PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Ten of the largest settlements from 2019 account for over $23 million in payouts — or nearly half of the total from last year. The highest settlement amount went to Derrick Hamilton who had his conviction overturned in 2015 after spending over 20 years in prison. Hamilton — who was convicted by shady cop Louis Scarcella — received $6,625,000 from the city last year."
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STORY: "City payouts in NYPD misconduct cases up by nearly $30M," by reporter Priscilla DeGregory, published by The Daily Post on January 31, 2020.
GIST: "City payouts in police misconduct cases are up by nearly $30
million, while the number of new lawsuits has fallen, according to new
data. In 2019, the city paid out $68,688,423 to people who claim they were
aggrieved by cop misconduct including in cases of excessive use of
force, assault, malicious prosecution, false arrest or false
imprisonment. In 2018, the city only paid out $38,951,976. The tally of payouts
over the last five years is $300,754,486, according to the city data. While the settlement and verdict amounts have increased by nearly $30
million, the number of new lawsuits filed in the last year has fallen
by over 200 cases. In 2019, 1,383 police misconduct cases were filed,
while 1,615 were filed in 2018, according to the data. Ten of the largest settlements from 2019 account for over $23 million in payouts — or nearly half of the total from last year. The highest settlement amount went to Derrick Hamilton who had his
conviction overturned in 2015 after spending over 20 years in prison.
Hamilton — who was convicted by shady cop Louis Scarcella — received $6,625,000 from the city last year. The family of Deborah Danner — the mentally ill woman who was fatally shot by Sgt. Hugh Barry in her Bronx apartment while wielding a bat — received a $2 million settlement from the city in 2019. But the Legal Aid Society says there are major problems with the way
the city reports the data that obscures the costs of these types of
cases. For instance, lawsuits that are settled before they even get to
court are not included in the figures. A rep with Legal Aid also said the fact that the city only releases
the last five years of data obscures the running totals as old cases
settle years later. “An epidemic of misconduct within the New York City Police Department
continues to cost New York City taxpayers tens of millions of dollars
each year,” Corey Stoughton of Legal Aid said. Stoughton called for Albany to repeal the 50a law that shields
certain information about officers from coming out without a court
order. “Police Secrecy Law 50a denies us data about how and why that
misconduct occurs and what the NYPD is doing — or more to the point, not
doing — about it,” Stoughton said Sergeants Benevolent Association President Ed Mullins said the city pays to avoid trouble. “Either the city pays out just because they pay out and it’s easier
for them to do; the community policing program doesn’t work; cops are
out of control and their training doesn’t work; or the anti-police
atmosphere is just producing a lot more lawsuits because people know
police are an easy target,” Mullins said. John Jay College Professor Eugene O’Donnell said the city is quick to settle claims against the police. “This is the most anti-police administration in city history and it
permeates everything that they do and they have definitely cut checks in
cases that are very dubious — giant checks,” O’Donnell said. “Rather
than explain and defend policing they have handed over taxpayer money.” A rep with the city Law Department said that the number of new police misconduct cases has been declining since 2017. “The number of lawsuits continues to decline. We’re taking more cases
to trial than ever before to fight for officers,” the Law Dept.
spokesperson said. “We’ve improved the city’s fact-finding process,
filed more motions to dismiss cases and added resources and personnel to
reduce settlements.” NYPD spokeswoman Sgt. Jessica McRorie responded: “Lawsuits against
the New York City Police Department have drastically decreased in recent
years. “NYC Administrative Code 7-114 requires the New York City Law
Department posts on its website civil actions ‘resulting from
allegations of improper police conduct.’ That a lawsuit has been filed
does not mean that the claims have legal merit, or that officer
misconduct has occurred or will be proven.” She added, “Mere filing rates should not be utilized as performance
indicators of either the Department or individual officers. Moreover, as
the Law Department’s website states, it is important to recognize that
disposition amounts listed in the report cannot be attributable to
particular defendant officers, who may have been dismissed from the
lawsuit prior to the final resolution of the case.”
https://nypost.com/2020/01/31/city-payouts-in-nypd-misconduct-cases-up-by-nearly-30m/
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PASSAGE ONE OF THE DAY: National Registry): "Cash’s girlfriend, Jewel Smith, told Detective Frank DeLouisa that she had bailed Cash out of jail on January 3 and spent time with him at his apartment before going to a store. When she returned, he was lying on the ground after being shot. Smith changed her account, however, to implicate 25-year-old Derrick Hamilton in the shooting. She later said that Detective Louis Scarcella told her that if she did not accuse Hamilton she would be charged with the crime herself. Hamilton had been paroled in August 1990—about four months before Cash was killed—after serving a seven year prison term for convictions of manslaughter, robbery and criminal possession of a weapon. In March 1991, the police arrested Hamilton in New Haven, Connecticut at a hair salon that Hamilton jointly owned with Alphonso White. Hamilton was charged with second-degree murder. Hamilton went to trial in Kings County Supreme Court in July 1992. Smith identified Hamilton as the gunman. She said Hamilton shot Cash and that Cash chased after Hamilton before he collapsed."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: (National Registry): "Earlier in 2011, Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes created a Conviction Integrity Unit and invited defense attorneys to present cases in which innocent defendants may have been convicted. One case the unit learned about was that of David Ranta, who was convicted of murder based on an investigation by Detective Louis Scarcella (who had retired in 1999). The Conviction Integrity Unit’s investigation found that one witness had been told to pick Ranta in a lineup, and that two prosecution witnesses—both convicted felons—were allowed to leave jail, smoke crack and have sex with prostitutes in return for implicating Ranta. In March 2013, Ranta’s conviction was vacated, the charge was dismissed and he was released from prison. A few months later, The New York Times published an article accusing Scarcella of misconduct in many investigations: fabricating evidence, coercing witnesses and concealing evidence of defendants’ innocence. The article reported that Gomez had somehow testified as an eyewitness in six separate murder cases. The report prompted the Brooklyn Conviction Integrity Unit to begin to re-investigate 57 cases in which Scarcella was involved. In January 2014, the Appellate Division of the Kings County Supreme Court, in an unprecedented ruling, reversed the trial court in Hamilton's case. The appeals court eliminated a procedural barrier to criminal appellate claims to allow an assertion of “actual innocence” to be heard. Hamitlon's case was remanded to the Kings County Supreme Court for a hearing. At that time, Kenneth Thompson, the newly-elected Kings County District Attorney, assigned the case to his Conviction Review Unit. In January 2015, Thompson concluded, of the basis of a re-investigation of the case, that Hamilton was innocent. The re-investigation showed that the medical evidence contradicted Smith’s claim that Cash was shot in the chest and then chased after the man who shot him. In fact, the medical examiner’s office said Cash was shot in the back and that the nature of the wound was such that he would have died almost instantly. In addition, ballistics showed that more than one gun was used in the shooting. On January 9, 2015, Thompson and Hamilton’s defense lawyer jointly asked that Hamilton’s conviction be vacated. The motion was granted and the charge was dismissed. By that time, the review had expanded to about 100 murder cases in Brooklyn, including about 60 of Scarcella’s cases. Hamilton subsequently filed a claim for compensation with the New York Court of Claims and in 2016 received $3.75 million. In 2015, Hamilton filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking damages for his wrongful conviction. In November 2019, he settled the lawsuit against the cities of New York and New Haven for $7 million."
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Read the National Registry of Exonerations entry by Maurice Possley at the link below:
Shortly after midnight on January 4, 1991, 26-year-old Nathaniel
Cash was fatally shot at his apartment building at 215 Monroe Place in
Brooklyn, New York.
Cash’s girlfriend, Jewel Smith, told Detective Frank DeLouisa that she had bailed Cash out of jail on January 3 and spent time with him at his apartment before going to a store. When she returned, he was lying on the ground after being shot.
Smith changed her account, however, to implicate 25-year-old Derrick Hamilton in the shooting. She later said that Detective Louis Scarcella told her that if she did not accuse Hamilton she would be charged with the crime herself. Hamilton had been paroled in August 1990—about four months before Cash was killed—after serving a seven year prison term for convictions of manslaughter, robbery and criminal possession of a weapon.
In March 1991, the police arrested Hamilton in New Haven, Connecticut at a hair salon that Hamilton jointly owned with Alphonso White. Hamilton was charged with second-degree murder.
Hamilton went to trial in Kings County Supreme Court in July 1992. Smith identified Hamilton as the gunman. She said Hamilton shot Cash and that Cash chased after Hamilton before he collapsed.
The defense had listed two alibi witnesses, but neither were called. One of the witnesses, Mattie Dixon, the wife of Alphonso White, later said that she and her husband, Alphonso, did not testify because police in New Haven, for whom White had acted as an informant in the past, threatened to arrest Alphonso if they testified for Hamilton in Brooklyn. In fact, Dixon later said in a sworn affidavit, she and her husband had collected hotel records showing that Hamilton was at a New Haven hotel at the time of the crime.
On July 17, 1992, a jury convicted Hamilton of second-degree murder. Before sentencing, Smith recanted her testimony, and the defense learned for the first time about a statement she gave to police under the name “Karen Smith” in which she said that she was not present when Cash was shot. At an evidentiary hearing on a motion to vacate the conviction, Smith testified she only implicated Hamilton after Scarcella told her she would be charged with the murder if she did not change her account.
The motion was denied in 1993 and Hamilton was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
Over the next two decades, Hamilton filed a series of motions attempting to overturn his conviction, but all were denied.
In 1994, he sought to vacate the conviction on the basis of an affidavit from a witness who said that two other men—Amir Johnson and “Money Will”—shot Cash. In 1995, while that motion was pending, two more witnesses came forward and said Hamilton was at a going away party at a hotel in New Haven for a man who was going to prison.
One of the witnesses, Kelly Turner, was working as a talent agent at the time of the crime but had since become a decorated police officer in New Haven. She provided a sworn statement that she was with Hamilton at the party until 1 or 2 a.m.—well after the shooting in Brooklyn. The other witness, Davette Mahan, said she was Turner’s assistant and that she also saw Hamilton and Turner together, discussing business, at the party.
Hamilton sought to expand his motion to vacate the conviction to include Turner and Mahan, but the judge refused because Turner and Mahan were not on Hamilton’s alibi witness list prior to trial.
An evidentiary hearing was held on the claim that Amir Johnson and “Money Will” shot Cash, but the judge said the witness was not credible and denied the motion.
In 1998, another hearing was held with testimony from an additional witness who said “Money Will” shot Cash. That witness also was not believed.
In 2009, Hamilton filed a motion seeking a new hearing to allow Turner and Mahan to testify in the wake of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling allowing witnesses to testify to actual innocence if they had not been previously allowed to testify. The prosecution opposed that motion as procedurally barred. While the motion was still pending, two more witnesses came forward to corroborate Turner and Mahan’s statements.
One of those witnesses was Mattie Dixon, the wife of Alphonso White (who had since died). Dixon provided hotel records showing that she and her husband had rented a room for Hamilton at the hotel on the night of the party and that a banquet room was reserved for that night. In a sworn affidavit, Dixon said that the detective for whom her husband worked as an informant became angry for “being Derrick’s alibi” and that the detective told them to “forget about Derrick Hamilton” or go to jail.
In August, 2011, the motion for a hearing to allow the witnesses to testify was denied. In December 2011, Hamilton was released from prison on parole after previously being denied parole because he would not admit that he committed the murder.
Earlier in 2011, Kings County District Attorney Charles Hynes created a Conviction Integrity Unit and invited defense attorneys to present cases in which innocent defendants may have been convicted. One case the unit learned about was that of David Ranta, who was convicted of murder based on an investigation by Detective Louis Scarcella (who had retired in 1999). The Conviction Integrity Unit’s investigation found that one witness had been told to pick Ranta in a lineup, and that two prosecution witnesses—both convicted felons—were allowed to leave jail, smoke crack and have sex with prostitutes in return for implicating Ranta.
In March 2013, Ranta’s conviction was vacated, the charge was dismissed and he was released from prison.
A few months later, The New York Times published an article accusing Scarcella of misconduct in many investigations: fabricating evidence, coercing witnesses and concealing evidence of defendants’ innocence. The article reported that Gomez had somehow testified as an eyewitness in six separate murder cases. The report prompted the Brooklyn Conviction Integrity Unit to begin to re-investigate 57 cases in which Scarcella was involved.
In January 2014, the Appellate Division of the Kings County Supreme Court, in an unprecedented ruling, reversed the trial court in Hamilton's case. The appeals court eliminated a procedural barrier to criminal appellate claims to allow an assertion of “actual innocence” to be heard. Hamitlon's case was remanded to the Kings County Supreme Court for a hearing.
At that time, Kenneth Thompson, the newly-elected Kings County District Attorney, assigned the case to his Conviction Review Unit. In January 2015, Thompson concluded, of the basis of a re-investigation of the case, that Hamilton was innocent.
The re-investigation showed that the medical evidence contradicted Smith’s claim that Cash was shot in the chest and then chased after the man who shot him. In fact, the medical examiner’s office said Cash was shot in the back and that the nature of the wound was such that he would have died almost instantly. In addition, ballistics showed that more than one gun was used in the shooting.
On January 9, 2015, Thompson and Hamilton’s defense lawyer jointly asked that Hamilton’s conviction be vacated. The motion was granted and the charge was dismissed.
By that time, the review had expanded to about 100 murder cases in Brooklyn, including about 60 of Scarcella’s cases.
Hamilton subsequently filed a claim for compensation with the New
York Court of Claims and in 2016 received $3.75 million. In 2015,
Hamilton filed a federal civil rights lawsuit seeking damages for his
wrongful conviction. In November 2019, he settled the lawsuit against
the cities of New York and New Haven for $7 million.
By February 2018, nine other defendants whose cases were connected to Scarcella also had been exonerated: Darryl Austin, Alvena Jennette, Robert Hill, Roger Logan, Shabaka Shakur, Carlos Davis, Vanessa Gathers, Jabbar Washington and Sundhe Moses.
In May 2018, John Bunn and Rosean Hargrave became the 12th and 13th exonerations connected to Scarcella.
In July 2018, Shawn Williams became the 14th exoneration connected to Scarcella.
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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;
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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:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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