore, who was only too well aware of Jeanine Pirro’s wrongful convictions, continues to stubbornly insult our intelligence and abuse our sensibilities and our tax dollars, unlawfully defending them.
It was always all about Jeanine and, now, it’s all about Janet; each one a sociopathic parasite; one the repeated product of fixed elections, 1997 and 2001; the other, the product of election tampering and fraud, not to mention attempted bribery. What respect do these power-hungry counterfeits engender for the law with their “Do as I say, not as I do” above-the-law practices.
And, let us not neglect our former United States Attorney, Michael Garcia. Truth be told, he was nothing short of an umbrella, a cover for the very corrupt public officials he was supposedly dispatched to “the suburbs north of New York City,” by George W. Bush to investigate and prosecute.
After all, he was the man who published 1-866-END-GRAFT, the hotline that brought in such an avalanche of responses to the FBI that they were actually turning callers away by the hundreds. Are we supposed to accept the notion that a mob-connected carter, a city sanitation supervisor, a city housing commissioner, and a small-time real estate investor and speculator, all from Mount Vernon, are the total product of Mr. Garcia’s
three-year investigation into Westchester’s public integrity violations? Is there any way honest, tax-paying citizens, can accept such an anemic performance when his colleague in the State of New Jersey sent no fewer than 120 corrupt public officials to prison in the same time frame?
Our Readers Respond....
Who Are They Protecting? Not the Environment
Dear Editor:
When elected officials fail to implement environmental laws there must be a reason. Occasionally the reason is that these of-ficials will not (or cannot) defy the vested interests of influential individuals. Often, politicians make human mistakes but are afraid to face the political and economic consequences of redressing those mistakes. And sometimes the truth lies somewhere in between.
Take the case of Mr. Robert Schubert. In the summer of 2006 his wetlands garden dried up when the city of Rye allowed a neighbor to install a dry well where none had previously existed. Rye’s naturalist at that time, Chantal Detlefs, who was away when the permitting error was first made, has since categorically stated: “The only way the dry well does not require a Wetland Permit would be if one already existed in the exact same location at the exact same depth and size, etc.” (as indicated in a letter from Ms. Detlefs dated 02/18/09 to Rye City Mayor Otis & Council Members)
Despite the clear fact that the City of Rye failed to follow through on appropriate wetlands permitting with regards to Mr. Schubert’s garden, a simple error which should have been speedily rectified, the Rye City Council has drawn out this process for more than three years. Why?
During this time Mr. Schubert has been diligently trying to get the problem solved; apparently a nuisance to the City Council. In a bizarre “act of concern and compassion” for Schubert, Paul Shew, Rye City Manager, actually called the Westchester County Crisis Team to “evaluate” him. Schubert contends this was done in an attempt to silence him at Council meetings.
Only now, with a groundswell of public outrage in support of Mr. Schubert, is the City Council making any headway towards resolving this situation. Yet still at the February 25, 2009, meeting Shew had the temerity to declare public interest and support for Schubert, “just a publicity stunt.” The question is why?
Are legitimate environmental issues too unimportant for Rye government to address? They shouldn’t be. That’s what more and more people concerned about protecting the environment for future generations want their cities and towns to do. So the question remains: why do environmental codes get short shrift?
Similar questions hover with respect to Rye’s Hen Island. This 25-acre, privately-owned island in Milton Harbor has been the subject of scrutiny by concerned locals, government officials and environmental groups such as Long Island Soundkeeper headed by Terry Backer. Few, if any, safety, sanitary or building codes are enforced on Hen Island. The question is why?
Why, for instance, was Ron Gatto, the eminent lead investigator of the Westchester County Environmental Enforcement Unit, removed from the Hen Island case after he reported environmental, safety and health issues serious enough to close the island? Or should we ask “who” removed him?
Why did Gatto’s successor to the Hen Island case, Westchester County Deputy Health Commissioner Len Meyerson, find no such health issues even though some open, untreated sewage pits exist less than 10 feet from the shoreline? According to Meyerson, two inspections determined no sewage was leaking into Long Island Sound. When queried by a local reporter he glossed over the issue thusly: “...Mother Earth is the best way of making sure that the pollutants are removed from human waste, from sanitary waste water.” In other words, once sewage effluents are diluted by the Sound, there’s no problem.
Is this an appropriate attitude for a public health official in one of the most affluent counties in the U.S.? At the moment questions outnumber
answers. To get answers, more concerned citizens need to bring pressure to bear on public offi-cials. Insist on candor and transparency; refuse to be brushed aside with platitudes and double-talk. Keep asking them “Why?” environmental laws and health codes are being ignored ...
Thank you for your interest but most of all, for caring about Hen Island, our harbors, our waters and the environment, that is so precious to us all.
Ray Tartaglione
Re: Paul Cote
Dear Editor,
I have composed this letter in response to the article you have written about Paul Cote in your January, 2009 issue of the Westchester Guardian and the injustices pertaining to his situation with Westchester County and the federal court case currently against him I have known Paul personally for over forty years. In all of the time that I’ve known him, he has been a truly respectable citizen of our community.
He was brought up primarily by his mother and grandmother in a fine home and attended a private religious high school. He has always been a hard, diligent worker, and has had a keen interest in law enforcement since his teenage years. He was always considered as very mature for his age and married early at twenty-one. He currently is still married to his fine wife, Maria and together they have two beautiful children. Paul has always treated myself, others and all acquaintances and coworkers with great respect. He is well liked as a friend, husband and most of all, as a father.
I feel that this is a most unfortunate incident that has happened to Paul. Paul loved his position as a correction officer and held it for thirteen
unblemished years. He wanted a career in law enforcement; obtaining the job with the Westchester County Corrections Division fulfilled his life’s
ambition. Paul has always wanted to do right for his community and has had a zero tolerance level for crime. On many instances, he has been the
peacemaker and has protected others in his neighbourhood from controversy and potential criminal activity.
Paul stands up for what he feels is right. I truly believe that Paul’s intentions that day in October, 2000 were to protect and assist his fellow
officer. There was no intentional malice on his part whatsoever. He responded in the mutual aid of the other correction officer. This vagrant, Teodorovic, intended to injure an officer of the law. Has anyone ever looked into what a menace this Teodorovic character was to the city of Mount Vernon over the years? The Teodorovic name was always surrounded by trouble which included theft, stealing, loitering... blatant disregard for the law in my opinion.
Paul intervened to save his partner and is not deserving of a jail sentence, nor a county or federal court case. Almost nine years later, we are
still hearing about this case. Doesn’t that tell you something on how crooked and seedy this whole case is? How Westchester County or the Federal
government could even think of imposing such a case numerous times upon Paul Cote is beyond me. There is a lot more to this story than the
public knows. I propose to the federal government to investigate this corrupt county and some of its law enforcing officials, especially in the corrections area. I bet you’d find out a great deal on how things were handled in this particular case.
The public does not know what goes on behind the scenes in the Department of Corrections and the DA’s Office. Paul Cote has been punished
enough, something he did not deserve in the first place. He has endured an initial suspension from his position at the correction facility, expensive lawyer and court fees, multiple cases, an acquittal from Judge Brieant, a federal civil case, termination of his employment with the county and for the past eight years has been left without a job or benefits and is now in jail again until May, 2009 where he faces more trouble and additional jail time. The list goes on and on.
This man has endured enough in his life and is non-deserving of what has happened to him. Thank God that you have brought this injustice to the
public’s attention through this most important publication, the Westchester Guardian. This entire matter is a disgrace.
James F. Caparelli
Re: Paul Cote
Dear Editor:
Do not read this if you think this is a fictional movie review. It is not about a man who is intent to end someone’s life. It is about a man who
was doing a job he has done well year after year, being a good correction officer. His record is one of humane composite in doing his job and upholding the precepts of the law, the law which he was sworn to abide by. The job and its components are not what every man would dash
at, or jump into since they would not be psychologically qualified for, nor have the qualities for making an exemplary officer as Paul Cote.
Paul was called by a fellow officer because he was needed in order to help subdue an inmate due to a disturbance that called for help against brute force by a mentally challenged inmate. The correction officer, himself, was quite a large man and needed help even after having slammed, banged the inmate into the concrete floor. Paul, being the man that he is, immediately came to the aid of his fellow officer.
We all know, saw and read what transpired, a guardian who upheld the law as he was trained to do. This is what Paul Cote did; he responded to a fellow officer’s needs while maintaining order without prejudice. We have known Paul since he was born, and know he is respected for his character; a good, caring person, a person of dignity, a person who cares for his fellow man, a good Samaritan. He did not go into this job because he was power-hungry, but because he responded to a civic duty as well as a career.
Paul has a loving family and, like every man who wants to provide for his family, he took the job in order to do so. Never, never, would Paul
embrace the idea of doing harm nor cause the demise of anyone. He is a God-fearing, loving man who has a sense of doing that which is honest
and lawful. He is a man who must keep his head high. He is innocent, truly innocent of any charges meted out to hom.
The way Judge Charles L. Brieant granted Paul a judgment of acquittal, as there was certainly reasonable doubt concerning the charges against
Paul. The U.S. Attorney overturned it. This was grave injustice; the judicial system certainly cast a shadow on the workings of juris prudence. May all who have to deliberate in decision making in this case examine their conscience and do the right thing.
Costing a man’s lifetime of punishment needs much consideration, especially of the innocence in this case. It takes a heavy duty responsibility and
deep deliberation, an intellect of a Thomas Moore, to come to a bonafide judgment to exonerate Paul Cote!
Gilda and Michael DeGrego,
Valley Cottage
Re: Paul Cote
Dear Editor:
Although Michael J. Garcia, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, overturned the late Charles L. Brieant’s Judgment of
Acquittal, I am hoping for a fair and just ending to this case against Mr. Paul Cote.
Here’s why: Maybe, just maybe, Judge Kenneth M. Karas is another wise jurist as was Judge Brieant. Judge Brieant figured it out. Mr. Cote was
railroaded. From my reading of The Guardian’s articles, I believe this case is a travesty of justice.
Judge Karas has given me some hope in his declaration that is willing to read all the briefs and the entire trial transcript to be fair to Mr. Cote.
Also, he apologized for having to incarcerate him until sentencing.
Let’s hope that Judge Karas, at time of sentencing, will utter the words, “Time served.” This isn’t justice for Mr. Cote, but at least this would put an end to this nightmare he has found himself in.
Raymond Gorshoff,
Hopewell Junction
In Our Opinion...
It’s Time To Reverse Lawlessness By Starting At The Top
The often-cited Pew Center last week issued a report confirming what most in law enforcement already suspected, that the number of adults on probation, or parole, in the United States, had virtually doubled in the 25 years between 1982 and 2007, swelling to more than five million individuals, which when added to some 2.3 million in prisons and jails, represents roughly one out of every 31 men and women in the country. And, while there are great disparities from state to state, with bordering states often exhibiting wide differences, still the national trend is alarming.
We believe that dramatically increased lawlessness in the United States, to a significant extent, is the product of a loss of respect for state and federal law enforcement authority. Those who would enforce the law must live by it. However, that has not been the case, particularly over the last eight years, under the Bush/Cheney Justice Department, with warrantless wiretaps, warrantless searches and seizures, detention and/or incarceration for years without the lodging of charges, exportation for torturous interrogation, not to mention the use of United States Attorneys to bring
down political enemies and potential opponents. The example at the federal level has been Constitutionally unrecognizable.
Instance after instance of prosecutorial misconduct by self-promoting state and federal prosecutors acting under color of law, using our tax dollars to repeatedly violate our Constitutional protections, has gone a long way to erode the respect of knowledgeable, well-intentioned citizens, for the integrity and equity of the judicial process.
Westchester has certainly been no exception in this regard, particularly over the past 15 years, under two district attorneys, each of whom have engaged in unlawful, personal and professional practices while puffing up their false images. Interestingly, Janet DiFiore, who was only too well aware of Jeanine Pirro’s wrongful convictions, continues to stubbornly insult our intelligence and abuse our sensibilities and our tax dollars, unlawfully defending them.
It was always all about Jeanine and, now, it’s all about Janet; each one a sociopathic parasite; one the repeated product of fixed elections, 1997 and 2001; the other, the product of election tampering and fraud, not to mention attempted bribery. What respect do these power-hungry counterfeits engender for the law with their “Do as I say, not as I do” above-the-law practices.
And, let us not neglect our former United States Attorney, Michael Garcia. Truth be told, he was nothing short of an umbrella, a cover for the very corrupt public officials he was supposedly dispatched to “the suburbs north of New York City,” by George W. Bush to investigate and prosecute.
After all, he was the man who published 1-866-END-GRAFT, the hotline that brought in such an avalanche of responses to the FBI that they were actually turning callers away by the hundreds. Are we supposed to accept the notion that a mob-connected carter, a city sanitation supervisor, a city housing commissioner, and a small-time real estate investor and speculator, all from Mount Vernon, are the total product of Mr. Garcia’s
three-year investigation into Westchester’s public integrity violations? Is there any way honest, tax-paying citizens, can accept such an anemic performance when his colleague in the State of New Jersey sent no fewer than 120 corrupt public officials to prison in the same time frame?
Our Readers Respond....
Who Are They Protecting? Not the Environment
Dear Editor:
When elected officials fail to implement environmental laws there must be a reason. Occasionally the reason is that these of-ficials will not (or cannot) defy the vested interests of influential individuals. Often, politicians make human mistakes but are afraid to face the political and economic consequences of redressing those mistakes. And sometimes the truth lies somewhere in between.
Take the case of Mr. Robert Schubert. In the summer of 2006 his wetlands garden dried up when the city of Rye allowed a neighbor to install a dry well where none had previously existed. Rye’s naturalist at that time, Chantal Detlefs, who was away when the permitting error was first made, has since categorically stated: “The only way the dry well does not require a Wetland Permit would be if one already existed in the exact same location at the exact same depth and size, etc.” (as indicated in a letter from Ms. Detlefs dated 02/18/09 to Rye City Mayor Otis & Council Members)
Despite the clear fact that the City of Rye failed to follow through on appropriate wetlands permitting with regards to Mr. Schubert’s garden, a simple error which should have been speedily rectified, the Rye City Council has drawn out this process for more than three years. Why?
During this time Mr. Schubert has been diligently trying to get the problem solved; apparently a nuisance to the City Council. In a bizarre “act of concern and compassion” for Schubert, Paul Shew, Rye City Manager, actually called the Westchester County Crisis Team to “evaluate” him. Schubert contends this was done in an attempt to silence him at Council meetings.
Only now, with a groundswell of public outrage in support of Mr. Schubert, is the City Council making any headway towards resolving this situation. Yet still at the February 25, 2009, meeting Shew had the temerity to declare public interest and support for Schubert, “just a publicity stunt.” The question is why?
Are legitimate environmental issues too unimportant for Rye government to address? They shouldn’t be. That’s what more and more people concerned about protecting the environment for future generations want their cities and towns to do. So the question remains: why do environmental codes get short shrift?
Similar questions hover with respect to Rye’s Hen Island. This 25-acre, privately-owned island in Milton Harbor has been the subject of scrutiny by concerned locals, government officials and environmental groups such as Long Island Soundkeeper headed by Terry Backer. Few, if any, safety, sanitary or building codes are enforced on Hen Island. The question is why?
Why, for instance, was Ron Gatto, the eminent lead investigator of the Westchester County Environmental Enforcement Unit, removed from the Hen Island case after he reported environmental, safety and health issues serious enough to close the island? Or should we ask “who” removed him?
Why did Gatto’s successor to the Hen Island case, Westchester County Deputy Health Commissioner Len Meyerson, find no such health issues even though some open, untreated sewage pits exist less than 10 feet from the shoreline? According to Meyerson, two inspections determined no sewage was leaking into Long Island Sound. When queried by a local reporter he glossed over the issue thusly: “...Mother Earth is the best way of making sure that the pollutants are removed from human waste, from sanitary waste water.” In other words, once sewage effluents are diluted by the Sound, there’s no problem.
Is this an appropriate attitude for a public health official in one of the most affluent counties in the U.S.? At the moment questions outnumber
answers. To get answers, more concerned citizens need to bring pressure to bear on public offi-cials. Insist on candor and transparency; refuse to be brushed aside with platitudes and double-talk. Keep asking them “Why?” environmental laws and health codes are being ignored ...
Thank you for your interest but most of all, for caring about Hen Island, our harbors, our waters and the environment, that is so precious to us all.
Ray Tartaglione
Re: Paul Cote
Dear Editor,
I have composed this letter in response to the article you have written about Paul Cote in your January, 2009 issue of the Westchester Guardian and the injustices pertaining to his situation with Westchester County and the federal court case currently against him I have known Paul personally for over forty years. In all of the time that I’ve known him, he has been a truly respectable citizen of our community.
He was brought up primarily by his mother and grandmother in a fine home and attended a private religious high school. He has always been a hard, diligent worker, and has had a keen interest in law enforcement since his teenage years. He was always considered as very mature for his age and married early at twenty-one. He currently is still married to his fine wife, Maria and together they have two beautiful children. Paul has always treated myself, others and all acquaintances and coworkers with great respect. He is well liked as a friend, husband and most of all, as a father.
I feel that this is a most unfortunate incident that has happened to Paul. Paul loved his position as a correction officer and held it for thirteen
unblemished years. He wanted a career in law enforcement; obtaining the job with the Westchester County Corrections Division fulfilled his life’s
ambition. Paul has always wanted to do right for his community and has had a zero tolerance level for crime. On many instances, he has been the
peacemaker and has protected others in his neighbourhood from controversy and potential criminal activity.
Paul stands up for what he feels is right. I truly believe that Paul’s intentions that day in October, 2000 were to protect and assist his fellow
officer. There was no intentional malice on his part whatsoever. He responded in the mutual aid of the other correction officer. This vagrant, Teodorovic, intended to injure an officer of the law. Has anyone ever looked into what a menace this Teodorovic character was to the city of Mount Vernon over the years? The Teodorovic name was always surrounded by trouble which included theft, stealing, loitering... blatant disregard for the law in my opinion.
Paul intervened to save his partner and is not deserving of a jail sentence, nor a county or federal court case. Almost nine years later, we are
still hearing about this case. Doesn’t that tell you something on how crooked and seedy this whole case is? How Westchester County or the Federal
government could even think of imposing such a case numerous times upon Paul Cote is beyond me. There is a lot more to this story than the
public knows. I propose to the federal government to investigate this corrupt county and some of its law enforcing officials, especially in the corrections area. I bet you’d find out a great deal on how things were handled in this particular case.
The public does not know what goes on behind the scenes in the Department of Corrections and the DA’s Office. Paul Cote has been punished
enough, something he did not deserve in the first place. He has endured an initial suspension from his position at the correction facility, expensive lawyer and court fees, multiple cases, an acquittal from Judge Brieant, a federal civil case, termination of his employment with the county and for the past eight years has been left without a job or benefits and is now in jail again until May, 2009 where he faces more trouble and additional jail time. The list goes on and on.
This man has endured enough in his life and is non-deserving of what has happened to him. Thank God that you have brought this injustice to the
public’s attention through this most important publication, the Westchester Guardian. This entire matter is a disgrace.
James F. Caparelli
Re: Paul Cote
Dear Editor:
Do not read this if you think this is a fictional movie review. It is not about a man who is intent to end someone’s life. It is about a man who
was doing a job he has done well year after year, being a good correction officer. His record is one of humane composite in doing his job and upholding the precepts of the law, the law which he was sworn to abide by. The job and its components are not what every man would dash
at, or jump into since they would not be psychologically qualified for, nor have the qualities for making an exemplary officer as Paul Cote.
Paul was called by a fellow officer because he was needed in order to help subdue an inmate due to a disturbance that called for help against brute force by a mentally challenged inmate. The correction officer, himself, was quite a large man and needed help even after having slammed, banged the inmate into the concrete floor. Paul, being the man that he is, immediately came to the aid of his fellow officer.
We all know, saw and read what transpired, a guardian who upheld the law as he was trained to do. This is what Paul Cote did; he responded to a fellow officer’s needs while maintaining order without prejudice. We have known Paul since he was born, and know he is respected for his character; a good, caring person, a person of dignity, a person who cares for his fellow man, a good Samaritan. He did not go into this job because he was power-hungry, but because he responded to a civic duty as well as a career.
Paul has a loving family and, like every man who wants to provide for his family, he took the job in order to do so. Never, never, would Paul
embrace the idea of doing harm nor cause the demise of anyone. He is a God-fearing, loving man who has a sense of doing that which is honest
and lawful. He is a man who must keep his head high. He is innocent, truly innocent of any charges meted out to hom.
The way Judge Charles L. Brieant granted Paul a judgment of acquittal, as there was certainly reasonable doubt concerning the charges against
Paul. The U.S. Attorney overturned it. This was grave injustice; the judicial system certainly cast a shadow on the workings of juris prudence. May all who have to deliberate in decision making in this case examine their conscience and do the right thing.
Costing a man’s lifetime of punishment needs much consideration, especially of the innocence in this case. It takes a heavy duty responsibility and
deep deliberation, an intellect of a Thomas Moore, to come to a bonafide judgment to exonerate Paul Cote!
Gilda and Michael DeGrego,
Valley Cottage
Re: Paul Cote
Dear Editor:
Although Michael J. Garcia, former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, overturned the late Charles L. Brieant’s Judgment of
Acquittal, I am hoping for a fair and just ending to this case against Mr. Paul Cote.
Here’s why: Maybe, just maybe, Judge Kenneth M. Karas is another wise jurist as was Judge Brieant. Judge Brieant figured it out. Mr. Cote was
railroaded. From my reading of The Guardian’s articles, I believe this case is a travesty of justice.
Judge Karas has given me some hope in his declaration that is willing to read all the briefs and the entire trial transcript to be fair to Mr. Cote.
Also, he apologized for having to incarcerate him until sentencing.
Let’s hope that Judge Karas, at time of sentencing, will utter the words, “Time served.” This isn’t justice for Mr. Cote, but at least this would put an end to this nightmare he has found himself in.
Raymond Gorshoff,
Hopewell Junction
Westchester Guardian/The Court Report/City of Mount Vernon.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg
‘Gerrie’ Post And Wayne Charles Go To
Prosecutor-Predicted Four Week Trial
United States District Court, White Plains
Judge Kenneth M. Karas Presiding
The fraud case of former Mount Vernon Planning, and Housing Commissioner, Constance Post, 59, better known to her friends and people around
City Hall as ‘Gerrie’, and her reputed lover, Wayne Charles, a small-time real estate speculator and developer, finally got underway last Tuesday afternoon following a weather cancellation on Monday, and the need for District Court Judge Kenneth M. Karas to deal with three of the 16
jurors who had been seated the previous Friday.
The thrust of the Government’s case against the pair involves the alleged steering of some $2.3 million in loans and city contracts by Post to Charles over several years, for which lead Prosecutor Cynthia Dunne told the jury, in her opening statement, “The evidence will show that while Charles was riding high, he gave post $30,000.”
Assistant United States Attorney Dunne, who readers will recall is also the lead prosecutor in the Paul Cote case, told the jurors, “This case is about fraud, theft, and corruption,” explaining that it was Post’s calculated intention to wrongfully enrich Wayne Charles, 56, and ultimately enter into business with him. Attempting to tie the Defendants tightly together in a common scheme, Dunne declared, “It’s about two people who lied and cheated to enrich themselves with hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Dunne said, “The most important Defendant is Constance Post. Post, and her very close friend, took advantage of funds available. Post made it
a priority to see that Mr. Charles got city contracts.”
Labeling it, “A brief overview,’ Dunne launched into the history of the company known as Micros Only, previously owned and operated by an associate of Charles, named Dante Brown. She explained how Charles, without Brown’s knowledge, set up checking accounts in the name of Micros Only Computer Concepts, Inc., thereby establishing a vehicle and depository into which funds from the City of Mount Vernon, in payment for computer technology services, ostensibly performed by Micros Only, could be deposited and disbursed under the control of Wayne Charles. Dunne explained that Charles involved his sister in the setting up and servicing of the bank accounts, thereby avoiding recognition and identification
with the flow of funds. Dunne explained that Post went far beyond steering computer technology business to Charles’ fraudulent business, declaring,
“Post took additional steps. She used HUD funds which were meant for housing and recreational uses.”
She explained further, to the jurors, “The City Council had placed specific caps on how much could be paid to Micros. When $80,000 was authorized, she [Post], in fact, released $335,000.”
Dunne indicated that in the following year Post moved more than $600,000 to Wayne Charles’ businesses, and, that when the City tightened the reins, she saw to it that her close friend obtained “A $500,000 loan by fraud as “Charles falsely swore he had no other relationship with the City.”
Dunne then pointed out to the jury that Mr. Charles had only repaid half of the loan, and that was several years later. Dunne went on to explain that there was a garage security contract for which Charles received $700,000, “even though he had no employees.” She pointed to the figure on a projection screen, to the jury, of $2,356,083.77 as the Government’s calculated “total of the funds that post arranged to be paid to Charles.”
Dunne assured the jurors that there would be abundant proof, “the testimony of many witnesses, lots of records and charts, the Defendant’s [Constance Post] very own words at public meetings.”
She concluded, telling the jury, “It’s about improper secret dealings, misuse of federal money, private benefits to the Defendants, and the abuse of trust to steer $2.3 million to Charles.”
Dunne then made the very high-minded statement, “Our system of government depends upon the absolute integrity of public servants.” Her opening statement took 38 minutes.
Defense Attorney Andrew Rubin, representing Gerrie Post, opened his comments with, “You just heard a lot of awful bad things about Ms. Post. The Government doesn’t have any evidence of any crimes Ms. Post has committed, any crimes.”
To illustrate his point Rubin said, “Wick Security [a firm put together by Wayne Charles] was a closed bid and Ms. Post had nothing to do with it.”
Rubin went on, “The Government will not be able to prove that Gerrie Post defrauded the City of Mount Vernon out of property or out of her honest services.”
Having said that, he reminded the jury, “The standard is whether the Government proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt. There is no evidence of
a business relationship between Gerrie Post and Wayne Charles.”
He informed the jurors that Post had worked for Mount Vernon for 27 years, under Mayors Sharpe, Blackwood, and Davis. He did “admit”, however, that there had been some sloppy record keeping on his client’s watch. He then turned stern and declared, “The Government will not be able to prove that she knew of Wayne Charles’ ownership of Micros Only.”
Then turning to the $500,000 loan that Charles had received, Attorney Rubin said, “Thirty three building owners received grants. Eleven loans were given out, and four loans were lost. The City of Mount Vernon got the benefit of the bargain for what it paid.”
Attempting to put his client’s position in perspective, Rubin told the jurors, “She presented hundreds of proposals over a 15-year period. This case is based upon innuendo and speculation.” His remarks on behalf of Gerrie Post took all of 22 minutes.
Attorney Richard Levitt, speaking on behalf of Wayne Charles, immediately acknowledged that his client, “doesn’t dot every ‘i’ or cross every ‘t’.”
He quickly shifted his comments to his client’s project on Third Street, the building improvement for which he had reportedly borrowed the $500,000. He emphasized to the jurors, “The Third Street corridor was dirty and dangerous,” by way of putting his client into a favorable light for having attempted, and succeeded, in rehabilitating the small, multi-family dwelling at a rat-infested, filthy site.
Levitt told the jury of his client’s trips to China in 1997 and 1998, accompanied by Mayor Davis and Gerrie Post. He explained that it was during those trips that his client got to know Gerrie Post.
He attempted to clarify the charges against Charles: two frauds, the $500,000 loan, and the Micros Only contract, plus a charge of having made false statements to government agents when he was questioned.
Levitt concluded, telling the jurors, “This case is not about the Charles/Post relationship.” He assured them that his client “Didn’t intend to defraud, and did not conspire to deny Mount Vernon Ms. Post’s honest services.”
Analysis:
It would appear up-front that this case is going to be a typical Cynthia Dunne prosecution. By that I mean it is obvious, upon examining the three-count, 13-page indictment against Gerrie Post and Wayne Charles, given the Prosecution’s promise of 40 witnesses, that what will be brought
out will read like a badly redacted, cut-and-pasted soap opera, wherein a substantial cast of supporting actors will be covered up as the story line jumps from one scene to another, in a concerted effort to not reveal the actionable activities of co-conspirators-turned-Government-witnesses;
maybe even Ernie Davis, himself.
It is simply Attorney Dunne’s style to leave on the cutting room floor so much truth as is necessary to more convincingly project the confabulation she believes works best for her in terms of getting a conviction of those she chooses to destroy.
For example, in the Paul Cote case, the Prosecutor who just told this jury, “Our system of government depends upon the absolute integrity of public servants,” chose to prosecute the man she knew damned well was not responsible for inmate Zorn Teodorovic’s ultimate death by using the man, John Mark Reimer, who was responsible, as her key witness. ‘Where is public servant Cynthia Dunne’s integrity?’
After all, if what Dunne was eliciting from Reimer even remotely resembled the truth, why did it require 17 hours of rehearsal, with her, for Reimer to get his story straight at trial?
So much for the Prosecution’s case.
As for Defense strategy, it would appear that both Andy Rubin, for Post, and Richard Levitt, for Charles, hope to convince the jurors that what transpired between their clients, as well as between them and numerous so-called public servants in the City of Mount Vernon Municipal Administration for some eight years, until 2005, was so common around City Hall as to be hardly worthy of mention, much less federal
prosecution.
If, aside from a trash hauler with an established problem with the law, and a sanitation supervisor with whom he did business with the City, Gerrie Post and her boyfriend, Wayne Charles, are all that Michael Garcia & Co. could pull out of Mount Vernon after three-plus years of intensive investigation, with high public participation, then we have a sense something isn’t quite right about that investigation and the present prosecution.
After all, if what Dunne was eliciting from Reimer even remotely resembled the truth, why did it require 17 hours of rehearsal, with her, for Reimer to get his story straight at trial?
The Court Report
By Richard Blassberg
‘Gerrie’ Post And Wayne Charles Go To
Prosecutor-Predicted Four Week Trial
United States District Court, White Plains
Judge Kenneth M. Karas Presiding
The fraud case of former Mount Vernon Planning, and Housing Commissioner, Constance Post, 59, better known to her friends and people around
City Hall as ‘Gerrie’, and her reputed lover, Wayne Charles, a small-time real estate speculator and developer, finally got underway last Tuesday afternoon following a weather cancellation on Monday, and the need for District Court Judge Kenneth M. Karas to deal with three of the 16
jurors who had been seated the previous Friday.
The thrust of the Government’s case against the pair involves the alleged steering of some $2.3 million in loans and city contracts by Post to Charles over several years, for which lead Prosecutor Cynthia Dunne told the jury, in her opening statement, “The evidence will show that while Charles was riding high, he gave post $30,000.”
Assistant United States Attorney Dunne, who readers will recall is also the lead prosecutor in the Paul Cote case, told the jurors, “This case is about fraud, theft, and corruption,” explaining that it was Post’s calculated intention to wrongfully enrich Wayne Charles, 56, and ultimately enter into business with him. Attempting to tie the Defendants tightly together in a common scheme, Dunne declared, “It’s about two people who lied and cheated to enrich themselves with hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
Dunne said, “The most important Defendant is Constance Post. Post, and her very close friend, took advantage of funds available. Post made it
a priority to see that Mr. Charles got city contracts.”
Labeling it, “A brief overview,’ Dunne launched into the history of the company known as Micros Only, previously owned and operated by an associate of Charles, named Dante Brown. She explained how Charles, without Brown’s knowledge, set up checking accounts in the name of Micros Only Computer Concepts, Inc., thereby establishing a vehicle and depository into which funds from the City of Mount Vernon, in payment for computer technology services, ostensibly performed by Micros Only, could be deposited and disbursed under the control of Wayne Charles. Dunne explained that Charles involved his sister in the setting up and servicing of the bank accounts, thereby avoiding recognition and identification
with the flow of funds. Dunne explained that Post went far beyond steering computer technology business to Charles’ fraudulent business, declaring,
“Post took additional steps. She used HUD funds which were meant for housing and recreational uses.”
She explained further, to the jurors, “The City Council had placed specific caps on how much could be paid to Micros. When $80,000 was authorized, she [Post], in fact, released $335,000.”
Dunne indicated that in the following year Post moved more than $600,000 to Wayne Charles’ businesses, and, that when the City tightened the reins, she saw to it that her close friend obtained “A $500,000 loan by fraud as “Charles falsely swore he had no other relationship with the City.”
Dunne then pointed out to the jury that Mr. Charles had only repaid half of the loan, and that was several years later. Dunne went on to explain that there was a garage security contract for which Charles received $700,000, “even though he had no employees.” She pointed to the figure on a projection screen, to the jury, of $2,356,083.77 as the Government’s calculated “total of the funds that post arranged to be paid to Charles.”
Dunne assured the jurors that there would be abundant proof, “the testimony of many witnesses, lots of records and charts, the Defendant’s [Constance Post] very own words at public meetings.”
She concluded, telling the jury, “It’s about improper secret dealings, misuse of federal money, private benefits to the Defendants, and the abuse of trust to steer $2.3 million to Charles.”
Dunne then made the very high-minded statement, “Our system of government depends upon the absolute integrity of public servants.” Her opening statement took 38 minutes.
Defense Attorney Andrew Rubin, representing Gerrie Post, opened his comments with, “You just heard a lot of awful bad things about Ms. Post. The Government doesn’t have any evidence of any crimes Ms. Post has committed, any crimes.”
To illustrate his point Rubin said, “Wick Security [a firm put together by Wayne Charles] was a closed bid and Ms. Post had nothing to do with it.”
Rubin went on, “The Government will not be able to prove that Gerrie Post defrauded the City of Mount Vernon out of property or out of her honest services.”
Having said that, he reminded the jury, “The standard is whether the Government proves, beyond a shadow of a doubt. There is no evidence of
a business relationship between Gerrie Post and Wayne Charles.”
He informed the jurors that Post had worked for Mount Vernon for 27 years, under Mayors Sharpe, Blackwood, and Davis. He did “admit”, however, that there had been some sloppy record keeping on his client’s watch. He then turned stern and declared, “The Government will not be able to prove that she knew of Wayne Charles’ ownership of Micros Only.”
Then turning to the $500,000 loan that Charles had received, Attorney Rubin said, “Thirty three building owners received grants. Eleven loans were given out, and four loans were lost. The City of Mount Vernon got the benefit of the bargain for what it paid.”
Attempting to put his client’s position in perspective, Rubin told the jurors, “She presented hundreds of proposals over a 15-year period. This case is based upon innuendo and speculation.” His remarks on behalf of Gerrie Post took all of 22 minutes.
Attorney Richard Levitt, speaking on behalf of Wayne Charles, immediately acknowledged that his client, “doesn’t dot every ‘i’ or cross every ‘t’.”
He quickly shifted his comments to his client’s project on Third Street, the building improvement for which he had reportedly borrowed the $500,000. He emphasized to the jurors, “The Third Street corridor was dirty and dangerous,” by way of putting his client into a favorable light for having attempted, and succeeded, in rehabilitating the small, multi-family dwelling at a rat-infested, filthy site.
Levitt told the jury of his client’s trips to China in 1997 and 1998, accompanied by Mayor Davis and Gerrie Post. He explained that it was during those trips that his client got to know Gerrie Post.
He attempted to clarify the charges against Charles: two frauds, the $500,000 loan, and the Micros Only contract, plus a charge of having made false statements to government agents when he was questioned.
Levitt concluded, telling the jurors, “This case is not about the Charles/Post relationship.” He assured them that his client “Didn’t intend to defraud, and did not conspire to deny Mount Vernon Ms. Post’s honest services.”
Analysis:
It would appear up-front that this case is going to be a typical Cynthia Dunne prosecution. By that I mean it is obvious, upon examining the three-count, 13-page indictment against Gerrie Post and Wayne Charles, given the Prosecution’s promise of 40 witnesses, that what will be brought
out will read like a badly redacted, cut-and-pasted soap opera, wherein a substantial cast of supporting actors will be covered up as the story line jumps from one scene to another, in a concerted effort to not reveal the actionable activities of co-conspirators-turned-Government-witnesses;
maybe even Ernie Davis, himself.
It is simply Attorney Dunne’s style to leave on the cutting room floor so much truth as is necessary to more convincingly project the confabulation she believes works best for her in terms of getting a conviction of those she chooses to destroy.
For example, in the Paul Cote case, the Prosecutor who just told this jury, “Our system of government depends upon the absolute integrity of public servants,” chose to prosecute the man she knew damned well was not responsible for inmate Zorn Teodorovic’s ultimate death by using the man, John Mark Reimer, who was responsible, as her key witness. ‘Where is public servant Cynthia Dunne’s integrity?’
After all, if what Dunne was eliciting from Reimer even remotely resembled the truth, why did it require 17 hours of rehearsal, with her, for Reimer to get his story straight at trial?
So much for the Prosecution’s case.
As for Defense strategy, it would appear that both Andy Rubin, for Post, and Richard Levitt, for Charles, hope to convince the jurors that what transpired between their clients, as well as between them and numerous so-called public servants in the City of Mount Vernon Municipal Administration for some eight years, until 2005, was so common around City Hall as to be hardly worthy of mention, much less federal
prosecution.
If, aside from a trash hauler with an established problem with the law, and a sanitation supervisor with whom he did business with the City, Gerrie Post and her boyfriend, Wayne Charles, are all that Michael Garcia & Co. could pull out of Mount Vernon after three-plus years of intensive investigation, with high public participation, then we have a sense something isn’t quite right about that investigation and the present prosecution.
After all, if what Dunne was eliciting from Reimer even remotely resembled the truth, why did it require 17 hours of rehearsal, with her, for Reimer to get his story straight at trial?
Westchester Guardian/Jeffrey Deskovic.
Jeff Deskovic.
Georgetown University Law School Conference
Supports William Osbourne, Part 1
Last Monday, March 2, The Innocence Project argued the case of William Osbourne before the United States Supreme Court. The central issue
in the Osbourne case is whether or not defendants have a Constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing which can prove innocence.
In order to raise public awareness of the profound implications of this case, an event was held a few days earlier, on February 26, at Georgetown
University’s Law School. Shawn Amherst, the executive director of The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, was the Moderator. One of the goals of the project is to prevent and correct wrongful convictions in Maryland and the District of Columbia. She said that her organization was very excited to be there, co-sponsoring the event, along with the Georgetown Office of Public Service and Community Service as well as The Innocence Project.
Amherst stated that the case had broad implications, and that many people have an interest in its outcome. In the audience that day were people
who have had personal experiences with wrongful convictions: exonerees, a police officer who has experience with wrongful conviction cases, and a victim who misidentified her rapist and is now working to get him exonerated. Those people, she said, represented many more people across the country who could not be there that day.
To begin things, Amherst called up Professor David Rudovsky to offer background information on the Osbourne case. She stated that Rudovsky is a Senior Fellow at the University Of Pennsylvania’s School of Law, one of the nation’s foremost authorities on criminal law, Constitutional
Criminal Procedures and Evidence, and one of the leading minds on federal post-conviction remedies, which are the very issues raised by the Osbourne case.
Rudovsky started off by giving a factual background of the case. William Osbourne was convicted of rape in 1993 by the state of Alaska. As with
many wrongful conviction cases, it was a brutal crime. Two assailants attacked and raped the victim. One of the rapists, Dexter Jackson, was
apprehended. Jackson proceeded to implicate Osbourne. The identification that the victim gave did not really fit Osbourne and was tentative,
although at trial she identified him.
The rapist who penetrated the victim took off a blue condom that was recovered and had seminal fluid in it. In 1993 DQ-Alpha DNA was being utilized in Alaska, and with that type of testing the best that the state could determine was that Osbourne fit within 14 to 16% of the population who would have secreted as he did, which is no more accurate than blood type testing.
For eight years Osbourne has been seeking, unsuccessfully, more sophisticated DNA testing, which the district attorney in Alaska has been successfully blocking. He finally won the right to the testing at the United States Court Of Appeals, and now an Alaskan District Attorney’s Office has appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court. After Osbourne won the right to the testing, the district attorney admitted, for the first time, that the DNA Test, if performed, would conclusively show guilt or innocence.
Despite this public acknowledgment, he nonetheless continues to fight the testing. The Innocence Project has stated publicly, a number of times,
that although they don’t know whether Osbourne is guilty or innocent, he has the right to the testing. While being mindful of Mr. Osbourne’s rights, they are also aware that much more than his rights are on the line. The Constitution requires, they argue, that all citizens have the right to such testing in order to be able to prove their innocence. The district attorney has put forth the argument that the request for testing is frivolous in light of the “overwhelming evidence of guilt”, in addition that it would open the floodgates of litigation, and, finally, the public has a legitimate right to finality. Commenting on these arguments, Rudovsky stated that in many other cases where there was said to be overwhelming evidence of guilt, DNA has proven people innocent. Furthermore, there would not be a flood of litigation if Osbourne won because it would establish as law across the land that states must grant testing.
An amicus brief is a brief filed by people who are not parties to the instant case but who believe that their rights will be affected by the decision
and therefore want to make their position known, while citing law in an effort to support their position. The amicus briefs filed on behalf of Osbourne include those from current and former prosecutors, crime victims and victims’ families, people exonerated with post conviction DNA
testing, civil liberties and legal rights organizations, people who received clemency through post-conviction DNA testing.
The amicus briefs filed in support of Alaska include: the City of New York, an amicus brief from 31 U.S. States, briefs from the city, state and county associations, an amicus from crime victims, and a brief from the United States of America. The various states who argued on behalf of Alaska do so by arguing, in a nutshell, states rights: that states should be able set their own rules to decide for themselves whether to grant testing.
In order to give readers an even greater sense of the issue involved in this case, I decided to include an excerpt of a press release by The Innocence
Project: “The issue in this case is whether a state can deny a prisoner access to DNA testing that was not available at the time of trial and has the potential to prove his innocence. In the vast majority of cases, prisoners are granted DNA testing under state law or because prosecutors consent to testing without a court order. Alaska is the exception. It is the only state in the nation with no known case of a prisoner receiving DNA testing, either through court order or a prosecutor’s consent.
‘This case involves a very important Constitutional protection – one that is the only option for William Osborne,’ said Peter Neufeld, Co- Director of the Innocence Project, which is affiliated with Cardozo School of Law. In asking the Supreme Court to take the case, the state conceded for the first time that favorable DNA testing ‘would conclusively establish [Osborne’s] innocence’ – raising more questions about why the state will not simply consent to DNA testing.
The testing would come at no cost to the state, since the Innocence Project will pay for it, as the organization does in most of its cases. In its Supreme Court brief, the state makes procedural claims against Osborne’s lawsuit seeking DNA testing but never gives a rationale for denying him access to testing itself. In oral arguments at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a three-judge panel repeatedly questioned the state’s attorneys about why they are denying Osborne access to DNA testing. The attorneys said they were not ‘willing or able’ to answer any of those questions ‘at this time.’
The case before the Supreme Court does not seek to overturn Osborne’s conviction or challenge any part of the process leading to his conviction
– instead, it challenges the government’s arbitrary refusal to permit him access to the evidence in his case so that it can be subjected to testing
that was not available at the time of his trial. ‘DNA technology is new, but the principles in this case have a long and rich tradition. For decades,
the Supreme Court has recognized that defendants need access to evidence and the People’s right to liberty must be protected even after they
are convicted. More recently, courts across the country have recognized the power of DNA testing to resolve claims of innocence,’ Neufeld said.
‘Most prosecutors, judges and states recognize that while DNA testing in these cases may not always protect a conviction, it protects our system of justice by revealing the truth.’” Wanting to get the perspectives of people who have been exonerated by DNA testing, Ms. Amherst then
called Marvin Anderson to speak. According to The Innocence Project’s website, the facts of his case are: “On December 14, 1982, then
eighteen years old, he was convicted by a jury of robbery, forcible sodomy, abduction, and two counts of rape. The court sentenced Anderson to a
total of two hundred and ten years imprisonment in the Virginia State Penitentiary. Anderson went to prison in 1983 and was released after fifteen
years, facing lifetime parole. After being paroled, Anderson continued his efforts to clear his name. A young white woman was brutally raped on
July 17, 1982, by a black man who was a total stranger. He approached her on a bicycle. The assailant beat her repeatedly, threatened her with
a gun, raped her, and sodomized her.
After she reported the crime, a police officer singled out Marvin Anderson as a suspect because the perpetrator had told the victim that he ‘had a
white girl,’ and Marvin Anderson was the only black man the officer knew who lived with a white woman. Because Anderson had no criminal
record, the officer went to Anderson’s employer and obtained a color employment photo identification card. The victim was shown the color identification card and a half dozen black and white mug shots and then asked to pick the perpetrator. The victim identified Anderson as her assailant. Within an hour of the photo spread, she was asked to identify her assailant from a lineup. Marvin Anderson was the only person in the lineup whose picture was in the original photo array shown to the victim. She identified him in the lineup as well.
At trial, the victim testified in detail regarding the assault. In addition to the rape, she testified that her assailant pried her mouth open and inserted his penis and that he forced her to consume fecal matter and urinated on her. She again identified Anderson as her assailant. The serology work completed by the Virginia Bureau of Forensic Science was uninformative. Anderson’s trial counsel offered an alibi defense which included Anderson’s white girlfriend.
From the very beginning of the case, people in the community became aware that the most likely suspect was another black man named John Otis
Lincoln. The bicycle that had been identified as being used by the assailant was identified by the owner, who said that Lincoln had stolen it from him approximately one half hour before the rape. Although Anderson requested that his attorney call both the owner of the bicycle and Lincoln as witnesses, his counsel declined. An all white jury convicted Anderson on all counts. Although it was his first conflict with the law, he received consecutive sentences totaling two hundred and ten years.
In 1988, John Otis Lincoln came forward and admitted his involvement in the crime in an effort to clear Anderson. At a state habeas hearing in
August 1988, Lincoln confessed and offered details of the crime under oath, in open court. Nevertheless, the same judge that presided over the original trial declared Lincoln a liar and refused to vacate the conviction. A coalition of civil rights groups, church leaders, and members of the state legislature petitioned then-Governor Wilder for clemency in 1993, which was denied.
In the years after his conviction, after DNA testing became widely available, Anderson sought to prove his innocence of the crime. He insisted that the spermatozoa and semen samples be subjected to DNA analysis. His lawyers were told by the police, prosecutor, and court that the rape kit and its contents had been destroyed. Anderson then contacted the Innocence Project and his case was accepted in 1994.
In 2001, Dr. Paul Ferrara, Director of the Virginia Division of Forensic Science, advised the Innocence Project that certain physical evidence from
the case - including sperm and semen samples recovered from the victim’s body - had been located in the laboratory notebook of the criminalist who performed conventional serology in 1982. Had that criminalist followed policy and returned the partially used swabs to the rape kit, all evidence in this case would have been forever lost.
The Innocence Project contacted the Commonwealth Attorney for Hanover County, who agreed that the Division of Forensic Science should
conduct DNA tests on the evidence. In April 2001, however, the Director of the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services denied the request for testing, stating that because of ‘[t]he current number of cases pending in the Division and the potential for establishing an unwelcome precedent,’ and that Department would permit post-conviction scientific testing ‘only upon a defendant’s attorney showing ample cause for the court or the Governor’s Office to order such testing.’
In May 2001, Virginia adopted a new statute, VA Code Sec. 19.2-327.1, that permits individuals convicted of a felony to move the Circuit Court
that entered the original conviction to order new scientific analysis of previously untested scientific evidence. The Innocence Project, in conjunction with the Innocence Project of the National Capital Region at American University, filed under this new statute and won in the fall of 2001, initiating the process of getting the evidence in Anderson’s case tested.
Results on December 6, 2001, excluded Anderson as the perpetrator. Because the evidence was heavily degraded, the profile obtained was limited to four STR markers. When the profile was run against Virginia’s convicted offender DNA database, it matched two inmates. Although the identity of these two men has not been officially revealed, it appears that one of the inmates is John Otis Lincoln. Marvin Anderson spent fifteen years
in prison and four years on parole fighting to prove his innocence.
Following the recitation of his case, Johnson added that he never gave up. He stated that when a person is wrongfully convicted their lives stop, their families lives stop, and that even a person’s name stops. Now that he has been cleared, both his family and he are able to walk with their heads held high. He concluded by saying that he prays that the U.S. Supreme Court rules in behalf of Osbourne, allowing him to get the testing while also granting every citizen the right to the testing.
Dennis Fritz stated that he had spent 11 years in prison for a murder he was proven innocent of, and that his now deceased co-defendant, Ron
Williamson, had been sentenced to death. Fritz had been wrongfully convicted based upon a jailhouse informant claiming that Fritz had confessed.
This confession came one day before the prosecution would have been forced to drop its case against him. The main witness against the two was a man named Glen Gore, who DNA testing later proved was the actual perpetrator. Additionally, police had statements from Williamson regarding a
dream he had about the crime. Fritz stated that he remembered fighting for the DNA testing and thus he empathized with Osbourne.
Georgetown University Law School Conference
Supports William Osbourne, Part 1
Last Monday, March 2, The Innocence Project argued the case of William Osbourne before the United States Supreme Court. The central issue
in the Osbourne case is whether or not defendants have a Constitutional right to post-conviction DNA testing which can prove innocence.
In order to raise public awareness of the profound implications of this case, an event was held a few days earlier, on February 26, at Georgetown
University’s Law School. Shawn Amherst, the executive director of The Mid-Atlantic Innocence Project, was the Moderator. One of the goals of the project is to prevent and correct wrongful convictions in Maryland and the District of Columbia. She said that her organization was very excited to be there, co-sponsoring the event, along with the Georgetown Office of Public Service and Community Service as well as The Innocence Project.
Amherst stated that the case had broad implications, and that many people have an interest in its outcome. In the audience that day were people
who have had personal experiences with wrongful convictions: exonerees, a police officer who has experience with wrongful conviction cases, and a victim who misidentified her rapist and is now working to get him exonerated. Those people, she said, represented many more people across the country who could not be there that day.
To begin things, Amherst called up Professor David Rudovsky to offer background information on the Osbourne case. She stated that Rudovsky is a Senior Fellow at the University Of Pennsylvania’s School of Law, one of the nation’s foremost authorities on criminal law, Constitutional
Criminal Procedures and Evidence, and one of the leading minds on federal post-conviction remedies, which are the very issues raised by the Osbourne case.
Rudovsky started off by giving a factual background of the case. William Osbourne was convicted of rape in 1993 by the state of Alaska. As with
many wrongful conviction cases, it was a brutal crime. Two assailants attacked and raped the victim. One of the rapists, Dexter Jackson, was
apprehended. Jackson proceeded to implicate Osbourne. The identification that the victim gave did not really fit Osbourne and was tentative,
although at trial she identified him.
The rapist who penetrated the victim took off a blue condom that was recovered and had seminal fluid in it. In 1993 DQ-Alpha DNA was being utilized in Alaska, and with that type of testing the best that the state could determine was that Osbourne fit within 14 to 16% of the population who would have secreted as he did, which is no more accurate than blood type testing.
For eight years Osbourne has been seeking, unsuccessfully, more sophisticated DNA testing, which the district attorney in Alaska has been successfully blocking. He finally won the right to the testing at the United States Court Of Appeals, and now an Alaskan District Attorney’s Office has appealed the case to the United States Supreme Court. After Osbourne won the right to the testing, the district attorney admitted, for the first time, that the DNA Test, if performed, would conclusively show guilt or innocence.
Despite this public acknowledgment, he nonetheless continues to fight the testing. The Innocence Project has stated publicly, a number of times,
that although they don’t know whether Osbourne is guilty or innocent, he has the right to the testing. While being mindful of Mr. Osbourne’s rights, they are also aware that much more than his rights are on the line. The Constitution requires, they argue, that all citizens have the right to such testing in order to be able to prove their innocence. The district attorney has put forth the argument that the request for testing is frivolous in light of the “overwhelming evidence of guilt”, in addition that it would open the floodgates of litigation, and, finally, the public has a legitimate right to finality. Commenting on these arguments, Rudovsky stated that in many other cases where there was said to be overwhelming evidence of guilt, DNA has proven people innocent. Furthermore, there would not be a flood of litigation if Osbourne won because it would establish as law across the land that states must grant testing.
An amicus brief is a brief filed by people who are not parties to the instant case but who believe that their rights will be affected by the decision
and therefore want to make their position known, while citing law in an effort to support their position. The amicus briefs filed on behalf of Osbourne include those from current and former prosecutors, crime victims and victims’ families, people exonerated with post conviction DNA
testing, civil liberties and legal rights organizations, people who received clemency through post-conviction DNA testing.
The amicus briefs filed in support of Alaska include: the City of New York, an amicus brief from 31 U.S. States, briefs from the city, state and county associations, an amicus from crime victims, and a brief from the United States of America. The various states who argued on behalf of Alaska do so by arguing, in a nutshell, states rights: that states should be able set their own rules to decide for themselves whether to grant testing.
In order to give readers an even greater sense of the issue involved in this case, I decided to include an excerpt of a press release by The Innocence
Project: “The issue in this case is whether a state can deny a prisoner access to DNA testing that was not available at the time of trial and has the potential to prove his innocence. In the vast majority of cases, prisoners are granted DNA testing under state law or because prosecutors consent to testing without a court order. Alaska is the exception. It is the only state in the nation with no known case of a prisoner receiving DNA testing, either through court order or a prosecutor’s consent.
‘This case involves a very important Constitutional protection – one that is the only option for William Osborne,’ said Peter Neufeld, Co- Director of the Innocence Project, which is affiliated with Cardozo School of Law. In asking the Supreme Court to take the case, the state conceded for the first time that favorable DNA testing ‘would conclusively establish [Osborne’s] innocence’ – raising more questions about why the state will not simply consent to DNA testing.
The testing would come at no cost to the state, since the Innocence Project will pay for it, as the organization does in most of its cases. In its Supreme Court brief, the state makes procedural claims against Osborne’s lawsuit seeking DNA testing but never gives a rationale for denying him access to testing itself. In oral arguments at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, a three-judge panel repeatedly questioned the state’s attorneys about why they are denying Osborne access to DNA testing. The attorneys said they were not ‘willing or able’ to answer any of those questions ‘at this time.’
The case before the Supreme Court does not seek to overturn Osborne’s conviction or challenge any part of the process leading to his conviction
– instead, it challenges the government’s arbitrary refusal to permit him access to the evidence in his case so that it can be subjected to testing
that was not available at the time of his trial. ‘DNA technology is new, but the principles in this case have a long and rich tradition. For decades,
the Supreme Court has recognized that defendants need access to evidence and the People’s right to liberty must be protected even after they
are convicted. More recently, courts across the country have recognized the power of DNA testing to resolve claims of innocence,’ Neufeld said.
‘Most prosecutors, judges and states recognize that while DNA testing in these cases may not always protect a conviction, it protects our system of justice by revealing the truth.’” Wanting to get the perspectives of people who have been exonerated by DNA testing, Ms. Amherst then
called Marvin Anderson to speak. According to The Innocence Project’s website, the facts of his case are: “On December 14, 1982, then
eighteen years old, he was convicted by a jury of robbery, forcible sodomy, abduction, and two counts of rape. The court sentenced Anderson to a
total of two hundred and ten years imprisonment in the Virginia State Penitentiary. Anderson went to prison in 1983 and was released after fifteen
years, facing lifetime parole. After being paroled, Anderson continued his efforts to clear his name. A young white woman was brutally raped on
July 17, 1982, by a black man who was a total stranger. He approached her on a bicycle. The assailant beat her repeatedly, threatened her with
a gun, raped her, and sodomized her.
After she reported the crime, a police officer singled out Marvin Anderson as a suspect because the perpetrator had told the victim that he ‘had a
white girl,’ and Marvin Anderson was the only black man the officer knew who lived with a white woman. Because Anderson had no criminal
record, the officer went to Anderson’s employer and obtained a color employment photo identification card. The victim was shown the color identification card and a half dozen black and white mug shots and then asked to pick the perpetrator. The victim identified Anderson as her assailant. Within an hour of the photo spread, she was asked to identify her assailant from a lineup. Marvin Anderson was the only person in the lineup whose picture was in the original photo array shown to the victim. She identified him in the lineup as well.
At trial, the victim testified in detail regarding the assault. In addition to the rape, she testified that her assailant pried her mouth open and inserted his penis and that he forced her to consume fecal matter and urinated on her. She again identified Anderson as her assailant. The serology work completed by the Virginia Bureau of Forensic Science was uninformative. Anderson’s trial counsel offered an alibi defense which included Anderson’s white girlfriend.
From the very beginning of the case, people in the community became aware that the most likely suspect was another black man named John Otis
Lincoln. The bicycle that had been identified as being used by the assailant was identified by the owner, who said that Lincoln had stolen it from him approximately one half hour before the rape. Although Anderson requested that his attorney call both the owner of the bicycle and Lincoln as witnesses, his counsel declined. An all white jury convicted Anderson on all counts. Although it was his first conflict with the law, he received consecutive sentences totaling two hundred and ten years.
In 1988, John Otis Lincoln came forward and admitted his involvement in the crime in an effort to clear Anderson. At a state habeas hearing in
August 1988, Lincoln confessed and offered details of the crime under oath, in open court. Nevertheless, the same judge that presided over the original trial declared Lincoln a liar and refused to vacate the conviction. A coalition of civil rights groups, church leaders, and members of the state legislature petitioned then-Governor Wilder for clemency in 1993, which was denied.
In the years after his conviction, after DNA testing became widely available, Anderson sought to prove his innocence of the crime. He insisted that the spermatozoa and semen samples be subjected to DNA analysis. His lawyers were told by the police, prosecutor, and court that the rape kit and its contents had been destroyed. Anderson then contacted the Innocence Project and his case was accepted in 1994.
In 2001, Dr. Paul Ferrara, Director of the Virginia Division of Forensic Science, advised the Innocence Project that certain physical evidence from
the case - including sperm and semen samples recovered from the victim’s body - had been located in the laboratory notebook of the criminalist who performed conventional serology in 1982. Had that criminalist followed policy and returned the partially used swabs to the rape kit, all evidence in this case would have been forever lost.
The Innocence Project contacted the Commonwealth Attorney for Hanover County, who agreed that the Division of Forensic Science should
conduct DNA tests on the evidence. In April 2001, however, the Director of the Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services denied the request for testing, stating that because of ‘[t]he current number of cases pending in the Division and the potential for establishing an unwelcome precedent,’ and that Department would permit post-conviction scientific testing ‘only upon a defendant’s attorney showing ample cause for the court or the Governor’s Office to order such testing.’
In May 2001, Virginia adopted a new statute, VA Code Sec. 19.2-327.1, that permits individuals convicted of a felony to move the Circuit Court
that entered the original conviction to order new scientific analysis of previously untested scientific evidence. The Innocence Project, in conjunction with the Innocence Project of the National Capital Region at American University, filed under this new statute and won in the fall of 2001, initiating the process of getting the evidence in Anderson’s case tested.
Results on December 6, 2001, excluded Anderson as the perpetrator. Because the evidence was heavily degraded, the profile obtained was limited to four STR markers. When the profile was run against Virginia’s convicted offender DNA database, it matched two inmates. Although the identity of these two men has not been officially revealed, it appears that one of the inmates is John Otis Lincoln. Marvin Anderson spent fifteen years
in prison and four years on parole fighting to prove his innocence.
Following the recitation of his case, Johnson added that he never gave up. He stated that when a person is wrongfully convicted their lives stop, their families lives stop, and that even a person’s name stops. Now that he has been cleared, both his family and he are able to walk with their heads held high. He concluded by saying that he prays that the U.S. Supreme Court rules in behalf of Osbourne, allowing him to get the testing while also granting every citizen the right to the testing.
Dennis Fritz stated that he had spent 11 years in prison for a murder he was proven innocent of, and that his now deceased co-defendant, Ron
Williamson, had been sentenced to death. Fritz had been wrongfully convicted based upon a jailhouse informant claiming that Fritz had confessed.
This confession came one day before the prosecution would have been forced to drop its case against him. The main witness against the two was a man named Glen Gore, who DNA testing later proved was the actual perpetrator. Additionally, police had statements from Williamson regarding a
dream he had about the crime. Fritz stated that he remembered fighting for the DNA testing and thus he empathized with Osbourne.
Westchester Guardian/Catherine Wilson.
Thursday, March 12, 2009
Catherine Wilson, Bureau Chief
Northern Westchester
Pride of New York
The New York State Department of Agriculture (NYSDA) has been ahead of the curve for 14 years in developing economic stimulus programs. Started in 1995, the NYSDA has been encouraging the use of New York State products in its “Pride of New York” program.
Originally developed to assist New York State farmers with their marketing efforts, the Pride of New York program has recently shifted
its focus to area restaurants and chefs and local consumers. Mr. Robert Lewis, the Special Assistant for Market Development for the NYSDA spoke to the Guardian about their stimulus programs already in place. “We are the marketing arm for local farmers,” Lewis noted.
“Our job is to encourage restaurants and consumers to buy local products.
With our ‘Pride of New York’ program we have a valuable franchise. We are encouraging local producers and restaurants to sign up and
display our logo in their windows so consumers can be assured they are helping the local economy”. A consumer seeing the green and
white logo in a supermarket or restaurant window can be assured that the establishment is serving New York products.
“This is not an ‘all or nothing’ venture” Lewis explained. “We know restaurants and supermarkets cannot just purchase only New York State products. But the restaurants who join our program, however, are saying to their customers that they are trying to buy as much as possible from local vendors and farmers. And we’ll stand behind their guarantees”.
On the NYSDA website, www.agmkt.state.ny.us/AP/PrideOfNY, a Westchester resident can search for local food producers, farmers’
markets, and restaurants dedicated to using New York State products. In addition to local supermarkets and farmers’ markets and distributors, several Westchester producers have already joined the Pride program:
Krasdale Foods, White Plains: Grocery Wholesaler
Artuso Pastry, Mt. Vernon:
Bakery Barrie House Coffee, Yonkers: Coffee Manufacturer
Bombay Emerald Chutney, Yorktown: Gourmet Chutneys
Captain Lawrence Brewing, Pleasantville: Microbrewery
Carrillo’s Salsa, Rye: Gourmet Salsa
Joes BQ, Purchase: Barbeque Sauce
Raw Indulgence, Ardsley:
Raw Foods
Soul Veggie Delicious, Mt. Vernon: Speciality Foods
To date there is only one Westchester restaurant signed up for the “Pride of New York” program – the Iron Horse Grill in Pleasantville.
In upstate New York, the pattern is much different. Scores of local restaurants and even college dining halls such as the University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology are all participants of the Pride program and strive to use New York State food products in their menus.
And they have a wealth of producers to choose from. According to the NYSDA, 25% of the State’s land is farmland; the State has over 26 million square feet of greenhouses, is the third largest producer of maple syrup and milk in the nation, has over 60 microbreweries, and is the largest grapejuice-producing state in the country.
At the International Restaurant and Wine Expo in the Javits Convention Center in New York City recently, the NYSDA set up an entire “Pride of New York” section dedicated to local wineries and food producers, many of whom were from the Hudson Valley area.
The Guardian spoke at length to several of the vendors displayed. The owner of “My Brother Bobby’s Salsa”, Robert Gropper, of Poughkeepsie proudly told us that his salsa was definitely a food product that New York could be proud of – it was voted best overall product in its first appearance at the Restaurant Show in 2000. Gropper’s pride in his products and upbeat attitude was infectious: “What recession?” he boomed. “I’ve had my best January ever”.
Gropper has noticed that the consumer end of his business is increasing: “Families are eating out less, but they want good food at home. I have to be aware of how the economy and the market shifts and respond to what my customers want”. Gropper not only responds to consumer changes, he backs his products with a 100% Guaranteed Sales Program to his customers taking full responsibility for the turnover
of fresh products. As a Pride of New York member, Gropper is aware of the impact of supporting neighbors and donates his time and products to local food banks in turn.
Gropper noted one of the advantages of Westchester residents buying local produce, “When you buy locally, you know exactly where the produce is coming from. And when you produce locally, you have the same advantage”.
Gropper recalled the tomato scare of last summer, “I know the farmers I buy my tomatoes from so I knew my products were safe. I buy my tomatoes, peppers, basil and cilantro in season from local farmers such as Wallkill View Farm in New Paltz, New York.”
As we interviewed Gropper at his display, several of his loyal customers/fans approached to share their stories of how much they loved his products. confirmation that consumers who buy locally literally do know exactly who they are buying from. In addition to knowing the
source, and helping the economy, freshness is a major benefit of buying locally. Jessica Chittenden, Director of Communications for the NYSDA noted that, “Food tastes better when it’s purchased locally. It hasn’t been sitting on a truck for two days or on a train for five days”.
Gabriel, at the Breezy Hill Farms booth, offered samples of locally produced fresh apple cider. One sip proved his claim that, “It was like drinking an apple. Our cider is fresh and there is no aftertaste,” he said. “When you start with a great product, you get a great taste,” he added.
Like most New York State food producers, Breezy Hill has expanded into other products. “We have 10,000 chickens on our farm,” Gabriel noted. “They eat corn and grass so their eggs are completely natural. We also make healthy cookies using no white sugar. And since everything is fresh, you taste it the way nature intended”.
In addition to the “Pride of New York” symbols, many local food producers also employ some “tried and true” methods to attract attention to their products. Stephanie, from Esposito’s Sausage, tempted the attendees at the Javits Center trade show with samples of locally-made gourmet sausages. “We sell in the New York area and our owner, David Samuels, is from Pleasantville,” Stephanie said.
Champlain Valley Specialty Foods in Keeseville play up their local benefits when negotiating food distribution contracts. The New York City school system will soon offer their individually packaged sliced apples in every school lunch. White Plains Linen, a catering and party supply service, also attended the Javits Center event and offered displays and instructions of napkin folding techniques to customers and consumers.
As their account representative, Wayne Wilson, noted, “Good food should be displayed well”. The NYSDA is increasing its efforts to encourage the use of local food products. At the Javits Center show, New York State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker encouraged New York restaurants to source more New York food and beverages for their menus. “More people are getting a true taste of the Empire State when dining out,” the Commissioner said, “because more restaurants are including New York grown and made products in their recipes and on their menus.
I applaud those establishments for ‘buying local’ and encourage more chefs to do the same. The Pride of New York program can help them by making connections to more than 2,000 New York farmers, wineries and food processors, offering a variety of delicious items, all made or
grown here in New York State.”
To further encourage the use of New York State products on area restaurant menus, the NYSDA offers cooperative advertising funding, up to $5,000 to promote the use of specialty crops, such as local fruits and vegetables, maple and honey products on their menus. Restaurant owners who are already participants in the “Pride of New York” program see the positive results first-hand from their customers.
As Philip McGrath, the owner of the Iron Horse Grill in Pleasantville, noted, “At the Iron Horse Grill more and more of our customers are genuinely interested in where their food is coming from. They are always excited to hear that we are using locally grown and sourced New York State products on our menus.
Whether it be oysters from Fishers Island, chevre from Bedford Hills, honey from Putnam County, wines from the North Fork and even beer brewed right here in Pleasantville, these items sell themselves. When we tell our diners that the salad they are about to eat or that the apples in their dessert came from the local farmers who bring their wares to our Saturday Greenmarket they are always impressed.”
Last week, “advisers” on the Oprah show encouraged her millions of listeners to stop going out to restaurants and cut back on their personal spending while this recession lasts. Unfortunately, this advice will only serve to worsen the current economic crisis. McGrath noted that while the Iron Horse is a small, intimate restaurant, “We still employ over 20 people. They are individuals with families or even local teenagers paying their bills. When a restaurant closes it affects more than just the owner”.
McGrath has seen four neighboring restaurants in Pleasantville close in the last few months, the latest, Jackson & Wheeler, just three weeks ago. If more local residents follow the advice of the “experts” and cut back on eating out in local restaurants, that will put even more owners out of business, possibly causing them to lose their homes.
Most business owners leverage their homes to finance their businesses, and will put both local neighbors supporting their own families and teenagers paying for college out of jobs. A better way for Westchester residents to survive the recession and stimulate the local economy
is to stop buying foreign-made products or even products from out of state.
Survivors of the Great Depression and the two World Wars are used to “looking for the union label” as a way to guarantee American made products. Westchester residents should now also look for the “Pride of New York” symbol in local supermarkets and restaurants to guarantee that the money they are spending is being used right here in our own backyards keeping our neighbors employed and in their homes.
Catherine Wilson, Bureau Chief
Northern Westchester
Pride of New York
The New York State Department of Agriculture (NYSDA) has been ahead of the curve for 14 years in developing economic stimulus programs. Started in 1995, the NYSDA has been encouraging the use of New York State products in its “Pride of New York” program.
Originally developed to assist New York State farmers with their marketing efforts, the Pride of New York program has recently shifted
its focus to area restaurants and chefs and local consumers. Mr. Robert Lewis, the Special Assistant for Market Development for the NYSDA spoke to the Guardian about their stimulus programs already in place. “We are the marketing arm for local farmers,” Lewis noted.
“Our job is to encourage restaurants and consumers to buy local products.
With our ‘Pride of New York’ program we have a valuable franchise. We are encouraging local producers and restaurants to sign up and
display our logo in their windows so consumers can be assured they are helping the local economy”. A consumer seeing the green and
white logo in a supermarket or restaurant window can be assured that the establishment is serving New York products.
“This is not an ‘all or nothing’ venture” Lewis explained. “We know restaurants and supermarkets cannot just purchase only New York State products. But the restaurants who join our program, however, are saying to their customers that they are trying to buy as much as possible from local vendors and farmers. And we’ll stand behind their guarantees”.
On the NYSDA website, www.agmkt.state.ny.us/AP/PrideOfNY, a Westchester resident can search for local food producers, farmers’
markets, and restaurants dedicated to using New York State products. In addition to local supermarkets and farmers’ markets and distributors, several Westchester producers have already joined the Pride program:
Krasdale Foods, White Plains: Grocery Wholesaler
Artuso Pastry, Mt. Vernon:
Bakery Barrie House Coffee, Yonkers: Coffee Manufacturer
Bombay Emerald Chutney, Yorktown: Gourmet Chutneys
Captain Lawrence Brewing, Pleasantville: Microbrewery
Carrillo’s Salsa, Rye: Gourmet Salsa
Joes BQ, Purchase: Barbeque Sauce
Raw Indulgence, Ardsley:
Raw Foods
Soul Veggie Delicious, Mt. Vernon: Speciality Foods
To date there is only one Westchester restaurant signed up for the “Pride of New York” program – the Iron Horse Grill in Pleasantville.
In upstate New York, the pattern is much different. Scores of local restaurants and even college dining halls such as the University of Rochester and the Rochester Institute of Technology are all participants of the Pride program and strive to use New York State food products in their menus.
And they have a wealth of producers to choose from. According to the NYSDA, 25% of the State’s land is farmland; the State has over 26 million square feet of greenhouses, is the third largest producer of maple syrup and milk in the nation, has over 60 microbreweries, and is the largest grapejuice-producing state in the country.
At the International Restaurant and Wine Expo in the Javits Convention Center in New York City recently, the NYSDA set up an entire “Pride of New York” section dedicated to local wineries and food producers, many of whom were from the Hudson Valley area.
The Guardian spoke at length to several of the vendors displayed. The owner of “My Brother Bobby’s Salsa”, Robert Gropper, of Poughkeepsie proudly told us that his salsa was definitely a food product that New York could be proud of – it was voted best overall product in its first appearance at the Restaurant Show in 2000. Gropper’s pride in his products and upbeat attitude was infectious: “What recession?” he boomed. “I’ve had my best January ever”.
Gropper has noticed that the consumer end of his business is increasing: “Families are eating out less, but they want good food at home. I have to be aware of how the economy and the market shifts and respond to what my customers want”. Gropper not only responds to consumer changes, he backs his products with a 100% Guaranteed Sales Program to his customers taking full responsibility for the turnover
of fresh products. As a Pride of New York member, Gropper is aware of the impact of supporting neighbors and donates his time and products to local food banks in turn.
Gropper noted one of the advantages of Westchester residents buying local produce, “When you buy locally, you know exactly where the produce is coming from. And when you produce locally, you have the same advantage”.
Gropper recalled the tomato scare of last summer, “I know the farmers I buy my tomatoes from so I knew my products were safe. I buy my tomatoes, peppers, basil and cilantro in season from local farmers such as Wallkill View Farm in New Paltz, New York.”
As we interviewed Gropper at his display, several of his loyal customers/fans approached to share their stories of how much they loved his products. confirmation that consumers who buy locally literally do know exactly who they are buying from. In addition to knowing the
source, and helping the economy, freshness is a major benefit of buying locally. Jessica Chittenden, Director of Communications for the NYSDA noted that, “Food tastes better when it’s purchased locally. It hasn’t been sitting on a truck for two days or on a train for five days”.
Gabriel, at the Breezy Hill Farms booth, offered samples of locally produced fresh apple cider. One sip proved his claim that, “It was like drinking an apple. Our cider is fresh and there is no aftertaste,” he said. “When you start with a great product, you get a great taste,” he added.
Like most New York State food producers, Breezy Hill has expanded into other products. “We have 10,000 chickens on our farm,” Gabriel noted. “They eat corn and grass so their eggs are completely natural. We also make healthy cookies using no white sugar. And since everything is fresh, you taste it the way nature intended”.
In addition to the “Pride of New York” symbols, many local food producers also employ some “tried and true” methods to attract attention to their products. Stephanie, from Esposito’s Sausage, tempted the attendees at the Javits Center trade show with samples of locally-made gourmet sausages. “We sell in the New York area and our owner, David Samuels, is from Pleasantville,” Stephanie said.
Champlain Valley Specialty Foods in Keeseville play up their local benefits when negotiating food distribution contracts. The New York City school system will soon offer their individually packaged sliced apples in every school lunch. White Plains Linen, a catering and party supply service, also attended the Javits Center event and offered displays and instructions of napkin folding techniques to customers and consumers.
As their account representative, Wayne Wilson, noted, “Good food should be displayed well”. The NYSDA is increasing its efforts to encourage the use of local food products. At the Javits Center show, New York State Agriculture Commissioner Patrick Hooker encouraged New York restaurants to source more New York food and beverages for their menus. “More people are getting a true taste of the Empire State when dining out,” the Commissioner said, “because more restaurants are including New York grown and made products in their recipes and on their menus.
I applaud those establishments for ‘buying local’ and encourage more chefs to do the same. The Pride of New York program can help them by making connections to more than 2,000 New York farmers, wineries and food processors, offering a variety of delicious items, all made or
grown here in New York State.”
To further encourage the use of New York State products on area restaurant menus, the NYSDA offers cooperative advertising funding, up to $5,000 to promote the use of specialty crops, such as local fruits and vegetables, maple and honey products on their menus. Restaurant owners who are already participants in the “Pride of New York” program see the positive results first-hand from their customers.
As Philip McGrath, the owner of the Iron Horse Grill in Pleasantville, noted, “At the Iron Horse Grill more and more of our customers are genuinely interested in where their food is coming from. They are always excited to hear that we are using locally grown and sourced New York State products on our menus.
Whether it be oysters from Fishers Island, chevre from Bedford Hills, honey from Putnam County, wines from the North Fork and even beer brewed right here in Pleasantville, these items sell themselves. When we tell our diners that the salad they are about to eat or that the apples in their dessert came from the local farmers who bring their wares to our Saturday Greenmarket they are always impressed.”
Last week, “advisers” on the Oprah show encouraged her millions of listeners to stop going out to restaurants and cut back on their personal spending while this recession lasts. Unfortunately, this advice will only serve to worsen the current economic crisis. McGrath noted that while the Iron Horse is a small, intimate restaurant, “We still employ over 20 people. They are individuals with families or even local teenagers paying their bills. When a restaurant closes it affects more than just the owner”.
McGrath has seen four neighboring restaurants in Pleasantville close in the last few months, the latest, Jackson & Wheeler, just three weeks ago. If more local residents follow the advice of the “experts” and cut back on eating out in local restaurants, that will put even more owners out of business, possibly causing them to lose their homes.
Most business owners leverage their homes to finance their businesses, and will put both local neighbors supporting their own families and teenagers paying for college out of jobs. A better way for Westchester residents to survive the recession and stimulate the local economy
is to stop buying foreign-made products or even products from out of state.
Survivors of the Great Depression and the two World Wars are used to “looking for the union label” as a way to guarantee American made products. Westchester residents should now also look for the “Pride of New York” symbol in local supermarkets and restaurants to guarantee that the money they are spending is being used right here in our own backyards keeping our neighbors employed and in their homes.
Thursday, March 5, 2009
Westchester Guardian/Jeff Deskovic/Janet Difiore.
Jeff Deskovic
New York State Bar Holds Hearing
On Wrongful Convictions
Westchester DA Janet DiFiore Present As Panelist
In my last two columns I reviewed the Preliminary Report of the New York State Bar Association pertaining to wrongful convictions. On Feb. 13,
2009, a public hearing was held for the purpose of inviting public comment. This article will deal with that hearing.
There was a panel consisting of several members of the task force that had written the report. Each speaker was allowed five minutes to present,
followed by two or three minutes of questioning. Although the hearing was open to the public, testimony was limited to invitation only.
Upon arrival, I noticed some familiar faces; individuals engaged in dealing with the phenomenon of wrongful conviction, including Lonnie Soury, Eric Friedman, and Bruce Barket, who had helped clear Marty Tankleff. Barkett had done the legal work, Soury the public relations, and Friedman had designed and updated the website.
I was surprised to discover that Janet DiFiore was on the panel. Her presence would make my testimony somewhat awkward, because in arguing
the necessity for legislation criminalizing intentional prosecutorial misconduct, a reform that the report failed to include, I would be referencing several Westchester cases, some of which pre-dated her becoming District Attorney but which she, nevertheless, chose to defend, thus attempting to perpetuate several wrongful convictions, much the same way Jeanine Pirro had fought against all seven of my appeals though I had originally been prosecuted under her predecessor Carl Vergari.
Although DiFiore has given lip service to being a part of the anti-wrongful conviction movement and has hastened to add her name to any
number of reports advocating reforms intended to make the criminal justice system more accurate, all too often hers, and her Office’s, actions have run contrary to that position. In the below-mentioned cases, her office attempted to perpetuate wrongful convictions against defendants who had previously been wrongfully convicted under Jeanine Pirro, to say nothing of her own shameful prosecution of police brutality victim Irma Marquez, which resulted in an acquittal.
Furthermore, DiFiore has issued fraudulent statements about having a Second Look Program which supposedly pro-actively searches for wrongful
conviction cases, when in fact no such program exists. No information about such a program has been made available to the public and is unknown by assistant DAs in her Appeals Bureau, as well as by her chief of staff. From my standpoint, proof lies in the actual actions and conduct of her Office, and not in the words that she has uttered.
Upon spotting me, she greeted me cordially, and we exchanged pleasantries while my resolve to give the testimony I had come to present remained
unchanged. Interestingly, during the entire proceedings, Janet DiFiore asked no questions of any witness nor did she offer any comments. In fact,
she left the hearing about 90 minutes before it concluded.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown stated that wrongful convictions were extremely rare on his watch. He stated that when his Office
is approached, pre-trial, with an actual claim of innocence, corroborated with credible evidence, they undertake an investigation. He went on to
claim that when a post-conviction claim of innocence is made, a senior prosecutor is assigned to look into it. He said that in light of guilty defendants bringing baseless allegations of innocence that there needed to be some limitation on the opportunity to endlessly reopen criminal cases.
Brown made a point of stating that prosecutors in his Office understand that it is their job to bring about justice, and that they are expected to
observe high ethical and professional standards. Furthering pursuing that theme, he declared that prosectors, “Must maintain a high state of alert to
any indication of corruption or misconduct and root it out immediately.”
He went on to enumerate many educational programs available to prosecutors. With all due respect, District Attorney Richard Brown is just another individual who says one thing while doing another. His Office’s record is one of the worst with respect to prosecutorial misconduct.
Furthermore, amongst all of the New York exonerations, a responsible position to take would have been that there needs to be more review of allegations of actual innocence whenever a colorable claim of innocence can be made, not fewer.
Staten Island District Attorney Donavan, also the President of the District Attorney’s Association Of New York State, stated that it is a prosecutor’s worst nightmare to convict an innocent person. He expressed concern about pre-trial detention of innocent defendants. He vocalized
support of pre-trial DNA testing, and he o ered to provide support to other district attorneys’ offices if requested in reinvestigating a case. He went on to say that while he was in favor of legislative changes, he did not want to place at risk the “extraordinary success” they have enjoyed in making New York the safest large state.
Asked the crucial question by a panel member, “Why won’t the District Attorneys Association support mandatory videotaping of interrogations?”
he took a dodge, citing costs. Objectively speaking, I would ask, “Who would consider 52 wrongful convictions ‘extraordinary success?’” One must consider, too, that those exonerations are but a tip of the iceberg and that New York State is third in the country with respect to the number of
DNA-proven wrongful convictions.
Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, started out by stating that in jurisdictions where videotaping interrogations is performed, it
has not proven costly. He added that the risk of wrongful convictions by not doing so was very costly. Addressing the notion that some defendants
would not agree to talk if they knew they were being videotaped, Scheck stated that cameras could be hidden and simply turned on without permission.
Turning to misidentifications, Scheck then suggested “The Great Compromise”. He pointed out that live lineups cost more money than photo
arrays while offering no greater reliability, but that they are done anyway because police fear that if a photo array is not allowed into evidence they might be left with no case; whereas if they conduct a lineup, they would at least have that evidence.
The compromise Scheck suggested was that police might stop doing lineups to save money, and that even if a photo array does not meet the new
standards, they should be admitted into evidence anyway and considered by a jury, which also would be given an instruction by a judge as to the fact
that array was not conducted according to best practices.
Peter Neufeld spoke next, emphasizing the need for videotaping of interrogations. Neufeld was asked about when videotaping would begin, out
of concern about the circumstances which take place in a police car and at a precinct prior to the camera being turned on.
With all due respect to Barry Scheck, who has been in the front lines in the battle against wrongful convictions since 1993, I disagree with his position. Many defendants’ lives have been wrecked, as well as their families, as a result of misidentifications, that have caused many to spend decades in prison wrongfully.
It is time to stop pussyfooting around. Either police officers use the best practices when conducting lineups and photo arrays or else the evidence should not be admitted. As for those expressing concerns that the guilty might get away under such stringent conditions, my response is to put the onus back on the police to conduct such procedures in the most reliable way possible, as the cost of not doing so is far too great.
Ezekial Edwards works in the Policy Department of The Innocence Project, which is the section of the organization that has been focusing on bringing about legislative changes. Edwards told the panel that the reforms that The Innocence Project advocates are grounded in empirical data obtained through social science. He stated that misidentifications cause the police to focus on an innocent person, and away from the real
perpetrator. He stated that multiple identifications made using unreliable methods did not increase accuracy.
He pointed to Luis Diaz who served 25 years in Florida after being misidentified by eight people; Brandon Moon who served 17 years after being
misidentified by five people; Kirk Bloodsworth, who was sentenced to death after being misidentified by five people.
Edwards advocated for blind administration, where the officers doing the lineup or photo array don’t know who the suspect is. He further advocated for instructing the eyewitness that the perpetrator may or may not be in the lineup or in the photo array, and that the investigation will continue if no one is picked. He advocated for proper composition of lineups, ensuring that fillers are picked based upon the description of the victim rather than people who look like a suspect, while not allowing a suspect to unduly stick out. Additionally, only one suspect at a time should be in a lineup.
Edwards also advocated the need to obtain confidence statements, asking victims and witnesses to state, on a scale of one to ten, how confident
they actually are of their selections. Finally, Edwards stressed the importance of documenting the lineup procedure by recording it, and the preservation of the photos that were used as well as sequential presentation; the showing to a victim of one person or one photo at a time, rather
than everybody at once. Edwards said “show ups” are inherently unreliable and far too suggestive to be continued.
Alan Newton, a well-known New York City exoneree, spoke of serving 21 years in prison based on a misidentification. He described how, for
13 of his 21 years, police authorities kept stating that they could not find the DNA evidence. He expressed his support for a standardized evidence
preservation system mentioned in the Report.
In offering my own testimony, as an exoneree who spent 16 years in prison for a capital crime that the police and district attorney’s office
clearly knew I was innocent of, I was respectful, but not deferential. I stated that I thought I could be most helpful by pointing out issues that the Report had omitted. I stated that it was a fallacy to believe, as had been suggested by the Report and the dialogue between the panel and prior witnesses, that all of the withholding of evidence of innocence and other prosecutorial misconduct were “good faith errors”, and that “nobody was ever doing anything intentional”. I pointed out that Queens DA Brown had successfully been sued by attorney Joel Ruden on behalf of Shih-Wei Su, who served 13 years in prison based upon prosecutorial misconduct. In that lawsuit, Attorney Ruden managed to uncover 80 cases of prosecutorial misconduct in Brown’s office, firmly establishing wrongful patterns and practices.
I then stated that it is essential to criminalize intentional prosecutorial misconduct; intentionally withholding evidence, suborning perjury, failing
to correcting witnesses who commit perjury, working with medical examiners and other expert witnesses in an effort to work backwards; “Tell
me what you want to prove and I will prove it.”
I referenced:
• The 52 boxes of evidence and 376 pages of exculpatory material withheld from Anthony DiSimone’s attorney, resulting in his incarcertion
for seven years prior to that conviction being overturned, and pointing to the guilt of a third party;
• Ex-police officer Richard DiGuglielmo’s conviction being overturned after 11 years, following a judge’s finding that information had been withheld from the defense that the only three eyewitnesses to the incident had been hauled into the police station four times each and treated as suspects in order to get them to change their accounts from a self defense killing to one that was racially motivated;
• Marci Stein, a former school teacher, who served three years of a 12-year sentence for allegedly sexually assaulting three high school boys. Assistant Westchester District Attorney, Laura Murphy, had lied to the jury claiming that two victim witnesses did not stand to receive financial rewards based upon their allegations, when, in fact, she was well aware that they had filed Notice of Claim in Federal Court with the school district.
Fortunately the Appellate Division reversed because of Murphy’s misconduct. But she remains employed under Janet DiFiore. In my own wrongful conviction, I am suing the former Medical Examiner, Louis Roh, for working backwards with the District Attorney’s Office. His conduct, in my case, as it turns out, was not isolated. Switching gears, I pointed out that while the report references that police interrogation tactics that are coercive, the report does not take the next logical step and recommend banning them. After all, we live in America and our Constitution contains the Fifth Amendment and therefore psychologically coercive tactics should not be allowed, such as prolonged interrogations, often lasting for many hours, because they wear suspects down. I cited the exoneration cases of John Kogut, who served 16 years, and was interrogated for 18 hours; Douglas Warney, who served nine years and was interrogated for 12 hours. On the day of my false confession the interrogation ran for 7 ½ hours, most of which I was plugged into a polygraph machine.
I spoke out against lying to suspects by police claiming to have evidence they do not because false confession experts have determined that such
tactics convey the message to suspects that, “No matter what, you are going to be charged, and it is only a matter of whether you’re were going to make things more difficult on yourself ”. I described how I was lied to regarding my polygraph test results, and that Marty Tankleff was lied to by the cops who claimed that his father had come to and identified him, thus causing him to momentarily doubt himself.
I explained the abuse of polygraph testing which is linked to many false confessions while having no scientific validity. I criticized the interrogation of the mentally ill or retarded suspects in the absence of an attorney because it is well known that such individuals frequently compensate for their weakness by being compliant to authority. I referenced the Warney case, because he had an I.Q. of 68 and a history of mental illness and only an 8th grade education.
I concluded my testimony stating that there needed to be a limit on the caseloads of public defenders, because it is not unusual in jurisdictions like
The Bronx for one public defender to simultaneously represent 120 clients. Scott Fappiano spoke of serving 21 years in New York for the rape of
a cop’s wife based upon a misidenti-fication before being exonerated by DNA.
Glenn Garber stated that he had been an attorney for over 20 years, and had founded the not-for-profit group Exoneration Intitiative, which focuses on clearing wrongfully convicted prisoners in non-DNA cases. He estimated that 2-1/2 to 5 percent of individuals are wrongfully convicted.
He stated that prosecutors need to be well-versed on the causes of wrongful convictions, and that when approached with an actual innocence
claim, they should focus on justice and not on exploiting legal impediments that can stand in the way of exoneration.
Bruce Barket spoke of all of the work that it took to clear Marty Tankleff after 18 years of wrongful incarceration, and the fact that it was five
years after they had unearthed the mountain of evidence which showed the guilt of another person before he was released. He reminded the athering that prosecutors had fought to the bitter end against appeals and pleas of innocence, and that courts had chillingly allowed finality to trump truth.
Finally, Scott Golan spoke of the importance of raising public awareness with respect to wrongful convictions. He mentioned a public awareness
event that he had helped to put together, entitled “The Art Of Innocence,” a program involving three exonerees telling their story. In the hallway
after his testimony, he confided to me that in all of the discussion about changes in the law, we were forgetting that it is the jurors who are voting
guilty. He said, speaking of jurors, “If they know more about wrongful convictions, they will be more careful in reaching verdicts.”
New York State Bar Holds Hearing
On Wrongful Convictions
Westchester DA Janet DiFiore Present As Panelist
In my last two columns I reviewed the Preliminary Report of the New York State Bar Association pertaining to wrongful convictions. On Feb. 13,
2009, a public hearing was held for the purpose of inviting public comment. This article will deal with that hearing.
There was a panel consisting of several members of the task force that had written the report. Each speaker was allowed five minutes to present,
followed by two or three minutes of questioning. Although the hearing was open to the public, testimony was limited to invitation only.
Upon arrival, I noticed some familiar faces; individuals engaged in dealing with the phenomenon of wrongful conviction, including Lonnie Soury, Eric Friedman, and Bruce Barket, who had helped clear Marty Tankleff. Barkett had done the legal work, Soury the public relations, and Friedman had designed and updated the website.
I was surprised to discover that Janet DiFiore was on the panel. Her presence would make my testimony somewhat awkward, because in arguing
the necessity for legislation criminalizing intentional prosecutorial misconduct, a reform that the report failed to include, I would be referencing several Westchester cases, some of which pre-dated her becoming District Attorney but which she, nevertheless, chose to defend, thus attempting to perpetuate several wrongful convictions, much the same way Jeanine Pirro had fought against all seven of my appeals though I had originally been prosecuted under her predecessor Carl Vergari.
Although DiFiore has given lip service to being a part of the anti-wrongful conviction movement and has hastened to add her name to any
number of reports advocating reforms intended to make the criminal justice system more accurate, all too often hers, and her Office’s, actions have run contrary to that position. In the below-mentioned cases, her office attempted to perpetuate wrongful convictions against defendants who had previously been wrongfully convicted under Jeanine Pirro, to say nothing of her own shameful prosecution of police brutality victim Irma Marquez, which resulted in an acquittal.
Furthermore, DiFiore has issued fraudulent statements about having a Second Look Program which supposedly pro-actively searches for wrongful
conviction cases, when in fact no such program exists. No information about such a program has been made available to the public and is unknown by assistant DAs in her Appeals Bureau, as well as by her chief of staff. From my standpoint, proof lies in the actual actions and conduct of her Office, and not in the words that she has uttered.
Upon spotting me, she greeted me cordially, and we exchanged pleasantries while my resolve to give the testimony I had come to present remained
unchanged. Interestingly, during the entire proceedings, Janet DiFiore asked no questions of any witness nor did she offer any comments. In fact,
she left the hearing about 90 minutes before it concluded.
Queens District Attorney Richard Brown stated that wrongful convictions were extremely rare on his watch. He stated that when his Office
is approached, pre-trial, with an actual claim of innocence, corroborated with credible evidence, they undertake an investigation. He went on to
claim that when a post-conviction claim of innocence is made, a senior prosecutor is assigned to look into it. He said that in light of guilty defendants bringing baseless allegations of innocence that there needed to be some limitation on the opportunity to endlessly reopen criminal cases.
Brown made a point of stating that prosecutors in his Office understand that it is their job to bring about justice, and that they are expected to
observe high ethical and professional standards. Furthering pursuing that theme, he declared that prosectors, “Must maintain a high state of alert to
any indication of corruption or misconduct and root it out immediately.”
He went on to enumerate many educational programs available to prosecutors. With all due respect, District Attorney Richard Brown is just another individual who says one thing while doing another. His Office’s record is one of the worst with respect to prosecutorial misconduct.
Furthermore, amongst all of the New York exonerations, a responsible position to take would have been that there needs to be more review of allegations of actual innocence whenever a colorable claim of innocence can be made, not fewer.
Staten Island District Attorney Donavan, also the President of the District Attorney’s Association Of New York State, stated that it is a prosecutor’s worst nightmare to convict an innocent person. He expressed concern about pre-trial detention of innocent defendants. He vocalized
support of pre-trial DNA testing, and he o ered to provide support to other district attorneys’ offices if requested in reinvestigating a case. He went on to say that while he was in favor of legislative changes, he did not want to place at risk the “extraordinary success” they have enjoyed in making New York the safest large state.
Asked the crucial question by a panel member, “Why won’t the District Attorneys Association support mandatory videotaping of interrogations?”
he took a dodge, citing costs. Objectively speaking, I would ask, “Who would consider 52 wrongful convictions ‘extraordinary success?’” One must consider, too, that those exonerations are but a tip of the iceberg and that New York State is third in the country with respect to the number of
DNA-proven wrongful convictions.
Barry Scheck, co-founder of the Innocence Project, started out by stating that in jurisdictions where videotaping interrogations is performed, it
has not proven costly. He added that the risk of wrongful convictions by not doing so was very costly. Addressing the notion that some defendants
would not agree to talk if they knew they were being videotaped, Scheck stated that cameras could be hidden and simply turned on without permission.
Turning to misidentifications, Scheck then suggested “The Great Compromise”. He pointed out that live lineups cost more money than photo
arrays while offering no greater reliability, but that they are done anyway because police fear that if a photo array is not allowed into evidence they might be left with no case; whereas if they conduct a lineup, they would at least have that evidence.
The compromise Scheck suggested was that police might stop doing lineups to save money, and that even if a photo array does not meet the new
standards, they should be admitted into evidence anyway and considered by a jury, which also would be given an instruction by a judge as to the fact
that array was not conducted according to best practices.
Peter Neufeld spoke next, emphasizing the need for videotaping of interrogations. Neufeld was asked about when videotaping would begin, out
of concern about the circumstances which take place in a police car and at a precinct prior to the camera being turned on.
With all due respect to Barry Scheck, who has been in the front lines in the battle against wrongful convictions since 1993, I disagree with his position. Many defendants’ lives have been wrecked, as well as their families, as a result of misidentifications, that have caused many to spend decades in prison wrongfully.
It is time to stop pussyfooting around. Either police officers use the best practices when conducting lineups and photo arrays or else the evidence should not be admitted. As for those expressing concerns that the guilty might get away under such stringent conditions, my response is to put the onus back on the police to conduct such procedures in the most reliable way possible, as the cost of not doing so is far too great.
Ezekial Edwards works in the Policy Department of The Innocence Project, which is the section of the organization that has been focusing on bringing about legislative changes. Edwards told the panel that the reforms that The Innocence Project advocates are grounded in empirical data obtained through social science. He stated that misidentifications cause the police to focus on an innocent person, and away from the real
perpetrator. He stated that multiple identifications made using unreliable methods did not increase accuracy.
He pointed to Luis Diaz who served 25 years in Florida after being misidentified by eight people; Brandon Moon who served 17 years after being
misidentified by five people; Kirk Bloodsworth, who was sentenced to death after being misidentified by five people.
Edwards advocated for blind administration, where the officers doing the lineup or photo array don’t know who the suspect is. He further advocated for instructing the eyewitness that the perpetrator may or may not be in the lineup or in the photo array, and that the investigation will continue if no one is picked. He advocated for proper composition of lineups, ensuring that fillers are picked based upon the description of the victim rather than people who look like a suspect, while not allowing a suspect to unduly stick out. Additionally, only one suspect at a time should be in a lineup.
Edwards also advocated the need to obtain confidence statements, asking victims and witnesses to state, on a scale of one to ten, how confident
they actually are of their selections. Finally, Edwards stressed the importance of documenting the lineup procedure by recording it, and the preservation of the photos that were used as well as sequential presentation; the showing to a victim of one person or one photo at a time, rather
than everybody at once. Edwards said “show ups” are inherently unreliable and far too suggestive to be continued.
Alan Newton, a well-known New York City exoneree, spoke of serving 21 years in prison based on a misidentification. He described how, for
13 of his 21 years, police authorities kept stating that they could not find the DNA evidence. He expressed his support for a standardized evidence
preservation system mentioned in the Report.
In offering my own testimony, as an exoneree who spent 16 years in prison for a capital crime that the police and district attorney’s office
clearly knew I was innocent of, I was respectful, but not deferential. I stated that I thought I could be most helpful by pointing out issues that the Report had omitted. I stated that it was a fallacy to believe, as had been suggested by the Report and the dialogue between the panel and prior witnesses, that all of the withholding of evidence of innocence and other prosecutorial misconduct were “good faith errors”, and that “nobody was ever doing anything intentional”. I pointed out that Queens DA Brown had successfully been sued by attorney Joel Ruden on behalf of Shih-Wei Su, who served 13 years in prison based upon prosecutorial misconduct. In that lawsuit, Attorney Ruden managed to uncover 80 cases of prosecutorial misconduct in Brown’s office, firmly establishing wrongful patterns and practices.
I then stated that it is essential to criminalize intentional prosecutorial misconduct; intentionally withholding evidence, suborning perjury, failing
to correcting witnesses who commit perjury, working with medical examiners and other expert witnesses in an effort to work backwards; “Tell
me what you want to prove and I will prove it.”
I referenced:
• The 52 boxes of evidence and 376 pages of exculpatory material withheld from Anthony DiSimone’s attorney, resulting in his incarcertion
for seven years prior to that conviction being overturned, and pointing to the guilt of a third party;
• Ex-police officer Richard DiGuglielmo’s conviction being overturned after 11 years, following a judge’s finding that information had been withheld from the defense that the only three eyewitnesses to the incident had been hauled into the police station four times each and treated as suspects in order to get them to change their accounts from a self defense killing to one that was racially motivated;
• Marci Stein, a former school teacher, who served three years of a 12-year sentence for allegedly sexually assaulting three high school boys. Assistant Westchester District Attorney, Laura Murphy, had lied to the jury claiming that two victim witnesses did not stand to receive financial rewards based upon their allegations, when, in fact, she was well aware that they had filed Notice of Claim in Federal Court with the school district.
Fortunately the Appellate Division reversed because of Murphy’s misconduct. But she remains employed under Janet DiFiore. In my own wrongful conviction, I am suing the former Medical Examiner, Louis Roh, for working backwards with the District Attorney’s Office. His conduct, in my case, as it turns out, was not isolated. Switching gears, I pointed out that while the report references that police interrogation tactics that are coercive, the report does not take the next logical step and recommend banning them. After all, we live in America and our Constitution contains the Fifth Amendment and therefore psychologically coercive tactics should not be allowed, such as prolonged interrogations, often lasting for many hours, because they wear suspects down. I cited the exoneration cases of John Kogut, who served 16 years, and was interrogated for 18 hours; Douglas Warney, who served nine years and was interrogated for 12 hours. On the day of my false confession the interrogation ran for 7 ½ hours, most of which I was plugged into a polygraph machine.
I spoke out against lying to suspects by police claiming to have evidence they do not because false confession experts have determined that such
tactics convey the message to suspects that, “No matter what, you are going to be charged, and it is only a matter of whether you’re were going to make things more difficult on yourself ”. I described how I was lied to regarding my polygraph test results, and that Marty Tankleff was lied to by the cops who claimed that his father had come to and identified him, thus causing him to momentarily doubt himself.
I explained the abuse of polygraph testing which is linked to many false confessions while having no scientific validity. I criticized the interrogation of the mentally ill or retarded suspects in the absence of an attorney because it is well known that such individuals frequently compensate for their weakness by being compliant to authority. I referenced the Warney case, because he had an I.Q. of 68 and a history of mental illness and only an 8th grade education.
I concluded my testimony stating that there needed to be a limit on the caseloads of public defenders, because it is not unusual in jurisdictions like
The Bronx for one public defender to simultaneously represent 120 clients. Scott Fappiano spoke of serving 21 years in New York for the rape of
a cop’s wife based upon a misidenti-fication before being exonerated by DNA.
Glenn Garber stated that he had been an attorney for over 20 years, and had founded the not-for-profit group Exoneration Intitiative, which focuses on clearing wrongfully convicted prisoners in non-DNA cases. He estimated that 2-1/2 to 5 percent of individuals are wrongfully convicted.
He stated that prosecutors need to be well-versed on the causes of wrongful convictions, and that when approached with an actual innocence
claim, they should focus on justice and not on exploiting legal impediments that can stand in the way of exoneration.
Bruce Barket spoke of all of the work that it took to clear Marty Tankleff after 18 years of wrongful incarceration, and the fact that it was five
years after they had unearthed the mountain of evidence which showed the guilt of another person before he was released. He reminded the athering that prosecutors had fought to the bitter end against appeals and pleas of innocence, and that courts had chillingly allowed finality to trump truth.
Finally, Scott Golan spoke of the importance of raising public awareness with respect to wrongful convictions. He mentioned a public awareness
event that he had helped to put together, entitled “The Art Of Innocence,” a program involving three exonerees telling their story. In the hallway
after his testimony, he confided to me that in all of the discussion about changes in the law, we were forgetting that it is the jurors who are voting
guilty. He said, speaking of jurors, “If they know more about wrongful convictions, they will be more careful in reaching verdicts.”
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