New York State must end the era of wrongful convictions

It sets the guilty free to commit further offences

For a decade, New York has failed to enact reform that would address two leading contributors to wrongful conviction: eyewitness misidentification and false confessions. There have been dire consequences.

In addition to innocent New Yorkers being wrongfully convicted, there exists a serious, abiding threat to public safety. Real perpetrators have been identified in 11, or 38%, of New York’s wrongful convictions that were proven through DNA evidence. Five of those real perpetrators went on to commit 11 additional violent crimes, which included three rapes, six murders and two other violent crimes.

Consider the Central Park Five, teenagers who were wrongfully convicted after juries were shown "final" videotapes of false confessions. The "final" videotapes were made after hours of emotionally and physically exhausting unrecorded interrogations. "All the jury saw was that confession ... [not] the 30 hours of interrogation… I just wanted to go home ... [and] told the police what I thought would get me out of there," said Kharey Wise, of the Central Park Five.

If there had been a requirement that the entire custodial interrogation be videotaped, these false confessions might not have occurred at all, or at the least there would have been a record so the jury could have determined whether the confessions were coerced or the police had inadvertently or intentionally fed details of the crime to the teenagers that only the real perpetrator would know.

There is also the case of Anthony Capozzi, of Buffalo, who was misidentified and wrongfully convicted of two sexual assaults. Even though Capozzi did not match the description of the rapist, he was placed in a lineup and misidentified. He spent 20 years incarcerated before being exonerated.

In these cases and others in New York, there were real perpetrators who remained free. In the Central Park Five case, the real perpetrator committed three additional rapes, and one murder; and in Capozzi's case, the real assailant committed three additional murders.

Misidentification or false confession played a role in nearly all of the 29 wrongful convictions in New York that were proven by DNA evidence. But New York can act to prevent such horrific injustices and acts of violence from occurring. Before the session ends, the legislature should pass S5875/A8157, sponsored by Sen. Michael Nozzolio (R-Seneca Falls) and Assemblyman Joe Lentol (D-Brooklyn).

The bill would mandate police interrogations to be videotaped from start to finish, and would give law enforcement the resources and training to use eyewitness identification practices that have been proven to reduce the chances of misidentification. (The proposal is also supported by the Innocence Project, the New York State Bar Association and the District Attorneys Association of the State of New York.)

Nearly half the nation's states, red and blue, require interrogations to be recorded. It's clear that New York must do more to protect against wrongful convictions. New York has the third most DNA exonerations nationally behind Illinois and Texas.

Wrongful conviction reform is about protecting all New Yorkers. Why would we let another session pass before fixing what everyone knows is broken?

Original report here

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