PASSAGE OF THE DAY: (Washington Examiner): "The settlement appears to be the largest in a slew of lawsuits over wrongful conviction cases tied to Louis Scarcella, a former homicide detective whom a witness claimed coerced into pinning Williams at the scene of a 1993 murder in Brooklyn, the New York Times reported."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: (National Registry): "Williams’s legal team retained Dr. Geoffrey Loftus, a University of Washington psychology professor specializing in memory. Loftus reviewed Smith’s testimony at the trial and concluded it was unreliable and flawed. He said, “Ms. Smith, from her window, would have been looking almost straight down at the subject…From this angle, Ms. Smith would almost certainly have only been able to see the top of the subject’s head.” Loftus concluded that “scientific evidence indicates it is highly unlikely that Ms. Smith could have been able to accurately perceive or memorize the subject’s appearance given the lighting and distance under which the purported identification was made.” In addition, Erick Hylton, a former U.S. Marine who moved into Smith’s apartment in 1993 (the same year as Mason's murder) and was still residing there, spoke to investigators. He said that he would not have been able to recognize anyone on the street—even if he already knew the person—because the street lighting was so poor."
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STORY: "NYC settles wrongful conviction case tied to infamous detective for $10.5," by Breaking News Reporter Ryan King, published by The Washington Examiner on May 5, 2022.
GIST: "Shawn Williams, who was imprisoned for 24 years, was awarded a $10.5 million settlement from New York City after his murder conviction was overturned.
The settlement appears to be the largest in a slew of lawsuits over wrongful conviction cases tied to Louis Scarcella, a former homicide detective whom a witness claimed coerced into pinning Williams at the scene of a 1993 murder in Brooklyn, the New York Times reported.
“No amount of money can give me back the years they took from me,” Williams, 47, said, per the outlet. “But I am going to keep rebuilding my life and looking ahead to a brighter future.”
Williams was 19 when he was accused of murdering his neighbor, Marvin Mason. He was convicted of the crime in 1994. No forensic evidence ever pegged him to the scene, but one woman testified that she saw him with a gun near the scene of the crime, which was the basis for his conviction. However, she later recanted, and Williams was freed in 2018 as a result.
After being released, he filed a federal civil rights suit against Scarcella and two other officers. The settlement "does not constitute any admission of liability or wrongdoing on Det. Scarcella's part," and Scarcella "categorically denies all the allegations of misconduct," his lawyer said in response, according to CBS News.
Scarcella earned a reputation for tackling high-profile crimes that dogged New York City in the 1980s and 1990s. However, his reputation was tarnished after his work on a major investigation involving the death of an Auschwitz survivor in the 1990s came under scrutiny in 2013 during a subsequent review of the case.
Scarcella's investigation led to the arrest of David Ranta, who was convicted of murder, but no physical evidence ever linked him to the crime, the New York Times reported. A subsequent investigation concluded that Scarcella coached a witness and procured a confession from Ranta under questionable circumstances. He was released in 2013. Scarcella has steadfastly defended his work, insisting that he "never framed anyone in [his] life.”
Since Ranta's release, more than a dozen convictions in which Scarcella was involved have been overturned. The city has paid out millions of dollars in settlements to cases tied to Scarcella as a result."
The entire story can be read at:
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PASSAGE OF THE DAY: NATIONL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS: "
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ENTRY: NATIONAL REGISTRY OF EXONERATIONS: "Authored by Maurice Possley; Last up-dated on May 5, 2022; Contributing factors: Perjury or false accusation; Official misconduct; Inadequate Defence;
GIST: "Shortly after midnight on July 9, 1993, 18-year-old Marvin Mason was shot to death during an apparent robbery in the lobby of the building where he lived on Eastern Parkway in Brooklyn, New York. Several witnesses reported seeing two men run from the building, but none was able to identify them.
At about 9 a.m., New York police detectives Louis Scarcella and Stephen Chmil came to the Mason family apartment. Based upon his inquiries in the neighborhood, Mason’s brother, Christopher, gave the detectives the name “Murdock,” as one of the robbers. “Murdock” was the nickname of 19-year-old Shawn Williams.
Scarcella and Chmil created a photo lineup that included Williams’s photo. However, no one was able to identify him. The detectives visited the sixth floor apartment of Margaret Smith, a building resident, that evening. She said from her apartment window she saw two men run away, but was unable to identify them. She said she recognized Williams from the neighborhood, but not as one of the robbers.
The two detectives would later testify that based on a “vibe” that Smith might know more than she was revealing, they returned to her apartment on July 27, 1993. Chmil also later testified that during this interview, Smith identified Williams as one of the robbers.
Subsequently, another detective said that he spoke to Kenyatta Moore, who was in a police lockup. Moore disclosed that on July 11, two days after the murder, he heard Williams bragging about shooting Mason. Moore gave the same account under oath to a grand jury that indicted Williams for the murder.
On October 1, according to the detectives, Smith identified Williams in a photo array and in a live lineup. Williams was arrested and charged with second-degree murder, although he was 6 feet tall—at least a half a foot taller than the description given by Edmond Adams.
At the time Williams was arrested, he told Scarcella he was in Reading, Pennsylvania at the time of the murder. Williams said he had been arrested for drinking beer in public on July 2, 1993 and provided a false first name to police. Scarcella claimed he looked for a record of that arrest and found none.
On August 10, 1994, Williams went to trial in Kings County Supreme Court. Scarcella and Chmil testified that Christopher Mason gave them the nickname “Murdock,” and how their “vibe” led them to visit Smith when she first identified Williams.
Smith was the only witness to identify Williams. She said she was sitting on the windowsill of her sixth floor apartment talking on the phone when she heard the gunshot. She said she recognized Williams when he stopped under a streetlight. She said she saw his face when he looked up and laughed, and that she recognized him from a scar on his neck.
However, in contrast to the detectives’ testimony, Smith said her identification came during the first visit by the detectives on July 9, the same day of the shooting, not on July 27. She also said she—not Christopher Mason—first mentioned the nickname “Murdock” to detectives. She said she had “no doubt” that she told the detectives on that first day to look for “Murdock.”
Vanessa Wagner testified that she heard a loud noise and saw two young men flee from the scene. She did not identify Williams.
On August 16, 1994, the jury convicted Williams of second-degree murder. He was sentenced to 25 years to life in prison.
In May 1996, the Appellate Division upheld the conviction and sentence.
In March 2013, David Ranta was exonerated of a Brooklyn murder after evidence showed that Scarcella had coerced witnesses to falsely identify Ranta as the killer. The New York Times published an article accusing Scarcella, who retired in 1999, of misconduct in many investigations, including fabricating evidence, coercing witnesses, and concealing evidence of defendants’ innocence.
After speaking with Smith, Cleary undertook a search for the material witness order in the materials provided by the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office, but could not find it. Cleary asked the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office to review their files, and a material witness order for Smith, dated August 2, 1994, was located. There was no evidence the order was ever disclosed to the defense at Williams’s trial. Indeed, Williams had no recollection of ever being told of a material witness order for Smith.
Williams’s legal team retained Dr. Geoffrey Loftus, a University of Washington psychology professor specializing in memory. Loftus reviewed Smith’s testimony at the trial and concluded it was unreliable and flawed. He said, “Ms. Smith, from her window, would have been looking almost straight down at the subject…From this angle, Ms. Smith would almost certainly have only been able to see the top of the subject’s head.” Loftus concluded that “scientific evidence indicates it is highly unlikely that Ms. Smith could have been able to accurately perceive or memorize the subject’s appearance given the lighting and distance under which the purported identification was made.”
In addition, Erick Hylton, a former U.S. Marine who moved into Smith’s apartment in 1993 (the same year as Mason's murder) and was still residing there, spoke to investigators. He said that he would not have been able to recognize anyone on the street—even if he already knew the person—because the street lighting was so poor.
Williams’s legal team also looked into his statement to Scarcella at the time of his arrest that he was in Reading, Pennsylvania at the time of the murder, and had been arrested on July 2 for drinking beer and provided a false first name. Although Scarcella had claimed he was unable to find the record, a search in 2014 turned up an arrest report for “Tony Williams” at the exact time and location that Williams said he had been arrested. In addition, the legal team found medical records showing that Williams had received treatment at a hospital in Reading on July 11, 1993—two days after the murder.
In May 2014, after getting Smith’s recantation, Williams’s legal team informed the conviction review unit at the Brooklyn District Attorney’s office. In 2015, the lawyers provided the additional information from Dr. Loftus and Hylton.
In January 2017, Williams’s lawyers filed a post-conviction motion in Kings County Supreme Court seeking to vacate his conviction. The District Attorney’s Office opposed the motion. By the time the motion was filed, eight other defendants whose cases were connected to Scarcella had also been exonerated: Roger Logan, Alvena Jennette, Robert Hill, Darryl Austin, Shabaka Shakur, Derrick Hamilton, Carlos Davis, and Vanessa Gathers.
The petition remained pending in 2017 as another Scarcella case—Jabbar Washington—resulted in exoneration. In February 2018, Sundhe Moses was exonerated, and in May 2018, co-defendants John Bunn and Rosean Hargrave were exonerated, raising the total number of Scarcella-related exonerations to 13.
On June 15, 2018, the Brooklyn District Attorney’s Office filed a letter with Kings County Supreme Court Justice Sharen Hudson saying it would no longer oppose the motion to vacate Williams’s conviction.
On July 13, 2018, Justice Hudson granted the motion and dismissed the indictment against Williams, who was released immediately after nearly 25 years in prison. Williams was the 14th Scarcella-related exoneration. Williams later filed a claim for compensation with the New York State Court of Claims as well as a federal civil rights lawsuit.
The compensation claim was dismissed in 2022, but in April 2022, the City of New York agreed to pay Williams $10.5 million to settle the lawsuit."
https://www.law.umich.edu/special/exoneration/Pages/casedetail.aspx?caseid=5358
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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;
