Friday, January 31, 2020

Nagee Green: Ithaca: New York State.) 'False confession' among many grounds favouring his release...His supporters make their case in a letter publiched hy The Ithaca Voice..."An appeals lawyer has taken the highly unusual step of submitting a request to dismiss the judgment against Nagee Green for the 2016 murder of Ithaca College student Anthony Nazaire and the non-fatal stabbing of Raheim Williams. The motion gives extensive evidence that a young Afro-Latino (Puerto Rican) man has been wrongfully convicted of a serious crime. Having reviewed the extensive evidence pointing to a wrongful conviction, we, the undersigned writers who share the appeals lawyer’s sense of urgency, assert that it is critically important that the public be awakened to the disturbing realities of the case and join us in calling for the judgment against Mr. Green to be vacated. Nagee Green did not receive a fair trial. He suffers, already in prison for two years, from the complicated injustice of a racialized national and local prosecution system. Only the most astute defense team has any hope of saving an Afro-Latino defendant from a wrongful murder charge."..."The defense allowed a coerced, involuntary confession containing multiple confirmed lies by the police to be presented to the jury as legitimate without qualification. Indeed, the psychological manipulation of a young Afro-Latino man by two white Ithaca police interrogators reads in this publicly available transcript as more outrageous than the most convincing racist police procedurals on TV or in the movies. (A transcript of the interrogation is provided. - as well as a link to the motion; See transcript of Nagee Green’s police interview below.)


------------------------------------------------------------

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: This Blog is interested in false confessions because of the disturbing number of exonerations in the USA, Canada and multiple other jurisdictions throughout the world, where, in the absence of incriminating forensic evidence the conviction is based on self-incrimination – and because of the growing body of  scientific research showing how vulnerable suspects are to widely used interrogation methods  such as  the notorious ‘Reid Technique.’ As  all too many of this Blog's post have shown, I also recognize that pressure for false confessions can take many forms, up to and including physical violence, even physical and mental torture.

Harold Levy: Publisher; The Charles Smith Blog:

------------------------------------------------------------
PUBLISHER'S NOTE:  Kudos to The Ithaca Voice for publishing this articulate letter from Nagee Green's supporters. I am following this complex case.

Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog.

----------------------------------------------------------

PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "After the first trial of Nagee Green ended in a hung jury, the defendant’s conviction on murder charges at the second trial was based on police lies leading to a coerced confession, the withholding of critical evidence representing reasonable doubt, a complete lack of material evidence including the absence of any traces of blood or DNA transfers, a jury led by a man who expressed doubts about his own ability to be unbiased, and a prosecution that switched to a contradictory story “Painting a false picture” for its own leverage during trial. This was all based on one white police interrogator’s self-described personal theory of the case which he freely described on record as possibly wrong—against Nagee Green, an Afro-Latino defendant."

-----------------------------------------------------------

LETTER TO EDITOR: From Free Nagee Green Committee to editor of the Ithica News, published on January  9, 2020: As per the Ithaca Voice : "The Ithaca Voice is a nonprofit digital news site with a mission to improve civic and political understanding in Ithaca and Tompkins County by publishing and sustaining in-depth, educational, rigorous, timely and ethical journalism that all residents can access free of charge online."

GIST: "An appeals lawyer has taken the highly unusual step of submitting a request to dismiss the judgment against Nagee Green for the 2016 murder of Ithaca College student Anthony Nazaire and the non-fatal stabbing of Raheim Williams. The motion gives extensive evidence that a young Afro-Latino (Puerto Rican) man has been wrongfully convicted of a serious crime. Having reviewed the extensive evidence pointing to a wrongful conviction, we, the undersigned writers who share the appeals lawyer’s sense of urgency, assert that it is critically important that the public be awakened to the disturbing realities of the case and join us in calling for the judgment against Mr. Green to be vacated. Nagee Green did not receive a fair trial. He suffers, already in prison for two years, from the complicated injustice of a racialized national and local prosecution system. Only the most astute defense team has any hope of saving an Afro-Latino defendant from a wrongful murder charge. In Mr. Green’s case that defense was lacking on three important counts:1) The defense attorneys allowed a juror who openly expressed his bias in favor of District Attorney Matt Van Houten to become jury foreman. Jack Myers explained on record that a Matt Van Houten had been his and his family’s lawyer for a long time, and that this would remain in the back of his mind as he weighed the merits of the DA’s representation of the murder case against Mr. Green. Indeed, when the defense attorney failed to note this obvious conflict of interest, the DA, Matt Van Houten had the legal duty to strike this juror from the case.  Instead, this juror who admitted his own doubt about his ability to remain unbiased served as the jury’s leader.  2) The defense allowed a coerced, involuntary confession containing multiple confirmed lies by the police to be presented to the jury as legitimate without qualification. Indeed, the psychological manipulation of a young Afro-Latino man by two white Ithaca police interrogators reads in this publicly available transcript as more outrageous than the most convincing racist police procedurals on TV or in the movies.  See transcript of Nagee Green’s police interview below.) 3) The defense failed to call a direct witness to the stabbing, who in a police statement described the assailant wearing very different clothes than Nagee Green wore on the night of the incident. This witness could have easily presented reasonable doubt that Mr. Green was the assailant. In this case, such reasonable doubt would have been especially critical as no DNA evidence linking Mr. Green to the two victims was ever found and no witness stated that they saw Mr. Green interacting with Nazaire and/or Williams. We have arrived at a critical moment in history where white people are becoming aware that our often unconscious belief in white supremacy pervades every aspect of our social lives including the operation of the law—even in this supposedly enlightened town. We have recent evidence in the disturbing yet less tragic cases of Cadji Ferguson and Rose DeGroat of the local criminal justice system’s slow process of waking up to its own complicity with dishonest reporting of police behavior and motivations, and DA Matt Van Houten’s willingness to repeatedly misrepresent the facts of the case. Yet Ithaca City Judge Scott Miller remained undistracted by either police or DA dishonest manipulation (for which neither has taken responsibility nor been officially censured) when he absolved Mr. Ferguson of all charges. TC Judge John Rowley ultimately exercised both integrity and courage in dropping the charges against Rose DeGroat.    After the first trial of Nagee Green ended in a hung jury, the defendant’s conviction on murder charges at the second trial was based on police lies leading to a coerced confession, the withholding of critical evidence representing reasonable doubt, a complete lack of material evidence including the absence of any traces of blood or DNA transfers, a jury led by a man who expressed doubts about his own ability to be unbiased, and a prosecution that switched to a contradictory story
“Painting a false picture” for its own leverage during trial. This was all based on one white police interrogator’s self-described personal theory of the case which he freely described on record as possibly wrong—against Nagee Green, an Afro-Latino defendant. We, the undersigned plead with Judge Rowley to exercise the same integrity and courage he did in the recent case of Rose DeGroat and vacate the judgment against Nagee Green, a wrongfully convicted young Afro-Latino man with no previous criminal record and a loving family and community attesting to his upstanding character. Readers will find all documents related to this case in the appeals lawyer’s 440 motion and police interrogation transcript attached. Respectfully submitted by Dr. Barbara Regenspan on behalf of the Free Nagee Green Committee:   
Martha Lasley
Dr. Patricia Rodriguez
Elan Shapiro
John Suter
Rabbi David Regenspan
Dr. Paula Ioanide
Dr. Zillah Eisenstein
Shari Korthuis
Stephanie Heslop
Ed Kopko
Ruth Mike Yarrow

The entire letter  to the editor can be read at:
https://ithacavoice.com/2020/01/letter-to-the-editor-justice-for-nagee-green/

 PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic"  section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com.  Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;

-----------------------------------------------------------------

FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices.""

Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
 https://www.providencejournal.com/news/20191210/da-drops-murder-charge-against-taunton-man-who-served-35-years-for-1979-slaying