Framing their case as a matter of justice for victims and
the community at large as well as those accused, the Innocence Project and the
state Bar Association held a press conference at the Capitol to push for two
pre-trial reforms to criminal procedure. As described by the advocates:
• To prevent false confessions, they are calling for
legislation requiring police to videotape interrogations in full so that there
is a complete record of the interrogation that can be shown in court.
• To prevent eyewitness misidentifications, they are seeking
approval of a bill mandating that police identification procedures be conducted
in a double-blind fashion, meaning that the officer who conducts the lineup
does not know the identity of the suspect. This will ensure that the eyewitness
is not influenced by clues delivered either directly or indirectly by police.
These reforms were endorsed by the Bar Association’s Task Force on Wrongful
Convictions, which issued a report in April 2009. (www.nysba.org/wcreport)
Barry Scheck
of the Innocence Project (and the O.J. Simpson trial) kicked off the press
conference, which included statements from five exonerees who collectively had
spent more than nine decades behind bars for crimes they didn’t commit. Scheck
said New York was far behind most other states on these issues; he recalled
making the case for videotaping in the late 1990s in testimony offered on a
bill backed by “a little-known state senator” in Illinois: Barack Obama.
He expressed the hope that the proposed reforms wouldn’t
emerge as a wedge issue in an election year. (Good luck with that.)
“We are all victims of wrongful convictions,” said Vince
Doyle, president of the state Bar Association.
The exonerees — including Utica’s Steven Barnes, recently
interviewed for Marie
Cusick’s “New York Now” report on DNA evidence — submitted a joint
letter that calls for the changes and concludes by saying, “We lost everything.
How many more New Yorkers must suffer our fate?”
Also on hand: Barnes’ mother and Michele
Mallin, who was horrified to learn that the man she identified as
her attacker following her 1985 abduction and rape had been exonerated by DNA
evidence — but only after dying in prison 14 years into a 25-year sentence.
Assemblyman Joe Lentol has introduced a bill
that requires videotaping of confessions along with a number of other
provisions; it currently lacks a Senate sponsor.
Lentol said even some of his fellow lawmakers have asked
him, “Why are you bothering with this stuff? … You know they must be guilty of
some crime.”
The state District Attorneys Association has endorsed
an expansion of videotape protocols, but its support falls short of backing
legislation to mandate the change. Scheck said his group and the state Bar
Association made the decision to not reach out to the group or recruit
individual DAs to attend the news conference.
The event also featured Reade Seligmann, the former Duke
lacrosse player who was one of three players falsely charged with rape in a
2006 case that serves as a textbook example of law enforcement misconduct run
amok. Seligmann, now a law student at Emory University, worked for similar
reforms to the ones sought in New York during his days as an undergraduate at
Brown University in Rhode Island.
The press conference ended just after one of the New York
exonerees, Jeff Deskovic, called up Lorenzo Johnson of Yonkers, whose
conviction was only this week reinstated
by the U.S. Supreme Court, which reversed a U.S. Court of Appeals ruling that
Johnson’s conviction in a 1995 shotgun death was based on insufficient
evidence.
And here’s the joint press release from the Bar Association
and the Innocence Project:
The New York State Bar Association and the Innocence Project
today urged state lawmakers to pass reform legislation that could significantly
reduce the likelihood of innocent New Yorkers going to prison for crimes they
did not commit.
The two bills would require police agencies to videotape all
custodial interrogations and to adopt a more objective way of conducting police
lineups for eyewitnesses.
At a press conference in Albany, Bar Association President
Vincent E. Doyle III and Innocence Project Co-Director Barry Scheck were joined
by: five men who collectively spent more than 90 years in prison for crimes
they did not commit; a Texas rape victim who mistakenly identified the wrong suspect;
one of the three Duke University lacrosse players falsely accused of rape in
2006; and a North Carolina police captain whose department has successfully
adopted interrogation and eyewitness reforms.
The Innocence Project today also released the results of its
Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests of more than 500 New York police
agencies seeking information about their eyewitness identification policies.
“New York has the third largest number of wrongful
convictions in the country. When state legislators in March voted to expand the
state’s DNA database, they hailed the move as wrongful conviction reform,”
Scheck said. “But if they are really concerned about protecting the innocent,
they will pass legislation this session to prevent misidentifications and false
confessions, two of the leading causes of wrongful convictions. These reforms
help protect all New Yorkers, from crime victims to innocent suspects, to the
public at large because they enhance the ability of police to find the real
perpetrators.”
“Our criminal justice system is supposed to protect us all,
while respecting individual rights,” said Doyle of Buffalo (Connors &
Vilardo). “Wrongful convictions pervert the system – they rob innocent people
of their liberty, while allowing guilty people to go free to commit additional
crimes. We urge legislators to address this travesty of justice before leaving
Albany next month.”
Seymour W. James, Jr. of New York City (The Legal Aid
Society of New York), who assumes the presidency of the Bar Association on June
1, also attended the press conference.
The Innocence Project and State Bar are asking lawmakers to
focus on two critical measures to address wrongful convictions.
• To prevent false confessions, they are calling for
legislation requiring police to videotape interrogations in full so that there
is a complete record of the interrogation that can be shown in court.
• To prevent eyewitness misidentifications, they are seeking
approval of a bill mandating that police identification procedures be conducted
in a double-blind fashion, meaning that the officer who conducts the lineup
does not know the identity of the suspect. This will ensure that the eyewitness
is not influenced by clues delivered either directly or indirectly by police.
These reforms were endorsed by the Bar Association’s Task Force on Wrongful
Convictions, which issued a report in April 2009. (www.nysba.org/wcreport)
Underscoring the need for improved identification
procedures, the Innocence Project released the results of a survey on whether
police agencies around the state had formal identification procedure policies.
The group last year sent FOIL requests to 505 police agencies. Of the 349
agencies that responded, 112 provided formal written policies. Of those 112,
none entirely embraced the reform package endorsed by the New York State Bar
Association and the Innocence Project, and only two provided written policies
that directed the use of a blind administrator, the most important reform.
Also during the press conference, five New York men who were
eventually exonerated after serving lengthy prison sentences presented a joint
letter urging lawmakers to enact the reforms. Steven Barnes, wrongly convicted
in Utica, NY; Fernando Bermudez, wrongly convicted in New York, NY; Jeff Deskovic,
wrongly convicted in Westchester, NY; Alan Newton, wrongly convicted in Bronx,
NY; and Frank Sterling, wrongly convicted in Rochester, NY; spent a collective
92 ? years in prison for crimes they did not commit.
Deskovic’s newly formed foundation, The Jeffrey Deskovic
Foundation for Justice, also supports the reforms: “The Jeffrey Deskovic
Foundation for Justice views legislation mandating identification reform and
videotaping interrogations as essential tools to assist law enforcement in
apprehending the right person, as opposed to sending innocent people to prison
while the actual offender remains free and able to strike again.”
Sylvia Barnes, Steven’s mother, spoke about how wrongful
convictions affect family members.
Reade Seligmann, who along with two lacrosse teammates at
Duke University was falsely accused of rape in 2006, detailed his year-long
ordeal to prove his innocence.
Michele Mallin, a rape victim from Texas, spoke about the
pain she suffered after learning that she had repeatedly misidentified her
attacker. Tim Cole served 14 years of a 25-year sentence before dying in
prison. He was exonerated posthumously after Mallin’s real attacker confessed.
Capt. Michael Smathers of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg (N.C.)
Police Department explained how his department responded to the adoption of new
procedures guiding eyewitness and confession evidence: “Changes in practices
always produce some stress and concern over the real-life impacts that might
present themselves after a decision is made on such an important issue. The
reality has been that these procedures have done nothing to hinder us in the
clearance of our cases. In fact, the robbery unit’s clearance rate is well
above the national average. Our cases are strong and are harder to impugn with
these procedures in place. It is also important to note that I believe these
changes have increased the public’s confidence in our work, which is vital to
our relationship with the community we serve.”
Jonathan Gradess, executive director of the New York State
Defenders Association, also spoke about the need for prosecutors to share
evidence that might be favorable to the accused prior to a trial.
Assembly Codes Committee Chair Joseph Lentol (D-Brooklyn)
and Sen. Ruth Hassel-Thompson (D-Bronx) spoke about wrongful conviction bills
they introduced in the Legislature that would reduce the possibility that
innocent persons are convicted of crimes they did not commit.
The Innocence Project, a non-profit public policy and
litigation organization affiliated with the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law
at Yeshiva University, is dedicated to exonerating the wrongfully convicted
through DNA testing and reforming the criminal justice system to prevent future
injustice.
The 77,000-member New York State Bar Association is the
largest voluntary state bar association in the United States. It was founded in
1876.