PART ONE : The False witness Identification: (Army vet's murder conviction overturned after serving 25 years in prison, by Reporter Rebecca Rosenberg, published by The New York Post, on November 19, 2020.)
PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The conviction was based primarily on the eyewitness testimony of a 10-year-old boy. The child witnessed the slaying from the third-floor window of his apartment more than 100 feet away, according to Susan Freidman of the Innocence Project, who represents Kendrick. The boy offered a vague description of the assailant as a “black man in his 30s wearing a black jacket,” Freidman told the court. Hours later, Kendrick was detained after police spotted him walking in his Long Island City neighborhood because he loosely fit the suspect’s description. He fully cooperated with police, allowing them to search his apartment, which he shared with a woman, where they found a black purse on top of a television. The youngster initially identified another man in a lineup before changing his selection to Kendrick, officials said."
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PASSAGE TWO OF THE DAY: "Police later obtained a statement from a second witness who said he saw Kendrick fleeing the scene with a black purse under his arm. The second witness had two serious pending criminal cases and every incentive to provide testimony the police were seeking to nail Kendrick, Freidman said. After Katz took office, she founded the Conviction Integrity Unit, which investigated Kendrick’s case. Using technology that didn’t exist at the time of the crime, the purse was tested for the victim’s DNA and none was found. Four new witnesses came forward who contradicted the second witness’ statement implicating Kendrick, Katz told the court on Thursday. The young boy, who is now an adult, has since recanted, admitting that he wasn’t able to see the perpetrator clearly enough to identify him."
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GIST: "A Queens judge Thursday overturned the murder conviction of an Army veteran and USPS mailman who spent 25 years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit.
”I’m very, very happy today because I never thought this would happen — although I hoped and wished it would,” Ernest “Jaythan” Kendrick, 62, told the court in a soft-spoken voice shortly before he stepped out of Queens Supreme Court as a free man.
“No one really understands what it is to be in prison when you’re innocent. You know you’re innocent and you’re behind that wall. Civilization is not there.”
Justice Joseph Zayas apologized to Kendrick.
“We failed you,” he said, before granting the motion to overturn the verdict submitted jointly by Queens DA Melinda Katz, who was present for the proceeding.
“I hereby vacate your conviction and dismiss the indictment,” said the jurist, prompting subdued applause from the gallery.
A jury found Kendrick guilty of fatally stabbing a 70-year-old woman in the back and snatching her purse on the grounds of the Ravenswood Houses in 1994. The conviction was based primarily on the eyewitness testimony of a 10-year-old boy.
The child witnessed the slaying from the third-floor window of his apartment more than 100 feet away, according to Susan Freidman of the Innocence Project, who represents Kendrick.
The boy offered a vague description of the assailant as a “black man in his 30s wearing a black jacket,” Freidman told the court.
Hours later, Kendrick was detained after police spotted him walking in his Long Island City neighborhood because he loosely fit the suspect’s description. He fully cooperated with police, allowing them to search his apartment, which he shared with a woman, where they found a black purse on top of a television.
The youngster initially identified another man in a lineup before changing his selection to Kendrick, officials said.
Police later obtained a statement from a second witness who said he saw Kendrick fleeing the scene with a black purse under his arm. The second witness had two serious pending criminal cases and every incentive to provide testimony the police were seeking to nail Kendrick, Freidman said.
After Katz took office, she founded the Conviction Integrity Unit, which investigated Kendrick’s case.
Using technology that didn’t exist at the time of the crime, the purse was tested for the victim’s DNA and none was found. Four new witnesses came forward who contradicted the second witness’ statement implicating Kendrick, Katz told the court on Thursday.
The young boy, who is now an adult, has since recanted, admitting that he wasn’t able to see the perpetrator clearly enough to identify him.
“Racial profiling and unduly suggestive identification procedures and a lack of police accountability have all contributed to the scores of wrongful convictions in this country,” Freidman lamented in court. “It is shocking to see how easy it is to obtain a conviction and to send someone to prison for the rest of their lives.”
WilmerHale attorney Ross Firsenbaum, who helped the Innocence Project with Kendrick’s wrongful conviction case for free, blasted the prior Queens DA, Richard Brown, for refusing to consider the new evidence and insisting on Kendrick’s guilt. Brown passed away last year.
“Too many police and prosecutors remain focused on securing and maintaining convictions at all costs,” he said, lauding Katz’s office for taking a different approach.
Kendrick said he was ecstatic to be a free man again. “It really feels incredible,” he said. His immediate priority is a good meal. “Shrimp, flounder, lobster, crab, any of that,” he said of tonight’s menu. In the longterm, he plans to travel and learn the latest technology. “When I went into prison, it was beepers and pagers,” he recalled.
He had one note of caution for others who find themselves in a similar position. “I would tell them to ask for a lawyer, don’t say one word,” he said. “I trusted them, I trusted the police, I trusted they’d do the right thing and see that I was innocent. That was my mistake.”
https://nypost.com/2020/11/19/army-vets-murder-conviction-overturned-after-25-year-incarceration/
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PART TWO: PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Ernest “Jaythan” Kendrick was found guilty in 1994 of fatally stabbing Josephine Sanchez, 70, in Astoria’s Ravenswood Houses — but the conviction was based largely on planted evidence, false police reports and the eyewitness testimony of a child who saw the crime from 100 feet away, according to the Brooklyn Federal Court lawsuit. Kendrick, then 36, was found standing on a nearby street corner hours after the crime. He had no criminal record. He was interrogated for 11 hours and eventually charged — even though he didn’t fit the description of the killer. The killer was described as being 25 to 30 years old and over 6 feet tall wearing sneakers. Kendrick stood only 5-foot-7 and wore shoes. His case was taken up in 2017 by The Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to exonerate the wrongfully accused, after a dedicated cousin, Clarence Hughes, spent five years writing letters begging anyone to look into Kendrick’s case. The conviction, which carried a sentence of 25 years to life, was overturned in November 2020 after a review by the Queens District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit."
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PART TWO: The lawsuit: "Family of Ernest 'Jaythan' Kendricks, man wrongfully convicted of murder," by Reporter Kathianne Boniello, published by The New York Post, on January 28, 2023.
GIST: The family of a Queens man who spent 26 years behind bars for a murder he didn’t commit — only to die 14 months after winning his freedom — is suing the city for $100 million.
Ernest “Jaythan” Kendrick was found guilty in 1994 of fatally stabbing Josephine Sanchez, 70, in Astoria’s Ravenswood Houses — but the conviction was based largely on planted evidence, false police reports and the eyewitness testimony of a child who saw the crime from 100 feet away, according to the Brooklyn Federal Court lawsuit.
Kendrick, then 36, was found standing on a nearby street corner hours after the crime. He had no criminal record. He was interrogated for 11 hours and eventually charged — even though he didn’t fit the description of the killer. The killer was described as being 25 to 30 years old and over 6 feet tall wearing sneakers. Kendrick stood only 5-foot-7 and wore shoes.
His case was taken up in 2017 by The Innocence Project, a nonprofit that works to exonerate the wrongfully accused, after a dedicated cousin, Clarence Hughes, spent five years writing letters begging anyone to look into Kendrick’s case.
The conviction, which carried a sentence of 25 years to life, was overturned in November 2020 after a review by the Queens District Attorney’s Conviction Integrity Unit.
The real killer was never caught, Hughes said.
“That’s one of the things Jaythan and I were upset about. Nobody ever went to find out who actually did the crime,” he said.
“He went through a lot of torment,” said Hughes, 52, who recalled how the older man wept at the sight of him during their first visit in prison in 2011.
“Nobody had gone to see him for over five years,” said Hughes. “When I first talked to him I couldn’t understand what he was saying, he was in tears. He was just broken. He didn’t have any hope.”
By the time Kendrick, 63, was released, his parents, grandmother and sister had died. He had no relationship with his only daughter, Hughes said.
“My grandmother, his mama, we just felt like he was railroaded,” Hughes told The Post. “I can’t tell you how many hours I sat in the garage going through his files, looking at the crime scene photos thinking about the trajectory … thinking about [how the killer] wore sneakers; I had never known Jaythan to wear sneakers.”
The months after Kendrick’s release were like “a Vietnam vet coming home,” said Hughes, who noted his cousin’s health struggles after years of prison assaults, which he believes contributed to Kendrick’s death. “He didn’t want to go out of the house, he didn’t want to go out of the room. He was having nightmares.”
The two had always been close: US Marine Corps veteran Hughes lived with Kendrick in Queens for two years, after his 1989 discharge.
“That’s when I helped Jaythan move from The Bronx to Ravenswood, and he helped me start my VA [Veterans Affairs] claim. … He’s the one that showed me how to drive,” Hughes remembered.
Upon his release, Kendrick moved into Hughes’ Atlanta home, where the vindicated man begged his cousin to continue his legal fight.
“He drilled into my head, ‘I want this seen through,'” Hughes said.
The lawsuit accuses the city, the New York Housing Authority, and investigators and prosecutors on the case of negligence.
Housing Police detectives took part in the original investigation, according to the court papers. NYCHA declined comment on the litigation.
“He would cry and be like, ‘They could give me all the money in the bank in New York, and it wouldn’t do anything to take this [pain] away from me,’ ” Hughes said.
Even when Kendrick had a chance at freedom by admitting to the parole board he’d taken part in the murder, he never did, said attorney Thomas Hoffman, who worked on Kendrick’s case.
“He stood up for the truth and did not and would not say he did something that he did not do,” Hoffman said. “And when he stood up for the truth he stood up for everyone.”"
The entire story can be read at:
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL:
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/4704913685758792985
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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Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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